The Better Germany in War Time Part 20

We have all of us read the celebrated manifesto issued by the National Executive of the German Social Democratic Party which the _Vorwarts_ was suppressed for publishing. Let us remind ourselves of a few pa.s.sages in that doc.u.ment. It was issued in June, 1915. "When in recent years the threatening clouds of war gathered on the political horizon, the German Socialists stood with all their strength up to the last hour, for the preservation of peace. To the misfortune of the peoples, the Socialists in all countries were not yet strong enough to hold back the terrible fate which has come upon Europe. The torch of war flared up sharply and set the whole world on fire.

"When the Cossacks of the Tsar pa.s.sed over the frontiers, plundering and burning, the German Socialists proved true to the word which their leaders had given to the German people. They put themselves at the service of their country and voted the means for its defence....

"The Parliamentary Party and the Party Executive have always unanimously opposed the policy of conquests and of annexations. We raise once more the sharpest protests against all attempts to secure the annexation of foreign territories and the violation of the rights of other peoples, particularly as they have been expressed in the demands of great Capitalist Federations and in the speeches of leading capitalist politicians. To make such attempts delays more than ever the peace which is strongly desired by the whole people. _The people do not want any annexations. The people want peace._-THE EXECUTIVE OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF GERMANY. June 23, 1915, Berlin."

When we remember that the Social Democrats of Germany number about four millions,[47] the importance of this manifes...o...b..comes clearer. It is a tremendous fact. The loud-voiced threats of crushing, boycott, etc., by influential sections on this side have been one of the greatest hindrances to the Social Democrats, and one of the greatest aids to German militarists.

We heard much in 1915 of the "annexation split" in Germany. The Delbruck-Dernburg-Wolff Memorial represented, to my thinking, nothing strange, or new, or abnormal, but rather the voice of natural and normal Germany making itself heard again amidst the clamour of foolish hatred and silly bombast in which present-day crises seem always to involve the contending nations. "Germany did not enter the war with the idea of annexation"-thus the Memorial opens. It is easy to scoff at this statement, because it is always easier in a crisis to be swayed entirely by bias. Frankly, as regards _Germany_, that is (if this word is to have any meaning), as regards the ma.s.s of the German people, I believe this statement to be true. Whatever the militarist and commercial schemers may have contrived, Germany as a whole did not enter the war with the idea of annexation, but, as the Memorial goes on, "in order to preserve its existence, threatened by the enemy coalition against its national unity and its progressive development. In concluding peace, Germany cannot pursue anything that does not serve these objects." Who were the signatories to this Memorial? Amongst the 82 names are those of Professor Hans Delbruck, Dr. Dernburg (the ex-Minister), Professor Adolf von Harnack (the theologian and General Director of the Royal Library at Berlin), Theodore Wolff (Editor of the _Berliner Tageblatt_), Dr. Oppenheim (who holds an important position in the dye industries), Carl Permet (Judge of the Berlin Commercial Courts), Prince von Hatzfeld, Franz von Mendelsohn (President of the Berlin Chamber of Commerce), Prince Donnersmarck, Count von Leyden (ex-amba.s.sador), Dr.

August Stein (Editor of the _Frankfurter Zeitung_), Major von Pa.r.s.eval (the designer of the famous airship). These are representative names.

They stand, I think, with the Social Democrats for the real Germany.

The _Berliner Tageblatt_ has returned again and again to the charge.

Here, for instance, is an extract from an article by Herr Theodore Wolff as given in the _Daily News_ of February 4, 1916:

Since August 4, 1914, the Belgian question has been withdrawn from public discussion, and only the advocates of a boundless policy of grab are now and again impelled by their temperament to throw off all restraint. Because these voices are alone audible, the Paris papers and those Belgian papers which are published in London are able constantly to din into the ears of the war-weary Belgians and the world at large that Belgium has only the choice between the continuation of the war and complete destruction. In this way, by a.s.serting that in Germany at most only a few Socialists and pacifists without influence are opposed to the policy of annexation, they succeed in stifling again and again any aspiration towards peace. It is therefore necessary and useful at least to proclaim from time to time that this a.s.sertion, as will be demonstrated on the very first day when free discussion is allowed, is absolutely incorrect.[48]

GERMANY AND CONTRACTS.

The real German is not simply a brute, though the brute lies perdu in every civilised man. Mr. Herbert Hoover, formerly Chairman of the Commission of Relief in Belgium, said, "The German authorities place no obstruction in the way of relief, and, as far as can be ascertained, not one loaf of bread or one spoonful of salt supplied by the Relief Commission has been taken by the Germans." (_Times_, c. December 6, 1914).

It has often been said in this country that according to German rules contracts with enemy subjects are cancelled by the mere fact of war. The _Kolnische Zeitung_ published a legal opinion disposing of this statement. No law to this effect exists, and none has been enacted.

"Only the right of enemies to secure enforcement of contracts by means of legal process has been curtailed. Moreover, the making of payments to England, France or Russia has been prohibited. But these last-named prohibitions presuppose the legal validity of the contracts themselves, since they declare the payments due under them to be merely postponed."

(_Daily News_, August 20, 1915.)

An old friend of mine was in process of negotiating patent rights in Germany for an invention of his at the time that war broke out. He was allowed to complete the claim to the patent, and it was granted him after Germany and Britain were at war.

"FRIGHTFULNESS."

Not every one in Germany is obsessed with a conviction of the efficacy of "frightfulness." This is plain from the fact that the _Frankfurter Zeitung_ published articles from its neutral correspondent in England which point out that each phase of frightfulness had precisely the opposite effect of that which was intended. The bombardments of coast towns, the use of asphyxiating gases, the sinking of the Lusitania all led, he remarks, to increased recruiting and intensified war feeling.

Each act of frightfulness has of course been represented to the German public in a very different light from that in which it has been presented to us,[49] and it is therefore the more striking that so influential a newspaper should publish such an opinion. When the Lusitania was sunk, both the _Berliner Tageblatt_ and the _Vorwarts_ maintained an absolute silence, and these are the two most influential organs in Berlin.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF ENEMIES.

The soldier's att.i.tude is often that of Captain Ball, the boy who did such wonders in the air fight:-

I attacked two Albatross scouts and crashed them, killing the pilots. In the end I was brought down, but am quite O.K. Oh, it was a good fight, and the Huns were fine sports. One tried to ram me after he was. .h.i.t, and only missed by inches. Am indeed looked after by G.o.d, but oh! I do get tired of always living to kill and am really beginning to feel like a murderer. Shall be so pleased when I have finished.

Quoted in the _Daily News_, May 7, 1918. Captain Ball has finished the killing in the only way boys can finish the killing now, for he is dead.

The last words, _Requiescat in pace_, have a new poignancy in days when children are growing up who have never known peace.

Yet underneath all the wild recriminations prompted by fear and hate, there is brotherhood. For at the worst what do all these charges mean?

That a few foolish men without vision have slipped into power and direct the great beast-machine that kills. That Frankenstein is apt at all times to wild, primitive cruelty. What may it be when foolish, hard theorists are its masters? Yet, for all that, the people out of whom Frankensteins are made are of one flesh, are all brothers, all parts of the great Life which some call G.o.d. Now and then, amidst their fiercest fighting, this becomes plain. It sometimes seems as if the main concern of rulers were to prevent any permanent realisation of this truth; for if the peoples should realise their oneness, war would cease, and there is nothing that stops awkward questions as war does. Yet some day these awkward questions will be asked again, I hope, and Hans and Jack and Francois and Ivan may come to realise their brotherhood. Let us remind ourselves how now and then they can realise this even in war. "Who will not recall in this connection," writes Prince Eugene Troubetzky in the _Hibbert_ (July, 1915), "the touching description of the Christmas festival in the trenches, when the Germans, hearing the English singing their hymns, went out to meet them and heartily shook their enemies by the hand? Similar scenes have occurred more than once between the Russians and the Germans. At the present moment there lies before me the letter of a Russian soldier which refers to them: 'What I am going to tell you,' he says, 'is a true miracle.' The 'miracle' which had so appealed to his imagination was that, during an armistice, there were 'handshakes and hearty acclamations on both sides, to which no description could do justice.' ... From the very heart of war there issues this mighty protest of life against the destructive force of death. But whenever life a.s.serts itself, its object is always to re-establish a living unity. The more violently unity is threatened by war, or by the mutual hate which would tear it asunder, the more powerful becomes the answer of this spiritual force in its effort to re-establish the integrity of mankind. In this we have the explanation of a fact, which at first sight seems incredible, that in time of war the perception of the universal solidarity of mankind reaches a degree of elevation which would hardly be possible in time of peace."

"On Christmas Eve," writes a member of the London Rifle Brigade, "the Germans burned coloured lights and candles along the top of their trenches, and on Christmas Day a football match was played between them and us in front of the trench. They even allowed us to bury all our dead lying in front, and some of them, with hats in hand, brought in some of our dead officers from behind their trench, so that we could bury them decently. They were really magnificent in the whole thing, and jolly good sorts. I have now a very different opinion of the German. Both sides have started the firing, and are already enemies again. Strange it all seems, doesn't it?" (_Nation_, January 2, 1915.)

"These Germans were enduring the same hardships, and the same squalor.

There was only pity for them and a sense of comradeship, as of men forced by the cruel G.o.ds to be tortured by fate. This sense of comradeship reached strange lengths at Christmas, and on other days.

Truces were established and men who had been engaged in trying to kill each other came out of opposite trenches and fraternised. They took photographs of mixed groups of Germans and English, arm-in-arm. They exchanged cigarettes, and patted each other on the shoulder, and cursed the war.... The war had become the most tragic farce in the world. The frightful senselessness of it was apparent when the enemies of two nations fighting to the death stood in the grey mist together and liked each other. They did not want to kill each other, these Saxons of the same race and blood, so like each other in physical appearance, and with the same human qualities.... The monstrous absurdity of war, this devil's jest, stood revealed nakedly by those little groups of men standing together in the mists of Flanders.... It became so apparent that army orders had to be issued stopping such truces."

It is only by artificial stimulus, by artificially made ignorance, that war can be kept going in these days. By which I do not mean to imply that commanders and leaders are wilfully cruel men; but the leaders on each side are afraid lest _their_ men should give up fighting first. To be the first to acknowledge brotherhood seems like being the first to give in, and actually does foreshadow serious dangers. And yet the time will come when we shall have to face danger for the sake of brotherhood, as we do now for the sake of self-a.s.sertion. The orders to avoid friendship with the enemy were, even in these circ.u.mstances, not always obeyed. "For months after German and British soldiers in neighbouring trenches fixed up secret treaties by which they fired at fixed targets at stated periods to keep up appearances and then strolled about in safety, sure of each other's loyalty." (Gibbs, "The Soul of the War," p.

351.) Prisoners were sent back to their own trenches, and sometimes went with great reluctance.

WOUNDED.

"He told me how on the night he had his own wound French and German soldiers talked together by light of the moon, which shed its pale light upon all those prostrate men, making their faces look very white. He heard the murmurs of their voices about him, and the groans of the dying, rising to hideous anguish as men were tortured by ghastly wounds and broken limbs. In that night enmity was forgotten by those who had fought like beasts and now lay together. A French soldier gave his water-bottle to a German officer who was crying out with thirst. The German sipped a little and then kissed the hand of the man who had been his enemy. 'There will be no war on the other side,' he said. Another Frenchman-who came from Montmartre-found lying within a yard of him a Luxembourgeois whom he had known as his _cha.s.seur_ in a big hotel in Paris. The young German wept to see his old acquaintance. 'It is stupid,' he said, 'this war. You and I were happy when we were good friends in Paris. Why should we have been made to fight with each other?' He died with his arms round the neck of the soldier, who told me the story unashamed of his own tears." (Gibbs, l.c. p. 282) "At one spot where there had been a fierce hand-to-hand fight, there were indications that the combatants when wounded had shared their water bottles." (_Sheffield Telegraph_, November 14, 1914.)

The following letter must not be forgotten. It was found at the side of a dead French cavalry officer: "There are two other men lying near me, and I do not think there is much hope for them either. One is an officer of a Scottish regiment, and the other is a private in the Uhlans. They were struck down after me, and when I came to myself, I found them bending over me, rendering first aid. The Britisher was pouring water down my throat from his flask, while the German was endeavouring to staunch my wound with an anti-septic preparation served out to them by their medical corps. The Highlander had one of his legs shattered, and the German had several pieces of shrapnel buried in his side. In spite of their own suffering they were trying to help me, and when I was fully conscious again, the German gave us a morphia injection and took one himself. His medical corps had also provided him with the injection and the needle, together with printed instructions for its use. After the injection, feeling wonderfully at ease, we spoke of the lives we had lived before the war. We all spoke English, and we talked of the women we had left at home. Both the German and the Britisher had only been married a year. I wondered, and I suppose the others did, why we had fought each other at all...." (_Daily Citizen_, December 21, 1914.

Quoted in Edward Carpenter's "The Healing of Nations," p. 261.)

MORE CHRISTMAS INCIDENTS.

Let us take one or two more of the Christmas experiences as quoted by Mr. Edward Carpenter, in his book, "The Healing of Nations": "Last night (Christmas Eve) was the weirdest stunt I have ever seen. All day the Germans had been sniping industriously, with some success, but after sunset they started singing, and we replied with carols. Then they shouted, 'Happy Christmas!' to us, and some of us replied in German. It was a topping moonlight night, and we carried on long conversations, and kept singing to each other and cheering. Later they asked us to send one man out to the middle, between the trenches, with a cake, and they would give us a bottle of wine. Hunt went out, and five of them came out and gave him the wine, cigarettes and cigars. After that you could hear them for a long time calling from half-way, 'Englishman, kom hier.' So one or two more of our chaps went out and exchanged cigarettes, etc., and they all seemed decent fellows."

Again. "We had quite a sing-song last night (Christmas Eve). The Germans gave a song, and then our chaps gave them one in return. A German that could speak English, and some others, came right up to our trenches, and we gave them cigarettes and papers to read, as they never get any news, and then we let them walk back to their own trenches. Then our chaps went over to their trenches, and they let them come back all right.

About five o'clock on Christmas Eve one of them shouted across and told us that if we did not fire on them they would not open fire on us, and so the officers agreed. About twenty of them came up all at once and started chatting away to our chaps like old chums, and neither side attempted to shoot." Another soldier relates how his comrades and the Saxons opposed to them sang and shouted to each other through the night.

He goes on, "When daylight came, two of our fellows, at the invitation of the enemy, left the trenches, met half-way and drank together. That completed it. They said they would not fire, if we did not; so after that we strolled about talking to each other."

On Christmas morning, elsewhere. "We mixed together, played mouth-organs and took part in dances. My word! The Germans can't half sing part songs! We exchanged addresses and souvenirs, and when the time came we shook hands and saluted each other, returning to our trenches. I went up into the trenches on Christmas night. One wouldn't have thought there was a war going on. All day our soldiers and the Germans were talking and singing half-way between the opposing trenches. The s.p.a.ce was filled with English and Germans handing one another cigars. At night we sang carols." Another records how souvenirs and food were exchanged, and how jollification and football were indulged in with the Germans.

But "next day we got an order that all communication and friendly intercourse must cease." The Germans had said frankly they were tired of the war, the English soldiers wished to be their friends, but far away were a few elderly men who wanted the fighting to go on.

Into what depths the need of exacerbating hate may lead one is shown by the following extract from a telegram headed, "British Headquarters, France," which I take from the _Daily News_ of December 23, 1915:

No doubt the Bosches will have plenty of Christmas trees, as they did last year, but, without attaching too much credence to the reports of an increasing difficulty in maintaining their rations. I think it is quite safe to say that they will fare very much more frugally than our own men. But may not their own consciousness of the fact result in an outburst of "strafing?"

The principle that the next best thing to not getting well served yourself is to spoil the other fellow's enjoyment is a good sound Hunnish axiom. There will certainly be no amenities nor anything in the nature of a truce so far as the British are concerned. All ranks are bidden to remember that war is war and that the Germans invariably have some sinister motive in all they do, especially under the guise of a gush of friendly sentiment.-Reuter.

The last sentences must surely, in any generous heart (if the moral destruction of war has left us such), produce a feeling of acute shame.

In all the mult.i.tude of truces that occurred at Christmas, 1914, I have not seen a single case of German treachery reported. What is it that is feared in the truce? "In some places," said a German officer, "we have had to change our men several times. They get too d.a.m.n friendly."[50]

"If we don't take care," said an English officer that Christmas, "there will be a permanent peace without generals or c.o.'s having a say in the matter." Is that thought really more terrible than the thought of unnumbered shattered bodies and hopeless hearts?

How ineffectual so far are all European attempts at democracy! Carlyle's satire about the thirty men of Dumdrudge called out, they know not why, to kill thirty men from a Dumdrudge elsewhere is not referred to in these days; but it still expresses the essential absurdity of wars.

Here is an extract from the _Labour Leader_ of August 19, 1915:

My friend must not be identified. But here is an incident he told me I can safely relate. During the unauthorised Christmas truce of eight months ago so chummy did a British officer and a Saxon officer become that the Saxon officer gave his enemy "an invitation to visit him in Germany at the end of the war," and "stay as long as you like," he added. The British officer is still carrying the address in his pocket in the hope that one day he may be able to accept the invitation.

The _Labour Leader_ is much disliked by the orthodox of England, as is the _Vorwarts_ by the orthodox of Germany. It seems to me that both may be rendering a fine service to the cause of humanity, and one may surely say this without implying complete agreement with the opinions or the policy of either.

WOUNDED ENEMIES.

Writing home to his mother in Somerset, a member of the R.A.M.C. says: "You will find inside a German b.u.t.ton for a souvenir. It was given me by a wounded German prisoner. After he had had his wound dressed, he pointed to his b.u.t.tons and made signs for me to cut one off. He hardly knew how to thank us after he had finished his tea, and his eyes gleamed with grat.i.tude as he looked around at us." (_Daily News_, August 26, 1915.)

From a private letter: "The following is first hand, and of interest.