The Note-Book of an Attache Part 16

"(1) _The distinction between spiritual and temporal power--the mutual independence of Religion and Government._ The form of religion or the form of government does not and cannot decide the question. Thus in Russia the Greek Christian Church is Oriental because it makes itself one with the State and is used by the State as a club to keep the subjects of the State in political subjugation.

"(2) _The recognition of the equal value of woman and man._ Occidentalism feels that woman and man are different but does not feel that man is superior to woman. Discussions of the _differences_ between man and woman sometimes occur in Occidental countries as was the case in the late disputes in England as to woman's fitness for politics. There was no implication that man was an animal superior to woman. In Occidentalism woman and man are considered equal before the law and in the eyes of G.o.d, while in Orientalism women are often little better than slaves and in some eastern religions are not supposed after death to go to heaven.

"(3) _The recognition of the rights of the individual._ All individuals are considered equal before the law. The individual is not a means to some end--he is an end in himself. This is laid down in its spiritual aspect in Christianity and in every form of Christianity. The difference consists in this: that in Occidental Christianity it acted as a germ--as the principle of an evolution which led through a painful ascension of numberless steps to the idea of juridical and social equality. In Oriental Christianity the germ remained secluded in the spiritual sphere, without taking effect in the secular order.

"(4) _The recognition of the dignity of labor._ In Occidentalism there is none of the feeling that to labor is unworthy; there is none of the feeling that to labor is the part of slaves and lower creatures. Christ was a carpenter and the son of a carpenter; he chose his disciples from amongst fishermen and laborers and laid down the rule that labor enhances the dignity of man.

"These four items contain the elements of all progress and that is why Occidentalism alone is really progressive. Whatever progress is achieved by Orientals consists in adopting certain technical results of Occidental evolution. This does not mean that Oriental nations cannot be strong and powerful, for many of them have at times been powerful. While they _are_ powerful, their policy is necessarily one of aggression, because their energy is not able to a.s.sert itself in internal progress and must, therefore, find an outlet in foreign aggression. Note Russia. In history you will find that the cessation of aggressiveness in an Oriental nation has always meant either the beginning of decay or, as was the case of Hungarians in the 11th century, of an evolution toward Occidentalism. In the 11th century the Hungarians were Oriental--now they are Occidental. That may follow in Russia too if she is defeated in the present war. Paradoxical as the statement seems, defeat contains brighter prospects for her than victory. For nations at large the victory of Russia would mean the advance of the inferior Eastern type of civilization at the expense of the superior Western one, a calamity not to be considered without shuddering."

He continued: "Turkey is no longer an aggressive representative of Orientalism. She is even trying under the 'Young Turks' to become Occidental. Her 'Young Turks' are laboring for results which would include all my four definitions of Occidentalism. Her partic.i.p.ation in the present war does not fall under the head of East versus West, but is inspired simply by consideration for her own safety as an Asiatic power and as the guardian of Constantinople. In a general sort of way, there is no formula that covers the whole ground of all the phenomena of any great action. There is always an intersection of motives. As between Russia and Austria-Hungary, the present war is a struggle of the East in its Russian form against the West, but two other forces are at work which, although they do not concern us in the least, combine with this one. These are the Anglo-German trade rivalry and the Franco-German race antipathy."

Since I have been in the countries of the Dual Alliance I have been anxious to secure a clear and reasonable declaration of the motives which actuate the leading men in the nations comprising it. It was not possible to obtain such an explanation in Germany, because people either frankly admitted that Germany's purpose was to become through military aggression the dominant power of the world, or they flew into such a rage at the mere question that nothing they said was either reasonable or consecutive. Even the carefully prepared literature of the Imperial Foreign Office failed to impress me as logical or sincere. It was, therefore, a pleasure to obtain from the Count a statement of what may be called the Hungarian point of view.

Somewhat later in the day I asked the Count what his answer was to the statement so often repeated by the Allies, that the sovereigns of the Dual Alliance forced war upon their people. He replied:

"The German, Austrian, and Hungarian people were not driven into the war by their sovereigns, and could not have been so driven. They approve the war because they realize its necessity as a defense. They wished to avoid it as did their sovereigns. They were all compelled to accept it as the only means of defense against an aggression cynically planned and carefully prepared."

_Monday, January 11th._ I had intended to leave on an early train this morning, but when I broached the subject the Count would not permit it and insisted that I stay until tomorrow afternoon, when he is called to Budapest by government duties.

_Tuesday, January 12th._ After breakfast it snowed a few minutes. A little later it commenced to snow in earnest,--great, fat, lazy flakes falling out of a leaden sky. From one of the castle windows the Count and I watched them against the background of some fir trees in the garden below. "That is good," said Count Apponyi. "That will be good for my wheat-fields just sprouting. It will cover them and keep them warm. I have now long been hoping for the snow, which is overdue."

Some moments later I said, "The falling snow is for me one of the most beautiful motions in nature." He replied: "To me falling snow always suggests Patience. A flake of snow? _Ce n'est rien!_ (with a gesture).

But it falls and falls, never hurrying, each little flake a distinct ent.i.ty, and at last it makes the world beautiful--and it also covers my wheat-fields."

The Hungarian n.o.bles receive an education very different from ours. If anything, it leads to greater individuality. From infancy they learn four languages--their native one, and German, French, and English. To this is added an elaborate knowledge of courtesy, custom, precedence, and manners which is taught them from childhood. The boys are also trained to ride and shoot. They are sent to school between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, where they learn Latin very thoroughly and get a smattering of other things. They almost unconsciously absorb the knowledge of managing the great estates which const.i.tute their wealth. They have a taste for reading and prefer rather serious literature. With a perfect knowledge of Latin, English, German, and French, nearly all masters are open to them in the original. They miss only a few: Dante, Cervantes, and the ancient Greeks, although the more scholarly ones like Apponyi know Greek. Since they have much leisure, they often possess by the time they are thirty an extraordinarily interesting amount of knowledge. In Hungary everyone from peasants to counts is musical.

We took lunch today in the perfectly splendid old castle of the Karolyi Hunyadis at Ivanka. The other guests were the Countess Herberstein and an Austro-Hungarian General of Division, whose name I did not catch. Count Apponyi and I drove over together from Eberhard and after luncheon took the train from the neighboring station of Pozsony Ivanka. I was received with the most extravagant cordiality by the Hunyadis on account of services which I had been able to render to members of their family in the course of my work at the Emba.s.sy in Paris.

The Hunyadi castle was really as fine or finer than some of the smaller ones which I visited along the Loire last spring, and it was the more impressive because it was "alive"--inhabited--and furnished with the most magnificent appointments. The stair-hall particularly recalled some of those splendid old French ones, being in the same sort of yellow Caen stone.

While we were waiting for a train today, Count Apponyi informed me quite seriously that Hungary was not the least feudal, either in theory or practice.

The Hungarians harbor no animosity against Britain and France and really deserve the chivalrous friendship of these two nations. They are the only people in the present conflict who, in the heat and excitement of war, have on all occasions behaved like good sportsmen.

When trains of Russian prisoners arrive at Hungarian stations, the people manifest no hostility, but greet them with kindness and sympathy and offer them food and flowers. The populace has not molested alien enemies, and their government has not indulged in wholesale internments of enemies' subjects. In Hungary I found British horse trainers, English tutors, and French governesses going tranquilly about their peaceful occupations. English tailors advertised their business in the Hungarian newspapers, and their clients went to them as readily as they would have gone in peace time. French chefs and servants were, as a matter of course, retained in the employ of n.o.ble families, and were treated with unvarying consideration and sympathy by their Hungarian fellow-servants. This att.i.tude has been steadfastly maintained in spite of the wholesale imprisonment by the Allies of such Hungarian subjects as were left within their territory at the opening of hostilities. Of the nations which I have studied Hungary is the only one involved in the present conflict which has not stooped to reprisal and retaliation.

It was a curious demonstration of the difference in the national temperament of the Teutonic and Magyar races to mark how diametrically opposed was the manner in which the two peoples regarded the efforts of the American Emba.s.sy in Paris to safeguard their respective subjects. As I, during the earlier weeks of the war, had been closely a.s.sociated with these efforts, everyone I met had something to say to me upon the matter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EBERHARD--ONE OF COUNT APPONYI'S VILLAGES]

Throughout Germany there was universal complaint and criticism of the methods of treating the German subjects who, at the beginning of the war, had been interned in France. I was constantly obliged to hear accounts of how many people had been crowded into one building, how at first only straw was provided for bedding, and how scarce and poor was the food which was furnished. The censure was primarily for the French nation, but the comments conveyed no sense of obligation to our Emba.s.sy staff, who had worked so untiringly to alleviate these conditions, which, moreover, resulted from no mal-intent on the part of the French, but were simply the inevitable consequences of the sudden oncoming of war. Every national resource of the French Republic was devoted to quick mobilization, upon which the fate of the nation hung, and until that operation had been accomplished, little time or thought could be devoted to alien citizens.

On entering Hungary I braced myself to endure the same hostile att.i.tude. To my intense surprise I was everywhere welcomed with great cordiality and received as a sincere friend and protector of the Hungarian people who had been interned in France. The great families of Hungary sent me invitations to visit them on their estates, they threw open their most exclusive clubs, offered me opportunities to view the fighting on the Russian front, and treated me like one of themselves. Of expressions of appreciation and grat.i.tude there was no limit, and they greatly over-emphasized my services. Not only were the n.o.bles thus demonstratively grateful, but in nearly every village and town to which I went I found inhabitants who had returned from internment in France to relate how helpful Monsieur Wood at the American Emba.s.sy had been to them. Often I remembered neither the individuals nor the incidents they so gratefully dwelt upon, but the general atmosphere of friendliness thus created was like springtime after frost.

In Germany, even after establishing my ident.i.ty, I have by citizens or German Secret Service men been the object of grossly insulting remarks. In Hungary no one even asked what was my personal bias on the present war, but everyone remembered only the services which the Emba.s.sy of neutral America had in France rendered to any Hungarian subject who needed a.s.sistance. If the other nations of the Dual Alliance possessed the generosity and courtesy of the Hungarians, people outside the war would find it easier to be neutral in sentiment as well as in deed.

CHAPTER XII

A GERMAN PRISON-CAMP

_Vienna, Tuesday, January 12th._ Last night and today twenty-three long trains of German regular troops have pa.s.sed through the Ivanka station on their way east. They were apparently going to the Roumanian frontier. A train will hold two battalions of infantry, two thousand men, or a battery of artillery with full equipment. These trains would, therefore, represent something like thirty thousand men, and more were all the time coming. My car, in which I was _en route_ from Budapest to Vienna, stopped at one station just opposite one of these military trains, which I thus had time to study. It contained a battery of German artillery and was a very long one, consisting of flat cars, freight cars, and one or more pa.s.senger coaches for the officers. The guns of the battery, with all the limbers and caissons, were placed on flat-cars, while some of the freight cars were used for equipment and ammunition and others for the soldiers. The doors of these latter were open and were boarded up to a height of eighteen inches to keep floor draughts off the men lying within. The cars were filled with clean straw, sprigs of which trailed out of the doorways.

The soldiers, like all German soldiers that I have seen, were fat, healthy, happy, and cheerful, singing, waving hands and handkerchiefs to the responsive crowds on the platforms, and laughing and joking.

They looked for all the world like big puppies hanging out of a box filled with straw. They were young men of Germany's best troops and had that certain bearing of confidence and efficiency which marks veterans. Their faces, albeit smooth and healthy, were not the faces of boys, although some of them were still boys in years.

The guns and caissons at the first uncritical glance looked like junk, but a second look revealed the error. Their metal work was battered and their paint chipped off, but the wheels and running-gear and the long gray barrels were clean and spick and span.

The efficiency, rapidity of fire, and elasticity of cannon have so improved in the past decade that a battery of four guns now requires one hundred and eighty men, six or seven officers, and two hundred horses to manage it. What with mathematical instruments to direct fire, instrument wagons, field forges, spare parts, and twelve or sixteen caissons, every horse and man belonging to the battery is necessary when a stiff action is going on. The guns shoot six thousand yards and the four can between them fire eighty shots a minute. Each of the sh.e.l.ls weighs about eighteen pounds, costs up to twenty dollars to manufacture, and is freighted with almost unbelievable possibilities of death and destruction. When using shrapnel a single battery can during any sixty seconds fire thirty-five thousand well-directed bullets against advancing infantry. A battalion of infantry in charging will average about two hundred yards a minute--and during that minute a single battery can fire against it thirty-five bullets for every man in the battalion.

The field guns of all nations shoot approximately the same sh.e.l.l, three inches in diameter. These guns are so small and light in appearance that it is difficult to realize their power until one has seen its effects. Their barrels are perhaps six feet long and from five to seven inches in exterior diameter. A light but very complicated running-gear supports them. This rests upon two wagon-wheels quite ordinary in appearance. The whole is painted smoke-gray and looks quite toy-like and harmless.

I had lunch with Mr. Penfield today at his official residence and it was an extremely interesting event. The building is said to be the finest amba.s.sadorial residence in the world of any nationality. I can easily believe it. In the very heart of Vienna the house has behind it a garden of some two acres with many fine hothouses. Seven gardeners are required. On the other side, the Emba.s.sy faces on a large public garden and thus every one of the sixty big windows which the mansion possesses faces on one garden or the other. The house is adorned with Meissoniers, Van d.y.k.es, Chinese rugs, and other things of a like value. The house was shown to me from top to bottom by Mr. Penfield.

At present there is great excitement in Vienna over the fall of Count Berchtold, the Prime Minister, announced publicly this morning.

I am to leave for Berlin, London, and Paris, and then home as soon as possible.

_Vienna, Friday, January 15th._ I am doing my best to see Vienna so thoroughly in an architectural and artistic way that I shall not find it necessary to return for purposes of study.

At the Jockey Club last night I played bridge with Mr. O'Shaughnessy, Attache Cardeza, and His Serene Highness, Prince Lichtenstein, the fortunate possessor of the Lichtenstein Galleries in Vienna. I am to visit his collection on Sunday morning with the Countess Colloredo.

Captain Briggs is at the front with Colonel Biddle but is expected to return soon and I am awaiting his arrival before departing for Berlin.

_Sunday, January 17th._ I suppose it is useless to say that all the reports in the Allied press about revolutions, despair, and cholera in Austria-Hungary are absolutely false.

_Monday, January 18th._ I now plan to leave for Berlin on Wednesday and hope, unless I strike something of very great importance in Belgium, to reach London about January 31st.