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VI

A PEOPLE AT WAR*

IKE the other chapters of this book, this one is a record of facts as they existed at the time described, without any expression of opinion by the writer.

A faithful portrayal of actual situations can be made only by seeing "with the eyes of a child," as an eminent American editor expressed it, and stating what is thus seen and heard. To make facts fit a preconceived and cherished theory or prejudice is to distort and misrepresent them. What, then, is the German situation at the date of this narrative?

On entering Germany the last week of the fifth month of the war, what apparently were three great facts rose like mountain peaks from a level plain. So impossible did these seem, to one stepping directly from American soil on to German soil, that many weeks were spent in painstaking effort to find whether they were realities or only illusions created by the abnormal atmosphere of war.

In the search for truth in the wilderness of rumor, misstatement and speculation, which armed conflict

* Written at Berne, Switzerland, February 12, 1915.

always creates, the value of testing is as great as that of observing, and conservative estimate and understatement become not only a virtue, but a necessity.

In this spirit, then, and with this method, investigation was made throughout, day in and day out, night in and night out, for many weeks. No available source of first-hand information was overlooked. The people themselves were studied personally and directly; Socialist as well as capitalist, artisan and manufacturer, banker and common laborer, business man and scholar, obscure servant and celebrated author, wives and daughters of working men, and women of title and position-the opinion of all these was secured. This opinion was everywhere the same. break was found in the solidarity of sentiment. And this conviction (for it amounted to conviction) formed the three facts, meaningful, surprising, even startling, which confronted the newly arrived from America during the first five weeks of the year 1915.

Not one

Neither retrospection nor prophecy is here ventured. What is to be, Clotho is spinning. What has been, Atropos has severed. But what one knows, as a present and existing truth (February, 1915), may be stated as such. So:

First. The German people are an unit in support of this war. In this matter nearly seventy million men, women and children think, feel and act as a single being. With the Germans this is a people's war. "With us it is the German working men's war," said Doctor Albert Südekum, leader of the German Social Democratic party. Professor von Harnack, the great

German theologian, was right when he said that the world has seldom seen anything like it.*

With respect to the war, the government and all the people are in harmony, absolute and unbroken. And this oneness of thought and feeling goes to the ultimate and the final, to the carrying on of the war no matter for how long, nor at what cost, until Germany wins.

Second. The German people believe that they will triumph. They are as sure of victory as they are of the process of the seasons. This appeared to be incredible to an American arriving in Germany with the American view of the situation. But, search long and carefully as one might with the microscope of incredulity, not one flake of doubt was found on the bright armor of the German people's faith. It will be hard, very hard, for Americans to believe this; but it is so. And with this sureness of the outcome, indeed as a part of their certainty, goes a determination to win. It can be felt. It is the psychological and spiritual atmosphere of Germany.

Yet there is no excitement among the people. The war is not on their nerves. On the contrary, there is a vast composure. They have settled down to the finishing of this war as though it were their one great business-which indeed it is, exactly as it were a matter of industry, commerce, science, in which they have succeeded so wonderfully. No effort is spared, but also no effort is wasted.

* See Chapters VII and VIII on “German Thought Back of the War."

At the heart of this amazing phenomenon, so quiet and purposeful, is a passion that is all but religious. It is a strange mingling of the practical and poetic, a composite of the thoughtful and the mystical, the simple and the sublime. In short, it is the German character of tradition, moved from its profoundest depths to its highest manifestation.

Third. The German people feel and believe that they have been wronged. The German people say that they did not want this war, nor any war.* They

are convinced that they are the victims of a monstrous plot, hatched in a foreign country, to destroy modern Germany.

To every German this means the ruin of himself and his family. He feels that he is fighting not only for his country, his ideals, his civilization, but also for his sheer physical existence, and that of his loved ones.

The German people believe that England is the arch-enemy who, in the final analysis, brought this catastrophe upon them. Man, woman and child lay their misfortunes at England's door. In their German way they have brooded over the wrong which they regard England as responsible for, until their feeling has become that of hatred. This feeling is growing stronger and deeper all the time. If it should continue to increase for any considerable period it is possible that it may become a settled animosity lasting for generations.

About these three central facts are lesser, but still important, facts.

*See Chapters VII and VIII on "German Thought Back of the War."

For example, although France has caused Germany her heaviest losses, and although Germany has dealt France her heaviest blows, yet from the western to the eastern battle fronts, from Hamburg to Munich, not one unkind word was heard of the French. The expressions were almost friendly-certainly sympathetic and without patronage.

The feeling of the German people is that the French ought not to be in the war, and would not be, except for the Russian alliance and their enormous investments in Russia; and even more, except for the machinations of England.

The consensus of German opinion is that the French have no logical place in the conflict. The Germans declare that France would not have been attacked except for the certainty that France would have attacked Germany to help France's ally, Russia, as France's alliance with Russia bound France to do. But, fundamentally, the Germans think no real ground of conflict exists between Germany and France. Except for diplomatic alliances and intrigues, the Germans are sure France would not be in this war.

Strangely enough, there is no great animosity against the Russians. Most of this has been overcome by the German people's resentment toward England. The Germans say that the millions of Russian soldiers do not know what they are fighting for, but only do what they are told to do; and that in this instance it is Russia's grand dukes who have done the telling. Here, again, to the German mind, England once more appears as the master manipulator. Russia, they say, would not have acted if she had not been

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