PROPAGANDIST WARFARE.
THE warfare still being waged on the Continent by means 1. of poisonous propaganda can scarcely be understood except by those living in the heart of Europe. During the war Germany and Austria were the instigators and the main propagators of tendencious news and interested statements: The burden of these was at first that Germany and Austria had been attacked and surprised, and were carrying on a war of legitimate self- lefence; and for a long time also that the German soldiers were marching from victory to victory. Somewhat later on the
situation made it desirable to modify these assertions, and then it was insinuated that Germany and France were ready to make peace, and that the only reason for the world being still drenched in blood was England's determination not to give way.
During the war this propaganda was carried on by a variety of methods. In Switzerland, where it was most intense, because this country, being surrounded by France, Italy, Austria and Germany, was naturally the best centre for German propa- gandist activity, there were no less than eighty German agents, whose sole occupation it was to look after the Swiss Press. At one time the German Legation in Berne had a staff of 1,200 people in its employ, some ostensibly belonging to the Com- mercial Department, some to the Consular Service, others looking after German interned, and others engaged in Red Cross work ; but in reality the great majority were directly or in- directly occupied in endeavouring to make the Swiss think as the Germans wanted them to think, and to insinuate defeatist and latterly Bolshevist ideas into Italy and France. As for the German spying organization in Switzerland, even a German agent, Freiherr Walter von Rummel, in a book just published, admits that the German military attache in Berne had fifty Prussian officers to assist him in his labours.
Many hoped that this widespread German and Austrian pro- paganda would cease with the war. Not so, however. Both Germany and Austria, especially the former, have been and are at this moment carrying on a propaganda which, although more veiled, is assuredly not less intense nor less poisonous than during the war. For this purpose they are utilizing more than ever the services of any doubtful persons whom they can suborn, whether avowed Bolshevists, Sinn Feiners, malcontent Hindus, so-called Egyptian Nationalists, or occasionally German- Americans. These people have their own news agencies in every important town in Switzerland, whence they pester the Press with communications, often cleverly worded and apparently innocent. Articles are also sent out. If on an Indian subject. they are contributed by " an Indian," probably a genuine Hindu, who, during the war, was in the service of Germany and is still kept on by her. If an Egyptian question arises, then there is apparently an Egyptian ever at hand and ready to give an authoritative opinion upon it. When Irish matters are pro- minent, there is no lack of " Irishmen " to air their grievances. But the kind of propagandist work which is most frequently resorted to and which seems to give the best results is making extracts from certain judiciously selected British newspapers and sending these to the Swiss Press as telegrams dated from all manner of places, from Dan to Beersheba, front Teheran to Timbuctoo. English newspapers now reach Switzerland in leas than forty-eight hours from the time of publication, which is naturally a great advantage to these propagandist offices. They immediately translate selected extracts into French and German or Italian or into all three languages, and disseminate these often carefully doctored translations throughout the Press. Some Swiss newspapers still under German influence are very glad to publish such ready-made " copy." Others look upon the communications (which, I should say, are sent out free, with noble generosity, even suitable headlines being supplied), as calculated to enliven their columns ; and only a few consider them as chiefly useful for filling the wastepaper basket. The Sinn Feiners have still the same agents working in Geneva and Zurich as were there when they worked with Roger Casement while that traitor was still in Germany. It is, as might be expected, mainly in the Roman Catholic Press that the Sinn Feiners find acceptance for their effusions. The Bolshevists concentrate their energies principally upon the Socialist news- papers ; the Egyptians and Indians prefer Liberal newspapers ; while the Pan-Germanists turn their attention to Conservative journals.
It is the Pan-Germanists who really manage this entire propa- gandist organization. Their main aim now is to disseminate revolutionary ideas in Entente countries, and at the same time to alarm neutrals about the fate awaiting them should Europe be submerged in revolution while impressing upon them the need for a monarchical government in Germany and Austria. It is this last named form of German and Austrian clerical propaganda which is the most interesting and perhaps the most important, and certainly least generally understood. Germany, in fact, is still a monarchy, albeit without a monarch, or, to put it another way, a republic without republicans. There are, it is true, many Germans who sincerely desire the establishment of a German Republic, but so far as their power to direct the
country's policy is concerned they may be left out of amount- It is not these Germans who are plotting in Switzerland ; it is the old Prussian Junket., although he may no longer either rattle his sword or call himself Freiherr or von, nor even talk loud enough in public places to drown everyone else's voice. This German propaganda has been so successful that certain German-Swiss newspapers, notably those of the capital, sys- tematically crawled to Germany throughout the war. No Mr. Collins could have been more obsequious to any Lady Catherine de Bourgh, no Uriah Heep could have been more 'amble. In short, the late Bavarian Prime Minister, Kurt Eisner, when attending the International Labour Congress in Berne only a few days before he was murdered, openly declared that such papers as the two leading daily journals in Berne, two Zurich papers, and one in Basel, had contributed more than any other cause to prolong the war. The military corre- spondent of one of these Berne papers was actually a German by birth, education and upbringing, and a Swiss by naturalization only. Every day, said Eisner, huge mail bags of these pro- German-Swiss papers used to be distributed in the German trenches and German soldiers' cantecus, and in the German navy ; and thousands of marked copies were sent out to all the German country newspapers.* And this because they ostensibly represented " neutral opinion "—in other words, they concealed the truth from the German people, the German army and the German navy, and concealed it as Germany wanted it concealed.
To show that this manoeuvre is still being carried on I need only quote part of a leading article in the Frankfurter Zeitung for September 6th, entitled " Reactionary Propaganda in Switzerland " : For a considerable time past rumours have reached us about the doings of certain Austrian and Hungarian politicians who are working in the interests of the Hapsburgs and consorting together in Switzerland. What has hitherto not appeared so clearly is that our Republican neighbour seems to be becoming also the rendezvous of German National cliques. True, these individuals seem as yet to have contrived to influence only a small section of the German-Swiss Press. This pre-Hapsburg movement deserves more notice than it has hitherto received, because in Entente countries the plans of the German reactionary party are being watched with great attention, and because Press organs, behind which it is allowable to suspect that any sort of official influenoes exist, bring discredit on Germany. It is remarkable with what zeal the Berner Tagblatt, in particular, espouses-the cause of German reaction. Now, this is a newspaper which, during the war, passionately espoused the views of the Pan-Germanists, the submarine party, and the opponents of a peace based on understanding ; and, consequently, it is still wrongly considered by many people as the mouthpiece of German policy. If, on the one hand, the determined premeditation with whioh.a foreign:newspaper advocates what am, presumably, German interests seems to merit a certain tribute of gratitude, on the other hand it cannot but be displeasing that this same neutral organ should now be casting suspicion on the German Republic and German democracy with the determination which we came to know during the war. It takes pleasure in casting ridicule upon the president of the German Empire and his Ministers It is not for us to engage in controversy with the Berner Tagblatt about the German Republic. Rather would it he the business of the Swiss Press to deal with one of its own organs, which is fighting for monarchy and divine right like a Prussian Junker, and bespattering democracy with mud. As, however, this kind of interest in German affairs instill always connected with German propaganda, our wisest policy would probably be to hold aloof from these machinations of German National cliques and to make it clear that we are doing so. It is amusing that in the same issue of the Berner Tagblatt an attempt is made to prove that Tirpitz, unlike our "incompetent diplomats," did not believe that submarine warfare would work wonders, but merely allowed himself to be used for carrying it on, and this solely from patriotism, and that he is now suffering from not having resigned at the time.
Small wonder that the Neste Zitrcher Zeitung, which throughout the war adopted an attitude which, if not precisely pro-Entente, was, at any rate, reasonable, and which has repeatedly endeavoured to convince Germany of the truth, should say, commenting on the Frankfurter's remarks : "So it has come to this, that those Swiss newspapers which, since the war, scattering neutrality to the winds, have been minding the business of German Imperialists, have now been called to account by a respected and moderate organ of the German empire."
• According to the Datoerate, a well-informed French-Swiss newspaper, the Swiss newspapers which Kurt Eisner said were used by the German General Staff for propagandist purposes were the Berner Tagblatt, the Bond of Berne, with its military critic Stegeruaun, a German naturalized as a Swiss ; the Basler ,Vorhrieht,n, whose military critic was Colonel Bell, one of the Swiss General Staff officers involved in the notorious Colonels Affair, when he and Colonel von Wattenwyl were found guilty of supplying Information to the German and Austrian General Staffs ; the ,Z grebe? Post, and the Nene Zurek,' Nachrschters, one of the leading Boman Catholic organs in Switzerland. Unfortunately, however, the Berner Tagblattyie not the only German-Swiss paper which has been and still is the mouthpiece of the Ludendorffs, the von Tirpitzes, and the Hindenburgs. When the League of Nations does begin its work, one of its first tasks should he to put an end to propagandist warfare, which at present is doing its best to cause nation to rise against nation.
So far as Great Britain is concerned, nothing is being done officially to counteract the effects of all this venomous pro- paganda. The last event which afforded an opportunity for our being misunderstood and consequently defamed and libelled in the Swiss Press was the Persian agreement. Yet not a single authoritative statement has been made by us to correct all these mendacious and tendencious assertions. Hardly a day passes but the Sinn Feiners, the Young Egyptians, or the Indian malcontents, publish some statements subversive of the truth. Swiss editors friendly to England have often passed some of these communications on to me, and asked me whether I could not give them an article on the subject, but I have not always the facts and figures available. The homekeeping British public, which has sometimes homely wits, may say that truth will out, and that, therefore, so much misrepresentation does not matter. But it is the wrong ideas which stick, and to realize how true this is it is only necessary to sit in a Swiss café in the evening and overhear the conversation turning on the questions of the day. The assertions of the various propagandist organizations which have appeared in the day's papers are repeated almost word for word.
Unhappily, the quotations from the British Press sent to Switzerland by Reuter are generally taken from a certain.group of papers ; and leading provincial papers, weekly journals or monthly reviews are scarcely ever mentioned. More than one Swiss editor has complained to me of this, saying : " We never get extracts from the Scotch Press or from any Irish paper except through the German propagandists, and then it is only something which suits their purposes."
After this anti-British news has appeared in the Swiss Press, it is transmitted to Holland, Sweden, Norway, and occasionally even to Italy, always as coming from the " neutral " Swiss Press. It will be clear, therefore, that this persistent propagan- dist warfare is a serious matter and one which should not be
Berne, September 15th, 1919.
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