MR. GERARD ON KAISERISM.*
Tau main aim of Mr. Gerard in this supplementary volume to My Four Years in Germany is to enlighten the American public as to the true meaning of Kaiserism, and for his motto he might well have taken the Latin tag, delirant reges, plectuntur Achiei. To him the " King business " when it is based on autocracy and mili- tarism, with a docile people and an unrepresentative Legislature, is the root of all evil. There was no trade necessity for the war : a German Republic would never have embarked on it. Great power, he insists, can be safely entrusted to a President, at least to an American President, because " our Presidents have all risen from the ranks," and are kept abreast of the people by the criticisms of the Press and the sobering thought that they must some day return to the ranks, whereas autocratic Sovereigns look on their subjects as toys and pawns.
In his opening sketch of the personality of the German Emperor Mr. Gerard gives him full credit for manliness, great ability, versa- tility, knowledge of foreign countries, business capacity, accessi- bility, and geniality (on occasion). But these qualities are combined with duplicity and surpassing craft. He notes his un-German vehemence, and even violence, of speech and gesture and his feverish restlessness. Holding that " one-man power always fails in the end," Mr. Gerard sets himself to answer the question, "Who does the Kaiser's thinking ? " His answer shows that Germany is not really a one-man show. Although the Reichstag has no real power, being subordinate to the Bundesrat, and the Chancellor is responsible to neither but to the Kaiser, the greatest power in Germany is that of the Great General Staff, which in the last resort controls, or at any rate-has latterly controlled, the Emperor. The break with America over the unrestricted submarine campaign was determined not by the Foreign Office but by the Army chiefs. Heads may fall but the system remains. Writing in January, 1917, Mr. Gerard ascribes to Tirpitz the saying that Hindenburg was the real ruler of Germany. His own view was that Ludendorff, who supplied Hindenburg with brains, was already the real dictator of Germany. Mr. Gerard notes that since the fall of Prince Furstenberg there have been no outstanding Imperial favourites. He has no hesitation in saddling the responsibility for the sinking of the ' Lusitania,' which he regards as the ultimate cause of America's intervention, on the Kaiser. It was not a mistake ; it was deliberately planned and approved by the Kaiser, in spite of his subsequent disavowals, at a time when, for a while, he controlled the Great General Staff. With a few exceptions, it was greeted with universal rejoicing in Germany, " frightfulness " being a Prussian heritage from the days of the Order of Teutonic Knights. Nothing is more impressive in these pages than Mr. Gerard's repeated warning that " no trick and no evasion, no brutality, will be untried by Germany in this war. . . . There is nothing that Kaiserism is not capable of trying in the hope of victory."
The chapter on lose-majeste is interesting but not convincing. The comments on the American President in the satiric Press of the United States never approached the freedom of Simplicissimus before the war. And even since 1914 the Press Censorship has shown at times a curious laxity. The passages from Mr. Gerard's diary from June, 1915, to January, 1917, based on notes of con- versations with the Kaiser, Chancellor, and Ministers, and on per- sonal observations and close study of the Press, are chiefly remarkable as showing the steady growth of the hatred of America in Germany. In publishing them Mr. Gerard is clearly desirous of enlightening his countrymen as to the systematic duplicity of the policy of the German Government towards America. He did not believe all the stories of German atrocities, but the brutalities they admitted excited his horror. The cruel treatment of prisoners is constantly referred to, notably the deliberate starvation of the Russians. His relations with Bethmann Hollweg appear to have been on the whole uniformly friendly, and he speaks of the ex-Chancellor with goodwill, and even respect, as a moderating influence overborne by
• Face to Face &WI Kaiserism. lty James W. Gerard, Late Ambassador to the German Imperial Court. Illustrated. London : Hodder and Stoughton. [7s. ed. net.] the War Party. Other points of interest are the references to the docility of the plain people, the war profits of the Junkers, the arrogance of the military caste, and Germany's policy of periodically " shamming dead." He was, and evidently still is, under no illusions as to the possibility of Germany's being ever starved out, and in the early autumn of 1916 he observes that " it is impossible to conceive of the general breakdown of nerves amongst this people." He has some interesting comments on the early German plots in Mexico, at a time when Germany professed sympathy with the United States, and on the projected coup trectat to take place in Austria on the death of Franz Josef, the succession to the throne to be given to Austria alone, with Prince Eitel Fritz as King of Hungary, and possibly a Czech Kingdom in Bohemia. The President's Peace Note in December, 1916, was received with enthusiasm in Germany. Writing a month later, Mr. Gerard regards it as an exceedingly wise move :— " It has made it very difficult for the terrorists hero to start anything which will bring Germany into conflict with the United States. The Chancellor, Zimmermann, 'Stumm, have all ridiculed the idea that Germany will go back on her ' Sussex' pledges ; but if she does, then the Peace Note makes it easier for America to enter the war on the Allies' side with a clear conscience and the knowledge on the part of the people at home that the Presi- dent did everything possible to keep us out of the mess."
Of the remaining chapters, the most important, in view of recent events, is that on " The Aims of Autocracy." The Kaiser alone could not have driven Germany into war, but his system could and did. The first aim of autocracy is " to keep its own political position at home, the second is to obtain as much of the territory of other nations, as great an influence in unconquered lands as possible, and the third is to make peace, but only if it is a German peace, which can be called and advertised and proclaimed as a German victory." But the greatest prize of all is the commercial control of Russia which the autocracy hopes to win for its merchant class. " Time and again I was told in Germany that a separate peace with Russia was near, and that the exploitation of Russia by the enterprising German merchants in a short time would repay Germany for all the losses of the war." This was written before the collapse of Russia and the Bolshevist peace. And further Mr. Gerard declares his conviction that " even if Germany evacuates France and restores the complete independence of Belgium, even if no territories are gained to the East or protectorates or inde- pendent States carved from the body of Russia to bo a later prey of Germany, Germany will have won if German rule is predominant in Central Europe "—including the control of Serbia, Rumania, and Mesopotamia. In his survey of " Austria-Hungary—the Kaiser's Vassal State " Mr. Gerard declines to accept the view that the assassination of the Crown Prince was engineered " from the inside of Royalty," though admitting that the circumstances of his burial lend confirmation to the theory. But he does believe that the war of 1914 was finally agreed on at Konopisht. He writes with friendliness, and even appreciation, of individual Germans, but of the progressive deterioration of German, and especially Prussian, moral he has no doubt. The gist of the whole book is to be found in his quotation from Goethe : " The Prussian was born a brute, and civilization will make him ferocious."
Previous page
