BOOKS.
GENERAL FREYTAG'S DEDUCTIONS.*
THE importance of this book is attested not merely by the record and the position of the writer, but by the efforts of the German
Government to restrict comment on its contents, and, while pro- moting its circulation in Germany, to prohibit its export. General Freytag,who comes of a Baltic family, and was born in Russia, served in the Russian Army before entering the Prussian Guards. Before the war he had made his mark as a member of the General Staff in Berlin and as a writer on the history and science of war. Since August, 1914, he has been successively German representative on the Austro-Hungarian General Staff, Quartermaster-General in the field, and, after the death of Moltke in June, 1916, Deputy Chief of the General Staff—a post which he still holds. His claim to be regarded as the chief official literary spokesman of the Prussian Army is supported by the fact that he is apparently the only officer who has received during the present war the Order Pour le Write (Peace Class), founded by Frederick William IV. in 1842, and conferred for distinction in Science and Arts.
General Freytag's official position obviously imposes upon him considerable reserve. We cannot expect any free-lance revelations from the Deputy Chief of the General Staff, though he speaks pretty frankly of the difficulties arising from the mixture of races comprised in the forces of the Austro-Hungarian Army and the " sins and omissions of which the Parliaments of the Monarchy had been guilty during past decades." The war was, of course, forced on Germany. England's adhesion to France was prompted solely by commercial greed. In the French Army " hatred of everything German had been kindled by the assiduous fostering through decades of the agitation for a war of revanche." European war had been averted for forty years by Germany's application of the maxim, si cis pacem, pare helium. All this is the common form of Prussian officialism, expressed—to give the writer his due—with rather less of Prussian truculence than might have been expected. Though he says many unjust, offensive, and untrue things of the Allies, he abstains from vulgar personal abuse. Again, we do not find in his review of the lessons of the war—whether as regards tactics, strategy, or the influence of technical science—anything that would not have occurred to an intelligent amateur. Nor is there anything surprising in the author's insistence on the moral element as the decisive factor in war— though we gladly recognize that he abstains from any patronage or commandeering of the Creator as a racial deity—or in his unhesi- tating conviction that the predominant place belongs to the war of movement. The instructiveness of the book resides in the admissions, sometimes frankly expressed, sometimes to be read between the lines, but, above all, in the " deductions " to be found in the final chapter. To take the admissions first, we may note his acknowledgment that the German troops were guilty of brutality in Belgium, though he endeavours to excuse it on the ground that they were compelled to resort to severe measures of retaliation in consequence of " the thoughtless adoption of franc. tireur methods of warfare in Belgium. The principle that war is directed only against the armed strength of the enemy-State and not against its population could not in these circumstances be upheld by our troops." With this passage we may usefully bracket that in which he discusses air raids for bombing purposes .- " In the course of these raids some unfortified places without military significance have had to suffer. The bombardment of these places is in itself objectionable, but the limits of what is permissible are in this matter in many ways elastic. A new weapon opens up its own paths, as is shown, for example, by the submarine war. In any case, in this contest of nations, with its economic background, the war is turned more and more against enemy countries, and the principle hitherto accepted that war is made only against the armed power of the enemy is, in this case as in other spheres, relegated to the background."
We have already mentioned the emphasis he lays on. the moral element, and may add that he quotes with entire approval the words in which Droyeen puts in the forefront of the ethical factors which ensure and achieve victory " a deeply inculcated docility." Of the material factors, we may note that he attaches the utmost importance to numbers, quoting Napoleon's famous dictum about the big battalions, and subscribing to his view that
• Deductions from the World War. By Lieutenant-General Baron von Freytag- LoringboN cu. London : Constable and Co. Its. Gl. net.1
victories used up armies slowly but just as surely as defeats. He speaks of Lord Kitchener's creation of a strong English Army during the World War as " unquestionably an immense achievement." Though a new creation, " the great English Army is anything but a loose and hasty improvisation." But he discounts this acknowledgment by asserting that the Kitchener divisions were " trained exclusively for the simple tasks of trench warfare," and pronounces the English Army to be " by no means fit for a war of movement," by which alone a campaign can be prosecuted to a victorious conclusion. He enlarges on the value of drill, but admits the dangers of pedantry, of spectacular parade, and the extravagances of the drill-devil " generally. He has a good deal to say on the relations between officers and men in the German Army of to-day. From some passages one would infer that they were a band of brothers. But he declares that the spirit of German militarism is " every whit as monarchical as it is aristocratic and democratic " ; that a sound aristocratic tradition is of the highest value ; and that " our young men, who have outgrown paternal discipline in the course of the war and have rendered splendid services before their time, will stand in very special need of the rigorous training afforded by the Army."
But the pith of the book is to be found in the last chapter, " Still Ready for War." Further and larger expenditure on military and naval establishments is pronounced to be indispensable. Germany, which before the war had taken steps to restore to compulsory service the character of universality which belonged to it by the law, will have to pursue this road in future " quite apart from the necessary increase of garrison artillery and technical troops." World-power is " inconceivable without striving for expression of power in the world, and consequently of sea power." War may be senseless and a sin against humanity, and its effects terrible, but this conviction brings us no nearer to eternal peace. War has its basis in human nature, and he holds that Treitachke was right in saying that " nothing is truer than the Biblical doctrine of original sin, which is not to be uprooted by civilization, to what- ever point you may bring it." Mutual agreements will never rid the world of war. They may eliminate certain causes of dispute, " but international courts of arbitration will, after all, only be treaties which will not on every occasion be capable of holding in check the forces seething within the States "—will be, in short, " scraps of paper." He has a profound disbelief in democratic govern- ment and all professions of universal brotherhood. In any event, " as regards us Germans, the World War should disencumber us once and for all of any vague cosmopolitan sentimentality." Pacificist tendencies may gain a certain currency, but " will not conduce to the betterment of humanity," since the realization of genuine Pacificist ideals could only be brought about by a spiritual transformation of the human race, which the war has shown to be an idle dream. " In the future, as in the past, the German people will have to seek firm cohesion in its glorious army and in its belaurelled young fleet."
As this book was written before the Russian collapse and the subsequent negotiations, we can well understand the anxiety of the German authorities to confine its circulation to home consumption. For, as the writer of the Introduction to this translation observes, it is " very instructive as a denunciation of international ideals and as a warning of the plans which are being made in Berlin for the cold and reasoned application of the lessons of the war and the development of a still more perfect war machine than existed in 1914." Above all, " the book is a revelation, because General Freytag only says what Germany thinks," and will think so long as Prussia and militarism—for the two are identical—dominate her. If the world is to be made endurable, we have no other counter- deduction to draw from this volume but that recently expressed in one of our leading articles, that " if such a thing be possible, it is even more important now to beat Germany than it seemed to us to be in 1914."
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