THE CRIME AND ITS AUTHOR.* ENGLISH readers who are acquainted
with the general litera- ture of the war may not find much that is new to them in this remarkable volume ; it was not written for them. It is a valiant and very powerful attempt made by a Germanto pierce the black, solid walls of misrepresentation behind which his countrymen are sitting in the dark. It will do Great Britain notable service in neutral countries ; it will be of incom- parably greater service to Germany if it can be placed •in German hands.
Why are we at war? asks the writer. Because the war party in Berlin would have it so, is his answer. For years the aristocratic military element which has always ruled Prussia has been planning a war of conquest, of domination. The Crown Prince's picture is sold in Berlin with the inscription: " Only by the help of our good swords can we obtain oar rightful place in the sun." Bernhardi's insistence on Germany's important mission to the world, "which we can only achieve as the Japanese achieved theirs, by the sword," is only one of innumerable expressions of the same view. But has Germany, then, been sitting neglected and unconsidered in the shade all this time ? our writer inquires. He recalls the figures which register her unexampled progress in wealth and influence during her forty years of peace, the conquests "won not by the sword but by the energy, the intelligence, the resolution of her sons." The actual intention of the war party was "not to gain a place in the sun, but to set every one else in the shade; not freedom for all, but the subjection of all to German aims and ideals." The steps by which the Emperor • "Ynsruer I" By • German, Lausanne: Verlag Ton Fagot et Cie. [Ur.]
and the Chancellor were gradually drawn into the plot that was to drench Europe in blood, "first as victims, then as accomplices, then as its responsible leaders," are traced. An assiduous, well-organized Press praised the son at the father's expense, and played with diabolical cleverness on the most sensitive °horde in the Imperial nature; on his vanity, his ambition, his wish to be popular, to stand first with his people, upon that belief in his divinely appointed mission which led him to take for his motto the phrase, Suprema fez regie colunfas. He appears to have struggled hard, and Bethmann Hollweg harder still, for three years ; then they yielded. The raising of the peace strength of the Army in 1913 by one hundred and forty thousand men for no visible reason "sounded the fanfare of victory all along the line."
No modern Government, however, can enter upon a great struggle unless the nation is behind it, and no civilized people is ready at this time of day to engage light-heartedly in a war of conquest It was necessary, therefore, to disguise the character of the enterprise. From the Giolitti revelations in the Italian Chamber last December we learn that a year before the murder of the Archduke,Austria had already the fixed intention of provoking a war with Serbia. She was well aware that in doing this she was risking a general conflagration, and was naturally anxious to secure the support of her allies. Italy declined to regard a campaign for the revision of the Treaty of Bucharest as a defensive war ; Germany counselled peace, or at all events delay, and the crisis was averted. At that time Germany was not quite ready. The widening of the Kiel Canal was not completed, the supply of munitions was not entirely adequate, and the pretext was too dubious. Even the docile German public would not easily be persuaded that a frontier dispute between two Balkan States could jaatify a conflict which would engage Germany to her last company and her last gun. In 1913 the Fatherland celebrated the centenary of the War of Liberation, and the Press turned the memory of those great days to good account. A wave of patriotio emotion swept the country, "the whole nation was swayed by an impulse towards freedom, from what servitude no one knew. An intoxicating ecstasy, a feverish exaltation, seized alike upon high and low, rich and poor." In the following year the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne horrified Europe sod lent an air of moral dignity to Austria's determined aggression. By the summer of 1914 all was ready, and the cry of "The Fatherland is in danger!" rang out. "Germany enters on this war with a clear conscience," said the Emperor on August 6th. "It is a question of defending our most sacred possessions, our Fatherland, our homes, from ruthless foes. In full peace they have suddenly fallen upon us. . . . So then, to arms !" The manifesto addressed to neutrals, and signed by a hundred names well known in science and literature, declared that "not until mighty foes who had long lain in ambush on our frontier had invaded our land on three sides did the German people rise as one man." We remember involuntarily that the beet fairy-tales come from beyond the Rhine.
But who were the ruthless foes so eager to attack their formidable neighbour P Was Belgium secretly planning the annexation of the Rhineland? Did France want war P No German is credulous enough to believe that. Then it was Russia? But the German Chancellor in his speech in the Reichstag (December 2nd, 1914) seeme to acquit the Russians of all but a superficial guilt. "The responsibility for the war lies clear before us," said be. "The external responsibility must be laid on the men in Russia who undertook and carried out the mobilization of the whole Russian Army. But the deeper responsibility rests with the Government of Great Britain," whose records for the last ten years, the writer of this book declares, "reveal an unbroken chain of attempts to arrive at a political understanding with Germany, and on that basis to secure a limitation of armaments. The men who so ardently addressed themselves to the solution of these problems are now held. up to the German people as the crafty instigators and promoters of the war." He recounts the melancholy history of the Hague Conferences, the hopeful, unwearied. efforts which never for a moment had a chance of success, which were invariably frnatrated by Germany's incompatible desires, her unwavering and contrary aims. "The British Government desired to secure the peace of Europe," is his blunt summary ; "the German Government desired to secure the neutrality of Great Britain that it might shatter the peace of Europe at its convenience." Germans were assured that their rulers had made every possible effort to avoid war; "the indisputable proofs of this are spread out before the world." They are not spread out in the place where they are naturally looked far, in the German White and the Austrian Red Books. What Berlin actually said to Vienna during those eventful days last July we shall perhaps never know. The Red Book has omissions which are more significant than the documents it presents. When all is said, we are still left wondering how a highly educated and intelligent people can be so deceived. The writer reminds us that since war was declared "the mental life of Germany has been under military supervision, no breath from other lands, no foreign idea that might disturb German unanimity, no information that might enlighten the people has been allowed to cross the frontier." Foreign news- papers are freely admitted, but it is apparently taken for granted that nothing they say is true. If we add to this explanation the fact that, owing to the lack of political training, the German citizen is incredibly at the mercy
of his rulers, it still seems inadequate. The truth is that, while we have long realized how thorough has been Germany's material provision for the war, we have not appreciated the psychological preparation which has been equally deliberate. For many years past Germans have been taught to envy, to despise, to mistrust, and to hate England. This is why we are not, as we hopefully believed at first, at war with the German Government, but are facing the malignant hostility of the nation. The German who writes this volume notes sadly a change in the character of his countrymen. He speaks of them as being not only deluded but debased. " What has become," he says, "of the Germans who were once so full of enthusiasm for all noble deeds ? A year ago we were commemorating our heroes of 1813, a people in arms who threw themselves on the foreign invader whether they were in uniform or not." Now for the heroism of a little nation passionately defending her freedom and honour "we have no word of admiration, of pity, or even of comprehension.... We view the Belgians in arms for their country as malefactors to be shot down like mad dogs. Why, Germans ask, did they not let us pass through ? The question is worthy of the new German spirit. Why did we rise against the Napoleonic occupation P Why did Leonidas hold the Thermopylae Pass ? "
As an illustration of "the indescribable moral confusion that has fallen on Germans," the writer• tells us that soon after the outbreak of war he was present at a cinematograph theatre in Berlin, in which a " war drama" was given. It represented the patriotic rising of the Tirolese in 1809 against the French. The leader, Andreas Hofer, was not a General; he was an inn- keeper. He and his devoted followers, peasants and artisans, with their wives and daughters, were shown hiding behind hedges or rocks and shooting the Frenchmen down as best they could, amid the applause of the spectators. But in France or Belgium—that is another matter. "Against the French,--a people in arms. Against the Germans,—cunning criminals who well deserve the extreme penalty." The impression made in neutral lands by this "spiritual perversity" is evidently not perceived by the Germans. They are not aware that "with Belgium as a trump card in his hand, the enemy has defeated us morally even if the military advantage remained with ue."
The book closes with some reflections on the probable °at- oms of the war. What shall peace bring ? Through the bloodstained mist the writer discerns the approach of a new era which will bring a League of Free Nations (including a Germany released from the Prussian yoke) pledged to perpetual peace ; an association held together, not by force, but by mutual confidence, by a sense of duty, the categorical imperative of the great German thinker. There must follow a gradual simultaneous decrease in armaments until only sufficient forces are left to ensure the safety of the League from those nations who may prefer to remain outside it. Three hundred years ago Henri IV, dreamed the same beautiful dream; his Minister Sully drew up a scheme for the federa- tion of Europe in which the Perk was to be in future the only enemy. Sully awoke to find Europe plunging into the Thirty Years' War.
We cannot guess what chance there is of this book finding the readers whom it desires and deserves. The evidence is detailed so plainly, the facts are marshalled in such close and terrible array, that it seems impossible for any German to read it and remain unaffected.
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