German Problems and Personalities

by Charles Sarolea

IV.

But, even granting that the prestige and glamour of the Hohenzollern Monarchy are dispelled, we shall be told that it does not necessarily follow that a revolution would have any chances of success. For it may still be objected that a revolution is impossible under modern conditions of warfare, that under those conditions all the advantages are with the Government and are not with the people, that it has become very much easier to-day than in a previous generation to stamp out a rebellion, and that the risks are very much greater.

I believe that argument to be entirely fallacious. I do not believe that the chances are with the Government. I believe that they are all the other way. Modern conditions are more favourable to the prospects of a popular rising than they were, say, in 1789, in 1848, or in 1871. In olden days armies did not side with the people. They were non-national. They were professional. They were made up of mercenaries. The Swiss mercenaries allowed themselves to be massacred in defence of the monarchy. The Hessian mercenaries allowed themselves to be massacred in the service of the Hanoverian Kings. Nor had the people any military training. To-day the armies are national armies. They are the people themselves. They have received a military training. They have imbibed the military spirit. If only the people can be gained over to the revolution, three-fourths of the battle is won.

In this connection it is essential that we should clearly understand the fundamental differences between a foreign war and a civil war. A foreign war is a trial of strength between one nation in arms and another nation in arms. A rebellion is a trial of strength between a nation and a Government. In a foreign war the armies will always be on the side of the Government. In a revolution the armies may or may not side with the people. They will side with the people if the people are determined to fight.

The problem of revolution, therefore, is not primarily one of military force, but of moral and political force. The people will dispose of the necessary military strength if they dispose of the necessary moral and political strength. In normal times the people are generally unconscious of their moral and political strength, even as they are unconscious of their military strength. But in times of revolution, with their political consciousness awakened by their grievances and their sufferings, with a quickened sense of political realities, the attitude of the people to their rulers undergoes a radical change. They suddenly discover that they are the source of all power. Once that revelation has come to them, and once the subjects refuse to support their rulers and are determined to resist them, the whole fabric of government collapses like a house of cards. There lies the reason for the fundamental differences between the slow development of foreign warfare and the sudden and catastrophic termination of civil war. The Bastille fell as if by magic and as by a flourish of trumpets, like the walls of Jericho. The Revolution of 1848 overthrew in twenty-four hours the strongest French Government of modern times. And there, also, lies the reason why, in a civil war, the greatest possible results are achieved with the minimum of sacrifice. To attain the aims of a foreign war may require the sacrifice of millions of lives. The aims of a civil war have often been obtained by the sacrifice of a few hundred.

All revolutions have the same beginnings. The German Revolution of 1848 started in the same way as the French Revolution of 1848. The insurrection of the people of Berlin very nearly succeeded in 1848 in establishing a German democracy. The proudest of the Prussian Kings, the most intoxicated with the dreams or delusions of absolute power, was humbled to the dust. In an agony of terror, bareheaded, Frederick William IV. of Hohenzollern had to salute the funeral procession of the heroes of liberty, and the King’s army had to withdraw from Berlin, and Prince William, the future Emperor, had to escape to England.

And the rising of the German people to-day will have a much better chance than in 1848. If it be indeed true that a few machine-guns may decide the issue, it will be by no means difficult for the insurgent people to secure possession of those machine-guns. If it be true that a military training is essential to success, millions of Germans have received that training. Let only the merest fraction of the people raise the standard of rebellion, and let the spirit of rebellion be rife, and that spirit will spread like wild-fire, and the Hohenzollern Monarchy after this war will be brought to the ground like a decaying tree in a November gale.