The German Language.
(After July, 1914.)
184. Fichte expresses in simple words a positively decisive truth ... of all the languages of Europe, German is the only living one.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 26.
185. The German ... must conquer; and when once he has conquered—to-day or in a hundred years...—no duty is more urgent than that of forcing the German language upon the world.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 33.
186. If German Kultur and the German spirit are to march victorious through the world, not to oppress other peoples, but to aid them in their own development, an essential preliminary will be the spread of the German language. For only he who knows the German language, and can read the works of our spiritual heroes in the original, can really penetrate into the German spirit, and feel himself at home there.—C.L. Poehlmann, G.D.W., p. 48.
187. Chance brings to my hands to-day a copy of Jugend for May 28, 1900, containing an article by me in which I read: "I have no firmer or more sacred conviction than this, that the higher Kultur of humanity depends upon the spreading of the German language." I go on to explain that this language is the indispensable interpreter of the German nature (Wesen), which is what I chiefly prize; and for the spreading of the language it is necessary that the German Empire should develop into the leading State of the world.—H.S. Chamberlain, D.Z., p. 9.
188. A defeat for Germany I could regard only as a deferred victory. I should say to myself: The time, then, is not yet ripe; the sacred treasure must yet awhile be guarded and cherished in the circle of the narrower Fatherland. For alone among all nations Germany possesses to-day a living, developing, sacred treasure.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 24.
189. Germanism (Was wir "deutsch" nennen) is the secret through which the inner man is illuminated; and the instrument of this illumination is the [German] language.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 25.
190. If Montaigne were living to-day, he would have to remain silent—or to learn German.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 29.
191. Men must come to realize that whoever cannot speak German is a pariah.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 35.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] A common expression for the ordinary, average German.
[9] This address was delivered, 9th September, 1914. The Lusitania was sunk 7th May, 1915.
[10] Though this was written in the second month of the war, we must in fairness assume that Herr Chamberlain is thinking of the German state of mind before the war. But as he has lived thirty years in Germany he must have been there during the South African War, when the German feeling towards England was too mildly described by the term "animosity."
[11] And you must love him ere to you
He will seem worthy of your love
[12] M. Dumont, writing of the Albanians (Rev. des Deux Mondes, vi., 120, 1872), supplies a pertinent comment on German piety: "Ce qui fait qu'une tribu croit à son dieu, c'est la haine de la tribu voisine."
[13] Chamberlain says that this letter was addressed to him in November, 1914, by a correspondent whom he refuses to name, but of whom he will say that "few men can form such well-informed judgment upon all phases in the life of present-day Germany, and no one deserves to be listened to with higher respect." These expressions, and the mention of William I., may perhaps justify the conjecture that the writer is none other than Chamberlain's warm admirer, William II.
[14] The same author explains that "of course the German people have not in themselves deserved this calling: it proceeds from the sheer grace of God, so we can maintain it without any Pharisaism whatever."
[15] This saying had already "burst its bonds" and been appropriated to Germany by the Kaiser:—"We are the salt of the earth, but we must also be worthy to be so." (Bremen, 22nd March, 1905.)
[16] It is odd that the "creator of children's literature" should have taken the very name of his work from an English book which had been the delight of children for half a century before he wrote.
[17] Compare with this the following:—"In our struggle with the Triple Entente, we look for the most valuable aid from Pan-Islamism, from the living sense of solidarity between all Muslims of the whole world, dependent on their common religion.... If all accounts be true, the whole Muslim world is flocking round the Sultan-Kalif, and regards this war as a 'Holy War,' That would be the first and perhaps the greatest triumph of the Pan-Islamic movement."—Dr. E. Huber, in Das Grössere Deutschland, Christmas Eve, 1914.
[18] The particular injunction of the Evangel of Christ which inspired the sinking of the Lusitania was no doubt "Suffer little children to come unto me."
[19] After making this proposal on p. 4, Professor v. Harnack, on p. 6, gives the following account of the Battle of the Marne:—"We have, without any defeat, partly withdrawn our troops to form an iron line of battle from Arras and Noyon to Verdun."
[20] "The defenceless Alexandria" was defended by an elaborate system of forts mounting hundreds of guns. It was these forts that the fleet bombarded, in the face of considerable resistance. The conflagrations in the city were the work of escaped or liberated convicts.
[21] If any French soldiers actually believed that Nürnberg had been bombed, it can only have been because the German Government spread the report, through the mouth of its Ambassador in Paris, as an excuse for declaring war. (French Yellow Book, No. 159.) It is possible that some Frenchmen may have incautiously believed the German Government. The report has been shown by German investigation to be entirely groundless.