The Will to Power
By Eden Phillpotts
A distinction between power as physical force and as expressed in terms of spiritual value is drawn by Mr. Phillpotts in his article, appearing in The Westminster Gazette of March 27, 1915, which is here reproduced.
It has not often happened in the world's history that any generation can speak with such assured confidence of future events as at present. When the living tongue is concerned with destiny it seldom does more than indicate the trend of things to come, examine tendencies and movements and predict, without any sure foreknowledge or conviction, what generations unborn may expect to find and the conditions they will create. Destiny for us, who speak of it, is an unknown sea whose waves, indeed, drive steadily onward before strong winds, but whose shore is still far distant. We know that we men of the hour can never see these billows break upon the sands of future time.
But today we may look forward to stupendous events; today there are mighty epiphanies quickening earth, not to be assigned to periods of future time, but at hand, so near that our living selves shall see their birth, and participate in their consequences. Nor can we stand as spectators of this worldwide hope; we must not only hear the evangel whose first mighty murmur is drifting to our ears from the future, we must take it up with heart and voice and help to sound and resound it. There is tremendous work lying ahead, not only for our children, but for us. Weighty deeds will presently have to be performed by all adult manhood and womanhood—deeds, perhaps, greater than any living man has been called to do—deeds that exalt the doer and make sacred for all history the hour in which they shall be done.
On Time's high canopy the years are as stars great and small, some of lesser magnitude, some forever bright with the splendor of supreme human achievements; and now there flashes out a year concerning which, indeed, no man can say as yet how great it will be; but all men know that it must be great. It is destined to drown all lesser years, even as sunrise dims the morning stars with day; it is a year bright with promise and bodeful with ill-tidings also; for in the world at this moment there exist stupendous differences that this year will go far to set at rest. This year must solve profound problems, determine the trend of human affairs for centuries, and influence the whole future history of civilization. This year may actually see the issue; at least it will serve to light the near future when that issue shall be accomplished.
There has risen, then, a year that is great with no less a thing than the future welfare of the whole earth. It must embrace the victory of one ideal over another, and include a decision which shall determine whether the sublime human hope of freedom and security for all mankind is to guide human progress henceforth, or the spirit of domination and slavery to win a new lease of life. On the one hand, this year of the first magnitude will shine with the glory of such a victory for democratic ideas as we have not seen, or expected to see, in our generation; on the other, its bale-fire will blaze upon the overthrow of all great ideals, the destruction of a weak nation by a powerful one, and the triumph of that policy of "blood and iron" from which every enlightened man of this age shrinks with horror. The situation cannot be stated in simpler terms; no words can make it less than tremendous; and it is demanded from us to make it personal—as personal to ourselves as it is to the King of England, the Emperor of Germany, or the Czar of all the Russias.
They live who, when this far-flung agony of war is ended, when the last hero has fallen and lies in his grave, when the final cannon has sounded its knell, must be called upon to make the great peace. They live who will weave a shroud of death for the exhausted world, or plant the tree of life upon her bosom; and since we, inspired by the splendor of our cause, are assured that the day-spring will be ours, we already feel and know that we shall see that tree of life planted. But do we also feel and know that we must help to plant it, that the labor and toil of each of us is vital, that none is so weak but that there is a part of that planting for which he was born, a part consecrated to his individual effort, a part that will go undone if he does not do it?
Look to yourself, man, woman, child, that with heart and soul and strength you perform your part in the great world work lying ahead; remember that not princes and rulers, not regiments of your kinsmen, not the armed might of nations can do your appointed task for you. Fail of it, and by so much will the life tree lack in her planting; succeed, and by so much will she be the more splendid and secure. Her name is Freedom and her fruits are for the weak and humble as well as the strong and great, for the foolish as well as the wise, for all subjects as well as for all States. Put out your power, then, for that most sacred tree; deny yourself no pang that she may flourish; labor according to your strength that her blossom shall win the worship of humanity and her fruit be worthy of the blood of heroes that has poured for her planting.
Much we hear of the Will to Power, and because that great impulse has lifted our enemies on the full flood tide of their might and manhood in one overwhelming torrent, Germany has been condemned. But not for her united effort and whole-hearted sacrifice should we condemn her—not for her patriotism and response to the call. Her reply is wholly magnificent, and it only stands condemned for the evil ends and ignoble ambitions toward which it is directed. The spectacle of a great nation at one, inspired by a single ideal and pouring its life, its wealth, its energy, with a single impulse in the name of the Fatherland can only be called sublime. The tragedy lies in the fact that this stupendous effort is not worthy of the cause; that for false hopes, false ambitions and mistaken sense of right and justice Germany has wasted her life and given her soul.
Who blames the Will to Power? Power is the mightiest weapon fate can forge for a nation—a treasure beyond the strength of commerce, or armies, or navies, or intellect of man to produce. But it is necessary that we define power in terms of spiritual value; and then, surely, it appears that Power and Force can never be the same. A Frederick I., or a Napoleon, may pretend to confound power with force, and believe that their might must be right. They possessed a giant's strength and used it like giants. But true Power is ever the attribute of Right and they who strive for it must cleanse their souls, see that their ambition is worthy of such a possession, and, before all else, strive to realize the awful responsibility that goes with Power.
Never was a moment more golden than the present for this nation to Will to Power. For once our hearts are single, our resolutions pure, our patriotism, as well as the objects that we seek to attain, sure set upon the line of human progress. In the sane and sacred name of Freedom, therefore, and at her ancient inspiration it becomes us now to strive by all that is highest and best in us to fulfill our noblest possibilities and give soul and strength that the united Will to Power of our nation may surmount that of her enemies, even as our goal and purpose surmount theirs.
It is for the victory that must crown this victory we should labor, and cease not while hand can toil, mind achieve, and heart sacrifice to make the vital issue assured.
Alleged German Atrocities
Report of the Committee Appointed by the British Government
and Presided Over by
The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce
Formerly British Ambassador at Washington
Proofs of alleged atrocities committed by the German armies in Belgium—proofs collected by men trained in the law and presented with unemotional directness after a careful inquiry—are presented in the report of the "Committee on Alleged German Atrocities" headed by Viscount Bryce, the English historian and formerly British Ambassador at Washington. The document was made public simultaneously in London and the United States on May 12, 1915, four days after the sinking of the Lusitania. It was pointed out at the time that this was a coincidence, as the report had been prepared several weeks before and forwarded by mail from England for publication on May 12.
WARRANT OF APPOINTMENT.
I hereby appoint—
The Right Hon. Viscount Bryce, O.M.;
The Right Hon. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bt., K.C.;
The Right Hon. Sir Edward Clarke, K.C.;
Sir Alfred Hopkinson, K.C.;
Mr. H.A.L. Fisher, Vice Chancellor of the University of Sheffield; and
Mr. Harold Cox;
to be a committee to consider and advise on the evidence collected on behalf of his Majesty's Government as to outrages alleged to have been committed by German troops during the present war, cases of alleged maltreatment of civilians in the invaded territories, and breaches of the laws and established usages of war; and to prepare a report for his Majesty's Government showing the conclusion at which they arrive on the evidence now available.
And I appoint Viscount Bryce to be Chairman, and Mr. E. Grimwood Mears and Mr. W.J.H. Brodrick, barristers at law, to be Joint Secretaries to the committee.
(Signed) H.H. ASQUITH.
15th December, 1914.
Sir Kenelm E. Digby, K.C., G.C.B., was appointed an additional member of the committee on 22d January, 1915.
To the Right Hon. H.H. Asquith, &c., &c., First Lord of H.M. Treasury.
The committee have the honor to present and transmit to you a report upon the evidence which has been submitted to them regarding outrages alleged to have been committed by the German troops in the present war.
By the terms of their appointment the committee were directed
"to consider and advise on the evidence collected on behalf of his Majesty's Government as to outrages alleged to have been committed by German troops during the present war, cases of alleged maltreatment of civilians in the invaded territories, and breaches of the laws and established usages of war; and to prepare a report for his Majesty's Government showing the conclusion at which they arrive on the evidence now available."
It may be convenient that before proceeding to state how we have dealt with the materials, and what are the conclusions we have reached, we should set out the manner in which the evidence came into being, and its nature.
In the month of September, 1914, a minute was, at the instance of the Prime Minister, drawn up and signed by the Home Secretary and the Attorney General. It stated the need that had arisen for investigating the accusations of inhumanity and outrage that had been brought against the German soldiers, and indicated the precautions to be taken in collecting evidence that would be needed to insure its accuracy. Pursuant to this minute steps were taken under the direction of the Home Office to collect evidence, and a great many persons who could give it were seen and examined.
For some three or four months before the appointment of the committee, the Home Office had been collecting a large body of evidence. [3] More than 1,200 depositions made by these witnesses have been submitted to and considered by the committee. Nearly all of these were obtained under the supervision of Sir Charles Mathews, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and of Mr. E. Grimwood Mears, barrister of the Inner Temple, while in addition Professor J.H. Morgan has collected a number of statements mainly from British soldiers, which have also been submitted to the committee.
The labor involved in securing, in a comparatively short time, so large a number of statements from witnesses scattered all over the United Kingdom, made it necessary to employ a good many examiners. The depositions were in all cases taken down in this country by gentlemen of legal knowledge and experience, though, of course, they had no authority to administer an oath. They were instructed not to "lead" the witnesses or make any suggestions to them, and also to impress upon them the necessity for care and precision in giving their evidence.
They were also directed to treat the evidence critically, and as far as possible satisfy themselves, by putting questions which arose out of the evidence, that the witnesses were speaking the truth. They were, in fact, to cross-examine them, so far as the testimony given provided materials for cross-examination.
We have seen and conversed with many of these gentlemen, and have been greatly impressed by their ability and by what we have gathered as to the fairness of spirit which they brought to their task. We feel certain that the instructions given have been scrupulously observed.
In many cases those who took the evidence have added their comments upon the intelligence and demeanor of the witnesses stating the impression which each witness made, and indicating any cases in which the story told appeared to them open to doubt or suspicion. In coming to a conclusion upon the evidence the committee have been greatly assisted by these expressions of opinion, and have uniformly rejected every deposition on which an opinion adverse to the witness has been recorded.
This seems to be a fitting place at which to put on record the invaluable help which we have received from our secretaries, Mr. E. Grimwood Mears and Mr. W.J.H. Brodrick, whose careful diligence and minute knowledge of the evidence have been of the utmost service. Without their skill, judgment, and untiring industry the labor of examining and appraising each part of so large a mass of testimony would have occupied us for six months instead of three.
The marginal references in this report indicate the particular deposition or depositions on which the statements made in the text are based.[4]
The depositions printed in the appendix themselves show that the stories were tested in detail, and in none of these have we been able to detect the trace of any desire to "make a case" against the German Army. Care was taken to impress upon the witness that the giving of evidence was a grave and serious matter, and every deposition submitted to us was signed by the witness in the presence of the examiner.
A noteworthy feature of many of the depositions is that, though taken at different places and on different dates, and by different lawyers from different witnesses, they often corroborate each other in a striking manner.
The evidence is all couched in the very words which the witnesses used, and where they spoke, as the Belgian witnesses did, in Flemish or French, pains were taken to have competent translators, and to make certain that the translation was exact.
Seldom did these Belgian witnesses show a desire to describe what they had seen or suffered. The lawyers who took the depositions were surprised to find how little vindictiveness, or indeed passion they showed, and how generally free from emotional excitement their narratives were. Many hesitated to speak lest what they said, if it should ever be published, might involve their friends or relatives at home in danger, and it was found necessary to give an absolute promise that names should not be disclosed.
For this reason names have been omitted.
A large number of depositions, and extracts from depositions, will be found in Appendix A, and to these your attention is directed.
In all cases these are given as nearly as possible (for abbreviation was sometimes inevitable) in the exact words of the witness, and wherever a statement has been made by a witness tending to exculpate the German troops, it has been given in full. Excisions have been made only where it has been felt necessary to conceal the identity of the deponent or to omit what are merely hearsay statements, or are palpably irrelevant. In every case the name and description of the witnesses are given in the original depositions and in copies which have been furnished to us by H.M. Government. The originals remain in the custody of the Home Department, where they will be available, in case of need, for reference after the conclusion of the war.
The committee have also had before them a number of diaries taken from the German dead.
It appears to be the custom in the German Army for soldiers to be encouraged to keep diaries and to record in them the chief events of each day. A good many of these diaries were collected on the field when British troops were advancing over ground which had been held by the enemy, were sent to headquarters in France, and dispatched thence to the War Office in England. They passed into the possession of the Prisoners of War Information Bureau, and were handed by it to our secretaries. They have been translated with great care. We have inspected them and are absolutely satisfied of their authenticity. They have thrown important light upon the methods followed in the conduct of the war. In one respect, indeed, they are the most weighty part of the evidence, because they proceed from a hostile source and are not open to any such criticism on the ground of bias as might be applied to Belgian testimony. From time to time references to these diaries will be found in the text of the report. In Appendix B they are set out at greater length both in the German original and in an English translation, together with a few photographs of the more important entries.
In Appendix C are set out a number of German proclamations. Most of these are included in the Belgian Report No. VI., which has been furnished to us. Actual specimens of original proclamations issued by or at the bidding of the German military authorities, and posted in the Belgian and French towns mentioned, have been produced to us, and copies thereof are to be found in this appendix.
Appendix D contains the rules of The Hague Convention dealing with the conduct of war on land as adopted in 1907, Germany being one of the signatory powers.
In Appendix E will be found a selection of statements collected in France by Professor Morgan.
These five appendices are contained in a separate volume.
In dealing with the evidence we have recognized the importance of testing it severely, and so far as the conditions permit we have followed the principles which are recognized in the courts of England, the British overseas dominions, and the United States. We have also (as already noted) set aside the testimony of any witnesses who did not favorably impress the lawyers who took their depositions, and have rejected hearsay evidence except in cases where hearsay furnished an undersigned confirmation of facts with regard to which we already possessed direct testimony from some other source, or explained in a natural way facts imperfectly narrated or otherwise perplexing. [5]
It is natural to ask whether much of the evidence given, especially by the Belgian witnesses, may not be due to excitement and overstrained emotions, and whether, apart from deliberate falsehood, persons who mean to speak the truth may not in a more or less hysterical condition have been imagining themselves to have seen the things which they say that they saw. Both the lawyers who took the depositions, and we when we came to examine them, fully recognized this possibility. The lawyers, as already observed, took pains to test each witness and either rejected, or appended a note of distrust to, the testimony of those who failed to impress them favorably. We have carried the sifting still further by also omitting from the depositions those in which we found something that seemed too exceptional to be accepted on the faith of one witness only, or too little supported by other evidence pointing to like facts. Many depositions have thus been omitted on which, though they are probably true, we think it safer not to place reliance.
Notwithstanding these precautions, we began the inquiry with doubts whether a positive result would be attained. But the further we went and the more evidence we examined so much the more was our skepticism reduced. There might be some exaggeration in one witness, possible delusion in another, inaccuracies in a third. When, however, we found that things which had at first seemed improbable were testified to by many witnesses coming from different places, having had no communication with one another, and knowing nothing of one another's statements, the points in which they all agreed became more and more evidently true. And when this concurrence of testimony, this convergence upon what were substantially the same broad facts, showed itself in hundreds of depositions, the truth of those broad facts stood out beyond question. The force of the evidence is cumulative. Its worth can be estimated only by perusing the testimony as a whole. If any further confirmation had been needed, we found it in the diaries in which German officers and private soldiers have recorded incidents just such as those to which the Belgian witnesses depose.
The experienced lawyers who took the depositions tell us that they passed from the same stage of doubt into the same stage of conviction. They also began their work in a skeptical spirit, expecting to find much of the evidence colored by passion, or prompted by an excited fancy. But they were impressed by the general moderation and matter-of-fact level-headedness of the witnesses. We have interrogated them, particularly regarding some of the most startling and shocking incidents which appear in the evidence laid before us, and where they expressed a doubt we have excluded the evidence, admitting it as regards the cases in which they stated that the witnesses seemed to them to be speaking the truth, and that they themselves believed the incidents referred to have happened. It is for this reason that we have inserted among the depositions printed in the appendix several cases which we might otherwise have deemed scarcely credible.
The committee has conducted its investigations and come to its conclusions independently of the reports issued by the French and Belgian commissions, but it has no reason to doubt that those conclusions are in substantial accord with the conclusions that have been reached by these two commissions.
ARRANGEMENT OF THE REPORT.
As respects the framework and arrangement of the report, it has been deemed desirable to present first of all what may be called a general historical account of the events which happened, and the conditions which prevailed in the parts of Belgium which lay along the line of the German march, and thereafter to set forth the evidence which bears upon particular classes of offenses against the usages of civilized warfare, evidence which shows to what extent the provisions of The Hague Convention have been disregarded.
This method, no doubt, involves a certain amount of overlapping, for some of the offenses belonging to the latter part of the report will have been already referred to in the earlier part which deals with the invasion of Belgium. But the importance of presenting a connected narrative of events seems to outweigh the disadvantage of occasional repetition. The report will therefore be found to consist of two parts, viz.:
(1) An analysis and summary of the evidence regarding the conduct of the German troops in Belgium toward the civilian population of that country during the first few weeks of the invasion.
(2) An examination of the evidence relating to breaches of the rules and usages of war and acts of inhumanity, committed by German soldiers or groups of soldiers, during the first four months of the war, whether in Belgium or in France.
This second part has again been subdivided into two sections:
a. Offenses committed against noncombatant civilians during the conduct of the war generally.
b. Offenses committed against combatants, whether in Belgium or in France.