Watching on the Rhine

by Violet R. Markham

I

German political life is in the main a sealed book to the British public. Many people take but a tepid interest in the politics of their own country. To grapple with the intricacies of parties and programmes in a foreign land is an effort quite beyond the will or the power of the average citizen. Yet Germany plays, and is bound to play for years to come, so dominant a part in every calculation and forecast made by her neighbours, that it is of considerable importance to try and realise what forces are at work among her own people.

Constitutional life in Germany has had many vicissitudes. When the tragic history of our own times comes to be written, future historians will probably regard the failure of the Frankfurt deputies in 1848 to solve the problem of German unity on a democratic basis as the most fatal date in modern history. The unity which the “Professors’ Parliament” failed to achieve was welded together triumphantly by Bismarck, twenty-three years later, through blood and iron. To the cult of blood and iron Germany henceforth dedicated itself, and for many years, with striking success. But even within the Empire the system had its challengers, as the spread of Socialist doctrines and the successes of the Social Democrats proved. When the military régime collapsed in defeat and confusion in the autumn of 1918, it was to the despised democratic elements that Germany owed her escape from utter ruin.

Little or no attention has ever been paid to the astonishing feat of constitutional reorganisation which was carried through after the flight of the Emperor. Complete military disaster had overtaken the country; revolution and anarchy were abroad in the land. Yet on the morrow of these events not only was a Republic proclaimed, but a German Government came into being which worked out a democratic constitution based on universal suffrage and full ministerial responsibility of the cabinet to the elected representatives of the people. The history of parliaments contains no more surprising page. Women were enfranchised, lists of voters prepared, and within a few weeks of the Armistice, elections were held which brought into existence a provisional National Assembly whose business it was to carry on the hard task of government till the first Reichstag of the new Republic could subsequently be elected. How all this was done in the time is a mystery, especially having in mind the endless delays to which our own last Franchise Bill gave rise, and the difficulties pleaded as regards the revision of voters’ lists. The temper of the hour and the mood of the conquering Allies did not permit of one word of praise for a constitutional tour de force carried through under conditions of overwhelming difficulty. But it would be unjust and ungenerous not to recognise to-day with what dogged determination the German democrats, inexperienced and untried as they were in government, handled the half-foundering ship they were called upon to save. To make a success of the task was an impossibility under the circumstances for them or for any set of men. But that they kept the ship afloat, in view of the seas breaking over it, is little short of a marvel.

The man who played a thoroughly creditable part in the hour of collapse was Hindenburg. Unlike other distinguished members of the ruling class he did not run away when the game was up, but stood by his country through the grim business of defeat and surrender. Without a shred of sympathy for the Republican Government, he gave that government loyal assistance as regards the withdrawal of the armies. No man in Germany to-day commands more universal respect than the old Field-Marshall. Amid the flood of recriminations which German statesmen, generals, and admirals have poured on each other, Hindenburg has displayed reticence and generosity which do him entire credit. The inclusion of his name in the list of War Criminals is of all Allied ineptitudes since the Peace perhaps the greatest.

The National Assembly lasted for about fifteen months. In June 1920 Germany went to the polls to elect the first Reichstag of the Republic. Not the faintest interest in the event was taken by the British public. Yet whatever the result, it could only react on the whole future of European reconstruction.

Current conceptions at home remain astonishingly crude as to the position in Central Europe. The man in the street, brought up in the true milk of the word as preached by the Yellow Press, is still of opinion that Germany is as militant and as threatening as ever, and that, should we be so foolish as to stop sitting on her head, she would promptly overrun Europe again. Suggest that Germany with her fleet sunk, her merchant shipping confiscated, her colonies lost, her army disbanded, her war material surrendered, her railway system in ruins, her food shortage considerable, is hardly in a position at the moment to make an unprovoked attack on any one, and the said person hints darkly in reply at hidden divisions on the Eastern Frontier; at an alliance between the Bolshevists and the German Government; at a military menace little less serious than what existed in 1914. It is surprising that people of this type are not more in conceit with themselves after the Allied victory, and fail so completely in appreciation of what the conquering armies have done. The German legions, perfectly trained and equipped after years of preparation, and with the whole resources of the German Empire behind them, could not achieve the preliminary pounce on Paris in 1914. Is the present Republican Government in any better position to succeed where they failed? A nation broken by hunger and defeat may become a centre of disease, dangerous to its neighbours owing to the poison spread through the whole international system. But any talk of external military adventure, apart from sporadic insurrections, is absurd.

The old united Germany with its strong centralised military government is a thing of the past. Instead of which we have a Germany, weak, disorganised, distracted, split into various factions each at mortal strife with the other. The position is full of danger and grave internal crisis; it may menace the foundations of European society, but the danger is disruptive and from within, not the menace of external legions. Political parties in Germany are split up into numerous and bewildering subdivisions. The Independent Socialists and Communists form a group to the extreme left, with more or less Bolshevist ideals. But, broadly speaking, there are two main sections, the democratically minded people who desire the evolution of a peaceful and constitutional republic, and the reactionaries who, while paying a certain lip-service to democratic principles, at heart detest the whole business.

It will be the eternal reproach to Allied policy that it has done nothing whatever to help the better elements in Germany to consolidate their position. On the contrary, by the intolerable economic penalties of the Peace it has pushed German democracy into a slough of despond and handed over all the vantage points to its enemies. The measure of the vast blunder committed in this respect is clear enough to any one who, like myself, has had the opportunity of attending political meetings held in Germany. To be living in a country torn by a fierce election campaign and to be taking no part in the fray was a novel experience for me. The placards with which Cologne was covered and the heated articles in the German newspapers made me, like an old war-horse, sniff battle from afar. At least I was anxious to try to gather as a spectator how German men and women were really feeling and thinking on this critical occasion. Political meetings have their own atmosphere and tell their own tale, and the opportunity of hearing and judging for myself was too good a one to miss.

I confess it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I made my way for the first time into a German public meeting. Naturally I had no desire to be recognised as an English woman, and, the conditions being wholly novel, I was not clear beforehand how far I should be able to lie low and conceal the fact of my nationality. However, seeing that the Social Democrats advertised a meeting to which women were specially invited, I plucked up my courage, reflected on the not infrequent and slightly chastening occasions when I have been addressed by Germans in German, bought a Socialist paper which I displayed conspicuously, and walked into the gathering. Neither then nor on any subsequent occasion, let me say, did I experience the smallest difficulty in slipping in amongst the crowd and hearing the proceedings in entire comfort.

It was a warm evening, and the great hall of the Gürzenich, the old banqueting-room of mediaeval Cologne, was only half full. The audience—about equal numbers of men and women—were well-dressed, entirely decorous folk. The long hair and red ties of orthodox Socialism were absent. German meetings are detestably unpunctual. Advertised generally for 8 P.M., they seldom start till twenty minutes later, and the audience meekly accepts conditions of delay which would rouse an English meeting to fury. The principal speaker of the evening was Fräulein S., of Hamburg, a member of the National Assembly. At 8.20 a procession of earnest-looking women slowly mounted the platform. They wore coloured blouses and dark skirts, and their hair was scratched back tightly off their heads—a true hall-mark of feminine virtue in all climes and among all nations. The chairwoman had fortified herself with a large dinner-bell, and rang a peal, apparently to give herself courage, on opening the proceedings. Restoration of order was unnecessary, for the audience sat in stolid silence on the appearance of the speakers, not even extending to them the perfunctory greeting with which an English audience heartens the platform victims before the sacrifice. No encouraging cheers greeted the advent of a pleasant-looking lady who, armed with a folio of MS., made her way to the reading-desk. Fräulein S. spoke, or rather read, for an hour in a clear, cultivated voice. She outlined the constructive policy of the Social Democrats or Majority Socialists, whose platform approximates to what was known as the Liberal-Labour position in English politics. The party is, however, definitely pledged to nationalisation. The speaker led off with the blockade, which is the King Charles’s Head of every political meeting in Germany. Their enemies, she declared, accused the Social Democrats of bringing Germany into her present desperate straits. Not the revolution, however, but the dire consequences of the blockade were responsible for the troubles of the people. Fräulein S.’s chief interests lay obviously in the field of social reform. She outlined a programme which was strangely familiar in many respects. The unmarried mother and the question of religious education in the schools were in the forefront of the battle. The temper of the meeting, it must be owned, was very tepid, but the depressing silence was broken by a few cheers when these subjects were handled. Another old friend appeared with Fräulein S.’s emphatic assertion that no school teacher should be compelled to resign her appointment on marriage. The lady then dealt at some length with finance and the incidence of taxation. A thoughtful, well-expressed speech—withal a trifle dull.

The reading of manuscript in a large hall has a curiously deadening effect on an audience, and judging by what I have heard, the women politicians of Germany—and be it also said many of the men—have not as yet learnt to emancipate themselves from the tyranny of elaborately prepared lectures. This was noticeable in the case of the speakers who followed Fräulein S. She was succeeded at the reading-desk by a dark, heavy-browed, energetic-looking girl, who infused a welcome note of vigour, not to say violence, into the proceedings. This young woman was a school teacher of obviously advanced views, and spoke well and fluently. She made short shrift of religious education in schools. Priests and catechisms vanished under her touch as she flourished the Socialist banner and belaboured her political adversaries with a series of witticisms which evoked rounds of applause. Yet she too had a folio of notes, and now and again when a word failed, a sudden pause in the flow of oratory, a hasty turning of sheets showed that the thunder, effective as it was, had been carefully prepared.

These little difficulties were still more noticeable in the case of the next speaker, an old lady wearing spectacles and a black bonnet, whose witticisms (the drift of which I was quite unable to follow) delighted the audience. Her notes had got mixed, and when she lost her thread—which happened frequently—some moments were spent hunting it. Quite undismayed, however, by these interruptions, the old lady held to her task gallantly. She was clearly a favourite, and the carefully prepared jokes resulted in loud laughter. I was sorry to miss the point of these jests, but I was left with the impression that public meetings in Germany, as in England, are ready to be amused with very small beer. The ladies were succeeded by one or two men speakers, who all chanted the praises of the Social Democrats and introduced variants of another familiar theme—poll early and poll straight. After this the chairwoman performed energetically again on the dinner-bell—did any member of the audience desire to speak? Hardly had the sounds died away when she declared the meeting over. I was waiting for the real fun of the fair to begin with questions, but found myself, with the rest of the company, in the street.

Encouraged by this first attempt, I made a round of the meetings held by the leading parties, gatherings at which night after night I listened to views as wide asunder as the poles. The proceedings were considerably more lively than at the women’s meeting, and on more than one occasion feeling ran high. Yet the proceedings were astonishingly orderly as compared with the uproarious election meetings which are common enough at home. Interruptions were not of a sustained character, and during the campaign I saw no meeting broken up. I can only marvel, however, at the easy lot of a German candidate, for questions and heckling play a very small part in the campaign. The carefully prepared conundrums which harass the existence of the British Parliamentary candidate, the game of thrust and tierce, are unknown here. I was disappointed by the absence of the familiar figure in the back row who rises, waggling a minatory forefinger, and the words, “I want to ask the candidate,” etc. The odds are against the heckler in Germany, for what is called the “discussion” consists of objectors coming on to the platform and making speeches of protest, surrounded by the candidate or candidates and their supporters. As I have already remarked, meetings begin late, speeches are very lengthy, and by the time the party candidates sitting in a row on the platform have each said his say the hour stands long after 10 P.M., and the audience begins to go home.

Naturally I was specially interested in the women speakers and the general bearing of women at these gatherings. The impression made upon me was that if German women attained full political emancipation at a bound through the revolution in November 1918, they have already laid a firm hand on their new rights. Large numbers of women were present at every meeting I attended—a fact which made my own presence possible. A fair proportion of women had sat in the National Assembly (the first provisional Parliament elected after the revolution), and were candidates for the new Reichstag. It is a satisfactory feature that, though the progressive feminist spirits are naturally more numerous among the Social Democrats and Minority Socialists, the various Conservative parties also support women candidates. If the British voters at the last General Election showed no mind of any kind to return women to Parliament, German women have fared better. But the difference in the electoral system probably tells in their favour.