3. The democratization of Germany
Certain Allied groups having apparently made up their minds that the ‘democratization’ of Germany would suffice to put an end automatically to Prussian militarism and to German imperialism, it was concluded at Berlin that a considerable number, at least, of their adversaries, being weary of the war, might be willing to content themselves with a merely formal satisfaction of their demands, in order to have an ostensibly honorable excuse for bringing it to an end. That is why, with the aim of leading the Allies off the scent and inducing them to enter into negotiations, Berlin devoted herself during the first six months of 1917, with increasing energy, to the farce called ‘the democratization of Germany.’ Meanwhile the most bigoted Pangermanists put the mute on their demands. They ceased to utter the words ‘annexations’ or ‘war-indemnities.’ They talked of nothing but ‘special political arrangements’—a phrase which in their minds led to the same result but had the advantage of not embarrassing the peace-at-any-price men in the Allied countries. The device of democratization of Germany was complementary to the Stockholm trick, which, as we know, was intended to convince the Russian Socialists that Russia had no further advantage to expect from continuing the war, since Germany in her turn, was about to enter in all seriousness upon the path of democracy—and so forth.
We must acknowledge that many among the Allied peoples allowed themselves to be ensnared for the moment by this manœuvre, and honestly believed that Germany was about to reform, of her own motion and radically. But when the German tactics had achieved the immense result of setting anarchy loose in Russia,—a state of affairs which was instantly made the most of in a military sense by the Staff at Berlin,—the farce of the democratization of Germany was abandoned. Von Bethmann-Hollweg was sacrificed to the necessity of dropping a scheme which he had managed, and Michaelis—Hindenburg’s man, and therefore the man of the Prussian military party and of the Pangermanists—succeeded him.
As a matter of fact, the Germans have, for all time, had such an inveterate penchant for rapine that they are quite capable of setting up a great military republic and submitting readily enough to Prussian discipline, with a view to starting afresh upon wars for plunder.
We must bear this truth constantly in mind: if the Hohenzollerns have succeeded, in accordance with Mirabeau’s epigram, in making war ‘the national industry,’ it is because, ever since the dawn of history, the Germans have always subordinated everything to their passion for lucrative wars. The same is true of them to-day. Especially in the last twenty years the secret propaganda of the Berlin government has convinced the masses that the creation of Pan-Germany will assure them immense material benefits. It is because this conviction is so firmly rooted among them that substantially the entire body of Socialist workingmen are serving their Kaiser without flinching, and are willing to endure the horrors of the present conflict so long as it may be necessary and so long as they are not conquered in the field.
4. Peace through the International
This is another of the tricks conceived at Berlin. In reality the International, having always followed the direction of the German Marxists, has been the chief means employed for thirty years to deceive the Socialists of the countries now in alliance against Germany by inducing them to believe that war, thanks to the International alone, could never again break out. In a report on ‘the international relations of the German workingmen’s unions’ (1914), the Imperial Bureau of Statistics was able to proclaim as an undeniable truth: ‘In all the international organizations German influence predominates.’
The conference at Stockholm, initiated by German agents, and that at Berne, upon which they are now at work, are steps which German unionism is taking to reëstablish over the workingmen of all lands the German influence, which has vanished since the war began. The idea now is to force the proletariat of the whole world into subjection to the guiding hand of Germany. The object officially avowed is to rehabilitate the International in the interest of democracy. In reality, it is proposed, above all else, to replace in the front rank the struggle between classes in the Allied countries, in order to destroy the sacred unity that is indispensable to enable the most divergent parties to wage war vigorously against Pangermanist Germany. As the Berlin government is well aware that it has nothing to fear from its own Socialists, the vast majority of whom, even when they disown the title of Pangermanists, are partisans of Central Pan-Germany, the profit of the manœuvre based on the International would inure entirely to Germany, who would retain her power of moral resistance unimpaired, while the Allied states, once more in the grip of the bitterest social discord, would find their offensive powers so diminished by this means that peace would in the end be negotiated on the basis of the present territorial occupations of Germany.
5. The armistice trick
All the schemes hitherto discussed, whether employed singly or in combination, are intended, first and last, to assist in playing the armistice trick on the Allies. This is based upon an astute calculation, still founded on the weariness of the combatants, which is so easily understood after a war as exhausting as that now in progress. At Berlin they reason thus—and the reasoning is not without force: ‘If an armistice is agreed upon, the Allied troops will say, “They’re talking, so peace is coming, and, before long, demobilization.” Under these conditions our adversaries will undergo a relaxation of their moral fibre.’