Germany, The Next Republic?

by Carl W. Ackerman

The National Liberal Reichstag member who was quoted was Dr. Gustav Stressemann. Stressemann is one of the worst reactionaries in Germany but he likes to pose as a progressive. He was one of the first men to suggest that the Reichstag form a committee on foreign relations to consult with and have equal power of decision with the Foreign Office.

For a great many months the Socialist deputies of the Prussian Diet have been demanding election reforms. Their demands were so insistent that over a year ago the Chancellor, when he read the Kaiser's address from the throne room in the residence palace in Berlin to the deputies, promised election reforms in Prussia--after the war. But during last summer the Socialists began to demand immediate election reforms. To further embarrass the Chancellor and the Government, the National Liberals made the same demands, knowing all the time that if the Government ever attempted it, they could swing the Reichstag majority against the proposal by technicalities.

Throughout the summer months the Government could not hush up the incessant discussion of war aims. More than one newspaper was suppressed for demanding peace or for demanding a statement of the Government's position in regard to Belgium and Northern France. The peace movement within Germany grew by leaps and bounds. The Socialists demanded immediate action by the Government. The Conservatives, the National Liberals and the Catholic party wanted peace but only the kind of a peace which Germany could force upon the Entente. The Chancellor and other German leaders tried again throughout the summer and fall to get the outside world interested in peace but at this time the English and French attacks on the Somme were engaging the attention and the resources of the whole world.

Before these conflicting movements within Germany can be understood one must know something of the organisation of Germany in war time.

When the military leaders of Germany saw that the possibility of capturing Paris or of destroying London was small and that a German victory, which would fasten Teutonic peace terms on the rest of the world, was almost impossible, they turned their eyes to Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, the Balkans and Turkey. Friederich Naumann, member of the Progressive Party of the Reichstag, wrote a book on "Central Europe," describing a great nation stretching from the North Sea to Bagdad, including Germany, all of Austria-Hungary, parts of Serbia and Roumania and Turkey, with Berlin as the Capital. It was toward this goal which the Kaiser turned the forces of Germany at his command. If Germany could not rule the world, if Germany could not conquer the nine nations which the Director of the Post and Telegraph had lined up on the 2nd of August, 1914, then Germany could at least conquer the Dual Monarchy, the Balkans and, Turkey, and even under these circumstances come out of the war a greater nation than she entered it. But to accomplish this purpose one thing had to be assured. That was the control of the armies and navies and the foreign policies of these governments. The old Kaiser Franz Josef was a man who guarded everything he had as jealously as a baby guards his toys. At one time when it was suggested to the aged monarch that Germany and Austria-Hungary could establish a great kingdom of Poland as a buffer nation, if he would only give up Galicia as one of the states of this kingdom, he replied in his childish fashion:

"What, those Prussians want to take another pearl out of my crown?"

In June the Austro-Hungarian General Staff conducted an offensive against Italy in the Trentino with more success than the Germans had anticipated. But the Austrians had not calculated upon Russia. In July General Brusiloff attacked the Austrian forces in the neighbourhood of Lusk, succeeded in persuading or bribing a Bohemian army corps to desert and started through the Austrian positions like a flood over sloping land. Brusiloff not only took several hundred thousand prisoners. He not only broke clear through the Austrian lines but he thoroughly demoralised and destroyed the Austrian army as a unit in the world war. Von Hindenburg, who had been made Chief of the German General Staff, was compelled to send thousands of troops to the Wohlynian battlefields to stop the Russian invasion. But von Hindenburg did not look with any degree of satisfaction upon the possibility of such a thing happening again and informed the Kaiser that he would continue as Chief of the General Staff only upon condition that he be made chief of all armies allied to Germany. At a Conference at Great Headquarters at Pless, in Silicia, where offices were moved from France as soon as the Field Marshal took charge, Hindenburg was made the leader of all the armed forces in Central Europe. Thus by one stroke, really by the aid of Russia, Germany succeeded in conquering Austria-Hungary and in taking away from her command all of the forces, naval and military, which she had. At the same time the Bulgarian and Turkish armies were placed at the disposal of von Hindenburg. So far so good for the Prussians.

But there were still some independent forces left within the Central Powers. Hungary was not content to do the bidding of Prussia. Hungarians were not ready to live under orders from Berlin. Even as late as a few months ago when the German Minister of the Interior called a conference in Berlin to mobilise all the food within the Central Powers, the Hungarians refused to join a scheme which would rob them of food they had jealously guarded and saved since the beginning of the war.

In the Dual Monarchy there are many freedom loving people who are longing for a deliverer. Hungary at one time feared Russia but only because of the Czar. The real and most powerful democratic force among the Teutonic allies is located there in Budapest. I know of no city outside of the United States where the people have such love of freedom and where public opinion plays such a big role. Budapest, even in war times, is one of the most delightful cities in Europe and Hungary, even as late as last December, was not contaminated by Prussian ideas. I saw Russian prisoners of war walking through the streets and mingling with the Hungarian soldiers and people. American Consul General Coffin informed me that there were seven thousand Allied subjects in Budapest who were undisturbed. English and French are much more popular than Germans. One day on my first visit in Budapest I asked a policeman in front of the Hotel Ritz in German, "Where is the Reichstag?" He shook his head and went on about his business regulating the traffic at the street corner. Then I asked him half in English and half in French where the Parliament was.

With a broad smile he said: "Ah, Monsieur, voila, this street your right, vis a vis." Not a word of German would he speak.