German Problems and Personalities

by Charles Sarolea

And the Junker caste have been as selfish, as rapacious, as their Hohenzollern overlords. Nothing could be more sordid than their attitude in the recent campaign for financial reform. They have shifted the burden of taxation upon the weaker shoulders of the peasant and artisan. They have compelled von Bülow to reverse the Liberal Free Trade policy of Caprivi, and to impose heavy corn duties, merely to increase their own rents.

X.—Prussia as a Despotic State.

In a military State like Prussia, which is mainly organized for war, where war is the vital function, not only does the King hold his power by the Divine right of the sword, but even in times of peace all political power is concentrated into his hands: “L’état c’est moi!”

In such a State a Parliamentary Government is an absurdity, and, as a matter of fact, there is no Parliamentary Government, neither in Prussia nor in the Empire. There is no responsible Cabinet. The Chancellor is accountable, not to the majority of the Reichstag, but to the Kaiser. The Germans imagine that because they have the fiction of universal suffrage they possess the most democratic Government in Europe. And an enthusiastic German triumphantly reminded me of the fact at a mass meeting which I recently held in San Francisco on behalf of the Allies. I reminded him that Bismarck himself has given us in his “Memoirs” the Machiavellic reasons which induced him to invent the fiction of universal suffrage. The man of blood and iron tells us that he only adopted universal suffrage as a temporary device to convert the German States to the Prussian policy, and as a means of influencing the people against the federal dynasties.

The Reichstag is essentially different from a British House of Commons. As a political body it is the most contemptible assembly in Europe. It is a mere debating club, a convenient machine to vote the Government taxes. And even the power of voting has been largely taken from it. It has become part of the German constitutional practice that the military estimates must be passed without discussion. It is only considerable increases of the army and navy which have to be submitted to the Reichstag, and those increases are generally voted for a number of years. In 1887 a characteristic episode happened. Bismarck had decided on formidable additions to the army, and he wanted those additions voted and guaranteed for seven years. The military “Septennate Law” frightened even a docile Reichstag, and the Catholic party refused to vote it. Bismarck, who for ten years had fought the Pope, and who had thundered against the interference of a foreign ecclesiastical potentate in temporal matters, now asked the Pope to interfere in favour of the Army Bill. To the discredit of the Papacy, Leo XIII. fell into the trap. Leo XIII. exerted pressure on the Catholic party. But they still were recalcitrant. Bismarck and the Pope proved equally persistent. Finally, at the behest of the Iron Chancellor and with the assistance of the Vicar of Christ, the Reichstag passed that fatal military law, which was the beginning of the colossal European armaments, which were to increase the political tension of Europe until breaking-point, and which was to result in the present catastrophe. Thus is Parliamentary Government carried on in the Empire of the Hohenzollern!

Passive obedience and discipline are the cardinal virtues inculcated by the Hohenzollern. “Verboten,” “Nicht raisonniren,” are their watchwords. A Hohenzollern brooks no opposition. “Wir bleiben doch der Herr und Koenig und thun was wir wollen,” said the Sergeant-King. And two hundred years after, the Kaiser expresses the same imperial sentiments: “Wer mir nicht gehorcht, den zerschmettere ich” (Whoever refuses to obey, I shall smash). Bismarck, who created the German Empire, was dismissed like a lackey. Baron von Stein, who reformed the Prussian State, and who stands out as the greatest statesman of his age, was ignominiously dismissed. Ingratitude has always formed part of the Hohenzollern code of royal ethics.

We are told by the apologists of the Hohenzollern that the same discipline, the same obedience to duty, are practised by the rulers themselves. “Ich Dien” is the Hohenzollern motto. Of all the servants of the Prussian State, there is none who serves it more loyally, more strenuously, than the King of Prussia. “I am the Commander-in-Chief and the Minister of Finance of the King of Prussia,” said the Sergeant-King of himself. How often have the Prussian Kings been held up as shining examples of devotion to duty! Behold how hard a Hohenzollern King has to work for the State! In the same way the business man who rules his staff with a rod of iron might say to his discontented workmen: “See how strenuously I labour for the success of the business!” The workmen would probably answer that the ceaseless toil of the business man is not wholly disinterested, that the millionaire manufacturer is not a philanthropist; and the apologists of the Hohenzollern might be reminded that a King of Prussia in every generation has been wont to work mainly for himself.

XI.—The Hohenzollern as the Champions of Protestantism.

Treitschke urges as one of the chief claims of the Hohenzollerns that they have been in modern Europe the champions of the Protestant religion and at the same time the apostles of toleration. Is not the Kaiser the supreme head of his Church and the Anointed of the Lord? Does not he still preach edifying sermons to his soldiers and sailors? And does he not at the same time extend his Imperial protection over believers of every creed?

The truth is that the Hohenzollerns have never been the champions of Protestantism, but have astutely and consistently exploited it for their own purposes. They did espouse the Lutheran and Calvinistic faith, but their conversion enabled them to appropriate the vast dominions of the Church, a spoliation which might have presented some difficulties if they had remained Catholic. We saw that, during the Thirty Years’ War, during the supreme crisis of Protestantism, William George, Elector of Brandenburg, remained neutral and allowed the Northern hero, Gustavus Adolphus, and Cardinal Richelieu to champion the cause of the Protestant religion.