Nobody can read without a grim smile this misleading exposé which ignores the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, with its forty-eight hours’ term for an answer; the exasperating demands which were drafted, not for the purpose of being accepted by the Belgrade Government, but with the admitted object of provoking a refusal; the fervent insistence with which the British Foreign Minister besought the German Government to obtain an extension of the time from their Austrian ally; the mockery of a pretence at mediation made by the Kaiser and his Chancellor, and their refusal to fall in with Sir Edward Grey’s proposal to summon a conference and secure full satisfaction and effectual guarantees for Austria; and the German ultimatum, presented to Russia and to France at the very moment when the Vienna Government had “finally yielded” to Russia’s demands and “had good hopes of a peaceful issue.”[2] Those were essential factors in the origins of the war. Yet of these data the spiritual shepherds of the German people have nothing to say. They pass them over in silence. For they are labouring to establish in the minds of Evangelical Christians abroad their “inner right” to invoke the assistance of God for the Kaiser, who patronizes Him. This unctuous blending of Teutonic religion with the apology of systematic inhumanity reminds one of an attempt to improve the abominable smell of assafœtida with a sprinkling of eau-de-Cologne.

These comments are nowise intended as a reproach to the theologians and pastors who have set their names to this appeal. Personally, I venture to think that they have acted most conscientiously in the matter, just as did von Treitschke, Bernhardi, and their colleagues and their followers. The only point that I would like to make clear is that they have a warped ethical sense—what the schoolmen were wont to term “a false conscience.” And the greater the scrupulosity with which they act in accordance with its promptings, the more cheerfully and abominably do they sin against the conscience of the human race.

The simplicity and unction with which these men come forward to vindicate their “inner right” to pray God to help their Kaiser to victory over pacific peoples, the calm matter-of-fact way in which they accuse the Belgians of revolting barbarities—for that is one of their main contentions—and justify the Kaiser’s lordly contempt of the scrap of paper, are of a piece with every manifestation of the political cult which has become one of Germany’s holiest possessions. And it is because the British nation as a whole obstinately refused to listen to those who apprised them of this elemental movement, and of the dangers it concealed, that they dispensed with a large land army, slackened the work of shipbuilding, and trusted to a treaty which they are now surprised to see dealt with as a mere scrap of paper.

In like manner the British people at first smiled sceptically at the narratives of Belgians who witnessed and described the killing of unarmed men, women, and children, the finishing of the wounded on the battlefield, the living shields of women and girls with which they protected their soldiers, the taking and shooting of hostages, and other crimes against humanity. After all, it was argued, the Germans are not quite so unlike ourselves as these stories would have us believe. They, too, are men who have left wives, sisters, mothers, and children at home, and the wells of human pity are not dried up within them. They are incapable of such savagery. Those tales evidently belong to the usual class of fiction which sprouts up on all battlefields.

Yet, whatever the truth might be—and since the fiendish passions of the soldiery were let loose against Louvain, Malines, and Rheims we know that some of the narratives were based on gruesome facts—the ground at first taken up was untenable. Nobody possessing even a superficial acquaintance with Prussian history had grounds for asserting that the German army was incapable of such diabolical deeds. Its recorded doings in seasons of peace demonstrated its temper. That the officers and the rank and file are obedient to their commanders will not be gainsaid. To their Kaiser they are, if possible, still more slavishly submissive. Well, the Kaiser, when his punitive expedition was setting out for China, addressed them thus: “When you encounter the enemy you will defeat him. No quarter shall be given, no prisoners shall be taken. Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thousand years ago, under the leadership of Etzel (Attila), gained a reputation in virtue of which they still live in historical tradition, so may the name of Germany become known in such a manner in China that no Chinaman will ever again even dare to look askance at a German.” The monarch who gave utterance to those winged words was not conscious of saying aught that might shock or surprise his people. His false conscience felt no qualms. The principle underlying this behest was the foundation-stone of Prussian culture. And the Kaiser’s wish is now realized. The name of Germany, whose love of wanton destruction, delight in human torture, and breach of every principle of manly and soldierly honour are now become proverbial, will henceforward be bracketed in history together with that of the Huns.

How British people who read and stigmatized these barbarous behests, emphatically issued by the supreme ruler of the German nation and the supreme head of the German Church, should have held him who uttered or the troops that executed them incapable of the crimes laid to their charge in Belgium is a mystery. Terrorism in occupied countries has always been part of the Prussian method of waging war. It is such an excellent substitute for numbers! The examples of it given in the years 1814 and 1815 are still remembered. Since then it has been intensified. During the Boxer movement in China I witnessed illustrations of it which burned themselves in my memory. The tamest of all was when the German troops arrived in Tientsin. The nights were cool just then, and a knot of soldiers were dismayed at the prospect of spending a night without blankets. I happened to know where there was an untenanted house with a supply of blankets, and out of sheer kindness I took them to it. With a smile of gratitude the officer in command set the blankets on one side. Every portable article of value was next seized and appropriated. And then the soldiers took to smashing vases, statues, mirrors, the piano, and other articles of furniture. They laughed at my remonstrances, and reminded me of the Kaiser’s orders. All at once they abandoned the spoil, and rushed down to the courtyard to shoot some Chinese who were said to be there. As luck would have it, however, the newcomers were their own comrades, so there were no executions that first evening. But the Kaiser’s men made up for it later.

Germany’s necessity, as defined by her War Lord or any of her high officials, knows no law. Stipulations and treaties are for non-German States, which must be held strictly to their obligations. To Teutons the Treaty of Bucharest and the neutrality of Belgium were meaningless terms. But only to Teutons. The Japanese are to be made to respect the neutrality of China. For the chosen people are a law unto themselves. That is, and has long been, the orthodox doctrine of the Pan-German Church. What more natural than its application to the treaty of 1839, which Bismarck confirmed in writing in the year 1870, and which the Kaiser and Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, with the hearty approval of the whole articulate German nation, have recently spoken of contemptuously as a scrap of paper? If any doubt could be entertained as to the extent to which this German theory of morality has spread, it will have been dispelled by the body of eminent German theologians who have just issued their appeal to Evangelical Christians abroad. They, at any rate, have no fears that their eloquent appeal will be treated as a mere scrap of paper. It is the word of their “good old God.”

CHAPTER I
THE CAREFULLY LAID SCHEME

Europe’s tremendous tragedy, the opening scenes of which are now unfolding themselves to horrified humanity, is no ordinary conflict arising out of a diplomatic quarrel which timely concessions and soft words might have settled with finality. In its present issues it is the result of a carefully laid scheme of which the leaders of the German people are the playwrights and the Kaiser the chief actor. It was cleverly thought out and patiently prepared. The manifold forces let loose by the Berlin Government for the purpose of leading up to a coup de théâtre which involves the existence of cultured Europe had long since got beyond the control even of those who were employing them. All that was still possible was the choice of the moment for ringing up the curtain and striking the first fell blow. And, sooth to say, judging by the data in the hands of the Berlin Foreign Office, no conjuncture could have been more propitious to Germany’s designs than the present. For circumstance had realized most of the desired conditions, and the Kaiser, without hesitating, availed himself of his good fortune. It is useless to dissemble the fact that the copious information accumulated in the Wilhelmstrasse warranted the belief that there could not have been a more auspicious moment for the realization of the first part of the Kaiser’s programme than the present. If Germany be indeed set apart by Providence as the people chosen to rule Europe and sway the world, the outcome of the present conflict should be to sanction this inscrutable decree of Fate. Certainly the hour has struck for which she has been waiting and keeping her powder dry during the past forty years. It is now or never.

Of this ingeniously conceived scheme the Achilles tendon was its diplomatic aspect. And here Prussian clumsiness asserted itself irrepressibly, as is its wont. A worse case with which to go before the world than that of Germany in the present struggle it would be hard to imagine. She has deliberately brought about a crude, naked might-struggle, in which war-lust and brute force are pitted against the most sacred and imprescriptible rights that lie at the very roots of organized society. And she calls on God to help her to effect her purpose.