One of the most interesting personalities at this Conference was Professor Brentano of Munich, the famous political economist. I was coming down the stairs leading from the conference hall to the street when a handsome old man with white hair and a keen face stopped and addressed me. He had a nervous and slightly deprecating manner, stooped a little, and showed pitiful signs of under-nourishment in his pale face and rather tearful red eyes. He found it difficult to speak without emotion of the condition of things in Bavaria, and his voice trembled as he told of the nerve-strain under which the population lived, partly through anxiety about food and partly through fear of revolutionary disorders. His very obviously democratic sympathies did not reach quite so far as the Communist regime and the amiable but incompetent President Eisner. He told me that nobody who had food in the house, however small in amount or poor in quality, went to bed without feeling that his throat might be cut in the night by men mad with hunger, who knew about the little store. He showed me a scientific chart exhibiting in figures and curved lines the appalling tragedy of starving and dying children in his city, the city of soft church bells and beautiful pictures, of glorious music and fine dramatic art. It was a Munich girl of eighteen who told me her painful story of an elderly and unscrupulous admirer, who endeavoured to buy her with food, a common experience in the stricken lands.
“I will give you two fresh eggs every day if you will be my ‘friend’,” he said (it was the first time I had heard the word “friend” used in such a sense). “I did not know that it was possible to be tempted to so dreadful a thing by anything in the world,” said this poor thing, her pale cheeks flushing as she spoke, “but we are all so hungry and my mother is a sick woman. The eggs would have been very good for her. And an egg costs many, many marks with us.” Her lip quivered and she played nervously with the edge of her shawl. “But my Socialist faith kept me pure. I could never have borne all the misery and hunger; I should have drowned myself but for my belief that Socialism would do away with war and bring a better day for us all.”
The young Socialist Toller, who spoke out bravely for the young people in the Movement at the International, talked to me with the same bright hope in his shining eyes. Two or three months later he was sentenced to four years’ detention in a fortress for leading the Red Guards in a revolt against the Whites. I had talked with him long about the need for peacemakers in our Movement, and then he was a sincere and unqualified pacifist. His Red Guard exploit puzzled me; but it was explained to me that he had hoped to restrain the Red troops from committing excesses if he went with them, and that he did not actively provoke a violent attack. His release should be imminent—if he is not already free.
One of the most distinguished of German pacifists who attended this Conference was Professor A. W. Förster. Dr. Förster published a letter or manifesto during the war which made some of us wonder if he were the only Christian left in Europe, so brave and strong and unequivocal was it! He was for some years professor at the University of Munich; but during the war his pacifist attitude enraged the nationalist students and members of the Faculty. His lectures were continually interrupted by the demonstrations of these students, and the atmosphere of study made utterly impossible. He was therefore induced to take a year’s holiday on full pay, and retired to Switzerland to continue his pacifist activities there. One cannot help contrasting this treatment of its distinguished pacifist citizen by Bavaria with the treatment accorded to the Hon. Bertrand Russell by the British Government. Six months in prison for one of the greatest intellects that ever a country possessed for a sentence in a magazine article which offended them! It was an act which invited and excited the derision of the whole world of letters.
After the Bavarian Revolution, Professor Förster was made Minister to Switzerland under Kurt Eisner. His relations with his chief were very peculiar. These two men were equally firm and uncompromising in their pacifism, but in their political policy they differed. Eisner, like most Germans, favoured the union of Austria with Germany provided the Austrians themselves desired it. Förster was opposed to such a union. In articles, interviews and speeches he fought against the idea, and the people of Switzerland enjoyed the peculiar spectacle of the Prime Minister of a German State and his Minister taking opposite sides on one of the most important issues of foreign policy then exciting the interest of nations! Any other Prime Minister would have recalled Professor Förster. Any other Minister would have resigned. In spite of many remonstrances received, Eisner declined to dismiss his Minister. His worship of free speech was so great that he forgot all about the common sense of politics, which requires that the representative in a foreign country of any state should either support the policy of his Government or be deposed. Malicious critics saw nothing but duplicity in the extraordinary situation. They loudly and cynically averred that the two men were marching along two different roads to the same end; that there was a good deal of pretence about the business intended to deceive the general public and conceal their real design; that they were secretly hand in glove with one another. But it was not so. It was sincere comedy sincerely played by players who did not mean to be funny. It was one more demonstration of the effect of the supersession of government by the debating society, and of action by talk. I have the evidence of my own eyes and ears of the enthralling power of Dr. Förster’s eloquence upon the young men of Berne and of the captivating charm of Kurt Eisner’s theorizing oratory upon the delegates of a great Conference; but theories do not quell mutinies and dogmas do not deter the oppressor; and if ever there were a time when Bavaria (and Europe) stood in need of practical common-sense politics it was during the years succeeding the war and the revolutions.
I made one other friend from the city of Munich. There stepped into the lift in the Belle Vue Hotel one day, a tall, slender woman dressed in deep black who thanked me for something, I don’t know what, and began then and there a friendship I very deeply prize. Annette Kolb is said to have in her veins the blood of Bavarian kings. I know nothing about that. I only know there are few women of my acquaintance who have so much charm of personality as Miss Kolb. She is kind and tactful and of an extraordinary wit. In a dreary wilderness of men and women without humour she shot sparks of the divine fire and kept us from the deadly peril of unutterable boredom on many a weary occasion.
Annette is the child of a French mother and a German father. She is the perfect type of “one between the races.” To say that her soul is torn is no flippant use of serious language. It is written in her face. Her emotions ebb and flow. When France was down she was pro-French; now that Germany is out, she is probably pro-German. She wants a union in friendship of the two. She speaks continually of this. It is the great theme of her writings. She had rough treatment in Dresden when making a protest in public against the malignant lying of a certain section of the Press. Her book, “Briefe einer Deutsch-Französin” (Letters of a German-French), created a great stir in France and for a time was prohibited in Germany. She is a woman of most brilliant gifts. The intimate friend of Busoni, she is a first-rate musician herself. The friend also of the German poet Schickele she has a just appreciation of good verse, and writes well. She speaks several languages with the fluency of her native tongue, and her English is a model for many an Englishman.
There was one name on the list of delegates which attracted my special interest, Andreas Latzko, the author of the book which caused such a world-wide sensation, “Men in Battle.”