Ordeal by Battle

by Frederick Scott Oliver

The fact which it is necessary to face, fairly and squarely, is that we are fighting the whole German people. We may blame, and blame justly, the Prussian junkers, the German bureaucracy, the Kaiser himself, for having desired this war, schemed for it, set the match to it by intention or through a blunder; but to regard it as a Kaiser's war, or a junkers' war, or a bureaucrats' war is merely to deceive ourselves. It is a people's war if ever there was one. It could not have been more a people's war than it is, even if Germany had been a democracy like France or England.

The Kaiser, as regards this matter, is the mirror of his people. The Army and the Navy are his trusted servants against whom not a word will be believed. The wisdom of the bureaucracy is unquestioned. In matters of faith the zealous eloquence of the learned men is wholly approved. All classes are as one in devotion, and are moved by the same spirit of self-sacrifice. Hardly a murmur of criticism has been heard, even from the multitudes who at other times march under the red flag of Socialism.

Although a German panic with regard to Russia may have been the proximate occasion of this war, the force which most sustains it in its course is German hatred of England. We must recognise this fact with candour, however painful it may be. And we must also note that, during the past nine months, the feelings against England have undergone a change by no means for the better.

At the beginning the German people, if we may judge from published utterances, were convinced that the war had been engineered by Russia, and that England had meanly joined in it, because she saw her chance of crushing a dangerous and envied rival.

Two months later, however, it was equally clear that the German people were persuaded—Heaven knows how or why!—that the war had been engineered by England, who was using France and Russia as her tools. Behind Russia, France, Belgium, Servia, and Japan—according to this view—stood Britain—perfidious throughout the ages—guiding her puppets with indefatigable skill to the destruction of German trade, colonies, navy, and world-power.

FANTASTIC ERRORS

Confiding Germany, in spite of all her unremitting abuse of Britain, had apparently, for some reason, really believed her to be a friend and a fellow Teuton! Could any treachery have been blacker than our own in outraging these family affections? And for Britain to support the Slav and the Celt against the Teuton, was judged to be the worst treachery of all—race treachery—especially by the Prussians, who, having forgotten that they themselves are half Slavs, seemed also to have forgotten that the British are largely Celts.

Every Englishman, whether he be an admirer of Sir Edward Grey's administration of Foreign Affairs or not, knows these dark suspicions to be merely nonsense. He knows this as one of the common certainties of existence—just as he knows that ginger is hot i' the mouth. Every Englishman knows that Sir Edward Grey, his colleagues, his advisers, his supporters in Parliament and out of it, and the whole British race throughout the world, hated the idea of war, and would have done—and in fact did, so far as in them lay—everything they could think of to avert it. Yet the German people do not at present believe a single word of this; and there must be some reason for their disbelief as for other things.

Unfortunately the nations of the world never see one another face to face. They carry on their intercourse, friendly and otherwise, by high-angle fire, from hidden batteries of journalistic howitzers. Sometimes the projectiles which they exchange are charged with ideal hate which explodes and kills; at others with ideal love and admiration which dissolve in golden showers, delightful and amazing to behold. But always the gunners are invisible to each other, and the ideal love and admiration are often as far removed from the real merits of their objective as the ideal hate.

That there was no excuse, beyond mere fancy on Germany's part, for her distrust of British policy, no one, unless he were wholly ignorant of the facts, would dream of maintaining. During the years which have passed since 1870, our intentions have very rarely been unfriendly. Still more rarely, however, have we ever shown any real comprehension of the German point of view. Never have we made our policy clear. The last is hardly to be wondered at, seeing that we had not ourselves taken the pains to understand it.