It has lasted for eleven months. How much longer will it continue?
Our sentries are even more impatient than we are ourselves. They grumble and faultfind. “It is too bad!” they exclaim. “Do you think it will be over in a month?” they ask us. “Pooh!” we answer; “in a year perhaps, or maybe two, when we have conquered the autocracy which tyrannizes over you!” They stare at us blankly, utterly disheartened.
These poor fellows are suffering. They have many children, six, seven, or eight. Their savings are exhausted, and the wolf is at the door. When we are marching to work, they recount their troubles to Brissot and to me, confidingly and deferentially, as they would to an elder brother. They are good by nature, simple-minded, somewhat subservient, weighted by innumerable centuries of silent submission. One perceives so clearly that they have not effected their revolution, and that despite parliamentary suffrage and the Reichstag they are still under the dominion of the feudal age.
Through studying them closely, and through talking with them, it seems to me that I am beginning to understand this huge and mysterious Germany. I knew something of the élite of the country, but was quite ignorant of the common people, workmen, peasants, and lower middle class. But these are the backbone of Germany.
How different is their world from ours! In France we read the paper; we have political ideas; we influence the appointment of ministers; we take sides passionately, for or against Pelletan, for or against Clemenceau, for or against Poincaré; every one of our village orators has good advice to give to our admirals, our generals, and our diplomats. How unlike Germany! Nothing can equal the ignorance of these folk in public matters. Think of a French agriculturist of the days of Louis XIV, hardworking and kindly, engrossed in domestic cares, knowing that it is hard to gain a livelihood and occupied in this pursuit by day and by night; accepting princes, seigneurs, taxes, corvées, and wars as one accepts sunshine, rain, hail, and frost, without venturing to pass any judgment upon them; saying that these things have been, are, and will be, that he himself is but a poor man, that every one has his own trade, that it is the king’s to govern and his to provide a living for his family; there you have the political essence of the German peasant and the German workman. Monarchy, republic, foreign relations, double alliance or triple alliance—don’t waste your time talking to him about these. Should you do so, he will listen, he will express a civil assent, and will fall asleep over his beer.
A Frenchman cannot understand how utterly indifferent are the common people in Germany to political ideas and to questions of state. A Frenchman, whether he knows it or not, and even if he believes himself to be a monarchist, reasons like a leader. He speaks as if he were himself a part of the king, and a considerable part. He eagerly discusses the affairs of the country. Militarist or anti-militarist, he is patriotic to the core—patriotic like the sovereign he is. Should the foreigner insult France, he is personally insulted; this is his own business; the offence is not offered to some distant prince; it touches himself, the individual king; it makes his own skin tingle. This was obvious at the mobilization; it remains obvious after a year of war. It is not simply a caste which detests the Kaiser and his satellites and wishes to subdue them; these feelings animate every Frenchman, be he minister or cobbler. For France, one and indivisible, is truly a free nation, a collection of autonomous individuals who have determined to live together, who know themselves to have been entrusted with the most exalted of human missions, and each one of whom makes the fulfilment of that mission a point of personal honour.
How different is Germany! The country possesses an élite of persons well equipped for administration and rule, and this endows her national life with a fine aspect of cohesion. But directly we examine more closely, doubts arise; we see that the cohesion is no more than apparent; there are those who theorize about Germany as a whole, but there is not one Germany; between the people and the leaders there is no intimate solidarity, no communion of love, hope, and will. Above, there is an empyrean of men who believe themselves superhuman, who utter claims, trace plans, issue orders (Befehle), who, as if at section drill, thunder out commands to Germany and to the world at large; below, there is a swarm of good and peaceable folk, all engaged in their insignificant private affairs, and making no attempt to interfere in the loftier mysteries.
Doubtless, in the lower regions, respect is felt for the empyrean; people tremble before it, as before the eye of God; but there is no risk that they will attempt to penetrate its designs. They are faithful subjects, and they obey. They are soldiers when the time comes for enrolment, and good soldiers; when the order for mobilization is issued, they go to the war; when the ritual demands it, they shout hurrahs “for king and country.” But at bottom, if words have any meaning, they are not patriots. Militarists, yes; easily regimented, yes; patriots, no.
It is true that they would be greatly astonished if any one were to say to them point-blank: “You don’t care a fig for your country!” They all believe themselves to be good, honest, and loyal Germans. Are they not obedient to the death? Certainly they are. But they would be equally obedient, with very little feeling of disturbance at the change, to George V or to Poincaré; and they would obey just as well in a republic as in a monarchy. It is not their business to be patriots (for this presupposes a degree of liberty, and of internal sovereignty, to which they have not yet attained), but to be good subjects. To obey, unfailingly and without discussion; to abase themselves devoutly before authority; to be subservient to their leader, whoever he may be; to carry out orders whencesoever derived, be they democratic or be they Cæsarian—this it is to be a good German. Active as he is in private affairs, he is passive in religion, with a sort of mystical fervour, and he is passive in his relationships to authority. The Germans hardly realize this, and yet to us it is so obvious.