“What are you thinking about, my dear enemy?” said von Stengel all at once with a smile.—“Herr Kommandant,” I replied, in an access of dull rage, “dieser Krieg wird die grosse Schande Europas sein!”[26]
Slowly, to suit the baron, we descended the incline, soft beneath our feet, the turf torn, and littered with fragments of shell; here and there grew handsome stone-pines with twisted trunks. Being unable to run, I was shivering in my summer clothing. We took the road beside the hop-garden, and as we walked the baron gave me his views upon the war.
In truth, all he did was to repeat the words of Harnack, Lujo Brentano, Troeltsch, Willamovitz-Moellendorff, and the hundred representatives of German Kultur. As I listened, I seemed to be re-reading the articles which these writers were now publishing in the war editions of the Internationale Monatsschrift:
“Germany has never desired anything but peace; William is the peace emperor; Sir Edward Grey is the villain of the drama; English commercialism led to the war; Germany was suddenly seized by the throat and had to defend herself; she is engaged in a life and death struggle.…
“Ueber welches Volk wird einst das Tribunal der Weltgeschichte den Urteilsspruch ‘Schuldig’ fallen? Eins ist gewiss! Deutschland kann dem Urteilsspruch mit reinem Gewissen entgegen sehen.”[27]
I had no interest in all this. If the major had been a man of my own age, I should have bluntly begged him to spare me these phrases of the good bourgeois who has just been reading the newspapers. I should have said to him: “In actual fact, our respective countries are at war. Let us leave it to our grandchildren, should they have a fancy for writing history, to ascertain who is responsible for this butchery. But as far as I am myself concerned, be good enough to consider me a man of sound intelligence, and don’t attempt to befool me with your political myths. I agree that these myths have their uses, and that they are necessary for the soldier. To him one must lie perforce. Above all, in our democratic epoch, the violent man does wisely to wear sheep’s clothing, and to give himself the air of defending civilization and humanity, for otherwise the citizen would never be willing to play the part of soldier. If needs must, the citizen will allow himself to be killed for the sake of principles, or in defence of hearth and home, but never for the interest of the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, or a business corporation. Agreed, the aggressor must lie.
“But we are not now on a public platform; we are not composing a proclamation. Do not let us deceive ourselves, nor soil our minds with a superfluous falsehood.”
But to this old man I said nothing of the sort. I listened patiently. The wind bit my ears, and my body seemed a vast Siberia. As I walked, I looked at the birches, each one of which was known to me individually. Their delicate ramifications, now leafless, hung like horses’ manes. But the youngest trees, those whose tresses were not yet grown, so that their branches pointed directly upwards like the twigs of an ill-made besom, still retained some sparse foliage. In the icy wind, the white of their stems standing out against the greenish-black of the acacias in the ditch had a somewhat funereal air.
“War,” said von Stengel, “is an essential condition of social life. Without war, the human race would become anæmic, would slip back into barbarism, ignorance, and hebetude. Even though man loves peace, he must also be a great fighter before the Lord, ein Streiter vor dem Herrn. Do not imagine that wars are the work of a few men; the ferment works in the very heart of the race, and when this happens the maintenance of peace becomes impossible. The friction is so great, the heat generated is so intense, that the flames burst forth spontaneously. Then patience is out of place, and it is necessary to unsheathe the sword. Blood, much blood, must flow to appease the fierce angers and to restore men to their customary calm.”