“Hate disorganises, love disciplines. Fill yourselves with deepest sympathy for all who suffer in war, whose hearts are crushed, whose bodies are broken, whose homes are burned ... and win a peace which shall make the recurrence of such things for ever impossible. Such a purification from the passion of hate is often easier on the field than at home. Those who remain behind have an abstract enemy in view. The soldier sees living men who suffer and die like himself.” It will startle the English reader to find Dr. Förster pleading earnestly that the English soldier is not responsible for the ways of his government or of his leaders. The Germans are to remain true to themselves whatever the others may do. Each side, observe, accuses the other of barbarous methods, and impartiality is impossible. The most that one can expect of the ardent partisan is perhaps that he should, like Dr. Förster, urge those on his side to remain true to their ideals, whatever the enemy may do. “England has given us also the Salvation Army, and invaluable higher points of view for the treatment of Labour questions and social work. She has taught our revolutionary spirits and moderated our party passions. Let us always remember this, and in that remembrance grasp again in the future the proffered hand.” For Dr. Förster it is for this better England that Germany now fights, just as for many an Englishman it is for the better Germany that England is fighting. “And it is better for us to fight for that better England than to rage and spit upon ... Grey and his followers. In sleepless nights kindle the eternal light of Christ in your souls and try to love your enemies. Think of that great William Booth and of all the English greatness and goodness embodied in him; of Florence Nightingale, the heroine and saint, whose pioneer work is still binding up to-day unnumbered wounds; and think of Carlyle, Ruskin, and Toynbee and of those mighty forces of conscience which spoke in their words and gave to us Germans, and will give us yet, so much that is great.”
Again:
“Christ stands against war and above war. He who loses sight of this truth slays that deep conscience of civilisation which is meant to goad us unceasingly on to allay this fury of war. We know well that if we were Christians there would be no war.” Förster denounces the bawling haters “who must open their mouths 42 centimetres wide,” and think that he who does not do it is no patriot.
“To conquer and silence them must be your first task, young men of the new Germany; you who have been purified by sacrifice and suffering. For what would it profit our people if it gained the whole world and lost its own soul?” May we not, mutatis mutandis, take this appeal to heart ourselves?
“The essence and foundation of the State is precisely the opposite of power, viz., law, treaty, fellowship between opposed interests, and the whole outer strength of a State rests upon the depth and firmness of these, its inner conditions and links. Therefore the first commandment of life for the State is not to create for itself might but to care for the ethical unity of its members, for the supremacy of the conscience and the sense of law above rude self-interest.”—(Quoted in the Ethical Movement, October, 1915.)
Granted that voices such as those of Herzog, Förster, Schücking, Schwantje are a minority, it is yet plain that they represent more than themselves. The existence of such reviews and utterances implies the existence of at least many thousands who have not been deluded by their governors. Of those who have been deluded into enmity, but who have never dreamed of world dominance, there are, I am convinced, many millions. Bernhardi was introduced to Germany by England. There were four million Social Democrats. They have defended their country, but they have never dreamed of aggression. The time will come to claim the help of these men and the many others of the wiser Germany. That wiser Germany will yet live to be, not an army of destruction, but an army of progress.
Henrietta Thomas, of Baltimore, Maryland, went early in 1915 with a message of fellowship from English people to German people. There was some surprise, some tendency to view the message as Utopian, but always a cordial acknowledgment and a real goodwill. Dr. Siegmund Schulze was most heartily in sympathy. “He feels that the ultimate hope of peace lies in the increasing use of arbitration.” “One very sweet-spirited elderly gentleman in Berlin said that when he prayed things looked different—he seemed to see things through God’s eyes—but as a man he had to fight.” “At Stuttgart and Frankfurt I found the peace people more thoroughgoing in their sentiments.” The secretary of the Stuttgart Peace Society said: “The armed peace of Europe is an exploded idea. As long as we have armies we shall use them. We must educate the people to realise this, and to work for disarmament.”
Lichtstrahlen was originally founded as an independent monthly periodical by a Socialist, Julian Borchardt. The periodical was unofficial and had a difficult struggle for existence. This was before the war. When the war broke out the editor took as strong a line against it as the censor allowed. The circulation rose so much that Borchardt was able to convert the monthly into a weekly. Rosa Luxembourg and Frank Mehring, greatly daring, started the Internationale with the object of rebuilding the International Labour and Socialist movement during the war. The review was instantly suppressed, but was reprinted afterwards at Berne. Among the contributors is the well-known Clara Zetkin. She refers enthusiastically to the Christmas message sent by British women to the women of Germany and other belligerent countries. (Labour Leader, June 17, 1915.) Marie Engelmann, of Dresden, has protested with equal strength.