Again we learn that the State must not allow any conventional sympathies to distract it from its object and that “conditions may arise which are more powerful than the most honorable intentions.”
All efforts directed towards the abolition of war are denominated as not only “foolish but absolutely immoral.” To indicate that in this prosecution of war for the increase of dominion, chivalry would be a weakness and magnanimity a crime, we are finally told that “the State is a law unto itself” and that “weak nations have not the same right to live as powerful and vigorous nations.” Even as to weak nations, we are further advised that the powerful and vigorous nation—which alone apparently has the right to live—must not wait for some act of aggression or legitimate casus belli, but that it is justified in deliberately provoking a war, and that the happiest results have always followed such “deliberately provoked wars,” for “the prospects of success are the greatest when the moment for declaring war can be selected to suit the political and military situation.”
As the weak nations have no moral right to live it becomes important to remember that in the economy of Prussian Junkerdom there is only one strong race—his own. “Wir sind die Weltrasse.” The ultimate goal is the super-nation, and the premise upon which the whole policy is based is that Germany is predestined to be that super-nation. Bernhardi believes—and his belief is but the reflex of the oft-repeated boast of the Kaiser—that history presents no other possibility. “For us there are two alternatives and no third—world power or ruin” (Weltmacht oder Niedergang). To assimilate Germany to ancient Rome the Kaiser on occasion reminds himself of Cæsar and affects to reign, not by the will of the people, but by divine right. No living monarch has said or done more to revive this mediæval fetich. To his soldiers he has recently said: “You think each day of your Emperor. Do not forget God.” What magnanimity!
At the outbreak of the present war he again illustrated his spirit of fanatical absolutism, which at times inspires him, by saying to his army:
Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, as German Emperor, the spirit of God has descended. I am His weapon; His sword; His Vicegerent. Woe to the disobedient! Death to cowards and unbelievers!
The modern world has had nothing like this since Mahomet and, accepted literally, it claims for the Kaiser the divine attributes attributed to the Cæsars. Even the Cæsars, in baser and more primitive times, found posing as a divine superman somewhat difficult and disconcerting. Shakespeare subtly suggests this when he makes his Cæsar talk like a god and act with the vacillation of a child.
When the war was precipitated as the natural result of such abhorrent teachings, the world at large knew little either of Treitschke or Bernhardi. Thoughtful men of other nations did know that the successful political immoralities of Frederick the Great had profoundly affected the policies of the Prussian Court to this day. The German poet, Freiligrath, once said that “Germany is Hamlet,” but no analogy is less justified. There is nothing in the supersensitive, introspective, and amiable dreamer of Elsinore to suggest the Prussia of to-day, which Bebel has called “Siegesbetrunken.” (Victory-drunk.)
Since the beginning of the present war, the world has become familiar with these abhorrent teachings and as a result of a general revolt against this recrudescence of Borgiaism attempts have been made by the apologists for Prussia, especially in the United States, to suggest that neither Treitschke nor Bernhardi fairly reflect the political philosophy of official Germany. Treitschke’s influence as an historian and lecturer could not well be denied but attempts have been made to impress America that Bernhardi has no standing to speak for his country and that the importance of his teachings should therefore be minimized.
Apart from the wide popularity of Bernhardi’s writings in Germany, the German Government has never repudiated Bernhardi’s conclusions or disclaimed responsibility therefor. While possibly not an officially authorized spokesman, yet he is as truly a representative thinker in the German military system as Admiral Mahan was in the Navy of the United States. Of the acceptance by Prussia of Bernhardi’s teachings there is one irrefutable proof. It is Belgium. The destruction of that unoffending country is the full harvest of this twentieth-century Machiavelliism.
A few recent utterances from a representative physician, a prominent journalist, and a distinguished retired officer of the German Army may be quoted as showing how completely infatuated a certain class of German thinkers has become with the gospel of force for the purpose of attaining world power.