Face to Face with Kaiserism

by James W. Gerard

Our President has never faltered. He will convince the Germans at last that we are unfaltering, in the war, that nothing can swerve us from our goal,—the destruction of the autocracy which looks on war as good and seeks the dominion of the earth. When the Germans grasp that, then will come the suicide point.

There is nothing in the war for the German who is not a noble or a junker, an officer or an official. German victory will only bend the collar of caste and servitude, low wages and militarism tighter on the German neck. Sooner or later the deceived German will discover this; revolution will not come during the war, but after it, unless it closes with a German peace, or unless in anticipation of revolt, rights are granted to the people.

We cannot stop, we cannot bear the burden of the debts of this war and at the same time burden ourselves with future military preparation to meet a confident conquering Germany ready to carry the sword into South America. Whatever the sacrifice, we must go on.

And for each country and for the Allies as a whole there is one word, Unity.

When all had signed our Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin said, "And now we must all hang together or we all shall hang separately."

Russia has, for the moment, failed and unless she recovers herself she will pay the penalty by submission to German rule.

Is there a defect in the Russian character? Is persistency lacking? In 1760, the Russian troops had taken Berlin. If Russia had gone on strongly with the war, the power of Frederick the Great might have been broken. But apparently the Russian troops simply turned around and went back to Russia. In 1854, in the Crimean War, after a long siege and bitter losses, the French, Turks, English and Sardinians succeeded in taking one Russian city, Sebastopol, in the extreme southern part of Russia. With this exception, Russian territory was intact and yet the Czar Alexander II, shortly after the death of Nicholas, begged for peace. As a result the Black Sea was made for a time neutral and no state could have warships or arsenals on it with the exception of small gunboats for police purposes.

In 1878, after the Russo-Turkish war, when the Russian troops were in sight of the minarets of Constantinople, the Russians allowed themselves to be bluffed by the diplomats of Europe from obtaining the fruits of victory.

Secretly or openly, Germany will propose to the world to take her pay from the skin of the Bear, from the conquered territories of Russia which remain in her possession. The inhabitants of those territories would have to become the slaves of Prussia as did the inhabitants of Belgium and Northern France. Prussians of Russia paid the agitators to talk about peace without indemnities. Germany, since the first days of the war, has been taking indemnities not only in money, but in property and in labour from the conquered countries. Belgium alone has been compelled to pay a tribute of forty-million francs a month (lately sixty million) to her conquerors and vast sums have been exacted from Lille and other conquered cities. Property, including machinery, has been seized and transported to Germany in the effort, not only to obtain a temporary advantage, but to destroy forever factories that compete with German manufacturers.

Especially do the German autocrats hope to obtain the so-called Baltic provinces as a spoil of war. Of Courland, Livonia and Esthonia now largely occupied by the German invaders, Courland and Livonia were originally possessions of the Teutonic Knights, then became a part of Poland and finally passed to Russia. The three provinces were governed semi-independently, until 1876, when they became in all respects an integral part of the Russian Empire. The land in the provinces is held by great landowners, mostly of German blood—and the mass of the population belongs to the Lutheran Church. The peasants have been kept down by the lords of the soil, whose sympathies turn to Germany.