Face to Face with Kaiserism

by James W. Gerard

A similar feeling has step by step got hold of the British nation. From not being very popular at its beginning in England, the war has come to be regarded as a greater national concern than any of its predecessors. The frantic if not hysterical outbursts of hatred against England in Germany when the former decided to stand by France in the war were at first not taken too seriously. But by and by the unceasing utterances of spite have, together with the known acts of German aerial and submarine warfare, deeply reacted on the British mind. The feeling is now general that England has never before had an enemy so full of hatred against her, so ardently desirous of causing her irreparable harm as she now has in present day Germany.

Even such socialist papers as the New Statesman, which before the war had no anti-German bias at all, have arrived at the same conclusion concerning what may be called a German peace as the French socialist politician whose opinions were given above characterised it. In an article called "The Case for the Allies," and especially addressed to Americans, the New Statesman explains in its number of December 30th that peace with an unbeaten Germany would mean "Mittel Europa from the Baltic to the Black Sea," that nothing would prevent its expansion through the Balkans to El Arish and Bagdad, that throughout this vast area the authority, if not the suzerainty, of Berlin would be acknowledged and that the small European States north and northwest of Germany would without any resistance—by the mere force of things—come to be subjected to the dictate of Germany. In the words of the New Statesman, as the result of an inconclusive peace, "militarism would be more firmly established than ever by the record of its marvellous success and by the manifest need for a military organisation proportionate to so vast an expansion."

Is this feeling justified? Does it appreciate facts at their exact value? There is undoubtedly an influential section in Germany which entertains feelings of this kind. It has its adherents particularly in naval circles and amongst the intellectuals of the nation and in a considerable degree also in the financial world. These sections hate in England partly the happy possessor of what in their opinion ought by right to belong to the German race and partly the power without which German expansion would meet with no resistance worth speaking of by European nations. This section of anti-English on principle or by deeply rooted hatred, influential as it is, is, however, not the whole nation. It has only now the hold of her mind because it has succeeded in instilling into her the belief that England is the secret manufacturer of the present war, that she is the selfish fermenter of hatred in Europe, the scheming brewer of strife on the Continent. England has become to the average German mind a real nightmare, a sort of a Frankenstein or any such spookish monster, and as she now, by the vicissitudes of the war, has indeed become the most dangerous of Germany's opponents it is not possible to educate people from the inside to a more rational view of her part in this war and in European politics altogether.

There you have the greatest hindrances to peace in Europe. I did not mention Russia. But the war between Germany, inclusive of Austria-Hungary, and Russia is of quite a different nature. It is more of a war of the older order. It has, of course, also evoked a good deal of hatred. But on the whole it is as wars go, more of an objective nature. There are material differences on which it would not be impossible to compromise. But there is no such deeply-seated irrational opposition, which now sets Germans and English and French and Germans against each other. The war between the Central Powers and Russia is, comparatively speaking, an accident in the political history of Europe. The war between England, France and Germany is a catastrophe in European civilisation. As a war it is most irrational, and just because of its absurdity it is so utterly difficult to find a solution for it, and there is little hope that unless some outside force intervenes, it may end otherwise than by absolute general exhaustion.

Things would be otherwise if there were reasonable hopes of a concerted action on the part of the international union of the socialist parties. But such hopes, if they ever could be entertained, have by now become a thing of the past. In the three countries named the majority of the leaders of organised labour have taken sides in the war alongside of their governments and have by this more or less given up independency and lost the confidence of their former comrades in the opposite camp. Distrust, which in general has so much contributed to bring about this war, prevails also in the ranks of the socialists in regard to the leaders of the movement on the other side of the frontier. Minorities everywhere work for a greater independency as a step to a better international understanding. But they have as yet nowhere succeeded in winning the majority of the movement over to their views and policy, and even if they did, all sorts of hindrances would by the governments be put in the way of these Socialists to assemble internationally in sufficient number for work of this nature.

Nor is it to be expected that revolts of the discontented masses will be vast enough to force the governments into peace negotiations against their will. The possibilities of centralised governments against revolutionary upheavals as long as these remain locally isolated, which in the face of the enormous extent of the section of the globe directly drawn into the war is most probable, are too great to let these movements have a great chance of changing the policy of the rulers. This would only happen when at least some of these classes or parties which at present support the war come round to their opinion, of which very few signs are at present to be seen. The work of small minorities everywhere, the war has got hold of the minds of the millions in all countries and has filled nations against nations with such distrust and spite as in the history of civilised mankind never before have been witnessed.

How little we are justified to expect peace from the action of these socialists who stand by governments in the war is, as far as my own country is concerned, shown by the fact that the big meetings now (and, I am willing to admit, it is the intention of the initiators to hold them in favour of peace) led by the leaders of the majority of the social-democratic party, such as Messrs. Scheidemann, David, Ebert and others, turn out in practice as meetings in support of the policy of the government in regard to the question of war and peace. In order to defend their own political attitude the speakers are compelled to shift the responsibility for the war and its continuation wholly on the shoulders of the governments of the opposite countries and their supporters, and by this they increase in the mind of their hearers the conviction that nothing short of a defeat of these countries will bring the war to a desirable end. In England the majority of the Labour Party and a considerable number of the best known socialist leaders and in France the most influential leaders of socialist party support also the war policy of their respective governments in all principal issues. The well meant and praiseworthy attempts to convene a full International Socialist Congress for the purpose of settling these differences by finding a common line of action are, I am sorry to say, under the circumstances most likely to prove abortive. They will founder on the self-contradiction that the Socialists of the Entente countries argue that their governments hate the idea of German militarism coming out unbeaten and unreduced out of this war which in their opinion was provoked by it, whilst the leaders of the German Socialists in power would rather see this same militarism which they in former years have so violently attacked and denounced, come out victorious than have it interfered with by outside influence.

In short, sections of the socialist movement will assist other forces in the action for peace, but the movement as a whole is incapable to act in the matter as a force of compelling strength.

Help must in the main come from outside. Consequently President Wilson's action in his note to the belligerents of December 20th would have been the right thing, even if it had offended in some way against the rules of diplomatic procedure. Under so exceptional circumstances as these occasioned by the present war extraordinary steps are certainly justified and breaches of etiquette of little significance. But the note was faultless in this respect, and it can moreover be said that in no way did it endanger legitimate interests of the one or the other section of the belligerents. It offends only in spirit against Cain's word, "Am I my brother's keeper?" and in distinct words against the conception that war is a private affair of states may it ever so much interfere with the material and moral welfare of other nations.

The step has not at once succeeded. But it has opened the way; nay, it has forced the door open for discussion in a fashion that nobody will be strong enough to shut it again. True, the Central Powers have by their offer of peace negotiations forestalled the note by a week. But this offer would have come to naught without Mr. Wilson's action. Harsh as the reply of the Allies is to the offer, it would most likely have been put in much more negating terms had not the American note caused the Entente Allies to avoid a blunt "No" and content themselves with raising objections and interjecting accusations. By this they have willy-nilly provoked a debate and instead of shutting the door kept it well open.