My Four Years in Germany

by James W. Gerard

This writing on the wall--these letters forming the word "Zabern"--the actions of the Social Democrats and their growing boldness, all were warnings to the autocracy of its waning power, and impelled that autocracy towards war as a bloodletting cure for popular discontent.

Prussia, which has imposed its will, as well as its methods of thought and life on all the rest of Germany, is undoubtedly a military nation.

More than one hundred and twenty-five years ago Mirabeau, the great French orator at the commencement of the Revolution, said, "War is the national industry of Prussia." Later, Napoleon remarked that Prussia "was hatched from a cannon ball," and shortly before the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 the French military attaché, in reporting to his government, wrote that "other countries possessed an army, but in Prussia the army possessed the country."

In practice the class of nobles in Prussia owns the army. Officers may enter the army in two ways, either by enlisting in the regiment, first as private and then being rapidly promoted to the position of non-commissioned officer, and then probationary ensign, or avantageur; or the young aspirant may come directly from a two years' course in one of the cadet schools and enter the regiment as probationary ensign. In both cases the young officer is observed by the officers during a period of probation and can become an officer of that regiment only by the consent of the regimental officers. In other words, each regiment is like a club, the officers having the right of black-ball.

This system has practically confined the professional officers to a class of nobles. It is not at all unusual to find in a regiment officers whose ancestors were officers of the same regiment two hundred years or more ago.

In addition to these officers who make the army their career, a certain number of Germans, after undergoing an enlistment in the army of one year and two periods of training thereafter, are made reserve officers. These reserve officers are called to the colours for manoeuvres and also, of course, when the whole nation is arrayed in war. These reserve officers seldom attain a rank higher than that of captain. They may, however, while exercising civil functions, be promoted, and in this manner the Chancellor, while occupying civil positions, has gradually been promoted to the rank of General and von Jagow, during the war, to the rank of Major. As a rule reserve officers are the one-yearers, or Einjähriger, who, because they have attained a certain standard of education, serve only one year with the army instead of the two required from others. The Bavarian army is in a sense independent of Prussia, but is modelled on the same system.

For years officers of the army, both in the discharge of their duties and outside, have behaved in a very arrogant way toward the civil population. Time and again, while I was in Germany waiting in line at some ticket office, an officer has shoved himself ahead of all others without even a protest from those waiting. On one occasion, I went to the races in Berlin with my brother-in-law and bought a box. While we were out looking at the horses between the races, a Prussian officer and his wife seated themselves in our box. I called the attention of one of the ushers to this, but the usher said that he did not dare ask a Prussian officer to leave, and it was only after sending for the head usher and showing him my Jockey Club badge and my pass as Ambassador, that I was able to secure possession of my own box.

There have been many instances in Germany where officers having a slight dispute with civilians have instantly cut the civilian down. Instances of this kind and the harsh treatment of the Germans by officers and under-officers, while serving in the army, undoubtedly created in Germany a spirit of antagonism not only to the army itself but to the whole military system of Prussia. Affairs were brought to a head by the so-called Zabern Affair. In this affair the internal antagonism between the civil population and professional soldiers, which had assumed great proportions in a period of long peace, seemed to reach its climax. Of course this antagonism had increased with the increase in 1913-14 of the effective strength of the standing army, bringing a material increase in the numbers of officers and non-commissioned officers who represent military professionalism.

The Imperial Provinces or Reichsland, as Alsace and Lorraine are called, had been in a peculiar position within the body politic of Germany since their annexation in 1870. The Reichsland, as indicated by its name, was to be considered as common property of the German Empire and was not annexed to any one German State. Its government is by an Imperial Viceroy, with a kind of cabinet consisting of one Secretary of State, Civil and Under Secretaries and Department heads, assisted by a legislative body of two chambers, one elected by popular vote and the other consisting of members partly elected by municipal bodies, universities, churches and so forth, and partly appointed by the Imperial Government. The Viceroy and his cabinet are appointed by the Emperor in his capacity of the sovereign of the Reichsland. Until the thirty-first of May, 1911, the Reichsland had no constitution of its own, the form of its government being regulated by the Reichstag and Federal Council (Bundesrat) in about the same way as the territories of the United States are ruled by Congress and the President. In 1911, Alsace-Lorraine received a constitution which gave it representation in the Federal Council, representation in the Reichstag having already been granted as early as 1871. The sympathy of Alsace-Lorraine for France had been increased by the policy of several of the German viceroys,--von Manteuffel, Prince Hohenlohe, Prince Münster and Count Wedel, who had, in their administrations, alternated severe measures with great leniency and had not improved conditions, so that the population, essentially South German, was undoubtedly irritated by the tone and manner of the North German officials.

Great industries had been developed by the Imperial Government, especially textile and coal mining, and the industrial population centering in Mülhausen was hotly and thoroughly Social Democratic. The upper or well-to-do classes were tied to France by family connections and by religion. The bourgeois remained mildly anti-German, more properly speaking, anti-government, for similar reasons, and the working men were opposed to the government on social and economic grounds. The farming population, not troubling much about the politics, but being affected by the campaign of the nationalistic press, were in sympathy with France; so the atmosphere was well prepared for the coming storm.