Lastly, let us cite a case in which cynicism is allied to pedantry. On the calcined walls of the Hôtel de Ville of Dinant (burned on the 23rd and 24th August, 1914) is a chronogram. The letters are cut in a slab of marble let into the wall facing the Meuse. The fire had rendered the inscription illegible, but the commandant of the town, in March 1915, had the slab re-painted black and the letters re-gilt. This is the inscription:—
paX et saLVs
neVtra LItateM
serVant IBVs DetVr.
("May peace and security be granted to those who preserve neutrality.")
(1637.)
Herr Otto Eduard Schmidt, returning from the French front by way of Dinant, was struck by this inscription. "I could not learn for certain," he says, "by questioning passing soldiers of the Landsturm, whether the inscription had lately been placed there or had merely been re-gilt. But in any case, I should regard it an insult to German authority, and I am astonished that this insult should be tolerated" (O. E. Schmidt, Eine Fahrt zu den Sachsen an die Front, p. 131). What would Herr Schmidt say if he knew that it was his own countrymen who, in a fit of shameless cynicism, caused this inscription to be renovated?
Surrender of the Critical Spirit. Refusal to Examine the Accusations of Cruelty.
Painfully moved by the horrors committed in Belgium, M. Charles Magnet, the National Grand Master of Belgian Freemasonry, wrote on the 9th September to nine German lodges, requesting them to institute, by common consent, an inquiry into the facts. Since the Germans denied the atrocities of which their troops were accused, and, on the other hand, were accusing the Belgians of maltreating the wounded, such an inquiry could only have a happy result. Two lodges only replied. "The request is superfluous; this inquiry would be an insult to our army," replied the Darmstadt lodge. "Our troops are not ill-conducted; it would even be dangerous to recommend them to display sensibility and kindness," replied the Bayreuth lodge.
The argument may be summarized thus: "We know, as Germans, that we possess the truth; it is useless, therefore, to go in search of it with the help of an impartial commission." In a second letter M. Magnet commented on these evasions, as contrary to the spirit of brotherhood as to the scientific spirit.
Let it not be supposed that the refusal to examine, objectively and impartially, the German and the Belgian accusations, is peculiar to Freemasonry. On the 24th January, 1915, Cardinal Mercier requested the German authorities in Belgium to set up a commission comprising both Germans and Belgians, under the presidency of a representative of a neutral country. His request was accorded no reply.
Thus the Germans refuse to allow any light to be thrown on their actions and those of the Belgians. Why this opposition to a faithful search for the truth? They fear, perhaps, that the truth will be unfavourable to them. That is undoubtedly one of their reasons; but we do not think it can be the only reason; and the principal reason for their refusal is without doubt the voluntary blindness to which they have one and all subjected themselves since the outbreak of the war.
They have decided, one would imagine, to accept, without any discussion, whatever is decreed by authority, which they invest with the absolute truth; every German calmly receives that portion of the truth which the Government thinks fit to dispense to its faithful, and no German permits himself to ask for more. Magister dixit: the Staff has spoken!