In short, all the political parties, without exception, have abdicated their liberty of thought, to accept, obsequiously and without the slightest attempt at discussion, the ready-made opinions provided by authority. Such, in Germany, is the power of discipline, that all have submitted without protest—one might almost say wantonly—to the voluntary extirpation of the critical spirit. But the inevitable results of this servility were not long in showing themselves; having renounced the employment of reason, the Germans now accept the most extravagant lies.
German Credulity.
We have remarked that one day a curious book may be written as to the expedients invented by the Belgians to obtain news from abroad and to distribute it throughout the country. Equally interesting—but how discouraging, from the standpoint of the progressive evolution of the human mind—will be the book containing the amazing examples of credulity afforded by the Germans during this war. When speaking of the German accusations against the Belgians we cited the case of the rifles collected in the Hôtel de Ville, which were exhibited to the German soldiers as the irrefutable proof of the official premeditation of the "franc-tireur" campaign (p. [90] Not only were the soldiers thus deluded. A well-known novelist, Herr Fedor von Zobeltitz, visiting in Antwerp a museum of arms, which contained war weapons of the Middle Ages, cried: "See how Belgium made ready for the war!" Was he sincere? It is difficult to say, for artists often allow their sensibility to run away with them. One may say the same of the Kaiser, who also declared that Belgium had long been preparing for the "war of francs-tireurs"; and even, perhaps, of Herr Bethmann-Hollweg, who spoke, in his manifesto to the American newspapers, of gouged-out eyes and other atrocities whose falsity he could very easily have ascertained.
News published by the German Government.
Berlin, 10th September.—The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung publishes the following telegram addressed by the Emperor to President Wilson of the United States:—
"I consider it my duty, Mr. President, to inform you, in your quality of a most distinguished representative of humanitarian principles, of the fact that my troops discovered, after the capture of the French fortress of Longwy, in that fortress, thousands of dum-dum bullets made in special workshops by the Government. Bullets of the same kind have been found on dead soldiers, or wounded or prisoners, of English nationality. You know what horrible wounds and sufferings are caused by these balls, and that their employment is forbidden by the recognized principles of international law. I therefore raise a solemn protest against such a mode of making war, which has become, thanks to the methods of our adversaries, one of the most barbarous of history.
"Not only have they themselves employed this cruel weapon, but the Belgian Government has openly encouraged the civil population to take part in this war, which it had carefully for a long time prepared. The cruelties inflicted, in the course of this guerilla war, by women and even by priests, upon wounded soldiers, doctors, and hospital nurses (doctors have been killed and hospitals fired on) have been such that my generals have finally found themselves obliged to resort to the most rigorous means to chastise the guilty and to prevent the bloodthirsty population from continuing these abominable, criminal, and hateful acts. Many villages, and even the city of Louvain, have had to be demolished (except the very beautiful Hôtel de Ville) in the interest of our defence and the protection of our troops. My heart bleeds when I see that such measures have been rendered inevitable, and when I think of the innumerable innocent persons who have lost their homes and their belongings as a result of the deeds of the criminals in question.
"Wilhelm I.R."
The German Military Government.Declaration of the Chancellor of the Empire to the Associated and United Press, New York.
... In this way England will tell your compatriots that the German troops have burned and sacked Belgian towns and villages, but she will carefully conceal the fact that young Belgian girls have gouged out the eyes of wounded men stretched defenceless on the field of battle, that the functionaries of Belgian towns have invited German officers to dinner and have treacherously shot them dead at table. Contrary to international law, the whole civil population of Belgium has been called to arms[33] and has treacherously risen against our troops with concealed arms and a perfidy incredible after having first of all feigned a friendly welcome. Belgian women have cut the throats of German soldiers quartered on them while they slept....
Journal de la Guerre (an organ of German propaganda).
We will suppose, for the time being—to be extremely generous to the Kaiser and his Chancellor—that they accepted, in good faith, the accusations of cruelty brought against the Belgians, and that they carefully refrained from investigating them, so that they should not be forced to recognize their imbecility.
Voluntary Blindness of the "Intellectual."
Perhaps it will be objected that the examples hitherto cited emanate chiefly from politicians and literary men, who are not accustomed to exercise their judgment. But there are also the manifestoes of the professorial body, that is, those whose essential mission consists in passing facts and ideas through the sieve of criticism, to isolate the true from the false, and to extract from error the fragment of truth which may have fallen into it. For what is the effect of teaching, of whatever degree, if it is not the constant alertness of the critical spirit, which seeks, in all things and at every moment, to separate that which is true and which should therefore be communicated to the disciple from the medley of false and useless things which may with impunity be abandoned to oblivion? And when the teacher is also a seeker, has he not once more unceasingly to exercise his critical spirit, that he may recognize in the host of ideas which present themselves to him those which may lead him to the desired end—and, once this is attained, those which he may use as a touchstone to test experimentally the validity of these deductions? In short, for the professor and the scientific worker there is no intellectual faculty more indispensable than the critical spirit.
Now among those who have dashed into the lists to champion, with their pens, the rights of Germany, and to crush her adversaries, we must make a quite special mention of the professors and schoolmasters. Let us begin with the latter. Their principal argument in denial of the barbarous conduct of which the German troops have been accused, is that it would be incompatible with the flourishing condition of the educational institutions of Germany. As though elementary education was capable of eliminating from humanity the profound imprints of its intimate mentality! Instruction may hide them, as under a veneer, but it can never cause their disappearance.
The Germans, after Sadowa and the war of 1870-1, declared that the whole honour of their victories was due to their primary education. "The French campaign is the triumph of the German schoolmaster." Those who in Belgium have seen the villages devastated by fire and the graves of the civilians shot, and above all the pillaged homes, with furniture and crockery broken into small fragments, and the filthy beds, will carry away the impression that "the Belgian campaign is the bankruptcy of the German schoolmaster."