CHAPTER XVIII. BERLIN—ITS MILITARY ATMOSPHERE.
Two men sit on their horses like statues in front of the Brandenburg Gate of Berlin. They wear spiked helmets. The numerous buttons on their tight-fitting coats gleam in the sun. Their weapons are swords. When you ask to what crack regiment they belong, you are told that they are policemen. You find hundreds more of the same grave, martial persons, mostly on foot, in the Berlin streets. You soon come to distinguish them from the regular troops whom they so much resemble. But it is hard to tell where the policeman ends and the soldier begins. If the moral effect of this grim constabulary is as great on the citizens of Berlin as on the stranger within her gates, then there are few breaches of the peace committed here. At the railway-stations you see other men who are soldierly in their dress and bearing. They wear the well-known fatigue-caps with broad colored bands and a little circle embroidered just above the visor. Their breasts are decorated with metal badges, of which the crown emblem is a part. You naturally suppose them to belong to the army, and to be ornamented with some kind of “order,” until you go near enough to read the word “Portier,” with which they are labeled. Thus it is that a strong military air is imparted to Berlin, over and above that which comes from the corps in garrison here. This corps comprises all arms of the service. The various uniforms—sometimes simply neat, but often very showy—exhibited in Unter den Linden during the evening promenade, form one of the chief attractions of that most beautiful of Berlin streets. Such, at least, is the verdict of visitors—especially Americans with whom army accoutrements are happily things of the past.
It must be confessed that the most peaceful-minded person may catch the military fever here. The people of Berlin, like all other Germans, protest to you that they hate war and desire peace above all things. No men can look more pacific as they smoke their pipes and drink their beer, and listen to the best music in the “Gartens.” Still, it is the truth that they impress the impartial tourist as the most warlike race in Europe. No capital that I have seen compares with Berlin in the predominance of military ideas and suggestions. The officers and privates everywhere on view are but a small part of this total. The aged and heroic Emperor, the Crown Prince, Bismarck, Moltke, Roon, and other heroes of the Franco-German War, are served up in every possible way in the shop-windows of every street. Statues, busts, oil-paintings, photographs of these distinguished men in full “regimentals,” are as thick in Berlin as crucifixes and other religious symbols in the most devout city of Southern Italy. It is a patriotism which runs to idolatry. In the Königsplatz stands a splendid monument, designed to commemorate the victorious issues of the recent wars with Denmark, Austria, and France. On each of the four sides of the pedestal are bronze reliefs of the Kaiser and all the rest of the gallant company. If one is not tired of these repetitions of figures and faces, he may climb an interior staircase of the column and come out on a balcony, where he can regale himself with the sight of a noble work in mosaic, in which the identical celebrities reappear in new combinations and with still more brilliant effects. Visiting the modern picture-galleries about town, he can not enter a nook or recess so obscure that it does not hold at least one first-rate picture, or marble or bronze bust of the Emperor or his heir, or his great Chancellor, or his incomparable Field-Marshal and strategist.
It is but natural that the Germans should love to honor the illustrious sovereign, the statesman, and the general who have made their country united and powerful. They know perfectly well that what they have won by the sword can be kept only by the sword in that terrible struggle for national supremacy, and even for existence, of which Europe is the theatre. As long as the profession of the soldier is thus exalted above every other by force of circumstances, what wonder that the Germans should indulge their passion for hero-worship to an extent unknown in all modern history?
The American who passes through France and Germany finds this question a very interesting one: How long will it be before these two countries will be fighting again? He takes it for granted that they will fight some time. All the signs point to that conclusion. He sees troops incessantly drilling in all parts of Germany and France. If he can read the native papers, he finds in almost every column some allusion more or less covert, but unmistakably unfriendly in tone. If he inspects the rows of yellow-covered pamphlets at the railway book-stalls, he will be sure to see “Avant la Bataille,” or “Pas Encore,” or the spirited replies in German, of which those and other sensational volumes have been the occasion. Works like these are multiplying on both sides of the frontier. They seem to be pilot balloons sent up to try the winds. It is true that the authors are unofficial persons. They do not speak for nations. But they do, nevertheless, succeed in straining the relations between countries which require for the preservation of peace the observance of mutual forbearance, if hearty good-will can not be expected of them.
A great many Frenchmen have made no concealment of their burning desire for revenge ever since the war of 1870-’71. But in my previous visits to Europe I have never found the Germans so outspoken on this ticklish subject as at present. Every one with whom I have conversed believes that the renewal of the struggle is not far off. No reason is given for this belief. It is one of faith, resting on portents in the skies. There does not seem to be, in Germany, the least doubt of the sequel, if France, single-handed, should attempt to recover what she has lost. But there is some anxiety to know whether she would have Russia as an ally. In that event the Germans are counting on the support of Austria and Italy. These, however, are questions of the future, and there we will leave them, with the single remark that the physical and mental health of Bismarck and Moltke, as trusted counselors of the indomitable Kaiser, constitutes the best present security against any surprise in diplomacy or war at the expense of Germany.
I never saw in any one place in France as many French cannon as are packed in the great court-yard of the arsenal of Berlin. They line the sides of the quadrangle, and point to the center. Each of these pieces bears some terrible name—“Le Vengeur,” “La Terreur,” “Le Destructeur,” “Le Volcan,” “Le Borreau,” and the like—which now read strangely by the light of history. Some show ugly scars, like bull-dogs gashed in fighting. A frequent mark is the tearing away of a lip of the muzzle, the effect of German shot. Others have deep scores in the sides, where the balls struck them and glanced off. They are mostly bronze of slender, graceful shapes, and profusely ornamented with arabesque raised patterns. They have a certain Gallic look of trimness and taste, and, if they failed to frighten off the German invader, they still survive as works of art in the German capital, and fulfill the peaceful mission of amusing the Berlinese. I roved among these trophies, and patted them on the back, stopping occasionally to decipher the date of their making. The year is cast in bold figures near the mouth of the gun, and is often accompanied by the name of the sovereign in whose reign it was born. There are specimens dating as far back as Louis XIV; others are marked “Napoleon,” “Louis XVIII,” “Louis Philippe,” and the larger number “Napoleon III.” As I saunter among these grim souvenirs of the wreck of the Second Empire and the terrible humiliation of France, I wonder how a French soldier would feel if he were present among this throng of exulting Germans, with whom the exhibition is a treat inexhaustibly popular. But then, of course, no Frenchman visiting Berlin could bear the idea of witnessing these proofs of his country’s disaster.