The Lost Fruits of Waterloo

by John Spencer Bassett

Again, an autocracy is not necessarily unpatriotic. Of course, it has its own idea of what patriotism is, but so have the classes below the autocracy. Its patriotism usually embraces an honestly held opinion that the autocratic state is the best form of society. On this basis it is willing to sacrifice much for the state. We see it putting “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor” literally at the entire command of the state. No man can do more than give his all for that which he holds right.

An autocracy may be composed of men of the best private manners and principles. They frequently include the best poets, historians, novelists, philosophers, and teachers of the nation. It is they who encourage art, and set standards of taste in architecture, landscape gardening, and general culture. Compared with the leisure class of a prosperous industrial country they may be more courteous, more unassuming, and less given to offensive use of their wealth. They are the kind of men whom any of us could love if we knew them personally. These words do not, of course, apply to all members of the class, but to the group as a whole in ordinary conditions.

Of the German autocracy most of these things can be said, and more. It is a hard working group and generally speaking it is honest. In the service of the state it has a record of efficient government that few democratic countries can show. The officials of German towns and cities, provinces and states, taken from the hereditary upper classes, are well trained, faithful, and free from the suggestion of corruption. It will take New York or Chicago many years to develop the state of good government that exists in Berlin. Moreover, the German autocracy has the respect of the German people.

Up to last winter the Russian autocracy was an obstacle to peace. Many who looked forward to a reign of reason wondered how they were going to make the theory work while the largest Entente nation was in the hands of an autocracy that was less tolerable than the German autocracy. Fortunately, fate has settled the question, for the time at least. So uncertain is the condition of affairs in Russia, that no one can say what will be the outcome. It is by no means certain that the peasants, workers, and soldiers, will not make actual war against the former autocrats, leading to a state of chaos like the worst phases of the French Revolution. If such a thing happens, a reaction in favor of the former ruling class may well follow. If the war ends before the newly established government is firmly seated in power some such upheaval may be expected. Certainly the time of danger is not yet passed.

The German autocracy is better than that which ruled Russia. In fact, it would be less dangerous if it were less serviceable. Its sins are not the patent sins of peculation, cruelty, laziness, or despotism. It offends in that it takes away the confidence of nation in nation. It offends because it is filled with unfortunate purposes. It is possible to think of an autocracy that would be no menace for the peace of the world, an autocracy filled with no ambition for world conquest. It is true that most autocratic governments have not been of this kind, and they seem militarists by nature, whence arise the ideals with which they trouble the world.

When Hegel preached the philosophy of war that underlies the German’s devotion to war, he was largely right from the Prussian standpoint. He held that the mind becomes sluggish through inactivity and that war burns up its waste matter and leads to energy of character. This doctrine would not be essentially true in any normally organized society; for there are as many opportunities for self-expression in commerce, finance, manufactures, art, and other peaceful occupations as in war. But a century ago Prussia was filled, even more than today, with a mass of small nobles, unaccustomed to any ordinary form of labor, and with slender incomes. They were just the class that would fall into the effete vices of an aristocracy. To them the military life was an avenue of steady and moral employment. They took places in the great machine, and by 1870 they had been bred into its very spirit. The process saved the German nobles from vapidity. At the same time, as a class, they preserved their political privileges, and it has happened that they, with their official heads, the kaiser, kings, and princes, have been able to unite political power and military purposes until they have made of their country the most military state of modern times. If Germany has fought the present war with great ability, it is the organized autocracy that deserves the credit.

It is, therefore, the union of the political and military power in the hands of a privileged class in Germany that now constitutes the greatest obstacle to peace. It enables a small and efficient portion of the German population to wield the rest of the people for the ends they have decided are best. If this union of functions could be broken up, and if political power could be distributed as in the countries governed by the people, the obstacle would be reduced in size. It is not necessary to suppose that it would be removed altogether; for even if equal suffrage were established in Germany, and if autocracy were shorn of its preponderating electoral power, the nobles would still be the most capable class in the empire. Their personality would go a long way in perpetuating their influence. If they played the game of trying to lead the people they might remain rulers of Germany for a long time after losing their present electoral advantages.

It is fair to assume that a democracy will be less likely to go to war than an autocracy. It is the middle and lower classes that bear the chief burdens of war. They fight for no promotions. Generally the happiest thing that can come to one of them is a disabling wound to send him home with his head safely on his shoulders. Kings and their sons are rarely killed in battle. When this war began the kaiser was one of the proud Germans who had five tall sons of military age. After nearly four years of fighting none of them have been seriously injured. It would be interesting to know if there is another German father of five sons who has been so gently treated by fortune. Report says that fifty thousand schoolmasters were killed in Germany during the first two years of the war. It would be interesting to learn whether or not the titled class has given up so large a proportion of its members for the cause of the Fatherland.

And yet, it must not be thought that wars cannot exist in democratic countries. When Rome was a republic war was a constant thing. Athens in her republican days had many wars. In the region that is now the United States of America have been several wars. The war for independence was essentially popular. It was organized by that part of the population which resented British aristocratic institutions, the class we should today call “the plain people.” In the civil war the demand that slavery be destroyed did not come from the wealthy men of the North, the class that stood for the American aristocracy, but from the middle classes, men who filled the churches and who followed the common impulses of the heart. It was resisted by the South, as democratically organized as Germany would be with the Junkers turned out of power, and the struggle was as bitter as any the world had seen up to the fatal year 1914. Democratic states can fight, and they do fight, but they are less likely to go to war than autocratic states.

If it seems to any of us a necessary thing that autocracy must be removed from the earth, it is well to remember that autocracy can be removed only through the operation of a long and slow process. It can be reduced by some great catastrophe, but it cannot be smitten out in a day. Take away its political power, and perhaps its financial power will be left. Undermine that by raising up a rich bourgeoisie, and its social influence will perhaps still exist. You do not abolish it by decree; you banish it only when you have substituted a better thing.