One further word about the English edition. Its history and aims are much less clear than those of its Russian original, owing partly to the circumspect anonymity in which its sponsors have elected to veil themselves. It is inconceivable that it is intended to stir up pogroms in this country, though the suggestion is not obscurely made in recent articles in the Times and the Spectator. More probably—as has already been hinted—it is part of a German intrigue to prejudice the recent German general elections in favour of the Militarist Reactionaries and perhaps even to justify the forcible upsetting of the German Government by means of another Kapp Putsch. Here is the evidence for this startling conjecture.
The German Reactionaries have lately been putting all their money on anti-Semitism. Their publicity agencies in Charlottenburg and Munich have flooded the country with pamphlets denouncing the Republican Government as a Judaized Junta, the instrument of a far-reaching Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to ruin Germany and to involve the whole of Christian and Monarchical Europe in her fate. This campaign has lately become official, and a paragraph was inserted in the Electoral Manifesto of the German Nationalists—the party of Kapp and Lutzow—formally adopting anti-Semitism as a plank in their platform. One of the aims of the party is to secure foreign sympathy and help, and they hope to do this by finding a common ground in anti-Semitism. In these circumstances the publication of "The Jewish Peril" in England wears a disturbing significance, but it becomes much more disturbing when we find that the German edition was published almost simultaneously with it, with a dedication appealing not only to the German people, but also to "The Princes of Europe." The object was clearly to get English support, and unfortunately the response was not long in coming. On May 8th the Times was inveigled into publishing an article expressing alarm at the revelations of the Protocols and calling for an investigation. The delight of the German Reactionaries knew no bounds. It was voiced by Count Reventlow in a long article in the Deutsche Tageszeitung of May 17 welcoming the Times's acceptance of the Jewish peril as an indication that English public opinion was beginning to recognise the righteousness of Kapp and Co. in their resistance to the Ebert régime and what the Count called the "pax Judaeica."[52]
Whether the translators and editors of "The Jewish Peril" have consciously lent themselves to this intrigue, which is part of the German Reactionary plot to upset the Treaty of Versailles and perhaps plunge Europe into another war, cannot be said. But assuredly the worst suspicions are permissible so long as these gentlemen elect to skulk in the coulisses and shrink from responsibility for their scrubby handiwork. Even Titus Oates had the courage of his forgeries.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Lond., Eyre and Spottiswoode, Ltd., 1920. Morning Post, July 16 and 17, 1920.
[25] See Isaac D'Israeli, "Curiosities of Literature," Vol. III., pp. 143-150.
[26] Anabaptisticum, etc. (1702). See particularly the tract entitled Erschröckliche Bruderschafft der Alten und Neuen.
[27] Preface to Schieferl's edition (Dresden, 1893).
[28] As a matter of fact, he was not the first worker in this field, though he was the first literary ancestor of Nilus. The idea of the dramatic treatment of a Jewish conspiracy against Christian Society was worked out by the Polish poet Krassinsky in his Nie-Boska Komedya ("The Undivine Comedy"), published in 1834. It differs in scope and detail from Goedsche. Its attack on the Jews was strongly censured by Adam Mickiewicz.