Ten Years Near the German Frontier: A Retrospect and a Warning

by Maurice Francis Egan

On the first of May we were all anxious in Denmark. Our Minister at Stockholm, Mr. Ira Nelson Morris, understood the situation; he expected no great outbreak as a result of Branting's action in the [Rigstag], revealing the existence of a secret intrigue to raise, on the part of the Government, a guard of civilians to protect the 'privileged classes,' as the Socialists called them, against disturbances on the part of the proletariat. Branting gave a guarantee that no tumult among the people should take place. Nevertheless, the German propaganda kept at work; the people were not to be trusted. On May 1st, the party in power protected the palace with machine guns and packed its environs with troops. It was a rather indiscreet thing to do, since Branting had given his word for peace, providing that the pro-German protectorate did not make war. On May 1st at least fifty thousand of the working classes, 'the unprivileged classes,' made their demonstration in procession quietly and solemnly. In the provinces, on the same day, half a million Swedes sympathetically joined in this protest against the pro-German attitude of the Government.

When we entered the war the ruling classes declared, either privately or publicly, that we had [made] a 'mistake'; they hinted that Germany would make us see this mistake—this out of no malevolence to America as America, but simply from a complete lack of sympathy with our ideals. It must be remembered that an aristocracy, a bureaucracy without privileges is as anomalous as a British Duke without estate. The French Revolution was a protest, as we all know, against vested privileges. When Madame Roland, the intellectual representative of a great class, was expected to dine with the servants at a noble woman's house, a long nail was driven into the coffin of privilege.

In Sweden the fight is on against the privileges which the higher classes in Sweden have expected Germany to help them conserve.

On October 19th a new cabinet was formed; the people demanded a Government which would be neutral. This was the result of the election in September. On this result—the first real step in the Swedish nation toward political democracy—they stand to-day. Unrestrained or uninfluenced by Prussia, the classes of Sweden who love their privileges, will accept the situation. The death-blow to the landed aristocracy will doubtless be the suppression of the majorats and the conversion of the entailed estates into cash. This seems to be one of the fundamental intentions of the new order. The classes who look to Germany as their model and mentor are now non-existent—naturally!

Germany allowed to the upper classes in Sweden no intellectual contact with the democracies of the world. The world news dripped into Sweden carefully expurgated. Her suspicions of Russia were kept alive as we have seen; the good feeling which existed in Denmark towards Sweden (due to the help the Swedish troops had given when they were quartered at Glorup, near Odense, in readiness to meet the Prussian attack in 1848) had been gradually undermined. While Sweden owed much of her suspicions of the other two countries to German influence as well as her fears of Russia, Denmark was confronted with a real danger.

Whatever progress Sweden has made towards democracy is not due to intelligent propaganda on the part of America or England. It needed a war to teach the Foreign Offices that diplomatic representatives have greater duties than to be merely 'correct' and obey technical orders.

German propaganda had little influence in Norway, but German methods have been used to an almost unbelievable extent in the attempt to lower the morale of this self-respecting and independent people. The German propaganda could get little hold on a nation that cared only to be sufficient for itself in an entirely legitimate way. The Norwegian can neither be laughed, argued, nor coerced out of an opinion that he believes to be founded on a principle, and he looks on all questions from the point of view of a free man thinking his own thoughts.

German propaganda, during the war, took the form of coercion. The ordinary influences brought to bear on Sweden would not be effective in Norway. Socialism seemed to be less destructive to the existing order of things in Norway than it was in Sweden, because it had fewer obstacles to overcome. It was against the Pan-German idea that the three Scandinavian countries should form the Northern Confederation dreamed of by Baron Carlson Bonde and others. When the late King Oscar of Sweden came under German influence—through all the traditions of his family he should have been French—he began to give the Norwegian causes of offence, and his attitude intensified their growing hatred of all privileges founded on birth, hereditary office, or assumption of superiority founded on extraneous circumstances. As we know, the form of Lutheranism accepted in Norway has little effect on the political life of the people, who, as a rule, are attached to their special form of Protestantism because of traditions (part of this tradition is hatred of Rome, as it is supposed to represent imperial principles) and because it leaves them free to choose from the Bible what suits them best. It is a mistake to imagine, as some sociologists have, that the Lutheran Church in Norway inclined the Norwegians to sympathy with German ideas. I have never, as yet, met a Norwegian who seemed to associate his religion with Germany or to imagine that he owed any regard to that country because 'the light,' as he [sometimes] calls it, came to him through that German of Germans, Martin Luther. In his mind, as far as I could see, there seemed to be two kinds of Lutheranism—the German kind and the Norwegian kind. I am speaking now of the people of average education—who would dare to use the phrase 'lower classes' in speaking of the Norwegians as we use it of the Swedes or the English? An 'average education' means in Norway a high degree of knowledge of what the Norwegian considers essential.

This shows that racial differences are much more potent than religious beliefs; and yet, in considering the problems of the world to-day, it would be vain to leave religious affairs out of the question, worse than vain—foolish. The Crown Prince of Germany, having studied the Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, knew this; the Kaiser, knowing Machiavelli, understood it too well. Lutheranism in Norway is not a political factor owing to the peculiar temperament of the people; therefore, Germany could not make use of it. With the intellectual classes, the independent thinkers, it has ceased to be a factor at all. Ibsen, who was in soul a mystic, is accused of leaning towards German philosophies even by some of his own countrymen; but there was never a more individualistic man than he.

In my conversation with learned and intellectual Norwegians, I discovered no leaning whatever to autocratic ideals. They were only aristocrats in the intellectual sense.