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

by Maurice Francis Egan

Only the staunch Americanism of the Catholics of this country saved them from this insidious propaganda. If this spirit did not exist among them, they would have been led to believe that the Central Powers were the only European countries in the world where a Catholic was free to practise his religion.

We know what the German propaganda working on politicians did in Canada among the French-speaking population. We saw, in the beginning of the war, how the Protestants of Ulster were used. There is a passage in Mr. Wells's Mr. Britling Sees It Through which illuminates this.

'England will grant Home Rule,' said a Prussian closely connected with the Berlin Foreign Office, 'and then Sir Edward Carson and his Ulsterites will, with his mutineering British army, keep England too busy to fight us.' They believed this in very high quarters in Germany.

But when the British Government did not put the Home Rule Bill in force, the propagandists turned to certain Irish Intellectuals. 'You had better be governed by Germany than England,' said the followers of Sir Roger Casement, and the sentiment, whether uttered academically or not, found a hundred echoes.

But first had been heard the German-inspired cry of the Ulsterites, 'We had rather be governed by Germany than the Irish, by the Kaiser rather than the Irish Roman Catholic Bishops.' Most of us knew that there was no such danger, for Home Rule would have naturally cut into the political power of the Irish Bishops by strengthening the secular element forced into the background by the unfortunate conditions in Ireland, which had prevented the Catholic laymen from acquiring higher education, and obliging the clergy to become political leaders. It made no difference. The fermenters of religious dissension in Ireland played into the hands of the Prussians; there was laughter in Hell.

We knew that the slogan, 'Better be governed by Germany than by Ulster,' was not echoed in our own country among men of Irish blood. But when Germany, through her agents, began to suggest an Irish Republic, protected by the Imperial Eagle, a small party formed in the United States, not pro-German, but anti-English. This was before we went into the war. 'Every defeat of the English is a gain for Ireland,' the German propagandist repeated over and over again. It sank in; the Ulsterites thundered, and Sinn Fein, which had been non-political, became suddenly revolutionary.

In our country the effect of all this was marked. Every sentiment of religion and patriotism was played upon. Only those who received the confidences of some of those deceived Revolutionists of the unhappy Easter Day know how bitter was the feeling against England generated by the conspiracies in the interest of Prussian domination. Then we gloriously took our stand and went in. The practical answer came. The Swedish Lutherans and the Sinn Fein Catholics took up their arms without waiting to be drafted; Ireland must look after herself until the invaders were driven out of France and Belgium!

If the Secret Service is ever permitted to take the American public and the world into its confidence, the strength, the cleverness, and the permeativeness of the propaganda, especially religious, in the United States, will be shown to be astounding. 'What, son of Luther, strikes at the German breast of your forefathers!' To use a phrase that would not be understood at the Berlin Foreign Office, the Prussian propagandist had us 'coming and going.'

One could not help admiring the skill of these people. We, in our honest shirt sleeves were left gaping. Shirt sleeves and dollar diplomacy were beautiful things in the opinion of people who believed that the little red schoolhouse and the international Hague Conference were all that were needed to keep us free and make the world safe for democracy! There are no such beautiful things now. If we are to fight the devil with fire, we ought to know previously what kind of fire the devil uses. That requires the use of chemical experts, and the German experts, before this war, were not employed on the side of the angels. We have won; but do not let us imagine that we have killed the devil.

The propaganda still went on, and honest people were influenced by it. 'The Pope belongs to us,' the German propagandists said. 'He has not reprimanded Cardinal Mercier,' replies some logical person, 'and Cardinal Mercier has done more harm to German claims even in Germany than any other living man.' 'The Pope sympathises with our claims; he is the friend of law and order, consequently, he is with us.' Easily impressed folk among the Allies accepted this. They believed the tale that the Italian rout in the autumn of 1917 was due to Catholic officers, who were paraded through every city in Europe with 'traitor' placarded on each back! A foolish story to direct attention from the efforts of the paid conspirators who did the mischief. They saw only the surface of things. They seemed to think that the theorem of Euclid that a straight line is the shortest distance from one point to another holds in the political underworld. The Pope was attacked, which pleased the propagandists. 'O Holy Father, see how I, Head of the German Lutheran Church, love you, and see! your wicked enemies are my enemies.' And so the German propagandist divided and discouraged!