Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View

by Price Collier

My latest visit to Germany has converted me completely to the wisdom of compulsory service. Nor am I merely an academic disciple. I have had a course in it myself, and were it possible in America I should give any boy of mine the benefit of the same training. In Germany, at any rate, no student of the situation there would deny that, barring Bismarck, the army has done more for the nation than any other one factor that can be named. Soldiers and sailors train themselves, and train others, first of all to self-control, not to war. It is a pity that “compulsory service” has come to mean merely training to fight. In Germany, at any rate, it means far more than that. Two generations of Germans have been taught to take care of themselves physically without drawing a sword.

It is rather a puzzling commentary upon the growth of democracy, that in America and in England, where most has been conceded to the majority, there is least inclination on their part to accept the necessary personal burden of keeping themselves fit, not necessarily for war, but for peace, by accepting universal and compulsory training. The only fair law would be one demanding that no one should be admitted to look on at a game of cricket, foot-ball, or base-ball who could not pass a mild examination in these games, or give proof of an equivalent training. That would be honorable democracy in the realm of sport.

There formerly existed in Bavaria a supplementary tax on estates left by persons who had not served in the active army. It was done away with at the formation of the empire. There is a proposal now to vote such an additional tax for all Germany, and a very fair tax it would be.

I am not discussing here the question of compulsory service in England. It is not difficult to see that part of England’s army must of necessity be a professional army, which can be sent here and there and everywhere, and that conscription would not answer the purpose, for compulsory conscription could hardly demand of its recruits that they should serve in India, in Canada, or in Bermuda or Egypt, for the length of time necessary to make their service of value. Conscription, too, on a scale to make an army serviceable against the trained troops of the Continent is out of the question. Therefore, so far as compulsory service for military duty only is concerned, I see no hope for it in England. But in a land of free men such as is, or used to be, England, and in America, compulsory service ought to be undertaken with pride and with pleasure, as a moral, not as a military, duty for the salvation of the country from internal foes, and as a nucleus around which could rally the nation as a whole in case of attack from external foes. Patriotism among us has come to a pretty pass indeed when the nation is divided into two classes: those growling against the taxation of their surplus; and those with their tongues hanging out in anticipation of, and their hands clutching for, unearned doles. And now, the more shame to us, must be added a third class who use public office for private profit. What if we all turned to and gave something without being forced to do so? Where would the “Yellow peril” and the “German menace” be then? We should have much less exciting and inciting talk and writing if our nerves and digestions were in better order. Nothing calms the nerves, increases confidence, and lessens the chance of promiscuous quarrelling better than hard work.

Even if what the German army has accomplished along these lines were not true, there can be no freedom of political speculation or experiment, no time to make mistakes and to retrieve the situation, when one is surrounded on all sides by overt or potential enemies. Germany must have a powerful army and fleet, must have a strong and autocratic government, or she is lost. “Ohne Armee kein Deutschland.” She can permit no silly, no stupid, no excited majority to imperil her safety as a nation. If Germany were governed as is France, where they have had nine new governments since the beginning of the twentieth century, and forty-four since the republic replaced the empire forty-one years ago — not counting six dismissals of the cabinet when the prime minister remained — or fifty changes of government in less than that number of years, Germany would have lost her place on the map. France remains only because, so far as defence is concerned, France is France plus the British fleet.

Political geography is the sufficient reason for Germany’s army and navy. Let us be fair in these judgments and admit at once, that if Japan were where Mexico is, and Russia where Canada is, and Germany separated from us by a few hours’ steaming, certain peace-mongers would have been hanged long ago, and our cooing doves of peace would have had molten tar mixed with their feathers. An Italian proverb runs, “It is easy to scoff at a bull from a window,” and we indulge in not a little of such babyish effrontery from our safe place in the world. Germany, on the other hand, looks out upon the world from no such safe window-seat; she is down in the ring, and must be prepared at all hazards to take care of herself. That is a reason, too, why Germany offers little resistance to the ruling of an autocratic militarism. The sailors and the stokers would rather obey captain and officers, however they may have been chosen for them, than to be sunk at sea; and nowadays Germany is ever on the high seas, battling hard to protect and to increase her commerce abroad, and to protect her huge industrial population at home. Germany can take no chances for the moment, for only “Wer sich regiert, der ist mit Zufall fertig.”

One wishes often that one’s lips were not sealed, one’s pen not stayed by the imperious demands of honor, to abstain from all mention of discoveries or conversations made under the roof of hospitality, for nothing could well be more enlightening than a description of a chat between the great war-lord of Germany and a leading pacifist: the one completely equipped with knowledge of the history, temper, and temperament of his people; the other obsessed by a fantastic exaggeration of the power and influence of money, even in the world of culture and international politics, and preaching his panacea in the land, of all others, where even now mere money has the least influence, all honor to that land!

Spinoza, the greatest of modern Jews, and the father of modern philosophy, writes: “It is not enough to point out what ought to be; we must also point out what can be, so that every one may receive his due without depriving others of what is due to them.” And in another place: “Things should not be the subject of ridicule or complaint, but should be understood.” Those who know little of the history of the development of Germany, and particularly of Prussia, cannot possibly understand another reason for the political apathy of the Germans and their pleased support of their army. It is this: they have been trained in everything except self-government, in everything except politics. Perhaps their governors know them better than we do. Their progress has come from direction from above, not from assertion from below. The art or arts of self-government, throughout their development as a nation, have been forcibly omitted from their curriculum. Every step in our national progress, on the contrary, has been taken by the people, shoulder to shoulder, breaking their way up and out into light and freedom. There is little or no trace of any such movement of the people in Germany, and there is little taste for it, and no experience to make such effort successful. We, who have profited by the teaching of this political experience, do not realize in the least how handicapped are the people who have not had it.

One hundred years ago half the inhabitants of Prussia were practically in the toils of serfdom. It was only by an edict of 1807, to take effect in 1810, that personal serfdom with its consequences, especially the oppressive obligation of menial service, was abolished in the Prussian monarchy. Caste extended actually to land. All land had a certain status, from which the owners and their retainers took their political position and rights. The edict of 1807 was in reality a land reform bill, and gave for the first time free trade in land in Prussia. It was vom Stein, a Bismarck born too soon, who induced Frederick William II, King of Prussia, and grandson of the Great Elector, to abolish serfdom, to open the civil service to all classes, and to concede certain municipal rights to the towns. But vom Stein was dismissed from the service of his weak-kneed sovereign on the ground that he was an enemy of France, and was obliged to take refuge in Russia. Like other martyrs, his efforts watered the political earth for a fruitful harvest.

It is well to know where we are in the world’s culture and striving when we speak of other nations. What were we doing, what was the rest of the world doing, in those days when the Hanoverian peasant’s son, Scharnhorst, and Clausewitz were about to lay the foundations of this German army, now the most perfect machine of its kind in the world? These were the days prepared for by Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Voltaire, Rousseau; by Pitt and Louis XV, and George III; the days of near memories of Wolfe, Montcalm, and Clive; days when Hogarth was caricaturing London; days when the petticoats of the Pompadour swept both India and Canada into the possession of England. These names and the atmosphere they produce, show by comparison how rough a fellow was this Prussia of only a hundred years ago. He had not come into the circle of the polite or of the political world. He was tumbling about, un-licked, untaught, inexperienced, already forgetful of the training of the greatest school-master of the previous century, Frederick the Great, who had made a man of him.