Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View

by Price Collier

Of technical military matters I know nothing. I have some experience in handling horses in harness and under saddle, and on subjects with which I am familiar I venture to pass judgments in the class-room. I have visited many of these class-rooms, and listened to the teaching and lectures in French, English, strategy, and political geography, and kindred topics, and if the rest of the instruction is on a par with what I heard there is no criticism to be made. I may not say where, but one of the instructors in French was a real pleasure to listen to.

The courses and examinations which lead up, in the Kriegesakademie, or staff college, to the grade of fitness for the general staff, or the technical division of the general staff, or administrative staff work, or employment as instructors, are of the very stiffest. An officer who succeeds in reaching such proficiency, that he is sent up to the general staff must be a very blue ribbon of a scholar in his own field.

The quarters, the food, the training, are Spartan indeed at the cadet schools, but how valuable that is, is shown in the faces, manners, physique, and general bearing of the picked youths one sees at the Kriegesakademie in Berlin. No one after seeing these fellows would deny for a moment the value of a sound, hard discipline. The same may be seen at our own West Point, where the transformation of many a country bumpkin, into an officer and a gentleman, in four years is almost unbelievable.

The truth is that most of us suffer from lack of discipline, and the intelligent men of every nation will one day insist that, if the state is to meddle in insurance and other matters, it must logically, and for its own salvation, demand compulsory service; not necessarily for war, but for social and economic peace within its own boundaries. It is a political absurdity that you may tax individuals to provide against accident and sickness to themselves, but that you may not tax individuals by compulsory service to provide against accident and sickness to the state. There can be nothing but ultimate confusion where the state pays a man if he is ill, pays him if he is hurt, pays him when he is old, and yet does not force him to keep well, and thus avoid accident and a pauper’s old age by obliging him to submit to two or three years’ sound physical training. Whether the training is done with a gun or without it matters little. Most men of our breed like to know how to kill things, so that a gun would probably be an inducement.

The more one knows of the severe demands upon the officers of the German army and of their small pay, the more one realizes that if they are not angels there must be some further explanation of their willingness to undertake the profession. First of all, the Emperor is a soldier and wears at all times the soldier’s uniform. Further, he gives from his private purse a small allowance monthly to the poorer officers of the guard regiments. A German officer receives consideration on all sides, whether it be in a shop, a railway-carriage, a drawing-room, or at court.

To a certain extent his uniform is a dowry; he expects and often gets a good marriage portion in return for his shoulder-straps and brass buttons; and in every case it gives him a recognized social position, in a country where the social lines are drawn far more strictly than in any other country outside of Austria and India. This constant wearing of the sword is no new thing. Tacitus, who would have been an uncompromising advocate of compulsory service had he lived in our time, writes: “A German transacts no business, public or private, without being completely armed. The right of carrying arms is assumed by no person whatever till the state has declared him duly qualified.” It is the recognized occupation of the nobility, and, in very many families, a tradition. In the army of Saxony, on January 1, 1911, out of every hundred officers of the war ministry, of the general commands, and of the higher staff, 44.33 per cent. were noblemen; of the officers of the infantry, 26.19 were noblemen; of the cavalry, 60.92 were noblemen; and of the officers of the entire army, all arms, 24.98 were noblemen.

It is worth chronicling in this connection, for the benefit of those who wish a real insight into German social life, that few people discriminate between the old nobility, or men who take their titles from the possession of land and their descendants, and the new and morbidly disliked nobility, who have bought or gained their patents of nobility, as is done often enough in England, by profuse contributions to charity or to semi-political and cultural undertakings favored by the court, or by direct contributions to party funds, by valuable services rendered, or by mere length of service. This new nobility, anxious about their status, satisfied to have arrived, jealous of rivals, are the dead weight which ties Germany fast to bureaucratic government and to a policy of no change. They represent, even in educated Germany, a complacent mediocrity; indignant at rebuke, indifferent to progress, heedless of experience, impatient of criticism, haters of haste, and jealous of superiority. Even Bismarck, the creator of this bureaucracy, lamented the insolence and bad manners of the state servants.

The essential and ever-present quality of the real aristocrat and of a real aristocracy is, of course, courage. It may dislike change, but it is not afraid of it. The real gentleman, of course, does not care whether he is a gentleman or not. The characteristic of an artificial, tailor-made aristocracy is timidity and a shrinking from change. This new nobility, created because it is carefully charitable, or serviceable, or long in office, is not only in possession of the civil service, but occupies high posts in the army and navy. While not minimizing its value, it is everywhere maintained in Germany that it acts as a bulwark against progress. They are a nobility of office-holders, and they partake of the qualities and characteristics of the office-holder everywhere. They sometimes forget the country in the office; while the older nobility, which made Germany, despises the office except as an instrument or weapon to be used for the welfare of the country. The political pessimism in Germany to-day is caused by, and comes from, this army of the new nobility.

Americans and English both write of Germany, and speak of it, as being in the grip of a small group of aristocrats. Not at all; it is in the shaky and self-conscious control of men whose patents of nobility were given them with their office, a titled bureaucracy, in short. Let us prove this statement by running through the list of the chief officers of the state. Of the officials of the German Empire: the chancellor’s grandfather, Bethmann-Hollweg, was a professor, and afterward minister of education; the secretary of state’s father was plain Herr Kiderlein-Wächter; the under-secretary of state is Herr Zimmermann; the secretary of the interior is Herr Delbrück; of finance, Herr Wermuth; of justice, Herr Lisco; of the navy, von Tirpitz, who was recently ennobled; the postmaster is Herr Kraetke. Not one of these officials of the empire is of the old nobility!

Of the 11 ministers of the kingdom of Prussia, the minister for agriculture, von Schorlemer; for war, von Heeringen; for education, von Trott zu Solz; and for the interior, von Dallwitz, are of the old nobility; but the other 7 ministers are not. Of the 12 Oberpräsidenten, men who rule the provinces, 6 are noblemen; of the 37 Regierungspräsidenten, 14 are of the nobility, 23 are not. This should dispose finally of the frequently heard assertion that Germany and Prussia are ruled by a small group of the landed nobility and that there is no way open to the talents. It is fair to say that a very small and intimate court group do have a certain influence in naming the candidates for these posts, but they are too wily to keep these positions for themselves.