Barbarous despotism, the worst enemy to liberty, is exemplified for us Frenchmen, Englishmen, men of the West, in Prussian Imperialism; and I venture to think that the register of its methods is plainly set forth in the devastated route from Liège to Senlis, passing by way of Louvain, Malines, and Rheims. For Germany, the monster ("Ungeheuer," as the aged Wundt calls it), which threatens civilization is Russia, and the bitterest reproach which the Germans hurl against France is our alliance with the Empire of the Czar. I have received many letters reproaching us with this. In the Munich review, Das Forum, I read only yesterday an article by Wilhelm Herzog challenging me to explain my position with regard to Russia. Let us consider the question, then. I ask nothing better. By this means we shall be able to weigh the German danger and the Russian danger in the balance, and thus show[{58}] which of the two seems the more threatening to us. Of the actual events of the present war between Germany and Russia I will say nothing. All the information we have comes from Russian or German sources, equally unreliable. To judge by them it would appear that the same ferocity exists in both camps. The Germans in Kalish were worthy companions of the Cossacks in Grodtken and Zorothowo.—It is of the German spirit and of the Russian spirit that I wish to speak here, for this is the important thing and of this we have more definite knowledge.
You, my German friends—for those of you who were my friends in the past remain my friends in spite of fanatical demands from both sides that we should break off all relations—know how much I love the Germany of the past, and all that I owe to it. Not less than you, yourselves, I am the son of Beethoven, of Leibnitz, and of Goethe. But what do I owe to the Germany of today, or what does Europe owe to it? What art have you produced since the monumental work of Wagner, which marks the end of an epoch and belongs to the past? What new and original thought can you boast of since the death of Nietzsche, whose magnificent[{59}] madness has left its traces upon you though we are unscathed by it? Where have we sought our spiritual food for the last forty years, when our own fertile soil no longer yielded sufficient for our needs? Who but the Russian writers have been our guides? What German writer can you set up against Tolstoi and Dostoievsky, those giants of poetic genius and moral grandeur? These are the men who have moulded my soul, and in defending the nation from which they sprang, I am but paying a debt which I owe to that nation as well as to themselves. Even if the contempt for Prussian Imperialism were not innate in me as a Latin, I should have learned it from them. Twenty years ago Tolstoi expressed his contempt for your Kaiser. In music, Germany, so proud of its ancient glory, has only the successors of Wagner, neurotic jugglers with orchestral effects, like Richard Strauss, but not a single sober and virile work of the quality of Boris Godunov. No German musician has opened up new roads. A single page of Moussorgsky or Strawinsky shows more originality, more potential greatness than the complete scores of Mahler and Reger. In our Universities, in our hospitals and Pasteur Institutes, Russian students and scholars work side by side[{60}] with our own, and Russian revolutionaries who have taken refuge in Paris mingle their aspirations with those of our socialists.
The crimes of Czarism are continually on your lips. We, too, denounce these crimes; for Czarism is our enemy, and what I wrote but recently, I repeat now. But it is likewise the enemy of the intellectual élite of Russia itself. This cannot be said of your intellectuals, who are so slavishly obedient to the commands of your rulers. A few days ago I received that amazing "Address to the Civilized Nations" with which the Imperial army-corps of German intellectuals bombarded Europe; meanwhile the army-corps of German Commerce (Bureau des Deutschen Handelstages) shelled the markets of the world with circulars ornamented by the figure of Mercury, the god of lies. This mobilization of the forces of the pen and of the caduceus, with which in good truth no other country could compete, has given us additional reason to fear the Empire's powers of organization, no reason to respect it more. "Civilized Nations" read, not without amazement, that Address, the truth of which was vouched for by the names of the most distinguished scientists, thinkers, and artists in Germany[{61}]—by Behring, Ostwald, Roentgen, Eucken, Haeckel, Wundt, Dehmel, Hauptmann, Sudermann, Hildebrand, Klinger, Liebermann, Humperdinck, Weingartner, etc.—by painters and philosophers, musicians, theologians, chemists, economists, poets, and the professors of twenty universities. They learned, not without surprise, that "it is not true that Germany provoked the war,—it is not true that Germany criminally violated the neutrality of Belgium,—it is not true that Germany used violence against the life or the belongings of a single Belgian citizen without being forced to do so,—it is not true that Germany destroyed Louvain" (destroyed it? no indeed, she saved it!),—"it is not true that Germany——" It is not true that day is day and night is night! I confess that I could not read to the end without that feeling of embarrassment which I felt as a child, when I heard an elderly man whom I respected make false statements. I turned aside my eyes and blushed for him. Thank God! the crimes of Czarism never found a defender amongst the great artists, scholars, and thinkers of Russia. Are not Kropotkin, Tolstoi, Dostoievsky, and Gorki, the greatest names in its literature, the very ones who denounced its crimes![{62}]
Russian domination has often been cruelly heavy for the smaller nationalities which it has swallowed up. But how comes it then, Germans, that the Poles prefer it to yours? Do you imagine that Europe is ignorant of the monstrous way in which you are exterminating the Polish race? Do you think that we do not receive the confidences of those Baltic nations who, having to choose between two conquerors, prefer the Russian because he is the more humane? Read the following letter which I received but lately from a Lett, who, though he has suffered severely at the hands of the Russians, yet sides ardently with them against you. My German friends, you are either strangely ignorant of the state of mind of the nations which surround you, or you think us extremely simple and ill-informed. Your imperialism, beneath its veneer of civilization, seems to me no less ferocious than Czarism towards everything that ventures to oppose its avaricious desire for universal dominion. But whereas immense and mysterious Russia, overflowing with young and revolutionary forces, gives us hope of a coming renewal, your Germany bases its systematic harshness on a culture too antiquated and scholastic to allow of any hope of amendment. If I had any[{63}] such hope—and I once had it, my friends—you have taken great pains to rob me of it, you, artists and scholars, who drew up that address in which you pride yourself on your complete unity with Prussian Imperialism. Know once for all that there is nothing more overwhelming for us Latins, nothing more difficult to endure, than your militarization of the intellect. If, by some awful fate, this spirit were triumphant, I should leave Europe for ever. To live here would be intolerable to me.
Here, then, are some extracts from the interesting letter which I have received from a representative of those little nationalities which are being disputed between Russia and Germany. They desire to maintain their independence, but find themselves obliged to choose between these two nations, and choose Russia. It is good to hear them speak. We are too much inclined to listen only to the Great Powers who are now at war. Let us think of those little barques which the great vessels draw in their wake. Let us share for a moment the agony with which these little nationalities, forgotten by the egotism of Europe, await the final issue of a struggle which will decide their fate. Let England and France heed those beseeching eyes which are turned towards[{64}] them; let young Russia, herself so eager for liberty, help generously to shed its benefits abroad.
October 10, 1914.
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LETTER TO ROMAIN ROLLAND
30th September, 1914.
Sir:—I desire to thank you for your article, "Above the Battle."... Although by my education I am more akin to the civilizations of Germany and Russia than to the civilization of France, yet I respect the French spirit more, for I am convinced, more than ever today, that it will furnish the greatly needed solution of the problems of national rights and liberty.