The spirit of militarism permeated even to the remotest corners of daily activity in all walks of life. The gatekeeper at a railway crossing must stand at attention, with his red flag held in a prescribed manner, while the train is passing. A Berlin mail-carrier was punished for saluting a superior with his left hand, instead of with the right. A street-car conductor was fined for driving his car between two wagons of a military transport. This was in peace times, and the transport was conveying hay. That the passengers in the car would otherwise have had to lose much time was of no consequence; nothing could be permitted to interfere with anything hallowed by connection with the military establishment. When Herr von Bethmann Hollweg was appointed Imperial Chancellor it was necessary to give him military rank, since he had never held it. He was created a general, for it could not be suffered that a mere civilian should occupy the highest post in the empire next to the Kaiser. The Kaiser rarely showed himself in public in civilian attire.
It was but natural that the members of the officer-corps held an exalted opinion of their own worth and dignity. Militarism is everywhere tarred with the same stick, and army officers, if freed from effective civil control, exhibit in all lands the same tendency to arbitrariness and to a scorn and contempt for mere civilians. Such release from control is seen in other lands, however, only in time of war, whereas it was a permanently existing state of affairs in Germany. It worked more powerfully there than would have been the case anywhere else, for all the country's traditions and history were of a nature to exalt military service. Ravaged by war for centuries, Germany's greatness had been built up by the genius of her army leaders and the bravery and loyalty of her soldiers. Hundreds of folksongs and poems known to every German child glorified war and its heroes. The youthful Theodor Körner, writing his Gebet vor der Schlacht (Prayer before the Battle) by the light of the bivouac-fires a few hours before the battle in which he was killed, makes a picture that must appeal even to persons who abhor war. How much greater, then, must its appeal have been to a military folk!
The German officer was encouraged to consider himself of better clay than the ordinary civilian. His "honor" was more delicate than the honor of women. It was no infrequent occurrence for an officer, willing to right by marriage a woman whom he had wronged, to be refused permission either because she did not have a dowry corresponding to his rank, or because she was of a lower social class. Duelling among officers was encouraged, and to step on an officer's foot, or even to stare too fixedly at him (fixieren) was an insult calling for a duel. An officer's credit was good everywhere. His word was as readily accepted as a civilian's bond, and honesty requires that it be said that his trust was rarely misplaced. His exaggerated ideas of honor led frequently to an arrogant conduct toward civilians, and occasionally to assaults upon offenders, which in a few instances took the form of a summary sabering of the unfortunate victim. [6]
[ [6] Some travelers and a certain class of correspondents have unduly exaggerated the conditions referred to. They have pictured murders of this sort as of frequent occurrence, and, if they could be believed, German officers made it a custom to require women in the street cars to surrender their seats to them. In many years' residence in Germany the author learned of but two cases of the murder of civilians by officers, and he never saw a display of rudeness toward a woman. The German officer almost invariably responded in kind to courtesy, but he did expect and require deference from civilians.
The crassest of the outward, non-political manifestations of militarism in recent years was the Zabern affair. A young lieutenant had sabered a crippled shoemaker for a real or fancied offense against military rules. The townspeople made a demonstration against the officer, and the colonel commanding the regiment stationed at Zabern locked a number of the civilians in the cellar of the barracks and kept them there all night. This was too much even for a docile German Reichstag, and an excited debate was followed by the passing of a vote of censure on a government which, through the mouths of its Chancellor and War Minister, had justified the colonel's actions. The colonel and the lieutenant were convicted upon trial and adequate sentences were imposed upon them, but the convictions were significantly set aside upon appeal and both escaped punishment. It was in connection with this affair that the German Crown Prince earned the censure of the soberer German elements by sending an encouraging telegram to the arbitrary colonel.
Militarism, in the aspects discussed, was a purely internal affair and concerned only the German people themselves. But there was another aspect, and it was this that made it a menace to the peace of the world and to true democracy.
The very possession of an admirable weapon is a constant temptation to use it. This temptation becomes stronger in proportion as it springs with inclination. The Germans of the last fifty years were not a bellicose people. They had suffered too greatly from wars within the recollection of millions of men and women still living. On the other hand, they were familiar with war and the thought of it did not invoke the same repugnant fears and apprehensions as among less sorely tested peoples. The mothers of every generation except the youngest knew what it meant to see husbands, sons and brothers don the King's coat and march away behind blaring bands; they knew the anxiety of waiting for news after the battle, and the grief that comes with the announcement of a loved one's death, and they considered it dimly, if they philosophized about it at all, as one of the things that must be and against which it were unavailing to contend. But the officers as a whole were bellicose. The reasons are multifold. It is inherent in the profession that officers generally are inclined to desire war, if for no other reason, than because it means opportunities for advancement and high honors. Beyond this, the German officer's training and traditions taught him that war was in itself a glorious thing.
In trying to understand the influences that dominated the government of Germany in its relations to foreign countries it must be clearly realized and remembered that the real rulers of Germany came from the caste that had for nearly two centuries furnished the majority of the members of the officer-corps. The Emperor-King, assuming to rule by the grace of God, in reality ruled by the grace of the old nobility and landed gentry of Prussia, from whose ranks he sprang. This had been aptly expressed eighty years earlier by the poet Chamisso, in whose Nachtwächterlied appear the lines:
Und der König absolut,
Wenn er unseren Willen tut!
(Let the King be absolute so long as he does our will.) It was inevitable that the views of this class should determine the views of government, and the only remarkable thing about the situation was that some of the men who, by the indirect mandate of this caste, were responsible for the conduct of the government, were less bellicose and more pacific than their mandate-givers. There were some men who, infected with the virus of militarism, dreamed of the Welt-Imperium, the eventual domination of the world by Germany, to be attained by peaceful methods if possible, but under the threatening shadow of the empire's mighty military machine, which could be used if necessary. Yet even in their own caste they formed a minority.