No doubt ye are the people: Wisdom's flame
Springs from your cannon—yea from yours alone.
God needs your dripping lance to prop His throne;
Your gleeful torch His glory to proclaim.
No doubt ye are the people: far from shame
Your Captains who deface the sculptured stone
Which by the labor and the blood and bone
Of pious millions calls upon His name.
No doubt ye are the folk; and 'tis to prove
Your wardenship of Virtue and of Lore
Ye sacrifice the Truth in reeking gore
Upon your altar to the Prince of Love.
Yet still cry we who still in darkness plod:
"'Tis Antichrist ye serve and not our God!"
On the Psychology of Neutrals
By Friedrich Curtius
Friedrich Curtius, of Strassburg, had attained such distinction at the beginning of the century that Prince Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillingfürst, who succeeded Count Caprivi as Chancellor of the German Empire, on his retirement in 1900, asked Curtius to co-operate with him in the preparation of the Memoirs (New York, The Macmillan Co., 1906) which have since become famous. But the joint work was brought to a sudden end by Prince Hohenlohe's death, and Friedrich Curtius devoted himself, for the next six or seven years, to the completion of the unfinished task. When the Memoirs were finally published, first in America and then in Germany, they were so outspoken as to bring down on Prince Alexander Hohenlohe and Friedrich Curtius the disfavour of the Kaiser. This article by Curtius appeared originally in the Deutsche Revue, May, 1915.
"All the world must hate or love; no
choice remains. The Devil is neutral."
SO sang Clemens Brentano in the year 1813. Today, we once more realize that the attempt to remain neutral through a conflict which is deciding the history of the world not only brings great spiritual difficulties, but is even felt to be a downright moral impossibility, just as the poet saw it a hundred years ago. Legal neutrality is, of course, a simple thing. Every state can itself practice it, and impose it as a duty on its citizens. One may even think that modern states should go further in this direction than they do. The indifference of the Government toward the business transactions of its citizens with foreign states is a political anomaly, comprehensible in an age when foreign policy in war and peace was viewed as something that concerned the ruler only, but contradictory in a democratic age, when wars are peoples' wars. Today, in all civilized states, the Government is morally answerable for those activities of its subjects which have international results. The American policy which permits the supply of weapons to England but allows England to prevent the export of grain to Germany, is a bad neutrality, morally untenable, a mere passivity, which lacks the will to do right. Such a standpoint might exist in a despotically governed state, but in a democratic Republic it is incomprehensible. For, from a genuinely democratic point of view, it does not signify whether the government or the citizens intervene to help or to hinder in an armed conflict. If we venture to speak at the right time of the development of international law, this, before all, must be demanded: that neutral states shall forbid the export of weapons, and that belligerents shall not hinder the import of foodstuffs for civilian populations.
Meanwhile the insecurity of the international attitude of neutrals is only a symptom of the difficulties to which neutrality of view is subject. These begin with the outbreak of the war. Each belligerent government believes itself to be in the right, and publishes a collection of documents which seem to it fitted to prove this right. This literature appearing in all the colours of the spectrum is really aimed at neutrals. For the belligerent nations themselves have weightier matters in hand than to sit in judgment upon their own governments. But the neutrals find themselves to decide which side is right. Yet this whole idea of a "just war" (coming to us from the moral philosophy of the Schoolmen) which shall expiate an injustice, as the judge punishes crimes, is antiquated. When, in the middle ages, the citizens of a town were maltreated or robbed by the authorities or citizens of another town, and the guilty party refused satisfaction, then the consequent feud might be viewed as a modified criminal case, and the right of the wronged town to help itself must be recognized. In exactly the same way, differences over questions of inheritance between independent states could only be decided by force, where, as in a civil suit, each party was convinced of its own justice. But the great wars of our time arise from causes which are different from their immediate occasions, from opposed interests which can only be decided by discovering which side has the power to enforce its will. If one wishes to ascribe the blame for a war to one of the parties, one need only ask which of them pursued an aim which could not be reached through a peaceful understanding. In the present war, we Germans have clear consciences, for we know, concerning ourselves and our government, that we strove for nothing but the maintenance of our position as a world-power, bought with heavy sacrifices, and the free, peaceful expansion of our sphere of action in the world. On the other hand, Russia desired to get to Constantinople ahead of Berlin and Vienna, France desired to win back Metz and Strassburg, England desired to destroy our sea-power and commerce—goals which could only be reached over prostrate Germany. On this understanding, it would not be difficult for neutrals to arrive at a clear and just judgment. But as the belligerents themselves did not announce their purposes, but much rather took pains to turn public attention from the causes to the occasion of the conflict, the judgment of neutrals is affected by this, and if they are really impartial in their view, they suffer morally under the burden of an insoluble problem. But if outspoken sympathy draws them toward one of the belligerent powers, then their judgment is as little objective as that of the belligerents themselves. Their pretended neutrality gives to their expressions a loathsome Pharisaical aspect, because they come to a decision according to their opinions as if they stood on a height above the contestants and, from this lofty standpoint, were holding an anticipated Last Judgment on kings and statesmen.
The same phenomena show themselves with regard to judgments concerning methods of warfare. It goes without saying that each belligerent party reports all the atrocities which are committed by its opponents and is silent as to its own shortcomings. Once more, neutrals feel compelled to form a judgment, and therefore, if they are conscientious, read the reports of both sides, and, as a result, find themselves in a desperate situation, because it is impossible, from the assertions and counter-assertions of the belligerents, to ascertain the actual facts of the case. In practice, mere chance decides which set of reports one comes across. And the exact proof of details is impossible to the most zealous newspaper-reader. Therefore one's judgment remains vacillating, and one is likely to come to this conclusion: to believe nothing at all. Naturally, the case is different here also, if one is previously in sympathy with one party. Then one believes the reports coming from that side, and leaves out of consideration those that stand against them. In this case, again, neutrals become as one-sided as belligerents, without having the indubitable right to be one-sided which the belligerents have.