Against France we probably experience the least aversion or hatred. At bottom we have really nothing "against the Frenchmen," but they have a great deal against us. But we find them, in spite of their fanatical hatred of the Germans (which we honor and respect) chivalrous antagonists, who in their wrath of battle are certainly quite our peers; and in them, we find, there is far more force and will for victory than we were in the beginning wont to believe. They die for their fatherland, and their final reason for fighting is after all an ideal one, the faith in the glory and greatness of a super-individual, the self-sacrifice to a whole that is higher than the personal. Thus, at least, does that France stand opposed to us, that is fighting for its existence in the trenches along the Aisne.
With the rabble that shouts "à bas la guerre" in Paris, we need reckon just as little as with the rather doubtful citizens that constitute the immediate Government of France and whose heroism seems to show great rents these days. Yes, for the heroic race of Frenchmen we feel almost a sort of pity, as with a noble wild game of the forest, wounded unto death. And this pity finds expression in wistful sympathy when we think of the quixotic strain in this wrestling with an overwhelming foe, when we see the childlike faith with which the people have grasped at every unplausible hope of rescue from its anguish of death and still grasps at it, as a drowning man grasps at a wisp of straw. Don Quixote still remains the "noble knight" for whom—if he appears in the age of firearms—we still fire three salvos of honor over his grave.
And then, when we mention the word "France," there arise all the memories of the imperishable cultural values which its people have given to us. I believe that there are many, very many among us, who in their hearts hope that there may once again be something like a co-operative understanding and journeying together of Germans and Frenchmen, even if in a distant future which the youngest among us will probably not live to see—an agreement which through a union of German and French elements of culture will promise vast achievements for the purposes of humanity. In the last analysis—for that has in these very days been more frequently expressed—these two nations belong together; they are of equal worth, of equal spirit, of equal fineness, and yet so different that they can give each other infinitely much.
Just as has the hate against England, so has this friendship for France found poetic expression. In the Hamburger Kriegsblatt we read a poem by Wilhelm Höhne, the final stanza of which reads:
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Ma pauvre France! Wann siehst du es ein Dass all deine Bündnisse Trug und Schein? Was meinst du, wärst du mit dem vereint, Der dich niederringt heute—ein ehrlicher Feind! Auf "Deutsche Treue" da könntest du zählen! Mit uns im Bund könnt'st der Welt du befehlen. Dem Briten, dem Russen, dem Asiaten! Deutschland hat nie einen Freund verraten! |
(Translation.)
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Ma pauvre France, when wilt thou see That all thy allies are cheating thee? What, though if thou with him wouldst go Who now overwhelms thee—an honest foe! On German faith thou couldst reckon sure; With us, thou couldst rule the world secure, The Briton, the Russian, the Asian, bend. Germany has never betrayed a friend! |
