CHAPTER VI ETHICAL VALUES IN THE WORLD WAR A. THE AIMS AND METHODS OF GERMANY It is our duty now to see more closely how the principles which have been worked out in the preceding pages can be applied to the present situation. No event so great as the World War can be due to causes that are merely local and occasional. Its sources must lie wide and deep in the history of Europe and the world. It is not our duty here to investigate all the origins of the catastrophe. We are concerned, for the purposes of this ethical discussion, with the very definite, narrow field presented by the position and purpose of Germany. 1. In the first place, it is written forever in history that Germany began the World War. It is in vain for her authorities to cast the blame now upon France, now upon Russia, now upon England, or upon all three combined, as if they had concerted to launch the bolt. It was Germany which began the war; and there are many Germans of first-rate importance who openly acknowledge the fact. Abundance of literature written before the war, published broadcast in the German Empire, bore witness to the hardening will of the nation preparing for war. Works like those of von Bernhardi, of Tannenberg, von Claussewitz, and many others, reveal the energy with which the people were being instructed, organized, fired with enthusiasm for the supreme test of their power and consummation of their ambition. No doubt it is unjust to place the full responsibility upon any one man, even the Kaiser, when we consider the last steps and the last fatal act. No one man could hurl an empire into such a struggle unless he represented the mind of at least a large part of the population, the will of their principal leaders; unless his act had been prepared for through many years of history and seemed justified to the great majority by their experience and the position of their nation in the midst of others. It is true that when Prussia put herself at the head of the German Empire she found herself in course of time ringed round with powerful nations which might prove hostile to her if occasion for hostility arose. It is true also that the Balkan wars had opened a new day in the history of the Slavic world, and that the silent, constant, irresistible movement of Slavic life westward across Europe was, and is, destined profoundly to transform the life of the older nations of the continent. Their invasion of Germany was much deeper than we realize. It is true also, as we have said before, that some sympathy may be felt for the German mind when it discovered that the subjects of the Kaiser who forsook the Fatherland did not go to their own colonies in Africa, but to settle under other civilized governments in North and South America and elsewhere. Germany felt herself, therefore, hemmed in on a territory becoming increasingly inadequate and unable to gain new regions eligible for colonization without overthrowing and annexing territories already under the sway of other States. It was this situation which opened the eyes of the Kaiser nearly twenty-five years ago to the fact that what Germany required, in order to become in the largest sense of the word a world power, was a navy strong enough to compete successfully with the most powerful navy in the world-this, on the theory that two powerful navies cannot exist in the world at the same time and fulfil their functions each for its own country without coming to war with one another. Hence her claim that "the freedom of the seas" did not exist so long as the major part of the seas was guarded by the navy of the British Empire. The fact that this navy never interfered with the course of commerce, that the harbors of that Empire were all open on equal terms to all the nations of the world, as well as to the ships of the British dominions, was not a fact that conveyed any meaning to the German mind. Freedom was not freedom unless it meant dominion; and if even in name or ultimate resources the British navy held dominion, no other navy in the German sense had freedom. Therefore the only way for Germany to secure freedom of the seas was to secure dominion for herself. There is no other conceivable sense in which the German cry for freedom of the seas can be understood. The Kaiser by his naval policy prepared long years before the event for the great war of conquest. No doubt he began his reign by proclaiming himself a "prince of peace," partly to allay the nervous fears of his own people, who were not yet educated to grasp those ideals which early stirred in his restless and ambitious mind. But he used with supreme skill the very work of preparation as the means for carrying on that education. As his power grew, he tested and enjoyed the taste of it. He found that other nations were increasingly overawed by the magnitude of his military and naval achievements. Time after time France and Great Britain, Russia and Italy, were confronted with challenges before which they seemed to quail. And each diplomatic victory, which was always secured by a rattle of the scabbard, made his confidence grow. It was the Moroccan affair which proved to him that the limit of patience was being reached, and that the day must come when his gage of battle would be taken up by one or more of his rivals. This hastened and intensified the process of preparation. The people were blinded and excited by the means which were used to increase the army and navy. Fabulous and glittering prospects were held before their eyes. Pride in their power, scorn of all other peoples, were sedulously cultivated by every means which skilful rulers could devise. Then when the propitious hour seemed to have struck, the famous and infamous Council of German and Austrian rulers and leaders was held at Potsdam, July 5, 1914, to arrange for the assault on Europe. It is not we, non-Germans, who hurl an unjust accusation against an innocent and beleaguered race. Many of their own most important men have with pride confessed the diabolical crime, its preparation, its purpose, its origin in their own souls. The words of that stormy petrel, but true and loyal German, Maximilian Harden, are enough. In his newspaper, Die Zukunft, where so much truth, even unpalatable to his own Government, has been flashed on the world, Harden wrote on August 1, 1914: "Let us drop our miserable attempts to excuse Germany's action. Not against our will and as a nation taken by surprise did we hurl ourselves into this gigantic venture. We willed it; we had to |