THE PRUSSIAN MILITARY SPIRIT-THE TRUE DISTURBER OF THE PEACE OF EUROPE

It is a self-evident fact that the war-aims proclaimed by the Chancellor must indefinitely prolong the bitter struggle of the nations. The enemies of Germany will take care not to deliver into the hands of the brutal aggressor, as a reward for his misdeeds, greater weapons of force than he possessed before, and to accord him a hegemony in Europe which could only lead to new and bitter conflicts. They will be careful not to leave him territories which-in part on his own admission-he involved in war without reason and without law. The opponents of Germany are striving for an organisation of the European community of States resting on law, which can be attained only by the peaceful restraint of the bellicose disturber of the peace, according to the principle "Equal rights for all." As I shall prove later in detail, no responsible statesman in England, France or Russia has ever, either before or during the war, expressed the intention of throttling or annihilating Germany. It is only Prussian militarism that it is proposed to make innocuous, because it is rightly held to be the true and the sole responsible originator of the world

war.

WHAT IS MILITARISM?

Militarism is not the same thing as military preparations. These have been pursued by all States alike, although no doubt they were always urged on and compelled by the advance of the insatiable military Moloch which carried on its work in Prussian Germany. Militarism means a warlike spirit; it is a warlike love of aggression; it is the luxuriant growth of militaristic views over the civil point of view; it is the preference accorded to the soldier-castes before all the other classes of the population; it is the enthusiasm for war "for the sake of war," as the alleged "father of all things," as the maintainer and promoter of the strength of the people, as the source of all blessing. Militarism is a conglomerate of national-psychological and political factors, such as in the twen

tieth century exists only in Prussia, and by infection from Prussia in Germany, but is to be found in no other country in the world.

To retaliate on other countries with the charge of militarism because they also had made military preparations, or in the case of the English, to accuse them of "marinism," is an absurdity which holds good least of all in the eyes of German critics. We know best what Prussian militarism is; for daily and hourly we see it and hear it and suffer under it. We know that this peculiar fragrance, compounded of the smell of the stables of Junkerdom and of the gunpowder of the soldiers, this dissonant coincident clangour of clattering spurs, of the rattle of trailing sabres and of the snarling voice of command is an authorised peculiarity of the "nationals" in Prussia. We know that the oldest dress-coat bows humbly to the ground, whenever the uniform of the youngest lieutenant appears on the horizon. We have seen Chancellors who on solemn occasions, before his Majesty graciously promoted them to be generals, proudly displayed their epaulettes as majors and colonels-Presidents of the Reichstag who, on the opening of Parliament, appeared in the uniform of a captain of the Landwehr; indeed, we have even seen a Finance Minister of happy memory, whom the Emperor caused to be promoted to be a second-lieutenant in order to make good the absence of any military rank. Even to-day the Chancellor Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, following a celebrated example, does not appear before the assembled Reichstag in a coat, but in general's uniform, and when the camera is taking the countless photographs of his "august" person which adorn all the illustrated papers, he does not forget to draw the field-grey cover over his helmet as if he had come directly from the trenches.

Imagine this, and much more to the same effect, in any other country. Imagine Grey, Asquith, or Lloyd George, the Minister for Munitions (the present Premier), in uniform before the House of Commons, or Sazonof as a Russian general in the Duma. Compare with this the position found in France, where even the Ministers for War are often ci

vilians and review the troops at the front in a civilian's jacket, accompanied by the President, also in mufti. Imagine a Prussian War Minister in civilian clothes, when in our case even a civilian Minister appears in a military rig-out.1 It is impossible, inconceivable! I believe it would be the beginning of the revolution-from above!

It will be urged against me that these are details. No! These are symptoms of the spirit which prevails in Prussia and Germany. These are clothes which make people-coverings of the head, behind which thoughts are concealed. That is militarism, the abasement of the civil element before the military-militarism, which is not content with superficialities, but has poisoned the whole inner life of the Prussian people, and, unfortunately, after 1870 has saturated the life of the German people also, and infected it with the dangerous germs of disease. It was militarism that drove us to an increasingly violent development of our machinery of war by land and sea, and finally urged us to this war—militarism, which by prolonged boring operations inoculated the peaceloving people with the bacillus of war. It was militarism which, as Rohrbach openly acknowledges, "prepared public opinion for war."

Above all, it was militarism, the crowding out by military considerations of the considerations of the statesmen, which provoked the fearful and portentous resolution for war in the last July days of 1914. The generals could not wait; every day's delay would have worsened the military situation

The most recent incident in this connection and an extremely characteristic one, is found in the fact that a few days after the appointment of the new Chancellor, Michaelis, the Emperor attached him to the Army, although for a long time he had had no military connections, and gave him authority to wear the uniform of the Grenadier Regiment No. 8, "giving him the character of a lieutenant-colonel." It was indeed an intolerable situation that the new Chancellor should have been compelled to deliver in civil attire his great speech on taking up office on July 19th. "The man can be helped," said the Emperor William. And behold, the man is helped! As in the past, the German people will now again experience the pleasure of seeing at its head a highest official who must humbly salute before officers of higher rank (before colonels, major-generals, lieutenant-generals and field-marshals). It is a pity that there is no way of giving to those who guide the destiny of Germany anything else than a military character.

of Germany. As against this decisive point of view, of what importance were considerations of reason and humanity, which by a delay of a few days (as the English Ambassador Bunsen rightly points out) would have preserved the European nations from the most fearful of all catastrophes? It was the generals, led by the Crown Prince, and not the statesmen, who in the decisive hour had the controlling word and possessed the ear of the monarch. Indeed, these same generals and admirals who then provoked the precipitate resolution for war, still continue through their organs in the Press to reproach the Chancellor because he did not strike soon enough, because he did not strike a few days earlier. And in making this charge, although they are unconscious of the fact, they admit that it was not the Russian mobilisation of July 31st, but the Prussian will for war, which was already firmly fixed some days earlier, that gave the decisive impulse to the war. That is Prussian militarism. In no other country in the world would anything similar have been possible.

It is this militarism to which the present-day enemies of Germany mean finally to put an end. This is what they mean to defeat in such a manner as to render it once for all innocuous. It is not the German people that is their enemy. The President of the United States has quite recently emphasised this in unmistakable words in his message of April 2nd, 1917. It is not the German people that is to be suppressed, but the Prussian military spirit, this retrograde, pernicious spirit which in the past has stood in the way of any peaceful upbuilding of Europe, and which in future also, so long as it lives and breathes, will be a hindrance and a danger to an enduring peace among the nations.

That this spirit, which before the war was propagated by a small but very powerful minority only, has now in the midst of war seized and infected the greater part of the German people is a fact that we see confirmed daily and hourly in all the phenomena of public life in Germany, in all the utterances of the leading minds in literature, in the Press and in Parliament, reaching far into the Socialist ranks. Only the

small flock of the Social Democratic minority (the presentday "Independent Social Democratic Party") has remained free from the nationalistic-militaristic infection. It is only here-crushed and oppressed by the censorship and by military violence that there is still to be found the consistent opposition to Prussian militarism, which refuses it the means for the execution of its criminal plans. All the hopes of a revolution in the German people, and consequently of a peaceful future for Europe, rest on the activity and the success of this small handful of upright men.

It is only the awakening of Germany from the poisonous stupor into which Prussian militarism has plunged it that can bring the blessing. A sharp line of division must be made between Prussianism and Germanism, between Hohenzollernism and the people. It is here that all levers must be applied. It is from this point that the revolutionary spirit, which is to drive the military spirit out of the temple must be engendered, encouraged and developed.

There is also another possible hope-the hope that the Prussian war spirit will be brought to shame by its own failure. No mortal can to-day say whether this hope will be realised that rests on the knees of the gods. The military spirit of Prussia has brought forth an overwhelming military force which hitherto was able to resist a world, despite all the streams, all the oceans of blood which have already been shed to restrain this giant. Yet whatever may be the issue of the struggle, the hardest task is still reserved for the German people—the task of rooting out the spirit which has produced this dangerous monster.

The pacifist spirit must assume the place of the militaristic spirit. War must be recognised as what it is, as the most frightful scourge of the human race, as the destroyer of all that is good and noble and beautiful, as a force that roughens men's morals and minds, as the brutal devastator of the happiness and the well-being of men. They must be placed in the pillory of public detestation, these Rulers and Governments, these "national" glorifiers of wholesale carnage which "edu