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In his book, Le Débâcle, Zola shows in a vivid and intelligible manner the downfall of Napoleon III. and his army, and paints in his usual matter-of-fact tints the actual condition of the great host led forth to destruction. He makes us read in the soul of the common French soldier and in that of his commanding officer. The keen analysis of the characters he portrays enables us humanly to understand the catastrophe on the plains of Sedan. The whole Second Empire undermined by corruption; the army, head and front, honeycombed with loose morals, favoritism, and boundless conceit—we begin to perceive the main reasons underlying the utter defeat of a gallant nation. And this all the more when, side by side with the sombre painting of Zola, we read the God-fearing letters written home from the reeking battlefields by William I. and his Iron Chancellor.

Indeed, when the conquering German legions returned, in the spring of 1871, to their own firesides, they presented a body of men of whom any nation might have been proud. Elated they were at their unparalleled successes, but not puffed-up or vainglorious.

A generation has passed since then. Is the German army of to-day still of the same metal? Does it, as a body, still show the same sterling qualities which led it to victory after victory on the soil of France?

Alas, no. On that point the best and clearest minds in Germany itself are agreed. Foreign military leaders who have had opportunity to watch the German soldier of to-day at play and at work, have sent home reports to their respective governments, saying: “These are not the men that won in 1870!”

A couple of years ago several American officers of high rank, fresh from the Philippines, witnessed the great autumn manœuvres of the German army, conducted under the supreme command of William II. One of them, after viewing in stark amazement the senseless attacks of whole cavalry divisions up steep declivities or down slippery embankments, exposed all the while to a withering fire from the rifles of infantry masses, said to the present writer: “If this were actual war, not a horse or man would be left alive!”

In the Reichstag, the national parliament of Germany, many have been the heated debates and scorching has been the bitter satire passed during recent years upon the German army of to-day. And not only the solid phalanx of Socialists did the criticising on such occasions, but also not a few members of every other party, even including those of the Conservative Faction, composed of men who are the very representatives of the caste from which the Empire’s corps of officers have sprung.

The German newspaper press has sounded of late years, again and again, the note of alarm, dwelling in scathing articles on signs of decadence in the nation’s whilom pride—the army. It has pointed out the growing spirit of luxury in its ranks, the wholesale abuse of power by the officers and sergeants, the looseness of discipline, the havoc wrought by “army usurers,” the “money marriages,” so much in vogue with debt-ridden officers, the hard drinking and lax morals prevailing, the gaming for high stakes, which is another festering sore, and leads to the ruin of so many—and a whole train of other evils. The professional, that is, the military, press has joined in this chorus in more subdued tones.

Throughout the length and breadth of the Empire a spirit of disquiet, nay, of apprehension, has spread. Are the very foundations trembling on which the reunited “fatherland” rests?

If any reliance can be placed on an unbroken chain of evidence it would seem so indeed.

It was in 1786 that Frederick the Great died, leaving an army that he had raised to the pinnacle of fame. With this army he had faced and vanquished, standing at bay against almost the whole of continental Europe, his powerful foes. Little Prussia, a straggling strip of territory stretching from the ice-bound Niemen to the vine-clad Rhine, Frederick’s genius had lifted until it took rank with the powers that prescribe laws to the world.

A score of years later, just one short score, the hills of Jena looked down upon the crushing, disgraceful defeat of this same Prussian army. The country was dismembered, and as a political force ceased to exist. The heel of the Corsican despot was on its neck. Even after the restoration of Prussia by the Vienna Congress in 1815, it required another half-century to give her back her lost prestige. Sadowa and Sedan reinstated Prussia, and with her the allied states of Germany in her former glory.

Is another Jena coming?

Are we on the eve of another international upheaval?

A little book has recently appeared in Germany. Its title is unpretentious. Aus einer kleinen Garnison (“A Little Garrison”) does not sound very sensational. The book, besides, was written by a simple lieutenant, Bilse by name. There was apparently nothing to arouse public attention in its appearance.

And yet, from the instant of its publication, this little book did arouse such attention; more than that, it grew into an enormous sensational event, and led to developments of such a serious character that their consequences will be felt for many years to come. Indeed it seems likely that this little book will indirectly be the means of the moral reformation of the entire German army.

Shortly after its appearance the authorship of Lieutenant Bilse, who had written under the pen name of Fritz von der Kyrburg, was discovered. A court-martial was promptly convened, and he was summoned to appear before this military tribunal.

Mail reports now to hand of this memorable trial show that it created intense interest in Germany, that it was regarded, indeed, as a cause célèbre of the first magnitude. The interest in the case was largely due to the belief that Lieutenant Bilse’s novel—for he had given his terrible arraignment of the army the outward semblance of a novel—presented a true, if highly unflattering, picture of conditions as they exist in many German garrison towns. This impression was borne out by the evidence, which tended to corroborate the account given by Lieutenant Bilse of the moral tone and the standard of discipline prevailing among the officers. Part of the revelations have not been made public, as the examination of some witnesses was conducted in camera. It is understood that their evidence was of a highly sensational character.

In his examination, Lieutenant Bilse stated that since entering the service he had “lost all his illusions concerning the character and duties of an officer’s calling.” He declared that the social and regimental tone of the frontier garrison towns was extremely low, and that the repeated instances of lax discipline, favoritism, and loose living which he had observed had provoked him to write his book.

In not a single instance were the facts of the various incidents and events which form, grouped in a loose tissue, the body of his book disproved or even weakened by the testimony produced at the trial.

Nevertheless the court-martial sentenced the young officer to six months’ imprisonment and to dismissal from the service “for libelling his superior and commanding officers by the publication of writings in a peculiarly offensive and damaging form, and also for a breach of service regulations.”

The lieutenant was undoubtedly guilty of a breach of regulations, as an officer in Germany is prohibited from publishing any printed matter except over his true name, and is required to give notice of his intention to the military authorities—a rule which the young man had violated.

The German press, in its comments on the case, admits that it has an importance far beyond the person of the accused.

The Berlin Post, one of the chief organs of the aristocracy in Germany, said:

“In the interest of the army’s good name it is urgently requisite that abuses such as have been partly disclosed should be speedily and thoroughly eradicated.”

The Berlin Tageblatt, a leading paper, said:

“Lieutenant Bilse’s book should be seriously pondered in high places.”

The Vossische Zeitung, one of the oldest and most respected journals at the German capital, made this comment:

“That such things could be possible in German military corps would have seemed impossible to the most malevolent critic … the public confidence must be restored.”

The Hamburg Nachrichten, Bismarck’s old organ, says:

“We regret to admit that the picture is not overdrawn.”

And that is the tenor of all the comment of the entire German press. In the neighboring countries, in the house of Germany’s friends, Austria and Italy, the comment was even more outspoken; while in France and Russia, although their political affiliations are not precisely friendly to Germany, more forbearance was shown.

The Bilse book and the Bilse case have since formed the theme of divers debates in the Reichstag. On an interpellation from some of the delegates, the Minister of War, General von Einem, made some interesting admissions. He did not deny that Bilse had stated, in the guise of fiction, established facts; nor did he repudiate the statement that the conditions described by the author existed in duplicate form or worse in many garrisons of the empire.

The Kaiser himself was forced, much against his will, to take notice of Bilse’s book. A detailed report was made to him by the chief of his Private Military Cabinet, General von Hülsen-Häseler, on all the essential facts underlying the plot of A Little Garrison. He expressed himself as much grieved at the terrible revelations in it. In their totality they presented a state of facts of which he himself, thoroughly acquainted as he had deemed himself to be with conditions in his army, had been ignorant.

The immediate outcome of this conviction on his part was the issuance of a secret decree directed to the various commanders of the twenty-three army corps composing his army. In this decree he called the attention of these commanders to the awful conditions laid bare in Bilse’s book, and bade them watch hereafter with greater zeal over the morals and discipline of their various corps. The decree he ordered to be read by each commanding colonel to his subordinate officers, threatening with expulsion from the army any officer who should hereafter be guilty of such heinous behavior as exemplified by the characters in Bilse’s book.

It might, therefore, be supposed that a thorough reform of the whole moral status of the German army was now under way, or that it had been at least initiated by this action of the Kaiser. Certainly, there is no one in all Germany who takes a deeper interest than he in the welfare of his army, or who has a profounder conviction of its importance in maintaining the empire’s proud position as a world power. On many occasions the Kaiser has emphasized his belief that this, “the most precious legacy” left him by his grandfather, must be kept intact to secure his own throne and the nation’s predominance in the heart of Europe.

But it would be short-sighted to assume this. The causes that have been at work for thirty years past, undermining and honeycombing the whole structure of the German army, are too manifold, too much ingrained in the very fibre of the German people of to-day, and too complex to yield at the mere bidding of even so imperious a voice as the Kaiser’s. Bilse, in his book, lays a pitiless finger on the ulcers that have been festering and growing in the bosom of the army; but his story, after all, is that of only one small garrison, and refers to but a brief period in the very recent past.

It may be worth while, in order to give the reader a more comprehensive and more general view of conditions in the German army of to-day, briefly to survey some patent facts.

The wide spread of the gambling spirit is one of these. Against it the Kaiser has inveighed in army orders since his accession to the throne, but all in vain. This evil spirit is as strong to-day as ever. It was but a few years ago that a monster trial took place in Hanover. It showed a frightful state of rottenness within even the most renowned regiments—those of the Guard Corps, in which the scions of nobility hold it an honor to serve. The details of this trial were a shock to the whole country, and it ended by dismissal or expulsion from the army of a score of officers bearing, some of them, the most ancient and honored names within the empire. Even one of the Kaiser’s own aides-de-camp issued from it with a reputation so besmirched as to lead to his hasty retirement. More recently still the Club of Innocents (Club der Harmlosen) became the cynosure of all eyes, but unenviably so. It was not, strictly speaking, a military club, but it counted in its membership list a majority of active army officers. I will not go into details, but merely mention that one of the chief victims of the diabolical machinations practised by a number of high-titled black-legs—officers of this club—was young Prince Alfred, a grandson of the late Queen Victoria, whose complete moral and physical ruin was wrought, soon followed by his death. The Jockey Club in Berlin, made up largely of officers, and similar organizations in Potsdam, Charlottenburg, Hanover, Cassel, Dresden, Brunswick, Cologne, and, in fact, nearly every other garrison town of any importance within the empire, have all had their list of scandals during recent years—scandals brought about by unprincipled gamesters belonging to their corps of officers. Probably several thousands of resignations, semi-enforced retirements, or outright dismissals from the army have been due during the last decade to this one evil of high play alone.

The hard drinking indulged in throughout the army, to a degree which to the ignorant outsider seems incredible, is another evil of perhaps as great magnitude. Of that Bilse’s book gives a faithful impression. For these excessive drinking habits, and in an equal degree for the luxurious habits of life, more particularly the indulgence in sybarite banquets, the Kaiser himself must be held largely to blame, since, by force of example at the many “love feasts” (Liebesmähler) and anniversary celebrations of every kind which he not only attends at the quarters of the various regiments throughout the German domain, but which he very frequently arranges for or encourages himself, he has taught his army officers a direful lesson. Certainly, the old Spartan simplicity in food and drink which prevailed in German army circles during the days of William I., grandfather of the present ruler, has gone forever.

A direct outgrowth of the luxuriousness prevalent in the German army of to-day is two other evils which in their consequences on the morals of the officers can scarcely be overrated. They are epitomized by the two words “army usury” and “money marriages.” To live beyond one’s means leads to indebtedness. And there we have the simple genesis of the army usurer, so-called. He exists and thrives in every garrison in the empire, and the broad swath he mows within the ranks of the army testifies to his diligence and to his successful methods. It would be going too far to expatiate on this matter. Suffice it to say that the system by which the usurer brings hundreds, nay thousands, to disgrace and premature retirement from the army, usually involving the impoverishment of the officers’ families, is wellnigh perfection in itself. Within his net are driven, at some time or other, the vast majority of the younger men as well as a great many of the older ones.

The favorite avenue of escape offered to the young spendthrift officer is a so-called money marriage. He barters himself, his social position, and the prestige which the ownership of an old and honored name still carries with it in Germany, for the gold which his bride brings him on the wedding day. Dowries must of course correspond in some measure with the load of debt the young officer has been accumulating for years, and also with his claims to distinction and attractiveness. Such dowries vary between a paltry twenty thousand and several million marks, strictly according to circumstances. There is an unwritten code in force in this respect, every paragraph of which is made and provided to cover the individual needs of such impecunious officers. The matter is well understood throughout the land, and is looked upon as an established institution, something in which squeamish scruples are not allowed to interfere with concrete requirements. No German maiden consciously feels the shame of being thus made purely an object of barter and sale. She is to the manner bred. But of course good, fat dowries are often taken by officers, together with brides, who in other respects by no means realize their ideas of what a wife should be. Enough said on this dreary subject!

Still another evil, and one which of late has been much ventilated in Germany, is the abuse of power by officers and non-commissioned officers towards their subordinates. There has always been too much of this in the German army, and it would carry us too far afield to trace here the causes. In itself it seems a strange anomaly that in an army which calls itself by the proud term of a “nation in arms,” and whose membership is recruited from every stratum of society, there should be such wholesale maltreatment of the privates by their superior officers. And yet such is the fact, inexplicable as it seems at first sight. Against this curse the Kaiser has likewise launched his thunderbolts at some time or other. But they have had no effect. If anything there has been an increase in such cases.

At a Reichstag session, in the middle of December, the Kaiser’s spokesman, General von Einem, made the formal admission that during the preceding year no fewer than fifty officers and five hundred and seventy-nine non-commissioned officers had been court-martialed and sentenced for cruelly maltreating their subordinates. When we reflect that scarcely in one case out of every hundred formal charges are preferred by the victims, who know themselves completely in the power of their tyrannous masters, the official record thus stated is indeed appalling. But here again the Kaiser himself, as chief commander of the army, must be held largely responsible; for his more than lenient treatment of the convicted offenders is nothing less than a direct encouragement to their fellows to continue in these fiendish practices. One sergeant, a man by the name of Franzki, belonging to the Eighty-fifth Regiment of the Infantry, was shown at the trial to have been guilty of no less than twelve hundred and fifty individual cases of cruelty and of one hundred cases of abuse of power. Another man, Lieutenant Schilling, of the Ninety-eighth Regiment of Infantry, stationed in Metz, had a record against him of over a thousand such cases. Both men were recently tried and convicted, and the degree of their punishment seems strangely inadequate. Yet in most instances the Kaiser does not even allow these convicted offenders to serve out their brief terms of confinement, but issues free pardons to them after they have undergone but a small portion of their penalty.

However, from several points of view, the most serious evil of all that has grown up within the German army since the close of the Franco-German War of 1870–1871 is the cleavage in sentiment between the army and the nation. That also has been demonstrable on many occasions during recent years. I recall the case of Lieutenant von Brüsewitz, of Carlsruhe. This young officer ran his sword through the back of a defenceless civilian by whom he fancied himself insulted in a restaurant, the man dying within a few hours of the deed. His murderer attempted no other exculpation, or indeed explanation, than by saying that according to the army code of honor he was forced to avenge on the spot the insult offered him. Brüsewitz was sentenced to merely a mild type of confinement for a term of two years, but was pardoned by the Kaiser at the expiration of a twelvemonth. A more recent case was that of a young navy lieutenant who likewise stabbed to death with his sword a former schoolfellow and townsman who had not saluted him on the street with sufficient ceremoniousness. That, he said, was his only reason for killing the man, and he, too, received a very mild sentence. Even worse was the case of two officers quartered in a small garrison of the province of East Prussia, close to the Russian border. These men, being somewhat in liquor on New Year’s Eve, mortally wounded one civilian and gravely wounded another for no other reason than that these men had shouted a song distasteful to them, the whole occurrence happening in the street after midnight. The officers got off with a ludicrously small punishment.

Such facts as these—and they could be multiplied indefinitely—show, above all, one thing: the striking difference in the conception of what is termed “honor” obtaining between the officers in the army and the bulk of the population, the citizen element. The so-called “army code” embodies views which it is euphemism to call mediæval—remnants of the dark ages. And yet these views are not excused; no, they are upheld and endorsed by the Kaiser, his government, and by the army in a body.

The “code” also brings about that other absurdity, the army duel, as a mode of settling all serious “affairs of honor.” About that enough has been written in Germany itself to fill whole libraries, and yet the foolish thing continues. The Kaiser, grown up in all the prejudices of caste as held by his ancestors and by the present generation of the upper classes in Germany, has done nothing to eradicate this evil. The provisions made by him, and now carried out, for regulating the practice of duelling in his army, have had only the effect of rendering the duel as an institution still more respectable.

The main reason which impelled me to secure the authority for presenting his little work in an English dress was the fact that it tells a truthful tale about an organization of such first-rate importance as the German army. It paints that organization not only as he himself saw it, but as in its essential features it really is. In doing this Lieutenant Bilse has not only rendered an enormous service to his own country—as indeed many thousands of Germans are recognizing to-day—but he has also enabled the rest of the world to gain a clear insight into the inner mechanism of the most powerful fighting-machine in the world, has shown its hidden flaws, its grave organic defects, and has thus permitted us truly to gauge its inherent power. But interwoven with his criticism there is the hope, nay the conviction, that the main part of the machine is still sound.

A book of this kind, “written from the inside,” has a strong merit of its own not to be measured by its purely literary qualities; for these, I am free to admit, are not of the highest order. There is talent in it, when considering that it is the first effort of a literary tyro; but its great value lies in its intense realism, interpreting that word in its higher sense.

I have been compelled to make some alterations and omissions in my work of translation. The omissions have been due to the conviction both of myself and of my publisher, that the author has in certain instances given a mass of unnecessary details to which serious objection might be urged, in this country at least, on the score of clean literary taste. The alterations were either dictated by similar considerations or grew indirectly out of them.

With these exceptions mentioned, however, my translation may fairly claim to be true to the spirit of the original. Even the strictest moralist will not cavil at seeing equivocal situations painted in Bilse’s book when his purpose in doing so has been the radical exposure of ills existing in a body around which cluster so many traditions of honor and duty well done as is the case with the German army. And there is no excuse to be offered by me for furthering that task.

WOLF VON SCHIERBRAND.

New York, January 1, 1904.