Читать книгу The Evidence in the Case - James M. Beck - Страница 8

“The good old rule

Sufficeth them, the simple plan

That they should take who have the power,

And they should keep who can.”

Does the Twentieth Century only differ from its predecessors in having a thin veneering of hypocrisy, or has there developed in the progress of civilization an international morality, by which, even though imperfectly, the moral conduct of nations is judged?

The answer can be an unqualified affirmative. With the age of the printing press, the steamship, the railroad, and the telegraph there has developed a conscience of mankind.

When the founders of the American Republic severed the tie which bound them to Great Britain, they stated that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

The Declaration assumed that there was a rule of right and wrong that regulated the intercourse of nations as well as individuals; it believed that there was a great human conscience, which rises higher than the selfish interests and prejudices of nations and races, and which approves justice and condemns injustice. It felt that this approval is more to be desired than national advantage. It constituted mankind a judge between contending nations and lest its judgment should temporarily err it established posterity as a court of last resort. It placed the tie of humanity above that of nationality. It proclaimed the solidarity of mankind.

In the years that have intervened since this noble Declaration, the world has so far progressed towards an enlightened sense of justice that a “decent respect to the opinions of mankind” has proved an efficient power in regulating peacefully and justly the intercourse of nations. Each nation does at least in some measure fear to-day the disapproval of civilization. The time gives this proof in the eager desire of Germany to-day—despite its policy of “blood and iron”—to gain the sympathetic approval of the American people, not with the remotest hope of any practical coöperation but to avoid that state of moral isolation, in which the land of Luther now finds itself.

The Supreme Court of Civilization does exist. It consists of cosmopolitan men in every country, who put aside racial and national prejudices and determine the right and wrong of every issue between nations by that slowly forming system of international morality which is the conscience of mankind.

To a certain class of German statesmen and philosophers this Court of Public Opinion is a visionary abstraction. A group of distinguished German soldiers, professors, statesmen, and even doctors of divinity, pretending to speak in behalf of the German nation, have consciously or unconsciously attempted to revive in the twentieth century the cynical political morality of the sixteenth.

As Symonds, the historian of the Renaissance, says in his Age of the Despots, Machiavelli was the first in modern times to formulate a theory of government in which the interests of the ruler are alone regarded, which assumes

a separation between statecraft and morality, which recognizes force and fraud among the legitimate means of attaining high political ends, which makes success alone the test of conduct and which presupposes the corruption, baseness, and venality of mankind at large.

Even the age of Cesare Borgia revolted against this philosophy and the name of Machiavelli became a byword. “Am I a Machiavel?” says the host in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the implication of this question indirectly manifests the revolt of the seventeenth century against the sinister philosophy of the great Florentine.

Nothing can be more amazing than that not only leading militarists of Germany but many of its foremost philosophers and teachers have become so intoxicated with the dream of Pan-Germanism that in the utmost sincerity they have espoused and with a certain pride proclaimed the vicious principles of Machiavelli in all their moral nudity. There is an emotional and mystical element in the advanced German thinker, which makes him capable of accepting in full sincerity intellectual and moral absurdities of which the more robust common sense of other nations would be incapable. The advanced German doctrinaire is the “wisest fool in Christendom.” The depth of his learning is generally in the inverse ratio to the shallowness of his common sense.

Nothing better demonstrates this than the present negation by advanced and doubtless sincere German thinkers of the very foundations of public morality and indeed of civilization. They have been led with Nietzsche to revile the Beatitudes and exalt the supremacy of cruelty over mercy. Indeed Treitschke in his lectures on Politik, which have become the gospel of Junkerdom, avowedly based his gospel of force upon the teaching of Machiavelli, for he points out that it was Machiavelli who first clearly saw that the State is power (der Staat ist Macht). Therefore “to care for this power is the highest moral duty of the State” and “of all political weaknesses that of feebleness is the most abominable and despicable; it is the sin against the holy spirit of politics.” He therefore holds that the State as the ultimate good “cannot bind its will for the future over against other States,” and that international treaties are therefore only obligatory “for such time as the State may find to be convenient.”

To enforce the will of the nation contrary to its own solemn promises and to increase its might, war is the appointed means. Both Treitschke and Moltke conceived it as “an ordinance set by God” and “one of the two highest functions” of the State. The doctrine is carried to the blasphemous conclusion that war is an ordinance of a just and merciful God; that, to quote Bernhardi, “it is a biological necessity” and that “the living God will see to it that war shall always recur as a terrible medicine for humanity.” Therefore “might is at once the supreme right and the dispute as to what is right is decided by the arbitrament of war,” which gives a “biologically just decision.”

This means that the 42 centimeter howitzer is more moral than a gun of smaller caliber and that the justice of God depends upon the superiority of Krupp to other ordnance manufacturers.

Treitschke tells us, and the statement is quoted by Bernhardi with approval, that “the end all and be all of a state is power, and he who is not man enough to look this truth in the face should not meddle with politics.” To this Bernhardi adds that the State’s highest moral duty is to increase its power and in so doing “the State is the sole judge of the morality of its own action. It is in fact above morality or, in other words whatever is necessary is moral.”

Again we learn that the State must not allow any conventional sympathies to distract it from its object and that “conditions may arise which are more powerful than the most honorable intentions.”

All efforts directed towards the abolition of war are denominated as not only “foolish but absolutely immoral.” To indicate that in this prosecution of war for the increase of dominion, chivalry would be a weakness and magnanimity a crime, we are finally told that “the State is a law unto itself” and that “weak nations have not the same right to live as powerful and vigorous nations.” Even as to weak nations, we are further advised that the powerful and vigorous nation—which alone apparently has the right to live—must not wait for some act of aggression or legitimate casus belli, but that it is justified in deliberately provoking a war, and that the happiest results have always followed such “deliberately provoked wars,” for “the prospects of success are the greatest when the moment for declaring war can be selected to suit the political and military situation.”

As the weak nations have no moral right to live it becomes important to remember that in the economy of Prussian Junkerdom there is only one strong race—his own. “Wir sind die Weltrasse.” The ultimate goal is the super-nation, and the premise upon which the whole policy is based is that Germany is predestined to be that super-nation. Bernhardi believes—and his belief is but the reflex of the oft-repeated boast of the Kaiser—that history presents no other possibility. “For us there are two alternatives and no third—world power or ruin” (Weltmacht oder Niedergang). To assimilate Germany to ancient Rome the Kaiser on occasion reminds himself of Cæsar and affects to reign, not by the will of the people, but by divine right. No living monarch has said or done more to revive this mediæval fetich. To his soldiers he has recently said: “You think each day of your Emperor. Do not forget God.” What magnanimity!

At the outbreak of the present war he again illustrated his spirit of fanatical absolutism, which at times inspires him, by saying to his army:

Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On me, as German Emperor, the spirit of God has descended. I am His weapon; His sword; His Vicegerent. Woe to the disobedient! Death to cowards and unbelievers!

The modern world has had nothing like this since Mahomet and, accepted literally, it claims for the Kaiser the divine attributes attributed to the Cæsars. Even the Cæsars, in baser and more primitive times, found posing as a divine superman somewhat difficult and disconcerting. Shakespeare subtly suggests this when he makes his Cæsar talk like a god and act with the vacillation of a child.

When the war was precipitated as the natural result of such abhorrent teachings, the world at large knew little either of Treitschke or Bernhardi. Thoughtful men of other nations did know that the successful political immoralities of Frederick the Great had profoundly affected the policies of the Prussian Court to this day. The German poet, Freiligrath, once said that “Germany is Hamlet,” but no analogy is less justified. There is nothing in the supersensitive, introspective, and amiable dreamer of Elsinore to suggest the Prussia of to-day, which Bebel has called “Siegesbetrunken.” (Victory-drunk.)

Since the beginning of the present war, the world has become familiar with these abhorrent teachings and as a result of a general revolt against this recrudescence of Borgiaism attempts have been made by the apologists for Prussia, especially in the United States, to suggest that neither Treitschke nor Bernhardi fairly reflect the political philosophy of official Germany. Treitschke’s influence as an historian and lecturer could not well be denied but attempts have been made to impress America that Bernhardi has no standing to speak for his country and that the importance of his teachings should therefore be minimized.

Apart from the wide popularity of Bernhardi’s writings in Germany, the German Government has never repudiated Bernhardi’s conclusions or disclaimed responsibility therefor. While possibly not an officially authorized spokesman, yet he is as truly a representative thinker in the German military system as Admiral Mahan was in the Navy of the United States. Of the acceptance by Prussia of Bernhardi’s teachings there is one irrefutable proof. It is Belgium. The destruction of that unoffending country is the full harvest of this twentieth-century Machiavelliism.

A few recent utterances from a representative physician, a prominent journalist, and a distinguished retired officer of the German Army may be quoted as showing how completely infatuated a certain class of German thinkers has become with the gospel of force for the purpose of attaining world power.

Thus a Dr. Fuchs, in a book on the subject of preparedness for war, says:

Therefore the German claim of the day must be: The family to the front. The State has to follow at first in the school, then in foreign politics. Education to hate. Education to the estimation of hatred. Organization of hatred. Education to the desire for hatred. Let us abolish unripe and false shame before brutality and fanaticism. We must not hesitate to announce: To us is given faith, hope, and hatred, but hatred is the greatest among them.

Maximilian Harden, one of the most influential German journalists, says:

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 will it. We do not stand before the judgment seat of Europe. We acknowledge no such jurisdiction. Our might shall create a new law in Europe. It is Germany that strikes. When she has conquered new domains for her genius then the priesthoods of all the gods will praise the God of War.

Still more striking and morally repellent was the very recent statement by Major-General von Disfurth, in an article contributed by him to the Hamburger Nachrichten, which so completely illustrates Bernhardiism in its last extreme of avowed brutality that it justifies quotation in extenso.

No object whatever is served by taking any notice of the accusations of barbarity leveled against Germany by our foreign critics. Frankly, we are and must be barbarians, if by these we understand those who wage war relentlessly and to the uttermost degree....

We owe no explanations to any one. There is nothing for us to justify and nothing to explain away. Every act of whatever nature committed by our troops for the purpose of discouraging, defeating, and destroying our enemies is a brave act and a good deed, and is fully justified.... Germany stands as the supreme arbiter of her own methods, which in the time of war must be dictated to the world....

They call us barbarians. What of it? We scorn them and their abuse. For my part I hope that in this war we have merited the title of barbarians. Let neutral peoples and our enemies cease their empty chatter, which may well be compared to the twitter of birds. Let them cease their talk of the Cathedral at Rheims and of all the churches and all the castles in France which have shared its fate. These things do not interest us. Our troops must achieve victory. What else matters?

These hysterical vaporings of advanced Junkers no more make a case against the German people than the tailors of Tooley Street had authority to speak for England, but they do represent the spirit of the ruling caste, to which unhappily the German people have committed their destiny. It would not be difficult to quote both the Kaiser and the Crown Prince, who on more than one occasion have manifested their enthusiastic adherence to the gospel of brute force. The world is not likely to forget the Crown Prince’s congratulations to the brutal military martinet of the Zabern incident, and still less the shameful fact that when the Kaiser sent his punitive expedition to China, he who once stood within sight of the Mount of Olives and preached a sermon breathing the spirit of Christian humility, said to his soldiers:

When you encounter the enemy you will defeat him. No quarter shall be given, no prisoners shall be taken. Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. Just as the Huns a thousand years ago under the leadership of Etzel (Attila), gained a reputation in virtue of which they still live in historical tradition, so may the name of Germany become known in such a manner in China that no Chinaman will ever again even dare to look askance at a German.

And this campaign of extermination—worthy of a savage Indian chief—was planned for the most pacific and unaggressive race, the Chinese, for it is sadly true that the one nation which has more than any other been inspired for two thousand years by the spirit of “peace on earth” is the hermit nation, into which until the nineteenth century the light of Christianity never shone.

In a recent article, George Bernard Shaw, the Voltaire of the twentieth century, with the intellectual brilliancy and moral shallowness of the great cynic, attempts to justify Bernhardiism by resort to the unconvincing “et tu quoque” argument. He contends that England also has had its “Bernhardis,” and refers to a few books which he affects to think bear out his argument. That these books show that there have been advocates of militarism in England is undoubtedly true. The present war illustrates that there was need of such literature, for a nation which faced so great a trial as the present, with a standing army that was pitiful in comparison with that of Germany and without any involuntary service law, certainly had need of some literary stimulus to self-preparation. No one quarrels with Bernhardi in his discussions of the problems of war as such. It is only when the soldier ceases to be a strategist and becomes a moralist that the average man with conventional ideas of morality revolts against Bernhardiism. The books to which Mr. Shaw refers can be searched in vain for any passages parallel to those which have been quoted from Treitschke, Bernhardi, and other German writers. The brilliant but erratic George Bernard Shaw cannot find in all English literature any such Machiavelliisms as those of Treitschke and Bernhardi.

Shaw’s whole defense of Germany, betrays his characteristic desire to be clever and audacious without regard to nice considerations of truth. Much as we may admire his intellectual badinage under other circumstances, it may be questioned whether in this supreme tragedy of the world it was fitting for Shaw to daub himself anew with his familiar vermilion and play the intellectual clown.

It was either courage of an extraordinary but unenviable character or else crass stupidity that led Bernhardi to submit to the civilization of the present day such a debasing gospel, for if his brain had not been hopelessly obfuscated by his Pan-Germanic imperialism, he would have seen that not only would this philosophy do his country infinitely more harm than a whole park of artillery but would inevitably carry his memory down to a wondering posterity, like Machiavelli, detestable but, unlike Machiavelli, ridiculous.

Machiavelli gave to his Prince a literary finish that placed his treatise among the classics, while Bernhardi has gained recognition chiefly because his book is a moral anachronism.

One concrete illustration from Bernhardi clearly shows that the sentences above quoted are truly representative of his philosophy, and not unfair excerpts. In explaining that it is the duty of every nation to increase its power and territory without regard for the rights of others, he alludes to the fact that England committed the “unpardonable blunder from her point of view of not supporting the Southern States in the American War of Secession,” and thus forever severing in twain the American Republic. In this striking illustration of applied Bernhardiism, there is no suggestion as to the moral side of such intervention. Nothing is said with respect to the moral question of slavery, or of the obligations of England to a friendly Power. Nothing as to how the best hopes of humanity would have been shattered if the American Republic—that “pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night” to struggling humanity—had been brought to cureless ruin. All these considerations are completely disregarded, and all Bernhardi can see in the situation, as it presented itself to England in 1861, was its opportunity, by a cowardly stab in the back, to remove forever from its path a great and growing nation.

Poor Bernhardi! He thought to serve his royal master. He has simply damned him. As Machiavelli, as the eulogist of the Medicis, simply emphasized their moral nudity, so Bernhardi has shown the world the inner significance of this crude revival of Cæsarism.