I Meet My Contemporaries

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I MEET
MY CONTEMPORARIES

Maximilian Harden

I MEET MY
CONTEMPORARIES

y
MAXIMILIAN HARDEN

Translated from the German by
WILLIAM C. LAWTON

With an Introduction by
the HON. JAMES W. GERARD

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1925

COPYRIGHT, 1925,

BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FOREWORD

BEFORE 1914 we knew nothing of the real Germany
today we are still ignorant of the great personalities
of Germany.

Among these, Maximilian Harden stands out a
fearless brain-giant. Of course, I do not always agree
with him, but this man of mystery who in the Germany
of 1916 dared to defend President Wilson, who more
than once defied the Kaiser, who was the intimate
friend of the great Bismarck, has played a great role
not only in the political life of Europe but in the intel
lectual development of the German people.

We, in America, owe it to the world to support the
new Germany, the new Republic which has to fight for
its existence against the Reds on one side and those
who would restore the Hohenzollerns and once more
plunge the world in war. We owe it ourselves to
search the soul of this new Germany above all to read
the books of this Maximilian Harden whose vision in
time of war was so clear and who so ably dissects the
motives of nations and of men.

I knew Harden when I was in Berlin he dined and
lunched in our Embassy. His whole personality
breathes fearlessness courage, and it was the courage
of no minor quality which carried him through by con
tests with the most powerfully organized government
the world has ever seen.

vi FOREWORD

His power of delineating a personality is more than
photographic his keen mind discovers not only the
outstanding traits of men, but their hidden thoughts,
their secret motives are as plain to him as if he pierced
their being with a mental x-ray.

You must read this book.

(Signed) JAMES W. GERARD.
September 24, 1924.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER frAGE

I. MAXIMILIAN HARDEN 3

II. WOODROW WILSON 14

III. LLOYD GEORGE 64

IV. CLEMENCEAU 98

V. THE HINDENBURG MYTH 119

VI. STINNES 139

VII. KING PETER OF SERBIA 160

VIII. LENIN 181

IX. SARAH BERNHARDT 217

X. BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY .... 240

I MEET
MY CONTEMPORARIES

I

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN was born in Berlin, in 1862,
the son of a merchant. When many years after mar
riage a separation of his parents became necessary,
an imperious craving for freedom drove the boy from
the desolated home to the theater, a course then still
regarded as a disgraceful one. Much too young, and
without proper preparation, he followed this career
for a few years, playing youthful hero roles in German
classics, Shakespeare's Romeo and Mark Antony, but
also happier lovers in modern dramas. Naturally, in
so short a time and at so immature an age, he did not
attain to the foremost rank. One of the most eminent
German actors, however, Oscar Sauer, who chanced to
see him on the stage in a provincial capital, wrote, sev
eral decades later, when at the point of death (and so,
impartially) : "You would have become a Josef Kainz,
a foremost man, if you had not turned to a higher
calling.' 7

Harden did in fact presently return (an action
almost unheard-of) to the Berlin gymnasium, from
which his longing for freedom had driven him. The
task of interpreting the thoughts and feelings of others,
and setting them forth dramatically, did not satisfy
him. He wished to be a student, but his father did
not put the necessary means at his disposal, and his
mother had barely enough for her own needs. His

3

4 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

father's wish was that the son should also be a mer
chant.

So for the second time he left the gymnasium, where
he had been by far the youngest member of the second
class ("Secunda") at the time of his "first flight." The
director gave public expression to his keen regret at
losing "the best student in the institution" just before
the completion of his course. What knowledge Harden
has acquired he owes to his own persistent efforts. As
the university career was closed to him, he turned to
literature. Characteristically, his first political article
was directed, with unheard-of audacity, against William
von Hohenzollern, who, then Crown Prince, was en
deavoring, by the powerful means of militaristic self-
advertising, to displace his father, the dying Emperor
Frederic, in the favor of the people. The article was
entitled The Inheritance of Byzantium. It opened
the series of Harden's calls to battle against the "Neo-
Byzantinism of Berlin" the mischief innate in the
flesh and bones of Wilhelm II.

Overnight, so to speak, Harden became the best
known dramatic and literary critic in Germany. Soon
after, he began the publication of satires (later col
lected), which he signed with the pseudonym "Apos-
tata," to intimate that he had cut loose from all tradi
tional orthodox partisan ideas, and, without regard for
what would best please his readers, would say what
to him seemed right. Under this banner he uttered
terribly harsh truths, mingling passionate feeling with
biting wit, against the ruling class in Germany, and
especially the Kaiser and his court.

These satires were eagerly devoured, and their re-

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN 5

markable success suggested the idea of creating a
special periodical for Maximilian Harden. He brought
out the weekly Future (Die Zukunjt). What that
periodical became for the choicest spirits, not of Ger
many alone, is most clearly seen from the judgments of
the philosopher-poet, August Strindberg, which, with
out knowing Harden personally, he passed upon him
and his work (Letters to Ms translator, Scherling).

"My DEAR MR. SCHERLING:

"It was my intention to congratulate Harden at the
turn of the year, but I am afraid of saying something
awry in my poor German. Please thank him for the
hospitality that he has shown me in his magazine, and
assure him of my limitless admiration. It is needless
to tell him how important he is in the life of Ger
many. That he himself knows. He speaks once a
week to the German nation, and is heard.

"If ever he were condemned to drink hemlock, it
would be for Socrates' crime: C I am not an Athenian
(German) but a cosmopolitan.'

"Every number of the Zukunjt brings such a wealth
of ideas that I do not venture to read it through, for
fear my own creative thought would be cut off or
misled.

"Tell him, I should count it a high honor to be
busied in one corner of his workshop.

"That is my sincere feeling, which I cannot sup
press.

"Your

"AUGUST STRINDBERG.

"Stockholm, January, 1904."

6 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

"Die Zukunjt is a Parliament, a free Reichstag for
Europe, a permanent Congress, and he who wishes to
know the future, can study it in Die Zukunjt.

"AUGUST STRINDBERG.

"Furnsund, July 4, 1904."

"My DEAR MR. SCHERLING:

"To see the first section of my Swedish Nature taken
up into the Zukimjt delights and honors me; and yet
that work has cost me long years. I have been aston
ished at Harden's omniscience. Is he a mediumistic
writer, or has he a Daemon who dictates to him? His
article actually bristles with wisdom. How can that
solitary man have seen and heard it all?

"AUGUST STRINDBERG.

"Stockholm, August 24, 1904."

Nothing like the effect of the little brown numbers
had ever been seen in Germany before; perhaps never
attained in all Europe since the Junius letters. With
out exaggeration it can be said that every European
diplomatist read them in the hands of court-flunkeys,
and that in the "Special train" of the "Old War Lord"
the time was whiled away with this reading. The
weekly brought with it one of the weightiest and most
stimulating supplements. Here Behring first made
his diphtheria serum known. The best writers in all
departments of science, on international politics and
sociology, were contributors. Masterpieces of Tolstoy,
Maupassant, Bjornson, Fontane, Heyse, Spielhagen,
Brentano, Zola, Anatole France, Schaeffle, Lemaitre,
and a whole Pleiad of more recent authors, appeared

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN 7

here. Naumann who was Bismarck's special physician,
Rathenau, and others were first introduced by Harden.
The congratulatory address presented to Harden on
the tenth anniversary of Zukunjt's foundation bore
such names as Bjornson, Meunier, Forel, Kraft-Ebing,
Lamprecht, Witwe, Mauthner, Rilke, Lagerloef, Kienzl
to cull merely a few out of the host. The "glorious
misfortune," if it may be so expressed, was that in
spite of all it was properly only Harden who in these
pages was sought out and craved, and that every num
ber in which he did not appear as chief contributor
(which happened very rarely) brought disappointment
with it.

In the contest which Wilhelm's immeasurable vanity
carried on against Bismarck, the creator of the Empire,
Harden took sides for the man of genius and against
legitimacy (here disgraced by a crowned head); not,
as might be imagined, because Bismarck's policy in all
its details had his approval, but because he was enraged
at the mendacity with which an empty-headed play
actor drove out, as he would a tiresome servant, the
man to whom his house owed everything. And the
pitiful thing that posed as "public opinion" in Ger
many was even then deceived. It huzzaed for the
Kaiser, and reviled the Chancellor. Harden was the
first to point out in Bismarck the "visionary," the
"musician," the "statesman by instinct" of the Shake
spearean type.

When the ex-Chancellor, who sat in loneliness, under
a ban, in his home at Friedrichsruhe, had twice invited
Harden to visit him, he did so, and often thereafter
lingered as Bismarck's guest on his estates.

8 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

In a famous suit it was legally established by testi
mony that during one of these visits Bismarck had
brought to him from the wine cellar the bottle of "Stein-
berger Cabinet" which the Kaiser (after a reconcilia
tion with the ex-Chancellor, who had meantime at
tained a fabulous popularity) had sent as a tonic to
the invalid; and had said to Harden: "I made up my
mind to drink it with you, because you feel just as
kindly toward the Kaiser as I do." The grimly serious
meaning of the ironic-sounding sentence made a sen
sation at the time.

Even toward the great man whom, as man to man,
he heartily loved, Harden always maintained his in
dependence. On account of the social problems, which
Bismarck viewed as a son of the Junkers in 1815 natu
rally would, they came into actual conflict, which was
finally ended by a renewed invitation to Bismarck's
home.

The court circle was filled with frantic rage against
Harden. The first attempts to have him condemned
for lese-majeste were shipwrecked, and finally resulted
in an acquittal which had for Harden the significance
of a "civic blessing," for Wilhelm II that of a veiled
warning.

The judge who had so spoken was dealt with. A
lawyer was hired to distil an indictment out of thirty-
two ( ! ) volumes of the Zukunjt. The highest rewards
were assured to the state prosecutor then in office in
case of success. And with all this expenditure, to which
was added intimidation of the judges, the difficult task
was accomplished, and Harden found guilty of l&se~
majestg. Twice he was imprisoned for a series of

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN 9

months in the damp desolate fortress "Weichsel-
miinde" (Vistula-mouth).

But not for a moment did he give up the struggle,
nor weaken in it. At the time of the jubilee for the
2 5th anniversary of the founding of the Empire (Jan
uary 1 8, 1896) he wrote that if the government were
carried on a while longer as Wilhelm was conducting
it, then a real "Volkerbund" (Union of the peoples)
would take form, and tear down the present seemingly
unconquerable one.

Quite alone, against Kaiser, courtiers, government,
military, courts of justice, officialdom, and, alas, the
larger portion of the press (which never forgave him
that when it was necessary he had also censured it un
sparingly as an institution and in its representatives)
he carried on the fight, against the "ring/ 7 His
Majesty's favorites, "Eulenburg Moltke & Co.," and
was victorious at last after hardships too long to be
described here over all the Powers.

Albert Ballin, of the Hamburg-American Line, wrote
him at that time: "If the Kaiser had not been so badly
advised, instead of causing a criminal suit to be brought
against you, he would have published in the Reichs-
anzeiger, officially, the thanks of the crown." It was
Ballin, also, who brought it about that the imperial
government (secretly, to be sure) repaid to Harden
the entire costs of the suits. Harden did not accept
this payment until it was stated by letter in the name
of the Imperial Chancellor, that thereby the justifica
tion and beneficial nature of his fight had been recog
nized.

Harden foretold the war, wrote in the Zukunft in

10 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

April, 1914, at a time when no one in the world had a
thought of it, "In this summer!' 9 He could not pre
vent it, nor could he ever believe in German victory.
In the third year he wrote that "only by political
not by military action could an end be put to the war,
unless Europe was to sink into midnight darkness 1"
With the most violent energy he opposed the submarine
warfare. On April 12, 1916, he wrote a letter to Beth-
mann-HoIlweg, then Imperial Chancellor, which he
printed in the Zukunjt on October 26, 1918. "The
wound which Tirpitzism has inflicted on the Empire's
body must be made complete. In this hour of fate I
implore your Excellency not to be pettier than your
destiny!' 5

Harden's note appended in the Zukunjt to this
letter ran: "Von Bethmann believed Helfferich and
Zimmermann (who cannot escape the imperial courts) ;
and the submarine warfare, to England's salvation,
brought America into the war!"

Harden labored unwearyingly for an understanding
with the United States; he sounded the warning, that
that country, and it alone, could determine the result
of the war, could bring about peace by mediation. He
arranged, as a last means, for the reception of the
American ambassador at Headquarters (Letter to
Bethmann dated April 22, 1916; see Zukunjt of
October 26, 1916. "This letter obtained for Hon.
James W. Gerard the invitation to Headquar
ters").

In the articles // / Were Wilson and The True
Wilson Harden divined beforehand, from his whole
character and career, the chief lines of the program

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN 11

which Wilson later announced. Both of these articles
were recorded verbatim in the American Congressional
Record "for eternal remembrance."

But no less unweariedly did the possessors of power
labor in their zeal of persecution against Harden.
Many times an edition of the Zukunjt was con
fiscated; twice its publication was forbidden for five
months; every imaginable device and threat, which
included even the bookkeeper as an accomplice, and
intimidation of the public, contributed to the economic
ruin of the once prosperous periodical. The publisher
did not yield an inch, made not the slightest conces
sion to the militarists.

In October, 1918, when he saw chaos approaching,
he, after a severe struggle with himself, resolved to
break the reserve which had grown to be second nature
with him, and telegraphed to the Kaiser, without the
least courtly ceremony, asking if he could speak to him
in the interest of Germany. Wilhelm put forward
"engagements" as an excuse, and asked him to talk
with the head of his civil cabinet. ("I may most re
spectfully impress on you, to give us notice by tele
phone of the date and hour of your visit. Delbriick,
Secretary of State." Oct. 7, 1918.) To this old gentle
man Harden uttered the final words: "Only a prompt
and great action, which makes the nation master of
its own fate, and at the same time brings peace, can
still preserve the monarchy, within the limits of that
of England. For a Kaiser who is in hiding is protected
only by the greater unpopularity of his eldest son,
and by the fear of the Bourgeoisie at the prospect of
a Red revolution of the Russian type"

12 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

The head of the Cabinet promised to repeat all this
to His Majesty. Did it come to pass?

At Harden's urgent request, on the evening of
November 8, the ministerial director, Simons (the same
who is now President of the Imperial Court and Presi
dent's representative, and who had asked for Harden's
opinion on the situation), induced Prince Max of
Baden, the Imperial Chancellor, to order Gen. von
Linsingen, who desired to stifle the uprising in blood,
"to take command in the marches" (i.e., to lay down
his command immediately); and his deposition was
reported in the course of the night to Harden by tele
phone. A bloody civil war was thus avoided.

Harden also originated, during the years of the
war, the phrase, which since then has been spread
abroad so widely, sans paternitt, "Never again war!"

On the day when Wilhelm II abdicated, he said to
the Count, who laid the document before him in
Amerongen: "Now you must send Harden to Versailles.
He is my greatest enemy, and has been from the be
ginning; but you have no better peace-maker."

The Socialist gentlemen who were in power were
not of that opinion. When the proposal was actually
made, even in immense public meetings, they said:
"Harden? Not Why, he says that Germany is the
one chiefly to blame for the breaking out of the war.
Surely we can't send him there!" The first word of
those whom they did send there was that the assertion
of Germany's guilt was a lie.

"Whom the gods will destroy they first make blind."

Not until long afterward did the Nationalists sate
their rage against Harden. Three hired assassins had

MAXIMILIAN HARDEN 13

to lie in wait for him. With eight wounds on his head,
after terrible loss of blood, he was carried to the clinic
of Prof. Moritz Borchardt, whose surgical genius saved
his life. . , . But Harden had to give up the publica
tion of his weekly, which was wholly dependent upon
him, and he has not yet been able to resume it as his
health has not been sufficiently restored to undertake,
with safety, this immense task.

Harden's eminence as an orator is well known. For
hours at a time, speaking entirely without notes, so
that the hearer sees the very dawning of the thought,
he holds the attention of crowded audiences of the
highest intelligence in the chief cities.

The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Zukunjt oc
curred at a time when the Supreme Command forbade
publication of the magazine; so many good Europeans
made Harden's sixtieth birthday the occasion to tell
him in a little book what they think of him, how they
feel toward him. All the noblest names are there.

I will close this account of Harden's life with what
one of his devoted friends said of him in that book:

"On his birthday, which, quite incredibly, is his
sixtieth this world never saw so youthful a man of
three-score we in spirit clasp his hand: and may he
long be actively at work in the fulness of his strength!

"Behold ye him. No man's subject hath he been."

II

WOODROW WILSON

THE first lances were being broken in the three-
sided contest between Taft, Roosevelt and Wilson,
when I expressed doubts as to the election of Roose
velt, who at that time enjoyed extraordinary popu
larity in Germany. It seemed to me that a people
with so strong a youthful urge toward rationalism,
and yet so happily idealistic as the folk under the
starry banner, would not for a second time select for
their chief ruler one whose very face seemed drawn
in the lines of a caricature such as one sees upon the
fences, and who, despite his clear intellect and unques
tionable executive ability, suggested rather one who
shouts "Fire" than one who calmly ponders his daily
duty. Thereupon one of the shrewdest and foremost
captains of finance in the United States answered me,
privately, that he, too, could not grow enthusiastic over
the "great Teddy," but nevertheless might prefer the
man of practical experience to the theorist, ignorant of
worldly affairs, who would enter upon the highest office
filled with every sort of dogma and prejudice and might
need years to find himself at home among realities and
to subject his habits of thought to their stern demands.
No man, he said, who had the true interests of the
United States at heart could demand that their whole
economic, political and social structure should be ccm-

14

WOODROW WILSON 15

traded, expanded, moulded into ever new forms at the
caprice of such a man.

Much the same, too, was the first utterance of preju
diced opinion in Germany concerning Dr. Woodrow
Wilson. Bismarck, once the target of their fiercest
hate, and later, in the full splendor of success, their
idol, had often uttered a warning against the politics
of professors. And now this land, which lacked the
background of long tradition and knightly legends, this
folk of busy farmers, manufacturers and tradesmen,
was to entrust its most important affairs of State, its
supreme political destiny, to a professor who had ab
sorbed theories but who remained uninstructed by ex
perience. With the supercilious self-satisfaction of him
who believes in hereditary omniscience, in the divine
right of royalty, and who with eyes still tearful shouts
for joy when Amurath follows Amurath, when Fred
erick, the son, follows Frederick, the father, we awaited
the drama that must presently develop beyond the
Atlantic. Esy^hobgy is jiot the Germans' strong point.
Anything different from what he knows at home is un
pleasant to him and appears, at first glance, hateful.
He is often loud in his criticism instead of striving to
understand alien habits and mode of thought.

I believe also that sufficient attention has not been
given to the perilous fact that the common people of
various nations, illiterates in the realm of higher cul
ture, often know each other only through the comic
papers. Now wit, even though it bears the same rela
tion to genuine humor that saccharine does to sugar, or
canned beans to fresh, is most assuredly a precious pos
session; and yet, with those who make a daily busi-

16 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

ness of grinding out wit, it produces a mental illness
which dulls the senses of sight and taste.

For their ever open market they need simple forms
and sharp contrasts of color; out of the manifold varia
tions of feature which enable the thoughtful observer to
form some conception of a people's spiritual character,
they make a single coarse type which is recognizable
from a distance, but of the nature whose essence it
attempts to set forth it really offers only a few blotches,
warts and pimples. For many years, in the atlas of
this comic-weekly world, the Frenchman was a gar
rulous little fop, half phrase maker, half hairdresser;
the German was a heavily-cloaked, bearded, bespec
tacled, cave man; the Englishman a stiff figure in loud
checked cheviot, and the North American, who is still
stupidly and ignorantly dubbed the Yankee, was pre
sented as the weazened dollar-chaser and worshipper of
the golden calf. Are there really droves of such a type
beyond the Atlantic? Does not every country which
is ruled by capitalism have a caste which devotes all
its strength to acquisition, to the heaping up of
wealth? Can any one who is not actually, or wilfully,
blind fail to see what incomparably generous gifts are
bestowed by American idealism upon the poor in spirit
or in body?

All these criticisms and warnings of good sense
proved unfruitful. It was in vain that Paul Bourget,
decades ago, and, more recently, German scholars en
lightened by personal observation, had refuted the silly
fiction that the United States was ruled by King Dollar
in the East and King Cotton in the South and that
these had killed the spirit of the Lincolns and Wash-

WOODROW WILSON 17

ingtons and had left of their ideals barely an empty
phrase. People whom America had enriched, in their
endeavors as manufacturers, tradesmen or traveling
artists, in far briefer time than would have been pos
sible in Europe, but who felt under no obligation of
gratitude, kept this fiction in circulation from year to
year. Have we a right to complain so bitterly when
we are branded as militarists, boches, huns, pirates,
and are judged by the actions of a handful of snobs,
if we ourselves, even in days of peace, employ only the
four words, "Dollar," "Trust," "Corruption," and
"Monroe Doctrine" to designate a nationality of such
youthful power and future possibilities as the United
States? The last of these four words in particular, if
not traced to its limited, historic origin, to its mean
ing and scope, is falsely interpreted as the expression
of a selfish presumption. We shall never come to a
friendly understanding by a road paved with such
gross misconceptions. They are but slogans for care
less daily use, false conclusions that can only lead
astray.

This was the mood in which the war found us. The
flood tide of savage wrath against our foes at first pre
vented the thought of far-away America from coming
to mind. She, it was said, when the question was raised
at all, will not be against us, will never be found in the
camp of our foes. Beneath the threshold of conscious
ness one could detect the hope of a profound hostile
feeling among Americans against the British, a survival
from the days of the struggle for independence, a
feeling which one day might, perhaps, unite the star-
spangled banner with our war flag. This hope was

18 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

cherished principally by men outside of politics. Vani-
tatum vanitas! But to one beleaguered by foes there
is an allurement in any tonic proffered by quack or
apothecary.

Many rejoiced when the German Kaiser resolved to
give Mr. Wilson an account of what had happened at
Louvain and found the President's reply, which fore
shadowed something like an international investigation,
all too cold. The belief lasted that the great republic
in which so many descendants of Germans and Irish
men live, and which had won its freedom by breaking
away from England's control, would never take action
with England against the German Empire. This belief
persisted until the tidings came that America was fur
nishing arms and munitions of war to those who were
allied against us.

Then the storm broke and drowned the voice of
sober reason. In all wars of recent times, even though
Germany declared her neutrality, German industrials
have furnished guns and ammunitions to one party or
the other and have claimed the right to do so as an
essential condition of permanent efficiency. The
Americans would gladly have furnished such supplies
to Germany also if the blockade had not hindered the
delivery. The Americans did not desire a legal status
which, in case war were forced upon them, must
hinder them from purchasing needed arms from neutral
countries; they did not desire that every state, in order
not to be overpowered by those who were armed to
the teeth, should be compelled, even in time^ of peace,
to heap up a supply of arms. Such an accumulation
is a temptation to decide every quarrel by war instead

WOODROW WILSON 19

of bringing it before an arbitration court of disinter
ested nations. These and still more far-reaching ex
planations of America's actions were stated with
especial clearness in the note which Secretary of State
Lansing addressed to Austria-Hungary. In vain.

Who, in such terrific confusion, can keep his soul,
his brain, wholly free from the cobwebs of delusion?
The common people saw only that out of American
howitzers and mortars, American ammunition was
crashing down into the ranks of German men; that in
this industrial war America's mighty productivity was
helping our foes; and they vowed that such aid could
not be reconciled with the duty of genuine neutrality,
but was inspired by ignoble greed for gain, which we
must, at least for the time being, repay with hatred.

The flames of hatred were fanned by rumors, the
verification of which in time of war, with our foreign
mail and telegraph delivered over to the caprice of the
censors, was hardly possible. In Germany it was whis
pered, and presently cried aloud: "This is not a case
of limited delivery of arms such as Krupp made in
former wars. The United States has become a single
great forge of weapons and a munitions factory for our
enemies. They have transformed the greater portion
of their entire industrial equipment, even that which
used to produce pianos and sewing machines, for this
profitable activity. The war would have been over
long ago if such sales had been forbidden.''

I never believed the report. Manufacturers whose
business w^s crippled, in the New World as well as
elsewhere, hoped for salvation through the opportunity
afforded by war. But the transformation of an indus-

20 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

trial plant, its adaptation to the needs of a new prod
uct, is so costly and laborious that it is carried out only
where the former business and the market for its output
have ceased to exist. Why should the industrial regions
of the United States, to which, besides their own hemi
sphere, the entire territory of Germany and Belgium
stands open, and which can offer their products to the
greater portion of the English and French markets,
determine upon a costly transformation which would
deprive them of the opportunity to extend their circle
of customers, and which, after the war, would again
have to be transformed to their original industrial pur
pose at renewed expense? Perhaps the imagination of
our merchants charged to the account of the United
States all the shipments which came from Canada,
Australia and South America.

To me the estimate of the World seemed credible,
according to which the coalition against us had drawn
only six per cent, of their munitions from the United
States. The issue of the war, it was argued, could
never have depended upon this percentage. I have
always regretted that the government of the Republic
did not itself issue a statement covering this point and
that its silence seemed to confirm the rumor that only
America's aid made possible the continuance of the
war. Is it not quite conceivable that the parents, chil
dren, brothers and sisters, wives and sweethearts of our
warriors flamed out in rage against a class of men
who, themselves out of danger, in comfortable security,
abundantly increased their capital and income by pro
viding mountains of murderous instruments for use
against the sons of a land from which they had re-

WOODROW WILSON 21

ceived only kindness? The criticism which crept into
the White House from the camp of the Western powers
was unheard by us; it was forgotten that North Amer
ica provided millions every month to feed Belgium and
thereby indirectly lightened for us the burden of the
war. Day after day nothing was discussed but the
profitable traffic in arms which, it was declared, was
unmistakable evidence of American hostility toward
Germany. Conscious that they had never done, or
even wished, evil to the country of Washington or
Lincoln, the common people felt themselves grievously
wronged; and they shouted their loud approval of those
who declared that Germany, beleaguered on every side,
must leave no weapon untried which might cut off the
transportation of arms from over-seas to her enemies.

The bitterest wrath was directed against the Presi
dent who, honest Germans argued, could demand, even
compel, Congress to place an embargo on the exporta
tion of arms. As he made no move in this direction he
was considered Great Britain's handy man who sought
to harm us. In the heat of emotion, robbed of reason
ing power, the thought did not occur that such action
would have been interpreted by our opponents as an
attempt at favoritism, or that Congress could refuse its
sanction. And so, while the press of the Western
Powers scornfully reproached Mr. Wilson with being
misled by German evasions and with replying to crimi
nal actions with polite notes, we ourselves, engaged in
violent submarine warfare at the time, accused him of
breach of neutrality and looked upon him as a pawn of
the English.

Accusation and condemnation became so loud and

22 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

were turned with such avidity into the ugly distortions
of the comic sheets that serious thinkers became
ashamed of the brawling and the abuse.

No one, however, can brew a potion which will
change folly into wisdom.

Burn up ninety-nine per cent, of this so-called litera
ture, bound in war covers and feeding upon the war!
Throw all these poems, speeches, novels, essays, boast
ings and pamphlets where alone they may still be of
some use into the paper mills; and devote yourselves
once again to those books from which you may derive
spiritual sustenance. Then perhaps clear reason and
human dignity will return. The art of Rodin and
Hodler, Maeterlinck and Verhaeren, Kipling and
Wells, Forain and Raemaekers, Spittler and d'Annunzio
is not judged by their wrath against Germany. By
the same token Mr. Wilson, the scholar and politician,
should not be considered a monster because he prefers
English customs and institutions to those of Germany.
And it has never been proved that he did show such
preference.

In the State of Virginia a mother of Irish ancestry
bore him; his father was the native grandson of a
Scotsman. He had therefore not inherited any blind
worship of England. We find him as a student at
Princeton denouncing "Cabinet Government"; he cen
sured the secrecy and lack of accountability with which
the business of government is conducted and because
of which, from year to year, the people's desire for
active participation in governmental affairs becomes in
creasingly sluggish. Following this he published a book
dealing with "Government by Congress," which earned

WOODROW WILSON 23

him a call to teach at a young ladies 7 seminary. For
eight years, as its president, he ably guided the des
tinies of Princeton University which, being an insti
tution favored by young men of wealth and family,
might be designated as America's "Bonn." Then he
resigned because he believed that the terms of accept
ance by the university of a twelve million dollar en
dowment were opposed to the educational interests of
his high school. Rather than besmirch his ideal he
left.

As the undaunted leader in the fight against ugly
misuse of power, he was elected governor of the State
of New Jersey, which he freed from the yoke of the
Trusts. He has written with a high degree of ability
on the life of Washington, the history of the American
people, the affairs of State, and in his collection of
essays, "Only Literature," expressed greater wisdom
in his estimate of politician, poet and author than has
been uttered in many a year in either hemisphere.
Then, as neophyte in the highest office in the Republic,
he made obvious mistakes. But, among the various
heads of government, is he the only one who can be
so accused?

Twice the people of the United States gave the high
est office to this earnest, cultured and morally upright
man. And he who was dubbed "the Theorist" dared
to grasp powers which many a "practical man," anxious
to cater to the masses and currying the favor of Wall
Street, would have hesitated to approach. Gradually
even the Germans came to look upon him as one who
held his convictions inviolable and acted only accord
ing to their dictates. He who has such a reputation

24 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Is immune against the psychology of caricaturists and
jokesmiths.

Germany had no particular reason to look to Mr.
Wilson for any great degree of fondness or friendship;
she was not in a position to demand or beg anything of
the country or of its President.

But is it not reasonable to believe that all humans,
during a period of inconceivable stress, accepted as a
dispensation of Providence the fact that the leader of
the greatest of neutral powers was nurtured in the pure
atmosphere of science rather than in the fog that en
velops those who are engaged in the battle for wealth?

In every path he trod, be it ever so steep and nar
row, this man felt a duty toward humanity, and con
sequently, with all the power of his soul and his will,
he would strive to achieve that happy juncture where
the performance of this duty was compatible with the
interests of his fatherland. Only one attainment could
still lure the professor who had become President
the ascent to the ever unclouded pinnacle from which
the light of those who have brought happiness to hu
manity shall shine throughout human history.

As early as 1916 I expressed the hope (in the
Zukunjt) that his heart would respond to the desire
which held all mankind. And the Wilson my inner
mind perceived spoke according to his works, his will
and his conscience*

The son of Nun, whom you may call Joshua, Jeshua
or Jesus, inherited the leadership of the tribe of
Ephraim after the passing of the great Moses, lord
of Israel and the brains and brawn of his people.

WOODROW WILSON 25

Joshua was enabled, through the power of breath blown
into the trumpets of his priests, to bring down into
dust the walls of Jericho and conquer and lay in ashes
the city of Ai. He defeated five kings those of Eglon ;
Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachis and Jerusalem. He com
manded his soldiery to tread upon the throats of the
defeated ones with their heels. "Thus," spoke he, a will
we deal with all our enemies." Then he commanded
them to be killed and hanged upon trees. There they
hung until the sinking of the sun. Only then did
Joshua order them to be taken down and thrown into
the cave in which they had hid from him; and the en
trance he then ordered to be blocked with boulders.

The sun that had witnessed this great victory, had
stood in the heavens longer than upon any other day.
For while the Lord, giving aid to his chosen people, had
sent down a storm of hail upon the Amorites, Joshua
lifted his voice in pious wrath and cried, "Sun, stand
still in Gideon, and, moon, stand still in the vale of
Ajalon." And the heavenly bodies stood still until
Israel wreaked its wrath upon its enemies. The sun
cast its rays upon the earth for almost a full day.
And none equaled him whose voice had forced obedi
ence from the light of day.

What in remote times was a day's work is now the
accomplishment of an hour. We received tidings that
beyond our borders our enemies proposed to add an
hour of sunlight to their day in order further to in
sure their revenge. Joshua's name today is Honnorat.
He was a member of the French Chamber of Deputies
and his proposal won the approval not only of his
people but was also accepted with favor by the menac-

26 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

ing German Empire. In both countries, and conse
quently in all others affected by the war in western
Europe, clocks were turned back one hour, and every
worker's day was prolonged for sixty minutes. We
need not be concerned here with the fact that the pur
pose was economy, that lighting costs were reduced by
many millions, and production vastly increased. We
see humanity wiping an hour out of its life in order to
sacrifice it upon the altar of hate. Joshua needed for
his victory a double day. For he had not the means
to illuminate the night. Today the embattled peoples
can accomplish this.

The power of money, wrapped in the magic cloak of
invisibility, urged them on because it feared a relaxing
of effort, and so they plucked an hour from the night.
Thus they would not become indolent, and the cloak
would not become threadbare. Rage could no longer
content itself with the ancient measures of time.

The steel-clad multitude of descendants of the Jesus
of Gideon had forgotten the warning that went forth
when Jesus of Nazareth hung on the cross, heeded not
the darkness that covered the earth when Jerusalem
and Rome, mighty in strength of spirit and of arms,
combined to destroy the noblest of humans. Has
Europe been stricken dumb so that it failed to see what
became of the empires conquered by Joshua and those
who later became Israel's leaders?

Then let the voice of reason recall us from this rag
ing madness!

(Wilson) "That continent which, after the birth of
Deda and the Holy Scriptures (Old and New Testa-

WOODROW WILSON 27

ment) , and after the death of Buddha and Christ bore
the richest fruit, is weary, and the attempt may suc
ceed. And if the call comes to us now, as, during Holy
Week, we ponder upon Crucifixion and Resurrection,
it will find eager response. Give ear, oh humanity, to
the message of a human being.

"This message is directed to the United States of
America and, at the same time, to all countries, to all
the peoples of Europe, combatant as well as neutral.
It seeks to give expression to conditions as they exist,
to extract from these twenty-one months the sum of
possibilities and to point the way to what is necessary.
In other words, the purpose of this message is to bring
peace. No assumption to seek paths upon which I
have no right to tread has led to this desire. If another
spokesman appeared I should gladly remain silent.
Who will relieve me of this duty, which burdens me?
Thirteen nations are in the turmoil of war. Even the
concerted action of nearby neutral states would be too
weak to weigh in the balance. The Pope, whose pro
scription is underestimated only by the fool, is without
material force; besides which, as head of the Roman
Catholic Church, which has a multitude of followers
in both camps, he is hampered in his desire to act. No
fading light, but only one aflame with youthful strength,
can lead the wanderer lost in the forest.

"Europe's spirit and industry have implanted in our
soil untold seeds, and for this she deserves our grati
tude. And this we would give in unstinted measure if
Europe could be saved by heeding our counsel. But
this can be of use only if given in passionate desire for
justice and with unrestrained candor. Painful truth

28 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

must be told, but none will be wilfully offended.
Europe stumbled into this war as a child walks upon
thin ice, believing it will bear its weight and suddenly
finding itself struggling in a torrent. Is not a strong
arm needed for the rescue?

"The duty toward extending this helping hand be
comes stronger as the danger of our being drawn into
the whirlpool draws nearer. We are still neutral and
free from the prejudice that fastens itself upon those
who are held together by a consciousness of race unity.
Those who have looked upon our people can discern
traces of the form and face of all the races of the
world.

"Perish the thought that we should ever desire to
mould Europe into our own likeness. Let us not at
tempt to dictate the destiny of that continent which
for centuries has given laws to peoples and given form
and substance to the history of mankind. But we are
the spokesmen for the United States, not of North or
South America, but of white peoples, which desire a
speedy peace. And now the hour for action has ar
rived. You of Europe may take your clocks and turn
them as you will; you may prolong the day or shorten
it; continue, if you wish, to heed the fools among you
who tell you of our weakness and of our braggadocio;
no steel can ever chisel this hour from the body of
your fate.

"We are still neutral. This is denied in Europe, in
both camps. Both resort to abusive articles and carica
tures which bring a feeling of revulsion even to friends
of strong satire. They attempt to hold up to ridicule
and contumely the President of the United States.

WOODROW WILSON 29

Many greater men have silently borne such insults for
years. Out of the morass of these paltry jokes to catch
the applause of the rabble I look to the words of the
one German the bravery of whose soul, whose deter
mination and manly charm remains unequaled and
whose works have become the New Testament of the
art of statesmanship: 'The honor I carry in my heart
is sufficient for me and no one shall sit in judgment
upon it. My honor before God or man is my prop
erty. I give myself credit for as much of it as I
believe I have earned, and I decline any addition
thereto.'

"Millions of my fellow citizens have entrusted to me
the guidance of the affairs of State. Had they desired
to bestow this office upon a man with the unrestrained
temerity of a cavalry colonel or a submarine com
mander, they would not have chosen a scholar. I can
perform my duty only as my conscience dictates and
I cannot, without being certain of the ground I stand
upon, overthrow a fixed resolve in order to shine by a
display of hasty action. At least nine-tenths of our
citizens desire to live in peace and friendship with all
peoples, especially with those of Europe. This desire
must be the arrow which points our way, so long as it
does not conflict with the honor and interests of our
country. Has the wrath of the people broken this
arrow?

"The Western Powers accuse us of enduring German
crimes against international law with pitiable weak-*
ness and jeer at us because we ask for information and
accept excuses when American citizens are killed. In
their opinion it was our duty to defend Belgium's neu-

30 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

trality, of which we are one of the guarantors, in order
to safeguard the dearly acquired benefits of civilization
and either to have lifted our voice in admonition or, if
need be, take up our arms. Germany and Austria-
Hungary scold us because their enemies are supplied
with American-made arms and munitions and because
they believe us to be hampering their conduct of the
war without justification, and because, as the formula
goes, we 'are mixing in affairs which are none of our
business.' Such two-sided accusation falls to the lot of
all those who strive for righteousness.

"During the long period of the war the United States
has not made even the slightest move which sound
reasoning could construe as a misstep against neu
trality. Great Britain is conducting a commercial war
against Germany, enforces a blockade against food and
raw materials and says: 'This method of procedure
against beleaguered cities and nations has had the sanc
tion of usage in ancient as well as modern times and
conforms entirely to the conceptions of the present
day. We live upon our island, are not a nation of land
warriors, and desire that dispute between nations be
settled by arbitration. We cannot use a sword to
tame a wild beast that attacks us, but we can subdue
it by weakening it. When it has been deprived of the
means to live, blind rage will be replaced by a weigh
ing of realities. Whosoever draws comparisons be
tween our methods and a knightly passage at arms is
either blind or is a liar. The war of today which
employs siege guns of the heaviest calibre to rain
shells into human ranks, mines, chemical flame pro
jectors, explosives and poison gas, and makes use of

WOOD ROW WILSON 31

lying and deception has nothing whatever in common
with knightly combat nor even with wars of the nine
teenth century, limited as they were to the use of foot,
horse and cannon. Is there greater chivalry in burn
ing out one's enemies' eyes or lungs, in bombarding
unfortified cities and villages from the air, in attacking
defenseless ships bearing human beings or cargoes of
goods, in knifing or dropping bombs or torpedoes, which
kill and maim, upon women and children, the old and
the ill, is this more chivalrous than our attempt to stop
commerce of our foe and force him to cease his shell
ing? It would not be more humane, and at the same
time would serve no purpose, to bombard his ports, be
cause naval armament is not effective against strong
coast fortifications. Our blockade, however, is effec
tive; for it has had the effect of driving the German
flag from the seas and without our permission no ship
can go through the Channel or into the North Sea.
This fact remains, despite the ability of a few clever
fellows to run the blockade. Their counterparts lived
in the time of the corsairs whose deeds are preserved
in literature. The effectiveness of a land blockade
would not be lessened because a small but intrepid
patrol had found a small breach in the lines and even
managed to return to its base. Germany's sole aim
in building up her fleet was to break just such a
blockade, despite the fact that she denies any inten
tion to attack us. The task of her fleet was, as it is the
task of every one blockaded, to hurl itself with all its
-weight against the blockader and overpower him. This
was the destiny prescribed for it by its creators. Sub
marine attack upon unarmed ships of commerce is

32 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

not permitted by international law and is contrary to
the first principles of humanity.'

"Submarine warfare does not violate the sovereign
rights of any government, but day after day it does
violate the rights of humanity and international law.
It must violate such rights unless it is confined to a
tax upon war vessels.

"Unfortunately the use of a false flag is still per
mitted and consequently every ship flying neutral
colors may be a vessel belonging to the enemy. It is
not possible to tell from a submarine whether a mer
chantman has two or three guns concealed somewhere;
and the mines strewn upon the seas by the under sea
craft do not make inquiries as to whether or not the
ship they blow to bits is a neutral one. For this reason
the promise to treat neutral and unarmed ships with
consideration, to warn them and to protect crew and
passengers from the deadly fire, is almost impossible
of fulfillment.

"Since the horrible end of the Lusitania this is the
point around which revolves the controversy, now
almost a year old, between Germany and the United
States. A twofold poison has been injected into this
dispute. Manufacturers all over the union have de
livered artillery, shells, munitions of all kinds to the
British, French and Russians. To do this was entirely
legal. It was not their fault that Germany, whose
trade they would gladly have had, was blockaded and
could not place orders with them. In all modern wars
German industry, despite the neutrality of the empire,
supplied arms and munitions to one or both combatants.
American industry cannot be deprived of t&e same op*

WOODROW WILSON 33

portunities that were permitted to the Germans with
out limit.

"American business men and officials have pro
ceeded according to well-established legal rights, the
use of which, however, has drawn down upon them
the bitter hatred of the Germans. On the other hand,
the further poisoning of the issue was brought about
by the error of those who have found friendly accept
ance in the family of our estates, but many of whom
believe an injustice had been done the land of their
forefathers. They believe themselves justified in sow
ing the seeds of dissension in order to avenge what
they considered an injustice. We have official records
to prove this and also to prove our leniency in the
matter. We had done no injustice to the German
Empire, and we demand obedience to the laws from
him who comes to dwell among us. Why did he
come? Undoubtedly because at some period in his
life he became aware of the greater freedom and oppor
tunities for gain offered by our country. Had he de
sired to remain heart and soul German or Irish and
in all circumstances to uphold the land of his birth,
then it was his duty to remain at home, to bear the
disadvantages under which he lived and to assist in
improving political conditions. It would be an in
tolerable presumption were he to accept the benefits
offered by our country and then, at the first sign of
storm, to disclose himself as a raging German or a
furious Irishman. Past examples would only add fuel
to the flame which I would see extinguished. There
fore I will only ask this: Would Germany have per
mitted Japan's agents to foster dissension among

34 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Prussian Poles during the Manchurian war, in order to
intimidate Germany through fear of revolt to forbid
the sale of munitions to Russia?

"I can well understand the difficulty for a nation
fighting for its life calmly to weigh realities; in its
distress it forgets how often it supplied the enemy of
its friend with arms and munitions. But I must de
mand of Germany that it publicly disassociate itself
from partnership with ill advised patriots who, no
matter how strong their feelings may be, are either
guests among us or have been admitted to citizenship,
and who are either taking advantage of our hospitality
or undermining the public peace. They are not only
useless to the German Empire but actually do it great
harm. No serious minded person will blame these
people for hoping for a German victory or for assisting
it in the form of charity. But no one who is true to
his country can permit them to raise their banner above
the Stars and Stripes, to use the machinery of our
politics as a tool to further their pro-German objects
and to make their vote, a gift presented by us, de
pendent upon a pledge of pro-German activities on the
part of candidates for office.

"I must further demand of Germany an unequivocal
expression as to the steps it intends to take to safeguard
the rights of our citizens and to protect American lives
and property.

"The question of friendship or enmity between two
great nations can no longer be left to the whim or the
nerves of some young submarine commander. Conces
sions on either side will not be looked upon as weak
ness; what the moment demands is an expression of

WOODROW WILSON 35

sincere desire to maintain friendly relations between
two peoples who have no ineradicable grounds for
enmity. It were folly to attempt to utter threats
against a people of the acknowledged bravery and
strength of the Germans. Besides which the leaders
of the Empire are fully aware of the consequences to
follow a severing of relations. Our entire hemisphere,
north and south, would become enemies of Germany,
and not alone for the period of the war. All German
ships in our harbors would be taken, and so a substan
tial acquisition in tonnage would accrue to Germany's
enemies. Throwing our weight into the balance would
furthermore prolong the war indefinitely and our 'inner
front,' represented by those of German, Austrian or
Irish descent, would disappear at once in the true
American patriotic ardor of these very people.

"We did not rage in behalf of Belgium, because our
money could insure the provisioning of Belgium, and
this was possible only through the cooperation of Ger
many. We did not take offense during the long-drawn-
out controversy between Germany and ourselves be
cause in almost every case the facts were not clear and
because we wished to spare the world the horrors of
unrestricted submarine warfare which would have fol
lowed a declaration of war. The Berlin government
furthermore gave us acceptable assurances of its
earnest desire to come to an understanding. We are
also fully aware of the tremendous difficulties confront
ing Germany and could not expect that the second
winter of war had already given birth to the decision
which sought to bring about the spring of peace to
place diplomacy above strategy, to defend the su-

36 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

premacy of the political council against any encroach*
ment by the military commanders.

"If such supremacy had been assured there would
have been no war which, despite the heroism it daily
calls forth, is nevertheless a horror and disgrace to
white humanity. Is it meet once more to dig the roots
of the matter out of the blood-drenched earth? All
are to blame, the only difference being the weight and
the time of their offense. The offender, of course, is
not conscious of this fact. At the same time he who
has only seen the latest offense and who has not studied
carefully the long chain of causes may be too hasty in
his judgment. Germany abruptly declined to consider
arbitration of the Austro-Serbian dispute, even after
Austria had finally accepted this proposal of the
powers; it started the war which, according to the in
controvertible testimony of San Giuliono and Giolitti, it
had already sought to begin in 1913; wilfully violated
the Belgian neutrality it had once demanded and guar
anteed, and by a rapid and devastating penetration had
grasped a pawn in the shape of France's industrial
region. Consequently Germany is guilty; proof of
this is found in a comparison of all documents pub
lished on the subject. But a reading of the book of
history prior to July, 1914, should not have been neg
lected. France could not forget Sedan, Metz and
Strassburg. She did not charge the loss to the account
of the 'damned empire 5 ; she did not determine upon
a new war; but she did provoke the victor of 1870 by
loud and continued threats of revenge, though it had
no further desire to take from her so much as a blade
of grass and did not begrudge her the second largest

WOODROW WILSON 37

colonial empire; also she offered her alliance to any
and all through whose sword she could hope to recon
quer Alsace and Lorraine. The tie between herself
and the Russian Empire would have become strong
much sooner had not Bismarck with untiring effort
broken it again and again. During a period of grace
stretching over thirty years Germany has not been
served with unselfish genius, but during that time she
has succeeded, by dint of unparalleled ability, in at
taining an undreamed-of prosperity and a huge por
tion of the world's commerce. Germans have settled
in every part of the world and are busily at work.
They are more diligent than their rivals, working for
wealth as well as for the honor of their country's flag.
But they forget that in order not to arouse envy of
their remarkable accomplishments in every field of
endeavor they must maintain a quiet dignity. They
are also unmindful of the fact that their enemies, at
whose expense Germany has achieved greatness, are
still alive and active. Her sword rattled. Above the
clash of shining armor one heard announcements of
intentions for still further aggrandizement. Instead of
limiting herself to coast defenses, fast cruisers and tor
pedo boats, she built a war fleet with a cruising radius
far beyond the North Sea which would pay adequate
dividends only if it could break one of the more promi
nent jewels from the British crown. England felt she
was being outstripped in industry and technique, fears
for her commerce and colonies and sees her supremacy
threatened in Egypt and India; everywhere Germany is
at her heels. She cannot sit idly by and wait for the
black day to come when she will be compelled to

38 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

accept Germany's yoke, and, because suspicion and
selfishness have prevented an understanding in naval
matters, it suits her convenience to emerge from her
splendid isolation and join the alliance of Germany's
foes.

"And he who would dig at the roots of the war must
not overlook the fact that it was Germany's violent in
terference in French rights in Morocco (rights which
had been acknowledged by Bismarck in 1880) which
roused the French nation from an indolent leaning
toward socialism and a tendency toward flabby ac
quiescence for the sake of peace. Furthermore he
must remember the unbounded commercial upheaval
caused by the incidents of Tangier, Casablanca,
Algeciras and Agadir.

"Germany proclaims, all too eagerly, her desire for
the preservation of peace; at the same time she in
creases the strength of her army and navy. For what
purpose when no one seeks to rob her of territory and
none can be found to draw his sword for Alsace-Lor
raine? Ostensibly to widen her frontiers. The only
protection against this is encirclement. Russia, driven
from eastern Asia by Japan at the behest of Great
Britain, fears German militarization of Turkey, from
whom it seeks to take Armenia and the Dardanelles.
Hope of alliance with the strongest powers and eradi
cation of the accomplishments of Prussian generals in
the Ottoman empire is the bait she swallows. Her
further aim is to dominate the Balkan states, liberated
by the shedding of Russian blood, through religious
unity and by her own spiritual influence, to intimidate
or break up the Austro-Hungarian empire, and so wipe

WOODROW WILSON 39

out the ignominy of her defeat in Manchuria. The
wars in Tripoli, Albania, Macedonia and Thrace are
results of alliances formed as a consequence of the
Moroccan quarrel and were fought to prevent the
penetration of German power, culture and business
into southeastern Europe and to place it under Slavo-
Italian guardianship. If this program succeeds and
Italy obtains a foothold in the Adriatic, then Austria-
Hungary is hemmed in between Slavs (Russians and
Serbs) and Latins (Italians and Roumanians), and its
national body is crippled because of the desire of its
alien members to return to their blood-brothers. Then
it will be impossible for Germany to plunge into a
mighty war. All this only because they fear attack,
the purpose to dominate by the youngest of European
powers, and the loss of what they have acquired.
Germany, having grown tremendously in population
and wealth, and considering its vast accomplishments
in every field, cannot rest content on the present basis
of allotment; and because she will not trust her fate
to the ill will of enemies, and realizing that her mighty
weapon may rust for lack of timely use, and sensing
that the fateful and favorable hour has struck, casts
aside diplomatic intervention and draws the sword
against France and Russia.

"The decision which she believed was dictated by
necessity for self-defense exposes her to the dangerous
misunderstanding which the creator of German im
perial power warned against when he said: c lf we be
come aggressors, the full weight of the Imponderables,
which is far heavier than material weight, will be on
the side of the opponents whom we have attacked/

40 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

"So it is preventive war? The classical esample.
Two groups of powers mistrusting each other. France
fears invasion and treatment as a hostage, while at the
same time Russia sees herself prevented from reaching
ice-free water for the period of another hundred years.
England has pledged herself to remain aloof from any
aggressive war upon Germany, but has not met Berlin's
demand for a declaration of neutrality in any war
which might be 'forced' upon the German Empire;
because the fear existed that any war brought about
by aggressive dealing might appear to have been
'forced 5 upon any one of the participants. Germany
did not want to be hemmed in, did not want to leave
matters of arbitration in the hands of a hostile ma
jority, and did not want to be weakened by the three-
sided attempt to throw Austria-Hungary into con
fusion.

"The statement that throughout she desired to bring
about war, not as a matter of self-defense but for con
quest, is a slanderous one. Only insanity could breed
desire for a conflict of such incalculable consequences,
and from which, in the end, nothing could be gained.
Likewise it is false to accuse England, France and
Russia, who at most were only half-prepared (and, in
fact, needed a year to complete their preparations) of
any designs at invasion. They desired a diplomatic
battle, not a conflict of arms, and resisted a hasty war
with all the power at their command. But its outbreak
could not be halted; because at the decisive hour the
will of the strategist was stronger than the will of the
politician. Bismarck's words: 'In the preparation for
war always remain a step behind your opponent' are

WOODROW WILSON 41

regarded by the responsible military as the idle chatter
with which a shrewd writer of notes desired to partici
pate in the rough work of the warrior. If Mars was
to reign, they believe, only their own expert word must
carry weight; and the beginning of this scarlet sway
was to be left to their judgment alone. From time im
memorial; since the dispute engendered in the days
of Agamemnon and Kalchas, between the sword and
the mind, doubts as to the truth of everything that
has come from the pen have retained their hold on the
minds of war leaders. Despite the assurances of the
Tsar they will not believe that Russia, even with her
mobile army, will restrain every step, even every ges
ture of war until the last possibility of an understand
ing has disappeared. Nor will they believe that Eng
land will avoid the turmoil even for the sake of con
venient, and at the moment even profitable, neutrality.
They see nothing but fraud in Grey's solemn promise
to throw the weight of England's whole power and
his own personal influence into the balance toward an
honorable relationship between the Triple Entente and
Germany, if peace can be maintained.

"They need not concern themselves that the estab
lishment (in 1815) and the neutralizing (1839) of the
Flemish- Walloon Belgian state arose from the British
desire to protect the Island Empire against invasion
from this, to them, dangerous part of northwest
Europe's coast, and that Germany's attempt to use
Belgium as a base from which to make war upon
France is looked upon in England as a forerunner to
an attack upon itself which it must ward off. To them
the only important matter is not to delay mobilization,

42 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

to give their country every advantage to be had from
a leap forward and to choose the ways by which they
can quickly pluck the fruit of victory,

"No strings can tie the warrior; negotiations waste
precious time; the country calls.

"The condition of any major state which yields to
such a spirit is called in modern parlance 'militarism.'
It not alone constantly urges ever increased armaments
but implants the idea in the minds of the citizen, the
scholar, the merchant, the artist, that the only fit man
ner in which a dispute among nations can be settled is
armed conflict, and that other methods are unnecessary
and dishonorable. It enters the very vitals of the
nation.

"England, France, Serbia, Hungary, Austria, Aus
tralia and Canada bear ample proof that heroism and
a war-like spirit can be maintained without the rule
of militarism. And Germany's deeds illustrate, as has
never been equalled in human history, that constant
and thorough preparedness is a pledge to speedy transi
tion into a state of wan Many will look upon the
voluntary arming of three million Britons, including
colonials, and the perseverance and self-sacrifice of
Serbians and Frenchmen, as greater heroism. Be
tween Antwerp and Trebizond twenty million heroes
are embattled, and most of them are the product of
non-militaristic nations; and because militarism is an
incentive to war and will spread beyond control if it
is not eradicated, the war is to be carried on until it is
destroyed. This is the determination of Germany's
enemies, and the wish of all neutral powers.

"Theirs alone?

WOODROW WILSON 43

"After the undreamed-of slaughter, to which already
today five million corpses and at least ten million
cripples bear witness, the cry for peace between Ham
burg and Bagdad is louder than any other.

"Is it possible to destroy militarism?

"To me it is a certainty, the consummation of which
is only delayed by the imbecile endeavor of a power
to delay the severing from its body of a member which
it considers indispensable to the function of life. This
power would be forced from the first day after the
conclusion of peace to lay upon the altar every sacri
fice of wealth and blood for the reestablishment of its
body politic and its honor.

"Consider, Grey, Briand, Sasonov, the depths of
misery in which you would languish if this mutilated
power were immortal Germany seeking with all the
passionate power of its mind and muscle to free itself
of shackles and planning revenge for injustice! Re
member, Bethmann and Burian, that the weak are
more sensitive than giants and that Serbia arose from
the grave! Peace, as war, leaving in its wake crippled
nations, would merely bring an armistice and we do not
want a peace that is an armistice, but an armistice that
will bring lasting, honorable peace and that will be
come Europe's resurrection. We want it today; be
cause today peace is possible and therefore necessary.

"If, in the end, reason controls, those who have
placed themselves on a level with God, and their
enemies on a level with the devil, will be ashamed of
themselves. Who will wager that an armistice would
not again lead to war? And who would benefit? For
the French, Alsace-Lorraine and the Cameroons; for

44 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Germany, Courland, Polish or Lithuanian territory;
for the Austrians and Hungarians, Serbia, Czernagora,
North Albania? That were sowing the seeds of new
wars, instead of planting a strong peace, and would
bring with it the certainty of friction and strife at
home.

"What European state within the past one hundred
years has benefited by the incorporation of foreign
peoples into its own body? Russia, Austria, Prussia,
the Netherlands, the German Empire? No! En
lightened minds look upon annexation as a means for
expansion which has become incompatible with Euro
pean custom and thought. The morsel, having been
swallowed, may become indigestible; and while the
swaJlower might be glad to spit it forth, honor compels
its retention and even the risking of life in its defense.

"German banks and industrial concerns rule (con
trol, they say in New York) many foreign undertak
ings, either openly or secretly. They acquired the
majority of shares, but not the buildings and grounds.
And they were careful not to appoint German officials
nor did they display the imperial flag. Why do nations
proceed less wisely? Might gives right; the appearance
of might gives offense.

"I visualize the time when nations will be joined
in a community of interests, will amalgamate in order
to reduce the costs of government. Instead of two
authorities there will be one. This step is for the
present conceivable only where related peoples are
concerned, after the shackles of war have been removed
and nothing can hold back the spirit of democracy; and
I see the day when even the great powers will make

WOODROW WILSON 45

common cause and there will be but one fleet, one sub
marine squadron, one standing army. Why not?
seeing that even today it is impossible for them to take
from one another territory of any permanent worth
and that the liberated will of peoples will not even
permit them to think of it? Greater wonders than
these have come to pass.

"The first and most timid demands now call for the
appropriation by governments of all industries that can
possibly serve war. If they are unable to replace the
private owner or acquire the services of men of the
calibre of Ballin, Lloyd George, Stinnes and Thomas,
the state can lease these plants as concessions, in return
for high but secure dividends. The flood that has
overwhelmed us has also swept away the superstition
that only he w T ho is lashed by greed for profits is
capable of unusual accomplishments. And never again
must there arise a class of men to whom profit will flow
from the veins of bleeding warriors.

"No parliament will then grant appropriations for
armaments the expenditure of which will not enrich
the state treasury. A government not so pledged would
beg in vain for admission into the league of large and
small nations banded together for the protection of
life. This international assurance society would re
quire a strong police force or militia. Otherwise it
could not command obedience to its decisions. And a
judgment which cannot be carried out is worthless.
Being itself without income, it further needs funds
the moneys to be invested at interest. How pile these
up from a devastated and impoverished continent?
How, I demand ? are war loans to be obliterated, how

46 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

pay for reconditioning of land ? the rebuilding of cities
and villages, the replacement of implements, and pro
vide the cripples and helpless dependents with com
forts, not alone bare necessities, to the end of their
days? Twenty-one months of war have cost between
one hundred thousand and two hundred thousand mil
lions of marks; add to this the cost of rebuilding and
the burden to be charged for maintaining invalids and
dependents. Cash indemnities, even such as might be
compared to an acorn lying at the foot of a huge oak,
cannot be hoped for by the triumphant victor. And
the payment of tribute, extorted by the occupation of
territory for decades, was possible during the periods
of Rome's glory and decay, but today is as impossible
as the forcible removal of whole tribes of people, which
many have dreamed of. No nation engulfed in the
flood can expect to obtain compensation other than
through its own thrift. The power which reduces its
annual expenditures for land and naval equipment by
one billion will begin to see the dawn of financial order
after the passing of a generation. What, therefore,
is to be done?

"What has never been done before anywhere. Only
new ideas, not regilded old ones, will light the way.
After the first flood Noah eked out his existence by the
cultivation of vines and as his son Ham witnessed the
naked shame of the drunken vintner and was cursed
to become the slave of all slaves, in like manner the
Old World would become vassal to the New if it did
not succeed in covering its nakedness with the mantle
of brotherly love. Europe's war guilt shall be made a
shrine of atonement.

WOODROW WILSON 47

"The loan certificates of all European participants
in the war who will agree to abide by the decisions of
a court of arbitration must be transformed into legal
tender guaranteed by the debtors. But there shall be
no possibility of debasement through debauchery and
fraud as was done by the assignees of the Jacobin con
vention and the French Directorate. And how long
must this condition endure? Until those who have
been weakened by war are enabled to redeem the inter
national legal tender with their own metal or paper.
Forty years at the earliest, sixty years at the latest,
after the conclusion of peace.

"A common European citizenship can be built on
this foundation; this is the tie that will bind them to
gether without leaving the scars of bondage; nor will
it throttle them. Europe would be liberated from the
unbearable condition into which its finances have sunk;
it need not starve the arts and sciences, it need not
permit the decay of industry, technique, commerce and
household economy; it need not drive its citizens over
seas with the threat of additional tax burdens.

"Even those who consider us nothing but sly traders,
without ideals and a sense of honor, cannot doubt that
we, both North and South America, will accept the new
paper money in payment, though it be only for the
sake of gaining customers and making sales. France,
the ever gracious, ever joyous, leader in the art of
social culture, will be freed of the desire for revenge
and made neutral territory by its own demand, in the
same manner as Belgium, for the rehabilitation of
whom Germany will pay one-half, while France and
England will pay one-quarter each. Great Britain, land

48 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

power and sea power, having thrown off the irritating
desire to be Europe's masterful and sulky guardian,
roughly awakened from its indolent slumber, its slug
gish comfort, and having opened coaling stations and
opportunities to Germany for emigration, will be hon
estly reconciled and remain in the front rank of those
guarding the freedom of the seas, the code of which
has been purged of the right to take prizes and other
abuses reminiscent of the piratical age. Finally
Russia, cleansed, after the hurricane, of the Tartar
wrath and dissensions, will have easy access to the ever-
open sea; cured of the mania for expansion beyond
inner seas and mountains on the ground of common
religious belief; pledged to the court of nations not to
deprive the Baltic, Finnish, Polish, Ukrainian or Let
tish peoples of their rights of citizenship. Austria-
Hungary will be a union of nations functioning on a
plan somewhere between the German and Swiss, in
which Serbia and all Serbian peoples, provided with
good ports, will be accepted as an independent fed
erated state and which every Balkan state may join if
it desires. Germany: You will see it bloom. When
peace has returned, and we no longer snarlingly quarrel
as to which submarine shot is permitted and which is
forbidden; when there is universal freedom and good
will, and human rights are not treated as a beggar in
rags; when Europe can stand at the graves of those
who have fallen and justly say: Tor this you died;
not for bits of land which we coveted yesterday and
would be rid of tomorrow; nor for the futile task of
attempting to absorb alien tribes. You died for free
dom's light, for the honorable and lasting peace of the

WOODROW WILSON 49

fatherland, for mother Europe. And a more nobly
consecrated death was never implored by German
maiden of her betrothed/ Then those who remain be
hind will no longer have need for setting back the clock
in order to lengthen the light of day."

*

On Sept. 7, 1916, the United States Senate resolved
to incorporate in the official record of its session "for
everlasting remembrance" some articles I had written
in April. (These articles contained a respectfully sin
cere criticism of our enemies as well as a defense of
the German aims and actions such as had not yet been
heard abroad and which, according to the judgment of
the German Ambassador, were of value to the German
cause.) They cover pages 16380-88 in the Congres
sional Record, volume 53, No. 223. The conclusion
was that the Senate had permitted him ; whose con
science led him to point out what he considered were
the rights and duties in the premises, to speak to the
President. And thus Wilson spoke. The mental pic
ture I had drawn of the President through his writings
was true to its original.

He who has read Bancroft's History of the United
States will realize how difficult it was for American
psychology to understand the spirit that swayed the
German people. The adaptable German, echoing
Steuben's joy in the newly found freedom, quickly ac
customed himself to his new surroundings and soon
became ambitious to be an upright, independent
master of his own fate and not merely a busy servitor.
But those Germans who settled beyond the seas did
little to enlighten their brothers in the old home con-

50 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

cerning conditions in the new; and in the old there
were still strong powers which saw advantage in dis
crediting America. Here was a huge country which
fought for independence, against slavery, for freedom;
in which all nationalities, all beliefs and all individuals
were given ample breathing space; and which at the
same time had attained the greatest degree of wealth
and happiness. It did not suit blind princes to point
out to those at home so dangerous an example, nor did
it fit in with the plans of parasitic courtiers.

The republic of Washington and Lincoln became the
oasis of peace in a world of armor, and appeared
worlds removed from the thought of mixing into the
affairs of the Basalt lands, through which there still
stalks the specter of knights and robber* romance. A
professor, a democrat and pacifist, became President;
after the expiration of his term of office he was re-
elected, because the people saw in him the preserver
of peace who under all circumstances would "keep
them out of war." His Secretary of State, Bryan, and
his most intimate friend, Colonel House, were pillars
of peace. Despite the deep sentiment for Belgium
and France (which was less than we really believe it
to be, and still less for England) nine-tenths of the
states were opposed to war. The funds appropriated
for the conference of neutrals, and those collected to
further the work of the Women's Peace Party, the
National Association for the Preservation of Peace,
the Anti-Militarist League and federations of workers,
as well as the peace organizations supported by Car
negie, Henry Ford and other rich men, all were stir
ring the fires of pure human~ sentiment. Despite all

WOODROW WILSON 51

this, on the first day the new Congress assembled; the
President announced the resolve to throw the entire
weight of American war and industrial power into the
balance against the German Empire.

To this he was driven by a fervently cherished
ideal. All efforts to refute the enemy through words
or to heap scorn upon them proved without result.
How could he overthrow a state of mind, the innermost
workings of which were not even understood? Mr.
Wilson himself emphasized the fact that he possessed
a "single track mind," and did not seek the fame that
comes to them who are considered shrewd, but sought
only simple human understanding. From the first
hour of war it was his aim to be the mediator of peace.
Was it because such office might make his name im
mortal? Perhaps. Was it because he had always
seen in the preservation of peace the greatest charity
that a human being can bestow upon humanity? Cer
tainly. During August of 1914, says President Wil
son, he gave daily assurances of his readiness to bring
about peace. Despite the fact that at home he was
looked upon as a confirmed pacifist, he did not
abruptly reject demands to strengthen the army and
navy for any emergency that might arise. He be
lieved, as did every other courageous statesman, that
the most certain result of the war would be general
disarmament, and knew that his efforts would be given
greater force if he did not speak as the representative
of an unarmed power. "It is cheap for you to dis
arm," the answer might have been, "for you are
already disarmed, and the proposal is made solely in
your own interest." Consequently he asked for large

52 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

appropriations. These served two purposes: In the
first place they enabled him to refute the charge of
the militarists at home that he was a "flabby pro
fessor" who would permit the country to remain de
fenseless against attack (of Japan, Mexico and per
haps even Germany) . In the second place they served
to warn Germany of his determination to resort to
arms if she carried out her twice announced intention
of instituting vigorous submarine warfare without
sparing neutrals. He considered that he had not the
proper means to combat England's blockade; he
reasoned that, while her actions were contrary to in
ternational law, yet it was the mildest of war expedi
ents, while at the same time he knew that an attempt
to place an embargo on exports would be fought by
Congress because it would destroy the trade of farmers,
manufacturers and merchants. Besides this, his
chances for reelection as well as the hopes of the
Democratic party for continued power would vanish.
He therefore confined himself to the writing of ad
monitory notes (the sharpest of which, unfortunately,
brought forth a masterly reply from Grey). For the
moment he did not hope for results from a conference
of neutrals; but he leaned toward the idea, since the
desire for peace became stronger from month to month.
But neither Colonel House nor any of the doves he
sent overseas returned with as much as a leaflet of the
olive branch. And only a trifling intruder could offer
mediation which was not asked by both sides. As the
man who "kept us out of war" and whose campaign
slogan was "Peace, Prosperity, Preparedness/' he was
reflected.

WOODROW WILSON 53

And what did he hear from Germany? Only abuse
and challenge from those among us who were running
amok: "America is the arch enemy, has been so from
the very beginning and war against this despicable.,
profit gluttonous enemy cannot be avoided even by
the weakest of procrastinators." Responsible people
said: "We cherish the friendship of the United States
and will not permit submarine warfare to be under
taken except within the limits of our mutual agree
ment." December brought with it the "peace offer"
of the Central European powers, an expression of
readiness which, however, was silent upon all essential
points. The empires would have liked to enter into
negotiations. Did they insist upon the retention of
Briey, Courland, Wolhynia, parts of Serbia and Rou-
mania and did they still seek predominating influence
in Poland and Belgium? It was just as difficult to
obtain a clear answer to these questions as it is to
grasp a piece of slippery soap in a tub of water. The
track along which Mr. Wilson wanted to proceed was
now blocked. He set the switch so that he could move
along another. He brought forth the peace proposal,
the call for which he had looked for from both sides,
and defined his idea as to future world order. The
mild, not the burning, sun of peace without victory
should ripen a sincere desire toward friendly under
standing.

Wilson's message of Jan. 23, 1917, expressed the
thought contained in my address of April, 1916, to the
President of my imagination. The Allies looked upon
the scheming peace offer as a verbal bridge upon which
Germany intended to cross into unsparing submarine

54 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

warfare. And quietly accepting the possibility of war
and certain of the support of his country, he answered
with a list of conditions the sound of which was more
serious than their meaning. This quiet offer of media
tion was politely declined by the Imperial German
0* ernment.

The rejection of the offer of mediation was speedily
followed by an announcement of more intense sub
marine warfare, which came as a great surprise to the
President. He had clearly indicated that American
neutrality could no longer be reconciled with such a
form of warfare, and his almost rude rejection of the
attempt to compare the English blockade, to compare
seizure with destruction of ships and crews and to make
this a basis for compromise, was silently swallowed
by Berlin. Was Germany seeking to call forth a new
enemy? The President, who had even entrusted the
Secretaryship of War to an unbending pacifist, Mr.
Baker, formerly mayor of Cleveland, did not believe,
despite the evil succession of events, that they had
any such hostile intent. Only yesterday his ambassa
dor (Gerard, of French descent, whose ancestor was
Steuben's friend) was so elaborately feted by Berlin
dignitaries that he had definitely vouched for their
good will. No sign of deception anywhere. Today
the word was passed that limitation of the submarine
campaign was to hasten the conclusion of peace. To
this end, thinks Mr. Wilson, I have still one more
trump card, but only one. And on Feb. 3, he severed
official relations with the German Empire. What fol
lowed? Armed neutrality.

Suddenly a message was intercepted, a message from

WOODROW WILSON 55

Secretary of State Ziramermann to the German am
bassador in Mexico. The ambassador was instructed
that, should the United States be driven from her
neutral position by the unrestricted warfare which was
to begin on Feb. i, he was to inform General Car
ranza, President of Mexico, that, with England weak
ened to helplessness within a few months, he could
offer him an alliance with Germany, which would
assist him financially and would permit the conquest
of the states of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. At
the same time the ambassador was requested to urge
Carranza to use his efforts to bring Japan out of the
enemy group and into alliance with Germany.

In modern history there is no example of a lack
of knowledge of existing conditions to be compared to
this.

Had Mr. Carranza desired to add to the United
States of Mexico, with its sixteen million inhabitants,
the very rich and beautiful territory comprising Ari
zona, New Mexico and Texas, with five million in
habitants, he had no need to ask permission of Ger
many, which could offer him no assistance in carry
ing out such a plan. Bis first task was to defeat
General Villa, who was in control of the Americo-
Mexican buffer territory. (Did the Wilhelmstrasse
know this?) After that he could launch out upon the
Leatherstocking-like adventure of making war against
the richest nation on earth, against one hundred mil
lion people in whose service is the best artillery, the
highest technical and industrial development, and who
would rather bleed to death than permit Mexico to
take three states from them.

56 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

President Carranza rejected the proposal. He de
clined to transmit the offer to Japan. Wilson felt he
had been offered a personal affront. While he had
been busy polishing his peace proposal the Berlin
government had decided upon unrestricted submarine
warfare; while the Chancellor was glorifying himself
as the guardian of the friendship for America which
had been inherited from the time of Fritz, the Presi
dent was aware of the letter which in the event of an
open break offered foreign property to the Mexicans,
three flourishing states under the Starry Banner,
and begged Senor Carranza to bait Japan into an at
tack on the west flank of the United States. The up
right enemy must comprehend what light was shed
upon Germany's behavior by such glaring deception.

Both branches of Congress were aroused to wrath
because of the letter, which even the most lenient judge
will interpret as merely a senseless attempt at bluff.
The last doubt disappeared. The pacifist President
forced himself to the announcement of war. South
America and the islands of two oceans five conti
nents acclaimed him. High finance, which he had
wounded by the introduction of the eight-hour day for
railway employees, flocked about him to do him honor.
His bitterest opponents of yesterday, Hughes, Roose
velt, Elihu Root, Taft, paid homage to him who held
the confidence of the nation and was the brains and
heart of the country.

After the announcement of the election of Harding
the secretary to President Wilson reminded the news
paper representatives of the latter's motto: "It is

WOODROW WILSON 57

better to be defeated in a cause the resurrection and
victory of which is certain in the end, than to be vic
torious in a cause which the future will condemn to
destruction." Condemn to destruction such is the
mocking echo.

And the echo says further: "Condemned is, and will
be tomorrow and in all eternity, the disaster you have
wrought, pedant, weakling, hypocrite!" As a de
feated man, of whom no song is ever sung, as one
who is shunned, mocked, hated by millions, Mr. Wood-
row Wilson departed from the White House and the
city of Washington, the same Wilson who only two
short years before had left for Europe on the George
Washington followed by a burning adoration such as
had never before been offered to mortal man. He had
succeeded in changing the mood of mankind where
Northcliffe and his shrewdest advisers had failed; the
peoples of the world were more eager for his words
than they were for those . of their own military or
governmental leaders; morally and militarily he had
ended the war, insured victory, by sketching a world
condition which was attainable only on the ruins of
German imperial power and by the calm force of the
preparations for American participation which made
possible the landing of at least two hundred thousand
men every month by the spring of 1918. With a
towering preponderance of men, artillery, ammuni
tion, airships and tanks, Generalissimo Foch in the
summer and autumn could almost entirely annihilate
the German reserves and could husband his own,
these reserves of his which, according to the false
declarations of the German intelligence service, had

58 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

already been destroyed. And since in July General
Ludendorff, blinded to actualities by desire for suc
cess, had failed to grasp the opportunity which still
offered a slim chance that of withdrawing to short
ened lines of defense, the German army, still fight
ing bravely, but led by desperado strategy, was threat
ened with the most stupendous defeat in the history
of warfare. In order to escape a defeat which be
tween the Meuse and Limburg would have delivered
into the hands of the enemy 160 decayed divisions
with all their equipment, our army command con
stantly repeated its plea for the speediest possible
armistice and pledged Mr. Erzberger to the acceptance
of all conditions.

Out of the New World came the Professor-President
as though with warming spring breezes to thaw out
the winter numbness of the Old. A godlike atmos
phere surrounded the man in scholar's garb who had
lifted himself above 'the crowned and the chosen of
Europe. His arrival inspired wonder and awe equal
to that with which the seventh German emperor,
Henry, was greeted upon his arrival in Milan. Re
call how of Henry it was said that he would purge
the earth of iniquity, restore its holiness to the Roman
Empire and insure to all mortals the eternal blessing
of just and righteous rulership. As an angel of the
Lord and the redeemer of the world Dante worshiped
him on bended knee and cried: "Rejoice, ye slaves and
sufferers, and welcome the heaven-sent shepherd who
will lead us to safety." He implored the emperor to
hasten to Florence and at the Arno to recall to his
duty the black sheep that was leading all Italy astray.

WOODROW WILSON" 59

At Milan Henry set upon his own head the Iron
Crown. He conquered Loinbardy, but he entered Into
a compact with the French to deal gently with the
Guelphs, whom he had come to punish, and only after
being crowned in the Roman Lateran and after the
revolt of the Romans did he ally himself with the
Ghibellines. Too late! On his march to Naples, de
rided, jeered; and then, almost friendless, he died in
the village of Buonconvento. Three years it was since
his solemn and triumphant departure from Kolmar.
Three years just the flowering period of Wilsonian
fame. Was Wilson also too noble a character to
combat the host of deceivers, as history judges Henry
to have been? The Hotel Crillon at Paris became his
Buonconvento. There was life in him when he de
parted from it, but he had become a lonely figure.

A smile had often crossed his lips when, during the
sessions of the Council of Four, he had observed
Clemenceau, sitting by the fire-side in his peasant boots
and gray suede gloves, lift his bald head and open
eyes almost hidden by bushy brows, and utter some
harsh word of scorn. He smiled because he considered
himself the stronger and so permitted the Tiger to
play the role of Brennius, who, deeply suspicious and
scornful of humanity, vowed that force alone would
bring it to its senses. Maybe. The program which
was being prepared in this chamber by the good will
of man would teach him his error. For the victory
of the New World over the Old was as assured as the
rising of the sun.

In the godlike sense of happiness which his accept
ance as a redeemer brought him, the President some-

60 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

times undoubtedly forgot that his powers were limited
to executing the will of the American people. The
United States, which we still looked upon as a land
of raw materials and foodstuffs, are in reality world
suppliers of manufactured materials. They are in
competition with Europe, which ow r es them approxi
mately thirteen billion dollars, that is, twice as much
as the gold reserve of the entire world. Because the
greater part of the materials delivered to Europe re
mained unpaid America was compelled to send over
seas almost half a billion in gold and silver, so that
payment could be made for raw materials.

To the idealist the continent of Europe was a great
disappointment; to the business man it was a poor
devil who could not pay his debts and daily begged for
assistance.

This sentiment was first expressed in the Senate,
the center for the expression of the opinion of large
business interests. Here the President, bent upon the
erection of a structure founded only upon his pure
aims, found very little cooperation. This was the
revenge for his failure to ask that powerful body to
share the responsibility of making peace and for treat
ing it as a mere adjunct of government.

The Republicans in the Senate begrudged Wilson
his victory; the Democrats who supported him cau
tioned him to delay his decisions no longer. Belgians,
Poles, the people of Lorraine, Russians, Czechs, Rou
manians, South Slavs, Armenians, all called to him for
assistance. The scholars Lavisse and Aulard, Berg-
son and Boutroux appealed to him. He listened to
them all, but to no German. And none made even

WOOD ROW WILSON 61

the effort to gain his ear. The flame that cast its light
upon the Starry Banner faded out. Chaotic sounds
issued from Germany. Did the President harbor the
thought that Germany trusted him? He was reminded
that only yesterday it had scorned and berated him in
word and picture; that the eternal deceivers had at
tempted to use him as a tool for their cowardly
machinations. It was "proved" to him that the treaty
exactly covered the Fourteen Points and gave to the
French, whose misery was a reality to him because he
had personally seen and felt it, only what they de
served. If he was still doubtful a hundred, if neces
sary a thousand, reasons for action could be pre
sented. If he should spare the empires masked as
republics, then the newly created and resurrected states
could not live. He was deceived into overestimating
Germany's capacity for production. Sinners, he
thought, deserve severe punishment; they must go
through purgatory before the gates of mercy leading
to paradise are opened to them.

The first German whom he received in Europe was
wilfully impolite; he denied the guilt of the imperial
government, and accused the President of having
broken his word. The President was on the defen
sive; the game of Paris is won. But the League of
Nations was saved. Beside it the treaty of peace be
came passing matter. The League was "the great
achievement the world expected from the Conference."
A campaign of oratory was contemplated to reveal this
to the people at home. Illness, the result of his tre
mendous exertions, struck him down before the gospel
he preached could once more awaken the glow of

62 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

belief. And Ms bitter opponents at once had a clear
road.

They asked: "Is it not true that the Democratic
party has been guilty of stupidity every time it has
been at the helm?" The people of the United States
nodded affirmatively and turned abruptly away from
the President. Britain, France, Italy all nations op
posed him; and to the Germans he became once more
the hypocrite with horse teeth that he had been to them
until the collapse of their army.

But it must be remembered that he felt and thought,
not only spoke, as no other government head had
done before. The poorest and the mightiest hearkened
to his word, which gave aim and object to the war
and which, for a brief moment, seemed to break down
the barriers of class. And he would have been un
conquerable if also in Paris he had addressed all the
world and had not left it to the Bolsheviki to send
forth their call over mountain and sea.

A change in the tide of opinion concerning Wilson
has already set in. Be assured of this: On a not far
distant day the young giant America will enwreath
the portrait of the man who placed upon it the burden
of honor to fight for an ideal without the hope of
material return. Never before in human history has
this occurred. It remained for America to do it. The
parchment upon which treaties are written will decay.
And immortality is the lot of only one conqueror
the spirit.

As a wanderer in the Elysian fields, which are very
far away from his Paris Hotel Crillon, he could con
firm to Axel Qxenstjerna, a fellow wanderer, who was

WOODROW WILSON 63

Sweden's chancellor in the seventeenth century, the
truth of the latters statement that the world is gov
erned with an incredible lack of far-sighted wisdom.
And were Wilson to arise from the dead he, who was
so often nailed to the cross with brutal words, would
be driven to a second death at the sight of what has
been wrought in Europe. Before his last convulsion
of pain he might readily speak as did Nietzsche's Zara-
thustra: "Only when all of you have denied me will
I return to you. 35

And is there not even today a halo about the head
of the man who, though he was unable to bring about
the moral ennoblement of peoples, nevertheless strove
for this achievement with holy earnestness and pointed
the way toward its attainment to generations yet un
born? America, conscious of her debt to him, will
some day bow her head in reverence before his image.

Ill

LLOYD GEORGE

IN March 1921 there appeared a statement In the
newspapers that at the end of the announcement
that Mr. Bonar Law no longer felt that he was
strong enough to remain leader of the Lower House,
your voice, Right Honorable David Lloyd George,
was stifled in gushing tears. That seemed to ring
in our ear from the world of melodrama. Doubt
less it was, too, elaborated a bit for effect. Still, your
ability to say, to do, with unfailing accuracy at each
hour what is most effective needed no heightening from
the clever reporter.

A keen-edged word of yours on the Suffragettes once
won you, from the mouth of those wild dames, the cry:
"If I were your wife, I would give you poison 1 " Quick
as lightning your retort shot back: "If I were your
husband, I would take it!" And a convulsion of
laughter shook the assemblage. So it is always.
Whatever the ladle can get out of the bowl is dipt
out. And when a good friend goes, a little tear, at least,
must drip into your voice.

Your sorrow over the parting with this friend was
surely sincere. Where could you find offhand another
'so bound to you in personal loyalty, yet belonging,
hair and hide, to the Tories? As late as the spring
of the year 1914, no Tory would stay in the same room
with David Lloyd George, foe of the Upper House,

64

LLOYD GEORGE 65

social reformer, tax-extorter. He had brought the As-
quith ministry into such ill repute that the old nobility
and upper gentry associated with none who belonged
to that cabinet, with no one who was even on casually
friendly terms with it socially.

The Canadian, Bonar Law, was the genuine Con
servative; lower-born, but almost more dependable
than his predecessor, the skeptic Balfour, who was a
Cecil, and so secure in the saddle that he dared reveal
in the daylight his friendly devotion to you. With
Balfour you lost the certainty that you could at all
times control the party machinery of the Conserva
tives. You had no other ally. In the House of Com
mons, in both islands, throughout the empire, a great
following, but no party.

Whigs? They hardly exist any longer. "Whig"
says Bucher, "is supposed to have meant originally a
Conventicler in Scotland, inclined to rebellion, and
Tory, a horse thief in Ireland leaning to Papistry."
The religious contrast, the merging of several states
into an empire, the victory of the aristocracy over the
crown, the succession of a new royal house, the pecul
iar character of an aristocracy which recruits itself,
without objection from the common people, and gives
over its junior members to that people, all these
circumstances, with the existence of the Parliament,
worked together, to develop under these names two
parties, who agreed only in this: that power was to
be shared by them in alternation.

That is the sole abiding element in the contrast,
which has assumed the most variable forms: Popery
and Protestantism, Stuart and Orange, common and

66 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

parliamentary law, court favor and popularity, war
and peace, permanence and change, centralized power
and self-government, corn-laws and free trade. In the
war with America the names were passed on to the
Indians, who scalped one another under the battle
cries of "Whig" and "Tory." Always it was diffi
cult to define the difference between the two parties,
but they always did "connote something."

The Whigs, who for nearly a hundred years have
been called Liberals, made as a party the same mis
take as its German namesake. Instead of coming to
a prompt understanding with the self-assertive and
strong individual, that he should leave the party free
and yet not dam the current of his own influence,
they put forth all their strength in the struggle against
the man who towered annoyingly above the common
run. To be sure, Joseph Chamberlain was, Lloyd
George is, no Bismarck. But the feud against them
both, rising to sheer stupidity, has enfeebled English
Liberalism.

The Coalition, in 1916 a necessary war measure, is
now an empty shell. The man in the street is asking:
"What is Lloyd George going to do now?" Will he
create a new Centre party, return to the Liberals and
try to rebuild their power, or commit himself abso
lutely to the Conservatives, with whom he is at bottom
closer akin than Disraeli was?

The speech to the "New Members," the shrill battle-
cry against the Socialists and their "heavy artillery,"
Asquith's independent Liberals, pointed to the Right.
Three days before, you bad made the commercial
treaty with Lenin's Russia with the Bolsheviks,

LLOYD GEORGE 67

whose "bloody hands'" you had sworn you would
never clasp.

"What does this man In whom the empire's fate is
embodied really believe? Can we let him ? whose will
and energy were in war-time indispensable and un
limited, continue in control?" Such questions were
on millions of lips. The retirement of Mr, Bonar Law
closed a chapter in your life, and surely a foreboding
embittered your farewell to your most faithful sup
porter.

You are one of those enviable men who see, always,
only what the desire of their brain wishes to see, that
is, always one side only of any proposition: viz., that
which makes it acceptable or to be rejected, for the
end you are seeking at the moment. If sleepless, be
hind such an eye, there bides a clear keen intellect,
then not much is lacking to make a good partisan ad
viser. If such a man's desire leads him out of the
law-courts into the open, and he learns the twin arts
of eloquence and demagoguery, no crown hangs too
high for him.

You can do more. You can work (which, in your
home-land, before we aroused it, not every man could,
even on the battlements). You can endure chill wind
of the people's ill-will (as opponent of the Boer war
you were exposed in many a gathering to their yelling
frenzy) ; what is needful but distasteful to your folk,
you can knead so industriously, and sweeten so deftly,
that it tastes to them all like plum pudding.

Have you perchance a drop of blood not Celtic in
your veins? "Conventional Cant" has not ossified
you. I do not see you in London social gatherings

68 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

where "All wear masks, say what they do not believe,
eat what harms them 3 and speak ill of each other on
the way home. 7 ' (So Gordon sighs, and would rather
squat like a dervish in the Soudan with the Mahdi,
than do service every night in London to the false
god Society.)

Your strong point is that you (like Robespierre, ac
cording to Mirabeau's judgment) believe everything
that you utter. Almost everything, at least at the in
stant when it rushes from your lips. When you make
a new patent-law, bring order into the confusion of the
Thames harbor, obtain higher pay and old age pen
sions for workingmen, fight the land monopoly and the
brandy-makers, you feel yourself to be the Redeemer
of the island-empire, you consider every opponent a
villain, and are convinced that no other genius ever
produced such ideas as yours.

"Between luxurious wealth and humiliating destitu
tion the cleft has grown so wide that the social condi
tions of the present day cannot endure. Where many
souls are ruined in order that a small group of human
beings may prosper superabundantly; the ideal of
righteous kindliness is lost, and the world-order de
stroyed." Such thoughts, you (sometimes) fancy,
arise out of no brain save yours. To us, after Stein
and Bismarck, Marx and Lassalle, the utterance seems
"small talk"; mere chatter after Carlyle, the Webbs,
and the other Fabians. You think in official decrees;
he who is not guided by them may go dwell with the
cattle.

Wartime is the very element in which men of your
type flourish. To them the world's political history

LLOYD GEORGE 69

Is a harsh melodrama in which kindliness and purity,
in their angelic perfection, strive against hellish
malice. To put all the Peers of England under ban
as oppressors and rascals would certainly be difficult.
That all Germans are barbarians, criminals, Huns,
cannibals, others than children enjoy hearing. And
so you were the man, Right Honorable, to hit upon the
watch-word that hammered into all heads the unique
character of the war:

"Mazzini once said that every war not waged in
defense of a great truth, or to unmask a great lie, was
the most terrible of offenses. We Allies will not grow
weary of exertion until the lie that 'Might is Right'
shall be buried so deep in the earth that it can have
no resurrection. There's your fat for you, German
Michael. (No other can pass the Channel.) Why do
three emperors, four kings, many republics challenge
you? Because your stubborn wits roar at civilized
humanity, 'Might goes before Right ! ' "

Bismarck said it? Never. In his speech against
the address of the Prussian House of Representatives,
which accused the Prime Minister of having violated
the Constitution (on the 20th of January, 1863) ke
did say: "The life of a Constitution, in the judgment
of an experienced statesman, consists of a succession
of compromises. If a compromise is thwarted because
one of the parties concerned insists on carrying out its
own views with doctrinaire absolutism, then the suc
cession is broken, and, instead of the compromises,
conflicts arise, which then become mere questions of
Might. He who has the power in his hands goes on
in his own fashion, because the life of the state cannot

70 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

for an instant stand stilL" Representative Count von
Schweria answered: i: Tbe speech of the Prime Min
ister culminated in the words: 'Might goes before
Right. Say what you will, we have the power there
fore we shall carry out our own theory.' This state
ment I consider to be one which the dynasty in Prussia
cannot permanently uphold. The greatness of our
country, and the reverence in which the Prussian rul
ing house is held, rest rather on the statement: Right
goes before Might. Justitla jundamentum regnorum
(Justice is the foundation of kingdoms) : that is the
motto of the Prussian kings, and so should it re
main."

Bismarck (who was in the hall during Schwerin's
speech) said: "As I am told, the gentleman under
stood me to have declared that 'Might goes before
Right.' I do not remember such an utterance. (Vig
orous contradiction.) Despite the expression of dis
belief with which you receive my correction, I appeal
to your memory. If it is as accurate as my own, it
will tell you that I advised a compromise, because
otherwise conflicts arise, which become questions of
power, and the possessor of power, because the life of
the state cannot stand still, is compelled to make use
of it. (Great disorder.) I did not characterize that
as an advantage, I make no claim for impartial judg
ment from your side; I only wish to correct, for the
record, what was misunderstood."

This he did again, five years later, when Twesten
had misinterpreted a sentence in his speech: "I am
not willing that, by the previous speaker's midwifery,
out of my word another winged one be born, as, out

LLOYD GEORGE 71

of another, what also I have never uttered sprang:
'Might goes before Right. 5 "

It was actually written by a much earlier Boche,
Luther, when he translated the minor prophet Habak-
kuk, not so accurately, in my opinion, as the Catholic
Allioni, who reads: (Habakkuk I, 2-3) "Why, O Lord,
dost thou show me iniquity, and set robbery and in
justice before mine eye? Judgment is rendered, but
the opponent has the upper hand! 9 (Luther's version
is: "Violence goeth above right.")

. . . But can the true voice of conscience announce
that: "The lie 'Right is born of might' is dead"?

"Conscience" (so your smile replies) "permits or
forbids nothing. 7 ' "We only imagine that we have such
an organ in our nature, 37 says Jeremy Bentham. Bain
declares that it should create in man's heart a copy of
the government's command. And Butler, "Conscience
would rule the world, if, to its Right, Might were
added." There is a pair of words you may enjoy
juggling with. From the Heaven of Ideas the truth
shines into the bishop's brain, that forceless right is
little worth. Out of the womb of Might, Right is
born. Can grown-up men question that it is she that
moulds and shapes it, gives it swift currency, and
compels its recognition?

I refrain from the righteous jest of discussing thor
oughly what morally purified Right, cleansed of all
the dross of Might, gave your people authority in
Ireland, India, the Soudan, the lands of the Boer,
Canada, Australia, Gibraltar and elsewhere. Might
did it all. So long, and only so long, as Might flutters
the pennon of your empire has she the ruler's Right!

72 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

"When Man deliberates what he should, what he
should not do, behind it hides the question what will
benefit, what harm him. The beneficial he calls good,
and what he fears will harm him, evil. Duty is the
necessity of acting, or refraining from action, so that
one's own happiness may be perfected; or at least un-
diminished. Reverence is the consciousness that a man
has indeed the power to do us either good or evil,
yet spares us the evil. Benevolence: the pleasure felt
in the consciousness that, while fully gratifying our
own desires, we can also fulfill the wishes of other
men. ... He who gives, hopes the gift will return
with interest. . . . What we desire we call good, what
terrifies us, evil. God's rights are never questioned
where he is considered almighty."

Only Nietzsche (whom you, Sir, know from the
newspapers, who in truth was the most defiant critic
of the young empire, but is booked in your memory as
a blind Germanist) can have written those sentences?
No! It was Thomas Hobbes, your beloved fellow-
countryman; he who, before the Jesuit Busenbaum
(though after Machiavelli), perceived that, for a per
mitted end, all means are permissible.

< ; For what profits us a Right, if the necessary means
to assert it be denied? Everyone has the right of
self-preservation, and therefore also the right to
utilize all means, not to disdain any one without which
self-preservation would be endangered." Your virtue
should ply her spade to bury the "Leviathan"!

And still you are digging the vault all too narrow,
else room will be lacking for later creations. Six clods
for every Utilitarian! A special tomb deep in the

LLOYD GEORGE 73

earth even for the pure Baruch Spinoza, not because
it was Ms pleasure to urge spiders to fight each other,
or to push live Sies into their webs, but because he
dared to say: "Every man has just so much Right as
Might; the limits of Might are those of Right as well."

"But where/' asks the man from Wales, impa
tiently, "are the Germans in this parade?'* They,
Sir, speak otherwise than Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, or
that elder David, Hume.

"The concept 'Right' is a negative one. That of
'Wrong 7 is the positive, and equivalent to Injury, in
its widest sense, done either to a person, to his prop
erty, or to his honor. Human rights are to be defined
accordingly: Each has the right to do whatever in
jures no one else. The state is in its essence a means
of protection either against external attacks upon the
whole body of members or, from within, by individuals,
on one another.

"From this it follows that the necessity for the state
rests essentially upon the acknowledged injustice of
the human race. If justice ruled in the world, it would
suffice to have built one's house, and no other protec
tion would be needed beyond this evident right of
ownership. But since injustice is the rule, he who has
built a house must also be in a position to protect it;
otherwise his right de facto is incomplete, because his
assailant has the 'fist-right?

"Now this conception of right is, in the political
world to be sure, theoretically abolished, but in prac
tice it continues in full force. The beasts of prey
among human beings are the conquering nations and
their successes and failures are the material of his-

74 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

tory. Voltaire is right in saying, 'Robbery is the pur
pose of all war.' Yet every government declares that
it will only take up arms in self-defense. It should
frankly and shamelessly appeal to Machiavelli's teach
ing, that between nations the rule is: 'What you would
not have another do to you, that do to him. 3

"Right in itself is powerless: in the natural course
of things Force prevails. To supply Right with Power,
so that it may rule, is the problem of statesmanship. "

So writes Schopenhauer. After the philosopher let
us hear the teacher of law.

"Right is not a logical conception, but an expression
of power. Every right of a people or of an individual
is maintained solely because the requisite power stands
ready to support its assertion. Every right on earth
has been fought for. That is why Justice holds in one
hand the scales, in the other the sword."

These words are Jhering's, a great jurist. In the
guilt of the lie which your war would bury deep, these
two righteous men do not share. But you charge that
we, each for himself, took part in the crippling of all
morality? Burke says: "War of itself looses all the
bonds of moral duty." Our arming was itself a vio
lation of peace? Fox declares: "The unarmed man
is a bad guardian of peace. True statecraft bids even
the peacefully-minded to arm himself against sudden
outbreak of a will that strives in the opposite direc
tion."

It was a crime that we accumulated means of de
fense without constant noise and bustle? Hear Can
ning: "Like to a magnificent mechanism that after
long disuse suddenly reveals the power of its ma-

LLOYD GEORGE 75

chinery, is our England; while it seemed at rest, with
out the will to act, it was accumulating the force with
out which it could not take advantage of future op
portunity. 57 It is Canning, again, who warns against
mercy and half-way measures in warfare: "For, where
only violence can bring the decision, weak hesitation
is cruelty."

Harsh methods of conducting war are shameful?
"The spirit of peace has no place in war, which, as
the final appeal to force, must not be moderated.
Slack conduct of war wastes, not saves, blood and
wealth; it would be worse than parley or submis
sion."

The last was Macaulay's utterance. I have cited
Britons only as witnesses. Will a hard-headed busi
ness man of your type seriously blame us that we
fought with every available weapon?

Fulton's submarine boat was frowned upon by Pitt,
as a dangerous weapon against British sea power. The
Coessin brothers devised one that provided space and
air for nine men. It was tested and approved by
Lazare Carnot in 1811. Swiftly and cheaply, the
"Organizer of victory" wrote, France could construct
under-sea craft. Nothing came of it; but no one then
thought of outlawing this means of warfare. Great
ships, capable of carrying heavy cargoes, became pos
sible after the dynamo accomplished the extraction of
light aluminum in unlimited amounts from argillaceous
earth.

As hot suffocating gases poured out of an exploding
shell, "The idea naturally suggested itself," as Pro
fessor Anschiitz said, "of pouring heavy gases, irritat-

76 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

ing to the mucous membranes, without explosion, by
mechanical means, over a wide area of the enemy's
position so as to drive out the combatants."

Explosives, your people thought, would soon be
scant with us when no more saltpetre came from Chile.
A vain hope! Ammonia is produced from nitrogen and
hydrogen, and ammonia mixed with air becomes salt
petre. Despite the blockade, which shut out the famil
iar materials, the hardest, toughest steel was assured.
Chemistry discovered the color for German uniforms
best suited to the battlefield, the means of illumination
for clock-dials, metal for the threads of pocket-lamps,
found substitutes for benzine and rubber, solidified
liquid fats, produced serums and disinfecting ma
terials (so that none of the pestilences that raged else
where crossed our borders), obtained curatives from
thousands of synthetic carbon-compounds.

Why, O David of Manchester, reared in Wales, did
your chemical industry, that fifty years ago seemed
invincible, let itself be beaten by ours? Why did only
six men of complete scientific training serve your state,
while we had two hundred and fifty? Why were your
submarines, aeros, cannon, explosives, fuses, tele
scopes, metal plates, films, not better than ours?

Once, long ago, you were united in a mighty em
pire, and could not but be so far in advance that
seven-league boots were unable to overtake you. Then
the globe would have heard no complaint about un
ethical German behavior. After the declaration of
war, to cut off our supply of saltpetre from the Chilean
province Tarapaca was your sacred right. When we
plucked deliverance out of the air, and on every front

LLOYD GEORGE 77

proved superior to our enemy's cannon, then we were
outlawed with the cry: "These Huns think Might
makes Right! 75

In the second year of the war I asked the question:
"When civic life returns to earth, what will be the
relation of the Prussianized German with the nations,
with all mankind?"

M. Bergerat, once the cheerful genial Caliban of
Figaro , made answer then:

"If, twenty years after the conclusion of peace ? a
son of these Germans of today offers his hand to us, to
Englishmen, Italians or Russians, our gesture must say
to him, c Away with you. Depart foreverinore from
us! What your fathers did can never be effaced.
Oceans divide you from us since then!' For almost a
half century the German has devoted himself, body
and soul, to the invention of a war undreamed of else
where, which should combine all harms and leave noth
ing to chance. Robbery, incendiarism, butchery, viola
tion without shame he taught himself every barbaric
art and went back, consciously and deliberately, across
twenty thousand years, to the fighting methods of pre-
Adamite man-apes. That, he asserted, was to be the
real warfare of the future.

"Now the German wishes peace. What would it be
like? If no one survives to proclaim his victory, then
there is no distinction of vanquished from victors.
What we are living through is no human war, the sport
of ancient heroes or of the great commanders, in which
the poet's imagination bids the gods take part. For
this war no Homer will arise! Who would sing of

78 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

factories? In this Darwinian strife for the life of the
species, this war of numbers against violence or trick
ery, no issue is thinkable save one: Extermination!
Xeither reconciliation on the battle field (as after an
honorable duel) nor softening of hatred by time. Ill
were it for mankind, if the peace that follows this war
should not bring with it annihilation!"

One day after the publication of these sentences M.
Aulard, France's most famous historian, cried from
the tribune:

"Let there be no illusion. Only blood brings us
victory. How often have we been assured that our
mastery of the sea would force the empires of Central
Europe into famine? But it only compels Germans
and Austrians no longer to over-eat! Those gluttons
are but forced into a better manner of living, and so,
without gorging or guzzling of beer, into nimbler
thought and action, through the new hygiene. Will
Germany, for lack of food, arms, men, collapse and
confess defeat? A perilous delusion!

"And if 'twere to come true: if Germany, starved
out, disarmed, were compelled to beg for peace, I
should see in that the most grievous peril, the cer
tainty of near, of horrible evil. What terms of peace
could we impose upon a people whose army has been
victorious, has occupied French and Russian terri
tory, the whole of Belgium, Serbia and Montenegro?
Surely, only a peace that might, perhaps, give us
back Alsace-Lorraine, set free Belgium and Serbia,
but would leave Prussian militarism, in all its might
and glory, intact. The Prussianized German Empire
would remaip a constant menace, a constant peril for

LLOYD GEORGE 79

mankind. Sooner than we it would recover from its
loss in men. By the fruitless and negative victory
our alliances would be weakened, and after brief
respite united Germany would pounce upon the con
tentious Allies to crush them decisively, "From this it
follows that genuine victory, which will assure durable
peace, and so the destruction of Prussian militarism,
and secure the maintenance of the balance of power
among European nations, can only be won when the
German army is smashed, broken to pieces, its pres
tige and splendor taken from it. The number and the
valor of our soldiers assures us this real victory on
the day when we have cannons, machine guns, flying
machines, poison-gas, in sufficient amounts, when
closer unity and better method are secured, and when
an elementally mighty effort of power and will utilizes
our admirable warriors and complete munitions of

war."

So wrote a thinker, on the threshold of the nine
teenth war month.

And you, O Vulcan of the island Romans, you didn't
worry? When your colleague Asquith grew feeble,
and like Saul of old, "dried his eyes on the hangings
of his room/ 7 you, more vigorous than that yellow
weakling, the David of Rembrandt, plucked at your
harp until from its strings the spark of your own
eager faith fired the old man's blood. Again in Jan
uary, 1916, you roused yourself to undertake a David's
task.

"Beside our unconquerable fleet is growing up a
mighty army, armed and equipped as few continental

80 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

armies have ever been. And behind the fronts a new
England, a flawless industrial organism, with marvel
ous machinery, an ideal organization, and a people
proud of their hereditary freedom, rejoicing in their
unity won by self-sacrifice. Our national wealth in
creases, replacing ten-fold what the war devours* So
we need not fear that that war will long go on. I
count it possible that it may last two years more. It
ends when victory shines upon us."

And "when the foe is flayed, yea ; destroyed"?
So could, so really should the psalm have closed!
Overthrow of the German army, extermination of the
sixty millions that toil with brain or hand behind it.

A hundred years before, a minister of a British
King George had heard that melody, from French
men then.

"The Prussian monarchy is by its very structure
forced into ambition. That ambition must be bridled.
If the Allies grant her the ten million inhabitants that
she had before her fall, she will soon have twenty,
and dominate all German lands. The German. Con
federation offers us the means to stifle her greed for
power. Her possessions can not be extended if the
little states are preserved, the central countries en
larged."

This was Talleyrand's plan to hem Prussia in, the
germ of an alliance by England, France (the France
of Louis XVIII) and Austria against Russia and
Prussia. Lord Castlereagh allowed himself to be won
over. For the Berliners he had honeyed words, but
no will to aid them. England might have pushed aside
at that time the memory of all the Great Fritz had

LLOYD GEORGE 81

done and made herself fast friends with the chief
power in Germany.

But you, Sir, with all the munitions of war heaped
up about you, were you never yourself disturbed when
the cry of terror against Force was raised? Oh, no.
"Germany is the arch-enemy of the human race. After
victory the German warrior-caste would only seek for
new conquests. Europe would sink into helplessness.
Our sea-power would be wrenched away from us, the
French and Russians would no longer be allowed to
maintain the armies needed to defend their frontiers."
It was the voice of Europe's counsellor that pleaded:
"A halter for the transgressor!"

But at home, after dinner, swollen with your knowl
edge of human nature, you shook with laughter at the
threat to put that speech to the test of your own con
science: "Oh, just stuff for jurymen and popular be
lief; doesn't affect the price of gold."

Agreed. But what is it that will happen?

My answer, in the spring of 1916, was:

"Europe is bleeding to death. We refuse to stop,
today, to count how many men have fallen and been
crippled; everywhere the most vigorous in the van.
Yet a year more, two years, fresh devastation; im
poverishment to crush our grandchildren, burden our
latest descendants; stunting of industry; degeneration
of our whole manner of living, back to the conditions
from which the creation of the empire uplifted us.
Loans are future taxes for the citizens of the hostile
lands. The state will become a business partner who
pockets half your profits. Government monopolies,

82 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

restrictions on manufacture and trade, official sur
veillance, lessening of demand, high barriers against
offerings of large supplies! Does private industry pay
today? Is not, rather, the time drawing nigh, that
is promised in the Socialists' manifesto?

"The longer the fighting and the destruction of
values lasts, the heavier grows the cloud over any hope
to recoup, as victor, the costs of the war. What people
could adjust itself to ten years' serfdom under con
querors garrisoning their land? Their very souls
would be at last outworn! Aversion from wedlock,
home, daily civic duties. Somewhere the whole frame
work of a state would collapse (one only?), and once
again there would be losses and miseries for those near
or far. Do you dream that your social reform, your
relief plan, could be saved from the hurricane? Will
not the gulf between hastily-clutched Mammon and
naked misery be yet deeper after the war than in
those days when you thought the world-order de
stroyed?

"In your Lower House it has been said that the
war is an event comparable to the fall of the Roman
Empire, the invasion of Islam, the Reformation, the
Proclamation of the Rights of Man, with all that
came after, under Robespierre, the Directorate, Bona
parte. If it goes according to your notion, if the fight
ing continues, does it begin to dawn upon you that
your colleague at Westminster did not exaggerate?"

Yet again, I repeat, it was in the spring of 1916
that I wrote that.

And has not the gulf between riotous wealth and
degrading poverty grown yet wider than in the year

LLOYD GEORGE 83

of your "Poor man's budget"? Has what the war de
voured of your people's wealth been tenfold replaced?
Out of a deeper root of realization than yours came
my prognosis, without official station though I was,
who, midway in the second year of the war, wrote that
from month to month the hope was more heavily over
clouded for any adequate recovery of the victor's
costs.

You were forced into a war against Ireland, waged
it with such merciless cruelty as only the blackest
mythical legend ascribed to the German army, and
had to deal with the Sinn Fein as you would with
a hostile power and grant to defiant Ireland the rights
of the greatest Dominions, Egypt, where for forty
years England's will was absolute law, won her free
dom, and chose a banished rebel for her ruler. To
Major General Younghusband India seemed more
grievously imperiled than ever before. America, that
threatened your sea power more grimly than ever
Germany could have done, and China, wandering in
impenetrable darkness, alike rejected your commercial
treaty. The demand for your manufactures was dead;
the world-rule of the pound sterling destroyed; what
were the Isles of the Blest now hear the cry of want
from two millions of unemployed. To the shrill battle-
cry against Socialism and Communism you add, with
out pause for breath, the rash announcement that the
new Moscow gospel takes the force out of the prin
ciples of the gentle Labor Party and that Lenin's
speeches are hardly to be distinguished from those
of the war minister and Bolshevik-hater, Winston
Churchill!

84 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Never did the sigh steal through so many British
hearts: "Nobody knows what he believes in! Does he
himself see a goal and struggle with strategic skill to
reach it,,or is all his activity merely part of the need
ful daily exercise of a tactician? Is the solicitor-
general of the Allies in wartime growing to the emi
nence of a creative statesman, or is his strength fad
ing out, like Clemenceau's, before the completion of
his task comes into view?"

You have no party and no longer any psychology.
In wartime you did have one which, whether genuine
or not, was invariably effective. What has happened
to it undazzled eyes can see at a glance. Only on
the platform to a popular audience, never before the
woolsack at Westminster, will you venture the asser
tion that the lie of the origin of Right from Might
is so deep buried that it can have no resurrection. In
every task you have been successful. Can it be, then,
that in the highest of all you have disappointed the
confident hopes of men?

You seemed a creature of exhaustless natural
energy. Will you content yourself with the short-lived
fame of one who, in an unwelcome war, fanned the
fire of a hosf of peoples even to the high noon of vic
tory? Much longer lasts the laurel of the Bringer of
Peace. Does not your ear, else sp fine, so wakeful and
keen at the dawning of uproar, hear the storm of
longing that calls for the Redeemer* the Messiah?
He will ascend, in the splendor of the flame of God,
not in the robes of the Counsellor, to the highest seat.
That seat, Celtic David, is empty as yet.

In London, in the morning of the year 1921, you

LLOYD GEORGE 85

intended to create a peace; and the attempt failed.
You were determined that this time, even over the
highest obstacles and hurdles, you would attain the
goal; but even the magic wand of your persuasive
skill struck no spark from empty heads. It vexed you,
too, that the broad picture you painted of horrible
deeds done in war by Germans made not even the
shallowest impression on Germany's soul. As it is
with a grown-up who leads stupid children, all in vain,
over and over, close to the spot where the sweet
Easter eggs are hidden, so was it with you. Hence
that discourteously shrill complaint over the non-ap
pearance there of any German statesman competent
to act upon so important a subject.

Yet to us, debtors in all else that we are, you owe
as yet the proof that you yourself possess the breath,
the brain, the breadth of soul, for such an undertak
ing the flame of God ; not the most pugnacious coun
sellor's unwearied keenness of scent.

To a large portion of your great speech every just
man could not but give his assent. What you said
as to the responsibility of the Imperial government
was here in Germany not heard aright (in some quar
ters, heard with intent to misinterpret).

"That Germany distrusts us is more easily ex
plained than our distrust of her. The Germans need
an army, as we need a fleet: for defense against hostile
onslaughts. Although their land lies between two
strong military states, they have never striven to create
an army superior to the defensive power of both neigh
bors; but we absolutely refuse to give up our 'Two-

86 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

power standard/ and we have built dreadnoughts that
were quite needless, to assure our superiority on the
sea. Our claim has no just foundation.' 7

That was publicly uttered on the next to the last
day of July, 1908, by Lloyd George, Chancellor of the
Exchequer. You cannot have believed, then, in our
wearisomely crafty preparations for war.

The mere comparison with the Peace of Frankfort
proved that your intention in London was to repeat
the principle "He who declares war takes on himself
the responsibility, and if defeated, the whole burden
of reparation." Our standard-bearer took the sen
tence in a more ethical sense than it was intended and
swears that "The revival of the 'guilt-question' will
furnish the shroud for the Versailles agreement."

These disguised Monarchists (the unmasked ones
deserve all the respect due to pious believers) shudder
at any mention of the fact that the imperial govern
ment, by unrighteous and hasty action, in thirst for
glory and blindness, in the summer of 1914, burdened
itself with the chief guilt for the outbreak of the war.
They seriously believe, in spite of Wilhelm's letters
and marginal notes, despite two declarations of war,
invasion of neutralized Belgium, and the lies as to
conspiracy, attack, bomb-throwing, etc., that day after
tomorrow, out of two worlds, the confession will re
sound: "We were mistaken, or were deceived by vil
lains; and it is our stupidity that has dug the graves
of many millions."

Such a childish fancy does not help us forward. No
more does it to drag out and throw the light on all
the mistakes that have been made before, at, and

LLOYD GEORGE 87

after, the London conference. (Jurists without juristic
instincts, and with a craving for applause: most ter
rible of terrors!)

We are threatened, all of us, with a danger, from
the results of which this quarter of the world could
not recover within any time that can be descried. Did
you foresee that danger, or did you only wish to "get
rid" at last of the wearisome business, to chain the
French to the anchor of mere hope, and throw a tow-
rope to the Germans on which, drenched like a poodle-
dog, but with unbroken bones, they might come safe to
some scant beach?

Great Britain's demand on Europe, at present, is
only for money: but Europe demands more from
Britain. France fears that, cheated out of the repara
tion payments, plunged into insolvency, she will be
overwhelmed by her stronger neighbor's thirst for
revenge. Germany fancies herself dragged down into
the dust, clutches again at the straw "Necessity knows
no law," and lets herself be beguiled into thinking she
shows heroism by refusing to pay her plain duty-
debt.

"Thirty annual payments? No! Twelve milliards
in the spring, the first one in March? No! You're
peddling out ^he coal that we deliver to you? Shame
less misuse! No plan, to point the way toward an
understanding. The Entente may split its lungs; we
won't budge!"

Is this state of things to continue? Imposing fresh
penalties will only fan the glow of hatred. The nego
tiations must begin again tomorrow. Not in public;
that is always with a glance, or a squint, at the gal-

S8 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Jery. We need to discuss it quietly, like sober business
men. Frank talk, with no virtuous posing, and noth
ing held back. Serious consideration of the necessary
and the possible, not of what once was. Germany's
people cannot and will not be a swarm of beggars, a
festering sore on Europe's body. Once on free soil
they will again listen to the voice of Conscience. Let
everything they accumulate above bare necessities go
to Reparation (which France sees as quite too simple
a matter). Two peoples that control the ore and coal
of Western Europe, and for whose wares immense
regions are ravenous, can, even without hearty friend
ship, help each other quickly to prosperity, if Eng
land only restrains her selfishness, and learns to look
with friendly eye on a Franco-German economic trust,
or even confederation.

The statesman who accomplished such a lofty task
would need no party. He hallows by justice his pos
session of power. For the Bringer of Peace the laurel
blooms imperishable; does that laurel hang too high
aloft for your reach?

Lloyd George craved the laurel. It was his desire
that summoned the nations to Genoa. There was a
double purpose: to grind out a world film useful for
the Parliamentary elections, and to found a League
on which Harding's America would look more favor
ably than on Wilson's. Despite uncommon success in
war and peace, the Prime Minister (to whom the
people had never given a familiar nickname, as they
had to Palmerston, Disraeli, Gladstone, Chamberlain)
was no longer beloved of all men at home. Wilhelm

LLOYD GEORGE 89

wasn't hanged, Germany couldn't pay, and the election
bacon, which should have gone to the smoke-house
before Easter, was getting rancid.

Ireland, Egypt, the Caliphate, India like the white
leaves from an artichoke were being stripped off from
the stalk of the British Empire, and in the fat earth
the moisture was drying out. Constant protests from
the Dominions, quiet industrial crises, stagnation of
trade, unemployment, overburdened budgets in the
state and the communities, sullen murmuring on every
side:

"All the fault of the hasty untrustworthy dema
gogue. Yesterday a Radical, three-quarters Socialist,
today a most pious Calvinist and original Free Trader,
on familiar footing with the dear Lord himself, chews
the cud of Cobden ? s and Blight's principles, and would
root out all Socialism, trunk and stump. If he, in spite
of his oath 'never to clasp the bloody hand of the
Moscow murderers, 3 hadn't begun to chaffer with
Krassin, we would not now, on all sides, from Canada
to Asia Minor and the South African mining regions,
be tormented with Bolsheviks. His hope that America
would cross off the four billion dollars we owe her was
builded on the sand. The soup he served, against the
advice of the Cambridge professor, Keynes, and other
learned specialists, at Versailles, has turned the stom
ach of our trade!"

This is not all true. The notion that the aches and
pains of industry, of the export trade, were brought
on by the shortcomings of the Peace Treaty, sprang
from a hasty and superficial survey of the situation.

90 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Throughout four years, fifty million people, those
most useful for manual labor and the arts, had worked
only upon means of destruction. On this side and
beyond the ocean entire industries were built up which
no one had needed, so long as their products were to
be obtained from Germany. Meantime the old Ger
man industries were not, as might be imagined, given
up, but were developed in the heat of the ever-renewed
pressure to produce what was needed for the army and
for the folk at home, In wide fields heretofore satis
fied with imports, various peoples became in the course
of the war providers for their own needs. So there was
a multiplication of the chief industries, increase in
productive capacity, and (especially, but not only, in
Eastern Europe) a terrible decrease in the demand
and in means to purchase.

From all this, was not the heretofore unheard-of
business crisis, whose beginning worries the world,
clearly inevitable? Heretofore men have groaned over
the "severe crises" whenever the scales of production
and consumption were not to be held in perfect equilib
rium. Now the latter swings high, and far below
the other sways softly; and a miracle, one not to be
expected from Conference or Consortium, must come
to pass in order that the generation now alive may see
the end of this worst of crises, and the return to
healthy industrialism.

The development was not forced upon mankind at
Paris, it was not sealed at Versailles. Yet to the man.
on the street, because the newspaper spreads the lie
before him daily, the Peace Treaty is the devil's
spawn that sowed misery in his world. And Mr. Lloyd

LLOYD GEORGE 91

George ; last survivor in office of the "Big Four" who
made the peace, is a suspected contemporary.

Despite the lack of any one far-beckoning leader's
name, victory at the polls was altogether too uncertain
against all these hostile forces: the Tories, weary of
the yoke under which they had bent so long, when even
they had been forced to take a hand in the unfettering
of Ireland and the stripping of leaf after leaf from
the Empire; the Labor Party in the tumult of its
desire for the New Day; the free lances of the
Churchills, Grey-Asquiths, and Robert Cecils, electoral
battle against all these was altogether uncertain.

So the Genoa film was planned to assure electoral
success. Three dozen nations made up "the noble
supernumerary mob"; there were eminent managers;
the press of the world provided the orchestra. He
would be the stupidest of rogues who could not win
profit from such a pageant.

The David who slew Goliath transformed himself
into the David of the psalter, of the harp. The cham
pion of the "knock-out" became the Saviour from
whose benignant hand mankind, languishing in agony,
was to receive peace. If only the First Lord of the
Treasury could lead the tamed Bolsheviks to make an
oath to his Gracious Majesty, to renounce henceforth
all plotting, stirring up of sedition among the masses,
all mole's work; if he could but demonstrate that
Christ died on the cross and rose again, the martyrs
perished in torture, the papacy was spiked to Peter's
rock, and its all too earthy material disintegrated by
the lye of the reformer-spirit, all this in order that
trade might bloom unblasted, that no limit be set to

92 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

the sale of oil, Iron, wool and other earthly goods; and
if this First Lord of the Treasury should be applauded
by the unanimous voice of public opinion, and if he
were able, for the three vernal months at least, to plant
firmly the faith that all sorrow should soon be turned
into joy and the deadness of the market transformed
into abundance like Pactolus' stream, why, then ; the
nation that shared in the sunshine of his fame would
make up its mind to grant to the world's darling a
continuance of its confidence!

That was the goal. "Whatso Reinecke doeth and
writeth, that abideth evermore rightly done and duly
recorded. Hereof shall each and everyone take due
notice! :?

First disappointment: M. Briand sauntered out of
the presidency of the Cabinet, in which the First Of
ficial and the Senate would not gladly see him longer.
This amiably clever Bohemian of politics was a good
comrade, not always easy, and sometimes ruder than
was to be expected from one so comfortably bedded in
the favor of princesses, but nimble, pliable and espe
cially since his loss of prestige at Washington and
Cannes hardly replaceable as a medium of communi
cation and as general manager.

President Millerand showed the Welshman, who
scolded him as if he were a schoolboy, that even in
Elysium there may be porcupine quills. President
Poincare is a heavy cautious student of documents,
who listens to the mood of Chamber, and allows him
self neither to be fascinated nor betrayed into fire
works.

These were two experienced watchful attorneys of

LLOYD GEORGE 93

the Bourgeoisie, who understood alike the peasant and
the laborer, and were opponents to the English advo
cate of the middle class, who wounded the pride of
France by the all too gracious proffer of a treaty of
(very long-distance) protection against invasion.

The disappointed Prime Minister snarled out his
rage at the check upon applause for himself that had
come from the Parisians. But already he had a plan
prepared to pillory France as the disturber of the
peace. The shrewd man made his approaches craftily.
He published, after three years, a memorandum in
which he had sounded a warning against the all too
sharp corners of the Versailles treaty, against exces
sive robbery of Germany and enrichment of Poland.
That the warner had cheerily let all the evil come
to pass, and angrily dismissed his financial adviser,
Keynes (who saw in his chief always the mischief-
maker, never the counselor of moderation), did not
hinder the master of magic from turning the spotlight
on his own kindliness, and denouncing the Lorrainer
(whom old Clemenceau had actually excluded from
every deliberation upon the treaty) as the arch-villain.

Second disappointment: the Rapallo pact; a gross
violation of the basic principles announced at Cannes,
to the observation of which all those invited to Genoa
had bound themselves. Water to the Frenchmen's
mill! Better, indeed, could not have been devised,
even by them, to whom it was essential to maintain
that a "fair trade" and honorable frankness were no
more obtainable from Germans today than yesterday.

"You only needed to sit tight, cooperate with us in
quiet good faith, and you could have been sure of im-

94 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

portant gains." In a tempest of abuse and condemna
tion David's fury was discharged.

After that, from the fair Italian city only Lloyd
George's voice resounded over the land, over the sea;
from consultation-rooms, from dining halls, from the
parks (where the fragrance of Ceylon's tea is wafted
about the palms). He praised and blamed ; caressed
and pinched men's ears, blessed and damned. The
Pope (who had written a curious parish-priestly letter
to a government secretary) was "a most excellent
man," so his Don Sturzo was invited to the breakfast-
table of the Welsh heretic. "Don't spoil the Riviera
for those splendid Moscow fellows! It's true one of
the Czar's gold rubles, just one, buys 2^ million.
Soviet rubles; but 'tis but a bat-blind Frenchman who
draws the conclusion that they're doing us! They
accepted the principles of Cannes and now flout them,
yes; but who should worry about little matters of
property rights in a land where many a Belgian, Ger
man, Frenchman, but only two or three Englishmen,
have claims for restitution and reparation?"

Yesterday, "my dear Tschitscherin," wars were im
possible, and conferences therefore needless: today
David's eye, rolling in uncanny frenzy, sees the de
spair-driven Germans arming the starving Russians
for the most appalling of all wars (which would surely
have to come as quickly as lightning, and in impene
trable darkness).

Nonsense became sense. If such a spring-flood were
thinkable, if the advance of the Russo-German armies
were not early checked, say, by the bluecross gas pro
duced in the west, then the Right Honourable would

LLOYD GEORGE 95

have no right to scoff at the distrustful fears of his war
Allies.

He roared, Only, no halting! The masterpiece,
the European compact, must be brought safely under
shelter. That which it is to bring with itself has long
stood already in the Covenant, the statute-book of the
League, and also at the end of the Cannes program.
No matter about that; not until tomorrow will it be
come history.

M. Poincare must come hither. How can he have
the audacity to be making speeches at home, while
the fate of mankind is taking shape? Here must he,
the father of all evil, acknowledge what villainy he is
plotting for the time after the last of May.

Great Karl, who stretched his hand over all the
earth, sun Louis, who in himself mirrored the state
they were but timid dwarfs beside this All-embracer,
whom the Tories (that he might gloriously reveal him
self?) left to roar alone, without Balfour the file-leader
and Curzon the guide. The shriller his outcry, the
more venomous his insinuations against the Parisians
(read Reinecke's moral sermon on Isegrim's wicked
ness), so much the more sincere was the regret to see
a man of such high achievement degraded to the rank
of a circus barker, and so much the larger, it is true,
grew his audience.

Only, all this was but the cranking of a film, not a
<liscussion on the world's business by equals, striving
to lighten the destitution of mankind. A Conference
you call it? In a Levantine cabaret a debater yells
and stamps to win applause. The film was of a sort
lhat pleases only in Germany. The "common sense"

96 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

of Great Britain turned gruffly away from the noisy
shouter,, who in the war had won approval every
where, but since then had sowed trouble, and (as M.
Poincare quietly and shrewdly pointed out) well nigh
roused all Islam against England. Twice he himself
failed of election. He had to fall in behind Asquith,
at whom he had so often scoffed.

Since then he has written articles which, despite the
fullness of his life-experience, rose not an inch above
the level of tolerable editorial leaders. Through them
all rang the wish to secure the scalp of Raymond of
Lorraine, in whom he sees (not without reason) the
author of his own downfall. (Is it this Indian im
pulse that beguiles the Sioux to elect to honorary chief-
ship the white man who roars through America as a
peripatetic orator with a megaphone?)

Too quickly, at home, he assumed again the Saviour-
role. He who yesterday ate Socialists raw, or fried,
now finds Mr. Jason Ramsay MacDonald the elect of
heavenly wisdom, who shall bring home the golden
fleece of world-peace (and by harsh bullying of
France weaken himself and his party in popular
favor). Is the German, "the Hun," the detestable
butt of the notorious "knock-out" speech, today the
noble sufferer upon whose prostrate body the sinful
pride of the Gaul "tramps to and fro"? Does he be
lieve what he says? Yes, while the breath lasts with
which he utters it. But the proposal to give the martyr
just one of the ships taken from him, one bit of what
were German possessions, the tiniest scrap of colonial
land, he would reject with gusty laughter. To other
men he preaches magnanimous renunciation (he who

LLOYD GEORGE 97

would raise the tariff for German goods to prevent
their importation).

Out of the many husks of his talents stands re
vealed at last his own original nature. That this man
may climb once more to the bleak peak of political
power is thinkable; but not that he who confuses
Silesia with Cilicia ; who sees in the Poles of Upper
Silesia interlopers or miners invited in by Prussia,
who stands with no key of understanding, without
even an instinct, helpless before the riddles of the
Russian continent, will ever again, with a swarm of
obedient secretaries, far away from the traditions, the
doctrines, the whole atmosphere of the Foreign Office,
prescribe the paths of the British Empire. For Eng
land knows Mm; knows Mm for one who even beneath
the snows of age retains his personal charm, but in
the inmost heart of his effort always holds, always
wished to hold, only himself.

IV

CLEMENCEAU

Ix the Hall of Mirrors of the palace at Versailles,
which once was the abode of the Most Christian Kings,
the Peace Congress, from which mankind hopes for
the creation of enduring world-peace, is presided over
by an old man, yet unbowed by the burden of age.
An Asiatic? At first glance he seems one. With his
yellow skin, his saddle-nose between prominent cheek
bones, and his Tartar moustache, he recalls Mongolia
rather than La Vendee. But even so did many a
Celtic chieftain, many a Gaulish Brennius look. Does
M. Georges Clemenceau feel today that he is like that
Brennius who, after his victory on the Allia, forced
the beaten Romans to weigh out their tribute, a thou
sand pounds of gold, with false weights and, when
they complained, thundered in their faces the words
of scorn, "Vae victis"? Does he now also wish to teach
a deadly foe that the vanquished have no rights, are
delivered helpless to the victor's every caprice? I can
not believe it. Between the fight at the Allia and the
battle of the Marne lie three and twenty centuries.
Between them shines the teaching of Christianity and
all the efforts of the spirit of humanity, of Sully,
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant, Washing
ton and now Wilson, who have striven to secure honor
able peace for the world, to make the insolence of
physical force bow beneath the banner of justice, and,

98

CLEMEXCEAU 99

upon an earth fragrant with the imperishable flower
of sincere brotherly love, to assure due reverence for
the individuality of each nation as of each human
being.

Was this Vendean of eight and seventy, whose whole
life was a battle for justice, for freedom, for the ad
vancement of humanity, to stand aloof from all those
efforts, untaught by the purest wisdom of all the ages
of culture? He had never been at ease under the
imperial rule of Louis Napoleon, and though he had
brought back a wealthy wife from America he lived
a retired and simple life as physician of the poor at
Montmartre, and in the Paris city council was a cham
pion of the weary and heavy-laden. At the age of
thirty, during the rule of the Commune, he was the
mediator between Versailles and Paris, between the
rebels and the hostages. In the Chamber he was Gam-
betta's successor as deputy from Belleville. Always a
fighter. Zola, when he was editing La Justice in 1880,
ranked him (in Figaro} already above Gambetta:

"M. Clemenceau is a man of the scientific spirit, and
of serious importance. He marches with the century
and his place is in the foremost rank of the new men.
He speaks clearly, simply, logically, the language of
an orator. To my mind his speeches, because they are
plain, without a dash of extravagant rhetoric, are su
perior to Gambetta's. And yet this delegate is almost
isolated, quite without influence in the circle of his
colleagues. I am sure that even the commonplace
Floquet will attain to the tiller before he does."

And so it came to pass. The radical, the poor man's
physician, had his first day of greatness when Brisson

100 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

presided over the Assembly and Fallieres, destined
later to be President of the Republic, was Minister of
Education. It was then that against the Prime Min
ister, Jules Ferry, who was being furiously attacked
on all sides by yelling assailants, he raised the cry
"Away with you!" (Allez-vous-en). From that time
he was known as the "destroyer of ministers." A
divorce scandal lessened his repute. The Panama
debacle swept the friend of Cornelius Herz, the pro
moter, out of the Palais Bourbon. He was accounted
a taker of bribes from England and from the looters
of the canal. If he opened his mouth he was put to
silence with the silly gibe: "Aoh, yes!" Destroyed?
He smiled, feeling himself unconquerable. Again he
started La Justice, then the Bloc, and finally took
charge of the Aurora. He that would not listen should
read! Clemenceau became generalissimo of the Drey
fus crowd; he sounded the call for resistance to gov
ernmental violence, condemned militarism and the
courts martial (to which as Prime Minister in war time
he later assigned all trials for treason) . He became sena
tor and like all Dreyfus's champions, world-renowned.
But only late in life, at sixty-six, was he a minister.
For a half century he fought, without wavering, for
the liberation of men's minds from priestly domination
and militaristic arrogance, from the cowl and the sabre,
often, especially against hated ministers, like one who
loves the fray for its own sake. Gambetta, Ferry,
Millerand, Jaures, Delcasse, Poincare, Ribot; who
ever has won a name, has felt his blade. Batailleur
(lover of strife) like Cyrano de Bergerac, with whom
he also has in common the keen rapier of wit, and also

CLEMEXCEAU 101

oftentimes bretieur sans vergogne (a shameless bully).
But he, the antique Jacobin, the last of the race of
Danton, is none the less always a true Intellectual.
(He has even written a drama, which the wicked
Boches put on the stage in the Berlin Theatre chris
tened with the name of the arch-hater of the French,
Lessing.)

It is true that in 1907, as Prime Minister, he did let
Marianne feel the weight of Ms bony fist. The vint
ners* uprising in the South was beaten down by force
and craft combined. A regiment which refused to
obey others was sent to Tunis as a punishment. In
Marseilles baker apprentices, in Paris the electrical
workers, were dispersed. Wherever a spark glimmered
soldiers were ordered to march against bourgeois and
workingmen. On May Day the capital was like a camp
awaiting the call to battle. Jaures, the orator, foamed
with rage but was overwhelmed with invective. He
never won a victory in his strife with this foeman. The
end sanctions all means.

Clemenceau in 1871 had voted against the pre
liminary peace, and his hope of vengeance for Sedan
was never buried. All German ambassadors from
Hohenlohe to Radolin dreaded him as the instigator
of Revanche. "He will have a thumb for the eye of
the German who gazes longingly toward Morocco."
By treaties with Japan and Spain, he secured quiet
about Atlas, in Indo-China, on Madagascar; then he
went fearlessly to Udjida, where the Algerian soldier,
after the long hesitation of the Parisians, had hardly
hoped to set foot again. He praised every general
who "in the garrulous warmth of the banquet" made

102 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

a stab at the neighbor to eastward. And yet, in this
radical Democrat and enthusiast for the tricolor, there
still lived the man of lofty mind. Labor, Justice,
Dawn, The Freeman. With such names were chris
tened the journals which he edited. Is he minded
now, as one of those who brought final victory, to
set a crown on his life-work?

His first ministry ended ingloriously. Six days after
the triumph accorded him by the national festival at
Longchamp in 1909, he was overthrown by a word of
Delcasse, overthrown by the fury of his own retort,
which revealed that France, in the first year of the
Morocco crisis, was unprepared and so was forced to
submit herself to the "most shameful humiliation."
The recess of the legislature was at hand. A hundred
members were on a journey through Norway. Con
servatives, Liberals, and Social-Democrats united
against the cabinet and defeated the vote of confi
dence proposed. As the blue ballots piled up in the
baskets and the fall of the government became a cer
tainty, Clemenceau grasped his papers and said with
a smile: "I'm off (Je m'en vais*)" Brisson was again
presiding over the Chamber, as he was on Ferry's day
of doom, and Fallieres, seated beside the victim on
the ministerial bench, this time received, as head of
the state, from Clemenceau's hand, the request for the
dismissal of the cabinet. "Wasn't it sensible that I
didn't move out of my private home? With my um
brella I came into the minister's house, with my walk
ing stick I go out. So, no moving expenses. My
successors would do well to show like prudence." One

CLEMEXCEAU 103

final jest, and the dictator was again a newspaper
writer. A jester and a brawler he remained. "My
majority was under the midnight sun. And how could
I budge ; between two colleagues, one of whom (Cail-
laux) was posing as Napoleon, the other (Briand) as
Jesus Christ?"

Eight years later this man, who had never duly
recognized Joffre, the Marne victor, who had scolded
Viviani and Briand, Ribot and Painleve, railed daily
at President Poincare, mocked at Wilson, pulverized
the Caillaux and the Malvys in the mortar of his
scorn, wrote above a leading article in L'Homme
Enchaine the heading, "A Government is demanded!"
That was November 15, 1917. That afternoon M.
Poincare requested him to form this government. On
the 1 6th, at noon (not at five P.M., as the stirring old
man had promised the reporters), it was formed.

His first speech to the House was a shrill, defiant
trumpet call. He had no faith in conciliation, the
brotherhood of nations, the conversion of the world,
the gentle reign of justice. The union of nations,
which M. Bourgeois had for ten years been recom
mending, was child's talk to him, and his raillery mali
ciously punctured almost every sentence in Wilson's
peace program. It was at that time that I said:

"Only victory that smashes the foe into helplessness
can sate him; swift victory over the arch-enemy, the
Prussia-led German Empire on the Franco-British
front (all else is rubbish to him). He, he alone, is the
government; as prime minister and minister of war
he plays the final, the highest role; and he will strain
every nerve, every heart-beat, every effort of his will,

104 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

to rise, at last, in the eyes of the whole world to the
greatness of which he has always felt himself capable.
He may win much for his fatherland; he may on the
other hand lose terribly. Until the dice shall have
fallen from that yellow bony hand, the miraculous
coming of the spiritual union of mankind is not nigh,
Solness the Masterbuilder ventures upon the rooftree
of the house that his dream has builded. If he falls
headlong, Youth will raise a joyous shout; Youth, that
does not wish to see its abode constructed by feverish
old men nor to have the home it longs for furnished
with mouldering desires; Youth, that listens not for
the voice of weary officials and cold-blooded phrase-
makers, but for the beat of a great heart. Like the
tiger's tooth, even so shall decay also (what our poet
in the Song of the Bell calls more terrible) mankind's
delusion. Then out of the glimmering ashes of a pa
triotism made ignoble by craving for power and greed
of conquest as the phoenix of the international social
ism that has perished in the fire, shall soar Heaven
ward the consciousness of human kinship.' 7

M. Clemenceau, old as the hills to behold, played
the game and won! Now shall the miracle be
wrought?

He looks about him in the Hall of Mirrors, and
over his deep-furrowed yellow cheeks there creeps a
sunset glow of sparkling triumph. This room, where
Vanity can behold itself so gloriously reflected on
every side, was dedicated, by an inglorious Louis, "&
toutes les gloires de la France" The phrase still dis
plays itself upon the walls that echoed back, on the

CLEMENCEAU 105

1 8th of January, 1871, the proclamation of the Ger
man Empire, This day, however, they hearken to, and
behold, the loftiest glory that the political history of
France has ever recorded upon its pages. And he who
has bestowed this glory upon his native land, after
long deprivation, is the man whom his countrymen
once disdained as a receiver of English bribes,
smirched by the Panama scandal, whom they drove
out of the Chamber of Deputies into the Senate, of
whom even his followers said that he was indeed a
mighty opponent, unsurpassed since Paul Louis Cou
rier as a pamphleteer, but no statesman, one who
could overthrow, cripple, destroy, but not build up,
heal, create. Had he not now healed his country of the
ills from which she suffered for almost half a century?
Had he not begun the rebuilding of France in the
splendor and greatness of the Bourbons' or Bonaparte's
time? An old man, and even with a bullet now lodged
between the lobes of his lung, he can yet enjoy a tri
umph such as a mortal has hardly experienced since
Napoleon; a civilian, perhaps, never. He crosses his
sinewy arms over his meagre breast, lifts his shoul
ders high like one who draws a deep breath, and even
now resembles in every essential the portrait of him
painted forty years before by Edouard Manet. There
is none of the kindliness of age in the eye, the coun
tenance of the Celt. Sternly he gazes from the Presi
dent's chair at the glimmering lights of the Hall. Vae
victis! The words flame from his eyes. A sign from
him opens the door to the delegues boches.
Across many a mile my voice sought his ear:
"Into your path of action, your range of feeling, I

106 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

have tried to grope my way. The defeat of 1871 em
bittered and distorted your life. To hear the souls
of the vanquished breathe in anguish about you was a
horror and a torture to you. You sat in the parlia
ment of Bordeaux and signed that protest against the
wrenching away of Alsace and Lorraine from the be
loved body of your homeland, a protest that rang out
like a bell consecrated to the god of vengeance. All
the other signers of that protest sank into the grave.
You, alone, lived to see the war of vengeance. You
had wished it, yearned for it; and it was as if that
yearning desire had stiffened your body, hardened it
to steel, so that the scythe of the Black Reaper could
only graze you, not mow you down; as though it fell
with a clash from its metal sheath. It seemed as if
even the boy Cottin's bullet could not seriously harm
the aged man it sought. If all the other men who sit
about this table could swear before God and mankind
that they had not willed the war, Georges Clemenceau
may not take the burden of that oath upon his con
science, and will not. Need I recall to your mind all
the bitter, hostile words that you have hurled at Ger
many, all your warning summonses to a war of retribu
tion? You attached yourself for a little while even
to the sorry knight Boulanger, because it seemed that
he might prove the sword of your hope. In March,
1907, as Prime Minister you embraced General Bail-
loud, who at Nancy had in public given vehement ut
terance to his assured confidence in the early recon-
quest of the lost provinces. Their loss always seemed
to you unendurable, their annexation a deadly sin
which must be avenged, punished, even at the cost of

CLEMEXCEAU 107

a "'zoological war*' as Ernest Renan called it, propheti
cally in his famous letter to Strauss.

4 *You lived to see the war, you carried it on, you,
as Minister of War and Premier, gave it such vigor as
no war has ever before roused in France. You became,
in a higher sense than Carnot, the organizer of vic
tory. That we Germans know. I could show you
letters of German generals and princes who sigh: If
only we had a German ClemenceauP

"Now you are the most eminent head and mouth
piece of those who should organize world peace. The
power of your patriotic longing for victory, which
enabled your aged body to endure the hardships of a
daily journey to the front, has also turned to steel
your spirit, which never had enjoyed indolent repose.

'TLong-lasting remembrance is assured to the Presi
dent of this Congress. Uncertain only is whether you
wish to live in the memory of humanity as 'The Tiger'
or as one who shared in the creation of a new union
of mankind, as the representative of an old world im
pelled by greed of power and lust for vengeance, or as
a master builder of a new and glorious temple of inter
national harmony, founded upon the consciousness of
kind. That is the question.

The sole survivor of Bordeaux restores Alsace and
Lorraine to his fatherland. Do you have the least idea
how bitter, for the Germans, this parting is, this en-
coffining of forty-seven long years of governmental
labor? Although their lack of genial manners and of
insight into racial psychology has been most terribly
revealed precisely there, yet the Germans have accom
plished much for the organization and the prosperity

108 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

of those provinces. If anything could give us conso
lation, it would be the certainty that your France
means to treat Teutonic Alsace tenderly, not to Galli
cize her by violence. Strassburg, city of Erwin von
Steinbach and of Goethe, the old imperial cities within
whose walls, in the time of your Revolution, resounded
the fame of French generals from German stock
Kleber, Kellermann, Rapp these never were and
never will be French. Instead of repeating Prussian
mistakes and suppressing language and ancient usage,
which is the very essence of individuality in this beau
tiful land, secure for it uncontrolled self-government
perhaps on the Galveston system and yourself ? in
your own lifetime, prepare it thereby for the lofty
mission of becoming the mediator between our two
peoples, who, because they need each other and can
supplement each other marvelously, like flame and
fuel, must, therefore, learn to understand one another.

"There is a bitter smile on your lips and I know
what words they would utter. You indulge in no
illusions and cannot, as the executive of a people
smitten to the marrow, offer mere phrases to their
stomachs or brains, and mere phrasing is, to you,
anything that does not assure a renewal of the former
development. How savagely did you, as the Homme
Enchame, ridicule the Gospel of President Wilson!
Yet gradually its magic mastered even you, and it is
as its expositor that you sit where you do. That you
may not forget.

"Time presses. Let me speak in utter frankness,
not alone for this Germany, though in it dwell, in
truth (you will hear no lie from me), not Boches alone.

CLEMENCEAU 109

But it is the cradle of a most honorable culture, not
merely the Kultur of the discredited professors, and
it gave to the Occident, to the whole Western World,
its most fragrant flower, -Music. No, not for Ger
many, but for all the world and, finally, for yourself.

"You are not content that Alsace and Lorraine have
returned to their own, though it is what only your
boldest dream returned to hope. You desire the Saar
basin and, if not political, at least economic mastery
over the left bank of the Rhine and mountains of
millions.

"It is not incomprehensible. France, in victory, is
far, far more vitally wounded than in 1871, when over
thrown. Thirty-six million inhabitants, and of these,
three millions of the most vigorous and productive,
fallen or perished as a result of the war. Her chief
industrial region, the treasure-house of the Republic,
laid waste, her Paradise of planted fields and vineyards
trampled under foot, her coal mines flooded or crippled
for years. How could France, that has spent for muni
tions of war alone, twenty-eight thousand millions of
francs, recover herself without Germany's money,
labor, raw materials, to help set her on her feet?
Even the Socialist disciples Longuet, Cachin, Mistral
and their school, ay, many a peasant family that would
remind one of Zola's La Terre, would cry aloud if the
German gold-milliards should fail them: C A fig for
glory, for Alsace, for Lorraine! We will not endure
that we and our children and our children's children
shall be bowed down under the burden of taxation.
We have not with resignation taken upon ourselves
the agony, the horror ? of this the most tremendous of

110 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

all wars, only to groan in even profounder misery
afterwards than ever before. 7

"Your government, sir, would have to fear some
thing grimmer than Jacobin revolution, ay, a very
earthquake of upheaval, if the hope of your people
for gain at our expense were suddenly dashed. Not
in arrogance does it demand such a measureless
amount. Your government must be able to credit to
its yearly budget billions of German money: for,
whenever that government called upon the French
nation for fresh sacrifices it added as a consolation
'UAllemagne pay era'

"But Germany cannot pay all. To be sure, she still
has about sixty million people; her machinery is not
smashed nor looted, as is that of northern France; her
industrial areas and her technical apparatus are un
harmed, quite intact, save where the blind fury of her
own children has destroyed them. That is why vic
torious France fears this beaten people and expects
that it will rebuild its military machine and, after the
Americans and Britons, who hurried hither over
channel and ocean, are at home again, will begin a
most cruel war of revenge, and with the larger tale
of men will overwhelm la douce France before aid
from overseas again arrives.

"That is impossible. Anyone who saw Germany
yesterday, even though it were with the eyes of hatred,
will tell you today that, within any time now to be
foreseen, she could become dangerous for the French
only in case she were forced into toilsome slavery and
so driven to slaves' resistance and to unnatural alliance
with her traditional foes.

CLEMENCEAU 111

"Our clothing, even of those of us still seemingly
well-to-do, is shabby; our shoes are patched; our suits
we have had turned because new material is not to be
had; what is issued to us of rationed food, by card, at
fabulous prices, does not suffice to still the appetite of
a child, and thus we have lived for years. Not a
drop of pure milk is any longer to be seen; we know
not how the flesh of strong well-fed cattle tastes. The
clover, that used to go to the pigs, we ourselves now
get in our 'bread.' Now for the first time in years,
since the shipments from America, a half-pound per
week to each of us, we have realized what genuine
wheat flour looks like. By Slay we shall have no
potatoes left.

"Our men are sallow, anaemic, enfeebled; our weary
women's skin is loose and wrinkled like the leather of
unlubricated machinery-belting. The children, brought
up without milk, wither away like trees to which sun
shine and water are denied. In Germany's cemeteries
the rows of graves are ever lengthening.

"We crave no sympathy, but only a pallid smile
can respond to the suspicion that this same Germany,
in which a Spartan policy of the painless slaying of
all the elders, invalids, cripples and drones has been
in all seriousness proposed, can set up a war machine,
can at any visible date create the apparatus without
which even Russia's human ocean would be as useless
as a brook too weak to drive a mill-wheel. And even
that smile dies, when an enormous tribute is demanded
from Germany, where twenty millions of people are
all but condemned already to imminent death, and
where a few milliards have been laboriously raked up

112 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

for the most necessary food. Such is the face of real
ity with us.

"Could the destruction of Germany benefit you ;
Frenchmen, or benefit mankind? Never has the soli
darity of all human interests shone forth with such
tragic force, through all false veils and vain imagin
ings, as since the maniacal transgression of this war,
which with unheard-of persistence and cleverness has
overthrown the whole framework of human prosper
ity. The old Europe can never be restored. A new
one can upbuild itself only on the foundations of
humanity's consciousness of its own unity, on the har
mony of the nations' souls.

"Do you, sir, the organizer of victory, wish to live
in memory as he who dug the grave of the old world,
or as he who helped on the birth of the new? As the
inheritor of a patriotism beside itself with thirst for
revenge and greed for power, or as the progenitor of
a youthful heaven-scaling patriotism to whose eyes
kindness is not weakness, forgiveness is not childish
ness, nor profession of love for mankind an empty
phrase? Shall it be a saying among men once again,
and this time repeated forevermore, what was said
after your first ministry, after your merciless attacks
with soldiery upon poor vintners, upon factory work
ers who, at worst, were but misguided and starving to
death for their faith, that your withered age, your
chilled heart, could no longer feel for the world, with
all its misery and its longing?

"Millions of woeful, millions of dead eyes look to
you, hoping that he who sits in judgment may not be
too small for his tremendous task, that can either crush

CLEMEXCEAU 113

him utterly or uplift him to the height of the Spirit
of God's Grace. For justice, freedom, progress, you
have battled half a century long. If now your life is
crowned by victory over self, then shall the fame of
your name throughout all the life of mankind overtop
that of all the rest with which these walls have re
echoed; then will it, too, be indeed consecrated 'to all
the glories of France.' "

At such utterance the old man smiles, braces his
knuckles, always grey-gloved against the table-top,
and whispers only: "Proceed!" The last of the
Jacobins. The Prussianest of Frenchmen. A Samurai
from La Vendee. He that drew his breath for free
dom and human rights now utters only Bonaparte's
watchword: "Be strong, win power; all else is de
lusion !" Delusion to him is whatever exceeds the
surety of making the most of the next hour. ... A
Cyrano grown old, old, old ; who stamps, with a grim
ace, upon the panache, the cockade he has torn from
his hat. To slash not merely bombast, empty pathos,
but all lofty feeling, is his delight. He desired his war,
won it, and upon a hundred tablets read the echo of
the Roman formula: "Citizen Georges Clemenceau has
deserved well of the fatherland." He desired his own
peace, secured with all its bristling severity; and lost
the helmet-plume of his fame.

What the old man's energy accomplished, inspiring
with his warm vitality those at the front and those
at home, is deserving of all praise. But gradually he
seemed, the whole Clemenceau chorus seemed, to for
get that the tremendous victory could not have been

114 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

attained, if General Petain had not restored the fight
ing capacity of the army and America had not with
deliberate speed thrown the whole of her mighty
power into the bloody game.

Not at all times, and not at every Parting of the
Ways, did the stubborn one see aright the necessities
and the possibilities of the war. The creation and
maintenance of the Saloniki front seemed to him a
vagary, a senseless venture, into which Joffre had
drawn the fools Poincare and Briand, 'because this
over-estimated general wanted to keep the far more
capable Sarrail at a distance.' At the finish of the
great struggle it stood revealed how essential the army
of Eastern Europe was, for its pressure tore Bulgaria
and Turkey out of the fourfold alliance. So notre
tigre national was not infallible. Indispensable? The
splendor of the stars may have dazzled him into that
belief.

Until December, 1919, it was accepted as certain
that Paul Deschanel would become President of the
Republic in January. Then suddenly the rumor flut
tered up that Clemenceau wished to be a candidate.
Wished? Wished? Oh, no. He assumed the heroic,
paternal role of self-sacrifice, which the burning de
sire of the people, of the land, did not permit him to
refuse. He hoped, without taking the trouble to go
to Versailles, without lifting a finger, to be chosen
by a gigantic majority, and after that would perhaps
at once, or after a couple of weeks, have renounced
the Elysian delights. Possible, that he craved the office
only as Zola did the frock-coat and palm of the
Academician, as the crown of a storm-beaten life.

CLEMENCEAU 115

Hated, outlawed, insulted, accused of treason, the fall
from the Tarpeian Rock, and then, at eventide, en
throned upon the Capitoline! It has allured many,
though not quite the greatest.

Before passing harsh judgment on such a belated,
push for position, it must be duly considered, how re
luctantly, everywhere, the very oldest are to decide
on departure from a field of action. The farewell to
statecraft, theatre, concert-hall, the idle lingering amid
the memorials of hard-won fame, the herald of
death. "When in the morning I have trimmed my
nails, my day's work is done/' sighed Bismarck.
Clemenceau grown old could write his Memoirs.
(Long ago a little book of his was announced, "Three
Jewish Tales," of which the first, "Moses," is praised.)
But to him who for fourteen months had been World-
arbiter, literature could offer but a pitiful substitute.

So it was that he said, with a groan, that he had,
to be sure, longed for a restful old age in his beloved
La Vendee, but a faithful steed must, if need be, even
die in the traces. But this attitude did not win favor.

"Must it be so? Is France, while the world resounds
with her praises, absolutely limited to the one man?
What has she yet to expect from a man of nigh four
score? An all too aged Cyrano. And from the north,
at that, a bully out of Brittany, still sparkling with
the wit and audacity of his Gallo-Celtic prime.

"('What have I against Mr. Wilson? I admire
him heartily. My veneration is dimmed a little only,
because he issues fourteen Commandments, though
God Almighty himself got on with only ten! 7 )

"He was a marvel of good fortune as the war glim-

116 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

mered out: but bewildered and blind before the prob
lems of the day and the morrow. Of industrialism
and finance he has no conception. 'Empiricist' he
calls himself, in pride, because he has learned noth
ing and will not be stigmatized as dilettante.

"Je jais la guerre! There was a time for that.
Ever cantankerous; and again easily moved to tears
by clever ticklers of the lachrymal glands.

"What would such a man in the Elysee accomplish
for us? Six months ago, when Pichon complained of
illness, he gibed: 'Don't whimper: you'll be well
enough for a good while yet to become President of
the Republic.' Everyone who had risen to the Presi
dency he scoffed at without mercy. Now he will have
it himself? Wants to turn the spit and rule the roast,
to entertain every minister with epigrams, thunder and
lighten in every state council, crash his messages into
Parliament and thro' all the land, defend every chance
word of his peace-treaty as if it were a reconquered
province, and as the calm sensible Waddington long
ago said of him 'start up a dangerous surprise every
fortnight'? Too much he can do, but one thing never:
keep quiet, content himself with the calm dignity of
an arbiter.

"But that is precisely what the President of the
Republic must be able to do. His power is not so
slight as you fancy; and Clemenceau could, simply by
trying to make the dignified fiction of his powers a
reality, imperil the state."

Did M. Briand talk like that? He did, in a whisper,
coax M. Deschanel out of his decision to retire in M.
Qemenceau's favor. Through Parliament floated

CLEMENCEAU 117

Nietzsche's longing at Bayreuth: ''Deliverance from
our deliverers!" A majority decided for M. Paulus
Deschanel: and the day before the decision Clemen-
ceau withdrew his name. To bring about an open
downfall for the favorite of the Bourgeoisie, the middle
class, would have been for many a member of the
Versailles Congress grievously distressing. But the
old man seemed to demand the choice as a duty to
be performed, as requital for the sum total of his
deeds; he seemed loyal to his vow, not to strike with
the lightest tap the office-seeker's drum. A Coriolanus,
disgusted at the very idea of disclosing his wounds to
the glance and touch of the common people? Parlia
ment was like France in '71, according to the historian
Hanotaux's happy phrase, "degoute de ses sauveurs."
It wished to become at last once more itself the shaper
of destiny and to have a pliant will with which to deal.
It knew that the presidential powers (often misunder
stood, never yet fully exerted) offered to any strong
man opportunity for grave extension. And to be
merely the representative of the nation, which de
manded a vigorous body and serenity even in days of
storm a cheerful sunny disposition M. Clemenceau,
with his stormy brain and ever-flashing wit, was cer
tainly not the right man.

To avoid the defeat, he withdrew: went, to show
that he was no invalided man, to India (for a tiger-
hunt); roared as an orator through the United States;
and since his return finds his place in the people's
favor filled by the man most hateful to him, the Lor-
rainer Raymond Poincare, to whom he had denied al]
share in the task of peace-construction.

118 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

As to that work, the Treaty, for which le grand
patriote is and wishes to be responsible, all men are
now disillusioned, the greediest no less than they who
with the eyes of pious desire gaze toward new shores.
And the soul of mankind declares:

"This man, also, was too small for his greatest
hour." It was for M. Clemenceau to say to himself,
and then to the Tardieux, the Mandels, the Ignaces:

"The war can have for its issue only the rule of
France on our continent, or a Franco-German alliance.
England, that waged the war in Lloyd George's that
is, in a political spirit, will oppose either. The
hegemony of France would in the long run be even
harder to maintain than that striven for by Wilhelm.
Therefore our endeavor must be to interlock Ger
many's interests so firmly with our own that the new
political boundaries of France shall never again be
threatened, the possibilities of her economic develop
ment shall be widened, and the United States of Europe
(united at first economically) be brought into being."

M. Clemenceau had no such feeling. He thirsted
for atonement, revenge, punishment of those whom he
hated; and with tremulous hand he discrowned his
life. Here was, indeed, a Force but it could not
shape Beauty that should deserve to live. Here was
Fire but in the glow of its rage it could only heat
men's spirits, not cleanse them, in its own elemental
purity, for noble aims.

V
THE HINDENBURG MYTH

IN the East, holy men and holy books tell how a
man became a Buddha. In occidental countries, in
Germany, for instance the home of Luther, the
Reformation and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
one can learn how a carpenter's son became God. But
who of us has ever seen a God on earth or even dared
to dream of seeing one!

Yet this is just what we have experienced.

In this modern and scientific age, when the radio
carries the most distant sounds to the ears of the whole
world as clearly as if they were the close and intimate
words of a lover, when the light motor engine allows
wingless creatures to fly over ocean, desert and moun
tain, when the lightning exchange of news from con
tinent to continent seems to give man a certain degree
of control over present events and future develop
ments, in this day of colossal business enterprises, man,
eager as of old for miracles and personal wonders, has
visibly created and beheld a God.

It was autumn, 1914. (Don't worry, ladies, for
neither politics nor tales of war shall weary your ears.)
The people of Germany were hearing of nothing but
victories in the west and in the east not a word of
their armies' enforced retreat on the Marne. They
were confident that, long before the leaves turned
yellow, Paris would fall and that before Christmas
their victorious army would return home.

119

120 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

An official circular letter signed by the Prussian gen
eral von Viebahn requested information as to the num
ber of windows in Berlin on the Pariser Platz and
Unter den Linden that could be reserved for special
guests to witness the triumphal entry of the troops into
the city.

Victory is really as near as that, think the recipients
of von Viebahn's letter, and their contagious joy and
confidence spread quickly to others. Only a very few
in Germany knew that the advance in the West had
come to a hopeless deadlock; that the army had been
forced into a trench warfare that might last for years
and years and that the Russians in the East, due to
their overwhelming numbers, were becoming more
menacing from day to day.

William the Hasty dismissed the Commander-in-
Chief of his Eastern army, in spite of the fact, which
was later proved, that this same General, von Pritt-
witz, and General Gaffron had acted wisely and taken
the proper precautionary measures. Nothing would
do but that he must send for Colonel Ludendorff, who
had distinguished himself before the war on the Great
General Staff and, later, in the daring attack on the
fortress of Louvain. But a Colonel who was not even
of the nobility could not be given the position of Com-
mander-in-Chief. Such a French and Bonapartian
move as that by which Colonel Petain was raised to
that office in 1917 was not at all in keeping with the
Prussian system and tradition.

Who then should be given the highest command?

To prevent friction and quarrels the distinction had
to be conferred on a regular officer, some passive, easy-

THE HINDENBURG MYTH 121

going general who would permit caustic, hard-headed
Ludendorff, a neurasthenic, with a will as well as
muscles of steel, to have his own way; who, in short,
would never interfere. So many generals were already
in active service (with six million men at the front)
that the choice became very limited. The first man to
be considered, a former commander of the Imperial
Guards, was sick in bed at his home in Hanover but
there was, in the same city, old General Paul von
Hindenburg, now on the pension list. His request to
be taken back into active service at the beginning of
the war had been refused. It is quite certain that, at
a time when there was such great need of generals, the
conscientious Chief of the Great General Staff would
never have decided against accepting Hindenburg back
into service if experts had been of the opinion that
this sixty-six year old general had any special ability.
But Hindenburg is the type of the regulation Prussian
officer and now they could afford to remember his re
quest and consider his case. This quiet old man would
not disturb or irritate the inordinately egotistical and
self-assured Ludendorff by any dictatorial interference.
This was the deciding factor and Hindenburg was ap
pointed Commander-in-Chief.

Colonel Ludendorff went to Hanover to meet him,
explained the military situation to him, and, on the
way to the front, outlined his strategy. At Tannen-
berg, a Russian army was annihilated! The series of
victories in the East had begun!

And then this quiet old man was showered with
glory. His fame spread from one end of Germany
to the other. In every heart, on every tongue, there

122 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

was but one name, Hindenburg. He had freed East
Prussia; he had shattered the Russian armies and
warded off the Russian menace; he had given fresh
courage to the wavering Austrians. The first Com-
mander-in-Chief, von Moltke, had taken refuge on the
barren rock of his Christian Science, after breaking
down under the burden of work and anxiety that was
too much for his already shattered physique. The
army had no confidence in its second Commander, von
Falkenhayn, appointed to succeed von Moltke; and
the people saw in him only a favorite of the Kaiser's
who had suddenly been pushed into the limelight. The
idolized navy, which found its popular embodiment in
the familiar figure of Admiral von Tirpitz, with his
long, flowing, white beard, was forced to remain in
hiding; and, though daily news of some victory or
other came from France, no more advances were re
ported.

But, "just be patient," was the comforting advice
given out from headquarters. Hindenburg would soon
have done the job in the East and would then turn and
crush the enemy in the West. He was reported to be
the greatest commander of all time. Bonaparte and
Frederick the Great, Caesar and Alexander, compared
to him, were like the antiquated Italian Montgolfier
flying machine compared with the Zeppelin, or like an
old Carthaginian chariot in comparison with the mod
ern tank. Germany's hour of glory draws near. Hin
denburg has promised it. Hurrah for Hindenburg!
Hindenburg forever!

All sorts of stories were told about the popular idol.
Rumor had it that he was in great disfavor with the

THE HINDENBURG MYTH 123

Kaiser at one time because he told that conceited
Majesty some unpleasant truths to his face, and that
only the need of the moment compelled the Emperor
much against his will to put in power the only man
who would not flatter him. But Hindenburg's genius
had long been recognized by experts so the stories
ran who knew that for years he had been occupied
with the plans which he subsequently carried out at
the Battle of Tannenberg, and which he had worked
out in the smallest detail. But, if the truth be told,
the Emperor, King, All-Highest, War-Lord, never had
a more obedient, more pliant servant than this gen
eral, whose ability had never before been taken very
seriously. The fact of the matter was that the
people, in their hysterical mood of the moment, swing
ing suddenly from grief to ecstasy, gave blind credence
to the most absurd stories about him.

At that time people were not hearing very much
about Ludendorff. He was capable, energetic, and un
tiring; but he was completely overshadowed by the old
Titan, to whom people were practically on their knees.
In the furrowed surface of Hindenburg's broad skull
which, to be sure, is not insignificant in form, but
which is nevertheless not particularly different from
other heads of the Slavo-Prussian military type, with
the short neck set on a huge, thick-trunked body
painters and sculptors found traces of genius which
for sixty-six years no eye had ever before discerned.
Scholars and litterateurs made exhaustive studies of
his family and his ancestral history and quoted his
wise sayings in their notebooks.

These sayings often sound very strange.

124 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

"Since I was a cadet I have never read a book that

didn't have something on militarism."

"War is better for me than a cure at a health resort."
"I hope it lasts until they have all bowed to our

will."

Is this the death rattle of a declining world?

No ; so spoke, over his beer, a scrupulous Com-
mander-in-Chief who looks at life optimistically, a
man who has at his service the most modern technical
inventions and for whom the Sanscrit professor in the
nearest university deciphers intercepted radio orders
from the high command of the Russian army.

Restaurants, cafes, pharmacies, moving pictures,
delicatessens, confectioners, dance palaces, all angled
for clients by using the beloved Commander-in-Chief's
name as bait. The manufacturers try to profit by him.
There are Hindenburg boots, Hindenburg soap, Hin
denburg writing paper, and in every large department
store a special counter for "Hindenburg articles."
Little by little a slight opposition arose wherever mili
tary men were closeted together. "After all," they
said, "it was not such a tremendous feat to drive back
Russians who were poorly armed, poorly commanded
and frequently betrayed by their own' generals. The
first blows were the only very telling ones . . . since
then there have been no decisive victories. Russia's
internal resources have scarcely been tapped, and until
something is done in the West, no one can tell whether
the lucky old fellow really deserves this growing fame
of his and the rank of Field Marshal which he won
so quickly."

THE HINDEXBURG MYTH 125

There was a great deal of jealousy at the Emperor's
Headquarters. "Will there never be any end to this
cry of 'Hindenburg'?" asked Wilhelm, who, even at
the front, could not help having an eye to the effect
he was personally producing. "When I march through
the Brandenburg Gate at the head of my troops, am
I to be greeted with shouts of 'Hindenburg'?"

In spite of the fact that more and more nations
were declaring war against Germany, Wilhelm still
saw himself returning home as the conquering hero.
And his eldest son whispered maliciously, "Papa is
jealous!' 7

Since they knew the real reasons for the Hindenburg
renown at Headquarters, it was a simple matter to set
about quietly undermining it. For the first time there
seemed to be very little going on in the East. It would
not do any harm, therefore, if they took the Field
Marshal's Chief of Staff away from him and in this
way put a stop to the blare of praise which was so
disagreeable to His Majesty's ear, Ludendorff was
suddenly transferred to Linsinger's army. "Now,"
muttered the jealous ones, "let us see whether these
paeans will not die away as quickly as they rose! 57
But the Field Marshal declared that he would hand
in his resignation (he knew that even a courageous
monarch dare not let his most popular general go in
the midst of a war) unless Ludendorff was recalled.
Two weeks later Ludendorff was back at his old
post.

When a Prussian Field Marshal who is held in the
highest respect by the entire army, makes such gratui
tous efforts to emphasize the indispensability of a sub-

126 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

ordinate, it is pretty certain that the ranking officer
Is only the instrument of the subordinate's will and
that, without the latter, he is an empty husk.

Without a doubt this was known to the heads of the
government and the army. When a cabinet minister,
a Stinnes, Thyssen, Krupp or one of the lesser cap
tains of industry wanted to arrange an economic deal,
he would say, "I will go to Ludendorff," without even
mentioning the Field Marshal. Little by little the
rumor of the subordinate's importance leaked out, but
in the eyes of the people who began to say "Hinden-
burg and Ludendorff" the latter was still outshone by
the glory of the former as an incandescent bulb is van
quished by the midday sun.

The voice of the nation, officially throttled by the
censor, spread the news by word of mouth that the
management of the entire war which was dragging
along gloriously in spite of gigantic losses and the lack
of any effectual victory would be taken over by these
two. The Emperor rebelled against sacrificing his
favorite Falkenhayn, and had repeated quarrels, both
petty and serious, with Hindenburg (that is, with
Ludendorff). It was usually the Empress, anxious for
the future prestige of her family, who effected a recon
ciliation. Once she even crossed the Rhine to meet
her husband who was travelling from the West front
to the East. During the night, she had her drawing
room car secretly coupled to his special train, surprised
Wilhelm at break of day, and persuaded him to visit
Hindenburg at Posen and make friends with him. She
herself took a snapshot of the Emperor and the Field
Marshal, posed together, and gave it out to the public.

THE ffiNDENBURG MYTH 127

The German people, credulous, but tensely anxious and
easily disturbed by the slightest unfavorable report,
were now fully persuaded that the two men were the
best of friends again. Soon after this, it was found
necessary to dismiss Falkenhayn. He had to be sacri
ficed because Verdun had not fallen. Once more the
word went out from the inner circle, "Ludendorff is
the only man who can save the situation. That is the
reason why he was promoted to Chief of Staff."

From that moment, General Ludendorff, under the
title of First General Quartermaster, conducted all
operations on a theatre of war extending over three
continents, from Ostend to Trebezond, from Dar-es-
Salaam to Helsingfors, from the Russian marshes to
the Suez Canal. He was untiring m his activities. At
seven o'clock in the morning he began telephoning the
chiefs of the army staffs, checking up old commands,
issuing new ones. He had every figure, name and date
in his head and absolute power in his hands.

In his book, Ludendorff himself said that the Field
Marshal never once refused to approve his orders.
Hindenburg was not lazy, but he was protected from
too great a burden of work by the affection of the
men who surrounded Mm and, no matter what hap
pened at the front, was never allowed to pass a day
without taking his usual walk.

I once expressed astonishment that the old gentle
man should accept the acclaim of the people year in
and year out for services, the credit for four-fifths of
which, at least, belonged to Ludendorff. One of the
army heads replied, "When we were celebrating Hin-
denburg's seventieth birthday, just among ourselves, he

128 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

made It fairly clear that all these honors were not due
him/'

Why only "once," and only "fairly clear," and in
private? Because, if the people were to keep their
faith in him as a savior who had been sent specially to
them in their hour of need ? the Hindenburg legend
must not be weakened in any way.

But in spite of the unsurpassed courage of the Ger
mans, their tenacious endurance, their ingeniousness
and their devotion, the leaders of the army were finally
forced to beg for an armistice at the most unfavorable
hour of their complete impotence. For years they had
purposely spread false reports and had repeated them
so persistently that they had come to believe them
themselves. But the submarine warfare, which had
been, according to the newspapers, unfailingly suc
cessful, had not prevented America from landing her
young men, powerfully equipped for war, on the coast
of France. Foch's reserves, which the same news
papers had reported as decimated hundreds of times,
burst forth from the woods at Villers-Cotterets and won
a decisive battle. But so ineradicably had the faith of
the people taken root in the Hindenburg idol that after
the catastrophe the idol became a God walking upon
the earth. This was the greatest miracle of all.

In the days just before the Armistice, the German
people, terrified by the extent of the disaster and dis
appointment, experienced a sudden reversal in mood.
Even the Junkers, privileged as they were, broke
forth in hot denunciation of the existing regime. We
have been deceived and betrayed, was the outcry of
the mome&t. But the popular rage was never directed

THE HIXDEXBURG MYTH 129

against the old Field Marshal; shrouded in the mists of
his fame. Suddenly it seemed as if everyone had
always known that Ludendorff was conducting the war
and that therefore he was responsible for the outcome.
This feeling was aggravated by the fact that the Em
peror, who had detested this irascible, arrogant man for
a long time, now dismissed him. The Emperor's un
gracious manner drove Ludendorff to ask whether his
services were no longer desired, to which the Emperor
replied, "That is the case; your retirement would make
it very much easier for me to rebuild my Empire with
the help of the Social Democrats. 17

The Field Marshal, who time and again had re
iterated his determination to stand by the creator of
his fame, stayed in the service.

"Aha!" the people said, "that shows tha Luden
dorff was the cause of all the trouble." The latter was
not spiritually strong enough to undergo the experi
ence of this double ingratitude on the part of the nation
and the dynasty without showing the marks of it.
True, he did not "flee." Since he had been retired
from duty after fifty-four months of almost super
human work, he had a right to get away from the
Berlin street riots and the mobs that were particularly
bitter against him and to seek rest and relaxation
in the peace and beauty of Sweden. But ever since
then, driven by unsatisfied ambition, misunderstood
and condemned, he has gone astray in the dark by
paths of muddled demagogy.

Field Marshal von Hindenburg placed himself at the
disposal of the Republic for the duration of the army's
return march and held the post of Commander-in-Chief

130 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

until the army was disbanded. But no one could ex
pect the old man to go on working without pay. Under
his own name he published an absolutely worthless
book which, however, earned large sums in English-
speaking countries. At the most he could only have
furnished the subject matter, for the book is written in
the easy, impersonal diction of the average, clever
reporter, a style that would have been over the head
of this old soldier, too illiterate even to educate himself
by reading.

It was on Hindenburg's advice that the Emperor left
Berlin secretly, a departure followed by his desertion
of Germany and the flight to Holland. But has this
done Hindenburg any harm? Not in the least.

Since the demi-gods of Headquarters have changed
their uniforms for office coats and are making earnest
efforts to excuse and explain their actions to influential
journalists, it has been much easier to investigate the
Hindenburg myth. They were all devoted to the old
Field Marshal. It was almost the love of children for
their father. No one had an unkind word to say about
him. But neither did any one deny that, from a
strictly jnilitary standpoint, any other General who was
not ambitious for personal power could have filled the
position as well. When I asked whether Herr von
Hindenburg did not occasionally intervene on his own
authority and make changes in the order^ and im
perial decrees that had been issued, one of his cleverest
aides, after considering for a moment, replied: "He
always added the words 'mit unteriinigem Handkuss*
(I kiss your hand obediently) in letters of acknowl
edgement to queens and princesses, because I never

THE HIXDEXBURG MYTH 131

could bring myself to write the words. I do not re
member any other changes."

When I tried to draw an Impartial picture of Hin-
denburg and Ludendorff in my weekly paper and to
convey a warning against blindly worshipping Hinden-
burg and as blindly damning Ludendorff (while the
latter may not be a military leader, he is certainly a
war technician of the first rank) angry readers flooded
me with insulting letters, accusing me of having dis
paraged the "greatest general the world has ever
known" and of blaspheming a God.

"The greatest general the world has ever known!"
Even if I should reply with a list of this general's total
achievements, what would it conjure up in the minds of
the unbiased reader? A long row of glorious, but un
productive victories . . . nothing more! Even Russia
was not conquered and disarmed by Hindenburg's
army which was forced to halt before Riga and had
to abandon its plans for capturing Petrograd but by
its own Bolshevism. Prussia's greatest theorist of war,
Carl von Clausewitz has said, "War is politics fought
with other weapons."

Hindenburg's policies were as shortsighted, as
fatally bad, as were those of his predecessor who de
cided upon the invasion of Belgium, a country which
had previously been declared neutral at Prussia's own
suggestion. He had not the faintest conception of the
enemy's power of resistance nor of the resources they
had to draw on. The arrogant craze for victory de
stroyed every opportunity for concluding a sensible
peace. The deeply inculcated spirit of militarism
which carried into other provinces of life the same

132 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

harsh methods learned in the school of war hoped to
force a decision by using poison gas, by the submarine
warfare ; etc., etc., and did not reckon with the fact
that the enemy, stronger certainly by three-fourths of
the whole earth, could employ the same means not only
more quickly but more widely than the Germans.
Through oceans of blood, through devastated lands,
over mountains of cripples and corpses, the way led
to the most terrible defeat history has ever known.

The systematic and absolutely useless destruction
of farm lands, works of art and industries in Northern
France, the transformation of blooming fields, splendid
cities and healthy villages into an arid waste, binds the
German people to years of reparation. In everything
they used bad judgment.

When the final breakdown became inevitable, the
"civilians" who until yesterday had been oppressed
were now pushed to the fore. They were the ones now
who must ask for the armistice, a task which has
always devolved upon the defeated Commander-in-
Chief. As they were stupid enough to allow them
selves to be made use of, the world naturally holds
them responsible for the capitulation, although it was
Hindenburg himself who sent a telegram commanding
them to agree to any conditions and to make peace
at any price. To avoid confessing that catastrophe
was due to the witless strategy, blindness, deafness and
unreliability of the army command, they spread the
lies that the spirit of defeat and betrayal at home had
"by stabbing them in the back forced the army to lay
down their arms just when they were on the point of
winning the final victory. 33

THE HINDENBURG MYTH 133

Does the heart of the nation, defiled by such libels,
cry out at last in angry protest?

The parasites of the "revolution, 57 proud heirs of
the Imperial rights under the guise of the Social Demo
crats, welcomed the vanquished troops on their return
home as "our unconquered army." And if the army
was not beaten, certainly the Commander-in-Chief was
not. Even in the days of the wildest street rioting the
"Wooden Hindenburg," a gigantic wooden monstrosity
close by the Reichstag, in which people, for the sake of
charity, bought the right to hammer nails of precious
metal, was left unharmed and became the sacred shrine
of many pilgrimages. The faculties of all, literally all,
of the humanistic and technical high schools that had
not already given the Field Marshal a doctor's degree,
hastened to do so now. The Republic gave him the
highest pay for peace times, placed a drawing room car
at his disposal for journeys, and did not make the
slightest complaint or express any astonishment when
he held parades, proposed cheers for the dethroned
Kaiser, presided in official garb at a meeting of an
order of knights, acclaimed the fame and glory of the
disbanded army, declared himself on all occasions for
the monarchy and ignored the republican form of gov
ernment. Every child in the smallest village, every
maid in the most distant forester's lodge knew his face
by sight, that head which the people call a "majestic
brow of thunder" and His Majesty the Emperor and
King, in his jealous rage, termed "a sergeant's mug."
Wherever he appeared, he was greeted with acclama
tions and shouts of joy.

Foch, the victor, went about Paris in uniform almost

134 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

unnoticed; when Hindenfaurg, the vanquished, rode
out, millions drunk with adoration were ready to strain
their own muscles to draw his carriage through the
streets. Ministers of the Republic beamed with joy
when they were privileged to come into his presence
while he was reviewing a club of old soldiers, a patriotic
band of Boy Scouts, or some other monarchistic group.
He might do anything he pleased. Only timidly, on
tiptoes, as it were, did criticism approach this powerful
figure. Whatever he did was right. Who dared assert
that he ever made mistakes? They were all Luden-
dorff's fault! Do not evil spirits triumph at times in
all the old myths?

And so it went for six years. The rosy dreams which
the infant German Republic dreamed were shattered
bit by bit. The victors of yesterday, who were not able
to understand the complex nature of the German na
tion, a splendid nature but also dangerous in many
ways, attempted to smooth out the mistakes which had
buried the fame of Western European civilization. In
Germany's new government there was more dilet
tantism than talent. The shopkeepers who, after years
of insufficient pay and under-nourishment, were lifted
overnight out of their little corners and placed at the
head of affairs, naturally succumbed to the bribery of
the profiteers, those nouveaux riches who had made
their fortunes through the war, the madness of the
days following the war, and the inflation of the cur
rency. These wrought havoc.

And so in this land, officially disarmed and disgraced,
the waves of nationalism rose higher and higher; their
idol still the white-haired old Field Marshal. The first

THE HINDENBURG MYTH 135

President of the German Republic a Social Demo
crat called on his services for a tribunal. This man,
who for years had preached Revolution and the cause
of the Internationalists and had risen to power on that
platform, was content to bask in the sunshine of Hin-
denburg's popularity and in his unshakable optimism.
Even in his eyes, Hindenburg stood as the court of
last appeal. The Nationalists were not slaw in grasp
ing this fact. The day which they had foreseen was
drawing near. As a new President had to be elected,
and the people's candidate, an unknown man, received
almost eleven million votes merely by waving the
black-white-and-red flag of the old Empire, the Na
tionalists put up the Field Marshal as the second can
didate.

He was seventy-eight years old and had never both
ered himself with any but military affairs. By his false
judgment of both the German and the enemy's strength
in war, as well as by his fomenting of Bolshevism in
Russia, he had shown that he did not possess the slight
est glimmer of political instinct. To be sure, he has
always declared himself a monarchist, a faithful and
devoted servant of the Hohenzollerns. To him all this
clamor for a Republic was a disease and Democracy
a plague sent down from heaven to punish man's arro
gance and self-confidence, bringing disaster and suffer
ing in its train. He believes that nations are never ripe
for self-government. They are always childish and,
therefore, like children, they must be guided, guarded,
protected and trained by the hand of a divinely ap
pointed father. The man who thinks and talks like
this was put up for President in the country which

136 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

has often, with the boastfulness of youth, called itself
the freest republic!

And he was elected . . . the defeated Commander-
in-Chief of the war, who was largely responsible for
imposing the tremendous burden of reparations on the
German people, who even in the stupid and ghastly
treaties of Brest-Litovsk and Bucharest was setting up
a model for the Versailles Conference, the man who
smuggled Lenin, Sinovief, and Kamenief into Russia
in a German parlor car, the man who really stands first
on the list of the war guilty.

From the democratic parties, which did not possess
any really popular leader, came a protest necessarily
short-lived. They lacked courage for a fight which
they realized was lost in advance. The few denuncia
tions they made, in the tone of rebellious slaves
grumbling at their masters, were followed by hot ad
monitions from their opponents not "to drag in the
mud of party strife the noblest figure of German his
tory, the grizzly Warrior before whom every one
should kneel in reverence."

The last touch in the apotheosis of the God !

Half a century ago a deputy in the French Chamber
once ventured to speak in defense of the Second Em
pire, which had been responsible for the war of 1870
and the resulting disaster to the nation. But Count
Audiffret Pasquier overwhelmed him with a speech
which ended with a prayer. "May God spare our un
happy country this, the greatest of all humiliations:
that the control of her destinies should once more pass
into the hands that have so badly served her."

Every word in that courageous oration could now
be applied to the regime of the Third German. Empire^

THE HINDENBURG MYTH 137

whose representative Hindenburg was and is, as he has
always chosen to be and to remain. Yet today Hinden
burg towers high above ordinary mortals.

In speeches and interviews, the texts of which have
been thoughtfully handed him ready-made, the Field
Marshal preaches the ideals of world peace, and of a
brotherhood of peoples in the interests of mankind;
and he makes obeisance before the sovereign freedom
of the German Nation. The monarchist swears fealty
to the Constitution (without, to be sure, one single
mention of the word "republic"). The Nationalist who
has so often said that what has once been German must
again be German ? seems ready to renounce Alsace-Lor
raine. The General who denied reality to any power
but arms and armaments now speaks of war as of the
greatest of all evils. Any one else would be utterly dis
credited by such an unexpected change of front. But
no one is bold enough to cast suspicions on the majesty
of Paul von Hindenburg. Was there not one Paul who
was converted in a second's flash? And Paul of Tarsus
was only one of the apostles. He was not, like Paul
von Hindenburg, of the divine lineage itself.

Who would dare go on strike, if Hindenburg has
given orders to work? As a matter of fact, though
Berlin working men are not easily moved, though they
were suffering from the terrible lack of food, though
they knew that Hindenburg could neither order them
back to work, prevent them from striking, nor hinder
them from doing anything they wanted, yet when
their right to strike was challenged by the War Office
they allowed their opposition to crumble and their
strike to be nipped in the bud. The Castilians, who in
the dark ages of mythology allowed themselves to be

138 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

led Into battle by the body of the dead Cid Comprador
bound on his horse's back, had not greater faith than
these socialists of the Twentieth Century to whom Karl
Marx and his disciples had preached the doctrine of an
all-powerful economic determinism. Seven years after
the unsuccessful strike, almost fifteen million Germans
(more than the entire Workingmen's party together
with the Catholics, civilians, and anti-militarists were
able to get together) elected Herr von Hindenburg
President of the Republic ; and his opponents of yes
terday rallied around with assurances of devotion.

Out of the inextinguishable ardor of faith a God is
born. From the friction of long suffering rise the
flames, fed by the aspirations of the dynasty which has
lost its throne, of the classes which have lost their
privileges, of the longing to plant monarchistic in
fluences in the heart of the Republic itself, if indeed
the Republic cannot be stamped out altogether. The
flames have gradually ignited the bark of a gigantic
tree; if this crashes to earth it will be terribly destruc
tive.

A fine General, who has always served his King
and Kaiser, the chosen embodiment of his Fatherland,
in his straightforward way, rises in the glory of his god
head, and is surrounded by a swarm of blissful slaves.
With a deep breath of relief German Nationalism has
attained the first of its desired goals. Not even a
slender wedge of upright Republicans bars their path.
Hindenburg Hurrah!

Soon we shall see who is the real power under the
cloak of peace of this disappointed and enfeebled War
God.

VI

STINNES

"HE wants to buy the Southern Railroad. In Rome
he negotiated for his admission into the American Steel
Trust. He's going to carry in with him the Minette of
Longwy-Briey, the Ruhr coke, all the German and
French iron foundries, steel works, the ore of Morocco
and Sweden, along with the German imperial rail
roads that he has bought out and Sinclair's corrupting
petroleum."

"Nonsense! He was in Rome to engage Mussolini
as chief Propagandist (with a high rake-off) for the
Latin countries, to recast the Papacy into an industrial
corporation ('Successors to Peter, with limited liabil
ity 3 ), to prepare, by providing a monstrous original
capital and brilliant prospects of returns, for a fusion
with the Greek Orthodox Church, Patriarchate and
Exarchate, to offer a syndicate contract to Grand
Master Senussi, the Mirdite Bishop and the Dalai
Lama of Thibet, and eventually to build a paper-fac
tory in the Vatican grounds, to drain out the Pontine
marshes and create there a film city on a scale never
before seen, a European Los Angeles equipped with
every up-to-date comfort."

"He's financed the Friedericus Rex already. But all
that's just odds and ends. He has the Alpine German-
Luxemburg, Rhine-Elbe-Siemens, the Berlin Trading
'Company, dock yards and shipping equipment on the
grandest scale. What not? Coal, ore, iron, steel,

139

140 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

mines, smelting works, casting- and rolling-mills, elec
trical storage-plants, ocean, Rhine, Ruhr, and Elbe
steamship lines, forests, dozens of estates, paper-mills,
hundreds of newspapers with printing presses, hotels
from the Moselle to the Moskwa, alkali, zinc, man
ganese, cotton, saw-mills. All over the world, houses,
real estate, industrials, partnerships. He owns half of
East Prussia, a large part of Southern Sweden, of the
shore front in Emden, Bremen, Hamburg, Copenhagen,
and a majority in the fattest stock-companies. He's
going to modernize and complete France's canal sys
tem, in the coalless lands, Holland, Italy and Austria,
he will electrify the railroads, and struggle with nails
and bristle against the petrolizing of the world's indus
tries until he has the chief part of the petroleum pro
duction under his sceptre, or has a profitable working
agreement with Rockefeller, Rothschild, Sinclair,
Urquhart, Kemal Pasha and the Soviets of Baku and
Batoum. In Mexico, his daughter, just a young girl,
has sought with a divining-rod for marketable oil-wells.
In Argentina too he is said to have organized big busi
ness. His eldest son discovered America; during the
war his younger one, then hardly twenty, instructed
the ambassadors in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Ham
burg, and saw to it that not a ton of Swedish ore, not a
tub of Danish butter, nor a tin can of milk failed to
be despatched through shipper Stinnes. Even in Aus
tria, and farther East! In general, it is impossible to
count up what he commands or controls. Of course it's
well known that he has poured out a heap of billions
to the Czechs, and secured mammoth concessions in
return."

STINNES 141

"That's what they say. D'ya believe Prague iron
turns to gold overnight? Even your great Hugo can't
work witchcraft. 5 '

"He must! Just look at the little black head with
the smelling-porch, and think, when you hear his name,
of Achilles, Socrates, Euripides, not of Reitzes, Kar-
peles, Teveles."

. . . "You're all on the wrong track again. That
man, that you're chattering so much about, doesn't
exist at all. The press has invented him, created a
homunculus out of the ideal concepts of Stinnes-
izing, Stinnes-ism. Only booby birds are afraid of a
patched~up scarecrow watching the potatoes and peas.
Boys just put in breeches don't know a snowman's
just a thousand flakes stuck together, and melts under
the first sunbeam. Rumor, the never-sated, always
eager for the superhuman, ascribes what a hundred
captains of industry and a thousand speculators did to
this one fable-giant. Nothing of Stinnes ever has been
alive but the Stinnes-myth."

Is it much exaggerated? Didn't it run on about in
that fashion, on tongue, pen, typist's finger-tip, the talk
of a year and a day?

Hugo Stinnes lived, in the body, at Miilheim on the
Ruhr, where he was born, in Berlin, Hamburg, Prague,
Vienna, Buda-Pesth, Carlsbad, Oberhof, Rome, Am
sterdam, Zurich, on his South Swedish estate, by the
North Sea dockyards, just wherever something was to
be attended to. His father and grandfather were Ruhr
shippers. The eldest invented (or found in use) the
system of "vertical arrangement." Instead of building

142 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

like businesses one upon another, that is, in his case,
instead of multiplying river- wharves, he built his own
boats, brought in his own coal, to use for fuel and also
to sell, and secured for himself in this way, by cutting
out jobbers and middlemen, the whole profit from the
enterprise.

The grandson developed the system on a grand scale.
The fact that from his own woods, sawmills, pulpmills,
comes his paper which his printing-presses use to pro
duce his newspapers, that is the most trivial illustra
tion, hardly worth mentioning, the profit from his
paper-making, compared with that from his coal, ore,
iron, steel, tools and machines, electricity and ships,
which he himself builds, complete. And the ruler of
this empire, that waxed with each moon and shrank
with none, called himself simply "Hugo Stinnes, mer
chant." Without the slightest vanity, but because he
wished to seem, and to be, nothing else. (Which proves
that a man who never quaffed from any spring of the
Humanities, who looks at no pictures, reads no books,
because "business absorbs all his imagination," is none
the less in his own fashion, "cultivated").

A merchant he became when, with fifty thousand
marks, a meager capital to start on, even in the time
of the gold mark, a time as remote as Solomon and
Sheba, he left his father's business and set himself
up on his own feet. He remained a merchant, one who
dealt, until 1914, as much in English coal as in Ger
man, without aid from anyone, without connection with
larger houses, extending gradually from the smallest
beginnings, and from a petty local start created his

STINNES 143

world-wide power: not always ; indeed, without
wavering nor without mistakes.

His mother, an amiable matron, eager for the ideals
of pious culture and the beauty enshrined in noble
poetry, who worships the twin-star Herder-Schiller, is
of Gallo-German origin. (She was Fraulein Coupienne
when betrothed to the Miilheimer.) She may well have
been anxious at times over this son, who was never
content with the ordinary throng but sought ever wider
spaces and remoter goals. "Does he not venture upon
all too lofty ridges? Will not the wreath he weaves
prove too large for his brow, and, falling on shoulders
and breast, bind him in fast-withering though fragrant
fetters?"

Doubtless from his mother he had his dark skin,
the maroon brown of his hair and beard (which,
always independent of fashion, he did not shave).
Of the Jewish cast which the caricaturists give him,
his face has not a single feature. He resembled the
type of energetic men seen in the creations of Master
Matthias Griinewald, or his head might well rise
above the throat of one of the honorable guild-brethren
whom the art of old Cologne has taught us to know
and respect.

When I first saw him, many years ago, at a general
meeting, which I had gone to Diisseldorf to attend
because its subject had a political tendency, the
visionary eye of an apostle shone above his lean cheeks.
But the cheeks filled out, the lips came to protrude
somewhat more roundly, and yet from the eye, which
strove to pierce the depths of other men's mysteries,

144 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

heavenly joy could smile, or the lightning of heathen
ish savagery gleam.

In those days he came only rarely over the frontier
of the mining and smelting region; to Berlin, whose
range of amusements has never had any attraction
for him, to a ten-hour day packed with important
negotiations, or in the school vacations into the moun
tains; to a children's health resort, by the round-about
route over his own Luxemburg to Noordwijk, whose
gentle "mighty melody" charmed this visionary
also.

Mostly, however, he stayed close by his mother, in
the old Miilheim cottage, that seems expressly made
for the master of a little handicraftsmen's guild, in
the warm cozy family life of a German bourgeois. In
the early morning (his knit cap kept the coffee warm
in the pot), at noon, and at nightfall all were united
about the table. The father was at once the instructor
(in the art of living), the friend and the comrade of
the children, who, at the tenderest age, shared in
difficult tasks, and afterwards had to sketch the out
come. The wife was her man's best almost his only
assistant. Household furnishings, utensils, cloth
ing, excellent, with the simplicity characteristic of the
Lower Rhine folk of yesterday.

At an age when an industrial prince's and financier's
heir-apparent would long ago have had provided for
him a riding-horse, a motor-boat, a decolette dancing-
girl, a plump soubrette, a film actress with her boyish
body and corn-yellow Titus-head, a private bachelor
apartment with a discreet "servant to the master,"
and, of course, his own bank account, here the brood

STINNES 145

was glad to bide in the parents' nest. He who gave
instructions to German ambassadors carried his silver
watch on a steel chain. The father wore rough sailors'
shoes, an unpretentious sack coat, knitted neckties and
a never well-fitting but always fresh felt skull-cap.
He did not smoke, barely sipped a light wine, never
noticed what he ate.

Emil Kirdorf is housed on a big scale in Streithof.
The still older August Thyssen fits into Landsberg
Castle. Beside and below Krupp's hill-villa his direc
tors build their own splendid villas Hugo Stinnes,
merchant, bided where he was. His working-room was
no bigger than Michael Angelo's, whose handicrafts
man's daemon seemed to be astir at times behind the
Miilheimer's brow, and for a flash's space stamped
him with a likeness to Buonarotti.

The merchant's loftiest goal was to make himself
independent of the bankers, who as bestowers of
credit had taken to themselves the greater part of
the control over industry. Not before his fiftieth year
did he attain that goal. And then far surpassed it.
The mightiest men in high finance, even Have-quick
and Hold-fast themselves, hung upon his lightest word
or sign, as once did Gertrude's shabby majesty on
Hamlet's black-veiled glance. If the pressure to get
into any enterprise became notorious, straightway a
murmur of the "Stinnes-peril" fluttered through Ber
lin's Bahren Strasse. When chance threw his way the
cheap purchase of one-third of the shares in the
Berlin Trading Company, then, said Rumor, the sun
was soon to set upon the glorious kingdom of Carolus
Fiirstenberg, to whose threat (that he would "cripple

146 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

the weighers of men and worshippers of power 77 )
Stinnes surely never gave a thought.

That he attained this goal later than he had hoped,
and that he was able to retain it contrary to all the
prophecies of famous soothsayers, resulted from the
evil and the blessing of the war. That swept the
merchant into the whirl of German, European, plane
tary politics, forced the man, tempered in the glowing
current of patriotism, the Nationalist hardened against
all foreign allurements, into physical and psychical
preparedness for far-ranging international enterprises,
and moulded a new Stinnes, the Stinnes of to-day.

In the myth of the supporter of great parties, the
buyer of fruitful and barren plantations, Stinnes of
the popular belief, the never sated busheler-up of
money, the "missing link 37 between Sforza and Raffke,
I put no credence. Was not Cecil Rhodes likened to
the East Indian blood-suckers, to John Law the sower
of assignats, to the Turks' Hirsch, to the Strousbergs
and the Ofenheims, and yet was far more and greater
than they? Whether the business of the Miilheimer
flourishes or withers disturbs not me. The "Stinnes
peril/' so much groaned over, could rise fiery red out
of the grey clouds to threaten the world not merely
our German industries, if Stinnes the merchant had
ceased to be the apostle of the new World-spirit, and
for that very reason he would necessarily remain
smaller than his destiny, which is framed to the scale
of a mighty personality.

"Close to the wall, on a straw-seated low chair,
while nearly all the others are resting in comfortable

STINNES 147

maple-wood leather-seated arm-chairs, sits, in his
workday coat, Herr Hugo Stinnes, hardly four and
thirty, and already crowned, beside the sixty-year-old
Herr Thyssen, as mining king, beloved as a hope,
feared as the most dangerous of critics. A head that
would be striking anywhere, the moistly shining eye of
a Nazarene enthusiast, and the mouth of a cold cal
culator, with lips that do not open readily. Fine
hands, but prematurely aged; the meager loose-hang
ing frame stiffening at times as if in gloomy fanaticism,
like one who desires not to win money, but to hearken
to the voice that thunders from on high."

So it was I saw the man years ago; as a true son
of the mixed stock in the Rhine dales, where the root-
fibres of the various races are inextricably intertwined.
Something from the Netherlands, such as Fabricius,
Van der Heist, Frans Hals, recorded with masterly art
on a bit of canvas; something which Rembrandt, the
child of genius, while he still utilized the gloriously
supreme gifts left to him by Rubens, might have bidden
stand out from the heads of the artist's mother and
brother, of the man with the gilded helmet, the cloth-
makers or Saul. Yet there was something there, quite
as unmistakable, of Northern France's unadorned
youthfulness, which Ingres could paint even better
than Millet. Only one at a distance, or blind, can
mistake this man for "a wandering bit of coal/' or
for a mere secretary of a shipping company, or a coal-
merchant of the type produced by the mingling of
Frankish, Celtic, Frisian, Dutch, or Belgian with Low
German blood; the type so often to be seen between
Luisburg and Brest, Ymuiden and Ostend, for in this

148 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

man's nature elements of the good princes of Orange,
of Colbert, the financial seer of Rheirns, are also inter
mingled.

But should he remain a merchant, or become a
statesman, with zealous public spirit devote himself
to the service of the Polis, the Respublica: "make"
money, or hearken to the voice that resounds from
the heights? That was the supreme question.

And again, the war seems to have furnished the
answer. Its rising roar drove him from the mountain
air of Gastein, where he was refreshing himself after
arduous labor, back to the Ruhr. It held him, four
teen hours a day, in the telephone booth at Mulheim.
Then everything was ready to meet the need.

Wilhelm's theatricals, despite his flattering speeches
and gestures, his decorations and other distinctions (at
tariff rates), never appealed to the clear brain of the
Lower Rhine drinkers of wine (not beer). To Stinnes
the merchant he seemed the striding buskined evil
genius of Germany. Stinnes had climbed deliberately
to the top step of life and felt securely debarred from
a political career, indeed desired so to be. He never
believed in any conspiracy or unwarranted attack on
Germany, never for a day doubted that all the chief
errors were made in the Berlin palace and chancellery.
Yet, since Germany itself was at stake, he put himself,
without reserve or wavering, at the service of what, to
him also, seemed "the Cause."

Every week he was at least four nights on the road.
In the office from seven in the morning until eleven
at night, or when the train started. He provided coal
in Italy for the German warships Goeben and Breslau

STINNES 149

to make their voyage to the Sea of Marmora. He
devised substitutes for lacking raw materials: iron for
copper, silk-paper for cotton as it grew scarce in the
cannon-foundries (having the paper drenched in a so
lution of sugar and hardened), for lubricating oil, with
which the hope of victory threatened to trickle away,
new by-products from mining. At an early date he
foresaw the importance of the syntheses which pro
duced fertilizers and poison-gas and promised a prac
tical substitute for rubber. He thought, not too late,
about assuring food in adequate amounts, Swedish ore,
timber for the trenches.

He heated up, also, again and again, the furnaces
of hope In the offices of state, and fanned their zeal
as, after a brief flicker, It died down to indolence.
He won the labor-leaders Legien and Hue to the use
of the comradish watchword "Partnership in labor, 7 '
which lies like a broad poultice over the cleft in creeds
of the class-war.

He was casting out his nets for neutral tonnage.
By means of subterranean tubes from cisterns of
German sympathy he endeavored to send influence
into hostile lands; and he negotiated independently
with German and foreign diplomatists, both at once.
All this, still, as a merchant!

Under his guidance everything still attainable was
manufactured for the army and the people at home.
He brought In much also by secret and circuitous
routes of international trade. He provided Italy with
coal up to the very morning of her decision to enter
the war, and other entire lands as well; but he never
hesitated, also, to bring a few tons of salt fish or tubs

150 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

of butter into our own ports. His inventiveness was
constantly hitting upon possible exchanges, whose al
lurements beguiled even the most reluctant into barter.
And always he was firm in his belief that he was
obeying no motive save pure patriotism.

With such manifold points of view, mistakes and
miscalculations could not always be avoided : the less
as private trade pushed more and more into the domain
of politics and public business. A man never schooled
to political life, ignorant of individual characters and
of the barriers and lines drawn by their previous ac
tivities, ties and relations, unacquainted with its sur
face, now slippery as slate, now broken and irregular,
he was capable of believing, for instance, in a meek
yielding on England's part, merely because, in their
last conversation in the fateful year '14, the represent
ative of a great firm had said to him that his house
was counting on carrying out an important piece of
business in association with Stinnes himself, "after the
war."

Longer, indeed, than was to be expected from one
of his keen instincts and judgment, he accepted Tir-
pitz's assurance, and swore by the irresistible power of
our naval offensive, the paralyzing force of unrestricted
submarine activity. He saw in the sea fight off Skag-
gerrack not only a proof of extraordinary German
efficiency on the sea, but an easement of our politico-
strategic position, which it actually, by rousing Eng
land, made more difficult still.

For a time he regarded the incompetent Bethmann
as a halfway passable Chancellor. For a longer time
he considered the busy ever-ready Erzberger as a

STINNES 151

useful specialist fit for political leadership; and he
doubtless held firmly to the bitter end his belief in
the star, the masterly generalship of Ludendorff, who,
indeed, being very tactful, when he chose, in his deal
ings with men, had understood at their first meeting
how this simply-strong one should be taken.

"With us ; in the northeast, a few things have gone
off pretty well; but, take it altogether, believe me,
the war has been so badly carried on that an old
general staff man's eyes are almost shamed out of his
head. And the little bit, too, I myself have been able
to do so far, has been puffed up away beyond its
deserts. Colonel Hoffmann whom you see there, the
one with the skull of a giant, would have done it just
exactly as well, and he would have had the advantage
of his bigger beak."

This simple frank manner of speech could not but
please Stinnes, the more so as in Ludendorff, the brains
of the east front, he had found a much clearer under
standing of industrial problems than in the dull Falken-
hayn circle. That he should have taken this unusually
gifted, unceasingly industrious military tactician,
limited, except in minor matters, to a narrow field of
vision by his own extraordinary short-sightedness,
for a consummate commander (who, in our time at
least, must, even while destroying, think about creat
ing, and so must have in him some drops of the states
man's blood) was an error made comprehensible by
the desire, the eager longing, of the patriot.

After the first disappointment on the Marne, Ad
miral Tirpitz returned home sighing, "This time, alas,
the great strategist seems to be on the other side."

152 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Hope continues her quest, and fancies she has found
him at Kovno. But was there one of such caliber
anywhere to be found? One who would not look for
the miracle of victory either from tacticians' tricks
nor from ever varied attempts to break through the
front, which General Foch called "examples of the
buffalo's strategy"? From the foundation stone of
the whole doctrine of relativity, also, the judgment
of the Miilheimer as to the general, who had not yet
come to imagine himself godlike, can be comprehended.

Stinnes, modest in the full sense of self-respecting
manliness, never concealed any gap in his own knowl
edge, any lack of proper training. He learned from
his every mistake. He never drank in the war with
enjoyment, as Erzberger did on the petty throne of
his power, nor ever thought, as did many a barrack
hero in his casino, "the war is going all wrong for us
again," nor yet did he think of it as a horror soon
to grow unendurable. To him it was the final test
of the nation's strength and the school that matures
the constructive spirit into full mastery. He felt deeply
the need of the poor people, all the sufferings of the
mothers, wives, sweethearts, children, sisters, who
parted at once with their best-beloved and their bread
winners.

These years of unresting labor and gnawing worry
left their mark upon him. His body was broader and
firmer now than in the autumn of 1914. His forehead
higher, lined more heavily by the chisel of Time, his
face ploughed deeper with all the pondering and ven
turing, the lip more ascetic, the dreamer's enthusiasm
in his eyes was transformed into brooding seriousness

SriNNES 153

with a sober, often a smouldering glow. Under the
rough exterior kindliness nested; and the man, not
destitute of humor, in whom, in bright hours, the
merry Rhenish nature laughed out, bad his especial
charm, the magic of personality, which Goethe, all too
hastily, called "the highest happiness of earth's chil
dren."

The Shakespeares, Dantes, Mozarts, Beethovens,
Rembrandts, Velasquez, Vermeers, Buonarottis, Spi-
nozas, Pascals, Kants, Schopenhauers, Nietzsches:
these overlords in the realms of art and philosophy did
not exist for this man. Did nature in her mighty,
wild or gently smiling aspects give him delight? I
am not sure. I rather imagine that if a magician's
will had borne him to the high plateau of the Himal
ayas, he, quite unconcerned, would proceed to put to
the test the geologico-economic possibilities of the new
environment.

Not, however, for the sake of carrying off money
from Hinduland to the Ruhr. Of what use would it
be, to one who kept his clothing, food, drink, at the
low level of what is indispensable, traveled without a
servant, carried his own handbag to the station un
complaining, was housed far more simply than any
tolerably prosperous merchant in Berlin, and in his
entire manner of living was nearer to the German
workingman than to any type of big business man to
be seen today? This simplicity did not come, with
him, as with other rich men, from any desire to seem
an "original," nor from being sated with splendor, nor
from the knowledge that only complete abstention from
luxurious indulgence would preserve his health. To

154 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

this man luxury quickly became a burden, the fra
grance of culture a wearisome discomfort; the most
beautiful unreality remained to him the absolute zero.
Of his own innate art of pleasing he was without doubt
unconscious.

The construction of great, wide-ranging, not all-too-
familiar lines of business delighted him. The money
earned therein was simply a means for new possibilities
of use and productive power. That allured him. And
it might have proved for him the sovereign's doom.

Three judgments: first Dr. Rathenau's: "You won
der, Maxim, why in my writings I have so often (of
course, without naming him), so contrary to my usual
habit, urgently assailed your Stinnes. His intellect I
rate very high; higher, I am afraid, than I do his
ability to steer his course in accordance with his pro
fessions. But certainly he is the arch-enemy who
daily outwits ten Jews. Essentially a monster. When
he says Germany, he means coal. An understanding
with Russia is to him petroleum, manganese, mine-
timber, cotton, cheap rye-bread. When he, with the
patriot's glowing eye, recommends submarine warfare,
he thinks that, after the sinking of so many ships,
his tonnage will promptly rise in value. He would, like
me, whistle (I choose this time the odorless word)
for Alsace-Lorraine, if it were not that the Minette
allures him more mightily than ever did la Tribade.
He is a man with purpose, beyond spirit and divinity;
but, if he swallowed all the industries of Germany,
he would still bid us adore him as the deliverer of the
Fatherland."

STINXES 155

And the Bolshevik Radek says:

"He's a bit of real earth. The most decent, least
offensive form of capitalism. Crush the villain, just
the same! But, of all the big business men that ever
I saw at close range, he is the only one that really
impresses one of us. No make-up, no humbug. His
first word declared that thus far he had had the ut
most distrust of the Bolsheviki. 'And Soviet Russia/
I answered, 'has so many worries that it really cannot
concern itself with your mistrust! 7 He with a shrewd
smile squared the account. Then our conversation
turned serious. But he's a bit of nature, full grown."

Lastly, hear Albert Ballin, the sea-merchant:

"Our Schwerin industrialists of the lower Rhine are
mighty big fellows, and what they do has no warmer
admirer than myself. But they have a stiffness in
business relations, a raw-boned manner, that irritates
anybody who wasn't brought up in Prussia, and to
which the world-trade will never submit when it is
developed into a regular system. And just because
of that they pride themselves on their industrial power.
Stinnes is superior to the rest of them in this respect,
that he at least feels how disgustingly dangerous that
stiffness would get to be. But many a child can let
no bit of a tart alone, and many a man, no woman.
Just so Stinnes can leave no business to itself. Every
thing, even if it belongs to some one else, he wants
a share in (at the lowest price)."

To Ballin, the ship-man, whom I had introduced to
Stinnes, I answered: "You can take your oath on it
that wherever he took hold he was sure he would be
of service to his country by doing so; also that after

156 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

the war, with a laughing eye, he will take his place
among the ocean ship-mea. Your quick retort, that
the Hamburg-American line had long had the policy
of depending on coalers of their own, he probably did
not accept as an extract from your most ancient char
ter. 'Germany' and 'Stinnes' have become merged in
his mind in a single concept; that what profits the
merchant could harm Germany is to him unimagina
ble. Part of his power springs from that very faith.
To be sure, it might become megalomania, a danger
for land and man."

I did not mean precisely the danger that our bankers
call the "Stinnes peril." They fear an all too great
tyranny, threatening the general welfare, in his "pyra
mid" of the various industries, the base resting on
Russian mine-floors, the apex scraping the clouds
above us.

"In the first place," they say, "you have the most
unwelcome watcher in the house, and secondly, the
breaking of a single pillar brings down the whole tower
of Babel with it. Weak spots there are everywhere;
and here, too, 'all that glistens is not' Siemens-
Rhein-EIbe. . . ."

The pyramiding of industries, also the entrance into
the Reichstag and the Industrial Council, forced a
gradual change in manner of living. The traveling
man content with a bedroom only, meeting his visitors
in the public rooms of some quiet hotel, had now to
have an apartment in the best. It was by Ballin's hu
morous raillery that he was first persuaded to put on
a dinner jacket for the evening meal, what cultivated

STINNES 157

Germans call a smoking. He could no longer avoid
"Salon" company. He who before had thought out
all important problems alone, and generally had dis
cussed them only with her who was dearest to him,
required a general staff, a manager, specialists in all
departments of industry, trade-diplomats in all the
chief lands of our planet, directors of branch offices,
and a whole troop of assistants. Out of all this might
easily have arisen a court, something quite like courtly
conditions. What if his head should have been turned
in Caesar's direction, or toward belief in the high
flying cleverness that would gladly choose him as
"folks-kaiser/ 7 and in the childishness of its soul
crown him, as the hero appointed for the salvation
of Germany? But for any such awkwardly Wagnerian
mystification he W 7 as too sanely low German; in all
his ideas and by his will too firmly set on the earth.

In business affairs (all, in Europe at any rate, came
to him first or last) he was sometimes a visionary.
Why should he not buy the third of the shares of the
Berlin Trading Company that was offered to him?
The most solid of banks, deeply intrenched in control
of funds and profitable industrial contracts, monarchi-
cally constitutional, conducted like a mighty private
banking house, guided by the financial genius of Fiir-
stenberg: great possibilities showed above the horizon.
Forbid a silk-worm to spin?

From early morning till long after midnight negotia
tions, travail-pains, birth; out of plans which like
the little folk in Faust's Heaven of Women, often
hover above the clouds and fly away.

The Stinnes of politics is a son of earth, or was.

158 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

"Germany still works too little. On the thirty per
cent yet lacking for the complete exploiting of our
industrial opportunities depends most of the profit
which formerly came in. Reparation? Yes, complete;
but the eventually attainable goal must be the libera
tion of German soil and impartial treatment for Ger
man trade."

That the author of the compact formed with the
Marquis de Liibersac, President of the Cooperative
Company for the Restoration of the Devastated
Regions, drawn up in the Rhenish home-castle, in
his heart approved the heroically brilliant Ruhr folly,
I cannot believe. On the political path, still unfamiliar
to him, he may not have cast his glance far enough
ahead. Else he would be the very one to see more
clearly what is and what must come to be.

Great industries, from which the exported surplus
output, down to 1914, had kept our balance of trade
so encouragingly favorable, have since then for the
second time been built up in other lands, while at the
same time the purchasing power of all countries be
tween the Rhine and the Black Sea, the Lake of
Constance and Baikal Lake has fallen to less than
half what it was before the war. Whither, then, shall
the product of increased German effort be sent on the
morrow?

The merchant saw promptly that ore must come to
coal. The statesman did not, yet, see that our conti
nent is to sink into helplessness, unless it is forced
into economic unity, vertical and horizontal as well?
He was learning to see it, learning also that mental

STINNES 159

adaptability is not weakness, that the strongest can
be the most courteous, and that international extension
of trade control, untroubled by frontier landmarks,
can never be reconciled with nationalistic political
action.

vn

KING PETER OF SERBIA

PETER KARAGEORGEVICH, King in the realm of the
Serbians, Croatians and Slovenians, died in the third
year after the victory, the liberation and union of the
South Slavs: a man to whom we all were formerly un
just.

When in 1903 the news came from Belgrade that
King Alexander, the last Obrenovich, together with
his wife Draga, had been murdered in his Konak by
conspirators, and the Serbian crown offered to Prince
Peter with the condition that he should let the mur
derers go unpunished, a furious outcry echoed around
the world. The fellow-conspirator, the arch-plotter
and chief beneficiary of the murder, rises, upon a
shamelessly scandalous condition, to the rank of mon
arch? If the kings are not yet such wretched wights,
nor their consciences beneath their faded purple not
yet so bewildered, as Zarathustra beheld them, then,
shrieked public opinion, they must ban this inter
loper!

Between the line of Georg Petrovich, or "Kara"
(i.e., Black George), who freed his people from the
Turkish yoke (and whose character and deeds are
discussed in the first chapter of my book, "War and
Peace") and that of Milosh Obrenovich, there had
been deadly enmity for a century. The son and the

grandson of Black George had a right to call them-

160

KING PETER OF SERBIA 161

selves the people's choice, legally crowned Princes.
Nevertheless; in the summer of 1903, it was possible
for the erroneous belief to spring up that the accept
ance of a sceptre from a murderers hand was an event
without precedent in history.

When the Czar Alexander, son of Paul, heard in
Paris, after Bonaparte's fall, that King Louis rejected
the services of useful people on the ground that in
serving under the Corsican they had shared in high
treason, he laughed aloud, and exclaimed: "What
foolishness! People breakfast with me almost daily
who murdered my father." And yet a hundred years
later, almost to a day, Chancellor Bethmann-Hucke-
bein groaned in Berlin because he could not compre
hend that a Russian czar should oppose the uprooting
of a Serbian dynasty: "What do you think, dear
Prince, of this Emperor of Russia, who protects the
regicides?" All the teachings of history had seeped
into the earth parched by the sultry glow of Byzan
tium's sun.

After the Peace of Luneville, Bonaparte wished to
entertain with a pageant the Italian officials whom
he was receiving in Lyons. He summoned Talma
and Madame Raucourt from Paris, and Voltaire's
Merope was staged for his guests. Loud applause
greeted the line:

"A fortunate soldier was the first of kings."

All men's eyes turned to the First Consul, and all
hearts cried to him, "You, our most fortunate soldier,
we will crown our king!" But the Corsican frowned,

162 ' I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

and after the performance said to Count Chaptal:
"Merope is not to be performed again. What sense
is there in the popular saying, 'The first king won
his crown by luck in battle 3 ? He who can make his
way to a throne is the foremost man of his century
and owes his crown to no single lucky chance, but to
his own merit and a nation's gratitude. This piece
is not to be played in France."

Chaptal smiled faintly; such anxiety seemed to him,
a shrewd man, quite too petty: but Bonaparte was
the shrewder. The folk, so ran his thought, needs
not to be reminded in the theatre that monarchical
power is based on victorious campaigns and that many
a butcher, by Fortune's caprice, has won a crown.
The people learn enough, too much, without that.

Had it not learned already, in 1801, that kings can
be slain, seized, beaten down like other mortal men,
strangled? In a night in March the officers of the
guard attacked Paul the First in his palace, and
choked him to death. He who yesterday was by God's
grace Gosudar, omnipotent, was today declared an
idiot, a madman, dangerous to the common weal.
That, then, was possible: possible in a land whose
ruler is also the supreme bishop. Even anointed heads
are not safe from murderous hands.

Such progress had the Jacobin spirit made, which
the First Consul considered the deadliest enemy of all
civic order. And was a people in such a mood, be
wildered by such terrible news, to be told yet again,
from the stage, how crowns were won and dynasties
arose? No! In the intoxication of his supremacy
Napoleon forgot what Frenchmen had lived through,

KING PETER OF SERBIA 163

in the very last decade, and what a dramatic spectacle
his own career was in their eyes. A people that had
beheaded a Louis Capet and his Austrian princess ;
that had huzzaed Robespierre and Marat, could no
longer learn any new lesson from Paul's fate.

Whether Merope was played or forbidden, the
lucky soldier, Letitia's son, was already clutching at
the crown, and every man would soon be forced to
realize how an artillery-lieutenant could rise to Em
peror. Such an event exerts more influence than any
stage-play. Bonaparte forbade Voltaire's tragedy; but
Joseph de Maistre, who descried Csesar's approach,
uttered the word of veiled warning: "On the day
when Europe's eye beholds a plebeian ascending the
throne, a new epoch in the world's history will be
gin."

Europe remained quiet. It had lived through too
much within ten years to excite itself over a Russian
revolution. "What has come to pass," said Goethe,
"has exercised a resistless influence on the hearts of
most men, and that which has seemed impossible
takes its place, when once it has occurred, beside the
commonplace." A Czar has been slain by the com
manders of his own troops. Impossible? It has hap
pened. Ridiculous in his nightgown and nightcap,
Paul had jumped out of bed when he heard the con
spirators pounding at his door. They found him cow
ering behind a screen, yelled wildly at him ; reviled
him, struck him, and finally strangled him with his
military sash. The emperor's body was maltreated
with fists and feet. Col. Sablukoff records: "I saw
Paul on the catafalque. His face, though physicians

164 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

and painters had done clever work in restoring it, was
still black and blue. His hat was so adjusted that his
crushed left temple and eye were covered as much as
possible."

When the attack had succeeded, all the suspected *
officers and officials were slain or put under arrest,
and the troops made to swear allegiance in the name
of the new emperor. Throughout the land the news
was received with loud exultation. Strangers em
braced each other on the street. Men, women and
children knelt in the churches and thanked the Holy
Mother who had let them see this day. The intoxi
cation was as if the millennial reign of peaceful hap
piness had arrived on Russian soil.

And with the common people, that fancied itself re
leased from heaviest oppression, the nobility, the court-
circles, rejoiced no less. Taticheff wrote to Count
Voronzoff: "We all feel as if we were born again/'
And Rogerson: "The event of March 12 (aside from
the circumstances, which were perhaps unavoidable,
but give a painful impression) has at one stroke rev
olutionized popular feeling." President Nicolai wrote:
"I am overjoyed at this great, this happy event.' 7
Admiral Chichagoff said: "The voice of the nation
can hardly express the joy which we feel." Count
Buturlin said: "We bless Providence!" Count Mor-
koff: "Since that great event the sun shines on us
again at last." Alexei Orloff : "By God's grace a bright
star has arisen that announces to us the spring. Even
before Easter came the Resurrection. All Russia
breathes freer. Even here in Dresden every one, high

* I.e., suspected of devotion to Paul !

KING PETER OF SERBIA 165

and lo;v, rejoices without bounds. Praise we the Lord,
that we have not been utterly devoured. Halleluiah,
Halleluiah! And yet again Halleluiah!"

Whitworth, who had been England's representative
at Paul's court, wrote: "How shall I describe what my
feelings were at this stroke delivered by Providence?
The more I consider, the more profoundly do I thank
Heaven. 77 Smirnoff, the dean of the Russian legation
in London, declared: "Now we need no longer start
in fright at our own shadows." The good Prince Cas-
telcicada (the ambassador from Naples) wept for joy.
The senator and departmental director Veijarninoffs
utterance was: "It is impossible to describe the tumult
of joy in the capital. At evening there was such a
throng in the streets as was never seen before. In
the whole city there was soon no champagne left; a
single wine-dealer (not the largest one) sold that day
sixty thousand rubles' worth. There was an outburst
of joy from every alehouse. Petersburg was like a
monstrous mad-house."

The Princess Lieven, nee Baroness Benckendorf,
wrote: "The conspirators did not conceal their action,
but boasted loudly of it, and perhaps invented atroci
ties of which they had not been guilty." Still higher
up, the Empress Elizabeth wrote to her mother, the
Margravine of Baden: "Now, after four years of
oppression, Russia will draw a free breath. The worst
impediment is removed. To be sure, it is a terrible
thought, that peace is due to a crime. But I must
confess, I too breathe freer. Like a mad woman I
longed for a revolution. Such an excess of despotic
caprice robbed me of all capacity for calm delibera-

166 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

tion; my only remaining wish was to see unhappy
Russia free; at any cost."

So spoke Paul's daughter-in-law, his son's wife.
And that son himself? The mild Alexander, La
Harpe's and Rousseau's soft-hearted pupil, wept, la
mented his own sad destiny; and Elizabeth consoled
him. Doubtless this wifely duty did not prove an
all too heavy burden. From the letter which Nicolai
Petrovich Panin wrote to the widowed Czarina, we
know that Alexander was aware of the conspirators'
plan. His consent, naturally, he did not give, but an
swered every intimation with: "Of such matters I wish
to know nothing." That sufficed. After the deed it
was permitted him to act the part of surprise, of
horror. The hands that proffered him the cap of the
Monomachi had strangled his father. "Painful, but
perhaps unavoidable circumstances." After all, it was
still the finger of God that had cast Paul down from
his throne. Alexander set the cap upon his own head
and clasped the hands from which he had received
the emblem of hereditary power.

Ought he to have punished the murderers, who had
brought his greatest desire to pass, and so to have
roused discontent anew in army and court? He was
not so stupid. Great lords had arranged the execu
tioners' task: Gen. von Bennigsen, the Counts Pahlen
and Panin, Prince Plato Suboff and others in high
station. Of such heads not a hair could be touched;
and not one ever was. The only one who fell into
disfavor was Pahlen, who as stage manager had care
fully arranged it all, but did not enter the palace
until the deadly work had begun. That, Alexander

KING PETER OF SERBIA 167

did not forgive. So untrustworthy a servant, who had
doubtless counted even on the chance of failure, and,
in case the plan had gone wrong, instead of risking
his life, would have come upon the stage as PauPs
rescuer, and so escaped deadly danger, for such a
sluggard ("cunctator") Alexander had no use.

Europe remained quiet. The generation that had
seen the descendant of Louis the Pious, and Maria
Theresa's daughter, executed, was henceforth hard
ened. Paris, that always leads the way, had again
set its heart on Csesarism already; but elsewhere the
Paris spirit of 1792 still lived on. Men dreamed of
freedom and human rights, and rejoiced when brave
men freed their land of a tyrant.

Is not every king a tyrant? Yes, said Demos, every
one; even the sixteenth and most harmless Louis,
against whom, strictly, no tangible violation of a ruler's
duty could be proven. Bad enough, it seemed, that
in his fourteen years 7 reign he had squandered 1562
days in hunting and 372 on journeys. The popular
will was uncommonly radical, was minded to disem
bowel the last priest, to gibbet the last king, and fetch
down from Heaven the eternal rights, "that hang up
yonder inalienable and indestructible as the stars
themselves!" And this world is to feel pity for the
mad despot who was strangled in a silver noose by
those who had cringed to him? He who had raged all
too long thro 7 Katharina's realm, destroying human
happiness, with gory scythe cutting swaths of human
heads? What had come to him was but his deserts.
Only Bonaparte cursed the evil example: If the court
nobles faced about in such fashion with legitimate

168 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

masters out of old and good families, then the empereur
parvenu might well tremble at the first evening twi
light of his fortunes. The Corsican realized the truth
of Schiller's words without knowing them uttered
in his History of the Revolt of the Netherlands: "The
misuse of power under which we were born oppresses
less than that of power to which we have submitted."

A century and a quarter has elapsed since Paul
Petrovich breathed out his life under the hands of
his murderers. The youths, like Carlos and Posa,
whose cheeks grew fiery hot when Freedom was
named, are long since in their graves. Yet the lofty
goal of their efforts was attained. All human rights
are assured to the citizen, even to the poorest. Glori
ously far did we carry it; so far that we no longer
need keep our enthusiasm for Freedom aglow. Hence
the moral indignation, so early as 1903, at the murder
of the Serbian King and his Draga.

Everywhere, even in the Social-Democratic press,
the "bestialized Serbian soldatesca" was condemned to
Purgatorial flames, and through the bourgeois papers
roared the general horror at "the blood-bath in the
Konak," "the cowardly doers of murder/ 7 "the lam
entable apathy of the semi-savage Balkan-horde."

The events of 1801 and 1903 were extremely alike.
Paul, also, had at his court a hated woman-favorite;
the Princess Gagarin. He, too, wished tc/force upon
his realm an illegitimate successor, the pretty Prince
Eugene of Wurttemberg. There was uproarious re
joicing in Belgrade, even as in Petersburg. Here as
there, not a voice was raised for the murdered man.

KING PETER OF SERBIA 169

Everything exactly as then. In form, a military re
volt, while in the background waits for success a
claimant to the succession, athirst for the deed: the
victim in his night-gown (the fat paralytic of Serbia
wore red silk in bed); rude maltreatment of the
wounded, the dying, the dead; instead of punishment,
the thanks of the fatherland. Even the truly charm
ing idea of avoiding the hateful words "murder" and
"death blow, 33 and in official or officious announce
ments to speak simply of "the occurrence" (I'evene-
ment} even that originated from the Neva.

Everything as in that far-away March. Two differ
ences only: Peter was stronger than Alexander, and
what, in 1801, was an heroic act of patriotism became
in 1903 a "detestable murder."

Were Marcus Junius Brutus and his associates also
cruel murderers? Their malice smote with sharp dag
gers three and twenty wounds in Csesar's body. And
Cromwell, who decapitated his king? Sober-minded
men had no reason to weep a single tear-drop for the
House of Obrenovich. That which was done could
not have been left undone; it could not have been
accomplished more quietly, more quickly, nor with
the shedding of less blood.

Like an evil beast, Alexander had dwelt in the land.
A paralytic, an idiot, an imbecile, no matter how
science names his condition; but no man might say
it aloud. The madness of the great is not easily man
aged. If a king utters words which would put a private
citizen in a madman's cell, or at least under guardian
ship, it is called "being elated, 73 "an indication of sur
prising geniality." If at a banquet he spits in the

170 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

central dish on the table, the court-toadies praise the
merry whim. So it hath been under every sun.
Crowned craziness is recognized only when the official
diagnosis is publicly posted; and against such sacri
lege enthroned majesty gives protection.

Furthermore, the last Obrenovich had that nimble
agility, versatility and loquacity which are not often
to be observed in idiots. So long as he wore the
crown he was secure. No one could venture to put
him under guardianship. So ; what should be done?

Yes, it was said, against deposition no objection
would have been made; but so much the more against
murder. Very fine, very moral, very sentimental!
Only the poor land would in that event never have
come to its rest. The banished king would have
found friends, won party support, and with the stub
born energy of madness would have moved Heaven
and Hell to return to the delights of royal pomp.
Such struggles would have cost tenfold, ay, a hundred
fold, more human lives than did the palace revolu
tion.

Besides, in the Outland, the pair would have car
ried out successfully the neat plan which the watch
fulness of their enemies in Belgrade had frustrated.
Alexander knew that he was incapable of begetting a
child, even if he had not taken to wife his father's
outworn favorite. Nevertheless, they played before
the people the comedy of the expected heir. To every
interviewer Sascha sang the same song: "I am only
eight-and-twenty, and can experience many a time yet
the joys of fatherhood." In exile Draga would soon
have come to child-bed (children are to be had cheap

KING PETER OF SERBIA 171

anywhere), and so continued the name and lie of the
"Obrenoviehes" for later mischief.

That the Serbians had had quite enough of this
noble family is not a thing to be severely criticized.
Milan had plundered the state and, after his banish
ment, offered his services, against his son, to his dead
liest enemies. Madame Natalie was proclaiming her
marital unhappiness at every street-corner, and on
open postal cards calling her daughter-in-law the vilest
of names. The father told everywhere that the son
was impotent, and the mother that he was demented.
And the dear son barred both from the homeland,
praised Milan's banishment, in a solemn proclamation,
as a national blessing, and gave orders that papa should
be shot down if he crossed the frontier.

It did not come to that; but the king found other
victims. Whoever did not bend the knee before
Madame Draga was either thrown into prison or
quietly expedited to the next world. The officers had
to submit passively to insults and blows from the
queen's brothers; and the younger of the two rascals
was presently to bear the title of crown prince. A
family of criminals. Like a poisonous plant it must
be rooted out stock and branch.

There should have been gentler measures, the king
should have been consigned to the insanity specialist,
the slipshod queen tried in the national courts? That
would have been long drawn out and would have made
great disturbance. Alexander would not have lacked
favorable judgments, and the stench of the trial would
have infected the whole sty. Draga's brother-in-law
with his helpers attended swiftly and slyly to the heavy

172 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

work. That the beast which is in man should creep
forth was to be expected. Before those soldiers who
had imbibed courage and activity, the pair whose fists
had so long been on their necks cringed in helpless
fury.

An execution after due trial and sentence would
have been no pleasanter. When Count Pahlen was be
sought to protect the Czar's body, he responded in un
troubled calmness of spirit: "Impossible to make an
omelet without breaking the eggs." And one must
give the Serbians this much credit: the omelet was
quickly prepared.

That merit, to be sure, was acknowledged by the
heads of states and national churches, though not until
diplomatists and court officials had taught them that
the misrule of the mad pair could have been shaken
off in no other fashion. Was it not, then, this time
also the finger of God? The Metropolitan of Belgrade
struck the keynote: "What has occurred was ordained
by God's unfathomable determination; and before such
Divine decision the people of Serbia must humbly
bow." Amen. The Russian Czar was first to congrat
ulate the new king and commend him to heavenly help.
Not until long after did that help manifest itself: but
always, even in the blackest night, King Peter kept his
pious faith in the old Serbian word of consolation which
was murmured in his father's ear after his abdication,
the ancient prophecy which for all Serbian hearts
had come to be a refuge and shelter:

"Years of terror draw nigh, and so cruel shall their
ravages become in our land that the living shall envy
the dead their happiness in their graves; yet there-

KING PETER OF SERBIA 173

after a time reveals itself which will send into the
graves the cry of longing: 'Oh ye dead, why are ye
not still alive?' " Peter lived to see both times, that
of the blessing, to be sure, only with fast-failing sight.

He was a boy of fourteen when his father, Prince
Alexander, was overthrown by the Obrenoviches. The
Petrovich family were peasants; Peter's mother, Per-
sida Nenadovich, was also from a humble house. The
dethroned pair lived in Hungary, later in Vienna, and
sent the son when he grew up to the military Academy
of St. Cyr at Paris. At the outbreak of the Franco-
German war he did not hesitate to fight for France-
He was a lieutenant when he was taken prisoner, in
the autumn of 1870. In the first hour of the night,
before the examination of prisoners, he, with a color
sergeant, succeeded in escaping from the German
camp. He leaped into the Loire, being obliged to
carry the sergeant, who could not swim, on his back,
reached the farther shore, and took his place again,
under Bourbaki, in the French army.

With such performances the eyes of Balkan princes
are not made familiar. The rest of them spend life
in wild carousing. If ready money fails, they turn
the name, the credit, the hereditary hopes of the family
into cash. In time of war, if not safe at home or
hiding among the women at Monte Carlo, Cannes or
Biarritz, then they seek some post at the most com
fortable headquarters.

Peter Karageorgevich never squandered one day of
his life. At six-and-twenty he was a knight of the
Legion of Honor, and could have made use of his
repeated volunteer entrances into the Frewh army in

174 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

settling the account with Milan Obrenovich, who had
usurped the throne of Peter's father. But he did not
attempt it; he would not stake the peace of his father
land on the gambler's chances of a Pretender.

But that fatherland, he saw, was not yet free, not
the home of all Serbs. In Bosnia Serbian serfs groan
under the Turkish knout. The descendant of that
Karageorg Petrovich who still lives in his people's
heroic ballads was determined to set them free. He
laid aside his name, became a peasant like the rest,
gave what he had to arm the insurrection, and led his
valiant band against the battalions of the Osmanli
in vain.

Austria, also, though this very insurrection gave
her the excuse for demanding soon afterward the right
to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina, was still opposed
to the man who, if victory had crowned his under
taking, might have overshadowed and pushed from the
throne Vienna's obedient parasite, Prince Milan. A
price was set on Peter's head, Milan's hireling as
sassins were at his heels, the Turks beat every bush
in the Bosnian forests in quest of him, and Death with
swift sickle mowed down his Bosnian band. After
twenty months of fierce guerilla warfare, he fled from
the spot where no spark of hope for approaching free
dom yet glimmered. He slunk, a haggard unnoticed
peasant, through Croatia and the Austrian Alps, until
he reached Switzerland.

There, from 1877 on, He lived like a hundred other
poor devils. Even after his marriage to Zorka, daugh
ter of Nicholas of Montenegro, the sums occasionally

KING PETER OF SERBIA 175

advanced him by his father-in-law, himself gasping in
eternal money troubles, did not permit any leap to a
princely style of living. In order to make master
pieces of world literature accessible to his fellow-coun
trymen, he translated Milton's "Paradise Lost/' Ger
man classics, and John Stuart Mill's chief works into
Serbian.

His great experience was with Socialism, whose gate
was by those banished rebels unbolted to one who lived
almost like the proletariat. At Geneva he is said to
have had a seat in that "subterranean assemblage" in
which Lenin sketched out what he was going to do
when he was "ruler of Russia." To the average citizen
it may well have been the chatter of a madman;, yet
the speaker did reach the Kremlin, and the listener
the Konak of Belgrade.

In Peter's inward eye a new world arose. To ex
plore it, and to open it up to his compatriots, became
his purpose. He translated Saint Simon 7 Proudhon,
Bakunin, Marx, wrote articles and expositional book
lets, threw himself into the whirl of Socialist propa
ganda, until, in June, 1903, the cry resounded,
"Thou, Peter, shall be King of the Servians/'

Credible witnesses have testified that Peter was un
aware of the plans of the Belgrade conspirators. But
the democratic Socialist and firm believer in the Greek
church was absolutely sure of his hereditary right to
the Serbian throne, and felt, in pious humility, that
he would be for his tortured and thousand times
martyred people a pathfinder of nobler type than
Milan's shamelessly drunken brood. To the question,
whether he accepted the crown, he replied: "Only if

176 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

I may wear it as the president of a peasant's republic."
He returned to Ms home in plain clothes, was swept
into the confusion and noise of a church dedication,
and was happy to spend his first hours in the father
land incognito, among simple folk.

Already nigh to sixty, he had to make haste. Who
knew how soon his sun might sink? Louder than the
townsman's rose the peasant's cry for aid. King Peter
helped on the agrarian reform, and never rested. Each
peasant, big or little, became possessor of an unassail
able title-deed.

He would fain do more: root deeply in his home
land's life what he had learned in the west. But his
neighbors granted him no rest. Austria and Hungary
hated the peasant-like stubbornness of the mercenary
Obrenoviches' successor, denounced him as the insti
gator of murder, as the puppet of an assassins' band,
and spread caricatures of him the whole world over,
in which the long moustache droops dolorously over
the distorted face of a born criminal. Serbia might
not come to the sea, nor her cattle, almost the only
thing she had left for exchange, to any near markets.
In her narrow cage she should forget her former great
ness, her striving after new national unity. Since the
Radical-Nationalists, the champions of the "Pan-
Serbian idea 37 could not withstand this pressure, they
stooped to unwise compromises; and thus only pro
vided new grounds for criticism to the enemy in Vienna
and Buda-Pesth. There was wearisome strife over
Bosnia, ancient Serbian territory, a strife finally de
cided by the aid Germany accorded to Austro-Hun-
gary. Then came the Balkan Alliance against Turkey,

KING PETER OF SERBIA 177

Bulgaria's withdrawal and the second campaign. The
Peace of Bucharest doubled Serbia's territorial extent.
The Hapsburg monarchy let its protest fall unheeded,
but buried itself so much the deeper in the conviction
that this swollen Serbia ? which would inevitably draw
to itself the Montenegrins, Bosnians, Herzegovinians,
Croats, Slovenians, perhaps even part of the Northern
Albanians, was a deadly peril to the two monarchies
on either side of the Leitha mountain-range, a peril,
in averting which no available means could be dis
dained. In the summer of 1913 the blow was to fall.
Italy's objection pushed the half-drawn sword of her
ally back into the scabbard. A year later, Austrian
subjects, of Serbian race, on the anniversary of the
Amselfeld fight, killed, on Austro-Hungarian soil, the
heir apparent, Francis Ferdinand. Regicide! Most
criminal of crimes! Now at last vengeance should
come to pass.

So cleverly was the world's opinion created, that at
first the complicity of Serbia was everywhere, even in
the countries of Western Europe, regarded as unques
tionable. But Serbia, since the victory and the ex
tension of her rule over all the ancient realm of King
Dushan, had desired only quiet, had postponed her
hopes for Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, and despite the
ugly gesture, after Wilhelm's own fashion, that had
been made on St. Vitus 5 day, she had not the slightest
reason to plot against the life of the pro-Slav, anti-
Magyar Ferdinand. Peter, whose failing vitality was
shaken to its center by the news from Sarajevo,
promptly made up his mind to assent to the Vienna
ultimatum, although he must have feared that Jiis

178 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

house would not long outlast this unheard-of humilia
tion. By a refusal, Serbia would be left isolated; and
the king longed to secure the benefits of a peaceful
period.

... On the 2nd of December (1914) his capital
was* taken^. but as early as the isth he was able to
lead his troops, all of whose hardships he has shared,
back into Belgrade. The next autumn brought the
overwhelming offensive of the German, Austro-Hun-
garian, Bulgarian and Turkish hosts. Before this (the
Seckt-Mackensen) assault the Serbian army had to
give way.

Peter now had the strength of soul voluntarily to
give up his royal power and to have the regency of
his son Alexander declared by the Skuptschina. But
he did not creep away into any comfortable place of
exile. He remained a soldier. His men in the out
most defensive trench heard him shout, as he dragged
in their ammunition, "Look to your country that needs
you, not to me, grown a useless old man!" Court,
government, Parliament, were tolerably sheltered;
Peter stayed with the troops. The horrors of the re
treat amid snow and ice, through the rude winter
of the Albanian mountain-country, broke him down.
He grew deaf, almost blind, and chilblains cramped his
emaciated bony frame. But he did not waver. With
empty stomach he sat patiently in the ox-cart, went
on, when the beasts had fallen exhausted, afoot,
finally was carried on a rudely fashioned litter.

France and Italy bade him come overseas to rest.

KING PETER OF SERBIA 179

But he would not at eventide, as he had done in the
morning of life, part from his beloved Balkan-land.
In the Saloniki consulate he was lodged wretchedly,
but at least in a circle of Serb warriors.

At last the hour of deliverance struck, and from
millions of pious hearts the yearning question went
down into the graves, into all the far-flung general
graves throughout the land: "Why are ye not still
alive, O ye dead?"

All the vigorous youth, a large part of the women,
who had shared in the struggle, had sunk into their
graves. Bald as winter, bereft of its youthful vigor,
stood the Serbian stock. Yet, in the hour of direst
need, the roots of Croats and Slovenes had intertwined
with its own. Jugoslavia came to be, and could stretch
itself far and wide to bays and harbors in warm seas.

In a little park-house the Peasant-king, the soldier-
socialist, met his death: in simple silence, even as he
had lived, without needs* (His guests were enter
tained according to their rank and station, but he
himself surrendered to no luxury, and never to the
devil Alcohol.) Even to enemies of the monarchy
the figure of the king was venerable, as he lay begirt
with those who gazed as on a tragedy. Even more
rapturously than Karageorg will his descendant be
praised by Serbian bards in song attuned to the horse
hair strings of the gusla, and upon his monument, by
decree of Parliament, is to stand the inscription:

PETER KARAGEORGEVICH,
THE GREAT LIBERATOR.

180 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Was he so, or does he tower so high merely as the
type and essence of the strongest of powers, of the
manhood, virtus of his people, a people that in the
World War suffered more than any other, and less
than any other complained?

The surviving conspirators of 1903 may rightfully
ask, at Peter's grave, whether their act was not a
beneficent one, and therefore in the truest sense of the
word "patriotic."

VIII

LENIN

THE farmer Ilja Uljanoff gave up agriculture, and
in Simbirsk, near Samara, ranking there among the
lower nobility, and as imperial state counselor, took
charge of the school system. His eldest son, Alex
ander, while a student and a member of the revolu
tionary party, Narodnaja Volja (The People's Will),
was accused in Petersburg of complicity in a plot
against Czar Alexander III, condemned to death and
executed. In Ilja's second son, Vladimir Iljevich
Uljanoff, born April 10, 1870, there grew with his
growth the longing to avenge his brother and the suf
fering of the beloved mother.

The gloomy, solitary, morose lad, whom his com
panions accounted haughty, was the best student in
the Simbirsk Gymnasium, and was graduated by its
Director, Feodor Kerenski (father of a younger boy
destined to be Russia's Prime Minister and military
dictator), with a most laudatory diploma and the
prophecy of a brilliant future in literature. As the
brother of a condemned rebel, he found the higher in
stitutions of the capital barred against him. He was
enrolled in the University of ELasan, as a student of
law, but he was dismissed a month later for "revolu
tionary intriguing." It was not until after four years
of quiet preparation that he was admitted to the State
Examination.

181

182 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

He then went to Petersburg, lived the "subter
ranean" life of a conspirator, attached himself to the
fighting group "Osvoboshdenje Truda" (Deliverance
of the Fatherland), aided its founders, Plechanoff,
Deutsch and Vera Sassulich, in urging the workingmen
into a strike, published polemic writings under the
pseudonyms "Ylin" and "Tulin" which announced, as
the goal of the conflict, the conquest of full political
control, and was banished to Siberia.

There he widened and deepened his knowledge of
economics, bored his way into Marx's works, and by
his writings on capitalism and socialism aroused regret,
among the best minds in Russia, that the path to a
teaching chair was not open to him.

Late in the nineties he makes his escape from
Siberia. He lives in Zurich, Berne, Geneva, Paris,
publishes journals (in collaboration with Nadjeshda
Constantinovna Crupskaja, who thereafter remains his
associate), and almost every year slips away to Sweden
for a few days, to see his mother.

The short-lived uprisings of 1905 allure him home,
and he sits in the first Workmen's Soviet at Peters
burg. But Czarism is still successful; Uljanoff must
flee again, lives at first in Finland, then in Switzer
land, later (with Mr. Sinovieff) in Cracow. The
opening of the Great War finds him in Galicia, and
when he hears that the German Social Democrats have
voted for the war-credits he utters the declaration,-^
modeled after Bonaparte's pronouncement against the
House of Braganza: "The Second Internationale has
ceased to exist." He is arrested by Austrians on sus
picion as a spy, but is soon after set across the border

LENIN 183

into Switzerland. There from every mountain wall
the cry resounds in Ms ears: "Make thyself what
thou art!" He becomes the herald of civil war,
whereby, he is convinced, the Proletariat must, can>
and will put an end to the imperialistic war.

The short stocky man, with the towering skull
above his freckled faun-face, lives in Berne and Zurich
like the poorest of the proletariat. He carries his agi
tation into the workshops. He denounces the German
Social Democrats, the Russian Social Revolutionists,
even the English Labor party and Independents, as
contemptible bourgeois, wretched traitors to the pro
letariat. With unwearied exertions he strives for a
general uprising of the young laboring men. His brain
craves the military downfall of Czarisnou

Clever folk whisper to the General Staff of Germany
that the most effective means to demoralize the mili
tary power of Russia and complete her overthrow is
for Uljanoff (who for the last ten years has been
called Lenin) and his comrades to return home. But
England, warned by her ambassador Buchanan, for
bids their passage through the lines.

In a March night of 1917 he is received at the Fin
land station in Petrograd by an exultant crowd,
marches through a forest of red flags, through the
serried lines of his Bolshevist guards, to the suite once
reserved for the Czar's family. The wavering, stam
mering Cheidse meets him, in the name of the Execu
tive -Committee, with the admonition (so surprising at
such a moment) to avoid all strife within the party,
and to fight in close harmony with the winners of
Republican freedom for the ideals of democracy.

184 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Will he answer him? No! Over the head of the
bewildered chairman he speaks to the throng: "Sol
diers, sailors, workingmen ; comrades! In you I see
and hail the vanguard of the proletarian world-army.
Throughout Europe, after the imperialistic war follows
the civil war. In Germany everything is in upheaval.
The collapse of the whole national system for ex
ploiting the masses is at hand. We are beholding
already the dawn of the world-revolution."

No strife of parties? Be content with what is
already attained or attainable? Nonsense! A music-
box tune for good children! The Marseillaise, the
battle-hymn of the rebel host, roars up. From the
front steps of the station, and again from the top of
the automobile, the newcomer must stand in the glare
of the searchlight and address the people. From that
boisterous mob he is taken in an armored car to the
quarter of the city on the "Petrograd side/ 3 where
Bolshevism has its headquarters in the bijou castle
of the dancer Kshjesinskaia, formerly under the pro
tection of the Czar and two Grand Dukes. At every
corner the car must halt, the returned exile must
speak, the searchlight must dance about his head, bath
ing him in splendor.

He is at once reflected into the Soviet, speaks in
the great hall of the Taurian palace, seizes the editor
ship of the Pravda, to which he had already sent many
articles from the outland, and hangs at the corners of
his mouth the two pass-words: "Peace at any price!"
and "All power to the Soviets!"

The Soviets are in fact growing in the dark, until
they overshadow the provisional government, while

LENIN 185

they demoralize and cripple the armies on the various
fronts. The Octobrist, Gutcbkoff, and Miljukoff, the
leader of the cadets, retire. The lawyer and orator
Kerenski proposes to restore the morale of the troops.
His alliance with Gen. Korniloff assures a brief con
tinuance in power.

On the 7th of November Kerenski falls overnight.
Uljanoff-Lenin is master of all the chief cities, pres
ently also of the provinces. The man who twenty
years before laughed to scorn the admonition of
Struve: "Go to school to capitalism first, and learn
from it the art of statesmanship," is now master of
all. Four years later he will himself speak almost like
a second Peter Struve. Today he is not for an instant
troubled with the thought that the Communist ruler
has yet to learn that art from the vanquished capi
talist.

He who knows nothing of Lenin's writings, teach
ings and feuds must, in order to see at least their
general outline aright, read the speech which the
creator and reformer of the Bolshevistic faith deliv
ered in the spring of 1922 at the eleventh congress of
the Communist party of Russia: the chief statements
of which I here repeat in translation:

"We Russians must carry on trade, and so must the
rest of mankind. We wish to profit from it, and so do
they. This very last year has shown, that the capi
talistic powers are forced by their self-interest to trade
with us. Our chief difficulty is not at that pointy but
in the new economic policy.

186 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

"First we must revive the spirits of the peasants,
the overwhelming majority of whom work little farms
in severalty. If we are unable to show that Com
munism can give prompt aid to the poverty-stricken
small farmer, now tortured by hunger, then he will
hunt us to all the devils. The credit he has granted
us is not an inexhaustible one. We must work nimbly,
for at the end of that term the decision will be made
as to the permanence of communistic power in Russia.
Thus far we have issued programs and scattered prom
ises abroad. That was necessary. Since we counted
on a revolution, it was thus that we must begin. Now
something else is necessary.

"The simple peasant or laborer, who does not know
what Communism is, does know that the capitalist
was able to take care of him: that he did it badly, to
be sure, exploited, robbed, degraded and insulted his
protege, but after all, did provide for him. Can you
do as much?

"The peasant's retort is: 'You are excellent people:
but the economic task which you have undertaken
you cannot perform. If that is the final answer, then
it is a fatal one. The capitalist seeks profit, and is
a robber. You seek it. You seek it in another
fashion. You paint the most glorious ideal pictures;
you yourselves are saints: and ought, in your mortal
bodies, to attain to Paradise: only the capitalist's
task, down to the present day, you have not been able
to perform.'

"He who so speaks is in the right. We cannol
carry on the business. If all those responsible for the
communistic undertaking had perceived that we are

LEXIX 187

incompetent, that we must learn the art from its very
elements, then our game would by this time be already
won. But they do not realize this truth; on the con
trary, they believe that this notion is held only by the
'unintelligent folk' who as yet have no understanding
of Communism. Xo! The time for programs, which
we demand that the peasant shall himself carry out, is
past indeed. Xow we must show the peasant and the
laborer that we can give Mm practical help in his
urgent need; and that we can hold our own in the
competition with Capitalism. The merchant, or his
salesman, goes to the peasant, and instead of chatter
ing to him about Communism, undertakes to construct
or furnish him something. He will make it costly, and
the communist can, perhaps, do it cheaper: but then
again, it is not certain whether he may not make it
tenfold dearer.

"That in the national trusts and the mixed com
missions only the best Communists, those most fully
conscious of their responsibility, have seats, is no con
solation, for they have less understanding of indus
trial work than the average capitalist's clerk, who had
his training under a respectable firm. Our Com
munists' pride hinders the acquirement of that knowl
edge. Men who have endured compulsory labor in
Siberia, never feared death, and have brought about
the greatest revolution in the world's history, in which
(not indeed from the summits of the pyramids, but
from the walls of hope and liberation from the capi
talistic yoke) forty nations look down, these same
men are unwilling to realize that they are no business
men, cannot produce goods nor carry on trade: and

188 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

from any ordinary clerk ? who has run about a store
ten years and knows his business, we could not but
learn something.

"He who finds himself in a blind alley must turn
back: he who has done a thing wrongly must begin
it over again. Never pride yourself that you are a
Communist, while the other man is of no party, or a
White-Guardist, if he can do the work that must
be done, and you cannot. Tho' you had hundreds
of offices and titles, you, the tried and true Communist
and knight of the Soviet star, must learn from every
veteran clerk. This business has to be learned, and
not until then shall we endure the test and win out in
the race.

"We have no other resource: this time it really is
the decisive 'fight to the finish.' Not indeed against
international capitalism (with that we shall yet have
many a 'finish fight 3 ) but against capitalism here in
Russia, which rests on the basis of the small farmers'
industry. We control all the resources of power, but
we lack capacity. Our state has left the track of
capitalistic industry and has not yet reached any
other. The leadership of the working class, which is
called to the great task of reorganization, of recon
struction, has not yet the ability required therefor.

"Pray do not fancy that there is any lack of politi
cal power: we already have, doubtless, a bit more than
is absolutely necessary: and yet the control of the in
dustrial machine is slipping out of our hands. And
why? Because those who aspire to its control have
not acquired all the needful flesh and blood.

"For one whole year we had to fall back. That

LENIN 189

was hard, doubly hard, after years of constant progress
and immense victories, in which, however, we had
gained so much ground that we must needs go back,
and might in truth have retired yet farther without
losing our base, the most important of all. Every
retreat causes a depression of spirit. We have poets
who have declared that formerly, in Moscow, despite
hunger and cold, all was lovely, all was pure, but that
now we see again the hateful shapes of the trades
men and speculators. On the retreat, panic always
threatens, and we cannot, as do the commanders in
the field, post machine-guns behind the van, and open
fire if the orderly retirement seems about to become
frantic flight. Yet we too, at such an instant, must
punish harshly, yes, with merciless cruelty, any such
breach of discipline.

"When the retreat is over comes the necessity for
rearrangement. Trade we have not yet learnt. In a
whole year, with all our boasted energy, we have set up
seventeen commissions, organizations with a few mil
lions of Russian and foreign capital. These have been
authorized by every court of appeal and our com
plicated appeal-system is so mad a one that I under
stand the gaping at this point of my speech! That
so little is done, reveals how heavy, how clumsy, how
deep siink in Oblomoffism we still are. We shall still
come in for many a thrashing; in our trading-com
panies the capitalist will give us many a hit behind
the ear according to all the rules of the art. That
doesn't matter so very much. The capitalist would
not have come to us at all if we had not offered him
the easiest conditions for his trade. He still jeers at

190 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

us, laughs at our communistic chatterers, but the be
ginning is made, we have firm ground under our feet,
and can now stop the retreat.

"Renounce the ambition to be ingenious people, and
to discuss in marvelous language the new industrial
policy. Leave poetizing to the poets. Lay off your
theatrical costume, the gorgeous festal garb of the
Communist; learn to look at realities soberly and mold
them practically; prove that you do not manage things
worse than the capitalist: then you who hold political
control will smite him, and will secure, quicker and
more permanently than the private dealer, business re
lations with the farm-industry.

"There is much that is written here because it is
customary so to write in a communistic state, and to
write otherwise is forbidden. More useful than these
communistic lies (of which I, from my official posi
tion, have to read so many that I am often sick to
death of them), far more useful, is the harsh truth
about our class, which our class foes utter. To that
we must give heed. Our ruling communist stratum is
as yet destitute of all culture. Look at the horde of
bureaucrats in Moscow. Who guides whom? Do the
4,700 responsible communists guide the mass of
bureaucrats? To be frank, my belief is that you are
guided by them. Just as elsewhere a conquered people
is subjected to the higher culture of the victor, so here
the 4,700 (almost a division, and all the best of com
rades) have been subjected to the higher culture of
the vanquished, A poor wretched thing it was, to be
sure, but yet a higher culture than that of communistic
working men, who had never learned to conduct af-

LENIN 191

fairs, and so were easily hoaxed, easily misled. Often
the cleverest poseurs are put in front, because one must
have a proper sign and show windows. Such confes
sions are not agreeable, but they are not to be evaded.
Only when those in responsible places realize that they
are incompetent executives will they make the due
effort to learn.

"It is quite true, what someone has written: It does
not suffice to have conquered the bourgeoisie, to have
thrown them prostrate; we must also compel them to
work for us.' But ninety in a hundred of our re
sponsible men still fancy that with the conquering,
overthrowing and rendering them harmless everything
is accomplished. The Communists are but a drop In
the sea of our people. The delusion that they alone
could complete the Socialistic organization is childish.
If we do not open up the highways of our Russian in
dustrialism in every detail, so correctly that in return
for his grain we can give the fanner the wares he
needs, he will say: 'You are a fine fellow, you have
defended our fatherland, and so I have rendered you
obedience. But take yourself out of the way, if you
can't manage!' Be assured, that is just what the
farmer will say. Only if we learn from the bourgeoisie,
and force them to build up Russian industry along the
lines we point out, shall we attain our goal. Com
munists fancy they know everything, understand
everything, and have beaten the shopkeepers: but
the people who were beaten on our fronts were not
the shopkeepers, from whom much is to be learned and
must be learned.

"What the Soviet state has accomplished, no power

192 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

on earth, surely, will or can ever nullify. Through
long centuries the state of the civic type has been
built up. We are the first who have chosen another
form. This state may be a poor thing. The first
steam engine also was, it is said, a poor one, and we do
not know whether it ever worked at all. But the in
vention had been made: that was the essential thing.
Even if that first machine was useless, we owe to it
that we now have locomotives. So it is with our state:
bad or good, it is created; and the greatest invention
in all history is made. Europe may tell, a thousand
newspapers may tell, how wretched and disorderly
everything appears here; on the laboring class, the
world over, the Soviet state exerts an irresistible attrac
tion.

"But for us Communists what we have accomplished
is but the unbarring of a door that leads into the open.
Now we must lay the foundations of Socialistic in
dustry. That has not yet been done, and it is the worst
of all possible errors to believe that it is already ac
complished. We have made, for all mankind, a great
step forward: the news out of all lands confirms that.
But the Russian farmer will not be wholly with us and
for us until we have given him practical help.

"In order to be able to do that, we must know what
is today the heart of the problem. In 1917 it was to
put an end to the war; in 1920 it was defense against
the Entente, which sought to strangle us; in 1921 the
orderly retreat. We had gone forward so far that we
could not hold all our positions, and did not need to
hold them all.

"Now it is a question of choice of men. Not so

LENIN 193

much of laws and ordinances. For them we were
laughed at year after year, and asked if we were really
unaware that our laws and ordinances were never
carried out. The press of the Whiteguardists always
made fresh jests upon them. And yet those ordi
nances and decrees were necessary: they said to the
simple farmer or laborer: 'Thus it is our will that the
state be conducted. This is our decree: try it! 7 So
we came to the head of the revolutionary movement,
and won the confidence of the masses, the credit which
they still give us. But what at the beginning of the
Revolution was useful and necessary is so no longer.

"Now the peasant and the workingman laugh if we
come to them with decrees and bid them build up, or
organize anew, this or that institution. And they have
good right to laugh.

"It is now a question of proper distribution of men.
Communists, who in the Revolution did creditable
work, sit today in industrial and trade commissions,
of whose tasks they have no understanding; and be
hind their backs the rascals hide. In this fashion the
truth is made false and the thorough testing of what
has been constructed is prevented. The great political
overturn is accomplished. Today it is no longer a
question of general policy, but of the most prosaic
detail.

"Since we must, for a while at least, live In the capi
talistic world, the essential thing is to put the right
people in the right places, and assure proper over
sight, thorough testing of all work done. For that the
people will thank us: and the people will permit us to
rule only on condition that we recognize their wishes."

194 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

* The cruelly magnificent frankness of this speech re
vealed the condition of Russia. Among the poor in
spirit, to whom the kingdom of Heaven is promised,
Lenin does not wish to be counted. That millions of
Russians are starving, prolonging their lives for a few
days by cannibalism, he does not mention; but he men
tions, because it is universally known, the fact that
famine is raging everywhere, not merely in the Volga
region, even worse on the farms than in the city.

He speaks like a Czar, the "little father, Batjushka,"
who disciplines his Russian children with kindly sever
ity; like Peter Alexeivich, when he ordered the Mus
covites to cut off their wild beards, lay aside the caftan,
and dress in the German fashion. Is the will to obey
more effective now than in 1700?

Amid these passivists, empty-heads, garrulous
minds, and folk schooled in the lore of Byzantium, the
Talmud or Marx, Lenin seemed, even to his last gasp,
the one creative force. How much he overtopped even
the mightiest in the swarm is shown by a comparison
of this speech, at the Congress, with TrotskFs book,
The New Haltingplace, which sees the capitalistic
regime decayed, the curve of its development de
scending, and "establishes" that the ground is shaking
under the bourgeoisie.

Lenin never became a bookman, a fanatic with his
vision narrowed by blinders to a single direction, nor
a journalist, caring more for "success" than for effec
tive results. He alone, with all his learning, retained
the instinct, the clear understanding for human nature,
and the humor, of the peasant. In him were mingled
qualities of the Ukrainian Gogol and of the peasant as

LENIN 195

drawn to the life by Tolstoy in his middle age. Those
unfamiliar with the Russian nature, listening casually,
did not hear the undertones of this humor.

And what did he say, in the fifth year of Bolshe
vistic rule? Courts, executive, industry: all beneath
criticism. Any ordinary merchant's clerk can do it
better. Detestable, laughable confusion in the judi
ciary. The Communist's haughtiness prevents his real
ization that a man at the front and in the Revolution
might fight heroically, risking his life on a hair, and
yet, in supervision of industry, be a harmful bungler.
The same obtuseness blocks the way to the perception
that the Communists are but a drop in the sea of the
popular masses, and that the mighty current of the
peasants' will can sweep the Bolsheviki, in whom it
has thus far put faith, into the crater of hell, and will
do so, if they do not by tomorrow prove that, in the
full possession of political power, they can do at least
as much to provide for the farmers' needs as did here
tofore the private trader standing alone. Did any
head of a state ever mount to so steep a height of
majestically bold acknowledgment? Did one ever
have the courage for such a confession?

In the same spring with this "Speech from the
tlirone" (as it may well be called), there followed the
news of Lenin's incurable disease, which compelled his
withdrawal from the life of his creation.

In a sultry sunless hour, when, just as the canker-
worm creeps to his silent murderous work upon the
rose leaves, ennui blasted all life and effort, Bonaparte,
as Napoleon, Emperor of the French, said: "At the

196 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

announcement of my death, the world will draw a deep
breath, and that 'Ouf! 5 will be the only utterance it
will make on the incident/ He did not dream, even
under that chill blast out of the abyss of doubt, that
he would die a prisoner, long since stript of power, and
that his decease would not be needed to relieve the
world from the nightmare incubus of his imperial
genius.

Where he, amid eleven thousand burning homes,
from the culminating point of a life that to him seemed
merely one steeple and not the highest climbed,
gazed at the white walls, the golden-green, cinnabar-
red and blue domes of the Moscow churches, or, idly
weary, while round about him in the silent darkness
the defensive works of Kutusoff and Rostopchin went
on to completion, strode through the ancient spacious
halls, wrote the charter of the Comedie Frangaise,
read romances in bed, but let two wax-lights burn at
his office-window all night, so that the soldiers of the
patrol should believe him to be at his sleepless com
mander's task, there in the Kremlin, ceased to
breathe Vladimir Iljevich Uljanoff, who signed his
writings and his decrees "N. Lenin." He too was one
who, as it was whispered of Napoleon, forced his way,
without the Gosudar's permission, into the Kremlin,
and even by that act had turned the Russian world
topsy-turvy. In dusty boots, workman's jacket, soft
shirt-collar, the little man stepped through the Gate of
the Redeemer, bared not his head before the miracle-
working figure, and made himself at home, with his
official staff, that swelled from moon to moon, in the
Pilgrimage-place, the capital of Russian humanity,

LENIN 197

just as if he were In a business building never per
vaded by a holy memory. No reverence for the graves
of the Czars, who through three centuries, since Ivan
Kalita, have here found rest. No qualm of conscience
on the tower of Ivan Veliki, under which the nigh
two centuries old Czar-bell (Zar-Kolokol) swings.

There had come to be, on the Moskwa as on the
Tiber, a Septimontium. One of those seven hills was
built upon by a Golgorouki, Ruric's descendant, in the
night after the thousandth year of Christendom; and
to it Ivan Danilovich, Prince of Vladimir, transferred
his capital in 1327.

Mongols, Lithuanians, Khans of the Crimea and
Poles laid the city waste, overran the palisades and the
stone walls of the Kremlin. Peter turned his back
upon it and led the whole retinue of his court to the
Neva: yet Moscow outlived Asia's rage and the dis
dain of Europe.

And what Peter Alexeivich took away, Vladimir
Iljevich restored to the seven-hilled city of his East:
the rank of the empire's capital. Petersburg was the
child of a whim, created out of a morass, was intended
to be "a window toward Europe": and it remained
always closed, walled up and boarded up, whenever
Russia, in consciousness of her destiny, turned again
eastward.

The only strong rulers that it had in its dawning
hour, the first Peter and the second Katharina (who
rose even above him), he a man alienated from
Russia and she an Anhalt princess from Stettin,
delighted to breathe mists of the Neva, and in their
loveliest southern abode always longed for the neigh-

198 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

borhood of Europe. But everything that was essen
tially Russian had a mighty drawing back toward
Moscow, to the ancient mother's venerable house.

There Bolshevism first felt itself truly at home.
In Petrograd, to which even the Russianized name
seemed only to have been elaborately fitted, not to
have grown with the city, and in the Smolny Institute,
Bolshevism was an interloper, an alien: it seemed to
be capable there of living but for a brief span. In
Moscow it revealed its true nature as Asiatic Social
ism, worked out its theory and practice, as Marxism
a la Tartar, yet hardly an alien any longer. Moscow
became its source of power: is that city now to prove
its grave?

If Lenin dies, the indispensable one, worshipfully
beloved by the peasant, by the city workingman, even
by the bourgeois bereft of his rights through four long
years, as comrade, brother, Father Iljich, then does
all that he, he alone, created and upheld, go down to
the dust with him?

In the year 1903, at the London Congress, the Rus
sian Social Democracy had split. The men of the
"Jewish Union" had decided to form a separate organi
zation. The majority, the "Hards," followed Lenin:
the minority, the "Softs," Martoff. The names of the
factions, Bolsheviki (for the majority) and Mensche-
viki (for the minority) were soon no longer fitting in
their original sense, and since then have indicated those
who demand most, and least: Maximalists and Mini
malists. The Menscheviki wished to work through
the national Duma, cooperating with the constitutional
National Democratic faction (the Cadets); the Bol-

LENIN 199

sheviki looked for nothing from a Parliament, every
thing from revolutionary activity; and they stub
bornly rejected even so much as a tactical common
action with any faction to the right of the "Trudo-
viki." While the Menscheviki, after the fiascos of
1905, claimed the glory of a pure Proletariat party,
drove the Intellectuals out of their ranks, and wished
to do away with ("liquidate") leadership altogether,
so that simply the mass itself should rule, on the other
hand the left wing of the Bolsheviki, with their demand
for absolute destruction of private ownership and of
all government, was approaching the Anarcho-Social-
ists, whose most respected leader in the east was Prince
Kropotkin. "Maximalists" and "Minimalists" were
at that time the usual names for the two wings of the
Socialist party, whose proselyting capacity was sink
ing, ever since the time (1909) when one of their most
active members, Azoff, who had planned the murder
of Grand Duke Sergius and of the powerful Minister
of Police, Plehve, was unmasked, by Stolypin ? s own
testimony, as having been for sixteen years the salaried
stool-pigeon of the secret police. The Menscheviki
lost (because they leaned too far to compromise with
the Bourgeois democrats) one leading spirit, Plecha-
noff, the ablest theorist of Russian Marxism. (De
spite his close association with his German brethren in
the faith, he was in favor of dragging down the Ger
man empire in 1914).

The Bolsheviki in turn divided into Otzovists (op
ponents of Parliament) and Leninists. In the posses
sion of one of the representatives arrested in 1914?
there was found a draught for a party resolution, which

200 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

took up Lenin's idea, that "the overthrow of Czarism
and its army was to be regarded as the lesser of the
two evils that might be expected as the result of the
war.' 7 Against this idea not only the Socialist leader
Cheidse had made opposition in the Duma; Nasche
Slovo (Our Word} also, the Paris organ of the So
cial Democrats, had declared that the Russian work-
ingmen, however far removed from the old-fashioned
Chauvinism, would never agree to such a thought.
The old warning, "Never say 'never/ " soon proved
itself wise once more. In the first year of the war,
it is true, Petrograd workingmen, of the reddest dye,
were still so desirous to help on the victory of the
army that they by unheard-of exertions had ready for
delivery, on the thirteenth day, equipment ordered by
the military authorities which the manager of the fac
tory believed could at best be delivered in four weeks.
In the third year of the war proletariat and bourgeois
Democrats dragged Nicholas from the throne: in the
fourth the victory of the Leninists became possible.

So early as in May, 1917, in the Taurian Palace, in
a public session open to members of all the four na
tional assemblies, Lenin's screed opposing the war was
sharply criticized. The National Liberal Chulgin, who
in the railway carriage had induced the Czar to abdi
cate, reproached Lenin (who had returned from exile,
across Germany, in a car which was barred and bolted
before leaving Geneva) with publishing the doctrine
that, because Russia had no army, no bread, and
furthermore had only selfishly imperialistic allies, she
therefore must have peace, at any price.

"Lenin! That is a signature," he added, "behind

LENIN 201

which any bewildered opinion-utterer can hide. And
these fanatics play an easy game, among a people
whose knowledge of politics is so slight as ours."

The Social Democrat Zeretelli replied: "I do not
approve Lenin's agitation. But he fights for ideas
and principles, and only slanderers can accuse him of
having harmed the cause of the revolution. I hope
that his distrust of the bourgeois Democrats is ground
less. But the opinion is well founded that an attempt
to eradicate militarism in another country by force
of arms is the best way to breed militarism and im
perialism in one's own country."

The Menschevik Trotski himself, soon to become
Lenin's chief assistant, did not as yet believe that the
defeat of the national army was essential to the success
of the revolution. In October, 1914, he wrote, that
everybody, from the Parliamentarian Haase (who was
still leader of the majority of the faction) to the Ger
man generals at work out there in Poland, were united
under the banner with the inscription, "Down with
Czarism," but that it was only a camouflage. He
added:

"We, who have passed through the school of his
torical materialism, ought to be ashamed if we can
not, despite all these phrases, lies, boasts, vulgari
ties, stupidities, and commonplaces, clearly recognize
the real interests, the inner connections. To the Ger
many of the Hohenzollern Czarism is indispensable,
because it weakens Russia industrially, culturally, and
in military strength, and because, without it, German
absolutism would stand out in Europe as the last bul
wark of feudal barbarism.

202 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

"The revolution is not in the least dependent on a
foreign war. It needs time to mature, but does not
need the lances of the Samurai east of the Elbe,* who,
against our will, gave the Czar a welcome opportunity
to play a pleasing role as the defender of Serbs, Bel
gians and Frenchmen. Destructive defeats of Russia
may hasten the revolution, but must weaken it vitally.
And in Germany the tide which turned to ebb when
the Proletariat party surrendered to military national
ism, would be hastened the more, the working class
would feed on the crusts from the table of victorious
Imperialism, even in the realm of ideas, and the
social revolution would be smitten to the heart.f That
under such circumstances the momentarily successful
Russian revolution would be a false birth, I do not need
to argue. The 'liberating' help which German Im
perialism, with the pious approval of the German
Social Democracy, is bringing us in Krupp's ammuni
tion boxes, we reject with horror. We are not willing
to buy Russia's freedom with the destruction of Bel
gian and French freedom, with the imperialistic poison
ing of the German proletariat."

Even in Lenin's Geneva newspaper, it was said: "In
Russia a rumor is current that Wilhelm bases his hopes
on the outbreak of a Russian revolution. Under the
pretext that it is a conflict with the Czar, the German
Social Democrats have stooped to an alliance with
their Kaiser, and so betrayed the workers' Inter-

* I.e., The Prussian junkers, likened by metaphor to the fighting
gentry of Japan.

fTrotsla could not foresee that America would more than fill
the Czar's place, and that Germany's own downfall would leave
her no time to exult over Russia's.

LENIN 203

nationale. We Russian revolutionists have neither
sought nor desired such aid; and the treachery of our
German associates, whom since that day we despise,
prevented us from making, in the first days of mobiliz
ing, a strong protest against the war."

So spoke party strategy. But at an early date Lenin
himself wrote that it might, to be sure, be as yet un
certain whether, for the Internationale, the victory of
the one or the other group of Powers would be the
lesser evil. "But we Russians," he said, "are for
Russia's downfall, because it would make easier her
spiritual liberation, her deliverance from the chains of
Czarism."

And in the chief action against eleven Social Demo
crats accused of high treason, the young advocate
Kerenski, leader of the Trudoviki ("Party of hard
working men/' the Peasant Democracy), emphasized
loudly and repeatedly that the accused were not of
Lenin's following, and were "utterly averse to the plan
for plunging into the fatherland's back the dagger pre
pared for her destruction." From Kerenskfs lips,
again, came the word later so balefully winged, uttered
on February 15 before the Imperial court at Peters
burg, "Dagger-thrust into the back of the army ia
the field."

Thirty-two months later the army was shattered into
dust, Lenin had taken the young advocate by surprise,
the Constitutional party had been dispersed by the
Red Guards, the minority rule of the Bolsheviki, the
oligarchy of the little Communist group made secure.
It had fought the decisive battle in alliance with the
left wing of the Social Revolutionaries, created with its

204 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

aid the constitution of the Soviet republic; then had
shaken off the allies and outlawed them in the criminal
trial at Moscow, and, finally, had slily bunched them
up together with poor rascals and set them in the pil
lory as a new gang of Azeffs * of worthless villains.

High enthroned sits Bakunin's "Czar of the Revo
lution/' Hertz's "New Attila." And is he who sits, on
the throne truly, as Frau Luxemburg, in her early
feud with Lenin, cried out, "the single-ego of a vain
man frantic for power, sitting where only the mass-
ego has a right to sit to shape the destiny of the work
ing-class now called to rule"? Could that mass-ego
come to expression, or even to self-consciousness, in a
land which never had a proletariat, in the European
sense of the word., at all, which now, with decaying
industries, is farthest from having any, and whose
peasant folk insist on being driven, even to their
happiness, by the hard fist of a master?

Forty years ago Zola wrote that the Czar who should
gather about him a peasantry freed from unendurable
pressure of taxation and the yoke of usury would in
crease his despotic power, but that every revolutionary
outbreak, in the cities, of craving for change would
issue in a terrible uprising of the peasants, massacre
of the bourgeoisie and destruction of the cities that
only the laughter of all competent judges would greet
any attempt to transform Russia into a republic.

The world was angrily amazed when an undoubted
liberal so expressed himself. And Trotski would dis
like to be reminded today of his prophecy: "A revolu-

* For Azeff, stool pigcom of the police, see p. iQp.

LENIN 205

tion that came on the heels of Russian defeat could
only be a miscarriage."

But what did happen? The great Day of Wrath,
which John depicts in the Apocalypse, rose out of the
gray mist and now waits threateningly, in scarlet
veiled. A new Russia was promised: all free, all alike
in rights, property, power, dignity: the tiger reposing
peacefully beside the roe. From beneath coffin lid and
sod uprises the murdered man to embrace his murderer.

Is the assurance fulfilled? Terrifically fierce grew
the struggle. No help from without, no creative power
within that outlasted the enthusiasm of the coronation
day. Russia of the Soviets long resembled a house
whose janitor, since he, with his wife and children, was
freezing, hewed out first a few beams, then the whole
wooden framework of the upper stories, and thrust
them in his stove; so that with skull agape and wide
open wounds on head and throat it has endured the
tempests of the dog days and autumnal rains, and now
from afar sees Nekrassoffs "red-nosed Winter" draw
nigh in his terrible white array.

All unfree, on the convict's short chain. All, save
those in high office or at degrading servile tasks, with
out rights, poor to beggary, driven by the pangs of
frantic hunger even to cannibalism, ay ? degraded to
the point of feasting on the flesh of children once
tenderly loved. The German carpenter, whose daily
wage of thirty paper marks does not suffice for a clean
comfortable sleeping place and clothes to keep him
warm, is a Crcesus or a Morgan beside the Russian
owner of a big farm without a cow, seed-corn, farm

206 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

implements or household furniture. To such a state
have things come: and Lenin is ill unto death.

A man whose place cannot be filled. Orthodox
Marxists, who swear by the omnipotence of industrial
development, but as actual moulders of destiny recog
nize only the class war, who uphold the cult of per
sonality as a power that determines its environment,
even they (is it not like the grim jest flashing in the
heavy air of growing tragedy?) terrified at the ending
of this life, banded together, when it seemed to be
flickering out, to prevent the tragic message that it
was over from reaching the people until they had elabo
rately prepared the feelings of the masses to receive
it. Even those puffed up by the elephantiasis of stu
pidity feared that the messenger of sorrow suddenly
rushing barefoot, with lurid pine torch through the
land, springing upon rafts, flashing the light into mines,
might, like heaven's fury falling on dead waters, raise
up from dull souls a raging flood, to sweep away all
their short-lived splendor.

Only a Lenin could venture to give nine-tenths of
all property (which was to be, after all, in the ap
proaching Golden Age, a common possession) to the
peasants, thus ramming home deeper than ever the
idea of private ownership, and then, in the stress of
need, to sacrifice all the external structure and decora
tions of Communism, to seek relations and a treaty
with the thousand-fold accursed capitalistic powers, to
take from churches and monasteries the gold and all
ornament that could be minted, from the oldest sacred
images to strip off their decorations of precious stones,
to-' cast the priests who offered resistance., even the

LENIN 207

Patriarch himself, into prison, and kale them before
the judgment seat of godless judges. No one but he
could have perpetuated in undiminished force the af
flictions which resulted from the war: famine,, pesti
lence, the relapse into bestial ferocity. He, alone,
might have brought about the transformation of dicta
torial and cruel clique rule into democracy, into a
union of agricultural states, capable of carrying on
world-trade, a union to which America and Europe
would not long refuse financial credit. "Iljitch com
mands only what is necessary and beneficial: and if
he will have it so, it goes not otherwise."

Shriller than ever, and with more venomous breath
did the strife for the high places snarl and spit dur
ing that spring, through the depths of the Socialist
party. On one side it is declared that the peasantry,
which has already corrupted the Red Guards almost
to the very walls of Moscow, is now disintegrating
the tissues of the party organization, into which it
has forced itself from the national army. On the other
side there is gnashing of teeth to intimate that if the
unruly Sinovieff isn't quickly pulled in, with curb and
bit, to a peaceable canter, then Petrograd will be tak
ing itself out of the empire as an independent republic

The next year brings fresh strife. Is democracy
(that is the watch-word), is the formation of factions
and groups, within the structure of the Communist
party itself permitted? Trotski, the organizer of
victory over the Czarist forces, steps out of obscurity
to champion the demand of the opposition against the
old high priests, and goes, because no victory beckons
to him from this field, into retirement before the day

208 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

of the decision. Karl Radek, who rides comfortably
and cleverly in all saddles, loses his seat in the Central
Committee, with the control over the press and propa
ganda. Hot heads, a hailstorm of fiercely accusing
epithets, right and left, eyes agleam with hatred. Yet
the fiercest feud, tumult to the brink of madness, is
controlled by one magic word: Lenin!

None uttered a word against him. The stubborn-
est opponents, who regarded his new industrialism as
a "weak policy of compromise," clothed their criti
cism in the garb of pious reverence. To what depths
had Russia sunk! Russia, that once extended from the
White to the Yellow Sea, from Reval, Riga, Helsing-
fors, undivided, to Baku, Tiflis, Odessa, that held Po
land fast in the eagle's talons, fed a world with her
bread, overawed it with her army, whose chief cities,
with freshly growing industries, were aglow with pros
perity, whose science stood respected beside that of
sister nations, and whose art was rising like a new
sun upon the outworn Occident! Now torn in frag
ments, shrunken on both continents, in the East, a
republic alienated from Bolshevism; in the South,
Ukraine only loosely attached to Moscow; Georgia
held only by armed force, Russia herself forced by
dire need into an alliance with the Turks, who thus
fell heir to the empire of the pseudo-Romanoffs from
Holstein-Gottorp stock, which Germany had beaten;
without force enough, even, to chasten Poland, her
cities falling to ruin, the best farm lands far and wide
lying untilled, with millions of starving men instead
of the superabundant grain crops, the Intelligentsia
struck down, fled into exile, in rags, the lights of

LENIN 209

science that yet glimmer bereft of oil to feed them,
without the tools to make even daily labor possible, the
currency of the state a jest for children, only a dim
after-glow from the Spring sun of Russian art.

And he who was responsible for this terrific trans
formation, from the height to the depths, beloved of
all! Peasants and city-folk, laborers and soldiers, saw
in him the incarnation of the fatherland the ever-
wakeful guardian, never unmanned by drunkenness.
He was not merely the banner, the symbol: no, he was
the Cause itself.

"Iljitsch will not allow the land to go back from
the peasant's hand to the landlord of yesterday.
Iljitsch looks out for us, he just loves the bother with
the obscure little fellow; very soon he'll make better
times for him. No Batjushka (little father, i.e., Czar)
was ever so unweariedly busy. He never pushes him
self into the spotlight, doesn't woo for applause, slips
out of the meeting where he had to make a speech, is
satisfied if he can sit quietly at his work sixteen,
eighteen hours between sunrise and sunrise, under
stands and speaks the simple picturesque language of
the common man, always goes plainly dressed, with
no frock coat and stiff collar, in his dark jacket, a cap
on his bald head, and yet, he's lord of the Kremlin.

"An old stock Russian, with all the marks of the
Tartar. The Kalmuck lips under the narrow Mon
golian eyes. Twig of the little nobility. Fjodor
Romanoff, to be sure, was of a nobler house, but a
Lithuanian, or Prussian: foreign-born, like the great
Ruric. The new lord of the Kremlin, too, if there
were a drop of Bonaparte's blood in him, could have

210 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

become Czar: all Russia, the whole globe would have
recognized him, and from Evan's tower, the emperor's
bell 'Zar-Kolokol/ would have rung the knell for the
third monomachistic Vladimir."

Let it toll for him, too, though uncrowned. He did
not die in the Kremlin. They had taken him out of
the Palace city to the manor house in the village of
Gorki (i.e., "Bitterness") , which had been equipped
as a sanatorium. There, on the 2ist of January,
1924, he died. Russia has mourned for this man as
for no other since Dostoevski. A pristine Russian.
(Trotski, who has in him something of the lyric poet,
has written wise words on "Nationality in Lenin.")
The undegenerate child of his people. The one man,
as Prokosch says of Bismarck, who was providentially

"To cast a nation old
Into another mould."

In him alone, so the myth into which he is already
growing will declare, was the proper type of Russian
humanity fully formed.

Was the certainty of victory always present in
Lenin's mind? Only one filled with that certainty
could have ventured on the gruesome frankness which
he displayed in his speech at the Eleventh Congress
of the Communist party. From the clear air of the
glaciers, from a Sinai clad in Polar ice, it seemed to
roar down. If it was his last far-echoing speech, he
could not have ended more worthily. Just ere the
night comes, the sky is once more radiant: and no
morning, no noonday dispensed such glorious splen
dor, . . .

LENIN 211

The fall of Bolshevism, had It occurred then, might
have brought worse peril for the world than its rise
had ever caused. Against any attempt, with the (in
dispensable) aid of those Socialists who had been till
then under a ban, to summon a national assembly,
to steer into democracy and parliamentarism, in the
traditional fashion of western Europe, the true be
lievers in Bolshevism would have made opposition with
all the force of their wills and with no anxious scruples
against even the most atrocious means.

Twenty millions made bestial by hunger, eighty mil
lions starving, and shuddering at winter's coming and
the rock of their trust rent asunder, the shelter it af
forded blown down the four winds: what then?

Military dictatorship, collapse of the empire, sepa
rate organisms, rule of princely adventures or of
"miracle workers" adored by blind folly, priestly
states, pogroms, bloodier than any of the past crusades
against the arch-foes of sanctified belief, church
robbers, czar-murderers and desecraters of imperial
graves, banding together of peasants to sack cities,
revolt of demoralized or ill-fed masses of the army,
or those allured by masked monarchists: Chaos!
Nothing imaginable would be lacking, which becomes
possible in a land of such experiences, of immeasurable
suffering, in the cold Orient of Kazamassovian human
ity, when the last tie of moral restraint is broken and
nowhere round about does any beacon-fire indicate a
safer way*

The watchers of the nations were on the watch? Ah,
no! Without a pause in the scramble for wealth,
without a brake applied to the constant craze for

212 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

amusement, Europe has let one nation on its eastern
edge perish of hunger, typhus, and verminous poison.

Does Europe learn to fear the wrath of the sur
vivors? Or does it hesitate over the little circum
stance of the burden of war losses to be borne? Woe
to the continent if it had stood by, unprepared, until
through the gate of the Redeemer had rung the
announcement of the decease of him who, as fear
lessly in the Kremlin as in the gipsies' bootH at
Zurich, had lived his faith, and therefore, in the life
task of a giant, never looked a dwarf!

Two years before Russia would not have digested
calmly so tremendous a loss. But the strong man
rendered the best of all services' to the cause that was
holy to him as was ever anywhere the divinity to the
most pious priest: his will compelled even Death to
be patient,

Lenin died slowly. For twenty months he had with
drawn from state affairs. From time to time, to be
sure, there was flashed the world over the report of
his near recovery. But that world had fallen out of
the habit of counting him among living forces, and no
incubus was lifted from its breast, not for the space
of an instant did it catch its breath, when his death
became an event.

He can never wholly die; never can his nation, not
even the class most remotely influenced by his teach
ings, accustom itself to being the passive creature of
an alien will. If the teeming multitude of European
humanity fails to uplift itself, to release itself from
the meshes (grown thin from eternal chafing and soapy

LENIN 213

with the sweat of agonized hands) of trade stagnation
and ever threatening loss, to rise to its higher, its high
est duty, to grow at last into consciousness of inevitable
unity, then it is weaving its own gray shroud, which
will plunge the continent into darkest night. Russia
can live without Europe: Europe cannot live without
Russia.

That land is no longer what it was in 1922. Lenin's
eyes saw the first signs of its reviving health. In
dustry was rising. England, Italy, lesser powers also,
accorded to the empire of the Soviets (in which the
Soviets no longer ruled) political recognition. That
was not due to Lenin. Any Russia, whether that of
the most worthless Czar or of the most ferocious
rebel ; would be girt about by the keen-scented hunts
men of business as a slaughter-house is by dogs. But
for fifty moons the immense Eurasian land seemed to
hang upon the lips of this one man, and if Peter's
swamp-city does not bear hereafter the name of Lenin,
then perhaps the whole Russian people, just as it has
down to the present day talked of Tartar-China and
Oblomoff-China, may speak of Lenin-China, and dream
of Lenin's time as of a world era.

"He never/ 7 murmur his enemies to the left, "was
a Communist, and his writings, strong only contro
versially, will not last as long as his embalmed body."
It is possible. There would still remain his practical
tactful genius, his extraordinary personality, which
could attack the problem, be the Paul of Socialism:
there would remain the solitary great man. "Engage
in the battle, then look!" (S y engager, et puts wtr.)
The titanically insolent motto of Bonaparte was also

214 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Lenin's. To seize the opportunity for swift attack and
after that consult the wind and weather, is to mould
vision into event.

Chernoff, an honorable foeman seeking for right
judgment, describes Lenin as the tight vessel of a short
sighted though keen-scented understanding, served in
icy coldness by utmost strength of will as a fighter
and boxer of inexhaustible endurance, skilled in tricks
and feinting, whose skin becomes hot in the fight, while
his inmost self coolly counts the chances, smiles at
kindliness as amusing weakness, whose "good nature"
is only the by-product of his consciousness of power,
like that of a St. Bernard playing with little poodles.

Cold may prevent decay, but it never creates life.
No conscience, no heart? and yet such continuously
creative effect? Only because Lenin existed could the
Mustapha Kemals, Stambuliskis, Mussolinis, Primo de
Riveras, the Ramsay MacDonalds, even the Horthys
and Eberts be. The earth did not breathe at his de
parture as it did before his rise. He who acts is, as
Goethe moralizes, always conscienceless. The Lenin
of the first epoch uttered horrors, wrote in blood his
cruelly harsh decrees, and through his inborn com
bination of brutal fury and simple comprehension of
humanity (all quite lacking in Wilson, his antitype)
made his idealism capable of effective action. But has
any monarch who waged war with a pious faith in
righteousness and duty sowed less suffering over the
earth?

From the son of the Tartars, whose favorite com
panions were children and animals, radiated kindly
feeling that warmed even the rudest hut on the re-

LENIN 215

motest steppe. It may be that the goal of his efforts
remains for those born yesterday unattainable: but
with all the force of his will he strove to lead his
people thither, and never trembled at the scorn and
hatred which raged shrill about his retreat: he caused
the shedding of much too much blood, but not a
hundredth part as much as that vainly poured out by
the gentlest of Czars.

Did it cause him suffering of soul? If so, his smile
did not betray it. And, gradually, all learned to love
him: even the Bourgeoisie, even the Intelligentsia that
were driven into exile by their terrors, and later of
fered him their loyal cooperation. And why? Be
cause everyone, the mass-ego, came to feel, vaguely or
clearly, that this man had not climbed the heights for
the sake of tapping the sources of power, to be looked
up to timidly as to a divinity, nor to sit at ease en
throned in pomp; but that the aim of all his effort was
to lift out of the clouds into the sunshine the folk of
Russia, whom he loved as a true man loves.

Never before on our earth have so many millions
mourned for one: was it for an ice-cold nature? It
was for the man, nor for the organizer of revolution,
the peerless party-leader, that Trotski, no weakling,
sang a dirge resonant of sobs. Here was a great man,
who, devoted with utmost enthusiasm to his task,
moulded his doctrine and his life, apparently without
effort, as if it could be no otherwise, into complete
unity: who with unerring instinct perceived any con
dition or event which made it necessary to reset the
boundary posts and shift the switches on the track.

216 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

The popular imagination will weave poetry about
Lenin's figure. Out of the Iliad of the Russian revo
lution Iljitsch will gleam forth as a modern Ilja of
Murom, in whom all the natural powers of his home
land, earthly and psychic, were embodied; and who,
like the creation of Homer's brain, not as one of
woman born, will shine throughout the ages.

IX

SARAH BERNHARDT

WHOEVER In lands of German speech stands and
walks on sturdy feet today, be it woman or man, has
seen only a fading Sarah Bernhardt and later an aged
woman on the stage, has heard only that she was a
clever virtuosa, greedy of applause, whose glory had
culminated decades ago, who was long since outshone
by the splendor of newer stars, and whose later manner
of acting impressed one as old-fashioned, vieux jeu in
the original sense of the phrase.

When I (at least a hundred years ago) was spend
ing a few days in Paris, and was invited by Gaston
Paris, the Romance philologist, to tea at the College
de France, the conversation naturally touched among
other subjects on "le Kaiser." He was to many
Frenchmen at that time still a Hope, and for almost
all continued to be the heroic Modern man who had
driven out Bismarck, the ogre in cuirass, had zealously
flattered the republic of the Melines and Waldeck-
Rousseaus, the Jules Simons and Meniers. From the
same school of wisdom had come Renan's sigh: "May
I be permitted to know, before my death, so that the
problem may not disturb my repose in the grave,
what is to be the inner development of Wilhelm the
Second. 57

So there arose a more rational discussion of the

217

218 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

question, why one who wooed so eagerly the people's
favor, who everywhere strove to warm the breath of
popular feeling toward himself, was at home gener
ally ridiculed, and, by the wisest especially, looked on
with mistrustful eye.

Then, with a smile, the clever essayist Vicomte de
Vogue, he who first taught us to appreciate the rich
nobility of the Russians' style, threw out the remark:
"Doubtless it is much the same with the Kaiser over
there as it is here our guest will not take the com
parison amiss with Sarah: he, too, has been too often
seen, heard of too often. . . ."

As to the artist (unhappily not in regard to Wil-
helm), the judgment is still the same. "Seen too often"
(Du d&ja TO). Old School. She had her day. And
was, after all, no such lofty spiritual genius as Rachel,
hardly more than the Croizettes, the Bartets, the
Rejanes.

A false judgment, for she was unique: ml generis.

But she did live too long, played much too long, and
we were, all of us, too close to her setting sun to find
with ease the right point of view from which to com
prehend her artistic personality.

In the Kalver Straat of Amsterdam it was a wreath
of immortelles which hung beneath her portrait by
Joseph Israel, and the cross after her name, that
brought me tidings of her death. The picture may be
a half century old, but it does not portray a young
woman. The Dutch Jew has brought out, so to speak,
in masterly fashion, from the narrow head, the nature
kindred to his own, Semitic and Netherlandish. Noth-

SARAH BERNHARDT 219

ing there of Rembrandt's Jewish bride or Susannah.
More naturally does the memory turn back from this
picture to the fascinating ugliness of Jans Vermeer's
maidens. The wonderfully soft, delicately gray atmos
phere, without which Holland's immortal traditional
art of painting would be unimaginable, breathes about
the head. A veil, thin as mist, that might have been
woven by princesses transformed by witchcraft into
spiders, seems to cover that head so that no breath
from the outer world may blow upon it. Was this
veil really a part of the woman's self? Rhodope,
HebbePs noblest mimosa pitdica, and the all too public
Sarah! The fabled court of Candaules, and the Paris
of Gambetta, Zola, Richepin, and of the yet younger
Black Cat!

But master your mirth! Signer D'Annunzio in his
romance II Fuoco sinned more grievously than Can
daules in his bedchamber, baring, not to one man's
eyes (and that, one whose Hellenic nobility of soul
quelled all sensuous impulse), nay, but to a hundred
thousand barbarians, the body of her who had once
been dearest to him. And then Sarah, in the shocked
pride of womanhood, wrote that she never would play
the creation of a poet whose morbid masculinity had
stooped to such uncleanness. This despite the fact
that she who was so unveiled was Sarah's most danger
ous rival, whose performance of La Dame aux
Camillas, or Fedora, was, by the young, unanimously
preferred to her own. Yet from Sarah the woman came
the horrified cry of outraged femininity. And Sarah
the actress (who actually never did play La Gioconda
nor Sebastian) would have been the icieal Rhodope^

220 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

not, indeed, with the Frisian chill of the North German
woman on which HebbePs heart was set, but the most
womanly and most royal of Rhodopes.*

But France, in the abundance of her own wealth,
and in the constant fear (perceptible to this day in her
politics) of losing her own identity, a fear which to
the short-sighted view of Bjornson and others has
seemed a symptom of China-like haughtiness has
always and strenuously set her face against invasion
by alien poetry, and, especially by foreign drama,
though her actual life has nevertheless received more
enrichment from it in form and color than she has
given in return.

It is indeed curious! The world-circling glance
would hardly light on another land that has yielded
so readily to the charm of an alien nature and so
eagerly given herself up to it. Clodowech (Clovis),
Mazarin, Marie Antoinette, Necker, Kleber, Rapp,
Bonaparte, were all strangers. Louis Napoleon was
half Netherlander, Eugenie a Spaniard. Victor Hugo
had Spanish, Zola and, it is said, Gambetta, had Italian
blood in their veins. The Dumas were descended from
mujattoes; Rachel Felix, Sarah Bernhardt, M. de Max
were importations from the Orient. But as for dramas,
only rarely has one born from a stranger's soul been
sluiced into the Seine. Is it because men, but not their

* The tale of Candaules is told by Herodotus to account for the
downfall of his dynasty of early Lydian kings. He forced his
chief counselor Gyges to hide in the royal bedchamber to see the
full beauty of his queen, Rhodope, unveiled. She silently detected
the action, summoned Gyges next morning, and bade him kill
himself or his master. Hebbel treats this subject in Gyges und
sein Ring. The chief characters in // Fuoco have been universally
identified as D'Annunzio himself and Duse.

SARAH BERNHARDT 221

works, could be annexed and Gallicized? Only Wag
ner, not Goethe, Mozart, Beethoven, Kleist, Hebbel,
Schiller, or Weber has found a permanent place on
the French stage. Shakespeare does not exist for it.
If he is no longer Voltaire's "drunken barbarian/' yet
he does remain an "outlander." Just as (Edlpus was
hunted up as a novelty for Mounet Sully and the
ancient arena at Orange, so is Hamlet unearthed for
the French tragic actor. Directors like Antoine,
Claretie, Gemier, have experimented with Lear, Mac
beth, The Shrew, Sheilock; * but it all failed to take
root and lasted hardly longer than Ibsen. And the
ghost seer, Ibsen's strongest rival in dramatic power,
of our own days, he who in atmosphere and phantasy,
in colors and tones, is the richest, perhaps indeed the
only one whose world is an immortal creation, Strind-
berg, is not yet descried from Gallic shores!

So in her youth Sarah never played Juliet, Ophelia,
Desdemona, in maturity never Cleopatra, the yellow
serpent of Old Nile. (She did unfortunately once
assume the role of Prince Hamlet.) Nor did she once
play Salome, written for her, in French, by Wilde.
As for Penthesilea, Judith, Rhodope, Marianne, Mary
Queen of Scots, she probably has hardly even thought
of them. Joan of Arc, the most lyrically eloquent of
all the students that Schiller put into petticoats to
portray the soul, the pulse, the sensibilities of woman
hood? No, nor that either. Yet the Sarah who, out of
Rostand's delicate literary embroidery, created La
Prmcesse Lointaine, and from his gospel blue-stocking,

*The traditional English spelling is, it seems, like Petruchio,
merely a phonetic device to indicate to the Shakespearean audience
the proper pronunciation.

222 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

pervaded with the fragrance of Pinaud's art, molded
the Samaritan Woman could have accomplished the
miracle for Schiller as well, for femininity was her very
own domain.

A tragedienne? In the necrologies she is listed so.
But she was not, in the meaning of the French tradi
tion, which denies almost invariably to the social
drama the name of tragedy, so does not count as such
creations like Marguerite Gautier, Mrs. Jackson and
Fedora. Nor was she one by the standards of the
mountain-peaks, on which Sophie Schroder (doubt
less, for moments, Rachel also) and Charlotte Wolter
stood, Wolter lightened, thundered, snarled and bit
at the air, shrieked her woe heavenward, raved forth
her passion and her fury. Her femininity was ag
gressive, and in suffering (e.g., Hermione's or Medea's)
it was still by preference on the offensive. Her fierce
glance of sunless gloom devoured the body of the be
loved one, singed the eyebrows of him she hated, and
her mouth, a half-blown bud, struck its teeth like a
beast of prey into the foeman's neck or into the flank
of a friend who was deserting her. Her Orsina, Adel-
heid, Messalina, Medea, Lady Macbeth, had their
abode beyond the realm of Sarah's powers.

Bernhardt might indeed have ventured upon the
strand of Tauris and Lesbos, though in her Iphigenia
the austere priestess, the Tantalid, the Atreid, would
have been absent. Nor would she have quivered with
the fevers that distorted Wolter's most feminine shape
into something quite beyond Grillparzer's imagining.
Not only as Phaon's and Malition's friend, the Sappho
to whom the actress (not the author) imparted some-

SARAH BERNHARDT 223

thing of the lyric poetess' "fine scintillating fire," did
Charlotte Wolter (who in real life is said to have been
tolerably even intolerably commonplace) appear of
lofty spiritual stature, a woman to be taken seriously.
Everywhere she seemed queenly, masculine, superior,
in the domain of the will, to all those on whom she
wreaked her feelings, all the various heroes and lovers,
whether it were Weisling, Franz, Marcus Pretus, Jason,
Antonius, Thoas, Phaon, Macbeth, even those that
were not weakened, unmanned, by the soft Ap~
ponyesque sentimentality of Sonnenthal. It did not
seem at all incredible that from the fury of this sex-
tyrant the Prince of Guatalla fled in exhaustion and
dread to Emilia's budding breast.* That character
of Emilia Galotti, which Lessing left, as he did every
thing else, in merely theatrical form, Sarah could have
rendered not merely human but all too feminine:
though an elder Charlotte, Frau Ackermann, had said,
most cleverly, that It was "a part one was properly
able to play only when one was too old for the role of
a young girl."

Both Wolter and Bernhardt played Phedre, Mar
guerite, Fedora, Theodora. But these ribs from the
souls of Racine, Dumas, Sardou, appeared not at all
the same in Vienna as in Paris. Marguerite is not suit
able for a comparison. This lady of the camelias was
doubtless selected by Frau Wolter only for purposes of
"profitable foreign trade." In the gambling hall, on
the sick bed, brilliant momentary effects were to be

* Charlotte Wolter evidently played Orsina (and probably Son-
tienthal the Prince) in Lessmg's Emilia Galotti. Sonnenthal was
the leading actor and later manager of the Hofburg Theater m
"Vienna, the scene of Madame Wolter's greatest triumphs.

224 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

noted. But still, what sort of Count Giray of Trottel-
hausen would have invited this gloomily majestic Mel
pomene to a supper where "mad pranks" might be
expected? What Papa Duval would have addressed
her as if she were a hussy available for any one who
had the price? When she tried to appear at least like
a Musette, a grisette of Murger's creation, the actress,
despite the countess 3 title she had wedded, became a
barmaid.* Justinian's wife she may have uplifted
to the dignity of the Eastern Roman Empire, to the
splendor and the royal purple of a Byzantine Messa-
lina ; but she never could have clothed her in the
changeful charms of slender girlhood, out of which
Sarah made the insatiable sex-passion of the magician's
pretty daughter blaze up.

That flame of the princess Fedora, in Vienna, de
voured the dandified conspirator Boris Kanoff (who
seemed to have blown into town from the elder Dumas'
Russia of the Boulevards), while in Paris that same
flame only burned away the brush, thorns and tangle
of roots from the path of the humbly beloved one.
Even so Phedre, here, climbed to the steps of the
thrones from whose supreme eminence ^Eschylus and
Shakespeare created their words out of Chaos, while
yonder she remained the handiwork of Racine, finest
of courtier-poets, even in the whirlwind of her pas
sion still a queen whose soul breathed courtly air.
"They will love each other forevermore!"
Not for the nurse's ear, as she strove to moderate
her queen's fury with the consolatory word, that

* There is a pun in the German text. The lady from Cologne
(Kolnerin) became a barmaid (Kellnerin).

SARAH BERNHARDT 225

Hippolytus would not see Aricia again 1 Its thunder-
tone was to reach the very council-hall of the Olympian
gods, startling them from their golden tables with the
news, how great an outrage defiled their earth.

"Always they will love each other."

Madame Bernhardt also uttered it, also, not to the
confidante of her passion and her woe, whose attempt
to calm her she seemed not to have noticed at all.
She uttered it inwardly, in the stormy ground-swell of
passion, to her own soul. Never is the firebrand of
her longing for her husband's son extinguished. The
youth is in love with another, and is by her beloved.*
They are destined to be parted, never mated . . . yet
they will love each other eternally! Can love be en
forced like obedience? Like the final link of a chain
forged by the hammering of a brooding brain in the
flame of woman's desire the word of doom fell from
her lips, dully. It was but the breath of a voice stifled,
dying even before the heart ceased to beat; and yet,
melodious!

Can love be compelled? So a Wolter might imag
ine, as she sprang with teeth and talons to clutch her
man, cursed him when he evaded her, seized like a
vampire, enjoyed like a vampire the even half-willing
victim, cast him aside when he was bled white, and
with dilated nostrils sniffed after fresh prey. Not so
Sarah. She was ready to be captured, to give herself
up, to cast herself beneath the feet of the man she
had made her god, and though he trampled ever so
rudely over her feelings, would bless him tenderly with

*This is of course a close echo from Heine's thrice- f amiliar :
Ein Jungling liebt ein Madchen*

226 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

the death-rattle in her throat. Her Marguerite did
just that.

Never to be forgotten was her Phedre, in its mimetic
action and utterance, in the spiritualization of her elo
quent body, in the visible revelation of thought shaped
by heart-throbs.

And no less "a finished performance" was her Lady
of the Camelias. At the supper, not her first, one
easily noted, in the bliss of love suddenly bursting
forth, mirroring in a puddle the sunbeam from heaven;
in the country, a coquette somewhat a la Watteau,
striving after the charm of the shepherdess redolent
of the meadows; when her gently critical glances, and
cleverly adjusting hands, harmonize in glasses and
vases the flowers she has herself plucked. No less
nobly tactful is her attitude before Armand's father,
never the bearing and step of a lady nor the lisping
chirp of a second maidenhood (which any high-priced
supper-guest can attain). The woman, purified by the
fire of pious devotion to one man, stood as high above
the moral sermon as Mary Magdalene, on the birth
day of Christianity, stands above the gossip of the
street. Under Armand's lashing, welt-raising insults
she writhes, groans aloud in hoarse savagery like a
perishing animal, regains control of her voice and her
hands for a last adjuration, then falls like the lamb
under the stroke of the a^e. Yet not in swift-re
leasing death. From the illness which has previously
been hinted at with cleverest reticence, she passes un
complaining, smiling, yet with full realization, to her
death, while his misguided jealousy turns to supplica
tion which she rewards not merely with forgiveness,

SARAH BERNHARDT 227

but with her blessing. Whoso believes in the immortal
ity of God's breath in man ; in the salvation of sinful
women, can dry his tears.

"They will love each other forever." It is said, in
his heaven and in his own speech, by Mahadeva,*
whose arm of fire drew the Bayadere out from the
house of all too earthly love, and uplifted her above
the rampart of the clouds.

Sarah's Lady of the CameUas was never a thing of
beauty. Neither was With Painted Cheeks (which in
those days were still the privilege, still the stigma, of
the Bayadere, but now are the badge of presentabil-
ity, to be displayed in ambassadors' houses, or at
court). "Ghetto air/' it was said: "It smells of
Galicia." Diplomats' noses, which are always wrong.
For Lemberg she was much too thin. Rather from the
Joedenbree Street in Amsterdam. Every day the re
porters tweaked and poked at her meagerness.
Mademoiselle Bernhardt is studying the title-role in
the new drama The Skeleton. She is utilizing her
vacation to take an "Anti-fat treatment." An empty
carriage drove up. Sarah alighted. "All that never
fazes me" (Cela ne me rate jamais}.

Not beautiful, but a charming riddle. Of alien race,
and yet Parisian. Never declassee, never a lady, not
even a bourgeois Madame. A "lost child," that out
yonder where the last houses are, attracted the atten
tion of the god who came down to mortal men and
again ascended.f

*"The great god," an epithet of the Hindu god Siva, third
person of the trinity of chief divinities. The incident is familiar
to Germans from the poem Gott und die Bayadere, by Goethe.

t The sentence is practically a quotation from Goethe's poem.

228 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

A woman. Innermost loyalty to a love that would
not complain, that would not bear resentment, won
forgiveness for Marguerite. Virtuous folk had passed
her by. The priest, even he whose vow was only to
morality, had called her Sinner, Shameless. Now in
his fiery arms the god bore her aloft to his Heaven.
Her eternal femininity. (That it now draws us to it
self is the declaration from the Second Heaven of
Faust 3 the Women's Heaven; but it was denounced in
the First, wherein abode men only, as "111 tidings,"
and strenuously denied by the angels, winged adju
tants of the All-Highest Imperial House.) The Inde
scribable here also came to pass.*

Here, below, however, the eldest carp, and the
youngest scoff-

Those who never saw her as the young Donna Sol,
who never heard her golden voice caressing Hernani,
the beloved lion, know nothing of the fascination of
this woman, have no right to pass judgment on her.

"Even forty years ago her art was decadent."

So a man, not uncritical, whom it entranced in the
year 1900, may not praise it? The Bismarck of
1892 no longer had the vision, the architectural genius,
of the Prussian prime minister who, in 1864, strode
to battle with the un-Roman Empire of the German
nation, and drew breath only at Nikolsburg, after the
victory over his kind and yet he seems to me never
theless to have been worthy of serious attention.

"Old stuff": so men in the forties bawl (men who
twitteringly call themselves "we young folks").
"Nothing compared to la Diva Duse; trash beside"

* Students of Goethe's Faust will easily follow the allusions in
this passage.

SARAH BERNHARDT 229

any Lucie, Helene, Ida, Tilla, Elizabeth, Agnes, etc.,
honored in these last days upon the banks of Spree.

As for Madame Duse, she remained always, even in
GoIdonFs La Locandiera, an interesting lady. Be
neath her supple softness {morbidezza) seemed to
glimmer a petty marchioness-soul, more profoundly
spiritual than sensual. On the stage, only the facial
contortions of sensuous feeling, languid, consciously
executed, and for that very reason, like Kainz, the
Bassermanns and Moissi, she was the foreordained
favorite of an age that shrinks from sturdy frankness,
and prefers El Greco to Rubens. Even less had she
a sense for individual style; she played Sardou just
as she did Ibsen, with the affected expression of a
morphine-addict and a technique deficient in resource.
Her lack both of forceful feeling and of vocal power
compelled a frugal rationing of her roles; for instance,
to meet the demands of the final act, she must save
herself the previous one.

So it is with players dependent wholly on their
nerves, who give themselves only, but cannot bring
Art into their service. Their performances, even their
single acts, are uneven; and they warn those whose
opinion is of weight to them, "Ask me if you had better
come that particular evening: else I may play like a
pig-

So it was, too, with Kainz. Only Alessandro Moissi,
at home in both German lands (though without roots
in either), combines so much Italic coolness with Slavic
shrewdness that, while still in the lofty pride of youth
ful and growing energy, he holds his Romeo, Hamlet,
CEdipus, in firm control, never demanding of his silver-

230 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

toned violin voice that which only a fury-driven bow
could woo from it.

Madame Eleonora played almost exclusively "good"
parts in perishable plays (never, alas, the Princess of
Ferrara in Goethe's Tasso, a part whose charm, and
limitations, are Duse's own). Those roles were up
lifted by her aristocratic personality; but they were
not developed out of the progress and action of the
play, nor even modified thereby.

Her Lady of the Camelias, who certainly never went
out to supper with lecherous counts or giggled with
common hussies, remained just the same in the villa
as in the cabaret de luxe, lonely of soul, the trace of
a tear on her black lashes, hiding a chilly heart behind
a heavy veil of melancholy, and could live as like a
Florentine lady in the first act as she died in the last.
In such a life Armand was merely a chance, not des
tiny.

What this adept in naturalism attained was within
the reach of other interesting ladies, if only by wise
training they acquired such self-possession that shame
or at least embarrassment no longer prevented
them from laying themselves bare, with all their nerve-
centres, before a thousand eyes; from displaying, to the
throng that had paid for it, the saddling-court of prac
ticed impulses, the race-course of vagrant desires*

When she struggled with painful effort for the
heights (as Juliet, Cleopatra, even Rebecca), and
failed, that was just where Sarah's example, the effect
of her art upon the playing of the Italian born two
decades after her, was unmistakable. Nor less so in
the power of expression imparted by practice to her

SARAH BERNHARDT 231

whole body, even to the very fingertips; a power that
came near to the genius of a Ristori or a Rossi, sur
passing Salvini's self-training and the manifold nat
ural talents of Novell!. It was unmistakable, yet
again, in the effort to root as deeply as possible in the
soil of femininity the character to be portrayed, with
its contradictory nature before and during the process
of its development.

Between effort of the will and natural impulse, be
tween intellect and instinct (the names are but empty
sounds!) there is again a real cleavage.

In the richness of her palette, whereon fit colors
were to be found either for Marie Antoinette's Vi
ennese lightheartedness or for the murderous sleep
walking ghost of Lady Macbeth, Adelaide Ristori had
outshone Rachel in her own loyal city of Paris. Was
that triumph to be repeated? Madame Duse came to
Paris. She was admired, praised, forgotten. Sane
judgment, freed from the passing cloud of intoxication,
said:

"This interesting lady, who, even beside Madame
Bartet, would adorn our Comedie, is different from
Sarah, the too oft-seen, too long seen; and, primarily
because of that difference, is at first view the favored
one. But she rivals neither the range of capacity nor
the invariable faultlessness of our own Maestra."

After the first performance of La Dame aux Cami
llas Pere Dumas, he of the Three Musketeers, Monte
Cristo and "the Friends" finally cried out in witty
anger to his friends, who were absolutely determined
to force him to the confession that the masterpiece was

232 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

essentially his rather than the work of his as yet ob
scure son, "Why! I made the author 1" With similar
though not equal right Sarah who, long after the
younger Dumas' friend Madame Desclee had created
the role, conquered the stage of three worlds, even to
the realms of the Maharajahs, despite the hellish-
heavenly competition of Verdi's Violetta, might have
said of Madame Duse, "Since I am, she could be." To
Duse the woman, she had paid her respects in the
D'Annunzio affair. To her "colleague," her rival, as
a visiting artist Sarah Bernhardt offered the theatre.

Bahr, the patron of art, Duse's own Armand, who
once was as plentifully sprinkled with Corylopsis as
now with holy water, somewhere, sometime, when he
dwelt here among us, a worldling, unregenerate, re
lated that the Italian artist whom (though in truth a
child of the theatre), he "discovered" in St. Peters
burg, was once teasingly asked by Frau Wolter (who
was doubtless irritated by the everlasting Duse-craze)
whether she had also played Lady Macbeth. Sarah,
who grew up amid the dismal confusion in Colombier's
time, would never have reminded a guest so rudely of
the limitations of her powers. The courtesy of her
heart was as widely known as her reverence for every
form of honorable art. She was ever ready to ease the
path of young poets toward the light, and even in
budding artistry to point out the value of future re
sults. The literature of France has expressed its grati
tude to her by an appreciation such as no theatrical
worker has ever before received.

She acted, apart from the classics and Victor Hugo,
only in poor plays?

SARAH BERNHARDT 233

Sardou's were good products of theatre-handiwork.
Those of the second Dumas were really ingenious, psy
chologically fine, and genealogically he is especially
noteworthy, for he marks a new era, and exerted an
influence on the work of such men as Ibsen, Lie,
Bjornson, Kjelland, Edouard Brandes, and later also
on Strindberg's and that of Wedekind and his imita
tors. Even Nora is half Dumas, and the capital
"barker" in The League of Youth has unmistakable
strokes borrowed from Sardou's lawyer Rabagas. In
Scandinavian and German drama who can count Du
mas' children? He is the herald of the new stage
psychology ("the ape," now threatened with the death
penalty; out of the Land of Nod?). The plays that
sprang up in the Scribe-Halevy-Legoure field are of
the type which, because it affords for able delineators
an opportunity to develop their full powers, seemed to
Lessing indispensable for his Hamburgische Drama
turgic.

Sarah could only use pieces that were understood, and
felt, in Buenos Aires and Kieff, in Madrid and Chicago,
in Moscow and Bombay. Her first choice was Racine
(even Corneille seemed to her almost too harshly mas
culine) ; but she liked also Rostand and Mirabeau. It
was she, if my memory does not fail me, who won a
hearing for Musset's Lorenzaccio.

As directress she sought the best to stand beside her
on the stage, and not as stars stand about the sun.
She engaged Constant Coquelin, Lucien Guitry, Max;
she dispensed radiance, and had no desire to receive
it as a loan; and she threw out lines toward the fa
vorites Bartet and Sorel. Not every directress is so

234 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

good a housekeeper. Not every "star" is aglow with
the desire to shine in the midst of other brilliant con
stellations. The theatre whose strongest magnet, until
a few years ago, was still Sarah, could have been more
economical.

"But she never comes out right," twittered the spar
rows on the roof.

What she took in, as, compared with what is now
paid for the hot eyes, the slender body, the delightfully
solid Thusnelda-like weight, is the twelve-fold Du Bar-
ryism of a crank-girl, a mere gingersnap to a Perigord
truffle; but it was more than had ever been received for
drama. All the same, even with bags of gold she would
never have come out better. She gave gladly, and not
to relatives only, and always she was in debt. And
therefore even in old age, after she, in her eighth
decade, had a leg amputated, she must still limp upon
the stage. From the time (which only the oldest Pari
sians remember) when she ran away from Moliere's
theatre, had the doors of the Comedie Frangaise
slammed and locked behind her, she had almost every
evening, and at least twice besides at noon, played a
leading part; and yet had not enough to assure a com
fortable decline. The honest rank and file of tragedy,
the operetta players, all who after a lucky debut in
melodramas and farces reach the grade of K-actors in
Berlin or Ke- in Prague, shake their sensible bourgeois
heads. "Of course one has one's bank accounts (one
for taxes and one for receipts), and even in the big
role itself there is free time enough to ask by telephone
and get the answer about the New York exchange re-

SARAH BERNHARDT 235

port." In this respect Sarah was hot up to the times,
nor was she a gypsy, the more lovable for that!

A singer who was called Diva even before Snob-do
it-all had deified every Lia, Mia, Pia, Ria, Li, Lo ? Lu,
Muschi and Uschi (without charge?), told me of a
call she made on Sarah grown old. A constant coming
and going. From time to time the envoy of a great
laundry was announced: he must wait. It was hours
before he was admitted. "Oh, dear, about the bill?
Twenty thousand francs, was it? But I just haven't
it, you see. No, really." ("Je vous assure, que je ne
les ai pas"} The smile of levity grown grey was
divine. The ambassador of the White Kingdom may
kiss the traces of the manicurist. Exit ambassador,
entranced, by middle door.

"All good advertising." The Berliner would add
"Verstehsta?" Yes, I understand that Sarah still rode
in a motorless airboat ("glider"), modeled busts, or
dered ell-long gloves made for her, that she, a Dutch
Jewess, wedded the woe of France, her adoptive father
land, and that from her golden throat little jingoes
were born, that she accepted the invitations of Indian
princes for private performances, that in the Great War
she was god-mother and nurse of many a poilu: all
that, and all the rest, just advertising!

It is almost fifty years ago that Zola defended Ma
dame Bernhardt against the charge of a craze for pub
licity. "It is not she," he cried, "but you who make
the publicity; you, the Public, that can never hear
enough about a favorite singer, and you, the Press,
who are not ashamed to sate such a longing for tittle-

236 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

tattle." That was written in the age of innocence
before the telephone and noon-day newspaper were
naturalized. That press, which tomorrow will drain
eagerly to the dregs some little Sadie's morphine-
habit, as it did yesterday the great Sarah's "craving for
publicity/' shrieked even into her grave: "Publicity!"
How the legend arose, let one example show.

In man's costume Madame Bernhardt, early and
late, won far-reechoing theatrical renown, and with no
effort on her part. Every public loves to have a "dif
ferent view, just once," of its favorites. So if the
most womanish Donna Sol, Athalie or Phedre dons
doublet and hose after Coppee's, Musset's, even
Shakespeare's pattern, then it needs no Richet or
Lebon to explain to us why it draws a larger audience
than the soubrette who in literary melodrama sobs out
her craving for children, or Romeo as Zwirn the tailor.
But the victory was not so easy with Rostand's
"I'Aiglon," a poem that plays pleasantly with one
great shade, and many amusing ghosts. A woman
nearer sixty than fifty attempts the part of a boyish
prince and officer. (Only the theatre, with its daily
discipline of the body and all its combined powers,
keeps up the fresh energy of its folk so long that such
a venture is imaginable.) The youth's clear tones she
still retains. In order to acquire the gait and carriage
also, she decides to wear the military tunic and sword
of the second Napoleon not only at rehearsals but at
home as well, for weeks before the first performance.
Most sensible, and an example to be commended to
the youngest actresses, who on the stage are to carry
a child an action unfamiliar to them. Only a gar-

SARAH BERNHARDT 237

ment that he or she has worn thro' the whole day ?
with its various requirements, sets at evening as if it
were "moulded on," and only the sword worn at table,
at the fire-side, all but to bed, at the disguised woman's
hip, seems, that eventful evening, a weapon, not an
obstacle that brings mirth even into the gloomiest
tragedy. Sarah's young eagle was, in bearing and ges
tures, exactly what he purported to be. But as the
word had been passed around that she dined and re
ceived her guests in uniform, a swarm of reporters
was presently fluttering about her, and in a little while
the rumor of a fresh bid for publicity was afloat. That
she lived so long and died in a dull theatrical month:
all for "publicity." And the burial-scene she her
self surely had staged. The poor you always put in
the wrong.

As far as Canton, Melbourne, Johannesburg, Sala-
tiga, pictures carried the tidings that all Paris, now
again the capital of a continent, had risen up for this
Farewell: at the departure of one whom Zola in his
day had hailed as the gifted rebel of the stage, and
who at last, because she must play so long, was ac
counted the representative of what was old-fashioned
and belated. She never was that. She never had the
heavy rigidity of those women who climb from melo
drama, farce, burlesque, operetta up to the heights of
human agony.

Sarah's was not the force of feeling that gushes up
crudely from the heart of the common people, nor the
power of undisciplined action, which perhaps in such
women as Krones and Wildauer, certainly in Hai-
zinger, Galmayer, Helene Hartmann, Formes, Hgflich,

238 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Else Lehmann, Roland., Dorsch, and (in plays of
Offenbach, Strauss or Anzengruber), Geistinger also,
have sometimes produced a stormy elemental effect
that was overwhelming. The same may be said as to
men of like origin. Mexner, for instance, Martinelli,
Thaller, Tyrolt, Girardi, Pallenburg: and by no
means must Chaplin, the revealer of unknown types of
humanity, Charlie the unique, be forgotten. Some
times I said: when they, who gave only out of them
selves, who staking only their personal gifts could still
win the game, and on the oft-climbed peak "attuned
themselves" to harmony even so their flight to higher
spheres was clogged by the earthiness that yet re
mained. Frau Hartmann in her youth would have
had the spiritual force for Gretchen, and in her ma
turity for Messalina, but she wisely held aloof from
both.

From master-spirits of other lands, from Ristori,
Rossi, Booth, Salvini, Sarah Bernhardt had learned to
see the characters of the "Classic 53 dramatists (with
which she had not grown up, as every Frenchman and
Frenchwoman does from childhood), to see them at
first hand, unhampered by the tradition of the theatre,
which cripples all imaginative power. From those
masters, too, she had learned such perfect control over
the instrument of her art (her own voice and body),
that the most competent critic could hardly be sure
at any time whether, during an evening which to him
was an epochal event, she remained in her inmost
soul calm and cool, or was set aglow through and
through by her task.

Her power of delineation was as great as this side

SARAH BERNHARDT 239

of Shakespeare's world it could become. She was for
every school the model of perfect recitation: and she
could give wings to her utterance, set it sturdily on
solid earth, roll it up like a mighty ball, to cast it, high
above the dead level of the commonplace, even to the
crimsoned peaks of passion; and still, always, the
Word, Logos, remained the god of this Jewess-
Old style? Since yesterday it stands newest of all:,
and its name is Science of Expression.

X

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY

"BONAPARTE is dead."

Not until two months after the 5th of May, 1821,
which heard the dethroned emperor draw his last
breath in the British rock-prison, did the report run
through Paris. It paced in leisurely wise, without
torch or terror-stricken wail, and startled no one out
of his every-day calm.

"Like a flash of lightning, it might have been sup
posed, would the news of this death flame over Europe 1
Now men heard it unmoved, as it passed on from one
indifferent neighbor to the next. Woe to those who
can claim no gratitude from the people's memory!"

So it may be read in the papers of the pious roy
alists; in the liberal ones nothing more cordial. Na
poleon's Concordat with the pope, his code of civil
law, not including even the penal code, were coldly
praised. Nevertheless: an enemy of the church, of
freedom, of all civil rights.

The fact that General Rapp, for fifteen years his
adjutant, left the king's room at St. Cloud in tears,
was only mentioned because to this tale could be
attached a paean of praise to Louis XVIII, whose royal
tact censured not the tears but assured the loyal man
of double favor.

From the pyramids to the Kremlin, from the Tagus
to the Dnieper, Bonaparte had carried the banner of
France, carried victoriously the eagles of "Csesar Au-

240

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 241

gnstus by grace of the people/ 3 given his commands
to twenty kings trembling with reverence or with fear,
written law for a continent, had been "The Emperor"
as though there were no other, the Hapsburger (ce
chetif frangois") a phantom beside him; and had now,
with all the world-wide echoes of his glory, been six
years in oblivion.

Goethe called him "the compendium of the world,"
and "a demi-god"; Hegel, "the world-soul"; this man
under whose foot Fritz's state moaned. His own step-
fatherland did not forget him for long; and never can
mankind forget him who widened the bounds of will
and of possibility. He fancied himself wholly set
apart from all that drew breath about him. "What
are conditions of life for others bind me not at all;"
only from his lips did that not ring like a boast; and
yet it was a sinful struggle to override nature, an
attempt which ordained its own penalty.

In 1795 Europe heard that the Corsican of six-and-
twenty had saved the Convention and thereby won the
command of an army. In 1815 he sat powerless in
Longwood. Between lies an experience beyond com
pare. Our day does not grant the needful repose of
spirit. For a true synthetic study of him let us, there
fore, glance at a few instants during the epoch of his
gradual decline, a period which, more clearly than the
uprising in mist and storm, reveals what was daemonic,
and at the same time human, in the last of the Im-
perators, the Prometheid.

In 1812, amid the intoxication of the Dresden fes
tival, in the midst of monarchs who adored him, sur-

242 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

rounded by toadies and lickspittles, Bonaparte did not
learn to enjoy the life. He craved the air of the camp,
his will was to be in Russia when the rye was ripe and
his cavalry horses could have their fodder from the
oat-fields.

"Stir the embers of revolt in Russian Poland. Have
the pontoon train waiting at Elbing, which is to set
me across the Dnieper ( c On that possibility/ he writes
to Davout, 'my whole plan of campaign rests') , and
organize our advance guard so thoroughly on the Vis
tula that on the day of my arrival I shall have four
hundred thousand men at hand. Rub out of your eyes
the last trace of drowsiness from the festival, and
rush!"

Their Majesties the Princes and Princesses begged
for the favor of one more farewell audience. "I don't
care. At four in the morning. Only, no tiresome
whimpering." In a hunting coat which was but a
year and a half old, and so had six months 3 service
in it yet, he strode in the grey dawn between the
hedge-rows of monarchs. "Quick! I'm in haste.
Adieu! " At five he was off, with a rattling and creak
ing of wheels in his wake. Did he still feel himself
wedded indissolubly to Fortune?

When he was hailed in Posen as the deliverer of
the Slavs, he detected in the wild huzzas of the Polish
people a more forceful vigor than in the hypocritical
transports of the cowed Germans; and when above the
Jesuit church he saw the flaming leaves of a laurel
crown uprise, he followed with stern eye the smoke-
wreath blown down the wind Eastward!

In Thorn he saw again his choicest troops. It was

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 243

no time for festivities now. A camp that covered
some two hundred square miles, an army of four hun
dred thousand heads. Whatever munitions could be
secured had to be collected there. Still more impor
tant for a campaign in a barren region is food. This
had to be sufficient for at least three weeks from the
day of the first conflict.

"Seize the grain, and waste no time. Let the mill-
wheels clatter day and night to grind it. When we
are off, the millers may sleep."

East Prussia was green, and the swift-coming Rus
sian spring already dotted the meadows with flowers.
An immense host of warriors was armed for attack,
and the threatened foe seemed as yet not to dream of
the danger close at hand. Every corps had to open
up its inmost heart to the commander's eye. Every
one was once again examined to the minutest detail.
Everything was ready. All burned with desire to show
the Emperor what his youths, what his veterans could
do.

"With such an army/' a battery-commander ven
tured to say, "Your Majesty can conquer India."
A smile rewarded him. Never had the Master been
seen so cheerful. Were his powers increased tenfold,
or was a new Daemon subjected to him? At work
from early until late at night, then he wandered, almost
naked, through the arched chambers and the corridors
of the monastery in which he was quartered, thinking
out his plans for battle. One night the adjutant heard
him sing a verse of the marching song:

"Tremble, ye foemen of France!"

244 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

On the night of June 23rd he arrived at the head of
the host, in the village Alexota on the Niemen. A
few Polish lancers tumbled out, half-drunk with sleep,
as the wagon, drawn. by six sweating, steaming horses,
clattered up. A little man blinking wearily, in dusty
clothes, opened the carriage door. The Emperor (with
Berthier at his side). "Vive VEmpereur!" That
sounded as if meant to hide the shame of men caught
asleep at the most important outpost. Did the com
mander hear it? He stood erect, silent, with clear
glance, in the stiff posture of one just roused from
refreshing sleep. All eye.

Yonder lay Kovno, the objective of the first recon-
noissance. He would go himself. But he could not
show himself, as a Frenchman, to the Russians, who
supposed there were only Poles on Polish ground. To
be sure, he was not wont, like Mephisto, to go incog
nito; but here the conditions ordered it so. In the
grey dawn, without having washed or tasted food, he
stripped off his guardsman's coat and squeezed him
self into the uniform of a Polish colonel. Head-cov
ering? His hat with the tricolor cockade would be
tray him. The four-cornered Uhlan's czapka was too
heavy. A policeman's cap would do. Berthier, too,
had to disguise himself.

Forward! The inhabitants of a farmhouse were
routed out. From their windows the river was in
sight. Beyond it Russia lay silent, without the least
suspicion of peril close at hand. For a long time the
Emperor stood studying the country, which until this
day he had known only from the map.

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 245

He came back to his staff in high spirits. "Doesn't
the coat fit me perfectly? But one must give back
what belongs to others." Clothes changed again.
Hasty and scant morning meal. The escort came up
with the Emperor's saddle-horse. The generals Cau-
laincourt, Davout, Duroc ; Haso galloped up. First
reconnaissance on horseback. "Just here must, and
only here can, the river be crossed." Second ride.
"This ravine hides the troops until the pontoon-force
has finished its work. Before it is light they
must. . . "

His galloping horse shied, reared, stood stiff and
threw the rider, who, absorbed in thought, was holding
the bridle loose and did not notice that a hare ran
between his horse's legs. This had happened to him
several times before, and he had always scolded the
grooms violently, or else raged at "the beast, the
miserable good-for-nothing jade." Now he was silent,
stared at the grey sky, and without a word mounted
again. "A bad sign," Berthier whispered in Marshal
Caulaincourt's ear. "I could wish we were not going
over the Niemen." Did the man who rode silent at
their head think as did he who had been his chief of
staff ever since the Italian campaign? Did the pallid
chieftain still think, today, that he was "irrevocably
wedded to Fortune"?

Duty summoned him out of idle introspection.
Should a frightened hare, an over-strained horse's
nervous scare, embitter his mood? A foppish idler
might allow himself such weakness, but not the Master
of human destiny. From every side came the tramp

246 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

of his columns. Before the sun sank, the passage
over the river had to be arranged, down to the least
detail.

Between the white canvas walls of his tent sat the
Emperor with reports and relief charts before him.
The most trustworthy he carried beneath his own
skull. He dictated: "ORDRE POUR LE PASSAGE DU
NIEMEN." Punctually, every possibility foreseen and
provided for. . . .

If it only were not so hotl And if one's head did
not ache! Perhaps as a result of the fall? It must
have looked funny, too, to see the beast shake me
off, funny enough to roar at. The fellows in uniform
made uncanny faces; were they stifling their laughter,
or did superstition lay an ice-cold hand on their heads?
Childish belief in omens!

"Good day, grenadiers! A tiresome march? Over
there 'tis better going. Over there, artillerymen!
You here too already?"

If there were only an echo, at least, coming from
over across there! At most there was only once in a
while a patrol of Cossacks that slipped through the
brush and the next instant seemed to have vanished
without leaving a trace! Was it a land of dead men
guarded by phantoms? Ghost-stories, fit for the chim
ney corner in Ajaccio!

"The rascals have scented something. They know
at last that I am close at their throat, and they creep
out of sight as far as they can. As soon as we are
across, I'll smash them so that the tatters will fly as far
as Mamma's wash-house in Moscow! If we were only
that far: oh Hell, if we were over!"

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 247

At midnight the pontoon columns had finished their
work. They had had no light turned upon them, nor
had any echoing sound come over to them. From his
tent, which had been moved close to the Niemen,
Caesar had looked on, and occasionally had softly
hissed his commands. At last! Three bridges led to
the land of long desire. Morand's division covered
the bridge-heads, Davout's corps took the lead. The
dry soldierly good humor revived. Audacious jests
fluttered to and fro from the shaking bridges that
groaned under the burden of the cannon and horses.

"In five weeks, six at most, we'll be on the Neva
and celebrate our Emperor's birthday in Peter's city."
Everybody laughed. "Did you hear? In Petersburg.
Vive I'Empereur! There he is! Where did he ever
fail? In the saddle since three. Always at hand
where his fighting men are jammed and block the
narrow way for those who crowd behind. No ghost
ever scared him yet. A running hare today could only
make him merrier."

Over! Now with swimming eye from the Russian
shore he saw his forces pour their flood into Alex
ander's empire. Out of the mists of dawn new vic
tory smiled, a greater than was ever won before. His
sun was with him; it burned hotly in the sky.

Toward noon it grew gloomy, and soon afterwards
the clouds dropped mighty masses of water upon the
Lithuanian land. Everything dripped. Everybody
shouted joyously. Two hundred thousand men in
Russia!

On the 26th of June even Grouchy's dragoons were
over. The program had been carried out to the dot

248 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

Bonaparte stood close before the goal of his boldest
desire. And Major von der Goltz was already writ
ing his report listing the officers of Friedrich Wilhelm
who were ready to fight against Bonaparte. Concern
ing Hans David Ludwig von York he noted: "Middle-
aged, well-informed, ambitious, discontented, hating
France; generally recognized as a brave man, quick
and far-sighted, more a practical than a theoretical
soldier, easily capable of a bold decision; wholly with
out means." But the condottiere from Corsica said:
"From Prussia there is nothing to fear," and to
Caulaincourt, "I will sign the peace treaty in Moscow
if it suits me."

. . . Then he had himself crowned in the Kremlin,
that the splendor of his victory might illumine the
globe. "Emperor of the West, head of the European
union, protector of the Christian faith." So late as
June, the handsome Czar Alexander had been in Mos
cow, amid the noisy enthusiasm of his piously loyal
people. Von Stein heard him in the Slovodski palace
call upon the nobility to fight the enemy (superior in
numbers and arms) ; and heard the nobles promise to
equip out of their own means a large army for home
defense.

On the last day of June, Alexander took his de
parture from the old city of the great prince, all-mother
Moskwa, from the Red Place, the bell-tower of Ivan
the Great, from the miracle-working holy image at the
Gate of the Redeemer. Would he ever see them again?
The conqueror drew nigh; already, to be sure, with an
army that had grown weaker.

Since the stormy days at Wilna all bonds had been

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 249

There was no well defined route; no reliable
supply of fresh provisions. All granaries, stores, mills
and ovens had been burne.d. Wilderness, and mud.
The wagon-train was stalled; broken wheels, fallen
horses, crippled men who had sunk down groaning, a
horrible confusion. To demand forced marches of an
army in such a condition, on such a road, seemed,
even to many a commander, madness.

Thousands lingered behind, ran away, dropped
quietly out of the march. Had Germans and Swiss,
Hollanders and Spaniards, Croats and Illyrians to go
hungry and thirsty, to lash their failing bodies for
ward with the scourge of their will, so that an alien's
craving for sovereignty might attain its goal?

At Witebsk barely two hundred thousand men were
following the colors. Barclay was sure that the enemy
could not long endure the summer heat, the cold nights
after sultry days, the lack of food, the scarcity of
drink that forced them to swallow foul and pesti
lential water; he evacuated fortified or open places,
carried off the inhabitants and their livestock, beasts
of burden and household goods, avoided every attempt
to surround him, and retired ever deeper and deeper
into the long defile northeastward. Bonaparte must
go on. Only two months more! Then the Russian
winter; then the general call to arms, the Moscow sum
mons to a Holy War, the tricky guerilla fighting
(which he had learned in Spain), so dangerous to
a European army.

Bonaparte determined that at the Dnieper he would
overtake this Asiatic horde. If even there they would
make no stand, he could at least cut off their lines of

250 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

retreat to Petersburg and Moscow. For twenty-four
hours before Smolensk, Neveroski delayed Ney (who
was to have captured the town by surprise), and so
assured the safe retreat of the armies led by Barclay
and Bagration. Smolensk was taken; a heap of ruins,
a fiery furnace in which dead and wounded were
burned. The Russians were not caught, their main
body of troops was safe. All the same, they had again
lost eleven thousand men, and the road to Moscow,
after the hellish massacre at the Borodino, was open
at last. Would there be peace? In a letter to the
Gosudar Bonaparte intimated the possibility; but he
received no reply. . . .

Even from burning Moscow he wrote to Alexander
like a friend and well-wisher. Out of consideration
for the Czar and to prevent inhumanity, he had oc
cupied the coronation city that the Russian army left
deserted. That Rostopechin had had three-quarters
of all the houses set on fire was a stupid crime. That
the foreign soldiery snatched from the tongues of
flame everything of use to them deserved no blame.
My people did not find a single fire engine, but sixty
thousand muskets, a hundred and fifty field guns,
powder, and cartridges, saltpetre and sulphur in im
mense quantities. Did he behind such senseless con
fusion feel the awakening of Russia's natural force,
and therefore grope for some possibility of an under
standing? The armies of Bagration and Barclay de
Tolly, on whose permanent separation he had counted,
were united and placed under the command of Kutus-
off, who knew Russia's Islam even better than he did
that of the Mussulmans. It was not for him to devise

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 251

clever plans for battle. With that amusement Ben-
nigsen, Wolzogen and other German pedants might
beguile their leisure. Michael Ilarionovich Kutusoff
knew that only the oldest, deepest instinct of the Rus
sian nature could rescue the Fatherland. If he was to
have his way, Napoleon would come without a battle
from the Niemen to the Moskwa. From the walls of
stormed cities glory was to be gathered, but far more
essential, not merely brilliant, was the silent demorali
zation of the enemy.

Between Tatarinovo and Borodino the fat old giant
(a native of Smolensk) had knelt on the bare ground
among his home guardsmen, he, the commander-in-
chief, before the black image of the Virgin, and with
eager lip kissed the gold ornaments, the glaze: "Thou
alone, O Mother of God, art our refuge and our pro
tection!" Bonaparte would rudely master destiny:
Kutusoff humbly submitted to whatsoever was ap
pointed. The contest between these commanders was
the battle of the west against the east.

That contest drew close to a decision when the guns
of the Peter-Paul Fortress announced the retirement
of Napoleon from Moscow. A heap of ruins and a
breeder of disease, "a sewer," the Emperor called the
city in his "Report of the Grand Army"; the city at
which his desire had grasped for so long, and from
which his men carried off fifteen thousand wagonloads
of plunder!

Again there was a fight at Smolensk, this time under
the eye of the Holy Mother; Davout was beaten, Ney's
troops scattered. The Grand Army, hungry and cold,
had to burn its artillery and baggage. "I cannot let

252 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

aliens see them In such condition. See to it that I
find no representative of the Outland at Vilna."

The living stream that in June seemed impossible to
dam had dwindled to a muddy trickle. At Kovno
there were missing three hundred and thirty thousand
men. Of each corps only the drooping eagles re
mained. Ney, Marshal of France, fought like a com
mon soldier In the melee, threw his musket, for which
there was no ammunition, into the Niemen, and
wrapped in a cloak slunk through Poland to Konigs-
berg.

Chichagoff's order of the day for October 12 warned
all divisions of his troops that the French Emperor was
to be taken alive. Description: "Stout and short.
Hair short, smooth, and black. Rage or bitterness in
his expression. Roman nose, with traces of snuff.
Notably projecting chin. Usually wears a plain gray
overcoat, and always has a Mameluke with him."

He who is thus described in the warrant for his
arrest had once, at the Berezina, taught the hordes of
Chichagoff and Wittgenstein to shudder. Soon after
he took his farewell of the crumbling army. On a
pinewood sledge, in his green fur-coat, he sped like a
ghost through Warsaw, his face snow-white with pallor
under his fox-skin cap. From Dresden, where lie
rested five hours, he wrote to Friedrich Wilhelm that
he had assigned the supreme command to Murat, was
himself hastening to Paris, and that the Prussian
corps, with which he was satisfied, should be quickly
filled up again to full strength.

Only two moons had waned since Alexander had
said: "He or I!" Now Arndt could exult: "The time

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 253

has come. The mottled dragon falls!" Stein might
speak: "The great criminal lies in the dust. May all
unite in falling upon the unclean beast that destroys
the repose of Europe!" An old saying came into fresh
honor: "Terrible is the God of Russia!"

"On Elba I was not badly off. I could have artists
come from Italy, had everything needful to stage a
play, and was freer than a German prince. If the King
of France had had good ministers, I should have re
mained on the island. But the fear of me had so
wholly disappeared that they would not even accredit
a charge d'affaires to me, and they insulted me in every
newspaper. I am but human, after all. I wanted to
show that I was not dead yet. France really must, I
felt, leave me two frigates at least, of which one, for
my own use, should be always lying ready in the
harbor."

This demand (which even at St. Helena, in Long-
wood, fell from Bonaparte's lips) Louis XVIII and
Talleyrand would have rejected as a proposal for their
self-destruction. They fancied that their deadly
enemy would never find it possible to break out of
his island-cage.

But he had secured for himself the brig Ulncon-
stant. The captain of an English two-master, who
had run into the harbor, smelt the store of bacon, heard
that drinking-water and zwieback had been put aboard,
and asked Chief Marshal Bertrand whether the rumor
that the Emperor was going on a voyage with his
guards had any foundation. "Nonsense. In Porto
Ferraio and in Leghorn such silly stuff is always being

254 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

reported. Any one who believes it is being fooled.
Are you dining with us, Captain?" The latter was
still suspicious, even though Bertrand's manner was a
good imitation of cold indifference, and set sail after
L 'Inconstant. He did not notice promptly enough,
however, that the Frenchman turned about on the way
to Naples; so he did not put in at Porto Ferraio again
until after the brig had gone with her most costly
cargo.

General Gourgaud describes the hasty departure:
"After Bertrand had announced that the wind was
fairly favorable, the Emperor had mass said earlier
than usual, and the embarkation of the soldiers with
their baggage was expedited. The anchor was weighed
about ten at night. Early in the morning of Febru
ary 27, the Englishman hove in sight: 'Danger?' 'No;
he's holding his course to Elba.' L 3 Inconstant steered
for the French coast. General exultation.

"A grenadier's sweetheart, who had not been taken
along, had gone overnight in a rowboat to Piombino,
and it was from there that the news of the flight first
reached Leghorn. On Elba, Bonaparte's mother,
Letitia, and Bertrand's wife had to undergo an exami
nation.

"Too late! Landing in France March i, from 5 to
ii bivouac; then 'Forward march.' "

When the news finally leaked through into the
Vienna Congress, Wellington immediately declared
that the escaped prisoner would hasten straight to
power. King Louis also would not be hoodwinked and
said to Soult, who wished to console him by a refer
ence to the loyalty of the troops:, "Horrible affair! It

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 255

all depends on the state of mind of the first regiment
that Bonaparte meets."

He had them fast at once. Had all again who the
spring before were ready to stone him. Marshal Ney,
who had promised to fetch him back in an iron cage,
went over to him with his command. (From ambi
tion, Bonaparte says: "He perceived that folk and
troops were for me, and wanted to warm himself in
my sunshine. Decency must have told him to return
to Paris, The command of his army, which he sent
to me, disgusted me. Ney, who had had crowns at his
disposal! But I had to pretend, and entertain the
orderly officer with ,the grossest flattery of his Marshal,
whom I even called 'the bravest of the brave. 5 ")

From Antibes to Fontainebleau was a triumphal pro
cession. "I returned to France with six hundred men.
My confidence in the people's love and the memory
of my old warriors did not deceive me. The throne
of the Bourbons did not in fact stand on the firm
ground of right. Strangers had built it up for a
family which the people's will had banished, and which
had served the interests only of a little band of greedy
folk. Only the empire can secure the rights and the
glory of the nation."

And now the Constitutional regime, whose morning
glow shone and whose fundamental law Napoleon on
the first of June, in the Champs de Mars, swore to
deserve. Forgotten was the village-mayor who, when
Napoleon landed between Antibes and Cannes,
groaned: "You will destroy the bit of rest and happi
ness that had at last been granted us ! " Forgotten was
ihe faint-hearted Prince of Monaco, who declared that

256 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

with six hundred men the venture could not succeed.
His groom understood the popular feeling more clearly.
The memory of old grenadiers, and comparison with
his likeness on the five-franc pieces carried the cry
from farm to farm: " 'Tis he! The Emperor! He
that delivered us from the rule of the nobles who
wanted to hitch us to the plough! The Bourbon
doesn't make us happy. Vive Vempereur!" The
exultation of the crowd paved the way for him.

"From Cannes to Grenoble I was an adventurer.
Not till then did I become again a sovereign. If I
had wished it, I could have arrived before Paris with
five hundred thousand peasants. I made haste to be
come master of the capital before the English came
into action and occupied Lille."

He did not wish himself back in absolute power?
The Chamber, the people, were asked to believe that:

"Permanent institutions, not individual men, can as
sure the future of countries. The goal of my ambition
is to secure all possible liberty to Frenchmen; all that
is possible, for on the heels of Anarchy comes always
the Dictator. The immense alliance of armed Powers,
whose hosts are threatening our frontiers, counts upon
division in our political action, and is striving to
weaken us by stirring up civil war. This peril will be
overcome by your patriotism, your insight, and your
confidence in me. You, Peers and Representatives,
will set the people the example of noblest patriotism,
and, like the Senate of ancient Rome, will at every
hour be resolved to die rather than to live on in a
dishonored powerless homeland."

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 257

On the 8th of June, 1815, the Moniteur thundered
this message forth over the land.

Before the Emperor took the field, he dreamed away
a half-day at Malmaison. He bathed in the fragrance
of the roses, and recalled the hours which he spent in
house and Pare caressing Josephine. He sat sobbing
on the edge of their bed. Undreamed-of things had
happened since the widow of the guillotined General
de Beauharnais had sent her pretty boy to Bonaparte
to beg for his father's sword. Twice she had sent her
card in to him. He could not see her, had sent Lemar-
rois to make his excuses, and learned, that she was
beautiful, young, amiable, lived in a house of her own.
Then he had left his card, had been invited to dinner,
had invited her in turn, and had seated Barras, a head
of the Directory, and Josephine's friend, at the same
table.

"We quickly fell in love with each other. Barras
advised me to marry her, because she was on good
terms with the ruling classes, both of yesterday and
of today, and would bring me strong support; her
house, he said, was the finest, and the marriage would
make me, a man still called a Corsican, a real French
man.

"Josephine's grace made her at that time a charm
ing matron; but in the full sense of the word a matron.
I have never loved another woman so much. She liked
to lie; but her lies revealed genius. She knew me
thoroughly. For her children she never asked anything
of me. Nor did she ever ask me for money. Yet her
debts ran into the millions. She had poor teeth; but

258 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

she was so tactful that one hardly noticed it. She
should have gone to Elba with me!

"Marie Louise was different from her in every way.
She was innocence itself, and never untruthful. She
loved me, wished to be always with me, and would
have gone with me into exile if she had not had that
swine Montebello and the miserable wretch Corvisart
close to her. They told her that her aunt had been
beheaded, and such horrors might be repeated. Fur
thermore her father, the foolish Kaiser, had given her
the dissolute Neipperg as an attendant.

"Josephine always had intrigues in her head, and
often considered the possibility of a Bourbon restora
tion. While I was still First Consul she said to me, at
Malmaison, that Louis XVIII would set up a monu
ment on which I was represented as a guardian angel
(Genius) crowning him. I only asked: c And with my
corpse sealed up in the base of it?'

"When I made known to her my intention for our
separation, she was dissolved in tears. If the interest
of the state demanded of me fifty thousand human
lives, I should weep for them, but I should sacrifice
them; for the interests of the state must come before
all else. To Josephine in tears I cried: My decision
is fixed. Do you consent? If not, I shall use force. 7
The next morning she sent me word that she was
agreed. But after that, when we came to table, she
fell in a faint and had to be carried out and put to
bed.

"The Austrian marriage was my misfortune. Could
I imagine that Austria would ever treat me so?"

The whole epic of wild and marvelous life-experience

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 259

passed before his inward eye in the rose-garden, the
dining-hall, the bed-chamber. Here happiness nested!
Tranquil, amid the roar of the world-storm.

Almost a hundred suns beheld him now again an
Emperor. Was the last of them about to set? All
Germany hoped so. "Measureless/' von Stein thun
dered, "was the baseness of this Ney! Eagerly he
kissed the King's hand, declared himself ready to die
for him, accepted five hundred thousand francs from
him to pay off his debts, and declared: 'When I de
liver this tiger to you he will wear a muzzle! 5 When
he related that to Napoleon, he added: 'In my heart
I was laughing at the fat swine.'

"Levity, greed, stupidity, fickleness, have made
France a land of sedition and upheaval. God will
bless the arms of the Allies and chasten that debased
people.

"The King (of Prussia) is most unfortunately cold.
He makes only half-decisions, has no confidence in
himself, and none in his people; he believes that Russia
is dragging to destruction, and that he will presently
see a French army on the Vistula."

And Marwitz: "Again it is to be seen how high our
people stands above its government. Despite the
latter's irresponsible behavior, there was no reproach,
no discouragement to be heard, and all ran to arms
again, almost as two years ago. I have lived, and
shall live, for the welfare of the fatherland, for jus
tice and truth, and for the secure foundation of our
race and its possessions. I wish that my wife may
bear me a son, that he may always prefer what is
eternal to what is earthly, that my daughter may hand

260 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

on virtuous and honorable convictions to other genera
tions, that my fatherland may permanently stand high
above the evil Outland; and furthermore, if I am to
fall in this war, the passing over will not be hard
for me, as Heaven is better peopled than the earth."

Bliicher declared: "Here, on the Rhine, everything
is in glorious bloom, and the weather is splendid. But
the lands are again to be devastated and desolated.
Our enemies will soon see us face to face, and will
realize that we are unchanged. With the hundred and
twenty thousand Prussians that I have in perfect con
dition at Namur, I would undertake to conquer Tunis,
Tripoli and Algiers, if they were not so far away nor
overseas."

Wellington had posted his army between Oudenarde
and Nivelles, and was himself near Brussels, with his
staff and his reserves.

On the i4th of June Bonaparte's appeal reechoed
through the lines of his army: "Today is the anniver
sary of Marengo and of Friedland. Twice has this
day decided the fate of Europe. Then we were all
too magnanimous. We believed the assurances and
oaths of princes, and left them on their thrones. Now
you behold them banded together against Freedom,
against our revered France. Their assault is the most
shameful unrighteousness. Forward! They, and we,
are what we were. The Prussians, who today are so
overweening, were thrice our numbers at Jena, at
Montmirail sixfold superior. Let your companions
who have been in English prisons tell you how they
were maltreated there. Saxons, Belgians, Hanove
rians, Rhinelanders are forced, to their grief, to fight

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 261

for princes who are hostile to all justice, to all popular
rights. Can this insatiate Coalition humiliate and de
stroy the French people? France will be their grave.
To every Frenchman who has a heart in his breast
this is the hour of fate, which leaves only one choice:
Victory or Death!"

He desired to break through at Charleroi, to pre
vent the English and German troops from uniting.
Bliicher, informed by Gneisenau of the approach of
the French, accepted the gage of battle at once, 'with
joy.' Ziethen's corps were to return to Sombreffe, and
the Emperor sent the first news of victory to Paris:
"Eighteen hours in the saddle. Only three left for
rest; but already four Prussian regiments are ground
to powder, fifteen hundred men captured, six cannon
taken, and our losses are trifling."

Wellington had promised that at ten o'clock on the
morning of the i6th twenty thousand British troops
should be at Quatrebras: he could not keep his word.
On the isth he saw his officers dancing in the house
of the Duchess of Richmond at Brussels. At dawn of
the morrow he mounted his horse and looked down on
the French front at Frasnes. At noon he met Bliicher
on the hill of the Windmill near Bussy, in the rear of
the Prussian position, and promised the old man that
he would attack at four o'clock. This pledge, again,
he could not fulfill. He was himself heavily assailed
by the enemy, with superior numbers, at Quatrebras,
and brought up reinforcements under great difficul
ties. He was, indeed, able to beat off the attack but
could not frustrate the plan of Bonaparte, who, as
the weaker party, did not wish to fight the united

262 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

foemen but to meet the several portions on different
fields. The sun burned hot out of storm-clouds. The
fury of battle grew fiercer as it swung backward.
"No quarter! Whoever spares a Prussian's life will
be shot."

A day lost can be regained. Germans and British
were now for the first time striking in soldierly com
radeship, and before such noble unity the Imperator
must yield. The Duke had already arranged for the
Germans' flank attack; la belle Alliance was prac
ticable.

* . After the battle, Prince William of Prussia
wrote to his sister: "The glorious though indeed dearly-
bought victory of Bliicher came as unexpectedly as
could be. According to today's reports three hundred
cannon and all Napoleon's baggage are taken. He him
self rode off in bare shirtsleeves. His coat, hat and
sword were captured. He threw them away so as not
to be recognized, and he was seen with his head
bandaged.

"Six times he attacked the centre. The English
fought wonderfully, but would probably have been
forced back if Bliicher had not come up on the French
rear and flank. How extraordinarily our army has be
haved again! To fight three whole days with only
two corps against the whole French army! They re
tire seven miles, lose thirteen cannon and fifteen thou
sand men, then halt, beat the enemy completely, and
capture not only three hundred cannon, but Napoleon's
treasure!"

Four days after the Waterloo belle Alliance Bona
parte cried from the Elyse at Paris: "When I began

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 263

the war for the independence of France, I had a right
to count on the united action of all the forces, energies
and resources of the nation, and so, despite the fact
that all the Powers turned against us, to hope for
success. Since conditions seem to have changed, I
offer myself as a sacrifice to the hatred of our enemies.
If, as I hope, their declarations were sincere, their
resentment is centered wholly on me. My political
life is ended. I announce the accession to the throne
of my son, who will hereafter, as Napoleon the Second,
be Emperor of the French. For the present the Min
isters will conduct affairs. As a devoted father I call
upon the Chambers to draw up without delay a
Regency Law. Unite, Frenchmen, for the protection
of the Commonwealth and of Freedom!"

From the battlefield of Waterloo he hastened back
to Paris, arriving June 20, 1815, in order to rescue
whatever it still seemed possible to preserve. With
dust-covered coat and skin glistening like bacon he
panted almost breathless into the Elysee. He desired
to address the Chamber of Deputies, to lash them once
more with stinging words to vigorous resolution. A
bold decision. They refused to hear him at all, de
manded his abdication. Fouche, once the head of the
police detectives, now of the provisional government,
and Metternich the Austrian Chancellor, guaranteed
the succession of the little Napoleon. The deposed
man seemed calm, walked in the garden, answered with
cheerful resignation the citizens who climbed the wall
to urge their Emperor not to retire. The pressure of
the throng increased. Jerome, Joseph, Luckn Bona
parte feared that the government, which was already

264 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

commanding the people to remain aloof, would take
action against their brother's life, or decide to deliver
him up to the enemy.

Bonaparte withdrew with Las Cases to Malmaison,
where, before his fatal campaign, he had dreamed away
a half-day amid melancholy and ill-boding memories
of Josephine.* By a resolution of the Chamber,
Napoleon II was Emperor of the French; and until he
came of age the business of state was entrusted to a
Regency.

The enemy advanced to the gate of the capital
(where Davout as commander-in-chief still controlled
seventy thousand men). In eleven days Bliicher's
army had come from the Belgian battlefield to
Gonesse, close by Paris. If the Emperor should return
to head the army? All too loud, on all roads, is still
the cry: Vive i'Empereur!

The government resolved to have the dangerous man
put under the surveillance of Lieut.-General Becker
and a troop of gendarmes, and taken out of the zone
of disturbance as expeditiously as could be without
use of force.

But whither? "In the harbor of Rochefort two
frigates are to be made ready to sail; they are to take
Napoleon Bonaparte to the United States of America."
Next day came a contradictory order: "First to the
island of Aix. Becker (whom Fouque had chosen for
the watchman's task because he had a grievance against
the Emperor) announced himself at Malmaison as
reverentially as if he still stood before the all-powerful

*It will be recalled that her life had flickered out during his
brief reign in Elba.

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 265

ruler. Bonaparte offered, as a simple general, with
out princely rank, to lead the troops against the enemy.
"I shall beat Bliicher." As the government declined
the offer, he, on the 2 9th of June, left Malmaison.

The Court Chamberlain, Bertrand, was to take
charge of the books. He who may not act, reads.
From the library in Paris, Bertrand was to have for
warded works on wars and the art of war, on America
and Egypt, a complete file of the Moniteur de I' Empire,
the best encyclopaedia and the most useful diction
aries! Books! He who may not act, reads!

At Saintes the party was assailed by a Jacobin mob,
the escort was accused of having brought the state
treasure along with them, was locked up in a tavern,
but was released by a throng of loyal peasants. Bona
parte himself was not subjected to annoyance.

On the morning of July 3rd, he arrived at Roche-
fort, where General Gourgaud was expecting him. He
put off his uniform, and showed himself in citizen's
dress to the crowd from the upper room of the town
hall (which, like every house in which the Emperor
made a stay, is now called "chateau")- He was quiet,
cool; seemed hardly touched by this storm of events.
A lieutenant of marines and a naval ensign made an
offer to rescue the emperor in a pinnace. A young
Frenchman in command of a Danish brig wanted to
take him to America. No!

On July 8th, ten minutes after five o'clock, he left
the mainland of France. Was the dream of a hundred
days, of a hundred nights, dreamed out? From the
shore a dense crowd waved farewell to the harbor
boat, as it bore their hopes away through the heavy

266 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

surf. On board the Saale Bonaparte was received with
the honors befitting his rank. A salute had been ex
pressly forbidden in the instructions to Gourgaud.
The general was obliged to remain with the captive,
who was now most profoundly shaken, until heavy
slumber took pity on him; he was summoned at four
to return to Bonaparte's cabin.

Landing on the island of Aix. Rejoicing of the
crowd just as at the departure from Rochefort. The
fortress and cannon were inspected.

The port commander brought an order of the pro
visional government. Voyage to be continued within
twenty-four hours. Sadness clouded all brows. The
Emperor locked himself in his room. Should he stay,
arm himself for resistance, flee to Bordeaux, slip away
to the United States? Probably it would be most
sensible to discover first the intentions of the English.
Las Cases climbed on board the English warship in
the harbor. What is the ship's name? BeUerophon.

A dubious name. It was the name of Sisyphus' de
scendant who, like Jacob's son Joseph, resisted temp
tation, and was therefore accused by the disappointed
woman of having attacked her, and was sent to her
father with a sealed tablet which bore an inscription
declaring him deserving of death. The father was
more honorable than the amorous queen of Tiryus, and
would not murder his guest; but, for the sake of com
plying in some sense with the dear daughter's demand,
sent him on a venturesome quest. Bellerophon tamed
Pegasus^ killed the fire-breathing Chimsera, and con
quered the Amazons. Such a champion the Lycian
king determined to retain, despite the passionate

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 267

Anteia, and gave him his younger daughter in mar
riage, and made him his successor. After coming to
power he wished to take vengeance on his wicked
sister-in-law, pretended love for her, cajoled her to
mount his Pegasus, leaped on behind her, and despite
her outcries cast her into the sea by Melos. In old
age, drunk with success, he was seized by Hybris on
the steep way up the ridge of Olympus, and blinded.
Hater of men and hated of gods, he wandered through
the wilderness to the end of his life. From him the
ship had her name. . . .

What was Las Cases thinking? Did he dream that
the passport which he wished to bring might prove for
his master a Bellerophon-letter? He gave assurance
that he understood English, but, with all his clever
ness, he could obtain from the stolid Britons nothing
anywise favorable. Passports to America the Ad
miralty never had issued. The parliament flag would
not protect a vessel attempting to carry the Emperor
to freedom from being fired on; he should go to Eng
land, where he would be well treated.

The trap was set. And presently there came from
Paris the announcement that the Bourbon king had
been enthroned in the Tuileries since the eighth of
July. The treacherous Fouche had for the hundredth
time broken his word, had come to an understanding
with Wellington, nullified the resolution of the Cham
ber which assured the crown to Bonaparte's son, made
his bargain quietly with King Louis, and, after assur
ance of All-Highest gratitude and favor, had smuggled
him into the capital under protection of British bayo
nets. Second "Restoration" of the hereditary ruling

268 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

family. And was it really the end of the Bonapartes?
Vive I'Empereurl It still resounded from the shore
of the island and from the frigates, the Saale and the
Medusa. "The enthusiasm of despair," Gourgaud
calls it.

The Bellerophon was approaching under full sail.
Her cannon thundered. Was it to celebrate the en
trance of the Allies into Paris? Bonaparte was lodged
in the city commandant's house. Should he attempt
to escape, or surrender to the British? (That people
he did not always hate. Even on St. Helena he said
to Montholon: "The English are superior to us. With
an English army I would have conquered the world,
and their discipline would not have slackened on the
long way. After suffering ten defeats like that of
Waterloo, not a man, not a voice in Parliament would
have deserted me, if I had been the man England
trusted, instead of France; and at the last I should
have won the game.")

Gourgaud was afraid that every smaller vessel was
to be detained, the Emperor taken prisoner and com
mitted to the Tower of London. Savary, Duke of
Rovigo, was for flight. So was General Lallemand.
On the Danish ship, which had taken on a cargo of
brandy, there were only four sailors; the French cap
tain, Besson, had all his papers in order, a valid pass
port, and could conceal four persons. Agreed. "I
am going to America. There I shall live as a plain
citizen. To return, as from Elba, is impossible. It
will be two months before they get any definite news
of me over here. The English would treat me de-

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 269

cently. But that very thing will be degrading. I
am but human, and cannot endure the thought of
living among deadly enemies; and I feel that history
will not condemn me because I seek my freedom in
the United States. If the ship falls into the hands
of the English, I am master of my fate, and can kill
myself.

"Yesterday evening I wanted to go aboard the
English cruiser and cry: 'Because I will not work for
the breaking up of my fatherland, I seek a refuge
here, as Themistocles did/ But I did not hold fast to
that decision."

Gourgaud caught a little bird that strayed into the
room, and called it a lucky sign. "There is suffering
enough all about us. Let it go free. But like Roman
augurs we will watch the bird closely." The little
creature flew to the right. "The direction is toward
the English cruiser, Your Majesty." "All in vain. In
America, if ennui comes sulking in, I can travel a thou
sand miles away; and I shall never think of returning
to France."

A sorrowful supper. The baggage was taken aboard
the Danish vessel, but the escort was deluded into be
lieving that the Emperor would go to the British.

In the fourth hour after midnight Las Cases and
Lallemand visited the Belleropkon again, under the
Parliament flag: "In order to save his people from
further civil strife, the Emperor is. willing to go into
banishment. Is not England under obligation to re
ward such magnanimity, which assures the conclusion
of peace, with fitting treatment?" "Yes, and so she

270 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

will," said Captain MaitlancL "England's people will
not let themselves be outdone in nobility of feeling, and
will gladly give the Emperor what befits him."

Return to shore. Council in the commandant's
house. Fifteen hundred marines would be available;
the garrisons of Rochefort and Rochelle would be won
over; reinforcements from La Vendee might be hoped
for. But what could such a handful do against the
millions of the Quadruple Alliance? The throne of
France was occupied, and the king was united with
Bonaparte's enemies. Civil war would be a sanguinary
and useless crime. All voices favored England. While
still on Aix the Emperor wrote to the Prince Regent:

"Your Royal Highness! As a man assailed by the
European powers and by the party fury which is de
vouring my own land, I am abandoning political life,
and seeking, after the example of Themistocles, a
refuge at the hearth of the British people. I put my
self under the protection of its laws, and beg your
Royal Highness, as the stubbornest and noblest of my
foes, to afford me protection."

Gourgaud was to take the letter to England, to hire
a country place there, and to make it a condition that
Bonaparte was not to come to London by day, and was
not .to be compelled to go to an English colony.

Bonaparte left Ak on the corvette Stanley; went to
Plymouth, but not to London. He could not speak
with Lord Keith, commander of the Channel fleet.
No landing. The corvette sailed to Torbay. There
the Betteropkon lay at anchor. Napoleon Bonaparte
on the evening of July 14 went aboard her as a free
guest of the British people, he believed, but presently

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 271

felt that he was a prisoner. Not ; as yet, with painful
distinctness.

He received Gourgaud at once, and heard that the
letter had not been delivered; but still hoped that the
promised intercession of Admiral Hotham would bring
about a more tolerable state of affairs. The officers
were courteous. One only, Captain Gambier, com
mander of the corvette, was rude, when Bertrand's
wife asked him to lend her a newspaper: an evil omen.
There was one consolation, the multitude of friendly
curious visitors, eager to see the Emperor, whose boats
surrounded the ship. Fruits, even, were sent aboard.
That did not suit the commander. "No communication
with the shore!" Rough words and musket-shots
scared off the boats.

July 26. Arrival off Plymouth. What would
happen? Bonaparte had been for thirty-five days no
longer Emperor, for eleven on the water; and he still
did not know what the immediate future was to bring
him. Armed boats cut the cruiser off from all inter
course. Lord Keith did not come on board, but
ordered Captain Maitland to come ashore to him.
The captain returned with clouded brow, was taciturn,
and when asked why two frigates had anchored to port
and starboard of the cruiser, replied, "Commands of
the Admiralty!"

Next morning he went ashore again, and at Bona
parte's desire took the Themistocles letter with him.
On his return he brought word that the admiral was
coming, but without salute with cannon, so that higher
honors might not be paid to him than to His Majesty.
That pleased the ear of the powerless one. Yesterday

272 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

an evil rumor had crept through the cabins, "It is to
the Tower!" "No, it is to St. Helena, and the two
frigates carry the guards." Even now Bonaparte re
mained calm. "I am here of my own free will. What
conditions I made, my letter to the Regent states.
Respond to my confidence with gross treachery? Fool
ish gossip!"

The sky was bright, the sea covered with pleasure
boats. "Thousands, all England," Las Cases says,
"seem to be on a pilgrimage to Plymouth." Music.
The exiles lifted their heads. Many men, women and
children waved the red carnation, the Emperor's
flower. A hundred lips greeted with good wishes the
man who appeared on deck at five. Only, from the
papers a different tone emanated; malicious, sinking to
gross slander. Finally, on the 28th, Keith came; he
was very polite, but stayed only twenty minutes with
the Emperor. On the last day of July he brought with
him the Secretary of State, Bunbury, who presented
a communication from the British government:

"We should neglect our most important duty to
our country and to the Allies of our King, if we left
to General Bonaparte any possibility of again disturb
ing the peace of Europe. This consideration must
precede all others. The freedom of the general can
not remain unrestrained. As place of residence we
have chosen for him the island of St. Helena, where
the climate is healthful, and the location makes pos
sible the surveillance of his person without too vexa
tious precautionary regulations. Three officers of his
suite (not Savary nor Lallemand) and the physician
Maingaud may accompany the general; but may not

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 273

thereafter leave the island without the permission of
the English government. Rear Admiral Sir George
Cockburn will have charge of the transportation and
will be ready for the outward voyage within a few
days."

The blood of the Latin mountaineer boiled. "Rather
shed the last drop here, on the spot, than go to such
dishonor! Woe to England if it repays in this fashion
the highest honor it was possible to imagine! 55 The
admiral begged him to give him his refusal in writing,
and received the leaf on which stands, approximately:
"I am a guest, not a prisoner. Rather death than St.
Helena." Savary and Lallemand also invoked, in
writing, the protection of the British laws (but were
taken to Fort Manuel, at Malta).

After the storm the Corsican was soon quiet again.
On the very first of August he asked Las Cases whether
he might count on him as a companion, and seemed
rejoiced at his assent. On the 2nd he said: "No doubt
I shall have to go. Sometimes, indeed, the desire seizes
me to end it all. Then you could go home to your
families. No forebodings would hinder me; I do not
believe in punishment in the Beyond. The conception
of God's infinite goodness contradicts it, and why
should God punish the desire to come quickly into His
kingdom? But still, a man must not slink away from
his destiny, but must wrestle with it." ("In resistance
to agony of spirit manly courage shows itself as bril
liantly as under the enemy's fire. He who kills him
self, in order no longer to suffer in soul, is like the
coward who before victory runs from the battlefield. 5 '
So had the First Consul written in an army order after

274 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

the suicide of two grenadiers, in the month Floreal
of the year X.) "I will describe my life experiences.
Work! Only with the sickle of work are the harvests
of time to be gathered. It can be done ! "

He was calm, jested at Grand Marshal Bertrand's
wife, who heaped dismal reproaches on her husband,
General Gourgaud and others, determined (in mock
ery of the men's ideas on suicide) to throw herself
into the water, and was pleased, really delighted, over
the quantity of red carnations from the shore and the
boats that glimmered in the harbor waters. "Just like
hope. Can treason make its home where earnest loy
alty watches?"

In the grey of the fourth August dawn the anchors
were weighed. English papers had announced that
General Bonaparte would be transferred to the
Northumberland. That ship, it was said, was still
being equipped at Portsmouth. Whither, then, the
voyage? The Emperor would not see anyone, and
would not eat. The rumor was, "He has taken poison."
No. Las Cases writes down, in the Channel, the Em
peror's protest directed to Keith:

"Before God and Mankind I hereby protest sol
emnly against the violation of my most sacred rights,
and the violence that robs me of my freedom. Of my
own free will I came aboard the Bellerophon, whose
Captain had sent word to me that he was directed
by his government to bring me to England if it was
my wish as a guest, therefore, not as a prisoner. In
good faith I placed myself under the law of England,
whose soil I trod when I came aboard this ship. If
I have been enticed into a trap by the government

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 275

which authorized the captain to receive me with that
promise, then it has defiled its flag and forfeited its
honor. Never again can Britons boast of their in
tegrity, or of the security of justice and freedom in
their home. The hospitality of the deck of the Bellero-
phon would bury forever all belief in British good
faith. I await with confidence the judgment of his
tory. An enemy, it will say, that had fought England
for two decades, came of his own free will, in mis
fortune, to Britain's hearth. By putting himself under
English law, he gave the strongest proof of the respect
and confidence which he brought to his old enemy.
And how did England requite that high-hearted de
cision? She made a hypocritical pretence of hospi
tality to her enemy, offered him her hand, and, when
he clasped it, pushed him to destruction!"
He hesitated, then signed: "Napoleon."
On the 6th, after a day of rough weather and gen
eral seasickness, the ship came to anchor. Bunbury,
Cockburn and Keith came on board. Order of the
government: "The Frenchmen are to be deprived of
all arms. After the transfer to H.M.S. Northumber
land Sir George Cockburn is to make a careful exami
nation of General Bonaparte's baggage. Books, wines,
furniture are to be passed; also silver, if it is limited
to ordinary daily use, and does not appear to be an
asset, the sale of which could enrich the possessor.
Gold, paper money, diamonds, are to be surrendered.
The government of Great Britain does not confiscate
them, but takes them into its charge and control. If
it should not do so, the escape of the prisoners would
be facilitated. Principal or interest will be expended

276 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

only for the personal needs of the general and those
who accompany him ; his desire as to the disposition
of them carried out as far as possible, the costs of ad
ministration borne by the English treasury, and after
the death of the general all the provisions of his will
to be carried out implicitly to the smallest detail. The
Admiral is to take also three officers of the general's
suite, who present themselves of their own free will,
and are prepared to submit to every measure requisite
for security of the prisoner. An attempt of the gen
eral to escape would be punished by imprisonment.
The same penalty would befall whoever aided him.
Letters written by the general and his companions or
addressed to them are to be examined by the Admiral
or the Governor of the island before delivery. The
final appeal on important decisions is to His Majesty's
government. Wishes and complaints of the general
are to be handed in on unsealed sheets, so that the
Admiral or Governor can append to them any remarks
that seemed to them necessary." A set of prison
regulations.

Wearisome discussion over choice and number of
companions. Final decision: Bertrand, Gourgaud,
Montholon and Las Cases (as private secretary, so a
civilian) go with him. Each officer received a money
belt which contained sixteen thousand francs. The
Emperor secretly entrusted to Las Cases a leather
purse containing the necklace which Queen Hortense
had given him before his departure from Malmaison.
(This the faithful Las Cases kept on his person, but
forgot about it at his departure from Longwood, and
it was by the hand of an Englishman that he was able

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 277

to restore it to the Emperor.) Las Cases, also, deliv
ered the protest to Keith. The latter ("a handsome
old man with the finest social manners") was extremely
courteous, but avoided all oral communication, and
gave his decisions in writing.

Count Las Cases, himself a marine officer, accord
ingly laid before him all sorts of grievances: "The
Emperor is furious at the thought of the rummaging
through his baggage; he would rather throw it into
the sea. His legs are swollen, and the sea-voyage may
prove dangerous for him. Captain Maitland has acted
deceitfully." At that for the first time Keith became
excited: "Captain Maitland is no trifler and no vil
lain! What the government has ordered must be done.
Is it not an especial honor that General Bonaparte, as
an unique exception, may keep his sword?"

Cockburn came with a customs official for the exami
nation of the baggage. Eighty thousand francs were
taken in charge. Gourgaud begged that he might re
tain his servant, and heard out of Cockburn's mouth:
"That's how it is with these famous French officers:
the mere loss of a servant seems to them unbearable!"
Departure of Savary (who was to keep the money in
the belt) and of Lallemand (to whom the Dane's lad
ing, worth thirty thousand francs, was assigned) from
the Bellerophon. Maitland declined the Emperor's
valuable snuff-box, his first and second officers accepted
pistols.

A launch conveyed the little group to the Northum
berland. All the sailors on deck. Also four members
of Parliament. The Emperor greeted them pleasantly,
remained on deck, talked with the officers and mem-

278 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

bers, had dinner with his companions at seven. He
learned that a ship's cutter had run down a boatload
of inquisitive visitors, and two people were drowned.
At eleven he went to bed. The ship sailed, under
Cockburn's admiral's flag, for St. Helena.
To prison.

The accommodations on board ship were not bad.
Sleeping chamber (with the usual camp-bed) , dining
room, and chief claim to the use of the ship's salon.
But: "You are a prisoner of war, General!" Not
"Emperor." Not one before whom one uncovers and
stands at attention. The suite redoubled their evi
dences of reverence. Cockburn says: "An Englishman
will never understand the servile devotion of these
people, shall never see it without contempt and dis
gust."

Bonaparte had intended to be known in America
at Col. Duroc or Muiron. "That I am addressed here
only as 'General' does not hurt me. I remain none
the less what I am." However, it did irritate him,
and later he himself acknowledged that it was then
that he began in earnest to underscore his imperial
title. Had he given up? At the mouth of the Channel,
in a tempestuous night, he stormed: "Oh, I ought to
have stayed in Egypt! Arabia is waiting for a Man.
I would have thrown an army into Judaea and become
Lord of the Orient." The days were long. He read
much, played chess or "Vingt-et-un"; did not dress
fully until dinner. For that the Admiral always ap
peared with two officers.

In the Tuileries, or in the field, dinner had never

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 279

lasted more than fifteen minutes, here, an hour and a
half. And music at table. And English cooking.
Horrible! Napoleon said little (Las Cases was inter
preter). As soon as the coffee was drunk he hurried
on deck, and walked there till dark. One day like
another.

On the high seas off Lisbon four French ships were
sighted. Rescuers? No !

The only (and curious) August delight: on his
birthday Bonaparte, who almost always lost, won
eighty Napoleons at cards.

Over Madeira blew the sirocco. At Funchal cattle
and fowls, fruits, wine and water were hastily brought
aboard. The heat increased. The General was learn
ing English, played piquet and whist, busied himself
with square and cube root, equations of the second
and third degree, watched the polisher as he cleaned
the rust-spots from the sword of Aboukir, then from
that of Maifeld.

Though he had himself passed the equator before,
he promised a hundred Napoleons on the day of
"crossing the line" to the sailors who were disguised
as Neptune, Amphitrite, and the other water-folk:
but he could not get them from Bertrand, Ms treas
urer, nor from the Admiral, who urged that five were
enough. Memories and thoughts were dictated, dol
phins and sharks watched, questions of belief, history
and natural science discussed. "Man is child of the
atmosphere and of 'electricity' . . ." 'Waterloo? If
the battle were to be fought once morel"

On the 1 4th of October, at seven In the evening,
St. Helena came in sight. As if out of dimly glimmer-

280 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

ing fire Bonaparte's glance flashed into the distance.
Next noon Colonel Wilkes, representative of the India
Company, came aboard, and stated that the island
(now put in the direct control of the British govern
ment) had over two thousand inhabitants, two-thirds
of them slaves. The admiral praised the location of
Longwood village. "You will feel comfortable, Gen
eral!" Bonaparte observed from the deck the land
now near at hand. Bare rocks. A village closely
hemmed in. "Where am I to live? If I had only
stayed in Egypt! Today the whole Orient would be
subject to me. These English do not know what mag
nanimity is. Paoli was right, they are shopkeepers!"
After the landing: "My little house, my wretched
hut, clings like a nest to the hot rock-wall. My suite
is far away, and when they come to me they are
escorted by an English soldier. Bread, butter, oil,
coffee: all unappetizing. These villains! Instead of
a bullet the long death-agony! The gang do not even
display the courage needed for open murder. And the
kings of Europe, who called me brother, endure this
outrage against the sacred law of nations! I marched
as victor into their capitals. Did I treat one of them
as England treats me? She recognizes no law of
nations; she is crueler than the savage who kills his
captive. Tenfold better dead than clamped to this
rock. I will be stronger than my fate, uplift myself
on high above it. But the order to shoot me down
would ring in my ears as a blessed message of de
liverance at hand. Woe is me, that my blind confi
dence drove me upon the Bellerophon, into the snares
of the faithless British people 1"

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 281

Prince William of Prussia wrote to Berlin: "Noppel
is to be taken to St. Helena. Another rocky island.
When we heard of it, almost all of us said, 'He's
sure to come back again.' I too am convinced of
it."

He came back no more. Britain's trap held him
fast. Bellerophon's curse works even into the age of
enlightenment. Suicide? "Only dastards kill them
selves." To Gourgaud and Montholon he said that.
To the Irish physician O'Meara, "To suffer is harder
than to die; and he who kills himself does himself a
wrong."

Did any hope remain? To his companions, who
were considering whether they should go to Cape
Colony, he said: "I shall be in Paris before one of
you gets to the Cape." That, after the sinking of the
hundred suns that saw him in renewed imperial glory.
Above him the sky, and before his eyes, always, the
ocean, England's sea. Round about him Britain's
guards on guard* If there came an eagle, he would
come from Zeus.

So died Bonaparte. So he that was chained to the
naked rock lives in the consciousness of mankind

"Rejoice, that never soul more proud
In hateful Golgotha hath bowed.
Far from his weary ashes, then,
Be any bitter word of tongue or penl"

So the aged Goethe wrote, when with chilled brain h3
translated into (hardly legible) German ManzonFs
pompously resonant ode The Fifth of May. Over his

282 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

unwonted and thankless task lie no doubt recalled the
hour when the Emperor, after a single glance at him,
greeted him with the cry, "Voila un homme!" (Ecce
homo, that is; though a thousand theologians grunt in
horror at the word.)

In that immortal interview, which revealed the Em
peror to the poet as a late-born branch from the same
stock as Prometheus, Caesar, Mohammed, there fell
from Bonaparte's lip, also, as if to avert the doom of
ancient tragedy, the profound word: "The political
life is our destiny, 5 ' Not merely in a dramatic sense
was it meant; nor was it simply a reminder that
Chance, Fate, and the rest of mythology are dead and
that progress, movement of mankind, must be brought
about by force in a more modern sense. Rather was
it the word of a new Roman, who conceived the State
to be the all-moulding world-creator; the word of a
man wholly possessed by his thoughts, by the pure Idea
within himself, who even on the battlefield, in his gray
overcoat and tricorne sans cocade (he never wore a
general's uniform), on horseback, is always spiritual-
minded, abstracted from reality.

As a boy he hardly ever played. He sat in the little
attic room of his parents' house in Ajaccio, and read:
If he had to come among human beings, to eat, he was
speechless; and if he did speak, it did not seem a
child's voice. Once at table it was discussed, how the
constant ferment in Corsica might be reduced to quiet
and repose. "Ten days of Pasha rule would do more
for that than ten years of a government like yours."
The boy of eleven threw that in the face of M. de
Marbjeuf, governor of the island (and friend of Ms

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 283

mother, the beautiful and gifted Letitia), and then
climbed back to his bookworm's retreat.

At Valence the boy-lieutenant of artillery pointed
out new possibilities for the improvement of his gun.
At Nice he read aloud in a wine shop his plan for a
war against Italy, and two years later, according to
Volney's testimony, carried it out to the minutest de
tail, just as he had constructed it, in seventeen para
graphs.

A younger brother of Robespierre had introduced
Napoleon to him, and after that leader's fall Napoleon
was to have been expelled, as "incapable," from the
military section of the Committee of Safety. How
ever, he was protected by Carnot; and Josephine's
friend Barras raised him to the rank of Commander.
When, on the i3th of Vendemiaire he had saved the
government, he was named as commander of the army
in Italy.

"This meager stripling, this youth of twenty-five,
who shows everybody his pretty wife's picture, and
surely owes his rank to some perfumed petticoat,
he is to lead us?" So whispered Massena and other
generals. He announced his plan of attack for the next
day, and in ten minutes the corps of officers knew.
^He has the brains of a leader."

Even in Italy he was planning the descent on the
English coast. He went to Egypt as commander-in-
chieL When he landed at Frejus he was borne to
Paris on the huzzas of the multitude, whose sole re
maining hope he was, and named First Consul. . . .
The Pope crowned him. The ruling house of Austria
provided him his second wife. He gave his brothers

284 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

the crowns of Holland, Westphalia, Naples, Spain; in
Cairo and in Moscow his will was law; all the kings
of the old continent did homage to him, the alien
plebeian, who never learned to speak French well, con
fused such words as "section" and "session," "armi
stice" and "amnestie," but whom the voting power
of four million Frenchmen called to an emperor's
throne.

His vitality seemed inexhaustible. Fourteen hours
in the saddle, five days' fighting (against Alvinczy), a
continuous journey from Warsaw to Paris, then a long
bath (he often slept an hour in the tub), and im
mediately thereafter he was fresh and weighty in the
council. Whether to bed at eight in the evening or
five in the morning did not matter. No consultation
could end until he had managed to view the matter
clearly from all sides.

A hundred times over, the magical strength of his
memory was attested. At a reception of delegates he
asked a man from southern France, before whose house
he had rested for a minute eleven years before and
whom he had never seen since, how his daughters were.
During a campaign in Spain he corrected a report as
to the number of cannon on the rampart of a west
Prussian fortress. 'Twelve hundred rations to pro
vision the corps at Fontenay? It was not there; non
sense! It was on the day at Rochefort. Your records
don't agree, Dejean!" Always, for a whole decade,
in every case, it proved that he was right.

On the throne he grew stout, and fell into uncouth!
manners; rose from the table before the soup was
served, and the guests quaked in fear of dire disfavor.

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 285

He hummed or whistled a tune as he passed between
lines of courtesying ladies. He said to old men: "With
you 'tis soon over"; to ladies: "Good Lord: I was
told you were pretty!" He asked young girls if they
had children. He smeared every piece of paper,
scratched or cut ruinously all furniture with knives
or files, shattered the finest Sevres china, trampled
beds of violets, snapped hothouse flowers off their
stems, shot out of the window at rare singing
birds.

Honor and virtue? "Abstractions that come to
nothing." Women? "Josephine was, Marie Louise
is, an angel: but the rest? Merely means for enjoy
ment." "Duroc, une femmeJ" That in the midst of
the dictation of a decree. He took a sudden whim for
one or another, and robbed her husband or lover of
her; poured wine on her dress at the court table, and
led her into the bedroom to cleanse it.

Chaptal, his Minister of the Interior, was the pos
sessor of Bourgoing, actress at the Comedie. Thd
Emperor desired her. Chaptal must go as ambassador
to Vienna, to Madrid, to Constantinople. But he be
lieved he was not fitted for diplomacy. Then he must
go elsewhere! During an evening audience to
Chaptal, the court chamberlain announced: "Made
moiselle Bourgoing." "She is to wait" The minister
hastily stuffed his papers into his portfolio and left;
and while his mistress spent the night with Napoleon
he wrote his resignation. It was accepted. Yet his
master redoubled his favor and confidence in the re
tired minister;" and the realization that even this
earnest statesmanlike spirit soon forgot this gross in-

286 I MEET MY CONTEMPORARIES

suit is dainty food for the self-satisfaction of the arch-
contemner of mankind.

"What for others are essential conditions of life
bind me not at all." Only from his lips does this not
have the ring of a comedian's boast. Talma taught
him to bear himself like a prince. In the burning
Kremlin, amid the smoking ruins of his most cherished
plan, he wrote .the statutes of the Comedie Frangaise,
to this day the model for all theater codes.

But he himself played comedy only when he chose.
He could be the soberest statistician, and dig to the
very heart of a wholly novel problem in agriculture,
manufactures, or trade.

"The English produce more goods than they need
to consume, accustom their people to comfort, and,
as soon as the export sales fall off, are threatened with
uprisings. I have shown the continental states how
they can get on without insatiable England, but they
will not hearken to me." *

Out of his calm repose comes a sudden roar, his
Daemon rises, and the storm of his breath breaks the
delicate machinery of his brain-like rushes.

"Madness, to wed an archduchess, to ally myself by
marriage with the old forces! I am the son of the
Revolution. Tilsit was worthless rubbish. Only in
Constantinople can I dictate my terms of peace: only
from the Ganges can I liberate Europe!"

"He was stronger than human society," says
Nietzsche. "Ambition served by genius, with three
Atlases in his brain," declares Taine. Does it suffice?

* Translator's note ; This is Mr. Harden's own chief article of
economic faith.

BONAPARTE IN ADVERSITY 287

An elemental force. A destroyer and a creator. An
earthquake, a world-flood, a volcano. His conquests
were swept away, crashed down to ruin, sank deep.
But the world was a different thing from that into
which he came. Tyrant, defiler of justice, mower-down
of peoples, he was nevertheless also a sower of justice,
a liberator, a doer of deeds, an eternal experience for
the spiritual-minded.

An island bore him, on another the eye of his hate
was ever fixed, whether from the Tagus, the Nile or
the Moskva, an island became his cage and his tomb.
It was as if the sea must ever part him, his rise and
his fall, from human communion.

In the young general's field library the Bible and
the Koran stood in the section labeled "Politics." And
politics, remember, he called "our destiny." Jehovah,
Jesus, Allah, Mohammed, means to a political end.
Or were they mere steps to the temple of self-deifica
tion? The dry island-rock drinks the belated echo of
the primeval legend:

"Hybris cast him, drunk with victory and with the
delight of action, from the steep summitward path
down into the desolate abyss."

THE END

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