Treitschke and the Great War

=t*REITSCHKE

oo

THE GREAT WAR

ICO

OSEPH MCCABE

Presented to the

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
LIBRARY

by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE
LIBRARY

1980

TREITSCHKE

TREITSC

AND THE GREAT

BY

JOSEPH McCABE

,

LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN
I ADELPHI TERRACE W.C.

First Published -
Second Impression -

November, 1914
November,

-T-7

[All Rights Reserved]

PREFACE

THE conduct of the German nation during
the present war must be judged by the pre-
liminary incidents and the brutality which
marked the opening months of the war. In
spite of a highly organised system of mendacity
and misrepresentation, the truth has reached
the ears of the civilised world, and some restraint
has been imposed upon the German troops.
We must, therefore, regard their conduct in
the first months as the conduct they deliber-
ately adopted. Their actions have been a
sinister revelation to the nations of the
world. There seems to have been an out-
pouring from the pit, and the problem for
thoughtful people in every nation is how this

5

TREITSCHKE

morbid temper has got into the German
nature.

Many people are misled by the word " cul-
ture," which has been associated with the
German proceedings. What the Germans
call Kultur is by no means the same thing as
what English people call culture. It means
civilisation. It means the whole system of
social, political and commercial life; the
schools, the parliamentary system, the indus-
trial life, the technical skill, the military
system, and everything which distinguishes the
civilised man from the savage. The fact that
various scholars of Germany seem to have
approved the conduct of the war probably
gives some colour to the general misunderstand-
ing, yet how anyone could suppose that re-
ligious thinkers like Harnack and Eucken
could approve the horrible outrages that have
desecrated the soil of Belgium one cannot

6

PREFACE

understand. The censorship in Germany is
far more rigorous even than in England, and
one may well suppose that these outrages are
entirely unknown to the leading thinkers.
Yet it is a fact that some of Germany's leading
scholars have approved the violation of the
neutrality of Belgium, and it is well known
how German military policy prescribes the
treatment of a conquered country if there be
any resistance.

There is some taint in the blood or the brain
of one of the greatest Powers of the modern
world. It is, therefore, of interest to inquire
whether there are any elements in German
culture which indirectly might lead to or
palliate such brutalities. Everybody now
knows the sentiments of military writers
like General von Bernhardi. With his name
is associated, as the second apostle of
the German modern gospel, the name

7

TREITSCHKE

of a distinguished historian, Heinrich von
Treitschke.

To understand what is called " the soul of
the German people,'1 one of the most familiar
phrases in German literature, the history of
Germany must be borne in mind. The pro-
gress that has been made by the German
people in the last one hundred years has few
parallels in history. Prussia emerged from
the Napoleonic war a small and deeply
shattered State. Within the hundred years
since the final victory at Waterloo, it has
gathered province after province, and to-day
it commands one of the most powerful and —
we thought yesterday — most enlightened
nations of the modern world. Germany is
naturally proud of its great success. Nor
must we suppose that this success has been
purely military. How many times in recent
years have not our magazines assured us

8

PREFACE

of the superiority of German education,
German commercial enterprise, German techni-
cal skill ? The serious problem is not to
explain the pride of the German people,
but to understand how these achievements
are squared with the horrible outrages which
apparently find little restraint in higher
quarters in Germany.

Treitschke was one of the most popular
historians of modern Germany. Of a very
poetic and romantic nature, he impressed the
story of his country upon crowds of youths
in the greatest German University with a fire
and eloquence of which we find few examples
amongst modern historians. Although a Czech
by extraction, his nature responded ardently
to the features of modern German history,
and he became the most influential teacher
in the country. Prussia was to him almost
a sacred Power. The Reformation had

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TREITSCHKE

inaugurated a new period in the life of Europe,
and Prussia was its great interpreter. Begin-
ning life as a Liberal, his sympathy with
Bismarck and the Prussian Government
converted him into a Conservative of
the most obstinate character. He almost
deified the ways and traditions of the
Hohenzollerns.

In person also, Treitschke was eminently
fitted to be the apostle of Bismarckism. As
a young man, although a brilliant student,
he was sent down from his university for
duelling and constant disturbance. Accident
prevented him from becoming a soldier, and he
carried all the ardour of a soldier into the
interpretation of history. Like Goethe he
wavered long between poetry and action, and
he ended by infusing poetic fire into a gospel
of drastic action. No demand could be made
by the State, however exacting, but Treitschke

10

PREFACE

religiously impressed it on the youth of Ger-
many. He was a politician in the widest
sense of the word, as well as an historian. The
whole of history, in his mind, encouraged the
development of the German Empire along
the line on which it had entered. He glorified
war as few historians have ever done, and he
laid down principles the action of which
we can plainly detect in the most recent
ambitions of Germany. How these principles
were seized by military writers, how Treitschke's
sometimes reluctant concessions to the hard
traditions of Prussia were made to serve the
purpose of the more corrupt elements in
German life, is one of the most interesting
studies in connection with the German char-
acter. To him we can trace a very large part
of the abnormally swollen idea which young
Germany has of its position and its future,
and there are few points in the more repulsive

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TREITSCHKE

military gospel which cannot find shelter
in some of the pages of Treitschke.

He, more than any, infused into German
students — the generation which is fighting
against us to-day — a jealousy and disdain
of England. He, more than any, gave a
high-sounding moral and religious character
to the military ambitions of Germany. He
lived through the making of the German
Empire, and, in impressing that story on the
mind of a new generation, he created the
ambition which has led undoubtedly to the
present confusion in Europe. How his char-
acter developed these dangerous tendencies,
and what were the doctrines which he ex-
pounded in the class-rooms of the Berlin
University, or the Hall of the Reichstag, or
the higher Press of his country, I propose to
explain.

J. M.

12

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. THE IDEAS AND INFLUENCE OF

TREITSCHKE - 17

II. GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY - 67

III. VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND - - 105

IV. THE PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD - 137

V. IMPERIAL EXPANSION AND MORAL

LAW - - 185

VI. THE GERMAN " KULTUR " - 229

VII. THE WORKING OF THE POISON - 261

CHAPTER I

THE IDEAS AND INFLUENCE OF
TREITSCHKE

TREITSCHKE

CHAPTER I

THE IDEAS AND INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE was born at
Dresden on September 15th, 1834. His father
was an officer, and eventually a General, of
the Saxon army; a man related to the
Saxon nobility, but, not very many generations
back, tracing his descent from Czech ancestors.
His admiring biographer, Hausrath, traces
those features of his nature which made him
such a power in Germany precisely to his
foreign ancestry. Nietzsche, who is regarded
by many as another great influence in the

17 B

TREITSCHKE

making of Germany, was a Pole. Treitschke,
also, was by origin a Slav. But the whole
environment of his early years gave a bent to
his mind. His father had fought in the later
years of the Napoleonic war ; his mother was
the daughter of an officer. In the natural
course of things he would assuredly have
become a soldier, but an accident in his
early years gave a different turn to his career.
Talleyrand had his whole career perverted
by an accident which lamed him when he
was a child. In 1842 young Treitschke had
smallpox, and it left him with a serious
disorder of the ears, which in time turned into
complete deafness. This closed the military
world against him, and he threw his whole
energy into learning. By the age of ten he
knew Latin thoroughly and Greek very
fairly. The military sentiment mingled with
the books he read. He liked nothing better

18

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

than to wrap himself in his father's military
cloak and play the soldier. His great hero,
shining beyond the heroes of Homer, was
Bliicher.

He was a strong, wild boy, with little
affection for his mother and an ardent attach-
ment to his father, whom he constantly
accompanied to the camp. Letters written
to his father in his fourteenth year show that
he was deeply interested in politics even at
that early age. His schoolmaster, moreover,
was a vigorous Pan- German. Treitschke's
readings about ancient Rome and Greece gave
him a boyish leaning to republicanism, but
he soon outgrew that bias and looked upon the
revolutionary disturbances of 1848 with youth-
ful disfavour; by his seventeenth year he
was already an ardent believer in the union
of Germany under Prussia.

At that time, in 1848, the German subjects
19

TREITSCHKE

of Denmark were rebelling in Schleswig and
Holstein, and he followed the accounts in
the papers with deep interest. He wrote
a fiery poem on the " heroes " who fell in the
rebellion. He called upon Germany to " wipe
out the wild shame with the wild sword of
the avenger," and the juvenile poem ended :

" Break, ye waves, break wildly on our advancing keel,
Yet we will sail still onward, and we will reach the
goal."

With these sentiments Treitschke went
to Bonn University in the spring of 1851.
He had already a keen eye for the division
of Germany into little States, separated by
tariff walls, as his letters to his father showed.
In a vague, youthful way his idea of Germany
had already dawned. At Bonn he applied
himself chiefly to the study of history and of
the Politics of Aristotle. Years afterwards
he said to his students : " The man who

20

INFLUENCE OF TEEITSCHKE

would have a sound political sense must
steel himself in the steel-bath of classical
antiquity, which produced the greatest master-
piece of theoretical politics — the Politics of
Aristotle."

His deafness again influenced his career.
For a time he strained his ears to follow the
instruction of the professors, but he had little
success, and he resigned himself to hard
solitary reading and long solitary walks. For
the ordinary frivolities of student life he had
little taste. He was a stern, very religious
young man; by no means anaemic. His
broad shoulders, his penetrating dark eyes and
black hair, revealed the great energy of his
nature. His reading was exceedingly varied,
and always turned upon the conception of a
State. He read English lawyers like Black-
stone, and his favourites ranged from Machia-
velli to Shakespeare. His chief professor,

21

TREITSCHKE

Dahlmann, represented the Reformation as
the starting point of a new civilisation, in
which Prussia was to take the lead. This
idea sank deep into the serious mind of young
Treitschke. He wrote to his father, "The
greatest thing of all is the fulfilment of duty,"
and he still followed the confused political
development of Germany with remarkable
intelligence for so young a man. In spite of
his father belonging to one of the small German
States, Treitschke was early convinced that
they must be either persuaded or compelled to
pass under the leadership of Prussia.

By this time he had intelligently grasped
the history and the situation of Germany.
The kingdom which Frederick the Great had
so ably established had been ground under
the heel of Napoleon. At the Council of
Vienna, in 1815, the ambitions of the German
statesmen were checked by Talleyrand and

22

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

the English representatives, so that the King-
dom of Frederick was not wholly restored.
The rest of Germany was linked with Prussia
in a Confederation which proved itself an
almost lifeless and helpless mass of petty
States under the reactionary influence of
Austria. This conflicted violently with the
recent movement in German literature.
Goethe and Schiller and Herder, and all the
brilliant writers of the beginning of the 19th
century, had called for a rebirth of the German
spirit. For more than a hundred years
Germany had shown signs of exhaustion. In
letters it could do little more than imitate
the French, but in the latter part of the 18th
century a great German literature had arisen,
and the strong patriotic sentiment which this
literature inspired made young men deeply
impatient of the actual helplessness of the
country. Prussia seemed at first to Treitschke

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TREITSCHKE

to share this helplessness. It had at first
supported the claim of the Duke of Augusten-
burg to Schleswig and Holstein, and had
retired under the pressure of England and
Russia. The cry of " weakness " and national
shame was raised throughout young Germany.
This was renewed when, in 1852, the Treaty
of London guaranteed the integrity of Den-
mark. During the same year a national
parliament was at work in Germany trying
to reorganise the Confederation. The country
was split into two parties ; some were for a
big Germany, including Austria, others for
the exclusion of Austria and the welding
of all the small States into a Kingdom under
the lead of Prussia. They even offered the
title of Emperor to Frederick William IV.,
but that autocrat would receive no gift from
the hand of a democratic parliament. Thus
every attempt of Germany to assert its strength

24

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

and its mighty resources ended in failure, and
the Powers of Europe paid little heed to the
demands of Germany in their counsels.

Treitschke's industrious reading and fiery
thinking were accompanied by an acute
interest in these domestic problems. In 1852
he went to study at Leipzig. Here again he
found himself unable to follow the professors,
and spent his days and nights in hard solitary
reading. He was comprehensive in his taste.
French novels mingled with the volumes of
Hume and Adam Smith and Ricardo on his
desk, but everything which he read went in
his mind to the building up of a great idea of a
State, and that State was to be Prussia. For
the time being he despised Prussia, and his
feelings, as reflected in his letters, were
almost aimless and discontented. In 1854
he passed on to Tubingen, and then to Heidel-
berg University, where he continued to

25

TREITSCHKE

unite a deep study of economics and history
with the writing of patriotic poems. In 1855
he was dismissed from Heidelberg University
because of his constant challenges to dangerous
duels with pistols.

A letter, written to his father in March,
1856, when he was studying at Goettingen,
gives us a remarkable illustration of his
development. He had, at an earlier date,
studied Machiavelli, and it is clear that that
unscrupulous theorist had made a lasting
impression on his mind. He says to his
father, referring to Machiavelli : " He was
assuredly a practical statesman better fitted
than any other, to destroy the illusion that
the world can be reformed by cannon loaded
only with ideas of right and truth. Even the
politic of this much-decried apologist for crude
force, seems to me adapted to the present
condition of Prussia. It sacrifices right and

26

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

virtue to a great idea — the might and unity
of its people : which cannot be said of the
party that at present controls Prussia. This
fundamental idea of the work — the glowing
patriotism, and the conviction that even
the most oppressive despotism must be wel-
comed when it makes for the might and unity
of the Fatherland — have reconciled me to
many perverse and repulsive views of the
great Florentine."

It is almost humorous to find, that, when
his father about the same date scolded him
for his religious liberalism, he replied that
he honoured Christianity above all religions
in the world as " The Gospel of Love."

Treitschke still hesitated between poetry
and science. Year after year he polished the
verses he had written in his 'teens, and at
length, in 1856, he published them. The
art is not impressive, but one finds running

27

TREITSCHKE

through the whole volume a feeling of burning
shame for the lowliness of Germany in the
concert of Europe, and a stern conviction
that she must attain power and greatness
by hard work and sacrifice. At the same
time he wrote an article in the Prussian Year
Book on " The Foundations of English
Liberty," and we are told that it was
attributed to Mommsen. In 1857 he returned
to Leipzig and wrote his thesis on " The
Science of Society." The whole work is a
plea for the broader development of political
economy, and the dream of German unity
breaks in continually. It closed with the
words of Shakespeare :

" There is a mystery, with whom relation
Dare not meddle, in the soul of State,
Which hath an operation more Divine
Than breath or pen can give expression to."

He began to teach in the year 1859. His

28

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

subject was " The History of Political
Theories," and it is significant that we find
his father warning him that he is being
watched. Although he was teaching in one
of the small German States, Saxony, he freely
expounded his ideal of a United Germany.
The rumour of a secret alliance between
France and Russia for the destruction of
Germany, which was current at that time,
greatly alarmed him and he turned again
to Prussia. He said in one of his letters:
" That Germany will win in the end I do not
doubt for a moment : otherwise there is no
God in Heaven." He saw enemies of Ger-
many on every frontier. Russia he despised.
England he regarded, in spite of his admiration
of Milton and Shakespeare, as thwarting the
development of Germany. Austria he des-
cribed as " the hereditary enemy of German
Unity/' War seemed to him inevitable, and

29

TREITSCHKE

out of the crucible of war he believed a stronger
and purified Germany would emerge. " Ger-
many," he said, " will bleed again, as it did
two hundred years ago, for the freedom
of the whole world."

Both his letters and his lectures reflect
the terrible passions of the year 1859 in
Germany. His hearers in the University
increased monthly in numbers, and he took
up the subject of the history of Prussia, in
spite of his father's warning. In a letter of
February 10th, 1861, he says that he is going
to write a " History of the German Con-
federation," which will convince all of the
need to " destroy the small States." His
correspondence with his father — a high official
in the most reluctant of these small States —
became more and more troubled, and he was
compelled to leave Leipzig. " To change my
conviction out of love of you I am unable,"

30

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

he said to his father. He went to Munich and
began to write his history of the Confederation.
His letters constantly complain that there is
no power in small States. " Germany," he
says, " needs an Emperor to teach it
freedom." He was still a Liberal in regard
to internal politics, and in 1863 he wrote
an appreciative article on " Lord Byron and
Radicalism," and lectured on the History of
England.

The sentiments which Treitschke openly
expressed both in his university lectures and
on many public occasions, brought increasing
animosity upon him. In that year, 1863,
there was a great meeting of 20,000 athletes
at Leipzig, and Treitschke was invited to
address them. The vast audience raised his
patriotism to the whitest heat, and the inno-
cent gathering was astounded to hear from
the platform a glowing demand for the unity

31

TREITSCHKE

of Germany. The speech was afterwards
printed, and had a large circulation in Saxony.
The Saxon authorities, regarding with great
distrust the plea of unity, and leaning towards
Austria as some protection against what they
described as the ambition of Prussia, watched
Treitschke with anxiety. The agitation be-
came worse when, in the same year 1863,
the trouble about Schleswig and Holstein was
renewed. Frederick VII. of Denmark had
died, and the Prince of Augustenburg had
renewed his claim to the Duchies. The Na-
tionalist party in Germany warmly supported
him, and Treitschke's eloquence was enlisted
on his behalf ; indeed, modest as his salary
was, and little as he could expect from his
father in such a cause, he made a large con-
tribution to the military . funds of the Duke's
campaign. At that time he still regarded
Prussia with great distrust, but before many

32

INFLUENCE OF TKEITSCHKE

months he was entirely converted to the
Prussian cause.

Bismarck had taken power in 1862. Treit-
schke had been calling for "a heart glowing
with great passion, a brain cold and clear."
That was his ideal of the man that the German
genius was to produce, as it had produced men
like Luther and Frederick at every crisis in the
national life. He was, however, repelled by
Bismarck's internal policy. He was still a
Liberal, and Bismarck's blood -and -iron was
at that time directed solely against the sub-
jects of Prussia. It was the turning point
in Treitschke's transition from his early
democracy to the drastic autocracy of his
later years. When, in 1864, Austria and
Prussia united for the purpose of ending the
trouble in Denmark — which they did in the
thoroughly German manner of crushing Den-
mark and appropriating its provinces —

33 C

TREITSCHKB

Treitschke began to look with more favour on the
great Prussian statesman. Still they hesitated
to incorporate Schleswig and Holstein into
German territory, and Treitschke's admira-
tion also hesitated. The arrangement was
that Austria should administer Holstein, and
Prussia should administer Schleswig. By this
time the Duke of Augustenburg had become
for Treitschke " a miserable pretender," and
he saw in the co-operation of Austria and
Prussia the beginning of " a real State."

Leipzig had become so warm for him that
he had in 1864 removed to Freiburg. Here
he continued to work at his history of the
German Confederation, and his lectures es-
pecially dealt with States which had won
independence by the sword. He dealt with
the Netherlands and the rebellion against
Austria. He depicted in glowing terms the
revolt of the American colonies against

34

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE
England. Every page of history was made to
serve the purpose of his great Pan -German
ideal. One State alone could bring about this
unity of Germany, and he perceived more and
more clearly that that State was Prussia.

His letters clearly illustrate the strange
growth of his mind at that time. He was pre-
pared to sacrifice everything to his ideal of
the State. His early Roman reading still
lingered in his mind, and to the end of his life
" freedom " remained one of the most familiar
terms on his lips. Now, however, he begins
to say in his letters : " The democratic battle-
cry — first freedom, then unity — is nonsense :
it means first State-rights, then a State."
In another letter of the same year he says :
" The might of the greatest German State
must compel the power of the smaller Courts
to submit to a national central Government."
He began to realise that over the whole period

35

TREITSCHKE

of German history, which he was studying,
Prussia had been making steadily for suprem-
acy. It must have been shortly after this
period that he wrote the following passage in
his History of Germany :

" More than once before had Prussia amazed
the German world by the sudden outburst of
its latent moral energies. So it was when
Prince Frederick William thrust his little
State into the rank of the Great Powers : so
it was when King Frederick entered upon the
struggle for Silesia. But not one of these
marvels of Prussian history so thoroughly
astonished the Germans, as the rapid and
glorious rise of the half -shattered power, after
its terrible fall at Jena. While the honoured
names of the past were disdainfully reckoned
among the dead, and even in Prussia every-
body deplored that there was no strong young
generation to take the place of the elders, a

36

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

new race gathered round the throne : powerful
characters, inspired hearts, clear heads without
number, a vast crowd of legal and military
talents keeping pace with the literary great-
ness of the nation. Just as Frederick had,
on the battle fields of Bohemia, only reaped
what his father had sown in time of peace,
so this rapid recovery of the depressed mon-
archy was the ripe fruit of years of hard work.
The State pulled itself together and assimilated
to itself all that German poets and thinkers
had said, during the preceding decades, about
the dignity and liberty of man and the moral
purposes of life. It trusted the liberating
power of the spirit : it let the full stream of
the ideas of the new Germany flow over it.
Now at last Prussia was the German State —
the best and ablest branch of the Fatherland —
and the Germans, down to the last man, rushed
to the black and white standard. The soaring

37

TEEITSCHKE

idealism of a higher culture held out new
duties and new aims to the old Prussian
bravery and loyalty, and nerved the heart for
self-sacrificing deeds for the advance of
political life."

This language appears plainly in Treitschke's
letters by the year 1864. He talks with the
greatest bitterness about the Southern States.
" I belong," he says, " to the North with all
my soul." He begins to see the purpose of
Bismarck. Bismarck is going to " secure for
us our proper place on the North and the East
coasts." The Saxons, who regarded the
Prussians as still half-barbaric and were more
friendly even to France, were greatly exasper-
ated by this language. Treitschke returned
their contempt. A little country, in his
growing philosophy, could not be a State ; it
could not have the power which he now firmly
held to be the essence of a State.

38

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

His visited Switzerland. He found the poor
much more comfortable than in any of the
great States of Europe. He found the brother-
hood and freedom which were then beyond
any other country in Europe. Yet he wrote
with great disdain of Switzerland and its
democracy. There was nothing " great "
about it ; it had no art, no science, no state-
craft. Mediocrity seemed to be the plainest
outcome of the institutions of a small democ-
racy. He visited Paris also, and he reported
that the only thing the German need envy in
Paris was the Louvre. Everything else in
Paris was equalled or surpassed in one or other
town of Germany. His Prussian religion was
growing rapidly. In the next year it would
reach its full growth.

Since 1864 the arrangement between Aus-
tria and Prussia had given rise to constant
friction. Ardent Unionists like Treitschke

39

TREITSCHKE

were not entirely displeased with the friction.
It would give Prussia the occasion that it
required for annexing the Duchies, and Treit-
schke now began to speak openly of taking
that step. " We must," he said, early in 1865,
" take a revolutionary step, in the good sense
of the word ; we must cease to talk about law
and right." His moral philosophy was rapidly
accommodating itself to his German ideal.
When, in 1866, the friction ended in war with
Austria, Treitschke was one of the most ardent
in approving the action of Bismarck. To the
cries of the South German Press and the pitiful
entreaties of his father, he replied : " The first
duty of a good patriot is to make still greater
the power of Prussia." People in Berlin kept
an eye on this useful recruit in the Southern
provinces. Treitschke was invited to begin
his long connection with the Prussian Year
Book. He asked the permission of Bismarck

40

INFLUENCE OF TKEITSCHKE

to make research in the Archives of Berlin.
Keplying that there was nothing in the
Prussian Archives to conceal from the
public or from the historian, Bismarck, in
a very gracious letter, gave him permission,
and he went to Berlin at the beginning of
1866.

Unlike Goethe, he was deeply impressed by
the power and culture of Berlin. No other
German town at that time could compare
in growth with the capital of Prussia, and
Treitschke's ardour considerably increased.
While he was in Berlin the war with Austria
grew nearer. Saxony was mobilising on the
side of Austria, and a bitter correspondence
took place between Treitschke and his father.
The young man pleaded that for him politics
was only part of a larger ethic, and patriotism
a moral duty. His language is affectionate
and most considerate, but he was a preacher

41

TREITSCHKE

of self-sacrifice and never for a moment hesi-
tated to practice what he preached.

As he drew away from his father he was
attracted more and more to Bismarck. The
Prussian Chancellor and Treitschke seemed to
be in a singular position towards each other.
Bismarck saw the immense value of this
dithyrambic historian of Prussia. He was,
however, quite aware that Treitschke still
clung to his Liberal ideas, and he tried to bring
about some form of compromise. He held
out to Treitschke the prospect of occupying
the chair of history at Berlin after the war,
and in the meantime of using his great journal-
istic power to influence public opinion in
favour of Prussia. Treitschke replied candidly
that he would not be a servant of Prussia
until fully constitutional forms had been
restored in the Kingdom. He therefore
finished his work in the Archives of Berlin

42

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

and returned to Freiburg. He was under the
impression that Baden would remain neutral
during the impending war, and that he could,
therefore, plead the cause of Prussia from his
platform at Freiburg. He soon found that
his house was watched by the police, and that
it was likely to be attacked by the mob. On
June 17th Baden decided to throw in its lot
with Austria against Prussia, and Treitschke
fled from Freiburg to Berlin. He had now
completely severed his connection with the
Southern States ; and in the person of this
Slav- Saxon, Prussia had obtained one of its
most powerful and eloquent supporters.

From the moment he began literary work
in Berlin his Radicalism was modified. The
Liberals fought shy of Bismarck, as Treit-
schke himself had done in the earlier years.
Treitschke rebuked them for their " obstinacy,"
and insisted that the question of liberty and

43

TREITSCHKE

reform must be placed on one side until the
unity of Germany had been obtained. His
mild criticisms of Bismarck's opinions now
ceased entirely, and he turned with greater
bitterness than ever to the attack on Saxony
and Hanover. He belongs, he says, " to a
glorious nation," and he will see it unified
before he dies. His father was now almost
entirely estranged from him, but the father's
death in 1867 ended this painful feature of his
career.

As he was still unable to accept service in
the Prussian State, he went in October to Kiel,
and began to lecture on history and politics
in the University. After a few months he
was transferred to Heidelberg, where he con-
tinued to mix history, politics and economics,
in the new science which he believed he was
founding. Most of his colleagues in the
University looked with disdain on his new

44

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

science, and regarded him merely as a journa-
list or pamphleteer. His deafness, which now
became total, more or less kept him out of
social life, so that he was tolerably indifferent
to the opinion of the other professors. The
students, on the other hand, crowded round
his chair, and his influence over German young
men of the middle class grew rapidly. He
was now on terms of great friendship with
Bismarck, and was working out the singular
theory of State power and individual liberty
which appeared in his later works. Bismarck
had, in 1867, formed the North German
Federation, of which he became Chancellor.
The most important result of this was that
the Prussian system of compulsory military
service was imposed upon all the North Ger-
man States, and a formidable army was put
at the disposal of Prussia. Treitschke's
Liberalism had so far waned that he welcomed

45

TREITSCHKE

this extension of military power. Almost
the only point he criticised in the new
Federation was that, by special treaties, certain
privileges were reserved for Bavaria, Baden,
and Wiirtemburg.

The next step in German history was now
fairly clear in the minds of men like Treit-
schke and Bismarck. Expansion westward
was considered to be absolutely necessary for
the growth of German power, and events
swiftly moved onward towards the Franco-
German war. Treitschke's patriotism again
rose to white heat when the prospect of a
war with France was made clear. When war
was actually declared, he broke into the most
fiery rejoicing. His students were called
away for military service, and one of them has
described the ardent speech with which he
bade them farewell. Fichte had sent out his
students in the War of Liberation with the

46

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

words "Conquer or die." Treitschke said to
his students, in recalling those words, " Con-
quer at any price." There was a scene of
wild excitement and Treitschke was regarded as
a kind of hero by the students.

During the early months of the war he was
singularly silent and retired. He had no
doubt about the issue of the war. He was, in
fact, preparing the terms which should be
imposed upon France when she was conquered.
In several weeks of remarkable research he
traced the whole history of Alsace and Lor-
raine, and proved, as he believed, that they
were really German, and must be taken from
France at the close of the war. As he said at
a later date, France had stolen the provinces
from Germany, and^it was an act of the highest
morality to restore their nationality to the
despoiled provincials. It is in keeping with
his character that, when the victory was

47

TREITSCHKE

aDiiounced, he resented the current talk about
a contrast between German virtue and French
vice, yet in his later history he speaks of the
result of the war as a punishment of the sins
of France. The formation of the German
Empire was the first result of the war, and
the realisation of Treitschke's dreams of
the last ten years. With Gustav Freitag he
agreed that the title " Emperor " was showy
and melodramatic. He preferred the more
businesslike title of "King," but he yielded
again to the policy of Bismarck, and criticised
only the fact that once more certain of their
ancient privileges had been left to some of the
South German States.

In 1871 Treitschke became a member of
the new Reichstag. His deafness made him a
singular member of Parliament, but he was
determined to watch with the closest interest
the development of the new Empire, He had

48

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

learned the lip language, but as a rule in the
Reichstag he sat by the reporters and read
their shorthand accounts of the speeches.
In debates he could hardly take part, but his
speeches on important issues made a profound
impression on the House. He avoided rhetoric
and sentimentality, even of the patriotic kind.
His strong and clear convictions were expressed
in language of great vigour, with occasional
passages of biting wit and fierce reproof of all
that stood in the way of Bismarck. " The
star of our unity is rising : woe to the man
who stands against it," he said occasionally
in the House. He was one of the most urgent
in demanding that the new provinces should
be Germanised as speedily as possible, and in
calling for the maintenance and further improve-
ment of the victorious army. A short passage
from one of his speeches delivered about that
time will illustrate his Parliamentary method :

49 D

TREITSCHKE

" There is in the world to-day, gentle-
men, a dark suspicion that the German
Empire, like the Prussian State of yesterday,
must have its European War, its Seven Years'
War. It seems to be written in the stars that
the House of the Hohenzollerns can win no
great success without incalculable sacrifices.
God grant, gentlemen — we all wish it — that
the foreboding is false. Whether it is false
or not lies in the hands of fate. What lies
in our hands is the task of keeping bright and
sharp the weapons which have won Ger-
many's new glory. As far as the eye of man
can see the resolute armament of Germany
is the only means of preserving the peace of
the world to-day." He continued to sit in
the Reichstag until 1888. By that time the
appearance of new Parties, and especially
of the Social Democratic Party, filled him
with something like loathing of the Parlia-

50

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

mentary system, and lie retired from his
seat.

Meantime lie had continued to teach at
Heidelberg. He was by this time one of the
most popular professors in Germany. He
refused to allow women to attend his lectures,
and became more conservative every year.
The great prosperity of Germany, however,
which followed the successful war, filled him
with joy, and even in social life he began to
relax. About this time the German thinker,
Hartmann, revived the philosophy of Schopen-
hauer. It seems probable that this philosophy,
which makes will the central reality of the
universe, had greatly influenced Treitschke's
early ideas. For him, the assertion of will
was the first duty of the State, hence his great
usefulness to so astute a statesman as Bis-
marck. But the pessimism which was con-
nected with the philosophy now filled

51

TREITSCHKE

Treitschke with disgust. A thinker, he said, who
would put forward such a system in such
glorious days as these must be suffering from
spinal disease. At the same time Nietzsche
began to put his weird speculations before
the German public. His doctrine of power,
of self-assertion, of reforming the moral code,
agreed with some of Treitschke' s ideas, and,
although puzzled by many of its features, he
welcomed the philosophy of Nietzsche.
Science, it seemed to him, was joining with
history in approving the ideal of German
power at which he had arrived.

In 1874 Treitschke at last accepted the
invitation to teach at the Berlin University,
and from that time onward there was little
left of his Liberalism. Bismarck entered upon
the famous Kulturkampf. Treitschke duti-
fully described it as " the struggle of freedom
against fanaticism." Every measure that

52

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

Bismarck brought forward had his support,
although the Liberals and Radicals were grow-
ing more and more indignant with the Chan-
cellor. When at length Bismarck found it
expedient to retire from the Kulturkampf,
it was mainly Treitschke who covered his
retreat. That episode of German political
history has never been fully clear, and many
Liberals have failed to understand the action
of Treitschke. The truth seems to be that
Bismarck abandoned the struggle against
the Catholics because a new and more formid-
able enemy had appeared on the horizon of
the German political world. This enemy
was Socialism, and, like Bismarck, Treitschke
dreaded it above all other sects or parties.
He now moved entirely in Conservative circles ;
his friends were mainly members of the
aristocracy or of military or clerical rank.
Amongst the students he still retained all his

53

TREITSCHKE

popularity, and he used his influence to attack
every Liberal and Humanitarian movement
which arose. " Life," he said, " is too hard
for philanthropic phrases " ; he would be no
" preacher in politics." We shall see later
how all these advanced ideas, which have been
embodied in the legislation of modern times,
conflicted with his utterly false ideal of the
State. The authorities, however, applauded
and encouraged in every way his influence on
the young men of Germany. His lectures
were said to be a " steel-bath " for students.
So good was his position that, when the great
historian Ranke died in 1886, Treitschke was
chosen to succeed him as " The Historian of
the State of Prussia." When, two years later,
the Emperor died, Treitschke was invited to
deliver a memorial address. The closing para-
graph may be quoted here in illustration of the
gospel that he was then preaching in Germany :

54

INFLUENCE OF TEEITSCHKE

"Life is to the living. The nation turns
its eyes in hopeful confidence towards its
young Imperial master. Every word he has
yet addressed to his people breathes power
and courage, piety and justice. We now know
that the fine spirit of William's days is not lost
to the Empire, and even in these days of grief
we have lived through a great hour of German
history. Our princes gathered with German
fidelity around their Emperor, and with him
met the representatives of the nation. The
world learns that the German Emperor never
dies, whoever may bear the crown. What
a change since the time when the courts
anxiously awaited, each New Year's Day,
the orders of the mysterious Caesar for his
subjects ! To-day the German speech from
the throne does not devote a single word to
those western powers which once had the idea
of controlling the world without our assist-

55

TREITSCHKE

ance ; it is useless to reckon with enemies
who cannot be taught or with doubtful friends.
Whether Europe reconciles itself peacefully
to the ending of the old situation, or whether
the German sword must leap once more from
the scabbard to protect what it has won,
we are ready ; we are armed for either alterna-
tive. Unless all the signs of the times deceive
us, this great century, which in its earliest days
was French, will end as a German century.
Germany's intellect and Germany's deeds have
solved the problem of combining a great tra-
ditional power of the State, with the just de-
mands of a new social order. A day must
come when the nations will realise that the
battles of Emperor William did not merely
create a Fatherland for Germany, but gave
a more just and more rational order to the
whole civilised world. Then we shall see the
fulfilment of the words of the venerable poet,

56

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

Emanuel Geibel : £ One day tlie whole world
may recover its health in the German
character.' '

This was the Gospel which Treitschke was
propagating amongst the young men of
Germany, and one can read between the
lines of it, if not in the lines themselves, the
very terms of that ideal which has infatuated
Germany in our day. This was the advice
which the aged historian offered to the new
Emperor. It was only too faithfully accepted.
Bismarck was dismissed, but the worst ele-
ments of the Bismarckian policy were retained.
Treitschke fully approved of the immense and
burdensome task which the military authorities
imposed on Germany. Once more I may take
a passage from one of his speeches.

In 1895, the year before he died, he ad-
dressed the students of the University of
Berlin. The speech, which has been pub-

57

TREITSCHKE

lished, is called " In Memory of the Great
War." He describes the long years of power-
lessness under the shadow of Austria, the
disaster under Napoleon, the " lamentable
Confederation " which followed Waterloo.
During all those years, he said, " we were the
laughing-stock of foreigners." We had only
one "loyal friend," Thomas Carlyle of Eng-
land, the only non- German writer who saw
" the nobility of the German soul." In
England generally the very word " Father-
land " was a thing of mockery and contempt,
and no one in Europe expected any good to
come of Germany. Germany itself was split
into parties, or afflicted with " all the infantile
diseases of politics." He went on : "As un-
failing as the hammer of Thor, the sword of
Germany had to strike : the changing fortune
of war had to be made unchangeable, and
wreath after wreath must be added to our

58

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

colours in order that this most libelled and
most hated of all nations should regain its
place among the powers of the world." Then
Prussia " entered on the old path of victory."
Still the position of Germany was not recog-
nised, and the contempt of Europe was in-
tolerable. c We needed a complete, indis-
putable, wholly German victory to compel
our neighbours to respect us." King William,
the " hero," gave the call, and " a free, strong,
proud nation " responded.

Treitschke then gave his hearers an idyllic
description of the way in which the power
of the German will overbore the French in
1870, and even mothers and sisters " remem-
bered in their grief that they had added one
leaf to the growing wreaths of German glory."
The Emperor " realised that Providence had
chosen him and his army for carrying out its
designs." Treitschke glorifies the generals,

59

TREITSCHKE

the Chancellor, the German princes, and all the
other heroes of the war. He tells the young
men how Germany insisted on having an
Empire at the close of the war, and how the
founding of the Empire led to the amazing
prosperity of Germany. Not all their hopes
were realised, however. They had thought
that France would, " after two decades," co-
operate amiably with Germany for the advance
of civilisation, and France was still dreaming
of revenge. Other nations were jealous of
Germany's prosperity and hampered her
development beyond the seas. Moreover,
" the sub -German peoples of the region of the
Danube illustrate the historical law of in-
gratitude to the Germans, who gave them their
civilisation." At home the artisans are dis-
puting " the dominance of talent," and losing
" all reverence for God, and all respect for the
barriers which the nature of the sexes and the

60

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

structure of society have set to human desires."
The worst feature of all is that men are losing
their " reverence for the Fatherland." They
are regarding their country as a social com-
munity which will enable them to earn more
money and spend it in security on pleasure.
This general spread of education is ruining the
nation, and Bismarck himself had been very
bitter and pessimistic in his last years. Still,
Treitschke rejoices to think that " the idea
of the Empire glows in every heart," and he
concludes : " Germany has, during a quarter
of a century of the most dangerous diplomatic
friction, given peace to the world ; not by
the means advocated by pacifists, that is,
disarmament, but by precisely the opposite
means, armament. Germany's example turned
the armies of Europe into nations, and
the nations into armies, and thus made war
a terrible venture ; and, as no Frenchman has

61

TREITSCHKE

said that France can win back by arms its
ancient ill-gotten provinces, perhaps we may
expect further years of peace. Meantime our
western frontier slowly but surely spreads
towards that of our ancient Fatherland, and
the time will come when German civilisation,
which has so often changed its seat, will again
reign supreme in its own home."

He calls upon the young men to listen for
the summons to the colours ; to be ready
for either peace or war. And his last words
have a sinister application .to the hideous
trouble that is confronting us in Europe to-
day : " God bless our Emperor and King,
God give him a wise, just, and firm Govern-
ment, and give us the power to sustain and
enlarge the proud legacy of those glorious
days."

There, less than twenty years ago, only
some months before his death, we have the

62

INFLUENCE OF TREITSCHKE

complete doctrine which Treitschke put into
the veins of the present generation in Germany.
To his last hour the State was to him the stern
bearer of the sword. Far from being content
with that massive prosperity of which he had
written the history, he still called upon the
young soldiers of Germany to extend their
frontiers at the cost of other people's. There
can be no question but that this teaching,
given with all the weight of the chief chair of
history in Germany, written eloquently in a
dozen popular works, and thundered oc-
casionally from great popular platforms, was
one of the chief elements in the making of the
Germany which we confront to-day. Treitschke
died at Berlin on April 28th, 1896. His teach-
ing lives in the pernicious book of his pupil
Bernhardi, in the Manuals of Instruction of the
German officers, and in the hallucinations of
the German Press. That teaching we may

63

TREITSCHKE

now examine more closely, in so far as it is
responsible for the swollen ambition and
lamentable methods of the modern German
army.

64

CHAPTER II
GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

E

CHAPTER II
GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

THE chief feeling of the German people, which
one would not at first be disposed to connect
with their scholars, is the inflated idea of the
position and mission of their country. Nothing
is perhaps more repellent in the German Press
of the present day than the claim that God
is watching with especial favour their un-
scrupulous enterprise and the brutal method
by which it is conducted. We read constantly
of their assurance that conquering another
country is only a painful necessity in the dis-
charge of their mission to raise it to a higher
civilisation. Undoubtedly many Germans
have a sincere conviction in this respect. The

67

TKEITSCHKE

most eccentric utterances of the Kaiser will
be found anticipated to some extent in utter-
ances of some of the learned professors of the
German universities, and it is perhaps one of
the most startling results of the study of Treit-
schke's works that he fully encourages the
stupid and mediaeval idea that God is, through
the Emperor, directing the army and the Ger-
man people. The most inflated idea that any
German daily is at present impressing on the
minds of its readers seems at times to be little
more than a repetition of the passages in which
Treitschke exalts Germany, and especially
Prussia, above all the nations of the earth.

The doctrine of Treitschke is a singular
mixture of his own temperament, the influence
of contemporary events, and his professional
reading of history. A man of great physical
vigour, he made an ideal of vigour, as such
men are apt to do. " Greatness " was the

68

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

feature which above all others he sought in a
State. Hence he came to the singular view
that " power " is the essence of the State. This
view was fully confirmed by the history of
Germany through which he lived. He knew
from his reading the condition of Germany in
the time of Goethe. The whole of the early
German literature bears witness to the
sterility and powerlessness of the country.
It was not one great nation, but a great race
shattered into a hundred small States, and
apparently laid powerless by this dispersion.
Treitschke then saw the contrast between the
power and prosperity of a united Germany
and the helplessness of the hundred small
States of the earlier days. It was not un-
natural, and not entirely wrong for him to
suppose that the concentration of power had
brought about the wonderful success of his
country. He saw further that the one grea

69

TREITSCHKE

instrument in the restoration of German power
was the Prussian army. Again he concluded
that power, and chiefly military power, was the
first aim or institution of a great State.

His study of history, which ranged from
ancient Rome and Greece to the latest develop-
ments of Europe, easily confirmed him in this
theory. In his chief work, where he expounds
with great learning and ingenuity his theory
of a State, there is one remarkable defect.
He begins by insisting that the essence of a
State is power. He nowhere proves that this
is a legitimate and essential character of a
State. We will examine later how he sup-
poses that the State can be something greater
than the people who compose it, and therefore
justified at times in imposing authority against
their will. For the moment it is enough to
observe that his conclusion was drawn in a
somewhat superficial way from the pages of

70

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

history. The nations that stand out in the
pages of history, the nations that we are
accustomed to call great, are the large and
powerful military nations.

Treitschke did not overlook such States as
Athens and Florence and their great artistic
work. Here he is somewhat feeble in his
reasoning. He knew well that they had no
great military power, and he weakly ascribes
their success to their constant intercourse with
more powerful nations. He overlooks the
fact that the philosophy of Greece and the art
of Florence immensely surpass those of the
more powerful nations with which they were
in contact. He also overlooks the fact that
in modern times, when every nation is richly
connected with each other, the stimulus which
he supposes in the case of Athens and Florence
may be enjoyed by any small State in the
world.

71

TREITSCHKE

Treitschke, however, read history mainly
for the purpose of supporting his idea of the
State. We find him repeatedly scoffing at
small nations. Curiously enough, he bases
his remarks upon Aristotle, who belonged to
a State which from the German point of view
was most emphatically so small as to be un-
worthy of recognition. From this he goes
on to examine the supposed decay of Holland
and Spain, and other nations when they cease
to^be great military powers. A passage from
his chief work, Politik, gives his full argument :

" A State must have a certain size. A ship
which is only a foot long is, as Aristotle rightly
says, not a ship, because you cannot sail in it.
A State must, in addition, have sufficient
material power to defend by arms the inde-
pendence which is granted to it on paper.
A political community which is not able to
assert itself among its neighbours will always

72

GLOEIFICATION OF GERMANY

be in danger of losing its character as a State.
That has always been the case ; great changes
in the military arrangements have destroyed
a large number of States. Since in our time
an army of 20,000 men cannot be regarded
as more than one weak army corps, the small
States of central Europe cannot possibly last.
There are, it is true, States which are not
defended by their own forces but by the con-
dition of equilibrium. That is clearly the case
with Switzerland, Belgium and Holland ;
they are protected by the international balance
of power. This is a very firm foundation, and
Switzerland may count on a very long lease
of life provided that there is no material change
in the present group of European States."
(It should be noticed that Treitschke says
nothing about Belgium and Holland. The
omission, when we connect it with other
passages relating to Belgium and Holland,

73

TREITSCHKE

which will be quoted later, shows clearly that
Treitschke himself fully approved the design
of Germany some day to acquire Belgium and
Holland.)

" Applying the test of self-government, we
find the larger States of Europe rising to greater
and greater power. The whole development
of our States tends very clearly to the exter-
mination of all the States which are of only
secondary rank. If we take the non- European
world into consideration there is a very
serious prospect for us (Germans). Germany
has always come off very badly in the distribu-
tion of territory beyond the seas amongst the
European Powers, yet it is a matter of life
and death to us as a great State to obtain
territory beyond the seas. Otherwise we are
faced with the terrible prospect of England and
Russia dividing the world between them ;
and one wonders which would be the worse

74

GLOKIFICATION OF GERMANY

evil, the Russian knout or the English
purse.

" Looking more closely into the matter, we
see clearly that if the State is power, only the
really powerful States can be described as
such. Hence the obvious absurdity which we
find in the character of a small State. Weak-
ness is not in itself ridiculous ; it is only the
weakness which would pass itself off as
strength. In small States you get the vulgar
disposition to estimate a State according
to the amount of taxes it levies ; the frame
of mind which cannot see that the State, like
the shell of an egg, cannot protect without
exerting some pressure, and that the moral
goods we owe to the State are priceless.
In giving birth to this materialism the small
State has a very mischievous influence on its
citizens.

" The small State is totally devoid of the
75

TREITSCHKE

large States' power to be just. If you have
cousins enough in a small State, and are not
quite an idiot, you are provided for . . . More-
over the economic superiority of large States
is obvious. In such ample proportions one
has a greater feeling of security. ... It
is only in great States that there is developed
the genuine national pride which is the symp-
tom of a nation's moral robustness : the senti-
ments of the citizens are freer and larger
in large institutions ... no great nation can
last long unless it has a great metropolis of
culture. Culture in the broadest sense of
the word always nourishes better in the
ample circumstances of great States, than
within the narrow limits of small States . . .
Taking history as a whole, we see that all
the masterpieces of poetry and art were pro-
duced on the soil of great nationalities. Proud
Florence and Venice had so wide a commerce

76

GLOKIFICATION OF GERMANY

that there could be no question in their
case of the Philistinism of the small State.
There was an ideal pride, which recalls ancient
Athens, in all their citizens. When did a
masterpiece ever arise among a small people ? "
(pp. 43-48).

The defects of this historical argument
need hardly be pointed out. Neither Athens
nor Florence had the great commerce which
he ascribes to them, and, even if they had, we
have to reckon with the fact that they so far
surpassed the larger powers with which they
had intercourse. Take the case of the medie-
val Italian Republics, in which art flourished
so luxuriantly. It is true that they had con-
stant intercourse with the German Roman
Empire, and with France. Yet they learned
nothing from either, and became, in fact,
the teachers of each. But we need not linger
over the sophistry [of Treitschke's argument.

77

TREITSCHKE

It is enough to show how one of the chief
professors of history in Germany twists his
learning into the service of the national
ideal, and helps to build up the megalomania
of the modern Empire.

More interesting, and perhaps more startling
is Treitschke's contribution to the religious
side of this megalomania. He was by no
means an orthodox Christian. His letters to
his father in earlier years very frequently turn
upon his father's sorrow at his abandonment
of the Protestant faith. This, however, was
part of his early Kadicalism. Although he
probably never altered his conviction, he began
in later years, as a matter of policy, to make
a strong profession of supporting the Lutheran
Church. Like Carlyle, of whom he speaks with
such admiration, he made the mistake of
taking the masses as they are and supposing
that their character could not be altered. He

78

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

noticed that their heroes were always either
military or religious heroes. In order, there-
fore, to confirm them in sentiments which could
be so much utilised by the Prussian Govern-
ment, he took up an old theory of his pro-
fessor, Dahlmann, and, in working out this
theory, he spread sentiments which are
largely responsible for what we call the more
blasphemous elements of the German megalo-
mania. He says in his Politik :

" The idea of a world -Empire is hateful :
the idea of a State of Humanity is no ideal at
all. The whole content of civilisation could
not develop in a single State ; in no single
people could the virtues of aristocracy and
of democracy be united. All peoples are, like
individual men, one-sided, and the richness of
the human race consists in the totality of their
partial natures. The rays of divine light
are infinitely reflected in individual peoples ;

79

TREITSCHKE

each presents a different aspect and a distinct
thought of the Deity. Hence any single people
has the right to believe that certain forces of
the divine reason are most beautifully embodied
in itself. Without exaggeration a people
cannot attain self -consciousness. The Ger-
mans are always in danger of losing their
nationality because they have too little of
this massive pride. The average German has
very little political pride ; but even our
Philistines boast a social pride in the freedom
and universality of the German spirit: and
that is a good thing, for such a feeling is
necessary if a people is to maintain and to
assert itself."

This was the language which Treitschke
used to the students of history in the University
of Berlin. When he addressed the people
he used an even stranger language. We have

a speech which he made at Darmstadt, in

80

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

1883, on " Luther and the German Nation."
In this he reviews the " Glorious history of
Germany " from the earliest dawn. He finds
that the Germans were the first barbaric
people of western Europe to see the
beauty of Christianity, and that from their
earliest conversion they always frowned on
the corruption of Rome. They alone had
the courage to rebel. Our historian con-
trives to overlook the Albigensians and other
heretics who preceded the Reformation, and
his analysis of the Reformation itself is super-
ficial in the last degree. He is determined to
place the whole merit of the Reformation in the
character of Germany, and completely dis-
regards the circumstances which made Germany
so favourable a soil for the sentiment which
was spreading throughout Europe. He
says : " Only a man who had in his veins the
boundless power of the German spirit could

81 F

TREITSCHKE

venture upon so mighty an achievement."
Italy had its Petrarch and its Machiavelli —
he makes no mention of Dante — but " the
Latin peoples had not the strength to take
their own ideas seriously : they succeeded
in halving their consciences and obeying the
Church which they despised. The Germans
dared to shape their lives by the truth which
they perceived ; and, since the historical
world is a world of will, since it is not ideas
but will that controls the destinies of peoples,
modern history does not begin with Petrarch
nor with the artists of the Rennaissance, but
with Martin Luther." Treitschke cannot lose
the opportunity to connect his Prussian
idea of the State with the Protestant religion.
Luther, he said, brought about a political
revolution in the fact that he destroyed the old
maxim that spiritual power is superior to
secular, and he thus prepared the way for

82

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY
the recognition of the sovereignty of the
State. This was, he says, an immortal
blessing for Germany. " Only in the cup
of Protestantism could the ailing nation find
its rejuvenating draught." It occurs to him
that when the most oppressed part of the
nation, the peasants, deduced from the prin-
ciples of the Gospel that they were entitled
to a larger share of the world's goods, Luther
was one of the first to crush them. This
was, Treitschke says, because the peasants
took his Gospel "in a fleshly sense," and
because Luther " shared with his people
their reverent awe of the Imperial Majesty
and of the noble young blood of Austria."

Treitschke proves, in this address to the
Protestants of Germany, that even the new
science and the new literature of Germany in
modern times were due to the Reformation.
He does not mention names, but he implies that

33

TREITSCHKE

such men as Goethe and Schiller were, as he
says, " thoroughly Protestant." " It was
only from the autonomy of conscience which
Luther gave us that the new ideal of humanity
could spring." Luther's greatness and the
varied nature of his powers cannot be under-
stood by foreigners, according to Treitschke.
The Germans, however, quite understand
him, because "he is blood of our blood."
" From the sunken eyes of this robust son
of a German peasant blazed the heroic old
spirit of the Teutons, which does not flee the
world but seeks to govern it by the might of its
moral will."

The closing part of the speech unites the
theory of the Reformation with the political
ambition of Prussia in a remarkable manner,
and shows us how Germans get the conviction
that they are only carrying out a divine
purpose in trampling on the lands of their

84

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

neighbours. " In so rich an age as ours no
good Protestant should lose the hope of even
better days to come, since our whole people
sees in Martin Luther its hero and teacher.
We all know that at one time even a half-
success of the Reformation was of great ad-
vantage to our country." He hints that the
complete success of the Reformation, which
the world needs, will only be accomplished
by the entire expansion of Germany. In the
Middle Ages, he says, a Schism was good for
Europe ; now the whole German nation must
be Protestant. That holds out an uncom-
fortable prospect for the Catholics of Posen or
of the Rhine Valley, and for the Jews and
other non-Protestants. There must, accord-
ing to Treitschke, be in Germany one great
Church which "recognises the evangelical
freedom of the Christian and the independence
of the loyal and penitent conscience, and

85

TEEITSCHKE

grants their just rights to the moral powers
of this world, especially the State.'* One
must remember that these words, which,
in pamphlet form were scattered over Ger-
many, came with the authority of the leading
historian of the country. It is hardly surprising
that less learned Germans have succeeded in
convincing themselves that through the Prus-
sian Army God is working out His purpose in
the world.

This language, however, was hardly suitable
for the class-room, and Treitschke turned to
other arguments which would scientifically
convince his pupils of the unique position of
Germany. Germany, as is well known, and
especially Berlin, is falling away from the old
Lutheran religion. More secular considera-
tions had to be invented for the unbelievers.
These arguments Treitschke finds in the
history, the geographical position and the

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY
culture ol Germany. I have already ex-
plained that the word " culture " as used
by the German means something very different
from what we mean in English. The truth
is, that even Treitschke had very little regard
for culture as such. The State, he said
repeatedly, " is not an academy of arts and
sciences." He has a great disdain for most
of the really great scholars of Germany. We
must recognise, and until yesterday we did
recognise, that German culture is one of the
finest cultures in modern civilisation. Since
the rise of Prussia, Germany has not only
contributed more original philosophy to the
world than any other three countries of
modern times, but in every branch of science
she has sustained her high position. It is a
truism also, that she has attained great
efficiency in education, industry and com-
merce, and some of the German experiments

87

TREITSCHKE

in social improvement have been adopted as
models in other countries. It is well for us
to recognise this solid nucleus of German
pride, but the truth is that for men like
Treitschke even these things are of secondary
consideration. It is the organisation of Ger-
many as a power-State, in other words, it is
Prussianism, that he regards as the chief
distinction of his country. He repeatedly
boasts that Germany is the most perfect
monarchy under the sun, and we shall see
in the next chapter how, in his .official lectures,
he praises the German constitution and bitterly
disdains the English constitution, which even
German reformers were disposed to admire.
This misunderstanding of German culture has
made the German mind almost unintelligible to
many people to-day.

The confusion is perhaps all the more natural
when we find Treitschke speaking constantly

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GLOKIFICATION OF GERMANY

of the " idealism " of Germany and the
" materialism " of England and other coun-
tries. Once more, however, he takes idealism
in a peculiar sense. In a lecture on " Fichte
and the National Idea " he says : " It will
last, this much-desired idealism of the Ger-
mans. A grander future will open for this
idealist people when a righter philosophy
unites in one great system of thought, the
results of our political activity and the im-
mense wealth of our empirical knowledge.
We who live can best sustain the spirit of
Fichte if all the nobler of us work for the
growth and ripening in our fellow citizens
of ' the character of the warrior ' which
knows how to make sacrifices for the State.
When Fichte's name is mentioned, people
think at once of the orator who cried
out to an oppressed people those heroic
words : ' To have character and to be

89

TREITSCHKE

German are beyond question the same
thing.' "

One needs very little knowledge of German
history to recognise that this is sheer abuse
of the doctrine of Fichte. Against the despo-
tism which Treitschke was supporting in
Germany, Fichte would have protested with
all his soul. It was in the war against the
despotism which Napoleon tried to fasten
on his country that Fichte summoned his
students to cultivate the spirit of the warrior,
but Treitschke, as an historian, twists every
fact and every authority to suit his purpose.
Idealism in his mind is above all things the
military spirit and a readiness to sacrifice
one's life and property for the State. The
State is a kind of Moloch in his philosophy.
Time after time the people must offer their
finest sons in the supposed sacred ceremonial-
ism of the State. In his later years Treitschke

90

GLOKIFICATION OF GERMANY

found a very different idea of the State
growing in the new generation. Men and
women were concluding that the State was a
social group, under the security of which their
lives would be blessed with greater happiness
and prosperity. This is really what Treitschke
means by " materialism." One smiles to-day
at the obstinate and antiquated^views, but
in their time they served the purpose of
Prussian ambition, and we still find echoes of
Treitschke's sonorous voice in the Press of
modern Germany.

In another place, Treitschke attempts to
show in a different way the peculiar fitness
of Germany to carry out the mission of
civilisation. He sums up the supposed advan-
tages which Germany has by entering at a
late date into the family of great Powers.
Most of us realise that this late accession
to power has brought with it one great

91

TREITSCHKE

disadvantage. A new Power, like a young man,
is apt to have inflated ideas of its strength and
its future. It is hardly more than forty years
since Germany became a great manufacturing
State, and again we must make some allow-
ance for a very natural conceit which arises
from the consciousness of this prosperity
in the present generation. Older nations like
England, long accustomed to a similar pros-
perity, have ceased to use the bombastic
language which it at first inspires. When we
smile at the language of German writers, we
have only to turn back a few pages in English
history to find precisely similar language
used by Englishmen. Treitschke, however, with
his pseudo -scientific method, tries to con-
vince his university students that Germany
is really in a different position from other
States. He says :

6 We are later in our political development
92

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

than other European States, and therefore we
can be more universal. We have been able
to make use of the wisdom of our predecessors,
as is seen in the development of our literature.
Beyond question Germany has, in the nineteenth
century, taken the lead in political science,
after having depended on foreigners for two
centuries. The way in which the threads of
our destiny have been broken at times, and
the tortuous course of our history, have at
least had the advantage of preserving us from
the political traditions and prejudices which
confuse the political thought and judgment of
other peoples. The complex action of our State
is due to our position in the world, our history,
and our geographical circumstances, in virtue of
which we are able to do things which seem to
other nations impossible. . . . We are, more-
over, the most monarchical people in Europe,
although with this we must also combine a

93

TREITSCHKE

considerable measure of popular representa-
tion. We hare solved the problem how an
educated people can be an armed people ;
and we will solve the still more difficult
problem, how a wealthy people can secure for
itself the moral advantages of an army and
of war. It ia especially the many-sidedness
of the German character which has enabled us
to overcome all our difficulties, and this con-
quest is a large part of our importance and
greatness" (Politik, L, 86).

I will not stay to discuss the evidently
strained argument of this passage. Treit-
schke is fond of pouring ridicule on the men
who took their wisdom from books only,
instead of studying the facts of life at first
hand. Considering that almost the whole of
the wisdom of this deaf man was necessarily
drawn from books, we see that he is merely
quarrelling with people who differ from him.

94

GLOKIFICATION OF GEEMANY

His learning is purely bookish, and his theories
have been built up without any control from
the facts of life. However, he goes on to
show that these peculiar advantages of Ger-
many not only explain its present greatness,
but justify its constant dream of further ex-
pansion. We saw in the previous chapter
how, even in his later years, he spoke quite
openly of the further growth of Germany at
the expense of its neighbours, and in a later
chapter we shall see this at greater length.
I may, however, quote here a passage in
which he justifies this dream from another
point of view. He is discussing, in his chief
work, the influence of geographical conditions
upon the State, and he says :

" Our evil lot in Germany is due especially
to the purely internal policy of the house
of Hapsburg. Nature herself has not
been generous to Germany. The Baltic is

95

TREITSCHKE

predominantly an inland sea ; it has very little
influence on the inhabitants of the regions
round about it. Two hours' journey from the
coast in Pomerania you would not suspect
that you were near the sea. The German
coast of the North Sea is ruined by shoals.
All that is as unfavourable as possible, yet we
see here again how man can overcome natural
obstacles. This Germany, with its miserable
coast, was once the greatest sea power in the
world, and, please God, it will be again (p.
216).

" In the matter of rivers, Germany, to which
nature has in so many things been a step-
mother, is very fortunate — if it realises its
destiny and some day takes entire possession
of its rivers. Our Rhine is the King of
Rivers. What great deed was ever done on
the Danube ? On the Rhine you have the
quintessence of historical life, wherever you

96

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

go. It is an invaluable natural possession,
yet by our own fault the most useful part of
it has passed into foreign hands, and it is the
unalterable aim of German policy to regain
the mouth of the river. A purely political
union is not necessary since the Dutch have
become an independent nation : but an econ-
omic union is indispensable. And we are
greatly to be pitied when we dare not say
openly that the inclusion of Holland in our
customs-union is as necessary for us as our
daily bread. Nowhere in the world do fools
talk so much about Chauvinism as in Ger-
many, and nowhere else is there so little
Chauvinism. We are afraid to speak about
the most natural claims that a nation can
have (p. 218).

" The law of the need of a State to keep
together geographically is so plain that we
are surprised at the short-sightedness of the

97 G

TKEITSCHKE

members of the Vienna congress who, out of
jealousy, imposed such a ragged and ridicu-
lous form on Prussia. No State of any power
could long remain in this condition. Prussia
had to choose between giving up its western
territory or, directly or indirectly, controlling
the lands which cut it off " (p. 221).*

These ingenious arguments are, however,
strengthened by the whole of Treitschke's
reading of history. Once more he makes a
mistake which is not uncommon, and in the
middle of the nineteenth century was not

* The two volumes of university lectures which have
been published by Max Cornicelius with the title of
Politik were not really written by Treitschke. We
cannot therefore suppose that we have his exact words
in every case. The editors have used the note-books
of the students and the fairly abundant notes left by
Treitschke himself ; and the work was submitted to a
number of old students of Treitschke before it was
published. We have therefore an assurance that at least
no sentiment is attributed to Treitschke in this work
without full authority.

98

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

unnatural. He surveys history with a con-
viction that what was in the beginning always
will be. He sees that certain nations have
made a deep impression on the chronicle of
man, and it has become the custom to speak
of every nation which makes such an impres-
sion as a " great " nation. He further sees,
as we must all recognise, that the power of
these great military nations has often led to
prosperity, and has encouraged the growth
of art and high sentiments. The mistake of
Treitschke, as of many historians, is to think
that because in a warlike age a nation needed
this powerful protection of its luxury and its
culture, such protection would remain neces-
sary under any conceivable circumstances.
That, however, we will discuss more fully in
dealing with his glorification of war. We
must remember that it colours his entire
treatment of the question of the greatness of

99

TKEITSCHKE

a State. Greatness means to him historical
greatness. All the other considerations which
he brings forward are only artificial supports
of his central idea. He says somewhere :
" It is the nature of historical genius to be
national. There never was an historical hero
who was not national. Wallenstein never
reached the highest historical fame because
he was not a national hero but a Czech [like
Treitschke], posing as a German for his own
purposes. He was, like Napoleon, a great
adventurer of history. The really great his-
torical genius is always inspired by nationality ;
and that is equally true of the writer. A
great writer is a man who writes in such
fashion that all his compatriots respond"
(Politik, p. 23).

When we remember that Treitschke is the
great popular historian of Germany, and
picture to ourselves how he infused these
100

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

sentiments into what is in itself a great record,
we can easily understand the enormous influ-
ence that he has had. In whatever way his
pupils have gone beyond his principles in
various directions, none have surpassed him
in the glorification of Germany. His History
of Germany, in five large volumes, is a work of
considerable research and general accuracy.
Probably we should not rank him as a great
historian from the ordinary scientific point of
view. We have already seen that his position
as Historian of the Prussian State and lecturer
on history at Berlin was largely political. He
was a useful instrument for the carrying out
of Bismarck's policy. But this position
enabled him to reach a large audience and to
speak with weighty authority. He is one of
the chief inspirers of the megalomania of so
large a part of the German people. He tells
the story of the making oFGermany with a
101

TREITSCHKE

natural eloquence of the greatest sincerity.
He always disdained style. The style, he
said, is the man. But the sincerity and the
ardent feeling give his narrative a kind of
eloquence which is more convincing than the
elegant art of a Gibbon or the greater learning
of a Mommsen. With this natural art he tells
the story of Germany in such a fashion as to
bring out what he believes to be its unique
genius. Every emperor, every statesman,
and every soldier shares the greatness of the
German spirit, and on every page he presses
home the advantages which Germany has
derived by a loyal co-operation with ts
rulers.

We shall perhaps find much that startles
us in connection with the present war more
intelligible after this examination of some of
the pages of Treitschke's works. We have
very naturally poured ridicule on the Emperor's
102

GLORIFICATION OF GERMANY

claim to be on terms of intimacy with the
Almighty. Even this outrageous claim, how-
ever, finds justification in the works of the
official historian of Prussia. His impressive
theory of the Reformation and the results of
the Reformation puts Germany on a level
with the ancient Jews as the chosen people
of God. When learned professors use such
language we can hardly be surprised that
peasant soldiers enthusiastically repeat it.
From the middle class, to which Treitschke
immediately addressed himself, his message
has gone down to the lowest circles of German
society. Hundreds of his pupils have become
journalists, and in the more flippant and more
exaggerated language of the daily paper, they
have spread the teaching of Treitschke
throughout the country. So the present
temper of the nation has been created. So
the millions have marched out under the
103

TKEITSCHKE

eagles, as deeply convinced as the ancient
Romans were that their Fatherland is the
greatest power of the world, and has a mission
to share its power with the world by the
painful process of conquering it. We can well
understand that military men smile in
private at the pretensions of this gospel.
But it serves their purpose. The Emperor
himself is evidently convinced of the truth
of Treitschke's account of the genius of
the Hohenzollerns. How far he and other
leaders of Germany sincerely accept the idea
of divine mission or of a unique genius it is
impossible to say. They find, as such rulers
always have found, as Bismarck found fifty
years ago, that a patriotic pedant has his uses,
and so the Gospel of Treitschke has been
encouraged in every section of the German
nation.

104

CHAPTER III
VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

THE second chief element in the German
temper which we are confronting to-day, is the
disdainful attitude towards England ; or, at
all events, the profession of disdain for Eng-
land. For the explanation of this we need
hardly go back to the writers of the last genera-
tion. The time having arrived in the mind of
German Imperialists when a further expan-
sion seemed possible, it was at once perceived
that England's command of the sea stood in
the way. Further, German readers are well
acquainted with English literature, and they
must have noticed, with a satisfaction which
was dangerous in their frame of mind, our
105

TREITSCHKE

admiration for many of their institutions.
In addition, the theory encouraged by many
historians that nations have a certain period
of life and then decay, by some internal
principle, has spread widely in Germany.
This supposed historical law has no serious
foundation whatever. A civilisation may last
for 8,000 years, like that of ancient Egypt,
or 4,000 years, like that of China, or 400 years,
like that of Athens or of Florence. It depends
entirely upon the circumstances and upon
the neighbours of a particular State. The
theory, however, pleased the German. His
country was comparatively new and young as
a great Power, while England had been a
great Power for four or five centuries. He
therefore flippantly repeated the remarks of
English pessimists, and persuaded himself that
England was in a state of decay. When the
passions of war arose, it was very easy for
106

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

this to take the form of the contempt which
is expressed in the German Press to-day.
Possibly the solid prosperity of England in
the last ten years, and the unexpected import-
ance of her share in the war, have only made
the Germans more bitter against us.

It is of interest to see how far Treitschke
used his influence to encourage this disdain
of England. His opportunities were very con-
siderable. In reviewing the history of the
last century, he constantly found England
connected with the interests of Germany.
He was, moreover, rather an economist than
an historian. His subject was statecraft
rather than history. His historical narrative
is always coloured by its relation to his ideal
of a State. He has, therefore, not only to
refer constantly to the historical conduct of
England, but it is part of his plan to study
and to criticise English institutions. The
107

TREITSCHKE

petty spirit in which he does this may be
shown in a humorous illustration. In justice
to Treitschke it should be stated that he fre-
quently writes with appreciation of English
institutions. He never writes with admira-
tion, but the facts are too strong occasionally
for his prejudice, and he does justice to a
few of the features of English life. On the
whole he is unjust, and he is frequently ridicu-
lous. In comparing the rival military systems
of England and Germany, for instance, he
pens the following egregious passage :

"It is a defect of the English civilisation
that it does not include compulsory military
service. Some compensation for this is found
in the very large development of the Fleet,
and in the fact that continuous small wars
in the Colonies keep the strength of the nation
constantly employed and ever fresh. It is
due to these incessant colonial wars that there
108

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

is a good deal of physical robustness in
England. Still, when we examine carefully,
we find a serious defect in the country. The
lack of chivalry in the English character,
which falls so far short of the simple loyalty
of the German, is largely connected with the
fact that physical exercise is not sought in
the use of manly weapons, but in the pas-
times of boxing, swimming and rowing. These
forms of exercise have a certain amount of
value, it is true, but it is quite clear that
these sports give rise to the athletic mind,
with all its crudeness and with a superficial
sentiment which is always looking for the
first prize " (Politik, I, 362).

When one looks back on this observation
of a learned prof essor, made in the lecture-room
of one of the chief universities of Germany,
and then thinks of the horrible outrages that
were committed in the first month of the
109

TREITSCHKE

war by the German soldiers, frequently under
the direct control of their officers, one can see
only the most obstinate prejudice in the mind
of Treitschke. No word is more common in
his glorification of the German character than
loyalty and chivalry. We have seen their
chivalry in the last few months. Instead of
relying entirely on that bravery of the soldier
which few would question, we have found
Germany using a second army, all over the
world, to do a kind of work which is the very
opposite of chivalry ; nor does their persistent
war upon civilians strike us as being very
chivalrous. On the other hand, little com-
plaint of a serious or well-founded nature has
been made against the conduct of the French,
English and Belgian troops. We must remem-
ber that they are fighting in their own country
and have not the temptation of the German
soldier, yet one need not examine the conduct
110

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

of the English troops on the field of battle in
order to learn their character. The whole
reference to the moral effect upon character
of athletic exercises is preposterous in the
extreme. Treitschke evidently had no insight
whatever into the real character of other
nations.

A more serious part of his work is to explain
to the young men of Germany the nature of
the English constitution. Here, as a repre-
sentative of the highest political culture of
Germany, one might expect him to proceed
at least with accuracy and candour. Instead
of this one finds him giving descriptions of
English institutions which are absolutely
ridiculous.

One may make some allowance for the

effect of his own ideal of a State. Absolute

monarchy is to him the perfect form of State,

because absolute monarchy is the Prussian

111

TREITSCHKE

form. Possibly no historian could survey the
States of modern and ancient times in the
way that Treitschke does, without allowing his
description to be coloured by his own political
views. For such prejudice we are prepared
to make an allowance, yet this allowance can-
not for a moment excuse some of the extra-
ordinary pages, which Treitschke devotes to
English institutions and the English character.
I will quote a long passage in which he deals
with what he regards as the primary institution
of a State, that is to say, the monarchy.
Before doing so I should recall Treitschke' s
main idea in connection with the State. The
State is power, something apart from, and
superior to, the body of citizens and their
interests. Treitschke therefore needs to find
some mystical basis for this power, and he can
OD?y fall back on the old and outworn idea
of legitimacy. One must bear this in mind

112

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

in reading his singular account of Royalty
in England. After giving a glowing and
exaggerated account of the successive Kings
of Prussia, he turns to England. England
being a constitutional monarchy, and therefore
opposed to his own ideal, he deals with it in
this peculiar fashion :

" The principle that even in a constitutional
state the crown rests on its own right — the old
Norman idea that all power and law proceed
from the king — is still maintained in theory
in England, and, as far as ceremony is con-
cerned, it is scrupulously followed. But when
we look into the question more closely we
find, as we do everywhere in^English life, that
subtle hypocrisy to which the English give
an untranslatable name [cant]. The droning
of the parson is heard in everything and every
body, not only in the Church, but in the best
London society, which is as frivolous as that

113 H

TREITSCHKE

of Paris, though it outwardly assumes an
atrociously dull respectability. It is just the
same in political life. This constitutional
cant, as an able writer of our time has called
it, has always affirmed the legitimacy of the
Guelphs. But what are the facts ? English
royalty, in its legitimate and genuine form,
was destroyed by the second English revolu-
tion; James II. was the last real king of
England. William III. was a throne- stealer,
pure and simple ; the ' glorious revolution '
was a very thorough revolution, and after it
occurred all the traditions of royalty began to
disappear. William III. was, owing to his
genial character, able to play the part of a
king ; but from that time royalty became
royalty by the grace of Parliament. In the
Act which called William to the throne, it is
expressly said that King James II. has by his
own act, broken the treaty between the Prince
1H

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

and his People, and forfeited the throne. This
is one of the things that doctrinaires in consti-
tutional law never refer to ; modern English
constitutional law is based on the false theory
of an original contract. The Guelphs more-
over, were called to the throne of England by
an Act of Parliament, and they had not the
slenderest title to that throne ; the whole of
the twenty-five Stuarts who had a better claim
to the throne, were passed over. The title in
virtue of which the House of Hanover rules
to-day, and the house of Coburg will go on
ruling, is an Act of Parliament which, in
spite of legitimate right, put upon the throne
certain distant relatives of the dethroned royal
family. Now, since it is the very essence of
monarchy that its power should be based on
its own rights, it must be clear to every im-
partial person, that the English constitution
is not very far from being an aristocratic
115

TEEITSCHKE

republic ; because, in spite of the almost
slavish etiquette that is followed, the real power
is taken from the king, and he derives his
title to rule from an arbitrary Act of
Parliament instead of from his own historical
right.

;c That is a peculiar and intolerable state
of things, and it is made worse by personal
features of the English kings which have been
inherited with remarkable fidelity. William III.
was the last man of any importance to sit on
the throne of England, and even he, being a
usurper and a foreigner, never had the full
power of a king. His successors have so
entirely lost personal significance that, foreign
usurpers as they were, they could not preserve
their independent rights in face of the national
pride of the nobility. A Duke of Norfolk has
not much reason to look with awe upon a
German prince [ ! ] The first two Georges were
116

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

not Englishmen. George I. never even under-
stood the English language, and he had to come
to an understanding with his ministers by
means of dog-Latin. He never attended a
council of ministers. This development goes
on to-day. It has got to such a pitch that
the king's name is never mentioned in Parlia-
ment, because he is no longer of any consequence
[nichts mehr bedeutet noch bedeuten soil].
George III. made the last attempts in England
to rule as a personal monarch. They began
with the betrayal of Frederick the Great [it is
well known that the action of England almost
preserved Prussia and Frederick the Great
from destruction], and ended in shame and
mockery by accelerating the secession of the
North American colonies. Such were the
consequences of the last attempt at personal
rule made by a narrow-minded prince. When,
in our day, the Prince Consort attempted to

117

TREITSCHKE

rule in the German manner, he found that it
was impossible to do so in England He gave
up the attempt, and contented himself with
teaching his wife how to occupy with a certain
dignity her ridiculous position between the
two parties, which she did with considerable
grace.

" To sum up these English characteristics,
we see how it was that Montesquieu could
assert that distrust must be the prevailing
spirit in a constitutional monarchy ; an appal-
ling theory, basing a noble institution on one of
the lowest impulses of human nature. Yet
it is to-day the dogma of all sections of Radi-
calism, however little they may care to
express it openly. Even my good friend
Dahlmann used to say, that in constitutional
States political liberty had possibly less to
fear from mediocre monarchs, than from really
great men. Strange words for a noble-minded
118

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

and able man to speak : as if genius, which
was always a gift of Heaven, could become a
public danger.

" It is evidently not desirable, even if it
were possible, to transfer to other States a
royalty like that of England, ossified as it is
by peculiar historical circumstances. Common
sense tells us that those political institutions
are best, which can do most good in the hands
of capable men. Hence any man who says
that a kingdom must be so established that
it will work best under mediocre rulers is
talking nonsense. The whole education of
English princes is, nevertheless, directed on
these lines, and it has succeeded wonderfully
in maintaining the hereditary nullity of the
Guelph line. No member of the family who
is in a position to aspire to the throne is a
soldier, in the best sense of the word. And the
present situation is such that, without claiming
119

TREITSCHKE

the gift of prophecy, we may say confi-
dently that for the next two generations the
house of Coburg will sustain all the features
of the house of Guelph. This is part of the
essence of the English State, but we Germans
will not abandon common-sense, and will not
propose to our people to cut off a sound limb
in order to replace it by a skilfully-made
artificial limb. We have had experience,
and we have found that our constitutional
monarchy is of such a nature, that it works
best under great monarchs. It is not the work
of a constitutional polity to rob royalty of all
significance ; on the contrary, it must keep
royalty fresh and living even among the peoples
that have reached political maturity. With
us royalty is almost the sole power of political
tradition which links our present with the past.
Do we want English Georges instead of our
far-famed Hohenzollerns ? The history of our

120

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

monarchy is so magnificent that a Prussian
may very well say, c The best monarch is good
enough for us.' According to our constitu-
tion all power is vested in the monarch. Any
one who denies this will have to prove his
charges against our constitution, on the basis
of certain foreign elements which have become
historical. Thus the first element of the
English constitution is an illegitimate and
powerless monarchy " (Politik, II, 132-136).
It would be waste of time to discuss this
passage in detail. Treitschke seized upon
peculiar elements of the English constitution
and entirely misrepresented them.

)His main error is, of course, his obstinate
refusal to grant any real right of self-govern-
ment to a people. I need not, however, deal
at such length with his further descriptions of
English institutions. He passes on to our
aristocracy, in which he finds " a great political
121

TREITSCHKE

capacity and enormous power." He fancies
that in England the aristocracy has completely
swallowed up the independent peasantry,
" which is the strength of Germany," and that
it dominates the Houses of Parliament. He
seems to be strangely confused as to the state
of England before the Reform Bill and in
recent times, although he observes that many
changes occurred in 1832. His description
of the actual state of things really refers to
the older days. The Lords, he says, nominate
the members of the Lower House. The Houso
of Commons does not in any sense represent
the people. It is ruled by the nobles through
their younger sons, and cousins, and othsr
dependents. Thus the monarchy is " a
shadow," and democracy does not exist. Eng-
land is ruled by " a well-ordered and powerful
aristocracy."

He further finds that the rival parties are
122

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

kept together by " colossal bribery," and he
ends : "To live in such circumstances may
be very pleasant, but it is ridiculous to hold
up such a system as a model to the German
State, with its strict sense of justice." He
closes the whole comparison of English and
German political institutions with this remark-
able passage : " We have, it is true, borrowed
a few knick-knacks from England. With us
also the King's name is not to be mentioned
in Parliament. The English — who have
always been expert in flattery of this kind —
say that it is no more lawful to take the name
of the King in vain than the name of God.
This Guelph royalty, the first representative
of which did not know the language of his
country and could not attend the council, has
now no influence at all. It is of no conse-
quence what Queen Victoria thinks about a
political question. And that is supposed to
123

TREITSCHKE

be a model for our country, where the King
speaks very good German ! In Germany the
will of the King still counts for something.
That is especially the case in Prussia, the
only place which still has a real monarch ; a
ruler who is entirely independent. In Prussia
a cowardly minister cannot shelter himself
behind the monarch when he addresses Parlia-
ment. If in a particular case he says, * Don't
decide to do that, gentlemen; I tell you
confidently that we shall not be able to per-
suade his Majesty to assent,' there is no
reason why we should not."

Treitschke betrays the same petty and
unscientific spirit almost whenever he ap-
proaches any feature of English life. One
or two instances will suffice to show how he
inoculated the young men of the German
middle class, with that disdain of England
which has led to such tragic consequences.
124

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

Many of his colleagues of a less prejudiced
nature, were pointing out the indisputable
merits which the Reform period had intro-
duced into English law and practice. Treit-
schke rarely failed to say precisely the
opposite, and to pour ridicule on the claim
that any feature of English life could with
profit be adopted in Germany. Sometimes
he is curiously inaccurate, as in the following
contrast : "In England the punishment of
political crimes is severe to the verge of cruelty ;
in Germany, under the influence of radical
ideas, it is the fashion to take a sentimental
view of political crimes." Those who recollect
the treatment, let us say, of Colonel Lynch
at the time of the South African war, will
read with surprise this observation of the
learned professor. One would imagine that
it was in England, not in Germany, that a
brilliant historical writer can be committed
125

TREITSCHKE

to a fortress for three years for making very
natural comments on the words of the monarch.

In another place he deals with the contrast
in the authority of the police. He says :
" Germany proceeds on the principle that
it is not good to restrict too much the dis-
cretionary power of the authorities ; England
gives the police no discretionary power at all.
The result is that a state of war is constantly
announced in England ; not a year passes
without the reading of the Riot Act in some
part of the United Kingdom." .Finally, I may
quote his reflection on a liberty which so many
Germans envy us in England :

"In the conception of personal freedom
there is included some security against
arbitrary arrest. England has been excep-
tionally zealous on this point. The famous
clause of Magna Charta, that no one shall be
arrested without a warrant, is undoubtedly
126

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

a great achievement ; but it is equally true
that in large modern cities this right is anti-
quated. In a well- ordered State, where the
police are punished for exceeding their powers,
and one can rely on the punishment being
carried out, they should be free to enter the
houses of citizens in the larger towns. To
regard as secret the resorts of thieves and
other evil houses is absurd. You see the
consequences in London, where the most
terrible crimes escape detection " (Politik, I,
169).

After this defence of the Prussian system
of autocracy, and the despotism of the Prussian
police, Treitschke passes on to examine what
are believed to be some of the most important
reforms of English political life as regards the
representation of the people. To most socio-
logists of any country the ballot-box, or the
secrecy of the vote, is one of the most impor-
127

TREITSCHKE

tant of these reforms. Treitschke is so un-
willing to admit any superiority in any
field of English life, that he actually delivers
an eloquent and highly moral attack upon
the ballot-box. He, of course, opposes any
effective system of popular representation.
Men with lungs, he says, obtain the greater
power under institutions of that character;
and he bitterly opposes any extension of the
miserable franchise that is allowed in Prussia.
One would have thought at least that he
could recognise the propriety, if not the civic
excellence, of the ballot-box, and the long
passage which he has on that subject is worth
quoting, as an example of the way in which
German students were initiated at Berlin
to the features of English life. He says :

" In connection with the spread of this
irrational claim for a wider franchise, there
has been introduced the equally irrational,

128

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

and at the same time immoral, secret vote.
By the secrecy of the vote people are supposed
to enjoy an independence which they really
do not possess. We are fools to talk about
our educated and free age when we have
lost the simplest natural feeling of honour.
It is precisely these free political institutions,
which have brought on men certain moral
mischiefs, of which our fathers in less free
times never dreamed. If the parliamentary
vote is to be regarded as the highest duty of
a citizen, let it at least be exercised in a form
which does not seem repugnant to a man of
honour and some sense of freedom ; that is
to say, let it be exercised in public and with
full responsibility. A man who feels no dis-
gust when he goes to the ballot-box and
stealthily puts his vote into it, has no senti-
ment of politicaHhonour. There is nothing
whatever in the arguments for the ballot-box.

129 I

TKEITSCHKE

It is not the business of the State to weaken
its citizens morally. It is a real conflict of
duties when father and son hold different
political views, but the son must openly declare
which he holds to be highest, his political
conviction or his sentiment of gratitude to
his father. It is not the business of the State
to prevent such conflicts. They did not have
that kind of thing in older England. Until
the nineteenth century a secret vote was
regarded as a sign of thorough corruption.
Now our press has got the idea that it is
freedom to hide behind a bush, or a ballot-box.
This is the result of extending the vote to
classes which ought not to vote because they
are not independent enough.

" Moreover, people who talk like this show

a remarkable ignorance of real life. In the

country, especially among the poor, it is quite

impossible to keep secret the way that any

130

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

person has voted. Even in the towns there
are all sorts of ways of discovering how a
man has voted. So we come down in the end
to the basest device to which ' the sense of
liberty ' has brought us : the voter must go
into a sort of smoking-room, and there fill up
a form provided by the Government. That
is a pretty state of things for men with any
sense of decency ! Such secret proceedings
completely destroy the feeling of manliness,
and the State dangles the lie before millions
of workers, who know quite well that they
are really dependent. There can be no ques-
tion whatever but that such a system is
thoroughly immoral. What a man per-
sonally feels as a disgrace must have a
demoralising effect on the community. But
our enlightened age is so stubborn in this
respect that we have no hope of reform.
We are rearing a race that will be incapable
131

TREITSCHKE

of thinking candidly and rightly. The results
will be seen soon enough, and they will be
lamentable. It is a question rather of a
moral than of a political nature" (Politik,
II, 182).

These will serve as interesting illustrations
of that Kultw which Treitschke would have
liked to see imposed upon other nations.
I reserve, however, for a later chapter the
conception of a well-ordered State, as it is
presented in Treitschke's writings. I would
conclude with one other extract which shows
how Treitschke can hardly ever approach
the subject of England, without a prejudice
which makes his lectures almost ridiculous.
One aspect of statecraft which he has to con-
sider is, naturally, the influence of physical
conditions upon the people. This gives him
the opportunity once more to make a contrast
between England and Germany :

VILIFICATION OF ENGLAND

"In estimating the climate and other
natural features of a country, we are chiefly
keeping in mind their influence on its material
life. The moral and aesthetic points of view
are of secondary importance, and must not
be exaggerated. The moist and foggy climate
of England has had anything but a good
influence on the inhabitants. There are times
in London when the fog is so dense that the
spleen fills the atmosphere. Moreover, Eng-
land has no wine, and wine is unquestionably
an important factor of a genial and free
civilisation. . . . The climate and the absence
of wine and the lack of beautiful scenery [ ! ]
have undeniably had a bad effect on English
civilisation. The English can boast of great
literature, but they have never attained any
distinction in music or the plastic arts "
(PolitiJc, I, 224). Again it would be waste of
time to discuss these extraordinary views of

133

TREITSCHKE

English life and character. We must, how-
ever, seriously consider how this persistent
habit of belittling the English people has had
a share in creating the anti -British temper in
Germany. I would not over-estimate Treit-
schke's influence in this regard. There have
been so many incentives to anti -British feeling
in recent years in Germany, that one need not
go back to lectures delivered in a university
forty years ago. The passages are, perhaps,
more important for showing the kind of
civilisation which Germany would, if it had
the power, impose upon other countries. With
this I will deal at a later stage, and will for the
present consider those sentiments which have
a more direct connection with the present war.

134

CHAPTER IV
THE PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

CHAPTER IV
THE PKAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

WE have already seen the central idea of
Treitschke's system of thought. The State is
power. This means at once that he will
exaggerate, more than any other civilian
writer has ever done, the importance of war
in a State. And here we come to the third
and almost the most important aspect of
Treitschke's influence. He and other German
writers recognise, even boast, that they have
imposed the present exacting burden of
militarism on Europe. To Treitschke, though
a civilian, it is easy to defend this develop-
ment. His view of history is, as I pointed
out, really superficial. He does not believe
137

TREITSCHKE

in " cold-blooded objectivity " in writing
history. Every line of his studies and his
writings has an application to the problems
of the State to-day. We may say, without
hesitation, that, apart from the soldiers of
Germany, he has done more than any other
writer to encourage the abnormal and dan-
gerous zeal for military greatness which has
now proved so disastrous.

" History," he says, " has wholly masculine
features; it is not a thing for sentimental
natures and women. Brave peoples alone are
secure of existence, of a future, of develop-
ment ; weak and lazy peoples go under. The
beauty of history lies in this eternal for and
against of the various States. It is simply
madness to desire to put an end to this rivalry.
So humanity has found in all ages." Or, as
he expresses it on another page of his great
work : " It is only in war that a people really
138

PKAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

becomes a people ; and in the majority of
cases the expansion of existing States proceeds
by way of acquisition by conquest, though the
results of the struggle may afterwards be recog-
nized by treaty."

According to Treitschke the State has two
chief functions : to administer justice within
its frontiers and assert its power without.
Most people to-day regard the second as an
accidental and, we trust, temporary function
of the State, but Treitschke would not hear
of such a view. In his theory the military
function is essential to the State, and it would
be a positive disaster to humanity if a con-
dition of peace arose which would enable us
to dispense with armies. This is one of the
results of his new science of statecraft. He
says :

" As long as the State was regarded as an
economic institution, the view prevailed in
139

TREITSCHKE

Germany that the economic principle of divi-
sion of labour should apply to the army.
Professional and well-drilled soldiers were
needed to shield the life of the citizens from
the confusion of war. But hard and bitter
experience has changed all this, and to-day
even the ordinary man feels that the military
system is of more importance than economic
interests — is, in fact, of incalculable import-
ance; that there is question here of moral
forces, and that these are best aroused and
applied under a system of compulsory military
service " (Politik I, 143).

The claim that war engenders moral forces
is not entirely novel in the literature of this
subject, but in Treitschke's writings it is
carried to a remarkable length. Many writers
have claimed that physical degeneration would
follow the abandonment of warfare, and some
few have declared that there are features of

140

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

character which warfare does favourably
develop. Very few, however, have written
in this vein in regard to war :

" Gibbon calls patriotism c the vivid feeling
of my interest in society,' but, if you conceive
the State as merely designed to ensure for the
individual his life and property, how comes
it that the individual will sacrifice his life and
property for the State! It is a fallacy to
suppose that wars are now waged in the interest
of material life. Modern wars do not aim
at the seizure of property. They are inspired
by the lofty moral possession of national
honour, which is handed down from genera-
tion to generation ; which has something
absolutely sacred about it and forces the
individual to sacrifice himself to it. It
is a possession above price, and cannot be
measured in dollars and pence" (Politik L,
24).

141

TREITSCHKE

He finds a quaint illustration of this in the
German war of 1866 ; and in other places he
makes the same comment on the Franco-
Prussian war. His claim takes the singular
form that war between two States enables
the nations to appreciate each other's qualities
more justly, and links them in a stronger
friendship than peace would ever have pro-
duced. One wonders how such a theory will
apply to the respective relations of England
and France, and Belgium and Germany, after
the present trouble is over. He says :

" We Germans cannot appreciate too highly
the fact that our Revolution of 1866 did not
take the form of a popular movement and
popular settlement, as in Italy, but the form
of a war. The result was that the Prussian
Crown, which marshalled its physical forces,
was in a position to restore order. We may
add that a transformation of a milder
H2

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

character was not at that time possible. If we
suppose that the feeling of the masses for
German unity was so strong that it would
have led to revolution, the conquered and
the conquerors would even now live in a
state of enmity ; whereas the war and the
generous conclusion of peace filled the oppo-
nents with mutual appreciation, and so far
united them that four years later they, like
true comrades, joined their arms against
France " (I., 136).

It is, however, in surveying the general
stream of history, that Treitschke makes his
most formidable mistake. The historian is
naturally apt to enlarge upon a nation in
the prime of its life, and the full glory of its
achievements. It occurs to him that, if it
could only have sustained the military power
which for a time protected its artists and its
merchants, there would never have been the
143

TREITSCHKE

ultimate decay which he has to record.
Unfortunately, many historians, and Treit-
schke above all others, fail to analyse the facts
justly. It seems, on an impartial considera-
tion, that, with all the will in the world, it
was quite impossible for those ancient
Empires or States to sustain their military
strength. Treitschke forgets that war destroys
all the good qualities which militarism
creates.

We may admit not only the physical robust-
ness, but, to some extent, the moral qualities
which are brought out in a war conducted on
lines of chivalry and humanity. The historian
must equally recognise that those soldiers
in whom these qualities are most richly
developed are the first to fall on the field.
It is those who are less distinguished by
courage and manliness, and it is the inferior
types which have not been selected for military

144

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

purposes, that remain at home and are the
fathers of the next generation. Throughout
nearly the whole of his historical glorifica-
tion of war, Treitschke is guilty of this over-
sight. His knowledge in detail is very largely
confined to the story of Germany within the
last two hundred years. A century or two
show us plainly the beginnings of the develop-
ment of military influence. The nation con-
tinues vigorous in spite of its losses, because,
by the enlargement of its territory, new groups
of peoples have come under the selective
action of the military commander. Had
Treitschke lived but twenty years longer, he
might have seen the culmination of this
development in the history of his own country.
Against his religious neighbours he used to
quote texts of the Bible in support of warfare.
He seems to have overlooked one text :
" They who take the sword shall perish by
145 K

TREITSCHKE

the sword." If there is one lesson arising
plainly from the study of history, it is con-
tained in those simple words.

From the days of Goethe men were perceiv-
ing the truth of this real lesson of history.
Around him on every side Treitschke found
men clamouring for the abandonment of war-
fare and the substitution of arbitration. It
is well known how, openly and secretly, Ger-
many has frustrated this work of progress at
the Hague Conferences. Treitschke had a
very great share in the obstinate militarism
which has prolonged the danger which threat-
ened Europe, until at last it has fallen like an
avalanche upon five or six whole nations.
The disastrous results he clearly foresaw. It
was part of his doctrine — part of his idealism,
as he called it — that the State should be able
to claim and to receive the utmost sacrifices
from its subjects. When, recently, the Ger-
U6

PEAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

man Emperor assured his Prussian subjects
that he was sure that they would gladly
sacrifice their lives and their homes to the
needs of the Empire, he was, as in his religious
utterances, doing little more than repeating
the words of Treitschke. Using every motive
at his command, Treitschke, throughout his
whole life, tried to impress on the German
people, not merely the need, but, as he said,
" the sacredness of war." His influence on
the German people in regard to war is as great
as we have found his influence in regard to
the inflated ideal of the German position and
future.

The deification of war runs through the
whole of Treitschke' s theory of a State. Two
long extracts will suffice to show how he uses
every argument, to impress the eternal need
of war and militarism on his university
students. In the first section, where he is
U7

TREITSCHKE

explaining the nature of a State, he says as
follows :

" Without war there would be no State.
All the States we know have their origin in
war : the armed protection of its citizens is
the first and the central duty of the State.
Hence war will last as long as history does :
as long as there is a plurality of States. That
it should ever be otherwise can be deduced
neither from the laws of thought nor from
the laws of human nature ; nor is it in the
least desirable. The blind worshippers of
eternal peace make the mistake of isolating
the State, or of dreaming of a world-State,
which we have already recognised to be
irrational.

" Since it is equally impossible, as we have

already seen, even to conceive of a higher

judge over States, which are in their nature

sovereign, we cannot imagine that the state

148

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

of war will ever cease. It is the fashion of
our time to speak of England as a lover of
peace. Yet England is always at war ; there
is hardly a moment in modern history when
she has not been fighting somewhere. The
great progress of civilised men, as opposed to
barbarism and unreason, can only be realised
by the sword. Even among civilised peoples
war remains the form of the process by means
of which States assert their claims. The
evidence that is produced in this frightful
process is as convincing as the evidence in a
civil-law case. How often have we endeavoured
to convince small States that Prussia alone
can take the lead in Germany; we had to
furnish a decisive proof on the battle-fields of
Bohemia and the Main. War binds peoples
together, it does not merely separate them.
It brings people to face each other, not merely
in enmity : they learn to understand and
149

TREITSCHKE

appreciate each other's qualities. We must
also recognise that war is not always the
verdict of God ; there are even here temporary
successes, but the life of a nation must be
counted in centuries. Our final judgment
must be based on a survey of great epochs.
A State like Prussia, which was, in accordance
with the spirit of its people, always freer and
more rational than France, might at times
seem to be on the verge of extinction, owing
to some temporary enervation, but might
then recollect its true inner nature and assert
its superiority. We must unhesitatingly
affirm that war is the only remedy for sick
nations. Whenever the State calls, ' My exist-
ence is in danger,' social selfishness must
disappear and party hatred must be silent.
The individual must forget his own personality
and realise that he is a member of the whole ;
he must feel how little his life is in comparison
150

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

with the good of the whole. Therein consists
the nobleness of war, that the smallness of
men vanishes before the greater interest of
the State. Self-sacrifice for one's fellows is
nowhere so splendid as in war. At such times
the chaff is separated from the grain. Every
man who lived through the year 1870 feels
the truth of what Niebuhr said of the year
1813 [the war of 1813 was a war of liberation,
not of aggression] that in those days he felt
* the happiness of sharing a sentiment with
all his fellow- citizens, learned and simple, and
every man who enjoyed it will remember all
his life how kindly and strong his soul was at
that time.'

" It is precisely political idealism that
demands war, while materialism shrinks from
it. What a moral perversity it is to wish to
strike militarism out of the heart of man !
It is a nation's heroes who gladden and inspire
151

TREITSCHKE

the hearts of the young ; and the writer we
admired most, when we^were young men, is
the man whose words have the sound of a
trumpet. The man who does not leap at
such a sound is too great a coward to bear
arms for his country. It is no use referring
to Christianity. The Bible expressly says
that authority shall wear the sword, and it
declares : ' Greater love than this no man
hath, that he should lay down his life for his
friends.' They who repeat nonsense about
eternal peace do not understand the life of
the Aryan peoples : the Aryans are first and
foremost brave. They have always been men
enough to protect with the sword what they
had won by the spirit. Goethe once said :
' The North Germans were always more
civilised than the South Germans.' [Goethe
had the most profound contempt for Prussia,
and loved the South German State of Gotha.]
152

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

Heroism — the maintenance of bodily strength
and moral courage — is essential to a noble
people.

"We must not look at these things only
in the light of the study lamp. The historian
who lives in the world of will is convinced
that the dream of eternal peace is thoroughly
reactionary. He knows that with the cessa-
tion of war all movement and all progress
will disappear from history. It has always
been the exhausted, spiritless, enervated ages
that have played with the dream of eternal
peace. . . . The third such period is that
in which we now live ; it is, once more, a
period of peace following a great war, which
seems to have destroyed all idealism in
Germany. Loud and shameless is the
laughter of the crowd when something that
has contributed to the greatness of Germany
is destroyed. The foundations of our noble

153

TREITSCHKE

old education are ruined ; all that made us
an aristocracy among the nations of the earth
is now despised and trodden under foot.
It is a fit time for dreaming once more the
vision of eternal peace. But it is not worth
while lingering over the subject. The living
God will take care that the terrible physic
of war shall be administered to humanity
again and again " (Politik, L, 72-76).

Treitschke makes some concession to the
dreamers of peace. Inconsistently with his
praise of the virtues of war, he contends
that it is a benefit of the new military system
that wars will become shorter and less fre-
quent. Even in such practical matters as
this, where one so intensely interested in
militarism might seem to have authority,
the events have shown the utter fallacy and
hollowness of his position. We are now
entering upon the fourth big war in twenty
154

PKAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

years, and this war bids fair to prove more
expensive and disastrous than all the wars
of the nineteenth century put together.
Even in its length it may rival the Napoleonic
war.

But we need not linger to examine the
hotch-potch of arguments which make up
Treitschke's panegyric of war. The last sen-
tence of the passage I have quoted will be
sufficient to convince any impartial person
of the utterly diseased nature of this great
influence on Germany. I would pass on at
once to consider the section of Treitschke's
work which deals expressly with the military
functions of the State. He begins (§23) :

" It was a defect of the older politics to
regard the army merely as an instrument at
the disposal of diplomacy, and to give it a
subordinate place in its system, in the chapter
on foreign politics. It was regarded only
155

TREITSCHKE

as a means of foreign policy. There is no
question of such a thing in our age of universal
military service. Everybody feels to-day that
the army is not merely an instrument for
the purposes of diplomacy, but that the
constitution of a State rests precisely on the
distribution of arms among the people. The
State is supported by the ordered physical
strength of the nation, and that is the army.
If the essence of the State is power, directed
both inwards and outwards, the organisation
of the army must be one of the first con-
stitutional questions in any State."

Treitschke goes on to argue, plausibly
enough, that the army performs a great
civil function. Nearly every other institu-
tion or element of national life divides the
people, or confuses them with the people
of other States. Art and science, or all
culture in the English sense of the word,
156

PKAISES OF THE WAK-GOD

are cosmopolitan : and cosmopolitanism is
to Treitschke, who hates all Jews and all
idealists, one of the gravest dangers of modern
times. What is ordinarily called politics,
on the other hand, splits the nation into
hostile parties ; and this element in turn was
regarded with bitter contempt by Treitschke.
He would have the whole nation listening
in silence to the dictates of the monarch
and his soldiers and historians. The great
instrument for bringing about this docile unity
is the army. " In the army alone do the
citizens feel that they are sons of their coun-
try," and "the King is its natural com-
mander." He goes on : " An adequate
equipment of the army is also the foundation
of political freedom, so that we need not
waste pity on States that have a powerful and
well -drilled army. In this province academical
theories have suffered the most amusing defeats
117

TREITSCHKE

at the hand of facts. Everybody who calls
himself liberal speaks of the ideal of dis-
armament toward which modern States are
hastening. But what does the history of
the nineteenth century really teach us ?
Precisely the contrary. Armament grows
heavier each year, and, as it is the same in
all States, this cannot be due to accident.
There is some radical defect in the whole
theory of the Liberals. The State is not
an academy of arts, or an Exchange : it
is power, and it belies . its own nature
when it neglects the army " (Politik, II. ,
357).

Treitschke turns once more upon reformers
in Germany who are pleading the economy
of the English system. He points out, quite
naturally, that the position of England is
exceptional. England relies mainly upon her
fleet, and her example cannot apply to
158

PKAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

Germany. But, with his constant disposition
to seek those ingenious arguments which
German writers are apt to regard as profound,
he gives us a remarkable passage on the
English army. He observes that the position
of the army in England has been entirely
irregular since the days of the Puritans.
Parliament then disbanded the army and
" since that time English people have regarded
the army as a tool of the State, which might
be used even against the will of the nation ;
and when a second revolution set up a shadow
of royalty by the grace of Parliament, the
Mutiny Act was passed." This is, he says,
a ridiculous contrast to the position of the
army in Germany. " With us the institution
of the army is precisely a result of the law.
The military law of 1814, one of the greatest
debts we owe to Prussia, is the basis of a
comprehensive legislation. Hence our army
159

TREITSCHKE

is on a legal footing and not, as in England,
an anomaly." He continues :

" Could there be any greater humiliation
than to sympathise with our country because
it has the advantage over England of a large
army ? For it is an advantage to have
a large and well-equipped army, because
the army is not only intended to be of use in
supporting a nation's foreign policy, but a
high-minded nation with a glorious history
can employ the army for a long period as a
dormant weapon ; and, in addition, it pro-
vides for the people a school of the really
manly virtues which are so easily lost sight
of, in an age of commerce and pleasure. We
must acknowledge that there are men of a
fine artistic nature who cannot tolerate the
military discipline. We often hear these
people speaking in a very perverse way about
military service. But in such things we
160

PEAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

cannot make laws for exceptional natures :
we must, according to the old rule, deal with
the mens sana in corpore sano. Bodily strength
is especially important in times like ours. It
is a defect of the English civilisation that
it does not include compulsory military
service. . . .

[Here follows the humorous passage relating
to the coarseness of English character on
account of the prevalence of sport instead of
military drill which I have quoted above.]

" The normal and rational course for a great
nation is to embody the essence of its State,
which is power, in a well- drilled army. And
as we have lived through a period of war, the
over- sensitive, philanthropic way of looking
at these things has rather gone out of fashion,
so that, with Clausewitz, we again regard
war as a great extension of politics. All the
peace-pipe-smokers in the world will not
161 L

TREITSCHKE

succeed in bringing harmony into the views
of the political Powers, and until that is done
the sword alone can decide between them.
We have learned to appreciate the moral
majesty of war precisely in those features
which seem to superficial observers brutal and
inhuman. It seems, at first, the most terrible
feature of war that a man must, for his
country's sake, crush his natural feelings of
humanity ; that men who have never done
any harm to each other, and have perhaps
even respected each other as chivalrous
enemies, shall now proceed to murder each
other ; yet this is at the same time one of the
glories of war. A man shall sacrifice not only
his life, but also the natural and deep-rooted
feelings of the human soul — he shall give his
whole personality — for a great patriotic idea :
that is the moral grandeur of war. If we con-
sider the matter further, we see that war, with
162

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

all its hardness and crudeness, weaves a
bond of love between man and man ; since in
war all social distinctions disappear, and the
threat of death links man with man. Any
man who knows history knows that it would
be a stultification of human nature to wish
to eliminate warfare from the world. There
is no liberty without war-like action, which
is ready to make sacrifices for liberty. We
cannot repeat too often that scholars, in
discussing these matters, start with the assump-
tion that the State is destined to be an academy
of arts and sciences. It ought, of course, to
do the work of such an academy, but that
is not its first task. When a State neglects
its physical strength in favour of intellectual
culture it is lost.

' We see everywhere that the greatness of
historical life acts on character more than on
culture : the driving forces of history must
163

TREITSCHKE

be sought in fields where character is formed.
None but brave peoples have a real history. In
the great crises of a nation's life we see that
the warlike virtues are decisive. In war
nations show of what they are capable : not
only in the way of physical strength,
but also in moral, and, to some extent,
intellectual strength" (PoKtik, II., 361-
364).

" Since the army is the orderly political
strength of the State, it must be Power, and
not have a will of its own; it must yield
absolute obedience to the will of the head of
the State. It cannot be denied that this
absolute subjection to the will of the head
of the State is a hard experience. But it is
important to notice that the political liberty
of a people is based precisely on this re-
quirement, which Radical talkers are always
decrying as reactionary. All political security
164

PEAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

would be at an end if the army had a will
of its own (p. 365).

" From this duty of absolute obedience it
follows that there must be one single oath
of fidelity, and this must direct the soldier
with perfect clearness whom he must obey.
You cannot promise to sacrifice your life
under certain conditions. To compel young
men, for the most part of the poorer class, to
promise to obey the King and also the con-
stitution ; in other words, to place before
them the alternative of obeying either one
or the other in case of conflict is sheer non-
sense. There is an end of discipline if you
make the soldier the judge whether the
constitution has or has not been infringed in a
certain case " (Ref. 366).

Treitschke seems to shudder a little at his
own doctrine. He goes on to admit that
conscience has its rights, and he declares —
165

TEEITSCHKE

entirely contradicting what he has already
said — that absolute obedience can be promised
to no human being. One wonders how far the
Prussian military authorities would grant
such a concession, but Treitschke goes on at
once to show that he is by no means differing
from the military authorities. He gives in-
stances in which a man would be justified
in refusing to obey orders. The first case is,
if he were ordered to kill his father and mother !
One cannot see a very large concession to
conscience in an extreme supposition of that
kind. The second case is if the German
soldiers were ordered to " become child -
slayers like Herod's soldiers." After Belgium
we need make no comment on the second of
Treitschke's supposed cases of the soldier's
right to disobey. He continues with his
analysis of the State's military function :
" A soldier's honour consists in the energy
166

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

and promptness with which he obeys. Hence
the unconditional obedience, which, amongst
us is pushed with such severity, is a glory
and a sign of the splendid spirit of our army.
The disdain with which Radicals often speak
of this ' dog-like submission ' is sheer non-
sense. The army training is of very great
value in the formation of character. Elderly
and able officers are above all things men of fine
character [like Major Manteuffel], and are
in this respect on a higher level than the
average scholar; since learned men have
far less opportunity to form their characters.
Goethe's immortal words in his e Tasso '
have hit the mark. Silent obedience to
superiors and strict orders to inferiors imply
an independence of character which must be
very highly esteemed. Our Prussian generals
have always been liberal -minded men. These
facts are so well established that one can
167

TREITSCHKE

never cease to wonder at the stupidity of the
idea, that an army bound to unconditional
obedience is an instrument of slavery : it
is rather an instrument of freedom. Anyone
who thinks that such an army, pledged by
its oath, can be used for a reactionary purpose
does not know history (p. 367).

" A brave man who has taken on himself
the obligation of unconditional obedience
would have no sense of dignity if he were not
conscious that, since he was ready to sacrifice
his life at any time, he must keep the shield
of his honour bright. Anybody who doubts
this ascribes his own inferior feelings to the
soldier. Hence the military sense of honour
is often peculiarly sensitive. There may be
abuses, but the fact is in itself wholesome.
Even among civilians the duel still survives.
In a democratic society the duel is the last

protection against the complete barbarism
168

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

of social manners. Men are more or less
restrained by the thought that a transgression
may cost them their lives ; and it is better
for a man in the prime of life to die now and
again than for the ways of the whole people
to run wild. And with this soldierly feeling
of honour is connected the great moral force
that is found in the army, and constitutes its
strength to a great extent. Officers would
lose the respect of their men if they had not
a keen sense of honour and refined manners.
Moral coarseness has increased in the English
army since the duel was abolished ; there
have been cases of officers thrashing each
other in railway carriages in the presence of
their wives. We need not consider how such
conduct is bound to lower them in the eyes of
their men. The democratic idea that a soldier
will obey one of his own class rather than a
social superior is the reverse of the truth (370).
169

TREITSCHKE

"It is not technical but moral superiority
which finally decides the issue of a war. The
English soldiers are very good at physical
exercises ; they are trained to box, and are
fed with extraordinary generosity. But people
are beginning even in England to see that
there is something wanting, and that the
English cannot be compared with a national
army because the moral energies of the
people are shut out from the army. The
world is not as materialistic as Wellington
supposed. He said that mental development
was of no use in the army; it led only to
disorder and confusion (371).

" In considering these matters we must
keep to the purely moral estimate of institu-
tion, as opposed to the purely economic. . .
We must never lose sight of the fact that there
are things which are beyond all price. Moral
goods have no price, and it is therefore stupid
170

PEAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

to attempt to appraise such things as the
honour and power of a State in terms of
money. What we lost when the flower of
our youth fell on the fields of France cannot
be estimated in gold. It is unworthy to put
moral things on the same level as material "
(372).

One need not make any comment on these
bewildering claims for the virtues of war.
The well-known qualities of the German
soldiers and officers are in themselves a crush-
ing reply to the claims of their apologists.
Treitschke goes on, since he has discovered
the supreme moral value of the modern
military system, to claim the merit of it for
Prussia ; and we will not refuse to admit that,
whether it be an advantage to Europe or
otherwise, Germany has the lion's share in
imposing the military burden on Europe. I
will not, therefore quote the long historical
171

TEEITSCHKE

proof which he gives that Prussia has, as he
says, "the glory of leading modern Europe
back to a natural and more moral conception."
That is Treitschke's idea of the substitution
of vast national armies for the small standing
armies which preceded Frederick the Great.
He is not blind to the appalling economic
burden which this change has imposed on
Europe, but, as we have seen, he finds that
the moral qualities engendered entirely out-
weigh the material cost. He goes on :

" The example of the German national
army has had a great influence on the rest
of Europe. All the raillery that was once
directed against it has proved foolish. It was
common in foreign countries to shrug one's
shoulders in talking of the Prussian Land-
wehren; the Prussian army of children, they
called it. Things have turned out very

differently. It has been clearly shown that
172

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

in war the moral factors are more important
than technical training ; and it has also been
shown that the increased technical experience
of the barracks is accompanied by some moral
degeneration (404).

" On the whole the tendency of the modern
system is for peace. A whole people in arms
cannot so easily be drawn from its peaceful
occupations into an unjustifiable war as a
conscription army. Wars are now less com-
mon and shorter, though they are bloodier.
The desire to get home again gives the men
a strong incentive to push on. The normal
feeling of a brave, yet peace-loving, national
army is that which the Prussian soldiers gave
expression to in the summer of 1866 : ' Let
us get to the Danube as quickly as possible, so
that we shall get home all the sooner.' We
may say that nothing is impossible to such a

national army when it has a glorious history
173

TREITSCHKE

to look back upon ; our experience ^m the last
two wars, especially in the Battles of Konig-
gratz and Mars la Tour, proves this."

This passage again shows what one must
almost call the insincerity of Treitschke's
argument. If war has all the virtues which
he so ingeniously discovers in it, it is hardly
a merit of the present system that war should
become less frequent and that the soldiers
should hasten home again. But the whole
argumentation is so flimsy that it would be
waste of time to linger over it. We are apt to
forget in reading Treitschke that we are
listening to words which come, with the full
authority of the State, from one of the most
learned chairs in Germany. The tragic feature
which almost prevents us from enjoying the
humour of many of these passages is that
this doctrine has been one of the great influ-
ences in bringing about the horrors of the
174

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD
present war. In a few more years men will
perceive in Germany how terribly short-
sighted these views were. The enthusiasm of
a man who was cut off from his fellows and
lived in a world of books and of his own fiery
impulses, has led a whole nation to destruction.

It was not only in his university lectures
that Treitschke made this glorification of war.
In his Historische und Politische Aufsatze
(I., 782) he makes a violent tirade against
the increasing demand in Germany for an
International Court of Arbitration. He says :

" Among the workers there is spreading
a theory of the absolute blessedness of peace,
which is a scandal to the intelligence and moral
energy of our age ; a hotch-potch of phrases,
so clear that everybody repeats them, and so
miserable that every man who is a man
throws them overboard at once when the
majesty of war arises in bodily form before
17ft "

TREITSCHKE

the people. Theological perversity has not
had much to do with these ideas. More
dangerous is the thoughtless sympathy of
feminine natures, which cannot reconcile them-
selves to the misery which war causes."

Throughout his whole life he met the great
dream of our age with this brutality, but the
events of the year 1915 will give a decisive
answer to all these miserable pages. It would
be more interesting to examine how far
Treitschke approved in advance the more
unscrupulous aud repulsive methods of the
military authorities. He rarely, however,
enters into details on this subject. I have
already quoted the passage in which he not
only admits that the soldier must crush
every feeling of humanity, but actually boasts
that this is one of the moral victories of war
It was reserved for the military pupils and
followers of Treitschke to translate these
176

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

general principles into the particular directions
which we have seen carried out in the last
few months. We shall further see, in the
next chapter, that in spite of his high standard
of honour. Treitschke makes extraordinary
concessions to the spirit of casuistry whenever
the supreme interest of the State requires it ;
and the supreme interest of the State, we
must always remember, is, in his opinion,
the military interest. We shall find him
praising and approving the doctrine of Machia-
velli as no other writer in the last one hundred
years has dared to do. We shall find him,
somewhat shyly it is true, approving lying in
the interests of the State. We shall, in fact,
find that he imagines his God-directed monarch
to be also the monarch of the moral law, and
we shall conclude that he has had a share in
inspiring even the worst features of this
campaign.

177 M

TREITSCHKE

I will conclude this chapter with one or
two extracts, which show his attitude towards
the growing demand for an international
tribunal for the settlement of the disputes of
nations. This proposal cuts deeply into the
roots of his theory of a State ; what is worse,
it cuts even more deeply into the roots
of Prussian ambition. Treitschke therefore
used his whole influence to cast ridicule on
the advancing reform. We need not notice
the way in which he argues against it, because
of the sacredness and moral efficacy of war-
fare. I need only reproduce one or two
passages in which he makes a display of
academic learning against the proposal. He
says :

" We have described the State as an inde-
pendent Power. This pregnant idea of inde-
pendence involves a legal autonomy, in such
wise that no State can rightly tolerate any
178

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

power over itself; it implies also a political
independence, an abundance of means for
securing itself against foreign influences. . .
A human society which has abdicated its
sovereignty is not a State " (135).

It will be clearly seen that this principle
justifies the German State in signing the docu-
ments of the Hague Convention, and cancelling
its obligations the moment it finds it con-
venient to do so. But we will see this more
clearly in the next chapter. In a later passage
of his work Treitschke returns to the question
of arbitration. He says :

"From which it follows clearly that the
establishment of an International Court of
Arbitration as a permanent institution, is not
consistent with the nature of a State. It is
only in questions of a second or third rank
of importance that the State could make use
of such a tribunal. When we find people
179

TRE1TSCHKE

putting forward the stupid proposal to treat
the question of Alsace as an open question,
and submit it to arbitration, we cannot
seriously regard this as a non-party proposal.
It is a matter of honour for a State to settle
such a question itself. There cannot therefore
be such a thing as a supreme international
tribunal. All that can happen will be that
international treaties will become more and
more common. But arms will maintain their
right to the end of history ; and in that
precisely consists the sacredness of war "
(37-39).

Such is the doctrine that learned professors
have joined with statesmen and soldiers in
impressing on the mind of Germany during
the last fifty years. There is no need to
refute it at the present hour. Within another
year the ambition of Germany will be shat-
tered, and, in the interest of humanity, the
180

PRAISES OF THE WAR-GOD

vast Empire will be shorn of several large
provinces. That will be the answer of the
human race to this swollen and diseased
military ambition. It is possible that Treit-
schke's gospel will have an influence in direc-
tions which he did not foresee. One can hardly
believe that when Europe has lost its great
teacher of military ambition, it will continue
to shoulder the burden that it has borne so
long. The issue of the war may be the
supreme triumph of that ideal which Treitschke
combated. It will be at least the death of
Prussian ambition.

181

CHAPTER V

IMPERIAL EXPANSION AND
MORAL LAW

CHAPTER V
IMPERIAL EXPANSION AND MORAL LAW

WE have already seen how Treitschke has
made three great and disastrous contributions
to the mood of the German people. His
fourth contribution is perhaps more extra-
ordinary and even more disastrous. Treit-
schke was a man, in every personal relation
of life, of the strictest honour and integrity.
We must recognise something like insincerity
at times in his strained apologies for war and
for Prussian ambition. On the whole, how-
ever, he was a man of high standards and
rigorous fidelity, and one turns with
interest to inquire how a man of such a
character is related to those features of
185

TREITSCHKE

recent German conduct which have proved
so repulsive.

We find that Treitschke laid down in advance
almost all the immoral principles on which
Germany has proceeded. The name of
Machiavelli is not in good odour in the modern
world. We understand Machiavelli to-day.
The fifteenth century was one of the profound-
est corruption in Italy, and this corruption
was applied in the most licentious way to the
international relations of princes and nations.
Machiavelli simply made a code of the practices
which he found prevalent in his time ; a code
which was then followed even by Popes like
Leo XIII. With the Humanitarianism of the
nineteenth century this code has been rightly
disdained, and the principle that honesty is
the best policy is gradually being established
in the conduct of international life. To our
amazement Treitschke makes an eloquent
186

IMPEKIAL EXPANSION

defence of Machiavelli, and wishes to restore
to honour some of his immoral principles.
I related in the first chapter how, as a quite
young man, he studied the Florentine politician
and was taken with admiration of his princi-
ples. In mature age, from the chair of Berlin
University, he renews the admiration of his
youth. The passage is worth quoting in its
entirety, since it involves so many sentiments
or principles with a direct application to the
present trouble :

" A great change began when the Reforma-
tion issued from the Christian world, and the
older authorities collapsed. It is in the midst
of this dissolution of all traditional authorities
that we must understand the great thinker
who co-operated with Martin Luther in
emancipating the State. It was Machiavelli
who put forward the theory that, when the
safety of the State is in danger, there must be
187

TEEITSCHKE

no scrutiny into the cleanness of the means
adopted. Let the State be preserved and
everybody will approve the means. Machia-
velli must be taken historically to be under-
stood. He belongs to a race which was just
passing from the bonds of the Middle Ages
into the subjective freedom of modern thought.
All around him in Italy he saw the mighty
forms of the tyrants in whom the rich endow-
ment of that wonderful people had displayed
itself. These Italian tyrants were all born
Maecaenae. They said, like the great artistes :
' I am myself alone.' Machiavelli delighted
in these men of power. It will always be his
glory to have put the State on its own feet
and freed it in its ethic from the Church ; and
especially that he was the first to announce
clearly, ' The State is Power.'

" Yet Machiavelli has still one foot on the
threshold of the Middle Ages. Although he
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IMPERIAL EXPANSION

tries to emancipate the State from the
Church and says, with the courage of the
modern Italian patriot, that the Roman See
has brought misery on Italy, he is still domin-
ated by the idea that morality is a thing of
the Church ; and in freeing the State from the
Church he cuts it away from moral law alto-
gether. He says that the State has only to
look to the purpose of its own power : all that
contributes to attain this is good and right.
Machiavelli tries to think on the lines of
antiquity and does not succeed, because he
has eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge :
because, without knowing or wishing it, he is
a Christian. Hence his view of the freedom
of political morals is confused and obscured
by his position in an age of transition.

" That need not prevent us from admitting
gladly that the great Florentine was the first,
if we regard all the far-reaching consequences
189

TREITSCHKE

of his ideas, to introduce into politics the theory
that the State is Power. For that is true ;
and any man who is not manly enough to look
the truth in the face must keep his hands off
politics. We must never forget this great
merit of Machiavelli, even if we clearly recog-
nise the profound immorality, in some respects,
of his political theory. What repels us is not
that he is entirely indifferent to the nature of
the means which power uses, but that he pays
so little attention to the question how the
supreme power is attained and used, and that
this power has no inner meaning for him.
He has not the least idea that this power must
justify itself by securing the highest moral
good of humanity.

" Machiavelli did not see that this sheer

theory of power is contradictory even from

his own point of view. Whom does he put

before us as the ideal of a shrewd and brave

190

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

prince ? Caesar Borgia. But can we regard
this monster as, even in Machiavelli's sense, a
model statesman ? Did any of his work
last ? His State fell to pieces as soon as he
died. [Csesar's State fell to pieces many years
before he died ; the moment his father, Alex-
ander VI., left the Papal throne, Caesar's
dominion toppled over like a house of cards.
This fact does not greatly confirm Treitschke's
theory of power.] After ruining vast numbers
of other people he was himself ruined. A
power that trampled on all rights must neces-
sarily come to grief, because in the moral
world there is no support in anything that
cannot resist.

" In consequence of its frightfully candid
and harsh expression of Machiavelli's views,
his book, The Prince, is for most men a repul-
sive thing; but it has had an enormous
influence down to our own time. . . . This
191

TREITSCHKE

' Eeason of State ' — a policy which asks only
if a thing is advantageous to the State — was
followed toward the end of the seventeenth
century with an unscrupulousness which it is
now difficult for us to imagine. From that
time dates the evil reputation which the
word ' politician ' so long retained in the
mind of the people. Machiavelli's book was
called The Devil's Catechism, or The Ten
Commandments Reversed. His name became
a thing of contempt, and a vast number of
books, each improving on the morality of its
predecessor, were written against him. It is
an unfortunate fact that public opinion is
always more moral than men's own actions.
The average man is ashamed to acknowledge
openly a thousand things which he does in
practice. What he can himself do in the way
of Cossack-morality is incredible.

" The whole anti-Machiavellian literature
192

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

is, with one brilliant exception, absolutely
worthless. Who were the chief writers to
assail the great Florentine ? The Jesuits ;
and one can be fairly confident that any man
who is attacked by the Jesuits, is a great and
noble-minded man. The chief ground of their
hatred is Machiavelli's large Italian patriotism,
and the candour with which he preached what
the Jesuits practised daily. Their whole
polemic against Machiavelli is insincere, and
is morally and scientifically worthless. Yet
the great Florentine was, in the eighteenth
century, which had so great a regard theo-
retically for the brotherhood of man, decried
by all who smoked the pipe of peace, and
traded in humanitarianism " (I., 89-93).

It is unfortunate that Treitschke does not
specify the points which he finds repulsive in
Machiavelli. One asks, for instance, whether
Treitschke would approve the lying and decep-

193 N

TKEITSCHKE

tion which Machiavelli favoured in diplomacy
and politics. After a time Treitschke comes
to deal expressly with this question. One
would hardly expect him to say in so many
words that lying was permissible in modern
diplomacy, but a short passage will sufficiently
indicate that he really approved it. He says :
" Journalistic makers of phrases speak of
statesmen as a corrupt class, as if lying were
inseparable from diplomacy. The truth is
precisely the opposite. Eeally great states-
men have always been distinguished for can-
dour. . . . Think of the massive candour of
Bismarck in important matters, in spite of
his cunning in small details ! It was his
most powerful weapon, for smaller diplomatists
always believed the opposite when he told
them what he really wanted. In which of the
professions do we find most lying ? Clearly
in the commercial world; that has
194

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

been the case. In trade lying has been
systematised. In comparison with it, 'diplo-
macy shines with the innocence of a dove.
Yet notice the immeasurable difference be-
tween the two : when an unscrupulous specu-
lator lies on 'Change, he is merely thinking
of his own purse, but the diplomatist is think-
ing of his country when, in a political trans-
action, he indulges in some obscuring of the
facts. As historians, whose business it is to
survey the whole life of man, we must admit
that the profession of the diplomatists is far
more moral than that of the merchant. The
moral danger to which a diplomatist is exposed
is not lying ; it is the intellectual dissipation
of the drawing-room " (I., 96).

In spite of the diplomatic language of these

passages, it is plain that Treitschke approves

of what he calls " the obscuring of facts,"

whenever the interest of his Divine State

195

TREITSCHKE

requires it. We may particularly notice his
statement that what shocks us in Machiavelli
is, not his indifference to the means used, but
to the end for which the power of a State
ought to be used. This means clearly that
such a State as Prussia, which has such highly
moral aims, need not be too scrupulous about
the means which it employs to strengthen and
extend its power.

But he presently approaches the question
directly, and we have as plain a statement
of the Machiavellian principle as one could
desire. He raises the question of the rela-
tion of politics to moral law. Politics, he
says gravely, is most assuredly subject to
moral law, and there can be no collision what-
ever between the two. u Most of the sup-
posed conflicts of politics and moral law are,
if you examine them carefully, conflicts be-
tween politics and positive law. But positive
196

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

law is of human origin and may be unreason-
able. . . . When the social needs change, the
law may become absurd, and so there are
collisions. Hence politics is often obliged to
act in violation of positive law, and a serious
conflict may arise. In other cases there may
be a collision of different duties." He is plainly
arguing for a moral law which will prove
sufficiently elastic to accommodate itself to the
needs of the politician. He goes on to refer
to the moral code of the Christian religion,
which a greater German, Humboldt, described
as equally binding upon a State and upon the
individual. Treitschke says : " The chief
precept of Christianity is that of love and of
the freedom of the moral nature. It has no
moral code and in that consists the very
essence of its morality. Luther did a thing
of immortal merit when he restored the doctrine
that good works are of no avail without a good
197

TREITSCHKE

spirit. Neither can Kant's Categorical 1m
perative replace the doctrine of Christianity :
it fails to lay stress on personal freedom." It
follows that the man or the State is the moral
judge of his or its own conduct, and must
interpret the moral law in this sense of free-
dom. Then Treitschke goes into closer details
about his subject :

" Now if we apply this standard of a deeper
and genuinely Christian morality to the State,
and if we remember that the essence of this
social personality is Power, we see that the
highest moral duty of the State is to maintain
its power. The individual must sacrifice him-
self for the good of the community of which
he is a member ; but the State is the supreme
thing in the external community of men,
and therefore it cannot in any circumstances
have a duty of self-destruction. The Christian
duty to sacrifice oneself for something higher
198

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

does not apply to the State, because there
is nothing in the world superior to it ; hence
it cannot sacrifice itself for something higher.
If a State finds itself in danger of destruction,
we praise it if it dies sword in hand. Self-
sacrifice for another people is not only not
moral : it contradicts the idea of self-assertion
which is to the State the supreme thing.

" Hence also we must distinguish between
public and private morals. The scale of duties
must be quite different for the State, since it
is Power, than for the individual. Quite a
number of duties which are incumbent on the
individual do not exist for the State. Its
highest duty always is to assert itself ; for the
State that is absolutely moral. Hence we
must recognise that the worst and most con-
temptible of all political sins is weakness : it
is in politics the sin against the Holy Ghost.
In private life there are pardonable weaknesses
199

TREITSCHKE

of sentiment. There can be no question of
such a thing on the part of the State : it is
Power, and if it belies its own nature, it cannot
be too severely condemned. Take, for in-
stance, the reign of Frederick William IV.
Generosity and gratitude are, as we saw,
political virtues also, but only when they do
not interfere with the State's main purpose —
the maintenance of its power. Now in the
year 1849 the thrones of all the smaller
German princes were in danger. Frederick
William IV. took a step which in itself was
admirable ; he sent Prussian troops into
Saxony and Bavaria, and restored order. But
what followed was a mortal sin. Were the
Prussians there to shed their blood for the
Kings of Saxony or Bavaria ? Certainly
there ought to have been some permanent
gain to Prussia. It had the small States in
its hand; it needed only to keep its troops
200

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

there until these princes entered the new
German Empire. Yet the King withdrew
his troops, and the small States, which they
had liberated, smiled on their retreat. That
was a piece of thoughtless weakness ; the
blood of the Prussian people was shed for
nothing " (I., 99-101).

One might apply these "idealistic" senti-
ments to the relations of France and England
and Belgium at the present moment. The
ordinary moralist or historian would describe
those relations as chivalrous. Chivalry, it
seems, means something entirely different in
Germany. Treitschke would describe the senti-
ment which has united France and England as
materialism. They have sinned against one
of the exalted laws of his State in venturing
to shed the blood of their soldiers without any
confident prospect of territorial gain. Lest,
however, the vagueness of his language should
201

TREITSCHKE

leave us in any doubt about the reality of his
sentiments, he goes on to apply his principles
expressly to one of those moral issues which are
of actual interest. We all remember the Ger-
man Chancellor's famous phrase, " A mere
scrap of paper." How far did this, which
seems to us a repulsive and mediaeval senti-
ment, derive any inspiration from the supreme
moralist of the Prussian State ? Fortunately,
in the course of this chapter, Treitschke has to
face candidly the question of the State's obli-
gation to observe the Treaties that it has
signed, and in solving the question he is brutally
candid. He starts from the principle that the
State is Power : a principle from which he can
at once justify the most unjust despotism
within, and the most unjust aggression
without. He says :

" It follows further from the fact that the
essence of the State is Power, that it cannot

202

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

recognise any arbitrating judge above itself
[The Hague Tribunal], and that its legal
obligation must in the last resort be deter-
mined by itself. We must bear this in mind,
and not be such Philistines as to judge things,
during great crises, from a lawyer's point of
view. When Prussia broke the Treaty of
Tilsit, it did wrong from the point of view of
civil law. But who will be brazen enough
to say that to-day ? Even the French no
longer say it. This applies also to inter-
national treaties which are not quite so
immoral as that between Prussia and France
was. Every State retains its right to decide
its treaty- obligations, and the historian can-
not use any rigid standard in this respect.
He must ask himself the deeper question,
whether the absolute duty of self-preservation
does not justify the State ?

"So it was in Italy in 1859. On the face
203

TKEITSCHKE

of it Piedmont was the aggressor ; and Austria
and its servile admirers in Germany did not
forget to complain of the disturbance of their
eternal peace. In reality Italy had been in
a state of siege for years. No high-minded
nation can tolerate such a state of things, and
it was really Austria that attacked, because
for years it had deeply injured Italy " (I., 102).
It is hardly necessary to point out the vital
relation of these principles to the present
situation. Very frequently in Treitschke we
find the principle introduced that a nation
is in a state of latent warfare when it is, in
its own opinion, unjustly treated by another
nation, or heavily pressed by the commercial
rivalry of another nation. And since, accord-
ing to his further principles, a State can in
time of war annul all its treaties, this condition
of latent warfare will equally justify it in
ignoring a treaty-obligation. The way from
204

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

these principles to the cynical violation of
the treaty which guaranteed the neutrality
of Belgium is perfectly clear.

But Treitschke goes even beyond this
flagrant principle. Since the State is Power,
and there can be no higher power in this world
to direct its action, and since Christianity has
no moral code to limit its own decisions, it
follows that it can withdraw its assent to a
treaty at any moment when its influence
requires the violation of the treaty. In this
respect there is a remarkable passage in the
first chapter of his Politik :

" The idea of Sovereignty must not be rigid :
it must be elastic and relative, like all political
conceptions. Every State will, in its own in-
terest, restrict its Sovereignty in some respects
by treaties. When a State concludes treaties
with another State, its completeness as a
Power is more or less curtailed. But that does

205

TREITSCHKE

not alter the rule ; for every treaty is a
voluntary restriction of a State's own power,
and all treaties under international law em-
body the clause: rebus sic stantibus. A
State cannot bind its will for the future in
relation to another State. The State has no
higher judge above it, and will therefore conclude
att treaties with that mental reservation. This
is confirmed by the fact that, wherever there
is an international law, all treaties between
two States which go to war cease the moment
war is declared ; yet every State, being
sovereign, has assuredly the right to declare
war when it wills, hence every State is in a
position to cancel the treaties which it has
concluded. The progress of history is based
on this constant alteration of treaties ; and
each State must take care that its treaties
are alive, and not antiquated, so that another
Power may not undo them by a declaration of
206

IMPEEIAL EXPANSION

war. Treaties which have outlived their
uses must be denounced and replaced by new
treaties corresponding to the new conditions.
Hence it is clear that treaties under inter-
national law which restrict the will of a State
are not absolute restrictions, but limits
voluntarily imposed upon itself " (I., 37).

Here we have the complete " scrap- of -
paper " theory, clothed in the most dignified
academic language. It may seem singular
that the diplomatists of Europe have not
earlier taken into account, the fact, that this
immoral principle was being taught, with a
kind of official authority, from the political
chair of Berlin. In point of fact, the diplo-
matists of Europe were perfectly aware that
this doctrine was current in Prussia, and were
fully prepared for the violation of the neu-
trality of Belgium. This does not alter the
thoroughly corrupt nature of the principles
207

TREITSCHKE

laid down by Treitschke, and, after the present
war, it will have to be seen whether the inter-
national conduct of Europe cannot be cleansed
from these devices, taken from the lowest and
most contemptible branches of commerce.

Treitschke, who has a great scorn for the
supposed Jesuit principle that the end
justifies the means — a principle, I may remark,
which no Jesuit ever did formulate — is really
always acting upon that principle. After
laying down some of these astonishing rules
about the violation of treaties, he insists that
they are entirely justified if the State has
" moral aims." He takes the case of Napoleon
L, who, one would think, was an admirable
instance of the carrying- out of his principles.
On the contrary, he totally disapproves of
the imperialist campaign of Napoleon L,
not on the grounds on which most historians
to-day condemn Napoleon — that is to say,
208

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

not on the ground that it is monstrous to
immolate the lives of millions of men on the
altar of one man's ambition — but on the
ground that " France was unable to assimilate
what it had conquered." Here we have
at once an ingenious way of condemning
Napoleon and thoroughly] justifying the
imperialist [dream | of [Germany. When
Treitschke goes on to say that Napoleon is
also to be condemned because he turned the
rich diversity of peoples in Europe into "the
dreary monotony of a world Empire," he
seems to forget that this is precisely the aim
of his Pan- German politics. In the other
chapters of his book where he sketches the
internal ideal of a State, we shall see that
dreary monotony, to be rigidly enforced, is
its first characteristic. However, in the end
he has recourse to the remarkable principle
that " morality must be political, if politics
209 O

TREITSCHKE

is to be moral : that is to say, moralists must
recognise that a moral judgment on the State
must be based on the nature and aims of the
State, not on the nature and aims of the
individual " (I., 105). He makes his meaning
still more clear by directly approaching the
supposed Jesuit maxim. After what he has
already said, we read with astonishment the
following words : " Up to this point there
will hardly be any serious difference of opinion
among thoughtful people." He continues :

" We now come to a series of very different
questions, when we ask how far it is per-
missible in politics to use means which are
reprehensible in civil life to attain ends which
are in themselves moral. The famous Jesuit
maxim is crude and radical in its outspoken-
ness, but no one can deny that it contains a
certain truth. There are countless instances,
both in political and private life, where it is

210

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

impossible to use entirely proper means.
If it is possible, of course, to realise a moral
aim by moral means, they are to be preferred,
even if they are slower and less convenient.

" We have already seen that the power of

truth and candour in politics is much greater

than is generally supposed. . . . On the whole,

however, it is clear that political matters

must be adapted to the sentiments and ideas

of peoples at a lower grade of culture, when

we have to deal with them. An historian

who would judge European politics in Africa

or the East on the same principles as in Europe

would be a fool. The nation is lost which

cannot terrify such peoples. We cannot blame

the English for tying the Hindoos to cannon

during the Mutiny and scattering their 'bodies

on the winds, since death was instantaneous. '

It is clear that in such a case it is necessary

to terrify ; and if we assume that, as the

211

TREITSCHKE

English assert, the English government in
India is moral and necessary, we cannot
refuse to employ these means.

" We must apply a standard varying with
the place as well as with the age. If we
further admit that great States are very often
in a condition of concealed warfare [in com-
merce] for decades, it is quite clear that many
diplomatic deceptions are justified by this
condition of latent war. Take, for instance,
the negotiations between Bismarck and Bene-
detti. Bismarck had, perhaps, still some
hope of avoiding a great war. Then Benedetti
came with his preposterous demand. Was
not Bismarck fully justified in deluding him
with a sort of assent, and inducing him to
think that Germany would agree ? It is the
same, in the same circumstances of latent
warfare, with the use of bribery against other
States. It is ridiculous to pose as moralists

212

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

in this matter, and tell a State in such cir-
cumstances to read its catechism. Before
the outbreak of the Seven Years' War,
Frederick the Great suspected that a storm
was about to break on his little State. He
therefore bribed two Saxon-Polish secretaries
at Dresden and Warsaw. . . . There is no
State in the world which, at such a time,
would not have recourse to bribery and
spying" (I., 105-107).

Once again we are reading the texts of the
gospel on which the brutal campaign of the
year 1914 is based. Treitschke at last finds
something in English history of which he can
approve. He goes back a hundred years,
to a time when modern humanitarianism was
unknown, and when the circumstances were
such that no other European nation is ever
likely to find itself in them. On this highly
exceptional and ancient precedent he lays
213

TKEITSCHKE

down the general principle that the soldiers
of an invading army must terrify the popu-
lation. That is as we know the principle
embodied in the German military manuals
and carried out with such appalling results
in the invasion of Belgium and France.
Hardly a single outrage has been done under
official direction, or is recommended in the
pages of Treitschke's pupil, Bernhardi, which
does not find a justification in such passages
as these.

Indeed the broader principle that you must
use moral means if they are possible, but
otherwise choose any which will serve your
purpose, will cover the whole of the worst
proceedings which we have already witnessed.
They cover also that repulsive network of
spies which Germany spread over the world,
deeply corrupting the character of individuals
and making permanently bitter the relations
214

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

of foreigners to each other. They justify,
if indeed they do not command, the network
of mendacity which was spread over the world
once the war was declared. They approve
the enlisting of savage tribes in the German
service in South Africa. I may remark in
passing that Treitschke fully approved the
use of coloured troops by European nations.
He refers expressly to the use of the Turcos
by the French in 1870, and says that the
French had a perfect right to employ them.
He is, of course, thinking of the coming days
when Germany will have her colonies beyond
the seas, and will be able to draw from them
contingents of coloured troops, for the further,
expansion of her territory. But we need not
draw out in detail all the consequences of these
principles ; they cover the brutal action of
the Germans from Belgium to Constantinople
and Cairo, from their intrigues in America
215

TKE1TSCHKE

to their intrigues in our South African
Colony.

All this is, of course, only a preparation for
that future expansion of Germany which
Treitschke regards as a sacred duty. We
have already seen on different pages how he
advocates this expansion. We have seen
that he quite plainly directs the ambition of
Germany toward the occupation of Belgium
and Holland, if not of Denmark. Germany
must possess the whole course of her rivers
and a coast line in proportion to her size
and population : this is for him a sacred and
a moral duty. It is equally incumbent on
Germany to obtain colonies. He speaks of
the moral duty of sharing what has been
called, with some hypocrisy, " the white man's
burden " : Germany is compelled by her
civilisation to join with the other peoples in
raising the lower races to a higher level. We
216

IMPEKIAL EXPANSION

need not examine how much sincerity there
is in this plea, because Treitschke makes it
quite clear that he has far different grounds
for demanding colonies. A few passages taken
here and there in his works give perhaps a
more sincere idea of his colonial ambitions :

" The command of the sea is particularly
useful in this respect. * The freedom of the
sea makes the mind free,' as the ancient
Greeks truly said. The time may come when
States which are without oversea possessions
will no longer count as great States " (43-48).

" It may be said that no State can be
largely and permanently developed without
an approach to the sea. Every great State
which aspires to stand on its own feet must
have a coast line. Then it is really free.
This is so true that we can explain whole
periods of history on this ground alone.
The key to the contrast which we find in the
217

TREITSCHKE

history of Germany and Poland lies in this
truth. The German colonisation of the coast
went so far eastward, while the territory
inland remained Slav, that a deadly enmity
arose which no one could prevent. Poland
was bound to aspire to win the mouths of her
rivers, and this the Germans could not allow.
Thus, there arose a territorial conflict which
could not be remedied. Every young and
aspiring people presses pitilessly towards the
coast" (p. 215).

" The conquest of lands beyond the Atlantic
is now the first aim of European fleets. For,
as the aim of human civilisation is the
aristocracy of the white race over the whole
globe, the importance of any nation will in
the end be determined by the share it has in
the domination of the transatlantic world.
Hence the Fleet becomes more and more
important in our time " (II., 412).
218

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

" A nation that seeks to acquire new terri-
tory to exploit, in order to feed its growing
population, shows the measure of its trust in
God. It is scandalous to see the frivolity
with which these grave matters are discussed
to-day. People sing the old song in a new
form : * My Fatherland must become smaller.'
That is sheer perversity. We must and will
have our share in the control of the globe by
the white race. In this we have a great deal
to learn from England. A Press that dis-
misses these grave matters with a few jokes
shows that it has no appreciation of the
sacredness of the aims of our civilisation. It
is a healthy and normal thing for a civilised
people to forestall by colonisation on a large
scale the dangers of over -population. . . .
The material and moral advantages of this
aggrandisement of the nation cannot be exag-
gerated " (I., 233 and 234).
219

TREITSCHKE

<c All the great peoples of history have felt,
when they became strong, the impulse to
impress their civilisation on barbaric lands.
To-day we see the various peoples of Europe
roaming over the whole world, trying to create
an aristocracy of the white race. The nation
that does not take its part in this enterprise
will play a lamentable role later on. It is,
therefore, a question of life and death for a
great nation to seek Colonial expansion. . . .
We [Germans] see now what we have lost.
One of the appalling consequences of the last
half -century is that England has appropriated
the globe. The Continent, being in a state of
constant trouble, had no time to look over the
seas, and England took everything. The
Germans had to look on helplessly ; they had
enough to do in fighting their neighbours and
in their internal troubles. Beyond question
a great Colonial development is an advantage
220

IMPEKIAL EXPANSION

to a nation. Those amongst us who oppose
the acquisition of Colonies are short-sighted.
The whole question of Germany depends on
how many million men will speak German in
the future.

"It is nonsense to say that emigration to
America is any advantage to Germany. What
has Germany gained by the fact that thousands
of her best sons, who could not support them-
selves at home, have turned their backs upon
her ? They are lost to her for ever. Although
the emigrant himself is perhaps still linked
with his native land by certain natural bonds,
his children, and certainly his grand-children,
are no longer Germans ; the German only too
easily learns to deny his country. They are
assuredly not in a position to keep up their
nationality in America. Just as the Huguenots,
when they migrated to the Mark of Branden-
burg, were, on the average, more highly
221

TREITSCHKE

cultivated than the Brandenburgers, yet most
of them lost their nati ality, so we find with
the Germans in America. Nearly a third
of the population of North America is of
German extraction. Ho\v much valuable
strength have we not lost, and are losing daily,
without the least compensation ! We have
lost both the labour and the capital of the
emigrants. What an enormous advantage they
would have brought us if they had become
colonists !

" The kind of colonisation which maintains
the nationality of the country of origin is a
matter of immense importance for the future
of the world. On it depends the extent to
which each people will take its share in the
domination of the world by the white race.
It is quite conceivable that a country without
colonies will cease to be one of the great
Powers of Europe, however powerful it once

222

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

was. Hence we must not lapse into that
state of stagnation which comes of a purely
continental policy, and the issue of our next
successful war must be the acquisition of a
colony.

" Who first awakened the Scandinavians
and the Russians to civilisation ? Copen-
hagen was German : so was Novgorod. . . .
The greatest colonisations the world has ever
seen since the time of the Romans were brought
about by Germans. We have realised every
conceivable form of colonisation. . . . The
civilising a barbaric people is the best. They
have to choose between merging in the superior
nation or being annihilated. That is the way
the Germans acted in regard to the Prussians :
they were either destroyed or turned into
Germans. And, however cruel this process of
development must be, it is a blessing for
humanity. It is a sound thing that happens
223

TREITSCHKE

in these cases. The nobler people conquers
and assimilates the less noble. It is the
normal procedure for the political conqueror
to impose his own civilisation and ways upon
the conquered " (I., 123-127).

On the very next page Treitschke shows
that this advantage of incorporation in a
nobler Empire applies just as well to the
small States of Europe as to the barbaric
lands beyond the seas. He now says openly :
" In the West a number of outposts of the old
German Empire have developed into indepen-
dent States. It is possible, and is greatly
to be desired, that Holland should some day
return to the Fatherland " (128).

These passages give the whole gospel of
Pan-Germanism. Germany is to overspread
the little States which are her neighbours to
the west ; Germany is to cripple the power
of England, which stands in the way of her
224

IMPERIAL EXPANSION

colonial ambitions. We have, further, the
full justification of the methods which we
have seen actually employed in our own time
to realise this Pan-German ideal. It will now
be fully realised how deeply the teaching of
this fanatical historian has tainted the blood
of Germany. When, moreover, it passes into
the characters of men with less strict personal
principles than Treitschke himself, we realise
that it can easily become an instrument of
entirely brutal conduct. There can be no
question but that Treitschke has been the
chief and most profound influence in the
formation of the German mind of to-day.

225

CHAPTER VI
THE GERMAN " KULTUR

CHAPTER VI
THE GERMAN " KULTUR "

ALTHOUGH it is not essential for the purpose
of this work, it will nevertheless be of some
interest, to consider the nature of this Kultur
which Germany has to impose upon the
world. We have seen repeatedly that her
expansion is merely to be justified by this
task ; it becomes a sacred mission, a kind
of Orusade, for the sake of which Germans
must make such sacrifices as men made at
the call of Peter the Hermit. I have already
explained that Kultur does not mean culture.
Even within his own department of culture
Treitschke had something like a contempt for
knowledge as such. He was a most in-
229

TREITSCHKE

dustrious historian, a writer of considerable
ability, yet every part of his work has a
strictly practical aim ; the higher or mental
culture, as a German would call it, would not
seem to either Treitschke or Bernhardi, or
any one of their pupils, worth the wasting of
a single army corps. Treitschke, at least,
has a definite structure of society in view
when he talks of the elevated Kultur of Ger-
many. It is that ideal of a State which the
two volumes of his Politik describe so minutely
and, one must add, so repulsively. We have
already had many glimpses of this social ideal,
but it will now be an advantage to sum up
the scattered references, and let the English
reader see what would be the result for every
Germanised land, if Austria and Germany
won in the present war. It is quite true that
what Treitschke holds out as a sacred banner
for the really devout followers of his gospel is
230

THE GERMAN " KULTUR "

merely a hypocritical pretence for many of his
soldier followers, and is little more than a
shibboleth for the vast majority of the German
people, but it is none the less interesting to
examine it.

Treitschke's ideal of a State is an anti-
quated, mediaeval, and intolerable scheme
which the majority of educated Germans
would not tolerate for a moment. They
repeat the language which they have learned
from him, only because it gives some consecra-
tion, in the name of learning and of morals,
to their imperialist ambitions. The nineteenth
century is an age of transition. From earlier
days we have received the doctrine of the
divine right of Kings. Whatever views we
may hold, in the various states of Europe to-
day, on the subject of monarchy, the old
legend of the divine right of Kings is entirely
discredited. Yet Treitschke had to build
231

TREITSCHKE

essentially upon this legend. On no other
foundation could he raise the extraordinary
power which he wished to put into the hand of
the head of the State. The Hohenzollern
possessed this power by a mystic divine
right, and therefore there was no need for
Treitschke to seek to justify it. All con-
stitutional monarchies were, as we saw,
derided by him because they had not his
principle of legitimacy in their royal houses.
This saved him from the confusion which
might ensue if there were a dozen royal houses,
each claiming a divine right and a divine
mission. But in his eyes France was a de-
crepit republic, Russia too barbarous to be
taken into account, and England had forfeited
her real title of monarchy. The Emperor of
Germany alone, therefore, had a just title to
supreme power, within and without, and,
when we find in recent years that monarch
232

THE GERMAN " KULTUR "

speaking of the use of the mailed fist, he is
only repeating, in more popular language,
Treitschke's theory of monarchy. We have
seen how this despotic power will work out
as regards other States. It is curbed not even
by moral law or religious codes. Internally,
or in its relation to its own people, this power
would exert the most intolerable oppression.

Against this antiquated view modern Ger-
many was protesting with increasing disdain,
and in his later years Treitschke was as sour
and pessimistic as he describes Bismarck to
have been. The view was spreading in Ger-
many— the common-sense view of the vast
majority of people in every civilised State to-
day— that the institutions of the State exist
for the welfare of the people, and it is only
so long as the military system exists that the
State will have this painful and exacting
duty to form them into armies for the defence
233

TREITSCHKE

of their land and property. The essential
thing in the life of a State is to promote the
progress and happiness of the individual
citizens to the utmost of its power ; to educate
the ignorant, to mitigate the burden of
poverty, to organise or at least direct the
industrial world, to care for the weak and
powerless, to administer justice and to lay
as little restriction on its people as these
purposes will allow. To Treitschke this was
" materialism." He says :

" The modern individualistic conception,
which adorns itself with so many names, is
leagues removed from the ancient idea of the
State's duty. It starts from the principle
that the State must, internally and externally,
protect life and property, and the State in this
restricted sense is called emphatically the
Legal State. This theory is the legitimate
offspring of the old idea of natural right.
234

THE GEKMAN " KULTUK "

According to it, the State may be only a
means for the life -aims of the individuals who
compose it ; we have already seen that this
is a contradiction in terms. The more ideal-
istic the terms in which you conceive human
life, the more you are forced to conclude that
the State's best policy is to confine itself to
external protection alone. . . . The State is
a moral community ; it is summoned to
positive work for the education of the race ;
and its final aim is to compel the people, in and
through it, to form a definite character.
That is the highest moral duty of a people,
as well as of an individual " (I., 79).

This theory imposes the State upon the
citizens without any consultation of their will.
It lends itself to the most arbitrary laws at
the will of an absolute monarch. Treitschke,
as we saw, very grudgingly allows a certain
measure of popular representation, but he has
235

TREITSCHKE

not the slightest sympathy with it. He left
the Reichstag in disdain, and he constantly
holds that the guidance of a God -inspired
monarch is far better than the deliberations
of a Parliament. Of popular consent, either
to the laws or the forms of a State, he will
not hear for a moment. He says :

" The State is the public power of defence
and offence. It is in the first degree Power,
in order to assert itself : it is not the totality
of the people, as Hegel supposes in his glorifica-
tion of a State. The people does not wholly
constitute it, but the State protects and
embraces the life of the people, externally
directing it on all sides. It does not ask
about their good-will : it demands obedience.
Its laws must be observed, willingly or un-
willingly. It is an advantage when the
placid obedience of the citizens is accompanied
by an internal rational assent : but this
236

THE GEKMAN " KULTUR "

assent is not absolutely necessary. Empires
have lasted for centuries, as powerful and
highly developed States, without any such
internal allegiance on the part of their
citizens.

" What the State chiefly wants is external
compliance. It insists that it be obeyed :
its nature is to realise what it wills. . . .
Power is the principle of the State, Faith the
principle of the Church, Love the principle of
the Home. The State says : ' It makes no
difference to me what you think — you have
got to obey/ That is why sensitive natures
find it so difficult to understand the life of the
State. It may be said of women as a whole
that they normally attain an understanding
of State and Right only through their hus-
bands : just as a normal man has no feeling
for the small details of economy. That is
easily understood, for the idea of Power is
237

TREITSCHKE

assuredly hard, yet the highest and first thing
is thoroughly to submit to it. ...

" The State is not an Academy of Art :
when it abdicates its power in favour of the
ideal aspirations of humanity it belies its own
nature and perishes. The belying of its own
power is for the State the real sin against the
Holy Ghost ; to attach oneself to a foreign
State on sentimental grounds, as we Germans
have so often done in regard to England, is
really a mortal sin. Hence it is that the
power of ideas has only a limited significance
in the State. Certainly it is very great, but
ideas alone do not advance political powers "
(I., 32-34).

At times Treitschke descends from these
mystic heights, and offers what he would call

X

materialist arguments for his position. He

tries to prove on utilitarian grounds that the

monarchy is the ideal institution. Parlia-

238

THE GERMAN " KULTUR "

ments, he says, " are always less scrupulous
than monarchs," but as a rule he wishes to
pledge his whole case on the divine right of
the monarch. Dealing with various forms of
constitution in his second volume, he says :

"It is a secondary consideration that the
will of the State is vested in a single person-
ality : the more important point is that
this power has not been bestowed on the King,
but rests on its own rights. It has its power
from itself, and that is the chief reason why
a monarch is better able to dispense social
justice, and does better dispense it, than
any republic. Republicans find it more
difficult to be just because of their system
of party-government. In history the mon-
archies have always been more distinguished
for justice than republics " (II., 53).

Even many who share Treitschke's con-
clusion must have carefully avoided his
239

TREITSCHKE

argument. The idea that justice is better
administered in the Kingdom of Prussia than
in the modern United States, or that it
was better administered in ancient Athens
than in the ancient Roman Empire, is too
preposterous to be considered. Not much
better are Treitschke's other arguments for
his absolute monarchy by divine right. He
says again :

" Owing to his exalted position the monarch
can see further than ordinary men. The
ordinary man surveys only a small area of
life, especially when we consider the involun-
tary class-prejudices which surround him.
There are prejudices of the middle-class and
the scholar, as well as prejudices of the
nobility. They see only a small section, not
the whole of society. Whereas it is clear that
a monarch must know more than any of his
subjects about the whole life of the nation :
240

THE GERMAN " KULTUR "

that he is in a position to appreciate the
resources of society more accurately than the
average man can. This is especially true in
regard to foreign affairs. The King can judge
much better than any of his subjects, or even
than a Republican party- government, the
real facts about the whole situation abroad "
(II., 55).

We must take such passages in connection
with the constant glorification of the Hohen-
zollerns in his historical writings. We certainly
cannot suppose that this part of Treitschke's
doctrine has been taken very seriously in
educated Berlin ; and the other States com-
posing the German Empire must have deeply
resented many of Treitschke's remarks. He
tells us that on one occasion Bismarck wished
to restrain the Emperor William I. from
taking a certain step, and told him that the
representatives of the Empire would not agree

241 Q

TREITSCHKE

to it. William I. angrily retorted to Bis-
marck, " the Empire is merely an enlargement
of Prussia." Treitschke's only comment on
this is that it was " the brusque expression
of a soldier, but true." He glorifies Bismarck
and all the servants of the Prussian State
in the same proportion. " The essential thing
in a great statesman," he says, " is strength
of will, massive ambition, and a passionate
joy in success." The men whom Goethe
called " the Apes and Pugs and Parrots
of Frederick the Great " stand out in his pages
as heroic figures in the history of Prussia.
There can be little doubt that only a very
restricted group among the educated people
of Germany can have taken his doctrine of
autocracy seriously.

Treitschke groups together all the ad-
vancing movements of Europe, which are,
of course, ably represented in Germany,

242

THE GEKMAN " KULTUR "

under the general heading of Liberalism or
Radicalism. Against this theory of the State
he waged an implacable war. We must,
however, understand that what Treitschke
calls Liberalism does not coincide with the
political party of any country which goes
by that name. It is really the whole humani-
tarian spirit, as applied to the work of a State.
Yet this is how Treitschke meets the feeling
which is now accepted by both political parties
in this and every other enlightened country :
" There is a natural difference between the
social and the political conception of the State.
We may regard the State from above — from
the point of view of the government — and
ask : ' What secures its power ? ' The
question of the material condition of its
subjects is secondary from this political
point of view of the State. The social view,
on the other hand, approaches the State
243

TREITSCHKE

with a naive selfishness, and stridently calls
attention to the fact that new social forces,
which the legislation of the State has not
yet regarded, have made their appearance.
What we call in our days Liberalism approaches
this social point of view. If that were the
only way of regarding the State — if it were
not opposed by a hard political conception
of the State's duty — our national order would
be broken up, and Germany would fall into
countless hostile social groups. ... A nation
that lives only for the satisfaction of its social
desires, which wishes only to become richer
and live more comfortably, yields entirely
to the lower impulses of nature. What a
glorious people the Dutch were when they
fought against the power of Spain ! But
they had hardly secured their independence
when the curse of peace began to make
itself felt. Adversity steels the hearts of
244

THE GERMAN " KULTUR "

noble nations : in prosperity they run the
risk of being enervated. The once brave
Dutch nation have become creditors of their
State, and have, even from the physical
point of view, degenerated. That is the
curse of a people that looks only for social
life and loses the sentiment of political
greatness " (p. 58 and 59).

One wonders how Treitschke would con-
front the social problems which the modern
State is beginning to regard seriously in
every country. He assures us that there have
always been masses, and that there always
will be masses. This repetition of Carlyle's
doctrine of fifty years ago may, or may not,
commend itself to any reader, but assuredly
none will accept Treitschke's justification of
the squalid poverty which lies at the base of
the social pyramid to-day. More than one
writer has said, like him, that the millions

245

TREITSCHKE

must labour in order that the few may paint
pictures and write books. A very natural
point of view for the man who writes books
or paints pictures, but a broader feeling is
making its way into modem legislation and
social effort. Against all these aspirations
to do something for the poorer mass of the
people Treitschke sets his face. Like war,
the existence of a very large class of poor
workers is an eternal part of the scheme of
nature, or of Providence. A nation, he
says, " is rejuvenated from below." When
he perceives that the masses to-day are not
entirely reconciled to this scheme, he pre-
scribes the way in which his Kultur-State
is to deal with them. He says: "It is
important to remember that heroes of war and
religion are the most popular with the masses :
when we realise that, we know how to treat
the discontented masses. The next thing
246

THE GEEMAN " KULTUR "

is the satisfaction of their economic needs,
and in this respect we must work upon their
depressed spirits with all the power of the
promise which religion alone affords. This
virile spirit and religious feeling, which are
so strong among the masses, must be en-
couraged to the fullest extent. Hence national
armies are a real blessing : and religion is not
so necessary to any as to the common man."
Once more he borrows a page from Napoleon's
maxims. Treitschke, who in his earner years
had had grave trouble with his father for
abandoning the Protestant religion, becomes
extremely zealous in support of the clergy.
They are to be, according to Napoleon's
idea, the spiritual gensdarmes, using their
authority on behalf of the autocrat. For all
the terrible burdens which the State imposes on
them the clergy are to assure them that they
will be richly rewarded in the next world.
247

TREITSCHKE

We can hardly wonder that the democracy
of Berlin, which is so far Social Democrat that
the other political parties could only return
one member to the Reichstag in the city of
Berlin, smiled on Treitschke's doctrine and
conducted a scornful controversy with him.
Treitschke perceived that, if you are going
to share the real culture of our time with
the more intelligent men and women of the
working class, the basis of his servile State
is undermined. Here again, therefore, we
find him approaching a problem of great
interest in every civilised community ; how,
and to what extent, are we to give real educa-
tion to the masses. In such " inferior "
countries as England and the United States
this problem is bravely met by university
extension lectures and other admirable ways
of lending a hand to the aspiring workers.
Germany has as many social reformers as any
248

THE GERMAN " KULTUR "

other country, and the same means were
being adopted in that country. To these
measures Treitschke opposes the following
somewhat threadbare argument :

" There is a ridiculous idea spreading among
us to-day of helping the masses by giving
them what is called education by means
of public lectures. The ordinary man has
neither the leisure nor the freedom of mind,
as a rule, to assimilate the unsystematic and
irregular instruction which is given to him
in these lectures. Enterprises of this kind
are a complete failure ; they produce only a
half-education of the worst kind. Regular
instruction in elementary mathematics and
in the mother tongue would be much more

useful than such lectures " (p. 318).

He sees that in the towns there is no hope

whatever of placing his old-fashioned barriers

against the enlightenment of the masses.

249

TREITSCHKE

His next direction is, therefore, that the
workers must be kept on the land as much
as possible, and he candidly says that the
great advantage of life in villages is that it
does not pay the demagogue to appeal to
a village-audience. He adds that life in
the city is unnatural and unhealthy, but
throughout the whole of these pages he shows
that his concern is entirely political.

In the next section he deals with the
State-system of education. Here, again, he
quarrels entirely with the modern spirit.
This scheme, which our professors of education
and our teachers have framed on the basis
of a hundred years of experience, he disdain-
fully compares to the splendid system of
elementary education which was followed
in his younger days. There is not, he says,
sufficient attention to religious instruction ;
in which many would be disposed to agree
250

THE GEEMAN " KULTUR "

with him until they perceive that his sole
aim is to distract the workers from hopes of
bettering their condition, and to infuse into
them his remarkable doctrine of the divine
mission imposed on Germany since the days
of Luther. All this, he says, must be the
essential part of the education of the children
of the workers. Beyond that the only educa-
tion of need is to make them useful workers
and patriotic soldiers.

Whatever point of social reform we take
up, we find Treitschke in the same grossly
reactionary mood. Even in Germany only
a very small and very old-fashioned minority
would agree with him. No doubt on many
points which seem extraordinary to us in
other countries, such as the praise of the
duel, which I have quoted in an earlier
chapter, he would find many supporters.
But in his attacks on the ballot-box and
251

TREITSCHKE

similar elementary reforms of modern times
he belongs almost to a departed generation.
I will venture to quote one more passage
in illustration of his attitude. The question
of the death- sentence upon murderers is still
a very open one in modern society, nor do I
for a moment represent that in pleading for
the retention of the death- sentence Treitschke
is in any way singular. On the contrary,
I agree with him. But the language in
which he pleads for retaining it shows the
whole spirit of the man. He says : " That
those in authority shall bear the sword is a
saying of the Bible which lies deep in the
blood of every sensible man. Anyone who
would remove this truth from the world, would
sin against the simple moral sentiments of
the people. The ultimate problems of social
life are to be solved on practical, not theoreti-
cal, grounds. The conscience of every serious
252

THE GERMAN " KULTUR "

man demands that blood shall be wiped out
by blood. The ordinary man must doubt
the existence of justice on earth if this last and
highest punishment be abandoned. Think of
a murderer of the type of the Australian
murderers, who have the lust of murder in
their blood, being condemned to life-long
imprisonment ! He breaks out of prison,
commits murder again, and returns to the
same cell, as the State has no other way of
punishing him. Does not such a State out-
rage the moral consciousness ? It makes
itself a laughing stock when it cannot do
away with such a criminal " (II., 427).

Finally, I may notice the attitude which
Treitschke takes up in regard to every dis-
senter from his ideals. His conflict with the
Social Democrats was bitter and fiery. He
hardly ever descends to argument with them,
and, when he does, it is little better than
253

TREITSCHKE

platitude. The women movement had hardly
begun in Germany, on a large scale, in his time,
but we know how he would have met it. Again
he takes his counsel from Napoleon. The
woman's place is not merely the home, but
the nursery.

A third danger which he saw against his
autocratic State was the permeation of the
Jew throughout Europe. Here again he
conducted a violent controversy, and he
advocated measures of actual persecution
against the members of the Jewish race. " I
see," he says, " only one means that we can
adopt to meet the danger : a real energy of
our national pride, which must turn away
from everything that is foreign to the German
nature. That applies to everything and every-
body : the theatre and the music-hall as well
as the daily paper. Wherever the Jewish
taint afiects our life, the German must turn

254

THE GEEMAN " KULTUR "

away and learn the habit of telling the truth
about it. The moderate parties in our midst
are responsible for the violent Anti-Semitism
which is growing amongst us " (p. 298).

In this case Treitschke shows his usual want
of historical insight : indeed here he shows far
less than Luther himself, who had a shrewd
perception of the way in which the treatment
of the Jews by Christians was responsible for
the features to which Christians objected.
Treitschke repeats the usual reproach that
the Jews excel only in one art, the stage
(which is totally false), and only in one
branch of commerce, finance. Here any
candid historian might have enlightened his
readers or pupils. During many centuries
money-lending was the only profession in which
the Jews of Europe were allowed to employ
their activity, and thus the financial specialism
of the Jew is by no means connected with

255

TREITSCHKE

features of his character, but is entirely
understood from his history. With the Jews,
the Roman Catholic and all other classes of
dissenters fell under the lash of Professor
von Treitschke. Despotism in the monarch,
absolute and uniform docility in the subjects,
are the features of the new religion and the
new State.

This dreary and appalling Sparta was to
be imposed upon the world by the triumphant
march of the German armies. Not the culture
of the scientific or artistic world, but this
grim political scheme, is what Treitschke
meant when he put the word " Kultur " on
the sacred banners of the German Crusaders.
History was to be a succession of peoples
living under this ghastly rule, and every few
years pouring out their blood in struggles with
their neighbours for the assertion of their
will and their power. This would reduce
256

THE GERMAN "KULTUR"

the globe from the comparative civilisation it
has reached to-day to the level of the Mesozoic
ocean, where mighty sharks and gigantic
devil-fishes struggled with each other for
survival. The human refinement on their
warfare would be most clearly perceived in
the astuteness of the spies and the mendacious
representatives which one of these super-
powers sent among its neighbours to prepare
the way for a war. One wonders which is
the greater blasphemy, to connect the word
'culture' or the words c divine mission' with
such a conception. But, as I said, we must not
suppose for a moment that any large propor-
tion of the German people accepted this ideal.
" Kultur " became a mere parrot-cry, or a
flimsy pretext to cover the crude imperialist
ambition of certain classes of German mer-
chants and the officers of the German army.
Each had hie own ideal of the system which
257 R

TREITSCHKE

would be imposed upon conquered countries,
and it is one of the most lamentable features
of this development of the German mind, that
it started from a perfectly clear and hard
ideal, yet, when it comes to action, ends in the
great confusion of the German mind to-day.
Treitschke's views on the functions of the
State have been generally discarded, but
Treitschke's sanction of the gospel of im-
perialism, and of the maxim that the end
justifies the means, remain in full vigour.

258

CHAPTER VII
THE WORKING OF THE POISON

CHAPTER VII

THE WORKING OF THE POISON

THE reader may imagine, that so much of
this system of the Berlin historian is fantastic
and antiquated, that he cannot possibly have
had a great influence in Germany. Yet
one of the recent writers who is best informed
on modern German, literature, Professor
Cramb, asserts confidently that Treitschke had
as much influence on the mind of Germany,
as Macaulay and Carlyle together had on the
mind of England. Although Professor Cramb
is at times inaccurate — for instance, he is
much too lenient to Treitschke, and confuses
his early progressive views with the totally
reactionary ideas of his later years — this seems
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TREITSCHKE

to be a good estimate of the influence of
Treitschke. One may distinguish three types
of mind in the German people to-day. It is
needless to remark that they are not sharply
separated from each other, but pass in the most
delicate shades from class to class. In the
main, however, there are three typical atti-
tudes. There is first the attitude of the man
who wishes to gain by aggressive war : to
gain politically, to gain in territory, or to gain
in purse. With this type of mind I am not
concerned. Such men have merely used the
cloak of Treitschke' s idealism to cover their
sordid aspirations. The second type is the
attitude of the vast mass of the German
people. This type of mind, the mind of the
uneducated masses, cannot be seriously con-
sidered. It is merely a blind adhesion to
the views of the daily paper, the patriotic
preacher, or the blatant politician. One must

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WORKING OF THE POISON

merely regard it as a tragedy, that the whole
momentum of the German struggle is given
by this mass of undiscerning and utterly
deluded ignorance.

The type of mind that it is really interesting
to study, and that it will be imperative for
us to study when the hour of settlement
comes, is the mind of the middle -class. There
can be no doubt that the middle -class mind
of Germany has been appallingly tainted
with the doctrine which I have expounded
in the preceding pages. The idea that the
German nation has been driven on to the
field of battle at the point of the bayonet is
totally false. When war was declared they
sprang with alacrity to carry out the dream
of expansion, and of giving a death-blow to
England, which had been fermenting in their
minds for a whole generation. At last they
were going to carry out the gospel of
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TRBITSOHKB

Treitschke; to assert the greatness of
Germany, and to paralyse the strength of its
more successful rival.

Any man who doubts whether this sentiment
was really widely spread among cultivated
Germans is living under a delusion. For
years I have been engaged in translating
works from the German into English. I have
been in contact with some of the leaders of
German culture, and have always understood
that we formed an international brotherhood
which would, in time of erisis, endeavour to
stem the war passions of less cultivated people.
Travelling in Germany, I have found the most
amiable and courteous treatment from
members of the German middle-class, both
men of science and men of commerce. Yet
no man who is well acquainted with the German
literature of the last thirty years can be
ignorant that the ideal put forward so openly
264

WORKING OF THE POISON

by Treitschke has lived and spread in works
that have a commanding influence among
educated Germans.

Since the war began, indeed, we have had
remarkable proofs of the existence of this
spirit in the most unexpected quarters. Men
of every class, every religious sect, and of the
various bodies opposed to the religious sects,
have joined hands in supporting the action
of their country. Professor Harnack, the
leading representative of Protestant theology
in Germany, uses precisely the same language
as the leaders of Eoman Catholicism : and
it is a language of absolute approval of
Germany's action. Professor Rudolph Eucken,
the leader of the mystic religious school in
Germany to-day, and Professor Ernest
Haeckel, the leader of the German Rational-
ists, have issued a joint letter in which they
defiantly defend even the violation of the
265

TREITSCHKE

neutrality of Belgium. I have known Haeckel
personally for many years, and have fre-
quently heard him express the indebtedness
of German science to English science,
and the most sincere desire for cordial co-
operation between the two countries. Most
assuredly neither he nor any other German
professor dreams of imposing their culture,
in the sense in which many suppose in England
to-day, upon any other country. " Co-opera-
tion for the advance of humanity " is the
ideal which Haeckel has put into the German
Press even since the declaration of war.
Haeckel's principal colleague, Professor Wil-
helm Ostwald, one of the most distinguished
physicists in Germany, uses even stronger
language. A leader of one of the largest
humanitarian bodies in Germany (the Monis-
tenbund), he nevertheless has committed
himself recently to the following sentiment :
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WORKING OF THE POISON

" If we are defeated, the defeat will result
in the supremacy of the lower instincts over
the higher ones, of the brute over man, and
of a reaction from morality which would be
the forerunner of the ruin of European
civilisation. It is on our shoulders that the
future of civilisation in Europe rests."

Dr. Erich Marks, Professor of History
in Munich University, speaking recently to
members of the Ethical Society at Munich —
again a group belonging to one of the principal
humanitarian movements in Germany, and
one that has no ideal whatever of a divine
inspiration of the Emperor — has used an even
grosser language. He affirms that Germany
is animated and ennobled by " the intensest
forces of our civilisation " : that this is an
hour in which " we are to prove whether or
no we shall become a real world-nation in
power, in economics, and in culture " ; that
267

TREITSCHKE

Germany's aim is to beat her enemies to such
an extent that she will be able to breathe
freely : that " we must strive to shatter
England's supremacy, on land and sea, which
cramps and constrains us " ; and that
Germany, supreme on the Continent at the
end of the war, " can then devote her energies,
in combining power with culture, to the task
of spreading the German Welt-Kulture."*

These passages, taken from writers of such
very different schools, and particularly writers
of the most progressive and humanitarian
ideals, must convince everybody that the
poison of Treitschkeism has made terrible
ravages in the veins of the German nation.
A half dozen younger historical writers like
Sybel, Droysen, and others, as well as military
writers like General von Bernhardi, have

* I take the two preceding quotations from the
Newcastle Daily Journal of October 26th.

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WORKING OF THE POISON

carried on the work of Treitschke and dis-
seminated it in every section of the German
nation. It may be asked, however, how it is
that the fierce opponents of Treitschke have
come under this influence. Here we have
another very powerful German writer to con-
sider. Friedrich Nietzsche has been very
frequently mentioned in connection with the
present mood of the German people, though
the influence of Nietzsche has not the slightest
proportion to the broader influence of Treit-
schke. His significance really is that he
inoculates with almost the same virus the
classes which refuse to be inoculated by
Treitschke. A brief consideration, therefore,
of Nietzsche's ideas may be of some interest.
Treitschke, we saw, deduced from the his-
tory of nations that struggle is the law of
human life : that the dream of eternal peace
is a very grave danger to the progress of
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TREITSCHKE

mankind. Nietzsche not only confirms this
view, but says that hard and relentless conflict
is not merely a law of the past few thousand
years of human civilisation ; it is a law
plainly discerned in the millions of years
during which living things have been on this
globe. It is well known how recent science
has established the theory which is popularly
called Darwinism : the theory of a struggle
for life and survival of the fittest. On this
law Nietzsche founded his philosophy, and
he came to use the same language in regard
to the demand for peace as Treitschke himself
had used. Further, Nietzsche's philosophy
agrees with one of the fundamental ideas of
Treitschke' s system in the emphasis which it
lays on will, power, and self-assertion. For
Nietzsche also the supreme thing is will, and
the supreme ideal is the attainment of power
or the assertion of power. For both men
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WORKING OF THE POISON

weakness is the deadly sin. Students of the
history of thought will know, that the long
line of German philosophers from the days of
Kant, had ended, in the middle of the nine-
teenth century, with Schopenhauer, who
asserted that not intellect, but will, was the
supreme reality of the universe. This purely
academic theory, which is almost entirely
discredited in philosophy to-day, has had a
great influence on the development of this
political school in Germany. We must remem-
ber, too, that such a theory harmonised very
well with the natural sentiments of the Ger-
man in the second half of the nineteenth
century. From 1870 onward, Germany has
been in the condition of a young man, robustly
conscious of young strength and great ambi-
tions. Both Treitschke and Nietzsche struck
the note which was bound to have a vibrant
response in the heart of the German people.
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TREITSCHKE

There are, of course, profound differences
between the views of Treitschke and of Nietz-
sche. The power which Treitschke had in
view was the power of the State : Nietzsche
preached the doctrine of the power of the
individual, or, rather, of certain individuals
in the community. Treitschke almost made
an idol of the authority of the State ; Nietz-
sche was almost totally indifferent to questions
of State. His ideal was strongly individual-
istic: men who were conscious individually
of power, were to cultivate their will and
their strength, and assert it to their personal
advantage. Further, Treitschke was eager
to keep the masses thoroughly religious and
obedient to the State authority; Nietzsche
had the most bitter contempt of the Christian
religion, and only a slightly less disdain of
what he called "the Herd." There are
many other differences between the two men.
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WORKING OF THE POISON

Treitschke held out to the individual the
Stoic ideal of morality and self -sacrifice :
Nietzsche despised the Stoic ideal, and scoffed
at altruism and self-sacrifice in every shape.
Treitschke glorified Germany and Prussia :
Nietzsche had a great disdain of everything
German, and not an atom of respect for the
Prussian system.

Yet with all these differences the most
daring rebel of modern German thought,
united with the most reactionary conserva-
tive of modern Germany, in impressing upon
the middle- class some of the sentiments which
have broken out in the present war. Professor
Cramb wrongly states that Treitschke was
always bitterly opposed to Nietzsche. From
the first he saw how far Nietzsche's views
agreed with his own, and to the end of his life
he had a kind of grudging sympathy with
Nietzsche. Treitschke hated what is called
273 S

TREITSCHKE

'* Young Germany," and it was these young
Germans, scoffing at almost everything which
Treitschke held sacred, who came particularly
under the influence of Nietzsche.

The common features which I have pointed
out will show how the influence of the two
powerful features coincided. Both glorified
war in the same ultra-rhetorical language.
Nietzsche's chief advice to the man who would
follow his advice was : " Live dangerously."
It was precisely the advice which Treitschke
was giving to the model State. Even their
difference in regard to Christianity will be
found on careful examination to be not quite
so deep as it seems. Nietzsche's scorn of
Christianity was chiefly based upon the fact
that, as he supposed, Christianity had brought
the doctrine of mercy and unselfishness into
the world. Although we have found Treit-
schke recommending the Christian religion as
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WORKING OF THE POISON

the Gospel of Love, we have seen enough to
realise that this was a hollow phrase. There
was no room for love, or tenderness, or senti-
ment in Treitschke's scheme. He has told
us again and again that sentimental weakness,
or what he is fond of calling the feminine
nature, is merely a danger to a State. Where
he differs from Nietzsche really, is that he
denies that Christianity imposes any such
sentiment. We remember his theory of the
free Christian conscience, which has been
introduced by Luther. This new type of
conscience has, in the first case, to serve the
purposes of the State, and in Treitschke's
mind it takes the form of a hard and repellent
ideal which is very closely similar to that of
Nietzsche.

They agree further in regard to morality,
much as they seem to differ at first sight.
Treitschke spreads an unctuous moral language
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TREITSCHKE

over the whole of his works : Nietzsche
seems to be a fiery rebel against moral law on
every page of his writings. Yet here again
there has been a notable agreement. Nietz^
sche does not wish to abolish moral law, but,
as he puts it in his works, " to transvalue
moral values." That is precisely what we
have found Treitschke doing time after time.
If, he has told us, politics is to be moral,
morality must become political ; and we
know by this time what political conduct
means. In other words, both men rebelled
against the characteristic sentiment of modern
times, which some will call Christian and
some call Humanitarian. There are other
agreements between the two men, and some
of these again are important. Treitschke,
we saw, was bitterly opposed to Socialism and
to democracy in any shape or form. Nietz-
sche was just as bitterly opposed to those
276

WORKING OF THE POISON

tendencies of political thought. Again the
followers of the two professors found them-
selves on common ground.

Other coincidences need not be explained
at any great length. I may mention only,
as illustrating this remarkable agreement of
two men who were so utterly different in aims
and characters, that they came to a similar
conclusion in face of what we call the women-
movement. Nietzsche crudely said : "If you
are going to the women do not forget the
whip." Treitschke was much too polite a
person to use such language, but his ideal was
substantially the same as that of Nietzsche.
Men had a work to do in the world which
women were utterly and eternally incapable
of performing.

This very brief examination of Nietzsche's
ideas will suffice to show how the large class
of " Young Germany," which sneered at
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TKEITSCHKE

Treitschke, still came under the influence of
the same ideas. Indeed, many of the new
generation belonged to both schools in a
somewhat muddle-headed way. General von
Bernhardi is a remarkable example of that
class, and the soldierly bluntness with which
he applies the vague principles of Treitschke
shows how the next generation was shaping
the gospel to its own ends. From both sides
war was being exalted, and the military
strength was becoming its greatest considera-
tion. The language of the philosophers was,
as is usual, borrowed by the journalists, and
the doctrine of will and power pervaded the
whole literature of Germany.

As the time went on it became more and
more apparent, that this vague aspiration to
strike some person or some Power must
ultimately be directed against England. People
waited for " the hour," as they freely called
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WOKKING OF THE POISON

it in military and other German circles, and
any enlightened English journalist might
have discovered any time in the last few
years that this preparation was going on.
If we had translated the works of Treitschke
and his followers into English at an earlier
date, no one would have believed that such
fanatical sentiments were shared by any very
large proportion of the German nation.

So the German mind went on fermenting
in its design until the hour struck. England,
the great and real adversary, seemed to be
embarrassed by at least the chances of civil
war in Ireland and in South Africa. The
colonies seemed to be growing more and more
independent, and might decline to take on
their shoulders a part of the Mother's burden.
Both in India and in Egypt a strong national
party was arising which might be trusted

to take advantage of any grievous disturb-
279

TREITSCHKE

ances in England. On the other hand, the
great political power which the Bismarckians
dreaded in Germany, that is to say, Social
Democracy, was making appalling progress,
and the nation must be diverted from this
examination of schemes of social betterment,
by the old cry of national unity against a
national peril. In fine, new devices in artillery,
in aircraft and in ships had been discovered
by the naval and military authorities, and it
was felt that the sixteen-inch howitzers could
not very long be hidden in the cellars of the
Essen works. This accumulation of circum-
stances clearly indicated the time for declaring
war. How far German intrigue was respon-
sible for the actual declaration, or for the
failure of Austria and Russia to agree upon
their quarrel — I need hardly say that for
most of us there is no uncertainty about the
matter — may be left to the impartial verdict
280

WOKKING OF THE POISON

of the future historian or, of other nations of
our time.

It must not be supposed, however, that the
entire German nation has entered upon this
war in the spirit of Treitschke, or even in the
spirit of Nietzsche. We have had enough
experience of the entire unscrupulousness of
Prussian agents and Prussian officials to under-
stand that the German people have been
deliberately misinformed. When we find their
leading theologians and professors of inter-
national law zealously defending the action
of the Government, we must make careful
allowance for a probable misrepresentation of
the facts. Those of us who are well acquainted
with their writings know that the vast majority
of them hold, and hold sincerely, precisely the
same humanitarian ideals as ourselves ; and
that the character of the cultivated man to-
day, whether he be called German or English
281

TREITSCHKE

or American, has the same standard of con-
duct. They are not men who approve of
deliberate mendacity, and most assuredly not
men who approve of brutal outrages on
civilians.

They have, however, as we well know, been
taught for years that England regards their
national prosperity with jealous and malicious
sentiments, and is eager to grasp the first
opportunity to destroy the young German
Empire. This belief has so saturated the
Press and literature of Germany for years,
that it must have made an impression on the
minds of even the most judicious. We must
remember always that, however much it may
be to our credit, we have made no serious effort
to counteract the campaign of misrepresenta-
tion which the agents of Prussia have con-
ducted for many years. When the war is
over, and the tariff-walls against truth are

282

WOKKING OF THE POISON

broken down, probably large numbers of
these German scholars, at whom some of
our writers scoff to-day, will join with us
in condemning the action of the German
troops.

We are to-day writing one of the most
tragic pages in the history of mankind. A
nation akin to us in blood, admirable at least
in its courage and the success which has
rewarded its courage, is nearing the climax
of its career. Class for class, the German
people correspond very closely to ourselves.
I remember sitting a few years ago in a little
inn near the old battlefield of Jena. With
me was one of the most eminent scientific
men of Germany, and, as we sat over a
Thuringian steak and a glass of Thuringian
ale, the simple country folk came in and out
of the dining-room, greeting their distin-
guished fellow- citizen, and receiving from
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TREITSCHKE

this Privy Counsellor of the German Empire
the most sincere and brotherly greeting.
Nothing could possibly be farther from the
ideal of a nation which is suggested to us
in the abominable pages of Heinrich von
Treitschke. Yet this fine and prosperous
people has been cursed by his mighty hallu-
cination. Travelling amongst them, I have
heard them complain that our commercial
rivalry is bound to lead to disputes, and, in
order that England may not dictate the
verdict, they must have a Fleet equal to our
own. Yet all the time their statesmen were
hindering the setting up of the International
Tribunal which would have given a just
verdict on such quarrels without the shedding
of a drop of blood. Dazed and deluded by
the Treitschkean ideal, that war is a salutary
discipline, and that they had a divine mission,
they rushed blindly over the fields of Europe,
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WOEKING OF THE POISON

and scattered pain and outrage over Belgium
and France.

The issue of the war is certain. We have to
compare the resources of the Allies on one
side, and of Austria and Germany on the
other. The resources of the Allies are im-
measureably the greater. In order to balance
this disadvantage the Germans will have to
destroy their opponents far more rapidly
than their own troops are destroyed. The
precise opposite of this has been happening
ever since the beginning of the war, and we
have no grave reason to suppose that there
will be any change. Already Germany and
Austria have lost more than a million and a
half of their sturdiest citizens, and Germany
alone must have wasted at least £300,000,000.
If the war lasts as long as some of our military
experts predict, the great and aspiring Empire

is obviously doomed. The ring of steel is

285

TEEITSCHKE

already narrowing round its frontiers, and its
more thoughtful citizens must see that nothing
less than a miracle can save them from
ultimate defeat. Yet it is certain that that
ring of steel will draw inward and inward
until it confines the heart of the German
Empire.

We all trust that the age of vindictive
punishment is over ; but Europe owes it to
its own finer sentiments that Germany shall
be made powerless for ever to attempt to
carry out its appalling ambition. It will lose
at least five of its provinces, with a vast pro-
portion of its population. It will lose some
of its new colonies. It will lose, and never
recover, a large proportion of the commerce
which it has laboriously built up ; and it will
shoulder an indemnity -debt which will crush
the last trace of its morbid ambition. Thus
history will give a reply to its Berlin inter-
286

WORKING OF THE POISON

preter ; and Germany will realise with amaze-
ment that, in spite of all its hollow or mistaken
cries of moral duty and divine mission, a
world armed with an outraged sentiment of
justice, will brand for ever the colossal immor-
ality of the man who seduced it.

Wyman A Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading.

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219 Treitschke and the Great

17K3 War