The villain of the world-tragedy; a letter to Professor Ulrich v. Wilamowitz Möllendorf

1

The Villain of the

'r'i]i:?r,v' prober

THE VILLAIN OF THE
WORLD-TRAGEDY

A LETTER TO

Professor ULRICH V. WILAMOWITZ

MOLLENDORF

BY

WILLIAM ARCHER

?

T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD.

t, ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON

I

PRICE TWOPENCE

THE VILLAIN OF THE
WORLD-TRAGEDY

A LETTER TO

Professor ULRICH V. WILAMOWITZ

MOLLENDORF

BY

WILLIAM ARCHER

T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD.
I, ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON

^

THE VILLAIN OF THE
WORLD-TRAGEDY

vSiR,

IF, by some fortunate chance, these pages should
ever come into your hands, I beg you to believe
that they are dictated, not by enmity, but by per-
sonal respect. In ancient days, when two armies
faced each other in line of battle, it was the practice
for champions on both sides to step out of the ranks
and engage in a preliminary contest of boasts, taunts,
and insults. There are many reasons why, in modern
warfare, this practice has fallen into disuse. But the
war of words from which the soldiers refrain is now
carried on with redoubled virulence by professors and
publicists, in speeches, interviews, pamphlets and
magazine articles. During the present contest, both
sides have engaged with ardour in this more or less
conventional and obligatory slanging-match, if you
will excuse the colloquialism ; but I think the vitupera-
tive victory rests easily with Germany. It is because
'^ I lind in your war-addresses a minimum of vitupera-
\i tion and a maximum of sense, that I think it worth
'^ while to try whether it may not be possible to clear
away some of the tragic misconceptions which seem to
me to underlie the frame of mind of those intelligent
^ and highly-accomplished Germans of whom you are
so distinguished a representative.

Of your achievements as a scholar I can, unfor-
tunately, form no personal estiniatc. But I have been

^*

-y.fy ■•*■ '"-

4 THE VILLAIN

accustomed, for more than twenty years past, to hear
your name mentioned with something very like rever-
ence by a man (a dear friend of mine) as well qualified
as anyone in England, and perhaps in Europe, to
appreciate your life-work. It was accordingly with
eager anticipation that I began to read your war-
addresses. Nor was I altogether disappointed. They
are immeasurably better than anything else of their
kind that I have come across — and I have read (or
skimmed) something like 150 German w^ar pamphlets,
many of them by the most eminent among your col-
leagues. It is precisely the difference between you
and them that tempts me to address you. I am san-
guine enough to think that a man of your intellectual
distinction cannot be so wholly given over to the
fanaticism of the moment as to be incapable of either
just thinking or generous feeling.

I quite recognize that it is an uphill battle I have
to fight. It is not your reason but your will that is the
adversary. If once you begin to suspect that the Allies
are not an unparalleled combination of ruffians and
fools, and especially that England is not the vil-
lain of the world-tragedy, the Judas of Germany's
"passion," you cannot but feel an unpleasant weaken-
ing in your comfortable conviction that God, who is
" truth and righteousness," must therefore give victory
to the German arms. You are naturally reluctant to
let the idea that Germany may not be entirely and
ineffably in the right insinuate itself into your mind.
But a trained intelligence like yours cannot be wholly
at the mercy of the will to believe or to disbelieve. I
am sure you have sufficient insight into the sources of
liuman error to be somewhat on your guard against
your passionate desire to hold Germany spotless and
her enemies infamous. Perhaps, too, if you once

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 5

admit the least little doubt of the all-wisdom and
all-goodness of your Fatherland, you may find some
comfort in a corresponding" mitigation of your con-
tempt for the rest of the world. Such an accomplished
master of " literae humaniores " cannot possibly take
an absolute pleasure in the barren emotion of hatred —
even for England.

II

May I lead up to my main argument by calling
your attention to one or two minor points in which I
think you are quite definitely and demonstrably mis-
taken?

You say that the actions of Germany and those of
other nations are judged by different standards. This
is true — one has often noted it with amazement in
reading German war literature. It is, for instance,
hard to seewhy, when English merchants make money,
they should be denounced as a pack of hucksters,
while German merchants who make, as they boast, a
great deal more money, are held to have thereby given
proof of lofty German idealism. But for German
inequalities of judgement you have, of course, no
censure. It is alleged inequalities on the other side
that excite your indignation. Here is an instance you
give:

When [in 1870-71] we bombarded the fortified city
of Paris it was an outrage upon a sacred spot. But
when the English destroyed by bombardment ("zu
Boden schossen ") the defenceless Alexandria, that
was, of course, entirely in order.

Now it is a plain matter of historical fact that Alex-
andria was not "defenceless," but was defended by an
elaborate system of forts, mounting many hundreds of
guns; it was precisely these forts, and not the city,

^ THE VILLAIN

that the British fleet bombarded, in the face of no de-
spicable resistance ; and tlie damaf^e done to the city
was not caused by British shells, but by incendiarism
— the work, it is believed, of convicts, either escaped
from jail or purposely released in order to work on the
fortifications. Ought you not to have made a little
enquiry before talking of "das wehrlose Alexandrien"?
And will you tell me that the army, the prayerful
army,' of which you formed part, bombarded, or in-
tended to bombard, only the forts of Paris? If so, they
made rather bad practice.
Again, you say:

When our Zeppelins drop bombs on the fortress of
Antwerp, they [the enemy] protest; but how have they
not boasted — how do not French prisoners even now
boast — of having burnt by means of bombs the open
city of Niirnberg! The will was there; only the power
was lacking.

If you mean that the Allied press boasted that \iirn-
berg had been burnt, you have simply been deceived.
This is one of the many instances of "die deutsche
Wahrheit" to which I could call your attention. It is
possible that some rumour to that effect was abroad
among French prisoners: but if so, may I tell you
why? It was doubtless because, on August 3, 1914, the
German Government, in order to make out that France
was the aggressor, spread abroad a report that French
aviators had dropped bombs near Niirnberg, and
actually instructed the German Ambassador in Paris
to allege it as a reason for the declaration of war. The
report has been investigated on the spot by German
enquirers, and found to be devoid of foundation. You
yourself imply that no bombs were dropped. But it is

' I allude, of course, to tlic prayer wliicli you tell us that you
.and your comrades offered up on first viewiny^ Paris in 1870.

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 7

conceivable that some French soldiers may incautiously
have beHeved the German Government, and thought
that some such exploit had actually been attempted.
On the whole, however, the remarks attributed to
prisoners are to be received with tlie utmost scepticism.
1 read in a pamphlet by Prof. A. Schroer, of Cologne,
that P>nglish prisoners passing through that city
"could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw that
our noble Cathedral was not a heap of ruins as their
papers had assured them." No such report ever ap-
peared in the English press.' There were wild rumours
in all countries at the beginning of the war. For in-
stance, you may liave heard something of the legend
prevalent in Germany in August 1914 that huge quan-
tities of gold were being transported to Russia in
mysterious motor-cars. An equally baseless myth of
the transit of a Russian army through England took
hold of the public mind in this country at a some-
wdiat later period. There is everywhere in w^ar-time a
vast spontaneous generation of lies, for which no one
seems to be responsible. But the particular lie about
the destruction of Cologne Cathedral is a lie that was
never told, and cannot possibly have been in the minds
of English prisoners. Perhaps the French prisoners'
alleged belief in the destruction of Niirnberg may be
equally mythical.

Again, you tell us that your blood boils— the blood
of an old soldier — at the " malicious fable" of the ill-
treatment of German soldiers by their officers. On
this I will only say that the evidence as to the brutality
of the " Unteroffizier " in particular is for the most

' If you doubt this, you m;iy refci- to the German publicalloii,
"All Lies," in which the alleged falsehoods of the Entente press
are collected. Such a gigantic and imbecile falsehood could not
have escaped the editor of that collection.

8 THE VILLAIN

part German evidence. If it is false or exagorcrated, I
suggest that you should attack it at its source. I will
mention only one little incident, related by an American
journalist in the autumn of 1914. He was a favoured
personage who accompanied the advancing German
army in Belgium, and he was full of enthusiasm for
the admirable organization by which his movements
were furthered. If hewas not pro-German in sympathy,
at all events he was not markedly anti-German. With-
out any indignation, without any comment — in the
most *' objective" manner, as you would probably
phrase it — he relates how, at one point, a sentry failed
to salute the officer who accompanied him, and how
the officer lashed the man across the face with his
riding-whip. Perhaps you think this an ordinary and
legitimate incident, since " Disziplin musssein! " I do
not say that analogous cases may not occur in other
armies. But I do say that if such are the indispensable
methods of militarism, it is a degradation to humanity,
and cannot too soon be swept off the face of the earth.
Before proceeding to more important matters, may I
call your attention to a remark in which I think you
cannot but recognize, on sober reflection, that the
Prussian monarchist has got the better of the man of
sense? You say :

We find it natural and necessary that our Empress
should have all her sons under fire ("im Feuer").
Quite a matter of course! Of Prussian princes, no-
thing else is thinkable!

And again :

What a blessing it is for our people that every
German wife and mother can say to herself: *' It is
not I alone that have a husband and sons in the fight-
ing line (' vor dem Feinde '), but the Frau Kaiserin as
well."

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 9

Your common sense must unquestionably assure you
that it is impossible for a father and six sons to take
the chances of ordinary officers in this war, and to
come out scatheless, save for one slight wound. Such
amazing freaks of fortune do not happen. When they
seem to happen— to princes — we know how to inter-
pret them. It is as certain as anything can be that the
Kaiser and his sons are not subjected to any consider-
able risk. Why should they be? No one can blame
the Great General Staff for not giving the Allies any
opportunity of killing or taking prisoner one of the
princes of Prussia. It is no slur upon their bravery or
their patriotism to believe that a special military
providence watches over them. But, this being so,
why pretend that the German mother should find
comfort in the thought that the Kaiserin's sons are
running equal risks with her own? Why solace your
soul, and the soul of the German mother, with what
one can only call a wilful illusion? An Englishman
who should talk in this strain would at once be written
down a snob; but I am willing to admit that king-
worship in Germany is not mere snobbery, but a
political opinion, like another. I do not here criticize
that opinion ; but I do suggest that the trifling illusion
which it in this case leads you to accept and to dwell
upon, as an idea particularly comfortable to the heart
of the German people, is perhaps typical of many other
wilful illusions of infinitely greater moment, which
they and you have eagerly adopted, and " grappled to
your souls with hooks of steel."

Ill

We come now to a far more important matter.
What has most disappointed the friends and admirers
of Germany — and, believe me, she had many friends

lo THE VILLAIX

and adinircrs in Enq'land, down to August 1914 — is
the extraordinary lack of chivalr)- in her attitude of
mind, the inability

To honor, while you strike him down.
The foe that comes with fearless eyes.

Of this infirmity of temper, you afford, it seems to
me, a conspicuous instance in the following well-nigh
incredible utterance:

See what the w^ar has laid bare in others! What
have we learnt of the soul of Belgium? Has it not
revealed itself as the soul of cowardice and assassina-
tion? . . . They have no moral forces within them:
therefore thev resort to the torch and tlic daixerer.

What words can convey the amazement with which
one finds such expressions proceeding from such
a source? Consider the situation for one moment! A
small country, peaceable, industrious, prosperous, has
for three-quarters of a century led a wholly inoffensive
life, guaranteed against disturbance by three great
neighbouring Powers. Suspicions having arisen that
one of these Powers does not intend to keep its word,
a question is asked in its Parliament (Reichstag,
29 April 1913) and elicits from the Foreign vSecretary
an unqualified assurance that the guarantee holds
good. Fifteen months later, when the crisis comes,
the Belgian Government asks the German Minister in
Brussels for a formal declaration of Germany's in-
tentions, and he replies, though not officially, in
re-assuring terms. Then, on the evening of the very
same day, the same Minister presents an ultimatum,
requiring Belgium to abandon the neutrality to which
she is reciprocally plighted, or to consider herself at
war with the mighty German Empire. Belgium does
not hesitate for a moment. If Germany is false to her
engagements, she will be true. A country of seven

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY ii

million people, she places herself, in obedience to the
"categorical imperative" of her sense of honour,
across the path of an Empire whose army alone out-
numbers her whole population, and which is known
to be enormously formidable in all appliances and
munitions of war. vShe performs, in short, an act of
heroism for which history, and even legend, affords
few parallels ; and you, sir, whose life-studies ought
surely to have taught you to know heroism when you
see it, have not only no word of respect for such high-
hearted gallantry, but can actually brand it as "cow-
ardice " and lack of " moral force "!

vSuch a judgement would be absolutely incredible it
one had not ample proof on every hand that, in the
eyes of the typical German, everyact of opposition to the
will of Germany is a base and dastardly crime. What
is really surprising, then, is to find that, in this respect,
Ulrich V. Wilamowitz is only — a typical German.

Perhaps you will say that Belgium had no right to
feel surprised at her fate, since Germany had for
years been constructing strategic railways on her fron-
tier. But these railways did not actually prove Ger-
many to be meditating perjury. They might, after all,
have been designed for defence — to secure Germany
against a conceivable violation of Belgian neutrality
by other Powers. It was always possible that Germany
might be honest and faithful to her word. For that
matter, no one maintains that all treaties should be
binding for ever. Had Germany denounced the treaty
of 1839, and given fair warning that she did not intend
to be bound by it, her course would have been trucu-
lent but upright. But that was not the course she took.
She lied up to the last moment, in order to take
Belgium as nearly as possible unprepared. History
has doubtless acts of equal baseness to show, but I

12 THE VILLAIN

think it would be difficult to point to an outrage at
once so deliberately planned, so treacherous in method,
and so vast in scale.

You will probably say that in accusing the Belgians
of cowardice, you were not thinking of the action of
the Government, but of the populace. You had in
mind the stories of ambush and mutilation put abroad
by your countrymen, to excuse the savagery with which
they treated the *' conquered" country. I have seen
nothing that can reasonably be called evidence to
justify your insinuation about "the torch and the
dagger;"^ whereas the ruthlessness with which the
civil population w^as terrorized and massacred is proved
by mountains of evidence, and is scarcely denied. I
grant, however, that the time has not yet come for a
dispassionate sifting of the accusations and counter-
accusations which now darken the air. What is quite
certain is that an innumerable multitude of soldiery
was let loose upon the unhappy little country; that
they were all unseasoned to the nervous tension and
fierce excitement of war; that they were exasperated
by unexpected opposition; and that their officers had
been deliberately trained" to despise "humanitarian
notions " and to accept the devilish sophistry that
"the only true humanity" often lies in ruthlessness.
Given all these elements of mischief, do you think
there can be any reasonable doubt that, to put it at the
very lowest, the "severities" exercised upon the civil
population were far in excess of anything justified by
martial law or military necessity?

But, though I cannot see how any reasonable being

' The sug-g-eslion of the "torch" is particularly audacious.
Was it, perhaps, the Bclg-ians who were equipped with the latest
devices for incendiarism, and who burnt the Louvain library?

■ Sec " Kriegsgcbrauch im Landkricge."

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY i^

can resist this conclusion, it is not the point I desire
to urge upon you. To reach that point, I will, for the
argument's sake, grant your own premises. I will
assume that a few Belgians acted in ways condemned
by international law and even by humanity. I will
assume that they resorted to "the dagger" ("the
torch " is nonsense) and that in some cases they
killed the wounded and mutilated the dead. Sup-
posing that this were so, I ask you to say, on your
honour and conscience, whether you, as a presumably
fallible human being, can have nothing but lofty
moral abhorrence for such conduct? Put yourself for
a moment in their place. You are living a peaceful,
innocent, industrious life in the home of yourancestors,
tilling the soil or plying the loom. You have given
no human being the slightest ground for offence. You
have a great and powerful neighbour who has sworn
to protect you in the event of disturbance. Questioned
only the other day as to whether his oath holds good,
he has declared that he considers himself fully bound
by it. Then all of a sudden he rushes at you and says:
" Be false to your word as I am false to mine, or be-
hold! I will strangle you and devote your patrimony
to devastation and ruin!" You decline the shameful
bargain, and he hurls upon you his giant bulk, not
merely applying the force necessary to gain his ends,
but treating you with a savage vindictiveness, which
shows that he regards your very existence as an un-
pardonable wrong to him. Under these circumstances,
can you sincerely maintain that you would be nicely
chivalrous in your method of resisting the aggressor?
that you would scrupulously refrain from hitting below
the belt? or that you would consider yourself utterly
contemptible if you did things in the frenzy of resent-
ment which your calmer judgement would disapprove?

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THE VILLAIN

I do not pretend, of course, that the Belgian peasants
and artisans were fully alive to the juridical aspects of
the case, or would have argued it just as I have done.
Most of them, no doubt, knew only that an inexplic-
able and hideous calamity had dropped upon them
from the skies. They had injured no one, they had
threatened no one. Tiicy had cherished no rancour,
they had harboured no ambition. Suddenly innumer-
able hordes of men in grey, armed with every imple-
ment of death and destruction, had descended upon
their fields and villages, trampling, battering, destroy-
ing, killing, and, even in their milder moods, domin-
eeringand tyrannizing. Surely, sir, you have sufficient
imagination to conceive what you yourself would have
done under such circumstances. I, at any rate, respect
you too much to admit that your conduct would have
been such as to facilitate the designs and promote the
convenience of the wanton invaders of your country.

Perhaps you may say that my argument proves too
much, and would justify the resort to every possible
barbarity against an invading army. This is not so.
To say that, in certain circumstances, exasperation is
comprehensible and inevitable, is not to justify every-
thing that exasperation may do. My contention is
that the evidence upon which the Belgians are accused
of breaches of international law is extremely weak, and
that even supposing that, in a certain number of cases,
it will bear examination, a few lapses into inhumanity
cannot, under such circumstances, aflbrd plausible
ground for the moral condemnation of a whole people,
and ought not e\'en, in common fairness, to be regarded
as utterly inexcusable in individuals whom a monstrous
wrong may have temporarily dehumanized.

I have said nothing about the complicated and self-
contradictory German pleas in extenuation of the in-

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 15

vasion of Belgium, for you have the good sense not to
allude to them. Of course, you do not believe the ex-
cuse originally put forward, that the French were
planning an attack on Germany through Belgium.
We may take it that that fable has been abandoned.
Nor does a man of your sense attach any weight to the
belated excuse that Belgium had ''forfeited" her
neutrality because she had allowed one of its guaran-
tors to consider what steps should be taken to protect
it in the event of its being violated by another Power.
That such childish subterfuges should have any weight
with otherwise reasonable men is a curious proof of
the havoc wrought by the war fever upon the German
intelligence. I am glad, though of course not sur-
prised, to llnd you immune from these most pitiable
symptoms of the " furor Teuton icus."

IV

We now come to the great misunderstanding —
perhaps the most tragic in history — which it is my
purpose to examine and define. I mean, of course,
the misunderstanding between Germany and England.
I cannot hope to dissipate it, even in your mind; but
something will be gained if I can bring you to realize
that it exists, and that the simple theory that the war
is due to England's villainy is a little too simple to
tally with the facts.

You are no doubt willing and even eager to admit
from the outset that there has been a misunderstanding.
"England," you will say, "has grossly misunder-
stood Germany, the most pacific and high-minded of
nations. But we have not misunderstood England.
We know her from of old — perfidious, egoistic, grasp-
ing England." It is just on this point that I am not
without some faint hope of modifying your view. If

i6 THE VILLAIN

we have misunderstood Germany, I submit that it is
because there is (or was before the war) no single and
consistent Germany to understand. One half of her
brain seems to have had a curious faculty of working
in bland unconsciousness of what the other half was
thinking, feeling, designing. As for your mental
picture of England, we know it, with a certainty be-
yond all argument, to be wildly remote from the truth.
I do not say that we gave you no excuse for misunder-
standing us. There were foolish people here who did
all in their power to embitter relations between the
two countries; and you could not be expected to know
England well enough to rate these mischief-makers at
their true insignificance. But they only stimulated an
antecedent tendency in the German mind. The very
existence of England came somehow — so you imagined
— between Germany and the sun. You did not want
to understand her; you wanted only to find reasons
for your instinctive dislike. And this is true even of
that half of the German brain which was unconscious
of actively hostile designs. That is why I say that by
far the larger share of responsibility for the great
misunderstanding lies at the door of Germany.

Let me briefly summarize your historical sketch of
the origin of the war. It differs in no particular from
the official, orthodox account of the matter. Quite
amazing and admirable is the drill to which German
opinion has been subjected. Five hundred orators and
pamphleteers move as one man, "in Reih' und Glied,"
like a battalion on parade. You differ from your col-
leagues only in being much more dignified and less
abusive. It is strange that your worst insult should be
reserved, as we have seen, for Belgium.

On France and Russia you do not waste many
words. Their populations you admit to be pacific; but

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 17

they are led to the slaughter, in the one case, by a
corrupt clique of self-seeking politicians, in the other
case by a still more corrupt gang of bureaucrats and
courtiers. My only comment on this will be to ask
you whether the two years that have intervened since
you wrote these words have left your view of the situa-
tion unaffected. Has the magnificent resistance of
France proceeded from an unwilling people, goaded
by grasping placemen ? Would the superb recupera-
tive power of Russia have been possible if the heart
of the nation had not been in the struggle? Does it
not rather seem that in both countries, but especially
in France, the motive-power may have been a passion-
ate determination to live no longer under the intoler-
able menace of a militant Prussianism? If the man of
science — the large-minded student of human motives
and conduct in the antique world — has not been wholly
swallowed up by the German tribesman, the story of
Verdun must surely have some lessons for you.

But France and Russia were at best, you think, only
the puppets of a malign and crafty England. That is the
legend upon which the soul of the German people has
been sustained through the anguish of the war. It is
that which has converted your countrymen's smoulder-
ing enmity towards England into a raging fury of
hatred, if not unexampled in history, at any rate
unique in its self-consciousness and self-righteousness.
Never before has a great nation taken pride in foaming
at the mouth, or made a virtue of an epilepsy. You,
sir, are not quite easy in your mind over this grotesque
phenomenon — that one can pretty plainly perceive.
But even you make no decided protest against it. On
the contrary, while preserving an air of judicial calm,
you give a sketch of the relations between England
and Germany v/hich is calculated, if not to fan the

B

i8 THE VILLAIN

flame of hatred, at any rate in no way to assuage it.
You lend the weight of your authority to the great
misunderstanding.

V
Having dismissed France and Russia as mere vic-
tims of internal corruption, you proceed:

And then England ! She does not, like France, send
all her sons, but enlisted men. There is the real
motive power, the evil spirit which has conjured up
this war from the deeps of Hell — the spirit of envy and
the spirit of hypocrisy.

Then you touch upon a succession of points in
English history, interpreting everything to England's
disadvantage. I need not tell you — for no one can
know it better — that this is a very easy game. There
is no human action that is purely angelic. It is pos-
sible to assign egoistic motives to the sublimest self-
sacrifice; and no one pretends that self-sacrifice is the
keynote of the history of England, any more than of
any other nation. Your own political philosophers arc
emphatic in declaring that egoism is and must be the
prime motive of the State, as such. German publicists
are never tired of telling us what " a healthy egoism "
demands that Germany must do. It is only when
England is found to have acted with an eye to her own
interests that such conduct becomes base and despic-
able.

England, you tell us, carried on great wars against
Spain and France, fighting the battle of Protestantism,
protecting the Netherlands, and so forth:

But always there was the clearly-marked under-
current of a consistent English policy of self-interest,
the striving of the island people for the command of
the sea.

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 19

Well, and then? Do you blame us for being an
island people and for acting accordingly? Do you
deny the right of a nation to make use of its natural
advantages? You will probably admit that no nation
enjoys invasion, though you seem to share the opinion
of your countrymen that it is criminal for non-Germans
to resent the occupation of their country by a nice,
kind German army. With the help of a stormy season,
we sent the Great Armada to the right-about — an act
of pure egoism, for which, however, we decline to
hang our heads at the bar of history. Since then, we
have shown the same unconquerable objection to allow-
ing the armies of a great continental Empire to land
upon our coasts. Thiswas very selfish, no doubt; but
have you any record of any other nation in history that
would not at all events have desired to do likewise?
And should you not consider any island people stark,
staring mad that did not make every possible endeav-
our to keep its shores inviolate?

A more generous, and perhaps not less just, inter-
pretation of history would emphasize the fact that,
while safeguarding her own interests, England had
often shown what may be called a high European
public-spirit in making great efforts and sacrifices to
prevent the Continent from falling under the heel of an
overweening militarydespotism. Philip II,LouisXIV,
Napoleon — it w^as, ultimately, on the white cliffs of
England that their " Weltmacht " was shattered. You
will scarcely deny, sir, that in these great world-crises
she did some service to free national development.
Nor can I doubt that you are, or were before the war,
psychologist enough to know that it is just as un-
scientific to think her motives wholly base as to believe
ihem entirely disinterested and angelic.

And if, after the lapse of another century, she is for

20 THE VILLAIN

the fourth time playino- her historic part, and setting-
limits to the ambition of an overweening military des-
potism, do you think it is quite reasonable to assume,
because you happen to be a part of that organization,
that England's motives can be summed up in the
simple formula of " envy and hypocrisy "?

You do not deny that England did some service
against Napoleon.

No doubt (you say) England's resistance was some-
thing gigantic and admirable, and against it Napoleon
dashed himself to pieces. Without this help, no doubt,
Europe could not have compassed his fall.

But you go on to say that " England still preferred
to leave the fighting to others," and that Wellington
insisted on calling the decisive battle " Waterloo " in-
stead of (as Bliicher suggested) '* La Belle Alliance."
Let us look a little at these two sneers.

It is undeniably true that, until Germany forced
that benefaction upon her, England had no system of
compulsory service. The right of compulsion was
always there in theory, and it was sometimes tyran-
nously exercised, as, for instance, by the naval press-
gangs during the Napoleonic wars. But as England
could, as a rule, get all the men she wanted by volun-
tary enlistment, there would have been no sense in her
anticipating the continental theory (which, after all, is
little more than a century old) of the '' nation in arms."
That England maintained a sufficient power, both
naval and military, to secure her from any serious
invasion, is patent on the very surface of history; and
it is not very clear why any country should be despised
for not burdening itself with a superfluous military
establishment. Would you expect Britain, beings
once for all, an island, to act as if she were not? On
the continent, England has never, during the past

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 21

three centuries, made war for her own hand, but
always as one of a coalition whose other members
were more directly interested than she in the result.
She aided them with contingents of British troops
which no one (to my knowledge) ever despised. You
yourself admit the great part played by the British
army under Marlborough; but afterwards, you say,
the English "got others to fight for them." There
are names on the colours of many a British regiment
that very largely qualify that statement. To go no
further back, you may have heard — though you do
not mention it — of the Peninsular War, in which men
of the Three Kingdoms took no inconspicuous part.
Nor were these men entirely absent from Ouatre Bras
and Waterloo. It is, in short, very ridiculous to
insinuate that British blood contributed less than
British money to the checkmating of Louis XIV, and
the overthrow of Napoleon. And it is worse than
ridiculous — it is childish — to call a Briton who fights
for his country a "mercenary" and a "hireling,"
because he enlists of his own free will and receives a
very moderate wage for his labours and perils. You,
sir, do not lay much stress on this silly reproach ; but
scores of your colleagues are never tired of reiterat-
ing it.

But now I have an admission to make. It is unfortu-
nately true that, in the eighteenth century, Britain did
employ foreign mercenaries in some of her wars. In
the American War of Independence, for example, the
use she made of them was impolitic and unjustifiable.
vSo much one must confess with shame. But what
" hirelings " were they? For the most part the soldier-
slaves of German princes, ruthlessly sold into foreign
bondage. The transactions were not creditable to
cither party; but on which did the blacker shame

22 THE VILLAIN

rest? Not, it seems to me, on the British buyer,
but on the German seller of his own flesh and
blood.

As for Waterloo, I can imagine nothing more petty
than the ceaseless efforts of German writers to belittle
the British share in that event. It is clear beyond all
doubt that Wellington's army had borne the burden
and heat of the day ; it is equally clear that the arrival
of Bluchers army turned a trembling scale, and con-
summated the destruction of the French host. Who
can say what might have happened had Bliicher failed
to arrive? Napoleon's defeat, no doubt, would not have
been so decisive ; it is even possible that he might have
maintained his ground or forced Wellington to retire.
But it is certain that the fighting power of the French
army was pretty well broken before the Prussians ap-
peared on the horizon ; and it is mere speculative malice
to pretend that Wellington was saved from a great
disaster. I do not say that English popular writers,
and perhaps even serious historians, may not have
failed to give sufficient weight to the Prussian interven-
tion at the critical moment ; but it is a universal-human
foible (from which Germans, assuredly, are not exempt)
to be chiefly interested in one's own doings. To call
the battle '*La Belle Alliance" would have been a
mere freak. The French name, " Mont St. Jean," has
more to be said for it. But Napoleon himself had
written to Grouchy on the morning of the fateful day:
" L'armee anglaise a pris position a Waterloo";'
so he apparently agreed with his opponent as to the
description most applicable to the whole scene of the
struggle.

Leaving this petty matter, I turn to your account of
what happened after the fall of Napoleon :

' Hcnrv Houssayc, "Waterloo," p. 316.

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 23

In the re-adjustment of European relations (you say)
the power of England at once makes itself felt with
brutal clearness. Germany must have no coast-line,
Germany must have no independent commerce, Ger-
many must not be a maritime nation. Therefore
Hanover becomes a state dependent on England, there-
fore Prussia is cheated of East Friesland, therefore
Holland and Belgium are formed into a state destined
to become, like Hanover, subordinate to England.

Surely a marvellous reading of history! England is
accused of maliciously thwarting the ambitions of
"Germany " at a time when Germany did not exist as
a political entity! Hanover, whose German rulers had
been for a century the kings of the British Islands,
''^becomes a state dependent on England"! England
is blamed for not handing over the Netherlands, a
historic, and gloriously historic, political entity, to the
politically non-existent " Germany " ! As for blocking
Germany's path to the sea, was Germany left with one
foot less of seaboard than she possessed when the
Hanseatic towns, as German writers are never tired of
boasting, dominated the commerce of Europe? You
seem to forget, sir, that in 18 15 Prussia had not swal-
lowed up Germany, nor was Germany in the least
anxious to be devoured. If Prussia, as distinct from
Germany, did not come off so well as she hoped in the
re-arrangement — not so well as Bismarck afterwards
thought she ought to have done — is it reasonable to
attribute that fact to any profound and far-seeing
British hostility? The Germany established by the
Congress of Vienna was a product quite as much of
German as of British influences; and to make it a
reproach to England that she did not help to realize,
by anticipation, the Bismarckian ideals, is to perpetrate
an anachronism which shows the detrimental effect of
hatred upon even such an intellect as yours.

24 THE VILLAIN

VI

Of the nineteenth century you say little or nothing,
manifestly because hatred itself can suggest no wrong
done by England to Germany during that period. In
1864 England looked on passively at the dismember-
ment of Denmark — a grave and perhaps a dishonour-
able fault, but one of which Germany, at any rate, has
no right to complain. Some of your colleagues try to
make out that in 1870-71 England's neutrality was
hostile to Germany ; but that is far from being the case.
Many people, no doubt, felt the sympathy with Erance
which no one can deny to a nation struggling gallantly
against overwhelming disaster. But it was generally
recognized that the Second Empire had brought its
fate upon itself, and had walked with inexcusable blind-
ness into the trap which Bismarck had set for it. And
throughout the century the educated public of England
took an entirely sympathetic interest in Germany.
Down to 1820 or thereabouts, the British stage, then
in total literary decline, was dominated by cheap
German romanticism. Coleridge, Carlyle, and many
others interpreted to their countrymen the higher as-
pects of German literature and thought. The first part
of "Faust" was translated some twenty-five times.
Heine found almost adoring readers and innumerable
translators. German philosophy was very widely
studied ; German music met with immediate and gener-
ous appreciation. I\Iany English novelists represented
Germanv in an extremely attractive light, I well re-
member how my youthful imagination was fascinated
by the romantic vision of the sunlit Rhineland conjured
up by Thackeray in "The Newcomes." Meredith made
sympathetic use of German scenery and character.
Immediately after the war of 1870, William Black, a

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY

^3

novelist of some note in his day, chose a German lieu-
tenant for the hero of one of his most popular novels.
The evidences of friendly interest in Germany and
thingsGerman could be multiplied indefinitely. During
the later years of the century numberless English and
vScottlsh students attended German universities, and
many young English scholars made a habit of spending
the greater part of their vacations in Germany. Ger-
man scholars, I gladly admit, took an equally keen and
more systematic interest in England, and I do not
think that, as a whole, they had an}'^ reason to complain
of their reception at Oxford, Cambridge, and the British
Museum. This state of things lasted until close upon
the end of the century. I do not think that, in the
English feeling towards Germany, there existed any
such undercurrent of dislike as is clearly traceable in
the German feeling towards England. It is patent
enough in Heine and Fontane ; in Treitschke it is no
longer an undercurrent, but a Gulf Stream.

But here I see you ready with a retort. " Ah, yes! "
you say, " Until near the end of the century you felt
for us a kindly, half-contemptuous tolerance; for you
were not yet thoroughly alive to the fact that we were
no longer a nation of 'poets and thinkers,' but your
most dangerous competitors in the markets of the
world. As soon as you began to feel the stress of our
rivalry, your mood changed, and you set about plot-
ting our ruin." Or, to put it in your own very words:

Ours are both the German intelligence and the
German industry. German inventiveness, German
strength, German diligence, are threatened with de-
struction. The efficiency of our merchants, whose
goods and ships, to the annoyance of the Briton,
encounter him on every sea, is to be annihilated.

I will not stop to examine the verbal extravagances

26 THE VILLAIN

of this utterance, or to enquire whether you really
believe that any Englishman is so mad as to imagine
it possible to "annihilate" (" vernichten "), or even
to paralyse, the inventiveness, industry, etc., of a
nation of 70,000,000 people. I will make reasonable
allowance for rhetorical exaggeration, and assume
you to mean that England desired, by force of arms,
in some way to restrict, hamper, diminish, damnify
the trade of Germany. I own it conceivable that
England might have been so unutterably foolish; but
between the conceivable and the actual there may be
— and there is in this case — all the difference in the
world.

You will doubtless admit that, when a certain course
of action has to be accounted fc/, and many strong, and
sane, and irresistible motives for it are obvious to the
view, it is unreasonable to ignore them and attribute
the action in question to insane and self-defeating
malice. That is what you and your countrymen do
in maintaining that England made war upon Germany
out of commercial envy and rivalry. If Germany
was prosperous, so was England — enormously, in-
creasingly prosperous — and Germany was her best
customer. If we had wanted to interfere with Ger-
many's trade, there were means to that end im-
measurably simpler and safer than war. A powerful
political party urged the adoption of these means, but
the nation again and again rejected the proposal.
We felt that in some ways Germany's competition
was not altogether fair; but we knew that, if Germany
was outstripping us, the main reason lay in her more
modern, energetic, intelligent commercial organiza-
tion. This we fully realized: our newspapers were
never tired of reiterating it, and urging us to "wake
up " ; and if we were slow in waking up it was because

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY

■^/

vvc were still so prosperous that we did not feel the
pinch of necessity. Can you really believe, then, that
rather than make the slight exertion necessary to rival
the efficiency of German business methods, we reck-
lessly and suicidally determined to incur the gigantic
labours and perils of a world-war, in order to throttle
our best customer? Remember that in point of terri-
tory we had absolutely nothing to gain. We did not
covet any of your overseas possessions, which had
been acquired with our perfect good will; and even
you will scarcely suspect us of any desire to conquer
and annex any part of continental Germany. We
had, in short, no reasonable economic motive for
wanting to crush Germany. Your theory — the ortho-
dox German theory — of our reasons for entering the
war, amounts to accusing us of facing the incalculable
dangers and horrors of Armageddon rather than take
the trouble of teaching our bagmen Spanish.

I know that you have one document to cite in sup-
port of your theory. So long ago as 1897, a weekly
paper, once noted for reckless brilliancy, but fallen on
evil days, and at that time edited by a man who is
now foremost among the enemies of England in
America, published a mad and wicked article, arguing,
or rather asserting, that if Germany ceased to exist,
there was not a man in England that would not be the
richer, and concluding " Germaniadelendaest." The
fact that such an article should pass unpunished is one
proof among many that the freedom of the press is no
unmixed blessing. It would have been a fit subject for
diplomatic representations; but the German Ambas-
sador of the day no doubt hesitated to confer so much
distinction on a freak of irresponsible and unprincipled
journalism. The article passed absolutely unnoticed
in England. It came upon us as an extremely disagree-

28 THE VILLAIN

able surprise when, after the outbreak of war, we found
it quoted in scores of German books and pamphlets.
The fact that it is the one incriminating document
produced by every advocate of the German theory
proves that it is indeed unique. Since the turn of the
centur}^ there has been, for reasons to be presently
discussed, much anti-German writing in the British
press, and some of it, no doubt, has been as repre-
hensible as the correspondingutterances in the German
press. But this is the one article that has been or can
be produced to show that England, from motives of
base cupidity, desired the destruction of Germany's
trade. No one can possibly deplore the luckless ebulli-
tion more than I do ; but I suggest that it is insufficient
evidence for the belief that thegeneral mindof England,
or any appreciable portion of it, was at that date or any
other infected by such criminal lunacy.

VII

I have said that when there are strong and sane and
obvious motives for a given course of action, it is un-
reasonable to ignore them and allege others which are
inadequate and foolish to the point of insanity. If a
man sets to work to undermine my house, with the
manifest intention of blowing it up as soon as he finds
it convenient, and if I thereupon take steps to restrain
his openly hostile activities, can he plausibly appeal to
the sympathy of the neighbours on the plea that I am
a covetous scoundrel intent upon picking his pockets?

Of course you wmII deny the justice of the image,
and declare that Germany was not undermining Eng-
land's house, and had no hostile intentions towards
her. That you believe this I cannot doubt; but that
only proves that when national — or shall I say tribal?
— feeling is strongly aroused, belief falls under the

OF THK WORLD-TRAGEDY 29

control, not of reason, but of will. Your will to believe
Germany spotless is so strong- as to blind you to the
plainest facts of the case.

Here we are at the v-ery heart of the great misunder-
standing-.

It would conduce not a little to lucidity if I could
persuade you to open your mind to a certain fact which,
though not conclusive as to the rights and wrongs of
our debate, is as certainly true as that Berlin stands
on the Spree. The fact is this: at the outbreak of the
war, when we in England realized that you in Germany
were surprised at our coming into it, our feeling was
not merely surprise, but amazement. " What on earth
did they expect? " w^e said, each to his neighbour.
" Have they not been asking- for it any time for the
past fifteen years? Have they not been openly threat-
ening, not only the existence of the Empire, but the
safety of the land we live in? Have they not been
forcing upon us a ruinous competition in naval arma-
ments, and scornfully declining every proposal for a
slackening- in the race? Have they not deliberately
created an intolerable condition of latent war? And
now, having done all this, do they expect us to break
our plighted word to Belgium, and be false to our de-
clared friendship for France and Russia, in order that
they may crush all opposition in continental Europe,
and be able, at their leisure, to apply the milliards of
their booty to their great ultimate object of overpower-
ing Britain and dismembering her Empire? Truly,
they must either be mad themselves, or believe that
we are mad! " I am not for the moment asking you to
accept this as a true account of the situation : I am
only assuring you, with all possible earnestness, that
it was the view which imposed itself as absolutely self-
evident upon all Englishmen, with scarcely an cxcep-

30 THE VILLAIN

tion : the view which befjot in us, so recently torn by
faction, a unity of spirit and resolve not less remark-
able than that German unity of which your country-
men are so immeasurably proud. If you will but under-
stand that, rightly or wrongly, this was, as a matter
of fact, the view that all England held, I think you
will admit that it is unnecessary and unreasonable to
look any further for England's motive in going to war.
vShe took up arms in defence, not only of the smaller
nations of her Empire, but of her own very seriously
endangered national existence.

"In that case," you may perhaps say, " how hypo-
critical to allege the pretext of Belgium!" Is it
hypocrisy to have more than one motive for a given
course of action? A motive of honour reinforcing a
motive of interest? A practical as well as an ideal
motive? I am sure you will not take up any so absurd
position. It was Belgium, as a matter of fact, that put
the seal on our national unity. Had you left her in
peace, there would have been a strong party which,
while recognizing the dangers of the situation, would
have said: "Let us not plunge into war in order to
avert a peril which, after all, is not immediately immi-
nent." Very likely I myself might have been short-
sighted enough to adhere to that party. At any rate,
I cannot too urgently beg you to believe that nothing
but the sense of obligation to Belgium would have
reconciled thousands — nay, millions — of my country-
men to Britain's participation in the war. If that
motive has now fallen somewhat into the background
of the national consciousness, it is because the fuller
revelation of the German spirit has satisfied us all that
it is a spirit with which we could not possibly have
remained at peace.

" But," you may perhaps object, " if you repudiate

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 31

the motive of commercial envy, what about your news-
papers'jubilation over the 'Capture of German Trade '?
What about the measures discussed at the Paris Con-
ference, for a trade war to follow the war of blood and
iron?" To this I reply, in the first place, that the
endeavour to cut the enemy's trade connections is an
obvious and inevitable measure of war, which does not
in the least imply that the war was undertaken with
that object. I n the second place, the economic relations
of the Allied countries with Germany after the war
will depend largely upon the attitude of the German
mind. If your countrymen are clearly bent on em-
ploying their wealth in preparation for another on-
slaught upon the liberties of Europe, there will be
some who will urge that, even at a loss to ourselves,
we should prevent them from accumulating wealth. If,
on the other hand, we have any reasonable assurance
of Germany's will to peace — if we can believe that she
will be content to live and let live — then Germany's
wealth will be our wealth, and we shall have no sound
motive for attempting to restrict or impair it.

VIII

My last two paragraphs have been something of a
digression from the main line of my argument. Let us
now return to the point at which I had sketched for
you the frame of mind in which England approached
the war, and begged you to believe that the sketch was
historically true, quite apart from the question whether,
and in what measure, the frame of mind was justified.
That is the question we must nowdiscuss. Did England
misunderstand Germany? Was her conviction that
Germany was aiming at her downfall — was at all events
determined so to reduce her margin of safety as to

32 THE VILLAIN

subject her to practical vassalage — a false and injurious
imagination?

You emphatically reply that it was. Your whole
argument rests upon the assertion of Germany's wholly
unaggressive spirit. You declare several times, in the
most explicit terms, that

Had we had our will there would have been no breach
of the peace, for no one in Germany — neither the
Kaiser, the army, nor the people — no one coveted a
single foot of the territory bordering on our frontiers.

I am sorry to have to point out to you, sir, that this
is untrue in the letter, and, even if it be defensible in
the letter, it is utterly untrue in the spirit.

That it is untrue in the letter we know on the evidence
of a large body of literature, in which the expansion of
Germany in Europe was warmly advocated, and even
claimed as a right. You knew your colleague, Paul
de Lagarde; you delivered a fine oration at his grave;
what w'ere his " Deutsche Schriften " but an impas-
sioned plea for a Greater Germany in Europe? You
will not deny that Heinrich v. Treitschke was a man
of great eminciice and influence; he never dissembled
his conviction that Germany ought as soon as con-
venient to possess herself of the mouths of the Rhine,
Read the works of Friedrich Lange, of Ernst Hasse,
of Albrecht Wirth, of J. L. Reimer, and then tell me
that no German desired expansion in Europe! Some
of these writers (and many more of the same tendency
could be cited) did not quite explicitly say that they
demanded conquests by force of arms; but they all
demanded economic conquest and unification, and
were prepared to impose it by force of arms if neces-
sary. And these ideas were not the whims of isolated
individuals. They were disseminated through the
medium of large and active societies, who chose for

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY

their spokesmen soldiers and officials of high rank.
Read Nippold's " Der deutsche Chauvinismus" and
tell me aoajn that no German desired expansion in
Europe! If you still maintain that the army was not
infected by these ideas, let me refer you to General v.
Bernhardi's " Deutschland und der nachste Krieg."
Take, for instance, his remark that "France must be
so completely crushed that she can never again come
across our path " — you will scarcely pretend that the
writer (an ex-member of the Great General Staff) had
not in mind any annexation of French territory. There
is, in short, ov^erwhelming evidence that large numbers
of influential people in Germany eagerly desired terri-
torial expansion in Europe. You will tell me (perhaps
with truth) that they did not represent the German
nation; but you know very well that the German
nation has no share in determining questions of peace
and war. At all events, if you will examine the litera-
ture of which I have cited only a few specimens, I
think you must own that the assertion that "no one
coveted a single foot of the territory bordering on our
frontiers" is very far from being literally true.

It might, however, have been literally true, and yet
utterly untrue in the spirit. Even if it had been the
case tliat Germany coveted no teyritory bordering o?i
her frontiers, it would none the less have been certain
that Germany coveted both the actual annexation of
some oversea territories, and the establishment of
predominant influence in others, and that she well
knew these ambitions to be too extensive to be realized
without war. This is manifest both in the literature I
have already cited, and in other writings so numerous
and so notorious that I need not refer to them by
name. I will quote only one utterance — not by one
■of your hot-headed enthusiasts, but by a geographer

c

34 THE VILLAIN

and economist of high reputation and authority,
Dr. Paul Rohrbach. In ''Was will Russland?"
(p. 12), Dr. Rohrbach writes :

We could not but say to ourselves, '* If once it
comes to war with England, it will be difficult for us
to get at her in her island. It will be easier to strike
at her in Egypt [which the writer elsewhere describes
as the keystone of the arch of the British Empire].
But to that end we require an alliance with the Turks."
. . . Therefore Germany sent officers to instruct the
Turkish army, therefore the Emperor went in 1898 to
Constantinople and Jerusalem, and made his famous
speech as to the friendship between Germany and the
Muhammadans. Therefore we built the Bagdad Rail-
way with German money.

In the face of such an utterance as this, it is surely
impossible to pretend that Germany had no ambitions
inconsistent with the welfare of her neighbours; and
unless that can be established, it is useless (even if it
were true) to urge that she desired no extension of
her European frontier. Here we find her, by the
avowal of one of her leading publicists, deliberately
plotting the overthrow of the British Empire by an
attack upon its " keystone," and that at a time (1898)
when the relations between the two Empires were to
all appearance perfectly amicable — six years before
the alleged " Einkreisungspolitik " was initiated. And
yet you, sir, can actually join in the strident chorus
of your countrymen about an " uns aufgezwungener
Krieg" conjured up against an innocent and unag-
gressive Germany by the wiles of envious England!

It is in the following terms that you drive home
this accusation :

At last came our little colonies,' and came, thanks
to our Kaiser, the fleet, this superfluous toy, as an

' Only five times larger than the German Empire.

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY

o>

English minister called it.' That was too much for
the Britons. Now they wanted to make an end. Since
the accession of Edward VII, the end has always been
clearly in view, the overthrow of Germany, and it has
been pursued with a certainty and skill to which we
cannot deny our admiration. . . . All attempts to
arrive at an understanding with England, which have
been made during the past live years,' with the appro-
bation, it must be admitted, of the German people,
England has only pretended to view with sympathy,
in order that Russia might have time to gather up her
strength.

May I ask you, sir, at whatever temporary cost to
your self-respect, to try to imagine yourself a Briton?
You are an inhabitant of an island which (though
Professor v. Treitschke denies it natural beauty) has
somehow endeared itself to the hearts of its sons and
daughters. It has suffered no serious invasion for
more than eight centuries. The battles which have
taken place on its soil have been, to all intents and
purposes, battles of civil war. It does not know by
experience what it means to *' lie at the proud foot of
a conqueror"; but it has only to look at continental
Europe, and especially at the history of France and
Germany, to conceive a violent and surely not un-
natural distaste for such a fate. Moreover, it has cer-
tain daughter nations — free communities of its own
speech and blood — which look to it for protection
against any possible attack from overseas. Can you
doubt that you, inhabiting an island so situated, would
feel that the first necessity of life — a necessity without

^ He called it a "luxury," which is not quite the same thing-
as a "superfluous toy." 1 thought accuracy of quotation was
one of the corner-stones of German philology; but it appears
that a Professor can quote as inaccurately as a Chancellor.

" Do you really think that these attempts originated in
Germany ?

36 THE VILLAIN

which you could not sleep calmly o' nights — was a
navy that need not fear to encounter any single rival
or any probable combination of rivals? You would
know that such a navy was necessary, not only to hold
aloof actual invasion, but to prevent the stoppage of
those sea-borne supplies without which life in your
island could not be maintained for more than a few
weeks. You would realize that an insular position, if
it has its peculiar advantages, has also its peculiar
dangers; and you would hold it the first axiom of
politics that the business of Government is to keep
these dangers at a distance. Well, supposing you felt
thus — and I think you can scarcely deny that you
would feel thus — how would it affect you to learn that
a neighbouring Power, known to be armed to the
teeth and enormously powerful on land, had openly
set about the task of making herself enormously power-
ful at sea, and so imperilling your insular security?
Would you not feel it the manifest and imperative
duty of your rulers to take measures to meet that
threat? And would you think that the mere building
of two ships for one (supposing that could go on in-
definitely) was a sufficient measure of precaution?
Surely not. You would feel that in the face of this
colossal and ever-accumulating enmity, all other en-
mities must be appeased, all threats from other quarters
averted. You would regard as a measure of element-
ary prudence the settling up of outstanding differences
with France and Russia, so that at least there should
be no coalition of all Europe against your national
existence. You would see in this simple reconcilement
no plot to '' overthrow" Germany, but merely the
conversion of possible enemies into assured friends in
case of need. And among the motives impelling you
and your countrymen to such steps, should you feel

OF THE WORLD-TRACrEDY sj

that there was the smallest room for " commercial jeal-
ousy " or any such trumpery consideration? No, and a
thousand times, no! On that score you would have a
perfectly clear conscience. It would seem to you the
most ridiculous thing conceivable that you should be
accused of wishing to fill your pockets at Germany's
expense, when you knew in your inmost heart that
your sole and all-sufficient motive was the desire to
keep your island home inviolate, and to save from
catastrophic disruption a great community of free
peoples.

In thus asking you to put yourself in the place of an
Englishman and try to realize his feelings and motives,
I have merely sought to bring home to you the fact
that these feelings and motives were perfectly natural,
not to say inevitable, without necessarily implying
that they were altogether just. You will, no doubt,
say they were founded on mistaken conceptions. Per-
haps you will argue that we have here the great mis-
understanding'. You will tell me that we had no
reason to be disturbed by Germany's desire for a
powerful navy to protect her growing commerce; that
it was not aimed at our national security; and that our
feelings on the subject, even if untinged by commercial
jealousy, were inspired by an arrogant and overween-
ing superstition of Britain's prescriptive right to ab-
solute supremacy on all the oceans. Let us look into
these contentions. I am not without hopes of con-
vincing you that, if there was any misunderstanding
on our part, it was an only too natural one, for which
we were in nowise to blame.

Consider the historic juncture at which Germany's
naval ambitions and schemes were first revealed to us!
Four years earlier the Kaiser had gone out of his way
to publish his sympathy with a State (the Transvaal)

^ Or?.'^ f^>

;38 THE VILLAIN

with which we were at odds. Technically, no doubt,
he was in the right, since an unauthorized act of folly
had placed us technically in the wrong ; but the Kruger
telegram was none the less a gratuitous demonstration
of unfriendliness. Two years after tliat, he had pro-
claimed himself, without any obvious need or invita-
tion, the protector of the Moslem world. We were
inclined to regard it as a piece of characteristic rodo-
montade; we did not see in it the calculated hostility
which Rohrbach now admits and glories in; but we
could not possibly mistake it for a friendly act. In the
next place, it was certain that illusory hopes of aid
from Germany had stiffened the resistance of the
Transvaal Government to what we regarded (rightly
or wrongly) as our reasonable demands, and had
helped to involve us in a war which even those of us
who thought it necessary hated and deplored. Further,
that war had begotten in Germany (this you will surely
not deny) a feeling of intense and ungovernable hos-
tility towards us. This, then, was the moment which
Germanychose to announce her determination to build,
•with great celerity, a mighty fleet! Can it possibly
surprise you that we should regard this determination
Avith uneasiness, and see in it a distinct menace to our
security? We had, of course, a long start, and could
hope, by incurring a very heavy burden of taxation, to
maintain our lead for a certain time; but it was manifest
that this could not go on for ever, and that Germany,
if she put her heart into it, Avould one day be able at
J east to reduce our margin of safety to the narrowest
limit. And Germany did put her heart into it. What
had been at first the aspiration of a few leading men,
was sedulously worked up until it became the darling
ambition of the whole people. Naval programmes
^rew and grew; all attempts on our part to secure a

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 39

little slackening- in this cut-throat rivalry were more or
less scornfully rejected. Do you really think it pos-
sible, sir, that we should have sat quietly down, facing
unheard-of burdens of taxation in order to meet
Germany's menace, and taking- no other measures to
make our position a little more secure?

And here let me appeal to your candour: can you
lay your hand on your heart and assure me on your
honour and conscience that the growing- German
navy was not regarded with enthusiasm, by at any
rate a very great number of the German people,
simply as a weapon for the eventual humiliation of
the hated England? I do not see how you can pos-
sibly deny that fact. You may allege excuses, not
without reason; but surely you cannot close your
eyes to the fact itself. You may tell me that Germany
was conscious of a corresponding dislike on the part
of the English public, and that several English news-
papers did their best to work up ill-feeling. All this
is true. Ever since the Boer War — nay, since the
Kruger telegram — there had been a growing estrange-
ment between the two countries, in regard to which
neither was entirely blameless.^ I will even admit —
for I do not pretend that the English character is (like
the German!) wholly angelic — I will admit that the
sense of keen commercial rivalry did not tend to make

• The general British hostility to Germany is, however, enorm-
ously exag-gerated by German writers. You yourself say, " I
observed the feeling in London when our airship descended at
Luneville; they could not do enough to express their jubilation
over the German Sedan, as the provocative papers expressed it."
It is, of course, impossible to say that no paper made use of this
unspeakably silly expression; but I have looked up the file of the
leading " Hetzblatt," and I find, not only nothing about Sedan,
but no sort ot "jubilation." Not a word is said at which an}'
reasonable German could possilily take otVonce.

40 THE \^ILLAIN

Germany any more beloved in England. All this, I
repeat, is true. I do not think that the English feeling
towards Germany had anything like the bitterness of
the German feeling towards England; but it is diffi-
cult to bring such comparisons to the proof. What I
emphatically assert, and what I challenge you to
deny, is that the first move of active menace came
from the side of Germany; that England at no time
took any move that was not purely defensive; and
that no one in England ever desired or contemplated
aggression upon Germany, whereas in Germany the
military class, many of the most influential politicians
and publicists, and at any rate a considerable section
of the general public, desired nothing in this world
so much as the humiliation of England, and the dis-
memberment of an Empire which was somehow felt
to have stolen a march on Germany, and mischiev-
ously thwarted her just ambitions.

Need I pause to consider the official explanation
and vindication of Germany's naval ambitions? We
are told by many authorities (notably by Rohrbach)
that Germany never intended or hoped to build a fleet
that should really threaten the safety of England.
All she desired was to possess such a fleet as should
force the strongest naval power to think twice about
attacking her at sea; and it is argued that this assur-
ance ought to have placed us quite at our ease. Was
there ever such a childish contention? Who is to fix
the proportion of power at which a fleet becomes, so
to speak, passively but not actively formidable — too
strong to be attacked, but not strong enough to
attack? And supposing this point to be defined and
reached, is it not manifest that there could be no
guarantee for the maintenance of the equilibrium, if
so it can be called? Moreover, Germany and England

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 4»

did not stand alone in the world. France and Russia,
Italy and Austria (the two latter Germany's allies),
were considerable naval powers. What was to hinder
Germany, when she had reached the point of being
*' passively" formidable, from making herself "act-
ively" formidable by engineering a naval coalition
against England, and sweeping the British navy from
the seas? I think you must grant, sir, that Britain
could not be expected to pay much heed to the sug-
gestion that the German navy was intended for purely
defensive purposes. Any assurance to this effect
would have been a very inadequate security even in
the case of an entirely friendly Power. In the case of
a Pov*er which we knew to be extremely unfriendly,
and to be consumed with envy of our world-wide
"possessions" (which might much more rightly be
called our world-wide responsibilities) — in the case of
such a Power it would have been madness to suppose
that the huge naval outlay it was incurring was de-
signed for defence alone. England determined to
make sure that at any rate France, Russia, and Japan
should not take part in a possible coalition against
her — and that simple and obvious measure of self-
protection is the whole sum and substance of the
"encirclement-policy" of which Germany makes so
loud a complaint.

I know that after she had provided herself with a
very powerful fleet, Germany expressed herself as not
unwilling to consider a certain slackening in her ship-
building activities, on condition that England should
allow her a perfectly free hand in Europe. But what
would this have meant? Putting aside all questions of
international friendship and honour, it would have
meant that Germany could, at her leisure, crush the
Dual Alliance, exact gigantic indemnities, and pro-

42 THE VILLAIN

ceed to build, at the expense of France and Russia, a
navy with which Eng-land could not hope to contend.
Can you seriously suggest, sir, that England ought to
have betrayed and abandoned her friends in order to
place her neck, without hope of redemption, under the
German yoke? Let me assure you that, much as we
deplore the hatred with which you regard us to-day,
we infinitely prefer it to thecontempt which you would
rightly have bestowed on us had we accepted so base
and suicidal a bargain.

IX

That Germany misunderstood England is perfectly
clear, since I suppose you will admit that the general
feeling, when it was known that England proposed to
stand faithful to her promise to Belgium and her friend-
ship for France, was one of profound astonishment. I
have no doubtyou are sincere in thinking that England,
on her side, misunderstood Germany; but I have
tried to show that you yourself have misimdevstood or
ignored a large part of the mind of Germany, and un-
fortunately that part which controls her political and
military action.

Of this I cannot hope to have convinced you. To
state the case in full would demand a large volume
and the citation of a long array of authorities; and
even to that you would probably reply that the author-
ities did not truly represent the German mind. My
purpose will have been served if I have awakened in
you even a glimmering perception that your diagnosis
of England's motives as '* hypocrisy and envy " is lu-
dicrously wrong, and have led you to wonder whether
her action, even if you still think it misguided, was
not worthy of the respect which no upright man refuses
to upright and honourable conduct in another. Your

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 43

vision of England sedulously, patiently, and craftily
plotting the destruction of Germany is the delusion of
a heated fancy. What England did was to take per-
fectly open and ahove-board measures of self-protection
against the equally open and undisguised hostility of
Germany. That there were misunderstandings on both
sides is likely enough; but what is clear to the exclu-
sion of all misunderstanding is that Germany s concep-
tion of her rights and interests at sea was inconsistent
7vith England's safety. You may argue, if you will,
that England could not reasonably claim a safety that
conflicted with Germany's interests, and that Germany
was justified in impugning it. That is the principle
on which your annexationists proceed — the principle
of State brigandage, defined by Wordsworth as —

The good old rule . . . the simple plan
That he should take who has the power,
And he should keep who can.

But you would have us think that you are not an
annexationist — and even if you were, you would surely
allow that the right of any one nation to attack another,
implies the right of the other to protect itself. As all
England has done is to exercise that right, one does
not see why your natural hostility towards her should
not be tempered with respect.

I have addressed you throughout, and quite sin-
cerely, as a man to be respected. I think you are
strangely blinded by the tribal passion which has
mastered the German mind to a degree scarcely paral-
leled in history; but I believe that the catchwords of
the hour must one day lose some of their influence
over you, and that you may be willing to recognize
that it is extremely undesirable for any two nations,
who are once for all fated to exist together on a none
too extensive planet, to cherish nothing but con-

44 THE VILLAIN

temptuous incomprehension for each other. I hope,
for instance, that you may one day be induced to
study the diplomatic correspondence which preceded
the war, and to reahze that it makes one catchword, at
any rate — the catchword of the " aufo^ezwungenc
Kriec:;-" — a piece of rather brazen effrontery. It will
make, I think, for what may be called mundane sanity
if you and the more rational amono- your countrymen
can be brought to realize that Germany is something-
less than a suffering Christ, and England something
other than a covetous and rufilanly Judas.

Yet I would not have you misconceive my purpose.
I am not pleading for friendship or holding out a hand
towards reconciliation. Before that can come we must
have evidence of a change of heart in the German
people, going far beyond any mere admission that
their adversaries are not entirely contemptible. There
can be no joining of hands with Germany until she has
washed her hands of the pernicious theories of state-
craft and military policy which have made her conduct
of this war one long succession of crimes, from the
initial crime against Belgium onwards. I do not, of
course, expect you to admit any sort of justice in this
accusation. The question must be tried out at the bar
of history, if not (as one cannot but hope) before some
international tribunal that will be somewhat more
prompt in its verdict. " What a Utopian idea! " you
may say. But why should Germany decline to submit
her case to judgement, along with the counter-accusa-
tions which she brings against the Allies?' I do not

' One of these, in particular, you make your own. You say,
" Hij^hly-placed persons in Enji^land are not ashamed to deny the
existence of the Dum-Dum bullets which we find in the English
cartridge-cases." You must surely be aware that in all recent
wars both sides have been accused of using soft-nosed bullets —

OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 45

say that there is nothing at all in these accusations,
but I do say that there is an enormous excess of
savagery (often taking the form of deliberate crime)
to be placed to the charge of Germany. In denying
it, indeed, she is disloyal to the teachings of her
military philosophers (to say nothing of your old
schoolmate, Nietzsche), who had been careful to
justify it in advance.

Until these memories of blood and horror have died
away, or have been cancelled by a confession oftragic^
error and wrong-doing, there can be no approach to
friendship between our countries. But as estrange-
ment to all eternity is a mad and impossible idea, it
seemed worth while to attempt to clear the ground for
some approach to mutual understanding, by urging
upon a man of personal honour the fact — the amazing
fact, you will doubtless say — that men of personal
honour in England, so far from being ashamed of
their country's participation in the war, would have
held her eternally dishonoured had she acted other-
wise than as she did. Blind hatred and scorn for

the Germans ccilainly not excepted. Have you inquired at all
into the evidence for the finding of Dum-Duni bullets in British
-cartridge-cases? And supposing a few zvere found, should you
not think it reasonable to assume that sonie old cartridges had
been served out by mistake, rather than attribute to the British
Government the incredible folly of deliberately supplying a few
companies, or even a few battalions, with illegal ammunition?
For my part, my common sense rejects the accusation on both
sides. No Government is accused of making large and habitual
use of soft-nosed bullets ; and it would clearly not be worth the
while of any Government to lay itself open to the reproach of
breaking a convention, unless some considerable advantage were
to be gained by it. If you accuse a millionaire of stealing a
million pounds, I will examine your evidence carefully ; but if
you accuse him of filching a five-pound note, under circumstances
certain to lead to detection, 1 take no interest in the evidence,
for I am sure there has been some mistake.

46 THE VILLAIN OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY

adversaries can lead nowhither. Only by understand-
ing our opponents can we understand ourselves; and
believe me, sir, it will be to the ultimate advantage of
Germany if she will open her mind to the idea that
the motives which dragged England, sorely against
her will, into this war, cannot reasonably be dis-
missed in a formula of contempt. Your countrymen's
miraculous insight into the minds of other peoples is
one of their favourite topics of self-laudation. " We
understand all foreign nations,"says Professor Werner
vSombart; "none of them understands or can under-
stand us." It is true that there are many elements in
the German character which non-Germans find it hard
to understand; but as for the other half of the pro-
position, the war has surely demonstrated its falsity
beyond all possibility of doubt. If, in July 1914,
Germany had understood England — to say nothing
of France and Russia — she would never have thrown
down the gage of batde as she did. Let her take heed
lest, through arrogant incomprehension, she continue
to block the way to a saner and a happier world.

Yours, etc.,

WILLIAM ARCHER.

LoNnoN,
DecetnlcrZ, igi6

Printed in Great Britain by the Chiswick Press, Tooks Court,
Chancery Lane, London.

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