Part 5 (2/2)
Sir Edward Goschen, the British Amba.s.sador, who was living on one of the British battles.h.i.+ps, sat on his right and I sat on his left. During the evening a curious incident happened. The Prince and I were talking of the dangers of after-dinner speaking and what a dangerous sport it was. In the midst of our conversation some one whispered to the Prince and he rose to his feet, proposed the health of the visiting British Admiral and fleet, and made a little speech. As he concluded, he said, addressing the officers of the British fleet: ”We are sorry you are going and we are sorry you came.” It is remarkable as showing the discipline of the German nation and their respect for authority that thereafter no German ever referred to this curious slip of the tongue. The night was rather mild and after dinner we walked about the gardens of the yacht club. I had a long and interesting conversation with the Prince of Monaco. That Prince, who receives such a large income from the company which carries on the gambling rooms at Monte Carlo, is a man of the world intensely interested in scientific research: there is practically no corner of the seven seas into which his yacht has not poked her nose in the search for material for the Sea Museum which he has established at Monaco.
On Tuesday Armour and I boarded the Emperor's sailing yacht, the new _Meteor_. The race was a beautiful run from Kiel to Eckernfjord and was won by the _Meteor_. As the Emperor was not on board, I did not get one of the souvenir scarf-pins always given to guests who sail with him on a winning race. Among our crew was Grand Admiral von Koster, subsequently an advocate of the ruthless submarine war.
Eckernfjord is a little fis.h.i.+ng and bathing town. Near by is the country residence of Prince Henry, a rather modest house, built in brick in English Elizabethan style. The wife of Prince Henry was a Princess of Hesse-Darmstadt and is the sister of the Czarina of Russia. We had tea with Prince and Princess Henry, their family, the Duke of Sonderburg-Glucksburg and several others of his family. The billiard room of the house is decorated with the large original caricatures made by McCutcheon of the Prince's stay in America. Prince and Princess Henry came out to dine on the _Utowana_, and Armour and the Prince went ash.o.r.e to attend another _Bierabend_, but I dodged the smoke and beer and remained on board. Before he left the yacht, I had a talk with Prince Henry. He seemed most exercised over the dislike of the Germans by all other peoples and asked me why I thought it existed. I politely told him that I thought it existed because of the success which the Germans had had in all fields of endeavour, particularly in manufacturing and commerce. He said, with great truth, that he believed a great deal of it came from the bad manners of the travelling Germans. Prince Henry is an able and reasonable man with a most delightful manner. He speaks English with a perfect English accent, and I think would be far happier as an English country gentleman than as the Grand Admiral of the German Baltic Fleet. He has been devoted to automobiling and has greatly encouraged that industry in Germany. The Automobile Club of Berlin is his particular pet.
On returning to Kiel next day we spent several days longer there.
I lunched on board his battles.h.i.+p with Grand Admiral von Tirpitz, sitting next to him at the table. He struck me then as an amiable sea dog, combining much political and worldly wisdom with his knowledge of the sea. From Kiel we motored one night to dine with a Count and Countess in their country house. This house had been built perhaps two hundred years, and was on one side of a square, the other three sides being formed by the great stone barns in which the produce of the estate was stored. Although the first floor of the house was elevated about eight feet above the ground, the family, on account of the dampness of that part of the world, lived in the second story, and the dining room was on this story. An ancestor of the Count had, at a time when this part of the country was part of Denmark and about the year 1700, lent all his available money to the King of Denmark. A crude painting in the hall showed him sitting in the hall of this particular house, smoking a long pipe and surrounded by three or four sisters who were all spinning. Our hostess told us that this picture represented the lending ancestor being supported by his sisters while waiting the return of the loan which he had made to the Danish king, an early example of the situation disclosed by the popular song which runs: ”Everybody works but father.” Of course, no one ever expected a Prussian n.o.bleman to do any work except in the line of war or in governing the inferior cla.s.ses of the country.
CHAPTER VII
THE SYSTEM
People of other countries have been wondering why it is that the German government is able so easily to impose its will upon the German people. I have set out in another chapter, in detail, the political system from which you have seen that the Reichstag is nothing but a debating society; that the Prussians do not really have universal suffrage but, by reason of the vicious circle system of voting, the elective franchise remains in the hands of the few; and that the government of the country through the _Landrate_, _Regierungsprasidenten_ and _Oberprasidenten_ is a central system from above downwards and not the election of the rulers by the people; and, in the chapter on militarism and Zabern, I have told by what means the control of the army is kept in the hands of the cla.s.s of n.o.bles.
These are not the only means by which the system controls the country. These alone would not suffice. From the time when he is four years old, the German is disciplined and taught that his government is the only good and effective form. The teachers in the schools are all government paid and teach the children only the principles desired by the rulers of the German people.
There are no Sat.u.r.day holidays in the German schools and their summer holidays are for only three to five weeks. You never see gangs of small boys in Germany. Their games and their walks are superintended by their teachers who are always inculcating in them reverence and awe for the military heroes of the past and present. On Sat.u.r.day night the German boy is turned over by the State paid school teacher to the State paid pastor who adds divine authority to the principles of reverence for the German system.
There is a real system of caste in Germany. For instance, I was playing tennis one day with a man and, while dressing afterwards, I asked him what he was. He answered that he was a _Kaufmann_, or merchant. For the German this answer was enough. It placed him in the merchant cla.s.s. I asked him what sort of a _Kaufmann_ he was. He then told me he was president of a large electrical company. Of course, with us he would have answered first that he was president of the electrical company, but being a German he simply disclosed his caste without going into details. It is a curious thing on the registers of guests in a German summer resort to see Mrs. Manufactory-Proprietor Schultze registered with Mrs. Landrat Schwartz and Mrs. Second Lieutenant von Bing.
Of course, there is no doubt as to the relative social positions of Mrs. Manufactory-Proprietor Schultze and Mrs. Second Lieutenant von Bing. Mrs. Manufactory-Proprietor Schultze may have a steam yacht and a tiara, an opera box and ten million marks. She may be an old lady noted for her works of charity. Her husband may have made discoveries of enormous value to the human race, but she will always be compelled to take her place behind Mrs. Second Lieutenant von Bing, even if the latter is only seventeen years old.
Of course, occasionally, officers of the army and navy condescend to marry into the merchant caste, and if a girl has a choice of three equally attractive young men, one a doctor, earning ten thousand dollars a year; one a manufacturer, earning the same amount; and one an army officer with a ”von” before his name and three thousand dollars a year, there is no hesitation on her part: she takes the n.o.ble and the army officer.
For years all the highest official positions of the government have been held by members of the Prussian n.o.ble cla.s.s, and when Zimmermann, of a substantial family in East Prussia, but not of n.o.ble birth, was made Foreign Minister, the most intense surprise was exhibited all over Germany at this innovation.
One of the most successful ways of disciplining the people is by the _Rat_ system. _Rat_ means councillor, and is a t.i.tle of honour given to any one who has attained a certain measure of success or standing in his chosen business or profession.
For instance, a business man is made a commerce _Rat_; a lawyer, a justice _Rat_; a doctor, a sanitary _Rat_; an architect or builder, a building _Rat_; a keeper of the archives, an archive _Rat_; and so on. They are created in this way: first, a man becomes a plain _Rat_, then, later on, he becomes a secret _Rat_ or privy councillor; still later, a court secret _Rat_ and, later still, a _wirklicher_, or really and truly secret court _Rat_ to which may be added the t.i.tle of Excellency, which puts the man who has attained this absolutely at the head of the _Rat_ ladder.
But see the insidious working of the system. By German custom the woman always carries the husband's t.i.tle. The wife of a successful builder is known as Mrs. Really Truly Secret Court Building _Rat_ and her social precedence over the other women depends entirely upon her husband's position in the _Rat_ cla.s.s. t.i.tles of n.o.bility alone do not count when they come in contact with a high government position. Now if a lawyer gets to be about forty years old and is not some sort of a _Rat_, his wife begins to nag him and his friends and relations look at him with suspicion. There must be something in his life which prevents his obtaining the coveted distinction and if there is anything in a man's past, if he has shown at any time any spirit of opposition to the government, as disclosed by the police registers, which are kept written up to date about every German citizen, then he has no chance of obtaining any of these distinctions which make up so much of the social life of Germany. It is a means by which the government keeps a far tighter hold on the intellectual part of its population than if they were threatened with torture and the stake. The Social Democrats, who, of course, have declared themselves against the existing system of government and in favour of a republic, can receive no distinctions from the government because they dared to lift their voices and their pens in criticism of the existing order. For them there is the fear of the law. Convictions for the crime of _Lese-Majeste_ are of almost daily occurrence and, at the opening of the war, an amnesty was granted in many of these cases, the ministry of war withdrawing many prosecutions against poor devils waiting their trial in jail because they had dared to speak disrespectfully of the army. The following quotation from a German book, written since the war, shows very clearly that this state of affairs existed: ”In the beneficent atmosphere of general amnesty came the news that the Minister of War had withdrawn pending prosecutions against newspapers on account of their insults to the army or its members.” (Dr. J. Jastrow, ”Im Kriegszustand.”)
Besides the _Rat_ system and the military system, there exists the enormous ma.s.s of Prussian officials. In a country where so many things are under government control these officials are almost immeasurably more numerous than in other countries.
In Prussia, for example, all the railways are government-owned, with the exception of one road about sixty miles long and a few small branch roads. This army of officials are retainers of the government, and not only, of course, themselves refrain from criticising the system, but also use their influence upon the members of their own family and all with whom they come in contact.
They are subject to trial in special secret courts and one of them who dared in any way to criticise the existing system would not for long remain a member of it. Of course, the members of the Reichstag have the privilege of free speech without responsibility, and there are occasional Socialists, who know that they have nothing to expect from the government, who dare to speak in criticism.
All the newspapers are subject to control as in no other country.
In the first place their proprietors are subject to the influence of the _Rat_ system as is every other German, and the newspaper proprietor, whose sons perhaps enter the army, whose daughters may be married to naval officers or officials, and who seeks for his sons promotion as judge, state's attorney, etc., has to be very careful that the utterances of his newspaper do not prevent his promotion in the social scale or interfere with the career of his family and relations.
Since the war while a preventive censure does not exist in Germany nevertheless a newspaper may be suppressed at will; a fearful punishment for a newspaper, which, by being suppressed for, say, five days or a week, has its business affairs thrown into the utmost confusion and suffers an enormous direct loss.
Many of the larger newspapers are either owned or influenced by concerns like the Krupps'. For instance, during this war, all news coming from Germany to other countries has been furnished by either the Over-Seas Or Trans-Ocean service, both news agencies in which the Krupps are large stockholders. The smaller newspapers are influenced directly by the government.
In the Middle Ages there was often declared a sort of truce to prevent fighting in a city, which was called the _Burgfrieden_ or ”peace of the city,” and, at the beginning of this war, all political parties were supposed to declare a sort of _Burgfrieden_ and not try to obtain any political advantage.
There was, therefore, intense indignation among the Social Democrats of Germany when it was discovered, in the spring of 1916, that the Minister of the Interior was making arrangements to send out news service to be furnished free to the smaller newspapers, and that he was engaged in instructing the various _Landrate_ and other officials of the Interior Department how effectively to use this machinery in order to gull the people to the advantage of the government, and to keep them in ignorance of anything which might tend to turn them against the system.
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