Part 14 (2/2)

He got no farther, for the cyclone broke. He had dared to do what no other man in Germany had done. He had publicly accused his Government of making the war. From that moment his doom was certain.

This narrative should be instructive to those Britishers and Americans who think it possible that German Socialists may one day have the power to end the war. There are two effective replies to this curious Anglo-Saxon misunderstanding of Germany. The first is that Liebknecht had not, and has not, the support of his own party; the second, that were that party twice as numerous as it is its votes would be worthless in view of the power wielded by the Kaiser's representative, von Bethmann-Hollweg, backed up by the Federal Council.

It is difficult to drive this fact into the heads of British and American people, who are both p.r.o.ne to judge German inst.i.tutions by their own.

For, remember always that behind the dominant Imperial Chancellor, von Bethmann-Hollweg, stands the All-Highest War Lord, and behind him, what is still, if damaged, the mightiest military machine in the world--the German Army. Opposed to that there is at present a slowly increasing Socialist vote--the two have grown to about twenty.

CHAPTER XV

PREVENTIVE ARREST

In the beginning of the war, when all seemed to be going well, there was no disunity in Germany. When Germany was winning victory after victory, practically no censors.h.i.+p was needed in the newspapers; the police were tolerant; every German smiled upon every other German; soldiers went forth singing and their trains were gaily decorated with oak leaves; social democracy praised militarism.

All that has changed and the hosts who went singing on their way in the belief that they would be home in six weeks, have left behind homes many of them bereaved by the immense casualties, and most of them suffering from the increased food shortage.

Cla.s.s feeling soon increased. The poor began to call the rich agrarians ”usurers.” The Government forbade socialistic papers such as the _Vorwaerts_ to use the word ”usurer” any more, because it was applied to the powerful junkers. Such papers as the _Tagliche Rundschau_ and the _Tageszeitung_ could continue to use it, however, for they applied it to the small shopkeeper who exceeded the maximum price by a fraction of a penny.

As the rigour of the blockade increased, the discontent of the small minority who were beginning to hate their own Government almost as much as, and in many cases more, than they hated enemies of Germany, a.s.sumed more threatening forms than mere discussion.

Their disillusionment regarding Germany's invincibility opened their eyes to faults at home. Some of the extreme Social Democrats were secretly spreading the treasonable doctrine that the German Government was not entirely blameless in the causes of the war. It has been my custom to converse with all cla.s.ses of society, and I was amazed at the increasing number of disgruntled citizens.

But the German Government is still determined to have unity. They had enlisted the services of editors, reporters, professors, parsons and cinema operators to create it; they are now giving the police an increasingly important role to maintain it.

As the German Parliament in no way resembles the British Parliament, so do the German, police in no way resemble the British police. The German police, mounted or unmounted, are armed with a revolver, a sword, and not infrequently provided with a machine-gun. They have powers of search and arrest without warrant. They are allowed at their discretion to strike or otherwise maltreat not only civilians, but soldiers. Always armed with extraordinary power, their position during the past few months has risen to such an extent that the words used in the Reichstag, ”The Reign of Terror,” are not an exaggeration.

Aided and even abetted by a myriad of spies and _agents-provocateurs_, they have placed under what is known as ”preventive arrest” throughout the German Empire and Austria so great a number of civilians that the German prisons, as has been admitted, are filled to repletion.

With the Reichstag shut up, and the hold on the newspapers tightening,-what opportunity remains by which independent thought can be disseminated?

In Poland meetings to consider what they call ”Church affairs,” but which were really revolutionary gatherings, afforded opportunity for discussion. These have been ruled out of order.

The lectures taking place in their thousands all over Germany might afford a chance of expression of opinion, but the professors, like the pastors, are, as I have said, so absolutely dependent upon the Government for their position and promotion, that I have only heard of one of them who had the temerity to make any speech other than those of the ”G.o.d-punish-England” and ”We-must-hold-out” type. His resignation from the University of Munich was immediately demanded, and any number of sycophants were ready to take his place.

Clubs are illegal in Germany, and the humblest working-men's _cafes_ are attended by spies. In my researches in the Berlin East-end I often visited these places and shared my adulterated beer and war bread with the working folk--all of them over or under military age.

One evening a shabby old man said rather more loudly than was necessary to a number of those round him:--”I am tired of reading in the newspapers how nice the war is. Even the _Vorwaerts_ (then a Socialist paper) lies to us. I am tired of walking home night after night and finding restaurants turned into hospitals for the wounded.”

He was referring in particular to the great _Schultheiss_ working-men's restaurants in Hasenheide. His remarks were received with obvious sympathy.

A couple of nights later I went into this same place and took my seat, but it was obvious that my visit was unwelcome. I was looked at suspiciously. I did not think very much of the incident, but ten days later in pa.s.sing I called again, when a l.u.s.ty young fellow of eighteen, to whom I had spoken on my first visit, came forward and said to me, almost threateningly, ”You are a stranger here.

May I ask what you are doing?”

I said: ”I am an American newspaper correspondent, and am trying to find out what I can about the ways of German working folk.”

He could tell by my accent that I was a foreigner, and said: ”We thought that you had told the Government about that little free speaking we had here a few days ago. You know that the little old man who was complaining about the restaurants being turned into hospitals has been arrested?”

This form of arrest, by which hundreds of people are mysteriously disappearing, is one of the burning grievances of Germany to-day.

In its application it resembles what we used to read about Russian police. It has created a condition beneath the surface in Germany resembling the terrorism of the French Revolution. In the absence of a Habeas Corpus Act, the victim lies in gaol indefinitely, while the police are, nominally, collecting the evidence against him.

One cannot move about very long without coming across instances of this growing form of tyranny, but I will merely give one other.

A German family, resident in Sweden, were in correspondence with a woman resident in Prussia. In one of her letters she incautiously remarked, ”What a pity that the two Emperors cannot be taught what war really means to the German peoples.” She had lost two sons, and her expression of bitterness was just a feminine outburst, which in any other country, would have been pa.s.sed by. She was placed under preventive arrest and is still in gaol.

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