Part 18 (2/2)
Ist's wo am Belt die Move zieht?
O nein! O nein! O nein!
Sein Vaterland muss grosser sein.
”Des ganze Deutschland soil es sein!
O Gott vom Himmel, sieh' darein, Und gib uns rechten deutschen Muth; Da.s.s wir es lieben treu und gut!
Des soil es sein! des soil es sein!
Des ganze Deutschland soll es sein!”
The official t.i.tle of the sovereign is not Emperor of Germany, or Emperor of the Germans, but German Emperor. Thus the territorial rights of other heads of states are safeguarded. Even the popularity of the first Emperor, who wished to be named Emperor of Germany and who disputed with Bismarck for hours over the question, could not bring this about, and he was proclaimed at Versailles merely German Emperor.
However heavy the burden of armament may be, we must be careful to put such expenditure in its proper perspective and in its proper relations, not only to the German Empire, which for official, clerical, and statistical matters is quite a different ent.i.ty, but to ”das ganze Deutschland.” The German Empire is the clearinghouse, the adjutant, the executive officer, the official clerk, the representative in many social, financial, military, and diplomatic capacities of Germany; but it is not, and never for a moment should be confused with, what all Germans love, and what it has cost them blood and tears and great sacrifices to bring into the circle of the nations, the German Fatherland!
In 1910 the total funded debt of the empire amounted to 4,896,600,000 marks, and the debt in 1912 had risen to 5,396,887,801 marks. In the six years ending March, 1911, Germany's debt increased by $415,000,000.
In 1910 the funded debt of Germany (empire and states) was $4,896,600,000; of France $6,905,000,000; of England $3,894,500,000, and of Russia $4,880,750,000. It is a curious psychical and social phenomenon that, though we are as suspicious as criminals of one another's good faith in keeping the peace, we are veritable angels of innocence in trusting one another financially, for back of these huge debts we keep in ready money, that is, gold, to pay them: Germany at the present writing $275,000,000 in the Reichsbank; France $640,000,000 in the Bank of France; England a paltry $175,000,000 in the Bank of England; and Russia $625,000,000 in the Bank of Russia. We all live upon credit, an elastic moral tie which seems to be illimitably stretchable, and both a nation's and an individual's wealth is measured not by what he has, but by what he is, that is to say, by his character or credit. It is startling to find how we distrust one another along certain lines and how we trust one another along others. The total amount of gold in these four countries would just about pay the interest at four per cent. for two years on their total indebtedness!
From what we have seen of the proportion of expenditure that goes to military purposes, it cannot be denied that Germany is increasing her liabilities at an extraordinary rate, and largely for purposes of protection. In the last two years the interest on her increased debt alone, at four per cent., amounts to $5,000,000; while the interest at four per cent. upon military expenditures of all kinds amounts to the tidy sum of $20,000,000 per annum. The German, however, faces these facts and figures, not as a matter of choice, not as a matter of insurance wholly, but as a hard necessity. It is what the delayed conversion of the world is costing him, not to speak of what it costs the rest of us. He is surrounded by enemies; he is not by nature a fighting man; his whole industrial and commercial progress and his ama.s.sed wealth have come from training, training, training; and he sees no alternative, and I am bound to say that I see none either, but a nation trained also to defence, cost what it may.
The last German estimates (1912) balance with a revenue and expenditure of $671,222,605. The naval expenditure is put at $114,306,575; the army expenditure is put at $192,627,080. Both the army and navy are being largely increased. In the year 1916 the strength of the navy is expected to be about 79,000 men, and of the army and navy combined 767,000. In the last ten years two nations have almost doubled their naval personnel: Germany has increased hers from 31,157 to 60,805, and Austria-Hungary from 9,069 to 17,277. In Great Britain the increase has been about one seventh, and this one seventh is about equal to the present strength of Austria.
The gross naval expenditure, estimated, of the United States for 1912 amounts to $132,848,030, and the number of men 63,468. The gross naval expenditure of Great Britain, estimated, for the same year is put at $224,410,235, and the number of men 134,000. The gross naval expenditure of Germany is put at $114,306,575, which includes $489,235 for air-s.h.i.+ps and experiments therewith, the number of men 66,783.
France proposes to spend, plus an addition due to operations in Morocco, $90,000,000, number of men 58,404; and j.a.pan $44,309,145, number of men 49,389. Two new corps have been voted for the German army, to be numbered 24 and 25; one is for the Russian frontier, with head-quarters at Allenstein, and the other for the French frontier, with head-quarters at Sarrebourg or Mulhouse. A German army corps on a war footing comprises about 52,000 men, with 150 guns and 16,000 horses. The reader should notice, as a reminder of the still latent jealousies of the different states of the German Empire, that the three army corps raised in Bavaria are not numbered consecutively, twenty-one, twenty-two, and twenty-three, but one, two, and three!
To the American the pay of the German troops, officers and men, is ludicrously small. It is evident that men do not undertake to fit themselves to be officers, and to struggle through frequent and severe examinations to remain officers, for the pay they receive. A lieutenant receives for the first three years $300 a year, from the fourth to the sixth year $425, from the seventh to the ninth year $495, from the tenth to the twelfth year $550, and after the twelfth year $600 a year. A captain receives from the first to the fourth year $850, from the fifth to the eighth year $1,150, and the ninth year and after $1,275 a year. Of one hundred officers who join, only an average of eight ever attain to the command of a regiment. In Bavaria and Wurtemberg, promotion is quicker by from one to three years than in Prussia. In Prussia promotion to Oberleutnant averages 10 years, to captain or Rittmeister 15 years, to major 25 years, to colonel 33 years, and to general 37 years. It would not be altogether inhuman if these gentlemen occasionally drank a toast to war and pestilence!
A commanding general, or general inspector of cavalry or field artillery, receives $3,495; a division commander, or inspector of cavalry, field and heavy artillery, $3,388; a brigade commander, $2,565; commander of a regiment, or officer of the general staff of the same rank, $2,193. There are various additions to these sums for travelling, keep of horses, house-rent, and the like. All soldiers and officers travel at reduced rates on the railways, and are allowed a certain amount of luggage free. It is a commentary upon the three nations, that in Germany the soldier receives a reduced rate when travelling, in England the golfer pays a reduced rate, and in America, until lately, the politicians were given free pa.s.ses. One could almost produce the three countries from that limited knowledge.
At the cadet school at Gross Lichterfelde there are a thousand pupils.
They are taught riding, swimming, dancing, French, English, mathematics, and of course receive technical military instruction. The fee is $200, but for the sons of officers, and according to their means, the fees are reduced to $112, $75, and even as low as $22, and in some deserving cases no fee at all is charged.
There is no professional army in Germany, as in England and in America. Every German who is physically fit must serve practically from the age of seventeen to forty-five. Those in the infantry serve two years; those in the cavalry and horse artillery and mounted rifles, three years. About forty-eight per cent. who are examined are rejected as unfit, not necessarily because they are incapable of service, but because the expense of training all is too great. These men receive 40 pfennigs a day, 27 pfennigs being deducted for their food.
There are some 40,000 men who join the army voluntarily for a term of two or three years, and who re-enlist and become non-commissioned officers, and if they remain twelve years they are ent.i.tled to $200 on leaving the service, and head the lists of candidates for the railway, postal, police, street-cleaning, and other civil services. Some 10,000 men who have pa.s.sed a certain examination serve only one year and are ent.i.tled to certain privileges.
Each man in the infantry serves 2 years in the active army, 5 years in the active reserve, 5 years in the first division of the Landwehr, 6 years in the second division of the Landwehr, and 6 years in the Landsturm. Colonel Gadke calculates that Germany has now under arms not less than 714,000 soldiers and sailors, and that 4,800,000 can be put into the field if wanted out of the 6,000,000 who have done service with the colors. Out of this enormous total, practically none, according to the last census, is illiterate. Our American census of 1910 gives the number of men of militia age in New England as 1,458,900, and in the whole country 20,473,684.
Promotion from the ranks, as we understand it, is practically unknown.
The German officers pa.s.s through the ranks, it is true, as part of their education at the beginning of their military career, but those who do so join in the beginning as candidates for commissions, and have been provisionally accepted by the commander and officers of the regiment they propose to join, as must every candidate for a commission in the German army. If the candidate is not wanted, it is hinted to him that this is the case, and he must go elsewhere, as this decision is final. Every German regiment's officers' mess is thus in some sort a club.
Officers are supplied from the cadet corps, and from those who join the ranks as candidates for commissions. All cadets must pa.s.s through a war-school before obtaining a commission. Of these there are 10 in Prussia, Wurtemberg, and Saxony, and 1 at Munich in Bavaria. They there receive their commissions as second lieutenants. There are 9 Prussian schools, the Hauptkadettenanstalt at Gross Lichterfelde, and 8 Kadetten-Hauser; and 1 at Dresden and 1 at Munich. Some of these I have visited, and been made at home with the greatest courtesy and hospitality. These German cadet schools are to a great extent charitable inst.i.tutions for the sons of officers and civilian officials. The charges range, as I have indicated above, from $200 a year to nothing at all.
There are in addition schools of musketry, a school for instruction in machine-gun practice, instruction in infantry battalion practice, a school of military gymnastics, of military equitation, officers'
riding-schools, a military technical academy at Charlottenburg, where officers may study the technical engineering and communication services, an artillery and engineer school at Munich, a field-artillery school of gunnery, a foot-artillery school of gunnery, a cavalry telegraph school, and the staff colleges.
Of technical military matters I know nothing. I have some experience in handling horses in harness and under saddle, and on subjects with which I am familiar I venture to pa.s.s judgments in the cla.s.s-room. I have visited many of these cla.s.s-rooms, and listened to the teaching and lectures in French, English, strategy, and political geography, and kindred topics, and if the rest of the instruction is on a par with what I heard there is no criticism to be made. I may not say where, but one of the instructors in French was a real pleasure to listen to.
The courses and examinations which lead up, in the Kriegesakademie, or staff college, to the grade of fitness for the general staff, or the technical division of the general staff, or administrative staff work, or employment as instructors, are of the very stiffest. An officer who succeeds in reaching such proficiency, that he is sent up to the general staff must be a very blue ribbon of a scholar in his own field.
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