Part 25 (1/2)
And he explained how things were managed in his trade, at the factory.
If one of the workmen was unfairly treated, or if the pay was considered too small, then they had a thorough good strike. They took care to choose the best possible time for it, when the manufacturers had the most pressing work to do. The trade-union, to which of course they all had to belong, kept blacklegs at a distance, and they went on doggedly righting until new terms had been won. Certainly the workmen did not invariably carry all their demands; but a strike seldom ended without their gaining some solid advantage. Yes, the workers had only to show the world that they were a power; that they were not going to be trampled on for ever; that they intended henceforth to have their share of the profits which they had hitherto been putting into the pockets of the rich, although earned by their own toil and sweat.
Or Weise would reckon how much was spent in one day's gun-practice.
Each shot cost about fifteen marks; and the sixth battery alone had fired about a hundred and twenty shots that morning. There were six batteries in each regiment, four regiments in each army-corps, and twenty-three army-corps in the whole of Germany.
”Any-one who likes can reckon it up,” said Weise. ”In any case the money would be enough to give every poor devil in the whole world one happy day!”
He pulled out a sheet of paper and read from it the sum that Germany spent annually on her army. It made the men open their eyes pretty wide. An incredible sum, truly, of which they could form no clear idea at all.
Sometimes one of them would say! ”But look here, old man; suppose there was war, and we had no soldiers?”
”War! war!” said Weise. ”What is war, pray? Who is it that makes war?
Do you want war? Do you want to have to go and stand up like those targets out there and be hit on the skull or in the belly by the shrapnel?”
”Not I.”
”Perhaps you would, Findeisen?”
”I? G.o.d d.a.m.n me--no!”
”Or you, Truchsess?”
The brewer thought a moment, and answered:
”No, certainly not. I wish for peace. But the French might want to fight us, or the Russians.”
”Ha, ha!” laughed Weise. ”Well, now, think about it a moment. Over there in France are sitting together just such poor simple fellows as we are here. Ask them if they want to let themselves be shot dead in a moment without rhyme or reason? Do you expect them to say yes?”
”No, of course not. But--but--then who is it who really does want war?”
Weise did not speak for a moment, but laughed softly. Then he answered, shrugging his shoulders: ”Ah, that I don't know. Probably n.o.body. So much only is clear: _we_ don't want it.”
During these conversations, Wolf, the lean gunner of the ”old gang,”
was always careful to hold aloof. He listened to the talk, but never joined in it. When his comrades had gone in to bed, he would stay on, gazing out into the beautiful night of the woods. No one longed as fervently as he did for the end of the term of service. He, who had been wont to grudge every day on which he had done nothing to further the cause of revolution and social-democracy, was forbidden for two long years to allow a word to pa.s.s his lips about what lay nearest his heart! Yet he was all the more cautious not to commit any indiscretions that might perhaps entail a prolongation of the hateful restraint.
Hitherto he had had but a vague comprehension of the idea of freedom; now he felt that he grasped it. Freedom! It meant the time after his discharge--the time when he would no longer wear the soldier's uniform!
When, during these weeks, Wolf had been an auditor of Weise's covertly inflammatory speeches, he had longed each time to step forward and speak out too. He knew that his own words would have flowed far more convincingly and more pa.s.sionately than Weise's. But he knew also that in such case he would only have the greater difficulty in restraining himself afterwards; so he kept silence.
However, the end was attained without his help. It was quite remarkable how after such conversations these peasant lads and the others, who up to now had heard nothing of socialism and labour movements, rapidly a.s.similated the new and palatable wisdom, although no word of direct propaganda had been spoken. And if this result was so marked in their own corps, where the work was not very irksome or heavy, what must it not be among the infantry over yonder, where any small spark of liking for the soldier's life must be quenched by the deadly monotony of eternal parade-drill!
Not long before, a man had suddenly gone mad in the middle of drill.
What was responsible for this calamity? The sun, over-exertion, perhaps an inherited tendency that would in any case sooner or later have resulted in such a catastrophe? No one could say with any certainty.
But the men who had seen and heard how the poor fellow writhed and shrieked, gripped their rifles tightly, and the same thought could plainly be read in the eyes of them all.
No wonder that the period of military service was extremely favourable to the spread of social-democracy! Such sensational object-lessons were not necessary; the circ.u.mstances of every-day life all pointed towards socialism.