Part 13 (2/2)
The King of Prussia, German Emperor, just to keep his hand in, stimulates the military virtues of his recruits, and for the hundredth time presides over the taking of the oath of fidelity. He teaches the recruits that the eagle is a n.o.ble bird, which soars aloft into the skies and fears no danger; also, that it is the business of the said recruits to imitate the eagle. He adds that the German navy is the only real one, that all others are spurious imitations, and he concludes by saying that ”the German Navy will achieve prosperity and greatness along paths of peace, for the good of the Fatherland, as it will in war, so as to be able, if G.o.d will, to crush the enemy.”
William II never speaks of conquering the enemy or being superior to him; it is always ”crush.” It is this crus.h.i.+ng German navy that our sailors are to go and salute at Kiel.
It looks as if our artists were lending a hand to William, and gratifying this pa.s.sion of his for crus.h.i.+ng people. An Alsatian friend of mine, who knows his Germany well, said to me the other day that, in sending their pictures for exhibition at Berlin, our painters are likely to ruin their own market. For a long time the King of Prussia has wanted to have a _salon_ at Berlin, and he looks to French painters to give it brilliancy and to attract those foreign artists who are accustomed to French exhibitions. Once it has become the fas.h.i.+on to go to Berlin, French artists will find that they have helped to ruin their own business. How can anybody suppose that William II really wishes to do honour to French art? Do not let us forget that Frederick III said ”France must have her industrial Sedan, as she has had her military Sedan.”
March 28, 1895. [10]
It seems then, that Germany's proudest ambitions are about to be realised at the fetes at Kiel. That patriotic hymn of theirs, which up to the present has been a dead letter for those peoples who have not yet been incorporated in the Prussianised Empire, will now become a living thing. Henceforward all Europe must hear and accept the offensive utterance which the Germans shout: ”Deutschland uber Alles!”
Yes, Germany over all things.
That her Emperor should have willed it, is enough to bring together in his triumphant procession all the following--
Russia, despoiled of her triumph at Constantinople by the Congress of Berlin, and exposed on her flank by the Baltic Ca.n.a.l.
England, tricked at Heligoland and at Zanzibar, and whose power is threatened by the very fleet which she is going to salute.
Spain, threatened in the Carolines, who has only been protected from Prussian presumption by her own indomitable pride.
Denmark, cynically robbed of Schleswig-Holstein.
Italy, from whom the German navy, when it has become the equal of the German army and fulfilled the dream of William II, will take Trieste.
It is true that, to make up for Trieste, diplomacy at Berlin is putting Salonika in pickle with a good deal of English pepper, intending to offer it as a _hors d'oeuvre_ to Austria, Germany's advanced and submissive sentinel in the East.
France, the most deeply injured and despoiled, whom the German conquest has plundered to the utmost, she also will take part in the procession, and in order that our humiliation be the more complete, so that the French army may be unable to forgive the French navy for it, our Flag, our beloved colours, will doubtless salute one of those Prussian vessels which carry the name of one of our defeats, for instance, the _Worth_!
After that, William II, King of Prussia, will be unable to descry a single cloud on the German horizon. And Germany, Germany will be above and over all! The glory and the splendour of the Hohenzollerns will s.h.i.+ne upon the entire universe, and the German Emperor, Emperor of Emperors, like the King of Kings, will have nothing to fear until the Heavens fall.
And we, who have forgotten nothing of the Terrible Year and what it took from us, we, who can see under the left breast of our beloved France, her bleeding heart, ravished Alsace-Lorraine, we shall lift our eyes unto Heaven, our last hope, beseeching it to strike down the presumptuous one, since men are afraid of him.
April 10, 1895. [11]
It has always been a dream of mine to see a newspaper founded under the t.i.tle _Foreign Opinion_, a sheet confined to information, in which would be presented, clearly, simply, and held together by an intelligent sequence of ideas, quotations from the princ.i.p.al organs of those countries in which we have interests, either identical or opposed. Statesmen and Members of Parliament would be compelled to read such a paper. A knowledge of foreign opinion would render the greatest services to public opinion in this country, for it would compel our somewhat self-centred mind to take into consideration the judgment of others, to determine the justice or the harshness of the criticism directed against us, and to draw, from the study of these things, warnings and rules of conduct.
To take an immediate instance, let me give my readers an extract from the _Munchner Nachtrichten_, a newspaper, which as a rule does not share the brutal harshness of the Berlin Press with regard to our feelings and their expression in French newspapers--
”These foolishly vain Frenchmen, sitting in their meagre little thicket of laurels, contemplate with evident displeasure the stirring of the winds in the great forest of German oaks, and their discontent finds expression in ways that are frequently comical. The _Figaro_ for example, has expressed it in an article which is particularly silly (with a kind of foolishness not often found even in a French newspaper, which is saying a good deal). It denies to Germans the right to remember the glorious years of 1870 and '71, for the reason that French people might thereby be hurt. Does it mean to say that the French would threaten us with war if we continue to celebrate our victories over them? Well, if these gentlemen are of that opinion, we will answer them that Germany is peacefully inclined, but that, if the French are not satisfied with the severe lesson that we gave them in 1870-71, we are quite prepared to begin it all over again.”
And these are the people, mind you, who would have said that we were trying to provoke them if, faithful to the memory of our defeat, as they are to the memory of their victory, we had abstained from going to Kiel to sing the glories of the conqueror. Like William II, their Sovereign and Lord, Germany will never admit that our actions should be a counterpart to their own, even though such actions should include recognition of their former victories. They wish to impose upon us, not only the acceptance of defeat, but a definite recognition of their conquest, a final sacrifice of our ancient rights, together with unlimited scope for their new ambitions. The German Emperor, King of Prussia, has never made two consecutive speeches in which one did not contain some threat for us, long or short-dated. If one were to add together all the words of peace which William has spoken and all his war-like utterances, the ma.s.s of the latter would irretrievably swamp all the rest.
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