Part 16 (1/2)
September 31, 1897. [17]
You and I, all of us, we French people in particular, who think that we were born clever, we are all a pack of credulous fools. Let any one take the trouble to put a little consistency, a little continuity, into the business of fooling us--especially about outside matters whose origins we ignore, or people whose history we have not closely followed--and we will swallow anything!
All of us Republicans, all the Liberals of the Second Empire, Edmond Adam, our friends, our group,--great Heavens! how we swallowed German republicanism and liberalism! With what brotherly emotion did we not sympathise with the misfortunes of those who, like ourselves, were the vanquished victims of tyranny! We, Frenchmen and Germans alike, were defending the same principles, the same cause; we were fighting the same good fight for the emanc.i.p.ation of ideas, for the levelling of intellectual frontiers, etc., etc.
How well I remember the friendly _abandon_ of Louis Bamberger in our midst! Truly these Prussian Liberals and ourselves held the same opinions concerning everything, far or near, which bore upon intellectual independence, upon progress and civilisation. And since we were united by such a complete understanding, such ident.i.ty of ideas, it was our duty to work together: our German friends for the triumph of liberalism in France, and we, for the triumph of liberalism in Germany. As to such questions as those of territorial frontiers, or the banks of the Rhine, Bamberger used to ask, ”Who thinks of such things in Germany? No one! They had other things to think about!”
The heart's desire of the sons of the German revolution of 1848-49 was a universal republic, universal brotherhood, and nothing else. We believed him, but for what an awakening! Hardly were the Germans in France, than all the orders dictated by Bismarck were translated into French by Louis Bamberger.
A book by Dr. Hans Blum, which has just been published in Berlin under the t.i.tle of ”_The German Revolution of 1848-1849_,” throws even more light on the ”brotherly” sentiments of German republicans. In this book Dr. Blum recalls a speech made in the Palatinate on May 27, 1832.
This is what the orator said: ”There can only be one opinion amongst Germans, and only one voice, to proclaim that, on our side, we would not accept liberty as the price of giving the left bank of the Rhine to France. Should France show a desire to seize even an inch of German territory, all internal dissensions would cease at once and all Germany would rise to demand the retrocession of Alsace-Lorraine, for the deliverance of our country.”
That is how German Republicans thought, as far back as 1832. In 1868-69 they made us swallow once again ideas of brotherhood from beyond the Rhine, by lulling our perspicacity, by enervating the courage we used to display towards _foreigners_, and it was several weeks before we realised in 1870 that _all Germany_, from one end to the other, was of the same type of honesty, the same character as the Ems telegram.
We are nothing but fools, credulous fools, if we believe that any German can think otherwise than as a member of united, that is to say Prussianised, Germany, or if we imagine that Prussia is anything but the complete, total, unique, fully accepted, a.s.similated and admired expression of German patriotism. Prussia is the fine flower, the ripe fruit of German unity. A few Bavarians, a few so-called German liberals, may pretend to be restive under the despotism of the King of Prussia, but they accept unreservedly the authority of the German Emperor. And what is more, it is just as he is, that they wish their Emperor to be, thus they have imagined, thus they have made him. He is like unto them in their own image, he governs them according to their own mind. There may be some who, as a matter of personal inclination, might prefer to have more liberalism, but whenever Germanism is in question it is personified in William II, King of Prussia. Berlin is the capital of all the Germans upon earth.
During these past few days, in the Vienna Parliament, whilst an orator on the Government side was singing the praises of the Emperor Francis Joseph, a German Austrian exclaimed--an Austrian, mark you--”_Our_ Emperor is William II.”
The credulous fools of the moment in France are the Socialists. Just as we believed in the liberalism of German Liberals before 1870, so French Socialists now believe in the internationalism of German Socialists. With greater sincerity than anything displayed by the old German Liberals of before 1870, the Socialists of Hamburg have taken the trouble to enlighten their French brethren with regard to their real sentiments. Herr Liebknecht himself has explained their att.i.tude; his words may be summed up as follows: ”The Socialists of France are our brothers, but if they wanted to take back Alsace-Lorraine, we should regard them as enemies.”
There is nothing more remarkable than these German Socialists and their congresses, these fellows who always preach to other nations against patriotism, and never come together except to make speeches about the Fatherland. At the Hamburg Congress, Auer, the socialist deputy, looked into the future and saw ”the Cossacks trampling underfoot all the liberties of Western Europe.” What tyranny of barbarians could be more cruel than the tyranny of Germany which, wherever it extends, oppresses the racial instincts of mankind, ruins and absorbs a people, reducing it to servitude by the a.s.sertion of the rights of a superior race over its inferiors.
Has the Hamburg Congress disabused the minds of French Socialists on the brotherhood of their German brethren? Let us hope that it will not be necessary for them, as it was for us, to hear the thunder of German guns to understand that all parties in Germany are included in the _German party_, and that those who believe anything else are nothing but poor deluded dupes.
October 26, 1897. [18]
Those amongst us who, hour by hour, have devoted their lives to the service of our mutilated country, have for their object, each within the humble limits of his individual efforts, the glorification of France and that of Russia, the greatness of the one being dependent on the greatness of the other. This twofold devotion, and dual service keep our fears perpetually alert in two directions; how great are those two commingled sources of fear when patriotic Frenchmen, like patriotic Russians, come to consider the bewildering development of Prussian power--a veritable process of absorption.
German policy knows no laws except those of which Prussia is sole beneficiary. Only that which is profitable to Prussia is good; the rest, all the rest, is a negligible quant.i.ty. Moral precepts, religious brotherhood, higher education by force of example, a sense of justice applied to the fair apportioning of influence, vested rights, and a reasonable idea of reciprocity--all such things are moons.h.i.+ne for Prussia. The sole object that Prussian Germany pursues is brutal conquest in all its forms. By all conceivable means to get a footing for herself, here, there and everywhere; by the most energetic and methodical diplomacy possible, by military science, by trade and manufactures, by emigration and the race-spirit, and at the same time by subterranean methods of allurement and by insolent threats; these are her purposes and she accomplishes something of them every day.
When one reflects what Germany's objects were, and what she has achieved in the Eastern question, to what humiliations and cross purposes she has exposed and reduced Europe, to what contempt for her own interests, what bewilderment and impotence, then, I repeat, the stoutest heart may have good cause for fear.
Turkey, galvanised by Germany, has become a force to inspire terror amongst Christians in the East and throughout the whole range of European civilisation, where it comes into contact with Mussulmans, in all parts of the world. All the slow-moving patience of Russian and French diplomacy for centuries, all the long struggles of the Crusades have been robbed of their garnered fruits in a few months. German policy has overthrown all their influence, destroyed all their approach works, released Europe's va.s.sal from all his promises and obligations.
The Sick Man, cured by a quack who holds his health in p.a.w.n, has bound himself body and soul to his healer.
Greece, frequently hesitating in her policy between British and French sympathies, has nothing to hope for in the future from Turkophil Germany. William II will make her recovery a matter of limitations and bargaining. And who knows but that the strange proceedings of Prince Constantine and of the royal princes, his brothers, may not be explained by secret promises for the future--promises made by the German Emperor in return for blind submission to his will?
William II holds Turkey in the hollow of his hand. Byzantium and Rome are va.s.sals of a German monarch. If Rome is threatened with ruin by her alliance with the King of Prussia, Byzantium is restored by a new Caraculla. William II is, therefore, twice ent.i.tled to wear the sphere with the Imperial crown atop, as the emblem of his sovereign power and as the imitator of the Roman Emperor. And notwithstanding the Anti-Christ protection which he extends to the infidel, he can also affix the Cross to his sphere. Is he not about to take possession, in theatrical fas.h.i.+on, of the Holy Places?
Turkey has been restored by the Kaiser of Berlin. He is her Emperor, her Khalif, Master of the Holy Places, for the reason that his most humble servant is Emperor, Khalif and Master of the Holy Places. So long as all these t.i.tles and powers lay in weak hands, the dangers of Turkish policy, if not the anxieties it created, might be disregarded.
But today the military strength of Turkey is firmly established and it is supported by another tremendous Power. Russia and France have never committed an act of graver imprudence than to allow these two forces to unite. Germany, Germany, ever and ever greater! The German song is no longer a dead letter.
It was by guile that simulated liberal and democratic ideas, that Bismarck prepared public opinion in the German Confederation for union with Prussia. We, too, believed in the liberalism of Germans and of Bismarck before 1870, and herein we proved ourselves to be just as easily gullible as French socialists are to-day, who believe in the genuine internationalism of German socialists.