Book: The Audacious War

C >> Clarence W. Barron >> The Audacious War




Recently I read pages of his writings, speeches, and declarations, and
there is not for the world an uplifting or new thought within them all.
What appears to be new is the echo of an age that was supposed to be
long past--when might was rule and valor was religion.

"There is but one will, and that is mine," said the Kaiser, addressing
his soldiers; but it has been the keynote to his diplomacy wherever it
has appeared, either in pushing a commercial treaty on Russia in her
hour of distress, forcing Italy into the Triple Alliance, or dictating
the terms of the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, so that it would be
impossible of fulfilment.

What is there of world-progress in the declaration of the present
German Emperor, celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the
Kingdom of Prussia,--

"In this world nothing must be settled without the intervention of
Germany and of the German Emperor."




CHAPTER XV

THE GERMAN POSITION

An Aggressive Germany--The Logic of It--The War Party Supreme--A War for
Business--What Confronts Germany--Her Finish.


A mighty nation surrounded and besieged, yet still fighting on foreign
soil, is the position of Germany to-day. Her triumph would mean, not
alone a European conquest, but a world-conquest. Her defeat within a
reasonable time does not mean her destruction or dismemberment. It means
only the destruction of Prussian militarism and that theory of national
existence into which the German people have been led under the present
emperor, that theory which teaches:--

"War and courage have done more great things than Charity."

"What is good? All that increases the feeling of power; the will to
power."

"The weak and debauched must perish, and should be helped to perish."


This is the philosophy, the teaching and the language of Nietzsche and on
it Treitschke and Bernhardi founded their war propaganda.

When Emperor William II ascended the throne and became the "All Highest
War Lord," he found himself at the head of two great Germanys: a military
Germany arising from the Prussian conquest of France in 1870, by which
more than thirty states had been welded into a compact unity of military
order, commercial tariffs, railroad transportation, and national finance;
and an industrial Germany forging ahead in the commercialism of the earth
at a pace exceeded by no other nation.

Bismarck and Von Moltke had made a Germany for defense. The railways did
not flow to the ocean for the interchange of commerce. They ran
primarily east and west to the Russian and French frontiers for military
reasons; but never for attack, always for defense. It was expected that
France would revive and again seek to try issues with Germany. In this
she might possibly be assisted by Russia. Hence the German plans were
for defense against these two countries.

As Germany developed in industry, the military caste receded relatively.
Bankers, merchants, shippers, and traders came to the front. Railways
bent the traffic of the country to the sea, and harbors and ports of
commerce grew with rapid strides.

"What a wonderful business man is the German Emperor!" said the world.
"He advertises Germany all over the earth by the spiked helmet and the
rattle of his sword, but never war seeks he." The world must now revise
this opinion.

German unity gave rise to German efficiency and German thoroughness, and
to a demand for a larger German unity. The whole German-speaking race
must be put together and bound together. Germany must expand over the
seas, in colonial empire, and by tariffs of her own making. This meant
that the Germans must have dominion on sea as well as land. Alliances
must first be cemented with Austria and her neighboring states. Italy
must be dragged into a triple alliance; and the small Balkan States must
be tied up with Austria, that through an alliance with Turkey, Germany
might reach not only the Mediterranean but the waters of the Pacific.
This must happen before the great try-out for the mastery of the seas.

Now, the central point in the study of Germany under the present Kaiser
is the naval programme for over-seas conquest, which was originated
entirely by the present Kaiser. It was he and no other who aimed to turn
defensive Germany into aggressive Germany. He has been the author from
the beginning of the entire naval programme.

Such a plan must take cunning and strategy covering years. It must
proclaim peace to the world but rouse all the fighting blood of the
German-speaking race. The spirit for world-conquest must be stimulated
in all literature and art, in education, and commerce; with the
individual and the family. The danger of Germany must be pointed out.
The greatness and rightfulness of her ambitions in the world must be
brought forward and educated into the blood of every growing German.

While to the outside world steadily proclaiming peace, the Kaiser was as
steadily inculcating war and the principles of war into every avenue of
German thought and philosophy.

The Germans are nothing if not logical and scientific. They must
therefore find a reason in philosophy and in the facts of history for
their national programme. Those who found these reasons and logically
set them forth were hailed as the great philosophers and educators of
Germany. The logic was simple. It was that all history and all progress
had been made by war; that peace-loving races decayed, and finally
perished, and their places were rightfully taken by the younger, braver,
sturdier, and hardier fighting races.

"Let your superiority be an acceptance of hardship." "Die at the right
time." "Be hard." "What is happiness? The feeling that power
increases, that resistance is being overcome." Nietzsche thus talked the
principles of this philosophy; a something entirely apart from the
principles of the Christian religion, but an absolutely philosophical,
modern paganism; a worship of power, the assertions of one's individual
and national self--"The Will to Power."

Treitschke taught it to the youth of Germany as applied to war,--not the
necessity for defense but the justice and the righteousness of aggressive
warfare. The Emperor and his court hailed these teachings with great
acclaim. Chamberlain, an Englishman, printed a book to show that all
good things were German; that the great Italian art-workers were German;
that Christ himself was of German origin.

The teachings of Christ were repudiated by Germany, but His greatness in
world leadership must be claimed for Germany. Had not all the poets
given Him the German countenance and complexion, even light hair and blue
eyes? The German Emperor bought presentation copies of this book by the
thousand.

If you think the picture is over-drawn, get a copy of Chamberlain's
"Foundations of the Nineteenth-Century Civilization."

There are those who acclaim that all these teachings were never meant for
war; that the Germans, outside of Prussia, being a phlegmatic,
home-loving, non-military people, needed to have their patriotism
stimulated with "war talk" and national ambitions.

Now there are those who see that it was all part of a cunning propaganda
for a world-conquest; that Germany was cultivated industrially and
financially to give base for military operations.

But most carefully have the business men of Germany been excluded from
the war councils. I asked one of the best-informed men in the diplomatic
cycles of Europe, whose business all his life has been to travel from
country to country studying the languages, thought, and customs of all
people, west of Asia and north of Africa: "Are the German bankers and
business men to have no say in Berlin as to peace and war or the military
policy of the empire?" His response was emphatic: "Not one word; they
would no more be allowed expression of opinion in the inner councils of
military Germany than would a rank foreigner from the farthest part of
the earth. Still in Germany is the business of trade apart from the
business of government."

The world may now see that the business of Germany was war from the
beginning under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and that Germany was to be made great
on land and sea by the sword of war hacking the way for German commerce,
German tariffs, and German commercialism. The old feudal idea of trade
expanded and supported by a war lord has been the idea of Germany since
the pilot, Bismarck, was dropped by the young Emperor from the ship of
state. War for aggression, war for business, war for German expansion,
has been the scheme. That these plans were interrupted and the war
precipitated sooner than expected was most fortunate for American
civilization and all civilization, west of Germany.

It was the Kaiser who changed the terms of Austria's ultimatum to Servia,
making them impossible of fulfillment, and then cunningly slipped away on
a water-trip with the fastest German cruiser behind him, that he might
come rushing back and cry, "Peace, peace!" while he fenced off every
peace proposal from effectively reaching Austria. Servia was willing to
agree to every demand of Austria except that which involved a change in
her constitutional government, with which she could not comply in the
allotted time; but even this she was willing to discuss. The Kaiser gave
Russia twelve hours to demobilize, and then declared war on her five days
before Russia even withdrew her minister from Vienna.

While the Germans have gone to war to possess the land and dominate the
business of their neighbors, they have not gone to war as savage tribes,
seeking blood and human sacrifice as an end in itself.

I have not dealt with German atrocities in Belgium or France. War is
atrocious, and you cannot move millions of men to the slaughter of their
fellow men without revealing a certain percentage of crimes kindred to
murder.

In due time, all the atrocities of this war may be shown up in
photographs which have been taken. The Carnegie Peace Foundation is
circulating photographs showing the atrocities in the Bulgarian wars. It
might be much more timely for them to circulate photographs showing the
horrors and atrocities of human sacrifice in this most audacious war.

Previous chapters have shown how German diplomacy slipped, how the German
secret service had gathered the facts of the military, financial, and
political weaknesses of Russia, Great Britain, and France, yet with no
ability to value properly the spirit of the peoples behind this military
unpreparedness. Germany has been described as "System without Soul." It
remains only to show the relative weaknesses of Germany, and why she
cannot win this war.

The Allies can reach round the world for men, war-supplies, and financial
assistance. Germany can get no more men, no more gold, no more outside
war-supplies. She must manufacture and be self-sustaining.

In the first six months of the war Germany has raised a loan of
4,400,000,000 marks, or about 1,100,000,000 dollars, promptly and
patriotically taken by her people.

But international bankers inform me that every dollar of this and fifty
percent more was gone before January 1, 1915. This is also indicated by
the expansion of her paper money and her efforts to maintain the gold
basis under that paper.

As this is regarded as a life-and-death struggle for Germany, the jewelry
in the Empire must go into the melting-pot.

I can well credit the reports of copper household utensils and building
materials going into the melting-pot for the copper of war.

And of rubber, for which there is no substitute, I hear that above three
dollars a pound is being bid in Germany, or about four times the price in
the United States.

Still, the scarcity of gold, copper, gasolene, or rubber, or all
combined, might not force Germany to sue for peace.

What I give a final verdict on is the tremendous human sacrifice that is
exhausting both Austria and Germany. I do say from good sources that in
the first twenty weeks of the war the German casualties--wounded,
prisoners, missing, and killed--were above 1,700,000, while Austrian
casualties are now approaching a million and a half.

In the first six months of the year Germany and Austria will have
suffered not less than three million casualties. Of course, more than
half these people are wounded, who may go back to the firing line. But
the three hundred thousand and more dead will never go back; and many
vitally wounded and many cripples will be hereafter useless in peace or
war; and the prisoners that are exchanged with France through Geneva are
under pledge and mutual government agreement not to take up arms again.

I have also more confidence in the Russian position, numbers, supplies,
and strategy than is generally possessed in America.

We hear in the press reports of generals at the head of the armies in
Russia and France. We do not hear of the wonderful younger generals that
war is developing, and who are coming forward more rapidly there than
from any similar developments under the bureaucracy of Germany.

The two greatest military strategists the war has developed are not in
Germany or England. They are in Russia and France, and their names have
not yet crossed the Atlantic in the press reports.

However long Germany may fight on, offensively or defensively, her
retreat must begin this year. Then the world will be increasingly
interested in the terms of peace.

Balfour, the English statesman, says privately, "I know the people look
for the dismemberment of Germany, and some look for her destruction, but
this is not the intelligent opinion or intelligent desire. Germany is an
indispensable part of the world's industrial, commercial, financial, and
political organization. To destroy Germany would be a world loss." The
opinion of eminent political and financial people in England is that
Germany can never repair the total damage she may inflict. So far as
England is concerned, next after the destruction of Germany's war-power,
giving insurance of a European peace, comes first the indemnification of
every financial loss that Belgium suffers. This is now estimated at from
$1,500,000,000 to $2,500,000,000.

What there will be left over in the way of Germany's ability to pay,
aside from the Kiel Canal, Alsace and Lorraine, and German Poland, is
problematical.

To have Germany able to pay even a part of the damage she is inflicting
upon the world, she must be put back upon her industrial feet.
Therefore, I have declared, when asked about this matter, that in the end
England would be found the best friend of Germany. But conquered and
destroyed must be the Prussian war-machine of aggression, or crumbles the
art and industry of republican France and the democracy of English
speech, thought, and government.




CHAPTER XVI

THE LESSONS FOR AMERICA

Wealth is National Defense--Gold Mobilization--Food Supplies
International--No Financial Independence--Tariffs as War Causes--Are We
in a Fool's Paradise?


The lessons for the United States and for all America from this war are
so many that it is difficult to arrange them in order.

The first lesson is that nations can be no longer isolated units. A
hundred years ago the United States desired to be free from
Europe,--from its political system, its wage system, and its social
system. To-day the United States cannot desire to be freed from any
country in the world. Its Panama Canal, its demand for a mercantile
marine, for countries to take its cotton and cotton goods, and its
inquiry as to where it can get potash salts and chemical dyes, all show
the interrelation of modern business which has broken all national
boundaries.

England is talking to-day of a closer federation in her empire to
follow this war. She is asking why she alone should be the protector
of the seas, and of the peace of Europe, not only for herself and her
colonies, but for the whole world. She is already talking of a
federation for the empire by which Australia, Canada, etc., will have
direct representation in Parliament, and assist directly in bearing the
burden of the maintenance of peace. I doubt if a British federation
will strengthen the British Empire. Mutual interest is the great
federator. The unwritten Constitution of England has more binding
force than the written Constitution of the United States. The Triple
Entente is stronger and more binding than the Triple Alliance.

The whole world is interested in the maintenance of peace, and it
should not be the business of any one nation or empire to maintain the
peace of the world.

Secondly, if the burden is put upon England to maintain the peace of
the seas and the peace of Europe, she must have a growing empire to
support that burden.

Already the English people see the spread of her influence which is to
follow this war and make Cecil Rhodes's dream of a Cape to Cairo
railroad a reality for Africa. Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor are
hereafter to be restored in fertility and give a new civilization to
the shores of the eastern Mediterranean.

Is it to be assumed that with the new development for Africa and Asia,
Europe is going to abandon her interest on the continents of America?

Will not the very force of these developments make a foundation for
European developments in North and South America?

Have we not seen that the British Empire has still some interest in the
Panama canal? Is it to be supposed that when peace succeeds in Europe,
and the European nations lie down together for another period of mutual
development, France will make no inquiry concerning her $800,000,000 of
property in Mexico? Or that England will adopt Mr. Bryan's idea that
any Englishman or American who goes into Mexico cannot look for any
protection from his home government?

I believe that Lord Cowdray is to-day the foremost business man in
England. He represents oil lands in Mexico worth intrinsically more
than $100,000,000. Is it the policy of the British government to say,
"Cowdray, forget it, and come over and develop Mesopotamia; living is
unsettled in Mexico, and Uncle Sam has told 'em to fight it out"?

A third lesson the United States will receive from this war is the
value of large units in business and the value of national wealth as
national defense.

Instead of trying to pull down wealth and individual accretions of
wealth, the country will recognize that all savings and every increment
of fortune, small or large, are for the ultimate benefit and for the
prosperity and defense of the whole country.

In this war Russia is poor in railroads, and the advantage that Germany
has held over her in Poland is more by reason of the German railways
than the German armies. Railways are products of wealth and individual
capital, and the sooner the United States learns this lesson, the
better.

A fourth lesson for the United States from this war is the value of
gold in bank reserves, and the value of ability to mobilize quickly
such reserves. No nation in the world to-day is more closely tied to
every other nation than by the invisible strings of gold. Every nation
in the world has an interest in the gold supply and the gold reserve in
bank throughout the world.

There are those in England who still believe that this war will be the
supreme test of the gold monometallic base for money and banking.
There is no thought as yet that Germany, if driven off the gold base,
will seek a silver base. It has always been declared by the
bimetallists that the successor of gold monometallism will be paper,
and Germany is expected to go upon a paper rather than a silver basis.

In exchange operations German paper is about 8 per cent discount, but
exporting gold or buying or selling gold at a premium is by law
forbidden. All are penal offenses.

England can stand upon a gold basis because she commands the gold
promises to pay, but in war time she can threaten the stability of the
monetary systems of many countries. The United States saved its gold
base by closing the Stock Exchange, but the South American countries
were quickly in distress for gold.

To put India on a gold basis a few years ago, a tax was levied on
Indian silver imports with the result that India has absorbed
$400,000,000 in gold from England in the last five or six years, and
where payments to India were formerly one-quarter gold and
three-quarters silver, they are now one-quarter silver and
three-quarters gold.

All these matters are being sharply watched by the English economists.

A fifth lesson we may draw from the war is the necessity for a larger
official representation abroad. It was fortunate that before the
outbreak of the war the American embassy in London had been moved to
larger quarters by the gardens west of Buckingham Palace.

The strain that was thrown upon that embassy for information,
passports, transportation, etc., was something terrific. United States
statutes allow this embassy only three secretaries, but it had to use
eight, and the work continued until 3 A.M., and sometimes 5 A.M. There
was only one relief in the situation and that was in a study of the
queer characters one finds abroad, insisting that they are
representative Americans. Some of the people demanding free
transportation back to America declared their residence to be in
Hoboken, but could not tell if Hoboken were nearer New York City than
to San Francisco. It was a great temptation for some people to get out
of the war zone and into America at the expense of Uncle Sam. The
amount of business transacted by this embassy may be illustrated by the
fact that the cable tolls alone for several months cost more than the
former total expenses of the embassy.

Still another lesson from the war that America must learn is that food
supplies are now not national, but international. We have seen the
price of sugar in the United States jumping up and down in a commercial
battle between England and Germany almost before their clash at arms.

Before the war, 80 per cent of the sugar consumed in England was
produced in Germany. England, under her free trade policy, had
permitted German beet sugar interests, fattened upon a government
bounty, to destroy the refinery interests in the south of England. The
Island gained by the trade because her refineries were turned into
sugar canneries. Jams and marmalades therefrom expanded her foreign
trade. Germany, however, at the outbreak of this war, proposed to cut
off, or tax heavily, England's sugar supply. Into the markets of the
world went the British Treasury and in a few days the government was in
command of an eighteen months' supply of sugar for the whole of Great
Britain. Down went the price of sugar in Germany, and now the
government is taking measures to restore prosperity to her sugar
interests by a reduction in beet-sugar plantings. The English
government is selling sugar in England at a loss, as a war measure, and
will not permit sugar purchases in any country where Germany sells her
sugar.

Nothing but the strain of war could have induced the Bank of England to
count a hundred million dollars in gold sent from New York into Canada
as a part of the Bank's metal reserve.

There is now no reason why this relation should not continue. Why
should fifty or a hundred million in gold be sent across the ocean in
the spring, to be returned in the fall? The world is going to be still
more a unit in finance hereafter. It has taken a generation to educate
the world to the right of the individual in the common fund of money,
so far as money is needed to effect transfer of credits. This is the
keynote in our Federal Reserve act: that business has just as much
right to regulation promoting safe and smooth credits as it has to
national regulation promoting safe and sound transportation.

Out of this war must arise better international relations, and they
comprise not alone the relations of peace, but closer relations to
international transportation, as respects both ships, international
money, and international credit.

While many people are looking for financial independence between
nations, the United States taking back from Europe in the next three
years the larger part of the $6,000,000,000 of American securities
owned abroad, it is quite possible that the opposite will take place: a
greater interrelation, not only in credits but in investments.

If nations are to be more closely knit together hereafter, it will be
not alone in alliances of peace, but in financial alliances in security
ownership.

It is far better for both Europe and America that, instead of Europe
selling its American securities, America should buy European
securities--first, acceptances, making a basis for credits and
international purchases in connection with the war; and later, American
investment in the funds of foreign nations. It may be that before this
war is over many European nations will have to appeal to America with
their loans.

If France could see her way clear to put out a long-term loan at 5 per
cent instead of short-term loans at this rate, there should be a good
investment field for it in America.

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