Neither commercial rivalry nor any fancied jealousy of Germany"s greatness has led us into it, and to the German people our people bear no ill-will whatever. Along with many others I have worked steadily during long years for the maintenance of friendship with Germany, admiring the splendid gifts of the German race, and recognizing their enormous services to science, philosophy, and literature. We had hoped, as some thoughtful statesmen in Germany had also hoped, that by a cordial feeling between Germany and Britain the peace of Europe might be secured and something done to bring about permanently better relations between Germany and her two great neighbors with whom we found ourselves on friendly terms; and we had confidently looked to the United States to join with us in this task. But the action of the German Government in violating the neutrality of Belgium when France had a.s.sured us that she would respect it, the invasion of a small State whose neutrality and independence she and England had joined in guaranteeing, evoked in this country an almost unanimous sentiment that the faith of treaties and the safety of small States must be protected. There has been no war for more than a century--perhaps two centuries--into which the nation has entered with so general a belief that its action is justified. We rejoice to be a.s.sured that this is the general feeling of the people of the United States, whose opinion we naturally value more than we do that of any other people.
Most persons in this country, including all those who work for peace, agree with you in deploring the vast armaments which European States have been piling up, and will hope with you that after this war they may be reduced--and safely reduced--to slender dimensions. Their existence is a constant menace to peace. They foster that spirit of militarism which has brought these horrors on the world; for they create in the great countries of the Continent a large and powerful military and naval caste which lives for war, talks and writes incessantly of war, and glorifies war as a thing good in itself.
It is (as you say) to the peoples that we must henceforth look to safeguard international concord. They bear the miseries of war, they ought to have the power to arrest the action of those who are hurrying them into it.
To get rid of secret diplomacy is more difficult in Europe than in America, whose relations with foreign States are fewer and simpler, but what you say upon that subject also will find a sympathetic echo here among the friends of freedom and of peace. I am always sincerely yours,
JAMES BRYCE.
Forest Row, Suss.e.x, Sept. 17, 1914.
A Reply by Dr. Francke
Professor of the History of German Culture at Harvard University and Curator of the Germanic Museum; author of works on German literature.
_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
In his letter of Sept. 1 President Eliot expresses the opinion that in the present war "England, France, and Russia are fighting for freedom and civilization." And he adds:
It does not follow that thinking Americans will forget the immense services which Germany has rendered to civilization during the last hundred years, or desire that her power to serve letters, science, art, and education should be in the least abridged in the outcome of this war, upon which she has entered so rashly and selfishly and in so barbarous a spirit.
Most educated Americans hope and believe that by defeating the German barbarousness the Allies will only promote the n.o.ble German civilization.
In other words, German military and political power is to be crushed in order to set free the German genius for science, literature, and art. It is interesting to contrast with such views as these the following words of Goethe, uttered in 1813:
I have often felt a bitter grief at the thought of the German people, which is so n.o.ble individually and so wretched as a whole. A comparison of the German people with other nations gives us painful feelings, which I try to overcome by all possible means; and in science and art I have found the wings which lift me above them. But the comfort which they afford is, after all, only a miserable comfort, and does not make up for the proud consciousness of belonging to a nation strong, respected, and feared. However, I am comforted by the thought of Germany"s future. Yes, the German people has a future. The destiny of the Germans is not yet fulfilled. The time, the right time, no human eye can foresee, nor can human power hasten it on. To us individuals, meanwhile, is it given, to every one according to his talents, his inclinations, and his position, to increase, to strengthen, and to spread national culture. In order that in this respect, at least, Germany may be ahead of other nations and that the national spirit, instead of being stifled and discouraged, may be kept alive and hopeful and ready to rise in all its might when the day of glory dawns.
If I am not mistaken, these words of Germany"s greatest poet express accurately what the German people during the last hundred years has been striving for--national culture and national pre-eminence in every field of human activity. To advocate the reduction of Germany to a land of isolated scientists, poets, artists, and educators is tantamount to a call for the destruction of the German Nation.
KUNO FRANCKE.
Harvard University, Sept. 5, 1914.
DR. ELIOT"S SECOND LETTER
The Stout and Warlike Breed
_To the Editor of The New York Times:_
There is nothing new in the obsession of the princ.i.p.al European nations that, in order to be great and successful in the world as it is, they must possess military power available for instant aggression on weak nations, as well as for effective defense against strong ones.
When Sir Francis Bacon wrote his essay on "The True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates" he remarked that forts, a.r.s.enals, goodly races of horses, armaments, and the like would all be useless "except the breed and disposition of the people be stout and warlike." He denied that money is the sinews of war, giving preference to the sinews of men"s arms, and quoted Solon"s remark to Croesus, "Sir, if any other come that hath better iron than you, he will be master of all this gold"--a truly Bismarckian proposition. Indeed, Sir Francis Bacon says explicitly "that the princ.i.p.al point of greatness in any State is to have a race of military men."
Goethe, reflecting on the wretchedness of the German people as a whole, found no comfort in the German genius for science, literature, and art, or only a miserable comfort which "does not make up for the proud consciousness of belonging to a nation strong, respected, and feared."
Because Germany in his time was weak in the military sense, he could write: "I have often felt a bitter grief at the thought of the German people, which is so n.o.ble individually, and so wretched as a whole"; and he longed for the day when the national spirit, kept alive and hopeful, should be "ready to rise in all its might when the day of glory dawns."
"The day of glory" was to be the day of military power. Carlyle said of Germany and France in November, 1870, "that n.o.ble, patient, deep, pious, and solid Germany should be at length welded into a nation, and become Queen of the Continent, instead of vaporing, vainglorious, gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, and oversensitive France, seems to me that hopefulest public fact that has occurred in my time." How did Germany attain to this position of "Queen of the Continent"? By creating and maintaining, with utmost intelligence and skill, the strongest army in Europe--an army which within six years had been used successfully against Denmark, Austria, and France. Germany became "Queen" by virtue of her military power.
In the same paper Carlyle said of the French Revolution, of which he was himself the great portrayer: "I often call that a celestial infernal phenomenon, the most memorable in our world for a thousand years; on the whole, a transcendent revolt against the devil and his works, (since shams are all and sundry of the devil, and poisonous and unendurable to man.)" Now, the French Revolution was an extraordinary outbreak of pa.s.sionate feeling and physical violence on the part of the French Nation, both at home and abroad; and it led on to the Napoleonic wars, which were tremendous physical struggles for mastery in Europe.
In a recent public statement two leading philosophical writers of modern Germany, Profs. Eucken and Haeckel, denounce the "brutal national egoism" of England, which they say "recognizes no rights on the part of others, and, unconcerned about morality or unmorality, pursues only its own advantage"; and they attribute to England the purpose to hinder at any cost the further growth of German greatness. But what are the elements of that German greatness which England is determined to arrest by joining France and Russia in war against Germany and Austria-Hungary?
The three elements of recent German greatness are the extension of her territory; contiguous territories in Europe and in other continents colonial possessions; the enlargement of German commerce and wealth, and to these ends the firm establishment of her military supremacy in Europe. These are the ideas on the true greatness of nations which have prevailed in the ruling oligarchy of Germany for at least sixty years, and now seem to have been accepted, or acquiesced in, by the whole German people. In this view, the foundation of national greatness is fighting power.
This conception of national greatness has prevailed at many different epochs--Macedonian, Roman, Saracen, Spanish, English, and French--and, indeed, has appeared from time to time in almost all the nations and tribes of the earth; but the civilized world is now looking for better foundations of national greatness than force and fighting.
The partial successes of democracy in Europe have much increased the evils of war. Sir Francis Bacon looked for a fighting cla.s.s; under the feudal system when a Baron went to war he took with him his va.s.sals, or that portion of them that could be spared from the fields at home.
Universal conscription is a modern invention, the horrors of which, as now exhibited in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and France, much exceed those of earlier martial methods. There has never been such an interruption of agricultural and industrial production, or such a rending of family ties in consequence of war as is now taking place in the greater part of Europe. Moreover, mankind has never before had the use of such destructive implements as the machine gun, the torpedo, and the dynamite bomb. The progress of science has much increased the potential destructiveness of warfare.
Thinking people in all the civilized countries are asking themselves what the fundamental trouble with civilization is, and where to look for means of escape from the present intolerable conditions. Christianity in nineteen centuries has afforded no relief. The so-called mitigations of war are comparatively trivial. The recent Balkan wars were as ferocious as those of Alexander. The German aviators drop aimless bombs at night into cities occupied chiefly by non-combatants. The North Sea is strewn with floating mines which may destroy fishing, freight, or pa.s.senger vessels of any nation, neutral or belligerent, which have business on that sea. The ruthless destruction of the Louvain Library by German soldiers reminds people who have read history that the destroyers of the Alexandria Library have ever since been called fanatics and barbarians.
The German Army tries to compel unfortified Belgian cities and towns to pay huge ransoms to save themselves from destruction--a method which the Barbary States, indeed, were accustomed to use against their Christian neighbors, but which has long been held to be a method appropriate only for brigands and pirates--Greek, Sicilian, Syrian, or Chinese.
What Is Wrong with Civilization?
How can it be that the Government of a civilized State commits, or permits in its agents, such barbarities? The fundamental reason seems to be that most of the European nations still believe that national greatness depends on the possession and brutal use of force, and is to be maintained and magnified only by military and naval power.
In North America there are two large communities--heretofore inspired chiefly by ideals of English origin--which have never maintained conscripted armies, and have never fortified against each other their long frontier--Canada and the United States. Both may fairly be called great peoples even now; and both give ample promise for the future.
Neither of these peoples lacks the "stout and warlike" quality of which Sir Francis Bacon spoke; both have often exhibited it. The United States suffered for four years from a civil war, characterized by determined fighting, in indecisive battles, in which the losses, in proportion to the number of men engaged, were often much heavier than any thus far reported from the present battlefields in Belgium and France. There being then no lack of martial spirit in these two peoples, it is an instructive phenomenon that power to conquer is not their ideal of national greatness. Much the same thing may be said of some other self-governing const.i.tuents of the British Empire, such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. They, too, have a better ideal of national greatness than that of military supremacy.
What are the real ambitions and hopes of the people of the United States and the people of Canada in regard to their own future? Their expectations of greatness certainly are not based on any conception of invincible military force, or desire for the physical means of enforcing their own will on their neighbors. They both believe in the free commonwealth, administered justly, and with the purpose of securing for each individual all the freedom he can exercise without injury to his neighbors and the collective well-being. They desire for themselves, each for itself, a strong Government, equipped to perform its functions with dignity, certainty, and efficiency; but they wish to have that Government under the control of the deliberate public opinion of free citizens, and not under the control of any Praetorian Guard, Oligarchic Council, or General Staff, and they insist that the civil authority should always control such military and police forces as it may be necessary to maintain for protective purposes.
True National Greatness.
They believe that the chief object of government should be the promotion of the public welfare by legislative and administrative means; that the processes of government should be open and visible, and their results be incessantly published for approval or disapproval. They believe that a nation becomes great through industrial productiveness and the resulting internal and external commerce, through the gradual increase of comfort and general well-being in the population, and through the advancement of science, letters, and art. They believe that education, free intercourse with other nations, and religious enthusiasm and toleration are means of national greatness, and that in the development and use of these means force has no place. They attribute national greatness in others, as well as in themselves, not to the possession of military force, but to the advance of the people in freedom, industry, righteousness, and good-will.
They believe that the ideals of fighting power and domination should be replaced by the ideals of peaceful compet.i.tion in production and trade, of generous rivalry in education, scientific discovery, and the fine arts, of co-operation for mutual benefit among nations different in size, natural abilities, and material resources, and of federation among nations a.s.sociated geographically or historically, or united in the pursuit of some common ends and in the cherishing of like hopes and aspirations. They think that the peace of the world can be best promoted by solemn public compacts between peoples--not Princes or Cabinets--compacts made to be kept, strengthened by mutual services and good offices, and watched over by a permanent International Judicial Tribunal authorized to call on the affiliated nations for whatever force may be necessary to induce obedience to its decrees.
Will not the civilized world learn from this horrible European war--the legitimate result of the policies of Bismarck and his a.s.sociates and disciples--that these democratic ideals const.i.tute the rational subst.i.tute for the imperialistic ideal of fighting force as the foundation of national greatness? The new ideals will still need the protection and support, both within and without each nation, of a restrained public force, acting under law, national and international, just as a sane mind needs as its agent a sound and strong body. Health and vigor will continue to be the safeguards of morality, justice, and mercy.
CHARLES W. ELIOT.
Asticou, Me., Sept. 14, 1914.
DR. ELIOT"S THIRD LETTER.
Why Is America Anti-German?