Chapter II: Recruiting (12)

Of course I know very well that public opinion over there has largely been misled by our opponents and is continuously being misled. Did not the English at the very beginning of the war cut our cable, in order to be able to guillotine our honor without the least interference? For this reason I cannot blame the masses if they took for truth the absurd fables dished out to them, when no contradicting voice could reach them. Less than that, however, can I understand how educated beings, even men who, thanks to their gifts and their standing, play the part of responsible leaders, not only accepted believingly these prevarications and distortions, but, with them as a basis, immediately rendered a verdict against us. For he who publicly judges must be expected to have heard first both parties; and whoever is not in a position to do this must in decency be expected to postpone his verdict. Yes, even more than that, one should think that the sense of justice of every non-partisan must be violated if the one party is absolutely muzzled by the other, and even for this one reason the cause of the latter must be considered as not being free from reason for doubt. Furthermore, one should assume that he who once has been unmasked as a liar therewith should have lost the blind confidence of the impartial in his future assertions. In spite of this, although the first ridiculous news of German defeats and internal dissent could not withstand the far-sounding echo of facts, there still seems to be no twisting of the truth, no defamation, which over there is considered as too thin and too ridiculous by the press and as too shameless by the public.

Should the Germans, who, since the time when they fought for and attained their national unity, have exclusively devoted themselves to works of peace and culture, suddenly have been transformed into an adventurous, booty-hungry horde which from mere lust challenged a tremendously superior force to do battle? Should they suddenly have sacrificed to their so-called militarism all their other efforts in commerce, industry, art, and science, in order to risk their very existence for the love of this Moloch? Do you believe that, Americans?

*Question of Militarism.*

Our militarism! What does this expression, quoted until it is sickening, mean in the mouth of enemies who in respect of the energy and extent of their armaments were not behind us? Is there no such thing as militarism in France and in Russia? Is the English giant fleet an instrument of peace? Was the Triple Entente founded in order to bring about the millennium on earth? Would the Entente, if we had been foolish enough to disarm, have guaranteed our possessions as a reward for being good? Do you believe that, Americans?

It certainly may be difficult for the citizens of the Union--happy beings they are for it--to put themselves in the place of a nation that knows it is surrounded on its open borders by jealous, hateful, and greedy neighbors; of a country that for centuries has been the battlefield of all European wars, the place of strife of all the European peoples. They, the members of a nation which for itself occupies a space nearly as large as Europe, almost half of a continent, protected on both sides by the ocean and on the other borders not seriously threatened for as long a time to come as may be anticipated, have no people's army because they do not need any; and yet they would--their history proves it--give their blood and that of their sons for the cause of their nation just as gladly as we, if the necessity for doing so came to them. Will they, therefore, reproach us for loving our country not less than they do theirs, only for the reason that we have a thousand times more difficulty in protecting it?

Our general military service, which today is being defamed by the word "militarism," is born of the iron commandment of self-preservation. Without it the German Empire and the German Nation long ago would have been struck out of the list of the living. Only lack of knowledge or intentional misconception of our character could accuse us of having an aggressive motive back of it. On earth there is no more peaceful nation than Germany, providing she be left in peace and her room to breathe be not lessened. Germany never has had the least thought of assuming for herself the European hegemony, much less the rulership of the world. She has never greedily eyed colonial possessions of other great powers. On the contrary, in the acquisition of her colonies she was satisfied with whatever the others had left for her. And least of all did she carry up her sleeve a desire of extending the frontiers of the empire. The famous word of Bismarck, that Germany was "saturated" with acquired territory, is still accepted as fully in force to such an extent that even in case of her victory the question as to which parts of the enemies' territory we should claim for our own would cause us a great deal of perplexity. The German Empire could only lose as the national State she is in strength and unity by acquiring new and strange elements.

Otherwise would the empire, from the day of its founding until now, for nearly half a century, actually have avoided every war, often enough under the most difficult circumstances? Would it have quietly suffered the open or hidden challenges, the machinations of its enemies constantly appearing more plainly? Yes, would it have tried again and again to improve its relations with these very same enemies by the greatest advances? As opposed to the ill-concealed hostility of the French, would it not have been shaken in its steadfast policy of conciliation by the fact that this policy with them only made the impression of weakness and fear? Would it have permitted France to reconstruct her power which was destroyed in 1870 to a greater extent than before, and, in addition, allowed her to conquer a new and gigantic colonial empire? Would it have permitted prostrate Russia to recuperate undisturbed from the almost annihilating blows of the revolution and the Japanese war? Would it, in the countless threatening conflicts of the last decades, have on every occasion thrown the entire weight of its sword into the scales for the preservation of peace?

*The Kaiser's Responsibility.*

Then, too, many Americans emphasize the fact that they are making not the German people but the Emperor alone responsible for this war. It is hardly conceivable how serious-minded people can lend themselves to the spreading of a fable so childish. When William II., 29 years old, mounted the throne, the entire world said of him that his aim was the acquirement of the laurels of war. In spite of this for twenty-six years he has shown that this accusation was absurd and has proved himself to be the most honest and most dependable protector of European peace. In fact, the very circle of enemies which now dares to call him a military despot thirsting for glory, has year in and year out ridiculed him as a ruler, whose provocation to the very limit was an amusement absolutely fraught with no danger. He who has never been misled by the fiery enthusiasm of youth nor by the full strength of ripe manhood to adorn his brow with the bloody halo of glory, should he suddenly, when his hair is turned gray, have turned into a Caesar, an Attila? Do you believe that, Americans?

It is a fact in times of peace there have been certain differences of opinion between the Emperor and his people. Although at all times the honesty of his intentions was elevated above every doubt, the one or other impulsive moves he took to obtain their realization exposed him to criticism at home. Today one may safely admit that--today, when of these trifling disputes not even a breath, not even a shadow, remains. Never before has his whole people, his whole nation, in every grade of education, in all classes, in all parties, stood behind him so absolutely without reserve as now, when in the last, the very last hour, and driven by direst need, he finally drew the sword to ward off an attack from three sides, long ago prepared.

Our nation and our Emperor have not wanted this war and are not to be blamed for it. Even the "White Book" of the German Government, by the very uncontrovertible language of its documents, must convince every impartial being of this fact. And day by day the overwhelming evidence of the plot systematically hatched and systematically carried out under the guidance of England, which put before us the alternative of cutting our way through or being annihilated, is increasing.

*No Treason to Austria Considered.*

It may be that the catastrophe, so far as we are concerned, might have been staved off once more if we would have disregarded the obligation of our alliance and would have left Austria in the lurch--the Austria which did not want anything else than to put a stop to the nasty work of a band of assassins organized by a neighboring State. But it requires an extreme degree of political blindness for the assumption that by such cowardly treason we should have been able to purchase a change of mind or a lasting peace from our enemies. On the contrary, they would soon enough have used a suitable opportunity to fall upon Germany, which then would have been completely isolated, and the struggle for our national existence would have had to be fought under conditions very much more favorable to our enemies.

According to a newspaper report, the esteemed President Eliot of Harvard has written that the fear of the Muscovites could not explain our action, and that an alliance with the Western powers would have offered better protection against a Russian attack. Yes; if such a thing had been possible! As a matter of fact, however, the Western powers did not ally themselves with us against Russia, but with Russia against us; and not the fear of the Muscovites, but their mobilization, encouraged and aided by the very same Western powers, drove us to war. I wonder what President Eliot himself would have done under these circumstances had he been the guardian responsible for Germany's fate?

*Belgium's Alleged Neutrality.*

But then the violation of Belgian neutrality! How with the aid of this bugaboo the entire neutral world has been stirred up against us, after England made it the hypocritical excuse for her declaration of war! We knew very well that England and France were determined to violate this neutrality; but, then, we ought to have been very good; we ought to have waited until they did so. Waited until their armies would break into our country across our unprotected Belgian frontier! In other words, we ought to have committed national suicide. Whoever, even up until now, has doubted the German assertion that Belgium was under one roof with England and France, and had herself thrown away her neutrality, must have his eyes opened by the latest official developments. The documents of the Belgian General Staff which have fallen into our hands contain an agreement according to which the march through Belgium of British troops in the case of a Franco-German war was provided for in every detail. Whosoever in the face of these documents repeats the assertion that we have committed a violation of innocent Belgium gives aid to a historical forgery.

We have violated the alleged neutrality of Belgium in self-defense. On the other hand, the Japanese, egged on and supported by England, have violated the real neutrality of China from pure lust for robbery. For the three great powers allied against Germany and Austria have not been satisfied with their own nominal superiority of 220 millions against 110 millions! In addition to this they have urged on into war against us a Mongolian people, the most dangerous enemy of the white race and its culture. They have supplemented their armies by a motley collection of all the African negro tribes. They lead into battle against us Indian troops, and the Christian Germanic King of England prays to God for the victory of the heathen Hindus over his coreligionists and blood relatives. Americans, does your racial feeling, at other times so sensitive, remain silent in view of this unexampled shame? Do you accord to the English and the French, who are attacking us in co-operation with the Russians, the Servians, and the Montenegrins, who are dirtying themselves with a brotherhood in arms with the yellow skins, the brown skins, and the blacks, the right to declare themselves the representatives of civilization and us to be barbarians?

In order to drive home such evident absurdities, they were, of course, obliged to carry on the poisoning of the spring of information to the utmost, they had to suppress the news of the vile deeds of guerrillas and "snipers" in Belgium and of the Russian ghouls in East Prussia, that were crying to heaven, and to send out into the world instead fables of German brutality. Our national army, permeated with ethical seriousness and iron discipline, the scientist standing beside the farmer, the workman beside the artist, should be guilty of unnecessary severity, uncontrollable brutality, brutality against people unable to defend themselves? Do you believe that, Americans?

*The Charge of Vandalism.*

The climax of absurdity, however, is reached when the Germans, who in their love and appreciation of art are not surpassed by any people in the world, are accused of having raged as vandals against works of art. Even now these accusations, which the French Government itself had the pitiful courage to support, have proved totally groundless. The City Hall at Louvain stands uninjured; while the populace fired at them, our soldiers had, risking their own lives, saved it from the flames. An imperial art commission followed at the heels of our victorious troops in Belgium, in order to take charge of the guarding and administration of the treasures of art. The cathedral at Rheims has received but slight damage, and would not have been damaged at all had its tower not been misused by the French as an observation station. I should like to see the commander of an army who, for the sake of the safety of a historical monument, would forget the safety of the troops intrusted into his care!

Enough of it! What I have stated is sufficient to show what low weapons our enemies are using behind the battlefield to sully Germany's shield of honor. It is enough for those who care to listen at all. But, also, wherever the weak voice of one rebounds from ears stubbornly closed, the more powerful voice of truth eventually will force a more just verdict.

Justice--that is all that we expect from America. We respect its neutrality; we do not ask from it an ideal partisanship for our benefit. If it does not have for us the sympathy which we have already extended to it and, after a century and a half of unclouded intercourse between the two nations, have anticipated there, then we cannot imbue it with that spirit by reasoning. Furthermore, in the existence of nations sympathy is not the deciding factor, and every nation should be rebuked which out of regard for sympathy would in decisive matters act against its own interests. But just for that very reason one more question must be raised. In the present conflict, which momentarily almost splits the entire world into two camps, where do the interests of America lie?

That they are not lying on the side of Russia probably is self-evident. No free American can find desirable a further extension of the Russian world empire and of Russian despotism at the expense of Germany. But how about a country from which once America had to wrest its own liberty in bloody battle? How about England? Where, if England should succeed in downing Germany, would her eyes next be pointed? Has she not herself admitted that she is making war on us principally because she sees in us an uncomfortable competitor in trade? And which competitor would be the next one after us that would become awkward to the trust on the Thames? Yes, have they not already hauled off for the smash against America, when Japan is given opportunity to increase her power--the same Japan with whom America sooner or later will be bound to have an accounting and whose victory over us would make that accounting a great deal more difficult for the United States?

Germany's fate certainly does not depend upon the friendly or unfriendly feeling of America. It will be decided solely upon the European battlefields. But because we are looking out from the night to a future dawn, because in the midst of our national need the cause of humanity is close to our heart, for these reasons it is not immaterial to us how the greatest neutral nation of culture thinks of us. Americans, the cable between us has been cut. It is our wish and our hope that the stronger band that unites American ideals with German ideals shall not also be cut.

*To the Civilized World*

*By Professors of Germany.*

As representatives of German science and art, we hereby protest to the civilized world against the lies and calumnies with which our enemies are endeavoring to stain the honor of Germany in her hard struggle for existence--in a struggle which has been forced upon her.

The iron mouth of events has proved the untruth of the fictitious German defeats, consequently misrepresentation and calumny are all the more eagerly at work. As heralds of truth we raise our voices against these.

_It is not true_ that Germany is guilty of having caused this war. Neither the people, the Government, nor the Kaiser wanted war. Germany did her utmost to prevent it; for this assertion the world has documental proof. Often enough during the twenty-six years of his reign has Wilhelm II. shown himself to be the upholder of peace, and often enough has this fact been acknowledged by our opponents. Nay, even the Kaiser they now dare to call an Attila has been ridiculed by them for years, because of his steadfast endeavors to maintain universal peace. Not till a numerical superiority which had been lying in wait on the frontiers assailed us did the whole nation rise to a man.

_It is not true_ that we trespassed in neutral Belgium. It has been proved that France and England had resolved on such a trespass, and it has likewise been proved that Belgium had agreed to their doing so. It would have been suicide on our part not to have been beforehand.

_It is not true_ that the life and property of a single Belgian citizen was injured by our soldiers without the bitterest self-defense having made it necessary; for again and again, notwithstanding repeated threats, the citizens lay in ambush, shooting at the troops out of the houses, mutilating the wounded, and murdering in cold blood the medical men while they were doing their Samaritan work. There can be no baser abuse than the suppression of these crimes with the view of letting the Germans appear to be criminals, only for having justly punished these assassins for their wicked deeds.

_It is not true_ that our troops treated Louvain brutally. Furious inhabitants having treacherously fallen upon them in their quarters, our troops with aching hearts were obliged to fire a part of the town as a punishment. The greatest part of Louvain has been preserved. The famous Town Hall stands quite intact; for at great self-sacrifice our soldiers saved it from destruction by the flames. Every German would of course greatly regret if in the course of this terrible war any works of art should already have been destroyed or be destroyed at some future time, but inasmuch as in our great love for art we cannot be surpassed by any other nation, in the same degree we must decidedly refuse to buy a German defeat at the cost of saving a work of art.

_It is not true_ that our warfare pays no respect to international laws. It knows no indisciplined cruelty. But in the east the earth is saturated with the blood of women and children unmercifully butchered by the wild Russian troops, and in the west dumdum bullets mutilate the breasts of our soldiers. Those who have allied themselves with Russians and Servians, and present such a shameful scene to the world as that of inciting Mongolians and negroes against the white race, have no right whatever to call themselves upholders of civilization.

_It is not true_ that the combat against our so-called militarism is not a combat against our civilization, as our enemies hypocritically pretend it is. Were it not for German militarism German civilization would long since have been extirpated. For its protection it arose in a land which for centuries had been plagued by bands of robbers as no other land had been. The German Army and the German people are one and today this consciousness fraternizes 70,000,000 of Germans, all ranks, positions, and parties being one.

We cannot wrest the poisonous weapon--the lie--out of the hands of our enemies. All we can do is to proclaim to all the world that our enemies are giving false witness against us. You, who know us, who with us have protected the most holy possessions of man, we call to you:

Have faith in us! Believe that we shall carry on this war to the end as a civilized nation, to whom the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant is just as sacred as its own hearths and homes.

For this we pledge you our names and our honor:

ADOLF VON BAEYER, Professor of Chemistry, Munich.

Prof. PETER BEHRENS, Berlin.

EMIL VON BEHRING, Professor of Medicine, Marburg.

WILHELM VON BODE, General Director of the Royal Museums, Berlin.

ALOIS BRANDL, Professor, President of the Shakespeare Society, Berlin.

LUJU BRENTANO, Professor of National Economy, Munich.

Prof. JUSTUS BRINKMANN, Museum Director, Hamburg.

JOHANNES CONRAD, Professor of National Economy, Halle.

FRANZ VON DEFREGGER, Munich.

RICHARD DEHMEL, Hamburg.

ADOLF DEITZMANN, Professor of Theology, Berlin.

Prof. WILHELM DOERPFELD, Berlin.

FRIEDRICH VON DUHN, Professor of Archaeology, Heidelberg.

Prof. PAUL EHRLICH, Frankfort on the Main.

ALBERT EHRHARD, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Strassburg.

KARL ENGLER, Professor of Chemistry, Karlsruhe.

GERHARD ESSER, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Bonn.

RUDOLF EUCKEN, Professor of Philosophy, Jena.

HERBERT EULENBERG, Kaiserswerth.

HEINRICH FINKE, Professor of History, Freiburg.

EMIL FISCHER, Professor of Chemistry, Berlin.

WILHELM FOERSTER, Professor of Astronomy, Berlin.

LUDWIG FULDA, Berlin.

EDUARD VON GEBHARDT, Dusseldorf.

J.J. DE GROOT, Professor of Ethnography, Berlin.

FRITZ HABER, Professor of Chemistry, Berlin.

ERNST HAECKEL, Professor of Zoology, Jena.

MAX HALBE, Munich.

Prof. ADOLF VON HARNACK, General Director of the Royal Library, Berlin.

GERHART HAUPTMANN, Agnetendorf.

KARL, HAUPTMANN, Schreiberhau.

GUSTAV HELLMANN, Professor of Meteorology, Berlin.

WILHELM HERRMANN, Professor of Protestant Theology, Marburg.

ANDREAS HEUSLER, Professor of Northern Philology, Berlin.

ADOLF VON HILDEBRAND, Munich.

LUDWIG HOFFMANN, City Architect. Berlin.

ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK, Berlin.

LEOPOLD GRAF KALCKREUTH, President of the German Confederation of Artists, Eddelsen.

ARTHUR KAMPF, Berlin.

FRITZ AUG. VON KAULBACH, Munich.

THEODOR KIPP, Professor of Jurisprudence, Berlin.

FELIX KLEIN, Professor of Mathematics, Goettingen.

MAX KLINGER, Leipsic.

ALOIS KNOEPFLER, Professor of History of Art, Munich.

ANTON KOCH, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Münster.

PAUL LABAND, Professor of Jurisprudence, Strassburg.

KARL LEMPRECHT, Professor of History, Leipsic.

PHILIPP LENARD, Professor of Physics, Heidelberg.

MAX LENZ, Professor of History, Hamburg.

MAX LIEBERMANN, Berlin.

FRANZ VON LISZT, Professor of Jurisprudence, Berlin.

LUDWIG MANZEL, President of the Academy of Arts, Berlin.

JOSEF MAUSBACH, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Münster.

GEORG VON MAYR, Professor of Political Sciences, Munich.

SEBASTIAN MERKLE, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Wurzburg.

EDUARD MEYER, Professor of History, Berlin.

HEINRICH MORF, Professor of Roman Philology, Berlin.

FRIEDRICH NAUMANN, Berlin.

ALBERT NEISSER, Professor of Medicine, Breslau.

WALTER NERNST, Professor of Physics, Berlin.

WILHELM OSTWALD, Professor of Chemistry, Leipsic.

BRUNO PAUL, Director of School for Applied Arts, Berlin.

MAX PLANCK, Professor of Physics, Berlin.

ALBERT PLEHN, Professor of Medicine, Berlin.

GEORG REICKE, Berlin.

Prof. MAX REINHARDT, Director of the German Theatre, Berlin.

ALOIS RIEHL, Professor of Philosophy, Berlin.

KARL ROBERT, Professor of Archaeology, Halle.

WILHELM ROENTGEN, Professor of Physics, Munich.

MAX RUBNER, Professor of Medicine, Berlin.

FRITZ SCHAPER, Berlin.

ADOLF VON SCHLATTER, Professor of Protestant Theology, Tubingen.

AUGUST SCHMIDLIN, Professor of Sacred History, Münster.

GUSTAV VON SCHMOLLER, Professor of National Economy, Berlin.

FRANZ VON STUCK, Munich.

REINHOLD SEEBERG, Professor of Protestant Theology, Berlin.

MARTIN SPAHN, Professor of History, Strassburg.

HERMANN SUDERMANN, Berlin.

HANS THOMA, Karlsruhe.

WILHELM TRUEBNER, Karlsruhe.

KARL VOLLMOELLER, Stuttgart.

RICHARD VOTZ, Berchtesgaden.

KARL VOTZLER, Professor of Roman Philology, Munich.

SIEGFRIED WAGNER, Baireuth.

WILHELM WALDEYER, Professor of Anatomy, Berlin.

AUGUST VON WASSERMANN, Professor of Medicine, Berlin.

FELIX VON WEINGARTNER.

THEODOR WIEGAND, Museum Director, Berlin.

WILHELM WIEN, Professor of Physics, Wurzburg.

ULRICH VON WILAMOWITZ-MOELLEN-DORFF, Professor of Philology, Berlin.

RICHARD WILLSTAETTER, Professor of Chemistry, Berlin.

WILHELM WINDELBAND, Professor of Philosophy, Heidelberg.

WILHELM WUNDT, Professor of Philosophy, Leipsic,

*Appeal of the German Universities*

The campaign of systematic lies and slander which has been carried on against the German people and empire for years has since the outbreak of the war surpassed everything with which one might have credited even the most unscrupulous press. To repudiate any charges raised against our Kaiser and his Government rests with the authorities in question. They have done so, and their defense is substantiated by striking proofs. He who wants to know the truth can learn it, and we trust that truth will prevail. But if we are to look on, when our enemies, guided by envy and malice, are shameless enough to charge our army and with it our whole nation with barbarous atrocities and senseless vandalism, and when their statements appear to be believed, to a certain extent, among neutrals and in places which, at other times, were well disposed toward us; if we are quietly to look on when all this happens, we, the appointed trustees of culture and education in our Fatherland, feel in duty bound to break the reserve which our calling and position impose on us with a strong expression of protest. Hence we now appeal to the learned bodies with whom we hitherto worked in common in the interests of the highest ideals of the human race and with whom, even at this time, when hatred and passion rule the world and confuse the minds of men, we hope to remain of the same mind, in the same service of truth. We appeal to them in the confident belief that our voice will find hearing, and that the expression of our honest indignation will meet with credence. Moreover, we appeal to the love of truth and to the sense of justice of the many thousands all over the world who, being welcome guests in our educational institutions, have taken part in the inheritance of German culture, and who thus have had an opportunity of watching and appreciating the German people in peaceful labor, their industry and uprightness, their sense of order and discipline, their reverence for intellectual work of every kind, and their profound love for sciences and arts. All of you who know that our army is no mercenary host but embraces the entire nation from first to last, that it is led by the country's best sons, and that, at this very hour, thousands from our midst, teachers as well as students, are shedding their life's blood as officers and soldiers on the battlefields of Russia and France; you who have seen and heard for yourselves in what spirit and with what success our youths are treated and taught, and that nothing is stamped upon their minds more deeply than reverence and admiration for artistic, scientific and technical creations of the human mind, no matter what country and nation brought them forth; we call upon you who know all this as witnesses, whether it can be true what our enemies report that the German Army is a horde of barbarians and a band of incendiaries who take pleasure in leveling defenseless cities to the ground and in destroying venerable monuments of history and art. If you wish to pay honor to the cause of truth you will be as firmly convinced as we are that German troops, wherever they had to do destructive work, could only have done so in the bitterness of defensive warfare. But we appeal to all those whom the slanderous reports of our enemies reach and who are not yet altogether blinded by passion, in the name of truth and justice, to shut their ears to such insults to the German people, and not allow themselves to be prejudiced by those who prove ever anew that they hope to be victorious by the instrumentality of lies. Now, if in this fearful war, in which our nation is compelled to fight not only for its power, but for its very existence and its entire civilization, the work of destruction should be greater than in former wars, and if many a precious achievement of culture falls to ruin, the responsibility for all this entirely rests with those who were not content with letting loose this ruthless war, nay, who did not even shrink from pressing murderous weapons upon a peaceful population for them to fall surreptitiously upon our troops who trusted in the observance of the military usages of all civilized peoples. They alone are the guilty authors of everything which happens here. Upon their heads the verdict of history will fall for the lasting injury which culture suffers.

September, 1914.

UNIVERSITIES.

Tuebingen, Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Erlangen, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Giessen, Goettingen, Greifswald, Halle, Heidelberg, Jena, Kiel, Königsberg, Leipzig, Marburg, Muenchen, Münster, Rostock, Strassburg, Wuerzburg.

*Reply to the German Professors*

*By British Scholars.*

We see with regret the names of many German professors and men of science, whom we regard with respect and, in some cases, with personal friendship, appended to a denunciation of Great Britain so utterly baseless that we can hardly believe that it expresses their spontaneous or considered opinion. We do not question for a moment their personal sincerity when they express their horror of war and their zeal for "the achievements of culture." Yet we are bound to point out that a very different view of war, and of national aggrandizement based on the threat of war, has been advocated by such influential writers as Nietzsche, von Treitschke, von Bülow, and von Bernhardi, and has received widespread support from the press and from public opinion in Germany. This has not occurred, and in our judgment would scarcely be possible, in any other civilized country. We must also remark that it is German armies alone which have, at the present time, deliberately destroyed or bombarded such monuments of human culture as the Library at Louvain and the Cathedrals at Rheims and Malines.

*The Diplomatic Papers.*

No doubt it is hard for human beings to weigh justly their country's quarrels; perhaps particularly hard for Germans, who have been reared in an atmosphere of devotion to their Kaiser and his army; who are feeling acutely at the present hour, and who live under a Government which, we believe, does not allow them to know the truth. Yet it is the duty of learned men to make sure of their facts. The German "White Book" contains only some scanty and carefully explained selections from the diplomatic correspondence which preceded this war. And we venture to hope that our German colleagues will sooner or later do their best to get access to the full correspondence, and will form therefrom an independent judgment.

They will then see that, from the issue of the Austrian note to Servia onward, Great Britain, whom they accuse of causing this war, strove incessantly for peace, Her successive proposals were supported by France, Russia, and Italy, but, unfortunately, not by the one power which could by a single word at Vienna have made peace certain. Germany, in her own official defense--incomplete as that document is--does not pretend that she strove for peace; she only strove for "the localization of the conflict." She claimed that Austria should be left free to "chastise" Servia in whatever way she chose. At most she proposed that Austria should not annex a portion of Servian territory--a futile provision, since the execution of Austria's demand would have made the whole of Servia subject to her will.

Great Britain, like the rest of Europe, recognized that, whatever just grounds of complaint Austria may have had, the unprecedented terms of her note to Servia constituted a challenge to Russia and a provocation to war. The Austrian Emperor in his proclamation admitted that war was likely to ensue. The German "White Book" states in so many words: "We were perfectly aware that a possible warlike attitude of Austria-Hungary against Servia might bring Russia upon the field and therefore involve us in war. * * * We could not, however, * * * advise our ally to take a yielding attitude not compatible with his dignity." The German Government admits having known the tenor of the Austrian note beforehand, when it was concealed from all the other powers; admits backing it up after it was issued; admits that it knew the note was likely to precipitate war; and admits that, whatever professions it made to the other powers, in private it did not advise Austria to abate one jot of her demands. This, to our minds, is tantamount to admitting that Germany has, together with her unfortunate ally, deliberately provoked the present war.

One point we freely admit. Germany would very likely have preferred not to fight Great Britain at this moment. She would have preferred to weaken and humiliate Russia; to make Servia a dependent of Austria; to render France innocuous and Belgium subservient; and then, having established an overwhelming advantage, to settle accounts with Great Britain. Her grievance against us is that we did not allow her to do this.

*Britain's Love of Peace.*

So deeply rooted is Great Britain's love of peace, so influential among us are those who have labored through many difficult years to promote good feeling between this country and Germany, that, in spite of our ties of friendship with France, in spite of the manifest danger threatening ourselves, there was still, up to the last moment, a strong desire to preserve British neutrality, if it could be preserved without dishonor. But Germany herself made this impossible.

Great Britain, together with France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria, had solemnly guaranteed the neutrality of Belgium. In the preservation of this neutrality our deepest sentiments and our most vital interests are alike involved. Its violation would not only shatter the independence of Belgium itself: it would undermine the whole basis which renders possible the neutrality of any State and the very existence of such States as are much weaker than their neighbors. We acted in 1914 just as we acted in 1870. We sought from both France and Germany assurances that they would respect Belgian neutrality. In 1870 both powers assured us of their good intentions, and both kept their promises. In 1914 France gave immediately, on July 31, the required assurance; Germany refused to answer. When, after this sinister silence, Germany proceeded to break under our eyes the treaty which we and she had both signed, evidently expecting Great Britain to be her timid accomplice, then even to the most peace-loving Englishman hesitation became impossible. Belgium had appealed to Great Britain to keep her word, and she kept it.

The German professors appear to think that Germany has in this matter some considerable body of sympathizers in the universities of Great Britain. They are gravely mistaken. Never within our lifetime has this country been so united on any great political issue. We ourselves have a real and deep admiration for German scholarship and science. We have many ties with Germany, ties of comradeship, of respect, and of affection. We grieve profoundly that, under the baleful influence of a military system and its lawless dreams of conquest, she whom we once honored now stands revealed as the common enemy of Europe and of all peoples which respect the law of nations. We must carry on the war on which we have entered. For us, as for Belgium, it is a war of defense, waged for liberty and peace.

Sir CLIFFORD ALLBUTT, Regius Professor of Physics, Cambridge.

T.W. ALLEN, Reader in Greek, Oxford.

E. ARMSTRONG, Pro-Provost of Queen's College, Oxford.

E.V. ARNOLD, Professor of Latin, University College of North Wales.

Sir C.B. BALL, Regius Professor of Surgery, Dublin.

Sir THOMAS BARLOW, President of the Royal College of Physicians, London.

BERNARD BOSANQUET, formerly Professor of Moral Philosophy, St. Andrews.

A.C. BRADLEY, formerly Professor of Poetry, Oxford.

W.H. BRAGG, Cavendish Professor of Physics, Leeds.

Sir THOMAS BROCK, Membre d'honneur de la Société des Artistes Francais.

A.J. BROWN, Professor of Biology and Chemistry of Fermentation, University of Birmingham.

JOHN BURNET, Professor of Greek, St. Andrews.

J.B. BURY, Regius Professor of Modern History, Cambridge.

Sir W.W. CHEYNE, Professor of Clinical Surgery, King's College, London, President of the Royal College of Surgeons.

J. NORMAN COLLIE, Professor of Organic Chemistry and Director of the Chemical Laboratories, University College, London.

F.C. CONYBEARE, Honorary Fellow of University College, Oxford.

Sir HENRY CRAIK, M.P. for Glasgow and Aberdeen Universities.

Sir JAMES CRICHTON-BROWNE, Vice President and Treasurer, Royal Institution.

Sir WILLIAM CROOKES, President of the Royal Society.

Sir FOSTER CUNLIFFE, Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford.

Sir FRANCIS DARWIN, late Reader in Botany, Cambridge.

A.V. DICEY, Fellow of All Souls College and formerly Vinerian Professor of English Law, Oxford.

Sir S. DILL, Hon. Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

Sir JAMES DONALDSON, Vice Chancellor and Principal of the University of St. Andrews.

F.W. DYSON, Astronomer Royal.

Sir EDWARD ELGAR.

Sir ARTHUR EVANS, Extraordinary Professor of Prehistoric Archæology, Oxford.

L.R. FARNELL, Rector of Exeter College, Oxford.

C.H. FIRTH, Regius Professor of Modern History, Oxford.

H.A.L. FISHER, Vice Chancellor of Sheffield University.

J.A. FLEMING, Professor of Electrical Engineering in the University of London.

H.S. FOXWELL, Professor of Political Economy in the University of London.

Sir EDWARD FRY, Ambassador Extraordinary and First British Plenipotentiary to The Hague Peace Conference in 1907.

Sir ARCHIBALD GEIKIE, Past President of the Royal Society.

W.M. GELDART, Fellow of All Souls and Vinerian Professor of English Law, Oxford.

Sir RICKMAN GODLEE, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery, University College, London.

B.P. GRENFELL, late Professor of Papyrology, Oxford.

E.H. GRIFFITHS, Principal of the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire.

W.H. HADOW, Principal of Armstrong College, Newcastle.

J.S. HALDANE, late Reader in Physiology, Oxford.

MARCUS HARTOG, Professor of Zoology in University College, Cork.

F.J. HAVERFIELD, Camden Professor of Ancient History, Oxford.

W.A. HERDMAN, Professor of Zoology at Liverpool, General Secretary of the British Association.

Sir W.P. HERRINGHAM, Vice Chancellor of the University of London.

E.W. HOBSON, Sadleirian Professor of Pure Mathematics, Cambridge.

D.G. HOGARTH, Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Sir ALFRED HOPKINSON, late Vice Chancellor of Manchester University.

A.S. HUNT, Professor of Papyrology, Oxford.

HENRY JACKSON, Regius Professor of Greek, Cambridge.

Sir THOMAS G. JACKSON, R.A.

F.B. JEVONS, Professor of Philosophy, Durham.

H.H. JOACHIM, Fellow of Merton College, Oxford.

J. JOLLY, Professor of Geology and Mineralogy, University of Dublin.

COURTNEY KENNY, Downing Professor of the Laws of England, Cambridge.

Sir F.G. KENYON, Director and Principal Librarian, British Museum.

HORACE LAMB, Professor of Mathematics, Manchester University.

J.N. LANGLEY, Professor of Physiology, Cambridge.

WALTER LEAF, Fellow of London University, President of the Hellenic Society.

Sir SIDNEY LEE, Editor of the Dictionary of National Biography, Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of London.

Sir OLIVER LODGE, Principal of Birmingham University.

Sir DONALD MACALISTER, Principal and Vice Chancellor, Glasgow.

R.W. MACAN, Master of University College, Oxford.

Sir WILLIAM MACEWEN, Professor of Surgery, Glasgow.

J.W. MACKAIL, formerly Professor of Poetry, Oxford.

Sir PATRICK MANSON.

R.R. MARETT, Reader in Social Anthropology, Oxford.

D.S. MARGOLIOUTH, Laudian Professor of Arabic, Oxford.

Sir H.A. MIERS, Principal of the University of London.

FREDERICK W. MOTT, Fullerian Professor of Physiology, Royal Institution.

LORD MOULTON OF BANK, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.

J.E.H. MURPHY, Professor of Irish, Dublin.

GILBERT MURRAY, Regius Professor of Greek, Oxford.

J.L. MYRES, Wykeham Professor of Ancient History, Oxford.

G.H.F. NUTTALL, Quick Professor of Biology, Cambridge.

Sir W. OSLER, Regius Professor of Medicine, Oxford.

Sir ISAMBARD OWEN, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bristol.

Sir WALTER PARRATT, Professor of Music, Oxford.

Sir HUBERT PARRY, Director of Royal College of Music.

W.H. PERKIN, Waynflete Professor of Chemistry, Oxford.

W.M. FLINDERS PETRIE EDWARDS, Professor of Egyptology, University College, London.

A.F. POLLARD, Professor of English History, London.

Sir F. POLLOCK, formerly Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence, Oxford.

EDWARD B. POULTON, Hope Professor of Zoology, Oxford.

Sir E.J. POYNTER, President of the Royal Academy of Arts.

Sir A. QUILLER-COUCH, King Edward VII. Professor of English Literature, Cambridge.

Sir WALTER RALEIGH, Professor of English Literature, Oxford.

Sir W. RAMSAY, Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, London.

Lord RAYLEIGH, Past President Royal Society, Nobel Laureate, Chancellor of Cambridge University.

Lord REAY, First President British Academy.

JAMES REID, Professor of Ancient History, Cambridge.

WILLIAM RIDGEWAY, Disney Professor of Archaeology, Cambridge.

T.F. ROBERTS, Principal of the University College of Wales, Aberystwith.

J. HOLLAND ROSE, Reader in Modern History, Cambridge.

Sir RONALD ROSS, formerly Professor of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool, Nobel Laureate.

M.E. SADLER, Vice Chancellor of Leeds.

W. SANDAY, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, Oxford.

Sir J.E. SANDYS, Public Orator, Cambridge.

Sir ERNEST SATOW, Second British Delegate to The Hague Peace Conference in 1907.

A.H. SAYCE, Professor of Assyriology, Oxford.

ARTHUR SCHUSTER, late Professor of Physics, Manchester.

D.H. SCOTT, Foreign Secretary, Royal Society.

C.S. SHERRINGTON, Waynflete Professor of Physiology, Oxford.

GEORGE ADAM SMITH, Principal and Vice Chancellor, Aberdeen.

G.C. MOORE SMITH, Professor of English Language and Literature, Sheffield.

E.A. SONNENSCHEIN, Professor of Latin and Greek, Birmingham.

W.R. SORLEY, Professor of Moral Philosophy, Cambridge.

Sir C.V. STANFORD, Profesor of Music, Cambridge.

V.H. STANTON, Ely Professor of Divinity, Cambridge.

J. ARTHUR THOMSON, Regius Professor of Natural History, Aberdeen.

Sir J.J. THOMSON, Professor of Experimental Physics, Cambridge.

T.F. TOUT, Professor of Mediæval and Modern History, Manchester.

Sir W. TURNER, Principal and Vice Chancellor, Edinburgh.

Sir C. WALDSTEIN, late Reader in Classical Archæology and Slade Professor of Fine Art, Cambridge.

Sir J. WOLFE-BARRY.

Sir ALMROTH WRIGHT, formerly Professor of Pathology, Netley.

C.T. HAGBERG WRIGHT, Librarian, London Library.

JOSEPH WRIGHT, Professor of Comparative Philology, Oxford.

*Concerning the German Professors*

*By Frederic Harrison.*

_To the Editor of the London Morning Post_:

Sir: I was not invited to join the reply of our distinguished scholars and professors, perhaps because it is so many years since I was the colleague of James Bryce as Professor of Jurisprudence to the Inns of Court. And, indeed, I do not care to bandy recriminations with these German defenders of the attack on civilization by the whole imperial, military, and bureaucratic order. It seems to me waste of time and loss of self-respect to notice these pedants.

The whole German press and the entire academic class seem to be banded together as an official bureau in order to spread mendacious insults and spiteful slanders. Not a word comes from them to excuse or deny the defiance of public law and the mockery of public faith by the German Emperor, his Ministers, and his armies. These professors seem to exult in serving the new Attila--rather let us say the new Caligula, for Attila at least was an open soldier and did not skulk under the Red Cross behind barbed wire fences.

We have long known that all German academic and scholastic officials are the creatures of the Government, as obedient to orders as any Drill Sergeant. They seem to have sold their consciences for place. Not a word comes from them even of regret for the massacre of civilians on false charges, for the wanton murder of children, for the wholesale rape of women, the showering of bombs upon sleeping towns in sheer cruelty of destruction. The intellectual energies of Kultur seem concentrated on distorting the meaning of our dispatches and the speeches of our statesmen, and in manufacturing for their people and neutrals venomous falsehoods. German Geist today is a huge machine to cram lies upon their own people, and to insinuate lies to the world around. Their system of war is based upon lying at home and abroad, on treachery and terrorism. They think that murdering a few civilians would terrify France into surrender, and will drive England to betray the Allies. Their poor conscripts are told that we kill and torture prisoners; their monuments at home are bedizened with mock laurels; and neutrals are poisoned with wild inventions.

For years past their public men, have

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been tricking our politicians, journalists, and professors to accept them as peaceful leaders of a higher civilization--- while all the while their soldiers, diplomats, and spies (the three are really but one class) were secretly courting our own royalties and society, studying our naval and military defenses, filling our homes with tens of thousands of reservists having secret orders to spy, to destroy our arsenals and roads, and even planting out bogus industries and laying concrete bases for cannon, to bombard the open towns of friendly nations. We have been living unsuspectingly with a nation of assassins plotting to destroy us. Did these professors of Kultur not know of this elaborate conspiracy of Kaisertum, which unites the stealthy treachery of a Mohawk or a thug to the miracles of modern science? For years past the ideal of Kultur has been to lay down secret mines to destroy their peaceful neighbors. Did these professors of the Fatheland not know this? Then they are unable to grasp the most obvious facts--the life work of their own masters under their own eyes. And, if they did know it, and must at least know it now, and yet approve and glory in it, they must be beneath contempt. Why argue with such hypocrites?

Not a few of us have known and watched this conspiracy for years. I have preached this ever since the advent of Bismarckism and the new Europe that was formed forty years ago. Not a few of us have foretold not only the tremendous attack on the British Empire designed by German sea power but the precise steps of the war upon France, through Belgium, and to be executed by an overwhelming force of sudden shock in the midst of peace. For my part, nothing in this war since July 30 has at all surprised me, unless it be the foul cruelty with which Belgian civilians have been treated. Indeed, in January, 1913, I wrote a warning which reads now like a summary of events that have since happened. I was denounced as a senile alarmist by some who are now the loudest in calling to arms. Alas! too late is their repentance.

May I ask why our eminent academicians and scholars who still profess "friendship and admiration" for their German confrères never even suspected the huge conspiracy of which civilization has been the victim? Why did they accept the stars and crosses of Caligula-Attila? Why hob-nob with the docile creatures of his chancery, and spread at home and abroad the worship of Geist and Kultur? Are they fit to instruct us about politics, public law, and international relations, when they were so egregiously mistaken, so blind, so befooled, with regard to the most portentous catastrophe in the memory of living men? I am glad that they see their blindness now--but why this sentimental friendliness for those who hoodwinked them?

Surely this should open their eyes to the mountains of pretentious clouds on which the claims of Kultur rest. I am myself a student of German learning, and quite aware of the enormous industry, subtlety, and ingenuity of German scholarship. We owe deep gratitude to the older race of the Savignys, Rankes, Mommsens. Since 1851 I have been five times in Germany on different occasions down to 1900. I read and speak the language, and twice I lived in Germany for months together, even in the house of a distinguished man of science. I study their theology, their sociology, economics, history, and their classics. I am quite aware of the supremacy of German scholars in ancient literature, in many branches of science, in the record of the past in art, manners, and civilization. But to have edited a Greek play or to have discovered a new explosive, a new comet, another microbe, does not qualify a savant to dogmatize on international morals and the hegemony of the world. Sixty years ago in Leipzig the editor of a famous journal undertook to prove to me that Shakespeare was a German. Our poet, he said, was the grandest output of the Teutonic mind; nine-tenths of the Teutonic mind was German-argal, Shakespeare was a German, Q.E.D.

With the vast accumulation of solid knowledge of provable facts there is too often in the German mind a sudden bounding up into a cloudland of crude and unproved guesswork. In the logic of Kultur there seems to be a huge gap in the reasoning of the middle terms. A savant unearths a manuscript in Syria, which he deciphers with marvelous industry, learning, and ingenuity. Straightway he cries, "Eureka, behold the original Gospel--the true Gospel!" and he proceeds to turn Christianity upside down. He may have experimented on cultures of microbes for a generation; and then he calls on earth and heaven to acknowledge the mystery of the self-creation of the universe. We hear much of Treitschke today--no doubt a man of genius with a gift for research--but what ferocious pyrotechnics were poured forth by this apostle of mendacious swagger. And as to Nietzsche, he was anticipated by Shakespeare in Timon--a diseased cynic--

henceforth hated be
Of Timon, man and all humanity.

They seem to think that to have put the critics right about a few lines in Sophocles, or to have discovered a new chemical dye, dispenses the German Superman from being bound to humanity, truthfulness, and honor. Charge them with the mutilation of little girls and the violation of nuns in Belgium, and they reply: Yes! but think of Kant and Hegel! It is treason to philosophy, they say, that a man who has translated Schopenhauer should condemn Germans for burning Malines and making captive women a screen for troops in battle. Kultur, it seems, has its own "higher law," which its professors expound to the decadent nations of Europe.

Let us hold no parley with these arrogant sophists. Let all intellectual commerce be suspended until these official professors have unlearned the infernal code of "military necessity" and "world policy" which, to the indignation of the civilized world, they are ordered by the Vicegerent of God at Potsdam to teach to the great Teutonic Super-race. Yours, &c.,

FREDERIC HARRISON.

Bath, Oct. 29.

*The Reply From France*

*By M. Yves Guyot and Prof. Bellet.*

_The following is the text of an open lettert addressed by M. Yves
Guyot, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal des Economistes, and M.
Bellet, Professor at the Schools of Political Science and
Commercial Studies, to Prof. Brentano of the University of Munich,
the communication being a reply to the recent German Appeal to
Civilized Nations on the subject of the war_:

PARIS, Oct. 15, 1914.

_To Prof. Brentano of the University of Munich_:

Very Learned Professor and Colleague: On reading the Appeal to Civilized Nations, (among which France is evidently not included,) which has just been sent forth by ninety-three persons declaring themselves to be representatives of German science and art, we were not surprised to find Prof. Schmoller's signature. He had already shown his hatred for France by refusing to assist at the gatherings organized, a little more than two years ago, to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of the Paris Society of Political Economy, (gatherings at which we were happy to enjoy your presence and that of your colleague, Mr. Lotz.) In his Rector's speech at the Berlin University, in 1897, he declared that German science had no other object than to celebrate the imperial messages of 1880 and 1890; and he pointed out that every disciple of Adam Smith who was not willing to make it a servant of that policy "should resign his seat." But we felt painful surprise when, at the foot of the said factum, we found your name side by side with his.

You and the other representatives of German science and art accuse France, Great Britain, Belgium, and Russia of falsehood. Would you have submitted, on the part of one of your pupils, to so grave an imputation, so lightly bandied? Admitting you to be in absolute ignorance of the documents published since the war declaration, you have certainly been acquainted with the ultimatum pronounced by Austria to Servia. It must have struck you with surprise; for it stands as a unique diplomatic document in all history. Did you not ask yourselves whether the demands of Austria did not go beyond all bounds, seeing that they insisted on the abdication of an independent State? You learned that, in spite of Servia's humble reply, because it contained a reservation, immediately, without discussion, the Ambassador of Austria-Hungary left Belgrade, and that the following day Austria declared war. You do not ignore the steps taken by Great Britain and France, the demand for delay made by Russia, and the reply of the German Chancellor "that none should intervene between Austria and Servia." He elegantly qualified the attitude thus adopted as "localizing the conflict."