Chapter XI: Front Matter (11)

It is an unquestionable fact that the unification of Germany and the establishment of a strong German Empire, half a century ago, were brought about against the bitter opposition of France, and that the defeat incurred by France in 1870, in her attempt to prevent German unification, is at the bottom of the constant irritation that has agitated Europe during the last forty-three years. Germany's policy toward France during these forty-three years has been one of utmost restraint and forbearance, and has been dictated by the one desire of making her forget the loss of the two provinces, German until the seventeenth century and inhabited by German stock, which were won back from France in 1870. Whether the acquisition of these provinces was a fortunate thing for Germany may be doubted. The possession of Alsace-Lorraine has certainly robbed Germany of the undivided sympathy of the world, which she otherwise would have had. But it is probably true that from the military point of view Alsace-Lorraine was needed by Germany as a bulwark against the repetition of the many wanton French invasions from which Germany has had to suffer since the time of the Thirty Years' War and the age of Louis XIV.

Sought to Heal the Breach.

However this may be, Germany has done her best during the last four decades to heal the wounds struck by her to French national pride. She abetted French colonial expansion in Cochin-China, Madagascar, Tunis. She yielded to France her own well-founded claims to political influence in Morocco. In Alsace-Lorraine itself she introduced an amount of local self-government and home rule such as England has not accorded even now to Ireland. While Ireland still is waiting for a Parliament at Dublin, Strassburg has been for years the seat of the Alsace-Lorraine Diet, a provincial Parliament based on universal suffrage. And even in spite of the incessant and inflammatory French propaganda which last year led to such unhappy counter-strokes as the deplorable Zabern affair, there can be no reasonable doubt that the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been gradually settling down to willing co-operation with the German administration--an administration which insures them order, justice, and prosperity. Nothing is a clearer indication of the peaceable trend which affairs have lately taken in Alsace-Lorraine than the fact that the Nationalists, i.e., French party, in the Strassburg Diet has never been able to rise above insignificance, and that, on the other hand, a considerable number of responsible officers in the civil administration, including the highest Governmental positions, have been occupied by native Alsatians.

While Germany has thus repeatedly shown her willingness and desire to end the ancient feud, France has remained irreconcilable; and particularly the intellectual class of France cannot escape the charge that they have persistently and willfully kept alive the flame of discord.

It surely cannot be said that the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine is a vital necessity to France. Without Alsace-Lorraine France has recovered her prosperity and her prestige in a manner that has been the admiration of the world. It is a mere illusion to think that the reconquest of Alsace-Lorraine would add to her glory. It would have been a demand of patriotism for the intellectual class to combat this illusion. Instead of this, every French writer, every French scholar, every French orator, except the Socialists, year in and year out, has been dinning into the popular ear the one word revenge.

France to Blame.

There can be little doubt that Prof. Gustave Lanson, the distinguished literary historian, voiced the sentiments of the vast majority of his countrymen when in a lecture, delivered some years ago at Harvard, he stated that France could not and would not reorganize the peace of Frankfurt as a final settlement, and that the one aim of the French policy of the last forty years had been to force Germany to reopen the Alsace-Lorraine question.

If there were people in Germany inclined to overlook or to minimize this constantly growing menace from France, their eyes must have been opened when in 1912 the French Government, having previously abolished the one-year volunteers, raised the duration of active military service for every Frenchman from two years to three, and, in addition to this, called out in the Autumn of 1913 the recruits not only of the year whose turn had come, namely, the recruits born in 1892, but also those born in 1893. This was a measure nearly identical with mobilization; it was a measure which clearly showed that France would not delay much longer striking the deadly blow. For no nation could possibly stand for any length of time this terrific strain of holding under the colors its entire male population from the twentieth to the twenty-fourth year. No wonder that the Paris papers were speaking as long ago as the Summer of 1912 of the regiments stationed in the Eastern Departments as the "vanguard of our glorious army," and were advocating double pay for them, as being practically in contact with the enemy.

The second foe now threatening the destruction of Germany is England. Can it truly be said that England's hostility has been brought about by German aggression? True, Germany has built a powerful navy; but so have Japan, the United States, France, and even Italy. Has England felt any menace from these? Why, then, is the German Navy singled out as a specially sinister threat to England? Has German diplomacy during the last generation been particularly menacing to England? Germany has acquired some colonies in Africa and in the Far East. But what are Kamerun and Dar-es-Salaam and Kiao-Chau compared with the colonial possessions of the other great powers? Where has Germany pursued a colonial aggressiveness that could in any way be compared with the British subjugation of the South African republics or the Italian conquest of Tripoli or the French expansion in Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco, or the American acquisition of the Philippines?

Her Open-Door Policy.

Wherever Germany has made her influence felt on the globe she has stood for the principle of the open door. Wherever she has engaged in colonial enterprises, she has been willing to make compromises with other nations and to accept their co-operation, notably so in the Bagdad railway undertaking. And yet, the colonial expansion of every other nation is hailed by England as "beneficial to mankind," as "work for civilization"; the slightest attempt of Germany to take part in this expansion is denounced as "intolerable aggression," as evidence of the "bullying tendencies of the War Lord."

What is the reason for this singular unfairness of England toward Germany, of this incessant attempt to check her and hem her in? Not so much the existence of a large German Navy as the encroachment upon English commerce by the rapidly growing commerce of Germany has made Germany hateful to England. The navy has simply added to this hate of Germany the dread of Germany. But if there had been no German Navy, and consequently no dread of Germany, this hate of Germany might have come to an explosion before now. For the history of the last 300 years proves that England has habitually considered as her mortal enemy any nation which dared to contest her commercial and industrial supremacy--first Spain, then Holland, then France, and now Germany. As long as German firms, by the manufacture of artificial indigo, keep on ruining the English importation of indigo from India, and as long as the German steamship lines keep on outstripping the prestige of the English boats, there can be no real friendship between England and Germany. Although England has repeatedly proposed to Germany naval agreements, these agreements were avowedly meant to perpetuate the overwhelming preponderance of England's fighting power, so that she would at any moment be in a position to crush German commercial rivalry for all time. She apparently thinks that this moment has now come.

That Germany's third implacable enemy, Russia, is clearly the aggressor, and not the defender of her own national existence, need hardly be demonstrated. She poses as the guardian of the Balkan States. But is there any case on record where Russia has really protected the independence of smaller neighboring countries? Has she not crushed out provincial and racial individuality wherever she has extended her power? Is it not the sole aim of her national policy to Russianize forcibly every nationality under her sway?

In Finland she has gone back on her solemnly pledged word to maintain the Finnish Constitution, and is ruthlessly reducing one of her most highly developed provinces to the dead level of autocratic rule. In her Baltic provinces she is trying to destroy, root and branch, whatever there is left of German culture. Wherever the Russian Church holds dominion intellectual blight is sure to follow.

To think, therefore, that Russia would promote the free development of a number of independent Balkan States under her protectorate is to shut one's eyes to the whole history of Russian expansion. No, Russian expansion in the Balkans means nothing less than the extinction of all local independence and the establishment of Russian despotism from the Black Sea to the Adriatic.

Why Germany Supports Austria.

Not Russia, but Austria, is the natural protector of the equilibrium between the existing States on the Balkan Peninsula and their natural guardian against Russian domination. Austria is their nearest neighbor; indeed, the possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina makes her a Balkan State herself.

Being herself more than half of Slavic stock, she has every reason for living on good terms with the various Slav kingdoms south of her. Being herself forced, through the conglomerateness of her population, to constant compromises in her internal affairs between conflicting nationalities within her borders, she could not possibly absorb a large additional amount of foreign territory. She is bound to respect the existing lines of political demarkation in the Balkans, and her sole object can be through commercial treaties and tariff legislation to open up what used to be European Turkey to her trade and her civilizing influence.

In this she must clearly be supported by Germany. For only if Austria is left free to exercise her natural protectorate over the Balkan States can the passage between Germany and the Near Orient, one of the most important routes of German commerce, be kept open.

Russia's unwillingness, then, to allow Austria a free hand in her dealings with Servia was an open menace to Germany, a challenge which had to be accepted unless Germany was prepared to abdicate all her influence in the Near Orient and to allow Russia to override the legitimate claims and aspirations of her only firm and faithful ally.

This formidable coalition of the three greatest European powers, threatening the very existence of Germany, has now been joined by Japan, openly and boldly for the purpose of snatching from Germany her one Asiatic possession.

If any additional proof had been needed to make it clear that, if Germany wanted to retain the slightest chance of extricating herself from this worldwide conspiracy against her, she had to strike the first blow, even at the risk of offending against international good manners, this stab in the back by Japan would furnish such proof.

Dr. Sanderson Replies

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

Although I hate to enter into a controversy with Prof. Kuno Francke, who was once my excellent friend, I cannot refrain from answering his article which appeared in last Sunday's NEW YORK TIMES.

How can any one say, in all fairness, that Germany's policy toward France during the last forty-three years has been one of the utmost restraint and forbearance, and has been dictated by the one desire to make her forget the loss of the two provinces? What are the facts? We know that not once, but again and again, since 1878, Germany has tried to provoke France into war. We know that on one occasion Queen Victoria herself threatened the Kaiser with Great Britain's intervention if he did not desist from his intended attack on France. And to cite only the two most recent instances, the Agadir affair and the enforced resignation of the French Premier, Delcassé! Would Germany have swallowed such insults?

This may be the German conception of "utmost restraint and forbearance," but it appeared to the French, as it did to the rest of the world, that it required their utmost restraint and forbearance to remain calm under the affronts.

The fact that Alsace-Lorraine was German up to the seventeenth century, and inhabited by German stock, cannot be brought forward today, after more than 200 years, to justify the retaking of those provinces by the Germans. The whole world would be in a state of continual warfare if nations claimed provinces or States that belonged to them once upon a time. Richelieu's idea was that the Rhine was the natural and geographical frontier between France and Germany, and the war was undertaken to carry out that plan. Since then the inhabitants have become French, and the attempts to re-Germanize them have proved futile. Prof. Francke may well doubt if the acquisition of these provinces was a fortunate thing for Germany. It was undoubtedly the most unfortunate thing not only for Germany but for France and the rest of Europe, for it kept open a wound which might have been healed either by a return of the lost provinces, with or without compensation, or by granting them autonomy, or, better still, by leaving it to the inhabitants to choose for themselves, as France did with Nice and Savoy.

The ruthless methods of a Bismarck are no longer of this age. They are too odious, and the human conscience revolts at them. What a preposterous idea, in this twentieth century, to compel by force millions of people to renounce their traditions and even their language! If Great Britain had followed the same method in dealing with the French Canadians, instead of loyal subjects she would have made rebels of them all.

It is neither right nor just nor truthful to say that Germany has done her best during the last four decades to heal the wounds struck by her to French national pride. On the contrary, Germany's attitude has been all along one of studied provocation; and if the instances already mentioned are not sufficient, many others could be added.

Germany abetted French colonial expansion. Well, by what right should she have opposed it? And if she yielded to France in Morocco, it was only after France had given Germany part of her African possessions rather than go to war with her.

It will be news to the world to be informed that there can be no reasonable doubt that the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been gradually settling down to willing co-operation with the German administration. Certainly such a statement is in violent contradiction with all we hear and read and know of the state of mind, the feelings, and aspirations of the inhabitants of those two provinces.

To argue that the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine is not a vital necessity to France; that without these provinces she has recovered her prosperity and her prestige, and that it is mere illusion to think that the reconquest of Alsace-Lorraine would add to her glory is pure sophistry. It is just as if you said to a man whom you had robbed of some valuable property: "What does it matter? You are just as well off without it." Yes, Prof. Larson did voice the sentiment of the vast majority of his countrymen when he stated that France could not and would not recognize the treaty of Frankfurt. If I have an enemy who takes me by surprise and with revolver leveled at my head compels me to sign a paper by which I despoil myself to his advantage, what is the validity of such a document?

That is the way that all Frenchmen of all classes look upon the treaty of Frankfurt, wrung from them under duress.

The term "revanche" is a slogan. It simply typifies in one word the reconquest of Alsace-Lorraine; but it does not carry with it the idea of willfully laying waste the enemy's country, burning and pillaging, shooting inoffensive non-combatants, and cleaning banks of all the gold they contain.

Another statement which is misleading in Prof. Francke's article is the one which refers to the "growing menace from France," in which he speaks of the increasing armament that has been going on in that country since 1912. But what is called in Germany "the menace from France" is called in the latter country "the menace from Germany." Who started these enormous armaments? Each time Germany increased her army France was forced to do the same; and when France recently increased from two to three years the duration of military service, it was her only way of meeting Germany's increase of 500,000 men.

The attempt to change the rôles and present France to the world as the aggressor, or even as premeditating an attack upon Germany, is futile. It is a strange and yet not uncommon psychological fact that the hate of the conqueror is often greater than that of the conquered; and it is German, not French, hate which has forced Germany into this savage war. France had recovered too rapidly from her disasters; she was too rich; her colonies were too vast and too prosperous; she must be crushed. What right had she to have large colonies when Germany, the superior nation, had none worth mentioning? There you have the key to the Kaiser's repeated provocations and to his final attack.

In regard to England and Russia, the writer will simply confine himself to the statement that if the German Imperial Government can produce as clean a bill of health as the "White Paper" of the British Foreign Office, just published, it will do more to convince American public opinion of the justice of its cause than anything that has yet been written in the press by Germans and their sympathizers.

R.L. SANDERSON.

Yale University, New Haven, Conn., Sept. 5, 1914.

In Defense of Austria

By Baron L. Hengelmuller.

Late Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to the United States.

_The following letter was written by Baron Hengelmuller to Col. Theodore Roosevelt._

ABBAZIA, Sept. 25, 1914.

My Dear Mr. Roosevelt:

Our correspondence has suffered a long interruption. Your last letter was from July of last year. I do not know whether you ever received my answer, by which I thanked you for your preface to my book. You were in Arizona when I wrote it, and soon after your return you started for Brazil. At the occasion of your son's wedding I sent him a telegram to Madrid, but I had no chance to write to you because I had no information with regard to the length of your stay and your whereabouts in Europe.

Now I write to you at the time of a most momentous crisis in the world's history, and I do so impelled by the desire to talk with you about my country's cause and to win your just and fair appreciation for the same. I wish I could address my appeal to the American people, but having no standing and no opportunity to do so, I address it to you as to one of America's most illustrious citizens with whom it has been my privilege to entertain during many years the most friendly relations.

Since the outbreak of the war our communications with America are slow and irregular. In the beginning they were nil. From the end of July to the middle of August we received neither letters, telegrams, nor papers. I suppose it was the same with you concerning direct news from us. Our adversaries had the field all for themselves and they seem to have made the most of it. To judge from what I have learned since and from what I could glean in our papers, the New York press seem to have written about us and Germany very much in the same tone and spirit as they did about you during your last Presidential campaign. I have seen it stated that The Outlook published an article in which Austro-Hungary was accused of having brought about the war through her greed of conquest and the overbearing arrogance of her behavior toward Servia. I do not know whether I cite correctly, as I have not seen the article, and I am aware that you have severed your connection with The Outlook after your return from Brazil. I only mention the statement as an illustration of what I have said above, for if a review of the standing of The Outlook opens its columns to such a glaringly false accusation the daily papers have certainly not lagged behind.

It is natural that our adversaries should be anxious to win the sympathies of the American people. So are we. But it is not for this purpose that I now write to you. Sympathy is a sentiment and, as a rule, not to be won by argument. What I want to discuss with you are the causes of this war and the issues at stake.

The Cause of the War.

Undoubtedly the war broke out over our conflict with Servia, but this conflict was not of our seeking. We had no wish of aggrandizement or extension of power at the expense of Servia, but Servia covets territory which belongs to us, and for years has pursued her ends by the most nefarious and criminal means. The assassination of our heir to the crown and his consort was not an isolated fact, but only the most glaring link in a long chain of plotting and agitating against us. This attitude of Servia toward us dates back to the day when the gang of officers who murdered their own King came to power, and when it became their policy to keep a hold over their own people by exciting their ambitions against us. This policy reached its first climax when we declared the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which we had occupied and developed for thirty years. You were in office then, and the events of the time are familiar to you. The crisis ended then by Servia's formal acknowledgment that our annexation violated none of her rights, and by her promise to cultivate henceforth correct and friendly relations with us. This promise was not kept. The plotting continued, lies were disseminated about a pretended oppression of our South Slav population, and associations were formed for the purpose of stirring them to discontent and if possible to treason.

Things came to a second climax with the murder of Archduke Francis Ferdinand. The plot for this crime was hatched in Servia, the bombs and revolvers for its execution were furnished there, and Servian officers instructed the murder candidates in their use. At last we could stand it no longer. What we wanted from Servia was the punishment of the plotters and accomplices and a guarantee for normal relations in the future. This was the object of our ultimatum. Servia made a show of complying with some of our demands, but in reality her answer was evasive.

These facts are exposed and authenticated in the note which we sent to the powers after having presented our ultimatum in Belgrade and in the memorandum which accompanied it. I do not know whether the American papers published these documents at the time. Today they are outstripped by greater events, but for the just appreciation of our proceedings in regard to Servia they are indispensable.

In reality, however, our conflict with Servia was not the cause of the great war now raging, but only the spark which brought the overloaded powder barrel to explosion. Who talks of Servia today, and who believes that France, England, and Japan are making war on Germany and on us because of Servia? The war broke out because Russia decided to shield Servia against the consequences of her provocations and because, owing to preconcerted arrangements, the situation in Europe was such that the action of one great power was bound to bring all or nearly all the others into the field. And again those preconcerted arrangements were the outcome of a mass of pent-up passions, of hatred, envy, and jealousy, the like of which--all Hague conferences and pacific unions notwithstanding--the world has never seen before.

We are fully aware of the danger which threatened us from Russia when we formulated our demands in Belgrade. Russia's population is three times as large as ours and it was not with a light heart that our Emperor-King took his final resolution. But our national honor and our very existence as a self-respecting power were at stake. We could not hesitate. Now we are in a struggle for life or death and we mean to carry it through with full confidence in the rightfulness of our cause and in the force of our arms. In one respect events have already belied the calculations of our enemies, who counted on internal dissensions within our own borders. I am happy to say that Croatians, Slovenes, and a large majority of our own Servians are fighting in our ranks with the same valor and enthusiasm as Czechs, Rumanians, Poles, Magyars, and Germans.

But why did Russia decide to assail us? During the whole nineteenth century she has shown herself a very shifty and unreliable protectress of Servia. She made use of the smaller country when it suited her own aggressive purposes against others, and she dropped it whenever it served her ends. It was so at the time of the Turkish war of 1877 and of the Berlin Congress, and it remained so until with the advent of the present dynasty Servia offered a sure prospect of becoming and remaining a permanent tool in Russia's hands and a thorn in our flesh.

Russia is an aggressive power. For 200 years she has extended her dominions at the cost of Sweden first, of Poland and Turkey afterward. Now she thinks our turn has come. Finding us to be in the way of her ultimate aims in the Balkan Peninsula, she began to regard us as her enemy. For years the propaganda for undermining the bases of our empire has been carried on in the name of Pan-Slavism. It seems that she judged that now the time had come to draw the consequences and to bring things to a final issue. With what result remains to be seen.

Germany Bound to Aid Austria.

By the terms of our treaty of alliance Germany was bound to come to our assistance if we were attacked by Russia. There was no secrecy about that treaty. Its text had been made public long ago and its purely defensive character brought to the knowledge of the world. No more than we did Germany entertain hostile intentions or nourish hostile feelings against Russia. There were no clashing interests to excite the first, no historical reminiscences to justify the second. If it is otherwise in Russia, it is because her present leaders find German power in the way of their conquering aspirations against us. Germany, true to her obligations, hastened to our side when she saw us menaced, and when she declared war she did it because she had positive information that in spite of formal and solemn assurances to the contrary Russia mobilization was proceeding.

The terms of the Franco-Russian alliance have never been made public. Whether it was concluded merely for defensive or also for offensive purposes, and whether France was obliged by her treaty to draw the sword in the present case, remains therefore a matter of surmise. But there is no mystery about the feelings of France with regard to Germany, and no doubt about the greed for revenge which during the last forty-four years has swayed the overwhelming majority of her people and been the dominant factor of her foreign policy. It was for this object that she entered into her alliances and agreements, and it is for this cause that she is fighting now.

It is simple hypocrisy to talk about German aggressiveness against France. France stood in no danger of being attacked by Germany if she had chosen to remain neutral in the latter's war with Russia. Asked whether she would do so, she replied that her actions would be guided by her interests. The meaning of this reply was clear, and left Germany no choice. The formal declaration of war became then a mere matter of political and military convenience, and has no bearing on the moral issue of the case.

But why has England plunged into this war? Officially and to the world at large she has explained her resolution by Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality, and in the royal message to Parliament it was solemnly declared that England could not stand by and passively tolerate such a breach of international law and obligations.

No Austrian can read this declaration otherwise than with a mournful smile. Its futility has been exposed by the question which Englishmen of standing and renown have put to their Government, viz., whether they would equally have declared war on France if that violation of neutrality had first come from her side. In face of this question having remained unanswered, and in face of what has come to light since about French preparations in Belgium, there is no need to expiate on this subject. All that there is to be said about it has been said by the German Chancellor in open session of the Reichstag, and all that may be added is the remark that, considering England's history and what she did before Copenhagen in 1807, she of all nations should be the last to put on airs of moral indignation over the application of the principle that in time of war "salus reipublicae suprema lex est."

The existence of a convention binding England to France in case of war has--as far as I know--never been admitted officially by England. As I see now from manifestations of Englishmen disapproving of their country's participation in the war, the belief exists nevertheless that such a convention had been concluded. But whether England's declaration of war was the consequence of previously entered obligations or the outcome of present free initiative, the main fact remains that in the last resort it sprang from jealousy of Germany's growing sea power and commercial prosperity. This feeling was the dominant factor in English foreign policy, just as greed for revenge was in France. It was the propelling power for the agreements which England has made and for others which she endeavored but did not succeed in bringing about.

England claims the dominion over the seas as her native right, and, what is more, she holds it. Her title is no better and no worse than that of the Romans when they conquered the world, or of the Turkish Sultans in the days of their power. Like them, she has succeeded in making good her claim. For three centuries the nations of Continental Europe have been hating, fighting, and devastating each other for the sake of strips of frontier land and a shadowy balance of power. These centuries were England's opportunity, and she has made the most of it. That she should mean to keep what she has and hold to her maritime supremacy as to the apple of her eye is natural. Whether it is for the benefit of mankind that it should be so, and whether the world in general would not be better off if there existed a balance of power on sea as well as on land, does not enter into the present discussion. What is more to the purpose is that in reality England's sea power stood in no danger at all. To any thinking and fair-minded observer it must be clear that Germany, hemmed in by hostile neighbors in the east and west, and obliged, therefore, to keep up her armaments on land, would not have been able to threaten England's maritime superiority for generations to come. If the issue has been thrown into the balance, it has been done so by England's own doing.

But it is not only the nascent German Navy that excited the distrust and envy of England. German colonies and every trading German vessel seem equally to have become thorns in English eyes. The wish to sweep those vessels from off the seas, to destroy all German ports, in one word, to down Germany, has long been nourished and lately openly avowed in England. Norman Angell's theories about the great illusion of the profitability of modern warfare seem to have made mighty small impression on his countrymen.

Russian lust of conquest, French greed of revenge, and English envy were the forces at work in the European powder magazine. The Servian spark ignited it, but the explosion was bound to come sooner or later. What alone could have stopped it would have been England's stepping out of the conspiracy. That she did not do so, in fact became its really directing power, will forever remain a blot on her history.

About Japan's motives and methods I do not think it necessary to write. American public opinion will hardly need any enlightenment on this subject. America forced Japan out of the isolation in which she had lived during centuries. I hope the day may not come when she will wish that she had not done so.

The issues of the war stand in relation to its causes and the same attempts have been made to distort and falsify them in the eyes of the American public. I have seen it stated in a New York paper that this war is a fight between civilization and barbarism, and I have seen a member of the present English Cabinet quoted as having said that the issue was one between militarism and freedom, civilization and freedom standing, of course, in both cases on the side of our enemies.

Not a War for Civilization.

More idiotic rot--excuse the expression--I have never read in my life. What has civilization to do with Servia's murderous plotting against us? What with Russia's desire to shield her from the consequences of her aggressions and to demonstrate to the world that we are of no account in the Balkans and to establish her own--more or less veiled--protectorate there? And if the case of civilization is advanced by Japan's ousting Germany from Kiao-Chau, why should it not be equally furthered if Japan did the same to England in Hongkong, Singapore, or, if the opportunity offered, in India itself? And a person must be indeed at his wits' end for arguments to proclaim Russia as a standard bearer of freedom in her war against us. Compare her treatment of Poles, Finns, Ukrainanians (small Russians) and Hebrews with the freedom which the different nationalities enjoy in our empire! And England herself. Is it for freedom's sake that she holds Gibraltar and that she subjugated the Boers?

No! Civilization and freedom have nothing to do with the issues at stake now, least of all in the sense that our enemies have drawn the sword for their cause. It is a war for conquest and supremacy stirred up by all the hateful passions in human nature, fully as much as any war that has ever been waged before. But we did not stir it up. We are fighting for our existence, right and justice are on our side, and so we trust will victory be.

The causes of the war are clear. To make its issues still clearer, imagine for a moment and merely for argument's sake the consequences of our adversaries being successful. Russia, England, and Japan would remain masters of the field. Is this a consummation any thinking American can wish for?

These are the considerations I wished to lay before you, and I ask your assistance to bring them before the American people. I ask for no reply, no manifestation of feelings or opinion from you. What I ask you is to publish this letter as an open letter addressed by me to you, signed with my full name. How to do this I leave entirely to you. It goes without saying that your private reply, if you favor me with one, will be treated as such.

Hoping to meet you in better times, and sending our kindest regards to Mrs. Roosevelt, believe me, yours most sincerely,

BARON L. HENGELMULLER.

Abbazia, Sept. 25, 1914.

Russian Atrocities

By George Haven Putnam.

Publisher, Director of the Knickerbocker Press, Secretary
American Copyright League; decorated with the Cross of the
Legion of Honor, France.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

It is possible that the letter presented herewith from a German neighbor (who is a stranger to me) may be of interest to your readers as an example of a curious confusion of thought into which have fallen Germans on both sides of the Atlantic in regard to the issues of the present struggle and the conduct and the actions of the German Army. I am inclosing a copy of my reply to Mr. Thienes.

GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM.

New York, Nov. 4, 1914.

THE LETTER.

NEW YORK, Oct. 28, 1914.

Mr. George Haven Putnam.

DEAR SIR: Now that you have shown your "true" spirit of neutrality toward Germany, would you not be kind enough to give us a similar piece of your wisdom and describe in detail the way the Russians acted in East Prussia during their short stay there, and how they murdered, tortured, and assaulted women and girls, and cut children and infants to pieces without even the provocation of "sniping"?

This, your new article in THE TIMES, I anticipate with the greatest interest.

RUDOLF F. THIENES.

THE REPLY.

Rudolf F. Thienes, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR: Your letter of the 28th inst., intended as a rejoinder to a letter recently printed by me in THE TIMES, is written under a misapprehension in regard to one important matter.

The Americans, who are in a position to judge impartially in regard to the issues of the war, have criticised the official acts which have attended the devastation of Belgium, not because these acts were committed by Germans, but because they were in themselves abominable and contrary to precedents and to civilized standards.

If the Russians had, under official order, burned Lemburg, including the university and the library, and executed the Burgomaster, they would have come under the same condemnation from Americans that has been given to Germans for the burning of Louvain and Aerschot and the shooting of the Aerschot Burgomaster. I am myself familiar with Germany. I am an old-time German student, and I have German friends on both sides of the Atlantic, and I am in a position to sympathize with legitimate aspirations and ideals of these German friends.

I am convinced, however, that no nation can secure in this twentieth century its rightful development unless its national conduct is regulated with a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." The references made in my TIMES letters were restricted to official actions; things done under the direction of the military commanders acting in accord with the instructions or the general policy of the Imperial Government.

The misdeeds of individual soldiers are difficult to verify. While these are always exaggerated, it remains the sad truth that every big army contains a certain percentage of ruffians, and that when these ruffians are let loose in a community, with weapons and with military power behind them, bad things are done. It is my own belief that the material in the German Army (which is the best fighting machine that the world has ever seen) will compare favorably with that of any army in the world, and that the percentage of wrongful acts on the part of the German soldiers has been small. Such misdeeds, sometimes to be characterized as atrocities, are the inevitable result of war, and they bring a grave responsibility upon a Government which (to accept as well founded the frank utterances of the leaders of opinion in Germany) has initiated this war for the purpose of "crushing France and of breaking up the British Empire."

You appear to think that it is in order for Germany to visit upon unoffending Belgians reprisal for the misdeeds (as far as such misdeeds may be in evidence) committed by Russians in East Prussia. I cannot see that this contention is in accord with justice or with common sense.

GEORGE HAVEN PUTNAM.

New York, Oct. 28, 1914.

"The United States of Europe"

INTERVIEW WITH NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER.

Dr. Butler is President of Columbia University; received
Republican electoral vote for Vice President of the United
States, 1913; President of American Branch of Conciliation
Internationale; President American Historical Association;
Trustee Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Commander
Order of the Red Eagle (with Star) of Prussia; Commandeur de
Legion d'Honneur of France.

By Edward Marshall.

The United States of Europe.

Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University, firmly believes that the organization of such a federation will be the outcome, soon or late, of a situation built up through years of European failure to adjust government to the growth of civilization.

He thinks it possible that the ending of the present war may see the rising of the new sun of democracy to light a day of freedom for our transatlantic neighbors.

He tells me that thinking men in all the contending nations are beginning vividly to consider such a contingency, to argue for it or against it; in other words, to regard it as an undoubted possibility.

Dr. Butler's acquaintance among those thinking men of all shades of political belief is probably wider than that of any other American, and it is significant of the startling importance of what he says that by far the greater number of his European friends, the men upon whose views he has largely, directly or indirectly, based his conclusions, are not of the socialistic or of any other revolutionary or semi-revolutionary groups, but are among the most conservative and most important figures in European political, literary, and educational fields.

This being unquestionably true, it is by no means improbable that in the interview which follows, fruit of two evenings in Dr. Butler's library, may be found the most important speculative utterance yet to appear in relation to the general European war.

Dr. Butler's estimate of the place which the United States now holds upon the stage of the theatre of world progress and his forecast of the tremendously momentous rôle which she is destined to play there must make every American's heart first swell with pride and then thrill with a realization of responsibility.

The United States of Europe, modeled after and instructed by the United States of America! The thought is stimulating.

Said Dr. Butler:

"The European cataclysm puts the people of the United States in a unique and tremendously important position. As neutrals we are able to observe events and to learn the lesson that they teach. If we learn rightly we shall gain for ourselves and be able to confer upon others benefits far more important than any of the material advantages which may come to us through a shrewd handling of the new possibilities in international trade.

"I hesitate to discuss any phase of the great conflict now raging in Europe. By today's mail, for example, I received long, personal letters from Lord Haldane, from Lord Morley, from Lord Weardale, and from Lord Bryce. Another has just come from Prof. Schiemann of Berlin, perhaps the Emperor's most intimate adviser; another from Prof. Lamasch of Austria, who was the Presiding Judge of the British-American arbitration in relation to the Newfoundland fisheries a few years ago, and is a member of the Austrian House of Peers. Still others are from M. Ribot, Minister of Finance in France, and M. d'Estournelles de Constant. These confidential letters give a wealth of information as to the intellectual and political forces that are behind the conflict.

"You will understand, then, that without disloyalty to my many friends in Europe, I could not discuss with freedom the causes or the progress of the war, or speculate in detail about the future of the European problem. My friends in Germany, France, and England all write to me with the utmost freedom and not for the public eye; so you see that my great difficulty, when you ask me to talk about the meaning of the struggle, arises from the obligation that I am under to preserve a proper personal reserve regarding the great figures behind the vast intellectual and political changes which really are in the background of the war.

"If such reserve is necessary in my case, it seems to me that it also is necessary for the country as a whole. The attitude of the President has been impeccable. That of the whole American press and people should be the same.

"Especially is it true that all Americans who hope to have influence, as individuals, in shaping the events which will follow the war, must avoid any expression which even might be tortured into an avowal of partisanship or final judgment.

"Even the free expression of views criticising particular details of the war, which might, in fact, deserve criticism, might destroy one's chance of future possible usefulness. A statement which might be unquestionably true might also be remembered to the damage of some important cause later on.

"There are reasons why my position is, perhaps, more difficult than that of some others. Talking is often a hazardous practice, and never more so than now.

"The World is at crossroads, and everything may depend upon the United States, which has been thrust by events into a unique position of moral leadership. Whether the march of the future is to be to the right or to the left, uphill or down, after the war is over, may well depend upon the course this nation shall then take, and upon the influence which it shall exercise.

"If we keep our heads clear there are two things that we can bring insistently to the attention of Europe--each of vast import at such a time as that which will follow the ending of this war.

"The first of these is the fact that race antagonisms die away and disappear under the influence of liberal and enlightened political institutions. This has been proved in the United States.

"We have huge Celtic, Latin, Teutonic and Slavic populations all living here at peace and in harmony; and, as years pass, they tend to merge, creating new and homogeneous types. The Old World antagonisms have become memories. This proves that such antagonisms are not mysterious attributes of geography or climate, but that they are the outgrowth principally of social and political conditions. Here a man can do about what he likes, so long as he does not violate the law; he may pray as he pleases or not at all, and he may speak any language that he chooses.

"The United States is itself proof that most of the contentions of Europeans as to race antagonisms are ill-founded. We have demonstrated that racial antagonisms need not necessarily become the basis of permanent hatreds and an excuse for war."

Hyphens Are Going.

"If human beings are given the chance they will make the most of themselves, and, by living happily--which means by living at peace--they will avoid conflict. The hyphen tends to disappear from American terminology. The German-American, the Italio-American, the Irish-American all become Americans.

"So, by and large, our institutions have proved their capacity to amalgamate and to set free every type of human being which thus far has come under our flag. There is in this a lesson which may well be taken seriously to heart by the leaders of opinion in Europe when this war ends.

"The second thing which we may press, with propriety, upon the attention of the people of Europe after peace comes to them is the fact that we are not only the great exponents but the great example of the success of the principle of federation in its application to unity of political life regardless of local, economic, and racial differences.

"If our fathers had attempted to organize this country upon the basis of a single, closely unified State, it would have gone to smash almost at the outset, wrecked by clashing economic and personal interests. Indeed, this nearly happened in the civil war, which was more economic than political in its origin.

"But, though we had our difficulties, we did find a way to make a unified nation of a hundred million people and forty-eight Commonwealths, all bound together in unity and in loyalty to a common political ideal and a common political purpose.

"Just as certainly as we sit here this must and will be the future of Europe. There will be a federation into the United States of Europe.

"When one nation sets out to assert itself by force against the will, or even the wish, of its neighbors, disaster must inevitably come. Disaster would have come here if, in 1789, New York had endeavored to assert itself against New England or Pennsylvania.

"As a matter of fact, certain inhabitants of Rhode Island and Pennsylvania did try something of the sort after the Federal Government had been formed, but, fortunately, their effort was a failure.

"The leaders of our national life had established such a flexible and admirable plan of government that it was soon apparent that each State could retain its identity, forming its own ideals and shaping its own progress, and still remain a loyal part of the whole; that each State could make a place for itself in the new federated nation and not be destroyed thereby.

"There is no reason why each nation in Europe should not make a place for itself in the sun of unity which I am sure is rising there behind the war clouds. Europe's stupendous economic loss, which already has been appalling and will soon be incalculable, will give us an opportunity to press this argument home.

"True internationalism is not the enemy of the nationalistic principle.

"On the contrary, it helps true nationalism to thrive. The Vermonter is more a Vermonter because he is an American, and there is no reason why Hungary, for example, should not be more than ever before Hungarian after she becomes a member of the United States of Europe.

"Europe, of course, is not without examples of the successful application of the principle of federation within itself. It so happens that the federated State next greatest to our own is the German Empire. It is only forty-three years old, but their federation has been notably successful. So the idea of federation is familiar to German publicists.

"It is familiar, also, to the English, and has lately been pressed there as the probable final solution of the Irish question.

"It has insistently suggested itself as the solution of the Balkan problem.

"In a lesser way it already is represented in the structure of Austria-Hungary."

America's Great Work.

"This principle of nation building, of international building through federation, certainly has in it the seeds of the world's next great development--and we Americans are in a position both to expand the theory and to illustrate the practice. It seems to me that this is the greatest work which America will have to do at the end of this war.

"These are the things which I am writing to my European correspondents in the several belligerent countries by every mail.

"The cataclysm is so awful that it is quite within the bounds of truth to say that on July 31 the curtain went down upon a world which never will be seen again.

"This conflict is the birth-throe of a new European order of things. The man who attempts to judge the future by the old standards or to force the future back to them will be found to be hopelessly out of date. The world will have no use for him. The world has left behind forever the international policies of Palmerston and of Beaconsfield and even those of Bismarck, which were far more powerful.

"When the war ends conditions will be such that a new kind of imagination and a new kind of statesmanship will be required. This war will prove to be the most effective education of 500,000,000 people which possibly could have been thought of, although it is the most costly and most terrible means which could have been chosen. The results of this education will be shown, I think, in the process of general reconstruction which will follow.

"All the talk of which we hear so much about, the peril from the Slav or from the Teuton or from the Celt, is unworthy of serious attention. It would be quite as reasonable to discuss seriously the red-headed peril or the six-footer peril.

"There is no peril to the world in the Slav, the Teuton, the Celt, or any other race, provided the people of that race have an opportunity to develop as social and economic units, and are not bottled up so that an explosion must come.

"It is my firm belief that nowhere in the world, from this time on, will any form of government be tolerated which does not set men free to develop in this fashion."

I asked Dr. Butler to make some prognostication of what the United States of Europe, which he so confidently expects, will be. He answered:

Has Advanced Much.

"I can say only this: The international organization of the world already has progressed much further than is ordinarily understood. Ever since the Franco-Prussian war and the Geneva Arbitration, both landmarks in modern history, this has advanced inconspicuously, but by leaps and bounds.