Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

(c) The secrecy of European diplomatic intercourse and of international understandings and terms of alliance in Europe is in the view of ordinary Americans not only inexpedient, but dangerous and unjustifiable. Under the Constitution of the United States no treaty negotiated by the President and his Cabinet is valid until it has been publicly discussed and ratified by the Senate. During this discussion the people can make their voice heard through the press, the telegraph, and the telephone.

(d) The reliance on military force as the foundation of true national greatness seems to thinking Americans erroneous, and in the long run degrading to a Christian nation. They conceive that the United States may fairly be called a great nation; but that its greatness is due to intellectual and moral forces acting through adequate material forces and expressed in education, public health and order, agriculture, manufacturing, and commerce, and the resulting general well-being of the people. It has never in all its history organized what could be called a standing or a conscripted army; and, until twenty years ago, its navy was very small, considering the length of its sea coasts. There is nothing in the history of the American people to make them believe that the true greatness of nations depends on military power.

Object to Extension by Force.

(e) They object to the extension of national territory by force, contrary to the wishes of the population concerned. This objection is the inevitable result of democratic institutions; and the American people have been faithful to this democratic opinion under circumstances of considerable difficulty--as, for example, in withdrawing from Cuba, the rich island which had been occupied by American troops during the short war with Spain, (1898,) and in the refusing to intervene by force in Mexico for the protection of American investors, when that contiguous country was distracted by factional fighting. This objection applies to long-past acts of the German Government an well as to its proceedings in the present war--as, for example, to the taking of Schleswig-Holstein and Alsace-Lorraine, as well as to the projected occupation of Belgium.

(f) Americans object strenuously to the violation of treaties between nations on the allegation of military necessity or for any other reason whatever. They believe that the progress of civilization will depend in future on the general acceptance of the sanctity of contracts or solemn agreements between nations and on the development by common consent of international law. The neutralization treaties, the arbitration treaties, The Hague Conferences, and some of the serious attempts at mediation, although none of them go far enough, and many of them have been rudely violated on occasion, illustrate a strong tendency in the civilized parts of the world to prevent international wars by means of agreements deliberately made in time of peace. The United States has proposed and made more of these agreements than any other power, has adhered to them, and profited by them. Under one such agreement, made nearly a hundred years ago, Canada and the United States have avoided forts and armaments against each other, although they have had serious differences of opinion and clashes of interests, and the frontier is 3,000 miles long and for the most part without natural barriers. Cherishing the hope that the peace of Europe and the rights of its peoples may be secured through solemn compacts, (which should include the establishment of a permanent international judicial tribunal, supported by an international force,) Americans see, in the treatment by the German Government of the Belgian neutralization treaty as nothing but a piece of paper which might be torn up on the ground of military necessity, evidence of the adoption by Germany of a retrograde policy of the most alarming sort. That single act on the part of Germany--the violation of the neutral territory of Belgium--would have determined American opinion in favor of the Allies, if it had stood alone by itself--the reason being that American hopes for the peace and order of the world are based on the sanctity of treaties.

(g) American public opinion, however, has been greatly shocked in other ways by the German conduct of the war. The American common people see no justification for the dropping of bombs, to which no specific aim can be given, into cities and towns chiefly inhabited by non-combatants, the burning or blowing up of large portions of unfortified towns and cities, the destruction of precious monuments and treasuries of art, the strewing of floating mines through the North Sea, the exacting of ransoms from cities and towns under threat of destroying them, and the holding of unarmed citizens as hostages for the peaceable behavior of a large population under threat of summary execution of the hostages in case of any disorder. All these seem to Americans unnecessary, inexpedient, and unjustifiable methods of warfare, sure to breed hatred and contempt toward the nation that uses them, and therefore to make it difficult for future generations to maintain peace and order in Europe. They cannot help imagining the losses civilization would suffer if the Russians should ever carry into Western Europe the kind of war which the Germans are now waging in Belgium and France. They have supposed that war was to be waged in this century only against public, armed forces and their supplies and shelters.

These opinions and prepossessions on the part of the American people have obviously grown out of the ideals which the early English colonists carried with them to the American wilderness in the seventeenth century, out of the long fighting and public discussion which preceded the adoption of the Constitution of the United States in the eighteenth century, and out of the peculiar experiences of the free Commonwealths which make up the United States, as they have spread across the almost uninhabited continent during the past 125 years.

The experience and the situation of modern Germany have been utterly different. Germany was divided for centuries into discordant parts, had ambitious and martial neighbors, and often felt the weight of their attacks. Out of war came accessions of territory for Prussia, and at last German unity. The reliance of intelligent and patriotic Germany on military force as the basis of national greatness is a natural result of its experiences. Americans, however, believe that this reliance is unsound both theoretically and practically. The wars in Europe since 1870-71, the many threatenings of war, and the present catastrophe seem to Americans to demonstrate that no amount of military preparedness on the part of the nations of Europe can possibly keep the peace of the Continent, or indeed prevent frequent explosions of destructive warfare. They think, too, that preparation for war on the part of Germany better than any of her neighbors can make will not keep her at peace or protect her from invasion, even if this better preparation include advantages of detail which have been successfully kept secret. All the nations which surround Germany are capable of developing a strong fighting spirit; and all the countries of Europe, except England and Russia, possess the means of quickly assembling and getting into action great bodies of men. In other words, all the European States are capable of developing a passionate patriotism, and all possess the railroads, roads, conveyances, telegraphs, and telephones which make rapid mobilization possible. No perfection of military forces, and no amount of previous study of feasible campaigns against neighbors, can give peaceful security to Germany in the present condition of the great European States. In the actual development of weapons and munitions, and of the art of quick intrenching, the attacking force in battle on land is at a great disadvantage in comparison with the force on the defensive. That means indecisive battles and ultimately an indecisive war, unless each party is resolved to push the war to the utter exhaustion and humiliation of the other--a long process which involves incalculable losses and wastes and endless miseries. Americans have always before them the memory of their four years' civil war, which, although resolutely prosecuted on both sides, could not be brought to a close until the resources of the Southern States in men and material were exhausted. In that dreadful process the whole capital of the Southern States was wiped out.

But One Possible Issue.

Now that the sudden attack on Paris has failed, and adequate time has been secured to summon the slower-moving forces of Russia and England, and these two resolute and persistent peoples have decided to use all their spiritual and material forces in co-operation with France against Germany, thoughtful Americans can see but one possible issue of the struggle, whether it be long or short, namely, the defeat of Germany and Austria-Hungary in their present undertakings, and the abandonment by both peoples of the doctrine that their salvation depends on militarism and the maintenance of autocratic Executives intrusted with the power and the means to make sudden war. They believe that no human being should ever be trusted with such power. The alternative is, of course, genuine constitutional government, with the military power subject to the civil power.

The American people grieve over the fruitless sacrifices of life, property, and the natural human joys which the German people are making to a wrong and impossible ideal of national power and welfare. The sacrifices which Germany is imposing on the Allies are fearfully heavy, but there is reason to hope that these will not be fruitless, for out of them may come great gains for liberty and peace in Europe.

All experienced readers on this side of the Atlantic are well aware that nine-tenths of all the reports they get about the war come from English and French sources, and this knowledge makes them careful not to form judgments about details until the events and deeds tell their own story. They cannot even tell to which side victory inclines in a long, far-extended battle until recognizable changes in the positions of the combatants show what the successes or failures must have been. The English and French win some advantage so far as the formation of public opinion in this country is concerned, because those two Governments send hither official reports on current events more frequently than the German Government does, and with more corroborative details. The amount of secrecy with which the campaign is surrounded on both sides is, however, a new and unwelcome experience for both the English and the American public.

German Ignorance of Events.

The pamphlets by German publicists and men of letters which are now coming to this country, and the various similar publications written here, seem to indicate that the German public is still kept by its Government in ignorance about the real antecedents of the war and about many of the incidents and aspects of the portentous combat. These documents seem to Americans to contain a large amount of misinformation about the attack of Austria-Hungary on Servia, the diplomatic negotiations and the correspondence between the sovereigns which immediately preceded the war, and the state of mind of the Belgian and English peoples. American believers in the good sense and good feeling of the common people naturally imagine, when an awful calamity befalls a nation, that the people cannot have been warned of its approach, else they would have avoided it. In this case they fear that the Emperor, the Chancellery, and the General Staff have themselves been misinformed in important respects, have made serious miscalculations which they are proposing to conceal as long as possible, and are not taking the common people into their confidence. American sympathies are with the German people in their sufferings and losses, but not with their rulers, or with the military class, or with the professors and men of letters who have been teaching for more than a generation that might makes right. That short phrase contains the fundamental fallacy which for fifty years has been poisoning the springs of German thought and German policy on public affairs.

Dread of the Muscovite does not seem to Americans a reasonable explanation of the present actions of Germany and Austria-Hungary, except so far as irrational panic can be said to be an explanation. Against possible, though not probable, Russian aggression, a firm defensive alliance of all Western Europe would be a much better protection than the single might of Germany. It were easy to imagine also two new "buffer" States--a reconstructed Poland and a Balkan Confederation. As to French "revenge," it is the inevitable and praiseworthy consequence of Germany's treatment of France in 1870-71. The great success of Germany in expanding her commerce during the last thirty years makes it hard for Americans to understand the hot indignation of the Germans against the British because of whatever ineffective opposition Great Britain may have offered to that expansion. No amount of commercial selfishness on the part of insular England can justify Germany in attempting to seize supreme power in Europe and thence, perhaps, in the world.

Finally, Americans hope and expect that there will be no such fatal issue of the present struggle as the destruction or ruin of the German Nation. On the contrary, they believe that Germany will be freer, happier, and greater than ever when once she has got rid of the monstrous Bismarck policies and the Emperor's archaic conception of his function, and has enjoyed twenty years of real peace. Your obedient servant,

CHARLES W. ELIOT.

Asticou, Me., Sept. 28, 1914.

Dr. Dernburg's Reply to the Third Letter

Late German Secretary of State for the Colonies; lived for
several years in the United States as member of the banking
firm of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., New York.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

Prof. Eliot is conferring a great favor on the exponents of the German side in the present struggle in explaining to them what he thinks of the so-called anti-German feeling in the United States. I am sure his views will be read also in Germany with a great deal of attention, although he will certainly not remain unchallenged in nearly all essential points. The compliment that Prof. Eliot pays to the German people as a whole must be specially appreciated, the more so as it comes from a scientist whose great authority is equally recognized on both sides of the Atlantic.

The anti-German feeling, according to Prof. Eliot, takes its source from the American objection to the committal of a nation to grave mistakes by a permanent Executive. But then, with the exception of France, all the warring nations have permanent Executives, professional diplomatists; all their affairs are conducted in secret, and all their rulers have the power, including the President of France, to embroil their nations in war. The German Emperor is in this respect certainly more restricted than the other heads of State, and I have not read that the declaration of war has been expressly sanctioned by the English Parliament, and certainly the mobilization of the English fleet that took place in July, and the mobilization of the Russian Army that took place at the same time, have not even been brought to the knowledge of the respective Parliaments. When, therefore, the same conditions prevail in all the warring States, how can they be made the reason for such an anti-German feeling?

The same objection holds good with the American antipathy against the power of rulers to order mobilization or declare war in advance without consultation of Parliament, to which I have only to say that the English fleet was mobilized without consulting the English Parliament, while in Germany the Bundesrat, the representatives of the Federal States, as well as of the Federal Diets, has been duly consulted. I may add that also the party leaders of the Reichstag, which could not be convoked earlier than two days after the declaration of the war, have been continuously informed and consulted.

Against the next paragraph, where Prof. Eliot complains of the secrecy of European diplomacy and of international treaties and understandings, the same objection must be made. The state described here as particular to Germany prevails in all European countries, and neither the treaty of the Russian-French alliance, nor the arrangements of the Triple Entente have ever been submitted to the French or British Parliaments. As regards the American attitude toward armaments, I purposely refrain from adducing the American example into my argument, much as I could show that with a very large part of the American Nation the idea of defending the American coast against any invader and the maintenance of a strong Pan-American policy, if need be by arms, is just as fixed a tenet as the German idea that the Fatherland should be held safe from invasion or destruction by the will and the strength of its people. England has always held the same, if not through her army so through her navy, and so did the rest of Europe; and there is no argument to be gotten from that for an anti-German feeling.

No Seizure of Schleswig-Holstein.

Americans object to the extension of territory by force. Germany has never done that, even if one goes back as far as Prof. Eliot wishes to go. Mr. Eliot is absolutely mistaken as to the history of the incorporation of Schleswig-Holstein into Prussia. Schleswig-Holstein was a Dual-Dukedom that never belonged to Denmark, but having as its Duke the King of Denmark as long as he belonged to the elder line of the House of Oldenburg. This elder line was extinct when King Christian VIII. died without male issue. His successor wanted to incorporate the two German Dukedoms into Denmark. Then the people stood up and expressed the desire to remain with the German Federation, to which it had always belonged, and there it is now, of its own free will. The natural dividing line between Denmark and Germany, however, is the River Eider. There are about 30,000 Danes south of the Eider, who have been absorbed against their will, a thing that can never be avoided, and that has sometimes given Prussia a little trouble.

Alsace-Lorraine Originally German.

As to Alsace-Lorraine, the facts are known to be that it had belonged to Germany until it had been taken, against the will of the people, by France under Louis XIV., and it was returned to Germany as a matter of right, more than three-quarters of the population being of German descent and speaking the German language.

But let me ask in return, Mr. Eliot, when did ever in her political career England consult the will of the people when she took a country? Can he say that, when England tore the treaty of Majuba Hill, like a "scrap of paper," and made war on the Boers? Did she consult the people of Cyprus in 1878? Does he know of any plébiscite in India? Has she consulted the Persians, or has France consulted the people of Morocco, or of Indo-China, Italy the people of Tripoli? Since Germany has not acted here in any other way forty years ago than all the other nations, why does Dr. Eliot consider the American people justified in taking anti-German views for reasons of such an old date, while he forgives the nations of the party he favors for much more recent infringement of his rule?

"Americans object to the violation of treaties." So do the Germans. We have always kept our treaties, and mean to do so in the future. The fact with Belgium is that her neutrality was very one-sided; that, as can be proved, as early as the 25th of June, Liège was full of French soldiers, that Belgian fortifications were all directed against Germany, and that for years past it was the Belgian press that outdid the French press in attacks against Germany. But I can give Mr. Eliot here some authority that he has so far not challenged. When Sir Edward Grey presented the English case in the House of Commons on the 3d of August he declared that the British attitude was laid down by the British Government in 1870, and he verbally cited Mr. Gladstone's speech, in which he said he could not subscribe to the assertion that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee was binding on every party, irrespective altogether of the particular position in which it may find itself at the time when the occasion for acting on the guarantee arises. He called that assertion a "stringent and impracticable" view of the guarantee and the whole treaty a "complicated question." So Mr. Gladstone, and with him Sir Edward Grey, has held the Belgian neutrality treaty not binding on every party, when it was against the interest which the particular situation dictated, when the war broke out. It was the interest of Great Britain to maintain the treaty, and that is why she acted. It was against German interest to maintain the treaty, and that is why she broke it. That is the British and not the German theory, and I could very well rest my case here. My theory is with the German Chancellor, that I greatly regret the necessity of violating the Belgian neutrality, after Belgium had chosen to repel the German overtures for a free passage.

It is quite certain that the breach of the Belgian neutrality by Germany was used in Great Britain as a powerful instrument to influence the public sentiment. Every war must be borne by national unity, and it is the duty of the nation's leaders to secure such unity by all practicable means. But has it been forgotten that the attitude of Sir Edward Grey caused such excellent men as Lord Morley, John Burns, and Sir John Trevelyan to leave the Cabinet, where they were looked upon as the best and most liberal members of the ruling combination? Bernard Shaw says of Great Britain that she has never been at a loss for an effective moral attitude. Such an attitude is a powerful weapon in diplomatical and actual warfare, and it must be resorted to, if the necessity arises. But that cannot blind us to the fact that the British Government allowed the political interest to be the paramount consideration in this Belgian neutrality matter. The German interest for not acting on the guarantee was just as strong as the English to act for it.

The proof is found in the English "White Paper." I cite the famous reprint of THE TIMES, (Dispatch No. 148 of Aug. 2 to Paris.) Here Sir Edward Grey says: "We were considering ... whether we should declare violation of Belgian neutrality to be a casus belli."

"Treaties Must Not Be Overrated."

I am an ardent believer in all international arrangements to prevent difficulties and wars between nations, and I rejoice with the American people in the signal success this policy is now having in this country. But international treaties must not be overrated. There are questions which cannot be settled by them. It is too difficult to explain just the nature of such situations as arose in Europe, so I may be permitted for once to ask this question: Does Prof. Eliot believe that the majority of the American people think that the unwritten Monroe Doctrine could be made the subject of arbitration, whether it had a right to exist or to be enforced? I must emphatically say, No, it could not. It can be as little arbitrated upon as a matter of religion or of personal morals.

Mr. Eliot thinks a happy result of the war would be that American institutions should prevail in Germany thereafter. Why should Germany only become a representative republic? Does he not demand the same regarding Russia, England, Italy, Austria, and Japan? And if not, why not?

From all this I fail to see the point in the reasons given by Prof. Eliot why fair-minded Americans should side with the Allies because the objections made against German procedure, down to the breach of the Belgian neutrality, must be made against all other European States. British history is just teeming with examples of broken treaties and torn "scraps of paper." The chasing of German diplomatic representatives out of neutral Egypt is a case in point.

I must insist that whatever anti-German feeling there is is not fully explained by Prof. Eliot, and his article cannot be made a code by which German behavior could be regulated in the future. Prof. Eliot is a scholar; business interests do not come very near him. So he is especially concerned with the ethical aspect of the matter. He believes the Germans think that "might is right." This is very unjust. Our history proves that we have never acted on this principle. We have never got or attempted to get a world empire such as England has won, all of which, with a very few exceptions, by might, by war, and by conquest. The German writers who have expounded this doctrine have only shown how the large world empires of England and France were welded together, what means have been adopted for that purpose, and against what sort of political doctrines we must beware.

Our Sympathy for the Under Dog.

As Dr. Eliot makes his remarks for the benefit of his German confrères, may I be permitted to say to them what I consider the reason for the American attitude? There is, in the first place, the ethical side. Americans have a very strong sense of generosity, and are, as a rule, very good sports. They think Belgium a small nation, brutally attacked by a much bigger fellow; they feel that the little man stands up bravely and gamely, and fights for all he is worth. Such a situation will always command American sympathy and antagonism against the stronger. Then there is the business side. Americans feel that this war is endangering their political and commercial interests, so they are naturally angry against the people who, they believe, have brought the war about.

As Germany has not had an opportunity to make herself heard as amply as her adversaries, they think that it was Germany which set the world afire, and that is what they resent, and in which they were justified, if it were true. But the question of the hour is not the question of the past, but of the present and of the future, and the people on this side who will give Germany fair play because it is just in them will examine the situation in the light of their interests. Then they will find that Belgium had been in league with the Allies long before the conflagration broke out, only to be left to its own resources when the critical hour arose. They will further find that it is not Germany but England and her allies that are throttling commerce, maiming cables, stopping mails, and breaking neutrality and other treaties to further their aims; that, finally, today England has established a world rule on the sea to which even America must submit. They will then soon come to the conclusion that, no matter what happened in the past, the peace of the world can only be assured by a good understanding between Germany and the United States as a sort of counterbalance against the unmeasured aggrandizement of English sea power. Then the feeling toward Germany will be considerably better, and I may add that even now it is not so very bad after all.

I make these remarks with due respect to Prof. Eliot and his views, and with great reluctance for being compelled to enter the field against a personality whose undoubted superiority I wish to be the first to acknowledge.

BERNHARD DERNBURG.

New York, Oct. 4, 1914.

Dr. Jordan's Reply to Dr. Dernburg

Daniel Jordan is Assistant Professor of Roman Languages and
Literature at Columbia University.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

President Eliot is as fair a judge of the present European situation as can be found anywhere, and is well qualified to explain the almost unanimous attitude of thoughtful Americans in regard to Germany. Dr. Dernburg, on the other hand, has been officially sent from Germany to expound the German official version; both his point of view and his treatment of facts are essentially un-American.

He says: "Americans object to the extension of territory by force. Germany has never done that." Apparently he believes that the Poles asked Prussia to become her subjects. The facts are that they have fought and begged for autonomy for nearly 150 years, and that at the present time high German officials are members of the Anti-Polish League.

Dr. Dernburg, when he comes to Schleswig-Holstein, states that 30,000 Danes south of the Eider River (this is in Holstein) have been absorbed against their will, "a thing that can never be avoided, and that has sometimes given Prussia a little trouble." But what about the Danes north of the Eider River? Schleswig and Holstein are really two provinces. Holstein is German, but the northern part of Schleswig, north of Fiensburg, is inhabited by Danes who are longing to join Denmark and who number about 200,000. Article 5 of the Treaty of Prague, signed on Aug. 23, 1866, after Sadowa, between Prussia and Austria, states that the inhabitants of Northern Schleswig shall be given a chance to join Denmark, "if they should so express the desire by a free vote." Prussia has not respected this solemn promise any more than former promises concerning Schleswig. The frequently renewed protests of the annexed Danes have remained unanswered. The best proof that Prussia's title to Danish Schleswig was not considered as very substantial is that in October, 1878, Prussia finally obtained from Austria the annulment of Article 5 of the Treaty of Prague, which dealt with the taking of a plébiscite in Danish Schleswig.

To decide the fate of a province without consulting the inhabitants seems perfectly natural to German Kultur, but to Americans it is not; the days of slavery have gone, and wherever slavery still exists it is time to make a change.

As to Alsace-Lorraine, says Dr. Dernburg, "the facts are known that it had belonged to Germany until it was taken by Louis XIV., against the will of the people, and that it was returned to Germany as a matter of right." Such an argument is mediaeval, and it might just as well be argued that Germany should now belong to France, because Germany was once conquered, civilized, and organized by inhabitants of France, led by their Frankish King. And it is not sure that in 1648 Alsace was not glad to become French, because Louis XIV., by the Treaty of Westphalia, then granted perfect religious freedom to the Alsatians, who unlike their neighbors, lived ever since without fear of religious persecutions. Lorraine itself was not annexed by Louis XIV., nor by force, as it was peacefully united to France at the death of Stanislas, father of the Queen of France, Marie-Lesinzka. As for the inhabitants of Metz, they were considered long ago as French. Metz was annexed to France in 1552, with the full consent of the then allies of the French King, Henri II., the German Princes, who recognized by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambresis, (1559,) that Metz, Toul, and Verdun were French cities, and could not be considered as a part of the German Confederation. So there were at one time German Princes who accepted the dogma of the consent of the governed!

Attacking the record of England in order to defend the record of Germany, as Dr. Dernburg does, is no justification for the necessary German aggression of today. Even granting that the English record is poor, which is a matter open to discussion, two wrongs would not make things right.

Dr. Dernburg also compares the policy of aggrandizement of Germany in Schleswig, Alsace, &c., with that of other countries in Morocco, Tripoli, &c. Even school children know that two things which are entirely unlike must not be compared. Northern Africa had too long been a den of pirates and brigands, and Latin Europe has rendered an immense service to the world in establishing order there. Algeria has been conquered in the same way as Morocco is now being conquered, and her natives enjoy more genuine liberty than they ever did before; they are even willing to fight as volunteers for the country they consider now as their own. Neither Danish Schleswig nor Alsace-Lorraine, which were as civilized as any other European country when they were last annexed, can be compared to Morocco any more than to the Philippines. So this comparison made by Dr. Dernburg also falls to pieces.

The case of the German point of view is not entirely without hope. In THE TIMES of Oct. 5 Dr. Dernburg approves the annexation of Holstein because the Germans of Holstein wanted to belong to Germany. This is a sound conclusion, and Dr. Dernburg will doubtless acknowledge later--better late than never--that the Alsatians and the Danish of Schleswig should have had their say, just like the Germans of Holstein. It cannot be possible that to him the wish of the inhabitants of a province is the voice of God when it suits Germany and the voice of the devil when it suits somebody else.

DANIEL JORDAN.

Columbia University, Nov. 6, 1914.

Dr. Irene Sargent's Reply to Dr. Dernburg

Professor of the History of Fine Arts, Syracuse University.

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

Contradicting Dr. Eliot, Dr. Bernhard Dernburg says:

Schleswig-Holstein was a dual Dukedom that never belonged to
Denmark; but, having as its Duke the King of Denmark, as long
as he belonged to the elder line of the house of Oldenburg ...
Frederick VII. wanted to incorporate the two German Dukedoms
into Denmark.... Then the people stood up and expressed the
desire to remain with the German Federation.

Such an assertion is a summary, inaccurate, and unfair manner of dealing with perhaps the most complex series of diplomatic, legal, and racial questions that arose in the nineteenth century. It would appear from the best evidence that Schleswig was indissolubly united with the Crown of Denmark. To maintain this principle Christian VIII. in 1846 issued letters patent declaring that the royal line of succession (female) was in full force, as far as Schleswig was concerned. As to Holstein, the King stated that he was prevented from giving an equally clear decision, and the reason of his hesitation lay in the assumption that the law of the Salic Saxons excluding women from the throne would naturally prevail in Holstein, where the Germans, their customs, and their language were dominant. Two years later, Prussia sought to restore her prestige, lost in the Revolution of 1848, by sending troops into the Duchies in order to enforce the principle that this territory constituted two independent and indivisible States, the government of which was hereditary in the male line alone. The Prussian troops were afterward withdrawn by the hesitating Frederic William, and there followed a succession of protocols, constitutions, and compacts until the time of Bismarck, who, in his "Reflections," Volume II., Page 10, in writing of the Duchies, acknowledges:

"From the beginning I kept annexation steadily before my eyes."

The master of statecraft conquered. But did the people "stand up and express their desire to remain with the German Federation," as Dr. Dernburg asserts?

If his assertion be true, why were the Danish "optants" subjected to domiciliary visits, perquisitions, arrest, and expulsion? And why--only to mention one instance of espionage--did the Prussian police confiscate the issue of a Danish newspaper published in Schleswig because it contained a reference to that Duchy under its historic name of South Jutland?

The truth stands that the whole Schleswig-Holstein question is one that involves the modern principle of "nationality," and, as such, enters of necessity into the present European crisis. It is broadly understood by Dr. Eliot and willfully misapprehended by his critic.

Passing on to consider Alsace-Lorraine, Dr. Dernburg declares that "it had belonged to Germany until it was taken, against the will of the people, under Louis XIV."

In this statement, as in the treatment of the previous question, facts are mutilated and wrong impressions are given. Alsace, it is well known, was included within the confines of ancient Gaul, its original population was Celtic, and it passed, late in the fifth Christian century, under the rule of the Franks, one of whose chieftains, Clovis, became the founder of the first French monarchy. In dealing with its later history Dr. Dernburg confuses the Holy Roman (Germanic) Empire with Germany, considered in its modern sense. He appears to forget that the reign of Louis XIV. was an age of absolutism and not of plébiscites.

He also ignores that the most strenuous efforts on the part of Germany to strangle the French nationality and language in the imperial territory (Alsace-Lorraine) have proved useless, although they have been exerted constantly for almost a half century.

IRENE SARGENT.

Professor of the History of Fine Arts.

Syracuse University, Nov. 3, 1914.

DR. ELIOT'S FOURTH LETTER.

Germany and World Empire

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

Each one of the principal combatants in Europe seems to be anxious to prove that it is not responsible for this cruelest, most extensive, and most destructive of all wars. Each Government involved has published the correspondence between its Chief Executive and other Chief Executives, and between its Chancellery or Foreign Office and the equivalent bodies in the other nations that have gone to war, and has been at pains to give a wide circulation to these documents. To be sure, none of these Government publications seems to be absolutely complete. There seems to be in all of them suppressions or omissions which only the future historian will be able to report--perhaps after many years. They reveal, however, the dilapidated state of the Concert of Europe in July, 1914, and the flurry in the European Chancelleries which the ultimatum sent by Austria-Hungary to Servia produced. They also testify to the existence of a new and influential public opinion, about war and peace, to which nations that go to war think it desirable to appeal for justification or moral support.

These publications have been read with intense interest by impartial observers in all parts of the world, and have in many cases determined the direction of the readers' sympathy and good will; and yet none of them discloses or deals with the real sources of the unprecedented calamity. They relate chiefly to the question who struck the match, and not to the questions who provided the magazine that exploded, and why did he provide it. Grave responsibility, of course, attaches to the person who gives the order to mobilize a national army or to invade a neighbor's territory; but the real source of the resulting horrors is not in such an order, but in the Governmental institutions, political philosophy, and long-nurtured passions and purposes of the nation or nations concerned.

German Desire for World Empire.

The prime source of the present immense disaster in Europe is the desire on the part of Germany for world empire, a desire which one European nation after another has made its supreme motive, and none that has once adopted it has ever completely eradicated. Germany arrived late at this desire, being prevented until 1870 from indulging it, because of her lack of unity, or rather because of being divided since the Thirty Years' War into a large number of separate, more or less independent, States. When this disease, which has attacked one nation after another through all historic times, struck Germany it exhibited in her case a remarkable malignity, moving her to expansion in Europe by force of arms, and to the seizure of areas for colonization in many parts of the world. Prussia, indeed, had long believed in making her way in Europe by fighting, and had repeatedly acted on that belief. Shortly before the achievement of German unity by Bismarck she had obtained by war in 1864 and 1866 important accessions of territory and leadership in all Germany.

With this desire for world empire went the belief that it was only to be obtained by force of arms. Therefore, united Germany has labored with utmost intelligence and energy to prepare the most powerful army in the world, and to equip it for instant action in the most perfect manner which science and eager invasion could contrive. To develop this supreme military machine universal conscription--an outgrowth of the conception of the citizens' army of France during the Revolution--was necessary; so that every young man in Germany physically competent to bear arms might receive the training of a soldier, whether he wished it or not, and remain at the call of the Government for military duty during all his years of competency, even if he were the only son of a widow, or a widower with little children, or the sole support of a family or other dependents. In order to the completeness of this military ideal the army became the nation and the nation became the army to a degree which had never before been realized in either the savage or the civilized world. This army could be summoned and put in play by the Chief Executive of the German Nation with no preliminaries except the consent of the hereditary heads of the several States which united to form the empire in 1870-71 under the domination of Prussia, the Prussian King, become German Emperor, being Commander in Chief of the German Army. At the word of the Emperor this army can be summoned, collected, clothed, equipped and armed, and set in motion toward any frontier in a day. The German Army was thus made the largest in proportion to population, the best equipped, and the most mobile in the world. The German General Staff studied incessantly and thoroughly plans for campaigns against all the other principal States of Europe, and promptly utilized--secretly, whenever secrecy was possible--all promising inventions in explosives, ordnance, munitions, transportation, and sanitation. At the opening of 1914 the General Staff believed that the German Army was ready for war on the instant, and that it possessed some significant advantages in fighting--such as better implements and better discipline--over the armies of the neighboring nations. The army could do its part toward the attainment of world empire. It would prove invincible.

A Great German Navy.

The intense desire for colonies, and for the spread of German commerce throughout the world, instigated the creation of a great German navy, and started the race with England in navy building. The increase of German wealth, and the rapid development of manufactures and commercial sea power after 1870-71, made it possible for the empire to devote immense sums of money to the quick construction of a powerful navy, in which the experience and skill of all other shipbuilding nations would be appropriated and improved on. In thus pushing her colonization and sea-power policy Germany encountered the wide domination of Great Britain on the oceans; and this encounter bred jealousy, suspicion, and distrust on both sides. That Germany should have been belated in the quest for foreign possessions was annoying; but that England and France should have acquired early ample and rich territories on other continents, and then should resist or obstruct Germany when she aspired to make up for lost time, was intensely exasperating. Hence chronic resentments, and--when the day came--probably war. In respect to its navy, however, Germany was not ready for war at the opening of 1914; and, therefore, she did not mean to get into war with Great Britain in that year. Indeed, she believed--on incorrect information--that England could not go to war in the Summer of 1914. Neither the Government nor the educated class in Germany comprehends the peculiar features of party government as it exists in England, France, and the United States; and, therefore, the German leaders were surprised and grievously disappointed at the sudden popular determination of Great Britain and Ireland to lay aside party strife and take strenuous part in the general European conflict.

The complete preparation of the German Army for sudden war, the authority to make war always ready in the hands of the German Emperor, and the thorough studies of the German Staff into the most advantageous plans of campaign against every neighbor, conspired to develop a new doctrine of "military necessity" as the all-sufficient excuse for disregarding and violating the contracts or agreements into which Prussia or the new Germany had entered with other nations. To gain quickly a military advantage in attacking a neighbor came to be regarded as proper ground for violating any or all international treaties and agreements, no matter how solemn and comprehensive, how old or how new. The demonstration of the insignificance or worthlessness of international agreements in German thought and practice was given in the first days of the war by the invasion of Belgium, and has been continued ever since by violation on the part of Germany of numerous agreements concerning the conduct of war into which Germany entered with many other nations at the Second Hague Conference.

Sanctity of National Contracts.

This German view of the worthlessness of international agreements was not a cause of the present war, because it was not fully evident to Europe, although familiar and of long standing in Germany; but it is a potent reason for the continuance of the war by the Allies until Germany is defeated; because it is plain to all the nations of the world, except Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Turkey at the moment, that the hopes of mankind for the gradual development of international order and peace rest on the sanctity of contracts between nations, and on the development of adequate sanctions in the administration of international law. The new doctrine of military necessity affronts all law and is completely and hopelessly barbarous.

World empire now, as always, is to be won by force--that is, by conquest and holding possession. So Assyria, Israel, Macedonia, Athens, Rome, Islam, England, and France have successively believed and tried to accomplish in practice. United Germany has for forty years been putting into practice, at home and abroad, the doctrine of force as the source of all personal and national greatness and all worthy human achievements. In the support of this doctrine, educated Germany has developed and accepted the religion of valor and the dogma that might makes right. In so doing it has rejected with scorn the Christian teachings concerning humility and meekness, justice and mercy, brotherhood and love. The objects of its adoration have become Strength, Courage, and ruthless Will-power; let the weak perish and help them to perish; let the gentle, meek, and humble submit to the harsh and proud; let the shiftless and incapable die; the world is for the strong, and the strongest shall be ruler. This is a religion capable of inspiring its followers with zeal and sustained enthusiasm in promoting the national welfare at whatever cost to the individual of life, liberty, or happiness, and also of lending a religious sanction to the extremes of cruelty, greed, and hate. It were incredible that educated people who have been brought up within earshot of Christian ethics and within sight of gentle men and women should all be content with the religion-of-valor plan. Accordingly, the finer German spirits have invented a supplement to that Stone Age religion. They have set up for worship a mystical conception of the State as a majestic and beneficent entity which embraces all the noble activities of the nation and guides it to its best achievements. To this ideal State every German owes duty, obedience, and complete devotion. The trouble with this supplement to the religion of valor is that it dwells too much on submission, self-sacrifice, and discipline, and not enough on individual liberty and self-control in liberty. Accordingly, when the valiant men got control of the Government and carried the nation into a ferocious war, they swept away with them all the devotees of this romantic and spiritual State. The modern German is always a controlled, directed, and drilled person, who aspires to control and discipline his inferiors; and in his view pretty much all mankind are his inferiors. He is not a freeman in the French, English, or American sense; and he prefers not to be.

What German Domination Would Mean.

The present war is the inevitable result of lust of empire, autocratic government, sudden wealth, and the religion of valor. What German domination would mean to any that should resist it the experience of Belgium and Northern France during the past three months aptly demonstrates. The civilized world can now see where the new German morality--be efficient, be virile, be hard, be bloody, be rulers--would land it. To maintain that the power which has adopted in practice that new morality, and in accordance with its precepts promised Austria its support against Servia and invaded Belgium and France in hot haste, is not the responsible author of the European war, is to throw away memory, reason, and common sense in judging the human agencies in current events.

The real cause of the war is this gradually developed barbaric state of the German mind and will. All other causes--such as the assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, the sympathy of Russia with the Balkan States, the French desire for the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine, and Great Britain's jealousy of German aggrandizement--are secondary and incidental causes, contributory, indeed, but not primary and fundamental. If any one ask who brought the ruling class in Germany to this barbaric frame of mind, the answer must be Bismarck, Moltke, Treitschke, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, the German Emperor, their like, their disciples, and the military caste.

Germany Never Dreaded Russia.

Many German apologists for the war attribute it to German fear of Russia. They say that, although Germany committed the first actual aggression by invading Belgium and Luxemburg on the way to attack France with the utmost speed and fierceness, the war is really a war of defense against Russia, which might desirably pass over, after France has been crushed, into a war against Great Britain, that perfidious and insolent obstacle to Germany's world empire. The answer to this explanation is that, as a matter of fact, Germany has never dreaded, or even respected, the military strength of Russia, and that the recent wars and threatenings of war by Germany have not been directed against Russia, but against Denmark, Austria, France, and England. In her colonization enterprises it is not Russia that Germany has encountered, but England, France, and the United States. The friendly advances made within the last twenty years by Germany to Turkey were not intended primarily to strengthen Germany against Russia, but Germany against Great Britain through access by land to British India. In short, Germany's policies, at home and abroad, during the last forty years have been inspired not by fear of Russia, or of any other invader, but by its own aggressive ambition for world empire. In the present war it thinks it has staked its all on "empire or downfall."

Germany Should Be Defeated.

Those nations which value public liberty and believe that the primary object of Government is to promote the general welfare by measures and policies founded on justice, good-will, and respect for the freedom of the individual cannot but hope that Germany will be completely defeated in its present undertakings; but they do not believe that Germany is compelled to choose between a life of domination in Europe and the world and national death. They wish that all her humane culture and her genius for patient and exact research may survive this hideous war and guide another Germany to great achievements for humanity.

If the causes of the present immense catastrophe have been have correctly stated, the desirable outcomes of the war are, no world empire for any race or nation, no more "subjects," no Executives, either permanent or temporary, with power to throw their fellow-countrymen into war, no secret diplomacy justifying the use for a profit of all the lies, concealments, deceptions, and ambuscades which are an inevitable part of war and assuming to commit nations on international questions, and no conscription armies that can be launched in war by Executives without consulting independent representative assemblies. There should come out from this supreme convulsion, a federated Europe, or a league of the freer nations, which should secure the smaller States against attack, prevent the larger from attempting domination, make sure that treaties and other international contracts shall be public and be respected until modified by mutual consent, and provide a safe basis for the limitation and reduction of armaments on land and sea, no basis to be considered safe which could fail to secure the liberties of each and all the federated States against the attacks of any outsider or faithless member. No one can see at present how such a consummation is to be brought about, but any one can see already that this consummation is the only one which can satisfy the lovers of liberty under law, and the believers in the progress of mankind through loving service each to all and all to each.