TWENTY-FIVE CENTS, NET 
 
 A PRIMER 
 OF THE WAR 
 
 FOR 
 
 AMERICANS 
 
 WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY 
 
 AN AMERICAN 
 
 J. WILLIAM WHITE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
A PRIMER OF 
 
 THE WAR 
 
 FOR AMERICANS 
 
A PRIMER 
 OF THE WAR 
 
 FOR 
 
 AMERICANS 
 
 WRITTEN AND COMPILED BY 
 
 AN AMERICAN 
 
 J. WILLIAM WHITE 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
3i 5^3 
 
 Copyright, 1914, by 
 J. William White 
 
 & 4 -v-v^ 
 DEC -4 1914 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. What Evidence Exists as to the Real Reason, 
 
 THE Fundamental Cause of This War?. ... 9 
 
 2. What is the Evidence as to the Events Imme- 
 
 diately Leading Up to the War in Their 
 Relation to the Culpability of Germany?. 35 
 
 3. What Has Been the Attitude of the German 
 
 Apologists in Relation to Belgium Since 
 THE Violation of Neutrality? 48 
 
 4. Is There Any Evidence Which Tends to Show 
 
 Why the Present Time Was Selected By 
 Germany to Precipitate the War? 54 
 
 5. What Are the Principles Represented by the 
 
 Opposing Forces in This War? 58 
 
 6. In Addition to the Evidence Already Presented 
 
 AS TO the Mental Attitude of the Average 
 German Toward His Own Race and Toward 
 Other European Races, Are There Any 
 Facts Tending to Show His Real Attitude 
 Toward America? , 60 
 
 7. What is the Attitude of German-Americans 
 
 Toward This War and Toward the Prin- 
 ciples Involved? . . . .' 67 
 
 8. How Much Reliance is to be Placed Upon 
 
 Statements Emanating from Germany at 
 This Time? 83 
 
 (5) 
 
6 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 9. What is the Truth as to the Pre-eminence of 
 German "Kultur," of German Civilization, 
 OF German Achievement in Letters, Arts 
 and Sciences ? 88 
 
 10. What Are THE Duties OF America AT This Time? 94 
 
 11. What Are the Interests of America at This 
 
 Time? 109 
 
 12. What, in the Light of This War, Should Be 
 
 the Aim of This and Other Civilized Coun- 
 tries for the Future? 119 
 
 Summary 121 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Very soon after the beginning of the war its Hter- 
 ature was already so voluminous, the statements made 
 by the warring nations were so contradictory, the ac- 
 cusations and counter-accusations were so numerous, 
 the pleas of impassioned advocates were so irrecon- 
 cilable, that a certain bewilderment and confusion on 
 the part of Americans was almost inevitable. 
 
 It is greatly to the credit of the intelligence and 
 clear thinking of the nation that from the day Eng- 
 land's "White Book" was laid before the world this 
 country as a whole — with the exception of those Ger- 
 mans living here, who are known as "German- Ameri- 
 cans" — ranged itself spontaneously and with practical 
 unanimity on the side of the Allies. But however cor- 
 rect this position was — and I believe it was absolutely 
 correct — it soon became apparent that not everyone 
 who occupied it could give cogent and convincing rea- 
 sons for the belief that was in him, or could refute 
 clearly and logically the opposing arguments and cor- 
 rect the misstatements on which they were often based. 
 
 As I found this to be my own case I began to set 
 aside, or to note down, as if I were preparing for a lec- 
 ture, the questions which seemed to me of fundamental 
 importance and the answers that most impressed and 
 satisfied me. Later, for the attempted benefit of my 
 family and of a few friends, and for the further clari- 
 
 (7) 
 
8 PREFACE 
 
 fication of my own views, I threw these memoranda 
 into the form of a series of questions and answers. In 
 doing this I had then no definite idea of any wider use 
 of this material and in now acceding to the suggestion 
 of some friends that the matter thus brought together 
 be given wider distribution I should very much like it 
 to be understood that I do not feel that I have any 
 special fitness for the self-imposed task. If I lay the 
 result before readers — if I have any — outside the 
 small circle for whom it was originally intended, it is 
 only to try to do just for this moment the little that lies 
 in me to help a cause in which I profoundly believe. 
 
 If the paper has any value it will not be from what 
 I have written, but from the collocation of the opinions 
 of others, each of whom is a recognized authority as to 
 the subject he deals with. 
 
 Wherever my answers have involved questions of 
 fact I have taken pains to attain accuracy. When they 
 have related to matters of opinion I have endeavored 
 to give the basis for such opinions. I adopted the 
 Socratic method in the beginning because for me, 
 without special training, it was the easiest. I have re- 
 tained it for the same reason. 
 
 I beg to add finally that any proceeds that may ac- 
 crue from the sale of this pamphlet are pledged in 
 advance to the Belgian Relief Fund. 
 
 /. William White. 
 
 1810 S. Rittenhouse Square, 
 Philadelphia. 
 
What evidence exists as to the real reason, the 
 fundamental cause of this war? 
 
 A. a. The most conclusive evidence is to be found 
 in the writings and teachings of prominent and repre- 
 sentative Germans during the past forty-three years, 
 i. e., ever since the victory of Germany over France. 
 
 These writings and teachings demonstrate the de- 
 termination of Germany to attain "World Power." 
 This determination was the fundamental cause of the 
 war. The writings in question are fairly illustrated 
 by excerpts given below. It should be premised that 
 as soon as these doctrines became widely known to 
 the world outside of Germany and exerted their in- 
 evitable influence upon public opinion, apologists and 
 repudiators sprang up among the Germans, or the 
 "German-Americans." For example, to take only a 
 few of the latter : Herr Ridder, of the Staats Zeitung, 
 says (1) in reference to certain English writers: 
 
 "I am unable to come to any other conclusion 
 than that their readings have been confined to Bem- 
 hardi and Treitschke, those two German writers who 
 were never a part of German intellectual life and 
 were both disowned by the German people. 
 
 "As a matter of fact, Bernhardi is not even read 
 in Germany. Of his works, published by Cotta, only 
 8,000 copies have been given to the public to date. 
 
 (9) 
 
10 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "The writings of Treitschke, as a historian, are 
 regarded by Germans as brilliant, but Treitschke is 
 remembered by them as a man of intense party feel- 
 ing who labored under the spirit of 1870, and was 
 incapable of true sympathy with their racial aspira- 
 tions." 
 
 No evidence that I have been able to find serves to 
 justify these statements. 
 
 Another German-American, Mr. Rinald, calls 
 Bernhardi "a retired German General of jingoistic 
 tendencies/' and asks for "proof" that his book had the 
 approval of the Kaiser. It would seem sufificient reply 
 to him to ask for proof that it had his disapproval. 
 In the absence of such proof it is fair to assume, in 
 view of the Kaiser's incessant activities and restless 
 supervision of all things German, and especially of all 
 things military, that at least the book did not greatly 
 displease him. Still another. Professor Jastrow, also 
 repudiates Bernhardi as an exponent of German 
 thought, but gives no more convincing reasons. 
 
 The following quotation from a letter of Dr. Jas- 
 trow to The Nation (November 12, 1914) well illus- 
 trates the tactics I am considering. After asserting 
 that at first "we" (he professes to be speaking for 
 Americans) threw the sole responsibility of the war 
 upon the Kaiser, he continues : 
 
 "When doubt arose as to the accuracy of this 
 picture of a modern combination of Machiavelli and 
 Napoleon, we discovered Bernhardi, and found that 
 his influence, or that of the whole party which he 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR. AMERICANS 11 
 
 represents, was behind it all. Bernhardi frequently 
 quoted a man by the name of Treitschke, and, al- 
 though very few in this country had ever heard of 
 him and scarcely anybody had read him (for his 
 works had not been translated into English), we were 
 willing to take him on faith, and were quite satisfied 
 that his teachings involved the conquest of all of 
 western Europe and of England for the purpose of 
 spreading German 'culture'; and to this programme 
 we added, of our own accord, the subsequent con- 
 quest of the United States." 
 
 He must, like Miinsterberg (page 7S), be writing 
 to impress a peculiarly infantile type of American 
 mind. The effort to belittle, for this purpose, the great 
 Pan-German historian, by speaking of him as ''a man 
 named Treitschke," is particularly characteristic. 
 
 But his whole argument to the effect that because 
 we "have just discovered" these people, therefore we 
 are wrong in believing that they represent Germany, 
 is scarcely worthy of notice. 
 
 What does it matter that Americans generally 
 were not familiar with their writings until this shock- 
 ing war was begun. 
 
 Of what importance is it that we were in igno- 
 rance of their grandiose plans and sinister purposes ? 
 
 What bearing on the real question has the fact 
 that Treitschke had not been translated into English 
 when we first began to take an interest in him ? None 
 whatever. It is not worth while to try to drag that 
 herring across the trail. 
 
12 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 The question remains: What were their teach- 
 ings and what reason is there to beHeve that they 
 greatly influenced German pubHc opinion ? 
 
 As to Dr. Jastrow's final sentence that "we added 
 of our own accord the subsequent conquest of the 
 United States," I beg to refer the reader — with at 
 present merely incidental mention of the offensive 
 "we" and "our"— to pages 110-13. 
 
 We are asked to believe that a former member 
 of the German army staff, who, so far as we know, 
 has never been reproved or censured or contradicted 
 by the Kaiser, or by any other member of that staff, 
 who wrote as an expert in both German statesmanship 
 and German strategy, and whose book, published three 
 years ago, forecast with entire accuracy the actions 
 and movements of Germany in the present war, was 
 "disowned by the German people" and did not repre- 
 sent the military caste to which he belonged. 
 
 It is not possible to believe this or to think that he 
 was not in full touch with the scarcely concealed pur- 
 poses of the "Weltmacht oder Niedergang" party. 
 His book was an amazingly frank exposition of those 
 purposes and an extravagant and unqualified eulogy 
 of militarism. 
 
 Before the war his uncontradicted statements 
 were generally accepted as embodying the views of the 
 autocratic caste, and in the present campaign both the 
 German armies and the German diplomats have, even 
 down to relatively unimportant details, followed with 
 curious exactness his prophetic tactics. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 13 
 
 As to Treitschke, whom many of the German- 
 American commentators similarly repudiate, he was 
 unquestionably one of their great national historians. 
 Mr. Bryce calls him "the famous Professor of His- 
 tory." His lectures at Berlin were listened to for 
 years by crowded and enthusiastic audiences, his 
 teachings as to Politik became a gospel. Mr. Norman 
 Hapgood (2) says of him: 
 
 "He, most of all, made intellectual Germany 
 drunk with the idea of her so-called destiny. He 
 taught her that all history led up to the leadership 
 of the Teuton. . . . Germans quote him as no 
 historian is quoted by the English or the French. In 
 interpreting history he is their Bible. Their political 
 thinkers never tire of him." 
 
 On the other hand, I have failed to find in the 
 writings of the German apologists any evidence of 
 ante-bellum repudiation of these writers, and in the 
 absence of such evidence, and in the light of the col- 
 lateral proof furnished by the writings of others (also 
 quoted below), and by the outbreak and conduct of 
 the war, they must be considered as representing the 
 views of at least that part of the German people who 
 were intelligent enough to understand them. The 
 quotations follow. I have used some of those employed 
 by Viscount Bryce in a recent article (3), and have 
 added to them from a list of my own almost as striking 
 and conclusive: 
 
14 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "War is in itself a good thing. It is a biological 
 necessity of the first importance." 
 
 "The inevitableness, the idealism, the blessing of 
 war as an indispensable and stimulating law of devel- 
 opment must be repeatedly emphasized." 
 
 "War is the greatest factor in the furtherance of 
 culture and power. Efforts to secure peace are 
 extraordinarily detrimental as soon as they can influ- 
 ence politics." 
 
 "Efforts directed toward the abolition of war are 
 not only foolish, but absolutely immoral, and must 
 be stigmatized as unworthy of the human race." 
 
 "Courts of arbitration are pernicious delusions. 
 The whole idea represents a presumptuous encroach- 
 ment on natural laws of development, which can only 
 lead to more disastrous consequences for humanity 
 generally." 
 
 "The maintenance of peace never can be or may 
 be the goal of a policy." 
 
 "Efforts for peace would, if they attained their 
 goal, lead to general degeneration, as happens every- 
 where in nature where the struggle for existence is 
 eliminated." 
 
 "Huge armaments are in themselves desirable. 
 They are the most necessary precondition of our 
 national health." 
 
 "The end all and be all of a State is power, and 
 he who is not man enough to look this truth in the 
 face should not meddle with politics." (Quoted from 
 Treitschke's "Politik.") 
 
 "The State's highest moral duty is to increase 
 its power." 
 
 "The State is justified in making conquests when- 
 ever its own advantage seems to require additional 
 territory." 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 15 
 
 "Self-preservation is the State's highest ideal and 
 justifies whatever action it may take if that action be 
 conducive to that end. The State is the sole judge 
 of the morality of its action. It is, in fact, above 
 morality, or, in other words, whatever is necessary 
 is moral. Recognized rights {i.e., treaty rights) are 
 never absolute rights ; they are of human origin and, 
 therefore, imperfect and variable. There are condi- 
 tions in which they do not correspond to the actual 
 truth of things. In this case infringement of the right 
 appears morally justified." 
 
 "In fact, the State is a law unto itself. Weak 
 nations have not the same right to live as powerful 
 and vigorous nations." 
 
 "Any nation in favor of collective humanity out- 
 side the limits of the State and nationality is impos- 
 sible." 
 
 "War is a biological necessity of the first impor- 
 tance, a regulative element in the life of mankind 
 which cannot be dispensed with, since without it an 
 unhealthy development will follow, which excludes 
 every advancement of the race, and therefore all real 
 civilization." 
 
 "Just as increase of population forms under cer- 
 tain circumstances a convincing argument for war, 
 so industrial conditions may compel the same result." 
 
 "Frederick the Great recognized the ennobling 
 effect of war. 'War,' he said, 'opens the most fruit- 
 ful field to all virtues, for at every moment constancy, 
 pity, magnanimity, heroism and mercy shine forth in 
 it; every moment offers an opportunity to exercise 
 one of these virtues.' " 
 
 "We can, fortunately, assert the impossibility of 
 efforts after peace ever attaining their ultimate object 
 in a world bristling with arms, where a healthy ego- 
 
16 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 ism still directs the policy of most countries. 'God 
 will see to it/ says Treitschke, 'that war always recurs 
 as a drastic medicine for the human race.' " 
 
 "We ought to know that there is no such thing 
 as eternal peace; we ought to have always in our 
 minds that saying of Moltke's : 'perpetual peace is a 
 dream and not even a beautiful dream. But war is 
 a link in the divine system of the universe.' " (4) 
 
 "The German nation has been called the nation 
 of poets and thinkers, and it may be proud of the 
 name. To-day it may again be called the nation of 
 masterful combatants, as which it originally appeared 
 in history." (5) 
 
 These quotations could be largely added to, but 
 as their authors are generals, philosophers, theolo- 
 gians, and princes, they seem representative enough 
 to show the spirit that, whatever may have been its 
 numerical or geographical extent, actuated and in- 
 spired that portion of the German people who had the 
 power last midsummer to commit the entire nation to a 
 gigantic war, with "Deutschland iiber Alles" and 
 "Weltmacht oder Niedergang" as its battle cries. 
 
 Every student of Nature recognizes and deplores 
 the cruelty inseparable from the struggle for exist- 
 ence underlying the great biological law of the sur- 
 vival of the fittest. 
 
 But it has remained for these spokesmen of Ger- 
 many to apply it to civilized nations without essential 
 change or modification, eliminating all considerations 
 of morality, of altruism, of kindliness to the weak or 
 helpless, of everything, in fact, which serves to distin- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 17 
 
 guish us from our fellow animals. There is little 
 enough at the best, but Bernhardi's "biological neces- 
 sity" of war, like the "necessity" — to overrun Belgium 
 — of the German Chancellor, is simply a barefaced re- 
 turn to the ethics of the tiger or, in its coldbloodedness, 
 of the crocodile. 
 
 It was amusing, though irritating, to find an 
 American (Professor Jastrow), (6) in face of the 
 above evidence and much more that is similar, crying 
 to the American people : 
 
 "Let us be fair and recognize that the spirit of 
 militarism is strong in all of the warring nations," 
 
 and then going on, with the tendency that most of our 
 "German-American" disputants have clumsily shown, 
 to belittle while attempting to conciliate the country of 
 their adoption, to say : 
 
 "Even we are not entirely free of it, for does not 
 Theodore Roosevelt voice a widely prevailing senti- 
 ment when he advocates warfare as essential to the 
 full strength of the nation?" 
 
 The answer to which is, of course, that Colonel 
 Roosevelt never "voiced" or otherwise favored any 
 such sentiment, and that no sensible person ever be- 
 lieved it to be widely prevalent in this country. 
 
 The distinction between the advocacy of sufficient 
 armaments to ensure respectful treatment from mili- 
 tary or naval bullies and the advocacy of "warfare" is 
 
18 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 so patent that the misstatement implies a confusion of 
 thought that should much lessen the value — if it had 
 any — of the author's labored but superficial impar- 
 tiality. The real animus invariably crops out in all 
 these "German-American" writers and, in the present 
 case the "appeal for fairness and moderation" contains 
 the statement that it was a "privilege" 
 
 "To see a great united people rising to fight, not 
 for aggrandizement, for ports on the Atlantic Ocean, 
 or for colonies, or eager for conquest of any kind, but 
 struggling solely for their existence to preserve the 
 fruits of their labors of the last thirty years." 
 
 The "appeal" also describes the readiness of "Ger- 
 many" "to promise the integrity of France and even of 
 the French Colonies if England would remain neu- 
 tral." (The italics are mine.) It does not mention 
 the fact that this suggestion was made by Prince 
 Lichnowski (the German Ambassador in London) on 
 his individual initiative and without authority from 
 his government; or that on July 29th the German 
 Chancellor, when asked about the French colonies, had 
 declined to commit himself (English White Book, 
 No. 85) ; or that at about that time Germany had failed 
 to say that it was "prepared to engage to respect the 
 neutrality of Belgium so long as no other power vio- 
 lates it," although France had given an unequivocal 
 promise to that efifect. Nor does it allude to the Eng- 
 lish reason for refusal to accept the informal sugges- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 19 
 
 tion, namely, "that France without losing territory 
 might be so crushed as to lose her position as a Great 
 Power and become subordinate to German policy." 
 
 This is a digression, but it will serve as an ex- 
 ample of the "fairness and moderation" of the Miin- 
 sterbergs and Franckes, the Ridders and Jagemanns 
 and the Hilprechts and Jastrows. 
 
 h. But Question 1 is not yet fully answered. Can 
 any collateral evidence of the determination to attain 
 to "World Pozver" he found in the estimation in which 
 Germans hold their country and themselves? 
 
 I think it can. 
 
 A little book with the crude title of "Germany's 
 Swelled Head," written by Emil Reich, a Hungarian, I 
 believe, and published in London in 1907, contains 
 much interesting, sometimes amusing, information on 
 this subject. 
 
 The writer quotes various authors in support of 
 the statement that when the Kaiser speaks or writes 
 of Greater Germany he "in all sincerity means two- 
 thirds of Europe. He means that the German Empire 
 of the near future will, and by right of Race ought to, 
 comprise two-thirds of Europe." He adds that this 
 idea may appear too childish for serious consideration, 
 says that in all countries there have been single eccen- 
 trics who have absurdly overrated the significance and 
 importance of their nation, and that such persons do 
 not prove very much as to the state of mind of the 
 majority of a people. But he insists that 
 
20 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "That which, in other countries never rises be-' 
 yond a mere oddity is, in contemporary Germany, a 
 vast wave of national thought. In the Fatherland, as 
 has long been remarked by many an observing trav- 
 eler or scholar, the writers, teachers, journalists and 
 scholars of the day have an infinitely greater influence 
 on the people, than similar brain-workers ever wield 
 in England." 
 
 He then quotes from "The Foundations of the 
 XlXth Century," a book which he says was warmly 
 and pubHcly approved by the Kaiser, and which sold 
 largely in Germany and gave rise to a mass of contro- 
 versial literature. The author, Chamberlain by name, 
 says: 
 
 "By Germans, I mean the various populations of 
 Northern Europe who appear in history as Kelts, Ger- 
 mans, Slavs, and from whom, mostly in inextricable 
 confusion, the peoples of modem Europe are sprung. 
 That they came originally from a single family is cer- 
 tain, but the German, in the narrower Tacitean sense, 
 has kept himself so pre-eminent among his kinsmen 
 intellectually, morally and physically, that we are 
 justified in applying his name to the whole family. 
 The German is the soul of our culture. The Europe 
 of to-day, spread far over the globe, exhibits the bril- 
 liant result of an infinitely varied ramification. What 
 binds us into one is the Germanic blood. . . 
 Only Germans sit on European thrones. What has 
 happened is only prolegomena. . . . True his- 
 tory begins from the moment when the German, with 
 mighty hand, seizes the inheritance of antiquity." 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 21 
 
 Reich quotes further from the work of Ludwig 
 Woltmann, "Die Germanen imd die Renaissance in 
 Italien" (1905), in which the effort is made to prove 
 that Benvenuto Celhni, Michaelangelo, Lorenzo Ghi- 
 berti, Giovanni BelHni, Leonardo da Vinci and Raf- 
 fael, were all of German birth or ancestry. He admits 
 that this may be merely misplaced erudition, or "stuff 
 and twaddle." His point is that it is characteristic, 
 that it is taken seriously in Germany, and that it was 
 gravely noticed in some of the oldest and most respect- 
 able German reviews. He quotes again the author of 
 the "Foundations of the XlXth Century," who says, 
 apropos of the overrunning of the Lloly Roman Em- 
 pire by the Germans : 
 
 "We can regret only one thing — that the German 
 did not, everywhere his conquering arm preyed, ex- 
 terminate more completely," and that consequently 
 the Latins "gradually recovered wide territories from 
 the only quickening influence of pure blood and un- 
 broken youth, in fact, from the control of the highest 
 talent." Elsewhere the same writer laments that Italy 
 "is lost, irredeemably lost, because it lacks the inner 
 driving power, the greatness of soul which would fit 
 its talent. This power comes from Race alone. Italy 
 had it as long as it possessed Germans." 
 
 Reich says that Friedrich Lange, erstwhile editor 
 of the Tdgliche Rundschau, has gone so far as to in- 
 vent and preach a species of "German religion" 
 {Deutsche Religion), and from many pulpits it has 
 
22 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 been announced that "the German people is the elect of 
 God, and its enemies are the enemies of the Lord." 
 
 He quotes from the "Vorwarts" an extract from 
 an oration by the theologian, Lezius : 
 
 "Solomon has said : 'Do not be too good ; do not 
 be too just.' The PoHsh press should be simply anni- 
 hilated. All Polish societies should be suppressed, 
 without the slightest apology being made for such a 
 measure. This summary procedure should be like- 
 wise applied to the French and Danish press, as well 
 as to the societies of Alsace, Lorraine and Schles- 
 wig-Holstein. Especially should no consideration 
 whatever be shown to anything relating to the Poles. 
 The Constitution should be altered with regard to the 
 latter. The Poles should be looked upon as helots. 
 They should be allowed but three privileges : to pay 
 taxes, serve in the army, and shut their jaws" {sic). 
 
 He (Reich) supports his views by the statement 
 of the Russian novelist, Dostoiewski, who writes : 
 
 "Chauvinism, pride, and an unlimited confidence 
 in their own strength have intoxicated the Germans 
 since the war (1870). This people, that has so rarely 
 been a conqueror and has so often been conquered, 
 had all of a sudden beaten the nation that had humil- 
 iated all the other nations. . . . On the other 
 hand, the fact that Germany, but yesterday all par- 
 celled out, has been able in so short a time to develop 
 so strong a political organization, might well lead the 
 Germans to believe that they are about to enter on a 
 new phase of brilliant development. This conviction 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 23 
 
 has resulted in making the German not only Chau- 
 vinistic and conceited, but flightly as well; it is not 
 only the Teutonic grocer and shoemaker now who 
 are over-confident, but professors, eminent scientists, 
 and even the ministers themselves as well." 
 
 "No wonder that the arrogance of the 'Elect 
 Ones of God' comes out at every possible and im- 
 possible occasion. When Bismarck was asked what 
 he would do, should some one hundred thousand 
 British soldiers be landed on the north coast of Ger- 
 many in case of a war with Great Britain, France and 
 Germany, he replied: 'I should have them arrested 
 by the police.' " 
 
 He continues : 
 
 "Can one wonder, under such circumstances, that 
 the Kaiser a few years ago, at the celebration of the 
 two hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the 
 Kingdom of Prussia, exclaimed: 'Nothing must be 
 settled in this world without the intervention of Ger- 
 many and of the German Emperor.' " 
 
 He might have added the following : 
 
 "Only one is master of this country. That is I. 
 Who opposes me I shall crush to pieces. . . . 
 Sic volo, sic jubeo. . . . We HohenzoUerns take 
 our crown from God alone, and to God alone we are 
 responsible in the fulfilment of our duty. . . . 
 Suprema lex regis voluntas." — J. Ellis Barker, an 
 English writer, born and educated in Germany. (The 
 Nineteenth Century, September, 1914.) (7) 
 
24 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 He might also have quoted Professor Rudolf 
 Eucken of the University of Jena, a leader of German 
 ethical thought : 
 
 "To us more than any other nation is intrusted 
 the true structure of human existence; as an intellec- 
 tual people we have, irrespective of creeds, worked 
 for soul depth in religion, for scientific thorough- 
 ness. . . . All this constitutes possessions of 
 which mankind cannot be deprived; possessions, the 
 loss of which would make life and effort purposeless 
 to mankind." (8) 
 
 The Berlin Deutsche Tagesseitung urges the ne- 
 cessity of forcing the German language on the whole 
 world. 
 
 "It is a crying necessity," the Berlin paper says, 
 "that German should replace English as the world 
 language. Should the English language be victori- 
 ous and become the world language the culture of 
 mankind will stand before a closed door and the death 
 knell will sound for civilization." 
 
 After talking of the "moral decay" of Great 
 Britain and the "fearful brutalizing influences and 
 complete animalization of the human species" in 
 "every land where the English language is spoken" the 
 Deutsche Tagesseitung continues : 
 
 "Here we have the reason why it is necessary for 
 the German, and with him the German language, to 
 conquer. And the victory once won, be it now or be 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 25 
 
 it one hundred years hence, there remains a task for 
 the German than which none is more important, that 
 of forcing the German tongue on the world. On all 
 men, not those belonging to the more cultured races 
 only, but on men of all colors and nationalities, the 
 German language acts as a blessing which, coming 
 direct from the hand of God, sinks into the heart like 
 a precious balm and ennobles it. 
 
 "English, the bastard tongue of the canting island 
 pirates, must be swept from the place it has usurped 
 and forced back into the remotest corners of Britain 
 until it has returned to its original elements of an in- 
 significant pirate dialect." 
 
 Major-General von Disfurth (retired), in an ar- 
 ticle contributed to the Hamburg Nachrichten, writes 
 as follows : 
 
 "No object whatever can be served by taking any 
 notice of the accusations of barbarity leveled against 
 Germany by their foreign critics. We owe no ex- 
 planations to any one. Whatever act committed by 
 our troops for the purpose of discouraging, defeating 
 and destroying the enemy is a brave act and fully 
 justified. Germany stands the supreme arbiter of her 
 own methods. It is no consequence whatever if all 
 the monuments ever created, all the pictures ever 
 painted, all the buildings ever erected by the great 
 architects of the world be destroyed, if by their de- 
 struction we promoted Germany's victory. War is 
 war. The ugliest stone placed to mark the burial of 
 a German grenadier is a more glorious monument 
 than all cathedrals Europe put together. They call 
 us barbarians. What of it? We scorn them and their 
 abuse. 
 
26 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "For my part I hope that in this war we have 
 merited the title, barbarians. Let neutral peoples and 
 our enemies cease their empty chatter, which may 
 well be compared to the twitter of birds. Let them 
 cease to talk of the Cathedral of Rheims, and of all 
 the churches and all the castles in France which have 
 shared its fate. Our troops must achieve victory. 
 What else matters?" 
 
 Professor Adolph Lasson, a German Privy Coun- 
 cillor and Professor of Philosophy in Berlin Univer- 
 sity, writes : 
 
 "A man who is not a German knows nothing of 
 Germany. We are morally and intellectually superior 
 beyond all comparison as are our organizations and 
 our institutions." 
 
 As to the facts bearing upon this preposterous 
 overvaluation of German achievement, I shall have 
 something to say later, but at present my object is to 
 present a small portion of the evidence of the state of 
 mind which, pervading all Germany, did so much to 
 bring on the war. 
 
 Reich further quotes Treitschke as follows : 
 
 "Then when the German flag flies over and pro- 
 tects this vast Empire, to whom will belong the sceptre 
 of the universe? What nation will impose its wishes 
 on the other enfeebled and decadent peoples? Will 
 it not be Germany that will have the mission to ensure 
 the peace of the world ? Russia, that immense colos- 
 sus still in process of formation, and with feet of clay. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 27 
 
 will be absorbed in its home and economic difficulties. 
 England, stronger in appearance than in reality, will, 
 without any doubt, see her colonies detach themselves 
 from her and exhaust themselves in fruitless strug- 
 gles. France, given over to internal dissensions and 
 the strife of parties, will sink into hopeless decad- 
 ence. As to Italy, she will have her work cut out to 
 ensure a crust of bread to her children. . . . 
 The future belongs to Germany, to which Austria 
 will attach herself if she wishes to survive." 
 
 Reich gives many other quotations to support his 
 main thesis, judgment on which I must now leave to 
 my readers. It was as follows, and it must be remem- 
 bered that it was written more than seven years ago : 
 
 "The actions of a nation like the Germans are, 
 in the first place, influenced by their state of mind; 
 and, given that that state of mind in Germany is now 
 one bordering on absolute megalomania, or the most 
 morbid form of self-conceit and swelled-headedness, 
 it is safe to conclude that their actions, too, will soon 
 assume forms of the most daring self-assertiveness 
 and aggression." (9) 
 
 While opinions differ as to the personal responsi- 
 bility of the Kaiser for this war, it seems to me that 
 he so fully typifies in his own character, actions and 
 behavior, the megalomania of the nation that it is 
 nothing less than absurd to describe him as reluctantly 
 pushed into the war and as struggling until the last 
 moment for peace. 
 
28 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 The Kaiser is in all probability a neuropsycho- 
 pathic, said to have a chronic and recurring infection 
 of the middle ear (a not unknown cause of grave cere- 
 bral disease), and evincing many symptoms of the con- 
 dition known as paranoia, in which there are usually 
 present more or less definite systematized delusions, 
 the other mental processes remaining approximately 
 normal. If in such case the insane premises of the 
 paranoiac are admitted, his conclusions will often 
 legitimately follow. If the Kaiser is Kaiser by Divine 
 decree, by the direct appointment of God, as he has 
 repeatedly asserted, he cannot be blamed for thinking, 
 as he has often shown that he does think, that what- 
 ever he does is right. But is it possible in the year 
 1914 that a quite sane person can beHeve, as the 
 Kaiser surely does believe, that he is God's special 
 appointee — appointed to rule over and guide the des- 
 tinies of sixty millions of people? I have no doubt 
 the Miinsterbergs will have some answer to that ques- 
 tion that will — to them — be psychologically satisfying. 
 But I defy them to answer it to the satisfaction of the 
 American people. 
 
 That this mental condition is compatible with un- 
 usual ability, with a high degree of personal charm, 
 with the efficient performance of work and discharge 
 of duties outside the sphere of delusion, has been re- 
 peatedly and abundantly shown and is a matter of 
 everyday experience with alienists. 
 
 The history of the world also presents many ex- 
 amples of individuals not entirely sane, like Joan of 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 29 
 
 Arc, and Luther, who were able greatly to influence — 
 largely through their profound belief in themselves 
 and their cause — the course of human events. 
 
 One of the best illustrations of the "delirium of 
 grandeur" with which the Kaiser appears to be 
 afflicted (and with which on account of its frequency 
 in ordinary lunatics all medical men are familiar) is 
 given in this very belief in his Divine vice-gerency and 
 in his constant and familiar references to God in his 
 speeches, letters and telegrams. 
 
 The Dean of American letters, Mr. William D. 
 Howells, has dealt so eloquently with this phase — and 
 other phases — of the Kaiser's character (North 
 American Review, October, 1914) that I shall let him 
 continue this answer to the second portion of Question 
 1 — ^believing that the Kaiser represents in an exag- 
 gerated form (due probably to disease), the megalo- 
 mania of the nation, and believing also that what Mr. 
 Howells writes of him represents with equal truth the 
 estimate of him held to-day by the large majority of 
 Americans. 
 
 "As early as August 22nd the censorship of war 
 news allowed us to learn that 'the Kaiser had ordered 
 the Supreme Council of the Evangelical Church 
 throughout Germany to include the following prayer 
 in the liturgy at all public services during the war: 
 'Almighty and merciful God of the armies, we be- 
 seech in humility for Thy Almighty aid for our Ger- 
 man fatherland. Bless the entire German war force. 
 Lead us to victory and give us Thy grace that we may 
 
30 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 show ourselves to be Christians toward our enemies. 
 As well, let us soon arrive at peace which will ever- 
 lastingly safeguard our free and independent Ger- 
 many.' 
 
 "This carefully worded supplication must have 
 been instantly rushed to the Throne of Grace, to the 
 Father of Mercies, to Him without whose knowledge 
 not even a sparrow falls to the ground, and the re- 
 sponse might seem to have been instant, for we read 
 that on the 25th the Kaiser wired his daughter-in- 
 law, the Crown Princess : 
 
 " T rejoice with thee over the first victory of 
 Wilhelm. God has been on his side and has most bril- 
 liantly supported him. To Him be thanks and honor. 
 I remit to Wilhelm the Iron Cross of the second and 
 first class. . ... God protect and succor my boys. 
 Also in the future God be with thee and all wives. 
 '(Signed) Papa Wilhelm.' 
 
 "But in some respects this was apparently asking 
 too much. In spite of the flattering recognition of 
 His support of the Crown Prince, He seems to have 
 thought it enough to be only with the Crown Princess 
 'in the future.' He evidently could not be bothered 
 to look after 'all wives,' for we read that the wives of 
 unarmed peasants and citizens were driven, with their 
 children, from their homes in a country which Papa 
 Wilhelm was wasting with fire and sword through a 
 violation of its rights as a neutral nation and of his 
 own word solemnly given, and went wandering beg- 
 gared through their native land. Other wives were 
 slain at their hearthstones by Papa Wilhelm's artil- 
 lery, or torn to pieces in their beds by bombs dropped 
 from Papa Wilhelm's dirigibles flying over sleeping 
 towns. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 31 
 
 "So far as 'all wives' were concerned, the Helper 
 of the widow and the orphan was not so constant as 
 Papa Wilhelm desired, though Papa Wilhelm had 
 especially commended them to His care, Yet Papa 
 Wilhelm did not lose heart, for in a telegram of the 
 27th we find him declaring from his headquarters on 
 the Main, 'Confidence in the irresistible might of our 
 heroic army and unshakable belief in the help of a 
 living God, together with the consciousness that we 
 are fighting for a worthy cause, should give us faith 
 in an early delivery of Germany from its enemies.' 
 
 "It may be that the Supreme Being, the 'living 
 God' as the first of living men here handsomely calls 
 Him, was perhaps not really so very hand-in-glove 
 with the Kaiser. It may be that He did not 'bril- 
 liantly support' the Crown Prince in battle, and that 
 it was solely 'the invincible might of his heroic army' 
 which gave the Kaiser early victory. For Papa Wil- 
 helm had been training them in their work of mul- 
 tiple murder for forty years, incessantly, relentlessly, 
 at the cost of the best years of their youth, of their 
 freedom, of whatever makes life sweet and dear. To 
 perfect the pitiless machine into which he turned a 
 kindly people he spared no means known to the art of 
 the oppressor; he sacrificed to this end truth and 
 honor and the love of men ; he substituted the terror 
 of lese majeste for patriotic loyalty; he made revenge 
 and hate the prime motives of the nation which he 
 welded into an adamantine mass to be hurled, when 
 the time came, against another nation which he had 
 schooled them, in the uttermost cruelty of fear, to 
 abhor. In this work he signed promises which trust- 
 ing nations took for treaties with all the sacred and 
 solemn guarantees, but which his ministers called 
 'scraps of paper' when the convenient time came. He 
 
32 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 made their commanders the terror of the men, and he 
 perpetuated among the officers of his army the code 
 of the duel ; by his will the law of the sword became 
 supreme against the law of the land in any question 
 between soldiers and civilians. He turned the tide of 
 civilization from its flow toward peace and good- 
 will, and drove its stream back among the morasses 
 of the past, where it was choked with the corpses of 
 the immemorial dead, the embers of their homes, and 
 the ruins of their altars, so that when the time came to 
 destroy a peaceful city his soldiers were as ready to 
 do his will as they were to drive the wedge of their 
 bodies through the enemy's lines and to fall in heaps 
 that stayed their advance. 
 
 "There is no means of telling just yet what the 
 effect of his prayers has been with the Heavenly 
 Father, or whether in the event they will avail against 
 the prayers of the Belgians, the French, the English, 
 and the Russians, beseeching the same God for vic- 
 tory against him. Who, indeed, always excepting the 
 German Emperor, may declare what dwells in the will 
 of the Almighty, or what His purpose is? Will He 
 continue His brilliant support of the Crown Prince, 
 or will He lift up His countenance and make it to 
 shine upon the peoples who have, humanly speaking, 
 been cruelly outraged in all that is dear to civilized 
 men, whose lands have been overrun by invading 
 armies, whose cities have been burned, whose fields 
 have been laid waste, whose wives and little ones have 
 been driven beggars into the wilderness which wanton 
 invasion has made of their country? At the actual 
 writing it seems as if the Creator of heaven and earth 
 may have thought twice concerning His imperial 
 protege, and ceased to 'bless the whole German force.' 
 Part of this force is now retracing its bleeding steps. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 33 
 
 slowly indeed, and perhaps not finally ; its retreat may 
 be merely the recoil of the wild beast for another 
 spring upon its prey; but as yet it does not seem so, 
 and humanity may begin to breathe again. No one 
 except the Kaiser may guess at the unfathomable 
 counsels of the Ancient of Days." 
 
 It seems unnecessary to multiply evidence that 
 the Kaiser has a form of megalomania that amounts to 
 disease, or that he, unfortunately, in this respect, rep- 
 resents with fair accuracy, the present frame of mind 
 — probably only temporary — of the German nation. 
 
 But I shall add one additional bit of testimony, 
 just at hand. It may be untrustworthy, but it has the 
 earmarks of genuineness. 
 
 An order issued by "Papa Wilhelm" to his troops 
 in East Prussia is said (10) to read in part as follows: 
 
 "Thanks to the valor of my heroes, France has 
 been severely punished. Belgium, which interfered 
 with our attack, has been added to the glorious prov- 
 inces of Germany. From the course of military 
 events you know that the punitive expedition into 
 Russia has also been a brilliant success. 
 
 "My heroes, the hour of trial has now come for 
 you and for the whole of Germany. If Germany is 
 dear to you — if your families are dear to you — if your 
 culture, your faith, your nation, your Emperor, are 
 dear to you, you will offer the enemy worthy re- 
 sistance." 
 
 I ask the reader to note the crescendo — from 
 "Germany" through "families," "culture," "faith," 
 
34 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 and the "nation" up to the "Emperor !" Also the an- 
 nounced addition of Belgium to the "glorious prov- 
 inces of Germany." 
 
 The Kaiser may not have written this, but, if he 
 didn't, the author takes rank with Chatterton. There 
 is a "condensed novel" in those paragraphs worthy of 
 Bret Harte or Leacock. 
 
 But, after all, the question of the exact mental 
 condition of the Kaiser is not of fundamental impor- 
 tance. His power is unquestioned, his leadership in- 
 disputable. He stands to-day before the world as the 
 embodiment of the spirit of the school of the Bern- 
 hardis and Treitschkes. He is the apotheosis of the 
 Miinsterberg idea of an Emperor as "the symbol of 
 the State." 
 
 The world believes that had he so willed this war 
 would not have occurred. Whether his will to war 
 was — however indefensible and brutal — a sanely rea- 
 soned determination, or the irresistible impulse of a 
 mental defective the world may never know. As I 
 have said, nozv it is not important. 
 
II 
 
 What is the evidence as to the events immediately 
 leading tip to the war in their relation to the culpability 
 of Germany? 
 
 A. As I was trying to formulate my ideas in 
 reply to this question, there appeared in the public 
 press ( 1 1 ) a most illuminating and convincing article 
 from the pen of one of the leaders of the American 
 Bar, Mr. James M. Beck. He propounds at the outset 
 three questions: Was Austria justified in declaring 
 war against Servia? Was Germany justified in de- 
 claring war against Russia and France? Was Eng- 
 land justified in declaring war against Germany? 
 
 He reviews in a masterly manner all the official 
 and documentary evidence now before the world, and 
 assumes that it is to be presented to a "Supreme Court 
 of Civilization" for consideration and judgment. 
 
 In reply to the last of these questions he cites the 
 solemn treaty of 1839, whereby Prussia, France, Eng- 
 land, Austria and Russia "became the guarantors" of 
 the "perpetual neutrality" of Belgium, which treaty 
 was reaffirmed by Count Bismarck, then Chancellor 
 of the German Empire, on July 22, 1870, and even 
 more recently (1913) by the German Secretary of 
 State, who said in the Reichstag: 
 
 "The neutrality of Belgium is determined by 
 international conventions, and Germany is resolved 
 to respect these conventions." 
 
 (35) 
 
36 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 To confirm this solemn assurance, the Minister 
 of War added in the same debate : 
 
 "Belgium does not play any part in the justifica- 
 tion of the German scheme of military reorganization. 
 The scheme is justified by. the position of matters in 
 the East. Germany will not lose sight of the fact that 
 Belgium neutrality is guaranteed by international 
 treaties." 
 
 A year later, on July 31, 1914, Herr von Buelow, 
 the German Minister at Brussels, assured the Belgian 
 Department of State that he knew of a declaration 
 which the German Chancellor had made in 1911 to 
 the effect "that Germany had no intention of violat- 
 ing our (Belgium's) neutrality," and "that he was cer- 
 tain that the sentiments to which expression was 
 given at that time had not changed.'' (See Belgian 
 "Gray Book," Nos. 11 and 12.) 
 
 Mr. Beck says it seems unnecessary to discuss the 
 wanton disregard of these solemn obligations and 
 protestations, when the present Chancellor of the Ger- 
 man Empire, in his speech to the Reichstag and to the 
 world on August 4, 1914, frankly admitted that the 
 action of the German military machine in invading 
 Belgium was a wrong. He said: 
 
 "We are now in a state of necessity, and neces- 
 sity knows no law. Our troops have occupied Luxem- 
 burg and perhaps are already on Belgian soil. Gen- 
 tlemen, that is contrary to the dictates of international 
 law. . . . The wrong, I speak openly — that we 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 37 
 
 are committing we will endeavor to make good as 
 soon as our military goal has been reached. Any- 
 body who is threatened as we are threatened, and is 
 fighting for his highest possessions, can only have one 
 thought — hozv he is to hack his way through." 
 
 Mr. Beck might have added that by this same 
 treaty Belgium had pledged herself to resist any vio- 
 lation of her neutrality, and that it was not only her 
 right but her duty to bar the way to the march of 
 Germany's legions across the land. Mr. Beck con- 
 tinues as to the German Chancellor's "defence" by 
 saying that it is not even a plea of confession and 
 avoidance. It is a plea of "Guilty" at the bar of the 
 world. It has one merit — that it does not add to the 
 crime the aggravation of hypocrisy. It virtually rests 
 the case of Germany upon the Gospel of Treitschke 
 and Bernhardi, which was taught far more effectively 
 by Machiavelli in his treatise, "The Prince," wherein 
 he glorified the policy of Cesare Borgia in trampling 
 the weaker States of Italy under foot by ruthless ter- 
 rorism, unbridled ferocity and the basest deception. 
 The wanton destruction of Belgium is simply Borgia- 
 ism amplified ten thousand fold by the mechanical re- 
 sources of modern war. 
 
 As to this point, Mr. Beck concludes that unless 
 our boasted civilization is the thinnest veneering of 
 barbarism ; unless the law of the world is in fact only 
 the ethics of the rifle and the conscience of the can- 
 non: unless mankind after uncounted centuries has 
 
38 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 made no real advance in political morality beyond that 
 of the cave dweller, then this answer of Germany fails 
 to show a "decent respect to the opinions of mankind." 
 Germany's contention that a treaty of peace is "a 
 scrap of paper," to be disregarded at will when re- 
 quired by the selfish interests of one contracting party, 
 is the negation of all that civilization stands for. 
 
 "Belgium has been crucified in the face of the 
 world. Its innocence of any offence, until it was 
 attacked, is too clear for argument. Its voluntary 
 immolation to preserve its solemn guarantee of neu- 
 trality will 'plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, 
 against the deep damnation of its taking off.' On 
 that issue the Supreme Court could have no ground 
 for doubt or hesitation. Its judgment would be 
 speedy and inexorable." 
 
 Mr. Beck then goes on to discuss the evidence 
 offered to the public in the British and German "White 
 Papers" and the "Russian Orange Paper," and asks 
 what verdict an impartial and dispassionate court 
 would render upon the issues thus raised and the evi- 
 dence thus submitted. He says: 
 
 "Primarily such a court would be deeply im- 
 pressed not only by what the record as thus made up 
 discloses, hut also by the significant omissions of 
 documents known to be in existence. 
 
 "The official defence of England and Russia does 
 not apparently show any failure on the part of either 
 to submit all of the documents in their possession, 
 but the German White Paper' on its face discloses 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 39 
 
 the suppression of documents of vital importance, 
 while Austria has as yet failed to submit any of the 
 documentary evidence in its possession. 
 
 "We know from the German 'White Paper' — 
 even if we did not conclude as a matter of irresist- 
 ible inference — that many important communications 
 passed in this crisis between Germany and Austria, 
 and it is probable that some communications must 
 also have passed between those two countries and 
 Italy. Italy, despite its embarrassing position, owes 
 to the world the duty of a full disclosure. What such 
 disclosure would probably show is indicated by her 
 deliberate conclusion that her allies had commenced 
 an aggressive war, which released her from any ob- 
 ligation under the Triple Alliance." 
 
 His conclusion as to this point is that until Ger- 
 many is willing to put the most important documents 
 in its possession in evidence, it must not be surprised 
 that the world, remembering Bismarck's garbling of 
 the Ems dispatch, which precipitated the Franco- 
 Prussian war, will be incredulous as to the sincerity 
 of Germany's mediatory efforts. 
 
 He then reviews the entire diplomatic corre- 
 spondence, as published, repeatedly calling attention 
 to the absence of important documents from the Ger- 
 man and Austrian records. He finds that those two 
 nations were guilty not only of concealment or sup- 
 pression of portions of the record, while Germany was 
 pretending to lay its case unreservedly before the 
 world, but that they were "diplomatic pettifoggers" 
 who took a "colossal snap judgment" ; that the Ger- 
 
40 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 man Secretary of State was guilty of a "plain eva- 
 sion," the German Imperial Chancellor of a "pitiful 
 and insincere quibble," of "hypocrisy," of "arro- 
 gance" and "unreasonableness." Of one contention 
 of the German Secretary of State, that Austria might 
 act in disregard of Germany's wish in a matter of 
 common concern, he says : 
 
 "This strains human credulity to the breaking 
 point. Did the German Secretary of State keep a 
 straight face when he uttered this sardonic pleas- 
 antry? It may be the duty of a diplomat to he on 
 occasion, but is it ever necessary to utter such a stu- 
 pid falsehood? The German Secretary of State sar- 
 donically added in the same conversation that he was 
 not sure that the effort for peace had not hastened the 
 declaration of war, as though the declaration of war 
 against Servia had not been planned and expected 
 from the first." 
 
 Mr. Beck does not fail to call attention to the fact 
 that— 
 
 "In reaching its conclusion our imaginary court 
 would pay little attention to mere professions of a 
 desire for peace. . . ." 
 
 "No war in modem times has been begun with- 
 out the aggressor pretending that his nation wished 
 nothing but peace, and invoking Divine aid for its 
 murderous policy. To paraphrase the words of Lady 
 Teazle on a noted occasion when Sir Joseph Surface 
 talked much of 'honor,* it might be as well in such 
 instances to leave the name of God out of the ques- 
 tion." 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 41 
 
 The Judgment of the Court he says would be un- 
 hesitatingly as follows: 
 
 "1. That Germany and Austria in a time of 
 profound peace secretly concerted together to impose 
 their will upon Europe and upon Servia in a matter 
 affecting the balance of power in Europe. Whether 
 in so doing they intended to precipitate a European 
 war to determine the mastery of Europe is not satis- 
 factorily established, although their whole course of 
 conduct suggests this as a possibility. They made 
 war almost inevitable by (a) issuing an ultimatum 
 that was grossly unreasonable and disproportionate to 
 any grievance that Austria had and (b) in giving to 
 Servia, and Europe, insufficient time to consider the 
 rights and obligations of all interested nations. 
 
 "2. That Germany had at all times the power 
 to compel Austria to preserve a reasonable and con- 
 ciliatory course, but at no time effectively exerted 
 that influence. On the contrary, she certainly abetted, 
 and possibly instigated, Austria in its unreasonable 
 course. 
 
 "3. That England, France, Italy and Russia at 
 all times sincerely worked for peace, and for this 
 purpose not only overlooked the original misconduct 
 of Austria, but made every reasonable concession in 
 the hope of preserving peace. 
 
 "4. That Austria, having mobilized its army, 
 Russia was reasonably justified in mobilizing its 
 forces. Such act of mobilization was the right of any 
 sovereign State, and as long as the Russian armies 
 did not cross the border or take any aggressive action 
 no other nation had any just right to complain, each 
 having the same right to make similar preparations. 
 
42 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "S. That Germany, in abruptly declaring war 
 against Russia for failure to demobilize when the 
 other Powers had offered to make any reasonable 
 concession and peace parleys were still in progress, 
 precipitated the war." 
 
 He adds that — 
 
 "The German nation has been plunged into this 
 abyss by its scheming statesmen and its self-centred 
 and highly neurotic Kaiser, who in the twentieth cen- 
 tury sincerely believes that he is the proxy of Al- 
 mighty God on earth, and therefore infallible." 
 
 Since his article appeared, another labored de- 
 fence of Germany has been sent to America, and, 
 fathered by Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, at one time the 
 German Colonial Secretary, and said to be "now Ger- 
 many's most conspicuous advocate in the United 
 States," has been given to the American press. It 
 still further illustrates many of the points already- 
 made. For example, it speaks again of the mythical 
 French attack upon Germany across Belgium, resting 
 the assertion "upon absolutely unimpeachable infor- 
 mation," which it does not give. Such attempts as 
 have been made to sustain this eleventh-hour defence 
 are, so far as I have seen, like many of those in the 
 German "White Paper," based on similarly vague and 
 unsupported statements. The whole effort in this last 
 lengthy and involved document is to try to show that 
 Russia is "responsible for the war," that England 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 43 
 
 "was fully cognizant of this fact," and that the lat- 
 ter's "claim that she entered this war solely as the 
 protector of small nations is a fable." 
 
 So far as I know, no such claim has been made 
 by England. The word "solely" is interpolated to 
 make the German case stronger. In fact, in the reply 
 by the English professors and men of science to the 
 learned men of Germany responsible for "The Truth 
 About Germany" (page ^7), the former say with 
 emphasis : 
 
 "Great Britain, together with France, Russia, 
 Prussia and Austria, had solemnly guaranteed the 
 neutrality of Belgium. In the preservation of this 
 neutrality our deepest sentiments and our most vital 
 interests are alike involved. Its violation would not 
 only shatter the independence of Belgium itself : it 
 would undermine the whole basis which renders pos- 
 sible the neutrality of any State and the very exist- 
 ence of such States as are much weaker than their 
 neighbors. We acted in 1914 just as we acted in 
 1870." 
 
 But if the claim had been made, it would have had 
 greater inherent probability and would be far more 
 strongly upheld and substantiated by the admitted 
 facts than is this last absurd effort to represent Ger- 
 many as resisting "with quiet poHteness" a demand, 
 "as a price of British neutrality" to consent to her own 
 "humiliation" and "retirement from the position of a 
 Great Power." 
 
44 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 Is it likely that a nation — or two nations — obvi- 
 ously, as events have shown, unprepared for immediate 
 war would have made such a demand upon the great- 
 est military Power the world has ever seen, at a time 
 when, as events have also shown, she was ready to 
 the last apparently petty detail to challenge, if need 
 be. United Europe? Does not every intelligent person 
 in the world know that her early successes, on the 
 offensive, were due to this very preparedness, which 
 her opponents could at the time but feebly imitate? 
 And since then, in her remarkable defensive campaign, 
 was not her temporary safety assured by these same 
 preparations, so complete last August that it is scarcely 
 conceivable that they could have been bettered by or 
 through delay ? 
 
 But even in this paper the same clums)^ confusion 
 between ''Might" and "Right" which has put Ger- 
 many on the defensive before the civilized world is 
 once more shown. I wish I had space to quote in full 
 that part of this "Review of Official War-Papers." 
 It speaks of the "heavy heart" with which Germany, 
 "following the law of self-preservation," "decided to 
 violate the neutrality of Belgium." It says that after 
 England had informed the Belgians — as by solemn 
 contract and by every law of honor and decency she 
 was bound to do — that she would support them in case 
 "Germany applied pressure to induce them to depart 
 from neutrality" — England's own words — "Belgian 
 fanaticism broke loose against Germany." 
 
 Can Americans read with any patience the Ger- 
 
A . WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 45 
 
 man expressions of ex post facto regret — the hypo- 
 critical assumption that they are discharging a sacred 
 duty? 
 
 "By nobody," says the Kolnische Zeitung (close 
 to the Berlin authorities), "is the fate of Belgium, 
 the burning down of every building, the destruction 
 of Louvain, so deeply deplored as by the German peo- 
 ple and our brave troops, who felt bound to carry 
 out to the bitter end the chastisement they were com- 
 pelled to inflict." 
 
 Every burglar who, caught red-handed and re- 
 sisted, added murder to his other crimes, might with 
 equal force "deeply deplore" the "necessity" that 
 "compelled" him to "inflict chastisement." 
 
 It is nauseating. 
 
 And through it all outcrops at all sorts of mal- 
 apropos times their insufferable self-appreciation. 
 
 "We, however," say the Berlin Tageszeitung, "do 
 not need to regard the public opinion of the world. 
 In the last instance the German people, united with 
 the Emperor, are alone competent to decide the cor- 
 rectness of Germany's course." 
 
 The plea of "necessity" constantly recurs in the 
 German apologiae, and was symbolized and summar- 
 ized by Gerhart Hauptmann, the German dramatist, in 
 his reply to an appeal from the Frenchman, Romain 
 RoUand, author of "Jean Christophe": 
 
46 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "Our jealous enemies forged an iron ring around 
 our breast and we knew our breast had to expand, 
 that it had to split asunder this ring, or else we had 
 to cease breathing." 
 
 Translated into plain English, dear reader, this 
 is as if your neighbor Schmidt, his family having 
 somewhat outgrown the modest residence in which he 
 began housekeeping, had called God to witness that 
 in the Holy name of Family it was necessary for 
 him to take your house and that of his other neighbor 
 Claretie (and some of your outlying farms), and that 
 it was also necessary (under God's guidance) to get 
 at you through the property of a third neighbor, 
 Vandervelde, which property, as the latter objected 
 and resisted, it was further necessary to burn and de- 
 stroy together with many of Vandervelde's children 
 and his wife. 
 
 Chesterton has well summed up the German 
 ethics. They have been told by their politicians that 
 all arrangements dissolve before "necessity." That 
 is the importance of the German Chancellor's phrase, 
 excusing and explaining the violation of the neutrality 
 of Belgium: *'We are now in a state of necessity and 
 necessity knows no law." He did not allege some spe- 
 cial excuse in the case of Belgium, which might make 
 it an exception to the rule. He distinctly argued, as on 
 a principle applicable to other cases, that victory was 
 a necessity and honor was a scrap of paper. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 47 
 
 "The Prussians had made a new discovery," 
 - says Chesterton, "in international politics — that it 
 may often be convenient to make a promise and yet 
 curiously inconvenient to keep it. . . . They, 
 therefore, promised England a promise on condition 
 that she broke a promise and on the implied condition 
 that the new promise might be broken as easily as 
 the old one." 
 
 This, after all, well summarizes an important part 
 of the German "diplomacy." 
 
 To return to Mr. Beck's paper, I beg to say 
 finally that I have quoted some of his conclusions with- 
 out his arguments, because, while the latter were in- 
 capable of satisfactory condensation, within my limits, 
 I wanted to call particular attention to the impression 
 made on the highly trained mind of one representative 
 American by the documents on which the German and 
 German-American special pleaders largely rest their 
 case. 
 
What has been the attitude of the Germai'i apolo- 
 gists in relation to Belgium since the violation of neu- 
 trality f 
 
 A. Professor Weber, of Kiel, said to be "very 
 close to Prince Henry of Prussia and the Hohenzollern 
 family," writes to an American friend (12) : 
 
 "It has been proved with certainty that Belgium 
 had already entered into agreements with France 
 long before the war to permit the passage of hostile 
 troops through Belgium, perhaps even to take the 
 field with them against us. 
 
 "By this means Belgium had already surrendered 
 her neutrality and had actually taken a stand with 
 our enemies. That we with one bold blow should 
 . dare to take the Belgium fortress is, therefore, easy to 
 understand. We have been far too lenient in that we 
 wished to give back to the Belgians their land un- 
 harmed after the fall of Liege. 
 
 "Since the Belgians were so deceived as not to 
 accept this magnanimous offer, they must bitterly 
 atone for it." 
 
 As usual, nothing worthy of being called "proof" 
 has been adduced in support of this statement and ad- 
 miration for the "magnanimity" which led Germany 
 to offer to give back to the Belgians their own land 
 must be withheld. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 49 
 
 Dr. Herman Hilprecht says that the Belgian Gov- 
 ernment "stubbornly declined the German proposi- 
 tion" — to allow the latter to violate the treaty of neu- 
 trality — and then attempts to justify fully and without 
 reservation the subsequent over-running of Belgium 
 and the pillage and destruction of Louvain. (13) 
 
 Much precisely similar testimony might be ad- 
 duced, chiefly from German-American sources, and 
 would amply suffice to show the mistake of the Ameri- 
 can writer who said ( 14) : 
 
 "The government of Germany has announced 
 that 'the occupation of Belgium is now virtually com- 
 plete'; and the people of the empire are celebrating 
 the achievement with pride and exultation. Thus is 
 closed one of the bloodiest chapters in the war — and 
 one of the darkest chapters in the records of inter- 
 national dishonor. 
 
 "No matter what horrors may await the world in 
 the unfolding of the dreadful conflict, none can ex- 
 ceed in poignant tragedy the fate of this devoted peo- 
 ple. From the time of Caesar the bravery and the 
 dauntless independence of the Belgians have been 
 celebrated by historians and sung by poets. And 
 now these high qualities have inspired a supreme 
 demonstration of heroism and sacrifice which makes 
 all humanity the debtor of the martyred nation. 
 
 "This is the one phase of the war which can be 
 discussed almost without raising controversy. Upon 
 the issues of Prussian policy, French hatred, British 
 jealousy and Russian plotting, advocates on either 
 side wax furiously eloquent and raise questions which 
 their opponents are taxed to answer. 
 
50 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "But upon the hideous wrong perpetrated upon 
 Belgium the most ruthless devotee of militarism, the 
 most fanatical exponent of imperialistic destiny and 
 the rights of 'culture/ must take refuge in silence or 
 falter out feeble extenuation. The facts of history, 
 the records of diplomacy and the principles of inter- 
 national justice converge here to denounce an act 
 unparalleled in its cruelty and perfidy." 
 
 Unfortunately, since this was written, the imperi- 
 alistic and "cultured" fanatics have shown that they 
 have no idea of taking refuge in silence, but fatuously 
 believe that they can impose upon a thinking and rea- 
 soning world a view that it has already contemptuously 
 and with practical unanimity rejected. 
 
 The same writer gives a brief outline of the case 
 (from a slightly different standpoint from that of Mr. 
 Beck), brings it down to date, and continues : 
 
 "This [the treaty of 1839, etc., see p. 35] was 
 the record upon which Belgium stood when the 
 troops of the Kaiser crossed her frontiers on August 
 2 last. The German government, having already vio- 
 lated the territory of Luxemburg, demanded passage 
 for its forces through the country whose integrity it 
 was sworn to honor and protect. With unblushing 
 effrontery it called this demand a request for 'friendly 
 neutrality,' and declared that in case of opposition 
 Germany would 'consider Belgium as an enemy.' 
 
 "There was here a double crime. Germany not 
 only foreswore her own covenant, but undertook to 
 penalize Belgium for observing that country's solemn 
 obligation; for, of course, consent by Belgium to the 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 51 
 
 free passage of the Kaiser's forces would have been 
 a repudiation of the treaty by Belgium and tanta- 
 mount to an act of war against France. 
 
 "Apologists for the invasion have attempted to 
 set up two defences. The first is that France was 
 preparing to violate the treaty, and that Germany 
 simply forestalled her. Fortunately, there are records 
 which utterly disprove this pretence. After Ger- 
 many's ultimatum, France offered the services of five 
 army corps to Belgium to defend her neutrality. The 
 answer was : 
 
 " 'We are sincerely grateful to the French gov- 
 ernment for offering eventual support. In the actual 
 circumstances, however, we do not propose to appeal 
 to the guarantee of the Powers. The Belgian gov- 
 ernment will decide later on the action which they 
 may think it necessary to take.' 
 
 "Belgium preferred to make her first appeal to 
 Germany's sense of honor, and, when that failed, to 
 the heroic resistance of a wronged people. And 
 France was so ill-prepared for the invasion which 
 Germany says she plotted that ten days elapsed be- 
 fore she had her forces in the neutral territory. 
 
 "The second excuse offered in ex post facto 
 palliation of the offense is that in the Belgian archives 
 Germany has found dispatches showing that in 1906 
 the British military attache and the Belgian general 
 staff discussed tentatively plans for landing a British 
 force to defend Belgian neutrality if it were attacked. 
 It shows the desperate nature of the German case 
 when this incident is cited to justify a brutal invasion. 
 
 "The arrangement for giving help to Belgium, if 
 needed, was discussed at the time Germany had thrust 
 herself to the verge of war with France over Mo- 
 rocco; and the proposal of Great Britain to defend 
 
52 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 the neutrality of Belgium, as she was bound to do, 
 was as creditable as Germany's violation of that neu- 
 trality was dishonorable. 
 
 "All the eloquence and sophistries of the pro- 
 fessors, poets, and psychologists advocating the Ger- 
 man cause cannot remove the black stain of this deed. 
 The facts are irrefutable, and the proof of guilt 
 inexorable." 
 
 It seems not worth while further to elaborate the 
 evidence as to the criminal and altogether indefensible 
 position in which Germany finds herself in regard to 
 Belgium. She has forfeited the respect of the civil- 
 ized world. Her "promises" and "pledges" and 
 "guarantees" will, as long as the present ruling class 
 is in power, be regarded with contempt or derision by 
 other nations. So far as the Belgian question relates 
 to America, however, I have nowhere seen the issue 
 better expressed than by Mr. Joseph C. Fraley, of 
 Philadelphia, who, in a brochure entitled "How and 
 Why a War Lord Wages War" (which all Ameri- 
 cans should read), says: 
 
 "We know that the one hope of stopping wars, 
 is to supply a world wide sanction for the support 
 of international laws and morals. We have nothing 
 to do with the reasons which led certain powers to 
 engage that Belgian territory should be neutral in 
 time of war. We have everything to do with this 
 particular instance of treaty breaking, in that it con- 
 stitutes a new departure, a crime against all neu- 
 trals. Treaties made for peace conditions are ob- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 53 
 
 viously liable to be broken in war, but a treaty made 
 with special reference to war, belongs to that class 
 of obligations whose infringement is like cheating at 
 cards. The offender gets no second chance." 
 
 And yet it takes a German- American (Jastrow) 
 to say that the historian of the future will, in analyzing 
 the causes of the war, regard the neutrahty of Bel- 
 gium " as a very minor factor, perhaps entirely neg- 
 ligible" ! 
 
IV 
 
 Is there any evidence which tends to show why the 
 present time was selected by Germany to precipitate 
 the war? 
 
 A. Professor Usher, the author of "Pan Ger- 
 manism" (where much interestmg matter corrobora- 
 tive of the statements of Emil Reich, as to Germany's 
 megalom.ania, may be found presented in a more dig- 
 nified way), has best answered this question in an 
 article on "The Reasons Behind the War." (15) 
 
 In the first place, Austria for centuries has 
 dreamed of dominating southeastern Europe, of rul- 
 ing the Balkans, of possessing a seacoast on the Adri- 
 atic and ^gean. Only the control of Servia can give 
 her fully and unreservedly what she desires. More- 
 over, under Servia's leadership, once she had recov- 
 ered from her great losses in men and resources dur- 
 ing the Balkan wars, a strong Slav state might have 
 been established in control of all Austria's present ap- 
 proaches to the Adriatic. Her motives seem plain, 
 and she was in precisely the position, after the mur- 
 der of the Arch-Duke Ferdinand, to serve as a cat's- 
 paw for her "ally" — and master. But why did the 
 latter push her relentlessly into war at this time, when 
 ample reparation was offered and further amends were 
 easily procurable, as the evidence shows beyond all 
 
 (54) 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 55 
 
 question? The Anglo-Irish difficulties, the Canadian- 
 Hindu troubles, the sensational disclosures in the 
 French Chamber as to the bad condition of the army, 
 the alleged deficiencies in the French aeroplane squad- 
 rons, the only partial recovery of Russia from the 
 effects of the Japanese war, the exhaustion of the 
 Balkan States themselves from their recent wars, even 
 the preoccupation of the United States with troubles 
 in Mexico, all seemed to preclude the chance of a gen- 
 eral interference. 
 
 Professor Usher continues: 
 
 "If such interference took place and a general 
 European war resulted, there had not been in twenty 
 years anything like as favorable an opportunity for 
 the Triple Alliance or one as disadvantageous for 
 the Triple Entente. The stake v/as so immense, the 
 results of success would be so stupendous, so out of 
 proportion, in the case of the Triple Alliance, with 
 what they might lose, that the issue of war might even 
 be courted with some assurance. . . . 
 
 "The schemes of the Pan-Germanists indeed 
 
 reach to the creation of a vast confederation of states. 
 
 . reaching 'from the North Sea to the Persian 
 
 Gulf, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean,' as one 
 
 of their slogans has it. . . . 
 
 "Of this great scheme (supposing it to be, as 
 many claim, the veritable secret policy of the Triple 
 Alliance) the undisputed possession of the Balkans 
 by the Triple Alliance is the most important single 
 factor. . . . 
 
 "As to a general assault upon the Triple Entente, 
 the Triple Alliance has long seen two obvious 
 
56 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 methods, both in the opinion of many, Hkely to be suc- 
 cessful ; the one, a long waiting game where the rapid 
 growth of the population in Germany, Austria, and 
 Italy, and the decline of the rate of growth in France, 
 England, and Russia, would in time give the Alliance 
 a real preponderance in numbers; the other, a short 
 quick blow at some moment when the Triple Alliance 
 could bring all its strength to bear and when the 
 Triple Entente could not. The former meant, not 
 improbably, many years of waiting, and in those years 
 much might happen. 
 
 "Thoroughly alive to the situation, the Triple 
 Entente had already under execution the prelim- 
 inaries of so vast an increase of ofifensive force, and 
 showed such a determination to maintain a naval and 
 military preponderance, that there would be no alter- 
 native but waiting, once these schemes were perfected. 
 The French, and particularly the Russian, army was 
 to be increased, not only in size, but in efficiency and 
 equipment; and an influential minority in England, 
 with apparent popular support, was agitating con- 
 scription. The English navy was to be much in- 
 creased in fighting force by manning at war strength 
 in the near future a much larger proportion of ships 
 than ever before. Chiefest of all, the Russians were 
 building in the Baltic a really formidable fleet, capable 
 of contesting the Baltic with Germany and of threat- 
 ening the rear of the German fleet in the Atlantic 
 to such an extent that united fleet action in the North 
 Sea would become an impossibility. 
 
 "If they [the Triple Alliance] were to fight at 
 all, they must fight now. Next summer might be too 
 late. Now the actual offensive force of their rivals 
 was proportionately less than it might be again for 
 ten years, and their difficulties at home were collec- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 57 
 
 tively and individually greater than any of the three 
 has seen for a generation. 
 
 "So far as the fulfillment of the schemes of Pan- 
 Germanism was concerned, the moment was more 
 than opportune and might not return." 
 
 Professor Usher seems to me to have sufficiently 
 answered Question IV. 
 
V 
 
 What are the principles represented by the oppos- 
 ing forces in this war? 
 
 A. They are absolutism and militarism on the 
 one hand and democratic liberty and representative 
 government on the other. 
 
 For a century a transference of political power 
 from military despots to popular assemblies has been 
 going on in western Europe. In Russia and the Far 
 East the same gradual shift of forces has been taking 
 place. France and Portugal are republics. England 
 is democratic. Japan has abandoned feudalism for 
 democracy. China is an experimental republic. Rus- 
 sia has her Duma. Servia has fought for self-govern- 
 ment. The people of Italy have shown their real sen- 
 timents by keeping her from fighting against the Al- 
 lies. Belgium has a growing and intelligent demo- 
 cratic minority of its population. At this critical tide 
 in the affairs of the world the inmost feelings of the 
 peoples involved, the beliefs and aspirations that are 
 a living part of their very being are apt to dominate 
 and often — though I admit, not invariably — determine 
 their action. 
 
 What is the alignment? 
 
 On one side Germany — with whose ideals and 
 purposes we are familiar — Austria, not a real nation, 
 
 (58) 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 59 
 
 but an artificial conglomeration of heterogeneous 
 peoples, the mere tool of Germany, and Turkey, now, 
 as always, the type of a corrupt fanatic Oriental des- 
 potism. 
 
 On the other, France, England, Belgium, Servia, 
 Portugal, Russia, Japan. 
 
 And ranged on their side, so far as sympathy 
 goes, are the democratic neutral powers, Denmark, 
 Norway, Sweden, Holland, Italy and the United 
 States. 
 
 "The Outlook," which has admirably summed up 
 the foregoing facts, says editorially (August 29, 
 1914): 
 
 "When in a chemical experiment certain mole- 
 cules by a natural attraction combine, that fact shows 
 that they have something in common. When, in such 
 a war as this, France, England, Belgium, Portugal, 
 Japan and Russia combine, that fact shows that these 
 various peoples have something in common. We 
 believe that something in common is a passionate 
 desire for democratic liberty. 
 
 "The victory of Germany can be no other than 
 a victory for militarism; the victory of the Allies 
 no other than a victory for permanent peace. If Ger- 
 many wins she must maintain her armaments, if not 
 increase them; for power obtained by force can be 
 maintained only by force. If Germany is defeated, a 
 diminution of her armaments as a condition of peace 
 may well be demanded by the Allied Powers." 
 
VI 
 
 In addition to the evidence already presented as 
 to the mental attitude of the average German toward 
 his own race and toward other European races, are 
 there any facts tending to show his real attitude 
 tozuard America f 
 
 A. If in answering this I come back again to 
 Bernhardi and Treitschke, it is because I believe it has 
 been shown that, in spite of eleventh-hour denials, they 
 truly represent the Germany of 1914 — the Germany 
 of this war. How much of the mistaken "devotion" 
 of the German nation at this time is due to their teach- 
 ings and to those of their class it is impossible to state 
 dogmatically. But that they have greatly influenced 
 their compatriots there can be no doubt. 
 
 Let us see what these "Pan Germanists" have to 
 say to their fellow-countrymen about America. Bern- 
 hardi says (16) that in our efforts at The Hague Con- 
 gresses and, in recent times, our attempts to conclude 
 treaties for the establishment of Arbitration Courts, 
 we have not pacific ideals as the real motive of our 
 actions, but "usually employ the need of peace as a 
 cloak under which to promote" our own political aims. 
 He goes on : 
 
 "We can hardly assume that a real love of peace 
 prompts these efforts. This is shown by the fact that 
 precisely those Powers which, as the weaker, are ex- 
 
 (60) 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 61 
 
 posed to aggression, and therefore were in the greatest 
 need of international protection, have been completely 
 passed over in the American proposals for Arbitration 
 Courts. It must consequently be assumed that very 
 matter-of-fact political motives led the Americans, 
 with their commercial instincts, to take such steps, 
 and induced perfidious Albion to accede to the pro- 
 posals. We may suppose that England intended to 
 protect her rear in event of a war with Germany, 
 but that America wished to have a free hand in order 
 to follow her policy of sovereignty in Central America 
 without hindrance, and to carry out her plans regard- 
 ing the Panama Canal in the exclusive interests of 
 America. Both countries certainly entertained the 
 hope of gaining advantage over the other signatory 
 of the treaty, and of winning the lion's share for them- 
 selves. Theorists and fanatics imagine that they see 
 in the efforts of President Taft a great step forward 
 on the path to perpetual peace, and enthusiastically 
 agree with him. Even the Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs in England, with well-affected idealism, termed 
 the procedure of the United States an era in the his- 
 tory of mankind." 
 
 "The United States of America, e. g., in June, 
 1911, championed the ideas of universal peace in order 
 to be able to detote their undisturbed attention to 
 money-making and the enjoyment of wealth, and to 
 save the three hundred million dollars which they 
 spend on their army and navy." 
 
 "In America, Elihu Root, formerly Secretary of 
 State, declared in 1908 that the High Court of Inter- 
 national Justice established by the second Hague Con- 
 ference would be able to pronounce definite and bind- 
 
62 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 ing decisions by virtue of the pressure brought to bear 
 by public opinion. The present leaders of the Ameri- 
 can peace movement seem to share this idea. . With 
 a childlike self-consciousness, they appear to believe 
 that public opinion must represent the view which the 
 American plutocrats think most profitable to them- 
 selves." 
 
 "While, on the one side, she [America], insists 
 on the Monroe doctrine, on the other she stretches 
 out her own arms towards Asia and Africa, in order 
 to find bases for her fleets. The United States aim 
 at the economic and, where possible, the political com- 
 mand of the American continent, and at naval su- 
 premacy in the Pacific." 
 
 So much for Bernhardi. 
 Treitschke says: (17) 
 
 "To civilization at large, the Anglicising of the 
 German-Americans means a heavy loss. . . . 
 Among Germans there can no longer be any question 
 that the civilization of mankind {Gesittung der Men- 
 scheit) suffers every time a German is transformed 
 into a Yankee." 
 
 No wonder that the Ridders and Miinsterbergs 
 and Hilprechts and Jastrows seek to belittle Bernhardi 
 and Treitschke and their teachings as a preliminary to 
 the conciliation of America, But I fear that the trans- 
 formation of the representative of "Kultur" into the 
 despised Yankee takes place much less frequently than 
 we had supposed. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 63 
 
 The reason it does not take place oftener is not 
 far to seek, once one recognizes that our German- 
 Americans are still under the influence of the "Father- 
 land." 
 
 There can be no doubt that German and Ameri- 
 can political ideals are absolutely divergent. They 
 have already come into conflict over South America, 
 the Panama Canal and the Philippines. Calwer, a 
 German socialist, says that preliminary to a socialistic 
 economic organization of the world, "Capitalism must 
 first bring the world under subjection," and adds : 
 
 "It follows that capital — including German cap- 
 ital as well — ^rnust first go forth and subdue the world 
 with the means and weapons which are at its dis- 
 posal," i.e., with fire and sword. 
 
 The same sort of thing crops out wherever their 
 bureaucrats write. Herr Schlettewein, a Government 
 Colonist expert, when asked to instruct the Reichstag 
 on the principles of colonization, said : 
 
 "In colonial politics we stand at the parting of 
 the ways— on the one side healthy egoism . . . 
 on the other exaggerated humanitarianism. The 
 Herreros must he compelled to work, and to work 
 without compensation and in return for their food 
 only. Forced labor for years is only a just punish- 
 ment, and at the same time it is the best method of 
 training them." 
 
64 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 How long would an American governmental em- 
 ploye remain in public life after expressing that senti- 
 ment to Congress ? 
 
 Curiously enough the fundamental idea of our 
 American republic, the idea for which the War of the 
 Revolution was fought, the idea for the preservation 
 of which to-day Americans would unhesitatingly lay 
 down their lives, is known to political philosophers and 
 historians as "the Teutonic idea." 
 
 It is the irreconcilable conflict between that idea 
 and the mediaeval ideas of a people willing to be gov- 
 erned by a Hohenzollern that prevents the more fre- 
 quent metamorphosis of a German into a "Yankee." 
 
 Professor McElroy has shown (18)' that the 
 "Teutonic idea" — the idea of representative govern- 
 ment — dating back to the earliest days of European 
 history, gradually overwhelmed on the Continent by 
 the Roman idea (of government from above), except 
 in the highlands of Switzerland and the lowlands of 
 Holland, survived in the British Isles. It was kept 
 alive at Runnymede, and by Simon de Montfort's par- 
 liament and against it, he says, "The despotic Tudors, 
 the treacherous Stuarts and the dull Hanoverians 
 struggled in vain." 
 
 It throve in the American Colonies and the 
 American Revolution started it upon a new and glori- 
 ous career. Almost at once the representative idea 
 was restored in England, and in France emerged, 
 "after centuries of complete obliteration, in a revolu- 
 tionary movement that shook Europe from end to 
 end." 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 65 
 Professor McElroy continues: 
 
 "It has since spread rapidly. Wherever the 
 British flag has appeared the Teutonic idea has been 
 planted and its roots carefully nourished. It is a 
 plant of slow growth ; but it is worth the trouble of 
 careful cultivation. No man can deny the fact that, 
 with all the faults of administration, and they are 
 many and grave, often written in letters of blood, the 
 flag of England and that of her own flesh and blood, 
 the United States, have been followed always by the 
 idea and practice of representative government. We 
 may criticise the Boer war ; but we know that as soon 
 as the Boers were subdued they were told to govern 
 themselves. Men may question the propriety of 
 American intervention in Cuba; but no one can deny 
 that we voluntarily stood aside, after gaining full 
 possession of the island, and invited her people to 
 select representatives and manage their own affairs. 
 In the elaboration of this idea one need not argue; one 
 need only invite attention to the facts which are patent 
 to all men. Whatever we may think of England, 
 therefore, we know that the great Germanic idea of 
 government 'of the people, by the people, and for the 
 people' follows her flag. 
 
 "But what of Germany under the hegemony of 
 Prussia? Prussia has been throughout her history, 
 as her greatest publicist. Professor Hans Delbriick, 
 has phrased it, a Kriegsstaat. Her history is all mil- 
 itary history. In reading it we miss the story of the 
 glorious conflicts for the people's right to a share in 
 the government. There are no Runnymede barons, 
 no Simon de Montforts, no Oliver Cromwells, no 
 Abraham Lincolns, in the history of Prussia. Slowly, 
 
66 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 but with a grim and terrible certainty, the iron hand 
 of the Prussian war lord has brought the German 
 nation to exactly the position to which King George 
 III attempted to bring England and the American 
 colonies. In Germany the Teutonic idea is dead. A 
 mixed race, more Slavonic than Teutonic, the Prus- 
 sian, has deprived the German people of their birth- 
 right. There, as Professor Cramb strikingly phrases 
 it, 'Corsica . . . has conquered Galilee.' The 
 ideals of Prussia remain to-day just what they were 
 in the days of the Great Elector — ideals of absolute 
 monarchy — and the German Empire has accepted 
 them. 'The German people,' wrote Charles Sarolea 
 in 1912, 'are governed more completely from Berlin 
 and Potsdam than the French were governed from 
 Paris and Versailles. In theory, every part of the 
 Empire may have a proportional share in the admin- 
 istration of the country; in reality, Prussia has the 
 ultimate political and financial control.' And it is to 
 maintain and extend this half-Slavonic military des- 
 potism calling its war chief the 'anointed of the Lord' 
 that the Germans are giving their lives." 
 
VII 
 
 What is the attitude of German-Americans to- 
 ward this war and toward the principles involved t 
 
 This has been and is one of the great surprises 
 of the war to most Americans. It is unnecessary to 
 say that we value our German-American citizens, 
 and thought that in times of stress in the future, as in 
 the past, they would demonstrate that they were as 
 democratic and as truly American as any of us. It 
 was quite common to hear the expression from Ameri- 
 cans that this was a "Prussian war," a "Kaiser's 
 war," a "War Lord's fight," and that the "German 
 people" had our sympathies, though we hoped Ger- 
 many would lose. In Mr. Fraley's brochure, already 
 quoted from, he says eloquently: 
 
 "Oh, Great People of South and Middle Ger- 
 many; brave, kindly, lovers of the peaceful arts, 
 lovers of liberty; you, who as you march, are singing 
 of homes in Schwabenland and Bayerland, and where 
 the grape blooms on the Rhine; how long will you 
 sacrifice not only your blood and treasure, but your 
 sacred honor, to uphold this spirit of inexorable mil- 
 itarism, foisted upon you under the pretense that 
 through it your dear Fatherland may be at rest, but 
 whose real purpose is that a Prussian shall write him- 
 self Imperator et Rex?" 
 
 (67) 
 
68 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 If we thought this of portions of the German na- 
 tion itself, it may be understood how much more con- 
 fident we were as to the sentiments of the Germans 
 who had become part of our own family. But we were 
 soon to be undeceived. 
 
 At the present moment the American people 
 might with some show of accuracy be divided into 
 Americans and a subdivision of what the newspapers 
 call "Hyphenated-Americans." 
 
 This subdivision seems to consist chiefly, if not 
 entirely, of a certain number of Teutonic accessions 
 to our citizenship — i. e., of "German-Americans." 
 What numerical relation it has to the whole body of 
 useful and valued American citizens of German birth 
 or ancestry it is just now impossible to determine. 
 The classification I suggest would rest upon three 
 chief characteristics: 1. A pronounced tendency to 
 unfriendly or contemptuous criticism of the United 
 States. 2. Undiscriminating sympathy with and sup- 
 port of the actions of Germany before and during the 
 present war. 3. An effort to arouse anti-British 
 prejudice among Americans. 
 
 The so-called German- Americans who do not be- 
 long in the group thus defined may be in the large 
 majority. I hope they are. But thus far they have 
 scarcely been heard from, while the others are almost 
 daily appealing to Americans for intellectual and 
 moral aid and countenance. That their appeals are 
 often tactless, frequently untruthful, and sometimes 
 insulting, is an interesting phenomenon which is de- 
 serving of study. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 69 
 
 In a biological investigation certain factors would 
 be at once considered if the cause of a particular racial 
 or tribal peculiarity were being sought for. Chief 
 among these factors would be heredity and environ- 
 ment, the latter including the customary diet with the 
 sources of food supply. This would be true whether 
 the peculiarity were physical or psychical — i. e., 
 whether it was, for example, a matter of stature and 
 complexion or a matter of belief and religious observ- 
 ance. Similarly, the food that may have helped to 
 produce it would be of interest to the investigator, 
 whether it were for the body or for the mind — e. g., 
 whether clay-eating causing the swollen belly of the 
 Digger or Chauvinistic literature causing — to use the 
 vernacular — the swollen head of the "world power or 
 perish" German. 
 
 Viewed from this standpoint the phenomenon in 
 question seems to admit of easy explanation. The in- 
 fluence of heredity is, of course, obvious and unmis- 
 takable. Thus far the overwhelming majority of the 
 apologists — little or big — for Germany in this country 
 are of German birth or descent. It is rare to find an 
 American name prefixed or appended to an article or 
 communication calling for the sympathy of Americans 
 for Germany in this crisis, or asking them to "suspend 
 judgment," or appealing for "fairness and modera- 
 tion," or extolling the bravery, the self-sacrifice and 
 the high moral purposes of the Germans; or even 
 narrating the extreme consideration shown them in 
 Germany after the outbreak of the war. 
 
70 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 Coupled with their articles is not uncommonly 
 abuse of American methods, attempts to show that we 
 have ourselves been guilty of crimes no less abhorrent 
 than those with which Germany is charged, assertions 
 that our indignation is hypocrisy and that the over- 
 whelming anti-German sentiment of the country is due 
 to lying newspapers influencing a hysterical populace. 
 
 One "German-American" journalistic "concili- 
 ator" who seems to be especially charged with the duty 
 of combating and modifying the prevailing deep and 
 spontaneous sympathy for the Allies actually at- 
 tributes the public expressions of this sympathy to our 
 hypocrisy and untruthfulness. 
 
 This would be inexplicable if it were not for cer- 
 tain facts that throw upon it an illuminating sidelight. 
 
 We have already seen the attitude of many Ger- 
 man writers toward this country. It is obvious that 
 they have been supplying not only to Germans, but 
 also to German- Americans, the mental pabulum which 
 has nourished in the latter the combined sentiment of 
 worship of militarism and dislike for the ideals of the 
 country of their adoption. This seems extravagant, 
 and it is certainly surprising that such a statement 
 could have even a slight basis of truth. But listen to 
 Miinsterberg: (19) "In the German view the State 
 is not for the individuals, but the individuals for the 
 State." 
 
 And again : 
 
 "Those men who have achieved the marvelous 
 progress of German civilization have done it in the 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 71 
 
 conviction that the military spirit is a splendid train- 
 ing for cultural efficiency. The university professors 
 have always been the most enthusiastic defenders of 
 the system. ... 
 
 "Germany is not understood by those who fancy 
 that defeat would tear an abyss between the people 
 and the emperor. There is no room in Germany for 
 a president. The idea of a president is that he draws 
 his power from the will of the millions of individuals. 
 The idea of the emperor is that he is the symbol of the 
 State as a whole, independent from the will of the in- 
 dividuals, and therefore independent of any elections. 
 In the symbol of the crown, far above the struggles of 
 partisan individuals, lies the idea of the German 
 nation." 
 
 Here are some more quotations from "German- 
 Americans": (20) 
 
 "The overwhelming majority of the Germans 
 give their heartiest support to their far-seeing and 
 wise monarch." 
 
 "Modern Germany with all her great achieve- 
 ments is inseparable from the Germany of military 
 discipline, and would never have come into existence 
 without the support of a strong, steadfast and deter- 
 mined government. The 'two Germanys' must stand 
 or fall together, for the German people and their 
 Kaiser are one !" 
 
 "The German people are as inseparable from 
 their Kaiser as we in America are from our Constitu- 
 tion." 
 
 "The whole German people are practically unani- 
 mous in the opinion that the monarchical form of 
 
72 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 government, with great authority and strongly cen- 
 tralized, is the best for them. Even the great Social 
 Democratic party is organized upon this principle, 
 and does not in the least resemble a Democratic party 
 in the American sense of the word." 
 
 The Kolnische Zeitung (21) publishes a letter 
 from a German — or German-American — resident in 
 this country, as to the events immediately following 
 the outbreak of the war : 
 
 "These were glorious days ! . . . A holy 
 wrath breaks over us, the furor teutonicus. All Ger- 
 many flames up like a powder-mine. . , , Who is 
 not for us is against us. And they were all, all against 
 us, America the most furious. Search history as you 
 will, you will not find a page that records the like of 
 what appears in these days in the American press. 
 They write with Indian arrowheads and for ink use 
 viper's venom. Has ever one member of the family 
 of nations ventured to employ against another such a 
 mode of speech, especially when that other was 
 locked in a most sanguinary strife? 
 
 "And America is a neutral State ! . . . 
 Americans, with left-handed meaning, speak of the 
 Kaiser as 'the War Lord.' And for the honest 
 Yankee there is no more ghastly title than this. For 
 it sounds better to play the peace waltz ! On all the 
 editorial organs they play now only one melody : Ger- 
 many is the world's champion peace-buster {Aller- 
 weltsstorenfried) , and when peace is broken the free- 
 dom of the people is beaten into fragments. . . . 
 A land, a people, a nation, is the prey of the Amer- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 73 
 
 ican vultures of the press. For these conveyers of 
 culture there is no such thing as honor of country, 
 people, or nation." 
 
 Price Collier throws some light on the matter as 
 regards the German Germans when he says: (22) 
 
 "In order to build up his patriotism the German 
 has been taught systematically to dislike the Aus- 
 trians, then the French, now the English, and let not 
 the American suppose that he likes the American any 
 better, for he does not." 
 
 Pere Didon also helps when he writes: (23) 
 
 "J'ai essaye maintes fois de decouvrir chez I'alle- 
 mand une sympathie quelconque pour d'autres 
 nations; je n'y ai reussi." 
 
 But the most illuminating comment is m^de in 
 another portion of Collier's book, where he sums up 
 his views as to the entire Germanic system : 
 
 "There is no such thing in Germany as democratic 
 or representative government. 
 
 "The orderliness of the Germans is all forced 
 upon them from without, and is not due to their own 
 knowledge of how to take care of themselves. 
 
 "German State socialism is, in a nutshell, the de- 
 cision on the part of the rulers that the individual is 
 not competent to spend his own money, choose his 
 own calling, use his own time as he will or provide 
 for his own future or the various emergencies of life. 
 
74 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 By minute State control they are rapidly bringing the 
 whole population to an enfeebled social and political 
 condition, where they can do nothing for them- 
 selves. . . . There are 3,000,000 officials, great 
 and small, in Germany, and 14,000,000 electors, or, 
 roughly, one policeman to every five adults. 
 
 "I have said that the population is well fed, well 
 clothed and well looked after. Of course they are. 
 No slave owner so maltreats his slaves that they can- 
 not work for him. But is man fed by bread alone? 
 
 . . . "The electors, now so flattered by the 
 smooth phrases of their tyrants disguised as liberators, 
 will one day be aghast to find themselves in a veritable 
 house of correction paid for from their own savings. 
 
 "The very barrenness of the soil, the ring of 
 enemies, the soft moral and social texture of the 
 population, have, so their little knot of rulers think, 
 made necessary these harsh, artificial forcing methods. 
 The outstanding proof of the artificiality of this civil- 
 ization is its powerlessness to propagate. Germans 
 transplanted from their hothouse civilization to other 
 countries cease to be Germans; and nowhere in the 
 world outside Germany is German civilization im- 
 itated, liked or adopted. 
 
 "Autocracy, bureaucracy and militarism are trip- 
 lets of straw, not destined to live. They are preco- 
 cious children, teaching the pallid religion of depen- 
 dence upon the State and enforcing the anarchical 
 morality of man's despair of himself. 
 
 "Germany has organized herself into an organiza- 
 tion, and is the most overgoverned country in the 
 world. Life is to live, not to think, after all. This is 
 where the metaphysician invariably fails when he mis- 
 takes thinking for living, when he mistakes organiza- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 75 
 
 tion, which can never be more than a mold for hfe, 
 for Hfe itself. 
 
 "Germany has shown us that the short cut to the 
 government of a people by suppression and strangula- 
 tion results in a dreary development of mediocrity. 
 She has proved again that the only safety for either an 
 individual or a nation is to be loved and respected; 
 and in these days no one respects slavery or loves 
 threats." 
 
 Another American writer, after making this quo- 
 tation, adds: (24) 
 
 "Such is the true meaning of the system which 
 has produced the modern Germany of machine-like 
 efficiency, of a governmental philosophy founded upon 
 force, of universal submission to undemocratic ideals. 
 It is a picture to sadden all admirers of the race which 
 has wrought such benefits to mankind. 
 
 "Yet this is the system which patriotic Germans 
 in America insist is necessary. The fruits of German 
 energy and genius, they say, are due not to racial ca- 
 pacity, but to the crushing out of individualism and 
 the surrender of national liberty to the purpose of 
 creating a glorified State. 
 
 "In plain terms, they declare the astonishing 
 theory that the German people are incapable of prog- 
 ress under democratic institutions, but have become 
 great in the mass only because they have subordinated 
 the nation's will to an intelligent officialdom and 
 ordered their lives to the commands of a militaristic 
 discipline." 
 
 Among other unamiable peculiarities our Ger- 
 man-American citizens have developed is one already 
 
76 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 alluded to, a determined effort to arouse anti-British 
 feeling by reference to all the occasions when there 
 has been war or dispute between the two countries 
 from the time of the Revolution down to the Vene- 
 zuelan incident. 
 
 But this is as clumsy, as ineffective and, I think, 
 as distasteful to most Americans as their equally un- 
 couth attempts at flattery. 
 
 They forget that America has never been the 
 home of "grudges"; that every important incident 
 they cite, even the most recent, belongs to the period 
 of generations that have passed away. They forget 
 that the greatest war of the last century, between two 
 sections of our own country, has been, so far as con- 
 tinued rancor and bitterness are concerned, as com- 
 pletely forgotten as if it had occurred in the time of 
 the Crusades. They forget that the ideals of the Eng- 
 lish-speaking people the world over are at once the 
 most democratic and the nearest to successful realiza- 
 tion that the world has ever seen, and that our brothers 
 in the French Republic have their faces steadfastly set 
 toward the same goal. 
 
 They forget that our present differences — if there 
 are any — are trivial and superficial, while our like- 
 nesses are flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone. 
 
 They ignore the fact that the fairest and most 
 penetrating analysis of our country, our methods and 
 our people ever written was from the pen of an Eng- 
 lishman, Viscount Bryce; and that the most sympa- 
 thetic and impartial story of our War of Independence 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 77 
 
 was told by an English historian, Sir George Trev- 
 elyan. They are stupid enough to forget the incident 
 in Manila Bay in 1898, when the German Admiral 
 Von Diederich, after a series of petty and provocative 
 infractions of the blockade established by Admiral 
 Dewey, approached Admiral Chichester, in command 
 of the British fleet, to learn what he would do if fur- 
 ther disregard of Dewey's orders were shown. But 
 the American people have not forgotten Admiral Chi- 
 chester's reply to the effect that he "would do what- 
 ever Dewey wanted him to do." 
 
 Nor have they forgotten that at that very time 
 Germany was endeavoring to bring about an "under- 
 standing" among European powers that would result 
 in interference on behalf of Spain. 
 
 Our German-American quarrel makers do not 
 know doubtless, but many of us know, that in the 
 "Strangers' Room," of the chief Liberal Club of Lon- 
 don, a room where all visitors are shown, there hangs 
 in the place of honor over the mantel a framed fac- 
 simile of our Declaration of Independence, while above 
 it is a medallion with the superimposed silhouettes in 
 low relief, of Washington, Lincoln and Grant. In the 
 same room the Magna Charta occupies a less conspicu- 
 ous position. 
 
 Fortunately, they are about as likely to disturb or 
 even to affect the relations between England and this 
 country as their "Fatherland" is to realize its insane 
 dream of "World Power." 
 
 They are circulating the speeches of some unim- 
 
78 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 portant irreconcilables like Ramsay McDonald in op- 
 position to the war. Why don't they quote the 
 communications of the German Humanity League of 
 Berlin, to the British Humanity League, in which the 
 Kaiser is characterized as "the uncurbed tyrant, sur- 
 rounded by parasites, and now directing the most des- 
 perate, devilish and selfish campaign ever waged 
 against humanity," and as "the despot whose in- 
 satiable egotism is drenching Europe with the blood 
 of its workers and wage earners?" (25) 
 
 Perhaps Miinsterberg's book, "The War and Amer- 
 ica," best illustrates the fatuity of the German-Ameri- 
 can apologists as well as their awkward and stupid 
 mixture of unpalatable flattery and unfriendly 
 criticism. 
 
 The book has been admirably dissected by a re- 
 cent reviewer. (26). Professor Miinsterberg has re- 
 ceived so much undeserved attention from our Ameri- 
 can journalists that it seems worth while to quote por- 
 tions of this review. 
 
 "His method of argument seems directed at a 
 singularly untrained public. . . . His major pre- 
 mises he never takes the pains to substantiate. In- 
 stead, he reiterates them as axiomatic. 'Culturally, 
 Russia is Asia,' Russia desires to blot out Western 
 European civilization, hence Germany is fighting for 
 civilization against barbarism, in an inevitable con- 
 flict. These fundamental notions are drummed in with 
 Prussian thoroughness. But these are just the postu- 
 lates that a thoughtful reader wants to have proved. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 79 
 
 . . . Aside from bandying big impressive antith- 
 eses — Teuton and Slav, Europe, Asia, etc. — Professor 
 Miinsterberg varies his tactics by condescending flat- 
 tery of America; and by occasional excursions in 
 pure sentiment. The whole melange is highly sea- 
 soned, and possibly grateful to the literary palate of 
 the very simple reader for whom it is concocted. 
 
 "The omniscient tone of the plea is characteristic. 
 . . . Such a generalization as that Europe means 
 thought while Asia means feeling, and accordingly one 
 must cut the other's throat, is admirably calculated to 
 solve the vexed problem of West and East — in any 
 corner grocery store. And for whom does Professor 
 Miinsterberg limn the picture of an idyllic, scholarly, 
 industrial, unaggressive, and wholly pacific Germany 
 reluctantly kept under arms by bellicose neighbors? 
 Plainly, for a reader who has not heard of the parti- 
 tion of Poland, the seizing of Silesia, the grasping of 
 Schleswig-Holstein, the annexation of Hanover, the 
 retention of Alsace and Lorraine, and, only yesterday, 
 the premature incorporation of Belgium into the Ger- 
 man Empire. 
 
 "Then what kind of a reader is asked to swallow 
 whole the theory of a ruthlessly aggressive Russia 
 menacing all Western Europe? Evidently, a reader 
 who does not know that, first, Russia set conquered 
 Germany on her feet, then Austria threatened by the 
 Hungarian revolution — a reader who does not know 
 that in a hundred and fifty years, when Russia was 
 strong and Central Europe a congeries of weak states, 
 Russia showed no exceptional aggressiveness against 
 European Powers. 
 
 . . . "We must note the kind of philosophical 
 thought that underlies the surface rhetoric. It is a 
 philosophy not overtly expressed. It would hardly 
 
80 A IV AR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 bear ventilation in America. You may sense it in the 
 sharp distinction between 'routine agreements like the 
 neutrality treaties,' and a 'pledge of international 
 honor' like the Triple Alliance. Why is there no 
 pledge of honor in a neutrality agreement? Plainly 
 because it is made with and in behalf of a weak 
 Power. Honor first begins among peers. Thus is 
 honor made in the Germany of Zabern. 
 
 "Again consider the system of international 
 morals implied in the following: 
 
 " 'It was the ethical duty of the Russians to strain 
 every effort for the expansion of their influence, and 
 it was the ethical duty of the Germans and Austrians 
 to strain every effort to prevent it. In the same way, 
 it was the moral right of France to make use of any 
 hour of German embarrassment for recapturing its 
 military glory by a victory of revenge. And it was 
 the moral right of England to exert its energies for 
 keeping the control of the seas and for destroying the 
 commercial rivalry of the Germans. No one is to be 
 blamed.' 
 
 "International morality, that is, consists in the 
 insensate inevitable clash of national egotisms, which, 
 being national, are holy. . . . 
 
 "We have left dangling the very interesting ques- 
 tion : For what kind of a reader is this skillful blend 
 of dogmatism, innuendo, sophistry, and gush in- 
 tended? Fortunately, Profesor Miinsterberg has 
 the candor to make the matter clear. It is addressed 
 to 'the American mind' which has an 'unusual degree 
 of imitativeness and suggestibility.' It is addressed 
 to the individual American who, when excited, tends 
 to become *a mere automatic mechanism in which the 
 thoughts and feelings and impulses of his neighbor 
 control his mind.' . . . 'There is a lack of indi- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 81 
 
 vidual resistance to prescribed opinions which pro- 
 duces in excited states a colorless wholesale judgment 
 which may be entirely different from the natural stand 
 of the sober single individual.' Elsewhere we learn 
 that in all European matters the American is moved 
 chiefly by a provincial prejudice against the parapher- 
 nalia and nomenclature of monarchy. He takes mere 
 names for real things. 
 
 "Professor Miinsterberg has produced a book that 
 is precisely adapted to impress the sort of 'American 
 mind,' he thus defines, but no other sort." 
 
 Even in his latest text-book of Psychology he 
 evinces the same insufferable belief in essential racial 
 superiority, saying (p. 234) : 
 
 "The Southern peoples are children of the mo- 
 ment ; the Teutonic live in the things which lie beyond 
 the world, in the infinite and the ineffable." 
 
 I still, however, cling to the hope that the sup- 
 port at present undoubtedly given to the German cause 
 by our German-American citizens is a temporary 
 manifestation of the strength of the ties of blood, and 
 that they as a class are not fitly represented by 
 their present spokesmen. I cannot believe that, how- 
 ever they may have been influenced by heredity, by 
 the poisonous teachings of the Bernhardis and Treit- 
 schkes and by the flamboyant but spurious patriotism 
 of the Miinsterbergs and Ridders and Hilprechts, they 
 will permanently espouse a cause which is based upon 
 the idea that "there is no room in Germany for a presi- 
 
82 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 dent" for the reason that "the idea of a president is 
 that he draws his power from the will of millions of 
 individuals." It must be impossible that the kindly, 
 sociable and lovable friends I have among the Ger- 
 mans, here and abroad, can subscribe to the ethics of 
 the Kaiser as expressed to the German soldiers 
 despatched to China in 1900 : 
 
 "When you meet the foe you will defeat him. 
 No quarter will be given, no prisoners will be taken. 
 Let all who fall into your hands be at your mercy. 
 Just as the Huns, a thousand years ago, under the 
 leadership of Etzel (Attila), gained a reputation, in 
 virtue of which they still live in historical tradition, 
 so may the name of Germany become known in such a 
 manner in China that no Chinaman will ever again 
 even dare to look askance at a German." (27) 
 
 The reference to Attila was commonly sup- 
 pressed, but the rest of the quotation was circulated 
 on postcards throughout Germany. (28) 
 
 Two days later the modern Attila preached a ser- 
 mon on board the Hohensollern! (29) 
 
 I may, of course, be mistaken, but until the mis- 
 take is demonstrated I do not intend to include in my 
 condemnation of the present "German-American" at- 
 titude any but those who have publicly put themselves 
 on record. As for them, they should abandon the pre- 
 tense of being even "hyphenated" Americans. 
 
VIII 
 
 How much reliance is to be placed upon state- 
 ments emanating from Germany at this time? 
 
 We have been deluged with complaints of the 
 "unfairness" with which Germany's case has been pre- 
 sented to the world, the "lies" that have been told 
 about her, the "double facedness" of many of our 
 newspapers. Even the German Chancellor — the same 
 chancellor who on July 28th was, according to Mr. 
 Beck, guilty of a "pitiful and insincere quibble," and 
 whose Secretary of State on July 29th he says told 
 a "stupid falsehood" — on September 2d, by authority 
 of the Emperor, took the trouble to convey to the 
 American people his confidence that it would not 
 "allow itself to be deceived through the war of false- 
 hood which our enemies are conducting against us." 
 
 We know what to think of the Chancellor's ver- 
 acity. The small fry — the Miinsterbergs and Hil- 
 prechts — are shrill in their clamorous accusations of 
 unfairness and mendacity, including all their op- 
 ponents and some of us. Dr. Hilprecht, Heaven save 
 the mark, calls Sir Edward Grey an "arch deceiver," 
 and accuses (30) 
 
 "all our four principal enemies, against whom thus 
 far battles have been fought — the Belgians, the Eng- 
 lish, the French and the Russians — government, sol- 
 
 (83) 
 
84 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 diers and population alike, of having wilfully, cow- 
 ardly and cruelly, broken the sacred pledges given by 
 their representatives at The Hague conference before 
 God and mankind." 
 
 In support of one part of this statement, he says : 
 
 "The British dum-dum cartridges taken from the 
 first original package, opened in the presence of the 
 war correspondents, show the inscription, 'Art. Dept. 
 Ive.' at the bottom of their brass casings." 
 
 An archaeologist should, of course, be an authority 
 as to "inscriptions," but we need not regard this evi- 
 dence as conclusive. 
 
 Fortunately, we have a better test of Germany's 
 reliability as to truth at this juncture than could be 
 afforded by either Chancellors or archaeologists. 
 
 Perhaps the most astonishing effort to influence 
 American opinion is the 73-page pamphlet entitled 
 'Truth About Germany : Facts About the War." If 
 it had been headed "Falsehoods About Germany: 
 Lies About the War" the title would have been more 
 accurately descriptive. Professor Lovejoy, of Johns 
 Hopkins, has fitly characterized it as "a clumsy com- 
 pilation of fictions, irrelevancies and vulgar appeals to 
 what are apparently conceived to be American preju- 
 dices." He specifies some of the direct falsehoods: 
 
 "1. The pamphlet (31) says that Austria-Hun- 
 gary was able to prove that the Servian government 
 had been responsible for the plan of the assassination 
 at Sarajevo. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 85 
 
 "2. Austria-Hungary addressed to the Servian 
 government a number of demands which aimed at 
 nothing but the suppression of the anti-Austrian 
 propaganda. Servia was on the point of accepting 
 the demand, when there arrived a dispatch from St. 
 Petersburg, and Servia mobihzed. Then Austria had 
 to act. Thus arose the Austro-Servian war." 
 
 3. "Great Britain asked that Germany should 
 allow French and Belgian troops to form on Belgian 
 territory for a march against our frontier 
 England and France were resolved not to respect the 
 neutrality of Belgium . . . (They) did not give 
 up their plan of attacking Germany through Bel- 
 gium." 
 
 4. "England aims at being mistress of the Old 
 World in order to occupy either an equal, or a menac- 
 ing, position towards the New World. For this pur- 
 pose she has encouraged this war." 
 
 Prof essor Lovejoy adds : (32) 
 
 "Every American recipient of the pamphlet who 
 subsequently took the trouble to examine the entire 
 published evidence in the case must have speedily 
 discovered the statements of specific historical fact in 
 the passages cited to be either direct falsehoods or 
 suggestiones falsi. But it should be added that the 
 publication in question is marked by a yet more sin- 
 gular suppressio veri; it contains no hint of what are 
 perhaps the two most decisive of the 'facts about the 
 war.' These, since they seem to have been less em- 
 phasized in America than they deserve to be, should 
 perhaps be indicated specifically. 
 
 It is a fact undisclosed in the pamphlet that on 
 
86 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 July 30, and again in a modified form on July 31, 
 the Russian government communicated to the Ger- 
 man government an undertaking to 'stop all military 
 preparations' (or 'to maintain a waiting attitude') if 
 Austria would consent to 'stay the march of her 
 troops on Servian territory and, recognizing that the 
 Austro-Servian conflict has assumed the character of 
 a question of general European interest, to admit that 
 the Great Powers may examine the satisfaction which 
 Servia can accord to the Austro-Hungarian govern- 
 ment without injury to her rights as a sovereign state 
 and to her independence.' 
 
 "It is a fact equally undisclosed in this repository 
 of information about the causes of the war, that on 
 the morning of July 31, Sir Edward Grey declared 
 to the German Ambassador in London that 'if Ger- 
 many could get any reasonable proposal put forward 
 which made it clear that Germany and Austria were 
 striving to preserve European peace, and that Russia 
 and France would be unreasonable if they rejected it,' 
 he would 'support it at St. Petersburg and Paris, and 
 go the length of saying that if Russia and France 
 would not accept it his Majesty's government would 
 have nothing more to do with the consequences.' 
 
 "The most illuminating 'truth about Germany' 
 is that, on the same day, with these two pledges be- 
 fore it, the government at Berlin sent to Russia and 
 to France ultimata which were certain, and therefore 
 were manifestly designed, to render war within twen- 
 ty-four hours inevitable." 
 
 The pamphlet "Truth About Germany" was pre- 
 pared by a Board of Editors which included many of 
 the best-known men in letters, science, finance and Ger- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 87 
 
 man public life. As Lovejoy says, the pamphlet seems 
 to show that the very class that among cultivated per- 
 sons of other countries has gained for Germany its 
 greatest distinction, 
 
 "has signally failed at the most critical moment in 
 German history, to perform its proper function — the 
 function of detached criticism, of cool consideration, 
 of insisting that facts and all the relevant facts, be 
 known and faced. It appears to be shouting with 
 the rest for a wholly avoidable war of which, in 
 nearly all non-German eyes, the moral indefensibil- 
 ity seems exceeded only by its fatal unwisdom from a 
 purely national point of view." 
 
 It does not seem worth while to consider further 
 the question of the credibility of recent German offi- 
 cial and semi-official statements. 
 
IX 
 
 What is the truth as to the "pre-eminence" of 
 German ''Kultur," of German civilisation, of German 
 achievement in letters, arts and sciences? 
 
 A. "Truth About Germany" was in itself suffi- 
 cient, considering the representative character of its 
 authors and editors, to raise grave doubts as to the 
 value of German "cuhure" unless one could be both 
 cultured and untruthful. But much broader views of 
 this subject have been taken by Professor Brander 
 Matthews (33) and by Professor Ramsay: 
 
 After expressing his surprise that scholars like 
 Eucken and Haeckel should be possessed of the convic- 
 tion that Germany is the supreme example of a highly 
 civilized state, and the undisputed leader in the arts 
 and sciences which represent culture, Professor Mat- 
 thews continues by pointing out that 
 
 "Certain things seem to show German 'culture' a 
 little lacking in the social instinct, the desire to make 
 things easy and pleasant for others, an instinct which 
 is the dominating influence in French civilization. 
 . . . It is to the absence of this social instinct, to 
 the inability to understand the attitude of other parties 
 to a discussion, to the unwillingness to appreciate their 
 point of view, that we may ascribe the failure of Ger- 
 man diplomacy, a failure which has left her almost 
 without a friend in her hour of need. And success in 
 diplomacy is one of the supreme tests of civilization. 
 
 (88) 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 89 
 
 "The claim asserted explicitly or implicitly in be- 
 half of German culture seems to be based on the be- 
 lief that the Germans are leaders in the arts and in 
 the sciences. So far as the art of war . . . and 
 so far as the art of music are concerned, there is no 
 need to cavil. 
 
 "But what about the other and more purely intel- 
 lectual arts? How many are the contemporary 
 painters and sculptors and architects of Germany who 
 have succeeded in winning the cosmopolitan reputa- 
 tion which has been the reward of a score of the 
 artists of France and of half a dozen of the artists of 
 America ? 
 
 "When we consider the art of letters we find a 
 similar condition. Germany has had philosophers 
 and historians of high rank; but in pure literature 
 . . . for a period of nearly sixty years — only one 
 German author succeeded in winning a world-wide 
 celebrity — and Heine was a Hebrew, who died in 
 Paris, out of favor with his countrymen, perhaps be- 
 cause he had been unceasing in calling attention to 
 the deficiencies of German culture. . . . No 
 German writer attained to the international fame 
 achieved by Cooper and by Poe, by Walt Whitman 
 and by Mark Twain. And it was during these three- 
 score years of literary aridity in Germany that there 
 was a superb literary fecundity in Great Britain and 
 in France, and that each of these countries produced 
 at least a score of authors whose names are known 
 throughout the world. Even sparsely settled Scan- 
 dinavia brought forth a triumvirate, Bjorsen, Ibsen 
 and Brandes, without compeers in Germany. And 
 from Russia the fame of Turgenef and of Tolstoy 
 spread abroad a knowledge of the heart and mind 
 
90 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 of a great people who are denounced by Germans as 
 barbarous." 
 
 As Heine is the one German who has been pre- 
 eminent in Hterature these many years, it is interest- 
 ing, in view of recent happenings, to recall what he 
 wrote seventy-eight years ago : 
 
 "Christianity — and this is its highest merit — has, 
 in some degree, softened, but it could not destroy, 
 that brutal German joy of battle. When once the 
 taming talisman, the Cross, breaks in two, the sav- 
 agery of the old fighters, the senseless Berserker fury 
 of which the northern poets sing and say so much, 
 will gush up anew. That talisman is decayed, and the 
 day will come when it will piteously collapse. Then 
 the old stone gods will rise from the silent ruins, and 
 rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes. 
 Thor, with his giant's hammer, will at last spring up, 
 and shatter to bits the Gothic cathedrals." ! ! 
 
 Professor Matthews thinks that in the field of 
 science, pure and applied, the defenders of the suprem- 
 acy of German culture will probably take their last 
 stand. He goes on : 
 
 "That the German contribution to science has 
 been important is indisputable; yet it is equally in- 
 disputable that the two dominating scientific leaders 
 of the second half of the nineteenth century are Dar- 
 win and Pasteur. It is in chemistry that the Germans 
 have been pioneers ; yet the greatest of modern chem- 
 ists is Mendeleef. It was Hertz who made the dis- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 91 
 
 covery which is the foundation of Marconi's inven- 
 tion ; but although not a few valuable discoveries are 
 to be credited to the Germans, perhaps almost as 
 many as to either the French or the British, the Ger- 
 man contribution in the field of invention, in the 
 practical application of scientific discovery, has been 
 less than that of France, less than that of Great Brit- 
 ain, and less than that of the United States. The 
 Germans contributed little or nothing to the develop- 
 ment of the railroad, the steamboat, the automobile, 
 the aeroplane, the telegraph, the telephone, the phono- 
 graph, the photograph, the moving picture, the elec- 
 tric light, the sewing machine, and the reaper and 
 binder. Even those dread instruments of war, the 
 revolver and the machine gun, the turreted ship, the 
 torpedo, and the submarine, are not due to the mili- 
 tary ardor of the Germans. It would seem as though 
 the Germans had been lacking in the inventiveness 
 which is so marked a feature of our modern civil- 
 ization. 
 
 "Nations are never accepted by other nations at 
 their own valuation; and Germans need not be sur- 
 prised that we are now astonished to find them assert- 
 ing their natural self-appreciation, with the apparent 
 expectation that it will pass unchallenged. The 
 world owes a debt to modern Germany beyond all 
 question, but this is far less than the debt owed to 
 England and to France. It would be interesting if 
 some German, speaking with authority, should now 
 be moved to explain to us Americans the reasons 
 which underlie the insistent assertion of the superior- 
 ity of German civilization. Within the past few 
 weeks we have been forced to gaze at certain of the 
 less pleasant aspects of the German character: and 
 we have been made to see that the militarism of the 
 
92 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 Germans is in absolute contradiction to ttie preach- 
 ing and to the practice of the great Goethe, to whom 
 they proudly point as the ultimate representative of 
 German culture." . . . 
 
 He adds finally : "The most obvious character- 
 istic of a highly civilized man is his willingness to 
 keep his word, at whatever cost to himself. For rea- 
 sons satisfactory to itself Germany broke its pledge 
 to respect the neutrality of Luxemburg and of Bel- 
 gium. It is another characteristic of civilization to 
 cherish the works of art which have been bequeathed 
 to us by the past. For reasons satisfactory to itself 
 Germany destroyed Louvain, more or less completely. 
 It is a final characteristic of civilized man to be hu- 
 mane and to refrain from ill-treating the blameless. 
 For reasons satisfactory to itself, Germany dropped 
 bombs in the unbesieged city of Antwerp and caused 
 the death of innocent women and children. Here 
 are three instances where German 'culture' has been 
 tested and found wanting." 
 
 Professor William Ramsay (34), whose position 
 in the scientific world is of the very highest, says: 
 
 "The originality of the German race has never, 
 in spite of certain brilliant exceptions, been their 
 characteristic; their metier has been rather the ex- 
 ploitation of the inventions and discoveries of others ; 
 and in this they are conspicuous. . . . The aim 
 of science is the acquisition of knowledge of the un- 
 known; the aim of applied science, the bettering of 
 the lot of the human race. German ideals are infin- 
 itely far removed from the conception of the true 
 man of science." 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 93 
 
 He asks — as to the result of the annihilation of 
 the present ruling German despots : 
 
 "Will the progress of science be thereby re- 
 tarded? I think not. The greatest advances in 
 scientific thought have not been made by members of 
 the German race; nor have the earlier applications 
 of science had Germany for their origin. So far as 
 we can see at present, the restrictions of the Teutons 
 will relieve the world from a deluge of mediocrity. 
 Much of their previous reputation has been due to 
 Hebrew residents among them; and we may safely 
 trust that race to persist in vitality and intellectual 
 activity." 
 
X 
 
 What are the duties of America at this time? 
 
 It seems to me a very narrow and indeed a some- 
 what discreditable view of the duty of America 
 at this time, which would confine us to strict "neu- 
 trality" in both word and deed. The former is, of 
 course, practically impossible. The habit of saying 
 what we think is too ingrained to be abandoned by rea- 
 son of a Presidential or any other decree or proclama- 
 tion. And what many Americans think is that we 
 have ourselves been offended, injured, flouted by Ger- 
 many's actions, beginning with the violation of the 
 Belgian neutrality. 
 
 There is in existence a document to which the 
 United States of America is one of the signatories. 
 Another signer is the German Emperor. This docu- 
 ment embodies the results of The Hague Conferences 
 of 1899 and 1907. Mr. Muirhead, of London (35), 
 has discussed in a most interesting manner the situa- 
 tion arising from the existence of this paper. One of 
 its sections (Convention Concerning the Laws and 
 Customs of War on Land) consists of a recitation of 
 the practices which the signers solemnly undertake to 
 abstain from in the prosecution of a war. Among the 
 provisions in this code are the following: 
 
 (94) 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 95 
 
 Undefended towns shall not be bombarded 
 (Article 25; also Article 1 of Naval Code). 
 
 Pillage is expressly prohibited (Articles 28 and 
 47). 
 
 Illegal contributions must not be levied (Articles 
 49 and 52). 
 
 Militia and volunteer corps enjoy the rights of 
 belligerents (Article 1). 
 
 The seizure of funds belonging to private persons 
 or local authorities is prohibited (Articles 46, 53 and 
 56). 
 
 Collective penalties for individual acts are for- 
 bidden (Article 50). 
 
 Every effort must be made to spare buildings 
 dedicated to public w^orship, art, science or charitable 
 purposes (Article 56). 
 
 The terrorization of a country by outrages on its 
 civilian population is forbidden (Article 46). 
 
 It is forbidden to make improper use of a flag of 
 truce, of the national flag, of the military insignia and 
 uniform of the enemy, or of the distinctive signs of the 
 Geneva Convention (Article 23) ; and it is forbidden 
 to kill or mutilate the wounded, or to kill and wound 
 by treachery (Article 23). 
 
 The weight of evidence that Germany has fla- 
 grantly violated most of these regulations is over- 
 whelming, even if we omit those in the last paragraph 
 as difficult to prove and peculiarly liable to exaggera- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Muirhead continues : 
 
96 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 * "The question, then, seems to arise obviously 
 
 and inevitably : What is the position in these circum- 
 stances of the other signatories to the code? 
 
 "The United States of America w^as not one of 
 the guarantors of the neutrality of Belgium. Hence, 
 whatever may have been the feelings of its citizens, 
 it was not, as a nation or government, legally called 
 on to interfere. True, the action of Germany was a 
 direct attack on the principles of liberty and inde- 
 pendent nationality, of which the United States of 
 America is rightly considered as one of the greatest 
 protagonists. But it may be granted that civilization 
 has not yet progressed so far that intervention on a 
 purely ideal ground can be held to be a matter of 
 practical politics — even for a country with 90,000,000 
 inhabitants, and wealth beyond the dreams of 
 avarice. 
 
 "But unless the 'scrap of paper' theory is to be 
 applied indiscriminately to all contracts and treaties 
 between nations, what is the exact meaning of the 
 signatures of other Powers, including the United 
 States, to the decisions of The Hague conference? 
 Do they mean only a promise that the signatory will 
 itself observe those decisions? Or do they go fur- 
 ther, and involve the obligation that each signatory 
 State shall, so far as lies in its power, enforce the 
 observance on any signatory that violates them? It 
 cannot be maintained that such an obligation goes so 
 far as to involve undertaking war for the purpose of 
 enforcing observance, but surely it involves some 
 effort to procure it ? Can a great nation afiford to put 
 its name to a document and then stand by in icy 
 neutrality while that document is being torn to 
 shreds by another of the high contracting parties? 
 Is the conduct of Germany in this regard really as 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 97 
 
 much a matter of indifference to the United States 
 of America as to China or Abyssinia? It is obvious 
 that the signature of Germany is worthless, and that 
 the signature of Great Britain is being honored. But 
 has, or has not, the value of that of the United States 
 of America been somewhat impaired? Germany's 
 word was given to America as much as to England. 
 Can America, then, consonantly with its dignity and 
 honor, allow Germany to snap its fingers at her, and 
 say, 'Well, what are you going to do about it ?' " 
 
 Mr. Muirhead asks if the attitude of the United 
 States of America should be, or must be, that of a 
 neutral, equally friendly to both parties and waiting 
 quietly for the chance to insinuate proposals of peace ; 
 or if the necessity of the case is not something wider 
 and deeper than can be met by an ordinary peace 
 based on comparatively unimportant mutual conces- 
 sions ? Is it not, he says, inevitably a fight to a finish, 
 and is not the United States of America enormously 
 interested in having that "finish" in one way only? 
 
 He expresses the hope that the Allies will need 
 no material assistance from the United States of 
 America in achieving their ends, but adds : 
 
 "Those of us, however, who love America must 
 pray that she will definitely declare herself on the 
 side of popular liberty, if for nothing else than for 
 the preservation of the full measure of our love and 
 admiration." 
 
 In the early days of the war I was travelling in 
 Alaska and in our Pacific northwest and Canada. I 
 
98 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 talked with many Americans whom I met on trains or 
 boats or at hotels. I did not find among them a single 
 pro-German. But when I expressed the view, which 
 I then absolutely held, that we — the United States — 
 should help to make the issue of the war certain by 
 promptly offering the Allies every assistance in our 
 power, I found no one to agree with me. 
 
 I think I have noticed since then a steadily in- 
 creasing and strengthening trend of public opinion 
 in that direction. Now, when I express the same sen- 
 timents, nearly every second person acquiesces. Many 
 Americans have publicly put themselves on record as 
 favoring some form of intervention on behalf of the 
 Allies. Some would be content with a protest against 
 the violation of the Hague convention and an expres- 
 sion of opinion that would officially declare to the 
 world, what the world already knows, the overwhelm- 
 ing sympathy of this country for the cause and the 
 principles for which the Allies are fighting. 
 
 Others, among whom I am to be counted, are in 
 favor of prompt recognition of the fact that for the 
 sake of humanity and of civilization we cannot afford 
 to permit Germany to win, and that the surest way of 
 preventing it is to take sides at once. It seems a ter- 
 rible thing to advocate war for one's own country 
 when war might be avoided. But it is more terrible 
 to think of the indefinite prolongation of the slaughter 
 now going on and of the experiences of the coming 
 winter now awaiting not only the combatants but the 
 women and children and babies left without support 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 99 
 
 and shelter. If our intervention brought victory to 
 the cause of the AlHes a month earher than it would 
 otherwise come, it would be justified. 
 
 I am at one with Mr. Fraley, who, in the article 
 I have twice quoted from (36), said: 
 
 "Why not then take a hand at redefining, right 
 now, whilst our action will be effective; saying to 
 the War Lord: 'You have elected to ply your trade 
 on these lines, but the business is at your peril. If 
 you should be so unlucky as to shed American blood 
 upon neutral ground, or even in an enemy's territory, 
 at a point remote from battle and without due warn- 
 ing; or if an American should be harmed, in person 
 or property, by a mine of yours upon the high seas; 
 we shall hold it to be an act of war.' 
 
 " 'Advise' our fellow-neutral, Holland (whose 
 present status is Germany's best asset), that it is con- 
 trary to the public policy of the world that Germany 
 should have the benefits of Dutch neutrality for the 
 entrance of supplies, whilst trampling on the obliga- 
 tions of neutrality towards her next door neighbor. 
 Prohibit all shipments from the United States to Hol- 
 land except upon the guarantee of the Dutch govern- 
 ment that they shall not go beyond her border. Exert 
 all our influence upon the public opinion of the world 
 to denounce the War Lord as an enemy of the human 
 race. 
 
 "If Germany should resent this, how could we 
 make good? 
 
 "Send our Atlantic fleet to co-operate with the 
 Allies in closing the Baltic, and take along, as supply 
 ships and colliers, every German vessel now in our 
 ports. We shall find some of them loaded already. 
 
100 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "What precedent exists for such a notice and 
 demand? The mouth of the War Lord is closed on 
 the subject of precedents, but if we must have a form- 
 ula to go by, wherein would our action differ, in spirit, 
 from that which we have already done in Cuba and 
 in Mexico? 
 
 "We, the great Neutral Power of the World, 
 who desire that all neutrality shall be alike effective 
 and respected, find the situation intolerable. We 
 know that the one hope of stopping wars, is to supply 
 a world wide sanction for the support of international 
 laws and morals." 
 
 I believe that to-day this expresses the view of 
 a large and rapidly increasing number of Americans, 
 and that before long the majority of our people will 
 regard it as the duty of the President to protest 
 against the disregard of treaties and the violation of 
 conventions, and to make such protest so emphatic that 
 there can be no doubt left in the minds of the Kaiser 
 and the German people that the sympathies and, if nec- 
 essary, the support of the United States are pledged to 
 the cause of the Allies. 
 
 Dr. Charles Eliot, President Emeritus of Har- 
 vard, in an address on "America's Duty in Relation 
 to the European War" is quoted as saying (I have not 
 yet seen the original address) : (37) 
 
 "With Germany, might made right. She made a 
 violent attack on the weaker, because it was the short- 
 est, the easiest way. What a blow this was to our 
 idea of mercy, to our conception of the progress of 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 101 
 
 man from a barbarian to a civilized, fair, merciful 
 being ! We had hoped that the methods of war were 
 capable of amelioration, but this war has blown all 
 those hopes to the winds. 
 
 "All our hopes were shattered by Germany's ac- 
 tion. All our American ideas of the right to life, 
 liberty, property, happiness, were nullified by this 
 nation, which is led by a ruler who has an archaic 
 idea of his powers and of his relation to the world. 
 Germany has shown us that in the most advanced 
 nation, as far as science is concerned, there is no 
 place for mercy, no place for good will and that 
 hatred takes the place of good motives. 
 
 "We must bear in mind the deep obligations 
 which this nation is under to England and France, 
 so deep that it is vain to expect us to be in our hearts 
 neutral. Can we think of giving no aid to France if 
 she comes to the end of her resources ; to England if 
 she should be reduced to like straits? 
 
 "But let us not confuse our minds by failing to 
 see whither the German policy tends. Let us not 
 dream of abandoning our faith that human relations 
 shall be determined by considerations of justice, 
 mercy, love, and good will. We must help the Allies 
 if our assistance is requested." 
 
 To quote the usually pacific "Outlook" (October 
 7, 1914), and with most cordial approval: 
 
 "To a nation that acknowledges no law but its 
 own might, those nations that have a sense of honor 
 and regard their obligations as binding, can only say : 
 'If only the sword will induce you to keep your word, 
 we shall have to let the sword do its work. It will 
 
102 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 be our business to see that the observance of treaties 
 which we regard as a matter of honor, you shall find 
 to be a matter of self-interest.' " 
 
 Professor G. B. Adams, of Yale, is reported (38) 
 to have said recently : 
 
 "So much is at stake for civilization in this war 
 that Germany must not be allowed to win it, even if 
 it becomes necessary for the United States to enter 
 the conflict on the side of the Allies. . . . Ger- 
 many represents in government and institutions an 
 obsolescent system away from which the world has 
 been advancing for generations. . . . Germany 
 must be defeated in this war. If it comes to the point 
 when it is necessary for the United States to aid the 
 Allies to the end that they should win, then I hope it 
 will be done. She is opposed to everything for which 
 we stand, and our turn would be next if Germany 
 were successful." 
 
 Mr. Robert Bacon, ex-Ambassador from the 
 United States to France, says: (39) 
 
 "Signs are not wanting that the people of this 
 country are unwilling to submit much longer to the 
 injunction laid upon them that our neutrality should 
 impose upon us silence regarding aspects of the Euro- 
 pean war with which we have a vital concern. There 
 are many men who consider that this nation is shirk- 
 ing its duty by maintaining a policy which may be in- 
 terpreted as giving tacit assent to acts involving us 
 morally and much more intimately than has yet been 
 expressed. These men believe that we have a high 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 103 
 
 responsibility in upholding the treaties which were 
 signed at the Second Conference at The Hague in 
 1907 and ratified by the United States and the na- 
 tions now at war. 
 
 "In The Hague convention referred to we have a 
 real and intimate concern. That convention was 
 signed by the delegates from the United States and 
 ratified by the United States government, and it was 
 signed and ratified by Germany, making it a treaty 
 between Germany and the United States, in which 
 the other ratifying Powers were joined. 
 
 "In admittedly violating Articles I and II of that 
 convention Germany broke a treaty she had solemnly 
 made and entered into with the United States. 
 
 "Are we to suffer a nation to break a treaty 
 with us, on whatever pretext, without entering, at 
 least, a formal protest? Will anyone contend that 
 our neutrality imposes silence upon us under such 
 conditions? Are The Hague conventions to become 
 'scraps of paper' without a single word of protest 
 from this government? If the treaties which we made 
 at The Hague are to be so lightly regarded, then why 
 not all our other treaties? As a matter of fact, it is 
 our solemn duty to protest against a violation of 
 pledges formally entered into between this govern- 
 ment and any other government, and Ave assume a 
 heavy moral responsibility when we remain silent. In 
 this crisis, particularly, other nations look to us and 
 never, perhaps, has our example had greater force." 
 
 Professor Henry M. Howe, of Columbia Univer- 
 sity, has expressed (40) as follows the alternatives 
 open to the United States : 
 
104 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "Are there not two courses now open to us which 
 may direct the course of human affairs for centuries ; 
 the first to be neutral, while revictualling and rearm- 
 ing Germany as far as is possible through Holland 
 and Scandinavia, and thereby increasing the chance of 
 her reaching a position in which she can later conquer 
 us and the rest of the planet, and meanwhile force 
 us to become primarily military instead of industrial ; 
 the second to join the Allies and prevent Germany 
 reaching that position, not only directly by our 
 strength, but still more by withholding from her those 
 supplies of food, ammunition and gasolene without 
 which she must yield? 
 
 "Germany having now disclosed her wish to rule 
 the planet, does she not know that this war will de- 
 cide either that she shall reach a position in which she 
 can carry out that wish or that the rest of the world 
 recognizing this to be her wish, will combine to pre- 
 vent her in perpetuity from reaching that position ? 
 
 "And is not this knowledge one sufficient reason 
 for her anxiety for our good will, lest we aid the 
 Allies to prevent her reaching it? 
 
 *'If we are to have a world alliance for restrain- 
 ing military aggression, should not that alliance be 
 formed now rather than after the subjugation of the 
 Allies shall have left no unsubjugated civilized pow- 
 ers collectively strong enough to restrain Germany? 
 The world's present power to crush the aggressor 
 suffices. If we allow this war to go against the Allies, 
 shall we not thereby lose perhaps the last golden op- 
 portunity? 
 
 "If our danger seems remote, is not that because 
 we have not given it thought? 
 
 "If the great work of the Allies is to prevent 
 Germany becoming irresistible, is not this as neces- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 105 
 
 sary to our preservation as to theirs? If so, do not 
 honor and dignity call on us to assume our share in 
 the burden of this prevention?" 
 
 The Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, with 
 the annexed regulations, were signed by the direction 
 of Colonel Roosevelt, then President of the United 
 States, and expressed the practically unanimous senti- 
 ments of our people. 
 
 Colonel Roosevelt now writes: (41) 
 
 "Most emphatically I would not have per- 
 mitted such a farce to go through if it had en- 
 tered my head that this government would not 
 consider itself bound to do all it could to see that the 
 regulations to which it made itself a party were act- 
 ually observed when the necessity for their observ- 
 ance arose. . . .Of the present neutral powers 
 the United States of America is the most disinter- 
 ested and the strongest, and should, therefore, bear 
 the main burden of the responsibility in this matter. 
 . . . If they (The Hague Conventions) meant 
 anything, if the United States had a serious purpose, a 
 serious sense of its obligations to world righteousness 
 when it entered into them then its plain duty (after 
 proof of their violation has been obtained) is to take 
 whatever action may be necessary to vindicate the 
 principles of international law set forth in those con- 
 ventions." 
 
 Professor William Gardner Hale, of Chicago, 
 says (42) that as the second Hague Conference dealt 
 with neutral powers everywhere in the world, and as 
 
106 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 the agreement declared their territory "inviolable," 
 and as this was agreed to by forty-two other powers 
 (in addition to Germany and the United States), Ger- 
 many's act in breaking the law did not concern Eng- 
 land, France, Belgium and herself alone, it concerned 
 us. "It was not merely a shameful act toward a brave 
 but weak state, if was an offence to us." 
 Professor Hale continues : 
 
 "In a given country there is force to maintain 
 the laws. As between countries, there has been no 
 means. There is, in the technical phrase, no sanc- 
 tion. It is absolutely essential that there should be 
 a sanction. There never can be any except force. 
 That cannot be the force of the combatants. They 
 are already engaged with all their might in the 
 struggle. The law breaker will go on breaking. If he 
 wins there will never even be any punishment. Our 
 President has said that these questions will be taken 
 up at the end of the war at The Hague. But if Ger- 
 many wins there will never be any conference at The 
 Hague. The Hague will be at the War Office in Ber- 
 lin, and there will be no admission. 
 
 "If the Allies conquer there will be a conference. 
 The forty-four powers will take part. But even so, 
 there can never be any security against further law 
 breaking, except that powers which are strangers to 
 the dispute should, the moment there is sure violation 
 of the laws of war, throw in their strength against the 
 guilty side. It will have to be some powerful nation, 
 or nations, that do this. We are such a nation. Our 
 fleet is the third in the world, though our army is 
 small. Our resources, if brought into operation, are 
 great. We are also a determined people. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 107 
 
 "This is no small quarrel. The fate of the world 
 hangs upon it. That which we ought some day to do 
 we should do now ; should have done already. Tech- 
 nical reasons, as well as moral reasons, we have in 
 abundance. Solemn treaties made 'between the 
 United States and other powers,' including Germany, 
 have been broken by her. The breaking of a treaty 
 is always a sufficient reason for a declaration of war 
 if the offended party desires. We had a sufficient 
 reason on the day on which the text of the German 
 ultimatum to Belgium was published, even if we were 
 doubtful about the ridiculous reason given. Ger- 
 many's announcement that, if Belgium resisted the 
 violation of her territory, Germany would regard her 
 resistance as a hostile act, and treat the relations of 
 the two countries thereafter according to the arbitra- 
 ment of war, was enough. When precious historical 
 monuments, which are in a very true sense the prop- 
 erty of all mankind, began to be destroyed or to be 
 gravely injured there was again enough. When an 
 unfortified and undefended town was three times 
 bombarded there was again enough. When the 
 peaceful vessels of neutrals, as well as vessels of 
 war, began to be blown up by floating mines there 
 was once more enough. And, even if we did not 
 make war, it was our duty at the very least to address 
 a temperate protest to Germany. We did not pro- 
 test. The love of fair play is inherent in the Anglo- 
 Saxon race, as well as in most others. Even a crowd 
 at a prizefight or a game will not tolerate repeated 
 and deliberate foul play and wait to the end in the 
 hope of adjudication. It will promptly drag the of- 
 fending party out of the ring. But we do nothing. 
 "We are not a military nation and are not pre- 
 pared. But our navy could at once have patrolled 
 
108 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 the seas and given security in the Atlantic. We could 
 have kept the communications between France and 
 England open. We could have guarded the English 
 harbors. We could have set the English fleet en- 
 tirely free to do its most important work, if it is in 
 any way possible to do it — namely, to destroy the 
 German navy. That once gone, Germany could never 
 have built another until after peace was declared. 
 She would have been heavily crippled. A declaration 
 of war from us would also have at once shut off all 
 American food from reaching Germany by any chan- 
 nel. We could also have sent at once a small army 
 to the field. There was a time when a small addi- 
 tional force would have made a difference. We could 
 have asked for volunteers. Hundreds of thousands 
 would have offered themselves. We were not pre- 
 pared, but Germany would have known that we were 
 preparing. She would have seen that her cause was 
 hopeless." 
 
 These quotations, representing the views of an 
 ex-President of the United States, an ex-President of 
 Harvard, an ex- Ambassador, a Yale professor, a Chi- 
 cago professor, a Columbia professor and a Philadel- 
 phia lawyer, must serve to indicate the reasons for my 
 belief that American public opinion now tends to favor 
 some form of intervention, not from quarrelsomeness, 
 certainly not for selfish motives or from desire for ag- 
 grandizement, but chiefly from the wish to have our 
 country discharge a great international duty, thrust 
 upon us by the irresistible force of circumstances, a 
 duty, the proper discharge of which would make hu- 
 manity our debtor for ages to come. 
 
XI 
 
 What are the interests of America at this time? 
 
 I think many Americans must have blushed when 
 they read Mr. Champ Clark's speech early in Septem- 
 ber and saw that he had said that we wanted to "en- 
 courage peace-making in the old world partly out of 
 motives of humanity, but largely because we do not 
 want to be injured." He certainly did not speak for 
 the American people in placing that motive above all 
 others. 
 
 Yet it is right that we should ask : What may we 
 expect if Germany is victorious in this war? 
 
 We know the principles for which she stands. 
 We know her disregard for obligations, spoken or 
 written. We know her intention to gain ''World 
 Power" at any cost. Have we any reason to think 
 that she would respect us, our wishes, our persons, our 
 property ? 
 
 Dr. Dernburg, the ex-Colonial Secretary, was, a 
 few days ago, understood to have declared that Ger- 
 many had announced its recognition of the Monroe 
 Doctrine. (43) The Monroe Doctrine, as every Amer- 
 ican knows, dates back to 1828, when "certain Euro- 
 pean Powers showed signs of wishing to help Spain 
 recover her lost American colonies." President Mon- 
 
 (109) 
 
110 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 roe said: ''We owe it therefore to candor . . . . 
 to declare that we consider any attempt on their part 
 to extend their system to any portion of this hemi- 
 sphere as dangerous to our peace and safety." That 
 is the important part of the Monroe Doctrine. Fortu- 
 nately the republics of South America have attained 
 such size and strength that the further statement that 
 we could not permit anyone to "oppress them" or to 
 "control their destiny" might now well be modified to 
 read that we would gladly aid them, if they needed aid, 
 in resisting any such attempt. 
 
 Dr. Dernburg's statement was to be understood 
 as an assurance that Germany did not intend to estab- 
 lish colonies in this hemisphere. 
 
 A little latter our State Department issued an an- 
 nouncement to the effect that the German Ambassador, 
 Count von Bernstorff, had on September 3, 1914, in a 
 note to the department "stated that he was instructed 
 by his Government to deny most emphatically the 
 rumors to the effects that Germany intends, in case she 
 comes out victorious in the present war, to seek expan- 
 sion in South America." 
 
 As "The Outlook" observes (November 4, 1914) : 
 
 "The sweeping statement of Dr. Dernburg is 
 thus reduced to an official expression concerning 
 Germany's intention with regard to South America. 
 Thus it is seen that there was no pledge offered, but 
 merely an expression of intention. And Americans 
 must remember that intentions change. In the sec- 
 ond place it related, not to the whole of the Western 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 111 
 
 Hemisphere, but merely to South America. What 
 Germany's intentions are with regard to North 
 America, including Canada and the West Indies, was 
 left to American imagination. 
 
 "But not for long. One day later there was pub- 
 lished a further statement by Dr. Dernburg, and a 
 statement by the German Ambassador, Count von 
 Bernstorfif." 
 
 The latter said that a German invasion of Canada 
 for a temporary foothold on this continent would not 
 violate the Monroe Doctrine, and Dr. Dernburg said 
 that by sending Canadian troops to the war, "Canada 
 had placed herself beyond the pale of American pro- 
 tection." 
 
 He took pains to add that Germany would, how- 
 ever, extend her respect for South American territory 
 to that of our neighbor to the north. 
 
 But can Americans afford to believe them? The 
 papers are already asking whether "in the light cast 
 upon German international policy by the Ems dispatch 
 — forged or doctored, as one may choose to call it — by 
 Bismarck to bring on the Franco-German war of 1870- 
 71, and by the "scrap of paper" incident in this war, 
 we can afford to adopt any policy in relation to Ger- 
 many but that of extreme watchful waiting and pre- 
 paredness for whatever events may happen in the near 
 future." 
 
 I agree with the London "Spectator" (September 
 26, 1914) : 
 
112 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 "Strange as it 'will sound to most American ears 
 . . .it is none the less true that at this moment 
 what stands between the Monroe Doctrine and its 
 complete destruction are our ships in the North Sea 
 and the battle-weary, mud-stained men in the British 
 and French trenches on the Aisne." 
 
 We can get some information as to the probabili- 
 ties in this direction from other sources. We have 
 seen how accurately Bernhardi and Treitschke fore- 
 cast the immediate future in their writings. There 
 were other prophets in their country. The late Mr. 
 W. T. Arnold, grandson of Arnold of Rugby, in a sum- 
 mary of the "German Professorial Campaign," 
 quotes as follows frotn Dr. W. Wintzer's book, ''Die 
 Deutschen in Tropischen Amerika" : 
 
 "The moral core of the Monroe doctrine van- 
 ished on the day when the document concerning the 
 annexation of the Philippines was signed by Mc- 
 Kinley." He (Wintzer) claims "the right to confront 
 this Greater-American doctrine with a Greater-Ger- 
 man one" ; and adds : "Equality of treatment with the 
 United States in South America — that is the theory 
 which we both on principle and as occasion serves, 
 must oppose to the Monroe Doctrine and which, too, 
 should the moment come, we must defend by force" 
 . . . "The American order of 'Hands Off!' in 
 South America must be answered in the negative. 
 
 "Two of the Pan-German prophets of the future, 
 'Germania Triumphans' and Dr. Eisenhart, represent 
 Germany as fighting against both Britain and the 
 United States, but fighting against them separately. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 113 
 
 In Germania Triumphans, the United States are first 
 attacked and defeated by both sea and land, and Brit- 
 ain is represented as chuckle-headed enough, and 
 base enough to look on and do nothing. Then comes 
 Britain's turn. The only difference in Dr. Eisen- 
 hart's vaticination of the future is that Germany take 
 Britain first and the United States look on. Britain 
 is disposed of, 'and now' says the prophet, 'it was 
 time to reckon with America.' Not even these half- 
 sane Pan-Germans contemplate the possibility of deal- 
 ing with Britain and the United States together." 
 
 Price Collier (Op. cit., p. 547) says: 
 
 "In discussing Senator Lodge's resolution before 
 the United States Senate, on the Monroe Doctrine, 
 the German press spoke of us as 'hirnverbrannte 
 Yankees,' 'bornierte Yankee-Gehirne, ('crazy Yank- 
 ees,' 'provincial Yankee intellects') ; and the words 
 'Dollarika,' 'Dollarei,' and 'Dollarman,' are further 
 malicious expressions of their envy frequently used." 
 
 SchmoUer, the political economist, writes : 
 
 "We must at all costs hope for the formation in 
 Southern Brazil, of a State with twenty or thirty mil- 
 lions." 
 
 It is obvious, at this moment, showing through 
 the recent "statements" and "announcements" of the 
 highly placed Germans whom I have quoted, that at 
 least the possibility of Germany's disregard of the 
 Monroe Doctrine is present in their minds. Circum- 
 
114 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 stances enjoin caution. Americans are to be placated 
 — just now — not irritated or alarmed. Bernhardi, 
 Treitschke, Wintzer, Eisenhart, Schmoller are to be 
 repudiated. 
 
 But in view of her callous and brutal disregard of 
 formal obligations, entered into with the majority of 
 the civilized nations of the world, and in view of the 
 many other reasons (p. 83) for doubting the relia- 
 bility of German statements at this time, can any 
 American contemplate with equanimity the possibility 
 of this war ending in a Germania Triumphans? 
 
 Is that a prospect which, in view of what we know 
 of the purpose, interest, determination, not only of the 
 military caste, but, at least for a time, of the whole 
 nation, Americans can regard with indifference or a 
 condition which they can await with serenity ? 
 
 Ferrero, the Italian philosophical historian, prac- 
 tically answers that question when he says (44) : 
 
 "This war will either increase still more the 
 military costs in Germany or will largely destroy it. 
 Germany is moved to the conflict with the expecta- 
 tion of repeating 1870: that is of making a rapid 
 victorious campaign, the cost of which will be cov- 
 ered by the immense indemnities imposed upon the 
 conquered. And if the General Staff succeeds in this 
 enterprise, the German army, and the Hohenzollerns 
 who are its leaders, will achieve such prestige in Ger- 
 many, in Europe, and in the world, that no strength 
 can oppose them." 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 115 
 
 But Professor Hale still more fully and specific- 
 ally answers the question (loc. cit.) : 
 
 "What do we Americans pray for as the issue 
 of this great struggle? Russia is autocratic, but she 
 has abundantly produced men who eagerly suffered 
 martyrdom for freedom. Germany did once, but has 
 stopped. Nor does German America seem any longer 
 to raise up citizens of the Carl Schurz kind, who 
 rebelled against this very bureaucratic militarism that 
 has produced the war. England, France and Belgium 
 are democratic countries. Miinsterberg (page 205) 
 speaks of 'the tremendous increase of the monarch- 
 ical conviction.' Von Biilow, for twelve years Ger- 
 man Minister for Foreign Affairs, quotes with 
 approval, in his just published 'Imperial Germany,' 
 the statement, 'German parliaments, in a compara- 
 tively short space of time, mostly sink to the level of 
 a district council,' and expresses his own conceptions 
 in such sentences as : 'In history strong military States 
 have always required monarchical guidance,' and 
 'In foreign as well as home politics I considered it 
 my noblest task to the best of my understanding and 
 ability to strengthen, protect and support the crown, 
 not only on account of deep loyalty and personal 
 affection for the wearer, but also because I see in 
 the crown the cornerstone of Prussia and the key- 
 stone of the empire.' As for Austria, it was against 
 this very Francis Joseph that Cavour planned, and 
 Garibaldi fought, for Italian liberty. Which type of 
 ideas do we want to see succeed? 
 
 "The victory of the Allies would mean an Eng- 
 lish England, a French France, an Italian Italy, a Rus- 
 sian Russia, a German Germany. It would mean a 
 
116 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 Europe of free nations, each developing its own char- 
 acteristics and ideals. Germany would not, I hope 
 and believe, even lose her foreign possessions, except 
 the little one taken from China, which should be 
 handed back. But she should be made tO' restore 
 Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark and Alsace-Lorraine 
 to France. She should be made to take her place 
 as one of the family of equal nations, and not its 
 mistress. And we should lend our strength at once, 
 as well as our good wishes, to this end. 
 
 "The victory of Germany and Austria would 
 mean a Germanized and bureaucratically controlled 
 England, France, Russia and Italy; for Italy would 
 not survive. It would be a world intolerable to live in, 
 and intolerable for an American to think about. But 
 thinking about it is not the only thing that he would 
 suffer. 
 
 "The victory of Germany would put at her dis- 
 posal an enormous fleet, consisting of all the ships 
 that survived the war. Her ambition would not be 
 sated. She aims at nothing less than world dominion. 
 'Deutschland iiber alles' does not mean 'with the 
 exception of the United States.' She has known how 
 to attack us. The moment she had a trained German 
 personnel for her immense navy. South America, or 
 as much as she wanted of it from time to time, would 
 become a German colony. The nucleus already exists 
 in Brazil, and could easily enough produce an excuse 
 for war if one was thought desirable for historical 
 purposes. To the winds would go the Monroe Doc- 
 trine and South American freedom. We, with our 
 then relatively tiny navy, should be helpless, either 
 to keep Germany off or to dislodge her. From 
 South America she would strike at us. Our coasts 
 would be at her mercy, and she could land her dis- 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 117 
 
 ciplined troops anywhere. The country would be full 
 of spies, as France and Belgium are to-day. We 
 should fight desperately, and our land is of great ex- 
 tent. But only disciplined armies can prevail in these 
 times. Guerilla warfare is useless. Fighting would 
 be done here by railroads and the reduction of great 
 centres. The population of Germany and Austria is 
 to-day larger than ours by some sixteen millions ; and 
 Germany, then the mistress of Europe, could safely 
 bring an army into the field from many quarters, both 
 of Europe and South America. The struggle would 
 be bitter. We should have the advantage in distance ; 
 but the ocean is narrow to-day, as the presence of 
 soldiers from all parts of the world on the battlefields 
 of France has shown us. And Germany would have 
 every other possible start upon us. 
 
 "This is no idle speculation. It is no more a 
 nightmare than was the possibility of a Germanized 
 Europe a few months ago. We should stop it all by 
 throwing our strength now upon the side of the Allies. 
 
 "I have put my arguments on the basis of Ger- 
 many's breaking of international law. But I will put 
 it also on another basis. War must come to an end. 
 It does not belong to our generation or to civilization. 
 Convention 1 of The Hague does not make it com- 
 pulsory for any country to arbitrate a dispute, such 
 as that between Austria and Servia, if it does not 
 wish to. But it also does not forbid any power in 
 the world to fall upon the aggressor. The American 
 people know who was the aggressor, just as Italy 
 knew. We have had the statements of both sides. 
 That guilty government should be taught that a mon- 
 strous war of aggression will never in the future be 
 tolerated. Such a lesson would go very far to stop 
 all wars." 
 
118 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 I need dwell no longer upon this point. 
 
 Both duty and self-interest should lead America 
 to make sure at whatever sacrifice that German mili- 
 tarism does not in the outrageous war which it has 
 precipitated, triumph over the democratic ideals for 
 which little Belgium has almost laid down her national 
 existence, for which — under whatever nominal form 
 of government — the Allies are valiantly fighting, and 
 for which we as well as they should be ready to make 
 any sacrifice of life or treasure that may be needed. 
 
 I believe — to quote "The Outlook" once more 
 (October 21, 1914)— that— 
 
 "As theocracy, or the attempt to make men 
 righteous by force failed in the New England col- 
 onies ; as serfdom and slavery, or the attempt to make 
 men industrious by force, failed in Russia and the 
 United States ; as feudalism, or the attempt to make 
 men loyal and chivalrous by force, failed in England; 
 and as the spirit of materialistic revolution, or the 
 attempt to make men liberal-minded and intellectually 
 free by force, failed in France — so the doctrine of 
 Machtpolitik, the attempt by Germany to impose a 
 civilization upon humanity by force ; must fail — must 
 be made to fail." 
 
XII 
 
 What in the light of this war should be the aim of 
 this and other civilised countries for the future? 
 
 A. To this final question I would reply in the 
 words of Colonel Roosevelt, in a recent article on 
 "What America Should Learn From the War": 
 (45) 
 
 "What is needed in international matters is to 
 create a judge, and then to put police power back 
 of the judge. . . . 
 
 "The one permanent move for obtaining peace 
 which has yet been suggested, with any reasonable 
 chance of attaining its object, is by an agreement 
 among the great powers, in which each should pledge 
 itself not only to abide by the decisions of a common 
 tribunal, but to back with force the decisions of that 
 common tribunal. The great civilized nations of the 
 world which do possess force, actual or immediately 
 potential, should combine by solemn agreement in a 
 great World League for the Peace of Righteousness. 
 A court should be created — a changed and amplified 
 Hague court would meet the requirements — composed 
 of representatives from each nation ; these representa- 
 tives being sworn to act in each case as judges, pure 
 and simple, and not in a representative capacity. The 
 nations should agree on certain rights that should not 
 be questioned, such as their territorial integrity, their 
 rights to deal with their own domestic affairs and with 
 
 (119) 
 
120 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 such matters as whom they should or should not 
 admit to residence and citizenship within their own 
 borders. All should guarantee each of their number 
 in the possession of these rights. All should agree 
 that other matters at issue between any of them, or 
 between any of them and any one of a number of 
 specified outside civilized nations, should be submitted 
 to the court as above constituted. They should, 
 furthermore, agree not only to abide, each of them, 
 by the decision of the court, but all of them to unite 
 with their military forces to enforce the decree of 
 the court, as against any recalcitrant member. Under 
 these circumstances, it would be possible to agree on 
 a limitation of armaments that would be real and 
 effective. 
 
 "If any nation were unwilling to go into such a 
 general agreement with other nations, it would of 
 necessity have to depend upon its own armed strength 
 for its own protection. This is the only alternative. 
 Treaties unbacked by force cannot be considered as 
 an alternative by any sober persons of sound judg- 
 ment. ... 
 
 "Such a scheme as the one briefly outlined will 
 not bring perfect justice any more than under munic- 
 ipal law we obtain perfect justice; but it will mark 
 an immeasurable advance on anything now existing; 
 for it will mean that at last a long stride has been 
 taken in the effort to put the collective strength of 
 civilized mankind behind the collective purpose of 
 mankind to secure the peace of righteousness, the 
 peace of justice among the nations of the earth." 
 
SUMMARY 
 
 Reviewing what I have written and, more partic- 
 ularly, what I have collated, it seems to me that I have 
 given a justifiable basis for the following opinions : 
 
 The war is a German-made war, having its source 
 and inspiration in the writings and teachings of the 
 Pan-Germanists ; in the ambitions of an autocratic 
 military caste, headed by a highly neurotic, unbal- 
 anced, and possibly mentally diseased overlord, with 
 mediaeval views of his relation to his country and the 
 world, and supported by a subservient corps of 
 "learned men," the majority of whom are paid serv- 
 ants of the State. 
 
 The war in the last analysis was made possible by 
 the megalomania of a preponderating section of the 
 German people and by the carefully nurtured and fo- 
 mented desire for World Power. 
 
 To bring about this condition that People has 
 been made to believe in the superiority — which does 
 not exist — of German civilization to all other civiliza- 
 tions; in the pre-eminence — equally non-existent — of 
 German "culture"; in the theory that Might makes 
 Right, and that it is only in the course of Nature that 
 weaker — and therefore presumably inferior — peoples 
 should yield their ideals, their liberties, and their des- 
 tinies into the hands of any nation that by the arbitra- 
 
 (121) 
 
122 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 ment of War should prove itself the master of all 
 others. 
 
 As a logical result of these views, at a time se- 
 lected by reason of the undoubted preparedness of 
 Germany, the supposed unreadiness and internal trou- 
 bles of other nations, and the growing burden of the 
 German military and naval armaments, the war was 
 precipitated, on a relatively trivial and entirely avoid- 
 able pretext, the other great countries then concerned, 
 England, Russia and France, having shown up to the 
 last moment an honest and sincere desire for peace. 
 
 As an immediate step toward the attainment of 
 her purpose Germany violated a solemn contract en- 
 tered into deliberately, seventy-five years ago, and 
 afiirmed and re-affirmed by her representatives almost 
 up to the date of its abrupt, but deliberate and unde- 
 nied infraction. 
 
 As a result of this action and of the resistance 
 properly offered, in conformity with the very treaty 
 which Germany had contemptuously disregarded and 
 set aside, the world has witnessed with horror the 
 brutal despoilment, occupation, almost the annihila- 
 tion, of a brave, innocent, unoffending, highly civilized 
 and industrious country by an adversary whose only 
 right in so doing rested on the might it was able to 
 bring to bear. 
 
 In spite of the war's stupendous proportions, the 
 immensity of its scope and area, and the diverse and 
 conflicting interests involved, the principles at stake 
 are easily recognizable. 
 
A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 123 
 
 Germany and her more or less insignificant and 
 contemptible tools, Austria and Turkey, represent ab- 
 solutism, militarism, feudalism, mediaevalism, despot- 
 ism, autocracy. The "Monarchical idea" is a disin- 
 genuous substitute for these terms, with which, how- 
 ever, it is in essence synonymous. 
 
 The Allies are fighting for democratic liberty, for 
 representative government, for the equal rights of in- 
 dividuals, whether relatively insignificant persons or 
 relatively powerless States. 
 
 So far as America is concerned, Germany and her 
 parasites stand for everything in which we do not be- 
 lieve. The Allies represent — and are fighting, starv- 
 ing and dying for — everything that makes American 
 liberty, happiness and independence possible. 
 
 Our technical position is one of "neutrality," but 
 our overwhelming sympathy is with the Allies. 
 
 Our technical grievance lies in Germany's delib- 
 erate flouting of conventions of which we were, with 
 her, a signatory; our real grievance rests on the 
 danger to humanity, to the ideas that lie at the very 
 foundation of our republic, to our own future security, 
 that would attend the success of Germany in this war. 
 
 Our duties and our interests coincide. 
 
 We should at the very least strengthen the waver- 
 ing, reassure the doubting, give new hope to the des- 
 pairing by proclaiming to the world our absolute and 
 unreserved belief in the right and justice of the cause 
 of the Allies, and our determination to see to it, should 
 the worst come to them, that they shall have our mate- 
 
124 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 rial support to our last dollar, our last bushel of corn, 
 our last drop of blood. 
 
 But better it would seem to many of us, and in the 
 long run more truly merciful, if we now, on the basis 
 of Germany's admitted and open disregard of solemn 
 obligations entered into zvith us, determined to cast the 
 weight of our available force — whatever it may be — 
 into the scale. For one, I believe it would be enough 
 to determine the result and save tens of thousands of 
 useful lives, months of suffering to helpless women 
 and children, and treasures of civilization to the world 
 and to the generations that are to follow us. 
 
 Our own unpreparedness must be admitted, but 
 with unbeaten and valiant friends there would be less 
 risk of disaster than if we supinely await their over- 
 throw and then have, practically alone, to battle for all 
 that, to us, makes life worth living. 
 
 No one can pj'ove that such a grim necessity will 
 confront us, but the American who cannot see it as a 
 possible, even a probable and not very remote se- 
 quence of the emergence of a "Triumphant Germany" 
 from this war, is blind to the teachings of history re- 
 mote and recent. 
 
REFERENCES 
 
 1. The Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, October 10, 1914. 
 
 2. Harper's Weekly, October, 1914. 
 
 3. The Public Ledger, October 4, 1914. 
 
 4. "Imperial Germany," by Prince Biilow. 
 
 5. Professor Paulsen of Berlin; quoted by W. H. Dawson 
 
 in "The Evolution of Modern Germany." 
 
 6. The Public Ledger, September 27, 1914. 
 
 7. Quoted by "The Outlook," October 21, 1914. 
 
 8. Quoted by "The Outlook," October 21, 1914. 
 
 9. "Germany's Swelled Head," London, 1907. 
 
 10. The Public Ledger, November 13, 1914. 
 
 11. The Public Ledger, October 25, 1914. 
 
 12. The North American, Philadelphia, October 25, 1914. 
 
 13. The North American, Philadelphia, September 27, 1914. 
 
 14. The North American, Philadelphia, October 26, 1914. 
 
 15. The Atlantic Monthly, October, 1914. 
 
 16. "Germany and the Next War." 
 
 17. Quoted by Reich — op. cit. 
 
 18. The Outlook, November 4, 1914. 
 
 19. "The War and America," 1914. 
 
 20. The North American, October 6, 1914. 
 
 21. The Literary Digest, November 7, 1914. 
 
 22. "Germany and the Germans," p. 539. 
 
 23. Quoted by Rel h — op. cit. 
 
 24. The North American, October 6, 1914. 
 
 25. The Times, London, August 15, 1914. 
 
 26. The Nation, New York, October 15, 1914. 
 
 27. The Times, London, July 30, 1900. 
 
 28. The Times, London, August 11, 1900. 
 
 (125) 
 
126 A WAR PRIMER FOR AMERICANS 
 
 29. Emil Reich — op. cit. 
 
 30. The North American, October 11, 1914. 
 
 31. "Truth About Germany: Facts About the War." 
 
 32. The Nation, page 376, 1914. ■ 
 
 33. The Literary Digest, October 3, 1914. 
 
 34. "Nature," October 2, 1914. 
 
 35. The Nation, October 15, 1914. 
 
 36. "Why and How a War Lord Wages War." 
 
 37. The Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, October 17, 1914. 
 
 38. The Record, Philadelphia, November 3, 1914. 
 
 39. New York Evening Post, November 4, 1914. 
 
 40. The New York Tribune, November 12, 1914. 
 
 41. The North American, October 18, 1914. 
 
 42. The New York Tribune, November 10, 1914. 
 
 43. The Public Ledger, October 26, 1914. 
 
 44. The Atlantic Monthly, November, 1914. 
 
 45. The North American, October 18, 1914. 
 
 In addition, I have consulted : 
 
 Pan-Germanism, by Roland G. Usher. 
 
 The Evolution of Modern Germany, by W. H. Dawson. 
 
 Germany and England, by Professor J. A. Cramb. 
 
 Men Around the Kaiser, by F. W. Wile. 
 
 Why We Are at War, Great Britain's Case, by members of the 
 
 Oxford Faculty of Modern History. 
 Nietzsche and Treifschke : The Worship of Power in Modern 
 
 Germany, by Ernest Barker, M.A. 
 The Germans, (in two parts), by C. R. L. Fletcher, 
 The War and the British Dominions, by M. ^. Egerton. 
 India and the War, by Sir Ernest J. Trevelyan. 
 The Deeper Causes of the War, by Dr. Sanday. 
 The Nations of Europe: The Causes and Issues of the Great 
 War, by Charles Morris. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS