[25]Works on the Thirty Years' War are numerous. Many scholarly and exhaustive treatises on various aspects of the subject are, as might be expected, to be found in German. For general popular reading Schiller's excellent piece of literary hack work (translated in Bonn's Library) may still be consulted, but perhaps the best short general history of the war with its entanglement of events is that by the late Professor S.R. Gardiner, of Oxford, which forms one of the volumes of Messrs. Longman, Green & Co.'s series entitled "Epochs of Modern History."
[25]Works on the Thirty Years' War are numerous. Many scholarly and exhaustive treatises on various aspects of the subject are, as might be expected, to be found in German. For general popular reading Schiller's excellent piece of literary hack work (translated in Bonn's Library) may still be consulted, but perhaps the best short general history of the war with its entanglement of events is that by the late Professor S.R. Gardiner, of Oxford, which forms one of the volumes of Messrs. Longman, Green & Co.'s series entitled "Epochs of Modern History."
It is important to distinguish between the meaning of the German term "Kultur" and that commonly expressed in English by the word "culture." The word "Kultur" in modern German is simply equivalent to our word "civilization," whereas the word "culture" in English has a special meaning, to wit, that of intellectual attainments. In this chapter we are chiefly concerned with the latter sense of the word.
Germany had a rich popular literature during the Middle Ages from the redaction of theNibelungenliedunder Charles the Great onwards. Prominent among this popular literature were the love-songs of the Minnesingers, the epics drawn from mediæval traditionary versions of the legend of Troy, of the career ofAlexander the Great, and, to come to more recent times, to legends ofCharles the Great and his Court, ofArthur and the Holy Grail, theNibelungenliedin itspresent form, andGudrun. The "beast-epic," as it was called, was also a favourite theme, especially in the form ofReynard the Fox. In another branch of literature we have collections of laws dating from the thirteenth century and known respectively from the country of their origin as theSachsenspiegeland theSchwabenspiegel. Again, at a later date, followed the productions of the Meistersingers, and especially of Hans Sachs, of Nürnberg. Then, again, we have the prose literature of the mystics, Eckhart, Tauler, and their followers.
Towards the close of the mediæval period we find an immense number of national ballads, of chap-books, not to mention the Passion Plays or the polemical theological writings of the time leading up to the Reformation. Luther's works, more especially his translation of the Bible, powerfully helped to fix German as a literary language. The Reformation period, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, was rich in prose literature of every description—in fact, the output of serious German writing continued unabated until well into the seventeenth century. But the Thirty Years' War, which devastated Germany from end to end, completely swept away the earlier literary culture of the nation. In fact, the event in question forms a dividing line between theearlier and the modern culture of Germany. In prose literature, the latter half of the seventeenth century, Germany has only one work to show, though that is indeed a remarkable one—namely, Grimmelshausen'sSimplicissimus, a romantic fiction under the guise of an autobiography of wild and weird adventure for the most part concerned with the Thirty Years' War.
The rebirth of German literature in its modern form began early in the eighteenth century. Leibnitz wrote in Latin and French, and his culture was mainly French. His follower, Christian Wolf, however, first used the German language for philosophical writing. But in poetry, Klopstock and Wieland, and, in serious prose, Lessing and Herder, led the way to the great period of German literature. In this period the name of Goethe holds the field, alike in prose and poetry. Goethe was born in 1749, and hence it was the last quarter of the century which saw him reach his zenith. Next to Goethe comes his younger contemporary, Schiller. It is impossible here to go even briefly into the achievements of the bearers of these great names. They may be truly regarded in many important respects as the founders of modern German culture. Around them sprang up a whole galaxy of smaller men, and the close of the eighteenthcentury showed a literary activity in Germany exceeding any that had gone before.
Turning to philosophy, it is enough to mention the immortal name of Immanuel Kant as the founder of modern German philosophic thought and the first of a line of eminent thinkers extending to wellnigh the middle of the nineteenth century. The names of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer and others will at once occur to the reader.
Contemporaneously with the great rise of modern German literature there was a unique development in music, beginning with Sebastian Bach and continuing through the great classical school, the leading names in which are Glück, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert, etc. The middle period of the nineteenth century showed a further development in prose literature, producing some of the greatest historians and critics the world has seen. At this time, too, Germany began to take the lead in science. The names of Virchow, Helmholtz, Häckel, out of a score of others, all of the first rank, are familiar to every person of education in the present and past generation. The same period has been signalized by the great post-classical development in music, as illustrated by the works of Schumann, Brahms, and, above all, by the towering fame of Richard Wagner.
From the last quarter of the eighteenth century onwards it may truly be said of Germany that education is not only more generally diffused than in any other country of Europe, but (as a recent writer has expressed it) "is cultivated with an earnest and systematic devotion not met with to an equal extent among other nations." The present writer can well remember some years ago, when at the railway station at Breisach (Baden) waiting one evening for the last train to take him to Colmar, he seated himself at the table of the small station restaurant at which three tradesmen, "the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker" of the place were drinking their beer. Broaching to them the subject of the history of the town, he found the butcher quite prepared to discuss with the baker and the candlestick-maker the policy of Charles the Bold and Louis XI as regards the possession of the district, as though it might have been a matter of last night's debate in the House or of the latest horse-race. Where would you find this popular culture in any other country?
Germany possesses 20 universities, 16 polytechnic educational institutes, about 800 higher schools (gymnasia), and nearly 60,000 elementary schools. Every town of any importance throughout the German States is liberally provided in the matter of libraries, museums,and art collections, while its special institutions, music schools, etc., are famous throughout the world. The German theatre is well known for its thoroughness. Every, even moderately sized, German town has its theatre, which includes also opera, in which a high scale of all-round artistic excellence is attained, hardly equalled in any other country. In fact, it is not too much to say that for long Germany was foremost in the vanguard of educational, intellectual, and artistic progress.
That the above is an over-coloured statement as regards the importance of Germany for wellnigh a century and a half past in the history of human culture, in the sense of intellectual progress in its widest meaning, I venture to think that no one competent to judge will allege. Is then, it may be asked, the railing of public opinion and the Press of Great Britain and other countries outside Germany and Austria, against the Germany of the present day, and the jeers at the term "German culture" wholly unjustified and the result of national or anti-German prejudice? That there has been much foolish vituperative abuse of the whole German nation and of everything German indiscriminately in the Press of this and some other countries is undoubtedly true. But, however, our acknowledgment of this fact will not justify us inrefusing to recognize the truth which finds expression in what very often looks like mere foolish vilification.
The truth in question will be apparent on a consideration of the change that has come over the German people and German culture since the war of 1870 and the foundation of the modern German Empire. The material and economic side of this change has been already indicated in a short summary in the quotation which closes the last chapter. But these changes, or advances if you will, on the material side, have been accompanied by a moral and material degeneration which has been only very partially counteracted at present by a movement which, though initiated before the period named, has only attained its great development, and hence influenced the national character, since the date in question.
It is a striking fact that in the last forty-four years—the period of the new German Empire—there has been a dearth of originality in all directions. In the earlier part of the period in question the survivors from the pre-Imperial time continued their work in their several departments, but no new men of the same rank as themselves have arisen, either alongside of them or later to take their places. The one or two that might be adduced as partial exceptions to what has been above saidonly prove the rule. We have had, it is true, a multitude of men, more or less cleverepigoni, but little else. Again, it is, I think, impossible to deny that a mechanical hardness and brutality have come over the national character which entirely belie its former traits. It is a matter of common observation that in the last generation the German middle class has become noticeably coarsened, vulgarized, and blatant.
Again, although I am very far from wishing to attribute the crimes and horrors committed by the German army during the present war to the whole German nation, or even to therank and fileof those composing the army, yet there is no doubt that some blame must be apportioned at least to the latter. The contrast is striking between the conduct of the German troops during the present war and that of 1870, when they could declare that they were out "to fight French soldiers and not French citizens." Such were the military ethics of bygone generations of German soldiers. They certainly do not apply to the German army of to-day. The popularity of such writers as Von Treitschke and Bernhardi, respecting which so much has been written, is indeed significant of a vast change in German moral conceptions. The practical influence of Nietzsche, who—with his corybantic whirl of criticism on all things in heaven aboveand on the earth beneath, a criticism not always coherent with itself—can hardly be termed a German Chauvinist in any intelligible sense, has, I think, been much exaggerated. The importance of his theories, considered as an ingredient in modern German Chauvinism, is not so considerable, I should imagine, as is sometimes thought.
We come now to the movement already alluded to as a set-off and, within certain boundaries at least, a counteractive of the degeneracy exhibited in the German character since the foundation of the present Imperial system. The rise and rapid growth of the Social Democratic movement is perhaps the most striking fact in the recent history of Germany. The same may be said, of course, of the growth of Socialism everywhere during the same period. But in Germany it has for a generation past, or even more, occupied an exceptional position, alike as regards the rapidity of its increase, its direct influence on the masses, and its party organization. Modern Socialism, as a party doctrine, is, moreover, a product of the best period of nineteenth-century German thought and literature. Its three great theoretical protagonists, Marx, Engels, and their younger contemporary, Lassalle, all issued from the great Hegelian movement of the first half of the nineteenth century.Their propagandist activity, literary and otherwise, was in the German language. The analysis of the present capitalist system, forming the foundation of the demand for the communization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, as resulting in ahumansociety as opposed to aclasssociety, and ultimately in the extinction of national barriers in a world-federation of socialized humanity—these principles were first appreciated, as a world-ideal, by the proletariat of Germany, and they have unquestionably raised that proletariat to an intellectual rank as yet equalled by no other working-class in the world.
It must be admitted, however, that with the colossal growth of the Social Democratic party in Germany in numbers and the introduction into it of elements from various quarters, a certain deterioration, one may hope and believe only temporary, has become apparent in its quality. This applies, at least, to certain sections of the party. A sordid practicalism has made itself felt, due to a feverish desire to play an important rôle in the detail of current politics. Personal ambition and the mechanical working of the party system have also had their evil influence in the movement in recent years. Nevertheless, we have reason to believe that the core of the party is as sound and astrue to principle as ever it was, and that on the restoration of international peace this will be seen to be the case. What interests us, however, specially, at the moment of writing, is the lamentable, yet undeniable, fact that German Social Democracy has, on this occasion, disastrously failed to prevent the outbreak of war, notwithstanding the vigour of its efforts to do so during the last week of July; and still more that it has failed up to date to stem the rising flood of militarism and jingoism in the German people. That before many months are over the scales will fall from the eyes of the masses of Germany I am convinced, and not less that a revolutionary movement in Germany will be one of the signs that will herald the dawn of a better day for Germany and for Europe. But meanwhile we must hold our countenances in patience.
If we inquire the cause of the degeneracy we have been considering in the German character since the war of 1870 and the creation of the new empire—apart from those economic causes of change common to all countries in modern civilization—the answer of those who have followed the history of the period can hardly fail to be—Bismarck and Prussia. We have already seen in the short historical sketch given in the last chapter how the robber hand of Prussia, in violation ofall national treaty rights, had gradually succeeded in annexing wellnigh all the neighbouring German territories. But, notwithstanding this, the greater part of Germany still remained outside the Prussian monarchy. The policy of Bismarck was first of all to cripple the rival claimant for the hegemony of Central Europe, Austria. Her complete subjugation being unfeasible, she had to be shut up rigorously to her immediate dominions on the eastern side of Central Europe, in order to leave the path clear for Bismarck, by war or subterfuge, to absorb, under a system of nominally vassal States, the whole of the rest of Germany into the system of the Prussian monarchy.
Now, as we know, from its very foundation the Hohenzollern-Prussian monarchy has always been a more or less veiled despotism, based on working through a military and bureaucratic oligarchy. The army has been the dominant factor of the Prussian State from the beginning of the eighteenth century onwards. Prussia has been from the beginning of its monarchy the land of the drill-sergeant and the barracks. It is this system which the Junker Bismarck has riveted on the whole German people, with what results we now see. Badenese, Würtembergers, Franconians, Hanoverians, the citizens of the former free cities no less than the already absorbedWestphalians, Thuringians, Silesians, Mecklenburgers, were speedily all reduced to being the slaves of the Prussian military system and of the Prussian military caste. The naïve German peoples, as already pointed out, accepted this Prussian domination as the realization of their time-honoured patriotic ideal of German unity.
The fact of their subservience was emphasized in every way. The law oflèse-majesté(majestätsbeleidigung), by which all criticism of the despotic head of the State or his actions is made a heinous criminal offence, to which severe penalties are attached, it is not too much to say is a law which brands the ruler who accepts it as a coward and a cur, and the Legislature which passes it as a house, not of representative citizens, or even subjects for that matter, but of representativeslaves. It must not be forgotten that the law in question strikes not only at public expressions of opinion in the press or on the platform, but at the most private criticism made in the presence of a friend in one's own room. The depths of undignified and craven meanness to which a monarch is reduced by being thus protected from criticism by the police-truncheon and the gaoler struck me especially as illustrated by the following incident which happened some years ago: Shortly after the accession of the present Kaiser, a conjurer wasgiving his entertainment in a Swiss town. For one of the tricks he was going to exhibit he had occasion to ask the audience to send him up the names of a few public men on folded pieces of paper. His reception of the names written down was accompanied by the "patter" proper to his profession. On coming to the name of Kaiser Wilhelm II he ventured the remark, "Ah! I'd rather it had been the poor man just dead" (meaning the Emperor Frederick), "for I'm afraid this one's not much good." Will it be believed that the whole diplomatic machinery was set on foot to induce the Swiss Government to prosecute the unfortunate entertainer, abortively of course, since it could not have been legally done? Surely the head of a State who could allow his Government to descend to such contemptible pettiness must be devoid of all sense of common self-respect, not to say personal dignity. And this is the fellow who claims to be hardly second in importance to his "dear old God"! In this connection it is only fair to recall the very different behaviour of King Edward VII when an Irish paper published not a mere criticism but an unquestionably libellous article reflecting on his private character. The police seized the copies of the paper and were prepared to take steps to prosecute, when thelate King interfered and stopped even the confiscation of the paper. The least monarchical of us must, I think, admit that here we have a good illustration of the distinction between a man sure of his reputation and a cur nervously alarmed for his.
This severe law oflèse-majestéin Bismarck's Prusso-German Empire is only an illustration of the way in which the German people have been made to grovel before the Prussian jack-boot. The Prussification of Germany in matters military and in matters bureaucratic has gone on apace since 1870. Prussia, it is not too much to say, has hitherto consisted in a nation of slaves and tyrants and nothing else. It is the Prussian governing class which has everywhere and in all departments "set the pace" since the empire was established. No man known to hold opinions divergent from those agreeable to the interests of the Prussian governing class can hope for employment, be it the most humble, in any department of the public service. This is particularly noticeable in its effects in the matter of education. The inculcation of the brutal and blatant jingoism of Von Treitschke at the universities by professors eager for approval in high places has already been sufficiently animadverted upon in more than one work on modern Germany. Thedefeat of Prusso-German militarism will be an even greater gain to all that is best in Germany herself than it will be to Europe as a whole.
Delenda est Prussia, understanding thereby not, of course, the inhabitants of Prussian territory as such, but Prussia as a State-system and as an independent Power in Europe, must be the watchword in the present crisis of every well-wisher of Humanity, Germany included. A united Germany, if that be insisted upon, by all means let there be—a federation of all the German peoples with its capital, for that matter, as of old, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, but with no dominant State and, if possible, excluding Prussia altogether, but certainly as constituted at present. Who knows but that a united States of Germany may then prove the first step towards a united States of Europe?
But it is not alone to the political reconstruction of Germany or of Europe that those who take an optimistic view of the issue of the present European war look hopefully. The whole economic system of modern capitalism will have received a shock from which the beginnings of vast changes may date. Apart from this, however, the avowed aim of the war, the destruction of Prussian militarism and, indirectly, the weakening of military power throughout the world, should have immediate and important consequences. The brutalitiesand crimes committed in Belgium and the North of France at the instigation of the military heads of this Prusso-German army do but indicate exaggerations of the military spirit and attitude generally. Von Hindenburg is not the first who has given utterance to the devilish excuse for military crime and brutality that it is "more humane in the end, since it shortens war." To refute this transparent fallacy is scarcely necessary, since every historical student knows that military excesses and inhumanity do not shorten but prolong war by raising indignation and inflaming passions. The longest connected war known to history—the Thirty Years' War—is generally acknowledged to have been signalized by the greatest and most continuous inhumanity of any on record. But whether military crime has the effect claimed for it or not, we may fain hope that public opinion in Europe will insist upon giving the "humane" commanders who "mercifully" endeavour to "shorten" war by drastic methods of this sort a severe lesson. A few such treated to the utmost penalties the ordinary criminal law prescribes to the crimes of arson, murder, and robbery would teach them and their like that war, if waged at all nowadays, must be waged decently and not "shortened" by such devices as those in question.
If the present war with all its horrible carnage issues, even if only in the beginning of those changes which some of us believe must necessarily result from it—changes economical, political, and moral—then indeed it will not have been waged in vain. With the great intellectual powers of the Germanic people devoted, not to the organization of military power and of national domination, but to furthering the realization of a higher human society; with the determination on the part of the best elements among every European people to work together internationally with each other, and not least with the new Germany, to this end, and the great European war of 1914 will be looked back upon by future generations as the greatest world-historic example of the proverbial evil out of which good, and a lasting and inestimable good, has come for Europe and the world.
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