II

[22]Morning Post, July 16, 1920.

[23]Infrapp. 45-46.

Chief among thepièces justificativesrelied upon by the demonologists of theMorning Postis an anonymous pamphlet which calls itself "The Jewish Peril."[24]As has been stated in the previous chapter, this pamphlet is a forgery, or, rather, a garbled translation of a clumsy Russian forgery by a certain Sergyei Nilus, intended to pander to the superstition of the "Hidden Hand." There is reason to believe that it has itself been engineered by a more substantial hand reaching out stealthily from the arcanum of German Militarist Reaction.

The literary and political history of this pamphlet is quite easy to trace, though it has been a little obscured by its author's infirmities of memory. Fundamentally it belongs to a type of forgery which was common enough in the 17th and 18th centuries, when party passions ran high and the reckless scurrilities of political warfare could not be made effective without the concoction of bogus documents.[25]In our own time this fraudulent traffic has become relatively rare, though the notorious Pigott and Dreyfus forgeries are there toshow how easily it may be tempted into life when malicious controversialists venture on accusations which they cannot otherwise substantiate. This is precisely the case of "Professor Sergyei Nilus," the alleged author of the Russian original of "The Jewish Peril."

His documented "discovery" that the Jews, in conspiracy with certain secret brotherhoods, are at the bottom of all the political and religious convulsions and all the social instabilities throughout the world, has been devised to bolster up a theory which has long failed to convince. The theory itself, of which theMorning Post's"Formidable Sect" is the latest product, is at least three centuries old. It was the staple of the pseudo-Apocalyptic literature of Antichrist and the Wandering Jew which assailed the early years of the Reformation and filled the literary armoury of the League during the Thirty Years' War. It took more definite political shape in the tracts and broadsheets, afterwards collected by the German Evangelical Clericals under the title ofAnabaptisticum et Enthusiasticum Pantheon, which, among other fearsome things, explained the Puritan Revolution in England—the Bolshevism of its day—as a plot against Christianity and Monarchy contrived by theQuäcker, Frey-Geister und Heil- und Gottlosen Juden.[26]In the early eighteenth century its specifically anti-Jewish aspects were emphasised by the misapplied learning of Eisenmenger, whose anti-Semitic classic, "Entdecktes Judenthum," was published at the cost of King Frederickof Prussia.[27]After the French Revolution and the upheavals of 1830 and 1848, a fresh impulse was given to the agitation. Meanwhile, the Illuminati had come into existence, and Freemasonry had become known, and they were promptly annexed by the scaremongers and substituted for the Quakers and Freethinkers in their new redaction of the "Hidden Hand." A number of blood-curdling works dealing in minute detail with their supposed activities as authors of the Revolutions were published by such writers as Father Barruel (1797, etc.), the Chevalier de Malet (1817), Eckert (1854), Gougenot des Mousseaux (1860), Crétineau-Joly (1863), Saint-André (1880), and Chabauty (1883). These books all fell flat. The blood of the public refused to be curdled, and to-day they are only found in second-hand bookshops or in the libraries of collectors of Masonic and Occult ana.

In 1868 an ingenious German named Hermann Goedsche conceived the idea of galvanising the agitation into effective life by giving a dramatic form to all its theoretical extravagances.[28]Formerly in the Prussian postal service, where he also acted as a spy for the Secret Police and theKreuz Zeitungparty, he had been dismissed from his office for subornation of forgery in connection with the prosecution of the famousDemocratic leader Benedict Waldeck.[29]He was now engaged in palming off on the German public a series of apocryphal works, half memoirs and half historical romances, which he alleged were written by an Englishman named "Sir John Retcliffe." They dealt with all the palpitating international political problems and events of the middle of the nineteenth century, from the Crimean War to the War of the Danish Duchies. In one of these romances, entitled "Biarritz,"[30]he touched on the economic question which had been opened in its most formidable shape by the foundation of Lassalle's Workingmen's Union and the publication, in the previous year, of Marx's "Das Kapital." This led him to a melodramatic Jewish interlude.

Two of his characters, a Jewish Social Democrat named Lasali and a scientific dreamer named Faust, overhear the proceedings of a secret assembly of the "Elect of Israel," held once in every century round the tomb of a mythical "Holy Rabbi" named Simeon ben Jehudah in the ancient Jewish cemetery at Prague. The conclave is pictured as engaged in the worship of the Golden Calf,[31]which, we are told, has been preserved as the profoundest mystery of the Jewish Cabala by which the Jews may eventually secure theirdomination over all the nations of the earth. The practical application of the principles of this cultus is discussed in a long series of cynical speeches, which are in close agreement with the hypotheses of Gougenot des Mousseaux and similar writers. The Jews are to work with gold and the Press for the subversion of Christianity, and they are to act as a universal disturbing and demoralising instrument, so that in the fulness of time they may establish the Jewish Universal Dominion on the ruins of Christian society. When on the stroke of midnight this uncanny conventicle breaks up, Lasali solemnly pledges himself to his friend Faust to fight the hideous materialism of his co-religionists with the ideals of Social Democracy.[32]

This was theeditio princepsof a number of forged anti-Semitic documents, of which the Nilus Protocols are the latest redaction. They differ among themselves in detail, according to the varying stages of the evolution of the political and economic struggle, but in their broad lines they are constant to the original presentation of their case by Goedsche.

The first forgeries, in which Goedsche's avowed fiction was transformed into protocols or reports of alleged Jewish confessions, were produced early in the eighties by the more irresponsible elements of the German anti-Semitic movement then in process of formation by Treitschke and Stöcker in Germany, andwere widely circulated as broadsheets. In 1893 the same material was worked up simultaneously by two German anti-Semitic papers, theDeutsch-soziale Blätterand theAntisemitische Korrespondenz, and published as an authentic speech delivered by a Jewish Rabbi at a secret meeting of his disciples held in the Jewish cemetery at Prague.[33]The source of this fabrication was placed beyond doubt by a thoughtless editorial statement that it was extracted from a work written by an eminent Englishman named "Sir John Retcliffe," and entitled "Memoirs of the Politico-Historical Events of the Last Ten Years." Needless to say, this book is as apocryphal as Retcliffe himself, the alleged speech being chiefly a condensed paraphrase of Goedsche's avowed fiction. There is, however, one important deviation from the original which brings it nearer to the Nilus text, the Jews being pictured not as divided into anti-Christian Materialists and Socialists, but as being all simulators of Socialism and Anarchism for their own revolutionary purposes while still remaining, among themselves, devotees of the Golden Calf, with all its moral, or rather immoral, implications. In 1901 a literal Czech translation of this precious protocol, but without the acknowledgment of indebtedness to "Retcliffe," was published in Prague under the title "A Rabbi on the Goyim."[34]It was immediately confiscated by the police on the ground that it was calculated to disturb the peace, but the anti-Semites revenged themselves by incorporating thewhole text in an interpellation to the Minister of Justice, which was brought forward by the deputy Brzenovsky in the Austrian Reichsrath on March 13, 1901, and gave rise to a lively debate.[35]It was not heard of again until 1911, when it was translated into French—this time with the "Retcliffe" acknowledgment—by M. Kalixt de Wolski, and published together with aréchaufféof the more notorious forgeries of Braafmann and Lutostansky.[36]Finally, in 1912 the anti-Semitic Press in Germany republished it in a new form. Instead of an alleged historical document, it now appeared as a piece of news—a stenographic report of a speech delivered by a "Jewish Rabbi" at a Jewish Congress held at Lemberg.[37]Anyone who takes the trouble, however, to make the comparison will find that it is a textualprécisof the speeches made by the Golden Calf worshippers in Goedsche's "Biarritz."

It is consoling to note that none of these scandalous fabrications made any durable appeal to the relatively sober mentality of those happy pre-war days. No reputable newspaper noticed them. Even M. Drumont, while appropriating all the theories of Gougenot des Mousseaux in his "France Juive"—without acknowledgment, by the way—does not mention Goedsche or any of his malicious plunderers.

Now it needs but a very cursory glance at these forgeries and their raw material in the treatises of the literary scaremongers to perceive at once the fraudwhich has been practised on the public by Nilus's book. But before I press this point home, let us see whether Nilus himself has any reasonable explanation to offer of theprovenanceof his documents. It should be borne in mind that these documents consist of a number of so-called "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," in which, as in the Goedsche romance, certain Jewish teachers are made to avow to their disciples the dark designs of Jewry for the corruption and subjugation of Christendom. Nilus does not refuse to say how he came by these Protocols. On the contrary he gives us no fewer than three explanations. Unfortunately for him, they are not only elusive and incredibly melodramatic, but they are also hopelessly contradictory. Two of them will be found in the English edition. According to one, the Protocols came from a deceased friend unnamed, who received them from a woman, also unnamed, who stole them from "one of the most influential and most highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry ... at the close of a secret meeting of the initiated in France."[38]According to the other, there was no woman intermediary and no despoiled French Freemason, but the whole business was done by the deceased friend himself, who rifled the safes of "the Headquarter Offices of the Society of Zion in France."[39]The inconsistency of these two stories may conceivably be explained, but it is not so easy to account for the third story, which Nilus relates in a third and enlarged edition of his work published in 1911. Here he tells us that the documents came not from France, but from Switzerland, that they were not Judeo-Masonic, butZionist, and that they were the secret Protocols of the Zionist Congress held in Basle in 1897.[40]From these conflicting statements it is perfectly clear that Nilus is not a witness of truth, and the damaging conclusion suggested by a comparison of his Protocols with the Goedsche fiction and its progeny of forgeries becomes irresistible.

The Protocols are, in short, an amplified imitation of Goedsche's handiwork adapted to the circumstances of the Russian Revolution of 1905. Whether it was made direct from the melodramatic text of "Biarritz" is doubtful. Had Nilus worked with that document his credulous mysticism would assuredly not have resisted its Golden Calf theory, of which he is refreshingly innocent. On the other hand, he does adopt the blending of the Materialist and Social Democratic elements which are separate and conflicting in Goedsche, but which, with the exclusion of the Golden Calf, were the chief points of difference between the Czech forgery of 1901 and its Goedsche original. It therefore seems probable that it was with the Czech text that Nilus operated, and this is confirmed by his own avowal that the "manuscript" which first made him acquainted with the alleged Protocols was given to him in 1901, the year in which the Czech pamphlet was published.[41]

In his main ideas Nilus followed this pamphlet very closely, but borrows, or, rather, purloins, additional matter, especially in regard to the Freemasons, from Gougenot des Mousseaux. He also annexes political and economic ideas on a large scale from modern Russian reactionary writers and from certain early Bolshevist programme-mongers. How closely his main thesis follows that of the Czech-Goedsche pamphlet is shown by the following parallel, in which both explain how the Jews hope to accomplish their fell purpose by simulating sympathy with the proletariat and leading it into destructive, and eventually suicidal, political revolution:—

THE CZECH GOEDSCHE.NILUS."Our people are conservative, faithful to the religious ceremonies and customs which have been bequeathed to us by our ancestors, but our interest exacts that we should simulate a zeal for the social questions which are the order of the day, especially those which deal with the amelioration of the condition of workmen. In reality our efforts should be directed to capturing this movement of public opinion. The blindness of the masses, their propensity to yield themselves to oratory as empty as it is sonorous, makes of them an easy prey and adocile instrument of popularity and credit. We shall find without difficulty among our own people the expression of such factitious sentiments and as much eloquence as sincere Christians find in their enthusiasm. We must as much as possible sustain the proletariat and bring it within the reach of those who have money at their disposal. By this means we shall be able to rouse the masses whenever we please, to lead them into upheavals and revolutions. Each of these catastrophes will advance by a long stride our own racial interests and will rapidly bring us nearer to our one great end—that of reigning over all the earth as it has been promised to us by our Father Abraham.""We intend to appear as though we were the liberators of the labouring man come to free him from his oppression, when we shall suggest to him to join the ranks of our armies of socialists, anarchists, and communists.... We govern the masses by making use of feelings of jealousy and hatred kindled by oppression and need.... When the time comes for our Worldly Ruler to be crowned we will see to it that by the same means—that is to say, by making use of the mob—we will destroy everything that may prove to be an obstacle in our way.... The populace in its ignorance blindly believes in printed words and in erroneous delusions which have been duly inspired by us.... The mob is used to listen to us who pay it for its attention and obedience. By these means we shall create such a blind force that it will never be capable of taking any decision without the guidance of our agents placed by us for the purpose of leading them".[42]

It would be easy to quote many other equally deadly parallels, but this one will assuredly suffice to show that, in their main argument, at any rate, the Protocols are not what they pretend to be—that is an actual statement of secret Jewish teaching by a Jew—but that they are not even an echo of Jewish ideas, seeing that they are derived from a Gentile forgery based on a work of confessedly Gentile imagination.

When we examine Nilus's added matter the revelationof fraud becomes still more remarkable. The main difference between Nilus and his German and Czech fore-runners is that he works out in detail the alleged Autocratic and Bolshevist philosophy of his Elders of Zion. He pictures these fabulous personages as genuine believers in Autocracy, but more intent on Jewish political domination than on merely mercenary exploitation. Accordingly, he attributes to them the design of practising a sort of State Bolshevism when their domination shall have been accomplished—that is to say, the creation of a paternal Jewish autocracy basing itself on a carefully controlled communistic system. It is by this ingenious device that he endeavours to show that the Jews are the arch-enemy at both extremes of the social organism.

Now, whence comes the autocratic philosophy he puts into the mouths of his Jewish Elders? It is exclusively a Russian doctrine. Nilus knows this very well, and he does not waste time in the hopeless task of finding counterblasts to democracy in Jewish political literature. He goes straight to the fountain-head of Russian obscurantism in the person of the late Procurator of the Holy Synod, Konstantine Petrovich Pobyedonoszeff! This expedient has the appearance almost of a practical joke, for Pobyedonoszeff was not only a pure Muscovite and a fanatical Greek Christian, but so conspicuous an anti-Semite and oppressor of Jews, Stundists, and other Russian allogenes that he earned for himself the sobriquet of "the modern Torquemada." Nilus's Jewish Antichrist is, in short, nothing more than the austere super-Christian Procurator masquerading, like EdwardAlleyn's Barabas, in a false nose and a prodigious property beard.

The evidence of this jumps to the eyes if we take the trouble to compare the first part of "The Jewish Peril" with Mr. Robert Crozier Long's translation of Pobyedonoszeff's "Reflections of a Russian Statesman,"[43]especially the chapters on "The New Democracy" and "The Great Falsehood of our Time." Many parallel passages might be quoted, but it will, perhaps, suffice if I extract one, fundamental to both writers, in which Nilus makes the Jewish Elder plagiarise the argument of the Christian Procurator, in part almost textually:—

POBYEDONOSZEFF.NILUS."Forever extending its base, the new Democracy now aspires to universal suffrage. By this means,the political power would be shattered into a number of infinitesimal bits, of which each citizen acquires a single one. What will he do with it then; how will he employ it?...Each vote representing an inconsiderable fragment of power, by itself signifies nothing.... The extension of the right to participate in elections is regarded as progress, and as the conquest of freedom by democratic theorists who hold that the more numerous the participants in political rights, the greater is theprobability that all will employ this right in the interests of the public welfare. Experience proves a very different thing. The history of mankind bears witness that the most necessary and fruitful reforms emanated from the supreme will of statesmen or from a minority enlightened by lofty ideas and deep knowledge, and that, on the contrary, the extension of the representative principle is accompanied by an abasement of political ideas".[44]"It suffices to give the populace self-government for a short period for this populace to become a disorganised rabble.... Is it possible for the mass to discriminate quietly and without jealousies to administer the affairs of State? Can they be a defence against a foreign foe? This is impossible,as a plan broken up into as many parts as there are minds in the mass loses its value, and therefore becomes unintelligible and unworkable. Alone an autocrat can conceive vast plans clearly, assigning its proper part to everything in the mechanism of the machine of State. Hence we conclude that it is expedient for the welfare of the country that the Government of the same should be in the hands of one responsible person. Without absolute despotism civilisation cannot exist, for civilisation is capable of being promoted only under the protection of the ruler, whoever he may be, and not at the hands of the masses".[45]

In the second part of "The Jewish Peril," where the Elders of Zion are made to expound their State Bolshevism, the sources are not quite so clear. It is practically certain, however, that they are not Jewish. Had Nilus waited a few years he would, perhaps, have been able to quote convinced Bolshevist writers of Jewish birth like Radek and Zinovieff, but when he wrote in 1905 there were no such exponents of pure Leninism. The great split of 1903 found all the leading Russo-Jewish Socialists, such as Martoff, Axelrod, Trotsky, Martinoff, Liber, Dahn, and the whole of the Bund, ranged with the Mensheviks against Lenin.[46]Theresult was that, in reproducing Bolshevist ideas, Nilus must have been dependent on Gentile pamphleteers. It is not easy to identify these ephemeral writings with certainty, but many interesting parallels of this section of the Protocols may be found in Bucharin's "Programme of the Communists," which codifies all the early Bolshevist literature.[47]And Bucharin, be it noted, is just as little a Jew as was Pobyedonoszeff. This, of course, explains the alleged prophetic character of the Protocols which theMorning Postand its friends hold to be convincing evidence of their genuineness. If the Bolsheviks have acted on some of the principles attributed the Elders of Zion, they have done so not because they were of Jewish origin, but because they were exclusively the work of Lenin and his bodyguard of Gentile proletarians.

So much for the literary history of the Protocols. Their political history is not less discreditable. They were not published because they were discovered—whether in the pages of Goedsche or elsewhere—but they were discovered because they were wanted for the ignoble purpose of a pogrom-weapon. In the first edition of his book, published in 1901, Nilus knew nothing of them, but was absorbed by the more abstract aspects of the problem of Antichrist. In 1905 occurred the Russian Revolution, and this was followed by the incendiary conspiracy of the Okhrana to stir up pogroms all over Russia and drown the new Constitution in awelter of Jewish blood.[48]Nilus appears to have been employed by the Okhrana in this wicked campaign. At any rate, the Protocols first appeared at this date in the shape of small pamphlets or broadsheets and they were only afterwards collected and incorporated in a second edition of Nilus's work as adénouementof his theory of the Judeo-Masonic nature of Antichrist. Nor has theirrôleas a pogrom-weapon been confined to the year 1905. Quite recently abstracts of them were widely circulated in Denikin's and Koltchak's armies. They were printed in the Eparchial Library at Rostoff, and were distributed by the remnants of the organisation of Black Hundreds known as the Union of the Russian People. How effective they were for their murderous purpose we know from the horrible massacres of inoffensive Jews and Jewesses which dogged the foot-steps of Denikin's armies throughout South Russia.

But this was not the only sinister movement with which the Protocols seem to have been associated. The year in which they were first published in Russia was also the year of a very serious Russo-German intrigue against the Triple Entente; and here again these Protocols—or, rather, their argument—appear as one of the main weapons of the plotters.

It will be remembered that in July, 1905, the basis of an anti-British Alliance was secretly agreed upon by the Tsar and the Kaiser at Bjoerkoe.[49]A few monthslater, while the Treaty was still incomplete, Count Lamsdorf proposed to the Tsar that advantage should be taken of "the new friendly relations" with Germany to conclude an agreement between the two countries for combating the alleged Jewish and Masonic peril.[50]Now, the secret Memorandum in which this precious scheme was set forth, and which the Tsar formally approved in January, 1906, is virtually a reproduction of the anti-Semitic argument which the alleged "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" are designed to prove. It is true that the Protocols themselves are not mentioned, but Count Lamsdorf is none the less positive, with the fabricators of those documents, that the Jews are the soul of the Revolutionary movement in Europe, that their "principal aim is the all-around triumph of anti-Christian and anti-Monarchist Jewry," that their millionaires subvention this movement with "gigantic pecuniary means," and that they are abetted in this enterprise by the Freemasons. The Protocols are, indeed, little more than a dramatic version of Count Lamsdorf's Memorandum. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that in some occult way—perhaps not so very occult—Nilus's book was intended to serve the sinister ends of the pro-German foreign policy of Count Lamsdorf in the same way as it served the bloody purposes of the pogrom-mongers. It should be especially noted in this connection that the book is as anti-Britishas it is anti-Jewish, and that it was published in December, 1905, that is to say, at the very time that the Tsar had the Lamsdorf scheme under consideration.

The more recent history of the Protocols is even more unsavoury. It is incredible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that these crazy forgeries have played a part behind the scenes in the international combinations for assisting the anti-Bolshevist reaction in Russia, which have filled so much of the public mind during the last two years, and which have cost this country close on £100,000,000. There was a moment when the Great Powers were disposed to leave the Russians to fight out their quarrels among themselves. Various objections to this policy were urged by the friends of Admiral Koltchak and General Denikin, and among them was the argument that there was, in fact, no civil war in Russia, that Bolshevism was not Russian, but exclusively alien, the work of international Jews who were themselves the instruments of a world-wide and deep-laid Jewish conspiracy against Christendom and the political order of Europe. Bolshevism was, in short, a European menace. Russia was pictured as the first instalment of the Jewish conquest of Europe, which had already sent itséclaireursto Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, and Budapest, whence they were advancing to the Rhine and the Alps. In support of this argument, Russian Intelligence Officers, armed with doctored typewritten translations of the Nilus Protocols, with the anti-British passages carefully expunged, were sent to London, Paris, Rome, and Washington, where they circulated this precious literature confidentially among Cabinet Ministers, heads of public departments,and persons of influence in society and journalism. That this campaign was not fruitless is attested by many curious facts, which, unfortunately, cannot be more particularly referred to at this moment without a breach of confidence. Overt evidence of the mischief that was wrought is, however, not wanting. It may be found, for example, in certain oracular utterances of Mr. Winston Churchill in a Sunday paper, in the anti-Semitic outbursts of theMorning Post, and the itching of theTimesand theSpectatorto do likewise, and, finally, in the discreditable propaganda leaflets distributed in the interior of Russia by the air service of the British armies at Archangel and Murmansk.[51]

Why the Protocols were circulated thus secretly is clear. Their political purpose had nothing to gain, and, indeed, everything to lose from public criticism and discussion. Nevertheless, they leaked out. A copy got into the hands of an official of the United States Department of Justice, and he, anxious for further information, and following some tactless office rule, sent it to the President of an important Jewish organisation in New York for his observations. The President promptly replied that it was a forgery of a very familiar type, and took no further notice of it. In June, 1919, the present writer, while in Paris, heard of the circulation of the Protocols as a pogrom pamphlet in Denikin's country, but he also attached no special importance to it. Later on came the first intimation of the proposed publication of the Protocols in Western Europe. It came in very characteristic shape. Oneday the members of a certain Jewish Delegation in Paris received a visit from a mysterious Lithuanian who had been connected with the Russian Secret Police. He professed himself anxious to serve the Jewish community, and said that he was in a position to prevent the publication of an exceedingly dangerous book, which, if it saw the light, would probably involve the whole house of Israel in ruin. Quite naturally, he wished to be paid for this service, but the sum was a mere trifle, a matter of £10,000. He was asked for a sight of the volume, and he produced it. It was, of course, "the Protocols." Needless to say, no business was done. It was possibly only a coincidence that in the following December a German edition was published under the title "Die Geheimnisse der Weisen von Zion," and two months later the English edition saw the light under the title "The Jewish Peril: Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion." The German and English publication would have been simultaneous but for the fact that difficulty was experienced in finding a reputable London publishing house to take the Protocols seriously.

One further word about the English edition. Its history and aims are much less clear than those of its Russian original, owing partly to the circumspect anonymity in which its sponsors have elected to veil themselves. It is inconceivable that it is intended to stir up pogroms in this country, though the suggestion is not obscurely made in recent articles in theTimesand theSpectator. More probably—as has already been hinted—it is part of a German intrigue to prejudice the recent German general elections in favour of theMilitarist Reactionaries and perhaps even to justify the forcible upsetting of the German Government by means of another KappPutsch. Here is the evidence for this startling conjecture.

The German Reactionaries have lately been putting all their money on anti-Semitism. Their publicity agencies in Charlottenburg and Munich have flooded the country with pamphlets denouncing the Republican Government as a Judaized Junta, the instrument of a far-reaching Judeo-Masonic conspiracy to ruin Germany and to involve the whole of Christian and Monarchical Europe in her fate. This campaign has lately become official, and a paragraph was inserted in the Electoral Manifesto of the German Nationalists—the party of Kapp and Lutzow—formally adopting anti-Semitism as a plank in their platform. One of the aims of the party is to secure foreign sympathy and help, and they hope to do this by finding a common ground in anti-Semitism. In these circumstances the publication of "The Jewish Peril" in England wears a disturbing significance, but it becomes much more disturbing when we find that the German edition was published almost simultaneously with it, with a dedication appealing not only to the German people, but also to "The Princes of Europe." The object was clearly to get English support, and unfortunately the response was not long in coming. On May 8th theTimeswas inveigled into publishing an article expressing alarm at the revelations of the Protocols and calling for an investigation. The delight of the German Reactionaries knew no bounds. It was voiced by Count Reventlow in a long article in theDeutscheTageszeitungof May 17 welcoming theTimes'sacceptance of the Jewish peril as an indication that English public opinion was beginning to recognise the righteousness of Kapp and Co. in their resistance to the Ebertrégimeand what the Count called the "pax Judaeica."[52]

Whether the translators and editors of "The Jewish Peril" have consciously lent themselves to this intrigue, which is part of the German Reactionary plot to upset the Treaty of Versailles and perhaps plunge Europe into another war, cannot be said. But assuredly the worst suspicions are permissible so long as these gentlemen elect to skulk in thecoulissesand shrink from responsibility for their scrubby handiwork. Even Titus Oates had the courage of his forgeries.

[24]Lond., Eyre and Spottiswoode, Ltd., 1920.Morning Post, July 16 and 17, 1920.

[25]See Isaac D'Israeli, "Curiosities of Literature," Vol. III., pp. 143-150.

[26]Anabaptisticum, etc. (1702). See particularly the tract entitledErschröckliche Bruderschafft der Alten und Neuen.

[27]Preface to Schieferl's edition (Dresden, 1893).

[28]As a matter of fact, he was not the first worker in this field, though he was the first literary ancestor of Nilus. The idea of the dramatic treatment of a Jewish conspiracy against Christian Society was worked out by the Polish poet Krassinsky in hisNie-Boska Komedya("The Undivine Comedy"), published in 1834. It differs in scope and detail from Goedsche. Its attack on the Jews was strongly censured by Adam Mickiewicz.

[29]Meyer's Konversations-Lexikon(1897), Vol. VII.,sub. voc.Goedsche and Waldeck.Stenographischer Bericht über die Verhandlungen in der Anklage gegen Dr. Waldeck(Berlin, 1849).

[30]In four volumes, Berlin, 1868.

[31]It was a custom of some mediæval German Jews to place the "first fruits" of their cattle to grass in the cemeteries. This gave rise to a popular belief that the idolatrous cultus of the Golden Calf still lingered among them. (Schudt:Jüdische Merckwürdigkeiten(1714), Vol. II., p. 376.)

[32]Biarritz, Vol. I., pp. 130-180. Further characteristic references to the Jewish question will be found in a later novel of the Retcliffe series entitledUm die Weltherrschaft, Vol. I., pp. 309-310, 338, 360, 415; Vol. II., pp. 55, 56, 63; Vol. III., pp. 127, 130; Vol. IV., pp. 190-191, 467; Vol. V., pp. 22, 83-84, 206.

[33]Berichte über die 3 Generalversammlung des Vereins zur Abwehr des Antisemitismus(Vienna, 1893), pp. 8, 9.

[34]Hebrew for "Gentiles."

[35]Stenographische Protokolle des Hauses der Abgeordneten des Oesterreichischen Reichsrathes(1901), pp. 1282-1284.

[36]Wolski:La Russie Juive(Paris, 1911), pp. 7-19.

[37]The text is quoted by Meister:Judas Schuldbuch, p. 155.

[38]"The Jewish Peril," p. III.

[39]Ibid., p. 88.

[40]Berliner Tageblatt, May 18, 1920. The story is repeated with further variations, in the fourth edition, published in 1917, extracts from which are given in theMorning Post, August 12, 1920. In this edition Nilus quotes certain enigmatic statements of the late Theodor Herzl as proof of a secret Jewish teaching. It happens that the correspondence with Herzl on this subject is in the possession of the present writer. It has nothing to do with a secret Jewish teaching.

[41]Fourth edit., cap. III. (Quoted byMorning Post, Aug. 12, 1920.)

[42]"The Jewish Peril," pp. 12, 13, 14, 32.

[43]Lond., 1898.

[44]Pobyedonoszeff: "Reflections" (English edit.), pp. 26, 27, 28. Allowance must be made for the different styles and qualities of the two translations.

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