the Triple Alliance as a bulwark of world peace, why should it not co-operate with other national German parties in voting military budgets which would guarantee the efficacy of the Triple Alliance and prevent any war of conquest on the part of Russia or of revanche on the part of France? Some German Social Democrats perceived the logic in such reasoning and advised action accordingly. At the Hamburg Congress of 1897, Max Schippel, the reporter of the Reichstag group, said:
We have not approved of the soldiers, but there they are. For our proposals in favor of a militia and the abolition of all standing armies, no majority is available at present or in the near future. This is a fact which is surely disagreeable to us but with which we must reckon. Because the bourgeois parties do not share our opinion in this matter, must we expose the German workingmen, as if for punishment, to the risk of having to pay with their blood for the lack of intelligence of our opponents? Such behavior would be idiotic and absolutely contrary to the interests of the working class.[1]
Replying to critics, Schippel admitted that "the existing government thrives on war" but emphasized the ever-present possibility of war.
If one cannot prevent wars, nevertheless one cannot give our soldiers bad rifles, bad cannon. … If the militaristic system drives us to a war which we cannot prevent, if we suffer a defeat, and if the blood of our German proletariat doubly flows, I believe that we shall all be reproached by the government for not having taken the necessary precautions at the right moment.[2]
Though the utterances of Schippel were not well received by the majority of the delegates to the congress, they evoked an eloquent defense from Ignatz Auer, the Bavarian Socialist, who dwelt upon the necessity of adequate military preparedness against Russian "barbarism". And when, in the ensuing electoral campaign, it was felt necessary to disprove accusations of anti-patriotism, several Social Democratic candidates intimated to their constituents a ready willingness to compromise on the old question of militarism and on the new question of navalism. Said Auer at Hanover on February 9, 1898:
We can approve nothing of the government so long as we are not recognized as a factor possessing equal rights in parliamentary and public life. But if the working class is recognized as possessing equal rights, then will the tasks of this class increase and likewise its responsibility; and it is indeed quite possible that from the day on which the workingman perceives himself a factor possessing equal rights we shall allow ourselves to speak on the naval question. Only for the present must we on principle refuse to vote "a single man, a single penny".
