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still men who see through Bismarckism, but they are few; only recently the Socialist minority are beginning to think more for themselves. Bismarck himself was under no misconception of the real situation—hence his attempt at the cultural fight against the Centrum and Rome; but Bismarck surrendered because he valued the Church and religion for their usefulness as a political weapon. How contemptuously he looked upon the Old Catholics! This flower of German Catholicism and Catholic theology meant nothing to him, because it did not have behind it the masses. Prussian monarchism to-day can only be a form of demagogy.
Jesuitism forms also the substance of Prussian militarism: brutal bravery united to trickiness—systematic violence employing lies, for lying is but a form of violence.[1]
If war, as Prussian military expert said, is merely a different form of politics, then surely German militarism does not produce men of the type of Achilles but of Ulysses. Hence the absence of a truly great commander like Napoleon. All the Hindenburgs and their like are good, painstaking, and conscientious generals, but they do not possess the slighest spark of genius. It cannot be otherwise; the Germans have no great ideas, only the craftiness of a greedy aggressiveness. German diplomacy and its underground work in all countries is the natural ally of Prussian militarism.
38. All German culture, if one may venture into such a large generalisation, is external. Germany’s strength and weakness lies in its outward orderliness; organisation everywhere, organisation of organisations, superorganisation; but the ultimate aim, dominion over all nations, is morally wrong. Prussian order, scientifically thought out, is a force, and the Germans, therefore, look upon themselves as “Herrenvolk”; but a little more or less culture, and especially of this superficial culture, gives them no right to dominate nations which develop in their own way. Various nations are at various stages of development; it is nowhere decreed that all nations must be equally educated at the same time, it is enough if they honestly work for their moral and intellectual improvement. Europe should be unified and unitary, but that does not mean that it should be uniform. On the contrary, development aims at variation, at individualisation. The Germans, in spite of all their science, proved even in this war, how short-sighted they can be. Though they were well prepared for war—in fact, they alone were prepared—they did not see how the war would develop. They under-estimated Russia, over-estimated Austria, failed to understand England and America, and were totally deceived as to France, which they declared to be degenerate. Altogether, the Germans have in this war, and even in their victories, proved themselves small. We acknowledge that we are indebted for much to German literature, science and philosophy, to German technique. But we also derived much education from the French, English, the Italians, Russians, and Scandinavians. The cultivation of reason is only a part of true culture—here we could refer also to German psychology and philosophy, but the official German science and the philosophy of the universities serve exclusively the cult of reason, and thereby of materialistic Prussianism and of military and economic materialism. We reject, in the name of humanity and true culture, the materialism and mechanism of Prussian militarism. One is reminded of the words of Herzen about Djingis-Khan with telegraphs, steamers, and railroads, with Carnot and Monge in his staff, with Mignet-Congreve rifles, under the leadership of Baty; the tactics of Moltke, the
- ↑ William is responsible for the brutal exhortation to the Germans to employ the example of the Huns in their treatment of the Chinese. The Germans purposely try to terrorise the opposing armies and populations; the Russians also committed some inhuman deeds in Western Prussia, but the Russians do not pretend to be the most cultured nation; their army does not excel in discipline, and, moreover, they were retreating. The Germans committed barbarities quite consciously and systematically; and therefore, in view of their discipline, the responsibility rests on their leaders. Had the leaders given humane commands the soldiers would have observed them; and the Germans, it must be borne in mind, committed their barbarities while victoriously advancing.
