Fritz and Eric | Page 8

sudden conjuncture of circumstances almost made
her forget Eric. This was, the unexpected summons of Fritz from her
side, to battle with the legions of Germany against the threatened
invasion of "the Fatherland" by France.
At the time, it looked sudden enough. A little cloud, no bigger than a
man's hand, had arisen on the horizon of European politics, which,
each moment, grew blacker and more portentous; and, in a brief while,
it burst into a war that deluged the vine-clad slopes of Rhineland and
the fair plains of Lorraine with blood and fire, making havoc
everywhere. Now, however, looking back on all the events of that
terrible struggle and duly weighing the surroundings and impelling
forces leading up to it, allowing also for all temporary excuses and
pretexts, and admitting all that can be said for partisanship on either
side, there can be no use in blinking at the pregnant fact that the real
cause of the war arose from a desire to settle whether the French or the
Germans were the strongest in sheer brute force--just in the same way
as two men, or boys, fight with nature's weapons in a pugilistic
encounter to strive for the mastery, thus indulging in passions which
they share with the beasts of the field!
The long, steady, complete preparation for war on each side shows that

this very simple and intelligible motive was at the bottom of it all; and
it is pitiable to think, for the sake of human nature, when recapitulating
the history of this fearful conflict of fifteen years ago which caused
such misery and murderous loss of life, that two of the most polished,
advanced, educated, and representative nations of Europe at that time
should not have apparently attained a higher code of civilised morality
than that adopted by the natives of Dahomey--one, ruled over by the
blood-stained fetish of human sacrifice! As the world advances, looking
at the matter in this light, we seem to have exchanged one sort of
barbarism for another, and the present one appears almost the worse
of the two, by the very reason of its being mixed up with so much
scientific advancement, cultural refinement, and the higher
development of man. It is like the old devil returning and bringing with
him seven other devils more powerful for evil than their original
prototype, this prostitution of learning, intellect, and philosophy to the
most debasing influences of human nature!
These thoughts, however, did not affect either Fritz or his mother at the
time.
Not being the only son of a widow, in which case he might have been
exempted from service, Fritz, when he had reached his eighteenth year,
had been compelled to join the ranks of the national army; and, after
completing the ordinary course of drill, had been relegated to the
Landwehr and allowed to return home to his civic occupation. But,
when the order was promulgated throughout the German empire to
mobilise the vast human man-slaying machine which General Moltke
and Prince Bismark had constructed with such painstaking care that
units could be multiplied into tens, and tens into hundreds, and
hundred into thousands--swelling into a gigantic host of armed men
almost at a moment's notice, ready either to guard the frontier from
invasion, or to hurl its resistless battalions on the hated foe whose
defeat had been such a long-cherished dream--the young clerk received
peremptory orders to join the headquarters of the regiment to which he
was attached. The very place and hour at which he was to report
himself to his commanding officer were named in the general order
forwarded along with his railway pass, so comprehensive were the

details of the Prussian military organisation. This latter so thoroughly
embraced the entire country after the absorption of the lesser states on
the collapse of Koniggratz, that each separate individual could be
moved at any given moment to a certain defined point; while the
instructions for his guidance were so complete and perfect, that they
could not fail to be understood.
Fritz had to proceed, in the first instance, to the capital city of his state,
Hanover, now no longer a kingdom, but only a small division of the
great empire into which it was incorporated. For him there was no
chance of evasion or getting out of the obligation to serve, for the
whilom "kingdom" having withstood to the last during the six weeks'
war the onward progress to victory of the all-devouring Prussians, her
citizens would be at once suspected of disloyalty on the least sign of
any defection. Besides, a keen official eye was kept on the movements
of all Hanoverians, their patriotism to the newly formed empire being
diligently nourished by a military rule as stern and strict as that of
Draco.
"Oh, my boy, my