The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 | Page 4

sake of his opinions, I

can hardly be suspected of subserviency to the Russian bureaucracy.
I am struck by the insistence with which the Germans represent their
cause in this worldwide struggle as the cause of civilization as opposed
to Muscovite barbarism; and I am not sure that some of my English
friends do not feel reluctant to side with the subjects of the Czar against
the countrymen of Harnack and Eucken. One would like to know,
however, since when did the Germans take up this attitude? They were
not so squeamish during the "war of emancipation," which gave birth to
modern Germany. At that time the people of Eastern Prussia were
anxiously waiting for the appearance of Cossacks as heralds of the
Russian hosts who were to emancipate them from the yoke of
Napoleon. Did the Prussians and Austrians reflect on the humiliation of
an alliance with the Muscovites, and on the superiority of the code civil
when the Russian Guard at Kulm stood like a rock against the desperate
onslaughts of Vandamme? Perhaps by this time the inhabitants of
Berlin have obliterated the bas-relief in the Alley of Victories,
representing Prince William of Prussia, the future victor of Sedan,
seeking safety within the square of the Kaluga regiment! Russian blood
has flowed in numberless battles in the cause of the Germans and
Austrians. The present Armageddon might perhaps have been avoided
if Emperor Nicholas I. had left the Hapsburg monarchy to its own
resources in 1849, and had not unwisely crushed the independence of
Hungary. Within our memory, the benevolent neutrality of Russia
guarded Germany in 1870 from an attack in the rear by its opponents of
Sadowa. Are all such facts to be explained away on the ground that the
despised Muscovites may be occasionally useful as "gun meat," but are
guilty of sacrilege if they take up a stand against German taskmasters in
"shining armor"? The older generations of Germany had not yet
reached that comfortable conclusion. The last recommendation which
the founder of the German Empire made on his deathbed to his
grandson was to keep on good terms with that Russia which is now
proclaimed to be a debased mixture of Byzantine, Tartar, and
Muscovite abominations.
Fortunately, the course of history does not depend on the frantic
exaggerations of partisans. The world is not a classroom in which

docile nations are distributed according to the arbitrary standards of
German pedagogues. Europe has admired the patriotic resistance of the
Spanish, Tyrolese, and Russian peasants to the enlightened tyranny of
Napoleon. There are other standards of culture besides proficiency in
research and aptitude for systematic work. The massacre of Louvain,
the hideous brutality of the Germans--as regards non-combatants--to
mention only one or two of the appalling occurrences of these last
weeks--have thrown a lurid light on the real character of
twentieth-century German culture. "By their fruits ye shall know them,"
said our Lord, and the saying which He aimed at the Scribes and
Pharisees of His time is indeed applicable to the proud votaries of
German civilization today. Nobody wishes to underestimate the
services rendered by the German people to the cause of European
progress, but those who have known Germany during the years
following on the achievements of 1870 have watched with dismay the
growth of that arrogant conceit which the Greeks called ubris. The
cold-blooded barbarity advocated by Bernhardi, the cynical view taken
of international treaties and of the obligations of honor by the German
Chancellor--these things reveal a spirit which it would be difficult
indeed to describe as a sign of progress.
One of the effects of such a frame of mind is to strike the victim of it
with blindness. This symptom has been manifest in the stupendous
blunders of German diplomacy. The successors of Bismarck have
alienated their natural allies, such as Italy and Rumania, and have
driven England into this war against the evident intentions of English
Radicals. But the Germans have misconceived even more important
things--they set out on their adventure in the belief that England would
be embarrassed by civil war and unable to take any effective part in the
fray; and they had to learn something which all their writers had not
taught them--that there is a nation's spirit watching over England's
safety and greatness, a spirit at whose mighty call all party differences
and racial strifes fade into insignificance. In the same way they had
reckoned on the unpreparedness of Russia, in consequence of internal
dissensions and administrative weakness, without taking heed of the
love of all Russians for Russia, of their devotion to the long-suffering
giant whose life is throbbing in their veins. The Germans expected to

encounter raw and sluggish troops under intriguing time-servers and
military Hamlets whose "native hue of resolution" had been "sicklied
o'er with