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

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 the pale cast of thought." Instead of that they were confronted with soldiers of the same type as those whom Frederick the Great and Napoleon admired, led at last by chiefs worthy of their men. And behind these soldiers they discovered a nation. Do they realize now what a force they have awakened? Do they understand that a steadfast, indomitable resolution, despising all theatrical display, is moving Russia's hosts? Even if the Russian Generals had proved mediocre, even if many disappointing days