Part 11
[6] When I wrote this, I had not yet seen the monstrous article by Thomas Mann (in the _Neue Rundschau_ of November 1914), where, in a fit of fury and injured pride, he savagely claimed for Germany, as a title to glory, all the crimes of which her adversaries accuse her. He dared to write that the present war was a war of German Kultur "against Civilization," proclaiming that German thought had no other ideal than militarism, and inscribes on his banner the following lines, the apology of force oppressing weakness:
"_Den der Mensch verkümmert im Frieden,_ _Müssige Ruh ist das Grab des Muts._ _Das Gesetz ist der Freund des Schwachen,_ _Alles will es nur eben machen._ _Möchte gern die Welt verflachen,_ _Aber der Krieg lässt die Kraft erscheinen...._"
(_Man deteriorates in peace. Idle rest is the tomb of courage. Law is the friend of the weak, it aims at levelling all; it would reduce the world to a level. War brings out strength._)
Even so a bull in the arena, mad with rage, rushes with lowered head on the matador's sword, and impales himself.
[7] As one of these 'pedants of barbarism' (so Miguel de Unamuno rightly describes them) writes, "one has the right to destroy; if one has the force to create" (Wer stark ist zu schaffen, der darf auch zerstören).--Friedr Gundolf: _Tat und Wort im Krieg_, published in the _Frankfurter Zeitung_, October 11th. Cf. the article of the aged Hans Thoma, in the _Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung_ of October 1st.
[8] _Jean-Christophe_, part V, "La Foire sur la Place." In vol. III of the English version.--TRANS.
[9] At the very hour I wrote these lines, Charles Péguy died.
[10] Alludes to a Viennese writer who had told me, a few weeks before the declaration of war, that a disaster for France would be a disaster for the liberal thinkers of Germany too.
[11] See note, p. 193.
[12] Liebknecht has since gloriously cleared his honor of the compromises of his party. I here express admiration of his attitude. (R. R., January 1915.)
[13] Recently published in the _Corriere della Sera_ and translated by the _Journal de Genève_, September 1914.
[14] _Le Temps_, September 4, 1914.
[15] Issues of September 16 and 17, 1914: _La Guerre et le Droit_.
[16] Letter dated September 15, 1871, published in _Réforme intellectuelle et morale_.
[17] Open letter of Dr. Ernst Dryander, the First Court Preacher and Vice-President of the Higher Ecclesiastical Council, to C. E. Babut, Pastor of Nimes, September 15, 1914 (published in _l'Essor_ for the 10th October and the _Journal de Genève_, 18th October).
[18] The newspapers of both countries give publicity only to prejudiced stories unfavorable to the enemy. One would imagine that they devote themselves to collecting only the worst cases, in order to preserve the atmosphere of hatred; and those to which they give predominance are often doubtful and always exceptional. No mention is made of anything that would tell in a contrary direction of prisoners who are grateful for their treatment, as in the letters which we have to transmit to their families--in which, for example, a German civil prisoner speaks of a pleasant walk, or of sea bathing, he has been allowed to enjoy. I have even come across the case of an entomologist who is peacefully absorbed in his researches, and profiting by his enforced sojourn in the South of France to complete his collection of insects.
[19] On this point, I would echo the appeal in the article cited above, from the _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_.
[20] Published by the _Daily Telegraph_, London, 1914.
[21] The Editor of a great Paris paper having offered to publish my reply to those who attacked me, I sent him this article, which never appeared.
[22] Paul Bourget.
[23] The Evangelical pastor Schrenck in an article on "War and the New Testament," quoted with approval by the Rev. Ch. Correvon in the _Journal religieus_ of Neuchatel, November 14th.
[24] In a declaration to the editor of the Swedish paper _Dagen_.
[25] The famous "Appeal to the Civilized Nations" had been sent out shortly before this by the ninety-three German intellectuals.
[26] Holland.
[27] "To let a people," he said, "or still more a fraction of a people, decide international questions, for instance, which state shall control them, is as good as making the children of a house vote for their father. It is the most ridiculous fallacy that human wit has ever invented."
[28] The _Svenska Dagbladet_ sent to the principal intellectuals of Europe an inquiry on the subject of the results which the war would have, "for international collaboration, in the domain of the spirit." It asked "with anxiety, to what extent it would be possible, once peace was concluded, to establish relations between the scientists, writers, and artists of the different nations."
[29] The literary appreciation of the work cited is here treated as of secondary importance, in order that evidence may be discovered with regard to the thought of Germany.
[30] See the article of Josef Luitpol Stern, "Dichter," in _Die Weissen Blätter_, March 1915.
[31] Hohe Gemeinschaft.
[32] Fremde sind wir auf der Erde alle.
[33] _Die Ueberschätzung der Kunst_ (December 1914).
[34] _Von der Vaterlandsliebe_ (January 1915).
[35] December 1914.
[36] _Hymne auf den Schmerz_ (January 1915).--It is to be noted that the _Forum_ is read in the trenches, and that it has received many letters of approval from the front. (_Der Phrasenrausch und seine Bekaempfer_, February 1915.)
[37] I take the phrase from M. Lucien Maury in an article written before the war: (_Journal de Genève_) March 30, 1914. This is quoted recently by M. Adolphe Ferrière who, in his remarkable Doctor's thesis, _La loi du Progrès_ attempts to solve the tragic problem of the part played by the élite.
[38] The review _Die Tat_, published by Eug. Diederichs at Jena, prints long extracts from them in its issue for May 1915.
[39] With an introduction by C. E. Babut.
[40] His principal philosophical work is his Doctor's thesis: _La réalité du monde sensible_ (1891). Another thesis (in Latin) dates from the same year: _Des origines du socialisme allemand_, in which he goes back to the Christian socialism of Luther.
His great historical work is his _Histoire sociale de la Révolution_. Very interesting is his discussion with Paul Lafargue on _l'Idéalisme et le matérialisme dans la conception de l'histoire_.
[41] "The need of unity is the profoundest and noblest of the human mind" (_La réalité du monde sensible_).
[42] "This young democracy must be given a taste for liberty. It has a passion for equality; it has not in the same degree an idea of liberty, which is acquired much more slowly and with greater difficulty. We must give the children of the people, by means of a sufficiently lofty exercise of their powers of thinking, a sense of the value of man and consequently of the value of liberty, without which man does not exist." (To the teachers, January 15, 1888.)
[43] "As for myself, I have never made use of violence to attack beliefs, whatever they may be; nay, more, I have always abstained even from that form of violence which consists in insult. Insult expresses a weak and feverish revolt, rather than the liberty of reason." (1901.)
[44] "The true formula of patriotism is the equal right of all countries to liberty and justice; it is the duty of every citizen to increase in his own country the forces of liberty and justice. Those are but sorry patriots who in order to love and serve one country, find it necessary to decry the others, the other great moral forces of humanity." (1905.)
[45] Or the extracts given by Charles Rappoport in his excellent book _Jean Jaurès, l'homme, le penseur, le socialiste_ (1915, Paris, _l'Emancipatrice_), with an introduction by Anatole France. From this book are quoted the passages referred to in the notes which follow. _Jean Jaurès_, a brochure by René Legand, should also be read.
[46] Rappoport, _op. cit._, pp. 70-77.
[47] Rappoport, p. 234.
[48] In his speech at Vaise, near Lyon, July 25, 1914, six days before his death, he said: "Every people appears throughout the streets of Europe carrying its little torch; and now comes the conflagration."
[49] Rappoport, p. 61.
[50] Rappoport p. 369-70.
[51] "Throughout the world there are six millions of us, organized workmen, for whom the name of Jaurès was the incarnation of the noblest and most complete aspiration.... I remember what he was for the workmen of other countries. I see still the foreign delegates who awaited his words before forming their final opinions; even when they were not in agreement with him they were glad to approach his point of view. He was more than the Word: he was the Conscience."
[52] Who has spoken more nobly than he of the eternal France, "the true France, that is not summed up by an epoch or by a day, neither by the day of long ago, nor the day that has just passed, but the whole of France complete in the succession of her days, of her nights, of her dawns, of her shadows, of her heights and of her depths; of France, who, across all these mingled shades, all these half-lights and all these vicissitudes, goes forward towards a brilliance which she has not yet attained, but which is foreshadowed in her thought!" (1910.)
See his masterly picture of French history, and his magnificent eulogy of France, at the Conference of 1905, which he was prevented from delivering in Berlin, and which Robert Fischer read in his place.
[53] The terms Asia and Africa have not, of course, a geographical but an ethnological signification. Turkey is not, and never has been, European; and it is difficult to decide up to what points certain of the Balkan Powers are European.
* * * * *
Corrections of typographical erros made by the etext transcriber:
Tolstoï=>Tolstoi
Auslænder, Auslander=>Ausländer
Deutschland Uber Alles=>Deutschland Über Alles
Amédee=>Amédée
Rene Schickele=>René Schickele
René Legan=>René Legand
Barrés=>Barrès
Caesar=>Cæsar
Cornelienne=>Cornélienne
Ferriere=>Ferrière
Hervè=>Hervé
Kulturtrager=>Kulturträger
Léonhard=>Leonhard
Liége=>Liège
Peguy=>Péguy
Regnier=>Régnier
Thermopylae=>Thermopylæ
Zorothowa=>Zorothowo
Graefin=>Græfin
Notre-Dame la Misere=>Notre-Dame la Misère
Moliere=>Molière
Jaurés=>Jaurès
èlan=>élan
dènouement=>dénouement
Dr. Ernst Drylander=>Dr. Ernst Dryander
Idealogues=>Ideologues
NEDERLANDSCHE ANTI-OORLOGRAAD=>NEDERLANDSCHE ANTI-OORLOG RAAD
Sterheim=>Sternheim