Part 4

German papers often accuse us of ingratitude, and reproach us with our lack of appreciation of the advantages of the culture which they boast of having brought us. We listen to such accusations with a bitter smile, and in writing the word _Kulturträger_ (bearer of civilization) add an exclamation mark afterwards, for the behavior of the Germans has brought the expression into contempt. We have acquired our culture in spite of their opposition, and against their will. _Even today it is the German representatives in the Russian Duma who veto the occasional suggestions on the part of the Government to make reforms in the Baltic provinces._ These provinces are administered in a manner that differs, and differs for the worse, from that adopted in the other provinces of Russia. We still submit to laws and regulations which no longer exist in other parts of Europe--laws which were made in the feudal ages and have been rigorously maintained amongst us, thanks to the exertions of the big German landowners, who are always sure of a hearing at the Imperial Court of St. Petersburg.

Formerly, when we were striving in vain to reconcile our sympathy and admiration for German thought and art with the narrow, haughty, and cruel spirit of its representatives amongst us, we explained it all by saying that the Germans in our provinces were of a peculiar type, and had little in common with other Germans. But the crimes of which they have been guilty in Belgium and in France show us our mistake. Germans are the same everywhere in the work of conquest and domination--wholly without humanitarian scruples. In Germany, as in Russia, there are two distinct tendencies--the one, provoked by the ideas of Pangermanism and Panslavism, is to seek national glory on the field of battle and in the oppression of the personalities of other nations; the other is to achieve the same end in the peaceful realms of thought and artistic creation. Just as the culture of which Goethe was typical has nothing in common with Prussian militarism, so Tolstoi may be considered as the representative of that other Russia which is so different from the one represented by the Russian Government of today. Certainly the gulf between these two tendencies is less deep in Germany than in Russia, and this is due to the immense size of Russia, which contains vast numbers of poor and ignorant human beings whom the Russian Government oppresses with the utmost brutality. _But it is entirely unjust always to allude to the Russians as barbarians; and the Germans who invariably make use of this word when they speak of Russia have less right than any one to do so._ No one who knows the intellectual world of Germany and Russia will venture to say that the former is much superior to the latter--they are simply different. _And I would add that the one fact which makes us feel more drawn to the intellectual world of Russia than to that of the Germany of today, is that it would never be capable of justifying and approving the brutal conduct of its Government, as the German intellectuals are doing now. It has often been constrained to keep silence, but it has never raised its voice in defense of a guilty Government._

Let not my testimony in favor of the Russians lead any one to believe that I am idealizing them, or that my people, the Letts, have enjoyed any special privileges under their government. On the contrary! I have suffered more at their hands than at the hands of the Germans, and my nation knows only too well how heavy is the hand of the Russian Government, and how suffocating the atmosphere of Panslavism. In 1906 it was the Lett peasant and intellectual classes who enjoyed most frequently the privilege of being flogged; it was amongst these classes that the greatest number of unfortunates were shot, hanged, or imprisoned for life. And since that dreadful year there are to be found in all the principal towns of Western Europe colonies of Letts, formed of refugees who succeeded in escaping from the atrocities of the punitive expedition sent by the Russian Government against my country. But this fact is significant: _at the head of the majority of the military bands commissioned to punish the country were German officers who had asked for this employment, and showed so great a zeal in shooting down men and setting fire to houses, that they went even beyond the intentions of the Russian Government. In those days the places might count themselves fortunate which were visited by dragoons commanded by officers of Russian nationality; for where Russian officers would have ordered the knout, German officers habitually inflicted a sentence of death._

If my nation had ever to choose between a German and a Russian government it would choose the latter as the lesser of two evils. I see in the Lett newspapers that the reservists of my country left for the war with enthusiasm. I do not imagine that this enthusiasm is due to the thought that they are fighting for the glory of a nation which, by every means in its power, seeks to hinder our national development, by forbidding instruction in our native tongue in primary schools, by attempting to colonize our land with Russian peasants, by compelling our own people to emigrate to Siberia and America, by excluding all Letts from any share in Government employment, etc. This enthusiasm nevertheless exists, and it is because the war is being waged against Germany, and because the Letts know that the Germans have long been aiming at the possession of the Baltic provinces. To prevent this we are prepared to make any sacrifice. We, who love our national civilization and know well what Panslavism and Pangermanism mean, are of opinion that, of the two, Panslavism is less fatal to the civilizations of small nations. This is really due to the character of the two races.

_German oppression is always systematic, hence always efficacious. In addition to this, their arrogant contempt for everything that is not themselves, the calm and calculated method in which they carry out their system of persecution wherever they dominate, all this makes them intolerable._

_Russians are less logical by nature; their minds are not so regulated and they are more inclined to obey the dictates of their hearts; for this reason they are less to be feared as oppressors. The blows which they strike are often extremely cruel and painful, but they can repent from time to time. Their manners are rougher and more brutal_ (I speak here more especially of civil and military officials), _but on the whole they are more humane than the Germans, who often conceal feelings of fierce savagery under the mask of perfect courtesy. In the year 1906, when there were executions in Russia on a large scale, there were many cases of suicide amongst Russian officers who could not reconcile their profession of soldiers with that of a hangman. The officers of German nationality, on the other hand, carried out their orders with enjoyment._

Nevertheless Russian domination, though preferable to German, is still very oppressive. I hear the news of Russian victories with mingled feelings, rejoicing in so far as they are victories for the Allies, yet dreading the triumph of Russia. After the defeats of the Russo-Japanese War, when the Russian Government was weakened, it conceded certain liberal measures and then revoked them almost entirely as its strength returned. What have we to expect from a victory for Czarism, especially we who are not Russians, but a savage revival of the crushing ideals of Panslavism?

This is the agonized question which the nations subject to Russia are asking now. I read in your article that the turn of Czarism will come after that of Prussianism. In what sense is this to be understood? Is it your opinion that another war will presently break out against Czarism, or will it be struck down by the blows of an internal revolution? Is it even possible that France and England obtained the promise of a reform in the internal politics of Russia before allying themselves with her? And is the proclamation to the Poles evidence of this? Will it have any real effect after the war? And those other nations oppressed by Russia--the Finns, the Letts, the Lithuanians, the Esthonians, the Armenians, the Jews...--will they too have justice done them?

These questions are probably devoid of any political significance. Yet without perceiving in what manner France and England can set us free, we do direct our hopes towards them. We believe that in some way or other they will take care in future that their Russian ally shall show herself worthy of them and of the ideas for which they are fighting, lest the blood of those who have died in the cause of freedom go to feed the strength of the oppressors.

Thus, sir, I have ventured uninvited to set forth rather fully to you the hopes and fears of a nation which has developed itself on a narrow strip of land between the two abysses of Pangermanism and Panslavism. Whilst ardently desiring the destruction of the former, we have everything to fear from the latter. Yet we do not aspire to political independence. We seek only the possibility of developing freely our intellectual, artistic, and economic powers, without the perpetual menace of being absorbed by Russia or Germany. We believe that, in virtue of the civilization we have acquired in the face of obstacles, we are worthy of the liberties and rights of man; we are convinced that as a nation we have qualities which will fit us to play a valuable part in the great symphony of civilized peoples.

_Journal de Genève_, October 10, 1914.

V. INTER ARMA CARITAS

Once more I address myself to our friends the enemy. But this time I shall attempt no discussion, for discussion is impossible with those who avow that they do not seek for but possess the truth. For the moment there is no spiritual force that can pierce the thick wall of certitude by which Germany is barricaded against the light of day--the terrible certitude, the pharisaical satisfaction which pervades the monstrous letter of a Court preacher who glorifies God for having made him impeccable, irreproachable, and pure, himself, his emperor, his ministers, his army, and his race; and who rejoices beforehand in his "holy wrath" at the destruction of all who do not think as he thinks.[17]

True, I am very far from thinking that this monument of anti-Christian pride represents the spirit of the better part of Germany. I know how many noble hearts, moderate, affectionate, incapable of doing evil and almost of conceiving it, go to make up her moral strength; amongst them are friends that I shall never cease to esteem. I know how many intrepid minds work ceaselessly in German science for the conquest of the truth. But I see on the one hand these good people so over-confident, so tractable, with their eyes shut, ignorant of the facts and unwilling to recognize anything but what it is the pleasure of their Government that they shall know; and on the other, the clearest minds of Germany, historians and savants, trained for the criticism of texts, basing their conviction on documents which all emanate from one alone of the parties concerned, and by way of peremptory proof referring us to the _ex-parte_ affirmations of their Emperor, and of their Chancellor, like well-behaved scholars, whose only argument is _Magister dixit_. What hope remains of convincing such people that there exists a truth beyond that master, and that in addition to his White Book we have in our hands books of every kind and of every color, whose testimony demands the attention of an impartial judge? But do they so much as know of their existence, and does the master allow his class to handle the manuals of his enemies? Our disagreement is not only as regards the facts of the case; it is due to difference in mind itself. Between the spirit of Germany today and that of the rest of Europe there is no longer a point of contact. We speak to them of _Humanity_; they reply with _Uebermensch_, _Uebervolk_, and it goes without saying that they themselves are the Uebervolk. Germany seems to be overcome by a morbid exaltation, a collective madness, for which there is no remedy but time. According to the view of medical experts in analogous cases such forms of madness develop rapidly, and are suddenly followed by profound depression. We can then but wait, and in the meantime defend ourselves to the best of our ability from the madness of Ajax.

Certainly Ajax has given us plenty of work to do. Look at the ruins around us! We may bring aid to the victims--yet how little can we achieve? In the eternal struggle between good and evil the scales are not evenly balanced. We need a century to re-create what one day can destroy. The fury of madness, on the other hand, endures only for a day; patient labor is our lot throughout the years. It knows no pause, even in those hours when the world seems at an end. The vine-growers of Champagne gather in their vintage though the bombs of the rival armies explode around them--and we, too, can do our share! There is work for all who find themselves outside the battle. Especially for those who still can write, it seems to me that there should be something better to do than to brandish a pen dipped in blood and seated at their tables to cry "Kill! Kill!" I hate the war, but even more do I hate those who glorify it without taking part. What would we say of officers who marched behind their men? The noblest rôle of those who follow in the rear is to pick up their friends who fall, and to bear in mind even during the battle those fair words so often forgotten--_Inter arma caritas_.

* * * * *

Amidst all the misery which every man of feeling can do his share to relieve, let us recall the fate of the prisoner of war. But knowing that Germany today blushes at her former sentimentality, I carefully refrain from appealing to her pity by whinings, as they call them, about the destruction of Louvain and Rheims. "War is war." Granted!--then it is natural that it drags in its train thousands of prisoners, officers and men.

For the moment I shall say only a word about these, in order to comfort as far as possible the families who are searching for them, and are so anxious about their fate. On both sides hateful rumors circulate only too easily, rumors given currency by an unscrupulous press, rumors which would have us believe that the most elementary laws of humanity are trampled under foot by the enemy. Only the other day an Austrian friend wrote to me, maddened by the lies of some paper or other, to beg me to help the German wounded in France, who are left without any aid. And have I not heard or read the same unworthy fears expressed by Frenchmen as regards their wounded, who are said to be maltreated in Germany? But it is all a lie--on both sides; and those of us whose task it is to receive the true information from either camp must affirm the contrary. Speaking generally (for in so many thousands of cases one cannot, of course, be sure that there will not here and there be individual exceptions) this war, whose actual conduct has provoked a degree of harshness which our knowledge of previous wars in the West would not have allowed us to expect, is by contrast less cruel to all those--prisoners and wounded--who are put out of the battle line.

The letters that we receive and documents already published--especially an interesting account which appeared in the _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ of October 18th, written by Dr. Schneeli, who had just been visiting the hospitals and prisoners' camps in Germany--show that in that country efforts are being made to reconcile the ideals of humanity with the exigencies of war. They make it clear that there is no difference between the care bestowed by the Germans on their own wounded and those of the enemy, and that friendly relations exist between the prisoners and their guards, who all share the same food.

I could wish that a similar inquiry might be made and published on the camps where German prisoners are concentrated in France. In the meantime accounts which reach me from individuals disclose a similar situation,[18] and there is plenty of reliable evidence that in Germany and France alike the wounded of both countries are living in terms of friendship. There are even soldiers who refuse to have their wounds dressed or receive their rations before their comrades the enemy have received similar attention. And who knows if it is not perhaps in the ranks of the contending armies that the feelings of national hatred are least violent? For there one learns to appreciate the courage of one's adversaries, since the same sufferings are common to all, and since where all energy is directed towards action there is none left for personal animosity. It is amongst those who are not actively engaged that there is developed the harsh and implacable brand of hatred, of which certain intellectuals provide terrible examples.

The moral situation of the military prisoner is therefore not so overwhelming as might be imagined, and his lot, sad as it is, is less to be pitied than that of another class of prisoners of whom I shall speak later. The feeling of duty accomplished, the memory of the struggle, glorifies his misfortune in his own eyes, and even in those of the enemy. He is not totally abandoned to the foe; international conventions protect him; the Red Cross watches over him, and it is possible to discover where he is and to come to his assistance.

In this work the admirable _Agence internationale des prisonniers de guerre_, most providentially established some two months after the commencement of the war, has caused the name of Geneva to be known and blessed in the most remote corners of France and Germany. It only needs, like Providence itself, to gain the co-operation of those over whose interests it watches, that is to say, of the States concerned which have been somewhat slow in supplying the lists we need. Under the ægis of the International Committee of the Red Cross, with M. Gustave Ador as president and M. Max Dollfus as director, some 300 voluntary workers, drawn from all classes of society, are assisting in its charitable work. More than 15,000 letters a day pass through its hands. It daily transmits about 7,000 letters between prisoners and their families, and is responsible for the safe dispatch of some 4,000 francs on an average. The precise information which it is able to communicate was very meager at the start, but soon increased, until a thousand cases could be dealt with in the course of a single day; and this number rapidly increased with the arrival of more complete lists from the Governments concerned.

This renewal of intercourse between a prisoner and his family is not the only beneficial result of our organization. Its peaceful work, its impartial knowledge of the actual facts in the belligerent countries, contribute to modify the hatred which wild stories have exasperated, and to reveal what remains of humanity in the most envenomed enemy. It can also draw the attention of the different Governments, or at least of the general public, to cases where a speedy understanding would be in the interest of both parties--as, for instance, in the exchange of men who are so seriously wounded that they will be quite unable to take further part in the war, and whom it is useless and inhuman to keep languishing far from their friends. Finally, it can effectively direct public generosity, which often hesitates for want of guidance. It can, for instance, point out to neutral countries, who are so ungrudging in their anxiety to aid the sufferings of the combatants, where help is most urgently needed--for the wounded prisoners, convalescents leaving the hospital without linen or boots, and with no claims on the enemy for further support.[19]

Instead of showering gifts (which, no doubt, are never superfluous) on the armies who can and should be supported by the peoples for whom they are fighting, neutrals might well reserve the greater part of their generosity for those who are most destitute, those whose need is the greatest, for they are feeble, broken, and alone.

* * * * *

But there is another class of prisoners on whom I would like interest to be specially concentrated, for their situation is far more precarious, unprotected as they are by any international convention. These are the civil prisoners. They are one of the innovations of this unbridled war, which seems to have set itself to violate all the rights of humanity. In former wars it was only a question of a few hostages arrested here and there as a guarantee of good faith for the pledge of some conquered town. Never until now had one heard of populations taken bodily into captivity on the model of ancient conquests--a custom actively revived since the beginning of this war. Such a contingency not having been foreseen, no conventions existed to regulate the situation in the laws of war, if the words have any meaning. And as it would have been awkward to formulate fresh laws in the midst of the struggle, it seemed more simple to overlook them. It has been as though these unfortunates did not exist.

But they do exist, and in thousands. Their number seems about equal on both sides. Which of the belligerents took the initiative in these captures? At present certainty is impossible. It seems clear that in the second half of July Germany ordered the arrest of a number of Alsatian civilians. To this France replied the day after her mobilization by declaring prisoners Germans and Austrians then to be found on her territory. The casting of this vast net was followed by similar action in Germany and Austria, though, perhaps, with less result. The conquest of Belgium and the invasion of the North of France brought about a redoubling of these measures aggravated by violence. The Germans, on retiring after their defeat on the Marne, methodically made a clean sweep in the towns and villages of Picardy and Flanders of all persons capable of bearing arms--500 men at Douai, at Amiens 1,800 summoned before the citadel on some apparently harmless pretext, and carried off without even the possibility of returning for a change of clothes.

In many cases the captures had not even the excuse of military utility. In the village of Sompuis (Marne) on September 10th, the Saxons seized a helpless village priest of seventy-three, scarcely able to walk, and five old men of ages from sixty to seventy, one of whom was lame, and took them away on foot. Elsewhere women and children are taken, happy if they can remain together. Here a husband, mad with grief, searches for his wife and son aged three, who have disappeared since the Germans passed through Quièvrechain (Nord). There it is a mother and her children taken by the French near Guebwiller; the children were sent back, but not the mother. A French captain, wounded by the bursting of a shell, saw his wife also wounded by German bullets at Nomêny (Meurthe-et-Moselle); since when she has disappeared, taken he does not know where. An old peasant woman of sixty-three is taken away from her husband near Villers-aux-Vents (Meuse) by a company of Germans. A child of sixteen is seized at its mother's house at Mulhouse.