Chapter 19

My attention has been drawn to an article by H.G. Wells, published by THE NEW YORK TIMES and by CURRENT HISTORY in its March number which proposed that Holland give Germany the coup de grace, suddenly attack Aix and Cologne, cut off Germany's line of supplies, and thereby help win the war for the cause of justice. I am not writing this answer in any official capacity, but I have reason to believe that I write what most of my fellow-countrymen feel upon the subject.

Holland is neutral. The country is just as neutral as Belgium would have been had she not been invaded; as neutral as Denmark and Switzerland and the other small countries which are suffering so severely through this war. If any power should attack Holland, Holland would no longer be neutral, but would inundate the central part of the provinces of North and South Holland, would occupy the very strong position around Amsterdam, and would fight to the end. But unless attacked directly Holland will take no part in this war.

Mr. Wells hints at the idea of the righteousness of the cause of the Allies. All races and all colors have been brought together to beat Germany. Now Holland ought to do the same. She is in a position to exercise great power with her fresh troops. In the name of humanity, which has been so grievously maltreated in Belgium, let her join. I think that the answer of the greater part of our people would be somewhat as follows:

No quarrel was ever made by a single person. It takes two to start a fight. England and Germany are fighting for the supremacy of commerce. In the course of this quarrel Belgium has been sacrificed. We are extremely sorry. We have opened our frontiers to all of our southern neighbors, They were welcome to flee to us with all their belongings. We shall take care of them so long as they wish to stay. Our position is not always easy. The Dutch and the Belgian characters are very different. We do not always understand each other. But in the main the Belgians know that we shall share our food with them until the last, that in every way we shall make them as comfortable as we can. We are not a very graceful people. We often lack a certain charm of manner. The little potentates who are the Mayors of our small frontier towns are not always very tactful. But these things are minor matters. Holland is the natural place of refuge for her southern neighbors, and as long as they suffer from the German domination they know that with us they are safe. But should we have gone with the Allies when the Belgians suffered through no fault of their own?

For France there is in Holland the greatest personal sympathy. But she is far away from Holland. The direct issue is between England and Germany. The Hollander likes England, fashions his life as much as possible after the English pattern, prefers to do business with English people. Yet is there any reason why Holland should make the possible sacrifice of her own existence for the benefit of England?

Will Mr. Wells kindly glance through his history and see what we as a nation have suffered at the hands of England?

During three centuries we fought with England about a principle laid down by Grotius of Delft. We claimed that the sea was an open highway, free to all navigators. England used her best legal talent to prove the contrary. In this struggle we exhausted ourselves and we finally lost. Incidentally we saw our richest colonies go into the possession of England. The very colony in which I am writing this letter was taken from us in time of peace. Of course all this is past history and no Hollander is going to accuse an Englishman of acts committed by his great-grandfather. But the people will remember all those things, however vaguely, and they will distrust the nation that has constantly done them harm. We gave England her best King, (if one is to believe Mr. Macaulay.) William III. in order to destroy the power of Louis XIV., and greatly for the benefit of England incidentally, did the greatest harm to the country of his origin. After 1715, totally exhausted, we were obliged to see how England got ahead of us.

Then there are some other small items. I take one at random. While the Duke of Wellington danced the polka in Brussels the Prince of Orange with a small Dutch army stopped Napoleon's progress at Quatre Bras, and by disobeying the orders of the British commander saved the army of the allies and made the victory of Waterloo possible. Our thanks for this self-sacrifice was the mild abuse of Mr. Thackeray and other gentlemen who have ever since laughed at the clumsy Dutch troops who in truth so valiantly assisted the British and Prussians. In this matter a little more generosity on the part of British historians would have made us feel more cordial toward our English neighbors. It was ever thus. To read the story of the Armada one would believe that the English destroyed this dangerous Spanish fleet. As a matter of fact, competent historians know that certainly one-half of the glory for that feat goes to the Dutch sailors, who prevented the Spaniards from getting their supplies, their pilots, and their auxiliary army. These are merely examples. They are all small things. But there are so many of them, they return with such persistent regularity, that we would feel very little inclination to risk our national existence for a nation which, according to our feeling, (rightly or wrongly, I am not debating that question,) has never treated us with fairness, and which we had to fight for over three centuries before it would accept those general principles of international law which first of all were laid down by Grotius in the beginning of the seventeenth century.

Remember, however, that this does not mean any hostility to England. Mr. Wells undoubtedly knows that our ships have invariably done noble work in rescuing the victims of submarine attacks. He will know that our Government (to the great anger of Germany) has construed the articles of several international treaties in the most liberal way and has immediately released all such British subjects as were thrown upon our coast through the accidents of war. He will also know, if he has read the papers, that our entire country has turned out to do homage to the bravery of those men. The danger to the sailor of a British man-of-war who lands in Holland is that he will be killed by a severe attack of nicotine poisoning caused by the cigars which the people, in their desire to show their feelings and unable to break the strict law of neutrality, shower upon the Englishman who is fished out of the North Sea by our trawlers or our steamers.

But away deep under this very strong personal sympathy for England, and with very sincere admiration for the British form of government, the people of Holland cannot easily overcome a feeling of vague distrust that the nation which in the past has so often abused them cannot entirely be counted upon to treat them justly this time. Incidentally, I may say that the bungling of Mr. Churchill in Antwerp, which we know much better than do the people of England, is another reason why we are a bit afraid of the island across the North Sea.

We are indeed in the position of a dog that has often been beaten innocently and that is now smiled upon and asked to be good and attack another person who has never done him any harm. The comparison may not be very flattering to us, but Mr. Wells will understand what I mean. We have had the Germans with us always. Personally, taking them by and large, we like them not. Their ways are not our ways. Our undisciplined race abhors their system. We have seen the misery which they caused in Belgium more closely than any one else. The endless letters and pamphlets with which the Germans have inundated our land to prove the justice of their cause have made no impression whatsoever. We have with our own eyes seen the victims of their very strict explanation of Section 58, Article I., of the German military penal code. We have seen the Belgians hanging by their own red handkerchiefs, and we have with our own hands fed the multitude that had been deprived of everything. On the other hand, Germany has up to date been most scrupulous in her behavior toward us. In the past she has never done us any harm. We may not like her, but she has in a very careful way avoided all friction and has treated us with great consideration.

In view of all this, in view of the very sober attitude of our people upon all matters of our daily life, in view of these historical reflections, which have a very decided influence, would it be quite fair without any provocation on the side of Germany to go forth and attack her in the back, now that she is in such very dangerous straits? I repeat that this may not be the exact sentiment of all of my countrymen, but I believe that very many of us feel things that way. Perhaps we disagree in minor details, but we agree about the main issue.

We love our country. For centuries we have fought to maintain our individual civilization against the large neighbors who surround us. We try to live up to our good reputation as a home for all those who suffer. The people who are made homeless by Germany come to us and we try to feed them on such grain as the British Government allows to pass through the Channel. We try to continue in our duty toward all our neighbors, even when they declare the entire North Sea (in which we also have a certain interest) as a place of battle and blow up our ships with their mines. We patiently destroy the mines which swim away from our neighbors' territorial waters and land upon our shores. In short, we perform a very difficult act of balancing as well as we can. But it seems to us that under difficult circumstances we are following the only correct road which can lead to the ultimate goal which we wish to reach--the lasting respect of all those who will judge us without prejudice and malice.

It is very kind of Mr. Wells to offer us territorial compensation, but we respectfully decline such a reward for the sort of attack which was popular in the days of the old Machiavelli.

HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON.

New York, Feb. 26, 1915.

Hungary After the War

By a Correspondent of The London Times

[From The London Times, Jan. 20, 1915.]

The allied powers are agreed that the European resettlement must be inspired by the principle of nationality. It will be but just if Hungary suffers severely from its application, for during the past forty years no European Government has sinned so deeply and persistently against that principle as has her Magyar Government. The old Hungary, whose name and history are surrounded by the glamour of romance, was not the modern "Magyarland." Its boasted constitutional liberties were, indeed, confined to the nobles, and the "Hungarian people" was composed, in the words of Verböczy's Tripartitum Code, of "prelates, barons, and other magnates, also all nobles, but not commoners." But the nobles of all Hungarian races rallied to the Hungarian banner, proud of the title of civis hungaricus. John Hunyádi, the national hero, was a Rumane; Zrinyi was a Croat, and many another paladin of Hungarian liberty was a non-Magyar. Latin was the common language of the educated. But with the substitution of Magyar for Latin during the nineteenth century, and with the growth of what is called the "Magyar State Idea," with its accompaniment of Magyar Chauvinism, all positive recognition of the rights and individuality of non-Magyar races gradually vanished.

The Magyar language itself is incapable of expressing the difference between "Hungarian" and "Magyar." The difference is approximately the same as between "British" and "English." The "Magyar State" set itself to Magyarize education and every feature of public life. Any protest was treated as "incitement against the Magyar State Idea" and was made punishable by two years' imprisonment. It was as though a narrow-minded English Administration should set itself to obliterate all traces of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish national feeling; or as though the Government of India should ignore the existence of all save one race and language in our great dependency.

In comparison with the Government of "Magyarland," the Government of Austria was a model of tolerance. In Austria, Poles and Ruthenes, Czechs, Germans, Italians, Serbo-Croatians, and Slovenes were entitled to the public use of their own languages and enjoyed various degrees of provincial self-government. The Austrian side of every Austro-Hungarian banknote bore an indication of its value in every language of the empire, whereas the Hungarian side was printed in Magyar alone. This was done in order to foster the belief that Hungary was entirely Magyar.

In reality, Hungary is as polyglot as Austria. Exact statistics are not obtainable, since the Magyar census returns have long been deliberately falsified for "Magyar State" reasons. Roughly speaking, it may, however, be said that, in Hungary proper, i.e., exclusive of Croatia-Slavonia, where the population is almost entirely Serbo-Croatian, there are perhaps 8,500,000 Magyars, including nearly 1,000,000 professing and a large number of baptized Jews. Against this total there are more than 2,000,000 Germans, including the numerous colonies on the Austrian border, the Swabians of the south, and the Saxons of Transylvania; more than 2,000,000 Slovaks, who inhabit chiefly the northwestern counties; between three and four million Rumanes, living between the Theiss and the Eastern Carpathians; some 500,000 Ruthenes, or Little Russians, who inhabit the northeastern counties; some 600,000 Serbs and Croats in the central southern counties; 100,000 Slovenes along the borders of Styria and Carinthia; and some 200,000 other non-Magyars, including about 90,000 gypsies, who speak a language of their own. Taking the population of Hungary proper at 18,000,000, the Magyars are thus in a minority, which becomes more marked when Croatia-Slavonia with its population of 2,600,000 southern Slavs is added.

It would have been possible for the Magyars, after the restoration of the Hungarian Constitution under the Dual Settlement of 1867, to have built up a strong and elastic Transleithan polity based on the recognition of race individualities and equality of political rights for all. The non-Magyars would have accepted Magyar leadership the more readily in that they had been dragooned and oppressed by Austria during the period of reaction after 1849 as ruthlessly as the Magyars themselves. Deák and Eötvös, who were the last prominent Magyar public men with a Hungarian, as distinguished from a narrowly Magyar, conception of the future of their country, pleaded indeed for fair treatment of the non-Magyars, and trusted to the attractive force of the strong Magyar nucleus to settle automatically the question of precedence in the State. But in 1875, when Koloman Tisza, the father of Count Stephen Tisza, took office, these wise counsels were finally and definitely rejected in favor of what Baron Bánffy afterward defined as "national Chauvinism." Magyarization became the watchword of the State and persecution its means of action. Koloman Tisza concluded with the monarch a tacit pact under which the Magyar Government was to be left free to deal as it pleased with the non-Magyars as long as it supplied without wincing the recruits and the money required for the joint army. The Magyar Parliament became almost exclusively representative of the Magyar minority of the people. Out of the 413 constituencies of Hungary proper more than 400 were compelled, by pressure, bribery, and gerrymandering, to return Magyar or Jewish Deputies. The press and the banks fell entirely into Jewish hands, and the Magyarized Jews became the most vociferous of the "national Chauvinists."

Nothing like it has been seen before or since--save the Turkish revolution of 1908, when the Young Turks, under Jewish influence, broke away from the relatively tolerant methods of the old régime and adopted the system of forcible "Turkification" that led to the Albanian insurrections of 1910-12, to the formation of the Balkan League, and to the overthrow of Turkey in Europe.

The bitter fruits of the policy of Magyarization are now ripening. The oppressed Rumanes look not toward Austria, as in the old days when their great Bishop Siaguna made them a stanch prop of the Hapsburg dynasty, but across the Carpathians to Bucharest; the Serbo-Croatians of Hungary, Croatia-Slavonia, and Dalmatia, whose economic and political development the Magyars have deliberately hampered, turn their eyes no longer, as in the days of Jellatchich, toward Vienna, but await wistfully the coming of the Serbian liberators; the Ruthenes of the northeast hear the tramp of the Russian armies; the Slovaks of the northwest watch with dull expectancy for the moment when, united with their Slovak kinsmen of Moravia and their cousins, the Czechs of Bohemia, they shall form part of an autonomous Slav province stretching from the Elbe to the Danube. For the Magyars, who have thrown to the winds the wisdom of the wisest men, fate may reserve the possession of the fertile and well-watered Central Hungarian plain. There they may thrive in modesty and rue at their leisure the folly of having sacrificed their chance of national greatness to the vain pursuit of the "Magyar State Idea" under the demoralizing influence of Austro-German imperialism.

THE WATCHERS OF THE TROAD

By HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN

Where Ilium's towers once rose and stretched her plain, What forms, beneath the late moon's doubtful beam, Half living, half of moonlit vapor, seem? Surely here stand apart the kingly twain, Here Ajax looms, and Hector grasps the rein, Here Helen's fatal beauty darts a gleam, Andromache's love here shines o'er death supreme. To them, while wave-borne thunders roll amain From Samos unto Ida, Calchas, seer Of all that shall be, speaks: "Not the world's end Is this, but end of our old world of strife, Which, lasting until now, shall perish here. Henceforth shall men strive but as friend and friend Out of this death to rear a new world's life."

The Union of Central Europe

An Argument in Favor of a Union of the States Now Allied With Germany

By Franz von Liszt

Professor Franz von Liszt, author of the following article, is Director of the Criminal Law Seminar of the University of Berlin, and is regarded as one of the leading experts on criminal law in Germany. The article was published in the Neue Badische Landes-Zeitung of Mannheim, and evoked bitter criticism from many imperialistic quarters in the German press.

When new directions of development are first taken in history, it usually requires the lapse of several decades before we understand them in their true importance, and it takes much longer before proper terms describing them are adopted generally. In the interim, misconceptions of all kinds are the necessary consequence of clouded perception and confused terminology, especially when, for purposes of party politics, there figures in a greater or less degree a certain unwillingness to understand.

Such misunderstandings are not devoid of danger in times of peace; they may become pregnant with fate when, as in our day, the leading nations of the earth stand at the threshhold of a great change in their history. I am anxious, therefore, to defend against objections raised with more or less intentional misunderstanding the thoughts which I expressed in my recently published essay, "A Central European Union of States as the Next Goal of German Foreign Policy."

Let us for once put aside the word "Imperialism." Surely we are all agreed as one that it is an absolute essential of life for the German Empire to carry on world-politics, (Weltpolitik.) We have been engaged in that since the eighties of the nineteenth century. The first colonial possessions which the German Empire obtained were the fruits of a striving for world-politics that had not yet at that time come to full and clear consciousness.

But, conscious of our goal, we did not attempt the paths of world-politics until the end of the last century. At the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the German Empire, on Jan. 18, 1896, our Kaiser uttered the words: "The German Empire has become a world empire, (Aus dem deutschen Reich ist ein Weltreich geworden.)" And the German Empire's groping for its way in world-politics found its expression in the first naval proposal of Tirpitz in the year 1898.

At that time the Imperial Chancellor Prince Hohenlohe expressly designated the policy of the German Empire as "world politics." Thereby a goal was sketched for the development of the German Empire. We have not lost sight of it since then, keeping unconfused despite many an illusion and many a failure. And today we all live in the firm faith that the world war, which we are determined to bring to a victorious conclusion by the exertion of all our forces as a people, will bring us the safe guarantee for the attainment of our goal in world politics.

On that score, then, there is absolutely no difference of opinion. But there does appear to be considerable difference of opinion as to the conception of world politics. Under that name one may mean a policy directed toward world domination (Weltherrschaft.) For that kind of world politics the word "Imperialism," borrowed from the period of Roman world domination of the second century of the Christian era, fits precisely.

Imperialism aims, directly or indirectly, through peaceful or forceful annexation or economic exploitation, to make the whole inhabited earth subject to its sway. Imperialistic is the policy of Great Britain, which has subjected one-fifth of the inhabited area of the earth to its sway and knows no bounds to the expansion of English rule. Imperialistic, too, is the policy of Russia, which for centuries has been extending its huge tentacles toward the Atlantic and toward the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans, never sated.

Such world domination has never endured permanently; it can endure least of all in our days, in which an array of mighty armed powers stand prepared to guard their independence. World domination sooner or later leads inevitably to an alliance of the States whose independence is threatened; and thereby it leads to the overthrow of the disturber of the peace. That, as we all confidently hope, will be the fate of England as well as of Russia in the present war....

World politics, however, may mean something else; policies based upon world value, (Weltgeltung.) The policy based on world domination differs from that based on world value, in that the former denies the equal rights of other States, while the latter makes that its premise. The State that asserts its rights to world values demands for itself what it concedes to the others: its right to expand and develop its political and economic influence, and to have a voice in the discussion whenever the political or economical relations of the various States at any point in the inhabited globe approach a state of change....

In this sense has the German Empire heretofore engaged in world politics in contrast with Russia and England. That it cannot be carried on successfully without overseas colonies, a strong foreign fleet, naval bases, and telegraphic connections through cable or wireless telegraph apparatus, needs no further elucidation. For this sort of world politics also the name "Imperialism" may be used. But such use of the word is misleading; I shall therefore hereafter avoid it.