Part 31

We have violated the alleged neutrality of Belgium in self-defense. On the other hand, the Japanese, egged on and supported by England, have violated the real neutrality of China from pure lust for robbery. For the three great powers allied against Germany and Austria have not been satisfied with their own nominal superiority of 220 millions against 110 millions! In addition to this they have urged on into war against us a Mongolian people, the most dangerous enemy of the white race and its culture. They have supplemented their armies by a motley collection of all the African negro tribes. They lead into battle against us Indian troops, and the Christian Germanic King of England prays to God for the victory of the heathen Hindus over his coreligionists and blood relatives. Americans, does your racial feeling, at other times so sensitive, remain silent in view of this unexampled shame? Do you accord to the English and the French, who are attacking us in co-operation with the Russians, the Servians, and the Montenegrins, who are dirtying themselves with a brotherhood in arms with the yellow skins, the brown skins, and the blacks, the right to declare themselves the representatives of civilization and us to be barbarians?

In order to drive home such evident absurdities, they were, of course, obliged to carry on the poisoning of the spring of information to the utmost, they had to suppress the news of the vile deeds of guerrillas and "snipers" in Belgium and of the Russian ghouls in East Prussia, that were crying to heaven, and to send out into the world instead fables of German brutality. Our national army, permeated with ethical seriousness and iron discipline, the scientist standing beside the farmer, the workman beside the artist, should be guilty of unnecessary severity, uncontrollable brutality, brutality against people unable to defend themselves? Do you believe that, Americans?

*The Charge of Vandalism.*

The climax of absurdity, however, is reached when the Germans, who in their love and appreciation of art are not surpassed by any people in the world, are accused of having raged as vandals against works of art. Even now these accusations, which the French Government itself had the pitiful courage to support, have proved totally groundless. The City Hall at Louvain stands uninjured; while the populace fired at them, our soldiers had, risking their own lives, saved it from the flames. An imperial art commission followed at the heels of our victorious troops in Belgium, in order to take charge of the guarding and administration of the treasures of art. The cathedral at Rheims has received but slight damage, and would not have been damaged at all had its tower not been misused by the French as an observation station. I should like to see the commander of an army who, for the sake of the safety of a historical monument, would forget the safety of the troops intrusted into his care!

Enough of it! What I have stated is sufficient to show what low weapons our enemies are using behind the battlefield to sully Germany's shield of honor. It is enough for those who care to listen at all. But, also, wherever the weak voice of one rebounds from ears stubbornly closed, the more powerful voice of truth eventually will force a more just verdict.

Justice--that is all that we expect from America. We respect its neutrality; we do not ask from it an ideal partisanship for our benefit. If it does not have for us the sympathy which we have already extended to it and, after a century and a half of unclouded intercourse between the two nations, have anticipated there, then we cannot imbue it with that spirit by reasoning. Furthermore, in the existence of nations sympathy is not the deciding factor, and every nation should be rebuked which out of regard for sympathy would in decisive matters act against its own interests. But just for that very reason one more question must be raised. In the present conflict, which momentarily almost splits the entire world into two camps, where do the interests of America lie?

That they are not lying on the side of Russia probably is self-evident. No free American can find desirable a further extension of the Russian world empire and of Russian despotism at the expense of Germany. But how about a country from which once America had to wrest its own liberty in bloody battle? How about England? Where, if England should succeed in downing Germany, would her eyes next be pointed? Has she not herself admitted that she is making war on us principally because she sees in us an uncomfortable competitor in trade? And which competitor would be the next one after us that would become awkward to the trust on the Thames? Yes, have they not already hauled off for the smash against America, when Japan is given opportunity to increase her power--the same Japan with whom America sooner or later will be bound to have an accounting and whose victory over us would make that accounting a great deal more difficult for the United States?

Germany's fate certainly does not depend upon the friendly or unfriendly feeling of America. It will be decided solely upon the European battlefields. But because we are looking out from the night to a future dawn, because in the midst of our national need the cause of humanity is close to our heart, for these reasons it is not immaterial to us how the greatest neutral nation of culture thinks of us. Americans, the cable between us has been cut. It is our wish and our hope that the stronger band that unites American ideals with German ideals shall not also be cut.

*To the Civilized World*

*By Professors of Germany.*

As representatives of German science and art, we hereby protest to the civilized world against the lies and calumnies with which our enemies are endeavoring to stain the honor of Germany in her hard struggle for existence--in a struggle which has been forced upon her.

The iron mouth of events has proved the untruth of the fictitious German defeats, consequently misrepresentation and calumny are all the more eagerly at work. As heralds of truth we raise our voices against these.

_It is not true_ that Germany is guilty of having caused this war. Neither the people, the Government, nor the Kaiser wanted war. Germany did her utmost to prevent it; for this assertion the world has documental proof. Often enough during the twenty-six years of his reign has Wilhelm II. shown himself to be the upholder of peace, and often enough has this fact been acknowledged by our opponents. Nay, even the Kaiser they now dare to call an Attila has been ridiculed by them for years, because of his steadfast endeavors to maintain universal peace. Not till a numerical superiority which had been lying in wait on the frontiers assailed us did the whole nation rise to a man.

_It is not true_ that we trespassed in neutral Belgium. It has been proved that France and England had resolved on such a trespass, and it has likewise been proved that Belgium had agreed to their doing so. It would have been suicide on our part not to have been beforehand.

_It is not true_ that the life and property of a single Belgian citizen was injured by our soldiers without the bitterest self-defense having made it necessary; for again and again, notwithstanding repeated threats, the citizens lay in ambush, shooting at the troops out of the houses, mutilating the wounded, and murdering in cold blood the medical men while they were doing their Samaritan work. There can be no baser abuse than the suppression of these crimes with the view of letting the Germans appear to be criminals, only for having justly punished these assassins for their wicked deeds.

_It is not true_ that our troops treated Louvain brutally. Furious inhabitants having treacherously fallen upon them in their quarters, our troops with aching hearts were obliged to fire a part of the town as a punishment. The greatest part of Louvain has been preserved. The famous Town Hall stands quite intact; for at great self-sacrifice our soldiers saved it from destruction by the flames. Every German would of course greatly regret if in the course of this terrible war any works of art should already have been destroyed or be destroyed at some future time, but inasmuch as in our great love for art we cannot be surpassed by any other nation, in the same degree we must decidedly refuse to buy a German defeat at the cost of saving a work of art.

_It is not true_ that our warfare pays no respect to international laws. It knows no indisciplined cruelty. But in the east the earth is saturated with the blood of women and children unmercifully butchered by the wild Russian troops, and in the west dumdum bullets mutilate the breasts of our soldiers. Those who have allied themselves with Russians and Servians, and present such a shameful scene to the world as that of inciting Mongolians and negroes against the white race, have no right whatever to call themselves upholders of civilization.

_It is not true_ that the combat against our so-called militarism is not a combat against our civilization, as our enemies hypocritically pretend it is. Were it not for German militarism German civilization would long since have been extirpated. For its protection it arose in a land which for centuries had been plagued by bands of robbers as no other land had been. The German Army and the German people are one and today this consciousness fraternizes 70,000,000 of Germans, all ranks, positions, and parties being one.

We cannot wrest the poisonous weapon--the lie--out of the hands of our enemies. All we can do is to proclaim to all the world that our enemies are giving false witness against us. You, who know us, who with us have protected the most holy possessions of man, we call to you:

Have faith in us! Believe that we shall carry on this war to the end as a civilized nation, to whom the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant is just as sacred as its own hearths and homes.

For this we pledge you our names and our honor:

ADOLF VON BAEYER, Professor of Chemistry, Munich.

Prof. PETER BEHRENS, Berlin.

EMIL VON BEHRING, Professor of Medicine, Marburg.

WILHELM VON BODE, General Director of the Royal Museums, Berlin.

ALOIS BRANDL, Professor, President of the Shakespeare Society, Berlin.

LUJU BRENTANO, Professor of National Economy, Munich.

Prof. JUSTUS BRINKMANN, Museum Director, Hamburg.

JOHANNES CONRAD, Professor of National Economy, Halle.

FRANZ VON DEFREGGER, Munich.

RICHARD DEHMEL, Hamburg.

ADOLF DEITZMANN, Professor of Theology, Berlin.

Prof. WILHELM DOERPFELD, Berlin.

FRIEDRICH VON DUHN, Professor of Archaeology, Heidelberg.

Prof. PAUL EHRLICH, Frankfort on the Main.

ALBERT EHRHARD, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Strassburg.

KARL ENGLER, Professor of Chemistry, Karlsruhe.

GERHARD ESSER, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Bonn.

RUDOLF EUCKEN, Professor of Philosophy, Jena.

HERBERT EULENBERG, Kaiserswerth.

HEINRICH FINKE, Professor of History, Freiburg.

EMIL FISCHER, Professor of Chemistry, Berlin.

WILHELM FOERSTER, Professor of Astronomy, Berlin.

LUDWIG FULDA, Berlin.

EDUARD VON GEBHARDT, Dusseldorf.

J.J. DE GROOT, Professor of Ethnography, Berlin.

FRITZ HABER, Professor of Chemistry, Berlin.

ERNST HAECKEL, Professor of Zoology, Jena.

MAX HALBE, Munich.

Prof. ADOLF VON HARNACK, General Director of the Royal Library, Berlin.

GERHART HAUPTMANN, Agnetendorf.

KARL, HAUPTMANN, Schreiberhau.

GUSTAV HELLMANN, Professor of Meteorology, Berlin.

WILHELM HERRMANN, Professor of Protestant Theology, Marburg.

ANDREAS HEUSLER, Professor of Northern Philology, Berlin.

ADOLF VON HILDEBRAND, Munich.

LUDWIG HOFFMANN, City Architect. Berlin.

ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK, Berlin.

LEOPOLD GRAF KALCKREUTH, President of the German Confederation of Artists, Eddelsen.

ARTHUR KAMPF, Berlin.

FRITZ AUG. VON KAULBACH, Munich.

THEODOR KIPP, Professor of Jurisprudence, Berlin.

FELIX KLEIN, Professor of Mathematics, Goettingen.

MAX KLINGER, Leipsic.

ALOIS KNOEPFLER, Professor of History of Art, Munich.

ANTON KOCH, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Münster.

PAUL LABAND, Professor of Jurisprudence, Strassburg.

KARL LEMPRECHT, Professor of History, Leipsic.

PHILIPP LENARD, Professor of Physics, Heidelberg.

MAX LENZ, Professor of History, Hamburg.

MAX LIEBERMANN, Berlin.

FRANZ VON LISZT, Professor of Jurisprudence, Berlin.

LUDWIG MANZEL, President of the Academy of Arts, Berlin.

JOSEF MAUSBACH, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Münster.

GEORG VON MAYR, Professor of Political Sciences, Munich.

SEBASTIAN MERKLE, Professor of Roman Catholic Theology, Wurzburg.

EDUARD MEYER, Professor of History, Berlin.

HEINRICH MORF, Professor of Roman Philology, Berlin.

FRIEDRICH NAUMANN, Berlin.

ALBERT NEISSER, Professor of Medicine, Breslau.

WALTER NERNST, Professor of Physics, Berlin.

WILHELM OSTWALD, Professor of Chemistry, Leipsic.

BRUNO PAUL, Director of School for Applied Arts, Berlin.

MAX PLANCK, Professor of Physics, Berlin.

ALBERT PLEHN, Professor of Medicine, Berlin.

GEORG REICKE, Berlin.

Prof. MAX REINHARDT, Director of the German Theatre, Berlin.

ALOIS RIEHL, Professor of Philosophy, Berlin.

KARL ROBERT, Professor of Archaeology, Halle.

WILHELM ROENTGEN, Professor of Physics, Munich.

MAX RUBNER, Professor of Medicine, Berlin.

FRITZ SCHAPER, Berlin.

ADOLF VON SCHLATTER, Professor of Protestant Theology, Tubingen.

AUGUST SCHMIDLIN, Professor of Sacred History, Münster.

GUSTAV VON SCHMOLLER, Professor of National Economy, Berlin.

FRANZ VON STUCK, Munich.

REINHOLD SEEBERG, Professor of Protestant Theology, Berlin.

MARTIN SPAHN, Professor of History, Strassburg.

HERMANN SUDERMANN, Berlin.

HANS THOMA, Karlsruhe.

WILHELM TRUEBNER, Karlsruhe.

KARL VOLLMOELLER, Stuttgart.

RICHARD VOTZ, Berchtesgaden.

KARL VOTZLER, Professor of Roman Philology, Munich.

SIEGFRIED WAGNER, Baireuth.

WILHELM WALDEYER, Professor of Anatomy, Berlin.

AUGUST VON WASSERMANN, Professor of Medicine, Berlin.

FELIX VON WEINGARTNER.

THEODOR WIEGAND, Museum Director, Berlin.

WILHELM WIEN, Professor of Physics, Wurzburg.

ULRICH VON WILAMOWITZ-MOELLEN-DORFF, Professor of Philology, Berlin.

RICHARD WILLSTAETTER, Professor of Chemistry, Berlin.

WILHELM WINDELBAND, Professor of Philosophy, Heidelberg.

WILHELM WUNDT, Professor of Philosophy, Leipsic,

*Appeal of the German Universities*

The campaign of systematic lies and slander which has been carried on against the German people and empire for years has since the outbreak of the war surpassed everything with which one might have credited even the most unscrupulous press. To repudiate any charges raised against our Kaiser and his Government rests with the authorities in question. They have done so, and their defense is substantiated by striking proofs. He who wants to know the truth can learn it, and we trust that truth will prevail. But if we are to look on, when our enemies, guided by envy and malice, are shameless enough to charge our army and with it our whole nation with barbarous atrocities and senseless vandalism, and when their statements appear to be believed, to a certain extent, among neutrals and in places which, at other times, were well disposed toward us; if we are quietly to look on when all this happens, we, the appointed trustees of culture and education in our Fatherland, feel in duty bound to break the reserve which our calling and position impose on us with a strong expression of protest. Hence we now appeal to the learned bodies with whom we hitherto worked in common in the interests of the highest ideals of the human race and with whom, even at this time, when hatred and passion rule the world and confuse the minds of men, we hope to remain of the same mind, in the same service of truth. We appeal to them in the confident belief that our voice will find hearing, and that the expression of our honest indignation will meet with credence. Moreover, we appeal to the love of truth and to the sense of justice of the many thousands all over the world who, being welcome guests in our educational institutions, have taken part in the inheritance of German culture, and who thus have had an opportunity of watching and appreciating the German people in peaceful labor, their industry and uprightness, their sense of order and discipline, their reverence for intellectual work of every kind, and their profound love for sciences and arts. All of you who know that our army is no mercenary host but embraces the entire nation from first to last, that it is led by the country's best sons, and that, at this very hour, thousands from our midst, teachers as well as students, are shedding their life's blood as officers and soldiers on the battlefields of Russia and France; you who have seen and heard for yourselves in what spirit and with what success our youths are treated and taught, and that nothing is stamped upon their minds more deeply than reverence and admiration for artistic, scientific and technical creations of the human mind, no matter what country and nation brought them forth; we call upon you who know all this as witnesses, whether it can be true what our enemies report that the German Army is a horde of barbarians and a band of incendiaries who take pleasure in leveling defenseless cities to the ground and in destroying venerable monuments of history and art. If you wish to pay honor to the cause of truth you will be as firmly convinced as we are that German troops, wherever they had to do destructive work, could only have done so in the bitterness of defensive warfare. But we appeal to all those whom the slanderous reports of our enemies reach and who are not yet altogether blinded by passion, in the name of truth and justice, to shut their ears to such insults to the German people, and not allow themselves to be prejudiced by those who prove ever anew that they hope to be victorious by the instrumentality of lies. Now, if in this fearful war, in which our nation is compelled to fight not only for its power, but for its very existence and its entire civilization, the work of destruction should be greater than in former wars, and if many a precious achievement of culture falls to ruin, the responsibility for all this entirely rests with those who were not content with letting loose this ruthless war, nay, who did not even shrink from pressing murderous weapons upon a peaceful population for them to fall surreptitiously upon our troops who trusted in the observance of the military usages of all civilized peoples. They alone are the guilty authors of everything which happens here. Upon their heads the verdict of history will fall for the lasting injury which culture suffers.

September, 1914.

UNIVERSITIES.

Tuebingen, Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, Erlangen, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Giessen, Goettingen, Greifswald, Halle, Heidelberg, Jena, Kiel, Königsberg, Leipzig, Marburg, Muenchen, Münster, Rostock, Strassburg, Wuerzburg.

*Reply to the German Professors*

*By British Scholars.*

We see with regret the names of many German professors and men of science, whom we regard with respect and, in some cases, with personal friendship, appended to a denunciation of Great Britain so utterly baseless that we can hardly believe that it expresses their spontaneous or considered opinion. We do not question for a moment their personal sincerity when they express their horror of war and their zeal for "the achievements of culture." Yet we are bound to point out that a very different view of war, and of national aggrandizement based on the threat of war, has been advocated by such influential writers as Nietzsche, von Treitschke, von Bülow, and von Bernhardi, and has received widespread support from the press and from public opinion in Germany. This has not occurred, and in our judgment would scarcely be possible, in any other civilized country. We must also remark that it is German armies alone which have, at the present time, deliberately destroyed or bombarded such monuments of human culture as the Library at Louvain and the Cathedrals at Rheims and Malines.

*The Diplomatic Papers.*

No doubt it is hard for human beings to weigh justly their country's quarrels; perhaps particularly hard for Germans, who have been reared in an atmosphere of devotion to their Kaiser and his army; who are feeling acutely at the present hour, and who live under a Government which, we believe, does not allow them to know the truth. Yet it is the duty of learned men to make sure of their facts. The German "White Book" contains only some scanty and carefully explained selections from the diplomatic correspondence which preceded this war. And we venture to hope that our German colleagues will sooner or later do their best to get access to the full correspondence, and will form therefrom an independent judgment.

They will then see that, from the issue of the Austrian note to Servia onward, Great Britain, whom they accuse of causing this war, strove incessantly for peace, Her successive proposals were supported by France, Russia, and Italy, but, unfortunately, not by the one power which could by a single word at Vienna have made peace certain. Germany, in her own official defense--incomplete as that document is--does not pretend that she strove for peace; she only strove for "the localization of the conflict." She claimed that Austria should be left free to "chastise" Servia in whatever way she chose. At most she proposed that Austria should not annex a portion of Servian territory--a futile provision, since the execution of Austria's demand would have made the whole of Servia subject to her will.

Great Britain, like the rest of Europe, recognized that, whatever just grounds of complaint Austria may have had, the unprecedented terms of her note to Servia constituted a challenge to Russia and a provocation to war. The Austrian Emperor in his proclamation admitted that war was likely to ensue. The German "White Book" states in so many words: "We were perfectly aware that a possible warlike attitude of Austria-Hungary against Servia might bring Russia upon the field and therefore involve us in war. * * * We could not, however, * * * advise our ally to take a yielding attitude not compatible with his dignity." The German Government admits having known the tenor of the Austrian note beforehand, when it was concealed from all the other powers; admits backing it up after it was issued; admits that it knew the note was likely to precipitate war; and admits that, whatever professions it made to the other powers, in private it did not advise Austria to abate one jot of her demands. This, to our minds, is tantamount to admitting that Germany has, together with her unfortunate ally, deliberately provoked the present war.

One point we freely admit. Germany would very likely have preferred not to fight Great Britain at this moment. She would have preferred to weaken and humiliate Russia; to make Servia a dependent of Austria; to render France innocuous and Belgium subservient; and then, having established an overwhelming advantage, to settle accounts with Great Britain. Her grievance against us is that we did not allow her to do this.

*Britain's Love of Peace.*

So deeply rooted is Great Britain's love of peace, so influential among us are those who have labored through many difficult years to promote good feeling between this country and Germany, that, in spite of our ties of friendship with France, in spite of the manifest danger threatening ourselves, there was still, up to the last moment, a strong desire to preserve British neutrality, if it could be preserved without dishonor. But Germany herself made this impossible.