AFTER 48 YEARS

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 203, 16 May 1918, Page 6

AFTER 48 YEARS

PROPHECY THAT CAME TRUE

FREDERIC HARRISON'S

FORESIGHT

,J" [ t <I, "' k d ?.vs of November, 187t attei the surrender of Metz ,-,ml of tli. Mmiee of Napoleon 111 and of Bazainc there appeared in an English review , prediction of the inevitable course o lrussian militarism. The war of 187' TiSfJJ 0 ' 3 ,et . oTer . for Trochu, witl mm men m arms, was etill holdini out in Pans, and the Bopublican Gov eminent was still at Tou.re with eevcra jinnies in the Hold. .The fact that hos mines were in progress, ami no deeisio; had yet been vouched, makes more re markable the prophecy- of the distill flushed writer Frederic Harrison, wli incorporated liis essay of foresight ii Ins volume, "National nnd Social Prol: icms." Nor did this .blistering criticisn c-nino from eoine envious enemy landEngland was Prussia's traditional i'rieni and ally, and was l.ho old-timo foe o beaten France. What is Prussia? Mr Harrison asked, and answered the- ques tion himself bjr defininsr the PriKsiai Monarchy as "i.he creation of war." It history, traditions, ideals are sinipi; those of war, and it is the eole Euro pcan kingdom -which has been built u on the battlefield, "cemented etone b; stone in blood." Its kings have beei soldiers, sometimes generals, sometime drill sergeants, but ever soldiers, am "its people are a drilled nation of sol diers on furlough; its sovereign i simply commander-in-chief; its aris tocracy are simply officers of Hip staff its capital is a camp." Nowhere ii Europe, he wrote, had the military tra dition and ideal been sustained in si unbroken a chain, and he proceeded:— What, for the last generation, ha been the history of the monarchy o 1 Frederick in its international relations Two wars of conquest against Denm.v-k a war of conquest against Southern Gev many; bullying Switzerlandj bully-in; Holland; oppression in Schleswig; op pression in Posen; oppression in Han over, Saxony, Frankfort, Hamburg. » quite forgot that that history cf the de etruction of Hie old German Confedera tion is a perfect issue of violence ant fraud. Spoliation more arrogant, chi canery more shameless have never beei seen in Europe in modern times. Unhappily this gospel of the sword hai sunk deeper into the entire Prussiai peopie than any other in Europe. Tin social system being that of an army and each citizen drilled wan by man 'iiero is (out of the working class) m eign of national conscience in this mal tcr. And tho servile temper begottei bv this eternal drill inclines a whol nation to repeat, as by word of com mand, sophisms which the -hiefs ot lti stuff put into their mouths. ... . We hear much of the Napoleons legend. But there is such a thing a: Ue Hohenzollern legend; and one of tin sophisms which Germany repeats is thi worship, as of a great modem ruler, « a king who, even in his own eyes, is ; Bort of imitation Tsar. One of the mos , laughable of these sophisms is the notiot that the German is a mild, peaceable and stay-at-home creuture, utterly mof fonsive, and never resorting to arms ex cept in urgent self-defence. Keally, thi "mild German" reminds one of tin "mild Hindu." It is entirely forgot ton that individual is a very flifferen thing from national character. And th< quiet of jovial Hans of his own fireside, wilder a complex set of national institu tions,' becomes, as the unit of a nation, one of a nation, one of the conquering people. Nothing can get over thesi facts; that the history of Prussia consists of military nnnals; that the pie sent generation of Prussians ha\p threi times threatened, and have four time: engaged in, a foreign war; and tha scarcely an acre of the broad fields oi Germany but has been soaked m th< blood of one or other variety of- th( "mild German." .... Uno ol the most renulaive features oi this war is the way in which a spirit of Pharisaism has entered into the verj soul of the German. Pharisaism—hypocrisy—cunt was ever the Teutonic vice. But in tho history of human folly it never has been carried to such a. point as in this late war. A nation, crazed with revenge and ambition, keeps on thanking God for His mercy by platoons, ■ tho God which, nine out of ten of their educated men openly or secretly ignore. A people who burn villages wjioivisale, and massacre peasants on system, swear that they are the most inoffensive of men. I'bey heap on Francc,.eyery insult, and threaten every evil which hatred can invent,'while whining through Europe that they arc only seeking a safer lino of frontier. . Mr. Harrison went on to charge- thb Germans with carrying on war with in. human cruelty, and said that it rested on the German race, with their pretended culture, to have carried into the heart of western Europe tho horrible traditions of Eastern barbarism.: On them and on their children will remain the "curse of reviving in modern Europe the most bloody and barbarous traditions of tho past—the wholesale wasting of an enemy's country, and the systematic massacre of civilians." Mr." Harrison proceded:— Now it is not necessary to suppose that Prussia is about to overrun Europe with her troops as sho is overrunning France. That is not the danger. Wo nave not conic to that point of weakness—we nonGerman people of Europe—and perhaps even German docility would have a" limit somewhere. But what is to be feared is ' tho passing of the undisputed supremacy to force to such a power as Prussiaorganised exclusively for war, retrograde, feudal, despotic—more unscrupulous and I ambitious than Napoleonism itself. If I Prussia returns home triumphant and i mistress of tho greatest fortresses of France, Europe is handed over to a generation of arming for war; and civilisation is thrown back incalculably. The I military, and reactionary powers will i have tlieir own black reign again as the; i did from the Treaty of, Vienna. All tho ! life of southern Germany will be crushed ] out of her. In 'northern Germany there j is not, and never was, any political Hie. I Germany at this moment is under the rule of the sword as completely as the conquered provinces of France. Tho mild 1 German uiay hope and protest, but he is j mild enough in his own country. He has ; waited, with the patience of a sentinel, J for soino civic life to lie given him by ! his "food and pious" king and his clever, wise Bismarck—l>nt he may wait for a century. Germany is really under martial law at this moment, and likely so to remain. The democratic lenders are in prison for protesting against _a policy of annexation. Public opinion is stifled by police and eoldiery. And the lenders of the people who raise a voice against miliI tarism have something to put up with ] far more serious than the amenities of a journal.