The German Emperor as Shown in His Public Utterances

Swearing in the Recruits

Potsdam, November 23, 1891

Every year the Emperor is present at the swearing in of the recruits to the guard and to the navy. He has made innumerable speeches on such occasions. The present somewhat striking pronouncement was delivered at a time when his feeling toward the Socialists, who had been guilty of no particular outrage, still ran very high. Tolstoi saw in it the worst excesses of militarism and issued shortly after the following criticism of the Emperor’s attitude:

“This man expresses what all wise men know but carefully conceal. He says frankly that men who serve in the army serve him and his advantage and must be prepared for his advantage to kill their brothers and fathers.

“He expresses frankly, and with the coarsest of words, all the horror of the crime for which the men who enter into military service are prepared, all that abyss of degradation which they reach when they promise obedience. Like a bold hypnotizer, he tests the degree of the hypnotized man’s sleep: he puts the glowing iron to his body, the body sizzles and smokes, but the hypnotized man does not awake.

“This miserable, ill man, who has lost his mind from the exercise of power, with these words offends everything which can be holy for a man of our time, and men—Christians, liberals, cultured men of our time, all of them are not only not provoked by this insult but do not even notice it.”

It is possible that such criticism and the resentment aroused in the minds of the law-abiding Socialists led him later to tone down his utterances, though on one subsequent occasion, again with the Socialists in mind, he made a somewhat similar address (March 28, 1901).

Recruits to the Regiment of My Guard:

You are brought together here from all parts of the empire to fulfil your military duty, and in this holy place have just sworn fealty to your Emperor to your last breath. You are still too young to understand all this. You will, however, little by little, be made familiar with its significance. Do not imagine it too difficult, and trust in God; occasionally also say the Lord’s Prayer—that has frequently given many a warrior fresh courage.

Children of my guard, to-day you have become incorporated into my army; you now stand under my command and have the privilege of wearing my uniform. Wear it honorably. Think of the famous history of your Fatherland; remember that the German army must be armed against the internal as well as the external foe. More and more unbelief and discontent raise their heads in the Fatherland, and it may come to pass that you will have to shoot down or stab your own relatives and brothers. Then seal your loyalty with your heart’s blood! And now go to your homes and fulfil your duties.

—(According to the Breslauer Lokalanzeiger of December 8.)

According to the Neisser Zeitung, the second paragraph ran as follows:

Recruits! You have now before the consecrated servant of the Lord and before His altar, sworn fealty to me. You are still too young to understand the true meaning of what has just been said; but be diligent now and follow the directions and instructions given you. You have sworn loyalty to me; that means, children of my guard, that you are now my soldiers, you have given yourselves up to me, body and soul; there is for you but one enemy, and that is my enemy. In view of the present Socialistic agitations it may come to pass that I shall command you to shoot your own relatives, brothers, yes, parents—which God forbid—but even then you must follow my command without a murmur.

Entirely similar, but shorter, is a clipping from the Berlin paper Das Volk, according to the account of one who heard the speech.

You have sworn to me the oath of loyalty; that means, from now on you know only one command, and that is my most high command; you have only one enemy, and that is my enemy! And so I may sometime—which God forbid—have to bid you to shoot upon your own relatives, yes, brothers and parents—then remember your oath!