Chapter XV The Revolution and Germany’s Future
I do not care what my foes say about me. I do not recognize them as my judges. When I see how the same people who exaggeratedly spread incense before me in other days are now vilifying me, the most that I can feel is pity. The bitter things that I hear about myself from home disappoint me. God is my witness that I have always wished what was best for my country and my people, and I believed that every German had recognized and appreciated this. I have always tried to keep my political acts, everything that I did as a ruler and a man, in harmony with God’s commandments. Much turned out differently from what I desired, but my conscience is clean. The welfare of my people and my Empire was the goal of my actions.
I bear my personal fate with resignation, for the Lord knows what He does and what He wishes. He knows why He subjects me to this test. I shall bear everything with patience and await whatsoever God still holds in store for me.
The only thing that grieves me is the fate of my country and my people. I am pained at the hard period of trial which my children of the German land are undergoing, which I—obliged to live in foreign parts—cannot suffer with them. That is the sword thrust which pierces through my soul; that is what is bitter to me. Here in solitude I still feel and think solely for the German people, still wonder how I can better matters and help with enlightenment and counsel.
Nor can bitter criticism ever lessen my love for my land and people. I remain faithful to the Germans, no matter how each individual German may now stand with regard to me. To those who stand by me in misfortune as they stood in prosperity, I am grateful—they comfort me and relieve my gnawing homesickness for my beloved German home. And I can respect those who, impelled by honest convictions, array themselves against me; as for the rest, let them look to justifying themselves to God, their consciences, and history.
They will not succeed in separating me from the Germans. Always I can look upon country and people solely as one whole. They remain to me what they were when I said on the occasion of the opening of the Reichstag on the 1st of August, 1914, in the Imperial Palace: “I know no more of parties; I know only Germans.”
The revolution broke the Empress’s heart. She aged visibly from November, 1918, onward, and could not resist her bodily ills with the strength of before. Thus her decline soon began. The hardest of all for her to bear was her homesickness for the soil of Germany, for the German people. Notwithstanding this, she still tried to bring me consolation.
The revolution destroyed things of enormous value. It was brought about at the very moment when the German nation’s fight for existence was to have been ended, and every effort should have been concentrated upon reconstruction. It was a crime against the nation.
Wind and Whirlwind
I am well aware that many who rally around the Social Democratic banner did not wish revolution; some of the individual Social Democratic leaders likewise did not wish it at that time, and more than one among them was ready to co-operate with me. Yet these Social Democrats were incapable of preventing the revolution, and therein lies their share of guilt for what is now going on, all the more so since the Socialist leaders stood closer to the revolutionary masses than the representatives of the monarchical Government and, therefore, could exert more influence upon them.
But the leaders, even in the days before the war, had brought the idea of revolution to the masses and fostered it, and the Social Democracy had been, from time immemorial, openly hostile to the earlier, monarchical form of government, and had worked systematically toward eliminating it. It sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind.
The time and nature of the revolution were not to the liking of a number of the leaders, but it was exactly these men who, at the decisive moment, abandoned leadership to the most unbridled elements and failed to bring their influence to bear toward maintaining the Government.
It was the duty of the Government of Prince Max to protect the old form of government. It failed to fulfill its holy duty because it had become dependent on the Socialist leaders, the very men who had lost their influence on the masses to the radical elements.
Therefore, the greatest share of the guilt falls upon the leaders, and for that reason history will not brand the German working classes, but their leaders, with the curse of the revolution, in so far as these leaders participated in making the revolution or failed to prevent it and it will also brand the Government of Prince Max of Baden with that curse.
The German workers fought brilliantly in battle under my leadership, and at home, as well, labored ceaselessly to provide munitions and war material. That is something which must not be forgotten. It was only later that some of them began to break away, but the responsibility for this lies at the door of the agitators and revolutionists, not at that of the decent, patriotic section of the working classes.
The conscienceless agitators are the men really responsible for Germany’s total collapse. That will be recognized some day by the working classes themselves.
The present is a hard time for Germany. Of the future of this healthy, strong nation I do not despair. A nation which can achieve such an unprecedented rise as that of Germany between 1871 and 1914, a nation which can maintain itself successfully for over four years in a defensive war against twenty-eight nations, cannot be driven from the earth. Economically, the world cannot do without us.
But in order that we may regain the position in the world which is Germany’s due, we must not await or count upon help from outside. Such help will not come, in any event; were it to come, it would but mean at best our being mere Helots. Also, the help which the German Social Democratic party hoped for from abroad has not materialized, after all. The international part of the socialistic program has proved itself a frightful mistake.
The workers of the Entente lands took the field against the German people in order to destroy it; nowhere was there a trace of international solidarity among the masses.
Another German Mistake
This mistake, too, is one of the reasons why the war turned out so badly for Germany. The English and French working classes were rightly directed—i. e., nationalistically—by their leaders; the German working classes were wrongly directed—i. e., internationally.
The German people must rely upon no other people, but solely upon themselves. When self-conscious, national sentiment returns to all the Strata of our people our upward march will begin. All classes of the population must be united in national sentiment, no matter if their ways lie apart in other departments of the nation’s life. Therein lies the strength of England, of France—even of the Poles.
If this comes to pass, the feeling of solidarity with all fellow members of the nation, the consciousness of the dignity of our noble land, the pride in being German, and the genuinely German conception of ethics, which was one of the secret sources of strength that have made Germany so great, will come back to us.
In the community of cultured nations Germany will again play, as she did before the war, the rôle of the nation with the greatest capacity for labor, and will once more march victoriously in the van in peaceful competition, offering not only to herself, but to all the nations of the earth, whatever is best in the domain of technical achievement, of science, of art.
I believe in the revocation of the unjust Peace of Versailles by the judgment of the sensible elements of foreign lands and by Germany herself. I believe in the German people and in the continuation of its peaceful mission in the world, which has been interrupted by a terrible war, for which Germany, since she did not will it, does not bear the guilt.
Footnotes
1 “It is that confounded Congress of Berlin. A serious mistake on the part of the Chancellor. He has destroyed the old friendship between us, sown distrust in the hearts of the Court and the Government, and engendered the idea of a great injustice done the Russian army after its bloody 1877 campaign, for which it wishes revenge. And here we are by the side of that damned French Republic, full of hate for you and of subversive ideas, which, in case of a war against you, will cost us our dynasty.”
2 “I understand perfectly your line of action; the Prince, with all his greatness, was, after all, merely your employee or official. As soon as he refused to follow your orders, it was necessary to dismiss him. As for me, I always distrusted him, and I never believed a word of what he had told me or said to me himself, for I was sure and knew that he was hoaxing me all the time. As to the relations between us two, my dear William, the downfall of the Prince will have the best of results; distrust will disappear. I have confidence in you. You can trust me.”
3 “Once the magnitude of Pan-Germanism dawned on the English and French diplomats, once they became aware of the lengths to which Germany was willing to go, they realized the necessity of strengthening their position, and therefore made overtures to the United States, which resulted, probably before the summer of the year 1897, in an understanding between the three countries. There seems to be no doubt whatever that no papers of any sort were signed, that no pledges were given which circumstances would not justify any one of the contracting parties in denying or possibly repudiating. Nevertheless, an understanding was reached that in case of a war begun by Germany or Austria for the purpose of executing Pan-Germanism, the United States would promptly declare in favor of England and France and would do her utmost to assist them.”—Roland G. Usher, Pan-Germanism, chap. x, p. 139.
4 The Problem of Japan, by an Ex-Counselor of Legation in the Far East, chap. viii, p. 136, note. Published by C. L. Langenhuysen, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. 1918.
5 Tremendous excitement was caused in England when the incident of the Kruger message became known. On January 3, 1896, the German Emperor telegraphed as follows to the President of the South African Republic:
“I congratulate you most sincerely on having succeeded, with your people, without calling on the help of foreign powers, by opposing your own force to an armed band which broke into your country to disturb the peace, in restoring quiet and in maintaining the independence of your country against external attack.”
On January 6th, in conversation with Sir Frank Lascelles, Baron von Marschall protested against the view of the English press that it was an act of hostility against England and an encroachment on English rights for the German Emperor to congratulate the head of a friendly state on his victory over an armed band that had invaded his land in defiance of international law, and had been declared to be outside the pale of the law by the English Government itself. But it was not recorded that he disavowed the Kaiser’s responsibility for it.
6 One of the most startling incidents of the Kaiser’s reign was the interview with him printed in the London Daily Telegraph of Oct. 28, 1908. In it he said that “Englishmen, in giving rein to suspicions unworthy of a great nation,” were “mad as March hares”; and that “the prevailing sentiment among large sections of the middle and lower classes of my own people is not friendly to England. I am, therefore, so to speak, in a minority in my own land, but it is a minority of the best elements, just as it is in England with respect to Germany.” German opinion was, he admitted, “bitterly hostile” to England during the Boer War, and, that the German people, if he had permitted Boer delegates in Berlin, “would have crowned them with flowers.” He asserted that he had formulated a plan of campaign in South Africa which Lord Roberts adopted in substance.
The Kaiser was quoted in this interview as declaring Germany needed a large fleet chiefly on account of the Far Eastern situation.
The interview was republished in official German organs, and caused as great a stir in Germany as in England. There were many debates on it in the Reichstag and one or two “investigations.”
7 A German philologist who compiled a well-known book of quotations.
8 His recent death, which snatched him away in the midst of beneficial labors, is a serious loss to the fatherland.
9 Concerning the course of events up to the fateful 9th of November and this day itself there are authentic statements by an eyewitness in the book (well worth reading) of Major Niemann, who was sent by the Chief Army Command to me, entitled War and Revolution (Krieg und Revolution), Berlin, 1922.
10 This letter and the letter from the Field Marshal which preceded it are reprinted herewith. The parts which are most important in relation to the matter in question are underscored in the text.
11 This has meanwhile been done. The Comparative Historical Tables from 1878 to the Outbreak of the War in 1914 were published in December, 1921, by K. F. Koehler, Leipsic.