....
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Why
We Left Russia. .text
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Why
We Left Russia.
Bigelow, Poultney, The German Emperor and the Russian Menace. The Century, vol. 44, issue 1 (May 1892).
http://cdl.library.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/moa/moa-cgi?notisid=ABP2287-0044-34
in: The Century; a popular quarterly. / Volume 44, Issue 1
Publisher: The Century Company
Publication Date: May 1892 New York City:
OPEN LETTERS.
The German Emperor and the Russian Menace, by Poultney Bigelow: pp. 156
The German Emperor and the Russian Menace.
The German Emperor shares with the best-informed
men in his army the belief that Russia intends to attack him at the earliest
convenient opportunity. It is not the Czar who is urging war. Those who
know that monarch well scout the idea. He loves peace and quiet, and does
not wish to be disturbed. How long he can make his personal wishes prevail
we cannot say, for he may have to choose between war and disquieting agitation.
His ministers, who see more clearly than their master, realize that the
economic condition of Russia has been going from bad to worse under a system
of
protection and repression that has no parallel in mod-
em times. Commercial enterprise is hampered by a
swarm of police, who are able to levy blackmail upon
any tradesman who is not “protected.” Inquiry of
every kind is carefully stifled, and even French news-
papers are “blacked out” by the censor if they con-
tain news contrary to police wishes. Popular discon-
tent exists, and it is the object of the Government
to divert attention from domestic affairs to the enemy
beyond.
Russia’s active hatred of Germany dates from
1878, and is one of the many legacies of the Bismarck era. Every one remembers
that the Russian army was in sight of Constantinople, and was prepared
to take
OPEN LETTERS. p157
possession, when England interfered. The Russians returned from the
war expecting to receive at the Berlin
Congress, in a diplomatic way, all that they had given
up on the battle-field. In this they were mistaken, and
their ambassador returned from Berlin to tell his peo-
ple that the fruits of the war of 1877 had been lost to
them through German perfidy. From that day to this
hatred of Germany has been preached as the national
gospel of Russia, and in this hatred have been included
Jews, Poles, Swedes, Finns—in short, all the unortho-
dox whose civilization draws inspiration from the west-
ern neighbor. “Russia for the Russians! “is now the
cry, and the orthodox Russian Church shouts louder
than any one in the congregation.
The famine which spread over part of Russia last
year does not abate this cry of revenge. On the con-
trary, there is not a peasant who does not believe that
in some mysterious way the heretic Jew or German is
responsible for his misery, and for that matter German
and Jew are one to him, for both are unorthodox, both un-
Russian. With this aspect of the case in mind, it seems
strange indeed that the government of Russia should
be acting in a manner to alienate the sympathy of sub-
jects on her western frontier. It is possible that the
Czar’s ministers disapprove of the extreme measures
taken in the Baltic provinces to expunge the German
language and the Lutheran faith, but they know the
power of the orthodox clergy, and dare not resist the
only expression of what has to pass for public opinion.
The famine in Russia is real, although it is equally
true that there is always a failure of crops somewhere
in a country so vast. I lost no opportunity during the
height of the newspaper discussion of the subject to
make inquiry in proper quarters regarding the nature
and extent of the alleged distress. The Government
seems incapable of giving friends of Russia any satis-
factory idea of the situation, and, worst of all, does not
inspire any great confidence in the breasts of sympa-
thizers. One day a minister reports that the famine
is of no serious character; soon afterward the press
announces that twenty millions of peqple are perishing.
In any event, the situation is not cheering, famine or
no famine.
If, however, a famine really exists on a large scale,
then is there all the more reason to expect war. The
peasant suffers first; next suffers the storekeeper, who
supplies the few things the peasant cannot make him-
self; next suffers the wholesale dealer, who gets no
more orders; next suffer the merchant and the banker
of the capital and the seaport; at last suffers the only
one worth considering—the Government, which feels
it finally in the confession of hundreds and thousands
of police officials that the peasant has been taxed to his
last copeck. At this point the news becomes serious,
for the Government is a costly one, and only money can
sustain it: money for the interest on a huge public debt;
money for the huge military machine; money for the
police; money for the imperial family; money for
secret service; money to maintain political jails; money
to guard prisoners on the way to the mines of Siberia.
When the Government finds that money is wanting to
sustain its prestige, and that empty stomachs are growl-
ing, it may choose war as the lesser evil.
Germany is not blind to the dangers that threaten
her, particularly from France. She will have one army
on the Rhine, another on the Vistula. Von Moltke clearly
foresaw the intention of Russia to attack, and never
failed to urge upon William I. the military necessity of
forcing the war as soon as possible. His reasons, of
course, were purely military. “Russia,” he argued in
1875, “is arming against us; each year she becomes
more formidable. We, on the contrary, remain sta-
tionary. Our duty is to fight now, while the heroes of
1870 are still fresh, and not wait until they are retired
from active service.”. Von Moltke saw more clearly than
Bismarck. William I. was old, and relied on his prime
minister, who kept telling him that Russia was Ger-
many’s natural ally; that Russia must be humored at
any cost. On the part of the venerable William I.
there were strong family reasons dictating friendship
for the Russian Czar; but this does not explain Bis-
marck’s apparent indifference to the fact that, for the
last fifteen years, Russia has been cultivating hatred of
Germany, second only to that prevailing in France.
The present German Emperor foreshadowed Rus-
sia’s attitude of to-day three years before he came to
the throne. He has been nearly four years in power,
and has not only not declared war, but has not made
a single warlike demonstration of a practical kind. His
military family, if I may use the expression, are ready
to anticipate the blow of Russia; but Germany keeps
the peace because her Emperor is too conscientious to
precipitate the conflict. Personally he is deeply pained
by the hostile attitude of the Russian government; his
efforts in the direction of closer commercial intercourse
have been met by sullen objection; he has been treated
with personal discourtesy by the Czar; his own people
are outraged by the daily account of persecution to
which Germans in Russia are subjected; he knows
that the line of the Narew, the Niemen, and the Vistula
is fortified by a chain of strong forts, and that Kirghis
Cossacks patrol all the roads crossing his frontier. He
is perfectly well aware that France is ready to codper-
ate with Russia, and that her forces are better organized
than ever before.
The German Emperor is not unpopular in Germany.
This fact cannot be too strongly presented, because
many important consequences flow from it. He has
done many things to disquiet moderate Liberals; has
done things indicating a disposition to assume respon-
sibility which might better be shared with Parliament.
He has made many impromptu speeches which a prime
minister would cheerfully have recalled; he has written
texts which a strictly constitutional ruler would wish
relegated to privacy. Granted all this and much more,
for the sake of argument, let us come to what he has
positively done, in order to understand why, in spite
of this, he is Emperor in the German heart as well as
in the German army. He has shown himself accessible
to complaints from all classes of the community, and
has interested himself in remedies; he has abolished
the special laws against socialism with most excellent
results; he has removed much of the irritation on the
French frontier; he has met the grievances of the Po-
lish Prussians in the same spirit; he has shown a lib-
erality in dealing with the press and platform agitators
unknown in Bismarck’s day; he has inaugurated a
commercial policy which, if not free trade, is a com-
plete denial of the principle that one class has a right
to enrich itself at the expense of another; he has drawn
together the trade relations of Germans so wisely that
Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin seem now like sister cities
of a free federation, and has spread the blessing of coin-
mercial freedom more widely than was ever before
known in Europe; he has instituted legislation for tbe
benefit of wage-earners and wage-payers, not as a social-
ist, but in the spirit of arbitration and fair play. In all of
this he has moved independently, fearlessly, moderately,
and in opposition, not merely to the teachings of Bis-
marck, but to the school of politicians created for him
by that master of medievalism. Not only this, but he
has interfered energetically on behalf of the soldier in
the ranks; has insisted upon his troops being treated
with proper respect by officers, and particularly by
corporals and sergeants. He has vigorously put down
gambling and fast living among his officers; he has
at last interfered on behalf of the overworked school-
children. and is the first to say that a teacher shall not
cram the pupil’s brain at the expense of general health.
All this sounds as though a stroke of the pen could
make such reforms real, but it is not so. All academic
Germany sets its face against school-reform, and the
utmost exercise of tact and persistence is necessary on
the part of the Emperor to make his proposals bear
fruit. These instances suggest some of the reasons why
Germans respect their Emperor. There are others of
a negative kind. For instance, we have yet to hear of
anything he has done for the gratification of selfish
tastes. He is a plain liver; he has never indulged in
the vices sometimes associated with royalty; no officer
in his army can say that the Emperor taught him to
gamble; in his family he is exactly what a German
would wish him to be; and the keenest sportsman could
not wish a better companion. Finally, he is a thorough
soldier: he has served from the ranks up; he can do
sentry duty with a guardsman, and can also manceuver
combined army corps according to the principles of
strategy and modern tactics. He has his faults, and
none sees them so well as the German general and the
German parliamentarian. But he has elements of
strength and popularity which vastly outbalance any
faults so far discovered — and this is what outside critics
are apt to ignore. He has sources of strength totally
closed to the Czar. The Kaiser is a man of flesh and
blood; he feels as a German; his work is in harmony
with the spirit of German progress; his failings, such
as he shows, are German. There is no German who
does not admire him in his private relations, even though
differing from him in matters official; and we all know
that in times of political danger the people are drawn
to the man of strong personal character rather than to
the cautious and colorless figurehead.
The forces behind William II. are such as
have never been cultivated in Russia, whose Czar lives in hourly dread
of assassination, and whose people are so many items of an official budget,
so many units in a military report. The German Emperor walks about the
streets of his towns as fearlessly and naturally as any other man, although
the life of his grandfather was twice attempted. One day, in November of
189I,he was walk ing with a guest through the narrow and crowded
thoroughfare of a city not far from Berlin. The sidewalks were narrow,
and, as the Emperor is a fast walker, he frequently had to step out into
the street to pass other pedestrians, and especially clusters of people
who stopped for a chat. His companion, who had been in Russia, was struck
by the democratic manner in which the German Emperor rubbed in and out
amongst porters, fish-wives, peasants, and the rest of the moving crowd,
chatting the while, and acting as though this was his usual manner of getting
about. He was struck still more by the fact that no precautions against
a possible murderous fanatic appeared to have been taken, and ventured
to speak of this. The Emperor laughed heartily, and said: “Oh, if I had
to stop to think of such things, I should never get through with my day’s
work.”
It is with this man that Russia will have
to reckon when her Cossacks start for Berlin; and this man is strong, not
merely because he represents a strong army and a strong political administration,
but because in him center the feelings of unity and development, of pride
of achievement, and of promise of a still greater future which lie dormant
in the hearts of those who regard Germany as the bulwark of civilization
against barbarism — Europe against Asia.
Poultney Bigelow.
< rodbigelow@netzero.net
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