"WE'Vl
R: lk T EXT to the folly of undone tin*
1 your enemy's strength Is the
"<follv of overrating It' The
generals here always taken the pre.
caution to prepare against every poe*
Bible surprise, Including not merely a
surpralse attack, but new equipment
v and weapons and unexpected force.
A considerable source of power to
Germany in the present nt has been
the Idea which she has carefully cul
tinted among other nations that she
1b invincible. This idea rammed up
In the word "raperman" passed
tip and down the world for a good
while before the war. And so people
began to accept it aa trne without
J looking into the facts. Now, I do
not intend for a moment to belittle
Blithe achievements of modern Ger'i-many,
bnt I wish to point out that
these achievements are.no more the
; results of supermen than is a coral
^ Island the result of some amazing
l; ' superlnsect.
BfJ- Bootlickers
It is, indeed, owing to the fact
r 7 that Germans are. In many respects,
-fVbackward, that they have been able
> to accomplish much that the unthink\ing
mistake for supermannlsh. Their
i'. inttor (tnnllilv thois nKoo/in(mianP?a
their worship of the meanest noble
; f who ranks above them prove this.
J Among other peoples?the English
\ and Scotch, the French, and Bel\
glans, and Dutch, the Scandinavians,
Italians and Americans?such servll"
ity was long ago ontgrown, but it has
** "prevailed among the Germ*no since
the earliest times. It was the basis
jjj "and core of feudalism, and on it thei
t Kaiser and the Junkers and the military
pirates have built their hopes.
P Evidently, If yon have a whole people
who believe anything yon say and
I -. think jnst what you tell them to
thiak, it Is comparatively easy to
jgSUke that people obsy your orders.
From the earliest record which we
K have, the Germans were lighters.
1 Gradually, as they overcame the de\
cadent Roman Empire they took on
\some of the Roman civilisation and
ahey even established a new empire,
a mongrel kind of state, In which
JCblMan Ideals and old Roman and
the barbarian German were mingled;
but* the Germanic tribes fought
among each other and no permanent
' v empire could be established. But the
> feudal Idea, which was the utmost
the German mind could evolve, penetrated
them all and was transmitted
: from father to son Jnst as a hereditary
disease continues through many
generations.
In the Northeast there lived a mixture
of Asiatics?who were probably
i related In some way to tho Taytars
and Huns?of Slavs and of fragments
of other Germanic tribes. These
?ba Meat ?lwi_
were iuo riuooiauo, iuo icm? vi *jgr-Jtaed,
the most sturdy and warlike
%? mBd feudal of modern Germans.
B^Eartly by war and partly by marEkriage,
Prussia became the property
- of the HohenzoHerns?a family of
robber barons who made their way
jHplrom Sooth Germany up into the
C North. In the eighteenth century
f|^tbte family produced Frederick the
S?fcj0lFeat, remarkable as a ruler, and
most remarkable as a military com_'maxider.
He was utterly without
"'scruple; he invaded and robbed his
neighbors' lands; he broke his oath;
he shrank from no harshness at home
,;~or perfidy abroad. But he discerned
'< that the Prussians with their obseQuious
nature, and their love of
feudal routine, would make excellent
3, soldiers, and so he converted Prussia
into the most rigid military state of
"modern times.
Roots Prussians
: y' 'When Frederick the Great died la
' 1786 he left the Prussian army as
the best in Europe; but within twenty
years, in the double battle ol Jena
and Auerstakdt, Napoleon utterly de/
tested it, sent the Prussian king and
L his court flying as fast aa they could
from Berlin, set panic in the heart ot
( ; every Prussian and compelled that
0 kingdom to make a humiliating
peace. Jena glees the best Indication
Of the Pmsslan militarist character;
. in victory it is insolent, boasting,
merciless and cruel; in defeat it'is
- ,-panlc-strtctten, it cringes, 11 wnim!
pers. I believe that the same traits
^jperslst In It today.
It took more than six years after
. Jena for the Prussians to receacr
their morale, and it was only when
Napoleon had lost his armies and his
prestige in the snows of Russia in
k 1*12 that the Prussians dared to lift
; ,?p?thfelr heads again. The next year
.f^t$sgr, in coalition with Russians, Aus-vtriahs.
Rwedes and -ether Germans,
vented him at the battle of Leipsig.
Jhe coalition had 300,000 men, Na
I GOT HE
Written especially fa
Ham Roscoe Thayer, Author
. i
poleon bad 180,000 and added to this
disproportion against htm was- the
depressing effect produced by the desertion
of the Saxon army, which
wait orer to the allies. The allied
commander-in-chief was the Austrian
Prince Schwarzenberg, buf the Prussians,
with their characteristic mod'
esty, claimed the lion's Bhare of the
la ore Is and, as they now write history,
you would suppose that the sic
tory of Leipslg iu wholly their
work. At the battle of Waterloo ft
waa undoubtedly the coming up of
the Prussian army under Bliicher
which completed the defeat of Napoleon.
Berlin's System
Thenceforward, for nearly half a
century, Prussia went on In peace to
develop her military system. She
organized her system of education so
that this should be a part of the military,
and in this way every Prussian
oh reaching manhood had been
taught absolute loyalty to the sovereign
and the most rigid military
obedience. The deepest Instinct in
the Prussian nature?lust for war?
waa fostered by every kind of teaching;
and gradually the Idea spread
that, J oat aa the Hohenzollern had
acquired lands and wealth by fighting
in the old days, so snccsssfnl war
would now have a similar reenlt.
In 1862 Count Bismarck became
the chief minister of the Prussian
king. He believed thoroughly in the
doctrine that Might makes Right, bo
that If a nation succeeds in piratical
crimes, nobody can call it to account.
Among the many states which then
made np the German confederation,
Prussia and Austria were rivals, Austria
having the advantage. Bismarck
planned to make Prussia the
cmei wrrnaii siaie, anu ue urn iiua
by forcing war upon Austria and
beating ber in the battle of Sadona
in 1866. That accomplished, he proposed
to make Prussia the head of a
German Empire which should include
all of the German states outside of
Austria. So he picked a quarrel with
France, which was wrongly regarded
as the dominant power of western
Europe and having destroyed her
imperial armies and forced her to
make peace, he was able in 1871 to
set up the German Empire.
From that lime forward Prussia
worked to be, in every sense, the mistress
of Germany. Theoretically,
each state was independent, but in
all imperial matters the Prussian
votes outweighed those of the smaller
states. Prussian education and the
Prussian army system prevailed
throughout the empire. In cunning
and snbtle ways the king of Prussia,
who was also the German'emperor,
hired non-Prussians to feel a stronger
allegiance to him than to-their own
notfw mnnoroha If Vftn iPPrn a Mill.
splcuous professor at Munich, the
Kaiser saw to It that you were Invited
to fill a professor's chair at the University
of Berlin. If yAu had made
a reputation as a painter, or writer,
or sculptor, or musician, in one of
the smaller capitals, you were sure
to be drawn to Berlin. The great
financiers had their natural centre at
Berlin. And so of all the chief organs
of the military, political, Intellectual
and Industrial forces of the
empire. Once at Berlin you were
stealthily Prussianized; by blandishment
which took the form of promotions,
red and iron crosses and
eagles, a judicious bestowal of the
title "Von," before which every German
falls down and worships, and of
various other marks of imperial favor;
or, if you proved a slow acceptor
of the Prussian virus you were
stealthily pnnlshed?you didn't go on
in your profession, you weren't asked
to paint the Kaiser's portrait, you got
no concessions for your business
nlana m,n worfl aware that an nil
seen power thwarted you at every
tarn; and then yon understood that
the only Bare road to success was to
bow low before the Kaiser and his
deputies, and you succumbed.
Treitschke, the most famous of modern
German historians, illlustratas
this perfectly. He was a Saxon and
a strong Liberal, but on being Invited
to the University of Berlin he became
the most virulent supporter of Prussia's
leadership in the German Empire,
and the most vehement advocate
of despotism, and until his death
in 1896 he did more than any other
German "intellectual" to inject into
the unversity men, the Kaiser and the
upper military class the idea of German
world dominion.
Test of Greatness
The doctrine of the Superman is
simply the expression of colossal conceit.
The Germans base it on the theory
of the "survival of the Attest"
INIE'S NU1
. / ?The A met
r Trench and Camp
of "The-Collapse of the Sup*
Unfortunately for the world, they applied
to human life, faces and nations
the theory which scientific men
thought they could prove in the animal
kingdom, where, they argue, the
beast or bird which lives is the fittest
to live: the weak die. Among mankind.
however, this rule does not
apply; if it did, the only persons now
surviving would be prise fighters. Bnt
muscle is not the only test among j
men; there is the intellectual test, j
and the moral test, which are immensely
more important than the
physical. No doubt, in Napoleon's
army there were 100,000 men physically
stronger than he, and yet he
possessed a power by which he could
control and lead the 100,000. The
Germans, however, laid their claims
to being Supermen, not merely on the
physical superiority of their soldiers
but also on the superior mental Qualities
of their intellectual leaders.
They claimed to be the best men of
science, for instance, and they pretended
that the fact that Germans
had had great poets and musicians
and philosophers was a further proof
that' Germans were Supermen. In
fact, however, all the great German
poets?from Goethe and Schiller to
Heine; all the great German musicians?from
Bach and Beethoven
to Wagner; and all the great German
philosophers?Jrom Leibnitz and
Kant to Hegel and Schopenhauer,
lived and worked before the mad
dream of German world-dominion
bad been suggested, and Wagner,
the only one of them who lived after
the rise of Prussia, detested Prussia
and the Prussians and lost no opportunity
to ridicule or to denounce
them.
Germans Follow
In science Itself the Germans have
been and are extraordinarily patient
investigators and very nimble eppliers
of other men's inventions and
discoveries. Ran over the list ot
the truly great modern scientists.
Who are the men who have announced
fundamental principles?
Darwin, who gave the keynote of
modern thought and modern science,
was an Englishman; Louis Pasteur,
who showed the true method of biology,
was a Frenchman; Michael
Fa rr ad ay, an Englishman, was the
master of all students of electricity,
and Joseph Lister, another Englishman,
led the way in antiseptics.
Morton, an American, first demonstrated
the usefulness of ether as an
anaesthetic, and Sir James Simpson,
a Scot, popularized the use of chloroform.
Three Englishmen, one
Scot, one American, one Frenchman
and no German! When wc come to
the most important inventors, the
appliers of science to invention,
what do we find? Fulton, an American,
invented the steamboat; Stevenson,
an Englishman, the railroad
locomotive; Morse, an American,
the telegraph; Marconi, an Italian
with an Irish mother, wireless telegraphy;
Bell, an American, the telephone.
And in the field of war itself,
to which the Germans have devoted
more time and attention than
have all the other nations, the leaders
have not been German. Holland,
an American, put the first submarine
into the water and devised the
first submarine torpedo; two American
brothers, the Wrights, set flying
the first practical airplanes;
Maxim, another American, invented
the machine gun; Bessemer, an Englishman,
discovered the process for
making steel, without which Krupp
guns would not have existed. One
hundred and forty years ago, Mont
golfler, a Frenchman, inveniea uie
balloon, of which the Zeppelin is a
modern derivative. Even trench
warfare was not a German discovery.
Not Supermen
Unless the definition of a Superman
be that he is a creators who
copies ordinary men's inventions
and the basic formulas of science,
the German has no rigfit to the title.
Bat, you may ask, does not his superiority
in war make him a Superman?
I reply, no! It a musical
people, after devoting sixty or eighty
years to music, succeeded in
creating a very good orchestra,
should you think it remarkable that
that orchestra could outplay any
group of musicians nasmy gui. together
in a country which was not
only non-musical but had been devoting
its energy in altogether different
fields? Should you expect
even the Germans, if they were suddenly
transplanted to our great West
and forced to compete in the agriculture
on a grand scale, which the
Americans have developed there and
'the Germans have never practised
MBER" mm M
icon soldiers' rallying cry in France.
Al UUU1C, OliUUlU /UU CA|IW.I lucui iw '/f/fi ' IY T
be able to compete on equal terms f/J il\ /
[with our agriculturists? Hardly! '/a f *
[ And you would certainly never claim /y #
that our farmers were Supermen. II 1
The parallel between these sup- M
posed cases and that of the German W
army and Its competitors is very I
close. The Germans have made for \
fifty years their army their chief A
concern. Everything German?science,
politics, religion, education, inventlon?has
been devoted to that \
end. What wonder, therefore, that nfe
the German War-Lord can put millions
of troops into the field in a
month. Whereas, the English or the ~V J
Americans, who have devoted their
energies to quite different objects,
were able at an emergency to^mo- I
bilize only sfnall forces.
All experience shows that if the
English or the Americans competed "
for fifty years at a time with the Germans
in any field (except in the JffjlfVKaLl
cloud-land of metaphysics), the Ger- rf gyv/W
mans would not surpass them. The If jBf .MB
list of names which I have just B
given proves this.
Therefore, do not fear the Ger- LhbmhI
man soldiers as invincible. Their I
excellence is the result, not of anything
miraculous, not of any Super- J
mannish quality in them, but of long I
training and of rigid discipline. They
accomplish results in the same slow, B|
patient way in which the coral in- I
sects build up their reef.
Two most important lessons must
be drawn from our brief survey of
the Germans. First, their so-called """. Il rT-f*
efficiency has been arrived at by
careful planning, long practice and ~
strict discipline; and it can be / jjt T~?'
equaled, or surpassed, by any other * *
people who imitate it with equal tf
xeal. So you must not sit down and Vy. I
assume that the Germans are Super- JfC1
men by some gift of Providence 1
which has been denied to you. jFrwt^w ^3
Next, do not assume that the German
armies are invincible and that Tr|/rlii
the German soldiers are individually
born to be better soldiers than those - ..'
of any other nation. So far as they \ J
are superior now Is due to their lifelong
military training. This state
ment is confirmed by tbe fact that fit.-1
in all her modern wars Prussia (and . 111
later Germany) has never won a 111 llfScSsEy/
battle, even-handed, against her en- MSflTlMW/ If
emies. These are the figures: "In ynj I
1866, in the war between Prussia flr
and Austria, the Prussians had
221,000 troops at the decisive bat- *
tie of Sadowa, the Austrians had
only 200,000. In the Franco-Prossian
War in 1870, the Inequalities
were still greater. At Woerth, the
Germans numbered 84,000, the \\^ UvS\\1aUa
French 39,000. At Reichshofen, the
Germans 180,000, the French
45,000. At St. Privat. the Germans mygu
80,000, " the French 18,000. At
Sedan, the Germans 220,000, the \A|
French *100,000. These figures pay
a high tribute to the German stratfcgy
which always contrived to bring /,
a larger force than the enemy's into / \tl\ij "JM
battle; they do not, however, exalt
the German soldier In a man-to-man
contest with foreign foes." ^
Will to Win JH
The same numerical disparity in
favor of the Germans has been seen ^jfrvJ
throughout the present war. At the ^"1
battles of Charlerol and Mods, at \mL r.l
La Ffcre Champenolse, where the jpSfcJJJ
great Foch drove his army corps \JT
through the German centre and won \1\^ ^
the victory of the Marne; In the en- 'aVt
gagements before Nancy, in the defense
of Verdun, at Tpres, when the / In
English, who had only one man to five
of the Germans, blocked the first f
great onslaught, down to the recent
drive on the West Front, where fourteen
British divisions were pitted V rvjlffln
against forty-two German divisions, yj^^-ywJW
the German General Staff has always Jl f
taken care to have a superior forco
on their side before going into fight.
This is obviously a cardinal rule in
warfare; but the results have proved KEDB5KBBL&
that the superior German numbers ? A,
cannot always or often defeat the Al- T| X, >
lies ana tnai me marviuuai uerujdu
soldier, for all his longer training, is N
not necessarily a better fighter than /
his antagonists. y
? Accordingly, I close, as I began,
nrging my American countrymen, who /U jkjl
have the great privilege of defending W
the cause of civilisation on the battle- ?ci
field, neither to despise nor underrate
the Germans, nor to regard them
as Supermen to be feared. Learn all "^8?
you can of their methods and improve I
upon them. Will to win! Remember |
that you are defending the holiest ^ / ' FJ
cause which men ever fought for. Re- raja
member that you are the instruments
through whom Right and Justice shall MBHkS
' prevail throughout the world.