“As we cannot change our nature, it will be good if we take over for good and all a number—­a very considerable number,—­of these European pike.  That will occupy the German peasant and give an outlet to his superfluous energies.  There will be no leisure-energy to discharge itself in party strife.  Further, we must build Europe up again.  It stood on rotten foundations, and now it has fallen to pieces.  We shall erect it again on a German basis, and there will be work enough."[30]

[Footnote 30:  Hermann Bahr:  “Kriegssegen” ("The Blessings of War").  Published in Munich, 1915, p. 5 et seq.]

CHAPTER V

WARS AND RUMOURS OF WARS

It would be more than human if the German nation had actually realized the lyrical picture painted by two well-known writers in the preceding chapter.  German newspapers, it is true, prove that the national unity so loudly acclaimed was no empty word; moreover, they show conclusively that grumblers and half-hearted enthusiasts were not lacking.  It would probably be more correct to describe them as “sober-minded patriots.”  These elements had, however, to use a colloquialism, an “exceedingly rough time.”

The author has already contended that the German is innately brutal, and in proof thereof quoted the awful statistics of brutal crimes published by the Imperial Statistic Office, Berlin.  The present work will contain a picture of the natural unfolding of this “innate brutality” in Germany itself during war time, and on the battlefields of Belgium and France.

There is no doubt whatever that a systematic, officially-organized press campaign was carried on to madden the people and arouse blood-lust, successively against Russians, Belgians, French and English.  One is almost inclined to exclaim:  Providence caused some of the fruits of this blood-lashing to be reaped in Germany!

“Yesterday evening in the Riebeckbraeu another free fight took place, and quieter guests who refused to take part in the patriotic screaming of the students and other mob elements were badly ill-treated.  Beer-glasses, ash-trays, chairs and other missiles were thrown about freely.  One man was struck on the back of the head with a beer-glass, causing the blood to flow in streams.  Helpless women, too, were beaten and threatened."[31]

[Footnote 31:  Leipziger Volkszeitung, August 1st, 1914.]

Three days later the same journal contained a public appeal from the Mayor of Leipzig, begging the inhabitants to preserve public order:  “If the disturbances in the streets, public houses, etc., should—­contrary to our expectations—­continue, then we shall be compelled to take severe steps to suppress them.”

On the same page there is another report of similar scenes, in one of which a workman was “horribly ill-treated” by eight others.  The army authorities were compelled to issue a still more drastic warning on August 6th.