German Socialists have incorporated these principles in theory in their programme, but in practice they do not hold them, especially if their own skins are endangered, together with the Government which is threatened by “violent overthrow.”  That is the sum total of their extensive defence—­literature published since the outbreak of the present war.  In its naked reality that is what the guarantee-insurance policy covered.  So long as no danger threatened their own lives, goods and chattels, such eloquence as the following extracts were shouted into the world; but when they personally stood face to face with the Moloch upon which for years they had heaped contemptuous abuse, then national (i.e., personal) interests came first.

Herr Fischer, in his capacity as president of the Socialist Congress in Berlin, 1892, said: 

“The reception of French delegates at Halle, and of Liebknecht at Marseilles, have proved incontrovertibly that the struggling French proletarians are of one mind and heart with German Social Democracy.  Let the chauvinists, burning with hate on this and that side the Rhine, urge us on to war; let the diplomats and Governments of both countries sacrifice the well-being of the two nations to militarism and the war-bogey.  The working-men in the two countries stretch out their hands to each other over the frontiers as pioneers of true culture and morality.  They are convinced that there is only one enemy which separates them, and that it is their common task to fight against and annihilate this one enemy—­capitalism.”

“Now as ever, we Social Democrats reply to the Government’s military and economic policy this parole:  Not a man and not a farthing will be voted for this system!"[69]

[Footnote 69:  Social Democrat members of the Reichstag in their report to the annual congress held in Cologne, 1893.]

These quotations have been intentionally taken from speeches, etc., published in the early nineties of the last century.  If necessary, it would be an easy matter to fill several volumes of similar matter from the annual congress reports down to 1913; from the vast mass of German Social Democratic literature published between 1890 and 1914; and from the hundred party newspapers and reviews circulated in the Fatherland, Yet in the face of all these assurances it seemed to us that the German Socialists had shamefully betrayed their principles on August 4th, 1914, by giving their unreserved support to “Germany’s Holy War."[70]

[Footnote 70:  In all Germany, and among all classes, this has become the popular designation of the European war:  “Unser heiliger Krieg.”]

Probably the betrayal was not so shameful as it seemed, because the fact was not made known in this country that the German Socialists had but imitated Bismarck’s policy with Russia and Austria. (Bismarck concluded a treaty, with the one Power, then behind that Power’s back he concluded a Rueckversicherungsvertrag with the other, i.e., a covering insurance policy intended to protect him against all risks.)