Felix Adler’s Comment

From The Standard, Oct. 14, 1914.

Apropos of a recent article by Mr. Arnold Bennett, wherein he speaks of the resentment which the German soldiers—­two-fifths of them Socialists—­must feel against the bullying discipline to which they have been subjected, the following reflections are jotted down.  The reader who is interested in pursuing the subject further may profitably consult a book entitled “Imperial Germany,” by Prince von Buelow, which contains some penetrating observations on the workings of the German mind, as well as the chapter on Germany in Alfred Fouillee’s notable work, “Esquisse Psychologique des Peuples Europeens.”

The precision which characterizes the operations of the German military machine is due to the German notion of discipline.  Discipline in Germany is based on the peculiar place assigned to the expert.  Military experts exercise in their branch an authority different in degree but not in kind from that belonging to experts in other departments—­strategy, tactics, improvements of armament, methods of mobilization.  The inexpert soldier submits to the military expert as a person about to undergo a necessary operation would submit to a surgeon.  It is a mistake to suppose that the Germans, a highly intelligent and educated people, are being cowed into submission by brutal non-commissioned officers.  Brutality, when it occurs, is looked upon as exceptional and incidental to a system on the whole approved.  The Germans would never tolerate the severe discipline to which they are subjected did they not willingly submit to it.  They regard a highly efficient army as necessary to the safety of the Fatherland, and they are willing to leave the responsibility for the means of securing efficiency to the experts.  During the Franco-German war, when a student in the University of Berlin, I talked with some of the brightest of the younger men about their military obligations, and I found that they took precisely the view just stated.  The Pomeranian peasant may submit to military dictation in a dull, half-instinctive fashion.  The flower and elite of German intelligence submit to it no less—­from conviction.

How shall we account for the unique predominance of the expert in German life?  The explanation would seem to lie in the phrase invented by a brilliant writer of the last century, “Deutschland ist Hamlet” (Germany is Hamlet).  The Germans are a resolute people—­not at all, as has been erroneously supposed, a nation of dreamers—­just as Hamlet, according to recent criticism, was essentially of a resolute character.  In the days of the Hansa and of the Hohenstaufen the Germans cut a great figure in oversea commerce and in war.  They were great doers of deeds.  The Germans are intensely volitional, but also intensely intellectual.  Hence the native hue of resolution has sometimes been sicklied o’er by too much thinking.  The intellect of the German