GERMAN DESTINY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 36, 11 August 1914, Page 4

GERMAN DESTINY

THE NATIONAL SPIRIT — -» PREPARATIONS FOR WAR (Written for The Post by H. T. B. Drew.) The general feeling eeems to be one of surprise and "wonder at the apparent equanimity with which Germany has taken upon herself the Napoleonic task of facing, with only one comparatively weak ally, the whole of Europe armfd. She seems to ask lio one's aid, and to i require no one's sympathy. One seeks for a satisfactory reason. Yet this spirit of arrogant confidence, has been Germany's national trait for' many years. In competition in the world's commerce it has been dominant — a topic for countless magazine and newspaper articles. Germany's only Teply to all complaints has been the challenge of a rapidly increasing army and navy. The Kaiser's own repeated utterance have been a sufficient explanation of this policy, .namely, that Germany believes .she is merely pursuing her destiny. I suppose I am not the only one who has knocked up and down Germany in recent years who has found this belief in* his country' 6 great destiny ingrained in every Gorman, mote particularly in the Prussian. Everywhere in the cities and larger towne the English traveller, if he talks freely with them, wiJl learn of Germans with more conviction than boast that England's I greatness is passing aw&y, that soon, like effete Rome, she will crumble ; and they point to Germany's miraculous development and growth, to the superior stability of their own economic, social, and commercial fabric®, and they say : "It is the Will of fk»d ; we are destined to be the next great .nation." It is noL a thing they will argue about; it is almost a religion IFour years ago I was' chatting with the .English lady who kept the Pension Rudeioff in Dresden upon this very topic. I had been cycling round about Saxony, and had been charmed with the kindly reception I had everywhere experienced. There had been no animosity and jio racial contempt or hatred fthown. And yet I had noticed, evon among these homely people, the f&eling referred to. Tlio lady in question, who had been tei). years in Dresden, said with the utmost <-<*n,victiou . that Germany sooner or later must come to war with Britain. Germans, she said, spoke of it as quite au event to be expected. They wero taught to believe it in tbe schools and" in the courss of professional aiid commercial education— not perhaps directly, but inferentially. The German said Germany was expanding, the nation was multiplying, and always when God gave the increase h& provide cd_ for the increase The (German, as things were, could not go abroad to live w.ilhout finding everywhere the British flag, and thus he became, perforce, lost to the Fatherland. Why, he asked, should thus be so? .f^ate was poshing the German onward, and if be trod on the toes of, ibe Briton that was not his fault but the Will of Providence, and sometim© or other tho Englishman would lose his temper and wish to .fight, and then Germany would accept the gage and vanquish him, and assume his place at the head of the nations. And with this one idea Ger. many has gone oa preparing for "The Day."' In my diary I have that lady's prophecy that in a few years wai was sure to come, a. prophecy that has beon fulfilled, and probably that lady, with ten thousand other English residents of Dresden, has fled to England. Subsequently I cycled up -through Germany, visiting many cities and towns, etc.. dwelling in out-of-the-way places, seeing Berlin and Hamburg, threading up through Kiel, and Schleswig Holstein to Denmark, anJ subsequently riding back through Wismar, Lubeck, Hamburg, Bremen, and over tbe dreary, lowlying north-western portions to the Dutch frontier, striking it near Deventer. I , came in contact with all classes of Germans. , In Prussia the arrogance of the German is often very annoying to the Briton. I retain many unpleasant recollections of it. It is the Prussian who is pushing Germany to its fate. One does not care at such times as this to predict, but should German expectation not bo fulfilled, and Britain's greatness not bo predestined to come to an untimely end, I venture to believe that . Prussia will be a future kingdom, of its | own, with the other Germanic States I ! estranged from her. For the BAvarian ' and the Saxon, though at present proud 'of their Empire, and sharing its ideals, are, by tradition and extraction, a more cultured and less aggressively ambitious people. Amongst them the Prussian is as a piece of modern furniture amongst a suite of Chippendale. For the present war Germany lias thoroughly prepared herself. You sco evidences of it everywhere in Germany. She has relied upon the support of not a single nation. Forts protect her from Austria as well as from Russia, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and England.. In the northern and western borders of Germany, foy instance, tbe land is lowlying, which in winter, when under snow, would Boon become impassable with the heavy traffic of war impedimenta. To several strategic points of her .borders, • therefqre, Germany has laid tie roads for miles with square cobbles. I observed also that the ordinary traffic did ' not warrant such expense, for often the j.'dad»> .which were in out of the way places; were covered with grass. I mado enquiries and learned that they were war roads- Almost all the, highways leading to Kiel, the great naval arsenal at the entrance of the, Kiel Canal, are of blocked pave. The roads which for miles converge upon Liege from Germany, along ■ Germany's present line' of, attack, are of pave; ana to other ata-ategic points on the Belgian and Dutch frontiers the preSarations for all eventualities have been je same: Fortunately Belgium, Holland, and other nations have judged Germany rather by these obvious 'nostile preparations than by her sincerity as a signatory of tho guaranteed neutrality of these countries. , Let me give but two brief and purposely diverse examples of the typical Prussian spirit. In Schleswig-Holsteiu, not far from beautiful Openrade, has been erected a. mannnotfi monumont capped with a statue of Bismarck. It \ is seen over the flat country for many miles. This statue Germany erected to celebrate her dispoiling of little Denmark, in the 'sixties, of two of her choicest states, and it stands on the borders of the Danish Kingdom, a grim taunt, the taunt of the bully, to all patriotic Danos. How tho Danes hate Germany for the insult! Again, in Jerusalem, which tho Kaiser honoured a few years back with a State Visit, Germany has within the last d<?cado sought pious representation, with other- natioris, upon hallowed ground. The British cathedral and church are situated in lowly parts of tho city, but Germany has solocted for. her charity hospital the highest point of Mount Scopus, about half a mile from the city, and observable for miles around ; and her now church building, in all its modern harshness of outline,' equally dominates the ancient old buildings of tho city from the highest point of Mount 2km. It spoils the effect and the Oriental symmetiv of tho city, but it announces fioro tin housetops the pvte£U£S Oi fljMP Bm> - »"d .wJifiU X X£SUk_oL.

tho Kaiser's frequent prayers and appeals to God, so carefully publi&hed, I always think of that Gorman church set up in the high places of the Holy City.