“CHILDREN OF PEACE”

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9690, 19 June 1917, Page 7

“CHILDREN OF PEACE”

GERMANY’S FUTURE FRANTIC APPEAL TO REALISE THE SITUATION. Gustav Frenssen, probably the most renowned of German novelists, contributes a very remarkable article to the “Dusseldorfer General Anzeiger” on ‘‘House and Hearth,” which deserves closest attention. This great writer is evidently impressed with the possibility of coming danger to the Fatherland, and fears that .there are too many of the compatriots who do not share his alarm, who are satisfied with things as they are, and smugly and with confidence look forward to a 'speedy ending of the war and a resumption of the ease and comforts of peace. Germany is full of such people, says Frenssen, honest enough men and women in their way, but lacking the true feeling for events and the true sense of sacrificial duty. These people arc “children of peace,” who believe that because the war of 1870 ended so happily, this war will also end to their satisfaction, and all things be as before. The only difference will bo that somewhere near the village church there will be a new monument erected engraved with innumerable names, and decked with innumerable wreaths.

Frenssen says he almost despairs of bringing home actualities to these good people. He finds it difficult to show them that this is not a war, like its predecessors. This war is a world catastrophe, a turning-point in history. It is a time resembling that when Jerusalem fell, like that when Germany, in the Thirty Years’ War, fell into a state of indescribable desolation, or like the French Revolution, when an ancient world and an ancient people sank into ruins. G.od saw the world and found it ripe. He nodded, and there followed this catastrophe for humanity.

HATED BY THE ENTIRE WORLD. In impassioned terms Frenssen adjures the people not to think that things will right themselves. _ They must ask themselves the question, who are those who beat wildly against thc German frontiers? Are they nations .of this day? They are hammering there, spurred on by wild lies. They are miserably impoverished because Germans have held out so long. They are ten against four, and each of the ten wants ' something, something big and beautiful—a long, deep draught of German blood and power which will again place them firmly on their rickety legs. What would then remain for Germans? Yes, what would remain ?

“The proud German ships, thousands and thousands ,-of them, our strength and our spirit?” They would be lost. “Our colonies, the strong, young arm which we stretched out?” They would be hacked off. “Onr money, on which we have stamped our human labour and pains?” It would bG spread broadcast over all tho world —it'would build French houses, it would fill huge Russian hands, it would help England’s wealth and arrogance to add another storey to its Tower of Babel, it would help to pay America for the shells which have slaughtered German children. Yes, yes, we are a great nation. But what, is a great nation without arms and with an empty purse? And hated by the entire world. “What do I say? Hated? Let them hate us. But hated and conquered, hated and under their feet, hated and subject to the arrogance of the entire world. Who could bear that? Who could survj»e it?”

IF SHIPS AND COLONIES GO ? Frenssen assures his _ readers that this picture is not ‘ painted, in too gloomy colours. If ships, colonies, and money go, what is left? he asks. Ready-money • secretly stored? - Nonsense, the State would find it, the neighbours would betray : the hidingplace. “You retain-your fresh, healthy hands? They would no longer be yours. They would be employed to make money for foreigners. You retain your fields and your Horses, your deeds? You don’t. Your fields and your horses and securities would all bo mortgaged. But you retain your children? Flven that will be denied yon. You will have to relinquish your children, who will wander off into other lands less stricken' than Germany. “In Germany y<pi must slave for others. And, finally, you think you will retain your peace, your honour, your old days? No, no. No one will want old days in a Germany which has so sunk after sUch a past of marvel and labour, after so long a row of noble citizens, soldiers and princes, after so glorious an ascent, in this Germany which has been a light to lighten the world. Germany a land of swede turnips! Germany poor, with ashes on her head, without a future. Let them call us Huns. In God’s nani© lot tli&m call -us Huns, so long as wo are victorious. Should we conquer, our traders and seamen can say. Yes, we arc Huns, that is to sav, wo are the bravest nation on earth'. Tho world fell on us and we heat the world. Huns. Certainly... But a century of Germany as a' swede turnip land, and behind us England with her whip. Intolerable.”

AWAKE. BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE! That muso not be. exclaims the author. Germans must be wakened. Awake as the Kaiser is awake, as Hmdenburg and the other generals, awake all day long, and when night comes only one thought—How can I help thee, O Germany! “We must be awake as our soldiers who stand all day and all night long breast-deep in the earth; awake like the children who are eatjog and drinking scantily and kelping their mothers with obedience and good courage; awake like the mothers who are biting their lips in sorrow and, believing in better days hold thenbeads high : awake like the girls in the stables and byres, on the fields, m the factories; awake like the hundred thousand women in their lonely farmhouses in charge of the children, the cows and the Russian prisoners. “Truly a radiance goes out from the altar of our people. The dear red flames reach up to the heights of heaven, and the whole world, although distorted with hatred, looks on in wonder. And God in heaven sees it also. Yes. they would call us Huns. Willingly if only we conquer. If only England, bursting with empty pride, doe's not fall upon us. If only Russian hands big and empty, are not .filled with our sweat, -with our proud spirit. Huns! Gladlv. But victorious over our enemies, proud, free, well ordered, a garden of God, blooming before His holy eyes!” . ■ ' ■