Bertha von Suttner

Summer sojourn in Switzerland.—My husband’s researches in the history of the Geneva convention, and in international law.—Seclusion and mourning.—Visit to Vienna.—Frederick enters a new army, the army of peace.—Visit to Berlin.—On our way we visit the battlefield of Sadowa on All Souls’ Day.—The emperor as a mourner.—Aunt Cornelia: her grief and the consolations of religion.—The army chaplain.—A military-theological discussion.—We are summoned to Aunt Mary’s deathbed.—Retired life at Vienna.—Minister “To-be-sure”.—Political talks.—Universal liability to serve.

WE passed the remainder of the summer in the neighbourhood of Geneva. Dr. Bresser’s powers of persuasion had at last succeeded in moving us to fly from the infected country. I at first strove against leaving so quickly the graves of my family, and, as I have said, I was filled with such a resignation to death that I had become wholly apathetic, and held every attempt at flight to be useless; but in spite of all this Bresser was certain to conquer when he represented to me that it was my maternal duty to carry little Rudolf out of the way of danger as well as I could.

That we chose Switzerland as our place of refuge resulted from Frederick’s wish. He wanted to become acquainted with the men who had called the “Red Cross” into life, and to gain information on the spot about the proceedings of the conferences which had been held, as well as about the further aims of the convention.

Frederick had given in his resignation of the military service, and as a preliminary had received half-a-year’s leave till his request should be granted. I had now become rich, very rich. The death of my father, and of my brother and two sisters, had put me in possession of Grumitz and of the whole family property.

“Look here,” I said to Frederick, when the title deeds were delivered to me from the notary’s, “what would you say if I were now to praise the war which has just passed because of the advantages which have fallen to my share from its consequences?”

“Why, that you would not then be my Martha. Still I understand what you mean. The heartless egotism, which is capable of rejoicing over material gains that proceed out of the ruin of others—this impulse which every individual, even if he is base enough to feel it, still takes all possible care to hide—is proudly and openly confessed by nations and dynasties. ‘Thousands have perished in untold sufferings; but we have thereby increased in territory and in power: so let there be praises and thanks to Heaven for the successful war!’”

We lived very quietly, and retired, in a small villa situated on the shore of the lake. I was so oppressed by the scenes through which I had gone, that I would have absolutely no intercourse with any strangers. Frederick respected my mourning, and made no attempt whatever to recommend me the vulgar resource of “diversion” as a cure for it; I owed it to the graves at Grumitz—and my tender husband saw this well—to grieve over them for some time in perfect quiet. Those who had been hurried so speedily and so cruelly out of this fair world should not be equally quickly and coldly stolen also out of the place of memory which they held in my mourning heart.

Frederick himself went often into the city, in order to follow up the object of his stay here—the study of the Red Cross question. Of the results of this study I do not retain any clear recollection. I did not at that time keep any diary; and thus what Frederick communicated to me of the experiences he met with has for the most part passed out of my recollection. I only recollect clearly one impression which the whole of my surroundings made on me—the quiet, the ease, the cheerful activity of the people whom I happened to see, as if they were living in a most peaceful, most good-humoured time. There was hardly anywhere even an echo of the war that had just ended, or at the most in a conversational tone, as if it had contributed one more interesting event—nothing more—which might furnish pleasant matter for talk along with the rest of European gossip: as if the awful thunder of the cannonades on the Bohemian battlefields had had nothing more tragic in them than a new opera by Wagner. The thing belonged now to history, and had for its result some alterations in the atlas; but its horror had passed out of recollection, or perhaps had never been present to these neutrals; it was forgotten; the pain was over; it had vanished. The same with the newspapers. I read French newspapers chiefly; all the interest was concentrated about the Universal Exhibition in Paris which was in preparation for 1867; about the court festivities at CompiÈgne; about literary celebrities (two new geniuses had come to light who caused much discussion, Flaubert and Zola); about the events of the drama—a new opera by Gounod—a new leading part designed by Offenbach for Hortense Schneider; and so forth. The little exciting duel which the Prussians and Austrians had fought out lÀ bas en BohÈme was an event that had already become to some extent a thing of the past. Ah! what lies three months back or at thirty miles’ distance, what is not being played out in the domain of the Now and the Here, is a thing which the short feelers of the human heart and the human memory cannot reach! We quitted Switzerland towards the middle of October. We betook ourselves back to Vienna, where the course of the business of my inheritance required my presence. When this business was despatched, our intention was to stay for a considerable time at Paris. Frederick had it in his mind to smooth the way with all his power for the idea of a league of peace; and his view was that the projected Universal Exhibition offered the best opportunity for setting on foot a congress of friends of peace, and he also thought Paris the most appropriate place for giving actual vitality to what was a matter of international concern.

“I have,” he said, “renounced the trade of war, and that I have done from convictions gained in actual war. I will now work for these convictions. I enter the service of the peace army. A very small army indeed, it is true, and one whose combatants have no other shield or sword than the sentiment of justice and the love of humanity. Still, everything which has ultimately become great has started from small or invisible beginnings.”

“Ah!” I sighed; “it is a hopeless beginning. What can you—a single man—achieve against that mighty fortress, thousands of years old, and garrisoned by millions of men?”

“Achieve? I? I am not really so foolish as to hope that I personally shall bring about a conversion. I was only saying just then that I wished to enter the ranks of the peace-army. When I had my place in the army of war, did I, do you suppose, hope that I should save my country, that I should conquer a province? No; the individual can only serve. And still further, he must serve. A man who is penetrated by any cause cannot do better than work for it—than devote his life to it, even if he knows how little this life, in and by itself, can contribute towards its victory. He serves because he must; not only the state, but our own conviction, if it is enthusiastic, lays on us the duty of defending it.”

“You are right, and if at length there are enough millions animated by the enthusiasm of this duty, then that thousand-year-old fortress will be abandoned by its garrison and must fall.”

From Vienna, I made a pilgrimage to Grumitz, whose mistress I had now become. But I did not even enter the chÂteau. I only laid down four wreaths in the churchyard, and drove back again. After my most important matters of business were put in order, Frederick proposed a little journey to Berlin, in order to pay a visit to Aunt Cornelia, who was so much to be pitied. I assented. During our absence I put my little son Rudolf in the charge of Aunt Mary. The latter had been cast down more than I can describe by the events of the cholera week at Grumitz. Her whole love, her whole interest in life, she now concentrated on my little Rudolf. I even hoped that she might be somewhat diverted and raised in her spirits by having the child with her for a time.

We left Vienna on November 1. We broke our journey in Prague, intending to spend the night there. Next day, instead of pursuing our journey to Berlin, we made a new pilgrimage.

“All Souls’ Day,” said I. “How many poor dead bodies are lying on the battlefield in this neighbourhood, for whom even this day of honour to the graves does nothing, because they have no graves. Who will pay them a visit?”

I looked at him for a while in silence. Then, half aloud, I said:—

“Will you?”

He nodded. We understood one another, and in an hour we were on our way to Chlum and KÖniggrÄtz.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

What a prospect. An elegy of Tiedge came into my mind.

Yes, unfortunately it will charm men, so long as the histories of the world, i.e., those who write them, build the statues of their heroes out of the ruins of war, so long as they offer their crowns to the Titans of public murder. To refuse the laurel crown, to give up fame, would be nobler. Is that what the poet means? The first thing to do should be to despoil the thing, which it should appear so beneficent to renounce, of its glory, and then there would be no ambitious man any longer to grasp after it.

It was twilight already when we got to Chlum, and from thence walked on, arm in arm, to the battlefield, near at hand, in silent horror. A mist was falling, mingled with very fine snowflakes, and the dull branches of the trees were bent by the shrill-sounding pipe of a cold November wind. Crowds of graves, and the graves of crowds, were all around us. But a churchyard?—no. No pilgrim weary of life had there been invited to rest and peace; there, in the midst of their youthful fire of life, exulting in the fullest strength of their manhood, the waiters on the future had been cast down by force, and had been shovelled down into their grave mould. Choked up, stifled, made dumb for ever, all those breaking hearts, those bloody mangled limbs, those bitterly-weeping eyes, those wild shrieks of despair, those vain prayers.

On this field of war it was not lonely. There were many—very many—whom All Souls’ Day had brought hither, from friends’ and enemies’ country, who were come here to kneel down on the ground where what they loved most had fallen. The train itself which brought us was full of other mourners, and thus I had heard now for several hours weeping and wailing going on around me. “Three sons—three sons, each one more beautiful and better and dearer than the others, have I lost at Sadowa,” said to us an old man who looked quite broken down. Many others, besides, of our companions in the carriage mingled their complaints with his—for brother, husband, father. But none of these made so much impression on me as the tearless, mournful “Three sons—three sons” of the poor old man.

On the field one saw on all sides, and on all the roads, black figures walking, or kneeling, or painfully staggering along and breaking out from time to time into loud sobs. There were only a few there who were buried by themselves—few crosses or stones with an inscription. We bent down and deciphered, as well as the twilight permitted, some of the names.

“Major v. Reuss of the Second Regiment of the Prussian Guards.”

“Perhaps a relation of the one engaged to our poor Rosa,” I remarked.

“Count GrÜnne. Wounded, July 3. Died, July 5.”

What might he not have suffered in those two days! Was he, I wondered, a son of the Count GrÜnne who uttered, before the war, the well-known sentence: “We are going to chase the Prussians away—wet foot”? Ah, how frantic and blasphemous! how shrilly out of tune sounds of a surety every word of provocation spoken before a war when one stands on a place like this! Words, and nothing more, boasting words, scornful words, spoken, written and printed; it is these alone that have sown the seed of fields like these.

We walk on. Everywhere earth heaps, more or less high, more or less broad, and even there where the earth is not elevated, even under our feet, soldiers’ corpses are perhaps mouldering!

The mist grows thicker constantly. “Frederick, pray put your hat on, you will take cold.”

But Frederick remained uncovered, and I did not repeat my warning a second time.

Among the mourners who were wandering about here were also many officers and soldiers, probably such as had themselves shared in the nobly contested day of KÖniggrÄtz, and now were making a pilgrimage to the place where their fallen comrades were sleeping.

We had now come to the spot where the largest number of warriors, friend and foe together, lay entombed. The place was walled off like a churchyard. Hither came the greatest number of mourners, because in this spot there was most chance that their dear ones might be entombed. Round this enclosure the bereaved ones were kneeling and sobbing, and here they hung up their crosses and their grave-lights.

A tall, slender man, of distinguished, youthful figure, in a general’s cloak, came up to the mound. The others gave place reverently to him, and I heard some voices whisper: “The emperor”.

Yes, it was Francis Joseph. It was the lord of the country, the supreme lord of war, who had come on All Souls’ Day to offer up a silent prayer for the dead children of his country, for his fallen warriors. He also stood with uncovered and bowed head there, in agonised devotion, before the majesty of Death.

Long, long he stood without moving. I could not turn my eyes away from him. What thoughts must be passing through his soul, what feelings through his heart, which after all was, as I knew, a good and a soft heart? It came into my mind that I could feel with him, that I could think the thoughts at the same time as he, which were passing through that bowed head of his.

You, my poor, brave fellows, dead, and what for? No, we have not conquered. My Venice—lost. So much lost—ah, so much! and your young lives too. And you gave them so devotedly—for me. Oh, if I could give them back to you! I, for my part, never desired the sacrifice; it was for you, for your country, that you, the children of my country, were led forth to this war! And not by my means; no, not though it was at my order, for was I not compelled to give the order? The subjects do not exist for my sake. No, I was called to the throne for their sakes, and any hour have I been ready to die for the weal of my people. Oh, had I followed the impulse of my heart, and never said “Yes,” when all around me were shouting “War!” “War!” Still, could I have resisted them? God is my witness that I could not. What impelled me, what forced me, at this moment, I do not know exactly, only so much I know, that it was an irresistible pressure from without, from yourselves, ye dead soldiers! Oh, how mournful, mournful, mournful! How I have suffered for it all! and now you are lying here, and on other battlefields, snatched away by grape-shot and sabre-cuts, by cholera and typhus! Oh, if I had said “No!” You begged me to do so, Elizabeth. Oh, if I had said it! The thought is intolerable that—— Oh, it is a miserable, imperfect world—too much, too much of woe!

During the whole time that I was thinking thus for him, I fastened my eyes on his features, and now—yes, just as I came to “too much—too much of woe”—now he covered his face with both hands, and broke out into a hot flood of tears.

So passed All Souls’ Day on the battlefield of Sadowa.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We found the city of Berlin in the height of jubilation. Every counter-jumper and every street-loafer bore on his countenance a certain consciousness of victory. “We have given the fellows there a good licking.” That appears anyhow to be a very elevating feeling, and one which may be spread over the whole population. Still, in the families which we visited, we found many people deeply cast down, those, that is to say, who had one never to be forgotten lying dead on the German or Bohemian battlefields. For my own part, I feared most the meeting with Aunt Cornelia again. I knew that her handsome son Godfrey was her idol, her all, and I could judge of the pang which the poor bereaved mother must now be experiencing. I had only to fancy to myself that my Rudolf, if I had brought him up to manhood—no, that thought I absolutely refused to think out.

Our visit was announced. With a beating heart I entered Fr. v. Tessow’s house. Even in the ante-chamber, the mourning which reigned in the house was perceptible. The footman who opened the door for us wore a black livery; in the great reception-room, the chairs of which were covered over with chair covers, there was no fire lighted; and the mirrors and pictures on the walls were all covered with crape. From hence, the door into Aunt Cornelia’s bedroom was opened for us, and she received us there. It was a very large room, divided into two by a curtain, behind which the bed stood; and it served Aunt Cornelia now as her regular reception-room. She no longer quitted the house at all, except every Sunday to go to the cathedral, and very seldom her room, except for one hour every day, which she spent in what had been Godfrey’s study. In this everything was left standing or lying as he had left it on the day of his departure. She took us into it, in the course of our visit, and made us read a letter, which he had laid on his portfolio.

When we went into Aunt Cornelia’s room, she was not alone. A gentleman in a long black coat, recognisable at the first glance as a clergyman, was sitting opposite to her.

She got up and came to meet us. The clergyman rose at the same time from his seat, but remained standing in the background.

What I expected occurred. When I embraced the old lady both of us, she and I, broke out into loud sobs. Frederick also did not remain dry-eyed as he pressed the mourner to his heart. In this first minute no word at all was spoken. All that one can say at such a moment, at one’s first meeting after a severe misfortune, is sufficiently expressed by tears.

She led us back to the place where they were sitting, and pointed us to chairs that stood there. Then, after drying her eyes, she made the introduction.

“My nephew, Colonel Baron Tilling—Herr MÖlser, head military chaplain and consistorial councillor.”

Silent bows were exchanged.

“My friend and spiritual adviser,” she proceeded, “who has allowed me to lay on him the burden of instructing me in my trouble.”

“But who unfortunately has not succeeded in instilling into you the proper resignation, the proper joy in bearing the cross, my valued friend,” said he. “Why is it that I have always to witness a fresh outburst of these very foolish tears?”

“Oh, forgive me! When I last saw my nephew with his sweet young wife, my Godfrey was there.”

She could speak no further.

“Your son was there, in this sinful world, still exposed to all temptations and dangers, while now he has gone into the bosom of the Father, after meeting with the most glorious and most blessed of deaths for king and country.

“You, colonel,” turning now to my husband, “who have just been introduced to me as a soldier, can assist me to give to this afflicted mother the consolation that her son’s fate is an enviable one. You must know what delight in death animates the brave warrior; the resolve to offer his life as a sacrifice on the altar of his country glorifies for him all the pain of departing this life; and, though he sinks in the storm of the battle amidst the thunder of the artillery, yet he expects to be transferred to the great army on high, and to be present when the Lord of Sabaoth holds muster above. You, colonel, have come back in the number of those to whom Divine Providence has granted a righteous victory.”

“Forgive me, reverend consistorial councillor, I was in the Austrian service.”

“Oh, I thought—— Oh, really,” replied the other quite confused. “A grand, brave army too is the Austrian.” He rose. “But I will not intrude longer. You will be wishing, doubtless, to talk of family matters. Farewell, dear lady; in a few days I will come again. Till then, raise your thoughts to the All-merciful, without whose will not a hair falls from our heads, and who causes all things to serve for the good of those that love Him—even sorrow and suffering, even privation and death. I salute you with all devotion.”

My aunt shook his hand.

“I hope I shall see you soon. Very soon, pray.”

He bowed to us all, and was stepping towards the door when Frederick detained him.

“Reverend consistorial councillor, may I ask you a favour?”

“Pray, tell me what it is, colonel?”

“I conclude from your conversation that you are penetrated equally by the religious and the military spirit. In that case you might do me a great pleasure.”

I listened with interest. What could Frederick mean?

“The fact is,” he continued, “that my little wife here is full of scruples and doubts of all sorts. Her opinion is that, from a Christian point of view, war is not quite permissible. I, of course, know to the contrary, for there is no alliance closer than that between the professions of priest and soldier, but I have not the eloquence to make this clear to my wife. Would you then, reverend consistorial councillor, so far favour us as to give us, to-morrow or next day, an hour of your conversation, with the view——”

“Oh, with great pleasure,” the clergyman said, interrupting him. “Will you give me your address?”

Frederick gave him his card, and the day and hour of the visit he asked for were fixed at once. Then we remained alone with our aunt.

“Does your intercourse with this friend really afford you consolation?” asked Frederick.

“Consolation? There is no consolation for me any more here below. But he speaks so much and so beautifully about the things which I like most to hear of—about death and mourning, about the cross and sacrifice and resignation—he paints the world which my poor Godfrey had to leave, and from which I long to be released, as such a vale of misery, of corruption, of sin, and of advancing ruin.... And so it seems to me a little less mournful that my child has been called away. He is assuredly in heaven, and here on this earth——”

“The powers of hell often prevail. That is true. I have again seen proof of that close to me,” replied Frederick thoughtfully.

The poor lady next questioned him about the two campaigns that he had passed through—the one with, the other against, Godfrey. He had to relate hundreds of details, and in doing so he was able to give the bereaved mother the same comfort that he once brought me back from the war in Italy, namely, that the lamented one had died a rapid and painless death. It was a long and a mournful visit. I also again recounted there all the details of the horrible cholera week, and my experiences on the Bohemian battlefields. Before we left, Aunt Cornelia took us into Godfrey’s room, where I wept bitter tears anew at the perusal of the letter which I have quoted above, and of which at a later period I begged a copy.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Now explain to me,” I said to Frederick, as we got into our carriage, which was in waiting in front of Aunt Cornelia’s villa, “why you asked the consistorial councillor——”

“To a conference with you? Do not you understand? That is to serve me as material for study. I want to hear once more—and this time to take note of—the arguments by which priests defend public murder. I put you forward as the leader in the fray. It better becomes a young lady to nourish a doubt from the Christian point of view as to the lawfulness of war than a ‘gallant colonel’!”

“But you know that my doubt is not from a religious, but a humanitarian point of view.”

“We must not lay this at all before the reverend consistorial councillor, or else the discussion would be transferred to a different field. The efforts after peace of free thinkers suffer from no internal inconsistency, but it is this very inconsistency existing between the maxims of Christianity and the orders of military authorities which I should like to hear explained by a military chaplain, i.e., a representative of militant Christianity.”

The clergyman was punctual in his arrival. The prospect was evidently an inviting one for him of having to preach a sermon of instruction and conversion. I on the contrary looked forward to the conversation with somewhat painful feelings, for the part assigned to me in it was a dishonest one. But, for the good of the cause to which Frederick had devoted his services henceforth, I was easily able to put some constraint on myself, and comfort myself with the proverb: “The end justifies the means”.

After the first greetings—we were all three seated on low, easy-chairs before the fire—the consistorial councillor began thus:—

“Allow me, dear lady, to enter on the object of my visit. The matter is to remove from your soul some scruples, which are not destitute of some apparent grounds, but which can easily be refuted as sophistical. You think, for example, that Christ’s command to love your enemies, and also the text, ‘He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword,’ are inconsistent with the duties of a soldier, who no doubt is empowered to injure the enemy in body and life.”

“Certainly, reverend councillor, this inconsistency seems to me irreconcilable. Then there occurs also the express command of the Decalogue, ‘Thou shalt not kill’.”

“Oh, yes, to a superficial judgment there is some difficulty in that, but on penetrating deeper all doubt vanishes. As regards the fifth commandment, it would be more correctly given (as it is actually in the English version of the Bible): ‘Thou shalt not murder’. Killing for necessary defence is not murder. And war is in reality only necessary defence on a large scale. We can and we ought, following the gentle precept of our Saviour, to love our enemies, but that does not mean that we are not to venture to defend ourselves from open wrong and violence.”

“Then does it not follow of course from this that only defensive wars are justifiable, and that no sword-stroke ought to be given till the enemy has invaded the country? But if the opposing nation proceeds on the same principle, how then can the battle ever begin? In the late war it was your army, reverend councillor, which first crossed the frontier, and——”

“If one wishes to keep the foe off, dear lady, as we have the most sacred right to do, it is utterly unnecessary to put off the favourable opportunity, and to wait until he has first invaded one’s country. On the contrary, the sovereign must, under all circumstances, have freedom to anticipate the violent and unjust. In doing so he is following the written word: ‘He who takes the sword shall perish by the sword’. He presents himself as God’s servant and avenger on the enemy, because he strives to make him, as he has taken the sword against him, perish by the sword.”

“There must be some fallacy in that,” I said, shaking my head. “It is impossible that these principles should justify both parties equally.”

“And as to the further scruple,” pursued the clergyman, without noticing my remark, “that war is of and by itself displeasing to God, this must depart from every Christian who believes in the Bible, for the Holy Scriptures sufficiently prove that the Lord Himself gave commands to the people of Israel to wage wars, in order to conquer the promised land, and He granted them victory and His blessing on their wars. In Numbers xxi. 14, a special ‘book of the wars of the Lord’ is spoken of. And how often in the Psalms is the assistance celebrated which God has granted to His people in war! Do you not know what Solomon says (Proverbs xxi. 31): ‘The horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord’? In Psalm cxliv. David thanks and praises the Lord, his strength, ‘who teacheth his hand to war, and his fingers to fight’.”

“Then a contradiction prevails between the Old and the New Testament—the God of the ancient Hebrews was a warlike Deity, but the gentle Jesus proclaimed the message of peace, and taught love to neighbour and to enemy.”

“In the New Testament also, Jesus speaks in a figure (Luke xiv. 31) without the least blame of a king who is going to make war against another king. And how often, too, does not the Apostle Paul use figures from the military life? He says (Rom. xiii. 4) that the magistrate does not bear the sword in vain, but if God’s servant—a revenger on him that doeth evil.”

“Well, then, in that case the contradiction I mean exists in the Holy Scripture itself. By your showing me that it is present in the Bible you do not remove it.”

“There one sees the superficial and at the same time arrogant method of judgment which seeks to exalt one’s own weak reason above the Word of God. Contradiction is something imperfect, ungodlike; and if I show that a thing is in the Bible the proof is complete that in itself—however incomprehensible it may be to the human understanding—it can contain no contradiction.”

“Unless the presence of contradiction does not much rather prove that the passages in question cannot possibly be of Divine origin.” This answer trembled on my lips, but I suppressed it, in order not to change entirely the object of the discussion.

“Look here, reverend councillor,” said Frederick, now mingling in the conversation, “a chief captain of artillery in the seventeenth century has laid down much more forcibly than you have done the justifiability of the horrors of war by an appeal to the Bible. I extracted the passage and have read it to my wife, but she did not sympathise with the spirit expressed in it. I confess the thing seems to me—well, a little strong—and I should like to hear your view about it. If you will allow me I will fetch the paper.” So he took a sheet of paper out of a drawer, unfolded it, and read:—

“That is horrible, abominable!” broke in the chief chaplain. “It could only be a rough soldier of the savage times of the Thirty Years’ War to whom it would appear natural to produce examples like these out of the Bible, in order to found thereon a justification for their cruelties against the enemy. We preach quite other doctrine now—nothing more is to be striven for in war than to make your adversary incapable of harm—even up to his death—but without any evil design against the life of any individual. If any such design enters in, or even any murderous desire or any cruelty against those who are defenceless, in such a case killing in war is exactly as immoral and as impermissible as in peace. No doubt in past centuries, when the adventurous delight in feud and quarrel prevailed, when leaders of Landsknechts and vagrant persons carried on war as a trade, in such times an artillery captain might write in that style; but in the present day armies are not put into the field for gold and booty, not without knowing for whom or for what, but for the highest ideal objects of mankind—for freedom, independence, nationality; for justice, faith, honour, purity and morality——”

“You, reverend consistorial councillor,” I interposed, “are at least milder and more humane than the artillery captain. And thus you have no proofs out of the Bible to allege for the lawfulness of cruelty, in which our forefathers of the middle ages, and presumably also the ancient Hebrews, took a pleasure; and yet it is the same book, and the same Jehovah, and He cannot have become milder—and everybody still gets from Him as much support as suits his views.”

On this I received a slight sermon of rebuke for my want of reverence for the Word of God, and for my want of judgment in reading it.

Still I succeeded in leading the conversation back again to our especial subject; and now the consistorial councillor launched out into a long dissertation, and one which this time was allowed to be uninterrupted, about the connection between the military and Christian spirits; he spoke of the religious devotion “which is indwelling in the oath to the standard, when the colours are carried solemnly, with the accompaniment of music, into the church, with the guard of honour of two officers with drawn swords; and there the recruit marches out for the first time in public with helmet and side-arms, and for the first time follows the colours of his company, unfolded now before the altar of the Lord torn as they are and stained with the honourable marks of the battles in which they have been carried”. He spoke of the prayer offered every Sunday in church: “Preserve the royal commander of the army, and all true servants of their king and country. Teach them as Christians to think of their end, and grant that their service may be blessed, to the honour and the good of the country.” “God with us,” he went on, “is, as you know, the motto on the belt-buckle with which the foot-soldier buckles on his side-arms, and this watchword should give him confidence. If God be with us, who can be against us? Then there are also the universal days of public prayer and humiliation which are ordered at the commencement of a war that the people may beg for God’s help in prayer, both in the comfortable hope of His support and in the confidence through that support of gaining a victorious termination. What devotion does there not lie in this for the departing warrior! How mightily does this exalt his delight in battle and in death! He can with comfort enter into the ranks of the warriors when his king calls for him, and can reckon on victory and blessing for the cause of right. God the Lord will no more deprive our people of this than His people Israel of old, if only it is with prayers to Him that we carry on the work of battle. The intimate alliance between prayer and victory, between piety and valour, easily follows—for what can more assure one of joy in the prospect of death than the confidence that if our last hour should strike in the confusion of the battle we shall find favour at the hands of the Judge in heaven? Fidelity and faith, in union with manliness and warlike virtue, belong to the oldest traditions of our people.”

He went on in this tone for a long time more—now with oily mildness, with sunken head, in the softest tones speaking of love, humility, “little children,” salvation, and “precious things”—now with military voice of command, with a proud, erect attitude, talking of strict morals and stern discipline—sharp and cutting—of sword and shield. The word “joy” was never used otherwise than in composition with death, battle, and dying. From the point of view of the army chaplain, to kill and to be killed seemed to be the most exquisite delights in life. Everything else is exhausting, sinful pleasure. Verses, too, were recited. First this of KÖrner:—

Then the old popular song of the Thirty Years’ War:—

And then the song by Lenau of the war-loving armourer:—

And, to conclude, the saying of Luther:—

“When I look at war as a thing that protects wife, child, house, land, goods, and honour—and in doing so gains peace and secures it—in that view war is a right precious thing”.

“Oh, yes; if I look at the panther as a dove, in that case the panther is a very gentle beast,” I remarked unheard.

The military chaplain did not allow himself to be disturbed in his flow of eloquence; and, when he ended and took leave, I found myself with two convictions: that war from the Christian point of view is a justifiable, and in and by itself is a precious, thing. It was visibly a very agreeable thing to him to have, by means of this rhetorical victory, both fulfilled the duty of his profession, and in doing so rendered a considerable service to the foreign colonel; for, as he rose to go, and we expressed to him our thanks for the trouble he had been so good as to undertake, he deprecatingly rejoined:—

“It is for me to thank you for having given me an opportunity of chasing away your doubts through my feeble word (whose entire efficacy is to be ascribed to the Word of God, which I have so often quoted), doubts which are of such a nature as to bring nothing but pain to a person who is not only a Christian but a soldier’s wife. Peace be with you.”

“Oh,” I groaned, when he was gone, “that was a torture!”

“Yes,” said Frederick; “it was. Our want of straightforwardness especially was uncomfortable to me, and particularly the false premises under which we got him to display his eloquence. At one moment I was on the point of saying to him: ‘Stop, reverend sir, I myself entertain the same views against war as my wife, and what you are saying only serves, as far as I am concerned, to enable me to see more clearly the weakness of your arguments’. But I held my tongue. Why interfere with an honest man’s conviction—a conviction which is besides the foundation of his profession in life?”

“Conviction? Are you certain of that? Does he really believe that he is speaking the truth, or does he purposely deceive his common soldiers, when he promises them an assured victory through the assistance of a God of whom he nevertheless must know this—that He is invoked in exactly the same way by the enemy? These appeals to ‘our people’ and to ‘our cause’ as the only righteous one, and one which is God’s cause too, were surely only possible at a time when one people shut out all other peoples, and considered itself as the only one entitled to exist—the only one beloved of God. And then all these promises of heaven, with the view of more easily procuring the sacrifice of earthly life, all these ceremonies, consecrations, oaths, hymns which are intended to awaken in the breast of the man ordered into war that ‘joy in death’ (repulsive words to me!) which they so admire; is it not——”

“Everything has two sides, Martha,” said Frederick interrupting me. “It is because we deprecate war that everything which supports and excuses it, everything which veils its horrors, appears hateful to us.”

“Yes, of course; because the hateful thing is upheld thereby.”

“But not thereby only. All institutions stand on roots of a thousand fibres, and as long as they exist it must be a good thing that those feelings and methods of thought should persist by which they are excused, by which they are rendered not only tolerable, but even beloved. How many a poor fellow is helped through his death-agony by that same ‘joy in death’ into which he has been educated! how many a pious soul relies in all confidence on the help of God of which he has been assured by the preacher! how much innocent vanity and proud feeling of honour are awakened and satisfied by those ceremonies! how many hearts beat higher at the sound of those hymns! From the total of the pain which war has brought on men, we must at least deduct that pain which war poets and war preachers have contrived to sing away and lie away.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

We were summoned away from Berlin very hurriedly. A telegram announced to me that Aunt Mary was very ill and wished to see me.

I found the old lady given up by her physicians.

“It is my turn now,” she said. “For my own part I am right willing to go. Since my poor brother and the three children were snatched away, this world has had no more joy for me. Apart from anything else, I shall never more have the strength to bear up after such a blow. I shall find the others there above. Conrad and Lilly are also united there; it was not ordained that they should be united here on earth.”

“If they had finished their arrangements in proper time....” I was disposed to say in opposition, but I stopped myself. I could not surely raise any discussion with this dying person, and still less try to unsettle her about her favourite theory of “pre-ordination”.

“I have one comfort,” she went on, “that you at least, dear Martha, remain behind happy; the cholera has spared you, and that proves clearly that it is ordained for you to grow old in company. Only try to make of your little Rudolf a good Christian and a good soldier, so that his grandfather up in heaven may still find his joy in him.”

Even on this point I preferred to keep silence, for I was firmly resolved to make no soldier of my son.

“I will pray for you incessantly, so that you may live long and happily.”

Of course I did not dwell on the inconsistency that an “inevitable destiny” could be influenced in one’s favour by incessant prayer; but I interrupted the poor creature by begging her not to exhaust herself with talking, and, in order to distract her attention, told her about our doings in Switzerland and Berlin. I also related how we met Prince Henry, and that he had caused to be erected in the park of his castle a marble monument in memory of the bride whom he had lost as soon as won.

Three days afterwards poor Aunt Mary fell asleep, resigned and calm, fortified with the sacrament for the dying, which she had herself begged for and which she received with devotion; and thus were all my relations gone from the earth, all those in whose midst I had been brought up.

In her will the entire inheritance of her little fortune was left to my son Rudolf, and as his trustee Minister “To-be-sure” was nominated.

This circumstance brought me now into frequent contact with this old friend of my father. He was also pretty nearly the only visitor at our house. The deep mourning into which the unhappy week at Grumitz had plunged me caused me as a matter of course to live in perfect retirement. Our plan of settling in Paris could not be carried out till all my affairs were put in order, and in any case several months more would be necessary for that.

Our friend the Minister, who, as I have said, formed almost the whole of our society, had in these latter days either received or obtained his discharge—I never quite fathomed the matter—but in short he had withdrawn into private life, but he was still as fond as ever of busying himself about politics. He continually contrived to turn the conversation on to this his favourite theme, and we also willingly took our share in it. As Frederick was now occupying himself so busily with the study of international law, any discussion was welcome to him which touched on this province. After dinner (Mr. “To-be-sure”—for we always between ourselves made use of this nickname for him—was always asked to dine at our house twice a week) the two gentlemen would plunge into a long political conversation; but in doing this my husband took care not to let this conversation turn into the political gossip which he so hated, but was careful to lead it to views of more general interest. In this, to be sure, Mr. “To-be-sure” could not always follow him, for in his character as an inveterate diplomatist and official he had accustomed himself to follow what is called “practical politics”—a thing which is directed merely to the private interests which lie nearest to hand and knows nothing about the theoretical questions of social science.

I sat by, busy over some needlework, and took no share in the conversation—a thing which seemed quite natural to the Minister; for politics is, as is well known, far “too high a thing” for ladies; he was sure that I was thinking all the time of other things, whilst I, on the contrary, was listening very attentively, since it was my business to impress the tenor of this dialogue on my memory, in order to transfer it afterwards into the red book. Frederick made no secret of his opinions, though he knew what a thankless part it is to set oneself to oppose what is generally received, and to defend ideas whilst they are in the stage when—even if they are not condemned as subversive—still they are derided as fantastic.

“I am in a position to-day to communicate to you an interesting piece of news, dear Tilling,” said the Minister one afternoon with an air of importance. “People in government circles—that is to say, in the ministry of war—are ventilating the idea of introducing a universal liability to service amongst us also.”

“What? the same system which before the war was so universally condemned and derided among us? ‘Tailors in arms,’ and so on?”

“To be sure we had a prejudice against it a short time since. Still, it has rendered good service to the Prussians you must allow. And, in fact, from the moral point of view, and even from the democratic and liberal point of view, for which you occasionally appear so enthusiastic, it is surely a just and elevating thing that every son of his fatherland, without any regard to his position or stage of education, should have to fulfil the same duties. And from a strategic point of view, could little Prussia have been always victorious if she had not had the Landwehr; and if the latter had been introduced amongst us before, should we have been always beaten?”

“Well, the meaning of that is, that if we had had more material, the material which our enemy had would not have served him. Ergo—if the Landwehr were introduced everywhere it would not benefit anybody. The war game would be played with more pieces, but the game nevertheless depends still on the luck and the ability of the players. I will suppose that all the European powers have introduced the obligation of universal defence; the proportion of forces in that case remains exactly the same, the only difference would be that, in order to come to a decision, instead of hundreds of thousands, millions would have to be slaughtered.”

“But do you think it just and fair that a part only of the population should sacrifice themselves in order to protect the dearest possessions of the others, and that these others, chiefly because they are rich, should be entitled to stop quietly at home? No, no; that will cease with this new law. Then there will be no more buying-off—every one will have to take his part. And it is especially the educated—the students—those who have some learning, who will contribute the elements of intelligence and therefore of victory.”

“The other side has the same elements ready to hand, and so the advantages to be gained from educated petty officers neutralise each other. On the other hand, what remains (and equally to both sides) is the loss of material of priceless mental worth, of which the country is deprived by the fact that the most educated, those who might have promoted its civilisation by means of inventions, works of art, or scientific inquiry, are set up in rank and file to be marks for the enemy’s shot——”

“Oh, well! for making inventions, and producing works of art, and investigating skull-bones, and all sorts of things of that kind, which do not advance the position of the state’s power one drachm——”

“Hm!”—“What?” “Oh, nothing; go on.”

“For all that there remains plenty of time for people. And besides they need not serve for the whole of their life; but a few years of strict discipline are assuredly good for everybody, and make them only so much the more competent to fulfil their other duties as citizens. We must in the present state of things pay the blood tax some time—so it ought to be divided between all equally.”

“There would be something to say for that, if it fell less heavily on individuals on that account. But that would not be the case; the blood tax would not be divided by that measure, but increased. I hope the project may not be carried out. There is no seeing whither it may lead. One state would then try to outvie the other in strength of army, till at last there would no longer be any armies, but only armed nations. More people would be constantly drawn into the service; the length of service would be constantly increased; the incidence of war taxes and the costs of armaments constantly greater;—so that without fighting each other the nations would all come to ruin in making preparations for war!”

“But, dear Tilling, you look too far.”

“One can never look too far. Everything a man undertakes he ought to think out to its remotest consequence—at least as far as his mind reaches. We were likening war just now to a game at chess. Politics also is of the same nature, your excellency, and those are only very feeble players who look no further forward than a single move, and are quite pleased with themselves if they have got into a position in which they can threaten a pawn. I want to develop the thought of defensive forces constantly increasing and the universal extension of liability to military service still more widely, till we reach the extremest verge, i.e., where the mass becomes excessive. What then, if after the greatest numbers and the furthest limits of age are reached, one nation should take it into its head to recruit regiments of women too? The others must imitate it. Or battalions of boys? The others must imitate it. And in the armaments—in the means of destruction—where can the limit be? Oh this savage, blind leap into the pit!”

“Calm yourself, dear Tilling. You are a genuine faddist. If you could only point me out a means to do away with war it would be a perfect benefit, to be sure. But as that is not possible, every nation must surely endeavour to prepare itself for it as well as possible, in order to assure itself of the greatest chance of winning in the inevitable ‘struggle for existence’—that is the cant word of the fashionable Darwinism, is it not?”

“If I should choose to suggest to you the means of doing away with wars, you would again call me a silly faddist, a sentimental dreamer rendered morbid by the ‘humanitarian craze’—that, I think, is the cant word in favour with the war party, is it not?”

“To be sure, I cannot conceal from you that no practical foundation exists for the realisation of such an ideal. One must calculate with the actual factors. In these are classed the passions of men; their rivalries; the divergences of interests; the impossibility of coming to an agreement on all questions.”

“But that is not necessary. When disagreements begin an arbitration tribunal—not force—is to decide.”

“The sovereign states would never betake themselves to such a tribunal—nor would the peoples.”

“The peoples? The potentates and diplomatists would not—but the people? Just inquire, and you will find that the wish for peace is warm and true in the people, while the peaceful assurances which proceed from the governments are frequently lies, hypocritical lies—or at least are regarded as such on principle by other governments. That is precisely what is called ‘diplomacy’. And the peoples will go on ever more and more calling for peace. If the general obligation of defence should extend, the dislike of war will increase in the same proportion. A class of soldiers animated with love for their calling is, of course, imaginable; their exceptional position, which they take for a position of honour, is offered to them as a recompense for the sacrifices which it entails, but when the exception ceases the distinction ceases also. The admiring thankfulness disappears which those who stay at home offer to those who go out in their defence,—because then there will be no one to stay at home. The war-loving feelings which are always being suggested to the soldier—and in so doing are often awakened in him—will be more seldom kindled; for who are those that are of the most heroic spirit, who are most warm in their enthusiasm for the exploits and dangers of war? Those who are safe against them—the professors, the politicians, the beer-shop chatterers—the chorus of old men, as it is called in ‘Faust’. When the safety is lost, that chorus will be silenced. Besides, if not only those devote themselves to the military life who love and praise it, but all those also are forcibly dragged into it who look on it with horror, that horror must work. Poets, thinkers, friends of humanity, timid persons, all these will, from their own points of view, curse the trade they are forced into.”

“But they will beyond doubt have to keep silent about this way of thinking, in order not to pass for cowards—in order not to expose themselves to the displeasure of the higher powers.”

“Keep silence? Not for ever. As I talk—though I have myself kept silence long—so will the others also break out into speech. If the thought ripens, the word will come. I am an individual who have come to the age of forty before my conviction acquired sufficient strength to expand itself in words. And as I have required two or three decades, so the masses will perhaps require two or three generations—but speak they will at last.”