TheAppOfTyranny

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THE APPETITE OF TYRANNY

Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian

By G.K. CHESTERTON

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

THE FACTS OF THE CASE

I THE WAR ON THE WORD

II THE REFUSAL OF RECIPROCITY

III THE APPETITE OF TYRANNY

IV THE ESCAPE OF FOLLY

LETTERS TO AN OLD GARIBALDIAN

THE FACTS OF THE CASE

Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering

business a story: and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness.

If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other

people’s weaknesses as well as my own. It may be that the master of the

house was burned because he was drunk; it may be that the mistress of the

house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the

expense of the fire-escape. It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they

both were burned because I set fire to their house. That is the story of

the thing. The mere facts of the story about the present European

conflagration are quite as easy to tell.

Before we go on to the deeper things which make this war the most sincere

war of human history, it is easy to answer the question of why England came

to be in it at all, as one asks how a man fell down a coal-hole, or failed

to keep an appointment. Facts are not the whole truth. But facts are facts,

and in this case the facts are few and simple. Prussia, France, and

England had all promised not to invade Belgium. Prussia proposed to invade

Belgium, because it was the safest way of invading France. But Prussia

promised that if she might break in, through her own broken promise and

ours, she would break in and not steal. In other words, we were offered at

the same instant a promise of faith in the future and a proposal of perjury

in the present. Those interested in human origin may refer to an old

Victorian writer of English, who, in the last and most restrained of his

historical essays, wrote of Frederick the Great, the founder of this

unchanging Prussian policy. After describing how Frederick broke the

guarantee he had signed on behalf of Maria Theresa, he then describes how

Frederick sought to put things straight by a promise that was an insult.

“If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her

against any power which should try to deprive her of her other dominions,

as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise

could be of more value than the old one.” That passage was written by

Macaulay, but so far as the mere contemporary facts are concerned, it might

have been written by me.

Upon the immediate logical and legal origin of the English interest there

can be no rational debate. There are some things so simple that one can

almost prove them with plans and diagrams, as in Euclid. One could make a

kind of comic calendar of what would have happened to the English

diplomatist if he had been silenced every time by Prussian diplomacy.

Suppose we arrange it in the form of a kind of diary.

July 24. Germany invades Belgium.

July 25. England declares war.

July 26. Germany promises not to annex Belgium.

July 27. England withdraws from the war.

July 28. Germany annexes Belgium. England declares war.

July 29. Germany promises not to annex France. England withdraws from the

war.

July 30. Germany annexes France. England declares war.

July 31. Germany promises not to annex England.

Aug. 1. England withdraws from the war. Germany invades England…

How long is anybody expected to go with that sort of game, or keep peace at

that illimitable price? How long must we pursue a road in which promises

are all fetishes in front of us and all fragments behind us? No: upon the

cold facts of the final negotiations, as told by any of the diplomatists in

any of the documents, there is no doubt about the story. And no doubt about

the villain of the story.

These are the last facts—the facts which involved England. It is equally

easy to state the first facts—the facts which involved Europe. The Prince

who practically ruled Austria was shot by certain persons whom the Austrian

Government believed to be conspirators from Servia. The Austrian Government

piled up arms and armies, but said not a word either to Servia their

suspect or Italy their ally. From the documents it would seem that Austria

kept everybody in the dark, except Prussia. It is probably nearer the truth

to say that Prussia kept everybody in the dark, including Austria. But all

that is what is called opinion, belief, conviction or common-sense, and we

are not dealing with it here. The objective fact is that Austria told

Servia to permit Servian officers to be suspended by the authority of

Austrian officers, and told Servia to submit to this within forty-eight

hours. In other words, the sovereign of Servia was practically told to take

off not only the laurels of two great campaigns but his own lawful and

national crown, and to do it in a time in which no respectable citizen is

expected to discharge an hotel bill. Servia asked for time, for

arbitration—in short, for peace. But Prussia had already begun to

mobilise; and Prussia, presuming that Servia might thus be rescued,

declared war.

Between these two ends of fact, the ultimatum to Servia, the ultimatum to

Belgium, any one so inclined can of course talk as if everything were

relative. If any one ask why the Czar should rush to the support of Servia,

it is as easy to ask why the Kaiser should rush to the support of Austria.

If any one say that the French would attack the Germans, it is sufficient

to answer that the Germans did attack the French. There remain, however,

two attitudes to consider, even perhaps two arguments to counter, which can

best be considered and countered under this general head of facts. First of

all, there is a curious, cloudy sort of argument, much affected by the

professional rhetoricians of Prussia, who are sent out to instruct and

correct the minds of Americans or Scandinavians. It consists of going into

convulsions of incredulity and scorn at the mention of Russia’s

responsibility for Servia or England’s responsibility for Belgium; and

suggesting that, treaty or no treaty, frontier or no frontier, Russia would

be out to slay Teutons or England to steal colonies. Here, as elsewhere, I

think the professors dotted all over the Baltic plain fail in lucidity, and

in the power of distinguishing ideas. Of course it is quite true that

England has material interests to defend, and will probably use the

opportunity to defend them: or, in other words, of course England, like

everybody else, would be more comfortable if Prussia were less predominant.

The fact remains that we did not do what the Germans did. We did not

invade Holland to seize a naval and commercial advantage: and whether they

say that we wished to do it in our greed, or feared to do it in our

cowardice, the fact remains that we did not do it. Unless this common-sense

principle be kept in view, I cannot conceive how any quarrel can possibly

be judged. A contract may be made between two persons solely for material

advantage on each side: but the moral advantage is still generally supposed

to lie with the person who keeps the contract. Surely it cannot be

dishonest to be honest—even if honesty is the best policy. Imagine the

most complex maze of indirect motives; and still the man who keeps faith

for money cannot possibly be worse than the man who breaks faith for money.

It will be noted that this ultimate test applies in the same way to Servia

as to Belgium and Britain. The Servians may not be a very peaceful people;

but, on the occasion under discussion, it was certainly they who wanted

peace. You may choose to think the Serb a sort of born robber: but on this

occasion it was certainly the Austrian who was trying to rob. Similarly,

you may call England perfidious as a sort of historical summary; and

declare your private belief that Mr. Asquith was vowed from infancy to the

ruin of the German Empire, a Hannibal and hater of the eagles. But, when

all is said, it is nonsense to call a man perfidious because he keeps his

promise. It is absurd to complain of the sudden treachery of a business man

in turning up punctually to his appointment: or the unfair shock given to a

creditor by the debtor paying his debts.

Lastly, there is an attitude not unknown in the crisis against which I

should particularly like to protest. I should address my protest especially

to those lovers and pursuers of Peace who, very short-sightedly, have

occasionally adopted it. I mean the attitude which is impatient of these

preliminary details about who did this or that, and whether it was right or

wrong. They are satisfied with saying that an enormous calamity, called

War, has been begun by some or all of us; and should be ended by some or

all of us. To these people this preliminary chapter about the precise

happenings must appear not only dry (and it must of necessity be the driest

part of the task) but essentially needless and barren. I wish to tell these

people that they are wrong; that they are wrong upon all principles of

human justice and historic continuity: but that they are specially and

supremely wrong upon their own principles of arbitration and international

peace.

These sincere and high-minded peace-lovers are always telling us that

citizens no longer settle their quarrels by private violence; and that

nations should no longer settle theirs by public violence. They are always

telling us that we no longer fight duels; and need no longer wage wars. In

short, they perpetually base their peace proposals on the fact that an

ordinary citizen no longer avenges himself with an axe. But how is he

prevented from revenging himself with an axe? If he hits his neighbour on

the head with the kitchen chopper, what do we do? Do we all join hands,

like children playing Mulberry Bush, and say “We are all responsible for

this; but let us hope it will not spread. Let us hope for the happy day

when he shall leave off chopping at the man’s head; and when nobody shall

ever chop anything for ever and ever.” Do we say “Let byegones be byegones;

why go back to all the dull details with which the business began; who can

tell with what sinister motives the man was standing there within reach of

the hatchet?” We do not. We keep the peace in private life by asking for

the facts of provocation, and the proper object of punishment. We do go

into the dull details; we do enquire into the origins; we do emphatically

enquire who it was that hit first. In short we do what I have done very

briefly in this place.

Given this, it is indeed true that behind these facts there are truths;

truths of a terrible, of a spiritual sort. In mere fact, the Germanic power

has been wrong about Servia, wrong about Russia, wrong about Belgium, wrong

about England, wrong about Italy. But there was a reason for its being

wrong everywhere; and of that root reason, which has moved half the world

against it, I shall speak later. For that is something too omnipresent to

be proved, too indisputable to be helped by detail. It is nothing less than

the locating, after more than a hundred years of recriminations and wrong

explanations, of the modern European evil: the finding of the fountain from

which poison has flowed upon all the nations of the earth.

I

THE WAR ON THE WORD

It will hardly be denied that there is one lingering doubt in many, who

recognise unavoidable self-defence in the instant parry of the English

sword, and who have no great love for the sweeping sabre of Sadowa and

Sedan. That doubt is the doubt whether Russia, as compared with Prussia, is

sufficiently decent and democratic to be the ally of liberal and civilised

powers. I take first, therefore, this matter of civilisation.

It is vital in a discussion like this, that we should make sure we are

going by meanings and not by mere words. It is not necessary in any

argument to settle what a word means or ought to mean. But it is necessary

in every argument to settle what we propose to mean by the word. So long as

our opponent understands what is the thing of which we are talking, it

does not matter to the argument whether the word is or is not the one he

would have chosen. A soldier does not say “We were ordered to go to

Mechlin; but I would rather go to Malines.” He may discuss the etymology

and archæology of the difference on the march; but the point is that he

knows where to go. So long as we know what a given word is to mean in a

given discussion, it does not even matter if it means something else in

some other and quite distinct discussion. We have a perfect right to say

that the width of a window comes to four feet; even if we instantly and

cheerfully change the subject to the larger mammals; and say that an

elephant has four feet. The identity of the words does not matter, because

there is no doubt at all about the meanings; because nobody is likely to

think of an elephant as four foot long, or of a window as having tusks and

a curly trunk.

It is essential to emphasise this consciousness of the thing under

discussion in connection with two or three words that are, as it were, the

key-words of this war. One of them is the word “barbarian.” The Prussians

apply it to the Russians: the Russians apply it to the Prussians. Both, I

think, really mean something that really exists, name or no name. Both mean

different things. And if we ask what these different things are, we shall

understand why England and France prefer Russia; and consider Prussia the

really dangerous barbarian of the two. To begin with, it goes so much

deeper even than atrocities; of which, in the past at least, all the three

Empires of Central Europe have partaken pretty equally, as they partook of

Poland. An English writer, seeking to avert the war by warnings against

Russian influence, said that the flogged backs of Polish women stood

between us and the Alliance. But not long before, the flogging of women by

an Austrian general led to that officer being thrashed in the streets of

London by Barclay and Perkins’ draymen. And as for the third power, the

Prussians, it seems clear that they have treated Belgian women in a style

compared with which flogging might be called an official formality. But,

as I say, something much deeper than any such recrimination lies behind the

use of the word on either side. When the German Emperor complains of our

allying ourselves with a barbaric and half-oriental power he is not (I

assure you) shedding tears over the grave of Kosciusko. And when I say (as

I do most heartily) that the German Emperor is a barbarian, I am not merely

expressing any prejudices I may have against the profanation of churches or

of children. My countrymen and I mean a certain and intelligible thing when

we call the Prussians barbarians. It is quite different from the thing

attributed to Russians; and it could not possibly be attributed to

Russians. It is very important that the neutral world should understand

what this thing is.

If the German calls the Russian barbarous he presumably means imperfectly

civilised. There is a certain path along which Western nations have

proceeded in recent times; and it is tenable that Russia has not proceeded

so far as the others: that she has less of the special modern system in

science, commerce, machinery, travel or political constitution. The Russ

ploughs with an old plough; he wears a wild beard; he adores relics; his

life is as rude and hard as that of a subject of Alfred the Great.

Therefore he is, in the German sense, a barbarian. Poor fellows like Gorky

and Dostoieffsky have to form their own reflections on the scenery, without

the assistance of large quotations from Schiller on garden seats; or

inscriptions directing them to pause and thank the All-Father for the

finest view in Hesse-Pumpernickel. The Russians, having nothing but their

faith, their fields, their great courage, and their self-governing

communes, are quite cut off from what is called (in the fashionable street

in Frankfort) The True, The Beautiful and The Good. There is a real sense

in which one can call such backwardness barbaric; by comparison with the

Kaiserstrasse; and in that sense it is true of Russia.

Now we, the French and English, do not mean this when we call the Prussians

barbarians. If their cities soared higher than their flying ships, if

their trains travelled faster than their bullets, we should still call them

barbarians. We should know exactly what we meant by it; and we should know

that it is true. For we do not mean anything that is an imperfect

civilisation by accident. We mean something that is the enemy of

civilisation by design. We mean something that is wilfully at war with the

principles by which human society has been made possible hitherto. Of

course it must be partly civilised even to destroy civilisation. Such ruin

could not be wrought by the savages that are merely undeveloped or inert.

You could not have even Huns without horses; or horses without

horsemanship. You could not have even Danish pirates without ships, or

ships without seamanship. This person, whom I may call the Positive

Barbarian, must be rather more superficially up-to-date than what I may

call the Negative Barbarian. Alaric was an officer in the Roman legions:

but for all that he destroyed Rome. Nobody supposes that Eskimos could have

done it at all neatly. But (in our meaning) barbarism is not a matter of

methods but of aims. We say that these veneered vandals have the perfectly

serious aim of destroying certain ideas which, as they think, the world has

outgrown; without which, as we think, the world will die.

It is essential that this perilous peculiarity in the Pruss, or Positive

Barbarian, should be seized. He has what he fancies is a new idea; and he

is going to apply it to everybody. As a fact it is simply a false

generalisation; but he is really trying to make it general. This does not

apply to the Negative Barbarian: it does not apply to the Russian or the

Servian, even if they are barbarians. If a Russian peasant does beat his

wife, he does it because his fathers did it before him: he is likely to

beat less rather than more as the past fades away. He does not think, as

the Prussian would, that he has made a new discovery in physiology in

finding that a woman is weaker than a man. If a Servian does knife his

rival without a word, he does it because other Servians have done it. He

may regard it even as piety, but certainly not as progress. He does not

think, as the Prussian does, that he founds a new school of horology by

starting before the word “Go.” He does not think he is in advance of the

world in militarism, merely because he is behind it in morals. No; the

danger of the Pruss is that he is prepared to fight for old errors as if

they were new truths. He has somehow heard of certain shallow

simplifications; and imagines that we have never heard of them. And, as I

have said, his limited but very sincere lunacy concentrates chiefly in a

desire to destroy two ideas, the twin root ideas of rational society. The

first is the idea of record and promise: the second is the idea of

reciprocity.

It is plain that the promise, or extension of responsibility through time,

is what chiefly distinguishes us, I will not say from savages, but from

brutes and reptiles. This was noted by the shrewdness of the Old Testament,

when it summed up the dark irresponsible enormity of Leviathan in the words

“Will he make a pact with thee?” The promise, like the wheel, is unknown in

Nature: and is the first mark of man. Referring only to human civilisation

it may be said with seriousness, that in the beginning was the Word. The

vow is to the man what the song is to the bird, or the bark to the dog; his

voice, whereby he is known. Just as a man who cannot keep an appointment is

not fit even to fight a duel, so the man who cannot keep an appointment

with himself is not sane enough even for suicide. It is not easy to mention

anything on which the enormous apparatus of human life can be said to

depend. But if it depends on anything, it is on this frail cord, flung from

the forgotten hills of yesterday to the invisible mountains of to-morrow.

On that solitary string hangs everything from Armageddon to an almanac,

from a successful revolution to a return ticket. On that solitary string

the Barbarian is hacking heavily, with a sabre which is fortunately blunt.

Any one can see this well enough, merely by reading the last negotiations

between London and Berlin. The Prussians had made a new discovery in

international politics: that it may often be convenient to make a promise;

and yet curiously inconvenient to keep it. They were charmed, in their

simple way, with this scientific discovery, and desired to communicate it

to the world. They therefore promised England a promise, on condition that

she broke a promise, and on the implied condition that the new promise

might be broken as easily as the old one. To the profound astonishment of

Prussia, this reasonable offer was refused! I believe that the astonishment

of Prussia was quite sincere. That is what I mean when I say that the

Barbarian is trying to cut away that cord of honesty and clear record, on

which hangs all that men have made.

The friends of the German cause have complained that Asiatics and Africans

upon the very verge of savagery have been brought against them from India

and Algiers. And, in ordinary circumstances, I should sympathise with such

a complaint made by a European people. But the circumstances are not

ordinary. Here, again, the quite unique barbarism of Prussia goes deeper

than what we call barbarities. About mere barbarities, it is true, the

Turco and the Sikh would have a very good reply to the superior Teuton.

The general and just reason for not using non-European tribes against

Europeans is that given by Chatham against the use of the Red Indian: that

such allies might do very diabolical things. But the poor Turco might not

unreasonably ask, after a weekend in Belgium, what more diabolical things

he could do than the highly cultured Germans were doing themselves.

Nevertheless, as I say, the justification of any extra-European aid goes

deeper than any such details. It rests upon the fact that even other

civilisations, even much lower civilisations, even remote and repulsive

civilisations, depend as much as our own on this primary principle on which

the super-morality of Potsdam declares open War. Even savages promise

things; and respect those who keep their promises. Even Orientals write

things down: and though they write them from right to left, they know the

importance of a scrap of paper. Many merchants will tell you that the word

of the sinister and almost unhuman Chinaman is often as good as his bond:

and it was amid palm trees and Syrian pavilions that the great utterance

opened the tabernacle, to him that sweareth to his hurt and changeth not.

There is doubtless a dense labyrinth of duplicity in the East, and perhaps

more guile in the individual Asiatic than in the individual German. But we

are not talking of the violations of human morality in various parts of the

world. We are talking about a new and inhuman morality, which denies

altogether the day of obligation. The Prussians have been told by their

literary men that everything depends upon Mood: and by their politicians

that all arrangements dissolve before “necessity.” That is the importance

of the German Chancellor’s phrase. He did not allege some special excuse in

the case of Belgium, which might make it seem an exception that proved the

rule. He distinctly argued, as on a principle applicable to other cases,

that victory was a necessity and honour was a scrap of paper. And it is

evident that the half-educated Prussian imagination really cannot get any

further than this. It cannot see that if everybody’s action were entirely

incalculable from hour to hour, it would not only be the end of all

promises, but the end of all projects. In not being able to see that, the

Berlin philosopher is really on a lower mental level than the Arab who

respects the salt, or the Brahmin who preserves the caste. And in this

quarrel we have a right to come with scimitars as well as sabres, with bows

as well as rifles, with assegai and tomahawk and boomerang, because there

is in all these at least a seed of civilisation that these intellectual

anarchists would kill. And if they should find us in our last stand girt

with such strange swords and following unfamiliar ensigns, and ask us for

what we fight in so singular a company, we shall know what to reply: “We

fight for the trust and for the tryst; for fixed memories and the possible

meeting of men; for all that makes life anything but an uncontrollable

nightmare. We fight for the long arm of honour and remembrance; for all

that can lift a man above the quicksands of his moods, and give him the

mastery of time.”

II

THE REFUSAL OF RECIPROCITY

In the last summary I suggested that Barbarism, as we mean it, is not mere

ignorance or even mere cruelty. It has a more precise sense, and means

militant hostility to certain necessary human ideas. I took the case of the

vow or the contract, which Prussian intellectualism would destroy. I urged

that the Prussian is a spiritual Barbarian, because he is not bound by his

own past, any more than a man in a dream. He avows that when he promised to

respect a frontier on Monday, he did not foresee what he calls “the

necessity” of not respecting it on Tuesday. In short, he is like a child,

who at the end of all reasonable explanations and reminders of admitted

arrangements, has no answer except “But I want to.”

There is another idea in human arrangements so fundamental as to be

forgotten; but now for the first time denied. It may be called the idea of

reciprocity; or, in better English, of give and take. The Prussian appears

to be quite intellectually incapable of this thought. He cannot, I think,

conceive the idea that is the foundation of all comedy; that, in the eyes

of the other man, he is only the other man. And if we carry this clue

through the institutions of Prussianised Germany, we shall find how

curiously his mind has been limited in the matter. The German differs from

other patriots in the inability to understand patriotism. Other European

peoples pity the Poles or the Welsh for their violated borders; but Germans

pity only themselves. They might take forcible possession of the Severn or

the Danube, of the Thames or the Tiber, of the Garry or the Garonne—and

they would still be singing sadly about how fast and true stands the watch

on Rhine; and what a shame it would be if any one took their own little

river away from them. That is what I mean by not being reciprocal: and you

will find it in all that they do: as in all that is done by savages.

Here, again, it is very necessary to avoid confusing this soul of the

savage with mere savagery in the sense of brutality or butchery; in which

the Greeks, the French and all the most civilised nations have indulged in

hours of abnormal panic or revenge. Accusations of cruelty are generally

mutual. But it is the point about the Prussian that with him nothing is

mutual. The definition of the true savage does not concern itself even with

how much more he hurts strangers or captives than do the other tribes of

men. The definition of the true savage is that he laughs when he hurts you;

and howls when you hurt him. This extraordinary inequality in the mind is

in every act and word that comes from Berlin. For instance, no man of the

world believes all he sees in the newspapers; and no journalist believes a

quarter of it. We should, therefore, be quite ready in the ordinary way to

take a great deal off the tales of German atrocities; to doubt this story

or deny that. But there is one thing that we cannot doubt or deny: the seal

and authority of the Emperor. In the Imperial proclamation the fact that

certain “frightful” things have been done is admitted; and justified on the

ground of their frightfulness. It was a military necessity to terrify the

peaceful populations with something that was not civilised, something that

was hardly human. Very well. That is an intelligible policy: and in that

sense an intelligible argument. An army endangered by foreigners may do the

most frightful things. But then we turn the next page of the Kaiser’s

public diary, and we find him writing to the President of the United

States, to complain that the English are using Dum-dum bullets and

violating various regulations of the Hague Conference. I pass for the

present the question of whether there is a word of truth in these charges.

I am content to gaze rapturously at the blinking eyes of the True, or

Positive, Barbarian. I suppose he would be quite puzzled if we said that

violating the Hague Conference was “a military necessity” to us; or that

the rules of the Conference were only a scrap of paper. He would be quite

pained if we said that Dum-dum bullets, “by their very frightfulness,”

would be very useful to keep conquered Germans in order. Do what he will,

he cannot get outside the idea that he, because he is he and not you, is

free to break the law; and also to appeal to the law. It is said that the

Prussian officers play at a game called Kriegsspiel, or the War Game. But

in truth they could not play at any game; for the essence of every game is

that the rules are the same on both sides.

But taking every German institution in turn, the case is the same; and it

is not a case of mere bloodshed or military bravado. The duel, for

example, can legitimately be called a barbaric thing; but the word is here

used in another sense. There are duels in Germany; but so there are in

France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain; indeed, there are duels wherever there

are dentists, newspapers, Turkish baths, time-tables, and all the curses of

civilisation; except in England and a corner of America. You may happen to

regard the duel as a historic relic of the more barbaric States on which

these modern States were built. It might equally well be maintained that

the duel is everywhere the sign of high civilisation; being the sign of its

more delicate sense of honour, its more vulnerable vanity, or its greater

dread of social disrepute. But whichever of the two views you take, you

must concede that the essence of the duel is an armed equality. I should

not, therefore, apply the word barbaric, as I am using it, to the duels of

German officers, or even to the broadsword combats that are conventional

among the German students. I do not see why a young Prussian should not

have scars all over his face if he likes them; nay, they are often the

redeeming points of interest on an otherwise somewhat unenlightening

countenance. The duel may be defended; the sham duel may be defended.

What cannot be defended is something really peculiar to Prussia, of which

we hear numberless stories, some of them certainly true. It might be called

the one-sided duel. I mean the idea that there is some sort of dignity in

drawing the sword upon a man who has not got a sword; a waiter, or a shop

assistant, or even a schoolboy. One of the officers of the Kaiser in the

affair at Saberne was found industriously hacking at a cripple. In all

these matters I would avoid sentiment. We must not lose our tempers at the

mere cruelty of the thing; but pursue the strict psychological distinction.

Others besides German soldiers have slain the defenceless, for loot or lust

or private malice, like any other murderer. The point is that nowhere else

but in Prussian Germany is any theory of honour mixed up with such things;

any more than with poisoning or picking pockets. No French, English,

Italian or American gentleman would think he had in some way cleared his

own character by sticking his sabre through some ridiculous greengrocer who

had nothing in his hand but a cucumber. It would seem as if the word which

is translated from the German as “honour” must really mean something quite

different in German. It seems to mean something more like what we should

call “prestige.”

The fundamental fact, however, is the absence of the reciprocal idea. The

Prussian is not sufficiently civilised for the duel. Even when he crosses

swords with us his thoughts are not as our thoughts; when we both glorify

war, we are glorifying different things. Our medals are wrought like his,

but they do not mean the same thing; our regiments are cheered as his are,

but the thought in the heart is not the same; the Iron Cross is on the

bosom of his king, but it is not the sign of our God. For we, alas, follow

our God with many relapses and self-contradictions, but he follows his very

consistently. Through all the things that we have examined, the view of

national boundaries, the view of military methods, the view of personal

honour and self-defence, there runs in their case something of an atrocious

simplicity; something too simple for us to understand: the idea that glory

consists in holding the steel, and not in facing it.

If further examples were necessary, it would be easy to give hundreds of

them. Let us leave, for the moment, the relation between man and man in

the thing called the duel. Let us take the relation between man and woman,

in that immortal duel which we call a marriage. Here again we shall find

that other Christian civilisations aim at some kind of equality; even if

the balance be irrational or dangerous. Thus, the two extremes of the

treatment of women might be represented by what are called the respectable

classes in America and in France. In America they choose the risk of

comradeship; in France the compensation of courtesy. In America it is

practically possible for any young gentleman to take any young lady for

what he calls (I deeply regret to say) a joy-ride; but at least the man

goes with the woman as much as the woman with the man. In France the young

woman is protected like a nun while she is unmarried; but when she is a

mother she is really a holy woman; and when she is a grandmother she is a

holy terror. By both extremes the woman gets something back out of life.

There is only one place where she gets little or nothing back; and that is

the north of Germany. France and America aim alike at equality; America by

similarity; France by dissimilarity. But North Germany does definitely

aim at inequality. The woman stands up, with no more irritation than a

butler; the man sits down, with no more embarrassment than a guest. This is

the cool affirmation of inferiority, as in the case of the sabre and the

tradesman. “Thou goest with women; forget not thy whip,” said Nietzsche. It

will be observed that he does not say “poker”; which might come more

naturally to the mind of a more common or Christian wife-beater. But then a

poker is a part of domesticity; and might be used by the wife as well as

the husband. In fact, it often is. The sword and the whip are the weapons

of a privileged caste.

Pass from the closest of all differences, that between husband and wife, to

the most distant of all differences, that of the remote and unrelated races

who have seldom seen each other’s faces, and never been tinged with each

other’s blood. Here we still find the same unvarying Prussian principle.

Any European might feel a genuine fear of the Yellow Peril; and many

Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Russians have felt and expressed it. Many might

say, and have said, that the Heathen Chinee is very heathen indeed; that if

he ever advances against us he will trample and torture and utterly

destroy, in a way that Eastern people do, but Western people do not. Nor do

I doubt the German Emperor’s sincerity when he sought to point out to us

how abnormal and abominable such a nightmare campaign would be, supposing

that it could ever come. But now comes the comic irony; which never fails

to follow on the attempt of the Prussian to be philosophic. For the Kaiser,

after explaining to his troops how important it was to avoid Eastern

Barbarism, instantly commanded them to become Eastern Barbarians. He told

them, in so many words, to be Huns: and leave nothing living or standing

behind them. In fact, he frankly offered a new army corps of aboriginal

Tartars to the Far East, within such time as it may take a bewildered

Hanoverian to turn into a Tartar. Any one who has the painful habit of

personal thought, will perceive here at once the non-reciprocal principle

again. Boiled down to its bones of logic, it means simply this: “I am a

German and you are a Chinaman. Therefore I, being a German, have a right

to be a Chinaman. But you have no right to be a Chinaman; because you are

only a Chinaman.” This is probably the highest point to which the German

culture has risen.

The principle here neglected, which may be called Mutuality by those who

misunderstand and dislike the word Equality, does not offer so clear a

distinction between the Prussian and the other peoples as did the first

Prussian principle of an infinite and destructive opportunism; or, in other

words, the principle of being unprincipled. Nor upon this second can one

take up so obvious a position touching the other civilisations or

semi-civilisations of the world. Some idea of oath and bond there is in the

rudest tribes, in the darkest continents. But it might be maintained, of

the more delicate and imaginative element of reciprocity, that a cannibal

in Borneo understands it almost as little as a professor in Berlin. A

narrow and one-sided seriousness is the fault of barbarians all over the

world. This may have been the meaning, for aught I know, of the one eye of

the Cyclops: that the Barbarian cannot see round things or look at them

from two points of view; and thus becomes a blind beast and an eater of

men. Certainly there can be no better summary of the savage than this,

which as we have seen, unfits him for the duel. He is the man who cannot

love—no, nor even hate—his neighbour as himself.

But this quality in Prussia does have one effect which has reference to the

same question of the lower civilisations. It disposes once and for all at

least of the civilising mission of Germany. Evidently the Germans are the

last people in the world to be trusted with the task. They are as

shortsighted morally as physically. What is their sophism of “necessity”

but an inability to imagine to-morrow morning? What is their

non-reciprocity but an inability to imagine, not a god or devil,

but merely another man? Are these to judge mankind? Men of two tribes

in Africa not only know that they are all men, but can understand

that they are all black men. In this they are quite seriously in

advance of the intellectual Prussian; who cannot be got to see

that we are all white men. The ordinary eye is unable to perceive

in the North-East Teuton anything that marks him out especially

from the more colourless classes of the rest of Aryan mankind. He is simply

a white man, with a tendency to the grey or the drab. Yet he will explain,

in serious official documents, that the difference between him and us is a

difference between “the master-race and the inferior-race.” The collapse of

German philosophy always occurs at the beginning rather than the end of an

argument; and the difficulty here is that there is no way of testing which

is a master-race except by asking which is your own race. If you cannot

find out (as is usually the case) you fall back on the absurd occupation of

writing history about pre-historic times. But I suggest quite seriously

that if the Germans can give their philosophy to the Hottentots, there is

no reason why they should not give their sense of superiority to the

Hottentots. If they can see such fine shades between the Goth and the

Gaul, there is no reason why similar shades should not lift the savage

above other savages; why any Ojibway should not discover that he is one

tint redder than the Dacotahs; or any nigger in the Cameroons say he is not

so black as he is painted. For this principle of a quite unproved racial

supremacy is the last and worst of the refusals of reciprocity. The

Prussian calls all men to admire the beauty of his large blue eyes. If they

do, it is because they have inferior eyes: if they don’t, it is because

they have no eyes.

Wherever the most miserable remnant of our race, astray and dried up in

deserts, or buried forever under the fall of bad civilisations, has some

feeble memory that men are men, that bargains are bargains, that there are

two sides to a question, or even that it takes two to make a quarrel—that

remnant has the right to resist the New Culture, to the knife and club and

the splintered stone. For the Prussian begins all his culture by that act

which is the destruction of all creative thought and constructive action.

He breaks that mirror in the mind, in which a man can see the face of his

friend or foe.

III

THE APPETITE OF TYRANNY

The German Emperor has reproached this country with allying itself with

“barbaric and semi-oriental power.” We have already considered in what

sense we use the word barbaric: it is in the sense of one who is hostile to

civilisation, not one who is insufficient in it. But when we pass from the

idea of the barbaric to the idea of the oriental, the case is even more

curious. There is nothing particularly Tartar in Russian affairs, except

the fact that Russia expelled the Tartars. The Eastern invader occupied

and crushed the country for many years; but that is equally true of Greece,

of Spain and even of Austria. If Russia has suffered from the East she has

suffered in order to resist it: and it is rather hard that the very miracle

of her escape should make a mystery about her origin. Jonah may or may not

have been three days inside a fish, but that does not make him a merman.

And in all the other cases of European nations who escaped the monstrous

captivity, we do admit the purity and continuity of the European type. We

consider the old Eastern rule as a wound, but not as a stain.

Copper-coloured men out of Africa overruled for centuries the religion and

patriotism of Spaniards. Yet I have never heard that Don Quixote was an

African fable on the lines of Uncle Remus. I have never heard that the

heavy black in the pictures of Velasquez was due to a negro ancestry. In

the case of Spain, which is close to us, we can recognise the resurrection

of a Christian and cultured nation after its age of bondage. But Russia is

rather remote; and those to whom nations are but names in newspapers can

really fancy, like Mr. Baring’s friend, that all Russian churches are

“mosques.” Yet the land of Turgenev is not a wilderness of fakirs; and even

the fanatical Russian is as proud of being different from the Mongol, as

the fanatical Spaniard was proud of being different from the Moor.

The town of Reading, as it exists, offers few opportunities for piracy on

the high seas: yet it was the camp of the pirates in Alfred’s day. I should

think it hard to call the people of Berkshire half-Danish, merely because

they drove out the Danes. In short, some temporary submergence under the

savage flood was the fate of many of the most civilised states of

Christendom; and it is quite ridiculous to argue that Russia, which

wrestled hardest, must have recovered least. Everywhere, doubtless, the

East spread a sort of enamel over the conquered countries, but everywhere

the enamel cracked. Actual history, in fact, is exactly opposite to the

cheap proverb invented against the Muscovite. It is not true to say

“Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar.” In the darkest hour of the

barbaric dominion it was truer to say, “Scratch a Tartar and you find a

Russian.” It was the civilisation that survived under all the barbarism.

This vital romance of Russia, this revolution against Asia, can be proved

in pure fact: not only from the almost superhuman activity of Russia during

the struggle, but also (which is much rarer as human history goes) by her

quite consistent conduct since. She is the only great nation which has

really expelled the Mongol from her country, and continued to protest

against the presence of the Mongol in her continent. Knowing what he had

been in Russia, she knew what he would be in Europe. In this she pursued a

logical line of thought which was, if anything, too unsympathetic with the

energies and religions of the East. Every other country, one may say, has

been an ally of the Turk; that is, of the Mongol and the Moslem. The French

played them as pieces against Austria; the English warmly supported them

under the Palmerston régime; even the young Italians sent troops to the

Crimea; and of Prussia and her Austrian vassal it is nowadays needless to

speak. For good or evil, it is the fact of history that Russia is the only

Power in Europe that has never supported the Crescent against the Cross.

That, doubtless, will appear an unimportant matter; but it may become

important under certain peculiar conditions. Suppose, for the sake of

argument, that there were a powerful prince in Europe who had gone

ostentatiously out of his way to pay reverence to the remains of the

Tartar, Mongol and Moslem, left as an outpost in Europe. Suppose there were

a Christian Emperor who could not even go to the tomb of the Crucified,

without pausing to congratulate the last and living crucifier. If there

were an Emperor who gave guns and guides and maps and drill instructors to

defend the remains of the Mongol in Christendom, what should we say to him?

I think at least we might ask him what he meant by his impudence, when he

talked about supporting a semi-oriental power. That we support a

semi-oriental power, we deny. That he has supported an entirely oriental

power cannot be denied—no, not even by the man who did it.

But here is to be noted the essential difference between Russia and

Prussia; especially by those who use the ordinary Liberal arguments against

the latter. Russia has a policy which she pursues, if you will, through

evil and good; but at least so as to produce good as well as evil. Let it

be granted that the policy has made her oppressive to the Finns and the

Poles—though the Russian Poles feel far less oppressed than do the

Prussian Poles. But it is a mere historic fact, that if Russia has been a

despot to some small nations, she has been a deliverer to others. She did,

so far as in her lay, emancipate the Servians or the Montenegrins. But

whom did Prussia ever emancipate—even by accident? It is indeed somewhat

extraordinary that in the perpetual permutations of international politics

the Hohenzollerns have never gone astray into the path of enlightenment.

They have been in alliance with almost everybody off and on; with France,

with England, with Austria, with Russia. Can any one candidly say that they

have left on any one of these people the faintest impress of progress or

liberation? Prussia was the enemy of the French Monarchy; but a worse

enemy of the French Revolution. Prussia had been an enemy of the Czar; but

she was a worse enemy of the Duma. Prussia totally disregarded Austrian

rights; but she is to-day quite ready to inflict Austrian wrongs. This is

the strong particular difference between the one empire and the other.

Russia is pursuing certain intelligible and sincere ends, which to her at

least are ideals, and for which, therefore, she will make sacrifices and

will protect the weak. But the North German soldier is a sort of abstract

tyrant, everywhere and always on the side of materialistic tyranny. This

Teuton in uniform has been found in strange places; shooting farmers before

Saratoga and flogging soldiers in Surrey, hanging niggers in Africa and

raping girls in Wicklow; but never, by some mysterious fatality, lending a

hand to the freeing of a single city or the independence of one solitary

flag. Wherever scorn and prosperous oppression are, there is the Prussian;

unconsciously consistent, instinctively restrictive, innocently evil;

“following darkness like a dream.”

Suppose we heard of a person (gifted with some longevity) who had helped

Alva to persecute Dutch Protestants, then helped Cromwell to persecute

Irish Catholics, and then helped Claverhouse to persecute Scotch Puritans,

we should find it rather easier to call him a persecutor than to call him a

Protestant or a Catholic. Curiously enough this is actually the position in

which the Prussian stands in Europe. No argument can alter the fact that in

three converging and conclusive cases he has been on the side of three

distinct rulers of different religions, who had nothing whatever in common

except that they were ruling oppressively. In these three Governments,

taken separately, one can see something excusable or at least human. When

the Kaiser encouraged the Russian rulers to crush the Revolution, the

Russian rulers undoubtedly believed they were wrestling with an inferno of

atheism and anarchy. A Socialist of the ordinary English kind cried out

upon me when I spoke of Stolypin, and said he was chiefly known by the

halter called “Stolypin’s Necktie.” As a fact, there were many other things

interesting about Stolypin besides his necktie: his policy of peasant

proprietorship, his extraordinary personal courage, and certainly none more

interesting than that movement in his death agony, when he made the sign of

the cross towards the Czar, as the crown and captain of his Christianity.

But the Kaiser does not regard the Czar as the captain of Christianity. Far

from it. What he supported in Stolypin was the necktie and nothing but the

necktie: the gallows and not the cross. The Russian ruler did believe that

the Orthodox Church was orthodox. The Austrian Archduke did really desire

to make the Catholic Church catholic. He did really believe that he was

being Pro-Catholic in being Pro-Austrian. But the Kaiser cannot be

Pro-Catholic, and therefore cannot have been really Pro-Austrian, he was

simply and solely Anti-Servian. Nay, even in the cruel and sterile strength

of Turkey, any one with imagination can see something of the tragedy and

therefore of the tenderness of true belief. The worst that can be said of

the Moslems is, as the poet put it, they offered to man the choice of the

Koran or the sword. The best that can be said for the German is that he

does not care about the Koran, but is satisfied if he can have the sword.

And for me, I confess, even the sins of these three other striving empires

take on, in comparison, something that is sorrowful and dignified: and I

feel they do not deserve that this little Lutheran lounger should patronise

all that is evil in them, while ignoring all that is good. He is not

Catholic, he is not Orthodox, he is not Mahomedan. He is merely an old

gentleman who wishes to share the crime though he cannot share the creed.

He desires to be a persecutor by the pang without the palm. So strongly do

all the instincts of the Prussian drive against liberty, that he would

rather oppress other people’s subjects than think of anybody going without

the benefits of oppression. He is a sort of disinterested despot. He is as

disinterested as the devil who is ready to do any one’s dirty work.

This would seem obviously fantastic were it not supported by solid facts

which cannot be explained otherwise. Indeed it would be inconceivable if we

were thinking of a whole people, consisting of free and varied individuals.

But in Prussia the governing class is really a governing class: and a very

few people are needed to think along these lines to make all the other

people act along them. And the paradox of Prussia is this: that while its

princes and nobles have no other aim on this earth but to destroy democracy

wherever it shows itself, they have contrived to get themselves trusted,

not as wardens of the past but as forerunners of the future. Even they

cannot believe that their theory is popular, but they do believe that it is

progressive. Here again we find the spiritual chasm between the two

monarchies in question. The Russian institutions are, in many cases,

really left in the rear of the Russian people, and many of the Russian

people know it. But the Prussian institutions are supposed to be in advance

of the Prussian people, and most of the Prussian people believe it. It is

thus much easier for the warlords to go everywhere and impose a hopeless

slavery upon every one, for they have already imposed a sort of hopeful

slavery on their own simple race.

And when men shall speak to us of the hoary iniquities of Russia and of how

antiquated is the Russian system, we shall answer “Yes; that is the

superiority of Russia.” Their institutions are part of their history,

whether as relics or fossils. Their abuses have really been uses: that is

to say, they have been used up. If they have old engines of terror or

torment, they may fall to pieces from mere rust, like an old coat of

armour. But in the case of the Prussian tyranny, if it be tyranny at all,

it is the whole point of its claim that it is not antiquated, but just

going to begin, like the showman. Prussia has a whole thriving factory of

thumbscrews, a whole humming workshop of wheels and racks, of the newest

and neatest pattern, with which to win back Europe to the Reaction …

infandum renovare dolorem. And if we wish to test the truth of this, it

can be done by the same method which showed us that Russia, if her race or

religion could sometimes make her an invader and an oppressor, could also

be made an emancipator and a knight errant. In the same way, if the Russian

institutions are old-fashioned, they honestly exhibit the good as well as

the bad that can be found in old-fashioned things. In their police system

they have an inequality which is against our ideas of law. But in their

commune system they have an equality that is older than law itself. Even

when they flogged each other like barbarians, they called upon each other

by their Christian names like children. At their worst they retained all

the best of a rude society. At their best, they are simply good, like good

children or good nuns. But in Prussia all that is best in the civilised

machinery is put at the service of all that is worst in the barbaric mind.

Here again the Prussian has no accidental merits, none of those lucky

survivals, none of those late repentances, which make the patchwork glory

of Russia. Here all is sharpened to a point and pointed to a purpose and

that purpose, if words and acts have any meaning at all, is the destruction

of liberty throughout the world.

IV

THE ESCAPE OF FOLLY

In considering the Prussian point of view we have been considering what

seems to be mainly a mental limitation: a kind of knot in the brain.

Towards the problem of Slav population, of English colonisation, of French

armies and reinforcements, it shows the same strange philosophic sulks. So

far as I can follow it, it seems to amount to saying “It is very wrong that

you should be superior to me, because I am superior to you.” The spokesmen

of this system seem to have a curious capacity for concentrating this

entanglement or contradiction, sometimes into a single paragraph, or even a

single sentence. I have already referred to the German Emperor’s celebrated

suggestion that in order to avert the peril of Hunnishness we should all

become Huns. A much stronger instance is his more recent order to his

troops touching the war in Northern France. As most people know, his words

ran “It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your

energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is

that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to

exterminate first the treacherous English and to walk over General French’s

contemptible little Army.” The rudeness of the remark an Englishman can

afford to pass over; what I am interested in is the mentality; the train of

thought that can manage to entangle itself even in so brief a space. If

French’s little Army is contemptible, it would seem clear that all the

skill and valour of the German Army had better not be concentrated on it,

but on the larger and less contemptible allies. If all the skill and

valour of the German Army are concentrated on it, it is not being treated

as contemptible. But the Prussian rhetorician had two incompatible

sentiments in his mind; and he insisted on saying them both at once. He

wanted to think of an English Army as a small thing; but he also wanted to

think of an English defeat as a big thing. He wanted to exult, at the same

moment, in the utter weakness of the British in their attack; and the

supreme skill and valour of the Germans in repelling such an attack.

Somehow it must be made a common and obvious collapse for England; and yet

a daring and unexpected triumph for Germany. In trying to express these

contradictory conceptions simultaneously, he got rather mixed. Therefore he

bade Germania fill all her vales and mountains with the dying agonies of

this almost invisible earwig; and let the impure blood of this cockroach

redden the Rhine down to the sea.

But it would be unfair to base the criticism on the utterance of any

accidental and hereditary prince: and it is quite equally clear in the case

of the philosophers who have been held up to us, even in England, as the

very prophets of progress. And in nothing is it shown more sharply than in

the curious confused talk about Race and especially about the Teutonic

Race. Professor Harnack and similar people are reproaching us, I

understand, for having broken “the bond of Teutonism”: a bond which the

Prussians have strictly observed both in breach and observance. We note it

in their open annexation of lands wholly inhabited by negroes, such as

Denmark. We note it equally in their instant and joyful recognition of the

flaxen hair and light blue eyes of the Turks. But it is still the abstract

principle of Professor Harnack which interests me most; and in following it

I have the same complexity of enquiry, but the same simplicity of result.

Comparing the Professor’s concern about “Teutonism” with his unconcern

about Belgium, I can only reach the following result: “A man need not keep

a promise he has made. But a man must keep a promise he has not made.”

There certainly was a treaty binding Britain to Belgium; if it was only a

scrap of paper. If there was any treaty binding Britain to Teutonism it is,

to say the least of it, a lost scrap of paper: almost what one might call a

scrap of waste-paper. Here again the pendants under consideration exhibit

the illogical perversity that makes the brain reel. There is obligation and

there is no obligation: sometimes it appears that Germany and England must

keep faith with each other; sometimes that Germany need not keep faith with

anybody and anything; sometimes that we alone among European peoples are

almost entitled to be Germans; sometimes that beside us Russians and

Frenchmen almost rise to a Germanic loveliness of character. But through

all there is, hazy but not hypocritical, this sense of some common

Teutonism.

Professor Haeckel, another of the witnesses raised up against us, attained

to some celebrity at one time through proving the remarkable resemblance

between two different things by printing duplicate pictures of the same

thing. Professor Haeckel’s contribution to biology, in this case, was

exactly like Professor Harnack’s contribution to ethnology. Professor

Harnack knows what a German is like. When he wants to imagine what an

Englishman is like, he simply photographs the same German over again. In

both cases there is probably sincerity as well as simplicity. Haeckel was

so certain that the species illustrated in embryo really are closely

related and linked up, that it seemed to him a small thing to simplify it

by mere repetition. Harnack is so certain that the German and Englishman

are almost alike, that he really risks the generalisation that they are

exactly alike. He photographs, so to speak, the same fair and foolish face

twice over; and calls it a remarkable resemblance between cousins. Thus he

can prove the existence of Teutonism just about as conclusively as Haeckel

has proved the more tenable proposition of the non-existence of God. Now

the German and the Englishman are not in the least alike—except in the

sense that neither of them are negroes. They are, in everything good and

evil, more unlike than any other two men we can take at random from the

great European family. They are opposite from the roots of their history,

nay, of their geography. It is an understatement to call Britain insular.

Britain is not only an island, but an island slashed by the sea till it

nearly splits into three islands; and even the Midlands can almost smell

the salt. Germany is a powerful, beautiful and fertile inland country,

which can only find the sea by one or two twisted and narrow paths, as

people find a subterranean lake. Thus the British Navy is really national

because it is natural; it has co-hered out of hundreds of accidental

adventures of ships and shipmen before Chaucer’s time and after it. But the

German Navy is an artificial thing; as artificial as a constructed Alp

would be in England. William II has simply copied the British Navy as

Frederick II copied the French Army: and this Japanese or anti-like

assiduity in imitation is one of the hundred qualities which the Germans

have and the English markedly have not. There are other German

superiorities which are very much superior. The one or two really jolly

things that the Germans have got are precisely the things which the English

haven’t got: notably a real habit of popular music and of the ancient songs

of the people, not merely spreading from the towns or caught from the

professionals. In this the Germans rather resemble the Welsh: though heaven

knows what becomes of Teutonism if they do. But the difference between the

Germans and the English goes deeper than all these signs of it; they differ

more than any other two Europeans in the normal posture of the mind. Above

all, they differ in what is the most English of all English traits; that

shame which the French may be right in calling “the bad shame”; for it is

certainly mixed up with pride and suspicion, the upshot of which we call

shyness. Even an Englishman’s rudeness is often rooted in his being

embarrassed. But a German’s rudeness is rooted in his never being

embarrassed. He eats and makes love noisily. He never feels a speech or a

song or a sermon or a large meal to be what the English call “out of place”

in particular circumstances. When Germans are patriotic and religious they

have no reactions against patriotism and religion as have the English and

the French. Nay, the mistake of Germany in the modern disaster largely

arose from the facts that she thought England was simple when England is

very subtle. She thought that because our politics have become largely

financial that they had become wholly financial; that because our

aristocrats had become pretty cynical that they had become entirely

corrupt. They could not seize the subtlety by which a rather used-up

English gentleman might sell a coronet when he would not sell a fortress;

might lower the public standards and yet refuse to lower the flag. In

short, the Germans are quite sure that they understand us entirely, because

they do not understand us at all. Possibly if they began to understand us

they might hate us even more: but I would rather be hated for some small

but real reason than pursued with love on account of all kinds of qualities

which I do not possess and which I do not desire. And when the Germans get

their first genuine glimpse of what modern England is like they will

discover that England has a very broken, belated and inadequate sense of

having an obligation to Europe, but no sort of sense whatever of having any

obligation to Teutonism.

This is the last and strongest of the Prussian qualities we have here

considered. There is in stupidity of this sort a strange slippery

strength: because it can be not only outside rules but outside reason. The

man who really cannot see that he is contradicting himself has a great

advantage in controversy; though the advantage breaks down when he tries to

reduce it to simple addition, to chess, or to the game called war. It is

the same about the stupidity of the one-sided kinship. The drunkard who is

quite certain that a total stranger is his long-lost brother, has a greater

advantage until it comes to matters of detail. “We must have chaos within”

said Nietzsche, “that we may give birth to a dancing star.”

In these slight notes I have suggested the principal strong points of the

Prussian character. A failure in honour which almost amounts to a failure

in memory: an egomania that is honestly blind to the fact that the other

party is an ego; and, above all, an actual itch for tyranny and

interference, the devil which everywhere torments the idle and the proud.

To these must be added a certain mental shapelessness which can expand or

contract without reference to reason or record; a potential infinity of

excuses. If the English had been on the German side, the German professors

would have noted what irresistible energies had evolved the Teutons. As the

English are on the other side, the German professors will say that these

Teutons were not sufficiently evolved. Or they will say that they were

just sufficiently evolved to show that they were not Teutons. Probably they

will say both. But the truth is that all that they call evolution should

rather be called evasion. They tell us they are opening windows of

enlightenment and doors of progress. The truth is that they are breaking up

the whole house of the human intellect, that they may abscond in any

direction. There is an ominous and almost monstrous parallel between the

position of their over-rated philosophers and of their comparatively

under-rated soldiers. For what their professors call roads of progress are

really routes of escape.

LETTERS TO AN OLD GARIBALDIAN

Italy, twice hast thou spoken; and time is athirst

for the third.

—SWINBURNE.

My Dear ------

It is a long time since we met; and I fear these letters may never reach

you. But in these violent times I remember with a curious vividness how you

brandished a paintbrush about your easel when I was a boy; and how it

thrilled me to think that you had so brandished a bayonet against the

Teutons—I hope with the same precision and happy results. Round about

that period, the very pigments seemed to have some sort of picturesque

connection with your national story. There seemed to be something gorgeous

and terrible about Venetian Red; and something quite catastrophic about

Burnt Sienna. But somehow or other, when I saw in the street yesterday the

colours on your flag, it reminded me of the colours on your palette.

You need not fear that I shall try to entangle you or your countrymen in

the matters which it is for Italians alone to decide. You know the perils

of either course much better than I do. Italy, most assuredly, has no need

to prove her courage. She has risked everything in standing out that she

could risk by coming in. The proclamations and press of Germany make it

plain that the Germans have risen to a height of sensibility hardly to be

distinguished from madness. Supposing the nightmare of a Prussian victory,

they will revenge themselves on things more remote than the Triple

Alliance. There was a promise of peace between them and Belgium; there was

none between them and England. The promise to Belgium they broke. The

promise of England they invented. It is called the Treaty of Teutonism. No

one ever heard of it in this country; but it seems well known in academic

circles in Germany. It seems to be something, connected with the colour of

one’s hair. But I repeat that I am not concerned to interfere with your

decision, save in so far as I may provide some materials for it by

describing our own.

For I think the first, perhaps the only, fruitful work an Englishman can do

now for the formation of foreign opinion is to talk about what he really

understands, the condition of British opinion. It is as simple as it is

solid. For the first time, perhaps, what we call the United Kingdom

entirely deserves its name. There has been nothing like such unanimity

within an Englishman’s recollection. The Irish and even the Welsh were

largely pro-Boers, so were some of the most English of the English. No one

could have been more English than Fox, yet he denounced the war with

Napoleon. No one could be more English than Cobden, but he denounced the

war in the Crimea. It is really extraordinary to find a united England.

Indeed, until lately, it was extraordinary to find a united Englishman.

Those of us who, like the present writer, repudiated the South African war

from its beginnings, had yet a divided heart in the matter, and felt

certain aspects of it as glorious as well as infamous. The first fact I can

offer you is the unquestionable fact that all these doubts and divisions

have ceased. Nor have they ceased by any compromise; but by a universal

flash of faith—or, if you will, of suspicion. Nor were our internal

conflicts lightly abandoned; nor our reconciliations an easy matter. I am,

as you are, a democrat and a citizen of Europe; and my friends and I had

grown to loathe the plutocracy and privilege which sat in the high places

of our country with a loathing which we thought no love could cast out. Of

these rich men I will not speak here; with your permission, I will not

think of them. War is a terrible business in any case; and to some

intellectual temperaments this is the most terrible part of it. That war

takes the young; that war sunders the lovers; that all over Europe brides

and bridegrooms are parting at the church door: all that is only a

commonplace to commonplace people. To give up one’s love for one’s country

is very great. But to give up one’s hate for one’s country, this may also

have in it something of pride and something of purification.

What is it that has made the British peoples thus defer not only their

artificial parade of party politics but their real social and moral

complaints and demands? What is it that has united all of us against the

Prussian, as against a mad dog? It is the presence of a certain spirit, as

unmistakable as a pungent smell, which we feel is capable of withering all

the good things in this world. The burglary of Belgium, the bribe to

betray France, these are not excuses; they are facts. But they are only

the facts by which we came to know of the presence of the spirit. They do

not suffice to define the whole spirit itself. A good rough summary is to

say that it is the spirit of barbarism; but indeed it is something worse.

It is the spirit of second-rate civilisation; and the distinction involves

the most important differences. Granted that it could exist, pure barbarism

could not last long; as pure babyhood cannot last long. Of his own nature

the baby is interested in the ticking of a watch; and the time will come

when you will have to tell him, if you only tell him the wrong time. And

that is exactly what the second-rate civilisation does.

But the vital point is here. The abstract barbarian would copy. The cockney

and incomplete civilisation always sets itself up to be copied. And in the

case here considered, the German thinks that it is not only his business to

spread education, but to spread compulsory education. “Science combined

with organisation,” says Professor Ostwald of Berlin University, “makes us

terrible to our opponents and ensures a German future for Europe.” That is,

as shortly as it can be put, what we are fighting about. We are fighting to

prevent a German future for Europe. We think it would be narrower, nastier,

less sane, less capable of liberty and of laughter, than any of the worst

parts of the European past. And when I cast about for a form in which to

explain shortly why we think so, I thought of you. For this is a matter so

large that I know not how to express it except in terms of artists like

you, in the service of beauty and the faith in freedom. Prussia, at least

cannot help me; Lord Palmerston, I believe, called it a country of damned

professors. Lord Palmerston, I fear, used the word “damned” more or less

flippantly. I use it reverently.

Rome, at her very weakest, has always been a river that wanders and widens

and that waters many fields. Berlin, at its strongest, will never be

anything but a whirlpool, which seeks its own centre, and is sucked down.

It would only narrow all the rest of Europe, as it has already narrowed all

the rest of Germany. There is a spirit of diseased egoism, which at last

makes all things spin upon one pin-point in the brain. It is a spirit

expressed more often in the slangs than in the tongues of men. The English

call it a fad. I do not know what the Italians call it; the Prussians call

it philosophy.

Here is the sort of instance that made me think of you. What would you feel

first, let us say, if I mentioned Michael Angelo? For the first moment,

perhaps, boredom: such as I feel when Americans ask me about

Stratford-on-Avon. But, supposing that just fear quieted, you would feel

what I and every one else can feel. It might be the sense of the majestic

hands of Man upon the locks of the last doors of life; large and terrible

hands, like those of that youth who poises the stone above Florence, and

looks out upon the circle of the hills. It might be that huge heave of

flank and chest and throat in “The Slave,” which is like an earthquake

lifting a whole landscape; it might be that tremendous Madonna, whose

charity is more strong than death. Anyhow, your thoughts would be something

worthy of the man’s terrible paganism and his more terrible Christianity.

Who but God could have graven Michael Angelo; who came so near to graving

the Mother of God?

German culture deals with the matter as follows:—“Michelangelo Buonarotti

(1475-1564).—(=Bernhard) ancestor of the family, lived in Florence about

1210. He had two sons, Berlinghieri and Buonarrota. By this name recurring

frequently in later generations, the family came to be called. It is a

German name, compounded of Bona (=Bohn) and Hrodo, Roto (=Rohde, Rothe)

Bona and Rotto are cited as Lombard names. Buonarotti is perhaps the old

Lombard Beonrad, corresponding to the word Bonroth. Corresponding names are

Mackrodt, Osterroth, Leonard.” And so on, and so on, and so on. “In his

face he has always been well-coloured…the eyes might be called small

rather than large, of the colour of horn, but variable with ‘flecks’ of

yellow and blue. Hair and beard are black. These particulars are confirmed

by the portraits. First and foremost take the portrait of Bugiardini in

Museo Buonarotti. Here comes to view the ‘flecked’ appearance of the iris,

especially in the right eye. The left may be described as almost wholly

blue.” And so on, and so on, and so on. “In the Museo Civico at Pavia, is a

fresco likeness by an unknown hand, in which this fresh red is distinctly

recognisable on the face. Taking all these bodily characteristics into

consideration, it must be said from an anthropological point of view that

though originally of German family he was a hybrid between the North and

West brunette race.”

Would you take the trouble to prove that Michael Angelo was an Italian that

this man takes to prove that he was a German? Of course not. The only

impression this man (who is a recognised Prussian historian) produces on

your mind or mine is that he does not care about Michael Angelo. For you,

being an Italian, are therefore something more than an Italian; and I being

an Englishman, something more than an Englishman. But this poor fellow

really cannot be anything more than a Prussian. He digs and digs to find

dead Prussians, in the catacombs of Rome or under the ruins of Troy. If he

can find one blue eye lying about somewhere, he is satisfied. He has no

philosophy. He has a hobby, which is collecting Germans. It would probably

be vain for you and me to point out that we could prove anything by the

sort of ingenuity which finds the German “rothe” in Buonarotti. We could

have great fun depriving Germany of all her geniuses in that style. We

could say that Moltke must have been an Italian, from the old Latin root

mol—indicating the sweetness of that general’s disposition. We might say

Bismarck was a Frenchman, since his name begins with the popular theatrical

cry of “Bis!” We might say Goethe was an Englishman, because his name

begins with the popular sporting cry “Go!” But the ultimate difference

between us and the Prussian professor is simply that we are not mad.

The father of Frederick the Great, the founder of the more modern

Hohenzollerns, was mad. His madness consisted of stealing giants; like an

unscrupulous travelling showman. Any man much over six foot high, whether

he were called the Russian Giant or the Irish Giant or the Chinese Giant or

the Hottentot Giant, was in danger of being kidnapped and imprisoned in a

Prussian uniform. It is the same mean sort of madness that is working in

Prussian professors such as the one I have quoted. They can get no further

than the notion of stealing giants. I will not bore you now with all the

other giants they have tried to steal; it is enough to say that St. Paul,

Leonardo da Vinci, and Shakespeare himself are among the monstrosities

exhibited at Frederick-William fair—on grounds as good as those quoted

above. But I have put this particular case before you, as an artist rather

than an Italian, to show what I mean when I object to a “German future for

Europe.” I object to something which believes very much in itself, and in

which I do not in the least believe. I object to something which is

conceited and small-minded; but which also has that kind of pertinacity

which always belongs to lunatics. It wants to be able to congratulate

itself on Michael Angelo; never to congratulate the world. It is the spirit

that can be seen in those who go bald trying to trace a genealogy; or go

bankrupt trying to make out a claim to some remote estate. The Prussian has

the inconsistency of the parvenu; he will labour to prove that he is

related to some gentleman of the Renaissance, even while he boasts of being

able to “buy him up.” If the Italians were really great, why—they were

really Germans; and if they weren’t really Germans, well then, they weren’t

really great. It is an occupation for an old maid.

Three or four hundred years ago, in the sad silence that had followed the

comparative failure of the noble effort of the Middle Ages, there came upon

all Europe a storm out of the south. Its tumult is of many tongues; one can

hear in it the laughter of Rabelais, or, for that matter, the lyrics of

Shakespeare; but the dark heart of the storm was indeed more austral and

volcanic; a noise of thunderous wings and the name of Michael the

Archangel. And when it had shocked and purified the world and passed, a

Prussian professor found a feather fallen to earth; and proved (in several

volumes) that it could only have come from a Prussian Eagle. He had seen

one—in a cage.

Yours ------,

G.K. CHESTERTON.

---

My Dear ------

The facts before all Europeans to-day are so fundamental that I still find

it easier to talk about them to you as to an old friend, rather than put it

in the shape of a pamphlet. In my last letter I pointed out two facts

which are pivots. The first is that, to any really cultured person, Prussia

is second-rate. The second is that to almost any Prussian, Prussia is

really first-rate; and is prepared, quite literally, to police the rest of

the world.

For the first matter, the comparative inferiority of German culture cannot

be doubted by people like you. One of the German papers pathetically said

that, though the mangling of Malines and Rheims was very sad, it was a

comfort to think that yet nobler works of art would spring up wherever the

German culture had passed in triumph. From the point of view of humour, it

is really rather sad that they never will. The German Emperor’s idea of a

Gothic cathedral is as provocative to the fancy as Mrs. Todgers’ idea of a

wooden leg. But I think it perfectly probable that they really intended to

set up such beautiful buildings as they could. Having been blasphemous

enough to ruin such things, they might well be blasphemous enough to

replace them. Even if the Prussian attempt on Paris had not wholly

collapsed as it has, I doubt whether the Prussians would have destroyed

everything. I doubt whether they would even have destroyed the Venus de

Milo. More probably they would have put a pair of arms on it, designed by

some rising German artist—the Emperor or somebody. And the two arms thus

added would look at once like the arms of a woman at a wash-tub. The

destroyers of the tower of Rheims are quite capable of destroying the Tower

of Giotto. But they are equally capable of the greater crime of completing

it. And if they put on a spire, what a spire it would be! What an

extinguisher for that clear and almost transparent Christian candle! Have

you read some of the German explanations of Hamlet? Did I tell you that

Leonardo’s hair must have been German hair, because so many of his

contemporaries said it was beautiful? This is what I call being

second-rate. All the German excitement about the colonies of England is

only a half understanding of what was once heroic and is now largely

caddish. The German Emperor’s naval vision is a bad copy of Nelson, as

certainly as Frederick the Great’s verses were a bad copy of Voltaire.

But the second point was even more important; that weak as the thing is

mentally it is strong materially; and will impose itself materially if we

permit it. The Prussians have failed in everything else; but they have not

failed in getting their subject thousands to do as they are told. They

cannot put up black and white towers in Florence; but they can really put

up black and white posts in Alsace. They have failed in diplomacy. I

suppose it might be called a failure in diplomacy to come into the fight

with two enemies extra and one ally the less. If the Germans, instead of

sending spies to study the Belgian soil, had sent spies to consider the

Belgian soul, they would have been saved hard work for a week or two. They

have failed in controversy. I suppose it might be called a failure in

controversy to say that England may be keeping her word for some wicked

purpose; while Germany may be breaking her word for some noble purpose. And

that is practically all that the Germans can manage to say. They say that

we are an insatiable, unscrupulous, piratical power; and this wild spirit

whirled us into the mad course of respecting a treaty we had signed. They

can find in us no treason except that we keep our treaties: failing to do

this I call failing in controversy. They have failed in popular persuasion.

They have had a very good opportunity. The British Empire does contain many

people who have been badly treated in various ways: the Irish, the Boers;

nay, the Americans themselves, whose national existence began with being

badly treated. With these the Prussians have done comparatively little; and

with Europeans of your sort nothing. They have never once really

sympathised with the feeling of a Switzer for Switzerland; the feeling of a

Norwegian for Norway; the feeling of a Tuscan for Tuscany. Even when

nations are neutral, Prussia can hardly bear them to be patriotic. Even

when they are courting every one else they can praise no one but

themselves. They fail in diplomacy, they fail in debate, they fail even in

demagogy. They have stupid plots, stupid explanations, and even stupid

apologies. But there is one thing they really do not fail in. They do not

fail in finding people stupid enough to carry them out.

Now, it is this question I would ask you to consider; you, as a good middle

type of the Latins, a Liberal but a Catholic, an artist but a soldier. The

danger to the whole civilisation of which Rome was the fountain lies in

this. That the more this strange Pruss people fail in all the other things,

the more they will fall back on this mere fact of a brutal obedience. They

will give orders; they have nothing else to give. I say that this is the

question for you; I do not say, I do not dream of saying, that the answer

is for me. It is for you to weigh the chance that their very failures in

the arts of peace will drive them back upon the arts of war. They could

not, and they did not, dupe your people in diplomacy. They did the most

undiplomatic thing that can be done; they concealed a breach of partnership

without even concealing the concealment. They instigated the intrigue in

Austria in such a way that Italy could honestly claim all the freedom of

past ignorance, combined with all the disillusionment of present knowledge.

They so ran the Triple Alliance that they had to admit your grievance, at

the very moment when they claimed your aid. The English are stupider and

less sensitive than you are; but even the English found the German

Chancellor’s diplomacy not insinuating but simply insulting; I swear I

would be a better diplomatist myself. In the same way, there is no danger

of people like you being corrupted in controversy. There is no fear that

the professors who pullulate all over the Baltic Plain will overcome the

Latins in logic. Some of them even claim to be super-logical; and say they

are too big for syllogisms; generally having found even one syllogism too

big for them. If they complain either of your abstention from their cause

or your adhesion to any other, you have an unanswerable answer. You will

say, as you did say, that you did not break the Triple Alliance, even for

the sake of peace. It was they who broke it for the sake of war. You,

obviously, had as much right to be consulted about Servia as Austria had;

and on the mere chess-board of argument it is mate in one move. Nor are

they in the least fitted to make an appeal to the popular sentiment of your

people. The English, I dare say, and the French, have talked an amazing

amount of nonsense about you; but they understand a little better. They do

not write exactly like this, which is from the most public and accepted

Prussian political philosopher (Chamberlain). “Who can live in Italy

to-day and mix with its amiable and highly gifted inhabitants without

feeling with pain that here a great nation is lost, irredeemably lost,

because it lacks the inner driving power,” etc., which has brought Von

Kluck so triumphantly through Paris. Even a half-educated Englishman, who

has heard of no Italian poet except Dante, knows that he was something more

than amiable. Even a positively illiterate Frenchman, who has heard of no

Italian warrior except Napoleon, knows that it was not in “inner driving

force” that the artilleryman in question was deficient. “Who can live in

Italy to-day?” Evidently the Prussian philosopher can’t. His impressions

are taken from Italian operas; not from Italian streets; certainly not from

Italian fields. As a matter of fact such images of Italy as burn in the

memories of most open-minded Northerners who have been there, are of

exactly the other kind. I for one should be inclined to say, “Who can live

in Italy to-day without feeling that a woman feeding children, or a man

chopping wood, may almost touch him with fear with the fulness of their

humanity: so that he can almost smell blood, as one smells burning?”

Italians often look lazy; that is, they look as if they would not move; but

not as if they could not move, as many Germans do. But even though this

formula fitted the Italians, it seems scarcely calculated to please them.

For the Prussians, then, with the failure of their diplomacy, the failure

of their philosophy, we may also place the failure of their appeals to a

foreign people. The Prussian writer may continue his attempts to soothe

and charm you by telling you that you are irredeemably lost, and that all

great Italians must have been something else. But the method seems to me

ill adapted to popular propaganda; and I cannot but say that on this third

point of persuasion, the German attempt is not striking.

Now all this is important for this reason. If you consider it carefully

you will see why Europe must, at whatever cost, break Germany in battle:

and put an end to her military and material power to do things. If we all

have to fight for it, if we all have to die for it, it must be done. If we

find allies in the dwarfs of Greenland or the giants of Patagonia, it must

be done. And the reason is that unless it is literally and materially done,

other things will be literally and materially done; and horrify the

heavens. They will be silly things; they will be benighted and limited and

laughable things; but they will be accomplished things. Nothing could be

more ridiculous, if that is all, than the moral position of the Prussian in

Poland; where a magnificent officer, making a vast parade of “ruling,”

tries to cheat poor peasants out of their fields (and gets cheated) and

then takes refuge in beating little boys for saying their prayers in their

native tongue. All who remember anything of dignity, of irony, in short of

Rome and reason, can see why an officer need not, should not, had better

not, and generally does not, beat little boys. But an officer can beat

little boys: and a Prussian officer will go on doing it until you take away

the stick. Nothing could be more comic, if that is all, than the position

of Prussians in Alsace: which they declare to be purely German and admit to

be furiously French; so that they have to terrorise it by sabring anybody,

including cripples. Again, any of us can see why an officer need not,

should not, had better not, and generally does not, sabre a cripple. But an

officer can sabre a cripple; and a Prussian officer will go on doing it

until you take away the sabre. It is this insane and rigid realism that

makes their case peculiar: like that of a Chinaman copying something, or a

half-witted servant taking a message. If they had the power to put black

and white posts round the grave of Virgil, or dig up Dante to see if he had

yellow hair, the mere doing of it which for some of us would be the most

unlikely, would for them be the least unlikely thing. They do not hear the

laughter of the ages. If they had the power to treat the English or Italian

Premier quite literally as a traitor, and shoot him against a wall, they

are quite capable of turning such hysterical rhetoric into reality: and

scattering his brains before they had collected their own. They do not feel

atmospheres. They are all a little deaf; as they are all a little

short-sighted. They are annoyed when their enemies, after such experiences

as those of Belgium, accuse them of breaking their promises. And in one

sense they are right; for there are some sorts of promises they probably

would keep. If they have promised to respect a free country, or an old

friend, to observe a sworn partnership, or to spare a harmless population,

they will find such restrictions chilling and irksome. They will ask some

professor on what principle they are discarding it. But if they have

promised to shoot the cross off a church spire, or empty the inkpot into

somebody’s beer, or bring home somebody’s ears in their pocket for the

pleasure of their families, I think in these cases they would feel a sort

of a shadow of what civilised men feel in the fulfilment of a promise, as

distinct from the making of it. And, in consideration of such cases, I

cannot go the whole length of those severe critics who say that a Prussian

will never keep his promise.

Unfortunately, it is precisely this sort of actuality and fulfilment that

makes it urgent that Europe should put forth her whole energy to drag down

these antique demoniacs; these idiots filled with force as by fiends. They

will do things, as a maniac will, until he cannot do them. To me it

seemed that some things could not be said and done. I thought a man would

have been ashamed to bribe a new enemy like England to betray an old enemy

like France. I thought a man would have been ashamed to punish the pure

self-defence of folk so offenceless as the Belgians. These hopes must go

from us, my friend. There is only one thing of which the Prussian would be

ashamed; and of that, we have sworn to God, he shall taste before the end.

---

My Dear ------

The Prussianised German, of whatever blend of races he may be, has one

quality which may perhaps be racially simple; but which is, at any rate,

very plain. Chamberlain, the German philosopher or historian (I know not

which to call him or how to call him either) remarks somewhere that

purebred races possess fidelity; he instances the negro and the dog—and, I

suppose, the German. Anyhow, it is true that there is a recognisable and

real thing which might be called fidelity (or perhaps monotony) which

exists in Germans in about the same style as in dogs and niggers. The North

Teuton really has in this respect the simplicities of the savage and the

lower animals; that he has no reactions. He does not laugh at himself. He

does not want to kick himself. He does not, like most of us, repent—or

occasionally even repent of repenting. He does not read his own works and

find them much worse or much better than he had expected. He does not feel

a faint irrational sense of debauch, after even divine pleasures of this

life. Watch him at a German restaurant, and you will satisfy yourself that

he does not. In short, both in the most scientific and in the most casual

sense of the word, he does not know what it is to have a temper. He does

not bend and fly back like steel; he sticks out, like wood. In this he

differs from any nation I have known, from your nation and mine, from the

French, the Spanish, the Scotch, the Welsh and the Irish. Bad luck never

braces him as it does us. Good luck never frightens him as it does us. It

can be seen in what the French call Chauvinism and we call Jingoism. For us

it is fireworks; for him it is daylight. On Mafeking Night, celebrating a

small but picturesque success against the Boers, nearly everybody in London

came out waving little flags. Nearly everybody in London is now heartily

ashamed of it. But it would never occur to the Prussians not to ride their

high horses with the freshest insolence for the far-off victory of Sedan;

though on that very anniversary the star of their fate had turned scornful

in the sky, and Von Kluck was in retreat from Paris. Above all, the

Prussian does not feel annoyed, as I do, when foreigners praise his country

for all the wrong reasons. The Prussian will allow you to praise him for

any reasons, for any length of time, for any eternity of folly; he is there

to be praised. Probably he is proud of this; probably he thinks he has a

good digestion, because the poison of praise does not make him sick. He

thinks the absence of such doubt, or self-knowledge, makes for composure,

grandeur, a colossal calm, a superior race—in short, the whole claim of

the Teutons to be the highest spiritual product of Nature and Evolution.

But as I have noticed a calm unity even more complete, not only in dogs and

negroes, but in slugs, slow-worms, mangoldwurzels, moss, mud and bits of

stone, I am a sceptic about this test for the marshalling in rank of all

the children of God. Now I point this out to you here for a very practical

reason. The Prussian will never understand revolutions—which are

generally reactions. He regards them, not only with dislike, but with a

mysterious kind of pity. Throughout his confused popular histories, there

runs a strange suggestion that civic populations have failed hitherto, and

failed because they were always fighting. The population of Berlin does not

fight, or can’t; and therefore Berlin will succeed where Greece and Rome

have failed. Hitherto it is plain enough that Berlin has succeeded in

nothing except in bad copies of Greece and Rome; and Prussians would be

wiser to discuss the details of the Greek and Roman past, which we can

follow, rather than the details of their own future, about which we are

naturally not so well informed. Well, every dome they build, every pillar

they put upright, every pedestal for epitaph or panel for decoration, every

type of church, Catholic or Protestant, every kind of street, large or

small, they have copied from the old Pagan or Catholic cities; and those

cities, when they made those things, were boiling with revolutions. I

remember a German professor saying to me, “I should have no scruple about

extinguishing such republics as Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua; they

are perpetually rioting for one thing or another.” I said I supposed he

would have had no scruple in extinguishing Athens, Rome, Florence and

Paris; for they were always rioting for one thing or another. His reply

indicated, I thought, that he felt about Cæsar or Rienzi very much as the

Scotch Presbyterian Minister felt about Christ, when he was reminded of the

corn-plucking on the Sabbath, and said, “Weel, I dinna think the better of

him.” In other words he was quite positive, like all his countrymen, that

he could impose a sort of Pax Germanica, which would satisfy all the needs

of order and of freedom forever; leaving no need for revolutions or

reactions. I am myself of a different opinion. When I was a child, when the

toy-trade of Germany had begun to flood this country, there was a priggish

British couplet, engraven on the minds of governesses, which ran—

What the German children delight to make

The English children delight to break.

I can answer for the delight of the English children; a just and godlike

delight. I am not so sure about the delight of the German children, when

they were caught in the infernal wheels of the modern civilisation of

factories. But, for the present, I am only concerned to say that I do not

accept this line of historical division. I do not think history supports

the view that those who could break things could not make them.

This is the least intrusive approach by which I can touch on a topic that

must of necessity be a delicate one; yet which may well be a difficulty

among Latins like yourself. Against this preposterous Prussian upstart we

have not only to protect our unity; we have even to protect our quarrels.

And the deepest of the reactions or revolts of which I have spoken is the

quarrel which (very tragically as I think) has for some hundred years

cloven the Christian from the Liberal ideal. It would ill become me, in

whose country there is neither such clear doctrine nor such combative

democracy, to suppose it can be easy for any of you to close up such sacred

wounds. There must still be Catholics who feel they can never forgive a

Jacobin. There must still be old Republicans who feel that they could never

endure a priest. And yet there is something, the mere sight of which should

lock them both in an instant alliance. They have only to look northward and

hold the third thing, which thinks itself superior to either: the enormous

turnip-face of ce type là, as the French say, who conceives that he can

make them both like himself and yet remain superior to both.

I implore you to keep out of the hands of this Fool the quarrel of the

great saints and of the great blasphemers. He will do to religion what he

will do to art; mix up all the colours on your palette into the colour of

mud: and then say that only the purified eyes of Teutons can see that it is

pure white. The other day the Director of Museums in Berlin was said to be

setting about the creation of a new kind of Art: German Art. Philosophers

and men of science were at the same time directed to meet round the table

and found a new Religion: German Religion. How can such people appreciate

art; how can they appreciate religion—nay, how can they appreciate

irreligion? How does one invent a message? How does one create a Creator?

Is it not the plain meaning of the Gospel that it is good news? And is it

not the plain meaning of good news that it must come from outside oneself?

Otherwise I could make myself happy this moment, by inventing an enormous

victory in Flanders. And I suppose (now I come to think of it) that the

Germans do.

By the fulness of your faith and even the fulness of your despair, you that

remember Rome, have earned a right to prevent all our quarrels being

quenched in such cold water from the north. But it is not too much to say

that neither religion at its worst nor republicanism at its worst ever

offered the coarse insult to all mankind that is offered by this new and

nakedly universal monarchy.

There has always been something common to civilised men, whether they

called it being merely a citizen; or being merely a sinner. There has

always been something which your ancestors called Verecundia; which is at

once humility and dignity. Whatever our faults, we do not do exactly as

the Prussians do. We do not bellow day and night to draw attention to our

own stern silence. We do not praise ourselves solely because nobody else

will praise us. I, for one, say at the end of these letters, as I said at

the beginning; that in these international matters I have often differed

from my countrymen; I have often differed from myself. I shall not claim

the completeness of this silly creature we discuss. I shall not answer his

boasts with boasts; but with blows.

My front-door is beaten in and broken down suddenly. I see nothing outside,

except a sort of smiling, straw-haired commercial traveller with a notebook

open, who says, “Excuse me, I am a faultless being, I have persuaded

Poland; I can count on my respectful Allies in Alsace. I am simply loved in

Lorraine. Quae reggio in terris … What place is there on earth where

the name of Prussia is not the signal for hopeful prayers and joyful

dances? I am that German who has civilised Belgium; and delicately trimmed

the frontiers of Denmark. And I may tell you, with the fulness of

conviction, that I have never failed, and shall never fail in anything.

Permit me, therefore, to bless your house by the passage of my beautiful

boots; that I may burgle the house next door.”

And then something European that is prouder than pride will rise up in me;

and I shall answer:—

“I am that Englishman who has tortured Ireland, who has been tortured by

South Africa; who knows all his mistakes, who is heavy with all his sins.

And he tells you, Faultless Being, with a truth as deep as his own guilt,

and as deathless as his own remembrance, that you shall not pass this way.”

CHAPTER

THE FACTS OF THE CASE

I THE WAR ON THE WORD

II THE REFUSAL OF RECIPROCITY

III THE APPETITE OF TYRANNY

IV THE ESCAPE OF FOLLY

LETTERS TO AN OLD GARIBALDIAN

THE FACTS OF THE CASE

Unless we are all mad, there is at the back of the most bewildering

business a story: and if we are all mad, there is no such thing as madness.

If I set a house on fire, it is quite true that I may illuminate many other

people’s weaknesses as well as my own. It may be that the master of the

house was burned because he was drunk; it may be that the mistress of the

house was burned because she was stingy, and perished arguing about the

expense of the fire-escape. It is, nevertheless, broadly true that they

both were burned because I set fire to their house. That is the story of

the thing. The mere facts of the story about the present European

conflagration are quite as easy to tell.

Before we go on to the deeper things which make this war the most sincere

war of human history, it is easy to answer the question of why England came

to be in it at all, as one asks how a man fell down a coal-hole, or failed

to keep an appointment. Facts are not the whole truth. But facts are facts,

and in this case the facts are few and simple. Prussia, France, and

England had all promised not to invade Belgium. Prussia proposed to invade

Belgium, because it was the safest way of invading France. But Prussia

promised that if she might break in, through her own broken promise and

ours, she would break in and not steal. In other words, we were offered at

the same instant a promise of faith in the future and a proposal of perjury

in the present. Those interested in human origin may refer to an old

Victorian writer of English, who, in the last and most restrained of his

historical essays, wrote of Frederick the Great, the founder of this

unchanging Prussian policy. After describing how Frederick broke the

guarantee he had signed on behalf of Maria Theresa, he then describes how

Frederick sought to put things straight by a promise that was an insult.

“If she would but let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her

against any power which should try to deprive her of her other dominions,

as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if his new promise

could be of more value than the old one.” That passage was written by

Macaulay, but so far as the mere contemporary facts are concerned, it might

have been written by me.

Upon the immediate logical and legal origin of the English interest there

can be no rational debate. There are some things so simple that one can

almost prove them with plans and diagrams, as in Euclid. One could make a

kind of comic calendar of what would have happened to the English

diplomatist if he had been silenced every time by Prussian diplomacy.

Suppose we arrange it in the form of a kind of diary.

July 24. Germany invades Belgium.

July 25. England declares war.

July 26. Germany promises not to annex Belgium.

July 27. England withdraws from the war.

July 28. Germany annexes Belgium. England declares war.

July 29. Germany promises not to annex France. England withdraws from the

war.

July 30. Germany annexes France. England declares war.

July 31. Germany promises not to annex England.

Aug. 1. England withdraws from the war. Germany invades England…

How long is anybody expected to go with that sort of game, or keep peace at

that illimitable price? How long must we pursue a road in which promises

are all fetishes in front of us and all fragments behind us? No: upon the

cold facts of the final negotiations, as told by any of the diplomatists in

any of the documents, there is no doubt about the story. And no doubt about

the villain of the story.

These are the last facts—the facts which involved England. It is equally

easy to state the first facts—the facts which involved Europe. The Prince

who practically ruled Austria was shot by certain persons whom the Austrian

Government believed to be conspirators from Servia. The Austrian Government

piled up arms and armies, but said not a word either to Servia their

suspect or Italy their ally. From the documents it would seem that Austria

kept everybody in the dark, except Prussia. It is probably nearer the truth

to say that Prussia kept everybody in the dark, including Austria. But all

that is what is called opinion, belief, conviction or common-sense, and we

are not dealing with it here. The objective fact is that Austria told

Servia to permit Servian officers to be suspended by the authority of

Austrian officers, and told Servia to submit to this within forty-eight

hours. In other words, the sovereign of Servia was practically told to take

off not only the laurels of two great campaigns but his own lawful and

national crown, and to do it in a time in which no respectable citizen is

expected to discharge an hotel bill. Servia asked for time, for

arbitration—in short, for peace. But Prussia had already begun to

mobilise; and Prussia, presuming that Servia might thus be rescued,

declared war.

Between these two ends of fact, the ultimatum to Servia, the ultimatum to

Belgium, any one so inclined can of course talk as if everything were

relative. If any one ask why the Czar should rush to the support of Servia,

it is as easy to ask why the Kaiser should rush to the support of Austria.

If any one say that the French would attack the Germans, it is sufficient

to answer that the Germans did attack the French. There remain, however,

two attitudes to consider, even perhaps two arguments to counter, which can

best be considered and countered under this general head of facts. First of

all, there is a curious, cloudy sort of argument, much affected by the

professional rhetoricians of Prussia, who are sent out to instruct and

correct the minds of Americans or Scandinavians. It consists of going into

convulsions of incredulity and scorn at the mention of Russia’s

responsibility for Servia or England’s responsibility for Belgium; and

suggesting that, treaty or no treaty, frontier or no frontier, Russia would

be out to slay Teutons or England to steal colonies. Here, as elsewhere, I

think the professors dotted all over the Baltic plain fail in lucidity, and

in the power of distinguishing ideas. Of course it is quite true that

England has material interests to defend, and will probably use the

opportunity to defend them: or, in other words, of course England, like

everybody else, would be more comfortable if Prussia were less predominant.

The fact remains that we did not do what the Germans did. We did not

invade Holland to seize a naval and commercial advantage: and whether they

say that we wished to do it in our greed, or feared to do it in our

cowardice, the fact remains that we did not do it. Unless this common-sense

principle be kept in view, I cannot conceive how any quarrel can possibly

be judged. A contract may be made between two persons solely for material

advantage on each side: but the moral advantage is still generally supposed

to lie with the person who keeps the contract. Surely it cannot be

dishonest to be honest—even if honesty is the best policy. Imagine the

most complex maze of indirect motives; and still the man who keeps faith

for money cannot possibly be worse than the man who breaks faith for money.

It will be noted that this ultimate test applies in the same way to Servia

as to Belgium and Britain. The Servians may not be a very peaceful people;

but, on the occasion under discussion, it was certainly they who wanted

peace. You may choose to think the Serb a sort of born robber: but on this

occasion it was certainly the Austrian who was trying to rob. Similarly,

you may call England perfidious as a sort of historical summary; and

declare your private belief that Mr. Asquith was vowed from infancy to the

ruin of the German Empire, a Hannibal and hater of the eagles. But, when

all is said, it is nonsense to call a man perfidious because he keeps his

promise. It is absurd to complain of the sudden treachery of a business man

in turning up punctually to his appointment: or the unfair shock given to a

creditor by the debtor paying his debts.

Lastly, there is an attitude not unknown in the crisis against which I

should particularly like to protest. I should address my protest especially

to those lovers and pursuers of Peace who, very short-sightedly, have

occasionally adopted it. I mean the attitude which is impatient of these

preliminary details about who did this or that, and whether it was right or

wrong. They are satisfied with saying that an enormous calamity, called

War, has been begun by some or all of us; and should be ended by some or

all of us. To these people this preliminary chapter about the precise

happenings must appear not only dry (and it must of necessity be the driest

part of the task) but essentially needless and barren. I wish to tell these

people that they are wrong; that they are wrong upon all principles of

human justice and historic continuity: but that they are specially and

supremely wrong upon their own principles of arbitration and international

peace.

These sincere and high-minded peace-lovers are always telling us that

citizens no longer settle their quarrels by private violence; and that

nations should no longer settle theirs by public violence. They are always

telling us that we no longer fight duels; and need no longer wage wars. In

short, they perpetually base their peace proposals on the fact that an

ordinary citizen no longer avenges himself with an axe. But how is he

prevented from revenging himself with an axe? If he hits his neighbour on

the head with the kitchen chopper, what do we do? Do we all join hands,

like children playing Mulberry Bush, and say “We are all responsible for

this; but let us hope it will not spread. Let us hope for the happy day

when he shall leave off chopping at the man’s head; and when nobody shall

ever chop anything for ever and ever.” Do we say “Let byegones be byegones;

why go back to all the dull details with which the business began; who can

tell with what sinister motives the man was standing there within reach of

the hatchet?” We do not. We keep the peace in private life by asking for

the facts of provocation, and the proper object of punishment. We do go

into the dull details; we do enquire into the origins; we do emphatically

enquire who it was that hit first. In short we do what I have done very

briefly in this place.

Given this, it is indeed true that behind these facts there are truths;

truths of a terrible, of a spiritual sort. In mere fact, the Germanic power

has been wrong about Servia, wrong about Russia, wrong about Belgium, wrong

about England, wrong about Italy. But there was a reason for its being

wrong everywhere; and of that root reason, which has moved half the world

against it, I shall speak later. For that is something too omnipresent to

be proved, too indisputable to be helped by detail. It is nothing less than

the locating, after more than a hundred years of recriminations and wrong

explanations, of the modern European evil: the finding of the fountain from

which poison has flowed upon all the nations of the earth.

CAPITOLO

I FATTI DEL CASO

I LA GUERRA ALLA PAROLA

II IL RIFIUTO DELLA RECIPROCITÀ

III L’APPETITO DELLA TIRANNIA

IV LA FUGA DELLA FOLLIA

LETTERE A UN VECCHIO GARIBALDINO

I FATTI DEL CASO

A meno che non siamo tutti pazzi, dietro l’affare più sconcertante

vi è sempre una storia: e se siamo tutti pazzi, allora non esiste affatto cosa alcuna come la pazzia.

Se a una casa appicco il fuoco, è ben vero che posso illuminare molte altrui

debolezze così come le mie proprie. Può darsi che il padrone della

casa sia bruciato perché era ubriaco; può darsi che la padrona della

casa sia bruciata perché era spilorcia, e sia perita disputando circa la

spesa della scala antiincendio. È, nondimeno, in gran parte vero che

entrambi bruciarono perché io diedi fuoco alla loro casa. Questa è la storia

della cosa. I meri fatti della storia intorno all’attuale

conflagrazione europea sono altrettanto facili da raccontare.

Prima di procedere alle cose più profonde che fanno di questa guerra la più sincera

guerra della storia umana, è facile rispondere alla domanda del perché l’Inghilterra vi si sia

trovata coinvolta, come ci si chiede come un uomo sia caduto in una carbonaia, o abbia mancato

un appuntamento. I fatti non sono l’intera verità. Ma i fatti sono fatti,

e in questo caso i fatti sono pochi e semplici. La Prussia, la Francia e

l’Inghilterra avevano tutte promesso di non invadere il Belgio. La Prussia si propose d’invadere

il Belgio, perché era il modo più sicuro d’invadere la Francia. Ma la Prussia

promise che, se le fosse concesso d’irrompere, attraverso la propria promessa infranta e la

nostra, sarebbe irrotta senza rubare. In altre parole, ci fu offerta nel

medesimo istante una promessa di fede per il futuro e una proposta di spergiuro

nel presente. Chi s’interessa all’origine umana può riferirsi a un vecchio

scrittore vittoriano di lingua inglese, il quale, nell’ultimo e più contenuto dei suoi

saggi storici, scrisse di Federico il Grande, il fondatore di questa

immutabile politica prussiana. Dopo aver descritto come Federico ruppe la

garanzia che aveva firmato in favore di Maria Teresa, egli descrive poi come

Federico cercò di rimettere le cose a posto con una promessa che era un insulto.

«Se ella solo gli avesse ceduto la Slesia, egli, disse, l’avrebbe sostenuta

contro qualsiasi potenza che tentasse di privarla degli altri suoi domini,

come se non fosse già tenuto a sostenerla, o come se la sua nuova promessa

potesse valere più della vecchia». Quel passo fu scritto da

Macaulay, ma per quanto concerne i meri fatti contemporanei, avrebbe

potuto scriverlo io.

Sull’immediata origine logica e legale dell’interesse inglese non vi

può essere alcun dibattito razionale. Vi sono cose tanto semplici che si

possono quasi dimostrare con piante e diagrammi, come in Euclide. Si potrebbe fare una

sorta di calendario comico di ciò che sarebbe accaduto al

diplomatico inglese se fosse stato messo a tacere ogni volta dalla diplomazia prussiana.

Supponiamo di disporlo nella forma di una sorta di diario.

24 luglio. La Germania invade il Belgio.

25 luglio. L’Inghilterra dichiara guerra.

26 luglio. La Germania promette di non annettere il Belgio.

27 luglio. L’Inghilterra si ritira dalla guerra.

28 luglio. La Germania annette il Belgio. L’Inghilterra dichiara guerra.

29 luglio. La Germania promette di non annettere la Francia. L’Inghilterra si ritira dalla

guerra.

30 luglio. La Germania annette la Francia. L’Inghilterra dichiara guerra.

31 luglio. La Germania promette di non annettere l’Inghilterra.

1 agosto. L’Inghilterra si ritira dalla guerra. La Germania invade l’Inghilterra…

Fino a quando ci si aspetta che qualcuno stia a quella sorta di gioco, o mantenga la pace a

quel prezzo illimitato? Fino a quando dovremo battere una strada in cui le promesse

sono tutte feticci dinanzi a noi e tutte frammenti dietro di noi? No: sui

freddi fatti delle trattative finali, come riferiti da uno qualunque dei diplomatici in

uno qualunque dei documenti, non v’è alcun dubbio sulla storia. E nessun dubbio sul

malvagio della storia.

Questi sono gli ultimi fatti — i fatti che coinvolsero l’Inghilterra. È altrettanto

facile enunciare i primi fatti — i fatti che coinvolsero l’Europa. Il Principe

che praticamente governava l’Austria fu ucciso a colpi d’arma da fuoco da certe persone che il

Governo austriaco riteneva cospiratori venuti dalla Servia. Il Governo austriaco

ammassò armi ed eserciti, ma non disse parola né alla Servia sua

sospetta né all’Italia sua alleata. Dai documenti parrebbe che l’Austria

tenesse tutti all’oscuro, tranne la Prussia. È probabilmente più vicino al vero

dire che la Prussia tenne tutti all’oscuro, compresa l’Austria. Ma tutto

ciò è quel che si chiama opinione, credenza, convinzione o buon senso, e

non ce ne occupiamo qui. Il fatto obiettivo è che l’Austria intimò

alla Servia di permettere che ufficiali servi fossero sospesi dall’autorità di

ufficiali austriaci, e intimò alla Servia di sottomettersi a ciò entro quarantotto

ore. In altre parole, al sovrano di Servia fu praticamente ingiunto di deporre

non solo gli allori di due grandi campagne, ma la propria legittima e

nazionale corona, e di farlo in un tempo in cui nessun cittadino rispettabile è

tenuto a saldare un conto d’albergo. La Servia chiese tempo, chiese

arbitrato — in breve, pace. Ma la Prussia aveva già cominciato a

mobilitarsi; e la Prussia, presumendo che la Servia potesse così essere salvata,

dichiarò guerra.

Tra questi due estremi di fatto, l’ultimatum alla Servia, l’ultimatum al

Belgio, chiunque sia così incline può naturalmente parlare come se tutto fosse

relativo. Se qualcuno chiede perché lo Zar dovesse precipitarsi in soccorso della Servia,

è altrettanto facile chiedere perché il Kaiser dovesse precipitarsi in soccorso dell’Austria.

Se qualcuno dice che i Francesi avrebbero attaccato i Tedeschi, è sufficiente

rispondere che i Tedeschi attaccarono davvero i Francesi. Restano, tuttavia,

due atteggiamenti da considerare, forse anche due argomenti da confutare, che si possono

meglio considerare e confutare sotto questa generale rubrica dei fatti. Prima di

tutto, v’è una curiosa, nebulosa specie di argomento, assai prediletta dai

retori professionali di Prussia, che vengono inviati a istruire e

correggere le menti degli Americani o degli Scandinavi. Consiste nell’andare in

convulsioni d’incredulità e di scherno al solo accennare alla

responsabilità della Russia verso la Servia o dell’Inghilterra verso il Belgio; e

insinuando che, trattato o non trattato, frontiera o non frontiera, la Russia

sarebbe uscita a trucidare Teutoni o l’Inghilterra a rubare colonie. Qui, come altrove,

penso che i professori disseminati per tutta la pianura baltica difettino di lucidità, e

della facoltà di distinguere le idee. Certo è ben vero che

l’Inghilterra ha interessi materiali da difendere, e probabilmente coglierà l’

occasione per difenderli: ovvero, in altre parole, certo l’Inghilterra, come

chiunque altro, starebbe più comoda se la Prussia fosse meno predominante.

Il fatto rimane che noi non facemmo ciò che fecero i Tedeschi. Non

invademmo l’Olanda per afferrare un vantaggio navale e commerciale: e sia che

dicano che volevamo farlo per la nostra avidità, sia che temessimo di farlo per la nostra

codardia, il fatto rimane che non lo facemmo. A meno che questo principio di buon senso

non sia tenuto presente, non concepisco come una qualsiasi contesa possa mai

essere giudicata. Un contratto può essere stipulato tra due persone unicamente per vantaggio

materiale d’ambo le parti: ma il vantaggio morale si suppone tuttora generalmente

stare dalla parte di chi tiene fede al contratto. Certo non può essere

disonesto essere onesti — anche se l’onestà è la miglior politica. Immaginate il

più complesso labirinto di moventi indiretti; e pur sempre l’uomo che tiene fede

per denaro non può in alcun modo essere peggiore dell’uomo che rompe la fede per denaro.

Si noterà che questa prova ultima si applica nello stesso modo alla Servia

come al Belgio e alla Britannia. I Servi possono non essere un popolo assai pacifico;

ma, nell’occasione in discussione, furono certamente essi a volere la

pace. Potete scegliere di ritenere il Serbo una sorta di ladro nato: ma in questa

occasione fu certamente l’Austriaco a tentare di rubare. Similmente,

potete chiamare l’Inghilterra perfida come una sorta di sommario storico; e

dichiarare la vostra privata credenza che il signor Asquith fosse votato fin dall’infanzia alla

rovina dell’Impero Germanico, un Annibale e odiatore delle aquile. Ma, quando

tutto è detto, è un’assurdità chiamare perfido un uomo perché tiene la sua

promessa. È assurdo lagnarsi dell’improvviso tradimento di un uomo d’affari

che si presenta puntuale al suo appuntamento: o dell’ingiusto sgomento inflitto a un

creditore dal debitore che paga i suoi debiti.

Infine, v’è un atteggiamento non ignoto nella crisi contro il quale

vorrei particolarmente protestare. Rivolgerei la mia protesta specialmente

a quegli amanti e inseguitori della Pace che, assai miopemente, l’hanno

talvolta adottato. Intendo l’atteggiamento che è insofferente di questi

particolari preliminari su chi fece questo o quello, e se fosse giusto o

sbagliato. Si accontentano di dire che un’enorme calamità, chiamata

Guerra, è stata iniziata da alcuni o da tutti noi; e dovrebbe essere conclusa da alcuni o da

tutti noi. A costoro questo capitolo preliminare sui precisi

accadimenti deve apparire non solo arido (e deve necessariamente essere la parte più arida

del compito) ma essenzialmente inutile e sterile. Desidero dire a costoro

che hanno torto; che hanno torto secondo tutti i princìpi della

giustizia umana e della continuità storica: ma che hanno specialmente e

supremamente torto secondo i loro stessi princìpi d’arbitrato e di pace

internazionale.

Questi sinceri e nobili amanti della pace ci vanno sempre dicendo che

i cittadini non compongono più le loro contese con la violenza privata; e che le

nazioni non dovrebbero più comporre le proprie con la violenza pubblica. Ci vanno sempre

dicendo che non ci battiamo più a duello; e non abbiamo più bisogno di far guerre. In

breve, fondano perpetuamente le loro proposte di pace sul fatto che un

comune cittadino non si vendica più con la scure. Ma come gli è

impedito di vendicarsi con la scure? Se colpisce il suo vicino alla

testa con la mannaia da cucina, che facciamo? Ci prendiamo tutti per mano,

come bambini che giocano al Cespuglio di More, e diciamo «Siamo tutti responsabili di

questo; ma speriamo che non si diffonda. Speriamo nel giorno felice

in cui egli smetterà di menar colpi sulla testa dell’uomo; e in cui nessuno

mai più menerà colpi su alcunché nei secoli dei secoli». Diciamo forse «Il passato sia passato;

perché tornare a tutti i tediosi particolari con cui la faccenda cominciò; chi può

dire con quali sinistri moventi l’uomo se ne stesse là a portata

dell’accetta?». No, non lo diciamo. Manteniamo la pace nella vita privata chiedendo

i fatti della provocazione, e il giusto oggetto della punizione. Entriamo davvero

nei tediosi particolari; indaghiamo davvero sulle origini; ci informiamo con enfasi

su chi fu a colpire per primo. In breve facciamo ciò che io ho fatto assai

brevemente in questo luogo.

Ammesso questo, è invero vero che dietro questi fatti vi sono verità;

verità d’una specie terribile, spirituale. In puro fatto, la potenza germanica

ha avuto torto sulla Servia, torto sulla Russia, torto sul Belgio, torto

sull’Inghilterra, torto sull’Italia. Ma vi era una ragione del suo aver

torto ovunque; e di quella ragione radicale, che ha mosso metà del mondo

contro di essa, parlerò più avanti. Poiché è cosa troppo onnipresente per

essere provata, troppo indiscutibile per essere avvalorata dal dettaglio. Non è nulla di meno che

l’individuazione, dopo più di cent’anni di recriminazioni e di errate

spiegazioni, del male europeo moderno: il ritrovamento della fonte da cui

il veleno è dilagato su tutte le nazioni della terra.

I

THE WAR ON THE WORD

It will hardly be denied that there is one lingering doubt in many, who

recognise unavoidable self-defence in the instant parry of the English

sword, and who have no great love for the sweeping sabre of Sadowa and

Sedan. That doubt is the doubt whether Russia, as compared with Prussia, is

sufficiently decent and democratic to be the ally of liberal and civilised

powers. I take first, therefore, this matter of civilisation.

It is vital in a discussion like this, that we should make sure we are

going by meanings and not by mere words. It is not necessary in any

argument to settle what a word means or ought to mean. But it is necessary

in every argument to settle what we propose to mean by the word. So long as

our opponent understands what is the thing of which we are talking, it

does not matter to the argument whether the word is or is not the one he

would have chosen. A soldier does not say “We were ordered to go to

Mechlin; but I would rather go to Malines.” He may discuss the etymology

and archæology of the difference on the march; but the point is that he

knows where to go. So long as we know what a given word is to mean in a

given discussion, it does not even matter if it means something else in

some other and quite distinct discussion. We have a perfect right to say

that the width of a window comes to four feet; even if we instantly and

cheerfully change the subject to the larger mammals; and say that an

elephant has four feet. The identity of the words does not matter, because

there is no doubt at all about the meanings; because nobody is likely to

think of an elephant as four foot long, or of a window as having tusks and

a curly trunk.

It is essential to emphasise this consciousness of the thing under

discussion in connection with two or three words that are, as it were, the

key-words of this war. One of them is the word “barbarian.” The Prussians

apply it to the Russians: the Russians apply it to the Prussians. Both, I

think, really mean something that really exists, name or no name. Both mean

different things. And if we ask what these different things are, we shall

understand why England and France prefer Russia; and consider Prussia the

really dangerous barbarian of the two. To begin with, it goes so much

deeper even than atrocities; of which, in the past at least, all the three

Empires of Central Europe have partaken pretty equally, as they partook of

Poland. An English writer, seeking to avert the war by warnings against

Russian influence, said that the flogged backs of Polish women stood

between us and the Alliance. But not long before, the flogging of women by

an Austrian general led to that officer being thrashed in the streets of

London by Barclay and Perkins’ draymen. And as for the third power, the

Prussians, it seems clear that they have treated Belgian women in a style

compared with which flogging might be called an official formality. But,

as I say, something much deeper than any such recrimination lies behind the

use of the word on either side. When the German Emperor complains of our

allying ourselves with a barbaric and half-oriental power he is not (I

assure you) shedding tears over the grave of Kosciusko. And when I say (as

I do most heartily) that the German Emperor is a barbarian, I am not merely

expressing any prejudices I may have against the profanation of churches or

of children. My countrymen and I mean a certain and intelligible thing when

we call the Prussians barbarians. It is quite different from the thing

attributed to Russians; and it could not possibly be attributed to

Russians. It is very important that the neutral world should understand

what this thing is.

If the German calls the Russian barbarous he presumably means imperfectly

civilised. There is a certain path along which Western nations have

proceeded in recent times; and it is tenable that Russia has not proceeded

so far as the others: that she has less of the special modern system in

science, commerce, machinery, travel or political constitution. The Russ

ploughs with an old plough; he wears a wild beard; he adores relics; his

life is as rude and hard as that of a subject of Alfred the Great.

Therefore he is, in the German sense, a barbarian. Poor fellows like Gorky

and Dostoieffsky have to form their own reflections on the scenery, without

the assistance of large quotations from Schiller on garden seats; or

inscriptions directing them to pause and thank the All-Father for the

finest view in Hesse-Pumpernickel. The Russians, having nothing but their

faith, their fields, their great courage, and their self-governing

communes, are quite cut off from what is called (in the fashionable street

in Frankfort) The True, The Beautiful and The Good. There is a real sense

in which one can call such backwardness barbaric; by comparison with the

Kaiserstrasse; and in that sense it is true of Russia.

Now we, the French and English, do not mean this when we call the Prussians

barbarians. If their cities soared higher than their flying ships, if

their trains travelled faster than their bullets, we should still call them

barbarians. We should know exactly what we meant by it; and we should know

that it is true. For we do not mean anything that is an imperfect

civilisation by accident. We mean something that is the enemy of

civilisation by design. We mean something that is wilfully at war with the

principles by which human society has been made possible hitherto. Of

course it must be partly civilised even to destroy civilisation. Such ruin

could not be wrought by the savages that are merely undeveloped or inert.

You could not have even Huns without horses; or horses without

horsemanship. You could not have even Danish pirates without ships, or

I

LA GUERRA ALLA PAROLA

Difficilmente si negherà che v’è un persistente dubbio in molti, i quali

riconoscono un’inevitabile autodifesa nell’istantanea parata della

spada inglese, e che non nutrono grande amore per la sciabola travolgente di Sadowa e

di Sedan. Quel dubbio è il dubbio se la Russia, paragonata alla Prussia, sia

sufficientemente dignitosa e democratica da essere l’alleata di potenze liberali e

civili. Prendo dunque per primo questo tema della civiltà.

È vitale, in una discussione come questa, assicurarci di

procedere per significati e non per mere parole. Non è necessario in alcun

argomento stabilire ciò che una parola significa o dovrebbe significare. Ma è necessario

in ogni argomento stabilire ciò che ci proponiamo d’intendere con la parola. Finché

il nostro avversario comprende qual è la cosa di cui parliamo,

non importa all’argomento se la parola sia o non sia quella che egli

avrebbe scelto. Un soldato non dice «Ci fu ordinato di andare a

Mechlin; ma preferirei andare a Malines». Egli può discutere l’etimologia

e l’archeologia della differenza durante la marcia; ma il punto è che egli

sa dove andare. Finché sappiamo ciò che una data parola deve significare in una

data discussione, non importa nemmeno se significhi qualcos’altro in

qualche altra e affatto distinta discussione. Abbiamo pieno diritto di dire

che la larghezza d’una finestra ammonta a quattro piedi; anche se all’istante e

allegramente mutiamo argomento passando ai mammiferi più grossi; e diciamo che un

elefante ha quattro piedi. L’identità delle parole non importa, perché

non v’è alcun dubbio sui significati; perché nessuno è portato a

pensare a un elefante lungo quattro piedi, o a una finestra provvista di zanne e di

una proboscide ricurva.

È essenziale sottolineare questa consapevolezza della cosa in

discussione in relazione a due o tre parole che sono, per così dire, le

parole chiave di questa guerra. Una di esse è la parola «barbaro». I Prussiani

l’applicano ai Russi: i Russi l’applicano ai Prussiani. Entrambi,

credo, intendono davvero qualcosa che davvero esiste, nome o non nome. Entrambi intendono

cose diverse. E se chiediamo quali siano queste cose diverse,

comprenderemo perché l’Inghilterra e la Francia preferiscono la Russia; e considerano la Prussia il

barbaro veramente pericoloso dei due. Anzitutto, esso va assai

più a fondo perfino delle atrocità; delle quali, nel passato almeno, tutti e tre gli

Imperi dell’Europa Centrale hanno partecipato in misura pressoché eguale, come parteciparono alla

Polonia. Uno scrittore inglese, cercando di scongiurare la guerra con moniti contro

l’influenza russa, disse che le schiene flagellate delle donne polacche si ergevano

tra noi e l’Alleanza. Ma non molto prima, la flagellazione di donne da parte di

un generale austriaco portò a che quell’ufficiale fosse bastonato per le strade di

Londra dai carrettieri di Barclay e Perkins. E quanto alla terza potenza, i

Prussiani, pare chiaro che abbiano trattato le donne belghe in uno stile

al cui confronto la flagellazione potrebbe dirsi una formalità ufficiale. Ma,

come dico, qualcosa di assai più profondo di ogni simile recriminazione sta dietro l’

uso della parola dall’una e dall’altra parte. Quando l’Imperatore tedesco si lagna del nostro

allearci con una potenza barbarica e semi-orientale, egli non sta (vi

assicuro) versando lacrime sulla tomba di Kosciusko. E quando dico (come

faccio con tutto il cuore) che l’Imperatore tedesco è un barbaro, non sto meramente

esprimendo eventuali pregiudizi che io possa avere contro la profanazione di chiese o

di bambini. I miei connazionali ed io intendiamo una cosa precisa e intelligibile quando

chiamiamo barbari i Prussiani. È del tutto diversa dalla cosa

attribuita ai Russi; e non potrebbe in alcun modo essere attribuita ai

Russi. È assai importante che il mondo neutrale comprenda

che cosa sia questa cosa.

Se il Tedesco chiama barbaro il Russo, presumibilmente intende imperfettamente

civilizzato. V’è un certo cammino lungo il quale le nazioni occidentali hanno

proceduto nei tempi recenti; ed è sostenibile che la Russia non sia proceduta

tanto oltre quanto le altre: che ha meno dello speciale sistema moderno in

scienza, commercio, macchinari, viaggi o costituzione politica. Il Russo

ara con un vecchio aratro; porta una barba selvaggia; adora le reliquie; la sua

vita è rozza e dura quanto quella di un suddito di Alfredo il Grande.

Perciò egli è, nel senso tedesco, un barbaro. Poveri diavoli come Gorky

e Dostoevskij devono formarsi da sé le proprie riflessioni sul paesaggio, senza

l’ausilio di ampie citazioni di Schiller sulle panchine da giardino; o di

iscrizioni che li invitino a sostare e a ringraziare il Padre di Tutti per la

più bella veduta dell’Assia-Pumpernickel. I Russi, non avendo nulla se non la loro

fede, i loro campi, il loro grande coraggio, e le loro comuni autogovernate,

sono del tutto tagliati fuori da ciò che si chiama (nella via alla moda

di Francoforte) Il Vero, Il Bello e Il Buono. V’è un senso reale

in cui si può chiamare barbarica tale arretratezza; in confronto alla

Kaiserstrasse; e in tal senso è vero della Russia.

Ora noi, i Francesi e gli Inglesi, non intendiamo questo quando chiamiamo barbari i

Prussiani. Se le loro città s’ergessero più alte delle loro navi volanti, se

i loro treni viaggiassero più veloci delle loro pallottole, li chiameremmo pur sempre

barbari. Sapremmo esattamente ciò che con questo intendiamo; e sapremmo

che è vero. Poiché non intendiamo qualcosa che sia una civiltà imperfetta

per accidente. Intendiamo qualcosa che è il nemico della

civiltà per disegno. Intendiamo qualcosa che è deliberatamente in guerra coi

princìpi per cui la società umana è stata resa possibile finora.

Certo esso dev’essere in parte civile perfino per distruggere la civiltà. Tale rovina

non potrebbe essere operata dai selvaggi che sono meramente non sviluppati o inerti.

Non si potrebbero avere nemmeno gli Unni senza cavalli; o cavalli senza

arte equestre. Non si potrebbero avere nemmeno i pirati danesi senza navi, o

ships without seamanship. This person, whom I may call the Positive

Barbarian, must be rather more superficially up-to-date than what I may

call the Negative Barbarian. Alaric was an officer in the Roman legions:

but for all that he destroyed Rome. Nobody supposes that Eskimos could have

done it at all neatly. But (in our meaning) barbarism is not a matter of

methods but of aims. We say that these veneered vandals have the perfectly

serious aim of destroying certain ideas which, as they think, the world has

outgrown; without which, as we think, the world will die.

It is essential that this perilous peculiarity in the Pruss, or Positive

Barbarian, should be seized. He has what he fancies is a new idea; and he

is going to apply it to everybody. As a fact it is simply a false

generalisation; but he is really trying to make it general. This does not

apply to the Negative Barbarian: it does not apply to the Russian or the

Servian, even if they are barbarians. If a Russian peasant does beat his

wife, he does it because his fathers did it before him: he is likely to

beat less rather than more as the past fades away. He does not think, as

the Prussian would, that he has made a new discovery in physiology in

finding that a woman is weaker than a man. If a Servian does knife his

rival without a word, he does it because other Servians have done it. He

may regard it even as piety, but certainly not as progress. He does not

think, as the Prussian does, that he founds a new school of horology by

starting before the word “Go.” He does not think he is in advance of the

world in militarism, merely because he is behind it in morals. No; the

danger of the Pruss is that he is prepared to fight for old errors as if

they were new truths. He has somehow heard of certain shallow

simplifications; and imagines that we have never heard of them. And, as I

have said, his limited but very sincere lunacy concentrates chiefly in a

desire to destroy two ideas, the twin root ideas of rational society. The

first is the idea of record and promise: the second is the idea of

reciprocity.

It is plain that the promise, or extension of responsibility through time,

is what chiefly distinguishes us, I will not say from savages, but from

brutes and reptiles. This was noted by the shrewdness of the Old Testament,

when it summed up the dark irresponsible enormity of Leviathan in the words

“Will he make a pact with thee?” The promise, like the wheel, is unknown in

Nature: and is the first mark of man. Referring only to human civilisation

it may be said with seriousness, that in the beginning was the Word. The

vow is to the man what the song is to the bird, or the bark to the dog; his

voice, whereby he is known. Just as a man who cannot keep an appointment is

not fit even to fight a duel, so the man who cannot keep an appointment

with himself is not sane enough even for suicide. It is not easy to mention

anything on which the enormous apparatus of human life can be said to

depend. But if it depends on anything, it is on this frail cord, flung from

the forgotten hills of yesterday to the invisible mountains of to-morrow.

On that solitary string hangs everything from Armageddon to an almanac,

from a successful revolution to a return ticket. On that solitary string

the Barbarian is hacking heavily, with a sabre which is fortunately blunt.

Any one can see this well enough, merely by reading the last negotiations

between London and Berlin. The Prussians had made a new discovery in

international politics: that it may often be convenient to make a promise;

and yet curiously inconvenient to keep it. They were charmed, in their

simple way, with this scientific discovery, and desired to communicate it

to the world. They therefore promised England a promise, on condition that

she broke a promise, and on the implied condition that the new promise

might be broken as easily as the old one. To the profound astonishment of

Prussia, this reasonable offer was refused! I believe that the astonishment

of Prussia was quite sincere. That is what I mean when I say that the

Barbarian is trying to cut away that cord of honesty and clear record, on

which hangs all that men have made.

The friends of the German cause have complained that Asiatics and Africans

upon the very verge of savagery have been brought against them from India

and Algiers. And, in ordinary circumstances, I should sympathise with such

a complaint made by a European people. But the circumstances are not

ordinary. Here, again, the quite unique barbarism of Prussia goes deeper

than what we call barbarities. About mere barbarities, it is true, the

Turco and the Sikh would have a very good reply to the superior Teuton.

The general and just reason for not using non-European tribes against

Europeans is that given by Chatham against the use of the Red Indian: that

such allies might do very diabolical things. But the poor Turco might not

unreasonably ask, after a weekend in Belgium, what more diabolical things

he could do than the highly cultured Germans were doing themselves.

Nevertheless, as I say, the justification of any extra-European aid goes

deeper than any such details. It rests upon the fact that even other

civilisations, even much lower civilisations, even remote and repulsive

civilisations, depend as much as our own on this primary principle on which

the super-morality of Potsdam declares open War. Even savages promise

things; and respect those who keep their promises. Even Orientals write

things down: and though they write them from right to left, they know the

importance of a scrap of paper. Many merchants will tell you that the word

of the sinister and almost unhuman Chinaman is often as good as his bond:

and it was amid palm trees and Syrian pavilions that the great utterance

opened the tabernacle, to him that sweareth to his hurt and changeth not.

There is doubtless a dense labyrinth of duplicity in the East, and perhaps

more guile in the individual Asiatic than in the individual German. But we

are not talking of the violations of human morality in various parts of the

world. We are talking about a new and inhuman morality, which denies

altogether the day of obligation. The Prussians have been told by their

literary men that everything depends upon Mood: and by their politicians

that all arrangements dissolve before “necessity.” That is the importance

of the German Chancellor’s phrase. He did not allege some special excuse in

the case of Belgium, which might make it seem an exception that proved the

rule. He distinctly argued, as on a principle applicable to other cases,

that victory was a necessity and honour was a scrap of paper. And it is

evident that the half-educated Prussian imagination really cannot get any

further than this. It cannot see that if everybody’s action were entirely

incalculable from hour to hour, it would not only be the end of all

promises, but the end of all projects. In not being able to see that, the

Berlin philosopher is really on a lower mental level than the Arab who

respects the salt, or the Brahmin who preserves the caste. And in this

quarrel we have a right to come with scimitars as well as sabres, with bows

as well as rifles, with assegai and tomahawk and boomerang, because there

is in all these at least a seed of civilisation that these intellectual

anarchists would kill. And if they should find us in our last stand girt

with such strange swords and following unfamiliar ensigns, and ask us for

what we fight in so singular a company, we shall know what to reply: “We

fight for the trust and for the tryst; for fixed memories and the possible

meeting of men; for all that makes life anything but an uncontrollable

nightmare. We fight for the long arm of honour and remembrance; for all

that can lift a man above the quicksands of his moods, and give him the

mastery of time.”

Navi senza abilità marinara. Questa persona, che posso chiamare il Positivo

Barbaro, deve essere piuttosto più superficiale e aggiornato di quanto io possa

Chiamatelo barbaro negativo. Alarico era un ufficiale nelle legioni romane:

Ma per tutto ciò distrusse Roma. Nessuno pensa che gli eschimesi avrebbero potuto…

Non l’ha fatto con precisione, ma il barbarismo non è una questione di…

Metodi ma non obiettivi. Diciamo che questi vandali laccati hanno perfettamente…

Serio obiettivo di distruggere certe idee che, secondo loro, il mondo ha

superati; senza i quali, pensiamo noi, il mondo morirà.

È essenziale questa pericolosa peculiarità nel Prusso o Positivo

Il barbaro va catturato. Ha ciò che crede essere una nuova idea; e lui…

Lo si applicherà a tutti. Di fatto è semplicemente falso.

Generalizzazione; ma sta cercando di renderla generale. Questo non

Applicabile al barbaro negativo: non si applica al russo o al

I Serbi, anche se sono dei barbari. Se un contadino russo picchia il suo…

La moglie, lo fa perché i suoi padri l’hanno fatto prima di lui: è probabile che…

Battere meno piuttosto che di più mentre il passato svanisce. Non pensa come

Il prussiano sostiene di aver fatto una nuova scoperta in fisiologia

Scoprendo che una donna è più debole di un uomo. Se un serbo pugnala…

Rival senza parole: lo fa perché altri serbi l’hanno fatto.

Può considerarlo persino come pietà, ma certamente non come progresso. Non lo fa

Pensare, come il prussiano, di fondare una nuova scuola di orologeria

Inizia prima della parola “Vai”. Non pensa di essere in anticipo rispetto al

Il mondo nel militarismo, semplicemente perché è indietro nei valori morali. No; il

Il pericolo del prussiano è che è pronto a combattere per vecchi errori come se fossero…

Erano nuove verità. In qualche modo aveva sentito parlare di certe superficialità

Semplificazioni; e immagina che non ne abbiamo mai sentito parlare. E, come io

La sua follia limitata ma sincera si concentra principalmente su…

il desiderio di distruggere due idee, le due radici gemelle della società razionale. La

Prima c’è l’idea di registrazione e promessa; la seconda è l’idea di

riciprocità.

È evidente che la promessa o l’estensione della responsabilità attraverso il tempo…

Ciò che principalmente ci distingue, non dico dai selvaggi, ma dai…

Brutti e rettili. Questo è stato notato dall’astuzia dell’Antico Testamento.

Quando riassunse l’oscura e irresponsabile enormità del Leviatano con queste parole

«Farà un patto con te?» La promessa, come la ruota, è sconosciuta in

La Natura: ed è il primo segno dell’uomo. Riferendosi solo alla civiltà umana

All’inizio era la Parola.

il voto è per l’uomo ciò che la canzone è per l’uccello o il guaito per il cane; il suo

La voce che lo rivela. Proprio come un uomo che non riesce a mantenere un appuntamento è…

Non è adatto nemmeno per un duello, l’uomo che non sa rispettare gli appuntamenti

con se stesso non è abbastanza sano neppure per il suicidio. Non è facile menzionare

Qualsiasi cosa su cui si possa dire che l’enorme apparato della vita umana…

Dipende. Ma se dipende da qualcosa, è da questo fragile cavo gettato da…

dalle dimenticate colline di ieri alle invisibili montagne di domani.

Su quel singolo filo pende tutto da Armageddon a un almanacco,

Da una rivoluzione riuscita al biglietto di ritorno. Su quel filo solitario

il barbaro sta colpendo con forza, con un pugnale che per fortuna è ottuso.

Chiunque può vedere questo pozzo abbastanza bene, semplicemente leggendo gli ultimi negoziati.

tra Londra e Berlino. I prussiani avevano fatto una nuova scoperta in

La politica internazionale: spesso è utile fare promesse;

Eppure stranamente scomodo da conservare. Erano affascinati, nel loro

Un modo semplice di comunicare questa scoperta scientifica

Al mondo. Pertanto promisero all’Inghilterra una promessa, a condizione che…

Ha rotto una promessa e sulla condizione implicita che la nuova promessa…

Potrebbe rompersi facilmente come il vecchio. Con grande stupore di

Prussia rifiutò questa ragionevole offerta! Credo che lo stupore fosse generale.

La sincerità della Prussia

Il barbaro sta cercando di tagliare quel filo di onestà e chiarezza nei registri,

che sospende tutto ciò che gli uomini hanno creato.

Gli amici della causa tedesca si sono lamentati degli asiatici e degli africani

Sul confine stesso della barbarie sono state mosse contro di loro dall’India

E Algeri. E, in circostanze normali, simpatizzerei con tali

Una lamentela di un popolo europeo. Ma le circostanze non sono…

Ordinario: qui ancora il barbarismo unico della Prussia va più in profondità

Più che le cosiddette barbarie. A proposito delle vere barbarie, è vero,

Il Turco e lo Sciita avrebbero una risposta molto efficace al superiore teutone.

La ragione generale e giusta per cui non si dovrebbero usare tribù non europee contro…

Gli europei sono come quelli descritti da Chatham contro l’uso degli indiani d’America: che

tali alleati potrebbero fare cose molto diaboliche, ma il povero turco forse no

Chiedere ingiustamente, dopo un fine settimana in Belgio, quali altre cose diaboliche ci siano

poteva fare più di quanto gli altamente colti tedeschi stessi stessero facendo.

Tuttavia, come dicevo, la giustificazione di qualsiasi aiuto extra-europeo va…

più profondo di questi dettagli. Si basa sul fatto che anche gli altri…

Civiltà, anche quelle inferiori e lontane, repellenti

Le civiltà dipendono tanto quanto la nostra da questo principio primario su cui…

la super-moralità di Potsdam dichiara guerra aperta. Anche i selvaggi promettono

cose; e rispetta coloro che mantengono le promesse. Anche gli orientali scrivono

cose in basso: e anche se le scrivono da destra a sinistra, sanno che

L’importanza di un pezzo di carta. Molti commercianti vi diranno che la parola

Del cinese sinistro e quasi disumano, spesso la parola è buona come una promessa:

E fu tra le palme e i padiglioni siriani che la grande proclamazione

Aprì il Tabernacolo a chi giura in danno proprio e non muta.

C’è senza dubbio un fitto labirinto di doppiogiochismo in Oriente, e forse

Più astuzia nell’individuo asiatico che in quello tedesco. Ma noi

Non stiamo parlando delle violazioni della moralità umana in varie parti del

mondo. Stiamo parlando di una nuova e disumana moralità che nega

Il giorno dell’obbligo: i prussiani sono stati informati dai loro…

Gli uomini di lettere sanno che tutto dipende dall’umore, e i loro politici lo sanno anch’essi

Tutte le disposizioni si dissolvono di fronte alla «necessità». Questa è l’importanza

Della frase del Cancelliere tedesco. Non ha addotto scuse particolari

Il caso del Belgio, che potrebbe sembrare un’eccezione che conferma la…

Regola. Egli sosteneva chiaramente, come se fosse un principio applicabile ad altri casi,

che la vittoria era una necessità e l’onore un pezzo di carta. E lo è

è evidente che la mezza istruita immaginazione prussiana non riesce davvero a capire

Oltre questo. Non riesce a vedere che se l’azione di tutti fosse interamente…

Incalcolabile da un’ora all’altra, sarebbe non solo la fine di tutto

promesse, ma la fine di tutti i progetti. Nel non riuscire a vedere ciò,

Il filosofo di Berlino è davvero su un livello mentale inferiore all’arabo che

Rispetta il sale, o il bramino che preserva la casta. E in questo…

Nella nostra disputa abbiamo il diritto di venire con scimitarre così come sciabole, con archi

così come i fucili, con l’assegai, il tomahawk e il boomerang, perché là

In tutti questi c’è almeno un seme di civiltà intellettuale

Gli anarchici ucciderebbero. E se ci trovassero nella nostra ultima resistenza assediata,

Con spade così strane e seguendo insegne sconosciute, ci chiedono di

Cosa combattiamo in una compagnia così singolare, sapremo cosa rispondere: “Noi”

Lotta per la fiducia e l’appuntamento, per i ricordi fissi e il possibile

Incontro tra uomini; per tutto ciò che rende la vita qualcosa di più che incontrollabile

incubo. Combattiamo per il lungo braccio dell’onore e del ricordo; per tutti

Che può sollevare un uomo dalle sabbie mobili dei suoi umori e dargli la

padronanza del tempo.”

II

THE REFUSAL OF RECIPROCITY

In the last summary I suggested that Barbarism, as we mean it, is not mere

ignorance or even mere cruelty. It has a more precise sense, and means

militant hostility to certain necessary human ideas. I took the case of the

vow or the contract, which Prussian intellectualism would destroy. I urged

that the Prussian is a spiritual Barbarian, because he is not bound by his

own past, any more than a man in a dream. He avows that when he promised to

respect a frontier on Monday, he did not foresee what he calls “the

necessity” of not respecting it on Tuesday. In short, he is like a child,

who at the end of all reasonable explanations and reminders of admitted

arrangements, has no answer except “But I want to.”

There is another idea in human arrangements so fundamental as to be

forgotten; but now for the first time denied. It may be called the idea of

reciprocity; or, in better English, of give and take. The Prussian appears

to be quite intellectually incapable of this thought. He cannot, I think,

conceive the idea that is the foundation of all comedy; that, in the eyes

of the other man, he is only the other man. And if we carry this clue

through the institutions of Prussianised Germany, we shall find how

curiously his mind has been limited in the matter. The German differs from

other patriots in the inability to understand patriotism. Other European

peoples pity the Poles or the Welsh for their violated borders; but Germans

pity only themselves. They might take forcible possession of the Severn or

the Danube, of the Thames or the Tiber, of the Garry or the Garonne—and

they would still be singing sadly about how fast and true stands the watch

on Rhine; and what a shame it would be if any one took their own little

river away from them. That is what I mean by not being reciprocal: and you

will find it in all that they do: as in all that is done by savages.

Here, again, it is very necessary to avoid confusing this soul of the

savage with mere savagery in the sense of brutality or butchery; in which

the Greeks, the French and all the most civilised nations have indulged in

hours of abnormal panic or revenge. Accusations of cruelty are generally

mutual. But it is the point about the Prussian that with him nothing is

mutual. The definition of the true savage does not concern itself even with

how much more he hurts strangers or captives than do the other tribes of

men. The definition of the true savage is that he laughs when he hurts you;

and howls when you hurt him. This extraordinary inequality in the mind is

in every act and word that comes from Berlin. For instance, no man of the

world believes all he sees in the newspapers; and no journalist believes a

quarter of it. We should, therefore, be quite ready in the ordinary way to

take a great deal off the tales of German atrocities; to doubt this story

or deny that. But there is one thing that we cannot doubt or deny: the seal

and authority of the Emperor. In the Imperial proclamation the fact that

certain “frightful” things have been done is admitted; and justified on the

ground of their frightfulness. It was a military necessity to terrify the

peaceful populations with something that was not civilised, something that

was hardly human. Very well. That is an intelligible policy: and in that

sense an intelligible argument. An army endangered by foreigners may do the

most frightful things. But then we turn the next page of the Kaiser’s

public diary, and we find him writing to the President of the United

States, to complain that the English are using Dum-dum bullets and

violating various regulations of the Hague Conference. I pass for the

present the question of whether there is a word of truth in these charges.

I am content to gaze rapturously at the blinking eyes of the True, or

Positive, Barbarian. I suppose he would be quite puzzled if we said that

violating the Hague Conference was “a military necessity” to us; or that

the rules of the Conference were only a scrap of paper. He would be quite

pained if we said that Dum-dum bullets, “by their very frightfulness,”

would be very useful to keep conquered Germans in order. Do what he will,

he cannot get outside the idea that he, because he is he and not you, is

free to break the law; and also to appeal to the law. It is said that the

Prussian officers play at a game called Kriegsspiel, or the War Game. But

in truth they could not play at any game; for the essence of every game is

that the rules are the same on both sides.

But taking every German institution in turn, the case is the same; and it

is not a case of mere bloodshed or military bravado. The duel, for

example, can legitimately be called a barbaric thing; but the word is here

used in another sense. There are duels in Germany; but so there are in

France, Italy, Belgium, and Spain; indeed, there are duels wherever there

are dentists, newspapers, Turkish baths, time-tables, and all the curses of

civilisation; except in England and a corner of America. You may happen to

regard the duel as a historic relic of the more barbaric States on which

these modern States were built. It might equally well be maintained that

the duel is everywhere the sign of high civilisation; being the sign of its

more delicate sense of honour, its more vulnerable vanity, or its greater

dread of social disrepute. But whichever of the two views you take, you

must concede that the essence of the duel is an armed equality. I should

not, therefore, apply the word barbaric, as I am using it, to the duels of

German officers, or even to the broadsword combats that are conventional

among the German students. I do not see why a young Prussian should not

have scars all over his face if he likes them; nay, they are often the

II

IL RIFIUTO DELLA RECIPROCITÀ

Nel sommario precedente ho suggerito che la Barbarie, come noi la intendiamo, non è mera

ignoranza né mera crudeltà. Ha un senso più preciso, e significa

ostilità militante verso certe idee umane necessarie. Ho preso il caso del

voto o del contratto, che l’intellettualismo prussiano distruggerebbe. Ho sostenuto

che il Prussiano è un Barbaro spirituale, perché non è vincolato dal proprio

passato, non più di un uomo in un sogno. Egli confessa che quando promise di

rispettare una frontiera il lunedì, non prevedeva quella che chiama «la

necessità» di non rispettarla il martedì. In breve, egli è come un bambino,

che al termine di tutte le ragionevoli spiegazioni e dei richiami ad accordi ammessi

non ha altra risposta che «Ma io lo voglio».

V’è un’altra idea negli accordi umani tanto fondamentale da essere

dimenticata; ma ora per la prima volta negata. La si può chiamare l’idea della

reciprocità; o, in miglior inglese, del dare e avere. Il Prussiano pare

essere del tutto intellettualmente incapace di questo pensiero. Non può, credo,

concepire l’idea che è il fondamento d’ogni commedia; che, agli occhi

dell’altro uomo, egli è soltanto l’altro uomo. E se seguiamo questo filo

attraverso le istituzioni della Germania prussianizzata, scopriremo quanto

curiosamente la sua mente sia stata limitata nella cosa. Il Tedesco differisce dagli

altri patrioti nell’incapacità di comprendere il patriottismo. Altri popoli

europei compiangono i Polacchi o i Gallesi per i loro confini violati; ma i Tedeschi

compiangono solo se stessi. Potrebbero impadronirsi con la forza del Severn o

del Danubio, del Tamigi o del Tevere, del Garry o della Garonna — e

canterebbero pur sempre mestamente di quanto salda e fedele stia la guardia

sul Reno; e che vergogna sarebbe se qualcuno togliesse loro il proprio piccolo

fiume. Questo è ciò che intendo per mancanza di reciprocità: e lo

troverete in tutto ciò che fanno: come in tutto ciò che è fatto dai selvaggi.

Qui, di nuovo, è assai necessario evitare di confondere quest’anima del

selvaggio con la mera ferocia nel senso di brutalità o di carneficina; in cui

i Greci, i Francesi e tutte le nazioni più civili hanno indulto in

ore d’anomalo panico o di vendetta. Le accuse di crudeltà sono generalmente

reciproche. Ma il punto riguardo al Prussiano è che con lui nulla è

reciproco. La definizione del vero selvaggio non si cura nemmeno di

quanto più egli ferisca gli stranieri o i prigionieri rispetto alle altre tribù di

uomini. La definizione del vero selvaggio è che ride quando ti ferisce;

e urla quando tu ferisci lui. Questa straordinaria disuguaglianza nella mente è

in ogni atto e parola che viene da Berlino. Per esempio, nessun uomo di

mondo crede a tutto ciò che vede nei giornali; e nessun giornalista ne crede un

quarto. Dovremmo, perciò, essere ben disposti nel modo consueto a

togliere assai ai racconti delle atrocità tedesche; a dubitare di questa storia

o a negare quella. Ma v’è una cosa che non possiamo mettere in dubbio o negare: il sigillo

e l’autorità dell’Imperatore. Nel proclama imperiale il fatto che

certe cose «spaventose» siano state compiute è ammesso; e giustificato in

base alla loro spaventosità stessa. Era una necessità militare terrorizzare le

popolazioni pacifiche con qualcosa che non era civile, qualcosa che

era a stento umano. Benissimo. È una politica intelligibile: e in tal

senso un argomento intelligibile. Un esercito posto in pericolo da stranieri può fare le

cose più spaventose. Ma poi voltiamo la pagina seguente del pubblico diario

del Kaiser, e lo troviamo scrivere al Presidente degli Stati

Uniti, per lagnarsi che gli Inglesi usano pallottole dum-dum e

violano vari regolamenti della Conferenza dell’Aia. Tralascio per il

momento la questione se vi sia una parola di verità in queste accuse.

Mi contento di contemplare estatico gli occhi ammiccanti del Vero, o

Positivo, Barbaro. Suppongo che sarebbe assai perplesso se dicessimo che

violare la Conferenza dell’Aia era per noi «una necessità militare»; o che

le regole della Conferenza erano solo un pezzo di carta. Sarebbe assai

addolorato se dicessimo che le pallottole dum-dum, «per la loro stessa spaventosità»,

sarebbero assai utili a tenere in ordine i Tedeschi conquistati. Faccia quel che vuole,

egli non può uscire dall’idea che lui, perché è lui e non te, sia

libero d’infrangere la legge; e anche d’appellarsi alla legge. Si dice che gli

ufficiali prussiani giochino a un gioco chiamato Kriegsspiel, ovvero il Gioco della Guerra. Ma

in verità non potrebbero giocare ad alcun gioco; poiché l’essenza d’ogni gioco è

che le regole sono le stesse da entrambe le parti.

Ma prendendo a una a una ogni istituzione tedesca, il caso è il medesimo; e non

è un caso di mero spargimento di sangue o di spavalderia militare. Il duello, per

esempio, può legittimamente essere chiamato cosa barbarica; ma la parola è qui

usata in altro senso. Vi sono duelli in Germania; ma così ve ne sono in

Francia, Italia, Belgio e Spagna; anzi, vi sono duelli ovunque vi siano

dentisti, giornali, bagni turchi, orari ferroviari, e tutte le maledizioni della

civiltà; tranne in Inghilterra e in un angolo d’America. Può darsi che vi accada di

considerare il duello come una reliquia storica degli Stati più barbarici sui quali

questi Stati moderni furono edificati. Si potrebbe altrettanto bene sostenere che

il duello è ovunque il segno d’alta civiltà; essendo il segno del suo

più delicato senso dell’onore, della sua più vulnerabile vanità, o del suo maggior

timore del discredito sociale. Ma qualunque delle due vedute adottiate,

dovete concedere che l’essenza del duello è un’uguaglianza armata. Non

applicherei, perciò, la parola barbarico, nel senso in cui la uso, ai duelli degli

ufficiali tedeschi, né perfino ai combattimenti allo spadone che sono convenzionali

tra gli studenti tedeschi. Non vedo perché un giovane Prussiano non debba

avere cicatrici per tutto il volto se gli piacciono; anzi, spesso esse sono la

redeeming points of interest on an otherwise somewhat unenlightening

countenance. The duel may be defended; the sham duel may be defended.

What cannot be defended is something really peculiar to Prussia, of which

we hear numberless stories, some of them certainly true. It might be called

the one-sided duel. I mean the idea that there is some sort of dignity in

drawing the sword upon a man who has not got a sword; a waiter, or a shop

assistant, or even a schoolboy. One of the officers of the Kaiser in the

affair at Saberne was found industriously hacking at a cripple. In all

these matters I would avoid sentiment. We must not lose our tempers at the

mere cruelty of the thing; but pursue the strict psychological distinction.

Others besides German soldiers have slain the defenceless, for loot or lust

or private malice, like any other murderer. The point is that nowhere else

but in Prussian Germany is any theory of honour mixed up with such things;

any more than with poisoning or picking pockets. No French, English,

Italian or American gentleman would think he had in some way cleared his

own character by sticking his sabre through some ridiculous greengrocer who

had nothing in his hand but a cucumber. It would seem as if the word which

is translated from the German as “honour” must really mean something quite

different in German. It seems to mean something more like what we should

call “prestige.”

The fundamental fact, however, is the absence of the reciprocal idea. The

Prussian is not sufficiently civilised for the duel. Even when he crosses

swords with us his thoughts are not as our thoughts; when we both glorify

war, we are glorifying different things. Our medals are wrought like his,

but they do not mean the same thing; our regiments are cheered as his are,

but the thought in the heart is not the same; the Iron Cross is on the

bosom of his king, but it is not the sign of our God. For we, alas, follow

our God with many relapses and self-contradictions, but he follows his very

consistently. Through all the things that we have examined, the view of

national boundaries, the view of military methods, the view of personal

honour and self-defence, there runs in their case something of an atrocious

simplicity; something too simple for us to understand: the idea that glory

consists in holding the steel, and not in facing it.

If further examples were necessary, it would be easy to give hundreds of

them. Let us leave, for the moment, the relation between man and man in

the thing called the duel. Let us take the relation between man and woman,

in that immortal duel which we call a marriage. Here again we shall find

that other Christian civilisations aim at some kind of equality; even if

the balance be irrational or dangerous. Thus, the two extremes of the

treatment of women might be represented by what are called the respectable

classes in America and in France. In America they choose the risk of

comradeship; in France the compensation of courtesy. In America it is

practically possible for any young gentleman to take any young lady for

what he calls (I deeply regret to say) a joy-ride; but at least the man

goes with the woman as much as the woman with the man. In France the young

woman is protected like a nun while she is unmarried; but when she is a

mother she is really a holy woman; and when she is a grandmother she is a

holy terror. By both extremes the woman gets something back out of life.

There is only one place where she gets little or nothing back; and that is

the north of Germany. France and America aim alike at equality; America by

similarity; France by dissimilarity. But North Germany does definitely

aim at inequality. The woman stands up, with no more irritation than a

butler; the man sits down, with no more embarrassment than a guest. This is

the cool affirmation of inferiority, as in the case of the sabre and the

tradesman. “Thou goest with women; forget not thy whip,” said Nietzsche. It

will be observed that he does not say “poker”; which might come more

naturally to the mind of a more common or Christian wife-beater. But then a

poker is a part of domesticity; and might be used by the wife as well as

the husband. In fact, it often is. The sword and the whip are the weapons

of a privileged caste.

Pass from the closest of all differences, that between husband and wife, to

the most distant of all differences, that of the remote and unrelated races

who have seldom seen each other’s faces, and never been tinged with each

other’s blood. Here we still find the same unvarying Prussian principle.

Any European might feel a genuine fear of the Yellow Peril; and many

Englishmen, Frenchmen, and Russians have felt and expressed it. Many might

say, and have said, that the Heathen Chinee is very heathen indeed; that if

he ever advances against us he will trample and torture and utterly

destroy, in a way that Eastern people do, but Western people do not. Nor do

I doubt the German Emperor’s sincerity when he sought to point out to us

how abnormal and abominable such a nightmare campaign would be, supposing

that it could ever come. But now comes the comic irony; which never fails

to follow on the attempt of the Prussian to be philosophic. For the Kaiser,

after explaining to his troops how important it was to avoid Eastern

Barbarism, instantly commanded them to become Eastern Barbarians. He told

them, in so many words, to be Huns: and leave nothing living or standing

behind them. In fact, he frankly offered a new army corps of aboriginal

Tartars to the Far East, within such time as it may take a bewildered

Hanoverian to turn into a Tartar. Any one who has the painful habit of

personal thought, will perceive here at once the non-reciprocal principle

Punti di interesse redentori in un contesto altrimenti poco illuminante

aspetto. Il duello può essere difeso; il finto duello può essere difeso.

Ciò che non può essere difeso è qualcosa di veramente peculiare della Prussia

Sentiamo innumerevoli storie, alcune sicuramente vere. Potrebbe essere chiamato…

Il duello monolaterale

estrarre la spada contro un uomo che non ha una spada, come un cameriere o un negoziante.

Un assistente o anche uno scolaro. Uno degli ufficiali del Kaiser nella…

Un incidente a Saberne: un uomo si dava da fare per aggredire un invalido. In tutti

Su questi argomenti eviterei il sentimentalismo. Non dobbiamo perdere la calma.

non solo per la pura crudeltà della cosa, ma anche per mantenere una rigorosa distinzione psicologica.

Altri oltre ai soldati tedeschi hanno ucciso i difesi, per saccheggio o lussuria

o per odio personale, come qualsiasi altro assassino. Il punto è che in nessun’altra parte…

ma nella Germania prussiana qualsiasi teoria di onore è mescolata a cose del genere;

Né più di quanto lo sia l’avvelenamento o il furto con le tasche. Niente francese, niente inglese.

Un gentiluomo italiano o americano penserebbe di aver in qualche modo chiarito la sua…

il proprio carattere piantando la spada in qualche ridicolo fruttivendolo che

Non aveva nulla tra le mani se non un cetriolo. Sembra che la parola

tradotto dal tedesco come “onore”, deve davvero significare qualcosa di completamente

Diverso in tedesco. Sembra voler dire qualcosa di più simile a ciò che dovremmo

chiamano “prestigio”.

Il fatto fondamentale è l’assenza dell’idea reciproca.

Il prussiano non è abbastanza civile per il duello. Anche quando incrocia…

I suoi pensieri non sono come i nostri, quando entrambi glorifichiamo…

La guerra: stiamo glorificando cose diverse. Le nostre medaglie sono forgiate come le sue.

ma non significano la stessa cosa; i nostri reggimenti sono acclamati come i suoi,

ma il pensiero nel cuore non è lo stesso; la croce di ferro è sul

seno del suo re, ma non è il segno del nostro Dio. Perché noi, ahimè, seguiamo

il nostro Dio con molte ricadute e contraddizioni di sé, ma egli segue il suo

coerentemente. Attraverso tutti gli aspetti che abbiamo esaminato, la visione di

I confini nazionali, la visione dei metodi militari, la visione personale

Nel loro caso, insieme all’onore e alla legittima difesa, c’è qualcosa di atroce.

Semplicità; qualcosa di troppo semplice per noi da capire: l’idea della gloria

sta nel tenere l’acciaio e non nell’affrontarlo.

Se fossero necessari ulteriori esempi, sarebbe facile fornirne centinaia di

Loro. Per il momento lasciamo da parte la relazione tra uomo e uomo

La cosa chiamata duello. Prendiamo la relazione tra uomo e donna,

in quell’immortale duello che chiamiamo un matrimonio. Anche qui troveremo

Le altre civiltà cristiane puntano ad una certa uguaglianza, anche se

L’equilibrio sia irrazionale o pericoloso. Così, i due estremi della

Il trattamento delle donne potrebbe essere rappresentato da ciò che si definisce rispettabile

classi in America e in Francia. In America scelgono il rischio di

la camerateria; in Francia il compenso della cortesia. Nell’America è

È praticamente possibile per un giovane gentiluomo di portare una giovane signora a…

Ciò che lui chiama (con mio profondo rammarico) un giro piacevole; ma almeno l’uomo…

Va con la donna tanto quanto la donna va con l’uomo. In Francia i giovani

La donna è protetta come una suora quando non è sposata, ma quando lo è…

madre è davvero una donna santa; e quando diventa nonna, è una…

terrore sacro. In entrambi gli estremi la donna ottiene qualcosa in cambio dalla vita.

C’è solo un posto in cui ottiene poco o nulla in cambio; ed è

il nord della Germania. Francia e America mirano entrambe all’uguaglianza; la America lo fa

somiglianza; la Francia per differenza. Ma il Nord della Germania è definitivamente

Puntare alla disuguaglianza. La donna si alza, senza più irritazione di una…

Il maggiordomo: l’uomo si siede senza più imbarazzo di un ospite. Questo è…

L’affermazione rassegnata di inferiorità, come nel caso della spada e del…

Commerciante: «Tu vai con le donne, non dimenticare la tua frusta», disse Nietzsche.

Si noterà che non dice “poker”, che potrebbe sembrare più…

Naturalmente alla mente di un marito violento più comune o cristiano. Ma poi…

il poker è parte della vita domestica e potrebbe essere praticato dalla moglie tanto quanto

il marito. Infatti spesso lo è. La spada e la frusta sono le armi

di una casta privilegiata.

Dalla differenza più vicina di tutte, quella tra marito e moglie, passare a…

La più lontana di tutte le differenze: quella delle razze remote e non correlate

Chi raramente si sono visti in faccia e mai toccati l’un l’altro

sangue altrui. Qui troviamo ancora lo stesso immutabile principio prussiano.

Qualsiasi europeo potrebbe provare una genuina paura del Pericolo Giallo; e molti

Gli inglesi, i francesi e i russi l’hanno sentito ed espresso. Molti potrebbero…

Dicono e hanno detto che il pagano cinese è molto pagano in effetti; se

Avanza sempre contro di noi, calpesterà e torturerà e distruggerà completamente

Distruggere come fanno gli orientali, non i occidentali

Io dubito della sincerità dell’Imperatore tedesco quando cercò di farci notare

quanto sarebbe anormale e abominevole una campagna del genere da incubo, ipotizzando

Ma ora arriva l’ironia comica, che non fallisce mai

Seguire il tentativo del prussiano di essere filosofico. Per il Kaiser,

Dopo aver spiegato ai suoi soldati l’importanza di evitare l’Oriente

Barbarie: li ha subito trasformati in barbari orientali. Ha detto

Loro, senza mezzi termini, sono Unni: e non lasciano nulla vivo o in piedi

Dietro di loro. Di fatto, propose apertamente un nuovo corpo dell’esercito composto da indigeni

I Tartari verso l’Estremo Oriente, entro un tempo che potrebbe essere necessario per una persona disorientata

Da Hannoveriano a Tataro: chiunque abbia l’abitudine dolorosa di…

Il pensiero personale rivelerà subito il principio non reciproco

again. Boiled down to its bones of logic, it means simply this: “I am a

German and you are a Chinaman. Therefore I, being a German, have a right

to be a Chinaman. But you have no right to be a Chinaman; because you are

only a Chinaman.” This is probably the highest point to which the German

culture has risen.

The principle here neglected, which may be called Mutuality by those who

misunderstand and dislike the word Equality, does not offer so clear a

distinction between the Prussian and the other peoples as did the first

Prussian principle of an infinite and destructive opportunism; or, in other

words, the principle of being unprincipled. Nor upon this second can one

take up so obvious a position touching the other civilisations or

semi-civilisations of the world. Some idea of oath and bond there is in the

rudest tribes, in the darkest continents. But it might be maintained, of

the more delicate and imaginative element of reciprocity, that a cannibal

in Borneo understands it almost as little as a professor in Berlin. A

narrow and one-sided seriousness is the fault of barbarians all over the

world. This may have been the meaning, for aught I know, of the one eye of

the Cyclops: that the Barbarian cannot see round things or look at them

from two points of view; and thus becomes a blind beast and an eater of

men. Certainly there can be no better summary of the savage than this,

which as we have seen, unfits him for the duel. He is the man who cannot

love—no, nor even hate—his neighbour as himself.

But this quality in Prussia does have one effect which has reference to the

same question of the lower civilisations. It disposes once and for all at

least of the civilising mission of Germany. Evidently the Germans are the

last people in the world to be trusted with the task. They are as

shortsighted morally as physically. What is their sophism of “necessity”

but an inability to imagine to-morrow morning? What is their

non-reciprocity but an inability to imagine, not a god or devil,

but merely another man? Are these to judge mankind? Men of two tribes

in Africa not only know that they are all men, but can understand

that they are all black men. In this they are quite seriously in

advance of the intellectual Prussian; who cannot be got to see

that we are all white men. The ordinary eye is unable to perceive

in the North-East Teuton anything that marks him out especially

from the more colourless classes of the rest of Aryan mankind. He is simply

a white man, with a tendency to the grey or the drab. Yet he will explain,

in serious official documents, that the difference between him and us is a

difference between “the master-race and the inferior-race.” The collapse of

German philosophy always occurs at the beginning rather than the end of an

argument; and the difficulty here is that there is no way of testing which

is a master-race except by asking which is your own race. If you cannot

find out (as is usually the case) you fall back on the absurd occupation of

writing history about pre-historic times. But I suggest quite seriously

that if the Germans can give their philosophy to the Hottentots, there is

no reason why they should not give their sense of superiority to the

Hottentots. If they can see such fine shades between the Goth and the

Gaul, there is no reason why similar shades should not lift the savage

above other savages; why any Ojibway should not discover that he is one

tint redder than the Dacotahs; or any nigger in the Cameroons say he is not

so black as he is painted. For this principle of a quite unproved racial

supremacy is the last and worst of the refusals of reciprocity. The

Prussian calls all men to admire the beauty of his large blue eyes. If they

do, it is because they have inferior eyes: if they don’t, it is because

they have no eyes.

Wherever the most miserable remnant of our race, astray and dried up in

deserts, or buried forever under the fall of bad civilisations, has some

feeble memory that men are men, that bargains are bargains, that there are

two sides to a question, or even that it takes two to make a quarrel—that

remnant has the right to resist the New Culture, to the knife and club and

the splintered stone. For the Prussian begins all his culture by that act

which is the destruction of all creative thought and constructive action.

He breaks that mirror in the mind, in which a man can see the face of his

friend or foe.

di nuovo. Ridotta alle sue ossa di logica, significa semplicemente questo: “Io sono un

Il tedesco e tu sei un cinese. Pertanto io, essendo tedesco, ho il diritto

Essere cinesi. Ma non avete il diritto di essere cinesi, perché siete

Solo un cinese». Questo è probabilmente il punto più alto cui il tedesco…

la cultura è cresciuta.

Il principio qui trascurato, che può essere chiamato Mutualità da chi lo…

Non capire e non amare la parola uguaglianza non offre una visione così chiara

La distinzione tra i prussiani e gli altri popoli come fece il primo

Il principio prussiano di un opportunismo infinito e distruttivo; o, in altri

Parole: il principio di essere senza principi. Nemmeno su questo secondo si può…

Adottare una posizione così evidente riguardo alle altre civiltà o

Semi-civiltà del mondo: un’idea di giuramento e legame esiste

tribù più rozze nei continenti più oscuri. Ma si potrebbe sostenere che

L’elemento più delicato e immaginativo della reciprocità: un cannibale

In Borneo lo capisce quasi tanto poco quanto un professore a Berlino. A

La serietà ristretta e unilaterale è il difetto dei barbari in tutto il mondo

Mondo. Questo potrebbe essere stato il significato, per quanto ne so, dell’occhio unico di…

Il Ciclope: il barbaro non riesce a vedere le cose da ogni angolazione

Da due punti di vista; e così diventa una bestia cieca e un divoratore di

Gli uomini. Certamente non c’è miglior sintesi del selvaggio di questa.

che come abbiamo visto lo rende inadatto al duello. È l’uomo che non può

Non ama — e neppure odia — il prossimo come se stesso.

Ma questa qualità della Prussia ha un effetto che riguarda…

Stessa domanda delle civiltà inferiori. Risolve una volta per tutte

meno della missione civilizzatrice della Germania. Evidentemente i Tedeschi sono i

Le ultime persone al mondo da affidare il compito. Sono come…

Miopi moralmente come fisicamente. Qual è la loro sofistica della “necessità”?

Ma l’incapacità di immaginare il mattino dopo? Cosa ne pensano loro?

non reciprocità ma incapacità di immaginare, non un dio o un diavolo

Ma semplicemente un altro uomo? Possono questi giudicare l’umanità? Uomini di due tribù

In Africa non solo si sa che sono tutti uomini, ma si può capire

Sono tutti uomini neri. Su questo sono seriamente d’accordo.

Avanzata dell’intellettuale prussiano che non riesce a capire

Siamo tutti uomini bianchi. L’occhio comune non riesce a percepire

Nel germanico nord-orientale tutto ciò che lo contraddistingue in modo particolare

Dalle classi più sbiadite del resto dell’umanità ariana. Egli è semplicemente…

Un uomo bianco, con una tendenza al grigio o al sobrio. Eppure spiegherà,

Nei documenti ufficiali seri, la differenza tra lui e noi è una

La differenza tra la “razza superiore” e la “razza inferiore”. Il crollo di…

La filosofia tedesca si manifesta sempre all’inizio piuttosto che alla fine di un

Argomento: e qui il problema è che non c’è modo di testare quale sia

È una razza superiore solo se chiedi quale sia la tua stessa razza. Se non puoi

Scopri (come di solito accade) che ti ritrovi nell’assurda occupazione di

scrivere la storia dei tempi preistorici. Ma suggerisco con tutta serietà

che se i tedeschi possono dare la loro filosofia agli ottentotti, c’è

Nessun motivo per cui non dovrebbero dare la loro sensazione di superiorità

Ottentotti. Se riescono a distinguere sfumature così sottili tra il Gotico e…

La Gallia: non c’è motivo per cui tonalità simili non possano elevare il selvaggio

Al di sopra degli altri selvaggi: perché un Ojibway non dovrebbe scoprire di esserlo

Un colore più rosso dei Dakota; o qualsiasi negro nei Camerun dica che non lo è

Così nero come è dipinto. Per questo principio di una razza del tutto non provata

La supremazia è l’ultimo e peggiore rifiuto della reciprocità.

Il prussiano invita tutti a ammirare la bellezza dei suoi grandi occhi blu. Se essi

Se lo fanno, è perché hanno occhi inferiori; se non lo fanno, è perché…

non hanno occhi.

Dove il più misero residuo della nostra razza, smarrito e prosciugato in

Deserti o sepolto per sempre sotto il crollo di civiltà degenerate

debole memoria che gli uomini sono uomini, che i patti sono patti, che ci sono

Due facce di una medaglia, o anche che ci vogliono due per litigare

Il residuo ha il diritto di resistere alla Nuova Cultura, fino all’ultimo coltello e bastone

La pietra spezzata. Perché il prussiano inizia tutta la sua cultura con quell’atto

che è la distruzione di ogni pensiero creativo e azione costruttiva.

Rompe quello specchio nella mente, nel quale un uomo può vedere il proprio volto.

amico o nemico.

III

THE APPETITE OF TYRANNY

The German Emperor has reproached this country with allying itself with

“barbaric and semi-oriental power.” We have already considered in what

sense we use the word barbaric: it is in the sense of one who is hostile to

civilisation, not one who is insufficient in it. But when we pass from the

idea of the barbaric to the idea of the oriental, the case is even more

curious. There is nothing particularly Tartar in Russian affairs, except

the fact that Russia expelled the Tartars. The Eastern invader occupied

and crushed the country for many years; but that is equally true of Greece,

of Spain and even of Austria. If Russia has suffered from the East she has

suffered in order to resist it: and it is rather hard that the very miracle

of her escape should make a mystery about her origin. Jonah may or may not

have been three days inside a fish, but that does not make him a merman.

And in all the other cases of European nations who escaped the monstrous

captivity, we do admit the purity and continuity of the European type. We

consider the old Eastern rule as a wound, but not as a stain.

Copper-coloured men out of Africa overruled for centuries the religion and

patriotism of Spaniards. Yet I have never heard that Don Quixote was an

African fable on the lines of Uncle Remus. I have never heard that the

heavy black in the pictures of Velasquez was due to a negro ancestry. In

the case of Spain, which is close to us, we can recognise the resurrection

of a Christian and cultured nation after its age of bondage. But Russia is

rather remote; and those to whom nations are but names in newspapers can

really fancy, like Mr. Baring’s friend, that all Russian churches are

“mosques.” Yet the land of Turgenev is not a wilderness of fakirs; and even

the fanatical Russian is as proud of being different from the Mongol, as

the fanatical Spaniard was proud of being different from the Moor.

The town of Reading, as it exists, offers few opportunities for piracy on

the high seas: yet it was the camp of the pirates in Alfred’s day. I should

think it hard to call the people of Berkshire half-Danish, merely because

they drove out the Danes. In short, some temporary submergence under the

savage flood was the fate of many of the most civilised states of

Christendom; and it is quite ridiculous to argue that Russia, which

wrestled hardest, must have recovered least. Everywhere, doubtless, the

East spread a sort of enamel over the conquered countries, but everywhere

the enamel cracked. Actual history, in fact, is exactly opposite to the

cheap proverb invented against the Muscovite. It is not true to say

“Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar.” In the darkest hour of the

barbaric dominion it was truer to say, “Scratch a Tartar and you find a

Russian.” It was the civilisation that survived under all the barbarism.

This vital romance of Russia, this revolution against Asia, can be proved

in pure fact: not only from the almost superhuman activity of Russia during

the struggle, but also (which is much rarer as human history goes) by her

quite consistent conduct since. She is the only great nation which has

really expelled the Mongol from her country, and continued to protest

against the presence of the Mongol in her continent. Knowing what he had

been in Russia, she knew what he would be in Europe. In this she pursued a

logical line of thought which was, if anything, too unsympathetic with the

energies and religions of the East. Every other country, one may say, has

been an ally of the Turk; that is, of the Mongol and the Moslem. The French

played them as pieces against Austria; the English warmly supported them

under the Palmerston régime; even the young Italians sent troops to the

Crimea; and of Prussia and her Austrian vassal it is nowadays needless to

speak. For good or evil, it is the fact of history that Russia is the only

Power in Europe that has never supported the Crescent against the Cross.

That, doubtless, will appear an unimportant matter; but it may become

important under certain peculiar conditions. Suppose, for the sake of

argument, that there were a powerful prince in Europe who had gone

ostentatiously out of his way to pay reverence to the remains of the

Tartar, Mongol and Moslem, left as an outpost in Europe. Suppose there were

a Christian Emperor who could not even go to the tomb of the Crucified,

without pausing to congratulate the last and living crucifier. If there

were an Emperor who gave guns and guides and maps and drill instructors to

defend the remains of the Mongol in Christendom, what should we say to him?

I think at least we might ask him what he meant by his impudence, when he

talked about supporting a semi-oriental power. That we support a

semi-oriental power, we deny. That he has supported an entirely oriental

power cannot be denied—no, not even by the man who did it.

But here is to be noted the essential difference between Russia and

Prussia; especially by those who use the ordinary Liberal arguments against

the latter. Russia has a policy which she pursues, if you will, through

evil and good; but at least so as to produce good as well as evil. Let it

be granted that the policy has made her oppressive to the Finns and the

Poles—though the Russian Poles feel far less oppressed than do the

Prussian Poles. But it is a mere historic fact, that if Russia has been a

despot to some small nations, she has been a deliverer to others. She did,

so far as in her lay, emancipate the Servians or the Montenegrins. But

whom did Prussia ever emancipate—even by accident? It is indeed somewhat

extraordinary that in the perpetual permutations of international politics

the Hohenzollerns have never gone astray into the path of enlightenment.

They have been in alliance with almost everybody off and on; with France,

III

L’APPETITO DELLA TIRANNIA

L’Imperatore tedesco ha rimproverato questo paese per essersi alleato con

Potere barbarico e semiorientale. Abbiamo già esaminato in che cosa…

Il senso in cui usiamo la parola “barbarico”: è nel senso di chi è ostile a…

La civiltà, non chi ne è carente. Ma quando ci spostiamo dalla

Dall’idea del barbarico all’idea dell’orientale, il caso è ancora più…

Curioso. Non c’è nulla di particolarmente tartaro negli affari russi, eccetto

il fatto che la Russia espulse i tartari. L’invasore orientale occupò

e ha opprimuto il paese per molti anni; ma lo stesso vale per la Grecia,

della Spagna e persino dell’Austria. Se la Russia ha sofferto a causa dell’Oriente, essa ha

Ha sofferto per resisterle: ed è piuttosto duro che proprio il miracolo…

Della sua fuga si dovrebbe fare un mistero sulla sua origine. Giona può o non può

È stato tre giorni dentro un pesce, ma questo non lo rende un uomo-pesce.

E in tutti gli altri casi delle nazioni europee che sono sfuggite al mostruoso

Cattività: riconosciamo la purezza e continuità del tipo europeo

considerate l’antica regola orientale come una ferita, ma non come una macchia.

Uomini dal colore rame dall’Africa hanno dominato per secoli la religione e…

il patriottismo degli spagnoli. Eppure non ho mai sentito dire che Don Chisciotte fosse un

Fiaba africana sullo stile dello Zio Remus. Non ho mai sentito dire che

Il nero intenso nei dipinti di Velázquez era dovuto all’ascendenza africana. In

nel caso della Spagna, che è vicina a noi, possiamo riconoscere la resurrezione

di una nazione cristiana e colta dopo il suo periodo di schiavitù. Ma la Russia è

piuttosto lontani; e coloro per cui le nazioni sono solo nomi sui giornali possono

davvero fantasioso, come l’amico del signor Baring, che tutte le chiese russe siano

“Le moschee”. Eppure la terra di Turgenev non è un deserto di faquiri; e anche…

Il russo fanatico è orgoglioso di essere diverso dal mongolo quanto

lo spagnolo fanatico era orgoglioso di essere diverso dal moro.

La città di Reading offre poche opportunità per la pirateria

Il mare aperto: ma era il campo dei pirati ai tempi di Alfredo. Io…

È difficile definire la gente del Berkshire mezzo danese solo perché…

Cacciarono i danesi. Insomma, una temporanea sommersione sotto la…

L’inondazione selvaggia fu la sorte di molti degli stati più civili

Cristianità; ed è del tutto ridicolo sostenere che la Russia, che

Chi ha lottato di più, probabilmente si è ripreso meno. Ovunque, senza dubbio, la

L’Oriente ha steso una specie di smalto sui paesi conquistati, ma ovunque

lo smalto si è screpolato. La vera storia è esattamente l’opposto di

Proverbio economico inventato contro il moscovita. Non è vero dire

“Graffia un russo e troverai un tartaro”. Nell’ora più buia della

Dominio barbarico: era più vero dire “Scava un Tataro e trovi un…

“Russo”. Era la civiltà che sopravvisse sotto tutto il barbarismo.

Questo vitale romanzo di Rusia, questa rivoluzione contro l’Asia, può essere provata

in pura verità: non solo dall’attività quasi sovrumana della Russia durante

la lotta, ma anche (cosa molto più rara nella storia umana) da parte sua

un comportamento coerente da allora. È l’unica grande nazione che ha…

Ha davvero cacciato i mongoli dal suo paese e ha continuato a protestare

Contro la presenza del mongolo nel suo continente. Sapendo ciò che aveva

stata in Russia, sapeva cosa sarebbe stato in Europa. Su questo punto perseguì una

Linea di pensiero logica che era, se mai, troppo poco comprensiva nei confronti della

Energie e religioni dell’Oriente. Tutti gli altri paesi, si può dire, hanno

Sono stati alleati dei Turchi, cioè dei Mongoli e dei Musulmani. I Francesi…

Li usò come pedine contro l’Austria; gli inglesi li sostennero con entusiasmo

Sotto il regime di Palmerston; anche i giovani italiani inviarono truppe a…

La Crimea e la Prussia con il suo vassallo austriaco: oggi non c’è più bisogno di…

parlare. Per il bene o per il male, è un fatto di storia che la Russia sia l’unica

Potere in Europa che non ha mai sostenuto il Crescente contro la croce.

Questo, senza dubbio, sembrerà una questione di poco conto; ma potrebbe diventare…

Importante in condizioni particolari. Supponiamo, per esempio, che…

C’era un principe potente in Europa che era andato

si è ostentatamente scomodato per rendere omaggio ai resti di

Tartaro, Mongo e Musulmano, lasciati come avamposto in Europa. Immaginate se ci fossero

Un imperatore cristiano che non poteva nemmeno andare alla tomba del Crocifisso

Senza fermarsi per congratularsi con l’ultimo e vivente crocifisso. Se c’è

Se fossi un imperatore che distribuisse armi, guide, mappe e istruttori di tiro a

Se un uomo ci venisse a dire che è suo dovere difendere i resti dei mongoli nella cristianità, cosa dovremmo dirgli?

Penso che almeno potremmo chiedergli cosa intendesse con la sua audacia, quando…

Sostenere una potenza semi-orientale

Potere semi-orientale, lo neghiamo. Che abbia sostenuto un potere completamente orientale

il potere non può essere negato - no, neppure dall’uomo che lo ha fatto.

Ma qui va notata la differenza essenziale tra Russia e

La Prussia; specialmente da coloro che usano gli argomenti liberali comuni contro

quest’ultima. La Russia ha una politica che persegue, se volete, attraverso

male e bene; ma almeno in modo da produrre il bene così come il male. Che sia così.

Concediamo che la politica l’abbia resa oppressiva verso i finlandesi e gli…

I polacchi — sebbene i polacchi russi si sentano molto meno oppressi di quelli che…

Polacchi prussiani. Ma è un mero dato storico che se la Russia è stata una

Despota per alcune piccole nazioni, liberatrice per altre. Ha fatto,

Fin dove le era possibile, liberare i serbi o i montenegrini. Ma

Chi ha mai emancipato la Prussia, anche per caso? È davvero qualcosa…

straordinario che nelle permutazioni perpetue della politica internazionale

I Hohenzollern non si sono mai smarriti nel sentiero dell’Illuminismo.

Sono stati alleati di quasi tutti, ora con uno ora con l’altro; della Francia,

with England, with Austria, with Russia. Can any one candidly say that they

have left on any one of these people the faintest impress of progress or

liberation? Prussia was the enemy of the French Monarchy; but a worse

enemy of the French Revolution. Prussia had been an enemy of the Czar; but

she was a worse enemy of the Duma. Prussia totally disregarded Austrian

rights; but she is to-day quite ready to inflict Austrian wrongs. This is

the strong particular difference between the one empire and the other.

Russia is pursuing certain intelligible and sincere ends, which to her at

least are ideals, and for which, therefore, she will make sacrifices and

will protect the weak. But the North German soldier is a sort of abstract

tyrant, everywhere and always on the side of materialistic tyranny. This

Teuton in uniform has been found in strange places; shooting farmers before

Saratoga and flogging soldiers in Surrey, hanging niggers in Africa and

raping girls in Wicklow; but never, by some mysterious fatality, lending a

hand to the freeing of a single city or the independence of one solitary

flag. Wherever scorn and prosperous oppression are, there is the Prussian;

unconsciously consistent, instinctively restrictive, innocently evil;

“following darkness like a dream.”

Suppose we heard of a person (gifted with some longevity) who had helped

Alva to persecute Dutch Protestants, then helped Cromwell to persecute

Irish Catholics, and then helped Claverhouse to persecute Scotch Puritans,

we should find it rather easier to call him a persecutor than to call him a

Protestant or a Catholic. Curiously enough this is actually the position in

which the Prussian stands in Europe. No argument can alter the fact that in

three converging and conclusive cases he has been on the side of three

distinct rulers of different religions, who had nothing whatever in common

except that they were ruling oppressively. In these three Governments,

taken separately, one can see something excusable or at least human. When

the Kaiser encouraged the Russian rulers to crush the Revolution, the

Russian rulers undoubtedly believed they were wrestling with an inferno of

atheism and anarchy. A Socialist of the ordinary English kind cried out

upon me when I spoke of Stolypin, and said he was chiefly known by the

halter called “Stolypin’s Necktie.” As a fact, there were many other things

interesting about Stolypin besides his necktie: his policy of peasant

proprietorship, his extraordinary personal courage, and certainly none more

interesting than that movement in his death agony, when he made the sign of

the cross towards the Czar, as the crown and captain of his Christianity.

But the Kaiser does not regard the Czar as the captain of Christianity. Far

from it. What he supported in Stolypin was the necktie and nothing but the

necktie: the gallows and not the cross. The Russian ruler did believe that

the Orthodox Church was orthodox. The Austrian Archduke did really desire

to make the Catholic Church catholic. He did really believe that he was

being Pro-Catholic in being Pro-Austrian. But the Kaiser cannot be

Pro-Catholic, and therefore cannot have been really Pro-Austrian, he was

simply and solely Anti-Servian. Nay, even in the cruel and sterile strength

of Turkey, any one with imagination can see something of the tragedy and

therefore of the tenderness of true belief. The worst that can be said of

the Moslems is, as the poet put it, they offered to man the choice of the

Koran or the sword. The best that can be said for the German is that he

does not care about the Koran, but is satisfied if he can have the sword.

And for me, I confess, even the sins of these three other striving empires

take on, in comparison, something that is sorrowful and dignified: and I

feel they do not deserve that this little Lutheran lounger should patronise

all that is evil in them, while ignoring all that is good. He is not

Catholic, he is not Orthodox, he is not Mahomedan. He is merely an old

gentleman who wishes to share the crime though he cannot share the creed.

He desires to be a persecutor by the pang without the palm. So strongly do

all the instincts of the Prussian drive against liberty, that he would

rather oppress other people’s subjects than think of anybody going without

the benefits of oppression. He is a sort of disinterested despot. He is as

disinterested as the devil who is ready to do any one’s dirty work.

This would seem obviously fantastic were it not supported by solid facts

which cannot be explained otherwise. Indeed it would be inconceivable if we

were thinking of a whole people, consisting of free and varied individuals.

But in Prussia the governing class is really a governing class: and a very

few people are needed to think along these lines to make all the other

people act along them. And the paradox of Prussia is this: that while its

princes and nobles have no other aim on this earth but to destroy democracy

wherever it shows itself, they have contrived to get themselves trusted,

not as wardens of the past but as forerunners of the future. Even they

cannot believe that their theory is popular, but they do believe that it is

progressive. Here again we find the spiritual chasm between the two

monarchies in question. The Russian institutions are, in many cases,

really left in the rear of the Russian people, and many of the Russian

people know it. But the Prussian institutions are supposed to be in advance

of the Prussian people, and most of the Prussian people believe it. It is

thus much easier for the warlords to go everywhere and impose a hopeless

slavery upon every one, for they have already imposed a sort of hopeful

slavery on their own simple race.

And when men shall speak to us of the hoary iniquities of Russia and of how

antiquated is the Russian system, we shall answer “Yes; that is the

superiority of Russia.” Their institutions are part of their history,

whether as relics or fossils. Their abuses have really been uses: that is

to say, they have been used up. If they have old engines of terror or

torment, they may fall to pieces from mere rust, like an old coat of

armour. But in the case of the Prussian tyranny, if it be tyranny at all,

it is the whole point of its claim that it is not antiquated, but just

going to begin, like the showman. Prussia has a whole thriving factory of

thumbscrews, a whole humming workshop of wheels and racks, of the newest

and neatest pattern, with which to win back Europe to the Reaction …

infandum renovare dolorem. And if we wish to test the truth of this, it

can be done by the same method which showed us that Russia, if her race or

religion could sometimes make her an invader and an oppressor, could also

be made an emancipator and a knight errant. In the same way, if the Russian

institutions are old-fashioned, they honestly exhibit the good as well as

the bad that can be found in old-fashioned things. In their police system

they have an inequality which is against our ideas of law. But in their

commune system they have an equality that is older than law itself. Even

when they flogged each other like barbarians, they called upon each other

by their Christian names like children. At their worst they retained all

the best of a rude society. At their best, they are simply good, like good

children or good nuns. But in Prussia all that is best in the civilised

machinery is put at the service of all that is worst in the barbaric mind.

Here again the Prussian has no accidental merits, none of those lucky

survivals, none of those late repentances, which make the patchwork glory

of Russia. Here all is sharpened to a point and pointed to a purpose and

that purpose, if words and acts have any meaning at all, is the destruction

of liberty throughout the world.

con l’Inghilterra, con l’Austria, con la Russia. Può qualcuno dire sinceramente che esse

hanno lasciato in una di queste persone il più pallido segno di progresso o

Liberazione? La Prussia era nemica della monarchia francese, ma c’era di peggio

nemico della Rivoluzione Francese. La Prussia era stata nemica dello Zar, ma

Era una nemica peggiore della Duma. La Prussia ignorava completamente l’Austria

Diritti; ma oggi è pronta ad infliggere torti austriaci. Questo è

la forte differenza particolare tra un impero e l’altro.

La Rusia sta perseguendo certi fini comprensibili e sinceri che per lei sono

Ideali minimi per i quali è disposta a sacrificarsi

Proteggerà i deboli. Ma il soldato del nord della Germania è una specie di astratto

tiranno, ovunque e sempre dalla parte della tirannia materialistica. Questo

Il Teutone in divisa è stato trovato in luoghi strani, sparando ai contadini prima di…

Saratoga e la frustazione dei soldati nel Surrey, l’impiccagione di negri in Africa e

Violando ragazze nel Wicklow; ma mai, per una misteriosa fatalità, prestando un…

mano alla liberazione di una sola città o all’indipendenza di un solo

bandiera. Ovunque ci siano disprezzo e oppressione prospera, lì c’è il prussiano;

Inconsapevolmente coerente, istintivamente restrittivo, innocente malvagio;

«seguendo l’oscurità come un sogno.»

Supponiamo di sentire parlare di una persona (dotata di una certa longevità) che avesse aiutato

Alva perseguita i protestanti olandesi, poi aiuta Cromwell a farlo

Cattolici irlandesi e poi aiutò Claverhouse a perseguitare i puritani scozzesi

Dovremmo trovare più facile chiamarlo un persecutore che…

Protestante o cattolico? È proprio questa la situazione, curiosamente.

La posizione della Prussia in Europa. Nessun argomento può cambiare il fatto che in…

Tre casi conclusivi e convergenti in cui è stato dalla parte di tre

Sovrani distinti di religioni diverse che non avevano nulla in comune

tranne che governassero in modo oppressivo. In questi tre Governi,

Considerati separatamente, si può vedere qualcosa di scusabile o almeno umano. Quando

L’imperatore incoraggiò i governanti russi a soffocare la rivoluzione,

I governanti russi credevano senza dubbio di lottare contro un inferno di

Ateismo e anarchia

Su di me quando parlai di Stolypin e dissi che era principalmente conosciuto per il

La corda chiamata “La cravatta di Stolypin”. In realtà, c’erano molte altre cose…

Curiosità su Stolypin oltre alla sua cravatta: la sua politica contadina

proprietà, il suo straordinario coraggio personale coraggio e certamente niente di più

più interessante di quel movimento nella sua agonia di morte, quando fece il segno della

la croce verso lo zar, come la corona e il capitano della sua Cristianità.

Ma il Kaiser non considera lo Zar come il capitano della cristianità. Lontano

Ciò che sosteneva in Stolypin era la cravatta e nient’altro che la

cravatta: il patibolo e non la croce. Il sovrano russo credeva che

La Chiesa Ortodossa era ortodossa. L’arciduca d’Austria desiderava davvero desiderare.

per rendere la Chiesa Cattolica cattolica. Credeva davvero di essere

Essere pro-cattolico significa essere pro-austriaco. Ma il Kaiser non può…

A favore dei cattolici e quindi non poteva essere veramente filo-austriaco

Semplicemente e unicamente anti-serbo. Anzi, anche nella forza crudele e sterile

della Turchia, chiunque abbia un po’ di immaginazione può vedere qualcosa della tragedia e

Quindi della tenerezza della vera fede. Il peggio che si possa dire di

I musulmani offrirono all’uomo la scelta di…

Corano o la spada. La cosa migliore che si possa dire del tedesco è che

non gli importa nulla del Corano, ma è soddisfatto se può avere la spada.

E per quanto mi riguarda, confesso, anche i peccati di questi tre altri imperi in lotta

Prendi in considerazione qualcosa di triste e dignitoso: e io

Sentono di non meritare che questo pigro luterano li tratti con sufficienza

Tutto ciò che è male in loro, ignorando tutto ciò che è buono. Non è

Cattolico, non è ortodosso, non è maomettano. È semplicemente un anziano

un gentiluomo che desidera condividere il crimine anche se non può condividere la fede.

Desidera essere un persecutore con il dolore ma senza la palma. Così intensamente…

Tutti gli istinti del prussiano si oppongono alla libertà

Preferire opprimere i sudditi altrui piuttosto che pensare che qualcuno possa fare a meno di qualcosa

I benefici dell’oppressione. È una specie di despota disinteressato. È come

disinteressato come il diavolo che è pronto a fare qualsiasi sporco lavoro per chiunque.

Questo sembrerebbe ovviamente fantastico se non fosse supportato da fatti concreti

che non può essere spiegato diversamente. Infatti sarebbe inconcepibile se noi…

pensavano a un intero popolo composto da individui liberi e diversi.

Ma nella Prussia la classe dirigente è davvero una classe dirigente: e molto

poche persone sono necessarie per pensare in questo modo e farlo capire agli altri

le persone agiscono secondo di esse. E il paradosso della Prussia è questo: che mentre la sua

i principi e i nobili non hanno altro scopo su questa terra se non quello di distruggere la democrazia

Ovunque si manifesti, sono riusciti ad ottenere fiducia,

Non come custodi del passato, ma come precursori del futuro. Anche loro

non credono che la loro teoria sia popolare, ma credono che lo sia

Progressivo: il divario spirituale tra i due

Monarchie in discussione: le istituzioni russe sono, in molti casi,

veramente rimasti indietro rispetto al popolo russo e molti dei russi

La gente lo sa. Ma le istituzioni prussiane dovrebbero essere all’avanguardia

Del popolo prussiano e la maggior parte del popolo prussiano ci crede. È

così è più facile per i signori della guerra andare ovunque e imporre una situazione senza speranza

La schiavitù su tutti, perché hanno già imposto una specie di speranza

la schiavitù sulla loro semplice razza.

E quando gli uomini ci parleranno delle antiche ingiustizie della Russia e di come

Il sistema russo è antiquato, risponderemo “Sì, ecco perché”

superiorità della Russia.” Le loro istituzioni fanno parte della loro storia,

Che siano reliquie o fossili. I loro abusi sono stati in realtà usi: ecco

Per dire, sono stati consumati. Se hanno vecchi motori di terrore o…

tormento, possono disintegrarsi per semplice ruggine, come un vecchio abito di…

L’armatura. Ma nel caso della tirannia prussiana, se lo è davvero,

Il punto cruciale della sua pretesa è che non sia antiquato, ma semplicemente…

Iniziare come un venditore di biglietti: la Prussia ha una fiorente fabbrica di…

Morsetti per le dita, un intero laboratorio ronzante di ruote e rack, dei più moderni

e il modello più ordinato con cui riportare l’Europa alla Reazione…

È infame rinnovare il dolore. E se vogliamo mettere alla prova la verità di ciò,

può essere fatto con lo stesso metodo che ci ha mostrato che la Russia, se la sua razza o

La religione poteva renderla talvolta invasore e oppressore, ma anche…

Diventare un liberatore e un cavaliere errante. Allo stesso modo, se il russo…

le istituzioni sono antiquate e mostrano onestamente il bene così come così come

Il male che si può trovare nelle cose vecchio stile. Nel loro sistema di polizia

Hanno una disuguaglianza che va contro le nostre idee di legge, ma nella loro

Il sistema comune: un’uguaglianza più antica della legge stessa

Quando si frustavano come barbari, si chiamavano l’un l’altro

Per i loro nomi cristiani come bambini. Al peggio, conservavano tutto

Il meglio di una società rozza

I bambini o le brave suore. Ma nella Prussia tutto ciò che c’è di meglio nella civiltà…

le macchine sono messe al servizio di tutto ciò che c’è di peggio nella mentalità barbara.

Anche qui il prussiano non ha meriti casuali, nessuna di quelle fortunose

Sopravvivenze: nessuno di quei tardi pentimenti che creano la gloria a pezzi e bocconi

della Russia. Qui tutto è affilato fino ad un punto e diretto verso uno scopo e

Quel proposito, se le parole e i gesti hanno un senso, è la distruzione

della libertà in tutto il mondo.

IV

THE ESCAPE OF FOLLY

In considering the Prussian point of view we have been considering what

seems to be mainly a mental limitation: a kind of knot in the brain.

Towards the problem of Slav population, of English colonisation, of French

armies and reinforcements, it shows the same strange philosophic sulks. So

far as I can follow it, it seems to amount to saying “It is very wrong that

you should be superior to me, because I am superior to you.” The spokesmen

of this system seem to have a curious capacity for concentrating this

entanglement or contradiction, sometimes into a single paragraph, or even a

single sentence. I have already referred to the German Emperor’s celebrated

suggestion that in order to avert the peril of Hunnishness we should all

become Huns. A much stronger instance is his more recent order to his

troops touching the war in Northern France. As most people know, his words

ran “It is my Royal and Imperial command that you concentrate your

energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is

that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to

exterminate first the treacherous English and to walk over General French’s

contemptible little Army.” The rudeness of the remark an Englishman can

afford to pass over; what I am interested in is the mentality; the train of

thought that can manage to entangle itself even in so brief a space. If

French’s little Army is contemptible, it would seem clear that all the

skill and valour of the German Army had better not be concentrated on it,

but on the larger and less contemptible allies. If all the skill and

valour of the German Army are concentrated on it, it is not being treated

as contemptible. But the Prussian rhetorician had two incompatible

sentiments in his mind; and he insisted on saying them both at once. He

wanted to think of an English Army as a small thing; but he also wanted to

think of an English defeat as a big thing. He wanted to exult, at the same

moment, in the utter weakness of the British in their attack; and the

supreme skill and valour of the Germans in repelling such an attack.

Somehow it must be made a common and obvious collapse for England; and yet

a daring and unexpected triumph for Germany. In trying to express these

contradictory conceptions simultaneously, he got rather mixed. Therefore he

bade Germania fill all her vales and mountains with the dying agonies of

this almost invisible earwig; and let the impure blood of this cockroach

redden the Rhine down to the sea.

But it would be unfair to base the criticism on the utterance of any

accidental and hereditary prince: and it is quite equally clear in the case

of the philosophers who have been held up to us, even in England, as the

very prophets of progress. And in nothing is it shown more sharply than in

the curious confused talk about Race and especially about the Teutonic

Race. Professor Harnack and similar people are reproaching us, I

understand, for having broken “the bond of Teutonism”: a bond which the

Prussians have strictly observed both in breach and observance. We note it

in their open annexation of lands wholly inhabited by negroes, such as

Denmark. We note it equally in their instant and joyful recognition of the

flaxen hair and light blue eyes of the Turks. But it is still the abstract

principle of Professor Harnack which interests me most; and in following it

I have the same complexity of enquiry, but the same simplicity of result.

Comparing the Professor’s concern about “Teutonism” with his unconcern

about Belgium, I can only reach the following result: “A man need not keep

a promise he has made. But a man must keep a promise he has not made.”

There certainly was a treaty binding Britain to Belgium; if it was only a

scrap of paper. If there was any treaty binding Britain to Teutonism it is,

to say the least of it, a lost scrap of paper: almost what one might call a

scrap of waste-paper. Here again the pendants under consideration exhibit

the illogical perversity that makes the brain reel. There is obligation and

there is no obligation: sometimes it appears that Germany and England must

keep faith with each other; sometimes that Germany need not keep faith with

anybody and anything; sometimes that we alone among European peoples are

almost entitled to be Germans; sometimes that beside us Russians and

Frenchmen almost rise to a Germanic loveliness of character. But through

all there is, hazy but not hypocritical, this sense of some common

Teutonism.

Professor Haeckel, another of the witnesses raised up against us, attained

to some celebrity at one time through proving the remarkable resemblance

between two different things by printing duplicate pictures of the same

thing. Professor Haeckel’s contribution to biology, in this case, was

exactly like Professor Harnack’s contribution to ethnology. Professor

Harnack knows what a German is like. When he wants to imagine what an

Englishman is like, he simply photographs the same German over again. In

both cases there is probably sincerity as well as simplicity. Haeckel was

so certain that the species illustrated in embryo really are closely

related and linked up, that it seemed to him a small thing to simplify it

by mere repetition. Harnack is so certain that the German and Englishman

are almost alike, that he really risks the generalisation that they are

exactly alike. He photographs, so to speak, the same fair and foolish face

twice over; and calls it a remarkable resemblance between cousins. Thus he

can prove the existence of Teutonism just about as conclusively as Haeckel

has proved the more tenable proposition of the non-existence of God. Now

the German and the Englishman are not in the least alike—except in the

sense that neither of them are negroes. They are, in everything good and

IV

LA FUGA DELLA SCIAGURATEZZA

Considerando il punto di vista prussiano abbiamo considerato cosa

sembra essere principalmente un limite mentale: una specie di nodo nel cervello.

Verso il problema della popolazione slava, della colonizzazione inglese, dei francesi

Eserciti e rinforzi: lo stesso strano broncio filosofico.

Per quanto posso capire, sembra dire: “È molto sbagliato che…

Dovresti essere superiore a me, perché io sono superiore a te.” Gli oratori

di questo sistema sembra avere una curiosa capacità di concentrare

Intricati o contraddittori, talvolta in un solo paragrafo, o anche in

Frase singola. Ho già fatto riferimento alla celebre frase dell’Imperatore tedesco

Suggerimento per evitare il pericolo dell’essere unni

Diventare Unni. Un esempio molto più forte è il suo ordine più recente ai suoi

Truppe che toccano la guerra nel nord della Francia. Come molti sanno, le sue parole

È mio comando Reale e Imperiale che tu concentri la tua

Energia, per il presente immediato, su un solo scopo:

che tu rivolga tutta la tua abilità e tutto il valore dei miei soldati a

Prima annientare gli inglesi traditori, poi passare sopra il generale francese

”Esercito piccolo e spregevole”. La scortesia della frase è comprensibile per un inglese

non posso ignorare; ciò che mi interessa è la mentalità; il filo di

Pensiero che riesce ad aggrovigliarsi anche nello spazio più breve

L’esercito di French è insignificante, sembra chiaro che tutti…

Meglio non concentrarvi l’abilità e il valore dell’esercito tedesco

Ma sugli alleati più grandi e meno spregevoli. Se tutta l’abilità fosse…

Il valore dell’esercito tedesco è concentrato su di esso, ma non viene trattato

Contemptibile. Ma il retore prussiano aveva due cose incompatibili

Sentimenti nella sua mente; e insisteva nel dirli entrambi contemporaneamente.

Voleva considerare l’esercito inglese una cosa piccola, ma voleva anche…

Pensare alla sconfitta inglese come a una grande cosa. Voleva esultare, allo stesso tempo…

Momento di estrema debolezza degli inglesi durante l’attacco; e il

la suprema abilità e il valore dei tedeschi nel respingere un tale attacco.

In qualche modo deve essere reso un crollo comune e ovvio per l’Inghilterra; eppure…

un trionfo audace e inaspettato per la Germania. Nel tentativo di esprimere queste

Concetti contraddittori contemporaneamente lo confondevano. Pertanto lui

ordinò alla Germania di riempire tutte le sue valli e montagne con gli spasmi morenti dei

questo forficule quasi invisibile e lasciate che il sangue impuro di questo scarafaggio sangue

arrossire il Reno fino al mare.

Ma sarebbe ingiusto basare la critica sull’affermazione di chiunque

Principe accidentale ed ereditario: e ciò è altrettanto chiaro nel caso di

Dei filosofi che ci sono stati proposti come esempio, anche in Inghilterra

I veri profeti del progresso. E nulla lo dimostra più chiaramente di…

La curiosa confusa conversazione sulla razza e in particolare su quella teutonica

La razza: il professor Harnack e altri ci rimproverano per…

Capire, per aver spezzato “il legame del teutonismo”: un legame che

I prussiani hanno osservato rigorosamente sia la violazione che l’osservanza. Lo notiamo

Nella loro aperta annessione di terre interamente abitate da neri, come ad esempio

Danimarca. Lo notiamo allo stesso modo nel loro immediato e gioioso riconoscimento del

I capelli biondi e gli occhi azzurri dei Turchi. Ma è ancora l’astratto

Il principio del professor Harnack che mi interessa di più; e seguendolo

Ho la stessa complessità di indagine, ma la stessa semplicità del risultato.

Confrontando la preoccupazione del professore riguardo al «teutonismo» con la sua indifferenza

Sulla Belgio, posso solo arrivare al seguente risultato: «Un uomo non deve mantenere

una promessa che ha fatto. Ma un uomo deve mantenere una promessa che non ha fatto.”

C’era certamente un trattato che legava la Gran Bretagna al Belgio; se era solo un

Un pezzo di carta. Se esisteva un trattato che legava la Gran Bretagna al teutonismo, eccolo qui.

Per dir poco, un foglio di carta perso: quasi ciò che si potrebbe chiamare una…

Frammento di carta straccia. Anche qui i pendenti in questione mostrano…

La perversione irrazionale che fa girare la testa. C’è l’obbligo e

non c’è alcun obbligo: a volte sembra che la Germania e l’Inghilterra debbano

manteniamo la fede gli uni con gli altri; a volte non è necessario che quella Germania mantenga la fede con

chiunque e qualsiasi cosa; a volte che siamo soli tra i popoli europei a

Quasi autorizzati ad essere tedeschi; talvolta, accanto a noi russi e

I francesi quasi raggiungono una bellezza germanica di carattere, ma attraverso

Tutto ciò che c’è, indefinito ma non ipocrita, questo senso di qualcosa di comune

Tedeschismo.

Il professor Haeckel, un altro dei testimoni sollevati contro di noi, raggiunse

a qualche celebrità di un tempo dimostrando la notevole somiglianza

Tra due cose diverse stampando immagini doppie della stessa

La contribuzione del professor Haeckel alla biologia, in questo caso, fu…

Esattamente come il contributo del professor Harnack all’etnologia. Professore

Harnack sapeva cosa fosse un tedesco. Quando voleva immaginare cosa fosse un

L’inglese è come se fotografasse sempre lo stesso tedesco. In

In entrambi i casi c’è probabilmente sincerità così come semplicità. Haeckel era

così certi che le specie illustrate nell’embrione siano davvero strettamente…

Collegato e interconnesso, gli sembrava una piccola cosa semplificarlo

Per semplice ripetizione. Harnack è così sicuro che il tedesco e l’inglese

sono quasi uguali, che rischia davvero di generalizzare che lo siano

Esattamente uguali. Fotografa, per così dire, lo stesso volto bello e sciocco

Due volte; e lo chiama una straordinaria somiglianza tra cugini. Così lui

Può dimostrare l’esistenza del teutonismo quasi con la stessa certezza di Haeckel

Ha dimostrato la tesi più sostenibile della non esistenza di Dio. Ora

Il tedesco e l’inglese non sono affatto simili, tranne per…

Senso che nessuno dei due è nero. Sono, in tutto ciò che è buono e…

evil, more unlike than any other two men we can take at random from the

great European family. They are opposite from the roots of their history,

nay, of their geography. It is an understatement to call Britain insular.

Britain is not only an island, but an island slashed by the sea till it

nearly splits into three islands; and even the Midlands can almost smell

the salt. Germany is a powerful, beautiful and fertile inland country,

which can only find the sea by one or two twisted and narrow paths, as

people find a subterranean lake. Thus the British Navy is really national

because it is natural; it has co-hered out of hundreds of accidental

adventures of ships and shipmen before Chaucer’s time and after it. But the

German Navy is an artificial thing; as artificial as a constructed Alp

would be in England. William II has simply copied the British Navy as

Frederick II copied the French Army: and this Japanese or anti-like

assiduity in imitation is one of the hundred qualities which the Germans

have and the English markedly have not. There are other German

superiorities which are very much superior. The one or two really jolly

things that the Germans have got are precisely the things which the English

haven’t got: notably a real habit of popular music and of the ancient songs

of the people, not merely spreading from the towns or caught from the

professionals. In this the Germans rather resemble the Welsh: though heaven

knows what becomes of Teutonism if they do. But the difference between the

Germans and the English goes deeper than all these signs of it; they differ

more than any other two Europeans in the normal posture of the mind. Above

all, they differ in what is the most English of all English traits; that

shame which the French may be right in calling “the bad shame”; for it is

certainly mixed up with pride and suspicion, the upshot of which we call

shyness. Even an Englishman’s rudeness is often rooted in his being

embarrassed. But a German’s rudeness is rooted in his never being

embarrassed. He eats and makes love noisily. He never feels a speech or a

song or a sermon or a large meal to be what the English call “out of place”

in particular circumstances. When Germans are patriotic and religious they

have no reactions against patriotism and religion as have the English and

the French. Nay, the mistake of Germany in the modern disaster largely

arose from the facts that she thought England was simple when England is

very subtle. She thought that because our politics have become largely

financial that they had become wholly financial; that because our

aristocrats had become pretty cynical that they had become entirely

corrupt. They could not seize the subtlety by which a rather used-up

English gentleman might sell a coronet when he would not sell a fortress;

might lower the public standards and yet refuse to lower the flag. In

short, the Germans are quite sure that they understand us entirely, because

they do not understand us at all. Possibly if they began to understand us

they might hate us even more: but I would rather be hated for some small

but real reason than pursued with love on account of all kinds of qualities

which I do not possess and which I do not desire. And when the Germans get

their first genuine glimpse of what modern England is like they will

discover that England has a very broken, belated and inadequate sense of

having an obligation to Europe, but no sort of sense whatever of having any

obligation to Teutonism.

This is the last and strongest of the Prussian qualities we have here

considered. There is in stupidity of this sort a strange slippery

strength: because it can be not only outside rules but outside reason. The

man who really cannot see that he is contradicting himself has a great

advantage in controversy; though the advantage breaks down when he tries to

reduce it to simple addition, to chess, or to the game called war. It is

the same about the stupidity of the one-sided kinship. The drunkard who is

quite certain that a total stranger is his long-lost brother, has a greater

advantage until it comes to matters of detail. “We must have chaos within”

said Nietzsche, “that we may give birth to a dancing star.”

In these slight notes I have suggested the principal strong points of the

Prussian character. A failure in honour which almost amounts to a failure

in memory: an egomania that is honestly blind to the fact that the other

party is an ego; and, above all, an actual itch for tyranny and

interference, the devil which everywhere torments the idle and the proud.

To these must be added a certain mental shapelessness which can expand or

contract without reference to reason or record; a potential infinity of

excuses. If the English had been on the German side, the German professors

would have noted what irresistible energies had evolved the Teutons. As the

English are on the other side, the German professors will say that these

Teutons were not sufficiently evolved. Or they will say that they were

just sufficiently evolved to show that they were not Teutons. Probably they

will say both. But the truth is that all that they call evolution should

rather be called evasion. They tell us they are opening windows of

enlightenment and doors of progress. The truth is that they are breaking up

the whole house of the human intellect, that they may abscond in any

direction. There is an ominous and almost monstrous parallel between the

position of their over-rated philosophers and of their comparatively

under-rated soldiers. For what their professors call roads of progress are

really routes of escape.

LETTERS TO AN OLD GARIBALDIAN

Italy, twice hast thou spoken; and time is athirst

for the third.

—SWINBURNE.

My Dear ------

malvagità, più dissimili di qualunque altra coppia di uomini presi a caso dalla

grande famiglia europea. Sono opposti fin dalle radici della loro storia,

anzi, della loro geografia. È un eufemismo dire che la Britannia è insulare.

La Britannia non è solo un’isola, ma un’isola incisa dal mare fino a

quasi spezzarsi in tre isole; e persino le Midlands sanno quasi sentire l’odore

del sale. La Germania è un paese interno potente, bello e fertile,

che riesce a raggiungere il mare solo per uno o due sentieri stretti e tortuosi, come

si raggiunge un lago sotterraneo. Così la Marina britannica è davvero nazionale

perché è naturale; si è coagulata da centinaia di avventure fortuite

di navi e marinai prima del tempo di Chaucer e dopo di esso. Ma la

Marina tedesca è una cosa artificiale; artificiale come lo sarebbe un’Alpe costruita

in Inghilterra. Guglielmo II ha semplicemente copiato la Marina britannica come

Federico II copiò l’Esercito francese: e questa assiduità, da giapponesi o da formiche,

nell’imitazione è una delle cento qualità che i Tedeschi

hanno e gli Inglesi decisamente non hanno. Vi sono altre superiorità

tedesche che sono davvero molto superiori. Le una o due cose davvero piacevoli

che i Tedeschi possiedono sono precisamente le cose che gli Inglesi

non hanno: in particolare una vera consuetudine di musica popolare e degli antichi canti

del popolo, non semplicemente diffusi dalle città o appresi dai

professionisti. In questo i Tedeschi somigliano piuttosto ai Gallesi: benché il cielo

sa che ne sia del Teutonismo se è così. Ma la differenza tra i

Tedeschi e gli Inglesi va più a fondo di tutti questi segni; essi differiscono

più di qualunque altra coppia di Europei nella normale postura della mente. Soprattutto,

differiscono in ciò che è il più inglese di tutti i tratti inglesi; quella

vergogna che i Francesi forse a ragione chiamano “la cattiva vergogna”; poiché è

certamente mescolata con l’orgoglio e il sospetto, il cui esito noi chiamiamo

timidezza. Persino la scortesia di un Inglese affonda spesso le radici nel suo essere

imbarazzato. Ma la scortesia di un Tedesco affonda le radici nel suo non essere mai

imbarazzato. Mangia e fa l’amore rumorosamente. Non sente mai che un discorso o un

canto o un sermone o un lauto pasto siano ciò che gli Inglesi chiamano “fuori luogo”

in determinate circostanze. Quando i Tedeschi sono patriottici e religiosi

non hanno reazioni contro il patriottismo e la religione come le hanno gli Inglesi e

i Francesi. Anzi, l’errore della Germania nell’odierno disastro nacque in gran parte

dai fatti che essa credeva l’Inghilterra semplice mentre l’Inghilterra è

assai sottile. Credeva che, poiché la nostra politica è divenuta in gran parte

finanziaria, fosse divenuta interamente finanziaria; che, poiché i nostri

aristocratici erano divenuti piuttosto cinici, fossero divenuti interamente

corrotti. Non riuscivano a cogliere la sottigliezza per cui un gentiluomo inglese piuttosto logoro

potrebbe vendere una corona nobiliare pur non vendendo una fortezza;

potrebbe abbassare gli standard pubblici e tuttavia rifiutarsi di ammainare la bandiera. In

breve, i Tedeschi sono ben certi di comprenderci interamente, perché

non ci comprendono affatto. Forse se cominciassero a comprenderci

potrebbero odiarci ancora di più: ma preferirei essere odiato per una piccola

ma reale ragione, che inseguito con amore a causa di ogni sorta di qualità

che non possiedo e che non desidero. E quando i Tedeschi coglieranno

il primo autentico scorcio di com’è l’Inghilterra moderna,

scopriranno che l’Inghilterra ha un senso assai frammentario, tardivo e inadeguato

di avere un obbligo verso l’Europa, ma nessun senso di sorta di avere alcun

obbligo verso il Teutonismo.

Questa è l’ultima e la più forte delle qualità prussiane che qui abbiamo

considerato. Vi è in una stupidità di questo genere una strana e sfuggente

forza: perché può essere non solo fuori dalle regole ma fuori dalla ragione. L’

uomo che davvero non riesce a vedere di contraddirsi ha un grande

vantaggio nella controversia; benché il vantaggio crolli quando egli cerca di

ridurlo a una semplice addizione, agli scacchi, o al gioco chiamato guerra. È

lo stesso per la stupidità della parentela unilaterale. L’ubriaco che è

ben certo che un perfetto sconosciuto sia il suo fratello perduto da tempo ha un vantaggio maggiore

finché non si giunge alle questioni di dettaglio. “Dobbiamo avere il caos dentro di noi”

disse Nietzsche, “perché possiamo dare alla luce una stella danzante.”

In queste brevi note ho accennato ai principali punti di forza del

carattere prussiano. Un difetto di onore che equivale quasi a un difetto

di memoria: un’egomania che è onestamente cieca al fatto che l’altra

parte è un io; e, soprattutto, un vero prurito di tirannia e

d’ingerenza, il demone che ovunque tormenta gli oziosi e i superbi.

A questi va aggiunta una certa informità mentale che può dilatarsi o

contrarsi senza riguardo alla ragione o alla memoria dei fatti; una potenziale infinità di

scuse. Se gli Inglesi fossero stati dalla parte tedesca, i professori tedeschi

avrebbero rilevato quali irresistibili energie avessero fatto evolvere i Teutoni. Poiché gli

Inglesi sono dall’altra parte, i professori tedeschi diranno che questi

Teutoni non erano sufficientemente evoluti. Oppure diranno che erano

evoluti quel tanto che basta a dimostrare che non erano Teutoni. Probabilmente

diranno entrambe le cose. Ma la verità è che tutto ciò che chiamano evoluzione dovrebbe

piuttosto chiamarsi evasione. Ci dicono che stanno spalancando finestre di

illuminazione e porte di progresso. La verità è che stanno smantellando

l’intera casa dell’intelletto umano, per potersene svignare in qualunque

direzione. Vi è un parallelo sinistro e quasi mostruoso tra la

posizione dei loro filosofi sopravvalutati e dei loro

soldati comparativamente sottovalutati. Poiché ciò che i loro professori chiamano vie del progresso sono

in realtà vie di fuga.

LETTERE A UN VECCHIO GARIBALDINO

Italia, due volte hai parlato; e il tempo è assetato

della terza.

—SWINBURNE.

Mio caro ------

It is a long time since we met; and I fear these letters may never reach

you. But in these violent times I remember with a curious vividness how you

brandished a paintbrush about your easel when I was a boy; and how it

thrilled me to think that you had so brandished a bayonet against the

Teutons—I hope with the same precision and happy results. Round about

that period, the very pigments seemed to have some sort of picturesque

connection with your national story. There seemed to be something gorgeous

and terrible about Venetian Red; and something quite catastrophic about

Burnt Sienna. But somehow or other, when I saw in the street yesterday the

colours on your flag, it reminded me of the colours on your palette.

You need not fear that I shall try to entangle you or your countrymen in

the matters which it is for Italians alone to decide. You know the perils

of either course much better than I do. Italy, most assuredly, has no need

to prove her courage. She has risked everything in standing out that she

could risk by coming in. The proclamations and press of Germany make it

plain that the Germans have risen to a height of sensibility hardly to be

distinguished from madness. Supposing the nightmare of a Prussian victory,

they will revenge themselves on things more remote than the Triple

Alliance. There was a promise of peace between them and Belgium; there was

none between them and England. The promise to Belgium they broke. The

promise of England they invented. It is called the Treaty of Teutonism. No

one ever heard of it in this country; but it seems well known in academic

circles in Germany. It seems to be something, connected with the colour of

one’s hair. But I repeat that I am not concerned to interfere with your

decision, save in so far as I may provide some materials for it by

describing our own.

For I think the first, perhaps the only, fruitful work an Englishman can do

now for the formation of foreign opinion is to talk about what he really

understands, the condition of British opinion. It is as simple as it is

solid. For the first time, perhaps, what we call the United Kingdom

entirely deserves its name. There has been nothing like such unanimity

within an Englishman’s recollection. The Irish and even the Welsh were

largely pro-Boers, so were some of the most English of the English. No one

could have been more English than Fox, yet he denounced the war with

Napoleon. No one could be more English than Cobden, but he denounced the

war in the Crimea. It is really extraordinary to find a united England.

Indeed, until lately, it was extraordinary to find a united Englishman.

Those of us who, like the present writer, repudiated the South African war

from its beginnings, had yet a divided heart in the matter, and felt

certain aspects of it as glorious as well as infamous. The first fact I can

offer you is the unquestionable fact that all these doubts and divisions

have ceased. Nor have they ceased by any compromise; but by a universal

flash of faith—or, if you will, of suspicion. Nor were our internal

conflicts lightly abandoned; nor our reconciliations an easy matter. I am,

as you are, a democrat and a citizen of Europe; and my friends and I had

grown to loathe the plutocracy and privilege which sat in the high places

of our country with a loathing which we thought no love could cast out. Of

these rich men I will not speak here; with your permission, I will not

think of them. War is a terrible business in any case; and to some

intellectual temperaments this is the most terrible part of it. That war

takes the young; that war sunders the lovers; that all over Europe brides

and bridegrooms are parting at the church door: all that is only a

commonplace to commonplace people. To give up one’s love for one’s country

is very great. But to give up one’s hate for one’s country, this may also

have in it something of pride and something of purification.

What is it that has made the British peoples thus defer not only their

artificial parade of party politics but their real social and moral

complaints and demands? What is it that has united all of us against the

Prussian, as against a mad dog? It is the presence of a certain spirit, as

unmistakable as a pungent smell, which we feel is capable of withering all

the good things in this world. The burglary of Belgium, the bribe to

betray France, these are not excuses; they are facts. But they are only

the facts by which we came to know of the presence of the spirit. They do

not suffice to define the whole spirit itself. A good rough summary is to

say that it is the spirit of barbarism; but indeed it is something worse.

It is the spirit of second-rate civilisation; and the distinction involves

the most important differences. Granted that it could exist, pure barbarism

could not last long; as pure babyhood cannot last long. Of his own nature

the baby is interested in the ticking of a watch; and the time will come

when you will have to tell him, if you only tell him the wrong time. And

that is exactly what the second-rate civilisation does.

But the vital point is here. The abstract barbarian would copy. The cockney

and incomplete civilisation always sets itself up to be copied. And in the

case here considered, the German thinks that it is not only his business to

spread education, but to spread compulsory education. “Science combined

with organisation,” says Professor Ostwald of Berlin University, “makes us

terrible to our opponents and ensures a German future for Europe.” That is,

as shortly as it can be put, what we are fighting about. We are fighting to

prevent a German future for Europe. We think it would be narrower, nastier,

È tempo assai lungo dacché ci incontrammo; e temo che queste lettere possano non giungerti

mai. Ma in questi tempi violenti ricordo con curiosa vividezza come tu

brandissi un pennello attorno al tuo cavalletto quand’ero ragazzo; e come mi

esaltasse pensare che avevi così brandito una baionetta contro i

Teutoni — spero con la stessa precisione e coi medesimi felici risultati. Intorno a

quel tempo, i pigmenti stessi parevano avere una sorta di pittoresco

legame con la tua storia nazionale. Pareva esservi qualcosa di splendido

e terribile nel Rosso Veneziano; e qualcosa di addirittura catastrofico nella

Terra di Siena bruciata. Ma in un modo o nell’altro, quando ieri vidi per strada i

colori della tua bandiera, mi rammentarono i colori della tua tavolozza.

Non devi temere ch’io tenti d’irretire te o i tuoi connazionali nelle

questioni che spetta ai soli Italiani decidere. Tu conosci i pericoli

dell’una e dell’altra via assai meglio di me. L’Italia, assai certamente, non ha bisogno

di provare il suo coraggio. Ha rischiato, restando in disparte, tutto ciò che

avrebbe potuto rischiare entrando in guerra. I proclami e la stampa della Germania rendono

palese che i Tedeschi sono saliti a un’altezza di sensibilità a stento

distinguibile dalla follia. Ammesso l’incubo d’una vittoria prussiana,

essi si vendicheranno su cose più remote della Triplice

Alleanza. V’era una promessa di pace tra loro e il Belgio; non ve n’era

alcuna tra loro e l’Inghilterra. La promessa al Belgio la ruppero. La

promessa dell’Inghilterra la inventarono. È chiamata il Trattato del Teutonismo. Nessuno

ne udì mai parlare in questo paese; ma pare assai noto negli ambienti accademici

della Germania. Pare essere qualcosa di connesso col colore dei

capelli. Ma ripeto che non mi preme interferire con la tua

decisione, se non nella misura in cui possa fornirle qualche materiale

descrivendo la nostra.

Poiché penso che il primo, forse il solo, lavoro fruttuoso che un Inglese possa fare

ora per la formazione dell’opinione straniera sia parlare di ciò che egli realmente

comprende, la condizione dell’opinione britannica. È tanto semplice quanto

solida. Per la prima volta, forse, ciò che chiamiamo il Regno Unito

merita interamente il suo nome. Non vi è stata unanimità simile

entro il ricordo di un Inglese. Gli Irlandesi e perfino i Gallesi erano

in gran parte filo-boeri, e così erano alcuni dei più inglesi tra gli Inglesi. Nessuno

avrebbe potuto essere più inglese di Fox, eppure egli denunciò la guerra contro

Napoleone. Nessuno poteva essere più inglese di Cobden, ma egli denunciò la

guerra di Crimea. È davvero straordinario trovare un’Inghilterra unita.

Anzi, fino a poco fa, era straordinario trovare un Inglese unito in se stesso.

Quelli di noi che, come chi scrive, ripudiarono la guerra sudafricana

fin dai suoi inizi, avevano tuttavia il cuore diviso nella cosa, e sentivano

certi suoi aspetti tanto gloriosi quanto infami. Il primo fatto che posso

offrirti è l’incontestabile fatto che tutti questi dubbi e queste divisioni

sono cessati. Né sono cessati per alcun compromesso; ma per un universale

lampo di fede — o, se vuoi, di sospetto. Né i nostri conflitti interni

furono abbandonati alla leggera; né le nostre riconciliazioni furono cosa facile. Io sono,

come te, un democratico e un cittadino d’Europa; e i miei amici ed io eravamo

giunti a detestare la plutocrazia e il privilegio che sedevano negli alti seggi

del nostro paese con un ribrezzo che credevamo nessun amore potesse scacciare. Di

questi uomini ricchi non parlerò qui; col tuo permesso, non

penserò a loro. La guerra è cosa terribile in ogni caso; e per certi

temperamenti intellettuali questa ne è la parte più terribile. Che la guerra

prenda i giovani; che la guerra separi gli amanti; che per tutta Europa spose

e sposi si separino alla porta della chiesa: tutto ciò è soltanto un

luogo comune per gente comune. Rinunciare al proprio amore per il proprio paese

è cosa assai grande. Ma rinunciare al proprio odio per il proprio paese, questo può anche

avere in sé qualcosa di orgoglio e qualcosa di purificazione.

Che cos’è che ha indotto i popoli britannici a differire così non solo la loro

artificiale parata di politica di partito, ma le loro reali rimostranze sociali e

morali e le loro rivendicazioni? Che cos’è che ci ha uniti tutti contro il

Prussiano, come contro un cane rabbioso? È la presenza di un certo spirito, tanto

inconfondibile quanto un odore pungente, che sentiamo capace d’inaridire tutte

le cose buone di questo mondo. Lo scasso del Belgio, la corruzione per

tradire la Francia, questi non sono pretesti; sono fatti. Ma sono soltanto

i fatti per cui giungemmo a conoscere la presenza dello spirito. Essi non

bastano a definire l’intero spirito medesimo. Un buon sommario approssimativo è

dire che è lo spirito della barbarie; ma invero è qualcosa di peggiore.

È lo spirito d’una civiltà di second’ordine; e la distinzione implica

le differenze più importanti. Ammesso che potesse esistere, la pura barbarie

non potrebbe durare a lungo; come non può durare a lungo la pura infanzia. Per sua natura

il neonato s’interessa al ticchettio d’un orologio; e verrà il tempo

in cui dovrai dirgli che ora sia, se pur gli dirai l’ora sbagliata. E

questo è esattamente ciò che fa la civiltà di second’ordine.

Ma il punto vitale è qui. Il barbaro astratto copierebbe. La civiltà cockney

e incompleta si erge sempre a modello da copiare. E nel

caso qui considerato, il Tedesco pensa che sia affar suo non solo

diffondere l’istruzione, ma diffondere l’istruzione obbligatoria. «La scienza congiunta

all’organizzazione», dice il Professor Ostwald dell’Università di Berlino, «ci rende

terribili ai nostri avversari e assicura un futuro tedesco all’Europa». Questo è,

detto nel modo più breve, ciò per cui combattiamo. Combattiamo per

impedire un futuro tedesco all’Europa. Pensiamo che sarebbe più angusto, più meschino,

less sane, less capable of liberty and of laughter, than any of the worst

parts of the European past. And when I cast about for a form in which to

explain shortly why we think so, I thought of you. For this is a matter so

large that I know not how to express it except in terms of artists like

you, in the service of beauty and the faith in freedom. Prussia, at least

cannot help me; Lord Palmerston, I believe, called it a country of damned

professors. Lord Palmerston, I fear, used the word “damned” more or less

flippantly. I use it reverently.

Rome, at her very weakest, has always been a river that wanders and widens

and that waters many fields. Berlin, at its strongest, will never be

anything but a whirlpool, which seeks its own centre, and is sucked down.

It would only narrow all the rest of Europe, as it has already narrowed all

the rest of Germany. There is a spirit of diseased egoism, which at last

makes all things spin upon one pin-point in the brain. It is a spirit

expressed more often in the slangs than in the tongues of men. The English

call it a fad. I do not know what the Italians call it; the Prussians call

it philosophy.

Here is the sort of instance that made me think of you. What would you feel

first, let us say, if I mentioned Michael Angelo? For the first moment,

perhaps, boredom: such as I feel when Americans ask me about

Stratford-on-Avon. But, supposing that just fear quieted, you would feel

what I and every one else can feel. It might be the sense of the majestic

hands of Man upon the locks of the last doors of life; large and terrible

hands, like those of that youth who poises the stone above Florence, and

looks out upon the circle of the hills. It might be that huge heave of

flank and chest and throat in “The Slave,” which is like an earthquake

lifting a whole landscape; it might be that tremendous Madonna, whose

charity is more strong than death. Anyhow, your thoughts would be something

worthy of the man’s terrible paganism and his more terrible Christianity.

Who but God could have graven Michael Angelo; who came so near to graving

the Mother of God?

German culture deals with the matter as follows:—“Michelangelo Buonarotti

(1475-1564).—(=Bernhard) ancestor of the family, lived in Florence about

1210. He had two sons, Berlinghieri and Buonarrota. By this name recurring

frequently in later generations, the family came to be called. It is a

German name, compounded of Bona (=Bohn) and Hrodo, Roto (=Rohde, Rothe)

Bona and Rotto are cited as Lombard names. Buonarotti is perhaps the old

Lombard Beonrad, corresponding to the word Bonroth. Corresponding names are

Mackrodt, Osterroth, Leonard.” And so on, and so on, and so on. “In his

face he has always been well-coloured…the eyes might be called small

rather than large, of the colour of horn, but variable with ‘flecks’ of

yellow and blue. Hair and beard are black. These particulars are confirmed

by the portraits. First and foremost take the portrait of Bugiardini in

Museo Buonarotti. Here comes to view the ‘flecked’ appearance of the iris,

especially in the right eye. The left may be described as almost wholly

blue.” And so on, and so on, and so on. “In the Museo Civico at Pavia, is a

fresco likeness by an unknown hand, in which this fresh red is distinctly

recognisable on the face. Taking all these bodily characteristics into

consideration, it must be said from an anthropological point of view that

though originally of German family he was a hybrid between the North and

West brunette race.”

Would you take the trouble to prove that Michael Angelo was an Italian that

this man takes to prove that he was a German? Of course not. The only

impression this man (who is a recognised Prussian historian) produces on

your mind or mine is that he does not care about Michael Angelo. For you,

being an Italian, are therefore something more than an Italian; and I being

an Englishman, something more than an Englishman. But this poor fellow

really cannot be anything more than a Prussian. He digs and digs to find

dead Prussians, in the catacombs of Rome or under the ruins of Troy. If he

can find one blue eye lying about somewhere, he is satisfied. He has no

philosophy. He has a hobby, which is collecting Germans. It would probably

be vain for you and me to point out that we could prove anything by the

sort of ingenuity which finds the German “rothe” in Buonarotti. We could

have great fun depriving Germany of all her geniuses in that style. We

could say that Moltke must have been an Italian, from the old Latin root

mol—indicating the sweetness of that general’s disposition. We might say

Bismarck was a Frenchman, since his name begins with the popular theatrical

cry of “Bis!” We might say Goethe was an Englishman, because his name

begins with the popular sporting cry “Go!” But the ultimate difference

between us and the Prussian professor is simply that we are not mad.

The father of Frederick the Great, the founder of the more modern

Hohenzollerns, was mad. His madness consisted of stealing giants; like an

unscrupulous travelling showman. Any man much over six foot high, whether

he were called the Russian Giant or the Irish Giant or the Chinese Giant or

the Hottentot Giant, was in danger of being kidnapped and imprisoned in a

Prussian uniform. It is the same mean sort of madness that is working in

Prussian professors such as the one I have quoted. They can get no further

than the notion of stealing giants. I will not bore you now with all the

other giants they have tried to steal; it is enough to say that St. Paul,

Leonardo da Vinci, and Shakespeare himself are among the monstrosities

exhibited at Frederick-William fair—on grounds as good as those quoted

above. But I have put this particular case before you, as an artist rather

Meno sani e meno capaci di libertà e risate che i peggiori

Parti del passato europeo e la ricerca di una forma per…

Spiego brevemente perché lo pensiamo: ho pensato a te. Perché si tratta di una questione così…

Grande al punto che non so come esprimerlo se non con termini di artisti come

voi, al servizio della bellezza e della fede nella libertà. La Prussia, almeno

Non possono aiutarmi; credo che il signor Palmerston lo chiamasse un dannato paese

professori. Il lord Palmerston, temo temo, usava la parola «dannata» più o meno

con leggerezza. Io lo uso con riverenza.

Roma, nel suo momento più debole, è sempre stata un fiume che si snoda e si allarga

e che irriga molti campi. Berlino, al suo apice, non sarà mai

tutto fuorché un vortice che cerca il proprio centro e viene risucchiato.

Ridurrebbe il resto dell’Europa come ha già ridotto tutto

il resto della Germania. Esiste uno spirito di malato egoismo che alla fine

Fa ruotare tutte le cose su un punto nel cervello. È uno spirito

Espresso più spesso nei gergi che nelle lingue degli uomini. L’inglese

Chiamatela una moda. Non so come la chiamino gli italiani; i prussiani la chiamano…

la sua filosofia.

Ecco un esempio che mi ha fatto pensare a te. Cosa proveresti?

prima di tutto, diciamo, se avessi menzionato Michelangelo Angelo? Per il primo momento,

Forse la noia: come mi sento quando gli americani mi chiedono di…

Stratford-on-Avon. Ma, ammesso che il solo timore si placasse, sentireste

Ciò che io e tutti gli altri possiamo sentire: potrebbe essere il senso del maestoso

Le mani dell’uomo sui lucchetti delle ultime porte della vita; grandi e terribili

mani come quelle del giovane che tiene in equilibrio la pietra sopra Firenze e

Guarda il cerchio delle colline. Potrebbe essere quel grande sollevamento di

Fianco, petto e gola nella “Sch iava”, che è come un terremoto

Sollevare un intero paesaggio; potrebbe essere quella tremenda Madonna, la cui

La carità è più forte della morte. Comunque, i tuoi pensieri sarebbero qualcosa.

degno del terribile paganesimo dell’uomo e della sua ancora più terribile cristianità.

Chi se non Dio avrebbe potuto incidere Michelangelo Angelo; chi è arrivato così vicino a incidere?

la Madre di Dio?

La cultura tedesca affronta la questione come segue: “Michelangelo Buonarroti

(1475-1564).—(=Bernardo) antenato della famiglia, visse a Firenze intorno a

Aveva due figli, Berlinghieri e Buonarrota. Per questo nome ricorrente

In seguito, la famiglia venne spesso chiamata… È una…

Nome tedesco composto da Bona (Bohn) e Hrodo, Roto (Rohde, Rothe)

Bona e Rotto sono citati come nomi lombardi. Buonarrotti è forse il vecchio

Beonrado Longobardo, corrispondente alla parola Bonroth. Nomi corrispondenti:

Mackrodt, Osterroth, Leonard… E così via, e così via, e così via. Nel suo

il volto che è sempre stato di colore sano… gli occhi potrebbero essere definiti piccoli

Piuttosto che grandi, del colore dell’osso, ma variabili con “macchie” di

Giallo e blu. Capelli e barba neri. Questi dettagli sono confermati

Dai ritratti. Prima di tutto prendete il ritratto del Bugiardini

Museo Buonarroti: ecco l’apparenza “maculata” dell’iride

Soprattutto nell’occhio destro; il sinistro può essere descritto come quasi del tutto…

blu”. E così via, e così via, e così via. “Nel Museo Civico di Pavia, c’è un

Ritratto fresco di mano ignota, dove questo rosso vivace è distintamente…

Riconoscibile sul volto: considerando tutte queste caratteristiche fisiche…

Considerazioni da un punto di vista antropologico

Sebbene di origine tedesca era un ibrido tra il Nord e…

“La razza bruna dell’Occidente”.

Vi dareste la pena di provare che Michelangelo Angelo era un italiano?

Quest’uomo prova di essere tedesco? Certo che no. L’unica

L’impressione che questo uomo (un riconosciuto storico prussiano) produce su…

la tua mente o la mia è che non gli importa di Michelangelo Angelo. Per te,

Essere un italiano è quindi qualcosa di più che essere un italiano; e io essendo

Un inglese, qualcosa di più di un inglese. Ma questo povero tizio

Non può essere altro che un prussiano. Scava e scava per trovare

Prussian morti nelle catacombe di Roma o sotto le rovine di Troia. Se lui

Trova un occhio blu da qualche parte e ne è contento. Non ha bisogno di altro.

filosofia. Ha un hobby: collezionare tedeschi. Probabilmente lo farebbe

Sarebbe vano da parte nostra sottolineare che potremmo provare qualsiasi cosa con la…

Un certo genio che trova il tedesco “rothe” in Buonarroti. Potremmo

divertiamoci un mondo a privare la Germania di tutti i suoi geni di quel tipo. Noi

Si potrebbe dire che Moltke doveva essere un italiano, dalla vecchia radice latina

mol — indica la dolcezza del carattere di quel generale. Potremmo dire

Bismarck era francese, dato che il suo nome inizia con la popolare teatrale

Il grido di “bis”! Potremmo dire che Goethe era un inglese, perché il suo nome…

Inizia con il popolare grido sportivo «Avanti!» Ma la differenza finale

la differenza tra noi e il professore prussiano è semplicemente che non siamo pazzi.

Il padre di Federico il Grande, fondatore del più moderno

Gli Hohenzollern erano pazzi. La loro pazzia consisteva nel rubare giganti; come un

Imprenditore di spettacoli itinerante senza scrupoli. Chiunque superi i due metri d’altezza,

Era chiamato il gigante russo o irlandese o cinese

Il gigante ottentotto era in pericolo di essere rapito e imprigionato in un…

Uniforme prussiana. È lo stesso tipo meschino di follia che sta agendo nei

I professori prussiani come quello che ho citato non possono andare oltre.

Più che l’idea di rubare giganti, non vi annoierò ora con tutti i…

Altri giganti hanno cercato di rubare; basta dire che San Paolo…

Leonardo da Vinci e lo stesso Shakespeare sono tra le mostruosità

Esposizione alla fiera di Federico-Guglielmo — per motivi altrettanto validi

Ma ho posto questo caso particolare davanti a voi come un artista piuttosto che

than an Italian, to show what I mean when I object to a “German future for

Europe.” I object to something which believes very much in itself, and in

which I do not in the least believe. I object to something which is

conceited and small-minded; but which also has that kind of pertinacity

which always belongs to lunatics. It wants to be able to congratulate

itself on Michael Angelo; never to congratulate the world. It is the spirit

that can be seen in those who go bald trying to trace a genealogy; or go

bankrupt trying to make out a claim to some remote estate. The Prussian has

the inconsistency of the parvenu; he will labour to prove that he is

related to some gentleman of the Renaissance, even while he boasts of being

able to “buy him up.” If the Italians were really great, why—they were

really Germans; and if they weren’t really Germans, well then, they weren’t

really great. It is an occupation for an old maid.

Three or four hundred years ago, in the sad silence that had followed the

comparative failure of the noble effort of the Middle Ages, there came upon

all Europe a storm out of the south. Its tumult is of many tongues; one can

hear in it the laughter of Rabelais, or, for that matter, the lyrics of

Shakespeare; but the dark heart of the storm was indeed more austral and

volcanic; a noise of thunderous wings and the name of Michael the

Archangel. And when it had shocked and purified the world and passed, a

Prussian professor found a feather fallen to earth; and proved (in several

volumes) that it could only have come from a Prussian Eagle. He had seen

one—in a cage.

Yours ------,

G.K. CHESTERTON.

---

My Dear ------

The facts before all Europeans to-day are so fundamental that I still find

it easier to talk about them to you as to an old friend, rather than put it

in the shape of a pamphlet. In my last letter I pointed out two facts

which are pivots. The first is that, to any really cultured person, Prussia

is second-rate. The second is that to almost any Prussian, Prussia is

really first-rate; and is prepared, quite literally, to police the rest of

the world.

For the first matter, the comparative inferiority of German culture cannot

be doubted by people like you. One of the German papers pathetically said

that, though the mangling of Malines and Rheims was very sad, it was a

comfort to think that yet nobler works of art would spring up wherever the

German culture had passed in triumph. From the point of view of humour, it

is really rather sad that they never will. The German Emperor’s idea of a

Gothic cathedral is as provocative to the fancy as Mrs. Todgers’ idea of a

wooden leg. But I think it perfectly probable that they really intended to

set up such beautiful buildings as they could. Having been blasphemous

enough to ruin such things, they might well be blasphemous enough to

replace them. Even if the Prussian attempt on Paris had not wholly

collapsed as it has, I doubt whether the Prussians would have destroyed

everything. I doubt whether they would even have destroyed the Venus de

Milo. More probably they would have put a pair of arms on it, designed by

some rising German artist—the Emperor or somebody. And the two arms thus

added would look at once like the arms of a woman at a wash-tub. The

destroyers of the tower of Rheims are quite capable of destroying the Tower

of Giotto. But they are equally capable of the greater crime of completing

it. And if they put on a spire, what a spire it would be! What an

extinguisher for that clear and almost transparent Christian candle! Have

you read some of the German explanations of Hamlet? Did I tell you that

Leonardo’s hair must have been German hair, because so many of his

contemporaries said it was beautiful? This is what I call being

second-rate. All the German excitement about the colonies of England is

only a half understanding of what was once heroic and is now largely

caddish. The German Emperor’s naval vision is a bad copy of Nelson, as

certainly as Frederick the Great’s verses were a bad copy of Voltaire.

But the second point was even more important; that weak as the thing is

mentally it is strong materially; and will impose itself materially if we

permit it. The Prussians have failed in everything else; but they have not

failed in getting their subject thousands to do as they are told. They

cannot put up black and white towers in Florence; but they can really put

up black and white posts in Alsace. They have failed in diplomacy. I

suppose it might be called a failure in diplomacy to come into the fight

with two enemies extra and one ally the less. If the Germans, instead of

sending spies to study the Belgian soil, had sent spies to consider the

Belgian soul, they would have been saved hard work for a week or two. They

have failed in controversy. I suppose it might be called a failure in

controversy to say that England may be keeping her word for some wicked

purpose; while Germany may be breaking her word for some noble purpose. And

that is practically all that the Germans can manage to say. They say that

we are an insatiable, unscrupulous, piratical power; and this wild spirit

whirled us into the mad course of respecting a treaty we had signed. They

can find in us no treason except that we keep our treaties: failing to do

this I call failing in controversy. They have failed in popular persuasion.

They have had a very good opportunity. The British Empire does contain many

people who have been badly treated in various ways: the Irish, the Boers;

nay, the Americans themselves, whose national existence began with being

badly treated. With these the Prussians have done comparatively little; and

with Europeans of your sort nothing. They have never once really

di un Italiano, per mostrare ciò che intendo quando mi oppongo a un «futuro tedesco per

l’Europa». Mi oppongo a qualcosa che crede moltissimo in se stesso, e in

cui io non credo minimamente. Mi oppongo a qualcosa che è

presuntuoso e gretto; ma che possiede anche quella specie di pertinacia

che appartiene sempre ai lunatici. Vuole potersi congratulare

con se stesso per Michelangelo; mai congratularsi col mondo. È lo spirito

che si scorge in coloro che diventano calvi cercando di tracciare una genealogia; o

vanno in bancarotta cercando di accampare un diritto su qualche remota tenuta. Il Prussiano ha

l’incoerenza del parvenu; si affaticherà a provare d’essere

imparentato con qualche gentiluomo del Rinascimento, perfino mentre si vanta di poterlo

«rilevare». Se gl’Italiani erano davvero grandi, ebbene — erano

davvero Tedeschi; e se non erano davvero Tedeschi, allora, ebbene, non erano

davvero grandi. È un’occupazione da vecchia zitella.

Tre o quattro secoli fa, nel triste silenzio che aveva seguìto il

relativo fallimento del nobile sforzo del Medioevo, si abbatté su

tutta Europa una tempesta venuta dal sud. Il suo tumulto è di molte lingue; vi si può

udire la risata di Rabelais, o, se è per questo, le liriche di

Shakespeare; ma il cuore oscuro della tempesta era invero più australe e

vulcanico; un fragore di ali tonanti e il nome di Michele

l’Arcangelo. E quando ebbe scosso e purificato il mondo ed era passata, un

professore prussiano trovò una piuma caduta a terra; e provò (in parecchi

volumi) che poteva provenire soltanto da un’Aquila Prussiana. Ne aveva vista

una — in gabbia.

Tuo ------,

G.K. CHESTERTON.

---

Mio caro ------

I fatti dinanzi a tutti gli Europei oggi sono tanto fondamentali che trovo ancora

più facile parlartene come a un vecchio amico, piuttosto che darvi

la forma d’un opuscolo. Nell’ultima mia lettera indicai due fatti

che sono i cardini. Il primo è che, per qualsiasi persona davvero colta, la Prussia

è di second’ordine. Il secondo è che per quasi ogni Prussiano la Prussia è

davvero di prim’ordine; ed è pronta, assai letteralmente, a fare da gendarme al resto

del mondo.

Quanto alla prima questione, la relativa inferiorità della cultura tedesca non può

essere posta in dubbio da gente come te. Uno dei giornali tedeschi disse pateticamente

che, per quanto lo scempio di Malines e di Reims fosse assai triste, era di

conforto pensare che opere d’arte ancor più nobili sarebbero sorte ovunque la

cultura tedesca fosse passata in trionfo. Dal punto di vista dell’umorismo,

è davvero piuttosto triste che ciò non avverrà mai. L’idea che l’Imperatore tedesco ha d’una

cattedrale gotica è provocatoria per la fantasia quanto l’idea che la signora Todgers ha d’una

gamba di legno. Ma credo perfettamente probabile che essi intendessero davvero

erigere edifici belli quanto potevano. Essendo stati abbastanza blasfemi

da rovinare tali cose, potrebbero ben essere abbastanza blasfemi da

sostituirle. Anche se il tentativo prussiano su Parigi non fosse del tutto

crollato come è avvenuto, dubito che i Prussiani avrebbero distrutto

ogni cosa. Dubito che avrebbero perfino distrutto la Venere di

Milo. Più probabilmente vi avrebbero applicato un paio di braccia, disegnate da

qualche artista tedesco emergente — l’Imperatore o chi altri. E le due braccia così

aggiunte parrebbero all’istante le braccia d’una donna al mastello del bucato. I

distruttori della torre di Reims sono ben capaci di distruggere la Torre

di Giotto. Ma sono ugualmente capaci del delitto maggiore di completarla.

E se vi mettessero una guglia, che guglia sarebbe! Che

spegnitoio per quella limpida e quasi trasparente candela cristiana! Hai

letto qualcuna delle spiegazioni tedesche dell’Amleto? Ti dissi che

i capelli di Leonardo dovevano essere capelli tedeschi, perché tanti suoi

contemporanei dissero ch’erano belli? Questo è ciò che io chiamo essere

di second’ordine. Tutta l’eccitazione tedesca per le colonie d’Inghilterra è

solo una comprensione a metà di ciò che un tempo fu eroico e ora è in gran parte

volgare. La visione navale dell’Imperatore tedesco è una cattiva copia di Nelson, tanto

certamente quanto i versi di Federico il Grande erano una cattiva copia di Voltaire.

Ma il secondo punto era ancor più importante; che, per quanto la cosa sia debole

mentalmente, essa è forte materialmente; e s’imporrà materialmente se lo

permettiamo. I Prussiani hanno fallito in tutto il resto; ma non hanno

fallito nell’indurre le loro migliaia di sudditi a fare ciò che è loro comandato. Non

possono erigere torri bianche e nere a Firenze; ma possono davvero piantare

pali bianchi e neri in Alsazia. Hanno fallito nella diplomazia.

Suppongo si possa chiamare fallimento diplomatico entrare nella lotta

con due nemici in più e un alleato in meno. Se i Tedeschi, invece di

mandare spie a studiare il suolo belga, avessero mandato spie a considerare l’

anima belga, si sarebbero risparmiati un duro lavoro per una settimana o due. Hanno

fallito nella controversia. Suppongo si possa chiamare fallimento nella

controversia dire che l’Inghilterra può mantenere la parola per qualche malvagio

scopo; mentre la Germania può rompere la parola per qualche nobile scopo. E

questo è praticamente tutto ciò che i Tedeschi riescono a dire. Dicono che

noi siamo una potenza insaziabile, senza scrupoli, piratesca; e questo spirito selvaggio

ci trascinò nel folle corso di rispettare un trattato che avevamo firmato.

Non possono trovare in noi altro tradimento se non che manteniamo i nostri trattati: e non farlo

io lo chiamo fallire nella controversia. Hanno fallito nella pubblica persuasione.

Hanno avuto un’ottima occasione. L’Impero Britannico contiene davvero molti

individui che sono stati maltrattati in vari modi: gli Irlandesi, i Boeri;

anzi, gli Americani stessi, la cui esistenza nazionale cominciò con l’essere

maltrattati. Con costoro i Prussiani hanno fatto relativamente poco; e

con Europei della tua specie nulla. Non hanno mai una sola volta davvero

sympathised with the feeling of a Switzer for Switzerland; the feeling of a

Norwegian for Norway; the feeling of a Tuscan for Tuscany. Even when

nations are neutral, Prussia can hardly bear them to be patriotic. Even

when they are courting every one else they can praise no one but

themselves. They fail in diplomacy, they fail in debate, they fail even in

demagogy. They have stupid plots, stupid explanations, and even stupid

apologies. But there is one thing they really do not fail in. They do not

fail in finding people stupid enough to carry them out.

Now, it is this question I would ask you to consider; you, as a good middle

type of the Latins, a Liberal but a Catholic, an artist but a soldier. The

danger to the whole civilisation of which Rome was the fountain lies in

this. That the more this strange Pruss people fail in all the other things,

the more they will fall back on this mere fact of a brutal obedience. They

will give orders; they have nothing else to give. I say that this is the

question for you; I do not say, I do not dream of saying, that the answer

is for me. It is for you to weigh the chance that their very failures in

the arts of peace will drive them back upon the arts of war. They could

not, and they did not, dupe your people in diplomacy. They did the most

undiplomatic thing that can be done; they concealed a breach of partnership

without even concealing the concealment. They instigated the intrigue in

Austria in such a way that Italy could honestly claim all the freedom of

past ignorance, combined with all the disillusionment of present knowledge.

They so ran the Triple Alliance that they had to admit your grievance, at

the very moment when they claimed your aid. The English are stupider and

less sensitive than you are; but even the English found the German

Chancellor’s diplomacy not insinuating but simply insulting; I swear I

would be a better diplomatist myself. In the same way, there is no danger

of people like you being corrupted in controversy. There is no fear that

the professors who pullulate all over the Baltic Plain will overcome the

Latins in logic. Some of them even claim to be super-logical; and say they

are too big for syllogisms; generally having found even one syllogism too

big for them. If they complain either of your abstention from their cause

or your adhesion to any other, you have an unanswerable answer. You will

say, as you did say, that you did not break the Triple Alliance, even for

the sake of peace. It was they who broke it for the sake of war. You,

obviously, had as much right to be consulted about Servia as Austria had;

and on the mere chess-board of argument it is mate in one move. Nor are

they in the least fitted to make an appeal to the popular sentiment of your

people. The English, I dare say, and the French, have talked an amazing

amount of nonsense about you; but they understand a little better. They do

not write exactly like this, which is from the most public and accepted

Prussian political philosopher (Chamberlain). “Who can live in Italy

to-day and mix with its amiable and highly gifted inhabitants without

feeling with pain that here a great nation is lost, irredeemably lost,

because it lacks the inner driving power,” etc., which has brought Von

Kluck so triumphantly through Paris. Even a half-educated Englishman, who

has heard of no Italian poet except Dante, knows that he was something more

than amiable. Even a positively illiterate Frenchman, who has heard of no

Italian warrior except Napoleon, knows that it was not in “inner driving

force” that the artilleryman in question was deficient. “Who can live in

Italy to-day?” Evidently the Prussian philosopher can’t. His impressions

are taken from Italian operas; not from Italian streets; certainly not from

Italian fields. As a matter of fact such images of Italy as burn in the

memories of most open-minded Northerners who have been there, are of

exactly the other kind. I for one should be inclined to say, “Who can live

in Italy to-day without feeling that a woman feeding children, or a man

chopping wood, may almost touch him with fear with the fulness of their

humanity: so that he can almost smell blood, as one smells burning?”

Italians often look lazy; that is, they look as if they would not move; but

not as if they could not move, as many Germans do. But even though this

formula fitted the Italians, it seems scarcely calculated to please them.

For the Prussians, then, with the failure of their diplomacy, the failure

of their philosophy, we may also place the failure of their appeals to a

foreign people. The Prussian writer may continue his attempts to soothe

and charm you by telling you that you are irredeemably lost, and that all

great Italians must have been something else. But the method seems to me

ill adapted to popular propaganda; and I cannot but say that on this third

point of persuasion, the German attempt is not striking.

Now all this is important for this reason. If you consider it carefully

you will see why Europe must, at whatever cost, break Germany in battle:

and put an end to her military and material power to do things. If we all

have to fight for it, if we all have to die for it, it must be done. If we

find allies in the dwarfs of Greenland or the giants of Patagonia, it must

be done. And the reason is that unless it is literally and materially done,

other things will be literally and materially done; and horrify the

heavens. They will be silly things; they will be benighted and limited and

laughable things; but they will be accomplished things. Nothing could be

more ridiculous, if that is all, than the moral position of the Prussian in

Poland; where a magnificent officer, making a vast parade of “ruling,”

tries to cheat poor peasants out of their fields (and gets cheated) and

simpatizzato col sentimento d’uno Svizzero per la Svizzera; col sentimento d’un

Norvegese per la Norvegia; col sentimento d’un Toscano per la Toscana. Perfino quando

le nazioni sono neutrali, la Prussia a stento sopporta che siano patriottiche. Perfino

quando corteggiano chiunque altro non sanno lodare nessuno se non

se stessi. Falliscono nella diplomazia, falliscono nel dibattito, falliscono perfino nella

demagogia. Hanno intrighi stupidi, spiegazioni stupide, e perfino stupide

scuse. Ma v’è una cosa in cui davvero non falliscono. Non

falliscono nel trovare gente abbastanza stupida da eseguirle.

Ora, è questa la questione che ti chiederei di considerare; tu, come buon tipo medio

dei Latini, un Liberale ma un Cattolico, un artista ma un soldato. Il

pericolo per l’intera civiltà di cui Roma fu la fonte sta in

questo. Che quanto più questo strano popolo prussiano fallisce in tutte le altre cose,

tanto più ripiegherà su questo mero fatto d’una brutale obbedienza. Daranno

ordini; non hanno altro da dare. Dico che questa è la

questione per te; non dico, non mi sogno di dire, che la risposta

spetti a me. Spetta a te soppesare la probabilità che i loro stessi fallimenti nelle

arti della pace li respingano verso le arti della guerra. Non

poterono, e non riuscirono, a ingannare il tuo popolo nella diplomazia. Fecero la cosa più

antidiplomatica che si possa fare; celarono una rottura del patto sociale

senza nemmeno celare l’occultamento. Istigarono l’intrigo in

Austria in modo tale che l’Italia poté onestamente rivendicare tutta la libertà dell’

ignoranza passata, unita a tutta la disillusione della presente consapevolezza.

Gestirono la Triplice Alleanza in modo tale da dover ammettere il tuo torto subìto, nel

momento stesso in cui reclamavano il tuo aiuto. Gli Inglesi sono più stupidi e

meno sensibili di te; ma perfino gli Inglesi trovarono la diplomazia del

Cancelliere tedesco non insinuante ma semplicemente offensiva; giuro che

sarei io stesso un miglior diplomatico. Allo stesso modo, non v’è pericolo

che gente come te sia corrotta nella controversia. Non v’è timore che

i professori che pullulano per tutta la Pianura Baltica sopraffacciano i

Latini nella logica. Alcuni di essi pretendono perfino d’essere super-logici; e dicono d’essere

troppo grandi per i sillogismi; avendo generalmente trovato perfino un solo sillogismo troppo

grande per loro. Se si lagnano o della tua astensione dalla loro causa

o della tua adesione a qualsiasi altra, tu hai una risposta a cui non si può replicare. Dirai,

come hai già detto, che non fosti tu a rompere la Triplice Alleanza, nemmeno per

amor di pace. Furono essi a romperla per amor di guerra. Tu,

ovviamente, avevi tanto diritto d’essere consultato sulla Servia quanto ne aveva l’Austria;

e sulla mera scacchiera dell’argomento è matto in una mossa. Né sono

essi minimamente atti a fare appello al sentimento popolare del tuo

popolo. Gli Inglesi, oso dire, e i Francesi, hanno detto una stupefacente

quantità di sciocchezze su di te; ma comprendono un poco meglio. Non

scrivono esattamente così, come segue, che è tratto dal più pubblico e accreditato

filosofo politico prussiano (Chamberlain). «Chi può vivere in Italia

oggi e mescolarsi coi suoi amabili e assai dotati abitanti senza

sentire con dolore che qui una grande nazione è perduta, irrimediabilmente perduta,

perché le manca l’interiore forza propulsiva», eccetera, che ha condotto Von

Kluck così trionfalmente attraverso Parigi. Perfino un Inglese semicolto, che

non ha udito parlare d’altro poeta italiano se non Dante, sa ch’egli era qualcosa di più

che amabile. Perfino un Francese addirittura illetterato, che non ha udito parlare d’alcun

guerriero italiano se non Napoleone, sa che non era di «interiore forza

propulsiva» che l’artigliere in questione difettava. «Chi può vivere in

Italia oggi?». Evidentemente il filosofo prussiano non può. Le sue impressioni

sono tratte dalle opere liriche italiane; non dalle strade italiane; certamente non dai

campi italiani. Di fatto, le immagini d’Italia che ardono nella

memoria della maggior parte dei Settentrionali di mente aperta che vi sono stati, sono di

esattamente l’altra specie. Io per primo sarei incline a dire: «Chi può vivere

in Italia oggi senza sentire che una donna che nutre i bambini, o un uomo

che spacca la legna, possa quasi toccarlo con timore per la pienezza della loro

umanità: sì ch’egli quasi fiuta il sangue, come si fiuta qualcosa che brucia?»

Gl’Italiani spesso paiono pigri; cioè, paiono come se non volessero muoversi; ma

non come se non potessero muoversi, come fanno molti Tedeschi. Ma anche se questa

formula s’attagliasse agl’Italiani, pare a stento calcolata per piacer loro.

Per i Prussiani, dunque, col fallimento della loro diplomazia, il fallimento

della loro filosofia, possiamo porre anche il fallimento dei loro appelli a un

popolo straniero. Lo scrittore prussiano può continuare i suoi tentativi di blandire

e incantare te dicendoti che sei irrimediabilmente perduto, e che tutti

i grandi Italiani devono essere stati qualcos’altro. Ma il metodo mi pare

mal adatto alla propaganda popolare; e non posso non dire che su questo terzo

punto della persuasione, il tentativo tedesco non è notevole.

Ora tutto ciò è importante per questa ragione. Se lo consideri attentamente

vedrai perché l’Europa deve, a qualunque costo, spezzare la Germania in battaglia:

e porre fine al suo potere militare e materiale di fare cose. Se tutti

dobbiamo combattere per questo, se tutti dobbiamo morire per questo, dev’essere fatto. Se

troviamo alleati nei nani della Groenlandia o nei giganti della Patagonia, dev’essere

fatto. E la ragione è che, se non è fatto letteralmente e materialmente,

altre cose saranno fatte letteralmente e materialmente; e inorridiranno i

cieli. Saranno cose sciocche; saranno cose ottenebrate e limitate e

risibili; ma saranno cose compiute. Nulla potrebbe essere

più ridicolo, se è tutto qui, della posizione morale del Prussiano in

Polonia; dove un magnifico ufficiale, facendo vasta parata del «governare»,

cerca di frodare i poveri contadini dei loro campi (e viene frodato) e

then takes refuge in beating little boys for saying their prayers in their

native tongue. All who remember anything of dignity, of irony, in short of

Rome and reason, can see why an officer need not, should not, had better

not, and generally does not, beat little boys. But an officer can beat

little boys: and a Prussian officer will go on doing it until you take away

the stick. Nothing could be more comic, if that is all, than the position

of Prussians in Alsace: which they declare to be purely German and admit to

be furiously French; so that they have to terrorise it by sabring anybody,

including cripples. Again, any of us can see why an officer need not,

should not, had better not, and generally does not, sabre a cripple. But an

officer can sabre a cripple; and a Prussian officer will go on doing it

until you take away the sabre. It is this insane and rigid realism that

makes their case peculiar: like that of a Chinaman copying something, or a

half-witted servant taking a message. If they had the power to put black

and white posts round the grave of Virgil, or dig up Dante to see if he had

yellow hair, the mere doing of it which for some of us would be the most

unlikely, would for them be the least unlikely thing. They do not hear the

laughter of the ages. If they had the power to treat the English or Italian

Premier quite literally as a traitor, and shoot him against a wall, they

are quite capable of turning such hysterical rhetoric into reality: and

scattering his brains before they had collected their own. They do not feel

atmospheres. They are all a little deaf; as they are all a little

short-sighted. They are annoyed when their enemies, after such experiences

as those of Belgium, accuse them of breaking their promises. And in one

sense they are right; for there are some sorts of promises they probably

would keep. If they have promised to respect a free country, or an old

friend, to observe a sworn partnership, or to spare a harmless population,

they will find such restrictions chilling and irksome. They will ask some

professor on what principle they are discarding it. But if they have

promised to shoot the cross off a church spire, or empty the inkpot into

somebody’s beer, or bring home somebody’s ears in their pocket for the

pleasure of their families, I think in these cases they would feel a sort

of a shadow of what civilised men feel in the fulfilment of a promise, as

distinct from the making of it. And, in consideration of such cases, I

cannot go the whole length of those severe critics who say that a Prussian

will never keep his promise.

Unfortunately, it is precisely this sort of actuality and fulfilment that

makes it urgent that Europe should put forth her whole energy to drag down

these antique demoniacs; these idiots filled with force as by fiends. They

will do things, as a maniac will, until he cannot do them. To me it

seemed that some things could not be said and done. I thought a man would

have been ashamed to bribe a new enemy like England to betray an old enemy

like France. I thought a man would have been ashamed to punish the pure

self-defence of folk so offenceless as the Belgians. These hopes must go

from us, my friend. There is only one thing of which the Prussian would be

ashamed; and of that, we have sworn to God, he shall taste before the end.

---

My Dear ------

The Prussianised German, of whatever blend of races he may be, has one

quality which may perhaps be racially simple; but which is, at any rate,

very plain. Chamberlain, the German philosopher or historian (I know not

which to call him or how to call him either) remarks somewhere that

purebred races possess fidelity; he instances the negro and the dog—and, I

suppose, the German. Anyhow, it is true that there is a recognisable and

real thing which might be called fidelity (or perhaps monotony) which

exists in Germans in about the same style as in dogs and niggers. The North

Teuton really has in this respect the simplicities of the savage and the

lower animals; that he has no reactions. He does not laugh at himself. He

does not want to kick himself. He does not, like most of us, repent—or

occasionally even repent of repenting. He does not read his own works and

find them much worse or much better than he had expected. He does not feel

a faint irrational sense of debauch, after even divine pleasures of this

life. Watch him at a German restaurant, and you will satisfy yourself that

he does not. In short, both in the most scientific and in the most casual

sense of the word, he does not know what it is to have a temper. He does

not bend and fly back like steel; he sticks out, like wood. In this he

differs from any nation I have known, from your nation and mine, from the

French, the Spanish, the Scotch, the Welsh and the Irish. Bad luck never

braces him as it does us. Good luck never frightens him as it does us. It

can be seen in what the French call Chauvinism and we call Jingoism. For us

it is fireworks; for him it is daylight. On Mafeking Night, celebrating a

small but picturesque success against the Boers, nearly everybody in London

came out waving little flags. Nearly everybody in London is now heartily

ashamed of it. But it would never occur to the Prussians not to ride their

high horses with the freshest insolence for the far-off victory of Sedan;

though on that very anniversary the star of their fate had turned scornful

in the sky, and Von Kluck was in retreat from Paris. Above all, the

Prussian does not feel annoyed, as I do, when foreigners praise his country

for all the wrong reasons. The Prussian will allow you to praise him for

any reasons, for any length of time, for any eternity of folly; he is there

to be praised. Probably he is proud of this; probably he thinks he has a

Poi si rifugia nel picchiare i ragazzini per aver detto le preghiere

La lingua madre. Tutti coloro che ricordano qualcosa di dignità, di ironia, insomma di…

Roma e ragione: perché un ufficiale non deve, non dovrebbe, farebbe meglio

Non picchia i bambini, ma un ufficiale può…

Ragazzini: e un ufficiale prussiano continuerà finché non gli togliete

Il bastone: nulla potrebbe essere più comico, se è tutto qui, della situazione

Dei prussiani in Alsazia: che dichiarano essere puramente tedesca e ammettono a…

Siate furiosamente francesi; così dovranno terrorizzarvi sgozzando chiunque,

Inclusi gli handicappati. Di nuovo, chiunque di noi può capire perché un ufficiale non debba…

Non dovrebbe, sarebbe meglio di no e generalmente non lo fa: sgozzare un invalido. Ma un…

Un ufficiale può sferzare un invalido, e un ufficiale prussiano continuerà a farlo

Fino a quando non togli il pugnale. È questo realismo folle e rigido che

Rendono il loro caso peculiare: come quello di un cinese che copia qualcosa, o di un…

Il servitore mezzo scemo che porta un messaggio. Se avessero il potere di mettere nero su…

e pali bianchi intorno alla tomba di Virgilio o dissotterrare Dante per vedere se aveva

capelli biondi, il semplice fatto di farlo che per alcuni di noi sarebbe la cosa più…

L’impensabile sarebbe per loro la cosa meno impensabile. Non sentono il

La risata dei secoli. Se avessero il potere di trattare gli inglesi o gli italiani

Primo ministro come traditore e fucilarlo contro un muro

Sono perfettamente in grado di trasformare tale retorica isterica in realtà: e

Disperdendo il suo cervello prima che avesse raccolto se stesso. Non sentono

Atmosfere: tutti un po’ sordi, come tutti un po’…

Miopi. Si irritano quando i loro nemici, dopo tali esperienze

Come quelli del Belgio, li accusano di non mantenere le promesse. E in uno

Hanno ragione: ci sono certi tipi di promesse che probabilmente…

Rispetterebbero. Se hanno promesso di rispettare un paese libero o una vecchia tradizione

Amico, per rispettare una fedeltà giurata o per risparmiare una popolazione innocua

Troveranno queste restrizioni opprimenti e fastidiose. Chiederanno…

Su quale principio stanno rinunciando ad esso? Ma se lo fanno,

promise di sparare alla croce sulla guglia della chiesa o di svuotare l’inchiostro nel

birra di qualcuno o portare a casa le orecchie di qualcun altro nella propria tasca per la

Il piacere delle loro famiglie, penso che in questi casi sentirebbero una specie di…

di un’ombra di ciò che gli uomini civili provano nell’adempimento di una promessa, come

Diverso dalla sua creazione. E, considerando tali casi, io

Non posso concordare pienamente con quei critici severi che dicono di un prussiano

non manterrà mai la sua promessa.

Purtroppo è proprio questo tipo di realtà e realizzazione che

Rende urgente che l’Europa metta in campo tutta la sua energia per abbattere

Questi antichi demoni; questi idioti pieni di forza come da demoni. Essi

Farebbe le cose, come farebbe un pazzo, fino a quando non potrebbe più farle. Per me è…

sembrava che alcune cose non potessero essere dette e fatte. Pensavo che un uomo avrebbe

Avrebbero dovuto vergognarsi di corrompere un nuovo nemico come l’Inghilterra per tradire un vecchio nemico

Come la Francia. Pensavo che un uomo si sarebbe vergognato di punire i puri

La difesa di popoli così inoffensivi come i belgi. Queste speranze devono andarsene.

Da noi, mio amico. C’è solo una cosa di cui il prussiano avrebbe paura.

vergognoso; e di questo, lo abbiamo giurato a Dio, egli assaggerà prima della fine.

---

Mio caro ------

Il tedesco prussianizzato, indipendentemente dalla sua miscela di razze, ha una…

una qualità che potrebbe essere razzialmente semplice, ma comunque…

Molto semplice: Chamberlain, il filosofo o storico tedesco (non so

che cosa chiamarlo o come chiamarlo (in ogni caso) osserva da qualche parte che

Le razze pure possiedono fedeltà; egli cita l’esempio del negro e del cane…

Supponiamo il tedesco. Comunque sia, è vero che esiste un riconoscibile e

La vera cosa che potrebbe essere chiamata fedeltà (o forse monotonia)

esiste nei tedeschi pressappoco nello stesso stile che esiste nei cani e negri. Il Nord

Il Teutone ha davvero in questo senso le semplicità del selvaggio e…

animali inferiori; che non ha reazioni. Non ride di se stesso. Egli

Non vuole darsi una lezione. Non si pente, come la maggior parte di noi…

A volte si pente persino di pentirsi. Non legge le proprie opere e

Scopre che sono molto peggio o molto meglio di quanto si aspettasse. Non prova

Un vago senso irrazionale di eccesso, anche dopo piaceri divini come questo

La vita. Osservatelo in un ristorante tedesco e vi convincerete che…

Non lo fa. Insomma, sia nel modo più scientifico che nel più casuale

Non sa cosa significhi avere un carattere.

Non si piega e torna indietro come l’acciaio; rimane rigido, come il legno.

Differisce da ogni nazione che ho conosciuto, dalla tua e dalla mia,

Francesi, spagnoli, scozzesi, galesi e irlandesi: sfortuna mai

Lo rafforza come fa con noi. La buona sorte non lo spaventa mai come fa con noi.

Si può vedere nel cosiddetto sciovinismo francese e nel nostro jingoismo. Per noi

per lui è pieno giorno. La notte di Mafeking Notte, celebrando una

un piccolo ma pittoresco successo contro i boeri, quasi tutti a Londra

uscì agitando piccole bandiere. Ora quasi tutti a Londra sono sinceramente

Vergognarsi di ciò. Ma ai prussiani non verrebbe mai in mente di non cavalcare i loro…

Cavalli altani con la più fresca insolenza per la lontana vittoria di Sedan;

anche se proprio in quella data anniversaria la stella del loro destino si era fatta beffarda

nel cielo e Von Kluck era in ritirata da Parigi. Soprattutto, il

Il prussiano non si sente irritato come me quando gli stranieri lodano il suo paese

Per tutti i motivi sbagliati. Il prussiano ti permetterà di lodarlo per

per qualsiasi motivo, per qualsiasi durata di tempo, per qualsiasi eternità di follia; lui c’è

Da lodare. Probabilmente ne è orgoglioso; probabilmente pensa di averne il diritto.

good digestion, because the poison of praise does not make him sick. He

thinks the absence of such doubt, or self-knowledge, makes for composure,

grandeur, a colossal calm, a superior race—in short, the whole claim of

the Teutons to be the highest spiritual product of Nature and Evolution.

But as I have noticed a calm unity even more complete, not only in dogs and

negroes, but in slugs, slow-worms, mangoldwurzels, moss, mud and bits of

stone, I am a sceptic about this test for the marshalling in rank of all

the children of God. Now I point this out to you here for a very practical

reason. The Prussian will never understand revolutions—which are

generally reactions. He regards them, not only with dislike, but with a

mysterious kind of pity. Throughout his confused popular histories, there

runs a strange suggestion that civic populations have failed hitherto, and

failed because they were always fighting. The population of Berlin does not

fight, or can’t; and therefore Berlin will succeed where Greece and Rome

have failed. Hitherto it is plain enough that Berlin has succeeded in

nothing except in bad copies of Greece and Rome; and Prussians would be

wiser to discuss the details of the Greek and Roman past, which we can

follow, rather than the details of their own future, about which we are

naturally not so well informed. Well, every dome they build, every pillar

they put upright, every pedestal for epitaph or panel for decoration, every

type of church, Catholic or Protestant, every kind of street, large or

small, they have copied from the old Pagan or Catholic cities; and those

cities, when they made those things, were boiling with revolutions. I

remember a German professor saying to me, “I should have no scruple about

extinguishing such republics as Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua; they

are perpetually rioting for one thing or another.” I said I supposed he

would have had no scruple in extinguishing Athens, Rome, Florence and

Paris; for they were always rioting for one thing or another. His reply

indicated, I thought, that he felt about Cæsar or Rienzi very much as the

Scotch Presbyterian Minister felt about Christ, when he was reminded of the

corn-plucking on the Sabbath, and said, “Weel, I dinna think the better of

him.” In other words he was quite positive, like all his countrymen, that

he could impose a sort of Pax Germanica, which would satisfy all the needs

of order and of freedom forever; leaving no need for revolutions or

reactions. I am myself of a different opinion. When I was a child, when the

toy-trade of Germany had begun to flood this country, there was a priggish

British couplet, engraven on the minds of governesses, which ran—

What the German children delight to make

The English children delight to break.

I can answer for the delight of the English children; a just and godlike

delight. I am not so sure about the delight of the German children, when

they were caught in the infernal wheels of the modern civilisation of

factories. But, for the present, I am only concerned to say that I do not

accept this line of historical division. I do not think history supports

the view that those who could break things could not make them.

This is the least intrusive approach by which I can touch on a topic that

must of necessity be a delicate one; yet which may well be a difficulty

among Latins like yourself. Against this preposterous Prussian upstart we

have not only to protect our unity; we have even to protect our quarrels.

And the deepest of the reactions or revolts of which I have spoken is the

quarrel which (very tragically as I think) has for some hundred years

cloven the Christian from the Liberal ideal. It would ill become me, in

whose country there is neither such clear doctrine nor such combative

democracy, to suppose it can be easy for any of you to close up such sacred

wounds. There must still be Catholics who feel they can never forgive a

Jacobin. There must still be old Republicans who feel that they could never

endure a priest. And yet there is something, the mere sight of which should

lock them both in an instant alliance. They have only to look northward and

hold the third thing, which thinks itself superior to either: the enormous

turnip-face of ce type là, as the French say, who conceives that he can

make them both like himself and yet remain superior to both.

I implore you to keep out of the hands of this Fool the quarrel of the

great saints and of the great blasphemers. He will do to religion what he

will do to art; mix up all the colours on your palette into the colour of

mud: and then say that only the purified eyes of Teutons can see that it is

pure white. The other day the Director of Museums in Berlin was said to be

setting about the creation of a new kind of Art: German Art. Philosophers

and men of science were at the same time directed to meet round the table

and found a new Religion: German Religion. How can such people appreciate

art; how can they appreciate religion—nay, how can they appreciate

irreligion? How does one invent a message? How does one create a Creator?

Is it not the plain meaning of the Gospel that it is good news? And is it

not the plain meaning of good news that it must come from outside oneself?

Otherwise I could make myself happy this moment, by inventing an enormous

victory in Flanders. And I suppose (now I come to think of it) that the

Germans do.

By the fulness of your faith and even the fulness of your despair, you that

remember Rome, have earned a right to prevent all our quarrels being

quenched in such cold water from the north. But it is not too much to say

that neither religion at its worst nor republicanism at its worst ever

offered the coarse insult to all mankind that is offered by this new and

buona digestione, perché il veleno dei complimenti non lo fa ammalare. Egli

pensa che l’assenza di tale dubbio o conoscenza di sé contribuisca alla compostezza,

Grandezza, una calma colossale, una razza superiore - in breve, l’intera pretesa di…

i Tedeschi come il più alto prodotto spirituale della Natura e dell’evoluzione.

Ma ho notato una calma unità ancora più completa, non solo nei cani e

Negri, ma anche lumache, vermi lenti, rape da foraggio, muschio, fango e pezzetti di…

Pietra, sono scettico su questo test per l’ordinamento di tutti in fila

I figli di Dio: un’osservazione pratica

Il prussiano non capirà mai le rivoluzioni - che sono…

Reazioni generali: le considera non solo con antipatia, ma con…

Un misterioso senso di pietà. Nei suoi confusi resoconti storici popolari, c’è

Una strana idea: le popolazioni civiche hanno fallito finora

Fallirono perché combattevano sempre. La popolazione di Berlino non lo fece.

Combattere o non poterlo fare; e quindi Berlino avrà successo dove Grecia e Roma…

Ha fallito. Finora è evidente che Berlino ha avuto successo

Niente se non nelle cattive copie della Grecia e di Roma, e i prussiani sarebbero…

È più saggio discutere i dettagli del passato greco e romano, che possiamo

Seguire piuttosto che i dettagli del loro futuro, su cui siamo

naturalmente non così bene informati. Bene, ogni cupola che costruiscono, ogni pilastro

hanno eretto ogni piedistallo per epigrafe o pannello per decorazione, ogni

Tipo di chiesa, cattolica o protestante, ogni tipo di strada, grande o…

Piccoli, hanno copiato dalle antiche città pagane o cattoliche; e quelli

Le città, quando crearono queste cose, erano in ebollizione per le rivoluzioni.

Ricordo un professore tedesco che mi disse: «Non avrei alcun scrupolo a…

Sopprimere repubbliche come il Brasile, il Venezuela, la Bolivia, il Nicaragua;

Sono sempre in rivolta per una cosa o l’altra” Dissi che supponevo lui

Non avrebbe esitato ad estinguere Atene, Roma, Firenze e…

Parigi; perché c’era sempre qualche rivolta per una cosa o l’altra. La sua risposta

Indicava, pensavo, che provasse per Cesare o Rienzi più o meno lo stesso sentimento…

Il ministro presbiteriano scozzese provava per Cristo quando gli veniva ricordato il

Sgranare il grano di sabato e disse: «Beh, non ne penso bene…

“lui”. In altre parole era assolutamente sicuro, come tutti i suoi connazionali, che

Poteva imporre una specie di Pax Germanica che avrebbe soddisfatto tutti i bisogni

di ordine e di libertà per sempre; senza lasciare spazio a rivoluzioni o

reazioni. Io stesso ho un’opinione diversa. Quando ero un bambino, quando il

Il commercio di giocattoli della Germania aveva iniziato ad invadere questo paese e c’era un atteggiamento pedante

Coppia di versi britannici incisi nella mente delle governanti:

Quello che i bambini tedeschi amano fare

I bambini inglesi amano distruggere.

Posso rispondere per la gioia dei bambini inglesi; giusta e divina

Delizia. Non sono così sicuro della delizia dei bambini tedeschi, quando

Sono stati catturati dalle ruote infernali della civiltà moderna

Fabbriche. Ma per ora mi preme solo dire che non lo faccio.

accettare questa linea di divisione storica. Non credo che la storia sostenga

l’idea che coloro che potevano rompere le cose non potessero crearle.

Questo è il modo meno invadente per affrontare un argomento

deve per forza essere delicata; eppure può benissimo essere una difficoltà

Tra i latini come voi. Contro questo ridicolo arrivista prussiano noi

non dobbiamo solo proteggere la nostra unità; dobbiamo persino proteggere le nostre liti.

E la più profonda delle reazioni o rivolte di cui ho parlato è la

una disputa che (molto tragicamente, secondo me) dura da centinaia di anni

Separare il cristiano dall’ideale liberale. Non mi competerebbe, in…

Non esiste un paese con una dottrina così chiara e combattiva come questo

La democrazia suppone che possa essere facile per ognuno di voi chiudere in sé tali sacri…

Ferite. Ci devono essere ancora cattolici che sentono di non poter mai perdonare…

Giacobino. Ci devono essere ancora vecchi repubblicani che sentono di non poter mai

Sopportare un prete. Eppure c’è qualcosa che solo il vedere dovrebbe…

Un’alleanza immediata tra loro. Basta che guardino verso nord e…

Detenere la terza cosa che si ritiene superiore alle altre: l’enorme

Faccia da rapa di quel tipo lì, come dicono i francesi, che crede di poter…

li renda simili a sé eppure rimanga superiore a entrambi.

Vi imploro di tenere lontano da questo pazzo la contesa del

Grandi santi e grandi bestemmiatori

farà per l’arte: mescolare tutti i colori della tavolozza in un colore

Fango: e poi dicono che solo gli occhi purificati dei Tedeschi possono vedere che è…

Bianco puro. L’altro giorno si diceva che il Direttore dei Musei di Berlino fosse…

La creazione di un nuovo tipo d’arte: l’arte tedesca. I filosofi

e gli uomini di scienza furono allo stesso tempo invitati a riunirsi attorno al tavolo

E hanno trovato una nuova religione: la religione tedesca. Come possono queste persone apprezzare…

L’arte: come possono apprezzare la religione - anzi, come possono apprezzare

l’irreligione? Come si può inventare un messaggio? Come si può creare un Creatore?

Non è forse il chiaro significato del Vangelo quello di essere buone novelle? E non è…

non è forse il semplice significato di buone notizie che devono provenire da fuori se stessi?

Altrimenti potrei rendere me stesso felice in questo momento, inventando qualcosa di enorme

La vittoria nelle Fiandre. E immagino che…

I tedeschi lo fanno.

Per la pienezza della vostra fede e persino per la pienezza del vostro dispero, voi che

Ricordate Roma, avete guadagnato il diritto di evitare che tutte le nostre dispute siano…

spegneva quella sete nell’acqua così fredda del nord. Ma non è eccessivo dire

Né la religione al suo peggio né il repubblicanesimo al suo peggio mai

offeso l’umanità con il volgare affronto di questa nuova e

nakedly universal monarchy.

There has always been something common to civilised men, whether they

called it being merely a citizen; or being merely a sinner. There has

always been something which your ancestors called Verecundia; which is at

once humility and dignity. Whatever our faults, we do not do exactly as

the Prussians do. We do not bellow day and night to draw attention to our

own stern silence. We do not praise ourselves solely because nobody else

will praise us. I, for one, say at the end of these letters, as I said at

the beginning; that in these international matters I have often differed

from my countrymen; I have often differed from myself. I shall not claim

the completeness of this silly creature we discuss. I shall not answer his

boasts with boasts; but with blows.

My front-door is beaten in and broken down suddenly. I see nothing outside,

except a sort of smiling, straw-haired commercial traveller with a notebook

open, who says, “Excuse me, I am a faultless being, I have persuaded

Poland; I can count on my respectful Allies in Alsace. I am simply loved in

Lorraine. Quae reggio in terris … What place is there on earth where

the name of Prussia is not the signal for hopeful prayers and joyful

dances? I am that German who has civilised Belgium; and delicately trimmed

the frontiers of Denmark. And I may tell you, with the fulness of

conviction, that I have never failed, and shall never fail in anything.

Permit me, therefore, to bless your house by the passage of my beautiful

boots; that I may burgle the house next door.”

And then something European that is prouder than pride will rise up in me;

and I shall answer:—

“I am that Englishman who has tortured Ireland, who has been tortured by

South Africa; who knows all his mistakes, who is heavy with all his sins.

And he tells you, Faultless Being, with a truth as deep as his own guilt,

and as deathless as his own remembrance, that you shall not pass this way.”

monarchia nudamente universale.

C’è sempre stato qualcosa di comune agli uomini civili, sia che essi

lo chiamassero l’essere semplicemente un cittadino, o l’essere semplicemente un peccatore. C’è

sempre stato qualcosa che i vostri antenati chiamavano Verecundia; che è al

tempo stesso umiltà e dignità. Quali che siano le nostre colpe, non facciamo esattamente come

fanno i Prussiani. Non berciamo giorno e notte per attirare l’attenzione sul nostro

severo silenzio. Non lodiamo noi stessi solo perché nessun altro

ci loderà. Io, per parte mia, dico alla fine di queste lettere, come dissi al

principio, che in queste questioni internazionali ho spesso dissentito

dai miei connazionali; ho spesso dissentito da me stesso. Non pretenderò

la completezza di questa sciocca creatura di cui discutiamo. Non risponderò alle sue

vanterie con vanterie, ma con colpi.

La mia porta d’ingresso viene sfondata e abbattuta all’improvviso. Non vedo nulla fuori,

salvo una specie di commesso viaggiatore sorridente, dai capelli color paglia, con un taccuino

aperto, che dice: “Mi scusi, io sono un essere impeccabile, ho persuaso

la Polonia; posso contare sui miei rispettosi Alleati in Alsazia. Sono semplicemente amato in

Lorena. Quae reggio in terris … Qual è il luogo sulla terra dove

il nome della Prussia non sia il segnale di preghiere fiduciose e gioiose

danze? Sono quel Tedesco che ha civilizzato il Belgio, e ha delicatamente ritoccato

le frontiere della Danimarca. E posso dirvi, con la pienezza della

convinzione, che non ho mai fallito, e mai fallirò in nulla.

Permettetemi, dunque, di benedire la vostra casa col passaggio dei miei bei

stivali; affinché io possa svaligiare la casa accanto.”

E allora qualcosa di Europeo che è più fiero dell’orgoglio si leverà in me;

e io risponderò:—

“Io sono quell’Inglese che ha torturato l’Irlanda, che è stato torturato dal

Sudafrica; che conosce tutti i suoi errori, che è gravato da tutti i suoi peccati.

E ti dice, Essere Impeccabile, con una verità profonda quanto la sua stessa colpa,

e imperitura quanto il suo stesso ricordo, che tu non passerai per questa via.”