Friedrich von Bernhardi

“ Thus the political power of our nation, while fully alive below the surface, is fettered externally by this love of peace. It fritters itself away in fruitless bickerings and doctrinaire disputes. We no longer have a clearly defined political and national aim, which grips the imagination, moves the heart of the people, and forces them to unity of action. Such a goal existed, until our wars of unification, in the yearnings for German unity, for the fulfilment of the Barbarossa legend. ”

“ The conviction is universal that every attack upon these conquests will rouse the whole nation with enthusiastic unanimity to arms. We all wish, indeed, to be able to maintain our present position in the world without a conflict, and we live in the belief that the power of our State will steadily increase without our needing to fight for it. We do not at the bottom of our hearts shrink from such a conflict, but we look towards it with a certain calm confidence, and are inwardly resolved never to let ourselves be degraded to an inferior position without striking a blow. ”

“ How, I ask, can the Cavalry perform its rôle in war until the enemy's Cavalry is defeated and paralyzed? I challenge any Cavalry officer, British or foreign, to deny the principle that Cavalry, acting as such against its own Arm, can never attain complete success unless it is proficient in shock tactics.
Cavalry soldiers must of course learn to be expert rifle shots, but the attainment of this desirable object will be brought no nearer by ignoring the horse, the sword, or the lance. ”

“ The particular spirit which we seek to encourage is different for each arm. Were we to seek to endow cavalry with the tenacity and stiffness of infantry, or to take from the mounted arm the mobility and the cult of the offensive which are the breath of its life, we should ruin not only the cavalry, but the Army besides. Those who scoff at the spirit, whether of cavalry, of artillery, or of infantry, are people who have had no practical experience of the actual training of troops in peace, or of the personal leadership in war. Such men are blind guides indeed. ”

“ We shall therefore some day, perhaps, be faced with the necessity of standing isolated in a great war of the nations, as once Frederick the Great stood, when he was basely deserted by England in the middle of the struggle, and shall have to trust to our own strength and our own resolution for victory.
Such a war—for us more than for any other nation—must be a war for our political and national existence. This must be so, for our opponents can only attain their political aims by almost annihilating us by land and by sea. ”

“ For the moment, therefore, our cavalry finds itself in a state of transition. The demands which modern war will make upon it have not yet penetrated into its flesh and blood, that is to say, their extent and range have not yet been clearly grasped by the arm, nor have we yet by any means succeeded in breaking loose from the fetters of the past. ”

“ We have fought in the last great wars for our national union and our position among the Powers of Europe; we now must decide whether we wish to develop into and maintain a World Empire, and procure for German spirit and German ideas that fit recognition which has been hitherto withheld from them.
Have we the energy to aspire to that great goal? Are we prepared to make the sacrifices which such an effort will doubtless cost us? or are we willing to recoil before the hostile forces, and sink step by step lower in our economic, political, and national importance? ”

“ The very essence of cavalry lies in the offensive. Mounted it is incapable of tactical defence, but, in order to defend itself, must surrender its real character as a mounted arm and seize the rifle on foot. The service of reconnaissance, therefore, must necessarily be carried out in an offensive sense.
The idea of the offensive is not, however, meant here in a narrow sense, such as seeking a tactical battle, but rather that the reconnoitring army cavalry must under all circumstances maintain the initiative, use its activity against the enemy, and impose its will upon him. ”

“ It is, indeed, impossible so to formulate and fix the political duties of the State that they cannot be looked at from another standpoint. The social democrat, to whom agitation is an end in itself, will see the duty of the State in a quite different light from the political dilettante, who lives from hand to mouth, without making the bearing of things clear to himself, or from the sober Statesman who looks to the welfare of the community and keeps his eyes fixed on the distant beacons on the horizon of the future. ”

“ Thus the Russian army marched to battle without any enthusiasm, or even any comprehension of the momentous importance of the great racial war, "not of free will, but from necessity." Already eaten up by the spirit of revolution and unpatriotic selfishness, without energy or initiative, a mechanical tool in the hand of uninspired leaders, it tamely let itself be beaten by a weaker opponent. ”

“ We must therefore prepare not only for a short war, but for a protracted campaign. We must be armed in order to complete the overthrow of our enemies, should the victory be ours; and, if worsted, to continue to defend ourselves in the very heart of our country until success at last is won.
It is therefore by no means enough to maintain a certain numerical equality with our opponents. On the contrary, we must strive to call up the entire forces of the nation, and prepare and arm for the great decision which impends. ”

“ The entrance of Japan into the circle of the great World Powers means a call to arms. "Asia for the Asiatics," is the phrase which she whispers beneath her breath, trusting in the strength of her demand. The new Great Power has emerged victoriously from its first encounter with a European foe. China, too, is preparing to expand her forces outwardly. A mighty movement is thrilling Asia—the awakening of a new epoch.
Dangers, then, which have already assumed a profound importance for the civilized countries of Europe, are threatening from Asia, the old cradle of the nations. ”

“ We regard our warlike preparations as an almost insupportable burden, which it is the special duty of the German Reichstag to lighten so far as possible. We seem to have forgotten that the conscious increase of our armament is not an inevitable evil, but the most necessary precondition of our national health, and the only guarantee of our international prestige. We are accustomed to regard war as a curse, and refuse to recognize it as the greatest factor in the furtherance of culture and power. ”

“ In Germany that stock which was destined to bring back our country from degradation to historical importance did not grow up on the fertile banks of the Rhine or the Danube, but on the sterile sands of the March.
We must preserve the stern, industrious, old-Prussian feeling, and carry the rest of Germany with us to Kant's conception of life; we must continuously steel our strength by great political and economic endeavours, and must not be content with what we have already attained, or abandon ourselves to the indolent pursuit of pleasure ”

“ The future of German nationality would be sacrificed, an independent German civilization would not long exist, and the blessings for which German blood has flowed in streams—spiritual and moral liberty, and the profound and lofty aspirations of German thought—would for long ages be lost to mankind.
If, as is right, we do not wish to assume the responsibility for such a catastrophe, we must have the courage to strive with every means to attain that increase of power which we are entitled to claim, even at the risk of a war with numerically superior foes. ”

“ From this standpoint I must first of all examine the aspirations for peace, which seem to dominate our age and threaten to poison the soul of the German people, according to their true moral significance. I must try to prove that war is not merely a necessary element in the life of nations, but an indispensable factor of culture, in which a true civilized nation finds the highest expression of strength and vitality. ”

“ We have the most to win or lose by such a struggle. We shall be beset by the greatest perils, and we can only emerge victoriously from this struggle against a world of hostile elements, and successfully carry through a Seven Years' War for our position as a World Power, if we gain a start on our probable enemy as soldiers; if the army which will fight our battles is supported by all the material and spiritual forces of the nation; if the resolve to conquer lives not only in our troops, but in the entire united people which sends these troops to fight for all their dearest possessions. ”

“ It seemed to me, therefore, to be necessary and profitable, at this parting of the ways of our development where we now stand, to throw what light I may on the different paths which are open to our people. A nation must fully realize the probable consequences of its action; then only can it take deliberately the great decisions for its future development, and, looking forward to its destiny with clear gaze, be prepared for any sacrifices which the present or future may demand. ”

“ The State will not be to us merely a legal and social insurance office, political union will not seem to us to have the one object of bringing the advantages of civilization within the reach of the individual; we shall assign to it the nobler task of raising the intellectual and moral powers of a nation to the highest expansion, and of securing for them that influence on the world which tends to the combined progress of humanity. We shall see in the State, as Fichte taught, an exponent of liberty to the human race, whose task it is to put into practice the moral duty on earth. ”

“ On the contrary, an intense longing for a foremost place among the Powers and for manly action fills our nation. Every vigorous utterance, every bold political step of the Government, finds in the soul of the people a deeply felt echo, and loosens the bonds which fetter all their forces. ”

“ There is no standing still in the world's history. All is growth and development. It is obviously impossible to keep things in the status quo, as diplomacy has so often attempted. No true statesman will ever seriously count on such a possibility; he will only make the outward and temporary maintenance of existing conditions a duty when he wishes to gain time and deceive an opponent, or when he cannot see what is the trend of events. He will use such diplomatic means only as inferior tools; in reality he will only reckon with actual forces and with the powers of a continuous development. ”

“ Our people must learn to see that the maintenance of peace never can or may be the goal of a policy. The policy of a great State has positive aims. It will endeavour to attain this by pacific measures so long as that is possible and profitable. It must not only be conscious that in momentous questions which influence definitely the entire development of a nation, the appeal to arms is a sacred right of the State, but it must keep this conviction fresh in the national consciousness. ”

“ The German people has always been incapable of great acts for the common interest except under the irresistible pressure of external conditions, as in the rising of 1813, or under the leadership of powerful personalities, who knew how to arouse the enthusiasm of the masses, to stir the German spirit to its depths, to vivify the idea of nationality, and force conflicting aspirations into concentration and union. ”

“ There is no nation whose thinking is at once so free from prejudice and so historical as the German, which knows how to unite so harmoniously the freedom of the intellectual and the restraint of the practical life on the path of free and natural development. The Germans have thus always been the standard-bearers of free thought, but at the same time a strong bulwark against revolutionary anarchical outbreaks. They have often been worsted in the struggle for intellectual freedom, and poured out their best heart's blood in the cause. ”

“ Yet the heart of this people can always be won for great and noble aims, even though such aims can only be attended by danger. We must not be misled in this respect by the Press, which often represents a most one-sided, self-interested view, and sometimes follows international or even Anti-German lines rather than national. The soul of our nation is not reflected in that part of the Press with its continual dwelling on the necessity of upholding peace, and its denunciation of any bold and comprehensive political measure as a policy of recklessness. ”