Arminianism

“ Still, to persuade the Germans to combine, in spite of their frequent feuds among themselves, in one sudden outbreak against Rome; to keep the scheme concealed from the Romans until the hour for action had arrived; and then, without possessing a single walled town, without military stores, without training, to teach his insurgent countrymen to defeat veteran armies, and storm fortifications, seemed so perilous an enterprise, that probably Arminius would have receded from it, had not a stronger feeling even than patriotism urged him on. ”

“ Arminius now gave the signal for a general attack. The fierce shouts of the Germans pealed through the gloom of the forests, and in thronging multitudes they assailed the flanks of the invaders, pouring in clouds of darts on the encumbered legionaries as they struggled up the glens or floundered in the morasses, and watching every opportunity of charging through the intervals of the disjointed column, and so cutting off the communication between its several brigades. Arminius, with a chosen band of personal retainers round him, cheered on his countrymen by voice and example. ”

“ Dark and disheartening, even to heroic spirits, must have seemed the prospects of Germany when Arminius planned the general rising of his countrymen against Rome. Half the land was occupied by Roman garrisons; and, what was worse, many of the Germans seemed patiently acquiescent in their state of bondage. The braver portion, whose patriotism could be relied on, was ill-armed and undisciplined, while the enemy's troops consisted of veterans in the highest state of equipment and training, familiarized with victory and commanded by officers of proved skill and valor. ”

“ In consequence of this decision, the Arminians were considered as enemies to their country and its established religion, and were much persecuted. They were treated with great severity, deprived of all their posts and employments, their ministers silenced, and their congregations suppressed. ”

“ While repeatedly addressing these and similar exhortations to the troops, he drew up the principal part of his army opposite to the front rank of the barbarians. And suddenly there arose from the Allemanni a great shout, mingled with indignant cries, all exclaiming with one voice that the princes ought to leave their horses and fight in the ranks on equal terms with their men, lest if any mischance should occur they should avail themselves of the facility of escaping, and leave the mass of the army in miserable plight. ”

“ With the powerful engine into which we are forming the German army one undertakes no offensive war." In truth, when the army was the nation, what statesman was there who would venture on war unless he were attacked? "If I were to say to you, 'We are threatened by France and Russia; it is better for us to fight at once; an offensive war is more advantageous for us,' and ask for a credit of a hundred millions, I do not know whether you would grant it,—I hope not." And he concluded; "It is not fear which makes us lovers of peace, but the consciousness of our own strength. ”

“ Darts, spears, and javelins never ceased; arrows pointed with iron were shot; while at the same time, in hand-to-hand conflict, sword struck sword, breastplates were cloven, and even the wounded, if not quite exhausted with loss of blood, rose up still to deeds of greater daring.
47. In some sense it may be said that the combatants were equal. The Allemanni were the stronger and the taller men; our soldiers by great practice were the more skilful. The one were fierce and savage, the others composed and wary; the one trusted to their courage, the others to their physical strength. ”

“ And when they had gone armed to the battle, and were already at the point of fighting, the king of the Alemanni said: “Why are all the people involved in war? Let our people, I pray, not kill one another in battle, but let two of our warriors go to the field in arms and fight with one another. ”

“ He said Germany is seething,—seething, he said emphatically, with desire to fight; that it is almost impossible to have a great army at such a pitch of perfection as the German army is now and not use it; that if a thing like that isn't used it will fester inwardly and set up endless internal mischief and become a danger to the very Crown that created it. ”

“ We, Tryphœna, guard the marches, we occupy the debatable ground, and we have to be perpetually on the alert, to make blaze of beacons, blow cow's-horns, and rattle drums at the least approach or signs of approach of barbarism. Of course we are touchy, tenacious of our right, sensitive about our skirts, and must bluster and deal blows to protect them. We hold the banat, the military frontier between culture and savagery, and it is because of us that the noblemen and gentlemen of England can dwell at home at ease. ”

“ According to local tradition, this was one of the sacred groves of the ancient Germans, and it was here that the Roman captives were slain in sacrifice by the victorious warriors of Arminius.
Never was victory more decisive; never was the liberation of an oppressed people more instantaneous and complete. Throughout Germany the Roman garrisons were assailed and cut off; and within a few weeks after Varus had fallen, the German soil was freed from the foot of an invader. ”

“ And Benedict Arnold had done it. He was seen to point with his glittering sword, and say, "Soldiers, to your duty!"
Ah, stern duty of pitiless war! executed, as we trust, sometimes with compunction, otherwise man would be a fiend. Came there not, in future years, some lingering cry of these widows and orphans into the heart of that bold, bad man, when, bowed with age, he felt in a foreign land the loneliness, neglect, and loathing which are wont to overtake the traitor? ”

“ The earth seemed left void of independent nations." [3]
The German chieftain knew well the gigantic power of the oppressor. Arminius was no rude savage, fighting out of mere animal instinct, or in ignorance of the might of his adversary. He was familiar with the Roman language and civilization; he had served in the Roman armies; he had been admitted to the Roman citizenship, and raised to the rank of the equestrian order. It was part of the subtle policy of Rome to confer rank and privileges on the youth of the leading families in the nations which she wished to enslave. ”

“ Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation,—the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. ”

“ M. Anatole France, in his speech at the great "Homage à l'Arménie" meeting in the Sorbonne in April 1916, used these words: "L'Arménie expire, mais elle renaitra. Le peu de sang qui lui reste est un sang précieux dont sortira une postérité héroïque. Un peuple qui ne veut pas mourir ne meurt pas. Après la victoire de nos armées, qui combattent pour la liberté, les Alliés auront de grands devoirs a remplir. ”

“ The high spirit of Arminius was goaded almost into frenzy by these bereavements. The fate of his wife, thus torn from him, and of his babe doomed to bondage even before its birth, inflamed the eloquent invectives with which he roused his countrymen against the home traitors, and against their invaders, who thus made war upon women and children. ”

“ The name Arminius is, of course, the mere Latinized form of "Herman," the name by which the hero and the deity were known by every man of Low German blood, on either side of the German Sea. It means, etymologically, the "War-man," the "man of hosts." No other explanation of the worship of the "Irmin-sul," and of the name of the "Irmin-street," is so satisfactory as that which connects them with the deified Arminius. We know for certain of the existence of other columns of an analogous character. Thus, there was the Roland-seule in North Germany ”

“ To a truly illustrious Frenchman, whose reverses as a minister can never obscure his achievements in the world of letters, we are indebted for the most profound and most eloquent estimate that we possess of the importance of the Germanic element in European civilization, and of the extent to which the human race is indebted to those brave warriors who long were the unconquered antagonists, and finally became the conquerors, of imperial Rome. ”

“ The Germans never looked upon war as a clash of armies alone, but sought by every means in their power, by oppression, by slavery, by terror, to bend the non-combatant population to their will. It is a logical view. ”

“ The victory of Arminius over the Roman legions was an event of the greatest significance in the history of European civilization. Germany was almost overrun by the Roman army. The Teutonic tribes were on the point of being completely subjugated and Romanized, as had been the Celts of Gaul before them. Had this occurred, the entire history of Europe would have been changed; for the Germanic element is the one that has given shape and color to the important events of the last fifteen hundred years. Those barbarians, too, were our ancestors. ”

“ What eloquence could unite so many discordant and hostile powers under the same standard? Could they be assembled in arms, who would dare to assume the office of general? What order could be maintained?—what military discipline? Who would undertake to feed such an enormous multitude? Who would understand their various languages, or direct their stranger and incompatible manners? What mortal could reconcile the Germans with the French, Genoa with Arragon, the Germans with the natives of Hungary and Bohemia? If a small number enlisted in the holy war, they must be overthrown by the infidels ”

“ After this an expedition on a larger scale than usual was projected with great care and diligence against the Allemanni, to consist of a great variety of troops: the public safety imperatively required such a measure, since the treacherous movements of that easily recruited nation were regarded with continual apprehension, while our soldiers were the more irritated because, on account of the constant suspicion which their character awakened, at one time abject and suppliant, at another arrogant and threatening, they were never allowed to rest in peace. ”

“ Arminius, having directed his men to keep close together and draw near to the wood, wheeled suddenly about, and to those whom he had hid in the forest gave the signal to rush out. Then the Roman horse were thrown into disorder by the assault of a new army, and the cohorts sent out to support them, broken in upon by the body of troops that fled, had augmented the consternation, and were now being pushed into the morass—a place well known to the pursuers, but dangerous to those unacquainted with it—had not Germanicus drawn out the legions in order of battle. ”

“ But Arminius was far too sage a commander to lead on his followers, with their unwieldy broadswords and inefficient defensive armour, against the Roman legionaries, fully armed with helmet, cuirass, greaves, and shield; who were skilled to commence the conflict with a murderous volley of heavy javelins, hurled upon the foe when a few yards distant, and then, with their short cut-and-thrust swords, to hew their way through all opposition ”

“ Not only, however, are you fighting for your battalion and your regiment, you are fighting to maintain against the Germans the same high reputation which you have won for the —— Division on the Gallipoli Peninsula. More than that, you are fighting for your country, and also you are fighting for Christianity and Humanity. You are fighting for truth and justice against oppression. We are fighting for our liberty against slavery. ”

“ When we have reached our goal Germany must see to it that no race save the German race can have a title deed in land or carry weapons, just as in the first world empire no one but a Roman was allowed to own land or have a sword or spear. ”

“ The just cause of the Allies has had no stauncher supporters or better propagandists than the hundred and twenty-five thousand or more Armenians in the United States, while the Great Tragedy of Armenia has incidentally added to the armoury of the Allies a melancholy but formidable moral weapon. ”

“ His brethren are the free. They come around: one hour, and light Will fade from turf and tide, Then onward, onward to the fight With darkness for our guide. "To-night, to-night, when we shall meet In combat face to face, Then only would Arminius greet The renegade's embrace. The canker of Rome's guilt shall be Upon his dying name; And as he lived in slavery, So shall he fall in shame.
On the day after the Romans had reached the Weser, Germanicus led his army across that river, and a partial encounter took place, in which Arminius was successful. ”

“ If the Allies emerge triumphantly from the war, and England demands the reduction of armaments, then this good result will have been gained by desperate fighting, not by noble sentiments. We, whose sentiments have been of the noblest, shall have had no real share in the work. ”

“ No drop of blood of a single German soldier may be sacrificed to the ambition of an Austrian potentate in the interest of imperialistic gains. ... The governing classes who in peace gag, despise, and exploit you, will use you as cannonfodder. Everywhere must sound in the ears of the potentates: We wish no war! ”

“ Acquiring renown from our discords and dissensions, they convert the faults of their enemies to the glory of their own army; an army compounded of the most different nations, which success alone has kept together, and which misfortune will as certainly dissipate. Unless, indeed, you can suppose that Gauls, and Germans, and (I blush to say it) even Britons, who, though they expend their blood to establish a foreign dominion, have been longer its foes than its subjects, will be retained by loyalty and affection! Terror and dread alone are the weak bonds of attachment ”