German Peasants' War

“ In 1514 Württemberg was disturbed by the rising of “poor Conrad,” but these and other similar revolts in the neighbourhood were suppressed by the princes. These movements, however, were only preludes to the great revolution, which is usually known as the Peasants’ War (Bauernkrieg) .
The Renaissance and the Reformation were awakening extravagant hopes in the minds of the German peasants, and it is still a matter of controversy among historians to what extent Luther and the reformers were responsible for The Peasants’ War. their rising. ”

“ Probably all over Germany, as over France and this corner of Belgium, just such little scenes occur daily, hourly.
The German peasant, like the French and the Belgian, is a peaceable man. He is military but not militant. He is sentimental rather than impassioned. He loves Christmas and other feast days. He is not ambitious. He fights bravely, but he would rather sing or make a garden.
It is over the bent shoulders of these peasants that the great Continental army machines must march. The German peasant is poor, because for forty years he has been paying the heavy tax of endless armament. ”

“ He is only trying to put off this war, for a worse war. Every man, woman or child who talks peace before the complete defeat of Germany is a Kaiser agent, spreading German poison gas to the injury and possible destruction of his own countrymen. ”

“ Prudent men never underestimate their opponents. Brave men want to know the worst that can be said, truthfully. Let us confess that Germany with her nine [108] million soldiers, ammunition accumulated through twenty-five years of preparation, has suffered no vital hurt. Three years of battle have lessened the wealth of the Allied nations, but vastly increased the treasures of Germany. This war has cost Great Britain thirty billions of dollars, it has cost France twenty billions, it has cost the United States ten billions. ”

“ The long suffering, much oppressed peasantry of Germany, who had found bishops as pitiless extortioners as lords, caught eagerly at a hope of relief from the overthrow of the ancient Church. Several times within the preceding half-century they had risen in formidable revolts, with a peasants' clog, or bundschuh for their banner. In 1525 fresh risings occurred in Swabia, Franconia, Alsace, Lorraine, Bavaria, Thuringia and elsewhere, and a great Peasants' War raged for months, with ferocity and brutality on both sides. The number who perished in the war is estimated at 100,000. ”

“ The policy of a good understanding with Russia, maintained for many years, to such an extent that, in foreign affairs, Berlin and St. Petersburg were almost one city, enabled Germany to feel secure against France, while she was devoting herself to the extension of her rural and urban powers of production. Never at any time did she neglect to keep her army in a posture of offence. All can now see the meaning of this.
"Militarism is in no sense necessarily economic. But the strength of Germany for war was rapidly increased by her success in peace. ”

“ Not because they are in accord with the desires of imperialist agitators are these consequences of an absolute German military victory to be expected, but because they are the inevitable outgrowth of the world-political position that Germany has adopted, of conflicting interests with England, France, and Russia, in which Germany has been involved, and which have grown, during the course of the war, far beyond their original dimensions. ”

“ Personally, I believe that in England, in France, and in America, too, if the war should last a long time, the prejudice against German trickery and brutality in war will become so great that many a merchant will prefer to lose a little money than deal with German sellers. ”

“ The French peasants loved their land and then lost it. One morning the Hun stood at the gate. The farmers with their pruning knives were no match for Germans with their machine guns, and down they fell under the plum trees they were pruning. The devastated regions of France are like unto a world ruined by devils. The Germans cut down the apples, the pears, and all the peaches. They did not spare the cherry, the quince, the gooseberry and currant, or the vineyards. ”

“ Is selling-out our soldiers to become a national habit? For quite patently, to fight once more in democratic defense against Germany with any goal in view save that country's extinction constitutes, even though it loses the war, a German victory. To fight, to win, and not this time to end Germanism forever by exterminating completely those people who spread its doctrine die to herald the outbreak of another German war within a generation. ”

“ Throughout Germany similar slaughter of the peasantry and wholesale executions took place. In many places the reprisal took the dimensions of a massacre, and it is said that by the end of the frightful struggle more than a hundred thousand of the peasants had been slain. As for its political results, the survivors were reduced to a deeper state of servitude than before. Thus ended a great struggle which had only needed an able leader to make it a success and to free the people from feudal bonds. It ended like all the peasant outbreaks, in defeat and renewed oppression. ”

“ Truth will hew a way for itself—mightily, irresistibly, like an avalanche. Whoever does not close his ears to it against his better judgment must admit that, during my twenty-six-year reign previous to the war, Germany's foreign policy was directed solely to the maintenance of peace. Its one and only aim was to protect our sacred native soil, threatened from the west and the east, and the peaceful development of our commerce and political economy. ”

“ From the first, however, the Prussian army, organized as it was for conquest, did not take kindly to this law. But from the time when Prussian militarism, now turned into German militarism, had become one with industrialism, it was the enemy's industry, his commerce, the sources of his wealth, his wealth itself, as well as his military power, which war must now make the end in view. His factories must be destroyed that his competition may be suppressed. ”

“ Are those 15,000,000 Germans so valuable, so indispensable to mankind that 300,000,000 guiltless men, women and children shall fight a war with Germany every time she so decrees? Shall perpetual struggle against the German be the only future facing civilized peoples? ”

“ From the Allied view-point, the very thought of Germany's asking other nations to produce property while once in a generation, with her standing army, she goes forth to pillage and loot the wealth that industrious French or Belgians have created, is for us a monstrous thought. From the German view-point, however, atrocities represent [23] military efficiency. Just as the German War Staff perfected in advance rifles and cannon as legitimate warfare, so they prepared in advance certain outrages from which they expected the greatest possible results, in terms of conquered territory. ”

“ Do not take it for granted that the German people, worn out by the endless horrors of war, would cry to their masters, ‘Peace at any price!’ The German people, as I know them, filled with enthusiasm by a victory that would be without parallel in the history of the world, maddened by incalculable plunder, would follow the lead of their Emperor more blindly than ever. The pride and ambition of the Kaiser and his General Staff are so prodigious that, unless all signs fail, they would give the United States no chance to organize against a Prussianized Europe. ”

“ Germany certainly has not the right to speak of a war of defense, but France and England have little more justification. They too, are protecting, not their national, but their world-political existence, their old imperialistic possessions, from the attacks of the German upstart. ”

“ You may not like this salute or you may not like the parade step, but you can be very sure of one thing—that it is not the militarism that pushes civilians off the sidewalk nor permits an officer to strike his subordinate—though these things have happened in Germany—that is holding back England and France and driving the Russian millions out of East Prussia. It is something bigger than that. Peasants and princes, these men are dying gladly, backed up by fitness, discipline, and a passionate unity such as the world has not often seen. ”

“ A war to crush France and Russia has for many years been accepted as a necessary eventuality in the evolution of Germany's foreign policy. That when this war came, Great Britain would take the opportunity of joining in order to strike at German commerce, which had begun to be looked upon by British merchants as a formidable rival in the markets of the world, was thought probable. The leading men of Germany, especially since the passing of Morocco and Persia, have felt that this war was vital to the existence of the German Empire. ”

“ VICTUALIZATION Napoleon's dictum that an army marches on its stomach is as true to-day as it was then, adequate provisions for man and beast being the most important factor in military science. The economic feeding of three-quarters of a million men in peace time is work enough. It becomes a serious problem in the event of war, especially to a country like Germany which is somewhat dependent on outside sources for the feeding of her millions. ”

“ It is probable that she has spoiled Belgium of at least eight billions. The national fortunes of the invaded territories were estimated at fifty billions, and most of this, after three years, is now in the hands of the Germans. Each attack made by Germany has been against a rich people whose treasure she could loot, while every attack made by the Allies has been to recover a land already devastated, poor and helpless. In choosing Napoleon, therefore, rather than Jesus, Germany chose the motto of aggressive warfare, [110] and has made war an investment too profitable to be readily abandoned. ”

“ But must we not, we whose throat the enemy is seeking to cut, we whose defeat by hunger and by lack of war material nearly every one would witness complacently as an unavoidable fate, must we not defend ourselves from this dreadful danger, which still threatens us, with all our might and with all the means that the German spirit can invent and which the honor of the German people recognizes as legitimate weapons? ”

“ The most superficial observer cannot but see that even the most victorious nation cannot count on war indemnities that will stand in any relation to the wounds that the war has inflicted. Perhaps they may see in the still greater economic ruin of the defeated opponents, England and France, the very countries with which Germany was most closely united by industrial relations, upon whose recuperation its own prosperity so much depends, a substitute and an augmentation for their victory. ”

“ The world may now see that the business of Germany was war from the beginning under Kaiser Wilhelm II, and that Germany was to be made great on land and sea by the sword of war hacking the way for German commerce, German tariffs, and German commercialism. The old feudal idea of trade expanded and supported by a war lord has been the idea of Germany since the pilot, Bismarck, was dropped by the young Emperor from the ship of state. War for aggression, war for business, war for German expansion, has been the scheme. ”

“ While these momentous issues were being decided in Italy, Germany had been the scene of a serious outbreak which threatened the whole structure of society.Causes of the Peasants’ War. The causes of the Peasants’ Revolt were primarily social. Even before the appearance of Luther, we hear of the ‘Bundschuhe’ and other organisations of the peasants, and of revolts against their lords. Their grievances were those common to the villein class in all feudal societies ”

“ But it is not alone to the political reconstruction of Germany or of Europe that those who take an optimistic view of the issue of the present European war look hopefully. The whole economic system of modern capitalism will have received a shock from which the beginnings of vast changes may date. Apart from this, however, the avowed aim of the war, the destruction of Prussian militarism and, indirectly, the weakening of military power throughout the world, should have immediate and important consequences. ”

“ Let us hold in abeyance for the moment the question of the all too obvious sufferings which the German war-soul has inflicted upon the world, and examine it objectively from the standpoint of its justification as regards world benefits. In short, is the war-soul of Germany and its spread of Germanism worth more to civilization than its cost in human life and freedom? Will the world derive more from its perpetuation than from its extinction? ”

“ But at last all alike perceive that the German war-deeds differ from the usual abuses of war, as a cunning fiend differs from a drunken man. Germany believes in militarism, in forty-two centimeter guns, in submarines, in liquid fire and poisoned gases. This republic and our Allies believe in the manufacture of souls of good quality. We believe in schools, colleges, libraries, churches, factories, banks, fruitful fields and a self-sufficing, intelligent and moral manhood. ”

“ Had we ever had warlike intentions we should have struck the blow in 1900, when England's hands were tied by the Boer War, Russia's by the Japanese War, at which time almost certain victory beckoned us. In any event, we assuredly would not have singled out the year 1914, when we were confronted by a compact, overwhelmingly superior foe. Also, every impartial man must acknowledge to himself that Germany could expect nothing from the war, whereas our enemies hoped to obtain from it the complete realization of the aims which they had based, long since, upon our annihilation. ”

“ Germany has chosen to rob war of all that, slowly and tentatively, the nations had given to it of respect for treaties, pity for the weak and defenseless, and of honor generally. She has poisoned it as she poisons her gases. This is what we should never forget. Not only has Germany forced this war upon the world, but she has made it systematically cruel and terrifying, and in so doing she has sown the seeds of horrified rebellion against anything that is German. ”