The Need of Being Merciless
By Maurice Maeterlinck.
From The London Daily Mail.
At these moments of tragedy none should be allowed to speak who cannot shoulder a rifle, for the written word seems so monstrously useless and so overwhelmingly trivial in face of this mighty drama that will for a long time and maybe forever free mankind from the scourge of war—the one scourge among all that cannot be excused and that cannot be explained, since alone among all scourges it issues entirely from the hands of man.
But it is while this scourge is upon us—while we have our being in its very centre—that we shall do well to weigh the guilt of those who committed this inexpiable crime. It is now, when we are in the awful horror, undergoing and feeling it, that we have the energy and clearsightedness needed to judge it. From the depths of the most fearful injustice justice is best perceived. When the hour shall have come for settling accounts—it will not be long delayed—we shall have forgotten much of what we have suffered and a censurable pity will creep over us and cloud our eyes.
Will Seek Sympathy.
This is the moment, therefore, for us to frame our inexorable resolution. After the final victory, when the enemy is crushed—as crushed as he will be—efforts will be made to enlist our sympathy. We shall be told that the unfortunate German people are merely the victims of their monarch and their feudal caste; that no blame attaches to the Germany we know that is so sympathetic and cordial—the Germany of quaint old houses and open-hearted greetings; the Germany that sits under its lime trees beneath the clear light of the moon—but only to Prussia, hateful, arrogant Prussia; that homely, peace-loving Bavaria, the genial, hospitable dwellers on the banks of the Rhine, the Silesian and Saxon—I know not who besides—have merely obeyed and been compelled to obey orders they detested, but were unable to resist.
{145}We are in the face of reality now. Let us look at it well and pronounce our sentence, for this is the moment when we hold the proofs in our hands; when the elements of the crime are hot before us and should out—the truth that will soon fade from our memory. Let us tell ourselves now therefore that all we shall be told hereafter will be false. Let us unflinchingly adhere to what we decide at this moment when the glare of the horror is on us.
No Degrees of Guilt.
It is not true that in this gigantic crime there are innocent and guilty or degrees of guilt. They stand on one level, all who have taken part. The German from the north has no more especial craving for blood than the German from the south has especial tenderness and pity. It is very simple. It is the German from one end of the country to the other who stands revealed as a beast of prey that the firm will of our planet finally repudiates. We have here no wretched slaves dragged along by a tyrant King who alone is responsible. Nations have the Government they deserve, or rather the Government they have is truly no more than a magnified public projection of the private morality and mentality of the nation.
If eighty million innocent people merely expose the inherent falseness and superficiality of their innocence—and it is a monster they maintain at their head who stands for all that is true in their nature, because it is he who represents the eternal aspirations of their race, which lie far deeper than their apparent transient virtues—let there be no suggestion of error, of intelligent people having been tricked and misled. No nation can be deceived that does not wish to be deceived. It is not intelligence that Germany lacks. In the sphere of intellect such things are not possible, nor in the region of the enlightened, reflecting will. No nation permits herself to be coerced into the one crime man cannot pardon. It is of her own accord she hastens toward it. Her chief has no need to persuade. It is she who urges him on.
We have forces here quite different from those on the surface—forces that are secret, irresistible, profound. It is these we must judge, must crush under heel once for all, for they are the only ones that will not be improved, softened or brought into line by experience, progress, or even the bitterest lesson. They are unalterable, immovable. Their springs lie far beneath hope or influence. They must be destroyed as we destroy a nest of wasps, since we know these never can change into a nest of bees.
Even though individually and singly Germans are all innocent and merely led astray, they are none the less guilty in mass. This is the guilt that counts—that alone is actual and real, because it lays bare underneath their superficial innocence, the subconscious criminality of all. No influence can prevail on the unconscious or subconscious. It never evolves. Let there come a thousand years of civilization, a thousand years of peace, with all possible refinements, art, and education, the German spirit which is its underlying element will remain absolutely the same as today and would declare itself when the opportunity came under the same aspect with the same infamy.
Through the whole course of history two distinct will-powers have been noticed that would seem to be the opposing elemental manifestations of the spirit of our globe, one seeking only evil, injustice, tyranny, suffering, the other strives for liberty, right, radiance, joy. These two powers stand once again face to face. Our opportunity is to annihilate the one that comes from below. Let us know how to be pitiless that we have no more need for pity. It is the measures of organic defense—it is essential that the modern world should stamp out Prussian militarism as it would stamp out a poisonous fungus that for half a century had poisoned its days. The health of our planet is the question. Tomorrow the United States and Europe will have to take measures for the convalescence of the earth.
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