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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

.7

PL-

BEHIND THE SCENES IN THE REICHSTAG
BY THE ABBE E. WETTERLE

BEHIND THE SCENES
IN THE REICHSTAG

SIXTEEN YEARS OE PARLIAMENTARY
LIEE IN GERMANY

HY THE
ABBE E. WETTERLE
EX-DEPUTY AT TnE REICIISTAO AND IN THE ALSACE-LORRAINE CHAMBER

WITH A PREFATORY LETTER BY
RENE DOUMTC
MEMBER OF Til 10 FRENCH ACADEMY

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY
GEORGE FREDERIC LEES
OFFICIEK DE L- INSTRUCTION POBLIQUE

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

Copyright, 1918,
By George H. Doran Company

e.

cr

Printed in the United States of America

A PREFATORY LETTER
Dear Abbe Wetterle —
It is a pleasure to me to have the opportunity
of saying what all of us in France think of you,
why we love and admire you, and what a place
all that your name personifies occupies in our
hearts. Do you recollect one of the first lectures, which,
at the beginning of the war, you delivered in
Paris? The Societe des Conferences had invited
you to speak on the subject of the dear provinces
towards which all our hopes are directed. When,
well before the hour? I went to our hall on the
Boulevard Saint-Germain, I found the approaches
obstructed by a compact crowd, which desired at
all hazards to enter the overcrowded building. It
became necessary to promise this disappointed but
obstinate audience *nat you would deliver your
lecture a second time. You might have reap
peared thrice, nay ten times before our honest
and responsive Parisian public. It would not have
grown tired of coming to hear you, and I say
not only to applaud you, but to drink in your

** A PREFATORY LETTER
words. Those were magnificent gatherings, pene
trated by a sacred thrill.
What you represent in our eyes is the fidelity of
Alsace-Lorraine. To whatever trials that stub
born fidelity has been submitted, it has never
flinched. Even when France seemed to be ab
sorbed in sad interior quarrels and to follow up
with less impatience the imprescriptible claim,
you persevered your faith intact. Not for a
moment was your thought turned from us. And
that thought has been your whole thought — the
thought which has inspired your whole life — your
unique thought.
And what you also represent is the determina
tion to become French once more, you who in
your conscience have never ceased to be French,
among the best French of France. For you did
not confine yourself to platonic protests, you did
not content yourself with the vagueness of touch
ing regrets and hopes. Vain home-sickness is not
the thing for you. To will, is really to employ
all the means which lead to a given end ; and under
the most oppressive yoke, face to face with the
most inventive tyranny, you have never let slip
an opportunity, you have never neglected a means
of hastening the liberating end.
Fidelity and determination make up the whole
of you. One has only to look at you. Thick-set,

A PREFATORY LETTER vii
strong in the back, square-shouldered and round-
headed, you are strength itself. You were cut
out for strife, and in the midst of strife you are
in your element. You have striven for the com
mon cause. You have suffered. You have braved
persecution and undergone imprisonment. Your
prestige is the result of that, and thence, too,
comes your authority. To speak and to write
is in your case to act. It is much the fashion now
adays to extol action, in words. And from the
way in which some people celebrate it, I cannot
help thinking of those comic-opera singers who
interminably repeat "Let us be off! Let us be
off 1" whilst stamping about on the stage. What
they call action is mere talk about action. You,
on the other hand, are not a maker of phrases;
deeds alone are to your fancy. Beneath each word
you utter there is a reality; every one carries,
every one is a shot.
You write in the same manner. You have
written thqusands of articles. There is not one
of them which was written with the mere object
of producing an article to occupy or amuse the
gallery. No. Every one — precise and direct —
was aimed at an immediate object. That was a
part of your action. Since the beginning of the
war you have published several books, but there

viii A PREFATORY LETTER
is not one of them which was not evolved from an
idea bearing within it an active virtue.
Thus it is in the case of the present volume.
The idea which has guided you, around which
your recollections — illustrated by your narrative
— have crystallised, is as follows.
As a member of the Reichstag, you have seen
German politicians close at hand. You know
what you are to believe about them. You have
been present at their debates and have seen them,
as in all Parliaments, divide themselves into
parties. As Conservatives, Socialists, or members
of the Catholic Centre, you have observed them
following different conceptions. Only, what you
have also seen — seen with your own eyes — is that
there was always, in any and every case, a point
at which all divisions ceased as though by magic,
a ground on which all could meet, an object to
which all strained in common. The feeling with
which all were in accord was their hatred of
France. The object towards which all strained
was the destruction of France. The thought in
which all collaborated was the preparation of war
against France.
During forty-four years they combined, ar
ranged, strengthened, perfected the formidable
machine which was to be directed against us. And
we, during that time, continually and stubbornly

A PREFATORY LETTER «
closed our eyes and stopped our ears, unwilling
to see or understand anything. We worked un
interruptedly — in that case only, alas! uninter
ruptedly — to weaken ourselves. We complacently
welcomed, forbearingly diffused everything which
disarms a nation and betrays it to the enemy. . . .
Such is the painful parallel which the mind evokes
when one reads your well-informed pages. . . .
War broke out at the hour the Germans had
chosen. So it was necessary, in the magnificent
reawakening of the race, that French heroism
should rebuild, but at the price of what a sacrifice !
all that our improvident leaders had criminally
undone. Thus your book teaches a lesson — a lesson for
the present and the future. For you have not
written these recollections merely with the object
of reviving a dolorous past, nor in order to re
criminate against our faults of yesterday. You
would bar, in advance, the road to fresh errors,
guard against fresh weakness. What Germany
was before the war she is during and will remain
after the war. Nothing will turn her from her
object, which is to destroy us. She is aiming at
it to-day on the battlefield; to-morrow it will be
in the economic arena. By violence or perfidy, one
after the other or both together brutal and cun
ning, she strains towards the same end, which is

x A PREFATORY LETTER
her end in war and in peace. It is fpr us to know
this, and not to allow ourselves to be duped a
second time. Voices that one could have hoped to
have been better inspired have already hazarded
the advice that the German people be allowed their
free development. The free development of the
people of Germany . . . you know — you who
have been "Behind the .Scenes in the Reichstag"
— what that means : the enslavement of the French
nation. So thanks, dear Abbe Wetterle, for the assist
ance you bring us, at the tragic hour at which your
book appears, and when all our energy ought to
be directed to the work of national defence. May
your words be the warning heard by all, the cry
of alarm which makes known the danger, the
sursum corda which exalts our courage and pre
pares it for supreme heroism. Rene Dotjmic.

FOREWORD
"Cannot you give us some recollections of your
parliamentary life?"
How many times I have been asked this ques
tion by editors of papers and reviews!
I have always hesitated to respond to these
pressing requests, first because these excursions
into the past, before the outbreak of war, can have
but slight interest, and secondly because, being
deprived of my notes, forgotten at Colmar or
deposited in a safe place in a neutral country, I
am obliged to rely wholly on my memory, which
often fails me.
All that happened before the war is already so
far away from us. In recalling these reminis
cences of a still near past, it seems as though one
were turning over the pages of an old conjuring-
book. And yet the whole tragedy of to-day was
in being in the events before 1914, and the more I
reflect on what I observed and heard, both at
Berlin and at Strassburg, the more I confess to
myself that we were, with a few exceptions,
stricken with blindness in not seeing the big thun
der clouds gathering on the horizon.

xii FOREWORD
That is the reason why, overcoming my fear of
being very incomplete, I have decided to set down,
in a desultory manner, whatever events in my po
litical past seem to me to present retrospective
interest.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

I. How I Entered Politics  1
II. Arrival at Berlin  24
III. The Parties of the Reichstag ... 46
IV. Pen Portraits of Parliamentarians . . 73
V. Foreign Politics  98
VI. Pan-Germanism  112
VII. Militarism in German Politics . . . 139
VIII. The Emperor and Parliament .... 155
IX. The Growth of Imperialism .... 178
X. My Defence of Alsace-Lorraine . . . 202
XL War Aims Foreshadowed  226
XII. Some Prussian Types  236

BEHIND THE SCENES IN
THE REICHSTAG

BEHIND THE SCENES IN
THE REICHSTAG
CHAPTER I
How I Entered Politics
My Election — The Centre and the Members for Alsace-
Lorraine — Denounced at Rome — Bishop and Chancel
lor — My Lawsuits — Two Months' Imprisonment — An
Instance of German Blackguardism — The Bird had
Flown.
It was in 1898 that the electors of the arrondisse
ment of Ribeauville offered me the candidature
for a seat in the Reichstag. The Abbe Simonis,
who, since 1874, had represented the fifth con
stituency of AJsace-Lorraine with so much joyous
energy, had just retired from public life, at the
same time as his colleague, Canon Guerber, who
until then had carried out the mandate of the
arrondissement of Guebwiller. This excellent M.
Simonis had been condemned, a few months be
fore, to pay a fine of 600 marks because, at a pubhc
meeting at which he had contested the candidature
1

2 BEHIND THE SCENES
of Kreisdirektor Poehlmann, he allowed himself
to quote the Alsatian proverb — "A man, a
promise, or else a 'What do I care?' individual."
This misadventure — rather honourable than
otherwise — had deeply grieved a man whose ante^
cedents had been spotless until then.
But M. Simonis had a more serious reason for
leaving the arena of public life. He belonged to
the generation of early protestors who considered
that they had carried out all the obligations of
their mandate by going to Berlin merely twice or
thrice a year to make heard there the voice of
Alsace-Lorraine, inconsolable through having
been separated from France. Now, it happened
that our two provinces, forcibly associated with
the destiny of the German Empire, sometimes
suffered cruelly from an interior legislation in the
elaboration of which their representatives system
atically refused to collaborate. Therefore the
electors had finished, not by getting tired of pro
testing, but by requesting their deputies to take a
more active part in the work of the Imperial
Parliament. M. Guerber and M. Simonis, how
ever, would not consent to modify their purely
negative attitude, so an appeal had to be made
to new men.
The candidatures in the vacant constituencies
were offered to several laymen — manufacturers,

IN THE REICHSTAG 8
doctors, and lawyers, all of whom, in spite of
earnest requests, politely refused. Thus, a week
before the day fixed for the elections, I was begged
to accept the struggle, whilst Canon Roellinger,
Cure of Guebwiller, was putting up for M. Guer-
ber's seat.
Truth to tell, there was more danger than profit
in entering public life at the time of the dictator
ship and the regime of passports. Terror had
reigned in Alsace since 1888, and, though the elec
tion of Jacques Preiss at Colmar in 1891 and that
of Ignace Spiess at Schlestadt in 1896 denoted an
awakening of public opinion, the reprisals which
had immediately been made by the Secretary of
State, von Puttkamer, seemed to foreshadow fresh
acts of persecution against both the elected candi
dates and their electors.
Owing to the very short time at our disposal,
it was necessary to improvise manifestos, posters,
distributions of bulletins and public meetings. It
was a week of excitement. Fortunately, our elec
tors were most determined. Roellinger and I were
elected at the first ballot with respectable ma
jorities, although we had three opponents: a Gov
ernmental Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist.
Out of the fifteen seats of the annexed prov
inces, the Alsace-Lorraine group, which had

4 BEHIND THE SCENES
accepted the heritage of the protestors, secured
eleven, whilst the Socialists won three and the
Germans had to be satisfied with a single semi-
success at Saverne. In fact, Dr. Hoeffel, who
represented the little town of the Lower Rhine,
which was later made illustrious by Lieutenant
von Forstner and Colonel von Reutter, got him
self received at the Reichstag as a guest
(Hospitant) in the fraction of the Independent
Conservatives (Reichspartei) , among whom,
moreover, he played a very obscure part.
Already at that time the immigrants and the
Government had but one object — that of forcing
the Deputies of Alsace-Lorraine to join the
groups of the Imperial Parliament. For having
responded to that earnest request during the pre
ceding legislatures, MM. Petri and von Bulach
had lost their seats. However, the Socialists, who
relegated national claims to the background in
favour of political questions, were not restrained
by the same scruples, and their representatives,
from Hickel to Bueb, had deliberately joined the
Parliamentary group of the Extreme Left, which
from that time gave them the support of the Ger
mans. In the meantime the immigrants had tried to
penetrate all the political organizations of Alsace-
Lorraine, in order to precipitate the evolution de-

IN THE REICHSTAG 5
sired by the Ministry, of Strassburg. In 1891 I
had written on that subject a pamphlet, entitled,
"Irons-nous au Centre?" ("Shall we Join the
Centre?") , which caused rather a stir, and in which
I combated any union whatsoever with the Catho
lic party of the Reichstag, because that union
would have indicated to everyone the renunciation
of our national claims, and would have prevented
us presenting and defending our private resolu
tions in Parliament.
During the following twenty-three years I had
to combat, both in my newspaper and at our
meetings of delegates, the ever-recurring idea of
rallying to the -Centre. Several times my adver
saries, headed by the German professor Martin
Spahn and the Alsatians Muller and Didio,
demanded my expulsion from the party. They
never succeeded in obtaining anything save de
risive minorities for their motions, whether frank
or hypocritical ones.
But these recollections necessitate going back.
My pamphlet "Irons-nous au Centre?" brought
me numerous and enthusiastic letters of encour
agement, like the one which followed it closely —
"Parti catholique et Coteries" ("The Catholic
Party and Coteries") . It was doubtless owing to
this circumstance that, in December, 1893, I was
entrusted by M. Jung, the printer, with the man-

6 BEHIND THE SCENES
agement of the Journal de Colmar, a bi-weekly
journal printed entirely in the French language.
Before leaving the parochial ministry (at that
time I was curate in the artisan parish of St.
Joseph at Mulhausen, a parish justly celebrated
for its numerous and prosperous social works) I
called on the Bishop of Strassburg, Mgr. Fritzen,
who still occupies the see of St. Arbogast. And
this is what the prelate, whose two brothers were
then members of the Reichstag, said to me :
"I am aware that the politics which you will
uphold in your paper are not mine; but I do not
think I have the right to forbid you to defend
the interests of the population in your own man
ner. In ecclesiastical matters you will obviously
remain subject to my control. As to the rest,
write whatever you judge fit. It is not for me,
as a bishop, to meddle with politics properly so
called." I asked him for nothing more. Let me add that
Mgr. Fritzen kept strictly to this line of conduct
and never attempted to give me the least
imperative advice. It sometimes happened that I
discussed with him, with absolute freedom, prob
lems of public life; yet he carefully refrained from
exercising the slightest pressure on me. Better
still, on several occasions, and without my knowl
edge, he undertook to defend me.

IN THE REICHSTAG 7
Here is the proof. In 1897, at Colrnar, I had
been elected a County Councillor, and at the first
meeting of the Council I had to take the oath
required by the law, "I swear obedience to the
Constitution and fidelity to the Emperor."
This question of the taking of the political oath
had been raised immediately after the annexation
in 1873, on the occasion of the County Council
elections. The first councillors to be elected hav
ing refused to take the oath, the prefects sus
pended the sitting. Gambetta, consulted by the
interested parties, very wisely replied, "Compul
sion does not stand in the way of the exercise of
liberty. If you do not take verbally an oath which
your heart disavows, all the seats will pass to
creatures of the German Government. So observe
this simple formality, which does not necessitate
the slightest renunciation of your regrets and your
hopes." The advice was followed. Nevertheless, it was
always horribly painful to pronounce the fatal
formula. The day after I had been obliged to
undergo this hard necessity, I published in my
paper an article of which the following is a sum
mary: "The political oath, because one is obliged
to take it, does not admit of the obligation of
conscience. Moreover, though I have indeed
promised obedience to the Constitution, it is with

8 BEHIND THE SCENES
the firm desire to modify it. Finally, the promise
of fidelity to the Emperor ought not to prevent
a Republican (and I have always been one) from
trying to change the regime, provided that in at
tempting to do so he does not depart from legal
methods." The article produced a scandal. The Govern
mental Press left no stone unturned in attacking
the priest who had dared to contest the holiness of
the oath. Now, a few weeks later, the Bishop of
Strassburg addressed to me a letter in which he
announced that the Pope, Leo XIII, sent me,
through his mediation, "his whole-hearted bene
diction." As no explanation accompanied this
missive, I called on Mgr. Fritzen to ask him for
enlightenment. "I did not want," replied the prelate, smiling,
"to tell you sooner of the plot hatched against
you. After your article on the political oath, the
Statthalter (Prince von Hohenlohe-Langenburg)
sent to the Holy See, through the intermediary
of the Prussian representative, a long memoran
dum, or, to speak more accurately, a virulent in
dictment. The Pope sent me the papers. I under
took your defence. Here are both the Prince's
speech for the prosecution and mine for the de
fence. As you see, Rome says 'we' are in the
right."

IN THE REICHSTAG 9
Indeed, the two documents — copies of which I
have preserved — establish both the incommensur
able stupidity of the Statthalter and the perfect
correctness of the bishop, who, without even
informing me, had protected me by his high
authority. A second denunciation from Prince von Hohen
lohe met with the same fate the year after.
An amusing detail. When, eight years later, in
1905, 1 had the honour to be presented to Cardinal
Rampolla, he welcomed me with the following
words :
"Well, are you satisfied with the reply we
formerly sent your Staathalter ?"
The great friend of France, who was and who
remained a Cardinal to the end, was once more to
be recognised in this joyous exclamation. One
had only to see the mischievous smile with which
he emphasised it to be able to guess that the former
Secretary of State to Leo XIII had been glad to
be in a position to play a good trick on our pro
fessional Germanisers.
Mgr. Fritzen had once more to take up my de
fence in the spring of 1914, and under particularly
difficult circumstances. My lecturing campaign
in France, in the month of January of the preced
ing year, had provoked in the whole of the German
Press the most violent protests and caused a tor-

10 BEHIND THE SCENES
rent of shameful insults to descend on my head.
For several weeks each post brought me a dozen
letters or post-cards on which the Boches, be
longing to all classes of society, exhausted
themselves by expressing insulting words and
ridiculous threats. Moreover, the Leipzig court
had been requested to charge me with high treason,
and questions had been asked regarding my case
in the two Parliaments of Berlin and Strassburg.
During the whole session I was boycotted by the
majority of my colleagues. On the other hand,
my electoral committee and the meeting of the
Alsace-Lorraine Centre deliberately refused to
separate themselves from me.
The storm had already partly subsided when,
in February, 1914, I called on the Bishop of
Strassburg. "You come in the nick of time," he declared.
"It is barely a week ago since the Imperial Chan
cellor, Von Bethmann-Hollweg, sitting in the very
chair you occupy, earnestly entreated me to take
the most severe disciplinary measures against you.
I replied to him (and you will not be surprised
at this) that I deplored your political attitude,
but that I was not in a position to censor it. You
misemploy, perhaps, your liberty as a citizen, but,
as a priest, I have nothing to reproach you with.
Under these conditions, I should make an ill use

IN THE REICHSTAG 11
of my ecclesiastical authority by exercising it in a
matter in which all Catholics retain their entire
independence." A last time Mgr. Fritzen had to devote his at
tention to me; and again he acted with all the
circumspection the situation demanded. It was in
the early days of the month of September, 1914.
I had just published in the Echo de Paris several
articles signed "An ex-Member of the Reichstag."
The German Press naturally made use of the most
violent language against the "traitor." The mili
tary authorities demanded of the Bishop of Strass
burg that he proceed to execute me in due form.
So Mgr. Fritzen published in the Catholic jour
nals of Alsace a letter in which he deplored my
attitude, "which was contrary to my oath" (see
above), and announced that he . . . removed me
from the list of Alsatian priests in the ordo of his
diocese. Need I add that this last measure is inoperative?
A priest can only be detached from his diocese as
the result of a canonical trial. The lists of the
ordo have merely a documentary value. They
have no legal value. The Bishop of Strassburg,
therefore, got out of a difficulty by a veritable
practical joke.
The Bishop of Metz, Mgr. Bentzler, had to
take a similar measure against Canon Collin. It

12 BEHIND THE SCENES
is true that he added the following words to his
public letter, "I am opening a canonical legal in
quiry against M. Collin. But as circumstances do
not permit me to serve him with the indictment,
I am under the necessity of postponing the pro
ceedings sine die." As in all probability it will be
the future Bishop of Metz, Mgr. Collin, who will
conduct the case against Canon Collin, there is
every reason to believe that the sentence will not
be too severe.
However that may be, Mgr. Bentzler proved
himself on this occasion to be as witty as Mgr.
Fritzen. I should never have believed two Ger
mans capable of such humorous fancies.
When I took over the management of- the
Journal de Colmar it had 400 subscribers. Four
week later there were 3,500. I attribute this
success partly to the intervention of the Procura
tor of the Correctional Tribunal, Herr Bernays,
who brought a sensational action against me. In
the early days of January, 1894, I had published
an article containing the following phrase, "The
plan for the canalisation of the Hardt is lying
about wretchedly in the portfolios of the Minis
try." The Public Prosecutor saw in these words
an insult to Herr von Puttkamer and opened
proceedings. The sitting was epic. The Public
Prosecutor began his speech for the prosecution

IN THE REICHSTAG 13
with these words, "Wetterle's journal is frivolous,
it violates all the rules of propriety, and it has
assumed the mission of exciting hatred between the
people and the notable men of the town, the
Government and the persons under its jurisdic
tion, the natives and the German immigrants."
He spoke for two full hours in this amiable
manner and ended by demanding a sentence of
four months' imprisonment. Preiss defended me.
He was superb in his rejoinder. . The trial ended
in an acquittal. During the sitting the court was
crowded to overflowing. The next day subscrip
tions began to flow in. My paper was launched.
However, I had not always the same success
before the courts. My judicial record is very bad :
twelve fines, ranging from 40 to 600 marks, plus
two months' imprisonment.
One of these lawsuits was extremely funny. In
the course of a controversy with a brother- jour
nalist of Colmar I had written: "Le journal X
. . . petarade et rue dans les brancards." Al
though the metaphor was not applied to a person,
the manager of the paper in question thought fit
to bring an action against me. To the huge
delight of the judges, counsel for the plaintiff
devoted his attention to the most improper jests
around the word "petarade." I pointed out to him
that Saint-Simon had written, "The Princesses

14 BEHIND THE SCENES
descended to the garden and indulged in all man
ner of petarades"; and that one could not honestly
admit that the celebrated author of the Memoires
intended to accuse those young and lively persons
of improprieties. But this did not help me in the
least. I was condemned to pay a fine of 100
francs, and one of the grounds of the judgment
solemnly set forth that, in the opinion of all gram
marians, petarade is equivalent to "une salve de
p . . ." This lesson in French was well worth the
fee I had to pay for it.
Every time that I appeared at the bar the same
difficulties of translation occurred. Public prose
cutors and judges grew pale over dictionaries in
order to prove me guilty of the blackest designs.
My counsel in turn were obliged to consult the
most learned lexicons to establish my innocence.
These philological discussions amused the gallery
immensely. I do not glory in my convictions. Nevertheless,
I am bound to point out that in the text of all the
judgments against me there was always the fol
lowing clause, "Die antideutschen Gesinnungen
des Angeklagten sind gerichtsbekannt" ("The
anti-German sentiments of the accused are no
torious"). This got me an increased penalty each
time. The judicial authorities, moreover, never
failed to extend the discussion to articles which

IN THE REICHSTAG 15
were not incriminated. All the actions brought
against me were for constructive offences.
Honest Hosemann, a Public Prosecutor whose
candour was proverbial, said to me one day, "We
guess your intentions; but you always know how
to graze the dangerous line without overstepping
it. But take care, for at the first false step we
shall not fail to catch you."
I was to make that false step in 1909. The
director of the Lycee of Colmar, Gneisse, a pas
sionate pan-Germanist pedagogue, had published
in the Strassburger Post an article in which he
extolled the foundation of a league against the
"Frenchifying" of Alsace-Lorraine. Gneisse was
the most grotesque personage one can imagine.
Hansi has immortalised him in several of his cele
brated caricatures. A controversy sprang up
between the pedant and myself. Gneisse was
brutal; I replied to him jestingly. One of my
articles I adorned with a portrait of my adversary,
drawn by Hansi's masterly hand. Now, it hap
pened that one day a young collegian, the son of
one of my friends, came to see me at my office.
Gneisse's portrait was lying on my desk. The
boy asked me for it in order to give it to his
father. He was, however, rather imprudent in
showing it to a few of his fellow pupils.
For once they had me. Gneisse demanded a

16 BEHIND THE SCENES
prosecution. The Secretary of State tried to
make the pedant understand that he was about
to cover himself with immortal ridicule. But in
vain. The Public Prosecutor's office had to inter
vene. Nobody can imagine what that trial was.
My counsel Preiss and . Blumenthal, riddled the
director with epigrams. It was pitiful to look at
the wretched man whilst he strove, with the most
imperturbable seriousness, to ward off the shafts
of the defence. The president had several times
to threaten to clear the court, so noisily did the
public which had crowded there give vent to its
amusement. The case came on twice. Hansi had been con
demned in July to pay a fine of 600 marks. As I
was, in that month, protected by my Parliamen
tary immunity, they could not bring me to trial
until the recess of the two Chambers in September.
So Gneisse was obliged to submit twice to those
painful sittings.
Nevertheless, the court sentenced me to two
months' imprisonment and refused my application
for a cross-action. The offence had been very
insignificant, but the sentence appeared to every
one, even to the immigrants, to be very severe.
The day after my condemnation the German
officials entreated me to ask for a pardon. During
three months, I was the object of the most earnest

IN THE REICHSTAG 17
solicitations on the part of the authorities — and
even the members of the Ministry — who feared the
effects of any condemnation on pubhc opinion.
To put an end to them, I gave myself up as a
prisoner on December 15th, at Colmar.
A few days before I had had an interview with
Herr Petri, the Under-Secretary of State at the
Ministry of Justice, and had asked him, as a
matter of curiosity, if I should be allowed to read
and write in prison. The next day the Govern
mental organs reported that, fearing the severi
ties of the penitentiary regime, I had humbly
solicited the Minister's kindness. Thus the Ger
mans always remain faithful to themselves. They
are obliged to besmirch the reputation of their ad
versaries when they cannot subdue them.
I immediately sent a letter to Herr Petri,
declaring my firm intention to be treated as a
common prisoner. At the Ministry they were very
worried by this new prank. The Reichstag was
sitting at the time and the Landesausschuss was
about to meet. They feared that questions would
be asked.
On entering the prison, the governor had me
immediately examined by a doctor. The inter
view was comic in the extreme.
"You suffer from stomach troubles," said Dr.
Steinmetz to me, peremptorily.

18 BEHIND THE SCENES
"Not at all," I replied. "I'm as solid as the
Pont-Neuf." "But look at that swelling at the bottom of your
ribs." "I'm rather stout."
"It's a certain sign of difficult digestion, arising
from dilatation of the stomach. The restaurant
keeper who usually supplies the prison will bring
your meals. Moreover, manual work would de
press you. You will therefore be free to follow
your habitual occupations. But as your stay here
will be of short duration, it is needless to ask you
to put on the usual prison dress."
That very evening they brought me a second
mattress again by doctor's orders. I was, in ad
dition, authorised to receive three newspapers
regularly. The two months passed all the more rapidly
because my lawyers and a few other friends came
almost daily to bring me news of the outside
world. It was thus that I heard that at Strass
burg, at the opening of Parliament, my colleagues
had placed a magnificent bouquet on my seat, and
that Gneisse had once more served as a Turk's
head for speakers during the Budget debate.
My term of imprisonment came to an end on
February 15th, 1910, at 5.45. At four o'clock my
warder came to tell me that a huge crowd was

IN THE REICHSTAG 19
assembling in front of the prison. When I came
out five thousand people were there to cheer me.
A little girl, dressed in white, presented me with
a bouquet. A carriage was waiting for me, and
by my side Hansi, my friend Bourson, and my
colleague Haegy took their seats. During half
an hour the horses had to proceed at walking-pace
through a crowd which grew denser as we ap
proached the Rue Roesselmann, where I lived
with my mother. At our flat, where every piece
of furniture was covered with flowers, M. Rene
Henry presented me with a superb statue of
Jeanne d'Arc, on behalf of a group of French
Deputies and journalists; whilst Hansi, in the
name of a group of inhabitants of Colmar, handed
me a bronze representing the patron saint of
Alsace-Lorraine, St. Odile. The people of Strass
burg had sent a bust, "L'Alsacienne," by Ringel
d'Hlzach. The next day the entire Press of the country
filled its columns with a narrative of this spon
taneous demonstration. The anger of the pan-
Germans passed all bounds when, having gone to
Paris a few days later, I received at my hotel a
delegation of students of the Sorbonne, who came
to present me with Larche's "Guerrier."
My imprisonment had another and a much more
appreciable result. The Journdl de Colmar had

20 „ BEHIND THE SCENES
been a daily for several months past, but it still
appeared in a small size. My friends gave me a
great surprise by buying the machines necessary
for transforming it into a sheet the size of Le
Matin. So henceforth I had a more serious fight
ing organ at my disposal. On coming out of
prison I changed the name of my journal, which
became Le Nouvelliste dJ Alsace-Lorraine.
What the Government had feared had come
to pass. My conviction had turned against my
persecutors. Let me recall an incident a propos of this which
made rather a stir. The wife of the Statthalter,
Countess Wedel, a most amiable Swedish lady
who had always striven to establish cordial re
lations between her husband and the Members of
Parliament, used to give every year a soiree,
at which she distributed, in the form of objets de
cotillon, little souvenirs to her guests. Those who
were unable to be present at this evening party
received these little presents by post. Now, the
Countess thought fit to send me in that way, whilst
I was in prison, a silver match-box bearing her
monogram. The gift wag accompanied by a very
friendly letter, in French, containing the following
words, "If you would feel transitory satisfaction,
take revenge; but if a durable satisfaction, par
don." Now, one of my lawyers, having come to

IN THE REICHSTAG 2-1
visit me in prison, saw the Countess's souvenir
and read her letter. He committed the impru
dence of whispering a word about it to a German
colleague, whom he thought was an honest man.
This fellow, however, could think of nothing
better than to send a fiery article to a pan-German
sheet, to protest against "this scandal." For sev
eral weeks Countess Wedel served as a target for
the fury of all the scribbling patriots on the other
side of the Rhine. It would have required very
little more to make this stupid affair the cause
of a Ministerial crisis.
Of my journalistic life, which, however, was
very fertile in little incidents, I will say but a few
more words. I was taking my holidays in Switzer
land at the beginning of July, 1914, when I
received from M. Helmer, Hansi's lawyer, a letter
containing the following words, "Take care! The
action against you for high treason is still pending.
The French translator to the Leipzig court told
me last week that he was instructed by the tribunal
to translate into German the lectures which you
delivered last year in France. You would do
well, therefore, to put your papers in a safe place,
if you have not already done so. At the close of
the parliamentary session they will certainly make
a domiciliary visit at your house."
I returned to Colmar immediately. I am very

22 BEHIND THE SCENES
conservative by temperament. My correspon
dence for twenty years, which will enable me to
reconstitute in part the political history of Alsace-
Lorraine during that long and interesting period,
was heaped up in a large box which at all cost
had to be sheltered from German curiosity, for
among the letters thus collected together there
were enough to compromise a hundred of my
friends. I had already been the victim of a manifest
theft on the part of a German employee at the
printing-office of my paper, this man having ap
propriated the bag in which I kept the thousand to
fifteen hundred letters I had received from Alsace-
Lorraine and France on leaving prison. The
odious fellow found, however, in this voluminous
correspondence only one really interesting docu
ment, a visiting card bearing a few amiable
words from Baron von Bulach. Needless to say,
he hastened to communicate it to the pan-German
organs, thus causing the greatest annoyance to
the Secretary of State.
On July 15th (note the date) I handed the box
containing my letters to a friend, who undertook
to send them abroad. Now, at the goods-office
they asked him to inscribe on the way-bill the fol
lowing mention, "Unpolitischen Inhalts" ("The
contents are not political.") Nothing can prove

IN THE REICHSTAG 23
more clearly that, already at that time, Germany
foresaw approaching international complications.
My friend, in ignorance of the contents of the box,
filled up the form, and. the package was able to
cross the frontier before the opening of hostilities.
When, on July 31st, the German authorities
made a search at the offices of the NouvelUste and
at my private residence, they found, therefore,
that the bird had flown. I had prepared for them
a single but rather disagreeable surprise, On my
desk, placed well in view, was the correspondence
which I had exchanged during preceding years
with Baron von Bulach. I doubt whether^ on
reading it, they experienced an unmixed pleasure.

24 BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAPTER II
Arrival at Berlin
Ignace Spiess — The Reichstag Palace — The Speech from
the Throne — The Galas — Cook's Agency — How they
Work at the Reichstag — Double Mandates — At Home.
It was in November, 1898, that, accompanied
by my newly elected colleagues of Alsace-Lor
raine, I went to Berlin for the first time. Com
munications were still difficult in those days. We
took sixteen hours to cover the 800 kilometres
which separated our provinces from the Prussian
capital, and the carriages placed at our disposal
were inconvenient and badly warmed. Besides,
it was necessary to change trains at Frankfort.
Berlin is a very ugly city. A few hours suffice
to make a tour of inspection of its buildings, al
most all modern ones. The old part has no cachet.
As to the new, it is built in that odious Munich
style which will be the eternal disgrace of German
architects. It was the excellent M. Spiess, member for
Schlestadt, who did us the honours of Berlin.
He had been elected two years before under cir-

IN THE REICHSTAG 25
cumstances which are worthy of being related. In
1893, when "the peace of the cemeteries" — to use
the energetic expression of Jacques Preiss —
reigned in Alsace-Lorraine, the Kreisdirektor
Poehhnann of Schlestadt had offered himself as
a candidate in his own parliamentary division.
Never had official pressure been displayed with
so much impudence. The German Sub-Prefect
had made use of Governmental subventions and
secret funds with unprecedented audacity. One
instance, taken from a hundred. In a certain
commune where the parsonage was in a bad state
of repair, the official candidate had, on his own
authority, ordered that they should immediately
proceed with repairs which before he had consid
ered inopportune. Not having obtained the ma
jority in the Commune, the Kreisdirektor had the
work stopped immediately, and for several weeks
the parsonage was without a roof.
The election of the Sub-Prefect was contested.
The Reichstag, which itself proceeds, with wise
slowness, to examine the mandates, took three
years to complete the inquiry. At last, in 1896,
Poehlniann was invalidated.
Meanwhile, M. Spiess, Mayor of Schlestadt,
who was reproached with not having exerted him
self sufficiently on behalf of Poehlmann's candi
dature, had been removed by Secretary of State

26 BEHIND THE SCENES
von Puttkamer. This wholly unjustifiable meas
ure gave rise to stirring debates during the sit
tings of the Landesausschuss (the Alsace-Lor
raine Parliament) , of which M. Spiess was a mem
ber, and aroused violent reaction throughout the
entire country.
So the electors of Schlestadt offered their for
mer mayor the candidature of the vacant seat in
the Reichstag. Never did an election give rise
to struggles so Homeric. The agents of the Gov
ernment seized the Alsatian candidate's mani
festos, prohibited or disturbed his public meet
ings, terrified the population in the villages, and
took down innumerable names and addresses with
a view to prosecutions. Nevertheless, M. Spiess
scored a signal victory. His election marked an
evolution in the public opinion of the annexed
provinces and prepared the Governmental defeat
of 1898.
Ignace Spiess was an honest and conscientious
merchant, as hardworking as he was intelligent.
He had for a long time belonged to the group of
those moderate men who, placing themselves on
the ground of accomplished facts, strove, whilst
carefully safeguarding their dignity, to collabo
rate with the Government in the economic restora
tion of the country. During long years he had
been, under the direction of Canon Winterer, the

IN THE REICHSTAG 27
veteran of our political struggles, one of the
most attentively listened to, and also one of the
most courageous of the orators of the Delegation.
He did not take up an attitude of systematic op
position; but, every time a question of principle
arose in the Strassburg Parliament, he stood up
boldly to von Puttkamer, who was the most hot
headed, most brutal, and also most despised of all
the Ministers of Alsace-Lorraine.
When dismissed by the Secretary of State, M.
Spiess considered it no longer his duty to observe
the same reserve as formerly and became one of
the most determined of the leaders of the national
opposition. Once more the Government's surly
policy caused a semi-Moderate to join the ranks
of the ultra-Nationalists. How many times, dur
ing my long connection with the two Parliaments,
have I not followed, with amused eye, the evolu
tion of my colleagues, who formerly were consid
ered, wrongly or rightly, to have exchanged their
independence for a mess of pottage in the form
of Governmental favours. All those rallies, dis
couraged by the Ministry's violence, came back
to us, one after the other, expressing their disgust
in the same stereotyped phrase :
"No, really, there is no means of living with
those brutes."
The most striking conversion was that of M.

28 BEHIND THE SCENES
Gunzert, one of the rare Alsatians who, imme
diately after the annexation, entered the German
Administration. At first Gunzert was well re
warded for this betrayal; he obtained rapid pro
motion in the magistracy, numerous decorations,
an official candidature; nothing was withheld
from the turncoat. And yet the hour of conver
sion struck for him as for the others. He had
accepted the presidency of a committee for the
raising of a monument to the memory of the
French soldiers who fell for their country on the
Giesberg, near Wissemburg. That was enough
to make him suspect to the Government and to
subject him to the vilest insults. With a tardy
return of energy, M. Gunzert recovered the con
victions of his youth, and he also, one day, ex
claimed in my presence :
"It is impossible to be on good terms with
those brutes."
Ignace Spiess did not have so long a path to
follow to become once more a militant National
ist. On entering the Reichstag, he took his place
in the then very small group of Deputies for
Alsace-Lorraine and became the most staunch
political friend of Jacques Preiss.
Spiess acted as our introducer to the Imperial
Parliament. The members of the Reichstag enter
their palace by a reserved door opening on to

IN THE REICHSTAG 29
the Thiergarten. Spiess pointed out to us the
extravagant symbol which decorated it. Above the
door was a powerful stone lion, rampant, holding
under its left paw a ball on which one could read
the words "Elsass-Lothringen." The representa
tives of our country had several times asked that
this humiliating symbol of our servitude should
be removed. But they had not succeeded in effect
ing this.
Prince von Arenberg was more fortunate in
1906 when he had removed from the Reichstag a
huge picture which for several weeks was hung
above the President's seat. This canvas repre
sented William I, Bismarck, and Moltke on
horseback on the Sedan battlefield. In the fore
ground a German soldier was stretching a French
flag under the hoofs of the old Emperor's war-
horse. This stupid and odious provocation was a
source of constant joy to the Prussian Conserva
tives. Prince von Arenberg, a member of the
Centre, considered, however, that the insult to
conquered France was too indecent, so he suc
ceeded in getting the picture relegated to the room
— far from the eyes of the public — where the Bud
get Committee sat.
The Reichstag Palace is an enormous cube of
freestone, flanked by four massive towers. Wil
liam II himself, whose artistic taste, however, is

30 BEHIND THE SCENES
very little developed, declared one day that the
gilded cupola which surmounts the centre of the
building was "the height of bad taste" ("der
Gipfel der Geschmacklosigkeit") .
Decorative motifs abound inside the building.
There is a bewildering excess of wainscoting, bas-
reliefs, statues, frescoes, and stained-glass win
dows. Now, you may search in vain amidst all
this accumulation of ornaments for a single em
blem which reveals to the visitor the destination
of the palace. Paintings and sculpture glorify
exclusively the Hohenzollern dynasty, when they
do not represent subjects which, in that place,
are grotesque in the extreme. What, indeed, are
those huge stained-glass windows which remind
us of the gallant adventures of Romeo and Juliet,
and the tragic destiny of Othello and Desdemona,
doing there?
Above the door where the members enter, an
other window of colossal dimensions depicts a
thickset Germania, around whom the twenty-five
German states, symbolised by children in carnival
dress, dance in a ring. The stout red-faced girl
holds in her hands the two ends of a ribbon, dis
playing the colours of the Empire, which winds
round the waists of all the dancers. One cannot
imagine a more foolish or uglier allegory. The
German, who, however, in practical life, proves

IN THE REICHSTAG 31
he possesses a most positive mind, always discon
certs, one by these outbursts of sickly sentimental
ism. Thus, the guides who show foreigners over
the Reichstag Palace every morning never miss
pointing out to them that the building is con
structed of stone and wood from all the Confed
erate States — a fresh material symbol of impe
rial unity.
Bismarck was right in saying, "The Latins
were civilised ten centuries before we were, and
we have never caught up to them."
The interior arrangement of the Reichstag Pal
ace is, however, luxurious and relatively conve
nient. There are lobbies abundantly supplied
with armchairs; a big gallery over 96 yards long,
where the members can take walking exercise;
bath-rooms, a gymnasium with complicated appa
ratus, a well-stocked library, a reading-room with
400 German and foreign papers, spacious writing-
rooms, a number of small reception rooms, private
offices with telephones and couches, hair-dressing
saloon, a pharmacy, and a restaurant. Every
thing has been foreseen to enable the representa
tives of the German people to find in the build
ing itself all the pleasures of life.
On the other hand, the acoustic quality of the
assembly hall is very defective. It is true that
the public of the galleries alone complain. At

32 BEHIND THE SCENES
the Reichstag no attention whatever is paid to
speeches delivered at the tribune. Rare are the
speakers who retain the attention of their col
leagues. The others speak in front of empty
benches, or in the midst of the deafening noise
of private conversations.
I was present at the opening sitting of the
Reichstag. The ceremony took place in the
White Room at the Imperial Palace. We were
shown up to it by a back staircase. All those of
my colleagues who were officers of the reserve
had put on their uniforms. The throne — a very
modest one — was situated opposite us, raised a
couple of steps from the ground, between two
windows. It was surmounted by a canopy. On
the left stood the members of the Federal Coun
cil, in gold embroidered coats, covered with deco
rations. On the right were the generals in full-
dress uniform. Along the wall the Palace Guard,
in uniforms dating back to the days of Frederick,
presented arms, whilst the officers, with little
three-cornered hats on their heads, held berib-
boned shepherds' crooks.
I have described elsewhere the grotesque pro
cession which precedes the Emperor on the occa
sion of these official ceremonies — a procession with
heralds-at-arms wearing embroidered dalmaticas,
a swarm of pages in knee breeches and pink doub-

IN THE REICHSTAG 33
lets, and generals carrying on cushions the in
signia of imperial dignity.
The Emperor, who wore a scarlet cloak over
his white cuirassier's uniform, saluted ceremoni
ously as he passed by. He was followed by the
princes of his family. The Crown Prince took
his place on the first step of the throne, to the
right of his father. Then William II, after put
ting on his helmet, which up to then he had car
ried under his arm, took the Crown speech from
the Chancellor's hands and began to read it with
a nasal twang. He laid stress on the principal
phrases by roaring a little louder and casting an
authoritative glance at the assembly. Whereupon
the members of the Reichstag showed their ap
probation by loud cries, in chorus, of "Sehr rich-
tig! Sehr richtig"— "Hear! Hear!"
When the reading of the speech was over, the
Chancellor declared the session of the Reichstag
open, and whilst the audience vociferated the
"Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!" required by Court eti
quette, the Imperial procession formed anew and
disappeared. The ceremony was as paltry as it
was amusing. The members had the look of little
boys on whom a severe schoolmaster had imposed
an imposition and who had no right to resist. In
fact, the Reichstag cannot send the Emperor an
address in reply to the Speech from the Throne.

34 BEHIND THE SCENES
Curiosity led me to attend this theatrical cere
mony. I was not to be caught again.
I had also the opportunity, in those days, of
attending a gala performance at the Berlin Opera
House. The Marshal of the Court, according to
custom, had sent a certain number of invitations
fo the Reichstag. There were only forty of us
there that day, so one of the tickets was handed
to me. I gave way to temptation. Once more
it was necessary to wear a special costume : dress-
coat, knee breeches, silk stockings, and buckled
shoes. Fortunately, there are Court outfitters
in Berlin who hire out these costumes by the day
for 20 to 25 marks. I must confess that I felt
some disgust when pulling on those breeches, the
freshness of which, through having clothed so
many unknown legs, had departed. Neverthe
less, in the evening, in company with some thirty
colleagues, I occupied modestly an orchestra stall,
whilst in the boxes and dress circles the diplo
matists, high officials, and general officers posed
in their shining uniforms, side by side with their
wives and daughters, all of whom, in low-necked
dresses, had donned their finest jewellery. The
scene was marvellous, and yet I was to carry
away a mournful impression of that evening. In
deed, as soon as the Emperor and his guests ar
rived the whole house rose. Silently, the men

IN THE REICHSTAG 35
bent themselves double and the women made a
deep bow; after which, on the curtain rising, a
chilly silence reigned duringthe whole perform
ance. There was no applause except when the
Sovereign gave the signal; no private conversa
tion, even in a low voice. Moreover, no one fol
lowed the actors' play. All eyes — in which one
could read veritable devotion — were directed to
wards the Imperial box. After two hours of that
torture I was glad tp find myself once more under
the Lindens, in the midst of the crowd, which,
notwithstanding the cold, was standing there gaz
ing at the wall "behind which something was hap
pening." One does not go twice to so tedious a spectacle.
In November, 1898, at the time of my second
journey to Berlin, I found myself sitting in the
railway carriage opposite a young and distin
guished-looking man. I had a long conversation
with him. He was a representative of Cook's
Agency. He was about to accept delivery of
the Emperor William and his suite for the voyage
of that Sovereign to Constantinople and through
Palestine. The agency had agreed, for the sum
of three millions, on the following route: Venice,
Constantinople, Jerusalem, Trieste. Tips were
included in this fixed price. They are economical
at the Prussian Court.

36 BEHIND THE SCENES
This voyage to the East was, however, to have
its epilogue in the Reichstag. The Chancellor's
travelling expenses had not been set down in the
contract with the English agency, consequently
the Imperial Parliament was asked to pay an
additional 60,000 marks. The majority, with very
bad grace, consented to do so.
It is not generally known that the German
Emperor has no civil list and does not receive an
allowance for expenses as head of the Germanic
Confederation. William II has, therefore, to be,
content with his Prussian civil list of 17,000,000
marks and the revenues from his private fortune,
about which we possess only incomplete particu
lars. The King of Prussia owns about 205,000
acres of land and 300 residences in Germany. It
is also known that. William II started a porce
lain manufactory for the output of which there
is great competition among the courtiers and
seekers after titles and decorations. He is like
wise an important shareholder in the Krupp
works, whilst some people claim that he has in
vested a considerable capital in British and Amer
ican enterprises.
However that may be, the Court remains faith
ful to the old Prussian traditions of economy —
I was almost going to say of niggardliness. The
presents and tips which the Emperor distributes

IN THE REICHSTAG 37
in the course of his travels are lamentably mean.
On several occasions the Chancellor attempted
to obtain from the Reichstag certain frais de
representation for the "needy" Sovereign, but a
deaf ear was always turned to these demands. To
indemnify one whose duty it is to be the first
among "equals" would, in the opinion of the Im
perial Parliament, do injury to the federal char
acter of the Empire.
Parties in the Reichstag are organised in a
military manner. When the leaders of the
groups have concluded, amidst the mystery of
secret deliberations, advantageous Compromises,
everyone knows beforehand what the speakers,
delegated by the various fractions of the assem
bly, will say at the tribune. "Bestellete Arbeit"
("Bespoke work") say the initiated, who take no
further interest in speeches which are intended
solely for the electors.
As it is the leaders who, almost Without con
trol, do all the parliamentary work, who choose
the spokesmen of their parties and submit their
declarations to a rigorous preliminary censor
ship, the members who have not the honour of
belonging to the directing committee of their
group do not even take the trouble to study the
Budget or read the various Bills. They vote to
order. Nothing further is asked of them, and

88 BEHIND THE SCENES
they easily resign themselves to this obscure rdle.
I do not believe there exists a Parliament in
the world which does less personal work than the
Reichstag. The reports of the committees, which
are merely short, dry analyses of the proceedings,
are almost always drawn up by Government sec
retaries and are simply signed by the chairmen.
At the time I entered the Reichstag, the num
ber of those who attended was almost always
ridiculously small. Out of 398 members, barely
60 attended the sittings. How many times col
leagues, belonging to a big committee and there
fore obliged to remain in Berlin, have expressed
their surprise at my assiduity.
"Whatever are you doing here?" they used to
ask me. "Wait until you're telegraphed for."
Indeed, every time there was to be an important
vote, the Director of the Reichstag, advised by
the party leaders, sent urgent telegrams in all
directions to call together the impenitent strikers.
It thus happened that three or four times a year
the Parliament was full. In ordinary times the
lobbies were empty. I recollect that at the time
when the reform of the Artisans' Insurance Bill
was voted there were exactly seven members in
the House. The President took a pleasure, after
each vote, by sitting down or standing up, in

IN THE REICHSTAG 89
noting that the clause had been "adopted by a
big majority."
Voting by delegation is unknown at the Reichs
tag. Only the votes of the members present are
counted. A single member may, it is true, point
out that there is not a quorum (half plus one of
the elected), and in that case the sitting must be
suspended. But it hardly ever happens that re
course is had to this expedient to adjourn a vote.
The reason for this is very simple. As soon as
the parties have decided on their line of conduct,
they know mathematically how many votes will
be assured for the various clauses of the Bill and
the amendments proposed. As each Bill, as else
where, is read three times, and as, hertceforth, in
case of dispute, the party leaders have the re
source, before the final vote, of nu-oilising the
whole of their military forces, every surprise is
eliminated. That is so true that, when by chance those pres
ent gave a majority to the Opposition, the Oppo
sition itself proposed the adjournment of the
vote until the true majority was sufficiently rep
resented. The absent ones would never have par
doned a disagreeable and costly journey to Ber
lin simply to exercise their right of vote, by
standing up or sitting down, for a few seconds.
I say "costly journey" advisedly. In fact, un-

40 BEHIND THE SCENES
til 1906 the members of the Reichstag received
no parliamentary indemnity. Moreover, there
was no refreshment-room at the Reichstag, but
a restaurant where all the refreshments had to be
paid for. Finally, the members enjoyed travel
ling on the railways only between their residence
and Berlin, and that only during the sessions.
One can understand that the number of those
present was always reduced to a minimum.
In order to recruit candidates, the parties were
obhged to offer seats in the Reichstag to mem
bers of particular Parliaments who received an
indemnity. Still, these holders of double man
dates interested themselves more in the legisla
tion of the States than in that of the Empire.
Only the Prussian Deputies, whose Landtag sat
at Berlin, could easily attend the sittings of the
Reichstag. Every time an important vote was
to take place they were summoned by telephone.
This circumstance explains the preponderating
influence the Prussians had been able to secure
in the Imperial Parliament.
However that may be, the representatives of
other States came but rarely to Berlin, because
in so doing they suffered a double loss: expense
without any compensation, and the loss of their
daily indemnity in their particular Parliament.
Prince von Biilow, after the stormy debates

IN THE REICHSTAG 41
on the increase of direct taxes, devised a means
of improving the attendance of members of the
Reichstag by according them a parliamentary in
demnity and at the same time, still for the dura
tion of the sessions, a pass on all the railways of
the Empire.
The Germans, however, have so complicated a
mentality that the most judicious reforms as
sume a strange character in their country. The
indemnity was fixed at a maximum of 3,000 marks
(£150) . They divided it into monthly sums: 200
marks for the month of November, 300 for De
cember, 400 for January, 500 for February, 600
for March, and 1,000 for the whole period after
Easter. From these monthly allowances there were de
ductions of 20 marks from those whose names were
not to be found on the attendance lists, or who
failed to take part in a nominal vote.
Why all these absurd formalities? The reason
for them was very simple. The shorter the ses
sions were, the larger the number of presence-
counters. The Chancellor, therefore, aranged for
all the important Bills to be brought on for dis
cussion after Easter. As at that time the mem
bers' chief anxiety was to return home as quickly
as possible, whilst receiving the larger part ,of

42 BEHIND THE SCENES
their indemnity, the discussion was inevitably
shortened. The pass on the railways of the Empire also
served as a bribe. When the end of the session
drew near the Chancellor informed the members
—in this case without any beating about the bush
—that if, before leaving, they voted such and such
a Bill to which the Government attached special
importance, the Reichstag would not be closed but
merely adjourned, which meant that during the
holidays the members could continue to travel at
the expense of the public. Rarely did the major
ity resist this tempting prospect; and it was thus
that the Imperial Parliament was adjourned
three years in succession, which constituted a
record. Another advantage, moreover, arose from this
adjournment. The closure is supposed in Ger
many to entail the annulling of all the work of
the permanent or special committees. The reform
of the Civil Code, which was thus constantly be
gun again ab ovo, not only after each legislature,
but also after each session, occupied the Reichstag
for more than twenty successive years.
Prince von Biilow, who was the great promoter
of pan-Germanism, saw clearly the advantages
which the Central Government would derive from
the granting of a parliamentary indemnity to

IN THE REICHSTAG 43
members of the Reichstag. What he specially
aimed at was a diminution of the number of dou
ble mandates. Indeed, Deputies who belonged to
two Parliaments were quite naturally particular
ists, by virtue of the principle which has been em
bodied in its most original form in the German
proverb — "The shirt is nearer the body than the
coat." Every time that a conflict over legal capa
city took place between the Empire and the
States, the holders of double mandates, fearing
to alienate the electors of their particular district,
energetically opposed Prussian attempts at
monopolisation. Thus arose perpetual and increasing difficul
ties for Imperialist militarism, which was anxious,
above all, to converge all the energies of the na
tion towards the great war of conquests.
From the day on which the members of the
Reichstag were remunerated, and especially on
which, thanks to an ingenious system of stop
pages of payment, those who belonged to two
Parliaments received an indemnity taken in the
lump which was smaller than that of their col
leagues who sat in only one legislative assembly,
the parties, who no longer found themselves faced
with a candidates' strike, devoted their attention
to suppressing double mandates as much as pos
sible.

44 BEHIND THE SCENES
The effects expected from this measure were
not long in becoming apparent. The number of
attendances rose progressively (in recent years
the quorum was always exceeded), and the mem
bers, sitting solely in the Reichstag, freed them
selves from particularist cares, to devote them
selves heart and soul to the interests of the Em
pire. Prince von Biilow had attained his end.
The counterpoise of the policy of the States had
disappeared. Henceforth nothing could arrest
the Imperial Parliament on the path of aggressive
Imperialism. But let us return to the Parliament of before
1906. The members led there, associated with a
few loyal ones, most of them attached to big com
mittees, a life of ease. The four to five dozen
Deputies, lost in the huge building, enjoyed there
all the pleasures of life. A very numerous staff
surrounded them with a thousand engaging atten
tions. The sofas at the end of the assembly hall
were not crowded, so that during wearisome
speeches one could quietly have a nap there. I
have seen my colleagues stretch out at full length
in order to sleep the better.
In that respect, I must also point out that there
is an absolute disregard as to dress in the Imperial
Parliament. The members of the Executive, like
the Chancellor, the Secretaries of State, and the

IN THE REICHSTAG 45
Plenipotentiaries of the Federal Council, wear
fancy jackets. Herr Scheidemann, the Socialist
leader who has been so much talked about during
the present war, alone departed from this rule
during the few weeks he was Vice-President.
Never was there a more impeccable frock-coat or
a more carefully curled beard seen in the Reichs
tag than on the days when the "austere" Social
ist occupied the presidential chair.
Scheidemann was not the only Socialist, how
ever, who took particular care over his toilet.
Sudekum was regarded in the Imperial Parlia
ment as "the arbiter of fashion," and, indeed, his
brilhant waistcoats and sumptuous ties were the
admiration and aroused the envy of Conservative
members themselves.

46 BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAPTER III
The Parties of the Reichstag
The Centre and the Alsatians — Eugen Richter and his
Friends — The Volkspartei — Hasse and Bassermann —
The Conservative — Catholics of the Centre — Martin
Spahn — Hertling, Groeber, and Schaedler — Particular
ism and Imperialism.
On our arrival in Berlin we were the object of
interested attentions on the part of the members
of the Centre and the Democrats, who sought to
enlist us in their groups, at least as "guests"
(Hospitanten) . These good apostles thought
that they would thus kill two birds with one stone :
first of all lead us to renounce our national oppo
sition, and, secondly, assure for their parties a
stronger representation on committees! Indeed,
seats on the committees are divided among the
parties in accordance with their numerical impor
tance. But there was no reason in those days for our
yielding to those earnest requests. In fact, the
parties of the Left and Centre had not yet evolved
towards Imperialism. The representatives of the
oppressed nationalities — Poles, Danes, and Al-

IN THE REICHSTAG 47
sace-Lorrainers — still found solid support among
themselves every time that they presented their
grievances before the Reichstag. The Centre,
which had barely just freed itself from the
clutches of the "Kulturkampf," apparently re
mained faithful to the course given it by Wind
horst, Reichensperger, and Mallinckrot. If a few
signs of weakness were already to be observed in
the case of Lieber and Spahn, the Groebers,
Schaedlers, and Heims had not abdicated in the
presence of the pan-Germanism of Hasse. As
to the Democratic Party, it was closely grouped
around Eugen Richter, whose ultra-republican
ism showed no signs of weakening.
Let us stop a moment to examine the interest
ing physiognomy of the last-named politician.
Tall and stout, with a coarse-featured face en
framed by a shaggy beard, and eyes that were
almost always lowered as though to enable .his
mind to reflect the better, Eugen Richter had
nothing of the appearance of a combatant. And
yet few men exercised over Parliament an action
so powerful as his. When the President granted
him leave to speak, all the members gathered
around him, for he never left his seat to mount
the tribune. In a weak falsetto voice, the shrill
sounds of which, however, carried far, the eloquent
Democrat, without having recourse to any ora-

48 BEHIND THE SCENES
torical artifice, without a gesture, and without
modulating his intonations, always produced, by
the sole force of his arguments and the formid
able action of his biting irony, the most profound
impression on his listeners.
Bismarck, who could not stand contradiction,
used to leave the assembly as soon as Richter
began to speak. The older members of the Reichs
tag had retained the amusing recollection of these
distracted flights of the Iron Chancellor.
Few debaters had the courage to try their
strength with the terrible polemist. Kardorf and
Kanitz, like Bebel and Singer, only reluctantly
accepted the struggle with the man who always
succeeded in having the laugh on his side.
Richter, in a celebrated pamphlet, had formerly
greatly weakened Bebel's credit by describing in
detail the events which would happen in Germany
on the morrow of the great social revolution, which
the Socialist leader had imprudently fixed for
1898. Bebel never recovered from that straight
blow. The "great Eugen' s" two lieutenants — Muller-
Sagan and Lentzmann — vigorously seconded
him. The former, more diplomatic by tempera
ment, was later, when he succeeded Richter, to
prepare the evolution of his party. The latter,

IN THE REICHSTAG 49
more intransigent, did not flinch before the most
revolutionary formulas.
I was in his society a great deal. He deplored
the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine and under
stood quite well our resistance to German enter
prise. He it was who, one day, in the semicircle of
the Reichstag, said to me in a loud and audible
voice, as, with an angry gesture, he indicated the
benches of the Extreme Left:
"I've come to wish that Germany was beaten
on the battlefield, so that we could be rid of those
fellows there."
Lentzmann, who was of apoplectic tempera
ment, died before his time, as happened, more
over, to Miiller-Sagan. The presidency of the
Democratic group became very effeminate when
occupied by those weaklings Muller-Meiningen
and Wiemer, who were made by Biilow and Beth
mann-Hollweg to crouch and cringe before mili
tarism. Muller-Meiningen is one of the most grotesque
figures in the Reichstag. He reminds one of a
mongrel which snaps and snarls furiously around
the legs of all the passers-by. With his nose in
the air, as though he was ever on the hunt, he
seems to be always on the look-out for an oppor
tunity of quarrelling. His speciality is a stupid

50 BEHIND THE SCENES
anti-clericalism, which is not confined to great
problems of political life but digresses amidst the
twaddle of door-keepers. Muller-Meiningen, in
deed, lingers behind to ferret about in the dust
bins of vestries and to sift the most unknown
devotional manuals in order to find there easy
subjects for coarse jokes. I have never been able
to understand how it is that this little Bavarian
judge has been able to acquire the influence he
possesses in the Imperial Parliament. Prince von
Biilow, who made the political fortune of Muller-
Meiningen because he knew he was ready for all
sorts of dirty work, is too intelligent not to despise
this vain and insupportable person.
The holder of the other big part in the Demo
cratic Party, stout Wiemer, is more serious, al
though still more infatuated with himself. I knew
him when he was a mere shorthand-writer in the
Reichstag. He possesses a powerful voice, of
which he makes an ill use. His pretentious
speeches have nevertheless no action on Parlia
ment. On the other hand, Naumann is one of the most
attentively listened to of the orators of the assem
bly. His huge body is surmounted by a very
small head, and one is quite surprised to hear a
thin voice, the intonations of which, however, are
skilfully made the most of, come from so power-

IN THE REICHSTAG 51
ful a chest. Naumann is not destitute of a certain
nobility of character, and one can feel a certain
communicative emotion vibrating in his very real
eloquence. Formerly a Protestant pastor, he
specially applied himself to the study of the social
problem, and in order to understand it better
spent a, few years in a manufactory as a simple
workman. He was regarded before the war as
an abstract theorist with his head in the clouds.
His very elaborate speeches are distinguished in
deed by imprecision of thought, although their
form is always perfect.
Who would have thought that this sociological
visionary would one day transform himself into a
practical and positive realist? Now, it was Nau
mann who, in the early months of the war, con
ceived that plan of a Mitteleuropa (Central Eu
rope) which, even in the case of the defeat of
Germany, would present enormous advantages
for the Central Empires and would deprive the
Allies of all the fruits of their victory.
The Popular Party, which was neighbourly
with the Democrats of Eugen Richter, was a
group of local interest. It was composed exclu
sively of Wurtembergers. Small in number, it
had a certain influence in the Reichstag, thanks
to the ability of its leaders, Payer and the broth
ers Haussmann. The latter, who were twins, re-

52 BEHIND THE SCENES
Sembled each other so much that we were always
mixing them up. They had the same height, the
same stoutness, the same face adorned by the
same drooping moustache, the same shrill voice,
the same tragic gestures. They professed the
most advanced ideas. Their eloquence, a little
too solemn and redundant, was not lacking in
manner and corrosiveness.
Conrad Haussmann, now the only survivor, has
gone over with arms and baggage to the pan-Ger
man camp. Payer was to precede him in his con
centration to the Right. This terrible little man,
who, thanks to his incontestable oratorical skill,
possessed great influence both in the Wurtemberg
Parliament and at the Reichstag, was never able
to get rid of his Swabian accent. That gave a
special attraction to his speeches, the matter and
form of which were nevertheless impeccable. From
the day on which Payer, elected President of the
Lower Chamber of his native place, was led to
frequent the Court circles of Stuttgart, he gave
points to Prussian Conservatives themselves in
the expression of his imperialistic patriotism.
How many of these ex-Socialists I have seen
transform themselves since 1901! Nowhere bet
ter than in the Reichstag could one observe the
progress of pan-Germanism. In 1899 I heard
almost the entire House indignantly protest

IN THE REICHSTAG 53
against the annexationist theories of the National-
Liberal Hasse. In 1911 the Left itself had
adopted these theories, and, if it showed a certain
reserve in defending them publicly, it did not
support the Chancellor, who practically prepared
their application, with less energy.
The first president of the pan-Germanist
League, Hasse, — a tall, stout man with a vulgar
face enframed by a red beard, — was a visionary.
He spoke with great volubility, in a thick voice,
and his eyes lost as in a dream. The most violent
interruptions, the most offensive sarcasms and
laughter, did not arrest the flow of his ecstatic
eloquence. To him "Greater Germany" was a
dogma, and he anathematised all heretics, Min
isters and Deputies, who took upon themselves
to contradict him. We Alsace-Lorrainers had no
more redoubtable enemy in the Reichstag.
Bassermann was Hasse's most docile pupil.
When I entered the Reichstag the head of the
National-Liberal Party was still a somewhat un
important personage. A little lawyer of Baden,
with no great ability, he had had the good for
tune to marry a very wealthy Jewess, which en
abled him to devote himself entirely to public life.
Few politicians have had to suffer so many insults
as Bassermann. A wandering candidate, he has
never succeeded in getting elected twice in succes-

54 BEHIND THE SCENES
sion in the same constituency. But never has he
lost faith in his star.
Bassermann is a handsome man. Alas! he
knows it and takes advantage of it. Too well-
groomed, outrageously pomaded and perfumed,
he struts about like a young god in the lobbies
of the Reichstag, which do not seem broad enough
for the graces which he complacently displays.
One can guess, when he speaks to a colleague, that
he imagines he is greatly honouring his interlocu
tor and is conscious of his magnanimity. Like
the peacock, he spreads out his tail as soon as he
is looked at. Everything in Bassermann indi
cates pride — his attitude, his gestures, and his
affected speech.
Governmental without restriction, because he
openly aspires to the highest posts, the leader of
the National-Liberals was always the most assidu
ous guest at the Wilhelmstrasse Palace. All the
Chancellors have counted him among their most
zealous courtiers. When, in Parliament, ques
tions of foreign policy arose and Bassermann
unfolded his ever voluminous papers, the same
disdainful reflection was made on all benches,
"It's the Chancellor who is speaking." Everyone
knew, indeed, that Bassermann's speech had been
composed in the Government offices and that the

IN THE REICHSTAG 55
highest official of the Empire was putting into
the mouth of his voluntary colleague what he
himself could not say. It would be very inter
esting, to-day, to examine all the pre-war speeches
of this puppet, in order to discover in them the
secret thought of the Imperial Government.
I have retained an amusing recollection of a
short conversation I had with Bassermann the
day after Prince von Bulow's fall. To appreciate
it thoroughly, it is necessary to explain that this
ambitious man had ever been one of the bitterest
adversaries of the Catholic Centre.
One morning I happened to be alone in the
writing-room when Bassermann entered.
"Good morning, Mr. Chancellor," said I.
Bassermann, glancing rapidly around, made
sure that we were alone. Then, with the most
charming of smiles, he replied:
"Are you speaking to me? Anyway, you can
let your friends of the Centre know that if I be
come Chancellor I shall be in perfect agreement
with them."
Since the beginning of the war, Bassermann,
who was one of its principal artisans, wore the
uniform of an officer of the reserve, and it was
especially in Belgium that, between two parlia
mentary sessions, he exercised his ability as an

56 BEHIND THE SCENES
ultra-patriotic administrator.1 Do not let us show
the least surprise. All the foreign nationalities
of the Empire always found in this man, who was
as mediocre as he was vain, a determined adver
sary. I knew at the Reichstag the Conservatives von
Heydebrandt, Count Kanitz, and Kardorff . The
first-named — quite a little man, thin and restless
— has always exercised an enormous influence on
the decisions of his party. He was laughingly
called "the uncrowned King of Prussia," and, in
fact, he dictated his orders to the Chancellor.
The Prussian Conservative, the Junker, is in
no way, as is imagined abroad, a supple politician,
submissive and governmental by nature. The
country gentry of the Elbe form a very exclusive
caste, one whose rigid traditions will suffer no
tutelage, even though royal. They have a State
doctrine to which, amidst all changes in public
hfe, they remain immovably faithful. As they
get themselves paid for their fidelity to the throne
by all sort of privileges, and occupy all the avenues
to power, they have forgotten obedience, and
speak as masters in a State which has become
their property.
Ministerial posts, provincial governorships,
1 Bassermann died almost suddenly in July, 1917. He
was sixty-two years of age.

IN THE REICHSTAG 57
lord-lieutenancies, and the High Command in the
Army are theirs by right. When Miquel and
Dernburg were appointed, one a Prussian Min
ister, the other a Secretary of State of the Em
pire, the elevation of these commoners to high
posts reserved for the caste provoked an explo
sion of anger in Conservative circles. In the
regiments of the Guard, as in certain cavalry
regiments, all the officers belong to Junker fam
ilies. Hence an effective power of which they
often make an ill use.
The Conservatives can, if need be, be the fiercest
of opponents in the Prussian Landtag and in
the Reichstag. Chancellors fear them and almost
always capitulate before their unreasonable de
mands. Prince von Biilow was their victim, whilst
Bethmann-Hollweg was constantly obliged to
buy their malevolent neutrality by concessions of
principle. At the time of the Canal Affair,
Junker officials were seen to throw themselves
heart and soul into the anti-governmental agita
tion, and in this they were openly encouraged by
a few friendly Ministers. The King of Prussia
reigns; Herr von Heydebrandt governs.
This oligarchy has always prevented the great
kingdom of the north from democratising its
State institutions. How many times the advisers
of the Prussian Crown have, during the last cen-

58 BEHIND THE SCENES
tury and under pressure of events, promised re
forms which the Junkers have always brought to
nothing I
Between 1898 and 1905 the star of the Con
servatives grew dim at the Reichstag. It was to
assume all its brilliance during the years that fol
lowed, when all parties in Parliament, after the
Algeciras Affair, saw that the Great War, desired
by the Right and the military party, was certain
to break out soon.
Count Kanitz, one of the best collaborators of
von Heydebrandt, spoke chiefly on agrarian ques
tions. He was fiercely protectionist. This tall
and emaciated man with sympathetic face pos
sessed the temperament of an apostle and could
retain the ear of the Reichstag; whilst his col
league Kardorff, of the party of Independent
Conservatives, always provoked uproars when, in
his tremulous voice, he attacked the Extreme Left.
This ex-officer, in a duel with a student, von Ket
teler (later one of the most celebrated bishops of
Prussia), had lost his nose, and wore a silver one,
the paint of which used often to peel off, which
did not contribute to make his physiognomy agree
able. In his personal relations with his colleagues
he was as amiably smiling as he was churlish in
the tribune.
This contrast between the worldly courtesy and

IN THE REICHSTAG 59
the political attitude of the Conservatives is one
of the most disconcerting features not only for
the foreigner, but also for the Germans them
selves. Highly educated men, and polite some
times to the point of obsequiousness, the Junkers
cut a very good figure in international drawing-
rooms, where alas! the most cordial welcome is
reserved for them. That does not prevent them
following, everywhere and always, with inflexible
tenacity, their policy of universal domination, and
from employing the most questionable means of
triumphing. A Prussian Conservative will have
no scruples in taking part in espionage, and of
course under cover of his family and friendly re
lations. Prussia dominating the world and his
caste dominating Prussia — that is his constant and
almost sole aim.
I was on the best personal terms with the mem
bers of the Right, who, however, every time an
Alsace-Lorraine speaker rose in the Reichstag,
interrupted his speech with churlish and prepos
terous exclamations. I chiefly came into contact
with Oertel, that simple journalist who, through
his ability as writer and speaker, made a select
position for himself in the ranks of the Junkers.
Oertel was the type of the jovial politician and
good fellow. Unconscionably stout, he still fur
ther exaggerated, through dilettantism, the enor-

60 BEHIND THE SCENES
mous prominence of his stomach by wearing a
white waistcoat. When in the tribune he disarmed
his adversaries by a running fire of often very
successful jokes. He also wrote subtle, spirited
and passionate articles which delighted the Right.
In his private conversation he became the sceptical
politician, who, in the political comedy, found
more reasons for smiling than motives for getting
angry. Intercourse with him was all the more
agreeable as he was thoroughly acquainted with
all the petty scandal of the Reichstag, and he
detailed it, apparently without malice and with
many an indulgent smile, before those who had
the good luck to inspire confidence and friendship
in him. His political friends were not safe from
his practical jokes.
In 1898 the Catholic Centre had an exceptional
position in the Reichstag. According as it gave
the weight of its ninety-eight votes to the Left
or the Right, it displaced majorities as it liked.
Its managing committee, of which Lieber was the
prime mover, even pleaded this pretext as an ex
cuse for its evolution towards governmentalism.
Can a party which bears such heavy responsibil
ities as regards the Empire isolate itself with the
extreme opposition? Moreover, was it not nec
essary fo repair the ruins of the "Kulturkampf"?
And was not the best means of doing that to get

IN THE REICHSTAG 61
paid for the services rendered the Chancellor by
particular concessions?
Lieber, who, with his colleague Spahn, was the
initiator of this policy of abdication, was a lawyer
by profession. Slim and small-statured, the pos
sessor of a long, flowing beard, and affected in
manner, he was not lacking in ability, though he
wrongly imagined he had the qualities of a great
diplomatist. He spoke with closed eyes, without
a gesture, putting his interminable phrases, in
that nonsensical language at which the Germans
themselves scoff by calling it Professorendeutsch
(professorial German), into the most precise or
der. His evident anxiety was to bring himself
into prominence before he tried to convince his
adversaries. At first, the leader of the Centre tried to treat
the representatives of Alsace-Lorraine with a cer
tain disdain. But when he encountered an unex
pected resistance on our part he showed greater
suppleness and was more accessible. Still, we
had some difficulty as long as he held a preponder
ant position in the Reichstag in getting our prop
ositions regarding the abolition of the dictator
ship discussed. Lieber, in agreement with the
Chancellor, always found an empty pretext for
adjourning a debate which would have forced his
group to censure the Government.

62 BEHIND THE SCENES
Spahn seconded him in these attempts to stifle
our demands. Poor Spahn! An ambitious magis
trate, given to cringing and begging, he was gov
ernmental by temperament. Bad luck led him to
join an opposition party and he could never get
over it. When this tall man of insignificant ap
pearance was obliged to contradict the Chancellor
or his collaborators, there were always tears in his
shrill voice. His prudent words and roundabout
phrases revealed his geat embarrassment. His
friends called him skilful, but I always considered
he was chiefly timid — nay, more, a coward.
Spahn's top hat was the subject of constant
jokes in the Reichstag. As soon as the vice-pres
ident of the Centre put it on, it was known that
he had been or was about to go to the Wilhelm-
strasse, to propose to the Chancellor one of those
compromises which German parliamentarians
called, in their far from elegant language, a
Kuhhandel — a cow-bargain. The sacrifice of
principles in exchange for personal advantages
or concessions favourable to the party — it was
in such profitable but far from honourable oper
ations as that that Spahn employed all his mod
est ability. The independents of the Centre (and
at the close of the last century they were still
numerous) were furious at what they considered
were acts of treason, but the impenitent negotia-

IN THE REICHSTAG 63
tor always ended, by using threats and supplica
tions, in dominating them.
Spahn was afflicted by a son who was destined
to cause him the greatest trouble. Martin was
intended for a professorial career, and aspired
to a chair in history at a university. Outrage
ously ambitious, he had long sought his way. He
first of all exhausted himself in mediocre publi
cations, in which, in an inflated style, without
either order or method, he lavished his second
hand erudition.
Not wishing to offend anyone, this ludicrous
fellow spent his time in hypocritically comment
ing on his former writings, in order to reply to
justified criticisms. If need be, he affirmed with
the utmost effrontery that the phrases with which
he was confronted signified the opposite of what
had been read in them. A lie in human form,
Martin Spahn always deceived his friends and
foes alike.
Now, because he called himself a Catholic,
whilst sacrificing all his beliefs to his ambition,
and because, on the other hand, his books had
nothing original in them save their intentional
vagueness, the young historian could not succeed
in obtaining the title of professor. No university
would have anything to do with him.
One fine morning, the vice-president of the

64 BEHIND THE SCENES
Centre put on his best frock-coat and top hat and
went to call upon Prince von Biilow, who, as
though by chance, needed the support of the
Centre in an important question. When Spahn
left the Chancellor's office his face was wreathed
in smiles. A few days later an Imperial decree
officially appointed Martin Spahn Professor of
History at the University of Strassburg. This
intervention of the Sovereign was contrary to all
tradition, since no professor can be received in
a German university without the consent of his
future colleagues. Throughout the whole of in
tellectual Germany there was a formidable rising
in arms against the Chancellor and his inspirer.
Personal at first, the discussion soon became theo
retical. The Voraussetzungslosigkheit — freedom
from prejudice — of the savants caused torrents of
ink and saliva to flow. "Martin Spahn had been
appointed to Strassburg because he was a Cath
olic. Science had no knowledge and must not
have any knowledge of these irrelevant consid
erations," repeated all the members of the univer
sities and their friends in chorus. The debate be
came so envenomed that the Chancellor was mo
mentarily threatened with a crisis.
Martin Spahn and his father allowed the storm
to subside. The former, installed in his chair,
hastened, moreover, to give pledges to his oppo-

IN THE REICHSTAG 65
nents by publishing pamphlets on the subject of
official instruction and on Pope Leo XIII, which
created a scandal in the Catholic world. The
odious 'fellow began his double game again in
order to assure the favours of all parties. At the
same time he inaugurated in Alsace that hypo
critical and cunning policy which made him the
plague of the Nationalists. Never did an intriguer
of low degree place at the service of the narrow
est Germanism such knavery and so great a lack
of scruples. Constantly treated with scorn, the
ignoble personage immediately resumed his un
derhand work in the hope of succeeding even
then in imposing himself on our political organ
isations. In 1906 he found a German constituency will
ing to offer him a seat. But hardly had he been
elected to the Reichstag than he was excluded
from the group of the Centre, of which his father
was vice-president. Once more he tried, by means
of denials and platitudes, to force the door closed
against him. But he succeeded no better than
he had done in Alsace-Lorraine in playing the
important pohtical part he had dreamed of.
Spahn senior had a colleague at the Reichstag
who later became his unfortunate competitor for
the presidency of the Centre, Baron von Hertling,
Professor of Philosophy at the University of

66 BEHIND THE SCENES
Munich. Another ambitious man, but how much
more intelligent, more subtle, and more skilful
than he. Hertling succeeded somewhat late in
attaining an important position, since for the past
six years he has been Prime Minister in Bavaria.
This little man, who is an admirable speaker, had
succeeded, at the time he belonged to the Opposi
tion, in getting himself entrusted with several dip
lomatic missions to the Vatican. In Rome he was
held in great esteem, although he always placed
his German patriotism before his religious con
victions. He it was who, in the last year of the
pontificate of Leo XIII, obtained from the Pope,
weakened by age and illness, the establishment
at Strassburg of that Catholic theological faculty
which was chiefly to serve the purpose of German
ising our young clergy.
Hertling's speeches were always much appre
ciated in the Reichstag. Their academic form,
however, badly concealed the lack of courage of
an orator who chiefly sought to spare the Govern
ment. With Lieber and Spahn, Hertling was
one of the principal artisans of the rally of the
Centre to pan-Germanism.1 These three pontiffs
of the intermediary period were to prepare the
way for Erzberger.
1 Baron von Hertling has just succeeded Herr Michaelis
as Chancellor of the Empire.

IN THE REICHSTAG 67
Groeber was and has remained the type of the
honest man. A judge in Wurtemberg, he was
very young when he entered parliamentary life,
of which he is now the veteran. There is a strik
ing contrast between his huge width of back and
the almost childish naivete of his mind. Though
of superior intelligence and inflexible character,
good old Groeber has never understood anything
of the intrigues of which he was the victim, and
of which he has become the unconscious accom
plice. Spahn and Hertling have employed him on
the most suspicious business. With the most per
fect good faith, he has followed where it pleased
them to lead him. He has served as a screen for
the over-skilful leaders of the Centre. His great
conscientiousness disguised their questionable en
terprises. I always had a feeling of embarrass
ment and pity when I heard Groeber, in his strong
bass voice, uphold the crafty pohcy of his friends.
He put such conviction and spirit into it.
Many a time have I walked with the Wurtem
berg parliamentarian along the alleys of the
Thiergarten. He was grieved by the persecutions
inflicted upon us and found severe words to con
demn them. And yet, as soon as the diplomatists
of his party had turned him round, he condemned
with equal sincerity from the tribune our spirit
of opposition.

68 BEHIND THE SCENES
Groeber never consented to marriage. He fre
quented the religious services assiduously, and the
appearance of this tall bearded man edified all
the faithful. For a long time an ultra-particu-
larist, he passed, after 1911, into the army of the
ultra-patriots. I knew another turncoat who expended less
time and reflection in abjuring his brilhant past.
The Abbe Schaedler, a Bavarian, who had the
face and to a certain extent the ability of Mira
beau, had made a brilliant debut in his country as
a speaker at public meetings. In those days Prus
sia had no more redoubtable adversary. He came
several times to Alsace-Lorraine on lecturing
tours, which had a great success, because this Ger
man could say in almost revolutionary language
what we could express only in prudent and meas
ured terms.
Schaedler entered the Reichstag when very
young. There he immediately attained consider
able influence in his party. How great was my
surprise when I saw the fierce demagogue trans
form himself progressively into a downright sup
porter of the Government! Backbiters alleged
that Schaedler, who meanwhile had obtained an
important canonry, had dreams of placing a mitre
on his head. But he died before obtaining this

IN THE REICHSTAG 69
reward for his abdication, which was none the
less complete.
What disillusions of the same kind we Deputies
for Alsace-Lorraine registered during the years
preceding the war! Hitze, Heim, Gerstenberger
— so many members of the Centre, who formerly
seemed to have the highest comprehension and
keenest sympathy for our claims, — so many poli
ticians, either weak or crafty, who were to betray
us! I fear to weary the reader by broadly sketch
ing these portraits of German politicians. Never
theless, it seems to me that nothing can better
enable us to understand the transformation which
the imperialism of Prince von Bulow and his
successor had brought about in the mentahty of
parliamentarians of all parties. People abroad
were unable to follow that rapid evolution. Thence
arose the stupid confidence in which the rivals
of the Empire hved. In France they had still
faith in the democracy of Richter, in the social
ism of old Liebknecht, and in the strong opposi
tion of Windhorst, whereas Muller-Meiningen,
Frank, and Spahn had completely overthrown
the traditions of the national representation of
Germany. However that may be, in spite of certain indi
vidual failings, the Reichstag of 1898 was, as re-

70 BEHIND THE SCENES
gards the Centre and the Left, that is to say the
majority, relatively Liberal. Was it particular
ist in the same measure? Yes, but the groups
which watched jealously over the autonomy of the
States did so for different reasons.
In fact the Prussian Conservatives, in some
other ways downright reactionaries, were above all
anxious to preserve the great kingdom of the north
from the contagion of southern democracy. They
hoped, doubtless, that the Prussian hegemony
would daily spread more and more over the
States, but they feared that, as a result, the broad
er and more popular institutions of the small king
doms would exercise an irresistible attraction over
the middle classes and the people of their country.
They protested, therefore, with the greatest en
ergy against the attempts made by the Reichstag
to take part in the retrograde policy of Prussia.
One was always certain of their help when one
sought to limit the competence of the Empire.
In conjunction with the Centre and the Demo
crats, the Conservatives formed therefore a par
ticularist coalition in which the autonomy of the
States benefited until the time when the adoption
by all parties of the pan-German programme
swept away all the old combinations.
On the other hand, the National-Liberals made
no mystery of their centralising tendencies, and

IN THE REICHSTAG 7l
the group of the Extreme Left seconded them
vigorously in that campaign.
The Socialists, especially at the time when they
still believed in the drawing near of the "great
evening," strove by every means in their power
to destroy the federal character of the Empire.
Bebel one day, in one of his fits of brutal frank
ness, made the following declaration to me :
"It was easy for you others, Frenchmen, to
bring about your revolution. You had only one
head to cut off. With us we should be obliged to
cut off twenty-five."
Nothing is truer. In the southern States the
dynasties are very popular. The King of Bavaria,
for instance, who walks about alone in the streets
of Munich and converses familiarly with the most
humble passers-by, has nothing to fear from the
personal hostility of his subjects. Moreover, as
in the neighbouring States (Wurtemberg, Grand
Duchy of Baden, Hesse), the Bavarian Lower
Chamber is elected by universal and secret suf
frage. The southerners are unacquainted with
the regime of privileged castes. There is there
fore no reason for, and no possibility of, the party
of the Extreme Left springing upon these coun
tries a revolution, which, on the other hand, would
be perfectly justified in Prussia and in Saxony.
It resulted from this, that at the time when the

72 BEHIND THE SCENES
Socialists were still frankly Republican they must
have wished to unify Germany, that is to say first
of all to limit and then to suppress the autonomy
of the States, in order to succeed more easily and
at a single stroke in changing the form of the
central government. It was necessary to place
all the German crowns on a single head, to use
Bebel's image, in order to be able to make them
fall together by a single blow of the axe.
It is needless to add that the Socialists of to-day
have abandoned these intransigent tactics. Since
Frank was received at the Court of the Grand
Duke of Baden and the Bavarian companions
voted the private budget of the kingdom, the Uni-
tarists formed but a group without influence in
the Reichstag.

IN THE REICHSTAG 78

CHAPTER IV
Pen Portraits of Parliamentarians
The Three Great Leaders of Doctrinal Socialism — Figures
in the Second Rank — The Polish Group — Miiller-Fulda
— Comrades — Parliamentary Barriers — Count von Bal-
lestrem — Official Fetes. ,
The forty members of the Extreme Left whom
I found at Berlin in 1898 were still by an over
whelming majority revolutionaries. Bebel was
then at the height of his ability. An ex- joiner,
the most brilliant leader of Germanic Socialism
had, by obstinate work, acquired a varied knowl
edge, and as, moreover, he possessed all the natur
al gifts of an orator, he exercised a veritable dic
tatorship over his party. The faithful guardian
of the Marxist doctrine, practically all the articles
of which he sacrificed later, on becoming rich and
eccentric, he overwhelmed with his anathemas all
those who dared to contradict him. At that time
Bernstein, already a Possibihst, passed for a
heretic and was treated with the utmost severity
at the party congresses.
Bebel was a small-statured man, thin, sinewy,

/

74 BEHIND THE SCENES
and with a leonine face. He appeared to be in
a state of perpetual ebullition. His passionate
speech and cutting gestures still further accentu
ated the perpetually aggressive character of his
appearance. Standing in the tribune with out
stretched arm and his threatening finger pro
longed by the pencil which he always held in his
hand, he delivered against middle-class society
speeches as interminable as they were passionate,
and, although his shrill voice was in no way agree
able, he put such vigour into what he was saying
that he was always listened to with sustained in
terest. Quite different was Liebknecht senior, the
father of the Deputy who has been so much talked
about since the beginning of the war. A former
student of Protestant theology, he had retained
a modest attitude, a mild voice, and unctuous
gestures. The contrast between the violence of
his remarks and the almost bland voice in which
he uttered them was striking. He was indeed
the patriarch blessing a doctrine of which Bebel
was determined to remain the demagogue.
At that time we occupied, with the Poles, in
the gallery of the Extreme Left, the seats placed
above those of the Socialists. Liebknecht, who
had taken a liking to me, used often to come and
have a conversation. He had the temperament

IN THE REICHSTAG 75
of an apostle. I have retained an excellent recol
lection of our always courteous discussions.
I will record but two characteristic phrases of
the old Socialist.
"I have lost all religious faith; but if I became
a believer again, I should go the whole hog and
become a Catholic."
"Here, in the Reichstag, there are but two
classes of members who are sincerely sympathetic
towards and active on behalf of the working-
classes: the Socialists and the priests."
Singer, the third leader of the group of the
Extreme Left, was quite a different man. This
stout personage, with coarse, vulgar features and
thick voice, was chiefly distinguished for his smil
ing scepticism. An ex-manufacturer, to whom
some people — doubtless wrongly — ascribed sav
age behaviour towards his young work-girls, he
had joined somewhat late a party which knew
how to profit largely, if not by his eloquence, at
least by his marvellous ability as an organiser.
As president of the group, the diplomatist
Singer calmed all storms, and always found for
mulas for compromises between Doctrinaires and
Revisionists. One never knew to which side his
preference leaned. Perhaps he himself did not
know. None the less, by that very, fact he ren
dered signal services tp his party, in which rival-

76 BEHIND THE SCENES
ries were so numerous and discussions so bitter.
In private intercourse Singer was very agree
able. There was no trace in him of the fiery
polemist whose conversation always retains an ag
gressive note. He it was who, every time nego
tiations with the other leaders of the group were
necessary, undertook that delicate task. Singer,
who was a Jew, had a very pronounced Semitic
face. Bernstein, also a Jew, was more delicate in
appearance and in nature. His accentuated but
very delicate features, his little, malicious eyes
and studied speech advantageously distinguished
him from the vulgar agitators who encumbered
his party. He often related to me the vicissitudes
of his adventurous life, his condemnations and
long exile, in the course of which he spent several
months at the house of an honest Italian priest.
From his obligatory travels abroad he had re
turned a polyglot and a Possibihst. In 1898 his
colleagues regarded him with suspicion on account
of his moderate opinions. At each congress of
the party the ultras demanded his expulsion. To
day Bernstein is considered to be one of the most
dangerous revolutionaries of German Socialism.
He has, however, changed nothing, neither in his
programme nor in his tactics, which were always
the same. Nothing can inform us better regard-

IN THE REICHSTAG 77
ing the complete evolution of the Parliamentary
group of the Extreme Left.
To complete my little portrait gallery, I shall
say a few more words about three men who at
that time played" an important part in the Reichs
tag: Rickert, Stoecker, and Arendt.
The first named — "Handsome Henry" as he
was called in the lobbies — had long vied with Eu
gen Richter for the leadership of the Democratic
Party. Not having succeeded in eliminating his
rival, he broke away from him with ten of his
colleagues, who formed a new group that was
almost as governmental as the National Liberals.
Little attention was paid to the speeches of this
vain but characterless man.
Stoecker, the former Court preacher, had a
more accentuated physiognomy. Very particu
lar about his personal appearance and an admir
able speaker, the chief of the anti-Semitic group
was one of the most attentively listened to of the
orators of the Reichstag. An amiable colleague,
he had many personal friends in the Reichstag,
not only in the Conservative groups* with which
he lived on neighbourly terms, but also in the
other parliamentary groups. I have had many
political and religious discussions with him. He
excelled in them, both on account of the wealth
of his knowledge and because of the pleasing

78 BEHIND THE SCENES
courtesy of his argumentation. Stoecker was,
however, an almost ferocious Imperialist and had
sworn against the Jews a hatred of disconcerting
intensity. On this subject, I would point out that the
anti-Semitism of the Prussian Conservatives knew
no compromise. In the eyes of the Junker, the
Jew is and remains the most redoubtable enemy.
I have always been struck by the extreme violence
of these religious prejudices. The Socialist
Party was the only one which counted Jews
among its members.
Although only recently converted to Christi
anity, the joyous Arendt had, however, succeeded
in entering the group of the Independent Con
servatives, of which he was one of the most fluent
speakers. This man, who had the appearance of
a tobacco jar perched on two match-stalks and
surmounted by a deformed lemon, had a specialty.
A convinced bimetallist, he treated us every year
to two or three interminable speeches, in order to
convince us of the necessity of reclassing silver
among the metals with invariable conventional
value. Arendt, who was constantly the target for the
gibes of the parties of the Left, provoked these
retorts by his impudently aggressive eloquence.
The unfortunate man had formerly had a strange

IN THE REICHSTAG 79
misadventure. After having married a bad-dis-
positioned dressmaker, he decided to divorce her.
Now, the day after the judgment, his wife stood
at the members' exit and distributed to them little
business cards bearing the words, "Mme. Arendt
recommends her dressmaking establishment to the
wives of her husband's colleagues." Fortunately
for the Conservative memher, ridicule does not
yet kill in Germany.
The Polish members were our neighbours in
1898. They continued to be when, after the for
midable increase in the number of Socialist seats,
they made us emigrate, whilst still reserving for
us "the topmost benches," next to the Extreme
Right. They were all gentlemen and agreeable
in intercourse, but how unstable and unrehable!
I have seen them pass from the most revolu
tionary opposition to the most tangled govern-
mentalism, and that from one moment to another,
without apparent motive. One day they would
threaten to place bombs under the Chancellor's
chair; the next they would enthusiastically vote
in favour of reactionary laws. The prelate
Jadzewski, one of their most respected leaders,
was constantly exhibiting these disconcerting
changes of humour. One could never absolutely
count on the assistance of these inconstant fel
lows. My friend Count Bratowo-Mielzienski,

80 BEHIND THE SCENES
who since then was the central figure in a cele
brated trial, after having surprised his wife in
criminal conversation with one of his nephews and
killed the guilty couple with gunshots, was quite
as changeable. Sometimes he complacently re
lated that the Emperor formerly called him "his
little grenadier." Then he would display the most
anti-dynastic feelings. One day he confided to
me that, having been received in a military club
in the South of France, he had boxed the ears of
an officer who was making pacifist remarks. Now
I learn that, though relieved from military serv
ice on account of his age, he voluntarily enlisted
at the beginning of the war in order to fight
against the Allies whom he pretended he loved
so much.
Another and more painful surprise was reserved
for me. The president of the Pohsh group,
Prince Radziwill, was by far the most respectable
figure in the Imperial Parliament. When this
fine old man mounted the tribune to speak of
the misfortunes of his country it seemed as though
the whole of martyred Poland was weeping in his
touching words. Even the Right respected a sor
row so nobly expressed. Alas! we have recently
learnt from the newspapers that Prince Radziwill
has consented to become the Prime Minister of
the new Kingdom of Poland, and that he has

IN THE REICHSTAG 81
expressed his deepest gratitude to persecuting
Prussia for the creation of this phantom State.
Clearly, that ought not to prevent us from
continuing to show all our sympathy towards a
nation that has suffered so much and so long. But
how long a time it will take the Poles, at least
the governing classes, to recover themselves, to
think and to act logically and in a manly way!
Yet the Prussian Government always reserved
its bitterest hatred for the natives of the "Eastern
Marches." It would take too long to recall here
the odious measures of which the Poles were the
victims: the 700 million marks which the Landtag
voted for the "colonisation" of Posen by German
peasants, the interdiction to use the Polish lan
guage in the schools and for correspondence, the
forbidding of Poles to construct houses on their
lands, and, finally, dispossession. It was Prince
von Biilow, that so-called gentleman, whose ap
parent courtesy ill conceals his savage chauvinism,
who, despite the opposition of Prussian Conserva
tives, had voted by Parliament that Bill of dis
possession for national suspicion which represents
the most abominable wrong against the rights of
property in modern times.
The fourth Chancellor of the Empire — we can
not too often repeat the fact — was, of all German
statesmen, the one who, from the national point

82 BEHIND THE SCENES
of view, showed the least scruple. Has he not
cynically confessed in his Memoirs that he knew
how to make use of the martyrdom of Poland to
attach, by bonds of complicity, Muscovite Tsar-
ism to German Imperialism?
"It is. precisely these Polish affairs," he writes,
"which have often united Prussia and Russia. In
the Polish danger there is a warning to the two
Empires not to fall out, but to regard their com
mon defence against the ambitious aspirations of
the Poles as a bridge on which Prussia and Rus
sia can always meet."
Prussian duplicity in its entirety is revealed in
these phrases, written but a few months before
the war. And to think that Prince Radziwill and
his colleagues in the Reichstag had read Prince
von Bulow's declarations when they made their
last and most surprising evolution!
How right Korfantry was not to wish to be
confounded with these puppets! The young Po
lish Deputy (he belonged to the Reichstag during
only two legislatures) passed for a revolutionary.
This tall, fair young man with ungainly carriage
and sonorous voice was, however, very moderate
in his opinions. On the other hand, he knew noth
ing of Jadzewski's clever bargainings and contra
dictory attitudes, and he expressed his surprise
and disgust at them in stinging terms. Thence his

IN THE REICHSTAG 83
troubles. He was wrongly accused of being sym
pathetic towards Socialism. He was simply de
fending the interests of a nation with whose suf
ferings he was acquainted against the weakness
of a nobility whose egoism shocked him.
I have yet to speak of a man who, although his
name has rarely appeared in the newspapers, was
one of the prime movers of the Imperial Parlia
ment — Muller-Fulda, a member of the Centre.
This tall, skinny fellow, with sparse beard and
mocking eye, had the appearance of a faun. The
son of a small manufacturer, he went abroad when
fifteen years of age to study the manufacturing
processes and commercial methods of the English
and French. When quite young, he then became
the manager of a carpet factory and rapidly grew
rich. When the electors of Fulda sent him to
the Reichstag they made a particularly happy
choice, for Muller was an accomplished man of
business. Politics interested him, however, only as a
puppet-show. Like a child, he amused himself
in the lobbies with combinations, which he en
deavoured to complicate for the simple pleasure
of doing so. Only economic questions retained
his attention. For the others he had nothing save
mischievous smiles.
On my arrival in Berlin, I had put up at the

84 BEHIND THE SCENES
Central Hotel. Miiller-Fulda had also made it his
headquarters. He took upon himself to see to
my Parliamentary education. I took my break
fast with him every morning; then, together, we
proceeded to the Reichstag, where we were gen
erally the first to enter the writing-room. He
applied himself to shattering my last illusions
regarding the German Parliamentary rigime.
"Above all," he said to me, "attach no impor
tance to the noisy declarations and tragic gestures
of speakers on the occasion of the first reading of
a Bill. All the work of the Reichstag is done
behind the scenes. Our party leaders are augurs
who have learnt to look at each other in public
assembly without laughing; but, surrounded by
the mystery of their private confabs, they are
hand and glove together. I know it because I'm
one of them. Everything is compromise with us.
We set up a noisy opposition only to obtain privi
leges. The Chancellor plays upon his winnings
with parties which are quarrelling over his fa
vours, and with leaders who are always ready
to sell themselves. If you are wise, you Alsace-
Lorrainers, you will obtain everything you want.
Be awkward in public, but know how to fix a price
afterwards for your assistance. And, above all,
don't be simpletons. The Reichstag is composed
of three dozen skilful and clever men and three

IN THE REICHSTAG 85
hundred and fifty idiots, who are indifferent to
the progress of business. Our leaders endeavour
to surround themselves only with mediocrities, in
order to be sure of having no rivals. The fewer
members there are in Berlin, the happier they
are, since that enables them to devote themselves
to their little manoeuvres far from all control. All
are in continuous relations with the Wilhelm-
strasse, which knows their ambitions and how to
play with them skilfully. People abroad believe
that we possess a national representation. But
we have only a handful of operetta conspirators,
whom an enlightened stage-manager directs as he
thinks fit. With us, such big words as ministerial
responsibility, liberty, and democracy have no
meaning. Heydebrandt fiercely mounts guard
over Conservative privileges. Bassermann and
Spahn envy him and would have their share of
the cake. Richter and Bebel are listened to; but
nobody, not even the simple soldiers of their party,
follows them when they try to provoke reaction
in the masses, and they are too intelligent not to
see it. We are a nation of valets and slaves,
whose mind hasjbeen prepared for all forms of
servitude by intellectuals, domesticated and above
all greedy for honours and distinctions. Every
thing is foolish verbosity in our Parliamentary
struggles. Don't listen to speeches, which will

86 BEHIND THE SCENES
make you believe there is a conscious and deter
mined opposition. Rather observe the secret
meetings of the party leaders among themselves
and with the collaborators of the Chancellor. It's
there that the practical work is done."
Miiller-Fulda was right. After having freely
insulted each other from the tribune, Heyde
brandt, Bassermann, Spahn, Hertling, and all the
other holders of leading parts in Parliament as
sembled in the committee-rooms, or walked in
friendly intercourse about the lobbies, and from
these long and mysterious conversations there al
most always sprang compromises in which the
Chancellor had collaborated. The three readings
of an important Bill always gave us the same
chromatic scale. First reading: furious declara
tions and the solemn announcement of an opposi
tion that nothing would shatter. Second read
ing: a scattered retreat on a barely modified text,
but with a few noisy counter-attacks. Third read
ing: a perfect understanding, general embracings,
reciprocal congratulations, and unanimous ap
plause. Here is one of a hundred examples. When
William II determined to devote himself heart
and soul to world-politics (it was in 1901) it was
decided to double the navy. This plan of re
modelling the fleet, which was to be terminated in

IN THE REICHSTAG 87
1916, included the creation of a squadron of big
ironclads, in addition to six guardships and com
plementary units.
When the Bill appeared, there was a tremen
dous uproar in the whole of the Press of the Centre
and Left. They were about to fall out with
England, definitely compromise the finances of
the Empire, weaken the army, and increase the
load of taxation. The English, moveover, would
never permit Germany to recover the formidable
advance they had made and which they would be
mad not to wish to maintain. And the refrain of
all these articles, in which the opponents developed
their arguments with extraordinary violence, was
always the same, "Not a pfennig for this wild
enterprise." Miiller-Fulda was as amused as a little madcap
over all this incendiary literature, and still more
so when he saw me devote serious attention to
it. One morning, whilst we were having our coffee
together, he confided in me as follows :
"My poor Wetter le, you are really too simple.
All this is but a sudden blaze. From this very
moment the Chancellor is sure of obtaining all he
wants, and even more. The compromise has been
accepted by all the bourgeois groups. Tirpitz is
sacrificing the guardships, of which he has no
need, and which he only put down on his pro-

88 BEHIND THE SCENES
gramme in order to have the air of making a
concession to the Opposition. As to the squadron
of ironclads, the complementary ships, and the
replacing of out-of-date boats by more modern and
more powerful units, they will grant him them by
an overwhelming maj ority. A formal promise has
been given him by the party leaders."
This time I thought that Miiller-Fulda was
making fun of me. With such a devil of a man
you never knew where you were. And, indeed,
it looked, at first, as though my distrust was justi
fied, for during several weeks the deafening up
roar continued in the Press, and, at the time of the
first reading of the Bill, the speakers of the Centre
and the Left seemed to wish to increase it still
further by their fiery declarations.
The second act of the comedy, the scenario of
which Muller had complacently related to me be
forehand, took place at a secret meeting of the
Budget Committee. All Parliamentary repre
sentatives may attend these secret meetings. The
chairman confines himself to recalling the fact
that they are placed on their honour to reveal
nothing of what they hear to the newspapers.
There was, therefore, a crowd in the committee*
room. I was there. The discussion was at first
harsh and violent. Admiral Tirpitz vigorously

IN THE REICHSTAG 89
defended his plan; but they hardly listened to his
technical developments. All eyes were fixed on
Prince von Biilow, then Secretary of State at the
Foreign Office, who seemed to bear on his broad
shoulders the weight of an overwhelming secret.
The proceedings had dragged out for two hours
when Prince von Biilow asked to speak. His
speech was very short. Delivered in a low, eager
voice, with intentional slowness and restrained
emotion, it may be summed up in these few words :
"Take care! — the whole future of the Empire is
at stake. The confession is hard to make, but it
must be made, in order to overcome your thought
less resistance. War with England is not only a
possibility, it is probable . . . and near. Is it
your desire, in the face of this urgent danger, that
we should be completely disarmed?"
Dead silence followed these declarations of the
prudent diplomatist. The Committee broke up.
Anxiety could be read on every face. During the
plenary sitting, the members, forming little ani
mated groups, discussed with bated breath, in the
lobbies, the terrible declarations of Prince von
Biilow. A large number of naval officers were,
as though by chance, in the large outer hall. These
were buttonholed and questioned regarding the
danger of British aggression, whereupon they

90 BEHIND THE SCENES
complacently drew wild comparisons between the
two navies.1
The next day the tone of the newspapers had
completely changed. Almost without transition,
the Press of the Centre and the Left admitted the
necessity for increasing the fighting units, and
concentrated its rearguard cannonade on the un
fortunate guardships, which Tirpitz did not want
for the time being, because the naval yards could
not have built them at the same time as the
squadron of big ironclads.
"Well," said Miiller-Fulda to me, after glanc
ing through the morning papers, "will you believe
me another time when I tell you that everything is
trickery and deceit in our parliamentary life?" '
The Bill, indeed, was passed by an overwhelm
ing majority at its second and third readings.
Tirpitz shed a crocodile tear over the six boats
refused him — and the trick was played. As to the
German people, it had been unable to make out a
thing. Once more its "representatives" had
grossly deceived it.
Ought we to be surprised at this? No; because
the atmosphere of the old Reichstag was naturally
debilitating. As I have said above, barely sixty
1 Large charts indicating the comparative strengths of all
the navies of the world were hung at this time in the lobbies
of the Reichstag. They were signed: Wilhklm I.h.

IN THE REICHSTAG 91
representatives regularly attended the sittings.
Among these initiates, who belonged to the big
committees, bonds of great intimacy had of in
evitable necessity been established. In the eyes of
these conspirators, the people no longer existed.
All their cerebral activity was used up in the
game of interfractional combinations. Once they
had crossed the threshold of their palace, they
thought only of their petty rivalries and ambitions.
Collaboration with the Chancellor and his Secre
taries of State became a sort of friendly game at
chess at a private club. They settled their ac
counts among themselves, without troubling their
heads over what the great public might think.
Besides, did this public exist? Had it an opinion
of its own? Could they not always, by the skilful
use of a Press which blindly accepted their orders,
lead it to burn to-day what it had worshipped yes
terday? In all Parliaments personal relations among
members sometimes produce strange reconcilia
tions. At Berlin these were the rule, at least
among party leaders. The pride that a little
official, like Muller-Meiningen, feels in being able
to chat familiarly with the Chancellor and the
leading officials of the Empire, the vanity that a
Spahn, of middle-class origin, experiences on be
ing treated as a friend by the least approachable

92 BEHIND THE SCENES
of the Junker caste, the fear of conflicts which in
the past always ended to the advantage of the
Government, are so many factors which do not
count in democratic countries, but which in the
Reichstag provoke the worst weaknesses.
The small fry among the representatives — those
who were fated merely to line the walls — do not
enjoy the same privileges as the chairmen and
members of the committees of the Parliamentary
fractions. They never have the honour of speak
ing either to the members of the Government or
to those of the Federal Council. They are penned
up as insignificant. I shall always recollect with
pleasure the stupefaction of these poor sheepish
beings and the indignation of their shepherds
when, during a plenary sitting, I mounted to
the podium, where the Chancellor and his collabo
rators were, to converse with them about a current
topic. My audacity seemed scandalous to them.
When I first entered the Reichstag, one of the
leaders of the Centre thought fit to make me
acquainted with the traditions of the House. "You
must have personal relations," he said, "only with
your political friends. Only the party leaders
negotiate with the Government and the members
of the other groups."
I respectfully pointed out to Herr Groeber (for
it was he who gave me that strange advice) that,

IN THE REICHSTAG 93
as I belonged to no fraction, I intended to retain
my entire liberty, and that I was determined to
make what use of it I pleased. And, indeed,
during the sixteen years I was in the Reichstag,
I frequented indifferently my colleagues of all
parties, to the great indignation of the members
of the Centre, who thought they had the right to
control the Alsace-Lorraine representatives, be
cause, in religious and social questions, our votes
generally counted with theirs.
There are barriers between the Parliamentary
groups which the party leaders can alone sur
mount. For instance, in the Reichstag restaurant
each party has its regularly appointed table. The
Conservatives and the members of the Govern
ment even occupy a special room, which custom
forbade us to enter. The table reserved for the
representatives of Alsace-Lorraine and the Poles
was between that of the National-Liberals and that
of the Centre. It was called the corner of "the
enemies of the Empire." Sometimes a member of
the Centre invited us to sit near him, but that
was always exceptional. I had thus the honour,
on several occasions, of lunching with Count von
Ballestrem, who at that time was President of
the Reichstag.
A wealthy mine-owner, belonging to the old
Silesian nobility, Count von Ballestrem was an

94 BEHIND THE SCENES
amiable man, possessed of great skill. Every
time the proceedings became stormy he knew how
to tranquillise the members' passions by a cordial
or witty intervention. He was not appreciated
at his just value until replaced by Count von Stoll-
berg-Wernigerode and later by the Democrat
Kaempf, who were both powerless to master the
assembly. Count von Ballestrem showed great ability in
the use of smiling irony. In his personal relations
with his colleagues he gave proof of the most
friendly simplicity. One day I was violently at
tacked from the tribune by a Conservative. Now,
as the cycle of speakers was closed, it was impos
sible for me to reply to my contradictor, so I went
and complained to Count von Ballestrem. He
said to me:
"Ask permission to speak, in order to make a
personal remark. Carefully prepare your reply,
which must be short. You must deliver it very
quickly and in an undertone. I shall lend an ear
to what you are saying, but shall not hear you
until your rectification is sufficiently comprehen
sible. I shall then point out that you are over
stepping the limits of a personal explanation and
shall withdraw your right of speech."
Which was done.
The President of the Reichstag had taken part

IN THE REICHSTAG 95
in the 1870 campaign as a captain on the Staff.
He liked to relate how, every time it was possible,
he had tried to diminish the sufferings of the popu
lations of the invaded countries.
Very jealous of the rare privileges of the
Reichstag, he never failed to intervene when the
officials violated them. On the occasion of the
fetes given in honour of the coming-of-age of the
Crown Prince, it was decided that' our cards as
representatives should serve as permits to pass
all barriers established by the police. Wishing to
cross the Linden, which was forbidden to the
crowd, I was nevertheless stopped near the
Brandenburg Gate by an offiicer. It was necessary
for me to make a detour, in order to find a more
obliging member of the police. The next day I
mentioned this incident to Count von Ballestrem.
He insisted on having the police officer who had
shown lack of respect to a Parliamentary repre
sentative punished, and he succeeded in doing so.
On the other hand, the President of the Reichs
tag was very attached to out-of-date formulas,
which on one occasion served him a bad turn. In
an address to the Emperor he so far forgot himself
one day as to use the words "Ich ersterbe zu
Fiissen Euerer Majestat" ("I expire at Your
Majesty's feet"). The journals of the Left pro
tested most violently against this servile phrase,

96 BEHIND THE SCENES
Whilst the satirical organs covered it with ridicule.
He was, however, a Monarchist of the old
school, and though, as the master of numerous
Polish workmen, he possessed a certain compre
hension of the complaints of the oppressed
nationahties, he was ever trying to win us over
to the cause of the Empire. Although tall and
rather massive, he was not lacking in distinction,
and he never departed from the most prepossess
ing politeness, even when the natural impetuosity
of his temperament led him into fiery discussions.
Since Simons, the Reichstag had never known so
remarkable a President.
I have just spoken of the fetes on the coming-
of-age of the Crown Prince. Several Sovereigns
were expected in Berlin on that occasion. I went
to the Anhalt railway station to witness the arrival
of the Emperor of Austria. I had been told that
the sight would be interesting. There were twenty
of us on the steps when Francis Joseph's special
train arrived. After the two Sovereigns had em
braced several times, they passed the guard of
honour in review. Now, each of the sections of
this guard was commanded by one of the young
brothers of the Prince Imperial. All the men of
the guard were giants. When the time came for
them to march past, I witnessed the most gro
tesque scene I have ever contemplated in my life,

IN THE REICHSTAG 97
The princes, each placed in front of one of the
sections, raised their stiffened legs to the height of
their chins in order to maintain the regulation dis
tance between their men and themselves. The two
Emperors, on seeing the poor lads, and especially
the ten-year-old Prince Oscar, execute a review
step so utterly ridiculous, laughed until the tears
rolled down their cheeks.
Alas! Francis Joseph no longer laughed a
few moments later when the carriages crossed at
a trot the Koniggratzerstrasse, that is to say the
street the insolent name of which recalled his
bloody defeat of 1866 and the savage spoliation
which followed. A few Berlin newspapers were
vaguely conscious of the lack of tact of which the
Prussian Government was guilty towards the
aged Emperor, and proposed that the name of the
avenue be changed; but the pan-Germans, already
very powerful at that time, were passionately op
posed to it.

98 BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAPTER V
Foreign Politics
Premonitions of War — Finlanders and Alsace-Lorrainers.
A fact that always struck me in the Reichstag
was the profound ignorance of my colleagues —
even the most intelligent — as regards foreign poli
tics. Neither Heydebrandt, nor Spahn, nor
Bassermann, nor even Richter was capable of
checking the information supplied by the Chan
cellor, or which came from the large patriotic
associations. There were no readers for the
English, French, and Italian papers, with which
the reading-room was abundantly supplied. Only
the Poles and the representatives of Alsace-Lor
raine perused them.
During the sixteen years I was in the Reichstag
I noted but one exception to this rule. Herr von
Stollberg-Wernigerode," the President who fol
lowed Count von Ballestrem, came every morning
at 10 o'clock to take Le Figaro and Le Nouvelliste
d' Alsace-Lorraine from the reading-room. He
even deigned one day to express to me the pleasure
he took in reading my journal.

IN THE REICHSTAG 99
The Imperial Government had a splendid op
portunity of directing its foreign policy as it liked,
in a Parliament where all the parties accorded it
their confidence so liberally. The most hazardous
affirmations of the Chancellor were accepted with
out the least examination. The solemn speech
which Prince von Biilow or Herr von Bethmann-
Hollweg delivered every year when the Budget of
Foreign Affairs came on for its second reading
was without doubt the great event of the session;
but the Governmental orator was always the only
speaker, or when, perchance, leaders of groups
rose to speak after him, it was only to complete
his declarations by information which, to the
knowledge of everyone, had been supplied them
by the Foreign Office. This abdication of Parlia
ment was both a strength and a weakness. The
nation and its representatives formed a block
before the foreigner, but, on the other hand, the
Emperor and the Chancellor, unhampered in their
movements, could lead the country into the worst
complications, without public opinion being able
to react.
If the Reichstag went to meet this servitude, the
Press was obliged to accept it. Every morning
the contributors to the Berlin newspapers and the
correspondents of the big provincial dailies called
at a fixed hour at the offices of the Wilhelmstrasse,

100 BEHIND THE SCENES
where an official of the Foreign Office gave them
an account of the exterior situation of the Empire.
Woe to him who, in his articles, did not keep to in
structions! He was immediately excluded from
these instructive conferences and deprived of the
official manna. Consequently the newspapers^
always struck with perfect accord the Govern
mental note. This impressive unanimity often
deceived the foreigner, by making him believe that
Germany's policy came from the soul of the
people. Now, if it is true that, during recent
years, the German people, subjected to methodical
training, have supported all 'the wild claims of
pan-Germanism, we should be wrong in supposing
that, more free and better advised, it would have
been incapable of respecting the rights of other
nationalities. v
Naturally gregarious, and trained from child
hood in the practice of the most rigid intellectual
discipline, the German accepts the ready-made
formulas imposed upon him. Subjected to a
democratic regime, he might, perhaps, in time
recover his individuality; but before 1914 he was
acquainted with only blind submission to the guid
ance of his rulers and their inspirers, the pan-
Germans. The stupidities I have heard concerning foreign
politics during the sixteen years I was in the

IN THE REICHSTAG 101
Reichstag are hardly believable. My colleagues
spoke of France with disdainful pity. This un
fortunate country was in a state of complete de
composition. With the complicity of a venal
administration and a rotten Parliament, every
vice was displayed there. There was no longer
either religion, or morals, or shame. Our litera
ture was tainted, our middle-classes were cruelly
egoistic, and our army was without discipline.
The old Latin civilisation, already so compror
mised in dirty Italy and backward Spain, was
submerged by a fetid mud in that "beautiful
France," where, however, she had formerly shone
with such brilliance.
"Beware!" I often used to say to Erzberger
when he treated me to these stereotyped phrases;
"France is the country of sudden awakenings, of
prodigious resurrections."
"Nonsense!" he replied in his passionate voice.
"We'll overthrow your idol with Our little finger.
And look out for breakages. It will be not five
but fifty thousand millions of francs we shall exact
from the conquered, and we shall impose upon her
a treaty of commerce which will paralyse her for
a century." This threat always recurred in my colleagues'
conversations when they spoke of France. In their
malevolent phrases one could detect both base

102 BEHIND THE SCENES
envy and the most savage covetousness. Never
theless, the brilliance of French culture filled semi-
barbaric Germany with respect. At the same
time the legendary wealth of the rival country ex
ercised an irresistible attraction on the pillagers of
the North.
Every time that German diplomacy received a
check, France, "eaten up with a desire for re
venge," was made responsible for it. "There
would be no peace in Europe until the eternal
mar-joy had been reduced to impotence."
It is a curious thing that, as soon as a conflict
arose, whether it came from the direction of Rus
sia, the protector of the Slavs, or from that of
England, anxious to retain the command of the
seas, all the members of the Reichstag immedi
ately began to speak impudently of "France, the
hostage." Thus, during the early years of the
reign of Edward VII, when it seemed as though
any durable reconciliation with the Anglo-Saxons
had become impossible, it was currently said in
the Reichstag, "Very well! Our fleet will cer
tainly be blockaded in our ports, but, whether
France wishes to join with England or not, we
shall secure guarantees on her territory. She it
is who will pay the expenses of the enterprise."
Frenchmen were thus to bear the responsibility
and suffer the consequences of everything un-

IN THE REICHSTAG 103
pleasant which happened to the Germanic Empire.
Hatred of the English broke out among the Ger
mans only later, when, under the inspiration of
Prince von Biilow, the magic word of "world
politics" (Weltpolitik) became the motto of
William II.
How many times I have heard that flaming
word, which henceforth was to galvanise the whole
nation, repeated in the lobbies of the Reichstag!
Weltpolitik; that signified the domination of the
entire universe. "Nothing must happen in the
world," the Emperor had proudly declared, "be
fore Germany has said her word." And the
whole nation docilely repeated his arrogant words.
But, to attain the desired end, it was necessary
that Germany, already possessing the strongest
army, should also have a first-rate navy. It was
by waving that bawble Weltpolitik that Prince
von Biilow obtained the vote for enormous naval
credits. However, they abstained from provoking Eng
land until the hour came when the Empire could
measure itself with her on the seas. The Chancel
lor had given the instructions — "No difficulties
with Great Britain until our naval constructions
are finished." And the docile members of the
Reichstag repeated in the lobbies, "We will settle
accounts with the English, but first of all we must

104 BEHIND THE SCENES
send them to sleep with friendly declarations, so
that they will not profit by their formidable ad
vance. The awakening will be all the ruder for
them when, having got up to them or outstripped
them, we speak with the master's voice." These
remarks were made openly. It is rather surpris
ing that their echo did not reach the islanders,
especially at the time when Viscount Haldane
tried to obtain an Anglo- German maritime con
vention relative to the hmitation of naval con
structions, and when Germany, after long and
painful negotiations, refused to accept the British
principle of "two flags."
In his Memoirs, Prince von Biilow confesses
with supreme effrontery that such was indeed his
policy. "Supported to-day by a respectable navy," he
writes, "we are, as regards England, in a different
position from what we were in fifteen years ago,
when it was necessary for us, as much as possible,
to avoid a conflict with that Power, until we had
built our fleet."
What chiefly struck me in the conversations
which I had with my colleagues of all parties was
the profound disdain these ignorant men pro
fessed for the allies of their country. To hear
them talk, Austria, a Slavonicised Power, could
only regain its ancient splendour through Prus-

IN THE REICHSTAG 105
sian disciphne. The whole of Germany laughed
over the lesson which William II gave Francis
Joseph when, meeting the heir to the Crown of the
Hapsburgs at the funeral of the Prince Regent of
Bavaria, the Emperor said to the Archduke :
"You are making a good deal of noise with my
big sabre."
Was it not the duty of Germany's "brilliant
second" to accept without control the orders of
Berlin? As to the Italians, there was not an insult they
did not heap upon them. These "macaroni-
eaters" and "guitar-players" were decidedly in-
supportably conceited. They owed everything to
Germany — both their national security and eco
nomic prosperity. At the first "waltz" they
would indeed make them feel it.
At the time of the Tripoli expedition, the Ger
man Press, on the order of the Chancellor, for
weeks called the Italians ruffians, pirates, and
wreckers. Erzberger foamed with rage at the
thought that the only Turkish province where
Germany could hope to gain a foothold on the
shores of the Mediterranean was about to fall into
the hands of those "wretched fellows of Rome."
It was on hearing these wild invectives that I
judged of the appetite of pan-Germanism, of that
monstrous doctrine which excludes even Ger-

106 BEHIND THE SCENES
many's allies from the benefit of future conquests.
Let us once more note moreover that there is not
a man in the Reichstag capable of resisting the
official doctrine, and that all the members, even
those who belong to the governing elite, merely
repeat over and over again the ready-made phrases
of the Press inspired by the offices of the Wilhelm-
strasse. Here is a suggestive fact which proves how
gregarious a people the Germans are. When
Edward VII and the Queen of England con
sented, after a long family disagreement, to pay
an official visit to their Imperial nephew in the
Prussian capital, the reception prepared for them
in Berlin surpassed in brilliance and enthusiasm
everything I had seen up to then. A few days
before, the Prussian newspapers were still over
flowing with insults to wicked England, whose
intention was "to encircle" Germany. They were
now filled with frenzied articles celebrating the
return of their "blood relations" to the homeland.
In the streets, brilliantly decorated with flags, the
crowd vociferated tremendous "Hochs." Gar
lands of red, white, and blue paper, suspended
from the trees in the Unter den Linden, formed
a veritable canopy under which the promenaders
joyously chatted about the promising perspective
of an Anglo-German Alliance. With what end-

IN THE REICHSTAG 107
less exclamations the people of Berlin welcomed
their guests of a day!
I amused myself on that occasion by recalling,
in my paper, that, after Jena, the Prussians had
received their conqueror of the day before with
the same signs of joy, and that already in those
days they had decorated the lime trees of their
celebrated avenue with paper leaves and flowers,
a symbol of their platitude and bad taste. That
brought me a tremendous slating in the semi
official Press. It is true that, a few weeks later,
fresh instructions having been given, the same
Press resumed its old surly tone towards England.
I also wish to point out that until 1911 German
policy, whilst aggressive, did not seem to tend
towards the coming war. The events in the Bal
kans, in the course of which Germany was con
stantly checked by England's policy, gave birth,
first of all in official circles and then in parliamen
tary ones, to the desire to start the great world
conflict with as httle delay as possible. From
that date war was spoken of in the Reichstag as an
irresistible eventuality. Consequently, the mili
tary Bills brought before Parliament three years
in succession, and which strengthened the army to
the extent of a third of its effective in time of
peace, at the very moment when the finances of
the Empire were in a most lamentable condition,

108 BEHIND THE SCENES
were passed by overwhelming majorities. Offi
cial spokesmen, as well as those of the bourgeois
parties, frankly spoke from the tribune of the
"struggle on two fronts" (the French front and
the Russian). They openly counted on English
neutrality and the tardy but certain assistance of
Italy. As it was necessary to have a pretext for letting
loose the storm at the moment chosen by the
General Staff, German statesmen constantly
strove to have two or three reasons for a conflict
in reserve, such as the Balkanic imbroglio, the
Moroccan affair, and, last but not least, the For
eign Legion.
Bassermann had made a speciality of this last-
named pretext for a German quarrel. This
Mannheim lawyer was seized with veritable attacks
of hysteria when he spoke of the tortures inflicted
on- soldiers of the Legion of Germanic birth by
the French galley-sergeants. For month after
month, under the direction of this experienced
conductor of the orchestra, the Press reproduced
the most improbable stories anent the martyrdom
of the poor victims of welche barbarity, who, how
ever, ought to have been regarded by the Ger
mans as mere vulgar deserters. Even the stage
seized hold of this melodramatic subject. France
was literally dragged in the mud by all the scrib-

IN THE REICHSTAG 109
biers and mummers of the Empire. If the assas
sination of Francis Ferdinand had not precipi
tated the march of events, it is probable that
Germany would have called upon France to dis
band the Legion.' A pretext for war, henceforth
desired by everyone in Germany, was necessary.
In one way or another, they would have found it.
I am not writing thoughtlessly. Since 1913
we all had the almost physical impression that the
great crisis was near at hand. This is so true
that my colleagues of the Strassburg Parliament
all began to hoard gold at that time. In paying
for their smallest purchases they presented 100-
mark notes, so as to obtain coin, which they put on
one side for bad times.
I had the opportunity several times of warning
my friends in France of the danger that threat
ened them. Few were those who paid attention
to my cry of alarm. And yet all the signs of the
evil intentions of Germany were there. Was not
Erzberger applauded by the entire Reichstag
when he stated, in the face of all evidence, that the
last increase in the German effective was a
"reply" to the voting of the three years' Military
service Bill by the French Parliament?
This same Erzberger, as well as Oertel and
Bassermann, had often said to me:
"In 1905 we missed a unique opportunity of

110 BEHIND THE SCENES
finishing with France, then completely disarmed."
In the country of all these freebooters there
was always the same eager desire — to enslave and
despoil "the hereditary enemy."
The inexperience of the German Parliamentary
representatives in matters of foreign politics will
be clearly seen from the following case. Ten years
ago, a few Democrats (certainly in agreement
with the Chancellor) circulated in the Reichstag
a petition addressed to the Duma, urgently beg
ging their Russian colleagues to grant a broader
autonomy to Finland.
When Muller-Meiningen presented this peti
tion to me, I said to him, "My dear colleague, I
will sign this paper on the day you authorise the
French Chamber to ask the Reichstag, officially,
to put an end to the servitude of the inhabitants of
Alsace-Lorraine." Old Miiller is still running
around. It was doubtless to avenge his discomfiture on
that occasion that he took charge, in 1915, of the
report on my expulsion from the Reichstag.
The history of this report is amusing. Miiller-
Meiningen, in order to deprive me legally of my
seat, could find but a single argument. "Since
the beginning of the war," it ran, "Wetterle has
published in French newspapers several articles
signed An Ex-member of the Reichstag,' which

IN THE REICHSTAG ill
shows that he himself no longer considers he be
longs to this Parliament. One can, therefore,
conclude that he has handed in his resignation as
a member in a regular manner." The Reichstag
accepted this extraordinary reasoning and I was
deprived of my seat.
But I had another seat — that of a Deputy in the
Alsace-Lorraine Chamber. In this country of
the Empire, it is not Parliament but the Court of
Appeal of Colmar which decides regarding the
validity of mandates. Instructed about my case
by the President of the Second Chamber, the
Court of Appeal, in its turn, pronounced for
feiture, but for reasons of propriety. "A man
against whom an action for high treason is pend
ing," ran the judgment, "cannot belong to a
German Parliament." The interesting point,
however, about this affair is that the Court of
Appeal, in its long statement of reasons, refutes
Miiller-Meiningen's argumentation. ¦ "We should
be wrong in considering that the fact of Wetterle
having written articles signed with the signature
An Ex-member of the Reichstag' constitutes a
regular resignation. To be valid, a resignation
must be addressed to the President of the Assem
bly, and be signed by the resigner's own hand."
I should never have thought the judges of Colmar
were capable of giving the Reichstag such a lesson.

112 BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAPTER VI
Pan-Germanism
Without Rights — Duplicate Majorities — Kaempf and
Paasche — The Empire and the Colonies — The Pan-Ger
mans — Prince von Hohenlohe-— Composition of the
Reichstag — Faking the Budget.
Parliamentarism is but a fiction in Germany.
Doubtless the rules of the Reichstag anticipate the
members' right of initiative. Yet this right re
mained until recent years purely fictitious. In
deed, when an interpellation was being discussed,
the Government benches were almost always
empty, the Chancellor and his collaborators show
ing by their voluntary absence that in principle
they did not consider they were obliged to hold
themselves at the disposal of members in order
to reply to indiscreet questions. As, in conse
quence, debates on an interpellation could not end
in the voting of an order of the day, these talks
were without object. The Reichstag understood
this so well that it set aside one day per week
(Schwerinstag — Schwerin's day — named after

IN THE REICHSTAG 113
the author of the proposal) for these sterile exer
cises in parliamentary eloquence.
In 1911, at the time the rules were revised, the
members thought they had scored an enormous
success when the Chancellor agreed that interpel
lations should be concluded with a vote of appro
bation or censure. But as this vote in no way
either consolidated or shook the Government, the
concession was a purely formal one.
Private Bills generally met with the same fate
as interpellations. It was necessary that they
should all be laid on the table within the first week
of the Parliamentary session, numbered according
to the importance attached to them by their au
thors. This being done, the director classified
them, not in accordance with their urgency, but
in the order of the numerical importance of the
group which had presented them, at the rate of one
Bill for every group. On coming to the end of
the first round, they passed to the second, and so
on in succession. These Bills, even when they
obtained a majority in the Reichstag, were rarely
accepted by the Federal Council, which generally
treated them with disdain, for it hardly took the
trouble to read them. The improvisations of
Parliament, I delight in recollecting, often merit
no better fate.
It was thus that the Centre, after the scandal

114 BEHIND THE SCENES
caused by the Heintze case, took it into its head
to modify the legislation regarding licentiousness
in the streets. That honest man Roehren had
been entrusted with the drawing up of the Bill.
He thought he had solved the problem in fifty
laboriously drawn-up clauses, in which he
imagined he had foreseen everything. Unfortu
nately, this complicated structure rested on the
fragile basis of the sense of shame, which is very
variable. In reference to it, Groeber, of the Cen
tre, made the following interesting disclosure:
"Only the French know how to draw up Bills.
For instance, take the Berenger Law. It consists
of only five lines, but it enables you to reach all
offenders. We try to include all possibilities in
the Bill itself, instead of leaving the estimation of
them to jurisprudence. Thence spring compli
cated and almost always inapplicable texts. The
trees end by preventing us seeing the forest.
Study the Roehren Bill. Its meshes are numer
ous and close, and yet it lets all the big fish es
cape." The debates on the "Heintze Bill" (as it was
generally called, after the name of the souteneur
who had led to it being brought in) were extra
ordinary. There was a secret sitting of the
Reichstag. Roehren and Bebel gave us impres
sive statistics regarding the number of prostitutes

IN THE REICHSTAG 115
and other disreputable characters of Berlin,
Munich, Cologne, and Hamburg. On the table
of the House was a heap of suggestive documents.
What an abominable secret museum, and how
lowering this exposure of her secret vices was to
virtuous Germany 1
I was somewhat scandalised by the eagerness
with which my colleagues began to examine
minutely the incriminating articles placed at their
disposal. I was still more so when I ascertained
that this display of filth inspired no virile resolu
tion on the part of either Chancellor or Parlia
ment. The Bill was, in fact, thrown out, without
any attempt being made to substitute more ac
ceptable legislative formulas in its place. Official
Germany resigned itself to allowing the flood of
debauch to rise, without even attempting to raise
a dam against it. And yet, in the eyes of all the
puritans of Berlin, Paris remains the modern
Babylon. Such hypocrisy would be disconcerting
if one did not know that German virtues — fidelity
to a promise, scientific probity, civic courage and
honesty in business — are a hollow sham.
The closed life of parties in the Reichstag is
easily explained. In the German Empire polit
ical groups have no responsibility, since they never
come into power. They are supernumeraries
and not the principal actors in the political drama,

116 BEHIND THE SCENES
if I may be allowed to express myself in that way.
In countries possessing a parliamentary regime,
the parties, compelled periodically to assume the
burden of government, know how to adapt their
programmes to the necessities of public life.
Thus they acquire that practical knowledge which
German parliamentarians lack completely. The
latter are face to face with Ministries formed,
apart from majorities, by irresponsible Sovereigns.
Consequently, the groups, which have not the
anxiety of accommodating their political theories
to the possibilities of the administration, are able
to isolate themselves in the most intransigent doc-
trinarianism. As, in consequence, they hope to obtain a few
realisations only by Governmental favour and
compromises with other parties, the Reichstag,
like the Parliaments of the various States, pre
sents that curious spectacle of an assembly in
which the most disciplined and the most narrowly
doctrinarian fractions nevertheless exhaust them
selves by repugnant bargainings.
Whatever may be the composition of the Im
perial Parliament, the Chancellor has, therefore,
every advantage. He can always count on find
ing there duplicate majorities, provided he knows
how to pay the price for the "conversion" of one
of the principal groups of the Reichstag.

IN THE REICHSTAG 117
Prince von Biilow was the first who, since Bis
marck's "Kartell" was overthrown, attempted, in
1903, to create a compact majority. He suc
ceeded by forcing the patriotic note.
Up to 1907 the Imperial Parliament was com
posed of a Right (Conservatives and National
Liberals) which was not sufficiently powerful to
obtain a majority, even in military, naval, and
colonial questions, against an ever possible coali
tion of the Centre, the Democrats, and the Social
ists, supported by the Polish fraction and the
Alsace-Lorraine group. Prince von Biilow, by
offering official support to the Democrats (Radi
cals) on the condition that henceforth they sup
ported him in all demands of a national order,
succeeded in reducing the number of Socialist
seats by half. From that time the Centre no
longer played the part of arbitrator between the
Right and the Left of the Assembly. Prince von
Biilow always denied that he wished to combat the
Centre, the assistance of which was often so pre
cious to him; but there can be no doubt that
he hoped to deprive a party, which, in his opinion,
made conditions for its support too burdensome,
of its preponderant position.
He fully succeeded. Of all Parliaments, the
Reichstag of 1907 was the most patriotic. The
domesticated Democrats voted enthusiastically in

118 BEHIND THE SCENES
favour of all military credits, and the Centre,
henceforth powerless, only thought, whilst rival
ling with the groups of the Right in patriotism, of
making sure of Governmental favours.
In order to obtain this national concentration
of parties, Prince von Biilow had the cleverness
during the discussion to utter a magic word which
he thought would turn aside the debate from its
right course. "Policy of the Block" — such was
the label which he stuck on his programme. By
borrowing this term from the home policy of
France, the Chancellor thought he would call to
arms the anti-clerical hatred of the German
Lutherans. The manoeuvre was a skilful one,
since, on the one hand, it was to win over many
waverers to Prussian nationalism and, on the
other, to checkmate the Centre, which had all
sorts of reasons for fearing the revival of the
"Kulturkampf," t
The German "Block" was not, however, speci
fically anti-clerical. Biilow himself had never
thought of giving it that character.
The word was merely to act as a scarecrow, as
a means of blackmailing the Centre. It pro
duced its full effect, since Spahn and Erzberger
soon became the most convinced and determined
supporters of Imperialism.
The Reichstag of 1911 persented quite a differ-

IN THE REICHSTAG 119
ent aspect. Not national questions, but economic
problems raised by the tremendous increase of
indirect taxation, had been the platform during
the electoral struggle. The Socialists were thus
able to win 110 seats, with the result that on ques
tions of home policy the Right (Conservatives,
Liberals, and Democrats) and the Left (Centre,
Socialists, Poles, and Alsace-Lorrainers) were
equal. Von Bethmann-Hollweg's first Reichstag (the
one still sitting) came within an ace of not being
constituted. The election of the President, Vice-
Presidents, and Secretaries gave rise to stormy
incidents. According to the traditions of the
House, the presidency ought to have been given
to the strongest party numerically, that is to say,
to the Socialists. But the bourgeois parties could
not resign themselves to this extremity. As,
however, the Conservatives and the National-
Liberals refused to give their votes to a member
of the Centre, this last group voted, out of spite,
for Bebel. If the Poles had not shirked at the
last moment, the patriarch of the social revolution
would have obtained the majority. The provi
sional executive which resulted from these elec
tions was composed of a Conservative, a National-
Liberal, and a Socialist, the ineffable Scheide
mann. A month later, when the definitive execu-

120 BEHIND THE SCENES
tive was formed, an understanding had not yet
been arrived at between Conservatives and Cen
trists. Therefore the small group pf Democrats
obtained the presidency (occupied by the aged
Kaempf) and a vice-presidency (held by Dove),
whilst the Liberals delegated that insupportable
chatterer Paasche to the other vice-presidency.
Nevertheless, during four weeks, we saw
Scheidemann occupy the presidential chair of the
Reichstag for an hour or two at each sitting.
His glory was ephemeral; but one cannot eat of
the pleasant fruit of fame with impunity. After
his short acquaintance with honours, this former
compositor was to retain a taste for high rank
and influential relations. Whomsoever has not
heard him say, with a rising gorge, "I call upon
his Excellency, the Chancellor of the Empire, to
speak," cannot penetrate the mystery of the soul
of an upstart.
President Kaempf was a thin little man of piti
ful appearance. He belonged to the business
world, and in that capacity had been for many
years the head of the Council of the Elders of the
City of Berlin — a body equivalent to a French
Chamber of Commerce. Elected at the second
ballot, in 1911, by a majority of one vote, he was
the only bourgeois member of Parliament of the
Prussian capital. This tremulous old man is,

IN THE REICHSTAG 121
moreover, afflicted with deafness, of which he
knows how to take advantage, so as not to have to
call his political friends to order when they give
way to intemperate language. He has a long
beard, but his upper lip is shaved, giving him the
appearance of a Quaker. Never was the Reichs
tag presided over by a less decorative personage.
I shall say nothing about Dove, except that his
insignificance is disheartening.
Paasche is more interesting. This professor
of theoretical agriculture of Charlottenburg is the
busiest of the members of the Reichstag. His
interminable speeches, delivered with a rapidity
which drives to despair the most expert sten
ographers, are very learned but badly composed.
Paasche has been entrusted with numerous mis
sions abroad. It was during one of these that a
disagreeable adventure happened to him. The
story was told by a Socialist newspaper in the
following words:
"A member of the Reichstag was recently in
New York. Hunger, desire and to some extent
the devil urging him on, he allowed himself to
be enticed away and robbed. The imprudent
man, crestfallen, went to the police station to
lodge a complaint, and there had to reveal
his identity. So was kann einem paschieren" —
the last word being substituted for passieren,

122 BEHIND THE SCENES
thus clearly pointing out this victim of Venus.
The whole of Germany was amused by this
discourteous revelation. But Paasche did not
lose the esteem of his colleagues on account of
such a peccadillo.
Another member belonging to the Right,
Prince Hatzfeld, was less fortunate. One day
he was caught by a railway ticket collector in the
act of insulting a lady passenger. The over-
zealous employee having taken down his name and
address, the authorities had great difficulty in
hushing up the scandal. The Prince paid dearly
for this act of folly, since there slipped through
his fingers, successively, the presidency of the
Reichstag, the post of Statthalter of Alsace-
Lorraine, and an Embassy. He is, however, a
very agreeable man and of more than average in
telligence. Colonial policy was the object of constant
thought on the part of the Government and the
Parliamentary groups. Having taken her place
among the great naval Powers late in the day,
Germany found all the great colonies occupied
by her rivals. She contented herself, with an ill
grace, with what no one else wanted. Hence a
deep irritation, a contemptible jealousy, and a
firm determination to lay hands on the possessions
of other nations by every means in her power.

IN THE REICHSTAG 123
"The Colonial Empire of the British is too ex
tensive," my colleagues of the middle-class parties
were constantly telling me. "As to France, she
cannot exploit her own owing to an insufficient
number of colonists. It is unjust and intolerable
that a nation with a high birth-rate, like ours,
cannot succeed in establishing itself in unpeopled
parts, which we could turn to profit, whilst na
tions with a limited natality allow all this wealth
to go to waste."
This reasoning, constantly repeated by mem
bers of the Reichstag, had become part and parcel
of the common talk. We heard it over^ and over
again in all the beer-shops.
Germany made enormous sacrifices for her col
onies. Independently of the credits voted by
Parliament, considerable sums were collected by
the Colonial League, one of the most powerful
arid most active of the associations of the Empire.
Deputies and members of the League openly
displayed their annexationist plans. The Bel
gian as well as the French Congo were to be theirs
by right. It was necessary, at all costs, that
East and West Africa should be united by a broad
band of territory, cutting the Black Continent in
two. In the West a sufficient effective was to be
maintained to be able to invade and occupy Cape
Colony. Quite naturally, the Portuguese pos-

124 BEHIND THE SCENES
sessions and Morocco would become German.
Brazil, two provinces of which were occupied by
500,000 emigrants of German origin, would be
' dismembered, if it would not accept the protec
torate of Germany. Chili, Venezuela, and Mex
ico, countries where German influence was very
great, would sooner or later come under the
domination of the Empire. As to China, it would
quite naturally come within the sphere of Ger
manic influence, since Kiao-chau was but a short
distance from Peking.
How many times I have read and heard these
wild divagations! Awaiting the realisation of
these wonderful plans, Parliament and the Colo
nial League set to work with equal zeal to estab
lish bases of operation for the German Navy.
To be able to understand the formidable appetite
of the Germans for domination, it was necessary
to be present at the deliberations of the Budget
Committee. If the enterprise of 1914 had suc
ceeded as its organisers hoped it would, the whole
world would have been in servitude.
The League provided all articles required by
colonists, even housekeepers. It assumed, in fact,,
the mission of mobilising a large number of big,
strong girls of Brandenburg, and sent them,
carriage paid, to the Cameroons and East Africa
for the German farmers, who were requested to

IN THE REICHSTAG 125
choose their legitimate "collaborators" from
among them. The lordly race must not, indeed,
prostitute itself by cross-breeding. German
blood in the colonies, as in Europe, must remain
free from any admixture.
It is, indeed, a rather curious fact that of re
cent years the Pan-Germans, carrying their the
ories of racial exclusivism to the uttermost point,
protested with the greatest violence against mar
riages between the descendants of Germans and
women of other races. The Hebrews themselves
did not watch over the purity of their race more
jealously. Germany's colonial policy, however, was not
always very fortunate. I need do no more than
recall the Peters, Aremberg, and Puttkamer
scandals to establish the fact that, in negro coun
tries as much as and sometimes more than on the
old Continent, the Germans remained the brutes
they have always been. At the time of their cam
paign against the Herreros, in East Africa, they
exterminated the native population at the risk of
being completely deprived of labour.
The influence of the Pan-Germans was prodi
gious and daily grew stronger. In 1908 the man
agement of the League published a summary of
its work. With legitimate pride, they pointed
out in that voluminous report that the Chancellors;

126 BEHIND THE SCENES
of the Empire had ended by adopting the whole of
their programme. The concordance between the
successive demands of Pan-Germanism and the
acts of the Government was proved in the most
rigorous manner, year by year and almost month
by month.
This marvellously organised League had, in
deed, secured the active collaboration of the whole
corporation of teachers and also, since the accen
tuation of the industrial crisis, that of the big
producers' associations. As the Prussian Junk
ers, on the other hand, were quite won over to its
annexationist theories, one can state that everyone
of any authority in Germany supported its ef
forts. Abroad, the members of the League were for
a long time regarded as madmen, destitute of any
influence over the German nation. The Pan-
Germans in no way complained of this disdainful
disregard of their political action, because it
favoured their designs. As a matter of fact, in
a country where the Government had always exer
cised an indisputable authority, they had suc
ceeded in dominating the Chancellor himself and
in dictating their wishes to him.
I saw their power grow in the Reichstag. But
old Prince von Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst, who, in
1898, held the post of First Councillor to the

IN THE REICHSTAG 127
Emperor, was too wary and too sceptical a diplo
matist to submit to the injunctions of the League.
On the other hand, Prince von Biilow, who natur
ally inclined towards violent solutions, was wholly
in favour of the doctrine of an all-powerful Ger
many and used all his energies, especially during
the seven years he was at the Chancellery, to win
over the parties of the Left to the ideas of Hasse
and Class.
Since his arrival in power the evolution of Pan-
Germanism was rapid and complete. I have
already pointed it out above, but shall have occa
sion to return to the subject later on.
Parisians have not yet forgotten Prince von
Hohenlohe, who for so many years was the in
conspicuous but nevertheless remarkably skilful
representative in the French capital of Germany.
This slim little man, weakly in appearance and
modest in attitude, was afflicted with an inordinate
personal ambition. When misadventures of a
private nature necessitated his removal, he got
himself paid royally for his desistance by the post
of Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine. After the fall
of the Chancellor von Caprivi, the Emperor
William II offered the Prince his post. Von
Hohenlohe needed pressing. It was not to his
liking to exchange a well-paid post, in which he
exercised sovereign prerogatives, for a wretchedly

128 BEHIND THE SCENES
paid office which would oblige him to submit to
the criticisms of a Parliament still imperfectly
disciplined. In order to overcome his resistance, it was
necessary to double the Chancellor's salary — to
make it 100,000 marks (£5,000) instead of 50,000,
with which Bismarck and Caprivi had been con
tent. Another reason — quite a personal one —
made Prince von Hohenlohe decide to put on the
shoes of the founder of the Empire. He had
inherited the Russian estate of Werky. Now, a
short time before, the Tsar had issued a ukase
obliging all German landlords in Russia to sell
their lands within a period of nine months. The
Statthalter of Alsace-Lorraine, fearing the dis
astrous consequences of this forced sale, had gone
to St. Petersburg to obtain from Alexander III
an extension of time. But, at the reception at
which he hoped to present his request, the Tsar
turned his back on him. Prince von Hohenlohe
believed that the' Emperor of All the Russias
would not refuse the Chancellor of the Empire
what he had refused the Governor of the annexed
provinces. Events proved that he was right.
The nine millions the Werky estate was worth
were saved.
, I was forgetting to relate that before he suc
ceeded in this clever combination Prince von

IN THE REICHSTAG 129
Hohenlohe conceived another, which had no suc
cess whatever. He endeavoured, in fact, to make
his son Alexander a naturalised Russian — that
very son who, a few years later, was appointed
Prefect of Upper Alsace. After having declared
that he was ready to renounce his German nation
ality, for the big sum of money, Alexander did
everything in his power, as will be remembered, to
Germanise the people of Alsace-Lorraine.
When, later, he became, thanks to the most ex
cessive electoral pressure, Deputy for the arron
dissement of Haguenau-Wissemburg, I reminded
him from the tribune of the Reichstag of that
unpatriotic act, to the great joy of my colleagues
of the Centre and the Left.
Chancellor von Hohenlohe rarely appeared in
Parliament. More than mediocre as an orator,
he was unable to speak without the aid of a manu
script, from wliich he never raised his eyes. One
day he happened to get the sheets of his state
ment mixed up. For more than ten minutes he
was painfully occupied in putting his notes in
order, whilst the most unseemly bursts of laughter
came from all benches.
The Prince, as one knows, was devoid of all
character. The Emperor, who prided himself on
being his own Chancellor, had chosen him chiefly
for that reason, just as later, after having im-

130 BEHIND THE SCENES
prudently selected a very individualistic Chan
cellor, in the person of Prince von Biilow, he was
to replace him by the ductile official who bears the
name of Bethmann-Hollweg.
At first the Reichstag adapted itself perfectly
to this phantom Chancellor. Its whole activity
was absorbed in economic struggles, and Prince
von Hohenlohe, equally unconnected with either
the ultra- Protectionist Conservatives or the modr
erate Free traders of the parties of the Left, was
lightly handled by all parties.
A propos of the conflict of economic interests
at the Reichstag, I should like to point out that,
contrary to what happens elsewhere, the compo
sition of the Imperial Parliament has always been
very mixed. I have only fairly recent statistics
at my disposal; but, as the general physiognomy
of the Parliament has never varied much, they will
suffice to show that all professions were repre
sented there.
The following are the figures for the elections
of 1907 and 1912:—
Agriculturists, 106-88; manufacturers, 21-5;
artisans, 20-21; tradesmen, 13-17; workmen, 0-3;
persons of independent means, 17-13; journalists,
37-58; ecclesiastics, 21-21; professors, 24-22; doc
tors and chemists, 7-8; lawyers, 32-39; magis
trates, 35-24; public officials, 22-21; communal

IN THE REICHSTAG 131
employees, 9-7; employees of private enterprises,
32-50. What will particularly strike the reader in this
list is the large number of magistrates and other
officials who figure in it. German electoral law
recognised indeed that all officials have the right
to put up for Parliament and to carry out their
duties there without being obliged to send in their
resignations. It even allows the elected official
to continue to receive the whole of his salary,
Whilst enjoying the right of a vacation equal to
the duration of the sessions.
An official, definitely appointed to administra
tive employment, is the owner of his post. He
can be deprived of it only by a judgment of the
superior administrative tribunal of the State to
which he belongs. As a result of this, he recovers
his entire independence of opinion out of office
hours. Should he belong to a party in opposition
to the Government and take an active part in
politics, he will suffer, perhaps, as regards pro
motion. But he will still be protected against all
repressive measures. These liberal provisions of
German legislation are of a nature to surprise us.
They result in leading the political parties, which
are always short of candidates, to offer numerous
seats to men who, through their experience in

132 BEHIND THE SCENES
public affairs, seem particularly apt for parliamen
tary duties.
One must admit that these members of the
Reichstag who are both officials and deputies ren
der signal services both to the country and the
groups to which they belong. Here is a curious
fact. The day after the closure of each session,
these employees, who, the day before, controlled
the Government, are obliged to resume their often
modest duties (there are teachers and postmen
among them) and to submit once more to all the
arrogance of the chiefs immediately above them.
Our attention is attracted to another point in
the above statistics. During the last two legis
latures there were first 43 and then 110 Socialist
members. Now, the 1907 Parliament did not
contain a single workingman member, whilst that
of 1911 only had three, of whom two belonged
to the Centre and the Right. The members of the
Extreme Left are, therefore, almost all recruited
from the liberal professions, 43 of them being
journalists, 7 lawyers, 2 municipal employees, and
37 industrial employees. That explains how
Possibilism and Imperialism have been able to
exercise such great ravages among men the ma
jority of whom have received a middle-class
formation and have never broken their friendly

IN THE REICHSTAG 133
relations with their families and the comrades of
their childhood.
It would be a manifest exaggeration to pretend
that in Germany Socialism is the party in which
all the incapables and wastrels take refuge. On
the contrary, we find a large number of men of
worth in the fraction of the Extreme Left. It is
also true that the Socialist Party has largely
benefited by the exclusiveness shown by the other
groups in the choice of their candidates. One
day, one of my friends expressed to the father of a
Collectivist member his surprise at seeing this
young and brilliant writer throw himself heart and
soul into the revolutionary agitation.
"What can you expect?" replied the excellent
man, without malice. "My son would certainly
have preferred to place his ability at the service
of another cause ; but he is ambitious, and he knew
that, being of modest birth and having but slender
means at his disposal, there was no future for him
in the bourgeois groups, whereas the Socialists
would be very happy to have the assistance of an
intellectual man."
That is the history of many members of the
so-called Revolutionary Party. Especially is it
that of the Jews, who, in Germany, are system
atically thrust aside by the middle-class parties.
Few members of the Reichstag knew how to

134 BEHIND THE SCENES
read the Budget. The majority never even tried
to decipher it. Miiller-Fulda used to be im
mensely amused over this ignorance.
"Our Budget," he said to me one day, "is abso
lutely lacking in sincerity. Transfers of sums of
money abound in it, and you must be a past master
in the art of handling figures to know where you
are. The principal concern of our statesmen is to
hide from the foreigner the credits they devote
first to military preparations and secondly to
propaganda work, or, if you like, to the intelli
gence department, to espionage. In our financial
Bill you will find but a modest sum of three mil
lions for our Secret Service, Now, in all the
chapters of the Budget are other credits which,
under the most varied titles, are devoted to the
same use. Moreover, we put our hands deeply
into the secret funds of the other States."
Here I will relate a personal anecdote. Herr
von Richthofen, the former Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, was easy to approach. I often
conversed with him, and he seemed to take a cer
tain amount of pleasure in meeting me. One day
he complained in my presence of the excessive use
which the English, in his opinion, made of their
Secret Service funds to secure assistance in the
Foreign Press.
"Why don't you do the same?" I objected.

IN THE REICHSTAG 135
Taken quite unawares, Herr von Richthofen let
slip the following significant confession:
"Ah! if we only still possessed the Guelph
funds." The Guelph funds were the revenue of the se
questrated fortune of King George of Hanover.
This revenue was estimated at sixteen million
marks. Now, a short time before, the Prussian
Government had given the full and entire posses
sion of it to the Duke of Cumberland. Herr von
Richthofen's thoughtless exclamation showed,
however, that before this restitution the sixteen
millions had been regularly used by Prussia in
corrupting foreign newspapers. It had been
necessary to reconstitute this Secret Service fund
with the ordinary resources of the Budget. Little
by little, and by means of skilful transfers, they
had succeeded.
But once more I call upon Miiller-Fulda to
speak. "Would you like an instance," he further said
to me, "of the way they proceed in our country?
A few years ago the French artillery was consid
erably in advance of ours. Their new field gun
was much superior to that of the German Army.
What was to be done? The transformation of
our light artillery might have driven the French
to profit by their advantage immediately. So the

136 BEHIND THE SCENES
Chancellor called together the leaders of the
groups and addressed them as follows, 'We have
a model of a remarkable gun. To provide our
troops with it we must dispose of a credit of 400
millions. The transformation, however, must
take place in the deepest secrecy. Will you au
thorise me to spend that sum of money without
setting it down in the Budget? With your con
sent, I will arrange the matter by means of skilful
entries.' No sooner said than done ! I will defy
you to find a trace of those 400 millions in the four
Budgets in question, where, however, they are
indeed hidden. Apart from the few conspirators,
our colleagues noticed nothing, and the majority
are still in ignorance of the fact that they voted
faked Budgets."
One can, therefore, affirm that in the German
Empire control does not exist. The whole of
the parliamentary jobbery is done in the back
shop, where the Chancellor, with a few initiates,
prepares, far from indiscreet eyes, his question
able operations.
A few days later that impenitent sceptic
Miiller-Fulda made me acquainted with the prac
tices of the great German banks. On expressing
my astonishment at seeing the Berlin banks sub
scribe 500 millions to the Russian loan at a
moment when the market was very depressed, the

IN THE REICHSTAG 137
member for the Centre burst out laughing and r
confided in me as follows:
"We have no money, but we know how to make
that of others fructify. Nominally, we subscribe
to the Russian loan, but we shall pass on the scrip
clandestinely to our correspondents in London
and especially in Paris. ~We do the same, more
over, with our shares in the Bagdad-Ottoman
Railways. By calling for the greater part, we
secure considerable political advantages. Then,
when that is done, we gradually get rid of these
shares, the accumulation of which on our home
market would represent a dead weight. What
is the good of the internationalism of banking if
we cannot find in it a compensation for the ostra
cism to which our national securities are subjected
on the Paris Bourse and the London Stock Ex
change? A purely fictitious ostracism, however,
for I can tell you in confidence that more than
two thousand millions of our State loans sleep, in
the form of pretty vignettes, in the safes of small
French capitalists. Don't protest 1 Our secu
rities pay a high rate of interest, and we give big
commissions to those who place them."
It was again Miiller-Fulda who, at the time of
the Moroccan incidents, made the following disclo
sure to me: —
"English intervention is possible. Our Gov-

138 BEHIND THE SCENES
ernment, in agreement with our shipowners, has
foreseen it. All our captains who are on long
voyages have been provided with envelopes con
taining secret orders, which they are to open as
soon as they are informed of the imminence of a
declaration of war. They will immediately hoist
the United States flag from their mainmasts. In
fact, in case of war, the Morgan Syndicate is the
purchaser of the whole of our merchant fleet at a
figure already agreed upon."
I do not know whether this agreement was ever
really made with the American capitalists. But
the declarations of Miiller-Fulda, the best-in
formed man in the Reichstag, prove that it had
been seriously thought of in the Governmental
circles of Berlin, and that, from that period, they
foresaw near and serious difficulties with Great
Britain.

IN THE REICHSTAG 139

CHAPTER VII
Militarism in German Politics
In the Tribune; — The Parties — Erzberger— "En Famille"—
The Tariff — Dissolutions.
The first time I wanted to speak in the Reichstag
I had a painful surprise. On the list of speakers,
in the possession of the secretary, I occupied the
third place. Now, ten members mounted into the
tribune before me and I had to wait two days be
fore I was able to deliver my little speech.
Here is the explanation of this phenomenon.
The rules of the House indeed provide for mem
bers speaking in the order of their inscription, but
the rules, in this respect as in many others, are
constantly broken. A member of the Reichstag
does not exist individually; only the group to
which he is attached is taken into consideration.
It is the custom, therefore, for the Parliamentary
fractions, each in its turn, to delegate to the
tribune one of its members in the numerical order
of the groups.
In 1898 the speaker of the Centre came first,
and after him, in succession, those of the Conserv-

140 BEHIND THE SCENES
atives, the National-Liberals, the Socialists, the
Imperial Party, the two principal Democratic
groups, the Anti-Semites, the Jews, the Alsace-
Lorrainers, and finally the Popular Party of
Wurtemberg. If the debate was not concluded
after this first procession of orators, they came to
what the Germans call "the second garnishing,"
but always keeping strictly to the same order.
I would also add (and this detail is important)
that, in the Parliamentary fractions, the principal
speaker and the speakers who, should it so happen,
speak a second and a third time are chosen by the
directing committees and bound to submit the text
of their speeches to them. Very rarely, and only
at the end of a sitting, is a member who has serious
reasons for separating himself from his political
friends over a question of local interest authorised
to express a few timid reservations. In this case,
he must also suffer the severe censorship of his
leaders. How is it that German members of Parliament
, can accept such servitude? The reason is very
simple. German political parties are endowed
with a wholly military organisation. The enlisted
elector does not give his vote to a man but to a
programme. He has blind faith in the decisions
of the committee of his district, which itself ac
cepts the orders of the central committee, almost

IN THE REICHSTAG 141
without discussing them. It is, therefore, this last
committee which decides on the choice of candi
dates and gives them their investiture.
Henceforth, the dependence of the elected mem
ber is absolute. If he does not give proofs of
absolute submission, he knows that he runs the
risk of losing his seat through the will of his
chiefs. But if, on the contrary, he obeys at a
sign, his re-election is assured.
The organisation of the parties is so rigid that
one can foretell precisely the number of votes at
their disposal in each constituency. The Centre,
for instance, cannot be beaten in any of its ninety-
two strongholds, the Socialists dispose of forty-six
assured seats, and the Conservatives of sixty. On
the other hand, the National-Liberals have only
a very limited number of rotten boroughs, and
the Democrats hardly any. Both are able to
maintain the number of their seats only by elec
toral compromises entered into with other groups.
According as the Liberal Parties contract, at
the general elections, an alliance with the Right or
the Left, the number of Socialist seats exceeds a
hundred or falls to fifty.
However that may be, these agreements, made
by the central committees, possess an obligatory
and imperative character for the parties. This
always leads to the same result, namely, that indi-

142 BEHIND THE SCENES
vidually the fate of candidates is in the hands of
the prime movers of the political organisations,
and that the unfortunate deputies are obliged, in
order to obtain the official support of their leaders,
to renounce all independence.
The aged Marbe, member for Friburg-en-
Brisgau — an honest man if ever there was one —
often used to say to me :
"I beg you never to consent to belong to the
Centre. I belong to it — and for how many years
past! I suffer horribly through being obliged to
vote in favour of Bills of which I disapprove.
Our high priests dispose of us as though we were
mere cattle. Our votes are sold to the highest
bidder, and they regard it as our duty to sustain
the market. Sometimes I have tried to protest, at
the meetings of the fraction, against combinations
which supremely displeased me. They always
pointed out to me that I was too late, for the
compromise had already been agreed upon by our
diplomatists." Marbe was right. A hundred, nay, a thousand
times have I heard the echo of similar complaints.
Discipline was, however, stronger than these re
volts in the name of commonsense and honesty.
Miiller-Fulda, of whom I have several times
spoken, spent his time harshly criticising the de
cisions of Lieber and Spahn. Never, however,

IN THE REICHSTAG 143
did he openly combat them, and at a plenary sit
ting he voted in their favour. The satirical smile
with which he then coupled his action only made
his abdication more humiliating.
A few rare and ambitious men succeeded, how
ever, in intimidating the great leaders. One of
them was Erzberger.
Mathias Erzberger is a big fellow with a smart
and vulgar face. He is in every way rotund —
cheeks, body, arms, etc. On seeing him for the
first time, nobody would guess that this mass of
unhealthy-looking fat enveloped a most head-^
strong mind. When, however, you hear his
rattle-like voice utter aphorisms in an imperative
tone, doubt is no longer permissible — big Mathias
knows what he wants and speaks out energetically.
A humble teacher of Wurtemberg, he first of
all threw himself heart and soul into the anti
clerical movement. He was not long, however,
in discovering that the Catholic Centre would
assure him a more brilliant future than the Democ
racy. At a day's notice he turned his coat. His
former adversaries, who had been able to appre
ciate his worth, opened wide their arms to him.
In 1903 Erzberger, then barely twenty-eight years
of age, was elected a member of the Reichstag.
Hardly had he taken his seat in Parliament
when he laid siege to the committee of his party.

144 BEHIND THE SCENES
Already taught by experience, he made himself
insupportable to Spahn, whose policy inside the
fraction he fiercely combated. The case was an
embarrassing one. To strike the wolfling would
perhaps have raised a scandal. "Was it not bet
ter to tame him?" Although this sacrifice was
particularly painful to him, Spahn decided to
offer a seat on the committee of the fraction to his
hot-headed opponent. He was exceedingly com
fortable there, for, from the day on which Erz
berger became one of the leading members of the
Centre, there was never a single instance of weak
ness in his governmentalism.
The young member of the Catholic Party has
no convictions, but only appetites. A prodigious
worker, and gifted with an extraordinary mem
ory, he has been able to make himself redoubtable
to the Chancellor through his deep knowledge of
the Budget. He is scandalised less than anyone
by the inaccuracies he has discovered in it ; but he
knows how to make use of them to blackmail the
members of the Government. His tactics to
wards the Chancellor are the very same as those
he has employed to overcome the resistance of his
file-leaders. "Beware!" he seems to say to those
who will not accept his summonses. "I know a
good lot and can cause you the most serious em
barrassments." And, indeed, in questions of

IN THE REICHSTAG 145
detail, he proves himself so well informed and
sometimes provokes such stormy debates that, in
order to muzzle him on the occasion of more seri
ous business, they grant him everything he wants.
When faced by obstinate opposition, this terrible
man does not flinch before the worst conflicts.
He it was who, in 1906, brought about the disso
lution of the Reichstag. Later, he caused the
retreat of Secretary of State Dernburg, who,
however, had the reputation of being afraid of no
one, not even of the Chancellor and the Emperor.
Erzberger aspires (as everyone knows in the
Reichstag) to be head of the German
Colonial Administration. In the meanwhile,
he has taken part in certain business trans
actions which have brought him a large fortune.
His opponents even contend that he will end in
compromising himself in some shady affair or
other. Perhaps they are not far out; for already
in the Vereinsbank smash and in that of the real
estate agent Jahn the member for the Centre nar
rowly escaped serious trouble.
I used to go to the Reichstag about eight o'clock ,
every morning to read the newspapers and write
my articles. Erzberger got there regularly half
an hour later. Alone, at two adjoining tables,
we worked away; and thus I had often an oppor-

146 BEHIND THE SCENES
tunity of conversing with him. Now, this is what
he proposed to me one day:
"I am acquainted," he said, "with a \plan for
the construction of a canal and the establishment
of a large commercial port north of Berlin. The
land where the works will be executed can be
bought for an old song and will increase in value
a hundredfold. The purchase, however, must be
made rapidly and quietly. Do you know any
Parisian capitalists who might place three millions
at the disposal of my syndicate? If the affair
comes off, there will be 10,000 marks for you."
"That doesn't interest me," I replied. "Even
if you spoke of commission, I shouldn't touch that
affair." Erzberger seemed very surprised at my
scruples. Nevertheless, I consented to place him
in relations with one of my financial friends. I
wanted to discover his methods of procedure. I
was lucky. My friend communicated Erzberger's
letters to me. They were extremely instructive.
The deal did not come off, because the member for
the Centre demanded from the Parisian syndicate,
before the signing of the contract, a commission
of 150,000 marks. I had attained my object.
Henceforth I knew my colleague's character.
Erzberger has no nobility of feeling. He
affects rude manners. His coarse laughter is re-

IN THE REICHSTAG 147
pugnant. How it is that the Chancellor, during
the present war, entrusted this big, awkward
fellow with the most difficult diplomatic missions
I cannot for the life of me understand. At Rome,
in that society of the Vatican where diplomacy is
conducted so subtly and so discreetly, this fat
German must have provoked terror by his man
ners — those of a peasant of the Danube.
At the time of Erzberger's arrival at the
Reichstag, Miiller-Fulda guessed that he could
make the ambitious young man the instrument of
his hatred. He monopolised him. Every morn
ing the two conspirators, standing in the recess
of a window of the writing-room, conversed in a
low voice, and, judging by the expressions on
their faces, one could tell that they were concoct
ing the blackest of plots.
Those who have not assiduously followed, as
I have done, the sittings of the Reichstag, at the
time when the number of those attending rarely
exceeded sixty, have but a very imperfect knowl
edge of the mechanism of German Parliamentary
institutions. Later, after the voting of the Par
liamentary indemnity, the lobbies were crowded,
and it became more difficult to watch over the
manoeuvres behind the scenes. Until 1907 every
thing happened in the family circle and almost in
the light of day.

148 BEHIND THE SCENES
If, at that time, I went so often to Berlin, it
was because, as a journalist, I found there the
best and surest information. My colleagues of
Alsace-Lorraine often joked about what they con
sidered was excessive zeal on my part. And yet
those repeated sojourns in an almost deserted
Reichstag have rendered me the greatest service
by enabling me to penetrate deeper into the
German soul.
Only once during those years did the Reichstag
present a scene of extraordinary animation. The
special committee appointed to revise the tariff
had with great difficulty come to an understand
ing. The BiU had got to be passed at a plenary
sitting. Now the Right, the Centre, and some of
the National-Liberals, desirous above all of pro
tecting German agriculture against the influx of
foreign cereals, were in direct and irreducible op
position to the parties of the Left, who were in
favour of cheap bread.
The struggle was an epic one. The heads of
the fractions had mobilised all their troops. For
three days (a spectacle until then unknown) the
number of those present reached and even ex
ceeded three hundred. However, as the debates
were prolonged there was a falling off in the
attendance. During a fortnight, the anxious
leaders sent an express messenger every half -hour

IN THE REICHSTAG 149
to the cloak-room to count the hats and see if
there was, still a quorum.
The Socialists, anticipating the fatigue of the
majority, endeavoured to prolong the discussion
indefinitely. At each clause of the tariff (and
there were more than nine hundred) they dele
gated to the tribune one of the most verbose and
most diffuse of their speakers — Heyne, David,
Antrick, or, especially, Stadthagen.
The last-named could easily speak for five hours
at a stretch. I recollect seeing him one day in
the lobbies, sitting at a table on which lay innu
merable sheets of a transcript of the shorthand
notes of his speech — a transcript which he had to
correct hastily.
"A just punishment," I remarked to him, "for
having bored us during half the sitting."
Stadthagen's faun-like face lit up with a broad
smile. "You don't know all, my dear colleague," he
replied. "Did you notice that when I ascended to
the tribune I had a huge pile of books under my
arm? It happened that I borrowed a series of
long quotations from them. Now, when a
speaker begins to read, our stenographers point
their pencils towards the sky, after writing the
fatal word inseratur. But for the life of me I
cannot find the quotations I made at hazard!"

150 BEHIND THE SCENES
When a clause of a Bill under discussion no
longer permitted the debates to be dragged out,
the Socialists asked to speak on the application of
the rules. We then had to submit to endless
speeches on the insufficient heating of the House,
or on the draughts which made it uninhabitable.
Heyne, who had not the reputation, however, of
being a disagreeable joker, spent an hour counting
the doors of the House. We became furious.
The Socialists imagined still another trick for
retarding the decisive votes. For each clause of
the Bill, as for each of the amendments they pre
sented, they demanded the nominal vote. Now,
at that time, this vote was taken by the secretaries
calling out the names of the members, who re
plied by a "Yes" or a "No." Before resuming
the debates, it was necessary to have a recapitula
tion. Thirty-five to forty minutes were wasted
over this.
In order to put a stop to this obstruction, the
rules had to be changed. Since then the nominal
vote is taken by means of different coloured voting
papers (white: yes; red: no; blue: abstention).
Moreover, it was decided that the speeches calling
for an application of the rules must not exceed
five minutes. Three days more were lost in get
ting these modifications voted.
At last, to put an end to the situation, Kardorff

IN THE REICHSTAG 151
proposed the adoption in the lump of the five hun
dred clauses which had not yet been voted. This
motion brought about a veritable storm. Singer
was expelled for having tried to force his way into
the tribune. A very little more and they would
have come to blows. The leaders of the groups
grew very anxious. It became more and more
difficult to maintain the number of those attend
ing, the amateur deputies refusing to stay in Ber
lin merely to attend irritating and sterile debates.
So it was decided to sit in permanence. It was
a Saturday. The sitting opened at nine a.m. It
ended the next morning at four. At seven p.m.
food and drink gave out.
For this last battle they had succeeded in as
sembling nearly three hundred members. Now,
the instructions they had received were peremp
tory. Nobody was to leave the Reichstag, not
even for an hour, for the Socialists might at any
moment demand a nominal vote. There were,
in fact, eighty of these nominal votes during the
day. At four in the afternoon the Socialist
Antrick mounted into the tribune. He was still
there at midnight. In order to keep up his
strength, his colleagues brought him grog after
grog, in which the yolks of eggs had been beaten
up. Every quarter of an hour the speaker closed
his portfolios and uttered a few phrases intended

152 BEHIND THE SCENES
merely for effect and which led the members of
the Executive to believe that he was about to con
clude his speech. Immediately the division bell
sounded throughout the Palace, whereupon there
was a wild rush of members who feared they would
arrive too late to vote. I must confess that that
night I had, for the first time in my life, thoughts
of murder.
At last, at four a.m., the final vote took place,
amidst the prolonged cheering of the Right and
the hooting of the Left. Before going home to
take our well-earned rest, twenty of us went to
the Chapel of the Sisters of St. Charles to attend
Mass. Now, I was destined not to sleep that day.
For at seven o'clock, just as I was beginning to
drop off, there came a loud knock at my door.
It was one of the little boy attendants of the hotel,
who, thinking he would please me, had come with
the special editions of the newspapers announcing
the great news. I came near to strangling the
poor little fellow.
j. he next day the Reichstag assumed once more
its dreary and abandoned appearance. It was
not full again until the time came for the debates
on colonial policy which, in 1906, brought about
the dissolution of the Assembly. These dissolu
tions were periodical. Bismarck had recourse to
them thrice when Parliament refused to grant him

' IN THE REICHSTAG 153
military credits. The German people, however,
always sent him back majorities that were more
supple. Let those who try to establish an arbi
trary distinction between the German nation and
those who govern it kindly remember that fact.
Dernburg was, in his turn, to triumph in 1906
over the opposition of Erzberger. The Centre
and the parties of the Left were again decimated,
whilst the Conservatives and the National-Liber
als saw the number of their seats increase in an un
hoped-for fashion.
German Chancellors readily make use of the
threat of a dissolution. How many times I have
heard said in the lobbies, "Prince von Biilow (or
Herr von Bethmann-IIollweg) arrived a short
time ago carrying the red portfolio (die rothe
Mappe) under his arm." This portfolio is re
served for Imperial decrees. Generally, it needed
nothing more to bring the opposition to an agree
ment. I am even very much inclined to think
that, very often, the party leaders, whose compro
mises had not met with the approval of their col
leagues, made use, in accord with the Chancellor,
of the expedient of the red portfolio to overcome
the last resistance of their respective fractions.
The dissolution of the Reichstag always, indeed,
brings about a considerable change in the composi
tion of the House. After my sixteen years in

154 BEHIND THE SCENES
Berlin, I was one pf the hundred or so deputies
whose mandates had been constantly renewed. At
the opening of each legislature we found ourselves
in the company of 150 to 200 new colleagues, mere
supernumeraries for the most part, for very few^
among them succeeded in penetrating the direct
ing committees of their party on which the im
movables, or "immortals," sat.
Twice I heard the Chancellor ask to speak at
the opening of the sitting and pronounce the de
cisive formula, "I am ordered to communicate to
the Assembly an important message from His
Majesty." And in the midst of the most impres
sive silence, the highest official of the Empire an
nounced to us that the Reichstag no longer existed.

IN THE REICHSTAG 155

CHAPTER VIII
The Emperor and Parliament
William II — Prince von Bulow.
At the end of each legislature the President called
for cheers for the Emperor. Formerly the So
cialists remained in their seats, whilst the majority
uttered the three formidable "Hochsl" which em
phasised its loyalty. Every time this silent dem
onstration on the part of the Extreme Left pro
voked indignant protests from the Conservatives.
Later, the Socialists showed themselves more ac
commodating. Like the members for Alsace-
Lorraine, they left the House when the psycholog
ical moment came. The President's complaisance
even went to the extent of a motion with his head
in order to avoid giving theni a painful surprise.
In 1911 a few Socialists did better. They re
mained in the House and rose from their seats.
Did they join in the "Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!" of the
other parties? I was never able to find out.
Again, the successive attitudes of the Extreme
Left as regards this question of etiquette clearly

156 BEHIND THE SCENES
show the evolution of a party which formerly
called itself Republican, but which, since the be
ginning of the war, has declared itself decidedly
Monarchical. A curious incident will also show us to what an
extent the Imperial Parliament was lacking in en
ergy. A certain disagreement had arisen between
the Government and the majority a propos of a
Colonial credit. At that time the Rhenish manu
facturer Stumm belonged to the Reichstag, where
he played the part of the man behind the Chan
cellor. Indeed Stumm, who was often received
by the Emperor, was regarded as the inspirer of
the reactionary policy of Prussia. Now, whilst
the Parliamentary battle was at its height in the
lobbies, Stumm, on his return from the Imperial
Palace, informed us that William II, furious at
the opposition to the Bill, had said to him, speak
ing of the Imperial Parliament, "I will crush this
herd of swine" (diese Schweinebande") . Else
where, this vulgar insult would have provoked a
revolt. But at the Reichstag it produced an as
suaging effect. A few Independents of the Left
doubtless considered that the Emperor had gone
too far; but the other members, fearing a serious
conflict, hastened to give satisfaction to the irri
tated Sovereign.
Several times, in 1902 and 1903, 1 met the Em-

IN THE REICHSTAG 157
peror in the Thiergarten, walking rapidly in the
most frequented alleys with an orderly officer. It
did not look as though special steps had been taken
to watch over the Sovereign's safety. The Kaiser
stared with his hard eyes at the promenaders whom
he met and responded to their respectful saluta
tions by negligently raising two fingers to his
white cap.
Later, William II decided to give up these
walks. He no longer went through the parks
and along the streets of Berlin except in a motor
car. As soon as the Emperor's yellow carriage
was signalled, policemen stopped the traffic and
forced the passers-by to get on to the foot pave
ments. The car passed at a speed of forty miles
an hour in the midst of a crowd which caught but
a glimpse of the cowardly monarch.
William II is, in fact, haunted by the fear of
death. As soon as any person about him feels the
slightest uneasiness, he or she is immediately re
moved from the Court until completely cured.
When, in the course of his numerous journeys, it
is reported to the Emperor that cases of infectious
disease have been notified in one of the towns he
is to visit, the programme of receptions is imme
diately altered. If the harmful microbes ever
reach the Sovereign it will not be through lack of
precautions to keep them from him.

158 BEHIND THE SCENES
Presentation to the Emperor has been proposed
to me three times.
"Nothing will please me better," I have replied
each time; "but I have a condition to make. I
shall tell the Emperor all I have on my mind."
"That is impossible," I was told. "The proto
col requires you merely to reply to the questions
asked by the Sovereign."
"Very well, in that case I prefer not to be re
ceived by him."
The Germans could not for the life of them un
derstand my stubbornness, they who, to have the
honour of pressing the hand of their master, would
accept in advance the worst insults.
I was well inspired in avoiding any interview
with the brutal fellow who presides over the des
tiny of the German people. Here is the proof.
In 1913 the Alsace-Lorraine Parliament de
cided, in order to show its dissatisfaction over the
Zabern affair, to reduce the Statthalter's allow
ance by half (100,000 marks instead of 200,000).
A short time afterwards William II came to
Strassburg, and a grand reception was organised
in his honour in the salons of the Secretary of
State. Dr. Ricklin was present.
Prince von Wedel had asked the President of
the Second Chamber to stand near him, so that he
could introduce him to the Emperor. The

IN THE REICHSTAG 159
presentation took place. The Emperor, riding
his high horse and staring still harder, exclaimed,
in a cutting voice:
"Ah! so you are the President of those who
have placed my Statthalter on short commons?
See that you do better next year!"
Whereupon he turned on his heels. Dr. Rick-
lin went and complained to Baron von Bulach of
this piece of impertinence. The Secretary of
State promised to calm the Emperor, and towards
the end of the evening attempted to do so.
"Sire," he said, "the President of the Chamber
is grieved by the reception you reserved for him.
Cannot you say a few kind Words to him?"
"Not to-day!" replied William II, brutally.
There you have the man in his real colours —
the military brute who will accept no contradiction
and considers he has a right to lash those whom he
thinks are incapable of defending themselves.
How different from the amiable, smiling Sover
eign whose delightful portraits have been drawn
for us by foreign tourists !
The Emperor's capricious temper was known
and feared at the Reichstag. How many times I
have heard the members of the Government and
the party leaders threaten us with the anger of
William II!
With some of his familiars, the German ruler

160 BEHIND THE SCENES
knows, however, how to lay aside all constraint.
Two Alsatians had thus won his good graces:
Baron von Bulach, son of a Chamberlain of Na
poleon III, who was made a Minister through an
Imperial caprice, and Baron von Schmid, that
French quartermaster whom William II pro
moted, one fine morning, major of a regiment of
the Guard, to the great scandal of all the officers.
Both secured the favours of the Sovereign by
relating to him those httle scandals and stories of
the guard-house of which William II is so fond
when he consents to lay aside his arrogance.
William II is and will remain an enigma for
future historians. The contradictory attitudes of
this eternal weathercock are disconcerting. He
has been seen to wave, with the same apparent con
viction, the torch of war and the olive branch of
peace. He seems to be fond of nothing but uni
forms and grand military spectacles, until, sud
denly, he reveals himself in the character of a hum
drum bourgeois, desirous above all of transacting
a few good business deals.
He cannot keep still. Nature has also afflicted
him with an intemperance of language which
throws his collaborators into a state of despair.
The Imperial busybody knows nothing, studies
nothing, and listens to no one. When the Chan
cellor, or one of his Secretaries of State, comes to

IN THE REICHSTAG 161
read a report, he has not got further than the sec
ond sentence before William II interrupts and
tries to dazzle him with his foolish theories. Herr
von Posadowsky, Secretary of State at the Home
Office, a serious and wonderfully well-informed
man, used to allow the flood of intemperate lan
guage to pass by, and then quietly resume his
statement at the point where he had had to leave
off. Furious at this, William II used then to
amuse himself by making his two fox terriers pass
in and out between the Minister's legs, until Posa
dowsky, weary of this fooling, closed his port
folios and asked permission to withdraw. One
fine morning, Herr von Posadowsky, whose uni
versal knowledge seemed to fit him for the post
held by Prince von Biilow, received a visit from
Herr von Valentini, the chief of the Civil Cabinet,
who handed him the famous "blue letter" inform
ing statesmen that the hour of their "voluntary"
resignation had struck. There was general sur
prise in the Reichstag. William II's fox terriers
alone could have told us the cause of this unex
pected disgrace.
Nevertheless, Chancellors knew how to utilise
the Sovereign's deambulatory mania and prolixity.
Every time that German diplomacy came in con
tact with serious difficulties, the Emperor was
begged to pack his trunks and visit foreign Sover-

162 BEHIND THE SCENES
eigns. William II has been seen in almost every
capital, where he did his best to captivate the
Court, whilst his Minister was baiting advanta
geous conventions. What would the German Em
peror not have given to be able to come to Paris ?
This was the unrealised dream of his reign. Every
time that his advances toward the Government of
the Republic were unavailing, William II
wreaked his anger on the people of Alsace-Lor
raine. Consequently, we feared above everything
else those friendly telegrams with which period
ically he used to overwhelm French statesmen.
We knew beforehand that they would be paid for
by us in the form of fresh persecutions.
William II was to find a less complaisant
Reichstag during the historic days of November,
1908. But before speaking of that tragic occa
sion, I will stop to draw the portrait of the man
who was the principal actor — Prince von Biilow.
Bernard von. Biilow was born under a lucky
star. Kind fairies gave him both suppleness of
mind and the gift of speech. Entering the Diplo
matic Service when quite young, he was to meet
with nothing but success. Wherever he went —
Paris, London, St. Petersburg, and especially
Rome — he was feted, petted, adulated. The Ger
man diplomat cut a fine figure, spoke several lan
guages with ease, and exhibited flashes of wit

IN THE REICHSTAG 163
which were repeated right and left. A great
reader, he could discourse agreeably on all sorts
of subjects — literature, history, political economy,
etc. When he entered on politics, he showed him
self a past master in the art of saying nothing,
whilst giving himself the air of lavishing the most
redoubtable confidences.
Prince von Biilow was, moreover, and still is,
the most crafty of courtiers. He easily forgets
his promises, and breaks his engagements without
scruple. Lying, which he always accompanies
by a captivating smile, costs him no effort what
soever. Stupendously ambitious, he will pass
over the body of his best friend when his personal
interests dictate that inelegant action.
Few men are as vain as he is of their physical
charms. As I have said elsewhere, Prince von
Biilow is not a handsome man but a pretty woman.
One has the impression, when speaking to him, that
he is constantly twisting himself about and striv
ing to impart to his attitudes an enveloping grace.
There is the same studied elegance in the sonorous
ness of his bass voice.
Prince von Biilow has a fine bearing. His reg
ular features, however, are lacking in distinction.
On the other hand, his blue eyes are very expres
sive. Was it owing to his personal allurement that,

164 BEHIND THE SCENES
late in life, he married the Countess of Campo-
reale, the granddaughter of the Italian Minister
Minghetti? Perhaps so. This marriage was
profitable to him. Princess von Biilow is a very
intelligent and prudent woman, whose collabora
tion has been precious to the German diplomatist.
In 1900 Chancellor von Hohenlohe summoned the
man who was soon to become William II's "dear
Bernard" to the post of Secretary of State at the
Foreign Office. A year later Prince von Biilow
replaced him in the celebrated Wilhelmstrasse
Palace. The ambitious statesman had succeeded in ob
taining Bismarck's old post. Henceforth he
strove to surpass even the founder of the Empire.
I cannot resist the temptation of here relating
an incident which, though slight, will inform the
reader regarding Prince von Bulow's principal
defect. Unless my memory fails me, it happened in 1906.
A Parisian journalist, M. de N  , had come to
Berlin, and I had had several interviews with him.
Now, during his stay in the Prussian capital, a
grand reception was announced to be given at the
Chancellery. Everybody of note in the aristo
cratic, literary, artistic, diplomatic and parliamen
tary worlds of Berlin was to crowd in the official
salons. M. de NJ  expressed to me a desire to

IN f THE REICHSTAG 165
attend the soiree, where he thought he would be
able to collect some precious information. But it
was not easy to obtain an invitation for him, be
cause the Parisian journalist had, a short time be
fore, published a somewhat caustic book about
William II. However, Prince von Bulow's sec
retary, Herr von Loebell, now Prussian Minister
of the Interior, ended by sending me the little card
on which were the simple words "Mme. von Biilow
receives on such a day, at 9 p.m;"
The Chancellor gave a hearty welcome to my
companion. He even showed his kindness to the
extent of taking him into Bismarck's study, where
he showed him the pen with which his predecessor
had signed the Treaty of Frankfort! The po
litest German will display these sudden awaken
ings of ancestral savagery.
On returning to Paris, M. de N  published
in a big morning newspaper three articles, in
which, in most eulogistic terms, he wrote about
Prince von Biilow and his guests. Now, a few
days later, when in the lobbies of the Reichstag, I
happened to meet Prince von Aremberg, who al
most every evening played whist with the Chan
cellor. The Prince stopped me and without preamble
said:

166 BEHIND THE SCENES
"Your Parisian friend is a blackguardt The
Chancellor is furious."
"How is that?" I replied. "I've read the arti
cles and they are so amiable that I'm surprised a
Parisian journal published them."
"Amiable?" cried the Prince. "Look here!
Just you read this passage which Prince von
Biilow himself has underlined with a blue pencil."
The passage in question merely consisted of
these few words, "Prince von Biilow has an ordi
nary head."
The French journalist had touched the German
statesman on his tenderest spot — his vanity, that
of a faded beau.
We should be wrong, however, in concluding
that Prince von Biilow did not seek other suc
cesses. As Chancellor of the Empire he wished
to govern effectively, and at the same time he
aspired to give his country the hegemony of the
universe. To be the head of the first State in the
world, such was the foolish plan which this proud
man had dreamed of realising. It was under the
government of Prince von Biilow that Pan-Ger
manism, openly or hypocritically encouraged by
him, was able to develop freely and bring all the
public authorities under its domination. All the
foreign representatives accredited to the German
Government know the stereotyped argument

IN THE REICHSTAG 167
which the occupant of the Wilhelmstrasse urged
against them.
"Ah! yes, Herr Ambassador. I was quite ready
to make you such-and-such a concession, but, when
reading the newspapers, you must yourself have
been convinced of the impossibility, situated as I
am, of keeping my promises. Public opinion
would not tolerate it."
A nice excuse 1 This public opinion was the
Chancellor himself, who had formed it by the
communiques from his Press Bureau.
Prince von Biilow was not always free, how
ever, to act as he pleased. He had a suspicious
master. William II is disconcerting. All who
have striven to study him have had to abandon the
task of penetrating the mystery of his psychology.
Capricious, always acting on the spur of the mo
ment, profoundly convinced of the almost divine
character of his mission, sometimes seized with
strange scruples, and then suddenly allowing him
self to be led to the worst excesses through his
headstrong temperament, he exacts from his co
workers a blind submission to his eternal caprices.
Prince von Biilow was not the man to accept
this servitude. For a long time he succeeded, by
amusing him, in suggesting his ideas to the Em
peror. Serious difficulties, however, were created
for him through William II's intemperate Ian-

168 BEHIND THE SCENES
guage, which became almost morbid. Never able
to remain long in one place, delivering solemn
speeches wherever he went, in German towns as
well as in foreign capitals, intoxicating himself
with his own words to such an extent that he some
times made the most compromising declarations,
convinced that he knew everything, whereas he
would not consent to learn anything, the Emperor,
in his oratorical demonstrations and in his private
conversations with foreign leaders and statesmen,
indulged in the wildest fancies. This jack-of -all-
trades who presided over the destiny of the Ger
man Empire not only imagined that he was a
painter, a sculptor, an art critic, and a remarkable
musician, he also thought that he could compete
with Demosthenes and Cicero. His political
speeches and sermons (for every year, during his
cruises in the North Sea, William II preached on
Sundays before the crew of his yacht) have been
published in volume form.
Prince von Biilow was furious at being unable
to dam the threatening flood of Imperial elo
quence. The legitimate emotion provoked by the
publication in the Daily Telegraph of an interview
in which William II gave an appreciation in dis
agreeable terms of England's policy furnished the
Chancellor with an opportunity of bringing his
master to reason.

IN THE REICHSTAG 169
There was an interpellation in the Reichstag.
The proceedings lasted three days. Never had
the tribune of the Imperial Parliament enjoyed
such liberties. Theoretically, the Sovereign's per
son must never be discussed in Germany. But
during those celebrated days high treason was com
mitted dozens and scores of times by members of
all parties, even those of the Right. The most
indulgent speakers pleaded extenuating circum
stances and vaguely hinted that, in their opinion,
the Emperor was not responsible because he was
of unbalanced mind.
Sunk in his seat, Prince von Biilow, with dis
tressed face and wrinkled brow, his blue eyes fixed
on the ceiling and his hands raised, every now and
then, to make a disheartened gesture, was a living
statue of sorrow. He allowed, however, the tor
rent of insults poured on the Sovereign to pass
without protesting. A consummate actor, he as
sumed the attitude of a victim resigned to the
worst sacrifices. And yet we all knew that at the
top of the Imperial manuscript he had placed the
sign that he had read it and approved.
The proud master of the Wilhelmstrasse, out
rageously ambitious and basely cunning, imagined
that, thanks to the most hypocritical and dishon
est of manoeuvres, he had succeeded in assuring
for himself, henceforth, undisputed power. But

170 BEHIND THE SCENES
when, on the third day, he rose in the midst of im
pressive silence, it was in an almost languid voice
that he made the long expected declaration, "I
have seen His Majesty. I have obtained from
him the promise that henceforth he will show the
greatest reserve." The whole Reichstag ap
plauded. Prince von Biilow had not the least
idea at that moment that he had just signed his
death warrant.
In the lobbies, the Chancellor's friends gave cir
cumstantial details regarding the interview be
tween the Chancellor and the Sovereign. The dis
cussion had been a stormy one and Prince von
Biilow had several times offered his resignation.
On leaving his master, he was pale and almost fal
tering. And in the eyes of all the members of
the Reichstag the statesman who had had the cour
age to affront the Imperial anger grew beyond
all measure ; he became the national hero, the man
who, by an audacious gesture, had restored the
reign of democracy in Germany and was prepar
ing to endow Prussia with a new constitutional
regime. During the weeks that followed, William II,
the wandering Emperor, der Reisekaiser, as he
had been jokingly baptized, did not leave Berlin,
and the echo of none of his conversations appeared
in the Press. It was known that, at long inter-

IN THE REICHSTAG 171
vais, "dear Bernard" still went to the Palace to
report the progress of affairs to the Emperor, and
that, during these short audiences, the Emperor
had not opened his mouth. Prince von Biilow,
proud of the result obtained, had recovered his
good humour and continued to enjoy his increas
ing popularity. Alas! the Chancellor knew his
master very badly. William II never pardons a
personal insult. Still less is he the man to sup
port a tutelage. He had bent his back to the
storm, but, cunning and obstinate, he awaited the
hour of vengeance. It was soon to strike.
The finances of the Empire were in a bad state.
Prince von Biilow, a Pan-German and deter
mined to prepare for the great war of conquests,
had opened the most ruinous credits for the Gen
eral Staff of the Army. The annual deficit of
the Empire reached 500 million marks. The
Chancellor had indeed tried to meet this by means
of loans, but these barely covered it. Nothing re
mained to be done, therefore, but to create fresh
taxes. Now, the Left claimed, contrary to the constant
tradition and also to the spirit as well as the letter
of the Constitution, that the necessary resources
should be obtained by means of direct taxes, which
are reserved for particular States. The Right
and the Centre, as also the Federal Council^ were

172 BEHIND THE SCENES
in favour of increasing the indirect taxes — those
on beer, alcohol, matches, railway tickets, way
bills, etc. A formidable struggle commenced.
Prince von Biilow, faced by the opposition of the
Socialists and the Democrats, whom he had, how
ever, domesticated, wished to retire. William II
refused to accept his resigation before the Reichs
tag had improved the finances of the Empire. The
Chancellor was forced, therefore, to accept the
proposals of the Conservatives. The day after
their triumph, when the whole Left was over
whelming its former idol with insults, the Em
peror, who at last had vengeance within his grasp,
allowed the Chancellor to collapse in the midst of
the general scorn. He had imposed on himself
for six months the promised "reserve," but his
triumph appeared only the more brilliant. From
the day after his "dear Bernard's" sensational
fall, William II, more talkative than ever, re
sumed the series of his noisy and pompous changes
from place to place, whilst the ex-Dictator, with
embittered heart, went to hide his vexation in the
Villa des Roses at Rome.
Prince von Biilow, on leaving office, did not
say, like Bismarck, "The King will see me
again" ; but, more skilful than the Iron Chancellor,
he took good care not to set up a noisy opposition
to the new regime. The courtiers whom he re-

IN THE REICHSTAG 173
tained in misfortune have related to us that the
disabused statesman spent his time in the Eternal
City re-reading good authors, and that his serene
soul henceforth soared very high above the
wretched contingencies of politics. Nothing of
the sort! .The ex-Chancellor was biding his time!
He thought it had come when, at the beginning of
the war, he was entrusted with the task of main
taining the neutrality of Italy. Notwithstanding
his failure, he hopes that his chance will still come
on the day when Germany, forced to negotiate
with the victorious Allies, will be obliged to have
recourse to his undoubted diplomatic ability, and
on the day when, compelled to rid itself of the
dynasty of prey, Prussia will seek for its first
President of the Republic. Like William II,
Prince von Biilow harbours and protracts his
hatred. His revenge will only be complete on the
day he enters as a master into that Palace whence
the Emperor drove him like a valet.
Did the fourth Chancellor of the Empire in
tend, as has been claimed, to bestow a parliamen
tary regime on Germany? I have never believed
it. By birth, education, and temperament he be
longs to the caste of the Junkers. He had, how
ever, the supreme skill to give the opponents of
the autocracy the illusion of a Liberalism which
was absolutely foreign to him. Above all, anx-

174 BEHIND THE SCENES
ious to win over the parties of the Left to his im
perialistic policy, he incessantly made deceitful
advances towards them. A few concessions as re
gards details sustained the confidence of men who,
deprived until then of all honours and all the ad
vantages of power, threw themselves greedily on
the crumbs that fell from the Governmental
table. Whereas, formerly, the doors of the Wil
helmstrasse Palace had been strictly closed to
Democratic members, Prince von Biilow showed
himself most accessible to his recent opponents.
Picture to yourself the pride with which the chests
of these pariahs were inflated when the little Ba
varian magistrate, Muller-Meiningen and his for
mer stenographer at the Reichstag, stout Wiemer,
were received like friends by the all-powerful
Chancellor. Prodigal of his smiles, his friendly
slaps, and his words of affection, von Biilow spent
his time in passing golden chains around the necks
of his predecessors' most determined adversaries.
How they laughed in the lobbies of the Reichstag
to see the former bullies of the Democracy trans
form themselves into Court dandies !
The Chancellor always used the same language
to his new friends. "At heart I am with you.
Prussia and the Empire must be democratised.
But we cannot succeed in doing that at a single
stroke. We are suffocated within our frontiers.

IN THE REICHSTAG 175
Our industries are suffering from a crisis which is
getting worse and worse. Our finances are in a
rotten condition. Above all things, let us create
a Greater Germany. The exactions of the Agra
rians and the arrogance of the officers are insup
portable, and I desire, as much as you do, to free
Germany from them. But our army is the won
derful instrument which will enable us to domi
nate the world and place the wealth of our Father
land on the broadest bases. This would be a badly
chosen time to break or even to blunt the sword
which will give us the decisive victory. There
fore be patient. Second me in the final efforts I
am making to assure our world domination. The
day after victory, when the people, by their sacri
fices, have merited liberation from an ancient servi
tude, I shall be there to proclaim, with you, the
necessity of immediately granting the widest lib
erties to the nation."
There is, moreover, one of Prince von Bulow's
phrases which all foreign politicians ought to re
member every time they are obliged to negotiate
with a German diplomatist. Here it is, in all its
splendid effrontery:
"As far as I am concerned, I have never seen
the dark side of the reproach that I have broken
political principles; I have even, at times, regarded

176 BEHIND THE SCENES
it as a eulogy. For I recognise in it the confession
that the reason of State is my only compass."
Do not confuse this monstrous declaration with
the well-known saying, "Only fools never change
their opinion." As a matter of fact, a thoughtful
mind may, without loss of prestige, recognise that
it has been mistaken. But there is a great differ
ence between this logical evolution of thought and
the shameful principle in conformity with which
momentary interests permit one to trample all
principles underfoot. The theory of the "scrap of
paper" and "necessity knows no law" is to be
found in its entirety in Prince von Bulow's horrible
djctum. Prussians, fortunately, sometimes give
way to these outbursts of sincerity when they be
lieve they are certain of success. And yet what
nation has ever made so great an abuse of virtuous
verbalism? One of Prince von Biilow's favourite sayings
was as follows:
"When you go in for politics, you must have
the skin of a rhinoceros."
Sometimes the rhinoceros's skin became that of
an elephant. The elegant occupant of the Wil-
helmtrasse meant by this that he was indifferent
to the most violent attacks. He exaggerated, for
no statesman was ever more sensitive, not only to

IN THE REICHSTAG 177
a censure, the grounds of which were stated, but
also to friendly criticism. A regards this he is to
be distinguished from his successor, who really
possesses "the skin of a rhinoceros."

178 BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAPTER IX
The Growth of Imperialism
Von Bethmann-Hollweg — The Evolution of the Socialists —
Winterer and Preiss, the Deputies for Alsace-Lorraine
— Delsor and Hauss — Dr. Ricklin and Vonderscheer —
Gregoire and Charles de Wendel.
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg's appointment
to the post of Chancellor came as a surprise to
everybody. Nothing seemed to have prepared
for such a high position the official whose absolute
insignificance the Reichstag had already many
times been able to appreciate.
Picture to yourself a tall, well-made, but thin
man who does not know what to do with his long
arms and legs — a man whose bony, bearded face
is without expression, whose eyes, buried in two
deep sockets, always have the same anxious look,
and whose thick and pendulous lower lip still
further accentuates his disconcerting appearance.
There you have Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg.
A mediocre speaker, who, in a monotonous voice
and with heavy gestures, often employs most lu
dicrous phrases, the fifth Chancellor of the
Empire is most certainly deprived of everything

IN THE REICHSTAG 179
which contributed to the seductive charm of his
predecessor. On seeing him, during the sittings
of the Reichstag, buried in his chair, with his eyes
fixed on the ceiling and his whole attitude expres
sive of profound boredom, you would take him for
a perfect idiot. He is but a poor creature without
will-power, entrusted, through a caprice of his
Imperial master, with duties that are too heavy
and too complicated for him.
I knew him as a mere Under-Secretary of State
at the Home Office. In those days nobody paid
the least attention to this obscure co-worker with
Herr von Posadowsky. When the latter received
from the hands of Herr von Valentini the blue
letter calling upon him to resign, Herr von Beth
mann-Hollweg became his successor.
"Bethmann-Hollweg? Who is he?" people
asked in the lobbies of the Reichstag, on hearing
the news.
"The insignificant — very insignificant — substi
tute for a man of great value," replied a few
initiates. And, indeed, when, a propos of the home
Budget, the interminable discussions on social poli
tics were resumed, one could clearly see how dryly
bureaucratic the eloquence of the new Secretary
of State was.
I have retained an amusing recollection of that

180 BEHIND THE SCENES
period. It was in 1906, and the constitutional re
form of Alsace-Lorraine was once more being
discussed in the Reichstag. During a speech by
the Socialist Deputy Emmel, Herr von Beth
mann-Hollweg, near whom I was, made the
following remark in an undertone: —
"If only, before asking us for anything, you
would agree among yourselves 1"
"This is a bad time, Excellency, to discuss that
question," I replied. "If you will allow me, I will
call to-morrow morning at the Wilhemstrasse."
"All right! I will receive you at ten o'clock."
I was there to the minute on the following day.
Our interview lasted an hour and a half and was
a stormy one. At one moment Herr von Beth
mann-Hollweg said to me:
"You demand a Republican Constitution. That
is impossible. The German Princes will never
consent to establish a Republic, and that in the
Marches of the West."
"What can you expect, Excellency," I replied.
"We have no dynastic attachment, and I don't
see how we can create one ; and so much the more
so because, as my colleague Groeber said a week
ago, we should be obliged, if that came about, to
'swallow' (herunterschlucken) a Prussian Prince."'
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, surprised by
this unexpected remark, blurted out :

IN THE REICHSTAG 181
"Groeber was right. Ah ! if only Prince August
was ten years older."
He had confessed. Prussia counted on making
Alsace-Lorraine the appanage for one of the sons
of William II. The Emperor had even already
decided to grant our country to his fourth son.
I did not expect to hear so much as this. More
over, the naivete with which the confidence was
made proves that Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg
was completely destitute of the most elementary
prudence. When the question of Prince von Bulow's suc
cessor came up, deputies and journalists took part
for several days in the game of trying to guess
who it was to be. Many names were mentioned.
But that of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg never
entered the head of a single person. When people
heard that William II, after long hesitations, had
fixed his choice on the least brilliant of bureau
crats, there was first of all stupor and then indig
nation in political circles. It was quite obvious
that the Emperor wished to become his own Chan
cellor again. "Dear Bernard" had tried to play
the part of a Mayor of the Palace. The boss
intended to substitute for that cumbrous person
age a simple copying clerk.
Moreover, the new Imperial Minister was fully

182 BEHIND THE SCENES
to j ustif y his master's confidence. Herr von Beth
mann-Hollweg is not a bad man; he has even a
substratum of honesty which is surprising in the
case of a Prussian. Above all, however, he is a
faithful servant. The master commands and he
obeys his orders without a murmur, without
listening to the voice of his conscience. Some
times, perhaps, he raises a timid objection. But
if the Emperor persists in his judgment, the
Chancellor bows to it and, with an accent of the
most profound conviction, upholds before Parlia
ment a point of view which, left to himself, he
would have condemned. He is indifferent either
to the opinion of Parliament or to that of the
people. He will calmly say:
"Put me in a minority, if it so please you; I
shall remain all the same at my post as long as I
retain the confidence of my Sovereign."
The whole of German parliamentary life is
summed up in this brutal sally.
During recent years, the Socialists of the
Reichstag had become the best supporters of the
imperialism of Prince von Biilow and his successor.
Events have proved it. Long and attentively have
I followed their evolution. After the death of
Liebknecht and Singer, Bebel, henceforth left
behind by the self-seekers of his party, had himself
abandoned his old intransigent opposition. Bern-

IN THE REICHSTAG 183
stein, Heyne, Sudekum, Scheidemann, and David
had become masters of the parliamentary fraction
and were themselves coming under the ascendancy
of Legien.
The last named, president of the German pro
fessional workers' syndicates, was the type of the
Possibihst. Formerly the proletariat on the other
side of the Rhine had had faith in the social revo
lution of that marvellous future State the
prodigious equality of which the pontiffs of com
plete collectivism had flashed before its eyes.
Then, seeing nothing come, but noting on the other
hand that the mirage grew fainter every day, in
the midst of a materialistic society in which the
exigencies of capitalism grew inordinately, the
workman had come to wish for immediate realisa
tions. Little by little, he had thus detached
himself from pure politics in order to fall back on
social legislation which certain bourgeois parties
endeavoured to develop methodically but without
excessive haste. From that time the seats of
doctrinarian Socialists were in danger. Legien,
who had them at his disposal, thanks to his power
ful syndicates, demanded of his colleagues of the
Extreme Left that they should cease their system
atic and sterile opposition, to enter on the path of
progressive amelioration of the lot of the workers.
The Socialists formerly rejected all social Bills

184 BEHIND THE SCENES
on the pretext that they were insufficient. The
Syndicalists forced them to vote for them every
time that these Bills represented a real progress.
It was thus that, at the time of the last reform of
the workers' insurance, the Extreme Left, for the
first time, added its votes to those of the Demo
crats, the National-Liberals, and the Centre.
From that time Parliamentary Socialism re
nounced the doctrine of Karl Marx and became a
party of reform like the others. One thing lead
ing to another, it transformed itself, if not into
a governmental party, at least into a party of
government. In the Grand Duchy of Baden, in
Wurtemberg, and in Bavaria the fraction of the
Extreme Left was seen to vote in favour of the
Budget. Frank ventured to attend the Court
receptions. When the constitutional reform of Al
sace-Lorraine came before the Reichstag in 1911,
the whole of the Socialist fraction voted for the
Governmental Bill, the first clause of which said,
"Sovereign power is exercised in the Reichland
by the German Emperor." In 1913, opposition
to the formidable increase in the peace effectives
of the army was very faintly indicated by the
Parliamentary Socialists, who afterwards en
thusiastically adopted the thousand millions of
extraordinary taxes on wealth which made that
increase realisable. All these concessions of prin-

IN THE REICHSTAG 185
ciples were, moreover, consented to without any
compensation. The Right continued to dominate
the Imperial Parliament and the Prussian Gov
ernment remained fiercely reactionary. The
Socialists nevertheless underwent the growing in
fluence of militant pan-Germanism.
Since 1906 we could no longer make our
complaints, as before, from the tribune of the
Imperial Parliament without provoking protests
from the parties of the Left as well as those of the
Centre and the Right. The Poles and the Danes
were in the same box. Whereas, formerly, we
always had a majority when we demanded the
abolition of our exceptional laws and the extension
of our public liberties, the whole Reichstag now
rose against claims which it considered excessive
and treated us as enemies of the Empire.
This was especially the case when there disap
peared one devoted friend we had in the ranks of
the Socialist Party, the Bavarian Deputy von
Vollmar. This tall, thin man with a long, angular
head and a little pointed beard, like that of
Napoleon III, was a curious figure. A former
pontifical Zouave, von Vollmar had been wounded
in the heel during the war of 1870, and they had
never been able to extract the bullet, which caused
him much pain. He walked but painfully, leaning
on a stick. The frock-coat which he wore buttoned

186 BEHIND THE SCENES
up to the chin gave him the appearance of one
of the officers on half-pay of the Restoration. Of
very independent mind, speaking with some diffi
culty, but with much appositeness and a deep
knowledge of the subjects he handled, the
Bavarian Deputy was listened to very attentively
in the Reichstag, especially when he spoke on
foreign affairs.
A very wealthy Swedish lady "(it was related
that she possessed two millions) became enrap
tured with the expontifical Zouave and married
him. Now, it happened that since the Franco-
Prussian War von Vollmar received a pension of
2,000 marks from the Emperor's private purse.
When, through his marriage, he became rich, he
was discreetly invited to abandon his income.
"God forbid!" he replied. "Henceforth I shall
hand my pension over to the party funds, where
it will represent the Imperial subscription."
On this occasion von Vollmar showed himself
more generous than Bebel, who, having inherited
half a million from an officer, an admirer, kept the
greater part of this royal gift for himself. We
know that when the ex-workman cabinetmaker
died he left a fortune of more than 900,000 marks
to his son, a doctor in Switzerland. The Collec-
tivists never pardoned their great leader for this
.infidelity to the sacred doctrine. It is true that

IN THE REICHSTAG 187
capitalists are numerous among them and almost
always respected.
My Alsace-Lorraine colleagues in the Reichstag
formed an interesting group. After the voluntary
departure of Canons Guerber and Simonis, M.
Winterer became the doyen of our little fraction.
His was a fine and beautiful figure. The cure of
St. Etienne at Miilhausen had been elected for the
first time in 1874 for the constituency of Altkirch-
Thann. Since then, his electors had remained
constantly faithful to him. In Canon Winterer's
heart was one passionate affection — that for
France, and one deep hatred — that for Socialism.
At a time when nobody yet attached importance
to the theories of Marxism, he had grasped their
danger and, in books which are still read with
profit, had attempted to refute them scientifically.
Winterer had not a transcendent mind, but he
was an indefatigable worker. He required a good
deal of time and reflection to establish his con
victions, but when he had acquired them nothing
could ever shake them. He stuck to his ideas in
a direct ratio to the difficulty their assimilation had
given him. Intercourse with him was not always
easy; but the authority he enjoyed, and which was
explained by his sincerity and application, as well
as the dignity of his life, was enormous.
In his attachment to the lost provinces he never

188 BEHIND THE SCENES
gave way. The Germans knew that he was their
irreconcilable enemy. In Berlin, as well as in
Strassburg, Winterer was the soul of a deliberate
resistance, moderate in appearance, but of inflexi
ble energy. His speeches, which were very elabo
rate (the member for Altkirch never improvised),
always produced a profound emotion, which was
still further increased by the speaker's venerable
aspect and the penetrating tone of his voice.
Jacques Preiss was quite different. A lawyer
of great ability and a remarkable polemist, speak
ing and writing the German language admirably,
the member for Colmar gave, when in the tribune,
the impression of being a powerful adversary.
His arguments descended on the heads of his op
ponents like the blows of a sledge-hammer. The
speech on the Dictatorship delivered by Preiss in
1894 in the Reichstag marked the first awakening
of public opinion in Alsace-Lorraine, after the
period of the hardest persecutions. On hearing
that splendid trumpet blast, the people of the
annexed provinces recovered consciousness of their
rights, as Spiess's election was to prove two years
later. What Preiss so well called "the cemetery
peace" was at an end.
Few men were so popular as the member for
Colmar during the years that followed. His name
became a flag. And only rightly so, for Preiss,

IN THE REICHSTAG 189
devoid of all ambition, had never once shown a
sign of weakness. A few months before the open
ing of the war he showed me, with a certain pride,
the extremely rare pamphlet in which, when a
young student, he had already traced the political
programme which was to be that of his whole life.
A good-humoured man and a most sure friend,
he was held in general esteem. The Germans
themselves respected an enemy whose disinterest
edness they knew through having tried in vain on
several occasions to buy his co-operation.
A Protestant, or rather a Freethinker, whose
temperament led him to combat all religious sym
bols, "our Jacques," as he was called, neverthe
less extolled that sacred union of which he was
one of the principal founders in Alsace-Lorraine.
Catholic electors constantly showed their gratitude
to him on that account, whereas the "Liberals"
would never pardon him.
Of medium height, with a well-knit frame, al
though he was afflicted with a slight stoutness,
possessing an energetic face intersected by a slen
der moustache, and an animated look behind the
double eye-glass constantly fixed on his small
nose, Preiss spoke little, but listened and reflected
a good deal. It was only after a good meal,
copiously washed down by generous wines, that

190 BEHIND THE SCENES
he let himself go. His sprightliness was then
unbounding. He gained an important position in the Reichs
tag. On the benches of the Democrats and of the
Centre he counted only friends. His interventions
in the tribune always produced the greatest effect.
The Abbe Delsor is and was always a bundle of
nerves. First of all a teacher in France and
professor at the little episcopal seminary of
Strassburg, he afterwards became, after a short
stay at Colmar, as curate of St. Martin's, cure of
a little village in Lower Alsace. Possessing su
perior intelligence, writing French and the
Alsatian dialect perfectly, he experienced the
glories of fame when quite young. His chats in
dialect, signed "The Old Pontoneer," had a
prodigious success in the Union d' Alsace-Lorraine,
and largely contributed to sustain the spirit of
national opposition among the population of the
annexed provinces. Later, when the Union was
suppressed, Delsor took over the management of
the Revue catholique d' Alsace-Lorraine, the
brilliant monthly articles of which placed him in
the front rank of the gallant defenders of our
liberties. Delsor has a lapidary style. His
sentences are clear, precise, trenchant, and abound
in similes. Unfortunately, this incomparable
writer has no definite political doctrine. He does

IN THE REICHSTAG 191
not live on an acquired basis of classified knowl
edge, but from day to day on his impressions of
the moment.
Here is an instance. In 1906 the Reichstag was
discussing the American Meat Importation Bill.
The German market was flooded with suspicious
products, the preparation of which was not
sufficiently controlled in the ports of departure.
Numerous cases of poisoning had been reported
through the consumption of sausages and fats
coming from the United States.
German producers, whose cattle was in
sufficiently protected against this disastrous com
petition, had demanded that the authorities should
allow only animals that had been slaughtered in
large houses, where they could be easily examined
by the Customs, to be imported from America.
Representing an almost exclusively agricultural
population, the Abbe Delsor's duty was to support
the Governmental Bill. But whilst on his way to
Berlin he read an article by Le Play on cheap
living. When he reached the Reichstag, he de
clared to Hauss and myself that he was going to
ask to speak in favour of complete liberty as re
gards importation. The more we strove to combat
his ideas the more obstinate he became in defend
ing them. Our discussion assumed such propor
tions that Hauss ended by saying to Delsor,

192 BEHIND THE SCENES
"Very well! Deliver your speech in your own
name. I shall afterwards ask to speak in the name
of my group, to uphold the opposite point of
yiew." During the whole discussion, Delsor, who had
had his name put down to speak, stood at the foot
of the tribune. He was visibly annoyed. When
"his turn came to speak he delivered a splendid
speech in favour of Protection! Hauss very
nearly embraced him when, smiling, he returned
to his seat.
How can one explain this strange receptivity?
Delsor, who is a very brilliant talker and naturally
inclined towards contradiction, lives a good deal
out of doors. He talks more than he studies.
Hence a natural tendency to return in his articles
to the often contradictory ideas which his long
and numerous conversations with people of all
classes have brought forth in his mind.
We were constantly obliged to watch over him,
to take him aside and catechise him, in order to
avoid the danger of his bolting. This lack of
moderation served him an ill turn in 1891. In
one of his "Reviews of the Month" he allowed him
self to write an unfortunate sentence regarding
Protestantism which brought him a sensational
lawsuit. I was present at the sitting of the Miil-
hausen Tribunal before which he was condemned.

IN THE REICHSTAG 193
The Imperial Procurator made merely a passing
mention of the three incriminating words. On the
other hand, he laid himself out to deliver an in
terminable speech on the general political attitude
of the accused, whom he depicted as the most dan
gerous adversary of Germanism. The case ended
in a sentence of three months' imprisonment.
Whilst Delsor was in prison I was entrusted with
the task of replacing him on the Review. This
was my debut as a journalist.
Under the Combes Ministry, the Abbe Delsor,
who had been invited by a French Deputy of the
Vosges to preside over a Christmas-tree fete given
by the Alsace-Lorrainers of Luneville, was ex
pelled as a "German" subject from French terri
tory before he had even been able to speak there.
Some of my readers will recollect the stormy dis
cussion that resulted in the French Parliament.
The Ministry narrowly escaped defeat. Notwith
standing the numerous expressions of sympathy
which the severe and unjustifiable measure of
which he had been the object brought him, the
Abbe Delsor, without confessing it to himself, felt
his faith in France as a liberator decline. He
visibly struggled against the prejudices which in
vaded him. Embittered and exasperated, he no
longer succeeded, however, in fighting the good
fight with the same ardour as before. His dis-

194 BEHIND THE SCENES
contentment was to increase still further when,
notwithstanding the applications of his friends, he
was several times refused the simple safe-conduct
he had applied for in order to visit friends in Nor
mandy. When, later, thanks to the intervention
of M. Paul Deschanel, I obtained the necessary
document for him, he refused to make use of it.
After this, is it surprising that, at the opening
of the war, the Abbe Delsor did not take up the
heroic attitude we hoped he would assume? I am
aware that, later, he atoned for his weaknesses —
of which I was the first victim — by particularly
meritorious acts of courage. It will be to him
especially that, to-morrow, we must apply the
adage, "To comprehend everything is to pardon
everything." Charles Hauss is an entirely different type of
man. Coming of a very poor family, he was edu
cated at an elementary school, after which, dur
ing two years, he attended the classes of a school
kept by French missionaries. He started work
with the management of the Alsace-Lorraine
Railway Company, and whilst an employee was
a member of the delegation which, at the time of
the suppression of the Fedelta, a Catholic society
of Strassburg, called on Fichter, the Prefect of
Police, to protest against that measure. The next
day he was dismissed. He next became a serpent-

IN THE REICHSTAG 195
player at the Cathedral; then a reporter on the
staff of Elsaesser. At the time of the election of
M. Spiess, at Schlestadt, in 1896, Hauss sudden
ly revealed himself to be a first-class popular
speaker. Tall and of fine bearing, possessing
sympathetic features and a powerful voice, quick
in his replies, endowed with a wonderful memory,
and, moreover, an indefatigable worker, he pro
duced so deep an impression on his crowded audi
ences that, in 1898, despite the sly opposition of
a few noteworthy Catholics, he was elected a
member of the Reichstag.
Hauss, displeased with the attitude of Elsaes
ser, the journal of Mgr. Miiller-Simonis, a semi-
Rallie, founded, with Delsor, the Folksblatt, in
which he defended a more clearly defined Alsatian
policy. At first the paper met with consid
erable success, but later its action was paralysed
through financial difficulties.
Both in the Reichstag and in the Strassburg
Parliament, which he entered later, Hauss was
able to bring himself to the fore by his great abil
ity as a speaker. This self-taught man was also
a remarkable political tactician. On many occa
sions he was even a little bit too much so. But
it is only right to recognise that, whilst sometimes
giving pledges to a Government which knew how
to exploit financial difficulties, in the midst of

196 BEHIND THE SCENES
which, owing to his excessive prodigality, he was
constantly struggling, he never completely abdi
cated his independence, and remained, even during
most difficult times, a good Alsatian.
I shall not say as much of Dr. Ricklin, who
succeeded M. Winterer in the Reichstag when
this veteran champion, tired out, felt that he could
no longer ask his faithful electors of Altkirch-
Thann to re-elect him. The Dannemarie doctor
had already at that time a rather dark past. His
mother having married a second time, when he
was ten years old, little Eugen was taken by his
stepfather, a Bavarian railway official, to the lat
ter's native place, where the boy received a thor
ough German education. The numerous deep
cuts that Ricklin bore on his face proved that he
had been a very quarrelsome student at his Mu
nich school.
Returning to Alsace, he became a country doc
tor. In those days he made a display of his Ger-
manophile sentiments, never missed an opportu
nity on the occasion of the Emperor's birthday
of putting on his uniform of an assistant doctor
in the German Army, and lived in a state of con
tinual discord with his cure. His marriage to one
of his cousins, a very wealthy girl whose educa
tion had been wholly French, seemed to have a
good influence over him. The necessity of adapt-

IN THE REICHSTAG 197
ing his opinions to those of his electors completed
his conversion — at any rate in appearance. Rick
lin became anti-governmental and a frequent at
tendant of the religious services in his parish. A
short time after his election the Government
brutally deprived him of the mayoralty of Danne-
marie. Very selfish, the member for Altkirch-
Thann then threw himself into the most violent
opposition. Preiss always distrusted this tardy recruit. A
long time before Ricklin betrayed the Alsatian
cause, he foresaw that defection, which was pre
cipitated by his caustic criticisms. In 1911, at the
time of the discussion of the constitutional reform
of Alsace-Lorraine, Ricklin, more prudent and
more diplomatic, however, than Vonderscheer,
engaged in the most suspicious manoeuvres and
thus gained the friendship of Secretary of State
Zorn von Bulach. The year following he became,
thanks to Government support, President of the
Second Chamber of Strassburg, and after that he
impudently paraded his Germanism. At the be
ginning of the war, Ricklin delivered wildly patri
otic speeches; he even went as far as denouncing
and threatening the Francophile populations of
the annexed provinces. He has again put on his
uniform of an officer of the reserve, after having,
a few years before, noisily resigned his post as

198 BEHIND THE SCENES
assistant army doctor. Whereas his colleagues,
formerly the most compromised, observe an atti
tude of reserve, he seeks for every opportunity of
giving pledges to the military government.
Ricklin is cunning and shrewd, but likewise
brutal. Inordinately ambitious and sordidly
avaricious, his sole desire is for honours and
money. In order to obtain them he is ready to
pass over the bodies of his closest friends. * He is
certainly the most detestable of all the rallies.
Poor Vonderscheer, who got M. Spiess's seat
at Schlestadt, exhibited the same failings, but his
evolution was less brilliant, because the man was
more in the shade. A lawyer with no ability, his
great ambition was to obtain an important no
tary's office from the Ministry. He was tenacious
in his ambitions, but very timid by temperament.
Over the steps he took to attain his end he was
very long, and he moved in the midst of the great
est mystery. In the presence of his colleagues, he
derived a certain amount of glory from his rela
tionship with a French general. We were igno
rant of the fact that, whilst he was multiplying
his protests of friendship towards France, he was
maintaining the most cordial relations with the
members of the Strassburg Government. By
means of intrigues, he succeeded in getting himself
elected President of the Alsace-Lorraine Centre,

IN THE REICHSTAG 199
and such was his duplicity that we regarded this
election as a brilliant success for our national
cause. But the very next day he sold us to Baron
von Bulach. His treason became patent in 1911.
He it was who, behind our backs, negotiated, on
the one hand with the Chancellor, on the Other
with the German Centre, the constitutional com
promise which was to hand Alsace-Lorraine over
to Prussia. There were stormy scenes at that
time between Vonderscheer and the other mem
bers of our group. The petty Strassburg law
yer, who thought that he had at last got his no
tary's office, nevertheless threw down his mask and
shamefully betrayed us. Expelled from the
party, he no longer had the courage to ask his
electors to re-elect him. Baron von Bulach paid
for the services that Vonderscheer had rendered
by giving him a small post in the magistracy.
Since then, the ex-Deputy, returning to the ob
scurity from which he ought never to have come,
has seen all the people of Alsace-Lorraine turn
from him in disgust.
I have yet to mention another renegade — the
lawyer Gregoire, of Metz. He, at any rate, had
the frankness from the very first to display his
Germanophile sentiments openly. His mother
and wife, moreover, were German.
Gregoire had tried to place his hand on his

200 BEHIND THE SCENES
colleague of Lorraine, M. Charles de Wendel. A
short time before his election, this great manufac
turer of Lorraine had had to resume his Alsace-
Lorraine nationality in order to prevent the man
agement of the important works of Hayange
passing into the hands of a German. Of entirely
French education, he had an inborn repugnance
to manifestations of Germanism. He was seen
but little in Berlin; but, on his rare appearances,
he always joined forces with the Alsace-Lorraine
group, whereas Gregoire, who had had himself
inscribed as a "guest" in the National-Liberal
fraction, regularly gave his votes to Bassermann
and his friends.
When the question of the renewal of the mili
tary septennate came before the Imperial Parlia
ment, Charles de Wendel was the object of the
most pressing solicitations. The majority was
doubtful. A single vote might decide the fate of
the Bill. Gregoire would not let go of his col
league, who was also constantly summoned to the
Councillors of the Chancellery, who, in order to
make him give way, employed the vilest means of
blackmailing him. Persecution assumed such pro
portions that the wretched Charles de Wendel,
tossed about between his political convictions and
his business interests, came to the point of no
longer knowing where his duty lay.

IN THE REICHSTAG 201
Half an hour before the vote took place I was
conversing with him in the lobbies. When the
division bell rang and announced that the fatal
hour had come, the Lorraine Deputy made an
energetic gesture, uttered in an angry voice ( God
pardon him!) the word that made Cambronne
famous, and rushed out of the Reichstag, never
to appear there again. The Government was
em-aged at his abstention. Charles de Wendel,
disgusted with the persecutions of which he was
the object since then, soon returned to Paris,
where he hastened to resume his French nation
ality. I shall not speak of other colleagues who al
ways did their duty courageously, because the
good I should say of them might expose them to
reprisals. I feel that my pen, in the course of
this narrative, is often arrested by that scruple.
It is obviously impossible to relate the history of
Alsace-Lorraine during the last forty-seven years
until the day on which the basely vindictive Ger
mans have evacuated the country. At present,
they still hold too many hostages to make it pos
sible to tell the whole comforting truth.

202 BEHIND THE SCENES

CHAPTER X
My Defence of Alsace-Lorraine
A Speech — Receptions — Our Guests.
As information, I think it will be well if I repro
duce here the principal passages of a speech which
I delivered from the tribune of the Reichstag on
January 28th, 1911, on the occasion of the debate
on the constitutional reform of Alsace-Lorraine.
Readers will note in it certain artifices of language
to which we were obliged to have recourse to ex
press our secret thoughts, but for which we should
have incurred the severities of the law. I trans
late from the official stenographic report of the
sitting. Gentlemen, — For the past two days the representa
tives of the Government and the Liberal and Conserva
tive speakers have placed our population upon its trial.
To be just, however, one must distribute responsibilities
better. The great obstacle to the normal development
of the country is to be found in the fact that there has
been with us, during the past forty years, two popula
tions, living side by side, without understanding each
other, each of whom retain their customs and traditions,

IN THE REICHSTAG 203
and who often end in fighting. We have not the slight
est intention of generalising. A large number of our
compatriots, old Germans, have allowed themselves to bo
assimilated; but there are others who still behave as
conquerors, and thence arise the greatest difficulties.
We are constantly asked for guarantees. What guar
antees must we give you? We pay our taxes, we respect
authority — as far as it merits it — (loud laughter), and
the children of the country frequent the schools and the
German barracks. (Interruptions on the benches of
the Federal Council.) Moreover, all the men who have
occupied themselves with politics during the past twenty
years have declared a hundred times that they accept
the present situation. What more do you require?
With what thermometer do you propose to measure the
heat of our patriotism? When shall we come of age?
When shall we be considered worthy of sitting at the
table of the Empire on an equality with the members
of the German nation? We are given only evasive re
plies ; you refuse to recognise our rights. And if the
incident of which so much has been said had not oc
curred, others would have been found — (cries of "Very
good !" from the Socialist benches) — to deprive us of
our liberties. (Continued cries from the Socialists.)
Gentlemen, even a marriage of convenience may be
successful, but on condition that one of the partners
does not constantly ill-treat the other. It is said that
there are women who like to be beaten. I have never
heard the same thing said about a nation. As M.
Preiss has already said, you bave annexed, not a tribe
of negroes, but a highly civilised people — even much more

204 BEHIND THE SCENES -
civilised, in those days at least, than the Junkers of the
East, allow me to point out to those gentlemen on the
Right. (Cries of dissent.)
Our only crime, Gentlemen, is that we have been
French. We are punished because we have lived for
two hundred years under French domination.
There is evidently a profound abyss between the two
groups of our population. Especially do we realise
this when we read the malignant articles in which a
number of men in the pay of the country calumniate
our population and misconstrue the smallest incident —
(cries of dissent) — in such a way that the situation
can no longer be sanely judged.
Gentlemen, I have been a journalist for seventeen
years. I have often been reproached for being violent
and sarcastic in my writings. Well, I can certify that
all my articles were merely replies to attacks. (Herr
Mandel, "Even your articles against me?") Yes, Mr.
Secretary of State, even those; for at the Landesaus-
schuss, as elsewhere, it was you who opened fire. There
also I only replied.
Every piece of child's play is transformed into an
affair of State. Look at the Wegelin case at Miilhaus-
en. A Swiss, having drunk a little more than was good
for him, has the "Marseillaise" played and engages in
a little ill-timed demonstration which his nearest neigh
bours hardly noticed. In consequence of this incident,
the whole heavy machinery of the law is set in movement
and the entire population of Alsace-Lorraine is pun
ished. The affair of the flag of the Colmar theatre, of
which Herr Dirksen has spoken, will shortly result in a
trial, and once more we shall find that it is a mere trifle.

IN THE REICHSTAG 205
Our Secretary of State has also -been a victim of the
correspondents of the Pan-German newspapers. You
know the story of Valentin's dog, and how on that occa
sion we all had to defend Herr von Bulach. The
Statthalter himself has been the object of attacks on
the part of those individuals ; for every statesman who
shows us the least kindness is immediately denounced
in Berlin and nailed to the pillory in the Pan-German
organs. There you have the principal motive for our earnest
desire to be at last masters in our own house. We
wish to put an end to these denunciations made in Ber
lin, we no longer wish to be directed by Berlin, and we
know very well that on the day our officials have noth
ing more to expect from elsewhere, they will end by
uniting in fellowship with us. In the meanwhile, they
form an exclusive caste, intent above all in safeguard
ing its privileges.
Twenty-four years ago, Herr Petri, Under-Secretary
of State, already protested with the greatest energy
against the calumniatory articles of the Pan-German
Press, and pointed out that tlie intention of their au
thors was to prevent us attaining our autonomy. There
fore, there is nothing new in the phenomenon.
The saddest part about this affair, Gentlemen, is that
all of you who listen to me, or almost all, take your
knowledge of the affairs of Alsace-Lorraine from that
newspaper correspondence. ("Hear, hear!") The ma
jority of you have not the slightest idea of what is
happening with us and have never taken the trouble
to go and make inquiries on the spot. The Pan-Ger
man sheets are your daily bread and from them you

206 BEHIND THE- SCENES
form your opinion regarding Alsace-Lorraine. ("Hear,
hear!") The system employed up to now has failed. You
have now an opportunity of doing good work and giving
satisfaction to Alsace-Lorraine. When you have
granted complete autonomy to our provinces, all the
painful incidents of recent times will disappear. We
ask merely to be treated as equals in the national fam
ily into which we were forced and no longer to be the
collective property of the States but co-proprietors of
the Empire. That is our right. And if it sometimes
happens that we give way to our somewhat fiery tem
perament, if events which displease you still sometimes
occur in Alsace-Lorraine, recollect that the French have
already said of us — "A headstrong people, but sound
of heart."
And now I will ask you the following question, "What
has been done to merit our affection?"
Immediately after the annexation, all the young men
of Alsace-Lorraine were subjected to military service,
which resulted — and rightly so — in an emigration en
masse. It was possible to act otherwise, as was done
in the case of Heligoland.
Affer that came the incident of those who were called
upon to choose their nationality. The Under-Secretary
of State himself will confirm the enormous difficulties
arising through the law; for^even now cases crop up
in which, despite all his knowledge, it is difficult for
him to decide the question of nationality.
Thirty-one years of dictatorship! Gentlemen, it is
absolutely impossible for you to form an idea of that
dictatorship. One must have felt its weight in order

IN THE REICHSTAG 207
to be able to realise it. I myself have seen the suppres
sion of two prosperous journals, in the establishment
of which I assisted, and which the Statthalter swept out
of existence by a stroke of his pen. A capital of 70,000
francs (£2,800) was thereby destroyed.
And the expulsions ! They were not, perhaps, nu
merous ; nevertheless, those who were driven out of the
country were German citizens to whom the general laws
of the country ought to have been applied.
Then there was the question of passports. Only those
people through whose instrumentality sons, who had
been summoned to their parents' death-bed, were ar
rested at the frontier know how hard that exceptional
measure was. Passports were no longer necessary in
Turkey, and I believe that even the Young Turks have
abolished them.
Gentlemen, to prove to you with what little regard we
are treated, I will call your attention to one more
fact. For the past four years the Landesausschuss
has asked every session that refractory conscripts and
deserters of the early years following the annexation —
that is to say, the period during which it was excusable
to leave the country in order to avoid service in the
German Army — should be amnestied. On several occa
sions, our Government has given us the assurance that it
would intervene energetically in Berlin, in order to give
us satisfaction. Up to this very day nothing has come.
Even this little concession is not made to us. It is true
that the military authorities are opposed to it.
And now let us speak of the regulations regarding
shop-signs and advertisements. Every time I walk un
der the Lindens, I am amused by the fact that fifty per

208 BEHIND THE SCENES
cent, of the sign-boards to be seen there would be for
bidden by the police with us. ("Hear, hear!")
Moreover, Gentlemen, I am going to prove to you
that our government is the first to break the law. (Here
the speaker drew a packet of cigarettes from his pock
et.) Our tradesmen are forbidden to sell their goods
with French labels. Now, on this packet of cigarettes
I read these words in German: "Kaiserliche Tabakmam-
ufaktur Strassburg." But I also find in French, "Ex
portation- — Importation, W cigarettes elegantes.
Maryland. Le Paquet, 60 pfennig." (Prolonged laugh
ter.) Those gentlemen of the Government are well
aware, therefore, of the advantages to be derived from
French labels, but they forbid our poor tradesmen to
follow their example, even though by so doing they ruin
them. What is to be said, too, regarding the struggle
against the teaching of French? Secretary of State
Delbriick told you the day before yesterday that in
1870 an overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of
Alsace-Lorraine spoke German. Under those conditions
the prohibition of French in our frontier country was
at least useless. Only those among us who feel a real
need of this language take the trouble to learn it. Now,
the following phenomenon has arisen. Our country is
inundated with bilingual Swiss and Luxemburgers, who
come and take away from our young men the best posi
tions in private industry.
I shall not insist on the subject of secret police re
ports and black lists. These latter, Mr. Secretary of
State, still exist, notwithstanding all denials. (Cries of
"Very good!" from the Socialists.)

IN THE REICHSTAG 209
Nor shall I speak of the constant supervision to
which our leading men are subjected. If I have taken
all these measures into account, it is solely for the pur
pose of establishing tlie fact that our conquerors — for
it is always necessary to use that word — have done
everything in their power to molest us in our habits and
customs. And yet the measures of a general nature are
even less irritating than the pettifogging litigation to
which our people are subjected by small and middle-
class officials. The Government has often committed
blunders, but these become insupportable when subordi
nates make them theirs— those subordinates who operate
in the Pan-German way.
And now, Gentlemen, a final question. What are the
accusations brought against us? Nothing must be hid
den! We are reproached with our hostility towards
Germany and our sympathy for France.
We do not Oppose Germanism in itself, but German
ism as it is manifested with us — that meddlesome, petti
fogging Germanism which is constantly fighting against
our customs and traditions and which would deprive us
of all our liberties.
Gentlemen, it is said that confidence inspires confi
dence. It is equally true that distrust engenders dis
trust. (Laughter.) It is indisputable that for the
past forty years we have incessantly been treated with
distrust. And yet you would have us fall into your
arms and overwhelm you with declarations of love ? Cer
tainly not! (Laughter.)
Proof of the maladroitness of the methods employed
in our case is to be found in the fact that Herr Preiss
has already pointed out and that each of my colleagues

210 BEHIND THE SCENES
can confirm. The young generation is further away
than ours from that petty, mean and tormenting Ger
manism. Soon we shall be Moderates, and pointed put
as models for the newcomers. (Prolonged laughter.)
Now, as regards our sympathy for France. Gentle
men, first of all allow me to tell you that we have no
reason for detesting our former Fatherland. Under
French domination we were very well treated. We en
joyed all the advantages of common law. The people
of Alsace-Lorraine attained the highest positions. Even
since the war, those of our compatriots who have emi
grated have in many cases had a brilliant career beyond
the Vosges. Take, for instance, the higher officers of
the Army. I believe that in the French Army there are
no fewer than 150 Generals in active service or unat
tached who are natives of the annexed provinces. Now,
Gentlemen, count those of Alsace-Lorraine who have ob
tained official positions in their own country. I can tell
you beforehand that you will arrive at a very poor per
centage. Our young people affirm — whether rightly or wrongly
is a question which would take us too long to examine —
that even when at school they are systematically placed
in the background. It is certain that in none of the
Confederated States could one find, at least formerly,
so many pupils who failed to rise in their forms. It is
evident, therefore, that there is a system in force to
prevent young Alsace-Lorrainers from continuing their
studies and attaining official positions. (Interruptions
and cries of "Give your proofs.")
I am going to give you a p/oof which nobody can
confute. We have done everything in our power, re-

IN THE REICHSTAG 211
cently, to reserve at least the small official posts for our
compatriots. The people of Alsace-Lorraine have al
ways been considered excellent soldiers. It has been easy
to induce them to re-enlist when lower official posts were
reserved for those soldiers who had served twelve years.
Now, what happened on the day we were able to supply
almost the whole of our staff? In 1904 the Minister
of War issued a decree in accordance with which fifty
per cent, of small official posts in Alsace-Lorraine were
henceforth to be reserved for re-enlisted non-commis
sioned officers of the other Confederated States, on the
only condition that they had done their service in the
country of the Empire. Let those non-commissioned
officers ask for posts in their own country ! (Cries of
"Quite right" from the Centre.) But in that way they
attained their aim: Alsace-Lorraine was colonised by
old Germans — a veritable Polish colonisation, although
by roundabout means.
When people speak of French tendencies, they have
again another object in view. Your present and ours
are parallel. For the past forty years we have belonged
to the same country and our destinies are the same. But,
Gentlemen, our pasts fork in different directions. No
body can prevent our recollections going back to the
French period, and it is quite natural that these recol
lections, which were often glorious, do not conform to
yours. How can you ask us, for instance, to celebrate
the anniversary of Sedan? I can very well understand
that you are proud of the recollection of that day. But
you cannot ask the inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine to
rejoice on the anniversary of the day on which their
fathers and brothers were beaten — no, Gentlemen, you

212 BEHIND THE SCENES
cannot ask that of men who are conscious of their dig
nity. You must make your mind clear about this — our
history is not your history. Let it suffice that you hear
us say that, at the present time, our economic interests
conform to yours.
Finally, Gentlemen, our sympathy towards France
also includes our double culture. We cling to that cul
ture, and whatever may be done we will not allow it to
be taken away from us. ("Hear, hear!") It is advan
tageous and we should be the poorer if we renounced it.
The majority among you, Gentlemen, have taken a good
deal of trouble to learn a foreign language, in order to
be able to draw upon the literary treasures of that lan
guage. Must we, who, in the course of two centuries,
have painfully learnt a little French, give it up? No!
Gentlemen, we shall retain what we have acquired. There
is nothing subversive in that. We are merely appealing
to the right of a nation which respects itself and would
safeguard its intellectual patrimony.
I was very amused to hear, in the course of the pre
ceding speeches, that the Alsace-Lorraine nation pre
served, on the whole, a calm and loyal attitude. It ap
pears that there are only a few abettors of disorder —
(laughter) — and it is because of these that the whole
legislative machinery must be set in motion. Gentle
men, you yourselves do not believe it. An Empire of 66
million inhabitants is frightened of a handful of agita
tors in a province where 80,000 bayonets are planted?
If what was said in those speeches partly applies to
myself — I hope I shall not be counted among the abet
tors of disorder — I shall be more than proud of having
I

IN THE REICHSTAG 213
thus thrown the whole Empire into a flurry. (Laugh
ter.) i ....
Gentlemen, we find ourselves enclosed within a vicious
circle. We are ill-treated because we are not satisfied,
and discontent increases among us because our ill-treat
ment is continued. ("Hear, hear," and laughter.)
The system employed up to now has failed. You
have now an opportunity of doing good work, of giving
us an Alsace-Lorraine satisfied with its lot.
Readers will have noticed in the preceding
speech the stress I employed when speaking of
the two populations which live side by side in
Alsace-Lorraine without understanding each oth
er and without interpenetration. Nothing exas
perated the immigrants more than that statement,
to which we returned incessantly. Thus it was
that, in my newspaper, I had a special rubric
entitled "Their Culture," in which, from day to
day, I pointed out the differences between the
customs, habits and traditions of the Alsace-Lor
raine population and those of the Germans estab
lished in our country. The immigrants would
very much have preferred sledge-hammer pro
tests to these perpetual pin-pricks, against which
they could not defend themselves, and in the giv
ing of which two or three of my collaborators,
especially Hansi, excelled.
For want of being able to shout "Long live

214 BEHIND THE SCENES
France!" we had thus come to repeat incessantly
"Down with German culture!" We were not
in want of pretexts. If need be, we brought them
forth. Above, I spoke of a reception at the Chancel
lor's Palace. Every year the Secretaries of State
also gave a Bierabend — a Beer Evening. When
I went to the Reichstag for the first time, an
usher begged me to give him thirty of my visit
ing cards.
"Why, in the name of all that's wonderful?"
I asked. "It's the custom. Your cards will be sent to the
President, Vice-President and Secretaries, to the
Chancellor and his principal collaborators."
I made inquiries, and found indeed that it was
usual, at the beginning of each, session, for the
members to leave their visiting cards at the resi
dences of the chief officials of the Empire, through
the intermediary of the executive of the Reichstag.
So I observed the formality, and a few days later
received, also from the usher's hand, a number
of paste-boards of all sizes, by means of which
the owners responded to my politeness.
Later, I learnt what this exchange of official
amiability signified. A few Socialist Deputies
had given an insolent reply to the invitations sent
them to attend official receptions. Someone had

IN THE REICHSTAG 215
therefore imagined the plan of leaving visiting-
cards, which meant, "If you invite me, I am quite
disposed to attend your evening receptions." The
Socialists, at least those of former days, did not
leave their cards on the high officials of the State,
who could henceforth abstain from sending them
invitations without breaking the rules of polite
ness. Like my colleagues, I therefore regularly re
ceived the little printed invitations begging me to
come and take, on such-and-such a day, a glass
of beer at his Excellency's.
"A glass of beer" may appear to be a some
what Spartan repast. As a matter of fact, we
found the refreshment rooms in the official salons
well provided with food and drink, which the
guests pillaged impudently. During these re
ceptions I have witnessed amazingly comical
scenes. The tables on which the eatables were
piled were literally besieged. German voracity
is beyond all moderation and deficient in all sense
of shame. Certain members of the Reichstag —
and not the least important of them — heaped
ham, pies, Russian salad, cream tarts and other
"delicacies" on their plates to the point of bring
ing the cunning construction of all these dainties
to a state of smash. Then, duly loaded, they in
stalled themselves at little tables and devoured

216 BEHIND THE SCENES
all these dissimilar cates pell-mell. But it was
chiefly the refreshment counter where alcoholic
drinks were dispensed that sustained a regular
siege. One evening, I got immense amusement
by observing the "operations" of a Bavarian col
league who, having succeeded in getting in the
front row of those crowding to the table, gulped
down, one after the other, no fewer than ten
glasses of champagne and still continued to hold
out his empty glass to the astonished waiter. These
scenes of gluttony and drunkenness delighted us.
You might have imagined that these men, who,
however, belonged to the best German families,
had had nothing either to drink or eat for a week.
My colleagues and I long hesitated over the
question as to whether or not we ought to attend
these official receptions. After due reflection, we
came to the common agreement that it would be
well for us to attend them assiduously, because
there, more than anywhere else, was it possible
for us to obtain useful information. A half -drunk
German is very communicative.
A strange adventure happened to me the first
time I went to the Chancellery. The reception
— a strictly Parliamentary one — began at 9 p. m.
Thinking that politeness demanded punctuality, I
entered the Wilhelmstrasse Palace exactly at the
hour. In the cloak-room, not a hat was to be

IN THE REICHSTAG 217
seen! At the top of the staircase was a succession
of brilliantly illuminated salons, in which I could
see rows of gold-laced lackeys, who, as I passed,
bowed low. Very much put out, I advanced hap
hazard, whereupon an orderly officer rushed for
ward, asked for my name, and introduced me into
the last drawing-room, where Princess von Biilow
was sitting by the side of a lady companion. The
introduction took place and a conversation was
started — in French. Thus I remained for ten
minutes face to face with the Chancellor's wife.
I swore, that evening, that never again would I
be there to time.
Receptions were almost always held on the eve
of an important vote. It was before a well-loaded
table and with glass in hand that the Chancellor
and his collaborators tried to break down the final
resistance of the Opposition and to facilitate prof
itable compromises. Recalcitrant Deputies were
the object of the most engaging attentions. To
a disinterested guest, the scene presented the
greatest interest. Most flattered by the amiable
open-heartedness and smiling familiarity of the
official personages, the Gerstenbergers and Erz-
bergers visibly blew themselves out like the frog
in the fable. The party leaders, already won over
to the policy of the Government, looked with
complacent eyes on the groups in which their

218 BEHIND THE SCENES
work was being completed. On all sides the Op
position showed a spirit of "comradeship," in an
swer to the Chancellor's smile.
For a long time they deigned "to honour" us
with the same solicitations. Later, when it be
came quite clear that our national opposition was
irreducible, they showed us less assiduous atten
tion. It was during a garden-party at the Chan
cellery that I found myself alone with Admiral
von Tirpitz. It was at the time when the French
Navy, under the Pelletan Ministry, was passing
through a dangerous crisis.
The great head of the German Navy is a broad-
shouldered giant with a small head enframed by
huge whiskers. One is quite surprised to hear
a thin little voice — that of a child or a eunuch —
issue from his powerful frame. The Admiral
spoke to me about the French Navy. Now it is
a curious phenomenon that, far from rejoicing
over its decadence, he seemed to regret it sincerely.
It was a case of the artist who is pained to see
a fine picture go to wrack and ruin, although it
may be the work of a competitor. I have never
better understood the method and obstinacy which
the creator of the German Navy brought to his
audacious enterprise. Tirpitz is a born sailor.
His ships are everything to him. With so keen

IN THE REICHSTAG 219
an enthusiast as this at the head of the German
Admiralty, the Imperial Navy would soon, if
England had allowed him the time, have con
quered the first place on the seas.
It was Tirpitz, indeed, who conceived the dream
of endowing Germany with a powerful colonial
empire and assuring its maritime hegemony. We
are all acquainted with William II's celebrated
phrase, "Our future is on the water." The Ad-
miral-in-Chief was certainly its inspirer. At the
time when I conversed for nearly half an hour
with Tirpitz, he, who detested England above all
nations, naively hoped that a reconciliation be
tween Germany and France might be prepared.,
Perhaps it was also for this reason that he de
plored the lamentable state of the instrument
which he thought he might find useful in conquer
ing "the hereditary enemy."
In 1906 it happened to be our turn to invite
the members of the Federal Council and the
Reichstag to a soiree, and under the following
circumstances. Our Alsace-Lorraine wine-grow
ers complained bitterly of the fact that their re
markable vintages were systematically ignored in
Germany, where, however, the wines of the Rhine
and the Moselle were sold in all the restaurants
at very remunerative prices. It looked as though
the big wine merchants of Treves, Cologne, and

220 BEHIND THE SCENES
Mayence had formed a conspiracy of silence on
the subject of our most celebrated vintages. It
was necessary to defeat it.
So the idea occurred to Preiss to organise a
tasting of wines in the Reichstag. Our German
colleagues welcomed the proposal enthusiastical
ly. The principal growers of Alsace-Lorraine
placed at our disposal 1,500 bottles of their best
brands. Moreover, we obtained from the Strass
burg Parliament a subvention which enabled us
to organise a brilliant evening reception.
The day was fixed with the President. The 96-
yard-long gallery was transformed into a restau
rant. A luxurious refreshment-room was in
stalled under the big dome, and there, side by
side with mountains of Minister cheeses and suc
culent Strassburg charcuterie, the 1,500 bottles,
with their gold and silver helmets, were drawn
up in thirty-two companies ready to file off (for
there were thirty-two different vintages to be
tasted) . An orchestra was to facilitate the diges
tion of our guests by enveloping them in floods
of harmony.
At eight o'clock, drawn up on both sides of the
entrance, the members for Alsace-Lorraine were
busy shaking the hands of their guests : the Chan
cellor, the Secretaries of State, the members of
the Federal Council, and the Deputies of all the

IN THE REICHSTAG 221
groups, for on that day the Socialists had given
up the idea of boycotting Parliamentary evenings.
Our good wines performed miracles. At eleven
o'clock Bebel was sitting between Prince von
Biilow and Count von Posadowsky, whilst
Scheidemann and another revolutionary Deputy
were delivering wildly ridiculous speeches.
Good old Groeber ate a whole Minister, repeat
ing as he did so, "It's the king of cheeses." More
over, he washed it down with two bottles of red
Kitterle, which he pronounced to be "the king of
wines." There were rather more than three hundred
persons in the great hall. At four o'clock in the
morning 1,400 bottles were empty. Don't forget
that Our wines contain between ten and eleven
degrees of alcohol. At midnight I left the Reichs
tag, accompanied by Secretary of State von Posa
dowsky. In the Thiergarten we encountered a
Deputy tenderly embracing a tree and making
vain efforts to' preserve his equilibrium.
Never before had the Reichstag echoed with
such noisy but also with such cordial effusions.
I must add, to the honour of our wines, that
the next day several of my colleagues, including
the Socialist Hue, said to me:
"It's a curious thing. Yesterday evening I was

222 BEHIND THE SCENES
as round as a ball, yet to-day I've not got the
slightest trace of seediness (Katzen jammer)."
Our wines, therefore, scored the greatest suc
cess at the Reichstag. Result of our tasting: not
a single order was given to our wine-growers,
neither by the members of the Government, nor
by the Deputies, nor by the restaurant and hotel
keepers of Berlin! They continued to boycott our
natural products in favour of the adulterated
wines of the Moselle and the Rhine.

IN THE REICHSTAG 223

CHAPTER XI
War Aims Foreshadowed
The German Artillery — General von Einem's curious Decla
ration — A visit to Count Zeppelin — The Vulnerability
of his Dirigibles — A Warlike Banquet.
In 1903 we were invited to go on an excursion to
the Jutterbock manoeuvring ground. A hundred
Deputies, accompanied by the Minister of War
and a few general officers, took a special train
that had been reserved for them. The military
authorities wished to prove to them the power of
the new ammunition for field artillery. When
we arrived, we were shown six guns, the wheels
of which had been buried up to the axles. After
indirect firing at moving targets, which we could
easily observe with our glasses, the guns were car
ried by soldiers to the summit of a hillock, where
the artillerymen, after getting their spades to
work and throwing a few spadefuls of sand
around the wheels, proceeded to give us an exhi
bition of direct rapid firing. Now, I noticed that
the pieces recoiled a good deal at each shot — exe
cuted, indeed, a veritable St. Vitus's Dance — and

224 BEHIND THE SCENES
that it was constantly necessary to rectify the
aim. At the luncheon which was afterwards served
at the officers' quarters, it chanced that General
von Einem, the Minister of War, arriving late,
sat down next to me. Von Einem, who has been
a good deal talked about since the opening of the
present war (he commands a group of armies
before Soissons), is tall, thin, fair, and graceful.
He possesses nothing of the stiffness of the Prus
sian officer. He is easy of approach and his po
liteness iv unconstrained. He had formerly been
in garrison at Colmar as a major in the artillery,
so we immediately found a subject of conversa
tion. Then, quite naturally, we came to speak
of war. I did not hide from the Minister the
surprise I had experienced on noting the lack of
stability of the German guns.
"I knqw that," replied the General; "but our
pieces of artillery are very much lighter and espe
cially much less complicated than our neighbours'
75 gun. The mechanism of the French gun is
so delicate that a workman-specialist has to be
attached to each piece (sic)."
The Minister afterwards made the following
curious declaration to me:
"When armies reach the figure of four million
combatants on one side and three million and a

IN THE REICHSTAG 225
half on the other, numbers no longer play the
same role. The armament is equal in the two
countries. The whole question is whether the
French will find a second Napoleon and whether
we shall have a second Moltke. Now, we know
nothing about that, for neither on the one side nor
on the other is there a general who has command
ed on a sixty kilometre front."
Four million German combatants ! A sixty kilo
metre front! Was the General sincere when men
tioning these figures to me, or was his intention
to lead me into error? I cannot say. I am rather
disposed to believe, however, that at that time the
German Staff did not yet foresee either the mobil
isation of ten million men or, especially, the for
midable extension the battles of the present war
were to assume.
A few years later, I joined in another collec
tive excursion. The first German dirigible had
just accomplished a voyage from Friedrichshaven
to Berlin, and the performance, besides provok
ing the wildest enthusiasm, had raised the most
extraordinary hopes throughout the whole of
Germany. People abroad will never know how
greatly the invention of the Zeppelin, or, to be
more accurate, the ingenious adjustment by Count
Zeppelin of a French invention, contributed to

226 BEHIND THE SCENES
favour the Pan-Germanist movement in the Em
pire. The first "cruisers of the air" had, however,
been destroyed or damaged by sudden gusts of
wind. Zeppelin, who had sacrificed the whole
of his fortune in constructing them, found himself
penniless. Therefore the authorities, in order to
awaken the interest of Parliament in dirigibles,
hit on the idea of organising the journey in which
I took part, accompanied by all my colleagues
of Alsace-Lorraine.
The large hotels of Constance were reserved
for members of Parliament. It was in July.
Favoured with splendid weather, a special steam
er took us to the Wurttemberg side of the lake.
Never have I seen a larger assembly of people.
The lake was covered with steamers and boats
adorned with flags, and so loaded with spectators
that they Were in danger of sinking. The facades
of the houses of Friedrichshaven were hidden un
der garlands and flags. Every moment bursts of
cheering came from the huge crowd. When Count
Zeppelin's white peaked cap appeared on the
landing stage, it seemed to me as though the
heavens were going to fall under the formidable
and continued shouting of "Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!"
The inventor, a small-statured, corpulent, bus
tling man, very supple in spite of his advanced

IN THE REICHSTAG 227
age, replied to these ovations with a nervous ges
ture. He was visibly satisfied to have his revenge ;
for Parseval, an advocate of balloons with a sup
ple envelope, had caused him much anxiety. He
received us with the greatest cordiality. Under
the direction of himself and his engineers, we im
mediately set off for the airship building yard.
An enormous carcase constructed of aluminium
rods was shown us. I must confess that, on exam
ining this light structure, I had the impression
of being face to face with a giant's plaything.
Everything seemed fragile in that ingenious but
unstable assemblage of thin plates barely two
to three millimetres thick. Even the few main
girders looked thin and slender. How well I could
then understood that a shock against a mere apple
tree had, a few weeks before, shattered one of the
monsters they were going to show us!
A few hundred yards from the hangars, a com
pleted dirigible was held fast to the ground. This
was the Zeppelin in which a few privileged guests
were to take their seats and make an hour's excur
sion above the lake. Arrangements had been made
for six voyages. As not more than a dozen pas
sengers, in addition to the crew, could be taken
up each time, lots were drawn in order not to
arouse feelings of jealousy. Preiss's name was
drawn. I was less lucky. Just as I was resign-

228 BEHIND THE SCENES
ing myself to the idea of not getting a ride in the
Zeppelin, an engineer, who had explained all the
details of the mechanism of the airship to me,
said, smiling:
"Keep close to me. Perhaps I shall manage all
the same to get you on board."
Indeed, at the fifth voyage, Count Zeppelin,
who each time verified the weight of his passen
gers, leaned over the edge of the car and ex
claimed with a vexed air:
"There is a deficiency of fifty kilos.!"
"Exactly my weight," I cried.
"Ascend and quick's the word," replied the
Count. I told an outrageous lie, for I weighed twenty
kilos, more.
Once installed in the middle car, I understood
why they had accepted me as ballast. The inven
tor, holding in his hand the list of passengers with
their respective weights opposite their names,
assigned us our places in such a way as to distrib
ute the load equally, and urged us not to change
our seats under any pretext whatsoever, as well
as not to make any inordinate movements. This
terrible war machine was decidedly still more un
stable than I had imagined on first seeing it.
At the order "Let go!" the moorings were rap
idly removed. At the same time streams of water

IN THE REICHSTAG 229
came from the sides of the envelope. It was ex
plained to me that, on coming to earth, long con
duits inside the framework were filled with water,
in order exactly to ballast the balloon, which, how
ever, owing to the fragility of its cars, could not
be allowed to touch the ground.
The dirigible rose to an altitude of about 200
metres. It answered well to the rudders, both as
regards direction and height. Movement was
very smooth. On the other hand, the noise of the
motors and the four propellers was deafening.
Zeppelin and Professor Hergesell, of Strass
burg, went with us and gave full explanations.
Among the things they told us, I remember a
curious story, related by the inventor.
"A few days ago, in just such marvellous
weather as this," he said, "I was peacefully trav
elling along when, suddenly, on arriving above
the little hills that encircle the Rhine at the exit
to the lake, the dirigible, as though seized by the
invisible hand of a giant, made a bound of 600
metres into the air. I was terrified. Who would
ever have thought that those slight undulations of
the ground, forming a chimney, would have pro
voked such a powerful eddy- wind?"
Certainly this invention, by means of which the
Germans expected to conquer the empire of the
air, lacked stability. I am aware that the most

230 BEHIND THE SCENES
recent Zeppelins are stronger and better balanced,
but they are, nevertheless, very vulnerable and at
the mercy of so many atmospheric accidents
that we should do well not to exaggerate their
military value.
The spectacle we enjoyed from the dirigible
was marvellous.
In the evening, our steamer took us back to
Constance, where a big banquet was given by
Count Zeppelin. I shall say nothing about the
enthusiastic toasts which were drunk. "The fu
ture of Germany was not only on the water, but
also in the air. England would have to behave
herself, since, henceforth, a fleet of dirigibles
would in a few hours be able to transport an
army to London." This and many another won
derful plan was to be divined in the speeches
delivered by both the Count and his admirers. One
could only laugh at these ridiculous exaggerations.
On the other hand, I was deeply impressed by
the following incident. At the end of the dinner,
the 800 persons present — members of the Federal
Council, high officials and Deputies — rose and
sang in chorus "Deutschland iiber Alles." The
almost religious gravity of their faces, the fire
kindled in their eyes, and the warlike ardour in
their voices were a revelation to me. These were
no longer children chanting the Pan-German

IN THE REICHSTAG 231
hymn, but all the directors of Imperial policy,
and on hearing them thus affirm their monstrous
ambitions, in the form of a war song, I realised
that the time was not far distant when the great
international drama would be enacted before the
gaze of the terrified world.
I was, moreover, to experience the same tragic
impression when, in 1913, the centenary of the
Battle of Leipzig provoked throughout the Em
pire demonstrations which were quite as grotesque,
but also quite as threatening.
A mind formed in the Latin school has a diffi
culty in comprehending the German mentality.
Union among Germanic nations has not been
brought about, as in the case of the French and
the Italians, by free consent of the people, but by
force. Barely two and a half centuries ago Prus
sia was only a wretched little principality. It
is by right of conquest that it has established its
hegemony in Germany. To-day it still recog
nises no other methods of domination than those
of brute force. Southern Germany does not love
the Prussian: it fears him. Nevertheless, it has
no idea of kicking against the pricks. Foreign
races within the Empire — Poles, Danes, and the
people of Alsace-Lorraine — have always resisted
Prussian enterprise. The German nationalities
have resigned themselves to accepting it. The

232 BEHIND THE SCENES
passivity of the German naturally inclines him
to these abdications when face to face with a more
powerful ethnical group. His resignation does
not go as far as an enthusiastic rally; it is rather
a case of submitting to the inevitable. The Prus
sian is a disagreeable master; but he is the master
all the same. Therefore, what is the good of
setting up a resistance which can bring no imme
diate result? The man of the North knows the
temperament of the Southerner. Therefore he
puts on the screw and finds it pays very well.
Hence the unbelievable impertinence of Prussian
statesmen, who, every time there is a slight oppo
sition in Parliament, immediately crack the whip,
knowing full well beforehand that they will at
once obtain the most passive obedience.

IN THE REICHSTAG 233

CHAPTER XII
Some Prussian Types
Haeringen, Falkenhayn, and Deimling — 1905 — Their Ur
banity—Their Mentality— The Galleries— Religious
Legislation — Homogeneous Parties.
During the present war, when reading the offi
cial communiques, I have come across the names
of a number of general officers whose acquaintance
I made in the Reichstag. General von Haer
ingen, the brutal destroyer of Rheims Cathedral,
replaced von Einem at the Ministry of War. He
is a big man with a vulgar face and a slouching
walk, and was always tightly laced in a uniform
too small for him. He spoke very badly, but in
a hard, commanding tone. On the Budget Com
mittee, as well as during plenary sittings, this
gold-laced brute displayed the most insulting dis
dain for the representatives of the people. The
phrases which he painfully drawled out were
chiefly distinguished for the cold impertinence he
intentionally put into them.
His departure was welcomed by all parties as
a deliverance. It is true that Falkenhayn, who

284 BEHIND THE SCENES
succeeded him, was to make him regretted. This
General, indeed, did not make the slightest at
tempt to hide his horror of Parliament and its
principles. He sought for conflicts, and, having
succeeded in provoking them, it was with a "surly
delectation," as theologians say, that he dragged
them out. Tlje Reichstag, in his eyes, was the
enemy, on which he made a frontal attack, with
all his big guns in action.
Falkenhayn's physique fits his employment. He
is big and lean; his face, with a nose like an eagle's
beak, is long and angular; his gestures are sharp
and peremptory; and his shrill, jerky voice is that
of a non-commissioned officer. The Zabern affair
was his triumph. In the presence of the early
condemnatory attitude of Parliament, the Chan
cellor capitulated. Bethmann-Hollweg hastened,
in fact, to the Emperor and obtained from the
Sovereign a severe reprimand against the officers
of the 99th Infantry Regiment. But Falken
hayn would not accept this retreat. He demand
ed, imperiously, that the Statthalter and his col
laborators be removed. At his orders, the Council
of War acquitted Colonel von Reuter and Lieu
tenants Schatt and von Forster. When, finally,
the incident once more came before the Imperial
Parliament, it was the Minister of War who re
plied to the questioners. He did so with that cold

IN THE REICHSTAG 235
impertinence and haughty disdain which charac
terise the Prussian officer. His eulogy of the Ger
man lieutenant, of that young sensualist who de
liberately tramples on all laws, but in whom Prus
sia places all her hopes, provoked unanimous pro
tests. And yet the domesticated Reichstag went
back on its first vote, and Falkenhayn, because
he had cracked his whip in the ears of all those
knaves who crouched and cringed before militar
ism, registered a fresh triumph over the astounded
parliamentarians. We left the Reichstag that
day with shame on our brow and rage in our
hearts. The German nation was certainly ripe
for every form of servitude.
Von Deimling had had less success a few years
before. In those days, this skinny little man was
only a colonel of a colonial regiment. A propos
of a question of effectives, he had charged and
captured the tribune, as though it were an enemy
fort ; and then had begun to thunder forth a para
phrase, in terms of military command, of the
motto, "The King orders and your duty is to
obey." At first his speech was interrupted by
furious exclamations, but in the end everybody
roared at the naive self-conceit of the unfortunate
officer. Never was an official orator more cruelly
heckled in the Imperial Parliament.
After this, can one be surprised that this crazy

236 BEHIND THE SCENES
fellow, whose meninges had evidently been dried
up by a colonial sun, committed the worst eccen
tricities when, later, the Emperor entrusted him
with the command of the troops occupying Alsace-
Lorraine? General von Deimling's quarrels with
the Government and the Strassburg Press were
epic. Once more people decided to laugh at the
stupid affectation of this hare-brained creature,
who, however, at the time of the Zabern affair, pro
voked the gravest disputes.
In 1905 I was directly concerned in the negoti
ations which took place a propos of the Algeciras
Conference. It wiU be difficult for me to say everything
about the incidents of the months of May and
June of that critical year. Therefore I shall speak
with the discretion which circumstances still im
pose on me. The French Chamber had been
greatly alarmed by the first German ultimatum
relative to the convocation of the Algeciras Con
ference, demanded by Germany. A French states
man, who had urgently summoned me to Paris,
asked me to obtain accurate information regard
ing the Chancellor's intentions. Thus, I came to
have a long conversation with Herr von Muhl-
berg, to whom Herr von Richthofen, then Secre
tary of State at the Foreign Office, sent me. The
following is a summary of the declarations Herr

IN THE REICHSTAG 237
von Muhlberg made to me, whilst authorising me
to communicate them to whom they concerned:
"The Madrid Convention of 1880 bears the sig
nature of Germany. The Anglo-French Agree
ment of 1904 protests our signature without our
consent. Our national honour is at stake. We
are therefore obliged to demand that all the sig
natories of the Madrid Convention be called to
gether again. We know that we shall be in a
minority at this conference, but our honour will
be saved. As to M. Delcasse, whether he remains
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or not is a
question with which we have nothing whatever to
do. However, I wish to inform you that we shall
converse with him no longer."
I went to Paris to transmit these declarations.
It was at the time the King of Spain was expected
there. M. Delcasse's resignation was not official
ly known until after the departure of Alphonse
XIII. Germany, however, was informed about
it immediately.
Four weeks later, having returned to Colmar,
I received two telegrams, summoning me to Paris.
Suspecting that Moroccan affairs were again at
stake, I wrote to Herr von Richthofen that if he
had a communication to make to me he might send
it to me at the Hotel Victoria. This is what had
happened. In the absence of Prince von Radolin,

238 BEHIND THE SCENES
when the Franco-German negotiations seemed to
be following their normal course, Herr von Flot-
tow, the German Charge d'Affaires, had pre
sented a fresh comminatory Note, which had
greatly disturbed the Government of the Repub
lic. M. Rouvier was quite determined not to give
way, although he hoped to be informed in a pre
cise manner regarding the intentions of German
diplomacy. I knew nothing, but I informed the delegate
of the Ministry of the precaution I had taken
before leaving Colmar. He thanked me and
asked me to communicate to him, without delay,
anything that came to my knowledge. In fact,
two days before Whitsuntide, I received from
Berlin the following unsigned telegram, in Ger
man: "Ambassador returns to Paris to-morrow Sat
urday morning. Will receive you eleven o'clock."
Before going to the appointment, I saw again
the person who transmitted the instructions of
the Minister to me. I was entrusted with the fol
lowing message to Prince von Radolin:
"France has gone to the extreme limit of the
concessions she can make. During the past four
weeks the Minister of War has taken every step
to guard against a sudden attack, and the Gov
ernment, moreover, has secured the support of

IN THE REICHSTAG 239
England. Therefore, it can accept no further
comminatory Note."
This was clear, firm, categorical. On reaching
the Rue de Lille, I was immediately shown into
Prince von Radolin's private study. The Am
bassador told me that he had seen William II the
day before, that the Emperor was very nervous,
and that the instructions he had received from
him left no room for fresh negotiations.
"Very well, your Excellency," I replied. "Then
there is nothing for you to do but to pack your
trunks. M. Rouvier will hand you your passports
this afternoon."
Prince von Radolin gave a start.
"But I don't want to leave Paris," he cried.
"I like Paris very much indeed and I've some ex
cellent friends here."
A very animated discussion then followed be
tween the German diplomatist and myself. The
result was that we set to work to draw up a long
telegram, in which the Ambassador summed up
the declarations I had transmitted to him. When
we reached the passage in which English assist
ance was to be mentioned, I proposed the follow
ing wording:
"England is ready to send 100,000 men to the
Continent immediately."

240 BEHIND THE SCENES
"Suppose we put 300,000?" exclaimed Prince
von Radolin.
Much surprised at this whim of the diploma
tist, I pointed out to him the necessity, in order
to obtain an immediate result, of remaining with
in the bounds of probability. He admitted it with
a certain amount of sadness.
I have always retained an amused recollection
of this incident. Prince von Radolin at that time
had clearly but one concern — to intimidate his
Government, in order not to be obliged to leave
his dear Paris.
The despatch was immediately sent to Berlin.
I left the Embassy at noon. At five o'clock the
Prince called on M. Rouvier, and it looked as
though he had received fresh instructions, for the
interview had a character, if not of great cordial
ity, at least of perfect politeness. Meanwhile, I
had given an account of my interview with the
Ambassador to the delegate of the President of
the Council.
I must confess that rarely have I experienced
such great anxiety as I did during that day.
Prince von Radolin had invited me to lunch the
next day, Whitsuntide, at the Embassy, but I
declined, as I was anxious to get back to Colmar.
At the opening of the war of 1914, the former
German Ambassador in Paris was the object of

IN THE REICHSTAG 241
suspicion on the part of the Imperial Govern
ment, and the news agencies even reported that
he had been interned. I should therefore have
abstained from recording my conversation of 1905
with the German diplomatist but for the fact that
he recently died.
The politeness of Herr von Richthofen was al
most affected. However, it sometimes happened
that in his case also the coarse Prussian reap
peared in the courteous diplomatist.
A few weeks before the incident I have just
related, I went one morning to the Foreign Office
to attend to an urgent piece of business. Send
ing in my card to Herr von Richthofen, I was
immediately shown into his office, although a
slender old gentleman had preceded me into the
salon and, seated in an arm-chair, seemed to be
discreetly and patiently waiting until he was
called. "Your Excellency," I said to the Secretary of
State, "there is an old gentleman in the ante-room
that you might receive before me. I am not in
a hurry." "Not at all," replied Herr von Richthofen,
laughing. "He's only the representative of the
French Republic."
It was, indeed, the aged Marquis de Noailles,
French Ambassador to Berlin.

242 BEHIND THE SCENES
I could hardly contain myself, so atrocious did
this gratuitous insult to France appear to me. The
Prussian Minister certainly expressed it before
an Alsatian Deputy intentionally, in order to
show in what small esteem he held the country
to which my colleagues and I were attached by
all our heart-strings.
With supreme "cheek," my colleagues of the
Reichstag applied to all foreign nations nick
names that crystallised their hatred and disdain.
The English were "the shop-keepers of London,"
the Montenegrins "ram-thieves," and the Serbians
"rat-trap dealers." Even the Allies of the Em
pire did not escape this mania for giving insulting
names to everyone who had not the honour of
belonging to the lordly race. The Austrians were
commonly called "heroes in slippers" (Pantofel-
helden) and the Italians "the riff-raff of the Tri
ple Alliance" (Dreibundshalunken) . Never did
Erzberger employ any other terms to designate
those whom he tried to win over, at the beginning
of the war, to the cause of his country. Ah! if
only the Italians had known how they were de
tested and despised in Berlin. As to the Span
iards, the Pan-German Press incessantly stated
that these poor "orange-eaters" had reached the
last stage of idiocy. If I had the time, I should

IN THE REICHSTAG 243
form a collection of these coarse insults and dedi
cate them to Senior Maura.
The ultra-patriots of Greater Germany had
thus created a curious state of mind not only
among the people but also in the German Parlia
ment. The further they went, the more the rep
resentatives of "the supreme race" puffed them
selves out with pride. Everything which was not
Germanic merited but disdain. The Empire vol
untarily isolated itself in the midst of barbarian
or degenerate races. And thus the ruling idea
of Pan-Germanism — the Germans alone possess
a genius for invention and organisation, therefore
they have an absolute right to impose their domi
nation on nations incapable of exploiting their
riches rationally— ended by imposing itself on ap
parently the clearest minds. A thousand times
have I heard these divagations issue from the
mouths of members of Parliament who spoke quite
reasonably on other subjects. It was an inter
esting phenomenon to observe. Undoubtedly it
was a case of collective insanity.
The principal reason why William II became
unpopular in Germany was his well-known hesi
tancy and pusillanimity, whereas the whole pop
ulation was in favour of a more aggressive inter
national policy. In 1913 and in the spring of
1914 the Berlin crowds were sulky with the Em-

244 BEHIND THE SCENES
peror, whilst the Crown Prince was the object of
noisy ovations every time he appeared in public.
During the months immediately preceding the
outbreak of war, the Prince Imperial was on tem
porary duty at the Prussian Home Office. Now,
at nine o'clock every morning, the students as
sembled in front of the Linden Palace to cheer
the heir to the throne, in the most noisy manner.
The fair-haired, degenerate youth seemed to take
the greatest pleasure in these demonstrations,
which were directed against his father. We must
not be too surprised at this. Such cases of oppo
sition are common in the Hohenzollern family.
Who has forgotten the indecent impatience shown
by the man who was to become Wilham II, during
the Emperor Frederick's death agony, which
lasted longer than his successor liked?
I was present at that scene in the Reichstag,
about which so much has been said, when the
Crown Prince applauded the bellicose declara
tions of the Conservative member Heydebrandt.
The Prince, seated in the front row of the Impe
rial box, was laughing heartily, and every time
the speaker thundered forth one of his tirades
against the Chancellor, he thumped the balustrade
with his gloved hand. His provocative attitude
created a scandal in the Reichstag, but the next

IN THE REICHSTAG 245
day the whole of the Pan-German Press covered
the heir to the throne with flowers.
On the occasion of great sittings, and particu
larly when foreign politics were being discussed,
the Imperial box was occupied by the young
princes and the Court dignitaries. The neigh
bouring gallery, reserved for the Diplomatic
Corps, presented the same animation. As to the
public galleries, they were always crowded. Ad
mission was by cards, which were handed every
day to the heads of the groups, taking into ac
count the numerical importance of the parlia
mentary fractions. We had only a dozen cards
at our disposal. The number of applicants was
always triple. When a stormy debate was ex
pected the Reichstag was literally besieged. Only
those furnished with a written recommendation
from a Deputy were allowed by the ushers to en
ter the big 96-yard long lobby. From half-past
twelve, about 200 of these privileged ones,
penned up at both ends of the corridor, patiently
waited until the desired cards were handed to
them. When we passed before them, these
wretched people, who often waited there until six
in the evening, used to appeal to us in the most
lamentable tone. The ushers, moreover, did a
business in invitation cards and derived consid
erable profit thereby.

246 BEHIND THE SCENES
I always admired the marvellous endurance of
the occupants of the public galleries. Even when
the debates were terribly monotonous and all the
members shunned the House, those honest folk
who had succeeded, after a thousand difficulties,
in getting flap-seats stuck there until the very
end. Not merely attention but veritable devotion
was to be seen in the looks of these privileged
spectators. Did they not possess the incompar
able pleasure of being able for several hours to
gaze on the important men who held the destiny
of the German people in their hands — that destiny
crowned with glory and one that promised incom
parable wealth? Ah! there again, how one could
detect on those benches, crowded with silent wor
shippers, the shamefully servile and at the same
time sordidly cupid soul of the nation of prey!
A few concluding words as regards religious
legislation. This ought not to be within the prov
ince of the Reichstag. Paragraph 6 of the Con
stitution of the' Empire, which enumerates the
questions on which the Federal Council and the
common Parliament may legislate, does not men
tion it. Indeed, we find the most dissimilar re
ligious laws in the various States. Bavaria lives
under a special Concordat with the Holy See,
somewhat similar to the former French Con
cordat. In Prussia, there exists a common law

IN THE REICHSTAG 247
that the Church has tacitly accepted. Wiirtem
berg and the Grand Duchy of Baden have a
unilateral statute which still recognises advowson
in the case of certain families, a right abolished
everywhere else. Saxony has, as it were, excluded
Catholics from the common law. In the two
Mecklenburgs, a Catholic cure may administer the
sacraments only under the control and with the, at
least, tacit approbation of the Protestant pastor of
his district. We find, then, all regimes in Ger
many, from the broadest legal protection to the
most odious persecution. Every time the Centre
attempted in the Reichstag to protest against at
tacks on religious liberty in one or other of the
Confederated States, the other parliamentary
groups protested, however, with the greatest en
ergy against this attempt to interfere with the
independence of the States.
It was also on the plea of this independence
that the Conservatives of Prussia and Mecklen
burg caused obstruction every time the parties of
the Left tried to criticise the electoral laws of
these particular States.
And yet, in religious matters, Prince von Bis
marck had succeeded in 1873, contrary both to
the spirit and the letter of the 1871 Constitution,
in passing the famous persecuting laws which
called forth the "Kulturkampf," that formidable

248 BEHIND THE SCENES
struggle which Protestant Prussia waged, without
regard for anyone, against the Catholics of the
Empire until 1888, the date on which, the Iron
Chancellor having retired to Canossa, most of the
Laws of May were abolished. Of this arsenal of
repressive measures there remained, in the course
of recent years, only two clauses of the Law
against the Jesuits and the assimilated Congre
gations (the Redemptorists and the Ladies of the
Sacred Heart) . That was enough for the Cath
olic Centre to protest every year against the way
in which these religious bodies were ostracised,
and for the Chancellor to make use of these last
remains of the "Kulturkampf" as a powerful
means of blackmailing the most powerful party
in the Imperial Parliament.
Nothing was more comical and at the same
time sadder than the successive attitudes of the
leaders of the Centre when the debates on the
Jesuits recurred periodically. At first, the Spahns
and the Erzbergers seemed to want to destroy
everything with fire and sword. Then, succumb
ing once more to their mania for coming to com
promises, they proposed ways of getting out of
the difficulty. Finally, they got themselves paid
for their complete resignation by a few personal
advantages. At last, the day came when they obtained the

IN THE REICHSTAG 249
abolition of Paragraph II of the Law, the one
forbidding Jesuits, even individually, from enter
ing the territory of the Confederation. The Press
of the Centre exulted. Alas I a few days later
the Federal Council decreed that the priest, on
return from exile, could not be permitted to speak
in the churches, and that in lecture-halls they
would only be allowed to discourse on non-re
ligious subjects. The Centre was filled with in
dignation at these ridiculous restrictions, but it
remained governmental.
The Centre was quite as lacking in heroism
when, on several occasions, it brought forward its
proposals regarding tolerance. As I have pointed
out above, Catholics are literally outlawed in
certain German states. Now, the Reichstag al
ways refused to put an end to this persecution,
and the Chancellor was the first to refuse to grant
Parliament the right of legislating in this matter.
Had the Centre possessed more energy, it might
have obtained important concessions. It was
known, however, in Government spheres, that its
attitude had merely the value of a platonic demon
stration, and no further notice was taken of it.
At the Congress of German Catholics, we
witnessed every year quite as surprising a specta
cle. The question of the independence of the Holy
See was discussed there regularly. In the last

250 BEHIND THE SCENES
century, the speakers chosen to interpret the feel
ings of the assembly as regards this matter
demanded the re-establishment of the temporal
power. From the day on which Erzberger played
a preponderant part in the Centre, inaccurate and
fallacious 'formulas were adopted, which the
speakers diluted in their hollow and embarrassed
phraseology. It was also the leaders of the Centre who
opposed the publication in Germany of the
Encyclical of Pius X on St. Canisius. Spahn
played at being a little Father of the Church. He
domineered over the German episcopacy. When
Count Oppensdorff entered on the struggle
against Modernism, the great parliamentary
leader excommunicated him. The poor Count,
who could not understand his expulsion from the
Centre, accepted the struggle, in which, however,
like good Roehren, he was to succumb.
This nobleman, who, after foolishly squandering
in his youth a large part of his patrimony, had
found wisdom through marriage and become a
convinced and practising believer, was a curious
figure. A little "cracked," but possessed of an
activity as devouring as it was scattered, he spent
the whole of his time drawing up reports and
attending to his voluminous correspondence. His
wife, a Polish lady of great intelligence and

IN THE REICHSTAG 251
beauty, vigorously seconded him in his work. She
was often seen in the lobbies of the Reichstag,
where she astonished the members by her extensive
political knowledge and the charm of her elo
quence. Countess Oppensdorff, although she was
the mother of fourteen children, had the freshness
of a young girl. I must also add that her husband
was the brother-in-law of Prince von Radolin, the
former German Ambassador in Paris.
Another feudal lord, young Prince von Arem-
berg, was my neighbour for three years. There
were two von Arembergs in the Reichstag. One,
a member of the committee of the Centre and a
personal friend of Prince von Biilow, worked
chiefly behind the scenes of Parliament. The
other did not work at all. Like the Hohenlohes,
who were half Austrian, he possessed a double
nationality — Belgian and German. This big
fellow, who was a multimillionaire, was especially
proud of his intimate relations with William II.
Since the outset of the war he has shamefully be
trayed the King of the Belgians, who also
honoured him with his confidence. I was not at
all surprised at this.
There were few aristocrats in the fraction of the
Centre; but they played a considerable part in it.
The insupportable Savigny would hardly speak
to the little men of his party. Young Prince von

252 BEHIND THE SCENES
Loewenstein was less distant. Nevertheless, he
energetically opposed the advance of working-men
secretaries. Of all the parliamentary groups, the Centre
was the one in which oppositions between pro
gramme and tendencies were most pronounced.
The perfectly homogeneous Conservative fraction
knew nothing of these interior troubles; no more
did the Democratic Party, for it had evolved as
a whole towards Imperialism. The differences of
the National-Liberals arose chiefly over personal
questions. On the Extreme Left, the Possibilists
had succeeded, progressively, in checkmating the
doctrinaires. On the other hand, the Centre, com
posed of Deputies belonging to all social circles,
closely grouped by one interest alone, the defence
of religious liberties, succeeded only with difficulty,
over questions of political, economic, and social
doctrines, in finding definitive formulas. The dic
tatorship of the great leaders had, however, of
recent years, imposed silence on an Opposition
which more than once nearly brought about a
split. Once more, patriotism, exalted by the sys
tematic agitation of the Pan-Germans, produced
miracles. In principle, our relations with the Centre were
cordial, but they grew cool when the Catholic
party became Imperialist. In 1899 we were still

IN THE REICHSTAG 253
invited to the dinners of the fraction. After 1905,
we considered it more in accordance with our
dignity not to take part in them.
A propos of invitations, let me relate, parenthet
ically, a little anecdote. A German colleague,
meeting me at the exit to the Reichstag, often
said to me:
"Will you give me the pleasure of dining with
me?" On one occasion I accepted. But when the
time came for paying for the dinner, my host, who
had urged me to choose the dearest dishes, paid
his own bill but pot mine. It was thus that I
learnt the meaning attached to the word "invita
tion" in Germany. The surprise of our guests
was always very great when we settled their bills
with our own. "Come! this sort of thing does not
take place among friends," they seemed to say.
Germans are also ferociously fond of their com
forts. I remember one winter dayj when a party
of Deputies was going to the Zoological Gardens
to attend a banquet. It was terribly cold and a
cutting sleet was falling from a grey, low sky.
All the inside seats of the tramcar had been taken
by storm. Now, at the back of the car there was
standing a poor old woman, insufficiently clothed
and coughing lamentably. Filled with pity, I
gave up my seat to her and went outside. There

254 BEHIND THE SCENES
was nothing heroic in the act, for I was wearing a
thick overcoat. Now, during the whole of that
evening, I was the butt for the jokes of my col
leagues. "Wetterle is a thorough Frenchman.
Did you notice his gallantry?"
Ah ! what brutes they are !
Here I suspend the first part of my recollec
tions. In the second, in which I propose to be
more precise and to follow a more rigorous chrono
logical order, I shall treat of the Parliament of
Alsace-Lorraine. From what precedes, the reader will, I hope, re
tain the impression that official Germany desired
war and prepared for it for a long time past.
Since 1905, my Alsace-Lorraine colleagues and
myself were convinced that the great crisis would
soon arise. Under the powerful impulse of Prince
von Biilow, all parties had relegated their particu
lar demands to the background, in order to take
part in the great national concentration. The
three Military Bills of 1911, 1912, and 1913 clearly
announced that the fatal day was approaching.
The whole energy of the German nation was di
rected towards the act of brigandage which, it
was thought, was to bestow universal domination
on the race of prey. In the tribune and lobbies
of the Reichstag they talked solely of "world-

IN THE REICHSTAG 255
politics." The impatience of the business world,
which counted on using the marvellous instrument
of war prepared by Parliament to remove foreign
competition once and for all, was restrained with
difficulty. Prussia, and the whole of Germany,
especially after the last events in the Balkans, were
ready, armed to the teeth, to strike.
Our warnings were repeated over and over
again. In September, 1913, I said to a member
of the French Higher Council of War, "General,
it will come to pass next May or June." I was
only five weeks out of my reckoning.
How discomfited must my former colleagues be
at the present time, and all those who informed
me, with a srteer, that the sudden invasion of
France would be but a military promenade ! That
military promenade has lasted for the past three
years and is not near its end. Twelve great na
tions have confronted the wreckers of Berlin, and
"France the Hostage" has covered herself with
glory by arresting the advance of the enemy of
the human race. -
To-morrow, the Empires of prey will beg for
peace. Will the old democratic spirit of the
Richters and Liebknechts, which the Pan-Ger
mans crushed under the heavy slab of their savage
doctrines, then rise from its tomb to summon the
misguided people to revolt? Will the Hohen-

256 BEHIND THE SCENES
zoUerns and the Hapsburgs see their disabused
subjects rise against them, to call them to account
for spilling so much blood uselessly?
An old German prophecy (dating, it is said,
from the fifteenth century) announces that the
day will come when the Emperor — alone,
wounded, abandoned by everybody, and driven
into the Forest of Teutoburg — will cry out,
"Where are my people? Where is my army?"
This prophecy, known to all Germany, will
come to pass, and on that day the world, de
livered at last from the Prussian nightmare, will
joyfully celebrate the Festival of Peace, definitely
reconquered.

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