New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1

Prussian

sword and who have no great love for the sweeping sabre of Sadowa and Sedan. That doubt is the doubt of whether Russia, as compared with Pruss

is not the one he would have chosen. A soldier does not say, "We were ordered to go to Mechlin, but I would rather go to Malines." He may discuss the etymology and archaeology of the difference on the march, but the point is that he knows where to go. So long as we know what a given word is to mean in a given discussion, it does not even matter if it means something else in some other and quite distinct discus

ngs of "B

word "barbarian." The Prussians apply it to the Russians, the Russians apply it to the Prussians. Both, I think, really mean something that really exists, name or no name. Both mean d

he war by warnings against Russian influence, said that the flogged backs of Polish women stood between us and the Alliance. But not long before the flogging of women by an Austrian General led to that officer being thrashed in

over the grave of Kosciusko. And when I say (as I do most heartily) that the German Emperor is a barbarian, I am not merely expressing any prejudices I may have against the profanation of churches or of children. My countrymen and I mean a certain and

beard; he adores relics; his life is as rude and hard as that of a subject of Alfred the Great. Therefore, he is, in the German sense, a barbarian. Poor fellows, like Gorky and Dostoieffsky, have to form their own reflections on the scenery, without the assistance of large quotations from Schiller on garden seats; or inscriptions directing them to pause and thank the All-Father for the finest view i

ow that it is true. For we do not mean anything that is an imperfect civilization by accident. We mean something that is the enemy of civilization by design. We mean something that is willfully at war with the principles by which human society has been made possible hitherto. Of course, it mu

itive Ba

ions, but for all that he destroyed Rome. Nobody supposes that Eskimos could have done it at all neatly. But (in our meaning) barbarism is not a matter of methods but of aims. We sa

the Servian, even if they are barbarians. If a Russian peasant does beat his wife, he does it because his fathers did it before him; he is likely to beat less rather than more as the past fades away. He does not think, as the Prussian would, that he has made a new discovery in physiology in finding that a woman is weaker than a man. If a Servian does kn

ifications, and imagines that we have never heard of them. And, as I have said, his limited but very sincere lunacy concentrates chiefly in a desire

ring only to human civilization, it may be said with seriousness that in the beginning was the Word. The vow is to the man what the song is to the bird or the bark to the dog; his voice, whereby he is known. Just as a man who cannot keep an appointment is not fit to fight a duel, so the man who cannot keep an appointment with himself is not sane enough even for suicide. It is not easy to mention anything on which

s Great

in their simple way, with this scientific discovery and desired to communicate it to the world. They therefore promised England a promise on condition that she broke a promise, and on the implied condition that the new promise might be broken as easily as the old one. To the

not ordinary. Here again the quite unique barbarism of Prussia goes deeper than what we call barbarities. About mere barbarities, it is true, the Turco and the Sikh would have very good reply to the superior Teuton. The general and just reason for not using non-European tribes against E

savages promise things, and respect those who keep their promises. Even Orientals write things down; and though they write them from right to left, they know the importance of a scrap of paper. Many merchants will tell you that the word of the sinister and almost unhuman Chinaman is often as good as his bond; and it was amid palm trees and Sy

Against

ce of the German Chancellor's phrase. He did not allege some special excuse in the case of Belgium, which might make it seem an exception that proved the rule. He distinctly argued, as on a principle applicable to other cases, that victory was a necessity and honor was a scr

rang, because there is in all these at least a seed of civilization that these intellectual anarchists would kill. And if they should find us in our last stand girt with such strange swords and following unfamiliar ensigns and ask us for what we fight in so singular a company, we shall know what to reply: