Back From Elba?
Title
Back From Elba?
Creator
Unknown
Identifier
WWP16216
Date
1920 March 13
Description
An editorial from an unknown paper concerning the possible return of the Kaiser to Germany, and the failure of the United States to ratify the League of Nations.
Source
Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Staunton, Virginia
Language
English
Text
BACK FROM ELBA?
________
THE expected has happened in Germany—the monarchist party has overthrown the Ebert government and the same clique of militarists that ran things under the kaiser is now in control.
It is history repeated. Bourbonism never dies. Wilhelmstrasse is sitting in his castle in Holland, looking over the border into Germany. He is waiting the summons of his junker adherents to hasten to Berlin and, by a military coup d’etat, be recrowned and restored.
For thousands of years such has been human experience. In spasmodic flurries, men strike for freedom. Some times they gain it. Then they forget the “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and their puny structure of free government is overthrown. An army is always ready. Secret means are found to have it prepared to do the bidding of the king makers. What has happened in Germany is the recurrence of the same old thing for the thousandth time.
Autocracy was beaten in the Argonne, but not destroyed. It was overthrown, but not chained. It is indestructible. There are cliques and types of men who want autocratic government. Some of them want it in republics. They want a powerful central authority that reaches out and rules with the strong arm. Many of them expect to be figures around the head works and to assist in governing and to share in the preferred privileges to come from their nearness to the throne or near throne.
Then there are weak men, millions of men who are inert and prefer to be governed. Perhaps they have been taught in the schools and colleges that it is better for them to be governed, as in Germany. They are willing to be pawns, just as the German people suffered themselves to be the kaiser’s pawns and the junkers’ pawns. Their presence in society gives autrocracy its asset for continuing a warfare for personal government and one-man dominion.
The German coup is the most disastrous thing that has happened to the allies since the great German drive on the Marne. It is the revolt of the German army led by German junkers against the treaty of Paris. With the men now at the head of German affairs, that treaty is a “scrap of paper.”
They did not sign the treaty. They have never accepted the treaty. The have always denounced the treaty. When it was signed they vowed vengence and publicly proclaimed that a day would come when Germany would have vengeance.
And they have been plotting. They have spread their propaganda through the German masses. They have won over the army. They have asked Hindenburg to run for president, Hindenburg, the front of militarism, the exemplification of the war god, the crowned exemplar of the strong arm.
What is now Germany was once a peaceful people. But Bismark taught them to love arms and armies. He inspired their enthusiasm with victories over Austria and over France. With Hindenburg and the army in control, the old thought of guns and gray regiments will come back. From that it is only a step back to the old order, back to a day when the army will hail Wilhelmstrasse as the chief. How easy then for the Hohenzollerns to come back, reestablish their authority and renew preparations for the day of vengeance.
The story of the world is a narrative of just such occurrences. It has happened hundreds of times before. and it will happen again and again. How can the allies interfere with the program? What can they do to prevent this loss of so much that was won in the war?
Their armies are dispersed. They have let their power wane. They lost the golden moments when, by their own example they could have firmly established the rule of justice and democracy. Italy demanded Fiume in violation of every principle for which the war was fought. France annexed Cilicia. Great Britain took provinces in Asia Minor. They themselves set the example of the strong arm.
The German coup means that our celebrations of the victory were premature. Autocracy was only sleeping. It was merely quiescent. It is stirring now to slowly and painfully begin a new growth to a new authority on the ruins and ashes of yesterday.
There was a golden moment when all this could have been avoided. We all remember now how the German militarists and monarchists exulted last November when the Lodge group prevented ratification of the treaty. Their expressions of pleasure were open and undisguised. They knew that with America out of it the chance for junkerism to return to power in Germany was tremendously increased. They knew that with the great moral influence of America behind it, the League of Nations would be a living reality, a powerful instrument for a new order of peace and justice among governments and peoples.
The hour of opportunity has probably passed. President Wilson saw it, tried to seize it and out of it to anchor democracy and liberty in safe moorings. All the time he was negotiating militarism raised its head in the allied councils. A militaristic party was always present. It showed itself when the Italian negotiators broke with the conference and quitted Paris. It was with full knowledge of the secret currents and cross-currents that President Wilson insisted upon the covenant as it is and that he now asks that it be ratified as it is.
But the Lodges and the Borahs and the Poindexters, either ignorantly or purposely broke down the great structure of peace and justice and human liberty made possible by the bloody fields of Picardy, the Marne and the Argonne and reared through months of wearing and exacting negotiation. The obstructionist senators, consciously or unconsciously, were playing the game of the German monarchists, and the German monarchists are coming into their own.
Some day the American boys will probably pay the price with their lives; for the great thing that we won in the war—the great moral victory that was the true fruit of the rivers of blood—is, in all human probability, irretrievably lost.
________
THE expected has happened in Germany—the monarchist party has overthrown the Ebert government and the same clique of militarists that ran things under the kaiser is now in control.
It is history repeated. Bourbonism never dies. Wilhelmstrasse is sitting in his castle in Holland, looking over the border into Germany. He is waiting the summons of his junker adherents to hasten to Berlin and, by a military coup d’etat, be recrowned and restored.
For thousands of years such has been human experience. In spasmodic flurries, men strike for freedom. Some times they gain it. Then they forget the “eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” and their puny structure of free government is overthrown. An army is always ready. Secret means are found to have it prepared to do the bidding of the king makers. What has happened in Germany is the recurrence of the same old thing for the thousandth time.
Autocracy was beaten in the Argonne, but not destroyed. It was overthrown, but not chained. It is indestructible. There are cliques and types of men who want autocratic government. Some of them want it in republics. They want a powerful central authority that reaches out and rules with the strong arm. Many of them expect to be figures around the head works and to assist in governing and to share in the preferred privileges to come from their nearness to the throne or near throne.
Then there are weak men, millions of men who are inert and prefer to be governed. Perhaps they have been taught in the schools and colleges that it is better for them to be governed, as in Germany. They are willing to be pawns, just as the German people suffered themselves to be the kaiser’s pawns and the junkers’ pawns. Their presence in society gives autrocracy its asset for continuing a warfare for personal government and one-man dominion.
The German coup is the most disastrous thing that has happened to the allies since the great German drive on the Marne. It is the revolt of the German army led by German junkers against the treaty of Paris. With the men now at the head of German affairs, that treaty is a “scrap of paper.”
They did not sign the treaty. They have never accepted the treaty. The have always denounced the treaty. When it was signed they vowed vengence and publicly proclaimed that a day would come when Germany would have vengeance.
And they have been plotting. They have spread their propaganda through the German masses. They have won over the army. They have asked Hindenburg to run for president, Hindenburg, the front of militarism, the exemplification of the war god, the crowned exemplar of the strong arm.
What is now Germany was once a peaceful people. But Bismark taught them to love arms and armies. He inspired their enthusiasm with victories over Austria and over France. With Hindenburg and the army in control, the old thought of guns and gray regiments will come back. From that it is only a step back to the old order, back to a day when the army will hail Wilhelmstrasse as the chief. How easy then for the Hohenzollerns to come back, reestablish their authority and renew preparations for the day of vengeance.
The story of the world is a narrative of just such occurrences. It has happened hundreds of times before. and it will happen again and again. How can the allies interfere with the program? What can they do to prevent this loss of so much that was won in the war?
Their armies are dispersed. They have let their power wane. They lost the golden moments when, by their own example they could have firmly established the rule of justice and democracy. Italy demanded Fiume in violation of every principle for which the war was fought. France annexed Cilicia. Great Britain took provinces in Asia Minor. They themselves set the example of the strong arm.
The German coup means that our celebrations of the victory were premature. Autocracy was only sleeping. It was merely quiescent. It is stirring now to slowly and painfully begin a new growth to a new authority on the ruins and ashes of yesterday.
There was a golden moment when all this could have been avoided. We all remember now how the German militarists and monarchists exulted last November when the Lodge group prevented ratification of the treaty. Their expressions of pleasure were open and undisguised. They knew that with America out of it the chance for junkerism to return to power in Germany was tremendously increased. They knew that with the great moral influence of America behind it, the League of Nations would be a living reality, a powerful instrument for a new order of peace and justice among governments and peoples.
The hour of opportunity has probably passed. President Wilson saw it, tried to seize it and out of it to anchor democracy and liberty in safe moorings. All the time he was negotiating militarism raised its head in the allied councils. A militaristic party was always present. It showed itself when the Italian negotiators broke with the conference and quitted Paris. It was with full knowledge of the secret currents and cross-currents that President Wilson insisted upon the covenant as it is and that he now asks that it be ratified as it is.
But the Lodges and the Borahs and the Poindexters, either ignorantly or purposely broke down the great structure of peace and justice and human liberty made possible by the bloody fields of Picardy, the Marne and the Argonne and reared through months of wearing and exacting negotiation. The obstructionist senators, consciously or unconsciously, were playing the game of the German monarchists, and the German monarchists are coming into their own.
Some day the American boys will probably pay the price with their lives; for the great thing that we won in the war—the great moral victory that was the true fruit of the rivers of blood—is, in all human probability, irretrievably lost.
Original Format
Article
Files
Collection
Citation
Unknown, “Back From Elba?,” 1920 March 13, WWP16216, Cary T. Grayson Papers, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library & Museum, Staunton, Virginia.