Norwich bulletin., 1914-08-29
BETWEEN TEUTON AND SLAV
Statement of Underlying Causes of the Racial Anagonsn
 Back of the Present War in Europe.

| - The SQQQSull0SS anu lAAS AAl1hCAASANJ of the struggle in which six first-class powers and many lesser ones are in volved, have daZed mankind. The wisest of men can give no conclusive reason for this gigantic upheavel, this tremendous reversion to barbarism.1 It is charged to militarism, to autocracy, no national ambitions, to political jeal- ousies, to economic rivalries, to over population, to the prehistoric instincts of tribal hatred. All of these causes are apparent to some degree; but there are few impartial observers who will select one and discard all the others. | Among some of the chief contestants. howeVer-thoSe whose acts began thS war that they say was inevitable | there is no doubt no uncertainty. This, l they declare. is the final battle for su- premacy between two great races, foreshadowed from times long past and pTecipitated by memorable laws of blood.
 No sooner had Austria set her foot l upon Servia than the whisper ran | Does it begin ?''- When Russia turned her vast bulk to come to the aid of I her Servian kin and Germany stiffened to defiance, the whisper became a shout. This is the great war-the 1 Teuton against the Slavi" With one accord a large school of students and philosophers, historians and statesmen, proclaimed that the appointed hour had struck. and that this mighty conflict | was 10 determlne which or the two races should survive.
 1 SpokeSmen for Germany in America are unanimous in this view. The pres | ident of the Standardization Cham Der of Commerce, of New York, says: | The only Power able to checkmate many is fighting the battle of civili- zation and of progress against reac- I tion. : Strike down to German military power and German prestige, and nothing but the czar remains in l Europe
 clares that if Germany loses, 'sher place will be taken by Russia, which, l with her teeming millions and mex l haustible resources, will become the arbiter of Europe" I Tt is a race treachery." says Dr. Ernst Richard, president of the Ger man-American Peace Society flor England to fight against Germany and for Russia. The real cause of the war is: Shall Europe be ruled by AsiaticS or by Europeans, by Slavs or by Teutons?'
 | Dr. Hugo Munsterberg, of Harvard, a personal friend of the kaiser, writes: 1 All German good will for peace was doomed because the issue between the onrushing Slavic world and the Ger man world had grown to an overpow : ering force. The struggle between the two civilizations was imminent < At last the chance came to strike the long delayed blow of the Slavic world against the German. Both Slavs and Germans are willing to sacrifice labor and life for the conservation of their national culture and their very ex- istence.
 General von Bernhardi, a noted Ger man military leader, wrote three yea $ ago:
 Russia feels herself the leading DOW CT of the Slavic races Pan-SlaVism is hard at work The Coming war must be a war for our politi cal and national existence
 Czars Proclamation.
 In his manifesto to the world the czar proclaimed:
 Russia, related by faith and blood to the Slav peoples, and faithful to her historic traditions. has never re- garded their fates with indifference The fraternal sentiments of the Rus sian people for the Slavs have been awakened with perfect unanimity and extraordinary force
 The German emperor took up the issue when he charged the strife to Russia's Unsuitable nationalism' and exhorted his subjects to remember above all. that you are Germans" That a deep, irreconcilable hostility between the two races exists there fore, there can be no doubt, says the Philadelphia North American. When Teutonic civilization was al- ready far developed, vast territory of the east of Germany. now under Rus sian sway was a savage country. Re- garding this as provided by nature for their expansion, the Germans in the Middle Ages overran it by means of war and emigrat ton, and established their own advanced system.
 I Recognizing the value of the west ern mixture. the more enlightened rulers of Russia encouraged German Influence; and until recent years the German element was a power in the administration of Russian affairs This was particularly true in the Bal tic provinces, where German was the official language and German Protes- tant1Sm the leading religion.
 But during the last hundred years Russia has increasingly labored tc Tree herself from foreign tutelage. and although German immigration contin- ued until within forty years-the ex- tent of it is illustrated by the fact that there are forty-six German news papers in the empire-the Russifica
 ton of the Baltic provinces proceeded fnexorably.
 From the accession of Alexander. III in 1881. the process has been carried out with unrelenting vigor. Just as
 the religious and political liberties o1 the Films have been destroyed, SC have German influence and institutions
 in the Baltic provinces been rooted up
 Foreigners have been forbidden to ac. quire land in Western Russia; Russiar instead of German has become the Ioficial language; even the names ot
 towns formerly German have beer
 Russianized
 It had been the hope of Germany ithat the force of racial gravitatior twould one day draw these lands tc
 her; and the spectacle of her million. of ernigrants being Russianized by force was a ruthless blOW to bey v,o tional ambition.
 But if Germany is incensed on this
 score, Russia is no less embittered, by
 the results of her political dealings
 with her neighbor. She considers tha- tshe saved Prussia from being over. iwhelmed by Napoleon in 1907 and de. 1ivered, her from the Corsican in i1sl4 and it was Russian influence that re. trained Austria. Italy and Denmark il