New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-29
The Prussian Phenomenon Forty
Years Ago.


nan machine quite as wisely or as fool
ishly as we are to-day. After ALL the sur
prising thing in this is to note how thor
oughly contemporaneous are comments
made forty years ago, and particularly
commerxs so shrewd and informed as those
of f. /. Godkin, the famous editor Of
"The Nation"
Thirteen months ago, one would say OIL
hand the world discovered the Prussian
machine" Nothing Of The sort; it was
g rediscovery at most. Here is what God
Kin wrote more than a generation before
Won Kluck swept down from the north and
Hinden5urg drove up toward the Niemen;
The feeling Of amazement with which the
world is looking on az the Prussian cam
paigus war Of 1870) comes not so much from
the tremendous display Of physical force
they afford-thouCh there is in them al
times something that is almost appalling
as from the consciousness which everybody
begins 70 have that to put such an engine o.
destruction as the German army INTO opci-
alton there must be behind II some new ID"
Of motive power. II is easy enough Tor any
government TO put its whole male popula
tion under arms, OF even to lead them on an
emergency 10 the field. But that an army
composed Of men suddenly taken from civil
pursuits should fight and march as the Prus-
sian army is doing, with more than the
efficiency Of any veteran troops the world
has vet seen, and that the administering
machinery by which they are fed, armed
transported, doctored, shrived and buried
should 20 Ike clockwork on the enemy's SOIL
and that the people should submit not only
without murmur, but with enthusiasm. to
sacrifices such as have never before been
exacted from nation, except IN the very
throes Of despair. show that something far
more serious has taken place in Prussia than
the transformation of the country into
camp.
After all. has any war correspondent,
any friendly agent of a propaganda or
hostile analysis of Hun" mechanism
beaten this as a roadside view of Ger
many of to-day? But there is more that
is even better. Thus;
In other words we are not witnessing sim
plv levy On mGSSc nor yet the mere main
tenance of an immense force by military
monarchy but the application to military al
fairs of the whole Intelligence of a nation OF
great mental and moral culture. Inc
Prussian army is the first however, to be a
perfect reproduction of the society which
sends it to the field
Even that "massed formation" that this
generation believed went under fire for the
first time at Liege was the wonder Of an
other world. Of it Godkin wrote, when
the battle was at Mars-la-Tour. not at
Mons or at the Marine:
With ordinary troops, only a certain
amount can be deliberately and openly eX-
acted Of any one corps The highest heights
Of devotion are often beyond their reach.
But If it serves the purpose of Prussian
commander to have all the cost of an assault
fall on one regiment he apparently finds not
the slightest difficulty in getting 1t to march
TO destruction. and not blindly as peasants
march, but as men Of education, who under
stand the whole thing, but having made It
for this occasion their business to die, do l.
like any other duty of life-not hilarously
or enthusiastically or recklessly, but calmly
and energetcally 's they study or manufaet-
ure or plough. -ov get themselves killed
not one particle than is necessary, but
also not one par, less.
Contemplating this spectacle, the editor
Of "The Nation" forty years ago made this
highly notable comment:
A nation organized in this way Is a new
phenomenon, and is worth study. II gives
one a glimpse Of possibilities in the future Of
modern civilization of which few people have
hitherto dreamed, and it must be confessed
that the prospect is not altogether pleasing.
We have been fattering ourselves-in Anglo
Saxondom, at least-for many years back
that all social progress was to be hereafter
in the direction Of greater individualism. But
il is now apparent that there Is tendency
at work. which appears to grow stronger and
stronger every day, toward combination IN
all the work OF life.
Assuredly, then, our fathers were not
quite as blind as we ourselves have been
TO the Prussian spirit, this phenomenon
that was not new later than 1870, and, in
fact. was not new then. There is some
thing prophetic, something of doubt, re-
luctant admiration, troubled looking to-
ward the future, in the closing words on
this revelation, visible forty years ago;
Now we can very well understand why
people should be unwilling TO see the Prus-
sian military system spread into other coun-
tries or even preserved where 1t IS. II is
pitful thing to have the men Of whole
civilized nation spending so much time out
Of the flower Of their years learning to Kill
other men. and the lesson to be drawn from
the recent Prussan successes is assuredly
not that every country ought to have an
army like the Prussian army, though we con
fess that II great armies must be kept up
there is no better model than the Prussian.
The lesson is that whether you want him for
war or peace, there is no way you can get so
much out Of man as by training him, not
in pieces, but the whole Of him, and that tn
trained men. other things being equal, are
pretty sure in the long run 70 be masters Of
the world.
Something almost terrifying there is in
this last observation. a prophetic voice