Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3826/Unwritten Letters to the Kaiser
UNWRITTEN LETTERS TO THE KAISER.
No. VI.
(From Professor Hermann Müller, Ph.D., Private in the ———th Regiment of Prussian Infantry.)
Belgium.
Your Majesty.—I am one of your Majesty's most loyal and most faithfully devoted subjects, and, if I now write to you, it is not because I doubt for one moment that you are inspired in all your actions by a clearer wisdom and a firmer grasp of facts than any that I can pretend to, but because there are certain questions which obstinately press upon me to such an extent that I must relieve my mind of them.
At the beginning I was a firm believer in the necessity of this war, and in the perfect and not-to-be-shattered justice of our cause. I had read all that there was to read: Treitschke, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, Frobenius and a hundred others, from whose writings it can be most easily shown that Germany alone among nations has the power and the will to expand and to rule; that expansion and rule must be accomplished by war, which, far from being a misfortune, is a noble object to be aimed at and not avoided by statesmen; that all other nations are degenerate and must for their own good be crushed by Germany; and that any nation which resists Germany is through that very act an enemy of the human race. I also believed that German culture is something different from and superior to such culture (if it be worthy of the name) as is possessed by other countries. All these beliefs I set out in my booklet entitled, "Der Lorbeerbranz," which I humbly and with the most profound heart's-devotion dedicated to your august and glorious Majesty. Did you, I wonder, deign to east your Imperial eyes on this effort of my pen? How well I remember obtaining my first copy of the book on the happy day that saw its publication. It seemed printed in letters of gold, and, filled with high yearnings and expectations, I took it home to my beloved Anna. We read it aloud together, turn and turn about, with laughter and applause and tears, for we saw therein the foundation of fame.
So, at the war's beginning, I shouted with the rest for my Kaiser and my country, knowing that the war was just and that we should end by annexing England's colonies, after destroying her armies and her ships, and those of France and Russia into the bargain.
Well, that is already, as it seems to me, a thousand years ago, and I must admit that at that time I did not consider it possible that I myself with all my weight of learning as well as my regulation knapsack should be marching about, or lying in a trench on the plains of Flanders, divided by a few hundred yards from English soldiers, who have in their hands rifles and bayonets, and know how to use them. In the intervals of firing, as we lie there, a man has time to think, and it is wonderful how clear his ideas become in such conditions. Some of us do not think or think only what they are told. Poor simple fellows, they still believe they are even now at the gates of Paris, and that to-morrow is the day appointed for the entrance; whereas I know that, having been close to Paris in a mad rush, our armies have since retreated day after day.
But all this happened before I myself had to join the fight with the older men. Now I know that the English and the French have much to say for themselves, and, in any case, that it is plain nonsense—I beg Your Majesty's pardon for using this word, but it is there and I will not strike it out—it is plain nonsense to believe that the good God who has made us all has had any interest in making our Germans out of better clay than that which He has used for other men. I cannot even make an exception in the case of your Imperial Majesty's own self. Thus do my thoughts run in the trenches during this dreadful battle. What things have I heard, what awful sights have I seen since I received my marching orders! I think of Anna and of little Karl, and hope only that some day I shall be far away from these scenes in a place where peace shall reign and I can see them both again. But when will this be?
With most humble respect,
Hermann Müller.