gainst: built wooden Forts which are now
stone Towns. They fought much and prevalently, galloped desperately to and
fro, ever on the alert. How many Burgs of wood and stone they built in
different parts, what revolts, surprisals, furious fights in woody, boggy
places they had, no man counted; their life, read in Dryasdust's newest
chaotic Books (which are of endless length, among other ill qualities) is
like a dim nightmare of unintelligible marching and fighting: one feels
as if the mere amount of galloping they had would have carried the Order
several times round the Globe.... But always some preaching, by zealous
monks, accompanies the chivalrous fighting. And colonists come in from
Germany; trickling in, or at times streaming. Victorious Ritterdom offers
terms to the beaten Heathen; terms not of tolerant nature, but which will
be punctually kept by Ritterdom." Here we see the strange stern, medieval,
crusading atmosphere which lies behind the unpleasant combinations, so
familiar to us to-day in France and Belgium, of Uhlans and religion, of
culture and violence, of "Germanisation" and devastation. When we hear the
German professors of to-day preaching of the spread of German culture by
the German arms, and when we feel disgust at the exaggerated religious
phraseology which pervades the Kaiser's oratory and seems to accord so ill
with his policy and ambitions, we must remember the peculiar origins of the
Prussian State and how comparatively recent those origins are. "I have once
before had occasion," said the Kaiser at Marienburg in East Prussia on June
5, 1902, "to say in this place how Marienburg, this unique Eastern bulwark,
the point of departure for the culture of the lands east of the Vistula,
will always be a symbol for our German mission. There is work for us
again to-day. Polish arrogance wishes to lay hands on Germanism, and I am
constrained to call my people to the defence of its national possessions.
Here in Marienburg I proclaim that I expect all the brothers of the Order
of St. John to be at my service when I call upon them to protect German
ways and German customs." The Kaiser's crusading appeals are not
hypocritical or consciously insincere: they are simply many centuries out
of date--a grotesque medley of medieval romanticism and royal megalomania.
What was possible for the warrior knights in North-East Germany five or six
centuries ago is a tragic absurdity and an outrageous crime to-day among
a spirit