Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 217, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1918 — HUN POETS FAIL ON WAR GUESSES [ARTICLE]

HUN POETS FAIL ON WAR GUESSES

Kaiser’s Writers Prove to Be Very Poor Prophet! THINK IN TRUE KULTUR VEIN Forecast Only Short anti Merry War, «t End of Which Great German Hosts Will Be Conquerors of the World.

By EARL DERR BIGGERS. (Ftom the«Commltte® on Public Information, Washington, D. C.). Speaking of who is not these days?—a celebrated French poet, Jean Aicard, has hit upon a rather neat and happy figure of speech. In a long and eloquent poem about the war, after he has described how the German horde, coming “forward with God" as they put it, swept down on Paris, and has pictured them baffled and beaten by the miracle of the Marne, he further recalls how —“having prepared themselves in France a terrier’s hole”—they Intrenched themselves therein, defeated, driven, hurled Back by the sword of France and scorned by all the world. And then what happened? Let Aicard tell it: There, tn their filthy holes, their natural habitat, As Ilves the hunted boar, the crouching soldiers sat; And, as a putrid pool exhales an evil smell, , They poured their poisons forth straight from the maw of hell. Defiled the blue of heaven and made the virgin air A party to the crime they perpetrated there. The choking gas that rose, mephitic, from their holes. Was very like the breath and odor of their souls. The odor of their souls! The present writer must confess that this simile strikes him as a remarkably fit and appropriate one. Today we know only too well the odor of their souls, and we are deter-' mined to send our men over to those holes in France, to disinfect them with the only serviceable antiseptics—the bayonet and the bullet Everything that keeps that odor strong In our nostrils will be of help in the salvation of our country, since it will keep us firm in our determination to do or die. So one is inclined to feel that Prof. H. C. Grumbine of Clark university, who has recently translated into very readable English the war poetry of France and Germany, has done this country a patriotic service. Professor Grumbine knows that nowhere are the ideals of a nation more clearly revealed than in its literature, and he adds that literature in its purest form is poetry. So he has gone to the poets of the two countries to discover what was in their minds in the early days of the war. With an ardent desire to be fair, he has not chosen verses which prove any particular point for him, but has sought to confine himself to the leading and the representative bards. In Germany such men as Sudermann. Lissauer, and Herzog; in France, Boutrel and Aicard, the former a laureate and the latter a member of. the French academy. And hav- 0 Ing translated the verses of these men he has drawn some logical and illuminating conclusions regarding the German god and the French god, the German soul and the soul of the French. Grumbine*B Deductions. Let us glance for a moment over Professor Grumblne’s shoulder at the translations he has made; then briefly let us consider his conclusions. If the matter strikes you, dear reader, as academic and —dread word —literary, be assured that it will not be treated here in either academic or literary fashion. Professor Grumbine opens the door for you, and you wander with him through that dark hinterland —the German mind; he leads you on to the heights where the French thinker sits. When, much to the surprise of everybody in Germany, war was declared the German soldier immediately rushed to his locker, where everything was ready for him, including a canteen filled with fresh water. Simultaneously the German poet rushed to his fountain pen which —God apd the kaiser forgot nothing—was also filled, not with water, but with a venomous liquid that flowed red, like blood. This war has reminded us that it is not the man who fights in the field who is the true master of hate and bitterness; it is the highly educated and cultured thinker at home who screams loudest and most freely at the lips. If the German poets had been for a moment at a loss as to what view to take of the war, of course the German government would have set them right (There was that naive newspaper in Munich which at the start pleaded pathetically for the government to “take charge of public opinion.”) One could fancy some such advertisement in the Berlin papers: “German poets will call at the Wllheimstrasse between two and four on Thursday to secure their points of view on the war." However, it is improbable the German poets needed any instruction. They thought about the war just what the kaiser wanted them to think, What he and his kind had been training the whole German nation, poets included, for 40 years, to thinly They greeted the catastrophe'With a mighty cry, a Cry partly of hate for Germany’s enemies, partly of joy that now at last Germany’s hour had struck. Wrote - : r . -

thus one enthusiastic German bard: Hurrah! Hip, hurrah! Away with all labor! It la war! Bloody war! Get your rifle and saber! * This hip-hurrah greeting for bloody war was characteristic of most of the early war poetry. The poets, unfortunately, were not prophets. The blood whlqh they viewed in prospect was to flow mostly from the bodies of the contemptible foe. Germany, marching with God, was invincible. A short war and a merry one, and at the end the great German hosts conquerors of the world! If they could have foreseen then the long and weary road ahead, the hip-hurrah note might have been mingled even more freely with the venom and hate the balked and beaten monster feels for those who stand in his way. Where God Stands. One looks in vain in this output of German poetry for a note of abhorrence of war, a question as to whether or not this is God’s way for settling disputes. There is no question as to where God stands, he rides on the German shells, directs the Zeppelin, greets joyously the submarine, chuckles with delight that his chosen people have in their hands the weapons whereby to impose their will —which is his will—on the world. More of this peculiar German god anon. Through this welter of harsh German poetry runs only a roar of delight in German strength, a great satisfied sigh that now at last' the world is to feel that strength. Here and there, as though by way of afterthought, there is a bit of camouflage as to who started the war. Before going on to picture the downfall of the enemy one bard pauses to remark: War! War! Awake! The French have crossed the Rhine, And Cossacks swarm upon our eastern line. These obvious Iles are not dwelt on, however. Probably not even the poet expected anybody to believe them. They were just thrown in as a sop to the diplomats at the Wilhelmstrasse. Public opinion, which had been taken charge of by the authorities, was “verboten” to forget these things. And it was added, in faint voice here and there: “We did not wish this war.” One is reminded, by way Qf aside, of the excellent Australian cartoon which pictured the kaiser sitting, head in hands, in the company of the crown prince. “I did not want this war.” “No,” says the crown prince in a lucid moment, “it was quite' a different war you wanted, wasn’t it, papa?” But coming back to the poets, it may be said that while at rare intervals they remembered to make a note of the fact that the war was a complete and unpleasant surprise to Germany, their whole attitude was that now that it had-come, they were delighted. They dreamed of blood, they sang of it At last the weapons Germany had been fondling so long were to find a mark. Rudolf Herzog wrote a dainty little thing, urging the soldiers on —he was evidently somewhere in the rear himself —and the, refrain of each verse ran: What though the earth of hell be full. Our steel shall cleave the foeman’s skull. Such was the picture that inspired the frenzied poets, the gentlemen of the pen. A soul-satisfying, delectable picture of German steel deep in the foeman’s skull, while rich, delicious blood was everywhere. ' England With the Allies. While they were in the midst of gory composition, their eyes in a fine frenzy rolling, England entered the war on the side of the allies. This was distinctly verboten, and it upset the German plan horribly. England was to stand aside until Russia and France were annihilated, and then be wiped out in her turn. Anyone who has ever been in Germany knows the fury of a German whose system Is upset. Immediately the mad poets grew madder yet, and the recipient of all their poisoned darts was poor old England. The anger of a German when things are going as he wished is not a pretty thing, but the anger of the same man when things are going wrong is enough to make God tremble. In this dark hour when all Germany was sputtering with a fury so terrible it seemed words could not be found to express it, Herr Ernst Lissauer came forward and earned the nation’s gratitude by penning his famous “Hymn of Hate.” In our country we are all familiar with this dainty little thing, which ends: So. what care we for French or Russ? It’s a shot for a shot when they shoot at us. We fight our battles with bronze and steel And when we stop we shall see you kneel! It’s you we hate with a lasting hate— Nor win we abate one tittle of hate— Hate by water and hate by land. Hate of the head and hate of the hand. Hate of artisan, hate of king. Hate which seventy millions fling; One love they know, one hate they know. They know but one, one only foe: England! Little Ernst, groping around in the madhouse, seems to have found words that pretty well express his meaning. In fact, he seems to have put across in fairly effective shape the idea that the Germans don’t care much for the English, whichever way you look at it But if he-hated before, what must have been his fury at the reception his outbreak got in England? Instead of cowering in fear, a laugh went up from the British isles that was heard round the world. The Tommies in the trenches, treated to a German concert, shouted across: “Sing us a comic anng—atng us the *Ymn of Hyte.* ” And jt is recorded in Boyd Cable’s “Between the Lines” that .Cockney regiments, to while away idle hours, have been known to sing variations: Hyte of the ’eart and hyte of the ’and •Oo do we hyte to bet the band: Hingland! Which is very cruel of them, and entirely beyond the comprehension of the raging foe.