The Barbarism of BerlinChesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
History
The Barbarism of Berlin
Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith)
Germany -- Politics and government; World War, 1914-1918 -- Causes
Professor Haeckel, another of the witnesses raised up against us, attained
to some celebrity at one time through proving the remarkable resemblance
between two different things by printing duplicate pictures of the same
thing. Professor Haeckel's contribution to biology, in this case, was
exactly like Professor Harnack's contribution to ethnology. Professor
Harnack knows what a German is like. When he wants to imagine what an
Englishman is like, he simply photographs the same German over again. In
both cases there is probably sincerity as well as simplicity. Haeckel
was so certain that the species illustrated in embryo really are closely
related and linked up, that it seemed to him a small thing to simplify it
by mere repetition. Harnack is so certain that the German and Englishman
are almost alike, that he really risks the generalisation that they are
exactly alike. He photographs, so to speak, the same fair and foolish face
twice over; and calls it a remarkable resemblance between cousins. Thus, he
can prove the existence of Teutonism just about as conclusively as Haeckel
has proved the more tenable proposition of the non-existence of God.
Now the German and the Englishman are not in the least alike--except
in the sense that neither of them are negroes. They are, in everything
good and evil, more unlike than any other two men we can take at random
from the great European family. They are opposite from the roots of
their history, nay of their geography. It is an understatement to call
Britain insular. Britain is not only an island, but an island slashed by
the sea till it nearly splits into three islands; and even the Midlands
can almost smell the salt. Germany is a powerful, beautiful and fertile
inland country, which can only find the sea by one or two twisted and
narrow paths, as people find a subterranean lake. Thus the British Navy
is really national because it is natural; it has cohered out of hundreds
of accidental adventures of ships and shipmen before Chaucer's time and
after it. But the German Navy is an artificial thing; as artificial as a
constructed Alp would be in England. William II. has simply copied the
British Navy as Frederick II. copied the French Army: and this Japanese
or ant-like assiduity in imitation is one of the hundred qualities which
the Germans have and the English markedly have not. There are other German
superiorities which are very much superior.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account