It is silly and superficial to look upon the German army only as a menace, only as a cloud of provocations in glittering uniforms, only as a helmeted frown with a turned-up moustache. It is not, and I make no such claim for it, an army or an officers' corps of Puritans or of self-sacrificing saints, but it does partake of the dreamy, idealistic German nature, as does every other institution in Germany. Though, as a whole, it is a fighting machine, the various parts of it are not imbued with that spirit alone. The uneasy pessimism of the dreamer, which distrusts the comfortable solutions of the business-like politicians, and leaders, in their own and in other countries, is as noticeable in the army as in all other departments of German life.
"And all through life I see a cross, Where sons of God yield up their breath; There is no gain except by loss, There is no life except by death, There is no vision but by faith; Nor glory but by bearing shame, Nor justice but by taking blame."
There have been many, and there are still, soldiers who hold that creed. There are not a few of them in Germany.
A great nation like Germany must have characteristics, anxieties, problems, and responsibilities, some of which are peculiar to itself. The individual must be of small importance who has not problems and burdens of his own arising from his environment, position, work, and his personal relations with other men; as well as problems of temper, temperament, health, education, and traditions peculiar to himself.
Wise men recognize two things about every other man: that he has his own problems, and that no one else thoroughly understands either another man's handicaps or his advantages; and that the only way to judge him is not to go behind the returns, but to note how he lives with these same problems. They are there, there is no doubt about that; the question is, does he smile or scowl? does he work away toward a solution, or allow himself to be swamped by them? do they dominate him, or he them? has he that sun of life, vitality, sufficient to burn away the fog, or does he live and die in a moist, semi-impenetrable fog, in which he flounders timidly and rather aimlessly about, always rather discouraged, rather in the dark, and lamentably damp in person and in spirits? The only fair test of a man's life is his living of it, and the same is true of a nation.