The Hysteria of Hate
The Hysteria of Hate is an article written by Arthur Conan Doyle published in The Daily Chronicle on 23 november 1914.
Editions
- in The Daily Chronicle (23 november 1914 [UK])
- in The German War, chapter VII (december 1914, Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. [UK])
The Hysteria of Hate
GERMANY'S CAMPAIGN OF CALUMNY AND ODIUM.
We have all, I suppose, read and marvelled at the wonderful German "song of hate." This has been so much admired over the water that Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria (who had just stated his bitter hatred of us in a prose army order) distributed copies of the verses to his Bavarians as a stimulant in their long unsuccessful tussle with our troops at Ypres. In case the reader has forgotten its flavour I append a typical verse:—
- "We will never forgo our hate.
- We have all but a single hate.
- We love as one, we hate as one,
- We have one foe and one alone — England."
This sort of thing is, it must be admitted, very painful and odious. It fills us with a mixture of pity and disgust, and we feel as if instead of a man we were really fighting with a furious, screaming woman. Germany used to be a very great nation, mentally and morally as well as in material ways, and many of us, even while we fight her, are honestly pained by the depths of degradation into which she has fallen. This shrill scream of hate and constant frenzied ranting against Great Britain may reach its highest note in this poem, but we know that it pervades the whole Press and every class of national thought. It is deliberately fed by lying journals, which publish bogus letters describing the imaginary sufferings of German prisoners, and also by the Government itself, which, upon receiving a Socialist report partly favourable to Britain, excised those passages and circulated the rest as a complete document, so as to give the idea that it was wholly condemnatory.
The Shrill Scream of Hate.
Wherever we touch Germany in its present phase, whether it be the Overlord himself with his megalomaniac messages, the princes with their looting of chateaux, the Foreign Office with its trick of stealing American passports for the use of German spies, the army with its absolute brutality, the navy with its tactics of mine-laying in neutral waters, the Press with its grotesque concoctions, the artists with their pictures which are so base that the decent Germans have themselves at last rebelled against them, or the business men with their assertion that there is less economic disturbance in Germany than in Great Britain — wherever, I say, you touch them you come always upon what is odious and deceitful. A long century will have passed before Germany can wash her hands clean from murder, or purge from her spirit the shadow of this evil time.
If the words of one humble individual could reach across the seas, there are two things upon which I should wish to speak earnestly to a German: the one, our own character, the other, the future which he is deliberately preparing for the Fatherland which he loves. Our papers do get over there, even as theirs come over here, so one may hope it is not impossible that some German may give a thought to what I say if he is not so bemused by the atmosphere of lies in which his Press has enveloped him that he cannot recognise cold truth when he sees it.
The Sporting Spirit.
First as to ourselves: We have never been l & nation who fought with hatred. It is our ideal to fight in a sporting spirit. It is not ) that we are less in earnest, but it is that the sporting spirit itsell is u thing very largely 1 ~evolved by us and is a natural expression of our character, We fight as hard as we can ' ourselves, and we like and admire those who fight hard against us so long as they keep within the rules of the game. Let me take an obvious example. One German has dooe 'us more harm than any other in this war. He is Captain von Muller of the Emden, whose depredations represent the cost of a battleship. Yet an honest sigh of | relie! went ap from us all when we learned that he had pot perished with his ship, and if he walked down Fleet-street to-day he would | be. cheered bi.cthe crowd from end to end. Why? ause almost alone among | Germans he has played the game as |it should be ghyed. It is true that | everything he did ' was illegal. He had |no right to burn uncondemned prizes, and a purist could claim that he was a pirate. | But we recognised the practical difficulties | of his position; we felt that under the cir | cumstances he had acted like a gentleman, | and we freely lorfiave him any harm that he had done us. With this examrlo before {op my German reader, you cannot say. that it is national hatred when we denounce your mur| derers and brigands in Belgium. If they, ton, had acted as gentlemen, we should have felt \ towards them as to von Muller. |l’ you look back in British history you will | find that this absence of hatred has always | besn characteristic of us. When Soult came | to London after the Napoleonic wars he was | cheered through the City. After the Boer | war, Botha, De Wet, and Delarey had a mag| nificent reception. We did not know that one | of them was destined to prove a despicable | and perjured traitor. They had been good | fighters; the fight was dome, we had shaken | hands—and we cheered them., All British prize-fights ended with the shaking of hands. l'rhough the men could no longer see each other tbghwm led up and their hands were | {oined. en a combatant refuses to do this t has always been looked upon as unmanly; and we say that bad blood has been left ] behind. 8o in war we have always wished to | fight to a finish and then be {riends, whether . we had won or lost,
Germany After the War. Now, this is just what we should wish ta do with Germany, and it is what Germany is rapidly making impossible. She has, in our opinion, fought a brave but a thoroughly foul fight. And now she ueu.ever{ means to excite a bitter hatred which shall survive the war, The Briton is tolerant and easygoing in times of peace, too careless perhaps of the opmion of other nations. But at present he 13 in & most alert and receptive mood, noting and remembering very carefully every word that comes to him as to the temper of the German lpr\o and the prospects of the future. He is by no means disposed to pass ' over all these announcements of permanent hatred. On the contrary, he 1s evidently beginning, for the first time since Napoleon's ern, to show something approaching to hatred in return He—and "he" stands for every Briton across the seas as well as the men of
the Tslands—makes a practical note of it all and it will not be forgotten, but will certainly bear very definite fruits. The national thoughts do not come forth in wild poems ot hate, but they none the less are gloomy and resentiul with the deep, steady resentment of a nation which is elow to anger | And now, my problematical German reader, I want you to realise what this is going to mean to you after the war Whether you win or lose—and we have our own very certain opinion as to which it will be—Germany will still remain as a great independent State. She may be a little trimmed at the edges, and she may also find herself with some awkward liabilities; but none the less she will be a great kingdom or rerublw——u the Fates may will. She will turn her hand to trade and try to build up her fortunes once more—for even if we euppose her to be the victor she still cannot live for ever on plunder and must turn herself to honest trade, while if she loses her trade will be more precious to her than ever. But what will her position be then? It will be appalling. No pther word can express it. No legislation will be needed to keep German gomrl out of the whole British Empire, which means more than a quarter of the globe. Anything with that mark might as well have a visible cholera bacillus upon it for the chance it will have of being handled alter this war. That is already certain, and it is the direct outcome of the madness which has possessed Germany in her frantic outery of hatred. What chance they have of business with France, Russia, or Japan they know best themselves; but the British _Emg,ire. with that wide trade toleration which has long been her policy, and for which she has had so little gratitude, would have speedily forgiven Germany and opened her markets to her. Now it is not for many a long year that this ean be gO, not on account of the war, but on account of the bitterness which Germany has gone out of her way to ~import into the contest. It is idle to say that in that case we should lose our exports to . Germany. Even if it were g 0 it would not in the least affect the sentiments of the retail sellers and buyers in this country, whose demands regulate the wholesale trade. But as & matter of lact, what Germany buys mostly . from the British Empire is the coal, wool, &c., . which are the raw materials of ber industry l with which she eannot possibly dispense.
What Might Have Been. But the pity of it all! We might have had a straight, honest fight, and at the end of it we might have conceded that the German people had been innocently misled by their military caste and their Prese, and the idea that their country was being attacked, and so were themselves guiltless in the matter. They, on their eide, might at last have understood that Britain had been placed in such a position by her filuamm to Belgium that it wae absolutely n‘russxble she could stand out of the war. With these mutual concessions some sort of friendship could possibly have been restored, for it is to no one's interest, and least of all ours, that the keystone should be krocked right out of the European arch. But all this has been rendered iw&ouiblo by these hysterical screamers of hate, and by those methods of murder on land, sea and air with which the war has been conducted. Hate ia a very ecatching emhotion, and when it translates itself into action it eoon glows on either side of the North fea. With neither race, to use Carlyle’s simile, does it blaze like the quick-fiaming stubble, but with both it will smoulder like the slow red peat. Are there not even now etrong, sane men in Germany who can warn these madmen of what they are sowing for the next generation and the one that comes after it? It is not that we ask them to abate the resistance of their country. It is understood that this is a fight to the end. That is what we desire, fidt let them stand up and fight without reviling; let them give punishment without malice and receive it without wincing: let their Press cease from Iyi:s. and their pn;ghem from preaching hatred—then, lose or win, there may still be some chance for their future. But, alas' the mischief is .lroad{. 1 fear, too deeg. When the seeds are sown it is hard to check the harvest Let the impartial eritic consider von Muller, of the En:lde&" u}dG!ben. htvli:ghmrveyed w:&: Phr:u and t of Germany, let him say with whom lies the blame.
