Germania. Jaargang 1

An open Letter.⁽¹⁾

To C.J. Cutcliffe Wright Hyne Esq.
Oak Vale,
Bradford.

SIR

I have read, in Pearson's Magazine your Adventures of Captain Kettle, which I understand are quite a big success in England. They're certainly amusing and now and then exciting, although rather far-fetched.

(1) Nota der Redactie. Alhoewel wij voornemens zijn in den regel niets dan Nederlandsche of Hoogduitsche bijdragen op te nemen, hebben wij raadzaam gevonden, een stuk, dat bestemd is, om ook door Engelschen te worden gelezen, en om die reden in het Engelsch werd geschreven, in den oorspronkelijken Engelschen tekst te laten verschijnen.

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In fact, they remind me of the fantastic achievements of another hero, of whom I daresay you have heard: the celebrated Baron Münchhausen.

I think, however, that the success of your work would have been enhanced rather than lessened if your regard for truth and fair play had been at a par with your dashing style and imaginative power. A fifth-rate newspaper-hack in search of potboilers, who tries his hand at shilling-shockers and penny-dreadfuls, may, for want of better attractions, make his literary daubs acceptable by pandering to the silliest prejudices of the coarse and vulgar mob; but a gifted writer of fiction, a man of culture and refined intellect should not buy popularity at so cheap a price.

Englishmen have every reason to be proud of their country, of the men who built up the mightiest empire the world has ever seen and of those, greater still, whose services towards the advancement of art and science and to the cause of liberty and civilisation are too conspicuous to need recounting.

Such feelings are natural and praiseworthy. Unfortunately, with the ignorant and narrow-minded, they're apt to degenerate into blind conceit and self-assumption, the sort of thing the French call Chauvinisme and the British adaptation of which has been christened Jingoism.

The first article of the Jingo's faith is the absolute and hopeless inferiority of foreigners when compared with Englishmen. An English gentleman is vastly superior to a continental one, simply because he happens to be English. Likewise a doctor, an artist, a man of science. And as to soldiers, isn't it a fact beyond dispute, that one Englishman is more than a match for half a dozen Frenchmen or Germans? Vide the stirring ditties rapturously encored in every British Music-hall.

Some people, who ought to know better, are, or pretend to be, deeply convinced that, next to being British born, the happiest and proudest lot on earth is to be Britain's subject, no matter at what cost the precious privilege is to be bought. For instance, it is quite refreshing to hear Mr. Rider Haggard sneering at the Transvaal Boers, who preferred starting a Republic of their own, instead of being content to remain Queen Victoria's subjects.⁽¹⁾ What does it matter that, for those obstinate fools, British rule meant suppression of their freedom, abolition of representative government, enforcement of a foreign language and of foreign laws by a pack of unscrupulous adventurers and military martinets? Mr. Rider Haggard doesn't care for such paltry details: he only looks at the heavenly bliss of being Queen Victoria's subject.

(1) ‘And to think, that there are men who are subjects of the Queen, and want to be subjects of a Republic again - Mad! Captain Niel, I tell you, quite mad.’ Jess, Chap. III.

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Now, Queen Victoria is admittedly a good and worthy woman. But so was George III an excellent man - in private life. If the Dutch Boers are rogues and madmen because they objected to be ruled by a foreign Queen, what price the Anglo-Saxon Americans, who turned out their lawful Sovereign? Why doesn't Mr. Rider Haggard give the Yankees their share of the abuse he so lavishly bestows on the unfortunate Boers? Or is he afraid of becoming the laughing stock of the world? Fancy George Washington being described as a criminal lunatic!

Of course those almost sickening outbursts of loyalty - or, shall I say of inborn flunkeyism? - are mere convention: but, barring a few Radicals, who dares openly to confess it? Besides, England is the home of cant and in the long run habit becomes a second nature. That's the reason why the same people, who professed to be horror-struck, when that godly man Stokes met his deserts at the hands of a Belgian officer, consider the hanging of Robert Emmett or Louis Riel, or the shooting down after their voluntary surrender and without trial of the Delhi princes, a stern, but unobjectionable and even meritorious act of justice. And, again, among the fiery denouncers of Turkish atrocities, how many are prepared to own, that the British rule in Ireland is only a shade better than the Turkish domination in Armenia or Crete? Irishmen, I grant, are not butchered in the public streets, but hundreds of thousands expelled from their homes by pitiless landlords, died by the roadside or were driven over the seas, the wholesale extermination of a brave, pious and industrious race being helplessly tolerated, when not actually connived at, by an imbecile or unprincipled Government.⁽¹⁾ And after all, what is the difference between the worst of the Turkish pashas and say the late Earl of Leitrim? Only this: the Turk is at heart a barbarian, possibly with a thin veneer of Western culture, whereas the British peer was a highly educated nobleman, a pillar of Church and State, mixing in the very best society, in short the kind of demi-god whose boots every snob longs to lick. But, nevertheless, the deeds of both were equally black.⁽²⁾

(1) Vide the account of the Famine and of the Great Clearances in T.P. O'Connor's slashing array of facts. (The Parnell Movement, Chap. II-IV.).

(2) Vide T.P. O'Connor, loc. cit., Chap. IV: ‘The droit du seigneur reigned as completely in Ireland as in France; but while in the one case it ended with the French Revolution, it endured in Ireland - thanks to British rule - until our own times. Lord Leitrim in this way, as in many others, raged like a plague over the people, whom a hideous destiny and evil laws left entirely at his mercy. On his estate a comely girl was ordered to come nominally as a domestic servant inside his house The house became a prison, and the service was the service of shame. In due time the lord of the seraglio sent the distasteful mistress to America, and to some other helpless girl on his estate the dread choice was offered between entering the harem or exposing her parents and her family to eviction, i.e. starvation.’

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To return. You know as well as I do, that bravery, righteousness and intelligence are, occasionally, to be met with outside of England and that every Englishman is not necessarily and de jure a paragon of all possible and impossible virtues, in fact, that cads, idiots and scoundrels do exist in England as well as anywhere else. Why then, do you write, as if the contrary was true? Why do you try and make your countrymen shine by abusing all others? They surely are great enough to dispense with such mendacious bragging and to do justice to their neighbours. If I was an Englishman, as I am a Belgian, I wouldn't feel flattered, I can tell you.

I allude, in the first place, to what you say of the Congo Free-State and of the Belgians in Africa. According to your description, the Congo Free-State is simply a gang of robbers, banded together to murder and plunder the poor natives, and the Belgian officers and officials out there are all without exception cowards, bullies, thieves and fools. I am aware, that the same identical charges have repeatedly appeared in print. When not anonymous, they're generally put forward by shady individuals, dismissed servants of the Free-State or trading missionaries, whose tender conscience, where competition is feared and contributions invited, doesn't stick at trifles. I suggest, however, that before endorsing the sweeping statements of those gentry, you might have taken the trouble to investigate them and to listen, if possible with unbiassed mind, to the accused's defence. Audiatur et altera pars, Sir! I also suggest that you, as the son of a clergyman, had better remember the Sermon on the Mount: ‘Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.’ Which means, that you should first mind your own porridge, and that no chimney-sweep has a right to complain of his neighbour's blackness. As it is, you can scarcely be unacquainted with the fact, that the charges alluded to have been conclusively answered. It has been proved by the evidence of independent witnesses, including some of your most eminent countrymen, that the whole indictment is a pack of impudent lies or, at the very least, of gross exaggerations. There is of course no accounting for tastes and one is at liberty to think the notorious Captain Salisbury a fitter judge and more credible authority than Henry Stanley. But considering you have been in the Congo yourself, your ignorance is really astounding. Are you blind and deaf like the hero of Maarten Maartens' novel? Or has your visit to the Congo-State been only a flying one? I see in Who's Who, 1898, that you are a great traveller and ‘make a point of covering at least 10,000 miles of new ground every year’. Assuming that you can afford to devote every year three or four months to travelling, that would make about one hundred miles a day. Not much

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time left for observation and study, I should think. It reminds me of an excursionist who once took a cheap return-ticket from Ostend to Dover - he had never been in England before and didn't speak a word of English - and after spending a few hours on the Kentish shore came home and undertook at once to write a book dealing exhaustively with British life. Don't laugh at the fellow's conceit, and look at yourself in the mirror: you are the living counterpart of that saturday-to-monday tripper.

Your wilful misrepresentation of the state of affairs in the Congo is bad enough, but you made things a deal worse by flippantly asserting and repeating that, at Waterloo, the Belgian troops ran away. This, as you incidentally remark, is ‘a slur which no Belgian can forgive’ - because it happens to be an absolute untruth.

Waterloo was a brilliant triumph, but by no means an exclusively British victory. It would have been, but for the timely arrival of the Prussians, a drawn battle, if not a disastrous defeat. Is it fair to forget such a plain and obvious fact?

And is it fair to pretend to ignore another fact, viz., that of the 67.000 men under Wellington's command, only 24.000 were English, 30.000 German (Hanoverians, Bunswickers and Nassovians) and 13.000 Dutch or Belgian? Military writers can't hide the damning fact, but some of them, Captain Siborne for instance, try to explain it away and coolly contend that the foreign auxiliaries were of no use whatever: they broke and fled and 72.000 Frenchmen, the pick of the French army, led by the greatest general of his time, were beaten hollow by 24.000 Englishmen. Such things when proclaimed from the Music-hall stage bring down the house: 'Arry feels a hero by proxy and 'Arriet exults at the idea that her pet British grenadier could rout singlehanded a whole company of ‘Froggies’. But, far from the maddening crowd, any man not bereft of his senses will smile and shrug his shoulders, just as he did when, in 1870, the Paris mob yelled: A Berlin!

As a matter of fact, the foreign troops were the reverse of useless at Waterloo. They were the whole time in the very thick of the fight, forming the first line of battle, while the British, sheltered by that human breastwork, were mostly lying snugly behind them. Yes, at last they had to give way and such as were not killed fell back. But their stubborn resistance had crippled the enemy's advance and when the exhausted French came in contact with the comparatively fresh English infantry, the disorderly and clumsily led onset failed.

And the Dutch-Belgians? The Dutch-Belgians had their share and more than their share of the bloody work. Out of 13.000, about 3000

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were killed or badly wounded. Not a disreputable record for young soldiers, most of them raw levies.

I would advise you to peruse General Eenens' interesting book.⁽¹⁾ By official documents and by the testimony of the Duke of Wellington himself, the author proves that Captain Siborne's indictment is utterly wrong, that the Dutch-Belgians to the fullest extent did their duty and were publicly praised for it by the British Commander-in-chief. On the other hand, you'll learn that only three regiments didn't behave well under fire and were punished accordingly: one of them was Hanoverian, the two others were English.

It is alleged that the colonel of a Belgian regiment of horse declined to charge, objecting that it would be a useless waste of valuable life, the force under his command being visibly too weak to check the foe. The fact is denied, but assuming it, for the sake of argument, to be correct, what then? Was it that colonel's duty to lead his men to certain death, knowing that the sacrifice would be of no avail? Theoretically one is bound to obey orders, no matter how absurd; practically, an inferior is held for blameless, when the result shows that he was justified in not obeying. So was Nelson at the battle of St. Vincent. At Balaklava Lord Cardigan obeyed at once and to the letter, a foolish order instead of ascertaining first whether it hadn't been given by mistake. The charge of the Light Brigade was as splendid as futile and four hunderd brave fellows paid with their blood a glaring blunder of their leaders. Heroes they were undoubtedly; but what about gallant John Nicholson's men at the storming of Delhi, when they refused to follow him through the famous lane near the Cashmere Gate, with the result that Nicholson very unwisely went alone and was killed? Were they cowards?⁽²⁾.

Believe me, if you had taken the trouble of sifting your information, you would have paused before venturing to offer such a wanton insult to a whole nation whose desperate struggle for mere existence and against fearful odds has been during centuries the theme of Europe's admiration. Have you forgotten how we held France and Spain at bay? Have you forgotten the rise of the Dutch Republic? Have you forgotten Tromp sweeping the Channel and the Dutch guns thundering

(1) Dissertation sur la participation des troupes des Pays-Bas à la campagne de 1815 en Belgique, par A. Eenens, lieutenant-général à la retraite Ghent, 1879.

(2) Major Hodson - the man who, with his own hand, shot the three Delhi princes afer their surrender - wrote at the thime in his diary: ‘The (English) troops are utterly demoralised by hard word and hard drink. For the first time in my life I have had to see English soldiers refuse repeatedly to follow their officers. Jacob, Nicholson, Greville, Speke were al sacrificed tho this.’ Query: was it more difficult to face the Delhi rabble, disbanded sepoys and city budmahes, than Napoleon's invincible legions?

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in the Thames and in the Medway? No, you haven't, but you couldn't resist the temptation of treating your readers to some old chestnuts and making fun at les braves Belges' expense. I 'm sorry I can't wish you joy with the delicacy of your wit.

Besides, this kind of banter is too easily answered. Do you know a place called Majuba Hill? I remember pictures in the Graphic and the Illustrated London News showing the flower of your army, the Highlanders, running helter-skelter down the slope like hares in a battue. And you will be pleased to bear in mind that the Boers, who on that day - and more than once beforce and since - enjoyed such a capital view of a large expanse of British backs, that the Boers belong to the same stock as those Dutchmen and Belgians you affect to despise.

I am,

Sir,

Yours sincerely

A. Prayon van Zuylen.

September 15th 1898.