First-Class Men — Createspace

From the PREFACE.
Count Baudissin's book, now placed before the English-speaking public, is the sensation of Germany. It has created heated debates in/ the Reichstag. It has been suppressed by the police, and its author is being criminally prosecuted - for what? For telling the plain truth about the German army, its officers, the medieval and feudal ideas still prevailing among them, the remarkable code of honor and morals which governs these "First-Class Men."
Startling as Count Baudissin's revelations are, they appear to be based on facts, and supported by impartial witnesses. The New York Evening Post, certainly not a paper seeking cheap sensations, in an article- on this subject, says, in part:
"Something new in the way of literature is now on the top wave of popularity in Europe and has begun an invasion of the United States - the German military romance. Writers of great renown - Count de Baudissin, for instance - tell of the proudest army of Europe stories that read like a new chapter of the history' of Emperor Nero. Are these stories really true?
"Militarism develops and fosters the instinct of brutality, and in the lands where it thrives we find it insolent, haughty, and contemptuous of the rights of the weak. And such a land is Germany. Let us look at the effect of militarism, dominant and rampant, upon the character of her officers.
"First of all, it must be understood that there are different classes of German officers. The officers themselves have distinctive characters; not in their grades, no but in their noble birth and the classification of their regiments, first in rank is the nobility, then the wealthy civilian, then the poor civilian. After this classification comes the regulation concerning the rank and precedence of the regiments - cavalry, foot, artillery, train. As though this were not enough, the highest class of all these regiments is the Imperial Guard. All this is hard to under- stand in a republican government. "Such is the foolish worship of caste in Germany that when a family of what may be called the citizen class becomes able to boast that one of its members is an officer in the army, it is thereby exalted above all others. And this endeavor after distinction is the prolific breeder of jealousies and heart burnings, and has all but beggared thousands of worthy families which might otherwise have lived in peace and contentment.
"A young man of, say, eighteen years, becomes a lieutenant. Prom this time on he is an officer of the army - a commander over his illiterate brother. Now he possesses might; now he has a great responsibility. His military education shows him the world in two classes only - one that commands and one that obeys. He sees that thousands of people look upon him in awe, and his character absorbs the influence of such adulation. He sees that his rank gives him the opportunity to do a great deal more than the common people, and that his uniform covers him with a halo. He makes his own laws; and where a citizen would be punished by imprisonment for certain misdeeds he might commit, the honor of the army will protect the officer from such a fate if it is possible to do so. If impossible, then he has two courses open to him, either blow out his brains or cross the great body of water separating this country from the Fatherland.