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336 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
Matthew ’
he prayed and lamented over the dying Son of
God :
’
Help, ye daughters . . . help me lament !
’
" In this sacred hour, when we mourn our dead heroes, we
realise more powerfully than ever before the passion of Our
Lord. For are not we Germans ourselves undergoing our
Passion, and is not our Empire itself transformed to a suffering
Christ ? We too have passed through our hour of trial on
Mount Olivet when, with our Emperor, we prayed that ’
this
cup of suffering might pass away ’
from us, and obeying the
unfathomable Divine Will, we began to drain it. We too felt
the war weighing upon us like a cross, and we are bearing its
burden, trusting in the same aid which comforted our Heavenly
Master. We too have been forsaken by those to whom we
had only shown what is good and right, and around us too
has roared the cry, full of hatred and envy :
’
Crucify him !
’
And like the Master, we too, in this our German Passion, are
bearing wounds, among which the noblest and most bloody
are our dear dead Germans !
" Standing by the common graves in which we have buried
our dead, we lament deeply and sorrowfully. For we Germans
too can weep and lament ! And with our lamentations mingle
the sobs and wailings of the poor German widows and orphans,
whose husbands and fathers rest in foreign soO.
" And yet we do not sorrow like the heathen who have
nothing to hope for. Even the dead live, and urge us on to
the task incumbent on the living. I fancy I can hear, from
those trench graves, the imploring, earnestly beseeching cry :
’
See to it that our sufferings may not have been in vain ! ’
The
task which the dead lay upon us is, untiringly, and with the
utmost exertion of all our powers of mind and body, to accom-
plish the work of liberation of our threatened empire. From
the earliest times it has been a prominent characteristic of
German effort in every domain to go about the task in hand
thoroughly and perseveringly and to accomplish it accurately
in every detail. This purely German talent we shall also em-
ploy, with all the energy mercifully bestowed on us, in this
fateful hour. Just as in times of peace we were a nation who
created new resources, beneficent even to others, so we will
not now rest till we have forced upon our enemies a peace
which shall not only bring a new spring of prosperity to our
land but shall also be a guarantee for the tranquillity and
security of all Europe.
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