BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1916

WHILE this book is on the press, President Wilson has taken a firm stand, from which, we may hope, he will put an end to foreign arrogance and to domestic plotting and sedition. My references to his policy, written earlier, reflect the grave anxiety which many of us felt during the autumn and winter, and I let them remain because they bear witness to a very important element in the crisis. The long period of doubt over the President's intentions not only stifled American patriotism, but greatly encouraged the enemies at work in the United States.

In this sketch I have purposely assembled a sufficient body of the characteristic doctrines of the shapers of Prussian policy, from Frederick the Great to General Bernhardi, to remind the reader of the essential German elements underlying the Atrocious War. These

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will enable him to see that my own conclusions are based on German premises and facts, and not on calumnies invented by foreigners. During the progress of the struggle, such essentials are often forgotten, or are obscured by excitement over military, naval, or diplomatic events. Nothing is more important, however, than that the origins of this conflict, and the doom which awaits Civilization unless Kultur is crushed, be thoroughly understood. W. R. T.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
March 6, 1916.