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and France, any idea of Germany as the Conqueror of the world.

"Never be at enmity with the Russian Bear," was the saying at the time of Bismarck and before. "Always contrive that yours shall be a defensive war; let the other party attack," was the declaration of Bismarck.

The policy of Bismarck was: "If you have an enemy, make friends with all the other powers, so that your enemy be isolated diplomatically and politically."

The present Kaiser has reversed every one of the great policies of Bismarck and of his ancestors that made a united and great Germany.

There is not a language in the world to-day outside the Teutonic that speaks the praise of Germany. Defensive German alliances are broken because the present Kaiser insisted that offensive and defensive are one and the same. In offensive action the Triple Alliance breaks; while the Triple Entente becomes, for defense, nine nations instead of three.

The German people are not responsible for this situation. Their form of government has not yet permitted full, free, and effective expression of opinion; nor does the German seek full political expression. He loves his fireside and his family,

and prefers his home ease and philosophy. He has confidence in his Kaiser and his government; and his whole training for a generation has been to make him an obedient part of a military power.

It is gratifying to find that not the German people, but the German Kaiser, is responsible for this war; and it is also gratifying to find that there are doubts as to his full mental responsibility.

I have had closer associations with the German people than with the French, and have liked them better as a people: they are so industrious, efficient, and ambitious in the world's work. I know the German country better than the country of France or England. I think I understand something of the over-self-sufficiency of the English, and I have no prejudice against the Germans, or even their form of government, which may be better adapted to their needs than a broader democracy. But of the German modern war-philosophy the world outside can hold but one opinion. It might have been supported as a purely tentative or speculative philosophy, but it could have been promoted in practice only by a crazy ruler. I was not therefore surprised to find circulated in Paris an article by an American physician which I had permitted to be pub

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lished in America at the outbreak of the war, showing the mental weaknesses and hereditary taints of Germany's war lord.

I recall him from memory of bygone years, and as I saw him in Berlin when his grandfather was still on the throne a young man of about twenty, returning from the races and dashing through the Tiergarten holding the reins of six coal-black horses.

I said to myself: "That young man will cut a dash yet." And I still see, in higher light than before, those six coal-black horses - the horses of death.

Recently I read pages of his writings, speeches, and declarations, and there is not for the world an uplifting or new thought within them all. What appears to be new is the echo of an age that was supposed to be long past-when might was rule and valor was religion.

"There is but one will, and that is mine," said the Kaiser, addressing his soldiers; but it has been the keynote to his diplomacy wherever it has appeared, either in pushing a commercial treaty on Russia in her hour of distress, forcing Italy into the Triple Alliance, or dictating the terms of the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, so that it would be impossible of fulfilment.

What is there of world-progress in the declaration of the present German Emperor, celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the Kingdom of Prussia,

"In this world nothing must be settled without the intervention of Germany and of the German Emperor."

CHAPTER XV

THE GERMAN POSITION

An Aggressive Germany The Logic of It-The War Party Supreme-A War for Business - What Confronts Germany - Her Finish.

A MIGHTY nation surrounded and besieged, yet still fighting on foreign soil, is the position of Germany to-day. Her triumph would mean, not alone a European conquest, but a world-conquest. Her defeat within a reasonable time does not mean her destruction or dismemberment. It means only the destruction of Prussian militarism and that theory of national existence into which the German people have been led under the present emperor, that theory which teaches:

"War and courage have done more great things
than Charity."

"What is good? All that increases the feel-
ing of power; the will to power."

"The weak and debauched must perish, and
should be helped to perish."

This is the philosophy, the teaching and the