in Germany was necessary; and Prussian hegemony could only be established by war. Didon, studying in the German universities at the beginning of the 'eighties, found it universally accepted that 'German unity could not have been accomplished without force and violence; it implied on the part of Prussia that policy of ruse and audacity consisting in the skilful preparation for conflict, in playing the part of the offended one, and in risking the future in a game of dice with victory.' Sedan or Jena, in this present war? 'Downfall, or WorldPower?' asks Bernhardi, Treitschke's military disciple, ready, along with his nation, for that policy of adventure, of gambling risk, which Nietzsche advocated as a chief law of conduct.

War is the sum of German realism. German policy is the reflex of what occurs in the animal kingdom. The philosophical historians and their military followers celebrate the happy necessity of war with deepest fervour. They re-echo the old Greek philosopher, with his 'war is the father of all things,' and Hobbes, who discovered the natural law to be 'the war of every man against every man'-a law that was regulated by 'kings and persons of sovereign authority,' who are 'in the state and posture of gladiators' and 'uphold thereby the industry of their subjects.' The Industrial period, which is supposed, by merely trading nations, to have superseded the period of Militarism, is nothing but a state of war, barely latent. War itself is a form of industry, bringing profit.

'The one unpardonable sin,' according to Treitschke, is 'the failure to use one's might.'

"Troops always ready to act,' said Frederick, the archmodel of the House of Hohenzollern, 'my war-chest well filled, and the vivacity of my character, were my reasons for making war against Marie Therèse, Queen of Bohemia and Hungary. Ambition, interest, the desire of making a name, carried the day with me, and I determined on war.'

He could refute Machiavelli before he became master of the State, and practise his doctrine afterwards. The first principle of realistic politics is that there are no principles, except those of self-interest. There are only opportunities, and these are fugitive. He is the best diplomatist who watches for the fit occasion to attack.

War! war! The living God (says Treitschke) will take care that war shall always return as a frightful medicine for the human race.' 6 War,' says Marshal von der Goltz, 'is the right education of the people, and the true centre of national culture.' Should Germany not be sound, then 'war,' says Treitschke, 'is the sole remedy.' Should there be any internal difficulties in the German Empire (such as the increasing power of the Social Democrats), then a people that wishes to maintain its equilibrium must stir itself up from time to time by war.' Roon declared that 'the question of the Duchies (Schleswig-Holstein) is not a question of right, but a question of might; and we have the might.' 'To the end of time,' says Treitschke, 'weapons will maintain the right; and therein lies the holiness of war.' Might will be right, for at once, when war is proclaimed, there is ‘a new rectification of boundaries corresponding with the reality of might displayed.'

But what of the Germans, or even the Prussians, who are not connected with the army, the university, or the bureaucracy? Maximilian Harden, the well-known journalist, said last year: Few people think of war. We need peace too much. War would compromise the results of the considerable efforts of these forty years which have given Germany considerable power; those who reflect on this cannot desire war, and, as Germans, we do not love it for itself.' Sudermann, the second German dramatist of the epoch, calling attention to the fact that the German people, 'laborious and pacific,' has full confidence in the Emperor and the Government, expressed his conviction that Prussia and Germany, ever since the Middle Ages, have never fought but in self-defence, except when their intention was to 'constitute themselves,' as in the war of 1870-1. But what of their openly proclaimed intention to 'constitute themselves as the World-Power'? Alfred Kerr, literary man and editor, still in the same year, was as realistic as you please, 'looking facts in the face'-biological facts-as Treitschke bids his disciples do:

'Nothing can hold out against historical fatalities. The German arrives, with his rich blood, and I think his hour is come. The law of life requires that the less strong shall

be eliminated; the true conquerors are the hungry. And we are the hungry. The money we have gained has given us a taste for more; the well-being we have conquered has increased our appetite. When the German looks round about the world, he finds that he has come off badly, and that what is left him is only the scraps of a good meal. But this division, in his thoughts, in only provisional.'

As 'war,' says Treitschke, 'is the sphere in which the triumph of human reason displays itself most conspicuously,' and its 'majesty consists in the fact that murder can here be committed without passion,' so the conception of the Prussian State is equally in conformity with reason. Formulated in advance by Hegel, it is idealistic; and realistic, as in full agreement with the biological law. 'Radicals,' says Treitschke, 'pretend that the State springs from the free consent of citizens. History, on the contrary, teaches us that, most usually, States are founded against the wills of citizens by conquest and domination.' "Whoever is not manly enough to look the truth in the face, that the State above all is might, had better leave politics alone.' 'Will is the essence of the State.' And will, to Treitschke as to Nietzsche, is the 'Will to Power,' the will to conquer and dominate.

Moreover, as the German army is invincible, so the State, the Prussian autocracy, is infallible in its methods and aims. Thanks be to God,' cried Moltke, 'the old patriarchal régime, the old theory that people are to be made happy in spite of themselves, still subsists in Prussia, in spite of progress'; while Bismarck had his own way of eulogizing Prussian mastery: 'Prussia is like a flannel-waistcoat; disagreeable at first, and scratchy -but it's warm and sticks well to the skin.' Thus, there is no room for the exercise of public opinion; the bureaucracy, that third institution of Germany, supplies such information as is needed.

But there is such a thing as responsibility? Ministers are responsible to an abstraction; to the non-moral-or immoral-State. Austria does not want war,' said a diplomatist to Bismarck, and it will avoid giving you a pretext for it.' To which the future Chancellor replied: 'I have a pocketful of pretexts and plausible causes.' It

was the same in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. 'Blessed,' says Delbrück, the successor of Mommsen, 'is the hand that falsified the despatch of Ems,' and thereby provoked the war. Bismarck, later, acknowledged the falsification; and German historians approve it, in full agreement with Zarathustra-Nietzsche: A good cause, you say, sanctifies every war. But I say unto you: it is a good 'war that sanctifies every cause.' And the pledged word, the treaties signed ? 'All treaties,' Treitschke declares, 'are written with the clause understood: so long as things remain as they are at present.' 'If the statesman perceives that standing treaties no longer represent the real conditions of power, and cannot attain his purpose by friendly diplomacy, then '—it must be 'war.' And further: The statesman has no right to warm his hands at the smoking ruin of his Fatherland with the pleasant self-praise that he has never lied. That is merely a monkish virtue.' Might is right. It is the duty of ministers to collaborate with Destiny. And the German nation, headed by Prussia, is destined to rule the world.

After 1870, no longer France, but England, was the enemy. The Crown Prince, now the Emperor, said to his French tutor: When the pointed helmet (Germany) and the red breeches (France) march together, gare à Carthage-woe to England, the trading State. Since then, to his expressed chagrin, he has vainly wooed France to his side; while the historians, his masters, and the German nation at large are unable to understand why France should not be content to live upon the reputation of its past. England, the robber and pirate, is the one enemy. With the English,' says Treitschke, 'love of money has crushed all feeling of honour, and all distinctions of just and unjust. They hide their poltroonery behind lofty phrases of unctuous theology.' Whereas Germany openly proclaims that might is right, and that is just which is to the interest of Germany. The English 'sacrifice all to profit,' while Germany is idealistic. The British Empire is the result of chance and trickery. While it was building, Germany was too busy with its neighbours'-too busy with philosophy, said Heine-to notice that England was grabbing the world.' Germany has entered late upon its construction of a world-empire :

6

'In the present division of the extra-European world, Germany has always had too small a share. It is now a question that concerns our existence as a great state whether we can become a power beyond the sea. Otherwise we have the hideous prospect of England and Russia parcelling out the world; and it is hard to say whether the Russian knout or the English money-bag is the more immoral and horrible.'

It may be necessary to crush France once more, and to thrust back the menace of Muscovitic barbarism, but with England it is merely a question of the strong nation wresting an ill-gained empire from a nation that is weak and effete. For Germany is convinced of English decadence; the colonies are loosely tied to the mothercountry; there is a complete inability to effect a Customs Union within the empire; above all, England cares so little for empire that her sons refuse national service under arms, refuse that sacrifice which the sons of Germany so proudly make. In short, says Treitschke, 'a State like England, which does not exercise the might of arms, is no longer a State.' The task of conquering England is easy. For now, even more than when Didon wrote in 1883, 'no German is to be found who does not consider his nation invincible by the number and worth of its soldiers, the ability of its chiefs, the superiority of its organisation and of its armaments.' For England there is nothing but hatred and contempt. Why tax Germans for the building up of German colonies? It is finer and more popular policy to employ one's money upon the increase of armaments which, sooner or later, shall set their grasp upon the English colonies, already equipped and so much better situated.

After war, the State, while not ceasing to be biological and 'beyond morality,' condescends to the peaceful conquests of German Idealism. A subdued world is to participate in the benefits of German Culture. As Treitschke promises: 'The State, the Prussian State, when supreme, will recognise that physical might is only a means to guard and further the higher goods of humanity.' Only, one remembers how Ranke, after 1870, failed to discover the 'purifying action' which, he had hoped, would result from the war. All menaces ruin;