A few years before the World War started one of the leading European statesmen told me that there was everything to be feared for the future of Europe where some three hundred millions, the inhabitants of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary, about two-thirds of the whole continent, were governed in an almost irresponsible manner by a man without will or intelligence, the Tsar of Russia; a madman without a spark of genius, the German Kaiser, and an obstinate old man hedged in by his ambition, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary.  Not more than thirty persons, he added, act as a controlling force on these three irresponsible sovereigns, who might assume, on their own initiative, the most terrible responsibilities.

The magnificent spiritual gifts of the Germans gave them an Emanuel Kant, the greatest thinker of modern times, Beethoven, their greatest exponent of music, and Goethe, their greatest poet.  But the imperial Germany which came after the victory of 1870 had limited the spirit of independence even in the manifestations of literature and art.  There still existed in Germany the most widely known men of science, the best universities, the most up-to-date schools; but the clumsy mechanism tended to crush rather than to encourage all personal initiative.  Great manifestations of art or thought are not possible without the most ample spiritual liberty.  Germany was the most highly organized country from a scientific point of view, but at the same time the country in which there was the least liberty for individual initiative.  It went on like a huge machine:  that explains why it almost stopped after being damaged by the war, and the whole life of the nation was paralysed while there were very few individual impulses of reaction.  Imperial Germany has always been lacking in political ability, perhaps not only through a temperamental failing, but chiefly owing to her militaristic education.

Before the War Germany beat her neighbours in all the branches of human labour:  in science, industry, banking, commerce, etc.  But in one thing she did not succeed, and succeeded still less after the War, namely, in politics.  When the German people was blessed with a political genius, such as Frederick the Great or Bismarck, it achieved the height of greatness and glory.  But when the same people, after obtaining the maximum of power, found on its path William II with his mediocre collaborators, it ruined, by war, a colossal work, not only to the great detriment of the country, but also to that of the victors themselves, of whom it cannot be said with any amount of certainty, so far as those of the Continent are concerned, whether they are the winners or the losers, so great is the ruin threatening them, and so vast the material and moral losses sustained.