To Germans our defence of public law may seem part of the moral hypocrisy of which in their view we are full.  What we are doing, they feel, is to strike at Germany, our competitor for ‘world-empire’, with its dangerous navy, while Germany is engaged in a life and death struggle with France and Russia.  We too, they feel, are Machiavellians; but we have put on what Machiavelli called ‘the mantle of superstition’, the pretence of morality and law, to cover our craft.  It is true that we are fighting for our own interest.  But what is our interest?  We are fighting for Right, because Right is our supreme interest.  The new German political theory enunciates that ‘our interest is our right’.  The old—­the very old—­English political theory is, ’The Right is our interest’.  It is true that we have everything to gain by defending the cause of international law.  Should that prevent us from defending that cause?  What do we not lose of precious lives in the defence?

This is the case of England.  England stands for the idea of a public law of Europe, and for the small nations which it protects.  She stands for her own preservation, which is menaced when public law is broken, and the ‘ages’ slow-bought gain’ imperilled.

(Treitschke’s Politik, lectures delivered in Berlin during the years 1875 to 1895, was published in two volumes in 1899.  General Bernhardi’s book, Deutschland und der naechste Krieg, was published in 1911, and has been translated into English under the title Germany and the Next War.  See also J.A.  Cramb, England and Germany, 1914.)

Notes: 

[Footnote 179:  The unity of the German state is in no small measure a matter of artificial Prussianization.  Of this Prussianization Treitschke was the great advocate, though he was himself ultimately of Slavonic origin, and immediately of Saxon birth.]

[Footnote 180:  We are reminded of the famous sentence in The Prince:—­Dove non e giudizio da richiamare si guarda al fine.]

[Footnote 181:  Bernhardi adds:  ’The conception of permanent neutrality is entirely contrary to the essential nature of the state, which can only attain its highest moral aims in competition with other states.’  It would seem to follow that by violating the neutrality of Belgium Germany is helping that country to attain its highest moral aims.  The suggestion that Belgium is no longer a neutral Power was not adopted by the German Government before the war, nor by Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg in his speech to the Reichstag on the Belgian question (see supra, p. 91).]

[Footnote 182:  It was significant that Germany, while offering to England at the end of July a guarantee of the integrity of the soil of France, would not offer any guarantee of the integrity of French colonies (supra, p. 82).]