THE TWO GERMANIES

  Marvellous the utter transformation
  Of the spirit of the German nation!

  Once the land of poets, seers and sages,
  Who enchant us in their deathless pages,

  Holding high the torch of Truth, and earning
  Endless honour by their zeal for learning.

  Such the land that in an age uncouther
  Bred the soul-emancipating LUTHER.

  Such the land that made our debt the greater
  By the gift of Faust and Struwwelpeter.

  Now the creed of Nietzsche, base, unholy,
  Guides the nation’s brain and guides it solely.

  Now Mozart’s serene and joyous magic
  Yields to RICHARD STRAUSS, the haemorrhagic.[A]

  Now the eagle changing to the vulture
  Preaches rapine in the name of culture.

  Now the Prussian Junker, blind with fury,
  Claims to be God’s counsel, judge and jury,

  While the authentic German genius slumbers,
  Cast into the limbo of back numbers.

[Footnote A:  Great play is made in Strauss’s Elektra with the “slippery blood” motive.]

The campaign of lies goes on with immense energy in all neutral countries, for the Kaiser is evidently of opinion that the pen is perhaps mightier than the sword.

At home the great improvisation of the New Armies, undertaken by Lord Kitchener in the teeth of much expert criticism, goes steadily on.  Lord Kitchener asked for 500,000 men, and he has got them.  On September 10 the House voted another half million.  The open spaces in Hyde Park are given over to training; women are beginning to take the place of men.  Already the spirit of the new soldiers is growing akin to that of the regulars.  One of Mr. Punch’s brigade, who has begun to send his impressions of the mobilised Territorials, sums it up very well when he says that, amateurs or professionals, they are all very much alike.  “Feed them like princes and pamper them like babies, and they’ll complain all the time.  But stand them up to be shot at and they’ll take it as a joke, and rather a good joke, too.”  Lord Roberts maintains a dignified reticence, but that is “Bobs’ way”: 

  He knew, none better, how ’twould be,
    And spoke his warning far and wide: 
  He worked to save us ceaselessly,
    Setting his well-earned ease aside.

  We smiled and shrugged and went our way,
    Blind to the swift approaching blow: 
  His every word proves true to-day,
    But no man hears, “I told you so!”

Meanwhile General Botha, Boer and Briton too, is on the war-path, and we can, without an undue stretch of imagination, picture him composing a telegram to the Kaiser in these terms:  “Just off to repel another raid.  Your customary wire of congratulations should be addressed, ’British Headquarters, German South-West Africa.’”

[Illustration:  GOD (AND THE WOMEN) OUR SHIELD