8

Perhaps I ought to have known, too, remembering the tour which I had made in Germany two years before.

It was after the Agadir incident, and I had been sent to Germany by my newspaper on a dovelike mission of peace, to gather sentiments of good will to England from prominent public men who might desire out of their intellectual friendship to us to pour oil on the troubled waters which had been profoundly stirred by our challenge to Germany’s foreign policy.  I had a sheaf of introductions, which I presented in Berlin and Leipzig, Frankfort and Dusseldorf, and other German towns.

The first man to whom I addressed myself with amiable intent was a distinguished democrat who knew half the members of the House of Commons and could slap Liberal politicians on the back with more familiarity than I should dare to show.  He had spent both time and trouble in organizing friendly visits between the working men and municipalities of both countries.  But he was a little restrained and awkward in his manners when I handed him my letter of introduction.  Presently he left the room for a few minutes and I saw on his desk a German newspaper with a leading article signed by his name.  I read it and was amazed to find that it was a violent attack upon England, demanding unforgetfulness and unforgiveness of the affront which we had put upon Germany in the Morocco crisis.  When the man came back I ventured to question him about this article, and he declared that his old friendship for England had undergone a change.  He could give me no expression of good will.

I could get no expression of good will from any public man in Germany.  I remember an angry interview with an ecclesiastic in Berlin, a personal friend of the Kaiser, though for many years an ardent admirer of England.

He paced up and down the room with noiseless footsteps on a soft carpet.

“It is no time for bland words!” he said.  “England has insulted us.  Such acts are not to be tolerated by a great nation like ours.  There is only one answer to them, and it is the answer of the sword!”

I ventured to speak of Christian influences which should hold men back from the brutality of war.

“Surely the Church must always preach the gospel of peace?  Otherwise it is false to the spirit of Christ.”

He believed that I intended to insult him, and in a little while he rang the bell for my dismissal.

Even Edward Bernstein, the great leader of the Social Democrats, could give me no consoling words for my paper.

“The spirit of nationality,” he said—­and I have a note of his words—­“is stronger than abstract ideals.  Let England make no mistake.  If war were declared to-morrow the Social Democrats would march as one man in defence of the Fatherland. . . .  And you must admit that England, or rather the English Foreign Office, has put rather a severe strain upon our pride and patience!”