And now back to Friedrich von Bernhardi.

General Von Bernhardi.

Like many soldier-authors, Friedrich is very readable; and he maintains the good and formidable part of the Bismarck tradition:  that is, he is not a humbug.  He looks facts in the face; he deceives neither himself nor his readers; and if he were to tell lies—­as he would no doubt do as stoutly as any British, French, or Russian officer if his country’s safety were at stake—­he would know that he was telling them.  Which last we think very bad taste on his part, if not downright wickedness.

It is true that he cites Frederick the Great as an exemplary master of war and of Weltpolitik.  But his chief praise in this department is reserved for England.  It is from our foreign policy, he says, that he has learnt what our journalists denounce as “the doctrine of the bully, of the materialist, of the man with gross ideals:  a doctrine of diabolical evil.”  He frankly accepts that doctrine from us (as if our poor, honest muddle-heads had ever formulated anything so intellectual as a doctrine), and blames us for nothing but for allowing the United States to achieve their solidarity and become formidable to us when we might have divided them by backing up the South in the Civil War.  He shows in the clearest way that if Germany does not smash England, England will smash Germany by springing at her the moment she can catch her at a disadvantage.  In a word he prophesies that we, his great masters in Realpolitik, will do precisely what our Junkers have just made us do, It is we who have carried out the Bernhardi programme:  it is Germany who has neglected it.  He warned Germany to make an alliance with Italy, Austria, Turkey, and America, before undertaking the subjugation, first of France, then of England.  But a prophet is not without honour save in his own country; and Germany has allowed herself to be caught with no ally but Austria between France and Russia, and thereby given the English Junkers their opportunity.  They have seized it with a punctuality that must flatter Von Bernhardi, even though the compliment be at the expense of his own country.  The Kaiser did not give them credit for being keener Junkers than his own.  It was an unpleasant, indeed an infuriating surprise.  All that a Kaiser could do without unbearable ignominy to induce them to keep their bulldogs off and give him fair play with his two redoubtable foes, he did.  But they laughed Frederick the Great’s laugh and hurled all our forces at him, as he might have done to us, on Bernhardian principles, if he had caught us at the same disadvantage.  Officially, the war is Junker-cut-Junker, militarist-cut-Militarist; and we must fight it out, not Heuchler-cut-Hypocrite, but hammer and tongs.

Militarist Myopia.