It is Professor Nippold’s purpose, in his little book Der Deutsche Chauvinismus, to show that the clamor is not all on one side.  The watchdogs of the Paris Boulevards are noisy enough, but those of Berlin are just the same.  And as these are not all of Germany, so the others are not all of France.  A great, thrifty, honest, earnest, cultured nation does not find its voice in the noises of the street.  On the other hand, Germany, industrious, learned, profound and brave, is busy with her own affairs.  She would harm no one, but mind her own business.  But she is entangled in mediaeval fashions.  She has her own band of watchdogs, as noisy, as futile, as unthinkingly clamorous as ever were those of France.  The “Sleepless Watchdog” in France is known as a Chauvinist, in England as a Jingo, in Prussia as a Pangermanist.  They all bay at the same moon, are excited over the same fancies; they hear nothing, see nothing but one another.  All alike live in an unreal world, in its essentials a world of their own creation.  With all of them the bark is worse than the bite, and their “Keep” is more disastrous than both together.

And as each nation should look after its own, Dr. Nippold lists—­blacklists if you choose—­the Chauvinists of Germany.

At first glance, they make an imposing showing.  A long series of newspapers, dozens of pamphlets, categories of bold and impressive warnings against the schemes of England and France, a set of appeals in the name of patriotism, of religion, of force, of violence.  A long-drawn call to hate, to hate whatever is not of our own race or class; and above all the banding together of the “noblest” profession as against the encroachments of mere civilians, of men whose hands are soiled with other stains than blood.

We have, first and foremost, General Keim, Keim the invincible, Keim the insatiable, Keim of the Army-League, Keim the arch hater of England and of Russia and of France, Keim the jewel of the fighting Junker aristocracy of Prussia—­the band of warriors who despise all common soldiers—­“white slave” conscripts, and with them all civilians, who at the best are only potential common soldiers.  “War, war, on both frontiers,” is Keim’s obsessing vision.  War being inevitable and salutary, it cannot come too soon.  The duty of hate, he urges on all the youth of Germany, maidens as well as men.  It is said that Keim is the only man of the day who can maintain before an audience of Christians such a proposition as this:  “We must learn to hate, and to hate with method.  A man counts little who cannot hate to a purpose.  Bismarck was hate.”