From Gaston Choisy’s clever character sketch of General Keim, we learn that as a soldier or tactician, he was a man of no note.  He has no ability as a thinker or as a speaker, but this he has:  “the courage of his vulgarity.”  “At the age of 68, suffering from Bright’s Disease, he travelled all Germany, his great head always in ebullition, gathering everywhere for the war-fire all the news, all the stories and all the lies susceptible of aiding the Cause.”  “Without Bismarck’s authority, he had his manner—­a mixture of baseness, of atrocious joviality, a studied cynicism and a lack of conscience.”  “How generous are circumstances!  The spirit of Von Moltke the silent, with the speech of an enfant terrible, an endless flow of language, an endless course of words.”

To the Chauvinists of France, Keim is indeed Germany.  As to his own country, Von Ferlach sagely remarks:  “Keims and Keimlings unfortunately are all about us.  But they are a vanishing minority.”  The great culture peoples do not hate one another. ("Die grossen Kultur-volker hassen einander nicht.”)

Next on the black list, comes General Frederick von Bernhardi, with his Germany and the Next War, the need to obliterate France, while giving the needed chastisement to England.  A retired officer of cavalry, said to be disgruntled through failure of promotion, a tall, spare, serious, prosy figure, a writer without inspiration, a speaker without force.  Germany has never taken him seriously; for he lacks even the clown-charm of his rival Keim, but the mediaeval absurdities and serious extravagances in his defense of war are well tempered to stir the eager watchdogs in the rival lands.  In spite of his pleas, “historical, biological and philosophical,” for war, he is a man of peace, for which, in the words of General Eichhorn, “one’s own sword is the best and strongest pledge.”

Doubtless other retired officers hold views of the same sort, as do doubtless many who could not be retired too soon for the welfare of Germany.  Into the nature of their patriotism, the Zabern incident has thrown a great light.  “Other lands may possess an army,” a Prussian officer is quoted as saying, “the army possesses Germany.”

The vanities and follies of Prussian militarism are concentrated in the movement called Pangermanism.  Behind this, there seem to be two moving forces, the Prussian Junker aristocracy, and the financial interests which center about the house of Krupp.  The purposes of Pangermanism seem to be, on the one hand, to prevent parliamentary government in Germany; and on the other, to take part in whatever goes on in the world outside.  Just now, the control of Constantinople is the richest prize in sight, and that fateful city is fast replacing Alsace in the passive role of “the nightmare of Europe.”  The journalists called Conservative find that “Germany needs a vigorous diplomacy as a supplement to her power on land and sea, if she