What German Domination Would Mean.

The present war is the inevitable result of lust of empire, autocratic government, sudden wealth, and the religion of valor.  What German domination would mean to any that should resist it the experience of Belgium and Northern France during the past three months aptly demonstrates.  The civilized world can now see where the new German morality—­be efficient, be virile, be hard, be bloody, be rulers—­would land it.  To maintain that the power which has adopted in practice that new morality, and in accordance with its precepts promised Austria its support against Servia and invaded Belgium and France in hot haste, is not the responsible author of the European war, is to throw away memory, reason, and common sense in judging the human agencies in current events.

The real cause of the war is this gradually developed barbaric state of the German mind and will.  All other causes—­such as the assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, the sympathy of Russia with the Balkan States, the French desire for the recovery of Alsace-Lorraine, and Great Britain’s jealousy of German aggrandizement—­are secondary and incidental causes, contributory, indeed, but not primary and fundamental.  If any one ask who brought the ruling class in Germany to this barbaric frame of mind, the answer must be Bismarck, Moltke, Treitschke, Nietzsche, Bernhardi, the German Emperor, their like, their disciples, and the military caste.

Germany Never Dreaded Russia.

Many German apologists for the war attribute it to German fear of Russia.  They say that, although Germany committed the first actual aggression by invading Belgium and Luxemburg on the way to attack France with the utmost speed and fierceness, the war is really a war of defense against Russia, which might desirably pass over, after France has been crushed, into a war against Great Britain, that perfidious and insolent obstacle to Germany’s world empire.  The answer to this explanation is that, as a matter of fact, Germany has never dreaded, or even respected, the military strength of Russia, and that the recent wars and threatenings of war by Germany have not been directed against Russia, but against Denmark, Austria, France, and England.  In her colonization enterprises it is not Russia that Germany has encountered, but England, France, and the United States.  The friendly advances made within the last twenty years by Germany to Turkey were not intended primarily to strengthen Germany against Russia, but Germany against Great Britain through access by land to British India.  In short, Germany’s policies, at home and abroad, during the last forty years have been inspired not by fear of Russia, or of any other invader, but by its own aggressive ambition for world empire.  In the present war it thinks it has staked its all on “empire or downfall.”

Germany Should Be Defeated.