A striking illustration of this spirit, perhaps the most striking illustration in modern international life, is furnished by the military party in Prussia.  Gen. Bernhardi, in a volume entitled “Germany and the Next War,” has given what may be regarded as a semi-official interpretation of German militarism.  He holds that life is a struggle for existence, with a survival of the fittest, and the strongest is the fittest; that a military organization constitutes the true strength of a nation; that there is no higher power in human life, certainly none in international life, than the power of physical force; that only the strong nation has a right to exist, and he objects to international arbitration because it recognizes the right to life of a small nation.  In this volume he calls on Germany to establish a “world sovereignty” by force of arms, and he indicates what should be the twofold purpose of Germany in the next war, namely, to crush France and to establish such world sovereignty of Germany.

Militarism to Blame.

It was this spirit which led Germany into the present war; this spirit which denied that Belgium had any rights which Germany was bound to respect; this spirit which inspired the military party in Germany to regard its treaty with France and England guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium as only a “scrap of paper,” and this spirit which could not and apparently still does not comprehend why Belgium should be bound in honor to defend her neutrality, or why England, with no very direct and immediate interests to protect, should feel herself bound to come to the defense of her weaker neighbor.

The delay of the German Army, which is likely to prove disastrous to her designs, has demonstrated in her own chosen field that there is a force in national honor and national conscience which can put up a very efficient resistance to Krupp guns.

It is a great mistake to suppose that all Germany is actuated by this spirit of militarism.  Frederick William Wile, for over seven years the chief German correspondent of The London Daily Mail, in an article in The Outlook recently said:  “There are 66,000,000 Germans; 65,000,000 of them did not want war; the other million are the war party.”  But he adds that now Germany is absolutely united and that the Germans will not stack arms “till the last among them capable of shouldering a rifle is incapacitated, till the last copper pfennig capable of purchasing ammunition of war has vanished from their impoverished grasp.”

There is in this nothing extraordinary.  Whoever is responsible for bringing on the war, the interests, the welfare, and in some sense the honor of Germany are apparently involved in it.  And yet it may be true, and I believe it is true, that the defeat of Germany will be its salvation, for it will be the overthrow of the spirit of militarism inherited from Frederick the Great, and this has been the bane of the German Empire.