So far as I am in a position to review the situation no blame for the wrongly estimated English attitude can be attached to our ambassadors in London.  Their predictions and warnings were correct, and the final decision respecting the previously mentioned English ultimatum was taken in Berlin and not in London.  Moreover, the German Foreign Office would never voluntarily have consented to the acts of violence, but the military party, who cared neither for diplomatic reports nor political complications, carried everything before them.

It will always be particularly difficult in a war to define the limits of military and political spheres of action.  The activities of both encroach to so great an extent on each other as to form one whole, and very naturally in a war precedence is given to military needs.  Nevertheless, the complete displacement of politicians into subordinate positions which was effected in Germany and thereby made manifest the fact that the German Supreme Military Command had possessed itself of all State power of command, was a misfortune.  Had the politicians at Berlin obtained a hearing there would never have been any invasion of Belgium, nor yet the ruthless U-boat warfare, the abstention from which would in both cases have saved the life of the Central Powers.

From the very first day the Emperor William was as a prisoner in the hands of his generals.

The blind faith in the invincibility of the army was, like so much else, an heirloom from Bismarck, and the “Prussian lieutenant, inimitable save in Germany,” became her doom.  The entire German people believed in victory and in an Emperor who flung himself into the arms of his generals and took upon himself a responsibility far surpassing the normal limit of what was bearable.  Thus the Emperor William allowed his generals full liberty of action, and, to begin with, their tactics seemed to be successful.  The first battle of the Marne was a godsend for the Entente in their direst need.  But, later, when the war long since had assumed a totally different character, when the troops were made stationary by the war of position and fresh enemies were constantly rising up against us, when Italy, Roumania, and finally America appeared on the scene, then did the German generals achieve miracles of strategy.  Hindenburg and Ludendorff became gods in the eyes of the German people; the whole of Germany looked up to them and hoped for victory through them alone.  They were more powerful than the Emperor, and he, therefore, less than ever in a position to oppose them.

Both the generals drew the wellnigh unlimited measure of their power direct from the Entente, for the latter left the Germans in no doubt that they must either conquer or die.  The terrified and suffering people clung, therefore, to those who, as they believed, alone could give them victory.

5

Anglo-German competition, the increasing decadence of the Monarchy, and the consequent growing lust of conquest evinced by our neighbours had prepared the soil for war.  Serbia, by the assassination, brought about an acute state of tension, and Russia profited thereby to fling herself on the Central Powers.