d on after three
years of a desperate struggle--namely, that we are mainly fighting a
sinister political dynasty and a formidable political machine
constructed with all the diabolical ingenuity and armed with all the
resources of the destructive genius of man. If, indeed, we had only
been confronted by the Kaiser and his paladins, or only threatened by
his military machine, the war would long ago have been ended--if not
by the Allies, then by the German people themselves. Millions of
people, however loyal, do not allow themselves to be slaughtered for a
dynast, even though that dynast claims to be a Superman, even though he
be called Prince of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen or Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt,
even though he be called Prince Henry XXI. of Reuss of the younger
branch or Prince Henry LXXXVIII. of Reuss of the older branch. Whole
nations do not indefinitely submit to being the slaves of a machine,
however diabolical and however perfect. The truth is that behind the
German princes and princelings and Junkers there is the resolve of a
united people. Behind the Prussian machine there is the driving power
of tremendous spiritual and moral forces, of an inflexible purpose, of
a compelling idealism, of a mystical creed accepted with more than
Mohammedan fanaticism. It is that national purpose, it is those
spiritual forces, which explain the unconquerable pride of the German
people, as evil and as lofty as the pride of Satan in "Paradise Lost."
It is these which explain their devotion and self-sacrifice, it is
these which explain the Teutonic legions marching to their doom
singing their hymns of love as well as their hymns of hatred. It is
these which explain the two million volunteers which in August, 1914,
went to swell the huge German conscript armies. It is the obsession of
that mystical German creed which explains the epic achievements of the
German offensive and the even more astounding achievements of the
German defensive. We may continue to denounce the crimes of Germany
and the atrocities of the German soldiery--and I have personally
denounced them until my readers must have got sick of my
denunciations. But there is nothing particularly mysterious in crimes
and atrocities, and crimes and atrocities alone do not help to explain
the German soul. Crimes and atrocities do not make us understand how
even to-day the German hosts are still able to challenge a whole world
in arms.

Let us, then, take in the vital fact that a