nd so suddenly brought
on this war I will not enter. Many others have dealt with them;
moreover, the facts, at least as we in England see and believe them, and
as the documents seem to prove them to be, appear not to be known to the
German people, and the motives of the chief actors are not yet fully
ascertained.

One thing, however, I can confidently declare: It was neither commercial
rivalry nor jealousy of German power that brought Great Britain into the
field, nor was there any hatred in the British people for the German
people, nor any wish to break their power. The leading political
thinkers and historians of England had given hearty sympathy to the
efforts made by the German people, from 1815 to 1866 and 1870, to attain
political unity, and they had sympathized with the parallel efforts of
the Italians. The two nations, German and British, were of kindred race
and linked by many ties. To the German people even now we feel no sort
of enmity. In both countries there were doubtless some persons who
desired war and whose writings, apparently designed to provoke it, did
much to misrepresent general national sentiment; but these persons were,
as I believe, a small minority in both countries.

So far as Great Britain was concerned, it was the invasion of Belgium
that arrested all efforts to avert war and made the friends of peace
themselves join in holding that the duty of fulfilling their treaty
obligations to a weak State was paramount to every other consideration.

Bernhardi's Praise of War.

I return to the doctrines set forth by von Bernhardi and apparently
accepted by the military caste to which he belongs. Briefly summed up,
they are as follows--his own words are used except when it becomes
necessary to abridge a lengthened argument:

* War is in itself a good thing. It is a biological necessity of
the first importance. (P. 18.)

* The inevitableness, the idealism, the blessing of war as an
indispensable and stimulating law of development must be repeatedly
emphasized. (P. 37.)

* War is the greatest factor in the furtherance of culture and
power. Efforts to secure peace are extraordinarily detrimental as
soon as they influence politics. (P. 28.)

* Fortunately these efforts can never attain their ultimate
objects in a world bristling with arms, where healthy egotism still
directs the policy of most countries. God will see to it, says
Treitschke, that