without any generally accepted conclusion in the
matter. Moreover, we are struck, in considering the list of reasons
cited, by a feeling that they are all in their way rather partial and
superficial--that they do not go to the real root of the subject.

Out of them all--and after the first period of confusion and doubt has
passed--our own people at home have settled down into the conviction
that German militarism in general, and Prussian Junkerdom in particular,
are to blame, and that for the good of the world as well as for our own
good we are out to fight these powers of evil. Prussian
class-militarism, it is said, under which for so long the good people of
Germany have groaned, has become a thing intolerable. The arrogance, the
insolence, of the Junker officer, his aristocratic pretension, his
bearish manners, have made him a byword, not only in his own country but
all over Europe; and his belief in sheer militarism and Jingo
imperialism has made him a menace. The Kaiser has only made things
worse. Vain and flighty to a degree, and, like most vain people, rather
shallow, Wilhelm II has supposed himself to be a second and greater
Bismarck, destined by Providence to create the said Teutonic
world-empire. It is simply to fight these powers of evil that we are
out.

Of course, there is a certain amount of truth in this view; at the same
time, it is lamentably insufficient. The fact is that in the vast flux
of destiny which is involved in such a war as the present, and which no
argument can really adequately represent, we are fain to snatch at
_some_ neat phrase, however superficial, by way of explanation. And we
are compelled, moreover, to find a phrase which will put our own efforts
in an ideal light--otherwise we cannot go on fighting. No nation can
fight confessedly for a mean or base object. Every nation inscribes on
its banner _Freedom, Justice, Religion, Culture_ versus _Barbarism_, or
something of the kind, and in a sense redeems itself in so fighting. It
saves its soul even though bodily it may be conquered. And this is not
hypocrisy, but a psychological necessity, though each nation, of course,
accuses the other of hypocrisy.

We are fighting "to put down militarism and the dominance of a military
class," says the great B.P., and one can only hope that when the war is
over we shall remember and rivet into shape this great and good
purpose--not only with regard to foreign militarism, but also with
regard to ou