ng
might be feasible on the territorial but not on the military
questions. On the contrary, the stronger Germany's military power
proved itself to be, the more did the Entente fear that their enemy's
power of defence would be invincible unless it was broken then.

Not only the period preceding war and the outbreak of war, but the
actual course of the war has been full of many and disturbing
misunderstandings. For long it was not understood here what England
meant by the term militarism. It was pointed out that the English Navy
was jealously defending the dominion of the seas, that France and
Russia stood ready armed for the attack, and that Germany was only in
a similar position to any other state; that every state strengthened
and equipped its defensive forces as thoroughly as possible.

By the term "Prussian militarism" England did not only mean the
strength of the German army. She understood it to be a combination of
a warlike spirit bent on oppressing others, and supported by the best
and strongest army in the world. The first would have been innocuous
without the second; and the splendid German army was in England's
eyes the instrument of a domineering and conquest-loving autocrat.
According to England's view, Germany was exactly the counterpart of
France under Bonaparte--if for Napoleon be substituted a many-headed
being called "Emperor, Crown Prince, Hindenburg, Ludendorff"--and just
as little as England would treat with Napoleon would she have any
dealings with the individual who to her was the personification of the
lust for conquest and the policy of violence.

The notion of the existence of German militarism seems to be quite
justified, although the Emperor and the Crown Prince played the
smallest part in it. But it seems to me an altogether wrong conception
that militarism is a speciality of Germany. The negotiations at
Versailles must now have convinced the general public that it is not
only on the banks of the Spree that militarism reigns.

Germany in former days was never able to understand that on the enemy
continent, by the side of morally unjustified envy, fear and anxiety
as to Germany's plans practically reigned, and that the talk about the
"hard" and "German" peace, about "victory and triumph" was like
throwing oil on the flames of their fears; that in England and France,
too, at one time, there was a current of feeling urging for a peace of
settlement, and that such expressions as the foregoing