to think about this menace,
which was there constantly as a cloud ready to burst over the land. No
one can tell except Frenchmen what they endured from this tyranny,
patiently, gallantly, with dignity, till the hour of deliverance came.
The best energies of military science had been devoted to defending
itself against the impending blow. France was like a nation which put
up its right arm to ward off a blow, and could not give the whole of
her strength to the great things which she was capable of. That great,
bold, imaginative, fertile mind, which would otherwise have been
clearing new paths for progress, was paralyzed.

That is the state of things we had to encounter. The most
characteristic of Prussian institutions is the Hindenburg line. What
is the Hindenburg line? The Hindenburg line is a line drawn in the
territories of other people, with a warning that the inhabitants of
those territories shall not cross it at the peril of their lives. That
line has been drawn in Europe for fifty years.

You recollect what happened some years ago in France, when the French
Foreign Minister was practically driven out of office by Prussian
interference. Why? What had he done? He had done nothing which a
minister of an independent state had not the most absolute right to do.
He had crossed the imaginary line drawn in French territory by Prussian
despotism, and he had to leave. Europe, after enduring this for
generations, made up its mind at last that the Hindenburg line must be
drawn along the legitimate frontiers of Germany herself. There could
be no other attitude than that for the emancipation of Europe and the
world.

It was hard at first for the people of America quite to appreciate that
Germany had not interfered to the same extent with their freedom, if at
all. But at last they endured the same experience as Europe had been
subjected to. Americans were told that they were not to be allowed to
cross and recross the Atlantic except at their peril. American ships
were sunk without warning. American citizens were drowned, hardly with
an apology--in fact, as a matter of German right. At first America
could hardly believe it. They could not think it possible that any
sane people should behave in that manner. And they tolerated it once,
and they tolerated it twice, until it became clear that the Germans
really meant it. Then America acted, and acted promptly.

The Hindenburg line was drawn along the shores of