aties.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, p. i., 28.

375. The question of alliances in war is always an open one, for
circumstances may at any moment arise such as Bismarck referred to
when he said: "No power is bound [or, we will add, entitled][37] to
sacrifice important interests of its own on the altar of faithfulness
to an alliance!"--GRAF E. v. REVENTLOW, D.A.P., p. 22.

376. It was a most serious mistake in German policy that a final
settling of accounts with France was not effected at a time when the
state of international affairs was favourable and success might
confidently have been expected.... This policy somewhat resembles the
supineness for which England has herself to blame, when she refused
her assistance to the Southern States in the American War of
Secession.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 239.

377. Since England committed the unpardonable blunder, from her point
of view, of not supporting the Southern States in the American War of
Secession, a rival to England's world-wide Empire has appeared on the
other side of the Atlantic.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 95.

(AFTER JULY, 1914.)

378. Perhaps the greatest danger for us Germans--greatest because it
does not threaten us from without, but within our own hearts--is our
magnanimity. O, there is something glorious about this virtue, and we
Germans may be quite particularly proud of possessing it.... But woe
to the people which does not stand as one man behind the statesman
who, by dint of hard struggles with his own soul, has fought his way
to the only true standpoint--namely, that _in international relations
magnanimity is wholly out of place_, and that here the voice of
expediency can alone be heard.--EIN DEUTSCHER, W.K.B.M., p. 12.

379. Through our policy of peace ... we deprive ourselves of the right
of determining the time for bringing about a decision by force of
arms, as Bismarck did in three wars, in which, thanks to his
diplomatic adroitness, he forced upon his adversaries the outward
appearance of declaring war, while in reality Prussia-Germany was the
assailant. Bismarck is quoted in Germany as having discouraged
preventive wars.... But we must not forget that the three great wars
which Bismarck waged were in fact preventive. Even in 1870 the
outbreak of war might have been stayed. It was only the brilliant
manipulation (_geniale Fassung_) of the Ems telegram that put France
in the wrong and drove her into war, just as Bismarck had
foreseen.-