to bring on war. However, they did not want
it _yet_ and it is altogether doubtful whether they would have
succeeded in their design had they been met by a firm, wise and
conciliatory policy on the part of Germany and Austria.

These opponents (the Russians), _by themselves_, as results thus far
have shown, and as seemed evident in advance to sober observers, you
need never to have considered as your peers in a military sense.

Rather than take the awful responsibility of initiating war, and thus
uniting England, France and Russia whole-heartedly against you, you
could well have afforded, in calm confidence in your superior
efficiency and preparation, to take the lesser risk of letting the
Russians come on whenever, in fatuous arrogance, they might have
believed themselves strong enough to tackle you and Austria.

In an offensive war, undertaken by Russia, France would have joined,
if at all, only half-heartedly, and with her public opinion strongly
divided. No English Government, however jingo-militarist, could have
obtained the sanction of Parliament to take part in such a war. Your
ally, Italy, would in that case not have forsaken you. Public opinion
and the moral support of the neutral nations would have been strongly
with you. You would assuredly, under such circumstances, have given
the Russians a bad beating, and the world in general would have
rejoiced exceedingly at the aggressor's discomfiture.

That the large majority of the people of Germany did not want war, I
do not doubt, although (_as was not the case in England and France_)
there has been in existence in your country for years a rather
alarmingly active and influential party whose open aim was war, and
particularly a reckoning with England.

Many of your intellectuals, and particularly many of the teachers of
your youth, had come to preach the deification of sheer might. They
proclaimed with fanatical arrogance the doctrine that the German
nation being the chosen people, superior to all others, was therefore
not only permitted, but, indeed, called upon, to impose the blessings
of its civilization and "Kultur" upon other countries, by force if
necessary, and to help itself to such of their possessions as it
deemed necessary for the fulfilment of its destiny.

I believe it is not too much to say that that doctrine and the spirit
which bred it are very much akin, in their intolerance, self-righteous
assumption of a world-improving mission, lack of un