cularly the German official and governing class, and her
naval and military men, would appear to have imbibed of some
distillation of their Emperor's exaggerated pride, and found it too
heady an elixir for their sanity. It would ill become us to dilate at
length upon the extremes into which their arrogance and luxuriousness
led them. With regard, at all events, to the luxury and indulgence, we
ourselves had been very far from guiltless. But it may be that our
extravagance was less deadly, for the reason that it was of slower
growth. Certain it is, that before ever an English shot was fired the
fighting strength of Germany waned rapidly from the period of the
invasion. By some writers this has been attributed to the insidious
spread of Socialism. But it must be remembered that the deterioration
was far more notable in the higher than in the lower walks of life; and
most of all it was notable among the naval and military official
nobility, who swore loudest by lineage and the divine privileges of
ancient pedigrees.

"When the German army of occupation in England was disarmed, prisoners
in barracks and camps, and the German Navy had, to all intents and
purposes, been destroyed, the Imperial German Government adopted the
extraordinary course of simply defying England to strike further blows.
Germany practically ceased to fight (no reinforcements were ever landed
in South Africa, and the German troops already engaged there had no
other choice than to continue fighting, though left entirely without
Imperial backing), but emphatically refused to consider the extremely
moderate terms offered by Britain, which, at that time, did not even
include an indemnity. But this extraordinary policy was not so purely
callous and cynical as was supposed. Like most things in this world, it
had its different component parts. There was the cynical arrogance of
the Prussian Court upon the one side; but upon the other side there was
the ominous disaffection of the lesser German States, and the rampant,
angry Socialism of the lower and middle classes throughout the Empire,
which had become steadily more and more virulent from the time of the
reactionary elections of the early part of 1907, in which the Socialists
felt that they had been tricked by the Court party. In reality Germany
had two mouthpieces. The Court defied Britain; the people refused to
back that defiance with action."

For a brief summary of the causes leading up to the strange ha