d
picture of him as a tyrant seeking for the domination of the world
and for war and bloodshed."

I have translated this passage from the book because I think it is
instructive in its disclosure of uneasy self-consciousness on the part
of the author. Obviously, the Emperor made his quiet-loving Minister at
times uncomfortable. I do not doubt that the Emperor really desired
peace, just as Herr von Bethmann Hollweg tells us. Yet he not only
indulged himself in warlike talk, but was surrounded by a group of
military and naval advisers who were preaching openly that war was
inevitable, and were instructing many of the prominent intellectual
leaders in their doctrine. The Emperor may well have been in a difficult
situation. But he was playing with fire when he made such speeches to
the world as he frequently did. I believe him to have most genuinely
desired to keep the peace. But I doubt whether he was willing to pay the
price for entry on the only path along which it could have been made
secure. He was a man of many sides, with a genius for speaking winged
words as part of his equipment. He was a dangerous leader for Germany
under conditions which had already caused even a Bismarck concern. The
result was that the world took him to be the ally, not of Bethmann
Hollweg, but of Tirpitz, and what that meant we shall see when we come
to the latter's book. I can not say that I think the judgment of the
world was other than, to put the matter at its lowest, the natural and
probable result of his language, and I find nothing in the
ex-Chancellor's volume to lead me to a different conclusion.

The argument of that volume is that England should never have entered
the Entente, for that by doing so she strengthened France and Russia so
as to enable them to indulge the will for war. He assumes that there was
this will as beyond doubt. But suppose England had not entered the
Entente, what then? On Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's own showing France
and Russia would have remained too weak to entertain the hope of success
in a conflict with the Triple Alliance. Germany could, under these
circumstances, have herself compelled these Powers to an entente or even
an alliance. England would have been in such a case left in isolation in
days in which isolation had ceased to be "splendid." For great as was
her navy, it could not have been relied upon as sufficient to protect
her adequately against the combined navies of Germany, France, Russia,