gine, he was a driven rather than a driving factor,
and if the Entente to-day claims the right of being prosecutor and judge
in one person in order to bring the Emperor to his trial, it is unjust
and an error, as, both preceding and during the war, the Emperor William
never played the part attributed to him by the Entente:

"The unfortunate man has gone through much, and more is, perhaps, in
store for him.

"He has been carried too high, and can not escape a terrible fall. Fate
seems to have chosen him to expiate a sin which, if it exists at all, is
not so much his as that of his country and his times. The Byzantine
atmosphere in Germany was the ruin of Emperor William; it enveloped
him and clung to him like a creeper to a tree; a vast crowd of
flatterers and fortune-seekers who deserted him in the hour of trial.
The Emperor William was merely a particularly distinctive representative
of his class. All modern monarchs suffer from the disease; but it was
more highly developed in the Emperor William, and therefore more obvious
than in others. Accustomed from his youth to the subtle poison of
flattery, at the head of one of the greatest and mightiest States in the
world, possessing almost unlimited power, he succumbed to the fatal lot
that awaits men who feel the earth recede from under their feet, and who
begin to believe in their Divine semblance.

"He is expiating a crime which was not of his making. He can take with
him in his solitude the consolation that his only desire was for the
best.

"It has already been mentioned that all the warlike speeches flung into
the world by the Emperor were due to a mistaken understanding of their
effect. I allow that the Emperor wished to create a sensation, even to
terrify people, but he also wished to act on the principle of _si vis
pacem, para bellum_, and by emphasizing the military power of Germany
he endeavored to prevent the many envious enemies of his Empire from
declaring war on him.

"It can not be denied that this attitude was often both unfortunate and
mistaken, and that it contributed to the outbreak of war; but it is
asserted that the Emperor was devoid of the _dolus_ of making war, that
he said and did things by which he unintentionally stirred up war.

"Had there been men in Germany ready to point out to the Emperor the
injurious effects of his behavior and to make him feel the growing
mistrust of him throughout the world, had there been not one or two but
dozen