CALLS ACCUSATION FUTILE
God is my witness that I, in order to avoid war, went to the uttermost limit compatible with responsibility for the security and inviolability of my dear fatherland.
It is futile to accuse Germany of war guilt. To-day there is no longer any doubt that not Germany, but the alliance of her foes, prepared the war according to a definite plan, and intentionally caused it.
For the purpose of concealing this, the allied enemies extorted the false "admission of guilt" from Germany in the shameful Peace Treaty and demanded that I be produced before a hostile tribunal. You, my dear Field Marshal, know me too well not to be aware that no sacrifice for my beloved fatherland is too great for me. Nevertheless, a tribunal in which the enemy alliance would be at once plaintiff and judge would be not an organ of justice, but an instrument of political arbitrariness, and would serve only, through the sentence which would inevitably be passed upon me, to justify subsequently the unprecedented peace conditions imposed upon us. Therefore, the enemy's demand naturally had to be rejected by me.
But, in addition, the idea of my being produced before a neutral tribunal, no matter how constituted, cannot be entertained by me. I do not recognize the validity of any sentence pronounced by any mortal judge whatsoever, be he never so exalted in rank, upon the measures taken by me most conscientiously as Emperor and King—in other words, as the constitutional, not responsible, representative of the German nation—since, were I to do so, I should thereby be sacrificing the honor and dignity of the German nation represented by me.
Legal proceedings having to do with guilt and punishment, instituted solely against the head of one of the nations which took part in the war, deprive that one nation of every vestige of equality of rights with the other nations, and thereby of its prestige in the community of nations. Moreover, this would cause, as a consequence, the impression desired by the enemy that the entire "question of guilt" concerns only this one head of a nation and the one nation represented by him. It must be taken into consideration, moreover, that a nonpartisan judgment of the "question of guilt" is impossible, if the legal proceedings are not made to include the heads and leading statesmen of the enemy powers, and if their conduct is not subjected to the same investigation, since it goes without saying that the conduct of the aforesaid one nation at the outbreak of the war can be judged correctly only if there is simultaneous consideration of the actions of its opponents.
A real clearing up of the "question of guilt," in which surely Germany would have no less interest than her foes, could be accomplished only if an international, nonpartisan tribunal, instead of trying individuals as criminals, should establish all the events which led to the World War, as well as all other offenses against international law, in order thereafter to measure correctly the guilt of individuals implicated in every one of the nations participating in the war.
Such an honest suggestion was officially made in Germany after the end of the war, but, so far as I know, it was partly refused, partly found unworthy of any answer at all. Furthermore, Germany, immediately after the war, unreservedly threw open her archives, whereas the enemy alliance has taken good care so far not to follow such an example. The secret documents from the Russian archives, now being made public in America, are but the beginning.
This method of procedure on the part of the enemy alliance in itself, combined with overwhelming damaging evidence coming to hand, shows where the "war guilt" is really to be sought! This makes it all the more a solemn duty for Germany to collect, sift, and make public, by every possible means, every bit of material bearing on the "question of guilt," in order, by so doing, to unmask the real originators of the war.
Unfortunately, the condition of Her Majesty has become worse. My heart is filled with the most grievous worry.
God with us!
Your grateful
(Signed) Wilhelm.
[CHAPTER XIV]
The Question of Guilt
History can show nothing to compare with the World War of 1914-18. It also can show nothing like the perplexity which has arisen as to the causes leading up to the World War.
This is all the more astounding in that the Great War befell a highly cultivated, enlightened, politically trained race of men, and the causes leading up to it were plainly to be seen.
The apparent complicity in the crisis of July, 1914, should deceive nobody. The telegrams exchanged at that time between the Cabinets of the great powers and their rulers, the activities of the statesmen and leading private individuals in verbal negotiations with important personages of the Entente, were certainly of the greatest importance on account of the decisive significance assumed by almost every word when it came from responsible lips, by every line that was written or telegraphed. The essential basis of the causes of the war, however, is not altered by such things; it is firmly established, and people must never hesitate from freeing it, calmly and with an eye to realities, from the bewildering outcroppings from the events accompanying the outbreak of war.
The general situation of the German Empire in the period before the war had become continually more brilliant, and for that very reason continually more difficult from the point of view of foreign politics. Unprecedented progress in industry, commerce, and world traffic had made Germany prosperous. The curve of our development tended steadily upward.
The concomitant of this peaceful penetration of a considerable part of the world's markets, to which German diligence and our achievements justly entitled us, was bound to be disagreeable to older nations of the world, particularly to England. This is quite a natural phenomenon, having nothing remarkable about it. Nobody is pleased when a competitor suddenly appears and obliges one to look on while the old customers desert to him. For this reason I cannot reproach the British Empire because of English ill humor at Germany's progress in the world's markets.
Had England been able, by introducing better commercial methods, to overcome or restrict German competition, she would have been quite within her rights in doing so and no objections could have been made. It simply would have been a case of the better man winning. In the life of nations nobody can find it objectionable if two nations contend against each other peacefully by the same methods—i. e., peaceful methods—yet with all their energy, daring, and organizing ability, each striving to benefit itself.
On the other hand, it is quite another matter if one of these nations sees its assets on the world's balance sheet threatened by the industry, achievements, and super business methods of the other, and hence, not being able to apply ability like that of its young competitor, resorts to force—i. e., to methods that are not those of peace, but of war—in order to call a halt upon the other nation in its peaceful campaign of competition, or to annihilate it.