I said to myself: "That young man will cut a dash yet." And I still see, in higher light than before, those six coal-black horses—the horses of death.
Recently I read pages of his writings, speeches, and declarations, and there is not for the world an uplifting or new thought within them all. What appears to be new is the echo of an age that was supposed to be long past—when might was rule and valor was religion.
"There is but one will, and that is mine," said the Kaiser, addressing his soldiers; but it has been the keynote to his diplomacy wherever it has appeared, either in pushing a commercial treaty on Russia in her hour of distress, forcing Italy into the Triple Alliance, or dictating the terms of the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, so that it would be impossible of fulfilment.
What is there of world-progress in the declaration of the present
German Emperor, celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the
Kingdom of Prussia,—
"In this world nothing must be settled without the intervention of
Germany and of the German Emperor."
CHAPTER XV
THE GERMAN POSITION
An Aggressive Germany—The Logic of It—The War Party Supreme—A War for
Business—What Confronts Germany—Her Finish.
A mighty nation surrounded and besieged, yet still fighting on foreign soil, is the position of Germany to-day. Her triumph would mean, not alone a European conquest, but a world-conquest. Her defeat within a reasonable time does not mean her destruction or dismemberment. It means only the destruction of Prussian militarism and that theory of national existence into which the German people have been led under the present emperor, that theory which teaches:—
"War and courage have done more great things than Charity."