A NEW AND BETTER PEACE.
"If we now destroy the German national idol, it must not be to set up an idol of our own in its place. There will be ruin enough after the war to repair, and a heavy task for all the nations in repairing it; but if they have learned then that peace is not a disguised war but a state of being in which men and nations alike pursue their own ideas of excellence without rivalry, then we shall know that the irrevocable dead have not died in vain."—"Times" Literary Supplement, September 17, 1914.
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THE CHANGE FROM THE GERMANY OF KANT AND GOETHE AND SCHUBERT TO THE GERMANY OF TO-DAY—AND THE DELUSION OF IMPERIALISM.
"What, then, has wrought this wonderful change in a people so closely allied to ourselves, whose race is so similar that their children in the hotels of France and Italy are mistaken for British children? The human raw material is the same, and until half a century ago gave results which won our respect and admiration. What is this change of the last half-century which from the same material gives results so different? There can be only one answer. The old Germany was a Germany of small, self-governing States, of small political power; the new Germany is a 'great' Germany, with a new ideal and spirit which comes of victory and military and political power, of the reshaping of political and social institutions which the retention of conquered territory demands, its militarization, regimentation, centralization, and unchallenged authority; the cultivation of the spirit of domination, the desire to justify and to frame a philosophy to buttress it. Some one has spoken of the war which made 'Germany great and Germans small.'…"
"…So in our day, it is not the German national faith, the Deutschtum, the belief that the German national ideal is best for the German—it is not that belief that is a danger to Europe. It is a belief that that German national ideal is the best for all other people, and that the Germans have a right to impose it by the force of their armies. It is that belief alone which can be destroyed by armies. We must show that we do not intend to be brought under German rule, or have German ideals imposed upon us, and having demonstrated that, the Allies must show that they in their turn have no intention of imposing their ideals or their rule or their dominance upon German peoples. The Allies must show after this war that they do not desire to be the masters of the German peoples or States, but their partners and associates in a Europe which none shall dominate, but which all shall share."—From "Shall this War End German Militarism?" by Norman Angell.
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GERMAN PUBLIC OPINION IN 1913 WITH REGARD TO THE IMPENDING WAR.
The Report on this subject given in the French Yellow Book (Section 5) throws much light on the attitude of the various classes in Germany. In favour of peace (it says) are "the large mass of workmen, artisans, and peasants, who are peaceful by instinct"; a considerable number of non-military nobility, and of "manufacturers, merchants, and financiers of minor importance, to whom even a victorious war would bring bankruptcy"; also a vast number of those who are continually in a state of "suppressed revolt against Prussian policy," like the "Government and ruling classes of the great southern States, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemburg," and so forth.
On the other hand, in favour of war are the great, mainly Prussian, war party, consisting of the military aristocracy and nobility "who see with terror the democratization of Germany and the growing force of the Socialist party"; "others who consider war as necessary for economic reasons found in over-population and over-production, the need of markets and outlets"; the great bourgeoisie, "which also has its reasons of a social nature—the upper middle class being no less affected than the nobility by the democratization of Germany … and, finally, the gun and armour-plate manufacturers, the great merchants who clamour for greater markets, and the bankers who speculate on the Golden Age and the indemnity of war. These, too, think that war would be good business."