As overlord of the greatest industrial plant in the world, he deliberately diverted it from its legitimate raison d'être as a cradle of life and progress and turned it into a dividend-mill for the cultivation of human hatred and the making of corpses, at the same time endowing it with a soul still more monstrous: his thrice-abhorred Kultur.
He had steel hammers enough to line, side by side, a road reaching from Liverpool Street Station to Hyde Park; steel boilers enough to start a second Pittsburgh; more machinery than the rest of the kingdom boasts; more electric motors than Paris or London employs in its public conveyances, etc.; and with unparalleled selfishness in evil suborned them exclusively to his passion for destruction, adding unlimited capital and business capacity, utter disregard for human life and extraordinary facilities for chemical-physical research, begetting inventive genius of a high order. There is the explanation of the frightful catalogue of Hunnish sins that have disgraced civilisation since the 29th of July, 1914, according to the findings of Lord Bryce's Committee.
"The Kapellmeister, at Your Majesty's orders?" reported Count Eulenburg.
"Hohenfriedberger March," replied the War Lord, locking his teeth.
Hohenfriedberg is a shining mark in Prussian history, for in June, 1745, Frederick the Great overwhelmed the Austrians near the small Silesian village, nearly annihilating Prince Karl and his Saxon allies. He composed a march in honour of the event, a rather stirring piece of musical claptrap, among the best that came from his pen.
"I can drive the Austrians too," thought the War Lord, as he stepped from the chapel, the bride's mother on his arm. And, the military band outside executing some flourishes when he passed, he added grimly: "Bayonet in back, if necessary."
CHAPTER XXVIII
A FORESHADOWING OF "LUSITANIAISM"
The Rise of Herr Ballin—A Woman's Vanity—Herr Ballin at the Schloss—"Frightfulness" on the Sea—Smoothing the Way—The War Lord and Wedell—A Spy Plot—Overrunning England with Spies
On the eve of the day when the Lusitania snatched the world's speed record from the North German Lloyd, the red discs in the Chancellor's and in Count Wedell's office bobbed up almost simultaneously: