After reading this can any one wonder that the Kaiser believes he is called by God to rule the Germans?
"Kingship by Divine Right"—is quite a development of a Kingship that originated in foreclosure proceedings, when Prussia was taken for a debt by the crafty, rich Hohenzollern Burgraf of Nuremberg.
Is it any wonder that the Kaiser once said to me during the war, "Everything seems to be going my way—don't you think God is helping me?"
The efforts of those in charge of the German propaganda to sow dissensions among the Allies are more than awkward.
For some time after the landing in force of the British troops in France, the newspapers of Germany were filled with cartoons representing the British refusing to leave Calais; and now that America has entered the war even so intelligent a philosopher as Chancellor Hertling speaks as follows:
"If those who hold power in France forcibly repress every suggestion of peace, and try to rouse fresh will for war by a show of assurance of victory, in spite of the frightful sacrifices the war has cost the country, and must cost still further, it is because they are sustained by the hope of help from America. In this hope they patiently tolerate the Americans also making themselves at home in France, turning Bordeaux into a great American harbour with immense loading and unloading wharves, and cutting down the forests of the Gironde in order to build a camp in the neighbourhood of Bordeaux for the expected army. French workmen tolerate in their factories the competition of American workmen, with whom they are not in sympathy, and the owners allow them to look into the secrets of their business, all so that the new Ally may help to take the revenge on the hated Germans."
Misguided old Philosopher!
The most stupid peasant of the Bordeaux country does not believe that the Americans have come to France in order to occupy permanently a section of that sandy, barren scrub pine desert which stretches to the south of Bordeaux.
And President Wilson and his cabinet, Lloyd George and the statesmen of France and Italy, Portugal and Russia must be on their guard—Wolff's agency is at work, spreading poisonous propaganda. Here is an excerpt that speaks for itself:
"The Imperial and Royal Propaganda Department, Section of Foreign Affairs, calls the editor's attention to the practice of the enemy press in caricaturing the Kaiser, the Crown Prince, Hindenburg and alleged German militarism, with the evident intention of an odius anti-German propaganda. It would, therefore, be important from the patriotic point of view for the daily newspapers also to occupy themselves by means of caricatures with the principal events of the day.