To what can we attribute this singular expectation?
The answer may be found by the psychologist who has imagination enough to Prussianize himself, and to look, panoramically, at the world from the Prussian viewpoint. Prussia still believes in Weltmacht. A Prussian is self-constituted a superman. So convinced is he of world victory that he is amazed and exasperated with those—be they weak or powerful—who dare to question his future supremacy. That supremacy, as he admits candidly, must be established by force. He proposes to rule by fear. He is confounded when he discovers that there are men and women who do not fear him. In this cartoon Kruger puts a question which it may be instructive to attempt to answer.
Kruger: “You want my people to help you now, and yet when I came to ask you for help you chased me from your door like a dog.”
Kaiser: “Quite true. I had forgotten your little affair, which was essentially negligible then as now. Had I helped you, I might have embroiled myself with a Great Power with whom I was not ready to fight. To-day, I am ready. Behold in me, my friend, a World-Conqueror! I give you my All-Highest word that I shall win. What pains and perplexes me is that you don’t back a certain winner. Hoch dem Kaiser!”
That, in fine, is the Prussian point of view. Woe to those who do not realize that it “pays” to bow down before the juggernaut of might!
But there must be moments, ever-recurring moments, when the “All-Highest” mutters to his august self: “What will become of ME if I don’t win?”
And at such moments he may recall the vast and pathetic figure of Oom Paul, whom he chased from his door like a dog.
