He is the embodiment, himself, of the last phase of Prussian kultur. Somewhere back in the history of Prussia its rulers had to invent and to create, and then kultur brought forth hard men; later, it became possible to copy, and then kultur brought forth mechanical perfection rather than creative perfection, systematized its theories of life and work, and brought into being a class of men just a little meaner, more rigid, more automaton-like, than the original class; having reduced life to one system, and that without soul or ideal, kultur brought forth types lacking more and more in originality. Here stands the culminating type; he will copy the good German Gott—he is incapable of originating anything—and will "do the same to France."
As far as lies in his power, he has done it; in the day of reckoning, Germany will judge how he has done it, and it is to be hoped that Germany will give him his just reward, for no punishment could be more fitting. The rest of the world already knows his vacuity, his utter uselessness, his criminal decadence. As his father was stripped of the Garter, so is he here shown stripped of the attributes to which, in earlier days, he made false claim. There remains a foolish knave posturing—and that is the real Crown Prince of Germany.
E. CHARLES VIVIAN.
Piracy
TIRPITZ'S LAST HOPE—PIRACY
In the summer of 1914 Germany stood before the world, a nation of immense, and to a great extent of most honourable, achievement. Her military greatness had never been in dispute. But in the previous twenty years she had developed an internal industry and an external commerce on a scale and with a rapidity entirely unprecedented. She had to build a navy such as no nation had ever constructed in so short a time. She seemed destined to progress in the immediate future as she had progressed in the immediate past.