Now why did the Kaiser over and over again proclaim his allegiance to Frederick the Great? How is it that he celebrates his ancestor, Frederick? This "scrap of paper" incident makes it all quite clear. The bitter waters gushing out of the Potsdam Palace go back to a bitter spring named Frederick the Great. The poisoned fruit that ripened in 1914 hangs on a bough whose trunk was planted by Frederick in far-off days.
Among many musty old German books recently published is a little book by that same Frederick. The Prussian king was writing certain notes for the guidance of his sons and successors, among whom is the present Kaiser. In his page of counsels Frederick talks very plainly about the breaking of treaties:
"Consider a treaty as a scrap of paper under any one of the following emergencies: First, when necessity compels it. Second, when you lack means to continue the war. Third, when you cannot by any other means combat your ally or enemy."
Then Frederick raises one question: "If the interests of your army or your people or yourself are at stake or you have to keep your word on one hand and your pledge word and treaty is on the other hand, which path will you take? Who can be stupid enough to hesitate in answering this question? In other words, treaties are to be kept when they promote your interest, and shamelessly broken when you gain thereby."
The Kaiser, therefore, had from Frederick, his ancestor, this handbook on lying. In turn, the Kaiser gave this notion of the treaty as a scrap of paper to his Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, who engraved, as has been said, "on eternal brass the infamy of Germany": "We are now in a state of necessity, and necessity knows no law. We were compelled to override the the just protest of Luxembourg and Belgian Governments. The wrong—I speak openly—that we are committing we will endeavour to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached. Anybody who is threatened, as we are threatened, and who is fighting for his highest possessions, can have only one thought, how he is to hack his way through."
Guizot mentions "honour and fidelity to the pledged word" as one of the distinguishing elements of what is called "a civilized State." But this puts Germany among the barbarous savages. Three indictments and convictions have blackened the name of Germany throughout all the world. First, her atrocious and dishonourable methods of warfare; second, the carrying off into slavery of non-combatants, the Belgians and French, and third, the breach of the pledged word and the solemn treaties with other nations.
But at last we know that Frederick the Great, the ancestor of the Kaiser, was the author of the phrase, "the treaty is a scrap of paper." What was once in the gristle in the ancestor is now bred in the bone of the Kaiser and Crown Prince. That phrase, "a scrap of paper," holds the germ of a thousand wars. It spells the ruin of civilization. Not to resent it by war, is for the Allies to commit spiritual suicide.
5. The Plot of the Kaiser
All the pamphlets issued secretly to the members of the Pan-German League invariably used Rome as their illustration. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that the German leaders called attention to the fact that it took two wars at intervals of some years to make Rome a world empire.
In like manner, therefore, the Kaiser and his Cabinet told the German people at home and abroad that the first war, beginning in 1914, would establish a Middle-Europe Empire extending from Hamburg on the North Sea to Bagdad on the Persian Gulf.