"You expect war soon," said Gard. "Why soon? Granted the Germans want war to carry out their world plans, why should it come before another generation, for instance?"
"Because the Kaiser is getting along in years. Time does not wait even for him. Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon were young in comparison. So he is talking a lot about God now and that means war. He wants to enjoy ruling Europe awhile before he dies. He does not get on with the Crown Prince and is not greatly interested in leaving all such glory for him to sport about in. Soon Wilhelm the Deuce will be too old to take part in a military campaign. He has not many years to live at his age. He is not a well man. The longer he puts it off, the shorter will be the triumph he craves."
The talk shifted angles and Anderson was saying after awhile:
"When you have the German statesmen, generals, magnates, press, professors, theologians, everybody, insisting on the incomparable virtues of the Germans and never on their failings—on their rights and privileges and never on their duties to humanity—do you wonder that the plain people, like your Buchers, think it devolves upon them to turn foreign lands into waste by the sword in order to convert them into German countries? It is hard to find in any German publication a frank and commending acknowledgment that a foreigner has really completed anything to his credit. If such evidence is too strong in any case and forces an admission, the foreign inventor or discoverer is rather made to appear presumptuous in acting before some German got around to it. The Teutons never think, talk and write in terms of humanity—only in terms of Germanity. Do you not begin to see that the Teutons are, in intent, as murderously fanatical about their greatness as the mad Mullah and his followers were about their bigotry? The Germans have been educated to these views since childhood....
"You tell me that Charlemagne took on Christian religion as a prop to, an ally of, his military power—an aid to the extension of his rule. Well, then, the Teutons have turned what they call their Christianity into a warlike worship of themselves. Their preachers must stand in with the Kaiser. He is to them God on earth. It is the old story of the throne upheld by the official church."
"But how about all Catholic Germany?" parried Gard. "About one-third is Catholic."
"True, true. Yet from what I've seen, the German Catholics will be found fighting for the Protestants when war comes, just as the Socialists will be found fighting for the Emperor. This is because the feeling for race and nation is far stronger than for creed or doctrine. If the Kaiser succeeds in getting control of Europe, he will take to himself the spiritual and religious headship of the world and the Pope will become essentially his vassal, for the Pope will be impotent as against the victorious sword. Hasn't Wilhelm already assumed to be the head of Mohammedanism?
"And look at it. South Germany, which is Catholic, and Saxony here, are cramped up in the interior. Their manufacturing interests are increasing by leaps and bounds. Isn't it natural they should want a direct outlet to the Atlantic and Mediterranean? Wouldn't these Saxons be proud to have a piece of real ocean shore to use as their own?
"Another thing. As the Germans are brutal among themselves, I predict that, stirred up as they are, they will be brutal like Huns in this war. You see how they deal with their own women. Imagine what they will do to foreign women. How do you yourself think your young military Bucher would act toward Americans if he landed on our coast with a gun? The German will be like a Hun just as he was in the treacherous days of Ariovistus and Arminius—the Teutoberger forest and all that over again. He will red-handedly rebuff civilizing influences just as he did in those days."
"How do you define Hun?" asked Gard. "The Germans are not Huns by race."