Tools of the Russian Juggernaut
By M.J. Bonn.
Prof. Bonn is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Munich and German Visiting Professor to the University of California. The following article by him was published on Aug. 8, 1914, in the first week of war.
AS long as hostile censors muzzle truth there is no use in discussing the European military situation. Where the ingenuity of American newspaper men has failed it would be presumptuous for any one to try. But the question, Why are we at war? can be answered fairly well by anybody conversant with the facts of the European situation.
We are not at war because the Emperor, as war lord, has sent out word to his legions to begin a war of world-wide aggression, carrying into its vortex intellectual Germany, notwithstanding all her peaceful aspirations.
I may fairly claim to be a representative of that intellectual Germany which comes in now for a good deal of sympathy, but I must own that intellectual Germany, as far as I know about her, thoroughly approves of the Emperor's present policy.
She approves of it not on the principle merely "Right or wrong, my country"; she does so because she knows that war has become inevitable, and that we must face that ordeal when we are ready for it, not at the moment most agreeable to our enemies. If intellectual Germany wants to develop the moral and intellectual qualities of the German people she can do so only if there is peace—real peace—not endangered by the fear of some sudden and treacherous aggression.
We approve of the war because we realize that such a peace was no longer possible. Some of our critics are trying to show that we wanted a war, as we wanted the colonial empire of France.
We have, indeed, refused the demand made by England as the price for her neutrality—that we should not be allowed to take any part of France's colonial domains, even in case of complete victory.