Germany's bid for the supremacy of the seas was far too low; and it has cost her heavily.
5. BLUNDERING ESTIMATES OF NATIONAL IDEALS.
It is natural for a wolf to take a wolf's point of view; but often it is expensive to the wolf.
Germany's big men who have been masquerading as "statesmen" have been proven by the logic of events to be the most colossal blunderers the world has ever seen; and of them Kaiser Wilhelm is the chief.
They had it figured out (1) that Italy would necessarily cast in her lot with the nation who had robbed her of her Adriatic provinces, and with the other nation who by crafty methods had grasped her commerce, railroads and banks by the throat with a German grip not pleasant to feel.
(2).—They believed that Belgium would, for the sake of "peace," submit to being overrun and converted into a German camp, with the ultimately certain seizure and retention of the port of Antwerp.
(3).—They believed that because of having no army worth mentioning, and for Irish and Indian reasons, England could be bribed into a state of degrading passivity while Germany completely destroyed her ally, France. And Chancellor Hollweg nearly wept when he could not convince Sir Edward Goschen that a pledge of neutrality was a thing to be ignored at will, and that a solemn international treaty was only "a scrap of paper." In failing to understand that England possesses a sense of national honor to which Germany was a total stranger, which bore no taint of either commercialism or cowardice, and which Britons throughout the world will maintain with all their lives, regardless of cost, the Chancellor and Jagow made a strictly German blunder, which no child with a taste for history ever should have made. On this point the stupidity of the Kaiser and his cabinet looms up like the Pyramid of Cheops. They judged the English by themselves.
6. BLUNDERING WITH AMERICA.
Germany's chief blunder regarding America was due to her contempt for this sleepy, easy-going, unarmed, peace-loving nation of Quixotic chivalry toward small nations, or big ones that are weak, and her utterly grotesque worship of riches and luxury. On no other hypothesis is it possible to account for the endless series of insults, injuries and treacheries that were handed out to the United States from the early sinking of the Robert Dollar down to the final declaration of ruthless submarine war on American commerce and American lives.
Never in all the history of nations did any strong nation ever endure without war one one-hundredth part of the causes for war that were heaped upon us by Germany between August 1, 1914, and the final severance of relations. For the sake of "peace" with a mad-dog military despotism, we endured insults, injuries and murders until the whole world looked at us in stupefied amazement. Why, in the first year of our Civil War, we came to the very verge of war with England because we halted at sea the British steamer Trent, and took from it, as ordinary prisoners of war, the two Confederate commissioners, Mason and Slidell. But Germany sank scores of American ships, and drowned hundreds of Americans,—and still we went on seeking to avoid the clash of arms.