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ence.

But who compose it and what it has stood for are an open book. The Kaiser would deny the most vehemently of all that he is affiliated with the Kriegspartei. Unfortunately, his speeches are against him. He has talked too much and too often of his martial ambitions, has set the world too frequently by the ears with his blatant apotheoses of Mars and Neptune, to merit the diadem of a peace prince. William II's ebullient son and heir, the Crown Prince, is an avowed adherent, almost the arch-priest, of the War Party. His fellow-members are, first of all, the corps of officers of the German army, a body of 40,000 or 50,000 spurred and epauleted martinets, who have never ceased to pray for war. These gentlemen of the goose-step, through their paramount position in German society, have infected the entire so-called upper class with their belligerent views. The War Party, therefore, includes German uppertendom. It embraces the intellectuals of the Empire-the professorial element at the great universities, the Delbruecks, the Wagners, the Schmollers, the Harnacks, and all the other super-patriots who tread in the path blazed by Treitschke, the prophet of this, Germany's "final reckoning" with Europe.

Following idolatrously in the trail of the political professors are the undergraduates of the 'varsities, or at least that overwhelming majority affiliated with the Corps, Verbindungen, or Burschenschaften, the equivalent of our own fraternities. It was these youthful spirits who have had the sacredness of war drilled into their souls in classroom, who ran shrieking "Krieg! Krieg" through Unter den Linden in the feverish nights preceding the actual launching of the Kaiser's thunderbolts on the East and West. In the War Party, too, are the Prussian Junker in his thousands, the agrarian land barons of Pomerania, East Elbia, Brandenburg, and Silesiathe Germans who look upon themselves as the sait of the Teuton earth, the props of divine right, and the monopolists of power and position in modern Germany. And, last but noisiest, are the arm-chair warriors of the Fatherland, the retired generals and admirals and colonels and naval captains whose very names are a programme and a menaceBernhardi, Breusing, Reventlow, Frobenius, Keim of the Army League, von Koester of the Navy League, and hundreds less notorious.

If I thus far seem radical in expression and

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harsh, let me deal forthwith with the sixtyfive mute, meek millions of the Fatherland who craved for peace. For years they have been excoriated by the War Party as a craven, corroding influence, destitute of patriotism, ignorant of “the real foundations of German greatness," an element which was retarding the Fatherland in the march to her predestined goal, attainable only by the employment of siege guns and dreadnoughts.

These mute and meek millions, I say, did not want war. They wanted peace and a continuance of the bounding prosperity which had brought Germany to the pinnacle of economic might. They wanted their army and navy to be that which the Kaiser had grandiloquently boasted they were, and only that -bulwarks of peace, not engines of war. These were the sentiments of the German public up to the very hour war descended upon their inoffensive heads. They cared not a fig for Sarajevo beyond the wave of human sympathy and horror which wanton murder always produces. They believed, many of them, that the question as to who should prevail in Europe, German or Slav, must some day find a sanguinary solution; but they did not look upon the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his consort as the occasion for forcing the solution. It was only when the Austrian demands on blood-stained Servia brought Armageddon measurably near-made it, as we have seen, in fact, inevitable-that German public opinion, shrewdly molded, suddenly, reluctantly, came to the conclusion that the conflict between German and Slav might as well be fought out in this year of grace.

I make bold to proclaim that the Germans went into this bloody business with a heavy heart. I heard their reservists singing" Die Wacht am Rhein "as they began their march to death and glory from city, town, and hamlet. I saw flaxen-haired Prussian maidens tossing roses to guards and Uhlans as they started for the front, from which thousands of them will never return. But everywhere and always I found bearing down the spirit of the German, though only infrequently expressed by word of mouth, the sentiment that the war was unnecessary, cruel, unintelligible, that it ought not to have been.

That was in the dread hours immediately preceding the actual outbreak of hostilities with Russia, France, and England. I mean the last days of July, when the issue of

peace and war hung trembling in the balance. I refer especially to the terror-stricken week of suspense in which the attitude of England remained undefined-the England "which will make our case desperate and hopeless if she intervenes," as scores of my German friends, in accents of despair, said to me times without number. Meantime war came, war not only with Russia and France, which the Germans have never feared, but war with Belgium and with England, which they never expected. Then came to pass a mighty change in German public opinion. 66 Feinde ringsum!" (Foes on all sides!) the battlecry always sure of rallying all Germans to the country's standard. The spirit of Frederick the Great, the hero of the Seven Years' War against Feinde ringsum," fired the Empire's soul. The time for parleying and argument, for investigating the whys and wherefores of the case, was gone. The Fatherland was confronted by conditions, not theories. Dubious as it had been about the justification for war, for arresting at a blow the Brobdingnagian development in which it found itself, it became, in less time than overnight, an inflamed, united, war-mad people. It believed implicitly now that the sword had been "forced" into

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the Kaiser's hand. It believed that Germany, surrounded and enveloped by hostile, envious rivals bent on destroying her prosperity, was now compelled by the iron logic of events to gird on her terrible armor. It was persuaded that the struggle for the Empire's very existence must now at last be fought and to the death. Germans, the business Germans of our modern acquaintance, the scientific, intellectual Germans of tradition, the phlegmatic, beer-drinking, pipe-smoking Germans of our fancies, are all warriors now. They will wage a terrible and gallant fight. They will not stack arms-let the world make no mistake on that score-till the last among them capable of shouldering a rifle is incapacitated, till the last copper pfennig capable of purchasing the munitions of war has vanished from their impoverished grasp.

The War Party, drunk with overweening self-confidence, provoked and produced this war, and dragged the majority of the nation into it. But there is no majority or minority now. William II is Kaiser to-day of a people welded by the sheer dictates of national selfpreservation into a nation of war makers. They will not go down to defeat without giving of themselves an account which will make their victorious foes buy triumph dearly.

I

ARRIVED in Berlin on July 26. On the way we passed the Imperial train lying upon a side-track at a junction point and apparently awaiting the return of the Kaiser from his vacation trip in Norway. In the Tiergarten and Unter den Linden I passed crowds made up largely of boys and young men who were marching through the streets singing patriotic songs and shouting. their defiance of Servia and Russia. Until late at night the streets were thronged with such crowds.

On the morning of Tuesday, July 28, there appeared notices of numerous meetings of protest against the war with Russia to be held in different parts of the city. Furthermore, the papers published reports that Sir Edward Grey, the British Minister for Foreign Affairs, was trying to arrange a conference at London of the representatives of Germany, France, Italy, and England in order, if possible, to prevent the further extension of the war.

That evening, when I came out of a theater, I found a cordon of police across the Friedrichstrasse, barring the way to the Unter den Linden to all except those who had special reasons for going there. A similar condition existed on the other streets leading to the Linden. When I asked a policeman the reason for this, he very wisely answered by shrugging his shoulders and asking how

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he should know, since his business was only to obey orders. When I reached the Linden later, I found it quiet and more or less deserted, very much in contrast to its appearance on previous nights. It seemed to me at first that this policing must have been done in order to check hostile demonstrations against other nations. But the following morning the papers reported that after the meetings of protest against war some of the opponents of war paraded the streets, and in some places clashed against the demonstrators for war, which led to the action of the police. So that apparently the policing was directed against the opponents of war rather than against its advocates.

At about half-past two on the afternoon of Friday, July 31, I was sitting in a café at the corner of the Unter den Linden and the Friedrichstrasse when the cry was raised that the Kaiser was coming. Like every one else in the café, I jumped upon a chair, and soon saw the Kaiser and the Kaiserin in their automobile coming down the Linden in the direction of the royal palace. They were loudly acclaimed by the enormous crowd which filled the street. Behind them came the Kronprinz and the Kronprinzessin, with their little son between them, who were received with even greater enthusiasm. Then followed several more of the sons of the Kaiser and other royal personages. After the royal family came a procession of automobiles containing high military officers and Governmental officials. It was evident that something important was about to happen and that the royal family was making an appeal to the loyalty and patriotism of the people. The crowd, which I joined, fell in behind the royal, military, and official procession and marched to the royal palace.

In the large square in front of the palace was gathered an enormous throng numbering many thousands. Standing there in the hot sun, crowded close together, and most of them with their heads bared, they spent most of the time singing patriotic songs. Over and over again were sung "Die Wacht am Rhein " and "Deutschland über Alles." From time to time royal and other personages came and went from the palace. When the Imperial Chancellor arrived, he was received with a great ovation. The Crown Prince and Crown Princess were heartily cheered when they left.

But the crowd watched with the greatest intentness a balcony high up over the main

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entrance to the palace. After a time the doors opened, and a stir of expectancy ran through the crowd. But only some palace officials stepped out on the balcony and looked down upon the crowd. Then they stepped back, and two maids came out and with the greatest care wiped off the railing of the balcony and the windows of the door. The crowd watched every movement eagerly; but when the maids had finished their work, they stepped back, and the doors closed again. One-two-three hours passed, and still the crowd, regardless of its discomfort, stood patiently waiting. Finally, at about six o'clock, the doors again opened and the Kaiser appeared upon the balcony. After the cheering had subsided, he read twice over in a loud, clear voice a short speech which he held in his hand. The substance of it was that he had tried to keep the peace, but had been deceived by the Czar, and now might God help the brave German army in the fight. After bowing again to the crowd, he disappeared.

It is impossible to describe adequately this remarkable scene in writing, or indeed in any way. I might say that its principal impression upon me was of its pathos. It was pathetic, in the first place, because of the trust and confidence these people displayed in their Kaiser. It was evident that they depended upon him to decide what to do. But it was pathetic far more because it was evident that they realized that their country was facing a very serious crisis, and this fact awed and probably frightened them. To keep up their courage they stimulated their patriotism by singing patriotic songs and cheering the royal family.

What took place at the conference in the royal palace that afternoon was indicated in part later that evening when an extra appeared stating that the German Government had issued an ultimatum to the Russian Government, and had asked a question of the French Government.

Sunday (August 2) was the first day of mobilization. The railways of the country passed immediately into the hands of the military authorities, to be used for the movement of troops and other military purposes. By about noon on Monday passenger trains had ceased to run, and during the mobilization it was practically impossible for foreigners to leave Berlin, while German civilians were permitted to travel only to the extent that military needs made it possible. The

public signboards were covered with notices from military and civil authorities. These notices dealt with a great variety of subjects. There were schedules of military trains; announcements of places for the assembling of horses; requests to the public to be on the lookout for spies, and to protect bridges, tunnels, and railways; announcements that the Imperial bank notes are legal tender and. must be accepted at face value (gold having disappeared from circulation immediately upon the outbreak of the war); decrees limiting the prices which could be put upon certain necessities of life, etc. In fact, these notices pictured to a considerable extent the conditions caused by a state of war.

In all probability most Germans realized that if war with Russia began, this would also mean war with France. This they seemed to regard as a natural thing because of the relations of the two countries ever since the Franco-Prussian War, and because of France's membership first in the Dual Alliance and then in the Triple Entente. This probably explains why the demonstrations before the war were directed against Russia much more than against France. "Nieder Russland !" was heard much more frequently than "Nieder Frankreich!" The Germans seemed to feel that the Russians had deceived them, and that in return for a long-continued friendship they were receiving an unmerited return. It is true that in the cries which accompanied the departure of troops during the following week" Nach Paris!" was heard much more frequently than "Nach Petersburg!" However, this was probably due, in the first place, to the fact that in the first part of the war the German military operations have been directed against France much more than against Russia, and, in the second place, to a reminiscence of the Franco-Prussian War.

Reports of fighting along the French border came about as soon as the beginning of the war with Russia. According to the German newspapers, the French were the aggressors in these conflicts. It is as yet impossible to know with certainty who were the first aggressors, since the other side publish contradictory reports. It is, however, certain that the Germans made the first important aggressive move by going into Belgium. At any rate, diplomatic relations with France were broken very soon, and the war was on with France as well as Russia.

The temper of the people now seemed to

become more serious and more united. As has been indicated, a few days earlier there had been many hostile demonstrations towards Russia and France, probably carried on principally by more or less irresponsible persons. These now ceased in the main. Furthermore, there had been considerable opposition to the war. This disappeared entirely, at least so far as public expression was concerned. The press was immediately put under a rigorous censorship, which doubtless put a stop to any attempted criticism of the war. All the parties soon expressed their support of the Government in the war. In the vast majority of Germans, doubtless, a strong patriotic feeling was aroused by the belief that their country had been unjustly attacked, and that in any case it must be defended. Their interest was manifested by the huge crowds which thronged the streets especially in the evening in search of news. The leading papers issued numerous special editions, many of which were distributed free, and whenever an automobile bearing one of these editions appeared, there was a mad rush which resulted in the street becoming littered with paper.

A very important question still remained to be answered, and that was as to what England would do. It was known that as a member of the Triple Entente England might enter the war. At the same time there was a good deal of speculation as to whether the English love of peace would not keep her out of the war. On the afternoon of Monday, August 3, Sir Edward Grey made a speech [already commented upon in The Outlook] in the House of Commons, which was reported in Germany the following day and was read with great interest. This speech was received in Germany with many denunciations of Grey in particular and England in general. This is to be explained in the main probably by the excited condition of the German public. It was also encouraged by reports which had already been published the day before to the effect that French military air-ships had flown over Belgium and Holland, thus violating the neutrality of these countries. (So far as I know, these reports have never been confirmed, and are denied in Belgium and Holland.) During the evening of Tuesday an extra appeared, announcing that at about seven in the evening the English Ambassador had gone to the Foreign Office and had asked for his passports. This statemert made war with England almost certain.

Soon