Page:American Historical Review, Vol. 23.djvu/180

170 bad. Yet all the evidence which we have goes to show that the great bankers and business men of Germany were simply swept along in the rush of governmental actions and policies suddenly disclosed, and that ever since the possibility of an immediate victory disappeared, they have been insistent in pressing for peace on the best terms obtainable.

Professor Millioud examines, and dismisses as unsatisfactory, each of what he describes as the four prevalent explanations of why Germany declared war. It was not a counter-blow against the suddenly imminent "Russian peril". It was not expression of the Nietzschean doctrine that might is right and war the proper assertion of it. That pleasing theory, the author states, was effect, not cause. The war was not a blow to free Germany from the strangle-hold of the surrounding powers; no such strangle-hold existed. Nor was it, so thinks the author, an attempt to achieve lasting prosperity through crushing and financially ruining commercial competitors. Germany, he holds, was perfectly well aware beforehand that in a long war she had economically more to lose than her antagonists; especially with England one of them.

These explanations once disposed of. Professor Millioud asserts that his own explanation, of a desperate recourse to avert or obscure the approaching financial crisis, is established. The conclusion will not be readily admitted. It leaves quite out of account the gospel of hate, the fanaticism over a coming trial of strength with France or England, the belief, not only in Germany's invincibility but in the certainty of her speedy victory with a huge indemnity, which had for years possessed the mind of the dominant military caste in Germany. The secrecy and suddenness with which what appeared to be their opportunity was seized by them—even the Kaiser possibly being taken unawares—is no bad evidence of a long-postponed but predetermined purpose. It is possible, indeed, to apply to this military caste the supposition applied by Professor Millioud to the commercial magnates. May not the Junker party, rather than the banking and exporting group, have foreseen the probable downfall of their power in Germany; a personal catastrophe which could be averted only by an early and successful war?

subtitle is misleading. This volume does not contain any of the official utterances which have defined the position and purpose of the Entente Allies.

We do find, however, a score of brief essays and interviews, concisely and forcefully phrased, in which fifteen eminent statesmen and publicists offer their individual judgments upon some of the issues of the war. Ten of the fifteen are English; two are French; one is Belgian; one, Dutch; and one, Alsatian. Nearly half of the volume is