Page:Diplomacy and the War (Andrassy 1921).djvu/106

 ledge was more general and more profound in Germany at that time than in any other country. Capacity for organization, discipline, and the art of united action, had achieved an incomparable degree of perfection in the past fifty years in Germany. None the less, in the sphere of politics Germany was unable to attain her natural position for a long time. Ever since the days of the Hohenstaufen she had ceased to occupy a leading position. The Germany of the Hohenzollerns was always regarded as an upstart who threatened the traditional rights of other nations. The prestige of Germany was not as large nor as stable nor as traditional as that of Englishmen, which has never ceased to develop for centuries past. The ability of Englishmen was greater than that of the Germans in Paris, Rome, Constantinople and Petrograd. Moreover, Englishmen generally inspire more sympathy because their inner life is rather freer and the idea of militarism does not permeate them.

England also spent much more money on her wars than Germany. She also conducted a great many more of them than Germany, and she subjugated many more foreign races. The English race is the most imperialistic in the world; in fact, one may say that since Rome, she is the greatest conqueror, and the only really successful conqueror the world has known. At the same time, England's constitution and her internal organization are the freest because the State and the Government are absolutely bourgeois and not in any way militaristic. England is the only great