Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/49

Rh It is by these Powers and their opposing views, not by, let us say, the differences between Germany and France or Austria and Italy, that the peace of the world is to-day most deeply endangered. (I. p. 53.)

This was written under the impression made by the war of Japan against China (1894), of America against Spain (1898), and of England against the Boers (1899–1902). And the war between Russia and Japan was already in preparation. The new German policy had then, indeed, been introduced, but its danger had not become clear. Yet in the later editions of my book I struck out the passage which I have just quoted, for the consequences had then begun to ripen, and the more these, came into full light, the more the former peace-disturbers ceased to work as such, while the Central Powers stepped into their place.

If we regard imperialistic tendencies as immoral, and believe that in settling the question of guilt we are passing a moral judgment, then we can indeed affirm with justice that Monk and Rabbi, Central Powers and Entente, are all tarred with the same brush. But it is another matter when we are inquiring into the origin of the war as a question not of morality but of causality, and when we ask what particular policy has brought about this particular war. On these lines we shall arrive, not perhaps at a moral but certainly at a political judgment, on particular persons and institutions. But only, let me add, on them; not on the whole people which was ruled by them, and which, after shaking them off, must naturally develop quite different tendencies.

The “German Professor” made the German people hated in the days of its military supremacy and ridiculous