It is now clear to the dullest apprehension that the most dismal of those forecasts, the most sinister of those predictions, were terribly real, while the comforting assurances of the ever-ready publicists and politicians, who knew Germany only from books of travel, holiday excursions, or the after-dinner eloquence of members of Anglo-German Leagues, were but dangerous mirages which lulled the nation’s misgivings to slumber. And now the masses have been ungently awakened. The simple declaration of a German statesman of repute, and a man, too, of the highest honesty as this term is understood in his own country, that the most solemn treaty, ratified and relied upon as stronger than fortresses bristling with cannon, is but a scrap of paper, unworthy the notice of an enterprising nation, suddenly drew into the light of Western civilization the new and subversive body of doctrine which the Teutons of Europe had for a generation been conspiring to establish, and would have succeeded in establishing were it not for a single hitch in the execution of their programme. If the combined efforts of peace-loving France, Russia, Great Britain, and Italy had moved the Tsar’s Government to stay its hand and allow Servia to be mutilated, and the Bucharest Treaty to be flung aside as a worthless scrap of paper, or if Austria had been permitted to listen to M. Sazonoff’s request and reduce her demands within the compass of the possible, the realization of the Teutonic plot against non-German Europe would have been begun later on, under much more favourable auspices, and probably worked out to a successful issue. That plot belongs to a category of crimes against the human race which can hardly be more effectively attacked than by plainly stating its objects and the means relied upon to attain them.