In 1911 the Kaiser spread out before his people bribes most alluring. Just as the Devil led Jesus up into a mountain and showed Him the whole earth, so the Kaiser and the Potsdam gang led the Germans into a mount of temptation and showed them how easy it was to make the Kaiser a world emperor. The argument was very simple; after twenty-five years of preparation, Germany has nine million soldiers, has cannons, liquid fire, poisoned gases, battle-ships, aeroplanes, with every wagon and automobile ready to have the pleasure body removed, and a military body substituted. "We are ready to the last buckle on the horses' harness." To the east was Russia, broken by war with Japan; Russia with her gold mines, her wheat granaries, her vast coal and iron deposits and forests all undeveloped. To the southeast was Rumania, with her oil wells, with Constantinople and the silk fields, and the Tigris, the gateway to the Indian Ocean, and the treasures of the Bagdad railway country. To the west was unarmed Belgium, rich with twenty billions of treasure; France, half armed, with her newly discovered iron mines and coal measures; England, one vast jewel box, a kind of Aladdin's cave,--"Wait until Germany lifts her mailed fists upon the English treasure box, there will be enough for everybody in Berlin," is the gist of Zimmermann's speech of November, 1914. "The people of the United States call us Huns," writes the editor of the _Localanzeiger_, "but New York had better remember that the young Huns from the German forests took only two weeks to cross the Alps and loot the city of Rome." Other German members of the Reichstag have likened the United States unto a Croesus, the richest man in the world, living in a golden house, surrounded with bags, bursting with gems and wedges of gold and silver, but a Croesus that had no lock on his door and no weapon in his hand. THE TREASURE BOXES OF EUROPE "Belgium is a lamb, France and England are flocks of sheep, feeding and fattening in the pasture, ready for our shears." All these statements were sent out through Germany. The other nations are so many treasure boxes, ready for our military key to unlock them. Boys, farmers' sons, discussed the coming looting expedition in the hayfields. College boys talked about the treasures of England and France, Belgium and Holland, as boys once talked about emptying the newly discovered gold mines of California. Officers drank to "The Day." Editors added fuel to the flames of avarice. The statesmen cried, "It is our duty to rule these countries, and besides, by war we get great gain."