Produced by Markus Brenner, Irma Spehar and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) German Problems and Personalities BY CHARLES SAROLEA LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1917 _All rights reserved_ [Illustration: Charles Sarolea] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION 1 I. AN AMERICAN PREFACE 7 II. MY FORECASTS OF 1906 AND 1912 12 III. THE CURSE OF THE HOHENZOLLERN 53 IV. THE GERMAN WAR-TRIUMVIRATE 85 (i.) Nietzsche. (ii.) Montaigne and Nietzsche. (iii.) Treitschke. (iv.) Bernhardi. V. FREDERICK THE GREAT 136 VI. THE APOTHEOSIS OF GOETHE 142 VII. THE SERVICE OF THE CITY IN GERMANY 148 VIII. THE NEGLECT OF GERMAN 159 IX. MECKLENBURG, THE PARADISE OF PRUSSIAN JUNKERTHUM 164 X. THE GERMAN RACE HERESY AND THE WAR 169 XI. A SLUMP IN GERMAN THEOLOGY 183 XII. THE GERMAN ENIGMA 189 XIII. THE TRAGIC ISOLATION OF GERMANY 196 XIV. RUSSIA AND GERMANY 203 XV. THE PEACEMAKER OF GERMANY: PRINCE VON BÜLOW 218 XVI. THE SILENCE OF HERR VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG 226 XVII. THE COMING REVOLUTION IN GERMANY 231 XVIII. VIA PACIS 248 APPENDIX: THE PRIVATE MORALITY OF THE PRUSSIAN KINGS 255 GERMAN PROBLEMS AND PERSONALITIES INTRODUCTION BY THE LITERARY EDITOR OF THE NEW YORK “TIMES” Three years ago there was one man in Europe who had a political sight so clear that his words then written seem to-day uncanny in their wisdom.[1] [1] One of the most eminent American theologians, Bishop Brent, wrote in an article on “Speculation and Prophecy”: “In Dr. Sarolea’s volume, ‘The Anglo-German Problem,’ published in 1912, there is a power of precognition so startling that one can understand a sceptic of the twenty-first century raising serious doubts as to whether parts of it were not late interpolation.” Mr. Gilbert Keith Chesterton in his “Crimes of England” applied to the “Anglo-German Problem” the epithet “almost magical.”