“The war of to-morrow, therefore, will not be like the war of 1870, a war confined to two belligerent forces: it will be a universal European war. Nor will it be a humane war, subject to the rules of international law and to the decrees of the Hague Tribunal: it will be an inexorable war; or, to use the expression of von Bernhardi, it will be ‘a war to the knife.’ Nor will it be decided in a few weeks, like the war of 1870: it will involve a long and difficult campaign, or rather a succession of campaigns; it will mean to either side political annihilation or supremacy.” CHAPTER III THE CURSE OF THE HOHENZOLLERN I.—ROYALTIES MADE IN GERMANY. It has become a trite and hackneyed claim of the Prussian megalomaniacs that they are an Imperial people, a super-race predestined by Nature and Providence to the domination of the world. It certainly seems a grotesque claim to assert on the part of a people who in their political and social life have shown themselves a pre-eminently _servile_ people; who have ever been cringing to their superiors; who never produced one single leader of free men, one Cromwell, one Mirabeau, one Gambetta; who always believed in the virtue of passive obedience; who always submitted to the policeman rather than to a policy; who always obeyed a Prince rather than a principle; who, as recently as the end of the eighteenth century, allowed themselves to be sold like cattle by Hessian princelings; who never rose to defend their sacred rights; who never fought a spirited battle in a righteous civil war; and who have always been ready to fight like slaves at the bidding of a sword-rattling despot. And yet in one very important respect the Germans may rightly claim that they are actually ruling the European world. German Princes are actually seated on almost every throne of Europe. The French language may still be the language of diplomacy, but the German language, which was still a despised lingo to Frederick the Great, has become the language of European royalties. Germany for two hundred years has done a most thriving and most lucrative export trade in princelings. One Hohenzollern Prince ruling in Roumania for thirty years asserted German influence in that Latin country. Another Hohenzollern Prince ruling in Athens, nicknamed “Tino” by his affectionate relative the Kaiser, for three years stultified the will of his people, who were determined to join the cause of the Allies. Still another German Prince ruling in Sofia, who five years ago was mainly responsible for the horrors of the second Balkan War, compelled the Bulgarian nation to betray the cause of Russia, to whom the Bulgarian people owe their political existence and liberation from the yoke of the Turk.