It would be going too far to say that the people were surprised at the outbreak of hostilities. The vociferous appeal to their patriotism in the previous year, when memories of the war of liberation were evoked, had not been made in vain. Their crushing military burdens had not been imposed with the idea of persuading them that peace would be maintained. Finally, it was not for nothing that William II., since his accession, had adopted in his speeches a very warlike manner of declaring that the harmony of Europe must be preserved. When he spoke of peace, his hand seemed ready to draw the sword, and he solemnly told his subjects that, with a view to answering any attack or insult—which no one in Europe was contemplating—they should keep their bayonets sharp and their guns in good trim. Rhetorical metaphors, some may argue. At any rate, it is a bad way of keeping up friendly relations with neighbour-countries to picture the latter, time after time, as meditating an assault on Germanism, and as held back only by a wholesome fear of its armed strength. We are assured by many admirable writers that the war was inevitable, because the old murderous passions were not yet quenched in the German breast. A religion of valour, a love of war, a zest in the combat—these manly virtues, it is said, are still inherent in a race of warriors, scions of Arminius, descendants of the Goths, the Vandals, and the Burgundians. Some, in order to find an explanation of the present fighting, have even gone back to Odin. However this may be, Germany, during the past two or three hundred years, has waged fewer wars than France, as Prince Bülow remarks in his book; the Frenchman has shown himself more combative than the German. Too little account is taken of the long period of weakness and depression that preceded and followed the religious struggles and the wars of Frederick the Great. Madame de Staël, no doubt, read the German soul of her day accurately enough, when she discovered in it an ample fund of dreaminess, sentimentality, and idealism, whereas France at that time was throbbing with revolutionary ardour. After 1813, this sentimentalism seemed out of date; as the new Germany awoke, it gradually faded away like a dream. But it was above all as a result of the Prussian victories that a warlike enthusiasm, carefully fostered by a whole school of professors of heroism, flowed into the veins of a certain element in the German nation. When the struggle began, the youths moulded by this teaching set the example to their comrades in the field. In France and in Belgium, young soldiers have been seen to advance at the head of furious charges, singing under the very fire of machine-guns, their arms linked together, their eyes lost in a dream of glory and sacrifice....