These recurring attacks of fever were bound to result in a fatal crisis. War has at last broken out, sooner than the most gloomy pessimists anticipated, and in a more terrible form than they dared to imagine—a war that has set three-fourths of Europe ablaze, and has spread like wildfire to other continents and other seas. What was the immediate cause of this general outbreak? “A political murder of unexampled brutality, and the need for severely punishing a little nation of conspirators,” say the two Germanic empires with one voice. “Mere pretexts,” is the convincing reply of the Entente Powers. The origins of the war, of course, go much further back, and the causes lie deeper and are less obvious to the eye. The German intellectuals, now that they have cast aside their official servility and are discoursing freely on the lot that awaits their nation, have the honesty to admit as much themselves. In the present work I have endeavoured, as others have done before me, to trace these causes and to assign the responsibility for the disastrous events that we are witnessing. My conclusions are based mainly on the personal observations that I made during a stay of two years in Berlin immediately before the war. At the same time, I have attempted to sketch the psychology of the principal German actors in the tragedy of 1914. I can sincerely say that I have taken every care to remain strictly impartial, to render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s, and to make due allowance for the policy imposed upon Germany during the last fifteen years, and for external events that have had their influence since the beginning of the century. Moreover, these pages, which have been written during the melancholy leisure forced upon me by the calamities of Belgium, have a further object in view. I have desired to do a service to my beloved country, the first victim—and an innocent victim—of a ruthless design. I have desired to contribute something towards requiting her for those monstrous charges with which her torturers have sought to belittle her stainless loyalty and to tarnish her unparalleled heroism. May my labours bring some small light to those who search for truth! May they furnish a document of some service to future writers, to those who, with an authority that the passage of time alone can give, will describe a period of the world’s history which Christian civilization will some day shudder to recall! GERMANY BEFORE THE WAR. CHAPTER I. THE EMPEROR WILLIAM. I.