History of the World War, Volume 1 (of 7) : $b An authentic narrative of the world's greatest warMarch, Francis A., Jr.
History
History of the World War, Volume 1 (of 7) : $b An authentic narrative of the world's greatest war
March, Francis A., Jr.
World War, 1914-1918
Thus ended my mission in London. It had suffered shipwreck, not on
the wiles of the Briton but on the wiles of our own policy. Were
not those right who saw that the German people were pervaded with
the spirit of Treitschke and Bernhardi, which glorifies war as an
end instead of holding it in abhorrence as an evil thing? Properly
speaking militarism is a school for the people and an instrument
to further political ends. But in the patriarchal absolutism of
a military monarchy, militarism exploits politics to further its
own ends, and can create a situation which a democracy freed from
junkerdom would not tolerate.
That is what our enemies think; that is what they are bound to think
when they see that in spite of capitalistic industrialism and in
spite of socialistic organizations, the living, as Nietzsche said,
are still ruled by the dead. The democratization of Germany, the
first war aim proposed by our enemies, will become a reality.
This is the frank statement of a great German statesman made long
before Germany received its knock-out blow. It was written when German
militarism was sweeping all before it on land, and when the U-boat was
at the height of its murderous powers on the high seas.
No one in nor out of Germany has controverted any of its statements and
it will forever remain as one of the counts in the indictment against
Germany and the sole cause of the world’s greatest misery, the war.
America’s outstanding authority on matters of international conduct,
former Secretary of State Elihu Root, declared that the World War was a
mighty and all-embracing struggle between two conflicting principles of
human right and human duty; it was a conflict between the divine right
of kings to govern mankind through armies and nobles, and the right
of the peoples of the earth who toil and endure and aspire to govern
themselves by law under justice, and in the freedom of individual
manhood.
After the declaration of war against Russia by Germany, events marched
rapidly and inevitably toward the general conflagration. Germany’s
most strenuous efforts were directed toward keeping England out of the
conflict. We have seen in the revelations of Prince Lichnowsky how
eager was England to divert Germany’s murderous purpose. There are some
details, however, required to fill in the diplomatic picture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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