The Germans are a great nation; they have admirable qualities, but they have also defects, and among their defects is a clumsy arrogance, which may be noticed in any international hotel frequented by Germans. It is a racial defect, and to try to limit it to the military autocracy is absurd. An educated and civilized nation has roughly the Government that it wants and deserves. And it has in the end ways of imposing itself on its apparent rulers that are more effective than the ballot box or the barricade, and just as sure. No election was needed to prove to the Italian Government that Italy did not want to fight for the Triple Alliance, and would not fight for it. The fact was known; it was immanent in the air, beyond all arguments and persuasions. Italy breathed a negative, and war was not. So in Germany the mass of Germans have for years breathed war, and war is. The war may be autocratic, dynastic, what you will; but it is also national, and it symbolizes the national defect. *How About the Leaders?* Does the German conscript believe in the efficacy of his leaders? I mean when he is lying awake and fatigued at night, not when he is shouting "Hoch!" or watching the demeanor of women in front of him. Does no doubt ever lancinate him? Again I would answer the question from general principles and not from observation. The German conscript must know what everybody knows--that in almost every bully there is a coward. And he must know that he is led by bullies. He learned that in the barrack yard. An enormous number of conscripts must also know that there is something seriously wrong with a system that for the sake of its own existence has killed freedom of the press. And the million little things that are wrong in the system he also knows out of his own daily life as a conscript. Further, he must be aware that there is a dearth of really great men in his system. In the past there were in Germany men great enough to mesmerize Europe--Bismarck and von Moltke. There is none today that appeals to the popular imagination as Kitchener does in England or Joffre in France. Alone, in Germany, the Kaiser has been able to achieve a Continental renown. The Kaiser has good qualities. But twenty-four years ago he committed an act of folly and (one may say) "bad form" which nothing but results could justify, and which results have not justified. Whatever his good qualities may be it is an absolute certainty that common sense, foresight, and mental balance are not among them. The conscript feels that, if he does not state it clearly to himself. And as for the military organization of which the Kaiser is the figurehead, it has shown for many years past precisely those signs which history teaches us are signs of decay. It has not withstood the fearful ordeal of success. Just lately, if not earlier, the conscript must have felt that, too.