New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 1, No. 1: From the Beginning to March, 1915, With IndexVarious
History
New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 1, No. 1: From the Beginning to March, 1915, With Index
Various
World War, 1914-1918
In these slight notes I have suggested the principal strong points of
the Prussian character--a failure in honor which almost amounts to a
failure in memory; an egomania that is honestly blind to the fact that
the other party is an ego, and, above all, an actual itch for tyranny
and interference, the devil which everywhere torments the idle and the
proud. To these must be added a certain mental shapelessness, which can
expand or contract without reference to reason or record--a potential
infinity of excuses. If the English had been on the German side the
German professors would have noted what irresistible energies had
evolved the Teutons. As the English are on the other side, the German
professors will say that these Teutons were not sufficiently evolved; or
they will say they were just sufficiently evolved to show that they were
not Teutons. Probably they will say both. But the truth is that all that
they call evolution should rather be called evasion. They tell us they
are opening windows of enlightenment and doors of progress. The truth is
that they are breaking up the whole house of the human intellect that
they may abscond in any direction. There is an ominous and almost
monstrous parallel between the position of their overrated philosophers
and of their comparatively underrated soldiers. For what their
professors call roads of progress are really routes of escape.
*South Africa's Boers and Britons*
*By H. Rider Haggard.*
The heart of South Africa, Boer and Briton, is with England in this war.
Here and there you will find an individual who cherishes bitter and
hostile memories, of which there has been an example in Mr. Beyers
letter the other day, so effectually answered by Gen. Botha. But such
instances, I believe, are so rare that really they are the exceptions
which seem to prove the rule. Of course, it goes without saying that
every person of English descent is heartily with the mother country, and
I do not suppose it would be an overestimate to add that quite 80 per
cent, of the Dutch are of the same way of thinking.
Still, there is a party among the South African Dutch that sees no
necessity for the invasion of German Southwest Africa. This party
overlooks the fact that the Germans have for long been preparing to
invade them; also that if by any chance Germany should conquer in this
war South Africa would be one of the first countries that they would
seize.
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