It is with pain and with bitterness that I speak the word England. I am one of those barbarians on whom the English University of Oxford conferred the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa. I have friends in England who stand with one foot on the intellectual soil of Germany. Haldane, formerly English Minister of War, and with him countless other Englishmen, made regular pilgrimages to the little barbarous town of Weimar, where the barbarians Goethe, Schiller, Herder, Wieland, and others, have created another world for humanity. We have a poet, whose plays, more than those of any other German poet, have become national property; his name is Shakespeare. This Shakespeare is, at the same time, the prince of English poets. The mother of our Emperor is an English woman, the wife of the King of England a German, and yet this nation, so closely related by blood and choice, has declared war against us. Why? Heaven only knows. This much, however, is certain, that the now beginning European concert, saturated with blood, as it is, has an English statesman for its impresario and its conductor. It is doubtful, however, whether the finale of this terrible music will find the same conductor at the stand. "My cousin, you did not mean well either with yourselves or with us when your tools threw the fire-brand into our dwellings!" If heaven wills that we should issue regenerated from this terrible trial, we shall have the sacred duty of showing ourselves worthy of our regeneration. By the complete victory of German arms the independence of Europe would be secured. It would be necessary to make it clear to the different nations of Europe that this war must be the last between themselves. They must see at last that their sanguinary duels only bring a shameful advantage to the one who, without taking part in them, is their originator. Then they must devote themselves mutually to the work of civilization and peace, which will then make misunderstandings impossible.