Let me make myself plain on this point. The Kaiser strove not only to win Germany _a_ place in the sun, but to make Germany _the_ place in the sun, and, in a sense, it is true, as he has so often claimed, that he desired and worked to bring this about by peaceful means. But—_he did not follow this course through any inherent love for, or humane predilection toward peace, but only because it was the cheaper way; because it would cost less in treasure and industrial potentiality; because it was calculated to set back Germany less than would the drain of even a victorious war_. He hoped—by building up the most perfect military machine the world had ever known, supplemented by a navy unquestionably designed to equal and ultimately surpass that of Great Britain—to bluff and bully his way through to his goal without paying the price. The principal difference between the Kaiser and the German military party leaders was that the latter proposed to fight first and take what they wanted after all opposition had been crushed, while the former proposed trying to seize what he wanted first and to fight only if some one had the audacity to resist. Both were the schemes of international outlaws, with the militarists comparable to the brigand and the Kaiser to the burglar. That is the most one can say for the Kaiser’s vaunted ‘peacefulness.’ Twice or thrice—notably in the cases of Tsingtau and Bosnia-Herzegovina—the Imperial thief or his accomplices got away, unscathed, with the ‘goods’; but at Agadir his nerve failed him and he was compelled to withdraw with empty pockets. The German military party leaders, knowing his aims and methods rendered ultimate war inevitable, bided their time far more patiently than would have been the case had they not known the Kaiser was no lover of peace for its own sake; that either his bungling or his opportunism must finally make his means, like his end, identical with their own.