‘Germany,’ says Professor Lamprecht, ‘is now the protector and pillar of European civilisation; and after bloody victories the world will be healed by being Germanised.’ ‘We Germans are singled out by Providence to march at the head of all _Kultur_ people.... We have the highest mental creative gifts; we form the crown of _Kultur_ in the whole of creation.’ Can anyone doubt, after reading through pages like this, that Germany is self-hypnotised? There must be some morbid condition in the character which thus exudes compliments to itself through every pore in its skin. It is the sign of a disordered intelligence. The doctrine of ‘frightfulness,’ as a method in war, is the special contribution of Germany to the present conflict. It is curious, however, to remember that the most terrible example of ‘frightfulness,’ as far as Europe is concerned, was supplied by Germany 300 years ago in the famous, or rather infamous, Thirty Years’ War; and a chapter from its grim pages reads like nothing so much as a page from the German performances in Belgium in 1914-15. The slaughter in Germany during that period was so huge that in 1648 the country had only a third of the population of 1618; in some districts the depopulation was so great that every man was allowed to have _two_ wives! It is a German historian who says that ‘even now the injury done to the psychology of the German people by the moral and intellectual decay of the Thirty Years’ War has hardly been repaired.’ Those words were written before the present war broke out, but there are some pages in the performances of Germany to-day that justify that statement. What makes the folly of Germany to-day absolutely unique, however, is the fact that, in its adoption of ‘frightfulness’ as a war measure, it takes the performances of the Thirty Years’ War, translates them into modern terms, practises them on a new scale, and _enjoins_ them as _virtues_! The German soldier is instructed, for reasons of humanity, to be as inhuman as possible; and the German War Book gives grim details of what can be done, and supports its instructions by logic which, if it is dreadful, is certainly plausible. If war is made more frightful, it is argued, it will be made shorter; so it is a service to humanity to bombard defenceless towns, burn whole villages, shoot unarmed citizens, including women and children. One German divine, indeed—and German divines during this war have done and said some wonderful things—preached a sermon to show that ‘frightfulness’ carried to the _n_th was a form—a German form—of fulfilling the commandment, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.’ ‘If you love your neighbour, you will do your best to prevent him being caught in the red tide of war—or to get him out of it—as early as possible; and you will achieve this best by making war as terrible as you can.’