This method of procedure on the part of the enemy alliance in itself, combined with overwhelming damaging evidence coming to hand, shows where the "war guilt" is really to be sought! This makes it all the more a solemn duty for Germany to collect, sift, and make public, by every possible means, every bit of material bearing on the "question of guilt," in order, by so doing, to unmask the real originators of the war. Unfortunately, the condition of Her Majesty has become worse. My heart is filled with the most grievous worry. God with us! Your grateful (Signed) WILHELM. [10] This letter and the letter from the Field Marshal which preceded it are reprinted herewith. The parts which are most important in relation to the matter in question are underscored in the text. [11] This has meanwhile been done. The _Comparative Historical Tables from 1878 to the Outbreak of the War in 1914_ were published in December, 1921, by K. F. Koehler, Leipsic. CHAPTER XIV The Question of Guilt History can show nothing to compare with the World War of 1914-18. It also can show nothing like the perplexity which has arisen as to the causes leading up to the World War. This is all the more astounding in that the Great War befell a highly cultivated, enlightened, politically trained race of men, and the causes leading up to it were plainly to be seen. The apparent complicity in the crisis of July, 1914, should deceive nobody. The telegrams exchanged at that time between the Cabinets of the great powers and their rulers, the activities of the statesmen and leading private individuals in verbal negotiations with important personages of the Entente, were certainly of the greatest importance on account of the decisive significance assumed by almost every word when it came from responsible lips, by every line that was written or telegraphed. The essential basis of the causes of the war, however, is not altered by such things; it is firmly established, and people must never hesitate from freeing it, calmly and with an eye to realities, from the bewildering outcroppings from the events accompanying the outbreak of war. The general situation of the German Empire in the period before the war had become continually more brilliant, and for that very reason continually more difficult from the point of view of foreign politics. Unprecedented progress in industry, commerce, and world traffic had made Germany prosperous. The curve of our development tended steadily upward.