It was this English people, that, in spite of all their egoism, have really done something for civilisation, that the German of August 1914 accused of being nothing but a nation of shopkeepers with a cowardly, narrow-minded policy that was unprepared to make any sacrifice for others. It was this people that the German of August 1914--and his spokesman von Bethmann-Hollweg, who later thought it necessary to defend himself against the charge of "having brought too much ethics into politics"--expected to stand by and see Belgium overridden. It was this same England that we believed would hold back even when the Chancellor found it impossible to apply to French colonial possessions the guarantee he had given not to aim at any territorial conquests in the war with France! And so it was with all the more grimness, with all the more gravity, that on that memorable night of August 4th the terrible blow fell. The English declaration of war entered into the very soul of the German people, who stood as a sacrifice to a political miscalculation that had its roots less in a lack of thought and experience than in a boundless arrogance. About the same time I was a witness of those laughable scenes which took place on the Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, where, in complete misjudgment of the whole political situation _Japanese_ were carried shoulder high by the enthusiastic and worthy citizens of Berlin under the erroneous impression that these obvious arch-enemies of Russia would naturally be allies of Germany. Every German that was not blind to the trend of true "world-politics" must surely have shaken his head over this lamentable spectacle. A few days afterwards Japan sent its ultimatum against Kiao-Tchao! It was the same incapability of thinking in terms of true world-politics that led us lately to believe that we might find supporters in Mexico and Japan of the piracy we indulged in as a result of America's intervention in the war, the same incapability that blinded us to the effect our methods must have on other neutrals such as China and the South American States. And although one admits the possibility of a miscalculation being made, yet a miscalculation with regard to England's attitude was not only the height of political stupidity, but showed an absence of moral sense. _The moment England entered the war, Germany lost the war._ And while the world-politicians of Berlin, having recovered from their first dismay, were making jokes about the "nation of shopkeepers" and its little army which they would just "have arrested"; while a little later the military events up to St. Quentin and the Battle of the Marne seemed to justify the idle mockers who knew nothing of England and had never even ventured their noses out of Germany,--those who had lived in the colonies were uttering warnings against any kind of optimism, and some already felt the war would end badly for us.