to know what we are fighting against. We are not merely fighting the German Emperor, or the German Army, or the German people, united and indistinguishable in the present campaign as I believe all these to be. We are fighting the spirit that is behind the Emperor, the Army and the people. Believe me, if you are to understand the German action, you must understand the German mind. The psychology of the war is as important as its progress. The curious thing is—we know it now—that it is all in writing, written and published far and wide by German philosophers, generals and statesmen, written so that all who run may read. There is General Bernhardi's book, and there is the book by Count von Bülow. I would advise any Harrow boy who has a florin to spare to invest it in Bernhardi, Before another edition is called for it may have to be considerably rewritten! So you should buy it and read it while you can. You will hardly believe, if you do not know, what is the nature of the doctrine that has been instilled into the minds of the German people during the last ten or twenty years. Let me tell you.
In the first place, they teach that war, which we in England are so old-fashioned as to regard as a shocking calamity, and in some cases as a terrible crime, is a great and noble thing, the source of all moral good in the universe, the supreme factor in human improvement, and in the struggle towards perfection. It is the anvil upon which all nations, and pre-eminently the Prussian people and the German Empire, are welded into higher forms. I will not pause to discuss the horrible and perverted casuistry that underlies this reasoning. I merely state it as a fact, which we have to take into account.
This being the German conception of war, it is not surprising to learn in these books that the right method to wage it is to assume the aggressive, to have no scruples, but to take your opponent at a disadvantage if you can. The saying of Frederick the Great is accepted with enthusiasm that "he is a fool, and that nation is a fool, who, having power to strike his enemy unawares, does not strike and strike his deadliest." Accordingly no engagements need be kept—on the contrary, it may be a sacred duty to violate them—and honour or fidelity to your pledged word is blotted out of the code of nations. Does not this explain, perhaps better than anything else, that little remark about the "scrap of paper," which will be for ever immortal in the history of mankind?
The next proposition is that war cannot be expected to
