Munich
share of our professorial teaching and concept of history in this blunder can scarcely be made good, and is but the most striking proof of how many people “learn” history without grasping or even understanding it. People should have recognized England as the very most crushing disproof of the theory; no people has ever more brutally prepared with the sword for its economic conquests, or more ruthlessly defended them afterward, than the English. Is it not the very most characteristic feature of British diplomacy to derive economic gain from political power, and, conversely, at once to transform every economic advance into political strength? And what a mistake to think that England was personally too cowardly to back up its economic policy with its own blood! The fact that the English people lacked a “national army” was no proof; for this is not a question of the particular military form of the armed forces, but of the will and determination to exert whatever force there is. England always had what armament she required. She always fought with the weapons which success demanded. She fought with mercenaries as long as mercenaries were enough; she dipped deep into the best blood of the whole nation when such a sacrifice was essential to bring victory; but the resolution for the struggle and the tenacity and ruthlessness with which it was conducted remained always the same.
But the German schools, press and comic journals gradually created an idea of the Englishman, and even more of his Empire, which was bound to lead to fatal self-deception. Everyone was gradually affected by this nonsense, and the result was an underestimate for which we paid most bitterly. The falsification was so profound that people firmly believed they were faced, in the Englishman, with a business man whose sharp practice was equaled only by his incredible personal cowardice. Unfortunately it did not occur to our exalted teachers of professorial wisdom that a world empire the size of England’s could not well be gathered together by sneak-thievery and swindling. The few men who sounded a warning were not listened to, or were met with a conspiracy of silence. I can still remember the astonish-
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