land were in a deplorable state of unreadiness, were partially absolutely useless for war purposes. Under such circumstances, where one knows that one's chances will be far more favorable in a few years, it would be worse than foolish to provoke a war. First the German fleet had to be put in order; the great military bill Had to be pushed through the Reichstag. In the summer of 1914 Germany was prepared for war, while France was still laboring over its three years military service program, while in Russia neither the army nor the naval program were ready. It was up to Germany to utilize the auspicious moment."
The same Rohrbach, who is not only the most serious representative of imperialism in Germany, but is also in intimate touch with the leading circles in German politics and is their semi-official mouthpiece, comments upon the situation in July, 1914, as follows. "At this time there was only one danger, that we might be morally forced, by an apparent acquiescence on the part of Russia, to wait until Russia and France were really prepared." In other words, Germany feared nothing so much as that Russia might give in. "With deep pain we saw our untiring efforts to preserve world peace shipwrecked, etc., etc."
The invasion of Belgium, therefore, and the accomplished fact of war was not a bolt from the blue. It did not create a new, unheard of situation. Nor was it an event that came, in its political associations, as a complete surprise to the social-democratic group. The world war that began officially on August 4th, 1914, was the same world war toward which German imperialism had been driving for decades, the same war whose coming the Social-Democracy had prophesied year after year. This same war has been denounced by social-democratic parliamentarians, newspapers and leaflets a thousand times as a frivolous imperialistic crime, as a war that is against every interest of culture and against every interest of the nation.
And, indeed, not the "existence and the independent develop-
