VI

ENGLAND, FRANCE &
BELGIUM—ESPECIALLY ENGLANDToC

The False Islanders.

(Before the War.)

392. The climate, the want of wine, and lack of beautiful scenery, have all been obstacles in the way of English Kultur. H. v. Treitschke, P., Vol. i., p. 222.

393. The English nationalism is also cosmopolitanism: the service of his own nation appears to the Englishman the service of mankind. For he regards his own nation as the mistress of the highest Kultur-treasures, to which other nations look up in order to admire and imitate. Thus Anglification is identified with the furtherance of human Kultur.—G. v. Schulze-Gaevernitz, B.I., p. 49.

394. England's strength resides in arrogant self-esteem, Germany's greatness in the modest appreciation of everything foreign. England is self-seeking to the point of insanity, Germany is just even to self-depreciation.—Th. Fontane (about 1854), E.B., p. 389.

395. At the time of the illness of the Emperor Frederick, Treitschke, at the end of a long speech, summed up his sentiments in these words: "It must come to this that no German dog shall for evermore accept a piece of bread from the hand of an Englishman." These words, uttered in an outburst of passion, aroused no mirth, but went to the heart of the audience.—E.B., p. 395.

396. After the Boer War, Wildenbruch was done with England.... She was dead for him, and erased from the Book of Life. All the contempt which now leads us to raise, not the sword, but the whip, against that abortion compounded of low greed and shameless hypocrisy, he then screamed out to the world in words which we could not even to-day make bitterer or more scathing.—Prof. B. Litzmann, D.R.S.Z., No. 12, p. 13.397. It is just as Schleiermacher said a hundred years ago: "These false islanders, wrongly admired by many, have no other watchword but gain and enjoyment. They are never in earnest about anything that transcends practical utility."—Pastor M. Hennig, D.K.U.W., p. 37.

Hymns of Hate.

(After July, 1914.)

398. The war has laid bare the British soul, and a cold shudder goes through the Germanic Kultur-world.—"Germanus," B.U.D.K., p. 52.

398a. A hundred times more glowing than our steel, shall the mark of our contempt be branded upon thee. Wander thou as a lonely Ahasuerus, restless and unhappy, over land and sea. And if thou sayest, "I have flung the firebrand of hell from earth to heaven, over sea and land, I have struck God and mankind in the face, and must now bear all their curses, an everlasting stigma seared with fire," then shalt thou speak the truth for the first time.—Otto Riemasch, quoted in H.A.H., p. 49.399. No people has done so much harm to civilization as the English.—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 122.

400. King William I. issued on August 11, 1870, a proclamation to the effect that "Germany made war only against the armies of the enemy, not against the civil population."... There can be no doubt that, in the case of an eventual landing in England, the proclamation of the Emperor William II. to the English people would be couched in very different terms from those in which King William I. addressed the people of France.—A Hamburg Merchant, E.S.S.H., pp. 8, 10.

401. England has nothing but the instincts of a beast of prey. This alone can explain her foreign and domestic policy of the past decades. Her one object has been to increase her outward possessions and to let her own people starve.—K.L.A. Schmidt, D.E.E., p. 6.

401a. We willingly leave to the Britons their "freedom." It is nothing but the freedom of the English aristocracy to impose its will on the English people. It is the freedom of individuals, bought with the misery of millions and with the blood of hirelings.—Prof. W. v. Blume, D.D.M., p. 21.

But see No. 432, on the disgusting "comfort" of the British workman.

402. We need not be ashamed of our hatred [for England]. It is rooted in our love for our innocently suffering fellow-countrymen. This sanctifies it. The Gospel does not say, "If any one strikes thy child on the right cheek, turn to him also the left cheek of thy child," It speaks only of one's own cheek. But it also speaks of the hell-fire of which the offender stands in danger.—Prof. R. Leonhard, D.R.S.Z., No. 16.

403. Our war expenses will be paid by the vanquished. The black-white-red flag shall float over all seas.... The whole world shall stand open to us, to develop the energy of the German nature in unhampered competition.... We must break the tyranny which England, in base self-seeking and shameless contempt of law, exercises over the seas.—Prof. O. v. Gierke, D.R.S.Z., No. 2, p. 23.

404. It is high time to shake off the illusion that there is any moral law, or any historical consideration, that imposes upon us any sort of restraint with regard to England. Only absolute ruthlessness makes any impression on the Englishman; anything else he regards as weakness.... A corsaire, corsaire et demi!—Prof. O. Flamm, E.B., p. 400.

405. That foreign Kulturs offer us things of spiritual value, whether it be for our enjoyment or by way of a challenge, is true—always, of course, with the exception of England, which does not produce anything of spiritual value.—Prof. W. Sombart, H.U.H., p. 137.

406. Our real fight is against England, the master of calculation. The miraculous fights against the commonplace, German spirit against English shrewdness, imperturbable heroism against crafty statesmanship. Even those people who now think that they are fighting in the name of civilization against us barbarians, will shortly discover their mistake, and recognize the German miracle which has come to save the world from the spirit of calculating rationalism.—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 105.

407. It is certain that the present generation of continental Europe, which has been for fifteen months a daily witness of Great Britain's barbarous and infamous conduct of the war—the unexampled massacres, the shameless political falsity and hypocrisy, the cowardly ill-treatment of prisoners and wounded!—cannot possibly make any move towards reconciliation.—Prof. E. Haeckel, E.W., p. 113.

408. Hastily, and just at the time appointed for the murder of Franz Ferdinand, a friendly visit of battleships to Kiel is arranged[38]—for the other attempts to spy out the harbour had failed.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 67.408a. We have now ascertained that the plan for the assassination of the Austrian Crown-Prince was known in the Serbian Legation in London, and we shall certainly soon learn that it was known in other places as well.—K.L.A. Schmidt, D.E.E., p. 7.

409. That the blood-guiltiness of this "greatest crime in world-history" lies at the door of England alone and that she has for more than forty years been plotting the annihilation of her dangerous German competitor, has been established by numerous facts ... and, during the past three months, by the naÏve admissions of English statesmen.—Prof. E. Haeckel, E.W., p. 113.

410. It is a pity that Nietzsche did not live to see the success of his teaching in England.... Britain may claim to have bred the Superman in the highest potency yet attained. He has made a clean sweep of the old British morality. He is coldly and unfeelingly inspired by a frightful craving for power, that wades through rivers of blood, and knows neither compunction nor pity. These are weaknesses which the Superman has conquered.—"Germanus," B.U.D.K., p. 9.

But see No. 132.

411. It is a pity that men like Newton, Darwin, Shakespeare, Marlborough, Nelson, Wellington, Spurgeon, etc., should have their birth recorded in British registers. But they are exceptions. Among the millions of the Cities of the Plain, there must be a few just men.—Pastor B. LÖsche, D.S.E.S.D., p. 15.

411a. Death and destruction to the poison-mixers on the banks of the Thames! Cain, Ahab, Judas, Ephialtes, and the disciples of these master-assassins, whatever they may be called, are positive heroes in comparison with the ruffians who, jeering at all Kultur, have committed a crime against innocent blood which no words can characterize.—Pastor B. LÖsche,[39] D.S.E.S.D., p. 4.412. The unexampled sorrow and need begotten by the gigantic world-war conjured up by England's brutal egoism—"the greatest crime in the whole world-history"—has inclined many suffering people to suicide.—Prof. E. Haeckel, E.W., p. 39.

413. [Title.] "The Greatest Criminal against Humanity of the Twentieth Century, King Edward VII. of England. A Curse Pamphlet (Fluchschrift),[40] by Lieutenant-Colonel Reinhold Wagner." He it was, he it was that kindled the world-war. He was the incarnation of the boundless selfishness and unscrupulousness of Englishism (EnglÄndertum). Opening words of above-cited pamphlet.

414. White snow, white snow, fall, fall for seven weeks; all may'st thou cover, far and wide, but never England's shame; white snow, white snow, never the sins of England.—G. Falck, quoted in H.A.H., p. 50.

British Vices—Hypocrisy, Envy and Greed.

415. England thinks the hour has come for our annihilation. Why does she want to annihilate us? Because she cannot forgive our strength, our industry, our prosperity! There is no other explanation![41]—Prof. A. v. Harnack, I.M., 1st October, 1914, p. 25.

416. No other people has misused its riches as England has. With a hypocritically virtuous air, the British Chauvinist has for years been labouring to undermine the German name, and few can have divined with what means he went to work.—"Germanus," B.U.D.K., p. 47.

417. We cannot expect our enemies to try to do us justice—though we can, after all, sympathetically understand almost all of them, with the sole exception of the English, in whom the transparently base abstractness of the calculating business spirit lies beneath the level of humanity, and is so positively immoral as to be entirely outside the scope of sympathy.—G. Misch, V.G.D.K., p. 8.

418. And then England! She does not, like France, send all her sons into the field, but sends specially enlisted troops. There lurks the impelling evil spirit, which has conjured up this war out of hell—the spirit of envy and the spirit of hypocrisy.—Prof. U. v. Wilamowitz-MÖllendorf, R., pt. i., p. 7.

419. England is a Moloch that will devour everything, a vampire that will suck tribute from all the veins of the earth, a monster snake encircling the whole Equator.—"My German Fatherland," by Pastor Tolzien, quoted in H.A.H., p. 140.

420. In the last attempt at an Anglo-Saxon philosophy, Pragmatism, the test of truth became simply usefulness. It is true that most Englishmen turned against it. Why? Not because this view seemed to them false, but because they thought it inadvisable, and therefore sinful, to blurt out the secret.—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 121.

421. An English poet has invented a symbol that may well be applied to his own country: The Picture of Dorian Grey. In the eyes of the world, the hypocritical sinner seems to be endowed with the gift of unfading youth and beauty; but only because he has at home a sedulously concealed portrait of magical properties. In this the vices plough their furrows; in this the features are gradually contorted into a grisly image of guilt; until the day of judgment—the day of self-judgment.—Prof. U. v. Wilamowitz-MÖllendorf, R., pt. iv., p. 16.

422. Oscar Wilde once wrote an essay on The Art of Lying, and his countrymen have since carried this art to a high perfection.—H. S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 10.

422a. Another vice has been developed to its highest pitch in this war: to wit, lying. England in particular has established a record in this department, even as against the Father of Lies, the Devil.—Prof. F. Delitzsch, D.R.S.Z., No. 13, p. 20.

422b. Never since human Kultur has existed has such a deluge of lies and slanders, of fraud and hypocrisy, been poured forth as ... "pious" England has spread abroad in the name of the triune Christian God. And this shameless hypocrisy must appear all the more revolting, since every one who is at all behind the scenes knows that this British Christian God is in truth the Bank of England, the sacred "Golden Calf," the idolatrous worship of which is the chief aim of Pambritismus, the lordship of England over all other peoples.—Prof. E. Haeckel, E.W., p. 59.

423. We must be wroth, and we will be wroth, with the whole power of our inner man. We will hate the will of the nation which has so basely set upon our peace-loving people in order to destroy us. We will hate the Satanic powers of arrogance and selfishness, of treachery and cruelty, of lying and hypocrisy. We will fight without scruple, and employ all means of destruction, however terrible they may be. We cannot do otherwise; but we do not hate the individual human beings.... The true, beneficent hatred applies to things, not persons.—The Fifth Petition in the Lord's Prayer and England, by Pastor J. Lahusen, quoted in H.A.H., p. 162.423a. The curse of millions of hapless people falls on the head of the British island kingdom, whose boundless national egoism knows no other goal than the extension of British rule over the whole planet, the exploitation of all other nations to its own benefit, and the filling of its insatiable purse with the gold of all other peoples.—Prof. E. Haeckel, quoted by P. Heinsick, W.U.G., p. 4.

424. It is an almost sinister self-contradiction: the individual Englishman, in private life, is by no means devoid of a certain outward decency, perhaps because he thinks it pays: but the public morals of England do not shrink from any baseness.—Prof. G. Roethe, D.R.S.Z., No. 1, p. 14.

425. It is certain that it was in England that humanity first fell sick of the huckster view of the world. But the English ailment had spread further, and above all it had already begun to attack the body of even the German people.—Prof. W. Sombart, H.U.H., p. 99.425a. Covetousness, a huckstering spirit, a thirst for gain, calculating envy, hypocrisy—what despicable vices have they not become to us. We spit at them, we hate them, just because they are British.... Now we walk in gentle innocence through homely pastures, free from greed of money, stripped of all cunning, because—just because it is all British.—Pastor D. Vorwerk, quoted in H.A.H., p. 39.

426. The much-lauded missionary spirit was only a business enterprise, by means of which John Bull filled his purse.—"The Christianity of the Belligerent Nations," by Pastor Erdmann, quoted in H.A.H., p. 146.

427. England avers that she makes war against us without hatred, and thinks she is thereby giving proof of high civilization. It is precisely the proof of her cold-hearted baseness.... The self-controlled English gentleman, who makes unemotional war out of commercial envy, is more devilish than the Cossack. He stands to the Frenchman in the relation of the sneaking murderer for gain to the murderer from passion. The gentleman-burglar of Conan Doyle expresses the soul of the nation.—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 15.

428. A nice protector of outraged national rights!!! Thus Richard, Duke of Gloucester, appears with prayer-book and rosary on the terrace of the castle, thus Mephistopheles dons the mask of lawyer and philosopher, thus Iscariot kisses the Saviour.—"My German Fatherland," by Pastor Tolzien, quoted in H.A.H., p. 142.

429. Never has the mass-misery of war ... presented itself to us in such grisly shapes as in this terrible world-war, which has been forced upon us solely by the commercial envy and the brutal egoism of the Christian model-state, England.—Prof. E. Haeckel, E.W., p. 27.

British Vices—Cowardice and Laziness.

430. It is the English who may justly be accused of militarism—the people who, in addition to Irish and Scottish hirelings (they themselves, as a rule, prefer to remain at home) place Hindus and Indian mountaineers in the field.—Prof. W. Wundt, D.N.I.P., p. 143.

431. Envy is utterly foreign to the German nature. But one exception we must now admit. We old fellows ... look with envy at the young, who are risking their fresh life and strength for the Fatherland. Of this envy, at any rate, we must acquit England: its best youth remains quietly at home, and wins victories in the football field, leaving it to salaried hirelings to shed their blood.—Prof. G. Roethe, D.R.S.Z., No. 1, p. 11.

432. The doctrine of comfort, as a view of the world, certainly comes of evil, and a people who are filled with it, like the English, are little more than a heap of living corpses. The whole body of the people begins to rot.... In England to-day every trade unionist is stuck in the morass of comfort.—Prof. W. Sombart, H.U.H., p. 102.

433. As soon as it comes to the sanguinary reality, the English hireling's heart drops into his breeches. And the English Scotchmen have not even breeches for it to drop into.—O. Siemens, W.L.K.D., p. 19.

434. Whence should courage come?... In our German soldiers it springs from honest German wrath. But the Englishman must shout himself into courage. When the first English troops landed in France, they sang gaily and interrupted their songs by shouts of "Are we down-hearted?" Whereupon the English hireling sought to keep up his spirits by an answering shout of "No!" ... Only their own timidity suggests to the English such questions as to their courage. One need not be any great psychologist to realize this.—O. Siemens, W.L.K.D., p. 19.

435. The cunning and unscrupulousness of the pirate does, indeed, survive in the English sailor; he lies in ambush for neutral merchant-ships[!], lays mines in the fairway of neutral neighbour States, and commits deeds of violence of the most manifold kinds; but the resolution of the pirate, the daring intrepidity in attack, he no longer possesses.—"Germanus," B.U.D.K., p. 43.436. The great majority of the English Army are to this day Keltic Irishmen and Keltic Scotchmen; the real Englishmen do not enlist. In the English battles of the past, Englishmen of the nobility no doubt were in command, but the armies consisted of foreign mercenaries, for the most part Germans.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 51.

437. England might, in league with Germany, have dictated Kultur to the whole world ... if she had not been untrue to the Gospel of Work!—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 61.

438. The English race ... must always be stimulated by the infusion of new blood, otherwise it would perish of its own indolence.—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 21.

Treachery to Germanism.

439. England is now showing on what feeble feet its Germanism rests, how unsound, how profoundly unworthy of the German Thought it is. It cannot shake off its bitter accusers—its Shakespeare and Carlyle, its Dickens and Kingsley. It has committed treason against the spirit of its greatest men, who were filled with the certainty that the German Thought must conquer, and that this victory must be the victory ... of Kultur, civilization and spiritual progress.—K. Engelbrecht, D.D.D.K., p. 57.

440. Would to God Professor Engel were right in maintaining that the English are Kelts. Then we should not have to be ashamed of our brothers!—Pastor B. LÖsche, D.S.E.S.D., p. 4.

441. It is useless for publicists to encourage the popular belief that the English prove by their behaviour that they are no longer Teutons; for Teutons they are, and purer Teutons than many Germans.[42]—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 45.

442. Does one German cousin fight against another? We good-natured idealists have always dwelt upon this German cousinship. The three-quarters-Keltic England has no feeling of common Germanism.—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 15.443. What about ... our dear cousins the English, those hucksters whose Germanism we have at last begun openly to question.... Though the English language is doubtless Germanic, that is by no means a proof that the Keltic bastards have acquired the German nature (Wesen). We do not count the English-speaking American negroes as belonging to the white race.—O. Siemens, W.L.K.D., p. 18.

444. Against us stands the world's greatest sham of a people ... the Judas among nations, who this time, for a change, betrays Germanism for thirty pieces of silver. Against us stands sensual France, the harlot (Dirne) among the peoples, to be bought for any prurient excitement, shameless, unblushing, impudent and cowardly [!] with her worthless myrmidons.—"War Devotions," by Pastor J. Rump, quoted in H.A.H., p. 117.

Sir Edward Grey and his Colleagues.

445. Abysmal hypocrisy ... the national vice has been incarnated for us in Sir Edward Grey.—Prof. G. Roethe, D.R.S.Z., No. i, p. 14.

446. When that English gentleman, Minister Grey, who has a cancerous tumour in place of a heart, in the end has to reap the infamy he deserves, he will promptly cast it from him as dirt with his horse-hoof.—Pastor Tolzien, in "Patriotic-Evangelical War Lectures," quoted in H.A.H., p. 141.

447. The Englishman treats the foreigner, when he does not need him, as thin air, when he does need him, as a piece of goods; consequently, when he sits in the Cabinet, he considers that, towards a foreign State, a lie is not a lie, deceit is not deceit, and a surprise attack in time of peace is a perfectly legitimate measure, so long as it serves England's interests.—Prof. W. Wundt, D.N.I.P., p. 131.

448. Sir Edward Grey possesses in a singular degree the gift of carrying on business with complete control of all emotion and elimination of all deep thought. Every third word of such person is the untranslatable, elusive, "I dare say."—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 14.

449. The untruthfulness and unscrupulous brutality with which the English Cabinet carries on the war place it far below the level of Muscovite morality.—"Germanus."—B.U.D.K., p. 35.

450. The English diplomatist of the type of Sir Edward Grey holds honesty in political matters to be a blunder and a sin. Therefore he usually expresses himself in a form which is capable of several interpretations.—"Germanus," B.U.D.K., p. 18.

451. Sir Edward Grey has for years presided over all the peace conferences—only to ensure the coming of the projected war; he has for years sought a "better understanding" with Germany—only to prevent the honest German statesmen and diplomats from suspecting that a war of annihilation had been irrevocably decreed; the German Emperor, at the last moment, had almost averted the danger of war—Grey, the unctuous apostle of peace, contrived so to shuffle the cards as to render it inevitable.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 66.

For "shuffling the cards" compare No. 371.

452. The President of the United States, Professor Wilson ... allows American munition works to supply our enemies with unlimited quantities of war material, favours the infamous design of England to starve out Germany, and rises in his "peace" speeches to a height of political and religious hypocrisy in no way inferior to that attained by the English "million-murderer" Grey.—Prof. E. Haeckel, E.W., p. 61.

Britain's Great Illusion.[43]

453. The English regard themselves as the Chosen People, towards which all others are predestined to stand in a relation of more or less complete dependence.—Prof. U. v. Wilamowitz-MÖllendorf, R. pt. iv., p. 19.

454. Strange as it may appear to us, it is nevertheless unquestionable that all England has from of old been penetrated with the idea that her attainment of uncontested colonial and maritime power was not only to her interest but to that of the whole world, the dominion over which God had Himself assigned to her, and that therefore all means to this beneficent end were permissible and well-pleasing to God.—J. Riesser, E.U.W., p. 10.

455. Just because the English found their national feeling on the consciousness of their kultural successes, and the belief that they alone are God's chosen people on earth, every desire of other peoples to assert equality of rights appears to their self-conceit an offence against the will of God.—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 31.

456. The belief in the Kultur-mission entrusted to it by God, in preference to all other peoples, has grown into the very flesh and blood of the English people.—Prof. F. Keutgen, B.R.K., p. 7.

457. The English hold that they are literally descended from the ten tribes [!]. But we Germans do not base our relation to Israel on any such fleshly foundation. The German people are the spiritual, the religious parallel of the people of Israel, they are "the true Israel begotten of the Spirit."—Dr. Preuss, quoted in H.A.H., p. 213.

458. Many of the best, most unselfish and most modest Englishmen pray to God in all good faith that He would at last open the eyes of the German people, and especially of the German Emperor, that they may see how wrong and even sinful it is to place any further hindrances in the way of the expansion of the Kingdom of God on earth by "His chosen people," that is to say, the English themselves.—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 12.

459. The Briton regards himself as chosen by Providence, the elect of the Lord, entrusted with a special mission on this earth, and placed under the immediate protection of Heaven, with a first claim upon all the good things of the earth.—"Germanus," B.U.D.K., p. 11.

460. Our duty to ourselves, and to our English fellow-creatures—since we would fain be, not an imaginary "chosen people" but true children of God—is to give them such a thorough thrashing that they may once for all be cured of the fatal illusion that they have established a monopoly in the dear Lord God, and that the rest of humanity is destined only to serve as a stool for their clumsy feet!—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 70.

461. Perhaps the reason that England's power now stands in so great peril is that, in her self-deceiving vanity, she thought that God had guaranteed her the dominion of the world.—Pastor M. Hennig, D.K.U.W., P. 86.

462. It is a matter of fact that the greater part of the English people cherish the pathological imagination that they alone are the true pioneers of Kultur and culture.—Prof. E. Haeckel, E.W., p. 115.

463. The English now assert the claim of their Kultur to be the only existing, and, indeed, the God-appointed summit of human development, which to attain would mean salvation for all humanity. This is a positively grotesque mixture of national pride and religiosity.—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 12.

464. "England Über alles" has in England a very solid meaning, as compared with our quite ideally conceived "Deutschland Über alles." An immense self-assurance, partly reposing on the notion of being in a special sense God's chosen people, gives to these claims a certain inward foundation. In the consciousness of an alleged superiority of moral Kultur, the English aspire to rule the world.—Prof. R. Seeberg, D.R.S.Z., No. 15, p. 28.

465. Alone among Kultur-peoples, the English know only themselves, and regard all others, without exception, as foreign, inferior creatures, towards whom Nature decrees that the laws of morality, as between man and man, should not hold good, any more than they hold good towards animals and plants.[44]—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 49.

466. There are, of course, many sincerely pious Christians in England. But either they are impotent as against the prevailing passion, or they are blinded by the illusion of the "chosen people," and have therefore lost all power of sober self-criticism.—Oberlehrer Hermann Schuster, D.K.K.

Comic Relief.

467. England understands by freedom only club-law, with the club always in her own hand.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 22.

468. Since the Cromwellian rule of the sword, the army is so hated in England that an officer, going on duty from his home to the barracks, has to drive in a closed carriage.—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 41.

469. I found everywhere in England, during my last visits in 1907 and 1908, a positively terrifying blind hatred for Germany, and impatient longing for a war of annihilation.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 12.

470. England's army of postal officials amounts to 213,000, distributed through 24,245 post offices; the German Empire has 50,500 post offices and 305,000 officials. Now we can understand—can we not?—why England envies us.—Pastor M. Hennig, D.K.U.W., p. 39.

471. One finds in England no geniality, no broad, kindly humour, no gaiety. Everything—so far as the outward life is concerned—is hurry, money, noise, ostentation, snobbery, vulgarity, arrogance, discontent, envy.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 60.

472. King Edward VII., while he was Prince of Wales, was often a guest of the London Savage Club, which is so "exclusive" that the Prince could not become a member.—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 131.

473. Discipline within the parties is maintained with Draconian severity by the so-called "Whips" (i.e., Peitschenschwingern, lash-wielders); and woe to the member who should dare to express his own opinion!—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 17.

474. The English admit that, owing to the demoralizing influence of Edward VII., they are in a state of religious, social and economic decadence, but their illusion as to the incomparable superiority of England prevents them from tracing the evil to its true source, and as some one must be to blame for it, the fault must of course lie with the rapidly climbing Germany.—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 34.

475. Every man wears the same trousers, every woman the same hat. I remember once being unable to find in all London a single blue necktie—blue was not the fashion. This would have been unthinkable in Berlin, Paris or Vienna.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 18.

476. Thus science, which to us is a very serious matter, is to the Englishman, like everything else—except money-making!—like, for instance, politics, administration, the care of the poor, &c.,—a private hobby, a sort of sport.—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 43.

477. On the day of the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, one walks, in the giant city of London, through literally empty (buchstÄblich leere) streets. From the oldest duchess to the youngest chimney sweep, all are seized with the same mad enthusiasm for this event.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 18.

478. [Puritanism leads to] that shrinking from the frank expression of emotions which (for example) explains the fact that cultivated England reads its great poet Shakespeare for the most part in editions in which everything is deleted that could give offence to a sensitive old maid.—Prof. W. Wundt, D.N.I.P., p. 32.

479. At the parliamentary elections [before the war] nothing is spoken of but the hatred for Germany, which animates the speaker and his audience.—K.L.A. Schmidt, D.E.E., p. 10.

480. [British ignorance is] so horrific that a German can scarcely conceive it. Five years ago, in a town of 40,000 inhabitants, it was impossible to find a single man, who, for payment, could read English correctly to an invalid.—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 18.481. Attention has recently been drawn, by an authoritative writer, to the fact that English biology and the theory of evolution, which have achieved so much celebrity, are in essence nothing but the transference of liberal middle-class views to the processes of life seen in nature.—Prof. W. Sombart, H.U.H., p. 17.

482. Is the noble land of Shakespeare fighting against us? Not at all; for Shakespeare we have long conquered. He has long been more a German than an English poet.—O.A.H. Schmitz, D.W.D., p. 15.

483. About the middle of the last century, England was in a fair way to save herself from decadence through the revivifying virtue of the philosophico-ethical influence of Germany.—Prof. A. SchrÖer, Z.C.E., p. 69.

484. England is incapable of producing a people's army (Volksarmee).[45]—H.S. Chamberlain, K.A., p. 50.

See also Nos. 3, 146, 147, 174, 176, 178, 179.

France.

485. The English pirate-soul and French Chauvinism were bound to seek and find each other.—P. Rohrbach, W.D.K., p. 14.

486. Beasts who spring upon us we can only treat as beasts, but the bestial hatred which impels them we must not allow to arise in us.—Prof. F. Meinecke, D.D.E., p. 51.

487. At no former time could the French soldier be reproached with cowardice.... If his present conduct is so far beneath his reputation ... it is because he lacks the stimulus of enthusiasm, because he knows that it is not his country that is sending him forth to battle, but only an ambitious and short-sighted Government, because he is conscious that he is not fighting for a great and noble cause, but for a mean and dirty one.—W. Helm, W.W.S.M., p. 11.

488. For honour's sake another hundred thousand men may be sacrificed, but there must be an end to that. Then it is all over with France as a great Power.... These men [the French Ministry] or others like them must make peace! Some one must make it, for the bloodshed cannot go on forever. But what sort of a peace will it be? VÆ victis! Not till now has Bismarck's victory been complete.—F. Naumann, Member of the Reichstag, D.U.F., p. 8.

489. We will do well to leave to France the outward boundaries of a great Power, if only that we may not figure as the tyrants of Europe.—P. Rohrbach, W.D.K., p. 28.

490. The defeat which France is now suffering is only the expiation of guilt which is already a century old.... The twenty years of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had left the French a mere set of individuals who care nothing for the maintenance of their race: Æsthetes and dandies, money-grubbers and Bohemians.—K. Engelbrecht, D.D.D.K., p. 51.

491. [As to the origin of the war] the French, as England's trusty henchmen, obediently repeat what England tells them. If Don Quixote rides at the windmills, Sancho Panza must keep pace with him.—Prof. W.V. Blume, D.D.M., p. 11.

See also No. 3.

Belgium.

492. Belgium, the granary and armoury, is predestined to be the battlefield in the struggle for the Meuse and the Rhine. I ask any general or statesman who has seriously considered the problems of war and politics, whether Belgium can remain neutral in a European war—that is to say, can be respected as neutral any longer than may appear expedient to the Power which feels itself possessed of the best advantage for attack.—Ernst Moritz Arndt (1834), quoted in H.A.H., p. 22.

493. If Sir Edward Grey had urged neutrality [!] upon Belgium, he would have done that country the greatest possible service.—"Germanus," B.U.D.K., p. 36.

494. Where the people of Israel had to demand a passage through foreign territory, they were expressly enjoined first to offer the inhabitants peace (Deuteronomy, xx., 10). Only when the right of transit was denied them, was the sword to be drawn and the passage forced. In such a case ... Israel calls the wars in which it has to engage, wars of Jehovah. Its God is indeed a man of war, the Lord of the hosts of Israel. The Scripture even goes so far as to ascribe the subsequent corruption of the people to the fact that it did not completely annihilate the inhabitants of the conquered country.[46]—Pastor M. Hennig, D.K.U.W., p. 6.

495. If Belgium takes part in the war, it must be wiped off the map of Europe.[47]—R. Theuden, W.M.K.B., v., p. 10.496. How our adversaries understood neutrality is most strikingly summed up in the following passage from the Paris paper Le National, which appeared as early as November 16, 1834 [!] "Le jour viendra ou ... la neutralitÉ de la Belgique, en cas de guerre europÉenne, disparaitra devant le voeu du peuple beige.... La Belgique se rangera naturellement du cÔtÉ de la France!"—Prof. C. Borchling, D.B.P., p. 5.

497. A Belgian journalist who had ventured into LiÈge writes:—"The Germans behave quietly. What they require they pay for in ready money. The pigeons which nest in the Place St. Lambert have a corner of the place where they are fed. The Germans have respected this corner, though they have occupied the rest of the place."—Pastor D.M. Hennig, D.K.U.W., p. 91.

498. See what the war has laid bare in others! What have we learnt of the soul of Belgium? Has it not revealed itself as the soul of cowardice and assassination? They have no moral forces within them; therefore they resort to the torch and the dagger.—Prof. U.V. Wilamowitz-MÖllendorf, R., i., p. 6.

499. The fate that Belgium has called down upon herself is hard for the individual, but not too hard for this political structure (Staatsgebilde), for the destinies of the immortal great nations stand so high that they cannot but have the right, in case of need, to stride over existences that cannot defend themselves, but live, as parasites, upon the rivalries of the great.—Prof. H. Oncken, S.M., September, 1914, p. 819.

500. Our Chancellor has, with the scrupulous conscientiousness peculiar to him, admitted that we were guilty of a certain wrong [towards Belgium]. Here I cannot follow him.... When David, in the pinch of necessity, took the shew-bread from the table of the Lord, he was absolutely in the right; for at that moment the letter of the law no longer existed.—Prof. A.V. Harnack, I.M., 1st October, 1914, p. 23.

501. We were in the position of a man who, being attacked from two sides, has to carry on a furious fight for life, and cannot concern himself overmuch as to whether one or two flowers are trodden down in his neighbour's garden.—Prof. Dr. W. Dibelius, W.W.E., p. 5.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] If this does not mean that England was an accessory before the fact to the murder of the Archduke, what does it mean? The passage is quoted with approval by Dr. Prockosch. Englische Politik und englischer Volksgeist, p. 34.