Various

“ It is impossible that the New World should remain a simple spectator before the gigantic struggle which is progressing in Europe. I do not ask that the New World intervene by armed force, but that it shall not conceal its opinion, its aversion for that horror which is called reaction and which truly is only death; that it shall not conceal its indignation for the abominable calculation of that reaction which is incapable of comprehending anything of the life, the work, the science and the art of human genius. ”

“ To those who love peace there can be no other hope in the present conflict than the defeat, the utter discrediting of the German legend, the ending for good and all of the blood and iron superstition, of Krupp, flag-wagging Teutonic Kiplingism, and all that criminal, sham efficiency that centres in Berlin. Never was war so righteous as war against Germany now. Never has any State in the world so clamored for punishment. ”

“ A system which has brought disaster to Germany and chaos to all Europe can never, one would think, be resumed, and amid the debris of his empire the German may pick up that precious jewel of personal freedom which is above the splendor of foreign conquest. A Hapsburg or a Hohenzollern may find his true place as the servant rather than the master of a nation. But apart from Germany, look at the effects which our victory must have over the whole wide world. ”

“ She has admitted defeat and swallowed the leek before, though it is a long time ago. Meanwhile she has forgotten, and her opponents seem to have forgotten also, that though her name is Prussia she is subject to the limitations of the human race. Out of her prodigious score off little Denmark, her thrashing of Austria—a country which never wins a war—and her victory over France, there grew a legend that Prussia, and therefore Germany, was not as other nations. This legend is contrary to fact. Every nation must yield to force—here, indeed, is Germany's contribution to our common knowledge. ”

“ We fight for the strong, deep Germany of old, the Germany of music and of philosophy, against this monstrous modern aberration the Germany of blood and of iron, the Germany from which, instead of the old things of beauty, there come to us only the rant of scolding professors with their final reckonings, their Weltpolitik, and their Godless theories of the Superman who stands above morality and to whom all humanity shall be subservient. ”

“ Such a fate is this war. No one wanted it in our Germany, for it was forced upon us with terrible arbitrariness, contrary to all right. Do you not know of the net that has been spun around us and drawn tight for the last half of a generation, to choke us? Do you not know how often this most peaceful of peoples has drawn back, how often the strange powers in the East and in the West have with contemptuous snarls said, "Wilhelm will not make war"? That you ought to know, Rolland, for it is known to the whole world. ”

“ The people, all those who are now devoted to my policy, to our policy, remain more faithful than ever. They keep silent awaiting the end of the war and knowing well that in fact it is not so much a question of Germany as of German reaction, German imperialism, and German militarism. They know also that if the German reaction might have been crushed sooner, the war would not have broken out. Thus, far from being blind, public opinion is alive to the truth. The grandeur, and to speak the whole truth, alas, the beauty of the atrocious war is that it is a war of liberation. ”

“ Instead of the world-inspiring phrases of a Goethe or a Schiller, what are the words in the last decade which have been quoted across the sea? Are they not always the ever-recurring words of wrath from one ill-balanced man? "Strike them with the mailed fist." "Leave such a name behind you as Attila and his Huns." "Turn your weapons even upon your own flesh and blood at my command." These are the messages which have come from this perversion of a nation's soul. ”

“ What would The Daily News and The Manchester Guardian have said had he, Bismarck-like, said bluntly: "If war once breaks out, the old score between England and Prussia will be settled, not by ambassadors' tea parties and Areopaguses, but by blood and iron?" In vain did Sazonoff repeat, "But if you are going to fight, as you know you are, why not say so?" Sir Edward, being Sir Edward and not Winston Churchill or Lloyd George, could not admit that he was going to fight. He might have forestalled the dying Pope and his noble Christian "I bless peace" by a noble, if heathen, "I fight war." ”

“ If you wish to pay honor to the cause of truth you will be as firmly convinced as we are that German troops, wherever they had to do destructive work, could only have done so in the bitterness of defensive warfare. But we appeal to all those whom the slanderous reports of our enemies reach and who are not yet altogether blinded by passion, in the name of truth and justice, to shut their ears to such insults to the German people, and not allow themselves to be prejudiced by those who prove ever anew that they hope to be victorious by the instrumentality of lies. ”

“ This culture was not able to bear the light of the eighteenth century, still less that of the nineteenth, and now, in this twentieth century, it breaks out and threatens us—this unorganized mob, this mob of Asia; like the sands of the desert it would sweep down over our harvest fields. That we already know; we are already experiencing it. That, too, the Americans know, for every one who has stood upon the ground of our civilization and who with a keen glance regards the present situation knows that the word must be: "Peoples of Europe, save your most hallowed possessions!" ”

“ The French blasphemer has never blasphemed against the idea of truth even when he mistook falsehood for it. In the Terror he said there was no God, because he believed there was none, but he never said that France was God so that he might encourage her to conquer the world. Voltaire was an imp of destruction perhaps, but with what a divine lightning of laughter would he have struck the Teutonic Antichrist, and how the everlasting soul of France would have risen in him if he could have seen her most sacred church, the visible sign of her faith and her genius, ruined by the German guns. ”

“ Such would be the miserable condition in which we should hand on to our children that free and glorious empire which we inherited in all the fullness of its richness and its splendor from those strong fathers who have built it up. What peace of mind, what self-respect could be left for us in the remainder of our lives! The weight of dishonor would lie always upon our hearts. And yet this will be surely our fate and our future if we do not nerve our souls and brace our arms for victory. ”

“ Never in its worst nightmares had hallucinated imagination conjured up the progress made in the art of mowing down human lives. The German Army, to which the German Nation has never refused anything, either moral support or money, the nerve of war, has been able to profit by all this progress, to reduce to a formula the violence which drives forward the attack, to prepare the spy system which watches over the unarmed foe, to organize even incendiarism, and to become thus, forged by forty-four years of hatred, the most formidable tool of destruction that has ever sown ruin and death. ”

“ Fatality is the excuse of souls that lack a will.
No. This war is the fruit of the feebleness of peoples and of their stupidity. One can only pity them; one cannot blame them. I do not reproach you for our sorrows. Your mourning will not be less than ours. If France is ruined, so also will be Germany. I did not even raise my voice when I saw your armies violate the neutrality of noble Belgium. This forfeit of honor, which compels the contempt of every right-thinking mind, is too well within the political tradition of Prussian Kings to have surprised me. ”

“ It has cost us all the deepest pain to find the Germany which we love so intensely committing this act of lawless aggression on a weak people, and a Christian nation becoming a mere army with army ethics. We loathe war of any kind. A war with Germany cuts us to the very quick. But we sincerely believe that Great Britain in this conflict is fighting for conscience, justice, Europe, humanity, and lasting peace. ”

“ But let me test the Militarist theory, not by a hypothetical future, but by the accomplished and irrevocable past. Is it true that nations must conquer or go under, and that military conquest means prosperity and power for the victor and annihilation for the vanquished? I have already alluded in passing to the fact that Austria has been beaten repeatedly: by France, by Italy, by Germany, almost by everybody who has thought it worth while to have a whack at her; and yet she is one of the Great Powers; and her alliance has been sought by invincible Germany. ”

“ Our Militarist Junkers cried "If we let Germany conquer France it will be our turn next." Our romantic Junkers added "and serve us right too: what man will pity us when the hour strikes for us, if we skulk now?" Even the wise, who loathe war, and regard it as such a dishonour and disgrace in itself that all its laurels cannot hide its brand of Cain, had to admit that police duty is necessary and that war must be made on such war as the Germans had made by attacking France in an avowed attempt to substitute a hegemony of cannon for the comity of nations. ”

“ The German Empire is a rock of peace, der Hort des Friedens. The force which it accumulates is directed toward imposing upon mankind the German peace, the divine peace. Since Germany represents peace, whoever opposes Germany intends war. Now it is legitimate that Germany should arm to the teeth because she is the incarnation of peace, but the adversaries of Germany, who, in opposing Germany oppose peace, cannot have the same right. It is the duty of Germany to carry her armaments to the maximum; other peoples have the right to arm only as Germany may permit. ”

“ What have we to gain if we win? That we have nothing material to gain, no colonies which we covet, no possessions of any sort that we desire, is the final proof that the war has not been provoked by us. No nation would deliberately go out of its way to wage so hazardous and costly a struggle when there is no prize for victory. But one enormous indirect benefit we will gain if we can make Germany a peaceful and harmless State. We will surely break her naval power and take such steps that it shall not be a menace to us any more. ”

“ We should be sinking to the Kaiser's level if we answer his "contemptible little army" by pretending that his own troops are anything but a very formidable and big army. They are formidable in numbers, formidable, too, in their patriotic devotion, in their native courage, and in the possession of such material, such great cannon, aircraft, machine guns, and armored cars as none of the Allies can match. They have every advantage which a nation would be expected to have when it has known that war was a certainty, while others have only treated it as a possibility. ”

“ There are duels in Germany; but so there are in France, Italy, Belgium, Spain; indeed, there are duels wherever there are dentists, newspapers, Turkish baths, time tables, and all the curses of civilization—except in England and a corner of America. You may happen to regard the duel as a historic relic of the more barbaric States on which these modern States were built. It might equally well be maintained that the duel is everywhere the sign of high civilization, being the sign of its more delicate sense of honor, its more vulnerable vanity, or its greater dread of social disrepute. ”

“ We have forces here quite different from those on the surface—forces that are secret, irresistible, profound. It is these we must judge, must crush under heel once for all, for they are the only ones that will not be improved, softened or brought into line by experience, progress, or even the bitterest lesson. They are unalterable, immovable. Their springs lie far beneath hope or influence. They must be destroyed as we destroy a nest of wasps, since we know these never can change into a nest of bees. ”

“ And this is one of many overwhelming reasons for building the State on equality of income, because without it equality of status and general culture is impossible. Democracy without equality is a delusion more dangerous than frank oligarchy and autocracy. And without Democracy there is no hope of peace, no chance of persuading ourselves that the sacredness of civilization will protect it any more than the sacredness of the cathedral of Rheims has protected it, not against Huns and Vandals, but against educated German gentlemen. ”

“ If I know anything of the German people it will go hard with him when the war is over, if he has not had the sense to get killed. But that won't rear again the grand old stones or wipe from Germany's honor the stain of that long line of murdered men and women—whatever its actual length may have been. War puts a premium on brutality and senselessness. Men with the intelligence and instincts of an ape suddenly find themselves possessed of the powers of a god. ”

“ At all events, I should be trifling grossly with the facts of the situation if I pretended that the most absolute autocracy in Europe, commanding an inexhaustible army in an invincible country with a dominion stretching from the Baltic to the Pacific, may not, if it achieves a military success against the most dreaded military Power in Europe, be stirred to ambitions far more formidable to western liberty and human welfare than those of which Germany is now finding out the vanity after worrying herself and everyone else with them for forty years. ”