organisation
proportionate to so vast an expansion."

Is this feeling justified? Does it appreciate
facts at their exact value? _There is undoubtedly
an influential section in Germany which entertains
feelings of this kind._ It has its adherents
particularly in naval circles and amongst the
intellectuals of the nation and in a considerable
degree also in the financial world. These sections
hate in England partly the happy possessor of what
in their opinion ought by right to belong to the
German race and partly the power without which
German expansion would meet with no resistance
worth speaking of by European nations. _This
section of anti-English on principle or by deeply
rooted hatred, influential as it is, is, however,
not the whole nation._ It has only now the hold of
her mind because it has succeeded in instilling
into her the belief that England is the secret
manufacturer of the present war, that she is the
selfish fermenter of hatred in Europe, the
scheming brewer of strife on the Continent.
England has become to the average German mind a
real nightmare, a sort of a Frankenstein or any
such spookish monster, and as she now, by the
vicissitudes of the war, has indeed become the
most dangerous of Germany's opponents it is not
possible to educate people from the inside to a
more rational view of her part in this war and in
European politics altogether.

There you have the greatest hindrances to peace in
Europe. I did not mention Russia. But the war
between Germany, inclusive of Austria-Hungary, and
Russia is of quite a different nature. It is more
of a war of the older order. It has, of course,
also evoked a good deal of hatred. But on the
whole it is as wars go, more of an objective
nature. There are material differences on which it
would not be impossible to compromise. But there
is no such deeply-seated irrational opposition,
which now sets Germans and English and French and
Germans against each other. The war between the
Central Powers and Russia is, comparatively
speaking, an accident in the political history of
Europe. _The war between England, France and
Germany is a catastrophe in European civilisation.
As a war it is most irrational, and just because
of its absurdi