between what Germany might
be and what she was, and a struggle to make her what she might be
from what she was could not be avoided.

"Germany must, in fulfilment of a duty to herself, obtain colonial
possessions at the expense of France, obtain both colonial possessions
and sea-power at the expense of England, and put an end, by campaigns
perhaps defensive, but at any rate vigorous, to the menace of Slav
barbarism upon the East. She was potentially, by her strength and her
culture, the mistress of the modern world, the chief influence in it,
and the rightful determinant of its destinies. She must by war pass
from a potential position of this kind to an actual position of
domination."

Such was the German mood, such was the fatuous illusion which produced
this war. It had at its service, as we shall see later, _numbers_,
and, backed by this superiority of numbers, it counted on victory.

(2) CONFLICT PRODUCED BY THE CONTRAST OF THIS GERMAN ATTITUDE OR
WILL WITH THE WILLS OF OTHER NATIONS.

When we have clearly grasped the German attitude, as it may thus be
not unfairly expressed, we shall not find it difficult to conceive
why a conflict between such a will and other wills around it broke
out.

We need waste no time in proving the absurdity of the German
assumptions, the bad history they involve, and the perverse and
twisted perspective so much vanity presupposes. War can never be
prevented by discovering the moral errors of an opponent. It comes
into being because that opponent does not believe them to be moral
errors; and in the attempt to understand this war and its causes, we
should only confuse ourselves if we lost time over argument upon
pretensions even as crassly unreal as these.

It must be enough for the purposes of this to accept the German will
so stated, and to see how it necessarily conflicts with the English
will, the French will, the Russian will, and sooner or later, for that
matter, with every other national will in Europe.

In the matter of sea-power England would answer: "Unless we are
all-powerful at sea, our very existence is imperilled." In the matter
of her colonies and dependencies England would answer: "We may be a
Teutonic people or we may not. All that kind of thing is pleasant talk
for the academies. But if you ask whether we will allow any part of
our colonies to become German or any part of our great dependencies to
fall under German rule, the answer is in the negative."

The F