rance--the injunction to his soldiers to emulate
the Huns of Attila--though almost certainly genuine, is not official,
and could not be quoted without discussion.[1] In the second place, to
confess the truth, I shrank from the intolerable monotony of reading
his Majesty's speeches--that endless array of platitudes in full
uniform--on the chance of discovering one or two quotable gems.

Practically all my quotations are taken from books and pamphlets. The
sole exceptions are a few extracts from pre-war newspapers, cited in
Nippold's "Der deutsche Chauvinismus." It would have been an endless
and unprofitable task to garner up the extravagances of German
newspapers since the outbreak of the war; not to mention that a German
anthologist could probably make a pretty effective retort by going
through the files of the British war press.

Is my anthology as it stands open to a telling _tu quoque_ by means of
a selection of gems from British books and pamphlets of the type of
those from which I have made my gleanings? Is it a case of the mote
and the beam? I think we may be pretty confident that it is not. I
doubt whether the literature of the world can show a parallel to the
amazing outburst of tribal arrogance, unrestrained and unashamed, of
which these pages contain but a few scattered specimens. In the
extracts from literature "Before the War" (which have always been kept
apart from those which date from "After July, 1914"), the reader may
see this habit of mind growing and gathering strength: the declaration
of war opens the floodgates, and the torrent rushes forth, grandiose,
overwhelming, and, I believe, unique. I know of only one English book
in which the German taste and temper is emulated. It is certainly a
deplorable production; but it is the work of a wholly unknown man,
whereas many of the most incredible utterances in the following pages
proceed from men of world-wide reputation. Indeed, few contemporary
German names of much distinction are absent from my list.
Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, Harnack, Wundt, Oncken, Eucken, Haeckel,
Naumann, Rohrbach, Sombart, Liszt, all join with a will in the chorus
of arrogance, ambition, and hate. Many quotations come from a series
of pamphlets called _Deutsche Reden in schwerer Zeit_, to which all
the most eminent professors of Berlin University have contributed,
with some from other universities. I have also, no doubt, culled
passages from a good many nobodies and busybodies; but wh