t_ was falling
to pieces through internal fissures. A successful war might give the
empire a new lease of life; otherwise, the rising tide of revolution was
certain to sweep it away. As Sir Charles Walston has shown, it was for
some years doubtful whether the democratic movement would obtain control
before the bureaucracy and army chiefs succeeded in precipitating a war.
There was a kind of race between the two forces. This was the situation
which Lord Haldane found still existing in his famous visit to Germany.
In the event, the conservative powers were able to strike and to rush
public opinion. Perhaps the bureaucracy was carried along by its own
momentum. Two or three years before the war a German publicist, replying
to an eminent Englishman, who asked him who really directed the policy
of Germany, answered: 'It is a difficult question. Nominally, of course,
the Emperor is responsible; but he is a man of moods, not a strong man.
In reality, the machine runs itself. Whither it is carrying us we none
of us know; I fear towards some great disaster.' This seems to be the
truth of the matter. No doubt, a romantic imperialism, with dreams of
restoring the empire of Charlemagne, was a factor in the criminal
enterprise. No doubt the natural ambitions of officers, and the greed of
contractors and speculators, played their part in promoting it. But when
we consider that Germany held all the winning cards in a game of
peaceful penetration and economic competition, we should attribute to
the Imperial Government a strange recklessness if we did not conclude
that the political condition of Germany itself, and the automatic
working of the machine, were the main causes why the attack was made.
There is, in fact, abundant evidence that it was so. The scheme failed
only because Germany was foolish enough to threaten England before
settling accounts with Russia. But this, again, was the result of
internal pressure. Hamburg, and all the interests which the name stands
for, cared less for expansion in the East than for the capture of
markets overseas. For this important section of conservative Germany,
England was the enemy. So the gauntlet was thrown down to the whole
civilised world at once, and the odds against Germany were too great.

For the time being, the world has no example of a strong monarchy. The
three great European empires are, at the time of writing, in a state of
septic dissolution. The victors have sprung to the welcome c