ing and drinking," because, by publishing a lie, they
had secured the certain death in battle of hundreds and thousands of
young men. The spirit of Bismarck has infected the whole public life
of Germany and of Europe. It has given a new lease to the political
philosophy of Machiavelli; and made of every budding statesman and
historian a solemn or a cynical defender of the gospel of force. But,
though this be true, we have no right therefore to assume that there is
some peculiar wickedness which marks off German policy from that of all
other nations. Machiavellianism is the common heritage of Europe. It is
the translation into idea of the fact of international anarchy. Germans
have been more candid and brutal than others in their expression and
application of it, but statesmen, politicians, publicists, and historians
in every nation accept it, under a thicker or thinner veil of plausible
sophisms. It is everywhere the iron hand within the silken glove. It is
the great European tradition.

Although, moreover, it was by these methods that Bismarck accomplished
the unification of Germany, his later policy was, by common consent, a
policy of peace. War had done its part, and the new Germany required all
its energies to build up its internal prosperity and strength. In 1875,
it is true, Bismarck was credited with the intention to fall once more
upon France. The fact does not seem to be clearly established. At any
rate, if such was his intention, it was frustrated by the intervention of
Russia and of Great Britain. During the thirty-nine years that followed
Germany kept the peace.

While France, England, and Russia waged wars on a great scale, and while
the former Powers acquired enormous extensions of territory, the only
military operations undertaken by Germany were against African natives
in her dependencies and against China in 1900. The conduct of the German
troops appears, it is true, to have been distinguished, in this latter
expedition, by a brutality which stood out in relief even in that orgy of
slaughter and loot. But we must remember that they were specially ordered
by their Imperial master, in the name of Jesus Christ, to show no mercy
and give no quarter. Apart from this, it will not be disputed, by any one
who knows the facts, that during the first twenty years or so after 1875
Germany was the Power whose diplomacy was the least disturbing to Europe.
The chief friction during that period was between Russia and F