se must be added the "intellectual
flower of the universities and the schools." "The professors at the
universities, taken _en bloc_, were one of the most violent elements in
the nation." "Almost all the young people from one end of the Empire to
the other have had brought before them in the course of their studies
the dilemma which Bernhardi summed up to his readers in the three words
'world-power or decadence.' Yet with all this, the resolute partisans of
war formed as I thought a very small minority in the nation. That is the
impression I obstinately retain of my sojourn in Berlin and my excursions
into the provinces of the Empire, rich or poor. When I recall the image
of this peaceful population, journeying to business every week-day with a
movement so regular, or seated at table on Sundays in the cafes in the open
air before a glass of beer, I can find in my memories nothing but placid
faces where there was no trace of violent passions, no thought hostile to
foreigners, not even that feverish concern with the struggle for existence
which the spectacle of the human crowd has sometimes shown me elsewhere."

A similar impression is given by the dispatch from M. Cambon, French
Ambassador to Berlin, written on July 30, 1913.[4] He, too, finds elements
working for war, and analyses them much as Baron Beyens does. There are
first the "junkers," or country squires, naturally military by all their
traditions, but also afraid of the death-duties "which are bound to come
if peace continues." Secondly, the "higher bourgeoisie"--that is, the
great manufacturers and financiers, and, of course, in particular the
armament firms. Both these social classes are influenced, not only by
direct pecuniary motives but by the fear of the rising democracy, which
is beginning to swamp their representatives in the Reichstag. Thirdly,
the officials, the "party of the pensioned." Fourthly, the universities,
the "historians, philosophers, political pamphleteers, and other apologists
of German Kultur." Fifthly, rancorous diplomatists, with a sense that they
had been duped. On the other hand, there were, as M. Cambon insists, other
forces in the country making for peace. What were these? In numbers the
great bulk, in Germany as in all countries. "The mass of the workmen,
artisans and peasants, who are peace-loving by instinct." Such of the great
nobles as were intelligent enough to recognize the "disastrous political
and social consequences of war."