e economy of Prussian Junkerdom there is only
one strong race--his own. "_Wir sind die Weltrasse._" The ultimate
goal is the super-nation, and the premise upon which the whole policy
is based is that Germany is predestined to be that super-nation.
Bernhardi believes--and his belief is but the reflex of the
oft-repeated boast of the Kaiser--that history presents no other
possibility. "For us there are two alternatives and no third--world
power or ruin" (_Weltmacht oder Niedergang_). To assimilate Germany to
ancient Rome the Kaiser on occasion reminds himself of Caesar and
affects to reign, not by the will of the people, but by divine right.
No living monarch has said or done more to revive this mediaeval
fetich. To his soldiers he has recently said: "You think each day of
your Emperor. Do not forget God." _What magnanimity!_

At the outbreak of the present war he again illustrated his spirit of
fanatical absolutism, which at times inspires him, by saying to his
army:

Remember that the German people are the chosen of God. On
me, as German Emperor, the spirit of God has descended. I am
His weapon; His sword; His Vicegerent. Woe to the
disobedient! Death to cowards and unbelievers!

The modern world has had nothing like this since Mahomet and,
accepted literally, it claims for the Kaiser the divine attributes
attributed to the Caesars. Even the Caesars, in baser and more primitive
times, found posing as a divine superman somewhat difficult and
disconcerting. Shakespeare subtly suggests this when he makes his
Caesar talk like a god and act with the vacillation of a child.

When the war was precipitated as the natural result of such abhorrent
teachings, the world at large knew little either of Treitschke or
Bernhardi. Thoughtful men of other nations did know that the
successful political immoralities of Frederick the Great had
profoundly affected the policies of the Prussian Court to this day.
The German poet, Freiligrath, once said that "Germany is Hamlet," but
no analogy is less justified. There is nothing in the supersensitive,
introspective, and amiable dreamer of Elsinore to suggest the Prussia
of to-day, which Bebel has called "_Siegesbetrunken_." (Victory-drunk.)

Since the beginning of the present war, the world has become familiar
with these abhorrent teachings and as a result of a general revolt
against this recrudescence of Borgiaism attempts have been made by the
apologists for Prussia,