n-mongering
Press, has undoubtedly helped to feed political passions and national
hatred. A rural population is not deeply stirred by stories of slights
to ambassadors. The peasant of Brittany had no active dislike for the
peasant of Brandenburg. Each only asked to be left to till his fields in
peace and safety. But the crowds on the Parisian boulevards and in
_Unter den Linden_ took (and seemingly always will take) a very
different view of life. To them the news of the humiliation of the rival
beyond the Rhine was the greatest and therefore the most welcome of
sensations; and, unfortunately, the papers which pandered to their
habits set the tone of thought for no small part of France and Germany
and exerted on national policy an influence out of all proportion to its
real weight.

The story of the Franco-German dispute is one of national jealousy
carefully fanned for four years by newspaper editors and popular
speakers until a spark sufficed to set Western Europe in a blaze. The
spark was the Hohenzollern candidature, which would have fallen harmless
had not the tinder been prepared since Koeniggratz by journalists at
Paris and Berlin. The resulting conflagration may justly be described as
due partly to national friction and partly to the supposed interests of
the Napoleonic dynasty, but also to the heat engendered by a
sensational Press.

It is well that one of the chief dangers to the peace of the modern
world should be clearly recognised. The centralisation of governments
and of population may have its advantages; but over against them we must
set grave drawbacks; among those of a political kind the worst are the
growth of nervousness and excitability, and the craving for
sensation--qualities which undoubtedly tend to embitter national
jealousies at all times, and in the last case to drive weak dynasties or
Cabinets on to war. Certainly Bismarck's clever shifts to bring about a
rupture in 1870 would have failed had not the atmosphere both at Paris
and Berlin been charged with electricity[34].

[Footnote 34: Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern died at Berlin on June 8,
1905. He was born in 1835, and in 1861 married the Infanta of Portugal.]

CHAPTER II

FROM WOeRTH TO GRAVELOTTE

"The Chief of the General Staff had his eye fixed from the
first upon the capture of the enemy's capital, the possession
of which is of more importance in France than in other
countries. . . . It is a delusion to