Ten Years Near the German Frontier Part 23

Until he spoke the war seemed to mean the saving of the territory of one nation, or the regaining it for another, or the existence of a nation's life. Standing out of the European miasma, with nothing to gain except the fulfilment of our ideals, and all to lose if there were to be losses of life and material, we gave a meaning to the war,--a new meaning which had been obscured.

Nevertheless, let us not forget that Germany has not changed her ideals; all the forces of the civilised world have not succeeded in changing them. Of democracy, in the American sense of the word, she has no more understanding than Russia--nor at present does she really want to have.

To a certain extent she conquered us. She obliged us to adopt her methods of warfare; to imitate her system of espionage; to co-ordinate, for the moment at least, all the functions of national life under a system as centralised as her own. If she gave temperance to Russia, an army to England, religion to France, she almost succeeded in depriving our Western hemisphere of its faith in G.o.d.

Her efficiency was so expensive that it was making her bankrupt; she was paying too much for her perfection of method. To justify it in the eyes of her own people she went to war. France was to pay her debts and Russia to be the way of an inexpensive road to the East.

Her methods in peace cost her too much; a short war would save her credit. To our regret, perhaps remorse, we have been forced by her to fight her Devil with his own fire; and now we hope for a process of reconstruction in this great and populous country based on our own ideals; but we cannot change the aspirations or the hearts of the Germans. We can only take care that they keep the laws made by nations who have well-directed consciences,--this lesson I have learned near to their border.

THE END