1 
 
 The Villain of the 
 
 'r'i]i:?r,v' prober
 
 THE VILLAIN OF THE 
 WORLD-TRAGEDY 
 
 A LETTER TO 
 
 Professor ULRICH V. WILAMOWITZ 
 
 MOLLENDORF 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ARCHER 
 
 ? 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD. 
 
 t, ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON 
 
 I 
 
 PRICE TWOPENCE
 
 THE VILLAIN OF THE 
 WORLD-TRAGEDY 
 
 A LETTER TO 
 
 Professor ULRICH V. WILAMOWITZ 
 
 MOLLENDORF 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM ARCHER 
 
 T. FISHER UNWIN, LTD. 
 I, ADELPHI TERRACE, LONDON
 
 ^ 
 
 
 THE VILLAIN OF THE 
 WORLD-TRAGEDY 
 
 vSiR, 
 
 IF, by some fortunate chance, these pages should 
 ever come into your hands, I beg you to believe 
 that they are dictated, not by enmity, but by per- 
 sonal respect. In ancient days, when two armies 
 faced each other in line of battle, it was the practice 
 for champions on both sides to step out of the ranks 
 and engage in a preliminary contest of boasts, taunts, 
 and insults. There are many reasons why, in modern 
 warfare, this practice has fallen into disuse. But the 
 war of words from which the soldiers refrain is now 
 carried on with redoubled virulence by professors and 
 publicists, in speeches, interviews, pamphlets and 
 magazine articles. During the present contest, both 
 sides have engaged with ardour in this more or less 
 conventional and obligatory slanging-match, if you 
 will excuse the colloquialism ; but I think the vitupera- 
 tive victory rests easily with Germany. It is because 
 '^ I lind in your war-addresses a minimum of vitupera- 
 \i tion and a maximum of sense, that I think it worth 
 '^ while to try whether it may not be possible to clear 
 away some of the tragic misconceptions which seem to 
 me to underlie the frame of mind of those intelligent 
 ^ and highly-accomplished Germans of whom you are 
 so distinguished a representative. 
 
 Of your achievements as a scholar I can, unfor- 
 tunately, form no personal estiniatc. But I have been 
 
 ^* 
 
 -y.fy ■•*■ '"-
 
 4 THE VILLAIN 
 
 accustomed, for more than twenty years past, to hear 
 your name mentioned with something very like rever- 
 ence by a man (a dear friend of mine) as well qualified 
 as anyone in England, and perhaps in Europe, to 
 appreciate your life-work. It was accordingly with 
 eager anticipation that I began to read your war- 
 addresses. Nor was I altogether disappointed. They 
 are immeasurably better than anything else of their 
 kind that I have come across — and I have read (or 
 skimmed) something like 150 German w^ar pamphlets, 
 many of them by the most eminent among your col- 
 leagues. It is precisely the difference between you 
 and them that tempts me to address you. I am san- 
 guine enough to think that a man of your intellectual 
 distinction cannot be so wholly given over to the 
 fanaticism of the moment as to be incapable of either 
 just thinking or generous feeling. 
 
 I quite recognize that it is an uphill battle I have 
 to fight. It is not your reason but your will that is the 
 adversary. If once you begin to suspect that the Allies 
 are not an unparalleled combination of ruffians and 
 fools, and especially that England is not the vil- 
 lain of the world-tragedy, the Judas of Germany's 
 "passion," you cannot but feel an unpleasant weaken- 
 ing in your comfortable conviction that God, who is 
 " truth and righteousness," must therefore give victory 
 to the German arms. You are naturally reluctant to 
 let the idea that Germany may not be entirely and 
 ineffably in the right insinuate itself into your mind. 
 But a trained intelligence like yours cannot be wholly 
 at the mercy of the will to believe or to disbelieve. I 
 am sure you have sufficient insight into the sources of 
 liuman error to be somewhat on your guard against 
 your passionate desire to hold Germany spotless and 
 her enemies infamous. Perhaps, too, if you once
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 5 
 
 admit the least little doubt of the all-wisdom and 
 all-goodness of your Fatherland, you may find some 
 comfort in a corresponding" mitigation of your con- 
 tempt for the rest of the world. Such an accomplished 
 master of " literae humaniores " cannot possibly take 
 an absolute pleasure in the barren emotion of hatred — 
 even for England. 
 
 II 
 
 May I lead up to my main argument by calling 
 your attention to one or two minor points in which I 
 think you are quite definitely and demonstrably mis- 
 taken? 
 
 You say that the actions of Germany and those of 
 other nations are judged by different standards. This 
 is true — one has often noted it with amazement in 
 reading German war literature. It is, for instance, 
 hard to seewhy, when English merchants make money, 
 they should be denounced as a pack of hucksters, 
 while German merchants who make, as they boast, a 
 great deal more money, are held to have thereby given 
 proof of lofty German idealism. But for German 
 inequalities of judgement you have, of course, no 
 censure. It is alleged inequalities on the other side 
 that excite your indignation. Here is an instance you 
 give: 
 
 When [in 1870-71] we bombarded the fortified city 
 of Paris it was an outrage upon a sacred spot. But 
 when the English destroyed by bombardment ("zu 
 Boden schossen ") the defenceless Alexandria, that 
 was, of course, entirely in order. 
 
 Now it is a plain matter of historical fact that Alex- 
 andria was not "defenceless," but was defended by an 
 elaborate system of forts, mounting many hundreds of 
 guns; it was precisely these forts, and not the city,
 
 ^ THE VILLAIN 
 
 that the British fleet bombarded, in the face of no de- 
 spicable resistance ; and tlie damaf^e done to the city 
 was not caused by British shells, but by incendiarism 
 — the work, it is believed, of convicts, either escaped 
 from jail or purposely released in order to work on the 
 fortifications. Ought you not to have made a little 
 enquiry before talking of "das wehrlose Alexandrien"? 
 And will you tell me that the army, the prayerful 
 army,' of which you formed part, bombarded, or in- 
 tended to bombard, only the forts of Paris? If so, they 
 made rather bad practice. 
 Again, you say: 
 
 When our Zeppelins drop bombs on the fortress of 
 Antwerp, they [the enemy] protest; but how have they 
 not boasted — how do not French prisoners even now 
 boast — of having burnt by means of bombs the open 
 city of Niirnberg! The will was there; only the power 
 was lacking. 
 
 If you mean that the Allied press boasted that \iirn- 
 berg had been burnt, you have simply been deceived. 
 This is one of the many instances of "die deutsche 
 Wahrheit" to which I could call your attention. It is 
 possible that some rumour to that effect was abroad 
 among French prisoners: but if so, may I tell you 
 why? It was doubtless because, on August 3, 1914, the 
 German Government, in order to make out that France 
 was the aggressor, spread abroad a report that French 
 aviators had dropped bombs near Niirnberg, and 
 actually instructed the German Ambassador in Paris 
 to allege it as a reason for the declaration of war. The 
 report has been investigated on the spot by German 
 enquirers, and found to be devoid of foundation. You 
 yourself imply that no bombs were dropped. But it is 
 
 ' I allude, of course, to tlic prayer wliicli you tell us that you 
 .and your comrades offered up on first viewiny^ Paris in 1870.
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 7 
 
 conceivable that some French soldiers may incautiously 
 have beHeved the German Government, and thought 
 that some such exploit had actually been attempted. 
 On the whole, however, the remarks attributed to 
 prisoners are to be received with tlie utmost scepticism. 
 1 read in a pamphlet by Prof. A. Schroer, of Cologne, 
 that P>nglish prisoners passing through that city 
 "could scarcely believe their eyes when they saw that 
 our noble Cathedral was not a heap of ruins as their 
 papers had assured them." No such report ever ap- 
 peared in the English press.' There were wild rumours 
 in all countries at the beginning of the war. For in- 
 stance, you may liave heard something of the legend 
 prevalent in Germany in August 1914 that huge quan- 
 tities of gold were being transported to Russia in 
 mysterious motor-cars. An equally baseless myth of 
 the transit of a Russian army through England took 
 hold of the public mind in this country at a some- 
 wdiat later period. There is everywhere in w^ar-time a 
 vast spontaneous generation of lies, for which no one 
 seems to be responsible. But the particular lie about 
 the destruction of Cologne Cathedral is a lie that was 
 never told, and cannot possibly have been in the minds 
 of English prisoners. Perhaps the French prisoners' 
 alleged belief in the destruction of Niirnberg may be 
 equally mythical. 
 
 Again, you tell us that your blood boils— the blood 
 of an old soldier — at the " malicious fable" of the ill- 
 treatment of German soldiers by their officers. On 
 this I will only say that the evidence as to the brutality 
 of the " Unteroffizier " in particular is for the most 
 
 ' If you doubt this, you m;iy refci- to the German publicalloii, 
 "All Lies," in which the alleged falsehoods of the Entente press 
 are collected. Such a gigantic and imbecile falsehood could not 
 have escaped the editor of that collection.
 
 8 THE VILLAIN 
 
 part German evidence. If it is false or exagorcrated, I 
 suggest that you should attack it at its source. I will 
 mention only one little incident, related by an American 
 journalist in the autumn of 1914. He was a favoured 
 personage who accompanied the advancing German 
 army in Belgium, and he was full of enthusiasm for 
 the admirable organization by which his movements 
 were furthered. If hewas not pro-German in sympathy, 
 at all events he was not markedly anti-German. With- 
 out any indignation, without any comment — in the 
 most *' objective" manner, as you would probably 
 phrase it — he relates how, at one point, a sentry failed 
 to salute the officer who accompanied him, and how 
 the officer lashed the man across the face with his 
 riding-whip. Perhaps you think this an ordinary and 
 legitimate incident, since " Disziplin musssein! " I do 
 not say that analogous cases may not occur in other 
 armies. But I do say that if such are the indispensable 
 methods of militarism, it is a degradation to humanity, 
 and cannot too soon be swept off the face of the earth. 
 Before proceeding to more important matters, may I 
 call your attention to a remark in which I think you 
 cannot but recognize, on sober reflection, that the 
 Prussian monarchist has got the better of the man of 
 sense? You say : 
 
 We find it natural and necessary that our Empress 
 should have all her sons under fire ("im Feuer"). 
 Quite a matter of course! Of Prussian princes, no- 
 thing else is thinkable! 
 
 And again : 
 
 What a blessing it is for our people that every 
 German wife and mother can say to herself: *' It is 
 not I alone that have a husband and sons in the fight- 
 ing line (' vor dem Feinde '), but the Frau Kaiserin as 
 well."
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 9 
 
 Your common sense must unquestionably assure you 
 that it is impossible for a father and six sons to take 
 the chances of ordinary officers in this war, and to 
 come out scatheless, save for one slight wound. Such 
 amazing freaks of fortune do not happen. When they 
 seem to happen— to princes — we know how to inter- 
 pret them. It is as certain as anything can be that the 
 Kaiser and his sons are not subjected to any consider- 
 able risk. Why should they be? No one can blame 
 the Great General Staff for not giving the Allies any 
 opportunity of killing or taking prisoner one of the 
 princes of Prussia. It is no slur upon their bravery or 
 their patriotism to believe that a special military 
 providence watches over them. But, this being so, 
 why pretend that the German mother should find 
 comfort in the thought that the Kaiserin's sons are 
 running equal risks with her own? Why solace your 
 soul, and the soul of the German mother, with what 
 one can only call a wilful illusion? An Englishman 
 who should talk in this strain would at once be written 
 down a snob; but I am willing to admit that king- 
 worship in Germany is not mere snobbery, but a 
 political opinion, like another. I do not here criticize 
 that opinion ; but I do suggest that the trifling illusion 
 which it in this case leads you to accept and to dwell 
 upon, as an idea particularly comfortable to the heart 
 of the German people, is perhaps typical of many other 
 wilful illusions of infinitely greater moment, which 
 they and you have eagerly adopted, and " grappled to 
 your souls with hooks of steel." 
 
 Ill 
 
 We come now to a far more important matter. 
 What has most disappointed the friends and admirers 
 of Germany — and, believe me, she had many friends
 
 lo THE VILLAIX 
 
 and adinircrs in Enq'land, down to August 1914 — is 
 the extraordinary lack of chivalr)- in her attitude of 
 mind, the inability 
 
 To honor, while you strike him down. 
 The foe that comes with fearless eyes. 
 
 Of this infirmity of temper, you afford, it seems to 
 me, a conspicuous instance in the following well-nigh 
 incredible utterance: 
 
 See what the w^ar has laid bare in others! What 
 have we learnt of the soul of Belgium? Has it not 
 revealed itself as the soul of cowardice and assassina- 
 tion? . . . They have no moral forces within them: 
 therefore thev resort to the torch and tlic daixerer. 
 
 What words can convey the amazement with which 
 one finds such expressions proceeding from such 
 a source? Consider the situation for one moment! A 
 small country, peaceable, industrious, prosperous, has 
 for three-quarters of a century led a wholly inoffensive 
 life, guaranteed against disturbance by three great 
 neighbouring Powers. Suspicions having arisen that 
 one of these Powers does not intend to keep its word, 
 a question is asked in its Parliament (Reichstag, 
 29 April 1913) and elicits from the Foreign vSecretary 
 an unqualified assurance that the guarantee holds 
 good. Fifteen months later, when the crisis comes, 
 the Belgian Government asks the German Minister in 
 Brussels for a formal declaration of Germany's in- 
 tentions, and he replies, though not officially, in 
 re-assuring terms. Then, on the evening of the very 
 same day, the same Minister presents an ultimatum, 
 requiring Belgium to abandon the neutrality to which 
 she is reciprocally plighted, or to consider herself at 
 war with the mighty German Empire. Belgium does 
 not hesitate for a moment. If Germany is false to her 
 engagements, she will be true. A country of seven
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY ii 
 
 million people, she places herself, in obedience to the 
 "categorical imperative" of her sense of honour, 
 across the path of an Empire whose army alone out- 
 numbers her whole population, and which is known 
 to be enormously formidable in all appliances and 
 munitions of war. vShe performs, in short, an act of 
 heroism for which history, and even legend, affords 
 few parallels ; and you, sir, whose life-studies ought 
 surely to have taught you to know heroism when you 
 see it, have not only no word of respect for such high- 
 hearted gallantry, but can actually brand it as "cow- 
 ardice " and lack of " moral force "! 
 
 vSuch a judgement would be absolutely incredible it 
 one had not ample proof on every hand that, in the 
 eyes of the typical German, everyact of opposition to the 
 will of Germany is a base and dastardly crime. What 
 is really surprising, then, is to find that, in this respect, 
 Ulrich V. Wilamowitz is only — a typical German. 
 
 Perhaps you will say that Belgium had no right to 
 feel surprised at her fate, since Germany had for 
 years been constructing strategic railways on her fron- 
 tier. But these railways did not actually prove Ger- 
 many to be meditating perjury. They might, after all, 
 have been designed for defence — to secure Germany 
 against a conceivable violation of Belgian neutrality 
 by other Powers. It was always possible that Germany 
 might be honest and faithful to her word. For that 
 matter, no one maintains that all treaties should be 
 binding for ever. Had Germany denounced the treaty 
 of 1839, and given fair warning that she did not intend 
 to be bound by it, her course would have been trucu- 
 lent but upright. But that was not the course she took. 
 She lied up to the last moment, in order to take 
 Belgium as nearly as possible unprepared. History 
 has doubtless acts of equal baseness to show, but I
 
 12 THE VILLAIN 
 
 think it would be difficult to point to an outrage at 
 once so deliberately planned, so treacherous in method, 
 and so vast in scale. 
 
 You will probably say that in accusing the Belgians 
 of cowardice, you were not thinking of the action of 
 the Government, but of the populace. You had in 
 mind the stories of ambush and mutilation put abroad 
 by your countrymen, to excuse the savagery with which 
 they treated the *' conquered" country. I have seen 
 nothing that can reasonably be called evidence to 
 justify your insinuation about "the torch and the 
 dagger;"^ whereas the ruthlessness with which the 
 civil population w^as terrorized and massacred is proved 
 by mountains of evidence, and is scarcely denied. I 
 grant, however, that the time has not yet come for a 
 dispassionate sifting of the accusations and counter- 
 accusations which now darken the air. What is quite 
 certain is that an innumerable multitude of soldiery 
 was let loose upon the unhappy little country; that 
 they were all unseasoned to the nervous tension and 
 fierce excitement of war; that they were exasperated 
 by unexpected opposition; and that their officers had 
 been deliberately trained" to despise "humanitarian 
 notions " and to accept the devilish sophistry that 
 "the only true humanity" often lies in ruthlessness. 
 Given all these elements of mischief, do you think 
 there can be any reasonable doubt that, to put it at the 
 very lowest, the "severities" exercised upon the civil 
 population were far in excess of anything justified by 
 martial law or military necessity? 
 
 But, though I cannot see how any reasonable being 
 
 ' The sug-g-eslion of the "torch" is particularly audacious. 
 Was it, perhaps, the Bclg-ians who were equipped with the latest 
 devices for incendiarism, and who burnt the Louvain library? 
 
 ■ Sec " Kriegsgcbrauch im Landkricge."
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY i^ 
 
 can resist this conclusion, it is not the point I desire 
 to urge upon you. To reach that point, I will, for the 
 argument's sake, grant your own premises. I will 
 assume that a few Belgians acted in ways condemned 
 by international law and even by humanity. I will 
 assume that they resorted to "the dagger" ("the 
 torch " is nonsense) and that in some cases they 
 killed the wounded and mutilated the dead. Sup- 
 posing that this were so, I ask you to say, on your 
 honour and conscience, whether you, as a presumably 
 fallible human being, can have nothing but lofty 
 moral abhorrence for such conduct? Put yourself for 
 a moment in their place. You are living a peaceful, 
 innocent, industrious life in the home of yourancestors, 
 tilling the soil or plying the loom. You have given 
 no human being the slightest ground for offence. You 
 have a great and powerful neighbour who has sworn 
 to protect you in the event of disturbance. Questioned 
 only the other day as to whether his oath holds good, 
 he has declared that he considers himself fully bound 
 by it. Then all of a sudden he rushes at you and says: 
 " Be false to your word as I am false to mine, or be- 
 hold! I will strangle you and devote your patrimony 
 to devastation and ruin!" You decline the shameful 
 bargain, and he hurls upon you his giant bulk, not 
 merely applying the force necessary to gain his ends, 
 but treating you with a savage vindictiveness, which 
 shows that he regards your very existence as an un- 
 pardonable wrong to him. Under these circumstances, 
 can you sincerely maintain that you would be nicely 
 chivalrous in your method of resisting the aggressor? 
 that you would scrupulously refrain from hitting below 
 the belt? or that you would consider yourself utterly 
 contemptible if you did things in the frenzy of resent- 
 ment which your calmer judgement would disapprove?
 
 '4 
 
 THE VILLAIN 
 
 I do not pretend, of course, that the Belgian peasants 
 and artisans were fully alive to the juridical aspects of 
 the case, or would have argued it just as I have done. 
 Most of them, no doubt, knew only that an inexplic- 
 able and hideous calamity had dropped upon them 
 from the skies. They had injured no one, they had 
 threatened no one. Tiicy had cherished no rancour, 
 they had harboured no ambition. Suddenly innumer- 
 able hordes of men in grey, armed with every imple- 
 ment of death and destruction, had descended upon 
 their fields and villages, trampling, battering, destroy- 
 ing, killing, and, even in their milder moods, domin- 
 eeringand tyrannizing. Surely, sir, you have sufficient 
 imagination to conceive what you yourself would have 
 done under such circumstances. I, at any rate, respect 
 you too much to admit that your conduct would have 
 been such as to facilitate the designs and promote the 
 convenience of the wanton invaders of your country. 
 
 Perhaps you may say that my argument proves too 
 much, and would justify the resort to every possible 
 barbarity against an invading army. This is not so. 
 To say that, in certain circumstances, exasperation is 
 comprehensible and inevitable, is not to justify every- 
 thing that exasperation may do. My contention is 
 that the evidence upon which the Belgians are accused 
 of breaches of international law is extremely weak, and 
 that even supposing that, in a certain number of cases, 
 it will bear examination, a few lapses into inhumanity 
 cannot, under such circumstances, aflbrd plausible 
 ground for the moral condemnation of a whole people, 
 and ought not e\'en, in common fairness, to be regarded 
 as utterly inexcusable in individuals whom a monstrous 
 wrong may have temporarily dehumanized. 
 
 I have said nothing about the complicated and self- 
 contradictory German pleas in extenuation of the in-
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 15 
 
 vasion of Belgium, for you have the good sense not to 
 allude to them. Of course, you do not believe the ex- 
 cuse originally put forward, that the French were 
 planning an attack on Germany through Belgium. 
 We may take it that that fable has been abandoned. 
 Nor does a man of your sense attach any weight to the 
 belated excuse that Belgium had ''forfeited" her 
 neutrality because she had allowed one of its guaran- 
 tors to consider what steps should be taken to protect 
 it in the event of its being violated by another Power. 
 That such childish subterfuges should have any weight 
 with otherwise reasonable men is a curious proof of 
 the havoc wrought by the war fever upon the German 
 intelligence. I am glad, though of course not sur- 
 prised, to llnd you immune from these most pitiable 
 symptoms of the " furor Teuton icus." 
 
 IV 
 
 We now come to the great misunderstanding — 
 perhaps the most tragic in history — which it is my 
 purpose to examine and define. I mean, of course, 
 the misunderstanding between Germany and England. 
 I cannot hope to dissipate it, even in your mind; but 
 something will be gained if I can bring you to realize 
 that it exists, and that the simple theory that the war 
 is due to England's villainy is a little too simple to 
 tally with the facts. 
 
 You are no doubt willing and even eager to admit 
 from the outset that there has been a misunderstanding. 
 "England," you will say, "has grossly misunder- 
 stood Germany, the most pacific and high-minded of 
 nations. But we have not misunderstood England. 
 We know her from of old — perfidious, egoistic, grasp- 
 ing England." It is just on this point that I am not 
 without some faint hope of modifying your view. If
 
 i6 THE VILLAIN 
 
 we have misunderstood Germany, I submit that it is 
 because there is (or was before the war) no single and 
 consistent Germany to understand. One half of her 
 brain seems to have had a curious faculty of working 
 in bland unconsciousness of what the other half was 
 thinking, feeling, designing. As for your mental 
 picture of England, we know it, with a certainty be- 
 yond all argument, to be wildly remote from the truth. 
 I do not say that we gave you no excuse for misunder- 
 standing us. There were foolish people here who did 
 all in their power to embitter relations between the 
 two countries; and you could not be expected to know 
 England well enough to rate these mischief-makers at 
 their true insignificance. But they only stimulated an 
 antecedent tendency in the German mind. The very 
 existence of England came somehow — so you imagined 
 — between Germany and the sun. You did not want 
 to understand her; you wanted only to find reasons 
 for your instinctive dislike. And this is true even of 
 that half of the German brain which was unconscious 
 of actively hostile designs. That is why I say that by 
 far the larger share of responsibility for the great 
 misunderstanding lies at the door of Germany. 
 
 Let me briefly summarize your historical sketch of 
 the origin of the war. It differs in no particular from 
 the official, orthodox account of the matter. Quite 
 amazing and admirable is the drill to which German 
 opinion has been subjected. Five hundred orators and 
 pamphleteers move as one man, "in Reih' und Glied," 
 like a battalion on parade. You differ from your col- 
 leagues only in being much more dignified and less 
 abusive. It is strange that your worst insult should be 
 reserved, as we have seen, for Belgium. 
 
 On France and Russia you do not waste many 
 words. Their populations you admit to be pacific; but
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 17 
 
 they are led to the slaughter, in the one case, by a 
 corrupt clique of self-seeking politicians, in the other 
 case by a still more corrupt gang of bureaucrats and 
 courtiers. My only comment on this will be to ask 
 you whether the two years that have intervened since 
 you wrote these words have left your view of the situa- 
 tion unaffected. Has the magnificent resistance of 
 France proceeded from an unwilling people, goaded 
 by grasping placemen ? Would the superb recupera- 
 tive power of Russia have been possible if the heart 
 of the nation had not been in the struggle? Does it 
 not rather seem that in both countries, but especially 
 in France, the motive-power may have been a passion- 
 ate determination to live no longer under the intoler- 
 able menace of a militant Prussianism? If the man of 
 science — the large-minded student of human motives 
 and conduct in the antique world — has not been wholly 
 swallowed up by the German tribesman, the story of 
 Verdun must surely have some lessons for you. 
 
 But France and Russia were at best, you think, only 
 the puppets of a malign and crafty England. That is the 
 legend upon which the soul of the German people has 
 been sustained through the anguish of the war. It is 
 that which has converted your countrymen's smoulder- 
 ing enmity towards England into a raging fury of 
 hatred, if not unexampled in history, at any rate 
 unique in its self-consciousness and self-righteousness. 
 Never before has a great nation taken pride in foaming 
 at the mouth, or made a virtue of an epilepsy. You, 
 sir, are not quite easy in your mind over this grotesque 
 phenomenon — that one can pretty plainly perceive. 
 But even you make no decided protest against it. On 
 the contrary, while preserving an air of judicial calm, 
 you give a sketch of the relations between England 
 and Germany v/hich is calculated, if not to fan the 
 
 B
 
 i8 THE VILLAIN 
 
 flame of hatred, at any rate in no way to assuage it. 
 You lend the weight of your authority to the great 
 misunderstanding. 
 
 V 
 Having dismissed France and Russia as mere vic- 
 tims of internal corruption, you proceed: 
 
 And then England ! She does not, like France, send 
 all her sons, but enlisted men. There is the real 
 motive power, the evil spirit which has conjured up 
 this war from the deeps of Hell — the spirit of envy and 
 the spirit of hypocrisy. 
 
 Then you touch upon a succession of points in 
 English history, interpreting everything to England's 
 disadvantage. I need not tell you — for no one can 
 know it better — that this is a very easy game. There 
 is no human action that is purely angelic. It is pos- 
 sible to assign egoistic motives to the sublimest self- 
 sacrifice; and no one pretends that self-sacrifice is the 
 keynote of the history of England, any more than of 
 any other nation. Your own political philosophers arc 
 emphatic in declaring that egoism is and must be the 
 prime motive of the State, as such. German publicists 
 are never tired of telling us what " a healthy egoism " 
 demands that Germany must do. It is only when 
 England is found to have acted with an eye to her own 
 interests that such conduct becomes base and despic- 
 able. 
 
 England, you tell us, carried on great wars against 
 Spain and France, fighting the battle of Protestantism, 
 protecting the Netherlands, and so forth: 
 
 But always there was the clearly-marked under- 
 current of a consistent English policy of self-interest, 
 the striving of the island people for the command of 
 the sea.
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 19 
 
 Well, and then? Do you blame us for being an 
 island people and for acting accordingly? Do you 
 deny the right of a nation to make use of its natural 
 advantages? You will probably admit that no nation 
 enjoys invasion, though you seem to share the opinion 
 of your countrymen that it is criminal for non-Germans 
 to resent the occupation of their country by a nice, 
 kind German army. With the help of a stormy season, 
 we sent the Great Armada to the right-about — an act 
 of pure egoism, for which, however, we decline to 
 hang our heads at the bar of history. Since then, we 
 have shown the same unconquerable objection to allow- 
 ing the armies of a great continental Empire to land 
 upon our coasts. Thiswas very selfish, no doubt; but 
 have you any record of any other nation in history that 
 would not at all events have desired to do likewise? 
 And should you not consider any island people stark, 
 staring mad that did not make every possible endeav- 
 our to keep its shores inviolate? 
 
 A more generous, and perhaps not less just, inter- 
 pretation of history would emphasize the fact that, 
 while safeguarding her own interests, England had 
 often shown what may be called a high European 
 public-spirit in making great efforts and sacrifices to 
 prevent the Continent from falling under the heel of an 
 overweening militarydespotism. Philip II,LouisXIV, 
 Napoleon — it w^as, ultimately, on the white cliffs of 
 England that their " Weltmacht " was shattered. You 
 will scarcely deny, sir, that in these great world-crises 
 she did some service to free national development. 
 Nor can I doubt that you are, or were before the war, 
 psychologist enough to know that it is just as un- 
 scientific to think her motives wholly base as to believe 
 ihem entirely disinterested and angelic. 
 
 And if, after the lapse of another century, she is for
 
 20 THE VILLAIN 
 
 the fourth time playino- her historic part, and setting- 
 limits to the ambition of an overweening military des- 
 potism, do you think it is quite reasonable to assume, 
 because you happen to be a part of that organization, 
 that England's motives can be summed up in the 
 simple formula of " envy and hypocrisy "? 
 
 You do not deny that England did some service 
 against Napoleon. 
 
 No doubt (you say) England's resistance was some- 
 thing gigantic and admirable, and against it Napoleon 
 dashed himself to pieces. Without this help, no doubt, 
 Europe could not have compassed his fall. 
 
 But you go on to say that " England still preferred 
 to leave the fighting to others," and that Wellington 
 insisted on calling the decisive battle " Waterloo " in- 
 stead of (as Bliicher suggested) '* La Belle Alliance." 
 Let us look a little at these two sneers. 
 
 It is undeniably true that, until Germany forced 
 that benefaction upon her, England had no system of 
 compulsory service. The right of compulsion was 
 always there in theory, and it was sometimes tyran- 
 nously exercised, as, for instance, by the naval press- 
 gangs during the Napoleonic wars. But as England 
 could, as a rule, get all the men she wanted by volun- 
 tary enlistment, there would have been no sense in her 
 anticipating the continental theory (which, after all, is 
 little more than a century old) of the '' nation in arms." 
 That England maintained a sufficient power, both 
 naval and military, to secure her from any serious 
 invasion, is patent on the very surface of history; and 
 it is not very clear why any country should be despised 
 for not burdening itself with a superfluous military 
 establishment. Would you expect Britain, beings 
 once for all, an island, to act as if she were not? On 
 the continent, England has never, during the past
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 21 
 
 three centuries, made war for her own hand, but 
 always as one of a coalition whose other members 
 were more directly interested than she in the result. 
 She aided them with contingents of British troops 
 which no one (to my knowledge) ever despised. You 
 yourself admit the great part played by the British 
 army under Marlborough; but afterwards, you say, 
 the English "got others to fight for them." There 
 are names on the colours of many a British regiment 
 that very largely qualify that statement. To go no 
 further back, you may have heard — though you do 
 not mention it — of the Peninsular War, in which men 
 of the Three Kingdoms took no inconspicuous part. 
 Nor were these men entirely absent from Ouatre Bras 
 and Waterloo. It is, in short, very ridiculous to 
 insinuate that British blood contributed less than 
 British money to the checkmating of Louis XIV, and 
 the overthrow of Napoleon. And it is worse than 
 ridiculous — it is childish — to call a Briton who fights 
 for his country a "mercenary" and a "hireling," 
 because he enlists of his own free will and receives a 
 very moderate wage for his labours and perils. You, 
 sir, do not lay much stress on this silly reproach ; but 
 scores of your colleagues are never tired of reiterat- 
 ing it. 
 
 But now I have an admission to make. It is unfortu- 
 nately true that, in the eighteenth century, Britain did 
 employ foreign mercenaries in some of her wars. In 
 the American War of Independence, for example, the 
 use she made of them was impolitic and unjustifiable. 
 vSo much one must confess with shame. But what 
 " hirelings " were they? For the most part the soldier- 
 slaves of German princes, ruthlessly sold into foreign 
 bondage. The transactions were not creditable to 
 cither party; but on which did the blacker shame
 
 22 THE VILLAIN 
 
 rest? Not, it seems to me, on the British buyer, 
 but on the German seller of his own flesh and 
 blood. 
 
 As for Waterloo, I can imagine nothing more petty 
 than the ceaseless efforts of German writers to belittle 
 the British share in that event. It is clear beyond all 
 doubt that Wellington's army had borne the burden 
 and heat of the day ; it is equally clear that the arrival 
 of Bluchers army turned a trembling scale, and con- 
 summated the destruction of the French host. Who 
 can say what might have happened had Bliicher failed 
 to arrive? Napoleon's defeat, no doubt, would not have 
 been so decisive ; it is even possible that he might have 
 maintained his ground or forced Wellington to retire. 
 But it is certain that the fighting power of the French 
 army was pretty well broken before the Prussians ap- 
 peared on the horizon ; and it is mere speculative malice 
 to pretend that Wellington was saved from a great 
 disaster. I do not say that English popular writers, 
 and perhaps even serious historians, may not have 
 failed to give sufficient weight to the Prussian interven- 
 tion at the critical moment ; but it is a universal-human 
 foible (from which Germans, assuredly, are not exempt) 
 to be chiefly interested in one's own doings. To call 
 the battle '*La Belle Alliance" would have been a 
 mere freak. The French name, " Mont St. Jean," has 
 more to be said for it. But Napoleon himself had 
 written to Grouchy on the morning of the fateful day: 
 " L'armee anglaise a pris position a Waterloo";' 
 so he apparently agreed with his opponent as to the 
 description most applicable to the whole scene of the 
 struggle. 
 
 Leaving this petty matter, I turn to your account of 
 what happened after the fall of Napoleon : 
 
 ' Hcnrv Houssayc, "Waterloo," p. 316.
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 23 
 
 In the re-adjustment of European relations (you say) 
 the power of England at once makes itself felt with 
 brutal clearness. Germany must have no coast-line, 
 Germany must have no independent commerce, Ger- 
 many must not be a maritime nation. Therefore 
 Hanover becomes a state dependent on England, there- 
 fore Prussia is cheated of East Friesland, therefore 
 Holland and Belgium are formed into a state destined 
 to become, like Hanover, subordinate to England. 
 
 Surely a marvellous reading of history! England is 
 accused of maliciously thwarting the ambitions of 
 "Germany " at a time when Germany did not exist as 
 a political entity! Hanover, whose German rulers had 
 been for a century the kings of the British Islands, 
 ''^becomes a state dependent on England"! England 
 is blamed for not handing over the Netherlands, a 
 historic, and gloriously historic, political entity, to the 
 politically non-existent " Germany " ! As for blocking 
 Germany's path to the sea, was Germany left with one 
 foot less of seaboard than she possessed when the 
 Hanseatic towns, as German writers are never tired of 
 boasting, dominated the commerce of Europe? You 
 seem to forget, sir, that in 18 15 Prussia had not swal- 
 lowed up Germany, nor was Germany in the least 
 anxious to be devoured. If Prussia, as distinct from 
 Germany, did not come off so well as she hoped in the 
 re-arrangement — not so well as Bismarck afterwards 
 thought she ought to have done — is it reasonable to 
 attribute that fact to any profound and far-seeing 
 British hostility? The Germany established by the 
 Congress of Vienna was a product quite as much of 
 German as of British influences; and to make it a 
 reproach to England that she did not help to realize, 
 by anticipation, the Bismarckian ideals, is to perpetrate 
 an anachronism which shows the detrimental effect of 
 hatred upon even such an intellect as yours.
 
 24 THE VILLAIN 
 
 VI 
 
 Of the nineteenth century you say little or nothing, 
 manifestly because hatred itself can suggest no wrong 
 done by England to Germany during that period. In 
 1864 England looked on passively at the dismember- 
 ment of Denmark — a grave and perhaps a dishonour- 
 able fault, but one of which Germany, at any rate, has 
 no right to complain. Some of your colleagues try to 
 make out that in 1870-71 England's neutrality was 
 hostile to Germany ; but that is far from being the case. 
 Many people, no doubt, felt the sympathy with Erance 
 which no one can deny to a nation struggling gallantly 
 against overwhelming disaster. But it was generally 
 recognized that the Second Empire had brought its 
 fate upon itself, and had walked with inexcusable blind- 
 ness into the trap which Bismarck had set for it. And 
 throughout the century the educated public of England 
 took an entirely sympathetic interest in Germany. 
 Down to 1820 or thereabouts, the British stage, then 
 in total literary decline, was dominated by cheap 
 German romanticism. Coleridge, Carlyle, and many 
 others interpreted to their countrymen the higher as- 
 pects of German literature and thought. The first part 
 of "Faust" was translated some twenty-five times. 
 Heine found almost adoring readers and innumerable 
 translators. German philosophy was very widely 
 studied ; German music met with immediate and gener- 
 ous appreciation. I\Iany English novelists represented 
 Germanv in an extremely attractive light, I well re- 
 member how my youthful imagination was fascinated 
 by the romantic vision of the sunlit Rhineland conjured 
 up by Thackeray in "The Newcomes." Meredith made 
 sympathetic use of German scenery and character. 
 Immediately after the war of 1870, William Black, a
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 
 
 ^3 
 
 novelist of some note in his day, chose a German lieu- 
 tenant for the hero of one of his most popular novels. 
 The evidences of friendly interest in Germany and 
 thingsGerman could be multiplied indefinitely. During 
 the later years of the century numberless English and 
 vScottlsh students attended German universities, and 
 many young English scholars made a habit of spending 
 the greater part of their vacations in Germany. Ger- 
 man scholars, I gladly admit, took an equally keen and 
 more systematic interest in England, and I do not 
 think that, as a whole, they had an}'^ reason to complain 
 of their reception at Oxford, Cambridge, and the British 
 Museum. This state of things lasted until close upon 
 the end of the century. I do not think that, in the 
 English feeling towards Germany, there existed any 
 such undercurrent of dislike as is clearly traceable in 
 the German feeling towards England. It is patent 
 enough in Heine and Fontane ; in Treitschke it is no 
 longer an undercurrent, but a Gulf Stream. 
 
 But here I see you ready with a retort. " Ah, yes! " 
 you say, " Until near the end of the century you felt 
 for us a kindly, half-contemptuous tolerance; for you 
 were not yet thoroughly alive to the fact that we were 
 no longer a nation of 'poets and thinkers,' but your 
 most dangerous competitors in the markets of the 
 world. As soon as you began to feel the stress of our 
 rivalry, your mood changed, and you set about plot- 
 ting our ruin." Or, to put it in your own very words: 
 
 Ours are both the German intelligence and the 
 German industry. German inventiveness, German 
 strength, German diligence, are threatened with de- 
 struction. The efficiency of our merchants, whose 
 goods and ships, to the annoyance of the Briton, 
 encounter him on every sea, is to be annihilated. 
 
 I will not stop to examine the verbal extravagances
 
 26 THE VILLAIN 
 
 of this utterance, or to enquire whether you really 
 believe that any Englishman is so mad as to imagine 
 it possible to "annihilate" (" vernichten "), or even 
 to paralyse, the inventiveness, industry, etc., of a 
 nation of 70,000,000 people. I will make reasonable 
 allowance for rhetorical exaggeration, and assume 
 you to mean that England desired, by force of arms, 
 in some way to restrict, hamper, diminish, damnify 
 the trade of Germany. I own it conceivable that 
 England might have been so unutterably foolish; but 
 between the conceivable and the actual there may be 
 — and there is in this case — all the difference in the 
 world. 
 
 You will doubtless admit that, when a certain course 
 of action has to be accounted fc/, and many strong, and 
 sane, and irresistible motives for it are obvious to the 
 view, it is unreasonable to ignore them and attribute 
 the action in question to insane and self-defeating 
 malice. That is what you and your countrymen do 
 in maintaining that England made war upon Germany 
 out of commercial envy and rivalry. If Germany 
 was prosperous, so was England — enormously, in- 
 creasingly prosperous — and Germany was her best 
 customer. If we had wanted to interfere with Ger- 
 many's trade, there were means to that end im- 
 measurably simpler and safer than war. A powerful 
 political party urged the adoption of these means, but 
 the nation again and again rejected the proposal. 
 We felt that in some ways Germany's competition 
 was not altogether fair; but we knew that, if Germany 
 was outstripping us, the main reason lay in her more 
 modern, energetic, intelligent commercial organiza- 
 tion. This we fully realized: our newspapers were 
 never tired of reiterating it, and urging us to "wake 
 up " ; and if we were slow in waking up it was because
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 
 
 ■^/ 
 
 vvc were still so prosperous that we did not feel the 
 pinch of necessity. Can you really believe, then, that 
 rather than make the slight exertion necessary to rival 
 the efficiency of German business methods, we reck- 
 lessly and suicidally determined to incur the gigantic 
 labours and perils of a world-war, in order to throttle 
 our best customer? Remember that in point of terri- 
 tory we had absolutely nothing to gain. We did not 
 covet any of your overseas possessions, which had 
 been acquired with our perfect good will; and even 
 you will scarcely suspect us of any desire to conquer 
 and annex any part of continental Germany. We 
 had, in short, no reasonable economic motive for 
 wanting to crush Germany. Your theory — the ortho- 
 dox German theory — of our reasons for entering the 
 war, amounts to accusing us of facing the incalculable 
 dangers and horrors of Armageddon rather than take 
 the trouble of teaching our bagmen Spanish. 
 
 I know that you have one document to cite in sup- 
 port of your theory. So long ago as 1897, a weekly 
 paper, once noted for reckless brilliancy, but fallen on 
 evil days, and at that time edited by a man who is 
 now foremost among the enemies of England in 
 America, published a mad and wicked article, arguing, 
 or rather asserting, that if Germany ceased to exist, 
 there was not a man in England that would not be the 
 richer, and concluding " Germaniadelendaest." The 
 fact that such an article should pass unpunished is one 
 proof among many that the freedom of the press is no 
 unmixed blessing. It would have been a fit subject for 
 diplomatic representations; but the German Ambas- 
 sador of the day no doubt hesitated to confer so much 
 distinction on a freak of irresponsible and unprincipled 
 journalism. The article passed absolutely unnoticed 
 in England. It came upon us as an extremely disagree-
 
 28 THE VILLAIN 
 
 able surprise when, after the outbreak of war, we found 
 it quoted in scores of German books and pamphlets. 
 The fact that it is the one incriminating document 
 produced by every advocate of the German theory 
 proves that it is indeed unique. Since the turn of the 
 centur}^ there has been, for reasons to be presently 
 discussed, much anti-German writing in the British 
 press, and some of it, no doubt, has been as repre- 
 hensible as the correspondingutterances in the German 
 press. But this is the one article that has been or can 
 be produced to show that England, from motives of 
 base cupidity, desired the destruction of Germany's 
 trade. No one can possibly deplore the luckless ebulli- 
 tion more than I do ; but I suggest that it is insufficient 
 evidence for the belief that thegeneral mindof England, 
 or any appreciable portion of it, was at that date or any 
 other infected by such criminal lunacy. 
 
 VII 
 
 I have said that when there are strong and sane and 
 obvious motives for a given course of action, it is un- 
 reasonable to ignore them and allege others which are 
 inadequate and foolish to the point of insanity. If a 
 man sets to work to undermine my house, with the 
 manifest intention of blowing it up as soon as he finds 
 it convenient, and if I thereupon take steps to restrain 
 his openly hostile activities, can he plausibly appeal to 
 the sympathy of the neighbours on the plea that I am 
 a covetous scoundrel intent upon picking his pockets? 
 
 Of course you wmII deny the justice of the image, 
 and declare that Germany was not undermining Eng- 
 land's house, and had no hostile intentions towards 
 her. That you believe this I cannot doubt; but that 
 only proves that when national — or shall I say tribal? 
 — feeling is strongly aroused, belief falls under the
 
 OF THK WORLD-TRAGEDY 29 
 
 control, not of reason, but of will. Your will to believe 
 Germany spotless is so strong- as to blind you to the 
 plainest facts of the case. 
 
 Here we are at the v-ery heart of the great misunder- 
 standing-. 
 
 It would conduce not a little to lucidity if I could 
 persuade you to open your mind to a certain fact which, 
 though not conclusive as to the rights and wrongs of 
 our debate, is as certainly true as that Berlin stands 
 on the Spree. The fact is this: at the outbreak of the 
 war, when we in England realized that you in Germany 
 were surprised at our coming into it, our feeling was 
 not merely surprise, but amazement. " What on earth 
 did they expect? " w^e said, each to his neighbour. 
 " Have they not been asking- for it any time for the 
 past fifteen years? Have they not been openly threat- 
 ening, not only the existence of the Empire, but the 
 safety of the land we live in? Have they not been 
 forcing upon us a ruinous competition in naval arma- 
 ments, and scornfully declining every proposal for a 
 slackening- in the race? Have they not deliberately 
 created an intolerable condition of latent war? And 
 now, having done all this, do they expect us to break 
 our plighted word to Belgium, and be false to our de- 
 clared friendship for France and Russia, in order that 
 they may crush all opposition in continental Europe, 
 and be able, at their leisure, to apply the milliards of 
 their booty to their great ultimate object of overpower- 
 ing Britain and dismembering her Empire? Truly, 
 they must either be mad themselves, or believe that 
 we are mad! " I am not for the moment asking you to 
 accept this as a true account of the situation : I am 
 only assuring you, with all possible earnestness, that 
 it was the view which imposed itself as absolutely self- 
 evident upon all Englishmen, with scarcely an cxcep-
 
 30 THE VILLAIN 
 
 tion : the view which befjot in us, so recently torn by 
 faction, a unity of spirit and resolve not less remark- 
 able than that German unity of which your country- 
 men are so immeasurably proud. If you will but under- 
 stand that, rightly or wrongly, this was, as a matter 
 of fact, the view that all England held, I think you 
 will admit that it is unnecessary and unreasonable to 
 look any further for England's motive in going to war. 
 vShe took up arms in defence, not only of the smaller 
 nations of her Empire, but of her own very seriously 
 endangered national existence. 
 
 "In that case," you may perhaps say, " how hypo- 
 critical to allege the pretext of Belgium!" Is it 
 hypocrisy to have more than one motive for a given 
 course of action? A motive of honour reinforcing a 
 motive of interest? A practical as well as an ideal 
 motive? I am sure you will not take up any so absurd 
 position. It was Belgium, as a matter of fact, that put 
 the seal on our national unity. Had you left her in 
 peace, there would have been a strong party which, 
 while recognizing the dangers of the situation, would 
 have said: "Let us not plunge into war in order to 
 avert a peril which, after all, is not immediately immi- 
 nent." Very likely I myself might have been short- 
 sighted enough to adhere to that party. At any rate, 
 I cannot too urgently beg you to believe that nothing 
 but the sense of obligation to Belgium would have 
 reconciled thousands — nay, millions — of my country- 
 men to Britain's participation in the war. If that 
 motive has now fallen somewhat into the background 
 of the national consciousness, it is because the fuller 
 revelation of the German spirit has satisfied us all that 
 it is a spirit with which we could not possibly have 
 remained at peace. 
 
 " But," you may perhaps object, " if you repudiate
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 31 
 
 the motive of commercial envy, what about your news- 
 papers' jubilation over the 'Capture of German Trade '? 
 What about the measures discussed at the Paris Con- 
 ference, for a trade war to follow the war of blood and 
 iron?" To this I reply, in the first place, that the 
 endeavour to cut the enemy's trade connections is an 
 obvious and inevitable measure of war, which does not 
 in the least imply that the war was undertaken with 
 that object. I n the second place, the economic relations 
 of the Allied countries with Germany after the war 
 will depend largely upon the attitude of the German 
 mind. If your countrymen are clearly bent on em- 
 ploying their wealth in preparation for another on- 
 slaught upon the liberties of Europe, there will be 
 some who will urge that, even at a loss to ourselves, 
 we should prevent them from accumulating wealth. If, 
 on the other hand, we have any reasonable assurance 
 of Germany's will to peace — if we can believe that she 
 will be content to live and let live — then Germany's 
 wealth will be our wealth, and we shall have no sound 
 motive for attempting to restrict or impair it. 
 
 VIII 
 
 My last two paragraphs have been something of a 
 digression from the main line of my argument. Let us 
 now return to the point at which I had sketched for 
 you the frame of mind in which England approached 
 the war, and begged you to believe that the sketch was 
 historically true, quite apart from the question whether, 
 and in what measure, the frame of mind was justified. 
 That is the question we must nowdiscuss. Did England 
 misunderstand Germany? Was her conviction that 
 Germany was aiming at her downfall — was at all events 
 determined so to reduce her margin of safety as to
 
 32 THE VILLAIN 
 
 subject her to practical vassalage — a false and injurious 
 imagination? 
 
 You emphatically reply that it was. Your whole 
 argument rests upon the assertion of Germany's wholly 
 unaggressive spirit. You declare several times, in the 
 most explicit terms, that 
 
 Had we had our will there would have been no breach 
 of the peace, for no one in Germany — neither the 
 Kaiser, the army, nor the people — no one coveted a 
 single foot of the territory bordering on our frontiers. 
 
 I am sorry to have to point out to you, sir, that this 
 is untrue in the letter, and, even if it be defensible in 
 the letter, it is utterly untrue in the spirit. 
 
 That it is untrue in the letter we know on the evidence 
 of a large body of literature, in which the expansion of 
 Germany in Europe was warmly advocated, and even 
 claimed as a right. You knew your colleague, Paul 
 de Lagarde; you delivered a fine oration at his grave; 
 what w'ere his " Deutsche Schriften " but an impas- 
 sioned plea for a Greater Germany in Europe? You 
 will not deny that Heinrich v. Treitschke was a man 
 of great eminciice and influence; he never dissembled 
 his conviction that Germany ought as soon as con- 
 venient to possess herself of the mouths of the Rhine, 
 Read the works of Friedrich Lange, of Ernst Hasse, 
 of Albrecht Wirth, of J. L. Reimer, and then tell me 
 that no German desired expansion in Europe! Some 
 of these writers (and many more of the same tendency 
 could be cited) did not quite explicitly say that they 
 demanded conquests by force of arms; but they all 
 demanded economic conquest and unification, and 
 were prepared to impose it by force of arms if neces- 
 sary. And these ideas were not the whims of isolated 
 individuals. They were disseminated through the 
 medium of large and active societies, who chose for
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 
 
 their spokesmen soldiers and officials of high rank. 
 Read Nippold's " Der deutsche Chauvinismus" and 
 tell me aoajn that no German desired expansion in 
 Europe! If you still maintain that the army was not 
 infected by these ideas, let me refer you to General v. 
 Bernhardi's " Deutschland und der nachste Krieg." 
 Take, for instance, his remark that "France must be 
 so completely crushed that she can never again come 
 across our path " — you will scarcely pretend that the 
 writer (an ex-member of the Great General Staff) had 
 not in mind any annexation of French territory. There 
 is, in short, ov^erwhelming evidence that large numbers 
 of influential people in Germany eagerly desired terri- 
 torial expansion in Europe. You will tell me (perhaps 
 with truth) that they did not represent the German 
 nation; but you know very well that the German 
 nation has no share in determining questions of peace 
 and war. At all events, if you will examine the litera- 
 ture of which I have cited only a few specimens, I 
 think you must own that the assertion that "no one 
 coveted a single foot of the territory bordering on our 
 frontiers" is very far from being literally true. 
 
 It might, however, have been literally true, and yet 
 utterly untrue in the spirit. Even if it had been the 
 case tliat Germany coveted no teyritory bordering o?i 
 her frontiers, it would none the less have been certain 
 that Germany coveted both the actual annexation of 
 some oversea territories, and the establishment of 
 predominant influence in others, and that she well 
 knew these ambitions to be too extensive to be realized 
 without war. This is manifest both in the literature I 
 have already cited, and in other writings so numerous 
 and so notorious that I need not refer to them by 
 name. I will quote only one utterance — not by one 
 ■of your hot-headed enthusiasts, but by a geographer 
 
 c
 
 34 THE VILLAIN 
 
 and economist of high reputation and authority, 
 Dr. Paul Rohrbach. In ''Was will Russland?" 
 (p. 12), Dr. Rohrbach writes : 
 
 We could not but say to ourselves, '* If once it 
 comes to war with England, it will be difficult for us 
 to get at her in her island. It will be easier to strike 
 at her in Egypt [which the writer elsewhere describes 
 as the keystone of the arch of the British Empire]. 
 But to that end we require an alliance with the Turks." 
 . . . Therefore Germany sent officers to instruct the 
 Turkish army, therefore the Emperor went in 1898 to 
 Constantinople and Jerusalem, and made his famous 
 speech as to the friendship between Germany and the 
 Muhammadans. Therefore we built the Bagdad Rail- 
 way with German money. 
 
 In the face of such an utterance as this, it is surely 
 impossible to pretend that Germany had no ambitions 
 inconsistent with the welfare of her neighbours; and 
 unless that can be established, it is useless (even if it 
 were true) to urge that she desired no extension of 
 her European frontier. Here we find her, by the 
 avowal of one of her leading publicists, deliberately 
 plotting the overthrow of the British Empire by an 
 attack upon its " keystone," and that at a time (1898) 
 when the relations between the two Empires were to 
 all appearance perfectly amicable — six years before 
 the alleged " Einkreisungspolitik " was initiated. And 
 yet you, sir, can actually join in the strident chorus 
 of your countrymen about an " uns aufgezwungener 
 Krieg" conjured up against an innocent and unag- 
 gressive Germany by the wiles of envious England! 
 
 It is in the following terms that you drive home 
 this accusation : 
 
 At last came our little colonies,' and came, thanks 
 to our Kaiser, the fleet, this superfluous toy, as an 
 
 ' Only five times larger than the German Empire.
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 
 
 o> 
 
 English minister called it.' That was too much for 
 the Britons. Now they wanted to make an end. Since 
 the accession of Edward VII, the end has always been 
 clearly in view, the overthrow of Germany, and it has 
 been pursued with a certainty and skill to which we 
 cannot deny our admiration. . . . All attempts to 
 arrive at an understanding with England, which have 
 been made during the past live years,' with the appro- 
 bation, it must be admitted, of the German people, 
 England has only pretended to view with sympathy, 
 in order that Russia might have time to gather up her 
 strength. 
 
 May I ask you, sir, at whatever temporary cost to 
 your self-respect, to try to imagine yourself a Briton? 
 You are an inhabitant of an island which (though 
 Professor v. Treitschke denies it natural beauty) has 
 somehow endeared itself to the hearts of its sons and 
 daughters. It has suffered no serious invasion for 
 more than eight centuries. The battles which have 
 taken place on its soil have been, to all intents and 
 purposes, battles of civil war. It does not know by 
 experience what it means to *' lie at the proud foot of 
 a conqueror"; but it has only to look at continental 
 Europe, and especially at the history of France and 
 Germany, to conceive a violent and surely not un- 
 natural distaste for such a fate. Moreover, it has cer- 
 tain daughter nations — free communities of its own 
 speech and blood — which look to it for protection 
 against any possible attack from overseas. Can you 
 doubt that you, inhabiting an island so situated, would 
 feel that the first necessity of life — a necessity without 
 
 ^ He called it a "luxury," which is not quite the same thing- 
 as a "superfluous toy." 1 thought accuracy of quotation was 
 one of the corner-stones of German philology; but it appears 
 that a Professor can quote as inaccurately as a Chancellor. 
 
 " Do you really think that these attempts originated in 
 Germany ?
 
 36 THE VILLAIN 
 
 which you could not sleep calmly o' nights — was a 
 navy that need not fear to encounter any single rival 
 or any probable combination of rivals? You would 
 know that such a navy was necessary, not only to hold 
 aloof actual invasion, but to prevent the stoppage of 
 those sea-borne supplies without which life in your 
 island could not be maintained for more than a few 
 weeks. You would realize that an insular position, if 
 it has its peculiar advantages, has also its peculiar 
 dangers; and you would hold it the first axiom of 
 politics that the business of Government is to keep 
 these dangers at a distance. Well, supposing you felt 
 thus — and I think you can scarcely deny that you 
 would feel thus — how would it affect you to learn that 
 a neighbouring Power, known to be armed to the 
 teeth and enormously powerful on land, had openly 
 set about the task of making herself enormously power- 
 ful at sea, and so imperilling your insular security? 
 Would you not feel it the manifest and imperative 
 duty of your rulers to take measures to meet that 
 threat? And would you think that the mere building 
 of two ships for one (supposing that could go on in- 
 definitely) was a sufficient measure of precaution? 
 Surely not. You would feel that in the face of this 
 colossal and ever-accumulating enmity, all other en- 
 mities must be appeased, all threats from other quarters 
 averted. You would regard as a measure of element- 
 ary prudence the settling up of outstanding differences 
 with France and Russia, so that at least there should 
 be no coalition of all Europe against your national 
 existence. You would see in this simple reconcilement 
 no plot to '' overthrow" Germany, but merely the 
 conversion of possible enemies into assured friends in 
 case of need. And among the motives impelling you 
 and your countrymen to such steps, should you feel
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRACrEDY sj 
 
 that there was the smallest room for " commercial jeal- 
 ousy " or any such trumpery consideration? No, and a 
 thousand times, no! On that score you would have a 
 perfectly clear conscience. It would seem to you the 
 most ridiculous thing conceivable that you should be 
 accused of wishing to fill your pockets at Germany's 
 expense, when you knew in your inmost heart that 
 your sole and all-sufficient motive was the desire to 
 keep your island home inviolate, and to save from 
 catastrophic disruption a great community of free 
 peoples. 
 
 In thus asking you to put yourself in the place of an 
 Englishman and try to realize his feelings and motives, 
 I have merely sought to bring home to you the fact 
 that these feelings and motives were perfectly natural, 
 not to say inevitable, without necessarily implying 
 that they were altogether just. You will, no doubt, 
 say they were founded on mistaken conceptions. Per- 
 haps you will argue that we have here the great mis- 
 understanding'. You will tell me that we had no 
 reason to be disturbed by Germany's desire for a 
 powerful navy to protect her growing commerce; that 
 it was not aimed at our national security; and that our 
 feelings on the subject, even if untinged by commercial 
 jealousy, were inspired by an arrogant and overween- 
 ing superstition of Britain's prescriptive right to ab- 
 solute supremacy on all the oceans. Let us look into 
 these contentions. I am not without hopes of con- 
 vincing you that, if there was any misunderstanding 
 on our part, it was an only too natural one, for which 
 we were in nowise to blame. 
 
 Consider the historic juncture at which Germany's 
 naval ambitions and schemes were first revealed to us! 
 Four years earlier the Kaiser had gone out of his way 
 to publish his sympathy with a State (the Transvaal) 
 
 ^ Or?.'^ f^>
 
 ;38 THE VILLAIN 
 
 with which we were at odds. Technically, no doubt, 
 he was in the right, since an unauthorized act of folly 
 had placed us technically in the wrong ; but the Kruger 
 telegram was none the less a gratuitous demonstration 
 of unfriendliness. Two years after tliat, he had pro- 
 claimed himself, without any obvious need or invita- 
 tion, the protector of the Moslem world. We were 
 inclined to regard it as a piece of characteristic rodo- 
 montade; we did not see in it the calculated hostility 
 which Rohrbach now admits and glories in; but we 
 could not possibly mistake it for a friendly act. In the 
 next place, it was certain that illusory hopes of aid 
 from Germany had stiffened the resistance of the 
 Transvaal Government to what we regarded (rightly 
 or wrongly) as our reasonable demands, and had 
 helped to involve us in a war which even those of us 
 who thought it necessary hated and deplored. Further, 
 that war had begotten in Germany (this you will surely 
 not deny) a feeling of intense and ungovernable hos- 
 tility towards us. This, then, was the moment which 
 Germanychose to announce her determination to build, 
 •with great celerity, a mighty fleet! Can it possibly 
 surprise you that we should regard this determination 
 Avith uneasiness, and see in it a distinct menace to our 
 security? We had, of course, a long start, and could 
 hope, by incurring a very heavy burden of taxation, to 
 maintain our lead for a certain time; but it was manifest 
 that this could not go on for ever, and that Germany, 
 if she put her heart into it, Avould one day be able at 
 J east to reduce our margin of safety to the narrowest 
 limit. And Germany did put her heart into it. What 
 had been at first the aspiration of a few leading men, 
 was sedulously worked up until it became the darling 
 ambition of the whole people. Naval programmes 
 ^rew and grew; all attempts on our part to secure a
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 39 
 
 little slackening- in this cut-throat rivalry were more or 
 less scornfully rejected. Do you really think it pos- 
 sible, sir, that we should have sat quietly down, facing 
 unheard-of burdens of taxation in order to meet 
 Germany's menace, and taking- no other measures to 
 make our position a little more secure? 
 
 And here let me appeal to your candour: can you 
 lay your hand on your heart and assure me on your 
 honour and conscience that the growing- German 
 navy was not regarded with enthusiasm, by at any 
 rate a very great number of the German people, 
 simply as a weapon for the eventual humiliation of 
 the hated England? I do not see how you can pos- 
 sibly deny that fact. You may allege excuses, not 
 without reason; but surely you cannot close your 
 eyes to the fact itself. You may tell me that Germany 
 was conscious of a corresponding dislike on the part 
 of the English public, and that several English news- 
 papers did their best to work up ill-feeling. All this 
 is true. Ever since the Boer War — nay, since the 
 Kruger telegram — there had been a growing estrange- 
 ment between the two countries, in regard to which 
 neither was entirely blameless.^ I will even admit — 
 for I do not pretend that the English character is (like 
 the German!) wholly angelic — I will admit that the 
 sense of keen commercial rivalry did not tend to make 
 
 • The general British hostility to Germany is, however, enorm- 
 ously exag-gerated by German writers. You yourself say, " I 
 observed the feeling in London when our airship descended at 
 Luneville; they could not do enough to express their jubilation 
 over the German Sedan, as the provocative papers expressed it." 
 It is, of course, impossible to say that no paper made use of this 
 unspeakably silly expression; but I have looked up the file of the 
 leading " Hetzblatt," and I find, not only nothing about Sedan, 
 but no sort ot "jubilation." Not a word is said at which an}' 
 reasonable German could possilily take otVonce.
 
 40 THE \^ILLAIN 
 
 Germany any more beloved in England. All this, I 
 repeat, is true. I do not think that the English feeling 
 towards Germany had anything like the bitterness of 
 the German feeling towards England; but it is diffi- 
 cult to bring such comparisons to the proof. What I 
 emphatically assert, and what I challenge you to 
 deny, is that the first move of active menace came 
 from the side of Germany; that England at no time 
 took any move that was not purely defensive; and 
 that no one in England ever desired or contemplated 
 aggression upon Germany, whereas in Germany the 
 military class, many of the most influential politicians 
 and publicists, and at any rate a considerable section 
 of the general public, desired nothing in this world 
 so much as the humiliation of England, and the dis- 
 memberment of an Empire which was somehow felt 
 to have stolen a march on Germany, and mischiev- 
 ously thwarted her just ambitions. 
 
 Need I pause to consider the official explanation 
 and vindication of Germany's naval ambitions? We 
 are told by many authorities (notably by Rohrbach) 
 that Germany never intended or hoped to build a fleet 
 that should really threaten the safety of England. 
 All she desired was to possess such a fleet as should 
 force the strongest naval power to think twice about 
 attacking her at sea; and it is argued that this assur- 
 ance ought to have placed us quite at our ease. Was 
 there ever such a childish contention? Who is to fix 
 the proportion of power at which a fleet becomes, so 
 to speak, passively but not actively formidable — too 
 strong to be attacked, but not strong enough to 
 attack? And supposing this point to be defined and 
 reached, is it not manifest that there could be no 
 guarantee for the maintenance of the equilibrium, if 
 so it can be called? Moreover, Germany and England
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 4» 
 
 did not stand alone in the world. France and Russia, 
 Italy and Austria (the two latter Germany's allies), 
 were considerable naval powers. What was to hinder 
 Germany, when she had reached the point of being 
 *' passively" formidable, from making herself "act- 
 ively" formidable by engineering a naval coalition 
 against England, and sweeping the British navy from 
 the seas? I think you must grant, sir, that Britain 
 could not be expected to pay much heed to the sug- 
 gestion that the German navy was intended for purely 
 defensive purposes. Any assurance to this effect 
 would have been a very inadequate security even in 
 the case of an entirely friendly Power. In the case of 
 a Pov*er which we knew to be extremely unfriendly, 
 and to be consumed with envy of our world-wide 
 "possessions" (which might much more rightly be 
 called our world-wide responsibilities) — in the case of 
 such a Power it would have been madness to suppose 
 that the huge naval outlay it was incurring was de- 
 signed for defence alone. England determined to 
 make sure that at any rate France, Russia, and Japan 
 should not take part in a possible coalition against 
 her — and that simple and obvious measure of self- 
 protection is the whole sum and substance of the 
 "encirclement-policy" of which Germany makes so 
 loud a complaint. 
 
 I know that after she had provided herself with a 
 very powerful fleet, Germany expressed herself as not 
 unwilling to consider a certain slackening in her ship- 
 building activities, on condition that England should 
 allow her a perfectly free hand in Europe. But what 
 would this have meant? Putting aside all questions of 
 international friendship and honour, it would have 
 meant that Germany could, at her leisure, crush the 
 Dual Alliance, exact gigantic indemnities, and pro-
 
 42 THE VILLAIN 
 
 ceed to build, at the expense of France and Russia, a 
 navy with which Eng-land could not hope to contend. 
 Can you seriously suggest, sir, that England ought to 
 have betrayed and abandoned her friends in order to 
 place her neck, without hope of redemption, under the 
 German yoke? Let me assure you that, much as we 
 deplore the hatred with which you regard us to-day, 
 we infinitely prefer it to thecontempt which you would 
 rightly have bestowed on us had we accepted so base 
 and suicidal a bargain. 
 
 IX 
 
 That Germany misunderstood England is perfectly 
 clear, since I suppose you will admit that the general 
 feeling, when it was known that England proposed to 
 stand faithful to her promise to Belgium and her friend- 
 ship for France, was one of profound astonishment. I 
 have no doubtyou are sincere in thinking that England, 
 on her side, misunderstood Germany; but I have 
 tried to show that you yourself have misimdevstood or 
 ignored a large part of the mind of Germany, and un- 
 fortunately that part which controls her political and 
 military action. 
 
 Of this I cannot hope to have convinced you. To 
 state the case in full would demand a large volume 
 and the citation of a long array of authorities; and 
 even to that you would probably reply that the author- 
 ities did not truly represent the German mind. My 
 purpose will have been served if I have awakened in 
 you even a glimmering perception that your diagnosis 
 of England's motives as '* hypocrisy and envy " is lu- 
 dicrously wrong, and have led you to wonder whether 
 her action, even if you still think it misguided, was 
 not worthy of the respect which no upright man refuses 
 to upright and honourable conduct in another. Your
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 43 
 
 vision of England sedulously, patiently, and craftily 
 plotting the destruction of Germany is the delusion of 
 a heated fancy. What England did was to take per- 
 fectly open and ahove-board measures of self-protection 
 against the equally open and undisguised hostility of 
 Germany. That there were misunderstandings on both 
 sides is likely enough; but what is clear to the exclu- 
 sion of all misunderstanding is that Germany s concep- 
 tion of her rights and interests at sea was inconsistent 
 7vith England's safety. You may argue, if you will, 
 that England could not reasonably claim a safety that 
 conflicted with Germany's interests, and that Germany 
 was justified in impugning it. That is the principle 
 on which your annexationists proceed — the principle 
 of State brigandage, defined by Wordsworth as — 
 
 The good old rule . . . the simple plan 
 That he should take who has the power, 
 And he should keep who can. 
 
 But you would have us think that you are not an 
 annexationist — and even if you were, you would surely 
 allow that the right of any one nation to attack another, 
 implies the right of the other to protect itself. As all 
 England has done is to exercise that right, one does 
 not see why your natural hostility towards her should 
 not be tempered with respect. 
 
 I have addressed you throughout, and quite sin- 
 cerely, as a man to be respected. I think you are 
 strangely blinded by the tribal passion which has 
 mastered the German mind to a degree scarcely paral- 
 leled in history; but I believe that the catchwords of 
 the hour must one day lose some of their influence 
 over you, and that you may be willing to recognize 
 that it is extremely undesirable for any two nations, 
 who are once for all fated to exist together on a none 
 too extensive planet, to cherish nothing but con-
 
 44 THE VILLAIN 
 
 temptuous incomprehension for each other. I hope, 
 for instance, that you may one day be induced to 
 study the diplomatic correspondence which preceded 
 the war, and to reahze that it makes one catchword, at 
 any rate — the catchword of the " aufo^ezwungenc 
 Kriec:;-" — a piece of rather brazen effrontery. It will 
 make, I think, for what may be called mundane sanity 
 if you and the more rational amono- your countrymen 
 can be brought to realize that Germany is something- 
 less than a suffering Christ, and England something 
 other than a covetous and rufilanly Judas. 
 
 Yet I would not have you misconceive my purpose. 
 I am not pleading for friendship or holding out a hand 
 towards reconciliation. Before that can come we must 
 have evidence of a change of heart in the German 
 people, going far beyond any mere admission that 
 their adversaries are not entirely contemptible. There 
 can be no joining of hands with Germany until she has 
 washed her hands of the pernicious theories of state- 
 craft and military policy which have made her conduct 
 of this war one long succession of crimes, from the 
 initial crime against Belgium onwards. I do not, of 
 course, expect you to admit any sort of justice in this 
 accusation. The question must be tried out at the bar 
 of history, if not (as one cannot but hope) before some 
 international tribunal that will be somewhat more 
 prompt in its verdict. " What a Utopian idea! " you 
 may say. But why should Germany decline to submit 
 her case to judgement, along with the counter-accusa- 
 tions which she brings against the Allies?' I do not 
 
 ' One of these, in particular, you make your own. You say, 
 " Hij^hly-placed persons in Enji^land are not ashamed to deny the 
 existence of the Dum-Dum bullets which we find in the English 
 cartridge-cases." You must surely be aware that in all recent 
 wars both sides have been accused of using soft-nosed bullets —
 
 OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 45 
 
 say that there is nothing at all in these accusations, 
 but I do say that there is an enormous excess of 
 savagery (often taking the form of deliberate crime) 
 to be placed to the charge of Germany. In denying 
 it, indeed, she is disloyal to the teachings of her 
 military philosophers (to say nothing of your old 
 schoolmate, Nietzsche), who had been careful to 
 justify it in advance. 
 
 Until these memories of blood and horror have died 
 away, or have been cancelled by a confession oftragic^ 
 error and wrong-doing, there can be no approach to 
 friendship between our countries. But as estrange- 
 ment to all eternity is a mad and impossible idea, it 
 seemed worth while to attempt to clear the ground for 
 some approach to mutual understanding, by urging 
 upon a man of personal honour the fact — the amazing 
 fact, you will doubtless say — that men of personal 
 honour in England, so far from being ashamed of 
 their country's participation in the war, would have 
 held her eternally dishonoured had she acted other- 
 wise than as she did. Blind hatred and scorn for 
 
 the Germans ccilainly not excepted. Have you inquired at all 
 into the evidence for the finding of Dum-Duni bullets in British 
 -cartridge-cases? And supposing a few zvere found, should you 
 not think it reasonable to assume that sonie old cartridges had 
 been served out by mistake, rather than attribute to the British 
 Government the incredible folly of deliberately supplying a few 
 companies, or even a few battalions, with illegal ammunition? 
 For my part, my common sense rejects the accusation on both 
 sides. No Government is accused of making large and habitual 
 use of soft-nosed bullets ; and it would clearly not be worth the 
 while of any Government to lay itself open to the reproach of 
 breaking a convention, unless some considerable advantage were 
 to be gained by it. If you accuse a millionaire of stealing a 
 million pounds, I will examine your evidence carefully ; but if 
 you accuse him of filching a five-pound note, under circumstances 
 certain to lead to detection, 1 take no interest in the evidence, 
 for I am sure there has been some mistake.
 
 46 THE VILLAIN OF THE WORLD-TRAGEDY 
 
 adversaries can lead nowhither. Only by understand- 
 ing our opponents can we understand ourselves; and 
 believe me, sir, it will be to the ultimate advantage of 
 Germany if she will open her mind to the idea that 
 the motives which dragged England, sorely against 
 her will, into this war, cannot reasonably be dis- 
 missed in a formula of contempt. Your countrymen's 
 miraculous insight into the minds of other peoples is 
 one of their favourite topics of self-laudation. " We 
 understand all foreign nations,"says Professor Werner 
 vSombart; "none of them understands or can under- 
 stand us." It is true that there are many elements in 
 the German character which non-Germans find it hard 
 to understand; but as for the other half of the pro- 
 position, the war has surely demonstrated its falsity 
 beyond all possibility of doubt. If, in July 1914, 
 Germany had understood England — to say nothing 
 of France and Russia — she would never have thrown 
 down the gage of batde as she did. Let her take heed 
 lest, through arrogant incomprehension, she continue 
 to block the way to a saner and a happier world. 
 
 Yours, etc., 
 
 WILLIAM ARCHER. 
 
 LoNnoN, 
 DecetnlcrZ, igi6 
 
 Printed in Great Britain by the Chiswick Press, Tooks Court, 
 Chancery Lane, London.
 
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