Bronsart von Schellendorf (1832-91) was one of the Prussian Generals who
negotiated the surrender of the French at Sedan. He became Chief of the
Staff, and War Minister (1883-9), and wrote on Tactics, etc. His above
utterance, therefore, cannot be neglected as that of an irresponsible
person.

There is, as I have already had occasion to say, a certain easygoing
absurdity in the habit we commonly have of talking of nations
--"Germany," "France," "England," and so forth--as if they were
simple and plainly responsible persons or individuals, when all the time
we know perfectly well that they are more like huge whirlpools of
humanity caused by the impact and collision of countless and often
opposing currents flowing together from various directions. Yet there is
this point of incontestable similarity between nations and individual
persons, that both occasionally go mad! If Germany was afflicted by a
kind of madness or divine _dementia_ previous to the present war,
Britain can by no means throw that in her teeth, for Britain certainly
went mad over Mafeking; and it was sheer madness that in 1870 threw the
people of France and Napoleon III--utterly unready for war as they
were, and over a most trifling quarrel--into the arms of Bismarck for
the fulfilment of his schemes.

But that some sort of madness did, in consequence of the above-mentioned
circumstances, seize the German people shortly before the outbreak of
the present war we can hardly doubt, though (remembering the proverb) we
must not put the blame for that on her, but on the gods. It was a heady
intoxication, caused largely, I believe, by that era of unexampled
commercial prosperity following upon a period of great political and
military expansion, and confirmed by the direct incitement of the