The practice of using German soldiers, and even whole German regiments,
in the make-up of the British army, came in with our German princes, and
reappeared on many important occasions in our eighteenth-century
history. They were probably among those who encamped triumphantly upon
Drumossie Moor, and also (which is a more gratifying thought) among
those who ran away with great rapidity at Prestonpans. When that very
typical German, George III., narrow, serious, of a stunted culture and
coarse in his very domesticity, quarrelled with all that was spirited,
not only in the democracy of America but in the aristocracy of England,
German troops were very fitted to be his ambassadors beyond the
Atlantic. With their well-drilled formations they followed Burgoyne in
that woodland march that failed at Saratoga; and with their wooden faces
beheld our downfall. Their presence had long had its effect in various
ways. In one way, curiously enough, their very militarism helped England
to be less military; and especially to be more mercantile. It began to
be felt, faintly of course and never consciously, that fighting was a
thing that foreigners had to do. It vaguely increased the prestige of
the Germans as the military people, to the disadvantage of the French,
whom it was the interest of our vanity to underrate. The mere mixture of
their uniforms with ours made a background of pageantry in which it
seemed more and more natural that English and German potentates should
salute each other like cousins, and, in a sense, live in each other's
countries. Thus in 1908 the German Emperor was already regarded as
something of a menace by the English politicians, and as nothing but a
madman by the English people. Yet it did not seem in any way disgusting
or dangerous that Edward VII. should appear upon occasion in a Prussian
uniform. Edward VII. was himself a friend to France, and worked for the
French Alliance. Yet his appearance in the red trousers of a French
soldier would have struck many people as funny; as funny as if he had
dressed up as a Chinaman.