than Sir Edward Grey, who, without consulting us, sends us to war by a
word to an ambassador and pledges all our wealth to his foreign allies
by a stroke of his pen.


*What Is a Militarist?*

Now that we know what a Junker is, let us have a look at the
Militarists. A Militarist is a person who believes that all real power
is the power to kill, and that Providence is on the side of the big
battalions. The most famous Militarist at present, thanks to the zeal
with which we have bought and quoted his book, is General Friedrich von
Bernhardi. But we cannot allow the General to take precedence of our own
writers as a Militarist propagandist. I am old enough to remember the
beginning of the anti-German phase of that very ancient propaganda in
England. The Franco-Prussian war of 1870-1871 left Europe very much
taken aback. Up to that date nobody was afraid of Prussia, though
everybody was a little afraid of France; and we were keeping "buffer
States" between ourselves and Russia in the east. Germany had indeed
beaten Denmark; but then Denmark was a little State, and was abandoned
in her hour of need by those who should have helped her, to the great
indignation of Ibsen. Germany had also beaten Austria; but somehow
everybody seems able to beat Austria, though nobody seems able to draw
the moral that defeats do not matter as much as the Militarists think,
Austria being as important as ever. Suddenly Germany beat France right
down into the dust, by the exercise of an organized efficiency in war of
which nobody up to then had any conception. There was not a State in
Europe that did not say to itself: "Good Heavens! what would happen if
she attacked _us_?" We in England thought of our old-fashioned army and
our old-fashioned commander George Ranger (of Cambridge), and our War