play for her fight with Russia. But even the fight with Russia was not
inevitable. The ultimatum to Servia was the escapade of a dotard: a
worse crime than the assassination that provoked it. There is no reason
to doubt the conclusion in Sir Maurice de Bunsen's despatch (No. 161)
that it could have been got over, and that Russia and Austria would have
thought better of fighting and come to terms. Peace was really on the
cards; and the sane game was to play for it.


*The Achilles Heel of Militarism.*

Instead, Germany flew at France's throat, and by incidentally invading
Belgium gave us the excuse our Militarists wanted to attack her with the
full sympathy of the nation. Why did she do this stupid thing? Not
because of the counsels of General von Bernhardi. On the contrary, he
had warned her expressly against allowing herself to be caught between
Russia and a Franco-British combination until she had formed a
counterbalancing alliance with America, Italy, and Turkey. And he had
most certainly not encouraged her to depend on England sparing her: on
the contrary, he could not sufficiently admire the wily ruthlessness
with which England watches her opportunity and springs at her foe when
the foe is down. (He little knew, poor man, how much he was flattering
our capacity for Realpolitik!) But he had reckoned without his creed's
fatal and fundamental weakness, which is, that as Junker-Militarism
promotes only stupid people and snobs, and suppresses genuine realists
as if they were snakes, it always turns out when a crisis arrives that
"the silly people don't know their own silly business." The Kaiser and
his ministers made an appalling mess of their job. They were inflamed by
Bernhardi; but they did not understand him. They swallowed his flattery,
but did not take in his strategy or his warnings. They knew that when