least of all. German statesmen argued that America had too much to
lose by such a decision--too little to gain; the task of transporting
men and materials across three thousand miles of ocean seemed
insuperable; the differing traditions of her population would make it
impossible for her to concentrate her will in so unusual a direction.
Basing their arguments on a knowledge of the deep-seated selfishness
of human nature, Hun statesmen were of the fixed opinion that no
amount of insult would compel America to take up the sword.

Two and a half years before, those same statesmen made the same
mistake with regard to Great Britain and her Dominions. The British
were a race of shop-keepers; no matter how chivalrous the call,
nothing would persuade them to jeopardise their money-bags. If they
did for once leap across their counters to become Sir Galahads, then
the Dominions would seize that opportunity to secure their own base
safety and to fling the Mother Country out of doors. The British gave
these students of selfishness a surprise from which their military
machine has never recovered, when the "Old Contemptibles" held up the
advance of the Hun legions and won for Europe a breathing-space. The
Dominions gave them a second lesson in magnanimity when Canada's lads
built a wall with their bodies to block the drive at Ypres. America
refuted them for the third time, when she proved her love of
world-liberty greater than her affection for the dollar, bugling
across the Atlantic her shrill challenge to mailed bestiality. Germany
has made the grave mistake of estimating human nature at its lowest
worth as she sees it reflected in her own face. In every case, in
her judgment of the two great Anglo-Saxon races, she has been at
fault through over-emphasising their capacity for baseness and
under-estimating their capacity to respond to an ideal. It was an
ideal that led the Pilgrim Fathers westward; after more than two