for industry, refitting stations for ships, concessions for
capitalists, or outlets for production are seen to exist. In fact, the
policy which had served Prussia so well passed at a bound from the
most calculating prudence to the wildest temerity. Bismarck, whose
common-sense put some restraint on the logic of his principles, was
still averse to colonial enterprises; he said that all the affairs of
the East were not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier. But
Germany, retaining Bismarck's former impulse, went straight on and
rushed forward along the lines of least resistance to east and west:
on the one side lay the route to the Orient, on the other the empire
of the sea. But in so doing she virtually declared war on the nations
which Bismarck had managed to keep allied or friendly. Her ambition
looked forward to the domination of the world.

Moreover, there was no moral restraint which could keep this ambition
under control. Intoxicated by victory, by the prestige which victory
had given her, and of which her commerce, her industry, her science
even, had reaped the benefit, Germany plunged into a material
prosperity such as she had never known, such as she would never have
dared to dream of. She told herself that if force had wrought this
miracle, if force had given her riches and honour, it was because
force had within it a hidden virtue, mysterious--nay, divine. Yes,
brute force with its train of trickery and lies, when it comes with
powers of attack sufficient for the conquest of the world, must needs
be in direct line from heaven and a revelation of the will of God on
earth. The people to whom this power of attack had come were the
elect, a chosen race by whose side the others are races of bondmen. To
such a race nothing is forbidden that may help in establishing its
dominion. Let none speak to it of inviolable right! Right is what is
written in a treaty; a treaty is what registers the will of a