Minister who did much to develop the naval power of Germany, about the
origin and significance of the war. Both have written books on the
subject.[4] It is to be desired that in the case of each of these
authors his book should be studied in English-speaking countries as well
as on the Continent. For it is important that the Anglo-Saxon world
should understand the divergences in policy which the two books
disclose, not less than the points of agreement. That world has suffered
in the past from failure to understand Germany, while the German world
has displayed a total inability to interpret aright the Anglo-Saxon
disposition. When I speak of two worlds I mean the governing classes of
these worlds. The nations themselves, taken as aggregates of individual
citizens, by a probable majority in each case, desired the continuance
of peace and of the prosperity of which it is the condition. So, of
course, did the rulers, those in Germany as much as those in London. But
the German rulers had a theory of how to secure peace which was the
outcome of the abstract mind that was their inheritance. It was the
theory that was wrong, a theory of which Anglo-Saxondom knew little, and
which it would have rejected decisively had it realized its tendency.
This theory is described in Admiral Tirpitz's book, with an account of
the efforts made to indoctrinate with it the people of Germany.

The two volumes are profoundly interesting. For in that of Admiral
Tirpitz we have the doctrine set forth that in the end led to the war.
In that written by the late Imperial Chancellor we have quite another
principle laid down as the one which he was endeavoring to apply in his
direction of German policy. But in this endeavor he failed. The school
of Tirpitz in the main prevailed, and this was the more easy, inasmuch
as it was simply continuing the policy which had been advocated by a
noisy section of Germans, nearly without a break, since the days of
Frederick the Great. It was a policy which had in reality outlived the