The circle of the accused is therefore narrowed down to the Court, the Army, and the Bureaucracy. And there we must leave it for the present--a joint indictment against all three. But whether these { 45} parties were guilty, all three in equal measure, we cannot conjecture with the least approach to certainty. Nor can we even say precisely of what they were guilty--of misunderstanding--of a quarrel among themselves--of a series of blunders--or of a crime so black and deliberate, that no apologist will be able ever to delete it from the pages of history. On all this posterity must be left to pronounce.
It is only human nevertheless to be curious about personalities. Unfortunately for the satisfaction of this appetite, all is darkness as to the German Army. We may suspect that the Prussian junker, or country gentleman, controls and dominates it. But even as to this we may conceivably be wrong. The military genius of some Hanoverian, Saxon, or Bavarian may possess the mastery in council. As to the real heads of the army, as to their individual characters, and their potency in directing policy we know nothing at all. After nine months of war, we have arrived at no clear notion, even with regard to their relative values as soldiers in the field. We have even less knowledge as to their influence beforehand in shaping and deciding the issues of war and peace.
This much, however, we may reasonably deduce from Bernhardi and other writers--that military opinion had been anxious for some considerable number of years past, and more particularly since the Agadir incident,[1] lest war, which it regarded as ultimately inevitable, should be delayed until the forces ranged against Germany, especially upon her Eastern frontier, were too strong for her to cope with.
In the pages of various official publications, and in newspaper reports immediately before and after { 46} war began, we caught glimpses of certain characters at work; but these were not professional soldiers; they were members of the Court and the Bureaucracy.
Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor, comes upon the scene--a harassed and indignant official--sorely flustered--not by any means master of his temper--not altogether certain of his facts--in considerable doubt apparently as to whether things have not passed behind his back which he ought to have been told of by higher powers, but was not. He appears to us as a diligent and faithful servant,--one who does not seek to impose his own decisions, but to excuse, justify, and carry out, if he can, decisions which have been made by others, more highly placed and greedier of responsibility than himself.