The immediate occasion of the catastrophe has been variously attributed to the German court, army, bureaucracy, professors, press, and people. If we are looking only for a single thing--the hand which lit the conflagration--and not for the profounder and more permanent causes and origins of the trouble, we can at once dismiss several of these suspects from the dock.
Men of learning and letters, professors of every variety--a class which has been christened 'the Pedantocracy' by unfriendly critics--may be all struck off the charge-sheet as unconcerned in the actual delinquency of arson.
In fact, if not in name, these are a kind of priesthood, and a large part of their lives' work has been to spread among German youth the worship of the State under Hohenzollern kingship. It is impossible of course to make 'a silk purse out of a sow's ear,' a religion out of a self-advertising dynasty, or a god out of a machine. Consequently, except for mischief, their efforts have been mainly wasted. Over a long period of years, however, they have been engaged in heaping up combustibles. They have filled men's minds to overflowing with notions which are very liable to lead to war, and which indeed were designed for no other purpose than to prepare public opinion for just such a war as this. Their responsibility therefore is no light one, and it will be dealt with later. But they are innocent at all events of complicity in this particular exploit of fire-raising; and if, after the event, they have sought to excuse, vindicate, and uphold the action of their rulers it would be hard measure to condemn them for that.
Nor did the press bring about the war. In other countries, where the press is free and irresponsible, it has frequently been the prime mover in such mischief; but never in Germany. For in Germany the press is incapable of bringing about anything of the political kind, being merely an instrument and not a principal.
Just as little can the charge of having produced the war be brought against the people. In other countries, where the people are used to give marching orders to their rulers, popular clamour has led to catastrophe of this kind more frequently than any other cause. But this, again, has never been so in Germany. The German people are sober, steadfast, and humble in matters of high policy. They have confidence in their rulers, believe what they are told, obey orders readily, but do not think of giving them. When war was declared, all Germans responded to the call of duty with loyalty and devotion. Nay, having been prepared for at least a generation, they welcomed war with enthusiasm. According to the lights which were given them to judge by, they judged every whit as rightly as our own people. The lights were false lights, hung out deliberately to mislead them and to justify imperial policy. But this was no fault of theirs. Moreover, the judgment which they came to with regard to the war was made after the event, and cannot therefore in any case be held responsible for its occurrence. This is a people's war surely enough, but just as surely, the people had no hand in bringing it about.