by the cause which I have already mentioned and dwelt upon—­the growth of the commercial interest in Germany.  From 1870 onwards this growth was huge and phenomenal.  In a comparatively short time a whole new social class sprang up in the land, and a whole new public opinion.  If expansion from the point of view of Junker ambition had been desirable before, the same from the point of view of the financial and trading classes was doubly so now.  If a military irruption into the politics of the world was favoured before, it was clamoured for now when a powerful class had arisen which not only, called the tune but could pay the piper.

Thus by the combination of military and commercial interests and entanglements the web of Destiny was woven and Germany was hurried along a path which—­though no definite war was yet in sight—­was certain to lead to war.  The general military, programme of Treitschke, the conviction that force and force alone could give his country her rightful place in the world, was more and more cordially adopted.  In a sense this was a perfectly natural and logical programme, and amid the surrounding European conditions excusable—­as I shall point out presently.  But before long it became a weird enthusiasm, almost an obsession.  It was taken up over the land, and repeated in a thousand books and on as many platforms.  One of these propagandists was General von Bernhardi, who entered in more detail into the technical and strategical aspects of the programme.  The rude and almost brutal frankness of both writers may be admired; but the want of real depth and breadth of view cannot be concealed and must be deplored.  The arguments in favour of force, of unscrupulousness, of terrorism are—­especially in Bernhardi[14]—­casuistical to a degree.  They are those of a man who is determined to press his country into war at all costs, and who will use any kind of logic as long as it will lead in his direction.  The whole movement—­largely made possible by the political ignorance of the mass-people, of which I have spoken in a former chapter—­culminated in an extraordinary national fever of ambition; and in the announcement of schemes for the Germanization of the world, almost juvenile in the want of experience and the sense of proportion which they display.  It would not be fair to take one writer as conclusive; but as a specimen of the kind of thing we may quote the following extract (given by Mr. H.A.L.  Fisher, the Oxford historian, in his able brochure The War:  Its Causes and Issues) from the writings of Bronsart von Schellendorf:  “Do not let us forget the civilizing task which the decrees of Providence have assigned to us.  Just as Prussia was destined to be the nucleus of Germany, so the regenerated Germany shall be the nucleus of a future Empire of the West.  And in order that no one shall be left in doubt, we proclaim from henceforth that our continental nation has a right to the sea, not only to the North Sea, but to the Mediterranean and