It is difficult to discuss this question with German professors and
politicians: they have such simple minds, and they talk like angry
children. Their opinions concerning England are not original; their
views were held with equal fervour and expressed in very similar
language by Philip of Spain in the sixteenth century, by Louis XIV of
France in the seventeenth century, and by Napoleon at the close of the
eighteenth century. 'These all died in faith, not having received the
promises, but having seen them afar off.' I will ask you to consider the
attack made upon England by each of these three powerful rulers.
Any one who reads the history of these three great wars will feel a
sense of illusion, as if he were reading the history of to-day. The
points of resemblance in all four wars are so many and so great that it
seems as if the four wars were all one war, repeated every century. The
cause of the war is always an ambitious ruler who covets supremacy on
the European Continent. England is always opposed to him--inevitably and
instinctively. It took the Germans twenty years to prepare their people
for this War.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80