I am speaking rather of gains
which cannot be counted as guns are counted, or measured as land is
measured, but which are none the less real and important.
The Germans have achieved certain great material gains in this War, and
they are fighting now to hold them. If they fail to hold them, the
Germany of the war-lords is ruined. She will have to give up all her
bloated ambitions, to purge and live cleanly, and painfully to
reconstruct her prosperity on a quieter and sounder basis. She will not
do this until she is forced to it by defeat. No doubt there are moderate
and sensible men in Germany, as in other countries; but in Germany they
are without influence, and can do nothing. War is the national industry
of Prussia; Prussia has knit together the several states of the larger
Germany by means of war, and has promised them prosperity and power in
the future, to be achieved by war. You know the Prussian doctrine of
war. Every one now knows it. According to that doctrine it is a foolish
thing for a nation to wait till it is attacked. It should carefully
calculate its own strength and the strength of its neighbours, and, when
it is ready, it should attack them, on any pretext, suddenly, without
warning, and should take from them money and land.
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