The German Band, as we know it in this country, has never been noted
for harmonious music. Blatancy, stridency, false notes, and persistency
after the coppers, have been its chief characteristics.
And the same things prevail when it is at home.
Never since the world began has there been such a campaign of barefaced
humbug and lying as that organised by William, Hindenburg, Hollweg
and Co. for the deceiving and fleecing of the much-tried countries
temporarily under their sway.
But the money had to be got in by hook or by crook, and by hook and by
crook and in every nefarious way they have milked their unfortunate
peoples dry.
But there is another side to all this. In time, the veil of lies and
false intelligence of victories in the North Sea, and at Verdun, and,
indeed, wherever Germany has fought and failed, will be rent by the
spear of Truth.
Then will come the _débâcle_. And then, unless every scrap of grit
and backbone has been Prussianised out of the Teuton, the revulsion
of feeling will sweep the oppressors out of existence; and Germany,
released from the strangle-hold, may rise once more to take the place
among the civilised nations of the world which, by her foul doings of
the last two years, she has deliberately forfeited.