It is natural for a wolf to take a wolf's point of view; but often it
is expensive to the wolf.
Germany's big men who have been masquerading as "statesmen" have been
proven by the logic of events to be the most colossal blunderers the
world has ever seen; and of them Kaiser Wilhelm is the chief.
They had it figured out (1) that Italy would necessarily cast in her
lot with the nation who had robbed her of her Adriatic provinces, and
with the other nation who by crafty methods had grasped her commerce,
railroads and banks by the throat with a German grip not pleasant to
feel.
(2).--They believed that Belgium would, for the sake of "peace," submit
to being overrun and converted into a German camp, with the ultimately
certain seizure and retention of the port of Antwerp.
(3).--They believed that because of having no army worth mentioning,
and for Irish and Indian reasons, England could be bribed into a state
of degrading passivity while Germany completely destroyed her ally,
France. And Chancellor Hollweg nearly wept when he could not convince
Sir Edward Goschen that a pledge of neutrality was a thing to be
ignored at will, and that a solemn international treaty was only "a
scrap of paper." In failing to understand that England possesses a
sense of national honor to which Germany was a total stranger, which
bore no taint of either commercialism or cowardice, and which Britons
throughout the world will maintain with all their lives, regardless of
cost, the Chancellor and Jagow made a strictly German blunder, which no
child with a taste for history ever should have made. On this point the
stupidity of the Kaiser and his cabinet looms up like the Pyramid of
Cheops. They judged the English by themselves.