"Belgium is a lamb, France and England are flocks of sheep, feeding and
fattening in the pasture, ready for our shears." All these statements
were sent out through Germany. The other nations are so many treasure
boxes, ready for our military key to unlock them. Boys, farmers' sons,
discussed the coming looting expedition in the hayfields. College boys
talked about the treasures of England and France, Belgium and Holland,
as boys once talked about emptying the newly discovered gold mines of
California. Officers drank to "The Day." Editors added fuel to the
flames of avarice. The statesmen cried, "It is our duty to rule these
countries, and besides, by war we get great gain."
The influence of these incitements to avarice and ambition is found
in the letters taken from the dead bodies of German soldiers. In one
letter, found near Vitrimont, the German lover tells his sweetheart
that he expects soon to be in Paris, and will bring her a handful of
diamond rings, and a pocket full of bracelets and a few Paris gowns.
Another German boy writes his young wife about a little valley in
France with rich pastures and meadows, and beautiful farmhouses, and
how Heinrich, Hans and Diedrich had decided to pick out the four best
farms on which they would live as soon as they had cleaned up Paris.
He adds, however, that Hans thinks it would be much better for them to
wait until England is smashed, and when Canada is a colony, they can
pick farms there two or three miles square, and make their children
great landowners. For this war was to pay Germany a thousand per cent.
dividend on her investment.
And who, even already, can deny that in large part Germany has made
good the bribes offered to German boys? When one thinks how Germany
has looted the states of Europe of her gold and silver, her bonds and
stocks, their pictures, books, furniture, laces, silks, wheat, corn,
wine, it is easy to understand the Kaiser's statement that "war should
be Germany's chief national industry." With the Kaiser crime has
prospered.
Germany wanted this war, planned this war, prepared for this war, and
made treasure houses in which she could store the loot of this war.
Blood went to Germany's head like drugged wine. For years she has been
beside herself with military success. The Kaiser for twenty years has
been rattling his sword and bullying the nations. Standing in the
market-place, like some huge Goliath, in the spirit of the common
braggart he has shouted, "I can lick anybody in the world." In the
nature of the case, one brigand with his revolver is equal to a hundred
business men and manufacturers in a railroad car. In the nature of the
case also, Germany, with her military preparedness, should have been
equal to a score of countries like Belgium and France and Great Britain
and the United States--industrious, hard-working, but unmilitary,
peacefully disposed. The deadly virus of avarice and militarism has
burned like a fever in Germany's soul, even as avarice burned in the
soul of Judas Iscariot, and made him a traitor that crucified not
Belgium, but Jesus upon the cross.