The peoples of Europe knew nothing of the forces which had led up to
the conflict. They had never been told about the secret treaties—made
by statesmen of the old school without their consent, though their
lives were pledged in them—by which the Foreign Offices of Europe had
played against each other for high stakes in a dangerous game called
the Balance of Power. They were ignorant of the rivalries and greeds
which had been inflamed for half a century by the rush for Africa,
where France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Great Britain had bargained
and intrigued and quarrelled with each other for slices of the
Dark Continent which had put a black spell upon the imagination of
Imperialists in all these countries. They did not know that German
Imperialists believed, not without reason, that England and France had
squared each other in order to prevent German influence in Morocco,
and that she felt herself thwarted by the two powers in all her
ambitions for “a place in the sun,” for the sources of raw material,
and for the expansion of her trade. They were ignorant of Pan-German
dreams of dominant power in Middle Europe, and of an Asiatic Empire
following the line of Berlin to Bagdad. They were not aware of Pan-Slav
ambitions cutting clean across Pan-German ambitions and looking forward
to a future when the Russian Tsardom would have its second capital in
Constantinople, and when the Russian race would stretch through Serbia
to the Adriatic Sea. They had never realised the meaning of the Balkan
Wars of 1912, when Russia was behind Serbia and Germany behind Turkey,
in the first skirmish for these rival schemes. They were never told
by their leaders that explosive forces were being stored up in Europe
because of the rival Imperialisms which sooner or later were bound to
result in infernal fire shattering the whole structure of European life.
All these things had been kept secret in the minds of kings and
emperors, statesmen and diplomats, and the peoples in the mass went
about their work without a thought of the dark destiny that was being
woven for them in the looms of Fate. In Germany, it is true, the
military caste, the Civil Service, and the Universities had been
steeped in the poison of an Imperial philosophy based upon Brute Force
and the right of the strong to seize the power and places of the weak.
The Kaiser, picturing himself in “shining armour,” with God as his
ally, had made himself the figurehead of this school of thought. From
time to time he uttered portentous words. He threatened with “a mailed
fist” all who dared to cross the path of German aspirations. He vowed
that he would “dash to pieces” all those who opposed his will. Even
in Germany before the War these words were ridiculed by peace-loving
citizens, scorned by millions of theoretical Socialists, and ignored
by the peasants who were busy with their sowing and reaping in quiet
fields. In England they seemed but the bombast of a theatrical man born
too late in the world’s history for such mediæval clap-trap. Outside
small circles, in touch with the undercurrents of international policy
and afraid of unspeakable things, or ready to risk them, the common
folk knew nothing of their peril, and were not allowed to know.