He was about to give other orders, yet these Lennox interrupted.
"But look here. You spoke of an unsuspecting world. The Kaiser had been
rattling the sabre for years. Everybody knew that."
"So he had," said Jones, who contradicted no one. "But England did not
take him seriously, nor did this country either. Consequently, when the
war began it was regarded as but another robber-raid which shortly would
be over. That was an idea that everybody shared, even to the Kaiser, who
afterward said that he had not wanted this war. Incredible as it may
seem he spoke the truth. He did not want a war in which he would be
tripped on the Marne, blocked on the Yser and foiled at Verdun. He
wanted a war in which France would be felled, Russia rolled back, a war
in which, over Serbia's ravaged corpse, his legions could pour down
across the Turkish carpet into the realm where Sardanapalus throned,
beyond to that of Haroun-al-Raschid, on from thence to Ormus and the
Ind, and, with the resulting thralls and treasure, overwhelm England,
gut the United States, destroy civilisation and, on the ruins, set
Deutschland ueber Alles!"
"Hear! Hear!" said Lennox from between bites.
Jones, after a momentary interlude with a fork, got back at it. "That is
what he wanted! But to get it, he lacked one thing, one thing only. He
had everything else, he had everything that forethought, ingenuity and
science could provide. The arsenals were stocked. The granaries were
packed, the war-chests replete. Grey-green uniforms were piled endlessly
in heaps. Kiel--previously stolen from Denmark, but then reconstructed
and raised to the war degree--at last was open. The navy was ready. The
army was ready. Against any possible combination of European forces, the
oiled machine was prepared. In addition, clairvoyance had supplied the
pretext and stupidity the chance. Petersburg was then in the throes of a
general strike--which the Wilhelmstrasse had engineered. In Paris, the
slipshod condition of the army had been publicly denounced. England and
Ireland were nearly at each other's throats. Yet, had they been in each
other's arms, the Kaiser was convinced that England would not interfere.
Moreover in France, mobilisation required weeks; in Russia, months; and
even then the Russian army, otherwise unequipped, the Tsarina had
supplied with two hundred Teuton generals. That woman used to exclaim at
her resemblance to Marie Antoinette. She flattered herself. It is
Bazaine whom she resembled. But where was I? Oh, yes. The opportunity
was so obvious and everything so neatly prepared that, for good measure,
the pretext was added. An archduke, sinister when living and still more
sinister dead, was, by the Kaiser's orders, bombed to bits and the
bombing fastened on Serbia. Allied stupidity provided the opportunity,
imperial forethought supplied the rest. Since highwayry began, never was
there such a chance. On the last gaiter was the last button. The Kaiser
lacked but one thing."