German propaganda suffers much from a racial tendency to regard
reasonable people as decadent, or at least as civilians. The heroic conception of diplomacy does un- doubtedly place the professional diplomatist (who is by nature and by training mild, moderate and conciliatory) at a marked disadvantage. Students of German pre-War diplomacy, and of that vast compilation of documents pub- lished by the Weimar Republic, noted with distress how frequently those Ambassadors who counselled moderation, or even tact, were accused by Billow or in the marginal comments of William II of being " Un-German " or "in the pockets of Downing Street." The warrior in the end always beat the civilians. Yet violence in propaganda never pays. During the War the Germans flooded Persia with coloured posters depicting the British blowing sepoys from cannon. "This," ran the superscription, "is how the English treat Moslems." "My eyes," said the Persians, "if that is what is going to happen to us, we must be very care- ful indeed not to annoy the English."
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