BOOKS.
MODERN GERMANY.*
Tun Master of Peterhouse has completed his excellent history of modern Germany from Waterloo to the year 1907—the fatal date, as he thinks, at which the forces making for a world- war gained the upper hand over the elements desirous of con- tinuing the peaceful development of the Empire. Those who know how much of his long life Sir Adolphus Ward has devoted to the study of German history, and who remember how earnestly he, with other men of high repute, used to strive for an improve- ment in the relations between Germany and Great Britain, will be impressed by the sorrowful reserve with which he towhee here and there on the tragedy that destroyed his hopea. The austere impartiality of his narrative of Prince Bismarck's Chancellorship and of the "new course" under Count Caprivi, Prince Holaenlohe, and Prhice von Billow is in keeping with the sound traditions of Cambridge historical scholarship. Yet we question whether, in these days, any English writer could have taken so dispassionate a view of German politics in the last half-century if he had not felt bitterly disillusioned at the German's revelation of his true character in this war. Din illusionment, with the author, takes the form of a determina- tion to be rigidly fair to the enemy, to chronicle his actions with the aloofness of the zoologist studying an earthworm or a snake, and on no account to pay the German in hie own contro- versial coin. His very detachment adds weight to his belief that in 1907-8 "a period in German history begins that must be regarded as preliminary to the present world-war and se, in more senses than one, preparatory of it." Some of the causes of the war must, he adds, be traced to an earlier time, but 1937—the year of the second Hague Conference which Germany brought to naught, and of the Russo-British Con- vention in regard to Asia, the year following the Algeciras Conference, at which Germany out a poor figure, the year preceding Austria's annexation of Bosnia in defiance of her Treaty obligations—was the date at which the rulers of Germany began consciously to prepare for a mighty confliet. We might point to the passing of the Navy Law and the formation of the German Navy League in 1898 as equally significant ; we might recall Germany's unconcealed hostility towards us during the South African War, and the flood of Pan-German pamphlets, directed mainly against this country, which poured from the
• Germany, 1815-1890. By Sir A. W. Ward. Vol. Ill., 1871-1890, with two Supolementary Chapters. Cambridge at the Univemity Prem. I125. Gd. nat.!
press in those years, as evidence of a very dangerous anti-British sentiment. The author's point is that from 1907 the German Emperor and his advisers ceased to offer an serious resistance to the military party, always powerful even in Bismarck's time, and thought mainly of selecting the beet opportunity for declaring war. The failure, in 1911, of the German demonstra- tion at Agadir in support of a preposterous; claim over Southern Morocco confirmed the war pasty in their purpose, as the French Yellow Book of 1914 showed very clearly ; but Sir Adolphus Wart at any rate would seek the germ of the war not in that Moorish imbroglio but in earlier and graver events in Europe.
The origin of the war is, unfortunately, not a merely academic question. Apart from the Socialists who allege for party purposes that the war was a quarrel between rival capitalists and who know that the allegation is false, there are many honest folk who try to persuade themselves that it might have been avoided if this or that Allied statesman had acted differently at certain momenta before August, 1914. But an attentive reading of Sir Adolphus Ward's new volume ought to dispel these morbid fancies. The truth in that Bismarck's very clever but unmoral diplomacy, coupled with the rapid industria development of the Empire under Prussian guidance, had raised Germany to a height of worldly greatness which she had not the character to sustain. Bismarck himself was a cautious man who had learned by hard experience the folly of extreme courses, and who had given, in.his compromise with the Papacy over the May Laws, a remarkable proof of his readiness to yield to circumstances. But the Emperor William, who dismissed him and ruled in his stead through more or less sycophantio Chancellors, was guided not by reason but by impulse, the- Army chiefs were naturally bellicose, and the Reichstag did not. try to put a brake on the wheel of the war-chariot. Those who would draw a sharp distinction between the German Imperial Government and the German people are reminded by the author that from 1907 onwards the Reichstag passed every Army or Navy Bill by large majorities; while the opposition of the Socialists, we may add, was a mere matter of political tactics which deceived no one except the innocent British Socialists. There can be no reasonable doubt that the war was popular in Germany in 1914, and that the German people looked on it as a highly profitable speculation until there slowly dawnel on them the conviction that they were beaten and disgraced.
One of the best chapters in the book is devoted to the Rutter- hemp!, Bismarck's struggle with the Roman Catholic Church. The author recalls the fact that it arose, not only out of the famous reactionary Conclave of 1870, but also out of Bismarck's fear of the Poles, who were devout Roman Catholics and Nationalists too. In the end, when the Papacy came to terms with the Iron Chancellor, the Centre Party, for whose tactics Sir Adolphus Ward expresses much admiration, gradually reconciled itself with the Government. But the Poles were irreconcilable, and Bismarck made one of the worst mistakes of his life by trying- to expropriate their, landowners in order to settle Germans on Polish soil. Biamarck's successors carried his anti-Polish policy further, hut failed just as he had done. The author notes that the first Vote of Censure on the Government ever passed in the Reichstag was given in January, 1913, on a proposal to dispossess Polish landowners; the Reichstag, however, repented of its temerity and accepted the Bili after all. The present Socialist Government is, of course, as hostile to the Poles as Bismarck. was. Another episode which is treated impartially is that of . Count Harry Arnim, the German Ambassador to France, whose, disgrace at Bismarck's hands in 1874 created a European scandal. The author points out that, though Bismarck behaved: with utter lack of dignity, he feared Arnim as a powerful rival. for the Chancellorship, and not as a diplomatist who went his. own way with little regard for the wishes of the Berlin Foreign Office. Bismarck's action in appointing Herr Lindau as an Attaché at the Paris Embassy to spy on Count Arnim is now seen to be a common practice in German diplomacy. Prince Lich- nowsky'a memoirs, for example, have shown that his subordinate, Herr von Kithlmann, had an independent mission in London, and was more in the confidence of the ruling powers in Berlin than his nominal chief. The author's long and very kindly review of German social and intellectual life in the latter half of the nineteenth century recalls the Germany which is now, unhappily, but a sad memory. The book is furnished with a very full bibliography, two maps, and a good index. On p. 44 a misprint makes it appear that French, and not Italian,
troops entered Rome in September, 1870, and put an end to the Temporal Power.
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