task 



The Days of a Man 1914 



impulses, the fear of the loss of power and privilege. 

 A bootless The dreary records of rival diplomats sparring for 

 time teach us little of causes or purposes. From these 

 one may prove anything or nothing; reality is found 

 in actual deeds. That the ministries of Germany 

 and Great Britain alike hoped to avoid war may well 

 be believed. Yet the final decision lay not with 

 diplomatists or people, but with a weak egotist vacil- 

 lating between rashness and cowardice, obsessed by 

 love of military display. 



To quote from Friedrich Forster, one of the bravest 

 and most enlightened of Germans, son of the Berlin 

 astronomer and professor of Education in the Uni- 

 versity of Munich: 



The era of Bismarck led naturally to the World War. Did 

 the German people want war? The answer must be divided. 

 Certainly, as a reckoning with Russia, as a step toward world 

 expansion, a small but mighty group wanted a world war. 

 These were the military, the Pangermanists, the ironmongers, 

 the great capitalists. 1 A larger body did not want war but 



1 That war was desired and expected, in German army circles at least, is 

 evidenced by the following extracts (which I translate) from a captain's letter 

 to a cousin (in America), who placed the original in my hands: 



"Dear 



"Duisburg am Rhein, 



July 28, 1914 



"I am of course very heartily glad to know that you are coming, but I can- 

 not say yet whether or not you will find me 'at home,' for we are today facing 

 either a European military movement (Wajfengang) or a totally rotten peace. 

 In Russia and France strong revolutionary movements, in England virtually a 

 civil war, our chances against the Slavs and Frenchmen are not bad. Unfor- 

 tunately it seems as though the German 'Michael' will again submit to having 

 the wool pulled over his ears. On the whole, however, public opinion is so 

 favorable that, in case the big crash really comes, the war will end as it did in 

 1813-15, 1864-66, and 1870-71! . . . 



"Above my desk there is suspended the Iron Cross that my beloved father 

 earned for himself in the winter of '7o-'7i; perhaps it is destined that I, too, 

 may square accounts with the big-mouthed Frenchmen and the Slavs. These 



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