28 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



But the junkers were the bodyguard of his Throne and the 

 guardians of his mihtarist pohcy. Accordingly he needs 

 must propitiate them, though it cost him the dismissal 

 of a trusty servant like Caprivi, as Bismarck's Protectionism 

 had cost him the services of able ministers such as Delbriick 

 and Friedenthal. 



There were special considerations which made a strength- 

 ening of the Emperor's traditional alliance with the junkers. 

 imperative, particularly if they could manage, as they 

 have actually done, to bring the entire rural population 

 under their sway by deceptive allurements. There is no 

 doubt — evidence is too conclusive on the point — that it 

 was then that the Emperor formed his ambitious great war 

 plan. He had been six years on the throne. He had 

 plentifully advertised himself abroad in his role of what 

 his people called the " Reisekaiser. " He had taken sound- 

 ings everywhere. He had dropped his " pilot." He had 

 discovered that Germany's future " lay on the water," 

 and he was vigorously forging his maritime weapons for 

 use. But he had not forgotten the traditional belief of 

 the Hohenzollerns in their army. That army had been 

 energetically reared up ever since William the First became 

 Regent. The first William harboured no idea of conquest, 

 at any rate outside Germany, That must have appeared 

 altogether " out of character " in his time. Prussia had cut 

 only a very humble figure at the Paris Congress. It was Bis- 

 marck who pioneered the great wars which in systematic 

 and logical order led up to 1914, to be followed in the 

 Emperor's intention by a crushing blow against ourselves, 

 whose prosperity, unity and general enjoyment of compara- 

 tive peace had since a long time — as any one who then 

 lived in Germany could tell — filled the Germans with not 

 inexplicable envy, at the same time that our habitual 

 independent bearing was strongly resented by them as 

 arguing " arrogance " and an overbearing mind. However, 

 the first William could not suppress — his published letters 

 show that — his bitter resentment of his brother's " weak- 

 ness " evidenced by his condescending to parley with the 

 rebels of 1848, who had made the then " Prince of Prussia " 



