POSITION IN THE WEST 165 



For what has become of the so-called world empires ? 

 Alexander the Great, Napoleon I all the great 

 warriors have swum in blood. . . . The world 

 empire of which I have dreamed shall consist in 

 this, that a newly-created German empire shall first 

 of all enjoy on all sides the most absolute confidence 

 as a quiet, honourable, and peaceful neighbour ; 

 and that ... it shall not be founded upon ac- 

 quisitions won with the sword, but upon the mutual 

 trust of the nations who are striving for the same 

 goal." * 



This pronouncement in which we seem to see the 

 spirit of Christianity uppermost must be kept in view 

 to gauge to the full the extent of the position of self- 

 stultification in which the West is locked. For it 

 proceeded, it must be remembered, from the absolute 

 ruler of the nation which was compelled by its ruling 

 classes to play Germany's part immediately after in 

 the world war of 1914, with all its consequences to 

 neighbouring States and to the whole world ; the 

 State whose diplomacy and policy was being almost 

 at the same time defined by its military writers like 

 Von Bernhardi as resting not on " the most absolute 

 confidence on all sides," but, as it was frankly 

 expressed in Bernhardi's words, " simply and solely 

 on power and expediency." It was the utterance, 

 op. cii. 



