THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



551 



think for themselves, who have, through 

 these ideas, become fairly saturated with 

 the belief in their invincible power, in 

 their racial superiority, and in God's se- 

 lection ot them, or rather their rulers, to 

 be His partners in governing the world. 



"we are the hammer of god" 



Side by side with the egotistical con- 

 ception of the Prussians that they have a 

 monopoly on the favor and power of the 

 Creator, there is another which is utterly 

 savage and unchristian. While it has 

 been variously expressed by the material- 

 ists of this generation, Felix Dahn forty 

 years ago uttered the naked thought, 

 which has since been interpreted into 

 action by German militarism. 



Thus wrote the poet : "It is the joyous 

 German right with the hammer to win 

 land. We are of the Hammer God and 

 mean to inherit his empire." That is, the 

 earth. 



This deification of brute force, with the 

 attendant right of the strong to be mas- 

 ters of the weak, touched a responsive 

 chord in the Prussian mind, and was by 

 some paradoxical process welded to the 

 so-called Christian philosophy of Prus- 

 sia's theologians. 



Thus Thor and Odin stalk again along 

 the shores of the Baltic summoning the 

 tribesmen to battle. Their blood-stained 

 altars have again burst into flame in the 

 hearts of the Prussians. Their fierce 

 priesthood again clamor for victims. In 

 the place of a god of love and mercy the 

 Teutons of the north have raised on high 

 their ancestral gods of brutality and war. 



Paganism, tinctured with modern ma- 

 terialism and a degenerate type of Chris- 

 tianity, broods today over Germany. 

 Christian ministers have proclaimed Je- 

 hovah to be the national deity of the Em- 

 pire, a monopolized "German God," who 

 relies on the physical might of His people 

 to destroy those who oppose His will as 

 that will is interpreted by His chosen 

 race. Thus the Prussian leaders would 

 harmonize modern thought with their 

 ancient religion of physical strength, 

 through brutalizing Christianity. 



Minds filled with such conceptions of 

 the sacredness of conquest and of the 

 divine right of a ruler to command obedi- 



ence have furnished fertile soil for the 

 Prussian policy of acquiring territory 

 and mastery by brute force, regardless of 

 justice, morality, or the rights of others. 



This strange mental slavery of a peo- 

 ple as highly developed intellectually as 

 the Germans is one of the most extraor- 

 dinary psychological phenomena of mod- 

 ern times. It is hard to analyze it, and 

 even harder to find for it a plausible ex- 

 planation. 



In such congenial environments the 

 ideas of the absorption of Belgium and 

 the Netherlands, of the Germanizing of 

 the Scandinavian and Slavic countries, of 

 Mittel-Europa, and finally of a world em- 

 pire greater even in relative extent than 

 that of Macedon or Rome, germinated 

 and thrived. 



VAST INTRIGUE SET AFOOT 



To make ready for the year and the 

 day when these extravagant dreams of 

 conquest were by force of arms to be 

 made realities and when all nations would 

 be subjugated by the imperial power of 

 Germany, absorbed the thought and dic- 

 tated the acts of the Prussians who had 

 so successfully subdued their Germanic 

 neighbors, at first physically and later 

 mentally, until they belonged body and 

 soul to their war lords. 



With this vast ambition in their hearts, 

 the rulers of Germany sent forth swarms 

 of agents throughout the world to create, 

 in so far as they were able, conditions 

 favorable to the great enterprise. Some 

 sought to win the good will of the nations 

 to which they were sent ; others to alien- 

 ate or weaken the friendships between 

 nations whose alliance or mutual support 

 the German Government feared would 

 constitute a possible obstacle to its great 

 scheme of world conquest. 



Sincere and honest, the governments 

 against which these intrigues were di- 

 rected believed the Imperial German 

 Government to possess a character like 

 their own. Naturally trustful, they fell 

 victims to the snares set to entrap them. 

 There seems to have been no depths of 

 infamy which the Germans did not sound 

 in carrying out their foreign policy of 

 deception. 



In what a new light many events of 

 the past appear when the truth becomes 



