In the trenches the instinct of emulation, so closely allied to imitation, found ample ex pression. In its earliest forms this instinct is closely allied to envy and jealousy. Among the other things that found expression was ardent race hatred; the inttinct to revenge; the mega lomania that git is all right for us to fight but never right for our enemy to fight); and with all the instinct of excitement, to adven ture, and to insatiable achievement, were not wanting in so far as their expression was concerned. Vengeance is one of the most per manent of all feelings; but the most remarkable thing about its expression on all sides during the war was the extent to whirl, vengeance passed for justice.
The proximity of hostile armies was a pow erful spur to invention; attention being of course chiefly turned to the production of the means of offense and defense. Success in war depended upon the mechanical superiority as well as the morale of the armies indeed, it counted far more upon mechanism than upon any kind of personal prowess. Hence the many IleW "gases>) and ((aeroplanes)) and long-range ocannoe ; as well as the manifold ways of concealing one's position in relation to one's enemy.
Collective opinion has a great deal of strength, which is seldom spontaneous, how ever, for the crowd is really an amorphous or ganism that is incapable of acting unless it has a leader, who influences it by affirmation, repetition, prestige and contagion. Now Ger many was a nation with a military rather than a civic spirit. We are told of policies of gSchrecklichkeit) and of "Hymn of Hate? and wonder whether these are symptoms of madness or the contrary. The facts as to the psychosis of the composer of this gflymn) are.not forth coming. But what appears to be the truth is this,. rather that the power of song was fully realized by the military powers of Germany, than that Germans hated — actually hated — England. We are in America, all familiar with the political device in which a few venture an assertion and urge it upon tbe crowd with un observed compulsion, proclaiming as already existent an agreement in feeling. which they are only seeking to inoculate. We believe this to be the meaning of the existence of the ((Hymn of Hate.) "Der Tag) was no doubt the symptom of megalomania. It is often said that the Ger mans were gfirmly convinced)) that the conflict was due to a conspiracy secretly plotted by Eng land. How far this is true a census would tell
better than a guess. Fear, to be sure, is the in stinctive stamp of a coward, and a coward that fears to-day may fight to-morrow because continued fear is the worse of two evils. When fear is once turned loose it is cruel beyond measure. When the great poet Schiller was analyzing the human heart to find the most un governable, the most °don't care" emotion of man, he pointed out terror as that emotion. Terror is fear gone mad. With these thoughts in mind, it is not impossible that the reitera tion of German politicians had °convinced* the German mind of something. Was that some thing to make them fight the better? From such a mood of fear arose the majority reso lutions of 19 July 1917, on peace, without an nexations or indemnities, and the peace offer, with its fateful consequence, of 5 Oct. 191& As the war progressed we saw the morale of the German nation torn asunder by different political parties — no morale could endure so much disunity. The politician has succeeded also in sowing a mistrust of a League of Nations 'invented by Germany's enemies to vanquish the Germans by votes.* When active hostilities ceased, influence from beyond its borders ac quired terrifying powers; and as one of its manifestations the world has seen a transfor mation of the Germanic form of govertunent.
This brings us to the Englishman, or ratlier to the Entente. At the outset we see Entente diplomats operating with concepts of an older period. They appeared to favor, within cer tain undefined limits, the 'unitary power to seize conferred by the right to keep; and they operated with (annexations,* astrategic fron tiers,* apolitical guarantees,* aeconomic barri ers,* ((Constantinople,* aGerman colonies,* a ((province of Prussia,* and many more ideas. Later they appeared with the more respectable principle of "nationality,* and the (rights* of the weaker peoples to rough hew their own destinies without molestation from the outside. But in consequence of the special strategic, imperialistic and sentimental aspirations of in dividual units of the coalition, the principle of anationalityl had to be so twisted, limited, and interpreted in the final considerations of the Big Four, before it received adhesion of all, that when it emerged from this process the idea of nationality was of course a curious hybrid.