CALIFORNIA CHAPTER I GENESIS OF THE WAR OF 1914 While the purpose of the present volume is not to dwell upon the causes of the European War, but to state and consider the reasons which led the United States, on April 6, 1917, to declare the existence of a state of war with the Imperial German Government, it is nevertheless desirable to chronicle, by way of introduction, the events immediately preceding the declaration of war by Germany against Russia on August 1, 1914, and to sketch briefly the course of events since Prussia started out to weld the German states into an empire under its leadership, and since this empire, an enlarged Prussia,1 started out to dominate the world, of which the United States is a part. For generations it had been the desire and the longing of the German-speaking peoples, split up into hundreds of insignificant states and petty principalities, to be united into a large and powerful nation which would administer to their comforts at home and make them respected abroad. The Holy Roman Empire, which it has been wittily said was neither Holy nor Roman, was dissolved in 1806 as a consequence of the Napoleonic Wars, and upon the reorganization of Europe in 1814-15 at the Congress of Vienna the German 1 When, one day, Bismarck observed to William I that the Empire would not give its consent in the matter of a certain political decision, the latter, in a moment of indignation, replied: "What, the Empire! the Empire, as you know, is merely an extended Prussia." This expresses the thing trooper fashion, but it is true. (Treitschke, Politik, vol. 1, p. 40.) Prussia was not swallowed up in Germany. This expression, which is met with even in our time, denotes the exact opposite of the palpable fact: Prussia extended its own institutions over the rest of Germany. (Ibid., vol. 2, p. 339.) While the Federal States, as far as possible, must seek to prevent inequality between the members, yet, the German Empire rests upon this very inequality. That is to say, there is within the Empire one leading state which has federatively annexed and subordinated the other states to itself. What would become of Germany, if the Prussian State should cease to be? The German Empire, in such a case, could not continue to exist at all. From this results a truth unpleasant to most people, yet not at all offensive to non-Prussian people, to the effect, that within this German Empire, Prussia alone of the former German States has preserved its sovereignty. Prussia alone has remained a sovereign state. Prussia has not lost the right of arms; nor need Prussia permit other states to curtail its sovereign rights. The German Emperor is also the King of Prussia; he is the military leader of the nation, and we are indulging in unavailing hairsplitting when we imagine cases in which the German Emperor and the King of Prussia might come into conflict with one another. (Ibid., pp. 343-344.) VIM States were loosely confederated under the leadership of Austria. The presence in the Confederation of Austria, composed in large part of foreign peoples, was disagreeable to the advocates of a union of the German States as such, and especially so to Prussia because it aspired to a leadership which was inconsistent with the presidency of the Confederation held by Austria. In 1848 the overthrow of Louis Philippe led to revolutionary outbreaks in Germany and elsewhere, and representatives of the German people meeting in Frankfort sought to create an empire, from which Austria was to be excluded, and offered the crown to Frederick William IV, then King of Prussia. The offer was rejected. The reason given for the refusal was that Frederick William might have accepted the crown had it been freely offered to him by the German princes, but that he would never stoop "to pick up a crown out of the gutter." In 1858, Frederick William, whose conduct had been erratic for years, was recognized as insane and his brother, Prince William, became Prince Regent. Upon the death of Frederick William in 1861 without children, Prince William became William I of Prussia, and later German Emperor. A year later Bismarck became Prime Minister, and in less than a decade thereafter the German Confederation was dissolved, Austria was excluded from the circle of German States, and the States, united in theory into a German empire, were in fact merged into an enlarged Prussia. It had long been the ambition of Prussia to assume the leadership of the German States, and from the time of Frederick the Great the possibility of such leadership was evident. What Frederick began Bismarck finished, and the policy of Prussia, controlled and carried to a successful conclusion by Bismarck, was to put an end to the rivalry of Austria by crushing and excluding it from the circle of German States, in order that Prussia might be, in fact and in theory, the leader of the new Germany. To accomplish this purpose two wars of the first water were "necessary," one with Austria, the other with France; and the statesmanship of Bismarck was equal to each occasion. Denmark was to be the first victim on the altar of German nationalism. For present purposes it is sufficient to say that the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, although separate, were closely united under a common Duke; that the northern part of Schleswig was wholly Danish, the southern slightly so; that Holstein was wholly German and that, |