Thus the trend of the German policy of maintaining the peace was determined by political insight, personal inclination, the! legacies of two great men, Bismarck and Moltke, and the desire of the German people to devote itself to peaceful labour and not to plunge into adventures.
Whatever has been said in malevolent circles about the existence of a German party favouring war is a conscious or unconscious untruth, In every land there are elements which, in serious situations, either from honest conviction or less lofty motives, favour the appeal to the sword, but never have such clements influence; ed the course of German policy.
The accusations, especially those which have been made against the General Staff to the effect that it worked for war, are utterly untenable. The Prussian General Staff served its King and fatherland by hard, faithful work, and maintained Germany's ability to defend herself by labours extending over many years of peace, as was its duty, but it exerted absolutely no political influence whatsoever. interest in politics, as is well known, was never particularly strong in the Prussian-German Army. Looking backward, one might almost say, in fact, that it would have been better for us if those in leading military circles had concerned themselves a bit more with foreign policy.
Therefore, how the Peace of Versailles, in view of this perfectly clear state of affairs, could have been founded upon Germany's guilt in having caused the World War, would seem an insoluble riddle if it were not possible to trace the tremendous effect of a new war weapon—viz.: the - political propaganda of England against Germany—planned on a large scale end applied with audacity and unscrupulousness. I cannot bring myself to dismiss this propaganda by branding it with catchwords such as "a piece of rascality," etc, since it constitutes' an achievement which, in spite of its repugnant nature, cannot be ignored; it did us more harm than the arms in the hands of our opponents, To us Germans, such an instrument of insincerity, distortion and hypocrisy is not pleasing; it is something that is incompatible with the German character; we try to convince our opponents with
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.