GERMANY THE AGGRESSOR
In an impassioned speech, subsequently published,
he cried:
* Bestir you, my Comrades! To horse, to horse!
And away to the field and to freedom/
Truly a splendid song. It thrills through all our
muscles, and makes us feel as though we ourselves
would like once more to take our share in a joyous
fight*
There was no question in Germany during August
1914 as to "war-guilt/ The Germans boastfully and
exuberantly claimed that they had made the war
when and "where they desired it. On August ist,
the day on which Germany's war with Russia form-
ally began, the Kaiser's intimate friend, Herr Maxi-
milien Harden, wrote in Die Zukunft:
Why not admit what is and must be the truth,
namely, that between Vienna and Berlin everything
was fully prepared 5 We should be mere slaves, un-
worthy of the men who achieved predominance in
Germany, if fifty years after Koniggr'atz tilings could
be otherwise.
A short time afterwards he recurred to the theme:
Cease the pitiful attempts to excuse Germany's
action. Not as weak-minded blunderers have we
undertaken the fearful risk of this war. We wanted it.
* Wilamowitz-Mollendorff, Zwei Reden (1914), p. 4. The
* splendid song' is from Schiller's Wallensteln.
244