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It is the rooted belief in the race theory which has maintained the rule of Junkerthum. On the race theory an exclusive aristocratic government recruited and maintained by artificial selection is the only logical and sensible government, and democracy is bound to be considered as a principle of decay.
I further attempted to show how the German people were in the grip of the Prussian military machine, of a reactionary bureaucracy, and of a Prussian feudal Junkerthum; how behind that military machine and that feudal Junkerthum there were even more formidable moral and spiritual forces at work; how the whole German nation were under the spell of a false political creed; how the Universities, the Churches, the Press, were all possessed with the same exclusive nationalism; and how, being misled by its spiritual leaders, the whole nation was honestly and intensely convinced that in the near future the German Empire must challenge the world in order to establish its supremacy over the Continent of Europe.
Like most of the men who have built up the Prussian power; like Stein, who came from Nassau; like Moltke, who came from Denmark; like Treitschke, who came from Saxony, Prince von Bülow is not a Prussian. Like Blücher, his family originates from the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg, that strange paradise of a medieval and feudal Junkerthum.
Bernard Shaw, in his “Common Sense about the War,” in which one ounce of common sense is mixed with three ounces of nonsense, would make us believe that there is little difference between German Junkerthum and British Junkerthum, and that there is little to choose between the English Junker, Sir Edward Grey, and a Pomeranian squire. Mr.
The conflict between England and Germany is a conflict, on the one hand, between a nation which believes in political liberty and national autonomy, where the Press is free and where the rulers are responsible to public opinion, and, on the other hand, a nation where public opinion is still muzzled or powerless and where the masses are still under the heel of an absolute government, a reactionary party, a military Junkerthum, and a despotic bureaucracy.
It is precisely those qualities and characteristics that give importance and significance to the recent book of General von Bernhardi on “Germany and the Coming War.” The author is a distinguished representative of that Prussian Junkerthum which forms the mainstay of the military party and which rules the German Empire. He therefore speaks from the inside.
It may be true that power is slipping away from the hands of the Prussian Junkerthum and the bureaucracy, although Prussian reaction is far stronger than most foreign critics realize. But whether it be strong or weak, one thing is certain: a power which has been supreme for two centuries will not surrender without a struggle.
For never was absolute ruler more truly entitled than the Grand Duke to appropriate the words of Louis XIV.: “L’état c’est moi.” In this paradise of Prussian Junkerthum one might reasonably have expected the monarch and the lords of the manor to enjoy as complete happiness as is ever allotted to mortal man.
Why, we know the very names of the prelates with whom the master-cynic of the Junkerthum made his "deal." He had tried the method of the Kultur-kampf, and had failed; but before he repealed the anti-Catholic laws, he made sure that the Church had learned its lesson, and would nevermore oppose the Prussian ruling caste.
I prophesied that the war would be long and cruel, and it has proved the most ruthless war of modern times. All the forces which I prophesied would make for war have made for war: the reactionary policy of the Junkerthum, the internal troubles, the personality of the Kaiser, the propaganda of the Press and of the Universities.
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