Читать книгу Boche and Bolshevik. Experiences of an Englishman in the German Army and in Russian Prisons онлайн

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In 1911 I married, got naturalized (after many fruitless endeavours to obtain a post in England), and settled down to spending my life in Germany with the full inner certainty that the peace would be kept. And then came the Morocco debates in the Reichstag, and it was obvious to every one that war was inevitable.

The Morocco crisis was admirably utilized by the German Government. It definitely swung round the great mass of public opinion against England. Its first fruits were an increase in the Naval Estimates which otherwise would have been impossible. The Government took courage and became far more cynical in its agitation than before. For instance, one year the International Yacht Races were held in Germany. Several English yachts took part and an English peer gave a cup to be competed for. The Kaiser, of course, attended and greeted the English with a speech of welcome, in which the usual platitudes were said. Immediately the German provincial papers were flooded with articles pointing out that the Kaiser was bound as host to say something nice to Germany’s guests, and that his words of friendship really meant nothing and were not to be taken seriously. The Government understood the fine art of inflaming the people’s passions and so contrived their news that everything that happened in England seemed to be a personal insult to Germany. For example, the launching of a new battleship would be announced in thick type and the ordinary Philistine reading his newspaper would somehow get the feeling that here was another sly trick of perfidious Albion. Everything that tended to the discredit of England was dragged in and made much of.