Belding banner. (Belding, Mich.) 1889-1918, 1918-03-06
VITAL MISTAKES
MADE BY GERMANY

No other nation In history ever
made such a series of vital errors In
the same length of time as Germany
has made in the last three years.
Looking back, it is plain to see that
nearly every move she has made has
been wrong-not merely wrong to
others but wrong to herself. Let US
review the most serious of these err
lrors.
First. She was in error in imag-
ming that she was surrounded by enc
mics who were plotting to destroy
her. Fear can become a mania and
there is no doubt that for many years
the Germans have been the victims of
this obsession. They could see dan
gers where none existed; they were
oppressed by horrible nightmares and
they believed them real. This shows
what unbridled militarism will do for
a nation.
You know how unreasoning and
reckless the typical pistol-toter be-
comes; he thinks himself menaced by
enemies, and he pulls his gun at the
sligstest grievance. And it is the same
way with a nation that is armed to
the teeth.
Germany before the war had be-
come one big fort. Everything was
ready for war at the touch of the but
ton. The head official of every town
and district in Germany had for
years been sent sealed instructions as
to exactly what to do in case a code
word was telegraphed them from Ber-
| lin announcing war. Nothing was
left unprepared for, and the result
was that when war came, the entire
German war-machine was moving in
side of few minutes.
There was no such fear of war, or
belief in it, or preparation for it, in
Ineighboring countries. Germany's
Ineighbors were not prepared to make
war on her, and she knew it; there
wasn't the slightest danger that they
would attack her. On the other hand,
friends in Germany had for years liv-
ed in momentary fear and expectation
they had to keep constantly prepared
for it, they said.
Second. Germany made her fatal
terror when she consented to start the
war or take any part in it. Her
apology is that her arch-enemy Eng
land beguiled her into it. This re-
minds US of the excuse Eve made to
the Lord in the Garden of Eden when
she had yielded to the serpent; and
we know what poor excuse the Lord
Regarded it.
If it is true that England was lead
ling Germany into a war trap, then
Germany was the more fool for being
thus baited on to her destruction. But
lit isn't true. The German war ma
chine had been enlarged and improv-
ed and polished and tuned up to such
a state of perfection that Kaiser Will
helm and his war-lords simply
couldn't stand it to wait any longer
to see it work-especially when only
the push of button would set it go
ling. The most charitable view to
take is that they were crazy-for peo-
Iple become insane when they think
too much on one line.
What could Germany gain by start
ing such a war? She was already
making more rapid progress than any
other nation-but that wasn't enough.
She had already made a peaceabIe
commercial conquest of the rest of
were flooded with goods "made in
Germany" Those countries were de-
generating rapidly and in few years
more Germany, by pegging away,
could have had them completely
weakened and at her mercy, without
firing a gun.
The German people have great
patience; but this is not true of the
war-lords; they couldn't wait for the
gradual process of evolution; they
must use the war-machine to force
their ends and impose German pro-
ducts and "kultur" on the rest of the
world. Right there is where they
broke their molasses jug. They had
had the sacrilege to claim that the
Almighty was supporting them in
their schemes; they thought they
could commit any wrongs and God
would give them absolution. But they
underestimate the human element.
Third. Germany's next error was
to invade Belgium and Luxembourg,
thus violating treaties which bound
her to respect their neutrality, but
which she now declared to be only
scraps of paper" That action at
once put her in the outlaw class; she
was caught with the goods on her, be-
fore the eyes of the whole world, and
on excuses could overcome this dam
ming proof of guilt.
Before that, the world had regard
ed the Germans as industrious, peace
able and genial people, but when Ger
many bounced without cause on her
little neighbor Belgium, with only
one-tenth her population, she revealed
herself in a character which was
bound to be revolving. By this act
she brought on herself the distrust
and disapproval of Unlocking human
ity. Where she might just as well
have had sympathy and aid from neu-
trail countries, she alienated those
that might have been her friends and
at the same time aroused in her ene-
mics a grim determination to destroy
her as q pest.