French and British Responsibilities

Abstract

We should here mention Germany’s predecessor in Ultra-Militarism, megalomania and lust of conquest, France. The symptoms of the French revolution, partly engendered by fear (of Austrian intervention) were those of insanity just as much as those exhibited by Germany now. The absurd cruelties of the “Terreur” find their counterpart in the Belgian and north of France atrocities. There was precisely the same desire to enforce French civilisation on Europe as Germany’s desire of our time. All the symptons were the same. We need not look into the causes now. They were different in many ways. The results were the same: disastrous for Europe, for Germany and Holland in particular. France ruined Holland so completely that it took Holland nearly a hundred years to recover. England rid Europe of French ultramilitarism, at least without England’s strong aid this would not have come about. Europe by herself would not have won Waterloo. But afterwards England declared herself disinterested in European affairs.