Chapter 8 - Page 2

unify them all against its repetition. They would exclaim: "But we can't
do things like this to one another!" He saw the aggressive imperialism
of Germany called to account even by its own people; a struggle, a
collapse, a liberal-minded conference of world powers, and a universal
resumption of amiability upon a more assured basis of security. He
believed--and many people in England believed with him--that a great
section of the Germans would welcome triumphant Allies as their
liberators from intolerable political obsessions.

The English because of their insularity had been political amateurs for
endless generations. It was their supreme vice, it was their supreme
virtue, to be easy-going. They had lived in an atmosphere of comedy, and
denied in the whole tenor of their lives that life is tragic. Not even
the Americans had been more isolated. The Americans had had their
Indians, their negroes, their War of Secession. Until the Great War the
Channel was as broad as the Atlantic for holding off every vital
challenge. Even Ireland was away--a four-hour crossing. And so the
English had developed to the fullest extent the virtues and vices of
safety and comfort; they had a hatred of science and dramatic behaviour;
they could see no reason for exactness or intensity; they disliked
proceeding "to extremes." Ultimately everything would turn out all
right. But they knew what it is to be carried into conflicts by
energetic minorities and the trick of circumstances, and they were ready
to understand the case of any other country which has suffered that
fate. All their habits inclined them to fight good-temperedly and
comfortably, to quarrel with a government and not with a people. It took
Mr. Britling at least a couple of months of warfare to understand that
the Germans were fighting in an altogether different spirit.

The first intimations of this that struck upon his mind were the news of
the behaviour of the Kaiser and the Berlin crowd upon the declaration of
war, and the violent treatment of the British subjects seeking to return
to their homes. Everywhere such people had been insulted and
ill-treated. It was the spontaneous expression of a long-gathered
bitterness. While the British ambassador was being howled out of Berlin,
the German ambassador to England was taking a farewell stroll, quite
unmolested, in St. James's Park.... One item that struck particularly
upon Mr. Britling's imagination was the story of the chorus of young
women who assembled on the railway platform of the station through which
the British ambassador was passing to sing--to his drawn
blinds--"Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles." Mr. Britling could
imagine those young people, probably dressed more or less