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By Root 1286 0

admired, German methods the most thorough, German philosophers dominant. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was the leading laboratory for chemical research in the world. German science boasted Koch, Ehrlich and Roentgen, whose discovery of the X ray in 1895 was, however, as much a product of his time as of his country, for in 1897–99 in England J. J. Thomson had discovered the electron, and in France the Curies the release of energy by radioactivity. German professors expounded German ideals and German culture, among them Kuno Francke at Harvard, who pictured Germany pulsing with “ardent life and intense activity in every field of national aspirations.” He could barely contain his worship of the noble spectacle:

“Healthfulness, power, orderliness meet the eye on every square mile of German soil.” No visitor could fail to be impressed by “these flourishing, well-kept farms and estates, these thriving villages, these carefully replenished forests,… these bursting cities teeming with a well-fed and well-behaved population,… with proud city halls and stately courthouses, with theatres and museums rising everywhere, admirable means of communication, model arrangements for healthy recreation and amusement, earnest universities and technical schools.” The well-behaved population was characterized by its “orderly management of political meetings, its sober determination and effective organization of the laboring classes in their fight for social betterment” and its “respectful and attentive attitude toward all forms of art.” Over all reigned “the magnificent Army with its manly discipline and high standards of professional conduct,” and together all these components gave proof of “the wonderfully organized collective will toward the higher forms of national existence.” The mood was clearly not one amenable to proposals of self-limitation.

The sword, as Germany’s historians showed in their explanations of rise, was responsible for Germany’s greatness. In his History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, published in five volumes and several thousand pages over a period of fifteen years in the eighties and nineties, Treitschke preached the supremacy of the State whose instrument of policy is war and whose right to make war for honor or national interest cannot be infringed upon. The German Army was the visible embodiment of Treitschke’s gospel. Its authority and prestige grew with every year, its officers were creatures of ineffable arrogance, above the law, who inspired an almost superstitious worship in the public. Any person accused of insult to an officer could be tried for the crime of indirect lèse majesté. German ladies stepped off the sidewalk to let an officer pass.

Radio Times Hulton Picture Library

Lord Salisbury (Photo Credit 5.1)

By Courtesy of the Trustees of the Tate Gallery, London

Lord Ribblesdale (portrait by Sargent, 1902) (Photo Credit 5.2)

By permission of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wolfe Fund, 1927

The Wyndham sisters: Lady Elcho, Mrs. Tennant, and Mrs. Adeane

(portrait by Sargent, 1899) (Photo Credit 5.3)

By Country Life from H. A. Tipping, English Homes

Chatsworth (Photo Credit 5.4)

Brown Brothers

Prince Peter Kropotkin (Photo Credit 5.5)

Editorial office of La Révolte (Photo Credit 5.6)

Courtesy of the Museum of the City of New York

“Slept in That Cellar Four Years” (photograph by Jacob A. Riis, about 1890) (Photo Credit 5.7)

“Lockout” (drawing by Théophile Steinlen; signed “Petit Pierre”) (Photo Credit 5.8)

Thomas B. Reed (Photo Credit 5.9)

Brown Brothers

Captain (later Admiral) Alfred Thayer Mahan (Photo Credit 5.10)

Brown Brothers

Charles William Eliot (Photo Credit 5.11)

Samuel Gompers (Photo Credit 5.12)

The mob during Zola’s trial (drawing by Théophile Steinlen) (Photo Credit 5.13)

The “Syndicate” (drawing by Forain) (Photo Credit 5.14)

L’Affaire Dreyfus.

“Allegory” (drawing by Forain) (Photo Credit 5.15)

Coucou, le voilà!

La Vérité sort de son puits.

“Truth Rising from Its Well” (drawing by Caran d’Ache) (Photo