AUTOCRATS AND MEN OF GOOD WILL

...Hence, they ganged up on Germany which, according to the Kaiser, was the foremost citadel of Christian nationalism...

...So, he suggested to the Kaiser that he cease any dream of expansion in Africa and take compensation in the Middle East...

...But, while Hitler took up Anti-Semitism, he did not share the Kaiser's current...

...But the latter was equally insistent that Montgelas should have it...

...Rhodes wished Germany out of the way of his pet Cape-to-Cairo Railroad enterprise...

...They were able to make use of England as their diplomatic spearhead because King Edward VII of England was jealous of his nephew, William...

...the General graciously declined and insisted that Demartial take it...

...A chief source of this fantastic legend was a book which the Kaiser showed me, written by a White Russian, Maj.-Gen...

...All of this bore a close resemblance to Hitler's doctrines which had already been set down in Mein Ktmpf...

...The printed documents left many questions unanswered, and the personalities of the principals in that tragic drama also demanded study...

...During the war, Montgelas had resigned his command, in disgust over the policies of the High Command, and gone to Switzerland...

...After the first World War, we had to wait for years before we had the cogent facts with which to establish the Revisionist case relative to war guilt...

...But as a show of sentiment and as a symbel of the possible future of international relations, based on full knowledge of facts and abundant good-will, the episode impressed me greatly...

...It struck me that we shall never have world peace until those in control can base their actions on a comparable command of cogent information and generous good-will...

...Practically, the incident was trivial...

...Finally, they compromised by dividing the slice in half...

...THE most interesting thing about his views on the causes of the first World War was that he did not share the revisionist opinion that Russia and France were primarily to blame for the actual outbreak of war in 1914, due to the premature Russian generaf mobilization ordered with full French approval...

...Anglophobia...

...A whole new basket of bread could have been had by a mere signal to a waiter...

...We shall not make much progress so long as the intelligentsia among the United Nations continue to resist giving forth the truth on the causes and merits of the second World War...

...But the very groups, journals and editors who, in 1924-1928, e«rged me and other revisionists on to tell the full truth about the genesis of the first World War, are now solidly lined up to prevent the truth about the genesis of the second World War from being made public...

...The setting was a little restaurant in Vienna...

...Among those I visited on this quest for truth and light was the ex-Kaiser, William II, then living quietly at Doorn but still avidly, if pathetically, hopeful that the German people would recall him to his former splendor...

...The Kaiser received me cordially, after my arrival in mid-morning, took me around the grounds at Doorn, and showed me his woodpile and his Dahlias, his chief pride and joy on the modest country estate which stood out in sharp contrast to his former home, the great Hohenzollern Palace at Potsdam, which J had visited earlier that Summer...

...Returning to Germany after the war, he became the leading German authority on the outbreak of the first World War...

...M. Demartial was the chief French critic of the bellicose policies of Poincare and the Qitai a'Orsay in 1914, and his writings evidenced great courage and candor, as well as a meticulous regard for the facts...

...Today, we have ample facts already at hand...

...It was the Kaiser's contention that the international Jewish bankers wished to destroy the national-state system, while the Free Masons sought to undermine the Christian religion...

...But my most interesting moment with the Kaiser came in the evening in his drawing-room, when he branched out into more general comments on the world before the war...

...Among those present was Count Maxmilian Mont-gelas, member of an old and distinguished Bavarian family, military tutor of cro.wn Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, and an able military expert, and M. Georges Demartial, a former French colonial administrator and a man of great ability and integrity...

...I got him to tell me how he happened to launch the Berlin-to-Bagdad project—the first German effort to gain control over the great land mass of the Near East, of which we have heard so much in recent Geopolitics...

...LATER that same Summer, I had an experience which stood at the opposite pole, one which mirrored in a nutshell what knowledge and good-will might do for the creation of a better world...

...WE face a curious paradox today on this matter...

...During the course of the meal, the basket of bread before those two men became exhausted, save for one slice...

...I was attending an informal international conference on war guilt, to which had come honest seekers after truth from many European countries...

...Has that time yet arrived...

...Alter the day's meetings, we had gone out to have dinner at a place recommended by the Austrian delegates...

...The Kaiser asserted that this dramatic stroke in foreign policy was suggested to him by Cecil Rhodes, when the latter was dominating British expansionist policy...

...Demartial passed it to Mongelas...

...He was full and frank in his responses to my queries, though I did not forget that his answers constituted ex-parte interpretations, even if unconsciously so...

...I thought about the Kaiser and Rhodes, lighthearted-ly handing around continents, and then of the spectacle before me of great minds and great hearts, from traditionally hostile countries, each reluctant to deprive the other of a slice of bread...

...Queried by the Kaiser as to what the British Cabinet might think about such grandiose power politics, Rhodes assured him that the British Cabinet was always made up of his stooges, who would do whatever he commanded them...

...Count Cherep-Spiridovich, and entitled, The Secret World Government...

...Democratic leaders have been just as prone to play power politics and foment wars as monarchs and imperialists...

...Rather, he held that England was the villain of the peace in 1914...

...Indeed, some of them are not averse to using various forms of mental intimidation to discourage writers from telling the truth on this all-important subject...

...Autocrats And Men Of Good Will By HARRY ELMER BARNES BACK in the mid-twenties, when I was devoting myself primarily to discovering the truth about the causes of the first World War, I went to Europe to interview as many as possible of the political leaders and diplomats of 1914 who were still living...

...We may be able to answer this question better sometime before 1950...

...He pulled the strings and they danced...

...But even England was only the catspaw for the international Jewish bankers and the Free Masons, according to the Kaiser...

...There was enough of the truth in this dramatic denouncement, enough of the truth which the documents sustain, to stamp upon my mind indelibly the conviction that we shall never be free from war so long as powerful individuals can toss about at will the destinies of great and vital portions of our planet...

...Cherep-Spiridovich was, however, more interested in trying to prove that the Jews were the instigators of Bolshevism...

...And the events of 1914 and thereafter have amply proven that the mere establishment of formal democracy will not turn the trick...

...Rather, he adopted the ardent, almost servile, Anglomania, that kept him from knocking out England and ultimately spelled his doom...

...During the afternoon, the Kaiser graciously offered to answer the questions that I had noted down to ask him on my visit...