"
The nobles of Prussia are always for war. The business men and
manufacturers and shipowners desire an increasing field for their
activities. The German colonies were uninhabitable by Europeans.
All his life the glittering Emperor and his generals had planned
and thought of war; and the Crown Prince, surrounded by his
remarkable collection of relics and reminders of Napoleon, dreamed
only of taking the lead in a successful war of conquest. Early in
the winter of 1913-14, the Crown Prince showed his collection of
Napoleana to a beautiful American woman of my acquaintance, and
said that he hoped war would occur while his father was alive,
but, if not, he would start a war the moment he came to the throne.
Since writing the above, the American woman who had this conversation
with the Crown Prince wrote out for me the exact conversation
in her own words, as follows: "I had given him Norman Angell's
book, 'The Great Illusion,' which seeks to prove that war is
unprofitable. He (the Crown Prince) said that whether war was
profitable or not, when he came to the throne there would be war,
if not before, just for the fun of it.
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