Now the only monarch in Europe in our time who thought he had a chance is your friend in Berlin.

When he told you last year (1914) that of course he didn't want war, but that he was "ready," that's what he meant.

A similar ambition, of course, comes into the mind of every professional soldier of the continent who rises to eminence.

In Berlin you have both--the absolute monarch and the military class of ambitious soldiers and their fighting machine.

Behind these men walks the Napoleonic ambition all the time, just as in the United States we lie down every night in George Washington's feather-bed of no entangling alliances.
Then remember, too, that the German monarchy is a cross between the Napoleonic ambition and its inheritance from Frederick the Great and Bismarck.