We must force France to its knees--perhaps more completely
than any of our other foes--but every one seems to hope that
after this, after this last lesson, France will come to her
senses and conclude a real peace with her German neighbor.
Even among the common men in our ranks there has developed
almost plant like a certain realization of a common duty of
these two nations, a feeling of certain virtues which they,
complementing one another, can preserve only by co-operation.
But for the cultured ones among us, the idea of a hereditary
feud has given way to a clear consciousness that there is a
middle European Continental culture, supported by German,
Austrian, and French genius in common, and that the
preservation, development, and continuation thereof as against
a hasty and superficial Anglization must be the task of the
future. All, all now learn through experience that this matter
with France is a woe of civilization (kulturjammer), and that
now at last it is going to change, that it could change, if--
In the same newspaper the Berlin National Economist, Prof. Werner
Sombart, writes:
Against France we probably experience the least aversion or
hatred. At bottom we have really nothing "against the
Frenchmen," but they have a great deal against us.
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