A correspondent at the front sends us a little German
pamphlet, one of a series of " Trench Books," which he picked up in an enemy
trench. In this adroitly written pamphlet a Dr. Negenborn, of Silesia, discusses Germany as a State compared with other Countries, and argues that under an irresponsible autocrat Germany was more free and more happy than Great Britain, America, France, or any other State. He quotes with approval the remark of a Berlin journal for working men that " a strong monarchy alone assures the German people a prosperous social future." He pictures William. II. as the father of his people, independent of parties and attentive to the needs of every class, sole head of the Army, which he preserves from the baneful influences of politics. Mediocrity rules in Parliamentary States, he says ; only a German Emperor is great enough to bo served by a Bismarck or a Hindenburg. " For Napoleonic ambition there is no place in our monarchical State." He contrasts calm and mighty Germany with Russia distracted by revolution and with the Allied countries, in which the Ministries which saw the war begin have disappeared. This pamphlet, dated 1917, seems to have been circulated by the hundred thousand among the German troops, but its sophistry has apparently failed to convince them that despotism and liberty are identical, and that the Prussian Monarchy was the only firm foundation for a German State.
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