" "Under the economic conditions prevailing
in Germany, the most glorious victory she can aspire to--it is a soldier
who says it--is peace!"
The impression thus gathered from M. Bourdon's observations is confirmed
at every point by those of Baron Beyens, who went to Berlin as Belgian
minister after the crisis of Agadir.[2] Of the world of business he says:--
All these gentlemen appeared to be convinced partisans of peace....
According to them, the tranquillity of Europe had not been for a moment
seriously menaced during the crisis of Agadir.... Industrial Germany
required to live on good terms with France. Peace was necessary to
business, and German finance in particular had every interest in the
maintenance of its profitable relations with French finance.[3] At the
end of a few months I had the impression that these pacifists personified
then--in 1912--the most common, the most widely spread, though the least
noisy, opinion, the opinion of the majority, understanding by the
majority, not that of the governing classes but that of the nation
as a whole (p. 172).
The mass of the people, Beyens held, loved peace, and dreaded war. That was
the case, not only with all the common people, but also with the managers
and owners of businesses and the wholesale and retail merchants.
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