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10 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
But before narrating what took place there I must say a few
words about the reasons which led up to my journey. It was
desirable that no one in a responsible position in Sweden
should have an inkling of my journey to the front. Our
country belonged to the neutral states, and thus no authority
must entertain the slightest shadow of a suspicion that I was
travelling on any sort of secret mission. No,—the reason was
a very simple one. Only a few days’ journey away the greatest
war of all time was being waged. It was clear that the out-
come of this struggle would decide the political development
for the next fifty or hundred years, or perhaps longer. In any
case its shadows must envelop the remainder of the lives of
the present generation.
The war of 1870-71 became the starting-point of a new era
in Germany’s development. Now Germany is once again at
war, and the new political problems which may be expected
to come up for discussion in the immediate future will doubt-
less be rooted in the great Germanic war. If the two con-
tending groups of powers were to come out of the struggle
only with depleted forces, the war of 1914 would, in its dying
embers, carry the seed of a new world conflagration, even more
devastating perhaps than the last. But if Germany were to
win at all points, the map of the world would undergo sweeping
changes, and Germany would then, in the great triumph of
her power, discountenance and forbid fresh wars. If Russia
were to win, the fate of Sweden and Norway would be sealed.
Whatever happens, great and memorable events will arise
out of this struggle. How instructive would it be, then, to
study the War on the very scene of the momentous conflict, and
to visit the ravaged regions where the German soldiers carried
the fate of Germany and of the whole Germanic world on the
point of their bayonets ! No one who has not seen with his
own eyes how the Germans fight, can fully and clearly grasp
what the struggle means to Germany. But his presence there
will enable him to comprehend more plainly what the future
holds in store for us, and the happenings which in due course
will be unfolded before our vision.
Thus I look upon my journey to the front first and foremost
as a political study.
But there were also other reasons and other thoughts that
made me long to get out to the theatre of war. I wanted to
see with my own eyes and become familiar with war as it
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