In november 1914 The prominent Celtic scholar Kuno Meyer stated in a letter on the subject of his tour of America: “it is a golden opportunity. I can now do more than merely lecture on Irish literature … unless they keep it out of the papers you will soon hear from me.” Both predictions came true. The ensuing activities placed him among the plethora of German professors who offered their expertise and social position to the German war cause. While these activities have been examined in their political context in minute detail, a social and cultural examination is still lacking. This, as I will argue, will help to explain why “the nation of Kant and Hegel, Ranke and Dahlmann, had produced a band of professors so ready to justify every action of their government, including the invasion of Belgium.” In this respect, Kuno Meyer is a particularly interesting figure: at the outbreak of war he embarked on a propaganda trip to the United State of America, where he lobbied for American neutrality amongst Irish-Americans and German-Americans. He also severed all ties with his numerous friends in England, a country he had been living in for almost half of his life.

According to his own account, Kuno Meyer believed from the summer of 1911 that a war between England and Germany was inevitable. Meyer's vision, written with hindsight in late 1914, points to a radical shift in sentiment — or rather, surfacing of existing sentiment — that is difficult to understand.