comical tendency

First there is Crowe’s almost comical tendency to view the wars, protectorates, occupations and annexations of imperial Britain as a natural and desirable state of affairs, and the comparatively ineffectual manoeuvres of the Germans as gratuitous and outrageous breaches of the peace. How impossible of the Germans to pester Britain on the Samoa question when London was on the point of "submitting" its quarrel with the Transvaal "to the arbitrament of war"! - The Sleepwalkers, as quoted here