PAN-GERMANISM I I ; '; ! ;: : ROLAND G. USHER — • (Unrtt^U Slam ^rljnol Hthtarg (Sift of (SuataouH 38. Sabttiaan J 13rafe0aor, (S,atmil Eatu ir^onl. 1929- Cframtuell Prnfeaaoc a«& Emerttua irnfeaaot. 1350- °D 119.U85 """'"-''"'" AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NEV/PCRT liEWG, VA. SOLDIERS AND SAfLORS LIBRARY 2? wm'^^wm ^TfiiiT PAN-GERMANISM Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024878112 PAN-GERMANISM FROM ITS INCEPTION TO THE OUTBREAK OF THE WAR ~ 'A Critical Study BY ROLAND G. USHER, Ph.D. Professor of History, IVashingtort UnlversUs, St. Louis. "The patrotism of nations ought to be selfish." Madame de Stael, of Qermany. NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Published by Arrangement with Houghton Mifflin Company B 9 ^$75 COPYRIGHT, 1913 AND Igi4 BY ROLAm) G. USHER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published February IQ13 SECOND EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED DT5 ^ J> TO THAT ENERGETIC, CAPABLE ADMINISTRATOR THAT ENTHUSIASTIC STUDENT OF CONDITIONS THAT BEST OF COMRADES THAT DEAREST OF FRIENDS MT WIPE PREFACE THE purpose of this book, as originally writ- ten, was to describe from an objective, im- partial point of view, the ideas, plans, and achieve- ments of the radical German party known as "Die AUdeutschen," the Pan-Germanists. The book was meant to expound, to elucidate, to explain, to record, but in no sense of the words to praise, to blame, or to advocate the policies and tactics either of the Pan-Germanists or of their enemies. The unsatisfactory nature of the evidence avail- able for contemporary history, while the archives and diplomatic correspondence remain sealed, in- evitably makes parts of the book appear less like sober history than like essays in conjecture; but we must realize at the outset that the liae and pre- cept familiar to historians of earlier periods lead, when strictly applied to contemporary history, to a series of colorless negations about policy or to meaningless collections of unrelated details. We must do the best we can with what we have and wait with patience for the production of the really important evidence. Some critical remarks upon the nature of evidence in contemporary history will be found in the bibliography. A few footnotes vii PREFACE have been appended to illustrate the character and nature of the more trustworthy material. To this second edition have been added five chapters (xv, xvi, xvii, xix, xx) and an extended critical Bibliography. These bring the narrative down to the outbreak of the European war in Aug- ust, 1914, and deal with the future of Pan-German- ism should Germany and Austria succeed in the war. The text of the earlier chapters has been carefully revised and some sections have been re- written. I am more keenly conscious than ever of the difficulty of attaining even comparative accuracy; of the impossibility of satisfying by an attempt at an impartial and balanced statement the de- mands of impassioned advocates of this or that national policy; of the opportunity for error in statement, in judgment, in critical appreciation. I can only say in defense that such errors as the reader may discover are those neither of intention nor of partisanship. R. G. U. Washington Universitt, St. Locib,' ; March, 1915 CONTENTS I. THE CAUSES OF GEEMAN AGGRESSION Object of Pan-Germanism 1 Prussian policy of aggression 4 The logic of expansion 5 It inevitably involves colonies or markets 7 The danger from England's position 9 The solution in the Pan-German Confederation ... 10 Pan-Germanist ethics 11 n. THE MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE EST EUROPE German belief that England never has been strong . . 19 Her naval power the result of accident of geography . 20 And of control of naval stores from the Baltic ... 22 Her power the result of geography of Europe ... 22 of lack in Europe of other nations organically strong 25 of domestic peace in England 26 Her power destroyed simply by rise of Prussia, Austria, and Italy 27 Inefficiency of parliamentary government 28 Greater eflficiency of Continental administration ... 29 Her control of European commerce lost by coming of the railroad 30 by the loss of the monopoly of colonial goods . . .31 by the loss of monopoly of machinery 32 ix CONTENTS England now economically weak ........ 33 Loss of national morale 35 m. THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF IMPERIAL ENGLAND The Empire a sham 37 India not conquered nor really ruled 39 Factors which created the Indian empire now gone . . 40 Weakness of England's control of the Mediterranean . 40 Natives no longer supine 42 Danger from cupidity of other nations 44 Lack of fundamental interests between England and her self-governing colonies 44 IV. FRANCE AND RUSSIA AS THE GERMAN SEES THEM Disadvantages and advantages of Germany's strategic position 48 Her control of strategic points 50 Weakness of the RepubUc in France 51 Lack of unity in population 52 Decrease of physical strength 53 Weakness of her colonial empire 53 Physical strength of Russia not underestimated ... 54 Administration incapable of utilizing it 55 Russian pec^Ie lack national consciousness .... 56 Financially Russia is bankrupt 57 The Russian army lacking in inteUigence 58 Existence of France and Russia responsible for alliance with Austria 59 and with Italy 61 X CONTENTS V. THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY Strength of Germany's strategic position 63 Economic resources of the Empire 65 Efficiency of administration enables her to utilize them to the full 67 Essentials of military efficiency 69 Importance of preparedness 70 Time an essential element of preparedness . . . . 71 Hearty cobperation of the nation 72 VI. ENGLAND AND FRANCE AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES Their glorious past 73 Their physical strength 74 Economic supremacy: control of credit structure . . 75 monopoly of carrying trade 78 size of individual fortunes 80 possession of specie 82 ownership of bonded indebtedness of world ... 83 Their notions of Germany's economic weakness ... 84 Vn. THE GERMAN VIEW OF THE ECONOMIC SITUATION Position of England and France dependent upon the continuance of peace 88 Capital investments of England and France outside their borders not really theirs 90 Payment dependent upon good faith of the debtors . . 92 Outbreak of war would deprive them of income ... 93 And cause financial ruin 94 xi CONTENTS Germany does own her industries 95 Victory would automatically free her of debt .... 96 Financing the war 97 German notions of ethics 99 Vm. PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS A great fleet 101 A great army 102 Seizure of Belgium and Holland 103 Seizure of Denmark, Sweden, Norway 106 Formation of Pan-German Confederation 108 Control of the Balkans ll'^ Control of Turkey Ill Construction of the Baghdad Railway 113 Previous agreement as to the division of the spoils . .114 IX. FIRST STEPS Tentative nature of conclusions in contemporary his- tory 116 Authorship of Pan-Germanism 117 Pan-Germanism the gradual result of a series of poli- cies 119 The colonial phase 119 Peaceful penetration of Venezuela 120 The Boer War 122 The Baghdad Railway 126 The reorganization of Turkey 128 Conditions in English and French dependencies . . 130 in the Balkans 131 in Morocco '. 133 in Persia 134 in Egypt and India 137 sii CONTENTS X. THE SIGNIFICANT POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES An amicable understanding reached with Triple Entente as to the action which the position of the United States would make advantageous to her under cer- tain contingencies 139 Defensive strength of position of United States . . .141 Its offensive weakness 142 European balance of power: European interference in other continents responsible for opportunity of United States to enter world politics 143 Economic resources of United States complementary to those of England and France 146 Her financial strength would be invaluable to Germany 147 Economic assistance of England and France essential to United States 148 Their consent and cooperation essential for fulfilling ambitions of United States . 149 Their inability to hold South America and Gulf of Mexico against Germany lead them to hand them over to the United States 151 Peaceful penetration of the Gulf by the United States . 152 Creation of fleet by United States 154 The Panama Canal 155 Armed assistance of United States not contemplated except as last resort 157 XI. FmST DEFEATS Strategic value of Morocco 158 The Agadir incident 159 Causes of the defeat 162 xiii CONTENTS Strategic position of Persia 165 Aggressive move by England and Russia 167 Defensive measures of England in Egypt 169 Diplomatic victory at Delhi Duibar 171 Xn. VICTORY FROM DEFEAT: THE TRIPOLITAN WAR Strategic and political position of Italy 174 Her ambitions and necessities 176 Her designs on Tripoli 177 English and French offers 178 Acceptance by Italy: breaking of Triple AUiance . . 180 Inability of England and France to fulfill promises . . 181 New offers from Germany and Austria 182 Italy rejoins the Triple Alliance 185 Results 186 Xm. THE AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR Triple Alliance continues its preparations 187 189 191 194 195 Efforts of England and France to meet situation Influence of Irish Home Rule agitation . . . Opposition in England to a]*mament expenditures Measures consummated by England .... France adopts Two Power Standard in Mediterranean 196 The Trans-Persian Railway 197 XIV. THE GREAT REPULSE: THE BALKAN CRISIS Desirability of war in the Balkans for Triple Alliance . 203 Its desirability for the Triple Entente 209 CONTENTS New attitude of England and France toward Russia . 210 New policy toward Turkey 213 Desirability of war for the Balkan states in their own interests 214 Results of the First Balkan War 217 XV. THE SECOND BALKAN WAR The causes of the Second War 224 The Balkan states desired to continue the war . . . 225 The Triple Entente preferred to continue it ... . 227 So did the Triple Alliance 229 And the Turk 230 Abortive negotiations 231 The realignment of parties: Bulgaria's treason . . . 232 The Second Balkan War 234 Its results 235 XVI. FORCING THE ISSUE Variety of possible interpretations 240 The two parties in the Pan-Germanist ranks .... 242 The Peace party 243 The War party 244 The programme of the Peace party no longer feasible 244 The situation favors the Triple Alliance 249 Dangers of delay 250 Domestic difficulties of the Triple Entente 255 XVII. "DEM TAG!" When was the decision reached 264 Final military preparations 265 Financial arrangements 266 Merchant marine prepared g70 XV CONTENTS The castis belli: murder of the Archduke 271 issue with Servia: advantages 272 disadvantages 274 August, 1914, favorable moment for Triple Alliance . 275 XVm. THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM Criteria of judgment 278 Pan-Germanism the expression of nationality . . . 280 All nations actuated by same motives 281 Present international situation made possible by eco- nomic progress of the nineteenth century . . . 282 International rivalry intensified by peace 284 Premise of Pan-Germanism correct 286 Transportation has increased rivalry 288 Increase in administrative efficiency has made aggres- sive policies possible 289 Cheap printing has created national feeling .... 290 The fallacy of pacifists 293 Fallacy of peaceful methods of conquest 294 Generality of the ethics of Pan-Germanism .... 295 XIX. THE FUTURE OF PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE Impossibility of predicting the outcome of war . . . 299 Real meaning of victory for Pan-Germanism .... 300 Accuracy of Pan-Germanist premises 302 Refer only to winning of the war 305 Fundamental obstacles in way of permanent success . 305 Ancient antipathy between Prussia and Austria . . . 306 between members of Confederation 307 Racial problems in Germany and Austria 307 xvi CONTENTS Governmental problems 310 Complexity of issues in the Balkans 313 in Turkey 314 Solution of these domestic and interstate issues essential to permanent success 316 Possibilities of their solution 316 Too fundamental for permanent solution 318 Part likely to be played by diplomacy 318 Position of Italy, importance of her aid 319 Victory of Triple Entente more advantageous to Italy, Balkans, etc., than Pan-Germanism would be . . 321 XX. THE FUTURE OF PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE Can a victorious Pan-Germanism extend itself outside Europe? 324 Difficulty of dividing the spoils of victory 326 Difficulty of conquering Asia and Africa 327 Administrative obstacles to final success 329 Economic resources necessary 331 Probability of competition in Asia and Africa . . . 333 Real basis of British Empire in India 335 Difficulty of overthrowing it 336 Improbabihty that the British Empire will collapse . 337 New German Empire would also lack cohesion . . . 339 APPENDIX The Speech of Premier Borden op Canada ad- vocating A New Naval Policy, with the Ofticial Memorandum op the English Ad- miralty ON England's Naval Position . . . 343 Critical Bibliography 367 Index 387 PAN-GERMANISM PAN-GERMANISM CHAPTER I THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION FOR some years those at all familiar with cur- rent international affairs have known that it was the custom in the German navy to drink a toast, "To the day." Many people have hugged to themselves with glee the "secret" in- formation that the officers were drinking to the day when war should be declared against Eng- land, but few indeed seem to have realized the splendor of the vision now before German eyes, or the ideas of the international situation which makes victory seem so near as to send German blood coursing swiftly in the anticipation of tri- umph. The Germans aim at nothing less than the domination of Europe and of the world by the Germanic race.^ One of the fundamental ' "To Germany, a [fleet] is merely a means to an end, and that end — if the Pan-Gennans may be believed — is the destruction of the British Empire, the disruption of the French Republic, and the domination of the world." Archibald Hurd in the Fortnightly Bemew, xci. New Series, 785. Any one who will compare this article with the official Memorandum of the Admiralty prepared for the Dominion of Canada will have little doubt that it was "inspired." 1 PAN-GERMANISM errors, of which idealists and advocates of peace have been often guilty, is to treat this vast pro- ject as an unreality. In fact, it is already half accomplished. An equally mistaken view declares it the conception of an individual which chances to find for the moment a response in the German people, or a scheme which depends for its exist- ence upon the transient personal influence of a few men. No doubt, a few men only know the full details of the plans for the realization of this stu- pendous enterprise, but the whole nation is none the less fired by their spirit and is working as a unit in accordance with their directions. It is literally true that Germany has "become Bis- marckian. His heavy spirit has settled upon it. It wears his scowl. It has adopted his brutality, as it has his greatness. It has taken his criterion of truth, which is Germanic; his indifference to justice, which is savage; his conception of a state, which is sublime." "This nation has forgotten God in its exaltation of the Germanic race." Bombastic as such phrases are, they do convey some notion of the militant spirit which has Mr. Hurd quotes the following sentences from the speech of the Imperial Chancellor in the Reichstag on November 10, 1912: "For months past we have been living, and we are living now, in an atmos- phere of passion such as we have perhaps never before experienced in Germany. At the root of this feeling is the determination of Ger- many to make its strength and capability prevail in the world." See also the note at the end of this chapter. THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION roused that nation. When Li Hung Chang first learned from Bismarck the magnitude of these plans, he was skeptical. But before his brief stay in Germany was over, he wrote in his diary: "From all that I have seen, I am more than ever convinced that the Kaiser and Prince Bismarck meant what they said when they averred that the German Empire was destined to become a dom- inant factor in Europe." The magnitude of the conception, the degree of success already attained, the probability of its complete realization, the grave dangers which it involved for other nations, were most clearly demonstrated by the alarm manifested by the latter. England's foremost soldier, Lord Roberts, publicly declared in 1912 that she had never been in all her history in a position of greater peril. The leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons as solemnly affirmed the truth of his statement. Ten years ago, he said, England had command of every sea; now she held control only of the North Sea. Ten years ago her fleet was so strong that she could have confidently expected to emerge victorious from a struggle of the magnitude of the Napoleonic wars; to-day there was no such prob- ability. The ex-Premier of France, M. Clemen- ceau, said in public: "When I look towards the boundary of a territory which was French when 3 PAN-GERMANISM I was young, and when I see there the massing of lines of bayonets, I cannot dream of disarming." A crisis of the utmost gravity is thus facing Europe, and has already resulted in a war whose consequences have been felt alike by the farm- ers in North Dakota, the operatives in Lanca- shire cotton mills, and the savages in the heart of Africa. At the very least, it will overthrow political boundaries whose permanence has been thought assured; at the worst, it may involve the actual destruction of the prosperity and happiness of two or three of the largest countries in Europe and inflict untold misery upon the countless thou- sands dependent upon European rule in Africa and Asia. The vital factor in the modem international situation is the aggression of Germany, her deter- mination to expand her territories, to increase her wealth and power. Three centuries ago, Prussia was a tiny state whose many parts were separated from each other by the lands of her neighbors. Cut off from the sea on all sides, pushed hither by the oncoming Russian, dragged thither by the encroaching French, surrounded by tiny incom- petent states, her rulers saw in aggression the only possible method of preserving the national life. To prevent her absorption by her neighbors, she must grow faster than they; she must rob 4 THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION them instead of waiting for them to rob her. By war, she secured access to the Baltic; by war, she obtained the coveted Silesia; by war, she annexed much of Poland; by war, she spread her aegis over the whole of northern Germany. The humiliation of conquest she knew under Napoleon, and she has never forgotten nor ever will that no natural bar- riers stand between her and the invader. Poverty- stricken, still recovering from the ravages of the wars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, menaced on all sides by powerful enemies, her only safety, Bismarck saw, lay in aggression, her only chance of victory depended upon striking the first blow. By this policy, she has built up one of the most powerful states in the world and one of the most populous and prosperous. But she has reached the boundaries of Germany; fur- ther expansion means the acquisition of what other nations now own. The logic of facts, proving the necessity of expansion, is, to such Germans as General Bern- hardi, unanswerable. The population has in- creased so rapidly that it is already diflBcult for eflScient, well-trained men to secure any employ- ment. Not only is the superficial area of the country suitable for cultivation practically ex- hausted, but intensive scientific agriculture is speedily limiting the possibilities of the employ- 5 PAN-GERMANISM ment of more hands on the same acres or the fur- ther increase of the produce. Industry has grovm at a stupendous rate, and the output from Ger- man factories is enormously in excess of the needs of even the growing population. Her exports fer capita are $24 a year, as against England's $40, and France's $25, and she has not their ex- clusive colonial markets. Unless some outlet can be found for the surplus population, and a new and extensive market discovered for this enor- mous surplus production, prosperity will be in- evitably succeeded by bankruptcy. There will be more hands than there is work for, more mouths than there is food, and Germany must either get rid of the surplus mouths and hands or swell the surplus product by employing them at home, which cannot be done without entailing national ruin. Expansion is, therefore, the only alterna- tive, for the German considers equivalent to ruin the reduction of the pressure of population by emigration,^ and the avoidance of overproduction ' In 1881, nearly five per cent of the total population emigrated, and in the two succeeding years the number was scarcely smaller. Most of them came to the United States. German emigration at present is almost negligible. The name Pan-Germanism at first denoted a movement for the creation of a greater national unit out of these emigrants and the Germans at home. It aimed at main- taining the emigrants' devotion to the Fatherland by preserving their language and German habits, and at preventing their amal- gamation, so far as possible, into the nation to which they had mi- grated. Its hope was eventually to draw them back to the Father- 6 THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION by the proportionate reduction of output. For Germany to be thus forced to remain static in population and in wealth, while her neighbors continue to expand, England in her colonies, France in Morocco, Russia in Siberia and Turkes- tan, means that the date of her annihilation will be fixed by the rate of their growth. And such action on her part would compel her in fact to be an accessory to her own destruction, for her emigrants must strengthen her rivals both in the field and in the factory. To ask a German, there- fore, whether the expansion of Germany is desir- able, is merely to ask him whether he believes it desirable from any point of view for the German nation to survive. Already the boundaries of Germany in Europe have been pushed to their furthest extent; more territory can be added only at the expense of other nations, either of her powerful rivals, France and Russia, or of her weaker neighbors, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, and Sweden. Nor would the accession of such territory solve the diflSculty. All European nations are already experiencing to land or to provide for them new homes under the German flag elsewhere. The methods employed were mainly educational, by means of German newspapers, active German departments in American universities, German societies, frequent visits to the great German " colonies " by German authors and professors. This movement, however, was soon merged into and dwarfed by the greater scheme now known as Pan-Germanism. 7 PAN-GERMANISM some degree the necessity of an outlet for their surplus population and manufactures. A war for expansion in Europe would be without purpose and could only be detrimental- to all. Germany must find some territory suitable for development by her own people which is not already choked with men and women. She is seeking the coun- terpart of the fertile plains of western Canada, of the rich valleys of northern Africa, where her people may build a new Germany whose existence will strengthen her and not her rivals. But such a promised land, tenanted only by native races, is not to be found. Every really available spot is held by England, France, or Russia. Germany can, therefore, obtain colonies suitable for her purposes only at the expense of these last. This is what is meant by the oft-reiterated statements that England, France, and Russia are by their very existence inimical to Germany's welfare, that, if she is to escape ruin, she must fight them. The alternative to colonies is access to some new market for her products, so vast in extent and so unlimited4n its capacity of continued ab- sorption, that her surplusage of population can be provided with work at home, and thus pro- sperity and the increase of the national strength be indefinitely insured. The total annual imports into her own colonies she knows to be well under -8 THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION ten millions of dollars; the exports from England to the English colonies alone she knows to total several hundred millions of dollars.^ Such a mar- ket she is determined to have, cost what it may. One other fact marks England as the greatest obstacle in the path of her legitimate growth. The English Channel is the only available safe passageway for her merchant fleets. The voyage round the British Isles is long and during the winter months positively dangerous even for steamships. Natural conditions, therefore, by compelling Germany to use the Channel, force her to expose her commerce to the assaults of the English fleet so long as the latter controls the Channel. Even if she should acquire colonies and a great market, she cannot really possess them until she acquires a highroad to them safe from the attacks of her enemies. Short of conquering England and France, she can never free her com- merce from actual danger; without a great fleet in the North Sea, strong enough to terrify England into inaction, she cannot even be assured of the continuance of her present freedom of passage.^ ^ The leading customers of England in 1910 were in millions of pounds: India, 45 millions; Germany, 37 millions; the United States, 31 millions; Australia, 27 millions; France, 22 millions; Canada, IS millions. England's exports to these three colonies were 91 millions and her exports to the three nations were 90 millions. 2 The preface of the German Naval Bill of 1900 stated: "For the protection of our oversea trade and our colonies, there is only one 9 PAN-GERMANISM Her fleet, therefore, seems to her merely the guarantee of her present position, and it will con- tinue to be a guarantee only as long as its size makes it formidable. Merely to retain what she now has, Germany is condemned to increase her navy at any pace the English see fit to set. Some- thing more will be absolutely essential if the dirf consequences of an economic crisis are not to im- poverish her and pave the way for her ultimate destruction at the hands of her hereditary enemies, France and Russia. To secure a share of the world's trade in some fashion which will not expose her to the attacks of the English fleet, and which wfll create an empire . less vulnerable in every way than she believes the British Empire to be, an overland route to the East must be found. The Germans consider perfectly feasible the construction of a great confederation of states including Germany, Austria, Hungary, means: a strong fleet. Under the present circumstances, the only- means for protecting Germany's oversea trade and colonies is: Ger- many must possess a fleet of such strength that a war, even with the strongest naval power, would involve such risks as to jeopardize the position of that power. For that purpose, it is not absolutely neces- sary that the German fleet be as strong as the fleet of the greatest naval power, for a great naval power will not generally be in a posi- tion to concentrate all its forces against Germany. But, even if the greatest naval power should succeed in meeting us with a fleet of superior strength, the defeat of a strong German fleet would so greatly weaken its own power, that, notwithstanding its victory, its own position on the seas would no longer be secure." 10 THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION the Balkan States, and Turkey, which would con- trol a great band of territory stretching southeast from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf. A railway from Constantinople to Baghdad would effectually tie the great trunk lines, leading from the Rhine and Danube valleys, to Constantinople and the Persian Gulf, and so establish a shorter route to India than that via Suez. Egypt, Syria, Arabia, Persia, India herself, the mother of nations, would fall into German hands and be held safe from con- quest by this magnificent overland route to the East. Pan-Germanism is, therefore, in the first place, a defensive movement for self-preserva- tion, for escaping the pressure of France and Russia, both bent on her destruction. It is, in the second place, an offensive movement directed against England, its object, the conquest of the English possessions in the Mediterranean and in Asia. She expects thus to obtain an outlet for her surplus population and manufactures and to create an empire as little vulnerable politically, economically, or strategically as any the world has yet seen. In reply to the outcries from other nations, de- nouncing these plans as unprovoked aggression and lacking in morality, as a reversion to the forc- ible methods of bygone centuries whose brutali- ties the world long ago outgrew, the Germans 11 PAN-GERMANISM derisively point to the presence of the English in. India, of the French in Morocco, of the Russians in Manchuria, of the United States in Panama. They insist that their aims and methods are ab- solutely identical with those their detractors have so long employed. Now that the latter's work is complete and their own futures assured, they are no doubt eager to establish "moral," "ethical," and "legal" precepts whose acceptance by other nations would insure them the undisturbed pos- session of all they now hold. This, the Germans admit, is but natural and not blameworthy; but they ought not to expect other nations to sub- scribe to such principles from motives of love or admiration.^ General Bernhardi, a man whose undoubted attainments and learning compel the respect of his enemies, and whose following in Germany is large in numbers and influential in character, declares openly that might is right, and that right is decided by war. He scoffs at such ideas of ethics and morality as his critics repre- sent, and insinuates that, if war happened to ' "That any one should act in politics out of complaisance or from a sentiment of justice, others may expect from us, but not we from them. . . . Every government takes solely its own interests as the standard of its actions, however it may drape them with deductions of justice or sentiment. . . . My belief is that no one does anything for us, unless he can at the same time serve his own interests." Bis- marck, Reflections and Reminiscences, English translation, A. J. Butler, New York and London, 1899, respectively, pp. 176, 173, 202. 12 THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION promise other nations at this moment as many advantages as it does Germany, they would hold views similar to his upon that subject. With him, the Germans as a whole refuse to admit the validity of any theoretical notions whose application would in any way restrict or interfere with Germany's "full share in the mas- tery of the world." Do they not see about them the splendidly tangible results of the investment ' of the huge war indemnity paid by France to ransom her lands from the German army? Do they not know that the indemnity created modern Germany? As a prominent German manufacturer said to the writer four years ago, "Next time we will ask five times as much." In the face of the undeniable territorial gains, equal in amount to several times the area of Prussia and Branden- burg combined in 1640, in the face of that five billions of francs which they have invested and reinvested with such brilliant success for forty years, how can the Germans be expected to believe that the fruits of peace are greater than those ^ The indemnity was nominally spent in defraying the cost of the war and in improving the army and fortifications. It was indirectly distributed to the nation and to individuals; for the army was the nation in arms, the debts were mostly owed to Germans, the labor and materials employed on the new works were German. However the transaction was recorded formally on the books of the state, the nation itself received the money either in wages or by the remission of taxes. IS PAN-GERMANISM of war? Is not the very existence of Imperial Germany due to war? Could it conceivably have been created by anything else? Will anything less preserve it?. They deny the validity of any par- ticular set of ethical notions of right and wrong to decide issues vital to the continued existence of the Germanic race. If such considerations are to be dragged into the discussion, the notion of the relativity of truth, the doctrine that moral and ethical standards are not fixed but merely reflect the stage of progress each particular age has reached, the Darwinian doctrine of the survival of the fittest, all seem to them infinitely more satisfactory theoretical grounds for action than what Bismarck sneeringly called "the English phrases about humanity." The most significant question now before the Anglo-Saxon race, therefore, is the truth or fal- sity of those notions of strategical geography, of military and naval organization, of finance and commerce upon which these vast schemes are based. If the factors, on which the Germans rely, are what they think they are, the domination of the world by Germany and her allies can be only a question of time. If they are not valid, the world will certainly develop along different lines. So widely do the economic and political interests ramify, so completely are all sections of the globe 14 THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION influenced by them, that nothing can happen, from this moment until the final decision of the issue, which will not vitally affect it or be vitally affected by it. The Boer War, Morocco, the strangling of Persia, the war in Tripoli, the Bal- kan crisis were only incidents of this gigantic struggle in which the very pawns are kingdoms and the control of the entire globe the stake. In- deed, the forces at the disposal of the combatants are so comprehensive that navies and armies might almost be called incidental factors, which may not be decisive for victory or defeat in the intricate tangle of issues causing the war of 1914. Naturally, even to sketch the history of the world in its relation to the modern crisis, even to enumerate the multifold phases, political, con- stitutional, economic, military, which it neces- sarily displays, is an impossibility in anything briefer than a series of volumes. An attempt to describe merely the features and factors essential to a comprehension of the most significant phases of Pan-Germanism alone will require the omission of much that is important and will make im- possible any account at all of the narrative of recent history. What has happened, what is hap- pening, is of infinitely less consequence than the scope and character of the German plans. The most vital fact for the Anglo-Saxon race to grasp 15 PAN-GERMANISM at present is the German view of European his- tory, of European life and ideals, their estima- tion of the comparative strength of political, eco- nomic, and ethical forces. From a grasp of these points, and from it alone, can we hope to under- stand the apparently inexplicable and inconsist- ent ideas upon which has been based the most audacious attempt yet made consciously to direct through a long term of years the evolution of a nation and the fate of the world.^ The following chapters, therefore, will attempt to describe Eu- rope and Germany, as the Germans see them, as the necessary prelude to a brief statement of the progress Germany has made toward a realization of her scheme and a description of the attempts of her "victims" to frustrate it. Then, there will ' The extent to which the German nation as a whole was conscious of the existence of Pan-Germanism is not demonstrable. There can be no doubt that the Government consistently attempted to shape public opinion in favor of it. Bismarck's notion of public opin- ion is enlightening. He said to Crispi: "Public opinion is but a great river formed by a quantity of small streams, one of which is the Government stream. If the Government would but swell its waters sufliciently, it would have a determinative influence upon the greaf public current. If, on the contrary, the Government wants to meas- ure the strength of all the other streams, which, separately, are less powerful than its own, it must be overwhelmed by the union of their forces. A Government acting thus would be guilty of unpardonable neglect of precautions." Crispi, Memoirs, n, 163, London, 1912. In the Fortnightly Review, xci. New Series, 785, Archibald Hurd states: "A section of powerful politicians and vested interests, with the support of the Emperor and the Marine Amt, under Grand- Admiral von Tirpitz, have obtained control of the Government and the most influential newspapers, and dominate German policy." 16 THE CAUSES OF GERMAN AGGRESSION be an opportunity to weigh the scheme in the bal- ance, to point out its elements of strength and weakness, and thus to arrive at some approxima- tion of the probability of its success or failure. NOTE The following testimony was given under oath in a court of law by the editor of the Rheinisch-Westfdlische Zeitung in a political libel suit instituted by him against the editor of the Grenzboten. It was printed only [so far as can be learned] by the Rheinisch-West- falische Zeitung and the Tagliscke Rundschau, but was not denied by the gentlemen named in it, and seems to have been suppressed so far as was possible. The fol- lowing translation is taken from a semi-official article in the Fortnightly Review, xci. New Series, 462, Whether or not the words credited to the important personages quoted were ever used, they express sentiments which are widely believed to represent their views. After all, it is not so much the truth itself, but what intelligent and sincere men believe to be the truth, which influ- ences the trend of human events. "Mr. Class, the President of the Pan-Germanic League, is prepared to state upon oath before this court * that the Secretary of State for Foreign AflFairs, Herr von Kiderlen Wachter, writing to him from Kissingen, requested Mr. Class to meet him at the Hotel Pfalzer Hof in Mannheim. During the interview, which occu- pied several hours, Herr von Kiderlen Wachter stated: 'The Pan-Germanic demand for the possession of Morocco is absolutely justified. You can absolutely ' The italics are not in the original. 17 PAN-GERMANISM rely upon it that the Government will stick to Morocoa Monsieur Cambon is wriggling before me like a worm. The German Government is in a splendid position. You can rely upon me and you will be very pleased with our Morocco policy. I am as good a Pan-German as you are.' * On the 1st of July, Mr. Class called at the German Foreign OflSce, and, failing to find Herr von Kiderlen Wachter, was received by Herr Zimmermann, the Under-Secretary. Mr. Zimmermann told him: 'You come at an historic hour. To-day the Panther appears before Agadir and at this moment (12 o'clock mid-day) the Foreign Cabinets are being informed of its mission. The German Government has sent two agents provocateurs to Agadir and these have done their duty very well. German firms have been induced to make complaints and to call upon the Government in Berlin for protection. It is the Government's intention to seize the district and it will not give it up again. The German people require absolutely a settlement colony. Please prevent, wherever in the Press you have influence, the raising of claims for compensation else- where. Possibly France will offer us the Congo. How- ever, the German does not want compensation else- where, but a part of Morocco.' " ' The italics are not in the original. CHAPTER II THE MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE IN EUROPE ENGLAND, with all her bluster and show," said Bismarck to Li Hung Chang, "has a hundred weak points, and she knows that a con- flict with a power nearly her equal will mean her undoing." A vital part of the German scheme for the control of the world depends upon the belief that power is not absolute, but comparative. Not alone Germany's strength, but her rivals' weakness, will be significant factors for victory or defeat. To Germans it is an error to suppose that England is decadent. The fundamental mis- conception is to suppose that England ever was strong. She has been strong by reason of others' weakness, by the use of others' resources, by the spoils of conquest. She has not less cohesion than before, not fewer vital interests in common with her dependencies. The British Empire has never possessed cohesion; never has had a common, vital economic, or geographical interest; has al- ways been a sham, a figment of the imagination, a glittering generality whose unreality has re- 19 PAN-GERMANISM mained concealed only by reason of the inability of other nations to perceive it.' England's ^ naval power has been the result of accident, not of genius, think the Germans, and has rested chiefly upon the accidents of geography and geology. The formation of the British Isles, the meeting of strong oceanic currents to the north of them, made the narrow passageway between England and Europe the most important single bit of water in the world. The commerce of north- ern Europe was forced to pass through the Channel because it could not safely go round. The naviga- tion of this safer passage was made exceedingly difficult for wooden sailing ships by the peculiar formation of the shores and by the treacherous tides, winds, and currents. Chance had, more- over, placed most of the natural harbors on the English side. There was, indeed, between Brest and Hamburg but one spot on the continental side which might serve as a base of operations for a great fleet, the district now known as the Neth- * The author begs his readers to bear carefully in mind that he is attempting in the following chapters to expound the German view of the situation rather than what he believes to be the truth. ' The outbreak of the war of 1914 produced from patriotic Britons a protest that the words "England" and "English" were not descrip- tive because they applied only to the inhabitants of England proper and apparently excluded Scotch, Irish, Welsh, and the Colonials, who are all anxious to substitute "Britain" and "British." Admirable as this impulse is, it has seemed better to retain the older terms as more usual and sufficiently well understood. SO MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE eriands. The constant use of the Channel necea^ sarily involved, therefore, the use of English har- bors as a refuge from storms. Nor were the diflS- culties of navigation limited to the passage of ships through the Channel. To sail across that narrow way, especially with a fleet, was literally an almost impossible feat except from one or two points on the. European shore, the more favorable of which was the Netherlands. The natural barriers to invasion thus furnished by the Channel so limited the possibilities of assault that its defense became comparatively simple. Invasion after invasion, decade after decade, was defeated because the unfavorable weather, continuing for weeks at a time, made it impossible for the enemy to leave Europe. These natural barriers are gone forfever, destroyed by the steamship, which is not limited in the time of its departure nor in its course by winds and waves. ^ Never again can an English • The German Navy League issued in 1912 a book entitled, DeutscUand Sei Wach, in which this statement was made prominent: "The maintenance of Great Britain's naval supremacy which has been kept unimpaired during the last century, has, through the Tehr live strength of the German fleet, become impossible in the future. That is the great historic process which we are seeing. It is no more to be imagined that England can destroy the German fleet without seriously compromising her own supremacy." At the end of the vol- ume in the very largest of type stands the following: "Germany must be strong on land, so strong that she can vanquish every oppo- nent, but she must also be so strong at sea that she need not fear any opponent, because the risk of a naval war would be so great that it would appear too great even to the strongest naval Power." 21 PAN-GERMANISM fleet adopt Nelson's tactics of allowing the weather to guard the Channel while he crushed the enemy elsewhere. Napoleon, waiting at Boulogne, once truly said that seven hours of darkness and a fair wind would change the fate of the world. In the present war the invader may not need to pray for either. The Germans also correctly appreciate the fact that the English control of the Baltic — the only considerable source of naval stores from which wooden fleets might be built or maintained — was a vital factor in their naval supremacy. Not only did they possess a superior fleet; they pos- sessed the chief supply of materials from which rival fleets could be built. Trafalgar gave England supremacy on the sea, not so much because she won the battle, as because her control of the sea prevented- Napoleon from obtaining the ma- terials out of which alone he might rebuild his shattered fleet. This monopoly is gone forever. Ships are now built of a material of which no nation has a monopoly, and of which England does not even control one of the chief sources of supply. The peculiar strategical geography of northern Europe the Germans also hold responsible for England's power. The land on either side of the mouth of the Rhine is the key to northern Europe. MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE Belgium controls the shortest route to Paris; Holland is the only point of departure from which an invasion of England is likely to be successful; both countries hold between them the door of the Rhine valley, the gateway to the heart of Ger- many. Their possession by any one of the three nations nearest them would give her immediately a most deadly offensive weapon against the other two. To possess them has been the dream of all; to secure them half the wars in European history have been fought. Those two tiny states are now independent because England, France, and Ger- many cannot permit each other to control them. To the east lies the gateway between France and Germany, Alsace-Lorraine, through whose fair fields pass the roads to Cologne and Berlin, to Frankfort, Leipzig, and Dresden, to Basel, Switzerland, and Italy, to the Danube valley and Vienna. Its possession permits France to enter the heart of Germany; its possession puts Ger- many at the very doors of France; it is a potent weapon of offense or defense and enables its holder to begin a war with tremendous advantages. For its possession, France and Germany have struggled for fifteen hundred years. The existence of these strategic points has made England important. If France assailed the Rhine from Lorraine, Ger- many would ally with England, who could assail 23 PAN-GERMANISM Paris from the north through Belgium. If Ger- many threatened France from the east, the Eng- lish might be induced to invade Germany from the Netherlands. Should either country obtain the cooperation of England against the other, the most disastrous results were probable. These conditions made England a factor in politics during the Middle Ages, out of all proportion to her actual strength as compared with France or Germany. She was in a position to deliver a deadly flank attack on either; the Channel effectually prevented retaliation; she could have consum- mated the dynastic ambitions of either; she pre- ferred to thwart the aims of both. When the Netherlands fell into Spanish hands in the six- teenth century and the power of the Hapsburgs threatened to absorb all Europe, the cooperation of the islanders, who controlled the stormy Chan- nel and who could so easily invade the Nether- lands, was seen by every one to be the controlling factor in a complex situation. Their assistance would almost certainly decide the war in favor of France or Spain. Not England's strength, but the fact that her position made her valuable to stronger nations, gave her a voice in the days of Henry VIII and Elizabeth. Not her strength, but the evenness of the balance of power in Europe, the rivalry of Bourbon and Hapsburg, 24 MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE their fear of each other, gave her the casting vote.^ Until the nineteenth century, France was the only strong, organic nation on the continent of Europe: Spain, Italy, and Germany were geo- graphical expressions, whose weakness and fear of France forced them to call on England for aid. No doubt immense significance ought to be at- tached to England's own condition during these same centuries. She attained in the days of William the Norman, in the eleventh century, a territorial unity which Spain did not attain until the fifteenth century, France until the six- teenth century, Germany and Italy until the nineteenth century. Her strong centralized mon- archy, certainly the most powerful feudal govern- ment in Europe, the strong Tudor monarchy in later years were able to throw into the European balance the whole force of a territorial and eco- nomic unit. England, united and ruled by a single king, easily able to suppress local uprisings, was ' "England has always caused one Power to destroy another Power. Herein lies England's profit." "The great Wars of Religion in Germany made it possible for England to become a sea power. During the time when Germany was torn and enfeebled, England could destroy the Hanseatic League. Prussia's Seven Years' War enabled England to oust the old Colonial Powers and to seize French Canada. . . . The final conquest of the New World succeeded only because Frederick the Great held down France in Europe." Eng- land's Weltherrschaft und die Deutsche Luxusflotte, von Loohoui, Berlin, February, 1912. Fourteen editions were sold in a few weeks. 25 PAN-GERMANISM actually stronger than a vastly more populous and wealthy state, like France, Germany, or Spain, whose international strength was limited to such force as could be exerted by that one of her princes who had been able to secure the ascen- dency for the time being, and who was invariably hard pressed at home by ambitious rivals scarcely less powerful than he. The strategical position of the continental nations laid them open to inva- sion from so many quarters that they must be continually withholding from their offensive army in one place enough men to insure safety in others. Not so England, whom the Channel enabled to concentrate her forces at one point without fear of invasion elsewhere. England fought with her whole strength those who had not yet finished fighting among themselves. The number of years during which England has been the scene of actual warfare are astonishingly few. Since the days of Henry VIII, there has been domestic peace except for the civil wars of the seventeenth century. Such a record no other nation can show. Nor were the wars which did take place on English soil as disastrous or destructive as the wars on the Continent. When the Continent was almost laid waste, England could husband or utilize her full economic strength at will. Not alone, therefore, because of her position and the rivalries of others MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE has England played the controlling part in inter- national affairs. Compared to any individual nation, her strength has been great. The growth during the nineteenth century of Prussia, Austria, and Italy has given England as rivals, in place of the old decentralized, inefficient, quarreling federations of tiny states, strong cen- tralized governments, larger than she in area, with more numerous populations, with greater re- sources. She has lost her old position, despite the fact that she was never more prosperous or better governed than she is at present, because of the proportionately more rapid development of her rivals. Nor can she longer claim a more efficient use of her resources than they. For a strong king, has been substituted a ministry; for the rapidity, vigor, and secrecy of the king's unhampered dis- cretion, has been substituted the less rapid and effi- cient direction of a many-headed executive whose actions are hampered and hindered by the House of Commons. However admirable the results of parliamentary government have been for the individual Englishman, it can scarcely be denied that the new democratic government is compara- tively less efficient than the old centralized mon- archy, and that, from the international point of view, England has lost immensely in offensive strength. 27 PAN-GERMANISM In the Government, too, exist the gravest dis- sensions. The assumption has always been that there would be a clear majority in the House of Commons in favor of one of two policies; that the Ministry would represent this majority, and from its unity and strength would derive support for the exercise of the discretionary authority neces- sary for all emergencies. Yet, for twenty years, the English parties in the House of Commons have both received relatively slender majorities, and the decision has usually rested with the Irish and labor members, who have entertained views highly inconsistent with policy as the great ma- jority of the English people have conceived it. And these two parties, thus fortuitously placed in so commanding a position, have more than once given clear expression to their determination to use the exigencies of the occasion to extort from the reluctant English the consent necessary for the attainment of their own aims. In fact, it is not Ireland but England that needs home rule. The constitutional development of the nineteenth century has, for the time being, made difficult the efficient use of English resources. Lord Esher recently gave public expression to the opinion that the difficulty of coordinating the offensive and defensive forces of the nation made imprac- ticable the adoption by the military authorities in 28 MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE England "of a plan, Napoleonic in scope and de- sign, and resting upon a centralized basis." During these same decades, precisely the op- posite type of development has taken place in Europe. The decentralized administration, which so long rendered impotent the great resources of Germany, Austria, and Italy in men and money, was replaced in each country by a centralized monarchy whose efficiency made the prompt utilization of every resource a certainty. Where in England the direction of policy passed from the hands of a few into the hands of many, in Germany, Austria, and Italy it passed, from the hands of many princes, with various antagonistic aims, into the hands of a few men whose ideas were essentially the same. The fact that such development could not be foreseen does not alter its significance. England no longer possesses as much strength as she used to have; relatively to her rivals, she has suffered even more seriously, for while she has gone backward, they have gone forward. Compared to what she used to be, she is actually administratively weaker; compared with her rivals, she is relatively not twice but four times less strong than she used to be. Her "control of the sea" has also been vitally changed by the development of Europe during the last three centuries. The offensive power of the PAN-GERMANISM English fleet naturally must depend upon the pos- sibility of injuring the enemy either by the de- struction of his warships or by the cutting of lines of communication vital to his commerce. In the old days, the absence of good roads compelled the transportation of bulky goods by water, and the extent of the facilities for water communication was the measure of the size of that coimtry's trade. In northern Europe, merchandise necessarily traveled down a series of parallel rivers into the English Channel, the North Sea, and the Baltic, through which it proceeded to its destination. Goods could be shipped from Cologne to Ham- burg only through the Channel and the North Sea. Most of the internal trade between different parts of Germany or France was thus exposed in transit to the operations of the English fleet. All commerce by sea between northern Europe and the Mediterranean or the East was forced to go through the English Channel, exposed to the English fleet and the Channel weather.^ But the ' " On every one'ot the world's trade routes, like an ancient robber knight in full armor, lance in hand, stands England. All nations must run the gauntlet of England. . . . The domination of the world on the sea enables the supreme naval Power to inflict the most terrible crises upon other nations. Every nation must combat this predominance for the sake of its future. . . . All nations have be- come tributary to the city of London, some more, some less. Ger- many would find existence at England's sufferance unbearable." England's Weltherrschaft und die Deutsche Luxusfiotle. 30 MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE coming of the railway in the nineteenth century destroyed for all time this phase of England's sea power. The internal trade of Germany, and, in- deed, much of her international trade, goes over- land by rail and is thus entirely freed from the menace of English assault. Even with the Far East, trade is possible by rail, and the comiag decade will undoubtedly see a further develop- ment of transcontinental trunk lines. The import- ance, therefore, of the Channel as the chief means of intercommunication in northern Europe has disappeared, and with it has gone England's control of the trade of northern Europe. Further, England's prosperity in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was due in no small de- gree to her control of the chief or only supplies of sugar, tobacco, tea, coffee, cotton goods, and all those varied products supplied by the East and West Indies. For those the Continent depended upon her, as Napoleon discovered when the imposition of the Continental System excluded English goods from the European market. The men actually seemed to resent far more the loss of their tobacco, and the women the deprivation of their tea, than they had the destruction of the political units to which they had formerly owed allegiance. The Continental System failed to bankrupt England because Europe absolutely 31 PAN-GERMANISM refused to do ■without English goods. Another trade monopoly, far more fundamental, was due to England's industrial revolution of the eighteenth century. The smelting of iron with coal, the blast furnace, the steam hammer revolutionized the working of metals; the new spinning and weaving machinery, the stationary steam engine and the factory revolutionized all industry; the breeding of cattle, the use of the turnip, of manure, and of selected seeds revolutionized agriculture. Such significant economic changes had not been seen since man began to record his own doings. For more than a generation, England enjoyed the exclusive monopoly of these processes and the consequent benefits. English goods commanded higher prices because they were more uniform; English profits were again larger than European to the extent that machinery was cheaper than the old hand processes. England was, therefore, economically doubly more powerful than any other nation in Europe, because she alone con- trolled the supply of commodities which Europe insisted upon having, and because she alone pos- sessed the secret of the improved processes. But her advantage in these respects has disappeared. Sugar cane from Louisiana and Hawaii, Ameri- can cotton, Brazilian coflPee, and the complete utilization by her chief rivals of all modern inven- 32 MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE tions has robbed her of the unique economic posi- tion she held in 1815. In fact, to the German, England's economic strength has been changed into fatal economic weakness. She no longer produces suflBcient food to supply her population for a month; her supplies of coal and wood are diminishing at a rate which causes serious reflection; the raw material needed to supply her looms and factories she does not pro- duce; the raw material to build or maintain a fleet she cannot produce. '^ The area of land under cul- tivation has steadily diminished. Population on the soil is decreasing at a more rapid rate and is drifting into the cities, where it further compli- cates the serious economic and administrative problems which worry her rulers. Every family moved from the land into the factory means so many less individuals who supply themselves with the necessities of life, so many more dependent upon the perfect operation of a complicated eco- nomic machinery for feeding them. Suppose now that the German fleet could secure control of the Channel for a brief time only, would not England 1 " Were it possible to cut off Great Britain's supply of food, in less tiian six weeks the inhabitants would die of starvation. Britons are fully aware of the danger, and all, from the noble lord to the laborer, are convinced that it is the most important duty of the State to keep open and secure the broad highway of the ocean." Die FloUe ah notmendige ErgSnzung unserer nationcden Wehrmacht, by A. Schrbder, a book written for the German secondary schools. 33 PAN-GERMANISM be starved into submission, would not her looms soon stop from the lack of material to feed them, would not her whole artisan class be thrown out of work, would not she be bankrupted as a nation in the most fundamental fashion by the simple loss of the control of the sea? Once the English fleet were beaten, could she ever obtain material with which to rebuild it, as long as the German fleet existed? Disaster on the sea would infallibly mean for England economic destruction at the hands of elemental foes far more potent than armies. And it would be irretrievable ! Each decade, moreover, brings it nearer and nearer, by diminishing the number of mouths that feed themselves and in- creasing the number to be fed by the fleet; nearly every year shortens the length of time which the Germans must control the Channel in order liter- ally to destroy England by means of the economic weapons which control of the Channel would en- able them to wield. Furthermore, the Germans believe that so many years of peace, otherwise so fruitful of advantages, have produced the most serious re- sults upon the temper of the people. They are no longer warlike. They are unwilling to bear the burdens of taxation which the preparation fop a great war renders inevitable. The spreading among them of humanitarian notions has actually 34 MYTH OF ENGLISH PREPONDERANCE deprived them of morale, rendered them supine, and apt material for conquest.^ Not only has Eng- land no army worth considering, but she has not the human stuflF out of which great armies are made, for her people are not as a whole willing to cooperate in the creation of the only sort of army of any avail in modern' warfare. In fact, the German notion of England is not so seriously exaggerated by such words as these: "Look at England — fat and fifty, overfed, short of breath, thickening in girth, deepening in brain. . . . Eng- land, entering upon her inevitable period of physi- cal decadence, boasting of conquests, like a middle- aged man with rheum in his eye, the clog of senility imder his waistcoat, stififness in his joints, and the red lights of apoplexy bright upon his throat — who throws out his chest among his sons and pants that he is 'better than ever, e'gad!' Eng- land, sensuous in the home, crowding her homes like a squirrel's nest in the frosts; an animated stomach, already cultivating and condimenting her fitful but necessary appetites; wise and crafty in the world, but purblind to her own perversions 1 "During many decades German university professors, school- masters, and publicists have tau^t the doctrine that Englishmen were too selfish and too cowardly to defend their comitry, and that England, like Carthage, was bound to fall through the lack of patri- otism among the people and their reliance upon hired soldiers." FertnighUy Retime, xci. New Series, 4S6. &5 PAN-GERMANISM and lying in the rot of them — England, who will not put away boyish things and look to God. . . . She is draining India as Rome drained Gaul, as Spain drained Mexico, and accelerating the bes- tiality that spells ruin — with the spoils." CHAPTER III THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF IMPERIAL ENGLAND TO the German, the grandeur and splendor of Imperial England which has so long been impressed upon the world is nothing but bluster and show, masking congenital weakness of the most serious description. Some have not scrupled to say that Imperial England is nothing but a trading monopoly, a chain of forts, a great fleet, and a monumental impudence. That the English won their empire by force of arms, the Germans deny. It is hardly likely that a few thousand men, even headed by a beardless clerk who turned out to be a genius, could conquer by strength or craft the teeming millions of Hindus. Miracles are no longer common, and such miracles as fill the annals of the history of the building of the Eng- lish Empire, as told by Englishmen, have never happened. The Empire is not a reality; it is a sham. The Germans quote with satisfaction such state- ments regarding the position of the English in India as Lord Curzon's remark that the English are only a bit of froth upon an unfathomable 37 PAN-GERMANISM ocean. That, ihey deem to be no mere rhetorical flourish, as the English believe it to be, but the bare statement of the literal truth regarding the strength of the English hold on India. Really, the English never have conquered India. The Hindus, with the assistance of the English, conquered each other. Had it not been for the existence in India of many races, many languages, many religions, and those multitudinous jealousies and antipathies which grew out of them and filled the annals of that imhappy country with a record of discord and treachery, the English would not even be at this moment the froth tossing on that restless sea. They continue to rule by reason of those same factors which lay at the bottom of their so-called conquest and which make unity of the native races impossible. The Germans, nevertheless, do not fail to appraise at its true value the skill and tact which they have displayed in utilizing these factors. Knowing that physical force of their own could never maintain their authority or impose upon the really powerful native rulers regulations not to their liking, they have taken the greatest care to do what the Hindus would permit, rather than what they themselves felt to be desirable. A single native state — the only alternative to united rule by the English — has always been impossible of realization because of the variety THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND of races forced by the exigencies of the past to dwell together in'the great plains of the Himalayas. In fact, the English have succeeded to that shad- owy authority known in the olden time as the Sovereignty of the Emperor, and have correctly interpreted it to confer upon them the right of direction, of suggestion, of assistance, not of con- trol. Undoubtedly they have helped the Hindu rulers by the businesslike administration of their estates; by showing them better methods of col- lecting the taxes, of utilizing their revenues, of administering justice. The condition of the peas- ants has been vastly improved, and has not, as the rajahs feared, reduced their authority or dimin- ished the loyalty of their subjects. But could not Germans also do as much? Do the English give the Hindu anything which the Germans could not give as well.'' Have the English ever earned the enduring gratitude of the Hindu? The English power in India has to no small degree depended, the Germans think, upon that obvious fact that they have had no competitors for the exercise of their overlordship in India since the middle of the eighteenth century. Their su- premacy on the sea, which rested upon their con- trol of the Channel, upon their wonderful seaman- ship, upon their practical monopoly of the naval stores in the Baltic, enabled them to keep far from 39 PAN-GERMANISM India any possible European rival. The whole of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans lay between India and any nation who wished to challenge England's rights there. Furthermore, there was no overland route to India suflSciently practical for military purposes, nor was there in Europe any nation ex- cept France strong enough and sufficiently well organized to undertake so colossal a feat as the invasion of India. In fact, the English have re- mained in India, as they say, supreme for a cen- tury and a half, solely because they have pre- vented the natives from uniting against them, and have yet to defend themselves from a determined assault from without. Now that the old suprem- acy on the sea is vitally altered in character, that the strategical position of the Channel and the monopoly of the naval stores have disappeared, that the Baghdad Railroad is nearly finished, that a Russian railroad is within striking distance of Herat, the isolation of India has practically van- ished. A very little force from without, a little discord within, and the waves will swallow up that bit of froth. In the Mediterranean the English Empire has rested upon similar forces. The native races were at odds with themselves and with each other; the other Mediterranean powers were weak or hope- lessly divided, and were unable to create in the 40 THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND Mediterranean a fleet to cope with England with- out first bringing their materials through the Channel which she controlled. These conditions have so vitally changed that the rule of the Eng- lish in Egypt can now, say the Germans, scarcely be considered as more than a transient phase in the long line of Egyptian administrative failures. For some decades England practically controlled Greece, Turkey, and the Balkans, exercising a very intangible and shadowy suzerainty exceed- ingly difficult to define, without effective powers for controlling or directing, to say nothing of utiliz- ing, the resources of those countries. England pos- sessed whatever degree of authority she had, not for administrative reasons of significance or value to the countries themselves, but to keep other nations at a distance. Turkey was not so much to obey England's behests as to frustrate Russia's designs. The same factors which have elsewhere sapped the peculiar structure of the English Em- pire have here also performed deadly work. There are now other strong powers possessed of fleets in the Mediterranean, able to equip and maintain them from their own resources, and possessed of the will to contest the control of the Mediterra- nean with her. The long list of strategic points in England's hands does not frighten the Germans. It is little 41 PAN-GERMANISM to them that England holds the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and controls the passageway between the Indian Ocean and the Yellow Sea, Magellan Strait, the Cape of Good Hope, and the most advantageous coaling-sta- tions on all these routes. Such a chain of forts and islands would be useful as the bases for the action of a fleet of the old t5^e, operating against similar fleets in a war between England, as she was, against her enemies, as they were. To pro- tect so long a chain, England must keep a "mask- ing fleet" at each threatened point. The work of science in creating steel ships, moved by steam, has compelled England to concentrate her fleet in the North Sea, has built up powerful rivals whose operations are not restricted by the considerations of a century ago, and has forced her to leave undefended all but a few points. It is doubtful whether England can be again defended at Tra,- falgar, or India saved at Aboukir. Every chain is as strong as its weakest link, and the chaia of English strategical positions seems to the Ger- mans certain to yield to an attack in force deliv- ered at any point. There can, furthermore, be no doubt that in all parts of the English Empire the old condition upon which England's rule of the native races depended, the supineness and iaefficiency of THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND native administration, has given way before the ambitions, of at least the educated natives, for autonomy. The democratic impulse which has so strongly manifested itself in Europe has also ap- peared in the Mediterranean and in the East. Already the Egyptian, the Persian, and the Hindu are dreaming of a new land from which foreigners shall be excluded, of a splendid nation composed solely of natives administering their own country in their own interests, paying tribute to no one, independent of all. English rule is hardly likely, the Germans think, to be permanent, even if the forces at present at work are allowed to develop in their normal way. The chief thing, in fact, which helped the English was the natives' lack of initia- tive and desire to rule themselves. The English undertook the burden of government which the native did not want. Now that the native is aroused by a sense of the possibilities of self-gov- ernment, and has come to believe himself capable of securing for himself the sort of administration the English have given him, he is hardly likely to acquiesce much longer in English rule. Would it not now be easy for a nation to secure from all England's subjects the exclusive right to trade with them in exchange for a little assist- ance in putting the government of their own country into their own hands, and for promises 43 PAN-GERMANISM to protect them in future from outside intei> f erence ? While not the most apparent, the niost vital weakness of the Empire lies in its own size. Eng- land in one way or another controls to some ex- tent territory in every quarter of the globe. There is scarcely a nation at whose doors there does not lie some valuable English dependency which she would be glad to have. The extent of the booty is the measure of England's enemies. There is too much to be divided, should she fall, for her to survive long, assert the Germans. The cupidity of too many nations is already aroused to make possible any adequate assistance in propping up the frail and worthless fabric. Where literally the whole world has something to gain which England alone will lose, is it not likely that one defeat in any part of the world would so shake English pres- tige and so instantly reveal the rottenness of her imperial fabric as to cause a rush for the plunder similar to that which marked the downfall of the Napoleonic Empire in 1814 ? The bond between England and her self-govern- ing colonies is even weaker, say the Germans, and has infinitely fewer factors of fundamental import- ance to keep it in existence. Canada is separated from England by the width of the Atlantic; South Africa by the whole length of the Atlantic, a 44 THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND distance nearly equal to the length of the globe; Australia is more than twelve thousand miles from Liverpool; and these enormous distances effectively prevent these colonies from possessing an economic interest in common with the mother country. Nor is it probable that any strong inter- est could possibly be created. Despite the pror gress of steam navigation, the voyage to them is still so long as to prevent any real cooperation in time of peace, or any effective assistance in time of war. There is no natural geographical basis for the British Empire. Such enormous tracts of land, so thinly populated, so far distant from each other, have nothing but the accident of their discovery and settlement by men of the same race to give them even that appearance of unity and common interest that they do possess. Unquestionably, the concentration of the English fleet in the North Sea and in the Mediterranean has deprived her colonies of the only thing they could have been expected to value. While it is not likely that any of them will require the services of a fleet to protect them from any enemies who would nor- mally attack them, England can certainly no longer promise them such protection. They pos- sess no privilege in England, or as a result of their connection with England, which the Germans themselves do not have. No trading privileges in 45 PAN-GERMANISM England, or with England, are theirs. If they were to declare their complete independence to-mor- row, nothing would be changed. Indeed, it is literally true, and the English themselves admit it, that the Empire has been held together in name during the last century by resolutely sacrificing its reality. Why should the colonies fight for the mainten- ance of an empire whose existence is not of benefit to them and whose destruction could not injure them? How could they furnish England any effective assistance in a war fought in the North Sea, the Mediterranean, or the Near East? Even should they send troops or supplies so far, their population is not large enough nor their resources suflScient, think the Germans, and above all their military organization is not enough perfected, to make such support decisive for victory. Besides, Canada would expose herself to assault from the United States, a danger which the Germans seem to think sufficiently real to detain the Canadian regiments at home; Australia would be exposed to the Japanese, of whom the Germans think they stand in daily fe,ar; in Africa, the English confed- eration is exposed to the much more real danger of an attack from German East or West Africa, and besides is sufficiently imperiled by the disparity in numbers between the whites and the natives. 46 THE FATAL WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND Indeed, Germans thought that in Africa the Eng- lish colonies would be in such danger from the out- break of a war with Germany that they would be compelled in self-defense to sever their connec- tion with the Empire. The loyalty of the colonies as a whole has been verbal, personal, a matter of sentiment, with which interests have never been allowed to clash. That it will stand the strain of real sacrifice, the Germans believe highly im- probable.- The boasted millions of population, the count- less acres of territory, the stupendous wealth of the British Empire are real — but they are not England's. They belong to peoples more widely sundered in race, language, and interests than are the English and the Germans. Indeed, there are many vital facts common to the latter which the English colonies utterly lack, and which they can never possess. The English Empire has never been a reality, nor ever will be. Its weakness merely needs to be made apparent. CHAPTER IV FRANCE AND BUSSIA AS THE GERMAN SEES THEM ENGLAND, Germany hates, disdains, and de- spises. For France and Russia she possesses a wholesome respect mingled with fear, but not with love. France, she considers a strong man who has run his race and is now beginning to reach senility; Russia, she looks upon as an un- couth stripling not yet conscious of his strength, not yet skillful enough to use the strength of which he is conscious, and not yet intelligent enough to avoid being easily deceived. There ate, perhaps, no more characteristic pages ia Bismarck's me- moirs than those in which he discusses the com- parative ease of deceiving the English, French, and Russians. The strategic position of Germany renders her singularly open to attack from France and Rus- sia. The three nations occupy the vast plain slop- ing to the Atlantic Ocean and the Baltic from the crests of the Jura and the Alps, a great plain with no natural barriers separating, one from another, the different peoples who occupy it. There is no 48 GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA special reason for placing the German boundary at one spot rather than another; France has in- variably claimed the Rhine as her natural bound- ary; Russia looks upon the whole Baltic as her especial property of which she is most unfairly deprived. The ambitions of both nations are of vital import to Germany, for France can obtain her natural boundary, or Russia, in Peter the Great's expressive words, can open her windows only at Germany's expense. Certainly, there can be little doubt that the expansion of either France or Russia means economic and political death for Germany by depriving a large section of her ter- ritory of the control of the natural highways. There are, furthermore, no mountains, no deep rivers demarking the present lines between her and her neighbors. Her only fortifications are the regiments of the German army. At the same time, if Germany is open to attack, the door also stands open for her to assault her enemies. No natural barriers prevent her from annexing land either along the Rhine or in Poland. Her expansion in Europe, therefore, is possible, but it means, in- evitably, that she must take from her two power- ful neighbors or absorb the smaller nations, Bel- gium, Holland, and Denmark, whose existence her rivals regard as necessary to their own safety. Germany, fully realizing the seriousness of the 49 PAN-GERMANISM situation, at the same time confidently expects to turn it to her own advantage. It is perfectly true that she stands between France and Russia; but the central position, deadly to a weak nation, will afford so strong a nation as she an enviable opportunity for the offense. Her armies can sup- port each other without severing their communi- cations, can deliver an attack in force on either side with equal facility, while the most that her rivals can hope to do is to deliver a simultaneous attack from two sides. Actual cooperation be- tween them, the massing of forces at the same time, at the same spot, is so difficult as to be prac- tically impossible. Again, she already holds the most important ports on the Baltic, and by the cutting of the Kiel Canal through the Danish peninsula has robbed Denmark of much of her strategic im- portance and has united the Baltic with the At- lantic Ocean by a passageway which she exclu- sively controls. Could she now secure possession of Denmark, she would not only possess freedom of passage for herself, but she could close the Baltic to Russia and England. She already holds Alsace-Lorraine, and stands on the very borders of France with many strategic posts of the ut- fliost importance in her hands. On the northwest she impinges upon the French frontier at many 50 GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA points so near Paris that many felt sure of an entry into the French capital a few days after the beginning of the campaign. The Russian fleet in the Baltic is not suflSciently powerful, she thinks, to be dangerous. The French fleet is not enough of a factor in the Atlantic to frighten her. She fears their armies, not their fleets. She does not underestimate the strength of their position, the size of their population, their wealth, or their patriotism. She does not believe them suffi- ciently well organized to utilize to the full their resources, and she is confident that nothing short of a complete utilization of every resource can make them really dangerous to her. The most vital weakness in France, say the Germans, is the Republic. French administra- tion, by the admission of French publicists them- selves, is inefficient, failing to secure the best men for office, failing to keep competent men in office, failing to keep out of vitally important offices ignorant and corrupt appointees. Democracy in France has not worked well. It has not failed, perhaps, to benefit the individual so much as it has to organize the State, which lacks the power of vigorous initiative, and which is incapable of the consistent policy absolutely indispensable to prepare the nation to meet a great crisis. Surely, the destruction of more than one first-class battle- 51 PAN-GERMANISM ship has proved with sufficient clearness the la- mentable deficiency of her naval administration. The Dreyfus case proved the organization of the army to be singularly open to a type of influence which would be only too likely to be fatal in time of war. Merit, and merit alone, can be in the long nm the proper test in all military and adminis- trative appointments. It is in the selection of offi- cials that democracy has everywhere most con- spicuously failed. It could have scarcely failed in anything more vital to the protection of the State. France, too, is no longer united. The people are courageous, unquestionably loyal, filled with ambition, but they have been growing apart as steadily as the Germans have been growing to- gether. The German believes the forces hostile to the Republic were never stronger than at the present moment. The administration has recently succeeded in alienating the Royalists, the Church, and the Socialists; and their strength makes all three dangerous. Especially is this true in the difficulties raised by the quarrel with the Pope. The French have always been peculiarly devoted Catholics, and have more than once followed their Church rather than the State. The growth of Socialist, Syndicalist, and Anarchistic notions certainly augurs ill for the solidarity of the com- 52 GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA ing generation, or its loyalty to the Republic. A violent intestinal quarrel in France would cer- tainly rob her of most of her offensive power, if not of her defensive strength. The Germans be- lieve that the Republic has alienated large classes of the community, whose support will be far less warm in moments of danger than it would have been ten years ago. France is growing physically weaker each dec- ade. The birth rate has long been declining, and of late the number of births has shown not alone a proportional but an actual decrease. Emigra- tion does not account for this decrease in the total population, which becomes steadily more serious each year. The most alarming aspect of the situ- ation lies, however, in the very rapid increase of illegitimacy and juvenile crime. The Apaches of Paris were never so bold as now, and they and the juvenile criminals frankly declare their pre ference for a life of crime with a frequency and abandon truly astonishing. It seems, therefore, as if the newer generation which is growing up in France is hardly likely to furnish strong, steady, capable men to take the place of the generations who are passing. Her colonial power, like England's, hangs by a thread. She has, indeed, but one valuable colony, northern Africa, where the Germans believe the 53 PAN-GERMANISM natives to be so clearly dissatisfied with her rule as to render its continuance highly problematical; her commercial monopoly in her colonies is purely political; and if freedom of trade were permitted, Germany could undersell her in her own field with- out the slightest difficulty. Her political control, therefore, being unstable, her commercial mono- poly depending upon it, the Germans do not con- sider it a matter of insuperable difficulty to filch from her the really valuable privilege of hold- ing Morocco at all. The excellence of Colonel Mangin's troops and his own skill and bravery the Germans do not underestimate, but they count upon the blunderers in Paris to upset all his dispositions. 1 The extent of Russia's possessions, her enor- mous population, her astonishing growth in the last two centuries, the Germans fully appreciate. They well know that her population was twelve millions in 1700 and was one hundred and fifty millions in 1900; that her revenue of five million dollars in 1700 had become one billion dollars by 1900; that whereas she controlled in 1700 an area not much larger than Germany herself, she now controls one seventh of the land surface of the globe. Men and money she has lavishly spent in the ruthless pursuit of those same ambitions which she has to-day. To secure the Baltic cost Russia 54 GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA seven hundred thousand lives. Her territory on the Black Sea cost the same. In the eighteenth century she sent five million men into the field, and a similar number into the wars of the nine- teenth century, and did this with a population only a fraction of that she can now command. There is small chance that she will not exert the same proportional amount of effort in the coming century in the same ruthless pursuit of the same aims. Above all, the Germans know that nothing stands between them and these multitudes of men but their own army. They know at the same time that a nation's strength is not what she possesses, but what she can effectively use, and German diplomats are still of Bismarck's opinion that Russia's interna- tional value depends upon "a single pair of eyes," in other words, upon the Tsar himself. Russia, they claim, is too autocratic to be dangerous in proportion to her strength; the Tsar can make the alliance and with equal rapidity and ease be persuaded to break it; Russia's actions depend too entirely upon the personal opinion of her rulers and too commonly lack support in the opinion of the nation to make her a very valuable ally or a very dangerous enemy. The adminis- tration is overladen with red tape, nor can the confusion and ineflSciency be lessened while her 55 PAN-GERMANISM rulers insist upon directing from St. Petersburg the details of administration in so enormous an empire. Russia, in other words, is so large that centralized government is ineflScient. The hier- archy in St. Petersburg cannot, in the very nature of things, possess enough knowledge about the different localities they govern to direct their subordinates successfully; they are necessarily thrown upon the mercy of the subordinates them- selves, from whom they must, perforce, derive the great bulk of their information about condi- tions in the district, and the conduct of affairs Such a government is necessarily blind, slow, cum- brous, hesitating, incapable of acting promptly, or of executing ably the details of a complex scheme of offense. The Russian people are, in the opinion of Germans, too numerous, too widely separated, to have a truly national consciousness obtained by common experience in thought and action, even were they all of the same race, and even if they were all enthusiastically in favor of the Govern- ment. The educated class in Russia is capable but small, and its numbers and character have both been vitally influenced by the policy of the Tsars in restricting education to non-political sub- jects. In order to limit the forces against them, in order to limit the possible leaders of the sub- 56 GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA ject nations, and the possible leaders of the Rus- sian people in the war upon the dynasty, they have systematically opposed the extension of education and training, and have thus conserved the dynasty at the price of a very real loss to the nation in vital strength. Underneath the nobles are the educated and the administrators, and underneath the somewhat larger merchant class is the great bulk of the people, of whom those who are not too miserable, ignorant, and down- trodden to have thoughts beyond existence itself, are mostly irreconcilables who hate the govern- ment with an energy almost beyond conception. Their numbers are considerable and include such vitally important districts as Finland and Poland, where Germany might easily receive important assistance by instigating a popular revolt. In- deed, Russia's power can never be more than potential until she has pacified and consolidated her own people. Financially, Russia is bankrupt, think the Germans, despite her enormous resources, for the revenues which succeed in reaching St. Peters- burg (certainly a fraction only of the taxes col- lected from the people) are for the most part pledged to the payment of the interest and cap- ital of the Japanese War loans. Certainly, it is widely believed that the money for another great 57 PAN-GERMANISM war could not be raised in Russia and would not be supplied by foreign capitalists without more securities than Russia has left to pledge. Where so enormous a proportion of the population still exists upon an essentially primitive type of agri- culture, where manufactures are as yet in their infancy, where the vast mineral resources are still largely undeveloped, the available resources within Russia herself for the prosecution of the war are really inconsiderable compared to her ostensible strength. The army the Germans do not consider dan- gerous. The Japanese showed clearly how easily the Russian generals could be outmanoeuvred, and how incapable the Russians were of holding even strong positions against a determined assault directed by real tacticians. The greatest difficul- ties which the Russian generals had to meet arose from the quality of the human material with which they had to deal. The men, and even the non-commissioned officers, only too often lacked sufficient intelligence to execute any movement requiring something more than obedience to the letter of the orders issued them. Blind courage, the capacity to suflFer hunger and cold which would have caused the German army to mutiny, the dull qualities of the brute, these the Russian troops possessed; intelligence, discretion, capabil- 58 GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA ity, and initiative, all these, and more, vital to so complex an organization as the modern army, the rank and file did not possess at all. An army, insist the Germans, is not a machine composed of a certain number of parts, but an organization of men which must be intelligent to be effective. It is in the army, especially, that the inefficiency of Russian administration and the lack of intelli- gence in the rank and file of the Russian people produce the most striking results for evil. Russia's real destiny, the Germans believe, is in Asia, not in Europe. Her people are more closely allied to the Asiatic than to the European; her methods in government are those of the East, not of the West; her religion is Oriental, not Occidental. She is placed so as to command ready entrance into the very heart of China and India, where native administrations less efficient than hers rule a people still more ignorant. Sooner or later, Russia, think the Germans, will realize this and renounce her foolish ambitions in Europe. Needless to add, the Russians have not the slightest intention of doing anything of the kind. The existence of France and Russia, dangerous as it is to Germany, is not without its compensa- tion, for their positions bind to her firmly her present ally, Austria, without whose help the 69 PAN-GERMANISM great scheme of Pan-Germanism would be im- possible of execution. To be sure, if France and Russia did not exist, the great scheme might not be necessary, but it is certainly fortunate that their existence makes simple the securing of aid. Austria, as well as Germany, lies in the path of Russian progress, not so much because of her territory in Austria proper as because of her own determination to expand into Poland and to reach the sea through the Adriatic and the ^gean. Austria, therefore, depends for the realization of her dynastic aims upon obtaining possession of the Balkans. If she should do so, the Russian plans for obtaining control of the Black Sea and for securing an exit into the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles would become impossible of execution, for even if Austria permitted Russia to obtain Constan- tinople and the Straits, her own possession of Macedonia and the great port of Saloniki would effectively prevent Russia from controlling the ^gean. Austria, therefore, whose assistance Ger- many vitally needs in the North, equally needs the help of Germany to prevent Russia from tak- ing possession of the Balkans and thus ending for once and all her own hopes of expansion. The ambition of Russia makes Germany and Austria permanent allies. 60 GERMAN VIEW OF FRANCE AND RUSSIA The assistance of Italy the German statesmen deemed highly important, if not actually impera- tive.' She was well situated to assist Germany in her struggle against France by an attack upon the French rear through the passes of the Alps. She would also be in admirable position to fight Russia in the Balkans, should the latter succeed in penetrating so far, while her navy would be of the utmost importance in the Mediterranean. Indeed, the position of Sicily, the great ports at Naples and Messina, would be of paramount importance in depriving Malta, the key of the English defense, of much of its strength; and from Genoa, the Austrian and Italian fleets might to- gether easily contest with the French at Toulon the possession of the western Mediterranean, while the Italian fleet alone, mobilized at Genoa, might prevent the cooperation of the French and English fleets by forcing the French to remain behind to protect their naval base. Should they sail, the Italian fleet could menace the rear, or might actually destroy Marseilles, if not Toulon. 1 We must beware of attaching importance to statements that Germany has not counted on Italy's aid and that Italy's adhesion to the Triple Alliance was only nominal. The neutrality of Italy at the outbreak of war in 1914 is the real basis of these statements. We must not attempt to read history backwards or find in the past the explanation of every movement on the chess-board. There seems to be no evidence at present available to prove that Italy did not enter into the Triple Alliance in good faith or that Germany did not be- lieve her assistance imperative to achieve a victory. 61 PAN-GERMANISM In short, if Germany and Austria should ever propose to contest the supremacy of the Mediter- ranean with England and France, the coopera- tion of Italy would be indispensable. Italy, though without fear of absorption by Russia and without vital fear of invasion from France, saw that an alliance with Germany and Austria probably offered her the only feasible method of realizing her own plans for expansion in the Mediterranean. Again and again, an alli- ance or diplomatic arrangements with England and France had failed to obtain the desired ac- quiescence in her expansion in North Africa. To extort their consent by force of arms was impos- sible while their combined fleets so enormously outnumbered hers. Italian statesmen therefore embraced the Triple Alliance with enthusiasm and fervor, signed definite treaties, and gave and received in all probability verbal promises much more extensive, concerned on the one hand with Italy's armed support and her share of the spoils and on the other with her protection against Austrian aggression in the Adriatic and western Balkans. Her exposed position was freely recog- nized and her right to pledges and assurances out of the ordinary admitted. Certainly, with the latter Italian statesmen were completely satisfied until recent years. 62 CHAPTER V THE STBENGTH OF IMPERIAL GEBMANY WHILE well aware of the fact that the cen- tral position is, from a military point of view, one of weakness for a power compelled to defend herself, or not prepared to take the offen- sive, Germany is equally aware of the undeniable fact that the central position, for a power which proposes to take the aggressive, possesses enor- mous advantages. She can attack either France or Russia with equal ease; her army is equally ready to defend her against both at the same time, thus affording her the maximum opportunity for util- izing her men to advantage. In addition, she holds the great strategic points of northern Europe, — Alsace-Lorraine, the door to France; the Kiel Canal, giving her access to the Baltic without exposing herself to the necessity of utilizing the Sund; her allies hold the Swiss passes and the vital points affording passage into Russia and the Bal- kans. Everything vital to her, indeed, everything she owns, forms a compact territorial unit which can be defended by the minimum force with the maximum ease. She has no long chain of forts or PAN-GERMANISM islands to guard, no great stretches of land in Africa or Asia to protect, no subject races to pacify like the Hindus or Moroccans. She con- siders, therefore, that her strategic position, far from possessing the weakness which her enemies believe it has, is one of such strength that it affords her advantages which might almost be called conclusive in the sort of a struggle in which she proposes to engage. She is not vulnerable to attack from a fleet; England's greatest offensive weapon is useless against her; for, while the English fleet could stop the passage of German commerce through the English Channel, it is powerless to undertake any offensive movements which could endanger her existence. Nor could it stop her trade overland, a trade already great in volume, steadily expanding, and which would, with the out- break of war and the consequent exclusion from Europe of English manufactured goods, attain unsuspected dimensions. Indeed, the outbreak of war might conceivably permit German mer- chants to take from the English their whole mar- ket on the Continent by the very simple fact that war would certainly close the harbors, while Ger- man goods could still cross the frontiers by rail. Such an eventuality the Germans consider some- thing more than a possibility. Germany, however, looks with greatest pride 64 THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY at her economic strength. She feels that she occu- pies in the economic world a truly extraordinary position, as one of the few nations who are still literally self-sufficing, who can even feed and clothe themselves. When she compares her popu- lation with that of England and France, she de- rives solid satisfaction from the knowledge that, in an area equal in size to France, she has nearly fifty per cent more people, and in an area more than one third larger than England's, she has a population one fourth larger. The number of men on whom she can call for active service in time of war will be naturally to that extent greater than those at her rivals' disposal. She is, therefore, not surprised to find that her standing army, ready to go to the front at a moment's no- tice, is much larger than the French army on pa- per and almost three times as large as the English. When she adds her reserve army, nearly equal in size and efficiency to her standing army, she wonders how England and France can seriously consider opposing her wishes, and looks upon the outcome of any possible conflict with supremest confidence. The density of her population is 311 units as against England's 374, and France's 193; her revenue per capita is $11, while England's is $20, and France's is $24, proving the ease with which her people have borne and are bearing the 65 PAN-GERMANISM cost of a military and naval expansion unparalleled thus far in German history. It is, however, when she looks at her public debt and compares its size with that of her rivals, that she feels most confident of the outcome of war. Her public debt per capita is something over $18, while England owes $80 per individual, and France carries the enormous burden of $120 per person.^ Germany, therefore, not only has more people and more acres, but has been able to accomplish vastly more with the imposition of much smaller burdens upon her population. Agriculture has reached a state of high perfection in Germany; manufac- tures have undoubtedly made great progress. Indeed, her great economic efficiency is clear from her success in competition with other nations in every field of industry; she has even beaten them in their own markets. The proof of the degree of her prosperity and the extent to which she is self- sufficing the Germans see in the fact that, while her exports per capita are $38, her imports are about $40, whereas England exports $55 per capita and imports $70. Germany believes her- self to be, like England, a creditor nation and to be producing far in excess of the ability of her people 1 The debts of the twenty-five German states, however, are three times as large as that of the Empire and the true debt per capita is therefore about $80. This fact is ingenuously omitted by many ardent Fan-Germanists. 66 THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY to consume. This economic efficiency rests upon the solid basis of the possession within her own borders of a fairly adequate supply of most raw materials required to keep her factories at work, and, what is perhaps more essential, of all those materials peculiarly necessary for the mainten- ance of an army and a fleet, not excepting the most essential of all, food and iron. Nor is she at the mercy of England, as most other nations are, from the lack of a merchant marine of her own to distribute her products to the rest of the world. While her merchant fleet is new and does not upon paper compare favorably, either in number of ships or in registered tonnage, with the English merchant marine, at the same time no one doubts that in actual efficiency it can seriously be com- pared with England's. Her vast resources Germany is prepared to util- ize to the full. Her government is admittedly one of the most efficient in the world. Her capable bureaucracy, her local government conducted purely on scientific and business principles, her centralized imperial administration, provide her with the most advantageous methods of accom- plishing the greatest results without wasting a man or a mark. The motto of German govern- ment has invariably been efficiency, the securing of the greatest results with the least expenditure of 67 PAN-GERMANISM energy. To be sure, this has involved an amount of interference with individual rights and privileges which has in some cases almost amounted to the ordering of the individual's life by the government, and which has been sneeringly called, by other nations, paternalism, less, as most Germans think, because other nations dislike the results than because they despair of obtaining them. The average German is supremely satisfied with his government, and is above all pleased with the results. He feels that only jealousy can cause others to criticize. The advantages of centralized government he feels to be great in times of peace, merely from the point of view of obtaining the most favorable results in internal administration. But the real benefits of centralized administration will be most apparent in time of war. Indeed, without such a centralized administration, the execution of any such gigantic scheme as Pan-Germanism, extend- ing necessarily over a long series of years and re- quiring continuity of policy and careful prepara- tions for eventualities known of necessity only to a few, would be utterly impossible. In England and in France, power is distributed in too many hands to make continuity of policy and vigor of administration really possible; in Russia, the country itself is too large to be directed eflSciently 68 THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY by a single head; in Germany, the happy mean is found. The certainty, therefore, of the complete utilization of every ounce of the national strength in the struggle at hand, with nations whose governments are not able to utilize the whole of their strength, makes the Germans supremely confident of success. They are certain that they are stronger than England under any circum- stances; they are sure that their resoiu-ces are considerable enough to cope with France and Russia combined; and they believe that they are stronger than all three nations in the amount of force which they are capable of actually exerting. The efficiency of administration, the possibility and necessity of continuity of policy, is most ap- parent in the rapidity with which the Germans have developed their army and navy to the present point of high efficiency and size. They realized, certainly to a degree no other nation did, the extent of the preparation necessary for participa- tion in modern warfare, and the number of years of preparation indispensable to success. War, indeed, is too terrible to be invoked without the certainty of success, especially by a nation stra- tegically situated, as Germany is, between two enemies thirsting for her destruction. The Ger- mans realized that a successful war must be prose- cuted by a highly organized machine, equipped 69 PAN-GERMANISM with exceedingly expensive apparatus, oflBcered by men whose training must necessarily consume years, during which they and the troops they were instructing must be supported by the State and allowed to devote their whole time to learning the game of war. The Germans learned long ago that a citizen army drawn from farms and coimt- ing-houses at the outbreak of war could not be expected to understand manoeuvring. It is a diflS- cult thing for a hundred men to do something to-" gether; it is a much more difficult thing for a hun- dred thousand men to manoeuvre without getting in each other's way; but when a million men are to be transported to a certain spot, equipped, officered, fed, and expected to execute a compli- cated attack with efficiency and dispatch, nothing short of a most complicated organization can even put such an army into the field, and nothing short of' years of practice can possibly make it efficient. On the other hand, the Germans realized that a weapon of this sort was not to be successfully re- sisted by anything less highly trained. To-day an army to repel an invader can no longer be garnered from the countryside as the invader advances, armed with weapons taken from the wall of each man's house, officered by the nobility and gentry, and by them hastily organized into companies. The same elaborate preparations which were 70 THE STRENGTH OF IMPERIAL GERMANY essential to its undertaking would be required to meet invasion. War is also expensive, not alone because of the length of time the men must be in training, but because the apparatus which they must learn to use is expensive to create and ex- pensive to practice with. A gun crew, that is to be called upon in time of danger to hit a moving mark at a distance of several miles, a mark ordinarily out of sight, must have had consider- able practice in time of peace to be able to hit any- thing in the excitement of battle. The expense of firing a twelve-inch rifle is in the neighborhood of a thousand dollars, and gun crews usually were instructed to see how many times they could fire the gun in so many minutes. Preparedness for war at this rate meant that the nation must pay for it gradually, which meant in turn that the money must be spent over a long series of years. The Germans are certain that no other nation in Eiurope has spent the same amount of money or exercised the same amount of forethought or pos- sessed the same degree of belief in the necessity for preparation that they have. Why, then, doubt of success.'' In fact, the preparedness for war bears to-day so inevitable and obvious a relation to the result of the combat that actual fighting is likely to occur only between forces that are apparently equal in size and efl&ciency. The Germans hoped 71 PAN-GERMANISM to make their army so large and so competent that it could decide contests without appearing in the field. Germany's greatest strength, however, lies, as her rulers think, in the hearty cooperation of the German people in the great scheme. They seem all to be willing to sacrifice and suffer whatever may be necessary for the realization of the great vision which has already enthused the nation for so many years. The government is able to count on the active, willing cooperation of the whole people in the prosecution of any plans which may be deemed necessary for the preparation or the execution of this project. The Socialists, despite their hostile theories and speeches, pledged them- selves to play their part like men when "the day" dawned. Indeed, the very things which made expansion necessary for Germany's future were those things which are her greatest assets in pro- moting the war and the most certain gauges of her success. Her rapidly growing population, her busy factories, the swelling volume of product, these are the very tools with which Pan-German- ism has been built. They are the pledges fortime has given Germany of its realization; their exist- ence furnishes Germans with all necessary proof of the expediency and morality of the course they have adopted. CHAPTER VI ENGLAND AND FRANCE AS THEY SEE THEMSELVES WHILE it is hardly expedient to interrupt the exposition of Pan-Germanism in order to interject a complete consideration of the factors upon which England and France are depending for their own salvation, it is indispensable to make clear at this point some facts of their national development which give them confidence, and, above all, to describe in detail their economic position, for it is upon what they consider to be the elements of its greatest strength that Germany is counting to compass their downfall. In their own eyes, England and France have had a truly glorious past. They have been for at least three centuries the leading nations of Europe, France .being the model during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for language, literature, fashions, to say nothing of administration; Eng- land becoming in the nineteenth century the model upon which the rest of the world diligently strove to form itself. The Napoleonic Adminis- tration and the Napoleonic Code have had an 73 PAN-GERMANISM extensive influence, say the French, in the forma- tion of modern Germany; the English point out that the centralized government of which Ger- mans are so proud is, after all, nothing but an adaptation of the English parliamentary system. France feels that but for her support the Catholic Church would hardly be what it is in Europe to-day; the English are more than positive that their support alone kept Protestantism alive. In science and literature they consider themselves not less preeminent. Surely, say the English, the doctrine of evolution is the most significant ele- ment in modern thought and the most purely Eng- lish; truly, say the French, Voltaire, Rousseau, and the Encyclopaedists directed the thought of the world into new channels which it has not yet found inadequate. The industrial revolution, the new agriculture, the factory system, trade-union- ism were all begun in England. If Germany is great, her greatness rests upon foundations laid by England and France. They ask the Germans to point out one conspicuous achievement in which they have not at least shared. Nor do they fail to derive comfort and satisfaction from the con- templation of the extension of their policy in the modern world. England controls one fifth of the total land area of the globe, one fifth of its total population; half of North America, a quarter of 74 ENGLAND AND FRANCE , Asia, and nearly half of Africa are under her flag; whUe France may point with pride at the posses- sion of a dominion in Africa, vast in extent and rich in resources. Certainly, there are no two nations in the world which control so large a share of its surface, its population, or its resources. Compared to what they hold, the Steppes of Russia and the vast frozen dominion of Siberia are valueless. In addition, the whole world gov- erns itself on the English model; the whole world wears French clothes; the only two languages which have any claims to imiversal use, since Latin ceased to be the language of the learned, are French and English. Even if they should grant the truth of every statement made in pur- suance of German greed as to their strength and position, these great cardinal facts must make it evident, they feel, that the German argument possesses some flaw which will not be less fatal because it is not obvious. England and France feel, however, that, even if they were politically and strategically as weak as Germany believes them to be, they have still a tower of strength in their economic supremacy, based upon natural advantages whose potency cannot be denied. The conspicuous features of re- cent economic growth have been the interdepend- ence of nations, the extension of the credit sys- 75 PAN-GERMANISM tern, of international trade, and the rise of such huge aggregates of capital as the Rothschild for- tune. The growth of the nineteenth century has made commercial development depend on the production of something which others need, which one nation makes better than others or produces more easily, and which that nation can exchange for those products naturally and easily produced by others. The old ideal of a people entirely self- suflBcing has disappeared, not because it was bad in its eflfects upon the people, but simply because it has become clear that no single people can pro- fitably devote their time to producing everything they need. The economic interdependence of the world has progressed with such rapid strides because it has proved more profitable to all na- tions than the earlier system. The truly progres- sive nation to-day will, therefore, not expect to be self-suflBcing, and will abandon the industries in which it is not specially fitted to surpass by natural conditions or by its skill. The credit system of international exchange, by which vast transactions are accomplished with- out the passing from hand to hand of even tokens of value, has entirely altered the methods of transacting the world's business and has in- creased the extent and profitableness of this inter- dependence. Moreover, out of the factory sys- 76 ENGLAND AND FRANCE tern and modern industry have grown huge aggre- gations of capital, available for immediate use and controlled by comparatively few men. There are individuals in the world to-day who them- selves control revenues greater than those of many nations, whose incomes annually at their disposal are as large as most of the fortunes of antiquity. They thus may wield stupendous power in the development of nations. Indeed, modern business depends upon the possibility of utilizing such enormous aggregations of capital for the promotion of single enterprises. The English and the French make no idle boast when they claim that the modern economic structure, national as well as international, has been largely their creation and is now largely in their hands. Of. certain staple materials, like wool, fur, fish, they practically possess a monopoly; in London and Paris are the centres of the world's exchange and credit system; to London and Paris bankers accrue the profits of handling the world's business. Nothing short of a financial panic of the first magnitude, accompanied perhaps by the disloca- tion of all business traditions, can fail to result, they think, from the disarranging of these disposi- tions. The English yearly produce an enormous bulk of manufactured goods which has steadily increased in volume at the rate of from ten to 77 PAN-GERMANISM twenty per cent each decade. England is stead- ily growing richer and not poorer, as the Germans insinuate. The French monopoly on such luxu- ries as jewelry, dress goods, and most articles of personal apparel is as complete to-day as it ever was. The world's carrying trade is practically in English hands and its profits are no small share of the English national wealth. Any one who supposes that the English merchant marine could be annihilated without dislocating the commerce of the world is either exceedingly misinformed or intentionally blind. London and Paris are, fur- thermore, the distributing centre for Eastern and African goods, for which the demand was never greater than it is at present. How is it possible, say the English and the French, for the world to get along without us? Is it in any degree cred- ible that Germany can take our place, can rear- range the whole financial and commercial struc- ture of the world, without causing an amount of suffering to herself which would more than coun- terbalance any possible benefits she might receive ? Indeed, the English and the French are not alto- gether unreasonable in supposing themselves at present indispensable to the economic welfare of the world. The interdependence of the world, moreover, which is so profitable to every one concerned, is 78 ENGLAND AND FRANCE absolutely contingent upon the continuance of peace. Every one will be injured by the inability to exchange what they produce for what they need. Anything like a general war necessarily entails financial loss, and not improbably personal suffering, upon the individuals of practically every community in the world. It is, therefore, the peace advocates strenuously insist, to prac- tically every one's economic advantage to main- tain peace. The number of individuals, to say nothing of nations, who would be likely to gain by the outbreak of war are too few to be regarded, and consist, they claim, chiefly of those who make the materials or the weapons needed by armies and navies. These facts, indeed, are suf- ficiently apparent to furnish a solid basis for great organized paovements in favor of international arbitration or conciliation, whose propaganda is so active, and whose logic and statistics are so unassailable, as to have convinced the great ma- jority of every-day people in all nations of the in- expediency of war. Unquestionably, such move- ments and arguments, tending to the maintenance of a status quo, are greatly to the advantage of England and France, in whose hands lies the pre- sent control of the financial world. The greatest economic strength of England and France comes from their possession of the 79 PAN-GERMANISM greatest individual aggregations of capital in the world. The vast Rothschild fortune, known in Europe as The Fortune, is one twentieth of the total wealth of the French nation, and is not, like so many American fortunes, the estimated value on the stock market of certain securities which, in case of a financial panic, might almost lose all value, but consists of houses, land, railways, solid tangible assets which could be destroyed only by the destruction of France. In London, there is a group of individuals who between them con- trol nearly as considerable and almost as solid fortunes. There are no doubt in Germany and Austria wealthy men. There are no such fortunes as these. In fact, the London and Paris bankers can almost control the available resources of the world at any one moment, and can therefore prac- tically permit or prevent the undertaking of any enterprise requiring the use of more than a hun- dred million dollars actual value. Many schemes nominally more considerable than this have been floated independently, but the actual value of the assets behind the scheme was a mere tithe of their value on paper. Modern warfare means that the degree of preparation essential to success is impossible without the use of immense resources, and that the nation can safely invest enough money in 80 ENGLAND AND FRANCE armies and navies to make them effective only when it boasts vast reserves of capital. The Eng- lish and French considered it almost impossible for other nations to invest such a sum in war with- out straining their resources far beyond the dan- ger point, or without somehow borrowing it from them, and they would certainly not loan it to their enemies. Therefore, they concluded, if Ger- many was thus investing her surplus, the time would come when her armies would cost her more than they were worth, — indeed, more than the utmost success in war could ever enable her to re- pay. Actually to mobilize a modem army requires vast sums in ready money, and the English and French did not believe any nation could go to war without procuring the ready money from them. The conclusive proof of this supposition they found in the event following the appearance of the German warship Panther at Agadir. It seems that the Emperor would have been willing at any rate to mobilize the German army and sought the German bankers with a request for a loan to the Government. The bankers informed him that they had no money with which to meet their own pressing obligations and that the nation as a mat- ter of fact stood on the verge of bankruptcy. Not only could it not go to war, it was doubtful even whether it could continue to do business for an- 81 PAN-GERMANISM other week. No one seems to have realized in Germany the sum total of the private loans made in London and Paris. When war seemed probable, a concerted movement by the London and Paris bankers for the recalling of all loans practically stripped Germany of ready money, and the sale of securities on the Berlin Bourse to meet these demands almost precipitated a panic of the ut- most seriousness. It transpired that Germany was conducting nearly niaety per cent of current business upon borrowed money subject to recall at a moment's notice. By the use of their eco- nomic weapons, England and France rendered Germany helpless and made war impossible. It is clear that in the present era there are weapons stronger than armies. Not only does the credit system of the world centre in London and Paris, but the world's sup- ply of the only tangible basis for international exchange is also in their hands. From South Africa comes a large share of the world's gold; in the London and Paris banks are probably the world's greatest accumulations of coin and bul- lion, while probably there are in France greater sums of cash in the hands of the nation itself than in any other country in the world. When the close of the Franco-Prussian War imposed upon France a war indemnity so heavy that the Prus- 82 ENGLAND AND FRANCE sians exulted openly upon their success in crip- pling France for a generation, the French nation produced the entire sum from its savings, and paid the indemnity with a rapidity which as- tounded the world. The national loan of 1914, to meet the expense of reorganizing the army, was over-subscribed forty times. Such financial strength rightly inspires the French and English with confidence in their ultimate ability to cope with Germany. It is an astounding fact, of whose truth the average man is gradually becoming conscious, that England and France own probably the major part of the bonded indebtedness of the world. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, India, China, Japan, and South America are probably owned, so far as any nation can be owned, in London or Paris. Pay- ment of interest on these vast sums is secured by the pledging of the public revenues of these coun- tries, and, in the case of the weaker nations, by the actual delivery of the perception into the hands of the agents of the English and French bankers. In addition, a very large share, if not the major part, of the stocks and industrial securi- ties of the world are owned by those two nations and the policies of many of the world's enter- prises dictated by their financial heads. The world itself, in fact, pays them tribute; it actually 83 PAN-GERMANISM rises in the morning to earn its living by utilizing their capital, and occupies its days in making the money to pay them interest which is to make them still wealthier. Such facts as these are of transcendent importance in evaluating the condi- tions in the world which make war possible or im- possible. In the estimation of the statesmen in London and Paris, Germany is not economically strong enough to utilize what she thinks is politi- cally and strategically an advantageous position without involving an injury to herself which might ultimately destroy her prosperity. In fact, they find it difficult to believe that Germany possesses any economic strength. The factors which the Germans consider favorable to them, the English and French consider their greatest weakness. Germany's imports somewhat exceed her exports and create the impression to the superficial observer, say English and French experts, that she is a creditor country like Eng- land, receiving more than she gives, and therefore undoubtedly solvent. In this case the statistics are misleading. Germany's imports are not really the insignia of wealth at all, but are the proof of national poverty. The balance in international trade, as every economist knows, is paid in goods and not in money. The English imports are vastly in excess of exports, because England is really a 84 ENGLAND AND FRANCE creditor country and is thus receiving the interest owed her upon her investments. But Germany's surplus of imports is not interest payments upon her own investments, but payments to her of the capital of her own enormous loans. She receives the sum in goods, because only in kind can great exchanges of value between nations take place; she pays the interest with her exports. Germany is in truth economically weak, and in order to finance so many public and private enterprises, as she has in the last thirty years, has been com- pelled to borrow heavily. In fact, in an economic sense Germany does not own her own business. The capital which created it, the ready money which keeps it alive, are both borrowed and are not yet paid for. Instead of devoting a part of the proceeds of the use of this capital to the dis- charge of a part of her capital indebtedness, she has reinvested all of it, has therefore expanded her transactions at a rate all out of proportion to the amount of business she was really doing, and has therefore exposed herself to the peril of being called upon suddenly to pay her debts and of being forced into national bankruptcy because of her inability so to do. Such financiering is simply folly, to the thinking of England and France. The small national debt of Germany, too, can- not fairly be compared with the large national 85 PAN-GERMANISM debts of England and France as a sign of the com- parative strength of the three nations. She owes her debt mostly to them. They owe their debts to their own citizens. A nation's position in the international scale is not afiEected at all by the existence of public indebtedness which is owed to its own citizens, because the total national assets are comprised of the public funds plus the actual assets of all individuals, including all the debts owed either the nation or its citizens by other nations or their citizens. The public debts of England and Prance are for the most part na- tional assets, while Germany's is almost entirely a national liability. If the English and French should pay their debt, they would pay it to them- selves. In other words, they would merely alter the form of recording the national wealth on the national books. When Germany pays her na- tional debt, she will have to part with actual value which will accrue to other nations. Nor do the Germans seem to realize that, from the point of view of international finance, the national debt is not the money which the nation has borrowed in its own name, but the total amount of indebt- edness which the nation itself and all its citizens combined owe in any way to all other nations and their private citizens combined. The public in- debtedness plus the private indebtedness is the 86 ENGLAND AND FRANCE true indication of the money which the nation may be called upon to pay. England and France, publicly or privately, owe very little money out- side their own borders. Germany owes money in every quarter of the globe on the transactions of her citizens. For these reasons, other nations find it hard to believe that Germany possesses any economic strength at all, and therefore find it dif- ficult to understand why she promotes such vast schemes of aggression. They can be prosecuted only upon borrowed capital and must inevitably increase her inherent weakness. Certainly, should she lose, she can hardly recover from the catas- trophe for a century; and they cannot see how she can possibly win. CHAPTER VII THE GERMAN VIEW OF THE ECONOMIC SITUATION GERMANY freely admitted the great eco- nomic strength of England and France, so long as peace prevailed. As soon as war broke out, their economic strength became weakness and the position which they depended upon to secure for them control of the world began in fact to bank- rupt them. Indeed, the weapons, in this great test of comparative national strength, will not be confined to armies and navies, nor do the Germans consider that the state of war will be confined to actual hostilities. To their thinking, the war began years ago and was then fought and will continue to be fought, with those weapons, infin- itely more deadly than cannon and small arms, economic crises. They propose to destroy Eng- land and France, not in the field, but in the count- ing house and in the factory, annihilating the basis upon which in the long run armies must depend for maintenance. The interdependence of the world is econo- mically profitable to England and France, so long as the existence of peace gives full scope to the 88 THE ECONOMIC SITUATION play of economic forces which produces that steady and uninterrupted interchange of goods upon which they rely for their very existence. The extent of modern economic development, the amount of produce they depend upon receiving from abroad, the amount of manufactured goods that they depend upon exporting yearly, is the measure of their economic weakness at that mo- ment when a state of war makes the transporta- tion by sea of their necessities dangerous. In particular, England must be fed from oversea, and must bring from a distance all the raw ma- terials which she needs to keep her factories in constant operation, and which she must have to keep her great population steadily employed and able to support itself. This dependence upon others is not strength, but weakness of the most vital description, for it makes England's prosper- ity contingent upon the continuance of certain con- ditions which the Germans are by no means will- ing to agree are normal or natural. They deny strenuously that peace differs from war in any- thing except degree. There is a large school of thinkers in Germany who insist that all living is war, and that upon the continuance of this battle the healthy life of the community absolutely de- pends, in support of which assertion they cite the doctrine of evolution in its varied forms and 89 PAN-GERMANISM phases. If this be true, a nation which expects to survive in this normal struggle for existence must not depend upon fighting its battles with other nations under what are really technical limita- tions. By depending upon the absence of any- thing like physical force in the struggle for ex- istence, England is building her house upon the sands. Take, too, the vast capital of whose existence England and France are so proud and upon whose operations they depend for the perpetuation of their predominance. The fact that they have in- vested it in every quarter of the globe, intending, thereby, to protect themselves from too consider- able loss in case war should break out or countries become bankrupt, has actually forced them to part with the reality of their wealth and to substi- tute for it unreality. They have placed the tan- gible results of their investment the width of the globe distant from their shores, and therefore from their armies, and they have taken in ex- change a promise to pay, which they do not pos- sess the force to exact, and whose whole value depends upon the willingness of the debtors to con- sider it binding and to liquidate the debt of their own free will when it becomes due. They have in- vested their money everywhere except at home, and have therefore exposed themselves to its loss, 90 THE ECONOMIC SITUATION because their ownership of these debts and invest- ments depends on the continuance of the present notions of commercial morality. This is not in- vestment. This is speculation. The reality, — the railways, factories, mines, — which represents the capital they have invested, belongs literally to the borrower. He has the only tangible thing in existence in the world, the only thing which pos- sibly can exist in the world, as the equivalent of that value. Whatever is written on paper is paper, and is not to be made into factories or railways or tangible assets of any kind by any process of jugglery such as the mediaeval bishop performed when he baptized the roast and called it carp. Things are, and writing on paper does not change the thing or its position. The real wealth of England, the surplus of which she is so proud, comes not from her soil nor from her own factories, — in other words, from those things which no one can take away from her except by force of arms and which she necessarily protects as long as she continues her national existence, — but from her income from the accumulations of the past with whose actuality she has parted, and from which she has received for decades the pay- ments represented by the excess of her imports over her exports. The world has paid her tribute, but the world need continue to pay that tribute 91 PAN-GERMANISM only so long as it wishes. The moment the bor- rowers refuse longer to recognize the validity of her claims upon their revenues and incomes, and begin to realize that they hold, with a clutch which she cannot loosen, the actual substance of wealth, then they will begin to see that her wealth is not real, but depends purely upon their willingness to continue to pay her revenue, which they may stop paying her at any moment with- out suffering any consequences. To be sure, such notions as these presume the violation of every notion of commercial morality and expediency at present existing in the world, but, as the Germans say, if they were violated, what could England and France possibly do to avert destruction. It is true, they admit, that such a wholesale repudiation of debts would undoubtedly make it difficult for nations to borrow from each other for some time to come, but, they retort, if such a repudiation took place, the debtor nations would not need to borrow money for generations to come.' ' The author is anxious to state explicitly that these paragraphs are not to be understood to imply a reflection upon German national or individual morality, and he hopes that, in his desire to put this hypothetical case forcibly, he has not given it an immediate applica- tion, which, if believed, might be construed as a serious prediction of a nature which no historian has a right to make. The point upon which the Germans insist is, what would happen to England under such circumstances, a statement which by no means argues their intention to attempt the repudiation of their debts to-morrow or at any other time. They do claim that it is a fundamental point in their favor. 92 THE ECONOMIC SITUATION Now if we suppose that the German fleet should secure control of the sea, either by defeat- ing the English or by securing predominance in number, it might promptly cut England's com- munications with the rest of the world and eflfec- tively bankrupt her by stopping the remittances of goods, in which alone the debts owed her by other countries can be paid. Germany, to be sure, would not get the property England owns elsewhere; she might not be able to secure the repudiation of English debts by England's debt- ors; but she could quite as effectively compel England to lose the only tangible evidence of ownership and forego the payment of the incomes of thousands of her private citizens who would infallibly be ruined. In this connection, the Ger- mans eagerly claim that, if a nation's debts con- sist of the national indebtedness plus the private indebtedness, it is not less true that the nation's resources are the national revenues plus private incomes. If the latter should suffer severely, those upon whom the Government chiefly de- pends for the payment of taxes would be unable to respond and the nation, as well as its citizens, would be bankrupt. To secure so stupendous a result as this is well worth the expenditure of money for building a fleet. That money so far as the German nation is concerned is merely in- 93 PAN-GERMANISM vested in an enterprise from which they confi- dently expect returns perhaps one hundred fold. As was said at the beginning of this account of Pan-Germanism, the Germans are acutely con- scious that their position in the world depends less upon the actual force they are prepared to exert and the actual wealth within their own borders than upon their ability to exert more than their rivals can. The existence throughout the world of a state of war they believe would effect- ively bankrupt England and France. Each na- tion which owed the latter money would be un- able to remit the usual sums, because they would be forced to spend the money, and more likely the goods already in existence, upon preparation for war. This would effectively rob England and France of their incomes, of the only tangible evi- dence they receive of their vast nominal wealth. Failing to receive the usual remittance either in money or in goods, they might themselves be unable, simply from the lack of materials, to prosecute the war with the vigor and dispatch they intended. Of course, should England retain control of the sea, she would be able even in time of war to protect the remittances to her; but the Germans depend upon their fleet to interfere, at least with the regularity of remittances to Eng- land, and depend upon their allies and upon the 94 THE ECONOMIC SITUATION necessities of various nations elsewhere to stop the remittances at their source. They thus hoped to cripple England and France temporarily by the mere force of economic factors which would be put into operation by beginning the war. The Germans claim that those financial factors, which seem to be weaknesses in time of peace, are now in case of war a tower of strength. Ger- many is almost, if not quite, self-supporting, and, with the trade between herself and other Euro- pean nations overland in time of war, she will become entirely self-sufficing. Nor is she depend- ent upon her imports for the raw materials to keep her factories busy or to maintain her army and navy. Whatever the balance may be upon the books of the world, she is actually rich, actu- ally richer than England or France. So long as her army is unbeaten, no one can take away from her her factories, mines, and fields. Who- ever may own them on paper, she owns them in reality and will continue to own them so long as she is strong enough to keep them. Supposing now that she should repudiate the whole debt which she owes other nations, should seize the capital out of which her economic development was created, what then? Would she not actually possess her economic development for nothing? Could she ever be compelled to pay for it by 95 PAN-GERMANISM anything short of actual conquest, and is there in the world any nation strong enough to subdue her upon her own soil? Would not such an eco- nomic blow destroy her enemies with greater cer- tainty than any conquest by sea or land? Indeed, has she not everything to gain from war and nothing to lose? So long as peace prevails and she continues to recognize the validity of present notions of commercial morality, she must con- tinue to pay huge sums, must continue yearly to part with actual wealth in goods until the debt is paid. The moment war broke out, she need pay nothing. If she is defeated, she will merely be compelled to pay what she was already obligated to pay. If victorious, she need never pay interest or principal. Would that not be a stake many times worth playing for, compared to a war in- demnity of any size whatever, and, when such a manoeuvre might also not improbably compass the control of the world's commerce, what Ger- man would doubt that the chances of war are better than those of peace? Suppose, too, that the rest of the countries who owe money to Eng- land and France should adopt Germany's tactics and seize the occasion of the war as a signal for the repudiation of what they owed, and should therefore take possession of their own industries; would not England and France be literally de- 96 THE ECONOMIC SITUATION stroyed, reduced to the acres within their own boundaries and to those few industries which they could prosecute without cooperation from other nations? Financing the movement the Germans did not find to be difficult. They concluded that, if the postulates of political economy were true, money in the ordinary sense would not be necessary. Wars are not fought with cash but with men and with commodities. To finance a war meant simply the utilization of the actual resources of the na- tion so as to provide the materials to put the army into the field and sustain it there while it was winning the campaign. It would involve the building of factories to produce guns, ammuni- tion, cloth, shoes, saddles, and harness; it would involve the systematization of agriculture to in- sure enough food for the men in the field and the nation at home; it would involve the distribution of the products of German industry at home and abroad; but it would not involve the use of specie or currency in the ordinary sense. The prepara- tion for the war, the steps essential to begin it, would require decades of actual work and would need capital, not currency. The capital was ob- tained in London, Paris, New York by the media- tion of the great promoting companies and banks who were apparently transacting private busi- 97 PAN-GERMANISM ness for profit. This was true but it was not the whole truth; the investors received large divi- dends and the bonds have been promptly paid. Most liquidation, however, has been seeming rather than real, based upon the proceeds of new loans rather than upon the actual earnings of the capital. So long as foreign citizens were willing to lend on no better security than the promise to pay interest regularly and the principal at some time in the future, so long as old debts could be can- celled by new, there was every reason why Ger- many should finance her development at the utmost pace that her physical resources could be developed. She continued to reinvest in her busi- nesses, therefore, the whole profits which she derived from her skillful management, and bor- rowed as much more as she believed she could pay the interest upon. She has "pyramided" her loans, borrowed upon her borrowing power, paid one with what she received from another, and always invested her own share. She has not yet as a nation made elaborate arrangements to pay the principal of her debts out of the proceeds of labor, because she may never need to pay those debts. She is well aware that many of her private citizens have invested money in other countries, that she, too, is entangled in the network of inter- 98 THE ECONOMIC SITUATION national investments, but she knows that the profits will still be enormous, even if her citizens lose every penny they have invested outside her borders. She was conscious that German securi- ties would everywhere fall in the foreign stock ex- changes when war actually began; she also knew that English and French stocks would tumble likewise, and she believed that when the reaction of economic forces was complete, the destruction of values in England and France would be too great to make the loss of value in her own securities of any significance. Besides, who own her securi- ties? Who, therefore, will bear the fall in value? Her securities are only paper. The factories and fields they actually represent are not changed in value by operations on the stock market. The for- eign investor will lose money and will bear the only ostensible losses and will thus be dealt an additional blow. Germany, in other words, is fight- ing her enemies with their own money, and may obtain not only her industries for nothing, but her army and navy and the whole cost of the war as well. The foreigner even provided her with the cash necessary to begin the war. Once more the Germans hear around them outcries against the morality of this procedure. Once again the Germans insist that morals and ethics have nothing to do with this particular PAN-GERMANISM issue. The moral code of the financial world, like the moral code of the political world, is based upon the notions of England and France, upon ideas obviously themselves the result of a pecul- iar situation, on whose continuance the welfare of England and France depends. Their moral code is based on their ownership of the world and their desire to continue it in perpetuity, and their moral code, therefore, condemns Germany to in- significance. The Germans refuse to recognize as moral anything which jeopardizes their national existence. They claim the right to protect them- selves by any weapons which will secure the de- sired result, and they have no intention of fore- going the use of these terrible economic weapons, simply from a supine acceptance of so-called ethical notions, whose very presumptions mili- tate against them. The international economic situation chances to press less heavily upon Ger- many than upon other states, and thus affords her a significant natural advantage over other states which it would be suicidal to forego. If worst comes to worst and all else fails, she can resort to weapons so powerful as to destroy her adversaries. CHAPTER VIII PBEBEQUISITES OF SUCCESS BEFORE so vast a scheme as Pan-Germanism could actually be put into operation many prerequisites were necessary to insure its ultimate success, for Pan-Germanism aims at obtaining for Germany and her allies control of the world and at insuring their retention of that control for at least a generation. The absolute prerequisite was necessarily the creation of a great fleet, large enough to insure freedom of passage of German commerce through the English Channel under any and all circumstances. The fleet must be large enough to make dubious the outcome of a battle with the English fleet, in order to prevent England from risking battle. Germany, in sooth, did not create her fleet to wage war. It was a purely defensive weapon, intended to insure the continuance of the position she then held and of that freedom of passage through the Channel, which is the prerequisite of all expansion. Until that is assured the possession of colonies, the entrance to markets, the ability to manufacture, are all worthless. She must not permit herself to 101 PAN-GERMANISM remain in a position where the outlet for her com- merce would depend upon England's good will. She intends to create so large a fleet that it will command, as a matter of right, what Germany desires. Furthermore, unless her fleet is large she will not be able at the same time to intimidate England in the Channel and Russia in the Baltic. Unless she can maintain her control on the south- em shore of the Baltic, all of the normal outlets for the commerce of North Germany might be closed by Russia, and it is almost as essential to insure their freedom from Russian interference as it is to make sure the English wUl not close the Channel. Germany wishes nothing which she must hold on sufferance. But, if the Germans did not succeed in building their fleet fast enough actually to endanger England's predominance in the Channel, they did compel her to concentrate her fleet in the North Sea, and leave necessarily exposed to the attacks of Germany's allies the long chain of forts and strategic places upon which England depends for the protection of her water routes to Asia and Africa. No less necessary than a great navy was a great army, large enough and efficient enough to prevent Russia and France by reason of its exis- tence from thinking of war. The army was, as the Germans claimed, primarily defensive. It was the 102 PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS only barrier between Germany and her enemies. It took the place of the English Channel, of the Alps, of the Pyrenees. The army, too, must be large enough to enable Germany, in case of war, to invade England without so much exposing her- self to France and Russia as to invite assault from either or both. Indeed, it was highly essential that the army should be so efficient that there could be no doubt of its repelling a combined attack from both should they take the offensive. But sufficient strength to discourage them from fighting was even more desirable from the German point of view, for the Germans did not wish to fight. They wished to secure the results of war without the concomitant disadvantages, and they considered as the only probable offensive use of the army the necessary invasion of England. Again, an army large enough to make possible such movements would also be large enough to put into operation the economic factors, which Germany expected would prove so advantageous to her and so fatal to England and France. Hence, every step in the development of such an army was a step toward the achievement of Germany's purposes by that type of offensive weapon eu- phemistically known as peace. The seizure of Belgium and Holland would very likely be the first German movement when the 103 PAN-GERMANISM actual accomplishment of Pan-Germanism seemed fairly assured. The position of these two coun- tries, their wealth, and the traditions of European policy have gained them so much prominence and have caused all nations to attach so much impor- tance to them, that Germany would certainly not take possession of them until the last moment. Indeed, it has been so long held that an attack upon the autonomy of Belgium or Holland would be the equivalent of a declaration of war upon Europe that Germany must certainly avoid any such outspoken manifestation of her intentions. Notwithstanding, their position is an absolute prerequisite of the ultimate success of Pan- Germanism, and the railway lines for landing troops in the proper places were built and the canals for supplying those troops with food were dug long ago. When the German Emperor re- cently visited Belgium a remark was made by a certain dignitary that Belgium was prepared, to which he is reported to have replied, that they were wise to prepare. But Germany needs the strategic points which those two countries control. The Netherlands alone can furnish her a suitable naval base on the Channel from which to contest its possession with the English or from which to intimidate the Eng- lish fleet into permitting German ships complete 104 PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS freedom of passage. So long as the German fleet must operate from a base of supplies as far removed as Kiel from the naval base of the English in the Thames, her position must be at the best anoma- lous. The occupation of Holland would make it a reality. From Holland, too, the German army- could most advantageously invade England. From Belgium, it could most easily reach Paris. With both countries in their hands, an attack on either capital would be equally feasible, and the capture of either would be equally fatal to the Triple Entente. The commercial significance of the position of Belgium and Holland is no less striking. They control the outlet of the Rhine, and therefore can prevent Germany's complete utilization of the splendid natural highway, draining so large and so rich a section of her land, a highway so easily connected with her other river systems by a net- work of canals. Plans were put into execution for a network of canals between the Rhine and the Westphalian coal fields, by means of which they expected to supply the fleet at its new base and which promised largely to increase at once the facilities of transportation, and, above all, to reduce its cost, for the every-day trade of the Empire. The possession of these two countries, moreover, would at once give Germany the great 105 PAN-GERMANISM colonial empire of which she dreams. Holland owns Java and the Celebes, admirably fitted for colonization, from whom for three centuries she has drawn a princely revenue; she owns a fertile section of Guiana and rich islands in the West Indies whose strategic value would also be great; Belgium owns the vast Congo Free State, one of the wealthiest of European dependencies. Here would be an outlet for German manufactures of the first importance. If their colonies alone could be retained, Germany could restore the autonomy of those states in Europe, pay a heavy war indem- nity, and yet find the war well worth while. Another prerequisite of final success would be the seizure of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. With them in her hands, the Baltic would be to all intents and purposes hers. Russia Ay^ould be squeezed into its furthermost corner. The Sund could be closed at will and all Russian access to the outside world effectually prevented. If such a catastrophe were not suflScient to detach her from the Triple Entente, it would certainly pre- vent the general financial panic, which would in all probability result in Europe on the outbreak of war, from expending its force upon Germany itself; for the Russians, once the Baltic was closed, would be compelled to sell their products to Ger- many in exchange for her manufactured goods. 106 PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS Conceivably there might thus be created a nexus between the two natic ns which might permanently bring about some relationship freeing them both from the spectre of war. The annexation of the Scandinavian countries would also put into Ger- many's hands beyond a peradventure the great supplies of iron, coal, and wood which the out- break of war would make far more valuable than their intrinsic worth in time of peace. Nor does she forget that Denmark still owns a valuable colony or so in the West Indies, which would be worth her while. Some arrangement with Swit- zerland would also be necessary, although its exact nature could only be indicated by the exi- gencies of the moment. Napoleon's phrase that Switzerland was the key to Europe the Germans constantly bear in mind. Through Switzerland an attack could easily be delivered upon the Ger- man rear by France in case of war. Germany or Italy might profitably utilize it themselves for an attack upon the French rear, while the Austri- ans have not forgotten that a military road to Vienna runs through Switzerland. However, Ger- many's arrangements with Switzerland will prob- ably be made rather to prevent the utilization of the Swiss passes by others than from an expecta- tion of utilizing them herself. A most essential part of the structure of Pan- 107 PAN-GERMANISM Germanism was a confederation of states in the Balkans either outwardly independent and se- cretly controlled by Germany or Austria or depen- dent in some way upon Austria or Italy. The great stretch of mountain, tableland, and valley, extending from the heights of the Tyrolese and Transylvanian Alps to the jEgean and the Medi- terranean, has long been loosely designated, from political rather than geographical reasons, the Bal- kans. It boasts no real geographical unity and has been divided for political reasons into so many different entities at so many different times that it is in reality from every point of view nothing but a geographical expression. At the moment of the conception of Pan-Germanism, the states of this region were partly autonomous, partly in the hands of Austria, and partly controlled by Tur- key. The creation out of them in some way or other of some kind of an entity or entities, which the Triple Alliance could keep under its control, is absolutely essential to the success of the most striking part of Pan-Germanism. For in those defiles and valleys are the keys to Europe. Down along the coaSt of the Black Sea runs the great road from Russia to Constantinople and the East; down the Danube valley, across the river at Bel- grade, through the Balkans by way of Sophia and Adrianople, runs the great continental highway, 108 PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS trodden for a thousand years by Roman, Barba- rian, Crusader, Infidel, leading from the Rhine and Danube valleys to Constantinople and the East. Round through Macedonia and Albania runs the perfectly practical road, used long ago by the Visigoths, leading from Constantinople to Trieste, Venice, and the valley of the Po. At Saloniki is a great port from which a fleet might control the iEgean. The western side of the Balkans is the east- ern shore of the Adriatic, and its possession would insure to the Triple Alliance complete control of that important sea. Could they secure, there- fore, by controlling the Balkans, possession of the great roads between Europe and Asia and of the strategic positions necessary for controlling the iEgean and the Adriatic, the English position in the Mediterranean might be made untenable. At any rate, the English so-called Protectorate over Turkey and Greece would be at once terminated, and the possession by Italy and Austria of naval bases in the Adriatic and the ^Egean would prac- tically render useless all the English dispositions based upon Malta as a centre. Thus the Triple Alliance would secure a foothold and probable control of the eastern Mediterranean, and would throw back upon their base in the western Medi- terranean the English and French fleets, and might be enabled without practical interference 109 PAN-GERMANISM to take possession of Egypt and Suez. Even if so much were not accomplished, the trade route overland through Constantinople into the neutral territory of Turkey, and so by way of the Baghdad Railway to the Persian Gulf and India, would be a reality, and it would be unassailable by the English fleet, nor would it ever be exposed to those dangers which so constantly threaten the English Empire with dissolution. Chiefest of all, however, the existence of the Balkans, their geographical position, their racial and religious character, their traditions and his- tory, would furnish Germany with the necessary prize to ofiFer Austria as the price of her assistance in the execution of Pan-Germanism. The rulers of Austria have long seen that her expansion to the north and east was improbable and undesir- able; that her expansion to the west was perma- nently blocked by the Alps, and that she could only expand to the south along the great plains of the lower Danube and Black Sea, down through the valleys of Servia to the ^gean, and to the southwest to the Adriatic. Like all other nations, she sees the permanent assurances of her contin- ued national existence only in the .possession of an outlet to the sea, and a possible share in the com- merce with the less developed parts of the world, from which her rivals are so rapidly obtaining 110 PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS wealth and position. She early found in the Bal- kans no less powerful a rival than Russia, one as determined as she to secure similar opportunity for expansion, and one to whom that opportunity is not less essential than it is to her. Between the two no compromise is possible. Austria may keep Russia out of the Balkans, but in the face of Rus- sian opposition she cannot unaided take posses- sion. The necessary assistance, Germany and Italy proposed to aflford her through the execu- tion of the great schemes for the aggrandizement of all three. With the Balkans in their hands, the reorgan- ization of Turkey would be the next essential step. Its tmdeniable importance is the result of the very factors which have kept the Turk so long in possession. In the past, Europe considered its many strategic points too valuable to be owned by any nation not so inefficient and weak as to render their use improbable. The incurable mal- ady of the Sick Man alone caused the doctors to allow him to live. First of all, Turkey holds the bridge between Europe and Asia, for whose pos- session throughout the centuries Roman and Barbarian, Christian and Infidel, had so vigorously fought. The Turk also holds Asia Minor, from whose rich fields Rome had drawn a vast revenue, whose roads lead into the great vales of the Tigris 111 PAN-GERMANISM and Euphrates, where in antiquity stood the greatest of the old empires. In Asia Minor, too, are marts of trade from which Phoenician and Greek cities almost without number had grown rich and powerful and cultured. The whole North African littoral owes allegiance to the Sultan; Tripoli was still nominally administered by him, and would furnish to the Turk's master a strategic point of the first consequence, flanking Egypt on the one hand and Tunis on the other, furnished with harbors whence a fleet might assail with con- fident expectation of success the English lines of communication with Suez. Above all, the Sultan is head of the Mohammedan religion, ruling still over the countless hordes of Moslems in the Eng- lish and French possessions in Africa and Asia, to whom they owe implicit obedience and for whose safety they have often evinced the utmost concern. Indeed, around him is already centering the great movement known as Pan-Islam, which contemplates nothing less than the expulsion of the unbeliever from the lands of the Prophet's followers by a great Jehad of unheard-of dimen- sions. Might not the Sultan, properly "inspired" in some way, be induced to instigate or proclaim such a war at a time when English and French authority in Africa and Asia might for all practical purposes be extinguished by it? An outbreak as 112 PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS general and as powerful might conceivably compel them to send reinforcements from Europe to such an extent as to weaken them at home and permit Germany to begin the final stages of the war with every prospect of complete success. Naturally, Germany does not expect to receive everything and give nothing. She had to undertake the reor- ganization of Turkey, the building of an army and a navy adequate for the prosecution of such enter- prises, and she had, as a matter of course, to pro- vide the necessary financial backing to relieve the Turk of pressure from his old supporters, England and France, and from all future fears as to deficits. From the Turk could be secured the railway concession of vital commercial importance which should join Constantinople with the Persian Gulf, and whose existence would alone repay Germany and her allies for all their expenditures and risks. It would, of course, be adequately protected by the new Turkish army and fleet. To insure its safety from an attack by Russia, Persia would be reor- ganized as an independent nation under the Ger- man aegis. Thus also would be secured the coast road along the Persian Gulf to India which Alex- ander had followed, thus also would be insured to Germany the control of navigation in the Gulf itself. Both would put into her hands invaluable points. She would be led by the coast road into 113 PAN-GERMANISM the valley of the Indus behind the great defenses at Quetta; in the rear, therefore, of the British position. A fleet emerging from the Gulf would enter the Indian Ocean behiad the English naval defenses and see all India lying before it, unde- fended. The Germans did not fail to appreciate that, although they were the originators of Pan-Ger- manism and may perhaps not unreasonably ex- pect to be the chief gainers by it, they could not hope finally to achieve success without the hearty cooperation of Austria, of Italy, of Turkey, of Persia, and, above all, of the Balkans. They real- ized that these states would not enter a conflict of such magnitude out of love for Germany; that they were not likely to be held to any agreements that they might make by a moral sense of obli- gation, which the Germans themselves frankly denied was of any validity in international agree- ments; that, imless they were fully satisfied with their own gains, they would themselves interfere at some awkward moment and perhaps prevent the completion of the scheme at all. Therefore, the Germans realized that the ultimate success of Pan-Germanism would depend as much upon the division of the spoils when the victory was won, as upon any single factor, and upon the acceptance beforehand of such plans for the allot- 114 PREREQUISITES OF SUCCESS ment of territory as to satisfy the ambitions of the various parties without vitally offending any other equally essential party. Divide et Impera. Probably, Austria was allotted the ^Egean, ac- cess to the sea through the Balkans, and Egypt qnd Palestine; Italy was to receive the Adriatic, Morocco, and Algiers, while the Balkan States, European Turkey, and Persia insisted upon a guarantee of their autonomy so far as their own local affairs were concerned. Germany, therefore, was to surrender the Mediterranean to her allies in exchange for India, the rest of Africa, and the East and West India Islands. Spain might have to be paid with a slice of western Morocco. Whether or not the coalition would be strong enough to lay its hands on South America in defiance of the United States would have to be determined, they saw, by the circumstances of their victory. CHAPTER IX FIRST STEPS WHEN the historian leaves the considera tion of schemes and plans and undertakes even to sketch the course of events in current his- tory, he finds himself in the peculiar position for a historian of being overwhelmed with details of whose meaning he is by no means certain. Indeed, he is continually exposed to the danger of assum- ing that all events have some meaning and that particular events are of necessity those truly significant. While the archives remain closed and the diplomatic correspondence a sealed book, while the real answers to all those questions he most anxiously asks are known only to a few dis- tressingly discreet men, he can hardly do more than indicate the main features of current politics, which seem, after mature consideration, to have an absolutely unavoidable connection with the execution of this great scheme. Indeed, the his- torian is in that extraordinary position, true of no other epoch in history, of knowing the plans far more certainly than he does their execution. He must in matter of fact be constantly prepared, 116 FIRST STEPS always with due caution, to interpret facts, which he frequently does not understand, by means of the schemes which he definitely knows to be in the minds of statesmen. Nor is there possible in modern history anything like a clear demonstra- tion of the truth of any single proposition by the line and precept familiar to investigators in other fields. In the nature of things, final proof of the truth of any single assertion is impossible, and will continue to be impossible for certainly two gen- erations and perhaps a century. The historian, therefore, is forced to do the best he can, and must be more than chary of attempting to deal with anything except the broadest outlines of the story. Exactly what relation to its broad outline any single series of events may have, is impossible to indicate with accuracy, and the reader must be aware that the historian is not attempting to give him certainties, but is forced to give him state- ments which would be considered, in treating any period of past history, conjectures, but which are, in current history, literally the best we have. The authorship of the great scheme which we call Pan-Germanism is least of all a matter of certainty. There seems to be little doubt that it was the product of German thought and of German interests, but no student of current affairs can believe for a moment that important aspects of it 117 PAN-GERMANISM were not the result of the views and interests of Austria and Italy. Bismarck was the first states- man to see all its possibilities, though we are as yet unable to be certain how much of what is now called Pan-Germanism he is actually responsible for. Von Bieberstein, Von Tirpitz, and above all the present Emperor, are responsible for much, and certainly deserve the credit (or discredit) of bringing the scheme to its present state of per- fection. The date of its origin^ is an even more perplexing question, and could be more definitely settled if we were sure that events of the past generation were all steps in the development or furtherance of the same scheme and not of two or three schemes, out of which the exigencies of times and occasions gradually developed the present Pan-Germanism. The historian, who wishes to be cautious, is inclined to take the latter view. The creation of the fleet was probably, as the Germans claim, not as vital a part of it as we ' Article 4 of the Constitution of 1871 proves that colonies were at least provided for from the first inception of the Empire. The Alldeutsche Verband dates from 1890 and was reorganized in its present form in 1894. For " evidence " suggesting a date for the origin of Pan-Germanism earlier than 1890 see Jackh, Dejdschland im Orient nach dem Balkan Krieg, 10, and Reventlow in the Handbuch of the Alldeutsche Verband, 68. Cecil Battine, in the Fortnightly Re- view, xci. New Series, 1056, 1057, suggests a date between 1893 and 1895. Probably all these conjectures refer to steps taken for the execution of the scheme rather than to its inception in the minds of statesmen. 118 FIRST STEPS might easily suppose. As has already been said, the German looks upon the fleet as the only means of insuring to Germany the continuance of her present position, unfavorable as she con- siders that to be. The fleet is essential, not so much to assist her expansion as to make positive her existence. In all probability there have been three phases of German policy: the first, an at- tempt to secure colonies; the second, an attempt to obtain entrance into the markets of the East by the establishment of a trade route across the Balkans and Turkey, which formed by interna- tional agreement a neutral zone; and thirdly, the determinedly aggressive scheme for the actual forcible conquest of the world. Exactly when the one gave way to the other, exactly which of the many events in recent history belong to one and which to another, is difficult to indicate with anything approaching accuracy. During the decade between 1880 and 1890, an extended effort was made to obtain in various parts of the world suitable colonies for German expansion. The land not already occupied by European nations was inconsiderable in area, unfavorably located, thinly populated, and not possessed of obvious commercial advantages; but such as was available Germany occupied, not because she deemed it adequate provision for her 119 PAN-GERMANISM needs, but because, at the moment, sbe saw no other chances for meeting the exigencies which she knew were certain to arise within a decade. The colonies thus founded on either coast of Africa and in the South Seas speedily proved their unsuitability for colonization by white men, and the improbability of their aflPording before the lapse of a century anything like an adequate market for German manufactures. To be sure, these colonies were in area nearly a million square miles, but their products were not greatly in excess of five dollars value for each square mile, a sum too absurdly inconsequential to be men- tioned. The population of about fourteen mil- lions was too undeveloped and too sparse to make the creation of a state possible. All the desirable land for colonies, as a matter of fact, was already in the hands of other nations, and the Germans realized with bitterness that they had been able to secure what they held, simply because other nations had not considered it of value. It was clear that the execution of any schemes for Ger^ man expansion would involve interference with other nations. The next attempt, probably only one of several, seems to have been a variation of the well-known European method of taking possession of other people's property, called peaceful penetration. 120 FIRST STEPS The nation, proposing to absorb a district and make a colony out of it, loans money to the ruler and to as many of his subjects as possible; obtains as security for the money advanced, if it can, a part of the public revenue; builds railways in exchange for large grants of land, and, in gen- eral, "develops" the country. Then, when the available resources have been pretty completely hypothecated, the nation claims that its interests in the territory are so considerable that it must be conceded a share in the direction of adminis- tration and policy, in order to insure the safety of its investment. A little study of the situation soon convinced the Germans that the French influence in Morocco, the English influence in Egypt, the English and Russian influence in Persia, and the influence of the United States in Central America were due precisely to these methods, and the Germans saw no reason why they should not "peaceably" penetrate some one of the South American nations, by pleading the same highly moral purpose of developing the country for the use and behoof of its inhabitants, who were, of course, to be assumed incapable of developing it themselves. After some hesitation, they seem to have pitched upon Venezuela as the most favorable scene of operations. They succeeded in placing some large loans, in buying 121 PAN-GERMANISM some mines, and in initiating a number of busi- ness enterprises, and, then, in most approved fashion, descended upon the Republic, anchored a warship in its harbor, and made the stereo- typed demand for some share in the control of its administration. Of course, the rest of the world promptly saw the trend of German policy, and, with equal promptitude, realized its objective; the United States, as the nearest country, in- voked against Germany a new variety of the Monroe Doctrine, and informed the disgusted Germans that they would not be permitted to interfere in the government of Venezuela. They certainly could not afford peaceably to penetrate countries unless they were to be allowed to enjoy the profits of the enterprise. Besides, they be- came aware, with rather painful force, of the fact, which they had no doubt always known, that they could obtain access to such a colony in the Gulf of Mexico, while England and the United States controlled the Atlantic Ocean, only by the per- mission of those two nations, both of whom in- dicated with considerable firmness their distinct dislike of Germany's proposed action. The Germans turned their eyes, therefore, to Africa, and in particular toward the great tem- perate district of South Africa as a zone becom- ingly fitted by nature for the use and behoof of 122 FIRST STEPS the white race. The temperate climate, the pre- sence of the great diamond mines, of deposits of gold in all probability huge in size, the certainty of the profitableness of agriculture and cattle- raising, offered enticing prospects for the success- ful development there of a great colony, which would provide a considerable market for German goods and would raise products of its own with which to pay for them. German Southwest Africa would afford a basis from which to act in case they should ever desire to take the offensive, but the existence of the Boer Republic made it probable that it would not be necessary for Ger- many herself to take the field; she could much more easily and profitably act through the hands of the Boers. The strained relations between the latter and the English simplified the problem of producing a casus belli for a war which might easily result in robbing England of a most valu- able colony, which Germany might succeed in annexing. In addition, the project boasted the double advantage of testing the strength of the British Empire, its defensive ability, the loyalty of its subjects, and, whatever the result might be, the information, which the war would certainly afford Germany, would be well worth the money and arms she would have to furnish the Boers to get them to begin it. Supposing that the war 123 PAN-GERMANISM sliould succeed, should reveal, as the Germans believed it would, the disloyalty of the English colonists in South Africa, should make clear to all Europe the weakness of Imperial England, the moral results would be without question stupen- dous. Its success, even if it should result in creat« ing a Boer state too strong for Germany to inter- fere with, would cut the communications between the Cape Colony and the vast estate of Rhodesia, which lay adjacent to German East Africa, as well as to German West Africa, and which could then easily be annexed without danger and with- out cost. To be sure, it would be necessary to train the Boers in modern warfare and to equip them and furnish them with funds, and there was always the danger that England would discover the fact prematurely and take action before the Boers or Germany herself should be ready. How- ever, some risks were inevitable. The Boers took kindly to the idea. The immi- gration of Englishmen into their territory, the rapid expansion of the English colonies to the north and south of them, had shown them clearly that their own expansion was problematical, be- cause the Uitlanders were multiplying by immi- gration at a rate vastly in excess of the natural increase of the Boers and at a rate which made it a certainty that many years would not elapse 124 FIRST STEPS before the Boers would be outnumbered to so great an extent that their real power would dis- appear. From their point of view, the preserva- tion of their autonomy depended upon action before a further increase of strength to the Uit- landers should make action impossible. Every year's delay only reduced their chances of victory. Moreover, they were promised bountiful assist- ance and all the supplies they should need. There is little doubt they fully intended in case of vic- tory to defy Germany as well as England, and, if possible, cheat her of all the advantages she had hoped for. Conscious of the issue, England ex- erted herself to the utmost and inflicted upon the Boers in the end a crushing defeat. Not so much the wealth of her South African domain excited her as the determination to make manifest to Germany and the world the strength of her im- perial bond. Her prestige she realized must be maintained at any cost, not only because of the conclusions which her subject peoples in India and Egypt would draw from a defeat, but because of the conclusions which European nations would draw. She simply could not afford to be defeated; the loss of the war might precipitate a general alliance of all Europe against her. To the amaze- ment of the Germans, England was able to finance the war without too much effort, maintain 125 PAN-GERMANISM an army in the field whose efficiency, even Tinder new and adverse conditions, was astonishing, and which was supplied, equipped, and reinforced from England despite the distance between South- ampton and Cape Town. Every nation in Eu- rope knew that England had performed a feat which it could not perform, and had demonstrated a degree of executive and military efficiency for which no one had given her credit. The still more crushing defeat of Germany and her schemes for weakening the British Empire was accomplished by the formation of the South African Union, in whose federal bond are comprised all the varied peoples of South Africa, and in which the BoeriS have taken their place with singular success. So far as can be seen by foreign observers, so far as can be told from the statements of the inhabitants, the tact of the English administrators has pretty completely settled the grievances of the various elements of the European population, and has gone a long way toward solving the perplexing race issue, caused by the presence of so large a number of the natives. German statesmen, thus thwarted, gave up, so far as can be learned, for good and all their designs upon South Africa, and turned their attention to the much more feasible scheme of constructing an overland route to the Persian 126 FIRST STEPS Gulf. Germany and Austria very well knew that they did not own the territory stretching from their own borders to the Persian Gulf, and that they could not hope to take possession of it in the face of the international determination to pre- serve its neutrality. They counted upon this very neutrality as the basis for their scheme of building . a railway from Constantinople to Baghdad. To relieve the fears of England and Russia, they did not propose to locate its terminus actually upon the Persian Gulf. After some difficulty and nego- tiation, the concession was secured from Turkey and the acquiescence of the international concert was obtained. It is not certain, but it is highly probable, that at this time the real purpose of the railway was not suspected in London or in St. Petersburg. However that may be, the loan for its construction was underwritten in Berlin and the building of the railway was begun in sections. The details of construction are hardly of conse- quence here, and it suffices to say that the last sec- tion of the road is nearing completion. After work was well under way, England and Russia realized its purport and began to consider opera- tions in Persia which should effectively prevent the railway from doing anything more than de- velop Asia Minor. Thwarted thus at every turn, German states- 127 PAN-GERMANISM men' found themselves fairly driven to adopt the comprehensive aggressive scheme which we now call Pan-Germanism. They began its execution at the point of least resistance and by methods so far as possible of a neutral nature. The fleet was already under construction; the railway was rapidly being built; the obvious step to take was the peaceful penetration of Turkey as the neces- sary preliminary for assuring Germany the con- tinuance of the concession. Turkey, as every one knew, was weak, disorganized in every way, and nothing could be more natural than an attempt by the Sultan himself at the proper administra- tion of his own country and the adoption of finan- cial measures which would insure the payment of his debts and his household revenue. The Sultan eagerly accepted the secret tender of German assistance in the accomplishment of such ex- tremely desirable ends, and began, apparently upon his own initiative but really under German direction, the reorganization of the army and navy, the reorganization of the finances of his empire, gradually introducing German oflScers into the important positions in the state. Men were appointed governors of provinces to intro- duce local reforms calculated to diminish the amount of racial warfare, the friction between the soldiery and the populace, and to minimize 128 FIRST STEPS the difficulties arising from the old struggle be- tween the Latin and Greek Churches. Gradually, Germany insinuated herself into the confidence of the Young Turk party, already long in exist- ence, and whose main aim was to cast off the foreign rule which had so long pressed hardly upon the Turk and had drained his country of its resources for the satisfaction of foreign debts for whose making the Turk himself was not re- sponsible. Eventually, by means of the agitation undertaken by the Young Turks, organized by the Committee of Union and Progress at Saloniki, a revolution was accomplished almost without disorder or the shedding of blood, a constitution was adopted, a new Sultan took office, responsible government began, and Turkey was thus freed from the treaty obligations made by the older rSgime, which had given every nation except Ger- many some obvious interest to defend and there- fore some obvious right to interfere. If Germany was to base her scheme of Pan-Germanism upon the control of Turkey, she must certainly control it by means of a government owing its very exist- ence to her. The price of the support of the Turks was to be the autonomy of Turkey in local govern- ment, and protection from the interference of her old "friends." Meanwhile, the Germans diligently investi- 129 PAN-GERMANISM gated the condition of affairs in the Balkans, in Morocco, Persia, Egypt, and India. They found in all a native party of some considerable strength and vigor, which had already had continuous ex- istence for a decade or more, and whose main object was the obtaining of autonomy and the exclusion of the foreigner. Those parties had been nourished upon the democratic literature of the Occidental nations, had been fired with enthu- siasm for self-government by the spectacle of par- liamentary and republican government in Europe and in the United States, and, in fact, had as- sumed that no small share of the prosperity of the Western nations and the greater part of their strength were due to their form of government. The natives saw that it would be profitable and pleasurable for them to govern themselves, or, as a cynic would be more inclined to put it, for them to govern their less progressive country- men. The propaganda of these malcontents al- leged that the power so long in control had been alien in race and religion, had long systematic- ally sacrificed the interests of the people to the assumed exigencies of international politics, and had placed upon the country heavy financial burdens for the production of a revenue which the people themselves were not allowed to spend, and for which few natives considered that the 130 FIRST STEPS people even received an equivalent. In Africa, Asia Minor, and Egypt the majority of the people were Mohammedans, who had long chafed under the control of the Infidel, and who were only too ready to enlist in a movement for a change of government, which would possess the sanction of a religious crusade. The ground, therefore, was ready for the Germans, and the tools to till it were at hand. In the Balkans, a peculiar admixture of races and religions had produced a singularly complex situation, in which the various forces reacted upon each other with continually surprising re- sults. At the same time, so far as the people them- selves were concerned, the two great issues were religious, — the survival of the crusade of the Christian against the Turk, and, on the other hand, of the still older quarrel between the Latin and Greek Churches. From both of these counts, as well as on many national and racial issues, dis- content was rife, and could in all probability be turned to political advantage by Germany and her ally, Austria. Above all was this probable because the most evident enemy, the oldest and the worst hated enemy of all the Balkan peoples, was the Turk, whose rule over them had long furnished them with practically the only senti- ment they had in common, a vigorous hatred of 131 PAN-GERMANISM the Infidel. Now, when Germany should have reorganized Turkey and have gdtten the Sultan, and the administration, to say nothing of the army and navy, well into her hands, what would be simpler than for her to permit the Balkan nations to begin this war under her direction, and thus secure their gratitude by the realization of the ideals cherished for so many centuries? Would it not also be easy to satisfy in the most thoroughgoing manner their oft-repeated de- mands for the freedom from oppression of their co-religionists in Macedonia and Albania? It seemed highly probable to the Balkan nations that -they could not fail to be gainers by an alli- ance of this sort, and, while they hesitated, like the man in the fable, to admit the camel to their tent, they fully realized that the German offers did not present them the alternative of rejection. Should they not see fit amicably to come to an agreement with Austria and Germany, they would not unlikely run the risk of absorption by force at some future time, when they would certainly not receive such favors as the terms suggested. Like the Trojans, they feared the Greeks even when they came bearing gifts ; but, if it was danger- ous to accept the presents, it was more dangerous to decline them. Under any circumstances, they did not see that money, munitions of war, mili- 132 FIRST STEPS tary instruction by German and Austrian oflScers, assistance in the fortification of their own coun- try could be so very undesirable, and it was as clear to them as it was to their new friends that such weapons would be susceptible of more than one use. Indeed, the weapons and instruction were of themselves a guarantee of their new allies' good faith. In Morocco, the Germans found an even more favorable scene of operations. They learned that the Sultan had governed regularly by forming alliances with part of the tribesmen against the rest. By clever diplomacy and the occasional use of money, he had managed to keep them jealous of one another and prevented their uniting against him. His main dependence, nevertheless, was the existence of an army of mercenaries whose size was distinctly limited by his own poverty. The French had come to his rescue and had provided him with a highly trained force of really remark- able soldiers, sufficiently numerous to keep him in the ascendency. The tribesmen looked upon the presence of the French, therefore, with any- thing but favor, for they saw that the latter were rapidly making it possible for the Sultan to defy the tribesmen even if united, an eventuality which certainly meant the coming of an era vastly differ- ent from the age of license and rapine to which 133 PAN-GERMANISM they had so long been accustomed. On general grounds, therefore, they welcomed the advances of the Germans, scenting probably presents of money or arms, and suspecting that the latter might aid them to restore the conditions to what they had been before the French interfered. The rapacity of the Sultan, his anxiety to collect the uttermost farthing due him, the imposition of new taxes from time to time, and, above all, the actual exercise of force for securing obedience gave the tribes only too ample evidence of the ex- cellent basis for their fears. The new French na- tive regiments, moreover, conducted themselves with a license unbecoming soldiers and aroused against themselves the hatred of the people. So considerable was the number of such cases that they formed one of the chief excuses for German interference. Nor did the Germans forget that an army as large and as extraordinary in quality as the French force in Morocco might become a distinct factor in a European war. They would therefore be making no mistake in providing this army with too much work in Morocco to permit its departure. In Persia also the Germans made good head- way. The opposition on national grounds to the encroachments of England and Russia was con- siderable, but lacked a definite aim and capable 134 FIRST STEPS organization, and the revolutionary party lacked the necessary money to finance a revolt. The money, the Germans were more than willing to provide in exchange for a reasonable prospect of success. The English and Russians speedily per- ceived the trend of the German plans, and, as the Baghdad Railway added mile after mile in the mountains of the Caucasus and the sentiment in favor of Persian independence grew more and more outspoken, they realized the necessity of some action. They therefore sent a commission to study the situation, who reported, with grave irony, that the Persians were incapable of self- government, and suggested that England and Russia should interfere to prevent the longer continuance of the existing state of anarchy. In 1907, England and Russia acted in accordance with the commission's recommendations, and two zones of influence were demarcated, one in the north in which Russia should predominate, and the second in the south along the Gulf where England was to be supreme, and a neutral zone between them whose affairs the Persians were to be allowed to direct with such interference as England and Russia combined might see fit to interpose. The Powers could certainly have taken no step which would have done more to strengthen 135 PAN-GERMANISM the German plans. The evident insult to the capacity of the Persians resulted iu a national movement of the capable men in the country, who executed promptly, with German assist- ance, a coup d'Stat in 1909, by which Persia was entirely reorganized, a constitution adopted, a new Shah chosen, and the administration and finances of the country put into the hands of foreigners, whose experience in government and in business was expected to teach the Persians how to conduct their own affairs, and, what was equally important, to put the new government on its feet financially. The most important of these officials was the Treasurer, an American named Shuster, whose energy, ability, and firm belief in the expediency and desirability of Per- sian iudependence, accomplished wonders. To be sure, Germany had not quite looked for the es- tablishment of a firm, well-organized, and really independent national state in Persia; there can be little doubt that she had expected to supplant England and Russia in Persia by means of an ostensible revolution ; still, the creation of a Persian government, really strong enough to ex- clude Russia and England, would be almost as advantageous to her as the exercise of control herself. Progress in sowing the wind in Egypt and India 136 FIRST STEPS was also considerable. In both, to be sure, she found a native movement among the Mohamme- dans favoring Pan-Islam and the exclusion of for- eigners, and which was therefore anxious to put an end to English influence and administration. It seems to be exceedingly doubtful whether Ger- many ever contemplated anything more in Egypt and India than the creation of trouble for Eng- land. Certainly, any promises of actual assistance to the malcontents could hardly have carried weight. The knowledge, which she certainly did impart to the leaders, that forces were at work in Europe tending to undermine the English posi- tion, that there were European states who be- lieved England weak and who sympathized with the peoples she ruled, that before a not too dis- tant day England might be racked by the torment of a great war in Europe, all seemed to the Hindus too good to be true. It certainly meant that Eng- land would be unable to devote all her atten« tion to suppressing revolts in India, and that it behooved them to prepare themselves for the dawning of the day, when they might practically obtain their independence for the asking. This news put vitality into the movement of Pan- Islam. It is not beyond the bounds of prob- ability that German money was an important factor in this vitality, money which she probably 137 PAN-GERMANISM borrowed with characteristic nonchalance in London. By the year 1910, therefore, the work was well under way in all directions for the creation of Pan-Germanism. CHAPTER X THE SIGNIFICANT POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES ONCE the magnitude of Pan-Germanism dawned on the English and French diplo- mats, once they became aware of the lengths to which Germany was willing to go, they realized the necessity of strengthening their position, and therefore made overtures to the United States, The American diplomats were cordial and frank. While they were well aware that no foreign alli- ances were necessary to preserve her political in- dependence, the economic interests of the United States, the interdependence of the business world, the intrusion of European politics into the affairs of other continents, had already convinced states- men in Washington that isolation was a myth, a figment of the imagination, upon which no intelli- gent foreign policy could be based. The United States was beyond doubt a part of the world, was vitally interested in the policies of its greatest nations, was actually affected by political condi- tions in Europe, by the formation of European coalitions, by the victory or defeat of European armies or navies, by the preponderance of one 139 PAN-GERMANISM power rather tlian another. So much was fact which it was idle to deny. The United States must therefore achieve a place in the councils of the nations and exert her influence to prevent re- sults directly or indirectly inimical to her. It was now intimated to her statesmen that it was to her interests to join forces with England and France. The concurrence of American diplo- mats in this opinion resulted, probably before the summer of 1897, in an understanding with Eng- lish and French statesmen as to the probable ac- tion of the United States in certain contingencies. No formal pledges of any kind seem to have been exchanged; treaties or alliances required ratifica- tion by the Senate and were not to be thought of; explicit promises and engagements were futile; no administration could constitutionally bind its successors. The Americans were of the opinion that the fundamental interests of the United States would be much furthered by the continued predominance of England and France and would certainly be threatened by the success of Pan- Germanism. In case of a general European war between the coalitions, her interests, they agreed, would normally be those of England and France, and, if the progress of the war became seriously adverse to the latter, it would be to her interest to offer whatever effective assistance lay in her 140 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES power. Such an alliance, based upon facts and not upon promises, upon probabilities rather than upon treaties, was all the American statesmen could offer, but they made no secret of their con- viction that their successors would observe its terms of their own volition. The position of the United States, which led her statesmen to such conclusions and agreements, is of the greatest in- terest and significance to us as students. The United States occupies a strategic position defensively strong, but offensively weak. She is beyond question invulnerable to the assaults of foreign fleets and armies. To be sure, her sea- coast is vast in extent and for the most part un- protected. It has been truly pointed out that the Japanese might successfully land an army upon the Pacific Coast, or the Germans land an army in New York or Boston practically without oppo- sition. Sed cui bono ? The strategical and geo- graphical conditions of the country on either coast are such that a foreign army would occupy the ground it stood on and no more. The British discovered in the Revolutionary War that the occupation of New York, Boston, and Philadel- phia put them no nearer the military possession of the continent than they were before, and that marching through provinces was not subduing them. However seriously the capture of New 141 PAN-GERMANISM York might cripple our commercial and railway interests, the difficulty, even at its worst, could be easily overcome by shifting the centre of busi- ness for the time being to Chicago, and the pos- session of New York would certainly not permit a foreign army to conquer the country, even if it were possible for any nation to maintain an army so far from its real base of supplies in Europe. The possibility of invasion is made of no conse- quence by the simple fact that no foreign na- tion possesses any inducement for attempting so eminently hazardous an enterprise. The United States possesses literally nothing which any for- eign nation wants that force would be necessary to obtain, while, by making war upon the United States, she would certainly expose herself to anni- hilation at the hands of her enemies in Europe, who have patiently waited for decades in the hope that some one of them would commit so capital a blunder. But this very invulnerability of the United States prevents her from becoming a dominant or even an important factor in Euro- pean politics. If European nations cannot menace her with armed reprisal or with wars for conquest, she is equally incapable of menacing them. The fact, which has been from her own standpoint heretofore an unmixed blessing, which has allowed her people to beat their swords into ploughshares 142 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES and their spears into pruning hooks, becomes her greatest weakness, once she is filled with an ambition to play a part in the affairs of the world. Unpalatable as the fact may be, the interna- tional situation, the close balance of power be- tween the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente rather than the position of the United States has made her a factor in international politics. In- deed, if we would be truly accurate, we must ad- mit that the inter-relation of the various parts of the European situation, more even than its deli- cate balance, makes the United States a factor; for the complexity of the problems of no one group of states, whether in Europe, in the Middle East, or in the Far East, could possibly allow the United States to play a prominent part. In each, the natiu*al antipathies counteract each other. Only the fact that every nation is anxious to maintain or win power or wealth in Europe and Africa and Asia makes the United States of any value to any of them. Indeed, it is only as Euro- pean questions become themselves factors in the larger problems of India, Morocco, and the Medi- terranean that they can concern the United States at all. As soon as European politics became world politics and Asiatic and African problems became European, the United States began to be a factor 143 PAN-GERMANISM in their solution. She has, to be sure, no vital stake in any one of these fields. She cannot, even it she would, risk in war the same stake European nations do, her independence; the Atlantic on the one side, the Pacific on the other, defend her more completely than could fleets and coalitions. Nothing short of the creation of world politics by other nations could make the position of the United States of consequence at all. The most vital fact, however, about the European situation is that no nation possesses the same natural allies in all parts of the world. England and France are one in opposing the extension of German author- ity in Eiu:ope; but nothing short of their extreme danger in the Mediterranean at the time of the Crimean War and the perils to which they have been exposed in Europe since the Franco-Prussian War has buried the enmity resulting from deadly strife in America and, especially, in India. Russia is the firm ally of both England and France in Europe; she is their deadliest foe in the Black Sea, in Persia, India, and China; yet, to oppose Germany, we see Russia and England amicably enough uniting in the Near East. Germany must secure French and English aid to defend herself permanently against Russia on the east, but finds her natural allies against Russia her greatest competitors in trade, and the most determined 144 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES opponents to her expansion in the west. Never- theless, at the very moment that we saw Germany and England ready to spring at each other's throats in Europe, they were guarding the rail- way to Pekin together and acting in concert about the Chinese loans. The variety of the interests of these nations makes it impossible for them permanently or entirely to trust or distrust each other. England, who needs Russia's aid in Europe and the Near East, cannot act too determinedly in opposition to Russian advance in Afghanistan and Manchu- ria. Germany, whose quarrels with Hapsburg and Italian fill the history of the Middle Ages, must have their assistance to protect herself in Europe. In all this the United States has unquestionably no part. Not her strategic position, not her mili- tary strength, but her economic position makes her an aUy particularly indispensable to England and France. Not their economic position but her desire for colonies, her ambition to play a part in the politics of the world, makes an alliance with England and France indispensable to the United States. She can enter world politics only with the consent of European nations. The economic position of the United States in. the modem world is commanding. Her area is so vast and its productivity so great, her natural re- 145 PAN-GERMANISM sources so nearly unlimited and so great in variety, that scarcely a country in the world, one had al- most said no continent in the world, can hope to rival her. While her population is not yet numer- ous enough to make her dangerous, it is none the less amply sufficient to render her in potential military strength one of the greatest of civilized countries. She possesses, in fact, precisely what England and France lack — almost inexhaustible natural resources; arable land almost without limit; food sufficient to feed all Europe; great de- posits of gold, copper, iron, silver, coal; great sup- plies of cotton sufficient for the Lancashire cotton mills; in short, she possesses the very resources needed to make the economic position of England and France fairly impregnable. Allied with her, they could not be starved into submission nor bankrupted by the lack of materials to keep their looms running. In addition, she possesses several of the greatest steel manufactories in the world, which own many patents and secret processes and whose output in extent, variety, and quality can fairly be compared with that of England or Germany. The width of the Atlantic effectively pre- vents any interference by European Powers with the continuance in time of war of her agricultural and industrial activities. Whatever happens in Europe, she can continue to produce the raw ma- 146 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES terials and finished products they need, and, what is more important, she will furnish them in time of war a huge market for the sale of such manu- factured goods as they can continue to make. The United States, furthermore, is the third financial power in the world. Not only is her wealth vast, not only is her surplus capital con- siderable, but the organization of business has, most fortunately from the point of view of inter- national politics, concentrated the control of the available capital for investment in the hands of^ comparatively few men. The trusts, the banks, and the insurance companies have made available for investment huge sums, only less in size than those controlled in London and Paris. England thought it highly important that Germany should not establish relations with any such capital. It would provide her with precisely that financial backing which she needs. At all costs the United States and Germany must be kept apart. England, too, was anxious to turn this capital into her own colonies, and was willing and anxious to invest her capital in the United States, for both would gain from this mutual dependence, and each would furnish the other fields for investment on whose reliability they could both depend. The English were naturally anxious to shift their investments from Germany to some country where they would 147 PAN-GERMANISM not be exposed to destruction by war or to con- fiscation based upon war as an excuse. Fortunately for England and France, tlie United States, whose economic assistance is posi- tively imperative for them, finds their assistance equally imperative. In the first place, the United States depends upon the English merchant ma- rine to carry her huge volume of exports, and, should she not be able to use it, would suffer se- riously, even if the inability to export continued only a few weeks. Again, a market as certain and as large as that of England and France for her raw materials and food is absolutely essential to her, and the outbreak of a war, which might close those markets to her, would precipitate unques- tionably a financial crisis, whose results could not fail to equal in destructiveness the effect upon private individuals of a great war. The United States has come to realize, as have other nations, that there are many ways in which a modern coimtry can be forced to suffer which are as deadly and, in many cases, more deadly than invasion. Furthermore, she needs a market in England and France for her own manufactured goods, and has grown to depend upon receiving from them in return many varieties of manufactured goods. She simply cannot afford to take any chances of losing her markets in those two countries, nor has 148 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES she ceased to hope for special privileges of some sort in the English and French dependencies, which, should worse come to worst, she could doubtless obtain from them as the price of her continued assistance. The defeat of England and France by Germany would precipitate the tempo- rary disruption of the financial and credit structure of the world and would involve for the United States little less suffering than for England and France. The "alliance" was undoubtedly to the ad- vantage of the United States; it was important enough to England to cause her to render it at- tractive. The United States should be allowed to fulfil the ambitions of her statesmen. Ever since the days when Louisiana was first purchased, the men of the Mississippi Valley have dreamed of the extension of the sway of the United States over Central America and the Gulf. Aaron Burr's expedition aimed probably at the creation of an empire out of the Mississippi Valley and Mexico. The Mexican War was certainly fought in tjie expectation that valuable territory in the Gulf might be acquired into which slaves might profit- ably be carried. When the war failfed, a filibuster- ing expedition led by Walker, with connivance of the authorities at Washington, was intended to secure for the United States possession of one or more of the Central American countries. There 149 PAN-GERMANISM was also the scheme, in whose existence the North believed previous to the war, for the conquest of the whole Gulf of Mexico and the creation there of a slaveocracy whose wealth and independence could easily be assured by the production of cotton, sugar, and tobacco. All these schemes met a determined resistance and interference from England and France which invariably proved decisive. Nor could the United States hope to take possession of lands separated from her coast by water, with which she could communicate only by sea, so long as the English fleet controlled the seas and she herself possessed no fleet at all. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty was intended to prevent the acquisition of influence in Central America by the United States without England's consent, and mention was specifically made of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. The inter- ference of Germany in Venezuela, the evident fact that the concentration of the English fleet in the Channel would make it impossible to keep a sizable fleet in the Gulf of Mexico, the absolute necessity from many points of view of preventing the acquisition by Germany of land in South or Central America, removed the objections Eng- land and France had hitherto possessed to the extension of the influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere. 150 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES There was, furthermore, a likelihood that Ger- many would in some way attempt the annexation of the oldest of European colonial empires, held at this time by one of the weakest and most deca- dent of European states. The Spanish colonies in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Philippine Islands possessed not only commercial but strategic im- portance. The wealth of Cuba and Porto Rico was proverbial, the products of the Philippines considerable, and, though not altogether suitable for colonization, they would afford Germany un- deniable opportunity for expansion. Moreover, Cuba in the hands of Germany would rob Jamaica of all naval importance and might actually permit Germany to overrun the whole Gulf. The Philip- pines as a matter of fact controlled one whole side of the China Sea and contained valuable sea- ports, where a naval base could be established, safe from assault by the Chinese or European nations. The islands were thus ideally fitted to become Germany's base of operations in the Far East. To allow such places to fall into her hands might entail consequences whose far-reaching effect no statesman could possibly imagine. Nor was there the slightest guarantee that by an un- provoked assault Germany would not attempt to take possession. At the same time, the general European situation and the position of Spain in 151 PAN-GERMANISM the Mediterranean made it impossible for Eng- land or France to undertake a war with her, with- out setting fire to a train of circumstances whose eventual results might be even more fatal than those they were attempting to prevent. The colo- nial aspirations of the United States, her anxiety to share in the opening of China to European enterprise, her traditional hope of securing con- "trol of Cuba, all pointed to her as the natm-al guardian of the interests of the coalition in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Far East. Whether or not it is true, as some assert, — a view to which certain events lend probability, — that the Span- ish-American War was created in order to permit the United States to take possession of Spain's colonial dominion, certainly such was the result of that war. To be sure, the relations between Spain and the United States were already strained; popular sentiment was aroused by the conditions in Cuba, and, if the war was " created," it was not a difficult task. Certainly, Germany and her allies suspected that such was the purpose of the war, and attempted to secure a general agreement in Europe to interfere in Spain's favor. England, however, whether because she saw its advantage now the war was in existence, or because she had caused it to be begun, decisively vetoed the suggestion of interference, and her control of 152 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES the sea made action without her cooperation im- possible. The results of the war were all that could have been hoped for. The Triple Entente saw the Gulf of Mexico fall into friendly hands and the estab- lishment in the Far East of a friendly power in the strategic point of greatest consequence. From Germany's point of view, the results of the alliance between England, France, and the United States were exceedingly discouraging, and the aftermath of the war proved even more decisive than the war itself. The United States promptly undertook the peaceful penetration of Mexico and Central America. Large loans were made to the govern- ments and secured by a lien on the revenues; American capital rushed thither, and the number of enterprises financed or owned by Americans increased so rapidly that at the present day the United States, or its citizens, owns practically everything of importance in the Gulf, and is wait- ing only for a favorable opportunity to foreclose its mortgages. The possibility of German inter- ference has been reduced to nothing. The United States also proceeded, not improbably by agree- ment, to create a fleet large enough to maintain control of the Gulf of Mexico and, what was of more consequence, to maintain control of the Atlantic highway between Europe and America 153 PAN-GERMANISM in case of European war. The English had come to realize the improbability that enough of their fleet could be spared to patrol the seas in the event of an attack upon their forces in the Channel or in the Mediterranean. Above all, the United States undertook to create in the Philippines a naval base of sufficient size and importance to permit the maintenance there of a fleet large enough to be a factor in the Pacific. England and France obviously could not spare enough ships to maintain a fleet in the Far East; Japan would not tolerate the presence of a Russian fleet in those waters; the United States was the only member of the coalition who could, consistently with her own safety or that of other nations, undertake the creation and maintenance of such a fleet in the Far East. She became, in fact, the offensive arm of the coalition ia the Pacific, and promptly strengthened her position by annexing the islands between her shores and Asia available for settle- ment or coaling-stations. She must not only pre- pare the way for the further extension of the coali- tion's power in the Far East, but she must prevent the acquisition by Germany of colonies, whose location or development would interfere with the control of Eastern commerce by herself and her allies. One more thing the United States undertook, 154 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES wliicli England and France had hitherto denied her permission to do, the digging of the Panama Canal. The canal would furnish the United States with a new waterway to the East, shorter than the route she had hitherto been forced to employ via Suez, and with a route which would literally put New York in actual number of miles nearer China, Australia, and New Zealand than was London. Thus to admit the United States to the trade of the Far East by a waterway exclusively in its control, England had not hitherto considered expedient. The creation of Pan-Germanism, the fear of an attack on the English route through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, the possibility of the closing of that route temporarily or perma- nently by some naval disaster, reconciled England to the creation of the Panama Canal, because she saw in that waterway a new military road which she could use to her own possessions in the Far East, and which the Atlantic Ocean would effect- ually keep out of the hands of Germany. To be sure, it would not be as short a road to India as that through the Mediterranean and Suez; but so far as Australia and New Zealand were concerned it would not be longer; and all such objections inevit- ably were reduced to insignificance by its incom- parable safety, so long as the English fleet could hold the seas at all. So long as the United States 155 PAN-GERMANISM and England combined could maintain control of the Gulf of Mexico and of the islands in the Pacific, so long would this waterway be absolutely safe. If, then, Germany should succeed in executing the whole of her stupendous plan, England and her allies might still be able by means of the Panama Canal to contest with her the possession of the trade of the East. Especially would this be true if the United States should be able to maintain herself in the Philippines. Nor have the English lost sight of the incomparable importance of the Philippines for keeping Germany out of the Cele- bes. If Germany should move upon Holland, the coalition expected to take possession of the Celebes without further ceremony, and would then hold a position controlling the trade routes leading from India to China and Japan and to Europe in gen- eral, which would be as nearly impregnable as anything of the kind ever yet known ia the world. The issues, therefore, with which the United States is actively concerned are vast; the import- ance of her adhesion to the side of England and France cannot be overestimated, and her possible part in the movements of the next two decades is certainly one which ought to satisfy the most am- bitious. She holds in the East already a position second only to that of England, and should the European nations succeed in their plans of final 156 POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES interference in China, the United States, as the of- fensive arm of the coalition, might be called upon for prompt action of the most aggressive sort. At the same time, after all has been said, it must be admitted that the United States is as yet only a potential factor in the international situation. Her army is too small, her militia too ill-equipped for her to be able to dispatch an army to Europe large enough and soon enough to affect the result; her navy is not needed while England controls the sea; as long as her allies are holding their own her neutrality is far more valuable than any direct assistance she could render. Indeed, for them the vital thing is that she should not directly aid Ger- many. If the English fleet should meet serious reverses and be compelled to assemble all its forces in the Channel, the United States fleet would be essential to keep open the Atlantic highway and protect the merchant marine carrying her own trade. Until it becomes necessary to defend the Gulf of Mexico and South America, India, and the Far East, the direct participation of the United States in the war would be an error on her part and of no assistance to England or France. CHAPTER XI FIRST DEFEATS THE failure of their designs in South Africa and in South America turned German eyes to the northern part of the former continent, to the great dominion which the French possessed in Morocco. The strategic value of Morocco was undeniable, for it flanked the whole southern shore of the Mediterranean at the entrance opposite Gibraltar and extended far down the African coast. Together with Algeria and Tunis, it prac- tically gave the French the whole of Africa west of the Libyan Desert, north of the Congo and of the Sahara Desert. Of this vast domain Mo- rocco proper is one of the richest and most valu- able parts. It is larger in area than Germany. Its exports and imports are considerable, each amounting to about fifteen million dollars annu- ally. The climate is temperate, the soil fertile and varied, rich in minerals, and capable of almost indefinite development; the sparse population, amounting only to about five millions of people, most of them too barbarous and indolent either to use their country themselves or to oppose its 158 FIRST DEFEATS use by some one else, would afford Germany an admirable field for colonization and the develop- ment of a market. As has already been said, the Germans had attempted to rouse the natives against the French, and, more especially in the wjuthern part of Morocco, had attained conspicu- ous success. The actual outbreak, however, re- sulting from their influence was crushed with exceeding dispatch by the French, and the Ger- mans began to be aware that the peaceful pene- tration of Morocco with French consent was more than improbable. In the summer of 1911, there- fore, the Germans ventured upon a decisive step, and sent the warship Panther to anchor in the port of Agadir with the clear intention of interfer- ing somehow in the state of affairs in Morocco. The really logical ground which Germany took was that she could not recognize the validity of an agreement, permitting the French and Eng- lish to monopolize Morocco, to which she had not been a party. She demanded, therefore, a new agreement which should recognize her obvious in- terests and to which she should be a party. As a possible equivalent, in case England and France should be unwilling to make such dispositions in Morocco as her interests made desirable, she de- manded the cession to her by France of a district adjoining the small territory she already possessed 159 PAN-GERMANISM at Kamerun. This district was a part of the French Congo, the southernmost part nearest the river, and its value far exceeded its area. In fact, it did in all probability equal in actual value at the moment the whole German colonial empire. In addition, it flanked the Congo, and also was sit- uated adjacent to the little strip of territory along the river by which Belgium obtained access to her great domain in the Congo valley. The strategic value of the spot was as undeniable as its commercial importance. Perhaps Germany might succeed in cutting off the Belgians from the sea and compel them either to pay tolls or cede a portion of their estate in order to regain access to it. The movement upon Morocco had a secret pur- pose quite as important as any other of its varied aspects. The Germans had long known of the existence of a secret understanding between Eng- land and France, but they had not been able to discover its exact terms, and it was of the utmost consequence for them to know whether or not the arrangement was solely defensive and applied to aggressive movements against either country in Europe, whether the agreement promised either country the other's assistance in case either should take the offensive, or whether it extended as an offensive and defensive alliance to the protec- 160 FIRST DEFEATS tion of both French and English interests in every part of the world. To discover, therefore, its pre- cise limitations, the Germans proposed to raise an issue with France, whom they did not fear, which would promptly bring to the fore the ques- tion whether England should aid France in ob- taining a decision favorable to her upon an issue in which England had no direct interest. Whatever happened, the Germans could scarcely fail to obtain some valuable indications of the strength and extent of the Anglo-French Entente, and might even succeed in compelling one or the other of them publicly to acknowledge its existence and perhaps its terms. There was, therefore, much that Germany might gain from this aggressive movement at Agadir, and she did not seem to be greatly in danger of losing anything. The event was eminently successful in drawing from England and France an acknowledgment of their hitherto secret understanding and an explicit statement of its extent. The English evidently considered that it amply covered the present case, which made clear to the Germans that the ar- rangement was by no means purely defensive, and that it certainly did not confine itself to encroach- ments upon the contracting countries in northern Europe, — information of the utmost importance. Supported thus by England and by the enthusi- 161 PAN-GERMANISM asm of the French people, the French Ministry forced the issue upon Germany and practically presented to the latter the alternative of receding from her demands or of undertaking war. In Germany the popular feeling in favor of war ran high, and even the best and coolest advisers of the Emperor seem to have counseled the xmdertak- ing of at least a demonstration in force upon the French frontier, more, perhaps, with the notion of discovering the possible rapidity with which the French army could be mobilized than with any intention of fighting. Whether the Imperial ad- visers merely intended to prepare for all event- ualities or were willing to yield to popular" and military pressure and declare war, the Government certainly attempted to procure in Berlin the ready money necessary to finance the mobilization of the army. There then became evident the fact which probably astonished the Germans as much as it did every one else in the world outside of the few men in London and Paris who were responsible for it. It seems that German business was being transacted upon capital borrowed abroad, and that the German merchants had so extended their borrowing operations that more than ninety per cent of the current business transactions depended upon call loans or time loans secured in London and Paris. The moment the international situa- 162 FIRST DEFEATS tion became tense, a concerted movement was undertaken by the few men who controlled finan- cial movements in those capitals for the recall of these loans. The result was as astonishing and as disastrous as it was intended to be. The ready cash in Germany was promptly moved out of tbe country, and many merchants found them- selves compelled to sell securities to meet their pressing obligations. Not only, therefore, was the German nation for the moment seriously strained for gold, but the sale of securities was so consid- erable as to assume the proportions of a financial panic. The banks in Germany were on the verge of being compelled to suspend specie payments and were many of tbem almost bankrupt. There was no money to be had in Germany with which to begin the war. The Government, with unheard- of effrontery, appealed for loans to the great French and English banking houses, depending obviously upon the bankers' greed being stronger than their patriotism. The financial kings promptly informed the Emperor that they would be only too glad to furnish him such sums as he might require in exchange for proper securities and an engagement in his own handwriting not to use the loan for military purposes. The latter condition being obviously out of the question, the Emperor appealed to the American financiers and 163 PAN-GERMANISM received from them a reply substantially the same. Thus unexpectedly was revealed the real financial strength of England and France and the value of the alliance with the United States. Germany had been defeated, for her enemies had it in their power to prevent her even from taking the field. Surely no defeat could have been more crushing or more humiliating. The Germans made the best possible out of a bad business. They secured after long negotiations the addition of some territory to Kamerun, but they were compelled to agree to the French con- trol of Morocco, to recognize, moreover, a control far more considerable and exclusive than before and which placed in the hands of France much more authority in administration. Subsequently, France came to terms with Spain, who had shown a good deal of uneasiness in regard to the changed conditions in Morocco, and whose Premier had officially made statements, regarding the deter- mination of Spain to protect her interests in Africa, which were little short of defiance. That Spain was animated in this by direct suggestions from Berlin seemed eminently probable, and, even if it were not so, and she was acting purely upon her own initiative and in her own interests, it was not expedient to allow her to continue dis- satisfied at this juncture. France and England, 164 FIRST DEFEATS therefore, took pains thoroughly to pacify the Spaniard. The victory in Morocco, the clear evidence that Germany's financial situation made war impos- sible for the moment, suggested to the Triple Entente the expediency of action in Persia, where matters were progressing in a direction favorable to Germany's designs, whether or not they were the result of her suggestion. The strategic posi- tion of Persia is of great significance. Her terri- tory marches with the boundaries of Asia Minor and flanks the Baghdad Railway and the rich district of the Tigris and Euphrates upon which England has long had designs. It controls the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, the coast road to India, the most important harbors, and, from a military point of view, is absolutely essential to the safety of the English in India. On the other hand, the roads to the Black and Caspian Seas from India, the Persian Gulf, and southwestern Asia all pass through Persia, whose condition becomes therefore a matter of the utmost conse- quence to Russia. The railway has not yet pene- trated this section of the world, and the old cara- van routes are still of great commercial value. It is obvious that Persia is of vital importance to England and to Russia, neither of whom is will- ing to allow the other exclusive possession, and 165 PAN-GERMANISM neither of whom can permit that territory to fall into the hands of people unwilling to recognize their interests. While less dangerous than pos- session by Germany, the creation in Persia of an independent state, with an efficient centralized government maintained by Persians in the inter- ests of Persia, proclaiming as its chief raison d'etre the exclusion of foreigners and the emanci- pation of Persia at the earliest possible moment from the financial shackles binding her to Eng- land and Russia, would be, from every point of view, quite as objectionable to the latter nations^ as any contingency they could imagine. The Shah had been continued upon the throne, the new constitution accepted by them because they had not expected the new government to be very different from the old; but the ability of Mr. Shuster, the Treasurer, the integrity and energy of his assistants, their evident intention to admin- ister the state solely in the interests of Persia, and, above all, the enthusiastic response from the Persians, proved both to the English and the Russians that a state was in process of formation whose strength was growing daily and whose determination to accede to no more demands from them grew firmer month by month. Such a Persia might effectively stand in the way of their important interests. Moreover, neither of theia 166 FIRST DEFEATS considered the alternative for Persia to lie between her practical ownership by some European nation and her actual independence. The English feared, probably with good reason, that their recognition of the new state, followed by the withdrawal of their representatives, publicly or secretly, would be simply the signal for the absorption of Persia and the complete destruction of the new govern- ment by Russia or by Germany. The same appre- hensions were felt at St. Petersburg. Both Russia and England, therefore, agreed that, from the point of view of Persia herself, it would be better in the long run for them to retain possession than to permit the longer continuance of a state of affairs, which might, in a few years, make Persia the battle-ground of the two coalitions, with results to the Persians which could easily be imagined. Naturally, they did not expect the Persians to accept this view of the situation, and realized that the use of force would be indispensable. A casus belli was easily found and could have been as easily created. Every step taken by the new Persian government was a tacit, if not an open, nullification of the treaty relations in exist- ence between Persia and the two countries. Mr. Shuster and his administrators, and, in the main, the more efficient and able of the Persians, were ejected from office, and the old, inefficient, cor- 167 PAN-GERMANISM rupt administration was restored, in fact if not in name. The result upon politics in the Near East was a defeat for Germany. As in the case of Morocco, her interference resulted only in strengthening the hold her enemies already pos- sessed. Certainly, for the moment at any rate, the Baghdad Railway was outflanked and the possible extension of the German commercial route to the rich markets of the East was ren- dered for the time being highly improbable. Until some considerable change takes place, the commercial value of the Baghdad Railway will be confined to the possibility of developing the district of Asia Minor which it traverses. The danger of ferment in Egypt among the native population and the military weakness of the English in that country did not escape the Ministry in London. Accordingly they sent to Egypt England's ablest soldier. Lord Kitchener. His mission was to improve the military disposi- tions of the force already available and the prepa- ration of adequate plans for efficient defense. For the nonce, however, his important work was con- fined to the counteracting of the effects produced in the natives' minds by the German agents. To the educated and the officials, he was to make clear the undoubted fact that for them the alter- native was, not the continuance of the present 168 FIRST DEFEATS nominal relations between them and England, which left in their own hands a very extensive authority in local affairs, or their complete inde- pendence from interference by any one, but between the continuance of the status quo and their annexation by some member of the Triple Alliance, who would be forced by the exigencies of military occupation, or by the necessities of the defense, to impose upon Egypt a good deal severer rSgime than the English ever intended to create. For them to continue schemes for the ex- pulsion of the English would simply mean that they were exposing themselves to the tender mercies of the Triple Alliance. The strategic position of Egypt, the extraordinary fertility of the Nile Valley and its great exports of cotton and grain, the existence of the Suez Canal, all made it impossible for Egypt to be governed solely in the interest of the Egyptians. The rest of the world was too intimately affected by conditions in Egypt to permit the Egj^tians to disregard their claims. That such circumstances as these would mean nothing to the bulk of the population was only too apparent. Lord Kitchener, there- fore, inaugurated a series of enlightened judicial and agricultural reforms, intended to relieve the pressure of the Government upon the people themselves, and thus in an exceedingly practi- 169 PAN-GERMANISM cal manner remove the only possible grievances which would appear vital to the great bulk of the population. According to apparently trustworthy reports, he did succeed to a remarkable degree in rousing the enthusiasm of the fellaheen for English rule. He certainly endeared himself to the population, and secured over them a personal influence which may conceivably be a factor of importance at no distant date in the destinies of empire. Another great diplomatic victory seems to have been won by the English in India. The approach- ing coronation of George V as Emperor of India made possible the assemblage at Delhi of all the potentates of India and allied states. Their con- junction at one moment might conceivably result in the completion of plans for concerted revolt against the English, if any such were on foot, whether due to German, Russian, or native influ- ence, but their presence might also be utilized for the execution of a diplomatic coup of the very first consequence. It would depend, however, for its success upon the presence of the King. No English sovereign had ever set foot in India, and it was considered that the King would certainly expose himseK to assassination by undertaking to be crowned in person at the approaching Durbar at Christmas, 1911. At the same time, unless the 170 FIRST DEFEATS information regarding the state of affairs in India was entirely wrong, the danger of an attack would be confined solely to his being shot or destroyed by a bomb from the crowd during some public ceremony. The stake for which to play was un- doubtedly great, but the Ministers were not in favor of the King's assuming the necessary risks. George, however, displayed a wholly admirable courage and an unexpected firmness of decision by insisting upon undertaking the difficult task. His presence in India, his coronation and safe re- turn would be the most dramatic and conclusive possible refutation of the tales so rife in Europe about the disloyalty of the Hindus and the pre- carious condition of England in India. The es^ent more than justified the expectations. The King rode through the streets as he might have ridden through London; he sat alone with the Queen upon a great throne, fully exposed to thousands of people; he sat again alone with the Queen, with no guards in sight, upon a parapet near the road down which passed a great stream of Hindus of all conditions. The opportunities for his assas- sination were many. More than once the rumor spread that he had been killed. The tension dur- ing his stay was certainly extreme. But nothing happened. The moral effect of the Durbar in India and in Europe was great. 171 PAN-GERMANISM The real purpose, however, of the King's pre- sence in India was far otherwise than the mere demonstration that he could be there for some weeks without being shot. He undertook the extremely diflScult task of explaining by word of mouth to the Indian potentates the intricacies of the international situation and their practical relation to India. Comiag from him by word of mouth such representations could not fail to have weight. They would certainly have never been believed had the rulers learned them from any subordinate, however exalted in station. Besides, there can be little question that the King con- fided to them many things which it is not con- sidered wise that most men should know. Un- doubtedly, he explained to them the fact that the alternative for the Hindus, as it is for the Egyp- tians and the Persians, is not actual independ- ence from English rule, but a choice between the rule of England, Russia, or Germany. He can have had no great difficulty in demonstrating the honesty and excellence of English adminis- tration, and the great moderation of the English Government in never spending outside India a penny of the money collected in India; that the only benefit England has ever received directly has been the legitimate profits of trade; that Russia or Germany would offer more favorable 172 FIRST DEFEATS terms is not likely; that the English were more than ready to meet the reasonable demands of the Hindus halfway; and that the English would consider reasonable anything which did not in- volve the loss of their trading monopoly or the weakening of the defensive strength of India against Russia and Germany. Naturally, these are piu-ely conjectures of what the King must have said. The results are also purely conjec- tural, but certainly any statement at all of the realities of the situation cannot fail to have been convincing. It is hard for an impartial observer ta see any possible advantage to the Hindu of an exchange of rulers. The year 1911, therefore, was one of pretty conspicuous success in all directions for England and Prance. Everywhere they seemed to have successfully met Germany, and everywhere to have disproved her prophecy that their colonial empires would fall to pieces of their own weight. However real the weakness might be, however possible the success of Germany's schemes, the weakness certainly was not apparent, and the probability of Germany's success did not seem immediate. CHAPTER XII VICTORY TROM DEFEAT: THE TRIPOLITAN WAR THE English and the French were by no means satisfied with the character of the measures which they had undertaken for thwarting the schemes of the Triple Alliance.^ Indeed, they had merely succeeded in holding their own, had in no sense placed any barrier in the way of the execu- tion of Pan-Germanism, nor could they do so by such measures as they had previously espoused. Something structural was necessary, basic, fun- damental in character, going to the root of the German scheme, which they very well realized was not in the least touched by their successes in Persia and Morocco. It was clear that Italy was for many reasons the least ardent member of the Triple Alliance and had the least to gain from the success of Pan-Germanism. Her hatred of Austria was still vigorous, and the necessary possession by Austria of the Balkans, her inevitable growth in naval power, the obvious advantage to the coalition of her securing control of the Adriatic * Individual sentences in chapters xn and xin and the conclud- ing paragraphs of chapter xin have been taken from the author's article in the Forum for December, 1912. 174 THE TRIPOLITAN WAR and the iEgean, could not fail to rouse in the minds of the Italians certain eminently natural apprehensions. To strengthen Austria along the lUyrian coast meant to increase her strength in that very quarter least acceptable to Italy, ^ for Trieste could not fail to become a rival of Ven- ice, and the increase of Austrian power in the Adriatic would necessarily interfere with Italy's ambitions to control the whole commerce of that sea. Nor was control of the Adriatic less essen- tial to her as an outlet for the commerce of the Po Valley than it was for Austria. To say that Italy could ship her goods to the western seaports along the Mediterranean, could easily be met by saying that Austria could also ship her goods by rail wherever she wished. Moreover, Italy had been steadily penetrating the eastern shores of the Adriatic by the familiar peaceful methods of loans and investments, and had already large interests in Albania, Scutari, and Epirus, whose proximity to Italy made her interest in them natural. Nor could the fact that the present Queen of Italy is a Montenegrin princess fail to rouse concern at Rome for the future of that • "Our Eastern frontiers, I said [Crispi speaking to Bismarck], aie extremely exposed, and should Austria's position on the Adriatic be strengthened, we should be held as in a vice, and our safety would be threatened." Dispatch from Crispi to the King of Italy, 1877. Htmmra qf Franeetco Crispi, n, 64. London, 1912. 175 PAN-GERMANISM country. There were, therefore, vital reasons for supposing that Italy was not bound to the Triple Alliance by chains of interest much stronger than those which made her position in it peculiar. The complete success of the scheme would not be likely to be thoroughly agreeable to the Italians because of the amount of strength it would neces- sarily give to their traditional foe. In addition, the existing dynasty was bound by strong ties of gratitude to France and England, without whose assistance the present kingdom of Italy could hardly have been created. Italy's interests would normally point in the same direction where her natural sympathies might be assumed to lie. Her ambitions were well known to England and France. As in Germany and Austria, the uni- fication of the country, the development of its resources, the benefits of centralized government, had resulted in an increase in the population and in production, which required colonies or markets to permit the continuance of national growth at its present rate. Like Germany, too, Italy found herself a debtor country, with heavy interest charges to meet, with the economic conditions unfavorable, and, consequently, with a national budget constantly in arrears. In one way and an- other, she had acquired along the Red Sea ter- ritories, large in area, limited in resources, with 176 THE TRIPOLITAN WAR a tiny nomadic population, and a climate and soil unsuited for colonization. These colonies had already cost her money out of all comparison to their value. She had long had designs upon the great district lying between the French domain in Tunis and the English boundary in Egypt, a vast area some four hundred thousand square miles in extent, sparsely populated, and in nearly every way admirably adapted to her needs. Unquestionably, the land was exceedingly fertile, for it had been perhaps the richest province of ancient Rome, and from its revenues innumerable governors had grown rich. The fact that the pop- ulation was scanty and the products small made it especially desirable as a field for development by Italian capital and labor. Indeed, the statesmen anticipated that the revenue from the customs, plus the indirect results of its trade with Italy herself, would not improbably suflSce to produce a credit balance in the national exchequer. Long before the actual unification of Italy, the House of Savoy had made known to England and France its desires to annex this province, and had received from them at various times more or less vague promises to re- spect her claims to it or to f lurther her designs upon it. It had, however, never been able to secure any more tangible evidences of their willingness to give it possession than vague oral diplomatic promises. 177 PAN-GERMANISM England and France, after studying carefully the situation in the Mediterranean, concluded from the fact of Italy's continued alliance with Germany and Austria and the certainty that Austria would claim, as her share of the plunder, the Balkans and the eastern coast of the Adriatic, that Italy's part could be nothing less, and was not improbably nothing more, than Tripoli. In any case, whatever she was promised, she would be compelled to wait for until the success of a scheme whose execution was barely begun and which might not succeed at all. They, therefore, approached Italy, offered to insure her possession of Tripoli at once without fighting, without ex- pense, and without delay; if she should put for- ward some technical casus belli and should make a vigorous show of force in Tripoli, she could then be accorded possession by a treaty with the Turk, whose terms the three conspirators would arrange to their mutual satisfaction. Incidentally they would test the efficiency of the new Turkish army. She would, of course, in return desert the Triple Alliance, and form an alliance with them, whose strength would secure them all possession of every- thing they desired in the Mediterranean for some decades. The Italian navy added to the French navy would so far preponderate over the Aus- trian and Turkish fleets that the English Medi- 178 THE TRIPOLITAN WAR terranean squadron could be practically with- drawn. Thus, without at all endangering the security of its control of the Mediterranean, the new alliance could make so immediate and consid- erable an increase of strength to its naval forces in the English Channel as to outnumber the Ger- man fleet for a good many years to come. Italy's position flanking the Adriatic would make Aus- tria's control of that sea improbable; the strength of the new alliance would make exceedingly diflS- cult any further accessions of territory by Austria in the Balkans; and thus Italy would be secure. By rendering impossible the effective use of the ^gean by Austria, the possibility of an attack by the latter's fleet from the rear of Malta upon the English lines of communication with Egypt and India, and upon the Italian lines of communica- tion with her new possession, would be eliminated ;, Sicily and Sardinia would strengthen the lines of advance already centering at Malta and would make the position of the allies in the western Med- iterranean literally impregnable. With Tripoli in Italy's hands, even the success of Germany and Austria in creating their proposed confederation, stretching from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf, would not be serious. Of course, while the Turk retained even nominal control of Tripoli, the fact that he was only too obviously falling deeper and 179 PAN-GERMANISM deeper into the clutches of Germany and Austria would make the occupation of Tripoli by a strong Turkish army, directed by Germany, an emi- nent possibility. Germany by such means might place a military force in a place very dangerous to Egypt and Timis. Once Italy was fairly in possession, Germany could occupy Tripoli only by force, and Italy's active participation in the struggle would be assured. Tripoli would bind Italy to the Anglo-French alliance by the solid chains of self-interest. The splendor of the scheme was too striking not to impress the Italians; the Triple Alliance was broken; Italy advanced upon Tripoli to the consternation of Germany and Austria, who feared for a time that all was lost. Stimulated by the messages from Berlin and Vienna, aroused as well by the new national spirit in Turkey, the Government at Constantinople vigorously de- clared that it would fight to the last gasp before it would consent to the dismembering of the national domain. The obstinacy of the Young Turks them- selves, the assurances of support from Germany and Austria, made it impossible for England and France to give Italy possession of the new colony by the simple method of diplomatic and financial pressure. The Turk, indeed, publicly called upon them to redeem the pledges of support in the 180 THE TRIPOLITAN WAR existing treaties and forced them officially to record their support of Italy. To every one's astonishment, it became clear that England and France were in no position to assist Italy openly. The hostility of the native races in Tripoli to the proposed arrangement was only too promptly shown; the flames of Moslem indignation ran high throughout North Africa, and for some weeks it seemed not improbable that a holy war against the Infidel might break out. Keen observers believed that a more open support of Italy by England or France would be the signal for the Jehad. Even to gain vastly more than either nation could pos- sibly lose by the delay of Italy's complete pos- session of Tripoli, such a contingency was not to be risked. In India, too, the Mohammedans, already excited by what they considered English treachery in crushing the new Mohammedan state in Persia, began actively to express their hostility and indignation at her treatment of the Sultan, the head of the Mohammedan religion. At all costs, England felt she must avoid giving further cause for offense. Italy, therefore, found herself committed to a war, which military critics agreed would be expensive, even if not prolonged, and whose result was by no means a foregone conclusion. The prospect was anything but allur- ing to a Ministry already tired of struggling with 181 PAN-GERMANISM an annual deficit, and was particularly bitter be- cause of the former expectation that possession of the new province would in one way or another lighten the financial burdens of the mother coun- try. Actual conquest by the sword would certainly so embitter the natives as to make the govern- ment of Tripoli expensive and difficult for years to come. The Italians, in short, had been placed by their friends in a very real dilemma, from which their friends were unable to extricate them and from which, indeed, it was doubtful whether the Italians could successfully extricate themselves without paying a price greater than they were able to afford. Under such circumstances, with such calami- ties expected and such hopes unfulfilled, the Ital- ians received from the Wilhelmstrasse whispered communications of cheering import. If Italy would return to the Triple Alliance, pointed out the Germans, her old friends would be able to secure for her without cost or diffictilty the pos- session of Tripoli, and in time a great deal more. Indeed, said the Germans, the present dilemma in which Italy found herself proved conclusively the truth of the German assertions regarding the weakness of England and France. It proved no less astounding a proposition than that the Eng- lish control of the Mediterranean was a sham. THE TRIPOLITAN WAR Italy, in fact, if she would return to the Triple Alliance, might practically reverse the situation in the Mediterranean and bring Tripoli with her for nothing; the strategic positions on which England and France had based their defense of the Medi- terranean would be vastly weakened, if not de- stroyed; the naval force, which they had believed virtually preponderant, would be reduced to a bare equality which would make offensive move- ments impossible and render the success of defen- sive movements problematical; not a lira need be spent, not a life sacrificed to make the conquest of the Mediterranean an eminently feasible opera- tion and to strike a more deadly blow at English naval supremacy than it had suffered since the Seven Years' War. Such substantial and probable achievements would have been themselves con- sidered the worthy fruits of a hard-fought and costly war, and here they could actually be had for nothing ! The English had already changed their naval arrangements in the Mediterranean, counting upon the presence of the Italians to neutralize the Austrian navy for the time being, and the French had not yet executed their part of the agreement by concentrating their fleet in the Mediterranean. For the moment, the Italian and Austrian fleets, while not strong enough to take 183 PAN-GERMANISM the offensive, would be amply strong enough to prevent any offensive movement by the English or French fleets. Nothing, therefore, could be done to interfere with Italy's execution of the manoeuvre. Once Tripoli was in Italy's hands, the Triple Alliance would be in a vastly more favorable position than it had occupied before the issue arose. They did not possess, to be sure, more power in the Adriatic than before, but they had secured what was infinitely more essential, a naval and military base from which to use it. The difficulty of using the Adriatic as a base had been that its exit could be without great diflSculty controlled by an English fleet at Malta. From the ports on the Tripolitan coast, on the other hand, a flank attack could be directed upon the English communications with Suez which it would be extremely difficult to meet from Malta. Under cover of the war, which Italy had come to regard as so unfortunate, the new position, already com- manding, could be greatly strengthened. Inas- much as England and France had lent public countenance to the prosecution of the war and had formally declined to assist the Turk, neither would be able to interfere with the seizure by Italy of every island and strategic point in the eastern Mediterranean which acknowledged nom- inal sovereignty to the Sultan; thus the coveted 184 THE TRIPOLITAN WAR Rhodes, tlie islands of the ^gean, controlling the channels to Constantinople, could all be occupied under cover of this very war, and the strategic control of the eastern Mediterranean thus secured without danger and without cost, which, under other circumstances, could not even have been attempted without precipitating a general Euro- pean war. In Tripoli, under cover of the war with the Turk, the allies could fortify the coast, create naval stations, build railways into the interior and along the frontiers, and thus equip a base of military operations in Africa from which they could threaten Suez and Tunis at the same time and with the same army. The execution of the schemes for the conquest of the Mediterranean itself had never been intended to precede the occupation of the Balkans and Turkey by the allies, but the chance was not one to be lost. The magnitude of the opportunity, the extraor- dinary prominence which it gave the Italians at the moment, was appreciated at Rome, and the Italian Government acted with promptitude. The results surpassed the most sanguine expecta- tions. The Italian navy bombarded a few ports, sank a number of Turkish vessels, purely to main- tain the fiction of war, and then seized island after island in the ^gean, announcing to the inhabitants that the occupation was no mere mili- 185 PAN-GERMANISM tary measure but would be permanent. So con- fident of success were the Italians. The existence of the new naval base in Tripoli, the possession of the strategic points of the eastern Mediterranean by a member of the Triple Alliance, snatched from England the entire control of the eastern Mediterranean and threw her back upon Malta, whose position was instantly changed from that of the central position of England's defensive chain to that of an outpost. Italy's change of front of course promptly suspended active hos- tilities between herself and Turkey, though the Turk obstinately refused to remove the new Turk- ish army from Tripoli. After all, from the point of view of the Alliance, this was not altogether regrettable, for it gave a tinge of reality to the military dispositions Italy proceeded to make with promptitude on the coast and along the caravan lines leading into Eg3T)t. CHAPTER XIII THE AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR MEANWHILE, the Triple Alliance, thus reunited, proceeded with the complement- ary details of the scheme. The German, Aus- trian, and Italian naval programmes were at once enlarged, the proposed German fleet was made nearly equal in number to the proposed English Channel squadron and the Austro-Italian fleet was already the equal of the entire French battle fleet; an increased activity of building, therefore, was expected to give the allies in a couple of years something like equality, if not actual superiority, both in the Mediterranean and in the German Ocean. Indeed, the situation had been so changed as to make it difficult for England and France to meet the crisis merely by a rearrangement of the existing forces. The chief reason for their desire to detach Italy from the Triple Alliance was inter- preted in Berlin to be their realization that they had practically reached the limit of their resources and could no longer continue to build at the same rate as before. To strengthen the Mediterranean fleet by an alliance with Italy would have enabled 187 PAN-GERMANISM them to increase the Channel squadron without additional expense. The coup d'Stai in the Medi- terranean changed the whole naval situation by strengthening the position of the Triple Alliance in that sea, and rendered inadequate the previous dispositions of England and France. A large fleet, more naval stations, and very different equip- ment of certain stations would be necessary sat- isfactorily to meet the crisis. To strengthen the fleet in the Mediterranean meant the weaken- ing of the English fleet in the Atlantic and the considerable reduction of the number of vessels which Germany must build to change England's old predominance into something like equality. This, then, was the moment for which the allies had been waiting. There was now a fair chance of their creating within a reasonable time enough ships to compass that equality of armament which England had always declared would be so fatal to her welfare. The military dispositions of the allies, the facilities for prompt mobilization, the railway facilities along the Belgian and French and Russian frontiers, were all considered with a view to their adequacy for actual war. The work on the Baghdad Railway was pushed with the utmost energy; theUttle band of able men, whom Germany had so long kept in Constantinople, busied in reconstructing Turkey, were recalled to 188 AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR Europe. The German Emperor began, with his usual energy, a round of visits to all the sovereigns of whom anything was expected or from whom anything was feared. To them all he explained, no doubt, the great advantage just secured and made, by word of mouth, promises, assurances, and explanations, which could not have been entrusted to subordinates. Unquestionably, the energy of Wilhelm II, his persuasive powers, and his faith in this gigantic scheme have been of vital importance in securing the cooperation of Germany's present allies and in bringing their plans to their present state of completion. The English and French, astonished and alarmed at the unexpected turn of affairs, strained every nerve to meet it by preparations which should be more than adequate for any emergency. They both felt, however, that to avow publicly the ex- tent of the danger would produce an unfavorable effect on English and French public opinion, either by sapping popular confidence in the national strength, or, more probably, by causing a demand for instant war which it would be diflBcult to re- sist. In some way, without declaring immediate a danger which might after all be merely contingent, the people must be made to realize that a crisis was at hand of so serious a nature that it could be adequately met only by the immediate adop- 189 PAN-GERMANISM tion of the most extensive naval and military pre- parations either nation had yet undertaken. So extensive were the plans, so long was the time which would be required for their completion, so great would be the financial burden imposed upon the people that the average individual, in nations which had systematically encouraged him to have opinions upon matters of national import, was more than likely to deem such plans justifiable only to avert an impending crisis, in which the very national existence would be at stake, and to demand at once financial sacrifices which he was likely to approve only when the danger was ex- ceedingly tangible. The exact condition, there- fore, which the English and French Governments found it most difficult to meet, was the fact that the time and expense for what they believed to be the necessary preparations were in themselves proof to the average man that the emergency was contingent rather than immediate. They were hampered, as the Germans had always claimed they would be under such circumstances, by the difficulty of convincing the ordinary individual of the expediency of spending as much money in order to postpone or avert a war as would seem to him necessary to prosecute it. To tell the public that the war was already going on, that it was be- ing fought with every variety of weapon, except 190 AFTERMATH [OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR armies and navies, that England was really in danger, and at the same time to prove to him that the English navy largely outnumbered the navies of the Triple Alliance, was simply to demonstrate the expediency of fighting then, before the pre- parations of the Triple Alliance already an- nounced destroyed England's superiority. In England, too, the position of parties in the House of Commons actually hampered the Gov- ernment in its preparations to meet the crisis, as the Germans had always claimed it would. The Liberals, who were nominally in power, were absolutely dependent upon the support of the Irish Nationalists and of the Laborites. The for- mer group were exceedingly anxious to secure the final passage into law, without substantial amend- ment, of the Home Rule Bill just passed by the House of Commons. The most important clause of that bill provided for the payment out of the Imperial Treasury to the new Irish Government of a subsidy annually sufficient in amount to pay for the construction of one or more battleships. The Irish Budget had so long shown an annual deficit, and it had so long been evident that the Irish people were paying more taxes than they could really afford, that the advocates of Home Rule knew perfectly well that, without substan- tial assistance from England, Home Rule was 191 PAN-GERMANISM impossible. The Irish people were incapable of paying their own bills. But to secure such a sub- sidy at the moment of moments when English naval 'Supremacy was more nearly in danger than at any time in the last two centuries, when that amount of money annually expended might suffice to maintaia England's supremacy, was, as they well knew, exceedingly questionable. The pres- sure of this very situation, however, the absolute necessity which English statesmen felt for direct- ing the affairs of the Empire in accordance with their own conception of its needs and without interference from the Irish Nationalists, convinced the latter that they had the best chance they had ever had to extort Home Rule from England. They pointed out to the disconsolate Ministry the fact that they could hamper England's utili- zation of the resources she then possessed to an extent which might be fatal, and that the Minis- try which was in power could remain in power only so long as they were willing, and, concomi- tantly, that the Ministry which would replace it could remain in power only on the same terms. The very fact that the alternative lay between using what England had and the increase of its force was to them the most important weapon in their arsenal. England must in self-defense come to terms with them. The Labor members were 192 AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR opposed to war on any terms. They have not scrupled publicly to declare that they owned nothing in England which the conquest of Eng- land by Germany could possibly take away from them, neither land, nor houses, nor wealth. They have the clothes on their backs; they are promised, so long as they work, enough food to keep them alive. This, they declare scornfully, is the sum total of their interest in the maintenance of the British Empire. Could the Germans offer them less.? Whether because the Irish and the Labor- ites did not believe the danger great, or because they were determined to achieve their own ob- jects, whatever the cost to England, was not clear; but the fact is certain that they effectively pre- vented the adoption in the House of Commons of as large an increase of the naval appropriations as the Ministry desired to make, and stoutly refused to approve conscription in any form. Knowing this, the Germans could not fail to consider a confession of weakness Mr. Churchill's public promise to decrease the English naval programme in proportion to any decrease in German plans, and his hint that England would be willing formally to guarantee the immunity of the Austrian seacoast from attack if the plans for the increase of the Austrian navy should be aban- doned; his scarcely veiled threat, to surpass in 193 PAN-GERMANISM number any increase they might attempt to make, they greeted with open derision. They believed that they had powerful allies in the English Ministry and in the English House of Commons, and, so confident were they that these allies would prevent him from executing his threat, that they announced a very substantial increase in the German and Austrian naval esti- mates. Such action was tantamount to a direct challenge to fulfill his threat, and the amazing fact is that he could not do it. The Laborites and the Home Rulers flatly refused to sanction Mr. Churchill's measures; they flatly declared they would oppose similar measures introduced by the opposite party, in case the Ministry should resign; and compelled the adoption of a compromise measure providing for so small an increase that, by the public admission of the First Lord of the Admiralty, Germany would have within two years twenty-nine ships in the North Sea to England's thirty-three. The Opposition both in the Com- mons and in the Lords, as well as the foremost naval and military authorities, insisted in the frankest language that the Supplementary Esti- mates were utterly inadequate. Naturally, the knowledge of these facts did not diminish the confldence felt at Berlin, Vienna, and Rome, and it so obviously weakened confidence at Paris, 194 AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR that some of the influential journals actually began to question the value of England's support should she lose, not her control of the Channel by actual fighting, but her naval preponderance. Indeed, the contrast was suflEiciently striking be- tween the prompt passage of a considerable Sup- plementary Estimate without dissent by a Reich- stag utterly hostile to the administration, and the grudging passage of so slight an increase by the English House of Commons where the exist- ing Ministry nominally controlled so powerful a majority as to have overridden even strenuous opposition to other measures. The Ministry did what it could to counteract these doubts by secret promises and assurances. The naval dispositions in the Mediterranean Sea were carefully exam- ined; conferences held between the French and the English authorities; the English and French naval boards went over the ground in person in the summer of 1912, and no doubt arrived at important conclusions. Lord Kitchener's success in Egypt, the results of the King's visit to India, continued success in Persia, also gave the Triple Entente confidence. The most encouraging aspect of the situation was the prompt and even enthusiastic response of the English self-governing colonies to the appeal of the mother country for assistance. Several 195 PAN-GERMANISM adopted naval programmes; the construction of their units was at once begun; they promised to add their vessels to the English navy and to leave their direction entirely in the hands of the Admiralty in London. The Canadian Ministry then asked the Parliament to appropriate money for three first-class battleships, and despite tem- porary defeat agreed to carry the measure. This aid was so considerable in amount as to be of really substantial importance. The English also reorganized the entire ad- ministration of their fleet, both for offense and defense; they at once created a school for the training in strategy of officers; and instituted in addition a special board of experts, in whose hands was to be placed, in time of action, the direction of operations. France then officially adopted the Two Power Standard in the Mediterranean, which was under- stood to mean that she would create and maintain a fleet sufficiently numerous easily to outweigh the combined Italian and Austrian navies. Spain's assistance or, perhaps, neutrality the allies next bought with concessions in Morocco. Russia, frightened at the prospect of the loss of the position in the Baltic that she now possesses, signed a naval convention with France, which pledged her to a rapid and really considerable 196 AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR increase of her Baltic fleet and the creation of a new naval base almost on the Prussian frontier. The existence of a really powerful Russian fleet in the Baltic might interfere vitally with the further execution of Germany's present plans. Berlin and all North Germany would be exposed to its attack; the Kiel Canal might be destroyed; the rear of the Atlantic squadron would be ex- posed to its operations; and its strength might be suflScient to compel the division of the German North Sea fleet, an eventuality which would so weaken the forces available for an offensive war as to postpone its date by years, if it did not make its outcome so uncertain as to prevent it alto- gether. But the most significant movement was the pro- ject for the Trans-Persian Railway which Eng- land, France, and Russia agreed upon. The line was to rim southeast from Teheran to Bushire in the English zone of influence and to follow the coast of the Persian Gulf to Karachi. Unquestion- ably, a Russian army arriving in India by that route would turn the flank of Quetta and render useless all the fortifications and dispositions yet made to keep Russia out of India. For England to consent to it was to abandon the policy of isolat- ing India from Europe by preventing the estab- lishment of easy communication by land. Should 197 PAN-GERMANISM Russia attack from Herat and from the new rail- road line at the same moment, 'nothing could prevent the overwhelming of the English army. Russia has three quarters of a million men en- rolled in her army who live within two thousand miles of the Indian frontier. They may not be highly trained, but they will certainly outnumber the English army ten to one, and the combined native and English troops four to one. Lord Curzon voiced the convictions of many Anglo- Indians when he declared that the construction of the Trans-Persian Railway was the death-knell of the British power in India. It means, further, the admission of Russia to the rich marts of India, and a recognition of her right to share directly in that trade; and whatever its effect may be on English retention of the sovereignty in India, it will at once end England's practical monopoly of Indian trade. To the British merchant and manufacturer there would seem to be little left worth struggling for, if that is renounced. Such, however, are not the purposes of that railway, and such will not necessarily be the results of its construction. The project is based upon the absolute necessity for an English military road to India in case Germany and her allies succeed in securing actual control of the Mediterranean. The new road would prevent the use by Germany 198 AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR of the Baghdad Railway and the Persian Gulf aa an approach to India. It would enable England, so long as her alliance with Russia lasted, to re- inforce the Indian army far more rapidly than would be possible by way of the Panama Canal and the Pacific. In fact, should the Triple Alli- ance secure control of the Mediterranean, nothing short of some such road would enable England and Russia combined to place enough troops in India to prevent its immediate conquest by Ger- many, England wishes to keep it; Russia has always dreamed of possessing it; but both would rather see it in the hands of the other than allow Germany to get it. Such an increase of German power would at once endanger the very exist- ence of England and the continued possession by Russia of any territories in the Baltic or in Poland. To the English Ministry, moreover, the danger of losing India because of the new rail- way's construction seems small beside the un- deniable military value of the road as an offensive measure against Germany. The road will run mainly through British territory; it will follow the coast of the Persian Gulf, and therefore can always be controlled by an English fleet; nor will it put Russia nearer the Indian defenses than she is already; the lookouts at Herat can almost see a Russian railway station, and Herat is the key to 199 PAN-GERMANISM India, scarcely a fourth as far from the frontier and Quetta as Teheran is from Karachi. In fact, say the English military experts, Russia already possesses quite as favorable a position for an assault as the railway would afford her; but clearly she does not wish to use it, nor will she desire to do so as long as the assistance of Eng- land and France is necessary to prevent Germany from overrunning the Baltic. The feasibility of a military road to India through Russia and Persia has been many times declared. The route through Turkestan, across the Caspian and up the Russian rivers, was one of the commonest roads followed by invasion after invasion from Asia; it was one of the recog- nized trade routes of Europe during the Middle Ages, and was well worn by the feet of merchants. Upon its existence, the English Muscovy Com- pany depended, and from the trade grew wealthy. Until the construction of the Suez Canal, it was as practicable as any land route and more rapid, though more expensive and dangerous, than the voyage round the Cape of Good Hope. Through it Alexander invaded India, and no less a soldier than Napoleon himself conceived the idea of fol- lowing the precise route the English and Russians propose to employ in case of need. Napoleon had the whole route carefully surveyed and measured, 200 AFTERMATH OF THE TRIPOLITAN WAR and his engineers reported its entire practicabil- ity. In addition, if we suppose the existence of a general European war and an attempt by Ger- many on India at a time when England could spare neither men nor ships from European waters, the new railway would enable her to per- mit a sufficient Russian force to enter India to defeat the Germans without actually delivering into Russia's hands the keys of the Himalayas, Herat and Quetta. Should Russia after defeating Germany turn traitor, the English in India, with the possession of Quetta and the aid of the fleet set free by Germany's defeat, might still make a good fight. Should Germany decisively defeat the Channel fleet while her allies were overrun- ning the Mediterranean, the deluge would have already arrived, and India would be irretrievably lost, railway or no railway, and England would be glad to see a nation strengthened by the posses- sion of India which might do battle with the all- conquering German, The Trans-Persian Railway is not necessarily desirable; it seems to the Eng- lish merely the best of a number of extremely undesirable and regrettable expedients of which unfortunately one must be chosen. So a deputa- tion of the members of the House of Commons and of London merchant princes visited Russia 201 PAN-GERMANISM and formally sanctioned the commercial aspects of the military agreement. The incident showed conclusively how dependent England was upon her allies and how much trust she was forced to repose in them. It indicated with even greater certainty the English belief in the feasibility of the German plans for securing possession of the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. Now that the European war is an actuality, no doubt tlie scheme has been shelved until its necessity becomes clearer to the English. CHAPTER XIV THE GREAT REPULSE: THE BALKAN CRISIS THE great success of the war in Tripoli, as a method of extorting territory from the Turk and of preventing the interference of England and France with the execution of the plans for the rearrangement of the Mediterranean without the employment of actual force, promptly sug- gested to the diplomats and statesmen in Berlin and Vienna the prosecution of war in the Balkans. The Turk was unexpectedly reluctant to resign to Italy, even at the instigation of his new mas- ters, the rich province of Tripoli. It seemed to the Young Turks the last straw, that, at just the moment when they were seeking to rouse in Turkey a national spirit, and to secure control of the government for a national party, whose policy should be based upon the interests of Turkey and not upon those of Europe, they should be forced at the very outset to consent to the dismember- ment of Turkey as the condition of their longer continuance in power. It seemed to them, in fact, that, if they must yield in Tripoli, autonomy would never be a reality in Turkey, and the 203 PAN-GERMANISM visions they had long cherished, and the material privations they had endured for the last decade or more, would be all rendered futile. The Triple Alliance obviously needed some lever with which to pry Tripoli from the clutches of the Young Turk without the necessity of actually taking it. It was, furthermore, highly essential that the Young Turk should not execute a coup d'Stat and desert them for the old alliance with England and France. That, above all, must not be risked. Some method must be found which would put pressure upon him without permitting him to desert and without allowing England or France an opportunity to interfere. The obvious method was war in the Balkans, where the military move- ments could be undertaken by the states, whose relations with the Turk were always tense, and whose private grievances were so familiar and so adequate in the eyes of Europe as fully to justify a resort to arms. The Turk would thus be between two fires. With war in Europe and war in Africa and only one army, he would be compelled to preserve Tripoli at the risk of defeat in Europe, or to renounce Tripoli and conclude peace with Italy on Italy's own terms, in order to insure the safety of his dominions in Europe. The mo- ment also was most opportune for an attempt to rearrange affairs in the Balkans, and to 204 THE BALKAN CRISIS attempt the realization of the Balkan Confeder- acy, on whose creation the final success of Pan-Germanism absolutely depended. The tense situation in Europe; the dangers to which the English and French were obviously exposed in the Mediterranean by the inability to use their previous naval dispositions for regaining control of the eastern Mediterranean; the time which must necessarily elapse before a force sufficient to regain that control could be assembled in the Mediterranean, all these factors made their actual interference improbable. The Germans calculated that, the odds being against England, she would not dare risk action. Therefore, with the probability of a free hand, the opportunity seemed ripe for the prosecution of the schemes for the reorganization of southeastern Europe. The programme was practically made public by Austria, who advocated decentralization in Turkey along the lines already suggested, but never executed, in the Treaty of Berlin. The notion was to break up European ^Turkey by creating independent states in Albania and Mace- donia and to make a new state out of the remains of Turkey in Europe. These three states, with the older communities of Rumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Montenegro, and perhaps Greece, should form a new confederation, governing the whole 205 PAN-GERMANISM of the district between the Austrian and Russian frontiers and the ^gean and Mediterranean seas.* Asia Minor would become the seat of the old Turkish Empire and should be bound tightly to Germany or Austria, and, if that were not possible, to the new confederation, by bonds which practically would compel the Turk to re- nounce control of policy and resources. In some way or other, by commercial agreements, if no more direct method was available, Austria was to secure Saloniki as a naval base from which to control the .^gean and the whole eastern Medi- terranean, and either Austria or Italy was to secure the remainder of the eastern shore of the Adriatic. The allies calculated that a little show of force by the Balkan States would put enough pressure upon the Turks to compel the cession of Tripoli, and might also drive the Young Turks from powfer and reinstate the old bureaucracy, whom Austria and Germany already owned body and soul. Then the Treaty of Berlin could be interpreted in such a manner as to enable the allies to claim that the other Powers had already given their consent to the new scheme of reorgani- zation, would permit them to insist that no Euro- pean Congress was necessary, and that the execu- > The notion of a Balkan confederation supported by the Triple Alliance seems to have originated in 1889. Crispi, Memoirt, n, 384- 885. 206 THE BALKAN CRISIS tion of the Treaty ought completely to satisfy all parties. The irony of the situation would be that they would thus possess the Turk's own consent to his own destruction before they conquered him. When these arrangements were finished, and it seemed hardly doubtful but that they could be completed, Pan-Germanism would be practically a reality. There would be much yet to do, but formally it would have come into existence. There were also vital reasons for attempting ac- tion in the fall of 1912. The death of the Emperor Franz Josef has been expected at any moment during the last few years and becomes more prob- able each month. Inasmuch as his death has been confidently expected to give the signal for a gen- eral revolt throughout the Dual Monarchy, it was highly essential to move before such a catastrophe deprived Austria of the possibility of action. Indeed, his death might force the allies to devote their time for some years to the reorganization of Austria-Hungary before they could proceed fur- ther with the scheme. Success in the Balkans and in Turkey, the actual creation of a Pan- Germanic chain, would not improbably so impress public opinion as to insure the continuance of the present arrangements and thwart the schemes of the irreconcilables. Should worse come to worst, a third monarchy could be created out of the 207 PAN-GERMANISM Croatian and Slovenian and Serbonian communi- ties in southwestern Austria which would have the same relations to Austria as Hungary, would satisfy the most dangerous malcontents and en- able the Empire to deal effectively with Bohemia and Galicia. Such an eventuality, however, raised many possible questions and would be cer- tain to rouse suspicion in the Balkans. The adop- tion by England and Russia of the scheme for the Trans-Persian Railway, obviously a military road to circumvent the Baghdad Railway, to retain control of the Persian Gulf and render ineffectual the seizure of Suez, proved to the Germans that no time was to be lost, if the con- quest of India, as the ultimate aim of the great confederation, was not to become impossible. The loss of India, Germany could not consider calmly, for the creation and maintenance of the Pan-German Confederation would compel her to hand over to her allies practically all the gains in the Mediterranean and in Europe, and her own share was to be India. The Panama Canal, moreover, another military road to the East, was neariag completion, would probably be practical as early as January, 1914, and its opening was expected to render the control of the Mediter- ranean and Red Sea infinitely less important to England than before. The risks of' immediate 208 THE BALKAN CRISIS action did not seem too great; the probable gains were undeniable; and the allies therefore decided upon action. The Balkan States, who received intimations of the desirability of war from Berlin and Vienna, were astounded to receive, almost simultaneously, suggestions of the desirability of war with Turkey from London, Paris, and St. Petersburg. The Triple Entente had made up its mind that the moment was opportune for an attempt to erect a barrier in the way of Pan-Germanism which should not improbably postpone its execution at least a decade. Only in the Balkans could they hope in the long run successfully to oppose the Triple Alliance, nor could there be, from their point of view, a more favorable spot for opposition. The Balkan peoples had long hated Austria for racial and religious reasons, were determined, if possible, to win their own national independence, and, presenting, therefore, unusual difficulties to the statesmen seeking to amalgamate them with the Triple Alliance, furnished the latter's ene- mies the most favorable field in which to work. The strategic position of the Balkans, controlling all the roads between Europe and Asia Minor, controlling the iEgean and the Adriatic, was so necessary to Pan-Germanism, that no more deadly blow could possibly be dealt that scheme 209 PAN-GERMANISM than the creation of a Balkan confederacy under the segis of the Triple Entente, pledged to inde- pendence for the Balkan peoples of both coali- tions. The stronger the confederation, the more independent, the greater obstacle it would be in the path of Pan-Germanism. The very qualities and resources, which would lead the Balkans to desire freedom from entangling alliances with the Triple Entente itself, would be the very qualities which would render improbable any agreement with the Triple Alliance, and would animate them with a patriotism and a determination to resist which could not fail to work for the benefit of the Triple Entente. For it is not necessary that the latter should itself control them. Its dispositions in the Mediterranean will be equally benefited if their possession by the Triple Alliance is rendered improbable. From the point of view of England and France, moreover, who neces- sarily distrust somewhat their ally, Russia, be- cause of her ambitions in the Black Sea, the stronger the confederation, the more independent, the greater would be their own safety from pos- sible treachery on the part of Russia. At the same time both nations realized that the Tripolitan War had completely changed their own policies in regard to Turkey. Their objection to Russia at Constantinople had been based upon 210 THE BALKAN CRISIS the desire to exclude from the Mediterranean all possible rivals; but the loss of Tripoli, the loss of Turkey, both of which had fallen into the hands of their enemies, and the fear of the creation of a confederacy of states in the Balkans under Ger- man or Austrian protection, thoroughly disposed of their objections to Russia's ownership of that same territory. If they must have a rival in those seas, a thousand times better that it should be Russia than the Triple Alliance. Russia's Black Sea fleet has still to be made powerful enough to be able to interfere in the Mediterranean; she is so dependent upon their assistance to preserve her present position in northeastern Europe that she is not likely to take action elsewhere which would be contrary enough to their interests to cause a rupture of the Entente. On the other hand, the mere possession of the Balkans by Russia would be as permanent a guarantee as could well be imagined of the failure of Pan-Germanism for all time, and would, more than any other one thing, render Morocco, India, and even England itself safe from aggression. In the Black Sea, Russia could create, safe from interference, a fleet which could issue forth from the Straits in time of need and fall upon the rear of the Austro-Italian fleet operating from the Adriatic or Tripoli. Should Russia be able to secure possession of all the 211 PAN-GERMANISM Balkans, she would also control the jEgean and the Adriatic, would occupy in Servia a post in the rear of Hungary, highly dangerous to the Dual Monarchy, from which an invasion, simul- taneous with an attack through Galicia, could hardly fail to have fatal consequences. Russia in the Balkans, in other words, would promptly compel Germany and Austria to take up the de- fensive and to do so under distinct disadvantages. Once Russia occupied such a position, England and France could promptly overrun the Mediterr. ranean, take Trieste, conquer the Adriatic, isolate Italy, compel her at the very least to cede Tripoli. Thus they could secure a firmer hold upon the Mediterranean than ever before. From Russia's point of view, an independent confederation in the Balkans, coupled to the right of freedom of passage through the Straits and the permission to create a fleet in the Black Sea, would be prac- tically as advantageous a solution as she could ask. Aside from the plains of the Lower Danube, the Balkans themselves are of little value to her, and so vitally threaten Austria that war could hardly be avoided. Russia is more anxious to open the Black Sea and to obtain naval control than she is to torce the issue with Austria at present. An independent Balkan confederation would protect the Straits from Austria, and would 212 THE BALKAN CRISIS in practice, whatever treaties and agreements might say, give her control. Should the war succeed, the Turk could cer- tainly be driven from Constantinople, and even if it were expedient to leave him there he might be compelled or induced to create a Khalifate in Egypt or Arabia to rule the Mohammedans in the English and French possessions. The latter are extremely desirous of quieting the religious fer- ment which has so hampered their actions on more than one occasion, by substituting for a religious head of the Mohammedans, held in the clutches of Germany, a religious head in their own control. They wish to remove the excuse for a Holy War, or, at any rate, to prevent the declara- tion of a Holy War by the Sultan in Constanti- nople which Mohammedans throughout the world would feel bound to recognize. Pan-Islam is a spectre terrifying to them in the extreme. More- over, should the Germans achieve anything like further success in the reorganization, so-called, of southeastern Europe, it would become absolutely necessary for some member of the Triple Entente to take possession of Constantinople, to say the least, and, not improbably, to put an end to the nominal independence of Turkey. Such a blow at the Sultan would certainly be resented in India, Egypt, and Morocco, and the statesmen are ex- 213 PAN-GERMANISM tremely anxious either to remove the Sultan from the danger zone or to shear him of his religious headship. The Balkan States scarcely believed in the verity of these communications. The splendor of the opportunity fairly dazzled their eyes. It had long seemed to them that there was really a chance to free themselves from the shackles of both coalitions and of winning from the Turk, without much difficulty, their freedom and that of their compatriots in the Turkish Empire, so long as the two coalitions did not actually sup- port Turkey. Of that fact they were apprehensive. While the Turk had been the Sick Man of Europe, maintained by the Powers because of the incur- able nature of his disease, the sovereignty of the Turk over the Macedonians and Albanians was purely nominal and the suflFerings of the people imder his rule practically confined to the reprisals of the soldiery upon the populace. As a neighbor of those Balkan States who had achieved nominal independence, the Sick Man was not very danger- ous. His very incompetence was a practical guar- antee of their own safety. The strengthening of Turkey, the organization of a really efficient ad- ministration and army, whether by the Young Turks or by the Germans, would certainly dimin- ish the probability of securing the actual auto- £14 THE BALKAN CRISIS nomy which the Balkan peoples had long ardently desired. As fast as Turkish government grew bet- ter, to that degree would disappear the grievances which naade plausible the demands of the alien peoples for freedom from his rule. Indeed, if many more officers were appointed of the stamp of Hussein Kiazim Bey, the people would have very little to complain about, and the Powers would certainly need some strong arguments to convince them of the expediency of permitting the Balkan States to change the existing dispositions. The continuance, therefore, of the present situa- tion meant that the probability of eventual inde- pendence diminished annually and might soon disappear. The moment, chosen by the two coalitions as opportune for war from their point of view, was singularly advantageous from the point of view of the Balkans themselves. Turkey was at war with Italy; the real Turkish army was in Africa and would stay there as long as the Italian fleet controlled the sea; moreover, they were assured by both coalitions of the nominal character of the resistance with which the Turk would oppose them; the war was to be a sham battle arranged for theatrical effect. The Turks themselves were gravely divided between the party willing to cooperate with the Germans and the Young 215 PAN-GERMANISM Turks, anxious to strike a blow for Turkish inde- pendence before it was too late. The Balkan States had, moreover, been most kindly supplied with arms, money, and instruction in tactics and in the strategy of war by their "friends," and would therefore enter the struggle with literally every circumstance in their favor. The ease, therefore, of playing the game for themselves, of rushing upon the Turk with all possible speed, of dealing him as many deadly blows as they could as soon after the beginning of war as possible, was so apparent that there was little doubt in Sofia and Athens that the Turk would be brought to his knees before the Powers could realize that they had been betrayed. Once victorious, once pos- sessed of the military control of Turkey, they would have their greatest chance of maintaining their independence that they ever hoped to have. If half a million men, natural soldiers, in a natu- ral fortress, well equipped with other people's re- sources, could not maintain themselves against assault, independence for the Balkans was a vision which would never be attained. If they must fight to attain it, they could never have a better chance than this. But they were fully aware that the chances of their needing to fight were small. The existence of the two coalitions and the identity of their plans would convince them 216 THE BALKAN CRISIS both that the Balkans were acting in their in- terests, and neither was at all likely to interfere until too late; for, when the truth of the situation should dawn upon them, it was more than likely that they would both see it simultaneously, real- ize that they had been hoodwinked, and be too much afraid of each other to dare to interfere. At any rate, diplomacy could be depended upon to play oflf the Powers one against the other. If the Balkan States could only get into their hands the strategic places, their assistance would be too vital to the completion of the schemes of both co- alitions to make doubtful their ability to secure their own price. In any case, they would not be again subjected to the Turk. If they must resign themselves to the protection of one coalition or the other, they could undoubtedly secure for them- selves infinitely better terms than they could otherwise have had. Under these circumstances, the Balkan States began the war with a vigor and an energy which astounded Europe, began it, too, in the fall, con- trary to the advice of both coalitions, and pushed it to a successful conclusion within a few weeks. The first result was that anticipated by the Triple Alliance, peace between Turkey and Italy, and the cession to the latter of unconditional sover- eignty over Tripoli. The next results were unex- 217 PAN-GERMANISM pected. The war was too realistic. It was entirely undesirable for the Balkans to destroy the Turk- ish army which the Germans had created with so much diflSculty and expense to control Constan- tinople and the Baghdad Railway. The Triple Entente by no means desired to hand over, even for a time, to the Balkan States Constantinople and the Straits. The first successes were probably due to the fact that the Turk was not prepared for that type of an attack, had been ordered to fall back upon Adrianople which was to be besieged. He accordingly fell back on Adrianople; the Bul- garians promptly marched round him, and fell upon the disorganized forces behind, who were as yet unprepared for operations of such magni- tude. Before the Turk had time to take breath, before Berlin and Vienna recovered from the first shock, the Bulgarians were almost within sight of Constantinople, and their allies were pushing the war in the west and south to a successful con- clusion with great rapidity. It now became clear to the Balkans that the moment had come to deal with the Powers. No doubt, before the war began, the confederates had a reasonably clear idea of the terms they could expect from both coalitions, and they did not need to contemplate them longer to see that the Triple Entente was prepared to offer them vastly 218 THE BALKAN CRISIS more satisfactory conditions. At the best, all they could hope from the Triple Alliance was the con- trol of their local affairs; the international rela- tions must be delivered over to the allies. The Triple Entente, on the other hand, while it would also expect to direct their international policy, found its own interests best suited by increasing the strength and independence of the Balkans themselves. Pan-Germanism, in fact, depended for its success upon their absorption by Germany and Austria, while the defeat of Pan-Germanism by the Triple Entente would depend upon the ex- tent to which Balkan independence of Germany and Austria could be made a reality. This was certainly as virtual independence as it was prob- able that the possessors of such important strate- gic points would ever be likely to secure from the Powers. The fact that Russia's right of free pas- sage through the Straits would in large measure satisfy her ambitions and put into her hands, without danger to the Balkan Confederation, what she chiefly valued, and what she would ex- pect to obtain from the conquest of the whole territory, nay, what she had believed could be ob- tained only after the conquest of the whole terri- tory, would give them a greater degree of assur- ance against aggression from her, than they could ever have from Austria. Money was another 219 PAN-GERMANISM desideratum. The supply from Berlin and Vienna would obviously cease; there was no money in the Balkans and no resources which could be turned into money. To get the money, therefore, necessary to finance their independence, and, in particular, the money with which to maintain it, should they have to fight longer for it, they must sell themselves to the Triple Entente. This, they proceeded to do with dispatch, and announced in consequence that they would deal only with Turkey and would deal with her only upon the unconditional acceptance of their maximum terms. The King of Greece was to become Presi- dent of the Federation, and the territory con- quered from the Turk — except for Constanti- nople and Saloniki — was to be divided among the existing states. The Bulgarians claimed Thrace; the Greeks, Macedonia; the Servians, Albania, including the seacoast on the Adriatic. Constan- tinople, Saloniki, and the Straits they expected to see internationalized, the Turkish Empire rele- gated to Asia Minor, a freedom of passage ac- corded every one through the Straits. That these terms could finally be obtained, neither the Bal- kans nor their new allies probably believed, but that was no reason why they should not be de- manded. Undoubtedly, the war was a great victory for THE BALKAN CRISIS the Balkans themselves in their long crusade against the Turk. They even hoped to drive the Infidel out of Europe and thus permanently to res- cue their co-religionists from his clutches, both of which achievements would be supremely gratify- ing to them. For the sovereigns to ride together on horsebafek into the Mosque of St. Sophia, as the Mohammedan conqueror was reputed to have done centuries before, to tear down the emblems of Islam, and to celebrate the first Christian ser- vice since the fifteenth century, would be an achievement which would secure for them undy- ing fame as well as present glory with their com- patriots. The chief results of the war, however, accrued not to the Balkan states but to their new allies, who thus effectively retrieved the disaster in Tripoli. Not only did the Balkan Confederation become a stumbling-block in the path of Pan- Germanism, but the alliance between the Bal- kans and the Triple Entente temporarily restored the balance of power in the Mediterranean. The Greeks had driven the Italians out of many of the islands of the ^gean; Crete, which hitherto had had an anomalous existence as an inter- national possession was united to Greece and gave the Triple Entente a powerful naval sta- tion east of Malta. Above all, the loss of the 221 PAN-GERMANISM islands, the certain strengthening of the Eng- lish and French fleets in the Mediterranean, the improbability of Austria's taking possession of Saloniki for some time to come, greatly reduced the value of Tripoli as a military and naval base. Certainly, until the Austrians and Italians were prepared to contest the supremacy of the Medi- terranean, the Italians would have only such re- lations with Tripoli as the English might permit. The latter were not likely to bring the question of Italy's right to Tripoli to a test of force, but they would no doubt feel themselves justi- fied in preventing her from attempting any- thing beyond the commercial development of the country. Unless, however, the Italians were very much misled by the ostensible benefits of tropical colo- nization, time would be needed, and a great deal of time, to develop Tripoli as a settlement colony. The Italian peasant must be taught dry farming, unless irrigation plans of a truly extensive nature were soon completed; dry farming would not be very much to his taste and he had not shown himself particularly anxious to try new processes on his own farm in Italy. All this meant capital, loans, interest payments. Money from London and Paris was not likely to be forthcoming under the circumstances; money from Berlin and Vienna 222 THE BALKAN CRISIS was by no means a certainty; and even if the cap- ital were readily forthcoming, it was not neces- sarily an advantage to invest one's capital, men, and future in a colony separated from Italy by the width of the Mediterranean and accessible only as often and as long as the English should see fit. Nor was it lost upon the Italians that' both Egypt and Tunis were so placed as to make the capture of Tripoli a simple matter. The Bal- kan War made the Italians very much doubt the advantage they were to derive from their new possession and to question somewhat the wisdom of further adhesion to either alliance. Assistance to both had not yielded Italy anything like the promised return. She was not of a mind to play the cat's-paw again for either. CHAPTER XV THE SECOND BALKAN WAB THE actual results of the first Balkan War between the Confederation and Turkey promptly became themselves the direct causes of a civil war between the members of the Confed- eration. To put the Confederation in the field in the first place to begin the war with Turkey, promises had been made of the most definite nature as to the division of the territory which they expected to obtain, and in particular as to the governmental relations of the newly allied states. It had been clear from the first that the issues between the Confederation and Turkey, both individually and (?ollectively, were less important than the internal issues between the various members of the Confederation, or than the foreign relations of the Confederation and its component parts to the two European coalitions. Indeed, the Balkan statesmen were well aware that the war had not been merely a religious crusade for the rescue of Macedonian Christians from the clutch of the Infidel and least of all a drama staged for the advantage of European THE SECOND BALKAN WAR coalitions. The racial and national issues of the various states bulked larger to them than the affairs of the Confederation, and they were actu- ally more vitally interested in preserving their independence of each other than they were of making the Confederation a factor in European politics. Indeed, it is highly probable that beside their local interests, even the driving of the Turk from Europe seemed insignificant. The object of the agreements which preceded the war had been to erect in the Balkans states as nearly as possible equal in population and in territory, and it had been a cardinal principle that no state should become sufficiently strong to endanger the auton- omy of the other members of the Confederation; only on the basis of equality could they act together, and the leaders insisted that unless the equality was very real indeed, the life of the Confederation would only too probably be short. The war itself, however, had promptly invali- dated the essence of the early treaties and agree- ments. The unexpected success of the Bulgarian attack upon Turkey threw into her hands an enormously greater area of territory than any of the other states were able to occupy. The praise universally accorded the Bulgarians by the Euro- pean press to the exclusion of their allies was productive of much bad feeling, and aroused, as 225 PAN-GERMANISM was to be expected, the antipathies between the Balkan peoples which had from the first given the leaders so much anxiety. On the other hand, the negotiations with the Turk were no sooner begun than the Great Powers interfered and insisted upon the erection of a Kingdom of Albania. The fiction of independence did not hide from Servia and Montenegro the fact that Austria and Italy were actually to dominate and direct the new state. To both of them nothing worse than this could have happened except the actual annexation of Albania by Austria, but, the danger of the new situation waived, nothing could disguise the bald fact that both Servia and Montenegro had been robbed of the bulk of the spoils originally assigned them, had been robbed, in fact, of the only part of the spoils which they really wanted. In addition, the solid advantages which would accrue to the Triple Entente as a result of the destruction of European Turkey led those Powers to insist upon the cession by Turkey to the new Confederation of the greater part of Thrace. This vast district included Adrianople and all the approaches to Constantinople, and practically gave its possessor military control of the latter. In addition, the new territory flanked Saloniki and the whole coast of the jEgean which the Greeks coveted as their share of the spoils. 226 THE SECOND BALKAN WAR It also controlled passes into Macedonia which would materially weaken the Servian position if they were recompensed by a section of that province. Needless to say, Bulgaria was exceed- ingly anxious to retain the bulk of the territory in her hands, insisted upon the letter of the pre- vious agreement, which the logic of facts had already invalidated, demanded on racial grounds the bulk of the province of Macedonia, and even dreamed of obtaining Saloniki and the control of the ^gean. To the Bulgarians, intoxicated by victory, their "place in the sun" seemed already assured. Was it conceivable that men who had beaten the Turk and astonished Europe could fail in battle against men whom the Turk had disgracefully beaten? They felt that if facts proved anything, they proved their case. Rather than surrender such unquestioned advantages, they preferred to fight, confident that they could not only strip the Turk of the coveted territory ^ut beat their late allies. Rather than accept the existing situation, Servia, Greece, and Mon- tenegro also preferred to test the issue by arms. The Triple Entente also found it advantageous to continue the war. They had deemed it neces- sary to accept the Austrian ultimatum and sanc- tion the erection of Albania as an independent 227 PAN-GERMANISM state; but they were entirely unwilling to make such a sacrifice without corresponding conces- sions from the Triple Alliance in the Eastern Balkans. Conscious that the war had already given them a great and significant victory, they were determined not to yield any of the essential gains in the treaty of peace. They were bent, in fact, upon securing the signature of a treaty or treaties which would assure the permanence of their victory as well as writing words on paper could do it. They therefore insisted upon the dismemberment of European Turkey and felt that it would be better for them to risk a greater reverse in a new war (in which, of course, the Balkan nations would fight for them) than to accept even a slight disadvantage as the price of peace. They fully realized that, unless most of Thrace was obtained, there would be no territory which the Bulgarians desired which their allies were not determined to keep out of their hands. It had been difficult enough to divide Macedonia between Bulgaria and Greece, but the problem of dividing it between Bulgaria, Greece, and Servia would be insuperable unless there were some other large plum with which to compensate the Bul- garians who had, as a matter of fact, done most of the decisive fighting. If Adrianople could not be secured without further fighting, it was very THE SECOND BALKAN WAR mucli to the interests of the Triple Entente to have the war continued. Similarly, for the Triple Alliance to allow the Turk to cede Adrianople, to consent to the dis- memberment of European Turkey and the prac- tical failure of Pan-Germanism without a final test of strength was akin to folly. The interposi- tion of the Balkan Confederation between Austria and Turkey had, for the time being, deprived the Germans of direct communication with Turkey and had jeopardized their control of the Baghdad Railway. The Turk, excluded from Europe, robbed of his most valuable possession, the Straits, would be an exceedingly weak member of the Pan-Germanic chain, and, even if the new Turkish army was still in the main intact, could no longer render the important service of guard- ing the overland route well through the moun- tains to Constantinople, and from Constantinople through Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf. The importance of holding the last stage of the route would be little as long as its connections with Austria were severed. While commercial treaties might be signed with the new Confederation which would give the Germans access to their new property, they would confer precisely that type of a right held upon sufferance which the Germans were particularly anxious to obviate. 229 PAN-GERMANISM The expediency was more than questionable of attempting even the commercial development of Asia Minor if access to the district was to be had only by the sufferance of states admittedly hostile to Germany's ambitions. To have lost the Bal- kans was disastrous; to lose Constantinople as well would compel the Triple Alliance to relin- quish Turkey, the control of the Straits, the Baghdad Railway, and the military road to the Far East, at one fell swoop. It might even be the death knell of Pan-Germanism for all time. The Triple Alliance, therefore, did not hesitate to decide that the continuation of the war was preferable. Nor was the Turk unwilling. The Young Turks were weU aware that the real Turkish army, trained by the German military expedition, was still intact, and, until it had been defeated, they declined to surrender as much as they might lose after the complete annihilation of the army in a long, hard-fought war. Had they not already beaten the Greeks? Had they not checked the Italian advance in Tripoli? Would they not meet armies decimated by recklessness in earlier battles, with resources seriously impaired by a long cam- paign and a long armistice, and whose lines of communication, upon which they must depend for food and munitions of war, were blocked by 230 THE SECOND BALKAN WAR the ice and snow of the Balkan winter? The Turk, also, preferred to continue the war. Under these circumstances, the negotiations in London had no chance of succeeding. Neither the Balkan States nor Turkey nor the Great Powers were any of them willing to accept peace at the price which the others had made up their minds to demand. The Turkish proposals were, in truth, nothing more nor less than the salient features of the plans of the Triple Alliance for the reorganization of southeastern Europe, and evoked from the Balkan representatives the ex- cited cry that such proposals practically ignored the victory of the Allies and did not even provide a basis for compromise. The greatest difficulty was, however, an attempt to negotiate a peace upon the assumption that the real issues to be settled were those between Turkey and the new Confederation. The real questions demanding settlement were far otherwise, — the adjustment of the relations of the Balkan States to each other, the distribution of the conquered territory be- tween them, some adjustment of their relations to the European Powers, individually and col- lectively, the organization and future status of Albania, the status of German interests in Asia Minor, the amount and even the granting of the money indemnity which the Balkan States 231 PAN-GERMANISM demanded from Turkey. On none of these vital points was there anything like an agreement. After much haggling the Turkish Government seemed about to cede Adrianople when the coup d'Stat at Constantinople of January, 1913, upset the Turkish cabinet and put into the saddle the Young Turks, who had no intention whatever of ceding Adrianople. On January 30, 1913, the Peace Conference in London dissolved, and on February 3, Bulgaria began the second Balkan War. In the meantime, a realignment of the contend- ing parties had taken place. The diplomatists in Berlin and Vienna, with their usual astuteness had discovered the weakness in the Balkan Confederation, and had seen how to turn the situation in their own favor. Chance had put in the hands of Bulgaria the very territory of most consequence for the control by Germany and Austria of the transcontinental highways to the East, and they knew that she was most anxious to retain it. They also knew that she would not be able to retain it without assistance and that the assistance could come only from them. The other Balkan nations would allow her to hold the territory only on conditions to which she would not consent. The Triple Entente could not pre- sent her with that territory without first taking it THE SECOND BALKAN WAR from Turkey, and could not get it from Turkey without coming to terms with the Triple Alliance. On the other hand, the moment the Bulgarians came to terms with the Triple Alliance the terri- tory was theirs, for the Triple Alliance already owned it, in so many words, and really cared very little where the boundaries of European Turkey were drawn so long as the land which was not in Turkey was in the hands of a state allied to them. Furthermore, Bulgaria claimed nearly the whole of Macedonia and Thrace on the plausible ground of racial affinity between the population and her own, and seemed likely to have the support of the people of the district. Macedonia and the strip of seacoast containing Saloniki would be exceedingly valuable additions for the Bulgarians and had seemed to the diplomats in Berlin irrevocably lost by the victory of the Balkan Confederation in the first war. If the Triple Alliance could regain them by the agency of Bulgaria, it made little difference whether they were marked Bulgaria or Turkey on the map. The chief fruits of the recent victory of the Triple Entente would have been snatched from them, and both Bulgaria and the Triple Alliance would have made a great stride toward obtaining the goal of their ambi- tions. Bulgaria would dominate the Balkans, and, allied to Germany and Austria, would de- 233 PAN-GERMANISM fend the roads to the East on which so much depended, and perhaps be a much more manage- able unit of the German chain than the Confeder- ation earlier projected. The size of the Bulgarian army, its advantageous position for an assault upon the Servians and Greeks, the ease with which the Servians might be crippled by a move- ment of Austria in the rear, all suggested the feasibility of the new scheme. With some such understanding between Bulgaria and the Triple Alliance, the second war began. The outbreak of the war itself promptly in- formed those who were not parties to the agree- ment of its nature. The other Balkan States fathomed Bulgaria's treason and concluded that she was determined to dominate if not to conquer them. The attitude of Austria confirmed their suspicions and those of the Triple Entente, and both marshaled their forces to crush the new alliance. Yet, despite the first successes of the Greeks and Servians, the campaign was by no means lost, and the Bulgarians were preparing a movement by which they expected to sweep all before them when Rumania and Turkey joined their foes. The Greeks and Servians drove them out of Macedonia; the Young Turks entered Adrianople in triumph; northern Bulgaria fell into the hands of the Rumanians whose large 234 THE SECOND BALKAN WAR army advanced within striking distance of Sofia as the Turks entered Bulgaria on the south. There was nothing to do but yield. The treaty of peace eventually concluded left many great and thorny questions undecided, but it demarcated the boundaries of the Balkans. Rumania obtained a coveted strip of territory valuable for defending her southern frontier; most of Macedonia was divided between Servia and Greece; Saloniki and the valuable portions of the seacoast went to Greece; Turkey retained Adrianople and its approaches; Bulgaria received only a small strip of territory along her southern boundary. While the second Balkan War could not entirely alter the result of the first war, and did not change the fact that once more the attempt of the Triple Alliance to secure decisive control of the Balkans had failed, it certainly retrieved much of the loss of territory and position. In January, 1913, it seemed as if Pan -Germanism had received a check which a decade of effort might not over- come, and almost the only question seemed to be the extent of the disaster, whether Turkey could also be annihilated. The consequences of the first war broke up the Confederation, aided by Aus- trian diplomacy, and the atrocities which seem to have been conamitted impartially by all the combatants so accentuated religious and national 235 PAN-GERMANISM hatred that any revival of the Confederation now seems improbable. Best of all, Bulgaria's defeat, the loss of the expected gains in the first war bound her tightly to the chariot wheels of Pan- Germanism, by whose success alone can she now hope to further her ambitions. Albania had been erected in the west, in the path of Servian ambi- tion and of the interests of the Triple Entente. Constantinople was saved, and the road to the East even more securely in the hands of Germany, because of the accession to Bulgaria. Rumania, whose attitude has always puzzled the diplomats, and whose real intentions are a better-kept secret than those of any other state in Europe, for the nonce was willing to act in concert with Austria. Clearly, too, the general exhaustion of the Balkan States was favorable to the designs of the Triple Alliance. If this new ally, Bulgaria, was weakened, it was of much more vital consequence that the enemies of the Alliance were also weakened in men and resources to such a point that they were no longer to be feared. Furthermore, they were possibly now so weak that the Triple Entente had little to gain from their cooperation. In reality, ihe Triple Alliance had obtained almost as solid advantages from the two wars as they had ex- pected to achieve from the farce first projected. They had suffered, in fact, only one serious loss — 2S6 THE SECOND BALKAN WAR Saloniki. That they proposed to repair at the earli- est opportunity, before the Greeks with Enghsh money and under English direction should cre- ate a naval station powerful enough to control the iEgean and the approaches to Constanti- nople. At the same time it was clear to every one that the second Balkan War brought a general Euro- pean conflict much nearer. Both coalitions had been strengthened in the Balkans, as compared with their positions of the preceding summer; each had won allies who could not very well desert. Indeed, from a military point of view, the position of the Triple Alliance lacked only two of the strategic points essential to Pan-Germanism, Belgrade and the crossing of the Danube, and Saloniki and the control of the ^gean. Adrian- ople had been saved, as had Constantinople and the Straits. The Turkish army needed only re- organization to be once more formidable, while Albania in the west held important harbors and threatened Servia in the flank and rear. On the other hand, the war and its results taught the Triple Entente much of value. They were now definitely assured of Italy's objections to Austria's exploitation of the western Balkans. The attempt, certain to be the next step, at the crushing of Servia, they felt sure in London 237 PAN-GERMANISM would keep Italy neutral during tke first weeks of even a general European war. To be sure, in the face of Italy's treachery to both coalitions at different stages of the Tripolitan war, they were not inclined to place much faith in any hopes of her final adhesion to the Triple Entente. Still it was much to be sure that circumstances were arising which were creating trouble between her and Austria. If the war had sown discord between the members of the Triple Alliance, it made the harmonious cooperation of the members of the Triple Entente more certain than ever before. The strength of Pan-Germanism in the Balkans, the actual probability of the loss of the control of the Mediterranean, had convinced England and France that Russia was a far less dangerous owner of Constantinople than Germany. Besides, the ability of the possessor of Constantinople to in- jure them was by no means what it had been when the only short route to India and the Far East lay through the Mediterranean. The Panama Canal was certain to furnish them, within a few months, a military road to their possessions in the East, which neither Russia nor Germany could assail. They both, therefore, became williug as never before to assure Russia definitely of her share of the spoils of Pan- Germanism's defeat. Most of their immediate 238 THE SECOND BALKAN WAR fears of her, too, in Europe vanished; and they were able to contemplate the outbreak of a gen- eral European war with assurance and confi- dence. CHAPTER XVI FORCING THE ISSUE WHEN we speak after the maimer of men and say that the Triple Alliance '■ forced the issue in the summer of 1914 upon the Triple Entente, we must carefully bear in mind our lack of definite historical evidence of the sort we insist upon for the invasion of England by William the Conqueror, and the unreliability of oral report and prediction from persons who believed them- selves to be in the confidence of high officials to a greater extent than is in any sense probable. We must, indeed, in all candor confess that there 1 After considerable debate and hesitation, it has seemed best to continue to use the phrase Triple Alliance, despite the attitude of Italy at the outbreak of the war, and in face of the numerous opin- ions, appearing in various quarters which claim oflBcial sources of information, that Germany and Austria have not counted on her coBperation. Some declare that she was not consulted at all as to the demands made to Servia or as to the mobilization of Germany. If true, this would mean that the Germans knew before the war was decided upon that the Triple AUiance had been broken beyond re- pair and accepted the tact. If other advices are in any sense true, they have been making desperate attempts to influence ItaUan opin- ion in their favor and have done their utmost to put pressure on officials from the King down to secure the adhesiwn of Italy. The point cannot be settled until we can be positive that we have abso- lutely all the confidential correspondence. In the mean time, it seems best to assume that the Triple Alliance remained in efiEect until ■we have some clear evidence to prove when it was abrogated. 240 FORCING THE ISSUE is no satisfactory evidence of deliberate aggression on the part of the Triple Alliance, and least of all sufficient evidence to fix the blame for the out- break of the war upon this or that individual. At the same time, the general European situation, certain peculiar circumstances, certain high prob- abilities point with reasonable clearness to a deci- sion on the part of the statesmen of the Triple Alli- ance to try the general issue by arms at this time. If the logic of events can ever prove anything, it demonstrates this to any candid observer. Yet it does not demonstrate that, because Germany and Austria actually began the fighting, there is no truth in their contention that the issue was being slowly, subtly, but decisively forced upon them by the Triple Entente in a fashion which left them no alternative but an appeal to arms. Is it not plausible and even probable that Russia, or for that matter England or France, might con- trive a situation so subtle that they could not only force the war upon Germany, but compel her to strike the first blow and so to all appearances give them the great moral advantage of calling upon their people for a war of defense? Did not Bismarck do even so in 1870? Would it not be poetic justice thus to begin the war of 1914? Indeed, in the last analysis, the Triple^ Entente conceivably may have begun it, even though 241 PAN-GERMANISM Austria's was the first overt act and Germany's was the first blow. On the other hand, we must not close our ears to the fact, so regularly insisted upon by all classes of Germans, that the Triple Alliance must in any war, offensive or defensive, choose the moment and strike the first blow. The events can be variously explained. The adherents of Pan-Germanism, who were certainly (whatever their number among the general public) the overwhelming majority of the military, naval, and official classes, had usually been divided into two parties by an honest differ- ence of opinion over the methods by which the scheme was to be put into execution. On the gen- eral premises of strategical geography, on the relative positions of Germany, England, France, and Russia, on the Fatherland's imperative needs, on the feasibility of obtaining at least a part of what was necessary to solve her problems, they all seem to have been, with some very minor differences, thoroughly agreed. It should perhaps be added that disagreement, sometimes vehe^ ment, had appeared in official circles as to the extent of the publicity to be allowed the propa- ganda, as to its definiteness, and in general as to the extent to which the public could or should be taken into the Government's confidence. A large and influential section, to which by temperament 242 FORCING THE ISSUE and judgment the Kaiser himself belonged, was of the opinion that the relatively more rapid rate at which the population was increasing compared with all other countries except Austria and Italy, the enormous strides of Germany's economic development would, if continued without hin- drance and without remark as to their significance, in the long run "peacefully" insure Germany's domination of European policy. An army large enough to terrify France and Russia into inac- tion, a navy large enough to rouse in England the liveliest apprehensions of the disastrous results of a war, would prevent any interference with this process, which, of itself, without the shedding of blood or the loss of treasure, would secure the desired ends. Peace in the sense of the mainte- nance of the status quo — a dominant England, a complacent France, a Gerrhany dependent for its economic welfare upon their sufferance — neither the Emperor nor any one else ever advo- cated. The erection without actual warfare of the Pan-Germanic Confederation, the Kaiser most assuredly did espouse with all his heart. He and those who agreed with him therefore dep- recated the open talk of hostility towards other nations, any explanation of the aims and pur- poses of Pan-Germanism, and all official admis- sions indicating approval of its propaganda. 243 PAN-GERMANISM With this view, the notions of the war party, led by the Crown Prince and the naval leaders, clashed seriously. They denied the certainty of the peaceful method; they complained of the length of time required; they pointed out the necessity of rallying the nation to the standard, of convincing the people of the greatness of the need and the nature of the remedy, the impossi- bility of doing this behind closed doors in some secret chamber. Was the scheme one to be ashamed of.'' Was its object or methods nefari- ous? To all such representations the peace party steadfastly replied that if the steady accretion of numbers and wealth was to be depended upon to accomplish the desired ends, no explanation of any sort was necessary for the general public, whose cooperation would be needed only in ways already assured. Patience and time would solve all difficulties without risk; war might conceiv- ably obtain similar results several decades sooner but only at the certain risk of losing what had been already gained. Certainly until the year 1911, the "peace" party (if aggression and conquest without blood- shed can be so described), aided by this logic and the Kaiser's personal influence, remained in control. They even publicly disowned the war party, its speakers and literature. Gradually, @44 FORCING THE ISSUE however, it began to be borne in upon them all that the one condition precedent to the success of the game was non-existent — the willingness of the Triple Entente to permit the forces and factors then at work to continue undisturbed. So long as Germany and Austria remained debtor coun- tries, they could continue the rate of economic progress of the last decades (and on its continu- ance the "peaceful" method depended) only by the same lavish borrowing from France and Eng- land which had made it possible in the first instance. Abundant signs, indubitable in char- acter, showed that English and French bankers had no intention of furnishing more money for German armies and navies or for the further exploitation of Germany's commercial ability. The German and the Austrian should test the old maxim about raising one's self by one's boot- straps. In fact, pressure for the liquidation of Germany's enormous loans was already only too evident. In view of the impatience of the German and Austrian people at the heavy taxation, of the waxing strength of Socialists and irreconcilables, of the signs of anti-militarist feeling in certain classes, it was only too clear that the waiting game could not be financed by Germany or her allies from their own resources, even should their for- 245 PAN-GERMANISM eign creditors not press them unduly for the pay- ment of the debts already incurred. Without new capital, the rate of economic development would be retarded; inevitably prosperity would be af- fected; the rapidity of the increase of population lessened. This was tantamount to defeat. We must not forget, those of us who are not Germans, how completely this logic proves to Germans that the issue of the war was forced upon the Triple Alliance by the Triple Entente by the operation of these perfectly simple and "peace- ful" economic weapons. If this new, situation became a reality, the Pan-Germanists of all shades and varieties saw clearly staring them in the face the very consequences which the great scheme was created to obviate. Nor was this all. The Triple Entente was already engaged in preparations of such magni- tude that in three, four, or at most five years, war must involve too great risks for the Triple Alli- ance to, be longer a possibility. A new French army, larger, more efl&cient, better equipped, a new and reorganized Russian army, would speed- ily reduce the odds on which Prussians had counted. An increased English fleet, completely on a war footing, threatened soon to rob the Germans of the fruits of much clever manipula- tion. The building of a Russian fleet in the Baltic, 246 FORCING THE ISSUE large enough to compel the division of the Ger- man navy between Baltic and Atlantic or the surrender of the Baltic to Russia, seemed ahnost too much. The moment such a fleet was com- missioned, the employment of the German fleet as a unit against the English became impossi- ble, and, divided, it would be overpowered and crushed. With such a Russian fleet occupying the Baltic in the German rear, a German assault upon the English fleet or even a successful defense became problematical feats of daring. A few such plans, successfully consummated, the prompt utilization of a comparatively small part of the vast resources at the disposal of France and England, and Germany would be once more pro- portionately as impotent as she was in 1886 or in 189S. Indeed, the Triple Entente would have so much to gain by forcing the issue in 1917 or 1918 and so much to lose by delay until their numerical preponderance should become less and the Eng- lish fleet proportionately less strong, that the Germans did not dare to allow them to choose the moment. Moreover, in France it was publicly and even officially recognized that the three-year service and the reorganization of the army put every man into the fleld who could be spared without actually cripphng the economic life of 247 PAN-GERMANISM the nation, and there could be no doubt that delay would render the odds much greater for France. This could not but affect the decisions of the Triple Entente in favor of action, for the position of France made her strength essential to any plans for defense or offense. Her defeat could not fail to imperil England or Russia, perhaps both, and might easily be the prelude to the downfall of either. So far as the cost of the war was concerned, the Germans well knew it could not involve, unless a very long and exhausting struggle, much greater burdens to the English and French taxpayers of the next generations than the increase of armament would at the pres- ent rate, and they saw that a deterrent to action was scarcely to be found by the Triple Entente in prudential considerations. The completion of the Panama Canal had neutralized many of the fears held by France and England of Russia's ownership of Constantinople and had thus re- moved one great source of discord and suspicion while the rise of Japan, the strength of the new China, the new spirit among the Indian princes had made Russia less feared by them both in the Far East than for decades. We need not claim an entrance into secret councils to know that these obvious facts were of tremendous weight in form- ing the decisions of statesmen on both sides. In- 248 FORCING THE ISSUE deed, where we can see so much unaided, we can rest assured that there is much more of the same character we do not know. Under such circumstances, with the "peace" policy rendered improbable of success, and with good reason to suppose that the situation would shortly favor the Triple Entente sufficiently to make it advisable for them to take the offensive, the Germans could not fail to realize with satis- faction that the Triple Alliance was proportion- ately stronger and better prepared in 1914 than it was likely to be in later years. The reorgani- zation of the German and Austrian armies was practically complete, and the number of effective troops on a peace footing in Germany at least had been nearly doubled. The striking arm of the Alliance had never been stronger. Nor had the Government ever controlled the domestic situa- tion in Germany as well. The Krupp scandal, the Zabern incident, the indiscretions of the Crown Prince, unanimously condemned by all organs of public and individual opinion with unprece- dented vehemence, had been handled with abso- lute success; the agitation quieted as if by magic; the "offenders" reinstated and decorated after a temporary "disgrace" and nominal confine- ment. To be sure, there are not wanting those who insinuate that the magic used was the assur- 249 PAN-GERMANISM ance that the Day was about to dawn when it behooved all good Germans to stand shoulder to shoulder. For the nonce, the spectre of Socialism and the growing sentinaent in favor of reform of the class system of voting had been banished to the limbo of the unattained, and with them had gone the fear of the loss of control by the present knot of statesmen and of the weakening of the strong bureaucracy on whose efficiency, ability, and loyalty so much would depend. It was obvious to the least informed that Aus- tria, so long as Franz Josef lived, was a far more valuable ally than it was likely to be after his death, even if the expected crisis and consequent disruption of the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not actually destroy the Dual Monarchy and leave Germany practically alone in a world of enemies. Should there be upon his death a deter- mined attempt at independence by one section pf that aggregation of peoples, to say nothing of possible concerted action by the various bodies of irreconcilables, the time and energy necessary even to suppress the rising (assuming that it would fail) would rob Germany's ally meanwhile of much of her defensive and of most of her offen- sive strength. There was everything to gain for Austria, and without much doubt for the Triple Alliance, if the tug should come while Franz Josef 250 FORCING THE ISSUE lived and while the cement of war and the hatred of Russia could aid in passing on the succession to his heir. The death of the Archduke Ferdi- nand also made prompt action advisable, for, while he was not looked upon as an asset, provi- sion had been made for strengthening his hands, and his ideas and character had long been part of the Alliance's calculations. In Austria, the Emperor is actually sovereign and must person- ally discharge functions requiring a high degree of intelligence, skill, tact, and information. Three cabinets, hardly ever harmonious on local policy, and almost never in agreement upon matters re- quiring prompt action; legislatures often unable to do business at all because of obstructionist tactics; racial riots; religious hatreds, have fur- nished problems which have constantly taxed to the utmost the ability and personal influence of a singularly capable, astute, and popular monarch. Was it likely that a yoxmg and inexperienced man could discharge such functions at all? If he could hold together this jumble of races and religions, this tangle of political and national interests, and merely keep the Dual Monarchy alive, would he not have accomplished the maximum that could reasonably be expected of him? There was every- thing to gain for the Triple Alliance, as well as for Austria, if Franz Josef could begin the war. 251 PAN-GERMANISM Victory would insure the future of the Monarchy, and, if defeat was the measure dealt by the Fates, better far that he should tide over the first moments of humiliation and readjustment, and should direct diplomatic negotiations which could not fail to be of the greatest delicacy and conse- quence. Delay might also introduce changes in the strategical situation. In a few years Servia and Greece, nursed probably by the subsidies of the Triple Entente, would recover from the worst effects of the late wars, and become once more capable of active resistance to Pan-Germanist plans. The Wilhelmstrasse could not view such a possibility with indifference. Unless the Swedes themselves very much exaggerated their danger, Russia was contemplating the occupation of Sweden and consequently of the northern shore controlling the entrances to the Baltic. The German fleet could of course escape through the Kiel Canal, but such an eventuality must in a brief time make the Baltic a Russian lake, close it to German trade, and sever from the ocean all the ports of Northern Germany save the few on the North Sea. To have dared so much and sacri- ficed so much to open and protect the ocean routes only to be robbed of the approaches to the Baltic at home was too much to be contemplated FORCING THE ISSUE without a fear that all might thus be lost. The Pan-Germanists, having "emancipated" them- selves from the antiquated shackles of ethics, were at least consistent in attributing to their enemies the same disregard of conventions and treaties. Such considerations were concerned primarily with an ability to create the Pan-German Con- federation or to conquer its foes in Europe. There were others, also important, concerned with the fruits of victory. Without doubt, the main ob- jective was Asia and Africa. Few Pan-German- ists seem to regard substantial changes in the boundary lines of Europe as possible consequences even of decisive victory. The conquest of India, the seizure of Egypt and Morocco, the over- running of South Africa and Latin America, the appropriation of the Congo, were the great prizes which were to atone for all privations and risks. Of them all, the monopoly of trade with "the Mother of Nations " was the most important, and, short of the complete destruction of the English fleet, for which even the most ardent enthusiasts hardly hoped, could be obtained only by the closing of the Mediterranean and Suez Canal to England and by the use of the all-rail route via Constantinople and Baghdad to land a German army behind the defenses of Quetta. The open- ing of the Panaraa Canal would afford the Eng- 253 PAN-GERMANISM lish nearly as short a passage to India and the Far East, and, unless the great victory could be won before the Canal were practicable for warships, or the United States so nursed as to prevent the use of the Canal by EngUsh battleships, the results even of a very great victory on land might not improbably be limited to Europe and the Medi- terranean where there would not be enough of the spoils to go round. The United States in Mexico and the consequent military control of the new canal, the avalanche of American commercial men descending upon South America, the strength- ening of China, the recovery of Japan, all were factors, dependent for their certain operation only upon time, which could not fail greatly to circum- scribe the results of victory. The control of the trade with the Far East, with the Near East, with Africa, with South America had been something to conjure with, to hearten the timorous, to con- vince the doubtful that the stake was worth all possible risks and temporary suffering. Remove it, limit the results to the congested acres of Belgium and Holland, to the sand dunes of Den- mark or the mountain valleys of Anatolia and the game would lose its fascination except for the most venturesome; the risks would outweigh by all probable calculation any gain. Was it not almost providential that in the 254 FORCING THE ISSUE summer of 1914 the domestic diflficulties of all three members of the Triple Entente seemed almost certain to prevent a united defense? The Home Rule crisis in England and the uncompro- mising attitude of Ulster raised issues and made actually probable eventuaUties not seen in Eng- land since the days of Monmouth. Civil war was on every lip; two armies were actually drilhng in Ireland; angry and even violent scenes occurred almost daily between the various parties; the lie was given freely; taunts and challenges were common. Suggestions had been publicly made and their reality proved (to Germans) by no less a personage than a cabinet minister, that Ulster seriously considered revolt from England and the offering of her allegiance to Germany. In London and elsewhere, the German Ambassador investi- gated as thoroughly as he could, drew upon such confidential and secret sources as were at his dis- posal, and advisedly concluded that civil war was only a matter of days and perhaps hours. Events seemed to confirm his belief. A provisional government was fprmed in Ulster; executive, military, financial officers were chosen, to take office when the Home Rule Bill became law; a war fund of a million pounds was subscribed. The "revolutionists" succeeded in "running" a great number of rifles and much anununition 255 PAN-GERMANISM under the very noses of the Government officials. Ulster had armed! If more conclusive evidence of the determination to revolt was wanted, there were the speeches of the leaders on both sides. The supposed solution of the Exclusion Bill was speedily dashed by the absolute deadlock of parties, unaffected even by the King's personal intervention, over the area to be excluded. In addition, despite denials of high officials, Germans had no doubt that the English army had been ordered to Ulster to quell the revolt and had mutinied. What was worse, the Government had not dared shoot the mutineers! Instead, the Secretary of War and the Chief of Staff resigned and the Prime Minister assumed the duties of Secretary of War, a post for which he was (in German eyes) obviously unfitted, simply as a political expedient to keep his tottering govern- ment on its feet a few weeks longer. The Budget was then to all intents and purposes rejected, and the ministerial majority began dwindling rapidly. Charges had often been made of the inefficiency of the Government and of its failure to maintain the navy at proper strength or to insure the efficiency of the small army which England had. To such rumors, the situation now lent credibility. Surely, with Ireland in rebellion, the army muti- nous, the navy crippled and disorganized, the 256 FORGING THE ISSUE ministry tottering, the Government too weak and inefficient even to deal with the Suffragettes, and with a locum tenens in the War Office, Germany could scarcely have hoped for a situation more favorable for the outbreak of war. The decadence of England, they concluded, always a fact, was actually becoming manifest. The Empire, too, always a sham, was showing indisputably (to German eyes) the signs of disso- lution. An issue had been apparently found over which the self-governing colonies and the Imperial Government must quarrel. Hindus had emigrated to South Africa and Canada, expecting as British subjects full rights as citizens in all parts of the Empire. In South Africa they were denied all privileges of real value and in Canada they were actually refused permission to enter the country. For a century and more England had prevented quarrels with her colonies by yielding the point. At last had come an issue of the utmost conse- quence, involving the whole issue of the value and status of British citizenship in various parts of the Empire, demanding prompt solution, in which the Imperial Government could not assent to the colonial view without denying every tenet of British citizenship as hitherto proclaimed and without incurring the risk of an agitation in India which might possibly rupture many long standing 257 PAN-GERMANISM relations. Canada flatly declared that she would not have Hindus in the Dominion at all; South Africa denied them equality of status; the Hindus demanded as British subjects freedom of immi- gration and equality of status in all British do- minions. Compromise of such an issue seemed im- possible; postponement of a settlement seemed to Germans also entirely imlikely and a real quarrel imminent. Canada, the Germans have always discounted as an English asset. The hostility of the French Canadians to England they believed certain to cripple action by the Dominion. Had they not prevented the voting of the three Dread- noughts? Had they not always been the thorn in the side of the Dominion Ministry? Were they not irreconcilables like the Alsatians and Poles in Germany? With England's hands thus effectively tied and the truth of all the Pan-Germanist conclusions about Kingdom and Empire being daily demon- strated, the difliculties in France became all the more important. The crippling of one of the Al- lies was of consequence; the possible crippling of both England and France at this particular junc- ture seemed actually providential. Germany had never rated the French army very high and had always attached so much importance to the anti- militarist propaganda, to the mutinies of various 258 FORCING THE ISSUE regiments in recent years, to the "accidents" to French, battleships that she was probably not surprised to hear in July, 1914, of a sensational at- tack upon the Minister of War. Wholesale charges of inefficiency were made; claims that fortresses were antiquated, guns old, ammunition insuffi- cient both in quantity and quality; the troops unprovided with shoes; that the aeroplane squad- rons existed only on paper, and that the recent public subscription for the purchase of new ma- chines was stolen by high officials who "pur- chased" with it old machines that the Govern- ment already owned. So much merely confirmed suspicions and hopes already entertained in Berlin. Much importance was also attached to the un- yielding opposition to the financial measures proposed by minister after minister for the exe- cution of the plans for the reorganization of the army and for the introduction of the three-year service. Certainly, the Staff concluded at Berlin, if there was any truth in the scandals, the diffi- culties had not been obviated in the mean time. The Caillaux trial, coupled with the Dreyfus episode, and a good many incidents which did not attain publicity, gave an edifying spectacle, which the Germans could not help contemplating with satisfaction, of inefficiency and corruption in high places, of the low morale of French public 259 PAN-GERMANISM men, of their interest and occupation in personal business and scandal to the exclusion of the re- sponsibilities of office. So much was clearly to be expected of democracy. Russia was thought at Berhn to be not yet recovered from the Japanese War and not yet capable of serious and sustained effort, especially at a time when France and England might con- fidently be expected to fail in that prompt ener- getic cooperation she depended upon from them for her protection during the long weeks when her army was slowly mobiUzing and drawing toward the scene of action. England, frantically anxious for naval hoKdays to reduce the burden of arma- ment, whose dominant political party had just recorded itself as opposed to the continuation of armament at all; France, viewing with misgiving the magnitude of the expenditures involved in the reorganization of the army (even though the loan was eventually subscribed forty times over) would both be reluctant, even if they were able, to finance Russia through a long and exhaust- ing struggle such as the Germans were confident would be needed to defeat them or even to hold the balance of power as it then was. Serious labor difficulties in Russia, the belief that the outbreak of European war would as usual be accompanied by internal revolution in Russia, the imperative 260 FORCING THE ISSUE need of gathering the harvest made Pan-German- ists confident that no prompt action was to be feaI^ed from the East. The natural and probable allies of the Triple Entente were also particularly busy or otherwise incapacitated from action. The most powerful, the United States, without a modern army, was facing a crisis in Mexico, which it had undertaken to settle, and which the opinions of all trained observers agreed meant sooner or later a "war" of sufficient magnitude to occupy the exclusive attention of Americans for at least a year. The strength of the pacifist societies in the United States, the prompt rallying to the cause of the Fatherland of the German-Americans, the con- trol of American universities by German-trained professors, the well-known hatred of England by the numerous and influential class of Irish- Amer- icans (who many German officials were convinced were the governing class in the Eastern States) , the "peaceful" propensities of the Secretary of State and of the President, would certainly prevent any prompt assistance to England, and might possi- bly in time be so handled as to draw the United States into an alliance with a victorious Germany. Servia and Greece (Bulgaria and Rumania ' 1 There seems good reason to believe that the late King had per- sonally passed explicit promises of aid to both Kaisers. ' 261 PAN-GERMANISM being already Austrian allies) would be too weak to take the offensive against Austria and would in any case be offset by the armies of their neigh- bors or by the Turk. If worse came to worst, Italy could send an army corps to the rescue. The student should again beware of concluding that, because the German logic easily proved so favorable a situation for precipitating the general conflict for supremacy, he has evidence in his hands to prove that the Triple Alliance decided months in advance to begin the war in July, 1914. He must not represent the circumstantial evi- dence to himself as anything else than it is; but, when he can see so many reasons for fighting in 1914 and knows that the war began in that year, he will be likely to adhere to the simplest of mathematical propositions and conclude that two added to two make four, and will beUeve that the Triple Alliance did force the fighting until he has exceedingly conclusive and explicit evidence to the contrary. When, in addition, the logic of the situation itself completely explains (and indeed justifies) the German official view that England and Russia forced the war upon Germany, when the well-known provisions of treaties and the diplomatic correspondence com- pletely establishes the official view of the Triple Entente that Austria and Germany committed 262 FORCING THE ISSUE the first overt acts of hostility, the student will agree that both are right because their views are complementary and refer to different parts of the decision. The strategical situation admit- tedly made it imperative for Germany to strike the first blow at France through Belgium; the domestic and diplomatic situation made it posi- tively advantageous to the Allies to allow her to do so. Indeed, to insure a united front and effec- tive cooperation in England and France they must actually compel her to strike the first blow. CHAPTEK XVII FOR whatever reason, whether because the moment seemed propitious for aggression or because longer delay was likely to be fatal, a decision seems to have been reached in Berlin and Vienna (if not in Rome) that the Day so long awaited was about to dawn and that it behooved them to be ready. Among the variety of rumors and reports as to the date of the decision and the personnel of the men instrumental in reaching it, there is little to choose; most are possible, none demonstrable even to that moderate degree of probability with which the student of current events has only too often to be satisfied. The advanced state of the preparedness in Germany and Austria is best indicated by indirect evi- dence which renders it almost certain that the decision to force the issue had been reached not later than the middle of June. Many details of the preparations, which we definitely know were completed by August 1, needed six weeks for execution and must therefore have been foreseen and ordered at least that far ahead. Let us say DEM TAG at a venture, till more definite information is available, that the decision was probably reached in Berlin and Vienna not much later than the end of May or early in June, and that enough news of the preparations was imparted to other gov- ernments by their accredited representatives or by spies to warn them of impending events not later than the third week of July. That the mo- ment of attack was fixed on one side or the fact of its dehvery actually credited on the other as early as this is not as probable. The final military preparations for Germany and Austria were not elaborate, — complete mobilization, which means of course the calling out of the reserves, not the preparation of the actual army for the field, could be undertaken only after the bomb had burst and the world be- came aware of the war. OflScers and men on leave, even hospital nurses, were recalled early in July. The active army was concentrated around Metz and Strassburg. The fleet, abeady on a war footing with full complement of men and guns under the provisions of the recent naval law, needed no mobilization and had merely to be supplied with coal, water, and food. Its depart- ure in July for a cruise in parts unknown may have been significant. Stores of coal, oil, and military supplies had of course been accumulated 265 PAN-GERMANISM by the Government and perishable articles, like powder, had been steadily replenished. Such ad- ditional supplies as could be procured without arousing suspicion were obtained; in particular many horses were bought at the Dutch and Bel- gian horse fairs. Nearly everything else was ready. The detailed orders for mobiUzation for any conceivable eventuahty were always ready in Berlin and Vienna and had only to be handed to the messengers; proclamations and printed material had been printed in 1912 and were actu- ally used with merely pencil corrections of the date. The reorganization of the Turkish army and the completion of the Baghdad Railway were hastened, to be ready for the defense of Con- stantinople or the invasion of India as circum- stances might dictate. The fast cruisers of the navy, built as commerce destroyers, were sent to their war stations and prepared for a long ab- sence from their base of supphes in expectation of the closing of the North Sea by the British fleet. To the financial arrangements much anxious attention had been devoted. The crisis of 1911 had shown the power of the Triple Entente and Germany was not minded to find her hands tied at the outbreak of war. Nor could such prepara- tions be postponed until the last moment without 266 DEM TAG courting irreparable disaster in case the war should be begun by the Triple Entente. There can be little reason to doubt that the outbreak of the Balkan War decided the German Govern- ment to complete its financial preparations for the worst; not that war was then intended or feared, but because such arrangements could in the nature of things be perfected only in time of absolute peace. Foresight under such circum- stances, measures undertaken merely to leave nothing undone, are only too likely to appear to the student, whose mind is filled with later events, as evidences of a decision to wage war reached much earlier than the summer of 1914. Precau- tions inevitably look like preparations. While beyond doubt a war could be begun without great sums of cash, or the employment of money at all by the simple expedient of requisitioning what- ever the Government wanted, it could not be begun quickly. Nor was it likely that a sum of money large enough to purchase the enormous amount of supplies imperative for the mainten- ance of the army during the first months could be borrowed in London or Paris on any con- ditions the Government could accept, even if the size of the sum asked for did not of itself rouse suspicion as to its purpose. To get any such sum by means of individual loans by private citi- 267 PAN-GERMANISM zens, intended ostensibly for industrial purposes, was even more difficult, again largely because of the amount involved. Bond issues of large size had not been successful of recent years. Eventu- ally a "contribution" was voted in 1913 of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, justiAed to the people by the claim that it was absolutely neces- sary to render the army efficient for defense, inas- much as the latter had been so long starved for the fattening of the fleet. This was to be the war chest, though we cannot say that the Government foresaw at the moment of levying it the immedi- acy of its use. Nor is it necessary to assume that this huge sum was to be collected in cash. Wars are not fought with money. The bulk of it was intended to be spent at once for the supplies and materials which would otherwise have to be pur- chased as soon as war should break out. It is not necessary to predicate a breach of faith with the people; the levy was actually spent, not hoarded. But such an expenditure would not only prepare the nation for defense, but make possible a war of aggression. Of this nothing was said in Germany. Despite the fact that much of the levy had still to be collected when war broke out, this extraor- dinary tax unquestionably did furnish the war chest, either in cash on hand or in supplies. The gold reserve in the Reichsbank had been DEM TAG increased slowly, during the months just preced- ing July, 1914, from about two hundred million dollars to more than three hundred and thirty millions. No doubt this was to serve as a basis for international exchange and for a paper cur- rency at home. When the situation became tense, the banks were authorized to suspend specie pay- ments and a moratorium was declared, both practically simultaneous with the declaration of a state of war. This prevented the recall of private loans by foreign bankers, which had precipitated the disaster of 1911, and also the withdrawal of deposits and hoarding of specie by private citizens in Germany. Paper money in quantities ap- peared promptly all over Germany the moment war was declared and took the place of the specie thus withheld. All funds in German banks belong- ing to foreign governments (and many believe be- longing to their citizens as well) were confiscated. A movement for the liquidation of foreign securi- ties, almost of such proportions as to arouse sus- picions of something more behind it than the haste of individual investors to realize on their as- sets while there was yet time, was precipitated on the London and New York Stock Exchanges and on the Paris Bourse. The authorities promptly closed them and the commercial panic which formed so large a part of the Pan-Germanist 269 PAN-GERMANISM predictions did not assume either the form or the proportions expected. On the whole, a surprising number of merchant ships and ocean liners were either in German or neutral ports when war was declared. This may have been a prearrangement. Only a few were on the high seas and they were all warned in time by wireless. Certainly, liners intended for auxiliary cruisers appeared promptly on the declaration of war against England in neutral ports far out of their course and were joined there immediately by freighters from Germany bearing their arma- ment. This can hardly have been accidental. Spies swarmed everywhere, it reports are to be believed. The press campaign began promptly and special organs of German news appeared in America and elsewhere. Some say that the new wireless station of a German company at Tucker- ton, New Jersey, was intended to receive and send news from and to Germany, and also to direct the campaign of German cruisers against English shipping. Be this as it may, the more indirect evidence we accumulate the more certain we become that active preparations for war in Ger- many had been begun some weeks before the public suspected anything. The more we learn the more we shall admire the elaborate fore- thought which provided with untiring efficiency 270 DEM TAG even for such minor eventualities as have hitherto waited for adjustment until the first months of the war were passed. The unexpected happened and the murder of the Archduke on June 28 provided the Pan-Ger- manists with an incident better adapted to their needs as a casus belli than anything they could have devised. It was highly essential that the war should be presented to the German and Aus- trian people, certainly to the Italian people, as a defensive war, forced upon the Triple Alliance by ruthless and unprincipled enemies.^ The death of the Archduke lent itself readily to this sort of a diplomatic campaign. A dastardly crime they could easily claim had been committed with the connivance of Servian oflScials, inspired of course by Russia; it was the outgrowth of a propaganda intended to disrupt the Austrian Empire; the suppression of the latter, Austria could rightly demand; the Servians, heartened by Russian promises, refused; Austria would mobilize to punish them; Russia mobilized to protect them; France seized the opportunity for revenge; Ger- ' Let us beware of assuming changes in the international alliances of the first consequence until we can be positive not only that they occurred, but when they occurred. The Italian jealousy of Austrian expansion in the Balkans is well attested, but we must not predi- cate its decisive influence upon Italy's official acts until we have some indubitable overt evidence such as the Declaration of Neutrality furnished. 271 PAN-GERMANISM many mobilized in self-defense. The war was thus made to appear to the German and Austrian people as the imfortunate result of a minor inci- dent of which the Triple Entente was eager to take advantage. The best of it was that literally every detail of the story was not only true but notorious. The plots for the creation of a third monarchy out of the Slavs in southeastern and southwestern Austria were of long standing and formed a part of the "Secrets" of European history known to everyone. The complicity of Servia and the sympathy of Russia were also common property. The disruptive effect of success upon Austria- Hungary was also everywhere admitted. A war upon Servia for the prevention of such plots was literally for Austria a war of self-preservation, a war to end once and for all the treasonable at- tempts to destroy the Dual Monarchy. Clearly, it was in so far a domestic issue with which other nations were not concerned. It would be an is- sue with which neither England nor France was actively concerned and which would afford both of them an excellent opportunity to decline the general issue without involving them in the breach of treaty rights or in any way wounding the national honor. Indeed, both would have to strain a point to represent to their own people as 272 DEM TAG necessary the sending of aid to Servia. Russia would hesitate before assailing Austria single- handed. If by some miracle the Triple Entente should take this view and leave Servia to her fate, the position of the Triple Alliance could be immensely strengthened and the gain in position would amply compensate a short delay in forcing the general issue. This thorn in Austria's side could be taken out; the movement for the crea- tion of the third monarchy could be extermi- nated root and branch in Austria and elsewhere; and the general war begun with a greater cer- tainty of a united Austria than at any time in decades. Again, one of the first desirable things to ac- complish on the outbreak of general war was the completion of the Pan-Germanic confederation by the overrunning of the Balkans. If Rumania and Bulgaria were "loyal," Servia could be quickly subdued and Greece left to the tender mercies of the rejuvenated Turk. To be sure, the increase of Austria's strength in the western Balkans would not be looked upon with favor at Rome, but the issue was by no means new, pledges had already been given to Italy (hitherto satisfactory) suffi- cient to insure her safety and integrity, and were reiterated in the promise, tendered to Russia but meant also to be read in Rome, that no changes of 273 PAN-GERMANISM boundaries or annexations of territory were con- templated. If the Servian issue could be isolated, Austria could accomplish much which had long been considered of the first consequence not only for her domestic peace and security but for the consummation of Pan-Germanism. That Russia would fathom the situation, none doubted. However clothed and cloaked, the war would also be one of ambition and aggression, whose consequences could only be the annihila- tion of Servia, the consequent removal of the chief remaining obstacle to Austrian domination of the Balkans, to her control of the Adriatic, to her possession of Saloniki, the key of the ^Egean. Here she would prevent the fulfillment of Rus- sia's ambition to dominate the Balkans, and her fleet at Saloniki might not improbably rob Con- stantinople of most of its strategic value as the exit from the Black Sea and an entrance to the eastern Mediterranean. Russia's domestic ambi- tions alone would not allow her to view an as- sault on Servia with indifference. The gains of the Triple Alliance in position, the completion of the Pan-Germanic chain certainly would prevent any one of the Triple Entente from viewing the situation with aught but the gravest apprehen- sion. The scheme for a third monarchy had been a most useful tool to them and its success would 274 DEM TAG have erected a barrier in the road of Pan-Ger- manism which a generation of diplomatists might not have surmounted, even if the Dual Monarchy survived the shock. Much more than Servia's integrity would be at stake; too much to entrust to the skill or valor of the Servian army. It would be of necessity a war which the Triple Entente must fight for itself. So clear were all these facts and so well known, that Germany and Austria seem from the first to have regarded a general war as the only possible outcome. Witness the nature of the ultimatum tendered Servia; the manner of the rejection of the Servian reply; the extraordinary haste with which all movements were executed. The more conservative students at present are agreed that from the moment of the delivery of the Austrian ultimatima to Servia on July 24, Germany and Austria precipitated the general war with as much speed as they could. Let us again beware of assuming that this fact proves them responsible in last analysis for the war. The moment chosen was really extraordinarily favorable for them and they were naturally anxious not to lose their advantage by delay. In London news of civil war in Ireland was hourly awaited, and its outbreak would have surprised no one. On the Sunday before war broke out, the 275 PAN-GERMANISM troops fired on Nationalists in Dublin. That the army could be depended upon to coerce Ulster was not at all certain. In France, the Caillaux trial was at its height of emotional intensity and nearly every day brought some sensational dis- closure involving men high in public life. The ministerial crisis was extreme; the existing cabi- net had been formed only with greatest difficulty and seemed to many already tottering; the Presi- dent and Prime Minister with the two best units of the French fleet were in Russia (concerting measures for the expected war?) ; and the situa- tion seemed to insure slowness and inefficiency of action on the part of executive and army at a time when even hours might mean overwhelming victory for Germany. The last of July and the beginning of August was also the time of year most favorable to the Alliance and least favorable for its enemies. Ger- man strategy depended upon a sharp, decisive blow at France, and, if possible, at England, be- fore Russia could appear in sufficient force in the east to be really dangerous. Time was therefore an all important factor in the campaign. Russia would be slower in mobilizing than any other country, how slow no one knew, but she could hardly move, Berlin concluded, before the first of September and possibly not for another fortnight. 276 DEM TAG Winter comes early in Russia and even in Poland and East Prussia. While its arrival would prob- ably be too late to prevent Russian mobilization and the delivery of the first assault, it would surely appear in time to hamper the supplying and reinforcement of the Russian army, and per- haps might actually mterfere with the continu- ance of the campaign long enough to insure a Ger- man victory in France where the open fields and relatively mild winter would allow of the prolong- ation of the campaign almost indefinitely. The Russians might be forced to do what they could at once and then remain passive till spring. Con- ceivably they might not be able to deliver the main blow in the autumn. Thus they apparently argued in Berlin and Vienna. Exactly what in- fluence the climate would exert, if any, no one of course knew, but the moment chosen took advantage of all possible factors. With the war itself or its outcome it is not yet time to deal. CHAPTER XVIII THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM ANY consideration, however slight or casual, of the justifiability of so far-reaching a plan as Pan-Germanism must necessarily begin with the validity of the standard to be employed in judging it. Even a comparatively slight acquaint- ance with history will make sufficiently evident the existence in the world of politics and business of a different standard from that criterion of abso- lute truth which we ordinarily apply to the con- duct of individuals. We find, in fact, that same double standard in existence in international poli- tics which is so perplexing to the majority of men in connection with every-day business, where the usual conception of ethics declares it right for one man to best the other by any means he can, short of actual violence and the actual breach of the letter of the law. The majority of men, what* ever professions they are willing to make verbally, do not practice the Golden Rule or the Ser- mon on the Mount. If we apply to the situation in international politics the ethical and moral lenets, frankly professed by the community, and, 278 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM as frankly, disregarded in every-day life, we shall necessarily conclude that Pan-Germanism is not and never can be justifiable. If we proceed, too, in attempting to evaluate the moral and ethical aspects of Pan-Germanism, from the position in regard to war assumed by the numerous societies advocating international peace or arbitration, we shall also be in danger of assuming the truth of our conclusion as our premise. The advocates of peace declare that war is cruel, brutal, econo- mically wasteful, and, from every point of view, opposed to the true interests of the community as a whole and of the individuals who compose it. They declaim against it as foolish; who would really be so lacking in reason as to suppose that the truth and justice of great questions could be established by fighting? Such men must still be dwelling mentally in the darkness of remote antiquity. They insist that war is void of good result; who can be so lost to all sense of propor- tion and value as to suppose that destruction can be constructive ? To argue from any such premises as these will be necessarily to establish that any such scheme of aggression as that attempted by Germany is not only lacking in morality but in sanity. The candid student, however, who is not anx- ious to support a propaganda, and who seeks PAN-GERMANISM rather to explain and expound the real reasons which have led men into such paths as they are now following than to cavil and blame, will recog- nize in Pan-Germanism the expression of a na- tional determination to preserve and strengthen the corporate life of a great people. Its basis is greed from one point of view, ambition from an- other, but its effective cause in both cases is the expression of nationality. Germany, in fact, has attained a national consciousness, a national in- dividuality, and seeks to insure the continued ex- istence of this corporate individual for all time. Pan-Germanism is merely self-preservation. This new individual, who entered the world through the travail of the nineteenth century, is conscious of his sturdy strength and of his growing needs, is ambitious to improve his own condition and to leave to those who come after him a solid guar- antee of immunity from the suffering and priva- tion that he has endured. Above all, he is filled with an uncontrollable determination to establish his economic well-being. With growth have come new economic wants, which have in turn revealed the existence of hitherto unexpected desires, clamoring for satisfaction and to be satisfied only by the increased wealth which depends in its own turn upon the possibility of national expansion. Unquestionably, the creation of this corporate 280 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM individual is the result of the working of natural forces, present in the life of every European com- munity, and to whose operation every nation in Europe owes that degree of prosperity and cor- porate consciousness which it possesses. To a greater or less degree, all are actuated by the motives which influence Germany. It is by no means clear that, if their circumstances were identical with hers, they would fail to employ all the methods of which she is ready to avail herself. Whether or not we are willing to admit that there are moral and ethical principles of permanent value, absolutely binding upon all individuals and communities from century to century, we cannot deny that the record of the past amply proves that no nation has yet refrained, because of moral scruples, from advancing its economic or national welfare by any means it could. If Germany is wrong, others too have been wrong; indeed, if her conduct is unjustifiable, no country in the world can establish its moral and ethical fight to existence. At the same time that we recognize the recrudescence of certain factors familiar to all situations, we must not be blind to the vastly more important fact that the present situation is literally without precedent in the his- tory of the world. The present international situation is the result 281 PAN-GERMANISM of the economic progress of the last half -century. The improvements in agriculture, in manufactur- ing, in transportation, have for the first time since man began to write the record of his deeds made the world capable of more than keeping itself in existence. The increased production of food and clothes, entirely beyond any immediate needs of the existing community, has stimulated' to an unprecedented degree the growth of population, while the progress of industry and agriculture has as constantly out-distanced the increasing popu- lation. The satiation of the old economic wants of the individual, for food, clothes, and shelter, produced inevitably new standards of well-being which declared subsistence to be something more than the ability to keep alive, and which insisted upon a certain excellence of quality in the food and clothes, a certain amount of leisure for amuse- ment and self -culture, a certain degree of educa- tion. The luxuries of preceding centuries became necessities. More economic wants appeared. Men whose ancestors had been well content with one good meal a day and a thatched cottage of one room are demanding a house with glass windows and three liberal meals a day, including fresh meat, beverages, sugar, and butter. While few will claim that the new standard is excessive, no candid student can deny the astonishing increase THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM in the number of economic wants never before felt by so large a proportion of the community. To continue to feed and clothe the growing multitudes, to meet the demands imposed upon industry and agriculture by the new standards of living, an approximate utilization of all the re- sources of the community became necessary. In the past the vastness of the resources of the globe had never been suspected; agriculture had merely scratched the ground; mines had been worked only where large deposits of comparatively free metal lay near the surface; manufacturing, so far as the majority of the community was concerned, had been confined to the production of rough cloth and the absolute essentials of existence. The substitution of machines for the thousands of hands needed in the past for the performance of the same task, the utilization of the resources of the community in anything like an adequate way for the first time, enabled a part of the community to supply the whole with the necessities of life, even according to the new standard of living, and, therefore, enabled the remainder to devote their time to less essential tasks. Many of them turned their attention to meeting the new economic wants, others occupied their time by still further developing the economic possibilities of the com- munity. And for the first time in history, it be- PAN-GERMANISM eame possible for vast numbers of men to turn their attention solely to the furtherance of the community's ambitions. Hitherto no standing army of considerable size could be maintained in Europe, for the simple reason that so large a number of hands could not be spared from the fields from which the community derived its maintenance. Nor were the transportation facili- ties adequate to provide these men with a steady supply of food and clothes during the necessary period of training. A standing army of hundreds of thousands of men, who devote their whole time to learning the art of war, and who are maintained by the state during their apprenticeship, is a phe- nomenon which nothing short of the economic progress of the last half -century could have made possible. For the first time enough men can be spared from the task of keeping the community alive to devote themselves to the prosecution of a war founded only in aggression. Pan-Germanism has been made possible by the economic growth of the nineteenth century. Paradoxical as it may sound, the internal peace of Europe since 1815, except for sporadic out- breaks here and there, has intensified in degree this new phase of national activity. Hitherto, the resources of every country, in men and in food, were periodically reduced by famine and pesti- S84 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM lence, and, above all, by the destructive nature of war as it was necessarily prosecuted before the modern railway made it possible to supply an army from a distance. The same lack of trans- portation, which forced the soldiers to forage on the country, also forced each district of the coun- try to depend, almost entirely, in time of peace upon its own efforts for its own subsistence. Floods, drought, blight, various diseases of cattle, produced famine and the inevitable reduction of the population, often in the same little community not less frequently than twice or thrice within a generation. Under these circumstances the abil- ity of a country to go to war, to put men into its army, to divert them from the fields, even during the continuance of the war, depended upon its comparative freedom from these artificial meth- ods of losing its strength. The comparative peace of the last century and the progress of medical science, as well as the advance in agriculture and industry, have enormously strengthened the na- tions of the world by giving them a surplus of men and materials, which they can now devote to the prosecution of a war of aggression without endangering the lives of those already in existence. Moreover, this same peace, which has greatly contributed to the unprecedented increase of population and of wealth, and which has per- 285 PAN-GERMANISM mitted the devotion of so much time and labor to the satisfaction of economic wants which past centuries would have considered superficial, is in no small measure responsible for that very economic pressure of population, that need of an outlet for the swelling surplus of manufactures which is driving Germany, Austria, and Italy into this great scheme of aggression. Their present resources, their ability to support themselves by the labors of a fraction of the community, which permit them to undertake such aggression, are the very factors which make expansion inevit- able. The interaction and the interrelation of these varied economic factors have produced not only the impulse but the means of satisfying it. The unprecedented growth of population in all countries of Europe, which has compelled them to utilize their resources as never before, has not expanded their boundaries. Germany has sub- stantially no more arable land available than in 1815. The erasure of traditional boundaries, the disappearance of administrative and legal factors familiar to the past, does not alter the vital fact that the Germanic race still occupies to all intents and purposes the same territory it held in the year 1500. It is, in fact, in the feeling of limitation, engendered by the extent to which the present natural resources of Europe have been drawn 286 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM upon to maintain the economic life of the com- munity, that we find the effective explanation of the present frenzied desire for expansion. The benefits which have accrued both to the individual and to the community in well-being, mental as well as physical, from this development, are so vast that no nation can view, except with dismay, the probability of the retardation of its present rate of growth. They realize not only that the pre- sent rate of development cannot be continued in Europe, but that it must necessarily stop alto- gether unless the various European nations can extend their activities into other portions of the globe. It is far from improbable that, at the rate of growth during the last century, all land in the temperate zone suitable for the home of the pre- sent European races may be developed within the next century to the point which Europe has already reached. Who would have imagined in the year 1700 that the continent of North Amer- ica could by any possibility have been brought within the succeeding two hundred years to prac- tically the same point of economic, political, and social development which the European nations had attained in thousands of years? In fact, it is pretty generally felt among the statesmen of the leading powers of the world that the present rate of expansion cannot continue, and that inevitably 287 PAN-GERMANISM some nation or nations must fall behind in the race for national and individual well-being. The progress of transportation, resulting in an interdependence of the world and an ease of com- munication between the various parts of it which has brought all countries into close relations with each other, made possible for the first time the clash of interests between nations whose territo- ries were not contiguous. In the old days a nation was intimately concerned only with the policies of its immediate neighbors. France, Germany, and England were vitally interested in the condi- tion of the Netherlands because there all three found their common meeting-point. Russia, how- ever, cared little for the fate of the Netherlands. Now the whole world is necessarily interested in the fate of Belgium and Holland, because its parts are interdependent and are related to each other by the mere fact that they exist on the same sphere. There is no limit to the number or loca- tion of one's rivals. The spread of national inter- ests throughout the world, due to the fact that the flag has followed the nation's trade, has fur- ther increased the possibilities of disagreement; while the interdependence of the economic world has multiplied for each country the number of interests with which other nations may easily in- terfere. As soon as communication with distant 288 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM parts of the world was perfected by means of the telegraph, every nation was able to extend its interests throughout the globe without losing that immediate contact upon which the efficient control of dependencies rests. It is literally pos- sible for England to govern India, for France to rule Morocco, for Russia to direct aflFairs in Man- churia, with a degree of certainty which would have astounded Marcus Aurelius or Louis XIV. No country, even the smallest, was ever governed before the nineteenth century with the degree of certainty and efficiency now possible in regulating the aflFairs of the most distant dependencies. The steamship and the railway have made it a simple matter to reach these remote places, with an ex- penditure of time and effort less than used to be necessary for the prosecution of trade or war in Europe. England provisioned her army in South Africa with greater efficiency and dispatch than Napoleon fed his armies, operating in Germany, from the fields of southern France. Transporta- tion, therefore, has not only produced the ability of nations to quarrel, but it has allowed them to fight their battles in the uttermost parts of the world. From these same developments in communica- tion and in transportation has resulted a great increase in administrative efficiency in the home 289 PAN-GERMANISM countries. The government is now able to locate with exactitude the whereabouts of all materials and men useful in any emergency. It can meas- ure with considerable accuracy the degree of the national progress, the amount of surplus strength which the nation can probably afford to expend; it can foresee with some certainty the probable resources of the country for a considerable num- ber of years in advance. Louis XIV, on the other hand, who is the stock example of an absolute monarch employed by most historians, never could tell when there would be any money in the treasury, nor knew with certainty what his offi- cials were doing a hundred miles from Paris. It is this possibility of measuring and foreseeing that makes possible the formation and execution of plans like Pan-Germanism. Without the tele- graph, how could an army of a million men pos- sibly be summoned to a certain spot for a certain date a week distant; without the railway, how could they possibly be brought there, fed, shel- tered, and maintained during even the few days preceding action; how could they possibly be maintained without the services of the complex modern economic fabric? It is modern science, in fact, which makes modern international poli- tics a possibility. What is more, the telegraph, the printing-presab 290 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMaNISM the newspaper, have created the modern nation of whose ambition and strength these schemes of aggression are merely the expression. The peoples of the past centuries lived in isolation, never con- scious of what was happening at that same mo- ment elsewhere, rarely able to act in concert for lack of that knowledge. The great movements of history have been limited to small areas, to a few men, because of the impossibility of securing the cooperation of a greater number. Time used to be absolutely a prerequisite for any movement whatever, and there was no means of promptly communicating with every one, or of discovering, soon enough to be of practical value, the senti- ments of different sections of the community. The intensification of national feeling, — one might almost say the creation for the first time of a truly national feeling, — the possibility for the first time of so large an aggregation of individuals having anything resembling unity of thought and feeling, has created the present crisis and is its most salient feature. Each nation, thus more acutely conscious of itself and more keenly con- scious of the conditions which support it, has become more acutely conscious of others and has felt more keenly the differences in develop- ment, in economic status, in intellectual progress, ia artistic achievement, which distinguish it from 291 PAN-GERMANISM its neighbors. The ex'^ent and possible variety ol interests are dawning upon the national conscious- ness for perhaps the first time with anything like adequacy, and with it, also for the first time, there is dawning in the minds of all nations some faint adumbration of the glorious national future before a people capable, really and literally, of acting, thinking, and feeling as one. Indeed, the vision has roused men from the contemplation of their own petty doings and lifted them into a sphere broader and more impersonal. For a great people, who had become conscious of such a unity of feeling, of such a dependence upon each other, and of the possibilities of united action, nothing is more normal than to attempt, by the exercise of forethought, to increase the strength, capacity, and influence of this corporate body, to knit it more firmly together, to place it upon a still more solid basis of economic prosperity. Nor is it strange that the first ecstasy of national conscious- ness should have brought with it fears for its own continuance and a passionate desire to insure that continuance for all time. Indeed, it is probably no exaggeration to claim that the present aggressive schemes of most European nations are soberly intended to preserve what exists rather than to increase it, even though by preservation they mean no mere continued existence, but the abso- 292 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM lute assurance of the existence of a prosperous, enlightened nation for the rest of time. One trouble which most students seem to ex- perience in attempting to judge the present crisis arises from the tendency to assume that the great- est good is to be instu-ed by the preservation of the conditions now in existence. One might almost say that the advocates of peace tend to regard the present status quo as the end and object of the process of evolution. They seem, in fact, to oppose, or at least to deprecate, the persistent attempts of mankind to accelerate the pace of civilization, and to desire to limit the tools which men are to use in the future to economic weapons. Probably this phase of contemporary thought is a part of the natural reaction from the logical consequences of the doctrine of evolution as expounded by Spencer. To their thinking, the relegation of the influence exerted by moral and ethical forces to the second rank proceeds from a failure to appreciate their real force, and they are consequently drawn into an aggressive assertion of the superiority of mind over matter, of the spiritual over the physical, among those varied forces to whose operation the development of society has been due. One can hardly study the modern situation, however, without becoming keenly aware that the difference between war and PAN-GERMANISM peace, as the words are ordinarily used, is rather one of degree and of outward form than of pur- pose. The nations of the world have unquestion- ably been busy for the last half -century' with the determined attempt to surpass each other, to get possession of things which they did not have already, by methods which rest certainly upon the same ethical foundation that war does, and whose results upon the individual, and even upon nations, are not necessarily different in kind from those of actual warfare. To be sure, the financial operations known as peaceful penetration are not exactly what we have been accustomed to consider methods of violent conquest; but by such means large numbers of the inhabitants of the smaller countries have just as certainly lost their land and the products of their labor as if an army had destroyed them. There is perhaps a nice discrimi- nation to be drawn by some logician between tak- ing a man's property away from him or stealing a nation's independence by means of an army and by means of high finance; but if the individual or the nation suffers the same loss from both pro- cesses, and if the intent is essentially the same, it is diflBcult to see where the ethical grounds sup- porting them differ. If it would be wicked for Germany to enter Belgium with an army and take possession of the country, seizing the revenues and 294 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM compelling the Belgians to accept from them loans of money at such terms that the Belgians would practically lose possession of their own govern- ment for half a century to come, why is it more moral for France to obtain the same results in Morocco, or for the United States in a similar manner to secure possession of Mexico and Central America, so that the inhabitants have scarcely anything left to call their own but their very lives? Indeed, there are more ways of conquest than fighting, and more methods of robbery than the Middle Ages were familiar with. It must be admitted in all candor that the im- pulses behind Pan-Germanism exist at present in all nations, and that no nation is likely at pre- sent to forego the possibility of future develop- ment because of even the most plausible ethical or logical pleas. The two nations, who have entered into the promotion of Pan-Germanism, are not different from the others in morals or in aims. Their geographical position, their peculiar eco- nomic fabric, the traditions of their past, all force upon them the aggressive part and make imme- diate action desirable. England, France, Russia, and the United States already possess the choice places in the world; their position is already everything they could reasonably hope to have it; and they scarcely deserve to be praised for unself- 295 PAN-GERMANISM ishness when they insist upon preserving a situa- tion which is so very much to their advantage. Obviously, their national existence and ambition will be best furthered by the continuance of the status quo, because they will thus be able to keep what they already hold. Nor is it proved that they have obtained it by the observance of the ethical precepts which they would now be glad to apply to Germany; they secured their empires, in fact, by precisely those methods which Ger- many wishes to use against them. It is as selfish for them to insist upon peace as it is for the Ger- mans to demand war. In reality, the difference of opinion as to the proper procedure for settling the diflBculty is not based upon ethical concepts at all. It merely means that the Triple Entente prefers to employ in the struggle only the economic and financial weapons in whose use they are already adepts and of which they already possess so many more than their rivals as to make the outcome of the struggle, if fought on this basis, practically positive to be in their favor. The Triple Entente, in fact, like the good Doctor Franchard, have de- rived their philosophy from their desires, and have painted a picture of themillenniumof peace whose lineaments are necessarily those of their present condition. Germany, Austria, and Italy, conscious of their disadvantage on the economic plane, are 296 THE JUSTIFIABILITY OF PAN-GERMANISM anxious to employ in the coming duel a diflFerent type of weapon, in whose use they believe them- selves more expert than are their enemies. One might almost compare the two coalitions with, a trained swordsman and a countryman who have somehow gotten into a quarrel. The swords- man wishes to settle the point of honor by a duel with rapiers under limitations which require the combatants to employ only one arm and to use only the point, to attack only after due warning, and not to press the adversary to the utmost. These conditions condemn the countryman to defeat. He wishes to fight with his fists, to hit wherever he can and as often as possible, to give no quarter, and to continue the fight until one or the other is exhausted. The swordsman, gazing upon the brawny figure of his opponent, is afraid that, in a struggle of that nature, he might not be successful, and hesitates to stake his all upon a rough-and-tumble battle. He insists upon fight- ing like a gentleman, and talks about honor, and ethics, and the obligations of civilization. The countryman sees plainly enough that all this is in- tended to rob him of an advantage, and he, there- fore, declines to be bound by a variety of ethics or a code of morals which necessarily condemn him to defeat. So of the two coalitions; the Triple Entente, 297 PAN-GERMANISM with so much to lose, was most anxious to avoid an appeal to fisticuffs, and wished, if possible, to limit the weapons, and thus the extent of defeat. The Triple AUiance, with httle likelihood of suc- ceeding, but with nearly everything to gain if it should succeed, was a great deal more willing to appeal to the ultimate arbitrament of war. As a matter of fact, they regarded war as their last chance. They had fought the Triple Entente with economic weapons for a good deal more than a generation and were not within measurable dis- tance of victory. If, then, we regard the truth as a concept which becomes gradually visible as we study the record of the past, if moral concepts are not those which men proclaim but those by which they live, we shall be forced to admit that Ger- many and Austria is not morally worse than the Triple Entente. Certainly, the validity of such standards in such circumstances as their adver- saries wish to apply has never yet been admitted by any nation within the ken of history. The Germans refuse, therefore, to accept an adverse judgment based upon standards which cannot claim general acceptance by the Congress of Nations. CHAPTEE XIX THE FUTURE OF PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE THE outbreak of general European war in the summer of 1914 promptly removed all con- siderations of tlie future of Pan-Germanism from the forum of academic discussion and made them by far the most interesting phases of the situation to the majority of people. We must not forget, however, as observers, that we are in no position to compare the contending forces, denied, as we are, all reliable information about factors of such evident importance as the relative efficiency and size of armies and navies, the real economic strength of the countries, the position and value of forts and batteries. The mere facts that no great European war has ever been fought with modern armaments and tactics; that such huge armies have never been known in history and have yet to prove that their size is not more than counterbalanced in action by the increased diffi- culty of concerted movement; that the ability of the modern economic structure to weather the shock of war and adapt itself promptly to the PAN-GERMANISM crisis has yet to be demonstrated, — these un- known quantities alone make any opinion at this time of the outcome of the war valueless. We do know that the Germans and Austrians, who see of course more than we can, are sufficiently con- fident of the correctness of their calculations and of the superiority of their arrangements to have staked their national welfare and perhaps their national existence upon success. On the other hand, the statesmen and generals of the Triple Entente, who unquestionably also know more than we can, are proclaiming with insistence that, while they are confident of eventual victory, they expect a long and exhausting struggle will be necessary thoroughly to test the issue of the rela- tive strength of the two coalitions. When, however, the Pan-Germanists speak of success, they usually mean something far more complex than a victorious sweep across France to the gates of Paris, more even than a complete victory on land and sea over their enemies. Pan- Germanism involves the creation of the confed- eration of states which it intends to make the controlling factor in international politics; it in- volves, in the next place, the ability of this con- federation to win a victory over one or all of its enemies and to extend its authority and domin- ions into Asia and Africa; it further assumes the 800 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE feasibility of maintaining control and of preserv- ing its newly won supremacy intact from the sub- sequent assaults of internal as well as external foes. About the first and third, little has been written in Germany in comparison to the amount published regarding the vulnerability of her ene- mies' strategic and economic position, their mili- tary inferiority, their administrative incapacity. Naturally, the Germans have been less ready to call attention to the diflBculties in their own path than to the more obvious factors about their riv- als where the verdict of history and their rivals' own testimony prove them to be right. Naturally, too, should Germany and Austria be defeated in the present war, the execution of Pan-Germanism will have to be postponed if not altogether aban- doned. Such an eventuality we need not discuss. The real issue of interest is the future of Pan- Germanism in the event of a victory in the pres- ent war. Yet it cannot be too often or too strongly said that even an overwhelming military and naval victory would not necessarily insure the permanence of the Pan-Germanic Confeder- ation nor its success outside Europe. The perma- nent (perhaps even the temporary) success of Pan-Germanism will depend upon the truth or falsity of the German notions of the situation in Europe; upon the verity of their ideas regarding 301 PAN-GERMANISM the proportional strength of the various nations; upon the correctness of their judgment in con- cluding certain factors to be naiore essential than others; upon the adequacy of the methods they have devised for taking advantage of what they believe to be a superior position. Whatever the possibilities of temporary success, the balance of probabilities leaves little doubt in the student's mind that the obstacles in the way of the perma- nent success of Pan-Germanism are so numerous and so fundamental as to render long existence or extended success improbable. Let us begin with the premises. In the chapters devoted to an exposition of the German view of the European situation, the factors in their favor were described as fully as is possible in so brief an account as this. Nor is there a great deal of doubt in the impartial student's mind regarding the substantial truth of the propositions there laid down. While it is probable that the Germans exaggerate the degree of their own strength and the extent of England's weakness, while it is prob- able that they rely too much upon the assumed difference in efficiency between their administra- tion and that of France and Russia, it cannot be gainsaid by a candid observer that on the whole the Germans' notion of the proportional suprem- acy of the various nations and in particular their 802 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE ideas of English history are substantially correct. Indeed, no one has stated these propositions with greater force than Professor Seeley, whose "Ex- pansion of England" appeared at just the time when Pan-Germanism was in the making. Eng- land is no longer defended by the Channel as she once was; she certainly never took possession of her dependencies by actual conquest, nor does she retain possession by means of physical force; the self-governing colonies are manifestly without geographical contiguity, and have been indepen- dent in aU but name for the better part of a cen- tury. The weakness of England's long chain of strategic points has always been apparent to its possessor; but, so long as it served the purpose for which it was constructed, there was no reason for abandoning it simply because certain conditions might render it vulnerable. The Germans also correctly appreciate the fact that an English victory in a naval war will simply maintain the position which she already holds; a defeat they also see will be fatal to her; in a naval war she has comparatively little to gain, while they may win everything. To their thinking this balances the scales very much iti their favor. To reach them the English must have recourse to land warfare for which they are not reaUy fitted, and not well placed, since the true base of the 303 PAN-GERMANISM English position against Germany, so far as the offensive is concerned, is the frontier between Germany and Belgium and Holland. From a mil- itary point of view, the seizure of the former coun- try by Germany at the moment of the outbreak of war moved the Germans into what is properly speaking English territory and demolished im- portant obstacles in the way of an attack upon England's most vital spot. There seems to be some truth in the German view that Russia and France are not as capable as she of utilizing their full resources with promptitude. It is extremely probable that most nations in the world would be very glad to assist in looting the British Empire. Certainly the German scheme for taking posses- sion of her own lands and factories, which have been developed with borrowed money, has been executed befote in similar cases with undoubtedly disastrous results to the borrowers. It has never been consciously attempted on so huge a scale. The potency of the economic weapons which she believes can be brought to bear upon England and France is undoubted, though there are a good many difficulties in the way of putting such forces into effective operation. In short, on its face the German scheme is not only feasible but conclusive. Theoretically there are no flaws. We need not, however, fail to see that these S04 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE premises have to do entirely with the ability of Germany and Austria to prevail in the war and to injure their enemies, and have little if any rela- tion to the far more vital question of the ability of Germany to create, unify, and perpetuate the proposed confederation without which the fruits of victory cannot be garnered. We may admit all the premises, we may even grant success in the war, and still insist that the ground has merely been cleared for the constructive work at home upon whose success the permanence of the whole structure obviously depends. We have only to recall the nature of the Pan- Germanic Confederation to see how fundamental are the factors hostile to its existence and effi- ciency. Nor must we fail to lay peculiar stress upon the words "existence" and " efficiency "j neither will be secured beyond a peradventure even by the elation and enthusiasm consequent upon a great victory; both wiU be absolutely indispensable to the permanent success of the scheme. Pan-Germanism itself is to be a coalition of coalitions in the most literal sense of the words. Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Balkans, Tur- key, are states in which the racial hatreds are still active, religious antipathies scarcely more than minimized and concealed, and in which the administration has been compelled continually 305 PAN-GERMANISM to struggle against the persistent obstruction of classes or districts who have believed the very existence of the state itself a grievance of the first magnitude. Out of such material Pan-Ger- manism proposes to create another confedera- tion, whose racial, reUgious, and administrative imity will be even more obviously a matter of assumption than in any of the confederations out of which it is to be made, and whose existence and efficiency will depend directly upon the extent to which these assumptions can be made reaUties. An internal rebellion in any one of these confed- erations may be fatal to the larger "entity"; nothing short of harmonious cooperation can ren- der such a world-state efficient; nothing less than efficiency can make it powerful enough to exert any considerable influence in the affairs of Asia or Africa or to play a controlling part in Europe. Yet, between the various members of the new Confederation lie national and racial antipathies as old as the history of Europe. Without the co- operation of Austria, the scheme is impossible, and scarcely two generations ago the enmity be- tween the present alUes led them into war with each other. Austria and Prussia have hated each other throughout history with a vigor scarcely surpassed by the hatred which Prussia bears France. The Italians, who are at present writing 306 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE holding aloof from the war and who have indeed very probably deserted the Triple Alliance, have long hated Austria and have constantly demurred at putting into her hands the eastern coast of the Adriatic. Certainly from Trieste the conquest of the Po Valley is feasible, and that alone, without the cries of Italia Irredenta, has suflBced to make Italy consider before she leaped. In addition, the Balkan States all suspect Austria and hate the Turk with fanaticism. And these are the coun- tries upon whose hearty cooperation the new world-state is to be based ! The most fundamental of all possible factors seem to be hopelessly lack- ing: racial, religious, and administrative unity, a tradition of mutual affection and trust. Nor should it be forgotten, whatever the immediate results of victory upon public opinion, that these factors are older than Pan-Germanism and will in time infallibly demand recognition. In both Germany and Austria, racial problems exist which diplomacy and force have seldom long restrained. Both Prussia and Austria have been thoroughly well hated in southern Germany, where the comic papers have frequently with gen- eral applause printed scandalous cartoons and squibs about both emperors. The mihtary and financial privileges allotted these states by the German Constitution may be of great conse- 307 PAN-GERMANISM quence in case southern Germany concludes that a victory has made Prussia too strong. Further- more, southern Germany controls important ap- proaches to Alsace, the passes through Switzer- land, and the whole upper half of the Rhine and Danube valleys. The affection for France in Al- sace and Lorraine is as strong as ever and can scarcely fail to be intensified by the war. Not long ago, a pubUc oflScial turned the Emperor's statue with its face to the wall amid pretty gen- eral and open expressions of approval. The in- tense feeling aroused by the sabering of the un- fortunate cobbler at Zabern revealed a hatred of Germany which only too thoroughly explained the ecstatic joy over the outbreak of the " war of deliverance" and the removal of the mourning fi'om the Alsatian statues. "I have watched a forester from Alsace," wrote Stevenson, "while some one was singing 'Les Malheurs de la France,' at a baptismal party. . . . He arose from the table and took his son aside, close by where I was standing. 'Listen, Usten,' he said, bearing on the boy's shoulder, 'and remember this, my son.' A Uttle while after he went out into the garden suddenly and I could hear him sobbing in the darkness." The continuance of the Babylonish captivity, with further humiliation and stricter repression, will scarcely break the spirit of this 308 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE people or remove the thorn from the German side. The eflficiency of Austria in the coming genera- tion, the possibility of its maintaining its position in Europe, and of its contributing strength to the Confederation, depend upon the abiUty of the present rulers to maintain the present relations between Austria and Hungary and between the various sections of the Austrian Empire. There is perhaps no part of Europe where racial feeHng is so intense or where so many races are juxtapos- ited. Their quarrels have filled the history of Eu- rope with discord; the number of irreconcilables, who wish to overthrow the present government and to substitute for it anything else whatever, is extremely large, and seems to be increasing rather than decreasing. Hungary hates Austria; Bohemia wishes to be independent; the Slavs and Croatians in the southwest have agitated in- dependence for generations; the Ruthenes and the Poles in the northeast are equally determined to submit to Austrian rule no longer than they must. In Hungary, the struggle of the Magyars to re- tain their racial supremacy is of the keenest, and constantly results in violent outbreaks and riots.' So slight a thing as the posting of a sign in one ' "Even in quiet times the Magyar will get the gypsies to play him the song, ' The German is a blackguard.' " Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences, n, 257. 309 PAN-GERMANISM language or another over a railway station has been known to result in a riot of nearly the pro- portions of a civil war. Recently when the ItaUan students at the University of Vienna undertook to celebrate one of their national holidays, the German and the Austrian students attempted to put a stop to it by force. The police interfered; were met by armed resistance from the students; and it was for some days doubtful whether peace could be preserved by the miKtary in one of the greatest capitals in Europe. Surely a pitched bat- tle between Italians, Austrians, and Germans arising out of racial and national feeUng, fought in the streets of Vienna, was a sinister omen in the path of Pan-Germanism. When the student con- siders the relative international weakness or na- tional strength of the countries of Europe, it will be difficult for him to value Austria-Hungary at anything above the minimum figure. It is not too much to say that the success of the whole scheme depends absolutely upon the stabil- ity and efficiency of Germany and Austria. Nay, the continuance even of the attempt to execute the scheme may be contingent upon the contin- uance in office of those who are at present di- recting the policy of those states and upon their ability to dictate the disposition of the national resources. Yet there are no countries in Europe 310 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE where the forces struggUng to effect fundamental alterations in constitutional, administrative, and political conditions are more persistent and more powerful, and have hitherto seemed to possess greater chances of success. The number of irre- concilables — which means to the European the number of those who regard the very exist- ence of the state as a fundamental grievance which nothing except its destruction can remedy — is very large, and comprises considerable sec- tions of the population who occupy important strategic positions, and who elect without diffi- culty numerous representatives to the assemblies. The SociaUsts in Germany are exceedingly strong, are growing in numbers at a portentous rate, and are rapidly outstripping the other parties in the smaller states and in the Reichstag; they al- ready practically control the city of Berhn and comprise the numerical majority in many other cities. The Opposition in the Austrian and Him- garian Parhaments has been so strong that the business of the session frequently has had to be suspended for days and weeks, and it has more than once been necessary to break the deadlock by calling in the military to remove the obstruc- tionists before any business could be done. The system of representation provided by the con- stitutions of these nations permits most of the 311 PAN-GERMANISM people to vote, but evaluates the individual vote on the basis of property and education. The adoption of universal suffrage of the EngUsh, French, or American pattern would throw into a hopeless minority the parties which now control those states and might reverse their poUcies in every particular. All of these influences have not been powerful enough to prevent the present rulers from making the nominal alliances which put Pan-Germanism into the arena, but it is scarcely probable that they will not have an ex- ceedingly important effect upon its stability and fts continuity of policy. That Pan-Germanism can be created is not now to be gainsaid; that such a confederation can sooner or later inflict a crushing blow upon the Triple Entente is quite within the bounds of probabiHty; but that Pan- Germanism, resting upon such a basis, can long withstand the assault of its internal enemies seems improbable. The great district we have loosely denominated for convenience by the single term, the Balkans, is an absolutely essential factor of the Pan-Ger- manic Confederation, yet there is no part of all Europe which lacks more conspicuously geo- graphical, poUtical, and racial unity. The Balkans include all the land stretching from the water parting of the Tyrolese and Transylvanian Alps 312 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE to the Mediterranean and the ^gean, — the rich plains of the lower Danube, the tablelands and mountain valleys of Macedonia and Servia, the wild crags of Montenegro and Albania. The peo- ple range from stolid peasantry in the valleys to wild, scarcely civilized hillmen in the west and the intelligent cultivated citizens of Sofia and Athens. The racial admixture is extraordinary in its va- riety and distribution. There are many districts where no single race can boast predominance. For centuries the Balkans have been the seat of the most intense religious hatred in Europe and are the only states where active warfare still con- tinues between the Christian and the Infidel and between the Latin and Greek Churches. There are not a few districts where, as in Albania, the Mohammedan, the Greek Christian, and the CathoHc live so near one another as to result in constant reprisals which keep the community in a condition of alarm and anxiety. The problem of creating amid such conditions, out of such va- ried races, whose religious and racial hatreds and antipathies are so intense, a strong series of states which will act in concert with Germany and Aus- tria in the execution of so intricate a scheme as Pan-Germanism is complicated in the extreme by the fact that the governmental lines as they are at present drawn do not coincide with the most im- 313 PAN-GERMANISM portant racial and religious lines. Bosnia, Herze- govina, and the lUyrian coast, which are now part of Austria, belong racially, reUgiously, and geo- graphically with Servia. Much of Hungary sim- ilarly ought to be connected with Rumania, while Albania contains so many races and creeds that it does not really belong anywhere. Nor are the ideals cherished in the Balkans those most pleas- ing to European coalitions. They dream, not of xmity, but of autonomy, not of cooperation with Germany and Austria, but of freedom from Eu- ropean interference, the exclusion of the religious, strategic, and political interests of other nations, the recognition of their right to live for themselves. The creation in the Balkans of a confederation of states of the type desired by Austria and Ger- many is perhaps possible and may be, indeed, feasible; but the control of such a state, once cre- ated, the ability of the statesmen in Berlin and Vienna to rouse in those peoples any enthusiasm for their "overlords," is surely an open ques- tion. The last link in the German chain, the first one they attempted to create, is Turkey. The nat- ural ineptitude of the Turkish Government has become a byword of statesmen; the Turks are alien in race and religion to the majority of the subject peoples; their hatred for the Christies is 314 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE still intense; and the difficulty, therefore, of con- ducting operations through their hands is great. That, however, might be overcome had the Turks continued supine. The real difficulty which at present stands in the way of the establishment of an efficient German ally in Turkey is the rise among the Turks of a national party whose chief aim is the exclusion of the foreigner and the gov- ernment of Turkey solely in the interest of the Turk. Under this banner have been enhsted the majority, at any rate, of the Turks intelligent enough to be entrusted with the administration of their own country. The mere fact that they are an insignificant minority of the population, that the rest of the Turks have no effective desire for self-government and are certainly not capable of it, does not in the least change the significant fact that the only Turks who might govern their coun- try, as the Germans wish it done, decUne the task. Indeed, the Young Turks assisted the German plans and created the present government, with the idea that Germany would allow them to rule the rest of their countrymen. Their disappoint- ment was exceedingly bitter when they learned that the real direction of policy and the control of finance was to rest with the German officials in Constantinople. Even should the Young Turks be brought to terms, the government of that un- 315 PAN-GERMANISM happy country will long remain a problem of the greatest complexity and difficulty. The futiu-e of Pan-Germanism depends more upon the ability of German and Austrian states- men to solve these domestic and interstate prob- lems than upon military tactics or foreign di- plomacy. Given the real solution of domestic problems, a present defeat in the field would be only temporary; without such a solution, a vic- tory in the field or on the water may actually be barren of permanent results. Victory will surely bring an enthusiasm which will leave in abey- ance many awkward questions and even secure for a time complaisant acquiescence in measures honestly beUeved undesirable and even wrong by large sections of the population. But time (and not much time either) will bring unbidden guests to the councils of the ministers who will test their tact, skill, ability, and willingness to compromise. It must, however, be remembered in all fairness that the juxtaposition of these same races and religions in the United States has proved that they can be amalgamated under circumstances which do not excite the old racial and religious antipathies. The new state will provide a com- mon economic interest, geographical contiguity, and unity of law and administration — all factors of the utmost potency in welding men together. 316 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE Differences of religion the Germans think no longer dangerous; the differences of race and lan- guage they believe not fundamental. Surely, they argue, the obstacles are in comparison nothing to those overcome by the first ZoUverein or by the establishment of the Empire. A single generation has sufficed apparently to extinguish "racial" hatreds and local ambitions for autonomy which were as old as Germany. When the Empire has worked such instantaneous miracles, the Pan- Germanists do not question their ability to work even greater miracles by the application of a large dose of the same medicine to a somewhat larger patient, ill with.the same disease. It is, moreover, in the tireless, thorough, conscious employment of economic and governmental forces for the moulding of men, in the skillful manipulation of public opinion, that the leaders of Pan-German- ism have shown their greatest ability. Efficient government, the teaching the individual his place in the new fabric, the convincing him of the necessity and purpose of the state's decisions have been their forte. Surely the men who have wrought the new Germany and Austria with their own bare hands, whose imagination, self-sacrifice, and ambition have put the present Pan-German- ism into the arena, are confident they can handle the problems of readjustment. 317 PAN-GERMANISM The real issue, however, lies in the character of the problems themselves. Are they not after all too fundamental to yield to logic and persuasion, too deeply rooted to be dislodged by administra- tive methods? Here hes the opportunity of the foes of Pan-Germanism. The greatest genius of the English has been their skill in diplomacy, the keenness with which they have ordinarily ana- lyzed the situation, and the great ability they have shown in expounding its various possibili- ties to the disorderly elements in Europe. They have won their present position, as English his- torians have forcibly pointed out, by taking advantage of the mutual jealousies and rivalries of Europe. Time and time again a great coalition has been actually put into the field against them only to be rent apart by English diplomacy. The fundamental error German statesmen have com- mitted has been to suppose, because the position of England in the world is vitally altered, because she can no longer be maintained in her proud predominance by the factors which originally created it, that there are no factors to maintain it. She possesses two immensely powerful allies in France and Russia; that coalition already holds in its hands the greater part of the habitable globe, and controls the oceans, the major part of the economic resources of the entire world, and 318 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE practically its whole financial fabric. The truth seems to be that the English position has been changed in nature but not in essence. Because she does not rely upon factors to-day which were conclusive in their effect upon European politics three centuries ago, their present worthlessness must not be construed as the total absence of all strength. In diplomacy, moreover, nothing is changed. The condition of Europe itself, in which English diplomacy has so invariably found weap- ons for the defense of the island kingdom, to-day presents to as great a degree as ever before a tangle of conflicting interests and traditional antipathies, in which the English are more than likely in their habitual manner to find the solu- tion for their present difficulties. If it is true that England's strength has been due to the balance of power in Europe rather than to her own physi- cal resources, the prime condition for the continu- ance of her authority is still in existence, and is too fundamental to be destroyed by armies and fleets, however powerful. Something has already been said in a previous chapter about Italy's position in the Mediter- ranean, her fear of Austria, and, in general, her lack of that same vital interest in Pan-Germanism which her two allies undoubtedly possess. While the great scheme is probably the most plausible 319 PAN-GERMANISM and feasible ever suggested for the preservation and expansion of Germany and Austria, there are many other possibilities before Italy. She proved in the case of the Tripolitan War that she had her price and was by no means bound to the Triple Alliance with eternal chains. Her neutral- ity at the opening of the war of 1914 betokened calculations of a precisely similar nature, though it did not foreclose her final adhesion to the Alliance. Suppose now that England and France should increase their offer to her and should be able to fulfill it, will she not permanently desert Pan-Germanism, and can it succeed without her assistance and with her opposition? Suppose France offered Spain a part of Morocco; that England offered Italy Egypt in addition to Tripoli, reserving only 'the right of free passage through the Suez Canal and the control of the Red Sea; that the Triple Entente guaranteed the autonomy of Greece and the Balkan States, and secured from Russia the suspension at least of her claims to territorial expansion in that district, in exchange for at least the right of free passage through the Straits and the control of the Black Sea; suppose that they offered the Young Turks control of Asia Minor, with fiinancial support for their government, in exchange for the commercial privileges of the Baghdad Railway and the right 320 PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE to irrigate Mesopotamia; suppose England and Russia offered the Persians autonomy in exchange for a monopoly of trade and the right to construct the Trans-Persian Railway; would not the situa- tion be materially altered? Would not the Triple Entente be more than likely to assure itself of the permanent support of these states whose adher- ence is absolutely essential to Pan-Germanism? Would the Pan-German Confederation, even if actually created, be proof against such o£Fers, when the Triple Entente could without exagger- ation promise to every one of those states such privileges as the price of their support, with the certainty that their simultaneous desertion would so completely destroy the Confederation and so weaken Germany and Austria as to make actual war impossible? Truth to tell, the members of the Triple Entente would prefer to keep all they have, but is it not a purely gratuitous assmnption to suppose they will be so blind as not to see that by parting with some of it they may insure their possession of the remainder for another couple of generations? Indeed, it cannot be gainsaid that it might actually be to the advantage of the minor mem- bers of the Pan-Germanic chain for the Triple Entente to win. If Germany and Austria really obtain control of the world, the most that the 321 PAN-GERMANISM Balkan States, Turkey, and Persia can hope for is a qualified local autonomy, subject to constant dictation and interference from Berlin or Vienna, justified by the thin excuse of the exigencies of the foreign situation. The more sweeping the victory, the more securely Germany and Austria are seated in the saddle, the less probable will be the permanence of even local autonomy in the lesser states and the more probable will become a real absorption of all governmental power by the stronger countries. Success will make control of the roads through the Balkans, Asia Minor, and Persia of such paramount importance to the con- querors that it will be distinctly to their interest to ride roughshod over national and local ambi- tions and to take steps eventually to rid them- selves of problems by the annihilation of these troublesome allies. They will copy the camel of the fable who wished to get his nose in out of the cold. On the other hand, the interests of the Triple Entente will be furthered by the establish- ment, in the path of Pan-Germanism, of the strong local entities which the racial and national ambitions of the peoples of these regions have so long ardently desired. Not only would the Triple Entente have little or nothing to gain by domi- neering over these new states; they are really too far distant to make interference by force PAN-GERMANISM IN EUROPE feasible. Russia of course sits at the gate of all these countries, but the latter can for the present safely count upon England and France to restrain the ambitions of the Tsar as long as the Triple Entente is victorious. Should the Entente be defeated, its next offensive move would surely be an assault upon Constantinople and the Balkans or an invasion of Persia in an attempt to break the Pan-Germanic chain. These considerations are so fundamental and so obvious that we need not doubt that the statesmen in Bucharest and Sofia are thoroughly conscious of them. In this struggle of interests, is it not likely that sooner or later they will act in accordance with their racial and national ambitions? If they do, will not the result for even a victorious Pan-German- ism be serious? Might it not overturn the wh,ole fabric? CHAPTER XX THE FUTURE OF PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE IF military and naval victories would not nec- essarily insure the success or permanence of Pan-Germanism, still less woidd they make true the phrase, said to have been scribbled by Ger- man soldiers on the walls of Liege, "William 11, Emperor of the World." Let us assume the downfall of German foes on the Continent, the "pacification of Europe," and the solution of domestic difficulties. Can the Confederation, or new state whatever its form, extend its authority as planned over Asia and Africa; can it maintain itself permanently in either continent? Will its real purpose have been achieved imless it can succeed in both? We must emphasize this point with persistence: Pan-Germanism will fail in its objective unless it can successfully and perma- nently obtain extensive and perhaps exclusive commercial privileges outside Europe. Victories in Europe, the creation of the Confederation, even the insuring of its permanence, whether as a result of the war, of diplomacy, or of admirable 324 PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE administration, in which the Germans are such adepts, all are but the prerequisites, nay, the mere preliminaries, of the projection of Pan-Germanism outside Europe. The new state will need to main- tain a huge army and an immense fleet to preserve its place in Europe and will need enough addi- tional strength to win its place "in the sun." The bulk of the personnel of both army and navy must come from the Confederation and in the long run from its leading factors, Germany and Austria. While war indemnities might free all its members from past debts, and the decimation of population by the war would relieve for some years the old congestion, soon will reappear a thousandfold stronger the same pressure of pop- ulation which has been the premise of Pan- Germanism. A thousandfold more essential will it be to keep every man, woman, and child of Germanic stock in Germany or Austria (except for the administrators and military officials who are to govern the new domain), and still more lecessary to furnish them with work at profitable rates. A victory in Europe can only increase Germany's peril unless a simultaneous victory outside Europe places in German hands the great markets so long dreamed of. Unless German trade and industry expand continually in at least arithmetical ratio, her place in the sun will con- 325 PAN-GERMANISM tinue vulnerable, and be dependent upon alli- ances with some states and superior military or naval strength to others. Another factor of immense difficulty which victory will promptly create will be the division of the spoils. If Italy should continue neutral, the problem will have been simplified; but will still be difficult. Austria will no doubt demand the supervision of the Balkans and Greece, with full control of the Adriatic and Mgean. The problem of dividing the Balkans and the strategic points of the Adriatic with Italy will not arise, and, should Italy join the Allies and consequently be included in the defeat, Austria might conceivably attempt reannexation of at least the Po Valley and Venice, including the strategic approaches on Vienna. Turkey and the Balkan nations will no doubt be given autonomy in local matters, surrendering their foreign affairs to the Confed- eration, and recognizing Austria as policeman. The attempt of Germany to retain direct control of Turkey, Constantinople, and Asia Minor might rouse resentment in Vienna as well as among the Young Turks. Germany would of course have annexed Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, and possibly Sweden, but would not find in any of them nor in the remainder of Europe any territory really suitable for colonies 326 PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE or at all promising as a market for the products of German industry. These must be sought in northern Africa or in Asia, or, should the fleet be also victorious, in Central Africa, and in South America. Not improbably the Mediterranean would have to be divided with Austria, who already appreciates the value of markets in which to dispose of the fruits of her new economic devel- opment. India alone can the Germans expect to retain entire, and here too their conunercial rights may have to be shared. In fact, nothing short of the annihilation of the English fleet can put enough spoils into German and Austrian hands to insure the markets essential to the expansion of their industry at the rate they contemplate with- out a good deal of arranging and consequent bickering and probable quarreling. We should perhaps assume that a coalition strong enough to conquer Europe will be able to make the military dispositions essential to the conquest of all these territories, so far as the exist- ing European rulers are concerned. That the natives will be complacent and accept this pro- posed change of sovereigns so readily remains to be seen. To conquer the English in India or the French in Morocco would be easy; to subdue the Hindus or reduce the tribes of North Africa would be a very different task indeed; while the 327 PAN-GERMANISM conquest of English South Africa would require an effort whose magnitude the Boer War will convince the Germans is far out of proportion to the value of any trade which they could not nor- mally obtain. If these obstacles are successively overcome, and the permanence of their solution assured, the Germans and Austrians have still to meet and solve the problem of administering those dependencies. Tropical colonies or depend- encies have proved themselves problems of pecu- liar difficulty to the European, and the German has not been successful as colonizer or governor. The ideal of an efficient bureaucratic administra- tion is far removed from the preference of most natives for as little government as possible. Over a century of effort and innumerable failures have barely enabled the English and French to evolve a system which the German thinks the natives hate so cordially that he believes them eager to welcome him. K he is right in his estimate of native opinion, does he expect at once by logic to devise a better administrative system and does he believe that it can be worked to the mutual satisfaction of the Berlin Colonial Office and of the native population alike by men fresh from German universities or training schools? The Germans will find, as soon as they really become governors in earnest of yellow and brown men, 328 PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE that the dictum of Catherine II is exceedingly true: a ruler operates on the human skin, which is exceptionally ticklish. Yet, beyond a peradven- ture, harmonious relations with the natives, whether of the type used by the English in India, of the Dutch in Java, of the English and French in China, or of all nations in Japan, will be the prerequisites to any really considerable economic benefits the new world-state is likely to obtain. The continuance of harmony is still more essen- tial and usually far more difficult to insure. From first to last, the problems of governing colonies and dependencies involve in a peculiar degree the very factor for which the Germans have thus far made the least allowance in Germany, human foibles, faults, differences, and hatreds.^ Uni- formity, orderliness, tidiness, promptness, obedi- ence, all the capital words of the German system have thus far been found supremely distasteful, to Orientals of all shades, races, and creeds. If there are mighty obstacles to the success and permanence of Pan-Germanism in the racial, religious, and administrative problems in Europe, similar fundamental, permanent obstacles and problems block the road to prosperity and per- manent power in other continents. Tbe new world-state will have much to do after its battles in Europe are won, even after its posi- 329 PAN-GERMANISM tion in Europe is secure and the spoils divided without internal discord, before it can regard its predominance as assured. Over any of these diflB- culties the conqueror may stumble and fall prone; and, while the present William may remember the case of another WilUam who fell on the beach at Pevensey, rose with two fists full of English soil and vowed it a good omen, he will also need to remember a third William whose horse stepped into a molehill with consequences not so fortu- nate. The new Goliath may slay his millions with the weaver's beam and meet defeat at the hands of some despised foe on the sands of Africa or on the plains of India. It is even conceivable that the mere problem of administering so much territory, even with the aid of legions, telegraph, railroads, steamships, and doctors of philosophy, may prove too much of a task to be accomplished well enough and soon enough to check the operation of disrup- tive and hostile forces whose character is too fun- damental to permit their complete disappearance and whose potency has been sufficient to bring about the downfall of a long line of rulers whose conspicuous ability and brilliant qualities have made their names synonymous with the word Conqueror. Let us also not forget that the permanence of the new world-state will largely, if not wholly^ 330 PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE depend upon its economic stability and resources. Industries to make goods to sell are not to be developed in Germany without capital; markets in which to sell their goods in the Far East or in Africa are not to be developed without capital. Suppose that as a result of the war, Germany and Austria confiscate their economic development and default payment of their debts, whether by an actual formal act of bankruptcy or by a failure of the courts to sanction process ejffective for the collection of debts by foreigners, what then? Factories are realities and bonds are scraps of paper. Will the tearing up of the scraps of paper create two factories where there was one before? Will the ruin of one investor in England create two customers in India? If the tangible present- ment of English and French capital is in Africa, Asia, and South America, locked up in mines and railroads, which the English and French must lose because they cannot carry them away, is it not likely that the natives in possession will see that, if the German is kept out, they may retain the realities existent in their own country by virtue of the self -same logic by which the German may take possession of "his" factories along the Rhine? It is at least a question where the capital for the financing of the new world-state will come 331 PAN-GERMANISM from, if the war impoverishes England and France, the present possessors of most of the world's available capital, and, what is vastly more important, destroys the financial and credit structure centering at London and Paris by means of which this surplus capital has been made avail- able for use by private investors. After all, the amount of capital in a practical commercial sense is proportional to the means for making it avail- able, and the war, overwhelming the present sys- tem by such economic weapons as the Germans unquestionably can wield, might also render its rebuilding on a German basis so slow that there might be actually no available capital which would not be absolutely essential to repair the worst ravages of the war in Europe. As for war indemnities, they too are paper imtil they can somehow be paid in goods, and they cannot be really paid until the country which owes them can somehow achieve a surplus not otherwise covered by its liabilities. You cannot make nothing some- thing by the same sensational and successful legerdemain which denominates something noth- ing. In conclusion, it should be said that the basis of modem international trade is mutuality and good faith. How will the German be received in the international mart if he actually adopts the 332 PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE economic logic of the extreme Pan-Germanists? What sort of a reception will he be accorded in China, in Japan, in India? The issue of financial readjustment may not improbably be the most serious a successful war wiU place before the conqueror. Will not the results be almost as dis- astrous if the results of the war should make it seem probable that the Germans were acting according to this logic? Would it not be almost impossible to prove to the rest of the world that the charges were groundless? Will not the in- evitable effects of the war be of a nature to con- vince individuals that this Pan-Germanist logic does represent the economic policy of Germany? Truth invariably has a hard time securing a hearing when the logic of events does not coincide with it. It is more than likely that Germans will have to suffer for many crimes of intention of which they are blameless. Nor may we neglect, among the obstacles to a successful projection of Pan-Germanism into the far places of the world, the existence of competi- tors whose position and real power in the Near East, in the Far East, and in Africa would not be necessarily destroyed by victories in Europe of even the most conclusive character. A mihtary conquest of the Far East would still be hazardous. Russia sits at the gate of India and at the side 333 PAN-GERMANISM door to China. England and France, if success- ful on the sea, could as easily succor their armies in the Far East by sending a fleet through the Panama Canal as the Germans could attack India via the Baghdad Railway. If the EngUsh fleet should be destroyed, the Japanese might promptly step into England's shoes with a fleet and a navy more than large enough to dispose of any force the Germans could spare from Europe. Nor must they reckon without the United States. The Phil- ippines occupy an important strategic position; the United States fleet might possibly be strong enough to deal with any fleet the Germans could spare from the North Sea and Mediterranean. If Germany should attempt to seize the Panama Canal and overrun South America, would the United States be likely to put the Monroe Doc- trine upon the shelf and accept the situation? The present European "empires" were estab- lished at a time when neither transportation nor communication had reached its present perfec- tion. It remains to be seen whether they can be upset and a new empire or empires estabUshed in deflance of modem conditions in both plus the growing taste for autonomy among Oriental peoples. While the Germans have correctly read the his- tory of the British Empire and have appreciated 334 PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE to the full the importance of the assistance of the native races in creating the present position held by England, they seem to beUeve that the Eng- hsh power at present has no other basis than that which it possessed at the beginning. They forget the ability with which the English have ruled India, the undeniable benefits which they have conferred upon the Hindu, the fact that the com- mon people have for the first time been treated with what we should call decency, accorded jus- tice, and allowed to retain a suflBcient proportion of their produce to hve upon. However true may be the tales of oppression in India that Germany and Russia have industriously collected and spread, they are certainly insignificant compared to the oppression and suffering visited upon that unhappy land since before the time when history was. The wave of democracy which is sweeping on into the Orient has not escaped the Hindus; but a most careful investigation of the question by disinterested students has yet failed to reveal any very considerable number of Hindus who be- lieve the varied races huddled together in India capable of governing themselves. The EngHsh have appreciated (and so far as we can tell with absolute justice) the fact that the democratic movement in India is the work of one race and one religion, which would be glad to rule over the 335 PAN-GERMANISM other races and other religions. It is not, there- fore, diflScult to demonstrate to the Hindu of the Brahmin caste the undesirabihty of being ruled by the Mohammedans, while the latter are by no means enthusiastic about being ruled by the Brahmin. Each is zealous about obtaining for his own sect the right to govern India; each is asun- wiUing to be ruled by other Hindu sects, who do not agree with him in reUgion, as he is to have the present EngUsh rule continued. When it is demonstrated to them all that the departure of the Enghsh will certainly not result in the govern- ment of India by any native race or sect, but in its conquest by Russia or Germany, the desire of the Hindus and Mohammedans for the expulsion of the EngUsh is necessarily much modified. So clear have the English made these facts to those natives who alone are capable, either from their abiUty or from their position, of undertaking such a movement, that the Ukelihood'of any revolt against the Enghsh in India is small and the faith- ful support of the native princes firmly assured for the present. Suppose that the international situation should suddenly change, that, for any one of fifty reasons, the expulsion of all foreign- ers from India should seem probable, would not the English then be in a position to oflfer the natives, in exchange for the virtual trade mono- 336 PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE poly they have always had and to which the na- tive does not apparently seriously object, their assistance in securing and maintaining actual au- tonomy? Would not the Germans or the Rus- sians be met with a very different sort of a force than the beggarly thousands of EngKshmen whom they affect so to despise? In fact, to snatch In- dia from a few EngHshmen with the assistance of the Hindu is one thing; to conquer India from, the English and the Hindu combined, in the face of a century of admirable administration by Eng- land and the promise of practical autonomy for the native states in the future, would be a very different thing. If one is eminently feasible, the other is exceedingly improbable; and the facts of the situation, so far as they can be learned, seem to indicate with precision that the latter is the truth. The Germans have made much of the lack of common economic interests between England and her self-governing colonies because of the dis- tances which sunder them. As a matter of fact, it is easier to-day to carry on trade with New Zea- land at a distance of over twelve thousand miles, — it is possible to send that distance commodi- ties that until the last half-century were never shipped at all, — than it was before the year 1850 to carry on trade overland between Berlia 337 PAN-GERMANISM and Munich. Nor are the freight charges in one case probably much in excess of those in the other. Certainly the time consumed does not so greatly differ. Most people forget with ease the common facts of history concerning the length of time con- sumed by journeys undertaken without the aid of the railway. While the analogy must not be too closely pressed, it is substantially true that the economic tie between England and her col- onies is probably quite as close to-day as the economic ties between different parts of the Ger- man Empire previous to the ZoUverein. To be sure, this argument does not presage great strength for such relations, but it does show that the mere fact of the existence of the Atlantic Ocean is not sufficient to prove that there is not and never can be a substantial identity of econo- mic interests. But waiving that, assuming that the only bond there is or can be between England and her self- governing colonies is that of blood, it will be difficult for the student to deny that the racial tie is more than Hkely to be sufficient to hold the Empire together, and to secure actual support from the colonies in ships and troops. Enthus- iastic response to the recent appeal of the mother country for assistance shows conclusively that there is a good deal more likelihood of the tie S38 PAN-GERMANISM OUTSIDE EUROPE between England and her colonies being sufficient to hold them together than that the present poUt- ical tie will be sufficient to prevent the complete dismemberment of Austria-Hungary. If we take the most unfavorable statement possible of the British Empire and the most favorable statement of the actual situation in the Dual Monarchy, it will be difficult to deny that the British Empire possesses all those quahties of unity of race, of language, of religion, of economic interest, of poUcy, of loyalty, which the Dual Monarchy con- spicuously lacks. And the continued existence of the Dual Monarchy is a good deal more im- portant to Pan-Germanism than the assistance of the English colonies is hkely to be to the Triple Entente. The new state which Pan-Germanism will cre- ate will, when "projected" into Asia and Africa, necessarily and obviously lack all those racial, re- ligious, and administrative ties which form the nexus between the parts of the British Empire. The lack of geographical contiguity will be as ob- vious and inescapable between Germany and col- onies or dependencies in Asia as it is between Eng- land and Australia — and there will be nothing else to take its place! Upon the long-continued emigration of Englishmen from England depend all those ties which have maintained the unity of 339 PAN-GERMANISM the British Empire despite its lack of contiguity and of a common economic interest. The chief premise of Pan-Germanism, upon whose strict maintenance the continued existence of the whole scheme depends, is the abiUty of Germany and Austria to 'prevent emigration and to retain in Europe every man, woman, and child of Germanic stock. Can a durable empire be built upon so slender a basis? THE END APPENDIX APPENDIX THE SPEECH OF PREMIER BORDEN OP CANADA ADVOCATING A NEW NAVAL POLICY WITH THE OFFICIAL MEMORANDUM OF THE ENG- LISH ADMIRALTY ON ENGLAND'S NAVAL POSITION The following speech was delivered by Premier Bor- den in the Canadian House of Commons on December 5, 1912, and was received with the utmost enthusiasm by a crowded assemblage. The House rose to its feet, cheering and waving handkerchiefs for many minutes, and sang "God save the King" at the conclusion of a very remarkable demonstration. This speech and the oflBcial memorandum communicated to the House prove the extent of the anxiety in England over the progress of Pan-Germanism. The text of the speech given here is that of the official Parliamentary Paper, Cd. 6513. During my recent Aasit to the British Islands I ven- tured on many public occasions to propound the prin- ciple that the great Dominions, sharing in the defence of the Empire upon the high seas, must necessarily be entitled to share also in the responsibility for and in 343 APPENDIX the control of foreign policy. No declaration I made was greeted more heartily and enthusiastically than this. It is satisfactory to know to-day that not only His Majesty's Ministers, but also the leaders of the oppo- site political party in Great Britain, have cjqpUcitly accepted this principle, and have affirmed the convic- tion that the means by which it can be constitutionally accomplished must be sought, discovered, and utilized without delay. The present Government assumed office on the 10th October, 1911, and met Parliament on the 17th day of November following. It is hardly necessary to point out that there was no opportunity until after the close of the Session to visit Great Britain, or consult the Admiralty in any effective way. Shortly after the Ses- sion closed I went to England, accompanied by some of my colleagues, and for several weeks we had the oppor- tunity from time to time of conferring with the British Government, and consulting with technical and expert advisers of the Admiralty, respecting the whole ques- tion of naval defence, and especially the conditions which confront the Empire at present and in the early future. I desire to express my warm appreciation of the manner in which we were received by His Majesty's Government, who took us most fully into their con- fidence regarding great questions of foreign policy and defence, and who accorded to us all the relevant information at their disposal. A portion of this is, necessarily, of a very confidential character which can- not be made public, but the important part will be communicated to the House in a document which I shall lay on the table this afternoon. I now proceed to submit to the House the informa- tion which we have received from His Majesty's Gov- 344 APPENDIX ernment which, in the form of a memorandtun, is as follows : — 1. The Prime Minister of the Dominion of Canada has invited His Majesty's Government through the Board ot Admiralty to prepare a statement of the present and imme- diately prospective requirements of the naval defence of the Empire for presentation to the Canadian Parliament if the Dominion Cabinet deem it necessary. The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty are prepared to comply and to supplement, in a form which can be made public, the confidential communications and conversations which have passed between the Admiralty and Ministers » of the Dominion Parliament during the recent visit to the United Kingdom. The Admiralty set the greatest store by the important material, and still more important moral, assistance which it is within the power of Canada to give to maintaining British naval supremacy upon the high seas; but they think it neces- sary to disclaim any intention, however indirect, of putting pressure upon Canadian public opinion, or of seeking to influ- ence the Dominion Parliament in a decision which clearly belongs solely to Canada. The Admiralty therefore confine themselves in this state- ment exclusively to facts, and it is for the Dominion Govern- ment and Parliament to draw their own conclusions there- from. 2. The power of the British Empire to maintain the supe- riority on the sea, which is essential to its security, must obviously be measured from time to time by reference to the other naval forces of the world, and such a comparison does not imply anything unfriendly in intention or in spirit to any other Power or group of Powers. From this point of view the development of the German Fleet during the last fifteen years is the most striking feature of the naval situation to-day. That development has been authorized by five suc- cessive legislative enactments, viz., the Fleet Laws of 1898, 1900, 1906, 1908, and 1912. These laws cover the period up to 1920. Whereas in 1898 the German Fleet consisted of: — 9 battleships (excluding coast defence vessels), 345 APPENDIX 3 large cruisers, 28 small cruisers, 113 torpedo-boats, and 25,000 men, — maintained at an annual cost of £6,000,000, the full Fleet of 1920 will consist of: — 41 battleships, 20 large cruisers, 40 small cruisers, 144 torpedo-boats, 72 submarines, and 101,500 men, — estimated to be maintained at an annual cost of £23,000,000. These figures, however, give no real idea of the advance, for the size and cost of ships has risen continually during the period, and, apart from increasing their total numbers, Ger- many has systematically replaced old and small ships, which counted as units in her earlier Fleet, by the most powerful and costly modern vessels. Neither does the money provided by the Estimates for the completed law represent the increase in cost properly attributable to the German Navy, for many charges borne on British naval funds are otherwise defrayed in Germany; and the German Navy comprises such a large proportion of new ships that the cost of maintenance and repair is considerably less than in navies which have been longer estabUshed. 3. The naval expansion of Germany has not been pro- voked by British naval increases. The German Government have repeatedly declared that their naval policy has not been influenced by British action, and the following figures speak for themselves: — In 1905 Great Britain was building four capital ships, and Germany two. In 1906 Great Britain reduced to three capital ships, and Germany increased to three. In 1907 Great Britain built three capital ships, and Ger- many built three. In 1908 Great Britain further reduced to two capital ships, and Germany further increased to four. It was not until the efforts of Great Britain to procure the abatement or retardation of naval rivalry had failed for three 845 APPENDIX successive years that the Admiralty were forced in 1909, upon a general review of the naval situation, to ask Parliament to take exceptional measures to secure against all possible haz- ards the safety of the Empire. In that year eight capital ships were laid down in Great Britain, and two others were provided by the Commonwealth of Australia and the Do- minion of New Zealand respectively — a total of ten. 4. In the spring of the present year the fifth German Navy Law was assented to by the Reichstag. The main feature of that law is not the increase in the new construction of capital ships, though that is important, but rather the increase in the striking force of ships of all classes which will be imme- diately available at all seasons of the year. A third squadron of eight battleships will be created and maintained in full commission as part of the active battle fleet. Whereas, according to the unamended law, the active battle fleet consisted of seventeen battleships, four battle or large armoured cruisers, and twelve small cruisers, it will in the near future consist of twenty-five battleships, eight battle or large armoured cruisers, and eighteen small cruisers; and whereas at present, owing to the system of recruitment which prevails in Germany, the German Fleet is less fully mobile during the winter than during the summer months, it will, through the operation of this law, not only be increased in strength, but rendered much more readily available. Ninety- nine torpedo-boat destroyers, instead of sixty-six, will be maintained in full commission out of a total of one hundred and forty-four; seventy-two new submarines will be built within the currency of the new law, and of these it is appar- ently proposed to maintain fifty-four with full permanent crews. Taking a general view, the effect of the law will be that nearly four-fifths of the entire German Navy will be maintained in full permanent commission; that is to say, instantly and constantly ready for war. So great a change and development in the German Fleet involves, of course, important additions to their 'personnel. In 1898 the officers and men of the German Navy amounted to 25,000. To-day that figure has reached 66,000. The new law adds 15,000 officers and men, and makes a total in 1920 of 101,500. The new construction under the law prescribes the build- 347 APPENDIX ing of three additional battleships — one to be begun next year, one in 1916 — and two small cruisers, of which the date has not yet been fixed. The date of the third battleship has not been fixed. It has been presumed to be later than the six years which are in view. The cost of these increases in men and in material during the next six years is estimated as £10,500,000 spread over that period above the previous esti- mates. The facts set forth above were laid before the House of Commons on the 22d July, 1912, by the First Lord of the Admiralty. 5. The effect of the new German Navy Law is to produce a remarkable expansion of strength and readiness. The number of battleships and large armoured cruisers which wiU be kept constantly ready and in full commission will be raised by the law from twenty-one, the present figure, to thirty-three — an addition of twelve, or an increase of about fifty-seven per cent. The new fleet will, in the beginning, include about twenty battleships and large cruisers of the older type, but gradu- ally as new vessels are built the fighting power of the fleet will rise until in the end it will consist completely of modem vessels. The complete organization of the German Fleet, as de- scribed by the latest law, will be five battle squadrons and a fleet flagship, comprising forty-one battleships in all, each attended by a battle or armoured cruiser squadron, complete with small cruisers and auxiliaries of all kinds and accom- panied by numerous flotillas of destroyers and submarines. This fuU development will only be realized step by step; but already in 1914, two squadrons will, according to Admir- alty information, be entirely composed of what are called Dreadnoughts, and the third will be made up of good ships like the "Deutschlands" and the "Braunschweigs," together with five Dreadnought battle cruisers. This great fleet is not dispersed all over the world for duties of commerce protection or in discharge of Colonial responsi- bilities; nor are its composition and character adapted to those purposes. It is concentrated and kept concentrated in close proximity to the German and British coasts. Attention must be drawn to the explicit declaration of the 348 APPENDIX tactical objects for which the German fleet exists as set forth in the preamble to the Naval Law of 1900 as follows: — "In order to protect German trade and commerce under existing conditions, only one thing will suffice, namely, Ger- many must possess a battle fleet of such a strength that even for the most powerful naval adversary a war would involve such risks as to make that Power's own supremacy doubtful. For this purpose it is not absolutely necessary that the Ger- man Fleet should be as strong as that of the greatest naval Power, for, as a rule, a great Naval Power will not be in a position to concentrate all its forces against us." 6. It is now necessary to look forward to the situation in 1915. In the spring of the year 1915 — Great Britain will have twenty-five "Dreadnought" bat- tleships and two "Lord Nelsons." Germany will have seventeen "Dreadnought" battle- ships. Great Britain will have six battle cruisers. Germany will have six battle cruisers. These margins in new ships are sober and moderate. They do not err on the side of excess. The reason they suffice for the present is that Great Britain possesses a good superiority in battleships, and especially armoured cruisers, of the pre- Dreadnought era. The reserve of strength will steadily diminish every year, actually because the ships of which it is composed grow old, and relatively because the new ships are more powerful. It will diminish more rapidly if new construction in Germany is increased or accelerated. As this process continues greater exertions will be required by the British Empire. Four battle cruisers and four armoured cruisers will be required to support British interests in the Mediterranean during the years 1913 and 1914. During those years the navies of Austria and Italy will gradually increase in strength, until in 1915 they will each possess a formidable fleet of four and six Dreadnought battleships respectively, together with strong battleships of the pre-Dreadnought types and other units, such as cruisers, torpedo-craft, etc. It is evident, therefore, that in the year 1915 our squadron of four battle cruisers and four armoured cruisers will not suffice to fulfil 349 APPENDIX our requirements, and its whole composition must be recon« sidered. It has been necessary within the past decade to concen- trate the fleet mainly in home waters. In 1902 there were one hundred and sixty British vessels on the overseas stations against seventy-six to-day. 7. Naval supremacy is of two kinds: general and local. General naval supremacy consists in the power to defeat in battle and drive from the seas the strongest hostile navy or combination of hostile navies wherever they may be found. Local superiority consists in the power to send in good time to, or maintain permanently in, some distant theatre forces adequate to defeat the enemy or hold him in check until the main decision has been obtained in the decisive theatre. It is the general naval supremacy of Great Britain .which is the primary safeguard of the security and interests of the great Dominions of the Crown, and which for all these years has been the deterrent upon any possible designs prejudicial to or inconsiderate of their policy and safety. The rapid expansion of Canadian sea-borne trade, and the immense value of Canadian cargoes always afloat in British and Canadian bottoms, here require consideration. On the basis of the figures supplied by the Board of Trade to the Imperial Conference of 1911, the annual value of the overseas trade of the Dominion of Canada in 1909-10 was not less than 72,000,000^., and the tonnage of Canadian vessels was 718,000 tons, and these proportions have already increased and are still increasing. For the whole of this trade wherever it may be about the distant waters of the world, as well as for the maintenance of her communications, both with Europe and Asia, Canada is dependent, and has always depended upon the Imperial Navy, without corresponding contribution or cost. Further, at the present time and in the immediate future. Great Britain still has the power, by making special arrange- ments and mobilizing a portion of the reserves, to send, with- out courting disaster at home, an effective fleet of battle- ships and cruisers to unite with the Royal Australian Navy and the British squadrons in China and the Pacific for the defence of British Columbia, Australia, and New Zealand. And these communities are also protected and their interests 350 APPENDIX safeguarded by the power and authority of Great Britain so long as her naval strength is unbroken. 8. This power, both specific and general, will be dimin- ished with the growth not only of the German Navy, but by the simultaneous building by many Powers of great modem ships of war. Whereas, in the present year. Great Britain possesses eight- een battleships and battle cruisers of the Dreadnought class against nineteen of that class possessed by the other Powers of Europe, and will possess in 1913 twenty-four to twenty- one, the figures in 1914 will be thirty-one to thirty-three; and in the year 1913, thirty-five to fifty-one. The existence of a number of navies, all comprising ships of high quality, must be considered in so far as it affects the possibilities of adverse combinations being suddenly formed. Larger margins of superiority at home would, among other things, restore a greater freedom to the movements of the British squadrons in every sea, and directly promote the security of the Dominions. Anything which increases our margin in the newest ships diminishes the strain, and aug- ments our security and our chances of being left unmolested. 9. Whatever may be the decision of Canada at the present juncture. Great Britain will not in any circumstances fail in her duty to the Oversea Dominions of the Crown. She has before now successfully made head alone and un- aided against the most formidable combinations, and she has not lost her capacity by a wise policy and strenuous ex- ertions to watch over and preserve the vital interests of the Empire. The Admiralty are assured that His Majesty's Govern- ment will not hesitate to ask the House of Commons for what- ever provision the circumstances of each year may require. But the aid which Canada could give at the present time is not to be measured only in ships or money. Any action on the part of Canada to increase the power and mobility of the Imperial Navy, and thus widen the margin of our common safety, would be recognized everywhere as a most signifi- cant witness to the united strength of the Empire, and to the renewed resolve of the Overseas Dominions to take their part in maintaining its integrity. 10. The Prime Minister of the Dominion having enquired 351 APPENDIX in what form any immediate aid that Canada might give would be most eflFective, we have no hesitation in answering, after a prolonged consideration of all the circumstances, that it is desirable that such aid should include the provision of a certain number of the largest and strongest ships of war which science can build or money supply. Mr. Borden continued : — Do Canadians sufficiently realize the disparity be- tween the naval risks of our Empire and those of any other nation ? The armies of Continental Europe number their men by the million, not by the thousand. They are highly equipped and organized, the whole population have undergone military training, and any one of the countries is absolutely secure against inva- sion from Great Britain, which could not send an expe- ditionary force of more than one hundred and fifty thousand men at the highest estimate. Such a force would be outnumbered by twenty to one by any of the great European Powers. This Empire is not a great military Power, and it has based its security in the past, as in the present, almost entirely on the strength of its Navy. A crushing defeat upon the high seas would render the British Islands, or any Dominion, subject to invasion by any great military Power; loss of such a decisive battle by Great Britain would prac- tically destroy the United Kingdom, shatter the British Empire to its foundation, and change profoundly the destiny of its component parts. The advantages which Great Britain could gain from defeating the naval forces of any other Power would be non-existent except in so far as the result would insure the safety of the Empire. On the other hand, there are practically no limits to the ambitions which might be indulged in by other Powers if the British Navy were once destroyed or disabled. There is, therefore, grave cause for concern APPENDIX when once the naval supremacy of the Empire seems on the point of being successfully challenged. The great outstanding fact which arrests our atten- tion in considering the existing conditions of naval power is this : Twelve years ago the British Navy and the British Flag were 'predominant in every ocean of the world and along the shores of every continent. To-day they are 'predominant nowhere except in the North Sea.^ The para- mount duty of insuring safety in home waters has been fulfilled by withdrawing or reducing squadrons in every part of the world, and by concentratiug nearly all the effective naval forces in close proximity to the British Islands. In 1902 there were fifty-five British warships on the Mediterranean station; to-day there are nine- teen. There were fourteen on the North American and West Indies station; to-day there are three. There were three on the southeast Coast of South America; to-day there is one. There were sixteen on the Cape of Good Hope station; to-day there are three. There were eight on the Pacific station; to-day there are two. There were forty-two on the China station; to-day there are thirty-one. There were twelve on the Austra- lian station; to-day there are eight. There were ten on the East Indies station, to-day there are nine. To sum up, in 1902 there were one hundred and sixty ships on foreign and Colonial stations against seventy-six to-day. Do not imagine that this result has been brought about by any reduction in expenditure, for the case is practically the reverse. Great Britain's total naval expenditure in 1902 was less than $152,000,000 (£30,400,000). For the present fiscal year it exceeds $220,000,000 (£44,000,000). Why, then, has the naval force of the Empire been so enormously reduced t The italics are not in the original. 353 APPENDIX throughout the world while at the same time the ex- penditure has increased nearly fifty per cent? For the simple reason that the increasing strength of other navies, and especially of the German Navy, has com- pelled Great Britain not only to increase her Fleet, but to concentrate it in the vicinity of the British Islands, and there has been, of course, a substantial increase in the strength in home waters. In short, the strain of meeting changed conditions has been so heavy and unceasing that, in spite of the largely -increased expen- diture and every possible exertion, the Admiralty has been compelled by the pressure of circumstances to withdraw or diminish the forces throughout the world which, in time of peril, safeguarded the security and integrity of the King's Dominions, and, in time of peace, were the living and visible symbol of the tie that unites all the subjects of the Crown. It is neither necessary nor desirable in this place to debate or discuss the probability or imminence of war. The real test of our action is the existence or non-exist- ence of absolute security. We cannot aflford to be sat- isfied with anything less than that, for the risk is too great. It should never he forgotten that vnthout war, with- out firing a shot or striking a blow, our naval supremacy may disappear, and with it the sole guarardee of the Em- pire's continued existence. I especially desire to empha- size this consideration,'^ for all history, and especially modern history, conveys to us many grave warnings that the issue of great evenis may he determined, and often is determined, not by actual war resulting in vic- tory or defeat, but by the mere existence of an unmistak- able and pronounced naval or military superiority on either side.^ ' The italics are not in the ori^nal. 354 APPENDIX The fact that trade routes, vital to the Empire's con- tinued existence, are inadequately defended and pro- tected by reason of the necessary concentration in home waters is exceedingly impressive, and even start- ling. Even during the present year the battleships of the British Mediterranean Fleet, based on Malta, have been withdrawn and based on Gibraltar, in order that they might become more easily available for necessary aid in home waters. The Atlantic Fleet, based on Gibraltar, has been withdrawn to the vicinity of the British Islands for the same reason. Under such condi- tions the British Flag is not predominant in the Mediter- ranean, and with every available exertion of the whole Em- pire it may be impossible to regain the necessary position of strength in that great highway before 1915 or 1916.^ Austria-Hungary, with only one hundred and forty miles of seacoast and absolutely no colonial possessions, is building in the Mediterranean a formidable fleet of Dreadnoughts which will attain its full strength in about three years, and which will be supported by strong battleships of the pre-Dreadnought type, and by cruisers, torpedo-craft, and other necessary auxil- iaries. The fleet of Italy in the same theatre will be even more powerful and more formidable. The withdrawal of the British Flag and the British Navy from so many parts of the world for the purpose of concentration in home waters has been necessary, but unfortunate. Our Navy was once dominant every- where, and the White Ensign was the token of naval supremacy in all seas. Is it not time that the former conditions should, in some measure, be restored? Upon our own coasts, both Atlantic and Pacific, powerful squadrons were maintained twelve years ago. To-day » The italics are not in the original. 355 APPENDIX the Flag is not shown on either seaboard. I am assured that the aid which we propose will enable such special arrangements to be consummated that, without court- ing disaster at home, an effective fleet of battleships and cruisers can be established in the Pacific, and a powerful squadron can periodically visit our Atlantic seaboard and assert once more the naval strength of the Empire along these coasts. I do not forget, how- ever, that it is the general naval supremacy of the Em- pire which primarily safeguards the Oversea Domin- ions. New Zealand's battleship is ranged in line with the other British battleships in the North Sea, because there New Zealand's interests may best be guarded by protecting the very heart of the Empire. In presenting our proposals it must be borne in mind that we are not undertaking or beginning a system of regular and periodical contributions. I agree with the resolution of this House in 1909 that the payment of such contributions would not be the most satisfactory solution of the question of defence. Upon the information which I have disclosed to the House, the situation is, in my opinion, sufficiently grave to demand immediate action. We have asked His Majesty's Government what form of temporary and immediate aid can best be given by Canada at this juncture. The answer has been unhesitating and unequivocal. Let me again quote it: — We have no hesitation in answering, after a prolonged consideration of all the circumstances, that it is desirable that such aid should include the provision of a certain num- ber of the largest and strongest ships of war which science can build or money supply. Upon inquiry as to the cost of such a battleship we were informed by the Admiralty that it is approxi- S56 APPENDIX mately £2,350,000, including armament and the first outfit of ordnance, stores, and ammunition. The total cost of three such battleships, which when launched would be the most powerful in the world, would be, approximately, $35,000,000, and we ask the people of Canada, through their Parliament, to grant that sum to His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland and of the Oversea Dominions, in order to increase the eflFective naval forces of the Empire, to safeguard our shores and our sea-borne commerce, and to make secure the common heritage of aU who owe allegiance to the King. Those ships will be at the disposal of His Majesty the King for the common defence of the Empire. They will be maintained and controlled as part of the Royal Navy, and we have the assurance that, if at any time in the future it be the will of the Canadian people to establish a Canadian unit of the British Navy, these vessels can be called by the Canadian Government to form part of the Navy, in which case, of course, they will be maintained by Canada and not by Great Britain. In that event, there will, necessarily, be reasonable notice, and, indeed, Canada would not desire or suggest the sudden withdrawal of so powerful a contingent from any important theatre in which the naval forces of the Empire might be exposed to severe and sudden attack. In the mean time, I am assured that special arrange- ments will be made to give Canadians an opportunity of serving as officers in these ships. There have been proposals, to which I shall no more than allude, that we should build up a great naval organization in Canada. In my humble opinion nothing of an eflfective character could be built up in this coun- try within a quarter or, perhaps, half a century. Even 357 APPENDIX then it would be but a poor and weak substitute for that splendid organization which the Empire already possesses, and which has been evolved and built up by centuries of the most searching experience and the high- est endeavour. Is there really any need that we should undertake the hazardous and costly experiment of building up a naval organization especially restricted to Canada when upon just and self-respecting terms we can take such part as we desire in naval defence through the existing naval organization of the Empire, and in that way can fully and effectively avail ourselves of the men and the resources at the command of Canada ? Where shall these ships be built? They will be built under Admiralty supervision in the United Kingdom for the reason that, at present, there are no adequate facilities for constructing them in Canada. The addi- tional cost of construction in Canada would be about twelve million dollars for three, and it would be impos- sible to estimate the delay. No one is more eager than myself for the development of the shipbuilding indus- tries in Canada, but we cannot, upon any business or economic considerations, begin with the construction of Dreadnoughts, and especially we could not do so when these ships are urgently required within two or three years at the outside for rendering aid upon which may depend the Empire's future existence^ According to my conception, the effective development of the shipbuild- ing industries in Canada must commence with small beginnings and in a businesslike way. I have discussed the subject with the Admiralty, and they thoroughly realize that it is not to the Empire's advantage that all shipbuilding facilities should be concentrated in the ^ The italics are not in the original. 358 APPENDIX United Kingdom. I am assured, therefore, that the Admiralty are prepared in the early future to give orders for the construction in Canada of small cruisers, oil tank vessels, and auxiliary craft of various kinds. The plant required is relatively small as compared with that which is necessary for Dreadnought battle- ships, and such an undertaking will have a much more secure and permanent basis from the business stand- point. For the purpose of stimulating so important and necessary an industry we have expressed our willing- ness to bear a portion of the increased cost for a time at least. I see no reason why all the vessels required in future for our Government service should not be built in Canada, even at some additional cost. These ships will constitute an aid brought by the Canadian people to His Majesty the King as a token of their determination to maintain the integrity of the Empire and assist in repelling any danger which may threaten its security. It is most appropriate that the opportunity should have come when the Crown is represented in Canada by His Royal Highness the Governor-General, who has rendered such valuable and eminent service to the State, and who takes so deep and splendid an interest in all that concerns the welfare and safety of every portion of His Majesty's Dominions. Canada is sending these ships to range themselves in the battle-line of the Empire with those of the Mother Country, Australia, and New Zealand. They will be three of the most powerful battleships in the world, and they will bear historic names associated with this country. But if we should neglect the duty which I conceive we owe to ourselves, and if irreparable disaster should ensue, what will be our future destiny.? Obviously aa 359 APPENDIX an independent nation or as an important part of the great neighbouring Republic. 'What then would be our responsibilities, and what would be the burden upon us for a protection on the high seas much less powerful and less effective than that which we enjoy to-day? Take the case of one nation whose territory, resources, population, and wealth may fairly be compared with those in Canada. The naval estimates of Argentina for the four years from 1909 to 1912 inclusive amounted to $35,000,000 (£7,000,000). No information is avail- able as to the exact proportion of the last-mentioned sum which has been appropriated for naval purposes, but it is understood that the far greater portion is for naval construction. It is safe, therefore, to estimate that during the past four years Argentina has expended for naval purposes not less than from $65,000,000 to $70,000,000 (£13,000,000 to £14,000,000). The Fed- eral and State expenditure of the United States com- prises a total outlay for armaments of between $250,000,000 and $300,000,000 (£50,000,000 and £60,000,000), or at the rate of $2.75 per head. Siinilar expenditure by Canada would mean an annual out- lay of some $20,000,000 to $25,000,000, or between $80,000,000 and $100,000,000 during the same period. From 1853 to 1903 Great Britain's expenditure on military defence in Canada runs closely to $100,000,000. Has the protection of the Flag and the prestige of the Empire meant anything for us during all that period? Hundreds of illustrations are at hand, but let me give just two. During a period of disorder in a distant country a Canadian citizen was unjustifiably arrested and fifty lashes were laid on his back. An ap- peal was made to Great Britain, and with what result? A public apology was made to him and £50 were paid 360 APPENDIX for every lash. In a time of dangerous riot and wild terror in a foreign city the Canadian religious com- munity remained unafraid. "Why did you not fear?" they were asked, and unhesitatingly came the answer: "The Union Jack floated above us." I have alluded to the difficulty of finding an accept- able basis upon which the great Dominions cooperat- ing with the Mother Country in defence can receive and assert an adequate voice in the control and mould- ing of foreign policy. We were brought closely in touch with both subjects when we met the British Ministers in the Committee of Imperial Defence. That com- mittee is peculiarly constituted, but in my judgment is very effective. It consists of the Prime Minister of Great Britain and such persons as he may summon to attend it. Practically all the members of the Cabinet from time to time attend its deliberations, and usu- ally the more important members of the Cabinet are present. In addition, naval and military experts and the technical officers of the various departments con- cerned are in attendance. While the committee does not control policy in any way and could not be undertaken to do so as it is not responsible to Parliament, it is necessarily and con- stantly obliged to consider foreign policy and foreign relations for the obvious reason that defence, and especially naval defence, is inseparably connected with such considerations. I am assured by His Majesty's Government that pending a final solution of the question of voice and influence they would welcome the presence in London of a Canadian Minister during the whole or a portion of each year. Such Minister would be regularly sum- moned to all meetings of the Committee of Imperial 361 APPENDIX Defence and be regarded as one of its permanent mem- bers. No important step in foreign policy would be undertaken without consultation Tvith such represent- ative of Canada. This means a very marked advance both from our standpoint and from that of the United Kingdom. It would give us the opportunity of con- sultation and therefore influence which hitherto we have not possessed. The conclusions and declarations of Great Britain in respect of foreign relations could not fail to be strengthened by the knowledge that such consultation and cooperation with the Overseas Dominions had become an accomplished fact. No thoughtful man can fail to realize the very com- plex and difficult questions that confront those who believe that we must find a basis for permanent coop- eration in naval defence and that any such basis must afford the Overseas Dominions an adequate voice in the moulding and control of foreign policy. It would have been idle to expect, and indeed we did not expect, to reach in the few weeks at our disposal during the past summer a final solution of that problem, which is not less interesting than difficult, which touches most closely the future destiny of the Empire, and which is fraught with even graver significance for the British Islands than for Canada. But I conceive that its solu- tion is not impossible, and however difficult the task may be it is not the part of wisdom or statesmanship to evade it. So we invite the statesmen of Great Britain to study with us this real problem of Imperial existence. The next ten or twenty years will be pregnant with great results for this Empire, and it is of infinite import- ance that questions of purely domestic concern, how- ever urgent, shall not prevent any of us from rising "to the height of this great argument." But to-day, while 362 APPENDIX the clouds are heavy and we hear the booming of dis- tant thunder and see lightning flashes above the hori- zon, we cannot and will not wait and deliberate until the impending storm shall have burst upon us in fury and with disaster. Almost unaided, the Motherland, not for herself alone, but for us as well, is sustaining the burden of a vital Imperial duty and confronting an overmastering necessity of national existence. Bring- ing the best assistance we may in the urgency of the moment we come thus to her aid in token of our deter- mination to protect and insure the safety and integrity of this Empire and our resolve to defend on sea as well as on land our Flag, our honour, and our heritage. BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY THE NATtTEE OF EVIDENCE IN CONTEMPORABY HISTOBT The attempt to decide what shall have place in a bibliography of Pan-Germanism raises promptly the whole issue of the historicity of current problems and the question whether there is any evidence available which deserves the name. It should be frankly admit- ted that it is seldom possible to demonstrate the truth of the most important propositions by means of the line and precept familiar to investigators in other fields of historical research, and, while the archives of all European nations remain as tightly closed as they have since 1815, the historian must not conceal the fact that certainty is beyond him and will continue to be unattainable for some decades. Even where he is told that the veil has been lifted and the arcana imperii revealed, he will still be wise to continue skep- tical. So long as he must > work in the main with the material furnished him by parties obviously interested in guiding his conclusions, he must have as the first article of his creed, not to believe what others seem anxious to have him believe. When we learn further- more that the evidential precepts, familiar to investi- gators, result, when applied strictly to the history of the last quarter of a century, in a series of negations and colorless affirmations which neither describe nor BIBLIOGRAPHY explain events, we are driven either to do what we can with the materials at hand or to leave the understand- ing of the period in which we live entirely to our grand- children. We must freely recognize the probability of error in our own conclusions about current events; insistently repeat that we are making statements which are so far from certainties that they would be regarded in treating the history of the past as proba- bilities or conjectures; and then do the best we can. There are some pitfalls into which unwary and cas- ual students continually fall which the more serious will easily avoid. The daily output of books, pam- phlets, magazines, and newspapers upon the present international crisis is absolutely appalling; most of it is concerned more or less directly with Pan-Germanism; but the great bulk of it is pretty clearly of no perma- nent value, for such of it as has not been written with a purpose is obviously not based upon a careful study of facts. This, indeed, is inevitable, and is partly a result of the popular demand for "timely" articles and partly a consequence of the very proper determin- ation of statesmen to keep their real intentions secret. Articles written long enough after the event to contain a careful sifting of reUable information are rarely printed in the more popular magazines, and never appear in the newspapers and weekly journals, because the lapse of time necessary to write and pubUsh them makes it impossible to get them before the public while the event is still fresh in mind, and hence robs them of that immediacy in which "timeliness" chiefly consists. We are so sure that correspondents are being rigor- ously prevented from seeing anything of importance and that the censor is deleting everything of conse- quence, that we can at once dispose of the whole class BIBLIOGRAPHY of publications for which they write as possessed of no permanent value for the student. It will also be obvious that travelers, foreign army officers, and natives of the various European countries are not necessarily satisfactory authorities for the policy of European powers and the strategy of cam- paigns. A moment's consideration will show the reader the futility of assuming that because he has spent a week in Washington he understands the past or future policy of the President of the United States or has learned what the attitude of a hundred million people is toward Germany. A similar trip to London, Paris, or Berlin, productive of similarly casual conversations in hotels and trains, will not provide him with more valuable information upon the foreign situation. Per- sonal experiences are rarely typical. Nothing is as difficult to avoid in studying current history as the insidious influence upon our judgment of our own personal sympathies, likes, and dislikes. We must beware, as carefully, of believing what we ourselves wish to believe as we are of accepting what others wish us to believe. In particular, now that the execution of Pan-Germanism is attempted, we must be chary of reading the past ten years in the light of the events of July and August, 1914. The Kaiser is now with the war party, but it does not follow that his preference for the more moderate scheme in earlier years was not sincere. The student will also remember that there are in every nation many individuals and groups of individ- uals holding very diverse views of policies and condi- tions, all of which have readily found voice in the press. The tyranny of the printed page is such that the re- iteration of a statement almost invariably secures a- 369 BIBLIOGRAPHY certain credence for it. This is one of the cardinal prin- ciples of the Pan-Germanic press campaign. In Ger- many, there are administrative, diplomatic, military, and naval views; literary, historical, and philosophical notions; industrial and socialistic propaganda; ultra- montane, moderate Catholic, Protestant, and panthe- istic ideas; all held by groups which possess few prem- ises in common and which therefore reach the most diverse conclusions in regard to the present situation. AU this literature possesses some conceivable value; all of it the student must use with caution. The question of evidence reduces itself to two propo- sitions: the relative importance of data whose correct- ness is certain; and the relative credibility of testimony which would be important if it were true. Indeed, in most cases, we have to deal as students less with evidence than with testimony, itself ejcplicit, clear, and from authoritative sources. The real difficulty lies in the amount of this testimony, its conflicting state- ments, and the apparently unimpeachable character of all the witnesses. It may often be clear that a wit- ness might know the whole truth about the facta we are investigating; but this will not prove that he has chosen to tell us any of it. There is no question in con- temporary history where this difficulty is greater than in connection with Pan-Germanism. We cannot list, with confidence the "source books" for a study of Pan-Germanism until we satisfy ourselves beyond a reasonable doubt as to the personnel of its sup- porters. We must "catalogue" the Kaiser, the Govern- ment, Admiral von Tirpitz, Bethman-HoUweg, the German press, and the German people. But the Kaiser talks peace on Monday and on Tuesday is claiming Germany's, "place in the sun." Bethman-Hollweg in. 370 BIBLIOGRAPHY biie and lie same breath proclaims thai the great object of his life has been a lasting agreement with England and that the invasion of Belgian neutrality- was necessary. Where shall we place Harden and Die Zukunft? As a close friend of Bismarck, he may very well know all about Pan-Germanism and has certainly on many occasions furnished valuable clues to stu- dents; yet Germans will tell you he is absolutely a free-lance and hates the Kaiser, whose plans he would scorn to further. The answer to the question. What is Pan-German- ism? will therefore depend entirely on whose testimony we select. Personally I think it essential to bear con- stantly in mind the general "ethical" concepts of Bismarck and of the avowed Pan-Germanists; the doctrines that might makes right, that the end justifies the means, that public opinion ought to be shaped by the Government, that vital issues are decided by all nations in accordance with their conceptions of self- interest and expediency and not in conformity to ethics. We are studying one of the most daring, subtle, far-reaching schemes in the history of statecraft, one of whose conscious principles is the use of pubKc opin- ion as an important weapon. We must not place much reliance on the things which the German Government has been most anxious we should believe; yet we should not expect to find things absolutely different from what they seem. We must suspect everything; but not dis- count and disbelieve it all. In deciding what was credible and whom to believe, I have consistently followed these tests. First andi foremost, the logic of events; what best explained the really significant events, such as the reorganization of Turkey and the Baghdad Railway, — les fails S71 BIBLIOGRAPHY acccmij>lis. If Pan-Germanism was really the key, it would afford a reasonable explanation of Germany's attitude in all international affairs. This reliance upon the logic of events is after all only an insistence upon a reasonably complete chain of indirect or circumstan- tial evidence, composed of actual events, however minute, as superior evidentially to any amount of direct testimony which is open to the suspicion of manufacture for the purpose of forming opinion, if not with the intention actually to mislead it. The careful comparison of the logic of events with direct testi- mony, German and foreign, with the notions of foreign students, and with the actions of foreign governments seems to me to afford the only approach to certainty (itself far enough in the strictest sense removed from it) which can be achieved until the complete record is searched by investigators after the events themselves have assumed the perspective of the wars of Frederick the Great a,nd of Napoleon. Second: Oral information from men who ought to know. Third: what other foreign governments and competent foreign observers believe to be true. In this case, the actions of the governments are the factors of consequence, not their official acquiescence in the German official explanations. Valuable clues were also obtained from the literature of the societies formed in Denmark, France, and Holland, to oppose the Pan- Germanic scheme and which worked chiefly by means of literature intended to reveal the truth about its propaganda. Lastly : the various national policies and ambitions as revealed in the secret correspondence of past statesmen, especially before 1815. I have dealt in the text only with ideas and policies which in the light of all these tests seemed to me essen- 372 BIBLIOGRAPHY tial factors in the structure of Pan-Germanism, ita reason for being, its progress, or its execution. II THE LITERATURE OF PAN-GERMANISM: — SOURCES The literature of Pan-Germanism is concerned with: — (1) the position, strategic, economic, miHtary, naval, etc., of Germany and her allies; (2) the position of Germany's enemies; (S) Germany's needs; (4) the Pan-Germanic Confederation, etc.; (5) the philosophical and historical basis of Pan- Germanism; (6) the methods by which the scheme is to be put into operation; (7) the date of its execution. There is little dissent among the various groups of Pan-Germanists in regard to the first five of these; the difference of opinion seems to have been practically confined to the methods and date of its execution, the more radical wing being anxious to try the issue by arms at the earliest possible moment; the more con- servative preferring to wait until the steady growth of population and the increase of the size of the fleet and the army had made Germany proportionally stronger in relation to her enemies than she is now. This second wing, as I understand it, has been (till recently) the official wing, headed by the Kaiser, and has industri- ously talked peace, partly to mislead its adversaries and allay suspicion (for they saw that "peace" would be interpreted to mean the retention of the status quo 373 BIBLIOGRAPHY for an indefinite period), and partly because tbey really thought it a surer method. The more radical wing, whose most exalted adherent was the Crown Prince, was really headed by Admiral vonTirpitz and Marschall von Bieberstein. A long Hst of Pan-Germanists promi- nent in public life is in Schutte's Pan-Germanism and Denmark, 73-80. The German press of all grades has been carefully supervised and subsidized and has played the r61e deemed most beneficial by the leaders. Part was to educate the German public; part was to educate the outside world in those ideas about Ger- many which would be most useful. The vast majority of the German people are pwetty clearly not respon- sible for Pan-Germanism, but have been convinced of its necessity and inevitability by the literature sedu- lously fed to them by the Government, beginning with the school-books furnished to the lowest classes in the gymnasia and continuing through books, magazines, and newspapers intended for adults. Nothing has escaped the Government's attention; no pubUcation has been too insignificant. The literature of Pan- Germanism in the broadest sense is the literature of modem Germany. The following seem to have been the most impor- tant and influential of the societies devoted to the spreading of the radical propaganda: — Der Alldeutsche Verband, whose activities can be estimated by its annuals and handbooks, by its organ, Alldeutsche Blatter, and by Hugo Grell's Der AUdeut- sche Verband (1898); der AUgemeine Verein ftlr das Deutschtum in Ausland, whose propaganda will be found in its organs, Das Deutschtum in Ausland and Deutsche Erde; der Alldeutsche Sprach- und Schrif tver- ein, whose organ, Heimdall, is subtle and evasive; der 374 BIBLIOGRAPHY Flottenverein, and its montJhly, Uberatt (from Deutsch- land liber alles). The Berlin dailies, Deutsche Tages- zeitung, Taglische Rundschau, and Post, are supposed by many to have been the Pan-Germanist dailies, while Zeitfragen, edited by Fritz Bley, has been the ac- credited weekly. The following books and pamphlets are typical samples of propaganda: — Gfosa-Deutschland und Mittel Europa um das Jahr 1950. Anonymous, 1895. Accepted by the Pan-Germanists as part of its literature. Oesterreichs Zusammenbruch und Wiederaufbau. Anon- ymous, 1899. Klein Deutschland, ein Kehrbild. By "Justice Dr. jur. W." Published by the AUdeutsche Verband, 1903. It shows Germany as the Pan-Germanists claim her enemies would make her. Deutschland Sei Wach. Published by the Navy League, 1912. Englands Weltherrschaft und die deutsche "Luxus- flotte," von "Lookout." Over 15,000 copies were sold in Germany in the spring of 1912. It formed part of a series printed by Politik Verlagsanstalt und Buchdruckerei, G. M. b. H. Berlin> SW. 48, Wilhelmsstrasse 121, which is supposed by many to have somethii^ approaching official sanction. The two following entries belong to the same series : — Marokho oder Kongo, von Africanus Major. Im Kampf um Deutschlands Zukunft, von einem ostpreussischen Freikonservativen. 375 BIBLIOGRAPHY Der Kampf urns Deutschtum. A series of pamphlets published by the AUdeutsche Verband in 1897 of which the most interesting is Bley, Fkitz. Die Weltstellung des Deutschtums. England in deutsche Beleuchtung. A series of fourteen short pamphlets, published in 1906, 1907, and 1908, written by well-known Pan- Germanists, Reventlow (Die englische Seemacht), Lorenz, Lenschau, Schroeter, and others. RoHBBACH, Paul. Deutschland unter den Weltvolkern. Materialien zur auswartigen Politik. Berlin, 1903. , , Der Deutsche Gedanke in der Welt. DUsseldorf, 1912. Of Rohrbach's numerous writings, these have had the largest circulation, more than 40,000 copies of the latter having been sold. He is sane and care- ful, and succeeded in stating the chief premises and conclusions of Pan-Germanism in a way acceptable to the more conservative German public and in a way sufficiently veiled to make his volumes "safe " reading for the public of other lands. Jackh, Eknest. The Revival of the Crescent; An histor- ical sketch of the Turkish Revival. New York, 1911. , , Deutschland im Orient nach dem Bal- kankrieg. Miinchen, 1913. Of Dr. Jackh's numerous works, these are the best known and most pertinent. They are particularly enlightening upon the Pan-Germanic Confederation and upon the part of Turkey and the Baghdad Railway. Reventlow, Ernst. Graf zu, Deutschland zur See; Ein Bu^h von der deutschen Kriegsjlotte. Leipzig, 1914. Von Bebnhardi, Fbiedhich. Deutschland und der nUchste Krieg. Berlin, 1912. 376 BIBLIOGRAPHY III THE PHILOSOPHY OF PAN-GKRMANI3M The prophets of Pan-Germanism have been Nietz- sche and Gobineau, both of whom are quoted con- stantly in its literature and whose fundamental posi- tions are at the basis of its thinking. We should not forget this ramification of the movement into philos- ophy, history, and literature, if we are to grasp its pervasive force and its chief strength. Its premises meet one at every turn of German life. GoBiNEAXJ, Joseph Arthur, Comte de. Sur VinSgalitS des races humaines. Paris, 1853-55. ScHEMANN, LuDWiG. Gobineau und die Deidsche Kul- tur. Leipzig, 1910. LicHTENBERGER, Henri. The Gospel of Superman, the Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche; translated from the French by J. M. Kennedy. Edinburgh and Lon- don, 1910. Seilliere, Ernest Antoine Aime LioN, Baron de. La Philosophie de Vimp6rialisme. 1. Gobineau et I'Aryanisme historique. 2. ApoU6n ou Dionysos. Etude Critique sur Frederic Nietzsche et I'utilitarisme imp6rialiste, Paris, 1903-05. 2 vols. IV THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OP PAN-GEHMANISM The discussion of the relative position of Germany, her allies and enemies, involved a restatement of his- 377 BIBLIOGRAPHY tory or at the least a different reading of history. Two books which seem to have had much influence on Ger- man official views were J. R. Seeley's Expansion of England (London, 1883) and (at that time) Captain A. T. Mahan's The Influence of the Sea Power upon History (Boston, 1890). The Pan-Germanic statements of England's weakness as they appear in the German school-books are actually based on the work of Eng- lish historians. The protagonist of Pan-Germanist history is Heinrich Gotthard von Treitschke, whose magnum opus is his Deutsche Geschichte im neun^ zehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1879-95, 5 vols.). He edited for years, aided later by Professor Delbriick, the Preussische Jahrbucher which contains countless ex- positions of the details of the chauvinistic view of Ger- man and European history. Treitschke's Brief e, edited by Max Cornicelius, have been published in two voU umes. Lamprecht's glorification of Germany in his Deutsche Geschichte, like Giercke's work on German law, both unconnected with propaganda, nevertheless fitted well into the general scheme. H. §. Chamber^ Iain's Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Mtinchen, 1900, 2 vols.; English translation, London, 1910) deals with universal history from the Pan-Ger- manist point of view. More thau a hundred thousand copies were sold in Germany. V THE SECONDABY LITEEATUBE OF PAN-GEEMANISM Books written from the objective, impartial, his- torical viewpoint, there are none. The Fortnighily Review and the National Review have published in 378 BIBLIOGRAPHY recent years many discriminating discussions of Pan- Germanism, some of which have been probably semi- official. The following discuss Pan-Germanism or its premises and conclusions From the French point of view EiiGAMEY, J. et F. L'Allemagne a Cheval. Paris, 1907. BouBDON, Georges. L'jSnigme Allemande. Martin, Guillaume. La Crise d'Allemagne. Fbolich, Jules. Le Pangermaniste en Alsace (illus- trated by the famous cartoonist, "Oncle Hansi"). Paris, 1913. Tardieu, Andre. France et les Alliances. Paris, 1907. BoucHiER, Col. Arthur. La France victorieuse dans la Guerre de Demain. Paris, 1911. Demolins, Edmond. a quoi tient la Supiriorite des Anglo-Saxons? Paris, 1897. English translation, 1898. Ten editions were sold in France the first year. From the Belgian-English point qf view Sarolea, G. The Anglo-German Problem. London, 1912. From the Danish point of view The publications of the "Society of the 17th of Janu- ary, 1908," an Anti-Pan-Germanist Society. ScHUTTE, GuDMUND (its Secretary). Die Alldeutschen als Macht im deutschen Volke. Cechische Revue, 1910. . , , Pan-Germanism and Denmark. Published in English at Copenhagen, 1913. 379 BIBLIOGRAPHY rrom the English point of view Johnston, Sir Haekt. Commonsense in Foreign Pol- icy. London, 1913. Lea, Homee. The Day of the Saxon. New York, 1912. From the pacifist point of view Angell, Noeman. The Great Illusion; A Study of the relation of military power in nations, to their economic and social advantage. London and New York, 1910. Attempts to show that the fundamental tenet of Pan-Germanism (which he assumes to be the belief that the national economic welfare can be assured by war) is a fallacy. War is unprofitable, he con- tends. He has attempted to state this concept more systematically in Arms and Industry; A Study of the Foundations of International Polity (London and New York, 1914). With him have taken issue "A Rifleman" (V. W. Germains), in The Struggle for Bread; A Reply to the Great Illusion" (London, 1913), and Admiral A. T. Mahan, Armaments and Arbitration, or the Place of Force in the International Relations of States (New York, 1912). Admiral Mahan's The Interest of America in International Conditions (Boston, 1910) contains a chapter on the "Predominance of Germany in Europe." VI THE LITERATUEE OF EECENT GEBMAN HISTORY IN ITS RELATION TO PAN-GEEMANISM Official statistics, parliamentary papers, speeches, government publications of all sorts must be used with. 380 BIBLIOGRAPHY caution. Economists have complained that the fre- quent changes by the Government of the basis on which statistics were compiled made any comparison of the record of one decade with that preceding im- possible. The official figures regarding fleet and army have repeatedly proved misleading. Above all, the financial reports and figures of imports and exports represent Germany as a great creditor nation, when the veriest tyro at international finance knows that Germany is overwhelmingly a debtor nation. The annuals, yearbooks, and statistical publications are numerous and are to be found in every library. They are all equally good and equally bad. Sidney Whitman's Imperial Germany; A Critical Study of Fact and Character (London and Boston, 1889), was publicly praised by Bismarck and other prominent men and must be taken to represent an idea of Germany a decade after the Franco-Prussian War which the Government thought worth promul- gating. Imperial Germany, by the ex-Chancellor Prince Bernhard von Billow, must be assumed to present a modern view pleasing to the present Govern- ment. The German Empire of To-day (London, 1902), by "Veritas," gives an English view, clearly semi- official, supposed to have been compiled from English consular reports. J. Ellis Barker's Modern Germany; Her political and Economic Problems, Her Foreign and Domestic Policy (London, 1903, third ed., enlarged), is an English view, hostile to Pan-Germanism, and not above the suspicion of ulterior purpose. G. Blondel, Les Embarras de I'Allemagne (Paris, 1912), Henri Lichtenberger, Germany and its Evolution in Modern Times (English translation, 1913), are careful studies of German conditions by competent French scholars. 381 BIBLIOGRAPHY E. D. Howard, The Cause and Extent of the Recent Industrial Progress of Germany (Boston, 1912), is the work of a young American Doctor of Philosophy, a professional economist. Dr. Ludwig Stein has edited, in England and Germany (London, 1912), a series df signed articles by various men pTiominent in the offi- cial life of both countries which state carefully but thoroughly the official attitude of two years ago. The Kaiser, as the outside world has (been taught to be- lieve him to be, is depicted in A. H. Fried's The Ger- man Emperor and the Peace cf the World (London, 1912). Short and almost official sketches of various personalities, thoroughly pro-German, are to be found in the series of brief biographiefs. Manner der Zeit (published by Reisner at Dresden) ; in Sidney Whit- man's German Memories (London, 1912) ; and in F. W. Wile's Men around the Kaiser (Philadelphia, 191S). The latter contains an authorized statement by Del- brtlck of moderate Pan-Germanism which is inter- resting and important. VII THE UTEBATUHE OF RECENT EITROPEAN HISTORY IN ITS RELATION TO PAN-GERMANISM The American who has not grown up in the atmo- sphere of European politics, finds that the writers of books and articles assume a familiarity "with the basic facts of national pohcy which he does not possess, and often do not even allude to the important premises on which their arguments and descriptions rest. The ordiniary compendious accounts of the history of the nineteenth century do not stress the broader aspeeti^ BIBLIOGRAPHY of the situation enough to render him much assistance. Indeed, the student will find indispensable to an intel- ligent perusal of the European literature of the more recent phases of European history a thorough grasp of the details of nineteenth-century history, and, in particular, a careful study of the secret correspon- dence of Napoleon and of Frederick the Great, and of such correspondence of Metternich, Bismarck, Cavour, Crispi, Gladstone, Beaconsfield, and Salisbury as is available. The following books shed important light upon various aspects of the situation: — Barclay, Sir Thomas. Thirty Years of Anglo-French Reminiscences. Boston, 1914. Steed, H. W. The Hapsburg Monarchy. London, 1913. Seton-Watson, R. W. The Southern Slav Question. London, 1911. Chikol, Sir V. The Middle Eastern Question. London, 1903. AuBiN, Eugene. Maroc. Paris, 1903. Graham, Stephen. Changing Russia. London, 1913. Chailley-Bert, Joseph. Administrative Problems of British India. London, 1910. INDEX INDEX Administration, in England, 27; in Germany, 27, 29, 67-69, 310-12; influence of, upon in- ternational rivalry to-day, 288. Agadir incident, 18, 81-82. Albania, 226-27, 281, 314. Alsace-Lorraine, significance of, 23, 60, 63, 308-09. Army, English, 256, 265-66; French, 246-47; 258-59; Ger- man, 65, 69-72; 102-03; 243, 249; Russian, 58-59, 246. Australia, 45-46. Austria, member of Pan-Ger- manic Confederation, 10; de- velopment in nineteenth cen- tury, 27, 29; factors securing alliance with Germany, 59-60; conditions in, 206-07; 250-52; 306-12; preparations for war of 1914, 264-71; crisis with Servia, 271-77. See also for foreign policy. Triple Alliance. Baghdad Railway, purpose of, 11, 113-14, 165; to isolate India, 40; construction of, 126- 27, 189; outflanked by Trans- Persian Railway, 209; jeopar- dized by first Balkan War, 229. Balkan States, part of Pan- Germanic Confederation, 11, 107, 312; English control of, 41; position of, 108-11; condi- tions in, 131-33; 209-10; 312- 14; control of, by Triple Alli- ance, 174-75, 219; importance of Balkan War, 214-17; prose- cution of first war by, 217-18; results of, 219-22; second Bal- kan War, 224-39; causes of, 224-30; realignment of parties in, 1913, 232-34; results of, 235-39; attempt of Triple Alli- ance to conquer, in 1914, 273- 74; probable effect of victory of Pan-Germanism upon, 321- 23. Baltic Sea, 5, 22, 49, 54, 63, 102, 106, 247, 252. Belgium, strategic importance of, 21, 23, 50, 104-06, 304; seizure of, by Germany, 103-04. Bernhardi, General von, ideas of, 5-6, 12-13. Bismarck, 2, 3, 5; ethical ideas of, 12 n., 14, 16 n.; opinion of England, 14, 19; of Russia, 55. Black Sea, 55, 60. Boer War, 122-26. British Empire, German view of, 19, 37-^7. Bulgaria, 205, 218, 226-28, 232- 36. Canada, German view of relation to England, 44, 46, 258. Capital, part played by, in inter- national relations, 75-77, 80; in modern warfare, 80-82; Ger- man view of, 90-95; in success of Pan-Germanism, 331-33. Channel, English, strategic im- portance of, 9-10, 20-21, 26, 80, 34, 101-06, 303-04. Colonies — English, German view of, 37-47, 257-58; attitude of, to 387 INDEX England, 195-96; conquest of, by Germany, 327-28, 337-39. French, German view of, 63- 54; position of, 158-60. German, need of, 8-9, 101- 02, 106; movement to obtain, 119-20; administration of, 328- 29. Italian, 176-77. Confederation, Balkan, prerequi- site of Pan-Gennanism's suc- cess, 107-11; formation of, in 1913, 205-06; broken by first Balkan War, 224r-27; attempt to form, in 1914, 273-76. Confederation, Pan-Germanic, purpose of, 10, 800-01; com- position of, 10-11, 107-14, 205-06, 229-30, 249-53; at- tempts to create, 126-29; 131- 86; 208-09, 219-39, 243, 273- 75; fundamental character and weakness of, 305-23. Congo, 106, 160. Constantinople, importance of, to Germany, 11; English and French objections to possession of, by Russia obviated, 210- 13, 238-39; loss threatened by first Balkan War, 218; regained by second Balkan War, 229, 234-36, 237. Credit system of the world, 76- 79. Debts, national, 66, 83, 85-87. Denmark, importance of, 50, 106-07. Democracy, in France, 61-52. 259-60; in Asia and Africa, 43- 44, 130-31. Economic forces aiding Pan- Germanism, 33-34, 88-100, 266-70, 282-93, 304; opposing Pan-Germanism, 76-87, 162- 65, 245^.6, 330-33. Egypt, Pan-Germanism aimed at, 11; English rule in, 41; demo- cratic movement in, 43, 136- 38; financial indebtedness of, 83; reorganization of, 168-70. Emigration, objection of Ger- many to, 6, 6 n., 7 n., 339-40. England, exports of, 6, 9; stra- tegic position of, on the Chan- nel, 9-10, 20-22, 30, 34; Ger- man view of, 19-36, 68-69, 88-97, 302-04; influence of strategical situation in Europe upon, 22-24; French and Eng- lish view of, 73-84; imports of, 84-85; interferes in Persia, 134-35, 165-68; attitude to- ward Italy's ambition in Trip- oli, 178-80; change of policy of, toward Russia, 210-13, 237-98; domestic difficulties of, in 1914, 254-68; diplomatic opportimity of, to-day, 318-19. For foreign policy see Triple Entente. Ethics of Pan-Germanists, 11-14, 99-100, 278-98. Fleet — English, 8, 20-22, 29-80, 34. 45, 64, 196, 222, 246, 256. French, 51, 196, 222. German, 1 n., 9-10, 21, 33, 69, 101-02, 118, 243, 265-66. Russian, 51, 197, 212, 246. United States, 153-66. France, strategic position of, 22- 24; German view of, 48-64, 68-69, 88-97, 802-03; French and Engli^ view of, 73-84; change of policy toward Russia, 211-14, 237-39; sacrifices of, in 1914, 247-48; domestic diffi- 388 INDEX culties of, in 1914, 258-60. For foreign policy of, see Triple Entente. Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, 207-08; 250-51. German nation, part in Pan- Germanism, 2, 16 n., 72. Germany, conditions in, necessi- tating expansion, 4-8; impor- tance of English Channel to, 20-22, 29-31; a geographical expression until nineteenth century, 25; development of, in nineteenth century, 25, 27- 28; strategic position of, in Europe, 48-49, 69; strength of, 63-72; English and French view of, 78-87; peace party in, 242-48; war party in, 244; causes giving war party ascend- ancy, 244-49; preparations for war of 1914 in, 264-77; condi- tions in, 306-12. See also Fan- Germanism. Home Rule for Ireland, 28, 191- 92, 254-56. Indemnity, paid to Germany by France, 13-14. India, Pan-Germanism aimed at, 11, 113-14. 253; founding of English Empire in, 87-40; fac- tors sustaining, 42-44, 335-37; democratic movement in, 43, 137-38, 257-58; financial in- debtedness of, 83; Durbar of, 1911, 171-73; effect of Trans- Persian Railway on, 198-99. Industry, in Germany, 6, 65-67, 95-96. Inventions, effect upon interna- tional relations, 21-22, 32-33. Italy, national development of, 389 25, 175; strategic position of, 61-62, 174-75; factors securing alliance with Germany and Austria, 62; factors making membership in Triple Alliance dangerous for, 174-77, 237-38, 319-20; partin TripolitanWar, 178-86; effect of second Bal- kan War upon, 237-38; neu- trality of, in 1914, 240, 271. 273, 306-07, 319-20. For for- eign policy of, see also Triple Alliance. Kaiser. Wilhelm II. of Geimany. 3, 118, 189. 242-44. Eiel Canal. 63, 105. London, financial position of, 77- 80, 82-83. Malta, key of Mediterranean. 61. 179. 184. 186. Merchant marine, of Germany, 67, 270; of England, 67-68. Mexico, 148-50, 152-64, 156, 261, Morocco, designs of Germany upon, 17-18; conditions in, 63-54, 133-34; strategic posi- tion of, 158-59; German aggres- sion upon, 1911. 158-64. Netherlands, the, strategic posi- tion of, 20-21, 23, 103-06. Pan-Germanic League. 17. 349- 51. Pan-Germanism, aim of. 1, 16, 253-54, 324-26; evidence for existence of, 2 n., 17-18, 343- 62; causes of, 4-11; early mean- ing of, 6, 7 n.; character of, 11, 347; ethics of, 11-14, 99-100, 278-98; has been secret policy of German Government. INDEX 16-18; belief of German people in, 18, 72; economic forces aid- ing, 33-34, 88-100, 266-70, 282-93, 304; importance of centralized administration for execution of, 68-69, 288; eco- nomic forces opposing, 75-81, 162-65, 245-46, 330-33; pre- requisites of, 101-16; spoils of victory of, 114i-16, 800-02, 326-27; authorship of, 117-18; date of origin of, 118, 128; ori- gin of, 118-20, 128; first steps in execution of, 119-38; first defeats of, 158-73; results of Tripolitan War for, 182-86; at- tempts to complete Confedera- tion for, 203-22; blow dealt by Balkan War to, 209-14; justifi- ability of, 278-98; correctness of premises of, 286-B8, 302-05; future of, in Europe, 299-323; future of, outside Europe, 324- 40. Pan-Germanists, ethics of, 11-14, 99-100, 278-98; peace party of, 242-43; war party of, 244; causes giving war party ascend- ancy, 244-49. Pan-Islam, 44^6, 130-31, 136- 88, 181, 213-14. Panama Canal, 150, 155-56, 238, 334. Parties, in English House of Com- mons, 28, 191-95; in France, 52-53. Peace, economic advantages of, to England and France, 78-79, 88-97, 293-95; agitation for, 79; meaning of, to Pan- Germanists, 242-43. Peaceful penetration, definition of, 120-21. Persia, policy of Pan-Germanists toward, 11, 113, 127; demo- cratic movement in, 43, 135; conditions in, 134-35; reorgan- ization of, 134-36; aggression of England and Russia in, 1912, 165-68. Philippines, 151-54, 156. Population, in Germany, 5-7, 65, 325, 340; in England, 33; in France, 53; in Russia, 54. Prussia, history of development of, 4-5; position of, in Ger- many, 306-08; conditions in, 305-08; relation of, to Austria and Italy, 306, 310. Russia, German view of, 48, 54- 59, 68-69, 302-03; financial in- debtedness of, 83; effect upon of general war, 106-07; inter- feres in Persia, 134-86, 166- 68; threatens India 197-200; meaning of Trans-Persian Rail- way to, 198; change of English and French policy toward, 210-13, 237-39; domestic diffi- culties of, in 1914, 260-61; part in Austro-Servian War, in 1914, 271-75. For foreign pol- icy see Triple Entente. Saloniki, control of iGgean by, 60, 226-27, 233, 235, 287, 274. Servia, 205, 220, 226-27, 234-36, 240 n., 252, 261; crisis with Austria in 1914, 271-77. Socialists in France, 52; in Ger- many, 245, 311-12. South Africa, 44, 46, 122-26, 257- 58. South America, 115, 121-22, 254, 334. Spanish-American' War, 151-53. Suez Canal, 11, 42, 164, 200, 202. Sultan of Turkey, 11, 128-29, 213-14. 390 INDEX Sweden, 106. Switzerland, 107. Tirpitz, Grand-Admiral von, 16 n., 118. Trans-Persian Railway, 197-202. Triple Alliance, factors creating, 59-62; weakness of, 174-76; Italy deserts, 180; Italy won back by, 182-85; gains of from Tripolitan War, 182-86; meas- ures to develop this advantage by, 187-89; advantages of Balkan War for, 203-09; losses of, from first Balkan War, 218- 22; reasons for continuing war, 229-30; alliance of, with Bul- garia, 232-34; gains of, by second Balkan War, 235-37; forces general European war, in 1914, 240-63. Triple Entente, basis of, 160-61; compared with Triple Alliance, 143-44; relations of United States to, 139-40, 167; offers Tripoli to Italy, 178-80; losses of, by Italy's treachery, 182- 86; measures to recoup, 189- 202; advantages of Balkan War to, 209-14; Balkan War a victory for, 218-22; reasons of, for continuing Balkan War, 227-29; effect of second Balkan War upon, 237-39; domestic difficulties in 1914, 264-61; preparations against the Triple Alliance, 246-49; ethical mo- tives of, 278-98; advantage to minor European nations of vic- tory of, 321-23. Tripolitan War, 180-89, 208-06, 216-18. Turkey, member of Pan-Ger- manic Confederation, 11, 111; English control of, 41, 83; po- sition of, 111-13; German re- organization of, 128-29, 214- 15; war with Italy over Tripoli, 180-82, 215-18; Balkan States make war upon, 203-39; condi- tions in, 314-16. Ulster, 255-56, 275-76. United States, position of, 139- 67, 254, 261, 334. Venezuela, 121-22. War, character of to-day, 69-72, 80-82, 293-96; effects of, on trade, 79; effects of, on eco- nomic position of England and France, 88-97. Wilhelm II, German Emperor. See Kaiser. ZANE GREY'S NOVELS May bB liaJ wherever books are so ld. Ask for Grossat & Dunlap's list THE LIGHT OF WESTERN STARS Colored frontispiece by W. Herbert Dunton. Most of the action of this story takes place near the turbulent Mexican border of the present day. A New York society girl hiiyy a ranch which becomes the center of frontier warfare. Her loyal cowboys defend her property from bandits, and her superintendent rescues her when she is captured by them. A surprising climax brings the story to a delightful close. DESERT GOLD Illustrated by Douglas Duer. Another fascinating story of the Mexican border. Two men, lost in the desert, discover gold when, overcome by weakness, they can go no farther. The rest of the story describes the recent uprising along the border, and ends with the finding of the gold which the two prospectors had willed to the girl who is the story's heroine. RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE Illustrated by Douglas Duer. A picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago when Mormon authority ruled. In the persecution of Jane Withersteen, a rich ranch owner, we are permitted to see the methods employed by the invisible hand of the Slormon Church to break her will. THE LAST OF THE PLAINSMEN Illustrated with photograph reproductions. This is the record of a trip which the author took with Buffalo Jones, known as the preserver of the American bison, across the Arizona desart and of a hunt in "that wonderful country of yellow crags, deep canons and giant pines." It is a fascinatmg story. THE HERITAGE OF THE DESERT Jacket in color. Frontispiece. ! This big human drama is played in the Painted Desert. A lovely girl, who has been reared among Mormons, learns to love a young New Englander. The Mormon religion, however, demands that the girl shall become the second wife of one of the Mormons- Well, that's the problem of this sensational, big selling story. BETTY ZANE Illustrated by Louis F. Grant. This story tells of the bravery and heroism of Betty, the beauti- ful young sister of old Colonel Zane, one of the bravest pioneers. Life along the frontier, attacks by Indians, Betty's heroic defense of the beleaguered garrison at Wheeling, the burning of the Fort, and Betty's final raceforlife,make up this never-to-be-forgotten story. GrOSSET & DUNLAF, PUBLISHERS, NeW YoRK NOVELS OF FRONTIER LIFE BY WILLIAM MacLEOD RAINE HANDSOMELY BOUND IN CLOTH. ILLUSTRATED. May ba had wheravor books ara sold. Ask for Grossat and Donlap's list MAVERICKS. A tale of the western frontier, where the "rustler," whose dep- redations are so keenly resented by the . early settlers of the range, abounds. One of the sweetest love stories ever told.j*' A TEXAS RANGER. How a member of the most dauntless border police force carried law into this mesquit, saved the life of an innocent man after a series of thrilling adventures, followed a fugitive to Wyoming, and then passed through deadly peril to ultimate happiness, WYOMING. In this vivid story of the outdoor West the author has captured the breezy charm of "cattleland," and brings out the turbid life of the frontier with all its engaging dash ahd vigor. RIDGWAY OF MONTANA. The scene is laid in the mining centers of Montana, where poli- tics and mining industries are the religion of the country. The political contest, the love scene, and the fine character drawing give this story .gr«at strength and charm. BUCKY O'CONNOR, Every chapter teems with wholesome, stirrihg adventures, re- plete with the dashing spirit of the border, told with dramatic dash and absorbing fascination of style and plot. CROOKED TRAILS AND STRAIGHT . A story of Arizona; of swift-riding men and daring outlaws; of a bitter feud between cattle-men and sTieep-herders. The heroine s a most unusual woman and her love story reaches a culmination that is fittingly characteristic of the great free West. BRAND BLOTTERS . A story of the Cattle Range. This story brings out the turbid life of the frontier, with all its enga^ng dash and vigor, with a charm- ing kive interest running through its 320 pages. Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York JACK LO NDON^S NOVELS May bt had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Ounlap's lIsL JOHN BARLEYCORN^ lUustrated by H. T. Dunn. This remarkable book is a record of the author's own amazing experiences. This big, brawny world rover, who has been ac- quainted with alcohol Irom.boyhoQd, comes out boldly against John Barleycorn. It is a string ojE, exciting adventures, yet it forcefully conveys an unforgetable idea and makes a, typical Jack London book. THE VALLEY OF THE MOON. Frontispiece by George Harper. The story opens in the city slums where Billy Roberts, teamster and ex-prize fighter, and Saxon Brown, laundry worker, meet and love and marry. They tramp from one end of California to the other, and in the Valley of the Moon find the farm paradise that is to be their salvation. BURNING DAYLIGHT. Four iUustratipns. The story of an adventurer who went to Alaska and laid the foundations of his fortune before the gold hunters arrived. Bringing his fortunes to the States he is cheated out of it by a crowd of money kings, and recovers it only at the muzzle of his gun. He then starts out as a merciless exploiter on his own account. Finally he takes to drinking and becomes a picture of degeneration. About this time he falls in love with his stenographer and wins her heart but not her hand and then — ^but read the story! A SONOFTHESUN . Illustrated by A. O.Fischer and C.W. Ashley. David Grief was once a light-haired, blue-eyed youth who came from England to the South Seas in search of adventure. Tanned like a naUve and as lithe as a tiger, he became a real son of the sun. The life appealed to him and he remained and became very wealthy. XHE C ALL OF THE WILD. lUustrationsby Philip R.Goodwin and Charles Livingston BuU. Decorations by Charles E. Hooper. A book ot dog adventures as exciting as any man's exploits could be. Here is excitement to stir the blood and here is pictur- esque color to transport the reader to primitive scenes. THE SEA WOLF. Illustrated by W. J. Aylward. Told by a man whom Pate suddenly swings from his fastidious life into the power of the brutal captain of a sealing schooner. A novel of adventure warmed by a beautiful love episode that every reader will hail with delight. WHITE FANG. Illustrated by Charles Livingston BuU. "White Pane" is nart dog, part wolf and all brute, living in the frozen north- he graWlly comes under the speU of man's c»m- p^S^shi^aiid su??nders aU at the last in a fight with a bull dog. Thereafter he is man's loving slave. , _ Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers', New York THE NOVELS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL THE INSIDE OF THE CUP. Illustrated by Howard Giles. The Reverend John Hodder is called to a fashionable church in a middle-western city. He knows little of modern problems and in his theology is as orthodox as the rich men who control his church could desire. But the facts of modem life are thrust upon him; an awakening follows and in the end he works out a solution. A FAR COUNTRY. lUustrated by Herman Pfeifer. This novel is concerned with big problems of the day. As The Inside of the Cup gets down to the essentials in its discussion of re- ligion, so A Far Country deals in a story that is intense and dra- matic, with other vital issues confronting the twentieth century. A MODERN CHRONICLE. lUustrated by J. H. Gardner Soper. This, Mr. Churchill's first great presentation of the Eternal Feminine, is throughout a profound study of a fascinating young American woman. It is frankly a modem love story. MR. CREWE'S CAREER. lUus. by A. I. KeUer and Kinneys. A new England state is tmder the political domination of a rail- way and Mr. Crewe, a millionaire, seizes a moment when the cause of the people is being espoused by an ardent young attorney, to fur- ther his own interest in a political way. The daughter of the rail- way president plays no small part in the situation. THE CROSSING. lUustrated by S. Adamson and L. Baylis. Describing the battle of Fort Moultrie, the blazing of the Ken- tucky vrildemess, the expedition of Clark and his handful of follow- ers m Illinois, the beginning of civilization along the Ohio and Mississippi, and the treasonable schemes against Washington. CONISTON. lUustrated by Florence Scovel Shinn. A deft blending of love and politics. A New Englander is the hero, a crude man who rose to poUtical prominence by his own pow- ers, and then surrendered all for the love of a woman. THE CELEBRITY. An episode. An inimitable bit of comedy describing an interchange of per- sonaUties between a celebrated author and a bicycle salesman. It is the purest, keenest fun — and is American to the core. THE CRISIS . lUustrated with scenes from the Photo-Play. A book that presents the great crisis in our national life with splendid power and with a sympathy, a sincerity, and a patriotism that are inspiring. RICHARD CARVEL. lUustrated by Malcolm Frazer. An historical novel which gives a real and vivid picture of Co- lonial times, and is good, clean, spirited reading in all its phases and interesting throughout. Grosset & DuNLAP, Publishers, New York DD119 U85 191^ ^*^sher, Boland Greene '*'''*- Titiep__ fjorrnaniam Copy =Pan Germarusy i- 1