PAN=QERMANISM.

BY

THE EARL OF CROMER.

Reprinted, by permission, from the "Spectator" of
September 25th, 1915.

LONDON :
DARLINQ & SON, LIMITED.
1916.

PAN-GERMANISM.

BY

THE EARL OF CROMER.

Reprinted,' by permission, from the "Spectator" of
September 25th, 1915.

LONDON :
DARLING & SON, LIMITED.
1916.

PAN = QERMANISM/
By THE EARL OF CROMER.

Even after more than a year of war there are
still visible symptoms, which seem to indicate
that some sections of the community are not
as yet fully alive to the importance of all the
issues at stake in the present contest. Never
theless, broadly speaking, it may be said that the
British public have at last woke up from the
deep lethargy in which they were steeped before
the war. However slow the mass of the people
of this country may be to grasp any new general
idea with which they are unfamiliar, they
experienced no difficulty in understanding what
" militarism " meant, or what was the signifi
cance of "f rightfulness." The former term
quickened into life that intense dislike of mili
tary rule which has become a deeply-rooted
national tradition. The latter, when it took the
form of bombarding unfortified towns, sinking
unarmed merchantmen, and slaughtering women

* Le pangermanisme. Par Ch. Andler, Professeur a I'Universit^
de Paris. Paris : Librairie Armand Colin. 0 fr. 50 c.
(7454—8.)

and children, woke up all that generous and
whole-hearted disgust for cruelty in all its
forms which is one of the best characteristics of
contemporaneous public opinion in humani
tarian England. There is, however, another
feature of German policy the nature of which is
possibly not yet generally understood either in
England or in America. It may be doubted
whether the British or American public fully
realize the true aims of German ambition, or the
extent to which the realization of- those aims
would aflfect the interests both of their own
countries and of every other country in the
world. A few years ago a talented Frenchman,
M. Cheradame, endeavoured to explain the real
meaning of the Pan-Germanic movement. His
work did not attract all the attention it deserved.
It was published at a time when the extent to
which Germany had in thought cut herself off
from the community of civilized nations was not
as yet fully realized. Another Frenchman, Pro
fessor Andler, of the University of Paris, has
now taken up the treatment of this subject. It
will be well to make an attempt to familiarize
the public with some of the leading facts set
forth in Professor Andler' s very able and
interesting pamphlet. It embodies the collective

opinions of a considerable number of very dis
tinguished French savants.
It is impossible to understand the French
Revolution without taking into account the
teaching of those philosophers who heralded its
advent. It has often been remarked that the
origin of almost every law passed in the early
stages of the Revolutionary period may be
distinctly traced to the ideas propagated by
Rousseau. Similarly, the utterances of the
swarm of German professors and others who for
many years past have been ardently preaching
the gospel of Pan-Germanism afford the true key
to the explanation of the recent political pro
gramme adopted by German statesmen. Officials
have naturally been somewhat more reticent than
their unofficial supporters. Nevertheless, the
language which the former have at times em
ployed has been sufficiently explicit. Prince
Bulow said publicly in 1904 : " The King must
be at the head of Prussia ; Prussia at the head of
Germany; and Germany at the head of the
universe." Moreover, he testified to the fact
that the Pan-German League, which represents
the most extreme form of German Chauvinism,
had deserved great credit for the manner in

which it had " stimulated and evoked national
sentiment." More recently, the time having
come when there was no longer any need to wear
a mask, the Kaiser announced in a General
Order to his troops, of which copies were found
in the possession of prisoners taken by the
Russians, that " the sole object of the war was to
ensure the triumph of that Great Germany,
which was to dominate all Europe." In this
utterance the Kaiser was too modest. It cannot
be doubted that the aim of the rulers of the
future " Great Germany " is to dominate, not
only the whole of Europe, but also the whole of
the world.
List may be said to have been the real
originator of the political programme which the
German Government is now endeavouring to
carry out, but the extent to which both his
methods and the sentiments which he enter
tained towards other countries differed from
those of the modern Pan-Germanists is suffi
ciently illustrated by the following extract from
his work entitled Insular SwpremMcy. Writing
before the abolition of the Corn Laws, he bitterly
attacked the then existing commercial policy of
England, but he added: "How vain do the

efforts of those appear to us who have striven to
found their universal dominion on military
power compared with the attempt of England.
. . . Let us then congratulate ourselves on
the immense progress of that [the Englishj
nation, and wish her prosperity for all future
time." In 1892 and subsequent years, German Chau
vinism, which had, of course, received a great
stimulus from the astounding successes
achieved against Austria in 1866 and France in
1870, took the form of proposing to establish a
gigantic Customs Union, which was to include
all the States of Central Europe, and which was
to be especially directed against the commercial
policy of the United States as conceived by Mr.
McKinley. The programme speedily broadened
out from commercial union to territorial acqui
sition. It was pointed out by one Pan-German-
ist (Fritz Bley) that it was absurd to leave mari
time Flanders in the possession of a race so
"physically and intellectually inferior" as the
French, and that this rich province, which had
been most iniquitously torn from the flank of
Germany by the predatory Turenne, ought to
return to its original owners. The possession of

8
Holland, which country had been " fertilized by
German blood," was also necessary to Germany.
Moreover, the Dutch would readily perceive that
it was in their own interests to fall in with Ger
man views. Did they not need some adequate
security against British aggression?. As for
Belgium, Mr. E. Seelmann observed that Charle
magne did not massacre all the Saxons. On the
contrary, a number of them were deported to the
banks of the Meuse. Their descendants were
obviously German. A Saxonia Irredenta, there
fore, existed, which was pining for reunion to
her Gernaan Motherland. A learned economist,
Ernst von Halle, indignantly asked whether,
both from an economic and geographical point
of view, it was not " monstrous " that the mouths
of the Rhine and the Danube, which were so
singularly fitted by Nature to play an important
part in the exchange of German produce with
that of other countries, should be in the hands
of strangers. Russia would, of course, have to
be pushed back. She must be made to give up
all the territories assigned to her in 1815, which
had been most unjustly "lost to Prussia."
There were, Paul de Lagarde pointed out, huge
tracts of Russian territory which would serve
admirably, not merely to satisfy the territorial

ambitions of many minor German Princes, but
as homes for the redundant proletariat of Ger
many. The Poles, as also the inhabitants of
Alsace-Lorraine, would have to be transported
elsewhere, their places being taken by German
colonists. According to Professor Hasse, ,a
military "glacis " ought to be formed all round
the German Empire. It should consist of a broad
belt of country to be inhabited solely by soldiers
retired from the German Army. Thus Ger
many would be preserved from the contagion pf
her neighbours. It might be possible to come to
some amicable arrangement with France, for the
French could not fail to recognize the truth of
Max tiarden's proposition that the limits in
which Germany was confined after the Franco-
Prussian War in 1870 were far too narrow to
satisfy her requirements. France could be
afforded a guarantee that her African Empire
would be secured to her. She might be able to
reduce those naval and military armaments
which weighed so seriously on her resources.
She might even secure the services of some
admirable German commercial organizers and
agents. In return, Germany would obtain
possession of certain colonies, and would, as a
preliminary to the Mediterranean becoming a

10
German lake, be allowed to construct a " German
Gibraltar " in the neighbourhood of Toulon. If
this arrangement was considered somewhat too
leonine, Friedrich Lange was ready with an
answer. It must always be understood, he
explained, that if nations were to be asked to
contribute towards maintaining the peace of the
world, it was for others to immolate themselves,
and that only as a very last resource should any
sacrifices be demanded of the people of Germany.
The intense egotism of the programme put
forward by the Pan-Germanists is probably best
illustrated by the treatment which it was sug
gested should be accorded to Austria, the
scorned handmaid of Germany. The services of
that country could, indeed, be for a time utilized
to act as a rampart against Slav aggression, but
any arrangement of this nature could only be
temporary. ' Austria, Friedrich Lange explained,
was after all, " a political abortion, the petrified
residuum of a confusion of Babylonian lan
guages." Hungary was a mere "bundle of
impossibilities." It was necessary, Paul de
Lagarde said, that all the " lamentable national
ities," which constituted the Empire of Austria,
should be eventually submerged by the flowing

11
German tide. Austria, Hasse thought, had been
far too liberally treated in 1866. She ought to
have been made to cede Bohemia and Moravia.
The time was inevitably approaching when Ger
many would have to " lay a strong hand on the
ruins of the Hapsburg State."
As for Turkey, it was obvious that by the non-
fulfilment of certain engagements contracted at
Berlin in 1878 the Turks had sacrificed whatever
international rights they might otherwise have
possessed. The dismemberment of the Ottoman
Empire might, it is true, lead to a European
conflagration, but, none the less, Germany must
not hesitate. To her must fall the lion's share
of the spoil. " God will never abandon a true
German." Pastor Naumann, who accompanied
the Kaiser to the Holy Land, did not think it
inconsistent with his duty as a minister of the
Christian religion to urge that Germany should
remain " politically indifferent " to such things
as Armenian massacres. It was not a part of
Germany's duty to encourage Christian Mis
sions. The main thing was to remember that
the heritage of the Sultan would shortly be
thrown on to the political market. Germany
must be prepared to acquire the greater part of

12
it, notably the whole of Asia Minor. Other
Pan-Germanists urged that the possession of
Crete was " a vital question " for Germany, and
that " a sane egotism " {ein gesunder nationaler
Egoismus) could scarcely do less than demand
the cession of that island and also of Armenia.
The German Empire, Hasse maintained, must
extend from the Baltic to the Persian Gulf. All
foreign influence should be rigorously excluded
from the whole of this vast territory. Anton
Sprenger plaintively asked how it could
be explained that Mesopotamia, the site of the
Garden of Eden, as also Syria, were not in
German hands.
Paul Rohrbach urged, as a first step towards
the creation of an African Empire, that the
Belgian and Portuguese possessions in Africa
should be acquired. After that had been done
England would be inclined to make concessions'
in Egypt and elsewhere. The whole of Morocco
must, of course, fall to Germany, either by the
employment of force, as Max Harden suggested,
or by gradual and persistent pressure on the
French, who, Joachim von Btilow pointed out,
were " a decadent nation." In fact, everywhere
colonial expansion was to be effected by the

13
adoption of two alternative methods. These
were infiltration, or, if that did not suffice, the
use of violence.
Both of these methods were to be adopted in
America. Professor Unold, after a tour through
the Republics of South America, informed the
Reichstag that everywhere he had found distinct
traces of Germanism. Charles V. had granted
Venezuela as a fief to an Augsburg family
named Welser. Thus Venezuela manifestly be
longed to Germany. Moreover, a member of the
Welser family had been decapitated in 1546.
Was it not monstrous that his death had not yet
been avenged? The Fuggers, the celebrated
bankers of Augsburg, whom Michelet thought
changed the face of the world by supplying
Charles V. with funds, had also been granted a
charter placing them in possession of a large
tract of country in the neighbourhood of the
Straits of Magellan. Why was this charter to
be treated as a mere " scrap of paper " ? As
regards Brazil, Alfred Funke contented himself
with putting forward the wholly ridiculous pro
posal that special representation should be
accorded in the Brazilian Parliament to German
residents. But this relatively moderate pro
gramme was far from satisfying' the more

14
extreme Pan-Germanists. All these South
American Republics must, Lange thought, be
brought into the German fold, either with their
own consent or by the use of force. Another
Pan-Germanist, Josef Reimer, pointed out that
they would be all the more willing to listen to
leason inasmuch as their own interests indicated
the necessity of obtaining strong support against
their "natural enemies," the United States.
In North America, a somewhat different note
was sounded. Professor Julius Goebel, of the
University of Illinois, dwelt on the fact that
England was the natural enemy of the United
States, and that the work of extending civiliza
tion was really entrusted to the people of Ger
many and America, more especially, in the case
of the latter country, to the German- Americans.
The fear expressed by Benjamin Franklin that
America would some day be Germanized was
based on very substantial grounds. Germaniza-
tion, Professor Goebel held, must in the end
certainly ensue.
When, however, Pan-Germanism had ex
tended its, tentacles over Europe, Asia, Africa,
and America, there would still be a fifth con
tinent which would be left un-Germanized. Was

15
Australasia to remain outside the fold ? Emil
Jung, an Austrian writer, answered this ques
tion with a decisive negative. It was foolishly
thought that the Australians, who have recently
shed their blood like water in resisting German
aggression, would be readily persuaded to assert
their independence, and to inflict an incurable
wound on their Motherland — Aeternumque daret
matri sub pectore volnus. When this happened
it was essential that Germany should be pre
pared to step into the lapsed heritage of
England. These are not, as might readily be surmised,
the ravings of the inmates of some lunatic
asylum. They are the deliberately expressed
opinions of men of unquestionable learning.
They are the outpourings of what Wordsworth
called "sapient Germany," whose wisdom seems
to have evaporated under the intoxicating influ
ence of the cwpido regnandi — the lust for acquir
ing power for its own sake.
Miss Durham, in one of her graphic accounts
of life in the Near East, relates how an Albanian
explained to her why his countrymen murdered
men but spared women. The reason was that
women could not defend themselves, whereas it

16
was obviously necessary to shoot a man for the
very simple reason that, as he was armed, he
could not be robbed until he had been first
murdered. This naif and acutely logical savage
unconsciously gave Miss Durham a brief but by
no means inaccurate epitome of Prussian State
ethics and Prussian political morality as inter
preted by some of the foremost exponents of
that false code of civilization termed German
Kultur. Nevertheless, in spite of all these very
frank utterances, so hardy is the belief of many
Germans in the credulity of the world, and
especially in that of the British and American
public, that we are still at times asked to believe
that the Germans are a much-maligned people,
and that they are led by a ruler whose true title
to greatness is that he is a " Prince of Peace."

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