Germany and the Next War
by Friedrich von Bernhardi · English · Gutenberg #11352 · 620,267 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Germany and the Next War
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Germany and the Next War
Author: Friedrich von Bernhardi
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11352]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11352
Credits: Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Bonny Fafard and PG Distributed Proofreaders
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMANY AND THE NEXT WAR ***
GERMANY AND THE NEXT WAR
BY GENERAL FRIEDRICH VON BERNHARDI
TRANSLATED BY ALLEN H. POWLES
1912
All the patriotic sections of the German people were greatly excited
during the summer and autumn of 1911. The conviction lay heavy on all
hearts that in the settlement of the Morocco dispute no mere commercial
or colonial question of minor importance was being discussed, but that
the honour and future of the German nation were at stake. A deep rift
had opened between the feeling of the nation and the diplomatic action
of the Government. Public opinion, which was clearly in favour of
asserting ourselves, did not understand the dangers of our political
position, and the sacrifices which a boldly-outlined policy would have
demanded. I cannot say whether the nation, which undoubtedly in an
overwhelming majority would have gladly obeyed the call to arms, would
have been equally ready to bear permanent and heavy burdens of taxation.
Haggling about war contributions is as pronounced a characteristic of
the German Reichstag in modern Berlin as it was in medieval Regensburg.
These conditions have induced me to publish now the following pages,
which were partly written some time ago.
Nobody can fail to see that we have reached a crisis in our national and
political development. At such times it is necessary to be absolutely
clear on three points: the goals to be aimed at, the difficulties to be
surmounted, and the sacrifices to be made.
The task I have set myself is to discuss these matters, stripped of all
diplomatic disguise, as clearly and convincingly as possible. It is
obvious that this can only be done by taking a national point of view.
Our science, our literature, and the warlike achievements of our past,
have made me proudly conscious of belonging to a great civilized nation
which, in spite of all the weakness and mistakes of bygone days, must,
and assuredly will, win a glorious future; and it is out of the fulness
of my German heart that I have recorded my convictions. I believe that
thus I shall most effectually rouse the national feeling in my readers'
hearts, and strengthen the national purpose.
THE AUTHOR.
_October, 1911_
CONTENTS
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
Power of the peace idea--Causes of the love of peace in Germany--
German consciousness of strength--Lack of definite political aims
--Perilous situation of Germany and the conditions of successful
self-assertion--Need to test the authority of the peace idea, and to
explain the tasks and aims of Germany in the light of history
CHAPTER I
THE RIGHT TO MAKE WAR
Pacific ideals and arbitration--The biological necessity of war--The
duty of self-assertion--The right of conquest--The struggle for
employment--War a moral obligation--Beneficent results of war
--War from the Christian and from the materialist standpoints--
Arbitration and international law--Destructiveness and immorality
of peace aspirations--Real and Utopian humanity--Dangerous
results of peace aspirations in Germany--The duty of
the State
CHAPTER II
THE DUTY TO MAKE WAR
Bismarck and the justification of war--The duty to fight--The teaching
of history--War only justifiable on adequate grounds--The
foundations of political morality--Political and individual morality
--The grounds for making war--The decision to make war--The
responsibility of the statesman
CHAPTER III
A BRIEF SURVEY OF GERMANY'S HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT
The ways of Providence in history--Christianity and the Germans--
The Empire and the Papacy--Breach between the German World
Empire and the revived spiritual power--Rise of the great States
of Europe and political downfall of Germany after the Thirty
Years' War--Rise of the Prussian State--The epoch of the Revolution
and the War of Liberation--Intellectual supremacy of
Germany--After the War of Liberation--Germany under William
I. and Bismarck--Change in the conception of the State and
the principle of nationality--New economic developments and
the World Power of England--Rise of other World Powers--
Socialism, and how to overcome it--German science and art--
Internal disintegration of Germany and her latent strength
CHAPTER IV
GERMANY'S HISTORICAL MISSION
Grounds of the intellectual supremacy of Germany--Germany's role
as spiritual and intellectual leader--Conquest of religious and
social obstacles--Inadequacy of our present political position--
To secure what we have won our first duty--Necessity of increasing
our political power--Necessity of colonial expansion--
Menace to our aspirations from hostile Powers
CHAPTER V
WORLD POWER OR DOWNFALL
Points of view for judging of the political situation--The States of the
Triple Alliance--The political interests of France and Russia--
The Russo-French Alliance--The policy of Great Britain--
America and the rising World Powers of the Far East--The importance
of Turkey--Spain and the minor States of Europe--Perilous
position of Germany--World power or downfall--Increase
of political power: how to obtain it--German colonial
policy--The principle of the balance of power in Europe--Neutral
States--The principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs
of other States--Germany and the rules of international politics
--The foundations of our internal strength
CHAPTER VI
THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF ARMY FOR WAR
Its necessity--Its twofold aspect--The educational importance of
military efficiency--Different military systems--Change in the
nature of military efficiency due to the advance of civilization--
Variety of methods of preparation for war--The armaments of
minor States--The armaments of the Great Powers--Harmonious
development of all elements of strength--Influence on armaments
of different conceptions of the duties of the State--Permanent
factors to be kept in sight in relation to military preparedness--
Statecraft in this connection
CHAPTER VII
THE CHARACTER OF OUR NEXT WAR
Our opponents--The French army--The military power of Russia--
The land forces of England--The military power of Germany and
Austria; of Italy--The Turkish army--The smaller Balkan States
--The Roumanian army--The armies of the lesser States of Central
Europe--Greece and Spain--The fleets of the principal naval
Powers--The enmity of France--The hostility of England--
Russia's probable behaviour in a war against Germany--The
military situation of Germany--Her isolation--What will be at
stake in our next war--Preparation for war
CHAPTER VIII
THE NEXT NAVAL WAR
England's preparations for a naval war against Germany--Germany's
first measures against England--England and the neutrality of the
small neighbouring States--The importance of Denmark--Commercial
mobilization--The two kinds of blockade: The close
blockade and the extended blockade--England's attack on our
coasts--Co-operation of the air-fleet in their defence--The decisive
battle and its importance--Participation of France and Russia in
a German-English war
CHAPTER IX
THE CRUCIAL QUESTION
Reciprocal relations of land and sea power--The governing points of
view in respect of war preparations--Carrying out of universal
military service--The value of intellectual superiority--Masses,
weapons, and transport in modern war--Tactical efficiency and
the quality of the troops--The advantage of the offensive--Points
to be kept in view in war preparations--Refutation of the prevailing
restricted notions on this head--The _Ersatzreserve_--New
formations--Employment of the troops of the line and the new
formations--Strengthening of the standing army--The importance
of personality
CHAPTER X
ARMY ORGANIZATION
Not criticism wanted of what is now in existence, but its further
development--Fighting power and tactical efficiency--Strength of the
peace establishment--Number of officers and N.C.O.'s, especially in the
infantry--Relations of the different arms to each other--Distribution
of machine guns--Proportion between infantry and artillery--Lessons to
be learned from recent wars with regard to this--Superiority at the
decisive point--The strength of the artillery and tactical
efficiency--Tactical efficiency of modern armies--Tactical efficiency
and the marching depth of an army corps--Importance of the internal
organization of tactical units--Organization and distribution of field
artillery; of heavy field howitzers--Field pioneers and fortress
pioneers--Tasks of the cavalry and the air-fleet--Increase of the
cavalry and formation of cyclist troops--Tactical organization of the
cavalry--Development of the air-fleet--Summary of the necessary
requirements--Different ways of carrying them out--Importance of
governing points of view for war preparations
CHAPTER XI
TRAINING AND EDUCATION
The spirit of training--Self-dependence and the employment of masses--
Education in self-dependence--Defects in our training for war on the
grand scale--Need of giving a new character to our manoeuvres and to
the training of our commanders--Practical training of the artillery--
Training in tactical efficiency--Practice in marching under war
conditions--Training of the train officers and column leaders--
Control of the General Staff by the higher commanders--Value of
manoeuvres: how to arrange them--Preliminary theoretical training of
the higher commanders--Training of the cavalry and the airmen; of the
pioneers and commissariat troops--Promotion of intellectual development
in the army--Training in the military academy
CHAPTER XII
PREPARATION FOR THE NAVAL WAR
The position of a World Power implies naval strength--Development
of German naval ideals--The task of the German fleet; its strength
--Importance of coast defences--Necessity of accelerating our
naval armaments--The building of the fleet--The institution of
the air-fleet--Preliminary measures for a war on commerce--
Mobilization--General points of view with regard to preparations
for the naval war--Lost opportunities in the past
CHAPTER XIII
THE ARMY AND POPULAR EDUCATION
The universal importance of national education--Its value for the
army--Hurtful influences at work on it--Duties of the State with
regard to national health--Work and sport--The importance of
the school--The inadequacy of our national schools--Military
education and education in the national schools--Methods of
instruction in the latter--Necessity for their reform--Continuation
schools--Influence of national education on the Russo-Japanese
War--Other means of national education--The propaganda of
action
CHAPTER XIV
FINANCIAL AND POLITICAL PREPARATION FOR WAR
Duties of the State in regard to war preparations--The State and
national credit--The financial capacity of Germany--Necessity of
new sources of revenue--The imperial right of inheritance--Policy
of interests and alliances--Moulding and exploitation of the
political situation--The laws of political conduct--Interaction of
military and political war preparations--Political preparations
for our next war--Governing factors in the conduct of German policy
EPILOGUE
The latest political events--Conduct of the German Imperial Government
--The arrangement with France--Anglo-French relations and
the attitude of England--The requirements of the situation
GERMANY AND THE NEXT WAR
INTRODUCTION
The value of war for the political and moral development of mankind has
been criticized by large sections of the modern civilized world in a way
which threatens to weaken the defensive powers of States by undermining
the warlike spirit of the people. Such ideas are widely disseminated in
Germany, and whole strata of our nation seem to have lost that ideal
enthusiasm which constituted the greatness of its history. With the
increase of wealth they live for the moment, they are incapable of
sacrificing the enjoyment of the hour to the service of great
conceptions, and close their eyes complacently to the duties of our
future and to the pressing problems of international life which await a
solution at the present time.
We have been capable of soaring upwards. Mighty deeds raised Germany
from political disruption and feebleness to the forefront of European
nations. But we do not seem willing to take up this inheritance, and to
advance along the path of development in politics and culture. We
tremble at our own greatness, and shirk the sacrifices it demands from
us. Yet we do not wish to renounce the claim which we derive from our
glorious past. How rightly Fichte once judged his countrymen when he
said the German can never wish for a thing by itself; he must always
wish for its contrary also.
The Germans were formerly the best fighting men and the most warlike
nation of Europe. For a long time they have proved themselves to be the
ruling people of the Continent by the power of their arms and the
loftiness of their ideas. Germans have bled and conquered on countless
battlefields in every part of the world, and in late years have shown
that the heroism of their ancestors still lives in the descendants. In
striking contrast to this military aptitude they have to-day become a
peace-loving--an almost "too" peace-loving--nation. A rude shock is
needed to awaken their warlike instincts, and compel them to show their
military strength.
This strongly-marked love of peace is due to various causes.
It springs first from the good-natured character of the German people,
which finds intense satisfaction in doctrinaire disputations and
partisanship, but dislikes pushing things to an extreme. It is connected
with another characteristic of the German nature. Our aim is to be just,
and we strangely imagine that all other nations with whom we exchange
relations share this aim. We are always ready to consider the peaceful
assurances of foreign diplomacy and of the foreign Press to be no less
genuine and true than our own ideas of peace, and we obstinately resist
the view that the political world is only ruled by interests and never
from ideal aims of philanthropy. "Justice," Goethe says aptly, "is a
quality and a phantom of the Germans." We are always inclined to assume
that disputes between States can find a peaceful solution on the basis
of justice without clearly realizing what _international_ justice is.
An additional cause of the love of peace, besides those which are rooted
in the very soul of the German people, is the wish not to be disturbed
in commercial life.
The Germans are born business men, more than any others in the world.
Even before the beginning of the Thirty Years' War, Germany was perhaps
the greatest trading Power in the world, and in the last forty years
Germany's trade has made marvellous progress under the renewed expansion
of her political power. Notwithstanding our small stretch of coast-line,
we have created in a few years the second largest merchant fleet in the
world, and our young industries challenge competition with all the great
industrial States of the earth. German trading-houses are established
all over the world; German merchants traverse every quarter of the
globe; a part, indeed, of English wholesale trade is in the hands of
Germans, who are, of course, mostly lost to their own country. Under
these conditions our national wealth has increased with rapid strides.
Our trade and our industries--owners no less than employés--do not want
this development to be interrupted. They believe that peace is the
essential condition of commerce. They assume that free competition will
be conceded to us, and do not reflect that our victorious wars have
never disturbed our business life, and that the political power regained
by war rendered possible the vast progress of our trade and commerce.
Universal military service, too, contributes to the love of peace, for
war in these days does not merely affect, as formerly, definite limited
circles, but the whole nation suffers alike. All families and all
classes have to pay the same toll of human lives. Finally comes the
effect of that universal conception of peace so characteristic of the
times--the idea that war in itself is a sign of barbarism unworthy of an
aspiring people, and that the finest blossoms of culture can only unfold
in peace.
Under the many-sided influence of such views and aspirations, we seem
entirely to have forgotten the teaching which once the old German Empire
received with "astonishment and indignation" from Frederick the Great,
that "the rights of States can only be asserted by the living power";
that what was won in war can only be kept by war; and that we Germans,
cramped as we are by political and geographical conditions, require the
greatest efforts to hold and to increase what we have won. We regard our
warlike preparations as an almost insupportable burden, which it is the
special duty of the German Reichstag to lighten so far as possible. We
seem to have forgotten that the conscious increase of our armament is
not an inevitable evil, but the most necessary precondition of our
national health, and the only guarantee of our international prestige.
We are accustomed to regard war as a curse, and refuse to recognize it
as the greatest factor in the furtherance of culture and power.
Besides this clamorous need of peace, and in spite of its continued
justification, other movements, wishes, and efforts, inarticulate and
often unconscious, live in the depths of the soul of the German people.
The agelong dream of the German nation was realized in the political
union of the greater part of the German races and in the founding of the
German Empire. Since then there lives in the hearts of all (I would not
exclude even the supporters of the anti-national party) a proud
consciousness of strength, of regained national unity, and of increased
political power. This consciousness is supported by the fixed
determination never to abandon these acquisitions. The conviction is
universal that every attack upon these conquests will rouse the whole
nation with enthusiastic unanimity to arms. We all wish, indeed, to be
able to maintain our present position in the world without a conflict,
and we live in the belief that the power of our State will steadily
increase without our needing to fight for it. We do not at the bottom of
our hearts shrink from such a conflict, but we look towards it with a
certain calm confidence, and are inwardly resolved never to let
ourselves be degraded to an inferior position without striking a blow.
Every appeal to force finds a loud response in the hearts of all. Not
merely in the North, where a proud, efficient, hard-working race with
glorious traditions has grown up under the laurel-crowned banner of
Prussia, does this feeling thrive as an unconscious basis of all
thought, sentiment, and volition, in the depth of the soul; but in the
South also, which has suffered for centuries under the curse of petty
nationalities, the haughty pride and ambition of the German stock live
in the heart of the people. Here and there, maybe, such emotions slumber
in the shade of a jealous particularism, overgrown by the richer and
more luxuriant forms of social intercourse; but still they are animated
by latent energy; here, too, the germs of mighty national consciousness
await their awakening.
Thus the political power of our nation, while fully alive below the
surface, is fettered externally by this love of peace. It fritters
itself away in fruitless bickerings and doctrinaire disputes. We no
longer have a clearly defined political and national aim, which grips
the imagination, moves the heart of the people, and forces them to unity
of action. Such a goal existed, until our wars of unification, in the
yearnings for German unity, for the fulfilment of the Barbarossa legend.
A great danger to the healthy, continuous growth of our people seems to
me to lie in the lack of it, and the more our political position in the
world is threatened by external complications, the greater is this
danger.
Extreme tension exists between the Great Powers, notwithstanding all
peaceful prospects for the moment, and it is hardly to be assumed that
their aspirations, which conflict at so many points and are so often
pressed forward with brutal energy, will always find a pacific
settlement.
In this struggle of the most powerful nations, which employ peaceful
methods at first until the differences between them grow irreconcilable,
our German nation is beset on all sides. This is primarily a result of
our geographical position in the midst of hostile rivals, but also
because we have forced ourselves, though the last-comers, the virtual
upstarts, between the States which have earlier gained their place, and
now claim our share in the dominion of this world, after we have for
centuries been paramount only in the realm of intellect. We have thus
injured a thousand interests and roused bitter hostilities. It must be
reserved for a subsequent section to explain the political situation
thus affected, but one point can be mentioned without further
consideration: if a violent solution of existing difficulties is
adopted, if the political crisis develops into military action, the
Germans would have a dangerous situation in the midst of all the forces
brought into play against them. On the other hand, the issue of this
struggle will be decisive of Germany's whole future as State and nation.
We have the most to win or lose by such a struggle. We shall be beset by
the greatest perils, and we can only emerge victoriously from this
struggle against a world of hostile elements, and successfully carry
through a Seven Years' War for our position as a World Power, if we gain
a start on our probable enemy as _soldiers_; if the army which will
fight our battles is supported by all the material and spiritual forces
of the nation; if the resolve to conquer lives not only in our troops,
but in the entire united people which sends these troops to fight for
all their dearest possessions.
These were the considerations which induced me to regard war from the
standpoint of civilization, and to study its relation to the great
tasks of the present and the future which Providence has set before the
German people as the greatest civilized people known to history.
From this standpoint I must first of all examine the aspirations for
peace, which seem to dominate our age and threaten to poison the soul of
the German people, according to their true moral significance. I must
try to prove that war is not merely a necessary element in the life of
nations, but an indispensable factor of culture, in which a true
civilized nation finds the highest expression of strength and vitality.
I must endeavour to develop from the history of the German past in its
connection with the conditions of the present those aspects of the
question which may guide us into the unknown land of the future. The
historical past cannot be killed; it exists and works according to
inward laws, while the present, too, imposes its own drastic
obligations. No one need passively submit to the pressure of
circumstances; even States stand, like the Hercules of legend, at the
parting of the ways. They can choose the road to progress or to
decadence. "A favoured position in the world will only become effective
in the life of nations by the conscious human endeavour to use it." It
seemed to me, therefore, to be necessary and profitable, at this parting
of the ways of our development where we now stand, to throw what light I
may on the different paths which are open to our people. A nation must
fully realize the probable consequences of its action; then only can it
take deliberately the great decisions for its future development, and,
looking forward to its destiny with clear gaze, be prepared for any
sacrifices which the present or future may demand.
These sacrifices, so far as they lie within the military and financial
sphere, depend mainly on the idea of what Germany is called upon to
strive for and attain in the present and the future. Only those who
share my conception of the duties and obligations of the German people,
and my conviction that they cannot be fulfilled without drawing the
sword, will be able to estimate correctly my arguments and conclusions
in the purely military sphere, and to judge competently the financial
demands which spring out of it. It is only in their logical connection
with the entire development, political and moral, of the State that the
military requirements find their motive and their justification.
CHAPTER I
THE RIGHT TO MAKE WAR
Since 1795, when Immanuel Kant published in his old age his treatise on
"Perpetual Peace," many have considered it an established fact that war
is the destruction of all good and the origin of all evil. In spite of
all that history teaches, no conviction is felt that the struggle
between nations is inevitable, and the growth of civilization is
credited with a power to which war must yield. But, undisturbed by such
human theories and the change of times, war has again and again marched
from country to country with the clash of arms, and has proved its
destructive as well as creative and purifying power. It has not
succeeded in teaching mankind what its real nature is. Long periods of
war, far from convincing men of the necessity of war, have, on the
contrary, always revived the wish to exclude war, where possible, from
the political intercourse of nations.
This wish and this hope are widely disseminated even to-day. The
maintenance of peace is lauded as the only goal at which statesmanship
should aim. This unqualified desire for peace has obtained in our days a
quite peculiar power over men's spirits. This aspiration finds its
public expression in peace leagues and peace congresses; the Press of
every country and of every party opens its columns to it. The current in
this direction is, indeed, so strong that the majority of Governments
profess--outwardly, at any rate--that the necessity of maintaining peace
is the real aim of their policy; while when a war breaks out the
aggressor is universally stigmatized, and all Governments exert
themselves, partly in reality, partly in pretence, to extinguish the
conflagration.
Pacific ideals, to be sure, are seldom the real motive of their action.
They usually employ the need of peace as a cloak under which to promote
their own political aims. This was the real position of affairs at the
Hague Congresses, and this is also the meaning of the action of the
United States of America, who in recent times have earnestly tried to
conclude treaties for the establishment of Arbitration Courts, first and
foremost with England, but also with Japan, France, and Germany. No
practical results, it must be said, have so far been achieved.
We can hardly assume that a real love of peace prompts these efforts.
This is shown by the fact that precisely those Powers which, as the
weaker, are exposed to aggression, and therefore were in the greatest
need of international protection, have been completely passed over in
the American proposals for Arbitration Courts. It must consequently be
assumed that very matter-of-fact political motives led the Americans,
with their commercial instincts, to take such steps, and induced
"perfidious Albion" to accede to the proposals. We may suppose that
England intended to protect her rear in event of a war with Germany, but
that America wished to have a free hand in order to follow her policy of
sovereignty in Central America without hindrance, and to carry out her
plans regarding the Panama Canal in the exclusive interests of America.
Both countries certainly entertained the hope of gaining advantage over
the other signatory of the treaty, and of winning the lion's share for
themselves. Theorists and fanatics imagine that they see in the efforts
of President Taft a great step forward on the path to perpetual peace,
and enthusiastically agree with him. Even the Minister for Foreign
Affairs in England, with well-affected idealism, termed the procedure of
the United States an era in the history of mankind.
This desire for peace has rendered most civilized nations anemic, and
marks a decay of spirit and political courage such as has often been
shown by a race of Epigoni. "It has always been," H. von Treitschke
tells us, "the weary, spiritless, and exhausted ages which have played
with the dream of perpetual peace."
Everyone will, within certain limits, admit that the endeavours to
diminish the dangers of war and to mitigate the sufferings which war
entails are justifiable. It is an incontestable fact that war
temporarily disturbs industrial life, interrupts quiet economic
development, brings widespread misery with it, and emphasizes the
primitive brutality of man. It is therefore a most desirable
consummation if wars for trivial reasons should be rendered impossible,
and if efforts are made to restrict the evils which follow necessarily
in the train of war, so far as is compatible with the essential nature
of war. All that the Hague Peace Congress has accomplished in this
limited sphere deserves, like every permissible humanization of war,
universal acknowledgment. But it is quite another matter if the object
is to abolish war entirely, and to deny its necessary place in
historical development.
This aspiration is directly antagonistic to the great universal laws
which rule all life. War is a biological necessity of the first
importance, a regulative element in the life of mankind which cannot be
dispensed with, since without it an unhealthy development will follow,
which excludes every advancement of the race, and therefore all real
civilization. "War is the father of all things." [A] The sages of
antiquity long before Darwin recognized this.
[Footnote A: (Heraclitus of Ephesus).]
The struggle for existence is, in the life of Nature, the basis of all
healthy development. All existing things show themselves to be the
result of contesting forces. So in the life of man the struggle is not
merely the destructive, but the life-giving principle. "To supplant or
to be supplanted is the essence of life," says Goethe, and the strong
life gains the upper hand. The law of the stronger holds good
everywhere. Those forms survive which are able to procure themselves the
most favourable conditions of life, and to assert themselves in the
universal economy of Nature. The weaker succumb. This struggle is
regulated and restrained by the unconscious sway of biological laws and
by the interplay of opposite forces. In the plant world and the animal
world this process is worked out in unconscious tragedy. In the human
race it is consciously carried out, and regulated by social ordinances.
The man of strong will and strong intellect tries by every means to
assert himself, the ambitious strive to rise, and in this effort the
individual is far from being guided merely by the consciousness of
right. The life-work and the life-struggle of many men are determined,
doubtless, by unselfish and ideal motives, but to a far greater extent
the less noble passions--craving for possessions, enjoyment and honour,
envy and the thirst for revenge--determine men's actions. Still more
often, perhaps, it is the need to live which brings down even natures of
a higher mould into the universal struggle for existence and enjoyment.
There can be no doubt on this point. The nation is made up of
individuals, the State of communities. The motive which influences each
member is prominent in the whole body. It is a persistent struggle for
possessions, power, and sovereignty, which primarily governs the
relations of one nation to another, and right is respected so far only
as it is compatible with advantage. So long as there are men who have
human feelings and aspirations, so long as there are nations who strive
for an enlarged sphere of activity, so long will conflicting interests
come into being and occasions for making war arise.
"The natural law, to which all laws of Nature can be reduced, is the law
of struggle. All intrasocial property, all thoughts, inventions, and
institutions, as, indeed, the social system itself, are a result of the
intrasocial struggle, in which one survives and another is cast out. The
extrasocial, the supersocial, struggle which guides the external
development of societies, nations, and races, is war. The internal
development, the intrasocial struggle, is man's daily work--the struggle
of thoughts, feelings, wishes, sciences, activities. The outward
development, the supersocial struggle, is the sanguinary struggle of
nations--war. In what does the creative power of this struggle consist?
In growth and decay, in the victory of the one factor and in the defeat
of the other! This struggle is a creator, since it eliminates." [B]
[Footnote B: Clauss Wagner, "Der Krieg als schaffendes Weltprinzip."]
That social system in which the most efficient personalities possess the
greatest influence will show the greatest vitality in the intrasocial
struggle. In the extrasocial struggle, in war, that nation will conquer
which can throw into the scale the greatest physical, mental, moral,
material, and political power, and is therefore the best able to defend
itself. War will furnish such a nation with favourable vital conditions,
enlarged possibilities of expansion and widened influence, and thus
promote the progress of mankind; for it is clear that those intellectual
and moral factors which insure superiority in war are also those which
render possible a general progressive development. They confer victory
because the elements of progress are latent in them. Without war,
inferior or decaying races would easily choke the growth of healthy
budding elements, and a universal decadence would follow. "War," says A.
W. von Schlegel, "is as necessary as the struggle of the elements in
Nature."
Now, it is, of course, an obvious fact that a peaceful rivalry may exist
between peoples and States, like that between the fellow-members of a
society, in all departments of civilized life--a struggle which need not
always degenerate Into war. Struggle and war are not identical. This
rivalry, however, does not take place under the same conditions as the
intrasocial struggle, and therefore cannot lead to the same results.
Above the rivalry of individuals and groups within the State stands the
law, which takes care that injustice is kept within bounds, and that the
right shall prevail. Behind the law stands the State, armed with power,
which it employs, and rightly so, not merely to protect, but actively to
promote, the moral and spiritual interests of society. But there is no
impartial power that stands above the rivalry of States to restrain
injustice, and to use that rivalry with conscious purpose to promote the
highest ends of mankind. Between States the only check on injustice is
force, and in morality and civilization each people must play its own
part and promote its own ends and ideals. If in doing so it comes into
conflict with the ideals and views of other States, it must either
submit and concede the precedence to the rival people or State, or
appeal to force, and face the risk of the real struggle--i.e., of
war--in order to make its own views prevail. No power exists which can
judge between States, and makes its judgments prevail. Nothing, in fact,
is left but war to secure to the true elements of progress the
ascendancy over the spirits of corruption and decay.
It will, of course, happen that several weak nations unite and form a
superior combination in order to defeat a nation which in itself is
stronger. This attempt will succeed for a time, but in the end the more
intensive vitality will prevail. The allied opponents have the seeds of
corruption in them, while the powerful nation gains from a temporary
reverse a new strength which procures for it an ultimate victory over
numerical superiority. The history of Germany is an eloquent example of
this truth.
Struggle is, therefore, a universal law of Nature, and the instinct of
self-preservation which leads to struggle is acknowledged to be a
natural condition of existence. "Man is a fighter." Self-sacrifice is a
renunciation of life, whether in the existence of the individual or in
the life of States, which are agglomerations of individuals. The first
and paramount law is the assertion of one's own independent existence.
By self-assertion alone can the State maintain the conditions of life
for its citizens, and insure them the legal protection which each man is
entitled to claim from it. This duty of self-assertion is by no means
satisfied by the mere repulse of hostile attacks; it includes the
obligation to assure the possibility of life and development to the
whole body of the nation embraced by the State.
Strong, healthy, and flourishing nations increase in numbers. From a
given moment they require a continual expansion of their frontiers, they
require new territory for the accommodation of their surplus population.
Since almost every part of the globe is inhabited, new territory must,
as a rule, be obtained at the cost of its possessors--that is to say,
by conquest, which thus becomes a law of necessity.
The right of conquest is universally acknowledged. At first the
procedure is pacific. Over-populated countries pour a stream of
emigrants into other States and territories. These submit to the
legislature of the new country, but try to obtain favourable conditions
of existence for themselves at the cost of the original inhabitants,
with whom they compete. This amounts to conquest.
The right of colonization is also recognized. Vast territories inhabited
by uncivilized masses are occupied by more highly civilized States, and
made subject to their rule. Higher civilization and the correspondingly
greater power are the foundations of the right to annexation. This right
is, it is true, a very indefinite one, and it is impossible to determine
what degree of civilization justifies annexation and subjugation. The
impossibility of finding a legitimate limit to these international
relations has been the cause of many wars. The subjugated nation does
not recognize this right of subjugation, and the more powerful civilized
nation refuses to admit the claim of the subjugated to independence.
This situation becomes peculiarly critical when the conditions of
civilization have changed in the course of time. The subject nation has,
perhaps, adopted higher methods and conceptions of life, and the
difference in civilization has consequently lessened. Such a state of
things is growing ripe in British India.
Lastly, in all times the right of conquest by war has been admitted. It
may be that a growing people cannot win colonies from uncivilized races,
and yet the State wishes to retain the surplus population which the
mother-country can no longer feed. Then the only course left is to
acquire the necessary territory by war. Thus the instinct of
self-preservation leads inevitably to war, and the conquest of foreign
soil. It is not the possessor, but the victor, who then has the right.
The threatened people will see the point of Goethe's lines:
"That which them didst inherit from thy sires,
In order to possess it, must be won."
The procedure of Italy in Tripoli furnishes an example of such
conditions, while Germany in the Morocco question could not rouse
herself to a similar resolution.[C]
[Footnote C: This does not imply that Germany could and ought to have
occupied part of Morocco. On more than one ground I think that it was
imperative to maintain the actual sovereignty of this State on the basis
of the Algeçiras Convention. Among other advantages, which need not be
discussed here, Germany would have had the country secured to her as a
possible sphere of colonization. That would have set up justifiable
claims for the future.]
In such cases might gives the right to occupy or to conquer. Might is at
once the supreme right, and the dispute as to what is right is decided
by the arbitrament of war. War gives a biologically just decision, since
its decisions rest on the very nature of things.
Just as increase of population forms under certain circumstances a
convincing argument for war, so industrial conditions may compel the
same result.
In America, England, Germany, to mention only the chief commercial
countries, industries offer remunerative work to great masses of the
population. The native population cannot consume all the products of
this work. The industries depend, therefore, mainly on exportation. Work
and employment are secured so long as they find markets which gladly
accept their products, since they are paid for by the foreign country.
But this foreign country is intensely interested in liberating itself
from such tribute, and in producing itself all that it requires. We
find, therefore, a general endeavour to call home industries into
existence, and to protect them by tariff barriers; and, on the other
hand, the foreign country tries to keep the markets open to itself, to
crush or cripple competing industries, and thus to retain the consumer
for itself or win fresh ones. It is an embittered struggle which rages
in the market of the world. It has already often assumed definite
hostile forms in tariff wars, and the future will certainly intensify
this struggle. Great commercial countries will, on the one hand, shut
their doors more closely to outsiders, and countries hitherto on the
down-grade will develop home industries, which, under more favourable
conditions of labour and production, will be able to supply goods
cheaper than those imported from the old industrial States. These latter
will see their position in these world markets endangered, and thus it
may well happen that an export country can no longer offer satisfactory
conditions of life to its workers. Such a State runs the danger not only
of losing a valuable part of its population by emigration, but of also
gradually falling from its supremacy in the civilized and political
world through diminishing production and lessened profits.
In this respect we stand to-day at the threshold of a development. We
cannot reject the possibility that a State, under the necessity of
providing remunerative work for its population, may be driven into war.
If more valuable advantages than even now is the case had been at stake
in Morocco, and had our export trade been seriously menaced, Germany
would hardly have conceded to France the most favourable position in the
Morocco market without a struggle. England, doubtless, would not shrink
from a war to the knife, just as she fought for the ownership of the
South African goldfields and diamond-mines, if any attack threatened her
Indian market, the control of which is the foundation of her world
sovereignty. The knowledge, therefore, that war depends on biological
laws leads to the conclusion that every attempt to exclude it from
international relations must be demonstrably untenable. But it is not
only a biological law, but a moral obligation, and, as such, an
indispensable factor in civilization.
The attitude which is adopted towards this idea is closely connected
with the view of life generally.
If we regard the life of the individual or of the nation as something
purely material, as an incident which terminates in death and outward
decay, we must logically consider that the highest goal which man can
attain is the enjoyment of the most happy life and the greatest possible
diminution of all bodily suffering. The State will be regarded as a sort
of assurance office, which guarantees a life of undisturbed possession
and enjoyment in the widest meaning of the word. We must endorse the
view which Wilhelm von Humboldt professed in his treatise on the limits
of the activity of the State.[D] The compulsory functions of the State
must be limited to the assurance of property and life. The State will be
considered as a law-court, and the individual will be inclined to shun
war as the greatest conceivable evil.
[Footnote D: W. von Humboldt, "Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grenzen der
Wirksamkelt des Staates zu bestimmen."]
If, on the contrary, we consider the life of men and of States as merely
a fraction of a collective existence, whose final purpose does not rest
on enjoyment, but on the development of intellectual and moral powers,
and if we look upon all enjoyment merely as an accessory of the
chequered conditions of life, the task of the State will appear in a
very different light. The State will not be to us merely a legal and
social insurance office, political union will not seem to us to have the
one object of bringing the advantages of civilization within the reach
of the individual; we shall assign to it the nobler task of raising the
intellectual and moral powers of a nation to the highest expansion, and
of securing for them that influence on the world which tends to the
combined progress of humanity. We shall see in the State, as Fichte
taught, an exponent of liberty to the human race, whose task it is to
put into practice the moral duty on earth. "The State," says Treitschke,
"is a moral community. It is called upon to educate the human race by
positive achievement, and its ultimate object is that a nation should
develop in it and through it into a real character; that is, alike for
nation and individuals, the highest moral task."
This highest expansion can never be realized in pure individualism. Man
can only develop his highest capacities when he takes his part in a
community, in a social organism, for which he lives and works. He must
be in a family, in a society, in the State, which draws the individual
out of the narrow circles in which he otherwise would pass his life, and
makes him a worker in the great common interests of humanity. The State
alone, so Schleiermacher once taught, gives the individual the highest
degree of life.[E]
[Footnote E: To expand the idea of the State into that of humanity, and
thus to entrust apparently higher duties to the individual, leads to
error, since in a human race conceived as a whole struggle and, by
Implication, the most essential vital principle would be ruled out. Any
action in favour of collective humanity outside the limits of the State
and nationality is impossible. Such conceptions belong to the wide
domain of Utopias.]
War, from this standpoint, will be regarded as a moral necessity, if it
is waged to protect the highest and most valuable interests of a nation.
As human life is now constituted, it is political idealism which calls
for war, while materialism--in theory, at least--repudiates it.
If we grasp the conception of the State from this higher aspect, we
shall soon see that it cannot attain its great moral ends unless its
political power increases. The higher object at which it aims is
closely correlated to the advancement of its material interests. It is
only the State which strives after an enlarged sphere of influence that
creates the conditions under which mankind develops into the most
splendid perfection. The development of all the best human capabilities
and qualities can only find scope on the great stage of action which
power creates. But when the State renounces all extension of power, and
recoils from every war which is necessary for its expansion; when it is
content to exist, and no longer wishes to grow; when "at peace on
sluggard's couch it lies," then its citizens become stunted. The efforts
of each individual are cramped, and the broad aspect of things is lost.
This is sufficiently exemplified by the pitiable existence of all small
States, and every great Power that mistrusts itself falls victim to the
same curse.
All petty and personal interests force their way to the front during a
long period of peace. Selfishness and intrigue run riot, and luxury
obliterates idealism. Money acquires an excessive and unjustifiable
power, and character does not obtain due respect:
"Man is stunted by peaceful days,
In idle repose his courage decays.
Law is the weakling's game.
Law makes the world the same.
But in war man's strength is seen,
War ennobles all that is mean;
Even the coward belies his name."
SCHILLER: _Braut v. Messina_.
"Wars are terrible, but necessary, for they save the State from social
petrifaction and stagnation. It is well that the transitoriness of the
goods of this world is not only preached, but is learnt by experience.
War alone teaches this lesson." [F]
[Footnote F: Kuno Fischer, "Hegel," i., p. 737.]
War, in opposition to peace, does more to arouse national life and to
expand national power than any other means known to history. It
certainly brings much material and mental distress in its train, but at
the same time it evokes the noblest activities of the human nature. This
is especially so under present-day conditions, when it can be regarded
not merely as the affair of Sovereigns and Governments, but as the
expression of the united will of a whole nation.
All petty private interests shrink into insignificance before the grave
decision which a war involves. The common danger unites all in a common
effort, and the man who shirks this duty to the community is deservedly
spurned. This union contains a liberating power which produces happy and
permanent results in the national life. We need only recall the uniting
power of the War of Liberation or the Franco-German War and their
historical consequences. The brutal incidents inseparable from every war
vanish completely before the idealism of the main result. All the sham
reputations which a long spell of peace undoubtedly fosters are
unmasked. Great personalities take their proper place; strength, truth,
and honour come to the front and are put into play. "A thousand touching
traits testify to the sacred power of the love which a righteous war
awakes in noble nations." [G]
[Footnote G: Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i., p. 482.]
Frederick the Great recognized the ennobling effect of war. "War," he
said, "opens the most fruitful field to all virtues, for at every moment
constancy, pity, magnanimity, heroism, and mercy, shine forth in it;
every moment offers an opportunity to exercise one of these virtues."
"At the moment when the State cries out that its very life is at stake,
social selfishness must cease and party hatred be hushed. The individual
must forget his egoism, and feel that he is a member of the whole body.
He should recognize how his own life is nothing worth in comparison with
the welfare of the community. War is elevating, because the individual
disappears before the great conception of the State. The devotion of the
members of a community to each other is nowhere so splendidly
conspicuous as in war.... What a perversion of morality to wish to
abolish heroism among men!" [H]
[Footnote H: Treitschke, "Politik" i., p. 74.]
Even defeat may bear a rich harvest. It often, indeed, passes an
irrevocable sentence on weakness and misery, but often, too, it leads to
a healthy revival, and lays the foundation of a new and vigorous
constitution. "I recognize in the effect of war upon national
character," said Wilhelm von Humboldt, "one of the most salutary
elements in the moulding of the human race."
The individual can perform no nobler moral action than to pledge his
life on his convictions, and to devote his own existence to the cause
which he serves, or even to the conception of the value of ideals to
personal morality. Similarly, nations and States can achieve no loftier
consummation than to stake their whole power on upholding their
independence, their honour, and their reputation.
Such sentiments, however, can only be put into practice in war. The
possibility of war is required to give the national character that
stimulus from which these sentiments spring, and thus only are nations
enabled to do justice to the highest duties of civilization by the
fullest development of their moral forces. An intellectual and vigorous
nation can experience no worse destiny than to be lulled into a Phaecian
existence by the undisputed enjoyment of peace.
From this point of view, efforts to secure peace are extraordinarily
detrimental to the national health so soon as they influence politics.
The States which from various considerations are always active in this
direction are sapping the roots of their own strength. The United States
of America, e.g., in June, 1911, championed the ideas of universal
peace in order to be able to devote their undisturbed attention to
money-making and the enjoyment of wealth, and to save the three hundred
million dollars which they spend on their army and navy; they thus incur
a great danger, not so much from the possibility of a war with England
or Japan, but precisely because they try to exclude all chance of
contest with opponents of their own strength, and thus avoid the stress
of great political emotions, without which the moral development of the
national character is impossible. If they advance farther on this road,
they will one day pay dearly for such a policy.
Again, from the Christian standpoint we arrive at the same conclusion.
Christian morality is based, indeed, on the law of love. "Love God above
all things, and thy neighbour as thyself." This law can claim no
significance for the relations of one country to another, since its
application to politics would lead to a conflict of duties. The love
which a man showed to another country as such would imply a want of love
for his own countrymen. Such a system of politics must inevitably lead
men astray. Christian morality is personal and social, and in its nature
cannot be political. Its object is to promote morality of the
individual, in order to strengthen him to work unselfishly in the
interests of the community. It tells us to love our individual enemies,
but does not remove the conception of enmity. Christ Himself said: "I am
not come to send peace on earth, but a sword." His teaching can never be
adduced as an argument against the universal law of struggle. There
never was a religion which was more combative than Christianity. Combat,
moral combat, is its very essence. If we transfer the ideas of
Christianity to the sphere of politics, we can claim to raise the power
of the State--power in the widest sense, not merely from the material
aspect--to the highest degree, with the object of the moral advancement
of humanity, and under certain conditions the sacrifice may be made
which a war demands. Thus, according to Christianity, we cannot
disapprove of war in itself, but must admit that it is justified morally
and historically.
Again, we should not be entitled to assume that from the opposite, the
purely materialistic, standpoint war is entirely precluded. The
individual who holds such views will certainly regard it with disfavour,
since it may cost him life and prosperity. The State, however, as such
can also come from the materialistic standpoint to a decision to wage
war, if it believes that by a certain sacrifice of human lives and
happiness the conditions of life of the community may be improved.
The loss is restricted to comparatively few, and, since the fundamental
notion of all materialistic philosophy inevitably leads to selfishness,
the majority of the citizens have no reason for not sacrificing the
minority in their own interests. Thus, those who from the materialistic
standpoint deny the necessity of war will admit its expediency from
motives of self-interest.
Reflection thus shows not only that war is an unqualified necessity, but
that it is justifiable from every point of view. The practical methods
which the adherents of the peace idea have proposed for the prevention
of war are shown to be absolutely ineffective.
It is sometimes assumed that every war represents an infringement of
rights, and that not only the highest expression of civilization, but
also the true welfare of every nation, is involved in the fullest
assertion of these rights, and proposals are made from time to time on
this basis to settle the disputes which arise between the various
countries by Arbitration Courts, and so to render war impossible. The
politician who, without side-interests in these proposals, honestly
believes in their practicability must be amazingly short-sighted.
Two questions in this connection are at once suggested: On what right is
the finding of this Arbitration Court based? and what sanctions insure
that the parties will accept this finding?
To the first question the answer is that such a right does not, and
cannot, exist. The conception of right is twofold. It signifies,
firstly, the consciousness of right, the living feeling of what is right
and good; secondly, the right laid down by society and the State, either
written or sanctioned by tradition. In its first meaning it is an
indefinite, purely personal conception; in its second meaning it is
variable and capable of development. The right determined by law is only
an attempt to secure a right in itself. In this sense right is the
system of social aims secured by compulsion. It is therefore impossible
that a written law should meet all the special points of a particular
case. The application of the legal right must always be qualified in
order to correspond more or less to the idea of justice. A certain
freedom in deciding on the particular case must be conceded to the
administration of justice. The established law, within a given and
restricted circle of ideas, is only occasionally absolutely just.
The conception of this right is still more obscured by the complex
nature of the consciousness of right and wrong. A quite different
consciousness of right and wrong develops in individuals, whether
persons or peoples, and this consciousness finds its expression in most
varied forms, and lives in the heart of the people by the side of, and
frequently in opposition to, the established law. In Christian countries
murder is a grave crime; amongst a people where blood-vengeance is a
sacred duty it can be regarded as a moral act, and its neglect as a
crime. It is impossible to reconcile such different conceptions of
right.
There is yet another cause of uncertainty. The moral consciousness of
the same people alters with the changing ideas of different epochs and
schools of philosophy. The established law can seldom keep pace with
this inner development, this growth of moral consciousness; it lags
behind. A condition of things arises where the living moral
consciousness of the people conflicts with the established law, where
legal forms are superannuated, but still exist, and Mephistopheles'
scoffing words are true:
"Laws are transmitted, as one sees,
Just like inherited disease.
They're handed down from race to race,
And noiseless glide from place to place.
Reason they turn to nonsense; worse,
They make beneficence a curse!
Ah me! That you're a grandson you
As long as you're alive shall rue."
_Faust_ (translation by Sir T. Martin).
Thus, no absolute rights can be laid down even for men who share the
same ideas in their private and social intercourse. The conception of
the constitutional State in the strictest sense is an impossibility, and
would lead to an intolerable state of things. The hard and fast
principle must be modified by the progressive development of the fixed
law, as well as by the ever-necessary application of mercy and of
self-help allowed by the community. If sometimes between individuals the
duel alone meets the sense of justice, how much more impossible must a
universal international law be in the wide-reaching and complicated
relations between nations and States! Each nation evolves its own
conception of right, each has its particular ideals and aims, which
spring with a certain inevitableness from its character and historical
life. These various views bear in themselves their living justification,
and may well be diametrically opposed to those of other nations, and
none can say that one nation has a better right than the other. There
never have been, and never will be, universal rights of men. Here and
there particular relations can be brought under definite international
laws, but the bulk of national life is absolutely outside codification.
Even were some such attempt made, even if a comprehensive international
code were drawn up, no self-respecting nation would sacrifice its own
conception of right to it. By so doing it would renounce its highest
ideals; it would allow its own sense of justice to be violated by an
injustice, and thus dishonour itself.
Arbitration treaties must be peculiarly detrimental to an aspiring
people, which has not yet reached its political and national zenith, and
is bent on expanding its power in order to play its part honourably in
the civilized world. Every Arbitration Court must originate in a certain
political status; it must regard this as legally constituted, and must
treat any alterations, however necessary, to which the whole of the
contracting parties do not agree, as an encroachment. In this way every
progressive change is arrested, and a legal position created which may
easily conflict with the actual turn of affairs, and may check the
expansion of the young and vigorous State in favour of one which is
sinking in the scale of civilization.
These considerations supply the answer to the second decisive question:
How can the judgment of the Arbitration Court be enforced if any State
refuses to submit to it? Where does the power reside which insures the
execution of this judgment when pronounced?
In America, Elihu Root, formerly Secretary of State, declared in 1908
that the High Court of International Justice established by the second
Hague Conference would be able to pronounce definite and binding
decisions by virtue of the pressure brought to bear by public opinion.
The present leaders of the American peace movement seem to share this
idea. With a childlike self-consciousness, they appear to believe that
public opinion must represent the view which the American plutocrats
think most profitable to themselves. They have no notion that the
widening development of mankind has quite other concerns than material
prosperity, commerce, and money-making. As a matter of fact, public
opinion would be far from unanimous, and real compulsion could only be
employed by means of war--the very thing which is to be avoided.
We can imagine a Court of Arbitration intervening in the quarrels of the
separate tributary countries when an empire like the Roman Empire
existed. Such an empire never can or will arise again. Even if it did,
it would assuredly, like a universal peace league, be disastrous to all
human progress, which is dependent on the clashing interests and the
unchecked rivalry of different groups.
So long as we live under such a State system as at present, the German
Imperial Chancellor certainly hit the nail on the head when he declared,
in his speech in the Reichstag on March 30, 1911, that treaties for
arbitration between nations must be limited to clearly ascertainable
legal issues, and that a general arbitration treaty between two
countries afforded no guarantee of permanent peace. Such a treaty merely
proved that between the two contracting States no serious inducement to
break the peace could be imagined. It therefore only confirmed the
relations already existing. "If these relations change, if differences
develop between the two nations which affect their national existence,
which, to use a homely phrase, cut them to the quick, then every
arbitration treaty will burn like tinder and end in smoke."
It must be borne in mind that a peaceful decision by an Arbitration
Court can never replace in its effects and consequences a warlike
decision, even as regards the State in whose favour it is pronounced. If
we imagine, for example, that Silesia had fallen to Frederick the Great
by the finding of a Court of Arbitration, and not by a war of
unparalleled heroism, would the winning of this province have been
equally important for Prussia and for Germany? No one will maintain this.
The material increase in power which accrued to Frederick's country by
the acquisition of Silesia is not to be underestimated. But far more
important was the circumstance that this country could not be conquered
by the strongest European coalition, and that it vindicated its position
as the home of unfettered intellectual and religious development. It was
war which laid the foundations of Prussia's power, which amassed a
heritage of glory and honour that can never be again disputed. War
forged that Prussia, hard as steel, on which the New Germany could grow
up as a mighty European State and a World Power of the future. Here once
more war showed its creative power, and if we learn the lessons of
history we shall see the same result again and again.
If we sum up our arguments, we shall see that, from the most opposite
aspects, the efforts directed towards the abolition of war must not only
be termed foolish, but absolutely immoral, and must be stigmatized as
unworthy of the human race. To what does the whole question amount? It
is proposed to deprive men of the right and the possibility to sacrifice
their highest material possessions, their physical life, for ideals, and
thus to realize the highest moral unselfishness. It is proposed to
obviate the great quarrels between nations and States by Courts of
Arbitration--that is, by arrangements. A one-sided, restricted, formal
law is to be established in the place of the decisions of history. The
weak nation is to have the same right to live as the powerful and
vigorous nation. The whole idea represents a presumptuous encroachment
on the natural laws of development, which can only lead to the most
disastrous consequences for humanity generally.
With the cessation of the unrestricted competition, whose ultimate
appeal is to arms, all real progress would soon be checked, and a moral
and intellectual stagnation would ensue which must end in degeneration.
So, too, when men lose the capacity of gladly sacrificing the highest
material blessings--life, health, property, and comfort--for ideals; for
the maintenance of national character and political independence; for
the expansion of sovereignty and territory in the interests of the
national welfare; for a definite influence in the concert of nations
according to the scale of their importance in civilization; for
intellectual freedom from dogmatic and political compulsion; for the
honour of the flag as typical of their own worth--then progressive
development is broken off, decadence is inevitable, and ruin at home and
abroad is only a question of time. History speaks with no uncertain
voice on this subject. It shows that valour is a necessary condition of
progress. Where with growing civilization and increasing material
prosperity war ceases, military efficiency diminishes, and the
resolution to maintain independence under all circumstances fails, there
the nations are approaching their downfall, and cannot hold their own
politically or racially.
"A people can only hope to take up a firm position in the political
world when national character and military tradition act and react upon
each." These are the words of Clausewitz, the great philosopher of war,
and he is incontestably right.
These efforts for peace would, if they attained their goal, not merely
lead to general degeneration, as happens everywhere in Nature where the
struggle for existence is eliminated, but they have a direct damaging
and unnerving effect. The apostles of peace draw large sections of a
nation into the spell of their Utopian efforts, and they thus introduce
an element of weakness into the national life; they cripple the
justifiable national pride in independence, and support a nerveless
opportunist policy by surrounding it with the glamour of a higher
humanity, and by offering it specious reasons for disguising its own
weakness. They thus play the game of their less scrupulous enemies, just
as the Prussian policy, steeped in the ideas of universal peace, did in
1805 and 1806, and brought the State to the brink of destruction.
The functions of true humanity are twofold. On the one hand there is the
promotion of the intellectual, moral, and military forces, as well as
of political power, as the surest guarantee for the uniform development
of character; on the other hand there is the practical realization of
ideals, according to the law of love, in the life of the individual and
of the community.
It seems to me reasonable to compare the efforts directed towards the
suppression of war with those of the Social Democratic Labour party,
which goes hand in hand with them. The aims of both parties are Utopian.
The organized Labour party strives after an ideal whose realization is
only conceivable when the rate of wages and the hours of work are
settled internationally for the whole industrial world, and when the
cost of living is everywhere uniformly regulated. Until this is the case
the prices of the international market determine the standard of wages.
The nation which leaves this out of account, and tries to settle
independently wages and working hours, runs the risk of losing its
position in the international market in competition with nations who
work longer hours and at lower rates. Want of employment and extreme
misery among the working classes would inevitably be the result. On the
other hand, the internationalization of industries would soon, by
excluding and preventing any competition, produce a deterioration of
products and a profound demoralization of the working population.
The case of the scheme for universal peace is similar. Its execution, as
we saw, would be only feasible in a world empire, and this is as
impossible as the uniform regulation of the world's industries. A State
which disregarded the differently conceived notions of neighbouring
countries, and wished to make the idea of universal peace the guiding
rule for its policy, would only inflict a fatal injury on itself, and
become the prey of more resolute and warlike neighbours.
We can, fortunately, assert the impossibility of these efforts after
peace ever attaining their ultimate object in a world bristling with
arms, where a healthy egotism still directs the policy of most
countries. "God will see to it," says Treitschke,[I] "that war always
recurs as a drastic medicine for the human race!"
[Footnote I: Treitschke, "Politik," i., p. 76.]
Nevertheless, these tendencies spell for us in Germany no inconsiderable
danger. We Germans are inclined to indulge in every sort of unpractical
dreams. "The accuracy of the national instinct is no longer a universal
attribute with us, as in France." [J] We lack the true feeling for
political exigencies. A deep social and religious gulf divides the
German people into different political groups, which are bitterly
antagonistic to each other. The traditional feuds in the political world
still endure. The agitation for peace introduces a new element of
weakness, dissension, and indecision, into the divisions of our national
and party life.
[Footnote J: Treitschke, "Politik," i., p. 81.]
It is indisputable that many supporters of these ideas sincerely believe
in the possibility of their realization, and are convinced that the
general good is being advanced by them. Equally true is it, however,
that this peace movement is often simply used to mask intensely selfish
political projects. Its apparent humanitarian idealism constitutes its
danger.
Every means must therefore be employed to oppose these visionary
schemes. They must be publicly denounced as what they really are--as an
unhealthy and feeble Utopia, or a cloak for political machinations. Our
people must learn to see that _the maintenance of peace never can or may
be the goal of a policy_. The policy of a great State has positive aims.
It will endeavour to attain this by pacific measures so long as that is
possible and profitable. It must not only be conscious that in momentous
questions which influence definitely the entire development of a nation,
the appeal to arms is a sacred right of the State, but it must keep this
conviction fresh in the national consciousness. The inevitableness, the
idealism, and the blessing of war, as an indispensable and stimulating
law of development, must be repeatedly emphasized. The apostles of the
peace idea must be confronted with Goethe's manly words:
"Dreams of a peaceful day?
Let him dream who may!
'War' is our rallying cry,
Onward to victory!"
CHAPTER II
THE DUTY TO MAKE WAR
Prince Bismarck repeatedly declared before the German Reichstag that no
one should ever take upon himself the immense responsibility of
intentionally bringing about a war. It could not, he said, be foreseen
what unexpected events might occur, which altered the whole situation,
and made a war, with its attendant dangers and horrors, superfluous. In
his "Thoughts and Reminiscences" he expresses himself to this effect:
"Even victorious wars can only be justified when they are forced upon a
nation, and we cannot see the cards held by Providence so closely as to
anticipate the historical development by personal calculation." [A]
[Footnote A: "Gedanken und Erinnerungen," vol. ii., p. 93.]
We need not discuss whether Prince Bismarck wished this dictum to be
regarded as a universally applicable principle, or whether he uttered it
as a supplementary explanation of the peace policy which he carried out
for so long. It is difficult to gauge its true import. The notion of
forcing a war upon a nation bears various interpretations. We must not
think merely of external foes who compel us to fight. A war may seem to
be forced upon a statesman by the state of home affairs, or by the
pressure of the whole political situation.
Prince Bismarck did not, however, always act according to the strict
letter of that speech; it is his special claim to greatness that at the
decisive moment he did not lack the boldness to begin a war on his own
initiative. The thought which he expresses in his later utterances
cannot, in my opinion, be shown to be a universally applicable principle
of political conduct. If we wish to regard it as such, we shall not only
run counter to the ideas of our greatest German Prince, but we exclude
from politics that independence of action which is the true motive
force.
The greatness of true statesmanship consists in a knowledge of the
natural trend of affairs, and in a just appreciation of the value of the
controlling forces, which it uses and guides in its own interest. It
does not shrink from the conflicts, which under the given conditions are
unavoidable, but decides them resolutely by war when a favourable
position affords prospect of a successful issue. In this way statecraft
becomes a tool of Providence, which employs the human will to attain its
ends. "Men make history," [B] as Bismarck's actions clearly show.
[Footnote B: Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i., p. 28.]
No doubt the most strained political situation may unexpectedly admit of
a peaceful solution. The death of some one man, the setting of some
great ambition, the removal of some master-will, may be enough to change
it fundamentally. But the great disputes in the life of a nation cannot
be settled so simply. The man who wished to bring the question to a
decisive issue may disappear, and the political crisis pass for the
moment; the disputed points still exist, and lead once more to quarrels,
and finally to war, if they are due to really great and irreconcilable
interests. With the death of King Edward VII. of England the policy of
isolation, which he introduced with much adroit statesmanship against
Germany, has broken down. The antagonism of Germany and England, based
on the conflict of the interests and claims of the two nations, still
persists, although the diplomacy which smoothes down, not always
profitably, all causes of difference has succeeded in slackening the
tension for the moment, not without sacrifices on the side of Germany.
It is clearly an untenable proposition that political action should
depend on indefinite possibilities. A completely vague factor would be
thus arbitrarily introduced into politics, which have already many
unknown quantities to reckon with; they would thus be made more or less
dependent on chance.
It may be, then, assumed as obvious that the great practical politician
Bismarck did not wish that his words on the political application of war
should be interpreted in the sense which has nowadays so frequently been
attributed to them, in order to lend the authority of the great man to a
weak cause. Only those conditions which can be ascertained and estimated
should determine political action.
For the moral justification of the political decision we must not look
to its possible consequences, but to its aim and its motives, to the
conditions assumed by the agent, and to the trustworthiness, honour, and
sincerity of the considerations which led to action. Its practical value
is determined by an accurate grasp of the whole situation, by a correct
estimate of the resources of the two parties, by a clear anticipation of
the probable results--in short, by statesmanlike insight and promptness
of decision.
If the statesman acts in this spirit, he will have an acknowledged
right, under certain circumstances, to begin a war, regarded as
necessary, at the most favourable moment, and to secure for his country
the proud privilege of such initiative. If a war, on which a Minister
cannot willingly decide, is bound to be fought later under possibly far
more unfavourable conditions, a heavy responsibility for the greater
sacrifices that must then be made will rest on those whose strength and
courage for decisive political action failed at the favourable moment.
In the face of such considerations a theory by which a war ought never
to be brought about falls to the ground. And yet this theory has in our
day found many supporters, especially in Germany.
Even statesmen who consider that the complete abolition of war is
impossible, and do not believe that the _ultima ratio_ can be banished
from the life of nations, hold the opinion that its advent should be
postponed so long as possible.[C]
[Footnote C: Speech of the Imperial Chancellor, v. Bethmann-Hollweg, on
March 30, 1911. In his speech of November 9, 1911, the Imperial
Chancellor referred to the above-quoted words of Prince Bismarck
in order to obtain a peaceful solution of the Morocco question.]
Those who favour this view take up approximately the same attitude as
the supporters of the Peace idea, so far as regarding war exclusively as
a curse, and ignoring or underestimating its creative and civilizing
importance. According to this view, a war recognized as inevitable must
be postponed so long as possible, and no statesman is entitled to use
exceptionally favourable conditions in order to realize necessary and
justifiable aspirations by force of arms.
Such theories only too easily disseminate the false and ruinous notion
that the maintenance of peace is the ultimate object, or at least the
chief duty, of any policy.
To such views, the offspring of a false humanity, the clear and definite
answer must be made that, under certain circumstances, it is not only
the right, but the moral and political duty of the statesman to bring
about a war.
Wherever we open the pages of history we find proofs of the fact that
wars, begun at the right moment with manly resolution, have effected the
happiest results, both politically and socially. A feeble policy has
always worked harm, since the statesman lacked the requisite firmness to
take the risk of a necessary war, since he tried by diplomatic tact to
adjust the differences of irreconcilable foes, and deceived himself as
to the gravity of the situation and the real importance of the matter.
Our own recent history in its vicissitudes supplies us with the most
striking examples of this.
The Great Elector laid the foundations of Prussia's power by successful
and deliberately incurred wars. Frederick the Great followed in the
steps of his glorious ancestor. "He noticed how his state occupied an
untenable middle position between the petty states and the great Powers,
and showed his determination to give a definite character (_décider cet
être_) to this anomalous existence; it had become essential to enlarge
the territory of the State and _corriger la figure de la Prusse_, if
Prussia wished to be independent and to bear with honour the great name
of 'Kingdom.'" [D] The King made allowance for this political necessity,
and took the bold determination of challenging Austria to fight. None of
the wars which he fought had been forced upon him; none of them did he
postpone as long as possible. He had always determined to be the
aggressor, to anticipate his opponents, and to secure for himself
favourable prospects of success. We all know what he achieved. The whole
history of the growth of the European nations and of mankind generally
would have been changed had the King lacked that heroic power of
decision which he showed.
[Footnote D Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i., p. 51.]
We see a quite different development under the reign of Frederick
William III., beginning with the year of weakness 1805, of which our
nation cannot be too often reminded.
It was manifest that war with Napoleon could not permanently be avoided.
Nevertheless, in spite of the French breach of neutrality, the Prussian
Government could not make up its mind to hurry to the help of the allied
Russians and Austrians, but tried to maintain peace, though at a great
moral cost. According to all human calculation, the participation of
Prussia in the war of 1805 would have given the Allies a decisive
superiority. The adherence to neutrality led to the crash of 1806, and
would have meant the final overthrow of Prussia as a State had not the
moral qualities still existed there which Frederick the Great had
ingrained on her by his wars. At the darkest moment of defeat they shone
most brightly. In spite of the political downfall, the effects of
Frederick's victories kept that spirit alive with which he had inspired
his State and his people. This is clearly seen in the quite different
attitude of the Prussian people and the other Germans under the
degrading yoke of the Napoleonic tyranny. The power which had been
acquired by the Prussians through long and glorious wars showed itself
more valuable than all the material blessings which peace created; it
was not to be broken down by the defeat of 1806, and rendered possible
the heroic revival of 1813.
The German wars of Unification also belong to the category of wars
which, in spite of a thousand sacrifices, bring forth a rich harvest.
The instability and political weakness which the Prussian Government
showed in 1848, culminating in the disgrace of Olmütz in 1850, had
deeply shaken the political and national importance of Prussia. On the
other hand, the calm conscious strength with which she faced once more
her duties as a nation, when King William I. and Bismarck were at the
helm, was soon abundantly manifest. Bismarck, by bringing about our
wars of Unification in order to improve radically an untenable position
and secure to our people healthy conditions of life, fulfilled the
long-felt wish of the German people, and raised Germany to the
undisputed rank of a first-class European Power. The military successes
and the political position won by the sword laid the foundation for an
unparalleled material prosperity. It is difficult to imagine how
pitiable the progress of the German people would have been had not these
wars been brought about by a deliberate policy.
The most recent history tells the same story. If we judge the Japanese
standpoint with an unbiased mind we shall find the resolution to fight
Russia was not only heroic, but politically wise and morally
justifiable. It was immensely daring to challenge the Russian giant, but
the purely military conditions were favourable, and the Japanese nation,
which had rapidly risen to a high stage of civilization, needed an
extended sphere of influence to complete her development, and to open
new channels for her superabundant activities. Japan, from her own point
of view, was entitled to claim to be the predominant civilized power in
Eastern Asia, and to repudiate the rivalry of Russia. The Japanese
statesmen were justified by the result. The victorious campaign created
wider conditions of life for the Japanese people and State, and at one
blow raised it to be a determining co-factor in international politics,
and gave it a political importance which must undeniably lead to great
material advancement. If this war had been avoided from weakness or
philanthropic illusions, it is reasonable to assume that matters would
have taken a very different turn. The growing power of Russia in the
Amur district and in Korea would have repelled or at least hindered the
Japanese rival from rising to such a height of power as was attained
through this war, glorious alike for military prowess and political
foresight.
The appropriate and conscious employment of war as a political means has
always led to happy results. Even an unsuccessfully waged war may
sometimes be more beneficial to a people than the surrender of vital
interests without a blow. We find an example of this in the recent
heroic struggle of the small Boer States against the British Empire. In
this struggle they were inevitably defeated. It was easy to foresee that
an armed peasantry could not permanently resist the combined forces of
England and her colonies, and that the peasant armies generally could
not bear heavy losses. But yet--if all indications are not
misleading--the blood shed by the Boer people will yield a free and
prosperous future. In spite of much weakness, the resistance was heroic;
men like President Stein, Botha, and De Wett, with their gallant
followers, performed many great military feats. The whole nation
combined and rose unanimously to fight for the freedom of which Byron
sings:
"For freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won."
Inestimable moral gains, which can never be lost in any later
developments, have been won by this struggle. The Boers have maintained
their place as a nation; in a certain sense they have shown themselves
superior to the English. It was only after many glorious victories that
they yielded to a crushingly superior force. They accumulated a store of
fame and national consciousness which makes them, though conquered, a
power to be reckoned with. The result of this development is that the
Boers are now the foremost people in South Africa, and that England
preferred to grant them self-government than to be faced by their
continual hostility. This laid the foundation for the United Free States
of South Africa.[E]
[Footnote E: "War and the Arme Blanche," by Erskine Childers: "The truth
came like a flash ... that all along we had been conquering the
country, not the race; winning positions, not battles" (p. 215).
"To ... aim at so cowing the Boer national spirit, as to gain a
permanent political ascendancy for ourselves, was an object beyond
our power to achieve. Peaceable political fusion under our own flag
was the utmost we could secure. That means a conditional surrender,
or a promise of future autonomy" (pp. 227-228). Lord Roberts wrote
a very appreciative introduction to this book without any protest
against the opinions expressed in it.]
President Kruger, who decided on this most justifiable war, and not
Cecil Rhodes, will, in spite of the tragic ending to the war itself, be
known in all ages as the great far-sighted statesman of South Africa,
who, despite the unfavourable material conditions, knew how to value the
inestimable moral qualities according to their real importance.
The lessons of history thus confirm the view that wars which have been
deliberately provoked by far-seeing statesmen have had the happiest
results. War, nevertheless, must always be a violent form of political
agent, which not only contains in itself the danger of defeat, but in
every case calls for great sacrifices, and entails incalculable misery.
He who determines upon war accepts a great responsibility.
It is therefore obvious that no one can come to such a decision except
from the most weighty reasons, more especially under the existing
conditions which have created national armies. Absolute clearness of
vision is needed to decide how and when such a resolution can be taken,
and what political aims justify the use of armed force.
This question therefore needs careful consideration, and a satisfactory
answer can only be derived from an examination of the essential duty of
the State.
If this duty consists in giving scope to the highest intellectual and
moral development of the citizens, and in co-operating in the moral
education of the human race, then the State's own acts must necessarily
conform to the moral laws. But the acts of the State cannot be judged by
the standard of individual morality. If the State wished to conform to
this standard it would often find itself at variance with its own
particular duties. The morality of the State must be developed out of
its own peculiar essence, just as individual morality is rooted in the
personality of the man and his duties towards society. The morality of
the State must be judged by the nature and _raison d'être_ of the State,
and not of the individual citizen. But the end-all and be-all of a State
is power, and "he who is not man enough to look this truth in the face
should not meddle in politics." [F]
[Footnote F: Treitschke, "Politik," i., p 3, and ii., p 28.]
Machiavelli was the first to declare that the keynote of every policy
was the advancement of power. This term, however, has acquired, since
the German Reformation, a meaning other than that of the shrewd
Florentine. To him power was desirable in itself; for us "the State is
not physical power as an end in itself, it is power to protect and
promote the higher interests"; "power must justify itself by being
applied for the greatest good of mankind." [G]
[Footnote G: Treitschke, "Politik," i., p 3, and ii., p 28.]
The criterion of the personal morality of the individual "rests in the
last resort on the question whether he has recognized and developed his
own nature to the highest attainable degree of perfection." [H] If the
same standard is applied to the State, then "its highest moral duty is
to increase its power. The individual must sacrifice himself for the
higher community of which he is a member; but the State is itself the
highest conception in the wider community of man, and therefore the duty
of self-annihilation does not enter into the case. The Christian duty of
sacrifice for something higher does not exist for the State, for there
is nothing higher than it in the world's history; consequently it cannot
sacrifice itself to something higher. When a State sees its downfall
staring it in the face, we applaud if it succumbs sword in hand. A
sacrifice made to an alien nation not only is immoral, but contradicts
the idea of self-preservation, which is the highest ideal of a
State." [I]
[Footnote H: _Ibid._]
[Footnote I: _Ibid_., i., p 3.]
I have thought it impossible to explain the foundations of political
morality better than in the words of our great national historian. But
we can reach the same conclusions by another road. The individual is
responsible only for himself. If, either from weakness or from moral
reasons, he neglects his own advantage, he only injures himself, the
consequences of his actions recoil only on him. The situation is quite
different in the case of a State. It represents the ramifying and often
conflicting interests of a community. Should it from any reason neglect
the interests, it not only to some extent prejudices itself as a legal
personality, but it injures also the body of private interests
which it represents. This incalculably far-reaching detriment affects
not merely one individual responsible merely to himself, but a mass of
individuals and the community. Accordingly it is a moral duty of the
State to remain loyal to its own peculiar function as guardian and
promoter of all higher interests. This duty it cannot fulfil unless it
possesses the needful power.
The increase of this power is thus from this standpoint also the first
and foremost duty of the State. This aspect of the question supplies a
fair standard by which the morality of the actions of the State can be
estimated. The crucial question is, How far has the State performed this
duty, and thus served the interests of the community? And this not
merely in the material sense, but in the higher meaning that material
interests are justifiable only so far as they promote the power of the
State, and thus indirectly its higher aims.
It is obvious, in view of the complexity of social conditions, that
numerous private interests must be sacrificed to the interest of the
community, and, from the limitations of human discernment, it is only
natural that the view taken of interests of the community may be
erroneous. Nevertheless the advancement of the power of the State must
be first and foremost the object that guides the statesman's policy.
"Among all political sins, the sin of feebleness is the most
contemptible; it is the political sin against the Holy Ghost." [J] This
argument of political morality is open to the objection that it leads
logically to the Jesuitic principle, that the end justifies the means;
that, according to it, to increase the power of the State all measures
are permissible.
[Footnote J: Treitschke, "Politik," i., p 3.]
A most difficult problem is raised by the question how far, for
political objects moral in themselves, means may be employed which must
be regarded as reprehensible in the life of the individual. So far as I
know, no satisfactory solution has yet been obtained, and I do not feel
bound to attempt one at this point. War, with which I am dealing at
present, is no reprehensible means in itself, but it may become so if it
pursues unmoral or frivolous aims, which bear no comparison with the
seriousness of warlike measures. I must deviate here a little from my
main theme, and discuss shortly some points which touch the question of
political morality.
The gulf between political and individual morality is not so wide as is
generally assumed. The power of the State does not rest exclusively on
the factors that make up material power--territory, population, wealth,
and a large army and navy: it rests to a high degree on moral elements,
which are reciprocally related to the material. The energy with which a
State promotes its own interests and represents the rights of its
citizens in foreign States, the determination which it displays to
support them on occasion by force of arms, constitute a real factor of
strength, as compared with all such countries as cannot bring themselves
to let things come to a crisis in a like case. Similarly a reliable and
honourable policy forms an element of strength in dealings with allies
as well as with foes. A statesman is thus under no obligation to deceive
deliberately. He can from the political standpoint avoid all
negotiations which compromise his personal integrity, and he will
thereby serve the reputation and power of his State no less than when he
holds aloof from political menaces, to which no acts correspond, and
renounces all political formulas and phrases.
In antiquity the murder of a tyrant was thought a moral action, and the
Jesuits have tried to justify regicide.[K] At the present day political
murder is universally condemned from the standpoint of political
morality. The same holds good of preconcerted political deception. A
State which employed deceitful methods would soon sink into disrepute.
The man who pursues moral ends with unmoral means is involved in a
contradiction of motives, and nullifies the object at which he aims,
since he denies it by his actions. It is not, of course, necessary that
a man communicate all his intentions and ultimate objects to an
opponent; the latter can be left to form his own opinion on this point.
But it is not necessary to lie deliberately or to practise crafty
deceptions. A fine frankness has everywhere been the characteristic of
great statesmen. Subterfuges and duplicity mark the petty spirit of
diplomacy.
[Footnote K: Mariana, "De rege et regis institutione." Toledo, 1598.]
Finally, the relations between two States must often be termed a latent
war, which is provisionally being waged in peaceful rivalry. Such a
position justifies the employment of hostile methods, cunning, and
deception, just as war itself does, since in such a case both parties
are determined to employ them. I believe after all that a conflict
between personal and political morality may be avoided by wise and
prudent diplomacy, if there is no concealment of the desired end, and it
is recognized that the means employed must correspond to the ultimately
moral nature of that end.
Recognized rights are, of course, often violated by political action.
But these, as we have already shown, are never absolute rights; they are
of human origin, and therefore imperfect and variable. There are
conditions under which they do not correspond to the actual truth of
things; in this case the _summum jus summa injuria_ holds good, and the
infringement of the right appears morally justified. York's decision to
conclude the convention of Tauroggen was indisputably a violation of
right, but it was a moral act, for the Franco-Prussian alliance was made
under compulsion, and was antagonistic to all the vital interests of the
Prussian State; it was essentially untrue and immoral. Now it is always
justifiable to terminate an immoral situation.
As regards the employment of war as a political means, our argument
shows that it becomes the duty of a State to make use of the _ultima
ratio_ not only when it is attacked, but when by the policy of other
States the power of the particular State is threatened, and peaceful
methods are insufficient to secure its integrity. This power, as we saw,
rests on a material basis, but finds expression in ethical values. War
therefore seems imperative when, although the material basis of power is
not threatened, the moral influence of the State (and this is the
ultimate point at issue) seems to be prejudiced. Thus apparently
trifling causes may under certain circumstances constitute a fully
justifiable _casus belli_ if the honour of the State, and consequently
its moral prestige, are endangered. This prestige is an essential part
of its power. An antagonist must never be allowed to believe that there
is any lack of determination to assert this prestige, even if the sword
must be drawn to do so.
In deciding for war or peace, the next important consideration is
whether the question under discussion is sufficiently vital for the
power of the State to justify the determination to fight; whether the
inevitable dangers and miseries of a war do not threaten to inflict
greater injury on the interests of the State than the disadvantages
which, according to human calculation, must result if war is not
declared. A further point to be considered is whether the general
position of affairs affords some reasonable prospect of military
success. With these considerations of expediency certain other weighty
aspects of the question must also be faced.
It must always be kept in mind that a State is not justified in looking
only to the present, and merely consulting the immediate advantage of
the existing generation. Such policy would be opposed to all that
constitutes the essential nature of the State. Its conduct must be
guided by the moral duties incumbent on it, which, as one step is
gained, point to the next higher, and prepare the present for the
future. "The true greatness of the State is that it links the past with
the present and the future; consequently the individual has no right to
regard the State as a means for attaining his own ambitions in life." [L]
[Footnote L: Treitschke, "Politik," i., p 3.]
The law of development thus becomes a leading factor in politics, and in
the decision for war this consideration must weigh more heavily than the
sacrifices necessarily to be borne in the present. "I cannot conceive,"
Zelter once wrote to Goethe, "how any right deed can be performed
without sacrifice; all worthless actions must lead to the very opposite
of what is desirable."
A second point of view which must not be neglected is precisely that
which Zelter rightly emphasizes. A great end cannot be attained except
by staking large intellectual and material resources, and no certainty
of success can ever be anticipated. Every undertaking implies a greater
or less venture. The daily intercourse of civic life teaches us this
lesson; and it cannot be otherwise in politics where account must be
taken of most powerful antagonists whose strength can only be vaguely
estimated. In questions of comparatively trifling importance much may be
done by agreements and compromises, and mutual concessions may produce a
satisfactory status. The solution of such problems is the sphere of
diplomatic activity. The state of things is quite different when vital
questions are at issue, or when the opponent demands concession, but
will guarantee none, and is clearly bent on humiliating the other party.
Then is the time for diplomatists to be silent and for great statesmen
to act. Men must be resolved to stake everything, and cannot shun the
solemn decision of war. In such questions any reluctance to face the
opponent, every abandonment of important interests, and every attempt at
a temporizing settlement, means not only a momentary loss of political
prestige, and frequently of real power, which may possibly be made good
in another place, but a permanent injury to the interests of the State,
the full gravity of which is only felt by future generations.
Not that a rupture of pacific relations must always result in such a
case. The mere threat of war and the clearly proclaimed intention to
wage it, if necessary, will often cause the opponent to give way. This
intention must, however, be made perfectly plain, for "negotiations
without arms are like music-books without instruments," as Frederick the
Great said. It is ultimately the actual strength of a nation to which
the opponent's purpose yields. When, therefore, the threat of war is
insufficient to call attention to its own claims the concert must begin;
the obligation is unconditional, and the _right_ to fight becomes the
_duty_ to make war, incumbent on the nation and statesman alike.
Finally, there is a third point to be considered. Cases may occur where
war must be made simply as a point of honour, although there is no
prospect of success. The responsibility of this has also to be borne. So
at least Frederick the Great thought. His brother Henry, after the
battle of Kolin, had advised him to throw himself at the feet of the
Marquise de Pompadour in order to purchase a peace with France. Again,
after the battle of Kunersdorf his position seemed quite hopeless, but
the King absolutely refused to abandon the struggle. He knew better what
suited the honour and the moral value of his country, and preferred to
die sword in hand than to conclude a degrading peace. President
Roosevelt, in his message to the Congress of the United States of
America on December 4, 1906, gave expression to a similar thought. "It
must ever be kept in mind," so the manly and inspiriting words ran,
"that war is not merely justifiable, but imperative, upon honourable men
and upon an honourable nation when peace is only to be obtained by the
sacrifice of conscientious conviction or of national welfare. A just war
is in the long-run far better for a nation's soul than the most
prosperous peace obtained by an acquiescence in wrong or injustice....
It must be remembered that even to be defeated in war may be better than
not to have fought at all."
To sum up these various views, we may say that expediency in the higher
sense must be conclusive in deciding whether to undertake a war in
itself morally justifiable. Such decision is rendered more easy by the
consideration that the prospects of success are always the greatest when
the moment for declaring war can be settled to suit the political and
military situation.
It must further be remembered that every success in foreign policy,
especially if obtained by a demonstration of military strength, not only
heightens the power of the State in foreign affairs, but adds to the
reputation of the Government at home, and thus enables it better to
fulfil its moral aims and civilizing duties.
No one will thus dispute the assumption that, under certain
circumstances, it is the moral and political duty of the State to employ
war as a political means. So long as all human progress and all natural
development are based on the law of conflict, it is necessary to engage
in such conflict under the most favourable conditions possible.
When a State is confronted by the material impossibility of supporting
any longer the warlike preparations which the power of its enemies has
forced upon it, when it is clear that the rival States must gradually
acquire from natural reasons a lead that cannot be won back, when there
are indications of an offensive alliance of stronger enemies who only
await the favourable moment to strike--the moral duty of the State
towards its citizens is to begin the struggle while the prospects of
success and the political circumstances are still tolerably favourable.
When, on the other hand, the hostile States are weakened or hampered by
affairs at home and abroad, but its own warlike strength shows elements
of superiority, it is imperative to use the favourable circumstances to
promote its own political aims. The danger of a war may be faced the
more readily if there is good prospect that great results may be
obtained with comparatively small sacrifices.
These obligations can only be met by a vigorous, resolute, active
policy, which follows definite ideas, and understands how to arouse and
concentrate all the living forces of the State, conscious of the truth
of Schiller's lines:
"The chance that once thou hast refused
Will never through the centuries recur."
The verdict of history will condemn the statesman who was unable to take
the responsibility of a bold decision, and sacrificed the hopes of the
future to the present need of peace.
It is obvious that under these circumstances it is extremely difficult
to answer the question whether in any special case conditions exist
which justify the determination to make war. The difficulty is all the
greater because the historical significance of the act must be
considered, and the immediate result is not the final criterion of its
justification.
War is not always the final judgment of Heaven. There are successes
which are transitory while the national life is reckoned by centuries.
The ultimate verdict can only be obtained by the survey of long
epochs.[M]
[Footnote M: Treitschke, "Politik," i., p 2.]
54
The man whose high and responsible lot is to steer the fortunes of a
great State must be able to disregard the verdict of his contemporaries;
but he must be all the clearer as to the motives of his own policy, and
keep before his eyes, with the full weight of the categorical
imperative, the teaching of Kant: "Act so that the maxim of thy will can
at the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation." [N]
[Footnote N: Kant, "Kritik der praktischen Vernuft," p. 30.]
He must have a clear conception of the nature and purpose of the State,
and grasp this from the highest moral standpoint. He can in no other way
settle the rules of his policy and recognize clearly the laws of
political morality.
He must also form a clear conception of the special duties to be
fulfilled by the nation, the guidance of whose fortunes rests in his
hands. He must clearly and definitely formulate these duties as the
fixed goal of statesmanship. When he is absolutely clear upon this point
he can judge in each particular case what corresponds to the true
interests of the State; then only can he act systematically in the
definite prospect of smoothing the paths of politics, and securing
favourable conditions for the inevitable conflicts; then only, when the
hour for combat strikes and the decision to fight faces him, can he rise
with a free spirit and a calm breast to that standpoint which Luther
once described in blunt, bold language: "It is very true that men write
and say often what a curse war is. But they ought to consider how much
greater is that curse which is averted by war. Briefly, in the business
of war men must not regard the massacres, the burnings, the battles, and
the marches, etc.--that is what the petty and simple do who only look
with the eyes of children at the surgeon, how he cuts off the hand or
saws off the leg, but do not see or notice that he does it in order to
save the whole body. Thus we must look at the business of war or the
sword with the eyes of men, asking, Why these murders and horrors? It
will be shown that it is a business, divine in itself, and as needful
and necessary to the world as eating or drinking, or any other work."[O]
[Footnote O: Luther, "Whether soldiers can be in a state of salvation."]
Thus in order to decide what paths German policy must take in order to
further the interests of the German people, and what possibilities of
war are involved, we must first try to estimate the problems of State
and of civilization which are to be solved, and discover what political
purposes correspond to these problems.
CHAPTER III
A BRIEF SURVEY OF GERMANY'S HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT
The life of the individual citizen is valuable only when it is
consciously and actively employed for the attainment of great ends. The
same holds good of nations and States. They are, as it were,
personalities in the framework of collective humanity, infinitely
various in their endowments and their characteristic qualities, capable
of the most different achievements, and serving the most multifarious
purposes in the great evolution of human existence.
Such a theory will not be accepted from the standpoint of the
materialistic philosophy which prevails among wide circles of our nation
to-day.
According to it, all that happens in the world is a necessary
consequence of given conditions; free will is only necessity become
conscious. It denies the difference between the empiric and the
intelligible Ego, which is the basis of the notion of moral freedom.
This philosophy cannot stand before scientific criticism. It seems
everywhere arbitrarily restricted by the narrow limits of the
insufficient human intelligence. The existence of the universe is
opposed to the law of a sufficient cause; infinity and eternity are
incomprehensible to our conceptions, which are confined to space and
time.
The essential nature of force and volition remains inexplicable. We
recognize only a subjectively qualified phenomenon in the world; the
impelling forces and the real nature of things are withdrawn from our
understanding. A systematic explanation of the universe is quite
impossible from the human standpoint. So much seems clear--although no
demonstrable certainty attaches to this theory--that spiritual laws
beyond the comprehension of us men govern the world according to a
conscious plan of development in the revolving cycles of a perpetual
change. Even the gradual evolution of mankind seems ruled by a hidden
moral law. At any rate we recognize in the growing spread of
civilization and common moral ideas a gradual progress towards purer and
higher forms of life.
It is indeed impossible for us to prove design and purpose in every
individual case, because our attitude to the universal whole is too
limited and anomalous. But within the limitations of our knowledge of
things and of the inner necessity of events we can at least try to
understand in broad outlines the ways of Providence, which we may also
term the principles of development. We shall thus obtain useful guidance
for our further investigation and procedure.
The agency and will of Providence are most clearly seen in the history
of the growth of species and races, of peoples and States. "What is
true," Goethe once said in a letter to Zelter, "can but be raised and
supported by its history; what is false only lowered and dissipated by
its history."
The formation of peoples and races, the rise and fall of States, the
laws which govern the common life, teach us to recognize which forces
have a creative, sustaining, and beneficent influence, and which work
towards disintegration, and thus produce inevitable downfall. We are
here following the working of universal laws, but we must not forget
that States are personalities endowed with very different human
attributes, with a peculiar and often very marked character, and that
these subjective qualities are distinct factors in the development of
States as a whole. Impulses and influences exercise a very different
effect on the separate national individualities. We must endeavour to
grasp history in the spirit of the psychologist rather than of the
naturalist. Each nation must be judged from its own standpoint if we
wish to learn the general trend of its development. We must study the
history of the German people in its connection with that of the other
European States, and ask first what paths its development has hitherto
followed, and what guidance the past gives for Our future policy. From
the time of their first appearance in history the Germans showed
themselves a first-class civilized people.
When the Roman Empire broke up before the onslaught of the barbarians
there were two main elements which shaped the future of the West,
Christianity and the Germans. The Christian teaching preached equal
rights for all men and community of goods in an empire of masters and
slaves, but formulated the highest moral code, and directed the
attention of a race, which only aimed at luxury, to the world beyond the
grave as the true goal of existence. It made the value of man as man,
and the moral development of personality according to the laws of the
individual conscience, the starting-point of all development. It thus
gradually transformed the philosophy of the ancient world, whose
morality rested solely on the relations with the state. Simultaneously
with this, hordes of Germans from the thickly-populated North poured
victoriously in broad streams over the Roman Empire and the decaying
nations of the Ancient World. These masses could not keep their
nationality pure and maintain their position as political powers. The
States which they founded were short-lived. Even then men recognized how
difficult it is for a lower civilization to hold its own against a
higher. The Germans were gradually merged in the subject nations. The
German element, however, instilled new life into these nations, and
offered new opportunities for growth. The stronger the admixture of
German blood, the more vigorous and the more capable of civilization did
the growing nations appear.
In the meantime powerful opponents sprung up in this newly-formed world.
The Latin race grew up by degrees out of the admixture of the Germans
with the Roman world and the nations subdued by them, and separated
itself from the Germans, who kept themselves pure on the north of the
Alps and in the districts of Scandinavia. At the same time the idea of
the Universal Empire, which the Ancient World had embraced, continued to
flourish.
In the East the Byzantine Empire lasted until A.D. 1453. In the West,
however, the last Roman Emperor had been deposed by Odoacer in 476.
Italy had fallen into the hands of the East Goths and Lombards
successively. The Visigoths had established their dominion in Spain, and
the Franks and Burgundians in Gaul.
A new empire rose from the latter quarter. Charles the Great, with his
powerful hand, extended the Frankish Empire far beyond the boundaries of
Gaul. By the subjugation of the Saxons he became lord of the country
between the Rhine and the Elbe; he obtained the sovereignty in Italy by
the conquest of the Lombards, and finally sought to restore the Western
Roman Empire. He was crowned Emperor in Rome in the year 800. His
successors clung to this claim; but the Frankish Empire soon fell to
pieces. In its partition the western half formed what afterwards became
France, and the East Frankish part of the Empire became the later
Germany. While the Germans in the West Frankish Empire, in Italy and
Spain, had abandoned their speech and customs, and had gradually
amalgamated with the Romans, the inhabitants of the East Frankish
Empire, especially the Saxons and their neighbouring tribes, maintained
their Germanic characteristics, language, and customs. A powerful
German [A] kingdom arose which renewed the claims of Charles the Great to
the Western Roman Empire. Otto the Great was the first _German_ King who
took this momentous step. It involved him and his successors in a
quarrel with the Bishops of Rome, who wished to be not only Heads of the
Church, but lords of Italy, and did not hesitate to falsify archives in
order to prove their pretended title to that country.
[Footnote A: German (Deutsch=diutisk) signifies originally "popular,"
opposed to "foreign"--_e.g._, the Latin Church dialect. It was first
used as the name of a people, in the tenth century A.D.]
The Popes made good this right, but they did not stop there. Living in
Rome, the sacred seat of the world-empire, and standing at the head of a
Church which claimed universality, they, too, laid hold in their own way
of the idea of universal imperium. The notion was one of the boldest
creations of the human intellect--to found and maintain a
world-sovereignty almost wholly by the employment of spiritual powers.
Naturally these Papal pretensions led to feuds with the Empire. The
freedom of secular aspirations clashed with the claims of spiritual
dominion. In the portentous struggle of the two Powers for the
supremacy, a struggle which inflicted heavy losses on the German Empire,
the Imperial cause was worsted. It was unable to mould the widely
different and too independent subdivisions of the empire into a
homogeneous whole, and to crush the selfish particularism of the
estates. The last Staufer died on the scaffold at Naples under the axe
of Charles of Anjou, who was a vassal of the Church.
The great days of the German-Roman Empire were over. The German power
lay on the ground in fragments. A period of almost complete anarchy
followed. Dogmatism and lack of patriotic sentiment, those bad
characteristics of the German people, contributed to extend this
destruction to the economic sphere. The intellectual life of the German
people deteriorated equally. At the time when the Imperial power was
budding and under the rule of the highly-gifted Staufers, German poetry
was passing through a first classical period. Every German country was
ringing with song; the depth of German sentiment found universal
expression in ballads and poems, grave or gay, and German idealism
inspired the minnesingers. But with the disappearance of the Empire
every string was silent, and even the plastic arts could not rise above
the coarseness and confusion of the political conditions. The material
prosperity of the people indeed improved, as affairs at home were better
regulated, and developed to an amazing extent; the Hanseatic League bore
its flag far and wide over the northern seas, and the great
trade-routes, which linked the West and Orient, led from Venice and
Genoa through Germany. But the earlier political power was never again
attained.
Nevertheless dislike of spiritual despotism still smouldered in the
breasts of that German people, which had submitted to the Papacy, and
was destined, once more to blaze up into bright flames, and this time in
the spiritual domain. As she grew more and more worldly, the Church had
lost much of her influence on men's minds. On the other hand, a refining
movement had grown up in humanism, which, supported by the spirit of
antiquity, could not fail from its very nature to become antagonistic to
the Church. It found enthusiastic response in Germany, and was joined by
everyone whose thoughts and hopes were centred in freedom. Ulrich von
Hutten's battle-cry, "I have dared the deed," rang loud through the
districts of Germany.
Humanism was thus in a sense the precursor of the Reformation, which
conceived in the innermost heart of the German people, shook Europe to
her foundations. Once more it was the German people which, as formerly
in the struggle between the Arian Goths and the Orthodox Church, shed
it's heart's blood in a religious war for spiritual liberty, and now for
national independence also. No struggle more pregnant with consequences
for the development of humanity had been fought out since the Persian
wars. In this cause the German people nearly disappeared, and lost all
political importance. Large sections of the Empire were abandoned to
foreign States. Germany became a desert. But this time the Church did
not remain victorious as she did against the Arian Goths and the
Staufers. It is true she was not laid prostrate; she still remained a
mighty force, and drew new strength from the struggle itself.
Politically the Catholic States, under Spanish leadership, won an
undisputed supremacy. But, on the other hand, the right to spiritual
freedom was established. This most important element of civilization was
retained for humanity in the reformed Churches, and has become ever
since the palladium of all progress, though even after the Peace of
Westphalia protracted struggles were required to assert religious
freedom.
The States of the Latin race on their side now put forward strong claims
to the universal imperium in order to suppress the German ideas of
freedom. Spain first, then France: the two soon quarrelled among
themselves about the predominance. At the same time, in Germanized
England a firs-class Protestant power was being developed, and the age
of discoveries, which coincided roughly with the end of the Reformation
and the Thirty Years' War, opened new and unsuspected paths to human
intellect and human energy. Political life also acquired a fresh
stimulus. Gradually a broad stream of immigrants poured into the
newly-discovered districts of America, the northern part of which fell
to the lot of the Germanic and the southern part to that of the Latin
race. Thus was laid the foundation of the great colonial empires, and
consequently, of world politics. Germany remained excluded from this
great movement, since she wasted her forces in ecclesiastical disputes
and religious wars. On the other hand, in combination with England, the
Low Countries and Austria, which latter had at the same time to repel
the inroad of Turks from the East, she successfully curbed the French
ambition for sovereignty in a long succession of wars. England by these
wars grew to be the first colonial and maritime power in the world.
Germany forfeited large tracts of territory, and lost still more in
political power. She broke up into numerous feeble separate States,
which were entirely void of any common sympathy with the German cause.
But this very disintegration lent her fresh strength. A centre of
Protestant power was established in the North--i.e., Prussia.
After centuries of struggle the Germans had succeeded in driving back the
Slavs, who poured in from the East, in wrestling large tracts from them,
and in completely Germanizing them. This struggle, like that with the
niggard soil, produced a sturdy race, conscious of its strength, which
extended its power to the coasts of the Baltic, and successfully planted
Germanic culture in the far North. The German nation was finally
victorious also against Swedes, who disputed the command of the Baltic.
In that war the Great Elector had laid the foundations of a strong
political power, which, under his successors, gradually grew into an
influential force in Germany. The headship of Protestant Germany
devolved more and more on this state, and a counterpoise to Catholic
Austria grew up. This latter State had developed out of Germany into an
independent great Power, resting its supremacy not only on a German
population, but also on Hungarians and Slavs. In the Seven Years' War
Prussia broke away from Catholic Austria and the Empire, and confronted
France and Russia as an independent Protestant State.
But yet another dark hour was in store for Germany, as she once more
slowly struggled upwards. In France the Monarchy has exhausted the
resources of the nation for its own selfish ends. The motto of the
monarchy, _L'état c'est moi,_ carried to an extreme, provoked a
tremendous revulsion of ideas, which culminated in the stupendous
revolution of 1789, and everywhere in Europe, and more specially in
Germany, shattered and swept away the obsolete remnants of medievalism.
The German Empire as such disappeared; only fragmentary States survived,
among which Prussia alone showed any real power. France once again under
Napoleon was fired with the conception of the universal imperium, and
bore her victorious eagles to Italy, Egypt, Syria, Germany, and Spain,
and even to the inhospitable plains of Russia, which by a gradual
political absorption of the Slavonic East, and a slow expansion of power
in wars with Poland, Sweden, Turkey, and Prussia, had risen to an
important place among the European nations. Austria, which had become
more and more a congeries of different nationalities, fell before the
mighty Corsican. Prussia, which seemed to have lost all vigour in her
dream of peace, collapsed before his onslaught.
But the German spirit emerged with fresh strength from the deepest
humiliation. The purest and mightiest storm of fury against the yoke of
the oppressor that ever honoured an enslaved nation burst out in the
Protestant North. The wars of liberation, with their glowing enthusiasm,
won back the possibilities of political existence for Prussia and for
Germany, and paved the way for further world-wide historical
developments.
While the French people in savage revolt against spiritual and secular
despotism had broken their chains and proclaimed their _rights,_ another
quite different revolution was working in Prussia--the revolution of
_duty_. The assertion of the rights of the individual leads ultimately
to individual irresponsibility and to a repudiation of the State.
Immanuel Kant, the founder of critical philosophy, taught, in opposition
to this view, the gospel of moral duty, and Scharnhorst grasped the idea
of universal military service. By calling upon each individual to
sacrifice property and life for the good of the community, he gave the
clearest expression to the idea of the State, and created a sound basis
on which the claim to individual rights might rest at the same time
Stein laid the foundations of self-employed-government in Prussia.
While measures of the most far-reaching historical importance were thus
being adopted in the State on which the future fate of Germany was to
depend, and while revolution was being superseded by healthy progress, a
German Empire of the first rank, the Empire of intellect, grew up in the
domain of art and science, where German character and endeavour found
the deepest and fullest expression. A great change had been effected in
this land of political narrowness and social sterility since the year
1750. A literature and a science, born in the hearts of the nation, and
deeply rooted in the moral teaching of Protestantism, had raised their
minds far beyond the boundaries of practical life into the sunlit
heights of intellectual liberty, and manifested the power and
superiority of the German spirit. "Thus the new poetry and science
became for many decades the most effectual bond of union for this
dismembered people, and decided the victory of Protestantism in German
life." [B]
[Footnote B: Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte", i., p. 88.]
Germany was raised to be once more "the home of heresy, since she
developed the root-idea of the Reformation into the right of
unrestricted and unprejudiced inquiry". [C] Moral obligations, such as no
nation had ever yet made the standard of conduct, were laid down in the
philosophy of Kant and Fichte, and a lofty idealism inspired the songs
of her poets. The intense effect of these spiritual agencies was
realized in the outburst of heroic fury in 1813. "Thus our classical
literature, starting from a different point, reached the same goal as
the political work of the Prussian monarchy", [D] and of those men of
action who pushed this work forward in the hour of direst ruin.
[Footnote C: _Ibid.,_ i., p. 90.]
[Footnote D: _Ibid._]
The meeting of Napoleon and Goethe, two mighty conquerors, was an event
in the world's history. On one side the scourge of God, the great
annihilator of all survivals from the past, the gloomy despot, the last
abortion of the revolution--a
"Part of the power that still
Produces Good, while still devising Ill";
on the other, the serenely grave Olympian who uttered the words, "Let
man be noble, resourceful, and good"; who gave a new content to the
religious sentiment, since he conceived all existence as a perpetual
change to higher conditions, and pointed out new paths in science; who
gave the clearest expression to all aspirations of the human intellect,
and all movements of the German mind, and thus roused his people to
consciousness; who finally by his writings on every subject showed that
the whole realm of human knowledge was concentrated in the German brain;
a prophet of truth, an architect of imperishable monuments which testify
to the divinity in man.
The great conqueror of the century was met by the hero of intellect, to
whom was to fall the victory of the future. The mightiest potentate of
the Latin race faced the great Germanic who stood in the forefront of
humanity.
Truly a nation which in the hour of its deepest political degradation
could give birth to men like Fichte, Scharnhorst, Stein, Schiller, and
Goethe, to say nothing about the great soldier-figures of the wars of
Liberation, must be called to a mighty destiny.
We must admit that in the period immediately succeeding the great
struggle of those glorious days, the short-sightedness, selfishness, and
weakness of its Sovereigns, and the jealousy of its neighbours, robbed
the German people of the full fruits of its heroism, devotion, and pure
enthusiasm. The deep disappointment of that generation found expression
in the revolutionary movement of 1848, and in the emigration of
thousands to the free country of North America, where the Germans took a
prominent part in the formation of a new nationality, but were lost to
their mother-country. The Prussian monarchy grovelled before Austria and
Russia, and seemed to have forgotten its national duties.
Nevertheless in the centre of the Prussian State there was springing up
from the blood of the champions of freedom a new generation that no
longer wished to be the anvil, but to wield the hammer. Two men came to
the front, King William I. and the hero of the Saxon forest. Resolutely
they united the forces of the nation, which at first opposed them from
ignorance, and broke down the selfishness and dogmatic positivism of the
popular representatives. A victorious campaign settled matters with
Austria, who did not willingly cede the supremacy in Germany, and left
the German Imperial confederation without forfeiting her place as a
Great Power. France was brought to the ground with a mighty blow; the
vast majority of the German peoples united under the Imperial crown
which the King of Prussia wore; the old idea of the German Empire was
revived in a federal shape by the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria,
and Italy. The German idea, as Bismarck fancied it, ruled from the North
Sea to the Adriatic and the Mediterranean. Like a phoenix from the
ashes, the German giant rose from the sluggard-bed of the old German
Confederation, and stretched his mighty limbs.
It was an obvious and inevitable result that this awakening of Germany
vitally affected the other nations which had hitherto divided the
economic and political power. Hostile combinations threatened us on all
sides in order to check the further expansion of our power. Hemmed in
between France and Russia, who allied themselves against us, we failed
to gather the full fruits of our victories. The short-sightedness and
party feuds of the newly-formed Reichstag--the old hereditary failings
of our nation--prevented any colonial policy on broad lines. The intense
love of peace, which the nation and Government felt, made us fall behind
in the race with other countries.
In the most recent partition of the earth, that of Africa, victorious
Germany came off badly. France, her defeated opponent, was able to found
the second largest colonial Empire in the world; England appropriated
the most important portions; even small and neutral Belgium claimed a
comparatively large and valuable share; Germany was forced to be content
with some modest strips of territory. In addition to, and in connection
with, the political changes, new views and new forces have come forward.
Under the influence of the constitutional ideas of Frederick the Great,
and the crop of new ideas borne by the French Revolution, the conception
of the State has completely changed since the turn of the century. The
patrimonial state of the Middle Ages was the hereditary possession of
the Sovereign. Hence sprung the modern State, which represents the
reverse of this relation, in which the Sovereign is the first servant of
the State, and the interest of the State, and not of the ruler, is the
key to the policy of the Government. With this altered conception of the
State the principle of nationality has gradually developed, of which the
tendency is as follows: Historical boundaries are to be disregarded, and
the nations combined into a political whole; the State will thus acquire
a uniform national character and common national interests.
This new order of things entirely altered the basis of international
relations, and set new and unknown duties before the statesman. Commerce
and trade also developed on wholly new lines.
After 1815 the barriers to every activity--guilds and trade
restrictions--were gradually removed. Landed property ceased to be a
monopoly. Commerce and industries flourished conspicuously. "England
introduced the universal employment of coal and iron and of machinery
into industries, thus founding immense industrial establishments; by
steamers and railways she brought machinery into commerce, at the same
time effecting an industrial revolution by physical science and
chemistry, and won the control of the markets of the world by cotton.
There came, besides, the enormous extension of the command of credit in
the widest sense, the exploitation of India, the extension of
colonization over Polynesia, etc." England at the same time girdled the
earth with her cables and fleets. She thus attained to a sort of
world-sovereignty. She has tried to found a new universal Empire; not,
indeed, by spiritual or secular weapons, like Pope and Emperor in bygone
days, but by the power of money, by making all material interests
dependent on herself.
Facing her, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, linking the West
and the East, the United States of North America have risen to be an
industrial and commercial power of the first rank. Supported by
exceptionally abundant natural resources, and the unscrupulously pushing
character of her inhabitants, this mighty Empire aims at a suitable
recognition of her power in the council of the nations, and is on the
point of securing this by the building of a powerful navy.
Russia has not only strengthened her position in Europe, but has
extended her power over the entire North of Asia, and is pressing
farther into the centre of that continent. She has already crossed
swords with the States of the Mongolian race. This vast population,
which fills the east of the Asiatic continent, has, after thousands of
years of dormant civilization, at last awakened to political life, and
categorically claims its share in international life. The entrance of
Japan into the circle of the great World Powers means a call to arms.
"Asia for the Asiatics," is the phrase which she whispers beneath her
breath, trusting in the strength of her demand. The new Great Power has
emerged victoriously from its first encounter with a European foe.
China, too, is preparing to expand her forces outwardly. A mighty
movement is thrilling Asia--the awakening of a new epoch.
Dangers, then, which have already assumed a profound importance for the
civilized countries of Europe, are threatening from Asia, the old cradle
of the nations. But even in the heart of the European nations, forces
which have slumbered hitherto are now awake. The persisting ideas of the
French Revolution and the great industrial progress which characterized
the last century, have roused the working classes of every country to a
consciousness of their importance and their social power. The workers,
originally concerned only in the amelioration of their material
position, have, in theory, abandoned the basis of the modern State, and
seek their salvation in the revolution which they preach. They do not
wish to obtain what they can within the limitations of the historically
recognized State, but they wish to substitute for it a new State, in
which they themselves are the rulers. By this aspiration they not only
perpetually menace State and society, but endanger in the separate
countries the industries from which they live, since they threaten to
destroy the possibility of competing in the international markets by
continuous increase of wages and decrease of work. Even in Germany this
movement has affected large sections of the population.
Until approximately the middle of the last century, agriculture and
cattle-breeding formed the chief and most important part of German
industries. Since then, under the protection of wise tariffs, and in
connection with the rapid growth of the German merchant navy, trade has
marvellously increased. Germany has become an industrial and trading
nation; almost the whole of the growing increase of the population finds
work and employment in this sphere. Agriculture has more and more lost its
leading position in the economic life of the people. The artisan
class has thus become a power in our State. It is organized in trade
unions, and has politically fallen under the influence of the
international social democracy. It is hostile to the national class
distinctions, and strains every nerve to undermine the existing power of
the State.
It is evident that the State cannot tolerate quietly this dangerous
agitation, and that it must hinder, by every means, the efforts of the
anti-constitutionalist party to effect their purpose. The law of
self-preservation demands this; but it is clear that, to a certain
point, the pretensions of the working classes are justified. The citizen
may fairly claim to protect himself from poverty by work, and to have an
opportunity of raising himself in the social scale, if he willingly
devotes his powers. He is entitled to demand that the State should grant
this claim, and should be bound to protect him against the tyranny of
capital.
Two means of attaining such an object are open to the State: first, it
may create opportunities of work, which secure remunerative employment
to all willing hands; secondly, it may insure the workman by legislation
against every diminution in his capacity to work owing to sickness, age,
or accident; may give him material assistance when temporarily out of
work, and protect him against compulsion which may hinder him from
working.
The economical prosperity of Germany as the visible result of three
victorious campaigns created a labour market sufficiently large for
present purposes, although without the conscious intention of the State.
German labour, under the protection of the political power, gained a
market for itself. On the other hand, the German State has intervened
with legislation, with full consciousness of the end and the means. As
Scharnhorst once contrasted the duty of the citizen with the rights of
man, so the Emperor William I. recognized the duty of the State towards
those who were badly equipped with the necessaries of life. The position
of the worker was assured, so far as circumstances allowed, by social
legislation. No excuse, therefore, for revolutionary agitation now
existed.
A vigorous opposition to all the encroachments of the social democrats
indicated the only right way in which the justifiable efforts of the
working class could be reconciled with the continuance of the existing
State and of existing society, the two pillars of all civilization and
progress. This task is by no means completed. The question still is, How
to win back the working class to the ideals of State and country? Willing
workers must be still further protected against social democratic tyranny.
Germany, nevertheless, is in social-political respects at the head of
all progress in culture. German science has held its place in the world.
Germany certainly took the lead in political sciences during the last
century, and in all other domains of intellectual inquiry has won a
prominent position through the universality of her philosophy and her
thorough and unprejudiced research into the nature of things.
The achievements of Germany in the sphere of science and literature are
attested by the fact that the annual export of German books to foreign
countries is, according to trustworthy estimates, twice as large as that
of France, England, and America combined. It is only in the domain of
the exact sciences that Germany has often been compelled to give
precedence to foreign countries. German art also has failed to win a
leading position. It shows, indeed, sound promise in many directions,
and has produced much that is really great; but the chaos of our
political conditions is, unfortunately, reflected in it. The German
Empire has politically been split up into numerous parties. Not only are
the social democrats and the middle class opposed, but they, again, are
divided among themselves; not only are industries and agriculture bitter
enemies, but the national sentiment has not yet been able to vanquish
denominational antagonisms, and the historical hostility between North
and South has prevented the population from growing into a completely
united body.
So stands Germany to-day, torn by internal dissensions, yet full of
sustained strength; threatened on all sides by dangers, compressed into
narrow, unnatural limits, she still is filled with high aspirations, in
her nationality, her intellectual development, in her science,
industries, and trade.
And now, what paths does this history indicate to us for the future?
What duties are enforced on us by the past?
It is a question of far-reaching importance; for on the way in which the
German State answers this question, depend not only our own further
development, but to some extent the subsequent shaping of the history of
the world.
CHAPTER IV
GERMANY'S HISTORICAL MISSION
Let us pass before our mind's eye the whole course of our historical
development, and let us picture to ourselves the life-giving streams of
human beings, that in every age have poured forth from the Empire of
Central Europe to all parts of the globe; let us reflect what rich seeds
of intellectual and moral development were sown by the German
intellectual life: the proud conviction forces itself upon us with
irresistible power that a high, if not the highest, importance for the
entire development of the human race is ascribable to this German
people.
This conviction is based on the intellectual merits of our nation, on
the freedom and the universality of the German spirit, which have ever
and again been shown in the course of its history. There is no nation
whose thinking is at once so free from prejudice and so historical as
the German, which knows how to unite so harmoniously the freedom of the
intellectual and the restraint of the practical life on the path of free
and natural development. The Germans have thus always been the
standard-bearers of free thought, but at the same time a strong bulwark
against revolutionary anarchical outbreaks. They have often been worsted
in the struggle for intellectual freedom, and poured out their best
heart's blood in the cause. Intellectual compulsion has sometimes ruled
the Germans; revolutionary tremors have shaken the life of this
people--the great peasant war in the sixteenth century, and the
political attempts at revolution in the middle of the nineteenth
century. But the revolutionary movement has been checked and directed
into the paths of a healthy natural advancement. The inevitable need of
a free intellectual self-determination has again and again disengaged
itself from the inner life of the soul of the people, and broadened into
world-historical importance.
Thus two great movements were born from the German intellectual life, on
which, henceforth, all the intellectual and moral progress of man must
rest: the Reformation and the critical philosophy. The Reformation,
which broke the intellectual yoke, imposed by the Church, which checked
all free progress; and the Critique of Pure Reason, which put a stop to
the caprice of philosophic speculation by defining for the human mind
the limitations of its capacity for knowledge, and at the same time
pointed out in what way knowledge is really possible. On this
substructure was developed the intellectual life of our time, whose
deepest significance consists in the attempt to reconcile the result of
free inquiry with the religious needs of the heart, and to lay a
foundation for the harmonious organization of mankind. Torn this way and
that, between hostile forces, in a continuous feud between faith and
knowledge, mankind seems to have lost the straight road of progress.
Reconciliation only appears possible when the thought of religious
reformation leads to a permanent explanation of the idea of religion,
and science remains conscious of the limits of its power, and does not
attempt to explain the domain of the supersensual world from the results
of natural philosophy.
The German nation not only laid the foundations of this great struggle
for an harmonious development of humanity, but took the lead in it. We
are thus incurring an obligation for the future, from which we cannot
shrink. We must be prepared to be the leaders in this campaign, which is
being fought for the highest stake that has been offered to human
efforts. Our nation is not only bound by its past history to take part
in this struggle, but is peculiarly adapted to do so by its special
qualities.
No nation on the face of the globe is so able to grasp and appropriate
all the elements of culture, to add to them from the stores of its own
spiritual endowment, and to give back to mankind richer gifts than it
received. It has "enriched the store of traditional European culture
with new and independent ideas and ideals, and won a position in the great
community of civilized nations which none else could fill." "Depth of
conviction, idealism, universality, the power to look beyond all the
limits of a finite existence, to sympathize with all that is human, to
traverse the realm of ideas in companionship with the noblest of all
nations and ages--this has at all times been the German characteristic;
this has been extolled as the prerogative of German culture." [A] To no
nation, except the German, has it been given to enjoy in its inner self
"that which is given to mankind as a whole." We often see in other
nations a greater intensity of specialized ability, but never the same
capacity for generalization and absorption. It is this quality which
specially fits us for the leadership in the intellectual world, and
imposes on us the obligation to maintain that position.
[Footnote A: Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i., p. 95.]
There are numerous other tasks to be fulfilled if we are to discharge
our highest duty. They form the necessary platform from which we can
mount to the highest goal. These duties lie in the domains of science
and politics, and also in that borderland where science and politics
touch, and where the latter is often directly conditioned by the results
of scientific inquiry.
First and foremost it is German science which must regain its
superiority in unwearying and brilliant research in order to vindicate
our birthright. On the one hand, we must extend the theory of the
perceptive faculty; on the other, we must increase man's dominion over
Nature by exploring her hidden secrets, and thus make human work more
useful and remunerative. We must endeavour to find scientific solutions
of the great problems which deeply concern mankind. We need not restrict
ourselves to the sphere of pure theory, but must try to benefit
civilization by the practical results of research, and thus create
conditions of life in which a purer conception of the ideal life can
find its expression.
It is, broadly speaking, religious and social controversies which
exercise the most permanent influence on human existence, and condition
not only our future development, but the higher life generally. These
problems have occupied the minds of no people more deeply and
permanently than our own. Yet the revolutionary spirit, in spite of the
empty ravings of social democratic agitators, finds no place in Germany.
The German nature tends towards a systematic healthy development, which
works slowly in opposition to the different movements. The Germans thus
seem thoroughly qualified to settle in their own country the great
controversies which are rending other nations, and to direct them into
the paths of a natural progress in conformity with the laws of
evolution.
We have already started on the task in the social sphere, and shall no
doubt continue it, so far as it is compatible with the advantages of the
community and the working class itself. We must not spare any efforts to
find other means than those already adopted to inspire the working class
with healthy and patriotic ambitions.
It is to be hoped, in any case, that if ever a great and common duty,
requiring the concentration of the whole national strength, is imposed
upon us, that the labour classes will not withhold their co-operation,
and that, in face of a common danger, our nation will recover that unity
which is lamentably deficient to-day.
No attempt at settlement has been made in the religious domain. The old
antagonists are still bitterly hostile to each other, especially in
Germany. It will be the duty of the future to mitigate the religious and
political antagonism of the denominations, under guarantees of absolute
liberty of thought and all personal convictions, and to combine the
conflicting views into a harmonious and higher system. At present there
appears small probability of attaining this end. The dogmatism of
Protestant orthodoxy and the Jesuitic tendencies and ultramontanism of
the Catholics, must be surmounted, before any common religious movement
can be contemplated. But no German statesman can disregard this aspect
of affairs, nor must he ever forget that the greatness of our nation is
rooted exclusively on Protestantism. Legally and socially all
denominations enjoy equal rights, but the German State must never
renounce the leadership in the domain of free spiritual development. To
do so would mean loss of prestige.
Duties of the greatest importance for the whole advance of human
civilization have thus been transmitted to the German nation, as heir of
a great and glorious past. It is faced with problems of no less
significance in the sphere of its international relations. These
problems are of special importance, since they affect most deeply the
intellectual development, and on their solution depends the position of
Germany in the world.
The German Empire has suffered great losses of territory in the storms
and struggles of the past. The Germany of to-day, considered
geographically, is a mutilated torso of the old dominions of the
Emperors; it comprises only a fraction of the German peoples. A large
number of German fellow-countrymen have been incorporated into other
States, or live in political independence, like the Dutch, who have
developed into a separate nationality, but in language and national
customs cannot deny their German ancestry. Germany has been robbed of
her natural boundaries; even the source and mouth of the most
characteristically German stream, the much lauded German Rhine, lie
outside the German territory. On the eastern frontier, too, where the
strength of the modern German Empire grew up in centuries of war against
the Slavs, the possessions of Germany are menaced. The Slavonic waves
are ever dashing more furiously against the coast of that Germanism,
which seems to have lost its old victorious strength.
Signs of political weakness are visible here, while for centuries the
overflow of the strength of the German nation has poured into foreign
countries, and been lost to our fatherland and to our nationality; it is
absorbed by foreign nations and steeped with foreign sentiments. Even
to-day the German Empire possesses no colonial territories where its
increasing population may find remunerative work and a German way of
living.
This is obviously not a condition which can satisfy a powerful nation,
or corresponds to the greatness of the German nation and its
intellectual importance.
At an earlier epoch, to be sure, when Germans had in the course of
centuries grown accustomed to the degradation of being robbed of all
political significance, a large section of our people did not feel this
insufficiency. Even during the age of our classical literature the
patriotic pride of that idealistic generation "was contented with the
thought that no other people could follow the bold flights of German
genius or soar aloft to the freedom of our world citizenship." [B]
[Footnote B: Treitschke, "Deutsche Geschichte," i., p. 195.]
Schiller, in 1797, could write the lines:
"German majesty and honour
Fall not with the princes' crown;
When amid the flames of war
German Empire crashes down,
German greatness stands unscathed." [C]
[Footnote C: Fragment of a poem on "German Greatness," published in 1905
by Bernhard Suphan.]
The nobler and better section of our nation, at any rate, holds
different sentiments to-day. We attach a higher value to the influence
of the German spirit on universal culture than was then possible, since
we must now take into consideration the immense development of Germany
in the nineteenth century, and can thus better estimate the old
importance of our classical literature. Again, we have learnt from the
vicissitudes of our historical growth to recognize that the full and due
measure of intellectual development can only be achieved by the political
federation of our nation. The dominion of German thought can
only be extended under the aegis of political power, and unless we act
in conformity to this idea, we shall be untrue to our great duties
towards the human race.
Our first and positive duty consists, therefore, in zealously guarding
the territories of Germany, as they now are, and in not surrendering a
foot's breadth of German soil to foreign nationalities. On the west the
ambitious schemes of the Latin race have been checked, and it is hard to
imagine that we shall ever allow this prize of victory to be snatched
again from our hands. On the south-east the Turks, who formerly
threatened the civilized countries of Europe, have been completely
repulsed. They now take a very different position in European politics
from that which they filled at the time of their victorious advance
westwards. Their power on the Mediterranean is entirely destroyed. On
the other hand, the Slavs have become a formidable power. Vast regions
which were once under German influence are now once more subject to
Slavonic rule, and seem permanently lost to us. The present Russian
Baltic provinces were formerly flourishing seats of German culture. The
German element in Austria, our ally, is gravely menaced by the Slavs;
Germany herself is exposed to a perpetual peaceful invasion of Slavonic
workmen. Many Poles are firmly established in the heart of Westphalia.
Only faint-hearted measures are taken to-day to stem this Slavonic
flood. And yet to check this onrush of Slavism is not merely an
obligation inherited from our fathers, but a duty in the interests of
self-preservation and European civilization. It cannot yet be determined
whether we can keep off this vast flood by pacific precautions. It is
not improbable that the question of Germanic or Slavonic supremacy will
be once more decided by the sword. The probability of such a conflict
grows stronger as we become more lax in pacific measures of defence, and
show less determination to protect the German soil at all costs.
The further duty of supporting the Germans in foreign countries in their
struggle for existence and of thus keeping them loyal to their
nationality, is one from which, in our direct interests, we cannot
withdraw. The isolated groups of Germans abroad greatly benefit our
trade, since by preference they obtain their goods from Germany; but
they may also be useful to us politically, as we discover in America.
The American-Germans have formed a political alliance with the Irish,
and thus united, constitute a power in the State, with which the
Government must reckon.
Finally, from the point of view of civilization, it is imperative to
preserve the German spirit, and by so doing to establish _foci_ of
universal culture.
Even if we succeed in guarding our possessions in the East and West, and
in preserving the German nationality in its present form throughout the
world, we shall not be able to maintain our present position, powerful
as it is, in the great competition with the other Powers, if we are
contented to restrict ourselves to our present sphere of power, while
the surrounding countries are busily extending their dominions. If we
wish to compete further with them, a policy which our population and our
civilization both entitle and compel us to adopt, we must not hold back
in the hard struggle for the sovereignty of the world.
Lord Rosebery, speaking at the Royal Colonial Institute on March 1,
1893, expressed himself as follows: "It is said that our Empire is
already large enough and does not need expansion.... We shall have to
consider not what we want now, but what we want in the future.... We
have to remember that it is part of our responsibility and heritage to
take care that the world, so far as it can be moulded by us, should
receive the Anglo-Saxon and not another character." [D]
[Footnote D: This passage is quoted in the book of the French ex-Minister
Hanotaux, "Fashoda et le partage de l'Afrique."]
That is a great and proud thought which the Englishman then expressed.
If we count the nations who speak English at the present day, and if we
survey the countries which acknowledge the rule of England, we must
admit that he is justified from the English point of view. He does not
here contemplate an actual world-sovereignty, but the predominance of
the English spirit is proclaimed in plain language.
England has certainly done a great work of civilization, especially from
the material aspect; but her work is one-sided. All the colonies which
are directly subject to English rule are primarily exploited in the
interest of English industries and English capital. The work of
civilization, which England undeniably has carried out among them, has
always been subordinated to this idea; she has never justified her
sovereignty by training up a free and independent population, and by
transmitting to the subject peoples the blessings of an independent
culture of their own. With regard to those colonies which enjoy
self-government, and are therefore more or less free republics, as
Canada, Australia, South Africa, it is very questionable whether they
will permanently retain any trace of the English spirit. They are not
only growing States, but growing nations, and it seems uncertain at the
present time whether England will be able to include them permanently in
the Empire, to make them serviceable to English industries, or even to
secure that the national character is English. Nevertheless, it is a
great and proud ambition that is expressed in Lord Rosebery's words, and
it testifies to a supreme national self-confidence.
The French regard with no less justifiable satisfaction the work done by
them in the last forty years. In 1909 the former French Minister,
Hanotaux, gave expression to this pride in the following words: "Ten
years ago the work of founding our colonial Empire was finished. France
has claimed her rank among the four great Powers. She is at home in
every quarter of the globe. French is spoken, and will continue to be
spoken, in Africa, Asia, America, Oceania. Seeds of sovereignty are sown
in all parts of the world. They will prosper under the protection of
Heaven." [E]
[Footnote E: Hanotaux, "Fashoda et le partage de l'Afrique."]
The same statesman criticized, with ill-concealed hatred, the German
policy: "It will be for history to decide what has been the leading
thought of Germany and her Government during the complicated disputes
under which the partition of Africa and the last phase of French
colonial policy were ended. We may assume that at first the adherents to
Bismarck's policy saw with satisfaction how France embarked on distant
and difficult undertakings, which would fully occupy the attention of
the country and its Government for long years to come. Nevertheless, it
is not certain that this calculation has proved right in the long-run,
since Germany ultimately trod the same road, and, somewhat late, indeed,
tried to make up for lost time. If that country deliberately abandoned
colonial enterprise to others, it cannot be surprised if these have
obtained the best shares."
This French criticism is not altogether unfair. It must be admitted with
mortification and envy that the nation vanquished in 1870, whose vital
powers seemed exhausted, which possessed no qualification for
colonization from want of men to colonize, as is best seen in Algeria,
has yet created the second largest colonial Empire in the world, and
prides herself on being a World Power, while the conqueror of Gravelotte
and Sedan in this respect lags far behind her, and only recently, in the
Morocco controversy, yielded to the unjustifiable pretensions of France
in a way which, according to universal popular sentiment, was unworthy
alike of the dignity and the interests of Germany.
The openly declared claims of England and France are the more worthy of
attention since an _entente_ prevails between the two countries. In the
face of these claims the German nation, from the standpoint of its
importance to civilization, is fully entitled not only to demand a place
in the sun, as Prince Bülow used modestly to express it, but to aspire
to an adequate share in the sovereignty of the world far beyond the
limits of its present sphere of influence. But we can only reach this
goal, by so amply securing our position in Europe, that it can never
again be questioned. Then only we need no longer fear that we shall be
opposed by stronger opponents whenever we take part in international
politics. We shall then be able to exercise our forces freely in fair
rivalry with the other World Powers, and secure to German nationality
and German spirit throughout the globe that high esteem which is due to
them.
Such an expansion of power, befitting our importance, is not merely a
fanciful scheme--it will soon appear as a political necessity.
The fact has already been mentioned that, owing to political union and
improved economic conditions during the last forty years, an era of
great prosperity has set in, and that German industries have been widely
extended and German trade has kept pace with them. The extraordinary
capacity of the German nation for trade and navigation has once more
brilliantly asserted itself. The days of the Hanseatic League have
returned. The labour resources of our nation increase continuously. The
increase of the population in the German Empire alone amounts yearly to
a million souls, and these have, to a large extent, found remunerative
industrial occupation.
There is, however, a reverse side to this picture of splendid
development. We are absolutely dependent on foreign countries for the
import of raw materials, and to a considerable extent also for the sale
of our own manufactures. We even obtain a part of our necessaries of
life from abroad. Then, again, we have not the assured markets which
England possesses in her colonies. Our own colonies are unable to take
much of our products, and the great foreign economic spheres try to
close their doors to outsiders, especially Germans, in order to
encourage their own industries, and to make themselves independent of
other countries. The livelihood of our working classes directly depends
on the maintenance and expansion of our export trade. It is a question
of life and death for us to keep open our oversea commerce. We shall
very soon see ourselves compelled to find for our growing population
means of life other than industrial employment. It is out of the
question that this latter can keep pace permanently with the increase of
population. Agriculture will employ a small part of this increase, and
home settlements may afford some relief. But no remunerative occupation
will ever be found within the borders of the existing German Empire for
the whole population, however favourable our international relations. We
shall soon, therefore, be faced by the question, whether we wish to
surrender the coming generations to foreign countries, as formerly in
the hour of our decline, or whether we wish to take steps to find them a
home in our own German colonies, and so retain them for the fatherland.
There is no possible doubt how this question must be answered. If the
unfortunate course of our history has hitherto prevented us from
building a colonial Empire, it is our duty to make up for lost time, and
at once to construct a fleet which, in defiance of all hostile Powers,
may keep our sea communications open.
We have long underestimated the importance of colonies. Colonial
possessions which merely serve the purpose of acquiring wealth, and are
only used for economic ends, while the owner-State does not think of
colonizing in any form or raising the position of the aboriginal
population in the economic or social scale, are unjustifiable and
immoral, and can never be held permanently. "But that colonization which
retains a uniform nationality has become a factor of immense importance
for the future of the world. It will determine the degree in which each
nation shares in the government of the world by the white race. It is
quite imaginable that a count owns no colonies will no longer count
among the European Great Powers, however powerful it may otherwise be."
[F]
[Footnote F: Treitschke, "Politik," i., Section 8.]
We are already suffering severely from the want of colonies to meet our
requirements. They would not merely guarantee a livelihood to our
growing working population, but would supply raw materials and
foodstuffs, would buy goods, and open a field of activity to that
immense capital of intellectual labour forces which is to-day lying
unproductive in Germany, or is in the service of foreign interests. We
find throughout the countries of the world German merchants, engineers,
and men of every profession, employed actively in the service of foreign
masters, because German colonies, when they might be profitably engaged,
do not exist. In the future, however, the importance of Germany will
depend on two points: firstly, how many millions of men in the world
speak German? secondly, how many of them are politically members of the
German Empire?
These are heavy and complicated duties, which have devolved on us from
the entire past development of our nation, and are determined by its
present condition as regards the future. We must be quite clear on this
point, that no nation has had to reckon with the same difficulties and
hostility as ours. This is due to the many restrictions of our political
relations, to our unfavourable geographical position, and to the course
of our history. It was chiefly our own fault that we were condemned to
political paralysis at the time when the great European States built
themselves up, and sometimes expanded into World Powers. We did not
enter the circle of the Powers, whose decision carried weight in
politics, until late, when the partition of the globe was long
concluded. All which other nations attained in centuries of natural
development--political union, colonial possessions, naval power,
international trade--was denied to our nation until quite recently. What
we now wish to attain must be _fought for_, and won, against a superior
force of hostile interests and Powers.
It is all the more emphatically our duty plainly to perceive what paths
we wish to take, and what our goals are, so as not to split up our
forces in false directions, and involuntarily to diverge from the
straight road of our intended development.
The difficulty of our political position is in a certain sense an
advantage. By keeping us in a continually increasing state of tension,
it has at least protected us so far from the lethargy which so often
follows a long period of peace and growing wealth. It has forced us to
stake all our spiritual and material forces in order to rise to every
occasion, and has thus discovered and strengthened resources which will
be of great value whenever we shall be called upon to draw the sword.
CHAPTER V
WORLD POWER OR DOWNFALL
In discussing the duties which fall to the German nation from its
history and its general as well as particular endowments, we attempted
to prove that a consolidation and expansion of our position among the
Great Powers of Europe, and an extension of our colonial possessions,
must be the basis of our future development.
The political questions thus raised intimately concern all international
relations, and should be thoroughly weighed. We must not aim at the
impossible. A reckless policy would be foreign to our national character
and our high aims and duties. But we must aspire to the possible, even
at the risk of war. This policy we have seen to be both our right and
our duty. The longer we look at things with folded hands, the harder it
will be to make up the start which the other Powers have gained on us.
"The man of sense will by the forelock clutch
Whatever lies within his power,
Stick fast to it, and neither shirk,
Nor from his enterprise be thrust,
But, having once begun to work,
Go working on because he must."
_Faust_
(translated by Sir Theodore Martin).
The sphere in which we can realize our ambition is circumscribed by the
hostile intentions of the other World Powers, by the existing
territorial conditions, and by the armed force which is at the back of
both. Our policy must necessarily be determined by the consideration of
these conditions. We must accurately, and without bias or timidity,
examine the circumstances which turn the scale when the forces which
concern us are weighed one against the other.
These considerations fall partly within the military, but belong mainly
to the political sphere, in so far as the political grouping of the
States allows a survey of the military resources of the parties. We must
try to realize this grouping. The shifting aims of the politics of the
day need not be our standard; they are often coloured by considerations
of present expediency, and offer no firm basis for forming an opinion.
We must rather endeavour to recognize the political views and intentions
of the individual States, which are based on the nature of things, and
therefore will continually make their importance felt. The broad lines
of policy are ultimately laid down by the permanent interests of a
country, although they may often be mistaken from short-sightedness or
timidity, and although policy sometimes takes a course which does not
seem warranted from the standpoint of lasting national benefits. Policy
is not an exact science, following necessary laws, but is made by men
who impress on it the stamp of their strength or their weakness, and
often divert it from the path of true national interests. Such
digressions must not be ignored. The statesman who seizes his
opportunity will often profit by these political fluctuations. But the
student who considers matters from the standpoint of history must keep
his eyes mainly fixed on those interests which seem permanent. We must
therefore try to make the international situation in this latter sense
clear, so far as it concerns Germany's power and ambitions.
We see the European Great Powers divided into two great camps.
On the one side Germany, Austria, and Italy have concluded a defensive
alliance, whose sole object is to guard against hostile aggression. In
this alliance the two first-named States form the solid, probably
unbreakable, core, since by the nature of things they are intimately
connected. The geographical conditions force this result. The two States
combined form a compact series of territories from the Adriatic to the
North Sea and the Baltic. Their close union is due also to historical
national and political conditions. Austrians have fought shoulder to
shoulder with Prussians and Germans of the Empire on a hundred
battlefields; Germans are the backbone of the Austrian dominions, the
bond of union that holds together the different nationalities of the
Empire. Austria, more than Germany, must guard against the inroads of
Slavism, since numerous Slavonic races are comprised in her territories.
There has been no conflict of interests between the two States since the
struggle for the supremacy in Germany was decided. The maritime and
commercial interests of the one point to the south and south-east, those
of the other to the north. Any feebleness in the one must react
detrimentally on the political relations of the other. A quarrel between
Germany and Austria would leave both States at the mercy of
overwhelmingly powerful enemies. The possibility of each maintaining its
political position depends on their standing by each other. It may be
assumed that the relations uniting the two States will be permanent so
long as Germans and Magyars are the leading nationalities in the
Danubian monarchy. It was one of the master-strokes of Bismarck's policy
to have recognized the community of Austro-German interests even during
the war of 1866, and boldly to have concluded a peace which rendered
such an alliance possible.
The weakness of the Austrian Empire lies in the strong admixture of
Slavonic elements, which are hostile to the German population, and show
many signs of Pan-Slavism. It is not at present, however, strong enough
to influence the political position of the Empire.
Italy, also, is bound to the Triple Alliance by her true interests. The
antagonism to Austria, which has run through Italian history, will
diminish when the needs of expansion in other spheres, and of creating a
natural channel for the increasing population, are fully recognized by
Italy. Neither condition is impossible. Irredentism will then lose its
political significance, for the position, which belongs to Italy from
her geographical situation and her past history, and will promote her
true interests if attained, cannot be won in a war with Austria. It is
the position of a leading political and commercial Mediterranean Power.
That is the natural heritage which she can claim. Neither Germany nor
Austria is a rival in this claim, but France, since she has taken up a
permanent position on the coast of North Africa, and especially in
Tunis, has appropriated a country which would have been the most natural
colony for Italy, and has, in point of fact, been largely colonized by
Italians. It would, in my opinion, have been politically right for us,
even at the risk of a war with France, to protest against this
annexation, and to preserve the territory of Carthage for Italy. We
should have considerably strengthened Italy's position on the
Mediterranean, and created a cause of contention between Italy and
France that would have added to the security of the Triple Alliance.
The weakness of this alliance consists in its purely defensive
character. It offers a certain security against hostile aggression, but
does not consider the necessary development of events, and does not
guarantee to any of its members help in the prosecution of its essential
interests. It is based on a _status quo_, which was fully justified in
its day, but has been left far behind by the march of political events.
Prince Bismarck, in his "Thoughts and Reminiscences," pointed out that
this alliance would not always correspond to the requirements of the
future. Since Italy found the Triple Alliance did not aid her
Mediterranean policy, she tried to effect a pacific agreement with
England and France, and accordingly retired from the Triple Alliance.
The results of this policy are manifest to-day. Italy, under an
undisguised arrangement with England and France, but in direct
opposition to the interests of the Triple Alliance, attacked Turkey, in
order to conquer, in Tripoli, the required colonial territory. This
undertaking brought her to the brink of a war with Austria, which, as
the supreme Power in the Balkan Peninsula, can never tolerate the
encroachment of Italy into those regions.
The Triple Alliance, which in itself represents a natural league, has
suffered a rude shock. The ultimate reason for this result is found in
the fact that the parties concerned with a narrow, short-sighted policy
look only to their immediate private interests, and pay no regard to
the vital needs of the members of the league. The alliance will not
regain its original strength until, under the protection of the allied
armies, each of the three States can satisfy its political needs. We
must therefore be solicitous to promote Austria's position in the
Balkans, and Italy's interests on the Mediterranean. Only then can we
calculate on finding in our allies assistance towards realizing our own
political endeavours. Since, however, it is against all our interests to
strengthen Italy at the cost of Turkey, which is, as we shall see, an
essential member of the Triple Alliance, we must repair the errors of
the past, and in the next great war win back Tunis for Italy. Only then
will Bismarck's great conception of the Triple Alliance reveal its real
meaning. But the Triple Alliance, so long as it only aims at negative
results, and leaves it to the individual allies to pursue their vital
interests exclusively by their own resources, will be smitten with
sterility. On the surface, Italy's Mediterranean interests do not
concern us closely. But their real importance for us is shown by the
consideration that the withdrawal of Italy from the Triple Alliance, or,
indeed, its secession to an Anglo-Franco-Russian _entente,_ would
probably be the signal for a great European war against us and Austria.
Such a development would gravely prejudice the lasting interests of
Italy, for she would forfeit her political independence by so doing, and
incur the risk of sinking to a sort of vassal state of France. Such a
contingency is not unthinkable, for, in judging the policy of Italy, we
must not disregard her relations with England as well as with France.
England is clearly a hindrance in the way of Italy's justifiable efforts
to win a prominent position in the Mediterranean. She possesses in
Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, and Aden a chain of strong bases, which
secure the sea-route to India, and she has an unqualified interest in
commanding this great road through the Mediterranean. England's
Mediterranean fleet is correspondingly strong and would--especially in
combination with the French Mediterranean squadron--seriously menace the
coasts of Italy, should that country be entangled in a war against
England _and_ France. Italy is therefore obviously concerned in avoiding
such a war, as long as the balance of maritime power is unchanged. She
is thus in an extremely difficult double position; herself a member of
the Triple Alliance, she is in a situation which compels her to make
overtures to the opponents of that alliance, so long as her own allies
can afford no trustworthy assistance to her policy of development. It is
our interest to reconcile Italy and Turkey so far as we can.
France and Russia have united in opposition to the Central European
Triple Alliance. France's European policy is overshadowed by the idea of
_revanche_. For that she makes the most painful sacrifices; for that she
has forgotten the hundred years' enmity against England and the
humiliation of Fashoda. She wishes first to take vengeance for the
defeats of 1870-71, which wounded her national pride to the quick; she
wishes to raise her political prestige by a victory over Germany, and,
if possible, to regain that former supremacy on the continent of Europe
which she so long and brilliantly maintained; she wishes, if fortune
smiles on her arms, to reconquer Alsace and Lorraine. But she feels too
weak for an attack on Germany. Her whole foreign policy, in spite of all
protestations of peace, follows the single aim of gaining allies for
this attack. Her alliance with Russia, her _entente_ with England, are
inspired with this spirit; her present intimate relations with this
latter nation are traceable to the fact that the French policy hoped,
and with good reason, for more active help from England's hostility to
Germany than from Russia.
The colonial policy of France pursues primarily the object of acquiring
a material, and, if possible, military superiority over Germany. The
establishment of a native African army, the contemplated introduction of
a modified system of conscription in Algeria, and the political
annexation of Morocco, which offers excellent raw material for soldiers,
so clearly exhibit this intention, that there can be no possible
illusion as to its extent and meaning.
Since France has succeeded in bringing her military strength to
approximately the same level as Germany, since she has acquired in her
North African Empire the possibility of considerably increasing that
strength, since she has completely outstripped Germany in the sphere of
colonial policy, and has not only kept up, but also revived, the French
sympathies of Alsace and Lorraine, the conclusion is obvious: France
will not abandon the paths of an anti-German policy, but will do her
best to excite hostility against us, and to thwart German interests in
every quarter of the globe. When she came to an understanding with the
Italians, that she should be given a free hand in Morocco if she allowed
them to occupy Tripoli, a wedge was driven into the Triple Alliance
which threatens to split it. It may be regarded as highly improbable
that she will maintain honourably and with no _arrière-pensée_ the
obligations undertaken in the interests of German commerce in Morocco.
The suppression of these interests was, in fact, a marked feature of the
French Morocco policy, which was conspicuously anti-German. The French
policy was so successful that we shall have to reckon more than ever on
the hostility of France in the future. It must be regarded as a quite
unthinkable proposition that an agreement between France and Germany can
be negotiated before the question between them has been once more
decided by arms. Such an agreement is the less likely now that France
sides with England, to whose interest it is to repress Germany but
strengthen France. Another picture meets our eyes if we turn to the
East, where the giant Russian Empire towers above all others.
The Empire of the Czar, in consequence of its defeat in Manchuria, and
of the revolution which was precipitated by the disastrous war, is
following apparently a policy of recuperation. It has tried to come to
an understanding with Japan in the Far East, and with England in Central
Asia; in the Balkans its policy aims at the maintenance of the _status
quo_. So far it does not seem to have entertained any idea of war with
Germany. The Potsdam agreement, whose importance cannot be
overestimated, shows that we need not anticipate at present any
aggressive policy on Russia's part. The ministry of Kokowzew seems
likely to wish to continue this policy of recuperation, and has the more
reason for doing so, as the murder of Stolypin with its accompanying
events showed, as it were by a flash of lightning, a dreadful picture of
internal disorder and revolutionary intrigue. It is improbable,
therefore, that Russia would now be inclined to make armed intervention
in favour of France. The Russo-French alliance is not, indeed, swept
away, and there is no doubt that Russia would, if the necessity arose,
meet her obligations; but the tension has been temporarily relaxed, and
an improvement in the Russo-German relations has been effected, although
this state of things was sufficiently well paid for by the concessions
of Germany in North Persia.
It is quite obvious that this policy of marking time, which Russia is
adopting for the moment, can only be transitory. The requirements of the
mighty Empire irresistibly compel an expansion towards the sea, whether
in the Far East, where it hopes to gain ice-free harbours, or in the
direction of the Mediterranean, where the Crescent still glitters on the
dome of St. Sophia. After a successful war, Russia would hardly hesitate
to seize the mouth of the Vistula, at the possession of which she has
long aimed, and thus to strengthen appreciably her position in the
Baltic.
Supremacy in the Balkan Peninsula, free entrance into the Mediterranean,
and a strong position on the Baltic, are the goals to which the European
policy of Russia has naturally long been directed. She feels herself,
also, the leading power of the Slavonic races, and has for many years
been busy in encouraging and extending the spread of this element into
Central Europe.
Pan-Slavism is still hard at work.
It is hard to foresee how soon Russia will come out from her retirement
and again tread the natural paths of her international policy. Her
present political attitude depends considerably on the person of the
present Emperor, who believes in the need of leaning upon a strong
monarchical State, such as Germany is, and also on the character of the
internal development of the mighty Empire. The whole body of the nation
is so tainted with revolutionary and moral infection, and the peasantry
is plunged in such economic disorder, that it is difficult to see from
what elements a vivifying force may spring up capable of restoring a
healthy condition. Even the agrarian policy of the present Government
has not produced any favourable results, and has so far disappointed
expectations. The possibility thus has always existed that, under the
stress of internal affairs, the foreign policy may be reversed and an
attempt made to surmount the difficulties at home by successes abroad.
Time and events will decide whether these successes will be sought in
the Far East or in the West. On the one side Japan, and possibly China,
must be encountered; on the other, Germany, Austria, and, possibly,
Turkey.
Doubtless these conditions must exercise a decisive influence on the
Franco-Russian Alliance. The interests of the two allies are not
identical. While France aims solely at crushing Germany by an aggressive
war, Russia from the first has more defensive schemes in view. She
wished to secure herself against any interference by the Powers of
Central Europe in the execution of her political plans in the South and
East, and at the same time, at the price of an alliance, to raise, on
advantageous terms in France, the loans which were so much needed.
Russia at present has no inducement to seek an aggressive war with
Germany or to take part in one. Of course, every further increase of the
German power militates against the Russian interests. We shall therefore
always find her on the side of those who try to cross our political paths.
England has recently associated herself with the Franco-Russian
Alliance. She has made an arrangement in Asia with Russia by which the
spheres of influence of the two parties are delimited, while with France
she has come to terms in the clear intention of suppressing Germany
under all circumstances, if necessary by force of arms.
The actually existing conflict of Russian and English interests in the
heart of Asia can obviously not be terminated by such agreements. So,
also, no natural community of interests exists between England and
France. A strong French fleet may be as great a menace to England as to
any other Power. For the present, however, we may reckon on an
Anglo--French _entente_. This union is cemented by the common hostility
to Germany. No other reason for the political combination of the two
States is forthcoming. There is not even a credible pretext, which might
mask the real objects.
This policy of England is, on superficial examination, not very
comprehensible. Of course, German industries and trade have lately made
astounding progress, and the German navy is growing to a strength which
commands respect. We are certainly a hindrance to the plans which
England is prosecuting in Asiatic Turkey and Central Africa. This may
well be distasteful to the English from economic as well as political
and military aspects. But, on the other hand, the American competition
in the domain of commercial politics is far keener than the German. The
American navy is at the present moment stronger than the German, and
will henceforth maintain this precedence. Even the French are on the
point of building a formidable fleet, and their colonial Empire, so far
as territory is concerned, is immensely superior to ours. Yet, in spite
of all these considerations, the hostility of the English is primarily
directed against us. It is necessary to adopt the English standpoint in
order to understand the line of thought which guides the English
politicians. I believe that the solution of the problem is to be found
in the wide ramifications of English interests in every part of the
world.
Since England committed the unpardonable blunder, from her point of
view, of not supporting the Southern States in the American War of
Secession, a rival to England's world-wide Empire has appeared on the
other side of the Atlantic in the form of the United States of North
America, which are a grave menace to England's fortunes. The keenest
competition conceivable now exists between the two countries. The
annexation of the Philippines by America, and England's treaty with
Japan, have accentuated the conflict of interests between the two
nations. The trade and industries of America can no longer be checked,
and the absolutely inexhaustible and ever-growing resources of the Union
are so prodigious that a naval war with America, in view of the vast
distances and wide extent of the enemies' coasts, would prove a very
bold, and certainly very difficult, undertaking. England accordingly has
always diplomatically conceded the claims of America, as quite recently
in the negotiations about fortifying the Panama Canal; the object
clearly is to avoid any collision with the United States, from fearing
the consequences of such collision. The American competition in trade
and industries, and the growth of the American navy, are tolerated as
inevitable, and the community of race is borne in mind. In this sense,
according to the English point of view, must be understood the treaty by
which a Court of Arbitration between the two countries was established.
England wishes, in any case, to avert the danger of a war with America.
The natural opposition of the two rival States may, however, in the
further development of things, be so accentuated that England will be
forced to assert her position by arms, or at least to maintain an
undisputed naval supremacy, in order to emphasize her diplomatic action.
The relations of the two countries to Canada may easily become strained
to a dangerous point, and the temporary failure of the Arbitration
Treaty casts a strong light on the fact that the American people does not
consider that the present political relations of the two nations are
permanent.
There is another danger which concerns England more closely and directly
threatens her vitality. This is due to the nationalist movement in India
and Egypt, to the growing power of Islam, to the agitation for
independence in the great colonies, as well as to the supremacy of the
Low-German element in South Africa.
Turkey is the only State which might seriously threaten the English
position in Egypt by land. This contingency gives to the national
movement in Egypt an importance which it would not otherwise possess; it
clearly shows that England intensely fears every Pan-Islamitic movement.
She is trying with all the resources of political intrigue to undermine
the growing power of Turkey, which she officially pretends to support,
and is endeavouring to create in Arabia a new religious centre in
opposition to the Caliphate.
The same views are partially responsible for the policy in India, where
some seventy millions of Moslems live under the English rule. England,
so far, in accordance with the principle of _divide et impera_, has
attempted to play off the Mohammedan against the Hindu population. But
now that a pronounced revolutionary and nationalist tendency shows
itself among these latter, the danger is imminent that Pan-Islamism,
thoroughly roused, should unite with the revolutionary elements of
Bengal. The co-operation of these elements might create a very grave
danger, capable of shaking the foundations of England's high position in
the world.
While so many dangers, in the future at least, threaten both at home and
abroad, English imperialism has failed to link the vast Empire together,
either for purposes of commerce or defence, more closely than hitherto.
Mr. Chamberlain's dream of the British Imperial Customs Union has
definitely been abandoned. No attempt was made at the Imperial
Conference in 1911 to go back to it. "A centrifugal policy predominated.
.... When the question of imperial defence came up, the policy was
rejected which wished to assure to Great Britain the help of the oversea
dominions in every imaginable eventuality." The great self-ruled
colonies represent allies, who will stand by England in the hour of
need, but "allies with the reservation that they are not to be employed
wrongfully for objects which they cannot ascertain or do not
approve." [A] There are clear indications that the policy of the
dominions, though not yet planning a separation from England, is
contemplating the future prospect of doing so. Canada, South Africa, and
Australia are developing, as mentioned in Chapter IV., into independent
nations and States, and will, when their time comes, claim formal
independence.
[Footnote A: Th. Schiemann in the _Kreuzzeitung_ of July 5, 1911.]
All these circumstances constitute a grave menace to the stability of
England's Empire, and these dangers largely influence England's attitude
towards Germany.
England may have to tolerate the rivalry of North America in her
imperial and commercial ambitions, but the competition of Germany must
be stopped. If England is forced to fight America, the German fleet must
not be in a position to help the Americans. Therefore it must be
destroyed.
A similar line of thought is suggested by the eventuality of a great
English colonial war, which would engage England's fleets in far distant
parts of the world. England knows the German needs and capabilities of
expansion, and may well fear that a German Empire with a strong fleet
might use such an opportunity for obtaining that increase of territory
which England grudges. We may thus explain the apparent indifference of
England to the French schemes of aggrandizement. France's capability of
expansion is exhausted from insufficient increase of population. She can
no longer be dangerous to England as a nation, and would soon fall
victim to English lust of Empire, if only Germany were conquered.
The wish to get rid of the dangers presumably threatening from the
German quarter is all the more real since geographical conditions offer
a prospect of crippling the German overseas commerce without any
excessive efforts. The comparative weakness of the German fleet,
contrasted with the vast superiority of the English navy, allows a
correspondingly easy victory to be anticipated, especially if the French
fleet co-operates. The possibility, therefore, of quickly and completely
getting rid of one rival, in order to have a free hand for all other
contingencies, looms very near and undoubtedly presents a practicable
means of placing the naval power of England on a firm footing for years
to come, of annihilating German commerce and of checking the importance
of German interests in Africa and Northern Asia.
The hostility to Germany is also sufficiently evident in other matters.
It has always been England's object to maintain a certain balance of
power between the continental nations of Europe, and to prevent any one
of them attaining a pronounced supremacy. While these States crippled
and hindered each other from playing any active part on the world's
stage, England acquired an opportunity of following out her own purposes
undisturbed, and of founding that world Empire which she now holds. This
policy she still continues, for so long as the Powers of Europe tie each
other's hands, her own supremacy is uncontested. It follows directly
from this that England's aim must be to repress Germany, but strengthen
France; for Germany at the present moment is the only European State
which threatens to win a commanding position; but France is her born
rival, and cannot keep on level terms with her stronger neighbour on the
East, unless she adds to her forces and is helped by her allies. Thus
the hostility to Germany, from this aspect also, is based on England's
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/11352