Every great Power must employ its efforts towards exercising the largest influence possible, not only in European but in world politics, and this mainly because economic power depends in the last resort on political power, and because the largest participation possible in the trade of the world is a vital question for every nation.
The writings of such classic authorities as Clausewitz give full confirmation of this view, while it is the resounding note of most
popular German political literature that deals with "Weltpolitik." Grand Admiral von Koster, President of the Navy League, writes:
The steady increase of our population compels us to devote special attention to the growth of our overseas interests. Nothing but the strong fulfilment of our naval programme can create for us that importance upon the free-world-sea which it is incumbent upon us to demand. The steady increase of our population compels us to set ourselves new goals and to grow from a Continental into a world power. Our mighty industry must aspire to new overseas conquests. Our world trade--which has more than doubled in twenty years, which has increased from 2500 million dollars to 4000 million dollars during the ten years in which our naval programme was fixed, and 3000 million dollars of which is sea-borne commerce--only can flourish if we continue honorably to bear the[Pg 21] burdens of our armaments on land and sea alike. Unless our children are to accuse us of short-sightedness, it is now our duty to se-cure our world power and position among other nations. We can do that only under the protection of a strong German fleet, a fleet which shall guarantee us peace with honor for the distant future.
One popular German writer sees the possibility of "overthrowing the British Empire" and "wiping it from the map of the world in less than twenty-four hours." (I quote his actual words, and I have heard a parallel utterance from the mouth of a serious English public man.) The author in question, in order to show how the thing could come about, deals with the matter prophetically. Writing from the standpoint of 1911,[4] he admits that--
At the beginning of the twentieth century Great Britain was a free, a rich, and a happy country, in which every citizen, from the Prime Minister to the dock-laborer, was proud to be a member of the world-ruling nation. At the head of the State were men possessing a general mandate to carry out their programme of government, whose actions were subject to the criticism of public opinion, represented by an independent Press. Educated for centuries in self-government, a race had grown up which seemed born
to rule. The highest triumphs attended England's skill in the art of government, in her handling of subject peoples.... And this[Pg 22] immense Empire, which stretched from the Cape to Cairo, over the southern half of Asia, over half of North America and the fifth continent, could be wiped from the map of the world in less than twenty-four hours! This apparently inexplicable fact will be intel-ligible if we keep in sight the circumstances which rendered possible the building up of England's colonial power. The true basis of her world supremacy was not her own strength, but the maritime weakness of all the other European nations. Their almost complete lack of naval preparations had given the English a position of monopoly which was used by them for the annexation of all those dominions which seemed of value. Had it been in England's power to keep the rest of the world as it was in the nineteenth century, the British Empire might have continued for an unlimited time. The awakening of the Continental States to their national possibilities and to political independence introduced quite new factors into Weltpolitik, and it was only a question of time as to how long England could maintain her position in the face of the changed circumstances.
And the writer tells how the trick was done, thanks to a fog, efficient espionage, the bursting of the English war balloon, and the
success of the German one in dropping shells at the correct tactical moment on to the British ships in the North Sea:
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This war, which was decided by a naval battle lasting a single hour, was of only three weeks' duration--hunger forced England into peace. In her conditions Germany showed a wise moderation. In addition to a war indemnity in accordance with the wealth of the two conquered[Pg 23] States, she contented herself with the acquisition of the African Colonies, with the exception of the southern States, which had proclaimed their independence, and these possessions were divided with the other two powers of the Triple Alliance. Nevertheless, this war was the end of England. A lost battle had sufficed to manifest to the world at large the feet of clay on which the dreaded Colossus had stood. In a night the British Empire had crumbled altogether; the pillars which English diplomacy had erected after years of labour had failed at the first test.
A glance at any average Pan-Germanist organ will reveal immediately how very nearly the foregoing corresponds to a somewhat prevalent type of political aspiration in Germany. One Pan-Germanist writer says:
"The future of Germany demands the absorption of Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, and Turkey, with the North Sea ports. Her realms will stretch towards the east from Berlin to Bagdad, and to Antwerp on the west."
For the moment we are assured there is no immediate intention of seizing the countries in question, nor is Germany's hand actually
ready yet to catch Belgium and Holland within the net of the Federated Empire.
"But," he says, "all these changes will happen within our epoch," and he fixes the time when the map of Europe will thus be rearranged as from twenty to thirty years hence.[Pg 24]
Germany, according to the writer, means to fight while she has a penny left and a man to carry arms, for she is, he says, "face to face
with a crisis which is more serious than even that of Jena."
And, recognizing the position, she is only waiting for the moment she judges the right one to break in pieces those of her neighbors who work against her.
France will be her first victim, and she will not wait to be attacked. She is, indeed, preparing for the moment when the allied Powers
attempt to dictate to her.
Germany, it would seem, has already decided to annex the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, and Belgium, incidentally with, of course, Antwerp, and will add all the northern provinces of France to her possessions, so as to secure Boulogne and Calais.
All this is to come like a thunderbolt, and Russia, Spain, and the rest of the Powers friendly to England will not dare to move a finger
to aid her. The possession of the coasts of France and Belgium will dispose of England's supremacy for ever.
In a book on South Africa entitled "Reisen Erlebnisse und Beobachtungen," by Dr. F. Bachmar, occurs the passage:
"My second object in writing this book is that it may happen to our children's children to possess that beautiful and unhappy land of whose final absorption (gewinnung) by our Anglo-Saxon cousins I have not the least belief. It may be our lot to unite this land with the German Fatherland, to be equally a blessing to Germany and South Africa."
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The necessity for armament is put in other than fictional form by so serious a writer as Dr. Gaevernitz, Pro-Rector of the University of Freiburg. Dr. Schulze-Gaevernitz is not unknown in England, nor is he imbued with inimical feelings towards her. But he takes the view that the commercial prosperity of Germany depends upon her political domination.[5]
After having described in an impressive way the astonishing growth of Germany's trade and commerce, and shown how dangerous a competitor Germany has become for England, he returns to the old question, and asks what might happen if England, unable to keep down the inconvenient upstart by economic means, should, at the eleventh hour, try to knock him down. Quotations from the National Review, the Observer, the Outlook, the Saturday Review, etc., facilitate the professor's thesis that this presumption is more than a mere abstract speculation. Granted that they voice only the sentiments of a small minority, they are, according to our author, dangerous for Germany in this--that they point to a feasible and consequently enticing solution. The old peaceful Free Trade, he says, shows signs of senility. A new and rising Imperialism is everywhere inclined to throw the weapons of political warfare into the arena of economic rivalry.