Part 23 (1/2)
It was solely the fear of perpetuating British supremacy[189] which has led Germany consistently to reject the extended hand of friends.h.i.+p.
Standing side by side with Great Britain, either in friends.h.i.+p or alliance, Germany would have given her approval to Britain's historical position in the world. When this country departed from the policy of ”splendid isolation” repeated attempts were made to establish more intimate relations with Germany (1898-1902).
[Footnote 189: Graf Ernst zu Reventlow: ”Der Vampir des Festlandes (”England, the Vampire of the Continent”). Berlin, 1915, p. 117.
”England's withdrawal from the policy which sought to establish a mutual plan of procedure in world politics between Germany and Britain dates from the time when Britain recognized that Germany would not allow herself to be employed against Russia. In Germany to-day, voices may be heard proclaiming that von Bulow chose wrongly in refusing England's offer, especially as Russia has repaid our loyalty and friends.h.i.+p with iniquitous ingrat.i.tude. The latter represents the truth.
”But in judging the policy of that period two factors must be borne in mind. The acceptance of Great Britain's offer would have placed a tie upon the German Empire which would have been unendurable. Germany would have become the strong but stupid Power, whose duty would have been to fight British battles on the continent. Besides which the choice concerned Germany's world future, above all the development of the German war fleet.”]
But as Professor Marcks (p. 315) observes: ”Germany refused the hand extended to her.” Count Reventlow and a host of other writers have chronicled the fact too, yet on September 2nd, 1914, the German Chancellor dared to say to representative American journalists: ”When the archives are opened then the world will learn how often Germany has offered the hand of friends.h.i.+p to England.”
It is only one more confirmation that the ”law of necessity” is incompatible with the truth. The truth is that Germany preferred to drive Britain into another and hostile camp rather than have her friends.h.i.+p. Germany preferred British hostility rather than relinquish her plans for unlimited naval expansion--which she believed to be the only means of destroying Britain's position, and with that resolution already taken the Kaiser presented his photograph to a distinguished Englishman with this significant remark written on it with his own hand: ”I bide my time!”
Although Britain drew the sword to defend Belgium, the supreme issue--and the only one which occupies the German mind to-day--is whether this country shall continue to hold the position allotted to her by destiny and confirmed by history, or whether she is to be supplanted by Germany. That is the one political thought which permeates German intelligence at this moment, and no other considerations must be allowed to darken this issue.
Professor Oncken reviews the events of the period 1900-1914 in considerable detail, and to him the policy of _ententes_ appears to be the main cause leading up to the world war. From this alone it is obvious that, consciously or unconsciously, he is wrong; the _ententes_ in themselves are results, not prime causes. The prime causes leading to these political agreements are to be found in Germany's att.i.tude to the rest of Europe. In a word they were defensive actions taken by the Powers concerned, as a precaution against German aggression.
German aggression consisted in committing herself to unlimited armaments, cheris.h.i.+ng the irreconcilable determination to be the strongest European power. According to her doctrine of might, everything can be attained by the mightiest. British advances she answered with battles.h.i.+ps, simultaneously provoking France and Russia by increasing her army corps. The balance of power in Europe, Germany declares to be an out-of-date British fad, invented solely in the interests of these islands.
In secret Germany has long been an apostate to the balance-of-power theory; the war has caused her to drop the mask, and it was without doubt her resolve never to submit to the chains of the balance in Europe, which forced three other States to waive their differences and form the Triple Entente. Simply stated this is cause and result. But Professor Oncken maintains--and in doing so he voices German national opinion--that the entire _entente_ policy was a huge scheme to bring about Germany's downfall.
He goes further and proclaims that the Hague Conference (1907) was a British trick to place the guilt of armaments on Germany's shoulders.
”England filled the world with disarmament projects so that afterwards, full of unction, she could denounce Germany as the disturber of the peace. At that time the Imperial Chancellor answered justly: 'Pressure cannot be brought to bear on Germany, not even moral pressure!'”[190]
And in that sentence German obstinacy and sullen irreconcilability is most admirably expressed.
[Footnote 190: ”Deutschland und der Weltkrieg,” p. 495.]
Having seen that Professor Oncken has failed to recognize the prime causes which provoked the _entente_ policy, it is not surprising to find him equally in error when discussing the diplomatic clashes between the rival camps. The professor calls them _Machtproben_ (”tests of power”); but how he can dare to state that these diplomatic trials of strength were engineered by Great Britain--remains his own secret.
”King Edward's meeting with the Czar at Reval in June, 1908, was followed by a far-reaching Macedonian reform programme, the commencement of the division of European Turkey. What Britain had failed to induce Germany to help her in executing, was to be attained with the sword's point directed against Germany. And Britain proceeded in cold blood to conjure up an era of might-struggles, which, in the island language, is called preserving the balance of power.”[191]
[Footnote 191: Ibid., p. 297.]
The trials of strength recounted by Oncken are the Bosnian crisis, the Morocco question, and the Austro-Serbian quarrel which led to the present war. It seems ba.n.a.l to have to point out that Bosnia was unlawfully annexed by Germany's va.s.sal--Austria; that Germany, herself, brought Europe to the verge of war by sending the _Panther_ to Agadir; and that the final catastrophic _Machtprobe_ was likewise provoked by Germany's eastern va.s.sal.
For good or evil Germany has been convinced for nearly two decades that the balance of power in Europe was an obstacle to her world future.
Furthermore, she believed that the balance imposed fetters upon her which only mighty armaments could break. All Germany's energies in the domain of diplomacy have been set in motion to make the balance of power a mere figment of the imagination.
In pursuing this end it has suited her purpose to declare all attempts at maintaining the outward appearances of equality between the Powers of Europe to be Machiavellian schemes against her existence; or to cite the Kaiser's own words, ”to deprive Germany of her place in the sun.”
Britain's _entente_ policy was the only one calculated to preserve our own existence, and to restrain Germany from establis.h.i.+ng a hegemony in Europe. She was completely convinced that the domination of Europe belonged to her by right of mental, moral and military superiority over her neighbours. Not in vain have Germany's educational inst.i.tutions inculcated the belief in her population that the British Empire is an effete monstrosity with feet of clay; France a rotten, decaying empire, and Russia a barbarian Power with no new _Kultur_ to offer Europe except the knout.
Inspired by such conceptions, together with an astoundingly exaggerated idea of Germany's peerlessness in order, discipline, obedience, morality, genius and other ethical values, as well as an unshaken belief in Germany's invincibility by land and sea--the entire nation, from Kaiser to cobbler, has long since held that by right of these virtues--by right of her absolute superiority over all other nations--Germany could and must claim other rights and powers than those which fell to her under an antiquated balance of European power.
In few words that is the gospel of _Deutschland, Deutschland, uber alles_. These are the motives which inspired Germany's naval expansion and forbade her to accept a compromise. The same ideals led to her endeavours to shatter the _ententes_, and it is alone the general acceptance of this gospel, which explains the remarkable unanimity with which the German nation has stood behind the Kaiser's Government in each trial of strength. They have learned to consider all attempts of the lesser peoples (Britain, France and Russia included) to maintain themselves against the Teutonic onset as impudent attacks on sacred Germany, which also illuminates the fact that Germans call the present struggle--”Germany's holy, sacred war.”
German statesmen were quite clear as to the national course at least fifteen years ago. Hence they have persistently pursued a policy of no compromise and no agreements. A compromise recognizes and perpetuates, in part at least, the very thing which stands in the way. An agreement with Britain in regard to naval armaments would have perpetuated British naval supremacy, as well as recognized its necessity. Likewise an agreement, or the shadow of an understanding with France on the question of Alsace-Lorraine would have been a recognition of French claims. Hence on these two questions--which are merely given as examples ill.u.s.trative of German mentality--every attempt at an agreement has been a failure.
A cardinal point in Germany's programme has been the consistent manner in which she has tried to separate her European neighbours from Britain in order to deal with them separately or alone. That her endeavours ended in failure is due to the instinct of self-preservation which has drawn Germany's opponents closer together, in exact proportion to the increasing force of her efforts. Both in peace and war, Germany desired and endeavoured to switch off Britain's influence in Europe.
The diplomatic battles of 1905, 1908 and 1911 were a few of the efforts to dislodge Great Britain from her _ententes_, while her repeated attempts to buy this country's neutrality, down to the eve of war, are proof that Germany wanted a free hand in Europe.[192] If she had succeeded in her purpose, it is exceedingly doubtful whether any Power could have prevented her from exercising a free hand in the whole world.