When I say that we must constantly endeavor to be equal to all
contingencies, I mean by that to claim that we must make greater
exertions than other powers in order to attain the same result, because
of our geographical position. We are situated in the middle of Europe.
We have at least three fronts of attack. France has only its eastern
frontier, Russia only its western frontier, on which it can be attacked.
We are, moreover, in consequence of the whole development of the world's
history, in consequence of our geographical position, and perhaps in
consequence of the slighter degree of internal cohesion which the German
nation as compared with others has thus far possessed, more exposed than
any other people to the risk of a coalition. God has placed us in a
situation in which we are prevented by our neighbors from sinking into
any sort of indolence or stagnation. He has set at our side the most
war-like and the most restless of nations, the French; and he has
permitted warlike inclinations, which in former centuries existed in no
such degree, to grow strong in Russia. Thus we get a certain amount of
spurring on both sides, and are forced into exertions which otherwise
perhaps we should not make. The pikes in the European carp-pond prevent
us from becoming carps, by letting us feel their prickles on both our
flanks; they constrain us to exertions which perhaps we should not
voluntarily make; they constrain us Germans also to a harmony among
ourselves that is repugnant to our inmost nature: but for them, our
tendency would rather be to separate. But the Franco-Russian press in
which we are caught forces us to hold together, and by its pressure it
will greatly increase our capacity for cohesion, so that we shall reach
in the end that state of inseparableness which characterizes nearly all
other nations, and which we still lack. But we must adapt ourselves to
this decree of Providence by making ourselves so strong that the pikes
can do no more than enliven us....
The bill gives us an increase in troops trained to arms--a possible
increase: if we do not need it, we need not call for it; we can leave it
at home. But if we have this increase at our disposal, and if we have
the weapons for it, ... then this new law constitutes a reinforcement
of the guarantees of peace, a reinforcement of the league of peace, that
is precisely as strong as if a fourth great power with an army of
700,000 men--and this was formerly the greatest strength that
existed--had joined the alliance. This powerful reinforcement will also,
I believe, have a quieting effect upon our own countrymen, and lessen in
some degree the nervousness of our public opinion, our stock-market, and
our press. I hope it will act upon them as a sedative when they clearly
comprehend that from the moment at which this law is signed and
published the men are there. The armament too may be said to be ready,
in the shape of what is absolutely necessary: but we must procure a
better, for if we form an army of triarians of the best human material
that we have,--of the men above thirty, the husbands and fathers,--we
must have for them the best weapons there are. We must not send them
into the fight with an outfit that we do not regard as good enough for
our young troops of the line. The solid men, the heads of families,
these stalwart figures that we can still remember from the time that
they held the bridge of Versailles,--these men must have the best rifles
on their shoulders, the completest armament, and the amplest clothing to
protect them from wind and weather. We ought not to economize
there.--But I hope it will tranquilize our fellow-citizens, if they are
really thinking of the contingency (which I do not expect to occur) of
our being attacked simultaneously on two sides,--of course, as I have
pointed out in reviewing the events of the last forty years, there is
always the possibility of any sort of coalition,--I hope it will
tranquillize them to remember that if this happens, we can have a
million good soldiers to defend each of our frontiers. At the same time
we can keep in the rear reserves of half a million and more, of a
million even, and we can push these forward as they are needed. I have
been told, "That will only result in the others going still higher." But
they cannot. They have long ago reached their limits.... In numbers they
have gone as high as we, but in quality they cannot compete with us.
Bravery, of course, is equal among all civilized nations; the Russian
and the Frenchman fight as bravely as the German: but our men, our
700,000 new men, have seen service; they are soldiers who have served
their time, and who have not yet forgotten their training. Besides--and
this is a point in which no people in the world can compete with us--we
have the material for officers and under-officers to command this
enormous army. It is here that competition is excluded, because it
involves a peculiarly broad extension of popular culture, such as exists
in Germany and in no other country....
There is a further advantage that will result from the adoption of this
law: the very strength at which we are aiming necessarily makes us
peaceful. That sounds paradoxical, but it is true. With the powerful
machine which we are making of the German army no aggression will be
attempted. If I saw fit--assuming a different situation to exist from
that which in my conviction does exist'--to come before you here to-day
and say to you, "We are seriously menaced by France and Russia; the
prospect is that we shall be attacked: such at least is my conviction,
as a diplomatist, on the basis of the military information that we have
received; it is to our advantage to defend ourselves by anticipating the
attack, and to strike at once; an offensive war is a better one for us
to wage, and I accordingly ask the Imperial Diet for a credit of a
milliard or half a milliard, in order to undertake to-day the war
against our two neighbors,"--well, gentlemen, I do not know whether you
would have such confidence in me as to grant such a request. I hope not.
But if you did, it would not be enough for me. If we in Germany desire
to wage a war with the full effect of our national power, it must be a
war with which all who help to wage it, and all who make sacrifices for
it--with which, in a word, all the nation--must be in sympathy. It must
be a people's war; it must be a war that is carried on with the same
enthusiasm as that of 1870, when we were wickedly attacked. I remember
still the joyful shouts that rang in our ears at the Cologne station; it
was the same thing from Berlin to Cologne; it was the same thing here in
Berlin. The waves of popular approval bore us into the war, whether we
liked it or not. So it must be, if a national force like ours is to be
brought fully into operation. It will be very difficult, however, to
make it clear to the provinces, to the federal states and to their
people, that a war is inevitable, that it must come. It will be asked:
"Are you so sure of it? Who knows?" If we finally come to the point of
making the attack, all the weight of the imponderables, which weigh much
more than the material weights, will be on the side of our antagonist
whom we have attacked. "Holy Russia" will be filled with indignation at
the attack. France will glisten with weapons to the Pyrenees. The same
thing will happen everywhere. A war into which we are not borne by the
will of the people--such a war will of course be carried on, if in the
last instance the established authorities consider and have declared it
to be necessary. It will be carried on with energy and perhaps
victoriously, as soon as the men come under fire and have seen blood;
but there will not be back of it, from the start, the same dash and heat
as in a war in which we are attacked....
I do not believe--to sum up--that any disturbance of the peace is in
immediate prospect; and I ask you to deal with the law that lies before
you, independently of any such idea or apprehension, simply as a means
for making the great force which God has lodged in the German nation
completely available in the event of our needing it. If we do not need
it, we shall not call for it. We seek to avoid the chance of our needing
it. This effort on our part is still, in some degree, impeded by
threatening newspaper articles from foreign countries; and I wish to
address to foreign countries especially the admonition to discontinue
these threats. They lead to nothing. The threat which we receive, not
from the foreign government, but in the press, is really a piece of
incredible stupidity, if you think what it means--that by a certain
combination of words, by a certain threatening shape given to printer's
ink, a great and proud power like the German Empire is assumed to be
capable of intimidation. This should be discontinued; and then it would
be made easier for us to assume a more conciliatory and obliging
attitude toward our two neighbors. Every country is responsible in the
long run, somehow and at some time, for the windows broken by its press;
the bill is presented some day or other, in the ill-humor of the other
country. We can easily be influenced by love and good-will,--too easily
perhaps,--but most assuredly not by threats. We Germans fear God, but
nothing else in the world; and it is the fear of God that makes us love
and cherish peace. But whoever, despite this, breaks it, will find that
the warlike patriotism that in 1813, when Prussia was weak, small, and
exhausted by plunder, brought her whole population under her banners,
has to-day become the common heritage of the whole German nation; and
whoever attacks the German nation will find it united in arms, and in
every soldier's heart the firm faith "God will be with us."