THE ALLIES AND PAN-GERMANISM
It is now twenty years that I have worked tirelessly to tear the veil
from the Pan-German scheme, which my investigations in all parts of
the world have enabled me to unearth. In spite of the positive and
abundant proofs of its existence which I have been publishing for
nineteen years, I was unable to persuade the responsible authorities
in France, Russia, or England, that a formidable peril was swiftly
and more swiftly drawing near. Paris and London were steeped in
blind pacifist delusions. As for Petrograd, the sinister Teutonic
influences which, until only yesterday, were at work on the highest
personages, prevented the great Russian people from knowing the real
nature of Germany’s projects.
If the Europeans most directly interested in knowing the truth were,
until the very outbreak of hostilities, completely hoodwinked as to
the true intentions of William II, it is only natural that Americans
should take some time to realize the staggering facts concerning the
fantastic and odious plan of world-domination so toilsomely built
up by the government at Berlin. In peace times, too, the affairs of
old Europe, especially the intricate tangle of Austro-Hungarian and
Balkan politics, had no practical interest for so vast and remote
a nation as the United States. This was particularly true of her
Western citizens. To-day, however, Americans as well as French,
British, Russians, and Italians, are faced with the obligation of
mastering the problems of Central European affairs; for, without
exaggeration, it is on the proper solution of these problems that the
independent existence of the United States depends.
As events have justified the views I have held for a score of years,
I trust my American readers will hold this fact in my favor. If I
should seem to run counter to the ideas they now hold, they should
realize that I do so deliberately, in order to save priceless time
and better serve their own legitimate interests.
I
The present situation in Europe is due to two factors: first, the
almost complete fulfillment by the Germans of a plan which they
had long been preparing with the utmost care; second, the repeated
mistakes of the Allies in their carrying on of the war—mistakes which
alone have permitted the Germans to consummate their plan almost
without opposition.
The Pan-Germanist programme of 1911 called for the establishment
of Prussian hegemony over a territory of nearly 4,015,000 square
kilometres—in other words, besides actual conquest in the
East and West, it meant the indirect, yet effective seizure of
Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, and Turkey. At the beginning of
1917—before the capture of Bagdad by the English and the strategic
retreat of the German troops in the West—the programme had been
realized to the extent of 3,600,000 square kilometres—that is, in
nine-tenths of its entirety.
The basic explanation of this achievement lies partly in the fact
that, if the Germans are outlaws they are very intelligent outlaws,
perfectly trained for the task of seizing the booty on which they
have set their hearts; partly in the fact that the leaders of the
Allies, intelligent and animated by the best intentions though they
are, have been quite unenlightened as to the multiple realities of
the European tangle, a thoroughgoing knowledge of which is absolutely
necessary for the conduct of the terrible war in progress.
The proof of this ignorance lies in the recognized truth that the
heads of the European states now in league against Germany were,
without exception, taken by surprise when war broke out. Posterity
will look on this fact with amazement. The governments of the Allies
were no better prepared to direct the war intellectually than were
their generals to carry it on materially. Now, the intellectual
prosecution of this war presents unprecedented difficulties: it
calls uncompromisingly for a detailed knowledge, not only of
matters military and naval, but of geographic, ethnographic,
economic, and political questions which, by reason of the scale of
the present conflict, react profoundly on all military operations
of general scope. As a result of this interpenetration of all the
various problems, the world-conflict is not, as many people still
believe, a purely military struggle, in which the mere machinery
of war plays a decisive role. In spite of appearances, mind—that
is, the intellectual element—dominates the material element which,
though indispensable, can attain full effectiveness only when it
is employed in furtherance of a definite plan of action, backed by
clear thinking; and such a plan can never be formulated unless the
ethnographic, psychological, economic, and geographic factors capable
of affecting every great movement of a general strategic nature are
calculated as carefully as the purely military factors. By reason
of the potency of these many factors—invisible, but very real and
powerful—it may be said: ‘This war is not a mere war of armaments—it
is a war of political science.’
It is because the strategists of Berlin have long recognized
this conception of modern warfare; it is because they have at
their fingers’ ends a documentation of political science, slowly
accumulated and of unquestionable worth, that they are in a position
to meet endless problems as they present themselves, and to
achieve successes against the Allies which, on the surface, appear
incomprehensible.
As for the leaders of the Allies, it seems as if many of them are
not alive to the element of political science in the war, even at
the present moment. The reason is simple. The same men who ignored
the realities of Pan-Germanism before the war are, naturally enough,
unable to grasp the politico-scientific, geographic, economic,
ethnographic, and psychological realities of all Europe now that the
conflict has burst on us. In the realm of the intellectual there
can be no improvisation. To master the politico-scientific elements
necessary for the prosecution of this war, there is need of minds
trained by the unremitting application of fifteen or twenty years.
Among the leaders of the Entente no man is to be found who has bent
his will to such intellectual effort; and the pressing problems
brought forth by each day give no time for minute, deliberate study
by the men who have succeeded to the seats of power since war began.
II
The capital mistakes in the prosecution of the war committed by the
Entente proceed directly from the defective equipment of its leaders
which I have just pointed out. They explain the difference in the
results obtained by the two groups of belligerents, although the
courage and self-sacrifice of the Allies’ soldiers are as great
as those of the Germans. They explain, too, why the three hundred
millions of the Allies—this takes no account of their colonial
resources or of the support drawn from trans-oceanic neutrals—have
not yet succeeded in defeating Germany, which entered the war with a
population of sixty-eight millions and one ally, Austria-Hungary, of
whose thirty million people three quarters were directly antagonistic
to Berlin.
These capital mistakes made by the Allies are as follows. They
believed that a friendly agreement with Bulgaria was possible,
although that country was treaty-bound to Berlin and Constantinople
long before the war. They cherished illusions concerning King
Constantine, who, above all else, was brother-in-law of the Kaiser.
They organized the Dardanelles expedition, which should never have
been attempted. Even if this operation had been judged technically
feasible, its futility would have been apparent if the Allies
had realized—and it was their arch-error not to realize—that the
strategic key to the whole European war was the Danube. The mere
occupation by the Allies of the territory stretching from Montenegro
through Serbia to Roumania, would have resolved all the essential
problems of the conflict. Cut off from the Central Empires, Bulgaria
and Turkey, whose arsenals were depleted by the Balkan disturbances
of 1912-1913, would have found it impossible to make a strong stand
against the Allies. Turkey, who had been imprudent enough to defy
them, would have been obliged to open the Straits within a very short
time, for sheer lack of munitions to defend them. This opening of the
Straits would have been effected by a strong pressure by the Allies
on the south of Hungary. Moreover, by the same action the Central
Empires would have been barred from reinforcements and supplies from
the Orient. Germany, finding herself cut off on land in the South as
she was blockaded by sea in the North, would have been obliged to
come to terms.
Unhappily, the general staffs of the Allies in the West were not
prepared to grasp the politico-scientific character of the war,
especially the cardinal importance of the economic factor. This
ignorance remained unenlightened until Roumania was crushed in
1916. As a result, for twenty-seven months the Balkans were looked
on by the leaders in the West as being of only secondary military
importance. During these twenty-seven months the Allies were obsessed
by the idea that they would vanquish Germany on the Western front by
a war of attrition. This conviction delayed the Saloniki-Belgrade
expedition, and when it was finally undertaken, it was on too small
a scale to insure success. Such a grave error would never have been
committed by the Allied strategists if they had fully realized that
the principal objective of the Pan-German scheme, for the attainment
of which Germany was primarily fighting, was the seizure of the
Orient. This point of view, however, was for a long time ignored, in
spite of the tireless efforts made by a few to demonstrate its vital
importance.
The Austro-Germans, profiting by this basic mistake of the civil and
military chiefs of the Entente, were able in October-November, 1915,
to join hands with Bulgaria and Turkey over the corpse of Serbia.
From that time on, the General Staff at Berlin has been profiting by
this situation, improving it and consolidating it by seizing half of
Roumania toward the close of 1916. The direct result of the mistakes
of the Allies, coupled with the methodical procedure of Berlin, has
been the realization of nine tenths of Pan-Germany.
This Pan-Germany is composed of two elements. First, the great
occupied territories taken by Germany from Belgium, France, Russia,
Serbia, and Roumania. Second, the practical seizure effected by her
at the expense of her own allies: Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and
Turkey; for, as a matter of fact, the Quadruple Alliance is nothing
but a great illusion carefully fostered by the Kaiser for the purpose
of concealing the true situation from the neutrals—particularly the
United States, which was then in that category. If one wishes to see
things as they are, one must realize that Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria,
and Turkey are _not_ the allies—that is, the equals—of Germany. These
three states are practically the vassals of Berlin, in whose sight
they count for scarcely more than Saxony or Bavaria. The principal
proof of this state of affairs lies in the fact that the Kaiser
wields an uncontested supremacy from Hamburg to the British front at
Bagdad.
Since the beginning of hostilities there has been a formidable
extension of Prussian militarism. At first, it held in its grasp only
the sixty-eight million people of the German Empire. By April, 1915,
it had extended and organized its influence among the thirty millions
of Austro-Hungarians, who until that time had taken orders from their
own independent military chiefs. After October-November, 1915,—the
date of Serbia’s downfall,—the Prussian system reached out to
Bulgaria and Turkey. By taking account of these extensions and adding
together the populations of the territories occupied by Germany,
together with those of her infatuated allies, one finds that to-day
Prussian militarism no longer controls sixty-eight million souls, as
at the beginning of the war, but about one hundred and seventy-six
million European and Ottoman subjects.
This is the brutal, overwhelming fact which Americans must face if
they wish to learn the sole solution of the war which will assure to
them, as well as to the rest of the world, a durable peace.
The following figures will show how the three groups of the
population of Pan-Germany were divided at the beginning of 1917:—
1. THE MASTERS
Germans 73,000,000
2. THE VASSALS
Magyars 10,000,000 }
Bulgars 5,000,000 } 21,000,000
Turks 6,000,000 }
3. THE SLAVES
French (about) 3,000,000 }
Belgians 7,500,000 }
Alsatians, Lorrainers 1,500,000 }
Danes 200,000 }
Poles, Lithuanians 22,000,000 }
Ruthenians 5,500,000 }
Czechs 8,500,000 } 82,000,000
Jugo-Slavs 11,000,000 }
Roumanians 8,000,000 }
Italians 800,000 }
Armenians 2,000,000 }
Levantines 2,000,000 }
Ottoman Greeks 2,000,000 }
Arabs 8,000,000 }
———————————
_Total_ 176,000,000
To sum up, seventy-three million Germans rule over twenty-one million
vassals and eighty-two million slaves,—Latin, Slavic, Semitic,
belonging to thirteen different nationalities,—who are bearing the
most cruel and unjustifiable yoke that the world has ever known.
It is undeniable, moreover, that each extension of Prussian
militarism over a new territory has enabled Germany to prolong the
struggle by obtaining new supplies of food, new reinforcements
to press into her service and territory to exploit, new civil
populations, whose labor is made use of even in works of a military
nature. As a result, the technical problem now confronting the
Allies in Europe is, through the mistakes of their former leaders,
infinitely more complicated than at the outbreak of hostilities.
To-day Berlin, by means of Prussian terrorism methodically and
pitilessly employed, disposes of the military and economic resources
of one hundred and seventy-six million people, occupying a strategic
position in the centre of Europe which is all to her profit. It is
this very state of things, founded on the slavery of eighty-two
millions of human beings, which is intolerable.
III
Many times, and rightly, the Allies have declared that it was not
their object to exterminate the German people and bring about their
political extinction. On the other hand, it is just and essential
to proclaim that Pan-Germany must be destroyed. On this depends the
liberty, not only of Europe, but of the whole world. This is the
point of view which, in the crisis of to-day, should prevail with
Americans, for the following reasons. Suppose that Pan-Germany were
able to maintain itself in its present position. It cannot be denied
that its territory contains considerable latent military and economic
resources, as well as strategic positions of world-significance,
like the Dardanelles. If these resources were freely exploited
and developed to their highest pitch by the relentless organizing
spirit of Berlin, Prussianized Pan-Germany, dividing Europe in two,
would dominate the Continent, uncontestably and indefinitely, by
means of her crushing strength. France, Russia, England, Italy,
ceasing to exist as great powers, could only submit to Germany’s
will. And Berlin, mistress of Europe, would soon realize, not
merely the Hamburg-Bagdad and Antwerp-Bagdad railways, but the
Brest-Bagdad line as well; for Brest has long been coveted secretly
by the Pan-Germanists, who would make of it the great military and
commercial transatlantic port of Prussianized Europe.
Moreover, if Germany achieved the ruin of the Allies, it is entirely
probable that the General Staff of William II would launch a
formidable expedition against the United States without delay, in
order to allow her no time to organize herself against the Prussian
tyranny hypothetically dominating Europe. Even if Berlin felt it
necessary to defer this step, Americans would none the less be forced
to prepare for the inevitable struggle and to serve an apprenticeship
to militarism which would be odious to them. If Americans, then,
see things as they really are, and perceive the dangers to which
they are pledging their future, they will be convinced that they,
as much as Europeans, have a vital interest in the annihilation of
Pan-Germanism. In a word, it is clear that any peril accruing to the
United States from Europe can arise only from so formidable a power
as Pan-Germany, and not from a Germany kept within her legitimate
frontiers, and forced to behave herself, by the balance of other
powers.
We must also realize that the moral considerations at stake are a
matter of the liveliest interest to the United States. Can republican
America allow the feudal spirit which kindled the torch of this war
to triumph over the world? This spirit is made up of the following
elements: the feudalism of the Prussian Junkers, chief prop and
stay of the Hohenzollerns; the feudalism of the great Austrian
land-owners; the feudalism of the Magyar grandees, whose caste-spirit
is precisely the same as that of the Prussian lordlings; and the
Turkish feudalism of Enver Bey and his friends. In other words,
this four-ply feudal spirit which is the basis of Pan-Germany is
in radical and absolute opposition to the democratic spirit of the
modern world. Granting for a moment that Germany were victorious,
Russia, after a frightful reign of anarchy, would be forced to submit
once more to the yoke of autocracy. As for the peoples of Western
Europe, reduced to worse than slavery, they could only renounce their
dearest ideals—the ideals for which they have shed their blood for
centuries.
The present war, then, is manifestly a struggle _à outrance_ between
democracy and feudalism. To Americans as well as to Europeans falls
the task, not only of preserving their corporeal independence, but of
saving our common civilization. This can be accomplished only by the
destruction of Pan-Germanism.
It is plain that Berlin, failing so far to crush the Allies
completely, is bending every effort to maintaining Pan-Germany in
its present position, so that, after peace is declared, it may
crystallize and swiftly develop its full power. When, in December,
1916, President Wilson requested the belligerents to make known
the causes for which they were fighting, the government of Berlin
issued no definite statement. The reason for this attitude is plain.
If Berlin still hopes to enforce her outrageous pretensions by her
immense military power, she cannot possibly put down her terms in
black and white, in a document subject to general perusal, without
instantly calling down on her head the blazing reprobation of the
civilized world.
The Allies, on the contrary, replied to Mr. Wilson’s question easily
and with precision.
The universal attention drawn to this reply has entailed advantages
and disadvantages. By the very nature of things, the Allies
definitely announced that the smaller nationalities in Turkey,
Austria-Hungary, and the Balkans must be set free, thus implying a
radical opposition to the Hamburg-Persian Gulf idea. This has enabled
Berlin, for one thing, to bind her accomplices at Vienna, Budapest,
Sofia, and Constantinople more closely, if possible, to her cause,
and also to galvanize for a still longer period the forces of the
German people, who are resolved to endure the bitterest suffering in
order to insure, after peace comes, the immense advantages accruing
from the _fait accompli_ of Pan-Germanism.
By way of compensation for this, the publicity given the reply of
the Allies has accomplished two excellent ends. First of all, it has
permitted every one to see that the common purpose of the Allies is
to solve the Central European problem, which, as a matter of fact,
is not only of European, but of universal interest, since such a
solution puts a quietus on German dreams of world-domination. This
publicity, too, has made it possible to compare the principles
invoked by the Allies in their peace-terms with those of President
Wilson, proclaimed in his message to the Senate on January 22, 1917,
and to establish the fact that these principles are identical.
IV
The reason for this harmonious point of view lies in the adoption of
the principle of nationality by the Allies and by President Wilson
as the fundamental basis for the reconstruction of the Europe of
to-morrow. Because of this point in common, it is evident that the
war measures of the Allies and the pacific endeavors of Mr. Wilson
have in view the same general geographic solutions of the problem
of organizing Europe on the lines of a durable peace. This is a
fact of the utmost importance, as I tried to show with the aid
of maps in an article in _L’Illustration_, of February 27, 1917.
Allies and Americans, then, may join hands and press resolutely
ahead,—especially since the Russian Revolution has come to pass,—for,
with a common ideal, their general practical solutions for meeting
this formidable crisis cannot but be identical.
In order to understand fully the seriousness of the situation, one
must distinguish clearly between the moral position of the Allies and
the strategic positions of the two groups of belligerents. The moral
position of the Allies is excellent. After Washington and Peking
broke with Berlin, and especially after the magnificent revolution
in Russia, after Bagdad fell and a fraction of the invaded French
territory was won back, the spirit of the Allies was all that could
be desired. But even while recognizing the excellence of this moral
strength and its potentialities of success, we must first of all
consider the general strategic situation. The events of this war have
plainly shown that, unfortunately, brute force in the service of the
lowest passions can prevail over the holiest rights, the purest
aspirations. Since August, 1914, incontestable rights have been
violated, and noble nations martyrized.
Let us face the cruel truth and say: the Allies may yet be completely
vanquished if certain developments come about, or if new strategic
mistakes are added to those portentous ones which nearly lost them
the fight, in spite of the righteousness of their cause and their
immense, if badly employed, latent resources. If we wish, then,
really to understand the crisis of to-day and the mighty peril which
still menaces the world’s liberty, we must not shrink from meeting
the realities of the military situation. We must be ready to face the
most serious developments that can be conceived. Such an attitude
implies, not pessimism, but that readiness for the worst which lies
at the root of military wisdom.
Let us now accept the following facts. The troops of France are
beginning to be exhausted. The iniquitous administration of the Tsar
had seriously compromised the provisioning of the Russian army with
food and munitions. In that vast country, where conditions were ripe
for idealistic extremists to guide the revolution toward pacifism or
anarchy, there are alarming symptoms of the prevalence of the latter
condition. The swarming agents of Germany are working there without
respite. If their efforts shall finally succeed, the strength of
Russia will swiftly dissolve. This would practically insure a German
victory, for, with the Russian armies demoralized, all the forces
of Pan-Germany could be flung against the Franco-British front.
Moreover, if, from the moral standpoint, the Berlin government is
universally to be despised, the same cannot be said about her general
technical military ability, whose elements are as follows.
Berlin is incontestably mistress of Pan-Germany—that is, she has
absolute disposal of vast resources in men and in the manifold
products of a great territory with a population of one hundred
and seventy-six millions. The Kaiser’s Great General Staff, whose
intellectual resourcefulness cannot be questioned, is quick to make
the most of every lesson taught by the war. The annual levies of
men from the various territories of Pan-Germany certainly outnumber
the losses sustained each year by her troops. It is therefore, in
my opinion, a grave error to assume, as the Allies have done, that
the Germans can be beaten by mere attrition of their forces. By
organizing under one uniform system the soldiery furnished by the
many different countries of Pan-Germany, Prussian militarism has
unquestionably given its troops a cohesion and a unity unknown to the
vassal-allies of Germany before the war. This state of affairs has
undoubtedly added to the military effectiveness of the vast armies
which take their orders from Berlin.
The German military authorities most advantageously employed the
respites given them by the strategic errors of the Allies. Never
have the broad lines of trenches, the far-flung battle frontiers,
been more powerfully guarded than now. Never have the Germans had
more abundant stores of munitions. Never has the network of railways
covering the length and breadth of Pan-Germany been so complete.
Never has the Great General Staff, making full use of its central
position, been better able to concentrate on any front with lightning
speed. For these reasons, it is my opinion that we may safely say
that never before has the Berlin government, from a military point
of view, been so strong. The various statistics which justify such
a conclusion are, I think, to be relied on. Even supposing them to
be exaggerated, it is much better to run the risk of overestimating
the enemy’s strength than to underestimate it. Many of the Allies’
mistakes sprang from neglect of this axiom.