Having thus indicated briefly the position, the perils, and the ambitions
of the other Great Powers of Europe, let us turn to consider the proper
subject of this essay, the policy of Germany. And first let us dwell on the
all-important fact that Germany, as a Great Power, is a creation of the
last fifty years. Before 1866 there was a loose confederation of German
States, after 1870 there was an Empire of the Germans. The transformation
was the work of Bismarck, and it was accomplished by "blood and iron."
Whether it could have been accomplished otherwise is matter of speculation.
That it was accomplished so is a fact, and a fact of tragic significance.
For it established among Germans the prestige of force and fraud, and gave
them as their national hero the man whose most characteristic act was the
falsification of the Ems telegram. If the unification could have been
achieved in 1848 instead of in 1870, if the free and generous idealism of
that epoch could have triumphed, as it deserved to, if Germans had not
bartered away their souls for the sake of the kingdom of this world, we
might have been spared this last and most terrible act in the bloody drama
of European history. If even, after 1866, 1870 had not been provoked, the
catastrophe that is destroying Europe before our eyes might never have
overwhelmed us. In the crisis of 1870 the French minister who fought so
long and with such tenacity, for peace saw and expressed, with the lucidity
of his nation, what the real issue was for Germany and for Europe:--
There exists, it is true, a barbarous Germany, greedy of battles and
conquest, the Germany of the country squires; there exists a Germany
pharisaic and iniquitous, the Germany of all the unintelligible pedants
whose empty lucubrations and microscopic researches have been so unduly
vaunted. But these two Germanies are not the great Germany, that of
the artists, the poets, the thinkers, that of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven,
Goethe, Schiller, Heine, Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, Liebig. This latter
Germany is good, generous, humane, pacific; it finds expression in the
touching phrase of Goethe, who when asked to write against us replied
that he could not find it in his heart to hate the French. If we do not
oppose the natural movement of German unity, if we allow it to complete
itself quietly by successive stages, it will not give supremacy to the
barbarous and sophistical Germany, it will assure it to the Germany of
intellect and culture. War, on the other hand, would establish, during
a time impossible to calculate, the domination of the Germany of the
squires and the pedants.[1]
The generous dream was not to be realized. French chauvinism fell into
the trap Bismarck had prepared for it. Yet even at the last moment his war
would have escaped him had he not recaptured it by fraud. The publication
of the Ems telegram made the conflict inevitable, and one of the most
hideous and sinister scenes in all history is that in which the three
conspirators, Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon, "suddenly recovered their
pleasure in eating and drinking," because, by publishing a lie, they
had secured the certain death in battle of hundreds and thousands of
young men. The spirit of Bismarck has infected the whole public life
of Germany and of Europe. It has given a new lease to the political
philosophy of Machiavelli; and made of every budding statesman and
historian a solemn or a cynical defender of the gospel of force. But,
though this be true, we have no right therefore to assume that there is
some peculiar wickedness which marks off German policy from that of all
other nations. Machiavellianism is the common heritage of Europe. It is
the translation into idea of the fact of international anarchy. Germans
have been more candid and brutal than others in their expression and
application of it, but statesmen, politicians, publicists, and historians
in every nation accept it, under a thicker or thinner veil of plausible
sophisms. It is everywhere the iron hand within the silken glove. It is
the great European tradition.
Although, moreover, it was by these methods that Bismarck accomplished
the unification of Germany, his later policy was, by common consent, a
policy of peace. War had done its part, and the new Germany required all
its energies to build up its internal prosperity and strength. In 1875,
it is true, Bismarck was credited with the intention to fall once more
upon France. The fact does not seem to be clearly established. At any
rate, if such was his intention, it was frustrated by the intervention of
Russia and of Great Britain. During the thirty-nine years that followed
Germany kept the peace.
While France, England, and Russia waged wars on a great scale, and while
the former Powers acquired enormous extensions of territory, the only
military operations undertaken by Germany were against African natives
in her dependencies and against China in 1900. The conduct of the German
troops appears, it is true, to have been distinguished, in this latter
expedition, by a brutality which stood out in relief even in that orgy of
slaughter and loot. But we must remember that they were specially ordered
by their Imperial master, in the name of Jesus Christ, to show no mercy
and give no quarter. Apart from this, it will not be disputed, by any one
who knows the facts, that during the first twenty years or so after 1875
Germany was the Power whose diplomacy was the least disturbing to Europe.
The chief friction during that period was between Russia and France and
Great Britain, and it was one or other of these Powers, according to the
angle of vision, which was regarded as offering the menace of aggression.
If there has been a German plot against the peace of the world, it does
not date from before the decade 1890-1900. The close of that decade
marks, in fact, a new epoch in German policy. The years of peace had
been distinguished by the development of industry and trade and internal
organization. The population increased from forty millions in 1870 to over
sixty-five millions at the present date. Foreign trade increased more than
ten-fold. National pride and ambition grew with the growth of prosperity
and force, and sentiment as well as need impelled German policy to claim
a share of influence outside Europe in that greater world for the control
of which the other nations were struggling. Already Bismarck, though with
reluctance and scepticism, had acquired for his country by negotiation
large areas in Africa. But that did not satisfy the ambitions of the
colonial party. The new Kaiser put himself at the head of the new movement,
and announced that henceforth nothing must be done in any part of the world
without the cognizance and acquiescence of Germany.
Thus there entered a new competitor upon the stage of the world, and
his advent of necessity was disconcerting and annoying to the earlier
comers. But is there reason to suppose that, from that moment, German
policy was definitely aiming at empire, and was prepared to provoke war
to achieve it? Strictly, no answer can be given to this question. The
remoter intentions of statesmen are rarely avowed to others, and, perhaps,
rarely to themselves. Their policy is, indeed, less continuous, less
definite, and more at the mercy of events than observers or critics are
apt to suppose. It is not probable that Germany, any more than any other
country in Europe, was pursuing during those years a definite plan,
thought out and predetermined in every point.
In Germany, as elsewhere, both in home and foreign affairs, there was an
intense and unceasing conflict of competing forces and ideas. In Germany,
as elsewhere, policy must have adapted itself to circumstances, different
personalities must have given it different directions at different times.
We have not the information at our disposal which would enable us to trace
in detail the devious course of diplomacy in any of the countries of
Europe. What we know something about is the general situation, and the
action, in fact, taken at certain moments. The rest must be, for the
present, mainly matter of conjecture. With this word of caution, let
us now proceed to examine the policy of Germany.
The general situation we have already indicated. We have shown how the
armed peace, which is the chronic malady of Europe, had assumed during the
ten years from 1904 to 1914 that specially dangerous form which grouped the
Great Powers in two opposite camps--the Triple Alliance and the Triple
Entente. We have seen, in the case of Great Britain, France, Russia, and
Austria-Hungary, how they came to take their places in that constellation.
We have now to put Germany in its setting in the picture.
Germany, then, in the first place, like the other Powers, had occasion
to anticipate war. It might be made from the West, on the question of
Alsace-Lorraine; it might be made from the East, on the question of the
Balkans. In either case, the system of alliances was likely to bring into
play other States than those immediately involved, and the German Powers
might find themselves attacked on all fronts, while they knew in the
latter years that they could not count upon the support of Italy.
A reasonable prudence, if nothing else, must keep Germany armed and
apprehensive. But besides the maintenance of what she had, Germany was
now ambitious to secure her share of "world-power." Let us examine in
what spirit and by what acts she endeavoured to make her claim good.
First, what was the tone of public opinion in Germany during these
critical years?
[Footnote 1: Emile Ollivier, "L'Empire Libéral."]