By Kuno Francke.
It is easy to see why American public opinion should have condemned by
an overwhelming majority the diplomatic acts of Austria and Hungary
which have been the immediate occasion of the terrific explosion which
now shakes the foundations of the whole civilized world. Austria's break
with Servia and Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality--the one
leading to war between Russia and Germany, the other bringing England
into the fray--must appear to the uninitiated as reckless and
indefensible provocations and as wanton attacks upon the laws of
nations.
The thoughtful observer, however, should look beyond the immediate
occasion of this world conflict and try to understand its underlying
causes. By doing so he will, I believe, come to the conclusion that
fundamental justice is to be found on the German side, and that Germany
has been forced to fight for her life.
It is an unquestionable fact that the unification of Germany and the
establishment of a strong German Empire, half a century ago, were
brought about against the bitter opposition of France, and that the
defeat incurred by France in 1870, in her attempt to prevent German
unification, is at the bottom of the constant irritation that has
agitated Europe during the last forty-three years. Germany's policy
toward France during these forty-three years has been one of utmost
restraint and forbearance, and has been dictated by the one desire of
making her forget the loss of the two provinces, German until the
seventeenth century and inhabited by German stock, which were won back
from France in 1870. Whether the acquisition of these provinces was a
fortunate thing for Germany may be doubted. The possession of
Alsace-Lorraine has certainly robbed Germany of the undivided sympathy
of the world, which she otherwise would have had. But it is probably
true that from the military point of view Alsace-Lorraine was needed by
Germany as a bulwark against the repetition of the many wanton French
invasions from which Germany has had to suffer since the time of the
Thirty Years' War and the age of Louis XIV.
Sought to Heal the Breach.
However this may be, Germany has done her best during the last four
decades to heal the wounds struck by her to French national pride. She
abetted French colonial expansion in Cochin-China, Madagascar, Tunis.
She yielded to France her own well-founded claims to political influence
in Morocco. In Alsace-Lorraine itself she introduced an amount of local
self-government and home rule such as England has not accorded even now
to Ireland. While Ireland still is waiting for a Parliament at Dublin,
Strassburg has been for years the seat of the Alsace-Lorraine Diet, a
provincial Parliament based on universal suffrage. And even in spite of
the incessant and inflammatory French propaganda which last year led to
such unhappy counter-strokes as the deplorable Zabern affair, there can
be no reasonable doubt that the people of Alsace-Lorraine have been
gradually settling down to willing co-operation with the German
administration--an administration which insures them order, justice, and
prosperity. Nothing is a clearer indication of the peaceable trend which
affairs have lately taken in Alsace-Lorraine than the fact that the
Nationalists, i.e., French party, in the Strassburg Diet has never been
able to rise above insignificance, and that, on the other hand, a
considerable number of responsible officers in the civil administration,
including the highest Governmental positions, have been occupied by
native Alsatians.
While Germany has thus repeatedly shown her willingness and desire to
end the ancient feud, France has remained irreconcilable; and
particularly the intellectual class of France cannot escape the charge
that they have persistently and willfully kept alive the flame of
discord.
It surely cannot be said that the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine is a
vital necessity to France. Without Alsace-Lorraine France has recovered
her prosperity and her prestige in a manner that has been the admiration
of the world. It is a mere illusion to think that the reconquest of
Alsace-Lorraine would add to her glory. It would have been a demand of
patriotism for the intellectual class to combat this illusion. Instead
of this, every French writer, every French scholar, every French orator,
except the Socialists, year in and year out, has been dinning into the
popular ear the one word revenge.
France to Blame.
There can be little doubt that Prof. Gustave Lanson, the distinguished
literary historian, voiced the sentiments of the vast majority of his
countrymen when in a lecture, delivered some years ago at Harvard, he
stated that France could not and would not reorganize the peace of
Frankfurt as a final settlement, and that the one aim of the French
policy of the last forty years had been to force Germany to reopen the
Alsace-Lorraine question.
If there were people in Germany inclined to overlook or to minimize this
constantly growing menace from France, their eyes must have been opened
when in 1912 the French Government, having previously abolished the
one-year volunteers, raised the duration of active military service for
every Frenchman from two years to three, and, in addition to this,
called out in the Autumn of 1913 the recruits not only of the year whose
turn had come, namely, the recruits born in 1892, but also those born
in 1893. This was a measure nearly identical with mobilization; it was a
measure which clearly showed that France would not delay much longer
striking the deadly blow. For no nation could possibly stand for any
length of time this terrific strain of holding under the colors its
entire male population from the twentieth to the twenty-fourth year. No
wonder that the Paris papers were speaking as long ago as the Summer of
1912 of the regiments stationed in the Eastern Departments as the
"vanguard of our glorious army," and were advocating double pay for
them, as being practically in contact with the enemy.
The second foe now threatening the destruction of Germany is England.
Can it truly be said that England's hostility has been brought about by
German aggression? True, Germany has built a powerful navy; but so have
Japan, the United States, France, and even Italy. Has England felt any
menace from these? Why, then, is the German Navy singled out as a
specially sinister threat to England? Has German diplomacy during the
last generation been particularly menacing to England? Germany has
acquired some colonies in Africa and in the Far East. But what are
Kamerun and Dar-es-Salaam and Kiao-Chau compared with the colonial
possessions of the other great powers? Where has Germany pursued a
colonial aggressiveness that could in any way be compared with the
British subjugation of the South African republics or the Italian
conquest of Tripoli or the French expansion in Algiers, Tunis, and
Morocco, or the American acquisition of the Philippines?
Her Open-Door Policy.
Wherever Germany has made her influence felt on the globe she has stood
for the principle of the open door. Wherever she has engaged in colonial
enterprises, she has been willing to make compromises with other nations
and to accept their co-operation, notably so in the Bagdad railway
undertaking. And yet, the colonial expansion of every other nation is
hailed by England as "beneficial to mankind," as "work for
civilization"; the slightest attempt of Germany to take part in this
expansion is denounced as "intolerable aggression," as evidence of the
"bullying tendencies of the War Lord."
What is the reason for this singular unfairness of England toward
Germany, of this incessant attempt to check her and hem her in? Not so
much the existence of a large German Navy as the encroachment upon
English commerce by the rapidly growing commerce of Germany has made
Germany hateful to England. The navy has simply added to this hate of
Germany the dread of Germany. But if there had been no German Navy, and
consequently no dread of Germany, this hate of Germany might have come
to an explosion before now. For the history of the last 300 years proves
that England has habitually considered as her mortal enemy any nation
which dared to contest her commercial and industrial supremacy--first
Spain, then Holland, then France, and now Germany. As long as German
firms, by the manufacture of artificial indigo, keep on ruining the
English importation of indigo from India, and as long as the German
steamship lines keep on outstripping the prestige of the English boats,
there can be no real friendship between England and Germany. Although
England has repeatedly proposed to Germany naval agreements, these
agreements were avowedly meant to perpetuate the overwhelming
preponderance of England's fighting power, so that she would at any
moment be in a position to crush German commercial rivalry for all time.
She apparently thinks that this moment has now come.
That Germany's third implacable enemy, Russia, is clearly the aggressor,
and not the defender of her own national existence, need hardly be
demonstrated. She poses as the guardian of the Balkan States. But is
there any case on record where Russia has really protected the
independence of smaller neighboring countries? Has she not crushed out
provincial and racial individuality wherever she has extended her power?
Is it not the sole aim of her national policy to Russianize forcibly
every nationality under her sway?
In Finland she has gone back on her solemnly pledged word to maintain
the Finnish Constitution, and is ruthlessly reducing one of her most
highly developed provinces to the dead level of autocratic rule. In her
Baltic provinces she is trying to destroy, root and branch, whatever
there is left of German culture. Wherever the Russian Church holds
dominion intellectual blight is sure to follow.
To think, therefore, that Russia would promote the free development of a
number of independent Balkan States under her protectorate is to shut
one's eyes to the whole history of Russian expansion. No, Russian
expansion in the Balkans means nothing less than the extinction of all
local independence and the establishment of Russian despotism from the
Black Sea to the Adriatic.
Why Germany Supports Austria.
Not Russia, but Austria, is the natural protector of the equilibrium
between the existing States on the Balkan Peninsula and their natural
guardian against Russian domination. Austria is their nearest neighbor;
indeed, the possession of Bosnia and Herzegovina makes her a Balkan
State herself.
Being herself more than half of Slavic stock, she has every reason for
living on good terms with the various Slav kingdoms south of her. Being
herself forced, through the conglomerateness of her population, to
constant compromises in her internal affairs between conflicting
nationalities within her borders, she could not possibly absorb a large
additional amount of foreign territory. She is bound to respect the
existing lines of political demarkation in the Balkans, and her sole
object can be through commercial treaties and tariff legislation to open
up what used to be European Turkey to her trade and her civilizing
influence.
In this she must clearly be supported by Germany. For only if Austria is
left free to exercise her natural protectorate over the Balkan States
can the passage between Germany and the Near Orient, one of the most
important routes of German commerce, be kept open.
Russia's unwillingness, then, to allow Austria a free hand in her
dealings with Servia was an open menace to Germany, a challenge which
had to be accepted unless Germany was prepared to abdicate all her
influence in the Near Orient and to allow Russia to override the
legitimate claims and aspirations of her only firm and faithful ally.
This formidable coalition of the three greatest European powers,
threatening the very existence of Germany, has now been joined by Japan,
openly and boldly for the purpose of snatching from Germany her one
Asiatic possession.
If any additional proof had been needed to make it clear that, if
Germany wanted to retain the slightest chance of extricating herself
from this worldwide conspiracy against her, she had to strike the first
blow, even at the risk of offending against international good manners,
this stab in the back by Japan would furnish such proof.