SPECIAL FEATURES GIVEN TO THE WAR BY THE PANGERMAN PLAN.
I. All the great political questions of the old world are
raised and must be solved.
II. As the war is made by Germany in order to achieve a
gigantic scheme of slavery, it follows that it is waged by her
in flagrant violation of international law.
III. A struggle of tenacity and of duplicity on the side of
Berlin _versus_ constancy and solidarity on the side of the
Allies.
The Diplomatic Corps, having ignored the Pangerman plan for reasons
already shown (_pp. 19_ _et seq._), it is quite natural that the General
Staffs and the public opinion of Allied countries should have been
equally ignorant. From this general absence of knowledge there has
resulted a vagueness and inadequacy in the view taken of the ultimate
aims of Germany in the war; and in consequence the co-ordination of the
Allied efforts has remained for a long while very imperfect. Each of the
Allied nations, in fact, was at first so taken up with its own interests
that they all lost sight of what ought to have been the common object of
their common action.
The Russians entered into the struggle against the Germans especially to
prevent Serbia from being crushed, and at the same time to put an end to
those veiled but profoundly humiliating ultimatums which Berlin for some
years has delivered to Petrograd. The Italians, specially fascinated by
Trent and Trieste, have long thought that they could limit their war to
a conflict with the house of Hapsburg, when in reality the only and true
enemy of the Italian people—as now the latter is more and more clearly
aware—is Prussian Pangermanism. As for the English, they entered the
lists for two fundamental reasons: the violation of Belgium’s neutrality
aroused their indignation, and a just sense of their own interests has
convinced them that they could not allow France to be crushed without
at the same time acquiescing in the ultimate disappearance of Great
Britain. Completely unprepared for Continental war, England has very
well understood from the beginning of hostilities that these might be
very much prolonged, but she had not the slightest notion that British
interests would be as completely threatened as they have been in Central
Europe, in Turkey, in Egypt, and in India. As to the French, the German
aggression immediately raised in their minds and in their hearts the
question of Alsace-Lorraine. This has hypnotized them to such a degree,
to their own loss, that they have too long considered the fight merely
a Franco-German war, whereas they ought to have viewed the European
conflagration in its full dimensions.
This piece-meal way of looking at the facts has been of the greatest
disservice to all the Allies. Indeed it has had the effect of preventing
them from discerning at the right time the special character which the
extraordinary extent of the Pangerman plan must necessarily give to the
war.
I.
The very vastness of the Pangerman plan of 1911, demonstrated beyond
dispute by the facts that have come to light, suffices to prove that
Berlin meant to solve for her own profit, at one single blow, all the
great political questions latent in the old world.
[Illustration: THE GREAT POLITICAL QUESTIONS RAISED BY THE WAR.]
The claims of Germany on the East, shown on the accompanying map by the
thinner black line, raised the question of Poland in its immense extent
and in all its complexity. The claims of Germany towards the West, also
shown on the map by the thinner black line, involved the independence of
Holland, of Belgium, of Luxemburg, of France, threatened with the loss of
vital territories. Further, towards the West the German aggression has
brought forward the question of Alsace-Lorraine from the French point of
view. Moreover, since Germany aims at establishing her absolute supremacy
from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf, in order to stretch her political
tentacles to the Far East and to the whole world by means which will be
shown in Chapter V. the present war compels the powers to face the whole
Eastern question (Balkans and Turkey, shown on the map by similar black
lines), and also the whole question of Austria. (Used in this sense the
expression Austria indicates the whole of the Hapsburg Dominion, that
is, the territory enclosed by a thick black line.) In short, the whole
of the great foreign questions are raised at one blow before the world by
the aggression of the Berlin Government.
The Germans, having studied thoroughly for a very long time all these
problems, have also provided for each of them a solution in accordance
with their most cynical interests. The result is that all these political
problems, raised simultaneously, form a tangled skein, and that the
Allies will never be really victorious till they can compel the Germans
to accept those solutions of the great problems which by the nature of
things must be the direct contrary of those foreshadowed by Berlin. The
Eastern question which is now raised in Europe is no longer the old
orthodox question but a Prussianized Eastern question coloured in all its
aspects by the present and future ambitions of the Hohenzollerns. In the
same way the question of modern Austria is no longer the old Austrian
question which consisted in the traditional struggle of the Hapsburgs
with their various nationalities. What the Allies have now to consider
in Central Europe is the question of Austria Prussianized by means of
two essential facts: the covert but exclusive influence which Berlin
has increasingly exercised over Vienna, especially for the last fifteen
years, and the hold which the Hohenzollerns have got by means of the
war over the whole of the Hapsburg Monarchy, which includes 28 millions
of Slav and Latin populations bowed under the yoke, with no hope of
deliverance except through the crushing of Prussian militarism.
II.
The Pangerman plan finally gives to the struggle which it has initiated a
character of sanguinary horror without parallel in history.
In short, William II., after having roused by means of Pangerman
propaganda amongst his people violent desires of conquest and plunder,
has declared war with the fixed idea that it will lead in Europe
and in Turkey to the supremacy of 77 millions of Germans, over 127
millions of non-Germans. The small but violent Prussophile Camarilla
of Vienna, a group of Magyar aristocrats in league with Count Tisza, a
handful of pseudo young Turks bought by Berlin, have been the Kaiser’s
accomplices. Finally, it is these few men alone who have drawn into war
50 million Austro-Hungarians and 20 million Ottomans, that is, 70 million
belligerents, the vast majority of whom certainly did not wish for a
sanguinary conflict. From all this it is clear that these peoples were
betrayed into the war by their Kings or their Turco-Magyar governments.
The origin as well as the object of the war make it therefore the most
cruelly reactionary enterprise conceivable. It is so to such a degree
that those who in France are called reactionaries and who compared to
the Prussian _Junkers_ are great Liberals, find themselves in close
agreement with the most ardent Socialists in desiring the total ruin of
an enterprise which, if successful, would put the modern world back into
the Middle Ages in the most odious fashion. But this time it would be a
mediæval state of things made immutable through the force of the most
modern science, which would stop the clock of progress. The death-dealing
electric current which runs in the metallic wires actually forming an
impassable barrier between Belgium and Holland forms a perfect symbol of
what the Pangerman prison would be for those who do not belong to the
German nationality.
On the other hand, the very fact that they pursue a plan of gigantic and
unheard of slavery has logically led the Germans, first cynically to
violate all the laws of war between belligerents, and then systematically
to commit abominable crimes against common law, whether at the expense
of neutrals whom they would terrorize, such as the factory hands of the
United States, or at the expense of the unhappy civil populations of the
“burglared” regions, populations whose sufferings are indescribable.
The events resulting from Pangerman terrorism are so numerous and so
unutterably atrocious that historians will find the greatest difficulty
in painting the Dantesque picture of all these crimes in their colossal
horror. Undoubtedly the Germans wage war in a manner which assimilates
them to vulgar burglars and assassins, and therefore to common criminals.
They have thus placed themselves beyond the pale of humanity, and those
who outside of Germany knowingly help them in their task of enslaving
Europe are nothing more or less than accomplices and should be dealt with
as such.
III.
On January 19th, 1916, in the Reichstag, Deputy Martin stated that “The
German nation would be very ill-pleased if Germany were to restore the
territories she now occupies” (_Le Temps_, 21st January, 1916). This
sentence summarizes the opinion prevalent beyond the Rhine.
In their endeavours to retain the greater part of the territories
occupied by them at the beginning of 1916 the Germans have combined
military measures with political manœuvres.
[Illustration: THE GERMAN FORTRESS AT THE BEGINNING OF 1916.]
They have entrenched themselves tremendously on all fronts which
the Allies could possibly attack. By the accumulation everywhere of
defensive works, machine-guns and heavy artillery, the Germans hope
to counter-balance the losses of their troops and thus to persevere
in their resistance to the allied attacks, till the enemy grow weary
of the dreadful struggle. The experience of the war having proved how
extremely difficult it is to pierce strongly fortified lines, the German
Headquarters Staff appears to have taken this knowledge as the base of
the following calculation:
“We have achieved nine-tenths of the annexations on which we counted;
only Calais, Verdun, Belfort, Riga and Salonika are wanting. We will
try to obtain possession of these places if opportunity offers; if not,
in order to avoid excessive risks, we shall remain everywhere in Europe
on a keen defensive, but we will pretend, all the time, to wish to take
the offensive, so as to mislead our adversaries. If the Franco-English
insist on concentrating their efforts, above all against our lines of the
Western front, as these lines are manifold and very strong, the enemy
losses will be such, that even if they succeed in throwing us back, they
will finally be so utterly exhausted as to be unable to cross the Rhine.
Therefore, they will be powerless to dictate peace to Germany.”
Surely the Allies, taught by experience, can foil this probable
calculation of their antagonists by well managed, simultaneous attacks on
the whole accessible circuit of the German fortress. In fact this is what
the Allies seem more and more inclined to do.
The indented line on the map (p. 72) shows what a strange shape is
assumed by the enormous territories which build up that fortress. For
alimentary purposes it is victualled, firstly, by the resources of
non-German countries which are occupied and most thoroughly drained,
and secondly by importations; which come through the channel of neutral
countries—Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Roumania, and Switzerland—which have
responded, more or less liberally, whether voluntarily or not, to the
pressing applications of Germany.
On the other hand, thanks to the passage through the Balkans, the German
fortress, early in 1916, had a wide open door on Persia, the Caucasus,
Central-Russian Asia, Afghanistan, India and Egypt. After having armed
all the Moslems on whom they could lay hands, and who were able to
shoulder a gun, the German Staff reckoned on striking at Great Britain
and Russia in all these directions. The successes obtained by the Tsar’s
troops in Eastern Turkey have, since then, baffled these projects.
On the other hand, as Germany has nothing whatever to gain by a
prolongation of the war, she will continue to aim at a rupture of the
Coalition by means of every possible political manœuvre. It is clear that
the defection of one of the principal Allies would necessarily place
all the others in vastly more difficult positions for continuing the
struggle. Assuming that such a thing were to happen, the Germans could,
indeed, hope to discuss peace on the base of the territories which they
actually occupy. They will therefore repeat and increase their bids for
a separate peace with one or other of their adversaries. When once their
position becomes very difficult the Germans, so as to shatter at all cost
the Coalition, will make propositions of separate peace to one of the
Allies, offering that one country almost complete satisfaction in the
hope that, swayed perhaps by a section of their people who have grown
weary of war, that Allied country will lay down her arms.
The Allied State which, contrary to its plighted faith, should separately
treat with Berlin, would soon be punished for its infamy. By allowing
Germany to conclude peace more or less on the basis of the territories
she at present holds, the traitor State would find itself afterwards
confronted by a formidable German Empire, and would inevitably become one
of its first victims.
The Germans will perhaps try to play on the Allies the “armistice trick.”
Here, again, we should have a cunning calculation founded once more on
the weariness of the combatants. It is, indeed, conceivable that a simple
armistice might end in allowing Germany to hold finally most of her
actual territorial acquisitions; but it could so end only by means of a
manœuvre which we must now expose.
No doubt they must make at Berlin the following calculation, which
theoretically has something to be said for it: “If an armistice were
signed, the Allied soldiers would think: ‘They are talking, therefore it
means peace, and demobilization will soon follow.’ Under these conditions
the effect will be the moral slackening of our adversaries.” The Germans
could not ask for anything better. They would open peace negotiations
with the following astute idea. To understand the manœuvre we must
remember the proposals of peace which that active agent, Dr. Alfred
Hermann Fried, of Vienna, was charged to throw out as a sounding-lead
on the 27th December, 1915, in an article of the _Nouvelle Gazette de
Zurich_, which made a great stir. These proposals were mixed up with
provisoes, which would allow the discussion to be opened or broken off at
any moment desired. For example, Belgium would preserve her independence,
but “on condition of treaties, perhaps also of guarantees, which would
render impossible a repetition of the events of 1914.” The occupied
departments of France would be restored unconditionally to France, but
“some small rectifications of frontiers might perhaps be desired in the
interests of both parties” (_Journal de Genève_, 29th December, 1915).
Assuming that the Allies committed the enormous mistake of discussing
peace on such treacherous terms, Germany still entrenched behind her
fronts, which would have been rendered almost impregnable, would say
to the Allies, “I don’t agree with you. After all you cannot require
of me that I should evacuate territories from which you are powerless
to drive me. If you are not satisfied, continue the war.” As, while
the negotiations were pending, all needful steps would have been taken
by the German agents to aggravate the moral slackening of the soldiers
of such Allied countries as might be most weary of the struggle, the
huge military machine of the Entente could not again be put in motion
as a whole. The real result would be, in fact, the rupture of the
Anti-Germanic Coalition, and finally the conclusion of a peace more or
less based on actual occupation. Berlin’s goal would thus have been
reached.
Finally, when the “armistice trick” shall have also failed, and the
situation of Germany shall have grown still worse, we shall see Berlin
play her last trump. Petitions against territorial annexations will be
multiplied on the other side of the Rhine. In an underhand way they will
be favoured by the Government of Berlin, which will end by saying to
the Allies: “Let us stop killing each other. I am perfectly reasonable.
I give up my claims on such of your territories as are occupied by my
armies. Let us negotiate peace on the basis of the ‘drawn game.’”
The day when this proposal will be made, the Allies will have to face
the most astute of the Berlin tricks, the most alarming German trap. At
that moment the tenacity, the clearsightedness, and the solidarity of the
Allies must be put forth to the utmost. To show the extreme necessity of
this, in the case supposed, I must baffle the German manœuvre in advance
by proving clearly in the following chapter that the dodge of the drawn
game, if it succeeded, would mask in reality a formidable success for
Germany and an irreparable catastrophe for the Allies and for the freedom
of the world.