Having thus examined the atmosphere of opinion in which the German
Government moved, let us proceed to consider the actual course of their
policy during the critical years, fifteen or so, that preceded the war.
The policy admittedly and openly was one of “expansion.” But
“expansion” where? It seems to be rather widely supposed that Germany
was preparing war in order to annex territory in Europe. The contempt
of German imperialists, from Treitschke onward, for the rights of small
States, the racial theories which included in “German” territory
Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries, may seem
to give colour to this idea. But it would be hazardous to assume that
German statesmen were seriously influenced for years by the
lucubrations of Mr. Houston Stewart Chamberlain and his followers. Nor
can a long-prepared policy of annexation in Europe be inferred from the
fact that Belgium and France were invaded after the war broke out, or
even from the present demand among German parties that the territories
occupied should be retained. If it could be maintained that the seizure
of territory during war, or even its retention after it, is evidence
that the territory was the object of the war, it would be legitimate
also to infer that the British Empire has gone to war to annex German
colonies, a conclusion which Englishmen would probably reject with
indignation. In truth, before the war, the view that it was the object
of German policy to annex European territory would have found, I think,
few, if any, supporters among well-informed and unprejudiced observers.
I note, for instance, that Mr. Dawson, whose opinion on such a point is
probably better worth having than that of any other Englishman, in his
book, “The Evolution of Modern Germany,”[1] when discussing the aims of
German policy does not even refer to the idea that annexations in
Europe are contemplated.
So far as the evidence at present goes, I do not think a case can be
made out for the view that German policy was aiming during these years
at securing the hegemony of Europe by annexing European territory. The
expansion Germany was seeking was that of trade and markets. And her
statesmen and people, like those of other countries, were under the
belief that, to secure this, it was necessary to acquire colonies. This
ambition, up to a point, she was able, in fact, to fulfil, not by force
but by agreement with the other Powers. The Berlin Act of 1885 was one
of the wisest and most far-seeing achievements of European policy. By
it the partition of a great part of the African continent between the
Powers was peaceably accomplished, and Germany emerged with possessions
to the extent of 377,000 square miles and an estimated population of
1,700,000. By 1906 her colonial domain had been increased to over two
and a half million square miles, and its population to over twelve
millions; and all of this had been acquired without war with any
civilized nation. In spite of her late arrival on the scene as a
colonial Power, Germany had thus secured without war an empire
overseas, not comparable, indeed, to that of Great Britain or of
France, but still considerable in extent and (as Germans believed) in
economic promise, and sufficient to give them the opportunity they
desired to show their capacity as pioneers of civilization. How they
have succeeded or failed in this we need not here consider. But when
Germans demand a “place in the sun,” the considerable place they have
in fact acquired, with the acquiescence of the other colonial Powers,
should, in fairness to those Powers, be remembered. But, notoriously,
they were not satisfied, and the extent of their dissatisfaction was
shown by their determination to create a navy. This new departure,
dating from the close of the decade 1890-1900, marks the beginning of
that friction between Great Britain and Germany which was a main cause
of the war. It is therefore important to form some just idea of the
motives that inspired German policy to take this momentous step. The
reasons given by Prince Buelow, the founder of the policy, and often
repeated by German statesmen and publicists,[2] are, first, the need of
a strong navy, to protect German commerce; secondly, the need, as well
as the ambition, of Germany to play a part proportional to her real
strength in the determination of policy beyond the seas. These reasons,
according to the ideas that govern European statesmanship, are valid
and sufficient. They are the same that have influenced all great
Powers; and if Germany was influenced by them we need not infer any
specially sinister intentions on her part. The fact that during the
present war German trade has been swept from the seas, and that she is
in the position of a blockaded Power, will certainly convince any
German patriot, not that she did not need a navy, but that she needed a
much stronger one; and the retort that there need have been no war if
Germany had not provoked it by building a fleet is not one that can be
expected to appeal to any nation so long as the European anarchy
endures. For, of course, every nation regards itself as menaced
perpetually by aggression from some other Power. Defence was certainly
a legitimate motive for the building of the fleet, even if there had
been no other. There was, however, in fact, another reason avowed.
Germany, as we have said, desired to have a voice in policy beyond the
seas. Here, too, the reason is good, as reasons go in a world of
competing States. A great manufacturing and trading Power cannot be
indifferent to the parcelling out of the world among its rivals.
Wherever, in countries economically undeveloped, there were projects of
protectorates or annexations, or of any kind of monopoly to be
established in the interest of any Power, there German interests were
directly affected. She had to speak, and to speak with a loud voice, if
she was to be attended to. And a loud voice meant a navy. So, at least,
the matter naturally presented itself to German imperialists, as,
indeed, it would to imperialists of any other country.
The reasons given by German statesmen for building their fleet were
in this sense valid. But were they the only reasons? In the beginning
most probably they were. But the formation and strengthening of the
Entente, and Germany's consequent fear that war might be made upon her
jointly by France and Great Britain, gave a new stimulus to her naval
ambition. She could not now be content with a navy only as big as that
of France, for she might have to meet those of France and England
conjoined. This defensive reason is good. But no doubt, as always,
there must have lurked behind it ideas of aggression. Ambition, in the
philosophy of States, goes hand in hand with fear. “The war may come,”
says one party. “Yes,” says the other; and secretly mutters, “May the
war come!” To ask whether armaments are for offence or for defence must
always be an idle inquiry. They will be for either, or both, according
to circumstances, according to the personalities that are in power,
according to the mood that politicians and journalists, and the
interests that suborn them, have been able to infuse into a nation. But
what may be said with clear conviction is, that to attempt to account
for the clash of war by the ambition and armaments of a single Power is
to think far too simply of how these catastrophes originate. The truth,
in this case, is that German ambition developed in relation to the
whole European situation, and that, just as on land their policy was
conditioned by their relation to France and Russia, so at sea it was
conditioned by their relation to Great Britain. They knew that their
determination to become a great Power at sea would arouse the suspicion
and alarm of the English. Prince Buelow is perfectly frank about that.
He says that the difficulty was to get on with the shipbuilding
programme without giving Great Britain an opportunity to intervene by
force and nip the enterprise in the bud. He attributes here to the
British Government a policy which is all in the Bismarckian tradition.
It was, in fact, a policy urged by some voices here, voices which, as
is always the case, were carried to Germany and magnified by the
mega-phone of the Press.[3] That no British Government, in fact,
contemplated picking a quarrel with Germany in order to prevent her
becoming a naval Power I am myself as much convinced as any other
Englishman, and I count the fact as righteousness to our statesmen. On
the other hand, I think it an unfounded conjecture that Prince Buelow
was deliberately building with a view to attacking the British Empire.
I see no reason to doubt his sincerity when he says that he looked
forward to a peaceful solution of the rivalry between Germany and
ourselves, and that France, in his view, not Great Britain, was the
irreconcilable enemy.[4] In building her navy, no doubt, Germany
deliberately took the risk of incurring a quarrel with England in the
pursuit of a policy which she regarded as essential to her development.
It is quite another thing, and would require much evidence to prove
that she was working up to a war with the object of destroying the
British Empire.
What we have to bear in mind, in estimating the meaning of the
German naval policy, is a complex series of motives and conditions: the
genuine need of a navy, and a strong one, to protect trade in the event
of war, and to secure a voice in overseas policy; the genuine fear of
an attack by the Powers of the Entente, an attack to be provoked by
British jealousy; and also that indeterminate ambition of any great
Power which may be influencing the policy of statesmen even while they
have not avowed it to themselves, and which, expressed by men less
responsible and less discreet, becomes part of that “public opinion” of
which policy takes account.
[Footnote 1: Published in 1908.]
[Footnote 2: See, e.g., Dawson, “Evolution of Modern Germany,” p.
348.]
[Footnote 3: Some of these are cited in Buelow's “Imperial Germany,”
p. 36.]
[Footnote 4: See “Imperial Germany,” pp. 48, 71, English
translation.]