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 Liberal.”]