PAN-GERMANISM
ROLAND G. USHER
Footnotes
1. "To Germany, a [fleet] is merely a means to an end, and that end---if the Pan-Germans may be believed---is the destruction of the British Empire, the disruption of the French Republic, and the domination of the world." Archibald Hurd in the Fortnightly Review, XCI, New Series, 785. Any one who will compare this article with the official Memorandum of the Admiralty prepared for the Dominion of Canada will have little doubt that it was "inspired." Mr. Hurd quotes the following sentences from the speech of the Imperial Chancellor in the Reichstag on November 10, 1912: "For months past we have been living, and we are living now, in an atmosphere of passion such as we have perhaps never before experienced in Germany. At the root of this feeling is the determination of Germany to make its strength and capability prevail in the world." See also the note at the end of this chapter. Return to text
2. In 1881, nearly five per cent of the total population emigrated, and in the two succeeding years the number was scarcely smaller. Most of them came to the United States. German emigration at present is almost negligible. The name Pan-Germanism at first denoted a movement for the creation of a greater national unit out of these emigrants and the Germans at home. It aimed at maintaining the emigrants' devotion to the Fatherland by preserving their language and German habits, and at preventing their amalgamation, so far as possible, into the nation to which they had migrated. Its hope was eventually to draw them back to the Fatherland or to provide for them new homes under the German flag elsewhere. The methods employed were mainly educational, by means of German newspapers, active German departments in American universities, German societies, frequent visits to the great German "colonies" by German authors and professors. This movement, however, was soon merged into and dwarfed by the greater scheme now known as Pan-Germanism. Return to text
3. The leading customers of England in 1910 were in millions of pounds: India, 45 millions; Germany, 37 millions; the United States, 31 millions; Australia, 27 millions; France, 22 millions; Canada, 19 millions. England's exports to these three colonies were 91 millions and her exports to the three nations were 90 millions. Return to text
4. The preface of the German Naval Bill of 1900 stated: "For the Protection of our oversea trade and our colonies, there is only one means: a strong fleet. Under the present circumstances, the only means for protecting Germany's oversea trade and colonies is : Germany must possess a fleet of such strength that a war, even with the strongest naval power, would involve such risks as to jeopardize the position of that power. For that purpose, it is not absolutely necessary that the German fleet be as strong as the fleet of the greatest naval power, for a great naval power will not generally be in a position to concentrate all its forces against Germany. But, even if the greatest naval power should succeed in meeting us with a fleet of superior strength, the defeat of a strong German fleet would so greatly weaken its own power, that, notwithstanding its victory, its own position on the seas would no longer be secure." Return to text
5. "That any one should act in politics out of complaisance or from a sentiment of justice, others may expect from us, but not we from them. . . . Every government takes solely its own interests as the standard of its actions, however it may drape them with deductions of justice or sentiment. . . . My belief is that no one does anything for us, unless he can at the same time serve his own interests." Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences, English translation, A. J. Butler, New York and London, 1899, respectively, pp. 176, 173, 202. Return to text
6. The indemnity was nominally spent in defraying the cost of the war and in improving the army and fortifications. It was indirectly distributed to the nation and to individuals; for the army was the nation in arms, the debts were mostly owed to Germans, the labor and materials employed on the new works were German. However the transaction was recorded formally on the books of the state, the nation itself received the money either in wages or by the remission of taxes. Return to text
7. The extent to which the German nation as a whole is conscious of the existence of Pan-Germanism is not demonstrable. There can be no doubt that the Government has consistently attempted to shape public opinion in favor of it. Bismarck's notion of public opinion is enlightening. He said to Crispi: "Public opinion is but a great river formed by a quantity of small streams, one of which is the Government stream. If the Government would but swell its waters sufficiently, it would have a determinative influence upon the great public current. If, on the contrary, the Government wants to measure the strength of all the other streams, which, separately, are less powerful than its own, it must be overwhelmed by the union of their forces. A Government acting thus would be guilty of unpardonable neglect of precautions." Crispi, Memoirs, II, 163, London, 1912.
In the Fortnightly Review, xci, New Series, 785, Archibald Hurd states: "A section of powerful politicians and vested interests, with the support of the Emperor and the Marine Amt, under Grand-Admiral von Tirpitz, have obtained control of the Government and the most influential newspapers, and dominate German policy." Return to text
8. The italics are not in the original. Return to text
9. The author begs his readers to bear carefully in mind that he is attempting in the following chapters to expound the German view of the situation rather than what he believes to be the truth. Naturally, a view of the international situation, upon which a great nation of intelligent people is willing to base a policy on whose success may depend their national future, will contain many factors whose truth is not to be denied by any impartial student. The general conclusions, derived from considering these obviously true facts, may, however, be vulnerable. Return to text
10. The German Navy League issued in 1912 a book entitled, Deutschland Sei Wach, in which this statement was made prominent: "The maintenance of Great Britain's naval supremacy which has been kept unimpaired during the last century, has, through the relative strength of the German fleet, become impossible in the future. That is the great historic process which we are seeing. It is no more to be imagined that England can destroy the German fleet without seriously compromising her own supremacy." At the end of the volume in the very largest of type stands the following: "Germany must be strong on land, so strong that she can vanquish every opponent, but she must also be so strong at sea that she need not fear any opponent, because the risk of a naval war would be so great that it would appear too great even to the strongest naval Power." Return to text
11. "England has always caused one Power to destroy another Power. Herein lies England's profit." "The great Wars of Religion in Germany made it possible for England to become a sea power. During the time when Germany was torn and enfeebled, England could destroy the Hanseatic League. Prussia's Seven Years' War enabled England to oust the old Colonial Powers and to seize French Canada. . . . The final conquest of the New World succeeded only because Frederick the Great held down France in Europe." England's Weltherrschaft und die Deutsche Luxusflotte, von Lookout. Berlin, February, 1912. Fourteen editions were sold in a few weeks. Return to text
12. "On every one of the world's trade routes, like an ancient robber knight in full armor, lance in hand, stands England. All nations must run the gauntlet of England.... The domination of the world on the sea enables the supreme naval Power to inflict the most terrible crises upon other nations. Every nation must combat this predominance for the sake of its future.... All nations have become tributary to the city of London, some more, some less. Germany would find existence at England's sufferance unbearable." England's Weltherrschaft und die Deutsche Luxusflotte. Return to text
13. " Were it possible to cut off Great Britain's supply of food, in less than six weeks the inhabitants would die of starvation. Britons are fully aware of the danger, and all, from the noble lord to the laborer, are convinced that it is the most important duty of the State to keep open and secure the broad highway of the ocean." Die Flotte als notwendige Ergänzung unserer nationalen Wehrmacht, by A. Schröder, a book written for the German secondary schools. Return to text
14. "During many decades German university professors, schoolmasters, and publicists have taught the doctrine that Englishmen were too selfish and too cowardly to defend their country, and that England, like Carthage, was bound to fall through the lack of patriotism among the people and their reliance upon hired soldiers." Fortnightly Review, xci, New Series, 456. Return to text
15. These figures are only approximate; no really accurate figures are possible because no definitive figure can be given for the population except in a census year. That figure, too, is always inaccurate by the time it has been compiled. Return to text
16. The author is anxious to state explicitly that these paragraphs are not to be understood to imply a reflection upon German national or individual morality, and he hopes that, in his desire to put this hypothetical case forcibly, he has not given it an immediate application, which, if believed, might be construed as a serious prediction of a nature which no historian has a right to make. The point upon which the Germans insist is, what would happen to England under such circumstances, a statement which by no means argues their intention to attempt the repudiation of their debts to-morrow or at any other time. They do claim that it is a fundamental point in their favor. Return to text
17. There is a war reserve in gold in the Fortress of Spandau which the Government acknowledges contains 140 millions of marks. It is more than probable that this is to be kept as a last resort in case defeat should make the defense of Germany itself necessary. Return to text
18. Cecil Battine, in the Fortnightly Review, xci, New Series, 1056, 1057, places the beginning of Pan-Germanism between 1893 and 1895. Article 4 of the Constitution of 1871 indicates that colonies were foreseen at the very beginning. Return to text
19. Individual sentences in chapters xii and xiii and the concluding paragraphs of chapter xiii have been taken from the author's article in the Forum for December, 1912. Return to text
20. "Our Eastern frontiers, I said [Crispi speaking to Bismarck], are extremely exposed, and should Austria's position on the Adriatic be strengthened, we should be held as in a vice, and our safety would be threatened." Dispatch from Crispi to the King of Italy, 1877. Memoirs of Francesco Crispi, II, 64. London. 1912. Return to text
21. The notion of a Balkan confederation supported by the Triple Alliance seems to have originated in 1889. Crispi, Memoirs, 11, 384-385. Return to text
22. See the speech of Premier Borden of Canada advocating a new naval policy and the Official Memorandum of the English Admiralty on England's present and future naval position, both of which are printed in the Appendix. Return to text
23. "Even in quiet times the Magyar will get the gypsies to play him the song, 'The German is a blackguard.'" Bismarck, Reflections and Reminiscences, II, 257. Return to text
24. The italics are not in the original. Return to text
