Слике страница
PDF
ePub

The war must last until we have forced disarmament upon our enemies. There is a nursery rhyme which runs thus:

Knife and scissors, fork and candle,

Little children must not handle.

Since the enemy states have behaved so childishly as to misuse their arms they must be placed under tutelage. Moreover, our enemies have acted so dishonorably that it is only just that rights of citizenship should be denied them. When they can no longer bear arms they cannot make any new disturbances.-O. Siemens.

[ocr errors]

We are not only compelled to accept the war that is forced upon us but are even compelled to carry on this war with a cruelty, a ruthlessness, an employment of every imaginable device, unknown in any previous war.-Pastor D. Baumgarten.

In the age of the most tremendous mobilization of physical and spiritual forces the world has ever seen, we proclaimno, we do not proclaim it, but it reveals itself—the Religion of Strength.-Prof. A. Deissmann.

It is high time to shake off the illusion that there is any moral law, or any historical consideration, that imposes on us any sort of restraint with regard to England. Only absolute ruthlessness makes any impression on an Englishman; anything else he regards as weakness.-Prof. O. Flamm.

The German people must rise as a master-folk above the inferior peoples of Europe and the primitive peoples of the colonies. Pan-German, Great Germany and Middle Europe in 1950.

The German people is always right because it is the German people.-O. R. Tannenberg.

We must win, because, if we were defeated, no one in the whole world could any longer cherish any remnant of belief in truth and right, in the good, or, indeed, in any higher power which wisely and justly guides the destinies of humanity.-W. Helm.

It is precisely our craving for expansion that drives us into the paths of conquest, and in view of which all chatter about peace and humanity can and must remain nothing but chatter.-J. L. Reimer.

$8172]

GEMS OF GERMAN THOUGHT

87

Excessive modesty and humility, rather than excessive arrogance and ambition, is a feature of the German character. Therefore we shall know how to set a limit to our desire for expansion, and shall escape the dangers which have been fatal to all conquerors whose ambition was unbridled.-Prof. E. Hasse.

One single highly cultured German warrior, of those who are, alas! falling in thousands, represents a higher intellectual and moral life-value than hundreds of the raw children of nature (Naturmen schen) whom England and France, Russia and Italy, oppose to them.—Prof. Ernst Haeckel.

We must not look for permanent peace as a result of this war. Heaven defend Germany from that.-O. A. H. Schmitz.

We are indubitably the most martial nation in the world. We are the most gifted of nations in all the domains of science and art. We are the best colonists, the best sailors, and even the best traders! And yet we have not up to now secured our due share in the heritage of the world. That the German empire is not the end but the beginning of our national development is an obvious truth.-F. Bley.

War is an act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will. Insignificant limitations, hardly worthy of mention, which it imposes on itself, under the name of the law of nations, accompany this violence without notably enfeebling it.-Gen. C. von Clausewitz.

It is a gratuitous illusion to suppose that modern war does not demand far more brutality, far more violence, and an action far more general than was formerly the case.-Gen. von Hartmann.

Whoever enters upon war in future will do well to look to his own interests, and pay no heed to international law. He will do well to act without consideration and without scruple.-Germany at the Beginning of the 20th Century.

Whenever a national war breaks out, terrorism becomes a necessary military principle.-Gen. von. Hartmann.

If the small nations in question have nothing Germanic in them, and are therefore foreign to our Kultur, the question at once arises: Do they stand in the way of our expansion or do they not? In the latter case, let them develop as their nature prescribes; in the former case, it would be folly to spare them, for they would be like a wedge in our flesh, which we refrained from extracting only for their own sake. If we found ourselves forced to break up the historical form of the nation, in order to separate its racial elements, taking what belongs to our race and rejecting what is foreign to it, we ought not therefore to have any moral scruples or to think ourselves inhuman.-J. L. Reimer.

Our troops are assured of their mission; and they recognize clearly, too, that the truest compassion lies in taking the sternest measures in order to bring the war itself to an early close.-Pastor G. Traub.

One thing alone can really profit the German people, the acquisition of new territory. That is the only solid and durable gain. . . . that alone can really promote the diffusion, the growth and the deepening of Germanism.—A. Wirth.

The territory open to future German expansion must extend from the North Sea to the Baltic, to the Persian gulf, absorbing the Netherlands and Luxemburg, Switzerland, the whole basin of the Danube, the Balkan peninsula and Asia Minor.-Prof. E. Hasse.

The hostile arrogance of the western powers releases us from all our treaty obligations, throws open the doors of our verbal prison house and forces the German empire, resolutely defending her vital rights, to revive the ancient Prussian policy of conquest. All Morocco in the hands of Germany; German cannon on the routes to Egypt and India; German troops on the Algerian frontier; this would be a goal worthy of great sacrifices.-M. Harden, 1911.

This Germany of ours was once the greatest of sea powers, and, God willing, so she will be again.-H. von Treitschke.

Formerly German thought was shut up in her corner, but now the world shall have its coat cut according to German measure, and, as far as our swords flash and German blood flows, the circle of the earth shall come under the tutelage of German activity.-F. Phillippi.

§§172-173]

EXPECTATION OF WAR

89

We must establish ourselves firmly at Antwerp on the North Sea and at Riga on the Baltic. At all events, we must, at the conclusion of peace, demand substantial expansions of the German empire.-Prof. E. Haeckel.

We are indeed entrusted here on earth with a doubly sacred mission: not only to protect Kultur .'. against the narrow-hearted huckster-spirit of a thoroughly corrupted and inwardly rotten commercialism, but also to impart Kultur in its most august purity, nobility and glory to the whole of humanity, and thereby contribute not a little to its salvation. -Ein Deutscher.

In the great German Confederation which will comprise most of Europe the Germans, being alone entitled to exercise political rights, to serve in the army and navy and to acquire landed property, will recover the feeling they had in the middle ages of being a people of masters. They will gladly tolerate the foreigners living among them, to whom inferior manual services will be entrusted.-Pan-German, Great Germany and Middle Europe in 1950.

Whoever cannot prevail upon himself to approve from the bottom of his heart the sinking of the Lusitania-whoever cannot conquer his sense of the gigantic cruelty of unnumbered perfectly innocent victims and give himself up to honest delight at this victorious exploint of German defensive powerhim we judge to be no true German.-Pastor D. Baumgarten, Address on "The Sermon on the Mount."

Germany is precisely-who would venture to deny it-the representative of the highest morality, of the purest humanity, of the most chastened Christianity. He, therefore, who fights for its maintenance, its victory, fights for the highest blessings of humanity itself and for human progress. Its defeat, its decline, would mean a falling back to the worst barbarism.— Pastor H. Francke, War Sermons.

(William Archer, in Gems (?) of German Thought. Copyright, Doubleday, Page, N. Y., 1917.)

2. [$173] Prediction of the Great War.

BY GENERAL FRIEDRICH VON BERNHARDI. Even if we succeed in guarding our possessions in the East and West, and in preserving the German nationality in its present form throughout the world, we shall not be able to maintain our present position, powerful as it is, in the great competition with the other Powers, if we are contented to restrict ourselves to. our present sphere of power, while the surrounding countries are busily extending their dominions. If we wish to compete further with them, a policy which our population and our civilization both entitle and compel us to adopt, we must not hold back in the hard struggle for the sovereignty of the world.

OPPOSITION OF ENGLAND.

We not only require for the full material development of our nation, on a scale corresponding to its intellectual importance, an extended political basis, but, we are compelled to obtain space for our increasing population and markets for our industries. At every step which we take in this direction England will resolutely oppose us. English policy may not yet have made the definite decision to attack us; but it doubtless wishes by all and every means, even the most extreme, to hinder every further expansion of German international influence and of German maritime power. The recognized political aims of England and the attitude of the English Government leave no doubt on this point. But if we were involved in a struggle with England, we can be quite sure that France would not neglect the opportunity of attacking our flank. Italy, with her extensive coast-line, even if still a member of the Triple Alliance, will have to devote large forces to the defence of the coast to keep off the attacks of the Anglo-French Mediterranean Fleet, and would thus be only able to employ weaker forces against France. Austria would be paralyzed by Russia; against the latter we should have to leave forces in the east. We should thus have to fight out the struggle against France and England practically alone with a part of our army, perhaps with some support from Italy. It is in this double menace by sea and on the mainland of Europe that the grave danger to our political position lies, since all freedom of action is taken from us and all expension barred.

WAR OF COMPETITION.

Since the struggle is, as appears on a thorough investigation of the international question, necessary and inevitable, we must fight it out, cost what it may. Indeed, we are carrying it on at the present moment, though not with drawn swords, and only by peaceful means so far. On the one hand it is being waged by the competition in trade, industries and warlike preparations; on the other hand, by diplomatic methods with which the rival States are fighting each other in every region where their interests clash.

CRUSHING FRANCE.

Our political position would be considerably consolidated if we could finally get rid of the standing danger that France will attack us on a favorable occasion, so soon as we find ourselves involved in complications elsewhere. In one way or another we must square our account with France if we wish for a free hand in our international policy. This is the first and foremost condition of a sound German policy, and since the hostility of France once for all cannot be removed by peaceful overtures, the matter must be settled by force of arms. France must be so completely crushed that she can never again come across our path.

STRENGTHENING GERMAN ALLIES.

Further, we must contrive every means of strengthening the political power of our allies. We have already followed such

« ПретходнаНастави »