Imperial Germany

President White LfBRARY
Cornell University

Cornell University Llbrarv

DD 117.B92 1914

Irnperlal German*

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1912

Jmpmal O^^rmang

BY

PRINCE BERNHARD VON BULOW

TRANSLATED BT

MARIE A. LEWENZ, M.A.

WITH FBONTISPmCE

NEW YORK
1914

cofykight, 1914,
By EEIMAE HOBBING

CONTENTS

FOREIGN POLICY .

HOME POLICY:

I. Introduction
II. National Views and the Parties
III. Economic Policy
IV, The Eastern Marches

127
163
248
290

CONCLUSION

329

FOREIGN POLICY

IMPERIAL GERMANY

FOREIGN POLICY

"In spite of the length of their history, the German peo-
ple is the youngest of the great nations of Western Europe.
A period of youth has twice fallen to their lot, and with it
the struggle to establish their power as a State, and to gain
freedom for civilisation. A thousand years ago they
founded the proudest empire of the Germans; eight hun-
dred years later they had to build up their State anew on
quite different foundations, and it is only in our times that,
as a united people, they entered the ranks of the nations."

These words, with which Treitschke begins his
"German History," not only show deep historical
knowledge, but also have a very modern political sig-
nificance. Germany is the yoxingest of the Great
Powers of Europe, the homo novus who, having
sprung up very recently, has forced his way by his
superior capacity into the circle of the older nations.
The new Great Power was formidable after three
glorious and successful campaigns, and was looked
upon as an uninvited and unwelcome intruder, when
it entered the company of the Great Powers of Eu-
rope and demanded its share of the treasures of the

3

4 Imperial Germany

world. For centuries Europe had not believed in
the possibility of the national unification of the indi-
vidual German territories as one State. At any rate
the European Powers had done their best to prevent
this. In particular the policy of France, from the
time of Richelieu to that of Napoleon III., was di-
rected towards maintaining and intensifying the dis-
ruption of Germany, as it was rightly recognised
that the ascendancy of France, la preponderance
legitime de la France^ depended primarily on this
state of aifairs. Nor did the other Powers desire
ihe unification of Germany. On this point the Em-
peror Nicholas and Lord Palmerston, as well as Met-
ternich and Thiers, were at one. Nothing could
show more clearly the marvellous way in which the
mature wisdom of our old Emperor co-operated with
the genius of Prince Bismarck than the fact that they
-effected the unification of Germany, not only in the
face of all the difficulties with which they were con-
fronted at home — long cherished rivalries and ha-
treds, all the sins of our past, and all the pecuharities
of our political character, but also in spite of all op-
position, avowed or secret, and of the displeasure of
the whole of Europe.

Suddenly the German Empire was in existence.

Political Regeneration of Germany 5

More quickly even than had been feared, far stronger
than anyone had guessed. None of the other Great
Powers had desired the regeneration of Germany;
each of them, when it actually took place, would have
liked to prevent it. Small wonder that the new
Great Power was not made welcome, but was looked
upon as a nuisance. Even a very reserved and pa-
cific policy could effect but little change in this first
verdict. This union of the States of the Mid-Euro-
pean continent, so long prevented, so often feared,
and at last accomplished by the force of German
arms and incomparable statesmanship, seemed to im-
ply something of the nature of a threat, or at any
rate to be a disturbing factor.

In the middle of the 'nineties, in Rome, where I
was Ambassador at that time, my English colleague.
Sir Clare Ford, said to me: "How much pleasanter
and easier it was in the world of politics when Eng-
land, France and Russia constituted the tribunal of
Europe, and at most Austria had to be occasionally
consulted." Those good old days are past. More
than forty years ago the council of Europe had to ad-
mit another member entitled to vote, one that had
not only the wish to express its opinion, but also the
power to act.

6 Imperial Germany

POT.TTTnAT. EEGENEEATION OF GERMANY.

A strenuous task in the history of the world had
reached perfection in the masterpiece of Prince Bis-
marck. The unflinching purpose of the Hohenzol-
lem dynasty for centuries required the patient hero-
ism of the Prussian army and the resolute devotion of
the Prussian people, tmtil, after many changes of for-
tune, the Mark of Brandenburg rose to the rank of
a Great Power, as the kingdom of Prussia. Twice
the prize seemed to slip from the grasp of the Prus-
sian State. The crushing defeat of 1806 hurled
Prussia down from the dizzy heights, which had filled
her contemporaries with admiration and fear, and
which she had attained under the rule of the great
Frederick. Those people seemed to be right who
had always considered the glorious State of the great
King to be nothing more than an artificial pohtical
structure, that would stand and fall with the unique
political and military genius of its monarch. Its
rise, after the overwhelming disasters of Jena and
Tilsit, proved to an astonished world what innate
and indestructible strength this State possessed.
Such self-sacrifice and such heroism on the part of a
whole people presuppose long-established national

Political Regeneration of Germany 7

self-confidence. And as the people of Prussia did
not rise in lawless rebellion like the much-admired
Spaniards and the honest Tyrolese peasants, but
placed themselves one and all, unquestioningly, at the
orders of the King and his advisers, it appeared, to
everyone's sm-prise, that amongst the Prussians con-
sciousness as a nation and as a State were one and the
same thing; and that the people had been transformed
into a nation under the strict discipline of Freder-
ick's rule. The reorganisation of the State under
the guidance of men of creative power during the
years 1807 to 1813 won for the Government not only
the obedience of its subjects but also their affection.
In the war of liberation from 1813 to 1815 Prussia
gained the respect of all, and the confidence of many
of the non-Prussian Germans. The great period of
upheaval and liberation endowed them with a rich
inheritance. But owing to the reaction of a feeble
and inglorious foreign policy, and to a home admin-
istration which never knew when to be open-handed
and when to refuse, this inheritance was to a large
extent squandered in the course of the following dec-
ades. Towards the end of the 'fifties in the nine-
teenth century, both as regards the dignity of her at-
titude at home and her prestige abroad, Prussia was

8 Imperial Germany

vastly inferior to Prussia as she had emerged from
the Wars of Liberation. True, the national move-
ment in favour of unity had been placed on a solid
foundation by the Prussian tariff policy, but the
conference of Olmiitz shattered the hopes of the Ger-
man patriots who looked to Prussia for the fulfilment
of their wishes as a nation. Prussia seemed to re-
nounce her mission of worldwide importance, and to
relinquish the policy, worthy of a Great Power, of
carrying on the work of unification — work that she
had begun with a definite politico-economical object.
Many new forces had certainly been put at the dis-
posal of national life by the reorganisation of the
State on constitutional lines. This State would
have gained immensely, both in internal vitality and
in national striking power, if at the right time this
loyal people had been summoned to take part in
politics, as Stein and Hardenberg, Bliicher and
Gneisenau, Wilhehn von Humboldt and Boyen, and
also Yorck and Biilow-Dennewitz had wished.
When the great step was taken, thirty-three years too
late, the want of confidence between the people and
the authorities was too deeply rooted, the credit of
the government had been too much damaged in the
course of the revolutionary rising, for the modern

Political Regeneration of Germany 9

form of government to bring about an immediate
improvement. The course of Prussian policy was
hampered at home by representatives of the people
who were suspicious and hedged in by various doc-
trines, while it was checked abroad by the hitherto
invincible opposition of Austria with her claims to
ascendancy. Then, summoned at the critical mo-
ment by King WUliam, almost at the eleventh hour,
Bismarck took the tiller of the drifting Prussian
ship of state.

The clear-sighted patriots of those times were well
aware of the fact that in the normal course of his-
torical development the union of German States
under Prussian leadership must come to pass, and
that it was the noblest aim of Prussian statesman-
ship to hasten and to bring about its consummation.
But every road by which an attempt had been made
to reach this end had proved impassable. As time
passed, less and less seemed to be expected from the
initiative of the Prussian Government. All the well-
meant but unpractical efforts to induce the German
people to determine its fate itself failed because of
the absence of impetus from the various Governments
— an impetus which is more decisive in Germany
probably than in any other country. In "Wilhehn

10 Imperial Germany

Meister," when the melancholy Aurelia finds fault in
many ways with the Germans, Lothario, a man of
experience, replies that there is no better nation than
the Germans, so long as they are rightly guided.
The German, of whatever stock he be, has always
accomplished his greatest works imder strong, steady
and firm guidance, and has seldom done well without
such guidance, or in opposition to the Government
and rulers. Bismarck himself has told us in his "Ge-
danken und Erinnerungen" ("Thoughts and Recol-
lections") that he was from the first quite clear on
this point. With the intuition of genius he found
the way in which the hopes of the people and the in-
terests of the German Governments might be recon-
ciled. Probably no other statesman ever had so deep
a knowledge of the history of the nation he was called
upon to guide. He sought and found the motive
forces of national life in the chain of events abroad.
He, who was born in the year of Waterloo, and was
confirmed by Schleiermacher in the Church of the
Trinity in Berlin, never forgot the great times of the
liberation and the rise of Prussia ; at the beginning of
his career as a moulder of the destinies of the world,
the remembrance of these days was always with him.
He reahsed that in Germany the will-power of the

Political Regeneration of Germany il

nation would not be strengthened, nor national pas-
sions roused by friction between the Government
and the people, but by the clash of German pride
and sense of honour with the resistance and the de-
mands of foreign nations. So long as the question
of German unification was a problem of home poli-
tics, a problem over which the political parties, and
the Government and the people wrangled, it could
not give birth to a mighty, compelling national move-
ment that would sweep nations and princes alike
along on a tide of enthusiasm. By making it clear
that the German question was essentially a question
of European politics, and when, soon after, the op-
ponents of German unification began to move, Bis-
marck gave the princes the opportunity of putting
themselves at the head of the national movement.

Bismarck had had a glimpse in Frankfurt, St.
Petersburg, and Paris, of the cards which the Powers
of Europe held. He had perceived that the unifica-
tion of Germany would continue to be a purely na-
tional question only so long as it remained a vain
wish, a fruitless hope of the Germans; and that it
would become an international question the very
moment it entered on the stage of realisation. A
struggle with the opposition in Europe lay in the

12 Imperial Germany

path of the solution of the great problem of German
policy. The opposition in Germany itself could
hardly be overcome except by such a struggle. By
this means national policy was interwoven with inter-
national policy; with incomparable audacity and con-
structive statesmanship, in consummating the work
of uniting Germany, he left out of play the political
capabihties of the Germans, m which they have never
excelled, while he called into action their fighting
powers, which have always been their strongest point.
By a happy dispensation of Providence Bismarck
found a general such as Moltke and a mihtary or-
ganiser such as Roon to support him. The mihtary
achievemients which had enabled us to regain our
position as a Great Power in Europe also assured
that position. They discouraged any attempt of the
Great Powers to deprive us of our right to a voice in
the councils of Europe, a right which we had won in
three victorious campaigns, and which has since then
never been seriously disputed, although it was un-
willingly granted. With the single exception of
France, every one, in all probabihty, would have
gradually become reconciled to Germany's political
power if her development had ceased with the found-
ing of the Empire. But the union of the different

Germany as a World Power 13

States was not the end of the history of the move-
ment, but the beginning of a new era. In the front
rank of the Powers, Germany once more participated
in full in the life of Europe. For a long time, how-
ever, the life of Europe had formed only a part of the
life of all the nations of the world.

GERMANY AS A WOELD POWEK,

Politics became more and more concerned with the
world at large. The path of international politics
lay open to Germany, too, when she had won a mighty
position on a level with the older Great Powers. The
question was whether we should tread that new path,
or whether we should hesitate to undertake further
hazardous enterprises for fear of compromising our
newly-acquired power. In the Emperor William II.
the nation found a clear-sighted, strong-willed guide,
who led them along the new road. With him we
trod the path of international poHtics ; but not as con-
querors, not amid adventures and quarrels. We ad-
vanced slowly, and our rate of progress was regu-
lated, not by the impatience of ambition, but by the
interests we had to promote and the rights we had to
assert. We did not plunge into world politics, we
grew, so to speak, into our task in that sphere, and we

14 Imperial Germany

did not exchange the old European policy of Prussia
and Germany for the new world pohcy; our strength
to-day is rooted, as it has been since time immemorial,
in the ancient soil of Europe.

"It is the task of our generation at one and the
same time to maintain our position on the Continent,
which is the basis of our international position, and
to foster our interests abroad as well as to pursue a
prudent, sensible and wisely restricted international
policy, in such a way that the safety of the German
people may not be endangered, and that the future
of the nation may not be imperilled." With these
words I attempted on November 14, 1906, towards
the close of a detailed exposition of the international
situation, to formulate the task which Germany must
perform at the present time, and, as far as man can
judge, will have to perform in the future: an inter-
national policy based on the solid foundation of our
position as one of the Great Powers of Europe. At
first voices were raised in protest when we trod the
new paths of international poKtics, for it was consid-
ered a mistake to depart from the approved ways of
Bismarck's Continental policy. The fact was over-
looked that it was Bismarck himself who pointed out
the new way to us by bringing our old policy to a

Germany as a World Power 15

close. His work, in fact, gave us access to the world
of international politics. Only after the union of
the States, after Germany had attained political vig-
our, it became possible to develop German home pol-
icy into international policy. It was not till the
Empire had secured its position in Em-ope that it
became feasible to foster the interests which German
enterprise, German industry and commercial fore-
sight had created in all quarters of the globe. It is
certain that Bismarck did not foresee the com-se of
this new development of Germany, nor the details
of the problems of this new epoch ; and it was not pos-
sible for him to do so. Amongst the rich treasures
of political wisdom that Prince Bismarck bequeathed
to us there are no universally applicable maxims,
such as he formulated for a large number of eventu-
alities in our national life, that we can make use of
in our international problems. We seek in vain in
the conclusions of his practical policy for a justifica-
tion of the steps which our international problems
exact from us. However, Bismarck also paved the
way for these new and different times. We must
never forget that without the gigantic achievements
of Prince Bismarck, who with a mighty effort re-
trieved in the space of years what had been misman-

l6 Imperial Germany

aged and neglected for centuries, this new era would
never have dawned. But though every new epoch
of historical development is dependent on its prede-
cessor, and derives its motive power in a greater or
less degree from the past, it can only bring progress
in its wake if it abandons old methods and aims and
strives to attain others of its own. Even if, in the
course of our new international policy, we depart
from the European policy of the first Chancellor, yet
it still remains true that the international tasks of the
twentieth century are, properly speaking, the con-
tinuation of the work he completed in the field of Con-
tinental policy. In my speech on November 14,
1906, I pointed out that Bismarck's successors
must not imitate but develop his policy. "If," I
said at that time, "the course of events demands that
we transcend the hmits of Bismarck's aims, then we
must do so."

Long ago already, the course of events drove Ger-
man policy out from the narrow confines of Europe
into a wider sphere. It was not ambitious restless-
ness which urged us to imitate the Great Powers that
had long ago embarked on international politics.
The strength of the nation, rejuvenated by the polit-
ical reorganisation, as it grew, burst the boxmds of

Germany as a World Power 17

its old home, and its policy was dictated by new inter-
ests and needs. In proportion as our national life
has become international, the policy of the German
Empire has become international.

In the year 1871 the number of inhabitants dwell-
ing within the new German Empire was 41,058,792.
They found work and a living in their own country,
and, moreover, both were better and easier to get
than before; this was due to the protection afforded
by increased national power, the great improvement
in the means of cormnunication effected at the found-
ing of the Empire, and the blessings of common legis-
lation throughout Germany. In the year 1900 the
number of inhabitants had risen to 56,367,178, and
to-day it has reached more than 65,000,000. The
Empire could no longer support in the old way this
immense mass of himianity within its boundaries.
Owing to this enormous increase of population the
German State, and in consequence German pohcy,
was confronted with a tremendous economic prob-
lem. This had to be solved, if foreign countries were
not to profit by the superfluity of German hfe which
the mother country was not able to support. In the
year 1885 about 171,000 Germans emigrated; in 1892
the number was 116,339; in 1898 only 22,921; and

l8 Imperial Germany

since then the average has remained at this last low
figure. Thus in the year 1885 Germany afforded the
inhabitants, who numbered 20,000,000 less than to-
day, inferior conditions of life to those which her 66,-
000,000 subjects enjoy at the present time.

During the same period of time German foreign
trade rose from the amount of 6,000 million marks to
19,160 milUon. Foreign trade and the means of
support of a nation have an obvious connection with
each other. Clearly not so much on account of the
actual food imported as of the greater opportxmities
for work which the industries dependent on foreign
trade afford. It was the development of industry
that primarily led to the solution of the problem with
which, owing to the increase of the population, the
nation was confronted ; and this solution was reached,
moreover, without prejudice to the older spheres of
industry, although these suffered to some extent at
first, on account of the surprising speed with which
the development took place. The enormous increase
in number and extent of the industrial enterprises,
which to-day employ millions of workmen and ofiicials,
could only be attained by winning a prominent place
for German industry in the markets of the world. If
at the present time it was dependent on the raw ma-

Germany as a World Power 19

terial supplied by the Continent for its manufactures,
and on the European market for the sale of its goods,
the gigantic proportions which modern trade has as-
sumed would be out of the question, and millions of
Germans who to-day earn their living directly through
these industries, would be out of work and starv-
ing. According to the statistics, in the year 1911
raw material for industrial purposes was imported
to the amount of 5,393 million, and manufactured
goods to the amount of 5,460 million marks were
exported. To this must be added an export of
raw material, chiefly mining produce, to the amount
of 2,205 million. The imports of foodstuffs amount
to 3,077 million, and the exports to 1,096 million
marks. These lifeless figures assume a living inter-
est when we consider how important they are for the
welfare of the Germans, and that the work and the
very existence of millions of our fellow citizens de-
pend on them. Foreign trade handles these colossal
masses of goods. A very small proportion of them
are transported along the railways and waterways of
the Continent; by far the greater part are carried
abroad by the vessels of German ship-owners. In-
dustry, conmierce, and the shipping trade have trans-
formed the old industrial life of Germany into one of

20 Imperial Germany

international industry, and this has also carried the
Empire in political matters beyond the limits which
Prince Bismarck set to German statecraft.

With its foreign trade of 19,000 miUions, Germany
is to-day the second greatest commercial power in the
world; for it is second only to the United Kingdom
with her 25,000 millions, and surpasses the United
States with her 15,000 millions. In the year 1910,
11,800 German ships and 11,698 foreign ships entered
the German ports, while 11,962 German and 11,678
foreign ships sailed from them. On an average the
German shipyards built seventy new steamers and
forty new sailing ships a year. With rapid strides
we Germans have won a place in the front rank of the
seafaring nations who carry on oversea trade.

THE NEED OF A NAVY.

The sea has become a factor of more importance
in our national life than ever before in our history,
even in the great days of the German Hansa. It has
become a vital nerve which we must not allow to be
severed if we do not wish to be transformed from a
rising and youthfully vigorous people into a decaying
and ageing one. But we were exposed to this danger
as long as our foreign commerce and our mercantile

The Need of a Navy 21

marine lacked national protection at sea against the
superior navies of other powers. The task that the
armed forces of the German Empire had to fulfil
had changed considerably since the protection on the
Continent that our army secured us no longer sufficed
to shield our home industries from interference, en-
croachment and attack. The army needed the sup-
port of a navy that we might enjoy the fruits of our
national labour.

When in the spring of 1864 the English Ambassa-
dor in Berlin drew the attention of the Prussian Pres-
ident of the Council at that time to the excitement in
England caused by Prussia's advance against Den-
mark, and let fall the remark that if Prussia did not
cease operations the English Government might be
forced to take arms against her, Herr von Bismarck-
Schohausen replied: "Well, what harm can you do
us? At worst you can throw a few bombs at Stolp-
miinde or Pillau, and that is all." Bismarck was
right at that time. We were then as good as unas-
sailable to England with her mighty sea power, for
we were invulnerable at sea. We possessed neither
a great mercantile marine, the destruction of which
could sensibly injure us, nor any oversea trade worth
mentioning, the crippling of which we need fear.

22 Imperial Germany

To-day it is diiFerent. We are now vulnerable at
sea. We have entrusted millions to the ocean, and
with these millions the weal and woe of many of our
countrymen. If we had not in good time provided
protection for these valuable and indispensable na-
tional possessions, we should have been exposed to
the danger of having one day to look on def encelessly
while we were deprived of them. But then we could
not have returned to the comfortable economic and
political existence of a purely inland State. We
should have been placed in the position of being un-
able to employ and support a considerable number
of our millions of inhabitants at home. The result
would have been an economic crisis which might easily
attain the proportions of a national catastrophe.

THE BUnLDING OF THE FLEET.

Ever since the end of the 'eighties in the nineteenth
century the building of a fleet sufficient to defend
our oversea interests had been a vital question for
the German nation. It is greatly to the credit of
the Emperor Wilham II. that he recognised this,
and devoted all the power of the throne and all the
strength of his own personality to the attainment of
this end. It only adds to his merit that he, as head of

The Building of the Fleet 23

the Empire, championed the building of the German
fleet at the very moment when the Grcrman people
had to come to a decision about their future, and when,
as far as man can tell, Germany had the last chance
of forging the sea weapons that she needed.

The fleet was to be built while we maintained our
position on the Continent, without our coming into-^
conflict with England, whom we could as yet not op-
pose at sea, but also while we preserved intact our
national honour and dignity. Parhamentary oppo-
sition, which at that time was considerable, could only
be overcome if steady pressure were brought to bear
on Parliament by public opinion. In view of the
anxious and discouraged state of feeling that ob-
tained in Germany during the ten years following
Prince Bismarck's retirement, it was only possible
to rouse pubhc opinion by harping on the string of
nationahsm, and waking the people to consciousness.
A great oppression which weighed on the spirit of the
nation had been occasioned by the rupture between
the wearer of the Imperial crown and the mighty
man who had brought it up from the depths of KyfF-
hauser. This oppression could be Hfted if the Ger-
man Emperor could set before his people, who at
that time were not united either by common hopes or

24 Imperial Germany

demands, a new goal towards which to Strive, and
could indicate to them "a place in the sun" to which
they had a right, and which they must try to attain.
On the other hand, patriotic feeling must not be
roused to such an extent as to damage irreparably
our relations with England, against whom our sea
power would for years still be insufficient, and at
whose mercy we lay in 1897, as a competent judge
remarked at the time, like so much butter before the
knife. To make it possible to build a sufficient fleet
was the foremost and greatest task of German policy
after Bismarck's retirement; a task with which I also
was immediately confronted, when on June 28, 1897,
at Kiel, on board the Hohenzollern, I was entrusted
by His Majesty, the Emperor, with the conduct of
foreign affairs, on the same day and the same spot on
which twelve years later I handed in my resignation.
On March 28, 1897, the Reichstag had passed the
third reading of the Budget Committee's Report,
which had made considerable reduction in the de-
mands of the Government for ships to take the place
of obsolete types, for equipment and for the construc-
tion of additional vessels. On November 27, after
Admiral Holhnan, till then Secretary of State at the
Imperial Admiralty Office, had been replaced by a

The Building of the Fleet 25

man of first-rate capabilities, Admiral von Tirpitz,
the Government brought out a new Navy Bill which
demanded the construction of seven additional ships
of the line, of two large and seven small cruisers, fixed
the date of completion of the new constructions for
the end of the financial year 1904, and, by limiting the
period of service of the ships, and determining what
squadrons were to be kept on permanent active serv-
ice, ensured the building in due time of the ships which
were to take the place of out-of-date vessels. The
Bill runs as follows : "Without prejudice to the rights
of the Reichstag, and without demanding the impo-
sition of new taxes, the allied Governments are not
pursuing an aimless policy with regard to the navy;
their sole object is to create within a definite time a
national fleet, merely of such strength and power as
to protect effectively the naval interests of the Em-
pire." The Bill set the fleet on an entirely new foot-
ing. Up till then new ships had from time to time
been demanded and to some extent granted; but the
navy had lacked the solid foundation that the army
possessed in its absolutely definite constitution. By
the limitation of the period of service of the ships on
the one hand, and the determination of the number
of eff'ective ships on the other, the navy became a

26 Imperial Germany

definite constituent part of our national defence.
The building of the German fleet, like other great
undertakings in the course of our national history,
had tQ be carried out with an eye to foreign coun-
tries. It was only to be expected that this important
strengthening of our national power would rouse im-
•easiness and suspicion in England.

THE TRADITIONAl, POLICY OF ENGLAND.

The policy of no State in the world is so firmly
hound by tradition as that of England; and it is in
no small degree due to the unbroken continuity of her
Foreign policy, handed down from century to cen-
i;ury, pursuing its aims on definite lines, independent
of the changes of party government, that England
has won such magnificent success in international pol-
itics. The alpha and omega of Enghsh policy has
always been the attainment and maintenance of Eng-
lish naval supremacy. To this aim all other consid-
erations, friendships as well as enmities, have always
been subordinated. It would be foolish to dismiss
English policy with the hackneyed phrase " per fide
Albion." In reality this supposed treachery is noth-
ing but a soimd and justifiable egoism, which, to-

The Traditional Policy of England 27

gether with other great qualities of the English peo-
ple, other nations would do well to imitate.

During the second half of the eighteenth and the
first half of the nineteenth centuries England lent her
support to Prussia, aid which, moreover, was just at
critical times in Prussian history, in the Seven Years'
War, and in the time of Napoleon I. But the Eng-
lish attitude was hardly determined by spiritual sym-
pathy with the kindred State in the north of Ger-
many, struggling so manfuUy and laboriously to
rise. To gain her own ends England supported the
strongest opponent of the greatest European power;
and when she had attained her object, coolly left in
the lurch Frederick the Great in his hour of need,
and Prussia at the Congress of Vienna. While the
power of France was being strained to the uttermost
by the Seven Years' War, England secured her pos-
sessions in North America. In the great years of
1813 to 1815 Prussia, with impetuous courage, finally
shattered Napoleon's power. When in Vienna Prus-
sia had to fight bitterly for every inch of land, Eng-
land had already won her supremacy, and, after the
downfall of her French opponent, could look upon it
as assured for a considerable time. As the enemy

28 Imperial Germany

of the strongest European power, we were England's
friend. In consequence of the events of 1866 and
1870, Prussia with Germany became the greatest
Power on the Continent, and to English ideas, grad-
ually took the place that France had occupied under
the "Roi Soleil" and the two Bonapartes. English
pohcy followed its traditional trend and opposed the
Continental Power which for the time being was
strongest. After the downfall of the Habsburg rule
in Spain, Bourbon France became England's natural
opponent, from the time of the distinguished part
played by Marlborough in the War of the Spanish
Succession to that of the Alhance with the victor of
the Battle of Rossbach, which was celebrated in Lon-
don as a triumph of British arms. After decades of
jealous mistrust of Russia, which, under Catherine
II., had gained enormously in power, English policy
was turned anew with full vigour against France,
when Napoleon led the armies of the Republic to vic-
tory over all the States of the Continent. In the
struggle between the First Empire and England,
the latter was victorious, no doubt primarily owing to
the unswerving and magnificent continuity of her pol-
icy, to the heroism of her bluejackets at Aboukir and
Trafalgar, and the successes of the Iron Duke in

The Traditional Policy of England 29

Spain, but also to the tenacity of the Russians and
Austrians, and to the impetuosity of our old Bliieher
and his Prussians. When, after the fall of Napo-
leon, the mihtary ascendancy seemed to move from
the west of Europe to the east, England made a po-
litical change of front. England was largely respon-
sible for the result of the Crimean War, so
disastrous to the Russians, and for the ruin of
the ambitious plans of the proud Emperor Nicholas
I. ; moreover, the Emperor Alexander II., too, found
the policy of the Enghsh barring his way, more
especially in the Near East, for so long the centre
of Russian ambitions and hopes. The English
alUance with Japan owed its birth to considerations
similar to those which led to the entente cordiale
with France, which latter is of great weight in the
international politics of the present day.

The interest that England takes in the balance of
power on the Continent is, of course, not confined to
the welfare of such Powers as feel themselves op-
pressed or threatened by the superior strength of an-
other. Such hiunane sympathy rarely has decisive
influence on the political resolves of the Government
of a great State. The direction of English policy
depends primarily on the way in which the distribu-

30 Imperial Germany

tion of power in Europe reacts on English naval su-
premacy, and any shifting of the distribution of
power, which is not likely to entail such a reaction,
has always been more or less a matter of indifference
to the English Government. If England tradition-
ally — that is to say, in accordance with her unchang-
ing national interests — ^takes up a hostile or at least a
suspicious attitude with regard to the European
Power which for the time being is strongest, the cause
must be sought in the importance which England at-
tributes to a superior Continental Power with respect
to overseas politics. A Great Power of Europe that
has proved its military strength in so striking a man-
ner that, in the normal course of affairs, it need fear
no attack on its frontiers has practically developed
the conditions of national existence by means of which
England has become the greatest sea and commercial
power in the world. England with her strength and
her courage, could fare forth tmconcernedly on the
ocean, for she knew that, having the sea for a protec-
tion, her borders were safe from hostile attacks. If
the borders of a Continental Power are similarly pro-
tected by the fear which its victorious and superior
army inspires, it obtains the freedom of action in over-
sea affairs which England owes to her geographical

The Traditional Policy of England 31

position. It becomes a competitor in the field in
which England claims supremacy. In this, English
policy is based on historical experience — one might
almost say on the law of the evolution of nations and
states. Every nation with sound instincts and a via-
ble organisation of the State, has attempted to win its
way to the sea coast if, owing to its geographical po-
sition, it had no coast-line. The bitterest and most
protracted struggles have always raged round coast-
hnes and harbours, from Corcyra and Potidsea, which
were the cause of the Peloponnesian War, to Kavalla,
about which the Greeks and Bulgarians quarrelled in
our times. Nations which could not reach the sea,
or were forced away from it, silently retired from the
imiversal contest. Now the possession of the coast-
line means neither more nor less than the opportunity
to develop oversea power, and, finally, the opportu-
nity to transform Continental politics into interna-
tional politics. Those European nations that have
not made use of their coasts and harbours for this pur-
pose, were unable to do so because they required all
their forces to defend their borders against their op-
ponents on the Continent. Thus the extensive colo-
nial schemes of the Great Elector had to be aban-
doned by his successors.

32 Imperial Germany

Access to the paths of international politics was
always easiest for the strongest Continental Power.
But England guarded these paths. When Louis
XIV. proposed a Franco-English alliance to Charles
II., the English king, who, in other respects was very
friendly to the French, replied that certain ohstacles
stood in the way of a sincere alliance, and that the
most considerable of these were the efforts France
was making to become a Sea Power that would com-
pel respect. For England, whose only importance
lay in her commerce and her j&eet, this would be such a
cause of suspicion that every step which France took
in that direction would rouse afresh the jealousy be-
tween the two nations.

After the conclusion of the Peace of Hubertus-
hurg, the elder Pitt expressed in Parliament his re-
gret that France had been afforded the opportunity
to build up her fleet again. It was mainly as an op-
ponent of French oversea policy that England took
sides against France in the war of the Spanish Suc-
cession, a war which dealt France's supremacy in
Europe the first searching blow, and in which Eng-
land not only obtained the key of the ocean by win-
ning Gibraltar, but also gained possession of the
heart of Canada, for which France had fought so

Germany and England 33

strenuously. In the middle of the eighteenth cen-
tury Lord Chatham said: "The only danger that
England need fear will arise on the day that sees
France attain the rank of a great sea, commercial,
and Colonial power." And before the Crimean War
David Urquhart wrote: "Our insular position leaves
us only the choice between omnipotence and impo-
tence. Britannia will either become mistress of the
seas or will be swallowed up by them." English pol-
icy has remained true to itself up to the present time,
because England is still, as she was formerly, the
first Sea Power. Subtler diplomatic conflicts have
taken the place of the more violent struggles of olden
times. The political aim remains the same.

GERMANY AND ENGLAND.

When Germany, after the solution of her Conti-
nental problems — after securing her power in Europe
— was neither willing nor able to refrain from em-
barking on international politics, she was bound to
inconvenience England. The consequences of this
turn of aff'airs could be mitigated by diplomacy, they
could not be prevented.

But even if we can understand the traditions of
English policy, such understanding in no wise im-

34 Imperial Germany

plies the admission that England has any reason to
contemplate with mistrust the expansion of German
national industries into international industries, of
German Continental pohcy into international policy,
and especially the construction of a German navy.
This mistrust was perhaps justified in other centu-
ries in the case of other Powers.

The course of our international policy differs com-
pletely in means as well as ends, from the old-time at-
tempts at conquering the world made by Spain,
France, and at one time by Holland and Russia.
The international policy against which England made
such a determined stand in the past mostly aimed at
a more or less violent change in the international sit-
uation. We only keep in view the change in the con-
ditions of our national life. The international pol-
icy of other countries which England opposed was of
an offensive nature, ours is defensive. It was both
necessary and desirable for us to be so strong at sea
that no Sea Power could attack us without grave risk,
so that we might be free to protect our oversea inter-
ests, independently of the influence and the choice of
other Sea Powers. Our vigorous national develop-
ment, mainly in the industrial sphere, forced us to
cross the ocean. For the sake of our interests, as

Germany and England 35

well as of our honour and dignity, we were obliged to
see that we won for our international pohey the same
independence that we had secured for our European
policy. The fulfilment of this national duty might
eventually be rendered more difficult by Enghsh op-
position, but no opposition in the world could release
us from it.

Our fleet had to be built with an eye to English
policy — and in this way it was built. My efforts in
the field of international politics had to be directed to
the fulfilment of this task. For two reasons Ger-
many had to take up an internationally independent
position. We could not be guided in our decisions
and acts by a policy directed against England, nor
might we, for the sake of England's friendship, be-
come dependent upon her. Both dangers existed,
and more than once were perilously imminent. In
our development as a Sea Power we could not reach
our goal either as England's satellite, or as her antag-
onist. England's unreserved and certain friendship
could only have been bought at the price of those very
international plans for the sake of which we had
sought British friendship. Had we followed this
course we should have made the mistake to which the
Roman poet refers when he says that one must not

36 Imperial Germany

"propter vitam vivendi perdere causas." But as
England's enemy we should have had little prospect
of reaching such a point in our development as a Sea
and Commercial Power as we have actually attained.

GERMANY AND ENGLAND DTJKING THE BOER WAR.

During the Boer War, which strained the forces
of the British Empire to the uttermost, and led Eng-
land into great difficulties, there seemed to he an op-
portunity of dealing the secret opponent of our inter-
national policy a shrewd blow. As in the rest of
Europe, enthusiasm for the Boers ran high in Ger-
many. Had the Government undertaken to put a
spoke in England's wheel, it would have been sure of
popular approval. To many it seemed that the Euro-
pean situation was favourable to a momentary suc-
cess against England, and that French assistance
was assured. But there was only a seeming com-
munity of interests against England in Europe, and
any eventual political success against England in the
Boer question would have had no real value for us.
An attempt to proceed to action at the bidding of the
pro-Boer feelings of that time would soon have had
a sobering effect. Among the French the deeply
rooted national hatred against the German Empire

Germany and England During Boer War 37

would speedily and completely have ousted the mo-
mentary ill-feeling against England as soon as we had
definitely committed ourselves to a course hostile to her
interests; and a fundamental change of front in
French policy would have resulted directly after.
However painful the memory of the then recent events
at Fashoda might be to French pride, it could not
suffice to turn the scale against the memory of Sedan.
The Egyptian Sudan and the White Nile had not
driven the thought of Metz and Strassburg from the
hearts of the French. There was great danger that
we should be thrust forward against England by
France, who at the psychological moment would re-
fuse her aid. As in SchUler's beautiful poem, "Die
Ideale" ("The Ideals"), our companions would have
vanished midway.

But even if, by taking action in Europe, we had
succeeded in thwarting England's South African pol-
icy, our immediate national interests would not have
benefited thereby. From that moment onward for
many a long day our relations with England would
have been poisoned. England's passive resistance
to the international policy of new Germany would
have changed to very active hostility. During those
years we were occupied in founding our sea power by

38 Imperial Germany

building the German navy, and even in the event of
defeat in the South African War, it was possible for
England to stifle our sea power in the embryo. Our
neutral attitude during the Boer War had its origin
in weighty considerations of the national interests of
the German Empire,

Our navy was not strong enough for us forcibly to
achieve a sufficient sea power in the teeth of English
interests. Nor could we, by being towed in the wake
of English policy, reach the desired goal of possess-
ing a strong fleet.

DISCUSSION IN THE PEESS ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF AN
ANGLO-GERMAN ALLIANCE.

The thought occurred to many that English oppo-
sition against German international pohcy, and above
all against the construction of a German navy, might
be overcome most easily by an alliance between Ger-
many and England. Indeed, at times the idea of
an Anglo- German alhance has been discussed in the
Press of both countries. It had already occupied
Bismarck's thoughts, but the final result was only the
resigned remark: "We would be willing enough to
love the English, but they will not allow us to do so."
Later on, too, Germany might perhaps not have been

Anglo-German Alliance Debated 39

disinclined to conclude a treaty with England, on a
basis of absolute equality and with mutual obliga-
tions. German interests would have gained nothing
by stipulations which England might disregard in the
event of a change of Ministry, or the occurrence of
any other circumstances over which we had no con-
trol, while we continued bound to them. Nor would
it have sufficed us that some Minister or other was in
favour of an Anglo-German treaty. To make a
lasting agreement the whole Cabinet, and above all
the Prime Minister, would have had to support it.
Bismarck pointed out how difficult it was to estab-
lish firm relations with England, because treaties of
long duration were not in accordance with English
traditions, and the expression of opinion of English
politicians, even those in a prominent position, and
the transitory moods of the English Press were
by no means equivalent to immutable pledges.
For many reasons English public opinion is more
favourable to France than to us, for England no
longer looks upon her as a rival, and certainly not as
a serious competitor, at sea; consequently France
occupies a different position from ours with regard
to England. In consideration of the widespread
jealousy roused in England by Germany's industrial

40 Imperial Germany

progress, and especially by the increase of the Ger-
man navy, it was only on condition of absolutely bind-
ing pledges on the part of England that we could
have set foot on the bridge of an Anglo-German
alhance. We could only thus unite ourselves with
England on the assumption that the bridge which
was to help us over the real and supposed differences
between England and Germany was strong enough
to bear our weight.

At the time this question of an alliance was being
ventilated the European situation differed in many
respects from the present one. Russia had not then
been weakened by the Japanese War, but intended
to secure and expand her newly-won position in the
Far East, in particular on the Gulf of Pechili. Ow-
ing to the Asiatic questions pending between the two
empires, relations between England and Russia were
then rather strained. The danger was imminent
that if Germany allied herself with England she
would have to undertake the role against Russia that
Japan assumed later single-handed. But we should
have had to play this part under very different condi-
tions from the very favourable ones which Japan
foiind at her disposal in her conflict with Russia.
The Japanese War was unpopular in Russia, and it

Anglo-German Alliance Debated 41

had to be waged at an immense distance, like a colo-
nial war. If we had allowed ourselves to be thrust
forward against Russia we should have found our-
selves in a far more difficult position. A war against
Germany would not, in these circumstances, have
been unpopular in Russia, and would on the part of
the Russians have been carried on with that national
enthusiasm which is peculiar to them when defending
their native soil. France would have preferred the
excuse of the casiis foederis, and would have been
able to wage her war of revenge under favourable
circumstances. England was on the eve of the Boer
War. Her position would have been improved if her
great colonial enterprise had been supported and ac-
companied by a European complication, such as had
rendered her good service in the middle of the eight-
eenth and in the first decade of the nineteenth cen-
turies. In the event of a general conflict, we Ger-
mans would have had to wage strenuous war on land
in two directions, while to England would have fallen
the easier task of further extending her Colonial Em-
pire without much trouble, and of profiting by the
general weakening of the Continental Powers. Last,
but certainly not least, while military operations were
going forward on the Continent, and for a long time

42 Imperial Germany

after, we should have found neither strength nor
means nor leisure to proceed with the building of our
navy, as we have been able to do. Thus the only
course left to us was not to entrench upon English
interests and to avoid both a hostile encounter and
docile dependence.

ENGLAND AND THE GERMAN NAVY.

Thus, unaffected and uninfluenced by England,
we have succeeded in creating that power at sea which
is the real basis of our industrial interests and our in-
ternational policy; a power that the strongest enemy
would not attack without hesitation.

During the first ten years after the introduction
of the Navy Bill of 1897, and while our shipbuilding
was in its infancy, an English Government, ready to
go to any lengths, could have made short work of our
development as a Sea Power, and rendered us harm-
less before we grew formidable at sea. Such action
against Germany was repeatedly demanded in Eng-
land. The Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Arthur
Lee, asserted in a public speech on February 3, 1905,
that attention should be directed to the North Sea,
the British fleet should concentrate there, and in the
event of war they must "strike the first blow, before

England and the German Navy 43

the other side found time to read in the newspapers
that war had been declared." The Daily Chronicle
emphasised this utterance with the words: "If the
German fleet had been smashed in October, 1904,
we should have had peace in Europe for sixty years.
For this reason we consider the statement Mr. Arthur
Lee uttered, assuming that it was on behalf of the
Cabinet, a wise and pacific declaration of the unalter-
able purpose of the Mistress of the Seas." In the au-
tumn of 1904 the Army and Navy Gazette remarked
how intolerable it was that England alone, owing to
the existence of the German fleet, was forced to adopt
measures of defence which she would otherwise not
have needed. The article runs: "Once before we
had to snuff out a fleet, which we beheved might be
employed against us. There are many people, both
in England and on the Continent, who consider the
German fleet the only serious menace to the preser-
vation of peace in Europe. Be that as it may, we
are content to point out that the present moment is
particularly favourable to our demand that the Ger-
man fleet shall not be further increased." About the
same time an English review of good standing wrote :
"If the German fleet were destroyed the peace of
Europe would be assured for two generations. Eng-

44 Imperial Germany

land and France, or England and the United States,
or aU three, would guarantee the freedom of the sea
and prevent the building of more ships, which, in
the hands of ambitious Powers, with a growing
population and no Colonies, are dangerous weap-
ons."

Just at this time France was preparing to injure
us in Morocco. A few months earlier, in June, 1904,
a French publicist told me that the construction of
our fleet called forth widespread and increasing anx-
iety in England; that England could not make up
her mind how best to put a stop to our fxu-ther ship-
building, whether by direct representations or by en-
couraging the Chauvinistic elements in France. To-
day England gives us ovu" due as a Sea Power — as
the strongest Sea Power next to themselves. When,
in the winter of 1909, an English Member of Parlia-
ment stated the fact that England would not have
needed to continue her sea armaments at such a fever-
ish rate if she had ten years previously prevented the
rise of the German Sea Power, he expressed a thought
that, so far as the pohcy of mere force is concerned,
is comprehensible and perhaps to the point. But
England would not have found an opportunity to
nip our growing fleet in the bud, a thing she had re-

Peaceful Aims of German World Policy 45

peatedly done in the past in the case of other coun-
tries, because we did not expose ourselves.

THE PEACEFUL AIMS OF GERMAN WOKLD POLICY.

The fleet that we have built since 1897, and that,
though far inferior to England's, has made us the
second Sea Power of the world, enables us to support
our interests everywhere with all the weight of our
reputation as a Great Power. The foremost duty
of our navy is to protect our world commerce and the
Hves and honour of our fellow-countrymen abroad.
German battleships have performed this task in the
West Indies and the Far East. Emphatically, it is
a largely defensive role that we assign to our fleet.
It is self -understood that this defensive role might
become an off^ensive one in serious international con-
flicts. If the Empire should be wantonly attacked,
from no matter what quarter, the sea, as a theatre of
war, wiU have a very difi'erent and much greater im-
portance in our times than it did in 1870. In such a
case the fleet as well as the army would, needless to
say, in accordance with Prussian and German tradi-
tions, consider attack the best form of defence. But
the^e is absolutely no ground for the fear which the
building of our navy has aroused, that with the rise of

46 Imperial Germany

German power at sea the German love of battle will
be awakened.

Of all the nations of the world the Germans are
the people that have most rarely set out to attack
and conquer. If we except the expeditions against
Rome, led by the German Emperors in the Middle
Ages, which originated rather in a grand if mistaken
political illusion than in love of battle and conquest,
we shall seek in vain in our past for wars of conquest
that may be compared with those of France in the
seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
those of Spain under the Habsburgs, of Sweden in
her best days, or those of the Russian and British
Empires in the course of their fundamentally ex-
pansive national policy. For centuries we Germans
have aimed at nothing but the defence and security
of our country. Just as the Great King did not lead
his unvanquished battalions on adventurous expedi-
tions, after the conquest of Silesia and the safeguard-
ing of the independence of the Prussian monarchy,
so the Emperor William and Bismarck, after the un-
paralleled successes of two great wars, did not dream
of attempting further military exploits. If any na-
tion may boast of political self-restraint, it is the Ger-
mans. We have always set a limit to our successes

Peaceful Aims of German World Policy 47

ourselves, and have not waited till the exhaustion of
our national resources made us halt. Consequently
our evolution lacks periods of a brilliant and sudden
rise; rather it is a slow and unwearied advance. The
Germans have practically no tinge of that restless-
ness which in other nations urges men to find in suc-
cess the spur to further bold effort. Our political
character is less that of the rash, speculative mer-
chant than that of the plodding peasant who, after
sowing carefully, patiently awaits the harvest.

After the Franco- German War all the world was
filled with dread of further military enterprises on
the part of Germany. There was no scheme of con-
quest, however improbable, that we were not credited
with harbouring. Since then more than four decades
have passed. The strength of our people has grown,
we are richer in material possessions, and our army
has become stronger and stronger. The German
fleet has been created and developed. The number
of great wars that have been waged since 1870 ex-
ceeds the average for such a period of time in earlier
years. Germany did not seek to take part in any
of them, and calmly resisted all attempts to be drawn
into military entanglements.

Without boastfulness or exaggeration, we may say

48 Imperial Germany

that never in the course of history has any Power,
possessing such superior military strength as the Ger-
mans, served the cause of peace in an equal measure.
This fact cannot be explained by our well-known and
undoubted love of peace. The German has always
been peace-loving, and has nevertheless had to draw
his sword again and again in order to defend himself
against foreign attacks. As a matter of fact, peace
has primarily been preserved, not because Germany
herself did not attack other nations, but because
other nations feared a repulse in the event of their
attacking Germany. The strength of our armaments
has proved to be a more effective guarantee of peace
than any in the last tumultuous centuries. An his-
torical judgment is contained in this fact.

Given a rightly guided foreign policy, the com-
pletion of our Lines of Defence by the navy consti-
tutes an additional and increased guarantee of peace.
Just as the army prevents any wanton interruption
of the course of Germany's Continental policy, so the
navy prevents any interruption in the development of
our world policy. As long as we had no navy, our
rapidly growing international industrial interests,
which are also inalienably bound up with our national

Peaceful Aims of German World Policy 49

economic interests, presented a vulnerable surface to
our opponents. By protecting this weak point, and
also rendering a naval attack on the Empire an Under-
taking of great risk for the enemy, we preserved not
only the peace of our own country, but also that of
Europe. We were concerned with the acquirement
of means of defence, not of attack. After entering
the ranks of the Sea Powers we continued quietly on
the same course as heretofore. The new era of un-
bounded German world-policy, which was so often
foretold abroad, has not dawned. But we certainly
have acquired the means of effectively protecting our
interests, of resisting aggression, and of maintaining
and developing our position everywhere, especially
in Asia Minor and Africa.

As our problems in world-pohtics increased, the
web of our international relations had to be extended.
Distant oversea States, which at the time of our purely
Continental poHcy concerned us but little, grew of
more and more importance to us. It became the most
significant duty of our present-day poKcy to cultivate
good and, if possible, friendly relations with these.
This refers primarily to the two Great Powers of
the West and the East, the United States of America

50 Imperial Germany

and Japan. In both cases we had to overcome tem-
porary differences before there could be any ques-
tion of entering into friendly relations.

GEEMANY AND THE UNITEB STATES.

During the Spanish-American War a section of
German public opinion manifested strong sympathy
with Spain, which was resented in the States. Ger-
man relations with America had also been clouded by
the way in which part of the English and American
Press had interpreted certain incidents which had oc-
curred between our squadrons and the American fleet
off Manila. This diiference reached its height in
February, 1899, so that it seemed desirable strongly
to advocate preparations for a better understanding
between the two nations of kindred race. What I
said on this point in the Reichstag has subsequently
proved true. "From the point of view of a common-
sense policy, there is no reason why the best relations
should not subsist between Germany and America.
I see no single point in which the German and Ameri-
can interests are opposed, nor any in the future where,
in the course of their development, they are likely to
clash. We can say without hesitation that during the
last century the United States have nowhere found

Germany and the United States 51

better understanding or juster recognition than in
this country." More than anyone else the Emperor
William II. manifested this understanding and ap-
preciation of the United States of America. It was
he who first paved the way for our friendly and sound
relations. He won over the Americans by his con-
sistently friendly and sympathetic attitude. He was
bound to President Roosevelt by ties of personal
friendship. The mission of Prince Henry to Amer-
ica was crowned with the success we had anticipated.
It contributed largely to making both nations realise
how many common interests united them, and how
few real differences divided them. It was a happy
thought of the Emperor's, too, to knit the two Ger-
manic nations together intellectually, by the exchange
of teachers of repute in the German and American
Universities. German intellect, poetry, philosophy,
and science have met nowhere with more sincere admi-
ration than in the United States. On the other hand
Germany, more than any other country, studied and
welcomed the wonderful technical inventions of
America. This intimate exchange of ideas in the
field of intellectual and scientific achievement found
its outward manifestation in the arrangements for
exchanging professors. These ties between the two>

52 Imperial Germany

nations and also between their rulers, as they grew
closer, prompted a friendly political relation between
us and the United States. Not only did we settle
the question of Samoa amicably, but during the crit-
ical period through which our country passed at the
beginning of the new century America never once
opposed our policy. With the exception of Austria,
there is probably no country where existing circiun-
stances contribute so naturally to permanent friendly
relations with us as in North America. About 12,-
000,000 Germans live in the United States. Since
the formation of the "Deutsch-Amerikanischen Na-
tionalbvmd" (National German- American Union)
in 1910, they are animated more and more by the de-
sire to maintain and encourage a close connection
with their old German home, while at the same time
remaining perfectly loyal to their adopted comitry.
As long as policy in Germany and in America is di-
rected by cool-headed men, who avoid with equal
scrupulousness exaggerated expressions of friend-
ship or nervous impatience when confronted with oc-
casional differences (which can always arise in the
sphere of industry) , we need not fear for our relations
with the United States. Respect for each other, on
the basis and within the bounds of self-respect, will

Germany and Japan 53

be the best means of preserving our friendship with
America.

GERMANY AND JAPAN.

Our relations with Japan, as with the United States
of America, passed through a period of strain to-
wards the end of the nineteenth century. Up to the
bginning of the 'nineties we had served as a model
for the Japanese and had been their friend. This
warlike nation of the Far East warmly admired our
military organisation and our warhke history; and
after the defeat of China the Japanese boasted that
they were the Prussians of the East. Our relations
with them received a severe shock when, in 1895, we
together with France and Russia forced victorious
Japan to reduce her demands on China. When we
thus interfered with Japan we lost much of the sym-
pathy which she had for many years accorded us, and
we did not earn particular gratitude from France and
Russia. The German Emperor's scheme, which was
to have served the ideal of promoting peace, was
eagerly and successfully taken advantage of by our
antagonists and competitors to injure us with the
Japanese. By dint of prolonged efforts we suc-
ceeded at last in reviving a better state of feeUng to-
wards Germany in Japan.

54 Imperial Germany

It is not to our interest to have that eminently
capable and brave nation for an enemy. On the
other hand, we have no intention, of course, of allow-
ing Japan to use us as a catspaw. It would have very
considerably facihtated matters not only for Japan
but also for England if, for the sake of their interests
in the Far East, we had allowed ourselves to be thrust
forward against Russia. We ourselves should have
fared badly in the matter. Just as we did not wel-
come the idea of offending and estranging Japan for
the sake of France and Russia, so we did not care to
fall out with Russia on account of the interests in the
Far East of other Powers.

Towards the end of the 'eighties Prince Bismarck
once said to me, with reference to Russia and Asia:
"In Russia there is a very serious amount of iinrest
and agitation, which may easily result in an explo-
sion. It would be best for the peace of the world if
the explosion took place in Asia and not in Europe.
We must be careful not to stand just in the way, oth-
erwise we may have to bear the brunt of it." If we
had allowed ourselves to be thrust forward against
Russia before the Russo-Japanese War, we should
have had to bear the brunt. I also heard him say on
some occasion: "If Mr. N. proposes something to

Continental Policy and World Policy SS

you that would be useful to him and harmful to you,
it does not by any means follow that Mr. N. is a fool.
But you are a fool if you agree to it,"

CONTINENTAL POLICY AND WORLD POLICY.

If Germany, after attaining the great aim of her
Continental policy, is in a position, with her largely
increased and steadily increasing powers, to reach
out into the wide world, that by no means implies
that we are at hberty to expend the whole of our na-
tional strength on enterprises outside the Continent
of Europe.

The transition to international politics has opened
to us new political courses and discovered to us new
national problems; but it does not imply the aban-
donment of all our old courses, or a fundamental
change in our tasks. Our new world-policy is an
extension, not a shifting of the field of our political
activities.

We must never forget that the consolidation of our
position as a Great Power in Europe has made it pos-
sible for us to transform our industrial activity from
a national into an international one, and our Conti-
nental policy into international pohcy. Our world-
policy is based upon the successes of our European

56 Imperial Germany

policy. The moment the firm foundation consti-
tuted by Germany's position as a Great European
Power begins to totter, the whole fabric of our world-
policy win collapse. It is quite possible that a de-
feat in international politics might leave our position
in Europe unchanged; but it is unthinkable that a
sensible diminution of power and influence in Europe
would leave our position in international politics un-
shaken. We can only pursue our world-policy on
the basis of our European poHcy. The conservation
of our position of power on the Continent is still, as
it was in Bismarck's day, the first and last aim of
our national policy. If, at the behest of our national
needs, we have gone beyond Bismarck in international
affairs, nevertheless we must always maintain the
prtDciples of his European policy as the firm ground
on which we take our stand. The new era must be
rooted in the traditions of the old. A healthy devel-
opment may in this case, too, be ensured by a com-
mon-sense compromise between the old and the new,
between preservation and progress. To renounce
international politics would have been equivalent to
condemning our national vitality to slow but sure
decay. An adventurous international policy, which

Continental Policy and World Policy 57

should take no account of our old European interests,
might at first seem attractive and impressive, but it
would soon lead to a crisis if not to a catastrophe in
our development.

Sound political success is achieved much in the
same way as mercantile success; by keeping a steady
course between the Scylla of over-carefulness and the
Charybdis of speculation, A conflict between Ger-
many and England would be a great misfortune for
both countries, for Europe and for mankind in gen-
eral. Ever since the day when I undertook the af-
fairs of the Foreign Ofiice, I have been convinced that
such a conflict would never come to pass : —

i. If we built a fleet which could not be attacked
without very grave risk to the attacking party.

ii. If we did not, beyond that, indulge in undue
and unlimited shipbuilding and armaments, and did
not overheat our marine boiler.

iii. If we allowed no Power to injure our reputa-
tion or our dignity.

iv. If we allowed nothing to make an irremediable
breach between us and England. That is why I al-
ways repelled any impertinent attack which was hkely
to hurt our feelings as a nation, from whatever quar-

58 Imperial Germany

ter it came, but resisted all temptations to interfere
in the Boer War, as that would have dealt English
self-esteem a wound that would not heal.

V. If we kept calm and cool, and neither injured
England nor ran after her.

"The basis of a sound and sensible world-policy is
a strong, national home policy." So I said in Decem-
ber, 1901, when a member of the Reichstag, Eugen
Richter, tried to prove that the policy, which under-
lay the new tariff and aimed at the protection of
home industries and especially agrarian interests, was
antagonistic to the new world-policy which was
founded on the interests of commerce. The apparent
antagonism between the two was really a compro-
mise; for German industrial activity in the inter-
national field had had its origin in the extremely
flourishing condition of home industries.

The connection between politics and national in-
dustry is far closer in our times than it was in the
past. The home and foreign policies of modern
States re-act directly upon the fluctuations and
changes of their very highly developed industrial life,
and every considerable industrial interest ultimately
finds political expression in one way or another. In-
ternational commerce, with all the various interests

Continental Policy and World Policy 59

depending on it, has made our international policy a
necessity. Our industrial activities at home demand
a corresponding home policy. Between the two,
some compromise must be sought and found.

Seven years after the tariff debates the worth of
this compromise between the home policy and inter-
national policy, much discussed then in pohtical and
industrial circles, was proved in the sphere of inter-
national politics on the occasion of the Bosnian crisis
in the year 1908. This event demonstrates more
clearly than any academic discussion could do the real
relation in which our oversea policy and our Euro-
pean policy stand to one another. German policy,
up to the time when the Bosnian question was raised,
was mainly controlled by consideration of our inter-
national policy. Not that Germany directed her for-
eign relations in accordance with her oversea inter-
ests, but that England's displeasure at the develop-
ment of German foreign trade and especially at the
growth of German sea power, influenced the group-
ing of the Powers and their attitude towards the
German Empire. Pubhc opinion amongst the Eng-
lish, who are usually so cool and courageous, gave
way temporarily to fear of a German invasion; and
this fear was so groundless and so senseless that it al-

6o Imperial Germany

most amounted to a panic. This, moreover, was sys-
tematically encouraged by a large section of the Eng-
lish Press, which has a very powerful and widespread
influence.

THE ENGLISH POLICY OF ISOLATION.

Since the beginning of the new century the influ-
ence of King Edward VII. had made itself felt in
English foreign politics. He was a monarch of ex-
traordinary insight into the character of men, who
knew to a nicety the art of handling them, and had
wide and varied experience. Enghsh poHcy did not
so much aim at directly opposing the interests of Ger-
many as at gradually checkmating her by shifting the
Balance of Power in Europe. By a series of enten-
tes, for the sake of which considerable British in-
terests were several times sacrificed, she sought to at-
tach to herself the other states of Europe, and so to
isolate Germany. It was the period of the so-caUed
English policy of isolation. With Spain she con-
cluded a treaty with reference to the Mediteiranean.
France, of course, was well disposed towards the op-
ponent of the German Empire, and the Franco-Brit-
ish treaty about Egypt and Morocco in the year 1904

The English Policy of Isolation 61

drove the memory of Fashoda into the backgrotind.

Russia also drew near to England, for owing to the
after-eiFects of the heavy losses by land and at sea
that she had sustained in her war with Japan, and
also because of serious disturbances at home, she had
decided to come to an arrangement with England
about their respective spheres of interest in Asia. It-
aly was eagerly wooed. Similar attempts with regard
to Austro-Hungary, on the occasion of the meeting
of the monarchs at Ischl, failed, thanks to the un-
swerving loyalty to his ally of the old Emperor, Franz
Joseph.

In Algeciras, although Germany defended her own
national interests as part and parcel of the general,
international interests, we had a hard fight against
the French demands which had England's support.

At that time the policy of isolation to aU. appear-
ances succeeded with regard to the grouping of the
Powers; and yet the aims of German policy in re-
spect of Morocco were practically fulfilled by the
very fact that the conference was called, and by the
more important decisions it made. The question was,
how the system of ententes would work in the sphere
of purely European politics.

62 Imperial Germany

THE BOSNIAN CEISIS.

The final annexation by Austro-Hungary of the
Provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina which, in ac-
cordance vdth the decisions of the Berlin Congress,
Austria had occupied since 1878, led to a great Euro-
pean crisis. Russia opposed these proceedings on
the part of Austria. Believing that an armed settle-
ment of the old Austro-Russian rivalry in the Bal-
kans vras at hand, Servia, vphose plans for aggran-
disement vrould be thwarted, thought herself entitled
to take up arms against the Danube Monarchy.
England sided with Russia, and the language of the
English Press was almost more impassioned than
the utterances of the Russians. The antagonistic
poHcy of England seemed aimed less against Austria
than against Germany, Austria's ally. For the first
time the Austro-German alliance was to prove its dur-
abihty and strength in a grievous conflict.

In my speeches in the Reichstag I made it quite
clear that Germany was resolved to preserve her alH-
ance with Austria at any cost. The German sword
had been thrown into the scale of European decision,
directly in support of our Austro-Hungarian ally,
indirectly for the preservation of European peace.

The Bosnian Crisis 63

and above all for the sake of German credit and the
maintenance of our position in the world. It would
now be made manifest whether Germany really had
been checkmated by the policy of isolation, and
whether the Powers that had been drawn into the circle
of Anti-German pohcy would find it consistent with
their vital interests in Europe to take up a hostile at-
titude towards the German Empire and its allies.
The course of the Bosnian crisis, in point of fact,
made an end of the policy of isolation. No power
was wilMng to subordinate its own European interests
to the international interests of foreigners, or to sac-
rifice itself for others. The group of Powers whose
influence had been so much overestimated at Alge-
ciras, fell to pieces when faced with the tough prob-
lems of Continental pohcy. Italy sided with her al-
hes, France awaited events and assumed an attitude
not unfriendly to Germany, and the Emperor Nicho-
las gave the world a new proof of his wisdom and his
love of peace by deciding on a friendly settlement of
the existing difficulties. The ingenious isolation of
Germany, for some time the terror of timid souls,
proved to be a diplomatic illusion devoid of political
actuahty. The fundamental error in the calculations
had been this, that they had not set down at its full

64 Imperial Germany

value as a factor in the situation the importance of
the German Empire as a Great Power of Europe.
It was certain that if anyone succeeded in dealing our
position in Europe a keen blow, our international pol-
icy would sustain a mortal wound. In that, which
was one of the premises on which the policy of isola-
tion was based, calculations were correct. But we
are not so easy to wound in our Continental position.
The Triple' Alliance is a force against which no
country would let itself be thrust forward for the
sake of remote interests, even if very clever diplo-
macy were employed in the attempt. It is a force
with which no Power would dare to wage war except
^s a last resort in a vital question. Last, but not
least, the Continental Powers are bound by many ties
vof common interest which cannot be subordinated to
the rivalry of Germany and England at sea and in
commerce. With regard to international politics,
England is the only country with which Germany
has an account. As far as all the other European
Powers are concerned, the contra-account of Conti-
nental politics is the decisive factor in the attitude
they assume towards Germany.

This was the great lesson of the Bosnian crisis.

The Bosnian Crisis 6^

that our international policy, when all is said and
done, is based on our Continental policy. The former
brought us into conflict with England. The pohcy
of isolation, which seemed likely to endanger our
safety, was directed against the international trade
and the sea power of Germany. By means of our
strength as a Continental Power, we tore the web
which encompassed us. The result was that a tide of
sober reflection set in on the other side of the Chan-
nel, and this was the necessary forerunner of a period
in which a calm exchange of ideas and a sensible ad-
justment of interests took place between the two na-
tions.

In the winter of 1909, immediately after the Bos-
nian crisis had taken a decisive turn. King Edward
VII. paid a visit to the German Emperor and Em-
press in Berlin. This visit passed off in a satisfac-
tory manner, and the king had a hearty reception.
He, for his part, succeeded in emphasising the favour-
able impression made by his visit, by repeatedly giv-
ing expression to his sincere love of peace and his
warm friendship, sentiments which found corrobora-
tion soon after in the Speech from the Throne and
the Debate on the Address in the Enghsh ParHament.

66 Imperial Germany

This last visit of King Edward VII. aroused good
hope for the future and shed a pleasant light, not
only on the personal relations of the King with Ger-
many, but also on those between two great nations
who have every reason to respect one another, and to
vie with each other amicably in the work of peace.
Reactions might, of course, set in. In point of fact
they did. Indeed, the reaction in the summer of 1911
was somewhat violent. But the attempt to extend
the opposition between England and Germany into
a system of combined international policy, will hardly
be repeated, and, if it should be, it will once more be
foiled by the hard facts of Continental politics, of
which the very hardest is the Triple Alliance.

THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE.

European history has seldom, if ever, seen an alli-
ance of such strength and durability as the Triple
Alliance. In the year 1879 Bismarck concluded the
alliance with Austro-Hungary; in 1883 Italy joined
it. For thirty years now the treaties of alliance have
been regularly renewed, and there has never been any
ground for the hopes of its ill-wishers and the fears
of its weU-wishers with regard to the durability of
the Triple Alhance. In so far as a term of party pol-

The Triple Alliance 67

itics can be applied to international politics, which,
of course, differ completely in aim, cause, and effect,
one may characterise the Triple AlHance as one with
emphatically conservative tendencies. Herein, prob-
ably, the chief cause of its strength must be sought.
It was neither desire of conquest nor unsatisfied am-
bition that brought the States of the Triple Alliance
together, and keeps them united. The three mid-
European States are bound to each other by the firm
resolve to maintain the existing balance of power in
Europe, and should a forcible change be attempted,
to prevent it if need be by force. The united strength
of Middle Europe stands in the path of any revolu-
tion — any European policy which might elect to fol-
low the courses pursued by Louis XIV. or Napoleon
I. This alliance is like a mighty fortification divid-
ing the Continent in two. The wish to maintain ex-
isting conditions implies, as far as international poh-
tics is concerned, a desire for peace. The founders
of the Triple AUiance intentionally created a guaran-
tee of peace. They have not been disappointed in
their hopes, for the steadfastness of the Triple Alli-
ance has more than once in the course of the last
thirty years warded off the rising danger of war.

68 Imperial Germany

ITAI.Y.

The attitude of Italy towards the Triple Alliance
has undergone many a change in the course of thirty
years; these changes in Italy were due partly to in-
ternal political events, partly to the peculiar develop-
jnent of certain Mediterranean questions. But our
opponents did not succeed in severing Italy's connec-
tion with the Triple Alliance, although at times they
jnade pertinacious and eager attempts to do so.

The relations between Italy and Austria are nat-
urally more complex than the terms on which we
stand with Italy. The memory of the passionate
struggle lasting for half a century, which the Italian
people carried on against the Austrian dominion in
Italy, has not yet faded. Such recollections are kept
fresh in the mind of the nation by monuments, in-
scriptions, a voluminous literature, and the fiery pa-
triotism of the Italians. Moreover, the fact that
nearly a million Italians belong to the Monarchy of
the Habsburgs has repeatedly, and at times injuri-
ously, influenced Austro-Italian relations. That will
always remain a sore point. Many an Italian re-
gards his kindred in Austria with a passion that is
very far removed from the calm which our great

Italy 69

statesman recommended to us in respect of our kin-
dred in foreign lands and especially in Austro-Hun-
gary. Italians and Austrians should both remember
the truth of the statement which a distinguished Ital-
ian statesman, the Ambassador Count Nigra, once
expressed to me in the following words: "Austria
and Italy can only be either alhes or enemies." The
interests of both countries, if rightly understood, re-
quire them to remain allies, Italy and Germany are
so obviously interdependent that they are always
bound to unite. This interdependence is due to many
and weighty considerations ; the absence of all rivalry
between the nations, and — since the memory of the
struggle in the Tentoburger Wald and of the Battle
of Legnano has grown faint with time — ^the absence
of any disturbing reminiscence, the similarity of their
historical development, and the common dangers
which might threaten them in like manner.

Our relations with Italy are, contrary to the ac-
cepted view of the character of the two nations, re-
garded by us from the sentimental, and by the Ital-
ians from the common-sense, point of view. We are
apt at times to deprecate these relations unduly, and
at times to value them too highly from an excess of
sentimentality. Neither at Algeciras, nor on ac-

70 Imperial Germany

count of her Tripoli expedition, nor shortly before,
at the interview at Racconigi, did Italy ever contem-
plate severing her connection with us. A host of
legends has arisen around the attitude that Italy
adopted at the Conference of Algeciras. It has been
asserted that at Algeciras Italy left us in the lurch,
or even that she played a double game with us, and
this idea gave rise amongst us for a time to a totally
tmfounded mistrust of Italy's loyalty to the alliance.
The fact is, that on a few minor questions Italy voted
with the Western Powers and against us. These
votes were cleverly taken up by the French Press,
and were presented to the world as an indication that
Italy would renounce the Triple Alhance and enter
into friendly relations with France. In other and
more important questions, Italy supported our point
of view at Algeciras, and furthered our wishes. Our
representative at Algeciras, Herr von Radowitz,
always recognised this, and repeatedly did battle
against what he wias convinced were unjust attacks
upon Italy's attitude at the conference. It was in
pursuance of his wish that in the Reichstag in No-
vember, 1906, I combated the reproaches that were
cast upon Italy. Later, too, Herr von Radowitz ex-
pressed his opinion of the ItaHan delegates, to the

Italy 71

following effect : that perhaps so far as appearances
went they had been too anxious to place Franco-Ital-
ian relations in the most favourable light possible, but
that in actual fact they had rendered us good service.
The contrary opinion has just as little foundation as
the widespread belief in Russia, that at the Berlin Con-
gress Bismarck cheated and betrayed the Russians.

The Tripoli expedition gave the Italian nation
opportunity for showing in a brilliant manner their
patriotic solidarity and moral unity; but a section of
our Press, especially at the beginning, judged it
wrongly. Italy most certainly has interests that lie
outside the sphere of the Triple Alhance. We our-
selves have interests beyond the scope of Triple Alh-
ance policy, and Austria does not lack them either.
Prince Bismarck sharply emphasised this fact at
times. The Triple Alliance would not have remained
intact so long if it had demanded from the allied
Powers absolute community in all their enterprises
and in all the courses of their pohcy.

A well-known phrase, "cum grano salis" and, by
way of comparison, a fact of the internal political
constitution of our State, may again be mentioned to
characterise the Triple Alliance. Just as the Ger-
man Empire gains in security and stability because

72 Imperial Germany

its constitution, while requiring absolute obedience in
all great national and political questions, leaves the
single States free to deal with their own narrower
problems, so the Triple Alliance unites the three
Great Powers of Middle Europe on the great aim of
Continental politics for which the Alliance was
founded, but leaves them absolute freedom in the
pursuit of their particular national interests. The
existence of Italy, Austria, and Germany is rooted
in European pohtics, and their roots are many and
firmly intertwined. But the branches of the trees
must be able to spread freely in every direction. The
Triple Alliance must not and cannot act as the shears
which check free growth without cogent reason.

There are politicians who refuse to estimate at its
true value Italy's participation in the Triple Alli-
ance. Their hesitation arises from a doubt as to
whether Italy would be able and willing to go hand
in hand with Austria and us in every possible compli-
cation of international politics. Even if these fears
were justified, which is clearly not the case in view of
the loyalty of the authorities in Italy, and of the po-
litical wisdom of the Italian nation, this would not
be an argument against the value of Italy's partici-
pation in the Triple Alliance. Supposing Italy

Italy 73

were not able in every conceivable circumstance to
go to all lengths with Austria and us, and if we and
Austria likewise were not able to support Italy in all
complications of international politics, even then each
one of the three Powers would, by virtue of the ex-
isting alhance, be prevented from assisting the en-
emy. That is what Prince Bismarck meant when he
once remarked that it was sufficient for him that an
Italian corporal with the Italian flag and a drummer
beside him should array themselves against the West,
i. e. France, and not against the East, i. e. Austria.

In the event of a dispute in Europe everything
else depends on how the question is put, with what
military force we are prepared to defend our view,
and with what success our mihtary and diplomatic ef-
forts are crowned. The full and true value of an al-
liance can only be tested in a grave crisis. In times
of peace the Triple Alhance is held together by such
solid, almost indestructible interests in the sphere of
Continental pohtics, that momentary and transitory
disturbances in international matters cannot injure
it seriously.

The Triple Alliance as a guarantee of peace has
proved its worth for thirty years, and this justifies
our hopes.

74 Imperial Germany

TUB-KEY.

The Bosnian question and the Tripoli affair, in
which Austria and Italy were ranged against Tur-
key, who is on friendly terms with us, were not able
to weaken the Triple Alliance. We have carefully
cultivated good relations with Turkey and Islam,
especially since the journey to the East undertaken
by our Emperor and Empress. These relations are
not of a sentimental nature, for the continued exist-
ence of Turkey serves our interest from the indus-
trial, military, and political points of view. Indus-
trially and financially, Turkey offered us a rich and
fertile field of activity, to which Rodbertus and Fried-
rich List had already drawn attention, and which we
have cultivated with much profit. In the undesired
but possible event of a general European war, the
military strength of Turkey might have been exerted
in our favour. For our Austrian ally, Turkey was
the most convenient neighbour possible. The intro-
duction of our last Army Bill which had its origin in
the change of situation effected by the Balkan War,
shows that Turkey's collapse was a blow to us. I
never had any illusions about the limits of Turkish
ability to act with effect. For that very reason I

Russia 75

strove, for many years successfully, to prevent any
serious conflict in the Near East. In 1897, dur-
ing the Cretan affair, in 1908-09, during the crisis
caused by the annexation of Bosnia, and in all phases
of the Macedonian question, there was great danger
that serious trouble in the Balkan Peninsula would
have more unfavourable than favourable results for
us, as well as for Austro-Hungary, and would not
make the European situation any easier for us to deal
with. For many a year Turkey was a useful and im-
portant hnk in the chain of our political relations.

For the present our position in the Triple Alliance
will remain the chief feature of our Foreign policy.
The Triple Alliance has gained in value for us, partly
because, owing to our growing share in international
politics, and to the increase of our Navy, friction be-
tween England and Germany has considerably in-
creased, and partly because of the change in the inter-
national situation brought about by the conclusion of
the Franco-Russian AUiance.

RUSSIA.

Friendly relations with the Empire of the Tsars
was a legacy bequeathed to the new German Empire
by Prussia. Russia and Prussia have hardly ever

76 Imperial Germany

been antagonists, if we except the time of the Em-
press Elizabeth's hatred of Frederick the Great, a
hatred based on personal rather than material
grounds, and of the mock war between Russia and
Prussia in 1812.

The difficult task of dividing Poland certainly gave
rise to some temporary friction, but it did not result
in any serious conflict of views. Indeed, the Polish
affair often brought Russia and Prussia into closer
touch. The possibility of danger from Poland is a
warning to both these countries not to quarrel, but to
look on their common efforts to ward off attempts at
re-establishing the independence of Poland as a bridge
on which Russia and Prussia can continue to meet.

During the first half of the nineteenth century the
relations between the ruling houses of Russia and
Prussia were more intimate than is usual; and this
intimacy found expression in the policy of the two
countries. In the dark times of the Crimean War
Prussia's friendly attitude considerably eased Rus-
sia's position; and a counterpart to this is found in the
attitude which the Emperor Alexander II. adopted
during the Franco- German War. Not long after
the Peace of Frankfurt was signed, in September,
1872, the Emperors of Russia and Austria went to

Russia 77

the capital of the new German Empire to visit the
venerable sovereign who had emerged victorious from
the great struggle. On this occasion they met on
friendly terms, and by that time Prince Bismarck had
created a new basis for European policy. The united
strength of the empires of Eastern Europe cooled the
French nation's ardoiu* for revenge; indeed, this
union was an excellent guarantee of peace. Bis-
marck also expected that the closer connection of
Russia with the conservative tendencies of Germany
and Austria's Foreign pohcy would stem the tide of
Panslavism which at that time was rapidly rising in
Russia. As he expressed it: "Russia, the wild ele-
phant, was to walk between the two tame elephants,
Germany and Austria."

The Berhn Congress, 1878, occasioned a slight rift
in the hitherto unbroken concord of the Powers of
Eastern Europe. After the heavy losses of a long
and unexpectedly difficult campaign, Russia, who
had not cared to risk the occupation of Constantino-
ple, had to submit in Berlin to considerable modifica-
tions of the Peace of San Stefano. These alterations
in their essentials may be traced back to secret ar-
rangements made by the St. Petersburg Cabinet
with Austria before the war against Turkey, and with

78 Imperial Germany

England at the close of the armistice. The results
of the Berlin Congress were hardly satisfactory from
the point of view of the Russian people; and the
Russian Press, which in the last decade had greatly
strengthened its influence on public opinion, put all
the blame on Prince Bismarck, the chairman of the
Congress and its most distinguished member. The
Russian Imperial Chancellor, Prince Gortschakov,
whose personal relations with Prince Bismarck had
become gradually more and more unfriendly, not
only gave free rein to the Press, but discussed with a
French joumaUst the idea of a Franco-Russian Al-
liance, though this, of course, at the time, was nothing
more than an idea. When the Emperor Alexander
II. also seemed to be yielding to anti-German influ-
'Cnces, Bismarck, in 1879, concluded the treaty of alli-
.ance with Austro-Hungary, which became the basis
of the Triple Alliance. After the conclusion of this
alliance, the Times correspondent in Paris, M. de
Blowitz, a very versatile man, said to me: "That is
probably the best stroke of diplomacy that Bismarck
has yet achieved,"

Nevertheless Prince Bismarck, with his accustomed
energy, set to work to place us once more on our old

Russia 79

footing with Russia. He succeeded in materially im-
proving Russo-German relations, and, what is more,
the meeting of the three Emperors at Skierniewice,
in 1884, led to a new rapprochement of the three
Empires. European peace was assured in an almost
ideal fashion by the Triple Alliance on the one hand
and the entente of the Powers of Eastern Europe on
the other. But from the very first a limit was set to
this ideal state of affairs by the many antagonistic
aims of Russian and Austrian policy in the east. It
was only a question of time that this antagonism
should become manifest, for it did not depend on the
goodwill or illwill of statesmen, but on the differences
in the very real political interests of the two Empires.
It was the Bulgarian question which again upset the
good relations between Austria and Russia. The
friendly understanding of the three Empires did not
survive the stormy summer of 1886. It is well-known
that Prince Bismarck himself declared that in the face
of the new situation he had done his best, while re-
maining loyal to the Triple Alhance, to preserve a
friendly understanding between Germany and Rus-
sia. To this end he had assured a more or less ex-
ceptional position for German pohcy behind the

8o Imperial Germany

defensive position of the Triple AUiance, by means
of the so-called Reinsurance Treaty with Russia.
Later on he spoke frequently and in detail about the
motives that had induced him to conclude the treaty,
and about the value and bearing of the same. He
blamed his successor for not renewing the treaty, and
he pointed out that it was after this failure to renew
that the Franco-Russian Alliance was concluded.
Russia, no longer bound by any convention, and
France in her isolation had joined forces, after the
dividing wall between them had been removed.
Prince Bismarck considered this change on the part
of Russia, from the side of the German Empire to
that of the bitterest enemy of Germany, a great
strengthening of France's position among the Pow-
ers, and one which would materially increase the dif-
ficulties of German policy.

THE FRANCO-RUSSIAlSr ALLIANCE.

At any rate the Franco-Russian AUiance denotes
a very significant change in the international situa-
tion. In the 'nineties we Germans had to face British
rivalry, roused by the rapid development of German
foreign trade and the construction of the German
fleet, while we were taken in the rear by the Dual

The Franco-Russian Alliance 8i

Alliance, by which France desired to profit as much
as possible in order to realise her hopes.

Thus placed, we had to seek and find a means of
transition to an international policy. At first this
was a narrow path along which we had to advance
with great care. Our attitude towards Russia dur-
ing the Russo-Japanese War, was modelled on our
relations with England during the Boer War. With-
out injuring Japan by failing in strictly proper neu-
trality, we adopted a very friendly attitude towards
Russia. Indeed, our neutrahty with respect to Russia
was even a shade more kindly than that of France.

After the Russo-Japanese War there was a slight
coolness in Franco-Russian relations, whereas there
was an increase of warmth in those between Russia
and Germany. The Dual Alliance had gradually
lost a great deal of its original keenness of edge, not
so much on account of the weakening of Russia,
which, as was the case after the Crimean War, was
often exaggerated, as on account of the restoration of
confidence between Russia and Germany. The vari-
ous stages of this re-establishment of friendly rela-
tions were marked by the repeated meetings between
monarchs of the two Empires. After the Bosnian
crisis, too, normal relations between Russia and Ger-

82 Imperial Germany

many were quickly restored, as was proved by the
particularly satisfactory meeting between the Em-
peror William and the Tsar, which took place
amongst the islands off the coast of Finland in June,
1909. It did not lie in Germany's power to separate
Russia from France, nor could she harbour any in-
tention of so doing. Since a treaty of alliance has
been concluded between Russia and France, and has
penetrated the national sentiments of the two peo-
ples, it has become impossible, and will for some time
to come continue to be impossible, for us to sever the
ties of this alhance, and bind Russia to our interests
by means of a treaty.

But Germany can blunt the keen edge of the Dual
Alliance by putting her relations with Russia on a
sound basis. It was possible to accomplish this task,
and it has been done. Its accomplishment was ren-
dered considerably easier by the personal relations
subsisting between our Emperor and the Emperor
Nicholas. The hopes built by the French chauvinists
on the Russian Alliance have not been fulfilled. At
times Russian statesmen have even given France to
understand that Russia was not willing to serve the
cause of the French policy of revenge. The high
hopes with which the French acclaimed the conclusion

The Franco-Russian Alliance 83,

of the Dual Alliance have gradually faded. The
French authorities were forced to seek some compen-
sation for their disappointed hopes, for the sake of
the sentiments and aspirations which ultimately con-
trol pubHc feeling in France. They found this com-
pensation in the Anglo-French entente, which at
times seemed a greater menace to us than the Dual
AUiance. The resentment of the French against the
rulers of Alsace-Lorraine sought and found an ally
in the widespread disquietude and jealousy of the
English, which increased in proportion as our navy
grew and our oversea interests developed.

The Dual Alliance completely lacks any permanent
interests hostile to the German Empire which are
common to the two Powers. There is probably no
European Power which so rarely stands in the way
of Russia's claims in the spheres of politics and in-
dustry as Germany. Conflicting interests between
England and France are certainly not wanting either.
Up to quite recent times England's greatest and most
important acquisitions in the wider world were made
at the expense of France; this was the case in the
Sudan, and earlier in Further India. But for
France oversea politics are not vital, and therefore
she was at hberty to subordinate her international in-

§4 Imperial Germany

terests to England's, thereby circumscribing Franco-
British differences for the sake of an Anglo-French
agreement. France paid this high price for Eng-
land's friendship after she had been disappointed in
her hopes of the Dual Alliance.

GEEMANY AND FRANCE.

The resentment against Germany might well be
called the soul of French policy; the other interna-
tional questions are more of a material nature and
only concern the body. It is a peculiarity of the
French nation that they place spiritual needs above
material ones.

The irreconcUabihty of France is a factor that we
must reckon with in our political calculations. It
seems to me weakness to entertain the hope of a real
and sincere reconcihation with France, so long as we
have no intention of giving up Alsace-Lorraine.
And there is no such intention in Germany. There
certainly are many individual points in which we can
see eye to eye with France, and in which we can co-
operate, at any rate, from time to time. We must
always endeavour to preserve polite, calm, and peace-
ful relations with France. But beyond that we
should not pursue any will-o'-the-wisp delusions.

Germany and France 85

otherwise we may meet with the fate of the Astrono-
mer in La Fontaine, who, while gazing at the stars,
fell into the pit which lay at his feet, but which he
had not seen. In this case the pit is called "Le trou
des Vosges."

Also, as regards France, we must not hope too
much from attentions and amenities ; the small change
of international intercourse. In saying this we do
homage to the proud patriotism of a great nation.
The resentment against Germany lies too deep in the
hearts of the French for us to be able to overcome it
by cheap expressions of friendship. France was never
so hard hit, not even after the catastrophic defeats
of 1812-15, as by the war of 1870-71. In France
there is no comprehension of the fact that what seems
to them the brutal severity of a conqueror was really
a matter of national necessity to us Germans. Per-
haps in course of time the French nation will grow
reconciled to the decisions of the Peace of Frankfurt,
when it realises that they were and are irrevocable.
But so long as France thinks she perceives a possibil-
ity of winning back Alsace-Lorraine, either by her
own unaided efforts or with the help of others, so
long will she consider the existing arrangement pro-
visional and not final.

86 Imperial Germany

The French have the right to claim understand-
ing for this feeling with which the majority of the
people are deeply imhued. It is a proof of a lively
sense of honour, if a nation suffers so keenly from a
single injury to its pride that the desire for retribu-
tion becomes the ruling passion of the people. It is
quite true that for many centuries France was respon-
sible for the spirit of unrest which troubled the his-
tory of Europe. We had to fortify our position in
the West in an enduring manner, so as to safeguard
our peace from fresh disturbances. The remedy has
not been altogether unavailing, not only so far as
Germany is concerned, but for the whole of Europe.
But the French see things in a different light. The
policy of splendid adventures, which often has cost
Europe its peace, and has repeatedly forced France's
neighbours to strain their powers to the utmost, has
made the past of France a record of glory, by which
the pecuhar national ambition of the French has
found expression in the grandest and most spon-
taneous fashion. French history differs from the
German in this point, among many others: that
the greatest and most dramatic moments in which the
fate of nations is decided are found in the story of
her wars of conquest, whereas the most glorious pages

Germany and France 87

of German history tell of deeds of national defence.
We wish to prevent the return of such times as those
of Louis XIV. and of Napoleon I., and for our
greater security have therefore strengthened our
frontiers against France; hut it is just such times as
these for which many Frenchmen long, and which
in moments of excitement are the goal of the desires
of the whole nation. Germany, deriving new vigour
as she did from the events of 1866 and 1870, has de-
voted all her strength to the enlargement of her own
national hfe. Every time the national powers of
France were fortified she proceeded to acts of aggres-
sion abroad, and would do so again if she foresaw
the likelihood of success.

We must take this into account, and consider that
we ourselves should be the opponent against whom
France would first tiu-n if she thought that she could
carry out a victorious campaign against Germany.
The policy of revenge is supported by the unshakable
belief of the French in the indestructibility of the
vital power of France. This behef is based on all the
experiences of French history. No nation has ever
recovered so quickly as the French from the effects of
national disasters; none have ever so easily regained
their elasticity, their self-confidence and their energy.

88 Imperial Germany

after grievous disappointments and apparently crush-
ing defeats. More than once France appeared to be
finally overcome by her enemies abroad, and so shat-
tered by chaotic conditions at home, that Europe be-
lieved she had ceased to be dangerous. But always
within a very short time the French nation confronted
Europe in all its old strength, or even with added
might, and was able again to take up the struggle for
European supremacy, to threaten the balance of
power once more.

The rise and fall of this nation has always aston-
ished the States of Europe anew. The gradual de-
cline from the proud height to which Louis XIV.
had raised France seemed to be leading to the disin-
tegration of the French State by the great Revolu-
tion, which was quickly followed by civil war, the
disbandment of the army, the destruction of the old
industrial prosperity, and the bankruptcy of the
State. Ten years after the outbreak of the Revolu-
tion, the armies of the French Republic were masters
of Italy, the Netherlands, and aU the land west of the
Rhine, and had penetrated victoriously into the heart
of Germany; another ten years, and the first Empire
was at the height of its glory and Napoleon seemed
very near the attainment of his goal — dominion over

Germany and France 89

the whole Continent. Then followed the disasters
of Leipzig and Waterloo, the complete defeat of
France, and twice in succession, the taking of her
capital.

During more than twenty years of uninterrupted
warfare, the French nation had drained to the dregs
its industrial and physical resources; and yet under
the second Empire France was able once more to rise
to the foremost position. The consequences of the
defeat of 1870 dealt France a more grievous blow than
any previously. But it did not prevent this wonder-
fully elastic nation from rising yet again. What
Alexis de Tocqueville said more than half a century
ago about the French people in his classical work,
"L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution," is in many re-
spects still true to-day:

"Quand je considere cette nation en elle-meme, je la
trouve plus extraordinaire qu'aucun des evenements
de son histoire. En a-t-il jamais paru sur la terre
une seule qui fut si remplie de contrastes et si ex-
treme en chacun de ses actes, plus conduite par des
sensations moins par des principes; faisant ainsi tou-
jours plus mal ou mieux qu'on ne s'y attendait, tantot
au-dessous du niveau commun de I'humanite, tantot
fort au-dessus; un peuple teUement inalterable dans

go Imperial Germany

ses principaux instincts qu'on le reconnait encore dans
des portraits qui ont ete faits de lui il y a deux ou
trois mille ans, at en meme temps tellement mobile dans
ses pensees joumalieres et dans ses gouts qu'il finit
par se devenir un spectacle inattendu a lui-meme,
•et demeure souvent aussi surpris que les etrangers
a la vue de ce qu'il vient de f aire ; le plus casanier et
le plus routinier de tous quand on I'abandonne a lui-
meme, et lorsqu'une fois on I'a arrache malgre lui a
son logis et a ses habitudes, pret a tout pousser
jusqu'au bout du monde et a tout oser; indocile par
temperament, et s'accomodant mieux toutefois de
I'empire arbitraire et meme violent d'un prince que
du gouvernement regulier et libre des principaux
•citoyens; aujourd'hui rennemi declare de toute obeis-
sance, demain mettant a servir une sorte de passion
que les nations les mieux douees pour la servitude ne
peuvent atteindre; conduit par un fil tant que per-
sonne ne resiste, ingouvemable des que I'exemple de
la resistance est donne quelque part; trompant tou-
jours ainsi ses maitres, qui le craignent ou trop ou trop
peu; jamais si libre qu'il faille desesperer de I'asservir,
ni si asservi qu'il ne puisse encore briser le joug; apte
a tout, mais n'excellant qua dans la guerre ; adorateur
tdu hasard, de la force, du succes, de I'eclat et du bruit.

Germany and France 91

plus que de la vraie gloire; plus capable d'heroisme
que de vertu, de genie que de bon sens, propre a con-
cevoir d'immenses desseins plutot qu' a parachever de
grandes entreprises ; la plus brillante et la plus dange-
reuse des nations de I'Eiu-ope, et la mieux faite pour
y devenir tour a tour un objet d'admiration, de haine,
de pitie, de terreur, mais jamais d'indifference?" *

* "When I contemplate this nation itself, it strikes me as more ex-
traordinary than any of the events in its history. Was there ever in this
world a people so full of contrasts, so extreme in each one of its actions,
more guided by emotions and less by principles? Thus alvi'ays doing bet-
ter or worse than was expected, at one time below the common level of
humanity, at another far above it; a people so stable in their principal
instincts that they are still recognisable in portraits that were drawn
two or three thousand years ago, and at the same time so changeable in
their daily thoughts and in their tastes, that they themselves are finally
astonished at the spectacle they present, and are often as surprised as
foreigners at the sight of what they have just done; the most stay-at-
home creatures of habit when left to themselves, but once they have
been forced, against their will, to abandon their accustomed dwellings
and uses, ready to carry all before them to the ends of the earth, and to
dare anything; intractable by nature, and nevertheless submitting with a
better grace to the arbitrary and even brutal rule of a prince, than to the
orderly and free government of the principal citizens; one day the
avowed enemy of all allegiance, the next day serving with such a passion-
ate devotion as even the nations most prone to servitude cannot attain;
people who can be guided by a thread as long as no one resists, but who
become ungovernable as soon as the example to resist is given anywhere;
thus always deceiving their masters who fear them either too little or too
much; never so free that it is hopeless to try and subjugate them, nor
so utterly enslaved that they cannot throw off the yoke; qualified for
anything, but excelling only in war; worshipping chance, force, success,
show and clamour, rather than true glory; more capalDle of heroism than
of virtue, of genius than of common sense, better able to conceive im-

92 Imperial Germany

It is a fact that very soon after the re-establish-
ment of her political system, which, as after every
military disaster, had been overthrown as a result of
the defeats of Worth and Sedan, France, whose
activity in the field of continental politics had been
paralysed for the time being, exerted her power with
much effect in the sphere of world-politics. In the
course of the last twenty-five years she has founded
a colonial empire that much more than compensates
her for the loss of land and population she suffered
in Europe, and has thus raised herself to the position
of the second greatest colonial Power in the world.
Her possessions in North Africa, which lie at her very
gates, have been nearly doubled by the acquisition of
Morocco.

This is not the place to discuss whether, as many
think, the complete and unlimited control of Morocco
in pohtical, industrial and military matters will be a
source of weakness, or whether it will not rather lend
added strength to France. In any case, the colonial
activity of France proves how quickly and vigorously
the French spirit of enterprise revived soon after the

mense schemes than to consummate great undertakings; the most bril-
liant and the most dangerous of the nations of Europe, and the most
apt to become in turn an object of admiration, hatred, pity and terror,
but never one of indifference."

The Morocco Question 93

defeat of 1870, and attempted to win national ascend-
ancy in the path which lay open, and which Germany
had designedly left open in Tunis and in Tonquin.

But France will not look upon her great colonial
empire as a sufficient compensation for the loss of
Alsace-Lorraine. And Bismarck had no illusions on
this point when he recommended us to promote the
success of France's colonial policy in order to distract
the attention of the French^ at any rate temporarily,
from the neighbourhood of the Vosges.

THE MOEOCCO question.

When we fell out with France on the Morocco
question, it was not our object to thwart her colonial
policy, but we had weighty interests of our own as
well as our national reputation to defend. Our ac-
tion in the Moroccan affair had its legal justification
in the Treaty of Madrid of 1880, and the German-
Moroccan Commercial Treaty of 1890. We were
driven to take such action by the high-handed policy
of France in Morocco, which threatened to ignore
German industrial and commercial interests as well
as our national credit.

The Moroccan Treaty, concluded in Madrid in
1880, had defined the European Powers' right to ex-

94 Imperial Germany

ercise protection over Morocco. It was concluded on
the basis of the recognition of the sovereign rights of
Morocco. On the strength of this basis Grcrmany
concluded a commercial treaty with Morocco in 1890.
No change in the arrangements made at Madrid was
vahd without the assent of the signatory Powers —
namely, the Great Powers of Europe with the excep-
tion of Russia, the United States, the Scandinavian
States, Holland, Belgium and Portugal. France
certainly had a special interest in the development
of affairs in Morocco, which adjoins one of her own
colonial possessions. This fact was always taken into
account by Germany. On the basis of the arrange-
ments made at Madrid, no objection could have been
taken to the special consideration of the particular
interests of France and Spain. But French wishes
went far beyond this. France interfered more and
more unscrupulously in Moroccan affairs. She
hoped, by ignoring the Treaty of Madrid, and disre-
garding the economic interests of other countries,
especially those of Germany, quietly to acquire a
large new colonial possession of great value. In the
pursuit of this policy France relied on England, as-
suming that the support and countenance of that
country was sufficient to enable her to attain her ends.

The Morocco Question 95

On April 8, 1904, a separate treaty was made be-
tween England and France, in which France ac-
knowledged England's undisputed authority in
Egypt, and England expressed her approval of
France's action in Morocco. This separate treaty
disregarded, with an equal lack of ceremony, both
the International Settlement of 1880 and the Ger-
man-Moroccan Commercial Treaty. As one of the
first tangible results of the Anglo-French entente,
which was indirectly antagonistic to Germany, this
treaty obviously aimed at injuring the latter country.

The two Powers disposed arrogantly of a great and
most important field of colonial interests, without
even deigning to take the German Empire into con-
sideration. It was clearly an attempt on the part of
the Western Powers to lay claim to the right of de-
cision in matters of international policy. The French
authorities did not hesitate to act immediately upon
the Anglo-French arrangement, as if the signatory
Powers of the Treaty of Madrid had no existence at
all. France set about the "Tunification" of Mo-
rocco. The French agent in Morocco, St. Rene-
Taillandier, tried to secure a share in the govern-
ment of the country. By altering the police organ-
isation, by founding a National Bank under FrencH

96 Imperial Germany

direction, and by entrusting public works and con-
tracts to French firms, the industrial life and gov-
ernment in Morocco were to be brought under
French influence to such an extent that the ulti-
mate annexation of Morocco as a French possession
would have been merely a matter of form. The Min-
ister for Foreign Affairs at that time — ^Delcasse, a
most gifted and energetic statesman, but too easily
swayed by his f eehngs where Germany was concerned
— cherished the hope of confronting us with a fait
accompli in Morocco. He knew that in so doing he
would deal our prestige in the world a severe blow.
We had important and promising economic interests
in Morocco which were seriously injured by French
action. In addition to this, our dignity and oin*
newly-won position in international politics were at
stake. The fact that the signatory Powers of the
Treaty of Madrid had been ignored in the Anglo-
French Moroccan arrangement was equivalent in
specie to an affront to the German Empire. France
had made a friendly treaty with England, secret ne-
gotiations were being carried on with Spain, Russia
was not a signatory Power, Italy went her own way
in the Mediterranean, the affairs of Morocco were of
little interest to the United States, and there was no

The Morocco Question 97

reason to expect serious opposition from the smaller
States of Europe. Thus only Austria and, above
all, Germany were clearly set aside. A weighty
choice lay before us. Should we allow ourselves
to be left out, and treated as a quantite neglige-
able, in an important international decision? Or
should we demand that our interests be considered
and our wishes consulted? The first course would
have been the easier; we were urged to adopt the
second, not only by our sense of honour and our pride,
but also by our interests, rightly interpreted. If
once we suffered ourselves to be trampled on with
impunity, this first attempt to treat us badly would
soon have been followed by a second and a third.

On July 3, 1900, the Emperor William II. had
given utterance to the words: "I am not of opinion
that our German people, xmder the leadership of
their princes, conquered and suffered thirty years ago
in order to be set aside in important decisions on for-
eign affairs. If this should happen, the German na-
tion's position as a world-Power would be destroyed
for good and all, and I do not wish this to come to
pass." French Moroccan pohcy was an obvious at-
tempt to set Germany aside in an important decision
on foreign affairs, an attempt to adjust the balance

98 Imperial Germany

of power in Europe in favour of France. A prece-
dent would have been established which must of ne-
cessity have tempted to repetition. We could not
risk that. From this point of view the Moroccan
affair became a national question for us. The course
of our policy in Morocco was clearly indicated.

On March 31, 1905, His Majesty the Emperor, in
pursuance of my advice, landed at Tangier, where he
defended the independence and sovereignty of Mo-
rocco in unequivocal language. The demands of
Germany to be consulted about Moroccan affairs
were thus announced to the world. It was made
clear that Germany intended to adhere to the interna-
tional treaty of 1880, based on the acknowledgment
of the sovereignty of Morocco, and that she was not
inclined to recognise the new situation created with-
out her consent by the Anglo-French Moroccan
Treaty and the action of France in that country.
Our object was to substitute an international settle-
ment by the signatory Powers of the Treaty of Ma-
drid for the one-sided arrangement between England
and France. We also had to prevent an interna-
tional conference from simply giving its consent to
French policy in Morocco. Both ends were attained
by the fact that the Conference of Algeciras actually

The Morocco Question 99

took place, and by the decisions it made. France
violently opposed the scheme of calling a conference.
For a time it seemed as if M. Delcasse would make
the question of peace or war depend on this point.
When the German government refused to yield,
France consented to the conference. M. Delcasse
resigned the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. He re-
tired, and we got our way because we stood firm. In
Algeciras our position was naturally a difficult one,
seeing that we were opposed to the Powers of the en-
tente, and that the other Powers took little interest
in the Moroccan question. Nevertheless we suc-
ceeded in preserving the sovereignty of the Sultan
and in securing international control of the police
organisation and the Moroccan National Bank, thus
ensuring the open door in Morocco for German
economic interests as well as for those of all other
countries. We did not attain all we wished, but at
least all that was essential. We had foiled the at-
tempt to set us aside in the settlement of an affair
of great international importance. We should have
a voice in the further development of Moroccan af-
fairs, and we did not need to renoimce our right to
this without adequate compensation. The decisions
of the Algeciras Conference bolted the door against

100 Imperial Germany

the attempts of France to compass the "Tunification"
of Morocco. They also provided a bell we could
ring at any time should France show any similar tend-
encies again. Very soon after the Algeciras Con-
ference the new state of affairs made itself felt in a
painful manner in France. The "nefarious Alge-
ciras document" was characterised as "European
tutelage forced upon France," or at best as an "hon-
ourable retreat." It has been said that after the
resignation of Delcasse we ought to have tried to
come to a direct rmderstanding with France. It is a
question whether France was at all inclined to pay
us an acceptable price. Any way, it was not open to
us to pursue this course, if only on account of our
position with regard to Turkey and Islam. In No-
vember, 1898, the Emperor WiUiam II. had said in
Damascus: "The three hundred million Mahom-
medans who live scattered over the globe may be as-
sured of this, that the German Emperor will be their
friend at all times." In Tangier the Emperor had
declared emphatically in favour of the integrity of
Morocco. We should have completely destroyed our
credit in the Mahonmiedan world, if so soon after
these declarations we had sold Morocco to the French.
Our Ambassador in Constantinople, Freiherr von

The Morocco Question loi

Marschall, said to me at the time: "If we sacrifice
Morocco in spite of Damascus and Tangier, we shall
at one fell swoop lose our position in Turkey, and
therefore all the advantages and prospects that we
have painfully acquired by the labour of many years."
The separate Franco-German Treaty of February
9, 1909, which was concluded with the distinguished
assistance of von Kiderlen-Wachter, later Secretary
of State^ diminished the likehhood of continual fric-
tion between the two countries. It secured France
a certain amount of pohtical influence without making
annexation possible; but it retained the principle of
the open door, and it afforded German and French
commerce and industry equal rights in the State of
Morocco, which preserved its independence without
loss of territory. The arrangement promoted peace
in that it supplemented the Algeciras settlement in
such points as had proved in practice to require cor-
rection. The decisions of the Algeciras Conference
were explicitly confirmed by the treaty of 1909. The
German right to a voice in decisions touching the fate
of Morocco, this right which stood in the way of the
annexation of the country by France, was in no way
affected by the separate treaty. What we received
later in return for renouncing this right — whether it

102 Imperial Germany

be much or little, whether the piece of land in the
Congo that fell to our share be of great value or small
— was certainly obtained on the basis of the Algeciras
decisions, and thanks to our action in the year 1905.
We never had any intention of taking possession of
any part of Morocco; not because we were afraid of
France, but for our own sake. England and Spain,
besides France, would have opposed us there. On the
other hand, we could not hope to reconcile France
by exaggeratedly friendly advances in the Moroccan
question. However high the economic value that
France sets upon Morocco, however great the increase
of power which she expects from this addition to her
North African possessions, her Moroccan policy was
— especially at critical moments — rather a means to
an end than an end in itself. In certain French
circles the original object was to ignore Germany,
and thus, with the help of England, to make an effec-
tive attack on our position and credit in the world;
later on they thought they saw a chance, with the sup-
port of England, to come to a final settlement with
Germany imder most favourable conditions. These
tendencies of French policy twice brought the Mo-
rocco question into the van of international politics
and endangered the peace of the world.

The Irreconcilability of France 103

THE IRRECONCILABILITY OF FRANCE.

When we consider our relations with France, we
must not forget that she is unappeased. So far as
man can tell, the ultimate aim of French pohcy for
many years to come will be to create the necessary
conditions, which to-day are still wanting, for a set-
tlement with Germany with good prospects of suc-
cess. If we soberly realise this truth, we shall be
able to adopt a proper attitude towards France. In-
dignant tirades against the incorrigibility of the
French are in very bad taste, as are futile attempts
to propitiate them. The German "Michel" has no
need again and again to approach the coy beauty with
flowers in his hand ; her gaze is riveted on the Vosges.
Only an acceptance of the irrevocability of the loss of
1871 can accustom France finally and without re-
striction to the state of affairs fixed in the Peace of
Frankfurt. It is just possible that the effect of con-
vulsively straining her military resources to the utter-
most may, by reacting on the economic and social
conditions of France, hasten the return of pacific
feelings, and that once again the French proverb may
prove true, "Que Veacces du mal amene la guerison."
The reintroduction of mihtary service for a period

104 Imperial Germany

of three years betokens such a rise in the "armament
fever," that it may lead to the return of a normal
temperature. Should the three-year military service
entail an income tax, this would also probably have
a sobering effect.

Till such time France will be against us. Al-
though she is at great pains to remedy the mihtary
disadvantage at which she stands in comparison with
our State, and which is due to her smaller population,
she no longer has the old-time confidence in her proper
strength. It is the aim of French policy, by means
of alliances and friendships, to restore the balance
between France and her German neighbour, or even,
if possible, to turn the scales in her own favour. To
this end France has had to renounce a part of her own
free initiative, and has become more dependent than
formerly on foreign Powers. The French, of course,
are very well aware of this. The fact that the hyper-
sensitive national pride of the French acquiesces in
this shows what is the predominant desire of the peo-
ple. It is hardly possible to imagine any international
situation which could induce France to change funda-
mentally the policy inspired by the memory of 1870.

When, shortly after the Kriiger telegram, enthusi-
asm for the Boers ran high in France, as in all Eu-

Fashoda 105

rope, an English Minister anxiously asked a French
diplomat whether France might not be tempted to side
with Germany. The Frenchman's answer ran as
follows: "You may rest assured that as long as
Alsace-Lorraine remains German, whatever else may
happen, the French nation will consider Germany its
permanent enemy, and wiU regard any other Power
merely as an accidental opponent."

FASHODA.

The course and the result of the quarrel about
Fashoda showed how little success or failure in the
wider world count in the estimation of France, when
compared with her loss of position in Europe.
France suffered an undeniable defeat in this quarrel
with England, and this was keenly felt. Fashoda
stood for the end of an old and proud dream of
French colonial poHcy, and made the French nation
feel the superiority of British power in a pitiless
fashion.

For a moment public opinion in France was en-
raged and turned impetuously against England.
The bulk of those people who in politics cannot dis-
tinguish between the transitory and the permanent,
and mistake the noisy din of actuality for the echo of

106 Imperial Germany

what is really significant, thought that a change had
come over French policy. The ill-feeling against
England was to drive France to the side of Germany,
the disappointment about their Hi-success in the Su-
dan was to paralyse resentment at the loss of Alsace-
Lorraine, and new hope of requital for Fashoda was
to take the place of the old hope of revenge for Metz
and Sedan. It was impossible to misunderstand the
nature of French policy more thoroughly than by
imagining such a state of affairs. A nation that for
a whole generation has cherished one hope and one
ideal wiU not turn aside from its old course because
of a misadventure on a remote track. The hatred of
Germany could not be affected, let alone removed,
by ill-feeling against England. Even if the momen-
tary anger against England had been far more pas-
sionate and heartfelt than it actually was, it would,
nevertheless, not have been the beginning of perma-
nently hostile feehngs, for the attitude of France to
England had been definitely estabhshed in French
policy before the trouble in the Sudan. France soon
discovered in Enghsh jealousy of Germany her nat-
ural ally against the victor of 1870, and pressed to
England's side. There was disappointment in Paris
because England would not, for the sake of French

The Triple Entente 107

friendship, sacrifice any of her interests in the Sudan
and on the NUe, but France was ready in any case,
though with clenched teeth, to pay this price, or even
a higher one, for England's friendship. The defeat in
the Fashoda affair was set down in the debit account
of the French poKcy of revenge, and finally resulted
in renewed hatred of Germany rather than in hostil-
ity towards England. Forty-eight hours after
France had yielded in the Fashoda affair, a French
ambassador, one of the best political intellects of
France, was asked by an Italian colleague what effect
this event would have on French relations with Eng-
land. The Frenchman replied: "An excellent one!
Once the difference about the Sudan is settled noth-
ing stands in the way of a complete entente with Eng-
land."

THE TRIPLE ENTENTE.

This entente really became an accomplished fact
not long after the Fashoda incident, and has persisted
through all the changes of international politics.
Owing to her alliance with France, and the compli-
cations in the East, Russia has often supported the
Anglo-French entente j, so that we are justified in
speaking of a Triple entente as a counterpart to the
Triple Alhance.

io8 Imperial Germany

The political leadership of this triple tinion has, at
decisive moments, mostly been in the hands of Eng-
land, and up till now England, like Russia, has re-
fused to serve the cause of French revenge. She has
been guided mainly by her own interests. English
leadership has sometimes made our life difficult, but
just as often it has had a soothing and sobering eflfect
on France, and has done excellent work for the pres-
ervation of peace in Europe.

GERMANY — ^FB-ANCE — ^ENGLAND.

England is certainly seriously disquieted by our
rising power at sea, and our competition which incom-
modes her at many points. Without doubt there are
still Englishmen who think that, on the principle ex-
pressed by Montaigne, "que le dommage de I'un est
le profit de I'autre," that if the troublesome German
would disappear from the face of the earth, England
would only gain by it. But between such sentiments
in England and the fundamental feeling in France,
there is a marked difference, which finds correspond-
ing expression in politics. France would attack us
if she thought she were strong enough; England
would only do so if she thought she could not defend
her vital economic and political interests against Ger-

Anglo-German Settlement 109

many except by force. The mainspring of English
policy towards us is national egoism; that of French
policy is national ideaUsm. He who follows his in-
terest will, however, mostly remain calmer than he
who pursues an idea.

ANGLO-GERMAN SETTLEMENT.

Doubtless the English merchant has at times been
irked by the competition abroad of his German col-
league; doubtless German and English economic in-
terests do clash here and there in the world. But in
the course of her great world-policy, England has
hardly found any Great Power bar her way less often
then the German Empire. This fact has not escaped
the English, in spite of their anxiety about the Ger-
man navy. Germany and England are probably the
only two great European Powers who have never
shed a drop of each other's blood. There has been
friction and tension between them, but never war.
Happily in England, too, the conviction is gaining
ground that England, by continually opposing Ger-
many and by overdoing the anti-German pohcy, only
injures herself. Finally, this greatest of commer-
cial nations knows very well what excellent customers
Germany and England are of each other, and how

110 Imperial Germany

grievously British industrial life would feel the loss
of German custom. If, on the one hand, there are
many opposing interests in Germany and England,
on the other they have very vital interests in common.
And, in truth, the danger to EngUsh supremacy at
sea in the new world and sea power belongs only to the
sphere of possibihties — or rather of imagination — and
not to the realm of tangible reahties.

The attitude of England to Germany is really not
comparable with that of France to us. France moves
ia a circle round the thought of Alsace-Lorraine.
Enghsh policy is no doubt influenced by the wide-
spread uneasiness due to Germany's industrial ex-
pansion and growing sea power. But since the end
■of the pohcy of isolation in the year 1908, England
no longer thinks of making her whole international
policy, or every detail of her relations with Germany,
dependent on her antagonism to us. Although, since
v?e first trod the path of international politics, we have
often found England opposed to us, yet now that
we have attained the necessary power of defence at
sea, our relations with England can be amicable and
friendly. Rightly recognising that peace and friend-
ship between Germany and England are beneficial
to both countries, and that enmity and strife are

Anglo-German Settlement ill

equally disadvantageous for both, the Emperor Wil-
liam II., since his accession to power, has worked
spontaneously and with never-failing zeal to restore
friendly relations between the two great Germanic
nations. There are many fields in which both have
parallel interests. Whenever co-operation from
which both parties derive advantage is possible, there
is no reason why they should not go side by side and
hand in hand. In proportion as the conviction
spreads here and in England, that the national inter-
ests of both countries profit most by concerted action,
the preliminary conditions for steadfast and honest
trust and friendship will at last gain ground. The fact
that the danger of an armed conflict between England
and Germany seemed very imminent in the summer of
1911, by no means indicates that the struggle is only
postponed and not terminated. It has often hap-
pened that diplomacy has come to the end of its peace-
ful resources and seemed obliged to leave further ex-
planations to armed force. But the very imminence
of this critical moment has often sufficed to give a
fresh impetus to negotiations which had come to a
standstill, and to bring about a peaceful solution —
a solution which smooths away the dangerous differ-
ences, not only for the time being, but permanently.

112 Imperial Germany

War clouds are inevitable in the political sky. But
the number of those that burst is far smaller than the
mmiber of those that disappear. Clouds equally
heavy, if not heavier, threatened the peace between
England and France in the 'forties of the last cen-
tury, at the time of the July Monarchy, and also
during the Second Empire. War seemed inevitable
between England and Russia in 1885, when the Af-
ghan question reached a critical point. All these
threatening clouds melted away without btu-st-
ing.

Our relations with England require particularly
firm and steady handling. We desire amicable and
even friendly relations with England, but we are not
afraid of hostile ones. Official Germany and the
nation itself must model their behaviour accordingly.
A pohcy of running after England is as pointless as
a policy of ofFensiveness. The English people, po-
litically the maturest of the nations, would not be
turned aside from any course they had once recog-
nised as profitable by the warmest protestations of
friendship; and in friendly acts that were not ob-
viously inspired by interest they would see only a
confession of our weakness. On the other hand, a
proud and courageous nation like the Enghsh is not

Anglo-German Settlement 113

to be intimidated by threats, whether open or veiled.
We confront England to-day, supported as we are
by a navy which demands respect, in a very different
manner from fifteen years ago, when it was a ques-
tion of avoiding any conflict with England as long
as possible, till we had built our fleet. At that time
our foreign policy was, to a certain extent, regulated
by the question of armaments ; it had to be carried on
under abnormal conditions. To-day the normal
state of affairs is restored; our armaments are at the
service of our poHcy. The friendship as well as the
enmity of the German Empire, supported by a strong
navy, are naturally matters of very much greater im-
portance to England to-day than the friendship or
enmity of Germany in the 'nineties, when she was
unarmed at sea. The change in favour of Germany
of the proportionate strength of the two countries,
has relieved our foreign poHcy with regard to Eng-
land of a great burden. We need no longer take
such care to prevent England from injuring our
safety and wounding our dignity; with our own un-
aided strength we are able, as is meet for Germans,
to defend our dignity and our interests against Eng-
land at sea, as we have for centuries defended them
against the Continental Powers on land. We must

114 Imperial Germany

look very far back in German history to find a like
change in Germany's position in the world.

THE SUCCESSES OF GEEMAN WOELD POLICY.

German pohcy, even before it had procured a
strong navy, was able to secure points of support
which promised well for our international interests
in the future. We developed and improved our old
colonial possessions. The serious rising of the
Hereros in South-West Africa was put down, thanks
to the endurance and courage of our troops, though
it was at great expense and at the cost of grievous
sacrifices. The names of the brave men who fought
and died in the African desert — I wiU only mention
Count Wolff -Werner von Amim and Freiherr Burk-
hard von Erffa, who each went out as volunteers,
and met death heroically there — deserve to live in our
history, for they proved that our nation did not lose
its mihtary virtues during a long period of peace.

The South- West African rising marked a crisis in
our colonial policy, but also a change for the better.
By reorganising the Colonial Administration, by
transforming the Colonial Department of the Foreign
Ministry into an independent Imperial Ministry,
and above all by arousing a lively comprehension

Successes of German World Policy 115

of our tasks and aims in the colonies, we succeeded,
at last, during the tenure of office of the Secretary
of State, Herr Dernburg, in getting our colonial
policy off the dead centre. It was just the same as
with the navy. With great trouble, and after a long
fight, we were at last lucky enough to convince all
civil parties of the commonalty of the usefulness and
necessity of a positive colonial policy, and to gain their
support for such. About the time when we began to
build our fleet, we established ourselves, in the au-
tumn of 1897, in Kiau Chau, and a few months later
we concluded the Shantung Treaty with China,
which was one of the most significant actions in mod-
ern German history, and which secured for us a
"place in the sun" in the Far East, on the shores of the
Pacific Ocean, which have a great future before them.
Up to the end of the nineteenth century Europe
had been able to work only on the outskirts of China.
Since then the interior has been opened up more and
more. There is much to be gained by introducing
industries into a huge Empire, with a population of
four hundred million, where the people are hard-work-
ing. We must not fall to the rear in this boundless
field of action, but must consolidate and develop our
position there. The end of the Spanish-American

ii6 Imperial Germany

War of 1899 gave us the opportunity to acquire the
CaroUne and Marianne Islands, and thus win a
point of support in Polynesia. A year later we suc-
ceeded in bringing to an end the long quarrel over
Samoa by a settlement with England and America
that was to our advantage. In the year 1898 we
concluded a treaty with England, which was signifi-
cant, not only because, at a sorpewhat difficult stage
our relations with England were made easier without
endangering our position with regard to other
Powers, but also because we secured thereby valu-
able prospects for the future. This treaty held out
hopes of more profitable results the more patiently
we waited tiU the time should arrive to realise them;
it was brought about largely by the efforts of our
ambassador in London at that time. Count Paul
Hatzfeld, whom Bismarck used to call the best horse
in his diplomatic stables. The Bagdad Railway
scheme was a result of the Emperor's journey to
Palestine, which he took in the autumn of 1898, a
very few months after the first Navy BiU was passed,
and which was in every respect so successful. This
threw open to German influence and German enter-
prise a field of activity between the Mediterranean
Sea and the Persian Gulf, on the rivers Euphrates

Successes of German World Policy 117

and Tigris, and along their banks; this can hardly
be surpassed for fertility and for its great possibili-
ties of development in the future. If one can speak
of boundless prospects anywhere, it is in Mesopo-
tamia.

The German Empire to-day is a great World
Power, not only by virtue of its industrial and com-
mercial interests, but of its power in international
politics ; its power in the sense that its arm can reach
to the farthest corners of the world, and that Ger-
man interests can be injured nowhere with impunity.
The sphere of German power has literally been ex-
tended over the whole world by the construction of
our fleet, so that it can protect German interests scat-
tered over the face of the earth. We built our navy
as a means of national defence and to strengthen our
national safety, and we have never used it for any
other purpose.

The problem of modern German international poK-
tics, to secure a foundation for our position as a Great
Power, on the whole may be considered to be solved.
No doubt the German Empire was xmwiUingly ac-
cepted as a Great Power by those States which for
centuries had been used to settling questions of over-
sea politics alone. But our right to a voice in inter-

ii8 Imperial Germany

national matters is recognised to-day in every country
where the German flag is seen. We had to reach this
goal. It was of the same significance as the creation
of our navy, and could only be attained by overcom-
ing considerable difficulties both in the sphere of
foreign, or international, and of home, or national,
politics.

During the first decade after the introduction of
the Navy Bill of 1897, we had to pass through a zone
of extreme danger in our foreign policy, for we were
to provide ourselves with adequate sea power to pro-
tect our interests eflfectually, without at the time
having sufficient strength at sea to defend ourselves.
Germany has emerged from this critical period, un-
harmed and without loss of dignity or prestige. In
the autumn of 1897 the Saturday Review published
that famous article, which culminated in the state-
ment that, if Germany were swept off the face of the
earth to-morrow, there would be no Englishman the
day after but would be the richer for it, and ended
with the words : "Germaniam esse delendam."

Twelve years later two important English news-
papers, neither of them particularly pro-German,
declared that the position of Germany was greater
and stronger than at any time since the retirement of

Successes of German World Policy 119

Prince Bismarck. From 1897 onward a significant
development had taken place that was not always
reahsed by contemporaries, but that posterity will
recognise and appreciate. During those years, by
building our fleet, we accomplished the transition to
international politics. Our ascent into the regions of
world-policy was successful. We did not allow our-
selves to be thrust forward by any Power against
another, nor did we permit anyone to use us a cats-
paw. By our cahn bearing during the Boer War we
took the first keen edge off the excitement which
reigned in England after the Kriiger telegram; and
in the further course of events we gave England no
cause to thwart us in the building of our fleet. On
the other hand, while we carefully cultivated the
Triple AlUance, we never came into actual conflict
with the Dual Alliance, which would have hindered
us in the gradual acquirement of a navy. What with
the Anglo-French Entente and the Dual Alliance,
we had to follow a narrow path which grew even nar-
rower when the former expanded into a Triple
Entente, and would have been impassable without ex-
treme caution, when England surrounded us with a
web of alliances and ententes. When at last, during
the Bosnian crisis, the sky of international politics

120 Imperial Germany

cleared, when German power on the Continent burst
its encompassing bonds, we had already got beyond
the stage of preparation in the construction of our
fleet.

THE IDEA OF A NAVY IN GERMANY.

Besides the difiiculties of foreign politics there were
the difficulties of home pohtics, though the latter
were easier to overcome. We Germans have not the
gift of meeting the demands of a new era cheerfully
and spontaneously. Goethe pointed to the heart of
our strength but also of our weakness when he said
that it was characteristic of the Germans that they
take everything heavily. The proverbial struggle
between the old time and the new has suffered less
interruption in the course of our history than in that
of any other nation, and in every phase of any im-
portance in our development it occurs again and again
with undiminished strength. But, though amongst
us innovations may have to encounter more vigorous
opposition than elsewhere, yet in the end our devel-
opment has never been impeded to such an extent as
to cause lasting harm. We can even say that the
uninterrupted continuance of antagonistic criticism
has saved us Germans from dangerous innovations,
and has brought us the steady ascent and sure prog-

The Idea of a Navy in Germany 121

ress in which we may rejoice to-day. That is what
Bismarck meant when he said that rulers in Germany
required the barbed wire of criticism, which kept them
to the right path, because they ran the risk of tearing
their hands to pieces if they engaged in movements
that were too eccentric. Of course, Bismarck did
not imply by this that criticism is always, or even
mostly, in the right. But this spirit of negation
forces men to show gravity, the strength of convic-
tion, and the power of persuasion, and to be really
clear in their minds as to the necessity of treading
new paths. Wherever in Germany it has been possi-
ble to convince the majority of the people, including
those who were at first antagonistic, of the necessity
of a thing, we have found that this new conviction,
though slowly acquired, has taken firm root.

All Germany to-day is imbued with the idea of the
necessity of having a navy. From the most pro-
nounced Agrarians among the Conservatives, to the
extreme wing of the Democracy, there is no radical
opposition to our German naval policy. The Ultra-
Liberals, as is well known, had partly refused their
support to the great, fundamental Navy Bills.
They really and truly represented the antagonism of
the old era to the new. It was in the year 1900 that,

122 Imperial Germany

after a long and excited session of the Budget Com-
mittee, the leader of the people's party, Eugen Rich-
ter, came to me and said to me privately: "You will
succeed, you will get a majority for your supple-
mentary estimates for the Navy. I would never
have believed it." In the interview that followed I
was at pains to explain to this man, in many ways
so distinguished, why his opposition to the Navy Bill
was inexplicable to me, for the German democracy
had for decades demanded German efficiency at sea.
Herwegh stood at the cradle of the German fleet, and
the first German warships had been built in 1848. I
pointed out all the reasons why we must protect our
commerce and our industries on the ocean. Richter
listened attentively and said at last: "You may be
right. But I am too old, I cannot take part in this
new turn of affairs." The change prophesied by
Eugen Richter was soon to be accomplished. The
opposition of the people's party was based less on
principle than on the general position of party poli-
tics. It was possible to overcome it in the course of
party pohtics, and during the time of the Block it
was overcome.

Prince Bismarck, the great and victorious man,
who was the exact opposite of a leader of progress.

The Idea of a Navy in Germany 123

bore striking and direct testimony to the recognition
of the dawn of a new era. A few years after the
Prince's retirement that excellent general director,
Herr BaUin, suggested that he should have a look at
the Hamburg harbour, which Bismarck, in spite of
its nearness to Friedrichsruh, had not visited for a
long time. After a tour round the harbour Herr
Ballin took the eighty-year-old Prince on to one of
the new trans-atlantic liners of the Hamburg-
Amerika Company. Prince Bismarck had never yet
seen a ship of such dimensions. He stopped when he
set foot on the giant steamboat, looked at the ship for
a long time, at the many steamers lying in the vicin-
ity, at the docks and huge cranes, at the mighty pic-
ture presented by the harbour, and said at last: "I
am stirred and moved. Yes, this is a new age — a
new world." The mighty founder of the Empire,
who fulfilled our national hopes and solved the prob-
lem of Germany's Continental poKcy, in his old age,
with the never-failing insight of genius, recognised
the future, the new tasks of the German Empire in
the sphere of world-politics.

HOME POLICYj

HOME POLICY
I

INTEODUCTION

The history of our home poHcy, with the exception
of a few bright spots, is a history of political mis-
takes. Despite the abtindance of merits and great
qualities with which the German nation is endowed,
political talent has been denied it. No people has
found it so difficult as the Germans to attain solid
and permanent political institutions, although we
were the first, after the downfall of antiquity and the
troublous times of the migration of nations, to acquire
that peace in national existence which is founded on
might, and which is the preliminary condition for the
growth of real pohtical life. Though, thanks to our
military prowess, we found it easy enough to over-
come foreign obstruction and interference in our
national hfe, at all times we foimd it very hard to
overcome even small obstacles in our own pohtical
development.

It has often happened to other nations that mUi-

127

128 Imperial Germany

taiy disasters, disasters in their foreign policy, have
severely injured and even overthrown their form of
government at home. We Germans, owing to om*
political clmnsiness, have often defrauded ourselves
of successes won in battle, and for centuries rendered
an effective foreign policy impossible by our narrow-
minded and short-sighted home policy.

We are not a political people. Not that we ever
lacked penetration and tmderstanding for the se-
quence of political things, or for the essence and
association of the religious, moral, social, legal and
industrial forces which condition politics. We have
always possessed this pohtical knowledge to the same
extent as our contemporaries, and even to a greater.
We did not either fail to realise our own pecuUar po-
litical shortcomings. But what we did lack, and what
we still often lack, is the art of proceeding from in-
sight to practical application, and the greater art of
doing the right thing, politically, by a sure creative in-
stinct, instead of only after much thought and consid-
erable cogitation.

How can it otherwise be explained that in the
struggle between different nationalities the German
has so often succumbed to the Czech and the Slovene,
the Magyar and the Pole, the French and the Italian,

Introduction 129

and that he still is at a disadvantage to-day? That in
this sphere he usually comes off second best in com-
parison with almost all his neighbours?

Pohtically, as in no other sphere of life, there is an
obvious disproportion between our knowledge and
our power. We can boast at present of a particu-
larly flourishing state of political science and espe-
cially political economy. We shall seldom feel the
influence of deep learning on practical politics. This
is not because only a small class of educated men, and
not the mass of the people, participate and take an
interest in knowledge. The German nation, on the
contrary, more than any other people, and particu-
larly as regards the lower classes, is eager to learn
and capable of so doing. Among many fine traits of
character that is one of the finest our nation possesses.
But for the German the knowledge of political things
is usually a purely intellectual matter, which he does
not care to connect with the actual occurrences of
political life. It would be possible for him to do so
only in the rarest cases. For, although well-devel-
oped logical powers result in good judgment, yet
there is too often a lack of that political discernment
which can grasp the bearing of acquired knowledge
on the life of the community. The want of political

130 Imperial Germany

aptitude sets a narrow limit, even to highly developed
political science. During my term of office I took a
lively interest in furthering political instruction, and
I expect the results to be better and better the more
Germans of aU classes and all degrees of culture are
given the opportunity of following such courses of in-
struction. But much water wiU flow under the
bridges before these weaknesses and deficiencies in
our political character, which are partly innate and
partly acquired by education, can be so removed. In
the meantime Fate, who, as we all know, is an excel-
lent but expensive teacher, might undertake to edu-
cate us pohtically, and that by means of the injuries
which our innate pohtical failings must inflict on us
again and again. Failings, even political ones, are
seldom cured by knowledge, mostly only by experi-
ence. Let us hope that the experience, which shall
enable us to acquire a political talent in addition to
so many other fine gifts, will not be too painful an
one. In spite of a past full of pohtical disasters, we
do not yet possess that talent. I once had a conver-
sation on this subject with the late Ministerial Di-
rector Althofi^. "Well, what can you expect?"
replied that distinguished man in his humorous way.
"We Germans are the most learned nation in the

Introduction 131

world and the best soldiers. We have achieved great
things in all the sciences and arts ; the greatest philos-
ophers, the greatest poets and musicians are Germans.
Of late we have occupied the foremost place in the
natural sciences and in almost all technical spheres,
and in addition to that we have accomplished an enor-
mous industrial development. How can you wonder
that we are political asses? There must be a weak
point somewhere."

Political sense connotes a sense of the general good.
That is just what the Germans lack. Politically
gifted nations, sometimes consciously, sometimes in-
stinctively, at the right moment, and even without
being driven by necessity, set the general interests of
the nation above their particular pursuits and desires.
It is a characteristic of the German to employ his
energy individually, and to subordinate the general
good to his narrower and more immediate interests.
That was what Goethe was thinking of in his cruel re-
mark, so often quoted, that the Germans are very capa-
ble individually, and wretchedly inefficient in the bulk.

The instinct, proper to man, to unite in societies,
associations and communities for special purposes,
this natural, poUtical instinct reaches its highest de-
velopment in the community which forms a State.

132 Imperial Germany

Where this highest form of development is attained
-consciously, the lower forms become of less and less
■importance as a rule. Society, united for national
purposes, subordinates to itself all the smaller indi-
vidual societies which serve ideal or material ends;
not forcibly or suddenly, but in the course of the
gradual expansion of national consciousness. The
progress of this development indicates the progress
of national unity and sohdarity. Nations with a
strong political sense meet this development half
way, the German has often vigorously opposed it —
not on account of ill-will, or a lack of patriotic feel-
ing, but following the dictates of his nature, which
feels more at home in small associations than when
included in the community of the whole nation.
Herr von Miquel once said to me in his caustic way,
as the result of forty years of parliamentary experi-
ence: "German Parliaments, in a comparatively
short space of time, mostly sink to the level of a dis-
trict council, interested in nothing but local questions
and personal squabbles. In our Parliament a debate
rarely maintains a high level for more than one day;
on the second day the ebb begins, and then bagatelles
are discussed as futilely and in as much detail as pos-
:sible." This inclination for individual and particular

Introduction 133

things is responsible for the vogue for Associations
and Clubs in Germany. The old joke that two Ger-
mans cannot meet without founding a club has a
serious significance. The German feels at home in
his clubs and societies. And if such an association
exist for greater purposes of an industrial or a politi-
cal kind, then its members, and especially its leaders,
soon see in it the Archimedian point whence they
would like to unhinge the whole political world. The
late member of the Reichstag, von Kardorff , said to
me, not long before his death: "Look, what maniacs
we are about associations. The association itself be-
comes our be-all and end-all. The Alliance Fran-
foise collected millions to establish French schools
abroad, but it never dreamt of shaping the policy of
the Government. Our Pan- German Association has
done much to arouse national feeling, but, on the
other hand, it considers itself the supreme court of
appeal in questions of foreign policy. The Navy
League has done great service in popularising the
idea of a navy, but has not always resisted the temp-
tation to prescribe to the Government and Reichstag
what course to pursue in naval policy. The Associa-
tion of Farmers, founded at a time of great stress in
the agricultural world, has benefited the farmers as

134 Imperial Germany

a whole very greatly, but has now reached such a
point that it wants to treat everything in its own way,
and runs great risk of overshooting the mark. We
get so wrapped up in the idea of our association that
we can see nothing beyond it."

In smaller things the German can easily find men
of like ideas and hke interests, but in great matters,
very rarely. The more speciahsed the aim, the more
quickly is a German association founded to fvu-ther
it; and, what is more, such associations are not tem-
porary, but permanent. The wider the aim, the more
slowly do the Germans unite to attain it, and the
more hable they are, on the slightest excuse, to for-
sake this fellowship which cost so much trouble to
found.

THE POLITICAL PAST OF THE GEEMAN PEOPLE.

Our nation is undoubtedly, in a high degree, capa-
ble of uniting in strong and purposeful action in
national movements. There are plenty of instances
in our history. Thank Heaven, we have never en-
tirely lacked national consciousness, enthusiasm, and
self-sacrifice, and, in the times of greatest disruption,
the feeling that all belonged to one nation never died
out, but, on the contrary, grew to a passionate long-

Political Past of the German People 135

ing. Our periods of greatest political weakness,
times when the State was clearly in a state of col-
lapse, were the most flourishing days of the intel-
lectual Ufe of our nation. The classic writers of the
Middle Ages, as well as those of modern times, cre-
ated our national literature in the midst of the decay-
ing and decayed public life of the nation.

On the other hand, we, as a people, never lost the
consciousness of our political unity and independence
to such an extent as to bear the yoke of foreign rule
for any length of time. In the hour of need the Ger-
mans found, in the depths of their hearts, the will and
the strength to overcome the national disintegration.
The War of Liberation a hundred years ago, which
has lesser prototypes in earlier centuries, will ever
remain a token of German national will-power and
love of liberty.

But in contradistinction to the nations that are,
politically speaking, more happily endowed, the ex-
pressions of German national unity are rather occa-
sional than permanent.

"I have sung of the Germans' June,
But that will not last till October,"

was Goethe's lament not long after the War of Lib-
eration. Only too often with us the union dictated

136 Imperial Germany

by necessity was followed again by disruption into
smaller political associations, states, tribes, classes;
or, in modem times, into parties that preferred their
own narrower tasks and aims to those of the nation
at large, and degraded the great deeds of national
unity by making them the object of ugly party
quarrels.

In German history national imity is the exception,
and separatism in various forms, adapted to the cir-
cumstances of the times, is the rule. This is true of
the present as it was of the past.

Hardly any nation's history is so full of great
successes and achievements in every sphere of man's
activity. German mihtary and intellectual exploits
are unrivalled. But the history of no nation can tell
of such an utter disproportion for centuries and cen-
turies, between political progress on the one hand and
capability and achievements on the other. The cen-
tm-ies of pohtical impotence, during which Germany
was crowded out of the ranks of the Great Powers,
have little to tell of the defeat of German arms by
foreign forces, with the exception of the time of
Napoleon I. Our prolonged national misfortune was
not due to foreigners; it was our own fault.

We first appear in history as a nation split up into

Political Past of the German People 137

hostile tribes. The German Empire of mediaeval
times was not founded by the voluntary union of the
tribes, but by the victory of one single tribe over
the others, who for a long time unwillingly bore the
rule of the stronger. The most brilliant period of
our history, the period when the German Empire led
Europe unopposed, was a time of national imity, in
which the tribes and princes found a hmit to their
self-wiU in the will and the power of the Emperor.
The Empire of the Middle Ages only succumbed in
battle to the Papacy, because Roman politicians had
succeeded in rousing opposition to the Emperor in
Germany. The weakening of Imperial power af-
forded the princes a welcome opportunity for
strengthening their own. While political Ufe in
Germany was split up into a large number of inde-
pendent urban and territorial communities, in France,
under the strong rule of her kings, a united State
was formed, which took the place of Germany as
leader of Europe.

Then came the religious split. The German terri-
torial States, that for long had been united with the
Empire in appearance only, became open enemies
owing to the religious quarrel, and (a thing that is
essentially characteristic of our nation) the German

138 Imperial Germany

States, Protestant as well as Catholic, did not hesi-
tate to ally themselves with foreigners of a different
persuasion, in order to fight fellow countrymen of a
different persuasion. The religious wars set the
German nation back centuries in its development;
they almost destroyed the old Empire, except in
name; they created the single independent States
whose rivalry brought about struggles that filled the
next two and a half centuries, until the foundation
of the new German Empire. The Western and
Northern Marches of Germany were lost and had to
be recovered, in our times, at the point of the sword.
The newly discovered world beyond the ocean was
divided up among the other nations, and the Ger-
man flag disappeared from the seas, and has only
regained its rights within the last decades.

The ultimate national union was not achieved by
peaceful settlement, but in the battle of German
against German. And as the old Empire was
founded by a superior tribe, so the new was founded
by the strongest of the individual States. German
history completed a circle, as it were. In a modern
form, but in the old way, the German nation has,
after a thousand years, once again, and more per-
fectly, completed the work which it accomplished in

The Separatist Spirit 139

early times, and for whose destruction it alone was to
blame.

Only a nation, sound to the core, and of indestruc-
tible vitality, could achieve this. True, we Germans
have taken a thousand years to create, destroy and
recreate, what for centuries other nations have pos-
sessed as the firm basis of their development — a
national State. If we want to advance along the
paths that the founding of our Empire has opened
anew to us, we must insist on the suppression of such
forces as might again endanger the unity of our na-
tional life. The best powers of Germany must not,
as in olden times, be dissipated in struggles of the
Imperial Government against individual States, and
in struggles of the individual States against each
other, without any consideration for the interests of
the Empire.

THE GEEMAN SEPARATIST SPIRIT IN THE NEW
GERMAN EMPIRE.

The founding of the Empire overcame Germany's
political disruption and changed our poHtical life
completely; but it was unable to change the character
of the German people at the same time, or to trans-
form our political shortcomings into virtues. The

140 Imperial Germany

German remained a separatist, even after 1871 ; dif-
ferent, and more modern, but still a separatist.

In the particularism of the single States, German
separatism found its strongest but by no means its
only possible expression. State separatism has im-
pressed us most directly, because it was responsible,'
primarily, for the national disasters in German de-
velopment during the last centuries. That is why all
patriots wished to defeat it, and this desire was ful-
filled by Bismarck. So far as man can tell, we need
fear no serious injury to the unity of our national
life from the special efforts of individual States.
But we are none the less by no means free from mani-
festations of the separatist spirit. This spirit after,
and even at the time of, the unification of Germany,
sought a new field of political activity, and found it
in the struggle of political parties.

The German party system, in contradistinction to
that of other nations, which is in many cases older
and more firmly rooted, possesses a specifically sepa-
ratist character, and this is manifest in those points
in which our party system differs from that of other
countries. We have small parties that are sometimes
formed for the sake of very narrow interests and ob-
jects, and carry on a struggle of their own which it

The Separatist Spirit 141

is hardly possible to include in the affairs of a great
Empire. The religious conflict in aU its strength has
found its way into our party system. The struggle
between the various classes of society has retained
almost all its vigour in the German party system,
whereas in older civilised States the differences have
been more and more completely adjusted by the in-
dustrial and social developments of modern times.

Our party system has inherited the dogmatism and
small-mindedness, the moroseness and the spite that
used to thrive in the squabbles of the German tribes
and States. In other countries the party system is a
national matter of home poHtics, and community of
views with a foreigner is of no weight compared with
the consciousness of belonging to the same nation as
those of the opposite party at home. Abroad, the
fact that the views of a political party are shared by
foreigners is on occasion paraded in academic
speeches at International Congresses, but it has little
or no influence on practical pohtics. We Germans
have strong movements in great parties, that demand
the internationalisation of party ideas, and are not
convinced that the party system has national limita-
tions. Here again is a return in modern guise of an
old German abuse. Among other nations it is self-

142 Imperial Germany

understood that the special interests of a political
party must be subordinated, not only to the greatest
national interests, but also to any wider interest; it
is in this point above all that our parties often fail.
All too seldom in the German Empire do we comply
with the emphatic command: "Country before
party." Not so much because the German's love of
his country is less than any foreigner's, but because
his love of his party is so much greater. Conse-
quently, a momentary success, or even a momentary
manifestation of power by his own party, seems to the
German so tremendously important — more important
than the general progress of the nation.

It cannot be said that our German party struggles
are carried on with more heat than in other countries.
The German's political passion rarely rises to more
than an average temperature, even in times of excite-
ment, and that, at any rate, is a good thing.
Amongst other nations, especially those of Latin race,
the parties, in moments of stress, fling themselves at
each other with an elemental passion that not seldom
leads to excesses unknown to us Germans. But these
heated outbursts, which are decisive for the success or
defeat of a party or group of parties, are speedily
followed there by overtures of peace and reconcilia-

The Separatist Spirit 143

tion. It is quite different here. We know nothing
of the fanatic passion in excited conflicts which dis-
charges itself Hke a thunder-cloud, but also, like a
thunder-storm, clears the air of party pohtics. But
we also lack the conciliatory spirit. If German
parties have once opposed one another, even in mat-
ters of small political importance, it is only slowly
and with difficulty that they forget and forgive each
other. Occasional antagonism too often becomes
lasting enmity, and, if possible, a fundamental differ-
ence in political principles is fabricated afterwards,
though neither of the opposing parties was aware of
it in the first instance. Very often, when discreet
and well-meant attempts are made to bring about a
reconciliation or agreement between parties holding
strongly antagonistic convictions, this antagonism
proves to have been discovered on the occasion of
some quite recent party conflict, either about national
questions of secondary importance, or even about a
question of the power of a political party. Anyone
who stands a little outside party machinery and the
party rut often fails to understand why our parties
cannot unite for the settlement of essentially unim-
portant questions of legislation, why they fight out
slight differences of opinion on details of financial.

144 Imperial Germany

social or industrial policy, with such acrimony as if
the weal and woe of the Empire depended on them.
No doubt praiseworthy German conscientiousness
has some small part in this, but it is not the decisive
factor. What is decisive is the fact that to each in-
dividual party the hatred of other parties seems of
more essential importance than the legislative matter
in question, which is often only seized as a welcome
opportunity to emphasise the existing differences of
party politics.

GERMAN PARTY SPIRIT AND PARTY LOYALTY.

Immutable loyalty within the party is the cause of
their quarrelsomeness. Just because the German
party man cHngs so steadfastly and even lovingly to
his party, he is capable of such intense hatred of other
parties and has such difficulty in forgetting insults
and defeats suffered at their hands. Here again in
modern guise we have the old German character.
As the tribes and States were firmly knit together in
themselves and quarrelled with each other, so the
parties to-day. Proverbial German loyalty benefits
the small political associations primarily, and the
great national community only secondarily. A Ger-
man Government will almost always sue in vain for

Party Spirit and Party Loyalty 145

the abundant loyalty which is spontaneously devoted
to the party cause. Even Bismarck experienced this.
The man who got the better of the separatism of the
States could not master the separatism of the parties.
Although he had won the love and confidence of the
German nation to a greater extent than anyone else,
Prince Bismarck was seldom if ever successful in
attempts to secure that devotion which was offered to
party leaders.

Treitschke says somewhere that the hearts of the
Germans have always belonged to poets and generals,
not to politicians. That is quite true, if we except
the party leaders. The Germans certainly forget
them very soon after their death or retirement, but as
long as their activity lasts they enjoy the whole-
hearted loyalty and affection of all who belong to the
party. Ever since we have had political parties the
popular men have been party men and party leaders,
and their followers supported them even in opposi-
tion to Bismarck. Right and wrong, success and
failure, play an astonishingly small part in this.
German loyalty to a party leader is self-sacrificing,
unprejudiced and uncritical, as true loyalty which
springs from love should be. And it really makes
no difference whether the party leader is successful

146 Imperial Germany

or not, whether he looks back on victories or defeats.
It has hardly ever happened in Germany that a party
refused to follow its leader, even if it was plain to
the meanest inteUigence that he was taking them into
difficulties, let alone if it appeared that the tactics of
the party leaders were not in accordance with the
aims and objects of the State.

It has never been particularly difficult in Germany
to organise an opposition to the Government; but it
was always very hard to set up a movement of oppo-
sition within a party with any success. The hope
that the opposition party might fall to pieces at the
critical moment has nearly always proved deceptive.
After our party system had passed through the first
stage of ferment, which no young political system is
spared, and had become clarified by early changes and
modifications, the parties acquired remarkable soli-
darity. How often it has been foretold that a party
would split into so-called "modem" and "old" fac-
tions. Such forecasts have hardly ever been fulfilled.
Nowhere in our political fife do we find such stead-
fast conservatism as in our parties. Even the radical
factions are thoroughly conservative as regards the
planks in their platform and their methods. This in-

Party Spirit and Party Loyalty 147

ertia of party politics goes so far that the parties still
cling to their old demands even when the general
development of public affairs has rendered their ful-
filment absolutely impossible.

The valiant loyalty of the German to his cause and
his party leader is in itself beautiful and touching,
morally deserving of respect as is all loyalty. Poli-
tics amongst us actually show a moral quality in this
matter, whereas a well-known popular saying denies
all possibihty of morahty in politics. But if we
do discuss morality in poHtics, the question may
well be raised whether, after all, there is not a higher
form of pohtical morality. All honour to loyalty in
the service of the party, loyalty to principles and to
leaders; but to serve one's country is better than to
serve one's party. Parties do not exist for their own
sakes, but for the common weal. The highest politi-
cal morality is patriotism. A sacrifice of party con-
victions, disloyalty even to the party programme in
the interest of the Empire, is more praiseworthy than
party loyalty which disregards the general welfare
of the country. Less party spirit and party loyalty,
and more national feeling and more public spirit are
what we Germans need.

148 Imperial Germany

PAB.TY INTERESTS AND NATIONAL INTERESTS.

Happily history proves that no party can perma-
nently oppose national interests with impunity.
Even the short history of German party politics fur-
nishes instances. Liberalism, in spite of its change
of attitude in national questions, has to this day not
recovered from the catastrophic defeat which Prince
Bismarck inflicted nearly half a century ago on the
party of progress which still clung to the ideas and
principles of 1848.

But epochs like that of 1866-1871, in which the
soul of the nation was stirred to its depths, and judg-
ment was pronounced so clearly and so pitilessly on
political error, are as rare as they are great. The
ordinary course of political development, as a rule,
very slowly brings to light the results of mistaken
party politics. Self-criticism and reflection must
take the place of experience. It is easier for parties
in other countries. In States where the parliamen-
tary system obtains, parties are relieved of the diffi-
cult if noble task of educating themselves, the task
imposed on our parties. In such countries a mistake
in party politics is immediately followed by defeat
and painful correction. I do not wish hereby to ad-

Party Interests and National Interests 149

vocate the parliamentary system as it is understood
in the west of Europe. The worth of a Constitution
does not depend on the way it reacts on the party
system. Constitutions do not exist for parties, but
for the State. Considering the pecuharities of our
Government, the parhamentary system would not be
a suitable form of Constitution for us. Where this
system proves of value, and that is by no means
everywhere, the strength of the Government is based
on the strength and value, on the political broad-
mindedness and statesmanlike ability of the parties.
There the parties formed the Constitution in the
course of their own foundation and development as
in England, as also in a certain sense in Republican
France. In Germany the monarchical Governments
are the supporters and creators of the Constitution.
The parties are secondary formations, which could
only grow in the soil of an existing State. We lack
the preliminary conditions, both natural and his-
torical, for a parliamentary system.

But the knowledge of this need not prevent us
from seeing the advantages which this system gives to
other States. Just as there is no absolutely perfect
Constitution, so there is no absolutely defective one.
The oft-repeated attempts, especially in France, to

150 Imperial Germany

combine all the advantages of aU possible Constitu-
tions have hitherto always failed. While we realise
this we need not shut our eyes to many advantages of
Constitutions abroad.

In countries ruled by Parhament, the great parties
and groups of parties acquire their political educa-
tion by having to govern. When a party has gained
a majority, and has provided the leading statesmen
from its ranks, it has the opportunity of putting its
political opinions into practice. If it pursues a the-
oretical or extreme course, if it sacrifices the common
weal to party interests and party principles, if it has
the folly to want to carry out its party programme
undiluted and in fuU, it will lose its majority at the
next elections and will be driven from office by the
opposition. The party that must govern is respon-
sible, not only for its own welfare, but in a higher
degree for that of the nation and the State. Party
interests and national interests coincide. But as it is
not possible to govern a State for long in a one-sided
fashion in accordance with some party programme,
the party in office will moderate its demands in order
not to lose its paramount influence over the country.
The parties in a country governed by Parliament
possess a salutary corrective that we lack, in the pros-

Party Interests and National Interests 151

pect of having to rule themselves, and the necessity of
being able to do so.

In States not governed by Parliament the parties
feel that their primary vocation is to criticise. They
feel no obligation worth mentioning, to moderate
their demands, or any great responsibility for the
conduct of public affairs. As they never have to
prove the practical value of their opinions urhi et
orbi, they mostly content themselves with manifest-
ing the immutability of their convictions. "A great
deal of conviction, and very little feeling of responsi-
bihty." That is how a witty journalist once de-
scribed our German party system to me, and he
added: "Our parties do not feel as if they were the
actors who perform in the play, but as if they were
the critics who look on. They award praise and
blame, but they do not feel as if they themselves par-
ticipated in what goes on. The chief thing is to sup-
ply the voters at home with a strong and, if possible,
welcome opinion."

Once, during the Boer War, standing in the lobby
of the Reichstag, I remonstrated with one of the mem-
bers on account of his attacks on England, which did
not exactly tend to make our difficult position any
easier. The worthy man replied in a tone of convic-

152 Imperial Germany

tion: "It is my right and my duty, as a member of
the Reichstag, to express the feelings of the German
nation. You, as Minister, wiU, I hope, take care
that my feelings do no mischief abroad." I do not
think that such a remark, the naivete of which dis-
armed me, would have been possible in any other
country.

POLITICAI. INTELLIGENCE AND POLITICAL FEELING.

There is nothing to be said against expressions of
feeling in politics, so long as they stop short of injur-
ing the interests of the State. They belong to the
class of imponderables in political hfe, that men hke
Bismarck valued highly. Particularly in Germany,
the feelings of the people have often acted as a whole-
some corrective to preconceived political opinions.
In foreign politics, feelings, sympathies and antipa-
thies are unrehable sign-posts, and we should not have
gone very far if our leading statesman had consulted
their hearts rather than their heads in shaping the
course of foreign relations.

In the field of home politics it is a different thing,
especially for us Germans. One is tempted to wish
that in that case political feehngs and sentiments had
more than their actual influence, and political intelli-

Political Intelligence and Feeling 153

gence less. For the effect of German political in-
telligence is not to moderate the desires of party
politics, nor to adapt their political demands to ex-
isting circumstances. Our political intelligence
urges us to systematise and schematise the realities
of political life; not to adjust things in a sensible way
to the existing political facts and conditions, but to
arrange thesa in a logically correct sequence of
thought.

We Germans are, on the one hand, a sentimental,
tender-hearted people, and are prone always, perhaps
too much so, to follow the dictates of our heart against
our better judgment. But, on the other hand, our
passion for logic amounts to fanaticism, and wherever
an intellectual formula or a system has been found for
anything, we insist with obstinate perseverance on
fitting realities into the system.

The individual German shows both these sides of
his nature in private life, the nation shows them in
public life, and many a curious phenomenon in the
present, as in the past, may be explained by this du-
ahty of character. We Hke to consider foreign poli-
tics, which are connected with a long series of painful
and pleasurable national events, from the emotional
standpoint. Transactions in home politics, which the

154 Imperial Germany

nation grasped clearly in a comparatively short space
of time, have become a recognised field for intellectual
theories, for systematic examination and classifica-
tion.

A German rarely applies the methods of modern
science to pohtics, he mostly employs those of the old
speculative philosophers. He does not attach im-
portance to confronting Nature with open eyes and
to observing what has happened, what is happening,
and therefore what can and necessarily will happen
again in the future. Rather, he grows intent upon
finding out how things ought to have developed, and
what they ought to have been Hke, for everything to
harmonise with nice logic and for the system to come
into its own. Their programmes are not adapted to
reality; reahty is to adjust itself to the programmes,
and, what is more, not only in single instances, but
altogether. Most of the German party programmes,
if you consider them with an eye to their logic and
systematic perfection, are extremely praiseworthy
and redound to the credit of German thoroughness
and logical conscientiousness. But, judged by the
standard of practicability, not one will pass muster.

Party Platforms 155

PARTY PLATFORMS.

Politics are life, and, like all life, will adhere to no
rule. Modern politics are conditioned by events far
back in our history, where the primary causes, whose
effects we still feel, are lost in a mist of conjectures.
But political practice would gain nothing by a com-
plete knowledge of all causes and limitations. We
should learn only how a multitude of things have come
about, but not what must be done to-day or to-mor-
row. Nearly every day brings new facts and new
problems which require new decisions, just as in the
hves of individual men. Nor does the labour de-
manded by the day and by the hour see the end of our
task. We must, as far as lies in the power of our
understanding and ability, take thought for the fu-
ture. Of what assistance, then, are the regulations of
a programme drawn up at a certain moment, how-
ever uniform and logical it be?

The varied life of a nation, ever changing, ever
growing more complicated, cannot be stretched or
squeezed to fit a programme or a political principle.
Of course, the parties must draw up in the form of a
programme the demands and ideas they represent, so
as to make it clear to the country, especially at elec-

156 Imperial Germany

tion time, what are their aims and principles. With-
out a programme, a party would be an unknown
quantity. But when a programme, drawn up to
serve the immediate and future aims of party politics,
is petrified into a system for aU politics in general, it
becomes objectionable. There are many and often
conflicting interests among the people, and the repre-
sentatives of like interests are quite right to band
themselves together and formulate their demands.
The formula is the programme. There are different
opinions about State, Law and Society, about the reg-
ulation of public life, especially in respect of the dis-
tribution of pohtical rights between the people and
the Government. Those, also, who represent similar
views will join together and express their opinions in
a few distinctive propositions. These propositions
constitute the programme. The connection between
industrial life and political life often causes the rep-
resentatives of like interests to hold like pohtical opin-
ions. Their programme will be proportionately more
comprehensive. It may also be admitted that the two
concrete, historical views of State and Society — the
Conservative and the Liberal — and the two abstract,
dogmatic views — the Ultramontane and the Social-
Democratic — embrace a large nimiber of the facts of

Party Platforms 157

political life. The respective party programmes can
therefore go into detail accordingly. But here, too,
there is a limit. A large number of events in public
life cannot be included even in these comparatively
comprehensive programmes, nor can Conservatives
and Liberals hold different vievps with respect to
them. On the whole, there is a preponderance of
such legislative problems as deal with questions of
pure utility, which must be solved by political com-
mon sense, and cannot be weighed in the scales of gen-
eral party views. But such disregard of party pro-
grammes is rarely conceded, even to the details of
legislation. It does not suffice us Germans to confine
our party politics to a certain number of practical de-
mands and political opinions. Each party would like
to imbue politics as a whole with its views, even down
to the smallest detail. And this is not limited to poli-
tics. The parties would like to be distinguished from
one another even in their grasp of intellectual and
their conception of practical life. Party views are
to become a "Weltanschauung" (Conception of the
Universe). Herein they over-estimate poHtical and
under-estimate intellectual fife. The German na-
tion in particular has been more deeply and seri-
ously moved by the great problems of a conception

158 Imperial Germany

of the Universe than any other nation. It has often,
probably too often for its particular interests, subor-
dinated dry questions of policy to the battle about the
conception of the Universe. On the other hand, it
was the first nation to set intellectual life free from
political tutelage. If now it subordinates this con-
ception to party politics, if it wants to go so far as to
see every event in the world and in life, in the dismal
light of political party principles, it will be false to
itself. The attempt to widen the scope of pohtics,
and especially party politics, in this way must lead to
an intellectual dechne, and has perhaps already done
so. A pohtical conception of the Universe is non-
sense, for luckily the world is not everywhere political.
And a conception of the Universe founded on party
politics cannot even span the political world, because
there are far too many matters and questions in poli-
tics that lie outside the sphere of party platforms and
party principles.

An Enghsh friend once said to me that it struck
him how often the words, "Conception of the Uni-
verse," occurred in the German parliamentary
speeches. Over and over again he found, "From the
point of view of my conception of the Universe, I can-
not approve of this, and I must demand that." He let

Party Platforms 159

me explain to him what German party politicians
meant by "Conception of the Universe," and then re-
marked, as he shook his head, that English politicians
and members of Parliament did not know much
about such things. They had different opinions and
represented different interests, pursued different ob-
jects; but they only argued on practical grounds and
rarely touched on such high matters as the conception
of the Universe. We Germans really are not differ-
entiated from the matter-of-fact Englishmen on this
point, by greater depth and thoroughness, but by a
mistaken estimate of political ideas. When we try
to make of party principles a system by which to
judge all political and non-political life, we harm our-
selves politically and intellectually. Pohtically, we
only intensify the differences which in any case we feel
particularly keenly, because we attribute a special in-
tellectual value to them, and we reduce more and more
the nimiber of those tasks in public life which really
can be carried out much better without the bias of
party politics. But if we drag questions of intellec-
tual life into the realm of party politics, that will mean
the loss of that intellectual versatility and magnanim-
ity which have won for German culture the first place
in the civilised world.

i6o Imperial Germany

In Germany a politician or a statesman is very
quickly reproached with lack of principle if, under
pressure of shifting conditions, he changes an opinion
he used to hold, or approves of the views of more than
one party. But development takes place without ref-
erence to party platforms or principles. If forced
to choose between sacrificing an opinion and doing a
foolish thing, the practical man will prefer the former
alternative. At any rate, no Minister, who is re-
sponsible to the nation for his decisions, can afford to
indulge in the luxury of a preconceived opinion, when
it is a question of fulfilling a legitimate demand of the
times. And if, then, it is pointed out that there is a
contradiction between his present view and his earlier
expressions of opinion, I can only advise him to pro-
tect himself against the reproach of being inconsist-
ent, a turncoat, a weathercock, and whatever the
other catchwords of vulgar polemics may be, by ac-
quiring a thick skin, which is in any case a useful
thing to have in modem public life. It is a fact con-
firmed by all experience that the true interests of the
nation have never been found in the course of one par-
ticular party alone. They always he midway be-
tween the courses pursued by various parties. We
must draw the diagonal of the parallelogram of forces.

Party Platforms 161

It will sometimes tend more in the direction of one
party and sometimes in that of another. A Minister,
whatever party he may incline to personally, must
try to find a compromise between all the legitimate
demands made by the various parties. In the course
of a fairly long term of office little by httle, and as his
tasks vary, he will, of course, be attacked by all par-
ties. But that does not matter so long as the coun-
try prospers. I never took the reproach of lack of
political principle tragically; I have even, at times,
felt it to savour of praise, for I saw in it appreciation
of the fact that I was guided by reasons of State.
The political principles which a Minister has to live
up to are very different in character from the prin-
ciples recognised by a party man; they belong to the
sphere of State policy, not of party pohtics. A Min-
ister must be loyal to the general interests of the State
and of the people which are entrusted to his care, and
this without considering party platforms, and, if
necessary, in opposition to all parties, even to that
with which the majority of his political views are in
accordance. In a Minister, firm principles and im-
partiahty are not only compatible, they are interde-
pendent. Bismarck was a man of iron principles,
and by being true to them he led our country to unity.

i62 Imperial Germany

glory and greatness. As a Member of Parliament
he was a party man, and as Minister he was re-
proached by his party for a political change of front.
He was accused ten years later of again changing his
opinions. As a matter of fact, he never swerved
from the path which led to his goal, for his goal was
nothing less than to secure prosperity and every pos-
sible advantage for the German nation and the Em-
pire. This goal could not be attained on party lines,
for the interests of the community in general seldom,
if ever, coincide with those of a single party.

Universally applicable rules for the best possible
policy cannot well be drawn up. Pohtical ends and
political means vary with circumstances, and one must
not slavishly imitate any model, not even the greatest.
In as far as varied and chequered life can be summed
up in a formula, for pohtics it would run as follows :
Fanatical where the welfare and interests of the coun-
try and where reasons of State are in question, ideal-
istic in aim, realistic in political practice, sceptical, as
far as men, their trustworthiness and gratitude are
concerned.

II

NATIONAL VIEWS AND THE PARTIES

I HAYE never concealed the fact, even from Liberals,
that in many great questions of politics I share the
views of the Conservatives. In the same way I have
never denied the fact that I am not a Conservative
party man. As a responsible Minister I could not be
that, given the character of my office and our German
conditions. I discuss here what my personal reasons
are for not being a party man, although I consider
myself a Conservative in all essentials, because the
consideration of these reasons leads to concrete ques-
tions of German politics at the present time and in
the immediate past.

CONSERVATISM.

There is a distinct difference between State Con-
servatism that the Government can pursue and party
Conservatism that no Government in Germany can
adhere to without falling into a state of partisanship
which, in all circumstances, must prove fatal. In

other words: The policy of the Government can go

163

164 Imperial Germany

Tiand in hand with the policy of the Conservatives, so
long as the latter is in accordance with the true inter-
ests of the State. That was, and is, not seldom the
case. But the ways of the Government and the Con-
servatives must diverge, if the policy of the party is
not in accordance with the interests of the community
which the Government must protect. At the same
time, the Government can be more conservative to-
wards the party than the party towards the Govern-
ment. More conservative in the sense that it fulfils
more perfectly the special task of upholding the State.
In such situations Prince Bismarck, too, who was a
■Conservative consciously and by conviction, came
into bitter conflict with his former party friends. It
is well known that he dealt in detail with this very
point, both in his "Gedanken and Erinnerungen"
("Thoughts and Recollections") and in the conversa-
tions which Poschinger has transmitted to us.

The task of Conservative policy was once aptly
defined by Count Posadowsky in the following way:
That Conservatives must maintain the State in such
a way that the people are content in it. Such a main-
tenance of the State is often unimaginable without the
alteration of existing institutions. The State must
^adjust itself to modern conditions of life, in order

Conservatism 165

to remain habitable and consequently vigorous.

It would be very unjust to deny that the Conserv-
ative party has often assisted in introducing innova-
tions; sometimes, indeed, with a better grace than
those parties which have "Progress" inscribed on their
banner. This was the case in the year 1878, when
industrial conditions necessitated the great revolution
in tariffs and industrial policy. Again, at the inau-
guration of the social policy which took into account
the changed conditions of the labouring classes. But
at times the interests represented by the Conservative
party were opposed to the interests which the Govern-
ment defended, in order to preserve the community's
satisfaction in the State. Owing to the intensifica-
tion of economic differences, the Conservative party,
like all others, has, in a certain sense, come to repre-
sent special interests. I will not discuss the point
whether this is the case to such an extent as to be bad
for the party. But no one who has sat on the Front
Bench during the last decades will be prepared to
deny that it is true to a greater extent than is favour-
able to the course of the Government's affairs.

I had to withdraw further from the Conservative
party in proportion as it represented certain interests,
and I could not reconcile these with those of the com-

i66 Imperial Germany

munity. In the fight over the Tariff the interests of
the nation in general were identical with those of the
Conservative party; but in the reform of the Imperial
finances they were not. The subsequent development
in both cases proved this to be true. Nothing in the
fundamental views of the Conservative party in re-
spect of the organisation of society, industries and,
above all, of the State ever separated me from it, nor
does it do so to-day.

THE CONSEEVATIVE EI^MENT IN PEUSSO-GEEMAN"
HISTOEY.

We must never fail to appreciate what the Con-
servative element has achieved for the pohtical hfe of
Prussia and Germany. It would be a sad loss to the
nation if Conservative views ceased to be a living and
effective force among the Germans, and if the party
ceased to occupy a position in parUamentary and po-
htical hfe which is worthy of its past. The forces
which animate the Conservative party are those which
made Germany great, and which our country must
preserve in order to remain great and grow greater;
they are forces which never become out of date. We
Germans must not lose the ideals of the best Conserv-
atism; manly loyalty without servility to the King

Prusso-German Conservative Element 167

and the reigning family, and tenacious attachment to
home and country.

If, nowadays, the opponents of the Conservative
party are not content to fight them on the ground of
party differences, but manifest class-hatred, always
so objectionable in pohtical life, against those classes
of the nation which are chiefly represented in the Con-
servative party, we must not forget what those very
classes did in the service of Prussia and Germany. It
was the noblemen and peasants east of the Elbe who,
under the HohenzoUem princes, primarily achieved
greatness for Brandenburg and Prussia. The throne
of the Prussian Kings is cemented with the blood of
the Prussian nobility. The Great King (Frederick
the Great) expressed emphatically more than once
how well his nobles had served him.

The praise which the Prussian nobility demand,
and which they have a perfect right to expect, is not
meant to detract from the achievements and merits of
other classes. Without the self-sacrificing loyalty of
the middle classes, the peasants and the poor people,
the nobility would have accomplished little. It is
quite true, too, that the nobles were able to distinguish
themselves particularly in earlier times, because the
conditions at that period gave them exceptional oppor-

i68 Imperial Germany

tunities. But it was when they occupied posts of
responsibility and danger in the service of the Prus-
sian State that they achieved most — ^more than the
aristocracy of any other modern State. Nothing but
injustice can fail to recognise this.

It is altogether preposterous, nowadays, still to
contrast the nobility and the bourgeoisie as separate
castes. Professional and social Ufa have so fused the
old classes that they can no longer be distinguished
from each other.

But if one appreciates at its true value the effi-
ciency of the old classes in the past, one must be just
and concede the merits of each. The Prussian nobles
have a right to be proud of their past. If they keep
the sentiments of their ancestors alive in the ideals of
the Conservative party, they deserve thanks for so
doing. And it must not be forgotten that such old
Prussian sentiments guided the policy of the Conserv-
ative party in the most difficult tirrijes of our old Em-
peror and his great Minister, in the years of conflict.
So far as one can speak of a right to gratitude in pol-
itics — and one ought to be able to do so — ^we owe the
Conservatives a debt of gratitude for the support they
afforded Bismarck in the year 1862. I lay particular
stress on this, because at the time my official career

Conservatism and Liberalism 169

was Hearing its close I was forced to oppose the Con-
servative party, and because I am absolutely con-
vinced that the Conservative faction went astray in
the year 1909. I should like to make a clear distinc-
tion between my general attitude towards Conserva-
tive views, my sentiments towards the Conservative
party, and my opinion of individual phases of Con-
servative party politics.

Even a man who esteems the fundamental views of
the Conservatives as highly as I do, who, like me,
hopes that sound Conservative thought will have a
far-reaching influence on legislation, and who has
often furthered such influence, must be of opinion
that disastrous consequences will result from the fact
that in 1909 the bridges between the Right and Left
were broken down. The really fruitful periods of
our home policy were those when the Right and the
Left co-operated. In saying this I refer, not only to
the time of the so-called "Block Policy," but also to
earlier, well-known and significant phases of Bis-
marck's time.

CONSERVATISM AND LIBERALISM,

Conservatism and Liberalism are not only both
justified, but are both necessary for our political life.

170 Imperial Germany

How difficult it is to rule in our country is made clear
by the facts that one cannot rule in Prussia for any
length of time without the support of the Conserva-
tives, nor in the Empire without that of the Liberals.
Neither must Liberal ideas disappear from us as a
people. Moreover, the formation of strong Liberal
parties is indispensable to us. If Conservatism is
rooted in the administrative talent of the old Prus-
sians, Liberahsm is rooted in the intellectual peculiar-
ities of the German nation. Its best ideals, too, are
of permanent value. We Germans do not want to
be deprived of the lusty defence of individual free-
dom against State coercion, and this Liberahsm has
always represented.

Liberalism, too, has earned its historic rights and
its right to gratitude. It was the Liberals who first
expressed the idea of German Unity, and spread it
through the people. They carried out the indispen-
sable preliminary work. The goal could not be
reached by the course which they followed. Then
Conservative policy had to step in, in order, as Bis-
marck expressed it, to realise the Liberal idea by
means of a Conservative action. The German Em-
pire itself may well be regarded as the first, the great-
est, and the most successful piece of work accom-

Conservatism and Liberalism 171

plished by the co-operation of the Conservatives and
Liberals.

It is at present customary in both camps to look
upon Conservatism and Liberalism as two fundamen-
tally opposed conceptions of the State, and to assert
that each lives on its antagonism to the other. That
does not, however, correctly interpret the relationship
between German Conservatives and Liberals. If it
were true, the two parties, and the groups which are
attached to them, would have to gain in strength the
stronger became the contrast between them, and the
more hostile the attitude they adopted towards each
other.

But the exact opposite is the case. With the ex-
ception of a few extraordinary situations, the Con-
servatives and Liberals have been strongest as parties
and most influential in Parliament when they co-
operated. The two parties were strongest in the
Cartel and in the Block. And the periods of their
co-operation were always those when the temper of
the nation as a whole was most cheerful and hopefuL

No doubt we must not expect all political salvation,
or the solution of all legislative problems, to result
from co-operation between Conservatives and Liber-
als. It will happen again and again that their ways

172 Imperial Germany

part as regards individual, and also important, ques-
tions. For the antagonism exists, and rightly so.
It would also be quite wrong to credit the co-operation
of Conservatives and Liberals with all great achieve-
ments in the sphere of home politics. The Centre
played a distinguished and often a decisive part in our
social legislation, in many of our Armament Bills,
and, above all, in granting us the Navy. But strife
between the Conservatives and the Liberals has al-
ways been disastrous — for the two parties themselves,
for the course of our home policy, and, last but not
least, for the temper of the nation.

The antagonism between Liberals and Conserva-
tives will never disappear. It has an historical and a
practical significance. This friction is a part of our
political life. But the antagonism in their views
should not be exaggerated unnecessarily, nor made
to involve such great matters as utterly irreconcilable
conceptions of the Universe. In so doing one departs
from sober political reahty. Even religious antago-
nism which has been amongst us for four centuries,
and which the nation, in accordance vpith its disposi-
tion, has always taken very seriously, makes way for
the demands of the moment. In Socialism we really
have a series of ideas, so different from our homely

Conservatism and Liberalism 173

conceptions of Law and Custom, Religion, Society
and State that it may indeed be termed a different
conception of the Universe. I myself, in this connec-
tion, once spoke of a difference in the conception of
the Universe. But that a middle-class Liberal differs
from a middle-class Conservative in his conception of
the Universe no one seriously beheves. They have
too many common ideas and ideals, especially in na-
tional matters, and the wide kingdom of German in-
tellectual life in Science and in Art belongs to them
both. How many Liberals there are who incline to
iadividual Conservative views! How many Con-
servatives who are by no means opposed to all Liberal
ideas and demands! All these people do not con-
sider themselves politically neutral, nor are they.
And what about the Ministers? The party papers
quarrel at regular intervals whether this Minister or
that other is to be stamped as a Conservative or as a
Liberal, and as a rule each party tries to foist the ma-
jority of Ministers on to the opposing party. The
fact is that, if asked to state precisely to which party
platform they give their support, most Ministers
would be at a loss.

It is not only unjustifiable, but also unpractical, to
emphasise unduly the differences between the parties.

174 Imperial Germany

They do not, as a rule, go hand in hand for any length
of time, and the bonds that unite them are anything
but permanent. So if they break with their friends
of yesterday, and become reconciled to their enemies
of yesterday, they are placed in the awkward position
of having to break down the carefully constructed
fabric of fundamental party differences, with as much
trouble as they expended in building it up. This has
happened just about as often as the composition of
the majority changed.

If party differences really went so deep, and per-
meated so completely every detail of political life as is
represented in party quarrels, then, considering the
number of our parties, none of which has hitherto ob-
tained an absolute majority, it would be impossible
to accomplish any legislative work.

But, as a matter of fact, much valuable work of
different kinds has been done in almost every depart-
ment of home pohtics during the last decades. One
after the other, the parties have placed themselves
at each other's disposal, and have often, with astound-
ing suddenness, overcome the differences they em-
phasised so strongly before. No doubt other differ-
ences are emphasised all the more strongly. And it
only lasts until the formation of a new majority, so

The Government and the Parties 175

that really there is no occasion to take the antagonism
between the parties so tragically.

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE PARTIES.

The Government must also look upon party an-
tagonism as a variable quantity. Not only as a quan-
tity variable in itself, but as one whose variability can
and must be influenced if the interests of the Empire
and the State demand it. It is not sufficient to take
majorities wherever they are to be found and as occa-
sion offers. The Government must try to create ma-
jorities for its tasks.

To govern with a majority which varies in each
case is no doubt advantageous and convenient, but
there are great dangers attached to it. It is certainly
not a panacea for all political situations.

Bismarck is usually cited as having taken his ma-
jorities where he could get them. But in this, as in
most references to the time of Bismarck, the point is
missing — Bismarck himself at the head of the Gov-
ernment. He held the reins of Government with such
an iron grip that he never ran any risk of letting the
least scrap of power slip into the hands of Parlia-
ment through the influence he conceded to a majority,
when he happened to find one at his disposal. Above

176 Imperial Germany

all, he never dreamt of considering the wishes of a
majority unless they tallied with his own. He made
use of existing majorities, but he never let them make
use of him. Bismarck in particular excelled in rid-
ding himself of antagonistic majorities and in pro-
curing such as would acquiesce in the aims of his pol-
icy. . If his choice lay between allowing an important
law to be blocked or mangled by an existing majority
and engaging in a troublesome fight to effect a change
of majority, he never hesitated to choose the latter.
He profited by the possibihty of getting casual ma-
jorities, but he was the last to yield to such.

In this respect Bismarck's name should not be idly
cited. His rule can only serve as a precedent for a
strong, determined and even ruthless Government,
not for an accommodating and yielding one that con-
cedes greater rights to the parties than they are enti-
tled to claim.

It is certainly less trouble to look on and see how a
majority can be got together for a Bill, than to see
that the BiU is passed in the way the Government
thinks proper and profitable.

If the Government allows itself to be led, then it
may easily happen that, what with the feuds of the
parties and the haggling between the sections which

The Government and the Parties 177

make up the majority, the Bill will become unrecog-
nisable and something quite different will result — at
times even just the contrary to what the Government
wanted. In this way the majorities are not put at
the disposal of the Bills that the Government intro-
duces as opportunity affords, but the Government
give their Bills up to the majorities to pass and
amend as they see best. While the Government pre-
tends to be above the parties, in reality it slips under
their heel.

The very necessity for changing the majorities, in
view of the state of the parties in Germany, demands
a strong hand to direct the affairs of the Govern-
ment. No Government can work for ever with one
and the same majority. That is rendered impossible
by the relations which the parties bear to one an-
other, by the dogmatism of most parties, by their
tendency to go over to the opposition from time
to time in order to gain popularity, and, finally,
by the manifold nature of the Government's tasks,
which can only in part be accomphshed by one
particular majority. In the interests of a policy
which as far as possible does justice to all sec-
tions of the nation, it is not desirable that any one
of the parties, with whose assistance positive work

178 Imperial Germany

for the good of the State can be done, should never
co-operate. It is good for the parties if they have a
share in legislative work. Parties which always pre-
serve an attitude of opposition and negation, and are
left alone by the Government, grow pedantic in the
items of their programmes, and, if they do not die out
altogether, at best deprive our public life of valuable
forces. In the course of the last decades the Left
Wing of our Liberahsm had fallen into this condition,
even with regard to vital questions of national im-
portance. The problem of enrolling Ultra-Liberal-
ism in the forces useful to the nation had to be tackled.
It was solved by the "Block Policy," and this solution
not only proved satisfactory during the existence of
the Block, but still works at the present time, for the
Ultra-Liberals helped to procure a very substantial
increase in the army.

THE BLOCK.

The formation of the group of parties which goes
by the somewhat unfortunate name of the "Block," a
term borrowed from French politicians, was an event
of extraordinary and typical significance, and was
most enlightening. If only because I do not like to
prophesy, I will not attempt any exhaustive discus-
sion as to whether the era of the Block was merely an

The Block 179^

episode. It can hardly be denied that events may at
any time bring about a similar situation, if not the
same. But this does not convey that I recommend
the Block as a panacea for any and every contingency
in home politics. I was always well aware that such
a combination must be of limited duration, because,
for one thing, it never entered my calculations that
the Centre would permanently be excluded. But it
seems to me that this period, short as it was, sheds a
special light on the most important problems of our
home poUtics. In my opinion, and that of the major-
ity of my countrymen, these most important problems
are: National questions, and the fight against the So-
cial Democrats. Of course there are many other
problems in addition, by the solving of which we do
nothing towards the solution of the great problems.
A deep scrutiny and proper understanding of our
home policy shows that it is ultimately dominated by
these two great questions.

A distinction must be made between the immediate
occasion and the indirect causes which led to the com-
bination of 1907. The events which necessitated the
dissolution of the Reichstag in 1906 are still present
to the minds of all. Owing to the attitude of the Cen-
tre, an untenable situation had been created, and it

i8o Imperial Germany

was desirable for the Government to take action which
would have more than a transitory effect. The at-
tempts of the Centre to interfere in colonial adminis-
tration had reached such a pitch that, merely in the
interests of discipline, they could be tolerated no
longer. The requisitions for the troops in South-
West Africa, who were heroically fighting a cruel en-
emy amidst great hardships, were rejected by the Cen-
tre and the Social Democrats ; and, finally, there was
an attempt to interfere with the power of chief com-
mand possessed by the Emperor. Principles of
State were at stake which could not be sacrificed. A
Government which in such case does not resort even
to extreme measures of protection is not worthy of
the name. I never for a moment failed to realise
what inconvenience was entailed by dissolving the
Reichstag, and thus breaking with a party so power-
ful and tenacious as the Centre. My political life
would have been much pleasanter if I had consented
to some sort of a compromise, however unsatisfactory.
But this was one of those moments which in the inter-
ests of the country demand battle. A Government
that at such a period hesitates to plunge into the fray
for fear of subsequent difiiculties, consults its own in-
terest before the country's. In this case the military

The Block 181

principle holds good that attack is preferable to de-
fence. The Government exists for the good of the
country, not the country for the Government. I had
warned the Centre in good time of the consequences
of their behaviour. If afterwards it was asserted that
the Centre did not reahse what the final upshot would
be, I can point to my speeches in the Reichstag and
my declarations in those anxious days, which more
than refute these statements.

If, after speeches such as I made on November 28
and December 4, 1906, I had not either dissolved the
Reichstag or handed in my resignation, I should not
have dared to show myself in pubUc. When the
majority, consisting of the Centre, the Social Demo-
crats, Poles and Alsatians, insisted on reducing the
supplementary estimates for South- West Africa from
29 to 20 milhon (marks), and also demanded a de-
crease in the colonial force in that part of the country
where the rising had only just been put down, the
Reichstag was dissolved. The important thing then
was to win a majority at the elections for the Conserv-
atives and Liberals of all shades who had supported
the Government.

The attitude of the Centre and the Social Demo-
crats in regard to colonial policy, and, above all, the

i82 Imperial Germany

attempt to tamper with the Emperor's prerogative
by virtue of his power as chief in command, accorded
by the Constitution, to decide the strength of the
troops required at the time by the military situation
in South- West Africa, were sufficient reason to neces-
sitate a change in the composition of the majority
by means of a General Election. But, apart from
these immediate causes, it seemed to me, and to an
overwhelming number of patriotic Germans as well,
that a change in the grouping of the parties and in
their relative strength was eminently desirable.

It has been said that in 1907 we started a campaign
against the Centre, and by chance beat the Social
Democrats. That, of course, is a misinterpretation
of the facts. If a Government brings about a Gen-
eral Election, it is not a question of a punitive expe-
dition against one particular party; but it is because
the Government wants to make a change in the com-
position of the majority. The Cartel elections of
1887 followed the same course as the Block elections
twenty years later. The Centre emerged from both
unharmed. But both fulfilled their object by shat-
tering the other parties which at the time united with
the Centre in forming the opposition. In the first
case it was the Ultra-Liberals, later it was the Social

The Centre 183

Democrats. War was declared on the oppositional
majority as such. Compared with this primary ob-
ject, the question as to which party should be weak-
ened in order to decimate the majority was of
secondary importance. At the Block elections I pre-
ferred a weakening of the Social Democrats to a cor-
responding loss of seats on the part of the Centre.
At that time, and, what is more, entirely on my own
initiative, at the second ballots I passed the word for
the Centre against the Social Democrats. It was at
my express request that the former burgomaster of
Cologne, His Excellency Herr Becker, invited sup-
port for the Centre against the Social Democrats.
Since then I have often been told that this was a mis-
take, and that I myself had assisted in creating a ma-
jority of Conservatives and the Centre, which made
it very difficult for me to govern later on. To this
very day I am of opinion that I did quite right at the
time. On the one hand, I had no intention of per-
manently excluding the Centre; on the other, there
was never any question of my being supported by the
Social Democrats.

THE CENTEE,

The Centre is the strong bastion built by the Ro-
man Cathohc section of the people to protect itself

184 Imperial Germany

from interference on the part of the Protestant ma-
jority. The previous history of the Centre may be
traced back to the times when in the old Empire the
Corpus Evangelicorum was opposed by the Corpus
Catholicorum. But whereas in the old Empire Ca-
tholicism and Protestantism were more or less evenly
balanced, in the new Empire the Catholics are in the
minority ; the old Cathohc Empire has been succeeded
by the new Protestant one.

It must, however, be admitted that the Catholic
minority has a great advantage over the Protestant
majority in its unity and solidarity. Good Protes-
tant as I am, I do not deny that, though the Prot-
estants often have reason to complain of lack of
perception on the part of the Catholics, yet, on the
other hand, in Protestant circles there is often a lack
of toleration towards the Catholics. Members of
both reUgions would do well to take to heart the beau-
tiful words of Gorres: "All of us. Catholics and
Protestants, have sinned in our fathers, and still
weave the tissue of human error in one way or an-
other. No one has the right to set himself above
another in his pride, and God will tolerate it in none,
least of all in those who call themselves His friends."
My old Commander, later General Field-Marshal

The Centre 185

Freiherr von Loe, a good Prussian and a good Catho-
lic, once said to me that in this respect matters would
not improve until the well-known principle of French
law, "que la recherche de la paternite etait interdite,"
were changed for us into "la recherche de la confes-
sion etait interdite." He also replied to this effect
to a Royal lady from abroad, who asked what was the
percentage of Protestant and Catholic officers in his
army corps: "I know how many battahons, squad-
rons and batteries I command, but I take no interest
in what church my officers belong to." That is what
they think in the army, and in the Diplomatic Corps,
and this manner of thinking must hold in other posi-
tions as well. The feeling of being slighted, which
still obtains in many Catholic circles, can only be over-
come by an absolutely undenominational policy, a
policy in which, as I once expressed it in the Chamber
of Deputies, there is neither a Protestant nor a Cath-
olic Germany, but only the one indivisible nation, in-
divisible in material as in spiritual matters.

On the other hand, however, there are many
weighty reasons why a religious party should not wield
such an extraordinary and decisive influence in poh-
tics as was the case for many years in this country.
The Centre is, and will remain, a party held together

i86 Imperial Germany

by religious views, however subtly opinion in Cologne
and Berlin may argue about the idea of a religious
party. The Centre is the representative of the re-
ligious minority. As such its existence is justified;
but it must not arrogate to itself a predominant posi-
tion in politics. Doubtless every party which, owing
to the constitution of the majority and to its own
strength, occupies an exceptionally strong position
in Parliament, is inclined to abuse its power. The
Ultra-Liberals did so in the years of struggle; the
National Liberals in the first half of the 'seventies;
the Conservatives in the Prussian Chamber of Depu-
ties, when they thwarted the well-thought-out and far-
reaching plans for the canal; and finally the Centre
did so. All my predecessors in office were in such a
position as to have to ward oiF the Centre's claims to
power. Many of the conflicts in home politics during
the last decades had their origin in the necessity the
Governments were under to defend themselves; the
conflict of 1887, that of 1893, and, finally, the battle of
1906.

For a party which is in an almost impregnable
position, such as the Centre occupies, the temptation
to pursue a policy of power pure and simple is very
great. It is doubly tempting if the Centre is in a po-

The Centre 187

sition to form a majority together with the Social
Democrats, and with their help can prevent the pass-
ing of any and every Bill. A majority composed of
the Centre and the Social Democrats, that resists na-
tional demands, is not only injurious to our national
life, but constitutes a serious danger.

Before 1906 the Centre allowed itself to be tempted
to turn to its own advantage the systematic opposi-
tion of the Social Democrats towards national requi-
sitions, if together with these it could obtain a major-
ity, and if it fitted in with its policy of power
to discomfit the Government by the rejection of
such requisitions. In the same way, before the storm
which cleared the air in 1906, it happened more than
once that the Centre laid down difficult or even impos-
sible conditions, before giving its consent to national
requisitions, knowing full well that without its help
it was impossible to get a national majority. From
the defeat of the Cartel at the February elections of
1890 up to the Block elections of 1907, after which the
Centre did not oppose any Army, Navy or Colonial
Bills, the Government lived uninterruptedly under
the shadow of a threat of union between the Centre
and the Social Democrats, to form a majority for the
Opposition. In the seventeen years between the Car-

i88 Imperial Germany

tel and the Block, the Centre certainly rendered val-
uable services in furthering national affairs, especially
in respect of the Navy Bills, the Tariff Bills, and in »
notable manner in the development of social policy.
But events in the sphere of colonial politics in the
winter of 1906 proved that the Centre stiU regarded
the rejection of national requisitions, with the aid of
the Social Democrats, as a welcome and legitimate
means of carrying out its policy of power.

THE TASK OF 1907.

It was necessary to settle the conflict conjured up
by the Centre together with the Social Democrats, the
Poles and the Alsatians, not only for the time being,
but with an eye to the past and the future. The need
of forming a majority for national questions without
the Centre had really existed since the split in the Bis-
marckian Cartel, and was created by the conclusions
that the Centre had drawn from the fact that its as-
sistance was indispensable for the furtherance of na-
tional affairs. So it was an old problem that was set
for solution in 1907, one that was made urgent by the
divisions of the preceding months, but that was not
originally raised by them: a national majority with-
out the Centre. Not a majority against the Centre,

The Task of 1907 189

nor a national majority from which the Centre was
to be excluded, but a national majority, powerful and
strong enough in itself to do justice to national exi-
gencies, if need be without the help of the Centre.
If this were achieved the Centre could no more har-
bour the seductive idea that it was indispensable, and
the danger of a majority formed by the Centre and
the Social Democrats would no longer be acute.
When the People's party voted with the Conserva-
tives and National Liberals for the Colonial Bills, I
perceived the possibility of forming a new national
majority. I should have seized this opportunity,
even if I had not been convinced that it was possible
to smooth away the differences between the Conserv-
atives and Liberals, and that the co-operation of these
two parties would have great educative value. In
pursuing this course I did my duty. The Block ma-
jority was formed not against the Centre as such, but
against the Centre, allied in opposition, with the So-
cial Democrats. The nation looked upon the Block
elections as a purely national matter. The temper
of the people, when success was assured, was not such
as would be roused by a triumph in party politics, but
as would emanate from a feeling of patriotic satisfac-
tion. The Block had been matured by the experience

190 Imperial Germany

of nearly two decades of home policy. There was
promise for the coming decade in the fact that the
last of the middle-class parties had been won over in
support of the national tasks of the Empire.

The underlying idea of the so-called Block was sim-
ilar to that which was at the foundation of the Cartel.
I might almost say: the Block was the modern real-
isation of an old idea adapted to the changed circum-
stances of the times. For a long time it had not been
feasible to repeat the Cartel formed by Conservatives
and National Liberals. The old parties of the Cartel
had been ground so small between the millstones of
the Centre and the Social Democrats that there was
no longer hope of renewing the Cartel majority for
some time to come. In order to be able, if need be,
to dispense with the help of the Centre in forming a
national majority, it was necessary to include Ultra-
Liberalism. When in 1906 the Ultra-Liberals of-
fered to co-operate in national work, the Government
had to seize the helping hand held out to them — and
hold it fast. It was not so much a question of win-
ning over a party to the Government side, as of ex-
tending the sphere of the national idea among
the people. For the first time since the founding of
the Empire, the old Ultra-Liberalism wheeled into

The Task of 1907 191

the front rank of the nation. The way in which this
was done hardly left a doubt that the change was in-
tended to be permanent rather than temporary.
What Eugen Richter had prophesied to me, not long
before he retired from political life, had come true.
With sure instinct, all classes of the nation felt and
understood the real significance of this turn of affairs
in 1906, till later on the fads of party programmes
obscured the clear facts, as they have so often done.

The years of the Block brought great success and
taught an important lesson. The national vanguard
was widened, and it was proved that the Social Dem-
ocrats can be repulsed : both points of significant gain
in the solution of the most important problems of our
home policy.

Since 1907 the Ultra-Liberals have been ranged on
the side of the National party. The small Army and
Navy Bills of the spring of 1912 were accepted by
them in the same way as were the great increase in the
Army in the summer of 1913, and the demands of co-
lonial policy. To estimate the value of the assistance
of the Ultra-Liberals, it is not sufficient to consider
whether the Armament Bills would have had a ma-
jority in the Reichstag without them. The advan-
tage lies in this, that whereas formerly a majority of

192 Imperial Germany

middle-class parties stood security for the national
needs of the Empire, a majority which was mostly got
together with great difficulty, now all the middle-class
parties stand united against the Social Democrats and
the Nationalistic parties and fragments of parties.
The national questions of the Empire have ceased
to be a subject of anxiety in home politics. And the
solid force with which the national idea finds expres-
sion in all sections of the middle classes, when the de-
fence of the Empire is concerned, must be set down as
a valuable asset for the prestige of Germany abroad.

CONCERNING THE HISTORY OF THE GERMAN POLICY OF
ARMAMENTS.

In order to measure the progress made, it is only
necessary to consider the fate of the bigger Arma-
ment Bills during the last decades. This is all the
more significant as the national idea must act, not
only in the direction of the Continental policy of Prus-
sia and Germany so glorious in the past, but also in
the direction of the new world policy, whose impor-
tance in the meantime lies more in the future. Not
only the army, but also the navy, is concerned to-day.
The middle-class parties in the Reichstag have to ad-
vocate considerable material sacrifices in the country

HcjLtory of German Policy of Armaments 193

for disbursements for national purposes, and they
must therefore lay greater stress on the national idea.
It is certainly a curious fact that in the most mili-
tary and most warlike of the European nations the
parties have resigned themselves so unwillingly to
new demands for the defence of the Empire that it has
taken more than three and a half decades to achieve
unanimity, at least among the middle-class parties.
The blame for this attitude attaches, not so much to
lack of patriotism, as to that desire for power in party
politics, and that obstinate devotion to the party pro-
gramme, to which I have earlier referred. It was the
task of the Government to waken the latent patriotic
feelings of all middle-class parties, to animate them,
and spontaneously, and without prejudice, to uphold
them when they seemed strong enough to co-operate
in a practical manner in the work of the Empire.
A German Government would act against the wel-
fare of the nation if, owing to party prejudices of its
own, it should repulse the national zeal of a party,
and if the sacrifices of a party in the interests of the
nation should seem of less value because its general
trend in politics did not fall in with the Government's
ideas. For the Government the intensity of national
feeling is by far the most important quality of a party.

194 Imperial Germany

It will and must be possible to work with a party that
is at bottom reliable from the national standpoint,
for such a party will ultimately allow itself to be influ-
enced in favour of national interests in the choice,
often so hard in Germany, between the interests of
the community in general and those of the party.
No German Minister need give up this cheerful op-
timism, no matter how sceptically he may regard the
parties in the ordinary course of politics. Firm be-
lief in the ultimate victory of the national idea is the
first condition of a really national pohcy. Day and
night every German pohtician should remember the
glorious words which Schleiermacher uttered in the
dark year of 1807: "Germany is still there, and her
invisible strength is unimpaired." This belief we
Germans must not forgo in the hurly-burly of our
party squabbles, which still makes the display of spon-
taneous national feeling seem transitory, like a rare
hour of rest.

A review of the fate of the German Armament
Bills affords at the same time a picture of the changes
in the parties with regard to the national idea. The
Conservatives have a right to the reputation of never
having refused to serve their country, and the Na-
tional Liberals, too, have never endangered the fate

History of German Policy of Armaments 195

of an Armament Bill. In this respect the old parties
of the Cartel hold the foremost place, and it was a
loss, not only to them but to the Empire, when the
elections of 1890 destroyed their majority and at the
same time all prospect of their recovering this ma-
jority. Prince Bismarck had bequeathed an Army
Bill to the new Reichstag of 1890; this Bill was in-
troduced in a form of much less scope than that of
the original draft, as conceived by the old Imperial
Chancellor. Count Caprivi asked for 18,000 men
and 70 batteries. In spite of the fact that the vener-
able Moltke spoke in favour of the BiU, its fate was
doubtful for a long time, Eugen Richter refused it
in the name of the whole Ultra-Liberal party. With
the help of the Centre the Bill was passed by the Car-
tel parties, but the Centre only gave its consent on
condition that subsequently a Bill for two-year mili-
tary service should be introduced.

The great Army Bill of 1893 became a necessity so
soon owing to the fact that the demands made by the
preceding Bill had been insufficient for requirements ;
this showed how uncertain the foothold of the national
majority of the middle-class parties was. The Cen-
tre vented on the Army Bill its resentment for the
disappointment of its hopes with regard to educa-

196 Imperial Germany

i;ional policy in Prussia. Although its demand for
two-year military service was included in the new Bill,
the party could not make up its mind to vote for it.
Among the Ultra-Liberals the national idea at that
time was trying to find expression. But only six Ul-
tra-Liberal deputies at last consented to vote for the
Bill. In 1893, sixteen years before its realisation,
there rose for a moment the hope of co-operation be-
tween the Conservatives and Liberals, including the
Ultra-Liberals. The time, however, was not yet
ripe. The rejection of the Bill by the Centre, Ultra-
Liberals and Social Democrats was followed by the
-dissolution of the Reichstag. In the elections the
Ultra-Liberals in favour of the Army separated from
the party of progress ; but the elections did not result
in a national majority without the Centre. The So-
^jial Democrats increased the number of their seats.
The bulk of the Ultra-Liberals remained in opposi-
tion. The majority — 201 against 185 — ^was only ob-
tained by means of the Polish party, which had in-
creased from sixteen to nineteen. The national idea
had gained ground among the Ultra-Liberals, but
had not won the victory, and had been rmable to get
.ahead of the party interests of the Centre.

Six years later the Government had to put up with

History of German Policy of Armaments 197

very considerable reductions in its Bills, and never-
theless only succeeded in passing the new Army Bill
with the help of the Centre after a violent struggle
against the opposition of the Ultra-Liberals and So-
cial Democrats. There was no question of ready or
enthusiastic acceptance, and a conflict in home politics
seemed very imminent. I found the majority which
had passed the Tariff Bill ready to accept the Army
increase of 10,000 men in the spring of 1905, but the
Ultra-Liberals still held off. The case was much the
same with the Navy Bills. Hot fights were the rule,
and consent was usually the result of long discussions
and explanations between the Government and the
parties. In the year 1897 not even two cruisers were
granted, and yet in the following year it was possible
to get a majority in the same Reichstag for the first
great Navy BiU.

In the interval, comprehensive and enlightening
work had been done. The Emperor William II. had
advocated the national cause with all his heart and
soul. Learned men hke Adolph Wagner, SchmoUer,
Sering, Lamprecht, Erich Marks and many others
made successful propaganda for the fleet at that time
and in subsequent years, especially among the edu-
cated classes. The Bill of 1898 was passed by a ma-

198 Imperial Germany

jority of 212 against 139 votes. Twenty members of
the Centre, all the Ultra-Liberals and, of course, the
Social Democrats voted against it. The important
Navy Bill of 1900 again found the Ultra-Liberals
solidly on the side of the Opposition. The Centre
this time voted as one man for the Bill after the num-
ber of cruisers demanded had been reduced from
sixty-four to fifty-one. In the year 1906 these addi-
tional ships, which had been refused before, were
granted by the majority which passed the Tariff BiU.
In the same way the increase in the dimensions of the
battleships, necessitated by the example of England,
was granted.

In the end we certainly succeeded in obtaining ma-
jorities of the middle classes for all these Armament
Bills. But their acceptance was nearly always the
result of difficult negotiations, and often of inconven-
ient compromises. We were very far from being
able to count on sure and substantial national majori-
ties for our legitimate and reasonable Armament
Bills. More than once the decision himg in the bal-
ance. And had it not been, as was the case in the
Army Bill of 1893, for the unexpected assistance of
the Poles, success and failure would each time have
been dependent on the presence or absence of the

History of German Policy of Armaments 199

good will of the Centre. This was bound to give that
party not only a very strong sense of power, but a
great deal of actual power. The expression, "the all-
powerful Centre," so often heard before 1907, was
fully justified. In point of fact, a party, on whose
good will the Empire was dependent in all questions
of national existence, was virtually in possession of
political leadership, at least in those matters which,
in accordance with the Constitution, are open to the
influence of parties and the representatives of the
people. And when the Colonial debates of the win-
ter of 1906 showed that it was by no means safe to
count on the Centre in all national questions, it be-
came clear that some solution yet remained to be
found for the problem of how to safeguard these ques-
tions in the party warfare. The change of front of
the party of progress, and the victory at the poll of
the new majority of the Block, put an end to this rule
of the Centre which we have just described. The
Centre learnt that the fate of national questions no
longer depended on it alone, and it learnt further that
the negative attitude might well prove fatal to its
powerful position in Parliament. Even though the
Block could only be kept together for a few years, yet
the possibility remains that it might be formed again

200 Imperial Germany

if the Centre should fail to come up to the mark in a
national question, or should, hy siding with the Social
Democrats, defeat a Bill for the furtherance of na-
tional aims. The Centre will not be so ready, as it
often was in past years, to allow its attitude with re-
gard to national questions to be influenced by ill-feel-
ing occasioned by matters of home politics. The
Ultra-Liberals proved, in the spring of 1912 and in
the summer of 1913, that they consider the change of
front carried out in 1906 a permanent one.

That there has been such a development of the na-
tional idea, and that such a change has come over
the attitude of the parties towards Imperial questions
of protection and armament, must fill every patriot
with joy and confidence. Fifty years ago, King Wil-
liam found himself alone with his Ministry and a
small Conservative minority, in the struggle to re-
organise the Prussian Army. After the founding of
the Empire, Bismarck had to fight obdurately with
the parties for every Army requisition, however small.
The year 1893 witnessed once more a bitter struggle
in home politics for an Army Bill. In October, 1899,
the Emperor William II. lamented that, "in spite of
urgent requests and warnings" during the first eight
years of his reign, the increase in the Navy had been

History of German Policy of Armaments 201"

steadily refused. When at last the idea of a navy
had taken root in the minds of the people, even then
the individual Navy Bills were only passed after hard
fights in Parliament.

The Armament Bills of 1912 were passed by the
whole of the German middle-class parties in the Reich-
stag. The Army Bill of the year 1913 met with such
a willing reception from all parties as had never be-
fore been accorded to any requisition for armaments
on land or at sea. For the Army Bill itself no serious
exposition was really required. If the parties fought
over the question of expense, it was for reasons due
to the general situation in party politics, and consid-
erations of very serious questions of finance. Not
one of the middle-class parties, from the extreme
Right to the Ultra-Liberals, even thought of making"
their consent to the Armament Bill dependent on the
difficulties and differences of opinion in the question
of meeting expenses. The national idea has taken
firm root among all the middle-class parties. As far
as man can teU, every necessary and justifiable Army
and Navy Bill will always be able to count on a safe
parhamentary majority. The period of the Block
played a very essential part in the attainment of this
success.

202 Imperial Germany

ELECTORAIi CAMPAIGN AGAINST THE SOCIAL
DEMOCRATS.

If the strengthening of the national front rank may-
be regarded as a permanent result of the parliamen-
tary struggles of the winter of 1906 and of the com-
bination of 1906-1909, then the great electoral vic-
tory over the Social Democrats, won in the year 1907,
has unfortunately not borne such lasting fruit as it
could and should have done. In spite of this the re-
sult of those elections was of very great importance.
The fact that the Social Democratic constituencies
were reduced from eighty-one and could be reduced to
forty-three, has a significance which is not confined
to the individual electoral campaign. The talk about
a chance victory is either due to the untruthfulness
of party pohticians or to regrettable thoughtlessness.
Such chance occurrences have no more existence in
pohtics than in hfe. In pohtics, too, every important
effect has a corresponding cause. Such a well or-
ganised party as that of the Social Democrats does
not lose forty-four constituencies, nor is the number
of its seats reduced by thirty-six, without sufiicient
cause. Against their forty-four losses in 1907 there
were only eight gains. This success could not be

Campaign Against the Social Democrats 203

attributed to the national watchword alone. The
General Election after the dissolution in 1893 took
place under the auspices of a similar watchword, and
it resulted in a considerable increase of votes for the
extreme Left, and, what is of more practical impor-
tance in the course of legislative work, a considerable
increase of seats. The cause of the loss of Social
Democratic seats in 1907 is to be found in the pre-
liminary work done before that date in Parliament
and the Press, by speeches and explanations; in the
fact that the right moment was seized to dissolve the
Reichstag; in the correct treatment and estimate of
imponderables; and in the direction of the electoral
campaign.

It is a mistake to under-estimate the value of an
electoral triumph over the Social Democrats, because
the loss of seats is not accompanied by a correspond-
ing loss of votes. Of course, it would be better not
only to gain ground in the Reichstag against the So-
cial Democrats, but also to win over to the national
camp a part of their adherents and followers. But
this twofold success is difficult to achieve in the mean-
time, and would only be possible under pohtical cir-
cumstances which have not hitherto arisen. Since the

204 Imperial Germany

year 1884, the number of votes recorded in favour of
the Social Democrats has steadily increased,
round numbers the votes recorded are:

In

±00'± • • ■ •

1887 ..

763,000

1890 ..

1,427,000

1893

1,787,000

1898 ..

2,107,000

1903 . .

S,01 1,000

1907 . .

3,539,000

1912 ..

4,250,000

These figures are doubly instructive. They show the
dangerous increase in the number of the supporters of
the Social Democrats, and the waning disinclination
of the middle-classes to afford them direct support at
the elections. But the figures also demonstrate that
it is possible to weaken the party of the Social Demo-
crats in the Reichstag in spite of the power of their
propaganda. This is clearly shown by the number of
the seats they have obtained since 1884 :

1884 .

24

1887 .

11

1890 ,

35

1893 .

44

1898 .

56

1903 .

81

1907 .

43

1912 .

..110

Campaign Against the Social Democrats 205

These two tables show that a decrease in the votes
for the Social Democrats has hitherto not been at-
tainable, but that under suitable guidance it is pos-
sible to reduce the number of their seats in the Reich-
stag. Sound practical policy attends to the achieve-
ment of such good as is possible, if for the time being
better things are unattainable.

The rise in the number of votes for the Social Demo-
crats is a very serious matter. But as the voting
papers have no other immediate object than to gain
seats, as the total mass of the supporters and fol-
lowers of the Social Democrats, huge as it is, can
only influence the course of practical legislation if
the strength of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag
is proportionately increased, the first duty of the
Government is to neutralise the effect which the heavy
Social Democrat poU has upon the election result. If
such a success under the guidance of the Government
is secured, not once but repeatedly, then it cannot
fail, in the long run, to react on the canvassing and
agitation of the Social Democrats. For what is true
for all human activity is particularly true in the sphere
of politics ; nothing has a more paralysing effect than
the knowledge that continuous and strenuous effort
remains permanently unsuccessful. The prestige of

2o6 Imperial Germany

the Social Democrats is founded largely on a belief
in the irresistible growth of their power. From this
point of view also, the result of the elections of 1907
teaches us a lesson of great and lasting value.

The fact that the Conservatives and Liberals were
on the same side in the principal ballots and the sec-
ond ballots in 1907, resulted in a very considerable
reduction in Social Democratic seats in spite of the
increase in the Social Democratic vote.

In this respect the Block elections were even more
successful than the Cartel elections in 1887. The
Cartel reduced the Social Democratic seats from
iwenty-four to eleven, while the number of Social
Democratic votes increased by nearly a third. At
ihe Block elections the number of Social Democratic
-seats fell from eighty-one to forty-three, while the
votes increased by about a sixth. At the same time,
in the one case the Cartel, and in the other the Block,
obtained a majority in the Reichstag. The loss of
the Social Democrats was the gain of the Conserva-
tives and Liberals. The cause of this is that in
nearly all the constituencies which can be successfully
contested in opposition to the Social Democrats, Lib-
eralism and Conservatism are so strongly repre-
sented that their united strength can beat the Social

Campaign Against the Social Democrats 207

Democrats, but the latter win the day if Conserva-
tives and Liberals split votes. The point, of course,
is to arrange and direct the electoral campaign in
such a way that the Conservatives and Liberals can
unite. Of the sixty-nine constituencies which the So-
cial Democrats gained in the January elections of
1912, no fewer than sixty-six had returned Conserva-
tives or Liberals in 1907; twenty -nine had fallen to
the share of the Conservatives and their neighbours,
and thirty-seven to the Liberal parties. The elec-
tions of 1907 inflicted the severest loss that the So-
cial Democrats had experienced since the founding
of the Reichstag; the elections of 1912 brought them
the greatest gain. The parties of the Right fell from
the hundred and thirteen seats that they had won in
1907 to sixty-nine in 1912. That is the smallest
number of members of the Right since the year 1874.
The number of Liberals in the Reichstag after the
elections of 1912 was lower than ever before. At
the elections of 1907, for the first time. Conserva-
tives and Liberals of all shades of opinion were
united for one cause. The elections of 1912 saw a
close coalition of all the parties of the Left. In 1907
the Right emerged from the elections as the strong-
est group, numbering a hundred and thirteen mem-

2o8 Imperial Germany

bers as against a hundred and six Liberals, a hun-
dred and five representatives of the Centre, and forty-
three Socialists. In the year 1912 the Social Demo-
crats were the strongest party in the Reichstag, with
a hundred and ten members, while there were ninety
representatives of the Centre, qighty-five Liberals,
and sixty-nine Conservatives of all shades of opinion.
The comparison between 1907 and 1912 tempts
one to ask where thq blame lies. I will leave this
question unanswered. But the comparison teaches
an interesting lesson. It shows that Conservatism
cannot find in the assistance of the Centre compensa-
tion for the loss occasioned by being completely out
of touch with the Left. It shows that the Social
Democrats have least chance at elections if the Lib-
erals have been successfully separated from them, and
that they achieve their greatest successes when mid-
dle-class Liberalism assists them, either voluntarily
or because it is driven to do so.

MEANS or COMBATING THE SOCIAL DEMOCKii.TS WITH-
OUT EESOETING TO FOKCE.

From first to last during my term of office I rec-
ognised that the Social Democratic movement con-
stituted a great and serious danger. It is the duty
of every German Ministry to combat this movement

Combating the Social Democrats 209

until it is defeated or materially changed. There
can be no doubt as to the task itself, but there may-
be hesitation as to the choice of means.

Since the law against the Socialists lapsed, sup-
pression by force is no longer feasible. The last time
proceedings of this kind were possible was when
Prince Bismarck, a man who had won such unpar-
alleled successes, a man of such immense reputation,
was at the head of the Government. He could have
undertaken and carried out extraordinary measures
in home politics, as he was able to do in for-
eign politics, thanks to his international reputa-
tion. Under the pohtical rule of Bismarck much
was possible and feasible that must nowadays silently
be set down as impracticable. He was a pohtical
premise in himself. It is foolish to desire means and
enterprises for which this premise is wanting. We
must often pursue other courses, and summon up
strength and will to reach our goal by their means,
without having Bismarck to lead us. This applies
also to the fight against the Social Democrats.

Of course every disturbance of pubhc order must
be suppressed energetically. That is the first duty
of every Government in every civilised State, be it
Republican or Monarchical, whether the Govern-

210 Imperial Germany

ment be guided by Conservative, Liberal or Demo-
cratic opinions. The resolute way in which in France
Ministers belonging to the Radical party with praise-
worthy energy suppressed attempts to disturb public
order, may well serve as a model for every Minister
in other countries. Ill-advised consideration in this
respect is a lack of consideration for the great ma-
jority of the nation, that has a right to expect to work
under the protection of an orderly state of affairs.
In accordance with this view, Goethe, who was not so
indifferent to political matters as is often supposed,
characterised the maintenance of public order as the
first duty of every Government. In sympathy with
this idea, Schopenhauer, who most certainly was an
independent thinker, bequeathed all his fortune to a
fund started in Berlin, "for the support of Prussian
soldiers disabled in maintaining and restoring public
order in Germany during the revolts and disturb-
ances of the years 1848 and 1849." But it is one
thing for the Government to proceed by force against
disturbances of the peace, and quite another, in order
to prevent possible civil disturbances, for it to inter-
fere with the peaceful development of a Radical move-
ment among the people. In the latter case, by em-
ploying force, it runs the risk of rousing active re-

Combating the Social Democrats 211

sentment which might possibly never have broken out
otherwise. Every blow provokes a return blow of
corresponding strength. A strong, well-organised
political movement in the nation, based on wide and
reliable sympathies, will gain in striking power the
moment it sees that it is exposed to the danger of be-
ing suppressed by force. The recruiting power of a
cause is greatly increased if it has the luck, thanks to
excess of zeal on the part of its opponents, to be
able to point to martyrs to the cause. With regard
to this, we need only call to memory the notorious
persecutions of demagogues during the second, third
and fourth decades of the nineteenth century. By
outlawing a number of more or less harmless advo-
cates of democracy the Government gave the demo-
cratic movement of those times claims on many classes
of the people, which they would certainly not have
won over by the power of their ideas alone. The re-
sult was the outbreak of 1848.

Of course, it is not possible to say how things
would work out in detail nowadays if the Govern-
ment were to resort to force. The whole situation
is very different from that during the first third of
the nineteenth century. On the one hand, the mod-
em Social Democratic movement is less good-na-

212 Imperial Germany

tured and less ideaKstic than the middle-class demo-
cratic movement before the March Revolution; it
lacks the warm-hearted patriotism of the old German
Democrats; but its economic socialistic aims give it
far more trenchancy and force. On the other hand,
when Prussia was despotically ruled, there was a lack
of the safety valves of parliamentary life, of the
freedom of the Press, and of the right to form As-
sociations and hold meetings — safety valves which are
useful and have become indispensable. Exceptional
laws against the Social Democrats would choke these
outlets. They would force the Social Democratic
movement to transform itself from a strong party
movement into a powerful secret society. Like a
permanent conspiracy, with all the venom, the bit-
terness and the fanaticism, which have hitherto char-
acterised every movement that has been branded by
the Government as unlawful, the party would only
become welded together more firmly; but, as far as
the Government and the people are concerned, the
open enemy whose methods can be controlled would
become a secret foe, whose courses it would not al-
ways be possible to trace.

If the Government decides to use forcible means,
it deprives itself of all possibility of perhaps effecting

Combating the Social Democrats 213

more by peaceful methods. Force can only be used
as the very last resource. It only comes into ques-
tion when all peaceful methods obviously have failed.
So far this is not the case. If once the Government
embarks on a course of violence there can be no turn-
ing back, for that would mean a confession of de-
feat. If the means which law and justice place at
our disposal fail, the last resource still remains. No
good general calls up his reserves at the beginning of
an engagement, he keeps them back so that if the
battle takes a critical turn he may not be defence-
less. These excellent military tactics are of equal
value in political struggles. Those are the best po-
litical successes that are won with least sacrifice. In
case of need the strongest measures are the best.
But they should not be used without urgent necessity,
and, above all, without the certainty that they will be
successful. Bismarck could break all rules, and could
expect success from an extreme and bold action. We
cannot do so to-day, and are obliged to depend on un-
tiring and steady endeavour. Of course it is within
the province of such endeavour fearlessly to apply
the laws which serve to maintain order, safety and
liberty, and if they should prove insufficient in in-
dividual points, to supplement them.

214 Imperial Germany

Forcible proceedings against the Social Democrats
would immediately come into question if they were
provoked by any violent outburst of the Social Demo-
cratic movement. That, however, is hardly to be ex-
pected and is improbable, if the Goverment attacks
the problem of dealing with the Social Democrats
skilfully and performs its task energetically. There
are poKticians who think it would be no misfortune if
a violent outburst took place, because then there would
be a possibility of cutting the Gordian knot of the
Socialist question with the sword and thus attain-
ing a final solution.

If the Social Democrats should be stupid and crim-
inal enough to resort to open rebellion, then, of
course, all considerations and all doubts would have
to be discarded, in the face of the necessity of defend-
ing the foundations of our State and our civilisation.
But to desire such a development of affairs is short-
sighted. I once expressed in the Reichstag what con-
sideration a policy deserves that wishes for a violent
outburst in the country, or even goes the length of
provoking it in the hope of arriving at better condi-
tions by suppressing it forcibly. In France forty
years ago it was called "politique de la mer Rouge."
The Red Sea was to be crossed in order to reach the

Combating the Social Democrats 215

Promised Land. Only, unfortunately, there is great
danger of drowning in the Red Sea and never reach-
ing the Promised Land. A large proportion of the
French Monarchists acted in pursuance of this
recipe, when the preliminary signs of the great Rev-
olution increased in number. Instead of coming to
an agreement with the moderate men, they perse-
cuted them with bitter animosity, and preferred to
favour the extremists indirectly, in the hope thereby
of bringing about the deluge, after which they would
be in clover. The deluge came, but they were not in
clover. The attempt to set a thief to catch a thief
has rarely succeeded in politics.

Germany is not the country for a coup d'etat. No
people in the world has such a strong sense of law as
the Germans. Nowhere does the infringement of a
law, whether of common law or of public equity, pro-
duce such passionate resentment as in Germany, nor
is there any nation which finds it so hard to forget
such a breach as we do. The objection of most Ger-
man parties to exceptional laws and exceptional ex-
pedients is also due to their innate dislike of break-
ing the law. The French are less sensitive on this
point. The supporters of the Great Revolution still
glory in its terrorism. Thiers, in the seventh volume

2i6 Imperial Germany

of his "History of the French Revolution," in con-
sidering the Reign of Terror of the National Con-
vention, concludes with the words: "Le souvenir de
la Convention Rationale est demeure terrible; mais
pour eUe il n'y a qu'un fait a alleguer, un seul, et
tons les reproches tombent devant ce fait immense:
elle nous a sauves de I'invasion etrangere." * M.
Clemenceau was of opinion that the Revolution, with
all its excesses and infringement of the law, must be
taken en bloc and be considered as a whole. The
coup d'etat of Napoleon I. was forgotten when the
sun of Austerlitz rose over the Empire. Napoleon
III., too, was only reminded again of December 2
when he made great blunders in foreign policy, and
only after Sedan "Rue du 2 Decembre" was changed
to "Rue du 4 Septembre."

NO POLICY OF CONCILIATION.

Every page of German history, on the contrary,
tells how stubbornly the German defends his good
old law, how irreconcilable he is, when old law is dis-
carded to make way for sound and necessary progress.
Law must certainly not be considered superior to the

* "The memory of the National Convention remains a terrible one, but
there is only one fact to iirge in its favour, and all reproaches fall to the
ground before this immense fact: it saved us from foreign invasion."

No Policy of Conciliation 217

needs of the State. Fiat jus et pereat mundus does
not apply to politics. But so long as the needs of
the State can be satisfied on the basis of the law this
must be done. Also in the fight against the Social
Democrats. If they openly break the law they must
be paid back in their own coin. Such a turn of af-
fairs must be reckoned with, but it must not be de-
sired or forced. Forcible remedies without healing
powers have never yet produced permanent results.
On the other hand, in view of German conditions, and
especially those in Prussia, the Social Democratic
party, with its present programme and aims, cannot
be placed on the same level as those parties which
take their stand on the existing political system. A
comparison with other countries which have suc-
ceeded, or seem gradually to be succeeding, in mak-
ing the Sociahst party participate in the Govern-
ment of the country does not hold good in view of
German conditions. We have a different political
system, and, above all, different Social Democrats.
Here again the warning of Bismarck applies, that we
must not seek our models abroad, if we lack the con-
ditions and qualities necessary for the imitation of
foreign institutions.

In France the Socialists have become Ministers,

21 8 Imperial Germany

and good Ministers too, and have shown how right
is the French proverb which says, "qu'un Jacobin
ministre n'est pas tou jours un ministre jacobin."
Aristide Briand, once a Radical Socialist, proved
himself a determined guardian of pubhc order; the
Social Democrat, MiUerand, was an excellent Min-
ister of War.

In Italy, too, the attempt to make the Socialists
share in the Government has succeeded. In Hol-
land and Denmark similar attempts have probably
been only temporarily abandoned. In a large num-
ber of other counties it will probably not be long be-
fore the French and Italian examples of a gradual
reconciliation with the Sociahst element will be im-
itated.

We must not be deceived by the apparently favour-
able results of such experiments. Just as our past,
our pohtical development and our peculiarities differ
from those of other countries, so does our Social
Democratic problem. We must study our own con-
ditions, the peculiarities of the German Social Demo-
crats, who attack the foundations of our State, and
the peculiarities of our State, which we must defend
.against the Social Democrats.

The strong points of our national character, as well

No Policy of Conciliation 219

as its weak ones, come to light in the Social Demo-
cratic movement. The movement, as it stands at
present, would bq an impossibility in any cOuntry of
the world except Germany. It is so dangerous to
us because it is so typically German. No other na-
tion has such a gift for organisation, no nation sub-
mits so willingly to discipline, or has the power to
subordinate itself to such an extent to strict discipline.
We owe our best successes to this gift, our most useful
public institutions. The Prussian State was created
by discipline, as were our Army and our Public Serv-
ices. That which other nations did in the heat of
enthusiasm we often achieved by the power of dis-
cipline. The war of 1866 was not popular; the troops
were not urged on by patriotic enthusiasm, as was the
case half a century earlier, but started on their march
to Bohemia in silent submission to the orders of the
commanding officers, and under the rule of discipline
achieved victories as glorious as were those of their
fathers under the inspiration of enthusiasm. After
the war, a Frenchman wrote in admiration: "That
the war in Bohemia had shown what could be achieved
by strength of discipline alone." It is one of the Ger-^
man's greatest political virtues that discipline is bred
in his bone. But the Social Democrats make use of

220 Imperial Germany

this virtue. Only in a State where the people are
used to discipline, where they have learnt to obey un-
questioningly in the Army, and where they feel the
rigid regulations of the administrative machinery
daily and hourly, could a party organisation of such
size and solidarity as that of the Social Democrats
come into being. The way the 4,216 local Societies
submit to the forty-eight country and district Asso-
ciations, and these again to the Central Association;
the way enormous subscriptions are paid as if they
were lawful taxes; the way the huge demonstrations
are arranged, as if they were military operations; all
this is not the result only of enthusiasm for a political
party, it is also due to the sense of discipline which
the German has in his blood. No nation in the world
possesses or has ever possessed a like or even a similar
party organisation. The clubs of the Jacobins, which
were spread hke a network over France, were only
a pale prototype of our Social Democratic organisa-
tion. The provincial Clubs obeyed the Paris Cen-
tral Association only so long as this was a power in
the State, and were closed later on, without difficulty,
at a hint from the Directoire Government. The
strong web of the German Social Democratic party
would not be so easy to tear.

No Policy of Conciliation 221

The late ambassador in St. Petersburg, General
von Schweinitz, once said to me: "There are only
two absolutely perfect organisations in the world: the
Prussian Army and the Catholic Church." As far as
organisation alone is concerned, one might be tempted
to bestow similar praise on the German Social Demo-
cratic party. In one of my Reichstag speeches — it
was in December, 1903 — I said, in this connection:
"If I had to make out a report for the Social Demo-
cratic movement, I should say: Criticism, agitation,
discipline and self-sacrifice, la; positive achievements,
lucidity of programme, Vb." * This organisation of
the Social Democrats is definitely hostile to our po-
litical system, and looks on this hostility as its bond of
union. There is no possibility of reconciling them to
the State and of dissolving them in so doing, by tying
them for a time to the Government cart, or allowing,
this member or the other to take part in the direction
of affairs. The movement is far too strong to allow
itself, so to speak, to be coupled like a truck to the
Government locomotive, and to let itself be pulled
along a definite track; it woxild want to be a locomo-
tive itself, and would try to pull in the opposite direc-
tion. The Social Democrats would not obey a man

* la, the best, and Vb, the worst marks in a school report.

222 Imperial Germany

from their midst who, in existing circumstances,
should take service as a Minister any more than any
other German party has ever done.

To this must be added that the dogmatic trait, so
characteristic of the German people, is also strongly
expressed in our Social Democratic party. The Ger-
man Social Democrat clings tenaciously to the tenets
of his party, tenaciously and uncritically, and caring
nothing for the inner contradictions of the Social
Democratic programme. And as this programme is in-
compatible with the existing State, the German Social
Democrats are irreconcilable. The German working
men, more than the same class in any other country,
are inclined to believe implicitly in the Socialistic prin-
ciples and the brilliant sophisms of Lassalle, and in
the system of Marx, the construction of which affords
proof of tremendous mental power and rare per-
spicacity, of extraordinary knowledge and stiU more
extraordinary dialectics, but which, in the course of
historical development, has been refuted and shaken
to its foundations. When Giolitti reproached the
Italian SociaUsts with having discarded the tenets of
"Marx, he only evoked intelligent amusement. An
apostrophe of that kind in our country would have
been met with indignant protests. Our Social Demo-

No Policy of Conciliation 223

cratic party is of the school of Eisenach ; not Lassalle
and Rodbertus, but Marx and Engels, Bebel and
Liebkneeht have been its guides, and its attitude to-
wards the State is incomparably more hostile than
that of the Socialist parties in France and Italy, which
attribute a more or less academic value to Socialistic
theories, and which are founded, not only on the So-
cialistic idea, but also on national memories. French
Socialism really springs from the Great Revolution,
and the Revolution, like the Risorgimento, was in-
spired by a passionately patriotic spirit.

Our Social Democratic party lacks this national
basis. It will have nothing to do with German pa-
triotic memories which bear a monarchical and mili-
tary character. It is not, like the French and Italian
parties, a precipitate of the process of national his-
torical development, but since its existence it has been
in determined opposition to our past history as a na-
tion. It has placed itself outside our national life.
Whatever is achieved and accomplished in the State
is of no interest to it, except in so far as it can serve
to crush existing conditions, and in that maimer clear
the way for the realisation of purely Socialistic ideas.
In the calendar that the Vorwdrts publishes every
year, Bismarck and Moltke, Bliicher and Scharnhorst,

224 Imperial Germany

Ziethen and Seidlitz are not mentioned, nor are Leip-
zig and Waterloo, Koniggratz and Sedan, but a series
of Russian Nihilists and Italian Anarchists and their
murderous enterprises are named.

Just as one of the greatest German virtues, the
sense of discipline, finds special and disquieting ex-
pression in the Social Democratic movement, so does
our old vice, envy. Propter invidiam, said Tacitus
about our ancestors ; the Germans destroyed their lib-
erators, the Cherusci. Envy is one of the main-
springs of our Social Democratic movement. Eco-
nomic contrasts have been intensified just as much in
other countries as with us. The violent exasperation
roused thereby in Germany is found nowhere else,
in spite of the fact that so much has been accom-
plished in social reform, and although Germany led
the way in making provision for the poor, and is still
in advance of all other countries in this respect. The
struggle of the labouring classes for better conditions
of life, which originated at the time of the inception
of the Social Democratic movement, has grown at
times in Germany to a fanatical hatred of property
and culture, birth and position. The excellent ar-
rangements to raise the status of the workmen have
not had much eiFect on this envy. Daily fanned into

No Policy of Conciliation 225

fresh flame by the sight of the contrast between rich
and poor, this envy would not vanish if some leader
or other took his seat on the Ministerial Bench. The
Social Democratic movement has become a reservoir
for this envy.

The German Social Democrats cling most lovingly,
and with tenacious obstinacy, to the ultimate goal of
Socialism, the destruction of differences in wealth by
the suppression of private property and the national-
isation of the means of production. The Social Dem-
ocrats, too, will not be won over by a policy of recon-
ciliation, propter invidiam. And finally, the objec-
tionable German caste-feeling which stands in the
way of natural social intercourse, and which has an
adverse influence on our whole political life, finds its
ultimate and bitterest expression in Social Demo-
cratic class-hatred. The old classes, historic in origin,
had been delimited by public and legal circumstances.
The Social Democratic proletariat, with its class-
hatred, created itself, and has thrown up a dividing
wall between itself and the rest of its feUow country-
men. It will have nothing in common with the other
classes of society. And, as with every caste, the So-
cial Democratic proletariat not only considers itself
better, more useful and more competent than other

226 Imperial Germany

classes of the nation, but it also aims at dominating
all the other classes. If the attempt were made
amongst us to bring the Social Democratic party into
line with the middle-class parties, it is very question-
able whether the Social Democrats would consent.
They feel they have a vocation for autocratic rule,
and wiU hardly content themselves with a propor-
tionate share in the Government.

THE PEUSSIAN STATE AND THE SOCIAX. DEMOCRATS.

In the German Empire, Prussia is the leading
State. The Social Democratic movement is the an-
tithesis of the Prussian State. A well-known propo-
sition of Hegel's maintains that every idea includes
its reverse counter idea. It is most significant that
the philosopher who called the State the present deity,
whose legal philosophy was a glorification of the Prus-
sian State, who rejoiced in the special protection of
the highest Prussian State authorities, should have
created the logical premises for the conclusions of
Marx.

The peculiarity of the Prussian State, which is the
backbone of our political life, makes a solution of the
Social Democratic problem particularly difficult for
us. The practical modus Vivendi with the Social

Prussian State and Social Democrats 227

Democrats, that has been attempted here and there
in Southern Germany, does not seem possible in Prus-
sia, Prussia attained her greatness as a coimtry of
soldiers and officials, and as such she was able to ac-
complish the work of German union; to this day she
is still in all essentials a State of soldiers and officials.
The strong control exercised by the authorities in Prus-
sia has always evoked a particularly vigorous counter
movement. The Berlin mania for grumbling and
criticism was well known throughout Germany in the
times of the absolute monarchy, when Frederick the
Great had the pamphlets hung lower. Only civil au-
thorities, who were as greatly used to guidance as the
Prussians were, could lose their heads so completely
as they did in the disastrous year of 1806, when con-
trol slipped out of the hands of the Government.
Even after the transition to constitutional forms of
Government the Democracy in Prussia remained far
more hostile than in the South, and went further in
its demands. In consequence, the reaction in Prussia
in the 'fifties was particularly severe. The Social
Democrats, who in South Germany often adopt a
conciliatory attitude and are ready to forgo some of
the demands of the Socialistic programme for the
sake of the practical politics of the day, are in Prussia

228 Imperial Germany

as extreme in their attitude as in their demands. As
a natural contrast to this, Prussia has a far stronger
Conservative element than any other German State
possesses or needs. The Prussian State may be com-
pared to a man, and, like any man worth his salt, is
full of violent contrasts and only capable of great
achievements when animated by a strong purpose.
At home and abroad this State has mostly been very
strong or very weak. Deeds of great strength and
deeds of great weakness are found here in close prox-
imity. Jena and Leipzig are only seven years apart.
The sad retreat of the troops from Berlin on March
19, 1848, and the weak-kneed policy which led back
by way of Bronzell and Olmiitz to the old Federal
Diet, were followed twenty years later by Sadowa
and Sedan. Under powerful authority, Prussia was
stronger in herself and had a more devoted and better
disciplined population than any other State. But
when the authorities became weak and disheartened,
timid and neutral in the expression of their will, Prus-
sia experienced a more complete breakdown of her
State machinery than any other country. The au-
thorities were hopelessly incompetent, when in 1806
the Minister for Home Affairs declared peacefulness
to be the first duty of the people, though the country

Prussian State and Social Democrats 229

lay at the mercy of the enemy, and the officials of
Berlin humbly welcomed the conqueror at the Bran-
denburg Gate; so were they, too, in the year of revo-
lution, 1848, when the Lord Lieutenant of the Prov-
ince of Saxony declared proudly that he took up his
stand above all parties, while a mighty party movement
was shaking the foundations of the monarchy. If
the Prussian Government wanted to come to terms
with the Social Democrats, and was willing to recog-
nise as legitimate the demands of a party which for
decades has been combating the monarchical and mili-
tary foundations of the Prussian State, the Prussian
civil servants, the middle-classes, the country popula-
tion East of the Elbe, and possibly the army itself,
would be at a loss what to make of the State and
the authorities. If the Government renounced the
fight against the Social Democrats, Prussia would
take it to mean that they had yielded to the forces
of revolution. And they would be right, if, after
half a century of fighting, the Government could find
no other solution than a shameful peace with the
enemy. The results of a weak attitude towards the
Social Democrats to-day would be more fatal in Prus-
sia than weakness towards the March Revolution was.
And it is very questionable whether another Bismarck

230 Imperial Germany

could be found to restore the authority of the Crown
which had been weakened, not by defeats, but first
by irresolution and indulgent forbearance, and then
by stupid and foolish retrograde action.

For the Prussian official, the Prussian soldier and
the Prussian civilian, whose views are rooted in Prus-
sian traditions, confidence in the strength of the Gov-
ernment is a necessary condition of devoted loyalty.
An agreement with the Social Democrats, which
might be interpreted as an act of political wisdom in
South Germany, would in Prussia be synonymous
with a triimiph of the Social Democrats over the Gov-
ernment and over the Crown.

The immediate consequence would be an enormous
increase in the membership of the Social Democratic
party. In Prussia loyalty to the King, which is bred
in the bonq of the Prussian and bequeathed to him
by remote ancestors, keeps many back from joining
the Social Democrats. But hundreds of thousands
would follow without scruple a Social Democratic
party which had acquired almost royal privileges.
Instead of winning over the party to the interests of
the State, in Prussia thousands of good subjects, in
a state of bewilderment as regards their poUtical ideas,
would be driven to the side of the Social Democrats.

Prussian State and Social Democrats 231

The party would emerge from such an agreement, not
weakened but strengthened, and it would not dream
of approaching the State in earnest, or of changing
for the sake of the State, since the latter was ready
to meet it half way in any case. In Prussia the ex-
periment of coming to terms could only be possible if
the Social Democratic party had first pubhcly, and
in full form, made its peace with the monarchy. Un-
til that has come to pass the Prussian Government
cannot attempt a policy of conciUation as regards the
Social Democratic party without fear of destroying
the State. The Social Democrats hate the Kingdom
of the Eagle, "which dips one wing in the Niemen
and the other in the Rhine." They hate Prussia as
being a State of orderly organisation, the heart and
core of the German Empire, the State without which
the German Empire would not exist, whose kings
united Germany, with which the future of the Empire,
stands or falls.

Bebel's words, that if the Social Democrats had
won Prussia they would have won all, are perfectly
true. But it is also true that Prussia is difficult, if
not impossible, for them to win if they have to fight
against a strong Government, but that with the aid
of the Government no German State would so easily

232 Imperial Germany

be conquered by the Social Democrats as Prussia.
The peculiarities of Prussian conditions must, of
course, react on the Empire. It is impossible to come
to an agreement for any length of time with the So-
cial Democrats on important questions of Imperial
legislation, and yet to retain a violent antagonism to
the Social Democrats in Prussia. The Reichstag
elections cannot be carried on from an absolutely dif-
ferent standpoint from that of the Prussian Diet
elections. The Social Democrats will hardly be will-
ing to come to an arrangement in the Empire so long
as they are opposed in Prussia. On the other hand,
an attempt on the part of the Imperial Government
to make an agreement would have the same confusing
and disintegrating effect on Prussia as a similar at-
tempt in that State itself. If the Empire is gov-
erned without reference to Prussia, ill-will towards
the Empire will grow in that country. If Prussia
is governed without reference to the Empire, then
there is the danger that mistrust and dislike of the
leading State will gain ground in non-Prussian Ger-
many. It has always been disastrous for Prussia
if necessary reforms, instead of being undertaken in
time, were stubbornly refused until at last, by force
of circumstances, they had to be granted in an ex-

Isolation of the Social Democrats 233

treme form. The art of governing in our country
will always have to be directed chiefly towards main-
taining the harmony between Germany and Prussia
in the spirit as well as in the letter.

The peculiarity of the conditions in our State, as
well as the character of our Social Democratic party,
are both equally opposed to a policy of conciliation.
Forcible suppression of the Social Democratic move-
ment is out of the question. By these two direct
methods no solution of the Social Democratic prob-
lem, no exorcism of the danger which threatens us,
is possible. The only hope is to attack the causes
and the forces which inspire the Social Democratic
movement.

ISOIATION OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCEATIC MOVEMENT.

The Social Democratic movement is revolutionary
in character. It is a question whether it will proceed
to revolutionary deeds. Its aims, which involve a
fundamental change of our whole public life, are revo-
lutionary sans phrase. Consequently for this move-
ment those experiences are applicable which have been
gathered in every other revolutionary movement. His-
tory shows that a radical tendency rarely grows more
moderate without some external cause. New fol-

234 Imperial Germany

lowers which a Radical party obtains rarely have a
moderating influence for any length of time; rather
they tend to enhance the striking power, and are liable
to submit with increasing docihty to Radical leader-
ship. As in every party, the extreme section of the
Social Democratic party has taken command in de-
cisive moments because they seemed to have the clear-
est perception.

The opinion is often expressed that the Social Dem-
ocratic party will grow less dangerous and calmer
as members of the educated classes join it. Such a
belief is contrary to all experience. The educated
men in the Social Democratic movement do not form
a bridge by which the proletariat may approach the
representatives of the existing order, but a bridge by
which intellect passes over to the masses. But it is
when the educated classes join a revolutionary move-
ment that it becomes a serious danger.

History teaches us that such movements can be
victorious when the temper of the intellectuals, of
middle-class intelhgence, makes them unite with the
masses in their desires. Thus it was in the Great
Revolution. So long as the superior insight, the
strong wiU of a Mirabeau kept the Liberal bour-
geoisie attached to the monarchy and aloof from the

Isolation of the Social Democrats 235

Jacobins, a peaceful transition of France to the forms
of a constitutional kingdom lay within the bounds of
possibility. When, after his death, the Gironde ob-
tained ascendancy and the bourgeoisie united with
the town mobs against the supporters of the old
regime and the Constitutional Monarchists, the fate of
the Monarchy and of old France was sealed, and
sealed for ever. In 1830 the legitimate Monarchy,
scarcely fifteen years after it had been restored, suc-
cumbed to a like coalition between intellect and brute
force. The March Revolution of 1848 was success-
ful because the masses found support and guidance
in the educated classes. Wherever the proletariat
has fought alone, as in the June battle in Paris and
during the Commune, it has always been defeated.
An isolated proletariat, however numerous, is always
a minority in the nation. Against the four million
Social Democratic voters in 1912 may be set the eight
million who did not vote for the Social Democrats.
If left to its own resources the proletariat cannot at-
tain a numerical majority in the nation. It can only
do so if aided by the middle classes. This is what
must primarily be prevented. The Social Demo-
cratic party can only be isolated if Liberalism is kept
away from it and is drawn towards the Government

236 Imperial Germany

and the Right. But that cannot be accomplished by
unctuous warnings to Liberalism sedulously to avoid
its Radical neighbour. The separation of Liberalism
from the Social Democratic movement can only be
accomplished in the course of practical poUtics by a
suitable grouping of the parties. This task of sep-
arating the Social Democratic party from the intelli-
gent middle class is one reason why Ministers whose
inner convictions are quite, or, at any rate, largely.
Conservative must rule in such a way as not to repel
Liberahsm.

THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT AND THE
WORKMEN.

Socialistic dreams are bound to have something
very attractive about them for the workman, so often
in needy circumstances, and struggling hard for the
livelihood of his family and himself.

My predecessor in office. Prince Hohenlohe, used
to call Socialism the poor man's dream. The un-
schooled judgment of a simple man must easily suc-
cumb to the seductive sophistry of Socialist teach-
ings. The Social Democrats raise great hopes
among, and hold out dazzhng promises to, the work-
men, and the glamour is so strong that they cling
tenaciously to the idea. It is an old truth that men

The Social Democratic Movement 237

grasp nothing more closely than their hopes, and that
if given the choice of great hope or small fulfilment
they choose the former.

We must not cease, therefore, to impress upon our
countrymen of the working class the truth of the facts
that Socialist promises are illusory, and that Social-
ism wUl not accomplish the great miracle of doing
away with poverty, care and the industrial struggle;
that the actual provisions for the poor made by the
existing State and existing society are worth more
than the promises of the Social Democrats which
can never be fulfilled. We must fight steadily for
the souls of our workmen, must seek to win back
the Social Democratic workman to the State and
the monarchy, and to keep the non- Social Demo-
cratic workman away from the danger of imbibing
such views. A large number of workmen have not yet
succumbed to the attractions of the Social Democrats.
As opposed to the 2,530,390 working men in the so-
called free or Social Democratic Trades Unions, there
are 1,314,799 in non-Social Democratic Trades Un-
ions and Associations. These are as follows :

Catholic Working Men's Union . . . . . . 545,574

Evangelical Working Men's Union .. .. .. 180,000

Christian Trades Unions . . . . . . . . 360,000

238 Imperial Germany

State Workmen's and State Employees' Association . . 120,000
Hirsch-Duncker Trades Unions . . . . . . 109,225

To these must be added the Catholic and Evangelical
Journeymen's Unions and Lads' Unions, whose total
membership numbers 468,223, and, above all, the
great number of industrial and agricultural labourers
who are not organised in unions. Thanks to the work
of the Lads' Brigade, and of the Jungdeutschland-
hund (Union of Young Germany), a valuable start
has been made towards safeguarding the young
people from the Social Democrats' attempts at recruit-
ing. Even though the Social Democratic organisa-
tion is very strong, yet already there are organisa-
tions in process of formation, or of growing power,
which, with skilful handling, may be used as a basis
for a successful fight against the Social Democrats;
and other organisations can also be formed. The
monarchy which, as I explained in the Reichstag on
January 20, 1903, at the beginning of last century
made the transition from the old form of government
to the new without any violent upheaval, is still strong
enough and has sufficient insight to mitigate and re-
move, as far as is possible in this imperfect world, those
evils which, together with much good, are due to mod-
ern development, evils which are found in all countries.

The Social Democratic Movement 239

and which are comprehended in the words, "social
problems." We must not waver in this belief in spite
of, or rather because of, the strong attraction that the
Social Democratic movement has for our German
workmen.

Our fight against the Social Democrats is not di-
rected against the workmen; its aim is to rescue them
from the snares of the Social Democrats, and to accus-
tom them to the idea of the State. We must not re-
spond to the Social Democratic hatred of the proper-
tied and educated classes, by hatred of the workmen
who have succumbed to the wiles of the Social Demo-
cratic propaganda. We remember that the workman
is our fellow countryman. In him we also honour
God's image. And what we do to relieve his distress
we do not only for political reasons, but from a sense
of duty and in pursuance of God's command. Since
the beginning of the new century we have continued
and in part completed the magnificent structure of
our social legislation, not because we have such a
strong Social Democratic party, but in spite of that
fact. The clearer our conscience towards the work-
ing classes, because with a social policy on such a large
scale we have done all that is humanly possible to
alleviate their economic conditions, the better is our

240 Imperial Germany

right to take up the battle necessitated by reasons of
State against the Social Democrats and their political
aims.

Cathohcs have merited much praise for having, to
a very large extent, restrained Catholic workmen from
joining the Social Democratic movement. But that
the Church possesses no secret cure for revolutionary
movements is proved by the history of France and
Italy, and of Spain and Portugal. In our country
the Conservative elements cannot rely on the Church
party alone for support, if only for the reason that
here, where Protestantism predominates, and where
education is imbued mainly with the Protestant spirit,
a majority consisting of Conservatives and the Cen-
tre alone would be a very narrow one, and, moreover,
one to which there attaches the danger that it might
lead to a coahtion of all the elements of the Left.
That would only bring about what must be prevented,
namely, that middle-class intellectuals would be
brought more and more into touch with the Social
Democratic movement.

A VIGOUOTJS NATIONAL POLICY THE TRUE REMEDY
AGAINST THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENT.

The true means of restraining the majority of the
nation from pursuing the revolutionary aims of the

Vigorous National Policy the Remedy 241

Social Democrats and from adopting the seductive
belief of the Sociahsts in an infinitely better future,
is to pursue a coiu-ageous, wide-minded policy which
can maintain the nation's satisfaction in the present
conditions of life — a policy which brings the best
powers of the nation into play; which supports and
strengthens the middle classes, already numerous and
ever increaskig in number, the vast majority of whom
steadily uphold the monarchy and the State; which,
without bureaucratic prejudices, opens a State career
to men of talent; and which appeals to the better
feehngs of the nation. The idea of the nation as such
must again and again be emphasised by dealing with
national problems, so that this idea may continue to
move, to unite and to separate the parties.

Nothing has a more discouraging, paralysing and
depressing effect on a clever, enterprising and highly
developed nation such as the Germans, than a monot-
onous, dull policy which, for fear of an ensuing fight,
avoids rousing passions by strong action. My prede-
cessor in office. Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe, was for
long a very kind chief to me when he was ambassador
in Paris, and he often conversed with me even when
we were not on duty. Once, when he was praising
a certain Bavarian statesman as being particularly

242 Imperial Germany

capable, diligent and conscientious, I asked him why,
as President of the Bavarian Ministry, he had not
proposed this man for a Ministerial post. "He was
not reckless enough for a Minister," replied the
Prince very gravely. When I expressed my surprise
that such a thoughtful, calm and exceedingly prudent
man as Prince Hohenlohe could say such a thing, the
wise and politic Prince answered: "You must not
understand my remark as an encouragement to reck-
less action in life, to which young people incline
only too readily. What I said was meant politically.
A Minister must have a good amount of resolution
and energy in his character. He must sometimes risk
a big stake and ride at a high hurdle, otherwise he will
never be any good."

Various similar remarks of Prince Bismarck's
might be adduced in support of this one of Prince
Hohenlohe's. Governments and Ministers must not
avoid struggles. A sound nation has even more need
of friction between itself and the Government than
of friction between the parties. This friction pro-
duces the vivifying warmth, without which the polit-
ical hfe of a people ultimately grows duU. It is a
curious fact that the German has always felt the
need of occasionally knocking up against the authori-

Vigorous National Policy the Remedy 243^

ties. Nothing annoys him more than if the authorities
get out of the way. And it will always he found that
party antagonism is most intensified when the Gov-
ernment is disinclined to do hattle now and again.
The old German deUght in fighting, of which we hear
in history and legend, still lives on in our political
life. A German considers that policy the best which
does not leave him in peace, hut which keeps him
busy fighting and allows him occasionally to display
his prowess; in a word, a policy which by its own
vigour invigorates him.

True, there is a difference between a political fight
and political vexation. The former is vivifying, the
latter venomous. The people are well able to per-
ceive whether the Government proves its power in
great matters, or abuses it in small ones. It is the
same with the master of the State as with the master
of the home. A home tyrant is mostly a weakling;
strong-willed men are usually broad-minded and in-
dulgent in little things at home, because they use theip
strength for great things. By a policy of pin-pricks
a Government only makes itself unpopular without
earning respect. Nothing more easily produces dis-
content with existing conditions, nothing tends more
to foster Radicalism among the people than narrow-

244 Imperial Germany

minded bureaucracy, clumsiness on the part of the
police, and, above all, interference in inteEectual mat-
ters, in which a civiUsed nation quite rightly wishes to
remain unmolested.

It is not a specifically German quality, but one
common to aU mankind, that personal experience of
injustice, and of vexation at mistakes on the part of
the administration, lives more vividly and more per-
manently in the memory than the most reasonable
political conviction.

Their name is legion who, for such reasons, oppose
the State and the authorities by means of Social Dem-
ocratic voting papers. Social Democrats suck the
finest honey from the flower of bureaucracy. It is
only by hving abroad that one can appreciate thor-
oughly what Germany, and especially Prussia, owes
to her civil service, which has been built up by great
rulers and excellent Ministers out of the precious ma-
terial of German loyalty and conscientiousness, love
of work and power to work, and has achieved great
things in all spheres. If, when a German returns
home, the country from the Alps to the Baltic and
from the Maas to the Memel lies before him like a
well-tended garden, the merit is in no small measure
due to the civil service.

Vigorous National Policy the Remedy 245

The more this service keeps free from our ances-
tral faults of pedantry and caste-feeling, while pre-
serving its traditional advantages, the wider its out-
look ; the more humane its attitude in intercourse with
all classes of the population ; the more enlightened its
views, the greater will be its achievements in the fu-
ture. Indulgence and freedom from prejudice in
small things can well be combined with ruthless en-
ergy in great ones. Just because our Social Demo-
cratic movement is so strong and dangerous, it is
necessary that the people should learn to distinguish
between the sphere of civil freedom that must be ad-
ministered with indulgence and the sphere of public
State dominion that must be ruled with strength and
firmness. However misleading a comparison be-
tween German and foreign conditions is in general,
here is a field in which England may serve as a model
and an example to be imitated. In England every
disturbance of public order is ruthlessly suppressed;
but chicanery, which interferes with the liberty and
comfort of the individual, is avoided with scrupulous
care. Ill-grace on the part of the State, so common
in Germany, is almost unknown in England. But
the Englishman is such a good subject of the State
in no small degree because the State gives him such

246 Imperial Germany

liberty in his private life. The limits of State con-
trol, which in our country are still iU-defined, are per-
fectly definite in England.

No one can believe to-day that the Social Demo-
cratic movement will cease to exist within a measur-
able time, or to be a power and a great danger in our
public life. But the fight against it is not hopeless.
The Social Democrats are quite vulnerable in their
parliamentary position. The elections of 1907
proved how hard they may be hit. The Social Demo-
cratic movement can be confined to the proletariat,
and, according to all historical experience, robbed of
all prospect of ultimate victory, if we can succeed in
keeping it out of the middle classes. If the State
treats the workman justly and without prejudice; if
it makes it easy for him to feel that he enjoys the full
rights of a citizen, and does his duty in social matters,
then it must and will be possible to solve the labour
problem in accordance with the national idea.
Through the apparently insignificant but really very
efiicacious means of skilful and broad-minded govern-
ment it is possible to stem the stream of Social Demo-
cratic recruits. Finally, ruthless energy in suppress-
ing any attempt to disturb public order can make it
obvious to the Social Democrats that any schemes of

Vigorous National Policy the Remedy 247

that kind, even on a big scale, are hopeless. So long
as the Social Democrats do not fulfil the conditions,
which I laid down nearly eleven years ago, as an in-
dispensable preliminary to any adjustment of the
differences between them and us; so long as they do
not act with sense and in accordance with the laws,
do not make their peace with the monarchical form
of government, do not cease to wound feelings that
are sacred to the great majority of the German na-
tion; so long as they remain as they are now, it will
be the duty of the Government to combat them.

The Government must not leave this battle to the
parties, it must fight it itself. For the Social Demo-
cratic movement does not only threaten the existence
of one party or another; it is a danger to the country
and the monarchy. This danger must be faced and
met with a great and comprehensive national policy,
under the strong guidance of clear-sighted and cour-
ageous Governments which, whether amicably or by
fighting, can make the parties bow to the might of
the national idea.

Ill

ECONOMIC POLICY

Seldom, if ever, has a country experienced such a
tremendous economic development in such a short
time as the German Empire in the period from the
Peace of Frankfurt to the present day. The con-
sohdation of Germany's position as a Great Power
of Europe, with the resultant union of the German
States and safeguarding of the German frontiers,
and the entry into the realm of world-policy accom-
panied hy the construction of a strong fleet: these
two significant political events of our modern history
most directly benefited the development of our indus-
trial life.

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRY.

During more than forty years of peace the German
spirit of enterprise awoke for the first time since the
end of the Middle Ages, and was able to make use
of the rapid spread of means of communication, the

achievements of technical science and skiU, the great

248

Growth and Development of Industry 249

development of the modern circulation of money, to
work for thq increase of German prosperity. The
poor German country has become a rich country.
The nation of thinkers, poets and soldiers has become
a nation of merchants and shopkeepers of the first
rank, and to-day in thq world's markets disputes the
prize with England, who was already the first com-
mercial nation of the world at a time when the Ger-
man outlook was still that of peasants and artisans.
Where are the times when Schiller saw only two na-
tions struggling for the possession of the world — the
Frank, who throws his iron sword into the scale of
justice, and the Briton, who sends forth his mercantile
fleet Hke the arms of a polypus — when he transported
the German, who had lingered in the realm of
dreams while the earth was divided up, together
with the poor poet, into the heaven of idealistic sim-
plicity?

To-day German industry has its customers even
in the remotest corners of the earth. The German
merchant flag is a familiar sight in foreign ports, and
knows that it is protected by the German Navy.
German capital is employed abroad together with that
of the old financial Powers, England and France, and
contributes to the consolidation of the industrial ties

250 Imperial Germany

between us and other nations. The consequences of
our national regeneration have hitherto been most
apparent in the sphere of the world's industries. In
the statistics of international traffic and commerce the
rise of the German Empire beside the old Powers is
most plastically expressed.

We have reason to be proud of our mighty indus-
trial successes, and the satisfaction of the German pa-
triot is justified, if he points out in what an extraor-
dinarily short space of time we Germans in our
economic development have covered the ground which
half a century ago separated us from nations that we
have now outstripped.

Such success is only possible to the exuberant vi-
tality of a nation thoroughly soim.d, strong of will
and full of ambition. But we must not conceal from
ourselves the fact that the almost furious speed of
our industrial ascent often hindered calm organic de-
velopment, and created discords which demanded ad-
justment. On account of striking successes, due to
a special talent, men are prone to neglect the har-
monious development of other abilities and powers.
At times they may have to pay for such one-sided-
ness by a painful set-back, if altered circumstances
demand other powers and achievements. In Ger-

Growth and Development of Industry 251

many the rapid economic development produced a
speedy blossoming of industry and commerce under
the sun of happy circumstances. The perfected
means of communication opened for us in a very dif-
ferent manner from what was possible before, the
markets of even the remotest countries. The treas-
ures of our home soil had been left untouched, the in-
comparable progress in mechanical and electrical en-
gineering placed at our disposal new industrial
machinery, and the quick growth of our population
provided the masses of workmen for the foundation
and expansion of great industrial undertakings. In
addition to this, forty years of peace afforded an
opportunity for working the world's markets in every
direction. The commercial and industrial talent of
the German nation, which once before, centuries ago,
had mad^ us the first commercial and trading nation
of the world, and which, owing to the atrophy of our
State and a hard national struggle for existence had
been held in abeyance till the last years of the nine-
teenth century, was extraordinarily favoured by cir-
cumstances. When employers and princely mer-
chants like Stumm and Krupp, Ballin and Rathenau,
Kirdorf and Borsig, Gwinner and Siemens were
found to take advantage of these favourable condi-

252 Imperial Germany

tions, the successes of the immediate future were bound
to fall to industry and commerce. The nation turned
more and more towards the new prospects opening
before it. The lower classes deserted the land and
flowed in a stream into industrial undertakings. The
middle and upper classes of the commonalty provided
a large number of capable industrial officials.

The industrialisation which had given signs of
growth in the middle of the nineteenth century, was
accomplished in Germany after the founding of the
Empire, and especially after the end of the 'eighties,
with a vehemence which has only been equalled in
the United States. In the year 1882, agriculture still
employed almost as many men as commerce and in-
dustry together; in the year 1895 the number of its
employees was less by almost 2,000,000 than those of
industry alone. In thirteen years a complete change
of conditions had eventuated.

INDUSTRY AND AGRICtTLTXJEE.

The economic legislation of the Empire had to take
into account two possibilities of this fundamental
change. It might have given all its support to in-
dustry and commerce, anyway, favoured by circum-
stances and developing with strength and ease; it

Industry and Agriculture 253

might have strengthened what seemed strongest, have
led Germany towards a transformation into a purely
commercial and industrial State, and have left Ger-
man agriculture to its fate. Count Caprivi and his
colleagues thought they ought to pursue this course.
On the other hand, compensation for unfavourable
circumstances might be given to agriculture by means
of legislation, and the transformation of Germany
into a one-sided industrial State might be opposed,
and agriculture might be maintained, strong and vig-
orous, side by side with flourishing industry.

I embarked on this latter course with fuU knowl-
edge of what I was doing, and with absolute convic-
tion, when I introduced the Tariff Laws of 1902 ; for
I was persuaded that vigorous agriculture is necessary
for us from the economic but, above all, from the
national and social points of view, just because the
industrialisation of Germany continues to progress
steadily.

I have always been of opinion that more can be
learnt from personal intercourse and from life than
from books, however profound. I incline to think that
one learns most in conversation with people holding
different views which they know how to defend. "Du
choc des opinions jailHt la verite." When, years ago.

254 Imperial Germany

I conversed with a Liberal of thq Left about eco-
nomic problems, I asked him at last: "And do you
think that at a pinch, if there were a terrible war or a
serious revolution, even with all their gifts and their
capabilities, and, of course, with a full claim to the
same treatment, cormnerce and industry, our splendid
new classes can, in the hour of danger, completely
take the place of those forces which made Prussia
great?" My political antagonist and personal
friend considered for a short time and then said:
"You are right; preserve our agriculture for us, and
even the Prussian nobility."

We owe much to industry and commerce. They
have made our land wealthy, and enable us, above
aU, financially to support our armaments on land and
at sea. A distinguished man in German economic
circles. Prince Guido Henckel, used to say agriculture
must provide our soldiers and industry must pay for
them.

Industry and commerce, these two new lines of
busraess, feed and employ the great increase in our
population, which we lost formerly by emigration.
We rose to the height of a World Power on the shoul-
ders of commerce and industry. But the gains of
our national development in one direction have often

Industry and Agriculture 255

been paid for by losses in the other. To estimate the
real profit of German industrialisation, the losses and
damage caused by it must be included in the calcula-
tion. It is soon seen, then, that the course of modern
economic life imposes other and harder duties on us
than the task of continually forcing on with all our
might the growth of commerce and industry. Mod-
ern development has great dangers for national life,
and only if we succeeded in removing these could we
rejoice with a clear conscience in the new achieve-
ments. We had to proceed like a clever doctor, who
takes care to maintain all the parts and fxmctions of
the body in a strong and healthy condition, and who
takes measures in good time if he sees that the ex-
cessive development of one single organ weakens the
others. German industry, as a matter of fact, grew
strong at the expense of agriculture during the first
decade of its development. If nothing were done,
agriculture threatened to fall under the hammers of
industry and be crushed. But that did not mean an
injury to agriculture alone; it meant, too, a loss for
the nation. Our agricultural forces that react on our
national Kfe are too valuable and too indispensable
for us ever to be able to cease from caring with all
our might for the weal or woe of German agriculture.

256 Imperial Germany

The economic life of a nation is not like a business
house with many branches, and to which these various
branches are of more or less interest according to their
chances of profit at the time.

HEALTH AND WEALTH OF THE NATION,

Apart from the fact that agriculture as a producer
and as a consumer stands on a level of absolute equal-
ity with industry, other than purely economic points
of view must be considered in estimating the economic
strength of a nation. The political economy of a
nation has not only an economic but also a national
significance. It is not merely a question of the ma-
ierial gain due to the different kinds of work. It also
depends on how the various occupations react on the
maintenance and growth of the physical and ideal
forces of the nation. Certainly a nation stands in
need of increasing its wealth, its financial power to
live. States in our days need this more than in former
times. Modern government, with its enormous
sphere of action, and, above aU, modern armaments,
demand very difi'erent material means than was the
case formerly. But by material means alone a na-
tion can neither maintain its place in the world nor
advance it. Physical, moral and mental health are
still tke greatest national riches.

Health and Wealth of the Nation 257

Prussia proved gloriously in the Seven Years' War
and in the War of Liberation what a nation, poor
but healthy in body and mind, can achieve; whereas
superior wealth has never been able to prevent the
disastrous consequences of diminishing strength in a
nation.

A State is not a commercial company. In the
rivalry of the nations of the earth industrial strength is
of very considerable importance, but great and decisive
events ultimately depend on quite other forces, and
are not fought out in the field of industry. The tru-
ism, that wealth alone does not bring happiness, ap-
plies to nations as much as to individuals. Nations
also can only enjoy increased wealth if they have a
sound mind in a sound body. The Government, in
its economic decisions, must not, like a clever specula-
tive merchant, shape its course according to favoura-
ble circumstances which offer a brilliant prospect to
one sphere of industry or another ; it must subordinate
its economic policy to national policy as a whole, must
act so that not only the present industrial welfare of
the nation is increased, but that, above all, the future
sound development of the nation is ensured.

The question which political economy has often
asked itself: "How does a nation get rich, so as to

258 Imperial Germany

be able to live well?" must be supplemented for eco-
nomic policy by the other question: "How does a
nation keep healthy, so as to be able to live long?"
Industry and commerce increase our national wealth
to a greater degree and with greater speed than agri-
culture was ever able to do. But, without great and
flourishing agriculture by its side, industry would
soon use up the best forces of the nation, and would
never be able to replace them. Agriculture is the
mother of the nation's strength which industry em-
ploys, the broad acres in which the trees of industry
and commerce stand, and from which they derive their
nourishment.

We rightly admire in the industrial centres of the
Rhineland, Westphalia and Saxony the keenness, the
energy and the organising talent of the employers.
In the perfection of the industrial machinery we ad-
mire the powers of invention and the audacity of our
technical men and engineers. We find cause for ad-
miration, too, in the quahty of the industrial products,
due to the diligence and conscientiousness of the Ger-
man workman. We are rightly proud of the flour-
ishing state of our great and middle-sized towns,
which owe their quick development to the rise of in-
dustry and commerce.

Health and Wealth of the Nation 259

Since the end of the Middle Ages we had experi-
enced no development of cities on a large scale. And
it is not fair to condemn the culture of the modern
large towns without qualification, for, as in the Mid-
dle Ages, the many greater and more populous cities
of modem times are centres of intellectual and ar-
tistic life. Among the influences which emanate from
the large towns and penetrate into the coxintry there
are certainly some that have a pernicious effect on
the habits of life of the country. But these injuries
are often counterbalanced by the renewal and the re-
finement, of external culture which nowadays, as
always, originate in the large towns. He who is
not blind to the great dangers of an exaggerated de-
velopment of the towns in our country must appre-
ciate the very considerable achievements of our great
cities in the spheres of intellect and culture, and must
separate the wheat from the chaff.

It is not right either to seek the defects of our
highly developed great towns too exclusively in the
ethical domain. There is sin intra and extra muros.
The just and the unjust are to be found in the coun-
try as well as in the towns. We must also not forget
that particularly in the sphere of charity the towns
have led the way with model institutions, and that in

26o Imperial Germany

making provision for the lower classes the great em-
ployers of labour have done pioneer work.

The dangers of the industrialisation and the conse-
quent "townification" of Germany do not lie so much
in the spheres of intellect and moral life, so difficult
to gauge and to estimate, but in the physical condi-
tions. The health of the men and the fertility of the
women suifer greatly under the influence of life in
towns, and especially in large towns. For the years
1876-80 in the kingdom of Prussia the yearly aver-
age of living children born to women up to the age of
forty-five was 160 per thousand in the towns and 182
per thousand in the country. For the years 1906-10
the numbers had fallen to 117 in the towns and 168
in the country. That means a loss of forty-three
births per thousand women in the towns. In the
municipal district of Berlin alone the mmibers had
fallen in the same space of time from 149 to 84, a
loss of sixty-five. The rapid increase in the town
populations does not connote an increase in the na-
tional population, but a steady decrease, for the
women who migrate from the country to the towns,
and the women who grow up in the towns effect a de-
crease in the birth-rate of the Empire. It is the same
with the health of the men, as tested by their fitness

Health and Wealth of the Nation 261

for military service. According to the statistics com-
piled on the basis of the inquiry made by a Commis-
sion which I appointed in 1906, the country districts,
i.e. communities of less than 2,000 inhabitants, fur-
nished 114 men who passed the military test, the big
towns of more than 100,000 inhabitants 65, the mid-
dle-sized towns of 20,000 to 100,000 inhabitants 83
per 100 men due as calculated on the basis of the total
population. Of the parents of those fit for service,
74.97 per cent, came from the country, 1.68 per cent,
from the large towns. And Germany has forty-eight
towns with more than 100,000 inhabitants, France
only fifteen, Italy thirteen, Austro-Hungary nine.
Ahnost two-thirds of our population live in the towns
and industrial centres. In the year 1850 agriculture
employed 65 per cent.; in 1870, 47 per cent.; in 1899,
32 per cent.; and in 1912 only 28.6 per cent, of the
total population.

These figures are of very serious import. They
show that every weakening of agriculture means a
weakening of our power of defence, a diminution in
our national strength and safety. Commerce and in-
dustry have only flourished so because peace was pre-
served by the strength of our armaments, and they
will only be able to continue to thrive in the future

262 Imperial Germany

if the protection of our armaments is maintained in
undiminished strength. That, however, demands a
strong and numerous rural population, who can find
in highly developed agricultural industry sufficient
work to earn their livelihood. Commerce and indus-
try for their own. sake must be deeply interested in
the prosperity of agriculture. As the statistics show,
in future even more than was the case since the end of
the 'nineties, the task of protecting trade and property
in the Empire will fall to the rural population.

THE PEOTECTION^ OF AGEICULTUKE.

A Liberal savant, an old friend of mine, said to me
some years ago in Norderney, as he watched the ships
which passed my house, that he could not understand
how I, otherwise a sensible man, could have given
om- industrial policy such an agrarian tendency by
means of the tariff. I pointed to a ship that was
just passing, and said: "A ship without sufficient
ballast, with too high a mast, and too heavily rigged,
will tiu-n turtle. Agriculture is our ballast. Com-
merce and industry are to be our mast and sails.
The ship cannot advance without them. But with-
out ballast it will capsize." The captain of a ship
must certainly try to make good headway. But he

The Protection of Agriculture 263

must not acquire speed at the expense of safety. If
the ship of our Empire is to pursue her proud course
with speed and safety, then the navigators must see
that agriculture weighs heavy in the hull of the ship.
The protection of agriculture is a national duty
of great importance — a duty which would have to be
fulfilled, even if agriculture were of far less economic
value than is actually the case. Although agricul-
ture no longer occupies the paramount position in in-
dustrial life that it did formerly, yet it holds its own
among the other branches of trade. It is true that
according to the census of 1907 only 17,680,000 in-
habitants are occupied in agriculture as opposed to
nearly 26,380,000 in industry; but the value of its
produce is equal to that of the produce of industry,
or even surpasses it. Statistics on the subject do not
supply sufficient data, and therefore the question
whether agriculture or industry is more profitable
cannot be answered definitely in favour of one or the
other. Many a townsman, however, wiU be surprised
to learn that the yield of one agricultural product
alone, namely, milk, was 2,600 million marks in the
year 1906, while the yield of aU the mines in the same
year only amounted to 1,600 million marks. The es-
timates formed by agriculturists and by industrialists

264 Imperial Germany

as to the total value of agricultural and industrial
products are not in agreement.

But whether, as regards the yield, agriculture or
industry stands first, that is really of little or no im-
portance ; we need them both, and the downfall of one
could never find full compensation in the rise of the
other. To estimate the real economic value of the
products it would be necessary to ascertain also in
what manner agriculture and industry react on the
stimulation and on the money-making powers of com-
merce. And even then one would still have to take
into consideration that the value of the yield is influ-
enced by the fluctuation of prices in the world's
markets. These questions are of more interest from
the point of view of the scientific investigation of
economic life than from that of the practical pohtical
treatment of economic forces.

FOREIGN AND HOME MARKETS.

Industrial goods are disposed of in the foreign
market, on the Continent and overseas, and in the
home market in Germany itself. The development
of our railway systems, our natural waterways, our
canals, and the oversea trafiic growing ever greater
under the protection of the German navy, have

Foreign and Home Markets 26y

brought the foreign market within easier reach. In-
dustry has need of the foreign market in order to
maintain its present development, to extend it and
to provide millions of workmen with sufficiently prof-
itable work.

For this reason it is the duty of economic pohcy
to conclude favourable commercial treaties of long
duration in order to keep the foreign market open.
But, all the same, the home market is also of very
great importance. It would be called upon to re-
place the foreign market if in time of war our na-
tional frontiers should wholly or partly be closed.
But in the home market, agriculture is by far the
most important customer of industry; only if agri-
culture is able to buy, if it earns enough itself to en-
able others to earn too, will it be able, in critical times,
to consume a part of the products which cannot be
disposed of abroad. The old proverb, "If the peasant
has money then everyone else has too," is hterally
true, as soon as industry is forced, to a greater ex-
tent than is necessary in tim^s of peace, to find its
customers at home.

A policy which only considers the demands, moods
and chances of the moment, which only does that which
at the time is easiest to do, which only works ad hoc^

266 Imperial Germany

without thought for future results, cannot claim any
merit. Not even the best considered policy can in-
clude every future contingency in its calculations.

But every one of our actions and of our decisions
is the cause of future eif ects, and it may well be ex-
pected of a statesman that he foresee at least a part
of the possible results of his policy.

Above all there are certain contingencies which
must be reckoned with, because they have occurred
again and again, at greater or lesser intervals, in the
past, and come under the category of indestructible
elements of the world's history. War is such a con-
tingency and must be reckoned with in every states-
man's calculations. No sensible man desires it.
Every conscientious Government seeks to avoid it so
long as the honour and vital interests of the nation
permit of so doing. But every State department
should be organised as if war were going to break out
to-morrow. This applies to economic policy as well.

THE IMPOETANCE OF AGEICULTURE IN TIME OF WAE.

Owing to the sense of security induced by a long
period of peaceful prosperity, we are more inclined
than is good for us, to make our arrangements with
regard to economic matters as if this peace would

Agriculture in Time of War 267

be permanent. Even if we had not been threatened
with war during the last decades we must realise that
there is no such thing as permanent peace, and must
remember Moltke's words: "Permanent peace is a
dream, and not even a beautiful one. But war is an
essential element of God's scheme of the world,"

There is no part of public or private life that would
be untouched by war. But the effects of war are
most directly felt and most palpable in economic mat-
ters. The results of a war, be it successful or un-
successful, put in the shade the results of even the
most serious economic crisis. Economic policy must
foster peaceful development ; but it must keep in view
the possibility of war, and, for this reason above all,
must be agrarian in the best sense of the word.

As in time of war, industry is dependent on the
buying power of agriculture, the productive power of
agriculture is a vital question for the whole nation.
There are parties and groups representing certain
economic interests which demand that the Govern-
ment shall place a very small duty on agricultural
products from abroad, particularly the most impor-
tant, corn and meat, or even let them in duty free, so
that the price of comestibles, under the pressure of
foreign competition, may be kept low, and thus the

268 Imperial Germany

industrial workman's expenses of living may be re-
duced. They want to base all economic policy on an
imaginary permanent peace. Our agriculture, which
has to compete, so far as wages are concerned, with
the high wages paid by industrial concerns, which has
to employ the most modern and expensive machinery
in order to pursue intensive culture on soil that has
been tilled for centuries, is absolutely unable to pro-
duce at the same price as the large, young agricultural
countries, which work virgin soil and pay small wages.
Our agriculture needs a protective tariff. Im-
ported agricultural products must have a sufficiently
heavy duty imposed on them to prevent the foreign
supply from falling below a price at which our home
agriculture can make a fair profit. The reduction
of agrarian duties at the time of Caprivi's commer-
cial policy, brought about a crisis in our agriculture
which it was only able to weather by dint of working
with stubborn energy, and hoping for a complete
change of tariff arrangements within a short time.
If we sacrificed the protective tariff on agricultural
products in order to lower the cost of living by means
of cheap imports, the danger would arise that agricul-
tural work would grow more and more unprofitable,
and would have to be given up to a greater and greater

Agriculture in Time of War 269

extent. We should go the way England has gone.
During the timq when there were strained rela-
tions between Germany and England, I once ex-
plained to an English statesman how utterly un-
founded and even nonsensical was the English fear of
a German attack, let alone a German invasion.
Whereupon he replied: "All you say is right, and,
so far as I am personally concerned, you tell me noth-
ing new. But with regard to English public opinion
and the man in the street, you must not forget that
England's position is very different from that of the
Continental Powers. France suffered a terrible de-
feat, but a few years after Gravelotte and Sedan she
had recovered so far that it was possible to contem-
plate 'war in sight.' Almost as quickly Austria got
over the effects of 1859 and 1866. After the Jap-
anese War, in spite of serious defeats on land and at
sea, and of a grave revolution, Russia's favour did
not cease to be courted on more than one side. Eng-
land is different. Eighty per cent, of our popula-
tion lives in cities. Our agriculture is unable to pro-
duce more than a fifth of the wheat and a half of the
meat consimied in England. If our navy were de-
feated, and England were cut off from foreign trade,
within a very few weeks we should be reduced to the

270 Imperial Germany

choice between starvation and anarchy on the one
hand and an unconditional peace on the other."
Countries where agriculture flourishes, countries
where at least a great part of the population is en-
gaged in tilling the soil, where agriculture supplies
the home market in part, and provides a large portion
of the necessary foodstuffs, have greater powers of
resistance in critical times, and recover far more easily
after such, than countries that are dependent en-
tirely on commerce and industry. Carthage experi-
enced that as opposed to Rome. Even the highest in-
dustrial wages are of no avail if the workman can buy
no food in the country with his money.

And this state of affairs can arise if, in time of war,
the frontiers are wholly or largely closed, and home
agriculture is not in a position to provide a sufficient
amount of foodstuffs. What we might gain in peace,
and for the moment, by surrendering our agriculture
to foreign competition, we might ultimately have to
pay for in war with misery, hunger and their fatal
consequences to the State and society. Our agricul-
ture can only maintain nmnerous and, above all, pro-
ductive undertakings if it is protected by a sufficient
duty on imported agricultural produce. This pro-
tection it must receive.

Justice Towards Working Classes 271

JUSTICE TOWAITDS ALL THE WOEKING CLASSES.

It is the duty of the State to look after the welfare
of all classes of workers and the people in general.
It must not allow an industry of economic impor-
tance, like agriculture, which is indispensable to the
nation, to suJBfer in order that other branches of in-
dustry may thrive the more easily and quickly. The
State must grant its aid in proportion to individual
needs, and must make the nation in general share the
necessary burdens. As it is right that the working
classes should receive direct grants from the Im-
perial exchequer, so it is right that the existence of
agriculture should be indirectly assured by means of
the tariff. Both are a nobile officium of the State.
It is just as misleading to speak of favouritism in re-
gard to agriculture because of the policy of protec-
tive duties, as it is to speak of favouritism towards the
working classes because of our social policy. True
justice on the part of the State does not lie in grant-
ing or refusing the same thing to each class, each
trade, or each citizen, so that there may be no ex-
ternal differences; that would only be mechanical jus-
tice. Ileal justice lies in giving to each, as far as is
possible, what he most needs. This is the justice I

272 Imperial Germany

meant when, two months before the introduction of
the Tariff Bill, at a dinner on September 21, 1901,
given me at Flottbeck, my birthplace, by the provin-
cial diet of Pinneberg, I defined the economic policy
of His Majesty's Government as one that desired to
give to each what he required, true to the old motto
of the. Hohenzollem, "Swum cuique." Our tariff
policy has to fulfil a double purpose. It must, on
the one hand, by means of sufficient protection, main-
tain home products in agriculture and industry in a
position to compete with foreign goods. On the other
hand, by means of commercial treaties of long dura-
tion, it must keep the foreign markets open to our in-
dustrial exports and foreign trade. In order to ac-
complish this first task we must surround ourselves
with a barrier of duties; in order to do justice to the
second we must arrange our protective tariff in such
a way as not to make it impossible for other countries
to conclude commercial treaties with us on terms which
are more or less acceptable to them. Commercial
treaties are like mercantile business contracts. Both
parties ask more than they expect to get ultimately,
and gradually reduce their demands, until, on the
basis of some middle course, the business is concluded.
Both parties try to obtain the greatest possible ad-

The Caprivi-Marschall Tariff Policy 273

vantages at the smallest possible cost. The sahent
point for the State is this, to see that no important
economic interests are sacrificed. A middle course
must be found between protective tariffs and com-
mercial policy by means of which agriculture, com-
merce and industry can progress equably and side
by side.

THE CAPRIVI-MAESCHALL TARIFF POLICY.

Owing to a momentary standstill in exports the
Caprivi-Marschall Tariff Policy was directed entirely
towards commercial treaties. In order to be able to
conclude favourable commercial treaties as easily and
rapidly as possible, foreign countries were offered a
reduction in the duty on corn. But the opinion of
clever business men, that the demands of the other
parties increase in proportion as they are offered
more, proved to be right in the end. The important
commercial treaty with Russia, who derived great ad-
vantages from the reduction in the duties on cereals,
was only concluded after negotiations which lasted
three full years and were interrupted by a tariff war.
Agriculture had to pay for the commercial treaties,
since it had for the space of twelve years to work
under considerably less favourable conditions, owing

274 Imperial Germany

to the reduction in the corn tax from five to 3^/2 marks.
That was, as Bismarck expressed it at the time, a leap
in the dark. The conmiercial treaties themselves, of
course, had a very stimulating effect on trade. But
this was at the expense of a great industrial class, in-
dissolubly bound up with the economic welfare of the
whole nation and with our great national traditions;
this class, feehng slighted, fell into a condition of vio-
lent unrest and excitement.

It cannot be denied that, owing to an economic
policy that, by injuring one class of industry, fav-
oured the others, the economic differences in the na-
tion were intensified. Up to the beginning of the
'nineties agriculture had on the whole advanced hand
in hand with the other industries. Now it assumed
a defensive position, formed the Association of
Farmers in 1893, a very strong organisation which,
in common with all societies representing economic in-
terests, gradually grew more and more intemperate
in its attitude and demands. The belief that com-
merce and export industries gain, if agriculture loses,
has its origin in the early 'nineties. This mistake in-
troduced a factor of dissension and unrest into our
home politics, which has often acted in a disturbing
manner, calculated to hinder development.

The Tariff Policy of 1902 275

THE TAfilTF POLICY OF 1902 AND ITS OPPONENTS.

It was the task of the new century to find a just
compromise in economic policy, in the interests of
agriculture. This was necessary, not only for reasons
of State justice, but, above all, because it became
clear that the behef that agriculture could prosper
in spite of the tariff reductions had not been justi-
fied. Therefore, in the year 1901, I introduced the
new Tariff Bill, on the basis of which new cormnercial
treaties were to be concluded which should consider
the legitimate interests of agriculture. By placing
our commercial policy on an agrarian foundation, we
gave added strength to the economic life of the na-
tion. But the change to agrarian policy must not be
accomplished in such a way as to be a hindrance or,
what would be worse, a set-back to the development
of commerce; i.e. the new tariff must make it pos-
sible to conclude favourable commercial treaties of
long duration.

The "middle course" that I gave out as a watch-
word before the tariff fight, was thus clearly indicated.
If the whole matter was not to come to grief it was
necessary to be moderate on the agrarian side as well.
In the preamble to the Government's Bill it was said:

276 Imperial Germany

"Germany's future conunercial policy will have to be
founded on the principle that measures in favour of
export industry must not lead to a reduction in the
protective duties which are indispensable to agrictil-
ture. On the other hand, export industries wiU be
entitled to expect that consideration of agriculture, at
their expense, shall not go beyond what is absolutely
needful." This problem was set us by the tariff
laws, and in the course of long parliamentary battles,
fought with almost unexampled obduracy, it was
solved.

As soon as the new tariff rates were made known,
the Free Trade Press declared that it would be im-
possible to conclude commercial treaties on the basis
of this new tariff: the end of German commercial
policy was said to be at hand. The extreme Agrarian
papers were of the opinion, on their part, that the
tariff would not satisfy even the most unpretentious
farmers. The Socialist Press said: "Down with the
extortionate tariff." Thq Government was attacked
on both flanks and had to break in the middle in order
to carry its work which was in the interests of the
whole community and especially of agriculture, to a
successful finish.

If two extreme views or demands are opposed to

The Tariff Policy of 1902 277

each other, then, in politics as in life, common sense
and truth usually he midway between them. Free
trade democracy demanded that agriculture should
be sacrificed to commercial pohcy. The Association
of Farmers demanded that the prospect of commer-
cial treaties should be sacrificed to agrarian policy.
One was as impossible as the other. Agrarian op-
position, as well as free trade opposition, had to be
overcome. The attack from both sides was very vio-
lent. Only if the Gk)vernment remained inflexible
on the main points, if it did not allow itself to be
dragged over by the opposition on the Right or on the
Left, could it hope to see the parties, when they had
moderated their demands, agree to the middle course
which it had planned. The Social Democrats and
Ultra-Liberal Association resorted to obstruction in
order to make discussion of the clauses of the Bill im-
possible, and so force a General Election. With
praiseworthy impartiality the deputy, Eugen Richter,
although he and his party friends were not in favour
of the tariff proposals, protested in the name of the
Ultra-Liberal People's party against this violence
offered to thq majority by the obstruction of the
minority.

For a time it seemed as if it would be impossible to

278 Imperial Germany

get a majority for the Tariff Bill, as part of the
Right, on the principle of "everything or nothing,"
seemed inclined to refuse the whole tariff reform,
undertaken in the interests of agriculture. It was
greatly to the credit of the Chairman of the German
Agricultural Council, Count Schwerin-Lowitz, of
Coimt Kanitz, who unfortimately died in the prime
of life, and, ahove all, of the leader of the Conserva-
tive party at that time, Coimt Limburg-Stirum, that
they did not allow themselves to be overcome by the
hyper-agrarian opposition, nor allow the Conserva-
tive party to embark on a wrong course. The deputy,
Herr Bassermann, showed equally praiseworthy in-
sight and power of resistance with regard to the free
trade tendencies of a section of the Liberals. Thus
Conservatives, National Liberals and the Centre led
with statesmanlike ability by Count BaUestrem and
the deputy, Herr Spahn, met on the ground of the
motion proposed by the free Conservative deputy,
Herr v. Kardorff.

The opposition of the Association of Farmers,
which in other respects had done so much for the
cause of agriculture, shows how the best cause is in-
jured by excess. For the sake of unattainable ad-
vantages the realisation of possible ones was jeop-

The Tariff Policy of 1902 279

ardised. The whole Tariff BiU, which was intended
to help agriculture out of the plight in which it had
so long been, was to be rejected because it did not
grant everything that was demanded. It has been
said that the opposition of the Association of Farmers
strengthened the position of the Government, both
with regard to Foreign Powers and with regard to
the parties, and thus contributed to ultimate success.
That is not correct. The Federal Governments had
left no doubt from the very first as to what they would
concede and what they would refuse. They had
stated clearly that they would make no fundamental
concessions, either on the one side or on the other. I
was sufficiently convinced of the necessity of greater
tariff protection for agriculture to withstand the at-
tack from the Left. On the other hand it was ob-
viously our duty not to block the prospect of soon
concluding new commercial treaties of sufficient diu-a-
tion, by tariff barriers which would have been insur-
mountable for foreign countries. The hyperagrarian
opposition did not strengthen the Government, but
it sharpened the weapons of the opposition. Eco-
nomic differences were intensified, and in commer-
cial circles and those of export industry the erroneous
idea gained ground, that between their interests and

28o Imperial Germany

those of agriculture there was a chasm that could not
be bridged.

The belief of the extreme Agrarians, however, that
immediately after the rejection of the Government's
proposals another tariff would be introduced that
would embody the tariff rates advocated by the As-
sociation of Farmers, was utterly and completely
without foundation. The Federal Governments con-
sidered it absolutely necessary to continue the com-
mercial policy, and looked upon this as an indispens-
able condition for any tariff. In the Federal Coun-
cil no majority could have been fotmd for a va-hanque
game in tariff policy, in which our whole economic
policy would be staked on the one card of an ex-
treme tariff. The rates of the Government's tariff
represented the extreme limit to which the Federal
Governments were willing to go.

If this tariff had been wrecked by Agrarian op-
position, one of a more agrarian trend could not pos-
sibly have been introduced. The old Caprivi rates
would have remained in force, and there the matter
would have ended. Perhaps for a long time all would
have remained unchanged. The Kreuzzeitung went
too far when it said in those times of struggle that
the Association of Farmers was shamefully leaving

Results of the Tariff Law of 1902 281

its country in the lurch in the hour of need. But
it is a fact that the representatives of great economic
interests would have done much damage to those in-
terests which they otherwise cared for so wisely and
energetically, had it not been for the firm attitude
of the Government and the wisdom of the Conserva-
tive leaders. This is a case which, unfortunately, is
not without parallel in the history of the home policy
of our country.

THE RESULTS OF THE TAEIFF LAW OF 1902.

Thanks to the Tariff Law of 1902, our economic
policy regained that agrarian bias so indispensable to
the interests of the whole community. Side by side
with the foreign trade, advancing with such mighty
strides, the maintenance of a strong home industry
was secured. German agriculture, under the influ-
ence of the new tariff and of the commercial treaties
based on it, has experienced a decade of vigorous de-
velopment. Our robust and hardworking farmers re-
covered the feeling that the Empire had an interest
in the success of their work; that it no longer looked
upon agriculture as an industrial stepchild, but as
one having equal rights and, indeed, as the first-born
of its mother Germania. The number of agricul-

:282 Imperial Germany

tural undertakings increased by nearly 180,000 be-
tween 1895 and 1907. The amount of live stock in-
creased enormously, cattle by about 3,000,000 head,
pigs by about 5,300,000, in the same space of time.
The harvest of rye in 1909 was 11,300,000 tons* as
against 6,600,000 in 1895; wheat, 3,750,000 tons, as
against 2,800,000; barley, 3,500,000 tons, as against
2,400,000; oats, 9,100,000 tons, as against 5,200,000;
potatoes, 46,700,000 tons, as against 31,700,000.

In comparison with the agriculture of other coun-
tries, ours has developed quite extraordinarily in the
last decade. In the summer of 1902, not long be-
fore the second debate on the tariff, the historian of
German agriculture, Dr. Freiherr v. d. Goltz, had to
conclude the opening remarks of his work with the
statement that, "owing to events in the sphere of na-
tional and international economics, German agricul-
ture was passing through a critical period." To-day,
quahfied judges of agricultural conditions point
proudly to the flourishing development, the growing
value of the yield and the increased power of pro-
duction (which is capable of still further increase)
of German agriculture.

* The German ton is not quite so much as the English, being equal to
i2,20S lbs. avoirdupois.

Results of the Tariff Law of 1902 283

But the agricultural development has not taken
place at the cost of the expansion of our industrial
export trade or of our commerce. The free trade
prophets, who in the debates of 1901 and 1902 proph-
esied that the agrarian trend of our economic pohcy
would "restrict commerce," have proved wrong.
Those who believed that it would not be possible to
conclude favourable commercial treaties of long dura-
tion, on account of the increased agrarian duties, had
underestimated Germany's economic importance in
the world. Germany, with the weapon of her new
tariff in her hand, had by no means too little
to offer other countries; in 1891 she had offered
too much. When introducing the Caprivi-Marschall
Tariff and Commercial Pohcy, the assimiption had
been made, amongst others, that the excess of our
imports over our exports must force us to special
concessions in order to open the foreign markets still
further to us. As a matter of fact, the large amount
of our imports, our ability to buy, was the strongest
point in our position when concluding our commer^
cial treaties. We could expect concessions because!
we are such excellent customers of foreign countries.
We were able successfully to make use of the rela-
tion between our imports and our exports in the op-

284 Imperial Germany

posite sense to that employed at the beginning of the
'nineties.

The commercial treaty with Russia, romid which a
contest raged between 1891 and 1894, was concluded
between Count Witte and myself with comparatively
little difficulty in Norderney in July, 1904. The
other commercial treaties followed, and in no case
did the new tariff prove an insurmountable obstacle.
Under the commercial treaties based on the tariff of
1902 commerce and industry have steadily continued
their briUiant development.

The number of persons employed in commerce and
industry is continuaEy on the increase, as is the num-
ber of large undertakings. The rapid growth of
general prosperity, chiefly due to industry and com-
merce, is quite obvious. To take one example from
among many, the official statistics in the year 1909
report 4,579 commercial companies with a capital of
15,860 million marks, which pay yearly dividends to
the amount of about 1,000 million. The large private
banks have become a power, not only in the industrial
world, but in the sphere of economic policy. German
imports in general rose between 1903 and 1911 from
6,300 million marks to 10,800 million; exports, from
5,300 million to 8,700 million. And following the

Results of the Tariff Law of 1902 285

development of foreign trade, the German mercantile
marine increased (in 1,000 gross registered tonnage)
from 2,650 in 1900 to 4,267 in 1909, and 4,467 in 1911.
In the German shipyards the construction of ships,
including river craft and warships, rose from 385 in
1900 to 814 in 1909 and 859 in 1911. Since, at the
same time, during the last decade, social provision
has not only been further developed for the working
classes, but has been extended to the middle classes,
we may say that all classes engaged in trades and pro-
fessions have maintained and developed their flour-
ishing condition since our economic pohcy took an
agrarian turn, while agriculture has been rescued
from a critical condition, and has taken its place in
the ranks of the general, thriving development of
German industrial life.

From the economic point of view in particular the
German nation has reason to be content with the re-
sult of their development during the last decade, and
to hope that the courses on which they have embarked,
and which have proved so profitable, will not be aban-
doned. The advantages gained by commerce and
export through the inauguration of commercial policy
at the beginning of the 'nineties have been maintained.
The whole of German industry has been able uninter-

286 Imperial Germany

ruptedly to enjoy the protection of the tariff granted
in the year 1878. Individual defects of the Caprivi
tariff were remedied in favour of industry by the
tariff of 1902. Finally, German agriculture has ac-
quired the necessary protective duties.

More has been done for the workmen in Germany
than in any other country. When, a few years ago,
a deputation of English trades unions made a circular
tour through Germany, to study the conditions of our
working classes, one of the Englishmen, after being
made acquainted with our arrangements for the wel-
fare of the working man, asked one of his German
guides (a Social Democrat, by the way) in astonish-
ment, "But what do you go on agitating for?"

ECONOMIC POLICY AND PARTY POLITICS.

If, in spite of everything, we have not achieved
industrial peace, if the antagonism between different
industrial classes continues to be violent, if on the
contrary passion runs higher in the field of industry,
and the quarrels and hatred between the various in-
dustrial classes are bitterer than ever, the cause does
not lie in any defect or any lack of adjustment in our
economic policy, but in the imperfection of our home
politics.

Economic Policy and Party Politics 287

Just as in purely political questions the German
parties as a rule determine their attitude not by con-
siderations of expediency, but by their hostility for
the time being to one party or another, so they do to a
far greater extent on questions of economic policy.
Germany is probably the only country in which prac-
tical economic questions are weighed with scrupulous
care in the party balance. With the single exception
of the Centre, which is practical even in these mat-
ters, every party, great or small, has its own eco-
nomic policy or, at least, its own specialty in eco-
nomic policy to which economic questions are subor-
dinated. That is part and parcel of party dogma-
tism. We have almost as many different conceptions
of financial policy, agrarian policy, commercial policy,
trade policy, social policy, tariff pohcy, rating policy
and other kinds of economic policy, as we have par-
ties. The German party man gets so wrapped up in
the views of his party on economic questions that soon,
by auto-suggestion, he comes to consider these views
as indissolubly bound up with his own trade interests
and his own livelihood, and, so far as economic mat-
ters are concerned, carries on party warfare with a
violence that can only be inspired by selfishness. We
have no party that can say that it represents one

288 Imperial Germany

single form of industry, not even the Social Demo-
crats can assert that of themselves. Nevertheless,
with the exception of the Centre, every party has
often carried on the struggle in economic politics more
or less as if for each one it were a question of repre-
senting one particular interest. True, the Conserva-
tives base their attitude chiefly on landed property,
the National Liberals on industry, and the Ultra-
Liberals on commerce. That is due to the political
traditions of the various classes. But if the parties
develop more and more into representatives of the
interests of special professions and trades, that wiU
involve great dangers with regard to economic, po-
litical and national questions.

If thq different industrial classes confront each
other as so many political parties, it will no longer be
possible to dispose of questions of economic policy in
such a manner as to profit aE branches of industry.
The different interests will become totally irrecon-
cilable. Each class will see its own gain in the other's
loss. And the industrial differences will, if the Gov-
ernment is not in strong hands, be decided, like party
struggles for power, by beating the minority party
by a majority vote, with a total disregard of the in-
terests of whole industrial classes.

Economic Policy and Party Politics 289

On the other hand, professional and industrial
classes are rarely capable of deciding great national
questions independently, with a view to the position
of the Empire in the world, instead of to their own
professional interest. And they are the less capable
of this the more a national task involves material
sacrifices. An amalgamation of the ideas of party
politics with those of an industrial class would con-
stitute an equally great danger for national and for
industrial life. Neither agriculture, nor commerce,
nor industry, but the Social Democrats ultimately,
would profit by this.

IV

THE EASTERN MARCHES

A DiSTiisrcTiON must be made between the domain of
State rule and a nation's ownership. The two rarely
coincide. The attempt to make them fit, whether it
be by obtaining State control over regions where the
nation has settled, or whether it be by spreading na-
tional civilisation in the domain where the State has
power, is responsible for a great number of complica-
tions in recent history. It has found its most modem
expression in that form of colonial policy which is
called, sometimes not quite rightly and sometimes
quite wrongly, Imperialism.

STATE AND NATIONAl, OWNEESHIP.

Nations of military ability and economic skill and
of superior culture, will mostly reach further with
the arm of their State power than with the sway
of their national culture, and will expend their energy
on making the national conquest follow in the wake
of the political.

Weak and incapable nations must look on while

290

State and National Ownership 291

foreign nationalities gain in number and importance
within the borders of their State.

There is no third course. In the struggle between
nationalities one nation is the hammer and the other
the anvil; one is the victor and the other the van-
quished. If it were possible in this world to separate
nationahties definitely and clearly by means of fron-
tier posts and boundary stones, as is done for States,
then the world's history and politics — ^by which his-
tory is made — would be relieved of their most diffi-
cult task. But State boundaries do not separate na-
tionalities. If it were possible henceforward for mem-
bers of different nationalities, with diiFerent language
and customs, and an intellectual life of a different
kind, to live side by side in one and the same State,
without succumbing to the temptation of each trying
to force his own nationality on the other, things on
earth would look a good deal more peaceful. But
it is a law of life and development in history, that
where two national civilisations meet they fight for
ascendancy.

In that part of old Poland where, after the parti-
tion, most was done to meet Polish wishes, it is per-
haps shown more clearly than anywhere else that
where two nationalities are bound to the same spot,

,292 Imperial Germany

it is very difficult to make both contented; that given
such conditions, friction easily arises; and that it can
happen that measures, adopted on the one side in good
faith, may rouse excitement and opposition on the
other. Did the Poles succeed in contenting the Ru-
thenians in Galicia? Do not the Ruthenians in the
Carpathians and on the Pruth make the same com-
plaints as the Poles on the Warthe and the Vistula,
or even more violent ones?

Other countries, too, resound with the battles of
nationalities, and the accusations of one nationality
against another. Every nation is convinced of the
higher value and consequently of the better right of
its own civilisation, and is inspired by a strong de-
sire, which is like an unconscious natural force, to at-
tain more and more authority for its own civilisation.
Not every nation is conscious of this force. The
^reat Roman generals and statesmen were well aware
of it, when they advanced, conquering as they went,
into Greece, Asia Minor, North Africa, above all into
Gaul and Germany where they followed up the con-
quest by arms, with the conquest by superior Roman
civilisation.

Such a steady consciousness of national civilisation
•exists to-day among the Enghsh people. The Eng-

State and National Ownership 293

lishman is deeply imbued with the idea of the supe-
riority of Anglo-Saxon culture. He certainly disap-
proves at times if other nations make more or less en-
ergetic propaganda for their own culture, but he sel-
dom raises the question whether England might not
be justified in taking such proceedings herself. He
is convinced that English rule and the consequent
Anglicising is a blessing, and he bases his right to ex-
pansion and conquest on his sense of the superiority
of Anglo-Saxon civilisation and Anglo-Saxon insti-
tutions. The grand fabric of the British Empire,
the greatest the world has seen since the Roman Em-
pire, for which no sacrifice of life or property was
ever refused, was and is supported by the steadfast
consciousness and firm intention on the part of Eng-
glish people of being bearers of a higher civilisation
to every spot where English power extends. The
English belief in the superiority of their own intel-
lectual, moral, religious, legal and economic hfe is
the vital force in English national policy.

Higher civilisation has always bestowed political
rights. The belief in a real or supposed higher civ-
ilisation has always provoked a claim to rights.
When France, after the Great Revolution, flooded
Europe with her armies, she based her right to con-

294 Imperial Germany

quest on the supposed blessings of Republican free-
dom. She felt herself the bearer of superior politi-
cal culture to other nations, especially the Germans
and Italians. In our country in particular there were
not a few who recognised this right, and were only
cured of their error by the bitter experiences of Na-
poleonic despotism. The civihsing mission of the
French Revolution was based on a fundamental mis-
conception of the nature of civilisation in which, com-
pared with religion, morals, law and education, poUti-
cal institutions have a subordinate value, and it con-
demned itself by the growing brutality of Napoleonic
rule. But there are civilising missions which are jus-
tified. For instance, those that the Christian Colonial
Powers have to fulfil in Africa at the present time.
Thus Russia is justified as a bearer of higher civilisa-
tion to Asia. And if ever the battle between the
higher and lower civilisation should cease in the
world's history, our belief in the further development
of mankind would lose its foundation. We should
be bereft of a great and ideal hope.

THE WOEK OF COLONISATION IN THE EAST OF GEEMANY.

It was a mission of civilisation that in the past led
us Germans across the Elbe and the Oder towards the

Colonisation in the East of Germany 295

East. The work of colonisation in the east of Ger-
many, which, begun nearly a thousand years ago, is
not yet concluded to-day, is not only the greatest but
the only one in which we Germans have succeeded.
Never in the history of the world was less blood spilt
or less violence used in colonising on such a large
scale as this. This is particularly true of German
colonisation in what was formerly Poland. For cen-
turies the German colonists, often summoned to the
country by its kings, lived as loyal Polish subjects
and taught the Poles higher civilisation. Even those
times, when the Germans were oppressed in Poland
and often deprived of their rights, tell no story of
German revolt there. When the Poles proved them-
selves unfit to maintain government, and the strong
Prussian State with its law and order assumed con-
trol of parts which had formerly belonged to the do-
main of Poland, the work of German civilisation had
been going on in these parts for centuries already.
The rare case supervened that the estabhshment of
State rule followed and did not precede the tasks of
colonising and civilising. The annexation by the
Prussian State of our Eastern provinces, Posen and
West Prussia, would not and could not have come to
pass if the Polish Republic of Nobles had been a

296 Imperial Germany

State capable of continued existence. When the in-
corporation in the German dominion of the Prussian
State took place, its effect was that of a belated, politi-
cal requisition of rights which the German inhabitants
of West Prussia and Posen had created long before
by their civilising achievements. Quite apart from
the fact that if Prussia had not placed the Germans
in Poland under German rule, they would have fallen
under the dominion of Russia.

Our eastern provinces are our German new coun-
try. Although they wqre incorporated several gen-
erations earlier than Alsace-Lorraine and Schleswig-
Holstein, yet they are younger national acquisitions.
For one thing, in the West it is only old German do-
main that has been recovered, possessions where the
German Emperors held undisputed sway, before ever
a German had crossed swords with a Wend east of
the Elbe, or a German plough had furrowed Wendic
soil. This new land in the East, entered by right of
conquest at the time when Germany's Imperial power
was at its zenith, had to afford us compensation, from
the point of view of the State and above all of the na-
tion, for losses of old possessions in the West.
"There was a time," I said in January, 1902, in the
Prussian Chamber of Deputies, "when one had to

Colonisation in the East of Germany 297

speak with bated breath of the Holy German Empire,
when the German Empire extended farther in the
South and West than now. We do not dream of
wishing that those times would return; we do not
dream of extending our frontiers in any direction
whatever. But what Providence has granted us
as a compensation for our losses elsewhere, our
possessions in the East, those we must and will
retain."

Considered from a distance, the German movement
from east to west, and then again to the east, appears
as a uniform whole. In the seventh century we Ger-
mans abandoned all land east of the Elbe and pene-
trated far into the West, into the heart of France.
Holland, Flanders, Brabant, Burgundy, Luxemburg
and Switzerland were under the sway of the German
Empire, were in part national German land. In the
fourteenth century the upper course of the Rhone
was the boundary of the German Empire. But these
domains were lost, pohtically owing to the downfall
of German Imperial power, nationally because our
body as a nation was really not big enough to fiU the
wide garment of the Holy Empire. No sensible man
will ever entertain the idea of recovering either na-
tional or political influence over the lands in the South

298 Imperial Germany

and West which were lost so many centuries ago. At
the time when we were losing ground in the West we
had already found compensation in the East; the
Germans were already streaming back into their old
Germanic home which had been abandoned at the time
of the so-called Volkerwanderung (migration of the
nations), and into which Slavonic tribes had made
their way. And the German colonists who settled
east of the Elbe, beyond the Oder, on the banks of
the Vistula and the Pregel, came from the Western
territories ; not a few from the very domains which we
lost later on. It may well be said that a wave of the
German nation flowed back again.

The great work of Eastern colonisation is the best
and most permanent result of our brilliant history
during the Middle Ages, a piece of work performed,
not by a single German tribe, but by all of them to-
gether. One and all — Saxons, Franks, Bavarians,
Suabians, Thuringians, Lorrainese, Flemish and
Frisians — sent men of their tribe to the East of Ger-
many — ^laymen and churchmen, knights and peasants.
The new colony east of the Elbe at that time served
to bridge the differences between the German tribes,
which in some cases were very profound. It was
common German land, with a population which has

Colonisation in the East of Germany 299

nothing and wished to he nothing hut German, in
contradistiaction to the Wends and the Poles.

If, later on, it was the men from this mother-
country of the Brandenburg-Prussian monarchy east
of the Elbe, who in the hour of need manifested their
will as Germans against the foreigner, if in our times
it was by their means that under the black-and-white
banner of the State of the German Order of Knight-
hood the union of the German lands and German peo-
ples in one Empire was reahsed, the first seeds were
sown by the formation and settlement of these Ger-
man colonies. For what they gave to the less hos-
pitable East in the Middle Ages, the German tribes
of the West and the South were repaid a thousand-
fold by the East when Prussia brought State union
to the whole of Germany.

The centuries of the Ottos, the Sahc kings and the
HohenstauiFens can show deeds and events of more
dazzling brilliancy than the brave and diligent colo-
nisation of the land east of the Elbe, but they can show
nothing greater. The conquest of the old Prussian
land by the German Order of Knighthood was but a
pale reflection of the romantic glamour of the cru-
sades and the expeditions to Rome. And the tough
work of civilisation carried on by the monks in the

300 Imperial Germany

eastern forests and marshes, and by the German citi-
zens in the new and growing towns of the east, ap-
pears utterly prosaic and humdrum in comparison
with the grand but unfortunate ventures of the world-
policy of the old emperors. But, as so often in his-
tory, the brilliant achievements that drew all eyes,
were for the moment only, soon to disappear; while
the insignificant events which were accomplished on
what was comparatively a side track of German his-
tory were the real things that were to be of value sub-
sequently. To-day we think with more gratitute of
the German Order of Knighthood that gave Prussia
to us, of the Guelphs who won Holstein and Mecklen-
burg for us, and of the Ascanians of Brandenburg,
than of the victories in Italy and Palestine. The most
portentous national disaster was not the sad down-
fall of the Hohenstauffens owing to the intrigues
of Papal and French policy, but the defeat of Tan-
nenberg, which resulted in the loss of a large portion
of the colonisation work of centuries, and the cession
to the Poles of West Prussia and Danzig, and which
put an end to the proud independence of the State of
the German Order of Knighthood.

It was the wise statesmanship of the HohenzoUern
electors that prevented our national possessions in the

Colonisation in the East of Germany 30 1

extreme east from slipping completely out of our
grasp, and that here in the eastern outposts of Ger-
many combined the interests of the German nation
as a whole with those of the State of Brandenburg-
Prussia. It may be questioned whether, had it not
been for the black day of Tannenberg, the State of
the Order of Knighthood would have been able to
keep the East permanently German, in defiance of the
superior power of Poland. There is no question but
that we should have lost East and West Prussia for
ever, as we had lost our western and southern do-
mains in former times, if the House of HohenzoUern
had not arisen as a tireless and cautious, but brave
and determined, warden of the German Marches.
The Great Elector asserted his rights to East Prus-
sia — rights acquired by a clever family policy — at the
point of the sword, when he bore the Red Eagle of
Brandenburg to victory over the White Eagle of the
King of Poland at the battle of Warsaw, and thus
broke the bonds of Polish suzerainty. Very wisely
the first King called himself King in Prussia, and
thereby indicated the hope that his successors would
be Kings of Prussia by ultimately acquiring West
Prussia as well. And this hope was fulfilled when the
Great King received West Prussia, at the first parti-

302 Imperial Germany

tion of Poland, as the prize of victory in the Seven
Years' War, as Frederick the Great's biographer,
Reinhold Koser, so well expressed it. Only to the
victor of Rossbach, Leuthen and Zorndorf did the
Empress Catherine grant a share of Polish land that
had ceased to have any right to existence as a State
since the Republic of Nobility had been in a condi-
tion of anarchy.

West Prussia was regarded, not as newly acquired
foreign land, but as German land that had been re-
covered; and rightly so. For this country had be-
come German, politically speaking, under the rule of
the Order of Knighthood, and it had become
German owing to the work of German settlers in
town and country. But Prussia, besides giving back
to the West Prussian Germans German rule and
the glorious right to be German citizens of a German
State, gave to her new Polish subjects freedom and
rights.

King Stanislaus Leszczinski had lamented his
country as the only one in which the mass of the peo-
ple lacked all the rights of mankind. The mild yet
stern, free yet limited, and just rule of the great
Prussian King conferred on the Polish population
what it had lacked before. "The surest means of giv-

Colonisation in the East of Germany 303

ing this oppressed nation better ideas and morals will
always be gradually to get them to intermarry with
Germans, even if at first it is only two or three of
them in every village," wrotq Frederick the Great
before the year of partition, 1772. Before a single
foot of Polish land had come into the possession of
the Germans the Great King, at a time when the na-
tionality problem was still unknown, characterised
Prussia's future task of civilisation as a Germanisa-
tion. Immediately after taking possession, he began
the work of colonising, and sought and found settlers
throughout Germany. The King, too, only contin-
ued what had been begun in the Middle Ages, the
national conquest of the East of Germany, by means
of settling German farmers in the country and Ger-
man artisans, merchants and tradesmen in the towns.
And when, in 1886, Bismarck proceeded to his policy
of settlement on a larger scale, as in so many of his
greatest national enterprises, he merely seized the
reins that the Great King had held, and that had
dragged along the ground since his death. A proof,
amongst many others, how uniform is the national
history of a people, and that from the national point
of view there are not two possibilities of equal validity,
but only one with a validity of its own.

304 Imperial Germany

Though it is true that in different circumstances
we must not slavishly imitate the great models of the
past, yet it is equally true that the great points of
view by which our ablest men have been guided, main-
tain their worth for all times and on all occasions,
and that they cannot be disregarded with impunity.

It is well known that of the huge addition of quon-
dam Polish land which fell to Prussia's share at the
second and third partitions of Poland, but little was
left to her at the reconstitution in 1815 — West Prus-
sia and the present province of Posen, altogether not
more than seven and a half per cent, of the old king-
dom of Poland. Even though the province of Posen,
with its Archbishopric dating from the year 1000, had
become the heart of the Polish kingdom, yet in the
course of centuries it had become that part of the
great domain which was most strongly permeated
with German elements. By incorporating this old-
estabhshed German population in the eastern districts
Prussia undertook a national German duty, in addi-
tion to her natural duties as a State towards the Poles
who hve within her borders and have become Prus-
sian subjects.

Although the Poles have forfeited their right to
independence, after being for centuries incapable of

Colonisation in the East of Germany 305

creating a strong State on the basis of law and order,
none may shut their eyes to the tragic fate of this
gifted and brave nation. Just as it is wrong in the
necessary fight against the Social Democrats to hurt
the feelings of the working classes, so it is wrong in
the fight dictated by reasons of State against the
propaganda for the re-establishment of a greater Po-
land, to hurt our Polish feUow-citizens who fought so
bravely under the Prussian standards in the wars of
1866 and 1870. Because we prize our own national-
ity so highly we must respect the Pole and sympathise
with the loyalty with which he clings to his national
memories. But this respect and sympathy stop short
of the point where the desire and ambition of the
aforesaid propaganda begin, these being to jeopardise
the Prussian monarchy and to attack its unity and
solidarity. No consideration for the Polish people
must hinder us from doing all we can to maintain and
strengthen German nationahty in the former Polish
domains. Nobody dreams of wishing to thrust our
Poles outside the borders of the Prussian Kingdom.
Even the German opponents of a vigorous policy in
the Eastern Marches admit how greatly the condition
of the Poles has improved under Prussian adminis-
tration ; the Poles themselves cannot seriously deny it.

3o6 Imperial Germany

But it is the duty and the right of the Prussian Gov-
ernment to see that the Germans do not get driven out
of the East of Germany by the Poles.

Nothing is further from the aims of our policy in
the Eastern Marches than a fight against the Poles;
its object is to protect, maintain and strengthen the
German nationality among the Poles, consequently it
is a fight for German nationality. This struggle,
carried on with varying success and by various means,
runs through the period of very nearly a century
which has passed since the delimitation at the congress
of Vienna of the boundaries of the re-established Prus-
sian State. The task of solving this problem would
probably have been easier for the Prussians and for
the Poles if the artificial and untenable Grand Duchy
of Warsaw, created by Napoleon, had not roused in
the Poles the vain hope that in the course of European
complications it might be possible to rq-establish Pol-
ish independence. The Poles would very likely have
been spared painful experiences on our side as well as
on the other side of the frontier in 1830, 1848 and
1863, if the memory of the ephemeral creation of a
State by the first Napoleon had not lived in their
hearts. The thought that the partition of the Polish
Republic among the Eastern Powers from 1793 to

Prussia's Task 307

1807 had only been temporary, naturally made it
harder for the Poles, after the fall of Napoleon and
the States he had founded to serve the military aims
of France, to regard the accomplished facts as final.

pkussia's task.

The task Prussia had to fulfil in the domain, for-
merly Polish, that she had recovered in 1815 and that
had been in her possession since 1772, was obvious
enough. On the one hand, she had to oppose the
propaganda for the re-establishment of Polish inde-
pendence in a determined manner; on the other hand,
she had to lavish great care on the maintenance and
furtherance of German nationality in the eastern
provinces. These two duties each involved the other,
in so far as the national hopes of the Poles must lose
ground in proportion as a strong contingent of Ger-
mans settled in the eastern provinces counterbal-
anced it.

If, at the beginning, after the War of Liberation,^
this task had been as clearly recognised and as firmly
attacked as by Frederick the Great, the Prussian
Government would not repeatedly in the course of
temporary moods, which were misunderstood, have
allowed itself to be diverted from the path so clearly

3o8 Imperial Germany

indicated, and we should certainly have been consid-
erably further on the road to the solution of our prob-
lem in the Eastern Marches. It has happened so
often in politics that mistakes were made, not because
with quick decision the obvious thing was done, but
because, owing to sentiment and doubts, a clear and
absolute decision could not he arrived at.

Even in politics the simplest thing, if not always,
yet mostly is the best.

The expressions, "Conciliation Policy" and "Policy
of Intrigue," with which the political opponents and
supporters of a definite national pohcy in the Eastern
Marches favour each other, characterise the various
phases of our Prussian policy in Poland very super-
ficially. The aim of Prussian policy in the Eastern
Marches has always been to reconcile subjects of Pol-
ish nationality to the Prussian State and the German
nation. There can be no doubt except as to the
different means by which this reconciliation is to be
attained. There has never been a question of any-
thing else, whether it was Zerboni, the advisers of
Frederick Wilham IV., and Caprivi, or Flottwell,
Grolmann, Bismarck, Miquel and I, myself, who
determined the character of the policy in the Eastern
Marches.

Prussia's Task 309

This policy must ultimately reconcile our Polish
fellow-countrymen to the fact that they belong to the
Prussian State and to the German Empire. Only
this must not be achieved at the expense of our owner-
ship in the East, or of the unity and sovereignty of
the Prussian State.

It has rarely happened that a State has adopted
such an unprejudiced and good-natured attitude to-
wards members of another nationality living within its
borders as Prussia adopted towards the Poles in the
second and third decades of the nineteenth century.
The blessings of the Stein-Hardenberg reforms were
conferred on the Poles in full measure; an agricul-
tural Loan Society helped Polish agriculture, which
was in a terrible plight after the wars; a Provincial
Diet in Posen ensured that local Polish interests
should be represented ; the members might be elected,
and the people elected Poles; a Polish governor was
associated with a Prussian president. The result was
the revolt of 1830. Prussia had not only vainly
striven to win the favour of the Poles. She had done
more; for the sake of the Poles in the Eastern
Marches she had forgotten to care for the Germans
there, in that she had placed this German and Polish
district under a purely Polish administration.

310 Imperial Germany

The men who worked in Posen from 1830-40, the
President v. Flottwell and General v. Grohnann, be-
thought themselves once more of Prussia's duty in the
East to men of German nationality. The second
phase of our policy in the Eastern Marches began,
which resumed the thread of the national traditions of
the Middle Ages of the policy of the Great King, and
which indicated the course of policy in the Eastern
Marches to Bismarck and to me. The Polish Gov-
ernor disappeared; by means of the suspension of elec-
tions for the Diet it became possible to appoint Ger-
man officials, and, as far as the slender means of the
Government permitted, a modest beginning was made
to settle German landowners in the Eastern Marches.
The policy of Flottwell was no more hostile to the
Poles than was our later policy in the Eastern
Marches, which continued on "the lines he had laid
down. In contradistinction to the unsuccessful pol-
icy of 1815-30, its only aim was to assist German
nationality to its rights among the Poles, remember-
ing the duties to Germans that Prussia had taken over
when it gained possession of the old domain of the
Colonists. In fact the Poles were deprived, not of
their rights as citizens, but of privileges.

The attempt to reconcile the Poles to Prussian

Prussia's Task 311

government by granting them special rights was re-
peated in the decade following the transfer of Flott-
well from Posen to Magdeburg, which took place in
1840; the culminating point was the so-called "na-
tional reorganisation" of Posen, which came to noth-
ing. The "reorganisation" was to be effected in the
following way: the Eastern and more Polish part
of the province of Posen was to be separated from the
Western and more German part, and to he; adminis-
tered entirely by the Poles. The Poles demanded
complete autonomy in the whole province, like that
which Hungary now possesses in the Habsburg mon-
archy. The Germans in the province grew violently
excited at the threatened loss of their nationality.
The result of this unhappy attempt was a feeling of
hostihty hitherto unknown between the two nation-
alities in the East.

After a long period in the 'sixties and 'seventies,
taken up with the work of founding and consolidating
the Empire, which resulted in indifference to the
struggle between the nationalities in thq East, Bis-
marck in 1886 inaugurated his national policy in the
Eastern Marches on a large scale, after he had intro-
duced State control of the schools in Posen in 1872,
and in 1873 the German language as that which was

312 Imperial Germany

to be used for instruction. The period of Flott-
well's administration could be nothing but a correc-
tion in the national sense of the policy in the Eastern
Marches. With Bismarck there began a determined
fight for German nationality. Up till then the policy
had been defensive, but, under Bismarck, Prussia
began to take the offensive in order to rescue German
nationality in the East, to maintain it and, if possi-
ble, to strengthen it. It is natural that the Poles
were thrown into a state of violent excitement, that
they prepared to defend themselves, and with their
splendid organisation, largely supported by the Pol-
ish clergy, plunged into the fray. The antagonism
between the two nationalities grew more acute. The
policy pursued in the Eastern Marches influenced
the whole of party politics, for the Centre supported
its Polish co-religionists, and the Radicals thought it
due to their principles to consider every step of the
Prussian policy in the Eastern Marches as an excep-
tional measure which was contrary to their theoretical
ideas of liberty. It is quite true that our home poli-
tics were not made easier by our national policy in the
Eastern Marches, that a new cause of trouble and
excitement was thereby added, and that the propa-
ganda among the Poles in Prussia for the re-estab-

Prussia's Task 313

lishment of Polish independence grew more general
and more violent.

The opponents of Prussian pohey in the Eastern
Marches, Germans as well as Poles, are fond of em-
ploying the argument that great imrest has been
caused by this national policy, begun by Bismarck
himself and carried on subsequently in accordance
with his ideas. Such an argument can only bear upon
the general political shell and not on the core of our
national problem as regards the Poles. It means
nothing more than the easy and cheap platitude, that
in foreign as well as in home politics, peace and
tranquiUity may always be had if we strive to reach
no goal which can only be attained with difficulty and
by fighting. Such tranquillity is always pretty easy
to get in politics.

The problem of our policy in the Eastern Marches
is this: Shall we permit, shall we, by our inactivity,
encourage the Eastern domains, i.e. Posen, West
Prussia and certain parts of Upper Silesia and East
Prussia, to slip once more from the grasp of German
nationality, or not? Everyone who has national Ger-
man feehngs will answer that this must never happen,
that it is the duty and the right of the Germans to
maintain our national ownership in the East of Prus-

314 Imperial Germany

sia, and, if possible, to increase it. The seventy years
between the congress of Vienna and the inauguration
of the Prussian policy of colonisation made it clear
that neither scrupulous respect for Polish nationality,
nor the ignoring of the nationality question in the
East, could in the least prevent German nationality
from being slowly but surely driven out of the East
Ijy that of the Poles. Only a well-thought-out scheme
to further German nationality could prevent the lat-
ter from succumbing utterly. If the differences be-
tween the nationalities were thereby immediately in-
tensified, it was certainly unfortunate, but it could not
be avoided. In political life there are often hard
necessities whose behests we obey with a heavy heart,
but which must be obeyed in spite of sympathies and
emotions. Politics is a rough trade in which senti-
mental souls rarely bring even a simple piece of work
to a successful issue.

THE STRUGGLE FOE, THE lAND.

With the fundamental Law of Settlement in 1886
Bismarck began the fight for the land on a big scale.
He demanded and received a hundred miEion marks
for the purpose of buying land and settling German
j)easants on it; that is, the purpose of increasing the

The Struggle for the Land 315

numbers of the German element in the Eastern
Marches. The work of colonisation is the backbone
of Prussian policy in the Eastern Marches, for it set-
tles Germans in the Eastern domain. And the whole
problem in those parts is the problem of the relative
numerical strength of the German population as com-
pared with the Poles. The national acquirement of
the eastern parts of Germany was begun by settle-
ment a thousand years ago, and it is only by settle-
ment that national possession can be maintained.
The problem of the Eastern Marches is really not the
least complex. Its solution depends less on pohtical
wisdom than on political courage.

Bismarck set to work vigorously on the basis of the
new law, and during the first five years, from 1886 to
1890, about 46,000 hectares* were acquired from
Pohsh owners. The beginning of the 'nineties af-
forded a splendid chance to the activities of the Set-
tlement Commission, as an attendant phenomenon of
an otherwise lamentable event. Owing to the plight
of agriculture, the price of land fell rapidly, and it
would have been easy to acquire a huge mass of land
from Pohsh owners for the purposes of subsequent
colonisation by Germans. But just at that time

• One hectare = 2.47 acres.

3i6 Imperial Germany

Count Caprivi thought it necessary, for parliamentary
reasons, to propitiate the Poles. Concessions on the
questions of schools and church were followed by as-
sistance for the Polish Land Bank; that was equiva-
lent to the rescue of the Polish landowners from
whom the Settlement Commission had to endeavour
to acquire land. The immediate and desired parlia-
mentary object was in so far attained, that the Polish
faction voted for the Army Bill of 1893.

But it soon became evident that the attitude of
the parhamentary faction, as is often the case, did not
correspond to the opinions of the party in the country.
On the occasion of the discussion of the Navy Bill,
the majority of the faction refused to follow their
leader, Koscielski. Herr von Koscielski himself
made that incautious speech at Lemberg in 1894,
which contributed in a considerable degree to the
change in Prussian policy in the Eastern Marches to
the course laid down by Bismarck, At that time, in
September, 1894, the German Association of the
Eastern Marches was formed, after Germans from
that district had visited the old Imperial Chancellor
in Varzin and paid him homage.

The traditions of Bismarck found a prudent inter-
preter in Miquel after the retirement of Caprivi.

The Struggle for the Land 317

New funds were placed at the disposal of the Settle-
ment Commission in 1898, and land was once more
acquired on a larger scale. But the words of the poet,
"Eternity will not bring back what one has refused
to accept from a moment," again proved true in the
case of our policy in the Eastern Marches. The fa-
vourable opportunity in the estate market, which had
been allowed to slip at the begioning of the 'nineties,
was past. The Polish landowners had been helped
over the critical time; the Poles had had the chance
of organising themselves for the battle for the land;
whereas from 1886 to 1888 on an average 11,000 hec-
tares were acquired yearly from the Poles by the Set-
tlement Cormnission, it was only possible to buy from
the Poles 911 hectares in 1895, 1804 hectares in
1896, and an average of 2,500 hectares yearly from
1897 to 1899. The land required for purposes of
settlement had to be furnished more and more by Ger-
man landowners.

The energy with which the Poles organised their
resistance to the German attack on their soil deserves
admiration. German activity in colonisation was re-
phed to by Polish counter activity. The Poles, for
their part, divided their estates into small lots, for
which they found colonists to a great extent among

3i8 Imperial Germany

the very numerous Polish industrial workmen in the
West. While the Poles thought it shameful to sell
land to the Germans, these latter unfortunately often
did not object to selling German landed property to
the Poles for a high price. I certainly succeeded,
after replenishing the Settlement Fund in the year
1902, in furthering the work of colonisation to a very
appreciable extent. Land for the purpose of settle-
ment was acquired as follows: 22,007 hectares in the
year 1902; 42,052 hectares in 1903; 33,108 hectares in
1904; 34,661 hectares in 1905; 29,671 hectares in
1906; and after a grant of fresh funds in 1908, 14,093
hectares in that year; 21,093 hectares in 1909.

But it grew more and more difficult to acquire
estates from Polish landowners, as the Poles held fast
to their land, and the activities of the Settlement
Commission on the one hand, and the Polish policy of
parcelling out their properties on the other, resulted
in land speculation which sent up the price of estates
enormously. If the work of colonisation, imdertaken
at such sacrifice and at the cost of such a hard strug-
gle, was not to be doomed to ultimate failure, an idea
had to be put into practice which Bismarck had ex-
pressed already in 1886, and which was discussed over
and over again subsequently; the idea of disposses-

The Struggle for German Culture 319

sion. The Dispossession Bill was the logical conclu-
sion of the policy of colonisation begun in 1886; it
makes the Settlement Commission independent of the
variations of the estate market, and ensures ultimate
mastery to a strong Government in the economic
struggle for the land.

THE STRUGGLE FOE GERMAN CULTURE.

The struggle for the land, which in its essentials is
a struggle to permeate the eastern districts with a
sufficient niunber of Germans, wiU always be the
Alpha and Omega of our national German policy in
the East. This must be supported by the struggle
for German culture and education, and, above all, for
the German language. We certainly do not wish to
deprive the Pole of his mother tongue, but we must
try to bring it to pass that, by means of the German
language, he comes to understand the German spirit.
In our policy of settlement we fight for German na-
tionality in the East ; in our policy with regard to the.
schools WQ are really fighting for Polish nationality
which we wish to incorporate in German intellectual
life. Here, again, we cannot proceed without sever-
ity, and this will increase or be mitigated as the Poles
increase or diminish their opposition. The founda-

320 Imperial Germany

tion of the German Technical Hochschule, or CoUege,
in the year 1904, and before that, of the Imperial
Academy in Posen, in 1903, created, in the eastern
districts, centres of German intellectual life which, let
us hope, will gradually prove their powers of attract-
ing students.

THE RESULTS OF THE POLICY IN THE EASTERN
MARCHES,

Prussian policy in the Eastern Marches has never
lacked violent critics, especially on the German side.
The seemingly conclusive argument of these critics
is the statement that our policy in the Eastern
Marches has led to no palpable results, since after
nearly twenty years of the policy of colonisation there
is no appreciable change in the percentage of Ger-
mans and Poles in the population of the Eastern
Marches. As an increase in the percentage of Ger-
mans was what Bismarck aimed at, our policy and, in
particular, the work of colonisation must be consid-
ered to have failed. It is quite true that we have not
nearly reached the goal of our pohcy in the Eastern
Marches. Only if we pursue the course laid down by
Frederick the Great, and later again adopted by Bis-
marck, not with small-minded chicanery, nor with

The Results of the Policy 321

clumsy brutality, but with determination, and, above
all, consistently, can we hope, after a very considera-
ble lapse of time, to fulfil our national task in the East
of Germany.

What we need most of all in our Eastern Marches
is steadfastness. When I was visiting Posen in 1902,
the head of the Provincial Administration, v. Staudy,
for many years a Conservative member of the Reichs-
tag, with whom I was staying, said to me at the con-
clusion of a long conversation about affairs in the
Eastern Marches : "And now one thing more : stead-
fastness! That is what everything depends on here.
Nothing has done us so much harm as our vacillation,
the fact that we gave in again and again. Now we
must hold out!"

The work of German colonisation in the Eastern
Marches, begun a thousand years ago, suspended for
four centuries, and taken up anew less than thirty
years ago, cannot be completed in a short time. This
is not like an ordinary political action, which is soon
followed by success or failure; we are in the midst of
a great historical evolution in which generation after
generation will have to co-operate. If from this
mighty point of view we regard our national work in
the East as a stage of evolution, then we may say

322 Imperial Germany

that success has not been denied us. In the years
from 1886 to 1911, 394,398 hectares of land were
acquired by the Government to provide for the settle-
ment of German peasants; of these 112,116 hectares
were formerly owned by Poles. On the settlement
estates there are 150,000 Germans; 450 new villages
have been built, and in 300 villages the number of
Germans has been increased. The successes due to
our policy of colonisation were convincingly stated by
one of the most estimable statesmen of our time.
Count Botho Eulenburg, ia 1908, in the debate in the
Upper Chamber on the Bill of Dispossession. \ As
the last census shows, the decrease of the Germans as
compared with the Poles has ceased, in spite of the
higher birth-rate among the latter. These are results
of palpable value, these are the first steady steps to-
wards the still distant goal, which, however, can be
attained, if we do not tire of this troublesome struggle
entaihng so many sacrifices, and if transitory phases
of practical pohtics do not again sweep the great and
permanent demands of national policy into the back-
ground.

We must also not deceive ourselves on the point
that the German, in a struggle between nationalities,
does not yet always possess the desirable power of re-

The Results of the Policy 323

sistance, and that only too often he runs the risk in
such a struggle of losing his nationality, if the State
does not protect and support him. One of the chief
difficulties of the problem in the Eastern Marches,
and at the same time perhaps the strongest proof of
the absolute necessity of a steadfast and strong policy
there, lies in the need to strengthen the backbone of
the German who, for reasons connected with our good
and with our less good qualities, is so prone to be as-
similated. So far as this is concerned, the Govern-
ment must take things as they are. It is its duty to
see that the Germans and their nationality do not
succumb in the East. -

However, the answer to the question as to what the
state of affairs in the East of Germany would have
been, had nothing been done for the protection and
strengthening of German nationahty there, affords a
far better means of judging what has been accom-
plished than does an enumeration of positive achieve-
ments. Before we can think of making national con-
quests in the East, our national possessions had to be
protected from loss. And we succeeded in so doing
because we fought for them. The development which
Bismarck thwarted was tending slowly but surely to
make the Eastern domain Polish. To have warded

324 Imperial Germany

off a danger which threatened, is often in politics
a greater success than to achieve a momentary ad-
vantage.

If the attempt to extend PoKsh nationahty had not
been met by the Government with a determined effort
to extend German nationality, things in Posen and
West Prussia to-day would have been much the same
as in Gahcia. It is quite comprehensible that the
Austrian monarchy, which is not a State based on a
foundation of one nationality, has, for reasons of home
and foreign policy, renounced all further attempts to
Germanise the Crown land of Galicia since the 'seven-
ties, and has responded in the most lavish manner to
Polish wishes. Prussia is the support of the German
Empire and of the national idea, is the German
national State, xar' i^oyj^v, and cannot grant such
concessions without being false to her past, her tradi-
tions, and her German mission.

Prussia must be ruled and administered from the
national German standpoint. If we had allowed the
Slavonic element in the East of the Prussian King-
dom to extend and flood the German element, as has
happened in part of Cisleithania, instead of having a
hard fight for German nationality in the Eastern

The Policy a National Duty 325

Marches to-day, we should have had a fight to main-
tain the unity of the Prussian State; we should not
have had a Polish problem, we should have had a
Polish danger.

THE POLICY IN THE EASTERN MARCHES A NATIONAL
DUTY FOR GERMANS.

Our policy in the Eastern Marches is a national
duty which the German nation owes to itself. A
highly cultured and strong nation may not, without a
struggle, give up national possessions, once they have
been acquired; it must have such belief in the power
of its national culture, and such faith in its own
strength, that it feels itself capable of, and justified
in, enriching them. Whether we hold fast to our pos-
sessions in the East or not, whether our policy in the
Eastern Marches continues in its national course,
what is to become of our Eastern Marches — these are
not questions of party politics, but of general national
importance; and not only the fate of the Germans in
the East of Prussia, but the future of Prussia and
of the Empire, nay, of the whole German nation,
depend on whether these questions are answered in
the affirmative or in the negative. In my opinion, as

326 Imperial Germany

I said in January, 1902, the problem of the Eastern
Marches is not only one of our most important po-
litical problems, but, what is more, it is the problem
on the solution and development of which the immedi-
ate future of our country depends.

CONCLUSION

CONCLUSION

The German Empire, such as it emerged from the
baptism of fire of Koniggratz and Sedan, the be-
lated fruit of the slow evolution of ovu- nation, could
not come into existence until German intellect and
the Prussian monarchy joined forces. They were
bound to join forces if a united German State of last-
ing power was to be achieved. German history,
eventftd as it is, discloses an abundance of great and
mighty deeds : the struggle of the German Emperors
for the heritage of the Caesars, German arms victori-
ous on the shores of the Great Belt and the Mediter-
ranean, in Asia Minor, and in the heart of what is now
France; and after the intellectual refining process of
the Reformation, the greatest development of artistic
and scientific life that the world has known since the
days of Hellas and the Cinquecento. But the result,
as far as the State and pohtics are concerned, was the
dissolution of all forms of government in the nine-
teenth century, and the fact that German power was
outstripped by the younger States of Eastern and
Western Europe. Inr a thousand years of work,

329

'330 Imperial Germany

from the point of view of culture, thq highest had been
accomplished, but politically, nothing had been
achieved. The Western and Southern domains of
Germany, greatly favoured by Nature, accomplished
indestructible work in the sphere of German intel-
lectual life, but could not raise sufficient strength for
the sterner business of creating a State. We modem
Germans do not share Treitschke's harsh opinion that
the small German States were worthless. During
the decades in which we have enjoyed union as an
-Empire, we have recovered a clear perception of the
manifold blessings we owe to the small States. Side
by side with the sins of German separatism we must
place the encouragement and protection afforded to
the intellectual life of Germany by thq Princes and
the cities. The Court of the Muses at Weimar
achieved the highest in this respect, but it by no means
stood alone.

The history of most of the non-Prussian States is
connected with the name of some one or other of the
men of Science and of Art who have helped to raise
the magnificent edifice of our intellectual life. When
Prussia woke to a consciousness of her duties with
regard to the spiritual achievements of Germany, in
.those terrible but yet splendid years when, as Fred-

Conclusion 33 1

erick William III. so well expressed it, the Prussian
State must make good by its intellectual powers what
it had lost physically. German intellect had already
reached its zenith without the help of Prussia. Ger-
man intellectual life, which the whole world has
learned to admire, and which even the first Napoleon
respected, is the work of the Southern and Western
German domains, achieved under the protection of
her Princes, small States, and free cities.

But the people who lived on the sandy soil of the
Marches, in the plains east of the Elbe and the Oder,
so scantly favoured by Nature, during the centuries
which witnessed the growth of German culture in
other parts of the country, prepared the future of
Germany as a State in battles and privations under
the rule of heroic and politic Kings.

German intellect was developed in the West and
the South, the German State in Prussia. The Princes
of the West were the patrons of German culture; the
HohenzoUern were the political teachers and task-
masters.

It took a long time before the importance of Prus-
sia, in which even Goethe only loved her great King,
was recognised in Germany; before it was realised
that this rude and thoroughly prosaic State of soldiers

332 Imperial Germany

and officials, without many words but with deeds that
were all the greater, was performing a task of enor-
mous importance in the work of German civihsation:
preparing the political culture of the German nation.
Prussia became for Germany what Rome was for the
ancient world. Leopold v. Ranke, intellectually the
most versatile and at the same time the most Prussian
of German historians, says, in his "History of the
World," that it was the task of antiquity to perme-
ate the Greek spirit with the Roman. Classical cul-
ture, in which the intellectual life of Western Europe
is rooted, was preserved by the military and consti-
tutional State of Rome, which gave to the ancient
world its political shape. The Prussian State became
the guardian of German intellectual life, by giving to
the German people a united State and a position on a
level with the great Empires of the world.

Through the foundation of the Empire we acquired
national life as a State. In so doing our political
development embarked on a new and a safe course.
But it has not yet reached its goal. Our task, which
has been begun but is by no means yet completed,
must be the rmity of our intellectual and political life,
that is the fusion of the Prussian and the German
spirit. Prussian State life and German intellectual

Conclusion 333

life must become reconciled in such a way that both
their growths become intertwined without weakening
each other.

Such a reconciliation has not yet been achieved.
The representative of German intellectual life is still
sometimes inclined to regard the Prussian State as a
hostile power, and the old Prussian at times to regard
the free and untrammelled development of German
intellect as a destructive force. And again and again
in Parliament and in the Press accusations are lev-
elled against Prussia in the name of freedom, and
against the imdaunted German intellect in the name
of order.

My late friend, Adolph Wilbrandt, in a pleasing
play, has a scene between an official belonging to the
North German nobility and the daughter of a savant
of the middle classes. At first they repel each other
and quarrel. "I represent the Germany of Schiller,
Goethe and Lessing," says the woman, and the man
replies : "And I represent the Germany of Bismarck,
Bliicher and Moltke." We often hear similar things
from the lips of clever and serious men. Our future
depends on whether, and to what extent, we succeed in
amalgamating German intellect with the Prussian
monarchy. Wilbrandt's play ends with the love and

334 Imperial Germany

marriage of the budding Minister of State and the
charming enthusiast for Friedrich Schiller.

It is quite true that in many cases in non-Prussian
Germany, owing to other political traditions, concep-
tions of State rule and freedom prevail that are fun-
damentally different from those that have sprung
from the soil of Prussian traditions. This distinction
is found, not only in party differences, but in the
parties themselves. In the South of Germany there
is a tendency to slacken the reins of political powers
below, in Prussia a tendency to tighten them from
above. In the former case a conception of political
life more from the intellectual standpoint; in the lat-
ter more from the standpoint of the State. Each of
them is the result of historical growth and is justified
in its peculiarity. The Prussian does wrong if he re-
fuses to see anything but destructive democracy in
the pohtical life of South Germany: the South Ger-
man is equally wrong if he exclaims in horror at the
antiquated poUtics of Prussian State life.

Progress in pohtical life is a very fluid idea, and in
what direction of political development true progress
will lie is more than all the wise men of the world
can tell. Each State, each nation tries to advance
in its own way and to perfect its pohtical institutions.

Conclusion 335

We Germans, who for historical reasons have not
a uniform but a manifold political Hfe, are the last
nation in the world that can afford to indulge in
abstract political principles, either such as are derived
only from Prussian or such as are derived only from
South German traditions, and to fit all pohtics to
these principles. It is our task to conduct political
development in Prussia, the individual States and the
Empire in such a way that in each member of the
Empire those forces are preserved which tend to make
it most valuable to the Fatherland in general. Har-
mony of German life in all its parts must be attained,
not so much by making all institutions in the north,
south, east and west uniform, as in smoothing the
differences that stiU exist.

Bismarck's foundation of the Empire was not least
masterly in that it created a firm bond of union, while
at the same time it did not destroy the peculiarities
and the independence of the individual States; and
also in that it not only nominally, but actually, made
Prussia the leading State by preserving the monar-
chical principle in the new Empire.

The union of Germany that the patriotic Demo-
crats of the 'forties conceived in the nineteenth cen-
tury was to do away with the independence of the

336 Imperial Germany

Federal States, more or less, and to vest the unifying
power in the paramount influence of an Imperial
Parliament. Apart from the fact that the Geiman
Princes would never have consented to such a union,
it was a mistake in a thoroughly monarchical country
like Germany to expect unifying power from parlia-
mentary life which had no existence, and therefore
had never been tested.

That in a common representative assembly of the
German people the forces tend rather to separate
than to unite in the idea of the Empire and in great
national tasks, has been amply proved by the strug-
gles between the Imperial Government and the par-
ties in the Reichstag during the years which have
passed since the founding of the Empire. Bismarck,
the Prussian, realised better than anyone else that in
Germany strong government could only be based and
maintained on the monarchical principle. The work
of union could only be permanent if the monarchy
was not a purely ornamental part of the fabric of the
Empire, but was made to be the actual support of the
union. And if the creative power of Prussian mon-
archy, well tested in the course of centuries, was to
be enlisted in the interests of the new Empire, then
the King of Prussia must, as German Emperor, be

Conclusion 337

more than the bearer of shadowy dignities; he must
rule and guide — and for this purpose must actually
possess monarchical rights such as have been laid down
and transcribed in the Constitution of the Empire.

Germany would never, or at best very slowly and
imperfectly, have achieved union as a State by fol-
lowing the paths of democracy along which other na-
tions have reached the goal of national development.
As a monarchy, with the federal Princes represented
in the Federal Council, and the King of Prussia at
the head, we have become a united German Empire.
Had we been entrusted entirely to the care of quar-
relling parties in Parliament, the idea of the Empire
would never have gained so much ground, would
never have been able to win the heart of Germans to
such an extent as is actually the case, since the unity
of the Empire was placed under the protection of
the monarchy. At the beginning of the 'sixties, in
the nineteenth century, Crispi, later President of the
Ministry in Italy, a country whose fate has a resem-
blance to Germany's, wrote to Mazzini that he had
been converted from the Republic to the Monarchy,
because the latter would unite Italy, whereas the
former would disintegrate her: the same applies to
us. And it is particularly true in our case because

338 Imperial Germany

the German Empire, situated in the middle of Eu-
rope, and insufficiently protected by nature on its
frontiers, is and must remain a military State. And
in history strong military States have always required
monarchical guidance.

A strong monarchy at the head of affairs by no
means precludes a lively interest on the part of the
people in the political life of the Empire and the indi-
vidual States. On the contrary, the more keen and
intelligent the interest that all classes of the nation
take in the development of political matters, the closer
will grow the ties between the people and the mon-
archy, which as leader and guide stands at the head
of national life. Political life in a modern monarchy,
as created by our Constitution, entails co-operation
between the Crown and the people. It is an old mis-
take to want to gauge the concern of the nation in
political affairs solely by the rights granted to the
representatives of the people. A Parliament may
possess very extensive rights and yet the nation may
take very little interest in politics. Thus in France
formerly, Parliament was sometimes all-powerful,
whereas the people were indifferent. The relatively
large measure of constitutional rights which the
Reichstag and the Diets in Germany enjoy might be

Conclusion 339

accompanied by far keener political interest and far
deeper political understanding on the part of the na-
tion, than has hitherto been the case. The so-caUed
"politification of the people" is a matter of political
education, not a question of parUamentary power.

The statement uttered from time to time, that my
idea was to change the distribution of power between
the Crown and the Parhament in favour of the latter,
that is, to introduce parliamentary government in the
West European sense of the words, belongs to the
thickly popidated realm of political fables. In my
eyes the dividing line between the rights of the Crown
and of Parliament was immutably fixed. In foreign
as well as in home politics I considered it my noblest
task, to the best of my understanding and ability, to
strengthen, support and protect the Crown, not only
on account of deep loyalty and personal affection for
the wearer, but also because I see in the Crown the
corner stone of Prussia and the keystone of the Em-
pire.

What we Germans need cannot be attained by al-
terations in the sphere of constitutional law. The
parties which would acquire greater rights, to a large
extent still lack political judgment, political training
and consciousness of the aims of the State. In Ger-

340 Imperial Germany

many a large number of educated people, who ought
to play a leading part in party life, still adopt an
attitude of indifference, if not of dislike towards poli-
tics. Very clever men often assert with a certain
pride that they understand nothing and wish to know
nothing of politics. The ignorance which prevails in
regard to the most elementary matters of government
is often astounding.

Those times are past when it was of no concern to
the welfare of the State whether the nation did or did
not understand the laws under which it lived. Legis-
lation no longer lies exclusively in the hands of spe-
cially trained and experienced officials; Parliament co-
operates in the task. But the work of the factions is
even now carried out much as the work of the officials
alone used to be formerly: to the accompaniment of
a complete lack of understanding and judgment on
the part of large sections of the community. In con-
nection with economic questions, it is true groups that
are interested in agriculture, commerce and industry
display a certain amount of activity, as do associa-
tions formed for special purposes when matters con-
nected with these special purposes are in question;
for the most part, however, the dictum of the Mem-
bers of Parliament is accepted quite passively by the

Conclusion 341

limited understanding of the common herd. But, as
soon as the tangible effects are felt, bitter criticism is
heard, which, however, is limited to the individual case
and does not result in any stimulation of political un-
derstanding.

What we Germans lack is active interest in the
course of political affairs, interest that is not only
aroused at elections which take place at considerable
intervals, but that is concerned with all the great and
small questions of poUtical life. It is the duty of the
educated classes to take this political education in
hand — the duty of the intellectual leaders, whom the
Germans follow more readily than does any other
nation. The indolent indifference towards political
life of men who are assthetically and intellectually
sensitive, though in earlier times it was harmless, is
now out of place. The present, which is fuU of grave
and great political tasks, and which has, by means of
Parliaments, given the people a share in State affairs,
demands a political generation. It is not the duty of
the Government in the present time to concede new
rights to Parliament, but to rouse the political interest
of all classes of the nation by means of a vigorous and
determined national policy, great in its aims and en-
ergetic in the means it employs. The criticism to

342 Imperial Germany

which every policy that is not colom-less must give
rise does no harm, so long as positive interest is
aroused. The worst thing in political life is torpor, a
general and stifling calm.

Rest is only permissible to him who has no more
duties to fulfil. No nation can assert that of itself,
least of aU the Germans who so recently embarked
on a new coiu-se towards new goals. The number of
problems we have solved since 1870 is smaU compared
with the nvmiber that still await solution. We may
only rejoice in what has been accomplished if the
sight of what we can do gives us faith in oiu" power
to achieve more and greater things. Goethe depicted
the German nation as a man, not in Wagner, who is
filled with satisfaction by the contemplation of the
splendid things he has ultimately accomplished, but in
Faust, who, with high self-confidence, is always at
pains to achieve greater things, and, as the ultimate
conclusion of wisdom, gives utterance to the truth
that: "He alone deserves liberty and life who must
conquer them daily anew."

THE END