Chapter IV: The Allies and Pan-Germanism

It is now twenty years that I have worked tirelessly to tear the veil from the Pan-German scheme, which my investigations in all parts of the world have enabled me to unearth. In spite of the positive and abundant proofs of its existence which I have been publishing for nineteen years, I was unable to persuade the responsible authorities in France, Russia, or England, that a formidable peril was swiftly and more swiftly drawing near. Paris and London were steeped in blind pacifist delusions. As for Petrograd, the sinister Teutonic influences which, until only yesterday, were at work on the highest personages, prevented the great Russian people from knowing the real nature of Germany’s projects.

If the Europeans most directly interested in knowing the truth were, until the very outbreak of hostilities, completely hoodwinked as to the true intentions of William II, it is only natural that Americans should take some time to realize the staggering facts concerning the fantastic and odious plan of world-domination so toilsomely built up by the government at Berlin. In peace times, too, the affairs of old Europe, especially the intricate tangle of Austro-Hungarian and Balkan politics, had no practical interest for so vast and remote a nation as the United States. This was particularly true of her Western citizens. To-day, however, Americans as well as French, British, Russians, and Italians, are faced with the obligation of mastering the problems of Central European affairs; for, without exaggeration, it is on the proper solution of these problems that the independent existence of the United States depends.

As events have justified the views I have held for a score of years, I trust my American readers will hold this fact in my favor. If I should seem to run counter to the ideas they now hold, they should realize that I do so deliberately, in order to save priceless time and better serve their own legitimate interests.

I

The present situation in Europe is due to two factors: first, the almost complete fulfillment by the Germans of a plan which they had long been preparing with the utmost care; second, the repeated mistakes of the Allies in their carrying on of the war—mistakes which alone have permitted the Germans to consummate their plan almost without opposition.

The Pan-Germanist programme of 1911 called for the establishment of Prussian hegemony over a territory of nearly 4,015,000 square kilometres—in other words, besides actual conquest in the East and West, it meant the indirect, yet effective seizure of Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, and Turkey. At the beginning of 1917—before the capture of Bagdad by the English and the strategic retreat of the German troops in the West—the programme had been realized to the extent of 3,600,000 square kilometres—that is, in nine-tenths of its entirety.

The basic explanation of this achievement lies partly in the fact that, if the Germans are outlaws they are very intelligent outlaws, perfectly trained for the task of seizing the booty on which they have set their hearts; partly in the fact that the leaders of the Allies, intelligent and animated by the best intentions though they are, have been quite unenlightened as to the multiple realities of the European tangle, a thoroughgoing knowledge of which is absolutely necessary for the conduct of the terrible war in progress.

The proof of this ignorance lies in the recognized truth that the heads of the European states now in league against Germany were, without exception, taken by surprise when war broke out. Posterity will look on this fact with amazement. The governments of the Allies were no better prepared to direct the war intellectually than were their generals to carry it on materially. Now, the intellectual prosecution of this war presents unprecedented difficulties: it calls uncompromisingly for a detailed knowledge, not only of matters military and naval, but of geographic, ethnographic, economic, and political questions which, by reason of the scale of the present conflict, react profoundly on all military operations of general scope. As a result of this interpenetration of all the various problems, the world-conflict is not, as many people still believe, a purely military struggle, in which the mere machinery of war plays a decisive role. In spite of appearances, mind—that is, the intellectual element—dominates the material element which, though indispensable, can attain full effectiveness only when it is employed in furtherance of a definite plan of action, backed by clear thinking; and such a plan can never be formulated unless the ethnographic, psychological, economic, and geographic factors capable of affecting every great movement of a general strategic nature are calculated as carefully as the purely military factors. By reason of the potency of these many factors—invisible, but very real and powerful—it may be said: ‘This war is not a mere war of armaments—it is a war of political science.’

It is because the strategists of Berlin have long recognized this conception of modern warfare; it is because they have at their fingers’ ends a documentation of political science, slowly accumulated and of unquestionable worth, that they are in a position to meet endless problems as they present themselves, and to achieve successes against the Allies which, on the surface, appear incomprehensible.

As for the leaders of the Allies, it seems as if many of them are not alive to the element of political science in the war, even at the present moment. The reason is simple. The same men who ignored the realities of Pan-Germanism before the war are, naturally enough, unable to grasp the politico-scientific, geographic, economic, ethnographic, and psychological realities of all Europe now that the conflict has burst on us. In the realm of the intellectual there can be no improvisation. To master the politico-scientific elements necessary for the prosecution of this war, there is need of minds trained by the unremitting application of fifteen or twenty years. Among the leaders of the Entente no man is to be found who has bent his will to such intellectual effort; and the pressing problems brought forth by each day give no time for minute, deliberate study by the men who have succeeded to the seats of power since war began.

II

The capital mistakes in the prosecution of the war committed by the Entente proceed directly from the defective equipment of its leaders which I have just pointed out. They explain the difference in the results obtained by the two groups of belligerents, although the courage and self-sacrifice of the Allies’ soldiers are as great as those of the Germans. They explain, too, why the three hundred millions of the Allies—this takes no account of their colonial resources or of the support drawn from trans-oceanic neutrals—have not yet succeeded in defeating Germany, which entered the war with a population of sixty-eight millions and one ally, Austria-Hungary, of whose thirty million people three quarters were directly antagonistic to Berlin.

These capital mistakes made by the Allies are as follows. They believed that a friendly agreement with Bulgaria was possible, although that country was treaty-bound to Berlin and Constantinople long before the war. They cherished illusions concerning King Constantine, who, above all else, was brother-in-law of the Kaiser. They organized the Dardanelles expedition, which should never have been attempted. Even if this operation had been judged technically feasible, its futility would have been apparent if the Allies had realized—and it was their arch-error not to realize—that the strategic key to the whole European war was the Danube. The mere occupation by the Allies of the territory stretching from Montenegro through Serbia to Roumania, would have resolved all the essential problems of the conflict. Cut off from the Central Empires, Bulgaria and Turkey, whose arsenals were depleted by the Balkan disturbances of 1912-1913, would have found it impossible to make a strong stand against the Allies. Turkey, who had been imprudent enough to defy them, would have been obliged to open the Straits within a very short time, for sheer lack of munitions to defend them. This opening of the Straits would have been effected by a strong pressure by the Allies on the south of Hungary. Moreover, by the same action the Central Empires would have been barred from reinforcements and supplies from the Orient. Germany, finding herself cut off on land in the South as she was blockaded by sea in the North, would have been obliged to come to terms.

Unhappily, the general staffs of the Allies in the West were not prepared to grasp the politico-scientific character of the war, especially the cardinal importance of the economic factor. This ignorance remained unenlightened until Roumania was crushed in 1916. As a result, for twenty-seven months the Balkans were looked on by the leaders in the West as being of only secondary military importance. During these twenty-seven months the Allies were obsessed by the idea that they would vanquish Germany on the Western front by a war of attrition. This conviction delayed the Saloniki-Belgrade expedition, and when it was finally undertaken, it was on too small a scale to insure success. Such a grave error would never have been committed by the Allied strategists if they had fully realized that the principal objective of the Pan-German scheme, for the attainment of which Germany was primarily fighting, was the seizure of the Orient. This point of view, however, was for a long time ignored, in spite of the tireless efforts made by a few to demonstrate its vital importance.

The Austro-Germans, profiting by this basic mistake of the civil and military chiefs of the Entente, were able in October-November, 1915, to join hands with Bulgaria and Turkey over the corpse of Serbia. From that time on, the General Staff at Berlin has been profiting by this situation, improving it and consolidating it by seizing half of Roumania toward the close of 1916. The direct result of the mistakes of the Allies, coupled with the methodical procedure of Berlin, has been the realization of nine tenths of Pan-Germany.

This Pan-Germany is composed of two elements. First, the great occupied territories taken by Germany from Belgium, France, Russia, Serbia, and Roumania. Second, the practical seizure effected by her at the expense of her own allies: Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey; for, as a matter of fact, the Quadruple Alliance is nothing but a great illusion carefully fostered by the Kaiser for the purpose of concealing the true situation from the neutrals—particularly the United States, which was then in that category. If one wishes to see things as they are, one must realize that Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey are _not_ the allies—that is, the equals—of Germany. These three states are practically the vassals of Berlin, in whose sight they count for scarcely more than Saxony or Bavaria. The principal proof of this state of affairs lies in the fact that the Kaiser wields an uncontested supremacy from Hamburg to the British front at Bagdad.

Since the beginning of hostilities there has been a formidable extension of Prussian militarism. At first, it held in its grasp only the sixty-eight million people of the German Empire. By April, 1915, it had extended and organized its influence among the thirty millions of Austro-Hungarians, who until that time had taken orders from their own independent military chiefs. After October-November, 1915,—the date of Serbia’s downfall,—the Prussian system reached out to Bulgaria and Turkey. By taking account of these extensions and adding together the populations of the territories occupied by Germany, together with those of her infatuated allies, one finds that to-day Prussian militarism no longer controls sixty-eight million souls, as at the beginning of the war, but about one hundred and seventy-six million European and Ottoman subjects.

This is the brutal, overwhelming fact which Americans must face if they wish to learn the sole solution of the war which will assure to them, as well as to the rest of the world, a durable peace.

The following figures will show how the three groups of the population of Pan-Germany were divided at the beginning of 1917:—

1. THE MASTERS
Germans 73,000,000
2. THE VASSALS
Magyars 10,000,000 }
Bulgars 5,000,000 } 21,000,000
Turks 6,000,000 }
3. THE SLAVES
French (about) 3,000,000 }
Belgians 7,500,000 }
Alsatians, Lorrainers 1,500,000 }
Danes 200,000 }
Poles, Lithuanians 22,000,000 }
Ruthenians 5,500,000 }
Czechs 8,500,000 } 82,000,000
Jugo-Slavs 11,000,000 }
Roumanians 8,000,000 }
Italians 800,000 }
Armenians 2,000,000 }
Levantines 2,000,000 }
Ottoman Greeks 2,000,000 }
Arabs 8,000,000 }
———————————
_Total_ 176,000,000

To sum up, seventy-three million Germans rule over twenty-one million vassals and eighty-two million slaves,—Latin, Slavic, Semitic, belonging to thirteen different nationalities,—who are bearing the most cruel and unjustifiable yoke that the world has ever known.

It is undeniable, moreover, that each extension of Prussian militarism over a new territory has enabled Germany to prolong the struggle by obtaining new supplies of food, new reinforcements to press into her service and territory to exploit, new civil populations, whose labor is made use of even in works of a military nature. As a result, the technical problem now confronting the Allies in Europe is, through the mistakes of their former leaders, infinitely more complicated than at the outbreak of hostilities.

To-day Berlin, by means of Prussian terrorism methodically and pitilessly employed, disposes of the military and economic resources of one hundred and seventy-six million people, occupying a strategic position in the centre of Europe which is all to her profit. It is this very state of things, founded on the slavery of eighty-two millions of human beings, which is intolerable.

III

Many times, and rightly, the Allies have declared that it was not their object to exterminate the German people and bring about their political extinction. On the other hand, it is just and essential to proclaim that Pan-Germany must be destroyed. On this depends the liberty, not only of Europe, but of the whole world. This is the point of view which, in the crisis of to-day, should prevail with Americans, for the following reasons. Suppose that Pan-Germany were able to maintain itself in its present position. It cannot be denied that its territory contains considerable latent military and economic resources, as well as strategic positions of world-significance, like the Dardanelles. If these resources were freely exploited and developed to their highest pitch by the relentless organizing spirit of Berlin, Prussianized Pan-Germany, dividing Europe in two, would dominate the Continent, uncontestably and indefinitely, by means of her crushing strength. France, Russia, England, Italy, ceasing to exist as great powers, could only submit to Germany’s will. And Berlin, mistress of Europe, would soon realize, not merely the Hamburg-Bagdad and Antwerp-Bagdad railways, but the Brest-Bagdad line as well; for Brest has long been coveted secretly by the Pan-Germanists, who would make of it the great military and commercial transatlantic port of Prussianized Europe.

Moreover, if Germany achieved the ruin of the Allies, it is entirely probable that the General Staff of William II would launch a formidable expedition against the United States without delay, in order to allow her no time to organize herself against the Prussian tyranny hypothetically dominating Europe. Even if Berlin felt it necessary to defer this step, Americans would none the less be forced to prepare for the inevitable struggle and to serve an apprenticeship to militarism which would be odious to them. If Americans, then, see things as they really are, and perceive the dangers to which they are pledging their future, they will be convinced that they, as much as Europeans, have a vital interest in the annihilation of Pan-Germanism. In a word, it is clear that any peril accruing to the United States from Europe can arise only from so formidable a power as Pan-Germany, and not from a Germany kept within her legitimate frontiers, and forced to behave herself, by the balance of other powers.

We must also realize that the moral considerations at stake are a matter of the liveliest interest to the United States. Can republican America allow the feudal spirit which kindled the torch of this war to triumph over the world? This spirit is made up of the following elements: the feudalism of the Prussian Junkers, chief prop and stay of the Hohenzollerns; the feudalism of the great Austrian land-owners; the feudalism of the Magyar grandees, whose caste-spirit is precisely the same as that of the Prussian lordlings; and the Turkish feudalism of Enver Bey and his friends. In other words, this four-ply feudal spirit which is the basis of Pan-Germany is in radical and absolute opposition to the democratic spirit of the modern world. Granting for a moment that Germany were victorious, Russia, after a frightful reign of anarchy, would be forced to submit once more to the yoke of autocracy. As for the peoples of Western Europe, reduced to worse than slavery, they could only renounce their dearest ideals—the ideals for which they have shed their blood for centuries.

The present war, then, is manifestly a struggle _à outrance_ between democracy and feudalism. To Americans as well as to Europeans falls the task, not only of preserving their corporeal independence, but of saving our common civilization. This can be accomplished only by the destruction of Pan-Germanism.

It is plain that Berlin, failing so far to crush the Allies completely, is bending every effort to maintaining Pan-Germany in its present position, so that, after peace is declared, it may crystallize and swiftly develop its full power. When, in December, 1916, President Wilson requested the belligerents to make known the causes for which they were fighting, the government of Berlin issued no definite statement. The reason for this attitude is plain. If Berlin still hopes to enforce her outrageous pretensions by her immense military power, she cannot possibly put down her terms in black and white, in a document subject to general perusal, without instantly calling down on her head the blazing reprobation of the civilized world.

The Allies, on the contrary, replied to Mr. Wilson’s question easily and with precision.

The universal attention drawn to this reply has entailed advantages and disadvantages. By the very nature of things, the Allies definitely announced that the smaller nationalities in Turkey, Austria-Hungary, and the Balkans must be set free, thus implying a radical opposition to the Hamburg-Persian Gulf idea. This has enabled Berlin, for one thing, to bind her accomplices at Vienna, Budapest, Sofia, and Constantinople more closely, if possible, to her cause, and also to galvanize for a still longer period the forces of the German people, who are resolved to endure the bitterest suffering in order to insure, after peace comes, the immense advantages accruing from the _fait accompli_ of Pan-Germanism.

By way of compensation for this, the publicity given the reply of the Allies has accomplished two excellent ends. First of all, it has permitted every one to see that the common purpose of the Allies is to solve the Central European problem, which, as a matter of fact, is not only of European, but of universal interest, since such a solution puts a quietus on German dreams of world-domination. This publicity, too, has made it possible to compare the principles invoked by the Allies in their peace-terms with those of President Wilson, proclaimed in his message to the Senate on January 22, 1917, and to establish the fact that these principles are identical.

IV

The reason for this harmonious point of view lies in the adoption of the principle of nationality by the Allies and by President Wilson as the fundamental basis for the reconstruction of the Europe of to-morrow. Because of this point in common, it is evident that the war measures of the Allies and the pacific endeavors of Mr. Wilson have in view the same general geographic solutions of the problem of organizing Europe on the lines of a durable peace. This is a fact of the utmost importance, as I tried to show with the aid of maps in an article in _L’Illustration_, of February 27, 1917. Allies and Americans, then, may join hands and press resolutely ahead,—especially since the Russian Revolution has come to pass,—for, with a common ideal, their general practical solutions for meeting this formidable crisis cannot but be identical.

In order to understand fully the seriousness of the situation, one must distinguish clearly between the moral position of the Allies and the strategic positions of the two groups of belligerents. The moral position of the Allies is excellent. After Washington and Peking broke with Berlin, and especially after the magnificent revolution in Russia, after Bagdad fell and a fraction of the invaded French territory was won back, the spirit of the Allies was all that could be desired. But even while recognizing the excellence of this moral strength and its potentialities of success, we must first of all consider the general strategic situation. The events of this war have plainly shown that, unfortunately, brute force in the service of the lowest passions can prevail over the holiest rights, the purest aspirations. Since August, 1914, incontestable rights have been violated, and noble nations martyrized.

Let us face the cruel truth and say: the Allies may yet be completely vanquished if certain developments come about, or if new strategic mistakes are added to those portentous ones which nearly lost them the fight, in spite of the righteousness of their cause and their immense, if badly employed, latent resources. If we wish, then, really to understand the crisis of to-day and the mighty peril which still menaces the world’s liberty, we must not shrink from meeting the realities of the military situation. We must be ready to face the most serious developments that can be conceived. Such an attitude implies, not pessimism, but that readiness for the worst which lies at the root of military wisdom.

Let us now accept the following facts. The troops of France are beginning to be exhausted. The iniquitous administration of the Tsar had seriously compromised the provisioning of the Russian army with food and munitions. In that vast country, where conditions were ripe for idealistic extremists to guide the revolution toward pacifism or anarchy, there are alarming symptoms of the prevalence of the latter condition. The swarming agents of Germany are working there without respite. If their efforts shall finally succeed, the strength of Russia will swiftly dissolve. This would practically insure a German victory, for, with the Russian armies demoralized, all the forces of Pan-Germany could be flung against the Franco-British front. Moreover, if, from the moral standpoint, the Berlin government is universally to be despised, the same cannot be said about her general technical military ability, whose elements are as follows.

Berlin is incontestably mistress of Pan-Germany—that is, she has absolute disposal of vast resources in men and in the manifold products of a great territory with a population of one hundred and seventy-six millions. The Kaiser’s Great General Staff, whose intellectual resourcefulness cannot be questioned, is quick to make the most of every lesson taught by the war. The annual levies of men from the various territories of Pan-Germany certainly outnumber the losses sustained each year by her troops. It is therefore, in my opinion, a grave error to assume, as the Allies have done, that the Germans can be beaten by mere attrition of their forces. By organizing under one uniform system the soldiery furnished by the many different countries of Pan-Germany, Prussian militarism has unquestionably given its troops a cohesion and a unity unknown to the vassal-allies of Germany before the war. This state of affairs has undoubtedly added to the military effectiveness of the vast armies which take their orders from Berlin.

The German military authorities most advantageously employed the respites given them by the strategic errors of the Allies. Never have the broad lines of trenches, the far-flung battle frontiers, been more powerfully guarded than now. Never have the Germans had more abundant stores of munitions. Never has the network of railways covering the length and breadth of Pan-Germany been so complete. Never has the Great General Staff, making full use of its central position, been better able to concentrate on any front with lightning speed. For these reasons, it is my opinion that we may safely say that never before has the Berlin government, from a military point of view, been so strong. The various statistics which justify such a conclusion are, I think, to be relied on. Even supposing them to be exaggerated, it is much better to run the risk of overestimating the enemy’s strength than to underestimate it. Many of the Allies’ mistakes sprang from neglect of this axiom.