Gems (?) of German Thought Part 14

371. Let it be the task of our diplomacy so to shuffle the cards that we may be attacked by France, for then there would be reasonable prospect that Russia for a time would remain neutral.... But we must not hope to bring about this attack by waiting pa.s.sively. Neither France, nor Russia, nor England need to attack in order to further their interests.... If we wish to bring about an attack by our opponents, we must initiate an active policy which, without attacking France, will so prejudice her interests or those of England, that both these States would feel themselves compelled to attack us.

Opportunities for such procedure are offered both in Africa and in Europe.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 280.

372. When an unconscientious speculator is telling lies upon the Stock Exchange he is thinking only of his own profit, but when a diplomat is guilty of obscuring facts in a diplomatic negotiation he is thinking of his country.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, P., Vol i., p. 91.

373. It is natural, and within certain limits, politically a matter of course, that the German Emperor should have thought that, until Germany had a strong fleet, we must try to keep on good terms with England, and even, on occasion, to make concessions.--GRAF E. V.

REVENTLOW, D.A.P., p. 60.

374. No State can pledge its future to another. It knows no arbiter, and draws up all its treaties with this implied reservation....

Moreover, every sovereign State has the undoubted right to declare war at its pleasure, and is consequently ent.i.tled to repudiate its treaties.--H. v. TREITSCHKE, p. i., 28.

375. The question of alliances in war is always an open one, for circ.u.mstances may at any moment arise such as Bismarck referred to when he said: "No power is bound [or, we will add, ent.i.tled][37] to sacrifice important interests of its own on the altar of faithfulness to an alliance!"--GRAF E. v. REVENTLOW, D.A.P., p. 22.

376. It was a most serious mistake in German policy that a final settling of accounts with France was not effected at a time when the state of international affairs was favourable and success might confidently have been expected.... This policy somewhat resembles the supineness for which England has herself to blame, when she refused her a.s.sistance to the Southern States in the American War of Secession.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 239.

377. Since England committed the unpardonable blunder, from her point of view, of not supporting the Southern States in the American War of Secession, a rival to England's world-wide Empire has appeared on the other side of the Atlantic.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 95.

(AFTER JULY, 1914.)

378. Perhaps the greatest danger for us Germans--greatest because it does not threaten us from without, but within our own hearts--is our magnanimity. O, there is something glorious about this virtue, and we Germans may be quite particularly proud of possessing it.... But woe to the people which does not stand as one man behind the statesman who, by dint of hard struggles with his own soul, has fought his way to the only true standpoint--namely, that _in international relations magnanimity is wholly out of place_, and that here the voice of expediency can alone be heard.--EIN DEUTSCHER, W.K.B.M., p. 12.

379. Through our policy of peace ... we deprive ourselves of the right of determining the time for bringing about a decision by force of arms, as Bismarck did in three wars, in which, thanks to his diplomatic adroitness, he forced upon his adversaries the outward appearance of declaring war, while in reality Prussia-Germany was the a.s.sailant. Bismarck is quoted in Germany as having discouraged preventive wars.... But we must not forget that the three great wars which Bismarck waged were in fact preventive. Even in 1870 the outbreak of war might have been stayed. It was only the brilliant manipulation (_geniale Fa.s.sung_) of the Ems telegram that put France in the wrong and drove her into war, just as Bismarck had foreseen.--K. v. STRANTZ, E.S.V., p. 38.

380. For the will of the State, no other principle exists but that of _expediency_ (_Zweckma.s.sigkeit_), which is at the same time _selfishness_; not, however, the short-sighted selfishness commended by Machiavelli, but _far-seeing, shrewdly-calculating_ selfishness.--EIN DEUTSCHER, W.K.B.M., p. 11.

381. Far-seeing selfishness does not exclude the endeavour to win the confidence of other nations, which can be won only by honesty. _But this honesty, at any rate on vital questions, ought on no account to be carried to the pitch of inexpedient Quixotism._ EIN DEUTSCHER, W.K.B.M., p. 11.

382. War was in our eyes the most honourable and the holiest means of awakening the people from its dazed condition. Whether this war came as an aggressive or as a defensive war was, in principle, a matter of indifference. That it came to us in the form of a war of defence was one of those historical strokes of luck which G.o.d vouchsafes to those peoples whom He loves. The time has not yet come to enquire whether the leaders of German foreign policy took deliberate measures to place us in the att.i.tude of defence which the ma.s.ses always regard as more moral. It may perhaps be so; but it is far from impossible that the disinclination for war which placed certain high dignitaries of the German Empire in constant opposition to the will of the people may have so far imposed upon our adversaries as to induce them to attack us.--K.A. KUHN, W.U.W., p. 9.

383. Treaties under international law are no more than _the formulated expression of the existent relations of power between States_. If these relations of power have so far changed that the real or imaginary vital interests of one of the States demand and render possible the alteration of such treaties, it is the simple duty of the leader of that State to effect the alteration by all conceivable means, so long as the risk does not appear greater than the antic.i.p.ated advantage.--EIN DEUTSCHER, W.K.B.M., p. 7.

=Might is Right.=

(BEFORE THE WAR.)

384. The law of the strong holds good everywhere.--GENERAL V.

BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 18.

385. What does right matter to me? I have no need of it. What I can acquire by force, that I possess and enjoy; what I cannot obtain, I renounce, and I set up no pretensions to indefeasible right.... I have the right to do what I have the power to do.--M. STIRNER, D.E.S.E., p.

275.

386. Might is the supreme right, and the dispute as to what is right is decided by the arbitrament of war. War gives a biologically just decision.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 23.

387. Let it not be said that every people has a right to its existence (_Bestand_), its speech, &c. By making play with this principle, one may put on a cheap appearance of civilization, but only so long as the people in question ... does not stand in the way of any more powerful people.--J.L. REIMER, E.P.D., p. 129.

388. It is a persistent struggle for possessions, power and sovereignty that primarily governs the relations of one nation to another, and right is respected so far only as it is compatible with advantage.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 19.

389. The earth is constantly being divided anew among the strong and powerful. The smaller peoples disappear; they are necessarily absorbed by their larger neighbours.--PROF. E. Ha.s.sE, D.G., p. 169.

(AFTER JULY, 1914.)

390. It is a base calumny to attribute to us the brutal principle that might is equivalent to right.--PROF. F. MEINECKE, D.R.S.Z., No. 29, p. 23.

391. In the age of the most tremendous mobilization of physical and spiritual forces the world has ever seen, we proclaim--no, we do not proclaim it, but it reveals itself--the Religion of Strength.--PROF.

A. DEISSMANN, D.R.S.Z., No. 9, p. 24.

_See also Nos. 84, 499._

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Frederick the Great's principle was: "When kings want war they begin it, and leave learned professors to come after and prove that it was just."

[36] In other words, Bismarck always told the truth when it was absolutely convenient.

[37] Reventlow's interpolation.

VI

ENGLAND, FRANCE & BELGIUM--ESPECIALLY ENGLAND

VI

ENGLAND, FRANCE & BELGIUM--ESPECIALLY ENGLAND

=The False Islanders.=

(BEFORE THE WAR.)

392. The climate, the want of wine, and lack of beautiful scenery, have all been obstacles in the way of English Kultur. H. V.

TREITSCHKE, P., Vol. i., p. 222.

393. The English nationalism is also cosmopolitanism: the service of his own nation appears to the Englishman the service of mankind. For he regards his own nation as the mistress of the highest Kultur-treasures, to which other nations look up in order to admire and imitate. Thus Anglification is identified with the furtherance of human Kultur.--G. v. SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ, B.I., p. 49.

394. England's strength resides in arrogant self-esteem, Germany's greatness in the modest appreciation of everything foreign. England is self-seeking to the point of insanity, Germany is just even to self-depreciation.--TH. FONTANE (about 1854), E.B., p. 389.

395. At the time of the illness of the Emperor Frederick, Treitschke, at the end of a long speech, summed up his sentiments in these words: "It must come to this that no German dog shall for evermore accept a piece of bread from the hand of an Englishman." These words, uttered in an outburst of pa.s.sion, aroused no mirth, but went to the heart of the audience.--E.B., p. 395.

396. After the Boer War, Wildenbruch was done with England.... She was dead for him, and erased from the Book of Life. All the contempt which now leads us to raise, not the sword, but the whip, against that abortion compounded of low greed and shameless hypocrisy, he then screamed out to the world in words which we could not even to-day make bitterer or more scathing.--PROF. B. LITZMANN, D.R.S.Z., No. 12, p. 13.