THE FUNDAMENTAL AND ENDURING ERROR OF THE ALLIES
For three years past events have notoriously proved that the concrete Pangermanist scheme, developed between 1895 and 1911, has been followed strictly by the Germans since the outbreak of hostilities. Now, the diplomacy of the Entente is devised as if there were no Pangermanist scheme.
This is the source of all the vital strategical and diplomatic errors of the Entente—consequences of the failure to understand the German military and political manœuvring. Here is proof derived from recent events—one of many which it would be possible to allege.
When it was announced a few weeks ago that Austria would play an apparently preponderating part in the reconstitution of Poland, a very large number of newspapers in the Entente countries decided that ‘it is perfectly evident that the Austrian policy has carried the day in Poland.’ A similar deduction has led Allied readers to believe that Vienna has prevailed over Berlin. The result has been to strengthen the faith of those who deem it possible to impose terms on Berlin through the channel of Vienna, and even to induce Austria to conclude a separate peace. Now, to convey such an impression as this to Allied public opinion is to lead it completely astray. If the Hapsburgs are playing an apparently predominant part in Poland it is solely because that part, as we are about to prove, is assigned to them by the Pangermanist scheme.
In the pamphlet, Pan-Germany and Central Europe about 1950, published in Berlin in 1895, which contains the whole Pangermanist plan, we find the following:—
‘Poland and Little Russia [the kingdom to be established at Russia’s expense] will agree to have no armies of their own, and will receive in their fortresses German or Austrian garrisons. In Poland, as well as in Little Russia, the postal and telegraph services and the railways will be in German hands.’
For twenty-two years the Pangermanist scheme has been followed up. Tannenberg, in his book, Greater Germany, which appeared in 1911,—a work whose exceptional importance has been demonstrated by events, and which, in all probability, was inspired officially,—prophesies very distinctly,—
‘The new kingdom of Poland is made up of the former Russian portion, of the basin of the Vistula, and of Galicia, and forms a part of the new Austria.’
These most unequivocal words appeared, it will be admitted, three years before the war. Now Le Temps of September 7, 1917, said on the authority of the Polish agency at Berne, which is subsidized by Austria and publishes news communicated to it by the government of Vienna,—
‘Germany would take such portion of Russian Poland as she needs to rectify her “strategic frontiers.” This portion would include almost a tenth of Russian Poland. The rest would be annexed to Austria. The Emperor Charles would thereupon issue a decree of annexation of Russian Poland to Galicia, under the title of Kingdom of Poland.... The dual monarchy would then become triple, and the first result of this readjustment would be to compel all Poles to undergo military service in the Austrian armies. All the deputies representing Galicia would automatically leave the Austrian Reichsrath, to enter the new Polish Parliament, which would give the German parties in the Austrian Parliament a certain absolute majority.’
This result of the present action of Vienna and Berlin, foreshadowed by the Temps apparently for the near future, has been in view for twenty-two years. In fact, in the fundamental pamphlet of 1895, already quoted, it is said that ‘Galicia and the Bukowina will be excluded from the Austrian monarchy. They will form the nucleus of the kingdoms of Poland and Little Russia ... which, however, may be united, by the personal link of the sovereign, to the reigning house of Hapsburg.’
So it is that, very far from having forced anything on Germany in relation to Poland, Charles I of Hapsburg has shown that he submits with docility to the Pangermanist decrees, since he gives his entire adhesion to the carrying into effect of the plan followed at Berlin from 1895 to 1914—for nineteen years before hostilities began! The actual fact, therefore, is the direct antithesis of what the conclusions of many Allied newspapers have, of course in absolute good faith, permitted their readers to believe. Now everything goes to show that this error arises solely from a technical ignorance of the Pangermanist scheme, of which the guiding spirits of the Entente seem to have no more conception than a considerable portion of the Allied press. However, if they wish for victory, the Allies must inevitably act in systematic opposition to the Pangermanist scheme. They cannot therefore dispense with the necessity of becoming thoroughly familiar with it.
Nor is there any more reliable guide, since the events that have taken place for three years past have demonstrated the absolute accuracy of the Pangermanist outgivings anterior to the war. Knowing what the Germans are going to do, we can deduce therefrom the best means of opposing it. If this method had been followed, no serious error would have been committed by the Allies. They would have understood that Germany was making war in behalf of the Hamburg-Persian Gulf enterprise,—which was intended to supply her with the instruments of world-domination; that, consequently, the Danube front, which the Allies held, must be retained at whatever cost, which would have been, comparatively speaking, very easy, if they had recognized in time this imperative necessity.
Now, if the Allies had retained their hold of the Danube front, the war would have been over nearly two years ago. It is, in fact, solely because they did not grasp the necessity of thus holding it, that the Germans have been able to carry out their Eastern plan and to constitute the Pan-Germany which must now be destroyed in order to avoid the defeat of civilization, and eventual slavery. To effect this destruction is infinitely easier than is generally believed, on the condition that the most is made of the causes tending to the internal dissolution of Pan-Germany. But, to understand these available causes, familiarity with the Pangermanist scheme is indispensable. It is urgently necessary, therefore, to put an end to this intolerable condition, namely, that, while the Allies have an extraordinary opportunity to become accurately acquainted with the whole programme of procedure at Berlin, as contained in a multitude of German documents,—that is to say, the real objects of Germany in the war,—while they have this opportunity, they go on acting and arguing as if that programme did not exist. It is this condition which proves most clearly the extraordinary and enduring credulity which the Allies exhibit in face of the endless German intrigues.
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