I.
The Pangerman plot in its broad outlines was laid as early as 1895, but since that date events have happened throughout the world, which encouraged Pangermans to enlarge the structure of their scheme.
In 1898 the Fashoda incident almost caused a breach between France and England. In 1905 Japan compelled Russia to sign peace after a long war which exhausted all the Tsar’s military resources and disturbed the balance of power in Europe for a long time to the advantage of Germany. In 1909 the Vienna Government, under cover of the veiled ultimatum which Berlin sent to the Tsar, carried out the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, countries which are almost entirely peopled by Serbians. This seizure of a huge Slav territory was a great triumph for Germanism. On November 3rd, 1910, at the Potsdam meeting, the Kaiser obtained from the Tsar’s Government the abandonment of all opposition to the completion of the Bagdad railway. England and France took up the same attitude. On July 1st, 1911, the Kaiser ventured on the Agadir episode, which was clearly an attempt to force a quarrel on France. It led to the Franco-German treaty of November 4th, 1911, which ceded to Germany 275,000 square kilometres of the French Congo, while at the same time the commerce of Morocco was heavily mortgaged in favour of Germany.
These various events deeply injured the interests of France, England and Russia; but these powers preferred to submit to the hardest sacrifices rather than undertake the dreadful responsibility of letting loose a fearful war on Europe. The Pangermans misread this attitude as a sign of weakness, and of a desire to keep the peace at all costs; and accordingly they were encouraged to entertain high hopes of huge success in a near future. That is why the original Pangerman plan of 1895, considerably altered, became the perfected plan of 1911.
THE PANGERMAN PLAN OF 1911.
This plan of 1911 (see map) provided in Europe and in Western Asia:
1º. The establishment, under German rule, of a vast Confederation of Central Europe, comprising:
| Square Kilometres. | Inhabitants. | |
|---|---|---|
| In the West: | ||
| Holland | 38,141 | 6,114,000 |
| Belgium | 29,451 | 7,500,000 |
| Luxemburg | 2,586 | 260,000 |
| Switzerland* | 41,324 | 3,800,000 |
| The Departments of the North of France to the N.E. of a line drawn from the S. of Belfort to the mouth of the Somme | ||
| about | 50,271 | 5,768,000 |
| Total | 161,773 | 23,442,000 |
| To the East: | ||
| Russian Poland | 127,320 | 12,467,000 |
| Baltic Provinces, Esthonia, Livonia, Courland | 94,564 | 2,686,000 |
| The three Russian Governments of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno | 121,840 | 5,728,000 |
| Total | 343,724 | 20,881,000 |
| To the South-East: | ||
| Austria-Hungary† | 676,616 | 50,000,000 |
| These three groups form a grand total of 1,182,113 Square Kilometres and 94,323,000 inhabitants. | ||
| * Minus eventually the French and Italian Cantons which the Pangermans declare that they do not care to annex. | ||
| † Minus the Italian regions of the Trentino, which Berlin decided to cede (at the expense of Austria) to Italy as the price of her neutrality. | ||
This confederation was thus to group under German supremacy
| Square Kilometres. | Inhabitants. | |
|---|---|---|
| Actual German Empire | 540,858 | 68,000,000 |
| New territories of the Confederation | 1,182,113 | 94,000,000 |
| Total | 1,722,971 | 162,000,000 |
of whom only 77 millions are Germans and 85 millions non-Germans.
2º. The absolute subordination of the Balkan countries (containing 499,275 square kilometres and 22 millions of non-Germans) to the Great Central European Confederation. The Balkan States to become mere satellites of Berlin.
3º. Germany’s political and military seizure of Turkey, which was afterwards to be enlarged by the annexation of Egypt and Persia. It was provided that Turkey should be dealt with in two successive stages. During the first, the handful of “Young Turks” who have ruled the Ottoman Empire since 1908, and who play the German game, were to remain in power merely as figure-heads. Turkey was to retain a nominal independence during this phase, though in reality she was to have been tied to Germany by a treaty of military alliance. Under pretence of effecting reforms, numerous German officials were to be placed at the head of all the Ottoman administrations, and that would have paved the way for the second stage. The latter had for its aim the putting of Turkey, with her 1,792,000 square kilometres and her 20 millions of non-German inhabitants, under the strict protectorate of Germany, to say nothing of the subject provinces, Egypt and Persia.
The Germanic Confederation of Central Europe was to form a huge Zollverein or Customs Union. Treaties of Commerce of a special character imposed on the Balkan States and on subjected Turkey would have provided for Great Germany an economic outlet and reserved for her exclusively those vast regions.
Finally, we can sum up the Pangerman plan of 1911 in four formulas:
Berlin—Calais; Berlin—Riga; Hamburg—Salonika; Hamburg—Persian Gulf.
The union of the three groupings—Central Europe, Balkan States and Turkey—would have placed under the predominating influence of Berlin 4,015,146 square kilometres and 204 millions of inhabitants, of whom 127 millions were to be ruled directly or indirectly by merely 77 millions of Germans.
This continental Pangerman plan of 1911 was to have been completed by colonial conquests of great magnitude, of which an account is given at the end of Chapter V.
William II. was well aware that such a project could only become an enduring reality if all other great powers disappeared from the face of the earth. The Kaiser had therefore positively resolved, when hatching his Pangerman plot, to accomplish the destruction of five great powers. It is necessary to grasp fully this fundamental truth, if we wish to understand the nature of the present war. It was foreseen that Austria-Hungary would disappear by her absorption under cover of entrance into the German Zollverein. France and Russia were to have been totally ruined by means of a furious preventive war which would entirely destroy their military forces. England was to be put out of action by a subsequent operation, which would have been an easy matter when once France and Russia had been dismembered and reduced to utter impotence. As to Italy—destined to become a vassal state—she was not considered as being capable of hindering in the least the Pangerman ambitions. One of the Kaiser’s agents for propagating this scheme wrote in 1900: “Italy cannot be looked upon as a rival for she is too incompetent in warfare” (Deutschland bei Beginn des 20 Jahrhunderts, p. 53. Military publishers, R. Felix, Berlin, 1900).
It must be added that the Pangerman plot of 1911 did not include war with England. When he declared hostilities in August, 1914, William II. was convinced that England would take no share in them, at least not immediately. The Kaiser had laid every conceivable kind of trap to add fuel to the flames of all internal English disturbances and to deceive the London Cabinet. At one moment he almost succeeded in his endeavours. England’s decision to participate without delay in the struggle only hung by a thread, but that thread was broken. If England had tarried, if she had tarried only for a few days, German landings in Normandy, Brittany, and as far as Bordeaux would have been effected. France being thus rendered quickly powerless on all sides, the English intervention would have proved futile at a later stage, and the Pangerman plan of 1911 would thus have been fully achieved. But in going to war just at the right moment and in controlling the sea, Great Britain has, while saving herself, furnished to civilized humanity the means of avoiding the Prussian yoke. The initial German plan has truly been upset by English intervention following on the respite gained by the splendid resistance of Belgium in arms.
But the Germans are clever, they are stubborn and crafty. Adapting themselves to new conditions thrust on them, they are still endeavouring to make an enormous profit out of the war. We must, therefore, try to understand what operations they have devised for carrying out, even now, the Pangerman plot almost in its entirety.