I.
The map (p. 46) sums up Prussianized Germany’s pretensions which she still expected to carry out west of the Rhine at the beginning of 1916.
The best way to prove this intention is by means of extracts from the memorial sent by the most powerful German associations on May 20th, 1915, to the Imperial Chancellor (quoted by Le Temps, 12th August, 1915). I have mentioned (see page 18) why this document must be looked upon as of extremely exceptional importance.
THE GERMAN CLAIMS IN THE WEST (Beginning of 1916).
As to what concerns Belgium the memorial says:
“Because it is needful to insure our credit on sea and our military and economic situation for the future in face of England, because the Belgian territory, which is of the greatest economic importance, is closely linked to our principal industrial territory, Belgium must be subjected to the legislation of the Empire in monetary, financial and postal matters. Her railways and her water courses must be closely connected with our communications. By constituting a Walloon territory and a Flemish territory with a preponderance of the Flemish, and by putting into German hands the properties and the economic undertakings which are of vital importance for dominating the country, we shall organize the government and the administration in such a manner that the inhabitants will not be able to acquire any influence over the political destiny of the German Empire.”
In a word, it is slavery that is promised to the Belgians. In order to prove clearly that this means exactly the achievement of the plan Berlin had elaborated for twenty-five years, it is important to notice that the fate of the annexed populations, meted out in the above memorial, is exactly the same fate mentioned in the pamphlet published under the auspices of the Alldeutscher Verband, the Pangerman Union, wherein the Pangerman plan of 1895 is set forth (see the text already quoted, p. 4).
The only difference to be noticed in the evolution of the Pangerman ideas between 1895 and 1916 is that after their experience with the Slavs and Latins of Austria-Hungary, the Germans deem it possible and advantageous, by an application of Prussian methods of terrorism, to compel non-Germans to fight for the benefit of Pangermany; true, these people shudder with horror at the notion, but stiffened by a strong infusion of Germans, they are forced to march to the shambles in order to secure slavery and bread for their families under the German yoke.
“As to France,” continues the memorial of the 20th May, 1915, to the Imperial Chancellor, “always in consideration of our position towards England, it is of vital interest for us, in respect of our future on the seas, that we should own the coast which borders on Belgium more or less up to the Somme, which would give us an outlet on the Atlantic Ocean. The Hinterland, which it is necessary to annex at the same time, must be of such an extent that economically and strategically the ports, where the canals terminate, can be utilized to the utmost. Any other territorial conquest in France, beyond the necessary annexation of the mining basins of Briey, should only be made in virtue of considerations of military strategy. In this connection, after the experience of this war, it is only natural that we should not expose our frontiers to fresh enemy invasions by leaving to the adversary fortresses which threaten us, especially Verdun and Belfort and the Western buttresses of the Vosges, which are situated between those two fortresses. By the conquest of the line of the Meuse and of the French coast, with the mouths of the canals, we should acquire, besides the iron districts of Briey already mentioned, the coal districts of the departments of the Nord and of the Pas de Calais. This expansion of territory, quite an obvious matter after the experience obtained in Alsace-Lorraine, presupposes that the populations of the annexed districts shall not be able to obtain a political influence on the destiny of the German Empire, and that all means of economic power which exist on these territories, including landed property, both large and middling, will pass into German hands; France will receive and compensate the landowners.”
In order to justify these formidable annexations the memorial of the 20th May, in harmony with the frank cynicism of the Pangerman doctrine, adduces no argument but the convenience of Prussia and the profitableness of the booty to be got.
“If the fortress of Longwy, with the numerous blast furnaces of the region, were returned to the French, and if a new war broke out, with a few long range guns the German furnaces of Luxemburg (list of which is given) would be paralyzed in a few hours.... Thus about 20% of the production of crude iron and of German steel would be lost....
“Let us say, bye the bye, that the high production of steel derived from the iron-ore gives to German agriculture the only chance of obtaining the phosphoric acid needed when the importation of phosphates is blockaded.
“The security of the German Empire, in a future war, requires therefore imperatively the ownership of all mines of iron-ore including the fortresses of Longwy and of Verdun, which are necessary to defend the region.”
These various declarations, made on high authority enable us to affirm, that on the whole the annexations which the Pangermans intended to make in the West would have extended in France more or less to a line drawn from the South of Belfort to the mouth of the Somme, that is, so far as concerns France, they would comprise a total area of 50,271 square kilometres, which, before the war, held 5,768,000 inhabitants.
Further, as regards France, the intended annexations were, according to Pangerman conceptions, to have had a double effect.
1º. By taking over the richest industrial and mining French regions, Germany would secure an enormous booty.
2º. Deprived of her most productive departments, which bear the main burden of taxes, and which hold mining elements indispensable to economic life, France would have been maimed and reduced to a state from which it would have been a sheer impossibility for her to recover or ever again to become a power capable of thwarting in any shape whatsoever the future determinations of Germany.
A few figures will enable us to verify this forecast. At the beginning of 1916 the Germans were holding 138,000 hectares of the coal basin of the department of the Nord, being 41% of the total superficies worked in France (337,000 hectares), or about three-fourths of the total French production. The Germans also occupied 63,000 hectares of the iron-ore basin of Lorraine which represents 75% of the superficies of all the iron beds worked in France (83,000 hectares), and nine-tenths of the total production. It is clear, that were such a state of things to continue, economic and therefore national life would be made radically impossible in France, shorn of her vital organs. In reality France would be in a position of entire dependence on Germany in accordance with the Pangerman schemes for the future.
It is still necessary to mention that in the territories occupied by Germany in the West, as well as everywhere else, the measures already taken by the Germans in 1916 were not merely measures of military defence, but measures for the organization and permanent possession of the said territories. These measures to ensure permanent possession may be classed in the following categories:
Measures of terrorism applied in Prussian fashion so as to bring into subjection all refractory elements.
Measures of division, such as in Belgium, the Germans take in order to rouse, by all possible means, opposition between the Flemish and the Walloons for the purpose of neutralizing the one by the other.
Measures of strict and regular administration in order, by the bait of some external or economic advantages, to accustom to the German yoke those elements of the population whose moral resistance, in the opinion of Berlin, can be most easily broken.
Measures tending to prepare the German colonization of the new territories. These have mostly consisted in applying the Pangerman theory of Evacuation, that is, by systematically transporting the unfortunate women or old people whom Germany considers absolutely useless in her future possessions. She found it, for instance, very convenient to rid herself without delay of these poor creatures especially when the question of feeding them cropped up; so these “useless mouths” were promptly transferred to the shoulders of the enemy, whom Germany already looked upon as vanquished. That is the theory of Evacuation, which explains to a large extent why the German authorities have sent back to France that part of the populations of the occupied territories in France and Belgium whom, on exact inquiry, they regarded as human wastage.
No doubt, as is shown on map (p. 46), Germany did not at the beginning of 1916 occupy quite all the territories she coveted. She missed Calais, Belfort, and Verdun, but it is easy to see that she did so only by a hair’s breadth.
The Western territories which were to enter into the Germanic Confederation of the 1911 plan include:
| Square Kilometres. | |
|---|---|
| Holland | 38,141 |
| Belgium | 29,451 |
| Luxemburg | 2,586 |
| French Departments | 50,271 |
| Total | 120,449 |
Now Luxemburg and Belgium were entirely occupied (excepting a patch of Belgium). If Germany was to hold Belgium, Holland, which is not occupied, but which is geographically invested, would inevitably be forced to enter into the Germanic Confederation. We must, therefore, consider Holland as being virtually under Germany’s thumb. As, on the other hand, out of 50,271 square kilometres which she wished to annex at the expense of France, Germany, at the beginning of 1916, occupied 20,300, we conclude that the German enterprises in the West, which, according to programme, ought to have comprised 120,449 square kilometres, in point of fact extended directly or indirectly over 90,478 square kilometres.
Germany therefore, early in 1916, had achieved in the West an occupation foreseen by the plan of 1911 and at the expense of non-Germans in the proportion of 76% or three-fourths.