II.
Nine-tenths of the Pangerman plan of 1911 having been for the moment achieved, the Allies can avail themselves of this fact as evidence to counteract speedily and everywhere, the effects of the German propaganda, and to prove to the civilized world the legitimacy and the necessity of their military action against Prussianized Germany.
Starting from the practical proofs and the German declarations, both of them indisputable, which we have just set forth, the propaganda of the Allies should be able speedily to demonstrate to neutrals the absolute falsehood of the German allegations. Hence it should prove that:
1º. Germany made the war, after very long premeditation, solely for the sake of executing the Pangerman plan of 1895-1911, the aim of which is to effect formidable conquests and to subject in Europe and Turkey 127 millions of non-Germans to the yoke of 77 millions of Germans (see p. 15).
2º. If the war is prolonged, it is only because Germany has not renounced her plan of universal domination.
3º. In claiming to carry out her scheme “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf,” Germany by no means aims at securing for the world that freedom of the seas which, according to her, has been usurped by England; on the contrary, the intention of the Berlin government is, by means of the inevitable consequences of the “Hamburg to the Persian Gulf” scheme, to get possession of all the strategical points necessary to ensure the command of the sea all over the world (see p. 106).
4º. In virtue of these consequences, the accomplishment of the “Hamburg to the Persian Gulf” scheme would directly threaten the independence of all the civilized States in the world, especially of Japan, the States of South America, and the United States.
5º. No comparison is possible between the violation of Belgian neutrality by Germany and the Allies’ occupation of Salonika.
The Allies did not go to Greece to take possession of the country, as the Germans did to Belgium. The Allies went to Greece to assist their ally Serbia, which, moreover, was the ally of Greece, and to oppose the spoliation of Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, and Turkey, by Germany. The treaties which give Turkey, France, England, and Russia the right of protecting the Hellenic constitution, greatly endangered by German influences at Athens, are sufficient to justify, on the ground of international law, the presence of the Allies in Greece. But it is necessary, further, to state clearly that they are there in virtue of a still higher right, that of safeguarding the collective liberty of the nations. A comparison will enable us to appreciate this point of view, the statement of which is perhaps novel. According to the civil law, private property is inviolable. But if any man, passing a garden which the right of private property forbids him to enter, sees on the other side of the garden a ruffian in the act of murdering a person for the purpose of robbing him, he not only has a moral right, but is in duty bound to cross the garden to help his fellow who is in danger of his life. There is not a court of justice in the world that would blame the worthy and courageous citizen for having violated the rights of private property in succouring his fellow man. But the Allies went to Salonika with exactly the same intention. They have passed through Greece in order to seize by the throat the Pangerman ruffian who is violently robbing Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, and Turkey; who is destroying by millions in these countries the Antigermanic civil populations; who, shrinking from no crimes, however heinous, claims to lay hands on riches untold, and to secure his illgotten gains by capturing the whole region from Vienna to the Persian Gulf, which would furnish Germany with the means of maintaining her world-wide dominion (see p. 106).
Now, as my readers have been able to see for themselves, there is, by reason of the temporary success of the Pangerman plot, abundance of unimpeachable arguments, numerical, geographical, ethnographical, in support of these conclusions. These irrefragable arguments are therefore calculated to make the greatest impression on neutrals, because they are of a nature to appeal to their higher feelings and at the same time to show how their own interests are jeopardized. If the Allied propaganda is once co-ordinated and fortified by these arguments, set forth methodically, the moral, economic, and military effects, which the German propaganda has undoubtedly produced to the advantage of Germany, would soon be annulled, and the Allies would justly reap similar advantages, which would hasten the victory.