III.
The Pangerman aims with regard to Switzerland, as set forth in the plan of 1895, are summed up as follows:—
“We may then leave Switzerland to choose, whether she shall enter the German Customs Union and the Pangerman Confederation bringing all her cantons or only the German ones with her, or whether she shall form part of the German Empire on equal terms as a Federal State” (see Grossdeutschland um das Jahr 1950, p. 17).
The Pangerman programme is, therefore, definitely directed against Switzerland (see the map on p. 188), but Berlin has always flattered itself with the hope of absorbing this little State, like Holland, without resort to force, simply in the course of nature and as a consequence of the defeat of the great European powers.
What is certain is that before the war the prestige of Germany in German Switzerland was so great, and the organization of the German propaganda in this part of Helvetia was so perfect, that all the excuses published by the Berlin government to explain and justify the violation of Belgium were swallowed without winking by the German Swiss.
But since then a slow change of sentiment has taken place. The enormous annexations contemplated by Germany, the atrocious manner in which she is waging the war, and, above all, the terrible horrors perpetrated in Serbia, have at last convinced an increasing number of Swiss that a victory for Germany would create a formidable danger for the whole civilized world in general, and for the independence of Switzerland in particular.
A gentleman at Zurich, whose position affords him ample opportunity for forming a just appreciation of the state of affairs, gave me recently the following concise statement of the real feeling in German Switzerland: “The majority of the intellectuals, almost all of whom have studied in Germany, and a part of the business men, are the only resolute champions of Prussia. They would be quite willing to see Switzerland absorbed in Pangermany. But the Swiss who hold that view are only a small minority. In German Switzerland most of the manufacturers, almost all of whom have suffered very heavily in recent years through the keenness of German competition, desire a German defeat, which would be in harmony both with their opinions as liberals and with their interests as manufacturers, by relieving the strain of the present fierce competition in business. As for the mass of the German Swiss—and that is the important point—they are by no means in love with the Prussians, as people in France wrongly imagine. They are before all things Swiss.”
The Swiss have resolved to defend their neutrality against the first of their neighbours that shall violate their frontier. The Allies wish for nothing more than that. They only desire that the Swiss should impress this truth more and more clearly on their minds, that in presence of the formidable Pangerman ambition the victory of the Allies is a condition essential to the maintenance of the Helvetic Confederation.