The PanGerman Plot Unmasked: Berlin's formidable peace-trap of "the drawn war"

by André Chéradame

IV.

The accompanying map summarizes and recalls the Pangerman claims to such direct German protectorates in South America as were provided for by the plan of 1911 (see p. 105).

It is important to observe that the German designs on South America began just at the time when the European nations, acquiescing in the Monroe doctrine, renounced all intentions of appropriating any part of the New World. This renunciation took place about 1898, the date of the war between Spain and America. That was the very moment when the Pangermanists of Berlin conceived and prepared to execute the plan of extending in the future the power of the Hohenzollerns to Cape Horn. This fact, taken in conjunction with many others, serves to demonstrate the spirit of conquest and aggression, the boundless ambition which animates the Germany of William II.

The preparations for carrying out the Pangerman plans in South America were, as everywhere else, conducted by the organizers of the movement most methodically.

COLONIAL PANGERMANISM AND SOUTH AMERICA.

Having thus settled on their plan of 1895, they proceeded to draw up an actual register of all the Germans existing on the face of the terrestrial globe, in order to pick out from them such as were likely to prove the most serviceable tools in executing the Pangerman scheme. The general results of this register of Germans all over the world are to be found, in a concentrated form, in the Pangerman Atlas of Paul Langhans, published by Justus Perthes at Gotha in 1900.

So far as relates to South America, this document proves that there were

In Peru	in 1890	2,000	Germans
In Paraguay	in 1890	3,000	”
In Colombia	in 1890	3,000	”
In Uruguay	in 1897	5,000	”
In Venezuela	in 1894	5,000	”
In Chili	in 1895	15,000	”
In Argentina	in 1895	60,000	”
In Brazil	in 1890	400,000	”

These Germans have been strongly inoculated, especially since 1900, by the Pangerman Societies. They have been organized with particular care in the countries which, like Argentina, and, above all, Brazil, were intended to be the principal German protectorates in South America.

The German law, called Delbrück’s law, of July 22nd, 1913, dealing with the nationality of the Empire and the nationality of the State, has greatly favoured the Pangerman organization in America. Hence it is needful to be acquainted with at least the substance of the Delbrück law, since it formed the last stage, and a very significant one, in the Pangerman organization all over the world before the outbreak of war.

The second part of article 25 of that law runs as follows:—“If any person before acquiring nationality in a foreign State, shall have received the written permission of a competent authority of his native State to retain his nationality of that State, he shall not lose his nationality of the said native State. The German consul shall be consulted before granting the said permission.”

These words afford us a measure of the depth of German astuteness. According to this provision, a German may become a naturalized subject of a foreign State, but if he obtains a written permission from the competent authorities of his native German State, he continues, in spite of this naturalization, to enjoy, for himself and his descendants, all the rights of a German citizen and all the protection of the German Empire.

These provisions being contrary to all the general principles of international law on the subject of nationality, a German citizen who benefits by them will take very good care not to acquaint the foreign State whose nationality he has acquired, with the highly peculiar situation in which he stands. By this process Germany has been able to have in every State agents devoted to her aggressive policy, without these States being aware of the danger they run through this secret service. In fact, these States had, to all appearance, to do only with fellow countrymen whom they had no right to suspect. It was only after many months of war, when their criminal action compelled them to take off the mask, that the dangerous power of these Germans disguised as foreigners appeared in all its formidable and insufferable dimensions.

This state of things explains why, during the first months of the war, intoxicated by the powerful German propaganda, and ignorant of the disasters with which Europe and still more themselves were threatened by the Pangerman plot, the States of South America were unable to perceive the peril at their door and to understand that they had a direct interest in the issue of the European war. But now public opinion in these countries is advancing steadily towards a complete apprehension of the truth.

Peru and Chili, one after the other, are slipping through the meshes of the German net.

In Argentina the movement in favour of the Allies is also growing rapidly. But it is above all in Brazil, the southern part of which is most particularly coveted by the Germans, that the progress of enlightenment is especially interesting to watch. For a long time the Germans have concentrated their colonial efforts particularly on three Brazilian States, to wit, Parana (60,000 Germans), Santa Catarina (170,000), and Rio Grande do Sul (220,000). In these rich provinces, the Germans, preserving the language, the traditions, the prejudices of the Fatherland, are almost absolute masters. Only 47,000 of them are openly citizens of the German Empire; the rest, about 400,000, are apparently Brazilian subjects, but in virtue of the Delbrück law a considerable part of them have in reality remained or become once more liege-men of William II. Moreover, the budget of the German Empire included a sum of 500,000 marks to be devoted to the establishment or the support of German schools in Brazil. In 1912 Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of William II., in the course of his cruise, landed at the port of Itajahy to pay a visit to his fellow countrymen in Santa Catarina. Since the outbreak of the European war the game of the Germans in Brazil has been gradually revealed in its true colours, and it has been lately discovered that the numerous Rifle Clubs were in fact societies for military drill and dangerous enough to necessitate their disarmament.

In the rest of Brazil, outside the three provinces mentioned above, the Germans are not numerous, but they fill most of the principal posts in business houses and banks. In the first period of the war these Germans founded Germanophile newspapers published in Portuguese, and thereby prevented Brazil from getting accurate information as to the origin and course of the conflict.

But despite this clever opposition, ever since the battle of the Marne the cause of the Allies has been steadily gaining ground in Brazil. A powerful impulse to the movement has been given by the action of Portugal in taking up arms, for there are 600,000 Portuguese in Brazil.

Thus in South America the tide is clearly running in favour of the Allies. A new stage will be reached when these States come clearly to understand that in view of Pangerman colonial ambitions, which threaten them personally, they have a direct interest in the complete victory of the Allies, which alone can deliver them from the fear of the German peril. They will then reach the same definite and sound conclusion at which, as I shall show further on, the United States is logically bound to arrive.

When that is so, it is possible, if not probable, that these South American States, or at least the principal among them, will no longer be satisfied to remain neutral. They will then acknowledge that a true view of their own interest compels them to strike, with all their might, a blow for the common freedom.