VIII.
As you walk along the Wilhelmstrasse, coming from Unter den Linden, you see, to the right, a long building of only one story, in the obsolete style of the early nineteenth century. It looks very bare and unpretentious by the side of the eighteenth century mansions that flank it right and left and the palatial Government offices, of more recent construction, that lie opposite. This venerable edifice is no other than the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Auswärtiges Amt, of the Empire. Here, fifty years ago, were planned the changes that the Hohenzollerns wrought with their swords in the map of Europe; here is the real starting-point of their Imperial power. As you enter and go up the marble staircase, you catch the musty smell that comes from masses of papers and documents in an old and ill-ventilated building. Follow the main corridor which cuts it in half, and a polite attendant will escort you to a room that is scarcely any larger than a monastic cell. You go in, and find yourself face to face with the Under-Secretary of State.
Herr Zimmermann is a blond Teuton, with a military moustache and a pleasant smile that gives promise of a cordial welcome. This high official is a self-made man in the full sense of the term. He won such distinction by his services as consul in the Far East that the authorities recalled him and gave him an appointment at Foreign Office headquarters. Here, by sheer merit, he has risen to the exalted post in which his capacity for work and his sound judgment have won him the confidence of the Chancellor and of two successive Foreign Secretaries, as well as the good graces of the Emperor. Every one in Berlin thinks that Herr Zimmermann, who has gone so far, is likely to go still further.
He might reasonably be called a godsend to diplomats. Heads of legations and chargés d’affaires, looking for news or short of information, apply to him, in order to be able to apprise their Government of matters in which they are interested. The Under-Secretary of State merely says what has to be said, without betraying any secrets of the Imperial Chancellery; but this is enough to put his hearers on the right track, for his communications are always accurate.
Is it possible for us to divine his personal feelings with regard to the war? Would it be impugning his patriotism to doubt whether he was firmly convinced of its necessity? These questions are not easy to answer, for on this topic no German capable of frankness, unless he is hopelessly saturated with Pan-Germanism, will speak out nowadays before a stranger. What I can say, without fear of contradiction, is this: that the Under-Secretary of State was not a wholehearted supporter of the policy of alliances bequeathed by Bismarck, since he realized all the entanglements and dangers that they involved. How often, during the Balkan crisis, was he seen to express his impatience with the Cabinet of Vienna, when the latter turned a deaf ear to the good advice telegraphed from Berlin! When I took leave of him, before returning to my unhappy country, which had already been invaded by the advance-guard of the German army, he said to me, in a tone of unfeigned regret: “Ah, this war means the end of the policy of alliances!” What a world of sorrow and disappointment lay in this avowal!
His constant relations with the directors of great companies, with commercial and industrial magnates, who were invited to his bachelor table together with foreign diplomats, led the latter to suppose that their host shared the pacific ideas of their fellow-guests. A prolonged era of peace was required, if the vigorous development of the national resources was to continue. This is an incontestable truth, which cannot be repeated too often. Moreover, a prolonged era of peace would have enabled the Germans, by virtue of their genius for organizing, their methodical ways, and their capacity for hard work, to become the leading nation in almost every sphere of international competition, owning the main sources of industrial production, and holding the unquestioned economic supremacy of Europe. Yet they have been mad enough to make a bid for this supremacy by a war that is utterly at variance with the progress of civilization! It is difficult to see how so enlightened a man as Herr Zimmermann, one so closely in touch with the needs of industrial Germany, could have been anything but a pacifist.
The principal task of those who direct foreign affairs is the same in all great capitals. One must be a Bismarck to plan one war after another a long time in advance, while conducting the foreign policy of the State. Bismarck’s excuse lies in the fact that these wars were essential for German unity. Once his end was gained, the all-powerful minister put Prussia’s sword back in its sheath, and devoted himself to consolidating the glory and the conquests that had been won. The Berlin Foreign Office cannot really be suspected of having worked in the dark against the maintenance of a peace policy, such as was pursued during the last twenty years of the Iron Chancellor. To avoid needless conflicts, to scatter the clouds as soon as they gathered at any point on the horizon, to ward off the frightful perils of a European conflagration—this has been the noble duty and the thankless task of diplomats throughout the last few years, in the positions of watchmen or pilots which they have held in foreign countries or at the head of the home department. At the Wilhelmstrasse, as elsewhere, the officials were faced with the duty of trying to fulfil these lofty moral obligations; they did so with a mixture of civility and gruffness, and their changes of mood were too obvious, but they undoubtedly meant well.
Here arises a difficult question. In view of the definite aspirations of a large element in the German nation, with their manifest desire for expansion, how did the Foreign Office propose to satisfy them? Was it merely aiming at a vague peace policy, or had it any tangible schemes in view?
A book and a pamphlet published in 1913, when a festival was held to celebrate the twenty-fifth year of William II.’s reign, gives us the key to the riddle. They throw a discreet but sufficient light upon the policy of expansion recommended at the Wilhelmstrasse.
The book—Imperial Germany—is by Prince von Bülow, who thus broke the silence he had observed since the day of his retirement. He reviews the political history of the Empire for the past quarter of a century, and points to the path which it ought to follow in the future both at home and abroad.
According to the ex-Chancellor, the Germany of to-day can no longer cling to Bismarck’s Continental policy or obey the precepts handed down by him to his successors. She must open out for herself new and broader tracks, corresponding to the progress achieved in the last thirty years. During this period, the population has increased by twenty million souls, and her industry, fostered by an enormous growth in labour-power, has crossed the seas in order to distribute over the entire globe those products which the home markets were no longer capable of absorbing. This vast industrial output has made it necessary to build a mercantile marine, to which more and more units are added every year, and this commercial fleet has brought in its train the construction of an imposing navy. The last-named enterprise was fraught with difficulties; for we could not avoid exciting the jealousy of England, and in order to succeed it was essential to beware of arousing her hostility. England looks with no friendly eye on the rise of a foreign naval power, which might seek one day to contend with her the mastery of the seas. Germany has no intention of issuing such a challenge to England, as the France of Louis XIV. and the United Provinces did in days gone by. Although the German navy has become, in the course of a few years, the second in the world, its sole mission is to watch over German trade and German interests, to see that they are not obstructed in any way. Just as German industry, after being exclusively domestic and national not long since, has become world-wide, so German statesmanship, which was exclusively European in the days of Bismarck—for it then had no other object than to secure for Germany her rightful place in the first rank of Continental Powers—has likewise been raised to a world-wide plane. Prince von Bülow is careful to insist upon the purely defensive rôle that the Imperial fleet has marked out for itself, and, in order to reassure us as to the peaceful aims of the new statesmanship, he quotes the following passage from a speech made by him in the Reichstag on 6th November 1906: “It is the duty of our generation to uphold our position on the Continent, which is the basis of our international position; to protect our interests abroad; and to pursue a sober, judicious, and far-sighted international policy, limited in such a way that the safety of the German people shall incur no risks and the future of the nation shall not be jeopardized.”
Sage counsels these! But to our Latin mind, with its passion for clearness, the phrases “international policy,” “transmarine policy,” “world policy,” which are so plentifully sprinkled about the ex-Chancellor’s pages, convey no very precise meaning. Was it world-policy that involved, for instance, the sending of a few cruisers to the Mexican coast to protect German trade and German residents during the war between Huerta and Carranza? Was it the same policy that brought about the dispatch of a squadron to the China Seas, in order to seize Kiauchau and Tsingtau, and to obtain by main force from the Chinese Government the concession of a naval station and a rich mining territory, with the right of erecting formidable defence-works? Prince von Bülow has himself felt the need of throwing a little light for his readers upon the dark recesses of his thought. He gives us to understand that Germany now possesses the means, not only of safeguarding her interests, of resisting any attack, but also of extending her influence everywhere, especially in Asia Minor and Africa.
The pamphlet entitled Die Weltpolitik und kein Krieg (“A World-policy without War”) is more explicit. It bears no signature, but according to the view generally accepted in the best-informed political circles in Berlin, it was issued under the auspices of the Foreign Office. The latter has not denied its paternity.
The nameless author first of all sets forth the reasons why a Continental war is apparently no longer to be feared. The Balkan League has dissolved in blood, and, no less than Turkey, those allies of yesterday who are implacable foes to-day will need time for healing their wounds and recruiting their strength. France has her hands so full with the pacification of Morocco that she does not wish to cause any complications in Europe. Russia is turning her eyes more and more towards Central Asia. Anglo-German relations are improving every day. Germany is devoting herself to the expansion of her commercial and industrial power; she has invested large sums of capital in her railway enterprises in Asia Minor, but she must not extend these enterprises indefinitely, since it might not be feasible for her to protect them in the event of war. Germany is not yet a Mediterranean power; to defend the concessions granted to her subjects in Syria and Asia Minor, her fleet would have to pass under the guns of Gibraltar, Malta, and Bizerta.
There remains Africa. Sir Edward Grey has stated in Parliament that Britain will not oppose the advance of German colonization, for she herself has no thought of acquiring fresh colonies. Portugal and Belgium are not in a position to colonize their African territories: the former, because of her financial weakness and her internal dissensions; the latter, because she does not wish to spend the sums needed for developing the Congo, which she annexed in the delusive hope that it would cost her no sacrifices. German capital and the aptitude of the German race for colonizing, its commercial ability, and its spirit of enterprise, are the only factors capable of spreading civilization in the heart of the Dark Continent and exploiting its wealth. The co-operation of Germany, therefore, is essential both for the Belgians and for the Portuguese. She might occupy a position in their colonies similar to that of France in Tunis and Morocco, or to that of Russia in Persia. It would be a peaceful penetration and development, in which the Belgians, with their keen business instinct, would be willing to take part, even if the Portuguese did not clearly understand its necessity.
This is something definite to go upon. The international or world policy, as conceived by the Wilhelmstrasse in 1913, was a colonial expansion, proceeding on peaceful lines.
In the ensuing winter the Imperial Government opened negotiations with the London Cabinet for the demarcation of British and German spheres of influence in the African colonies of Portugal; the former was to have comprised Mozambique, the latter Angola. Without waiting for the conclusion of these negotiations, a committee of research was formed in Hamburg, for the purpose of investigating the agricultural and mineral wealth of Angola, and great German banks tried to obtain control of the Lobito Bay railway, which runs from the coast of the Portuguese colony to Katanga in the Belgian Congo.
In the foregoing pages, while sketching the portraits of those who direct Germany’s foreign policy, I have tried to summarize the views of each, as they appear to me in the light of their acts, their private statements, and their occasional public declarations. We have seen how the Chancellor nursed the hope of maintaining friendly relations with England, come what might; how Herr von Jagow set little store by the national life of small States; and how the more practical minds of the Under-Secretary and the Foreign Office staff contented themselves with immediate colonial expansion and the opening up of new fields for the activities of the German race. All these individual aspirations, however, were overshadowed by the will, as yet inscrutable, of the Emperor. When that will was revealed in the tragic last days of July, these men all hastened to obey its bidding with equal alacrity.