VIII.
I come, finally, to the economic causes of the war. I must reluctantly confess that I do not share the opinion of some eminent writers, who regard these causes as the most prominent and the most decisive. Germany, according to them, determined to make war—on Russia and France, be it noted, for prior to the invasion of Belgium there was no thought of other opponents—in order to secure indispensable markets for her goods and to avert an imminent economic crisis.
It would be superfluous here to give the figures recorded in all the tables of statistics, proving the enormous development of German industry throughout the forty-four years of peace that have elapsed since the Treaty of Frankfort. Like all growths that are too speedy, this development had its weak points, its alarming symptoms; it did not bear the look of perfect health. In an organism that was shooting up so rapidly, a sudden crisis, a violent illness, was likely to produce fatal complications. Too many enterprises were being founded on advances from banks. The great financial and industrial companies were inflating their share and debenture capital to such an extent that any slackening in production would have threatened to suspend the payment of dividends. Two-thirds of the population lived on the wages earned in workshops and factories. A stoppage in the activity of the latter, involving prolonged loss of work, would have meant a dearth of bread in countless homes and a great outcry of distress from countless throats. It was therefore the imperative duty of the Government, not only to see that the existing outlets for the national industry were kept open, but to provide for the acquisition of new ones. Already some ominous bankruptcies had warned the authorities of what might happen. Over-production would inevitably lead to extreme measures, in order that there might be no congestion. Among these measures, the only infallible one was war, with its invasion of foreign markets by force, its wiping out of those competitors who would not let German labour enjoy the monopoly that it needed. Such, in a crude outline, are the arguments adduced to show the overwhelming importance of economic causes.
If from industry we pass to farming on a large scale, which is organized in Prussia on industrial lines, we observe a specious prosperity, depending in no small degree on the renewal of the commercial treaty with Russia. This treaty, concluded at a critical moment, after the Russo-Japanese war, empowered the great Prussian landowners, thanks to surreptitious export bounties, to send their wheat and their rye even to Finland, whereas Russian agricultural produce could only enter Germany after the sale of the German crops.
Well, in my opinion, it would have been a very bad stroke of policy to begin the capture of the French markets by ruining France—this being the most likely result of a successful war. Before leaving Berlin, I already heard some talk of an indemnity of £1,200,000,000 to be extorted from the vanquished Republic. Bismarck had bitterly repented having asked for no more than £200,000,000 in 1871, and there was to be no repetition of that blunder. To this enormous ransom must be added the vast sums that the war would have cost France, the ruin of the departments invaded, the havoc wrought by the victors, all the appalling balance-sheet of a national disaster. How would the sufferers have been able to pay for the goods with which German industry proposed to flood their country? The purchasing power of France after the restoration of peace would have been reduced to the barest minimum. New markets would have been of little use to Germany, if they had lost much of their vitality and absorbing power, as would certainly have been the case in a country that she had bled almost to death. One can hardly see the necessity of capturing the French home trade on such terms as these.
Another plan that I have heard ascribed to the great German manufacturers was that of industrializing France after her defeat, setting up workshops and factories under the control of German engineers and overseers, introducing the methods of work, the technical improvements and the organization that had made Germany the wonder of the world, and developing by intensive culture the wealth of that admirable French soil. Why, by so doing they would have breathed fresh life into an ancient rivalry which they had almost succeeded in sweeping from their path! At the moment when German industry was suffering from over-production and plethora, they would have aroused a competition favoured in many respects with peculiar natural advantages. I really cannot hold them capable of so signal a miscalculation. I will readily admit, however, that they might have hoped to oust a ravaged and ruined France from those foreign markets in which she still held a strong position. Still, this project would have been difficult to carry out as regards the special articles for which the French are noted.
Russia, if beaten, would probably have been forced to sign a new commercial treaty, even more profitable to German agriculture and industry than the previous compact. Yet I am inclined to doubt whether, with the great Empire of the Tsars impoverished, the Germans would have done better business there than before the war, or have found the new openings that they required. Moreover, can we feel convinced that the Slav farm-labourers would have flocked in such great numbers as of old to the land of their conquerors, in order to offer them their indispensable labour-power? We must not underrate the force of the hatred and rancour that a devastating war will leave behind it, a war carried on after the methods of the Berlin Staff. Furthermore, I cannot believe that economic causes had the slightest influence on the attack prepared by that Staff against Russia.
There remains the question of colonies. For twenty-five years Germany had been obsessed with the desire to own a wide domain outside Europe. The fairly extensive territories that she ruled in Africa, so far from satisfying her, had only served to whet her appetite. A huge Continental empire, without adequate oversea possessions, did not fit in with the plan that the architects of her future greatness were drawing up. The idea of an empire provided with vast colonies was suggested to them, above all, by the example of England; but as there was no longer any unoccupied space worth mentioning in Africa, they dreamed of stripping France, Portugal, and Belgium of their African dominions, and establishing a black Germany which should become the handmaid and slave of their own blond Germany.
As regards the colonies, I grant that economic motives have counted for something in the ambitions of the Imperial Government. The influence of these motives is not hard to trace. The manufacturers wished to possess in Africa the raw materials that they could not obtain at home, such as phosphates, ores, rubber, and the like, instead of having recourse to foreign ports. They could not shut their eyes to the splendid vision of French Africa, Algeria, and Tunis (to say nothing of Morocco), whence France annually imported goods to the value of twenty to twenty-four million pounds sterling. This magnificent region was already fully colonized, and the only way of supplanting her trade there was to wrest the colonies from her by force. Indo-China did not seem to tempt German greed, perhaps on account of the Yellow Peril, which William II. had slightly on the brain, and which he was peculiarly fond of discussing.
On the other hand, the position of German industry, hazardous though it appeared to more expert eyes than mine, by no means demanded the use of so heroic a remedy as a European war. What would the United States do, we may ask—they who have been the educators of Germany in industrial matters—in the event of a glut in the products of their foundries and steelworks, and a partial choking up of the vital outlets? They would let their trusts readjust the market, drain off the excess of output, close the superfluous workshops, relieve the situation generally, but they would not declare war on any foreign nation. Economic competition, in all its stages, is a war not fought with the soldier’s weapons. It brings ruin in its train, too, but the ruin is not beyond repair. A series of costly victories in battle would not deliver German industry from the constant nightmare of the struggle for existence, any more than they would make Germany the serene and unquestioned mistress of the entire globe. The commercial and industrial welfare of a nation is always menaced by the progress of others, by the relaxation of its own efforts, and by various incalculable factors.
The merciless war waged against us by the Kaiser’s troops is above all, in my humble opinion, a political campaign. Economic causes have been grafted upon the primary cause, but the part they have played is a subordinate one. The schemes framed in Berlin are no longer wrapped in the haze that once surrounded them, but reveal themselves to us in clear outline. What was the object of hurling two million men at France, while the Russian armies were held in check and the Austrians were sent to annihilate Serbia? To crush once for all the military Power that stood in the way of German imperialism; to deprive Russia of all concern in European affairs; to seize for Germany the whole coast-line of the North Sea; to make her a Mediterranean Power by annexing French Africa; to dissolve the Balkan alliances and deal the death-blow to Slav hopes; to give Austria the suzerainty of the Balkan peninsula; finally, to hold undisputed sway at Constantinople and in Asiatic Turkey as far as the Persian Gulf. The exploitation of Central Africa, requiring as it did vast capital, was an economic task that could not be carried out in a day, and was therefore reserved for an early future date. The same remark applies to the completion and utilization of the Bagdad Railway. A few decisive battles, it was thought, would be enough to enslave Continental Europe, and to build up, on the basis of that “Mid-European Confederation” of which the German intellectuals speak quite openly to-day, the political supremacy of Germany, while England would be left isolated, an easy prey to her rival in a later campaign.