The Objective of the World-War
Since the outbreak of the World-War in 1914 there has been much speculation as to the real objective and purpose of Germany in bringing it about.
Do the facts stated in the present chapter afford any help towards a solution of this problem?
We have seen the nature of the aims cherished by Germany towards Africa, the practical and persistent efforts she made during a long series of years for their attainment, and the substantial expenditure she incurred in the hope of at last securing the prize she considered was awaiting her.
We have seen how the purpose of Germany in Africa was less to develop colonies for their own sake than to regard them as points from which to absorb or to control neighbouring territories.
We have seen how the development of rival railways in Central Africa had recently threatened the supremacy Germany hoped to gain and may, indeed, have suggested to her the need for early vigorous effort, if she wished still to secure the realisation of her aims.
We have seen what, in the view of the German Foreign Minister, should be the fate of small Powers which stand in the way of the aggrandisement of great ones.
We have seen, also, how, in the opinion of officers serving in German South-West Africa, the real purpose of the war to which they were looking forward, and for which they were preparing, was the German annexation of Africa, and how the "smashing up" of France and Great Britain, the overthrow of Belgium, the seizure of Portuguese possessions, and the virtual absorption of the proposed new Boer Republics were to be the preliminaries to a final transformation of the whole African Continent into a German possession—the "new Empire" which, in the words of von Weber, was to be "possibly more valuable and more brilliant than even the Indian Empire."
May one not conclude, in face of these and of all the other facts which have here been narrated, that one, at least, of the main objectives of Germany (apart from minor ones) in provoking the Great War was no less a prize than the African Continent;[74] and that when she invaded Belgium and France she did so less with the object of annexing the former country, and of creating another Alsace-Lorraine in the latter than of having "something in her hand" with which to "bargain"—in the interests of her projects in Africa—when the time came for discussing the terms of peace, assuming that she had not already attained her purpose at the outset by the sheer force of what she thought would be her irresistible strength?
If this conclusion should seem to be warranted, on the basis of what has already been told, it may certainly be regarded as confirmed by the fact that, down to the moment when these lines are being written, any suggestions coming from German sources as to possible terms of peace have invariably included proposals for the concession to Germany of territory in Africa as "compensation" for the surrender of territory she has herself occupied in Belgium and France.
Thus, in a despatch published in The Times of September 4, 1915, a statement was reproduced from the Chicago Tribune giving, on the authority of "a writer in close touch with the German Embassy," the terms on which Germany would be prepared to agree to peace. These terms included the following:—
The cession of the Belgian Congo to Germany, as compensation for the evacuation of Belgium.
The cession of African colonial territory to Germany by France, as compensation for the evacuation of Northern France.
Then, also, on October 24, 1915, the New York American published a long interview with Professor Hans Delbrück on the terms of peace which Germany hoped to secure if "President Wilson and the Pope" would consent to act as mediators. The interview (which had been approved by the German censor) included the following passage:—
It is quite possible that peace could be secured by ceding to Germany such colonies as Uganda by England and the French and Belgian Congos as a ransom for the evacuation by Germany of Northern France and Belgium.
Such concessions, if one can conceive the possibility of their being made—would still leave Germany far from the attainment of her full African programme; but the fact of these proposals being put forward at all as "terms of peace" is quite in keeping with the whole course of Germany's policy in Africa, and points clearly to what may, in fact, have been her chief objective in the war itself.
Any moral reflections either on the said policy or on the "programme" by means of which it was to have been carried out would be beyond the scope of the present work.
What we are here concerned in is the fact that Germany's dreams of an African Empire, given expression to by von Weber in 1880, and the subject of such continuous effort ever since, were, in the possibilities of their realisation, based primarily on the extension and utilisation of such facilities for rail-transport as she might be able either to create or to acquire.