NAVY MERELY PROTECTIVE
Our situation became more serious since we were obliged to build a navy for the protection of our welfare, which, in the last analysis, was not based on the nineteen billions yearly to which German exports and imports amounted. The supposition that we built this navy for the purpose of attacking and destroying the far stronger English fleet is absurd, since it would have been impossible for us to win a victory on the water, because of the discrepancy between the two navies. Moreover, we were striding forward in the world market in accordance with our desires and had no cause for complaint. Why, then, should we wish to jeopardize the results of our peaceful labors?
In France the idea of revenge had been sedulously cultivated ever since 1870-71; it was fostered, with every possible variation, in literary, political, and military writings, in the officer corps, in schools, associations, political circles.
I can well understand this spirit. Looked at from the healthy national standpoint, it is, after all, more honorable for a nation to desire revenge for a blow received than to endure it without complaint.
But Alsace-Lorraine had been German soil for many centuries; it was stolen by France and taken back by us in 1871 as our property. Hence, a war of revenge which had as its aim the conquest of thoroughly German territory was unjust and immoral. For us to have yielded on this point would have been a slap in the face to our sentiments of nationality and justice. Since Germany could never voluntarily return Alsace-Lorraine to France, the French dream could be realized only by means of a victorious war which should push forward the French boundary posts to the left bank of the Rhine.
Germany, on the contrary, had no reason for staking what she had won in 1870-71, so the course for her to pursue was to maintain peace with France, all the more so because of the fact that the combination of the powers against the German-Austrian Dual Alliance was continually becoming more apparent.
As to Russia, the mighty empire of the Tsars was clamoring for an outlet on the sea to the southward. This was a natural ambition and not to be harshly judged. In addition, there was the Russian-Austrian conflict of influence, especially in Serbia, which also concerned Germany in so far as Germany and Austria-Hungary were allies.
The Russia of the Tsars, moreover, was in a state of continual internal ferment and every Tsaristic Government had to keep the possibility for a foreign conflict ever in readiness, in order always to be able to deflect attention from inner troubles to foreign difficulties; to have a safety valve as an outlet for the passions that might lead to trouble at home.
Another point was that Russia's enormous demand for loans was met almost exclusively by France; more than twenty billions of French gold francs found their way to Russia, and France had a voice, to some extent, in determining how they should be expended. As a result, it became entirely a matter of expenditure on strategic measures and preparations for war. The golden chain of the French billions not only bound Russia to France financially, but made Russia serve the French idea of revenge.