The Watchers Of The Troad
By HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN
Where Ilium's towers once rose and stretched her plain,
What forms, beneath the late moon's doubtful beam,
Half living, half of moonlit vapor, seem?
Surely here stand apart the kingly twain,
Here Ajax looms, and Hector grasps the rein,
Here Helen's fatal beauty darts a gleam,
Andromache's love here shines o'er death supreme.
To them, while wave-borne thunders roll amain
From Samos unto Ida, Calchas, seer
Of all that shall be, speaks: "Not the world's end
Is this, but end of our old world of strife,
Which, lasting until now, shall perish here.
Henceforth shall men strive but as friend and friend
Out of this death to rear a new world's life."
The Union of Central Europe
An Argument in Favor of a Union of the States Now Allied With Germany
By Franz von Liszt
Professor Franz von Liszt, author of the following article, is Director of the Criminal Law Seminar of the University of Berlin, and is regarded as one of the leading experts on criminal law in Germany. The article was published in the Neue Badische Landes-Zeitung of Mannheim, and evoked bitter criticism from many imperialistic quarters in the German press.
When new directions of development are first taken in history, it usually requires the lapse of several decades before we understand them in their true importance, and it takes much longer before proper terms describing them are adopted generally. In the interim, misconceptions of all kinds are the necessary consequence of clouded perception and confused terminology, especially when, for purposes of party politics, there figures in a greater or less degree a certain unwillingness to understand.
Such misunderstandings are not devoid of danger in times of peace; they may become pregnant with fate when, as in our day, the leading nations of the earth stand at the threshhold of a great change in their history. I am anxious, therefore, to defend against objections raised with more or less intentional misunderstanding the thoughts which I expressed in my recently published essay, "A Central European Union of States as the Next Goal of German Foreign Policy."
Let us for once put aside the word "Imperialism." Surely we are all agreed as one that it is an absolute essential of life for the German Empire to carry on world-politics, (Weltpolitik.) We have been engaged in that since the eighties of the nineteenth century. The first colonial possessions which the German Empire obtained were the fruits of a striving for world-politics that had not yet at that time come to full and clear consciousness.
But, conscious of our goal, we did not attempt the paths of world-politics until the end of the last century. At the celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the German Empire, on Jan. 18, 1896, our Kaiser uttered the words: "The German Empire has become a world empire, (Aus dem deutschen Reich ist ein Weltreich geworden.)" And the German Empire's groping for its way in world-politics found its expression in the first naval proposal of Tirpitz in the year 1898.
At that time the Imperial Chancellor Prince Hohenlohe expressly designated the policy of the German Empire as "world politics." Thereby a goal was sketched for the development of the German Empire. We have not lost sight of it since then, keeping unconfused despite many an illusion and many a failure. And today we all live in the firm faith that the world war, which we are determined to bring to a victorious conclusion by the exertion of all our forces as a people, will bring us the safe guarantee for the attainment of our goal in world politics.
On that score, then, there is absolutely no difference of opinion. But there does appear to be considerable difference of opinion as to the conception of world politics. Under that name one may mean a policy directed toward world domination (Weltherrschaft.) For that kind of world politics the word "Imperialism," borrowed from the period of Roman world domination of the second century of the Christian era, fits precisely.
Imperialism aims, directly or indirectly, through peaceful or forceful annexation or economic exploitation, to make the whole inhabited earth subject to its sway. Imperialistic is the policy of Great Britain, which has subjected one-fifth of the inhabited area of the earth to its sway and knows no bounds to the expansion of English rule. Imperialistic, too, is the policy of Russia, which for centuries has been extending its huge tentacles toward the Atlantic and toward the Mediterranean, the Pacific, and the Indian Oceans, never sated.
Such world domination has never endured permanently; it can endure least of all in our days, in which an array of mighty armed powers stand prepared to guard their independence. World domination sooner or later leads inevitably to an alliance of the States whose independence is threatened; and thereby it leads to the overthrow of the disturber of the peace. That, as we all confidently hope, will be the fate of England as well as of Russia in the present war....
World politics, however, may mean something else; policies based upon world value, (Weltgeltung.) The policy based on world domination differs from that based on world value, in that the former denies the equal rights of other States, while the latter makes that its premise. The State that asserts its rights to world values demands for itself what it concedes to the others: its right to expand and develop its political and economic influence, and to have a voice in the discussion whenever the political or economical relations of the various States at any point in the inhabited globe approach a state of change....
In this sense has the German Empire heretofore engaged in world politics in contrast with Russia and England. That it cannot be carried on successfully without overseas colonies, a strong foreign fleet, naval bases, and telegraphic connections through cable or wireless telegraph apparatus, needs no further elucidation. For this sort of world politics also the name "Imperialism" may be used. But such use of the word is misleading; I shall therefore hereafter avoid it.
And herein I think I have uncovered the deeper reason for an early misunderstanding of great consequence. It seems as though in a certain—to be sure, not a very great or very influential—circle of our German fellow-citizens the opinion prevails that the German Empire should substitute its claims for world domination for those of England. Such a view cannot be too soon or too sharply rebuked.
The claim for world domination would set the German Empire for many years face to face with a long series of bloody wars, the issue of which cannot be in doubt a moment to any one familiar with history. The enforcement of this claim, moreover, would of itself be the surrender of the German spirit to the spirit of our present opponent in the war. The idea of world domination, imperialism in the true sense of the word, is not a product grown on German soil; it is imported from abroad. To maintain that view in all seriousness is treachery to the inmost spirit of the German soul.
Perhaps I am mistaken in taking it for granted that such thoughts are today haunting many minds. Perhaps it is merely a matter of misapplied use of a large sounding word. In that case, however, it is absolutely necessary to create clear thinking. I take it for granted that I am voicing the sentiments of the souls of the vast overwhelming majority of Germans when I say: "We shall wage the war, if need be, to the very end, against the English and Russian lust for world domination, and for Germany's world value (Weltgeltung.")
But forthwith there appears a further difference of opinion, to be taken not quite so seriously, which I shall endeavor to define as objectively as possible. The German conservative press seems to be of the opinion that the goal for the winning of which we are waging the great war, and concerning which we are all of one mind, will be definitely attained immediately upon the conclusion of the war.
I, on the other hand, am convinced that in order permanently to insure for ourselves the fruits of victory, even after a victorious conclusion of the war, we shall need long and well planned labors of peace....
In my essay I used the statement: "England's claim for the domination of the sea, and therein for the domination of the world, remains a great danger to the peace of the world." To this view I adhere firmly. Let us take it for granted that the most extravagant hopes of our most reckless dreamers are fulfilled, that England is crowded out of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Persia, and is involved in a long-lasting war with the native Indians. An impossibly large dose of political naïveté is needed in order to make us believe that England would take this loss quietly for all time.
We may differ on the question whether we should meet England's efforts for rehabilitation of her world dominion in warlike, or, as I take it, in peaceful ways; but it would be an unpardonable piece of stupidity for us to rock ourselves to sleep in the mad delusion that those efforts would not be exerted. Even were England forced to her knees, she would not immediately give up her claim for world domination. We must count upon that.
And, counting upon that, we must estimate our own forces very carefully; rather account them weaker than they really are, than the reverse. I did that in my essay, and that is why the conservative press was so wrought up over it. To be sure, it carefully avoided discussing my reasons.
I started from the conception of world power which is fairly well established in the present political literature. From a point of view taken also by conservative writers I demanded as a characteristic of world power, in addition to the size of territories and the number of population, above all, the economic independence that makes it possible for a State, in a case of need, to produce, without export or import, all foodstuffs, necessities, raw materials, and all the finished or half-finished products it needs for its consumers in normal times, as well as to insure the sale of its surplus.
It is patent that this economic independence is influenced by the geographical position of the fatherland and its colonies. Now, I defended the theory (and my opponents made no attempt to confute it) that even after a victorious war the German Empire would not have fully attained this economic independence; that, accordingly, after the conclusion of peace, we must exert every effort to insure this economic independence in one way or another.
As to the course which we must follow to attain this goal, there may be various opinions. I proposed the establishment of a union of Central European States. The conservative press characterized that as "utterly pretentious."...
If the course I have proposed is considered inadvisable, let another be proposed. But on what colonies, forsooth, do those gentlemen count, that could furnish us with cotton and ore, petroleum and tobacco, wood and silk, and whatever else we need, in the quantity and quality we need? What colonies that could offer us—do not forget that—markets for the sale of our exporting industries? Even after the war we shall be dependent upon exports to and imports from abroad.
And so there is no other way of safeguarding our economic independence against England and Russia than by an economic alliance with the States that are our allies in this war, or at least that do not make common cause with our enemies. Aside from the fact, which I shall not discuss here, that only such an alliance can insure a firm position for us on the Atlantic Ocean, which in the next decades is bound to be the area of competition for the world powers.
Politics are not a matter of emotion, but of calm, intelligent deliberation. Let us leave emotional politics to our enemies. It is the German method to envisage the goal steadily, and with it the roads that lead to that goal. Our goal is not world domination. Whoever tries to talk that belief into the mind of the German people may confuse some heads that are already not very clear; but he cannot succeed in substituting Napoleon I. for Bismarck as our master teacher.
Our goal can only be the establishing of our value in the world among world powers, with equal rights to the same opportunities. And in order to attain this goal we must, even after the conclusion of peace, exert all our forces. A people that thinks it can rest on its laurels after victory has been won runs the risk sooner or later of losing that for which its sons shed their blood on the field of battle. With the conclusion of peace there begins for us anew the unceasing peaceful competition and the maintenance and strengthening of the world value which we have won through the war. German imperialism is and will remain the work of peace.