Since the beginning of hostilities there has been a formidable extension of Prussian militarism. At first, it held in its grasp only the sixty-eight million people of the German Empire. By April, 1915, it had extended and organized its influence among the thirty millions of Austro-Hungarians, who until that time had taken orders from their own independent military chiefs. After October-November, 1915,—the date of Serbia’s downfall,—the Prussian system reached out to Bulgaria and Turkey. By taking account of these extensions and adding together the populations of the territories occupied by Germany, together with those of her infatuated allies, one finds that to-day Prussian militarism no longer controls sixty-eight million souls, as at the beginning of the war, but about one hundred and seventy-six million European and Ottoman subjects.
This is the brutal, overwhelming fact which Americans must face if they wish to learn the sole solution of the war which will assure to them, as well as to the rest of the world, a durable peace.
The following figures will show how the three groups of the population of Pan-Germany were divided at the beginning of 1917:—
| 1. The Masters | ||||||
| Germans | 73,000,000 | |||||
| 2. The Vassals | ||||||
| Magyars | 10,000,000 | |||||
| Bulgars | 5,000,000 | 21,000,000 | ||||
| Turks | 6,000,000 | |||||
| 3. The Slaves | ||||||
| French | (about) 3,000,000 | |||||
| Belgians | 7,500,000 | |||||
| Alsatians, Lorrainers | 1,500,000 | |||||
| Danes | 200,000 | |||||
| Poles, Lithuanians | 22,000,000 | |||||
| Ruthenians | 5,500,000 | |||||
| Czechs | 8,500,000 | 82,000,000 | ||||
| Jugo-Slavs | 11,000,000 | |||||
| Roumanians | 8,000,000 | |||||
| Italians | 800,000 | |||||
| Armenians | 2,000,000 | |||||
| Levantines | 2,000,000 | |||||
| Ottoman Greeks | 2,000,000 | |||||
| Arabs | 8,000,000 | |||||
| Total | 176,000,000 | |||||
To sum up, seventy-three million Germans rule over twenty-one million vassals and eighty-two million slaves,—Latin, Slavic, Semitic, belonging to thirteen different nationalities,—who are bearing the most cruel and unjustifiable yoke that the world has ever known.
It is undeniable, moreover, that each extension of Prussian militarism over a new territory has enabled Germany to prolong the struggle by obtaining new supplies of food, new reinforcements to press into her service and territory to exploit, new civil populations, whose labor is made use of even in works of a military nature. As a result, the technical problem now confronting the Allies in Europe is, through the mistakes of their former leaders, infinitely more complicated than at the outbreak of hostilities.
To-day Berlin, by means of Prussian terrorism methodically and pitilessly employed, disposes of the military and economic resources of one hundred and seventy-six million people, occupying a strategic position in the centre of Europe which is all to her profit. It is this very state of things, founded on the slavery of eighty-two millions of human beings, which is intolerable.
III
Many times, and rightly, the Allies have declared that it was not their object to exterminate the German people and bring about their political extinction. On the other hand, it is just and essential to proclaim that Pan-Germany must be destroyed. On this depends the liberty, not only of Europe, but of the whole world. This is the point of view which, in the crisis of to-day, should prevail with Americans, for the following reasons. Suppose that Pan-Germany were able to maintain itself in its present position. It cannot be denied that its territory contains considerable latent military and economic resources, as well as strategic positions of world-significance, like the Dardanelles. If these resources were freely exploited and developed to their highest pitch by the relentless organizing spirit of Berlin, Prussianized Pan-Germany, dividing Europe in two, would dominate the Continent, uncontestably and indefinitely, by means of her crushing strength. France, Russia, England, Italy, ceasing to exist as great powers, could only submit to Germany’s will. And Berlin, mistress of Europe, would soon realize, not merely the Hamburg-Bagdad and Antwerp-Bagdad railways, but the Brest-Bagdad line as well; for Brest has long been coveted secretly by the Pan-Germanists, who would make of it the great military and commercial transatlantic port of Prussianized Europe.
Moreover, if Germany achieved the ruin of the Allies, it is entirely probable that the General Staff of William II would launch a formidable expedition against the United States without delay, in order to allow her no time to organize herself against the Prussian tyranny hypothetically dominating Europe. Even if Berlin felt it necessary to defer this step, Americans would none the less be forced to prepare for the inevitable struggle and to serve an apprenticeship to militarism which would be odious to them. If Americans, then, see things as they really are, and perceive the dangers to which they are pledging their future, they will be convinced that they, as much as Europeans, have a vital interest in the annihilation of Pan-Germanism. In a word, it is clear that any peril accruing to the United States from Europe can arise only from so formidable a power as Pan-Germany, and not from a Germany kept within her legitimate frontiers, and forced to behave herself, by the balance of other powers.