On the 28th October, 1900, speaking at an officers’ mess, William II. affirmed: “My highest aim is to remove whatever separates our great German people.” Now, in September, 1900, at Stettin, the Kaiser had just declared: “I have no fear of the future. I am convinced that my plan will prove successful.” In the Kaiser’s mind the whole matter was summed up in the chief formula of Pangerman domination: From Hamburg to the Persian Gulf. To accomplish this object the Kaiser had decided to forge closer and still closer links between Austria-Hungary and Germany. In order to consolidate his supremacy over the Balkan peoples he reckoned on the co-operation of such of their Kings as were Germanic by origin (Bulgaria and Roumania), or on others who were strongly influenced by Germany—in reality by himself.
Thus he arranged the marriage of his own sister, Sophia, in 1889, with the heir of the Throne of Greece, King Constantine of to-day. Finally, almost immediately after his accession he had begun to think of showering his Imperial favours on the Turks and the Musulmans; this was with the object of seizing the Ottoman Empire, later on, and of making use of the Mahometans of the whole world as a mighty lever against all other powers.
On November 8th, 1898, at Damascus, William II. pronounced the famous words, the full significance of which is only made clear now that we have seen the German action develop in Turkey and Persia, and that we have learnt about William’s endeavours to cause an agitation among the Musulmans of Egypt, India and China:
“May His Majesty the Sultan, as well as the three hundred millions of Musulmans who venerate him as their Khalifa, be assured that the German Emperor is their friend for ever.”
The adulation of the sanguinary Sultan Abdul-Hamid proved of practical use to William II. He obtained on the 27th November, 1899, the first concession of the Bagdad railway; now that railway, although still unfinished, has just been utilized by the German offensive both against Russia and England.
All over his Empire William II. had encouraged the formation of military and naval leagues—which number millions of members who, for the last twenty years have carried on an incessant propaganda in favour of such German armaments by land and sea—as were wanted by the Kaiser.
Again, William II. encouraged the creation of the Alldeutscher Verband. This association or Pangerman Union, counts among its members a large number of important and influential persons, and at the door of this society must be laid the most overwhelming responsibility for the outbreak of the war. Founded in 1894, it has organized thousands of lectures besides scattering broadcast millions of pamphlets to spread Pangerman notions and to get the masses of the people to favour schemes of aggrandizement. It was due to the Alldeutscher Verband that all the Germans living outside the Empire were formed into a systematic organization for the present war; this being specially the case in Austria and in the United States.
Is it possible to believe that such an autocrat as William II. had not desired this end? How could three powerful associations, with ever-growing means of action, have carried on a most costly, as well as a most violent propaganda, in a police-ridden country like Germany, unless they had been approved of by the authorities usually so meddlesome or so vigilant?
As to the hour of the war, who set the clock going, if it were not the Kaiser? As a matter of fact he put the hands of the dial forward (see Chapter II).