From 1892 down to the outbreak of the War, that is to say, for twenty-two years, the Pangerman movement has developed with ever growing intensity; a multitude of publications, giving full details of the plan, were scattered among the German people, in order to excite in them the greed of conquest and so prepare them for the struggle through the allurement of plunder. Of these publications two are of special importance: first, the pamphlet published under the auspices of the Alldeutscher Verband: namely, Grossdeutschland und Mitteleuropa um das Jahr 1950 (Thormann und Goetsch, Berlin, 1895), which gives the Pangerman plan of 1895: second, the book of Otto Richard Tannenberg: Grossdeutschland, die Arbeit des 20ᵗᵉⁿ Jahrhunderts (Bruno Volger, Leipzig-Gohlis, 1911), which gives all suitable details of the plan of 1911.
Unfortunately, although this Pangerman literature is very considerable, full of documentary evidence and spread broadcast among the masses by most powerful associations, whose patrons are the highest authorities in the land, few people outside of Germany would believe in its extreme importance. But now the facts speak for themselves. The reality, the extent, and the successive stages of the Pangerman plan of 1911 are shown by:
1º. The course which Germany has taken since August 1st, 1914, in her political and military operations which have for their object not, as many have supposed, the obtaining of securities, but the annexation of territories in the manner set forth in Tannenberg’s book, and more or less in accordance with the plan of 1911.
2º. The memorial delivered on May 20th, 1915, to the German Chancellor by the League of Agriculturists, the League of German Peasants, the Provisional Association of Christian German Peasants, now called the Westphalian Peasants’ Association, the Central German Manufacturers’ Union, the League of Manufacturers, and the Middle-Class Union of the Empire (see Le Temps, 12th August, 1915). The importance of this document cannot be overrated, for it is issued by the most powerful associations of the Empire, including all the influential elements of the German nation, specially the agrarians and the iniquitous Prussian squires. Now the purport of that memorial, as will be shown, is to demand all such annexations mentioned in the Pangerman plan of 1911, as the development of military operations has so far rendered feasible. Any one who knows Germany can hardly doubt that this memorial was not handed in to Bethmann-Hollweg without a previous understanding with him. Doubtless it was intended that this document should seem to exercise an overmastering pressure of public opinion on William II.’s government. But if the ideas expressed in this memorial reflect, as they certainly do, the wishes of influential German circles, it is also unquestionable that they correspond very closely to the scheme of aggrandizement, which William II. has been nursing for over twenty years.
3º. The declarations made at the sitting of the Reichstag of the 11th December, 1915, prove the exactitude of this statement. The Imperial Chancellor said:
“If our enemies will not submit now, they will be obliged to do so later on.... When our enemies shall offer us such peace proposals as are compatible with the dignity and security of Germany we shall be ready to discuss them.... But our enemies must understand that the more unrelentingly they wage war, the higher will be the guarantees exacted.”
Bethmann-Hollweg could hardly have spoken more explicitly, but his diplomatic game was naturally to unmask Germany’s enormous pretensions only bit by bit, in order that the eyes of neutrals should not be opened to the Pangerman monster in all its horror until the last moment. But hardly had the Chancellor finished his speech than the Deputy Spahn explained the real drift of it with great precision:
“We await,” said Herr Spahn, “the hour which will allow of peace negotiations which will safeguard in a permanent way and by all means, including the needful territorial annexations, all military economic and political interests of Germany in its total extent.”
The thundering applause which greeted these words proves that they echoed the sentiments of the overwhelming majority of the German deputies, who at that moment still believed that it was possible for Germany to achieve enormous annexations.