These figures prove to demonstration that early in 1916 Germany had achieved the Pangerman plan of 1911 in the enormous proportion of 87%, or about nine-tenths.
This figure is graphically confirmed by the annexed map; we can see at a glance the geographical as well as superficial relations which exist between the boundaries of the plan of 1911 and the fronts occupied early in 1916 by armies exclusively subordinate to Berlin.
THE PLAN OF 1911 AND THE EXTENT OF ITS EXECUTION AT THE BEGINNING OF 1916.
These geographical and mathematical considerations, the importance of which cannot escape us, explain why and under what conditions Germany wished to make peace. She wished it simply because, as the Frankfurter Zeitung owned, without mincing matters, in December, 1915, the goal of the war had been reached.
Nine-tenths of the whole of the Pangerman plan of 1911 having been practically achieved, in spite of England’s intervention, which, however, had upset the German Staff’s plan, it is absolutely clear that the results obtained by Germany have been considerable in the extreme. Nothing could therefore be more to her advantage now than to succeed in putting an end to the war at a time when German influence extends unchecked over almost the whole of the invaded territories.
These statements again explain why Berlin has for such a long time been occupied with the most subtle and most complex manœuvres for the opening of peace negotiations—attempts at a separate agreement with Russia, efforts to obtain the Pope’s intervention, advances made by the pseudo-socialists of the Kaiser towards their former comrades of belligerent countries, incitements to pacificists of all neutral countries, etc. Germany would have concluded peace at the moment which was most favourable to her, so as to be able to impose on the territories which she has either conquered or controls the special status provided for each of them by the Pangerman plan. But of course Germany would only have made such treaties as were compatible with her retention of all the regions she occupied at the time. As Major Moraht said very clearly in the Berliner Tageblatt: “Our military chiefs are not in the habit of giving back what we have acquired at the price of blood and of sacrifice” (Le Matin, 27th December, 1915).
Lastly, the chief reason why Berlin wanted peace is that the prolongation of the war can only compromise and finally ruin all the results obtained by Germany.