Now that they have laid their hands on nine-tenths of the territories which they coveted (see p. 63), the Germans will only give in at the last extremity. Maximilian Harden has peremptorily declared: “Every means will be enthusiastically employed against her enemies by the German people. We will go back to the times of savagery when man was a wolf for his fellow man” (quoted by Le Temps, 9th February, 1916). In face of this firm resolution of the Germans to achieve at all costs the plan of universal domination, a plan of which the “Hamburg to the Persian Gulf” project is the necessary and sufficient backbone, the real destruction of Prussian militarism becomes more than ever a duty. Only this result can repay the sacrifices of the admirable “Tommies” of the Allied armies. If they are determined to hold on as long as necessary, it is not to cover themselves with military glory; it is to acquire the certainty “that it shall not begin again, that their children shall not know horrors like those of the hellish struggle initiated by Prussianized Germany.”
The Allies will certainly issue as conquerors from this dreadful war, but on condition that in future the struggle should be directed by the lessons of experience. These essential lessons are the outcome of the geographical, ethnographical, economic, and strategical elements which constitute the Pangerman plan of 1911, temporarily accomplished. Now, these lessons of experience show that the Allies could not possibly be content with a half-and-half victory; a complete victory alone can guarantee them against any aggressive revival, after peace, of Prussian militarism.
The following considerations appear strongly to justify this opinion:
“If in France,” declares Harden, “they think that the re-establishment of peace can only be made possible by the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, and if necessity should oblige us to sign such a peace, the 70 millions of Germans would very soon tear that peace to tatters” (quoted by Le Temps, 9th February, 1916). Is there a single living Frenchman of sense who would be willing to recover Alsace-Lorraine under such conditions that it would be necessary afterwards to make incessant and exhausting military efforts in order to keep the restored provinces? Certainly not. The restoration of Alsace-Lorraine will only become of value for France when the annihilation of Prussian militarism shall guarantee her a legitimate and peaceful possession of the territories in question. Now, as I think I have proved, it would be impossible to reckon on this security if France allowed Berlin to carry out the scheme “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf,” which would furnish Germany with superabundant means to retake Alsace-Lorraine after a short respite.
The imperious necessity of avoiding financial ruin further forces the Allies to seek a complete victory. Indeed, such a victory alone will enable them to escape the most frightful impoverishment, which otherwise threatens the Allied States and their citizens. The fabulous expenses which the present war necessitates distinguish it, financially speaking, by a vast gulf from all the wars that have gone before.
After 1870, France was able very quickly to recover her position, and in spite of the misfortunes of the country, individuals were able, on the morrow of the peace, to promote the prosperity of their business. But after the present war, if the Allies did not win a complete victory, our States, like our individuals (see p. 88), would be faced by almost inextricable pecuniary difficulties. The endless economic consequences resulting from crushing taxes, which could not be regularly and permanently collected, would be such that the States and most individuals in the Allied countries would see themselves reduced to impotence and therefore to poverty. This, however, is truly the situation with which the Allies would be confronted if Germany were to achieve her plan of domination “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf,” since that solution would enable her to retain her enormous spoils of war and to lay hands on considerable sources of wealth (see p. 85).
Now, would it not be a monstrous iniquity that the people of France, England, Russia, and Italy should be reduced for tens of years to terrible poverty because it suited the execrable ambition of the Hohenzollerns to reduce Europe to slavery?
Only a complete victory can save the Allied countries from financial ruin, because, no matter what some people say, Germany will be able to pay the cost of the struggle she has initiated. As she is responsible for the war, Germany already owes to the united Allies a colossal sum which can be estimated roundly at between 250 and 300 milliards of francs. But if the credit of the German Empire is doomed to disappear on the day of her defeat, the material riches of Germany, which are very considerable, will continue. They represent much more than 300 milliards of francs. Of course Germany will only be able to pay her fabulous debt very gradually. But when means for collecting the German revenues shall have been systematically and leisurely studied by the conquering Allies, when these collections of revenue shall have become assured, of course not by written German promises, worthless scraps of paper, but by real guarantees in harmony with those precedents of history, which the government of Berlin strongly contributed to establish in 1870, Germany will be perfectly able to hand to each of the great conquering Allies about two milliards of francs a year. This annuity, thanks to modern financial combinations, will be sufficient to allow each Allied state to raise annual loans at relatively low rates and therefore easily procurable; and these will permit each State to spare its citizens the burden of taxes which would be not only crushing but fatal, and which would be inevitable if the country had to relinquish the hope of being recouped for its war expenses by Germany.
Now, a truly complete victory like this, which is indispensable from so many points of view to the Allies, is perfectly possible in spite of the faults committed by the Allies, which alone have delayed it.
A line of argument will set this possibility in a proper light. Harden himself has been constrained, as we have already seen, to face the hypothesis of a cession of Alsace-Lorraine to France. It is obvious that when they have come to that pitch at Berlin, it will mean that Germany at bay, on the brink of absolute disaster, will try to negotiate with the Allies in order to save her plan of domination “from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf.” This would enable her, after a short respite, to recover Alsace-Lorraine from France, as Harden also indicates. Therefore, the effort needed at the present moment, if the Allies wish to secure a complete instead of a doubtful victory, which in reality would mean for them a catastrophe, would be comparatively slight. That effort would probably only represent the hundredth part of all those already made by the Allies. We should be mad or criminal not to make it, because it is that last effort which will put an end to the horrible nightmare conjured up all over the world by Prussian militarism.