Another plan that I have heard ascribed to the great German manufacturers was that of industrializing France after her defeat, setting up workshops and factories under the control of German engineers and overseers, introducing the methods of work, the technical improvements and the organization that had made Germany the wonder of the world, and developing by intensive culture the wealth of that admirable French soil. Why, by so doing they would have breathed fresh life into an ancient rivalry which they had almost succeeded in sweeping from their path! At the moment when German industry was suffering from over-production and plethora, they would have aroused a competition favoured in many respects with peculiar natural advantages. I really cannot hold them capable of so signal a miscalculation. I will readily admit, however, that they might have hoped to oust a ravaged and ruined France from those foreign markets in which she still held a strong position. Still, this project would have been difficult to carry out as regards the special articles for which the French are noted.
Russia, if beaten, would probably have been forced to sign a new commercial treaty, even more profitable to German agriculture and industry than the previous compact. Yet I am inclined to doubt whether, with the great Empire of the Tsars impoverished, the Germans would have done better business there than before the war, or have found the new openings that they required. Moreover, can we feel convinced that the Slav farm-labourers would have flocked in such great numbers as of old to the land of their conquerors, in order to offer them their indispensable labour-power? We must not underrate the force of the hatred and rancour that a devastating war will leave behind it, a war carried on after the methods of the Berlin Staff. Furthermore, I cannot believe that economic causes had the slightest influence on the attack prepared by that Staff against Russia.
There remains the question of colonies. For twenty-five years Germany had been obsessed with the desire to own a wide domain outside Europe. The fairly extensive territories that she ruled in Africa, so far from satisfying her, had only served to whet her appetite. A huge Continental empire, without adequate oversea possessions, did not fit in with the plan that the architects of her future greatness were drawing up. The idea of an empire provided with vast colonies was suggested to them, above all, by the example of England; but as there was no longer any unoccupied space worth mentioning in Africa, they dreamed of stripping France, Portugal, and Belgium of their African dominions, and establishing a black Germany which should become the handmaid and slave of their own blond Germany.
As regards the colonies, I grant that economic motives have counted for something in the ambitions of the Imperial Government. The influence of these motives is not hard to trace. The manufacturers wished to possess in Africa the raw materials that they could not obtain at home, such as phosphates, ores, rubber, and the like, instead of having recourse to foreign ports. They could not shut their eyes to the splendid vision of French Africa, Algeria, and Tunis (to say nothing of Morocco), whence France annually imported goods to the value of twenty to twenty-four million pounds sterling. This magnificent region was already fully colonized, and the only way of supplanting her trade there was to wrest the colonies from her by force. Indo-China did not seem to tempt German greed, perhaps on account of the Yellow Peril, which William II. had slightly on the brain, and which he was peculiarly fond of discussing.
On the other hand, the position of German industry, hazardous though it appeared to more expert eyes than mine, by no means demanded the use of so heroic a remedy as a European war. What would the United States do, we may ask—they who have been the educators of Germany in industrial matters—in the event of a glut in the products of their foundries and steelworks, and a partial choking up of the vital outlets? They would let their trusts readjust the market, drain off the excess of output, close the superfluous workshops, relieve the situation generally, but they would not declare war on any foreign nation. Economic competition, in all its stages, is a war not fought with the soldier’s weapons. It brings ruin in its train, too, but the ruin is not beyond repair. A series of costly victories in battle would not deliver German industry from the constant nightmare of the struggle for existence, any more than they would make Germany the serene and unquestioned mistress of the entire globe. The commercial and industrial welfare of a nation is always menaced by the progress of others, by the relaxation of its own efforts, and by various incalculable factors.
The merciless war waged against us by the Kaiser’s troops is above all, in my humble opinion, a political campaign. Economic causes have been grafted upon the primary cause, but the part they have played is a subordinate one. The schemes framed in Berlin are no longer wrapped in the haze that once surrounded them, but reveal themselves to us in clear outline. What was the object of hurling two million men at France, while the Russian armies were held in check and the Austrians were sent to annihilate Serbia? To crush once for all the military Power that stood in the way of German imperialism; to deprive Russia of all concern in European affairs; to seize for Germany the whole coast-line of the North Sea; to make her a Mediterranean Power by annexing French Africa; to dissolve the Balkan alliances and deal the death-blow to Slav hopes; to give Austria the suzerainty of the Balkan peninsula; finally, to hold undisputed sway at Constantinople and in Asiatic Turkey as far as the Persian Gulf. The exploitation of Central Africa, requiring as it did vast capital, was an economic task that could not be carried out in a day, and was therefore reserved for an early future date. The same remark applies to the completion and utilization of the Bagdad Railway. A few decisive battles, it was thought, would be enough to enslave Continental Europe, and to build up, on the basis of that “Mid-European Confederation” of which the German intellectuals speak quite openly to-day, the political supremacy of Germany, while England would be left isolated, an easy prey to her rival in a later campaign.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MOROCCAN QUESTION.