The German Empire was an industrial state, and its needs were imperious. In the face of a rapidly increasing population the nation became more and more dependent upon importations of foreign foodstuffs. Herculean efforts were made to keep agricultural production abreast of the domestic demand for grain: transient laborers were imported from Russia and Italy to replace those German peasants who had migrated to the industrial cities; machinery was introduced and scientific methods were applied; high protective tariffs were imposed upon imported foodstuffs to stimulate production within the empire. These measures, however, were insufficient to meet the situation; the greatest intensive development of the agricultural resources of the nation could not forestall the necessity of feeding some ten millions of Germans on foreign grain.[31]
German manufacturers, as well, were unable to obtain from domestic sources the necessary raw materials for their industrial plants. Many essential commodities were not produced at all in Germany and in only insignificant quantities in the colonies. Some German industries were almost wholly dependent upon foreign sources of supply for their raw materials. The most striking example of this was the textile manufactures, which had to obtain from abroad more than nine tenths of their raw cotton, jute, silk, and similar essential supplies.[32] Interruption of the flow of these or other indispensable goods would have brought upon German industrial centers the same paralysis which afflicted the British cotton manufactures during the American Civil War.
The German Empire had to pay for its imported foodstuffs and raw materials with the products of its mines and factories, with the services of its citizens and its ships, with the use of its surplus funds, or capital.[33] The development of a German export trade was the natural outcome of the development of German industry. And as German industries expanded, the demand for imported raw materials increased, thus rendering more necessary the extension of the export trade. The German industrial revolution of the late nineteenth century was at once the cause and the effect of the growing dependence of German economic prosperity upon foreign markets.[34]
But foreign commerce is not concerned with the sale of manufactured articles only. In its export trade, German industry was closely allied with German shipping and German finance. The services rendered German trade by the German merchant marine need not be reiterated; they are sufficiently well known. The relationship between the policies of German industry and the policies of German finance was no less important. The export of goods by German factories was supplemented by the so-called “export of capital” by German banks. Sometimes the German trader followed the German investor; sometimes the investor followed the trader. But whichever the order, the services rendered by the investor were to develop the purchasing power and the prosperity of the market, as well as to oil the mechanism of international exchange.[35] The industrial export policy and the financial export policy went hand in hand. Certainly this was the case in the Near East.
The German Empire depended for its welfare, if not for its existence, upon an uninterrupted supply of food for its workers and of raw materials for its machines. But this supply, in turn, was conditional upon the maintenance and development of a thriving export trade. The allies of this export trade were a great merchant marine and a vigorous policy of international finance and investment. Thus the nation which in 1871 was economically almost self-sufficient, by 1900 had extended its interests to the four corners of the earth. This could not have been without its effects upon German international policy. “The strength of the nation,” said Prince von Bülow, “rejuvenated by the political reorganization, as it grew, burst the bounds of its old home, and its policy was dictated by new interests and needs. In proportion as our national life has become international, the policy of the German Empire has become international.... Industry, commerce, and the shipping trade have transformed the old industrial life of Germany into one of international industry, and this has also carried the Empire in political matters beyond the limits which Prince Bismarck set to German statecraft.”[36]
From the German point of view, the call to German imperialism was clearly urgent, but the resources of German imperialism were seriously limited. The colonial ventures of the Empire had culminated in no outstanding successes and in some outstanding failures. Entering the lists late, the Germans had found the spoils of colonial rivalry almost completely appropriated by those other knights errant of white civilization, French, British, and Russian empire-builders. The few African and Asiatic territories which the Germans did succeed in acquiring were extensive in size, but unpromising in many other respects. With the exception of German East Africa the colonies were comparatively poor in the valuable raw materials so much desired by the factories of the mother country; they were unimportant as producers of foodstuffs. Attempts to induce Germans to settle in these overseas possessions were singularly unsuccessful. On the other hand, colonial enterprises had involved the empire in enormous expenditures aggregating over a billion marks; had precipitated a series of wars and military expeditions costing the nation thousands of lives and creating a host of international misunderstandings; had won for Germans widespread notoriety as poor colonizers, as tactless and autocratic officials, as ruthless overlords of the natives. It was no wonder that the German people seemed to be thoroughly discouraged and discontented with their colonial ventures.
However, even had the German colonies been richer than they were, they, alone, could not have solved the imperial problem of an industrialized Germany. German colonial trade was possessed of the same inherent weakness as German overseas commerce—it would be dependent, in the event of a general European war, upon British sea power. German industry could be effectually crippled by interruption of the flow of essential raw materials, such as cotton and copper, or by the cutting of communications with her foreign markets. It was questionable whether the German navy could be relied upon to keep the seas open.
Blockades, furthermore, exist not only in time of war, but in time of peace as well. European nations were surrounded by tariff barriers which seriously restricted the development of international trade and served to promote a system of national economic exclusiveness—a condition of affairs which harmonized only too well with the existing colossal military establishments. In this respect, of course, Germany was more sinner than sinned against. But in such an age it behooved every nation to build its industries, as well as its armies, with some view to the contingencies of war.
German statesmen and economists were by no means backward in understanding the situation. Although they had no disposition to overlook the development of the merchant marine and the navy, they believed this was not enough. They sought to build up in Central Europe a system of economic alliances, as they previously had effected a formidable military alliance. Thus might Germany and her allies become an economically self-sufficient unit, freed from dependence upon British sea power.[37] And into this alliance could be incorporated the Near East!