[59] General Fitcheff has since become Minister of War.
[60] This narrative was published by M. Wesselitsky in the Novoye Vremya, November 6, 1915.
[61] One of the suburbs of Adrianople ceded in July 1915.
[62] Roumania’s annual imports from Austria-Hungary, according to the latest available statistics, were valued at 136,906,000 francs; from Germany at 183,713,000; and from Great Britain at only 85,470,000 francs. France exported thither goods valued at no more than 35,273,000 francs.
CHAPTER XI
THE RIVAL POLICIES
In face of this Teutonic control of the world’s trade, politics and news supply, the Great Powers whose outlook, political and economic, was most nearly affected, exhibited a degree of supineness which can only be adequately explained by such assumptions as one would gladly eliminate. Anyhow the lessons conveyed by eloquent facts fell upon deaf ears. Yet it was manifest, in view of Germany’s ingenious combination of economics and politics, and the irresistible co-operation of the State and individuals in applying it, that the slipshod methods of Britain and France could no longer be persisted in without grave danger to these states. To deal with trade and industry as though they were matters that concerned only the particular business firms engaged in them was no longer an economical error, it was also a political blunder. To Government meddling in trade and industry the British people have ever been averse. And their dislike is intelligible although no longer warranted. A glance at Germany’s economic campaign and its results ought to have borne out the thesis that individual self-reliance and push are unavailing to cope with a potent organism equipped scientifically, provided with large capital and backed by the resources of diplomacy. New epochs call for fresh methods, and the era of commercial and industrial individualism was closed years ago by the German people. Co-ordination of effort, the combination of politics with economics, and unity of direction were among Germany’s methods in the contest, and she adopted them in the grounded belief that commerce and industry lie at the nethermost roots of the vast political movements of the new era.
This is a century of co-operation, of joint efforts for common interests, of union in trade, industry, labour, politics and war. To stand aloof is to be isolated, and isolation means helplessness against danger. Germany was the first Power to grasp these facts, to understand the new phase of life and to adapt herself to it. For this work of readjustment her people were specially endowed by Nature, and in their equipment for the task they saw a mark of election set upon them by their “old God.” For the correlate of co-operation is talent for organization, and with this the Teutons are plentifully gifted. They feel impelled as it were by instinct to push forward much further on the road already traversed by all nations from isolation to individualism through gregariousness. They opened the new era of amalgamation by co-ordinating, on a vast scale, individual achievements, resources and labour, and directing them to a common end. The allied peoples were meanwhile content to muddle through in the old way. This difference explains much that seems puzzling in the outcome of the struggle.
It has been affirmed somewhat off-handedly that the Latin and British peoples, incapable of united and organized effort, have halted at the individualist stage. They are supposed to lack the bump of organization. According to this theory among the Germans, who had passed through all the intermediate phases and carried individualism to sinister extremes in the past, a reaction set in which called forth the latent powers of organization which they possess. And these have been wielded with brilliant results ever since the unity of the German Empire was first established. Applying the new principle to politics, the statesmen of Berlin grasped the fact that all future conflicts in Europe would be waged by coalitions. Neither Austria-Hungary alone nor the German Empire alone could undertake a world war. That was the genesis of the scheme of welding the two central empires in one politico-military entity and then attracting as many other States as possible into their orbit. And the enterprise was conducted so ingeniously that when war was declared, Roumania, Bulgaria and Turkey were tied to the Triple Alliance. And henceforward, whatever the outcome of the war may be, the permanent fusion of Germany and Austria is a foregone conclusion.
By the means described a state of things, actual and potential, was established which rendered Germany’s military attack on Europe much less hazardous and doubtful a venture than was at first supposed. For there was not a country on the globe which she or her ally had not subjected to the process of interpenetration, nor was there one which had remained wholly irresponsive. Even Brazil, Chili, Peru, China, Morocco, Persia, Abyssinia, had all experienced its effects. And when at last the harvest-time was come and its fruits were to be ingathered Germany felt that she could count to varying extents on the active sympathy and support of governments, parliaments and nations; on the Turks, the Swiss, the Swedes, the Bulgarians, the Roumanians; on the autocratic ruler of the Greeks and on millions of American-Germans. Every independent religious centre was permeated with an atmosphere composed in Germany. The Caliph and the Sheikh-ul-Islam of the Moslems, the evangelical preachers of the Russian Baltic provinces, Brahmins in India, subjects of the Negus of Abyssinia, the Jews of western Russia and Poland, as well as those of the Netherlands, the Catholics of Switzerland, Holland and Italy, nay, the Vatican itself, raised their voices in the chorus of the millions who sang hosannah to the Highest.[63]