The share of the United States for standing by and agreeing to the robbery was to be, according to Tannenberg, a protectorate over Mexico and Central America.
Mexicans who were offered Texas and New Mexico by Zimmermann should read this Pan-Germanistic book in which all of Mexico is generously bestowed on us.
And I wish that Tannenberg's book could be read by every public man in South America—that South America in which the Argentine, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, the southern parts of Brazil and Bolivia are, according to Tannenberg, to come under the protectorate of Germany. Latin-American publicists should inquire from the inhabitants of Bosnia and Herzegovina how long it is before a "protectorate" is transmuted into a conquered country. Tannenberg does speak for a great party in Germany. The children's school books show German "colonies" in Southern Brazil.
As Sainte Beuve said, there is a fashion in intellect. The German to-day is essentially practical, cold, cynical, and calculating. The poetry and the Christmas trees, the sentiment and sentimentality, remain like the architectural monuments of a vanished race, mere reminders of the kindlier Germany that once was, the Germany of our first impressions, the Germany that many once loved. But that Germany has long since disappeared, buried beneath the spiked helmets of Prussianism, and another intellect is in vogue.
That older, kindlier Germany was the nation tempered and softened by the suffering of the Napoleonic wars. After the battle of Jena, where Napoleon rubbed the face of Prussia in the mud of defeat, there came on Germany that period of privation which left its impress so deeply on the German as to make thrift his first characteristic. A spirit of lofty, self-sacrificing patriotism imbued the whole people. Young girls cut off their long golden hair to be sold for the Fatherland. Jewels were given by all who possessed them. "Gold gab ich für Eisen" (I gave gold for iron) became a saying based on the readiness with which the rich made sacrifices to the cause of country. And with this patriotism, and with this penury, came into every home a more intimate family life, a greater earnestness, a deeper religious sentiment, a turning towards the idealistic side of life; but all was changed by the successful wars of Prussia that gave Prussia the leadership, the right to rule Germany. Then, with the end of the Franco-Prussian war, came a period of material prosperity, the rush of the population to the cities, and the building of great manufactories, of enormous shipping interests, of powerful banking institutions, of trusts and combinations which marked the Germany of 1914.
The fashion in intellect had changed, and the grasping, successful Prussian of 1914 was far removed from the ruined, chastened Prussian of 1810.
Nations, like individuals, change in character with the stress of life. From 1810, the period of a sorrowing Germany, to 1914 is one hundred and four years. The same number of years subtracted from the year 1796, when our new Republic was firmly established, and when George Washington made his noble farewell address, brings us to 1692, when nineteen persons were legally hanged, charged with witchcraft in Massachusetts, and when in that State Giles Cory perished under the awful torture, judicially applied, known as the "peine forte et dure."
It is quite true that weak voices against annexations have been heard.
Dernburg and Professor Hans Delbrück (the latter not to be confused with the disgraced, pig-slaughtering, ex-Vice-Chancellor), in their petition against the annexation of Belgium, showed a most reasonable spirit, and signing this petition with them were many of the great men and great minds of Germany. But their movement was a failure in Germany itself. Their campaign of reason could make no headway against the "League of Six"—the six great iron and steel companies of the West, who, with their paid lansquenets of the press and hired accelerators of public opinion, clamour for annexation so that they may rivet the chains of their industrial monopoly on the whole continent of Europe.
The Conservatives and Junkers, on the other hand, favour annexations to the East; especially do they eye greedily the Baltic provinces where great estates are in the hands of landowners of German blood. What a reinforcement to the conservative cause would these Junkers of the Baltic be and, in the Conservative view, if there are to be annexations in the West which would increase the number of industrial subjects and, undoubtedly social democrats, there must be a balancing accession of agricultural interest on the Eastern frontier.