other were Britain and the United States, and the one State she would really have liked to absorb was Holland, a free and democratic country which hated Germanism and all its narrow spiritual and political principles. Nevertheless, the German pursued his work in that country with that fanatic stubbornness so imbedded in his character.
In 1898 a General Dutch League was formed in Holland primarily for the purpose of spreading the Dutch language in South Africa. Not meeting success they appealed to the Pan-German League for aid and found themselves, shortly thereafter, to be entirely supported by that German organization. With their aptitude for "protecting" and "adopting" countries, the members of the League early regarded Holland as an essential and integral part of Germany and declared that if they were not able to secure Holland by "peaceful persuasion," they must do so by force.
In 1901 a German writer stated that in case of war "Germany could not be expected to regard the Dutch ports as neutral and refrain from making use of them."25 Writing in the
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