Page:The New Europe, volume 1.pdf/101

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THE LITERATURE OF PANGERMANISM

germans are politicians who in many questions of policy and expediency are still feeling their way and making experiments. This indecision is well illustrated by their behaviour during the present war. No sooner did they realise that the crushing and decisive victory which they had expected was by no means certain, than they changed the policy which was based upon that victory, without, however, modifying their ultimate object. They are now turning their attention to the creation of temporary expedients, which will meet the new situation, but which will not preclude the ultimate attainment of their Pangerman project. Concessions and compromises are proposed, whose real object is to throw dust in the eyes of their enemies. Of such a nature are the many offers that have lately been made to the Slavs—to the Poles, Czechs and Southern Slavs, and notably to the Russians themselves. In this connection, Koehler's book, "Der Neue Dreibund" (The New Triple Alliance) (1915), was mentioned in my former article. Another attempt of the same sort may be noticed in Dr. K. Noetzel's book "Der Entlarvte Panslavismus und die Grosse Ausschnung der Slaven und Germanen" (Panslavism Unmasked and the Great Reconciliation of Slavs and Germans) (1915).

A very good companion volume to Professor Andler's collection is M. André Chéradame's "Le Plan Pangermaniste Démasqué: Le redoutable piége berlinois de la 'partie nulle'" (Paris, 1916).[1]

The author is one of the few Western political thinkers who has watched and written about the Pangerman movement incessantly. His well-known views on the Austrian question, which were first outlined in "L'Europe et la question d'Autriche au seuil du vingtième siècle" (1901), are, in his new book, further developed in the light of the present war. He is chiefly concerned to prove that Austria-Hungary, by reason of her place in the Pangerman scheme, constitutes one of the fundamental problems of the war. He gives a detailed analysis of the actual Pangerman scheme, which, as outlined by Tannenberg in 1911, aims at the formation under German hegemony of a Central European State, comprising 204 million inhabitants, of whom only 77 millions are German. He then goes on to show that the

  1. An English translation, with a preface by Lord Cromer, is about to be published by Mr. John Murray.

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