The American Historical Review/Volume 23/Reviews of Books/Les Origines du Pangermanisme
One of the immediate results of the war is the realization that the history of Austro-German statecraft and diplomacy since 1870 must be rewritten in the light of the war of 1914 and of Pan-Germanism. German history written for us by Germans—and it has dominated by mere weight of erudition the studies of foreign students—has been a defense, a justification, a background for the war of 1914 itself which would convince the German people and, if possible, other nations as well, of the justifiability and necessity of the war when it should be fought. It was however a history in which real aims and policies could not appear; it must create the essential foundations for a structure whose existence must be unsuspected until "the day" dawned. While it would be idle to deny that there is much truth in the history of Germany as German scholars have written it, and absurd to suppose that the overwhelming majority had direct relations with the Wilhelmstrasse, the truth of history as they have written it is at best partial truth; many omissions must be supplied and a change of emphasis is in most cases essential. The whole of German history must be scrutinized in the light of PanGermanism.
The reconstruction is a task difficult in the extreme. So much was prepared for our perusal that we do not know what we dare accept from the older histories and documentary collections. Nor shall we for a long time have much else. Indeed the older material can be finally evaluated only in the light of information which will for decades be locked in diplomatic and official archives. It is this problem which Professor Andler has tried to meet by studying the older diplomatic materials in connection with the published works of the Pan-Germanists. He has sketched in his prefaces a history of German policy and statecraft since 1800 which makes Pan-Germanism an integral part of German development. The text of his volumes contains what he believes to be the most cogent evidence of the truth of his conclusions. He has deemed it wise to print it at such length because of the comparative unfamiliarity and inaccessibility of his sources. The convenience and usefulness of such an extended collection, so carefully chosen, so faithfully translated, handled in so scholarly and impartial a temper, is apparent to every student.
While Professor Andler has not been unmindful of the purely historical and chronological aspects of the history of Pan-Germanism, and has devoted much space in his long prefaces to them, his real purpose — and to this his text is devoted—is an exposition of Pan-Germanism itself in all its manifold phases and aspects. For its relation to past diplomacy is largely a question of definition; before we can intelligently trace beginnings, find originators and sponsors both past and present, we must first agree upon the thing itself. Nor has Professor Andler been able entirely to solve the riddle over which the Germans themselves are still acrimoniously disputing; one is by no means sure that he is describing in the second volume the same Pan-Germanism whose origins he discussed in the first, though the plan for the organization of Middle Europe seems to be his test formula. The first volume deals with certain intellectual antecedents of Pan-Germanism. The father of its military aspects was Dietrich von Bülow, M. Andler declares; its notion of economic supremacy should be traced to List; the religious mission of the Germanic race comes from Arndt, Jahn, and especially from Paul de Lagarde. From Treitschke came its political philosophy, while Constantin Franz stated best its colonial and expansionist policy. On the whole M. Andler concludes that the Pan-Germanic programme is old and had until 1888 been repeatedly rejected by German statesmen, including Bismarck, as bad statecraft. The prefaces of the second and third volumes contain the narrative of German diplomacy from 1888 to 1914, and the texts furnish an elaborate and admirable exposition of Pan-Germanism, drawn from the writings of the professed propagandists, the second volume being devoted to plans regarding Europe and Asia Minor and the third to Africa, South America, the United States, and colonization generally. The fourth volume treats at great length of the historical, philosophical, and economic background upon which the Pan-Germanic structure depends for confirmation and verisimilitude.
Scarcely any series of selections could have been made to which some objections could not have been raised or some additions been deemed desirable and M. Andler's judgment on so many points is so careful and discriminating that one is loth to criticize. Still, the allotment of one-fifth of the second volume and a considerable part of the third to Harden and Die Zukunft, one-sixth of the third to Rohrbach, and a quarter of the fourth to H. S. Chamberlain and Langbehn, when the Kaiser, Secretary Zimmermann, von Reventlow, and Bernhardi are reduced to less than ten pages each, and Nietzsche, Gobineau, Mahan, and Seeley are not mentioned at all, will surprise both the erudite and the general reader.
Again, the main stress of these volumes is laid upon imperialistic ambitions which involve the rearrangement of the map of Europe and which presuppose military aggression and conquest. That this is good orthodox Pan-Germanism no one will gainsay; but the stress of the ante-bellum Pan-Germanist propaganda was devoted to other issues to which very secondary places are allotted in these volumes—the weaknesses of the position of Germany's rivals, their past aggressions against Germany and present pretensions to world dominion for themselves, Germany's consequent defensive needs to meet their subtle and insidious encroachments, and the necessity for the expansion of the German trade area to keep pace with the growth of population. These were the notions accepted most widely in Germany, while the imperialistic dreams were in many quarters regarded as dangerous and unsound before the war and still meet with strenuous opposition from important groups. The expository purpose of Professor Andler makes this objection of less weight but this change of emphasis somewhat lessens the value of these volumes as an historical presentation of Pan-Germanism as a movement. Others will feel that the pamphlets distributed gratis to the general public and the school-books memorized in the gymnasia rather than books published through the usual channels contain the material of most value for a study of the opinions of the masses and should have been accorded more extended treatment. Nevertheless, when all is said, these volumes remain a solid and important contribution to the reconstruction of the history of German diplomacy.
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