The New Europe (The Slav Standpoint)/Chapter 1
I.—THE HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE WAR.
1. The War a World War.
1. The most striking feature when you ponder upon the war is its worldwide extent. Literally, the entire world has now for four years borne the sufferings of a war caused by an attack upon Serbia by Austria-Hungary, backed by Germany. The entire world has been divided into two camps. Austria and Germany have with them merely Turkey, Bulgaria and the Papal Curia; all the other states are on the side of the Allies. Only some of the small States have remained neutral, and in them the majority of the people are on the side of the Allies. Thus practically all mankind has taken a stand against Germany and Austria. If the consensus gentium was once accepted as an argument for the existence of God, this consensus of mankind surely has as great a moral significance—vox populorum, vox Dei.
Statisticians tell us that the total of killed, wounded, prisoners and missing amounts to 25 millions; those that survive the horrors of the war, the millions of soldiers and their families, and therefore whole nations and all humanity, will reflect on the war and its causes; millions and millions are pondering at this moment, while I write this, upon the war and the situation of nations and of mankind, as I am doing. It is not possible that this gigantic sacrifice of lives, health and fortune should have been offered in vain; it is not possible that the present organisation of states and nations from which the war has sprung should remain unchanged, that the responsible statesmen, politicians, leaders of parties, individuals, the nations and all humanity should not comprehend the necessity of radical political reorganisation. The war and its significance have knitted mankind closer together; humanity is to-day an organised unit, internationalism is much more intimate than it ever was; it has been created and renewed by this war and at the same time democratic views of society are everywhere strengthened—the fall of Tzarism is but one of the unexpected results of the war.
The unified organisation of all the nations of the world, of all humanity is the beginning of a new era, an era in which nations and all mankind will consciously control their development.
2. The Pangerman Plan of World-Domination: Berlin–Bagdad.
2. The modern historian, it is claimed, should narrate the history of the future, and the modern statesman should foretell the development of events—foresight being the measure of scientific exactness. During the war I gathered the books of several authors who in the form of stories or political essays foretold the war; but all these so-called prophecies foretold what actually has come to pass very vaguely. In a similar way I, too, foresaw the war. Since the Russian Revolution of 1905 I reviewed my studies of Russia and endeavoured to lay hold of the problem of Russia in its significance for Europe. To what extent I have succeeded may be seen from my book on Russia. In connection with this work I endeavoured to grasp the Jugoslav and Balkan problems—it was over these problems that I expected that the war would come, although I expected it later than it actually came and not to be so gigantic. In the spring of 1914, before the Sarajevo assassinations, I took steps to conciliate the Serbians and Bulgars, because I feared the hostility of the Bulgars to Serbia in the future war. My mediation met with a good reception on the part of Serbia—the fact is an interesting proof that the responsible Serbian statesmen were ready for a reasonable compromise, as, for that matter, was demonstrated during the tension with Austria in the Balkan war. (I have in mind my mediation between Minister Pashich and Count Berchthold.)
My forevision, or rather expectation, of the war, was based on a careful observation of Austria-Hungary and Germany, and on a study of the Pangerman movement and its historical and political literature.
Pangermanism means etymologically the unification of all Germans, or, in a wider sense, of all the Germanic races; in a similar way were used the terms Panslavism, Panscandinavianism, and some others. To-day Pangermanism is mainly a philosophy of history, the history of the German nation and of all mankind; it is an attempt, through a systematic study of the historical development and conditions of Germany and other lands, to determine the place of the German nation among the nations in their historical development. Under Pangermanism we also include the political effort and the resultant movement based on Pangerman theory.
The Great French Revolution, with the reaction and restoration following it, likewise the smaller revolutions which were the continuation of the Great Revolution, drew the attention of wide circles to the contrast and the conflict between the old and new régimes, and engendered the theories and experiments towards a better, and, as far as possible, permanent, organisation of states, nations, Europe and humanity; this period witnesses the rise of conscious socialism. Theoretically the period finds its expression in the new scientific historiography. Philosophy of history is cultivated by all nations; history, economics, and all social sciences flourish; sociology is crystallised as a resultant of all these specialised attempts and seeks to become the general science of human society and its development. Simultaneously the study of politics receives scientific treatment.
3. The Germans stood well in the forefront of this theoretical and practical movement; philosophy of history beginning with Herder, and with it history, become directly national departments; German philosophy after Kant is substantially historical (Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc.). Socialism, and particularly Marxism, were distinctly historical with a fixed philosophy of history; evolutionism (Darwinism) strengthened this special historicism. The Germans excel also in all specialized social science, economics, and chiefly in the political science of the State and jurisprudence.
Not only social science but even natural science was devoted to the study of the conditions of the German nation. Biology, for instance, speculates as to the proper and cheap sustenance of the individual and the masses; chemistry serves the same purpose and aims at the improvement of the material basis of the entire national existence. On this broad scientific and philosophical foundation Pangermanism organised itself in recent days as the philosophical and political science of the German nation; Lagarde is its leading philosophical and theological representative; Treitschke is its historian, and Kaiser William is its statesman. A complete system, not only of theoretical but also of practical Pangermanism, has been organised—societies and associations, spreading the doctrine by the publication of treatises, maps, newspapers and reviews, pamphlets, etc.
I followed this movement carefully; I came into personal contact and correspondence with several prominent Pangermanists, with Constantine Frantz and Lagarde himself; acquaintance with the Pangerman movements and literature led me to expect this war. I wondered that the English and the French paid so little attention to Pangermanism; my own countrymen I warned by articles and lectures against the danger threatening us. I proposed to write a summary of Pangermanism and similar movements and tendencies in other nations, but the war got the start of me. During the war, having been deprived of my library and manuscripts, confiscated by the Austrian police, I could draw attention to this subject only roughly and more from memory.[1]
4. Pangermanism from the very beginning was not a mere theory and political ideal, but also the expression of the political development of the German nation. In the 18th century, the Germans, like other nations of Europe, already possessed strong national feelings; the endeavour to unify the numerous German states and principalities was a legitimate endeavour, just like the desire of the Italians and other nations for unification. The problem became more difficult when the question arose of how to unite the various parts of the nation living in non-German states. Here, it was above all the difficult problem of the relation towards Austria of Germany, led by Prussia; the regularizing of this relation was demanded by a century-long development, especially from the days of the Reformation and the anti-Reformation, when Prussia became the representative of the Protestants, Austria of the Catholics and of the anti-Reformation. Outside of Austria and Hungary, Germans live also in Switzerland; in Russia there have been German colonies in the Baltic provinces from the days of the Knightly Orders and the Hansa; in more recent times, emigration gave rise to German colonies in Russian Poland and Eastern Russia, in the United States, in South America and in Africa. After the unification of Germany in 1870, Bismarck commenced (in 1884) a colonial policy, reaching into Africa, Asia and Australasia.The energetic industrialisation of Germany after 1870, brought Germany into connection not only with its own colonies but also with other countries. The United States, Russia, England, India, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Brazil and Argentina came into close commercial relations with Germany, the German penetration pacifique, as it is now called, has been everywhere very effective. The Germans found plentiful markets for their industry and were able to obtain the necessary raw and partly manufactured materials from foreign lands; Emperor William gave an expression to the actual state of things when he referred the Germans to the seas.
Successful penetration into industries and markets all over the world suggested world-domination, and thus strengthened the traditional idea of the German imperialism of the German Roman Empire. After defeating Napoleon III., Prussia renewed the mediæval empire abrogated by Austria (1806); the Zollverein and Bund were a transition to industrialism and imperialism.
Even during the war I found quite a number of practical men who shrugged their shoulders at Pangermanism, calling it “utopian, academic and doctrinaire politics.”
Bismarck regulated, after 1866, the relations with Austria. He managed things so that Austria, after her defeat, was put out of Germany without loss of territory and with only a trifling indemnity; he was thus considerate of the personal ambitions of Francis Joseph and secured Austria for a devoted ally. The Magyars, accepted by the weakened Hapsburgs and won over by the remodelling of Austria into the dualistic Austria-Hungary (1867), became Germany’s staunch supporters, and Prussia thus had an empire of fifty millions at her disposal; Lagarde simply called Austria Germany’s colony. The Germans of Austria became the most radical Pangermanists, breaking away even from the Rome movement; Bismarck was clever enough to repudiate them officially (Herbstzeitlose), but he admonished a delegation of Pangermanist students from Austria to study the Slavic languages, if they wanted to dominate the Slav nations.
By the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria-Hungary was irretrievably embroiled in the Balkans, and Emperor William inaugurated an active Turkophile policy, following in the footsteps of Frederick the Great; afterwards Greece, Rumania, Bulgaria, Albania, even Montenegro, were furnished with German dynasties and princesses. The Turkish armies received German instructors, etc. Austria-Hungary became Germany’s bridge to the Balkans, Western Asia and Africa. The Triple Alliance coupled together not merely Austria-Hungary and Germany, but disarmed also the Italian Irredenta. Lagarde and the Pangermanists very forcibly claimed Trieste and the Adriatic for Germany. German capitalists at the same time, in a skilful manner and without much investment of capital, secured the control of many Italian banks; German professors, school teachers and a great number of less important tourists were effective agitators for Germany in Italy. The older English influences were to a large extent paralysed.
The actual development of Germany and of her political influence in Europe and in the whole world constituted thus an approach to the ideals of Pangerman imperialism; it tended to establish especially the idea of Central Europe under German leadership—Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Turkey. This Central Europe, having Turkey for one of its elements, naturally extended into Asia and Africa, in which continent important colonies were secured; Pangerman authors therefore spoke of rounding out Central Europe by Central Africa. An Austrian Pangermanist expressed the programme in the motto “Berlin–Bagdad,” which motto might just as well be replaced by the motto “Berlin–Cairo.” The road from Berlin to Bagdad leads through Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Sofia, Constantinople; the same road leads to Cairo, as well as a shorter one viâ Prague, Vienna, Trieste, Saloniki, then by the sea to the Suez Canal, and to the English and Italian coasts of Africa.
In the main continental body of Central Europe the Pangermans include also Holland, Belgium (Antwerp), Switzerland, and the Scandinavian countries; these countries the less radical and outspoken Pangerman would unite to the Empire in the more loose form of a federation or even in an economic union. More strongly they claim the Slav and other frontier districts in Russia, the Baltic provinces, Lithuania, Russian Poland, and, above all, the Ukraine. One may go from Berlin to Bagdad also viâ Warsaw, Kiev, Odessa, and Trebizond. The Pangermans recall the ancient Teutonic Varyags and their expeditions against Constantinople, and remember the example of the German Hansa.
The Pangerman slogan frequently points to the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf; or the plan is described by the rivers Rhine, Danube, Vistula, Dwina, Dnieper, and by the canals connecting these rivers and enabling German ships to bring goods from the North and the Baltic Seas to the Black and Ægean Seas. During the war discussions were going on about the necessary connections by canals, and many local ambitions and needs were emphasised, such as Munich–Bagdad, Hamburg–Bagdad, etc.
5. The political push of the Pangerman movement is directed at three points of the compass: West, South, and East; against France and England, against Italy and the Balkans, and against Russia. The thrust against Italy, especially since the formation of the Triple Alliance, was disguised in friendship; the Pangermanists were satisfied to have the alliance with Italy hold secure for them Trieste and the Adriatic. Against France, too, after the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, more moderate claims were made, and the bitterness was due more to the French revanche politics; yet many Pangermanists threatened to break France for good and all. Others looked upon France as a quantité négligeable, believing that she now was small (40 millions against 68), and that she in the near feature would be relatively still smaller and that, like all Romance nations, she had degenerated and played out her rôle. In this connection the Pangermanists were always pointing to Belgium and Holland (East India Colonies); their plans covered the Belgian coasts of the English Channel, for it is nearer to Germany than the coast of Northern France, and, in addition, the Flemings as well as the Dutch are claimed as Teutonic peoples. There is an extensive Pangermanist literature about Antwerp and its economic significance for the Germans.
But in the forefront of the discussions and plans were England and Russia. The industrial expansion, the building of a great fleet to rule the oceans, colonial politics in Africa and latterly also in Australia and Asia, and the avowed plan of Berlin-Bagdad, directed Germany against England. With Russia up to the time of Bismarck, Prussia had had an advantageous friendship; but when Bismarck attached Austria, and consequently the Balkans, closely to Germany, and when William developed his Turkish and Asiatic policies, there was a growing estrangement from Russia. The result was that England came to an understanding with Russia and the four-fold Entente was born. The Pangermanists are divided; a part is looking upon Russia as the most dangerous enemy of the Germans, the others upon England; antagonism against Russia is found principally among the Baltic Germans, like Schiemann, Rohrbach, and others; the adversaries of England are Count Reventlow and his adherents. The Bismarckian policy toward Russia is advanced by Professor Hoetsch and many conservatives; Rohrbach offered a hand to the English against Russia.
The opponents of Russia point to Russia’s size and its tremendous population in the near future, drawing the conclusion that Russia is the true enemy of Germany. England, they argue, is separated from Germany by the sea, has no common frontier, is small in Europe, and its other parts are scattered throughout the world without practical centralization; its true strength is in the navy: it cannot therefore threaten Germany, for Germany will have a fleet to oppose that of England. Germany’s army, supplemented by the armies of Austria-Hungary, possibly of Italy, the Balkan States and Turkey, will be able to face Russia and France.
6. The rise and the course of the war were fully directed by the Pangerman policy. Austria-Hungary, as the German vanguard in the Balkans, attacked smaller Serbia and provoked thereby Russia; Germany was “obliged” to back its ally; Turkey and Bulgaria joined the two empires, and Pangerman Central Europe was organised in a military way. The defeat of Russia and Serbia was left to Austria; Germany planned to smash France with extreme rapidity, and before England could produce armies; that is the reason why the Germans invaded Belgium. The Germans did not expect the military participation of England, but there they were mistaken, just as they were mistaken about smashing France—they expected to be in Paris in a few weeks. They were also in error as to the military strength of Russia, they were ill-advised as to the Austrian army and its leadership, and they never expected that America would join the Allies. But in spite of that the Pangerman plan has been temporarily realised.
To-day, the German Central Europe has this shape:—Germany has 68 million people; it has under its control Austria-Hungary (51), Bulgaria (5½): and Turkey (21)—146 million. That figure alone is sufficient to enable Berlin to stand against Russia, which is the greatest state of Europe; Russia, to be sure, has 30 million more people, but its lack of railways, its paucity of population in tremendous territory, finally its backwardness in the economic, financial and cultural fields, gave German Central Europe a decided balance, not merely against Russia, but also against France. Germany occupied Belgium (6½), Northern France (6), Serbia (5), Montenegro (½); in Russia it holds the Baltic Provinces, Poland with Lithuania and the Ukraine, about 60 million. Germany therefore controls 224 million people; where it cannot employ their military strength, it exploits their economic and financial strength. In addition she exploits Finland and to a large extent Russia itself. Russia, being strategically weakened by the revolution, concluded a disgraceful and dishonourable peace—the Schiemanns and Rohrbachs reached temporarily their aim. Reventlow hopes with so much more reason that he, too, will reach his aim. Germany with its central Europe has had from the very beginning of the war the advantage of centralisation and unified organisation of all its powers; in addition to that, Germany was prepared strategically and politically (the plan and aim of the war), whereas the Allies were unprepared, unable to unite their scattered forces, and had no clear and common plan such as gave the initial strategical advantage to Germany-Austria. Austro-Germany had and has a definite plan, carefully and elaborately prepared in true Pangerman fashion; from William down to the officers and soldiers every combatant aims at the same thing, knows why he is fighting—and such a preparedness of programme is a great military force. It is true that the Germans had to change their strategical plans and methods; it is true that with all their foresight there was much they did not know, did not learn, could not do, but still Pangermanism was of great help to them. Against the Allies, separated from each other, they used with advantage the old plan of Horatius Cocles. After Occidental Russia has been weakened and eliminated, naval England will have her turn—this is plainly indicated by the German push toward the Baltic, the Black Sea, the Adriatic, the Ægean, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
The Allies have at their disposal England (45), Canada (7), Australia (7), France (40), Algiers (2), Italy (36), a total of 137 millions. As far as military power is concerned, German Central Europe is stronger than the European Allies—the entrance of America since the elimination of Russia thus has a decisive significance, military and economic. The Pangermans are not in doubt about the United States’ strength and efficiency; their leading authors very often emphasise the American danger to Europe, and would make naïve Europeans believe that German Central Europe is the necessary counterbalance to the United States and the leader of the United States of Europe.
7. The Germans vindicate the right to their aggressive Pangerman policy in several ways, in the main it is the right of the stronger which they advocate.
The Germans fear hunger. They point to the rapid growth of their population. Up to the year 1845 France had a larger population than Germany; since that time the Germans grew rapidly, whereas France remained almost stationary. Thus was done away automatically the French danger, but there arose the Russian danger. In 1789 France was the most populous state (France 26 million, Turkey 23, Austria 19, England 17, Prussia 6, Poland 9, Russia 20 and 5 in Asia), and that explains the great influence and strength of France. Germany is now much stronger than France, and the Western nations singly, but she has to face too many enemies; around the year 2000 the population of Europe will be somewhat like this: Austria-Hungary 84 (54 and 30), Italy 58, England 145, France 84, Russia 400 (with Asia 500), United States 1,195, Germany 165. If not all Europe, Germany at least might become Cossack, and therefore the real peril for the next future is Russia; and so Germany must weaken Russia, and, as far as possible, occupy Russian territory for its own increasing population. In the West, Germany needs Antwerp; she needs the district of Briey; in general she needs territory, bread, raw materials, ports. With a brutal naïveté the Pangermans forget that other nations also need bread. “Necessity knows no law,” declares Bethmann-Hollweg as the foundation of Pangermanistic jurisprudence.
The strategical argument is of the same quality: the geographical situation of Germany, enclosed by hostile nations on three sides, demands a rectification of the frontiers, and therefore again the annexation of non-German territory. Ratzel was the one who drew the attention of the Pangermanists to the political and strategical significance of a central location (the fighting impetus from the centre, as against fighting power from the periphery, etc.). In general not merely geography, but even geology and other sciences are used in Pangermany to decide questions of right; territory similar from the geographical point of view to German territory belongs to the Germans, and German geographers systematise a special science of geo-politics.
The Germans, so runs the Pangerman argument, are the best soldiers of the world, Prussian militarism is exemplary, the German is a born soldier—militarism and war, moreover, as has been proved by Moltke, are the God-given social order, and therefore the Germans are entitled to hegemony. Darwin’s natural law of the survival of the fittest justifies Prussian militarism; Nietzsche gave to the Germans the principal and the only commandment—the will to power, the will to strength, the will to victory.
The Teutons, according to the Pangermans, have the primacy in industrial and technical branches. In addition to military successes, they have success, and in fact primacy, in science, philosophy, music, art and education. The Germans by virtue of their Kultur have the right, nay even the duty, of ruling the world. The Germans are, in short, the Herrenvolk, the only and absolute Herrenvolk. Germany, so we read literally, will be the saviours of Europe and of mankind.
The Germans by their Pangermanistic plans utilise their historical development. Prussia in 1871, after uniting the Germans, proceeded with the erection of the German mediæval empire, the empire of Charlemagne, the continuation of the Roman empire; Prussia created the political concept of Central Europe. The Prussian-German imperialism and militarism are the culmination of the Roman world idea; Berlin is the fourth Rome, after Rome, Byzantium, Moscow. . . .
The Pangermans, it is plain, believe in materialism, force and technique, neither Schiller nor Herder nor Kant, but Hegel, Feuerbach, Büchner (Kraft und Stoff), Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Hartmann become the spiritual leaders of Prussianised Germany. This materialism harmonised very easily with that national and racial mysticism which the Pangermans derived from the Frenchman Gobineau, from Nietzsche, Schophenhauer, Hartmann and others; Lagarde even prescribed for the Germans their higher religion, and William believes in his own and his grandfather’s Messiahship—the official founder of the Prussian Empire, the plaything of Bismarck, is to William God’s Ambassador! . . . The Pangerman materialist receive this sacrilegious teaching with great content, and not even the Marxian materialists of Herr Scheidemann get excited over it.
The Pangermans uphold and spread hostility and hatred against neighbouring nations, especially the Slavs; and the Czechs above all, because of their special world situation, are a thorn in the eyes of the Germans. In Pangermanistic literature the Czechs, equally with the Poles, are threatened with extermination and forcible Germanisation; people still remember the exhortation of Mommsen, that the Germans should break the hard skulls of the Czechs, and Lagarde and the other leaders of Pangermanism speak in an equally brutal manner. The Pangermanists turn history and sociology into zoology and mechanics—that is in harmony with their tactics of frightfulness, as practised in this war.
3. Plan of the Allies: Democratic Organization of Europe, and Mankind. Democracy versus Theocracy.
8a. The Allies, not being prepared for the Austro-German attack, were on the defensive both in the military and in the political sphere; it was a long time before they agreed on a common programme. At first individual statesmen and governments declared their views and plans; naturally, they emphasized the fact that they had been attacked, condemned Prussian militarism, defended democratic principles, demanded freedom for all nations, great or small, and promised the reorganisation of Europe.
On October 31st, 1916, Emperor William wrote a letter in which, speaking in his well-known manner about assurance in his God, he instructed Bethmann-Hollweg to draft peace conditions; the German Chancellor on December 12th, 1916, handed to the American Chargé d’Affaires in Berlin the German proposal stating that the Central Powers were ready to enter into peace negotiations. The proposal contained no definite plan; it was more like the orders of a haughty victor than a genuine peace proposal. Following that, President Wilson appeared on the scene. He had offered, as is well known, his mediation on August 3rd, 1914, but it was not accepted. After Bethmann-Hollweg made his proposal, Wilson addressed himself (December 20th, 1916) to the British Government, as he expressly says, of his own accord, not upon the German initiative. He asked all the warring nations to submit their peace conditions in a more concrete form, since general principles would not do; he himself emphasised the right of the smaller and weaker peoples and the small states.
The Allies replied (December 30th, 1916) to the note of the German Chancellor, rejecting it, as it deserved. On January 10th, 1917, they replied to President Wilson. In this answer they state that they defend Europe against Prussian militarism in the name of humanity and civilisation; they emphasise the right of small nations to self-determination, as was done previously by English and French Ministers and statesmen. The specific political demands are: Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro must be restored by Germany; the occupied territories of France, Russia and Roumania must be evacuated and given a just compensation. Territories and provinces that have been taken from the Allies in the past by violence and against the will of the population must be returned; this must be interpreted primarily as the solution of the Alsace-Lorraine problem, but it also applies to the Danes of Schleswig. In the East, Poland must be united and liberated; the nationalities of Austria-Hungary must also be liberated from foreign domination—the Italians, Slavs, Roumanians and Czecho-Slovaks. Turkish rule in Europe must cease to exist, because it is foreign to Western civilisation; nations subjected to the bloody tyranny of the Turks shall be liberated.
The Allies thus insist on the re-organisation of Eastern Europe and Europe in general; nationalities must be respected and freedom of economic development fully secured to all nations, great and small. International treaties will guarantee territorial and seacoast boundaries against unjust attacks. The Allies adopt as a matter of principle the formation of a League of Nations.
8b. Soon after the receipt of the Allied Note, President Wilson in the name of the American people (April 5th, 1917) declared war against Germany. Since that day, as he has pointed out, he has pronounced and even before that, general conditions of peace.
President Wilson interprets very effectively the leading principles of the American democracy. The principles by which America was nurtured (Inaugural Address, March 5th, 1917) are the principles of liberated humanity; the chief basis of peace is the actual equality of nations as well as the principle that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, or, as he states it in his message to Russia (June 9th, 1917), no people shall be forced under that sovereignty under which it does not wish to live.
In substance President Wilson thus reiterated the famous Gettysburg Speech of Lincoln (November 10th, 1863): “That these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that the government of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth.” Both Lincoln and Wilson repeat the principles of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4th, 1776.
Mr. Wilson formulated the conditions of peace with more detail in an address before the Congress, January 8th, 1918, one year after the Note of the Allies; his proposal contains fourteen demands:—
I. Peace must be negotiated in the open, without secret international agreements; diplomacy must act in public.
II. Unconditioual freedom of navigation upon the seas beyond the territorial limits.
III. Removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers.
IV. General disarmament.
V. Adjustment and division of colonies; the interests of the inhabitants should be given the same consideration as to the interests of the states claiming the colonies.
VI. Evacuation of Russian territory; Russia is to settle her own political system, and as far as necessary, should receive all possible assistance. “The manner in which sisterly nations treat Russia will be the proof of good will.”
VII. Belgium must be evacuated and restored.
VIII. French territory should be evacuated and restored and the wrong done to France in 1871 by Prussia in the case of Alsace-Lorraine should be righted.
IX. Italian frontiers shall be established in accordance with clearly-known racial boundaries.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we desire to see secured and safeguarded, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.
XI. Roumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated and occupied territory restored; Serbia should have a free and secure access to the sea. The relations of the Balkan States should be regulated in accordance with political and racial principles given by history; political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the Balkan States should be assured by international treaties.
XII. Turkey should have its territorial integrity guaranteed; but the other nationalities under Turkish rule should receive guarantees of secure life and autonomous development without any interference. The Dardanelles should be permanently opened for ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
XIII. There should be erected a Polish State, containing territories inhabited by indubitably Polish population. Free and secure access to the sea should be given, political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be secured by international agreement.
XIV. A general association of nations must be created securing material and political independence and territorial integrity for great and small states alike.
President Wilson agreed as to general principles with the note of the Allies; in details there were differences, especially with reference to Austria-Hungary, the Balkans and Turkey. Here President Wilson has been much more conservative than the Allies, but he came near to them in several of his later statements. In his address to Congress, February 11, 1918, he emphasized the principle that territorial changes must be made in the interests of the people, and not of the enemy states; and all well-defined national aspirations should be granted the fullest satisfaction, in so far as they would not introduce new or prolong old elements of struggle and dissension that would endanger the peace of Europe and of mankind.
President Wilson (address to Congress December 4, 1917) admitted that America did not seek to impair and rearrange the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy; but the Government, through Secretary Lansing, declared its interest in the national aspirations of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs and, later, supplemented the indefinite text as against Austrian and German interpretations by the more definite declaration that it meant thereby the independence of these nations.[2]
President Wilson is well aware that the integrity of Austria-Hungary is equivalent to German victory. For on the one side this integrity would make impossible the President’s own program as far as it relates to Italy and Poland, and President Wilson himself has clearly realised that Germany, controlling Austria-Hungary and through it the Balkans and Turkey, would carry out the Pangerman plan, Berlin–Bagdad; and that the whole world thereby would be disturbed and peace made impossible.[3] That Austria-Hungary is a mere vassal of Berlin, President Wilson made clear in the same address in which he spoke of its integrity; and if he ever imagined that Austria would attempt to get rid of its vassalage, he had given up this idea—Austria accepts this vassalage evermore.
President Wilson did not hesitate to change his XIV. peace terms. The government of the United States following France, Italy and Great Britain, recognised the Czecho-Slovaks as a belligerent nation and their National Council as the de facto government invested with the highest authority in the military and political matters of the Czecho-Slovaks: and in his answer to Austria-Hungary he emphasized this change of his XIV. terms and advised Austria-Hungary to negotiate with the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs. In a letter answering a direct question, President Wilson explained as to his III. term, that it does not mean free trade—no doubt, the XIV. peace terms express only general principles allowing more concrete and final definitions and alterations; just as the terms of the Allies at the deciding peace conference will be defined and changed.
9. The Allies and President Wilson did not offer a political plan elaborated in all details—the chief point of his proposal consists in a firm declaration for a democratic political programme.
Between the policy of the Allies and the Central Powers there is a difference of opinion.
The Allies are democratic and republican states which derive the right of government from the will of the people; they are states that arose out of the revolution; France, the country of the Great Revolution and of the Declaration of the Rights of Man; England, the pattern of the parliamentary régime with royalty subordinated to the rule of the majority; Italy, anti-papal, fighting for the unification of the nation, also accepts Parliamentary principles; old Russia did not fit into this alliance, but she cast down the Tsarism and now strives for a republic, i.e., a social republic; the United States, the first great democracy and republic, which organised political liberty on the basis of ecclesiastical and religious freedom and which served as an example to revolutionary France and to European democracy in general.
The Allies have been joined by other republican and democratic states. The neutral states are to a large extent on the side of the Allies; in Norway, Denmark—even in Sweden and Switzerland—a considerable part of the democracy accepts the principles of the Allies.
As against them, Central Europe is composed of monarchical and militaristic states; this monarchism is in substance mediæval, theocratic; Prussia-Germany, with her idea of Prussian Kingship by God’s grace renewed the mediæval empire; Austria-Hungary, an altogether artificial state, held together by the dynasty and the army, anti-democratic, anti-national, clerical, jesuitical, like Prussia sticks to the idea of the mediæval empire. Both states oppose to the will of the people the fiction of divine will, and pretend to be its heralds. Turkey, mediæval, and in addition uncivilised, barbarous; Bulgaria, led by an Austro-German parvenu, who finds every means fair, fits well in the society of the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs. The Roman pontifex since long ago led by Jesuitism, works for Austria and Prussia; Austria is the last great Catholic state, and William’s Lutheran Germany, in order to hold Austria, sacrifices to Rome and the Catholic Centre her Protestant leadership. Jesuitism, Machiavellianism are the politics and diplomacy of papal Rome, Prussia and Austria alike. The Central Powers became united not merely by the geographical location of their territories, but also by internal spiritual kinship.
Thus we see opposing each other in the world-war puwers of the mediæval, theocratic monarchism, of undemocratic and unnational absolutism, and on the other side, constitutional, democratic, republican states recognising the right of all nations, great and small, to political independence. The war, as Emperor William stated, is the struggle between the Prussian idea and the American idea; it is the conflict of light and darkness, of justice and violence, of the Dark Ages and progress, of the past and the future; the Kaiser, with the Pangermans, proclaims that might creates right, the American nation believes with Lincoln that right creates might. America entered the war with the democratic ideal, to fight not for conquest but for the principle.
Germany in her beginning (during the times of Charlemagne) was German only up to the rivers Elbe and Saale; the rest of Eastern Germany, originally Slav, only in the course of centuries has been Germanised and colonised by force. Treitschke declares the meaning of German history to be colonisation.
The German Empire organised on its frontiers the so-called marches; in the east and south-east there were the marches of Brandenburg and Austria, the latter in the south, the former in the north.
The name Austria means Eastern Empire; the Hapsburgs were for centuries the holders of the German crown and used the Empire for their family aims.
Brandenburg was united with Prussia, and Prussia had been Germanised by the ecclesiastical orders of the knights; later Prussia accepted the Reformation and became the leader of Germany as against Austria.
The mediæval Empire in its idea leaned on the Universal Church. The Roman empire has been transferred into theocratic Catholicism, and the Hapsburgs, especially after the union with Spain, became devoted servants of the Church; the land of the Inquisition and the land of the forcible Counter-Reformation made up a realm over which the sun never set.
Austria, by its union in 1526 with non-German Bohemia and Hungary, weakened its position in the Empire; Prussia being racially more uniform grew in strength and openly aimed at primacy in Germany against Austria. These differences and antagonisms were intensified by the Reformation—Prussia became the leader of German Protestantism, Austria of German Catholicism; in spite of these differences the two rivals had much in common—both had the same origin from the church and both had the same political aims, to control and Germanise the East. So Austria and Prussia, the Hohenzollerns and the Hapsburgs, represent a peculiar division of political labour.
In spite of all antagonism the two rivals finally came to an agreement. Austria, eager to imitate Napoleon and to unify the monarchy by a forcible system of Centralization, gave up the leadership of the German Empire in 1806. After Prussia in 1866 by force of arms thrust her rival out of the Bund, which for Austria had been a substitute for the former Empire, she could without any protest from Austria in 1871 renew the Empire. Bismarck managed things so that Francis Joseph accepted with resignation the defeat of Koniggratz, and the latter pushed the frontiers of his monarchy into the Balkans; Bismarck may not have considered the entire Balkan peninsula worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier, but William corrected this policy and Austria became to Prussia the bridge to Asia and Africa by way of the Balkans and the Adriatic.[4]
11. In its historical perspective the German “Drang nach Osten” may be looked upon as an attempt to solve the old Eastern Question. After the Greeks in Europe, Asia and Africa, after Rome, after Byzantium, after the Franks and the German-Roman Empire, after the Crusades, and after Venice, Prussia, having restored the Empire, continued the task of uniting Europe with Asia and Africa and organizing an Old World, under a single control.
The condition of the world is, of course, other than it was in the ancient and mediæval eras; formerly Asia meant to Europe what we call to-day the Near East. The Far East was in no connection with the Near East, the Near East being racially akin to Europe. The Turkish and Mongolian invasions hindered the development of Asia, but were unable to change the given racial affinities and connection with Europe, India, the hazy dream of Alexander the Great, has been attached to England and partly to France, as Australia became a part of the British Empire. Persia and Asia Minor are reconquering their freedom as the Turkish Empire, step by step, is losing power and vitality; England, France and Russia have become the real rulers of Asia. Africa, of old in close connection with Asia, also has become a part of France and Great Britain.
The German plan of Berlin-Bagdad is therefore an attempt to displace the three other European nations in Asia.
But the situation in Asia has been changed by the development of Japan and China; to European Asia has been added Mongolian Asia—and both these civilised nations joined the European Asiatic nations.
At the same time in the West there grew up the great American Republic: Canada is now becoming a great country: a new world has arisen on the American continent. Therefore the idea of a Prussian Empire is not in harmony with the present conditions, is obsolete and out of date. The mediæval Empire was a great attempt to unite the whole of known mankind into a theocracy; the Pangermans may claim connection with the mediæval idea, but their ideas are more narrow, because they are German-national and exclusively economic—economic in a purely materialistic sense. In spite of its magnitude, the idea of a Pangerman world dominion is narrow, small—the Prussian dynastic autocracy and militarism absorbed the mediæval idea of spiritual Catholicism. The Pangermans show rather plainly that Germany hopes to become by this war a world empire alongside of the world empires of England, France and Russia. England and Russia arouse the jealousy of Prussia-Germany; Germany imitates England and Russia, the two principal empires of Asia and Africa, and hence the fight with the European-Asiatic empires.
Some Pangermanists are beginning to grasp the difference between the German Central Europe and the world organisation as conceived by the Allies and America. They glorify German Central Europe extended to Asia and Africa as the salvation against the threat of Americanisation, they cannot understand that Americanisation is not merely external, mechanical, but internal, spiritual—the belief in the political principles of the Declaration of Independence, in the principles of liberty and equality, humanitarian principles, in the unified organisation of all mankind, not merely a union of parts of the Old World to be exploited by Germany under the guise of Kultur. And President Wilson, explaining the American principles, is not only the ordinary president elected every fourth year—to him, as the expert in political science and history, fell the great historical task of formulating the principles of the policy of the new world, by which not merely the old Eastern question, but all political problems will be solved. It is no longer the question how to organise the Old World—it is now the question of organising the Old and the New World, all mankind.
5. The German “Drang nach Osten” and the Zone of Small Nations.
12. From the political and ethnographical point of view, Europe is organised in a peculiar manner. For a better understanding of Europe and for a true comprehension of this war, it is extremely important to realise the significance of the peculiar zone of less great and small nations, occupying the territory between the East and the West, more particularly between the Germans and the Russians. From the North, starting with Lapland, down to Greece, there is a connected series of smaller and small nations: the Laplanders, Finns, Swedes, Norwegians, Poles, Czechs with the Slovaks, Magyars, Jugoslavs (Serbo-Croats and Slovenes), Roumanians, Albanians, Bulgars, Turks, Greeks. (The number will be still greater, if one counts as separate nations, such peoples as the Ukrainians, etc.)
West of this zone are the greater nations (Germans, French, Italians, English, Spaniards); the small nations are few (Dutch, Portuguese) but there are a few fragments and remnants of nations formerly larger—the Basques, Bretons, Scotch, Welsh, Irish, Icelanders. In the East (in Russia) there are in addition to the above-mentioned nations inhabiting Western Russia, numerous small nations in the Caucasus and at the Eastern frontiers; the centre of Russia is peopled by only one nation, and that the largest one.
The push of the Germans towards the East and South is aimed at this zone of small nations. Prussia has occupied parts of it, and the Prussians themselves were originally a non-German people of this zone; Austria-Hungary is composed of eight nations of this zone. The majority of the wars of the last few centuries took place in this area, or at least had their origin here; this zone, into which the Germans were pushing from the West and the Russians and Turks from the East, was and still is the area of political danger—danger for the peace of Europe.
The push of the Germans toward the West has been much weaker. The nations situated west of the Germans were protected by their numbers, geographical location and culture. France, up to about 1845, was more populous than Germany and in general was politically stronger; the Italians, too, withstood the Germans, England was too far from the seats of the Germans, and the way led across other nations; Spain and the present Belgium were connected with Austria only temporarily.
A glance of the ethnographical map of Europe shows this situation: the ethnographical boundaries between the Germans, French, and Italians are straight and sharply cut, whereas in the East the ethnographical boundaries are not straight at all but intermixed; the German push toward the East being marked by the many German colonies actually advanced like forts.
The Western part of Europe is different from the Eastern not merely ethnographically, but also politically. In the West are found greater nations and also greater states (the only small nations are Holland, Belgium, Portugal); in the East are smaller states formed of parts of small nations (Roumania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece), and Austria-Hungary and Turkey which were composed of many small nations and states formerly independent. Russia contains a large number of small nations and formerly independent states, but as in contrast to Austria-Hungary and Turkey, it contains a great numerical superiority of the so-called ruling nation.
- ↑ I wrote a fuller account of the whole Pangerman movement in the London New Europe, No. 1, seq.; a general review of the doctrines laid down by the chief leaders of Pangermanism is given in Professor Charles Andler’s “Les Origines du Pangermanisme (1800–1888),” and “Le Pangermanisme Continental sous Guillaume II. (1888–1914),” 2nd edition, 1915. Mr. Andler correctly begins with the history of Pangermanism in the 18th century (Dietrich von Bülow, 1757–1807).
- ↑ Secretary Lansing’s statement, May 29, 1918:—“The Secretary of State desires to announce that proceedings of the Congress of Oppressed Races of Austria-Hungary which was held in Rome in April, have been followed with great interest by the Government of the United States, and that the nationalistic aspirations of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs for freedom have the earnest sympathy of this Government.”Secretary Lansing’s statement, June 28, 1918:—“Since the issuance by this Government, on May 29, of the statement regarding the national aspirations for freedom of the Czecho-Slovaks and Jugoslavs, German and Austrian officials and sympathisers have sought to misinterpret and distort its manifest interpretation. In order that there may be no misunderstanding concerning the meaning of the statement, the Secretary of State has to-day further announced the position of the United States Government to be that all branches of the Slav race should be completely freed from German and Austrian rule.”
- ↑ President Wilson in his address to the Convention of the Federation of Labor at Buffalo, November 12, 1917.
- ↑ The German term “Drang nach Osten” is not quite correct geographically; this push is in fact directed towards the South-East or East and South. In a more detailed study the German push toward the East would have to be compared to similar movements of other nations: The French into Germany, the Italians into the Balkans, the Swedes into Finland and Northern Germany, the Poles into Russia, the Czechs into Galicia, &c.—we undoubtedly have to deal here with a historic phenomenon of a more general nature. This push toward the East would of course also have to be compared with the previous migration of nations from the East to the West at the beginning of the Middle Ages; and finally, the modern migration and occupation of the American continent, Africa and Australia would be the subject of an exhaustive study of the migration and settlement of nations.