but he did not withdraw the slap.
This incident was public property, for the very day after it took
place the Kreuz Zeitung and the Deutsche Tages Zeitung spoke of
France as the little girl who was slapped and went and fetched her
big brother.
104 WHAT A GERMAN VICTORY WOULD COST
Franco-German War proved that the German Govern-
ment and people did not realize the historical and
national rights that they had over France. The
Prussian diplomatists did not know national history
nor the limits of German nationality. Therefore, with
inexcusable moderation they call the Treaty of Frank-
fort which took two provinces from France "inexcusable
moderation "! Germany left France both in 1815 and
1871 French Flanders, Lorraine, Sundgaw (the territory
round Belfort) and Franche-Comte. " This mistake
must not be repeated."
Should the French nation ignore threats like these?
When the inevitable day arrives, says Herr Kurd von
Strantz, when French ambition will give Germany a
fresh opportunity for restoring the historical and
national limits of the German people, they must not
neglect the " western marches, which are in a state of
servitude and sigh over their separation from their German
mother country " (unsere Westmarken, die noch in
ohnmaechtiger Trennung vom deutschen Mutterlande
schmachten).
The French reader will have to look at this sentence
again before he can fathom its true meaning. The
western marches of Germany are the East of France;
these subject populations, which sigh to be German,
why these are the very men of Arracourt who not so
long ago, when they were mobilized by mistake, rose as
one man, without a moment's hesitation, without a mur-
mur, without a single defection, and thus gave the most
admirable proof of their French patriotism! From
this example we can judge how the Pan-Germans
mould German public opinion. They even make the
Germans believe that our Eastern departments are
pining to be delivered from the French " yoke " !
HISTORICAL CLAIMS 105
Since the outstanding account between France and
Germany will have to be settled one day, says Herr von
Strantz, not only on French soil but at the cost of
French territory, the future conquerors of France must
be prepared for what is to come by receiving instruction
in the " knowledge of ancient German nationality in
countries which are now French. "
This is what Herr von Strantz teaches : Germany
has inalienable rights over a great number of French
departments by reason of the race of their inhabi-
tants and their former submission to the Empire,
lands which France has snatched from Germany, strip
by strip, in the days of Germany's weakness and the
dynastic egoism of her emperors. Germany must set
before herself, as the price of the next war, the restora-
tion of the ancient limits of the Empire such as they
were fixed by law, history, and racial descent. This is
an equitable claim, and he submits that it is consistent
with the epoch that has proclaimed the principle of
nationalities.
To be quite precise, Herr Kurd von Strantz claims
from France " the German part of Lotharingia, Flanders,
Lorraine and Franche-Comte."
Herr Kurd von Strantz does not stand alone. He is
a regular contributor to the Alldeutsche Blaetter, and he
was invited by the Pan-German League to develop
some of his ideas at its Hanover Congress on April I4th,
1912.
These ideas are sown systematically throughout Ger-
many. From the top of the scale to the bottom, Pan-
German newspapers are urging public opinion in this
direction. A popular newspaper published at Frank-
fort, Fur Wahrheit und Recht, wrote on November 23rd,
1912 : " After an unsuccessful war France will
io6 WHAT A GERMAN VICTORY WOULD COST
cease to be a Great Power, for she will be so divided
up that nothing much will be left of France as she
now is."
There are similar conclusions at the end of Herr Paul
Rohrbach's work, German Thought in the World.
On the occasion of the inauguration of the Palace
of Peace at The Hague, an important German Review,
North and South, edited by Professor Stein, published
an article by Herr Georg Erdmann called Deutsch-
lands naechste Aufgaben (Germany's next task] which
is a specimen of undiluted Pan-Germanism. By
way of celebrating the festival of peace the author
could find nothing better to do than to offer Holland
the Flemish provinces belonging to Belgium. As
Belgium would then have the right to some compensa-
tion, the northern provinces of France would be handed
over to her!
Let us quote in conclusion for we must restrain
ourselves Daniel Frymann's warning that since May
loth, 1871, the account mounting up between France
and Germany has reached enormous proportions, and
that its settlement will be stern and uncompromising.
' The victorious German nation will be able to insist
that an end shall be put once and for all to threats
from France. Therefore France must be crushed. We
shall also insist upon the cession of so much French
territory as will ensure our security for evermore. Such
territory will have to be evacuated by its inhabitants.
Then we shall take whichever of the French colonies
will best suit Germany's requirements."
Do these ebullitions seem almost too Pan-German to
be taken seriously ? Listen to Herr Alfred Kerr, " man
of letters, critic, lecturer, editor of the review, Pan,"
who flatters himself that he is not imperialist but
BRUTAL AND CYNICAL GREED 107
merely Prussian. M. Georges Bourdon, who has col-
lected his statements, vouches that we may believe his
word.
" The prospect of another campaign alarms nobody.
We talk of it without emotion, and calculate the profit :
the annihilation of France and a war indemnity of
twenty- five billions, for last time you were really let off
too easily. You are rich, we desire your goods. The peace
of the world ? For Germany that means the possession
of colonies. Yours are valuable. . . ."
We are warned, concludes M. Georges Bourdon, whose
breath is almost taken away by such brutal and cynical
greed. Yes, Frenchmen are warned ; if only they will
not persistently refuse to see that which Pan-Germans
are by no means trying to conceal.
Ill
MONSTROUS THEORIES
After the conquest How the " reconquered brothers " will be
treated Compulsory expropriation and wholesale expulsion
Precedents of Alsace-Lorraine and Poland The Barbarian
invasion.
GERMANY hopes to justify her schemes of aggression
and conquest by means of this axiom of so-called
science : " the recapture of territory historically
inhabited by other Germans/'
I am afraid we poor Frenchmen must have very
feeble intellects ; we are quite incapable of grasping
the subtlety of an argument founded on the data of
anthropology, ethnology, historical philosophy, and
many other sciences in which the Teuton genius shines
so radiantly. Who of us can grapple with the follow-
ing line of reasoning : Germans love so dearly their
" brothers " who are parted from them that they
are willing to risk a European war, to shed rivers of
blood to "deliver" them. . . . But their first anxiety,
when they have annexed the coveted territory, will be
to expel those " reconquered brothers," to make room so
that Germans coming from Germany may find the place
empty and take possession at their ease.
Again I say, I am exaggerating nothing. My part is
merely to produce documents, to set forth and give their
full value to facts and theories which are too little known
in France.
108
FURTHER CLAIMS 109
Now it is only too true that Pan-German propaganda,
the influence of which over the trend of German policy
I have shown to be so powerful and decisive, maintains
this monstrous paradox with the calmest impudence :
recapture of territory inhabited by " other Germans "
. . . and wholesale expulsion of inhabitants as soon as
the conquest is complete. ...
Of course these two contradictory statements are
not produced simultaneously, but they are defended
alternately according to whether the propaganda is
aimed at idealists or men absorbed solely in practical
results.
In a preceding chapter we have seen how Pan-Ger-
mans have discovered " parted brothers " groaning
under a foreign yoke in the populations of our Eastern
departments, which are so devoted to France.
Those who talk thus are those who are making ready
for the coming war.
This is how they are calculating upon the results :
" When we have won, and obtained territorial con-
cessions," writes Herr Daniel Frymann, " we shall
receive lands inhabited by French or Russians, conse-
quently by enemies. One wonders if such an increase
of country will be a remedy for our increasing popula-
tion. In our national egoism and hardness of heart we
have not got so far as to demand from a vanquished
enemy the cession of uninhabited territory. . . ."
All Germans have not got so far, it is true. But some
of them think this is a matter for regret, and spend their
time familiarizing their countrymen with the idea that
it is necessary to demand the evacuation of annexed
territory. Daniel Frymann advocates a similar step,
and its utility has been enlarged upon by another
author (see Grossdeutschland von Tannenberg).
no MONSTROUS THEORIES
" To speak openly on the question of ' evacuation '
has its utility," says Frymann, " so that our enemies
should know that this extreme measure has its sup-
porters in Germany."
He continues : " Those who have learnt to think
according to the historical school will be horrified when
we demand the ' evacuation ' of land inhabited by
Europeans ; for that signifies the violent interruption
of an historical development centuries old. Besides,
the idea hurts the feelings of civilized man and is con-
trary to the modern law of nations which protects in-
dividual property. But when we consider seriously the
peculiar position of the German people, squeezed into the
middle of Europe and running the risk of being suffo-
cated for want of air, we must agree that we might be
compelled to demand from a vanquished enemy, either
in the East or in the West, that he should hand over
unpopulated territory."
Daniel Frymann makes one concession to what he
calls the feelings of civilized man :
" We must not contemplate an offensive war under-
taken with the object of getting territory evacuated ;
but we ought to get used to the idea that such a
step would be admissible as a reply to an enemy's
attack."
Here, I foresee some one will raise an objection. The
idea that I have just summarized is so revolting that
many will see in it nothing more than one of the notori-
ous exaggerations which makes us treat Pan-Germans
as enthusiasts or madmen.
Have those who make this objection forgotten
October ist, 1871, when, in consequence of the interpre-
tation given to the option clause by German authorities,
one-quarter of the population of Alsace-Lorraine left
MODES OF "EVACUATION' 1 in
the country of its own accord ? Is this not " evacua-
tion " obtained by indirect means ?
From that time has not one persecution followed
another with the avowed object of inducing the native
element to leave the country to make room for the ever-
increasing flow of immigrants ?
Those who raise this objection have also forgotten the
Law of Expropriation directed against the Prussian
Poles, one of the chief successes of Pan-German internal
policy. Neither the " feelings of civilized man/' nor
even the rights of the Constitution, prevented Prussian
citizens from rinding themselves robbed of their goods
for the simple reason that they spoke Polish. 1
Why should Pan-Germans not treat a defeated enemy
in the same way that they have treated in time of peace
their fellow-citizens, subjects of the King of Prussia ?
*****
Consideration has been given to another alternative :
that of allowing the conquered population to remain on
the territory that has been annexed.
K. F. Wolff, a scholar well known for his studies on
human races, has given particular attention to this
hypothesis.
In September, 1913, this ethnographer and philoso-
pher combined, published an article in the Alldeutsche
Blaetter, which is, as you know, the official organ of the
Pan-German League. We will first of all summarize his
assertions :
1 Herr von Schor, the Prussian Minister of Agriculture, announced
recently in the Prussian Chamber, when an estimate of 125 million
marks was being voted for the Germanization of the " Eastern
frontier," that already there were 41,239 Germans, as against
47,587 Poles out of a total of 88,926 peasants in Posen. The
Minister announced that a Bill dealing with the division of large
properties would soon be introduced.
H2 MONSTROUS THEORIES
1. Scientific biology teaches us that there are two
kinds of races : dominant and inferior.
2. Dominant races, in virtue of the law of progress,
must conquer and subdue inferior races.
These essential principles having been once laid down
and admitted, nothing remains to be done but to decide
the fate of the vanquished.
In earliest times they were massacred : then, as
manners and customs became more refined, they were
reduced to slavery ; nowadays a new course must be
adopted, which K. F. Wolff endeavours to define
scientifically.
To begin with he opposes the granting of political
rights to the vanquished :
" Where is it laid down that a conquering dominant
race is obliged after a certain number of years to grant
political rights to the vanquished ? From a biological
point of view does not the exercise of political rights
constitute an advantage which belongs solely to the
dominant race ? To claim in the name of humanity
that every citizen living in a State has the right to
exercise political rights, because it is not possible to
make a second class of citizens, is to rebel against logic,
because it means a deplorable confusion between politi-
cal rights and the rights of man. Now, these rights have
nothing in common."
The rights of man are : individual liberty, liberty of
expression, and the right to work. These are the only
liberties which the vanquished can claim. As for public
rights, " they are acquired by war. The rights of
dominant races, the rights of war, the rights of con-
querors, these are rights that must be seized by force.
Nothing but the sophisms of a transitional period could
so blind the conquerors as to make them believe that
DOMINATION OF CONQUERORS 113
they were obliged to give up part of their rights of
sovereignty to their subjects."
See how the application of these theories simplifies
matters :
" There will be no more difficulties in the different
Parliaments, no more obstruction in the Imperial
Parliament, no more opposition from any of the
communes; for those who have not a sufficient
number of burghers exercising political rights will be
administered by an official. There will cease to be any
educational question ; for the fully-enfranchised citi-
zens will provide as many schools as they need, while
the remainder, who do not wish their children to attend
these schools, can provide others at their own expense,
or, if they prefer it, allow their children to grow up in
ignorance. It is not to the interest of the conquerors that
the conquered should learn anything. The essential matter
for the conquerors is that they must always be masters."
K. F. Wolff then continues in the calmest, most
scientific manner possible :
" Conquerors are acting according to the laws of
biology and logic when they endeavour to do away with
foreign language and to annihilate foreign nationality.
Hence there must be no compromise, but merely
insistence upon the right of sovereignty, the widest
possible extension of power and the sternest refusal of
political rights.
' The Constitution is made for the conqueror, never
for the conquered. Let the conquered enjoy the rights
of man, but under no pretext the rights of sovereignty.
We are born men, we win the position of lords and
masters on the field of battle."
At this point it becomes impossible to abbreviate
without being suspected of misrepresenting or exagger-
H4 MONSTROUS THEORIES
ating the author's meaning. We must therefore quote
in full :
" The conquering nation must be rich in men, so that
it may be able to flood the conquered country with its
own people. Hence only nations with large populations
have a moral right to conquest ; for it is unjust that
such a nation should be overcrowded within its frontiers,
while a neighbouring people with fewer citizens should
live luxuriously on richer territory. It is still more
unjust, it is really criminal, that a nation with a decreas-
ing birth-rate should take possession of foreign countries
with the sole and unworthy object of recruiting soldiers
whom it needs for the realization of its selfish schemes.
" The only method by which the conquered can attempt
to obtain political rights is by rebellion. This must be
put down with the utmost violence. Then immediately
afterwards the greatest toleration should be shown.
There should be no wholesale indictments, no individual
prosecutions. This is a far surer way of winning
people over than if they were treated leniently ; it is
better to have the courage to shoot down the rebels
than to fill the prisons with them. Honest principles of
war should be applied under all circumstances ; those
who assemble on the public highway are enemies and
must be dispersed by gun-fire. Those who run away
are not worth running after."
For fear, no doubt, that he will not be thoroughly
understood, K. F. Wolff hammers away on the same
subject in a heavy Teutonic fashion :
" The conqueror must have an absolute will to
dominate, and must strive for the political and ethnical
annihilation of the vanquished. He must entirely
ignore the fallacy that the vanquished have the right to
maintain their language and nationality. A victorious
PITILESS SUBJECTION 115
people, invading a country, must insist upon its privi-
leges in the most ruthless manner ; it will commit no
injustice in doing so, it will merely derive the natural
consequences of its position ; it will be chivalrous, it
will compel no one to associate with it, nor will it force
the vanquished to defend the country, knowing that
that right is reserved for the sovereign power. To make
war, to make conquests, is noble ; to mock at the van-
quished and ill-treat them is ignoble, and ill becomes a
dominant race with high principles, which feels called
to be mistress of the world (eine hochgesinnte Fuhrer-
rasse, die sich berufen fiihlt, die W either rscha ft zu
erringen)."
In order to lead up to a forcible, and yet at the same
time graceful metaphor, the Pan-German leader recalls
the "beautiful words" of Alexander of Peez : " Upon
the ancient Indo-Germans rests some of the fresh dew of
paradise." He then adds in conclusion :
" Such men as this can conquer, they are allowed to
conquer, it is their duty to conquer. They must be
suzerain, both for their own advantage and that of
others. For invasion by a noble high-minded race does
not mean annihilation but amelioration, it is in the
service of the Lord of armies, and His work is a work of
deliverance! "
Sometimes in France we hear revolutionaries, cos-
mopolitans men of no country like Gustav Herv6
emitting this blasphemy : " After all, what difference
does it make to us whether we are French or
German ? "
Frenchmen must realize that another victory of
Germanism will leave no choice to the vanquished
n6 MONSTROUS THEORIES
throughout the whole extent of conquered country
between pitiless subjection, and total dispossession,
forced exodus, and the frightful m ourning and misery
of an exile whence there can be no return.
A fresh Barbarian invasion is being planned beyond
the Rhine and is threatening us. ...
IV
" HEMMING US IN "
An allegorical picture Pan-Germanism in Belgium In Holland
In the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg In Switzerland Latin
solidarity The consummation of a great work.
A CELEBRATED picture designed by William II and
executed by Professor Knackfulss has been most
skilfully and prophetically transposed by Zislin, an
Alsatian designer, and at a most opportune moment.
William II depicted the European nations all standing
on a rock, looking at the Yellow Peril coming upon them
from afar. " European peoples, defend your most sacred
possessions! " Such was the inscription William II
devised for this allegory with his own hand. Zislin has
drawn representatives of both worlds on this same rock.
In the front row are standing France, England, and
Russia, and on the horizon in the lurid light of dawn
Pan-Germanism moves towards them in serried masses.
It is indeed true that Pan-Germanism is working,
struggling, fighting in every corner of the world. We can
trace it in Asia, where it has already marked for its own
part of the Turkish spoils ; in Africa, where, since the
partition of the French Congo, a vast and magnificent
colonial scheme is taking shape ; in America, where its
flood of emigrants is creating scattered rights, Ger-
manic oases, which will no doubt one day be combined
117
n8 " HEMMING US IN 11
in one mighty union. . . . But we must stay our hand,
for already we have more than sufficient evidence of
the covet ousness which Pan- Germanism has either dis-
played or gratified in the countries immediately within
its reach, the annexation of which will one day give
substance to the territorial dream of " Great Germany." 1
This dream has not always been expressed with the
same brutality of which the commander of a German
warship was guilty in 1898. When he was entertained
by his fellow-countrymen living in Antwerp, he drank
to " the annexation of Belgium to the German Empire."
Berlin hurriedly disowned this braggart. But, as a
compensation, a fresh impetus was given to the work of
German penetration in Belgium. To-day a tithe of the
population of Antwerp is German, the trade of the great
Belgian port is in German hands. Eight sections of the
Antwerp Chamber of Commerce have a German
president. The dream is coming true, and to fulfil it
deeds are better than words.
The official word, moreover, is pleasantly reassuring.
In April, 1913, while the commission of the budget in
the Reichstag was discussing the new military law, a
Socialist deputy asked whether in the event of a war
with France, Germany would respect Belgian neu-
trality. Herr von Jagow, Under-Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, replied : " Belgian neutrality is
guaranteed by international conventions, and Germany
is resolved to abide by those conventions."
Unfortunately, this little piece of by-play coincided
1 See in the number for August, 1913, of the Marches de I'Est,
" Les projets de I'Allemagne dans 1'Afrique centrale," by M. P. A.
Helmer, and " Le Pangermanisme en Afrique," by J. Goulven.
BELGIAN NEUTRALITY 119
with the bringing in of a Bill in the Belgian Chamber for
reorganizing the army and putting the country in a
better position in case of a German invasion. The
Belgian Socialists had to be provided with an argument
for throwing out the Bill.
But in spite of the solemn declarations of the German
Minister, the Belgian Government, which probably
knows what to believe, carried the Bill, which became
law on June i8th. From that date Belgium has an
army of 60,000 men on a peace footing, and can have a
field army of 250,000 men.
Three months after the passing of this law, the Grand
Belgian manoeuvres of the summer of 1913, which were
extremely brilliant and reflected great credit on the
" neutral " army, were developed upon this line : a
Belgian army had to repel a German army which was
trying to make its way across Belgium.
It is no secret that in the event of a European con-
flagration the Belgian army would be reinforced by an
English army corps of about fifty thousand men, who
would be landed at Antwerp, to see that Belgian
neutrality was respected, by threatening the flank and
rear of the German right wing.
Field-Marshal Lord Roberts admitted, in an article
in the English Review, that in the autumn of 1911, when
a German attack seemed imminent, an expeditionary
force was ready to embark for Flanders at a moment's
notice.
To speak quite frankly, the fiction of Belgian
neutrality can no longer t>e maintained. The treaties
of 1839 are worn out, if not in theory at least in fact.
They were drawn up at a time when the European
situation was very different from what it is at present.
From the mere fact that the Powers guaranteeing
" HEMMING US IN "
Belgian neutrality are divided into two hostile camps,