Germany's Terms

To THE EDITOR OF THE ATLANTIC.

SIR: —

You ask me what would be, at least according to my own personal opinion, the terms of peace by which Germany would wish to terminate this war. It is not of much use to try to consider this question with any seriousness before the result of the war has become more or less definitely determined, — before we know if Germany is to be victorious and how decisive this victory is to be. As affairs now stand,¹ it is probably apparent, even to the foreigner, that Germany and Austria will be victorious. But nevertheless in France, Russia, and England one has not given up hope of victory, and one hopes there for some sudden turn of events, — for instance, support in the field by a Japanese army. At any rate, it is impossible at present to make any conjecture as to the extent of the German and Austrian victory, assuming of course that the victory remains with them. Many believe that Russia will entirely disintegrate: that the peasants, the laborers, the oppressed peoples who alone constitute a third of all the inhabitants of the Russian Empire, will start a revolution. Others believe that England will be crippled by a revolt of the subjugated three hundred and fifty millions in India. Inasmuch as Germany is not threatened by the slightest inner danger, she could, in case of such a turn of affairs abroad, push her victory quite far. In such a case it would be particularly opportune to free Poland and to create an independent Polish kingdom; Germany desires under no conditions aggrandizement through additions of Polish territory. But, as has been said, all such possibilities are dependent on military success, and it is useless to speculate about them until the victory is assured.

In the same way are to be excluded speculations as to what Germany and Austria — who live in the feeling that they have been attacked and are waging a war of self-defense — may think it necessary to demand from a military standpoint in the interests of the nation’s future defense.

Of course such foreigners as labor under the conviction that Germany was the aggressor in this war, put the question quite differently. If Germany be the aggressor, one asks, then to what end? What did Germany expect to gain by an aggressive war? For a German this question does not exist, because every German, from the humblest day-laborer to the Kaiser, knows that we desired nothing but peace and that we were wantonly attacked by Russian Pan-Slavism, by the French revanche, and England’s assumption that Britannia rules the waves. Now that this attack has taken place and we, in spite of greatly inferior numbers, — only one hundred and fifty millions, including Austria and Turkey, against seven hundred and eighty-two millions of the Allies, — odds of more than five to one against us, — expect to be, perhaps already are, victorious, the question as we put it can only be one thing: How are we to prevent the recurrence of plots that assassinate our kings and make war on us when we demand retribution? However, that which will be demanded in this direction will be of a military nature, and depends entirely on the ultimate outcome of the war. Perhaps such measures for national safety will not be necessary at all; perhaps they will be very important indeed. An exposition of my own personal opinions on this point is of little value. However, aside from the military necessities of Germany, I may say something concerning the national need of Germany. In this case I can but refer to an article which I published in 1912 in my monthly, the Preussische Jahrbücher. The ideas which I expounded then I still consider right to-day. They contain the aim which an intelligent German policy must follow; only at that time I thought that it would be possible to reach these aims gradually and in peace; that the German strength and importance was sufficient to bring conviction to England, Russia, and France that they had no right to divide up the world among them, — Egypt, Sudan, Transvaal, Tunis, Madagascar, Morocco, Persia, Manchuria, Mongolia, — without asking Germany or allowing Germany to participate. Now we have learned that mere preparation for war was not sufficient; we have been obliged to demonstrate our national equality with the older world-powers by gigantic battles. Notwithstanding, the aim remains the same, only with the difference that that which we hoped to attain gradually, through exchange or compensation, will now be made a term of peace, and, I hope, even further extended. In this sense I beg you to read and understand the following article.

The political situation at the time this article was written was this. The great crises which had threatened the world’s peace in 1911 had been passed. France had attained Germany’s consent to the protectorate over Morocco and had compensated Germany for this with some pieces of the Congo. In Germany few were pleased with the abandonment of Morocco, and the compensation seemed to many much too meagre; and people were irritated against England, who had supported France and had been, as it was expressed, ‘more French than the French themselves.’ After the war-danger was past, the diplomats on both sides exerted themselves to clear away the explosives. Especially in England the idea arose of reaching a broad-gauge understanding with Germany concerning colonial questions; whereupon Lord Haldane appeared personally in Berlin to this end. Many in Germany believe to-day that all these negotiations, which dragged along from the summer of 1912 well into the year 1914, were carried on by England only in order to deceive and cradle Germany in a feeling of security. I myself do not believe this. I believe that until the last there were two factions in the British government, one of which has urged war against Germany for a long time, but the other, just as we have ourselves, has taken much trouble to compensate the strains of conflicting interests by peaceful means. The war party in England gained the upper hand only in July, 1914, because the Russian PanSlavists’ Servian friends had violently ignited the conflagration by the murder at Serajevo. Be this as it may, throughout all the clash of conflicting interests, prior to this war, we in Germany, and I personally, firmly believed that peace could be maintained; and two years ago, in this belief, I wrote the following, which I reprint.

In their most recently littered remarks on Anglo-German relations and on the purport of the journey of Lord Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, British ministers have offered suggestions that the present breach, so painfully felt on either side, should be bridged by means of a systematic limitation of spheres of influence, and of existing and future possessions. These suggestions can be understood only as implying that a rearrangement of existing colonial possessions is under consideration, and that those territories also must be considered which, at the present moment, are neither English nor German. There is at present, however, nothing to show what particular portions of the world’s surface the British diplomatists have in their minds. Is it believed in London that the troubles in China will not tend to a consolidation or rejuvenation of the Chinese Empire, but rather that they will, or at least may, lead to a partition in which we are to share? Or is it in Africa, where it is to be assumed that a bargain has long been struck, in readiness for the moment when the Portuguese will no longer be able to remain masters of their vast possessions? I know nothing about such matters; but when they are in the air, it seems to me seasonable that German public opinion should seek to be clearly informed as to the goal for which we are aiming. We need not trouble ourselves with petty matters. For such no minister would make so special a journey to what might almost be described as the enemy’s capital. But while I acclaim it with the utmost satisfaction, and hope that the negotiations thus commenced may attain their object of closing the breach once again between Germany and England, there must also be something great and important in the work which is being done and which must be carried through. I do not propose to draw up a programme, but merely to open a discussion on the various possibilities which may present themselves in the event of any real settlement being reached.

The point of view from which colonial policy tends primarily to be regarded is the commercial: markets, crops, investment of capital, the profits of undeveloped natural wealth. An appreciable number of German people must have the opportunity offered them of gaining a livelihood in the colonies, while their well-being will influence for good the wealth of the whole nation, and indirectly benefit the mass of the people by the provision of markets and work. This is all very true, but the essence of colonial policy is not thereby exhausted, and even the most important point of all is not touched, since all these purely commercial advantages can be enjoyed in the colonies of foreign nations, so long as these maintain the principle of ‘the open door.’ Instead, therefore, of seeking to acquire colonies of our own, we might make it the object of our policy to secure the maintenance of the open door in colonies all the world over. Many a colonial politician has reckoned up the outlay on colonies to be far greater than the gain to be drawn from them; in which case we could do nothing better than to leave to other nations the burden of opening up and administering colonies, while we ourselves merely make use of them for purposes of trade and commerce. I will not pause here to repeat the old statement that such a calculation has many flaws; the all-important point is that colonial policy must be dictated, not merely by commercial but rather by national interests.

Toward the end of the year 1893, the English historian, Hartpole Lecky, gave a lecture on the subject of ‘England and her Colonies,’ which appeared to us of such importance that we published a translation of it, by I. Imelmann, in the number of this journal, [Preussische Jahrbücher] dated February, 1894. Lecky pointed out that in England the Free Trade school, represented by such distinguished leaders as Cobden and Mill, had taught that the cost of the colonies in pounds, shillings, and pence, was far more than they brought in, and that England could hardly do better than to get rid of all her colonies, as quickly as possible, in all parts of the world, whether in India, Australia, Africa, or Canada. But the sound good sense of the English people, despite the fact that they had accepted the principles of the Free Trade school, did not for one moment permit them to be led astray by such false doctrines; and not only did they insist upon maintaining the place of the mother country at the head of fiftysix more or less self-governing dominions, but, as we all know, she expanded still further at the cost of mighty wars. Why? Lecky described the size and splendor of the British World Empire, the expansion which English ways, speech, character, principle, have gained all the world over by means of British colonial policy, and closed his lecture with these great words: —

‘What the future position of these islands may be in the commonwealth of nations, no mortal man can predict. As history only too clearly tells us, nations have their periods of decadence and their times of growth. Conditions of world-power have become displaced, other rules and influences — very different to those which made England what she is — have come to the front, and clouds, neither few nor light, appear on the horizon. Whatever fate may befall these islands, this we may at least prophesy, that no upheaval of mortal affairs can destroy the influence on the future of the English language or of the British race. Whatever misfortunes, whatever disturbances, Fate may have in store for us, they cannot rob England of the fame of having created this mighty Empire.

What has concerned and concerns England, concerns us too. The aim of our colonial policy is not merely the extension of German trade and commerce over the world, because trade and commerce are only the means for the extension and the strengthening of the German nation. That trade follows the flag is not always right, says Lecky; but the heart always follows the flag.

The colonies we have up to now possessed give us only a very small prospect of ever aiming at such a goal; their commercial value is not very high, and their value as a national asset is even lower. The first proviso for a colony which aspires to be an assistance to Germany, is the absolute supremacy in it of the German language. The German colonies are, as a rule, no more than mere inclosures, set in the midst of the huge compact mass of British possessions. Whoever, therefore, speaks German is in Africa in much the same position as one who in Europe speaks Danish or Magyar, and a German, even often in our own colonies, finds himself obliged to learn English. This state of things constitutes a certain danger for our nation. The language exerts an influence upon modes of thought, customs, and requirements. The most successful form of colonization is the peasant colony, which provides so compact a little nation that such dangers are not forthcoming, and the colony itself feels as though it were a fragment of the mother country. We cannot count upon such a peasant colonization, for the simple reason that we no longer possess any peasant surplus. The whole tale of our oversea emigration has long since fallen to twenty or thirty thousand per annum, while we annually employ in Germany upwards of a million of foreign workmen — Russians, Poles, Ruthenians, Italians, and Scandinavians. Germany is no emigratory land, but rather a country to which others immigrate. The peasants and agricultural laborers who might colonize, are most urgently required at home, and we cannot permit them to go oversea. Those who should fill our colonies and stamp their impression upon them, are the higher classes, — the thousands of the upper and middle class whom our educational system produces, and for whom we in the fatherland have no satisfactory employment. Men about thirty years of age, who are in the flower of their manhood and have acquired all the necessary knowledge and skill for the fulfillment of a great sphere of utility, sit about idle or are only casually employed in Germany, and wait for a position paying a small salary. These we should send abroad as engineers, merchants, planters, doctors, overseers, officers, and officials, in order that they might rule the great masses of the lower peoples, as the English do the natives of India. It is, however, not enough to distribute these men of a higher class just here and there in a few large or small districts, since a really permanent and secure national gain is the result only of the acquirement of a large, self-contained territory, which the different districts help to expand, while they themselves are by it protected and held together. A really large, selfcontained territory, uniformly administered, acquires a certain political consistence; the uniform customs-district creates ties and interests which not only promote prosperity, but which are not easily destroyed. Cities with a large white population and their parochial concerns need a very vast Hinterland. But such a colonial empire will be capable of closely attaching itself to the mother country, when at least certain portions of the territory are so constituted that not merely a fluctuating, but a firmly founded, German race can control the aboriginal inhabitants and continue there to flourish.

On such a broad, territorial foundation it ought to be possible to develop a sentiment among the German planters and business men of the upper class, which might well be described as a German-African national pride. Mere colonial enclaves can never produce anything of this kind; they may possess or develop a greater or a lesser commercial value, but never a national future. For this a really vast and self-contained territory is required. For this reason among others I was always opposed to the acquirement of a new German enclave in Southern Morocco, and preferred the expansion of the Cameroons to that of the Congo.

A territory must now be searched for which not only will afford space for the colonization and activities of our disposable manhood, but which itself contains room enough for a permanently established German race to maintain itself by its own powers.

There are in Africa two great spheres in regard to which it is still doubtful whether they have been actually disposed of or not: these are the Portuguese possessions already mentioned, and the Belgian Congo. Opinions differ greatly whether these two small states are capable of making their positions good, and I do not venture to offer any views on the matter. In England men regard the Belgian Congo with a very hostile glance, asserting that the Belgians govern after methods which are not in accordance with European custom, and in defiance of the rules of humanity, and that it should be the duty of civilized nations to put an end to what is no less than a disgrace. Further, England has not yet recognized the transfer to the Belgian State of the Congo Territory from the private property of King Leopold II as politically binding, and would probably be ready enough actively to intervene as soon as we and France came to an understanding in the matter.

A European conference has already, by a resolution, come to the opinion that the rule of Belgium in Central Africa may one day cease, and that in the event of any change the right of purchase has been ceded to France. But none the less, intervention in the form of anything like division of territory would be a ticklish matter. It seems true enough that the Belgians deserve blame for many evil doings, but intervention or dispossession on the ground of such charges would in theory be hazardous, and in practice difficult to carry through. Certainly under no circumstances could we take the initiative in such a matter. But were a crisis actually to arise without any seeking of ours, here we would find one of those territories to which Englishmen would probably be ready to relegate us, France waiving her right of purchase.

Rather different from the case of the Belgian Congo State is that of the Portuguese possessions. Here, unquestionably, the Portuguese have neither the commercial nor the mental energy to develop the territories remaining to them from the days of their greatness, as the international commerce of today requires. Here are natural resources lying fallow, as to which one is morally justified in demanding that they should be developed for the good of the world in general; and although force must not be employed in this case, it is by no means improbable that the Portuguese Republic might be ready to resign her sovereign rights for an adequate monetary equivalent. The Anglo-German agreement presumably provides that, in the event of any division, the East African territories, Mozambique and Lorenzo Marques, shall fall to England; the West African, Angola with the estuary of the Congo and Kabinda, to us.

The claim might now perhaps be put forward that, should England and Russia divide Persia between them, and thus extend their dominions, the balance might be redressed by England’s relinquishing any future claim on Portuguese East Africa in our favor, so that we may then extend our own East Africa. But I raise the point only to set it aside. Certainly the disturbances in Persia seem to offer us certain compensatory rights, but, as it is, our East African possessions are already so inconveniently placed in regard to the English, that it would be hopeless to demand any expansion in this direction. The ground plan of any agreement in Africa must be Mozambique and Lorenzo Marques with Delagoa Bay to England, Angola with Kabinda to us; at the most the English might give us Zanzibar.

Let us take it that this case may shortly present itself, or even both cases: that the Portuguese possessions as well as the Congo State come to be divided. We have then the possibility of a self-contained German colonial empire, — that is, if we succeed also in acquiring the remainder of the French Congo lying between the Cameroons and the mouth of the Congo.

We are justified in accepting this rearrangement as a fairly certain element in our views of the future. The boundary, as defined in the recently ratified Congo Agreement, is so absurd that even the diplomatists who arranged it look upon it as no more than a provisional one. Public opinion in Germany, disgusted with the result of the whole diplomatic campaign, detected here a mistake; I myself saw from the outset an advantage. It is impossible to get all one wants at once. By the creation of the present Congo boundary, the need for its revision at an early date was also created, that is, future acquirement by Germany of the whole of the French Congo.

This French Congo is certainly not of any particular value; it is even distasteful to the German people by reason of the recent agitation. But the geographical union would be of such importance that we ought to strive to bring it about. What have we to offer the French for it? In the negotiations of the year before last there was some incidental talk of exchanging for it our colony of Togoland. Public opinion was greatly opposed to this, but when it is considered how extraordinarily low is the national value of a colony which, although commercially flourishing, cannot, being an enclave, expand any further, one cannot altogether refuse all idea of such an exchange. The French Congo, possibly including also the right of purchase of the Belgian Congo, might be had for concessions in regard to our remaining rights in Morocco and for Togoland.

But even were the Congo State to continue to exist as such, a very vast, as well as a compact German-African empire would be won by the amalgamation of the Cameroons, the French Congo, Angola, and Southwest Africa. Such an empire would possess the advantage of not being too far distant from Germany; while in the Upper Cameroons and in Southern Angola there are places not only where German merchants, agents, planters, and officials actually live, but where a German race can establish itself in the soil. Here there is a good climate and sufficient water for intensive agriculture; the introduction of enough capital and industry would permit its development into a white man’s colony, which would very soon connect itself southwards with our present ‘South-West’ and its intensive husbandry, and in the north with the tropical plantation colonies and the aboriginal agricultural methods under European control. This empire would become very much larger and more compact with the addition of the Belgian Congo — with the exception of the southeasterly portion, Katanga, to which England would probably lay claim. By the acquirement of these territories our East and West African possessions would be linked together; we should rule from ocean to ocean and govern a huge Central-African empire.

What prospect have we of any such development, even if no more than a gradual one? Although by acquiring Mozambique, Lorenzo Marques, Delagoa Bay, and Katanga, England would obtain a very large and advantageous extension of her dominions, while there is also the prospect of similar expansion in Persia, still our position from sea to sea would be for England so uncomfortable an innovation, that she would probably rather renounce all her own advantages than work with us for such an end. It cannot be doubted that, since the fear of almost certain war during last summer, England is honestly ready to accord us a large and good place in the sun; but her own one great object is the establishment of a communication from Egypt to the Cape. Will she be inclined herself to strangle this plan in order to assist us to found a German dominion right across Africa? This, at any rate from my point of view, would be the strongest proof imaginable that England recognized us as having equal colonial rights with herself.

Do the English perhaps imagine that we might be inclined to sell them Samoa? It is of no great practical value to us, but it is to England. Or are they thinking of an exchange in Africa itself?

But the one thing that chiefly stands in the way of their plans for the future, is our German East Africa.

We have already raised the consideration that Togoland might have to be given up in order that our western possessions might be geographically rounded off; but supposing Germany were to retain Togoland and relinquish East Africa in its place? England still possesses many places in West Africa which would admirably ‘round off’ the German belongings in those parts, and which could be offered in exchange for East Africa. On the West African coast England holds the Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast (Ashanti), and Northern and Southern Nigeria — the valley of the Niger and Benue and the town of Lagos. Were England to resign all these possessions, France could then acquire from her the Gambia, Sierra Leone, and the Gold Coast, thus expanding and rounding her Northwest African dominion in a most advantageous manner, handing over for these to Germany Dahomey (between Togoland and Nigeria) as well as the Congo and the right of purchase of the Belgian Congo; Germany would obtain Nigeria and would thus come into possession of an African empire, stretching uninterruptedly to Cape Colony in the south and to the Gold Coast in the north. The population of Nigeria is computed at not less than fifteen million souls; the territory suggested to be handed over to France at four and a half millions; German East Africa has no more than ten millions. England would thus give up more than she would receive in return, but she would gain the uninterrupted stretch of her East African dominion from Cairo to the Cape.

Could Germany accept this as a basis for negotiation, if the adherence of Lord Haldane to such propositions could be secured? Is it not our duty to declare beforehand that such is unacceptable so far as we are concerned?

The material gain would be considerable. Nigeria is much larger and far more thickly populated than is German East Africa. We should retain Togoland, should obtain Dahomey, and so join Togoland on to the Cameroons. While it is a matter of doubt whether the French would regard Togoland as an equivalent for their Congo, the three possessions given up by England should make this good, and permit us to acquire the whole huge Hinterland up to the fourteenth degree of latitude, and by means of rearrangements in Morocco to indemnify Spain for giving up Fernando Po and Rio Muni. But in the event of the French still not finding this satisfactory, England could yet give up something in some other portion of the world. East Africa is very disadvantageously placed for a German colony; the voyage thither by way of the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal lasts five weeks, the voyage to Nigeria only a fortnight. It would take too long, and I do not feel myself qualified, to enter upon a comparison of the internal advantages of the two countries, of which the one lies just as much to the north of the equator as the other lies to the south of it; the main question is this — is it morally possible for us to acquiesce in an exchange, in giving away a territory which is already colonized by a fairly large number of Germans, — something like two thousand? It would be difficult enough in the case of Togoland, but can it be considered in the case of East Africa, which is eleven times as large, and where there are not only a large number of German men of business, but a few hundred farmers and planters, and where no small amount of German blood has been shed in the hoisting of the German flag?

We are again, and from another side, confronted by the truth of the saying that it is not its commercial, but its national value, which determines the importance of a colony. Were they no more than large properties, one could always look upon an exchange as merely a commercial transaction. But all these countries contain cemeteries which are not to be lightly handed over. In every village church in England are to be found memorial tablets to the sons of the leading families in the land, who have given their lives for that Greater Britain all the world over; and so for the French, too, it would be very difficult to give up the Congo, — not so much on account of the commercial value of the country, which is after all nothing very great, but on account of the French blood which has there been shed and has left something of Fame behind it.

I would leave it to each of my readers to form his own opinion and decide for himself. It is not even known whether the English are making such an offer, or whether changes are not making themselves felt in the international situation which may render any decision unnecessary, or which may produce altogether different conditions. I would only insist upon the following points: —

First, that national and not commercial interests must decide the question; not that commercial interests should be separated from national, but that they should be subordinate, as the means is to the end.

Secondly, that the object of our colonial aspirations must be a vast, compact territory, — a territory wherein the German spirit can rule by its own strength.

Thirdly, that, should it be possible to obtain such territory only by exchange, then it is desirable to bring the matter speedily to settlement, since the longer it is delayed the more difficult it becomes to give up a territory which has once been colonized by Germans.

Fourthly, that we should not hesitate about the amount of the purchase money, if the first and greatest of acquisitions—Portuguese Angola — is in the market.

Fifthly, that the striking of a colonial balance between Germany and England would in large measure insure the peace of the world for a long time to come, and that consequently such a consummation should be striven for by putting forth all energy and every honest endeavor.

HANS DELBRÜCK.