CORRESPONDENCE.

GERMANY AND BRITAIN ONCE MORE.

[To THE EDITOR OF SHE " SPECT 11.TOR...)

SIR,—In this concluding letter I propose to illustrate by quotation, first, the German view of Germany; second, the German view of Britain and the British Empire; third, the German view of the British Fleet ; and fourth, the possi- bilities of invasion as they present themselves to the German

mind.

The literature from which I am about to quote is not, as a rule, of a particularly high type. It may be called a "Battle of Dorking" literature, inverted. That is, its warnings are ad- dressed', not to Germans, as the English author of "The Battle cf Dorking" addressed his to his fellow-countrymen, but to Englishmen. For Germans there are, with rare exceptions, no warnings, but war-whoops only. It is the most presumptuous and Nemesis-provoking literature ever evolved by any people at any time, and some of its productions might be considered abso- lutely insane, if Madame de Sta.el had not taught us that "think- ing calms men of other nations ; it inflames the German"; and if Nietzsche had not prepared us for some strange phenomena when be prophesied that "the German Empire will destroy the German mind." My chief authorities (over and above those mentioned

ja previous letters) for the four topics I have named are as fellows :— knran; .L. von." Englands Land mid Seepolitik," 1902. Welintellung des Deutschthuins," 1897.

Del brick on Germany and England in the Preussische Jahrbucher for March, 1903.

Eisenhart, Dr. Karl.—" Die Abrechnung mit England," 1900. (Four editions in the first year of publication. "Eisenhart" is possibly a pseudonym.)

"Germania Triumphans."" Ruckblick auf die weltgeschicht- lichen Ereignisse der Jahre 1900-1915," von einem Greest- deutschen, 1895.

" Grossdeutschland und Mitteleuropa um das Jahr 1850," von einem Alldeutschen, 1895.

H., Captain, in Marine Rundschau for June, 1902.

Livonius.—" Die Deutsche Nordseefiotte mid die Englische See-

macht," in Deutsche Revue for February, 1902. Moulin-Eckart.—"Englands Politik Mid die Machte," 1901. "Hauticus."—" Year-book of German Maritime Interests." Ratsel.—" Das Meer als Queue der VolkergrOsse," 1900.

To begin with • the German view of Germany. "Beyond all question the German people now holds the first place in arts and sciences" (Hasse, "Deutsche Weltpolitik "). "German trade has unhorsed England almost everywhere" (Funke, "Deutsche Sled- lung fiber See"). "We are undoubtedly the best warrior-people in the world" (Bley, " Weltstellung des Deutschthums"). "We are the most accomplished people in all domains of science and fine art" (ibid.) "We are the best settlers, the best seamen, even the best merchants" (ibid.) "The modern world owes to us Germans pretty well everything in the way of great achievements that it has to show" (ibid.) "Ours is the future, for we are the young" (ibid.) "German industry, in its chief productions, now

holds the first place in the world In German industry a good bit of idealism, a quantity of individual pleasure in the creative effort, is worked in. This impulse of the soul, no less than mere technique, it is which will secure to our industry precedence over all competitors for an indefinite period to come" (Grenz- boten article on Holland). Herwegh's "fiery soul" thus delivers itself on Germany's mission to the world:—" Thou art the shep- herd of the great nation-flocks. Thou art the great people of the future on this earth. Up, then, with the anchor!" Of course the nautical shepherd cannot tolerate any claim to equality with himself from the sheep whom it is his business to rule and, if they are good, to " civilise" ; and in the Greater Germany of the future Magyars, Poles, Czechs, and Slays in general will be unable to vote or to hold land, but will be found useful in the "inferior manual occupations" (" Grossdeutschland"). Quite in the tone of the transformed Malvolio finding work for Sir Andrew Ague- cheek and Sir Toby Belch !

Exaltation of oneself is wont to be accompanied by detraction of other people, and Germany is no exception to the rule. England is the foil whose wickedness and weakness show up Germany's greatness and virtue. There are a few Englishmen (probably not readers of German newspapers) who seriously main- tain that the German Press-campaign against our Army in South Africa was the disinterested criticism of a fair outsider. To them I commend the passage in which Dr. Hans DelbrUck, one of the ablest and most candid of German publicists, after claiming for the support given to the Boer cause by the German people that it was "natural and justified," goes on to tell his countrymen in plain terms that "the insults with which the English Army and the English national character were at that time bespattered, not in the German Press only, but in the Reichstag, were, however, so excessively gross that one can scarcely take it amiss if the English bore a grudge against us for them." But as I have said before, the Transvaal War may have been the occasion for this special outburst of German malevolence ; it was certainly not the cause. Here is one of the flowers of rhetoric which drop at every moment from the pen of a Pan-German. If Holland and Germany had not been sundered, "Germany would have re- juvenated and inspired the wide world with her noble life-blood in the last three centuries, instead of it having been desolated by the Britons" (Bley,"Machtstellung Deutschlands"). "England has shown herself a far more systematic and persistent enemy to Germany than all Huns, Frenchmen, and Imperial Pandours put together; yea, worse even than the plague. For the plague carries off one generation only; but England has hounded on the pack against the German people over and over again, whenever we tried to recover and take breath" (ibid.) The same writer denounces "England's policy of entangling us all in Continental wars, and so preventing our development overseas," and indeed this accusation of exploiting, inflaming, and even creating, Con- tinental differences in the interest of our commercial and Colonial policy is one of the commonest charges against England in the German mouth. Even a serious Professor like Sering (in " Handels mid Machtpolitik ") endorses and repeats it. Monlin- Eckert (also a Professor—at Munich) " is eloquent on the "brutal and cunning tactics of the British merchant," "the peedy but steady gaze of the beast of prey, turned by Eng- land upon Algeria." (sic), and the "piratical system" pursued by England against Holland (who gave as good as she got, and who has an Amboyna massacre, which even Ernst von Halle admits, with Unconscious humour, was "not to be justified on principles of international law," to her account). At the time of the Crimean War, according to Moulin-Eckart, England "laid a net" fcr Prussia, which Prussia was clever enough to escape. In 1870, he continues, England could

have prevented war if she had told France she would not have it. (How' that would have suited the views of the editor of the Ems despatch does not appear.) Finally this authority finds the grievance of grievances in the English reception of the Emperor's telegram to Kruger. "Our Emperor knows that an insult to him is an insult to the nation, and that the day of atone- ment will come; for God's mills grind slow but sure. And he may have thought to himself amid the turmoil= Be quiet, my sword, thy day will come ' !" To Eisenhart, on the other hand, the supreme grievance is Samoa. The attitude of the German Govern- ment he characterises as " backboneless submissiveness" to England and the United States, and he tells us that by their treatment of that question the Anglo-Saxon brethren have "made an irreconcilable enemy of the greatest and strongest military

Power in the world Germany had to wait two hundred years until it could avenge the robbery of Strasburg. Why should it not wait another two centuries for revenge on the out- rage of Samoa ? "

With menaces so dire impending over our devoted heads, it may be as well perhaps to ask, What of the Fleet ? And here I find my authorities at variance, one group maintaining that the English naval officers and men are as good as the ships, another that our personnel is decidedly inferior to the German one. In his "Year-book of German Maritime Interests" "Nautkus " quotes the Marine Rundschau, which may be supposed to represent the average technical point of view, as asserting that the English naval personnel is "a model," and declares on his own account that we are easily first in the important matter of coaling. "The two- Power standard has been maintained, and the German Press has been misled by the English Navy League into thinking that the English Fleet is not as good as it ever was." Amran argues that the vital positions—Gibraltar, Skager Rack, the Kattegat— are so favourable to England, and unfavourable to the Continent, that to meet her with success at sea the latter would have to have four or five times as many ships. Without cables, coaling stations, and unity in command, two thousand five hundred or three thousand fighting units would be no match for the English thirteen hundred.. The principal spokesman of the other side is Admiral Livonius, who, in an article in the Deutsche Revue, maintains that the English Fleet has found its Capua in the Mediterranean. "I proceed to this inquiry," he says, "with a certain reluctant aversion, with a kind of pious awe. The English seaman has always been my model of excellence in seamanship, the exploits and the victories of the great English sea-heroes have excited my seaman's enthusiasm from my earliest youth." He believes, however, that circumstances have taken a turn un- favourable to England, as compared with her great period. England now relies on the number of her ships. But when she won her great naval victories at the beginning of the century, her Fleet was numerically inferior. At Trafalgar she had twenty-seven ships of the line; the French and Spaniards, thirty-three. At the battle of Cape St. Vincent there were only fifteen English ships to thirty-three Spanish. England owed her victories to (1) the superiority of her Captains and Admirals—St. Vincent, which was won by Jervis, was "one of the grandest and most brilliant naval battles of all history "—and (2) the intensive training of the personnel, the continual practice in tactical manceuvres. The blockade of the French coast-towns, kept up in all weathers (some of my readers will remember Alfred de Vigny's wonderful picture of that grand sea-dog, Collingwood, renouncing home and family,. and all that made life pleasant, in order to keep fast that iron. grip on Brest), did much to perfect this training, and the French had nothing similar. But now—(1) There is no reason to expect commanders of like quality. Look at Tryon and the Admiral who obeyed the fatal order. Here are no proofs of mastery, independence, and decision. (2) The English training is inferior to the German. Winter and summer, the German ships are training in the most dangerous seas. "How different now in England! The Mediterranean is no true training-ground for seamen" (ibid.) Even the seafaring Phoenicians of old got training, not there, but in the Indian Ocean (Ratzel). "Of tactical evolutions," continues Livonius, "there is hardly ques- tion. At Singapore the commander of the English ironclad Swiftsure ' was quite amazed at the celerity with which the night-watch on my ship obeyed the unexpected order to clear decks for action. He could not trust his men to tumble out of bed in that way. Here again we have the difference between military duty and mercenary service." (Needless to say, I leave the exclusive responsibility for the statement about the ` Swift- sure ' to Admiral Livonius.) The annual English manceuvres are useless, not to be compared to a rational continuous training. (No such training in the English Fleet?) The old English tactical and seamanlike superiority is gone. "We can un- hesitatingly claim it for ourselves." Ships do not fight, but men, and to multiply ships without the men is futile. The conclusion of Admiral Livonius is that the invasion of England has become quite possible with steam.

The opposite view is powerfully expounded in a remarkable article by Captain H. in the Marine Rundschau for June, 1902. History proves, says this writer, that the landing of troops in hostile country, which can be reached by water only, presupposes absolute mastery of the sea. Napoleon, it is true, landed ba Egypt without having first obtained such mastery, but the expedi- tion ran counter to the simplest laws of strategy (Admiral Colomb is here referred to), and in the end failed lamentably. Again, England landed thirty thousand men in the Crimea with.. out having first secured the safety of the transports by the annihilation or blockade of the Russian Fleet; but only the Russian indecision made that possible. As for the idea of a Bar- prise attack, in these days of telegraphs and swarms of fast lish cruisers that is a pure chimera. No such expedition could be undertaken without casting its shadow over the whole earth for weeks beforehand. Then, the transports carrying the invading force could not get up an average pace of more than twelve knots; the English cruisers and torpedo-destroyers would be infinitely faster. It follows that there must be a successful naval battle first. But after such a, battle the invading fleet, even if victorious, would be crippled, and the repairs would take months. Moreover, the speed and freedom of movement of modern warships would make it possible even for a weaker force to get at the transports. Without sea-mastery of a very real kind, therefore, invasion is altogether too dangerous ; and under modern conditions such absolute sea-mastery is far more difficult of attainment than it was. The conclusion is that in a question of invasion modern conditions are al/ on the side of the defensive. Still, let us suppose that the English coast is reached. One hundred thousand men would be needed for any prospect of suc- cess. The English landed thirty thousand men in eleven hours in the Crimea; but the men had nothing but their knap- sacks, the weather was splendid, and the force was not ready to march or fight before three days had passed. The landing of the men only is naught without artillery, horses, and transport. This would take days, and if the weather were bad, the case would be still worse. Then there is the resistance by land. Imagine rifle- fire on the crammed boats and lighters. Even if the English Army be as bad as people say (which Captain H. clearly doubts), the resistance of a people of forty millions counts. In 1870, after France's standing Army had been all destroyed or nullified, Gam- betta called three armies into existence, totalling four hundred thousand men, and much fighting had to be done. There were a million German soldiers on French soil, and all communications were in their hands. Lastly, there would be the difficulty of feeding the invaders in a country which does not grow its own corn. The invading force would have to subdivide, and its risks would grow. However regarded, the facts lead to the conclusion that under the present conditions invasion is not possible. "Those who in blind undervaluing of England impose upon our Fleet aims beyond its strength are guilty of a grievous error. The adverse judgments on England's sea-power passed by part of. our daily, and even of our military, Press will not be endorsed by any one who knows the strength and excellence of her ships, the efficiency of her officers and men, the value of her sea-bases, and— who has read England's naval history?'

- One last word. Two of the Pan-German prophets of the future, ".Germania Triumphans " and Dr. Eisenhart, represent Germany as fighting against both England and the United States, but fighting against them separately. In "Germania Triumphans " the United States are first attacked and defeated by both sea and /and, and England is represented as chuckle-headed enough, and base enough, to look on and do nothing. Then comes England's turn. The only difference in Dr. Eisenhart's vaticina- tion of the future is that Germany takes England first, and the United States look on. England is disposed of, "and now," says the prophet, "it was time to reckon with America." Not even these half-sane Pan-Germans contemplate the possibility of deal- ing with England and the United States together. The lesson is a good one, and if I were asked to indicate in a sentence the supreme moral of these letters, it would be just that,—friendship. and, if need be, mutual aid, between the great twin brethren of Anglo-Saxondom.