THE EUROPEAN SITUATION.
[TO THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Your article about the European situation in the current issue of the Spectator contains several statements about Germany's position in the Triple Alliance to which I should like to add a few remarks. As far as Italy is concerned, nobody has ever expected more from her military efforts than that she would be able to divert three French army corps by an attack upon Savoy and the Nizza district. Her army is distinctly inferior to the French, but still powerful enough in numbers to create such a diversion of French forces. In the present crisis the view is widely held in Germany that if Italy should prove extremely war-shy she will be allowed by her allies to remain in a state of " armed neutrality." She would not need striking a blow nor losing a single man in this case. The only thing required of her would be to keep half a million men massed upon the French frontiers, so forcing the French to keep an army of at least a hundred and eighty thousand men concentrated in Savoy. Italy's prize would be Savoy and Nizza, and probably Tunis, the latter being a profitable exchange for her imaginary sovereignty over unconquerable Tripoli. Italy is a member of the Triplice because her own selfish interests point that way. She cares more for Savoy and Nizza than for the "Tridentine," besides now her only means to avoid total failure in Tripoli is to add Tunis to her possessions. The Balkan Allies have at present certainly no more than six hundred thousand men in the field, all bands of irregulars included. However, if German and Austrian statesmen were senseless enough to let them absorb Macedonia and the best part of Thrace, they might be able in the future to raise a million fight- ing men. The censure on Austrian statesmen for provoking Servian hostility is unjustified, as a greater Servia would always be hankering after Bosnia and Croatia, and Austria may just as well face the new situation at once, without entertaining any deceptive illusions. In Germany itself public opinion has by now grasped the fact that if we do not go to war now we shall have to fight at a disadvantage a few years later. Your own article offers the most cogent reasons for a German war policy, only you draw the wrong inference that Germany would be foolish enough to sit still and wait till her enemies, have drawn the net completely round her. We must be careful not to take the various moves on the diplomatical chessboard for their fictitious face value. Diplomatical tactics had to be completely subordinated to purely military con- siderations, and these were for the Austro-German statesmen specially two : (a) To reduce Russia's only military chance, i.e., that of a protracted winter campaign, to its utmost limit. (b) To keep the Balkan War alive like a smouldering fire in order that the whole military forces of the Balkan Allies might be kept occupied by the Turkish field army, and so. prevent Austria's flank being attacked by an army of five hundred thousand Slays. It was quite correct for Germany and Austria to join in the Adrianople mediation, because they could be sure that Turkey would under no conditions what- soever accept it. Besides, through causing repeated delays they made it clear to the Turkish statesmen that on their part it was a mere formality. I think the British press is show- ing quite its usual astuteness in pointing out to Germany the great dangers which would result to her position from the
(future !) existence of a new military Power in the East con- sisting of four vassal States of Russia. The Times even printed in full the disloyal utterance of the Czech leader, Dr. Kramarsh, who said that the victories of the Balkan Allies had built a strong wall obstructing the eastward- pushing of Teutonism ; but you are mistaken if you think Germany will not lift a finger to prevent her being choked out of existence. We certainly appreciate your arguments in this line, but we shall draw a different conclusion from them, i.e., videant consoles ne respublica quid detrimenti c,apiat. In plain English, " We shall strike first." From the purely German point of view the case of the pacifist has not a leg to stand on, and even the most moderate patriots recognize that it means "now or never." We have not only to look at the Balkans, but also at the enormous unheard-of aggressions the Triple Entente Powers have perpe- trated during the last two years in Morocco, Mongolia, Tibet, Persia, Koweit, &c., which shows even to the blinded eyes that they aim at a dictatorship over three continents. Djakova and Dibra may be insignificant places (lamentable names they are called in the Spectator), but England was quite ready not so long ago to go to war over three equally insignificant places—their names are Herat, Fashoda, Agadir —just as the Romans went to war with Carthage over a little place called Saguntum. The names of these little places are only labels attached to tremendous political issues behind them. The coming war is an abso- lute historical necessity, not only for Germany but for all nations of Asia and North Africa as well, unless you are inclined to assume that the revival of Asia is a mere farce, and that a hundred and sixty millions—English, French, and Russians—are of more importance to the evolution of man- kind than the thousand millions opposing them. In Germany, where so many thousand families of the ruling classes have been directly connected with the army for generations, an instinctive—in many cases superstitious—sentiment appears when the time comes when vast hecatombs of the best lives are to be sacrificed upon the altar of the Fatherland. Events of such magnitude cast their shadows months before the actual thing happens. Much of it belongs to the realm of the supernatural and the superstitions, but it is there at present in a strength as it never was since the time pre- ceding the war of 1870. There is a long string of black omens, on the other hand, which bode ill to the Triple Entente Powers, and almost rival the lists given by the Roman historians of the portents announcing the great civil war after Caesar's assassination, e.g., the burning of the State tent at the Durbar, the shipwreck of the ss. ' Delhi' on the ominous Moroccan coast, the shipwreck of the French vessel carrying the Borodino statue to Russia, the earthquake preceding the Balkan War, the earthquake following upon the last Turkish revolution, the burning of Peter the Great's wooden cathedral at St. Petersburg, the sinking of the Greek auxiliary cruiser
'Macedonia,' &c., &c.—I am, Sir, &c., GERMANICII8.
[" Germanicus," as on previous occasions, gives neither his name nor address. In spite, however, of this fact and of the whimsical conclusion of his letter it is, we think, worth printing as representing a certain phase of German feeling. It must not be supposed, however, that we regard it as in any sense the view of the majority of Germans. The writer is also evidently anxious, like the fat boy in Pickwick, to make our flesh creep. Taken as a whole, his letter is a good example of Mme. de Stael's remark that "thinking calms men of other nations ; it inflames the German."—En. Spectator.]
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