United States or Saint Barthélemy ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Most of the Mahomedans were subjects either of Britain, France, or Russia the three rival empires that were to be overthrown. As General Bernhardi put it, Germany in her struggle for Weltmacht must supplement her material weapons with spiritual weapons.
But these were in truth but local aspects of a comprehensive German ambition expressed in the antithesis Weltmacht oder Niedergang. Bismarck had made the German Empire and raised it to the first place as a European Power.
In 1911 also was published General Bernhardi's famous book, which defined and described the course of future action, and the aim which Germany was henceforth to pursue with all her strength: Weltmacht oder Niedergang, world-power or downfall. The events in the Balkans in 1912 and 1913 completed the conversion of those who still clung to the policy of peaceful bullying.
It is difficult, in the midst of a war forced upon the world by German ambition, to take a sane and balanced view of the aims which German policy was setting before itself during these years of experiment and preparation. What did average German opinion mean by the phrase Weltmacht, world-power, which had become one of the commonplaces of its political discussions?
But war to the knife cannot be confined to one of the combatants; the alternative, Weltmacht oder Niedergang, was thrust by Germany upon the Allies when she chose that motto for herself.
I believe that Herr von Bethmann Hollweg was himself really more enlightened, but he could not control the admirals and generals, or the economists or historians or professors whom the admirals and generals were always trying to enlist on the side of the doctrine of Weltmacht oder Niedergang.
To the German cry of weltmacht must sooner or later respond the American cry of weltrecht; for the war was a civil war of mankind, and upon its issue would hang the future of human government.
Word Of The Day