Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 22, 2025
Little by little the germ of world-ambition became a fever, burning in the soul of every German at home or abroad. It took twenty years to thoroughly inculcate every individual of the German race with this feverish ambition, but when 1914 came every German had gone over to the Pan-German scheme and was ready to die for it. The Berlin Schemers and Their Plot
For be it remembered that Bernhardi's words are to be taken very seriously, for they are not the ravings of some Pan-German monomaniac, but the considered views of the foremost military writer of Germany, one who is in touch with those inner circles whose opinions are the springs of national policy. "Our last and greatest reckoning is to be with Great Britain," said the bitter Treitschke.
Finally, the present war was started by the Germans and Magyars with the object of achieving the ambitious plans preached and expounded by Pan-German writers for years past. The Germans wanted at all costs to become the masters of Central Europe, to build an empire from Berlin to Bagdad, and finally to strike for world domination.
Other evidence, especially from Bernhardi, Frobenius, and the works of the Pan-German and Navy Leagues, might be quoted in proof of Germany's design to begin war when she was fully prepared. Now, the immense sums voted in the War Budget of 1913 had not as yet provided the stores of artillery and ammunition that were to astonish the world. Nor had Turkey recovered from the wounds of 1912.
You would have been able to derive the same impression from reading our newspapers, with the exception of a few Pan-German prints. Alas! papers like The Times, Morning Post and Standard can not bring themselves to refrain from their attitude of dislike, and are always rejoicing in being suspicious of every action of the Imperial Government.
But many episodes, such as Kiao-Chau, and the Philippines, and the ceaseless warfare in the German colonies, and the restless enterprises of Pan-German intrigue, provided a commentary upon these pretensions which ought to have revealed the dangerous spirit which was conquering the German people.
There is no reason to suppose that the debates in the closing session of the Reichstag in 1916 on police tyranny, the Press censorship, the suppression of public opinion, will lead to any result other than the familiar expressions of mild indignation such as that which came from the National Liberal and Pan-German leader, Dr. Paasche and perhaps a little innocent legislation.
Not only did France cherish the memory of Alsace-Lorraine; not only did Italy dream of her lost provinces; not only did the Balkan states plot to complete the half-done task of driving out the Turk; but the German Austrian sought to dominate the Magyar and the Magyar the Slav, while Italy swelled with visions of the Eastern Mediterranean once more a Roman lake, and Pan-German and Pan-Slav drew and re-drew the map of Europe to their liking.
It was only when these latter powers declared as in the Emperor's pan-German proclamation of 1896 that a Teutonic world-empire was about to be formed, and that the study of Welt-politik was the duty of every serious German, that the thinking and reading portion of the population suddenly turned its attention to this subject.
"No horseman can afford to be always at a gallop" was the figure with which he met the clamourers of the Customs Parliament. He invoked the terms of the treaty of Prague against the spokesmen of the Pan-German party inveighing vehemently against the policy of delay.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking