A School History of the Great War | Page 9

that it could protect her commerce, especially her food-carrying ships. As the war has shown, Germany can hardly produce a full supply of food for her own people.
The easiest way to get colonies seemed to be by making war against some nation that already possessed them, in the hope that a victorious Germany could seize the colonies she desired. On the other hand, without war, she had gained some large colonies and was assured of others in Africa, and she had secured a prevailing influence over the immense domains of Turkey in Asia. By 1914 the Germans had more than half completed a railroad through Turkey to the Persian Gulf, and expected soon to dominate the eastern trade by the Berlin-Bagdad route.
[Illustration: THE BERLIN-BAGDAD RAILWAY]
GERMANY WANTED "A PLACE IN THE SUN."--Germany was acknowledged to be the strongest nation in continental Europe. Her position as a world power, however, was disputed by Great Britain, both by reason of the latter's control of the sea through her enormous fleet, and by reason of Great Britain's numerous colonies all over the world. It was galling to German pride to have to coal her ships at English coaling stations. She wanted stations of her own. By bringing on a war that would humble France to the dust and make Belgium a part of Germany, thus giving her a chance to seize the colonies of France and Belgium, Germany would at once attain a position in the world's affairs which would enable her to challenge the power of any nation on earth.
THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST.--German thinkers carried to an extreme the theory of the survival of the fittest. This doctrine teaches that all living things have reached their present forms through a gradual development of those qualities which best fit them to live in their present surroundings. Those that are best adapted live on, and produce a new generation that are also well fitted to survive. Those that are not fitted to their surroundings soon give up the struggle and die. The Germans applied this same belief to nations, and claimed that only those nations survived that could successfully meet world conditions. They believed that war was an inevitable world condition, and that that nation would survive that was best able to fight. They believed in war, because they believed that just as nature removes the weak animal or plant by an early death, so the weak nation should pay the penalty of its weakness by being defeated in war and absorbed by the stronger one. War would prove which nation was the most nearly perfect. The Germans had no doubt that this nation was Germany. Acceptance of this belief by the German people had much to do with bringing on the present war.
GERMANY WANTED TO GERMANIZE THE WORLD.--As a result of the reasoning outlined in the last paragraph, German writers taught that those things which were German--their speech, their literature, their religion, their armies, in short the manners, customs, and thoughts of the Germans--were the best possible manners, and customs, and thoughts. These things all taken together are what is meant by Kultur (kool-toor′),--not merely "culture" as the latter word is generally used.
Since the Germans believed that their Kultur was the highest stage of human progress, the next step, according to the view of their leaders, would be to Germanize all the rest of the nations of the earth by imposing German Kultur upon them. If possible, this was to be brought about with the consent of the other nations; if not, then it was to be imposed by force.
SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY.--1. Locate Antwerp, Rotterdam, Hamburg, Bremen, East Prussia, Alsace-Lorraine. 2. Show on an outline map the regions which Germany desired to control. Who would have suffered? 3. If all countries adopted the German idea of war what would be the condition of the world? 4. Has any nation the right to impose its rule upon another people because it believes its own ideals are the only true ones?
REFERENCES.--See page 26; also Conquest and Kultur (C.P.I.); War Cyclopedia (C.P.I.), under the headings "German Military Autocracy" and "Pan-Germanism."
CHAPTER III
GERMAN MILITARISM
WHAT IS MILITARISM?--Militarism has been defined as "a policy which maintains huge standing armies for purposes of aggression." It should be noticed that the mere fact that a nation, through universal conscription, maintains a large standing army in times of peace does not convict it of militarism. Every one of the great European powers except England maintained such an army, and yet Germany was the only one that we can say had a militaristic government.
A more narrow definition of militarism is that form of government in which the military power is in control, and with the slightest excuse can and does override the civil authority. This had been the situation in Germany for many years