or at least it possesses it to a completely insufficient extent, and very far removed from the foundation which conditioned its former strength.
The German Folk has acquired a mercenary Army. In Germany, these mercenary troops run the danger of sinking to the level of policemen armed with special technical weapons. The comparison of the German mercenary Army with the English turns out unfavourably to the Germans. The English mercenary army was always the bearer of England’s military defence and aggressive ideas as well as of her military tradition. In her mercenary troops and the militia system peculiar to her, England possessed the Army organisation which, in view of her insular position sufficed, indeed seemed suitable for fighting to the finish for England’s vital interests. The idea of manifesting English power of resistance in such a form in no way sprang from cowardice, in order thereby to be able to spare shedding the blood of the English Folk. On the contrary. England fought with mercenaries as long as they sufficed for the defence of England’s interests. She called for volunteers immediately the struggle required a greater commitment. She introduced general military conscription immediately the needs of the country demanded it. For regardless of how the momentary organisation of the English power of resistance looked, it was always committed in a dauntless struggle for England. And the formal army organisation in England was always only an instrument for the defence of English interests, committed with a will, which did not even shrink, if necessary, from demanding the blood of the whole nation.
Wherever England’s interests were decisively at stake, she at any rate knew how to preserve a hegemony which, considered purely technically, goes as far as the demand for a two power standard. If we compare the infinitely responsible [solicitous] care shown here with the frivolousness with which Germany, and national bourgeois Germany at that, neglected her armaments in the pre War period, we must still today be gripped by a deep sadness. Just as England knew that her future, indeed her existence, depended on the strength of her fleet, so should this bourgeois national Germany have known that the existence and future of the German Reich depended on the strength of our land power. In Europe, Germany should have had to counter the two power standard on land to the two power standard on the seas. And just as England with an iron determination saw a reason for going to war at every violation of this standard, so did Germany have to prevent every attempt in Europe to outflank her army through France and Russia by a military decision, even one which had to be precipitated, and for which more than one favourable opportunity had presented itself. Even here this bourgeoisie misused one of Bismarck’s utterances in a most senseless way. Bismarck’s assertion that he did not intend to wage preventive war was joyfully seized upon by all weak, energyless and also irresponsible armchair politicians as a cover for the disastrous consequences of their anything goes policy. Only thereby they completely forgot that all three wars which Bismarck had conducted were wars which, at least according to the conceptions of these anti preventive war peace philosophers, could have been avoided. Consider, for example, what insults by Napoleon III in 1870 would have to be heaped on the German Republic of today for it to decide to request M. Benedetti to moderate his tone somewhat. Neither Napoleon nor the whole French Folk would ever have been able to incite the German Republic of today to a Sedan: or does one believe that if Bismarck had not wanted a decision, the war of 1866 could not have been prevented? Now here it can be objected that this was a question of wars with clearly set aims, and not of a kind whose only ground lies in the fear of an attack by the enemy. But in reality this is only word splitting. Because Bismarck was convinced that the struggle with Austria was inevitable, he prepared himself for it and carried it through when the occasion suited Prussia. The reform of the French army by Marshal Niel made clearly perceptible the intention to give French policy and French chauvinism a forceful weapon for an attack against Germany. As a matter of fact, it would doubtless have been possible for Bismarck to bring the conflict to some kind of a peaceful solution in 1870. But it was more expedient for him to fight it out to the finish at a time when the French army organisation had not yet arrived at its full efficiency. Moreover, all these interpretations of Bismarckian utterances suffer from one thing, namely, they confuse Bismarck the diplomat with a republican parliamentarian. How Bismarck himself judged such utterances is best shown in his reply to a questioner before the outbreak of the Prussian Austrian War, who would have very much liked to know whether Bismarck really intended to attack Austria, whereupon the latter, with an impervious expression, replied: No, I have no intention of attacking Austria, but neither would I have the intention of telling them, in case I wanted to attack her.
Moreover, the hardest war that had ever been fought by Prussia was a preventive war. When Frederick The Great had received final knowledge of the intention of his old enemies, through a scribbler soul, he did not wait until the others attacked, on the grounds of a fundamental rejection of a preventive war, but went immediately over to the attack himself.
For Germany, any violation of the two power standard of necessity should have been a cause for a preventive war. For what would it have been easier to answer before history: for a preventive war in 1904, which could have defeated France when Russia seemed to be entangled in Eastern Asia, or for the World War which ensued from this neglect, and which required many times the blood, and plunged our Folk into the abyss of defeat?
England never had such scruples. Her two power standard on the seas seemed to be the prerequisite for the preservation of English independence. As long as she had the strength, she allowed no change to be made in this situation. When, however, this two power standard was given up after the World War, it was then only under the pressure of circumstances which were stronger than any contrary British intention. With the American Union, a new power of such dimensions has come into being as threatens to upset the whole former power and orders of rank of the States.
At any rate, up to now the English fleet was always the most striking proof, regardless of how the form of the organisation of the land army looked, that decisively determined England’s will to self preservation. This was the reason why the English mercenary army never acquired the bad characteristics of other mercenary troops. It was a fighting military body of wonderful individual training, with excellent weapons, and a conception of service which viewed it as a sport. Thus what endowed this small body of troops with a special importance was the direct contact with the visible manifestations in life of the British world empire. As this mercenary army had fought for England’s greatness in almost all parts of the world, it had thereby in like measure also come to know England’s greatness. The men who now in Southern Africa, now in Egypt, and at times in India, represented England’s interests as the possessors of her military prestige, through this also received an indelible impression of the immense greatness of the British IMPERIVM.
Such an opportunity is completely lacking to the presentday German mercenary troops. Indeed, the more we feel ourselves induced to make concessions to this spirit in the small Army itself, under the pressure of pacifistic parliamentary majorities, which in reality represent traitors to their Folk and country, it gradually ceases to be an instrument of war. Instead it becomes a police corps for the maintenance of peace and order, which means, in reality, of peaceful subjugation. No army with a high intrinsic value can be trained, if the preparation for war is not the aim of its existence. There are no armies for the maintenance of peace, but rather only for the victorious fighting of wars to the end. The more, in short, one tries finally to unhinge the Reich Defence from the tradition of the Old Army, the more will it itself become traditionless. For with troops, the value of a tradition does not lie in a few successful quellings of internal strike revolts, or in preventing the plundering of foodstuffs, but in the glory gained through victorious battles. In reality, however, the German Reich Defence departs from the tradition of this glory in proportion as from year to year it ceases to be a representative of the national idea. The more it finally kills the conscious, national, hence nationalistic spirit in its own ranks, and removes its representatives, in order to give their posts to democrats and altogether ordinary ambitious persons, all the more will it become alien to the Folk. Let the sly gentlemen not fancy that they can make contact with the Folk by concessions to the pacifistic democratic part of our Folk. Any military organisation as such is deeply hated by this part of the German Folk, as long as it is indeed military and not the burglar protection agency of international pacifistic stock exchange interests. The only part to which an army can have an inner relationship in a militarily valuable sense, is that nationally conscious core of our Folk which not only thinks in a soldierly manner out of tradition, but rather, out of national love, is also the only part ready to wear the grey tunic in defence of honour and freedom. It is necessary, however, that a military body maintain intimate relations with those from whom it itself in the hour of need can supplement itself, and not with those who betray it at every opportunity. Hence the present leaders of our so called Reich Defence can act as democratically as they please; nevertheless, they will thereby never attain to a closer bond with the German Folk, because the German Folk for which this is appropriate is not to be found in the democratic camp. Since, however, the former Chief Of The German Reich Defence especially, General von Seeckt, not only did not put up any resistance to the removal of hardened, deliberately national minded Officers, but rather even [himself] advocated it, they themselves finally created the instrument which dropped him with a relatively light heart.
