allies without beforehand being in a position to be able to find at least the most necessary preparations for defence, the issue would be decided in a few days on the basis of the purely technical superiority of our adversaries. Measures required for defence against such a hostile attack could no longer be taken during the struggle itself.
Likewise false is the opinion that we will be able to put up a resistance, at least for a certain time, by improvised means, since these very improvisations already require a certain amount of time which is no longer available in case of a conflict. For events would roll more quickly and thereby produce more facts than there would be time left for us to organise countermeasures against these events.
Hence, from whatever side we consider the possibilities of foreign policy, for Germany one case must in principle be excluded: we will never be able to proceed against the forces now mobilised in Europe by relying only on our military means. Thus any combination which brings Germany into conflict with France, England, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and so on, without beforehand giving her the possibility of a thorough preparation, is therefore void.
This fundamental perception is important because there are still among us in Germany, even today, well meaning, national minded men who in all earnestness believe that we must enter into an association with Russia.
Even if considered only from a purely military point of view, such an idea is unviable or catastrophic for Germany
Just as before the year 1914, today also we can assume as unconditionally established for always that in any conflict involving Germany, regardless on what grounds, regardless for what reasons, France will always be our adversary. Whatever European combinations may emerge in the future, France will always take part in them in a manner hostile to Germany. This lies in the traditionally anchored intention of French foreign policy. It is false to believe that the outcome of the War has changed anything on this score. On the contrary, the World War did not bring about for France the complete fulfilment of the war aim she had in mind. For this aim was by no means only the regaining of Alsace-Lorraine, but, on the contrary, Alsace-Lorraine itself represents only a small step in the direction of the goal of French foreign policy. That the possession of Alsace-Lorraine in no way abolished the tendencies of French policy, aggressively directed against Germany, is most strikingly proved by the fact that at the very time France possessed Alsace-Lorraine, the tendency of French foreign policy directed against Germany was, nevertheless, already in existence. The year 1870 showed more clearly than the year 1914 what France ultimately intended. At that time no need was felt to veil the aggressive character of French foreign policy. In the year 1914, perhaps made wise by experiences, perhaps also influenced by England, the French considered it more correct to profess general ideals of humanity on the one hand, and to limit their aim to Alsace-Lorraine on the other. These tactical considerations, however, did not in the least signify an inner deflection from the former goals of French policy, but only a concealment of the same. Afterward, as before, the leading idea of French foreign policy was the conquest of the Rhine River borders, whereby the mutilation of Germany into individual States, linked as loosely as possible to each other, was viewed as the best defence of this border. That this safeguarding of France in Europe, achieved thereby, was to serve the fulfilment of greater world political aims, does not alter the fact that for Germany these French continental political intentions are a question of life and death.
As a matter of fact, indeed, France also had never taken part in a coalition in which German interests in any way would have been promoted. In the last three hundred years, Germany had been attacked by France twenty nine times all told up to 1870. A fact which, on the eve of the Battle Of Sedan, moved Bismarck to oppose the French General Wimpffen most sharply when the latter tried to achieve a mitigation of the terms of surrender. It was Bismarck at that time who, in response to the declaration that France would not forget a German concession but would remember it gratefully forever in the future, immediately stood up and confronted the French negotiator with the hard, naked facts of history. Bismarck stressed, in this sense, that France had attacked Germany so often in the last three hundred years, regardless of the prevailing form of government, that for all the future he was convinced that regardless how the capitulation was formulated, France would immediately attack Germany anew as soon as she felt strong enough for it, either through her own strength or through the strength of allies.
Thereby Bismarck had more correctly appraised French mentality than our present political leaders of Germany.
He could do this because he, who himself had a policy aim in view, could also have an inner understanding of the policy goals others set themselves. For Bismarck the intention of French foreign policy was clearly established. It is incomprehensible to our presentday leaders, however, because they are lacking in every clear political idea.
If, moreover, France, on the occasion of her entry into the World War, had only the intention of regaining Alsace-Lorraine as a definite aim, the energy of the French war leadership would not have been nearly what it was. The political leadership, especially, would not have come around to a determination which seemed worthy of the greatest admiration during many situations during the World War. It lay, however, in the nature of this greatest coalition war of all times that a complete fulfilment of all wishes was all the less possible since the internal interests of the participant nations themselves had exhibited very great divergences. The French intention [desire] of a complete effacement of Germany in Europe still stood opposed to the English desire to prevent an unconditional French position of hegemony, as much as such a one for Germany.
Thus, for the curtailment of French war aims, it was important that the German collapse take place in forms that did not yet make public opinion fully aware of the whole dimension of the catastrophe. In France they had come to know the German Grenadier in such a way that only with hesitation could they look forward to a possibility that France might be forced to step forth alone for the fulfilment of her ultimate political goal. Later, however, under the impact of Germany’s inner defeat, now become generally visible, when they might have been more determined on such an action, the war psychosis in the other parts of the world had already so widely abated that a unilateral action by France for a final aim of such magnitude could no longer have been carried out without opposition on the part of her former allies.
Thereby we are not saying that France renounced her aim. On the contrary, she will try as persistently as before to achieve in the future what the present prevented. France will also in the future, as soon as she feels capable of this through her own power or the power of her allies, attempt to dissolve Germany, and try to occupy the bank of the Rhine River in order in this way to be able to commit French strength elsewhere with no threat to her rear. That thereby France is not in the least irritated in her intention by changes in the forms of German Government is all the more comprehensible since the French Folk itself, indeed, without any regard to its constitutions of the moment, clings equally to its foreign policy ideas. A Folk which itself always pursues a definite foreign policy goal, paying no regard as to whether as rulers it has a republic or a monarchy, bourgeois democracy or a Jacobin terror, will have no understanding that another Folk, perhaps by a change of its form of government, could also undertake a change of its foreign policy aims. Hence nothing will change France’s attitude to Germany as such, regardless whether in Germany an Reich or a Republic represents the nation, or even socialist terror rules the State.
Obviously, France is not indifferent vis-a-vis German events, but at the same time her attitude is determined only by the probability of a greater success, that is, of a facilitation of its foreign policy action by a definite German form of government. France will wish Germany the constitution which will leave France to expect the least resistance to Germany’s destruction. If, therefore, the German Republic as a special sign of its value tries to induce French friendship, in reality this is the most devastating certificate of its incapacity. For it is welcomed in Paris only because France regards it as poor in values for Germany. In no way is it thereby said that France will confront this German Republic otherwise than as it has in analogous conditions of our governmental weakness in past times. On the Seine River they were always fonder of German weakness than German strength because it seemed to guarantee France’s foreign policy activity an easier success.
This French tendency will in no way be changed by the fact that the French Folk suffer from no lack of territory. For in France policy for centuries has least been determined by sheer economic distress, but much more by impulses of feeling. France is a classic example of the fact that the sense of a healthy territorial gain policy can easily change over into its opposite, once Folkish principles are no longer determining, and so called governmental national principles take their place. French national chauvinism has departed from Folkish points of view to such an extent that, for the gratification of a mere power titillation, they Negrify their own blood just to maintain the character of a grand nation numerically. Hence France will also be an eternal disturber of world peace for as long as a decisive and fundamental lesson is not administered to this Folk some day. Moreover, nobody has better
