government politicians.
4) Germany decides to go over to a clear, farseeing territorial policy. Thereby she abandons all attempts at world industry and world trade, and instead concentrates all her strength in order, through the allotment of sufficient living space for the next hundred years to our Folk, also to prescribe a path of life. Since this territory can be only in the east, the obligation to be a naval power also recedes into the background. Germany tries anew to champion her interests through the formation of a decisive power on land.
This aim is equally in keeping with the highest national as well as Folkish requirements. It likewise presupposes great military power means for its execution, but does not necessarily bring Germany into conflict with all European great powers. As surely as France here will remain Germany’s enemy, just as little does the nature of such a political aim contain a reason for England, and especially for Italy, to maintain the enmity of the World War.
Chapter 14
ENGLAND AS AN ALLY
It is fitting to review the great foreign aims of the other European powers for a closer understanding of the possibilities just adduced. In part these aims are recognisable in the previous activity and efficacy of these States, in part they are virtually laid down programmatically, and otherwise lie in vital needs that are so clearly recognisable that even if the States momentarily embark on other paths, the compulsion of a harsher reality necessarily leads them back to these aims.
That England has a clear foreign policy goal is proved by the fact of the existence and therewith of the rise of this giant empire. Let no one fancy, after all, that a world empire can ever be forged without a clear will thereto.
Obviously not every single member of such a nation goes to work every day with the idea of setting a great foreign policy goal, but in a completely natural way even an entire Folk will be gripped by such a goal so that even the unconscious acts of individuals nevertheless lie in the general line of the aim that has been set and actually benefit it. Indeed the general political goal will slowly stamp itself on the very character of such a Folk, and the pride of the presentday Englishman is no different from the pride of the former Romans. The opinion that a world empire owes its rise to chance, or that, at least, the events which conditioned its establishment were accidental historical processes which always turned out luckily for a nation, is false. Ancient Rome owed its greatness, exactly as does presentday England, to the soundness of Moltke’s assertion that in the long run luck is always with the fit. This fitness of a Folk in no way lies only in racial value, but also in the ability and skill with which these values are applied. A world empire of the size of ancient Rome, or of present day Great Britain, is always the result of a marriage between the highest race value and the clearest political aim. As soon as one of these two factors begins to be lacking, first a weakening sets in, and ultimately perhaps even a decline.
Presentday England’s aim is conditioned by the race value of Anglosaxonism as such, and by her insular position. It lay in the race value of Anglosaxonism to strive for territorial space. Of necessity, this drive could find fulfilment only outside presentday Europe. Not that the English had not, from time to time, also attempted to take soil in Europe for their expansionist lusts. But all these enterprises failed because of the fact that they were opposed by States which at that time were of a no less great racial fitness. Later English expansion in the so called colonies led at the outset to an extraordinary increase of English maritime life. It is interesting to see how England, which at first exported men, ultimately went over to the export of commodities, and thereby weakened her own agriculture. Although now a great part of the English Folk, indeed the average in general, is inferior to the German peak value, nevertheless the centuries old tradition of this Folk has become so much part of its own flesh and blood that vis-a-vis our own German Folk it possesses considerable political advantages. If today the globe has an English world empire, then for the time being there is also no Folk which, on the grounds of its general civic political characteristics as well as its average political sagacity, would be more fitted for it.
The fundamental idea which dominated English colonial policy, on the one hand, was to find a territorial market for English human material and to keep the latter in a governmental relation with the Motherland; and, on the other hand, to secure the English economy’s markets and sources of raw material. It is understandable that the Englishman is convinced that the German cannot colonise, just as it is understandable, conversely, that the German believes the same about the Englishman. Both Folks take different standpoints in judging colonising capacities. Thus the English standpoint was infinitely more practical, more sober, and the German standpoint more romantic. When Germany strove for her first colonies, she was already a military State in Europe and thereby a power State of the first rank. She had wrested the title of a world power through imperishable accomplishments in all fields of human culture as well as in that of military skill. It was now noteworthy that especially in the nineteenth century a general impulse toward colonies permeated all nations, whereas the original leading idea had already fully declined. For example, Germany motivated her claim to colonies with her ability and her desire to spread German culture. As such it was nonsense. For culture, which is the general life expression of a definite Folk, cannot be transmitted to another Folk with wholly other psychic prerequisites.
This may, at best, go with a so called international civilisation which stands in the same relation to culture as jazz music to a Beethoven symphony. But wholly apart from this, it would never have occurred to an Englishman at the time England’s colonies were founded to motivate his actions otherwise than with the very real and sober advantages which they might bring with them. If later England espoused the freedom of the seas or of oppressed nations, it was never for the purpose of justifying her colonial activity, but to destroy ugly competitors. Hence English colonial activity was perforce successful in part because of the most natural reasons. For the less the Englishman ever gave a thought to such a notion as wanting to impose English culture or English breeding on savages, the more sympathetic did such a government necessarily seem to savages who were absolutely not hungry for culture. On top of this, to be sure, there was also the whip which one likewise could all the sooner use, since thereby one did not run the danger of departing from a cultural mission. England needed markets and sources of raw material for her commodities, and she secured these markets for herself through power politics. This is the sense of English colonial policy. If later even England nevertheless mouthed the word culture, it was only from a purely propagandistic viewpoint, so that she also could morally embroider her own exceedingly sober actions somewhat. In reality the living conditions of the savages were a matter of complete indifference to the English as long, and to the extent, that they did not affect the living conditions of the English themselves. That later still other ideas, of a political prestige character, were linked with colonies of the size of India is conceivable and understandable. But no one can dispute that, for instance, Indian interests never determined English living conditions, but instead English living conditions determined India’s. Likewise it cannot be disputed that even in India the Englishman does not set up any cultural institution of any kind so that, for instance, the natives may share in English culture, but rather so that, at best, the Englishman can draw more benefits from his colonies. Or does one believe that England brought railroads to India just to put Indians in possession of European transport possibilities, and not in order to make possible a better utilisation of the colony as well as to guarantee an easier domination? If today in Egypt England again follows in the footsteps of the Pharaohs and stores the water of the Nile by means of gigantic dams, it is certainly not done in order to make the Earthly life of the poor fellah easier, but only in order to make English cotton independent of the American monopoly. But these are all viewpoints which Germany never dared to think about openly in her colonial policy. The English were the educators of the natives for England’s interests, the German was the teacher. That in the end the natives might have felt better with us than they did under the English would, for a normal Englishman, be far from speaking for our kind of colonisation policy, but surely for that of the English instead.
This policy of a gradual conquest of the world, in which economic power and political strength always went hand in hand, conditioned England’s position vis-a-vis other States. The more England grew into her colonial policy, the more she required dominion over the seas, and the more she achieved dominion over the seas, the more, in consequence of this, she became again a colonial power. But then also, the more jealously did she finally begin to watch that nobody competed with her for dominion of the seas or of colonial possessions.
There is a very erroneous and widespread notion, especially in Germany, according to which England would immediately fight against any European hegemony. As a matter of fact this is not correct. England actually concerned herself very little with European conditions as long as no threatening world competitor arose from
