Germany Cementing Friendship with France.

Evening Star, Issue 7326, 26 September 1887, Page 4

Germany Cementing Friendship with France.

RETURN OF ALSACE-LORRAINE. A correspondent of the' New York Herald,' writing from Frankfort on August 6, supplies the following sensational news : By a very lucky coincidence I have just had a highly interesting conversation with a foreign diplomatist whoße high position enables him to have as clear an insight into the views and ulterior aims of Prince Bismarck as perhaps any man living can have. The diplomatist in question was passing through Frankfort on his way to a fashionable German watering place, and the fortune of travel placed us in the same railway carriage. I called the diplomatist's attention to the report published by the Brussels 'Gazette' to the effect that the German staff were completing a measure by which in twenty-four hours some 400,000 German troops could be thrown into Holland. The diolomatist said:— IT MUST BE DENIED. " That report is so near to the truth that it is sure to be contradicted. German designs upon Holland are, in my opinion, the keynote of Prince Bismarck's future projects. Prince Bismarck, if he cloaks his acts, seldom conceals his opinions, and I have serious reasons that justify my conviction that before long Prince Bismarck will, by an adroit move, use Holland as the means, strange as it may seem at first sight, of cementing friendship with France and of acquiring a colonial empire for Germany." JIOW IT WILL BE DONE. I remarked : " I don't quite understand you. How could this be done ?" "In this way. Suppose some day Germany were to say to France: ' You may have Alsace-Lorraine back again provided you will let Germany have carte blanche elsewhere, and agree to Germany absorbing Holland and all the Holland colonies.' A proposition to return the lost provinces would be received in France with leaps and bounds of joy. At heart the French and the Germans do not hate each other neaily as bitterly as the French and the English do. EISMARCKIAN DIPLOMACY. " I firmly believe that Prince Bismarck really contemplates such a move. The Chancellor never follows well-beaten lines of diplomatic routine. His genius is as indefinable as that of a poet, a founder of religion, or of an artist. His diplomatic thunderbolts strike at one moment in Schleswig-Holstein, then in Austria, and again in France. He is not the man to have made such extraordinary sacrifices to lay the foundation of German colonisation unless he felt sure of reaping a rich harvest. GERMAN-ABSORBING AMERICA. " The Chancellor knows that every German who emigrates to America is for ever lost to Germany. The moment Germany has colonies of her own this vast drain upon the Fatherland can not only be checked, but transformed into a priceless source of strength. The vast colonies of Holland offer exactly what Germany wants. _ They could be at once made profitable without spending a single thaler. Hollaud has sunk millions of gulden and thousands of men in Java and Sumatra. With German organisation and energy the Dutch Indies would form a sort of wedge or strategic vantage ground, dividing England's two great colonial bulwarks—Australia and India, NATURAL ALLIES. " Prince Bismarck feels that France and Germany are natural allies, and that the real enemy of Germany, France, and Russia is England. It is on this basis that the future of Europe and Asia ia to be settled—the Continent for the Continentals 5 Germany to cement lasting friendship with France by giving her back Alsace-Lorraine, and thereby realise her magnificent dream of colonial empire; and Russia, under the regis of Germany and France, to secure the road, not only to Constantinople, but to a muchcoveted port on the Indian Ocean between Persia and British India. Bismarck's bugaboo. "It is to-day not France, but England, that is the Chancellor's bete noire. Everywhere he turns, it is England that opposes his interests. In the Balkan Peninsula it is England that is straining every nerve to create small independent nationalities into barriers against Russian and Austrian conquest. And as to the dominating that Bismarck is trying to bring about in Egypt, England is the dog in the manger that prevents Bismarck's policy of placing Egypt under French or Continental control. In Central Asia it is England that prevents Russia from developing southward—a policy which was always felt by Bismarck to be a necessity in order to enable Germany to hold her own in Central Europe. Everywhere it is England that stands in the Chancellor's way. APATHETIC JOHN BULL. "In spite of these plain facts, England, during the present naval manoeuvres, seems to have utterly ignored the possibility _of defence against a German or an allied French, German, and Russian fleet attacking her from the North Sea. The British naval authorities seem to have only provided for the case of French invaders coming from Cherbourg or Boulogne! ANOTER PROOF, _ "I may m tion another incident that strei: :iheua my conviction that Germany has designs upon Holland's ready-made colonies. In 1881, when the impending occupation of Egypt by British troops was spoken of, Baron de Saurma-Jeltsch was German diplomatic agent in Egypt. Prince Bismarck at that time instructed Baron de Saurma to propose that Holland, and not England, should send troops to occupy Egypt. When these views were expressed by Baron de Saurma in Egypt other diplomatists, among whom was Sir Edward Malet, now British Ambassador at Berlin, expressed some surprise at such a proposal coming from Germany, and Prince Bismarck's ulterior aims in making such a proposition were eagerly discussed. A PREVAILING OPINION. _ "The prevailing opinion in diplomatic circles at Cairo was that Germany had designs upon Holland, and wished to put Holland to the fore as much as possible, so as to make Germany's colonial heritage all the more valuable. SuGh, at least, were the views expressed at the time by the French diplomatic agent in Egypt. It is a rather curious coincidence that Baron de Saurma — who, in 1881, was the mouthpiece of Bismarck's Holland-absorbing policy—should to-day be the German Minister at the Hague." And with this remark our conversation ended. THE PREPARATIONS. Tne following despatch from Antwerp was published in the ' Brussels Gazette' : " I am informed that the Berlin Government is about to construct, just beyond the railway station at Sihpelpeld, on the Dutch frontier, on German territory, twenty-six sidings, each long enough to convey a train with 1,500 men to the grand line from Aix-la-Chapelle to Antwerp. Gradients and railways will be constructed at this purely military station for the landing of cavalry, and a reservoir will be built for the purpose of feeding locomotives." THE COST AND WORKING *OBCE.

■ "The whole works, will cost 1,200,000 marks. The German iUd-maa&r, which has 1 300,000 men conpentrated in fortresses

between Cologne, Dusseldorf, Aix, etc., estimates that, with such an installation, within an hour it would be in a position to throw 50,000 troops upon Maestrecht, to occupy the bridge there, and to prevent the Dutch from blowing it up. This bridge is undermined for military purposes. The German 6tat-major is also contemplating measures to put the Government in a position to throw an army of 150,000 men under the walls of Antwerp at twenty-four hours' notice."