GERMAN AIMS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 1 April 1918, Page 7

GERMAN AIMS.

NEVER OFFICIALLY DECLARED

Mr Edward Bevan has collected from German documents and publications a large amount of information of a convincing character respecting what the Germans call their war objects (Kriegs-. JBiele). ' It should be remembered that no of- ■ - ficial statement of Germany's war aims has ever been published. In the first stages of the war the German Government prohibited the public discussion of Kriegsziele, although the prohibition was subsequently relaxed. The . Chancellor's statements during the past three years have all been studiously evasive; and the Chancellor is the only authoritative spokesman of th« German Empire. "; But although it has always been a. cardinal principle of the policy of Germany never to take the world into her confidence, whilst always displaying her military power, the data supplied by Mr Bevan enables us to form

some conception of what a German peace would be if the German armies *re undefeated. , There should be a clear distinction between Germany's ultimate aims and the immediate' war aims. We are more directly concerned with the latter. The German regards the war or its results as a stepping stone to the realisation of his world ambitions, expressed by innumerable German writers and sung vn the national song "Germany over the world if for offence and defence we as brothers stand together." V'This town is the town of our hope," ' writes Max Brewer, of Kiel, "and belief that the world will become German/ "Germany must impose her political and cultural organisation on the world," writes Rudolf Goldschied. *'This is our goal—; Germany must hot i be confined to Europe—she must: stretch out over the world," writes' Alfred Hettner. "The struggle for1 existence of a great nation must be a struggle'for the world." writes Eugeri Kuhnemann. People in New Zealand are not concerned with- these , great ambitions, which are an obsession in modern German thought. What we are concerned with immediately as: What peace could we secure by negotiation? \: Would our national security be endagered by such a peace? _ Five of the great economic associations of the German Empire, writes Mr Bevan, presented to the Imperial Chancellor a memorandum, dated March 10, 1915, embodying what they considered the essential objects to be secured Jby Germany in the war. .The five associations were the "Agrarian League" (Bund der Landwirte). the "German Farmore' League" .(Deutsche BauembundX the ' 'Cental Association of German Industrialists" (Zentralverband deutscher Industrieller) and the "Association of the Petite Bourgeoisie of the German Empire" (Reichsceutsche Ifittelstandyerband). These five associations were soon after joined by a sixth, the "Central Board of the Christian Farmers' Associations" (Vorort der Christlichen Bauernvereine), and in May the six associations presented an amended and en-; larged form of the memorandum to th^Chancellor (dated May 20). .The memorandum declares that, as the,, radispensable condition of the security of German eea-pbwer, Belgium must be subjected to German Imperial law, both in military and in tariff matters,, whilst the industrial undertakings and landed property in Belgium must be transferred to German hands. In France the coastal districts | must be retained as far as the Somme, the mining districts of Briey, and the fortresses of Longwy, Verdun, and Belfort; in these French districts also industrial establishments," including large and moderate-sized properties, ariist be transferred to German hands. With this the memorandum combines annexations of Russian territory on the East It explains that since by the annexations on the West industrial Germany will have been notably .increased, districts on the East must ? ev^ en in order to extend agricultural' Germany, and so right the balance— "at least V parts of the Baltic provinces; and of the lande to the south of them." Germany, the memorandum flays, .must; feaje a colonial empire adequate-to its "many-sided industrial interests.'?, '■:'■■ •

»0n ( July 8, 1915, another manifesto of a similar tenor was presented to the Chancellor, the "Petition of the '■ Professors." It was signed by 1347 : persons, representing the following classes: University professors and Oberlehrer,. 352; artists, writers, and ' booksellers, 252; business men, 182; schoolmasters and ministers of religion, 158: judges and barristers, 148; higher civil officials (burgomasters, etc.), 145; country, landowners, 52; members of the Reichstag and Parliamentary bodies, 40; retired admirals and generals, 18. Total, 1347. It is said that many/ more signatures might have been obtained if the Government had not interposed at a certain moment and forbidden any more canvassing. The "petition of the professors" includes sea-power with annexations or French territory "along the whole Western front from Belfort to the coast '—"if possible a portion of the Tiorth French seaboard." Belgium, of course, and lands for colonisation taken away from Russia, are all there, as in the memorandum; but we have also Mitteleuropa, Berlin-to-Bagdad, and the Colonial Empire. The "professors' petition also goes circumstantially into the question of indemnities. It admits that the amount of indemnities Germany can get must depend upon the issue of the war—"if we were ever m a S8. 81t 10n to im P«se an indemnity upon England, no sum of money could be high enough"; on France "however severely she has had already to bleed financially through her own folly and British egoism ? a high war indemnity must be pitilessly imposed." The publication of the memorandum of the six associations was forbidden in Germany. The German papers at the time seem to refer to it with only. a distant allusiveness. The "petition of the professors" was circulated as a "strictly confidential manuscript." (It was published in the January of last' year in Das Grossere Deutschland.) ! Five idea 3 govern the dominant Ger- i man mind. Sea-power, plus annexations in the west, Middle Europe (a1 Central Europe bloc of Allied Powers), Berlin to Bagdad (German control of the Ottoman Empire), colonies, and new land on the east (annexations of - Russian territory). How comes it then that the Reichstag passed a resolution which seemed to favor a peace without annexations? Was it part of the giant German scheme to aid their agents in Russia to mislead the Russian people to help the Bolsheviki, who played the German game to the end? Was it tear that the defeats Germany had suffered on the Western front might be the precursors of worse reverses which would destroy all the military advantages Germany had secured in the first part of the war? Members of the Reichstag who voted for the resolution stated outside the Chamber, that it must not be intarpreted to exclude all German, annexations. Even if it did, the Reichstag Jias no power to direct the rulers of \Germany as to peace terras or any question of foreign policy The resolution was the result of a combination of .Roman Catholic and Socialist votes

in the Chamber. A couple of qnotft* tions will show its real value.' : The London Times reports that the fallowing telegram from Stuttgart was . published in the Munich papers shortly after the-famous Reichstag resolut tion: At a meeting of the Centre party t at Rottenburg, Herr Bolz, a member . of the Reichstag and of the Wurtem- ( berg Diet, declared that the war aims . resolution of the Reichstag does not exclude our obtaining, extensions of , territory, at this point and at that, t and in certain circumstances does not exclude our also getting a war indemnity. He said that what we finally achieve will depend upon the military situation at the conclusion of peace. He also gave the assurance that the resolution has the approval of the German Emperor, that the Imperial Chancellor has taken this ground, and that Hindenburg and LudendorfF have no objection to the resolution. A Socialist, Dr Paul Lensch, an ardent supporter of the Reichstag "peace resolution" and of the demqcratisation of Germany, discloses the real ideas connected with a "peace by understanding" in the mind of its German advocates. He writes in the Socialist weekly, Die Glocke (October O, XtfLi)', , "The consequences which 6uch a peace would have for English worldpower we have often explained. it would ;*« for Great Britain the greats eat defeat in its history and the beginning; of its ruin. Just because people in England are well aware of that they are resolute for war, and will hear nothing, of ia, peace by understanding. For that very reason, on the other hand, the Central Powers will and can press all the more'persiftently for such a peace. The new (Pan-German) Fatherland party, which strives for a peace based on annexations and conquests, is wholly blind to the position of immense advantage I which Germany holds in- the world as i against England. That advantage consists in the fact that Germany will have won the war if she does not lose it, whereas England will have lost the war if she does not win it. . .Great -transpositions and changes in the map of the world will not come to an end with this war. In some score or go of years the phenomena of economic and! political disintegration, t which this war has set going in many countries, will show themselves. Then the true time of harvest will have come" Whatever school1 of thought is consulted in Germany, the absorbing ambition becomes apparent that Germany hopes from the war to obtain, if not immediate world domination, at least military and economic advantages that will make the national ambition realisable, and make the national iorig a reality—Germany over all the world.