ORIGIN OF THE WAR.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXVII, Issue 17946, 13 November 1918, Page 5

ORIGIN OF THE WAR.

THE EUROPEAN SITUATION. A FLYING' SURVEY. Hie European war of 1914-1918 was 'procipitated by the assassination, at Sarajevo, on Juno 28, 1914, or tho heir to tho Austrian tlirpno and his wife. The crime was declared by Austria to have been committed by Serbian agents at the instigation of the PanSerbian organisations and with tho approval of the Serbian Government. It would bo outside tho purpose of this survey to describe tho peculiar relations between Serbia and Austria-Hun-gary, but the broad fact that Serbia lay across the direct path between ’Vienna and Salonika and Vienna and the Bosphorus, and the further fact that the inhabitants of Bosnia, and Herzegovina, provinces wrongly annexed by Austria, were akin to the Sorbs, were sufficient in themselves to influence tho relations between the two countries. Added to- thore facts was tho further fact that the Teuton League had determined to seize tho first favourable opportunity to assert its domination of tho wholo Balkan area. Austria therefore made tho Serajevo crime ail excuse for action that wag deliberately calculated to lead to war. It is possible that in Berlin and Vienna thore were hopes that foreign Powers would not actively intervene, but would permit Austria to tnko th© first and greatest step towards the conquest of tho Balkans without compelling her to, pay a prico in blood. But whether such hopes wero cherished or not, Iroth Berlin and Vienna wero prepared to face the consequences. Few English readers understood the position on the Continent in 1914. ' The increasing tensity of the relations between Russia and Germany and between Germany and Franc© was not appreciated. No clos© watch had been kept on German designs. The propaganda of the Pan-Germans was regarded as unimportant-, and the tremendous significance of the fact that Germany alone among tho European nations retained a medireval Bystem of govSrn.menb was quite overlooked. Germany, Austria-Hungai-y and Russia were the three Great Powers whose affairs, domestic and foreign, were not controlled by the peoplo. They were the three Powers most, likely to precipitate war in Europe and most likely to prepare deliberately for a war of aggression. Russia was restrained to a largo extent by her French connection, and, inorbover, it was known to all the world that her military and naval forces were in anything but an efficient condition. It is true that in 1914 sh© was undertaking tho reorganisation of her army, but the work had scarcely commenced. Germany, on the other hand, had been rapidly building up a great army and a great navy. In 1911 she. had greatly increased her appropriation for artillery. In that year and tho next she added to tho .military establishment, and in 1913 she provided for an additional standing force of 117,000 men and 11,000 non-commissioned officers. Her standing force, was then brought to tho extraordinary total of 860,000 men—on a peace footing—with 110,000 non-commissioned officers. To meet the enormous military expenditure she had enforced a direct levy on capital. The significance even of this extraordinary measure was ignored by British journals, though it was understood, in France.

There is no doubt that Germany had determined at an early date te precipitate a European war, and tho opportunity presented in 1914 was regarded as entirely suitable. Indeed, ■many publicists go so far as to say that the assassinatiou at Serajevo was engineered by Germany for that very purpose. The course of the negotiations following on tho crime shows'beyond the possibility of doubt that Germany was determined on war. and that she forced Austria into conflict first with Serbia and'then with Russia, tho Russians having intervened on Serbia’s behalf.

It is customary to quote the aims of the Pan-German group, as tho intentions, or ambitions, with which Ger-' many entered the war. But these ambitions developed as the war progressed, and, while they mnv fairly bo cited as tho territorial, plunder that Germany would have acquired as the result of a successful war, they do not represent the real motive. That motive is, necessarily, in some respects obscure. Xhp rulers of Germany did not take the world, or even tfieir own people, into their confidence. But their main purpose is clear enough. The work that was commenced in 1860 and continued in IS7O had to be extended, if not com. pleted. Prussia had replaced Austria a,t the dominant Power amongst tho German States. The creation of the German Empire, with Prussia as its loader, virtually as its dictator so far as foreign' relations ■ were concerned, night well have been the end of the true Teutonic movement, which, had been gathering force for nearly three centuries. There "was one further step which the saner Pan-Germans of the old school contemplated, in the union of Teutonic Austria with Germany, either as one of the States of the Empire or as an independent kingdom or Empire in close association with Germany, and it is interesting to recall that some of the German publicists urged that Hungary should be_ encouraged to cut ‘the connection with Austria as a preparation for the union of the' German’ peoples. But this perfectly rational racial movement was overlaid by Hohenzollern ambitions. It was noteeiiough that the German peoples should bo united in a powerful Empire. They must dominate Europe, ultimately the’ world, and it is impressive to note how this idea has been worked into tho whole scheme of German national education, into foreign policies and domestic policies, into university organisation and Teaching,' into the treatment of history into the whole system of Gorman citizenship. If there is one idea more pronounced than another in German teaching it is the doctrine that the minds and bodies of the people must belong absolutely to the State. . It would require too much space here to trace the development of this theory of citizenship through Prussian and. German history, but the curious reader will find it already well developed in tho discipline imposed on tho Prussian people a couple of centuries ago and in the system of Government that. Prussia evolved. There was no room for democracy in the schemq,, for 'democracy requires that tho State shall exist for the good of tho people; not tho people for tho purposes 01 the State. In origin the government of Prussia .was an autocracy, h«t tho, men who fashioned the modern State grafted oh I to the autocracy a new idea. The government itself "was to Ims parried oh by a bureaucracy. but tho iw*mle were to be'train-

ed and disciplined to identify themselves absolutely with the ideas of the rulers.. And the amazing fact about Germany is that they succeeded, succeeded not merely for Prussia, but also in all essentials for the whole of Germany. , Thus it came about that the successive measures imposed on the German people _ for the consolidation of the power of the throne, and of the rulers of Prussia were accepted almost without question. It is doubtful if in all history .there is such another example of a disciplined people, content to do the will of a comparatively email ruling class. It may bo argued that sooner or later the systein was bound to break down, .and that, in point of fact, it has now broken down because the rulers subjected it to too .severe a strain. But it can also be argued that the rulers asked for too much, that if they bnd been content with less than the achievement of the whole grandiose scheme of world conquest at one blow they would have retained the goodwill of the people. And of course it is too early even now to say that the system has completely broken down or that it cannot he" restored. Prophecies, are usually unsafe, but it can be predicted with confidence that the Junker class will not accept defeat, but will emerge again with a hid for the supremacy, in Germany. This excursion into general politics has been necessary in order to explain how it came about that Germany was in a position to challenge the "world and why she challenged the'world. Her rulers were entering frankly on a policy of expansion, and l , the obedient nation gave them the power to engineer the war. The immediate and confessed purpose of the war was to smash the Franco-Russiair alliance, to rid Europe of the balance of power doctrine and to establish Germany as the dominant Power on the Continent. German writers have been quoted .as saying thrft this enterprise had to be undertaken before 1917, because by that year the reorganisation of the Russian armies would have been complete. . Russia had already authorised a considerable increase in the annual recruiting contingent and consequently in the size of the national army, ' arid Franco was tardily attacking*the military problem with the intention of countering the German army expansion. *lt was imperative from the German point of view, therefore-, that the war on which Germany had long previously made up her mind should he launched before 1916. There is reason to beliovo that the actual decision was arrived at in 1912.