GERMAN CONTEMPT FOR ENGLAND.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14462, 28 November 1914, Page 4

GERMAN CONTEMPT FOR ENGLAND.

TKEITSCHKE’S TEACHING. THE GERMAN IDEAL. It Nietsche was the apostle of the gospel iof force in Germany,/it was the Historian T’feltschke to whose persistent preaching it was due that, to the present generation of Germans, England has been the enemy against whom thai doctrine had to be put into prac..eo. In a recent book on “Germany and England” Mr. J. A. Cramb has analysed the ' teaching of Treltschke and discussed his influence on German thought. We give below some of the more salient passages; “It is very well for England to protest that she no aggressive designs against Germany. England’s mere existence as an Empire is a continuous aggression. So long as England, the great robber-State, retains her booty, the spoils of a world, what right has she to expect peace from the nations? England possesses everything and can do lathing. Germany possesses nothing and can do everything. What edict, then, human or divine, enjoins us to sit still? For what are England’s title deeds ,and by what laws does she justify her possession? By the law of valour, indeed, but also by opportunity, treachery, and violence. In the time of Roon and Moltke the attitude of Germans when the question of enmity to England was discussed was always, ‘ls t possible to land a Germany army upon English soil? And, once landed thcrs, how is it possible to bring it safely bac_ again ,witli its plunder to Jie sho <>f the Elbe and fine RhineP’ Whu was argued was a problem of ahstr nt stra'egy, rather than of political or national vim. A generation has passed. The heroes of the war in 1870 have one by one disap- , peared—Bismarck, Roon, Moltke, Manteuffel. That problem of strategy does not exist in Germany, but it occupies a much less prominent place than it occupied 30 ' or 40 years ago. It seems to have solved itself during the last 10 or 15 years. It < has become a secondary matter, and tho quasi-historical form which the question of enmity to England now assumes 'n • e minds of thousands of intellectual Germans is this: As the first great united action of the Gormans as a people, when they became conscious of their 'owor, 1 was. the overthrow of the R.t-n>> Empire, i and ultimately, in Charlcr-iagac a--! He Ottonides, the realisation of the tin am of Alaric-fthe transfiguration 1 , it • th. w. rid, the subversion of Rome, and the em-f.ou 1 upon its ruins of a new Stat-, so, in toe 20th century, now that Gern.'uy uni'.ir the Hohenzollcrn has become conscious of het new life, shall her first great action . be the overthrow of that Empire most corresponding to the Roman Empire, wliicu in the dawn of her history she overthrew? In Gorman history the old Imperialism begins by the destruction of Rome. Will the now Imperialism begin by the destruction of England? Mr Cramb makes it dear that the in* capacity of Britain is a theme which has been gradually permeating all classes of the German nation: “England’s supremacy is an unreality, her political power is as hollow as her moral virtues; the one an arrogance and pretence, the other hypocrisy. She cannot long maintain that baseless supremacy. Ou the sea she is rapidly being approached by other To,vers; her resources, except by immigration, are almost stationary, and her very immigration debases still further, her resources. Her decline is certain. Tin re may be no war. The display'of r ,.V iay J )e enou ? 1 >. and England after 19„<), like Venice after 1500, will graduallyatrophy, sunk in torpor. An England in* sensibly weakened by brutalisation withia and the encroachment cf an ever-increasing alien element, diseased or criminal, and) j*y concession on concession without, sinking into a subject province though nominally free, whilst Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand carves out each its* own dcs iuy— such an England is easily conceived. Who is to succeed her? It may not bo Gcimany; some Power it must bo.. But if Germany were to inherit tho sceptre which is fulling from her nerveless hands . . .? “No English historian or thinker hni snol-oii of war quite as Treitschko hft* spoken of it. I do not recollect a single passage in his writings in which the conventional icgrot.s are expressed, or where conventional phrases spell as ‘the scoifrga of mankind,’ ‘the-barrier to human pr<», P’ogrc s," occur as descriptions of war. Prom an early period in his library career, on the other hand, phrases of a quite different order abound in hia, writing*, phrases in which war appears, if not an ‘the supremo felicity of mankind,’ at least as a great factor in the onward strife towards perfection; whilst any attempt at its abolition is characterised as -unwise and immoral. ...” Mr Cramb says: “Troitsehke has defined the aim of Ger* many, and Treitschke’s definition, which has been taken up By his disciples, in (his; That just as the greatness of Germany is to bo found in tho governance of Germany by Prussia, so tho greatness and good of tho world is to be found in predominance there of Girnian culturei. of the German - mind, in a word, of the German character. This is tho ideal of Gcrnfany, and this is Germany’s role as Trcitscftko saw it in the future. For. observe, this! world-dominium of which Germany dreams is not, nimbly a .mitcr'al dominion. Germany is not blind to the lessons inculcated by the Napoleonic tyranny. Force alone, violaac® or brute strength, by its ;J*rcW , p e-caco cr by i‘s loud rpanifesteticn in ■ war. may be, .necessary to establish this dommion; bnt.its ends are spiritual. The triumph of tho Empire will lie the triumph. ; of German culture, of the German world, vision in all tho phases and department* of human life and energy, in religion poetry, science, art. politics, and i-ynal endeavour. ’! , * y