The EMPIRE GERMANY WON — and LOST

Cue (NZERS), Issue 23, 15 May 1945, Page 11

The EMPIRE GERMANY WON — and LOST

A FTEII five ami a-half years of M fruitless war, the German nation today finds itself just about where it began eighty years ago. Militarism placed it on the path to power. Militarism has led it back to the penury. The great Bismarck, by means of intrigue and skilful strategy, built up the German Empire. The fanatical Hitler, through trust in bluff and reckless naivety, has ruined the German Reich.

: In the winter of 1861 a new sovereign, William I, came to the Prussian throne. He was elderly, a soldier, and an autocrat with a great dislike for popular movements. He wanted Prussia to be strong in arms. His first act was to press for compulsory is-ervice and the addition of more regiments to the Prussian army. Parliament rejected the scheme, and there was a protracted deadlock until Otto von Bismarck came to the side of the King. Bismarck was a Pomeranian squire who had been ambassador at Paris and St. Petersburg. He was a man of passionate and ruthless temperament, a powerful orator and a subtle diplomat. With the advent of ismarck the struggle over military r eforni became more embittered. Restrictions were placed on the liberty ? the press, liberal officials who proes cd that military, financial and Preign policy should be governed by * e will of the people, were dismissed, fw* 1111 able consequences of the recon^ 11 • eir claim was the cam VerS1 ° n E ' ur<) pe into an armed ikn?’ Bismarck liked respected Engn * but he knew that English

principles of government transplanted to Prussia would spell ruin for his ambitions. He was able to lead the King stop by stop in the direction he considered right. At the beginning of his administration Bismarck’s whole design was threatened by a proposal from Austria for the reformation of the German Federal Constitution. It needed re. pairing badly enough, but that plan was far too likely to result in the strengthening of Austrian authority in Germany; so Bismarck frustrated it. lie wanted the way kept clear for German unity under / Prussian influence. Within three years he had decided it was necessary for his plans to pick a quarrel with Austria and force a war. With engaging candour he admitted in later years that ’’Prussian linen was not always of the cleanest”. The war with Austria lasted seven weeks and Europe was amazed at the results attained by the application of Prussian science and Prussian methods to the military art. In the third week the Austrian army was crushed at Sadowa in Bohemia. Bismarck saw that Austrian alliance or neutrality might some day be precious to his state, and so he was content when they acquiesced in Prussian domination of the Danish Duchies and in the formation of a North German Confederation under ■ Prussian leadership. He was considerate of the South German States’ desire to form

a separate federation of the South, and his clemency was promptly rewarded. Within a month Bavaria, Wurtemberg and Baden had signed military conventions with the Government of the North.

The winding up of the Austrian war and the making of the peace was carried out with great expedition. At that stage Bismarck feared that while the 1 Prussian army was in Bohemia, an angry, jealous, and apprehensive France would mobilise on the Rhine.

Prussia had swallowed Hanover, Hesse, Cassel, and the Danish Duchies, added four and a-half million people to her population and overturned the whole balance of power in Central Europe. ”It is France who has been beaten at iSadowa” Marshal Randon had cried out bitterly. French efforts to strengthen their position were made too late. The Emperor, Napoleon 111, asked for the Rhenish Palatine and Hesse, for Mainz, for the Saar, for Luxemburg and for Belgium. Bismarck rejected all the suggestions with impunity. His cunning mind was made up that the pattern of German unity could not be completed without a violent clash with France, and he pushed on with military preparations strenuously and methodically.

An, excuse for a challenge came in July, 1870, from the unexpected source of an empty Spanish throne. Rival claimants had Prussia and France for their respective seconds. A climax was ; reached before reason could gain a hearing. On both sides militarists were resolved on war. Bavaria joined Prussia, fearing that France hoped for a slice of Southern Germany. German arms soon proved their might. The famous Imperial army of France was put out of action in a month, and all French resistance ceased by February, 1871. A few days before the fall of Paris the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Stimulated by the Prussian success the South German States asked

for admission to the Union. The King of Bavaria proposed that William of Hohenzollen should take the Imperial Crown. The seeds of future wars were sown at the peace conference at Frankfort

in 1871. Germany demanded Alsace, a great part of Lorraine and the fortress of Metz. It was the most serious error Bismarck committed in the course of his triumphant career. Alsace was essentially German and Lorraine was chiefly French. r

Satisfied with what he had accomplished, Bismarck now set out to ensure that Germany should be shielded from domestic change and foreign war. He had no wish for a Colonial Empire nor would he risk imperilling England’s friendship by a challenge on the sea.

At the end of the nineteenth century there was no Continental state, that compared with the German Empire in military and economic strength. It was to a state composed of soldiers and officials, a society dominated by the military caste, a people intoxicate

by success that William 11, the new Kaiser, came in 1888. The character o f the man was a misfortune. He was intelligent and iself-cdnfidcnt, but susceptible to flattery, ami often swayed by the influences of the moment. His w ill clashed with Bismarck’s, and within two years the founder of the Empire was dismissed. There had been safety for Germany while the wise Bismarck was in control. After bis fall the stakes rose and the risks increased. An emotional people came to believe that by force of an irresistible destiny they were called on to play for the high stakes of world power or downfall. The Kaiser’s vanity, politic cal infidelities and provocative speeches maintained Germany in a high state of tension. All young Germans expected that life would offer them a war for the Fatherland.

Ships were the favourite toys of the Kaiser’s boyhood. It was unfortunate for Germany that the building of a battle fleet became the ruling passion of his later years. It did not seem to occur to him that England would see herself endangered by the presence in the North Sea of a fleet as powerful as her own. He pressed forward with a series of naval Bills, and a race of naval armaments became open • and unconcealed. When Britain broached the subject of naval limitation in 1908 the Kaiser replied that hi*, would rather go to war.

Bismarck had strained every nerve to keep peace in the Balkans, mediating in differences between Serbs and Bulgarians, soothing the Russians, and keeping the Austrians in hand. The Kaiser, however, gave reckless advice to Austria: ’’War between east and west is inevitable” ; ’’the 'Serbs arc born to serve and not to rule’’; ’’Russia is not to be feared”. How calamitous these counsels were was shortly bo be apparent. The German people bad so long been taught that they were being encircled by their enemies that they found no difficulty in believing

that before long they would be called on to defend the Fatherland from a wicked attempt to destroy it. Kaiser William’s ’’inevitable war” came, and all the world well knows the results.

The mutiny of the men who manned the Kaiser's ’’favourite toys". The revolution against the once honoured monarchy, and the flight of William II from the wrath of the people he had led to humiliation, misery, and despair. The disarmament and dismemberment of the German Empire by the Treaty of Versailles.

The German Socialists who took the responsibility for the government of their country in its darkest days were brave and patriotic. It was unfortunate for democracy and liberalism in Germany that their first act was to accept an armiistice which offered the prospect of a crushing tribute spread over two generations, long military

occupation, and the destruction of the mechanism and equipment of the national army. For the Germans the relinquishment of Alsace-Lorraine was comparatively easy to accept. What hurt them most of all were the

arrangements for the eastern frontiers, the revival of Poland, the corridor to the sea severing East Prussia from Brandenburg, and the handing to Poland of an industrial area in Silesia developed by German brains and capital. That the conquests of Frederick the Great should, thus be torn from them was a blow to German pride. It was not long before all this was to be brought up against the democrats.

A lance-corporal of the 16th Bavarian Infantry reserve felt he had some ideas which would overcome the paralysis of his country and shape an answer to the Allies. He was known as Adolf Hitler, and he was full of Teutonic pride. Ruthless and temperamental, a hysterical and violent orator, a hater of Liberals, Communists, and Jews, he gathered around him idealists, ruffians, and ex-soldiers who believed that Germany could, if she willed, rise to greatness once again. They formed a party on the lines of Italian Fascism, called their

policy National Socialism, and named themselves Nazis. Their aims were a Union of Germany in a centralised state, the abrogation of the peace treaties, the establishment of a national army, and the return of the German colonies. They challenged Catholics, Protestants, Capitalism, and Jewry. Their philosophy was the superiority of Nordic stock. They put themselves in uniform, adopted a salute, and by 1923 were ready to make a bid for power by direct military action. It failed. The Nazis then applied; themselves to achieving success by more constitutional methods.

At the end of a ten-year campaign, in which crafty propaganda, passionate oratory ami organised terrorism had all played a part, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of the Reich and master of the German 'State. The Government had been too weak to suppress his private armies, and wealthy noblemen and industrialists, hoping the movement might bring back the monarchy, had lent support to the Nazi cause. The people, particularly German youth, became the willing slaves of the Nazi dictator. It was sufficient for this immoderate, sentimental, and power-lowing people that Hitler .stood for a proud, united and defiant Germany.

What followed during the next six hectic years amazed' the world far more than Bismarck’s creation of the original Empire. Hitler swept away the old division of Germany into states and set up a centralised government in Berlin. Treating with contempt the restrictions imposed at'Versailles,, he re-introduced compulsory military service. commenced re-arming on a large, scale, re-united the Saar with Germany, joined Austria to the Reich, and marched his troops into Czechoslovakia. Had he halted then as Bismarck did after his victory over Erance, there might have been prosperity for Germany for years ahead.

Hitler was too intoxicated by his successes to heed the wisdom of the great Empire-builder or* to see a lesson in the Kaiser’s reckless folly. In the face of die most definite warning from Britain and France he went on and invaded Poland. The Germans now have met a fate far worse than in 1918. Not only have their armies been defeated, but German towns and cities lie in ruins, and into German homes have come death

and destruction. Again Germany faces the prospect of partition. Troops of the United Nations will occupy German territory for years, retribution will be taken in labour and in wealth. Such is the price Germans will pay for allowing liberalism to be crushed, for scorning democratic government, for trusting their destiny to one man, for playing the stupid game of ’’follow the leader”, so blindly.