[20] "The defenceless Alexandria" was defended by an elaborate system of forts mounting hundreds of guns. It was these forts that the fleet bombarded, in the face of considerable resistance. The conflagrations in the city were the work of escaped or liberated convicts. [21] If any French soldiers actually believed that Nuernberg had been bombed, it can only have been because the German Government spread the report, through the mouth of its Ambassador in Paris, as an excuse for declaring war. (French Yellow Book, No. 159.) It is possible that some Frenchmen may have incautiously believed the German Government. The report has been shown by German investigation to be entirely groundless. II GERMAN AMBITIONS II GERMAN AMBITIONS =Expansion in Europe.= (BEFORE THE WAR.) 192. Germany cannot be suspected of wishing for war.... She covets no possession of her neighbours. Any one who says that she does, slanders her.--_Manifesto of the German Defence League, March, 1913._ NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 85. 192a. A developing, onward-striving people like ourselves requires new land for its energies, and if peace will not secure it, then only war remains. To arouse people to a realization of this fact was the mission of the Defence League.--GENERAL v. WROCHEM, at meeting of German Defence League, Danzig, March, 1913. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 84. 192b. It is precisely our _craving_ for expansion that drives us into the paths of conquest, and in view of which all chatter about peace and humanity can and must remain nothing but chatter.--J.L. REIMER, E.P.D., p. 154. 193. A new period of progress towards unification is possible only by means of a great and courageous policy, which should lead to victorious wars, and if possible to the territorial expansion of the Empire.--D.B.B., p. 202. 194. All the policy, internal and external, of the Empire ought to be subordinated to this governing idea--the Germanization of all the remains of foreign populations within the Empire, and the procuring for the German people of new territories, proportionate to its strength and its need of expansion.--PROF. E. HASSE, B.D.V., p. 126. 195. Our frontiers are too narrow. We must become land-hungry, must acquire new regions for settlement, otherwise we will be a sinking people, a stunted race. True love for our people and its children commands us to think of their future, however much they may accuse us of quarrelsomeness and lust of war. If the Germanic people shrank from war it would be as good as dead.--BARON V. VIETINGHOFF-SCHEEL, at meeting of Pan-German League, Erfurt, September, 1912. NIPPOLD, D.C., p. 72.