281. It must be regarded as a quite unthinkable proposition that an agreement between France and Germany can be negotiated before the question between them has been once more decided by arms.--GENERAL V. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 91. 282. In one way or another _we must square our account with France_ if we wish for a free hand in our international policy.... France must be so completely crushed that she can never again come across our path.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 105. 283. A pacific agreement with England is a will-o'-the-wisp which no serious German statesman would trouble to follow. We must always keep the possibility of war with England before our eyes, and arrange our political and military plans accordingly.--GENERAL V. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 99. 284. Since the struggle is, as appears on a thorough investigation of the international question, necessary and inevitable, we must fight it out, cost what it may.... We have fought in the last great wars for our national union and our position among the Powers of _Europe_; we must now decide whether we wish to develop into and maintain a _World Empire_, and procure for German spirit and German ideas that fit recognition which has been hitherto withheld from them.--GENERAL V. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 103. 285. If we wish to compete further with them [the other Powers] a policy which our population and our civilization both entitle and compel us to adopt, we must not hold back in the hard struggle for the sovereignty of the world.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 79. 285a. All that other nations attained in centuries of natural development--political union, colonial possessions, naval power, international trade--was denied to our nation until quite recently. What we now wish to attain must be _fought for_, and won, against a superior force of hostile interests and powers.--GENERAL V. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 84. 286. Since almost every part of the globe is inhabited, new territory must, as a rule, be obtained at the cost of its possessors--that is to say, by conquest, which thus becomes a law of necessity.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 21. 287. Success is necessary to gain influence over the masses, and this influence can only be obtained by continually appealing to the national imagination and enlisting its interest in great universal ideas and great national ambitions.... We Germans have a far greater and more urgent duty towards civilization to perform than the Great Asiatic Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the sword.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 258. =War need not be Defensive.= 288. Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you, it is the good war which halloweth every cause.--FR. NIETZSCHE, Z., "War and Warriors."