Germany and the Germans from an American Point of ViewCollier, Price
History
Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View
Collier, Price
Germany; National characteristics, German
Aside from these domestic causes there is no reason why Germany should
take a sentimental or pious view of these questions of international
amity. Her own history is development by war. "Any war is a good war
when it is undertaken to increase the power of the state," said
Frederick the Great. "Nur das Volk wird eine gesicherte Stellung in
der Welt haben, das von kriegerischen Geiste erfuellt ist" ("Only that
nation will hold a safe place in the world which is imbued with a
warlike spirit") writes Germany's great military philosopher
Clausewitz.
We took Cuba and the Philippines; England took India, Hong Kong, and
Egypt; Japan took Korea and southern Manchuria; Italy took Tripoli;
France took Fez; Russia took Finland and northern Manchuria;
Austria-Hungary took Bosnia and Herzegovina; and Prussia and Germany have
a long list, including Silesia, Poland, Hanover, and Alsace-Lorraine.
Austria-Hungary tears up the Berlin treaty; France, Germany, and Spain
tear up the Algeciras treaty; Italy tears up the treaty of Paris; and
it is part of the game that we should all hold up our hands, avert our
faces, and thank God that we are not as other men are, when these
things are done. The justifications of these actions are all of the
most pious and penitent description. We were forced to do so, we say,
in order to hasten the bringing in of our own specially patented and
exclusive style of the kingdom of heaven, but outside of perhaps India
and Egypt, and the Philippines, it would be hard to find to-day any
trace of the promised kingdom. Germany, for example, had nine per
cent. of Moroccan trade, the total of Moroccan trade with all
countries only amounted to $27,500,000 a year, and she was compelled
to interfere for the protection of her traders, forsooth! The outcome
of the business, after an exciting situation lasting for months, was
that Germany got a slice of territory from France, mostly swamps,
which reaches from the Congo to the Atlantic Ocean, and reported to
be, by her own engineers, uninhabitable.
It is the pleasant formula of
polite statesmen and politicians to say, that it is a pity that
Germany came into the world competition a hundred years too late, when
the best colonies had been parcelled out among the other powers. This
is a superficial view of the case, and misses the real point of the
present envy, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. Germany does not
want colonies, and has no ability of the proper kind, and no willing
and adventurous population to settle them, if she had. Prussia's
dealing with aborigines is a subject for comic opera.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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