New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915Various
History
New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915: April-September, 1915
Various
World War, 1914-1918
Maximilian Harden, author of the article of which the
following is a translation, is the widely known German
journalist and publicist who has been termed "the German
George Bernard Shaw." The article was published in the second
February number of Die Zukunft.
_Japan and the United States are being wooed. Ever since the Western
powers' hope of speedy decisive blows on the part of Russia have
shriveled up, they would like to lure the Japanese Army, two to four
hundred thousand men, to the Continent. What was scoffed at as a whim of
Pinchon and Clemenceau now is unveiled as a yearning of those at the
head of the Governments._
_The sentimental wish to see Germany's collapse completed by the
activities of the allied European powers now ventures only shyly into
the light of day. The ultimate wearing down of the German Army assures
us of victory; but a speedy termination of the war under which the whole
hemisphere suffers would be preferable. The Trans-Siberian Railway could
bring the Japanese to Poland and East Prussia. The greatness of the
expenditures therefor cannot frighten him who knows what tremendous sums
each week of the war costs the Allies. Where it is a question of our
life, of the existence of all free lands, every consideration must
vanish. Public opinion desires an agreement with the Government of the
Mikado._
These sentences I found in the Temps. England will not apply the brakes.
Mr. Winston Churchill, to be sure, lauds the care-free fortune of his
fatherland, which even after Trafalgar, he says, did not command the
seas as freely as today; but in his inmost heart even this "savior of
Calais" does not cheat himself concerning the fact that it is a matter
of life and death. In order not to succumb in such a conflict, England
will sacrifice its prosperous comfort and the lordly pride of the white
man just as willingly as it would, if necessary, Gibraltar and Egypt,
(which might be within the reach of German armies in the Spring.)
Will Japan follow the luring cry? Any price will be paid for it. What is
Indo-China to the Frenchmen, whose immense colonial empire is exploited
by strangers, if thereby they can purchase the bliss of no longer being
"the victims of 1870"? And the yellow race that co-operated on Europe's
soil in the most momentous decision of all history would live in
splendor such as had never before been seen, and could keep China, the
confused, reeling republic, for at least a generation in its
guardianship.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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