It is difficult, in the midst of a war forced upon the world by German ambition, to take a sane and balanced view of the aims which German policy was setting before itself during these years of experiment and preparation. What did average German opinion mean by the phrase Weltmacht, world-power, which had become one of the commonplaces of its political discussions? We may safely assume that by the mass of men the implications of the term were never very clearly analysed; and that, if they had been analysable, the results of the analysis would have been widely different in 1890 and in 1914, except for a few fanatics and extremists. Was the world-power at which Germany was aiming a real supremacy over the whole world? In a vague way, no doubt, important bodies of opinion held that such a supremacy was the ultimate destiny of Germany in the more or less distant future; and the existence of such a belief, however undefined, is important because it helped to colour the attitude of the German mind towards more immediately practical problems of national policy. But as a programme to be immediately put into operation, world-power was not conceived in this sense by any but a few Pan-German fanatics; and even they would have recognised that of course other states, and even other world-powers, would certainly survive the most successful German war, though they would have to submit (for their own good) to Germany's will. Again, did the demand for world-power mean no more than that Germany must have extra-European territories, like Britain or France? She already possessed such territories, though on a smaller scale than her rivals. Did the claim mean, then, that her dominions must be as extensive and populous as (say) those of Britain? Such an aim could only be obtained if she could succeed in overthrowing all her rivals, at once or in succession. And if she did that, she would then become, whatever her intentions, a world-power in the first and all-embracing sense. It is probably true that the German people, and even the extreme Pan-Germans, did not definitely or consciously aim at world-supremacy. But they had in the back of their minds the conviction that this was their ultimate destiny, and in aiming at 'world-power' in a narrower sense, they so defined their end as to make it impossible of achievement unless the complete mastery of Europe (which, as things are, means the mastery of most of the world) could be first attained. Certainly the ruling statesmen of Germany must have been aware of the implications of their doctrine of world-power. They were aware of it in 1914, when they deliberately struck for the mastery of Europe; they must have been aware of it in 1890, when they began to lay numerous plans and projects in all parts of the world, such as were bound to arouse the fears and suspicions of their rivals.