and European civilisation would be confronted with the certainty of a renewal of their life-and-death struggle. 4. ENGLAND, THE EAST, COLONIES, AND OVERSEA TRADE.—The war between us and Russia has been waged with extraordinary violence, and has led to a glorious success for our arms; and we must never forget the menace to our future presented by the enormous Russian mass encamped on our Eastern frontier, if we should fail to disintegrate it. Nevertheless, we must never for one moment lose sight of the fact that this war is, in its ultimate origin, England’s war upon the foreign trade, the naval power, and the world-prestige of Germany. Since this is the motive of England’s hostility and war against us, our war-aims against England are clear. We must wrest a free field for our foreign trade, we must enforce the recognition of our naval power and our world-prestige in spite of England. We admit that England has taught us one lesson by her blockade, which has compelled Germany to reorganise herself for the duration of this war as a self-contained industrial state; for we have learned that, before and above all, we must win and secure a wider territorial basis in Europe (as is explained in detail above), in order that we may stand before the world in the utmost possible political, military and economic independence. And we must also create on the Continent the widest possible sphere of economic interest, directly contiguous with our country’s frontiers (_i.e._ avoiding sea-routes), so as to free ourselves as far as possible from dependence upon the good pleasure of England and of the other world-empires, whose self-sufficiency and exclusiveness are constantly increasing. In this respect our political friendship with Austria-Hungary and Turkey, which is bound to throw open the Balkans and Western Asia to us, is of the first importance. It is therefore necessary that Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, Turkey, and Western Asia, down to the Persian Gulf, should be permanently secured against the covetousness of Russia and England. Commercial relations with our political friends must be furthered by all available means.