The PanGerman Plot Unmasked: Berlin's formidable peace-trap of "the drawn war"Chéradame, André
History
The PanGerman Plot Unmasked: Berlin's formidable peace-trap of "the drawn war"
Chéradame, André
Europe -- Politics and government -- 1871-1918; Pangermanism; World War, 1914-1918
These provisions being contrary to all the general principles of
international law on the subject of nationality, a German citizen who
benefits by them will take very good care not to acquaint the foreign
State whose nationality he has acquired, with the highly peculiar
situation in which he stands. By this process Germany has been able to
have in every State agents devoted to her aggressive policy, without
these States being aware of the danger they run through this secret
service. In fact, these States had, to all appearance, to do only with
fellow countrymen whom they had no right to suspect. It was only after
many months of war, when their criminal action compelled them to take
off the mask, that the dangerous power of these Germans disguised as
foreigners appeared in all its formidable and insufferable dimensions.
This state of things explains why, during the first months of the war,
intoxicated by the powerful German propaganda, and ignorant of the
disasters with which Europe and still more themselves were threatened by
the Pangerman plot, the States of South America were unable to perceive
the peril at their door and to understand that they had a direct interest
in the issue of the European war. But now public opinion in these
countries is advancing steadily towards a complete apprehension of the
truth.
Peru and Chili, one after the other, are slipping through the meshes of
the German net.
In Argentina the movement in favour of the Allies is also growing
rapidly. But it is above all in Brazil, the southern part of which
is most particularly coveted by the Germans, that the progress of
enlightenment is especially interesting to watch. For a long time the
Germans have concentrated their colonial efforts particularly on three
Brazilian States, to wit, Parana (60,000 Germans), Santa Catarina
(170,000), and Rio Grande do Sul (220,000). In these rich provinces, the
Germans, preserving the language, the traditions, the prejudices of the
Fatherland, are almost absolute masters. Only 47,000 of them are openly
citizens of the German Empire; the rest, about 400,000, are apparently
Brazilian subjects, but in virtue of the Delbrück law a considerable
part of them have in reality remained or become once more liege-men of
William II. Moreover, the budget of the German Empire included a sum of
500,000 marks to be devoted to the establishment or the support of German
schools in Brazil. In 1912 Prince Henry of Prussia, brother of William
II., in the course of his cruise, landed at the port of Itajahy to pay
a visit to his fellow countrymen in Santa Catarina. Since the outbreak
of the European war the game of the Germans in Brazil has been gradually
revealed in its true colours, and it has been lately discovered that
the numerous Rifle Clubs were in fact societies for military drill and
dangerous enough to necessitate their disarmament.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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