Nine-tenths of the whole of the Pangerman plan of 1911 having been practically achieved, in spite of England’s intervention, which, however, had upset the German Staff’s plan, it is absolutely clear that the results obtained by Germany have been considerable in the extreme. Nothing could therefore be more to her advantage now than to succeed in putting an end to the war at a time when German influence extends unchecked over almost the whole of the invaded territories. These statements again explain why Berlin has for such a long time been occupied with the most subtle and most complex manœuvres for the opening of peace negotiations—attempts at a separate agreement with Russia, efforts to obtain the Pope’s intervention, advances made by the pseudo-socialists of the Kaiser towards their former comrades of belligerent countries, incitements to pacificists of all neutral countries, etc. Germany would have concluded peace at the moment which was most favourable to her, so as to be able to impose on the territories which she has either conquered or controls the special status provided for each of them by the Pangerman plan. But of course Germany would only have made such treaties as were compatible with her retention of all the regions she occupied at the time. As Major Moraht said very clearly in the _Berliner Tageblatt_: “Our military chiefs are not in the habit of giving back what we have acquired at the price of blood and of sacrifice” (_Le Matin_, 27th December, 1915). Lastly, the chief reason why Berlin wanted peace is that the prolongation of the war can only compromise and finally ruin all the results obtained by Germany. CHAPTER IV. SPECIAL FEATURES GIVEN TO THE WAR BY THE PANGERMAN PLAN. I. All the great political questions of the old world are raised and must be solved. II. As the war is made by Germany in order to achieve a gigantic scheme of slavery, it follows that it is waged by her in flagrant violation of international law. III. A struggle of tenacity and of duplicity on the side of Berlin _versus_ constancy and solidarity on the side of the Allies. The Diplomatic Corps, having ignored the Pangerman plan for reasons already shown (_pp. 19_ _et seq._), it is quite natural that the General Staffs and the public opinion of Allied countries should have been equally ignorant. From this general absence of knowledge there has resulted a vagueness and inadequacy in the view taken of the ultimate aims of Germany in the war; and in consequence the co-ordination of the Allied efforts has remained for a long while very imperfect. Each of the Allied nations, in fact, was at first so taken up with its own interests that they all lost sight of what ought to have been the common object of their common action.