Repository: UIHistories Project: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 25 [PAGE 14]

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It became, then, an accepted doctrine of German forei gn policy, that neighboring small countries, Belgium, Denmark Holland and Switzerland should become a part of the German Empire. Their lands were to be seized, whether the People were willing or not. In addition, northern France was to be taken so as to give the German Empire a sea line running from Havre to the east end of Prussia. This perhaps was the first form that their thoughts took,—an empire running therefore from the western boundary of Russia south to Vienna and west to the Atlantic ocean. For one reason or another obstacles which they could not or dared not try to surmount at the time prevented the early fulfillment of this plan. But one of the remarkable features of German policy is its elasticity. It was possible to accomplish the purpose of domination in some other way. If an empire cannot be established reaching from the Gulf of Riga to the Bay of Biscay, one running from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf, as the world has recently become aware, will serve the purpose as well, — perhaps better! "The territory open to future German expansion," Professor Hasse tells us, "must extend from the North Sea to the Baltic and the Persian Gulf, absorbing the Netherlands, Luxemburg, Switzerland, the whole basin of the Danube, the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor." So now the phrase "from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf" has become the rallying cry of the Pan-Germans. in But one thing was only a stepping-stone to another, If> the first murderous onrush of her army in 1914, Germany had succeeded in overrunning all of Belgium, and seizing the northern part of France as far as Havre, or even Dieppe, she would tern have been content for a time. For such an increi tory, if she could keep it, would eive her the means

For army and navy 1 1 rest assured, there is to be a next onslaught, as I W* show in another place, unless the world succeeds in destroying erved military as a stepping-stone for an aggression to realize the dream of an empire to the Persian Gulf, and that in turn would have laid the foundation for a new grip, reaching into Asia, for the con14