Repository: UIHistories Project: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 25 [PAGE 18]

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sons and daughters. But this was not enough to satisfy tn autocratic government of the Empire. Wherever a Germa^ goes he must still remain a German, and retain his connection with the home government! The flag must be established and the language spoken wherever Germans go! The right to expansion in this sense is, of course, a right that the world cannot grant. With reference to the German claim that they are waging a war of defense and not of conquest, it would be laughable if it were not tragic, to see how they have shifted their ground The utterances of every spokesman of the Teutonic Empire ai the outbreak of the war, the literature of Germany for mor< than attempt all evidence that she entered the conflict with a desire, and purpose, and intention, for conquest. To be sure, when she found herself hemmed in and unable to advance further, especially on the western front and, indeed, on the eastern, until the Russian collapse, then we find a change of tone. Through the utterances of her spokesmen now there runs the note of that whine which characterizes them in defeat. Some people "cannot stand the eaff." Thev lack the spirit of sport. Germany claims, as she has claimed for a generation, that she has been forced to become a military state, to develop the strongest army in the world in self-defense. "On the one side," she says, "we are threatened with the eruption of the barbarian hordes of Russia; while on the other hostile peoples hem us in. We must always be in a position selves." If Germany had developed her military strength only far enough to enable her to repel attacks, the world might take this view and sympathize with this argument, but she went d far beyond this. Of the danger of the Russian bogey a» French revenge, I shall speak later. Again, Germany declares that one nation after another has blocked her program of expansion, has kept her from finding her "place in the sun." This tune has hPPn harrWl on very strongly, especially with reference to Great Britain, largely i°* consumption in this country. We have been told with an iter18