Repository: UIHistories Project: War Publications - WWI Compilation 1923 - Article 25 [PAGE 4]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

Today a plan of conquest for the domination of Europe, as the first step towards the domination of the world, very similar to that of the Saracens, has endangered once more the progress of centuries of civilization. The ultimate aim of the German Empire in the present war is no less the conquest of the world than was the ultimate aim of the Saracens. In the intervals between these great crises men and nations have fought for various causes. They have warred for creeds, for commerce, for land, for prestige, and for no reason at all except the bidding of princes and kings; but never before in the history of the modern world has any nation, any people, any government, deliberately set about the destruction of their fellow peoples, fellow nations, fellow governments, for the purpose of crushing out their separate national existences, on the theory that all people but themselves were inferior races deserving only extinction or complete subordination. That this is the purpose and spirit of the German nation as avowed by its Government and its leaders in literature, education and public life, we find abundant evidence from their own testimony, to which I shall shortly advert. But before doing so it will help us to inquire somewhat into the character and growth of a government which, in the twentieth century, could precipitate upon the world so great a danger and avow itself an agent of Almighty God to destroy all that other peoples have ace plished and other civilizations have achieved. For centuries the land that is now Germany had been torn asunder by constant dissensions and wars among the princes and small groups of people which formed the various duchies and kingdoms that made up the so-called Holy Roman Empire after imperial Rome had lost her grip upon the rest of EuropeThrough generations there existed a longing among these peoples, frequently expressed in their literature, for a combination or union into one great country. The unity of Germany was a dream for the realization of which every patriotic German worked and prayed. But rivalries and disputes, due to one cause and another, delayed the realization of the dream unti the m i d d l e of the 19th century. For a hundred years or more the military power of P r u s s i a ) t h e m o s t powerM 0 f the

4