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 her armies, that she completely demobilize and pay an indemnity. "France now," said Wangenheim, "can settle for $5,000,000,000; but if she persists in continuing the war, she will have to pay $20,000,000,000."

He told me that Germany would demand harbours and coaling stations "everywhere." At that time, judging from Wangenheim's statements, Germany was not looking so much for new territory as for great commercial advantages. She was determined to be the great merchant nation, and for this she must have free harbours, the Bagdad railroad, and extensive rights in South America and Africa. Wangenheim said that Germany did not desire any more territory in which the populations did not speak German, for they had had all of that kind of trouble they wanted in Alsace-Lorraine, Poland, and other non-German countries. This statement certainly sounds interesting now in view of recent happenings in Russia. He did not mention England in speaking of Germany's demand for coaling stations and harbours; he must have had England in mind, however, for what other nation could have given them to Germany "everywhere?"

All these conversations were as illuminating to me as Wangenheim's revelation of the conference of July 5th. That episode clearly proved that Germany had consciously started the war, while these grandiose schemes, as outlined by this very able but somewhat talkative ambassador, showed the reasons that had impelled her in this great enterprise. Wangenheim gave me a complete picture of the German Empire embarking on a great buccaneering expedition, in which the