Page:The New Europe, volume 1.pdf/281

 made. The only comfort which some of us may feel to-day is to express their deep gratefulness to the great man whom they are proud to call their master.

Author:Emile Cammaerts.

 

present conflict in which the Pangermans are out to crush the Slavs is simply the final expression of the traditional designs of the Germans in the East. If the geographical significance of the catchword Drang nach Osten be extended so as to include the South-east and South as well as the East proper, it becomes a true summary of German ambition. From the very beginning of her history the main trend of Germany's expansion has been towards the South-east. The lines of that expansion first crystallised with the foundation of the Empire by Charles the Great, and an early manifestation of it was the establishment of Austria, or "Ost-Reich," which was followed later on by the foundation, in the North-east of Germany, of the Marches out of which grew Prussia.

In the West, Germany has long been in conflict with the French, and the controversy is still unsettled. The point at issue is, however, of a far different order from that in the East. In the former case Germany disputes the possession of a small strip of territory west of the Rhine; in the latter, as Treitschke points out, she regards the entire territory of every nation as a field for colonisation. In the West, moreover, Germany has been faced by the highly-civilised French nation, which obviously could not be colonised, whereas, in the East, in addition to the Slavs, there were the Huns, Avars and Magyars: in this case Germany secured the support of the Church by instituting a process of Christianisation side by side with that of Germanisation.

From the 8th to the 14th century the Germans persistently pressed Eastward. The German Hanseatic League and the knightly orders spread German dominion as far East as Petrograd to-day. From the 14th century onwards, however, that pressure was stemmed, not only by the attacks