Page:The New Europe (The Slav standpoint), 1918.pdf/17

 have success, and in fact primacy, in science, philosophy, music, art and education. The Germans by virtue of their Kultur have the right, nay even the duty, of ruling the world. The Germans are, in short, the Herrenvolk, the only and absolute Herrenvolk. Germany, so we read literally, will be the saviours of Europe and of mankind.

The Germans by their Pangermanistic plans utilise their historical development. Prussia in 1871, after uniting the Germans, proceeded with the erection of the German mediæval empire, the empire of Charlemagne, the continuation of the Roman empire; Prussia created the political concept of Central Europe. The Prussian-German imperialism and militarism are the culmination of the Roman world idea; Berlin is the fourth Rome, after Rome, Byzantium, Moscow

The Pangermans, it is plain, believe in materialism, force and technique, neither Schiller nor Herder nor Kant, but Hegel, Feuerbach, Büchner (Kraft und Stoff), Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Hartmann become the spiritual leaders of Prussianised Germany. This materialism harmonised very easily with that national and racial mysticism which the Pangermans derived from the Frenchman Gobineau, from Nietzsche, Schophenhauer, Hartmann and others; Lagarde even prescribed for the Germans their higher religion, and William believes in his own and his grandfather’s Messiahship—the official founder of the Prussian Empire, the plaything of Bismarck, is to William God’s Ambassador The Pangerman materialist receive this sacrilegious teaching with great content, and not even the Marxian materialists of Herr Scheidemann get excited over it.

The Pangermans uphold and spread hostility and hatred against neighbouring nations, especially the Slavs; and the Czechs above all, because of their special world situation, are a thorn in the eyes of the Germans. In Pangermanistic literature the Czechs, equally with the Poles, are threatened with extermination and forcible Germanisation; people still remember the exhortation of Mommsen, that the Germans should break the hard skulls of the Czechs, and Lagarde and the other leaders of Pangermanism speak in an equally brutal manner. The Pangermanists turn history and sociology into zoology and mechanics—that is in harmony with their tactics of frightfulness, as practised in this war.

. The Allies, not being prepared for the Austro-German attack, were on the defensive both in the military and in the political sphere; it was a long time before they agreed on a common programme. At first individual statesmen and governments declared their views and plans; naturally, they emphasized the fact that they had been attacked, condemned Prussian militarism, defended democratic principles, demanded freedom for all nations, great or small, and promised the reorganisation of Europe.

On October 31st, 1916, Emperor William wrote a letter in which, speaking in his well-known manner about assurance in his God, he instructed Bethmann-Hollweg to draft peace conditions; the German Chancellor on December 12th, 1916, handed to the American Chargé d’Affaires in Berlin the German proposal stating that the Central Powers were ready to enter into peace negotiations. The proposal contained no definite plan; it was more like the orders of a haughty victor than a genuine peace proposal. Following that, President Wilson appeared on the scene. He had offered, as is well known, his mediation on August 3rd, 1914, but it was not accepted. After Bethmann-Hollweg made his proposal, Wilson addressed himself (December 20th, 1916) to the British Government, as he expressly says, of his own accord, not upon the German initiative. He asked all the warring nations to submit their peace conditions in a more concrete form, since general principles would not do; he himself emphasised the right of the smaller and weaker peoples and the small states.

The Allies replied (December 30th, 1916) to the note of the German Chancellor, rejecting it, as it deserved. On January 10th, 1917, they replied to President Wilson. In this answer they state that they defend Europe 2em