Page:The New Europe - Volume 4.djvu/402

Rh they are preceded by tangible proofs that the oppressors of nationalities have forsworn their former doctrines. Herr von Kühlmann speaks of Europe as “the small peninsula attached to the Asiatic continent, which had previously the domination of the world in its hands.” He declares it to be the common interest of all the Great Powers that Europe shall not perish: but he forgets that the old Europe—“that word which sounds to us to-day like a tale of far-off times”—did perish at his master’s hands in that summer night three years ago when Germany went to war. And he is so far from understanding the hopes which men now cherish that he can proclaim his desire for a restoration without offering the only pledge which any good European can accept. He is free to speak of Europe when all Europe thinks of Belgium: he declares that the opportunity to restore peace is presented by the Pope, but speaks no word of the restoration of partitioned Poland, nor any hint of reparation for the wrongs of 1871 and 1914. In a word, there is safety in generalities, and nowhere else, for the rulers of Germany. They have raised up against them not only a world in arms, but a people whom they cannot lead. Junker and Socialist alike regard the Chancellor, now as an enemy and now as a friend, and his reputation for personal strength has not lived long. Having utterly forsaken the sound Bismarckian maxim that he who pursues Realpolitik must know clearly his objects and limit them strictly to what is possible, the German Government is now at a loss which way to turn. The mistakes of the political strategy of the past twenty years are now coming home to roost beside the colossal blunders of military strategy of the last three years, and there is no man in Germany big enough to find a safe way out of the threatening danger. A war on two fronts was always a gamble for Germany, for in it the objectives could not be limited solely by the will of the German High Command: but a war on three fronts—the third being the naval front to Great Britain, which bears the increasing pressure of the blockade and is therefore, in the long run, the most vulnerable—is not a gamble, it is the sure road to German defeat. Germany’s feet first trod that road when German policy was expanded from a European to a universal policy, from the constructive defence of German unity and interests in Europe to the unlimited