ermany imperatively wants new markets for her
industry and new territory for her sixty-five millions of people. In
so doing, he only reiterates the usual assumption of German political
writers. And he also resembles the majority of his fellow-publicists
in this respect, that he does not tell us what exactly are the
territories that Germany covets, or how they are to be obtained, or
how the possession of tropical or subtropical colonies can solve the
problem of her population. But he differs from his predecessors in
that he clearly realizes and expresses, without ambiguity or
equivocation, that the assertion of her claims must involve the
establishment of German supremacy, and he admits that those claims are
incompatible with the antiquated doctrine of the balance of power.
And von Bernhardi also clearly realizes that, as other nations will
refuse to accept German supremacy and to surrender those fertile
territories which Germany needs, German expansion can only be achieved
as the result of a conflict--briefly, that war is unavoidable and
inevitable.

CHAPTER V

FREDERICK THE GREAT: THE FATHER OF PRUSSIAN MILITARISM

I.

Amongst the many discoveries brought about by the war of the nations,
an educated British public has suddenly discovered the unsuspected
existence of Heinrich von Treitschke. And not only have we discovered
the national Prussian historian--we have also unwittingly discovered
Prussian history. We have certainly had revealed to us for the first
time its secret and hidden meaning. We are only just beginning to
realize that for nearly two hundred years it is Prussia, and not
Russia, which has been the evil influence in European politics.
Prussia has not been a natural political growth. She has been an
artificial creation of statesmen. She has been pre-eminently the
predatory State. She has never taken the sword to defend a
disinterested idea. The ravisher of Silesia, of Schleswig-Holstein, of
Alsace-Lorraine, the murderer of Poland, she has never expanded except
at the expense of her neighbours. She has corrupted the German soul;
she has been the mainstay of reaction and militarism in Central
Europe. She has been the bond of that freemasonry of despotism, of
that Triple Alliance of the three empires which subsisted until the
fall of Bismarck, which has been for generations the nightmare of
European Liberals.

II.

In attempting to reread modern history in the light of that new
interpretat