r once put aside the word "Imperialism." Surely we are all
agreed as one that it is an absolute essential of life for the German
Empire to carry on world-politics, (Weltpolitik.) We have been engaged
in that since the eighties of the nineteenth century. The first colonial
possessions which the German Empire obtained were the fruits of a
striving for world-politics that had not yet at that time come to full
and clear consciousness.

But, conscious of our goal, we did not attempt the paths of
world-politics until the end of the last century. At the celebration of
the twenty-fifth anniversary of the German Empire, on Jan. 18, 1896, our
Kaiser uttered the words: "The German Empire has become a world empire,
(Aus dem deutschen Reich ist ein Weltreich geworden.)" And the German
Empire's groping for its way in world-politics found its expression in
the first naval proposal of Tirpitz in the year 1898.

At that time the Imperial Chancellor Prince Hohenlohe expressly
designated the policy of the German Empire as "world politics." Thereby
a goal was sketched for the development of the German Empire. We have
not lost sight of it since then, keeping unconfused despite many an
illusion and many a failure. And today we all live in the firm faith
that the world war, which we are determined to bring to a victorious
conclusion by the exertion of all our forces as a people, will bring us
the safe guarantee for the attainment of our goal in world politics.

On that score, then, there is absolutely no difference of opinion. But
there does appear to be considerable difference of opinion as to the
conception of world politics. Under that name one may mean a policy
directed toward world domination (Weltherrschaft.) For that kind of
world politics the word "Imperialism," borrowed from the period of Roman
world domination of the second century of the Christian era, fits
precisely.

Imperialism aims, directly or indirectly, through peaceful or forceful
annexation or economic exploitation, to make the whole inhabited earth
subject to its sway. Imperialistic is the policy of Great Britain, which
has subjected one-fifth of the inhabited area of the earth to its sway
and knows no bounds to the expansion of English rule. Imperialistic,
too, is the policy of Russia, which for centuries has been extending its
huge tentacles toward the Atlantic and toward the Mediterranean, the
Pacific, and the Indian Oceans, never sated.

Such world domination has