re conquests. The colonies were not ends in themselves, but
means for the acquisition of further power; and it was this, even more
than the ruthlessness with which the subject peoples were treated,
which made the growth of the German dominions a terrible portent. For
since the whole world was now portioned out, new territories could only
be acquired at the cost of Germany's neighbours. This was, indeed, at
first the programme only of extremists; the mass of the German people,
like Bismarck, took little interest in colonies. But the extremists
proved that they could win over the government to their view; the
German people, most docile of nations, could be gradually indoctrinated
with it. And because this was so, because the ugly spirit of domination
and of unbridled aggressiveness was in these years gradually mastering
the ruling forces of a very powerful state, and leading them towards
the catastrophe which was to prove the culmination of European
imperialism, it is necessary to dwell, at what may seem
disproportionate length, upon the development of German policy during
the later years of our period.

Filled with pride in her own achievements, believing herself to be,
beyond all rivalry, the greatest nation in the world, already the
leader, and destined to be the controller, of civilisation, Germany
could not bring herself to accept a second place in the imperial
sphere. She had entered late into the field, by no fault of her own,
and found all the most desirable regions of the earth already occupied.
Now that 'world-power' had become the test of greatness among states,
she could be content with nothing short of the first rank among
world-states; if this rank could not be achieved, she seemed to be
sentenced to the same sort of fate as had befallen Holland or Denmark:
she might be ever so prosperous, as these little states were, but she
would be dwarfed by the vast powers which surrounded her. But the
German world-state was not to be the result of a gradual and natural
growth, like the Russian, the British or the American world-states. The
possibility of gradual growth was excluded by the fact that the whole
world had been partitioned. Greatness in the non-European world must
be, and might be, carved out in a single generation, as supremacy in
Europe had been already attained, by the strong will, efficient
organisation, and military might of the German government.

It was natural, perhaps inevitable, that a nation wit