de whether we wish to develop into and maintain a _World
Empire_, and procure for German spirit and German ideas that fit
recognition which has been hitherto withheld from them.--GENERAL V.
BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 103.

285. If we wish to compete further with them [the other Powers] a
policy which our population and our civilization both entitle and
compel us to adopt, we must not hold back in the hard struggle for the
sovereignty of the world.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 79.

285a. All that other nations attained in centuries of natural
development--political union, colonial possessions, naval power,
international trade--was denied to our nation until quite recently.
What we now wish to attain must be _fought for_, and won, against a
superior force of hostile interests and powers.--GENERAL V. BERNHARDI,
G.N.W., p. 84.

286. Since almost every part of the globe is inhabited, new territory
must, as a rule, be obtained at the cost of its possessors--that is to
say, by conquest, which thus becomes a law of necessity.--GENERAL v.
BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 21.

287. Success is necessary to gain influence over the masses, and this
influence can only be obtained by continually appealing to the
national imagination and enlisting its interest in great universal
ideas and great national ambitions.... We Germans have a far greater
and more urgent duty towards civilization to perform than the Great
Asiatic Power. We, like the Japanese, can only fulfil it by the
sword.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 258.

=War need not be Defensive.=

288. Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto
you, it is the good war which halloweth every cause.--FR. NIETZSCHE,
Z., "War and Warriors."

289. We must not think merely of external foes who compel us to fight.
A war may seem to be forced upon a statesman by the condition of home
affairs, or by the pressure of the whole political situation.--GENERAL
v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 38.

290. The moral duty of the State towards its citizens is to begin the
struggle while the prospects of success and the political
circumstances are still tolerably favourable. When, on the other hand,
the hostile States are weakened or hampered by affairs at home and
abroad, but its own warlike strength shows elements of superiority, it
is imperative to use the favourable circumstances to promote its own
political aims.--GENERAL v. BERNHARDI, G.N.W., p. 53.

291. The lessons of history con