Part 4

Guizot mentions "honour and fidelity to the pledged word" as one of the distinguishing elements of what is called "a civilized State." But this puts Germany among the barbarous savages. Three indictments and convictions have blackened the name of Germany throughout all the world. First, her atrocious and dishonourable methods of warfare; second, the carrying off into slavery of non-combatants, the Belgians and French, and third, the breach of the pledged word and the solemn treaties with other nations.

But at last we know that Frederick the Great, the ancestor of the Kaiser, was the author of the phrase, "the treaty is a scrap of paper." What was once in the gristle in the ancestor is now bred in the bone of the Kaiser and Crown Prince. That phrase, "a scrap of paper," holds the germ of a thousand wars. It spells the ruin of civilization. Not to resent it by war, is for the Allies to commit spiritual suicide.

5. The Plot of the Kaiser

All the pamphlets issued secretly to the members of the Pan-German League invariably used Rome as their illustration. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that the German leaders called attention to the fact that it took two wars at intervals of some years to make Rome a world empire.

In like manner, therefore, the Kaiser and his Cabinet told the German people at home and abroad that the first war, beginning in 1914, would establish a Middle-Europe Empire extending from Hamburg on the North Sea to Bagdad on the Persian Gulf.

One of the pamphlets issued many years ago fixed the countries to be conquered about 1915, and distinctly mentioned Denmark, Holland, Belgium and North France, Poland and Rumania, Hungary and Austria, Serbia and Bulgaria, and the wheat granaries of Russia, with Turkey and Armenia.

The number of people to be conquered and included after the first war was fixed at 250,000,000.

The argument states that it will take but a few years to compact this Middle-Europe Empire and that naturally Great Britain, Spain and Italy, to the west, with Norway and Sweden to the north, with Italy and Switzerland to the south, and of course Greece and Egypt would, from time to time, as crises came, fall inevitably into Germany's hand. Berlin, as the world capital, should by 1920 be the magnet, and the little particles of iron, named the Balkan States, would be drawn and held by this great German magnet in Berlin.

The first step to be taken and the first goal to be reached concerned, of course, the English Channel, the Dutch cities on the mouth of the Rhine, and the iron mines of Northern France. We know to an absolute certainty all the details of this plan.

For more than thirty years Germany had been organizing her army; she knew every road, inn, bridge, factory, shop, and wholesale store in Denmark and Holland, Belgium and France. In all of the larger ones she had German agents belonging to the Pan-German League toiling as workmen and every detail was planned out in advance.

In 1910 General von Bissing, one of the Kaiser's closest friends, was sent to Brussels. For years he spent the summer months apparently at the watering places near The Hague in Holland and Ostend in Belgium, preparatory to the hour when Germany would seize Belgium and he assume his position as Governor-General, living in Brussels.

Men nearing death tell the truth. In January of 1917 von Bissing prepared a memorandum for the direction of Belgian affairs in His Majesty's name and according to his wish. This document contains the meditations of a dying man. The statements he makes, he says, contain the views that inspired his every act in Belgium during his administration.

In his last will and testament von Bissing, in the spring of 1917, advises the German Government in Berlin that the time has come to throw off all disguises. He says that at the beginning of the war it was probably good policy to deny that the Government ever intended to annex Belgium, but, he says, "now that we are victorious there is no reason why we should not publish to the world the fact that we never intend to give up one foot of the Belgian sea-coast, nor one ton of the Belgian coal, nor one acre of the French iron mines."

He says plainly: "The annual Belgian production of 23,000,000 tons of coal has given us a monopoly on the continent which has helped to maintain our vitality. If we do not hold Belgium, administer Belgium in future for our interest and protect Belgium by force of arms, our trade and industry will lose the positions they have won in Belgium and perhaps will never recover them."

And what about Dutch cities and seaports? On page eighteen of General von Bissing's last will and testament he adds:

"Our frontier, in the interest of our sea power, must be pushed forward to the sea." This sentence makes it perfectly plain that a little later Germany intends to incorporate Rotterdam in her own customs union. "Belgium must be seized and held, as it now is, and as it is to-day it must be in the future. The conquest of Belgium has simply been forced upon us by the necessities of German expansion."

Von Bissing, however, recognizes the difficulty of annexing Belgium and securing the consent of the members who shall arrange the treaty of peace at the conclusion of the war, and this is his decision:

"Our best method, therefore, is to avoid, during the peace negotiations, all discussion about the form of the annexation and to apply nothing but the right of conquest. Plainly Belgium's King can never consent to abandon his sovereignty, but we can read in Machiavelli that he who desires to take possession of a country will be compelled to remove the King or regent, even by killing him."

Von Bissing has torn off all masks. He himself states that he is speaking for the Kaiser, as his most trusted friend and counsellor. Germany intends, therefore, ultimately to kill King Albert of Belgium, and this carries with it that the Kaiser and his War Staff believe they have the right to kill any King or President who happens to stand in the pathway of their ambition. Every lover of mankind whose heart is knitted in with the poor and the weak will understand what that editor meant the other day when he said:

"The one duty of the hour, therefore, for America, is to kill Germans, that we may keep the rest of the world from being killed."

THE JUDAS AMONG NATIONS

1. The Original Plot of the Members of the Potsdam Gang

Many historic meetings, big with social disaster, are recorded in history. Witness the meeting of the Athenian judges for the killing of Socrates. Witness the coming together of the priests and Judas for the piteous tragedy of the death of Jesus. Witness that midnight meeting of the conspirators in Florence for the burning of Savonarola. Terrible also the results of that meeting in the Potsdam Palace in 1896 that culminated in the Pan-German Empire scheme.

What began as a spark that day has ended in a world conflagration.

In retrospect the Kaiser and his associates had many events behind them to encourage the ambition to make Berlin a world capital, Kaiser Wilhelm the world emperor and all the other nations and races subject peoples.

Beginning in 1860 with thirty-five millions of people and only fifteen billions of dollars, Germany had climbed to greatness upon iron steps, heated hot by war. Never did wars yield so large a return.

The war with Denmark had given Germany the Kiel Harbour, the Kiel Canal and a sea-coast for her ships.

The war with Austria had given Germany the rich coal provinces of Central Europe. The war with France had given Germany the iron mines of Alsace and Lorraine.