LAND AND WATER 
Septemljer 5, 1914 
In Iha view of the dan^jera and the oircumstance that we are 
not fctroiig enough to entertain any idea of provoking a battle, the 
qucjition remains, What are the means of defenaive naval strategy 
to secure protection from a superior and well-prepared enemy, and 
gradually to become its maatcr? 
The plan might be foi-med of aritidpatiing the enemy by a 
sudden attack, inetead of waiting passively for him t-o attack fust, 
and of opening the war as the Japaneee did before Port Arthur. 
In this way the English fleet might be badly damaged at the out- 
set of the real hostilities, its superiority might be leesened, and 
the beginning of the effective blockade delayed at leaat for a short 
time. It is not unthinkable that cuoh an attempt will be made. 
Such an undertaking, however, doe* not •eem to me to promise 
anv great success. 
• ••••• 
The war against the English commerce must none the less be 
boldly and energetically prosecuted, and should start unexpectedly. 
The prizes which f:iU into our hands must be remorselessly 
destrweil, since it will usually be impossible, owing to tlie groat 
Englis'h superiority and the few bases we have abroad, to bring 
them back in safelv without e.xposiiig our vessels to great risks. 
It would be necessary to take further steps to secure the 
importation from abroad of supplies necessary to us, since our own 
communications will be oompletely cut off by the English. The 
simiplest and cheapest way wojdd be if we obtained foreign goods 
through Holland or perhaps neutral Belgium; and could export 
some part of ouF own products through the great Dirtch and 
Flemish harbours. New commercial routes might be discovered 
through Denmark. Our owm oversea commerce would remain 
suspended, but such meosnrei tronld prevent an absolute stagna- 
tion of trade. 
It is, however, very unlikely that England would tolerate such 
communications through nentral territory, since in that way the 
effect of her war on our trade would be much reduced. The 
attempt to block these trade routes would approximate to a breach 
of neutrality, and the States in question would have to face the 
momeutoufi question, whether they would conform to England's 
win, and thus incur Gennany's enmity, or would prefer that 
adhesion to the Gennao Empire which geography dictates. They 
would have the choice between a naval war with England and a 
Continental war with their German neighbonrs^two possibilities, 
each of which contains great dangers. That England would pay 
much attention to the neutrality of weaker neighbours when such 
» stake was at issue is hardly credible. 
GERMANY, WHEN THE SEA HATH SPOKEN. 
Yot after a month's war only four unaimed merchajit ships 
under the British flag hav9 been " remorselessly destroyed,' 
plus a boat line-fishing in Icelandic waters, 
A country like the German Empire depends on an extensive 
foreign trade in order to find work and food for its growing 
population. 
Let us imagine the endless misery which a protracted stoppage 
or definite destruction of oiu: oversea trade woidd bring upon the 
whole nation, and in particular on the masses of the industrial 
classes who live on our export trade. 
• **••• 
Complicated and grave questions, military as well as political, 
are thus raised by an Anglo-German war. Our trade would in any 
case suffer greatly, for sea communications could be cut off on every 
side. Let us assume that France and Russia seal our land frontiers, 
then the only trade route left open to us is through Switzerland 
and Austria — a condition of affairs which would aggraA'ate diffi- 
culties at home, and Should stimulate us to carry on the war with 
increased vigour. In any ca£e, when war threatens w^e must lose 
no time an preparing a road on which we can imjKjrt the most 
essential foodstuffs and raw materials, and also export, if only in 
small quantities, the surplus of our industrial products. Such 
measures' caiinot be made on (Ke i^ur of the moment. They must 
be etalHirated in peace time, and a definite department of the 
Government must be responsible for these prepaxations. 
Those suggestions indicate the preliminary measures to be 
adopted by us in the eventuality of a war with England. We 
should at first carry on a defensive war, and would therefore have 
to reckon on a blockade of our coasts, if we succeed in repelling 
the probable English attack. 
Such a blockade can be carried out in two ways. England 
can blockade closely our North Sea coaSl, and at the same time 
bar the Danish atraits, so as to cut oS communications with our 
lialtic ports; or ehe can seal up on the one side the Channel 
between England and tlie Continent, on the other side the open 
sea between the north of Scotland and Norway, on the Peterhead- 
Ekersund line, and thus cripple our oversea commerce and also 
control the Belgo-Dutch, Danish, and Swedish shipping. 
We must fight the French fleet, so to speak, on land — i.i»., we 
must defeat France so decisively that she woidd be compelled to 
renounce her alliance with England and withdraw her fleet to save 
herself from total destruction. Just as in 1870-71 we marched to 
the shores of the Atlantic, so this time again we must resolve on 
an absolute conqnest, in order to capture the Frendh naval ports 
and destroy the French naval depots. It would be a war to the 
knife with France, one which would, if victorious, annihilate once 
for all the French position as a Great Power. 
• ••••» 
Who, then, can doubt that Germany has set herself the 
task of ruling the world ? 
Since war broke out Germans have burnt Belgian libraries, 
univei-sities and churches, shot priests and doctors, destr-03'ed 
public monuments and hospitals. Their Emperor's instructions 
vrere to act like the Goths witJi Alaric, and by " ruthlessly 
destroying" the population to strike such terror into man, 
woman, and child that nono might dare to raise their eyes 
whilst his destroyers passed. We know why Gemei'al Bemhardi 
endoi-ses and quotes from Treitschke's " Politic." 
" God will see to it," says Treitschke, " that war always 
recurs as a drastic medicine for the human race ! " 
His Calho'lic allies from Austria and Bavaria secure this 
crumb of comfort :: 
The dogmatiHtt of Protestant orthodoxy and the Jesuitic ten- 
■ dencica of ultramontanism of the Catholics must be surmounted 
before any common religious movement can be contemplated. But 
no German statesman can disregard tliis aspect of affairs, nor must 
he ever forget that the greatness of our nation is rooted exclusively 
on Protestiuitism. Legally and socially, all denominations enjoy 
equal rights, but the German State must never renounce the 
leadership in the domain of free spiritual development. To do so 
would mean loss of prestige. 
The late Professor Cramb (lecturer on Modern History, 
Queen's College, London), with his German education and wide 
knowledge of German history, literature, and thotight, here 
confirms Bemhardi. He declares that Germany's part in the 
future is 
to resume that creative roh in religion which the whole Teutonic 
race abandoned fourteen ceutmies ago. Judaea aud Galilee cast 
their dreary spell over Greece and P.ome when Greece and Rome 
were already sinking into decreptitude .and the creative power in 
tliera was exhausted, when weaiiness and bitterness wakened with 
their greatest spirits at day and sank to sleep again with them 
at night. Bat Judaea and Galilee struck Germany in the splendour 
and heroism of her prime. Germany and the whole Teutomc people 
in the fifth century made the great error. They conquered Itonie, 
but, dazzled by Rome's authority, they adopted the religion and 
the culture of the vanquished. Germany's own deep religious 
instinct, her native genius for religion, manifested in her creative 
success, was arrested, stunted, thwarted. But, having onc» 
adopted the new faith, she strove to live that faith, and for more 
than thirty generations she has struggled and wrestled to see with 
eyes that were not her eyes to worship a God that w|as not her 
God, to live with a world vision that was not her vision, and to 
•trive for a heaven that was not her heaven. 
Very consoling for the Rhine Provinces and South Ger- 
many, apparently ! Germany, if victorious, will not confiuo its 
directive powers to the ways of Nations, but will invade the 
realms of God and produce a new and universal religion ! 
What a portentous concept ! There is foetus in the womb of 
destiny which, if not destroyed, promises to grow into a 
monster. The new Germany seeks to tumble down old ideals, 
shatter old faiths, destroy human liberty, set us a spurious 
Napolfipnism, and force ns to bow before a shrine from whence 
the spirit has departed. Such is the new '' Protestantism " on 
which tlie greatness of the German Empire ia to be exclusivehj 
rooted. Its gospel, however, is not to be fouaid in Luther, nor 
is it even original — it has been taken without acknowledge- 
ment fi'om the " Decline and Fall," and is but a pale reflex of 
the pigments used by Gibbon. 
Professor Cramb suggests that the new cult is already an 
established creed in Germany, for he proclaims: 
la Europe, I say, this conflict between Christ and Napoleon 
for the maetery over the minds of men is the mo£it sigmficant 
Bpiritual phenomenon of the twentieth centurj-. 
More than the Europe of 1800 and 1301, which saw in the 
viator of Marengo the Mohammed of a new era, the enunciator of 
a new faith, young Germany, the Germany of to-day, iu the 
writings of Treitschke and of the followers of Treitsddce, studies 
Napoieonism, illumining politics with an austere and uplifting 
grandeur. In the writings of Nietzsche and of the followers of 
Nietzsche they study the same Napoieonism, transforming the 
principles of everyday life, breathing a new spirit into ethics, 
transfiguring the tedious, halt-hypocritical morauty of an earlier 
generation. 
The baleful fires of Louvain University are but lit from 
the torch with which Khalif Omar fired the Librai-y of Alex- 
andrian—the philosophies of Paynim and Teuton touch a 
common periphery. 
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