March 29, 1917 
LAND & WATER 
The Western Alliance 
By Hilaire Belloc 
THIRTY-TWO months age the Prussian Govern- 
ment, after a secret preparation of three years, 
suddenly forced war upon France and Russia. 
It was forced at that moment just after the har- 
vest of 1914, simply because the date was that upon 
which Prussia had determined as far back as 191 1. 
It was the date corresponding to the close of her 
special intensive preparation for the struggle, when 
the supplies of food had been gathered for a short cam- 
paign (as it Wcis planned to be) ; when the new dispositions 
for the increase of the armji- had borne their fruit and 
trained the new men thoroughly ; when the enlargement 
of th« Kiel Canal, and the strategic railways of Rhenish 
Prussia were completed, and when the special war levy 
upon German capital had been gathered and laid out 
for the purpose assigned to it. 
Monstrous as the act was there is nothing surprising 
in it to anyone who has even an elementary acquaintance 
with the general history of Europe. Prussia has always 
maintained quite openly a certain policy, and the onlj- 
debate among her enemies, rivals, and even friends a. 
any particular moment of crisis between the accession 
of Frederick the Great and the present day, has been 
whether or no that policy threatened or served their in- 
terests, and whether or no it was likely to be put into 
execution at the moment, and especially, till this last 
decision, whether it were yet strong enough to do all it 
threatened. The Prussian Government, the educational 
system, especially in its higher branches which that 
Government has fostered, the whole philosophy of 
the Prussian State and an uninterrupted mass of literary 
declaration proceeding throughout all these years, 
has made no secret of the matter. It was never even 
questioned — until the Marne. 
This Prussian policy may easily be defined, for it is 
a European phenomenon as clearly admitted, and even 
boasted of, by its authors, as it is recognised by its critics 
or opponents. It is as follows : 
To advantage the Prussian State at the expense of any 
other State in the European policy without regard to any 
European tradition of the international relations, to 
the old moral sanctions of what used to be called 
Christendom, or even to the longer and saner views of 
historical development which might have warned any 
power against so singular an attitude. 
Thus the breach of a Treaty, new or old, was always 
admitted in this policy from its inception. The only 
calculation admitted was one of probable consequence. 
It was clear that a power with a reputation for always 
breaking treaties immediately would not be able to make 
them at all ; but on the other hand, the conflicting in- 
terests of other powers would sometimes tempt some 
powerful group of them to condone such action or to 
remain indifferent to it ; the lapse of time, again, would 
confuse the issue and moderate indignation. 
There is case after case of this throughout Prussian 
history and the uniformity of the series is special to 
Prussian history alone. The first capital example was 
when Frederick the Great invaded Silesia after taking a 
special engagement to defend its rightful owners. The 
next was the partition of Poland. Then followed the 
abandonment of Pitt through fear of Napoleon ; the sub- 
sequent abandonment of Napoleon after 1812 ; the forgery 
of the Ems despatch by Bismarck. And this is only a 
list of the enormous, the very salient examples among 
scores. No other European State has puf forward the 
theory or produced its consequent records. 
The two instruments upon which the Prussian policy 
has turned have been, first the maintenance of the 
HohenzoUern dynasty as symbol and agent of an autoc- 
racy necessary to rapid military action, secondly, the 
natural though vague appetite of the various German 
tribes for some outward form of unity — an appetite the 
satisfying of which they have never been competent to 
achieve, because they have not the capacity to form a 
State. 
In the first of these points the Prussian policy has been 
sincere, because an unbroken traditional and autocratic 
military dynasty was an organic necessity to the whole 
scheme. In the second point it has been hypocritical. 
The unity of the German tribes was neither achieved 
nor intended to be achieved by Prussia. To leave out 
those Germans who might have weighed against the 
Prussian hegemony, to weaken others who should be 
subjected to it, to include non-German elements 
dangerous to German culture but of economic or recruiting 
value to the Prussian State, has always been part of 
the true Prussian poHcy, and the ideal of German unity 
was merely an opportunity used and played upon by this 
particular power, the racial origin of which was only 
partly German, and the manifestations of which were not 
spiritually German at all, but something uniquely evil 
in the congeries of European States. 
A Consistent Policy 
When Prussia, then, suddenly declared war upon 
France and Russia, she did so in full agreement with what 
she had always done for the better part of two hundred 
years. She boasted of the action ; she thought it normal, 
as indeed it was normal to her perverted morals. Above 
all, she thought the consequences of that action would 
be to her great advantage and would be immediate and 
certain. So far as calculation went, she could not fail to 
achieve a complete victory within a very few weeks of her 
mobilisation. 
She had the following advantages : She commanded 
through the alliances she had formed the services of 121 
millions of population, all organised for war on a strictly 
conscript basis. They included her own subjects (for 
military purposes the term " subject " is accurately used 
of German nationals imder the Hohenzollem Crown — 
they are militarily no more than the subjects of Prussia) ; 
about another 25 per cent, of German-speaking Austrians ; 
all the Magyars ; some millions of Roumanians and 
many more millions of Slavs — the group which we call 
" the Central Empires." She had immense and highly- 
developed industrial resources for a war, the foundation 
of which was essentially industrial. Of her two opponents 
the numerically important one to the East, the Russian 
Empire, was hardly industrialised at all as yet, and 
would necessarily mobilise very slowly ; it was further 
largely under German influence through its unpopular 
bureaucracy and through the existing conditions of its 
nascent manufactures^ Upon the west that opponent 
which had, like Prussia and her Allies, a strong military 
tradition and a fully conscript service, France, counted 
not a third in numbers of the total weight which Prussia 
commanded. It had nothing like the industrial develop- 
ment of modern Germany ; it had not an equivalent 
fleet ; it suffered under the memory of a complete 
defeat at Prussian hands ; its form of government was 
ill suited to war ; -it was, or seemed to be, fundamentally 
divided by bitter political quarrels ; most important of 
all, it had, in its system of fortification and preparation 
for war, taken for granted the inviolability of the re- 
maining traditions of European honour, and therefore of 
the security of its frontiers against the small, peaceful, 
neutral and guaranteed nation of Belgium — which lay 
between France and German territory upon the north. 
Under such circumstances, the plan of Prussia — granted 
the Prussian morals and the Prussian tradition — was as 
simple as it was apparently invincible. The unexpected 
aggressor had only to violate the territory of Belgiiun, 
to bring westward his overwhelming superiority in 
number and material, to destroy the French armies at 
once — and to then meet at his leisure what were certain 
to be the tardy and insufficient efforts of Russia, when 
