The Daily News. FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1916. GERMAN AMBITIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 28 January 1916, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1916. GERMAN AMBITIONS.

In the early days of the war, when German ambitions and German brutality were still largely masked by the. glamor of the Kaiser's superb armies sweeping triumphantly on towards Paris, two very instructive papers were published in London. The first of these dealt with "The Germans, their Empire, and how they have made it," and the second had for its subject, "The Germans, their Empire, and what they Covet." The writer, Mr. C. R. h. Fletcher, whose papers were published by the Oxford University Press, wis specially asked to deal jvith both subjects, his intimate knowledge of German history and of the German people qualifying him to write with authority. Tl\e growth and development of the German Empire, as we understand it to-day, is inseparably bound up with the history of the Hohenzollern family, the present representative of which, the Kaiser Wilhelm 11, recently celebrated the 500 th anniversary of the continuous reign of his house. Since 1415 the present Royal Family of Prussia has ruled over the Province of Brandenburg, whose capital city is Berlin, first as "Electors" and then as "Kings," although when, in 1701, they got the latter title, it was not as "Kings of Brandenburg," but "Kings of Prussia," a duchy far awny to the east on the Russian borders, which they took possession of by means of what Mr. Fletcher describes as "adroit tricks" in 1525 and 1(118. The German Empire has since then been built up by a series of shameful thefts. Silesia, German Poland (acquired by the partitioning of Poland by Prussia, Russia and Austria in 1772). Hanover, Saxony, Westphalia, and other States have been successively added to the Empire. The most shameful "game of grab" her ruler displayed during the last sixty years was. however, the annexation of the Danish provinces of Schleswig and Jlolstein in 1804, and of Alsace and Lorraine in 1871. As each State came under the heel of Prussian hegemony, its liberties were circumscribed, and Prussian, or (as we now term them) German methods were substituted for those of tile conquered people, the Confederated German State, thus built up passing under the rule of "the man of blood and iron" (Prince Bismarck), who was really the founder of the modern German Empire. But German designs and ambitions aimed at still greater things. Three Powers stood in the way of the further expansion of Germany—Britain, France and Russia. The two latter Powers, scenting the danger of German aggressiveness, formed an' offensive and defensive alliance formed between Germany, Austria and Italy. Britain endeavored to maintain a friendly understanding with all the European' Powers. It was no ]sart of her business to provoke a quarrel with any of her neighbors, nor did she desire to do so. But German aggression drove her into tl\e arms of France and Russia, and with the coming of the Triple Entente. Germany's long-smothered jealousy of Britain found vent in vicious attack's by the German press and by scores of German writers upon England, who was represented as the one Power standing in the wav of German progress. Tile Kaiser 'first openly showed his hand in the now famous telegram he addressed to President Kruger during the Boer war, but his pious wishes for the success of the Boers was not taken seriously, and until after the declaration of war in Aug\ist, 1914, lie managed to more or less successfully conceal his real feelings. Not so the German writers, whose namo is legion. War with England has been advocated since 1004. It was to be ''the medicine applied by God te a uieit