GERMANY’S GROWTH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 April 1938, Page 10

GERMANY’S GROWTH

ASCENT FROM OBSCURITY. TO WORLD POWER BISMARCK AND PRUSSIAN LEADERSHIP. AN INTERESTING ADDRESS. Mr J. A. Walsh addressed a very large gathering of members of the Mangatainoka and District Young Farmers’ Club on Thursday evening on the “Political Ascension of Germany.” Among the audience were several prominent supporters of the Young Farmers' Club movement, including Messrs E. S. Heckler, F. E. Ward and J. Campbell. Mr Walsh received an excellent hearing, and at the conclusion of his address was accorded a very hearty vote of thanks on the motion of the chairman (Mr I. Algie). “Less than a century ago Germany was a third-rate Power. Today Germany moves and the world trembles,” said Mr Walsh. “The political rise of Germany dates from the war of liberation, the period following the defeat and invasion of Prussia by Napoleon in 1806. Prior to that epoch Germany was a land of dreamers, visionaries, idealists. Art and culture flourished. The Germany of those days produced the greatest musicians of all time—Bach, Beethoven, Wagner. Mozart; poets and writers like Goethe (the Shakespeare of Germany), Schiller and Heine. We pictured the German of those days as a kindly old man, sitting by an open fireplace, with his children on his knees, reading Grimm’s fairy tales, while his good wife softly caressed the notes of the piano. It was Voltaire who said that France ruled the land, England the sea, and. Germany the clouds. But German intellectuals and historians are no longer in the clouds. They are today the advance guard of the German Army and Navy, spreading the doctrine of conquest and dominion as the highest and most worthy of all creeds.

“It was with a view to crushing the military power of Prussia that Napoleon stipulated in the treaty following Jena that not more than 42,000 men were to be placed on a war footing, thus reducing Prussia to the rank of a fourth-rate Power. But Scharnhorst, to whom the organisation of the Prussian Army was entrusted, cunningly evaded the restriction and avoided infringing the treaty by taking no more than the stipulated number of men under arms at one time. This number was thoroughly disciplined and drilled. They were then disbanded. and a similar number called up. By these means Scharnhorst diffused a military spirit throughout Prussia. The youths of the country were filled with patriotic fervour and looked forward to the training with considerable enthusiasm, while the maidens viewed with disfavour those who had not served in the ranks. In a short, time some 200,000 men were ready and trained to obey the call of their country.

“When a few years later the whole of Continental Europe, Prussia included, marched under the Napoleonic banner for the conquest of Russia, the very first defection, when disaster befel 'the grand army and the dreadful retreat from Moscow began, came from the Prussians under Yorcke. With Napoleon in difficulties the Prussians and Austrians linked up with Russia. Then followed Leipsig and the defeat of the French army, Napoleon’s abdication; the escape from Elba and the famous Hundred Days culminating with Waterloo, and the very last act in the Napoleonic drama—St Helena. A period of calm pervaded Europe for some thirty odd years following the downfall of Napoleon.

“But Germany’s real political ascension came with the advent of Bismark, who assumed Ministerial office in 1862. At that time Germany comprised 26 States, the two most powerful being Prussia and Austria. Bismarck speedily succeeded in getting King William of Prussia under his political control. He subsidised the newspapers which were favourable to his policy and suppressed those which opposed him. He adopted similar tactics in Parliament and it was not long before the whole of Prussia was under his complete control.

“The stage was now set for political operations,” he continued. “His first coup was in connection with Schlswig-Holstein, then under the jurisdiction of Denmark. These two duchies bordered on Prussian territory and Bismark had long coveted them. They had been the cause of a good deal of political squabbling. Austria was cunningly invited by the German Chancellor to connive at an invasion of Denmark and the seziure of the duchies. Austria fel for Bismarck’s bait. Denmark was quickly conquered and the two States were jointly administered by Prussia and Austria. Later Holstein was placed under the jurisdiction of Austria, while Prussia administered the affairs of Schleswig. Said Bismark: ‘The time was now ripe for a quarrel with Austria.’

“Having sought and obtained a promise from Napoleon 111 that France would remain neutral if hostilities broke out between Prussia and Austria, Bismarck vaguely hinting at territorial concessions as the price of French neutrality; and the promise of Victor Emmanuel of Italy to come to the armed assistance of Prussia if war broke out between that State and Austraia within three months, Venice to be the reward for Italy’s support, Bismarck returned to Berlin.

“He immediately marched Prussian troops into Holstein, which was then under the control of Austria. In the circumstances Austria had no alternative but to declare war, doing exactly

as Bismarck anticipated — he wanted Austria to be the aggressor, a favourite form, by the way, of German strategy. In the war which followed in June, 1866 —it lasted less than a month —Austria was overwhelmingly defeated and sued for peace. That was Bismarck’s second triumph. France was to be the next victim. Bismarck ‘was compelled to devise some method of provoking the French ere they shoud be completely ready for the fray.’ ’And this is how the third great war came about. It was in connection with the proposal to place a German Prince, Leopold of Hohenzollern, on the Spanish throne. “The proposal was inimical to French political interests. French susceptibilities were hurt and the passions of the people thoroughly roused. In the subsequent diplomatic negotiations concerning the matter a harmless telegram was converted by Bismarck, Holtke and Roon who were dining together in an inn at Ems, into a deliberate incitement to war and caused, as was expected by the three conspirators, an explosion in France. The ‘doctored’ version of the telegram was sent by Bismarck to the newspapers and the foreign Embassies. France was insulted, humiliated, and declared war, and appeared to the world, as Bismarck had planned, as the aggressor.

“Some time prior to the outbreak of hostilities Prussia was invited to cooperate at a French invasion of Belgium and to countenance the cession of Luxenbourg. Bismarck saw his opportunity. He asked for time to consider the proposal and induced Count Beneditti to put the matter in writing. This the Ambassador did on French official notepaper and in Beneditti’s own handwriting. The moment war was declared by France a copy of this incriminating document was sent to the Times and other foreign newspapers and roused the anger of Europe against France. “In the evening of his life Bismarck was sitting by the fireside at his country home at Varzin,” concluded Mr Walsh. “A few old friends were with him. After having sat silent for a while he began to complain that his political activity had brought, him but little satisfaction and few friends. He then said: ‘How many have I made unhappy? But for me three great wars would not have been fought; 80,000 men would not have perished; parents, brothers, sisters, and widows would not be bereaved and plunged into mourning. That matter, however, I have settled with God’.”