[Footnote 159:  Heinrich Binder:  “Mit dem Hauptquartier nach Westen,” p. 102.]

Herr Binder’s meditations on the slaughter in the valley of the Meuse are not without interest.  “A vale which has been won by German blood!  In recent days the waters of the Meuse have often flowed blood-red.  Many a warrior has sunk into these depths.  Longing and hope rise in our hearts:  May destiny determine that all these dead, after a triumphant war, shall sleep at rest in a German valley!"[160]

[Footnote 160:  Ibid., p. 122.]

CHAPTER X

SAIGNER A BLANC.[161]

[Footnote 161:  “To bleed white.”  Bismarck employed this phrase on two occasions in addressing the Reichstag; his purpose could have been no other than to bully France.—­Author.]

It would be superfluous to review here the history of Franco-German relations during the last half century; other writers have already performed the task.  Yet the whole trend of development in the relations between the two powerful neighbours may be defined by two watch-words:  saigner a blanc in Germany, and the revanche idee in France.  But there is this difference:  the former has become ever more and more, and the latter less and less, a factor in European politics.

While the German nation has been gradually and systematically leavened with the teaching that might alone is right, the French revenge party has been weakened year by year by national prosperity, colonial expansion and the growth of a powerful anti-military party.  Whatever may be said of French chauvinists, this much remains an immovable fact—­the party was incapable of providing adequate national defences against the Germanic neighbour, while plans of reconquest can only be assigned to the domain of myths.

On every occasion that the revanche cry has been resuscitated, the direct cause is to be sought in Germany.  Having displaced France in 1870 from her position of the first military power in Europe, Germany has endeavoured by fair and foul means to prevent her neighbour from again raising her head, and that policy alone is to blame for the suspicion and hatred which have marked Franco-German relations during the whole period and plunged Europe into an era of armaments, ending in a world war.  England and Russia prevented Bismarck from annihilating France in 1875, an incident which aroused justified fear throughout France and gave an impulse to the revenge party.

In 1881 the Iron Chancellor told the French Ambassador:  “Outside Europe you can do what you like.”  Bismarck’s intention was to divert reviving French energies to colonial work, and if possible involve her in conflicts with the other Colonizing Powers.  In both of these plans he succeeded, but the common sense and loyalty of Great Britain and Italy prevented the conflicts from assuming a dangerous form—­war—­as desired by the Government in Berlin.