February 22, 1898. [3]

By what process of mental aberration has it come to pass that our Minister of Foreign Affairs has placed himself under the wing of William II at Constantinople?  His one object should have been to combine every effort on the part of Russia and France to keep Germany out of the East.

There would be no parallel to such a deplorable lack of foresight, if our diplomacy had not provided it in the Far East, if it had not helped to prove to Germany, there also, that she was becoming indispensable in China, that the prestige of Russia combined with that of France was insufficient to cope with the situation and to solve the difficulties that had arisen with the Son of Heaven, with Japan and England.

The blindness which has characterised our foreign policy, which, since Jules Ferry took it in hand, has made us labour continuously with our own hands for the greatness of Germany, as if to justify our humility in her eyes, this will remain the crime of the initiator of an anti-national policy, the crime of M. Jules Ferry.  It will also remain the irreparable fault committed by those who have adopted the lamentable policy which consists in following in the train of the conqueror once the ransom has been paid.

March 9, 1898. [4]

William II will have his sea-going fleet, and be able to challenge the fleets of the Great Powers and meet them on equal terms.  He had meant to carry with a high hand his seven years’ naval construction plan, in the same way that Bismarck obtained his seven years’ military programme in spite of the opposition of the German Catholics.  And now behold the German Budget Committee has sanctioned the raising of the money for his warships in six years!

As to the projected reform of the military code and the complete re-organisation of the army on a homogeneous basis, the Emperor-King of Prussia is not in the least disturbed.  No doubt Bavaria, Wuertemberg and certain other Confederated States will claim to keep their autonomous armies by virtue of the Constitution of 1871, but the King of Prussia is quite determined, on his part, to administer the German army under a single military code.  Bavaria, they tell us, will never yield.  Bavaria will yield.  The German victories of 1870-71 created the German Empire and every Empire must of necessity be centralised or else become once more a Confederation.

United Teutondom, Germany, is embodied in Prussia.  The Bavarians, like all the other Saxons, sing the national hymn “Germany, Germany, ever and ever greater.”  What, then, is the good of all their talking at Muenich?  If Germany is to grow ever greater, she cannot have several centres of influence.  Therefore Bavaria will submit.

April 1, 1898. [5]