other states, and even other world-powers, would certainly survive the most successful German war, though they would have to submit (for their own good) to Germany’s will.  Again, did the demand for world-power mean no more than that Germany must have extra-European territories, like Britain or France?  She already possessed such territories, though on a smaller scale than her rivals.  Did the claim mean, then, that her dominions must be as extensive and populous as (say) those of Britain?  Such an aim could only be obtained if she could succeed in overthrowing all her rivals, at once or in succession.  And if she did that, she would then become, whatever her intentions, a world-power in the first and all-embracing sense.  It is probably true that the German people, and even the extreme Pan-Germans, did not definitely or consciously aim at world-supremacy.  But they had in the back of their minds the conviction that this was their ultimate destiny, and in aiming at ‘world-power’ in a narrower sense, they so defined their end as to make it impossible of achievement unless the complete mastery of Europe (which, as things are, means the mastery of most of the world) could be first attained.  Certainly the ruling statesmen of Germany must have been aware of the implications of their doctrine of world-power.  They were aware of it in 1914, when they deliberately struck for the mastery of Europe; they must have been aware of it in 1890, when they began to lay numerous plans and projects in all parts of the world, such as were bound to arouse the fears and suspicions of their rivals.

It is necessary to dwell for a little upon these plans and projects of the decade 1890-1900, because they illustrate the nature of the peril which was looming over an unconscious world.  It would be an error to suppose that all these schemes were systematically and continuously pursued with the whole strength of the German state.  They appealed to different bodies of opinion.  Some of them were eagerly taken up for a time, and then allowed to fall into the background, though seldom wholly dropped.  But taken as a whole they showed the existence of a restless and insatiable ambition without very clearly defined aims, and an eagerness to make use of every opening for the extension of power, which constituted a very dangerous frame of mind in a nation so strong, industrious, and persistent as the German nation.

In spite of the disappointing results of colonisation in Africa, the German colonial enthusiasts hoped that something suitably grandiose might yet be erected there:  if the Belgian Congo could somehow be acquired, and if the Portuguese would agree to sell their large territories on the east and west coasts, a great empire of Tropical Africa might be brought into being.  This vision has not been abandoned:  it is the theme of many pamphlets published during the course of the war, and if Germany were to be able to impose her own terms, all the peoples of Central Africa might yet hope to have extended to them the blessings of German government as they have been displayed in the Cameroons and in the South-West.