Ethnographic Control.—Certain nations afford considerable resistance to the Hamburg-Persian Gulf scheme. The Serbians, who are morally irreducible, are an obstacle to the permanent establishment of the Pan-German nexus between Hungary and Bulgaria; and without this the entire Pan-German programme falls flat. The systematic destruction of the Serbian people has been entrusted to the Bulgars, who, under pretext of quelling insurrections, slaughter not only the Serbian men, but also women and children, down to babies at the breast. In the Ottoman Empire the Armenians happen to occupy those regions which were characterized in the Reichstag by Herr Delbrück as ‘Germanic India.’ Berlin therefore puts to good use the Turks’ inherited taste for massacres of Christians. Already more than one million Armenians have been got out of the way.
Agricultural Control.—The food crisis in Germany has led Berlin to proceed with the greatest haste toward utilizing the rich farming districts which the fortunes of war have put within her grasp. Hundreds of experts, with thousands of agricultural implements, have been sent to Roumania, Serbia, and Asia Minor. In this latter country, two cultural centres in particular have received attention. In the province of Adana cotton-growing is being developed; on the plains of Anatolia the intensive cultivation of grain is in progress. These energetic efforts have had a twofold result: the Turks will not revolt against Germanic domination—because of starvation, if for no other reason; and, by reason of the increasing yield of Serbian, Roumanian, and Turkish lands, more of which are continually being brought into service, the food-supply of the Central Empires becomes more and more completely assured.
Banking Control.—The exploitation of Eastern Pan-Germany calls for vast capital. The German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Turkish banks have formed powerful combinations. As the leaders of this movement in Germany we find the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdner Bank, the Kölnische Bankverein; in Austria-Hungary the Vienna Kredit-Anstalt and the Hungarian Bank of Credit in Budapest.
Economic Control.—As the rapid exploitation of the latent resources of the Balkans and Turkey is the principal economic object of the Germans, they have just established, in coöperation with King Ferdinand, the ‘Institute for Furthering Economic Relations between Germany and Bulgaria.’ In order to facilitate the Germanic penetration of Turkey, ten thousand Turkish boys between the ages of twelve and eighteen years are to come to Germany for their technical education. These young Turks, living in German families, learning German, and saturating themselves with German ideas, will soon be able collaborators with the Teutons themselves in germanizing Turkey and exploiting the numerous concessions which, if the war turns out successfully for them, will be wrung from the Ottoman government by the subjects of the Kaiser.
Railway Control.—The railway systems of European Pan-Germany have been brought to the highest degree of perfection. In Turkey, German officers are absolutely in control of the railroads. Out of the 2435 kilometres which separate Constantinople from Bagdad, only 583 kilometres of line remain to be constructed—and this distance is traversed by automobile roads. As for the Turkish railroads belonging to French and English companies, the German government has suggested that the Turks ‘purchase’ them. One should cherish no illusions as to the real meaning of this word ‘purchase.’ It means, according to Turco-German methods, that the expenses involved in this purchase should be set down against the war damages which the Central Powers consider to be due them from the Allies.
Canal Control.—The canal project, outlined as far back as April 26, 1895, by the Pan-Germanist Dr. G. Zoepfl, was taken up and begun by the Economic Congress of Central Europe, which met at Berlin on March 19, 1917. This project is made up of the following elements: (1) Union of the Rhine with the Danube by the opening up to navigation of the Main and of the canal from the Main to the Danube. (2) Completion of the central canal joining the Vistula and the Rhine. (3) The Oder-Danube canal, joining the Baltic and Black Sea. (4) Opening to navigation of the Rhine as far as Bâle. (5) Union of the Elbe with the Danube by means of the river Moldau. (6) Union of the Weser with the Main by means of the Fulda-Werra. (7) Connection of the Danube and the Vistula by means of canals. (8) Union of the Danube with the Dniester by means of the Vistula. (9) Opening to navigation of the Save. (10) Opening to navigation of the Morava and the Vardar as far as Saloniki. The Danube is the base of this gigantic programme of construction. ‘The Danube means everything to us,’ declared General von Groener, in December, 1916.
This rapid sketch of the preparations now going on in the economic sphere of Pan-Germany will permit any clear-thinking man to understand the crushing power which will lie in this formidable system when all its latent resources have been developed by the Germans to the profit of their hegemony. The organization of Pan-Germany is only in its first stages; nevertheless, the concentrated military, economic, and strategic strength which it has already put at the disposal of Berlin is so great that it permits Germany to baffle her far more numerous, but widely scattered, adversaries. What, then, would be the strength of a completely organized Pan-Germany? It is undeniable, in fact, that a methodical, big-scale development of all the mineral, vegetable, animal, and industrial products of economic Pan-Germany, together with the low-cost transportation afforded by a complete system of canals, would make it possible for the Germans to pay high wages to their own workmen, and yet at the same time bring about such a reduction of net prices in every line of industry as to force Pan-German products on the whole world by their sheer cheapness.
It is easy to see, then, that in the face of economic Pan-Germany’s overwhelming methods any economic revival on the part of the European nations now allied would be impossible. The economic ruin of the Allies, after so exhausting and costly a war as this, would by the nature of things bring about their political subjection to Berlin. Besides, there is not a country in the world which could escape the clutches of economic Pan-Germany on the one hand, or the consequences of the irremediable ruin of the Allies on the other. The fact that Pan-Germany is organizing itself is an ominous event which should receive the concentrated attention of all the world’s free peoples; for it places in German hands the elements of such an overwhelming economic power as has no precedent in the world’s history.
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