Moreover, the hardest war that had ever been fought by Prussia was a preventive war. When Frederick The Great had received final knowledge of the intention of his old enemies, through a scribbler soul, he did not wait until the others attacked, on the grounds of a fundamental rejection of a preventive war, but went immediately over to the attack himself.
For Germany, any violation of the two power standard of necessity should have been a cause for a preventive war. For what would it have been easier to answer before history: for a preventive war in 1904, which could have defeated France when Russia seemed to be entangled in Eastern Asia, or for the World War which ensued from this neglect, and which required many times the blood, and plunged our Folk into the abyss of defeat?
England never had such scruples. Her two power standard on the seas seemed to be the prerequisite for the preservation of English independence. As long as she had the strength, she allowed no change to be made in this situation. When, however, this two power standard was given up after the World War, it was then only under the pressure of circumstances which were stronger than any contrary British intention. With the American Union, a new power of such dimensions has come into being as threatens to upset the whole former power and orders of rank of the States.
At any rate, up to now the English fleet was always the most striking proof, regardless of how the form of the organisation of the land army looked, that decisively determined England’s will to self preservation. This was the reason why the English mercenary army never acquired the bad characteristics of other mercenary troops. It was a fighting military body of wonderful individual training, with excellent weapons, and a conception of service which viewed it as a sport. Thus what endowed this small body of troops with a special importance was the direct contact with the visible manifestations in life of the British world empire. As this mercenary army had fought for England’s greatness in almost all parts of the world, it had thereby in like measure also come to know England’s greatness. The men who now in Southern Africa, now in Egypt, and at times in India, represented England’s interests as the possessors of her military prestige, through this also received an indelible impression of the immense greatness of the British IMPERIVM.
Such an opportunity is completely lacking to the presentday German mercenary troops. Indeed, the more we feel ourselves induced to make concessions to this spirit in the small Army itself, under the pressure of pacifistic parliamentary majorities, which in reality represent traitors to their Folk and country, it gradually ceases to be an instrument of war. Instead it becomes a police corps for the maintenance of peace and order, which means, in reality, of peaceful subjugation. No army with a high intrinsic value can be trained, if the preparation for war is not the aim of its existence. There are no armies for the maintenance of peace, but rather only for the victorious fighting of wars to the end. The more, in short, one tries finally to unhinge the Reich Defence from the tradition of the Old Army, the more will it itself become traditionless. For with troops, the value of a tradition does not lie in a few successful quellings of internal strike revolts, or in preventing the plundering of foodstuffs, but in the glory gained through victorious battles. In reality, however, the German Reich Defence departs from the tradition of this glory in proportion as from year to year it ceases to be a representative of the national idea. The more it finally kills the conscious, national, hence nationalistic spirit in its own ranks, and removes its representatives, in order to give their posts to democrats and altogether ordinary ambitious persons, all the more will it become alien to the Folk. Let the sly gentlemen not fancy that they can make contact with the Folk by concessions to the pacifistic democratic part of our Folk. Any military organisation as such is deeply hated by this part of the German Folk, as long as it is indeed military and not the burglar protection agency of international pacifistic stock exchange interests. The only part to which an army can have an inner relationship in a militarily valuable sense, is that nationally conscious core of our Folk which not only thinks in a soldierly manner out of tradition, but rather, out of national love, is also the only part ready to wear the grey tunic in defence of honour and freedom. It is necessary, however, that a military body maintain intimate relations with those from whom it itself in the hour of need can supplement itself, and not with those who betray it at every opportunity. Hence the present leaders of our so called Reich Defence can act as democratically as they please; nevertheless, they will thereby never attain to a closer bond with the German Folk, because the German Folk for which this is appropriate is not to be found in the democratic camp. Since, however, the former Chief Of The German Reich Defence especially, General von Seeckt, not only did not put up any resistance to the removal of hardened, deliberately national minded Officers, but rather even [himself] advocated it, they themselves finally created the instrument which dropped him with a relatively light heart.
Since General von Seeckt’s retirement, however, the democratic pacifistic influence has been tirelessly active in order to make out of the Defence Force that which the present rulers of the State have in their minds as the most beautiful ideaclass="underline" a republican democratic parliamentary guard.
Obviously a foreign policy cannot be conducted with such an instrument.
Hence today the first task of German domestic policy ought to be that of giving the German Folk a military organisation suitable to its national strength. Since the forms of the present Defence Force could never suffice for this goal, and, conversely, are determined by foreign policy motives, it is the task of German foreign policy to bring about all the possibilities that could permit the reorganisation of a German National Army. For that must be the immovable aim of any political leadership in Germany, so that one day the mercenary Army will again be replaced by a truly German National Army.
For just as the purely technical military qualities of the present are superior, so must the general qualities of the German Defence Force deteriorate in their development in the future. The former without doubt is to be credited to General von Seeckt and to the Defence Force’s Officers’ Corps altogether. Thus the German Defence Force could really be the Army framework for the future German National Army. Just as, in general, the task of the Defence Force itself must be, by the educational stress placed on the national fighting task, to train the mass of Officers and Sergeants for the later National Army.
No true national thinking German can dispute that this aim must be held immovably in sight. Even less can he dispute that its execution is possible only if the nation’s foreign policy leaders assure the general necessary prerequisites.
Thus the first task of German foreign policy is primarily the creation of conditions which make possible the resurrection of a German Army. For only then will our Folk’s vital needs be able to find their practical representation.
Fundamentally, however, it must be further observed that the political actions which are to guarantee the resurrection of a German Army must lie in the framework of a necessary future development for Germany as such.