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“This mission is, according to the author, to Germanise the whole of Europe with the assistance of England.” (Manchester Guardian, 24 November 1901, p.4).

“It is scarcely credible, but it is true, that so great a Power as Germany has but one river under its rule along the whole of its course – the Weser. The Rhine, the Danube, the Vistula, the Oder, are all more or less in foreign hands. The Hapsburgs are no longer strong enough to carry out their mission of Germanising the territories on the Lower Danube.” (ibid.).

“Pan-Germans are inconvenient to the German Government at this juncture; they are mocked at, treated as illusionists, sciolists (superficially knowledgeable - ED), beer politicians, and dabblers in ‘metapolitics,’ to use a word of Stein’s. But the line that divides responsible politicians from rational Pan-Germans is often only proportional. The Pan-Germans anticipate, see Germany through a telescope. The Government uses opera-glasses, sees only the present, the actual, the tangibly possible. Some day the focus may be adjusted for both sights.” (The Pan-Germanic Doctrine: being a study of German political aims and aspirations, [by Austin Harrison]. Published by Harler & Brothers, London and New York, 1904, p.5).

“Of course, officially, the German Government has nothing whatever to do with it. The Pan-German party does not go to the polls as such; it has no fixed Parliamentary representation in Germany, and its members are members of various parties in the Reichstag. Confined to its own strict limits, it is a singularly small party, absurdly small for the noise it makes; and many Germans who are really Pan-Germans object to its nomenclature just as many Germans who vote for the social democracy resent being enrolled as socialists. On the other hand, there is no other definition for the new Imperialists following, the foremost representative of which is the German Emperor, who, in a rational sense, is almost the foremost exponent of Pan-Germanism. But let there be no misunderstanding. The two things must be kept separate. If the Colonial movement, the Navy agitations, the ‘Thrasonic’ verbiage of the host of the Colonial, Imperialist, National, Fleet, and economic professors are all closely associated with the Pan-German movement, it is only right to preface anything that may be said here, either about them or about Pan-Germanism, with the admonition that Pan-Germanism, as expounded by the League, and German forward policy are not one and the same thing. For this reason German politics will be avoided. The German Government will not be described as benevolently Pan-German.” (ibid, p.11).

“To this must be added the Norman Angell theory. For some years past it has been noticed that diplomacy had lost its old-time status, that finance – capitalistic industry, enterprise, interest and industrialism – had assumed the position formerly held by diplomatists. So intricately and indissolubly connected had the network of Trade, Capitalism, Revenue, and Credit become internationally, that language, the Flag, Governments, statesmen, and policy seemed no longer to represent the power of nationality growing more and more democratic, material, cynical, and ‘civilized,’ as the result of the great facilities for travel, communication, and knowledge of other peoples opened up under the driving power of the new philosophy of economics, which, in all its aspects and interests, was selfish and material. This Mr. Norman Angell explained rightly enough.

Where he went wrong was in his own illusion of the illusion.

He saw only money, interest, materialism, credit – he forgot the will of man. He looked on the world with the vision of the bucket-shop. It never occurred to him to consider that as materialism breeds materialism and no rich man has ever yet been known to say that he was rich enough, so also has no people. He forgot Germany, the German Army, the Kaiser, the German intention. With the habitual one-sidedness of the theorist, he left out of his accounts the human side of man in his admiration for the machine – ideology; the truth which all history has shown again and again that the world is controlled and moved ultimately by ideas and not by matter.

Side by side with the growth of industry, there has gone Militarism, the European heritage of Bismarck. This is where the broker philosophy of Mr. Norman Angell failed. He thought that wealth was stronger than man, that matter was greater then the spirit. And a great many people agreed with him. They, too, believed that Plutocracy was a bigger thing than mind. And, theoretically, the premise looked plausible, if only for the reason that war in Europe threatened to bring ruin to the very Captains of Industry who swayed its governance. Then, too, the European system of Alliances seemed to provide a sure guarantee of continued peace. The idea of war appeared incredible. Men never stopped to consider the psychology of capital, to reflect on the methods of capitalism as ruthless in their economic incidence as the murderous work of armies. On paper no Power seemed more dependent upon material prosperity, upon business and credit, than Germany with her Ballins and Banks, her world-penetrating ramifications of commercial interests, her inter-dependence upon the arteries of sea-borne trade and exports, under the personality of the Kaiser surrounded by the great Jewish creators of wealth whom he had publicaly made his personal friends. (The Kaiser’s War, by Austin Harrison with an introduction by Frederic Harrison. Published by George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, November 1914, pp.25-27).

“In the sententious imagination of the Pan-German the idea of the German mission became such an obsession that he came to look on Europe as a great battlefield preserved by God for the display of German feats of arms as a kind of apotheosis in the cause of humanity. The German invasion was to be a Holy War, a Lutheran manifestation. A planetary hegemony – why not? Old Europe groaning under what it termed the burden of armaments was in need of a masculine broom, a final sweeping which would liberate and consolidate her. Only the German mind could hope to carry out so grandiose a scheme, only German might was fitted to do so. Pan-Germans expressed regret that Englishmen should be forced to lose their Empire, but after all they would be able to attend race meetings and play golf in the German State, which, they understood, were the main things Englishmen cared about. The point was that Englishmen could not play sea-dog in the manger indefinitely and so arbitrarily defeat history.

All historians worthy of the name were Germans; it was unscientific of Englishmen to presume upon German good nature too long. A people which did not play their own Shakespeare was clearly unworthy to possess him. Moreover they didn’t, for Schlegel’s translations were better than the original. The worst of it was that not until the British Navy was defeated could German world-power come into its lawful rights and rescue what was worth preserving of old English culture. Still there was no cause for apprehension. It would soon be over on the ‘Great Day.’ Krupp would see to that. A decisive battle off Harwich, say, and Britain would fall. Once the Kaiser had hoisted his standard over the Tower of London the English woman would quickly fall in love with the Prussian Garde-du-Corps, and there would be an end to the Suffragette ‘nonsense.’ The English Army – and here the Pan-German invariably smiled – well, was it a serious proposition at any time? ‘Bobs’ might be a soldier, but no other Englishman would be – except for money. Against the trained soldiers of a national Army a couple of hundred thousand khaki mercenaries would avail little. The notion was preposterous. Englishmen must know then that the war when it came would not be a mere campaign to avenge a wrong; it would be a movement of racial expansion and conquest conducted to its logical end by the finest soldiers and by the most scientific brains that ever marched forth to battle in history.” (ibid, pp.144-146).