INTRODUCTION
means of our mercantile U-boats it would remain in communication with the home country, even supposing - the English were once more complete masters of the open seas. A certain number of war U-boats stationed there would even defend the islands and their harbours against English men-of-war.
Will the English ever concede us such a colonial Empire? I hope they will be compelled to do so. If they are confronted with the choice of either allowing us to have these colonies or of seeing us establish a direct or indirect dominion over Belgium, it will come easier to them to let us have the colonial Empire.
4.—Hermann Oncken.
Another name scarcely less well-known than that of Hans Delbrück is that of the Heidelberg Professor of History, Hermann Oncken, the editor of the great German universal history. Oncken, like Delbrück, is a “ Moderate,” an opponent of the Pan-Germans, and was one of the men of distinction who joined the “ German National Committee for the Preparation of an Honourable Peace,” formed in the summer of 1916 to combat the Pan-German propaganda and support Bethmann Hollweg. A few months ago (in 1917) he published a small book entitled Das alte und das neue Mittel-Europa ( The Old and the New Mittel-Europa). In the course of this he devotes some pages to Mittel- Afrika : —
Completely to upset the English calculations, it will be necessary that the German war programme, instead of confining itself to Mittel-Europa, should mark out in firm outline yet another attainable aim on beyond. This aim would not consist in annexations on the West [the Pan- German programme], which we might feel disposed to' demand in view of the military situation, but in utilizing our military successes, which have given us pawns outside our frontiers in Belgium and Northern France, in order to obtain compensations in Africa. If England to-day is prosecuting the war with such intense efforts, that is in order to deprive us of these pawns; unless she recovers
xviii