Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Previous Page
–
Next Page
OCR
THE VITAL ISSUE
The New
‘ Under this heading THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY LEAGUE is contributing a series of arti.
cle: prepared by one of its members and based on recently published expressions of
leading GERMAN THINKERS about problems of the presenttime.
Germany
FREE
SEAS.
By G. V. SCHULZE-GAEVERNITZ, Member of the Reichstag.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Among the men who have
none‘ is more representative than Prof. von Schulze-Gaevernitz. .
political problems have often touched upon such problems in the United States.
influenced the younger generation of Germany,
His thoughts on economic and
Only a few years
ago he conceived an elatorate plan of furthering the understanding between Germany and the United
States. It was inevitable that a mind like his should wrestle with the question of the freedom of the
sea. Some of his observations he has recently published under the title “Free Seas.” .
cated his book, the leading thoughts of which we present below, to the German Flying Corps.
bears the motto. “Through Free Airs to Free Seas.”
About 1650 Holland practically owned the trade of
the world. The Dutch fleet represented more than
one-half of the total tonnage of the European ship-
ping. The entire world tried to imitate the country
“which had no forests and which was in spite of it
building the ships of the whole world.” But the great-
ness ofthe Netherlands was broken by the hard facts
of war. After England had demanded the punish-
ment of Hugo Grotius for having postulated the free-
dom of the seas, and after she had claimed as prop-
erty the “British” seas all the way to the German
and-American coasts, she spoke “through the pure
language of warships.” Cromwell declared that Eng-
land could not suffer to have any flag appear on the
ocean without her consent.
The French historian and author, Girault, Professor
at the University of Poitiers and member of the In-
ternational Colonial Institute, has dealt in his book
“Principes de colonisation” (Paris, 1904) with the
time from 1688 until 1815, when no less than seven
great wars were fought between France and England.
“All these wars were for England business wars
(guerres d’atfairs) which were meant to destroy the
naval and colonial power of France. England incited
all alliances that were made against us in Europe.
While our troops were busy on the continent, Eng-
land destroyed our navy and took possession of our
colonies.” The apparently fantastic and contradictory
policy of Napoleon can readily be understood in its
entirety if one considers his actions under the one
leading thought “Freedom of the Seas” a struggle
against the world monopoly of England. It was not
to conquer the European continent, that he fought his
battles. “Cette vieille Europe m’ennuie.” By moving
on land against India, Napoleon hoped even without
sea power “to gain the freedom of the seas.” The
sum total of the enormous waste of human and eco-
nomic material during the Napoleonic wars was for
France a diminution of the world position of the an-
cient regime. At VVaterloo the question of the sea
was decided in favor of England. The fall of the
second empire destroyed the powerful position of
France’ in Egypt. France's final defeat was sealed
in 1898 through the Fashoda affair. Since then
France has been, as far as world politics are con-
cerned, just what England had permitted her to be,
“an ally in the old Roman meaning.”
He has dedi-
It
In the battle with France the English acquired an
immense colonial empire. During the Napoleonic
wars England temporarily monopolized all oversea
markets. During those wars England is said to have
incorporated in her trading fleet more than 4,000 Eu-
ropean ships. As a consequence Pitt was able to ex-
claim in parliament on February 18, 1801: “We have
brought our external, as well as internal trade to a,
higher degree of development than ever before, and we
may look on the present year as the proudest one
whichthis country has been blessed with at any time.”
It is important to realize that the economic and
political world position of Great Britain has been
preceded by her spiritual world domination. During
two centuries the history of the European mind leads
through British Lowland. The intensity of puritan-
ism flattened out into mere “enlightenment.” The
French, as Voltaire declared, and Macauley repeated,
were the heirs of this British empirism and became the
“interpreters between England and Humanity.” After
the fall of Napoleon, the colossus of the British world
dominion rose to greater and greater heights- When
England in 1846 adopted free trade, the world econ.
omically was British territory. England proudly
called herself “the workshop'of the world.” She
hoped that the rest of the nations would also adopt
free trade and would continue to exchange their raw
materials and their food stuffs for the products of
the English industries. Similarly she acted in regard .
to the law of nations “Freedom of the seas,” which
was now incorporated in the formal law of nations,
is valid for England only under the quiet supposition
of British sea dominion. Even the well-known apog-
tle of peace, W. Stead, when he returned from a trip
of Pacilistic Propaganda in Germany, demanded as
an apostle of the British fleet two British keels for
each German one.
But, much heavier than 100 years ago, British sea
dominion is weighing today on the non-British part
of humanity. This is the result of the development
of world trade. The welfare of each single nation as
well as of each individual depends today to a much
greater extent than ever upon world communications,
which means chiefly sea communications. Humanity
is thereby for better or for worse at the mercy of
the British. To a much greater degree than at the
times of Napoleon the “Freedom of the seas” is there-