Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

238 DER FUEHRERberlain, would continue to stand loyally together in common strugglefor the good cause: 'You wield your pen, I my tongue. I strike mybroadsword and say: "In spite of hell and high water!"'Wilhelm was unable to crush the open opposition, and the oppositionwas admittedly unable to break Wilhelm; but the Kaiser's personalauthority suffered a severe blow in 1908 when a majority of theReichstag, annoyed by the calamitous interference of the monarch inforeign affairs, censured him publicly; the Reichs Chancellor had topromise that in the future the Kaiser would keep himself more in thebackground. In 1912, the German people elected a Reichstag with anuncontested 'anti-Prussian,' anti-militarism majority, and a third of thisReichstag actually consisted of Social Democrats. When, in 1913, in theAlsatian border city of Zabern, an excited colonel arrested some civilianparticipants in an anti-militarism demonstration, and had them throwninto jail, all Germany roused itself in a rebellious mood, and with a voteof 293 to 54 the Reichstag voiced its disapproval of the conduct of thegovernment.It was partly because of this internal opposition that imperialGermany's foreign policy did not yield to the lust for conquest, asChamberlain expected. Between 1900 and 1912, when England conqueredSouth Africa through military force, when France took Moroccoand Italy Tripoli, Germany made no such acquisitions. It had withdrawnin Morocco before France, in Persia before England and Russia. Towardthe turn of the century Germany had refused a Franco-Russian offer tounite against England who was then involved in the South-African BoerWar. Then, when Russia and France concluded a pact directed againstGermany, the latter, in 1904 and 1905, allowed the temptingopportunity of waging a lightning invasion of France to slip away,although Russia was at that time hard pressed by internal revolution andthe defeat by Japan. Even the First World War did not begin as aGerman war of conquest; the deeper guilt began when, after Bismarck'sretirement, Wilhelm entrusted Germany's destiny exclusively to thearmy. The generals of this army decided in 1914 that Germany, in theface of the Russian mobilization, must now immediately be victoriouson all fronts or there would not be any chance of standing up against thesuperiority of the combined powers of France and Russia.