Government moved, let us proceed to consider the actual course of their
policy during the critical years, fifteen or so, that preceded the war.
The policy admittedly and openly was one of "expansion." But "expansion"
where? It seems to be rather widely supposed that Germany was preparing war
in order to annex territory in Europe. The contempt of German imperialists,
from Treitschke onward, for the rights of small States, the racial theories
which included in "German" territory Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and the
Scandinavian countries, may seem to give colour to this idea. But it would
be hazardous to assume that German statesmen were seriously influenced
for years by the lucubrations of Mr. Houston Stewart Chamberlain and
his followers. Nor can a long-prepared policy of annexation in Europe
be inferred from the fact that Belgium and France were invaded after the
war broke out, or even from the present demand among German parties that
the territories occupied should be retained. If it could be maintained
that the seizure of territory during war, or even its retention after
it, is evidence that the territory was the object of the war, it would
be legitimate also to infer that the British Empire has gone to war
to annex German colonies, a conclusion which Englishmen would probably
reject with indignation. In truth, before the war, the view that it was
the object of German policy to annex European territory would have found,
I think, few, if any, supporters among well-informed and unprejudiced
observers. I note, for instance, that Mr. Dawson, whose opinion on such
a point is probably better worth having than that of any other Englishman,
in his book, "The Evolution of Modern Germany,"[1] when discussing the aims
of German policy does not even refer to the idea that annexations in Europe
are contemplated.

So far as the evidence at present goes, I do not think a case can be
made out for the view that German policy was aiming during these years
at securing the hegemony of Europe by annexing European territory. The