heir own economic needs
justified their colonial ambitions, wherever those ambitions might lead
them. Rather than have the world shut to them they were willing to
make sacrifices and incur dangers. War, they held, was better than
stagnation, poverty and famine.

But for a country like Germany colonial ambitions conflicting with
those of other European powers are especially dangerous, because a
struggle for Africa or Asia means battles in Champagne, Westphalia or
Posen. "The future of Germany's world policy," said an author who
wrote under the pseudonym "Ruedorffer," "will be decided on the
continent. German public opinion has not yet fully comprehended the
interdependence of Germany's military peace in Europe and her freedom
of action in her foreign enterprises."[16]

Though Bismarck understood this interrelation, he was primarily
interested in the European and not in the colonial situation.
"Bismarck," wrote Ruedorffer, "looked upon the consolidation of
Germany's newly acquired unity as the first and principal task after
the fortunate war with France. To divert the attention of France from
the Rhine {110} border, he favoured, as much as he could, French
expansion in Africa and Asia. When, toward the end of his career, he
attempted to secure, for a future colonial activity of Germany, a few
African tracts which had not yet been claimed by any other power, he
was extremely careful not to encroach upon England's interests. He
avoided pushing Germany's claims beyond Southwest Africa and annexing
the _hinterland_ of the Cape Colony, a territory to-day known as
Rhodesia.... Bismarck kept Germany's world policies within the limits
which, according to his opinion, were prescribed by her continental
policies."

As German colonial ambition grew, however, partly as a result of her
fear of exclusion from colonial markets and sources of supply, she
began to fear that she might raise up enemies in Europe itself. "In
every enterprise," wrote Ruedorffer, "whether on African, Turkish,
Persian, or Chinese soil, Germany's policy will necessarily have to
take account of the presumable reaction on the European political
constellation. If Germany encounters Russian interests in Turkey, in
Persia, or in China, she will thereby bind Russia still more closely to
immutable France; if she infringes upon England's interests in
Mesopotamia, she will see England on the side of her opponents." "This
reciprocal dependence of world poli