must
fight until the world is made safe for democracy." This declaration
refers immediately to the plans which Germany had developed for its
conquest. Based upon reports received by agents of the United States, of
England, of France and other countries, Germany aimed to form a
consolidation of an impregnable military and economic unit stretching
from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, cutting Europe permanently in
half, controlling the Dardanelles, the Agean and the Baltic, and
eventually forming the backbone of a Prussian world empire.

LEAGUE AT WORK SINCE 1911.

In her southeastern conquests, it is apparent, Germany followed almost
in toto the long established plan of the Pan-German League, whose
propaganda had been regarded outside of Germany as the harmless activity
of extremists, too radical to be taken seriously. Coupled with this
plan, as an instrument of economic consolidation, the German officials
used with only slight modification the system of customs union expansion
which aided Prussia in former years to extend her domination over the
other German States now making up the empire.

As early as 1911 the Pan-German League is said to have circulated a
definite propaganda of conquest, with printed appeals containing maps of
a greater Germany, whose sway from Hamburg to Constantinople and then
southeastward through Asiatic Turkey was marked out by boundaries very
coincident with the military lines held today, under German officers, by
the troops of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey. Adhesion of
the German Government itself to such a plan was not suspected by the
other Powers, although the propagandists were permitted to continue
their activities unhindered and to spread their appeals in a country of
strict press supervision. How closely the German Government did adhere
to the plan in reality has been demonstrated clearly by the course of
the war.

Following the footsteps of Bismarck, who used the Franco-Prussian war
alliance to bring Baden, Bavaria and Wurttemburg into the German
confederacy and then into the German Empire, Emperor William chose war
as the means of establishing the broad pathway to the southeast which
was essential for realization of the dream of a great Germany.

VERGE OF DISSOLUTION.

The subjugation of Austria-Hungary, which would have presented a
different task under ordinary conditions, became in these circumstances
comparatively very simple. A polyglot combination o