she should impress her will on all the
world.

They might have done this peacefully, for the seas were free, but German
self-esteem was not satisfied with peaceful progress. They felt that it
was necessary to reach out in the world for colonies. They seized a
province in China. They meddled with affairs in Morocco. They annexed
colonies in Africa, but none of these projects were wholly satisfactory.
They provided no great outlet for the products of their workshops, nor
for their overflow population, which largely went to North and South
America and became citizens of these foreign nations.

Their eyes finally turned to the great East. There in China and India
and the neighboring countries were three hundred millions of men whose
trade would be a worthy prize for even Germany's ambition. Then began
the development of what is sometimes called Germany's Mittel-Europa
dream. Her scholars encouraged it; her travelers brought reports which
stimulated the interest, and soon she began practically to carry it into
effect. It meant the building of a great railroad down to the Persian
Gulf; a railroad to be controlled by nations where her influence would
be all-powerful. She needed Austria, she needed Serbia, she needed
Bulgaria and Turkey.

[Illustration: Map: Most of Asia, Africa and Australia, showing
Germany's hoped for rail and ship routes from the North Sea to Australia,
South Africa and China.]
HOW THE PAN-GERMANS PLANNED TO EXTEND THEIR "MITTEL-EUROPA" DREAM

At first the project was carried out peacefully. Friendly relations were
stimulated with Turkey and the other necessary powers; permits were
obtained to build the railroad. But Germany was not the only power that
had dreamed this dream. Alexander the Great had done it. Napoleon had
done it, and England had carried it out. From the days of Queen
Elizabeth the English control of India was one of its greatest assets.

Through most of the nineteenth century the English power in the East was
threatened, not by Germany, but by Russia. It was because of this threat
that England had always protected Turkey. Turkey and Constantinople were
her barrier against Russia. The literature of England in the last days
of the nineteenth century shows clearly her fear of Russian intrigues in
India. Kipling's Indian stories are full of it. But now that fear had
passed. It was no longer the imaginary danger which might come from the
great Slavic Empire, but a trade weapon in the