emen, correspondents, and rapidly contrived to
get command of the main arteries of the economic organism. German
manufactures soon flooded the country, because those who undertook to
import them could count on extensive credit from the institutions
founded with the money of the very nations whose trade they were
engaged in killing. In this way the competition, not only of all
Entente peoples but also of the natives of the country experimented
on, was systematically choked. And the customers of these banks,
natives as well as Teutons, became apostles of German influence.

Insensibly the great industrial concerns of the place passed into the
possession of German banks, behind which stood the German empire. A
nucleus of influential business people, having been thus equipped for
action, incessantly propagated the German political faith. German
schools were established and subsidized by the _Deutscher
Schulverein_, clubs opened, musical societies formed, and newspapers
supported or founded, to consolidate the achievements of the
financiers. On political circles, especially in constitutional lands,
the influence of this Teutonic phalanx was profound and lasting.

In all these commercial and industrial enterprises undertaken abroad
for economic gain and political influence, the German State, its
organs and the individual firms, went hand in hand, supplementing each
other's endeavours. The maxim they adopted was that of their military
commanders: to advance separately but to attack in combination. Not
only the Consul, but the Ambassador, the Minister, the Scholar, the
Statesman, nay the Kaiser[1] himself, were the inspirers, the
partners, the backers of the German merchant. Marschall von
Bieberstein once told me in Constantinople that his functions were
those of a super-commercial traveller rather than ambassadorial. And
he discharged them with efficiency. Laws and railway tariffs at home,
diplomatic facilities and valuable information abroad smoothed the way
of the Teuton trader. Berlin rightly gauged the worth of this pacific
interpenetration at a time when Britons were laughing it to scorn as a
ludicrous freak of grandmotherly government. To-day its results stand
out in relief as barriers to the progress of the Allies in the conduct
of the war.

[1] The Kaiser is one of the largest shareholders in the
great mercury mines of Italy.

Of this ingenious way of enslaving foreign nations unknown to
themselves, Italy's