rring up a revolt of the Boers as a preliminary to the expulsion
of the British from South Africa. Relations had been established with
De Wet and Maritz. In 1913 the latter sent an agent to the German colony
asking what aid the Kaiser would give and how far he would guarantee the
independence of South Africa. The reply came: "I will not only
acknowledge the independence of South Africa, but I will even guarantee
it, provided the rebellion is started immediately[546]." The reason for
the delay is not known. Probably on further inquiry it was found that
the situation was not ready either in Europe or in South Africa. But as
to German preparations for a war with England both in South-West Africa
and Egypt there can be no doubt. India and probably Ireland also were
not neglected.

[Footnote 546: General Botha's speech at Cape Town, July 25, 1915.]

In fact a considerable part of the German people looked forward to a war
with Great Britain as equally inevitable and desirable. She was rich and
pleasure-loving; her Government was apt to wait till public opinion had
been decisively pronounced; her sons, too selfish to defend her, paid
"mercenaries" to do it. Her scattered possessions would therefore fall
an easy prey to a well-organised, warlike, and thoroughly patriotic
nation. Let the world belong to the ablest race, the Germanic. Such had
been the teachings of Treitschke and his disciples long before the Boer
War or the Anglo-French Entente. Those events and the Morocco Question
in 1905 and 1911 sharpened the rivalry; but it is a superficial reading
of events to suppose that Morocco caused the rivalry, which clearly
originated in the resolve of the Germans to possess a World-Empire. So
soon as their influential classes distinctly framed that resolve a
conflict was inevitable with Great Britain, which blocked their way to
the Ocean and possessed in every sea valuable colonies which she seemed
little able to defend. The Morocco affair annoyed them because, firstly,
they wanted that strategic position, and secondly, they desired to
sunder the Anglo-French Entente. But Morocco was settled in 1911, and
still the friction continued unabated. There remained the Eastern
Question, a far more serious affair; for on it hung the hopes of Germany
in the Orient and of Austria in the Balkans.

The difficulty for Germany was, how to equate her world-wide ambitions
with the restricted and diverse aims of Austria and Italy. The interests
of