The Permanent Bases of German Foreign Policy

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GERMANY today is in such a state of ferment that it cannot but seem venturesome to point out the permanent bases of her foreign policy. If we look a little closer, however, we find that, after all, geographical position and historical development are so largely determining factors of foreign policy that, regardless of the kaleidoscopic change of contemporary events, and no matter what form of government has been instituted or what political party may be in power, the foreign policy of a country has a natural tendency to return again and again to the same general and fundamental alignment.

France, whose problems of foreign policy have been so brilliantly discussed in these pages by M. Jules Cambon,^[i] one of the oldest and most experienced European diplomatists, may be cited as a pertinent example of what has been said. Since the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the forms and principles of government as well as the ruling classes have undergone more frequent change in France than anywhere else in Europe. Nevertheless, it was not a mere phrase but the very truth when M. Thiers, during the National Assembly at Bordeaux in 1871, was able to affirm that the admirable continuity of French history throughout manifold changes in régime has been the chief source of strength of this mighty, vehement and restless nation.

Italy, to quote another example, found some permanent elements of her foreign policy laid in her cradle, as it were, by her position between the Mediterranean and the Adriatic. It is on this account that her foreign policy concerning several highly important groups of questions (notably her relation to the ruling sea-power, England) has been forced into permanent channels...