Pierre weekly free press. (Pierre, S.D.) 1889-19??, 1914-09-17
KINGDOMS
FEAR FOR SAFETY
Holland, Belgium and Denmark
Think They Will Fall Into
Now of m If
Kaiser Wins.

! Kaiser Wins.
Sydney Brooks in the London Chronicle
This is a war of giants, but not Of
giants only. In one sense, indeed, the
smaller states fringing the North sea
and the Baltic stand to lose more by 1t
than any of the great powers. What
ESeVer happens n whichever side Is
!'Victorious none of the major combat
ants will cease to be national and in
dependent entities. But for their lesser
~neighbors standing on the brink, or
caught IL. the cleft of the titanic strug-
gle, for Belgium, Holland, Denmark.
and possibly Switzerland, there are but
two prospects. One is to remain as
states; the other is to be blotted from
the map and to suffer the final catas-
trophe of annexation by an alien and
hated power.
Why Dutch Are Ready.
That is the terror which for years
has haunted the minds and guided the
policies of statesmen from Copenhagen
to Brussels. And that is the reason
why the Dutch at this are
ready to open the dykes and flood the
country rather than submit to being
turned into a German province; Why
the Danes are standing to arms vigil
liant and grim; and why the Belgians
with splendid hardihood nave flung
themselves across the path of the Ger
man invaders.
The Germans have many great
qualities, but they have not the gift OF
inspiring either trust or Affection; and
nowhere are. they so bitterly hated and
their designs so fiercely suspected as
In the little Kingdoms hat border on
their frontiers.
The map shows the whole position
more clearly thar any words. There is
Y Nar1n ru C11nh nc Ntyn lnny If fn ha-D
patient, virile, finely organized nation,
filled with the consciousness of being
on the crest of the rising wave, hun
gering for an empire overseas but
aware that no empire can be founded
nowadays in the old. easy, effortless
fashion, cut off from the full freedom
of the Baltic and the North sea, from
the Mediterranean and the Adriatic,
and with the short and difficult coast
line between Holland and Denmark
forming almost the only effective
channel for its expanding commerce.
Little Nations in Way.
And the nations that in this way
cramp Germany's development are in
all cases weaker than itself. 1t Is
walled off by puny, Insignificant states
from everything it most vitality needs
for the protection of it's security and
the full utilization of it's strength.
Ports, territory, opportunities, lie just
beyond it's Observation-Disclosures, re-
member, that are artificial, not perma-
nent, drawn by diplomatists, not by ma
ture-and their occupation would pro-
vide for generation an adequate outlet
for it's surplus population, it's maritime
ambitions, and its industrial enter
prise, an outlet more than ever desir-
able now that Germany, with it's rap
idly growing number and a conse-
quent increase of the social pressure,
has changed from a mainly agricultural
to q mainly Industrial state.
Therefore for three decades at least
Holland, Belgium and Denmark have
been the objects of the Pan-German
propaganda. The Dutch have been
plainly told that it is an insufferable
monstrosity that the mouth of the
Rhine, the German Tiber, Should be in
the hands of strangers n that a
small coast people should set astrlde
of Germany'S busiest river. They have
been warned that Germany must adj
vance to its natural confines, and
that while Holland remains detached,
Germany is in the position of a man
who Is denied a key to his own front
door.
The advantages of a commercial
union, the danger to the Dutch col
onies from the predatory ambition of
Great Britain and the United States,
the chronological, linguistic and spirit
ual affinity between the two peoples,
have been dwelt upon with alluring
iteration.
1t has all been to little purpose.
There are a few Dutch paper that in
the past have favored both a customs
union and a military alliance with
Germany. But the masses of the peo-
pie have stood resolutely against any
scheme that threatened to compromise
their independence. They forsee that
an economic union foreshadows an ul-
innate political subserviency; they in
tensely dislike the German militarist
n bureaucratic spirit.
If they are forced to enter the pres
ent struggle, it will be to fight as their
f~orefathers fought against Spain. We
can all see now that 1t wou have
: been better if the long discussed pro-
I ject of an alliance between Holland
and Belgium had taken effect. The
, fate of the two countries is inseparable.
A German triumph means for each ex-
tinction. 1t means that the whole lit
3 toral from Ostend to Copenhagen
passes into German hands. The Dutch
3 will go any lengths to ward off such
/, q destiny.
/ The position of Denmark is equally
l difficult. 1t is washed both by the
North sea and the Baltic and 1t con-
: trolls the passage between them. The
British fleet, for instance, can only
/, gain entrance to the Baltic by steam
! ing through the narrow and hazard
, /, Gus straits of the Great Belt or the
: Sound, both of which may be opened
or closed at the will of Denmark, and
the seizure Of which may therefore
present itself either to Great Britain
or to Germany as a strategic neces-
t sity.
3 Tho Danes Have Fears.
> The Danes have never relished the
> disquiettng perils n responsibilities
Of their situation. At the time of the
! first Hague conference SOC, 900 of King
Christians subjects petitioned him to