But wherever in the world German travellers have gone,
wherever German traders have settled, wherever the German Government has
thought of working for a site for a colony, everywhere they have met
British influence, British trade, the British flag.
In this way has been brought home to them as to no other people the
tremendous influence of sea-power. Their historians have recalled to
them the successive attempts which have been made in past times by
German States to create a navy and to obtain colonies, attempts which to
our own people are quite unknown, because they never, except in the case
of the Hanseatic League, attained to such importance as to figure in the
general history of Europe. In the period between 1815 and 1870, when
the desire for national unity was expressed by a host of German writers,
there were not wanting pleas for the creation of a German navy. Several
attempts were made in those days to construct either a Prussian or a
German fleet; but the time was not ripe and these attempts came to
nothing. The constitution of the Empire, promulgated in 1871, embodied
the principle that there should be a German navy, of which the Emperor
should be commander-in-chief, and to the creation of that navy the most
assiduous labour has been devoted.
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