RARE TRANSLATION OF A GERMAN REPORT
India Its importance for Great Britain, Germany, and the future of the world.
Berlin [i.e. Simla].
Ernst Siegfried Mittler & Son [i.e. Monotype Press], 1917 [i.e. 1918]
First edition in English.
8vo.
[6], 79pp, [1]. With a folding, linen-backed, map. Original publisher's printed buff wrappers. Rubbed, lightly marked, loss to head and foot of dulled spine, coloured pencil shelf-marks to upper wrapper. Scattered spotting, occasional pencilled highlights/annotations.
The sole edition in English of German naval officer and journalist Count Ernst Zu Reventlow's (1869-1943) vehemently anti-British monograph, published at the height of the First World War, analysing the political importance of India for the German Empire.
Reventlow, an ardent nationalist, ferociously condemns the 'British misgovernment' of India and the 'unworthy and base' treatment of the Indian people. Nevertheless, he makes clear that it would be inappropriate for the German Empire to intervene directly in order to 'free India from the English yoke', rather, he suggests, that Indian people must attain emancipation themselves. Reventlow's motives are however not altruistic; he seeks Indian independence only in the context of undermining the British Empire, 'the deadly enemy of Germany both in the present and the future'. He concludes with a somewhat prescient statement: 'A gradual or immediate independence of India can take place in different ways and in different manners, either during the war, during the coming peace, or by means of a later war. It is not the purpose of this work to discuss such possibilities. In any case, it is undoubtedly the duty of Germany to strengthen and support the Indian nation and, at the same time, to weaken the British power whatever and wherever it may be'.
In his prefatory remarks, Director of Central Intelligence, C. R. Cleveland states that: 'I am bringing out this translation in the hope that it may be useful to officials in India who have to deal with German schemes and propaganda'. This is followed by a succinct account of Reventlow: 'I believe Reventlow to be an enthusiastic pan-German, fanatical in his pride in Germany and the German people. He looks on the German race as by far the best in Europe'; a perceptive observation, as Reventlow would later be a zealous member of the Nazi party.
The pamphlet, 'cleverly got up in a form almost exactly similar to the original German book', was printed at the Monotype Press, Simla, at the behest of the Government of India. Marked 'secret' to the upper wrapper, the publication was, according to the colophon, limited to a run of just eighty copies; no doubt in part accounting for the paucity of surviving examples.
OCLC records copies at just two locations (BL and South Asia Union Catalogue).
£ 950.00
Antiquates Ref: 23554
Reventlow, an ardent nationalist, ferociously condemns the 'British misgovernment' of India and the 'unworthy and base' treatment of the Indian people. Nevertheless, he makes clear that it would be inappropriate for the German Empire to intervene directly in order to 'free India from the English yoke', rather, he suggests, that Indian people must attain emancipation themselves. Reventlow's motives are however not altruistic; he seeks Indian independence only in the context of undermining the British Empire, 'the deadly enemy of Germany both in the present and the future'. He concludes with a somewhat prescient statement: 'A gradual or immediate independence of India can take place in different ways and in different manners, either during the war, during the coming peace, or by means of a later war. It is not the purpose of this work to discuss such possibilities. In any case, it is undoubtedly the duty of Germany to strengthen and support the Indian nation and, at the same time, to weaken the British power whatever and wherever it may be'.
In his prefatory remarks, Director of Central Intelligence, C. R. Cleveland states that: 'I am bringing out this translation in the hope that it may be useful to officials in India who have to deal with German schemes and propaganda'. This is followed by a succinct account of Reventlow: 'I believe Reventlow to be an enthusiastic pan-German, fanatical in his pride in Germany and the German people. He looks on the German race as by far the best in Europe'; a perceptive observation, as Reventlow would later be a zealous member of the Nazi party.
The pamphlet, 'cleverly got up in a form almost exactly similar to the original German book', was printed at the Monotype Press, Simla, at the behest of the Government of India. Marked 'secret' to the upper wrapper, the publication was, according to the colophon, limited to a run of just eighty copies; no doubt in part accounting for the paucity of surviving examples.
OCLC records copies at just two locations (BL and South Asia Union Catalogue).