On the contrary, we must fight the French fleet, so to speak, on land--i.e., we must defeat France so decisively that she would be compelled to renounce her alliance with England and withdraw her fleet to save herself from total destruction.

Just as in 1870-71 we marched to the shores of the Atlantic, so this time again we must resolve on an absolute conquest, in order to capture the French naval ports and destroy the French naval depots.

It would be a war to the knife with France, one which would, if victorious, annihilate once for all the French position as a Great Power.

If France, with her falling birth-rate, determines on such a war, it is at the risk of losing her place in the first rank of European nations, and sinking into permanent political subservience.

Those are the stakes.
The participation of Russia in the naval war must also be contemplated.
That is the less dangerous, since the Russian Baltic fleet is at present still weak, and cannot combine so easily as the English with the French.
We could operate against it on the inner line--i.e., we could use the opportunity of uniting rapidly our vessels in the Baltic by means of the Kaiser-Wilhelm Canal; we could attack the Russian ships in vastly superior force, and, having struck our blow, we could return to the North Sea.