THE MANY-TRACKED LINES OF GERMAN DIPLOMACY
German diplomacy never contented itself with its one natural channel.
All its lines were many tracked. The Ambassador’s reports were checked
over his head by those of his secretaries, of the consular agents, of
the military and commercial attachés, of the heads of great financial
institutions and big business firms, who enjoyed and abused the
hospitality of Great Britain, France, and Russia, and by the secret
communications of professional spies and the disclosures made by
unwitting betrayers of secrets. During the Morocco crisis the German
Foreign Secretary, von Kiderlen Waechter, was in direct and continuous
telegraphic contact with the first Secretary of the German Embassy
in Paris, von Lanken, over the head of the Ambassador, von Schoen.
And here in London Prince Lichnowsky, like his colleague Pourtalès in
St. Petersburg, shrank during the period of the crisis preceding the
war to a mere figure-head of the Embassy. Herr von Kuhlmann was the
Ambassador. His information was treated as decisive. His views were
listened to with respect. For he always strove and generally contrived
to repair to the source himself. Thus it was he who was asked to visit
Ireland and send in a report to the Wilhelmstrasse on the likelihood
of civil war breaking out there, and its probable duration and general
effect upon the country and the Government.
Herr von Kuhlmann’s communication, which was checked by the accounts
of German correspondents and of a number of spies who were despatched
independently to Belfast and other parts of Ulster, made a profound
impression on the Kaiser and his official advisers. From the gist of
it they derived their conviction, which was still strong during the
week that ended on July 30th, that England’s neutrality was a foregone
conclusion. For a time Herr von Kuhlmann’s judgment was categorical.
He had no misgivings. According to him the die had already been cast,
and the effect of the throw could not be altered. The British Cabinet
was bound hand and foot by the sequel of its Home Rule policy. But even
had it been otherwise, it was committed to peace on other grounds. The
Asquith Government and the party it represented were firmly resolved
not to be drawn into a Continental war, whatever its origin or its
issues. That was the motive which had restrained Sir Edward Grey from
contracting any binding obligations towards France.
And so unhesitatingly was this view adopted in Berlin that when on
July 29th the German Ambassador terminated one of his despatches with
the expression of his personal impression--founded, he confessed, on
nothing more tangible than the manner, intonation, looks of Sir Edward
Grey--that if France were dragged into war Great Britain would not
remain neutral, his timid warning failed to modify the accepted dogma
that England was resolved to stand by inactive and look on at the
shock of mighty armies on the Continent, satisfied to play the part of
mediator as soon as victory and defeat should have cleared the way for
the readjustment of the map of Europe.
This amazing misjudgment can be explained without difficulty.
Paradoxical though it may sound, the German Government suffered from a
plethora of information. It was too well informed of what was going on
in Russia, France, and Britain, and too little qualified to contemplate
in correct perspective the things revealed. Take, for example, Russia.
Every one of the influences to which the Tsar was supposed to be
accessible, every one of the alleged weak points of the General Staff,
the War Ministry, the Railway administration, the Finances, were all
entered in the records and weighed among the motives for action. To
the Austrian Foreign Office they were communicated by the German
Ambassador, von Tschirschky, with whose own preconceived opinions of
Russia’s inertness they dovetailed to perfection. All these data were
at the fingers’ ends of the responsible leaders of the respective
Governments, all the inferences drawn were set down as highly probable,
and the final conclusion to which they pointed was that Russia would
not fight under present circumstances, even if from a military point
of view she could take the field, and that in any case she was
sufficiently aware of her impotence to recognize her inability and bend
before she was broken.
It is easy, in the light of recent events, to laugh at these deductions
and to deride the _naïveté_ of German omniscience. But on analysing the
materials which Berlin statesmen had for a judgment, one discerns the
reasons which led them to believe that a good prima facie case had been
made out for its accuracy. One characteristic and clinching argument
was advanced with an air of triumphant finality. These data, it was
urged, are not theoretic assumptions formed in Germany. They are the
deliberate views of competent Russians, arrived at in the conscientious
discharge of their duty and uttered for the welfare of their own
country. Is not that guarantee enough for the correctness of the facts
alleged and the sincerity of those who advance them?
The truth is, the Berlin authorities were too well supplied with
details, while lacking a safe criterion by which to measure their
worth. German diplomacy is many sided, and admirably well served by
a variety of auxiliary departments such as journalism, commerce,
educational establishments abroad, and espionage of a discreet and
fairly trustworthy character. But congruously with the tyrannical
spirit of system which pervades everything German, this paramount
organon for supplying the directors of the Empire’s policy with data
for their guidance and goals for their many converging movements deals
too exclusively in externals. Prussian diplomatists and statesmen
possess a vast body of information respecting the social and political
currents abroad, the condition of national defences and party
governments, the antagonisms of political groups, and other obvious
factors of political, military, naval, and financial strength and
weakness. But these facts nowise exhaust the elements of the problem
with which statesmanship is called upon to cope. There are other and
more decisive agencies which elude analysis and escape the vigilant
observation of the Prussian materialist. This superficial observer is
bereft of a sense for the soul-manifestations of a people, for the
multitudinous energies and enthusiasms stored up in its inner recesses,
for those hidden sources of strength which the wanton violation of
truth and justice set free, and which steel a nation to the wrenches
of real life and nerve it for a titanic struggle for the right. Above
all, he takes no account of a nation’s conscience, which, especially
in Anglo-Saxon peoples, is in vital and continuous contact with their
modes of feeling, thought, and action. He is a self-centred pedant,
capable indeed of close and thorough research and of scrupulous
loyalty to his own creed, but bringing to his work nothing but the
materialistic maxims of a cynically egoistic school, impassioned by
narrow aims, dissociated from humanity, blinded by stupid prejudices,
and bereft of innate balance. It is system without soul.
Of the Russian army the Staffs of Berlin and Vienna thought meanly.
“A mob in uniform,” was one description. Less contemptuous was this
other: “A barracks of which only the bricks have been got together, the
cement and the builders being still lacking.” Others there were--and
these were the most serious appraisers--who held that in another five
or six years the Russian land forces might be shaped into a formidable
weapon of defence and possibly of offence. But this opinion was urged
mainly as an argument against waiting. I once heard it supported
tersely in the following way. The army depends upon finances rather
than numbers. Without money you cannot train your soldiers. Ammunition
and guns, which are essential conditions to good artillery fire,
involve heavy expenditure. So, too, does rifle firing. Well, Russia’s
army has had no such advantages during the years that have elapsed
since her campaign against Japan. During all that time the salient
trait of her financial policy has been thrift. Grasping and saving, the
State has laid by enormous sums of money and has hoarded them miserly.
One effect of these precautions has been the neglect of the army and
the navy. At the close of the war Russia’s navy was practically without
ships and her diplomacy without backbone. And since then little has
been done to reinforce them.
Two hundred and fifty millions sterling were borrowed by Russia at
the close of the war with Japan, it was argued. That sum may be taken
roughly to represent the cost of the campaign. But it did not cover
the wear and tear of the war material, the loss of the whole navy,
the destruction of fortresses, barracks, guns, private property, etc.,
which would mount up to as much again. What was needed to repair
this vast breach in the land and sea forces was another loan of at
least three hundred millions sterling more. And this money was not
borrowed. Consequently the rebuilding of the damaged defences was
never undertaken. Only small annual credits, the merest driblets, were
allotted by the Finance Ministry to the War Office and the Admiralty,
and with these niggardly donations it had been impossible to repair the
inroads made by the war on the two imperial services. But the Tsar’s
Government, it was added, are about to turn over a new leaf. Large war
credits have been voted by the Duma. Far-reaching reforms are planned
for the army. Russia, awakened by Germany’s preparations and warned by
the Chancellor’s allusion to the struggle between Slavs and Teutons,
will make a strenuous effort to fashion her vast millions into a
formidable army. This work will take at least from three to five years.
We cannot afford to accord her this time, nor can we blink the fact
that she will never be less redoubtable than she is to-day.
That was the theoretical side of the case. It was reinforced by
considerations of a concrete nature, the criticisms of Russian experts
of high standing and long experience whose alleged utterances were said
to bear out the conclusion that a war waged by Russia against Germany,
or even against Austria, at the present conjuncture would be suicidal.
Never before, it was urged, was the Tsardom less ready from any point
of view for a campaign than at the present moment. And this, it was
reiterated, is the ripe judgment of Russian competent authorities whose
names were freely mentioned. These men, it was stated, had strongly
urged the Tsar’s Government and the Tsar himself to bear well in mind
this deplorable plight of the army when conducting the foreign business
of the Empire.
That the Russian Government was aware of the view thus taken in Berlin
and Vienna may safely be assumed. For Russia kept her eyes open and
knew more about German machinations and the assumptions on which they
hinged than was supposed. Having had an opportunity of picking up
ideas on the subject, she had not let it pass unutilized. Respecting
one scheme she knew every detail; I allude to the intention of Austria
and Germany to declare the Treaty of Bucharest a mere scrap of paper.
Ever since that treaty was signed, it had been the inflexible resolve
of Austria and Germany to upset it. I write this with first-hand
knowledge. But even had I not had this knowledge, it might have been
taken for granted on a priori grounds. The Balkan equilibrium as
established by that instrument was deemed lacking in stability. Count
Berchtold admitted this to the British Ambassador during the critical
days. Its Servian elements were particularly obnoxious to Austria,
who had refrained from annexing Turkish territory on the assumption
that she would be amply repaid for her self-restraint by political and
economical influence in the Peninsula.
Now, this assumption had been belied by events. Salonica was under the
dominion of Greece, whose leanings towards France and Great Britain
were notorious and fixed. Servia had waxed great, and was striving to
add further to her power and territory at Austria’s expense. Bulgaria
was sullen, and might become rebellious. Roumania, estranged from
the Dual Monarchy, had seemingly moved within the political orbit of
Russia. And even Turkey, abandoned to herself among these prospective
enemies of the Teutonic Powers, was amenable to their suasion and to
the pressure of France and England. Such a state of affairs could
not be brooked by Austria-Hungary, who beheld her Slav possessions
threatened in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, nor by Germany, who
feared that her road to the sea and to Asia Minor would be blocked.
Accordingly the two allies decided to apply the scrap of paper doctrine
to the Treaty of Bucharest, to cut up Greater Servia, bribe Bulgaria
with the Macedonian provinces which King Ferdinand had lost by the
treacherous attack on his allies, deprive Greece of the islands and
throw them as a sop to Turkey, win over Roumania by intimidation and
cajolery, and constrain her to make a block with Bulgaria and Turkey
against Servia and Greece.
This preconcerted scheme had been questioned by easy-going optimists in
Great Britain before the outbreak of the war. But it has been virtually
acknowledged since then not only by the Austrian Government but also
by the “cream of Germany’s intelligence” in a pamphlet entitled “Truth
About Germany.” This statement of our enemy’s case was drawn up for
American consumption by a committee which includes among its members
Prince von Bülow, Herr Ballin, Field-Marshal von der Goltz, Herr von
Gwinner, Professor Harnack, the theologian, Prince Hatzfeldt, Herr von
Mendelssohn, Professor Schmoller, and Professor Wundt. In the chapter
dealing with the last Balkan war as one of the causes of the present
conflict, these gentlemen argue that the outcome of that struggle was a
humiliation for the Habsburg Monarchy, and that it had been so intended
by the Ministers of the Tsar. And then comes their important admission
that ever since the Treaty of Bucharest, the two Teutonic allies had
been diligently preparing for war.
As soon as the Balkan troubles began (they write), Austria-Hungary
had been obliged to put a large part of her army in readiness
for war, because the Russians and Serbs had mobilized on their
frontiers. The Germans felt that what was a danger for their ally
was also a danger for them, and that they must do all in their
power to maintain Austria-Hungary in the position of a great Power.
They felt that this could only be done by keeping with their ally
perfect faith and by great military strength, so that Russia might
possibly be deterred from war and peace be preserved, or else
that, in case war was forced upon them, they could wage it with
honour and success. Now, it was clear in Berlin that, in view of
the Russian and Servian preparations, Austria-Hungary, in case of
a war, would be obliged to use a great part of her forces against
Servia, and therefore would have to send against Russia fewer
troops than would have been possible under the conditions formerly
prevailing in Europe. Formerly even European Turkey could have been
counted upon for assistance, but that, after her recent defeat,
seemed very doubtful. These reasons and considerations, which were
solely of a _defensive_ nature, led to the great German military
Bills of the last two years. Also Austria-Hungary was obliged to
increase its defensive strength.
These preparations, America is informed, “were merely meant to protect
us against, and to prepare us for, the attacks of Moscovite barbarism.”
But Russia’s incipient army reorganization--which cannot have been very
thorough, seeing that in spite of it the German Government regarded the
Russian army as incapable of taking the field--is cited as evidence of
malice prepense.[5] Disingenuousness could hardly go further.
Any experienced European statesman would have divined this plan even
without a concrete clue. I knew it, and exposed it in the columns of
the _Daily Telegraph_.