BRITISH NEUTRALITY AND BELLIGERENCY
Over and over again I heard the chances of British neutrality and
belligerency discussed by statesmen of the two military Empires, and
the odds in favour of our holding strictly aloof from hostilities were
set down as equivalent to certainty. The grounds for this conviction
were numerous, and to them convincing. Great Britain, it was argued,
possesses no land army capable of throwing an expeditionary force
of any value into the Continental arena. All her fighting strength
is concentrated in her navy, which could render but slight positive
services to the mighty hosts in the field with whom the issue would
lie. Consequently the losses she would sustain by breaking off
commercial intercourse with her best customer would be enormous as
compared to the slender help she could give her friends. And if the
worst came to the worst Germany might take that help as given, and
promise in return for neutrality to guarantee spontaneously whatever
the British Navy might be supposed capable of protecting efficaciously.
Again, public opinion in Great Britain is opposed to war and to
Continental entanglements. And for that reason no binding engagements
have been entered into by the British Government towards France or
Russia, even during the course of the present crisis. Had any intention
been harboured to swerve from this course, it would doubtless have
manifested itself in some tangible shape before now. But no tokens of
any such deviation from the traditional policy has been perceived.
On the contrary, it is well known to the German Government that
the Cabinet actually in power consists of Ministers who are averse
on principle to a policy which might entangle their country in a
Continental war, and who will stand up for that principle if ever it
be called in question. And in support of this contention words or acts
ascribed to the Cabinet and to certain of its members were quoted and
construed as pointing to the same conclusion.
One little syllogism in particular engraved itself on my memory. It
ran somewhat as follows. The Asquith Cabinet is dependent on the votes
of the Radicals and the Irish Home Rulers. Now, the former hate Russia
cordially, and will not allow this opportunity of humiliating her to
lapse unutilized. And the latter, with a little war of their own to
wage, have no superfluous energies to devote to a foreign campaign.
Consequently, the Government, even were it desirous of embarking on a
warlike adventure, is powerless. It cannot swim against a current set
by its own supporters.
Those and other little sums in equation were almost always capped by a
conclusive reference to the impending civil war in Ireland and England,
the danger of risings in Egypt and India, and the constant trouble
with the suffragettes. Whenever this topic came up for discussion I
was invariably a silent listener, so conversant were the debaters with
all the aspects and bearings of the Ulster movement, and so eager
were they to display their knowledge. I learned, for instance, that
numerous German agents, journalists, and one diplomatist well known to
social London had studied the question on the spot, and entertained
no doubt that a fratricidal struggle was about to begin. I received
the condolence of my eminent friends on the impending break-up of old
England, and I heard the reiterated dogma that with her hands thus full
she would steer clear of the conflict between the groups of Continental
Great Powers. I was comforted, however, by the assurance that at the
close of hostilities Great Britain might make her moderating influence
felt to good purpose and resume the praiseworthy efforts to the failure
of which the coming catastrophe was to be attributed.
In all these close calculations the decisive element of national
character was left out, with the consequences we see. Despite their
powers of observation and analysis, the Germans, even those who are
gifted and experienced, are devoid of some indefinable inner sense
without which they must ever lack true insight into the soul-stuff,
the dormant qualities of the people whose wrath they have wantonly
aroused. To the realm of British thought and feeling they, with
their warped psychological equipment, find no access. Its secondary
characteristics they grasp with their noted thoroughness and seek to
practise upon with their traditional cynicism. But the deeper springs
of our race-character, its clear-souled faith, its masculine vigour,
and its vast reserve of elemental force, lie beyond their narrow range
of vision. To the sentient and perceptive powers even of the most
acute German observer, the workings of the British soul, its inherited
nobilities, its deep moral feeling, are inaccessible. And here, more
than in any other branch of the “intelligence department,” a little
knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.
This want of penetration accounts for the greatest and most calamitous
mistake into which the Kaiser and his numerous “eyes” in this country
fell. They watched the surface manifestations of public life here, and
drew their inferences as though there were no other, no more decisive,
elements to be reckoned with. Herr von Kuhlmann, in particular, had
made a complete survey of the situation in Ireland, and his exhaustive
report was corroborated by emphatic statements of a like tenor received
from independent witnesses whose duty it was to collect data on the
spot. Utterances of public men and influential private individuals in
this country were reported in full. Plans, dates, numbers were set
down with scrupulous care. Local colour was deftly worked in, and the
general conclusions bore the marks of unquestionable truths. Even the
suffragette movement was included in this comprehensive survey, and
was classed among the fetters which must handicap the British Cabinet,
should it display any velleity to join hands with France and Russia.
Every possible factor except the one just mentioned was calculated
with the nicety of an apothecary compounding a prescription. Nothing,
apparently, was left to chance.
Summaries of these interesting documents were transmitted to Vienna,
where they served merely to confirm the conviction, harboured from the
beginning, that whatever conflicts might rage on the Continent, Great
Britain would stick to her own business, which was bound to prove
uncommonly engrossing in the near future. Not the faintest trace of
doubt or misgiving was anywhere perceptible among Germans or Austrians
down to July 30th. On the previous day the German Ambassador in London
had had a conversation with Sir Edward Grey, which appears to have made
a far deeper impression on him than the words uttered by the British
Foreign Secretary would necessarily convey. He had been told that the
situation was very grave, but that, so long as it was restricted to
the issues then actually involved, Great Britain had no thought of
identifying herself with any Continental Power. If, however, Germany
took a hand in it and were followed by France, all European interests
would be affected, and “I did not wish him to be misled by the friendly
tone of our conversation--which I hoped would continue--into thinking
that we should stand aside.” Characteristic is the remark which
these words elicited from Prince Lichnowsky. “He said that he quite
understood this.” And yet he could not have understood it. Evidently he
interpreted it as he would have interpreted a similar announcement made
by his own chief. To his thinking it was but a face-saving phrase,
not a declaration of position meant to be taken seriously. Otherwise
he would not have asked the further question which he at once put. “He
said that he quite understood, but he asked whether I meant that we
should, under certain circumstances, intervene.”
I replied (continues Sir Edward Grey) that I did not wish to say
that, or to use anything that was like a threat, or attempt to
apply pressure by saying that, if things became worse, we should
intervene. There would be no question of our intervening if Germany
was not involved, or even if France was not involved. But we knew
very well that if the issue did become such that we thought British
interests required us to intervene, we must intervene at once, and
the decision would have to be very rapid, just as the decisions
of other Powers had to be. I hoped that the friendly tone of our
conversations would continue as at present, and that I should be
able to keep as closely in touch with the German Government when
working for peace. But if we failed in our efforts to keep the
peace, and if the issue spread so that it involved practically
every European interest, I do not wish to be open to any reproach
from him that the friendly tone of all our conversations had misled
him or his Government into supposing that we should not take
action, and to the reproach that if they had not been so misled,
the course of things might have been different.
The German Ambassador took no exception to what I had said; indeed,
he told me that it accorded with what he had already given in
Berlin as his view of the situation.
Not so much this plain statement of the British case as the impressive
way in which it was delivered startled the Kaiser’s representative
and flashed a blinding light on the dark ways of German diplomacy.
That same evening the Prince made known the personal effect upon
himself of what he had seen and heard, and it was that Great Britain’s
neutrality “could not be relied upon.” This “subjective impression,”
as they termed it, was telegraphed to Vienna, where it was anxiously
discussed. And, curiously enough, it sufficed to shatter the hopes
which Austrian statesmen had cherished that nothing was to be feared
from Great Britain. Psychologically, this tragic way of taking the news
is difficult to explain. Whether it was that the Austrians, having
less faith in the solidarity of their Empire and the staying powers of
their mixed population, and greater misgivings about the issue of the
war, were naturally more pessimistic and more apt to magnify than to
underrate the dangers with which a European conflict threatened them,
or that they had received unwelcome tidings of a like nature from an
independent source, I am unable to determine. I know, however, that
Prince Lichnowsky’s own mind was made up during that colloquy with Sir
Edward Grey. And he made no mystery of it. To a statesman who brought
up the topic in the course of an ordinary conversation he remarked:
It is my solid conviction that England will not only throw in her
lot with France and Russia, but will be first in the arena. There
is not the shadow of a doubt about it. Nothing can stop her now.
That view was also adopted by the statesmen of Austria-Hungary, who
communicated it to me on the following day.[28] It was on July 29th
that the German Chancellor had tendered the “strong bid” for British
neutrality from which the wished-for result was anticipated. And to
this “infamous proposal” the answer was not telegraphed until July
30th. In Vienna we had cognizance of it on the following day. But
I was informed on Saturday that, however unpromising the outlook,
further exertions would be put forth to persuade Great Britain not
to relinquish her rôle of mediatrix, but to reserve her beneficent
influence on the Powers until they had tried issues in a land campaign
and were ready for peace negociations. Then she could play to good
purpose the congenial part of peacemaker and make her moderating
influence felt by both parties, who, exhausted by the campaign, would
be willing to accept a compromise.
These efforts were ingeniously planned, the German statesmen using
British ideas, aims, and traditions as weapons of combat against the
intentions--still wavering, it was believed--of the Liberal Government
to resort to force if suasion and argument should fail, in order to
redeem the nation’s plighted word and uphold Belgian neutrality. Among
these aims which our Government had especially at heart was a general
understanding with Germany, and the perspective of realizing this was
dangled before the eyes of our Government by the Chancellor. But the
plan had one capital defect. It ignored the view taken in this country
of the sanctity of treaties. The course taken by the conversations,
which were now carried on with rapidity to the accompaniment of
the march of armed men and the clatter of horses’ hoofs, is worth
considering. Down to the last moment the British Government kept
its hands free. M. Sazonoff’s appeals to our Ambassador to move his
Government to take sides fell on deaf ears. The endeavours of the
Government of the French Republic were equally infructuous. “In the
present case,” Sir Edward Grey told the French Ambassador in London,
“the dispute between Austria and Servia was not one in which we felt
called on to take a hand.” That was the position consistently taken up
by the British Government in every Balkan crisis that had broken out
since Aehrenthal incorporated Bosnia and Herzegovina. And it was also
one of the postulates of the German conspiracy, which undertook to
prove that whatever complications might arise out of Austria’s action,
the crucial question and the one issue was the crime of Sarajevo.
But Sir Edward Grey did not stop here. He went much further and
destroyed the illusions of those who imagined the British Empire would
be so materially affected by an Austrian campaign against Russia
that it would proffer assistance to the Slav Empire. In fact, he
consistently withheld encouragement from all would-be belligerents.
Even if the question became one between Austria and Russia (Sir
Edward Grey went on to say), we should not feel called upon to
take a hand in it. It would then be a question of the supremacy of
Teuton or Slav--a struggle for supremacy in the Balkans; and our
idea has always been to avoid being drawn into a war over a Balkan
question.
This, too, was well known and reckoned upon by the two Teutonic allies
when laying their plans, one of which was to thrust into the foreground
the Slavo-Teutonic character of the struggle and the immunity of
British interests from detriment, whatever the outcome. But the British
Foreign Secretary went much further than this. He said:
If Germany became involved and France became involved, we had not
made up our minds what we should do; it was a case that we should
have to consider. France would then have been drawn into a quarrel
which was not hers, but in which, owing to her alliance, her honour
and interest obliged her to engage. We were free from engagements,
and we should have to decide what British interests required us to
do. I thought it necessary to say that, because, as he knew, we
were taking all precautions with regard to our fleet, and I was
about to warn Prince Lichnowsky not to count on our standing aside,
but it would not be fair that I should let M. Cambon be misled
into supposing that this meant that we had decided what to do in a
contingency that I still hoped might not arise.
This straight talk, coupled with the strenuous and insistent but
vain exertions of the British Foreign Secretary to get first Austria
and then Germany to stay their hand and accept full satisfaction and
absolute guarantees from Servia, constitute the cardinal facts in the
history of the origin of the present war. They furnish the measure of
our peace efforts and of our self-containment. And they also reveal the
two conspiring Powers working in secret concert, not, as was at first
assumed, to remove the causes of the conflict, but to immobilize the
Powers that were likely to take an active part in it. That is the clue
to what seemed inexplicable in their fitful and apparently incongruous
moves. Whenever Sir Edward Grey asked for an extension of time, for a
Conference of the Powers, or for any other facilities for settling the
Austro-Servian quarrel diplomatically, Germany and Austria were unable
to comply with his request. Would Vienna consent to lengthen the time
accorded to Servia for an answer? No, she was unable to do so. And in
this Germany backed her up as behoves a brilliant second. Dealings with
Belgrade, she held, must be effected expeditiously. And when Sir Edward
Grey proposed to the German Government that the Servian reply might be
used as a basis for conversations, the Imperial Chancellor _regrets_
that things have marched too rapidly!
I was sent for again to-day by the Imperial Chancellor (writes
Sir Edward Goschen), who told me that he regretted to state
that the Austro-Hungarian Government, to whom he had at once
communicated your opinion, had announced that _events had marched
too rapidly_, and that it was therefore _too late_ to act upon your
suggestion.[29]
Thus having first fixed the time-limit at forty-eight hours and then
refused to have it extended in order to allow time for a settlement,
Germany expresses her regret that it is too late to act on the
suggestion that a pause shall ensue to enable a peaceful arrangement to
be arrived at.
The cynicism embodied in this answer is curiously like the pleas for
mercy addressed by a young murderer to the jury before the verdict
was brought in. “I am an orphan,” he said, “and alone in a cold,
unsympathetic world. I can look neither to a father nor a mother to
advise, chide, or comfort me. May I hope that you at least will show me
pity and mercy?” A touching appeal it might well seem until read in
the light of the circumstance that he who made it was being tried for
the murder of both his parents.
With a prescience of the coming struggle which his own deliberate
manœuvres were meant to bring about, the Chancellor displayed keen and,
it was then believed, praiseworthy anxiety to impress our Government
with the sincerity of his desire and the strenuousness of his efforts
for peace.
From the fact that he (the Imperial Chancellor) had gone so far in
the matter of giving advice at Vienna, his Excellency hoped that
you would realize that he was sincerely doing all in his power to
prevent danger of European complications.
The fact of his communicating this information to you was a proof
of the confidence which he felt in you, and evidence of his
anxiety that you should know he was doing his best to support your
efforts in the cause of general peace, efforts which he sincerely
appreciated.
His Excellency was aware of the necessity of preparing the ground for
the next and most difficult move of all, and was providing for it in
his own way. It was a German Captatio benevolentiæ.