JUST FOR “A SCRAP OF PAPER”
“Just for neutrality--a word which in war-time had so often been
disregarded--just for a scrap of paper, Great Britain was going to make
war on a kindred nation.”
The frame of mind which generated this supreme unconcern for the
feelings of the Belgians, this matter-of-fact contempt for the
inviolability of a country’s plighted word, gives us the measure of
the abyss which sunders the old-world civilization, based on all that
is loftiest in Christianity, from modern German culture. From this
revolutionary principle, the right to apply which, however, is reserved
to Germany alone, radiate wholly new conceptions of right and wrong,
truth and falsehood, plain and double dealing, which are destructive of
the very groundwork of all organized society. Some forty or fifty years
ago it was a doctrine confined to Prussia of the Hohenzollerns: to-day
it is the creed of the Prussianized German Empire.
Frederic the Great practised it without scruple or shame. It was he
who, having given Maria Theresa profuse assurances of help should her
title to the Habsburg throne ever be questioned by any other State,
got together a powerful army as secretly as he could, invaded her
territory, and precipitated a sanguinary European war. Yet he had
guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian Empire. What were his motives?
He himself has avowed them openly: “ambition, interest, and a yearning
to move people to talk about me were the mainsprings of my action.” And
this wanton war was made without any formal declaration, without any
quarrel, without any grievance. He was soon joined by other Powers,
with whom he entered into binding engagements. But as soon as he was
able to conclude an advantageous peace with the Austrian Empress, he
abandoned his allies and signed a treaty. This document, like the
former one, he soon afterwards treated as a mere scrap of paper, and
again attacked the Austrian Empire. And this was the man who wrote a
laboured refutation of the pernicious teachings of Machiavelli, under
the title of “Anti-Machiavel”!
Now, Frederic the Great is the latter-day Germans’ ideal of a monarch.
His infamous practices were the concrete nucleus around which the
subversive Pan-Germanic doctrines of to-day gathered and hardened into
the political creed of a race. What the Hohenzollerns did for Prussia,
Prussia under the same Hohenzollerns has effected for Germany, where
not merely the Kaiser and his Government, or the officials, or the
officers of the army and navy, or the professors and the journalists,
but the clergy, the socialists, nay, all thinking classes of the
population, are infected with the virus of the fell Prussian disease
which threatens the old-world civilization with decomposition.
To this danger humanity cannot afford to be either indifferent or
lenient. It may and will be extremely difficult to extirpate the
malady, but the Powers now arrayed against aggressive and subversive
Teutonism should see to it that the nations affected shall be made
powerless to spread it.
The sheet-anchor of new Germany’s faith is her own exclusive right
to tear up treaties, violate agreements, and trample the laws of
humanity underfoot. To no other Power, however great its temptation,
however pressing its needs, is this privilege to be extended. Belgian
neutrality is but a word to be disregarded--by Germany; a solemn treaty
is but a scrap of paper to be flung into the basket--by Germany; but
woe betide any other Power who should venture to turn Germany’s methods
against herself! Now that Japan has begun operations against German
Tsingtao, the Kaiser’s Minister in Pekin promptly protested against the
alleged violation of Chinese neutrality which it involved. Sacred are
all those engagements by which Germany stands to gain some advantage,
and it is the duty of the civilized world to enforce them. All others
which are inconvenient to the Teuton he may toss aside as scraps of
paper.
To the threats that China would be held responsible for injury to
German property following on the Japanese operations, unless she
withstood the Japanese by force, the Pekin Government administered a
neatly worded lesson. If the Pekin Government, the Foreign Minister
replied, were to oppose the landing of the Japanese on the ground that
the territory in question belongs to China, it would likewise be
her duty to drive out the Germans for the same reason, Tsingtao also
being Chinese. Moreover, Tsingtao had only been leased to Germany for
a term of years, and, according to the scrap of paper, ought never to
have been fortified, seeing that this constituted a flagrant violation
of China’s neutrality. These arguments are unanswerable, even from
Germany’s point of view. But the Kaiser still maintains that he has
right on his side! Deutschland über Alles!
With a people whose reasoning powers show as little respect for the
laws of logic as their armies evince for the laws of humanity or their
press for truth, it would be idle to argue. Psychologically, however,
it is curious to observe the attitude of the body of German theologians
towards the scrap of paper. Psychologically, but also for a more direct
reason: because of the unwarranted faith which the British people are
so apt to place in the German people’s sense of truth and justice, and
more particularly in the fairmindedness of their clergy. Well, this
clergy, in its most eminent representatives, does indeed expend strong
adjectives in its condemnation--not of the Kaiser’s crime, but of
Belgian atrocities!
This is how German divines propound the rights and wrongs of the
Belgian episode to Evangelical Christians abroad:
Unnameable horrors have been committed against Germans living
peaceably abroad--against women and children, against wounded and
physicians--cruelties and shamelessness such as many a heathen
and Mohammedan war has not revealed. Are these the fruits, by
which the non-Christian peoples are to recognize whose disciples
the Christian nations are? Even the not unnatural excitement
of a people, whose neutrality--_already violated by our
adversaries--could under the pressure of implacable necessity_
not be respected, affords no excuse for inhumanities, nor does it
lessen the shame that such could take place in a land long ago
christianized.
If Ministers of the Gospel thus tamper with truth and ignore elementary
justice and humanity, can one affect surprise at the mischievous
inventions of professional journalists?
This strange blending of religion with mendacity, of culture with
humanity, of scientific truth with political subterfuge, reads like a
chapter in cerebral pathology. The savage military organism against
which a veritable crusade is now being carried on by the peace-loving,
law-abiding nations of Europe has been aptly characterized as “the
thing which all free civilization has learned to loathe like a
vampire: the conscienceless, ruthless, godless might of a self-centred
militarism, to which honour is a word, chivalry a weakness, and
bullying aggression the breath of life.”[37]
* * * * *
It is a relief to turn from the quibbles, subterfuges, and downright
falsehoods that characterize the campaign of German diplomacy to the
dignified message which the King-Emperor recently addressed to the
Princes and Peoples of that India which our enemies hoped would rise up
in arms against British rule.
TO THE PRINCES AND PEOPLES OF MY INDIAN EMPIRE:
During the past few weeks the peoples of my whole Empire at home
and overseas have moved with one mind and purpose to confront
and overthrow an unparalleled assault upon the continuity of
civilization and the peace of mankind.
The calamitous conflict is not of my seeking. My voice has been
cast throughout on the side of peace. My Ministers earnestly strove
to allay the causes of strife and to appease differences with which
my Empire was not concerned.
Had I stood aside when in defiance of pledges to which my Kingdom
was a party the soil of Belgium was violated, and her cities laid
desolate, when the very life of the French nation was threatened
with extinction, I should have sacrificed my honour and given to
destruction the liberties of my Empire and of mankind. I rejoice
that every part of the Empire is with me in this decision.
Paramount regard for treaty faith and the pledged word of rulers
and peoples is the common heritage of England and of India.
Among the many incidents that have marked the unanimous uprising of
the populations of my Empire in defence of its unity and integrity,
nothing has moved me more than the passionate devotion to my Throne
expressed both by my Indian subjects and by the Feudatory Princes
and the Ruling Chiefs of India, and their prodigal offers of their
lives and their resources in the cause of the Realm.
Their one-voiced demand to be foremost in the conflict has touched
my heart, and has inspired to the highest issues the love and
devotion which, as I well know, have ever linked my Indian subjects
and myself.
I recall to mind India’s gracious message to the British nation of
goodwill and fellowship, which greeted my return in February, 1912,
after the solemn ceremony of my Coronation Durbar at Delhi, and I
find in this hour of trial a full harvest and a noble fulfilment of
the assurance given by you that the destinies of Great Britain and
India are indissolubly linked.
The history of the Kaiser’s dealings with Belgium is but a single
episode in the long series of lessons taught us by German militarism,
with its two sets of weights and measures and its Asiatic maxims of
foreign policy. The paramount interest of this incident is to be
ascribed to the circumstance that it marks the central moment of the
collision between Germany and Britain. It also struck a keynote of
difference between the new Pan-Germanic code of morals and the old one
still common to the remainder of the human race. Lastly, it opened the
eyes of the purblind in this country and made them see at last.
Belgium and Luxemburg are neutral States, and all Europe is bound to
respect their neutrality. But this obligation in the case of Prussia
is made more sacred and more stringent still by the circumstance that
she herself is one of the guarantors of that neutrality. Not only is
she obliged to refrain from violating Belgian territory, but it is her
duty to hinder, with force if necessary, a breach by other nations.
This twofold obligation Germany set at naught, and then affected wonder
at the surprise of her neighbours. “By necessity we have occupied
Luxemburg, and perhaps have already entered Belgian territory,” the
Chancellor said calmly. “This is an infraction of international
law.... We are ... compelled to overrule the legitimate protest of the
Luxemburg and Belgian Governments. We shall repair the wrong we are
doing as soon as our military aims have been achieved.” Military aims
annul treaties, military necessities know no law, and the slaughter of
tens of thousands of peaceable citizens and the destruction of their
mediæval monuments constitute a wrong which “we Germans shall repair as
soon as our military aims are achieved.”
In such matter-of-fact way this German Bayard, as he once was called
by his English admirers, undertakes, if he be allowed to break two
promises, that he will make a third by way of compensation.
Not content with having brought six Powers into line against her
destructive doctrines and savage practices, Germany would fain throw
the blame for the war now on Great Britain, now on Russia. Here, again,
it is the Imperial Chancellor who propounds the thesis. On September
12th he sent the following curious statement to the Danish Press Bureau
for publication:--
The English Prime Minister, in his Guildhall speech, reserved to
England the rôle of protector of the smaller and weaker States, and
spoke about the neutrality of Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland
as being exposed to danger from the side of Germany. It is true
that we have broken Belgium’s neutrality because bitter necessity
compelled us to do so, but we promised Belgium full indemnity and
integrity if she would take account of this state of necessity.
If so, she would not have suffered any damage, as, for example,
Luxemburg. If England, as protector of the weaker States, had
wished to spare Belgium infinite suffering she should have advised
Belgium to accept our offer. England has not “protected” Belgium,
so far as we know; I wonder, therefore, whether it can really be
said that England is such a disinterested protector.
We knew perfectly well that the French plan of campaign involved
a march through Belgium to attack the unprotected Rhineland. Does
anyone believe England would have interfered to protect Belgian
freedom against France?
We have firmly respected the neutrality of Holland and Switzerland;
we have also avoided the slightest violation of the frontier of the
Dutch province of Limburg.
It is strange that Mr. Asquith only mentioned the neutrality
of Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland, but not that of the
Scandinavian countries. He might have mentioned Switzerland with
reference to France, but Holland and Belgium are situated close
to England on the opposite side of the Channel, and that is why
England is so concerned for the neutrality of these countries.
Why is Mr. Asquith silent about the Scandinavian countries? Perhaps
because he knows that it does not enter our head to touch these
countries’ neutrality; or would England possibly not consider
Denmark’s neutrality as a _noli me tangere_ for an advance in the
Baltic or for Russia’s warlike operations?
Mr. Asquith wishes people to believe that England’s fight against
us is a fight of freedom against might. The world is accustomed
to this manner of expression. In the name of freedom England,
with might and with the most recklessly egotistic policy, has
founded her mighty Colonial Empire, in the name of freedom she has
destroyed for a century the independence of the Boer Republics, in
the name of freedom she now treats Egypt as an English colony and
thereby violates international treaties and solemn promises, in the
name of freedom one after another of the Malay States is losing
its independence for England’s benefit, in the name of freedom she
tries, by cutting German cables, to prevent the truth being spread
in the world.
The English Prime Minister is mistaken. When England joined with
Russia and Japan against Germany she, with a blindness unique in
the history of the world, betrayed civilization and handed over
to the German sword the care of freedom for European peoples and
States.
The Germanistic conceptions of veracity and common honesty which this
plea reveals makes one feel the new air that breathes over every
department of the national cult--the air blowing from the borderland
between the sphere of high scientific achievement and primeval
barbarism. One is puzzled and amused by the solemn statement that if
Germany has ridden rough shod over the rights of Belgium, she has
committed no such breach of law against Holland, Denmark, and other
small states. “We have firmly respected the neutrality of Holland and
Switzerland.” It is as though an assassin should say: “True, I killed
Brown, whose money I needed sorely. But at least give me credit for not
having murdered Jones and Smith, who possess nothing that I could carry
away at present, and whose goodwill was essential to the success of my
stroke”!
The violation of Belgium’s neutrality was part of Germany’s plan
of campaign against France. This fact was known long ago. It was
implicitly confessed in the official answer given to Sir Edward
Goschen’s question on the subject. Yet on Sunday, August 2nd, the
German military Attaché in Brussels, in conversation with the Belgian
War Minister, exclaimed: “I cannot, for the life of me, understand
what you mean by mobilizing. Have you anything to fear? Is not your
neutrality guaranteed?” It was, but only by a scrap of paper. For a few
hours later the Belgian Government received the German ultimatum.[38]
On the following day Germany had begun to “hack her way” through
treaty rights and the laws of humanity. The document published by the
Chancellor is the mirror of German moral teaching and practice.
The reply to it, issued by the British Press Bureau, with the authority
of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, is worth reproducing:
“Does anyone believe,” asks the German Chancellor, “that England
would have interfered to protect Belgian freedom against France?”
The answer is that she would unquestionably have done so. Sir
Edward Grey, as recorded in the White Paper, asked the French
Government “whether it was prepared to engage to respect the
neutrality of Belgium so long as no other Power violates it.” The
French Government replied that they were resolved to respect it.
The assurance, it was added, had been given several times, and
formed the subject of conversation between President Poincaré and
the King of the Belgians.
The German Chancellor entirely ignores the fact that England took
the same line about Belgian neutrality in 1870 that she has taken
now. In 1870 Prince Bismarck, when approached by England on the
subject, admitted and respected the treaty obligations in relation
to Belgium. The British Government stands in 1914 as it stood in
1870; it is Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg who refused to meet us in
1914 as Prince Bismarck met us in 1870.
“NOT VERY TACTFUL.”
The Imperial Chancellor finds it strange that Mr. Asquith in his
Guildhall speech did not mention the neutrality of the Scandinavian
countries, and suggests that the reason for the omission was some
sinister design on England’s part. It is impossible for any public
speaker to cover the whole ground in each speech.
The German Chancellor’s reference to Denmark and other Scandinavian
countries can hardly be considered very tactful. With regard to
Denmark, the Danes are not likely to have forgotten the parts
played by Prussia and England respectively in 1863–4, when the
Kingdom of Denmark was dismembered. And the integrity of Norway
and Sweden was guaranteed by England and France in the Treaty of
Stockholm in 1855.
The Imperial Chancellor refers to the dealings of Great Britain
with the Boer Republics, and suggests that she has been false
therein to the cause of freedom.
Without going into controversies now happily past, we may recall
what General Botha said in the South African Parliament a few
days ago, when expressing his conviction of the righteousness
of Britain’s cause and explaining the firm resolve of the South
African Union to aid her in every possible way: “Great Britain had
given them a Constitution under which they could create a great
nationality, and had ever since regarded them as a free people and
as a sister State. Although there might be many who in the past had
been hostile towards the British flag, he could vouch for it that
they would ten times rather be under the British than under the
German flag.”
COLONIAL LOYALTY.
The German Chancellor is equally unfortunate in his references
to the “Colonial Empire.” So far from British policy having been
“recklessly egotistic,” it has resulted in a great rally of
affection and common interest by all the British Dominions and
Dependencies, among which there is not one which is not aiding
Britain by soldiers or other contributions or both in this war.
With regard to the matter of treaty obligations generally, the
German Chancellor excuses the breach of Belgian neutrality by
military necessity--at the same time making a virtue of having
respected the neutrality of Holland and Switzerland, and saying
that it does not enter his head to touch the neutrality of the
Scandinavian countries. A virtue which admittedly is only practised
in the absence of temptation from self-interest and military
advantage does not seem greatly worth vaunting.
To the Chancellor’s concluding statement that “To the German sword”
is entrusted “the care of freedom for European peoples and States,”
the treatment of Belgium is a sufficient answer.
Passing summarily in review the causes of the war touched upon in the
foregoing pages, the reader will have discerned that the true interest
of the story of the scrap of paper lies in the insight it affords the
world into the growth, spread, and popularization of the greatest
of human conceptions possible to a gifted people, whose religious
faith has been diverted to the wildest of political ideals and whose
national conscience has been fatally warped. For the Germans are a
highly dowered, virile race, capable, under favourable conditions,
of materially furthering the progress of humanity. In every walk of
science, art, and literature they have been in the van. Their poetry is
part of the world’s inheritance. Their philosophy at its highest level
touches that of ancient Greece. Their music is unmatched. In chemistry
and medicine they have laboured unceasingly and with results which will
never be forgotten. Into the dry bones of theology they have infused
the spirit of life and movement. In the pursuit of commerce they have
deployed a degree of ingenuity, suppleness, and enterprise which was
rewarded and may be summarized by the result that, during the twelve
years ending in 1906, their imports and exports increased by nearly one
hundred per cent.
But the national genius, of which those splendid achievements are
the fruits, has been yoked to the chariot of war in a cause which is
dissolvent of culture, trust, humanity, and of all the foundations
of organized society. That cause is the paramountcy of their race,
the elevation of Teutonism to the height occupied among mortals
by Nietzsche’s Over-man, whose will is the one reality, and whose
necessities and desires are above all law. Around this root-idea a vast
politico-racial system, partaking of the nature of a new religion, has
been elaborately built up by the non-German Prussians, and accepted
and assimilated by a docile people which was sadly deficient in the
political sense. And it is for the purpose of forcing this poisonous
creed and its corollaries upon Europe and the world that the most
tremendous war of history is now being waged. This remarkable movement
had long ago been studied and described by a few well-informed and
courageous British observers, but the true issues have been for the
first time revealed to the dullest apprehension by the historic episode
of the scrap of paper.
It is only fair to own that the Prussianized Germans have fallen from
their high estate, and become what they are solely in consequence of
the shifting of their faith from the spiritual to the political and
military sphere. Imbued with the new spirit, which is impatient of
truth when truth becomes an obstacle to success, as it is of law when
law becomes a hindrance to national aims, they have parted company with
morality to enlist in the service of a racial revival based on race
hatred. Pan-Germanism is a quasi-religious cult, and its upholders are
fanatics, persuaded of the righteousness of their cause, and resolved,
irrespective of the cost, to help it to triumph.
The non-German State, Prussia, was the bearer of this exclusively
Germanic “culture.” It fitted in with the set of the national mind,
which lacked political ideals. Austria, however, occupied a position
apart in this newest and most grandiose of latter-day religions. She
was but a tool in the hands of her mighty co-partner. “The future,”
wrote the national historian Treitschke, “belongs to Germany, with
whom Austria, if she desires to survive, must link herself.” And the
instinct of self-preservation determined her to throw in her lot with
Prussianized Germany. But even then, it is only fair to say that
Austria’s conception of her functions differed widely from that of
her overbearing Mentor. Composed of a medley of nationalities, she
eschewed the odious practice of denationalizing her Slav, Italian,
and Roumanian peoples in the interests of Teutondom. One and all they
were allowed to retain their language, cultivate their nationality,
and, when feasible, to govern themselves. But, congruously with the
subordinate rôle that fell to her, she played but a secondary part in
the preliminaries to the present conflict. Germany, who at first acted
as the unseen adviser, emerged at the second stage as principal.
We cannot too constantly remember the _mise en scène_ of the present
world-drama. Germany and Austria were dissatisfied with the Treaty
of Bucharest, and resolved to treat it as a contemptible scrap of
paper. They were to effect such a redistribution of territory as would
enable them to organize a Balkan Federation under their own auspices
and virtual suzerainty. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
offered them a splendid opening. On pretext of punishing the real
assassins and eradicating the causes of the evil, Austria was to
mutilate Servia and wedge her in among Germanophile Balkan States. The
plan was kept secret from every other Power, even from the Italian
ally--so secret, indeed, that the Russian Ambassador in Vienna was
encouraged to take leave of absence, just when the ultimatum was about
to be presented, which he did. The German Kaiser, while claiming to
be a mere outsider, as uninitiated as everybody else, was a party to
the drafting of the ultimatum, which, according to his own Ministers,
went the length of demanding of Servia the impossible. That document
was avowedly intended to provoke armed resistance, and when it was
rumoured that the Serbs were about to accept it integrally, Austrians
and Germans were dismayed. It was the Kaiser himself who had the
time-limit for an answer cut down to forty-eight hours in order to
hinder diplomatic negociations; and it was the Kaiser’s Ministers who,
having had Sir Edward Grey’s conciliatory proposals rejected, expressed
their sincere regret that, owing to the shortness of the time-limit,
they had come too late.
When the Belgrade Government returned a reply which was fitted to serve
as a basis for an arrangement, it was rejected by the Austrian Minister
almost before he could have read it through. While the Kaiser in his
letter to the Tsar, and the Imperial Chancellor in his talks with our
Ambassador, were lavishing assurances that they were working hard to
hold Austria back, the German Ambassador in Vienna, through whom they
were thus claiming to put pressure on their ally, was openly advocating
war with Servia, and emphatically declaring that Russia would have to
stand aside. At the same moment Germany’s military preparations were
secretly being pushed forward. But Austria, perceiving at last that the
Germans’ estimate of Russia’s weakness was unfounded, and she herself
faced with the nearing perils of an awful conflict with the great
Slav Empire, drew back and agreed to submit the contentious points
to mediation. Thereupon Germany sprang forward, and, without taking
the slightest account of the Servian question, presented twelve-hour
ultimatums to Russia and to France. Thus the thin pretension that she
was but an ally, bound by the sacredness of treaty obligations to help
her assailed co-partner, was cynically thrown aside, and she stood
forth in her true colours as the real aggressor.
In her forecast of the war which she had thus deliberately brought
about the sheet-anchor of her hope of success was Great Britain’s
neutrality. And on this she had built her scheme. Hence her solicitude
that, at any rate, this postulate should not be shaken. Her infamous
offer to secure it was one of the many expedients to which her Kaiser
and his statesmen had recourse. But they had misread the British
character. Their fatal misjudgment marks the fundamental divergence
in ethical thought and feeling between the “culture” of Teutonism and
the old-world civilization represented by Great Britain. They lack the
ethical sense with which to perceive the motives which inspired the
attitude of this country. They are able to understand and appreciate
a war of revenge or a war of conquest, but they are incapable of
conceiving the workings of a national mind which can undertake a costly
and bloody war merely to uphold the sacredness of a treaty--a war for a
mere scrap of paper.
In engineering this war of wanton aggression Germany committed one
capital mistake--a result of the atrophy of her moral sense: she
failed to gauge the ethical soul of the British people. She neither
anticipated nor adequately prepared for the adhesion of Great Britain
to France and Russia. And to ward off this peril when it became
visible she was ready to make heavy sacrifices--for the moment. One
of these was embodied in the promise not to annex any portion of
French territory. But here, again, this undertaking would not have
hindered her from encouraging Italy to incorporate Nice and Savoy,
as an inducement to lend a hand in the campaign. Her assumption that
England would not budge was based largely on the impending civil war
in Ireland, the trouble caused by the suffragettes, the spread of
disaffection in India and Egypt, and above all on the paramountcy of a
Radical peace party in Great Britain which was firmly opposed to war,
loathed Russian autocracy, and contemplated with dismay the prospect
of Russian victories. These favourable influences were then reinforced
by the vague promise to conclude a convention of neutrality with Great
Britain at some future time on lines to be worked out later, by the
undertaking to abstain from _annexing_ French territory in Europe,
and at last by the German Ambassador’s suggestion that the British
Government should itself name the price at which Britain’s neutrality
during the present war and her connivance at a deliberate breach of
treaty could be purchased.
That all these promises and promises of promises should have proved
abortive, and that Austria and Germany should have to take on France,
Russia, and Great Britain when they hoped to be able to confine their
attentions to little Servia, was gall and wormwood to the Kaiser’s
shifty advisers. For it constituted a superlatively bad start for
the vaster campaign, of which the Servian Expedition was meant to
be but the early overture. A new start already seems desirable, and
overtures for the purpose of obtaining it were made by the German
Ambassador at Washington, who suggested that the war should be called
a draw and terms of peace suggested by Great Britain. But the allies
had already bound themselves to make no separate peace, and their
own interests oblige them to continue the campaign until Prussian
militarism and all that it stands for have been annihilated. None the
less, it is nowise improbable that as soon as the allies have scored
such successes as may seem to bar Germany’s way to final and decisive
victory, she may endeavour, through the good offices of the United
States, to obtain peace on such terms as would allow her to recommence
her preparations on a vaster scale than ever before, amend her schemes,
correct her mistakes, and make a fresh start when her resources become
adequate to the magnitude of her undertaking. And if the allies were
ill-advised or sluggish enough to close with any such offers, they
would be endeavouring to overtake their Fate and to deserve it. What
would a peace treaty be worth, one may ask, as an instrument of moral
obligation if the nation which is expected to abide by it treats it on
principle as a scrap of paper? There can be no peace except a permanent
peace, and that can be bought only by demolishing the organization
which compelled all Europe to live in a state of latent warfare. As Mr.
Lloyd George tersely put it: “If there are nations that say they will
only respect treaties when it is to their interests to do so, we must
make it to their interests to do so.” And until we have accomplished
this there can be no thought of slackening our military and naval
activity.
One word more about German methods. Intelligent co-ordination of all
endeavours and their concentration on one and the same object is
the essence of their method and the secret of their success. German
diplomacy is cleverly and continuously aided by German journalism,
finance, industry, commerce, literature, art, and--religion. Thus,
when the Government think it necessary, and therefore right, to break
an international convention, violate the laws of war, or declare a
treaty a mere scrap of paper, they charge the State on whose rights
they are preparing to trespass with some offence which would explain
and palliate, if not justify, their illegality. It was thus that the
German Secretary of State, when asked by our Ambassador whether the
neutrality of Belgium would be respected, said evasively that certain
hostile acts had already been committed by Belgium--i.e. before the
end of July! In the same way, tales of Belgian cruelty towards German
soldiers and German _women_--as though these, too, had invaded King
Albert’s dominions--were disseminated to palliate the crimes against
Louvain, Malines, and Termonde. And now Great Britain is accused of
employing dum-dum bullets by the Kaiser, whose soldiers take hostages
and execute them, put Belgian women and children in the first firing
line, whose sailors are laying mines in the high seas, and whose most
honest statesmen are industriously disseminating deliberate forgeries
among neutral peoples. Prince Bülow, the ex-Chancellor, in an appeal to
civilized peoples for their sympathy with Germany in this iniquitous
war, operates with the forged speech mendaciously attributed to Mr.
John Burns, in which England is accused of having assailed Germany from
behind out of brutal jealousy and perpetrated the crime of high treason
against the white races!
The present Imperial Chancellor, von Bethmann Hollweg, reputed to be
the most veracious public man in Germany, has quite recently issued
a memorial for the purpose of substantiating the charges of atrocity
levelled against Belgians as a set-off to German savagery in Louvain,
Malines, and elsewhere. The Chancellor relies upon the evidence of one
Hermann Consten, a Swiss subject and a member of the Swiss Red Cross
Society, a gentleman, therefore, whose political disinterestedness
entitles him to be heard, and whose presence at Liége during the siege
is an adequate voucher for his excellent source of information.
But inquiry has elicited the facts that the description of this witness
given by the honest Chancellor is wholly untrue. The Chief of Police at
Basle, in Switzerland, has since testified that Consten is a German,
that he conducted a German agency in Basle which is believed to have
been an espionage concern, that he was charged with fraud, and after
a judicial inquiry expelled from Switzerland on September 10th, that
he was under police surveillance for two years, that he is not a Swiss
subject, nor a member of the Red Cross Society, and that, as he resided
in Switzerland during all the time that the siege of Liége was going
on, he could not have seen any of the atrocities he alleges.[39]
When the Chief of a Government descends to slippery expedients like
these to find extenuating circumstances for acts of fiendish savagery
that have staggered the world, he is unwittingly endorsing the judgment
against which he would fain appeal. And if Germany’s most veracious
statesman has no scruple to palm off barefaced lies on American and
European neutrals, what is one to think of the less truth-loving
apostles of Prussian culture?
What we in Great Britain have to expect from Germany, if now or at any
future time the anti-Christian cultural religion and inhuman maxims on
which her military creed rests get the upper hand, has been depicted
in vivid colours by Germans of all professions and political parties.
_Delenda est Carthago._ But the very mildest and fairest of all these
writers may be quoted to put us on our guard. Professor Ostwald, the
well-known German chemist, is a pacifist, a man opposed on principle
to war. In a document addressed to American pacifists for their
enlightenment as to the aims and scope of the present contest, this
bitter adversary of all militarism makes an exception in favour of that
of his own country. An enthusiast for civilization, he would gladly see
that of the British Empire destroyed. He writes:
According to the course of the war up to the present time, European
peace seems to me nearer than ever before. We pacifists must only
understand that, unhappily, the time was not yet sufficiently
developed to establish peace by the peaceful way. If Germany,
as everything now seems to make probable, is victorious in the
struggle not only with Russia and France, but attains the further
end of destroying the source from which for two or three centuries
all European strifes have been nourished and intensified, namely,
the English policy of World Dominion, then will Germany, fortified
on one side by its military superiority, on the other side by the
eminently peaceful sentiment of the greatest part of its people,
and especially of the German Emperor, dictate peace to the rest of
Europe. I hope especially that the future treaty of peace will in
the first place provide effectually that a European war such as the
present can never again break out.
I hope, moreover, that the Russian people, after the conquest of
their armies, will free themselves from Tsarism through an internal
movement by which the present political Russia will be resolved
into its natural units, namely, Great Russia, the Caucasus, Little
Russia, Poland, Siberia, and Finland, to which probably the Baltic
Provinces would join themselves. These, I trust, would unite
themselves with Finland and Sweden, and perhaps with Norway and
Denmark, into a Baltic Federation, which _in close connection with
Germany_ would ensure European peace and especially form a bulwark
against any disposition to war which might remain in Great Russia.
For the other side of the earth I predict a similar development
under the leadership of the United States. I assume that the
English Dominion will suffer a downfall similar to that which I
have predicted for Russia, and that under these circumstances
Canada would join the United States, the expanded republic
assuming a certain leadership with reference to the South American
Republics.
_The principle of the absolute sovereignty of the individual
nations_, which in the present European tumult has proved itself so
inadequate and baneful, must be given up and replaced by a system
conforming to the world’s actual conditions, and especially to
those political and economic relations which determine industrial
and cultural progress and the common welfare.[40]
The peace which this distinguished pacifist is so eager to establish on
a stable basis can only be attained by the “mailed fist,” fortified on
one side by its military superiority, and on the other by the eminently
peaceful sentiment of the German Emperor. And the means to be employed
are the utter destruction of the British Empire and the break-up of
Russia into small States under German suzerainty. This is a powerful
wrench, but it is not all. The “absolute sovereignty of the individual
nations is to be made subordinate to Germany in Europe, and, lest
Americans should find fault with the arrangements, to the United States
on the new Continent.”[41]
No peace treaty with a nation which openly avows and cynically pursues
such aims as these by methods, too, which have been universally branded
as infamous, would be of any avail. It is essential to the well being
of Europe and the continuity of human progress that the political
Antichrist, who is waging war against both, shall be vanquished, and
that peace shall be concluded only when Prussianized Germany has been
reduced to a state of political, military, and naval impotency.
APPENDIX
DIPLOMACY AND THE WAR
THE RUSSIAN ORANGE BOOK
(_From “The Morning Post,” September 21st, 1914_)
Under the title of “Recueil de Documents Diplomatiques. Négociations
ayant précédé la guerre,” the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs
has published at St. Petersburg an important Orange Book giving full
details of the diplomatic negociations which preceded the war. Although
dated August 6th (July 24th Old Style), it only reached London last
evening. The first document is a telegram from M. Strandtman, the
Russian Chargé d’Affaires at Belgrade, under date July 23rd, in which
he informs the Minister for Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg that the
Austrian Minister has just sent to M. Patchou, who is representing
M. Pasitch, the Servian Minister of Finance, at six o’clock in
the evening, an ultimatum from his Government, fixing a delay of
forty-eight hours for the acceptance of the demands contained in it.
M. Pasitch and the other Ministers, who were away on an electioneering
tour, had been communicated with, and were expected to return to
Belgrade on Friday morning. M. Patchou added that he asked the aid
of Russia, and declared that no Servian Government would be able to
accept the demands of Austria. The same day M. Strandtman telegraphed
to his Government, stating what were the alleged grievances of the
Austro-Hungarian Government against Servia. The Servian Government was
to suppress the “criminal and terrorist” propaganda directed against
Austria with a view to detaching from the Dual Monarchy the territories
composing part of it. Servia was called upon to publish on the first
page of the Servian “Official Journal” of July 13th a notice to this
effect, while expressing regret for the fatal consequences of these
“criminal proceedings.”
AUSTRIA’S IMPOSSIBLE DEMANDS.
Moreover, the Servian Government was to undertake (1) to suppress
all publications designed to excite people to hatred and contempt of
the Austrian Monarchy; (2) to dissolve at once the “Narodna Odbrana”
Society; (3) to eliminate from the curriculum of the public schools
anything tending to foment an anti-Austrian propaganda; (4) to dismiss
military and civil officers guilty of similar propaganda; (5) to accept
the collaboration of Austria in the suppression of the said “subversive
movement”; (6) to open a judicial inquiry against the partisans of the
conspiracy of June 28th still in Servia; (7) to arrest Commandant Voija
Tankositch and Milan Ciganovitch, a Servian official; (8) to prevent
illicit traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier, and dismiss
and punish severely the Servian officials at the Schabatz-Loznica
frontier guilty of having helped the authors of the crime of Sarajevo
by facilitating their passage across the frontier; (9) to give the
Austrian Government explanations as to the declarations hostile to
Austria made by high Servian officials in interviews after the crime
of June 28th; (10) to advise the Austrian Government without delay
that the above demands have been complied with. To these demands a
satisfactory reply must be given at latest by Saturday, July 25th,
at six o’clock in the evening. On the following day, July 24th, the
Minister for Foreign Affairs at St. Petersburg sent a telegram to the
Russian Chargé d’Affaires at Belgrade, in which he pointed out that the
communication of the Austrian Government gave a wholly insufficient
length of time to the Powers for dealing with the complications which
had arisen. In order to guard against the incalculable consequences,
which were equally serious for all the Powers, that might follow from
the action of the Austrian Government, it was indispensable first
of all that the delay accorded to Servia should be extended. At the
same time M. Sazonoff despatched an identical message to the Russian
Ambassadors in England, France, Germany, and Italy, in which he said he
hoped that the Governments to which they were accredited would support
the Russian Government in the view that it took.
SERVIA’S POSITION.
The Prince Regent of Servia, on the same date, July 24th, wrote to
the Emperor of Russia a letter, in which, after referring to the
Austrian Note, he said that Servia, recognizing its international
duties, at the very first opportunity after the horrible crime,
declared that it condemned that crime and was ready to open an inquiry
if the complicity of certain Servian subjects should be proved in
the course of the investigations made by the Austrian authorities.
“However,” he continued, “the demands contained in the Austrian Note
are unnecessarily humiliating to Servia and incompatible with her
dignity as an independent State. We are ready to accept those Austrian
conditions which are compatible with the position of a sovereign State
as well as any which your Majesty may advise us to accept, and all
the persons whose participation in the crime shall be demonstrated
will be severely punished by us. Among the demands made by Austria
are some which could not be satisfied without certain changes in our
legislation, which would require time.”
On July 25th the Russian Chargé d’Affaires at Belgrade, in a telegram
to his Government, which did not reach Petrograd till July 27th, sent
a copy of the Servian reply to the Austrian demands, in which it
was stated that Servia had many times given proofs of a pacific and
moderate policy during the Balkan crisis. The Servian Government could
not accept responsibility for manifestations of a private character
such as were contained in newspaper articles and the peaceful work of
societies, manifestations which take place in nearly all countries in
the ordinary way, and which are not subject to official control. The
Servian Government had been painfully surprised at the allegations to
the effect that certain persons in Servia had taken part in preparing
the crime at Sarajevo.
ASSURANCES AND CONCESSIONS.
The Servian Government proceeded to repeat its assurance that it was
willing to make all efforts to find out the guilty without regard to
rank or station, and to punish them for any complicity in that crime;
further, the Servian Government transmitted a long announcement, which
it undertook to publish on the front page of the _Journal Officiel_
of July 26th. It was largely based upon the Austrian demands, and
undertook, while formally repudiating all idea of interfering in
Austrian affairs, to warn its civil and military authorities, as well
as the entire population of the Kingdom, that it would proceed with the
utmost severity against all persons who should be guilty of such acts.
The Government undertook besides to introduce at the first sitting of
the Skupschtina a Press Law enacting severe penalties for any attempt
to excite the people to hatred and contempt of the Austrian Monarchy,
and it promised that at the forthcoming revision of the Constitution
Article 22 should be amended in such a way that such publications
could be confiscated, which under the existing law was impossible. The
Government did not possess any proof, and the Note of the Austrian
Government did not furnish any proof, that the Narodna Odbrana Society
and other similar associations had committed any criminal act.
Nevertheless, the Servian Government would accept the demand of the
Austrian Government, and would dissolve the Narodna Odbrana Society and
any other society which might act in a manner hostile to Austria. Other
points on which the Servian Government offered to meet the Austrian
demands were the elimination from the curriculum of the Servian public
elementary schools of any propaganda against Austria which could be
shown to exist, and to dismiss from the Servian service any officers
who might be shown to have been guilty of acts directed against the
integrity of Austrian territory.
The Servian Government, while protesting that it did not clearly
understand the sense and the tendency of the demand of the Austrian
Government that it should accept upon its territory the collaboration
of the Austrian Government, declared that it was ready to admit
any collaboration consistent with the principles of international
law and criminal procedure, as well as with neighbourly relations.
The Government considered it its duty to open a judicial inquiry
with regard to the conspiracy of June 28th, but could not accept
the participation of Austrian delegates, as this would involve the
violation of the Servian Constitution. On the very evening, however,
of the receipt of the Austrian Note the Government proceeded to arrest
Commandant Voija Tankositch. With regard to Milan Ciganovitch, who was
an Austrian subject, they had not been able to find him. The Government
would undertake to extend the measures taken to prevent the illicit
traffic in arms and explosives across the frontier, and would at once
order an inquiry and punish severely the frontier officials on the line
Schabatz-Loznica who neglected their duty by permitting the passage of
the authors of the crime of Sarajevo. The Government would willingly
give explanations as to the opinions expressed by its agents after
the crime, as soon as the Austrian Government would communicate the
statements in question and show that they had really been made. “In
case,” it was added, “the Austrian Government should not be satisfied
with this reply, the Servian Government, considering that it is to
the common interest not to precipitate a solution of this question,
is ready, as at all times, to accept a pacific understanding, while
remitting this question to the decision either of the International
Tribunal of The Hague or to the Great Powers which took part in the
elaboration of the declaration which the Servian Government made on
March 31st, 1909.”
GERMANY’S DUTIES.
On July 23rd the Russian Chargé d’Affaires in Paris telegraphed to
the Minister of Foreign Affairs in St. Petersburg: “To-day a morning
newspaper publishes in a form not entirely accurate the declarations
made yesterday by the German Ambassador, following them up with
commentaries representing them in the light of a threat. The German
Ambassador, much impressed by these revelations, paid a visit to-day
to the Acting Director of the Political Department, and informed him
that his words did not bear the construction put upon them. He declared
that Austria had presented its Note to Servia without any precise
understanding with Berlin, but that nevertheless Germany approved the
point of view of Austria, and that certainly ‘the arrow once shot’
(these were his exact words) Germany could only be guided by its duties
as an ally.”
M. Sazonoff on July 26th telegraphed to the Russian Ambassador at Rome
the following significant words: “Italy could play a rôle of the first
importance in favour of the maintenance of peace by exercising the
necessary influence on Austria and adopting an unfavourable attitude
towards the conflict, for that conflict could not be localized. It is
desirable that you should express the conviction that it is impossible
for Russia not to come to the assistance of Servia.”
On the same day that this was written the Acting Russian Consul at
Prague telegraphed to St. Petersburg the news that the mobilization in
Austria-Hungary had been decreed.
A number of documents follow which do not deal with matters that are
not more or less public property, although incidentally they show how
strenuously Sir Edward Grey was working for peace.
AUSTRIA’S LAST WORD.
Even so late as July 28th the Russian Ambassador at Vienna was still
seeking a _modus vivendi_. In a telegram of that date to his Minister
for Foreign Affairs he related how he had seen Count Berchtold, and
told him in the most friendly terms how desirable it was to find a
solution which, while consolidating the good relations between Austria
and Russia, would give the Austrian Monarchy serious guarantees with
regard to its future relations with Servia. Count Berchtold replied
that he was perfectly aware of the gravity of the situation and of the
advantages of a frank explanation with the Cabinet of St. Petersburg.
On the other hand, he declared that the Austrian Government, which
had taken energetic measures against Servia much against the grain,
could no longer back out or submit to discussion any of the terms of
the Austrian Note. Count Berchtold added that the crisis had become so
acute, and public opinion had become so excited, that the Government
could not consent to do this even if it would, the more so as the
Servian reply afforded proof of a want of sincerity in its promises for
the future.
DECEPTIVE REPRESENTATIONS.
On July 29th the Russian Ambassador in France sent to his Government a
telegram saying: “Germany declares that it is necessary to exercise a
moderating influence at St. Petersburg. This sophistry has been refuted
at Paris, as at London. At Paris Baron de Schoen has in vain tried to
get France to join with Germany in pressing on Russia the necessity of
maintaining peace. The same attempts have been made at London. In both
capitals the reply was that such action ought to be taken at Vienna,
because the excessive demands of Austria, her refusal to discuss the
slight reserves made by Servia, and her declaration of war against that
country threatened to provoke a general war.”
On July 30th the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs made to the
German Ambassador in St. Petersburg the following declaration, urging
that it should be transmitted without delay to Berlin: “If Austria,
recognizing that the Austro-Servian question has assumed the character
of a European question, declares itself ready to eliminate from its
ultimatum the points directed against the sovereign rights of Servia,
Russia undertakes to cease her military preparations.”
SUMMING UP THE POSITION.
_Communiqué_ from the Minister of Foreign Affairs concerning the events
of the last few days.
August 2nd, 1914.
A statement distorting the events of recent days having appeared in
the foreign Press, the Minister of Foreign Affairs holds it to be
his duty to publish the following _aperçu_ respecting the diplomatic
negociations that have taken place during the period above mentioned.
On July 23rd the Austro-Hungarian Minister at Belgrade presented to
the Servian Minister-President a Note in which the Servian Government
was accused of having favoured the pan-Servian movement which had
resulted in the assassination of the Heir to the Austro-Hungarian
Throne. Consequently Austria-Hungary demanded of the Servian Government
that it should not alone formally (_sous une forme solennelle_)
condemn the aforementioned propaganda, but further, under the control
of Austria-Hungary, should take sundry measures with the object of
bringing to light the plot, punishing those Servian subjects who had
taken part in it, and ensuring in the future the prevention of any such
outrage within the Kingdom. The Servian Government was allowed a period
of forty-eight hours in which to reply to this Note.
The Imperial Government, to whom the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at
St. Petersburg had communicated the text of the Note seventeen hours
after it had been sent to Belgrade, having taken cognizance of the
demands therein contained, was forced to recognize that some of them
were fundamentally impossible of execution, while others were presented
in a form incompatible with the dignity of an independent State.
Holding as inadmissible the lowering of Servia’s dignity involved in
these demands, also the inclination of Austria-Hungary to ensure its
preponderance in the Balkans displayed in these same requirements,
the Russian Government pointed out in the most friendly manner to
Austria-Hungary the desirability of submitting the points contained in
the Austro-Hungarian Note to fresh examination. The Austro-Hungarian
Government did not think it possible to consent to any discussion
respecting the Note. The pacific action of the other Powers at Vienna
met with a like non-success.
SERVIA’S READINESS TO GIVE SATISFACTION.
Despite the fact that Servia had denounced the crime and had shown
herself ready to give satisfaction to Austria to an extent exceeding
that foreseen not only by Russia but also by the other Powers, the
Austro-Hungarian Minister at Belgrade considered the Servian reply
insufficient and left that city.
Recognizing the exaggerated nature of the demands presented by Austria,
Russia had already declared that it would be impossible for her to
remain indifferent, but at the same time without refusing to use all
her efforts to discover a peaceful issue which should be acceptable
to Austria and should spare its _amour propre_ as a Great Power. At
the same time Russia firmly declared that a peaceful solution of
the question could only be admitted on a basis which should imply
no diminution of the dignity of Servia as an independent State.
Unfortunately all the efforts of the Imperial Government in this
direction remained without effect.
AUSTRIA’S REFUSAL OF MEDIATION.
The Austro-Hungarian Government, after having rejected all conciliatory
intervention on the part of the Powers in its dispute with Servia,
proceeded to mobilize; war was officially declared against Servia,
and on the following day Belgrade was bombarded. The manifesto which
accompanied the declaration of war openly accuses Servia of having
prepared and carried out the crime of Sarajevo. This accusation,
involving as it does an entire people and a whole State in a crime
against the common law, by its evident inanity served to enlist on
behalf of Servia the broad sympathies of Europe.
RUSSIA’S MOBILIZATION.
In consequence of this method of action by the Austro-Hungarian
Government, despite Russia’s declaration that she would not remain
indifferent to Servia’s fate, the Imperial Government deemed it
necessary to order the mobilization of the military circumscriptions
of Kieff, Odessa, Moscow, and Kazan. This decision was necessary
because since the date of the sending of the Austro-Hungarian Note to
the Servian Government and Russia’s first intervention five days had
elapsed; nevertheless, the Viennese Cabinet had taken no steps to meet
our pacific efforts. On the contrary, the mobilization of half the
Austro-Hungarian Army had been decreed.
The German Government was informed of the measures taken by Russia;
it was at the same time explained that these measures were simply the
consequence of Austria’s arming and were in no way directed against
Germany. The Imperial Government declared that Russia was ready to
continue the _pourparlers_ with a view to a pacific solution of the
dispute, either by means of direct negociations with the Viennese
Cabinet, or, in accordance with the proposals of Great Britain, by a
conference of the four Great Powers not directly interested, namely,
England, France, Germany, and Italy.
This effort on the part of Russia also failed. Austria-Hungary declined
a further exchange of views with us, and the Viennese Cabinet renounced
participation in the projected conference of the Powers.
RUSSIA’S EFFORTS FOR PEACE.
Russia nevertheless did not cease her efforts in favour of peace.
Replying to the German Ambassador’s question, on what conditions
we would suspend our warlike preparations, the Minister of Foreign
Affairs said the conditions were that Austria-Hungary should recognize
that the dispute with Servia had become a European question, and that
Austria-Hungary should not insist on demands incompatible with the
sovereign rights of Servia. Russia’s proposition was judged by Germany
to be unacceptable on the part of Austria-Hungary, and simultaneously
St. Petersburg received news of the proclamation of a general
mobilization in Austria-Hungary. Meanwhile hostilities on Servian
territory continued, and there was a renewed bombardment of Belgrade.
The non-success of our pacific proposals obliged us to increase our
military precautions. The Cabinet of Berlin having addressed to us a
question on the subject, the reply was made that Russia was forced to
begin arming in order to be prepared against all eventualities. While
taking these precautions Russia continued to seek to the utmost of her
ability for an issue out of the situation, and declared herself ready
to accept any solution consistent with the conditions she had already
laid down.
In spite of this conciliatory communication the German Government, on
July 31st, addressed to the Russian Government, a demand that they
should suspend their military measures by midday on August 1st. At
the same time the German Government threatened that if Russia did
not comply they would order a general mobilization. On August 1st
the German Ambassador, in the name of his Government, transmitted a
declaration of war to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
TELEGRAM TO RUSSIAN AMBASSADORS.
On August 2nd the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs sent the
following telegram to the representatives of his country abroad:
“It is quite clear that Germany is trying to throw upon us the
responsibility for the rupture. Our mobilization is due to the enormous
responsibility that we should have assumed if we had not taken all
precautions at a time when Austria, confining her negociations to
dilatory _pourparlers_, was bombarding Belgrade and carrying out a
general mobilization. His Majesty the Emperor had given his word to
the German Emperor not to undertake any aggressive act as long as the
discussions with Austria should last. After such a guarantee and all
the proofs which Russia had given of her love of peace, Germany had
no right to doubt our declaration that we would accept with joy any
peaceful issue compatible with the dignity and independence of Servia.
Any other course, while completely incompatible with our own dignity,
would have shaken the European equilibrium and assured the hegemony
of Germany. The European, even world-wide, character of the conflict
is infinitely more important than the pretext on which it has been
commenced. By her declaration of war against us while negociations
were going on between the Powers, Germany has assumed a heavy
responsibility.”
AUSTRIA’S DECLARATION OF WAR.
The Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at St. Petersburg remitted to the
Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs the subjoined note at six o’clock
on the evening of August 6th:
“By order of his Government, the undersigned Ambassador of
Austria-Hungary has the honour to notify to his Excellency as follows:
Considering the menacing attitude of Russia in relation to the conflict
between the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and Servia, and in view of the
fact that as a result of this conflict Russia, after a communication
from the Cabinet of Berlin, has thought right to begin hostilities
against Germany, which consequently finds itself in a state of war with
Russia, Austria-Hungary, from the present moment considers herself
equally in a state of war with Russia.”
_Printed in Great Britain by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.
London and Aylesbury.--1414759_
FOOTNOTES
[1] Cf. _Westminster Gazette_, September 9th, 1914.
[2] Cf. Sir M. de Bunsen’s supplementary despatch, which is reproduced
in full on pp. 129–140.
[3] “The Price of a German-English Entente.” By Professor Hans
Delbrück. (February, 1911.)
[4] “Solange es Herrn Dillon erlaubt sein wird, in der _Contemporary
Review_ über deutsche Politik seine aus Hass und Argwohn erzeugten
Phantasien vorzutragen, solange arbeiten umsonst, die da glauben, dass
durch Schiedsverträge der Frieden zwischen unsern Nationen gesichert
werden könne.”--_Preussische Jahrbücher, Mai, 1911._
[5] Cf. _Westminster Gazette_, September 14th.
[6] There is prima facie evidence for the statement that labour
strikes were being actually engineered in Russia during the crisis
which culminated in the present war by agents supplied with money from
Germany. I cannot fairly say that this has been proven.
[7] I understand that this was one of the modifications which the
Kaiser himself made in the Austrian ultimatum. I know that he also
altered something in that document, and made it sharper than was at
first intended.
[8] I endeavoured to draw the friendly attention of the French
Government to these striking defects in an unsigned article which I
published at the time.
[9] _Contemporary Review_, October, 1911, p. 569.
[10] _Contemporary Review_, January, 1912, p. 111.
[11] _Contemporary Review_, January, 1912, p. 114.
[12] _Contemporary Review_, April, 1912, p. 566.
[13] _Contemporary Review_, April, 1914, p. 571–2.
[14] One of my last articles on this subject appeared in the July issue
of the _Contemporary Review_.
[15] The general strike, accompanied in places by riots, a few months
ago.
[16] _Contemporary Review_, July, 1914, p. 122–128.
[17] _Daily Telegraph_, July 25th, 1914.
[18] Cf. Sir M. de Bunsen’s Despatch, July 29th, to Sir Edward Grey,
with White Paper.
[19] Ibidem.
[20] Cf. White Paper. Sir M. de Bunsen’s Despatch, July 30th.
[21] White Paper. Sir M. de Bunsen’s Despatch, July 30th.
[22] See White Paper. Despatch sent by Sir G. Buchanan, July 30th.
[23] White Paper. Despatch sent by the British Ambassador in St.
Petersburg, dated July 27th.
[24] Sir Edward Grey’s Despatch, July 29th.
[25] Cf. Sir M. de Bunsen’s Despatch dated London, Sept 1st.
[26] The Kaiser was then addressing his soldiers.
[27] Monday, August 3rd.
[28] Friday, July 31st, 1914.
[29] White Paper. Despatch of British Ambassador in Berlin, dated July
29th.
[30] White Paper. Sir G. Buchanan’s Despatch, July 30th.
[31] July 29th.
[32] White Paper. Sir Edward Goschen’s Despatch, July 29th.
[33] Literally “danger of war.”
[34] July 31st.
[35] July 31st.
[36] August 1st.
[37] _Daily Telegraph._
[38] _Le Soir_, August 9th; _La Metropole_, August 8th, 1914.
[39] _Westminster Gazette_, September 22nd.
[40] _Westminster Gazette_, September 18th.
[41] Ibidem.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.