DIPLOMATIC METHODS: A COMPARISON
Diplomacy had succeeded in keeping the peace on two former occasions.
In Western Europe it was believed that it would be successful again.
Austria’s intention of going to war was not regarded as serious. The
European financier especially could not bring himself to believe in
war. Some of the ablest men in Europe sat in the open-air café on
the Ringstrasse, unable to close an eye in sleep for fear that they
should miss news of supreme importance and not be there to “cover” at
the critical moment. At two in the morning the great houses on either
side of the street shook as the motors carrying the big guns rumbled
past the café. They were taken off at dead of night and deposited on
the low-lying ground near the Danube. Next morning the great gun was
taken to pieces. One half of the immense engine of destruction was
slung on big hooks on a frame made for the purpose. It looked like a
great hollow cradle that would have provided sleeping accommodation
for a couple of men as it swirled and rocked when the train took a
steep gradient. “Why have they brought out their big guns, which are
so difficult to transport on the steep gradients in this mountainous
country, if they do not mean business?” “Merely to frighten Servia
and cow her into submission.” “Then why is everything being done so
secretly?” “Merely to heighten the effect,” was the reply. Foreign
diplomacy was not so blind, but it sat tight, and refused to give any
opinion.
The State controls the railways in Austro-Hungary, excepting for
one or two lines. The great termini in Vienna lie at different ends
of the city. Ordinary passengers had to cross the town in cabs. The
Orient express, however, was allowed to make use of the military
communication railway to save time. This circular railway joined up
all the big junctions. It had been constructed for purely military
purposes to pass troops and munitions from one station to the other
quickly and secretly. In solitary places, sidings, with an iron pontoon
for heavy guns, and perhaps an immense crane, stood moss-grown and
idle. They were ready against the great day when Austria would go to
war. The chief preparations were made in the Prater, an Imperial park
that had been thrown open to the public many years before. In the
waste swamp-land behind the park, which stretched down to the main
stream of the Danube, there were cranes used for unloading barges
that came up the river from the Balkans, and that also served for the
mobilisation. Just beyond this ground there was a café much frequented
by the diplomatists of Vienna. Close by was the British Golf Club.
The café had, no doubt, come into fashion because the chiefs of the
Diplomatic Service in Austria congregated there to meet military men,
who took their morning ride, where they could supervise the training of
recruits, in the waste land beyond. But the position of the golf ground
needed explanation. Who had chosen to plump the course right in the
midst of the probable scene of any military preparation?
No answer will ever be made to this question. The British diplomatist,
when he has a streak of Celtic blood in his make-up, is undoubtedly
the finest in the world. He has the great gift of silence. Other men
of great repute and long training always envy the Englishman his
imperturbable face, which serves him as a complete mask. Nothing
provokes him into a display of emotion; his habitual calm prevents the
enemy ever surprising him into a betrayal of his country’s secrets
by a smile or a grimace. This is a unique gift. The secret police
in every city of Europe will tell you that there is no catching an
Englishman off his guard. His news is always sound. He does not care
for information from doubtful sources; he misdoubts the foreigner and
all his ways. He takes endless trouble in following up clues, but will
not venture to draw conclusions. He is careful never to compromise
himself by employing unworthy tools, and is never in “trouble” with the
authorities or under suspicion like other diplomatists.
Unfortunately, there are always too few of him. He is hampered by
having no residents in the British colony that he can consult. The
first years of a diplomatist’s life in a foreign country are occupied
in learning the lie of the land. Until he is acquainted with the
rudiments of the language and the significance of the utterances of the
different papers, he can do no useful work.
The German diplomatist, a man without a vestige of imagination,
ignorant of the very first rules of diplomacy, unaware of the
meaning of delicacy in his conduct as the guest of a foreign monarch,
nevertheless frequently contrives to defeat his opponents. Why is this?
How is it done? The German would be incapable of producing the results
that he has been able to show were it not for the powerful “hand behind
the throne.” Diplomatists at a Court like Vienna must be noblemen, and
it is a matter of general knowledge that German aristocrats are not
astute as a general rule. They have no conception of anything beyond
the obvious. Hints and allusions are quite thrown away upon them. Now
a diplomatist must be a man of very delicate perceptions. It may be
safely said that such a thing does not exist in Germany. The Prussian
especially is very obtuse. The Germans possess one great virtue.
They are aware of their deficiencies. The diplomatist, who feels he
is lacking in all the essential qualities of a politician, takes a
partner--a very active partner, who is never seen or heard, but, none
the less, is responsible for much of the work. He is a Jew, who manages
the whole organisation of the work. He finances the diplomatist. German
diplomatists are not paid much in proportion to the show that they
are expected to make. Everything is “solid,” but nothing more. The
Government, however, authorises an almost unlimited expenses account.
This money is not squandered. Much is spent in the form of tips to
persons who may be of use. No other diplomatist could venture to pay
small sums of money to all sorts of doubtful persons in the first
years of his residence at a foreign Court. Such persons might be, and
probably are, spies of the Government, or members of the secret police.
The German diplomatist is not troubled with these doubts. On entering
his embassy he finds a record of all the work, clean and unclean, done
by his predecessors, and the financial man, who has been in the post
for years, in charge. Every successful means of getting information is
suggested to him. He thus gets the benefit of the experience of his
predecessors, avoids their mistakes, and improves on their methods,
as every new man can. No German nobleman could carry on this business
unaided. The Jew is a man of business, _par excellence_. His principle
is, “Never take anything without paying for it.” He not only pays for
any little service rendered, delicately considering the feelings of the
recipient, and where gold would give offence he sees that an order, or,
perhaps, a much-coveted title is bestowed, but he always makes sure
that the recipient is satisfied. A Jew, concerned in statecraft, will
never allow a tool, however humble, to go away discontented, for if he
did he would have made him a dangerous enemy, instead of a grateful
servant.
A young diplomatist starting for the Balkans will carry a set of
instructions which regulate his every act in everyday life. “Put up
at the ---- Hotel.” “Give the waiter at the ---- restaurant a big
tip ... not sufficient to excite suspicion, but enough to render
him communicative.” “Find means of getting to know the big German
manufacturer at ----without being seen with him too much.” “Cultivate
the men connected with travel bureaux as much as possible without
compromising your position.” Imagine a young Englishman told off to
cultivate men behind a counter! But the proud German will make any
sacrifice, willingly, and, indeed, counts it no loss, for he is never
a snob. Snobbism is unknown in either Germany or Austria-Hungary.
Diplomatists are always born within the magic circle. They are always
men belonging to families admitted to Court functions. This means an
ancient family. Persons outside this circle are not regarded as equals.
Far from it. They are so far removed from the nobility that they
are looked upon as people of different flesh and blood. The German
aristocrat thinks of the commoner somewhat as the Spaniard of the
Southern States regards a nigger. But just because he condescends, he
is very polite. The poor commoner must not guess his feelings. He can
treat him as a friend and a brother without any risk of suffering loss
of caste in the eyes of his peers. Where comparison is impossible there
is no fear of his losing rank by associating with men of a different
mould.
The young Englishman might speak in the street to a prominent
fellow-countryman engaged in trade. Never, however, would he condescend
to sit down at one table with his vulgar wife, and thus make a
willing slave of him for ever. The Jew, watching the steps of the new
diplomatists, is very careful to ascertain that any favour conferred
will be accepted with gratitude, otherwise it is never offered.
The German diplomatist always speaks a number of languages, sometimes
with a slight accent, sometimes like a native. He learnt them in the
nursery. The British diplomatist usually speaks the language of the
country to which he is accredited more or less fluently, but he seldom
knows a second language. French is the language of the Balkans. But
the variety spoken is very unlike pure Parisian. It is only possible to
converse with Albanian princes, Turkish pashas, Rumanians, and other
people from the south if one’s knowledge of French is very exact.
Fluency in French makes intercourse with Italians and Russians easy, as
they all speak it. A man who has business in the South or in the Tyrol
should also speak Italian. The people there know German as well as
Italian, but dislike speaking it. They feel mistrust towards anyone who
uses the tongue of the oppressor. Besides they do not care to discuss
politics or give information of any kind in a language that every spy
or would-be spy within hearing can understand. No commercial traveller
would start off without a thorough knowledge of the languages prevalent
in the country in which he was to do business, but there is a great
laxity of views in regard to the standard of linguistic talent required
in the diplomatist.
The members of Embassies and Legations of the British Empire are, for
the most part, purely British. Any strain of foreign blood impairs
their usefulness to such an extent that this is well. The foreign
politicians who deal with members of the Diplomatic Corps naturally
mistrust any half-breeds, as they call them. They prefer to have to
deal with a prospective enemy who declares his feelings openly, rather
than to be obliged to negotiate with the son of a German mother,
who may be secretly inclined to favour his mother’s race and make
concessions that will not be ratified by the home Government.
If the British Diplomatic Service is unique in its special line
because it is homogeneous, the men being all of the same type as
their _confrères_ in the Home Office or War Office at home, the same
cannot be said for the Consular Service, which, especially in remote
parts of Europe, is of but small or no benefit to Britain, while it
has been of immense advantage to her rivals in trade. In cases where
there is a genuine Briton at the head of affairs, he naturally takes
a British view of all disputes that come along and form his daily
work. But he is a startling exception. Most of the men in the Consular
Service were Germans or natives; they gave their services for nothing,
saying that the title lent them importance. It did. It enabled them to
interfere in the thousand and one difficulties that are always arising
between shippers and the Government--their own Government--and to
place the British case in a bad light. The shipper, not knowing the
language, was quite helpless, and went back home the poorer in cash
and disheartened. His owners were annoyed, and decided that they would
cease to carry on dealings with the country in question. A German firm
was quite ready to rush in to benefit by the facts which the consul had
carefully ascertained during the negotiations, and snap up the trade.
The German consul usually gave away large sums of money among the
indigent in the British colony, and thus placed himself in a position
that was very difficult to assail. If any powerful resident felt that
the consul was not acting altogether in British interests, the latest
subscription, probably a princely donation to some British charity,
caused him to revise his hasty judgment. A man so truly charitable
could not be guilty of meannesses such as he had suspected. He did not
realise that the consul put the thumping big subscription down in his
expenses account, entered as “Money to blind British residents.” The
British merchant prince, perhaps, did not care to assist some poor
countryman; he left it to the consul, who took the money ostensibly
from his own pocket, and the Englishman, ashamed at his niggardliness,
felt that his mouth was effectually shut, even when he was more
than doubtful about some action taken with regard to his country’s
interests. These things happened in many places, and led British
subjects living abroad to regard justice and law as non-existent so
far as they were concerned. They were forced to have resort to all
kinds of subterfuges to obtain the most elementary rights. They avoided
litigation at any cost, for they knew that with a German consul it
could only go against them. Old residents who knew the language and
customs of the country were able to carry on business even in the
German strongholds, for, after all, the Englishman is the best business
man in the world. But they had to work at a disadvantage. Germans stood
ready to take up the trade should the creator of the connection be
ill or die. And the resident consul was always ready to replace the
Englishman by his own man.
In places where there was a British consul all this was different.
The authorities, feeling that a strong hand would protect British
subjects, hesitated to attack any one of them without due cause.
In these cities the British subject enjoyed the same immunity from
unwarranted interference as the Italian. The Italian consul, at the
cost of much inconvenience and annoyance to himself, would stand by a
fellow-citizen until he obtained his rights. The authorities, knowing
this, were frightened to interfere with any man who was carrying on a
legitimate business. The Italian consul knew that he had his Government
behind him in protecting Italian trade, and that his mission was to
carry on warfare with the German; nor did he scruple to use the same
weapons as his adversary. He was even capable of going one better.
Perhaps of all the peoples of Europe the Italian alone understands the
peculiar character of the German--an experience that has been bought at
the price of much suffering. He knows that it is fatal to wait until
the German takes the offensive. The blow must come from the other side.
Then the German’s indolence will make him careful of provoking an
adversary of this calibre a second time. The Prussian is essentially
a bully; he can only be brought to reason by a frontal attack, and
those who know him will not hesitate to make it with or without excuse,
provided they get in the first blow, for the struggle must come sooner
or later.