DIPLOMACY BEFORE THE WAR
If in this chapter I speak frequently in the first person and of my own
part in the negotiations which it records, it is not from any desire to
make prominent either my own personality or the part it fell to me to
play. The reason is that I have endeavored to write of what I myself
heard and saw, and that in consequence most of what follows is, for the
sake of accuracy, largely transcribed from my personal diaries and
records made at the time when the events to which they related took
place. So frequent an employment of the personal pronoun as has been
made in these pages would ordinarily be a blemish in taste, if not in
style also, but in this case it seemed safer not to try to avoid it.
Many things that happened in the years just before 1914, as well as the
events of the great war itself, are still too close to permit of our
studying them in their full context. But before much time has passed
the historians will have accumulated material that will overflow their
libraries, and their hands will remain occupied for generations to come.
At this moment all that safely can be attempted is that actual observers
should set down what they have themselves observed. For there has rarely
been a time when the juridical maxim that "hearsay is not evidence"
ought to be more sternly insisted on.
If I now venture to set down what follows in these pages, it is because
I had certain opportunities for forming a judgment at first hand for
myself. I am not referring to the circumstance that for a brief period I
once, long ago, lived the life of a student at a German University, or
that I was frequently in Germany in the years that followed. Nor do I
mean that I have tried to explore German habits of reflection, as they
may be studied in the literature of Germany. Other people have done all
these things more thoroughly and more extensively than I have. What I do
mean is that from the end of 1905 to the summer of 1912 I had special
chances for direct observation of quite another kind. During that period
I was Secretary of State for War in Great Britain, and from the latter
year to April, 1915, I was the holder of another office and a member of
the British Cabinet.
During the first of the above periods it fell to me to work out the
military organization that would be required to insure, as far as was
practicable, against risk, should those strenuous efforts fail into
which Sir Edward Grey, as he then was, had thrown his strength. He was
endeavoring with all his might to guard the peace of Europe from danger.
As he and I had for many years been on terms of close intimacy, it was
not unnatural that he should ask me to do what I could by helping in
some of the diplomatic work which was his, as well as by engaging in my
own special task. Indeed, the two phases of activity could hardly be
separable.
I was not in Germany after May, 1912, for the duties of Lord Chancellor,
on which office I then entered, made it unconstitutional for me to leave
the United Kingdom, save under such exceptional conditions as were
conceded by the King and the Cabinet when, in the autumn of 1913, I made
a brief yet memorable visit to the United States and Canada. But in
1906, while War Minister, I paid, on the invitation of the German
Emperor, a visit to him at Berlin, to which city I went on after
previously staying with King Edward at Marienbad, where he and the then
Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, were resting.
While at Berlin I saw much of the Emperor, and I also saw certain of his
Ministers, notably Prince von Bülow, Herr von Tschirsky and General von
Einem, the first being at that time Chancellor, and the last two being
respectively the Foreign and War Ministers. I was invited to examine for
myself the organization of the German War Office, which I wished to
study for purposes of reform at home; and this I did in some detail, in
company with an expert adviser from my personal staff, Colonel Ellison,
my military private secretary, who accompanied me on this journey.[1]
There the authorities explained to us the general nature of the
organization for rapid mobilization which had been developed under the
great von Moltke, and subsequently carried farther. The character of
this organization was, in its general features, no secret in Germany,
altho it was somewhat unfamiliar in Anglo-Saxon countries; and it
interested my adviser and myself intensely.
At that time there was an active militarist party in Germany, which, of
course, was not wholly pleased at the friendly reception with which we
met from the Emperor and from crowds in the streets of Berlin. We were
well aware of the activity of this party. But it stood then unmistakably
for a minority, and I formed the opinion that those who wanted Germany
to remain at peace, quite as much as to be strong, had at least an
excellent chance of keeping their feet. I realized, and had done so for
years past, that it was not merely because of the _beaux yeux_ of
foreign peoples that Germany desired to maintain good relations all
round. She had become fully conscious of a growing superiority in the
application to industry of scientific knowledge and in power to organize
her resources founded on it; and her rulers hoped, and not without good
ground, to succeed by these means in the peaceful penetration of the
world.
I had personally for some time been busy in pressing the then somewhat
coldly received claims for a better system of education, higher and
technical as well as elementary, among my own countrymen, and had met
with some success in asking for the establishment of teaching
universities and of technical colleges, such as the new Imperial
College of Science and Technology at South Kensington. Of these we had
very substantially increased the number during the eight years which
preceded my visit to Berlin; but I had learned from visits of inspection
to Germany that much more remained to be done before we could secure our
commercial and industrial position against the unhasting but unresting
efforts of our formidable competitor.
As to the German people outside official circles and the universities, I
thought of them then what I think of them now. They were very much like
our own people, except in one thing. This was that they were trained
simply to obey, and to carry out whatever they were told by their
rulers. I used, during numerous unofficial tours in Germany, to wander
about incognito, and to smoke and drink beer with the peasants and the
people whenever I could get the chance. What impressed me was the little
part they had in directing their own government, and the little they
knew about what it was doing. There was a general disposition to accept,
as a definition of duty which must not be questioned, whatever they were
told to do by the _Vorstand_. It is this habit of mind, dating back to
the days of Frederick the Great, with only occasional and brief
interruptions, which has led many people to think that the German
people at large have in them "a double dose of original sin." Even when
their soldiers have been exceptionally brutal in methods of warfare, I
do not think that this is so. The habit of mind which prevails is that
of always looking to the rulers for orders, and the brutality has been
that enjoined--in accordance with its own military policy of shortening
war by making it terrible to the enemy--by the General Staff of Germany,
a body before whose injunctions even the Emperor, so far as my
observation goes, always has bowed.
But I must now return to my formal visit to Berlin in the autumn of
1906. I was, as I have already said, everywhere cordially welcomed, and
at the end the heads of the German Army entertained me at a dinner in
the War Office, at which the War Minister presided, and there was
present, among others, the Chief of the German General Staff. They were
all friendly. I do not think that my impression was wrong that even the
responsible heads of the Army were then looking almost entirely to
"peaceful penetration," with only moral assistance from the prestige
attaching to the possession of great armed forces in reserve. Our
business in the United Kingdom was therefore to see that we were
prepared for perils that might unexpectedly arise out of this policy,
and not less, by developing our educational and industrial organization,
to make ourselves fit to meet the greater likelihood of a coming keen
competition in the peaceful arts.
One thing that seemed to me essential for the preservation of good
relations was that cordial and frequent intercourse between the people
of the two countries should be encouraged and developed. I set myself in
my speeches to avoid all expressions which might be construed as
suggesting a critical attitude on our part, or a failure to recognize
the existence of peaceful ideas among what was then, as I still think, a
large majority of the people of Germany. The attitude of some newspapers
in England, and still more that of the chauvinist minority in Germany
itself, did not render this quite an easy task. But there were good
people in these days in Germany as well as in England, and the United
States might be counted on as likely to co-operate in discouraging
friction.
Meanwhile there was the chance that the course of this policy might be
interrupted by some event which we could not control. A conversation
with the then Chief of the German General Staff, General von Moltke, the
nephew of the great man of that name, satisfied me that he did not
really look with any pleasurable military expectation to the results of
a war with the United Kingdom alone. It would, he observed to me, be in
his opinion a long and possibly indecisive war, and must result in much
of the overseas trade of both countries passing to a _tertius gaudens_,
by which he meant the United States.
I had little doubt that what he said to me on this occasion represented
his real opinion. But I had in my mind the apprehension of an emergency
of a different nature. Germany was more likely to attack France than
ourselves. The German Emperor had told me that, altho he was trying to
develop good relations with France, he was finding it difficult. This
seemed to me ominous. The paradox presented itself that a war with
Germany in which we were alone would be easier to meet than a war in
which France was attacked along with us; for if Germany succeeded in
over-running France she might establish naval bases on the northern
Channel ports of that country, quite close to our shores, and so, with
the possible aid of the submarines, long-range guns and air-machines of
the future, interfere materially with our naval position in the Channel
and our fleet defenses against invasion.
I knew, too, that the French Government was apprehensive. In the
historical speech which Sir Edward Grey made on August 3, 1914, the day
before the British Government directed Sir Edward Goschen, our
Ambassador in Berlin, to ask for his passports, he informed the House of
Commons that so early as January, 1906, the French Government, after the
Morocco difficulty, had drawn his attention to the international
situation. It had informed him that it considered the danger of an
attack on France by Germany to be a real one, and had inquired whether,
in the event of an unprovoked attack, Great Britain would think that she
had so much at stake as to make her willing to join in resisting it. If
this were to be even a possible attitude for Great Britain, the French
Government had intimated to him that it was in its opinion desirable
that conversation should take place between the General Staff of France
and the newly created General Staff of Great Britain, as to the form
which military co-operation in resisting invasion of the northern
portions of France might best assume. We had a great Navy, and the
French had a great Army. But our Navy could not operate on land, and the
French Army, altho large, was not so large as that which Germany, with
her superior resources in population, commanded. Could we, then,
reconsider our military organization, so that we might be able rapidly
to dispatch, if we ever thought it necessary in our own interests, say,
100,000 men in a well-formed army, not to invade Belgium, which no one
thought of doing, but to guard the French frontier of Belgium in case
the German Army should seek to enter France in that way. If the German
attack were made farther south, where the French chain of modern
fortresses had rendered their defensive positions strong, the French
Army would then be able, set free from the difficulty of mustering in
full strength opposite the Belgian boundary, to guard the southern
frontier.
Sir Edward Grey consulted the Prime Minister, Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Asquith, and
myself as War Minister, and I was instructed, in January, 1906, a month
after assuming office, to take the examination of the question in hand.
This occurred in the middle of the General Election which was then in
progress. I went at once to London and summoned the heads of the British
General Staff and saw the French military attaché, Colonel Huguet, a man
of sense and ability. I became aware at once that there was a new army
problem. It was, how to mobilize and concentrate at a place of assembly
to be opposite the Belgian frontier, a force calculated as adequate
(with the assistance of Russian pressure in the East) to make up for the
inadequacy of the French armies for their great task of defending the
entire French frontier from Dunkirk down to Belfort, or even farther
south, if Italy should join the Triple Alliance in an attack.
But an investigation of a searching character presently revealed great
deficiencies in the British military organization of these days. We had
never contemplated the preparation of armies for warfare of the
Continental type. The older generals had not been trained for this
problem. We had, it was true, excellent troops in India and elsewhere.
These were required as outposts for Imperial defense. As they had to
serve for long periods and to be thoroughly disciplined, they had to be
professional soldiers, engaged to serve in most cases for seven years
with the colors and afterwards for five in the reserve. They were highly
trained men, and there was a good reserve of them at home. But that
reserve was not organized in the great self-contained divisions which
would be required for fighting against armies organized for rapid action
on modern Continental principles. Its formations in peace time were not
those which would be required in such a war. There was in addition a
serious defect in the artillery organization which would have prevented
more than a comparatively small number of batteries (about forty-two
only in point of fact) from being quickly placed on a war footing. The
transport and supply and the medical services were as deficient as the
artillery.
In short, the close investigation made at that time disclosed that it
was not possible, under the then existing circumstances, to put in the
field more than about 80,000 men, and even these only after an interval
of over two months, which would be required for conversion of our
isolated units into the new war formations of an army fit to take the
field against the German first line of active corps. The French
naturally thought that a machine so slow moving would be of little use
to them. They might have been destroyed before it could begin to operate
effectively. Both they and the Germans had organized on the basis that
modern Continental warfare had become a high science. Hitherto we had
not, and it was only our younger generals who had even studied this
science.
There was, therefore, nothing for it but to attempt a complete
revolution in the organization of the British Army at home. The nascent
General Staff was finally organized in September, 1906, and its
organization was shortly afterwards developed so as to extend to the
entire Empire, as soon as a conference had taken place with the
Ministers of the Dominions early in the following year. The outcome was
a complete recasting, which, after three years' work, made it
practicable rapidly to mobilize, not only 100,000, but 160,000 men; to
transport them, with the aid of the Navy, to a place of concentration
which had been settled between the staffs of France and Britain; and to
have them at their appointed place within twelve days, an interval based
on what the German Army required on its side for a corresponding
concentration.
All the arrangements for this were worked out by the end of 1910. Both
Sir John French and Sir Douglas Haig took an active part in the work.
Behind the first-line army so organized, a second-line army of larger
size, tho far less trained, and so designed that it could be expanded,
was organized. This was the citizen or "Territorial" army, consisting in
time of peace of fourteen divisions of infantry and artillery and
fourteen brigades of cavalry, with the appropriate medical, sanitary,
transport and other auxiliary services. Those serving in this
second-line army were civilians, and, of course, much less disciplined
than the officers and men of the first line. Its primary function was
home defense, but its members were encouraged to undertake for service
abroad, if necessary; and a large part of this army, in point of fact,
fought in France, Flanders and in the East soon after the beginning of
the war, in great measure making up by intelligence for shortness of
training.
To say, therefore, that we were caught unprepared is not accurate.
Compulsory service in a period of peace was out of the question for us.
Moreover, it would have taken at least two generations to organize, and
meanwhile we should have been weaker than without it. We had studied the
situation and had done the only thing we thought we could do, after full
deliberation. Our main strength was in our Navy and its tradition. Our
secondary contribution was a small army fashioned to fulfil a
scientifically measured function. It was, of course, a very small army,
but it had a scientific organization on the basis of which a great
expansion was possible. After all, what we set ourselves to accomplish
we did accomplish. If the margin by which a just sufficient success was
attained in the early days of the war seems to-day narrow, the reason of
the narrow margin lay largely in the unprepared condition of the armies
of Russia, on which we and France had reckoned for rapid co-operation.
Anyhow, we fulfilled our contract, for at eleven o'clock on Monday
morning, August 3, 1914, we mobilized without a hitch the whole of the
Expeditionary Force, amounting to six divisions and nearly two cavalry
divisions, and began its transport over the Channel when war was
declared thirty-six hours later. We also at the same time successfully
mobilized the Territorial Force and other units, the whole amounting to
over half a million men. The Navy was already in its war stations, and
there was no delay at all in putting what we had prepared into
operation.
I speak of this with direct knowledge, for as the Prime Minister, who
was holding temporarily the seals of the War Secretary, was overwhelmed
with business, he asked me, tho I had then become Lord Chancellor, to go
to the War Office and give directions for the mobilization of the
machinery with which I was so familiar, and I did this on the morning of
Monday, August 3, and a day later handed it over, in working order, to
Lord Kitchener.
I now return to what was the main object of British foreign policy
between 1905 and 1914, the prevention of the danger of any outbreak
with Germany. Sir Edward Grey worked strenuously with this well-defined
object. If France were overrun, our island security would be at least
diminished, and he had, therefore, in addition to his anxiety to avert a
general war, a direct national interest to strive for, in the
preservation of peace between Germany and France. Ever since the
mutilation which the latter country had suffered, as the outcome of the
War of 1870, she had felt sore, and her relations with Germany were not
easy. But she did not seek a war of revenge. It would have been too full
of risk even if she had not desired peace, the Franco-Russian Dual
Alliance notwithstanding. The notion of an encirclement of Germany,
excepting in defense against aggression by Germany herself, existed only
in the minds of nervous Germans. Still, there was suspicion, and the
question was, how to get rid of it.
I have already referred to the visit I paid to the Emperor at Berlin in
the autumn of 1906. He invited me to a review which he held of his
troops there, and in the course of it rode up to the carriage in which I
was seated and said, "A splendid machine I have in this army, Mr.
Haldane; now isn't it so? And what could I do without it, situated as I
am between the Russians and the French? But the French are your
allies--are they not? So I beg pardon."
I shook my head and smiled deprecatingly, and replied that, were I in
his Majesty's place, I should in any case feel safe from attack with the
possession of this machine, and that for my own part I enjoyed being
behind it much more than if I had to be in front of it.
Next day, when at the Schloss, he talked to me fully and cordially. What
follows I extract from the record I made after the conversation in my
diaries, which were kept by desire of King Edward, and which were
printed by the Government on my return to London.
He spoke of the Anglo-French Entente. He said that it would be wrong to
infer that he had any critical thought about our entente with France. On
the contrary he believed that it might even facilitate good relations
between France and Germany. He wished for these good relations, and was
taking steps through gentlemen of high position in France to obtain
them. Not one inch more of French territory would he ever covet. Alsace
and Lorraine originally had been German, and now even the least German
of the two, Lorraine, because it preferred a monarchy to a republic, was
welcoming him enthusiastically whenever he went there. That he should
have gone to Tangier, where both English and French welcomed him, was
quite natural. He desired no quarrel, and the whole fault was
Delcassé's, who had wanted to pick a quarrel and bring England into it.
I told the Emperor that, if he would allow me to speak my mind freely, I
would do so. He assented, and I said to him that his attitude had caused
great uneasiness in England, and that this, and not any notion of
forming a tripartite alliance of France, Russia, and England against
him, was the reason of the feeling there had been. We were bound by no
military alliance. As for our entente, some time since we had
difficulties with France over Newfoundland and Egypt, and we had made a
good business arrangement (_gutes Geschäft_) about these complicated
matters of detail, and had simply carried out our word to France.
He said that he had no criticism to make on this, except that if we had
told him so early there would have been no misunderstanding. Things were
better now, but we had not always been pleasant to him and ready to meet
him. His army was for defense, not for offense. As to Russia, he had no
Himalayas between him and Russia, more was the pity. Now what about our
Two-Power standard. All this was said with earnestness, but in a
friendly way, the Emperor laying his finger on my shoulder as he spoke.
Sometimes the conversation was in German, but often in English.
I said that our fleet was like his Majesty's army. It was of the _Wesen_
of the nation, and the Two-Power standard, while it might be rigid and
so awkward, was a way of maintaining a deep-seated national tradition,
and a Liberal Government must hold to it as firmly as a Conservative.
Both countries were increasing in wealth--ours, like Germany, very
rapidly--and if Germany built we must build. But, I added, there was an
excellent opportunity for co-operation in other things. I instanced
international free trade developments which would smooth other
relations.
The Emperor agreed. He was convinced that free trade was the true policy
for Germany also, but Germany could not go so quickly here as England
had gone.
I referred to Friedrich List's great book as illustrating how military
and geographical considerations had affected matters for Germany in this
connection.
The Emperor then spoke of Chamberlain's policy of Tariff Reform, and
said that it had caused him anxiety.
I replied that with care we might avoid any real bad feeling over trade.
The undeveloped markets of the world were enormous, and we wanted no
more of the surface of the globe than we had got.
The Emperor's reply was that what he sought after was not territory but
trade expansion. He quoted Goethe to the effect that if a nation wanted
anything it must concentrate and act from within the sphere of its
concentration.
We then spoke of the fifty millions sterling per annum of chemical trade
which Germany had got away from us. I said that this was thoroughly
justified as the result of the practical application of high German
science.
"That," said he, "I delight to think, because it is legitimate and to
the credit of my people."
I agreed, and said that similarly we had got the best of the world's
shipbuilding. Each nation had something to learn.
The Emperor then passed to the topic of The Hague Conference, trusting
that disarmament would not be proposed. If so, he could not go in.
I observed that the word "disarmament" was perhaps unfortunately chosen.
"The best testimony," said the Emperor, "to my earnest desire for peace
is that I have had no war, tho I should have had war if I had not
earnestly striven to avoid it."
Throughout the conversation, which was as animated as it was long, the
Emperor was cordial and agreeable. He expressed the wish that more
English Ministers would visit Berlin, and that he might see more of our
Royal Family. I left the Palace at 3.30 P.M., having gone there at 1.0.
On another day during this visit Prince von Bülow, who was then
Chancellor, called on me. I was out, but found him later at the Schloss,
and had a conversation with him. He said to me that both the Emperor and
himself were thoroughly aware of the desire of King Edward and his
Government to maintain the new relations with France in their integrity,
and that, in the best German opinion, this was no obstacle to building
up close relations with Germany also.
I said that this was the view held on our side too, and that the only
danger lay in trying to force everything at once. Too great haste was to
be deprecated.
He said that he entirely agreed, and quoted Prince Bismarck, who had
laid it down that you can not make a flower grow any sooner by putting
fire to heat it.
[Illustration: COUNT PAUL WOLFF METTERNICH
GERMAN AMBASSADOR TO GREAT BRITAIN FROM 1901 TO 1912.]
I said that, none the less, frequent and cordial interchanges of view
were very important, and that not even the smallest matters should be
neglected.
He alluded with satisfaction to my personal relations with the German
Ambassador in London, Count Metternich.
I begged him, if there were any small matters which were too minute to
take up officially, but which seemed unsatisfactory, to let me know of
them in a private capacity through Count Metternich. This I did because
I had discovered some soreness at restrictions which had been placed on
the attendance of German military officers at maneuvers in England, and
I had found that there had been some reprisals. I did not refer to
these, but said that I had the authority of the sovereign to give
assistance to German officers who were sent over to the maneuvers to
study them. I added that while our army was small, compared with theirs,
it had had great experience in the conduct of small expeditions, and
that there were in consequence some things worth seeing.
He then spoke of the navy. It was natural that with the increase of
German commerce Germany should wish to increase her fleet--from a
sea-police point of view--but that they had neither the wish, nor,
having regard to the strain their great army put on their resources,
the power to build against Great Britain.
I said that the best opinion in England fully understood this attitude,
and that we did not in the least misinterpret their recent progress, nor
would he misinterpret our resolve to maintain, for purely defensive
purposes, our navy at a Two-Power standard. Some day, I said, there
might be rivalry, but I thought we might assume that, if it ever
happened, it would not be for many years, and that our policy for the
present was strongly for Free Trade, so that the more Germany exported
to Great Britain and British possessions, the more we should export in
exchange to them.
He expressed himself pleased that I should say this, and added that he
was confident that a couple of years' interchange of friendly
communications in this spirit would produce a great development, and
perhaps lead for both of us to pleasant relations with other Powers
also.
There were during this visit in 1906 other conversations of which a
record was preserved, but I have referred to the most important, and I
will only mention, in concluding my account of these days in Berlin in
September, 1906, the talk I had with the Foreign Minister, Herr von
Tschirsky, afterward the German Ambassador at Vienna before the war,
and reported as having been a fomenter of the Austrian outbreak against
Serbia. He may have been anti-Slav and anti-Russian, but I did not find
him, in the long conversation we had in 1906, otherwise than sensible as
regards France.
I explained that my business in Berlin was merely with War Office
matters, and, even as regards these, quite unofficial.
He said that there had been much tendency to misinterpret in both
countries, but that things were now better. I might take it that our
precision about the Entente with France, and our desire to rest firmly
on the arrangement we had made, were understood in Germany, and that it
was realized that we were not likely to be able to build up anything
with his own country which did not rest on this basis. But he thought,
and the Emperor agreed, that the Entente was no hindrance to all that
was necessary between Germany and England, which was not an alliance but
a thoroughly good business understanding. Some day we might come into
conflict, if care were not taken; but if care was taken, there was no
need of apprehension.
I said that I believed this to be Sir Edward Grey's view also, and that
he was anxious to communicate with the German Government beforehand
whenever there was a chance of German interests being touched.
He went on to speak of the approaching Hague Conference, and of the
difficulty Germany would have if asked to alter the proportion of her
army to her population--a proportion which rested on a fundamental law.
For Germany alone to object to disarmament would be to put herself in a
hole, and it would be a friendly act if we could devise some way out of
a definite vote on reduction. Germany might well enter a conference to
record and emphasize the improvement all round in international
relations, the desirability of further developing this improvement, and
the hope that with it the growth of armaments would cease. But he was
afraid of the kind of initiative which might come from America. The
United States had no sympathy with European military and naval
difficulties.
I said that I thought that we, as a Government, were pledged to try to
bring about something more definite than what he suggested as a limit,
but that I would report what he had told me.
He then passed to general topics. He was emphatic in his assurance that
what Germany wanted was increase of commercial development. Let the
nations avoid inflicting pin-pricks, and leave each other free to
breathe the air. He said that he thought we might have opportunities of
helping them to get the French into an easier mood. They were difficult
and suspicious, he observed, and it was hard to transact business with
them, for they made trouble over small points.
On my return to London I sent to Herr von Tschirsky some English
newspapers containing articles with a friendly tone, so far as the
preservation of good relations was concerned. He replied in a letter
from which I translate the material portion:
"I see with pleasure from the articles which your Excellency has sent me
for his Majesty, and from other expressions of public opinion in English
newspapers, that in the leading Liberal papers of England a more
friendly tone toward Germany is making itself apparent. You would have
been able to derive the same impression from reading our newspapers,
with the exception of a few Pan-German prints. Alas! papers like _The
Times_, _Morning Post_ and _Standard_ can not bring themselves to
refrain from their attitude of dislike, and are always rejoicing in
being suspicious of every action of the Imperial Government. They
contribute in this fashion appreciably to render weak the new tone of
diminishing misunderstanding which has arisen between the two countries.
If I fear that under these circumstances it will be a long time before
mutual understanding has grown up to the point at which it stood more
than a century ago, and as you and I desire it in the well-understood
interests of England and Germany, still I hope and am persuaded that the
relations of the two Governments will remain good."
A year after the visit I had paid to Berlin the Emperor came over to
stay with King Edward at Windsor. This was in November, 1907. The visit
lasted several days, and I was present most of the time. The Emperor was
accompanied by Baron von Schoen, who had become Foreign Minister of
Prussia, after having been Ambassador to the Court of Russia, and by
General von Einem, the War Minister, whose inclusion in the invitation I
had ventured to suggest to the King, as an acknowledgment of his
civility to myself as War Minister when in Berlin. There were also at
Windsor Count Metternich and several high military officers of the
Emperor's personal staff and military cabinet. To these officers and to
the War Minister I showed all the hospitality I could in London, and I
received them officially at the War Office.
But the really interesting incident of this visit, so far as I was
concerned, took place at Windsor. The first evening of my visit there,
just after his arrival in November, the Emperor took me aside and said
he was sorry that there was a good deal of friction over the Bagdad
Railway, and that he did not know what we wanted as a basis for
co-operation.
I said that I could not answer for the Foreign Office, but that,
speaking as War Minister, one thing I knew we wanted was a "gate" to
protect India from troops coming down the new railway. He asked me what
I meant by a "gate," and I said that meant the control of the section
which would come near to the Persian Gulf. "I will give you the 'gate,'"
replied the Emperor.
I had no opportunity at the moment, which was just before dinner, for
pursuing the conversation further, but I thought the answer too
important not to be followed up. There were private theatricals after
dinner, which lasted till nearly one o'clock in the morning. I was
seated in the theater of the Castle just behind the Emperor, and, as the
company broke up, I went forward and asked him whether he really meant
seriously that he was willing to give us the "gate," because, if he did
mean it, I would go to London early and see Sir Edward Grey at the
Foreign Office.
Next morning, about 7.30 o'clock, a helmeted guardsman, one of those
whom the Emperor had brought over with him from Berlin, knocked loudly
at the door and came into my bedroom, and said that he had a message
from the Emperor. It was that he did mean what he had said the night
before. I at once got up and caught a train for London. There I saw the
Foreign Secretary, who, after taking time to think things over, gave me
a memorandum he had drawn up. The substance of it was that the British
Government would be very glad to discuss the Emperor's suggestion, but
that it would be necessary, before making a settlement, to bring into
the discussion France and Russia, whose interests also were involved. I
was requested to sound the Emperor further.
After telling King Edward of what was happening, I had another
conversation in Windsor Castle with the Emperor, who said that he feared
that the bringing in of Russia particularly, not to speak of France,
would cause difficulty; but he asked me to come that night, after a
performance that was to take place in the Castle theater had ended, to
his apartments, to a meeting to which he would summon the Ministers he
had brought with him. He took the memorandum which I had brought from
London, a copy of which I had made for him in my own handwriting, so as
to present it as the informal document it was intended to be. Just
before dinner Baron von Schoen spoke to me, and told me that he had
heard from the Emperor what had happened, and that the Emperor was wrong
in thinking that the attempt to bring in Russia would lead to
difficulty, because he, Baron von Schoen, when he was Ambassador to
Russia, had already discussed the general question with its Government,
and had virtually come to an understanding. At the meeting that night we
could therefore go on to negotiate.
I attended the Emperor in his state rooms at the Castle at one o'clock
in the morning, and sat smoking with him and his Ministers for over two
hours. His Foreign Minister and Count Metternich and the War Minister,
von Einem, were present. I said that I felt myself an intruder, because
it was very much like being present at a sitting of his Cabinet. He
replied, "Be a member of my Cabinet for the evening." I said that I was
quite agreeable.
They then engaged in a very animated conversation, some of them
challenging the proposal of the Emperor to accept the British
suggestions, with an outspokenness which would have astonished the
outside world, with its notions of Teutonic autocracy. Count Metternich
did not like what I suggested, that there should be a conference in
Berlin on the subject of the Bagdad Railway between England, France,
Russia, and Germany.
In the end, but not until after much keen argument, the idea was
accepted, and the Emperor directed von Schoen to go next morning to
London and make an official proposal to Sir Edward Grey, This was
carried out, and the preliminary details were discussed between von
Schoen and Sir Edward at the Foreign Office.
Some weeks afterward difficulties were raised from Berlin. Germany said
that she was ready to discuss with the British Government the question
of the terminal portion of the railway, but she did not desire to bring
the other two Powers into that discussion, because the conference would
probably fail and accentuate the differences between her and the other
Powers.
The matter thus came to an end. It was, I think, a great pity, because I
have reason to believe that the French view was that, if the Bagdad
Railway question could have been settled, one great obstacle in the way
of reconciling German with French and English interests would have
disappeared. I came to the conclusion afterward that it was probably
owing to the views of Prince von Bülow that the proposal had come to an
untimely end. Whether he did not wish for an expanded entente; whether
the feeling was strong in Germany that the Bagdad Railway had become a
specially German concern and should not be shared; or what other reason
he may have had, I do not know; but it was from Berlin, after the
Emperor's return there at the end of November, 1907, that the
negotiations were finally blocked.
Altho these negotiations had no definite result, they assisted in
promoting increasing frankness between the two Foreign Offices, and
other things went with more smoothness. Sir Edward Grey kept France and
Russia informed of all we did, and he was also very open with the
Germans. Until well on in 1911 all went satisfactorily. In the early
part of that year the Emperor came to London to visit the present King,
who had by that time succeeded to the throne. I had ventured to propose
to the King that during the Emperor's visit I should, as War Minister,
give a luncheon to the generals who were on his staff. But when the
Emperor heard of this he sent a message that he would like to come and
lunch with me himself, and to meet people whom otherwise he might not
see.
I acted on my own discretion, and when he came to luncheon at my house
in Queen Anne's Gate there was a somewhat widely selected party of about
a dozen to meet him. For it included not only Lord Morley, Lord
Kitchener, and Lord Curzon, whom he was sure to meet elsewhere, but Mr.
Ramsay MacDonald, who was then leading the Labor Party, Admiral Sir
Arthur Wilson, our great naval commander, Lord Moulton, Mr. Edmund
Gosse, Mr. Sargent, Mr. Spender, the editor of the _Westminster
Gazette_, and others representing various types of British opinion. The
Emperor engaged in conversation with everyone, and all went with
smoothness.
He had a great reception in London. But enthusiasm about him was
somewhat damped when, in July, 1911, not long after his return to
Germany, he sent the afterwards famous warship _Panther_ to Agadir. The
French were naturally alarmed, and the situation which had become so
promising was overcast. Our naval arrangements and our new military
organization were ready, and our mobilization plans were fairly
complete, as the German General Staff knew from their military attaché.
But the point was, how to avoid an outbreak, and to get rid of the
feeling and friction to which the Agadir crisis was giving rise. Our
growing good relations were temporarily clouded.
The sending of the _Panther_ to Agadir was not a prudent act. It
imported either too much or too little. It is said to have been the plan
of Herr von Kiderlen-Waechter, at that time the Foreign Secretary and
generally a sensible statesman, and to have been done in spite of
misgivings expressed by the Emperor about its danger. The circumstances
of the moment were such that one can not but feel a certain sympathy
with the German perturbation at the time. The march of the French Army
to Fez had come on them suddenly, and it at least suggested a
development of French claims going beyond what Germany had agreed to at
the Algeciras Conference nearly six years previously. Those who wish to
inform themselves about the commotion the expedition of the French
stirred up in Germany, and of the efforts the Emperor and Bethmann
Hollweg had to make to restrain it, will do well to read the latter's
account of what happened there in the second chapter of his recent book.
But to think that the sending of a German warship could make things
better was to repeat the error of judgment which had characterized "the
ally in shining armor" speech of the German Emperor to Austria when she
formally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina three years before. Instead of
using diplomatic methods something that looked like a threat was allowed
to appear, and the answer was Mr. Lloyd George's well-known declaration
of July 21, 1911, in the City of London. The sending of the _Panther_,
if intelligible, was certainly unfortunate.
In the winter, after the actual crisis had been got over, there was
evidence of continuing ill-feeling in Germany, and the suspicion in
London did not diminish. In January, 1912, an informal message was given
by the Emperor to Sir Ernest Cassel for transmission through one of my
colleagues to the Foreign Office.[2] I knew nothing of this at the time,
but learned shortly afterward that it was to the effect that the Emperor
was concerned at the state of feeling that had arisen in both countries,
and thought that the most hopeful method of improving matters would be
that the Cabinet of St. James's should exchange views directly with the
Cabinet of Berlin. For this course there was a good deal to be said. The
peace had indeed been preserved, but, as Herr von Bethmann Hollweg told
me later on, not without effort. The attitude of Germany toward France
had seemed ominous. The British Government had done all it could to
avert a breach, but its sympathy was opposed to language used in
Germany, the spirit of which seemed to us to have in it an aggressive
element. We did not hesitate to say what we thought about this.
Even after the Agadir incident was quite closed, the tension between
Germany and England had not passed away. The military party in the
former country began to talk of a "preventive" war pretty loudly. Even
so moderate an organ in Berlin as the _Post_ wrote of German opinion
that "we all know that blood is assuredly about to be shed, and the
longer we wait the more there will be. Few, however, have the courage to
imitate Frederick the Great, and not one dares the deed."
The Emperor therefore sent his message in the beginning of 1912, to the
effect that feeling had become so much excited that it was not enough to
rely on the ordinary diplomatic intercourse for softening it, and that
he was anxious for an exchange of views between the Cabinets of Berlin
and London, of a personal and direct kind. As the result of this
intimation, the British Cabinet decided to send one of its members to
Berlin to hold "conversations," with a view to exploring and, if
practicable, softening the causes of tension, and I was requested by the
Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey and my other colleagues to go to
Berlin and undertake the task. Our Ambassador there came over to London
specially to discuss arrangements, and he returned to Berlin to make
them before I started.
I arrived in the German capital on February 8, 1912, and spent some days
in interviews with the Emperor, the Imperial Chancellor, the Naval
Minister (Admiral von Tirpitz), and others of the Emperor's Ministry.
The narrative of my conversations I have extracted from the records I
made after each interview, for the preservation so far as possible of
the actual expressions used during it.
My first interview was one with Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, the Imperial
Chancellor. We met in the British Embassy, and the conversation, which
was quite informal, was a full and agreeable one. My impression, and I
still retain it, was that Bethmann Hollweg was then as sincerely
desirous of avoiding war as I was myself. I told him of certain dangers
quite frankly, and he listened and replied with what seemed to me to be
a full understanding of our position. I said that the increasing action
of Germany in piling up magnificent armaments was, of course, within the
unfettered rights of the German people. But the policy had an inevitable
consequence in the drawing together of other nations in the interests of
their own security. This was what was happening. I told him frankly that
we had made naval and military preparations, but only such as defense
required, and as would be considered in Germany matter of routine. I
went on to observe that our faces were set against aggression by any
nation, and I told him, what seemed to relieve his mind, that we had no
secret military treaties. But, I added, if France were attacked and an
attempt made to occupy her territory, our neutrality must not be
reckoned on by Germany. For one thing, it was obvious that our position
as an island protected by the sea would be affected seriously if Germany
had possession of the Channel ports on the northern shores of France.
Again, we were under treaty obligation to come to the aid of Belgium in
case of invasion, just as we were bound to defend Portugal and Japan in
certain eventualities. In the third place, owing to our dependence on
freedom of sea-communications for food and raw materials, we could not
sit still if Germany elected to develop her fleet to such an extent as
to imperil our naval protection. She might build more ships, but we
should in that case lay down two keels for each one she laid down.
The Chancellor said that he did not take my observations at all in bad
part, but I must understand that his admirals and generals were pretty
difficult.
I replied that the difficulty would be felt at least as much with the
admirals and generals in my own country.
The Chancellor, in the course of our talk, proposed a formula of
neutrality to which I will refer later on.
I left the Chancellor with the sense that I had been talking with an
honest man struggling somewhat with adversity. However, next day I was
summoned to luncheon with the Emperor and Empress at the Schloss, and
afterward had a long interview, which lasted nearly three hours, with
the Emperor and Admiral von Tirpitz in the Emperor's cabinet room. The
conversation was mainly in German, and was confined to naval questions.
My reception by the Emperor was very agreeable; that by Tirpitz seemed
to me a little strained. The question was, whether Germany must not
continue her program for expanding her fleet. What that program really
amounted to we had not known in London, except that it included an
increase in battleships; but the Emperor handed me at this meeting a
confidential copy of the draft of the proposed new Fleet Law, with an
intimation that he had no objection to my communicating it privately to
my colleagues. I was careful to abstain even from looking at it then,
for I saw that, from its complexity and bulk, it would require careful
study. So I simply put it in my pocket. But I repeated what I had said
to the Chancellor, that the necessity for secure sea-communications
rendered it vital for us to be able to protect ourselves on the seas.
Germany was quite free to do as she pleased, but so were we, and we
should probably lay down two keels for every one which she added to her
program. The initiative in slackening competition was really not with
us, but with Germany. Any agreement for settling our differences and
introducing a new spirit into the relations of the two nations would be
bones without flesh if Germany began by fresh shipbuilding, and so
forced us to do twice as much. Indeed, the world would laugh at such an
agreement, and our people would think that we had been fooled. I did not
myself take that view, because I thought that the mere fact of an
agreement was valuable. But the Emperor would see that the public would
attach very little importance to his action unless the agreement largely
modified what it believed to be his shipbuilding program.
We then discussed the proposal of the German Admiralty for the new
program. Admiral von Tirpitz struggled for it. I insisted that
fundamental modification was essential if better relations were to
ensue. The tone was friendly, but I felt that I was up against the
crucial part of my task. The admiral wanted us to enter into some
understanding about our own shipbuilding. He thought the Two-Power
standard a hard one for Germany, and, indeed, Germany could not make any
admission about it.
I said it was not matter for admission. They were free and so were we,
and we must for the sake of our safety remain so. The idea then occurred
to us that, as we should never agree about it, we should avoid trying to
define a standard proportion in any general agreement that we might come
to, and, indeed, say nothing in it about shipbuilding; but that the
Emperor should announce to the German public that the agreement on
general questions, if we should have concluded one, had entirely
modified his wish for the new Fleet Law, as originally conceived, and
that it should be delayed, and future shipbuilding should at least be
spread over a longer period.
The Emperor thought such an agreement would certainly make a great
difference, and he informed me that his Chancellor would propose to me a
formula as a basis for it. I said that I would see the Chancellor and
discuss a possible formula, as well as territorial and other questions
with him, and would then return to London and report to the King (from
whom I had brought him a special and friendly message) and to my
colleagues the good disposition I had found, and leave the difficulties
about shipbuilding and indeed all other matters to their judgment. For I
had come to Berlin, not to make an actual agreement, but only to explore
the ground for one with the Emperor and his ministers. I had been struck
with the friendly disposition in Berlin, and a not less friendly
disposition would be found in London.
The evening after my interview with the Emperor I dined with the
Chancellor. I met there and talked with several prominent politicians,
soldiers, and men of letters, including Kiderlen-Waechter (the then
Foreign Secretary), the afterward famous General von Hindenburg,
Zimmermann of the Foreign Office, and Professor Harnack.
Later on, after dinner, I went off to meet the French Ambassador, M.
Jules Cambon, at the British Embassy, for I wished to keep him informed
of our object, which was simply to improve the state of feeling between
London and Berlin, but on the basis, and only on the basis, of complete
loyalty to our Entente with France. It was, to use a phrase which he
himself suggested in our conversation, a _détente_ rather than an
_entente_ that I had in view, with possible developments to follow it
which might assume a form which would be advantageous to France and
Russia, as well as to ourselves and Germany. He showed me next day the
report of our talk which he had prepared in order to telegraph it to
Paris.
I had other interviews the next day, but the only one which is important
for the purposes of the present narrative is that at my final meeting
with the German Chancellor on the Saturday (February 10). I pressed on
him how important it was for public opinion and the peace of the world
that Germany should not force us into a shipbuilding competition with
her, a competition in which it was certain that we should have to spare
no effort to preserve our margin of safety by greater increases.
[Illustration: M. PAUL CAMBON
FRENCH AMBASSADOR TO GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1898.]
He did not controvert my suggestion. I could see that personally he
was of the same mind. But he said that the forces he had to contend with
were almost insuperable. The question of a retardation of building under
the proposed Fleet Law was not susceptible of being treated apart from
that of the formula of which he and the Emperor had both spoken. He
suggested that we might agree on the following formula:
1. The High Contracting Powers assure each other mutually of their
desire for peace and friendship.
2. They will not, either of them, make any combination, or join in
any combination, which is directed against the other. They
expressly declare that they are not bound by any such combination.
3. If either of the High Contracting Parties become entangled in a
war with one or more other powers, the other of the High
Contracting Parties will at least observe toward the power so
entangled a benevolent neutrality, and use its utmost endeavor for
the localization of the conflict.
4. The duty of neutrality which arises from the preceding article
has no application in so far as it may not be reconcilable with
existing agreements which the High Contracting Parties have
already made. The making of new agreements which make it
impossible for either of the Contracting Parties to observe
neutrality toward the other beyond what is provided by the
preceding limitations is excluded in conformity with the
provisions contained in Article 2.
Anxious as I was to agree with the Chancellor, who seemed as keen as I
was to meet me with expressions which I might take back to England for
friendly consideration, I was unable to hold out to him the least
prospect that we could accept the draft formula which he had just
proposed. Under Article 2, for example, we should find ourselves, were
it accepted, precluded from coming to the assistance of France should
Germany attack her and aim at getting possession of such ports as
Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, a friendly occupation of which was so
important for our island security. Difficulties might also arise which
would hamper us in the discharge of our existing treaty obligations to
Belgium, Portugal, and Japan. The most hopeful way out was to revise the
draft fundamentally by confining its terms to an undertaking by each
Power not to make any unprovoked attack upon the other, or join in any
combination or design against the other for purposes of aggression, or
become party to any plan or naval or military combination, alone or in
conjunction with any other Power, directed to such an end.
He and I then sat down and redrafted what he had prepared, on this
basis, but without his committing himself to the view that it would be
sufficient. We also had a satisfactory conversation about the Bagdad
Railway and other things in Turkey connected with the Persian Gulf, and
we discussed possibilities of the rearrangement of certain interests of
both Powers in Africa. He said to me that he was not there to make any
immediate bargain, but that we should look at the African question on
both sides from a high point of view, and that if we had any
difficulties we should tell him, and he would see whether he could get
round them for us.
I replied that I also was not there to make a bargain, but only to
explore the ground, and that I much appreciated the tone of his
conversation with me, and the good feeling he had shown. I should go
back to London and without delay report to my colleagues all that had
passed.
I entertain no doubt that the German Chancellor was sincerely in earnest
in what he said to me on these occasions, and in his desire to improve
relations with us and keep the peace. So I think was the Emperor; but he
was pulled at by his naval and military advisers, and by the powerful,
if then small, chauvinist party in Germany. In 1912, when the
conversations recorded took place, this party was less potent, I think a
good deal less, than it appears to have become a year and a half later,
when Germany had increased her army still further. But I formed the
opinion even then that the power of the Emperor in Germany was a good
deal misinterpreted and overestimated. My impression was that the really
decisive influence was that of the Minister who had managed to secure
the strongest following throughout Germany; and it was obvious to me
that Admiral von Tirpitz had a powerful and growing following from many
directions, due to the backing of the naval party.
Moreover, sensible as a large number of Germans were, there was a
certain tendency to swelled-headedness in the nation. It had had an
extraordinarily rapid development, based on principles of organization
in every sphere of activity--principles derived from the lesson of the
necessity of thinking before acting enjoined by the great teachers of
the beginning of the nineteenth century. The period down to about 1832
seems to me to correspond, in the intellectual prodigies it produced, to
our Elizabethan period. It came no doubt to an end in its old and
distinctive aspect. But its spirit assumed, later on, a new form, that
of organization for material ends based on careful reflection and
calculation. In industry, in commerce, in the army, and in the navy, the
work of mind was everywhere apparent. "_Aus einem Lernvolk wollen wir
ein Thatvolk werden_" was the new watchword.
No doubt there was much that was defective. When it came to actual war
in 1914, it turned out that Germany had not adequately thought out her
military problems. If she had done so, she would have used her fleet at
the very outset, and particularly her destroyers and submarines, to try
to hinder the transport of the British Expeditionary Force to France,
and, having secured the absence of this force, she would have sought to
seize the northern ports of France. Small as the Expeditionary Force
was, it was enough, when added to the French armies, to make them so
formidable as to render the success of von Kluck uncertain if the troops
could be concentrated to resist him swiftly enough. Again, Germany never
really grasped the implications of our command of the sea. Had she done
so, I do not think she would have adventured war. She may have counted
on England not coming in, owing to entanglements in Irish difficulties.
If so, this was just another instance of her bad judgment about the
internal affairs of other nations.
In fine, Germany had not adequately thought out or prepared for the
perils which she undertook when she assumed the risks of the war of
1914. No doubt she knew more about the shortcomings of the Russian army
than did the French or the British. On these, pretty exact knowledge of
the Russian shortages enabled her to reckon. There we miscalculated more
than she did. But she was not strong enough to make sure work of a brief
but conclusive campaign in the West, which was all she could afford
while Russia was organizing. Then, later on, she ought to have seen
that, if the submarine campaign which she undertook should bring the
United States into the war, her ultimate fate would be sealed by
blockade. In the end she no doubt fought magnificently. But she made
these mistakes, which were mainly due to that swelled-headedness which
deflected her reasoning and prevented her from calculating consequences
aright.
There was a good deal of this apparent even in 1912. It had led to the
Agadir business in the previous summer, and the absence of wise
prevision was still apparent. I believed that this phase of militarism
would pass when Imperial Germany became a more mature nation. Indeed, it
was passing under the growing influence of Social Democracy, which was
greatly increased by the elections which took place while I was in
Berlin in 1912.[3] But still there was the possibility of an explosion;
and when I returned to London, altho I was full of hope that relations
between the two countries were going to be improved, and told my
colleagues so, I also reported that there were three matters about which
I was uneasy.
The first was my strong impression that the new Fleet Law would be
insisted on.
The second was the possibility that Tirpitz might be made Chancellor of
the Empire in place of Bethmann Hollweg. This was being talked of as
possible when I was in Berlin.
The third was the want of continuity in the supreme direction of German
policy. Foreign policy especially was under divided control. Von
Tschirsky observed to me in 1906 that what he had been saying about a
question we were discussing represented his view as Foreign Minister of
Prussia, but that next door was the Chancellor, who might express quite
a different view to me if I asked him; and that if, later on, I went to
the end of the Wilhelmstrasse and turned down Unter den Linden I would
come to the Schloss, where I might derive from the Emperor's lips an
impression quite different from that given by either himself or the
Chancellor. This made me feel that, desirous as Bethmann Hollweg had
shown himself to establish and preserve good relations, we could not
count on his influence being maintained or prevailing. As an eminent
foreign diplomatist observed, "In this highly organized nation, when you
have ascended to the very top story you find not only confusion but
chaos."
However, after I had reported fully on all the details and the Foreign
Office had received my written report, matters were taken in hand by Sir
Edward Grey, and by him I was kept informed. Presently it became
apparent that there were those in Berlin who were interfering with the
Chancellor in his efforts for good relations. A dispatch came which was
inconsistent with the line he had pursued with me, and it became evident
that the German Government was likely to insist on proceeding with the
new Fleet Law. When we looked closely into the copy of the draft which
the Emperor had given to me, we found very large increases
contemplated, of which we had no notion earlier, not only in the
battleships, about which we did know before, but in small craft and
submarines and personnel. As these increases were to proceed further,
discussion about the terms of a formula became rather futile, and we had
only one course left open to us--to respond by quietly increasing our
navy and concentrating its strength in northern seas. This was done with
great energy by Mr. Churchill, the result being that, as the outcome of
the successive administrations of the fleet by Mr. McKenna and himself,
the estimates were raised by over twenty millions sterling to fifty-one
millions.
[Illustration: _International_
VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODON
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS FROM 1905 TO 1916.]
In the summer of 1912 I became Lord Chancellor, and the engrossing
duties, judicial as well as administrative, of that office cut me off
from any direct participation in the carrying on of our efforts for
better relations with Germany. But these relations continued to be
extended in the various ways practicable and left open to Sir Edward
Grey and the German Chancellor. The discussions which had been begun
when I was in Berlin, about Africa and the Bagdad Railway, were
continued between them through the Ambassadors; and just before the war
the draft of an extensive treaty had been agreed on.
Then, after an interval of two years, came a time of extreme anxiety. No
one had better opportunities than I of watching Sir Edward's
concentration of effort to avoid the calamity which threatened. For he
was living with me in my house in Queen Anne's Gate through the whole of
these weeks, and he was devoting himself, with passionate earnestness of
purpose, to inducing the German Government to use its influence with
Austria for a peaceful settlement. But it presently became evident that
the Emperor and his Ministers had made up their minds that they were
going to make use of an opportunity that appeared to have come. As I
have already said, I think their calculations were framed on a wholly
erroneous basis. It is clear that their military advisers had failed to
take account, in their estimates of probabilities, of the tremendous
moral forces that might be brought into action against them. The
ultimate result we all know. May the lesson taught to the world by the
determined entry of the United States into the conflict between right
and wrong never be forgotten by the world!
Why Germany acted as she did then is a matter that still requires
careful investigation. My own feeling is that she has demonstrated the
extreme risk of confiding great political decisions to military
advisers. It is not their business to have the last word in deciding
between peace and war. The problem is too far-reaching for their
training. Bismarck knew this well, and often said it, as students of his
life and reflections are aware. Had he been at the helm I do not believe
that he would have allowed his country to drift into a disastrous
course. He was far from perfect in his ethical standards, but he had
something of that quality which Mommsen, in his history, attributes to
Julius Cæsar. Him the historian describes as one of those "mighty ones
who has preserved to the end of his career the statesman's tact of
discriminating between the possible and the impossible, and has not
broken down in the task which for greatly gifted natures is the most
difficult of all--the task of recognizing, when on the pinnacle of
success, its natural limits. What was possible he performed, and never
left the possible good undone for the sake of the impossible better;
never disdained at least to mitigate by palliatives evils that were
incurable. But where he recognized that fate had spoken, he always
obeyed. Alexander on the Hypanis, Napoleon at Moscow, turned back
because they were compelled to do so, and were indignant at destiny for
bestowing even on its favorites merely limited successes. Cæsar turned
back voluntarily on the Thames and on the Rhine, and thought of
carrying into effect even at the Danube and the Euphrates, not unbounded
plans of world-conquest, but merely well-considered frontier
regulations."
If only Germany, whose great historian thus explained these things, had
remembered them, how different might have been her position to-day. But
it may be that she had carried her policy too far to be left free. With
her certainly rests the main responsibility for what has happened; for
apart from her, Austria would not have acted as she did, nor would
Turkey, nor Bulgaria. The fascinating glitter of her armies, and the
assurances given by her General Staff, were too much for the minor
nations whom she had induced to accept her guidance, and too much I
think also for her own people. No doubt the ignorance of these about the
ways of their own Government counted for a great deal. There has never
been such a justification of the principle of democratic control as this
war affords. But a nation must be held responsible for the action of its
own rulers, however much it has simply submitted itself to them. I have
the impression that even to-day in its misery the German public does not
fully understand, and still believes that Germany was the victim of a
plot to entrap and encircle her, and that with this in view Russia
mobilized on a great scale for war. It is difficult for us to understand
how real the Slav peril appeared to Germany and to Austria, and there is
little doubt that to the latter Serbia was an unquiet neighbor. But
these considerations must be taken in their context--a context of which
the German public ought to have made itself fully aware. The leaders of
its opinion were bent on domination to the Near East. No wonder that the
Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula became progressively alarmed, and looked
to Russia more and more for protection. For it had become plain that
moral considerations would not be allowed by the authorities at Berlin
to weigh in the balance against material advantages to be gained by
power of domination.
If there is room for reproach to us Anglo-Saxons, it is reproach of a
very different kind. Germany was quite intelligent enough to listen to
reason, and, besides, she had the prospect of becoming the dominating
industrial and commercial power in the world by dint merely of peaceful
penetration. It is possible that, if her relations with her Western
neighbors, including Great Britain, had been more intimate than they
actually were, she might have been saved from a great blunder, and might
have come to understand that the English-speaking races were not really
so inferior to herself as she took them to be. Her _hubris_ was in part,
at all events, the result of ignorance. Speaking for my own countrymen,
I think that neither did we know enough about the Germans nor did the
Germans know enough about us. They were ignorant of the innate capacity
for fighting, in industrial and military conflicts alike, which our
history shows we have always hitherto brought to light in great
emergencies. And they little realized how tremendously moral issues
could stir and unite democracies. We, on the other hand, knew little of
their tradition, their literature, or their philosophy. Our statesmen
did not read their newspapers, and rarely visited their country. We were
deficient in that quality which President Murray Butler has spoken of as
the "international mind."
I do not know whether, had it been otherwise, we could have brought
about the better state of things in Europe for which I tried to express
the hope, altho not without misgiving, in the address on "Higher
Nationality" which I was privileged to deliver before distinguished
representatives of the United States and of Canada at Montreal on
September 1, 1913. I spoke then of the possibility of a larger entente,
an entente which might become a real concert of the Great Powers of the
world; and I quoted the great prayer with which Grotius concludes his
book on "War and Peace." There was at least the chance, if we strove
hard enough, that we might find a response from the best in other
countries, and in the end attain to a new and real _Sittlichkeit_ which
should provide a firmer basis for International Law and reverence for
international obligations. But for the realization of this dream a
sustained and strenuous search after fuller mutual knowledge was
required.
After this address had been published, I received a letter from the
German Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, in which--writing in German and so
late as September 26, 1913--he expressed himself to me as follows:
"If I had the happiness of finding myself in one mind with you in
these thoughts in February, 1912, it has been to me a still
greater satisfaction that our two countries have since then had a
number of opportunities of working together in this spirit. Like
you, I hold the optimistic view that the great nations will be
able to progress further on this path, and will do so. Anyhow, I
shall, in so far as it is within my power, devote my energies to
this cause, and I am happy in the certainty of finding in you an
openly declared fellow-worker."
But events swept him from a course which, so far as I know, he at least
individually desired to follow. The great increase of armaments took
place that year in Germany, and, when events were too strong for him, he
elected, not to resign, but to throw in his lot with his country. His
position was one of great difficulty. He took a course for which many
would applaud him. But inherently a wrong course, surely. What he said
when Belgium was invaded in breach of solemn treaty shows that he felt
this. He let himself be swept into devoting his energies to bolstering
up his country's cause, instead of resigning. His career only proves
that, given the political conditions that obtained in Germany shortly
before the war, it was almost impossible for a German statesman to keep
his feet or to avoid being untrue to himself. And yet there were many
others there in the same frame of mind, and one asks oneself whether,
had they had more material to work with, they might not have been able
to present a more attractive alternative than the notion of military
domination which in the end took possession of all, from the Emperor
downward.
It is, however, useless to speculate at present on these things. We know
too little of the facts. The historians of another generation will know
more. But of one thing I feel sure. The Germans think that Great Britain
declared war of pre-conceived purpose and her own initiative. There is a
sense in which she did. The opinion of Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, and
of those of us who were by their side, was unhesitating. She could not
have taken any other course than she did without the prospect of ruin
and failure to enter on the only path of honor. For honor and safety
alike necessitated that she should take, without the delay which would
have been fatal, the step she did take without delay and unswervingly.
The responsibility for her entry comes back wholly to Germany herself,
who would not have brought it about had she not plunged into war. And
to-day Germany lies prostrate.
But she is not dead. I do not think that for generations to come she
will dream of building again on military foundations. Her people have
had a lesson in the overwhelming forces which are inevitably called into
action where there is brutal indifference to the moral rights of others.
What remains to her is that which she has inherited and preserved of the
results of the great advancement in knowledge which began under the
inspiration of Lessing and Kant, and culminated in the teaching of
Goethe and Schiller and of the thinkers who were their contemporaries.
That movement only came to a partial end in 1832. No doubt its character
changed after that. The idealists in poetry, music, and philosophy gave
place to great men of science, to figures such as those of Ludwig and
Liebig, of Gauss, Riemann, and Helmholtz. There came also historians
like Ranke and Mommsen, musicians like Wagner, philosophers like
Schopenhauer and Lotze, a statesman like Bismarck. To-day there are few
men of great stature in Germany; there are, indeed, few men of genius
anywhere in the world. But Germany still has a high general level in
science, and of recent years she has produced great captains of
industry. The gift for organization founded on principle, and for
applying science to practical uses, was there before the war, and it is
very unsafe to assume that it is not there in a latent form to-day. If
it is, Germany will be heard of again with a field of activity that
probably will not include devotion to military affairs in the old way.
Against her competition of this other kind, formidable as soon as she
has recovered from her misery, we must prepare ourselves in the only way
that can succeed in the long run. We, too, must study and organize on
the basis of widely diffused exact knowledge, and not less of high
ethical standards. I think, if I read the signs of the times aright,
that people are coming to realize this, both in the United States and
throughout the British Empire.
[Illustration: _Press Illustrating Service_
CHANCELLOR THEOBALD VON BETHMANN-HOLLWEG
CHANCELLOR OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE AND MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN
AFFAIRS FROM 1909 TO 1917.]
* * * * *
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Of course I neither tried to obtain nor did obtain from the
authorities in Germany any information that was not available to the
general public there. I went simply to see the system of administration
and how it was worked. Not even Count Reventlow, in his highly critical
accounts of my visits in the book "Deutschlands Auswartige Politik,"
imagines that I had access to information which I was not free to use.
The German Government had ascertained for itself that a new organization
of the British Army was on foot, but it neither told its own secrets nor
asked for ours.]
[Footnote 2: This message was the response to a memorandum which Sir
Ernest Cassel had brought to Berlin from some influential members of the
Cabinet in London, and it contained suggestions for the improvement of
the relations between the two countries. An account of Sir Ernest
Cassel's visit, and of what passed when he delivered his message from
London, is given in Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's recent book.]
[Footnote 3: An anecdote illustrating the change that was coming over
political opinion in Germany in 1912, may be worth relating. I was
present at a supper party, given by one of the professors in a
well-known German University town, in May of that year. I asked him
whether the old Conservative member who had for long represented the
town had been again returned. "Returned! no," he replied. "It was
impossible to return a man of moderate opinions. We only escaped a
Social Democrat by a few votes. We managed to get enough of the popular
vote to return a fairly sensible railway servant for this University
town." I inquired what party he belonged to. "No old party," was his
answer, and it will interest you to know that his program was an English
one: "_Lloyd Georgianismus_." I then inquired what was his text book.
"_Die Reden von Lloyd George_," was the answer. Did it contain anything
about a place called Limehouse? "_Limhaus, ach ja; das war eine
vortreffliche Rede!_"]