Why England Came In
The question of Italy and England.—Italy’s position.—The war with
Turkey.—Italy declines to join her allies.—England is aware of
the German plans.—The treaty with Belgium.—The “defensive”
war.—The “scrap of paper.”—Germany’s rage at England’s
declaration of war.—England does the unexpected.
France, Belgium, Russia, and Serbia were combined against Austria
and Germany. Little Montenegro also rushed to the help of her
neighbor and kinsman, Serbia. The question was, what would Italy
and England do. Italy, like Russia and Germany, had been having
trouble in holding down her people. A revolution had been
threatened which would overthrow the king and set up a republic.
The Socialist Party, representing the working class, had been
growing very strong, and one of their greatest principles was
that all war is wrong. They felt that the Triple Alliance made by
the Italian statesmen had never bound the Italian people.
Throughout the entire peninsula, the Austrians were hated.
You will remember that France had aroused the Italians’ anger in
1881 by seizing Tunis. Italy had hoped to snap up this province
for herself, for the Italian peninsula was crowded with people,
and as the population increased, it was thought necessary that
colonies be established to which the people could migrate to have
more room. Finally in 1911, in order to divert the minds of the
people from revolutionary thoughts, the government organized an
expedition to swoop down on Tripoli, which, like Egypt, was
supposed to belong to Turkey.
This meant war with the government at Constantinople, and Germany
and Austria were very angry at Italy, their ally, for attacking
Turkey, with which the Austrians and Germans were trying to
establish a firm friendship. However, “self-preservation is the
first law of nature,” and the Italian king and nobles valued
their leadership in the nation much more than they dreaded the
dislike of Germany and Austria.
The Germans had counted on Italy to join in the attack on Russia
and France, but the Italian statesmen knew the feelings of their
people too well to attempt this. Of late years, there had been
growing up a friendship between the people of Italy and those of
France, and the Italian generals knew that it would be a
difficult task to induce their men to fire upon their kinsmen
from across the Alps. Therefore, when Austria and Germany
demanded their support in the war, they replied by pointing out
that the terms of the Triple Alliance bound Italy to go to their
help only _if they were attacked_. “In this case,” said the
Italians, “you are the attacking party. The treaty does not bind
us to support you in any war conquest. What is more, we were not
consulted before Austria sent to Serbia her impossible demands.
Expect no help from us.”
Now the great question arose as to England. The English statesmen
were not blind to the German plan. They saw that Germany intended
to crush France first, capturing Paris and dealing the French
army such an overwhelming blow that it would take it a long time
to recover. Then the German armies were to be rushed back over
their marvelous system of government-owned railroads to meet the
on-coming German tide of Russians.
The Germans knew that they were well provided with ammunition and
all war supplies. They knew that they had invented some wonderful
guns which were large enough to batter down the strongest forts
in the world. They did not have very much respect for the ability
of the Russian generals. They had watched them bungle badly in
the Japanese war, ten years before. If once France were brought
to her knees, they did not fear Russia. Then after France and
Russia had been beaten, there would be plenty of time, later on,
to settle with Great Britain.
The English statesmen, as we have said, were aware of this plan.
They saw that if they were to fight Germany, this was the ideal
time. However, Great Britain, having a government which is more
in the hands of the people than even that of republican France,
did not have the system of forcing her young men to do military
service. Her little army in England was made up entirely of men
who enlisted in it because they wished to, and because they
received fair pay. If England were to enter a great war with
Germany, there must be some very good reason for her doing so.
Otherwise, her people, who really did not hate the Germans, would
never enlist to fight against them. The question was, would
anything happen to make the English people feel that they were
justified in entering the war on the side of France and Russia.
You will remember that England, France, and Prussia had promised
each other to protect Belgium from war. Even in the war of 1870,
France and Prussia had carefully avoided bringing their troops
upon Belgian soil. Now, however, with the German army invading
Belgium, the English statesmen had to decide their course. As
heads of one of the nations to guarantee Belgium’s freedom, they
called on Germany to explain this unprovoked invasion. The
Germans made no answer. They were busily attacking the city of
Liége. Great Britain gave Germany twenty-four hours in which to
withdraw her troops. At the end of this time, with Germany paying
no attention still, England solemnly declared war and took her
stand alongside of Russia and France.
The Germans were furious. They had no bitter feeling against the
French. They realized that France was obliged, by the terms of
her alliance, to stand by Russia, but they had confidently
counted on keeping England out of the war. In fact, the German
ambassador to England had assured the German emperor that England
had so many troubles, with her uprising in Ireland and threatened
rebellions in India and South Africa that she would never dare
fight at this time.
The English people, on the other hand, were now thoroughly
aroused. If there is one thing that an Englishman prides himself
on, it is keeping his word. The word of the English had been
given, through their government, to Belgium that this little
country, if it should resist invasion, would be protected, and
this word they thought must be kept at all hazards. It made no
difference that, aside from her great navy, England was utterly
unprepared for the war. Like the decision which Belgium had had
to make the day before, this was a crucial step for the British
to take, but to their everlasting honor they did not hesitate. In
the case of Germany’s declaration of war the German laws say that
no war can be declared by the Kaiser alone unless it is a
defensive war. Therefore, as one American writer has pointed out,
this is the only kind of war that the Kaiser ever declares. The
German military group, having control of the newspapers, put in a
lot of stories made up for the occasion about French soldiers
having crossed the border and shot down Germans on August 2nd.
They told how French aviators had dropped bombs on certain German
cities. As a matter of fact, the French soldiers, by orders of
their government, were drawn back from the frontier a distance of
six miles in order to avoid any appearance of attacking the
Germans. The City Council of Nuremburg, one of the cities that
was said to have been bombed by the French, later gave out a
formal statement saying that no bombs had fallen on their city
and no French aviators had been seen near it. But the German
government gave out this “news” and promptly declared a
“defensive” war, and the German people had to believe what they
were told.
Very different was the case in England. Here was a free people,
with free schools and free newspapers. Just as every German had
been taught in the schools of his country that Germany was
surrounded by a ring of jealous enemies and would one day have to
fight them all, so the people of England had been taught in their
schools that war between civilized peoples is a hateful thing and
must finally disappear from the earth.
The English labor leaders who themselves protested against the
war at first, in hopes that the German Socialists would do the
same, were doomed to be grievously disappointed, for in Germany
the protests against war were still more feeble. The newspapers,
with few exceptions, as was previously pointed out, were under
the control of the military leaders and the manufacturers of war
materials. These papers persuaded the German people that England,
through her jealousy of Germany’s great growth in trade, had
egged on Russia, France, and Serbia to attack Germany and
Austria, and then had declared war herself on a flimsy pretext.
At first the entire German nation believed this. Until Prince
Lichnowsky, the former German ambassador to Great Britain,
published a story in which he told how the German government had
forced the war in spite of all that England could do to prevent
it, the Germans thought, as their war chiefs told them, that the
war was forced upon Germany by her jealous enemies.
Thus the military leaders of Germany, descendants of the old
feudal nobles, were able to make the whole German nation hate the
English people.
When the English ambassador to Berlin went to see the chancellor
(as the prime-minister of the German Empire is called) and told
him that unless German troops were immediately withdrawn from
Belgium, England would declare war, for the Belgian government
had a treaty signed by England promising them protection, the
German chancellor exclaimed. “What! Would you plunge into this
terrible war for the sake of a scrap of paper!” The chancellor
was excited. As you have been told before, the Germans were sure
that England, being unprepared for the war, would never dare to
go into it. This threatened to upset all their well-laid plans
for the conquest of France and then Russia. For the moment the
chancellor forgot his diplomacy. He blurted out the truth. He
showed the world that honor had no place in the minds of the
German war lords. To the English a treaty with Belgium was a
sacred pledge; to the Germans it was something which could be
torn up at a moment’s notice if it stood in the way of their
interests.
There was a violent outburst against England in all of the
newspapers of Germany. A German poet wrote a dreadful poem called
“The Hymn of Hate,” in which he told how while they had no love
for the Frenchman or the Russian, they had no hate for them
either. One nation alone they hated—England! “Gott strafe
England” (may God punish England) became the war cry of the
Germans.
Everything had gone according to their pre-arranged plans until
England decided that her promise given to Belgium stood first,
even before the terrible loss and suffering of a great war. That
any nation should put her honor before her comfort and profit,
had never occurred to the war leaders of Germany.
Questions for Review
Why did Italy make war on Turkey in 1911?
Why did not Italy join in the attack on France?
What was Germany’s plan?
How is the English army different from others?
What reason had England for declaring war?
Had the German’s expected England to attack them? Give
reasons for your answer.
Why did the phrase “scrap of paper” make such a deep
impression on the world?
Why did the war lords hate the British so deeply?