Many thanks for your very interesting letter of April 27th. The spirit
which animates Germany is indeed a great and mighty one. It is a
spirit of unity and brotherhood among her people, of willing sacrifice
and heroic striving, coupled with the passionate conviction and faith
that her cause is just and righteous, that it must and will win, and
that not only is victory a necessity for national existence, but that
in its train it will bring blessings to the whole of the universe.
Wherever and whenever in the world's history such a spirit--born of
the stirring of the profoundest depths of national or religious
feeling--has manifested itself, it has invariably been attended by a
more or less marked fanaticism among the people concerned; by a
condition of mind easily comprehensible as a psychological phenomenon,
yet acutely prejudicial to the ability to preserve an objective point
of view, and to arrive at an impartial judgment.
It is but natural that in the atmosphere which surrounds you and under
existing circumstances, a man even of such sober, clear and
independent mentality as yourself should think and feel in the way
manifested by your letter. Even if it were in my power, I would not
try _at this time_ to shake your faith and patriotic determination.
Since, however, you ask me to continue this exchange of opinions, I
will endeavour further to make plain to you my ideas as to this most
deplorable and accursed war.
The views I am expressing are, I believe, the views as well of the
great majority of thinking people in America. And I would remind you
that America as a whole, by reason of the racial composition of her
population, is essentially free from national prejudice or racial
bias. With her many millions of inhabitants of German origin, her
disposition could not be anti-German in the ordinary course of
affairs--and indeed never was so before the war.
With her millions of Jews and her liberal tendencies she cannot be
pro-Russian. With her historical development in the course of which
her only serious wars have been fought against Great Britain (which
country, moreover, during certain critical periods in the Civil War
between North and South, evidenced inclination to favour the South and
thus aroused long continuing resentment in the Northern States), and
for many other reasons, her disposition cannot be that of an English
partisan--and was not so before the war.
The predominant sentiment of the American people in the Boer War was
anti-English; in the Balkan War their sympathies were pro-Turkish; in
the Italian-Turkish War, anti-Italian; in the Russo-Japanese War,
pro-Japanese, although it was fully realized that from the point of
view of America's material and national interests, the strengthening
of Japan was hardly desirable.
It may sound to you very improbable, yet it is none the less true that
America, of all the great nations, is probably the one least swayed by
eagerness to attain material advantage for herself through her
international policies. I do not claim that this arises necessarily
from any particular virtue in her people. It may be rather the result
of her geographical and economic situation.
America returned to China the indemnity growing out of the Boxer
Rebellion. To Spain, conquered and helpless, she paid, entirely of her
own free-will, $20,000,000 for the Philippines. She refused to annex
Cuba. In spite of strong provocation she abstained from taking
Mexico.
Although not a land as yet of the highest degree of culture, America
is a land of high and genuine humanitarianism and of a certain naïve
idealism.
I hear your ironic rejoinder, "and out of pure humanitarianism, you
supply arms to our enemies, and _thus prolong the war_."
The answer lies in the accentuation of the last four words, which can
only mean that, but for the American supply of arms, the Allies, from
lack of ammunition, would speedily be defeated, _i. e._ America is to
co-operate in preserving for that country which has most extensively
and actively prepared for war, the full and lasting advantage of that
preparation.
That would put a premium on war preparations--on an armed and
therefore necessarily precarious peace--since it is but human nature
that, given a difference which he considers serious enough for ground
for a quarrel, a man armed to the teeth would be less inclined to
settle the matter peaceably than one who is not so well prepared for a
fight.
Apart from this, the German complaint about the prolongation of the
war through the American supply of arms is proof in itself that the
refusal of such supplies would constitute a positive act of partiality
in favour of Germany.
And the great majority of Americans are convinced that the ruling
powers of Germany and Austria, though not perhaps the people
themselves, are responsible for the outbreak of the war; that they
have sinned against humanity and justice; that at least France and
England did not want war; that therefore its advent found them in a
comparatively unprepared state, and that it would constitute a
decided, serious and unjustifiable action of far-reaching effect
_against the Allies_ if America were to put an embargo on war
munitions--especially so in view of the fact that as a direct
consequence of the treaty-defying invasion of Belgium you are in
possession of the Belgian arms factories and iron mines and of about
75 per cent. of all the ore-producing capacity of France.
For neutrals to supply war materials to belligerents is an ancient,
unquestioned right, recognized by international law and frequently
practised by yourselves. To alter, during the course of a war, a
practice sanctioned by the law of nations and hitherto always
followed, would constitute a flagrant breach of neutrality, in that it
would necessarily help one side and harm the other.
The fact that at one time we forbade the export of arms to Mexico
affords no argument in favour of the German contention, for there it
was not a case of war between nations, but of civil war. There was
also the danger that such arms might eventually be used against
America herself, given the possibility that intervention by us in
Mexico might later on become necessary.
Commissions from Germany for the supply of arms would have been as
acceptable to our factories as were those from the Allies. It is not
America's fault if the German fleet does not break through the
British cordon and open the way for sea communication with Germany.
The superiority of the British fleet and the resulting consequences
must have been known to Germany before she permitted the outbreak of
this horrible war. She has no more right to make a grievance of these
consequences than the Allies have a right to complain of Germany's
superior preparedness and the greater perfection of her instruments of
war.
To believe American public opinion influenced by the profits which
come to this country from the supply of arms, is to misunderstand
completely the American mode of thought and feeling. Moreover these
profits go to very few pockets, and public opinion here being anything
but unduly complacent towards large corporations and capitalists is by
no means inclined to view with favour the gathering in of these huge
profits by a very limited number of individuals and concerns.
You quote with approval General von Schlieffen's remark that "in war,
after all, the only thing that matters is those silly old victories."
You would surely not say that in the individual's daily struggle for
existence or in competitive industrial strife, "the only thing that
matters" is success. Rather you would be the first to grant, as you
have always demonstrated in your acts, that there are certain ethical
limitations laid down by the conscience and the moral conceptions of
humanity, which must be respected in the struggle for success, however
keen, even though the very existence of the individual and the
maintenance of wife and child be at stake.
Schlieffen's utterance, in the meaning which your quotation gives it,
throws overboard everything that civilization and the humanitarian
progress of centuries has accomplished towards lessening the cruelty,
the hatred and the suffering engendered by war, and towards protecting
non-combatants, as far as possible, from its terrors. It is tantamount
to the doctrine of the fanatical Jesuit: "The end justifies the
means."
And it is something akin to this very doctrine which Germany has made
her own and applied in her conduct of this war as she has done in none
of her previous wars. _The conviction that everything, literally
everything, which tends to ensure victory is permitted to her, and
indeed called for, has now evidently assumed the power of a national
obsession._ Thus, the violation of innocent Belgium in defiance of
solemn treaty; the unspeakable treatment inflicted on her people; the
bombardment, without warning, of open places (which Germany was the
first to practise); the destruction of great monuments of art which
belonged to all humankind, as in Rheims, and Louvain; the _Lusitania_
horror, the strewing of mines broadcast, the use of poisonous gases
causing death by torture or incurable disease; the taking of hostages;
the arbitrary imposition of monetary indemnities and penalties, and so
forth. It is these facts that the non-combatant nations charge
against Germany, and quite apart from the responsibility for the war,
it is in them that may be found the main reason why public opinion in
neutral countries has more and more turned against Germany as the war
has continued.
I say "innocent Belgium," for it is entirely evident that the
Belgian-English pourparlers, of which Germany discovered documentary
evidence, _related merely to the eventuality of Germany's violating
Belgian neutrality_, and therefore in no way constituted a
relinquishment of neutrality on Belgium's part. _In so far as these
pourparlers did not keep strictly within these limits_ (manifestly as
a result of excessive zeal on the part of the English military attaché
in question) _they were formally and categorically rejected and
disavowed, by both the Belgian and English Governments_. This is shown
by official papers which have been published. It cannot be doubted
that these proceedings of disavowal were entirely _bona fide_, for
they took place at a time and under circumstances such that no one
could possibly have imagined that the correspondence evidencing them
would ever see the light of day. Inasmuch as you mention these
Anglo-Belgian pourparlers as among the reasons justifying Germany's
invasion of Belgium, it is worth pointing out that this treaty defying
invasion was perpetrated _before_ Germany had discovered the existence
of the documents which evidenced that such pourparlers had taken
place.
Germany's reasoning that she was compelled to take the initiative in
violating the treaty of neutrality in order to avoid the imminent
danger that England and France would do so first and thereupon advance
troops against her through Belgium, is, even if such reasoning were
morally admissible, no valid argument; for, only a few days before,
England and France had solemnly pledged themselves in the face of the
whole world to respect Belgium's neutrality.
If, as you believe, England had been planning for years to attack
Germany via Belgium, would she not then have had in readiness an
invading force somewhere near adequate for such an undertaking?
Instead she had the mere bagatelle of 75,000 or 100,000 men, which in
the first months of the war actually constituted her whole available
continental fighting force.
To any one of unprejudiced judgment there remains, therefore, no
choice but the conclusion that Germany's violation of Belgium did not
even have the excuse of being a measure of self-defence, but, as the
Chancellor in effect admitted in his first speech on the subject in
the Reichstag, was undertaken simply because "in war the only thing
that matters is those silly old victories."
Not, as you say, in obedience to England's command (what power had
England either to command or enforce her commands?), but from a
compelling impulse of national honour did Belgium oppose the German
breach of neutrality with force of arms, though it would evidently
have been to her material interest to comply with Germany's summons or
at any rate to offer merely nominal resistance.
Holland and Switzerland would have done the same thing under similar
circumstances, as would any other self-respecting nation. Moreover,
what weight could Belgium attach to Germany's promise of immunity in
case she yielded, when at the very moment Germany, by her own act, was
demonstrating but too clearly how little she considered herself bound
by her promise or indeed by a solemn international treaty?
What the Germans have accomplished on the battlefields, as well as
within their own country, is proof of such great national qualities,
that it compels the tribute of admiration, even from your enemies.
These qualities would indeed have gone far to justify her claim to
hegemony, had they not been linked unfortunately--at least among your
ruling classes and intellectual leaders--with ways of thought and
action which are anti-humanitarian, oppressive and generally
intolerable to the rest of the world.
The theory of "frightfulness" in the conduct of warfare which Germany
now preaches and practises is no new discovery. On the contrary it is
a very ancient one--so old, in fact, that long ago it had come to be
discarded and superseded in European warfare and passed into the limbo
of forgotten things. There, until resurrected by your countrymen, it
lay for generations, along with much else which the human race had
overcome and left behind in the progress of culture and humanity--a
progress achieved by strenuous toil, sacrifices and suffering in the
course of many centuries.
Such words and ideas are met with contempt and derision by your
spokesmen and termed mere phrases and sentimentality. _If these are
mere phrases then the whole upward struggle of the world for endless
years past has been based upon and aiming at phrases and
sentimentality._
I read recently an article in a German paper written by one of your
professors of international law, in which he maintained, evidently
quite unconscious of the incredible monstrosity of his logic, that,
because the Russians in their invasion of East Prussia had acted like
barbarians, you therefore had the unquestioned right, as a measure of
reprisal, to bombard and destroy Oxford and Cambridge!
And what have you gained from your "frightfulness"? Your victories
have been due to quite other qualities. By your "frightfulness" you
have steeled your enemies to the utmost limit of sacrifice; you have
embittered neutral opinion; you have disappointed and grieved your
friends and "sown dragons' teeth," the offspring of which will arise
against you many years even after the conclusion of peace.
How differently would you be judged now if you had tempered your
mighty power with mercy and self-restraint; if with the consciousness
and use of superior strength and ability you had coupled chivalry and
generosity!
You say that Germany is the only great Power which has kept the peace
for forty-four years, and made no conquest of territory of any kind by
force of arms. It is pertinent to recall in reference to this
statement, that in the course of these forty-four years Germany
virtually by force has taken a strategically important piece of China,
waged war against the Hereros and annexed colonies in Africa and in
the Pacific (receiving in exchange for one of them the strategically
most valuable island of Heligoland). Yet, speaking generally, the
world is bound to recognize with gratitude and admiration that from
1871 to 1914 Germany has refrained from using her enormous military
power in attempts at conquest.
Has she had cause to complain of the results of this wise and
far-seeing policy?
During that comparatively short period of time she had grown more
powerful than any other country. In the well-being of her people, in
her wealth and prestige she had advanced and flourished as no other
nation. Her industries, her merchant marine had brought her conquest
and triumph unequalled in the world's economic history, which find a
parallel only in the wonderful military achievements of the Napoleonic
era.
Without firing a gun she had turned Holland and Belgium practically
into German dependencies. She had achieved predominance in Turkey and
established a firm footing in Asia Minor. Her influence in South
America and Asia was increasing by leaps and bounds. Even in the
British colonies the victorious efficiency of the German commercial
conquerors was making itself felt more and more.
And as to this newly discovered naval militarism of England which, you
say, "is seeking to force England's will upon the whole world by the
force of her mighty fleet," what has it ever done to bar the way to
your commerce? Absolutely nothing. A few days ago I read a letter of
an American traveller, from which I quote the following extracts:
"Not many years ago I sat on the club veranda at Singapore
and counted twenty-five funnels of a single German steamer
line. From Singapore I went to North Borneo; there was but
one line, a German, and that line carried the British mail.
Later I went to Siam from Singapore. It was on a steamer of
this same German line, carrying British mail. There was no
other. Thence I went to Hongkong by the same excellent German
line. Later I went to Australia--it was by one of this same
line. To Java and the Eastern Archipelago, to Penang--it was
always this vast German company, doing not only all the
German, but the British mail service as well. The German
traders, with whom I mixed freely, marvelled at the infantile
generosity with which Great Britain opened all her ports to
German enterprise, although long-headed people shook their
heads at the thought of German skippers having a better
acquaintance with British waters than their own people.
"Nowhere in the British colonial world have I found the
slightest evidence of commercial monopoly and certainly no
favouring of Englishmen at the expense of Germans. Even in
India the German commercial traveller has roamed at will and
driven Englishmen out of business under the very noses of the
Calcutta Council.
"In the Imperial German colonies, on the other hand,
competing English traders have been treated to a systematic
course of petty official restrictions so vexatious that
finally they have given up the attempt to do business under
German conditions. When I was in German New Guinea this
official persecution went so far that a British trading
steamer was even forbidden to get water in order to force it
to abandon trade with the natives of that neighbourhood.
"Some British colonies, it is true, do now discriminate in
favour of the mother country, but the colonies who do that
are self-governing and therefore beyond the mother country's
control in economic matters, like Canada. But in so-called
Crown colonies like Hongkong, the German trader has the same
advantage as any other."
_England has not abused her power at sea_, at least since the
eighteenth century, any more than you, previous to this present war,
have abused your power on land. Not only has she not stood in the way
of your development, but on the contrary _she has given you fair and
free access to her markets, with unparalleled liberality_.
That England should now make every endeavour to carry on a strict sea
blockade against Germany and should do so in a manner which takes
account of the existing circumstances and novel instruments of naval
warfare, is, in the opinion of our leading lawyers, her perfect
right, as far at least as it is a matter only between her and Germany.
In the same way the North, during the four years of the American Civil
War, did all in her power compatible with the law of nations to
prevent, both directly and indirectly, export and import traffic
through Southern harbours.
It is true that dissatisfaction has been caused in this country by the
interference of England with American commerce. In fact such
dissatisfaction is on the increase and is likely to lead in the early
future to a vigorous protest on the part of our Government. But the
objections to England's practice in no wise depend on any idea of
questioning the right under international law of a complete and
effective blockade.
To call this perfectly natural and legitimate and frequently practised
measure of warfare "a war of starvation" against women and children is
a good deal of an exaggeration. Though inconvenienced, you are very
far from the danger of starvation. Indeed, all your spokesmen not
only admit this fact but defiantly proclaim it.
That against that blockade as well as for the destruction of English
commerce you are making use of your amazingly perfected submarines
appears to me entirely justified, _so long as in that use you keep
within the limits of legitimate warfare_. Nor do I deny that England,
in certain respects, has arbitrarily and it seems rather fatuously
interfered with the rights of neutrals; that she has employed against
you some irritating measures of petty and apparently purposeless
chicanery and given you cause for resentment by certain vindictive and
perhaps unfair provisions and procedures enacted at the very start of
the war against German firms and German interests within English
jurisdiction.
It must also, I believe, be admitted that you were justified in
looking upon some of the boastful edicts of Winston Churchill, with
reference to the conduct of English merchant vessels, as provocations
which gave you legitimate ground for retaliation within recognized
limitations.
But that Germany should have used these provocations and this phrase
of "starvation warfare" as a basis for _reprisals which actually do
constitute warfare against women and children, is a blow in the face
to the world's conscience_.
Against England's infringements of the strict limits of neutral rights
and against the subjecting of neutrals to certain unjust, irritating
and rather senseless annoyances, America has not failed to protest.
She has in several cases received satisfaction and acceptable
assurances. She should, and, I have no doubt, she will insist firmly
on her rights in the cases still under discussion. But--and that makes
the vast difference between the English and German infractions of the
rights of neutrals--_in no single case have such acts on the part of
England involved the sacrifice of a human life_.
You say that Germany is not responsible for the war. It is
nevertheless a fact that it was Germany who first _declared_ war.
Perhaps it would have come even if not declared by Germany, but in
that "perhaps" lies a fearful burden of responsibility.
You speak of the vast "Austro-German inferiority" in fighting men, as
compared to France and Russia, which you had to counteract by rapidity
and initiative of proceeding.
First, this inferiority of your 120 millions to the Franco-Russian 200
millions (the English, _at that time_, could not have entered into
your reckoning) is not such a "vast" one, even on paper, when one
considers how many millions of the Russians could not for many months
be included in the reckoning, in consequence of the huge distances
separating them from the scene of action.
Secondly, you had the enormous advantage of strategic railroads, which
the Russians lacked.
Thirdly, you and the Austrians occupying contiguous territory and
holding the inner lines were able to move your troops from East to
West, and _vice versa_, as occasion demanded, while the Russians and
French were separated and had to fight on the outer lines; and--
Fourthly, every one knows that in modern warfare far less depends on
the number of men than on preparation, leadership and ammunition. And
that in these respects the Russians certainly, and at the outset also
the French, laboured under a "vast inferiority" is not open to
question.
_It cannot be admitted therefore that the fact of the Russian
mobilization made it a necessity for you to precipitate war_,
especially on the very day when Austria, who was in a far more exposed
position than you, declared herself ready at last, notwithstanding the
Russian mobilization, to enter into direct diplomatic discussion with
Russia.
If Germany had waited but three days after that declaration by her
ally, before delivering her ultimatum to Russia, either the war would
have been avoided altogether, or Russia would have had to face the
world as the aggressor, with all the forces of what Bismarck termed
"imponderabilia" against her. And it would be an insult to Germany's
efficiency to question that she could have found measures short of
rushing into war, to meet and offset for another few days the menace
of Russian mobilization--apart from the fact that there is some reason
to suspect that this Russian mobilization on the German frontier was
deliberately provoked by certain Machiavellian manoeuvres in Berlin.
On the 30th and 31st of July, respectively, Sir Edward Grey
telegraphed as follows to the English ambassador in Berlin for
transmission to the Imperial Chancellor:
"... You should speak to the Chancellor in the above sense,
and add most earnestly that one way of maintaining good
relations with England and Germany is that they should
continue to work together to preserve the peace of Europe. If
we succeed in this object, the mutual relations of Germany
and England will, I believe, be _ipso facto_ improved and
strengthened. For that object his Majesty's Government will
work in that way with all sincerity and good will....
"And I will say this: If the peace of Europe can be
preserved, and the present crisis safely passed, my _own
endeavour will be to promote some arrangement to which
Germany could be a party, by which she could be assured that
no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against her
or her allies by France, Russia and ourselves, jointly or
separately_. I have desired this and worked for it, as far as
I could, through the last Balkan crisis and, Germany having a
corresponding object, our relations sensibly improved. The
idea has hitherto been too Utopian to form the subject of
definite proposals, _but if this present crisis_, so much
more acute than any that Europe has gone through for
generations, _be safely passed, I am hopeful that the relief
and reaction which will follow may make possible some more
definite rapprochement between the Powers than has been
possible hitherto_....
"_I said to the German Ambassador this morning that #if
Germany could get any reasonable proposal put forward which
made it clear that Germany and Austria were striving to
preserve European peace, and that Russia and France would be
unreasonable if they rejected it, I would support it at St.
Petersburg and Paris, and go to the length of saying that if
Russia and France would not accept it, his Majesty's
Government would have nothing more to do with the
consequences#_; otherwise, I told the German Ambassador that
if France became involved we should be drawn in."
Is this the language of one seeking a quarrel? Why did not Germany act
upon the suggestions put forth so urgently, ringing so manifestly true
and bearing so evidently the stamp of good faith? Why was the calamity
of war thrust upon the world in such hot haste, that you did not even
previously inform, far less consult, your then allies, the Italians,
in spite of the provisions of the Triple Alliance?
Is it not proved by declarations of Giolitti--certainly no enemy to
Germany--before the Italian Parliament some six months back, that
_Austria wanted to make war upon Servia as much as two years ago, that
is to say, long before the assassination of the Austrian heir-apparent
afforded the pretext for an ultimatum which spelled war_? I know
sufficient of the sentiment prevailing in England and France before
the war, as well as of the tendencies of the political leaders and
other leading men in those countries, to be absolutely positive that,
apart from a few individuals given to noise-making, but not possessing
weight or real influence, the people and the Governments of France and
England were very far indeed from wanting war.
On the other hand, I agree with you in believing that the Pan-Slavist
party in Russia did plan to bring on war. However, they did not want
it _yet_ and it is altogether doubtful whether they would have
succeeded in their design had they been met by a firm, wise and
conciliatory policy on the part of Germany and Austria.
These opponents (the Russians), _by themselves_, as results thus far
have shown, and as seemed evident in advance to sober observers, you
need never to have considered as your peers in a military sense.
Rather than take the awful responsibility of initiating war, and thus
uniting England, France and Russia whole-heartedly against you, you
could well have afforded, in calm confidence in your superior
efficiency and preparation, to take the lesser risk of letting the
Russians come on whenever, in fatuous arrogance, they might have
believed themselves strong enough to tackle you and Austria.
In an offensive war, undertaken by Russia, France would have joined,
if at all, only half-heartedly, and with her public opinion strongly
divided. No English Government, however jingo-militarist, could have
obtained the sanction of Parliament to take part in such a war. Your
ally, Italy, would in that case not have forsaken you. Public opinion
and the moral support of the neutral nations would have been strongly
with you. You would assuredly, under such circumstances, have given
the Russians a bad beating, and the world in general would have
rejoiced exceedingly at the aggressor's discomfiture.
That the large majority of the people of Germany did not want war, I
do not doubt, although (_as was not the case in England and France_)
there has been in existence in your country for years a rather
alarmingly active and influential party whose open aim was war, and
particularly a reckoning with England.
Many of your intellectuals, and particularly many of the teachers of
your youth, had come to preach the deification of sheer might. They
proclaimed with fanatical arrogance the doctrine that the German
nation being the chosen people, superior to all others, was therefore
not only permitted, but, indeed, called upon, to impose the blessings
of its civilization and "Kultur" upon other countries, by force if
necessary, and to help itself to such of their possessions as it
deemed necessary for the fulfilment of its destiny.
I believe it is not too much to say that that doctrine and the spirit
which bred it are very much akin, in their intolerance, self-righteous
assumption of a world-improving mission, lack of understanding of and
contemptuous disallowance for the differing view-points, qualities and
methods of others, to the doctrines and the spirit that lay at the
bottom of the religious wars throughout the long and evil years when
Catholics and Protestants killed one another and wrought appalling
bloodshed, destruction and ruin, for the purpose of conferring upon
their respective countries the blessings of "the true religion."
Liberal press organs and calm-thinking men in Germany frequently
before the war expressed their disapproval of, and misgivings at such
preachings and the tendencies and agitation of the jingo party, though
naturally you now all stand together and have put aside for the time
being the party differences and conflicting opinions and points of
view which prevailed prior to the war.
I agree with you in believing, notwithstanding the machinations of the
war party, that the Kaiser and the Chancellor, up to a certain fatal
moment, when they yielded their judgments to others, meant, _bona
fide_, to preserve peace. I am quite persuaded as well that the mass
of the German people did not want war and are entirely honest in
their practically unanimous belief that Germany is not responsible for
the war, although, unfortunately, the _facts_ prove the contrary.
It is conceivable that you might have been justified in coming forward
boldly and straightforwardly and saying to the Triple Entente:
"We are 70 millions strong. We have demonstrated to the world our
capabilities in every department of human endeavour and human
achievement. We require (or, at least, our people believe, rightly or
wrongly, that we require) wider territorial scope for our growth than
we possess in our own country and in our colonies. We require, too, an
assurance of greater security as to the conditions of our national
existence and our economic development.
"You have pre-empted the best part of the world. It is far more than
you require. Either see that an appropriate provision is made for us,
or, failing that, give us a free hand to conclude mutually agreeable
arrangements with Belgium, Portugal or Holland with respect to their
over-sea possessions.
"You will then find us ready to conclude an understanding with you, in
order to ensure peace and to make an end, at least, to these
continually recurring alarms of war, which are wearing out the nerves
and the purse of the whole world. To this end let us call a
conference. Meanwhile, no one is to increase the armaments they at
present possess, let alone mobilize. But if you are not willing to
give us a fair show peaceably, then we warn you to look out for
trouble."
In my opinion, such a warning would not have had to be translated into
action, for in due course things were bound to come your way by the
very force of cause and effect. With a little skill and tact and
insight (which traits, as you will probably admit, have hardly been
outstanding features of German diplomacy since Bismarck), together
with a little patience, everything you could reasonably ask would
have been yours in the course of the next ten or fifteen years.
But if the Triple Entente had met a request in the nature of the
foregoing with a _non possumus_, or had made no reasonably acceptable
offer, and you, after final warning, had resorted to the arbitrament
of war, your case would have worn a very different aspect from the
present one. Many unprejudiced men amongst neutral people would have
looked upon your view-points and conduct as not devoid of
justification, instead of turning away with disgust from the
sophistries of your writers, who seek to demonstrate that you poor
innocent lambs were fallen upon in order to be dragged to the
slaughterhouse.
As a matter of fact, however, it is my belief that such a declaration
delivered by you to the Triple Entente, firm and determined in spirit
and meaning, but friendly and persuasive in language, would have led
not to war, but to a lasting understanding.