At this point, some questions may be raised. Why, in the decade
preceding 1914, did England, France and Russia arm themselves at the
rate indicated by the foregoing figures? Why did they accelerate their
naval development progressively from about £17 million in 1909 to about
£43 million in 1914? Why did Russia alone propose to raise her military
peace-establishment to an army of 1,700,000, more than double the size
of Germany's army? Against whom were these preparations directed, and
understood to be directed? Certainly not against one another. France and
Russia had been bound by a military convention ever since 17 August,
1892; England and France had been bound since January, 1906, by a
similar pact; and this was subsequently extended to include Belgium.
These agreements will be considered in detail hereafter; they are now
mentioned merely to show that the military activity in these countries
was not independent in purpose. France, England, Russia and Belgium
were not uneasy about one another and not arming against one another;
nor is there any evidence that anyone thought that they were. It was
against the Central Empires only that these preparations were addressed.
Nor can one who scans the table of relative expenditure easily believe
that the English-French-Russian combination was effected for purely
defensive purposes; and taking the diplomatic history of the period in
conjunction with the testimony of the budgets, such belief becomes
impossible.
V
The British Government is the one which was most often represented to us
as taken utterly by surprise by the German onslaught on Belgium. Let us
see. The Austrian Archduke was assassinated 28 June, 1914, by three men
who, according to wide report in Europe and absolute certainty in
America, were secret agents of the German Government, acting under
German official instruction. The findings of the court of inquiry showed
that they were Serbs, members of a pan-Slav organization; that the
assassination was plotted in Belgrade, and the weapons with which it was
committed were obtained there.[3] Serbia denied all connexion with the
assassins (the policy of Serbia being then controlled by the Russian
Foreign Office), and then the Russian Government stepped forward to
prevent the humiliation of Serbia by Austria. It is clear from the
published diplomatic documents that the British Foreign Office knew
everything that took place between the assassination and the burial of
the Archduke; all the facts, that is, connected with the murder. The
first dispatch in the British White Paper is dated 20 July, and it is
addressed to the British Ambassador at Berlin. One wonders why not to
the Ambassador at Vienna; also one wonders why the diplomats apparently
found nothing to write about for nearly three weeks between the
Archduke's funeral and 20 July. It is a strange silence. Sir Edward
Grey, however, made a statement in the House of Commons, 27 July, in
which he gave the impression that he got his first information about the
course of the quarrel between Austria and Serbia no earlier than 24
July, three days before. The Ambassador at Vienna, Sir M. de Bunsen,
had, notwithstanding, telegraphed him that the Austrian Premier had
given him no hint of "the impending storm" and that it was from a
private source "that I received, 15 July, the forecast of what was about
to happen, concerning which I _telegraphed to you the following day_."
Sir Maurice de Bunsen's telegram on this important subject thus
evidently was suppressed; and the only obvious reason for the
suppression is that it carried evidence that Sir E. Grey was thoroughly
well posted by 16 July on what was taking place in Vienna. Sir M. de
Bunsen's allusion to this telegram confirms this assumption; in fact, it
can be interpreted in no other way.
On 28 July, the House of Commons was informed that Austria had declared
war on Serbia. Two days later, 30 July, Sir E. Grey added the item of
information that Russia had ordered a partial mobilization "which has
not hitherto led to any corresponding steps by other Powers, so far as
our information goes." Sir E. Grey did not add, however, that he knew
quite well what "corresponding steps" other Powers were likely to take.
He knew the terms of the Russian-French military convention, under which
a mobilization by Russia was to be held equivalent to a declaration of
war; he also knew the terms of the English-French agreement which he
himself had authorized--although up to the eve of the war he denied, in
reply to questions in the House of Commons, that any such agreement
existed, and acknowledged it only on 3 August, 1914.[4] He had promised
Sazonov, the Russian Foreign Minister, in 1912, that in the event of
Germany's coming to Austria's aid, Russia could rely on Great Britain to
"stake everything in order to inflict the most serious blow to German
power." To say that Sir E. Grey, and _à fortiori_ Mr. Asquith, the Prime
Minister; Lord Haldane, the Minister for War, whose own book has been a
most tremendous let-down to the fictions of the propagandists; Mr.
Winston Churchill, head of the Admiralty, who at Dundee, 5 June, 1915,
declared that he had been sent to the Admiralty in 1911 with the express
duty laid upon him by the Prime Minister to put the fleet in a state of
instant and constant readiness for war; to say that these men were taken
by surprise and unprepared, is mere levity.
Austria was supposed to be, and still is by some believed to have been,
Germany's vassal State, and by menacing Serbia to have been doing
Germany's dirty work. No evidence of this has been adduced; and the
trouble with this idea of Austria's status is that it breaks down before
the report of Sir M. de Bunsen, 1 September, 1914, that Austria finally
yielded and agreed to accept all the proposals of the Powers for
mediation between herself and Serbia. She made every concession.
Russian mobilization, however, had begun on 25 July and become general
four days later; and it was not stopped. Germany then gave notice that
she would mobilize her army if Russian mobilization was not stopped in
twelve hours; and also, knowing the terms of the Russian-French
convention of 1892, she served notice on France, giving her eighteen
hours to declare her position. Russia made no reply; France answered
that she would do what she thought best in her own interest; and almost
at the moment, on 1 August, when Germany ordered a general mobilization,
Russian troops were over her border, the British fleet had been
mobilized for a week in the North Sea, and British merchant ships were
lying at Kronstadt, empty, to convey Russian troops from that port to
the Pomeranian coast, in pursuance of the plan indicated by Lord Fisher
in his autobiography, recently published.
These matters are well summed up by Lord Loreburn, as follows:
Serbia gave offence to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, cause of just
offence, as our Ambassador frankly admits in his published
dispatches. We [England] had no concern in that quarrel, as Sir
Edward Grey says in terms. But Russia, the protectress of Serbia,
came forward to prevent her being utterly humiliated by Austria. We
were not concerned in that quarrel either, as Sir Edward also says.
And then Russia called upon France under their treaty to help in
the fight. France was not concerned in that quarrel any more than
ourselves, as Sir Edward informs us. But France was bound by a
Russian treaty, of which he did not know the terms, and then France
called on us for help. We were tied by the relations which our
Foreign Office had created, without apparently realizing that they
had created them.
In saying that Sir E. Grey did not know the terms of the Franco-Russian
agreement, Lord Loreburn is generous, probably more generous than he
should be; but that is no matter. The thing to be remarked is that Lord
Loreburn's summing-up comes to something wholly different from Mr. Lloyd
George's "most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of
nations." It comes to something wholly different from the notion
implanted in Americans, of Germany pouncing upon a peaceful, unprepared
and unsuspecting Europe. The German nation, we may be sure, is keenly
aware of this difference; and therefore, any peace which, like the peace
of Versailles, is bottomed on the _chose jugée_ of laying the sole
responsibility for the war at the door of the German nation, or even at
the door of the German Government, is simply impracticable and
impossible.