The French war-party, represented by MM. Poincaré, Millerand and
Delcassé, came into political predominance in January, 1912, and
consolidated its ascendancy one year later, when M. Raymond Poincaré
became President of the French Republic. All through 1912 there was an
immense amount of correspondence and consultation between the French and
Russian Governments, and all through 1913 Russia showed extraordinary
activity in military preparation. In England, Mr. Asquith's Government
had to face a strong revulsion of popular feeling against the attitude
of its diplomacy, which had so nearly involved the country in war with
Germany at the time of the Agadir incident.
As always, the figures of expenditure tell the story; and the history of
1912-14 should be continually illustrated by reference to the financial
statistics of the period, which have been given in earlier chapters. For
instance, Russia, which spent (in round numbers) £3¼ million on new
naval construction in 1911, spent £7 million in 1912, £12 million in
1913, and £13 million in 1914. The fact that, as Professor Raymond
Beazley puts it, in the ten years before the war, and with increasing
insistence, Paris and St. Petersburg spent upon armaments £159 million
more than Berlin or Vienna, ought to suffice at least to reopen the
question of responsibility.
It must be carefully noted that by the spring of 1912, the Balkan
League, which was engineered by the Russian diplomat Hartwig, was fully
formed. This put the diplomacy of the Balkan States under the direct
control of the Russian Foreign Office. It now became necessary for the
Russian Foreign Office to ascertain, in case war between Serbia and
Austria broke out, and Germany should help Austria and Russia should
help Serbia, whether Russia could count on the support of France and
England. Russia received this assurance in secret, and the terms of it
were discovered by the Soviet Government in the archives of the Foreign
Office and published in 1919. This is a most important fact, and should
be continually borne in mind in connexion with the fact that the war was
precipitated by the murder of the Austrian Archduke by Serbian officers,
members of the pan-Slavist organization fostered and encouraged by MM.
Isvolsky and Hartwig.
On 9 August, 1912, M. Poincaré, then Premier of France, made a visit to
St. Petersburg, where he was joined by his kindred spirit, M. Isvolsky,
who was then the Russian Ambassador at Paris. It was the usual visit of
State, and Russia staged an imposing series of military manoeuvres in
M. Poincaré's honour. But the really important events that took place
were these. First, a naval agreement was made between France and Russia,
whereby France agreed to concentrate her naval forces in the Eastern
Mediterranean in order to support the Russian navy in the Black Sea.
This agreement was secret, and revealed by the Soviet Government in
1918. Then, in the same month, the Third French Naval Squadron was
transferred from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. M. Poincaré told M.
Isvolsky that "this decision has been made in agreement with England,
and forms the further development and completion of the arrangement
already made previously between the French and British
Staffs"--referring to the conference of Messrs. Asquith and Churchill
and Lord Kitchener at Malta, the month before, at which the new
disposition of the English and French fleets was decided. The third
matter of consequence that took place in the month of August was that
the Russian Government began to put pressure on the French Government to
re-establish the Three Years Military Service law.
So much for August. In the month of September, M. Poincaré gave the
Russian Foreign Minister, M. Sazonov, assurance that if Germany helped
Austria in a struggle in the Balkans, and if Russia were drawn in on the
other side, France "would not hesitate for a moment to fulfil its
obligations towards Russia." In the same month, M. Isvolsky had an
interview with the King of England and Sir Edward Grey, the British
Foreign Minister, in which both King George and Sir E. Grey assured him
of the fullest British co-operation in the same event. M. Isvolsky
reported to the Russian Foreign Office at St. Petersburg, that "Grey,
upon his own initiative, corroborated what I already knew from
Poincaré--the existence of an agreement between France and Great
Britain, according to which England undertook, in case of a war with
Germany, not only to come to the assistance of France on the sea, but
also on the Continent, by landing troops." These two understandings
between MM. Poincaré and Sazonov, and between M. Isvolsky and Sir E.
Grey, were secret, and nothing was known of them until 1919, when the
memoranda of them were published by the Soviet Government.[11]
A train of gunpowder, in other words, had been laid from Belgrade
through Paris and London to St. Petersburg; and at the beginning of that
train was the highly inflammable and inflammatory pan-Slavism, organized
by M. Hartwig with the connivance of M. Isvolsky. A spark struck in the
Balkans would cause the train to flash into flame throughout its entire
length.