On 25 April, 1912, the German Reichstag put through its first reading a
bill, with only perfunctory debate, for an increase in the German army
and navy. This measure has been regularly and officially interpreted as
a threat. Yet nearly a year after, on 19 February, 1913, Baron
Guillaume, writing from Paris about the prospects of the Three Years
Service bill, reports to the Belgian Foreign Office that the French
Minister of War "does not regard the measures taken by Germany as a
demonstration of hostility, but rather as an act of prudence for the
future. Germany fears that she may one day have to fight Russia and
France together, perhaps England too; and then any help that Austria
might give her would be seriously handicapped by the fact that the Dual
Monarchy [Austria-Hungary] would have to withstand a coalition of Balkan
States."
Naturally. The bill was presented to the Reichstag in April, and the
"coalition of Balkan States," M. Hartwig's Balkan League, had already
completed its organization in February. Not only so, but the very first
step taken by this exemplary organization provided for a division of
spoils in the event of a successful war with Turkey; and six months
after the organization of the League was concluded, it served an
ultimatum upon Turkey over Albania, and in October went to war. The
German Government could quite plainly see the future about to be
inaugurated through this consolidation of Balkan policy into the hands
of the Russian Foreign Office--any one even an attentive reader of
newspapers, could see it--and it could see the vastly increased
responsibility of its Austrian ally, in case of a quarrel, should it
have to take on a coalition of the Balkan States instead of a single
one.
Count de Lalaing reported from London, 24 February, 1918, that the
British Foreign Office took the same sensible view of the German
military increases as, according to Baron Guillaume, was taken by M.
Jonnart. "The English press," he says, "is of course anxious to saddle
Germany with the responsibility for the fresh tension caused by her
schemes--a tension which may give Europe fresh reasons for uneasiness."
But, he goes on--
At the Foreign Office I found a more equitable and calmer estimate
of the situation. They see in the reinforcement of the German
armies not so much a provocation as an admission that circumstances
have weakened Germany's military position, and that it must be
strengthened. The Berlin Government is compelled to recognize that
it can no longer count upon being supported by the whole force of
its Austrian ally, now that a new Power, that of the Balkan
Federation, has made its appearance in South-eastern Europe, right
at the gates of the Dual Empire.... Under these circumstances, the
Foreign Office sees nothing astonishing in Germany's finding it
imperative to increase the number of her army corps. The Foreign
Office also states that the Berlin Government had told the Paris
Cabinet quite frankly that such were the motives for its action.
The same view was publicly expressed by Mr. Lloyd George himself as late
as 1 January, 1914, when he said:
The German army was vital, not merely to the existence of the
German Empire, but to the very life and independence of the nation
itself, surrounded, as Germany is, by other nations, each of which
possesses armies as powerful as her own. We forget that while we
insist upon a sixty-per-cent superiority (as far as our naval
strength is concerned) over Germany being essential to guarantee
the integrity of our own shores, Germany herself has nothing like
that superiority over France alone, and she has of course, in
addition, to reckon with Russia on her eastern frontier. Germany
has nothing which approximates to a two-Power standard. She has,
therefore, become alarmed by recent issues, and is spending huge
sums of money on the expansion of her military resources.
Those are the words, be it remembered, of the same person who says
to-day that German responsibility for the war which broke out six months
after he had made the foregoing statement, is a _chose jugée_! The
statement was made, furthermore, not only _after_ the German bill of 25
April, 1912, but _after_ the bill of 8 April, 1913, as well, which fixed
the peace-strength of the German army at 870,000.
The Three Years Service law passed the French Chamber in August, 1913,
after a passionate popular campaign. Of this measure Baron Guillaume
says that the French newspapers, _Le Temps_ in particular, "are wrong in
representing the French Government's plans as being in response to
measures adopted by Germany. Many of them are but the outcome of
measures which have long been prepared." The French Minister, M.
Jonnart, told him that "we know very well what an advantage our
neighbour [Germany] has in the continual growth of his population;
still, we must do all that lies in our power to compensate this
advantage by better military organization." Probably this view of the
Three Years Service law was the view held by all save the relatively
small and highly-integrated war-faction; and in so far as military
measures are ever reasonable, this, like the corresponding measures
taken in Germany, must be regarded as reasonable. As M. Pichon told
Baron Guillaume, "We are not arming for war, we are arming to avoid it,
to exorcise it.... We must go on arming more and more in order to
prevent war." There is no reason whatever to suppose that this view was
not sincerely entertained by M. Pichon and by many others, probably by a
majority of the persons most responsibly concerned.
But the consequences of the Three Years Service law were contemplated by
Baron Guillaume with great apprehension. He reports on 12 June, 1913,
that "the burden of the new law will fall so heavily upon the
population, and the expenditure which it will involve will be so
exorbitant, that there will soon be an outcry in the country, and France
will be faced with this dilemma: either renounce what she can not bear
to forgo, or else, war at short notice." Of the militarist party now in
the ascendancy, he says: "They are followed with a sort of infatuation,
a kind of frenzy which is interesting but deplorable. One is not now
allowed, under pain of being marked as a traitor, to express even a
doubt of the need for the Three Years Service."
Public opinion was evidently confiscated by the
Poincaré-Millerand-Delcassé group, much as it was in the United States
in 1917 by the war-party headed by Mr. Wilson. Baron Guillaume uses
words that must remind us of those days. "Every one knows," he says,
"that the mass of the nation is by no means in favour of the projected
reform, and they understand the danger that lies ahead. But they shut
their eyes and press on."