GREAT BRITAIN AND THE WAR
The Growth of German Importance—German Militarism—Great Britain’s Peace
Efforts—Germany’s Naval Program—German Ambitions—Preparation for
War—Effect on the Empire
The influence of the European War permeated everything from and through
the nation to the individual, from trade and commerce and world-finance
to the cost of food and the price of labor. The whole world, civilized
and uncivilized, was drawn into this whirlpool of disaster—the majority
of the population of the earth was actually at war. Was it possible
that such a vast conflict—so far reaching in its racial and national
elements, so bitter in its old and new animosities, so great in its
territorial area, so tremendous in the numbers of men in arms—could
come, as some commentators say, like a thief in the night or have
fallen upon the world like a bolt from the blue! All available
information of an exact character, all the preparation of the preceding
few years, all the inner statecraft of the world as revealed in policy
and action, prove the fallacy of this supposition.
THE GROWTH OF GERMAN IMPORTANCE
As a matter of fact one nation had been for nearly half a century the
pivot upon which European hopes and fears have turned in the matter of
peace and war, of military and naval preparation, of diplomatic
interchange. During this period Germany rose to a foremost place
amongst the nations of Europe, to the first place in strength of
military power and organized fighting force, to the second place in
naval strength and commercial progress. The growth itself was a
legitimate one in the main; and, given the character of its people and
their cultivated convictions as to inherent greatness, was inevitable.
For other nations the vital question asked in diplomacy and answered in
their military or naval preparations was equally inevitable: How would
Germany use this power, against whom was it aimed, for what specific
purpose was it being organized with such capable precision, such
splendid skill?
GERMAN MILITARISM
Great Britain, meanwhile, had devoted her main attention to the trade
and diplomacy and little wars associated with the maintenance of a
world-empire and, in self-defense, had cultivated friendships with
Russia and France and the United States and Japan as this German power
began to come closer and touch the most vital British interests. France
naturally strengthened itself as its historic enemy grew in power;
Russia improved her military position after the Japanese was as she was
bound to do; Germany appeared to set the pace upon sea and land with an
aggressive diplomacy in Morocco and in China, at Paris and at St.
Petersburg, which was bound to cause trouble and to promote what is
commonly called militarism. The vast ambitions and persistent policy of
the German ruler and his people, the unsatisfied characteristics of
German diplomacy, the militant ideals and military preparations and
naval expansion of Germany between 1900 and 1914 became the dominant
consideration in the chancelleries of Europe. Armies and navies, wars
in the Balkans or struggles for colonial spheres of influence,
financial reserves and naval construction and volunteer forces—all came
to be measured against current developments in this center of European
gravity.
GREAT BRITAIN’S PEACE EFFORTS
Great Britain tried to hold aloof from this international rivalry, this
preparation for a war which her people and leaders hoped against hope
would be averted. Royal visits of a pacific character were exchanged,
parties of Great Britain’s business men visited Berlin, while leaders
such as King Edward and Lord Haldane exercised all their ability in
striving for some mutual ground of friendly action. Lovers of peace
wrote many volumes and filled many newspapers with articles on the
beneficence of that policy and the terrors of militarism—books and
articles which were never seen in Germany except by those who regarded
them as so many confessions of national weakness. Between 1904 and 1908
Great Britain actually reduced her naval expenditures and limited her
construction of battleships in the hope that Germany would follow the
lead, pleaded at two Hague Conferences for international reduction of
armaments, kept away from all increase in her own almost ridiculous
military establishment, urged upon two occasions (in 1912–1913) a naval
holiday in construction. The following figures from Brassey’s
authoritative NAVAL ANNUAL shows that her naval expenditure upon new
ships in 1913 was actually less than in 1904, that Germany’s was nearly
three times greater, that France and Russia and Italy had doubled
theirs:
Great Britain Germany France Russia Italy Austro-Hungary
1904 £13,508,176 £4,275,489 £4,370,102 £4,480,188 £1,121,753 £1,329,590
1908 8,660,202 7,795,499 4,193,544 2,703,721 1,866,158 716,662
1911 17,566,877 11,710,859 5,876,659 3,240,394 2,677,302 3,125,000
1912 17,271,527 11,491,157 6,997,552 7,904,094 2,500,000 3,620,881
1913 13,276,400 11,176,407 7,595,010 10,953,616 2,800,000 3,280,473
GERMANY’S NAVAL PROBLEM
Between 1909 and 1914 British leaders became convinced, as France and
Russia and other countries had long been certain, that Germany meant
war as soon as she was ready; that her policy was to take the two
border enemies, or rivals, first with a great war-machine which would
give them no chance for preparation or success, to dictate a peace
which would give her control of the sea-coasts and channel touching
Britain, to make that country the seat of war preparations, naval
uncertainty, perhaps financial difficulty and commercial injury, to
prepare at leisure for the war which would conquer England and acquire
her colonies. In the first-named year British statesmen of both parties
told an amazed Parliament and country that German naval construction of
big ships was approaching the British standard, that the cherished
policy of a British navy equal to those of any two other nations was
absolutely gone, that England would be lucky if, in a few years, she
held a 60 per cent superiority over that of Germany alone, that the
latter country’s naval construction was clearly aimed at Britain and
could be for no other than a hostile purpose. British ships had already
been recalled from the Seven Seas to hold the North Sea against the
growing naval power of a nation which had 5,000,000 soldiers behind its
ships as compared with England’s 250,000 men scattered over the world.
From that date in 1909 all who shared in the statecraft of the British
Empire understood the issue to be a real one—with France and Russia as
allies or without them.
What was back of this situation? Germany was already dominant in
Continental Europe. It had compelled Russia to submit when Austria in
1908 annexed the Slav states of Bosnia and Herzegovina and defied
Servia to interfere or its proud patron at St. Petersburg to prevent
the humiliation; it had brought France to her knees over the Morocco
incident and the Delcasse resignation, and would have done so again in
1911 if Great Britain had not ranged herself behind the French
republic; it held the issues of peace and war between the great Powers
during the Balkan struggles of 1912 and 1913 and prevented Servia from
winning its legitimate fruits of victory or Montenegro from holding
what it had won; it had watched with delight the defeat of unorganized
Russia at the hands of Japan and saw what its writers described as a
decadent British Empire holding in feeble hands a quarter of the earth
in fee, with revolt coming in Ireland, rebellion seething in India,
dissatisfaction in South Africa, separation upon the horizon in Canada
and Australia. Here lay the secret of German naval policy, of German
hopes that Britain would remain out of the inevitable struggle with
France and Russia, of German ambitions for a world-empire.
GERMAN AMBITIONS
The German nation had not up to the passing of Bismarck been the enemy
of the British people and until its belated entrance upon the field of
world politics and expansion the people had not even been rivals. In
the long series of European wars between 1688 and 1815, the German
states were allies and friends of England. After that, Prussia, and
then the German Empire, became gradually a great national force in the
world and its spirit of unity, pride of power, energy in trade, skill
and success in industry, vigor of development in tariffs, progress in
military power and naval construction were, from the standpoint of its
own people, altogether admirable. Following the Franco-Prussian War it
had steadily attained a position of European supremacy. Then came the
increase of population and trade, the desire for colonies, the
restriction of emigration to foreign countries.
It was a natural though difficult ambition. The marriage of Queen
Wilhelmina, and later the birth of a heir, averted any immediate
probability of acquiring Holland and, with it, the Dutch colonial
possessions, except by means of force. The assertion of the United
States’ Monroe Doctrine checked German efforts which had been directed
to South America and concentrated in Brazil, where 100,000 Germans had
settled and where trade relations had become very close. British
diplomacy of a trade, as well as political character, in Persia,
prevented certain railway schemes from being carried out, which would
have given Germany a dominating influence in Asia Minor and on the
Persian Gulf. Although the partition of Africa gave the German Empire
nearly one million square miles and an obvious opening for colonization
and power, the inexperience and ineptitude of German officials in
Colonial government, the dislike, also, of Germans for emigration and
the fact that the movement of settlers abroad steadily decreased in
late years, tended to prevent, on the Continent, an expansion which
would have been assured under British colonization and business effort.
At the same time the acquisition of these and other regions such as
Samoa was significant. Prior to 1870 Germany was a geographical
expression which meant a loose combination of States with sometimes
clashing interests, and incoherent expression, and varied patriotism.
German trade was then small, the industries too poor to compete with
those of Britain, while its people possessed not an acre of soil beyond
their European boundaries. Since then it had become a closely-united
people with an army of over five million men—admittedly the
best-trained troops in the world; with a trade totalling $4,400,000,000
and competing in Britain’s home market, taking away her contracts in
India and some of the colonies, beating her in many foreign fields;
with an industrial production which included great steel works such as
Krupps, ship-building yards said to be of greater productive power than
those of Britain, factories of well-kept character operating at high
pressure with workmen trained in the best technical system of the world
today; with other productive conditions aided by high protective duties
and with exports totalling (1910) $2,020,000,000 and imports of
$2,380,000,000; with Savings Bank deposits in 1911 totalling
$4,500,000.0000 as against a British total of $1,135,000,000.
Couple these conditions with Colonial ambitions dwarfed, or
unsuccessful in comparison with British success; continental power as
supreme, by virtue of military strength, as Napoleon’s was one hundred
years before by the force of genius, but hampered, as was his, by the
power of Britain on the seas; a productive force of industry increasing
out of all proportion to home requirements, competing with British
commerce in every corner of the world and threatened by a possible but
finally postponed combination of British countries in a system of
inter-Empire tariffs; a population of 64,000,000, increasing at the
rate of one million a year and having no suitable opening for
emigration or settlement within its own territories; and we have
conditions which explained and emphasized German naval construction.
Both German ambition and German naval construction were therefore
easily comprehensible.
Nor was the ambition for sea-power concealed. The first large naval
program was passed by the Reichstag in 1898 and fixed the naval
estimate up to 1903, when the total expenditure was to be
$45,000,000—in 1906 the naval expenditure was over $60,000,000. The
second Naval Bill was passed in 1900 during the Boer War, and the
preamble to this Act stated that its object was to give Germany “a
fleet of such strength that even for the mightiest Naval Power, a war
with her would involve such risks as to endanger its own supremacy.”
Other Acts were passed in 1906 and 1908, and for the years 1908 to 1917
arrangements were made for a total expenditure of $1,035,000,000—this
including a portion of the “accelerated program” and the Special
Dreadnought construction which caused the memorable debate in the
British Commons in 1909.
The Law of 1912—passing the Reichstag on May 21st of that year—provided
for an addition to the program of three battleships, three large
cruisers and three small ones. During the years 1898–1904 Great Britain
launched 26 battleships to Germany’s 14, with 27 armored cruisers, 17
protected cruisers and 55 destroyers to Germany’s 5, 16 and 35
respectively, or a total of 125 to 70. In 1905–11 Great Britain
launched 20 battleships to Germany’s 15, with 13 armored cruisers, 10
protected cruisers and 80 destroyers to Germany’s 6, 16 and 70
respectively, or a total of 123 to 107. Excluding destroyers Great
Britain launched 70 sea-going warships in the first period to Germany’s
25 and in the second period 43 to 37.
PREPARATION FOR WAR
Meanwhile German preparations for war went on apace in every direction.
Following up the war teachings of Nietzsche and Treitschke and others,
General Von Bernhardi issued book after book defining in clear language
the alleged national beneficence, biological desirability and
inevitability of war, which, when it came, would be “fought to conquer
for Germany the rank of a world-power;” the universities and schools
and press teemed with militarist ideals and practices; the army charges
rose to $250,000,000 and the trained soldiers available at the
beginning of 1910 were alleged to have 6,000 field-guns; Colonel
Gaedke, the German naval expert, stated on February 24th of that year
that the German government was building a fleet of 58 battleships and
that “the time is gradually approaching when the German fleet will be
superior to all the fleets of the world, with the single exception of
the English fleet,” and that in the past twelve years Germany had spent
on new ships alone 63,200,000 pounds, or $316,000,000, while between
then and 1914 she would spend 57,500,000 pounds more, or $287,500,000.
The annual report of the German Navy League in 1910 showed a total of
1,031,339 members as against an estimated membership in Britain’s
League of 20,000. Professor T. Schieman of the University of Berlin, in
the New York MCCLURE’S MAGAZINE for May of that year, clearly stated
that Germany would not submit in future to British naval supremacy or
to any limitation of armaments. During this period, also, Heligoland,
the island handed over by Britain in 1890 in exchange for certain East
African rights, became the key and center of the whole German coast
defense system against England. Cuxhaven, Borkum, Emden,
Wilhelmshaven—with twice as many Dreadnought docks as
Portsmouth—Wangeroog, Bremerhaven, Geestemunde, etc., were
magnificently fortified and guarded. Whether dictated by diplomatic
considerations and affected latterly by the British-French alliance or
influenced by Colonial and naval and commercial ambitions, there could
be no doubt as to the danger of the situation at the beginning of 1914.
In a book entitled “England and Germany,” published during 1912, Mr. A.
J. Balfour, the British conservative leader, replied to various German
contributors and gave the British view of the situation:
It must be remembered in the first place that we are a commercial
nation, and war, whatever its issue, is ruinous to commerce and to the
credit on which commerce depends. It must be remembered in the second
place that we are a political nation, and unprovoked war (by us) would
shatter in a day the most powerful Government and the most united
party. It must be remembered in the third place that we are an insular
nation, wholly dependent upon sea-borne supplies, possessing no
considerable army, either for home defense or foreign service, and
compelled therefore to play for very unequal stakes should Germany be
our opponent in the hazardous game of war. It is this last
consideration which I should earnestly ask enlightened Germans to weigh
well if they would understand the British point of view. It can be made
clear in a very few sentences. There are two ways in which a hostile
country can be crushed. It can be conquered or it can be starved. If
Germany were supreme in our home waters she could apply both methods to
Britain. Were Britain ten times Mistress in the North Sea she could
apply neither method to Germany. Without a superior fleet Britain would
no longer count as a Power. Without any fleet at all Germany would
remain the greatest power in Europe.
The Balkan wars proved and strengthened the power of Germany in
diplomacy and in the Eastern Question, while it showed that a deadly
struggle between nations might spring to an issue in a few days and a
million armed men leap into war at a word. The enormous German special
taxation of $250,000,000 authorized in the first part of 1913 for an
additional military establishment of 4,000 officers, 15,000
non-commissioned officers and 117,000 men indicated the basic strength
of the people’s military feeling, and ensured the still greater
predominance of its army.
EFFECT ON THE EMPIRE
When war broke out on August 1, 1914, between the five greater Powers
of Europe—Great Britain, Russia and France, on the one side and Germany
and Austria on the other—the issue was at once brought home to about
450 millions of people in America, Asia and Africa who were connected
with these nations by ties of allegiance or government, by racial
association, or historic conquest. Of these peoples and lands by far
the greater proportion were in the British Empire and included India,
Burmah, South Africa, Australia, Canada and a multitude of smaller
states and countries. Not the least remarkable of the events which
ensued in the succeeding early weeks of the great War was the
extraordinary way in which this vast and complex Empire found itself as
a unit in fighting force, a unit in sentiment, a unit in co-operative
action. Irish sedition, whether “loyal or disloyal,” Protestant or
Catholic, largely vanished like the shadow of an evil dream; Indian
talk of civil war and trouble disappeared; South African threats of
rebellion took form in a feeble effort which melted away under the
pressure of a Boer statesman and leader—General Botha; the idea that
Colonial Dominions were seeking separation and would now find it proved
as evanescent as a light mist before the sun. The following table
indicates the nature of the resources of opposing nations and the
character of their Colonial sources of support:
Wealth Population Total Army Navy Population of Colonies
Great Britain $80,000,000,000 45,000,000 800,000 681 368,000,000
France 65,000,000,000 39,000,000 2,100,000 382 41,000,000
Russia 40,000,000,000 171,000,000 8,000,000 249 5,000,000
Germany 60,000,000,000 65,000,000 5,000,000 354 12,000,000
Austria 25,000,000,000 49,000,000 2,200,000 155
It was a curious characteristic of the press comments and magazine
articles and book studies of the War during these months that while
varied fighting was going on in the various Colonies of these Powers
and in the case of Great Britain, notably, countries like Canada,
Australia, New Zealand and India were pouring out men and gifts to aid
the Empire, statistical calculations usually rated Great Britain as not
an Empire but simply a nation with the wealth and population of its two
little islands in the North Sea.
Properly the $80,000,000,000 of estimated British wealth should have e
included the thousands of millions of treasure in India and Egypt, the
gold mines and diamond resources of South Africa, the wheat fields and
mines of Canada, the sheep farms and gold of Australia and many other
sources; the estimate of population should have included the countless
millions from which Britain could draw and did draw in the day of
emergency. In this vast Empire British capital had been invested to an
enormous amount—the estimated total in 1914 being $2,570,0000,000 for
Canada and Newfoundland, $1,893,000,000 in India and
Ceylon,$1,850,000,000 in south Africa, $1,660,000,000 in Australia, or
a total in all British countries of $8,900,000,000. When the War broke
out these Dominions endeavored to help the Mother Country in every
possible way and the following table shows what was done in Canada
alone during the first few months of the conflict:
THE DOMINION
Expeditionary force of over 32,000 men, fully equipped; 50,000 others
under training for the front. Over 200 field and machine guns. Two
submarines, for general service ($1,050,000); H.M.C.S. Niobe and
Rainbow for general service. 1,000,000 bags of flour. $100,000 for
“Hospice Canadien” in France. $50,000 for the relief of Belgian
sufferers.
THE PROVINCES
ALBERTA: 500,000 bushels of oats; 5,000 bags of flour for Belgians.
Civil service, 5 per cent of salaries up to $1500 per annum, and 10 per
cent in excess of that amount to Canadian Patriotic Fund.
BRITISH COLUMBIA: 25,000 cases of canned salmon; $5,000 to Belgian
Relief Fund.
MANITOBA: 10,000 men; 50,000 bags of flour; $5,000 to Belgian Relief
Fund.
NEW BRUNSWICK: 1,000 men; 100,000 bushels of potatoes, 15,000 barrels
of potatoes for Belgium.
NOVA SCOTIA: $100,000 to the Prince of Wales Fund; apples for the
troops; food and clothing for Belgium.
ONTARIO: $500,000; 250,000 bags of flour; 100,000 lbs of evaporated
apples for the Navy; $15,000 to the Belgian Relief Fund.
PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND: 100,000 bushels of oats; cheese and hay.
QUEBEC: 4,000,000 lbs of cheese; $25,000 to Belgian Relief Fund.
SASKATCHEWAN: 1,500 horses ($250,000); $5,000 to Belgian Relief Fund
THE YUKON: $6,000 to the Canadian Patriotic fund
THE CITIES
OTTAWA: $300,000 (for machine gun sections—4 guns on armored motors and
a detachment of 30 men); $50,000 to the Canadian Patriotic Fund.
QUEBEC: $20,000 Canadian Patriotic fund; insuring lives of Quebec
volunteers.
MONTREAL: $150,000 (Canadian Patriotic Fund); battery of quick-firing
guns; $10,000 to Belgian Relief fund.
TORONTO: $50,000 (Canadian Patriotic Fund); insuring lives of all
Toronto volunteers; 100 horses for training purposes; carload for
Belgians of canned provisions.
WINNIPEG: $5,000 monthly to Patriotic Fund
REGINA: $1,000 for comfort of the city’s soldiers; $62,500 To Belgian
Relief Fund.
CALGARY: 1,000 MEN (Legion of Frontiersmen).
HAMILTON: $20,000 Patriotic Fund; $5,000 for local relief.
BERLIN: $10,000 Patriotic Fund.
ST. JOHNS, N.B. $10,000 Patriotic Fund; $2,000 Belgian Fund
THE WOMEN OF CANADA: Building, equipping and maintenance of “Canadian
Women’s Hospital” of 100 beds to supplement Naval Hospital at Haslar
($182,857); $100,000 To War Office (40 motor ambulance cars purchased).
Women of Nova Scotia $15,170 ($7,000 to Hospital, $5,000 Canadian
Patriotic fund and rest to Red Cross).
THE BANKS AND THE PATRIOTIC FUNDS
BANK OF MONTREAL $110,000
CANADIAN BANK OF COMMERCE 50,000
ROYAL BANK OF CANADA 50,000
MERCHANTS BANK 30,000
DOMINION BANK 25,000
UNION BANK OF CANADA 25,000
BANK OF TORONTO 25,000
BANK OF OTTAWA 25,000
BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA 25,000
BANK OF HAMILTON 25,000
BANK OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA 25,000
Little Newfoundland sent a contingent of 510; placed a Naval Reserve
force of 1,000 men in training and prepared a second contingent of 500
men, while contributing $120,000 to a local Patriotic Fund. Australia
handed over its fleet of battleships and cruisers to the Admiralty and
one of these, The Sydney, captured the Emden of German fame, while the
New Zealand, a dreadnought from the Island Dominion of that name, held
a place in the North Sea fighting line. Australia also sent 20,000 men
who saw service before the end of the year in Egypt, provided reserves
and prepared two more contingents, while sending donations of all kinds
of food supplies for the poor in Britain or for the Belgian refugees.
From India at once went a portion of the British Army which was
replaced by native troops and then a large contingent of the latter,
which took part in the protection of Egypt and in the fighting in
France.
The great Princes of India—notably the Maharajahs of Nepaul, Gwalior,
Patiala, Baratppur, Sikkim and Dholpur—placed the entire military
resources of tens of millions of people at the disposal of the
King-Emperor. The Maharajah of Rewa cabled this splendid message: “What
orders from His Majesty for me and my troops?” The Nizam of Hyderabad
and the Maharajah of Bikanir offered not only their troops, but the
entire resources of their great states and their own personal services
at the front. Bengal gave a million bags of jute for the army and the
Maharajah of Mysore proffered 3,500 men and 50 lakhs of rupees (about
$350,000). Practically all the 700 native rulers of states in India
offered personal services, men and money. For active personal service
the Viceroy selected the Chiefs of Jodhpur, Bikanir, Kishangarh,
Rutlam, Sachin, Patiala, Sir Pertab Singh, Regent of Jodhpur, and
others. Contingents of cavalry and infantry, supplies and transports
were forwarded besides a camel corps from Bikanir, horses from many
states, machine guns, hospital-bed contributions, motor cars and large
gifts to the Patriotic and Belgian Relief Funds. New Zealand sent a
first contingent of 8,000 troops and relief forces, prepared to send
more and promised, like Canada and Australia, to continue training and
sending troops as long as they should be required. On the other hand
Great Britain undertook to finance the actual military operations of
these countries by lending the four Dominions $210,000,000 and
undertaking to provide more when needed.
It was with this unity, and in this spirit, that the British Empire
entered the great War for the redemption of its pledges to Belgium and
adherence to its French obligations—Russia only coming indirectly into
the first stage of the question and Japan, through the force of its
Treaty, undertaking to guard British interests in the East.