It may, however, be reasonably urged that unless the Germans had had
aggressive ambitions they would have agreed to some of the many proposals
made by Great Britain to arrest on both sides the constantly expanding
programmes of naval constructions. It is true that Germany has always
opposed the policy of limiting armaments, whether on land or sea. This is
consonant with that whole militarist view of international politics which,
as I have already indicated, is held in a more extreme and violent form
in Germany than in any other country, but which is the creed of jingoes
and imperialists everywhere. If the British Government had succeeded in
coming to an agreement with Germany on this question, they would have been
bitterly assailed by that party at home. Still, the Government did make the
attempt. It was comparatively easy for them, for any basis to which they
could have agreed must have left intact, legitimately and necessarily, as
we all agree, the British supremacy at sea. The Germans would not assent
to this. They did not choose to limit beforehand their efforts to rival
us at sea. Probably they did not think it possible to equal, still less
to outstrip us. But they wanted to do all they could. And that of course
could have only one meaning. They thought a war with England possible,
and they wanted to be as well prepared as they could be. It is part of
the irony that attaches to the whole system of the armed peace that the
preparations made against war are themselves the principal cause of war.
For if there had been no rival shipbuilding, there need have been no
friction between the two countries.
"But why did Germany fear war? It must have been because she meant to make
it." So the English argue. But imagine the Germans saying to us, "Why do
you fear war? There will be no war unless you provoke it. We are quite
pacific. You need not be alarmed about us." Would such a promise have
induced us to relax our preparations for a moment? No! Under the armed
peace there can be no confidence. And that alone is sufficient to account
for the breakdown of the Anglo-German negotiations, without supposing on
either side a wish or an intention to make war. Each suspected, and was
bound to suspect, the purpose of the other. Let us take, for example, the
negotiations of 1912, and put them back in their setting.
The Triple Alliance was confronting the Triple Entente. On both sides
were fear and suspicion. Each believed in the possibility of the others
springing a war upon them. Each suspected the others of wanting to lull
them into a false security, and then take them unprepared. In that
atmosphere, what hope was there of successful negotiations? The essential
condition--mutual confidence--was lacking. What, accordingly, do we find?
The Germans offer to reduce their naval programme, first, if England will
promise an unconditional neutrality; secondly, when that was rejected, if
England will promise neutrality in a war which should be "forced upon"
Germany. Thereupon the British Foreign Office scents a snare. Germany
will get Austria to provoke a war, while making it appear that the war
was provoked by Russia, and she will then come in under the terms of her
alliance with Austria, smash France, and claim that England must look
on passively under the neutrality agreement! "No, thank you!" Sir Edward
Grey, accordingly, makes a counter-proposal. England will neither make
nor participate in an "unprovoked" attack upon Germany. This time it is
the German Chancellor's turn to hang back. "Unprovoked! Hm! What does
that mean? Russia, let us suppose, makes war upon Austria, while making
it appear that Austria is the aggressor. France comes in on the side of
Russia. And England? Will she admit that the war was 'unprovoked' and
remain neutral? Hardly, we think!" The Chancellor thereupon proposes the
addition: "England, of course, will remain neutral if war is forced upon
Germany? That follows, I presume?" "No!" from the British Foreign Office.
Reason as before. And the negotiations fall through. How should they not
under the conditions? There could be no understanding, because there was
no confidence. There could be no confidence because there was mutual fear.
There was mutual fear because the Triple Alliance stood in arms against
the Triple Entente. What was wrong? Germany? England? No. The European
tradition and system.
The fact, then, that those negotiations broke down is no more evidence
of sinister intentions on the part of Germany than it is on the part of
Great Britain. Baron Beyens, to my mind the most competent and the most
impartial, as well as one of the best-informed, of those who have written
on the events leading up to the war, says explicitly of the policy of the
German Chancellor:--
A practicable _rapprochement_ between his country and Great Britain
was the dream with which M. de Bethmann-Hollweg most willingly soothed
himself, without the treacherous _arrière-pensèe_ which the Prince von
Bülow perhaps would have had of finishing later on, at an opportune
moment, with the British Navy. Nothing authorizes us to believe that
there was not a basis of sincerity in the language of M. de Jagow when he
expressed to Sir E. Goschen in the course of their last painful interview
his poignant regret at the crumbling of his entire policy and that of the
Chancellor, which had been to make friends with Great Britain, and then
through Great Britain to get closer to France.[1]
Meantime the considerations I have here laid before the reader, in relation
to this general question of Anglo-German rivalry, are, I submit, all
relevant, and must be taken into fair consideration in forming a judgment.
The facts show clearly that Germany was challenging as well as she could
the British supremacy at sea; that she was determined to become a naval
as well as a military Power; and that her policy was, on the face of it,
a menace to this country; just as the creation on our part of a great
conscript army would have been taken by Germany as a menace to her. The
British Government was bound to make counter-preparations. I, for my own
part, have never disputed it. I have never thought, and do not now think,
that while the European anarchy continues, a single Power can disarm in the
face of the others. All this is beyond dispute. What is disputable, and a
matter of speculative inference, is the further assumption that in pursuing
this policy Germany was making a bid to destroy the British Empire. The
facts can certainly be accounted for without that assumption. I myself
think the assumption highly improbable. So much I may say, but I cannot
say more. Possibly some day we may be able to check conjecture by facts.
Until then, argument must be inconclusive.
This question of the naval rivalry between Germany and Great Britain
is, however, part of the general question of militarism. And it may be
urged that while during the last fifteen years the British Government has
shown itself favourable to projects of arbitration and of limitation of
armaments, the German Government has consistently opposed them. There is
much truth in this; and it is a good illustration of what I hold to be
indisputable, that the militaristic view of international politics is
much more deeply rooted in Germany than in Great Britain. It is worth
while, however, to remind ourselves a little in detail what the facts
were since they are often misrepresented or exaggerated.
The question of international arbitration was brought forward at the first
Hague Conference in 1899.[2] From the beginning it was recognized on all
sides that it would be idle to propose general compulsory arbitration for
all subjects. No Power would have agreed to it, not Great Britain or
America any more than Germany. On the other hand, projects for creating
an arbitration tribunal, to which nations willing to use it should have
recourse, were brought forward by both the British and the American
representatives. From the beginning, however, it became clear that Count
Münster, the head of the German delegation, was opposed to any scheme
for encouraging arbitration. "He did not say that he would oppose a
moderate plan of voluntary arbitration, but he insisted that arbitration
must be injurious to Germany; that Germany is prepared for war as no
other country is, or can be; that she can mobilize her army in ten
days; and that neither France, Russia, nor any other Power can do this.
Arbitration, he said, would simply give rival Powers time to put themselves
in readiness, and would, therefore, be a great disadvantage to Germany."
Here is what I should call the militarist view in all its simplicity and
purity, the obstinate, unquestioning belief that war is inevitable, and
the determination to be ready for it at all costs, even at the cost of
rejecting machinery which if adopted might obviate war. The passage has
often been cited as evidence of the German determination to have war. But
I have not so often seen quoted the exactly parallel declaration made by
Sir John (now Lord) Fisher. "He said that the Navy of Great Britain was
and would remain in a state of complete preparation for war; that a vast
deal depended on prompt action by the Navy; and that the truce afforded by
arbitration proceedings would give other Powers time, which they would not
otherwise have, to put themselves into complete readiness."[3] So far the
"militarist" and the "marinist" adopt exactly the same view. And we may be
sure that if proposals are made after the war to strengthen the machinery
for international arbitration, there will be opposition in this country of
the same kind, and based on the same grounds, as the opposition in Germany.
We cannot on this point condemn Count Münster without also condemning Lord
Fisher.
Münster's opposition, however, was only the beginning. As the days went on
it became clear that the Kaiser himself had become actively opposed to the
whole idea of arbitration, and was influencing Austria and Italy and Turkey
in that sense. The delegates of all the other countries were in favour of
the very mild application of it which was under consideration. So, however,
be it noted, were all the delegates from Germany, except Count Münster.
And even he was, by now, so far converted that when orders were received
from Germany definitely to refuse co-operation, he postponed the critical
sitting of the committee, and dispatched Professor Zorn to Berlin to lay
the whole matter before the Chancellor. Professor Zorn was accompanied
by the American Dr. Holls, bearing an urgent private letter to Prince
Hohenlohe from Mr. White. The result was that the German attitude was
changed, and the arbitration tribunal was finally established with the
consent and co-operation of the German Government.
I have thought it worth while to dwell thus fully upon this episode because
it illustrates how misleading it really is to talk of "Germany" and the
"German" attitude. There is every kind of German attitude. The Kaiser is
an unstable and changeable character. His ministers do not necessarily
agree with him, and he does not always get his way. As a consequence of
discussion and persuasion the German opposition, on this occasion, was
overcome. There was nothing, in fact, fixed and final about it. It was
the militarist prejudice, and the prejudice this time yielded to humanity
and reason.
The subject was taken up again in the Conference of 1907, and once more
Germany was in opposition. The German delegate, Baron Marschall von
Bieberstein, while he was not against compulsory arbitration for certain
selected topics, was opposed to any general treaty. It seems clear that it
was this attitude of Germany that prevented any advance being made beyond
the Convention of 1899. Good reasons, of course, could be given for this
attitude; but they are the kind of reasons that goodwill could have
surmounted. It seems clear that there was goodwill in other Governments,
but not in that of Germany, and the latter lies legitimately under the
prejudice resulting from the position she then took. German critics have
recognized this as freely as critics of other countries. I myself feel no
desire to minimize the blame that attaches to Germany. But Englishmen who
criticize her policy must always ask themselves whether they would support
a British Government that should stand for a general treaty of compulsory
arbitration.
On the question of limitation of armaments the German Government has
been equally intransigeant. At the Conference of 1899, indeed, no serious
effort was made by any Power to achieve the avowed purpose of the meeting.
And, clearly, if anything was intended to be done, the wrong direction
was taken from the beginning. When the second Conference was to meet it
is understood that the German Government refused participation if the
question of armaments was to be discussed, and the subject did not appear
on the official programme. Nevertheless the British, French, and American
delegates took occasion to express a strong sense of the burden of
armaments, and the urgent need of lessening it.
The records of the Hague Conferences do, then, clearly show that the German
Government was more obstinately sceptical of any advance in the direction
of international arbitration or disarmament than that of any other Great
Power, and especially of Great Britain or the United States. Whether, in
fact, much could or would have been done, even in the absence of German
opposition, may be doubted. There would certainly have been, in every
country, very strong opposition to any effective measures, and it is only
those who would be willing to see their own Government make a radical
advance in the directions in question who can honestly attack the German
Government. As one of those who believe that peaceable procedure may and
can, and, if civilization is to be preserved, must be substituted for war,
I have a right to express my own condemnation of the German Government,
and I unhesitatingly do so. But I do not infer that therefore Germany was
all the time working up to an aggressive war. It is interesting, in this
connection, to note the testimony given by Sir Edwin Pears to the desire
for good relations between Great Britain and Germany felt and expressed
later by the same Baron Marschall von Bieberstein who was so unyielding
in 1907 on the question of arbitration. When he came to take up the post
of German Ambassador to Great Britain, Sir Edwin reports him as saying:--
I have long wanted to be Ambassador to England, because, as you know,
for years I have considered it a misfortune to the world that our two
countries are not really in harmony. I consider that I am here as a man
with a mission, my mission being to bring about a real understanding
between our two nations.