The majority of the European states are represented here by diplomats
who see in mystery and secrecy the factors of successful diplomacy. We
Americans and a few others were opposed to it—but the majority decided.
Now it may result that the representatives of the great newspapers will
feel insulted and go away—a few have already done so. Their editors will
retaliate by belittling or ignoring the Conference.”
May 29. By way of exception, no party. Spend the evening at home with a
group of friends,—Fried, the Grelix couple, the painter Ten Kate, and
Novikof. We get a scornful satisfaction in reading aloud a package of
extracts from the German nationalistic press.
As the various _Neueste Nachrichten_ and the various _Lokalanzeiger_ in
Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, and elsewhere comment on the
Conference, we find unqualified such expressions as “The disgusting
drama at The Hague,” “The Conference of Absurdities,” “The noxious
nuisance now under way, which must arouse righteous indignation in all
right-thinking men and genuine Germans,” “For the development of
universal history the comedy at The Hague will signify about as much as
a visit from ‘Charley’s Aunt’ would signify in the life of a single
individual.”
And even _Vorwärts_ (_et tu, Brute!_)—which is not nationalistic but
scouts the Conference because it was called together by an autocrat and
is composed of aristocrats and bourgeois—even _Vorwärts_ writes: “How
long will the augurs restrain themselves before they burst out into
Homeric laughter and separate amid the laughter of the world?”
Give heed, ye contemporaries! If ye fail to take seriously such a
serious work of beneficence, and to remind those who are engaged in
it—even though there be among them men of contrary opinion—of the
seriousness of their task, to hold them responsible for its
accomplishment, to take them at their word,—take care, I say, lest ye
yourselves have to repent not amid the laughter but amid the tears of
the world!
May 30. Excursion to Scheveningen. From the city, which lies in the
midst of a garden, you drive a couple of miles through avenues lined all
the way with trees, like a park, down to the seashore. Along the way, to
right and left, are multitudes of villas behind flowering gardens. In
Scheveningen itself, along the shore, multitudes of hotels. Everything
as yet is deserted. A cold, salty wind blows from the North Sea, which
under a gray sky rolls in gray billows. The wicker chairs are not yet
brought down on the beach and the bathing machines are not in their
accustomed places. On the broad terrace of the Kurhaus, around the
silent music pavilion, already stand countless rows of tables and
chairs, but all unoccupied. On the sea no ships or boats are to be seen;
the bathing season does not seem to be open yet even for the sea gulls.
Only a few carriages and pedestrians enliven the beach and the streets.
Scheveningen is indeed for all the residents of The Hague, and now
specially for the members of the Conference, a general goal for
promenading. We exchange greetings with many acquaintances. Our
fellow-countryman, Count Welsersheimb, has come down on his bicycle, and
chats with us as he wheels for some distance beside our carriage. Herr
von Okoliczany, accompanied by his slender daughter, rides by. The
Chinese flag is seen waving over the Hotel Oranje; Yang-Yü, with his
family, is the only delegate who has already left The Hague and taken up
his residence at Scheveningen.
All those dikes, those structures! How painstaking and courageous the
Dutch people have been in rescuing their land from the waters! _Those_
are battles worthy of men—against the weight and the wrath of the
elements. Should the dike-building against the wrath of our fellow-men
be alone unaccomplishable?
We gave a small dinner, the party consisting of Rahusen, president of
the Chamber; Von Khuepach, the Austrian military delegate; the second
Russian delegate, Vasily[36]; Novikof, Bloch, and we three,—a small
circle at a round table, the most advantageous arrangement for general
and animated conversation. When the coffee was brought, we were joined
by the correspondent of the _Neue Freie Presse_, Dr. Frischauer, whom I
had invited, but who was prevented from coming sooner.
After dinner a soirée at the Karnebeeks’. Frau von Staal tells me, in
the course of a conversation, how her husband is besieged every day with
addresses, memoranda, pamphlets, and deputations from all parts of the
world.
“And I suppose with numberless letters also, many of them right crazy
ones?”
“Oh, yes, even with threatening letters! Anonymous warnings that there
is a plan on foot to assassinate him.”
“Why! that is horrible! How does Herr von Staal take that?”
“He smiles at it!”
The artist Ten Kate to-day gives us a jolly dinner at the hotel Twe
Steeden, where he lives during his sojourn at The Hague—his own home is
the estate Epé. His lovely wife does the honors. Among the guests are
Mesdames von Waszklewicz and Selenka, Herr von Bloch, Novikof, Dr.
Trueblood, and A. H. Fried,—in short, a little Peace Congress in itself;
and it is still more a Peace Congress when after dinner the door opens
and in comes the Chevalier Descamps.
“Excuse the intrusion,” he exclaims; “my rooms are situated above this
dining-room. Your jolly voices reached me up there, and when I asked who
were celebrating a wedding downstairs I learned who were here, and so I
come, uninvited, but as the bringer of good tidings; we had a splendid
session to-day.”
He is surrounded and interrogated. He tells us the third committee has
been that very afternoon wrestling with the question of the arbitration
tribunal, and indeed, as Descamps assures us, in a very satisfactory
manner. The plan broached in the well-known “memorandum to the
governments” has been taken as a basis of the new scheme; and the firm
intention of the majority of the members of the committee to bring the
matter to a positive result was manifested in that session. Descamps
himself has been intrusted with the report on the project. So the matter
is certainly in good hands.
A call from Beernaert and his wife. He tells me with satisfaction the
result of the session from which he has just come. The second committee,
of which he is chairman, has voted to recommend the Brussels Treaty (an
extension of the Geneva Convention of 1864).
“It delights me that you are delighted,” I replied, “but I tell you
frankly that the question of the humanization of war—especially in a
Peace Congress—cannot interest me. The business concerns the
codification of peace. Saint George rode forth to kill the dragon, not
merely to trim its claws. Or, as Frédéric Passy says, _On n’humanise pas
le carnage, on le condamne, parce qu’on s’humanise_” (“Carnage is not
humanized, it is condemned because men grow more human”).
“_Vous êtes une intransigeante_—an irreconcilable,” he remarks with a
smile, and consoles me with the simultaneous progress of the Conference
on the arbitration question, of which I know he is the steadfast
promoter.
I received the following letter from the editor of the _Berliner
Tageblatt_, to whom I had expressed my regret and astonishment that no
correspondence from the Conference was to be found in a paper of such
wide circulation:
Berlin, May 31, 1899
My dear Baroness:
Your kind letter of yesterday’s date compels me to inform you that, in
the first place, we are not unrepresented at the Hague Congress, so
that we are informed of everything necessary and worth knowing; and,
in the second place, that, in view of the hostile treatment the
members of the Congress have seen fit to accord the press, I consider
it unbecoming to degrade journalism by dancing attendance on the
various statesmen.
Since the gentlemen, nevertheless, can only by the aid of publicity
show any proof of their industry and their good behavior,—a proof
which they must have to show to their superiors,—I quietly wait until
things come to me, and communicate to my readers only what is worth
their knowing.
If such a man as Mr. Stead complains that nothing is told him, you
will easily comprehend that men who are not accustomed to be received
by the Tsar feel somewhat cool toward the actions of diplomacy.
All this will not prevent me from joyously recognizing even the
slightest advance toward better things made during the deliberations
of the Congress, but I consider my paper and my readers too good to
snap up the crumbs that may fall from the news table of the Congress.
I trust that you will be able to appreciate this attitude of an
independent and liberal newspaper, and that you will not, after this
statement, find anything strange in our position.
With the expression of the most especial consideration I have the
honor of remaining
Yours most sincerely
Dr. Artur Levysohn
An unwarranted standpoint. Events of the day have to be communicated by
the press in accordance with their significance and entirely apart from
the sensibilities of the journalists. Consideration for the public must
turn the scale.
To-day the bathing season and the Kurhaus at Scheveningen were opened.
Herr von Bloch invited us to a dinner at the Kurhaus. Among those
present were the journalists, Dillon and Dr. Frischauer. He tells us,
from information communicated to him by Professor Martens, that the
principle of mediation has been incorporated into the text of the
Convention; especially the duty of neutral states to offer “good
offices” at the threat of war or after the outbreak of hostilities, and
this henceforth shall never be regarded as an “unfriendly act.” Count
Nigra is to be thanked for this last paragraph.
June 2. Dr. Frischauer takes his departure. He comes to say good-by to
us, and authorizes me to send to the _Neue Freie Presse_ in the form of
telegrams and letters everything interesting that may happen.
In the evening the usual Friday reception at the Beauforts. Make several
new acquaintances; among them Turkhan Pasha. In his elegant external
appearance he reminds me of Rudolf Hoyos; he has been for many years
Minister of Foreign Affairs, and bears the title of Vizier. He enjoyed
the dubious fortune of having been military governor of the island of
Crete. He speaks the purest French, is courteous and gracious, but a
slightly satirical tone dominates his conversation.
I also meet Noury Bey, the second Turkish delegate, a man at least forty
years of age, with very delicate features and reddish beard; he is
inspector in the Ministry of Public Works. Last year he was sent as
delegate from Turkey to the anti-anarchist Congress at Rome. Both the
Ottoman dignitaries give me the impression of not regarding the success
of the business here as especially likely or desirable.
Chedomille Myatovic, former Servian Minister of Foreign Affairs and now
Minister Plenipotentiary at London, is on the other hand an enthusiastic
adherent of the ends proposed by the Conference.
Augustin d’Ornellos Vasconsellos, the delegate from Portugal, tells me
that he has translated Goethe’s _Faust_ into his vernacular.
I meet De Mier, Mexican ambassador in Paris. Except the United States
and Mexico, no American country is represented here.
June 3. The evening of Bloch’s lecture. The public invited. Almost all
the delegates present. Many journalists, Dutch and foreign. Subject,
“The Development of Firearms.” Behind the lecturer’s desk a white
background for the stereopticon pictures. Bloch speaks with great
naturalness and simplicity; never seeks oratorical effects. It is
evident that he does not care to “deliver an address,” but only to say
what he has to say. He wants to show a picture of the war of the future.
And where would he find a more suitable public than the audience
assembled here,—diplomats and military men who would be called upon to
deliberate over some such war or to wage it, but are now called upon to
avoid it?
The historic development of firearms, from the first flintlock down to
the latest models, is displayed before the audience by means of pictures
and charts. The projectile of the new infantry weapon sweeps away
everything that it encounters, within a range of six hundred meters. But
still greater improvements beckon. In all armies experiments are being
made with rifles of smaller caliber. It is calculated that if in the
Franco-Prussian War the present-day guns had been used, the losses would
have been at least four times as great; if the newest models had been
used, the losses would have been thirteen times as great. To be sure,
such a transformation in the armies of the _Dreibund_ and of the
_Zweibund_ would cost four billion francs.
(Now, in view of such a fine result—just consider, thirteen times more
dead and maimed than with the primitive musket—four billions would not
indeed be too much, and this sum is easily raised by somewhat increasing
the living expenses of the laboring people!)
That parenthesis is mine, not Bloch’s. His lecture is quite objective;
he makes no bitter attacks; he adduces figures and data; the drawing of
conclusions he leaves to the reason and the conscience of his hearers.
The lecture is interrupted by a half hour’s recess. In an adjoining
hall, tables are loaded with all kinds of refreshments, which are passed
round. Bloch is host, and the lecture halls are transformed into
drawing-rooms, where greetings are exchanged, new acquaintances are
made, and impressions of the lecture are compared.
June 5. The editor of the _Dagblad_ has granted Stead the first pages of
his paper for the publication of a daily chronicle of the Conference.
To-day the first number appeared. Excellently prepared. Will be of great
use. A splendid man, this Stead. First his nine months’ campaign in
writing and speaking, and now this labor!
A seventeen-year-old son of Vasily’s calls on me. He brings an album, on
the cover of which appears in relief the word “Pax,” and he is getting
all the members of the Conference and the friends of peace who are here
to write their names in it. How many high military officers will
immortalize themselves in the Pax album! And the impression made on this
youth will certainly never be effaced. In what an entirely different way
the generation that will succeed us will approach the idea of universal
peace—they who will have been witnesses of this idea rising up and
forcing its way into official circles and into the foreground of
contemporary history. In our youth such a thing was either quite unknown
or made a matter of ridicule. If this boy who is making a collection of
contemporary autographs under the rubric “Pax” shall sometime obtain
office and honors, perhaps have to speak a weighty word in the political
questions of the future, then he will think very differently from our
grizzled politicians about the cause of national justice, and if at that
day a new official Peace Congress should be called, in which he and his
like should have to give their votes, then the proceedings would be
attended by many less doubts and difficulties than can possibly be the
case with the present Conference, the first of its kind.
June 6. We move down to Scheveningen to the Hotel Kurhaus. It does not
take us long to get settled. At the end of two hours our corner
drawing-room looks as cozy as if it had been occupied for two
years—thanks to the kindness of the manager, Herr Goldbeck, who permits
us to arrange everything in our rooms just as we please. The prettiest
furniture of the as yet rather empty hotel is put entirely at our
service. Great studio windows occupy nearly all of two walls. One,
opposite the door, frames a picture of the sea; at the other the red
silken shades are pulled down and cause the whole room to be bathed in a
ruddy glow. Flowers in vases, in jardinières, and in pots; splendid
baskets of fruit, pineapples, melons, grapes,—the last a delicate
attention of Herr von Bloch’s; books, pamphlets, maps, newspapers.
At yesterday’s session M. Descamps reported on the work of the
committee. Léon Bourgeois presided. How pleasant that now Stead’s
chronicle contains all these details of the sessions and the authentic
texts of the articles proposed. Now one can follow the course of events
quite accurately. An agreement has been reached regarding several
articles of the Russian proposal concerning good offices and mediation.
Only there stands in the articles the fatal clause, “If circumstances
permit.” Here is clearly seen the result of compromise, which is
generally contained in the text of resolutions of such committees,
composed of advocates and opponents of any cause. Only under the
condition of a rider which robs the main article of its universal
validity will those of the other party give up their opposition. The
back door is saved, and that is the main thing with them.
Arrival of Baron Pirquet. He has been in Brussels, where the council of
the Interparliamentary Union held a session in order to lay out a
programme for the Conference that is to take place in August at
Christiania; and he brings a letter from the Union to the colleagues
that are attending the Hague Congress.
Pirquet breaks the news to me that my cousin Christian Kinsky, in whose
house we had spent so many pleasant hours, had died suddenly a few days
before.
In the evening Bloch’s second lecture. He depicts the difficulties that
would attend the mobilization of the modern millionfold armies. After
the first fortnight of a war of the future a tenth part of the
armies—not counting the wounded—would be in the hospitals. He also cites
a statement made by General Haeseler: “If the improvement of firearms
continues, there will not be enough survivors to bury the dead.”
This lecture, like the first, was interrupted by a recess for
conversation and refreshments. We talked with Léon Bourgeois about
events in Paris. There, it seems, a band of young men of title (Boni de
Castellane and others) attacked the President’s hat with their canes.
Bourgeois grants that this is disgusting; “but,” he adds, “it is no more
dangerous than the foam on the seashore.”
June 7. At yesterday’s session the deliberations of the first committee
(on the laws of war, weapons, etc.) had the floor. Concerning this I
make no entry in my diary. The securing and organizing of peace have
nothing to do with the regulation of war, nothing at all—quite the
contrary! It is desired—that is, it is desired by many—that the
opposition between the two ends be abolished; they desire that the one
be substituted in place of the other! They are driving in the wedge that
shall split the work of peace.
Imagine a congress convened for the enfranchisement of slaves; would a
convention then be necessary in regard to the treatment of the negroes,
concerning, for instance, the number of blows that might be meted out to
them when they should show themselves lazy in the work of the sugar
plantations?
Or in the movement against torture as a means of securing justice, would
the agreement that the oil to be dropped into the victim’s ears should
be heated only to thirty degrees instead of up to the boiling point have
been a stage on the way to the goal, or rather a tarrying on that other
way which was to be abandoned?
June 9. My Own waked me with a kiss and a warm “I thank thee!”
“What for?”
“That thou wert born!”
Yes, quite right,—it is my birthday. That does not interest me, but what
is going to be born here,—national justice; that takes my whole mind
captive. Yesterday was devoted to the work of the third committee on
Article X of the proposal for a court of arbitration,—namely, the
article that shall determine the cases in which appeal to the court of
arbitration is to be obligatory, cases which “do not touch either vital
interests or the honor of states.” There again the back door, or rather
a barn door, for the entrance of war. He has good defenders here, the
brutal fellow!
Great dinner at the residence of our ambassador, Okoliczany. My
neighbors are the Russian chargé d’affaires and M. Pichon, assistant
secretary of the French Delegation,—a young lieutenant with a saucy
little mustache. But he has understanding, and sympathy for our cause,
and is a great admirer of D’Estournelles. He acknowledges that the world
is progressing, and that a coming civilization will have no more room
for war; only he defends the colonial policy of war. He himself has been
in the Sudan.
June 10. It is hard for me to keep up with my correspondence. I have
never before in the course of a whole year received so many letters,
telegrams, and voluminous writings as now, while I am here at The Hague.
They announce schemes, proposals, infallible methods for securing peace.
And all of this I am expected to make comprehensible to the delegates!
Inventors of airships and flying machines send me their plans and
prospectuses. By the conquest of the atmosphere the boundaries with
their customhouses and fortifications must needs disappear, opine these
aëronautical letter writers.
Or is it true that the ministers of war are hurrying to build air
fleets? and to form flying regiments of uhlans? All new inventions are
invariably employed by the war authorities. And yet I am firmly
persuaded that every technical improvement, especially all means of
easier communication, ultimately lead to universal peace.
Yesterday the arbitration committee took up Article XIII of the Russian
plan, calling for immediate consideration of the question of a permanent
tribunal, and that, too, of a tribunal not merely _in posse_ but _in
esse_.
While they are here treating theoretically about arbitration, it is said
that the matter is to be put to a practical test once again. President
Kruger has proposed to Sir Alfred Milner that certain differences of
opinion should be submitted to arbitration. Sir Alfred objected that
such an action would put in question England’s sovereignty.
June 11. At the Grovestins’s Sunday reception something amusing happened
to me. A Spanish lady, Señora Perez, asked me what I thought of peace. I
must have made a dubious face, for she anticipated my answer, saying,
“Do not decide, I beg of you, until you have read a book entitled _Die
Waffen nieder_. Have you heard of it?”
“Oh, yes, until I am sick of it.”
“Oh, no, no; first read it, and then express your opinion. The author is
said to be at The Hague.”
“The author is sitting next you.”
As so often happens, Señora Perez had missed my name when we were
introduced.
Bloch gives a small dinner at the Hotel Royal. After dinner we drive to
his third lecture. Subject, “Naval Warfare.” The fate of wars is decided
not at sea but on land. Between two evenly matched fleets there will be
no decisive victory, but mutual destruction of the fleets. The
impossibility of protecting marine commerce in times of war. Comparison
of the expenses for the fleet with the value of commerce; the pretended
protection costs a hundred times more than the worth of what is
protected.
Count Nigra sits near me. Bloch’s deductions greatly interest him. We
speak of the results to be expected.
“The world finds it hard to understand,” said Nigra, “how momentous are
the foundations here being laid for the building of the future; nor does
it understand that the calling of the Conference is in itself an event
of supreme importance.”
During the intermission an alarming rumor circulates, to the effect that
in the debate about the court of arbitration the “dead point” was
reached,—a decisive opposition on the part of one of the great powers.
June 12. During the morning our quiet excursion in celebration of our
twenty-third wedding anniversary. In the evening a few guests at
dinner,—Bihourd, the French ambassador at The Hague, Captain Sheïn, of
the Russian navy, Léon Bourgeois, Bloch, and Theodor Herzl.
I hardly ever had a more interesting table companion than Bourgeois.
What made our conversation so particularly enjoyable was our complete
agreement in matters concerning peace. The former—and perhaps the
future, who knows?—French Premier is enthusiastic for the objects of the
Conference. The task which he has to fulfill here seems to him far more
productive and important than the formation of a cabinet. In Paris a
ministerial crisis is at hand and Bourgeois will probably be recalled;
but he firmly intends to return so as to bring to an end to the best of
his ability the work here, “which promises to be useful to the world and
at the same time to his fatherland.”