hectoring tone, especially in that portion of the press which the people
at large read.
“That is not so bad,” he replies. “Nowhere else do the people—especially
the workingmen—read the newspapers so much as with us; but they have no
faith in them. The French laborer buys a newspaper, reads it, chatters
about it, but doesn’t pin his faith to it. His mind is open, awake, and
he is thirsty for everything that is free and upright. Race hatred
disgusts him. I know what is thought in the workingmen’s circles, for I
myself come from them.”
I ask him about the “dead point” in the arbitration question.
“I cannot say anything just now,” is his reply, “but be assured—nothing
will be left untried.”
We conclude the evening in the great music hall, where a concert
arranged by Manager Goldbeck is given in honor of the delegates.
Bourgeois is obliged to depart before the other guests; he must go back
to the city, he explains apologetically.
After a while Count Nigra comes up to me: “Do you know the news? The
French ministry fell some hours ago. M. Bourgeois has just been summoned
to Paris by telegraph.”
June 13. The _Neues Wiener Tagblatt_ prints a dispatch from The Hague:
“The negotiations regarding the court of arbitration, as we learn by
telegraph from Brussels, have completely gone to pieces.”
I send a line to Chevalier Descamps, requesting him, if the
above-mentioned news is false, to write a denial and let me send it
immediately to the paper. Descamps himself comes to bring me the answer.
The news is false, and he allows me to make the desired correction. At
the same time he begs me to write this very day to Émile Arnaud, asking
him if he will not cease attacking in the _Indépendance belge_ the
projected system of a permanent bureau and pleading for permanent
treaties instead; one at a distance cannot judge what at the moment is
to be attained, and what an obstacle it is in the way of the workers
here if what has been secured with difficulty meets with the opposition
of its own friends.
June 14. Up to the present time the question of armaments has been
considered in the Conference only from one side, namely, to the end that
agreements may be reached as to renouncing further perfection of
weapons. Yet the idea was regarded as impracticable. In spite of a very
eloquent plea of General den Beer Poortugael, who proposed that all the
armies should retain the present type of arms, the committee came to the
conclusion that it would be impossible to carry out such a regulation.
Nothing as yet has been said about Emperor Nicholas’s own proposition as
to limitation of armaments. The debates steer clear of this question so
far. A favorable result would be all the more desirable, since lately
Admiral Goschen declared in the House of Commons that the projected
increase of the British fleet would be immediately stopped if at the
Hague Conference a limitation of armaments should be determined upon.
Stead tells me what Emperor Nicholas said to him four weeks ago:
“Why are they always talking about disarmament? I never used the
expression; it does not appear in the rescript. I know only too well
that immediate disarmament is excluded. It is, indeed, difficult to
speak of the diminution of armaments. Surely the most practical step,
and the first that should be taken, would be an attempt to come to an
agreement to refrain from increasing armaments for a term of years.
After four or five years we should learn to trust one another and to
keep our word. By this means we should secure a basis for a proposal to
reduce the armaments.”
These words lead to the conclusion that the Russian delegates will offer
in the Conference a motion for stopping the increase of armaments.
Meantime the rumor grows more and more prevalent that the question of a
court of arbitration has come to a pause, owing to the declarations of
the German delegates that the principle of arbitration is directly
contrary to the principle of state sovereignty, which Germany in no
circumstances will renounce.
I receive from Berlin the telegraphic query, “How about Zorn’s[37]
speech?”
I send the telegram to the professor named, who is staying also at the
Kurhaus, and receive for answer, “I know nothing about a speech by
Zorn.”
Stead, in his to-day’s chronicle, contradicts the alarming rumors and
writes:
Whatever may be the attitude which the German government may
ultimately assume, nothing could be more correct than the attitude of
the German delegates. They are working with their colleagues in what
we hope will prove a great establishment for assuring universal peace,
and it is to be greatly regretted that their coöperation has been so
misrepresented during the last few days.
In the evening Bloch’s last lecture. Subject, “The War of the Future
from the Economic Standpoint.” Almost all the delegates, also President
Staal, present. I learn that some Russian military members of the
Conference were very indignant over Bloch’s lectures, and demanded his
arrest.
LX
THE FIRST PEACE CONFERENCE AT THE HAGUE (_concluded_)
Turning point in the arbitration question · Professor Zorn · Madame
Ratazzi · Professor Martens · Mirza Rhiza Khan · Letter from Frau
Büchner · Trip to Amsterdam · At the photographer’s · Limitation of
armaments · Two important sessions · Colonel von Schwarzhoff ·
Limitation rejected · Baron Bildt and Bourgeois · Ball at Staal’s · The
Grotius celebration · Letter from Andrew D. White · Article 27 ·
Departure · International Inquiry Commission · Beldimann in opposition ·
Again the Inquiry Commission · Beldimann’s ultimatum · _Acte final_
June 15. In the afternoon a reception given by Monsieur and Madame
d’Estournelles. The whole Congress comes and goes. Dr. White is buried
in a conversation with Count Münster. Then he comes to me.
“If you can bring any pressure to bear on influential persons, Baroness,
do it now. Every possible measure must be employed to clear away the
difficulties that are springing up.... The most important question
before our Congress—that of a court of arbitration—has reached a turning
point; that is what I was talking with Count Münster about.”
I promised to go to one of my friends staying at The Hague, and in high
favor with the German Emperor’s uncle, the Grand Duke of Baden, and urge
him to apply to the prince in these critical circumstances.
Our host introduced me to Professor Zorn. First of all I thank him for
his denial in regard to “Zorn’s speech,” of which he still knows
absolutely nothing.
“In fact, no such speech was ever made,” replied the professor. “I took
part in the discussion, but I made no speech and made no such remarks as
many newspapers attributed to me.”
The conversation turns on the Bloch lectures.
“Pure fallacies,” said the professor. “Military men think that a war of
the future will be less bloody than those of the past.”
“Less bloody! with these weapons, with this tenfold faster firing per
minute—”
“All the fewer missiles will hit—”
“Oh, no, the war of the future cannot be palliated; what the future
needs is peace.”
“That is found only in heaven!”
In the evening a great party at the Okoliczanys’. A new person makes her
appearance,—Madame Ratazzi, Türr’s sister-in-law, born Bonaparte Wyse. I
saw this woman thirty years ago at Homburg, the greatest beauty I ever
met. And now? Alas! how miserable to look on _des ans l’irréparable
outrage_ (the irreparable ravages of the years).
Long conversation with our host. He holds the opinion that, sooner or
later, even without any conference, Europe must arrive at the formation
of a union; the ceaseless expense for armaments, necessitated by lack of
unity, the constant rivalries of commerce, the policy of protection,—all
this, unless a change ensues, exposes Europe to the danger of being
ruined by America. A peace alliance uniting our part of the world is a
necessity. This is the same thesis as our Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Count Goluchowski, advanced in a noteworthy _exposé_ before the Congress
was called together.
General den Beer Poortugael joins me. I express my admiration of his
latest speech. He assures me that the limitation of armaments must be
striven for, not only because the nations expect this result from the
Conference, but also because it is the only way to escape the threatened
catastrophe. Remarkable words from the lips of a general!
June 16. In the evening a reception at Beaufort’s. I make the
acquaintance of Professor Martens. He arrived to-day from Paris, where
he is acting as president in the Venezuela arbitration tribunal. He will
attend only one session and then return immediately to Paris. Speaking
of the condition of things here, he tells me that, even though many of
the powers should hesitate or delay to sign the convention, this would
do no harm, because the protocols will be left open, even for the powers
that are not represented here.
Another exotic acquaintance, Mirza Rhiza Khan, the delegate from
Persia.[38] He is forty-five years old, has Oriental features, a thick
black mustache, and sparkling eyes; his white uniform is decorated with
numberless orders; on his cap is the Persian lion. In 1889 he
accompanied the former shah, Nasr-ed-Din, as his adjutant general on his
tour through Europe. Now he is ambassador to St. Petersburg. He was
educated in Constantinople and Tiflis, and tells us of the Princess
Tamara of Georgia, whom he knows very well; she is now at the Caucasian
baths of Botjom.
June 17. An artistic festival arranged by the government in honor of the
Conference, comprising living pictures, musical productions, and
national dances. Make the acquaintance of Baron von Stengel. He is very
stiff and repelling. We exchange only a few words—something about “loyal
opposition” and “there must needs be different views”; a few indifferent
observations about the performances of the evening and we soon separate.
A Dutch army physician introduces himself to me. He had read my novel
while in Borneo. The sufferings that he had witnessed there in the
practice of his calling exceed all belief. He had been mortally unhappy,
and so the book had made a double impression on him, and had awakened in
him a longing for the accomplishment of everything which the Conference
at The Hague has in view.
June 18. I receive from the daughter-in-law of Professor Lüdwig Buchner,
who had died not long ago, the following letter in reply to a letter of
condolence:
Darmstadt, June 17, 1899
My dear Baroness,
A year of the loftiest triumph! May all that are to follow be as rich
in success! This is what all your most faithful admirers desire with
glowing enthusiasm.
Your kind sympathy called forth by the departure of our beloved father
has been a great comfort to us. Many mourn for him with us. He, the
faithful champion of the truth, will be survived by his works. Happy
as his life was, his death was no less enviable. Even in the midst of
his fullest creative powers he glided without a sound, without a sigh,
from gentle slumber into the Unknown. Many times, when tormented by
his trying cough, weary from sleepless nights, he spoke of his
approaching end; and so it found him with the calm of a true
philosopher. Everything had been put in readiness with the greatest
care for this event. He was enabled to pass away calmly; a rich life
lay behind him. He had employed his great intellectual gifts wholly
for the good of his fellow-men. The kindness and fidelity of his heart
were rewarded by the purest joys of a sweet family life. He knew that
his loving, self-sacrificing wife was surrounded by a grateful band of
children, in whose happiness the deeply bereaved woman will find her
best consolation. We all console one another, in our deep sorrow for
the irremediable gap in our family circle, by thoughts of the
beautiful, happy life which he was permitted to enjoy so long.
For the ninth of June I wish you with my whole heart happiness and
health, and I hope that you may retain all your joyous powers of
creation, which have allowed you in the past to overcome so many
difficulties. In such a victorious career your inspiration will never
be paralyzed, and you will march forward on the road to that victory
which is to secure the happiness of mankind!
With the deepest respect
Your wholly devoted
Marie Büchner
The debates on the arbitration tribunal have come to a pause; they will
not be resumed until fresh instructions have been received. Dr. Holls
and Professor Zorn have gone to Hannover, where the German Emperor is at
present sojourning. Mr. White intrusted to Dr. Holls a long letter to
Bülow.
In the course of the afternoon we receive many callers, including Frau
von Okoliczany and her daughter, Mevrouw Smeth, and Mirza Rhiza Khan.
The Persian delegate tells me that he has been endeavoring to introduce
the Latin alphabet into Persia, but that it has met with great
opposition, especially among the priests, who declare that it is a sin
to make use of any other letters than those in which the Koran is
written.
Baron and Baroness d’Estournelles also call on me to-day. We talk about
Professor Zorn. D’Estournelles assures me that this German delegate is
striving with all his might to bring the matter of the arbitration
tribunal to a favorable conclusion: _Il pense comme vous et moi_.
Now I doubt that. I will go as far as to believe, as Stead states also
in the _Dagblad_, that Professor Zorn is determined that the matter of
the arbitration tribunal shall not be shipwrecked; but that he is as
radical in his views as D’Estournelles or as I—he himself would
repudiate the idea!
June 19. Trip to Amsterdam with a large party. We drove three times
around the whole city and hurried through the museums, allowing the
pictures by Van Dyck and Franz Hals and Rubens to flash before our eyes.
Only before Rembrandt’s great painting, “The Night Watch,” which we had
recently seen presented as a living picture, we remained for half an
hour in contemplation. At your very first entrance into the suite of
galleries it shines upon you from the farthest background. You would
think that the sun was shining on it; but its brilliancy comes from its
colors.
In the museum is a splendid case filled with Indian treasures,
consisting of rings and chains and all sorts of jewels taken as loot
from conquered rajahs; therefore simply freebooters’ booty. Mankind does
not look upon it as such.
We visit also the diamond-polishing works. A whole house filled with
workmen. On every floor a different phase of the transformation which
this precious form of carbon goes through before it becomes an ornament.
On the top floor, reached by a very narrow wooden staircase, sit the
most skillful of the laborers, who give the last finish to the stones.
They allow the foreign visitors to look; they explain the processes. The
trouble seems too great! What effort and what patience to make this
dull, hard substance glitter with a hundred facets!
The manager shows us on a velvet ground the models in crystal of all the
largest and most famous diamonds that are in the possession of the
various crowned heads,—the Kohinoor and others. I did not heed the names
attached to these little globules of glass representing millions in
value.
“Since so many diamonds have been mined in the Transvaal,” said one of
the polishers, “we can scarcely keep up with our work; and yet there are
thousands of us diamond cutters in Amsterdam.”
“Just see!” remarked Herr von Bloch to us, “just see how the world hangs
together! Suppose war should break out in the Transvaal, the
consequences would be that here in Amsterdam thousands of workingmen’s
families would suffer from want!”
We had dinner—all excursions culminate in eating—at a restaurant from
which there was a view of a canal full of life and movement. It was a
beautiful, lively picture from the open window near which I sat. On the
other side of the canal are old houses, truly Dutch in appearance, and a
church with a very lofty belfry. Boats and scows were moving up and down
heavily laden with flowers,—mainly tulips, roses, and lilies. Suddenly
the bells in the tower began to ring; the tones kept interweaving, and
for ten minutes a melodious, silver-clear chime of bells continued to
play.
Not until late at night did we return to The Hague. At the waiting room
of the railway station we meet Dr. Holls. He has just come back from
Germany, whither he had gone accompanied by Professor Zorn, with a
mission to smooth out at the main source the difficulties that had
arisen in the matter of the arbitration tribunal.
“Any news? Any news?” we ask in the greatest excitement.
“I cannot tell you anything yet,” replied Dr. Holls. “Only I will
mention the title of one of Shakespeare’s plays, ‘All’s well that ends
well.’”[39]
June 21. Léon Bourgeois, who had only just come from Paris, is recalled
again by Loubet and commissioned to form a cabinet. Will he be able,
will he be willing, to renounce the task of being prime minister? I have
it from his own lips that this is his purpose; he is going to do his
very utmost to return to The Hague in order to see the business of the
arbitration tribunal through to the end.
To-day I went with the painter Ten Kate to the photographer. A sculptor,
a friend of his, wants to chisel my bust, and for this purpose I must be
taken _en face_ and _en profil_, in three-quarters profile and from
behind, wrapped statuesquely in some soft, flowing white material, with
my hair arranged in Grecian style and with a palm branch as an ornament
for the breast. The process lasted several hours.
I was posed and pulled into shape. Then the photographer, whose name
is Wollrabe, goes to his camera, looks in, shakes his head, and
hobbles back to me—he has a wooden leg—to pull my left shoulder a
little toward the right, to lift my chin, and to twitch my draperies
down; and in this he has the critical and practical aid of Master Ten
Kate. “There, now it’s all right” (_So, jetzt ist es jutt_). Hop, hop,
hop to the camera. Again a shaking of the head and hop, hop, hop back
to me again. After a little tugging,—“There, now it’s all right.” And
so half a dozen times for each exposure. And all the while I must
preserve the earnest physiognomy of a statue, in spite of the great
temptation to laugh at the forest-goblinlike, to-and-fro stumping of
the so-hard-to-be-satisfied Wollrabe, who, by the way, has wonderfully
beautiful pictures in his studio, among them the best extant portrait
of the young queen.
One ought to be, indeed, especially young and beautiful to be painted
and chiseled. And not only the hop, hop, hop of my photographer with his
funny bird name—“Wool-raven”—strikes me as comical, but also his
white-draped model, adorned with the vegetable of peace—but I must not
laugh!
June 23. The article proposed in the programme for “an agreement
concerning the use of certain weapons and forbidding new purchases and
inventions” has been decided in the negative. Stead, speaking with me
regarding this matter, says:
“Do not for a moment imagine that this is a bad thing. Rudyard Kipling
wrote me at the beginning of the peace crusade, ‘War will last until
some inventive genius furnishes a machine which will annihilate fifty
per cent of the combatants as soon as they face one another.’ Therefore
I think that the Conference, while it has decisively rejected a whole
series of proposals—even those that came from the Tsar—in the line of
prohibiting the improvement of cannon and other weapons, has been acting
in behalf of peace and not of war.”
“I think so too,” I reply; “only that is not their reason for doing as
they have. The military men who have voted the measure down have done so
for the special purpose of promoting militarism.”
To-day the Congress is considering a weighty point, Section 1 of
Muravieff’s second circular:
An understanding not to increase for a fixed period the present
effective of the armed military and naval forces, and, at the same
time, not to increase the budgets pertaining thereto.
This is the question that is of greatest importance for the champions of
peace, for it touches the evil of armed peace.
This condition—according to Türr, _la peur armée_—has this basis: the
presupposition on which the relations of nations are established is that
the neighbor has the morals of a bandit and the conscience of a pirate!
Bad news from London,—the House of Commons has granted four million
pounds for purposes of war.
Under date of June 27 I confided to my diary the text of the whole
“armament” debate, which took place on the twenty-third and twenty-sixth
of the month. Here I will introduce only the most notable passages. This
is sufficient to bring out the attitude of the various governments
toward this question.
FIRST SESSION, JUNE 23. HERR BEERNAERT, CHAIRMAN
We have now reached the serious problem which the Russian government
placed first of all, so worded that it instantly aroused the attention
of the world.
This time it is not the nations, but a mighty monarch, who believes
that the enormous burdens that are the result of the armed peace in
which Europe has been existing since 1871 are calculated “to paralyze
public welfare at its sources, and that their constant increase
involves an oppressive load which the nations will have ever greater
and greater difficulty in enduring.”
Count Muravieff’s circular has stated the problem in a little more
condensed form as follows: “What are the means by which a limit might
be set to the increase of armaments? Could the nations pledge
themselves against an increase or even in favor of a reduction?”
I hope that our honored president, his Excellency von Staal, who has
asked for the floor, will give us an explicit explanation of these
points.
Herr von Staal said:
... “The question before us—limitation of the military budget and of
the military establishment—deserves a thorough investigation, all the
more from the fact (let me repeat it) that this constitutes the chief
purpose of our assemblage, namely, to lighten as far as possible the
terrible burden which oppresses the nations and checks their material
as well as their moral development.
“Do I need to say that there is no question here of Utopian and
chimerical measures? It does not mean that we shall proceed to
disarmament. What we desire is a limitation, a period of quiescence,
in the constantly accelerating race of armaments and expenditures.
“We make this proposition in the conviction that if an agreement is
reached, a gradual reduction will take place. Immovability does not
belong to the domain of history, and if we succeed in preserving a
certain stability for a few years, it may be taken for granted that
the advantageous tendency toward diminution of military expenditures
will be confirmed and developed. The movement would perfectly
correspond to the ideas which inspire the Russian rescript.
“But we have not yet got that far. At the present moment the question
before us is only for a cessation, for a fixed period of years, in the
increase of the military budgets and of the contingents.”
General den Beer Poortugael:
“Gentlemen: Here we find ourselves facing the chief object of
Muravieff’s circular. It is truly worth while for us to concentrate
our powers to the highest endeavor. We must regard the great interests
of the nations, so intimately bound up with his recommendation, and I
believe that I am not going too far when I say that the question must
be treated with a certain reverence.
“The armies and military budgets that have been steadily growing
larger and larger for the last quarter of a century have now attained
gigantic, terrifying, dangerous dimensions. Four millions of men under
arms and army budgets of five billions of francs a year! Is that not
terrible?
“Truly, this increase of armies, of fleets, of budgets, of debts,
seems to have been brought out of a Pandora’s box, the gift of a
wicked fairy who desires the misfortune of Europe. War is sure to
arise from this method of foresight, which is meant to safeguard
peace. The increase of contingents and of expenses will be the real
cause of war.