THE SECRET TREATY OF BJÖRKE--I
Of all the extravagant and, one might add, irrational acts of the
weak-willed sovereign who at last gave the death-blow to the Tsarist
State the secret treaty, consisting of four brief clauses, which he
concluded with Kaiser Wilhelm at Björke in July, 1905, occupies a
foremost place. Politically it was a deed of surrender to the only
formidable rival of his Empire, a covenant which crowned the suicidal
process he had already inaugurated when he ordered Witte to accept
Germany's proposals for a commercial treaty.[1] The commercial
treaty bound Russia economically to the Teutons, was in fact the
first step towards reducing her rôle to that of one of their
colonies, while the Björke agreement gave official recognition to the
Kaiser's cherished plans for the permanent reorganisation of Europe,
placed the resources of the Russian Empire at his disposal for their
realisation, and implicitly handed over France to his mercy. Wilhelm
II. could not dispense with Russia's co-operation in the work of
constraining France to enter into an alliance which she would never
have accepted of her own free will, and Nicholas II. foolishly
pledged himself to supply it. From the only other point of view
worth considering, the act marked the Tsar as a degenerate on whose
mind no political ideal, no wise principle of international policy
had stamped itself durably. It may be worth while to cast a glance
in passing at the scheme which Wilhelm II., as the representative and
spokesman of the German people, had formed and was working
indefatigably and methodically to embody.
The psychological diagnosis, so common in France and Britain since
the outbreak of the Great War, which represents Kaiser Wilhelm II. as
a maniac of some kind and degree, is {313} one of the symptoms of the
self-deluding propensities of the Entente nations. It is an
injustice to one's people to belittle their adversaries, and it is
self-degradation to defame them. The Kaiser has probably more to
answer for than any other ruler known to human history, and future
generations will associate his name with the most appalling crime
against mankind ever recorded, but it avails us nothing to gainsay
the fact that in all his exertions for what he supposed to be the
good of his people he had remarkably clear conceptions and a right
understanding of the relation between cause and effect. The
tenacity, resource, and efficiency with which he worked to perfect
his armies, to build a navy, and to arrange the requisite political
conditions for the attainment of his principal aim challenge
recognition which one may bestow without committing oneself to
anything like approval of that aim. It can hardly be doubted that he
himself believes in its loftiness. Therein lies his force and the
force of the whole German people which shares that belief. They are
animated by that living, incandescent faith which melts away in its
blazing flame all individual and other interests except the welfare
of the collective organism as they misunderstand it. That is one of
the many differences between the Teuton races and others.
Parenthetically, I should like to record my conviction that the
Japanese, in at least as high a degree as the Germans, are permeated
by this sustaining faith which together with such invaluable
qualities as vision, organisation, grasp of detail, loyalty, and a
fine sense of measure foredestine them, whether or no we like the
prospect, to play a most important part in determining the trend of
human progress.
It is needless to remark that the qualities of unscrupulousness in
the pursuit of ends, insensibility to what Entente peoples regard as
points of honour, coarseness in address, arrogance towards inferiors
and equals from whom nothing is expected, obsequiousness and flattery
towards those who are to be exploited or duped, and the countless
forms of duplicity and unveracity as helps to success appeal neither
to the Latin nor to the Anglo-Saxon nations. But one would {314} do
well to remember that this list by no means exhausts the catalogue of
Teuton characteristics; of their positive qualities as well as of
their repulsive defects the war has given ample illustrations.
Adaptability to changing circumstances is one of the positive forces
of the Teuton race. It runs through their latter-day history like a
white thread in a dark texture. It is their source of elasticity in
organising, of coherence in politics, of docility and buoyancy in
battle. Yet the judgment rashly passed on them by some leaders of
the Entente nations is that they are stiff, unbending, wanting in
initiative, inaccessible to new ideas, easily disconcerted and
demoralised. As a matter of fact it is the non-Teuton peoples who
are slow to quit their habits of thought and action and accommodate
both to the new conditions of existence. Of the latter-day Teutons
at their best and their worst Wilhelm II. is a type.
In ethics the Kaiser is a law unto himself, and his morality is in
essentials that of the entire German race. He also has his own
ideals of international life which, if I who have heard and read a
great deal about them may venture to say so, differ in only one or
two particulars from President Wilson's League of Nations. It is
superfluous to add that these differences are momentous.
The German ideal in international ordering is the equivalent of
absolutism in national politics. As the State governs the nation so
a chosen race should direct the Continent and, if possible, the
world, and its instrument at the outset can only be force. The
leading rôle falls naturally to that race which has given proofs, not
only of the greatest, but also of absolute aptitude to do it justice,
and this race is the Teuton. Opposed to this conception stands that
of the democratic peoples of the world who are for republicanism with
a tendency to anarchy at home and for equality in the dealings of
State with State. Their instrument is law and public opinion, but
their sluggishness in working out this conception, which they might
long ago have done, to a fruitful solution is apparently invincible.
And the reason is not far to seek. Most of the political organs of
these advanced {315} communities of the west, such as the monarchy,
the republic, the legislative chambers, the press, appeared to
Wilhelm II. as little better than mere shams. The so-called
democratic peoples exist, he alleged, for the few, and the few are
among the most narrow-minded and ignorant of God's creatures. Their
institutions are in many cases mere veils that conceal from the
people a degree of insensibility to their needs and sufferings
greater far than that which the English and the French ascribe to the
German government. And that is why they have made no serious effort
to draw nearer to the national and international ideals towards which
they profess to be striving. If their professions were sincere, why,
he asked, have they never been accompanied by an organising policy?
The reason is, he answered, because, if the reform were carried out,
the reformers' easy job would be gone. In democratic lands the
ignorant talker comes nearly always to the top, and the nation has to
be content with appearance in lieu of reality. Accessibility to new
ideas and the systematic use of the intellect are checked and
discouraged there. In Germany, despite what the French and the
English say to the contrary, it is very different. There the career
is really open to the talents; things, however imperfect, are at
least what they seem, and the rulers are both competent and efficient.
The Kaiser professed to believe that under the German system nature
is made more subservient to social needs than under any other, and
that the higher and nobler elements of human character have freer
play there. Consequently the other races, and in particular the
Russian, French, and Italian, would stand to gain by closer
intercourse with the Germans, and would benefit by the incidental
advantage of substituting a moral relationship which would exclude
war for the state of nature that exists at present between them and
all the independent States of Europe. To establish this intimate
intercourse has been the Kaiser's goal ever since he had a policy of
his own. His way of reaching it was to induce or oblige the
continental powers to assent to the formation of a somewhat looser
league than that which keeps {316} the component parts of the German
Empire together, and to work on that fulcrum for the elimination of
war from continental politics, and also for the establishment at some
future period of a supreme board of government for all European
nations on which other great peoples would also be represented, as
are Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Saxony, etc., on the German Federal Council.
Hopefulness and a high degree of faith in humanity thus organised and
directed, or as we should say Teutonised, marked some of the
characteristic speculations in which Wilhelm II. indulged. The
general public has perhaps forgotten the sensation produced by the
picture which he fathered representing the European nations putting
the "yellow-skins" to flight, with the inscription, "Peoples of
Europe, protect your most sacred possessions."[2] On that canvas, a
reproduction of which he sent to President Carnot, France occupied a
foremost place by the side of Teutonia, whereas Britain was relegated
to the background.
Some of the persons who mentally connected this little incident with
the main political movements of Europe fancied that the Kaiser's
ideal was as disinterested and generous as the kindred visions of
Turgot or Condorcet. I confess I could never bring myself to share
this view. What Wilhelm aimed at, it seemed to me then and seems to
me still, was a vast world-organism such as was dreamed of by some of
the popes, and presided over by the head of the Hohenzollerns, rather
than the revival of the empire of Charlemagne. It was a vast scheme
of polity conceived for a continent, or rather for humanity in its
entirety, and therefore from a much broader angle of survey than that
of Charlemagne. The marvellous potency with which it appealed to men
of German blood is intelligible to those who realise the intensity,
the passion born of their faith in the unbounded potentialities of
their race. To them they are {317} the salt of the earth, capable of
progress which has no fixed limits, and capable too of adjusting the
social and political forces of the world to the magnitude of the
community and the variety of its temperaments, needs, and
aspirations. And in verity this was no mere abstract speculation, no
spinning of theory from the phrase-germs of philosophy, but a
concrete scheme complete in all its parts. And the first nucleus of
the vast society which he was thus eager to build up was, as I have
said, to be composed of the great powers of the Continent--a league
of European peoples of which the crowned head of the German Empire
would be the _ex-officio_ leader.
For many years I have been acquainted with the gist of the colloquies
which he had with my friend Witte on the subject, whose temper in
some few respects resembled his own, but who differed from him
profoundly in other ways. The impulsive and unbalanced German
monarch is certainly endowed with some of the qualities which in the
times of yore went to the making of founders of religions--fire and
mysticism, ecstatic vision and shrewd practical sense, concentrated
passion with a slight touch of dreaminess, the whole combined in a
personality who believes that his true vocation is the handling of
men. Wilhelm's plans were marked by grandeur of conception and
solidity of preparation. Moreover, however low one may rate his
administrative abilities--and many of our people affect to regard him
as little better than a fool--in his mode of tackling the problem on
its feasible side and dealing with the recalcitrant or indifferent
governments whose co-operation he needed, he knew exactly what it was
that he required from each and how best he could obtain it. In
grappling with Russia, for example, he assimilated the idea which I
had long been recommending to the notice of the British government,
that the only arrangement which could really bind the Tsardom--if any
compact could--must be concluded directly with the Tsar himself and,
if possible, not through the ordinary diplomatic channels.[3]
{318}
The most arduous, delicate, and dangerous part of the task was the
yoking of France to Germania's chariot. For the wound caused by the
amputation of Alsace and Lorraine had never cicatrised. It still
festered and rankled. The Kaiser employed all the arts of
conciliation with which he happened to be conversant. He lavished
honeyed phrases and graceful compliments on almost every Frenchman
that came in his way from my first French friend, the ex-minister
Jules Simon, to the manufacturer of chocolate. He had condoled with
the widow of Marshal MacMahon, had pardoned two Frenchmen interned on
a charge of espionage, and for some ten years he applied this system
of cheap beneficence to living down the antipathy which was being
strengthened by the very acts intended to remove it. He had failed
to touch the responsive heart of France. He had never been able to
visit the city on the Seine. His policy of giving a helping hand to
the French in their efforts to extend their colonial empire had not
touched either the people or their rulers. He never understood their
mentality.
During the Fashoda crisis I felt that he had an exceptionally
favourable opportunity, the like of which might not perhaps occur
again, and I was curious to watch the use he made of it. But it
brought him no returns. Shortly afterwards another and still more
auspicious conjuncture was formed by the Boer war, when practically
all Europe was arrayed against Britain. Almost automatically the
coalition of continental nations shaped itself. A generous gesture
on the part of Wilhelm II. and he might have effected much of what he
was striving after. But the devices and expedients which he and
others imagined and put in motion during that period were jejune and
barren. Russia's Foreign Secretary, the vulgar Count Muravieff, was
in Paris in November, 1899, and calling on Delcassé he "suggested"
the advisability of making "representations" to England in concert
with France and Germany. The suggestion, like so many others that
have a Russian, French, or British appearance, had been "made in
Germany," approved by {319} the Tsar, assimilated by the Tsar's
minister, and reproduced as a Russian proposal. The idea underlying
it was the same that had actuated the three powers in their
intervention to upset the Treaty of Shimonoseki between China and
Japan. Delcassé answered affirmatively, adding that the
representations which he favoured would be courteous and theoretical,
and would merely offer to the English the assistance of the republic
in concluding an honourable peace. As this answer was not what had
been expected the matter dropped. In the following year[4] Muravieff
tried again, and with somewhat better results. On his way back to
Petersburg he stayed at Potsdam, where he reported to Bülow and the
Kaiser what he had heard and seen[5] in the French capital. They
were only half satisfied with the result attained by the undiplomatic
Russian, but resolved to make the best of it. I have grounds for
believing that the lukewarmness of the French government was less
marked than has since been asserted. The joint move could have been
arranged without difficulty if the Kaiser had had either the
enterprise to pay the full price then and there, or else the patience
necessary to wait until some future time for a more abundant harvest
from the seed he was sowing. The immediate consequence of what he
actually did was to frustrate his whole plan and estrange France from
Germany more completely than before. He began by impressing the
Russian and French governments with the seriousness of the concerted
action contemplated, the need for a long sustained effort and a
united front, and consequently the removal in advance of all causes
that might lead to differences among the three powers themselves
during their diplomatic crusade in favour of the Boers. And by way
of removing the most dangerous of these causes he deemed it
indispensable that France, Russia, and Germany should guarantee the
integrity of each other's European possessions. That proposal
revealed the cloven foot. Its acceptance would have meant that the
lapse of twenty years had sufficed to make the French nation resign
itself to the loss of Alsace-Lorraine and ratify voluntarily the
treaty that {320} gave these provinces to Germany. Thereupon the
negotiations broke down and subsequently the Kaiser had the hardihood
to assert--in order to ingratiate himself with the British--that his
object in laying down that deterrent condition was precisely to
render his own scheme impossible.
But the most favourable moment of all for the execution of Wilhelm's
design was in 1904-5, because Russia, being at first busied and then
crippled by the Manchurian campaign, France was deprived of her
mainstay. And as her diplomatic position in Europe depended very
largely on the worth of her alliance with Russia, the prostration of
this Empire left the republic almost isolated. As the Kaiser himself
wrote to the Tsar, England "could not defend Paris" with her fleet.
And according to the traditional German idea, the capture of Paris
connotes or entails the conquest of France.
It was evident, therefore, that the only way to get the republic to
join a combination of the kind which Wilhelm desired was by
constraining it. There was no alternative. Now constraint could be
effected only with the active help of Russia. And as the Tsar was
Russia, he must win over the Tsar. At the first blush the task
seemed easy enough. Nicholas II. was a timid, shy, insignificant
creature who seemed unable to offer effective resistance to a clever
campaign of suasion and intimidation. Already he had proved so
weak-willed that the Kaiser managed the Kiao Chow business with ease.
But that was Wilhelm's only victory over his imperial relation.
Since then the Tsar had been careful and kept out of further
temptation. He shunned the society of his Teuton kinsman. Indeed,
cordiality could hardly be said to mark the relations between the
two. The calculating German monarch, who now needed the services of
the Russian Tsar, was resolved to ascertain the reason and remove it.
And he went to work in this ingenious fashion. Witte was sent to
Germany to negotiate with Bülow a commercial treaty[6]--a delicate
and momentous task just then because this accord was foredestined by
the Berlin government to be the groundwork of Germany's future
prosperity. {321} The treaty with Russia was the first to be
concluded on the new lines and was to serve as the model for all
others. Moreover, Witte had been the bitter opponent of all
Germany's rapacious proposals on the subject, and had even declared
that under no conditions would he assent to this particular
arrangement. But the vicissitudes of the war had made the Tsardom
pliant, and it was now willing to pay the Kaiser's price for the
privilege of employing in the Far East the troops necessary for
protecting its frontiers in the West. And that price was the treaty
on Germany's terms. As Nicholas II. could not well refuse this, he
sent Witte with a number of experts to do the best he could under the
trying conditions. And what this statesman actually effected was
worthy of admiration.
Witte was known personally as well as by reputation to the Kaiser.
He had negotiated through delegates a commercial treaty with Germany
under Alexander III.,[7] and certain of the stratagems he then
employed were still talked of in Petersburg and Berlin. For example,
Count Caprivi was determined that come what might Russia should give
Finland the right of concluding a separate autonomous treaty with
Germany, and Count Shuvaloff, the Tsar's ambassador in Berlin,
apprised Witte of this condition _sine qua non_. Witte, without
consulting the Emperor, sent an urgent telegram to the ambassador
demanding the absolute withdrawal of the demand, and in case of a
refusal threatened to recall the delegates from Berlin. No reply
came for several days, and it looked as though Germany would not give
way. Witte became uneasy and said to one of his friends, "I am
anxious, but I have the consolation of thinking that Caprivi is not
less so, and at this moment he is probably walking up and down in his
study like me, uncertain what to do." At last Shuvaloff telegraphed
that the Kaiser's government would not press the point. Witte
reporting next day to the Tsar confessed that he had exceeded his
powers, but that the Germans had given way. "And that's as it should
have been," responded Alexander III. who shook hands with him warmly.
{322}
But despite this success the negotiations were moving slowly. Witte
was dissatisfied and apprehensive. The Junkers were obstructive. In
order to silence them the Russian Finance Minister decided to try the
effect of a ruse. He requested his friend Kovalevsky to draft a bill
for presentation to the Council of the Empire forbidding the Polish
harvesters, without whose cheap labour the East Prussian could not
live,[8] to hire themselves out of Russia any more, unless the German
government should give way to the Tsar's ministers on the contentious
questions under discussion. The bill was duly drawn up, printed,
signed by the wily Finance Minister, and then all the copies but two
were burned. Of these two Witte contrived that one should be stolen
and given to Caprivi, while the other found its way to a Prussian
agrarian journal as "a very confidential State paper." Caprivi laid
the important document before the deputies at a secret sitting and
the Junkers gave way all along the line. Witte had also had
interesting talks with the Kaiser about the reconstruction of
political Europe, which set both of them pondering over the problems
involved.
But since that time the Russian statesman had experienced the
inconstancy of the German monarch. Wilhelm II. had, however, of late
frequently lavished genuine praise and heavy German flattery on the
Tsar's most trusted servant. "If you were my subject," he once
remarked, "I would employ your services as Chancellor, and there is
nothing that we two working together could not accomplish. But men
like you are the world's rarest possessions, and the Tsar is a lucky
monarch." Now Witte was very sensitive to flattery and could be led,
up to a certain point, by a potentate like the Kaiser who
condescended to swing the censer briskly before his face. Wilhelm
more than once expressed his regret that he could not have the
benefit of consulting the genial Russian whenever he needed advice,
and his hope that Witte himself would not hesitate to offer him
suggestions whenever they occurred to him, especially {323} if the
matter were important. He would ever welcome his counsel and feel
grateful for it. They must look upon each other as friends. On
Witte this soft sawder produced the intended effect. The first
occasion that arose after that for appealing to Wilhelm was when the
agreement between the latter and the Tsar respecting Kiao Chow was
about to be executed. The Russian, as I narrated in a preceding
chapter, repaired to the German Embassy, saw Von Tschirschky,
reminded him of the Kaiser's permission to appeal to him, and said
that as the leasing of the Chinese port would bring disaster to
Germany and Russia, he implored the Emperor to waive his claim to the
execution of the compact. The Kaiser was wild with rage, but
answered that Witte was obviously unaware of the circumstances that
preceded and conditioned the conclusion of the covenant, and he kept
Nicholas II. to his bargain. Witte too was angry and often
complained bitterly to me of the Kaiser's impulsiveness, fitfulness,
and inconstancy.
The former cordiality was not restored until the Tsar's great subject
on his return as peace-maker from Portsmouth was received by Wilhelm
at Rominten, and then it lasted for less than a week.
But to return to the year 1904. When the Kaiser's promise to
guarantee Russia's western frontier called for some practical
manifestation of Russia's gratitude, Witte was deputed by the Tsar to
repair to Germany to bargain with official representatives of the
government and beat down their exorbitant demands for concessions in
the new commercial treaty. He afterwards narrated to me his varied
experiences there, and in particular the conversations he had with
Von Bülow.[9]
This is not the place to give to the world the details of the
interesting story. It may, however, be permissible to state that the
Kaiser extorted from the Tsardom, for this mark of his friendship, a
tribute which Stolypin and Witte both assured me was much greater
than any war indemnity on record. I needed no one to tell me that
the renewal of {324} this accord would create friction intense enough
to start a conflagration. In conversation with the Tsar's ministers
in March, 1914, I gave free utterance to this conviction. The
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs admitted that I was probably
right, but requested me, if possible, to abstain from drawing public
attention to this danger. Witte confirmed my view, emphatically
repeating, "It will assuredly lead to war." He was right. As a
matter of fact, before the negotiations had begun it became one of
the main factors of the present struggle.
Russia was not a free agent in 1904 when she acquiesced in Germany's
demands. So long as she was unfettered her resistance had been
invincible. But as usual the Teutons opened their campaign most
ingeniously. On old Christmas Day, 1902, they raised the duty on
corn from 43 to 78 per cent. and enacted that it could not be lowered
by commercial treaties. Owing to this law they could afterwards
plead that their hands were tied. This increase meant for Russia an
annual tribute to Germany--and from one source only--of eighty
million marks which would become greater every year. Witte responded
by raising the duties on German manufactured goods. When pourparlers
began the Teuton method was again resorted to and the demands
preferred were exorbitant. Russia held out for a lower corn tariff,
Germany for the abolition of the excess duties on manufactured goods
to be levied by the law of January, 1903, and also _for permission
for all the Kaiser's subjects, without exception, to purchase and
possess land in any part of Russia on the same footing as the
subjects of the Tsar_.
Witte declared that he preferred a tariff war to economic subjection
of that degree and duration. Nothing, he added, would induce him to
entertain the demands of the Berlin government. But the Tsar's Yalu
speculation and its sequel had bereft his Empire of its independence.
The Japanese were defeating Russia's armies in Manchuria. The
nationalities in the interior and the revolutionists there and abroad
were joining hands and menacing the throne and the regime. Nicholas
II., unable to withstand the pressure exerted by {325} the Germans,
sent Witte to Berlin to save whatever could still be saved from the
Teuton prehensile hands. The statesman was welcomed as a messenger
of good tidings by the Kaiser and his Chancellor and cordial
relations were apparently re-established between them. In spite of
Witte's relative success the nature of the concrete result of the
treaty[10] may be inferred from this one detail which was typical of
the remainder. Owing largely to the concessions made by this
agreement the Prussian ploughman earned by the same amount of work as
his Russian comrade, and with far less risk, 400 per cent. more. The
Russian press often reverted to this servitude, characterised it as a
crushing war indemnity,[11] and adjured the government not to ratify
it for another term of ten years in 1916. From the end of 1913 a
puissant agitation was going on all over Russia to hearten and oblige
the Tsar's government to adopt a _non possumus_ attitude when
Germany's demand for the renewal of the treaty for a further period
of ten years would be presented to them officially. Everywhere in
the Tsardom voices were uplifted against continuing to the Germans
these same opportunities of enriching themselves and draining the
country economically. In the month of March, 1904, for instance, a
congress of South Russian exporters passed a resolution calling upon
the Tsar's government to emancipate the Empire from its economic
dependence on Germany "which is humiliating for a great power." But
the Kaiser's government was firmly resolved, come what might, to
insist on the prolongation of the commercial treaty for another
decennium. In these mutually incompatible aims lay one of the chief
of the proximate causes of the Great War.
But to return to the final negotiations between the German Chancellor
and the first plenipotentiary of the Russian government. Witte and
Bülow were living at Norderney[12] during the negotiations to suit
the Chancellor's convenience. {326} One evening after the work of
the day was over Bülow turned to Witte and said,[13] "'The Emperor
has a curious and inquiring mind. He is never satisfied unless he
can get to the bottom of things. Now one of the every-day mysteries,
if I may so term them, which he has not yet fathomed but hopes to
solve with your assistance is this: Your Tsar is cold and reserved
towards him, and apparently as the result of design rather than
temperament. He never unbends. Cordiality whenever it appears is
not real. And yet the Kaiser is most attentive to Nicholas II., and
has been from the very beginning. He feels drawn towards him. He is
never tired of thinking out ways of being agreeable to him. He has
sent him several deputations, as you know. But do what he may he
never elicits a really warm response. Now the Kaiser wishes me to
ask you, who are a past master of psychology, why is that? His
Majesty hopes you will shed some light on the subject because by
doing this you will be rendering a precious service to your country
as well as to ours. All that my sovereign wants to know is what
attitude on his part will enable him to establish cordial relations
between the two monarchs and therefore between their respective
peoples.'
"While Bülow and I were together on that island," Witte said to me
parenthetically, "he was receiving every day communications from the
Kaiser. I don't remember any day that did not bring at least one.
And I had the impression that this awkward question was the result of
one of the latest. I answered it in a friendly spirit. But before I
did so Von Bülow went on, 'Please speak as frankly as you like.
Everything you say will be received with respect and gratitude, and
anything that you suggest will be carried out. For we have absolute
confidence in you.' I then replied, 'The answer to your question is
that the Kaiser does not know the Tsar, does not understand his
nature and, consequently, cannot approach him in the right way.'
'And what is the right way?' 'If you like, I will give you a recipe
for {327} dealing with my sovereign.' 'Please do.' 'But I am not at
all sure that I ought. It is a delicate matter, and after all the
Kaiser is a man who has his own ideas of people and things.' ... 'I
assure you he will be delighted.' ... That evening we got no
further, because I deemed it best to wait and hear.
"Next evening when we had shaken off the heat and the worries of the
day, the Chancellor returned to the charge. 'I can now assure you
absolutely that the Kaiser will be truly obliged to you for your
diagnosis and advice. He will not take offence. I am speaking this
evening with first-hand knowledge.' 'Good, then I will be brief.
The Kaiser is too bluff and too patronising. He is
hail-fellow-well-met with the Tsar, whose conception of his own
dignity and of his rôle in the world is that of the monarchs of the
Jewish theocracy. A soft haze of mysticism refracts everything he
beholds and magnifies his own functions and person. I am sure the
Kaiser has not allowed for this. I daresay he writes, "I advise you,
I suggest, etc." If so, he is making a mistake, and in the Tsar's
eyes a capital one. What he ought to do is to ask for light, to seek
for help, to beg for advice, for co-operation from one whom he
recognises as sagacious and far-seeing.
"'If I were the Kaiser and had need of his assistance, I would invent
problems to lay before him. I would say, for example, "I am not sure
whether it would be wise to dismiss Von Bülow after that last
injudicious speech of his in the Reichstag. You who know the world
and understand men's motives so thoroughly could advise me. How does
it strike you?" Now what your Kaiser does is the very opposite. He
treats Nicholas II. as a much younger brother, patronises him, and
rubs him the wrong way. I can give you an example. It has come to
my knowledge that when the Tsar was last in Darmstadt the two
monarchs had a private conversation, during which your Emperor
behaved as though he were a very big brother and the Tsar a very
little one. Part of the time he held his arm over the shoulder of
Nicholas II., and afterwards, too, he overshadowed and eclipsed him.
I {328} believe they were photographed together in that posture.
Well, these things hurt.
"'I will give you one more example, and I shall consider my promise
redeemed. Some time ago the Kaiser passed near Darmstadt without
visiting the Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig. Now that was a slight. You
may say that the Grand Duke is not an equal and that the Kaiser
cannot be expected to treat princelets always as though they were
emperors. That may be true enough in the abstract, and it may apply
to German princes who are this and nothing more, but in this
particular case the person offended was the Tsaritsa's brother, and
the sting was indirectly felt by the Tsar himself. These may seem,
nay they are, small things, but they tell.'" ...
[1] That ruinous arrangement was negotiated between Bülow and Witte
and their expert advisers in the summer of 1904. It is the same
treaty that at present obtains between the two countries (March,
1918).
[2] Japan's genial statesman, Ito, told me in presence of several
other persons, including the late W. T. Stead, that when he was
received by the Kaiser he espied that picture hanging in the
apartment where they met. Tact and fine feeling are not among the
qualities of Wilhelm II.
[3] Cf., for example, _Contemporary Review_, June and July, 1904,
"The Obstacles to an Anglo-Russian Convention," by E. J. Dillon.
[4] In 1900.
[5] In February, 1900.
[6] In the summer of 1904.
[7] In the year 1893.
[8] In the year 1905 Prussia employed 454,348 foreign workmen, of
whom 124,184 were Russian subjects. In the year 1911 she required
820,831 foreign working men, of whom 204,522 were of Russian
nationality.
[9] All these conversations, many of which were dictated to me after
lunch or dinner, are extant, but they are not all accessible at
present.
[10] Concluded in 1904.
[11] Cf. the article of A. Stolypin in the _Novoye Vremya_ of
4th/17th March, 1914.
[12] An island in the North Sea, province of Hanover.
[13] What follows was dictated to me by Witte himself, to be used
after his death, if I should survive him.
{329}