Immediately following the sending out by the semi-official Wolff
Telegraph Bureau on March 19 of an account of the discussion in the Main
Committee of the Reichstag on March 16 of the Lichnowsky memorandum,
together with excerpts from that document, the editorial writers of the
German newspapers began emptying vials of wrath upon the head of the
former Ambassador in London. With the exception of the Socialist and a
few Liberal newspapers, the press was practically a unit in condemning
the Prince for his "treasonable and indiscreet acts" and in asserting
that, although his "revelations" might be welcomed with shouts of joy in
the allied countries, they would have no serious effect upon the
fighting spirit of the German Nation.
In trying to explain what prompted Prince Lichnowsky to write his
memorandum for "the family archives," nearly all the German editors lay
great stress upon his alleged personal vanity and his resentment at
seeing his efforts toward strengthening the bonds between England and
Germany made a grim joke by the outbreak of the world war. The Prince is
also called a simple-minded person, completely taken in by the deceptive
courtesy of the British diplomats and possessing none of the
qualifications necessary to make him a profitable representative of the
Kaiser at the Court of St. James's. All through the comments, from
extreme Pan-German to socialistic, runs a vein of sarcastic criticism of
the peculiar "ability" shown by the German Foreign Office in picking its
Ambassadors.
All the Pan-German and annexationist papers take occasion to link up
Prince Lichnowsky with Dr. von Bethmann Hollweg, the former Imperial
Chancellor, and make the latter responsible for the appointment of the
"pacifist" Prince. In doing this they renew all their old charges of
weakness and pacifism against the ex-Chancellor, and intimate that he
may be the next German formerly occupying a high place in the Government
to write memoranda for his family archives. Some of the papers did not
wait to write regular editorials about the memorandum, but interlarded
their reports of the meeting of the Reichstag Committee with sarcastic
comment and explanations. This was notably the case with the Vossische
Zeitung, the leading exponent of reconciliation with Russia at the
expense of Great Britain.