WANGENHEIM TELLS THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR HOW THE KAISER STARTED THE WAR
But there was one quarter in which this transaction produced no
appreciable gloom. That was the German Embassy. This great “success”
fairly intoxicated the impressionable Wangenheim, and other happenings
now aroused his _furor Teutonicus_ to a fever heat. The _Goeben_ and the
_Breslau_ arrived almost at the same time that the Germans captured
Liége, Namur, and other Belgian towns. And now followed the German sweep
into France and the apparently triumphant rush for Paris. In all these
happenings Wangenheim, like the militant Prussian that he was, saw the
fulfilment of a forty-years’ dream. We were all still living in the
summer embassies along the Bosphorus. Germany had a beautiful park,
which the Sultan had personally presented to the Kaiser’s government;
yet for some reason Wangenheim did not seem to enjoy his headquarters
during these summer days. A little guard house stood directly in front
of his embassy, on the street, within twenty feet of the rushing
Bosphorus, and in front of this was a stone bench. This bench was
properly a resting place for the guard, but Wangenheim seemed to have a
strong liking for it. I shall always keep in my mind the figure of this
German diplomat, in those exciting days before the Marne, sitting out on
this little bench, now and then jumping up for a stroll back and forth
in front of his house. Everybody passing from Constantinople to the
northern suburbs had to pass along this road, and even the Russian and
French diplomats frequently went by, stiffly ignoring, of course, the
triumphant ambassadorial figure on his stone bench. I sometimes think
that Wangenheim sat there for the express purpose of puffing his cigar
smoke in their direction. It all reminded me of the scene in Schiller’s
Wilhelm Tell, where Tell sits in the mountain pass, with his bow and
arrow at his side, waiting for his intended victim, Gessler, to go by:
“Here through this deep defile he needs must pass;
There leads no other road to Küssnacht.”
Wangenheim would also buttonhole his friends, or those whom he regarded
as his friends, and have his little jollifications over German
victories. I noticed that he stationed himself there only when the
German armies were winning; if news came of a reverse, Wangenheim was
utterly invisible. This led me to remark that he reminded me of a toy
weather prophet, which is always outside the box when the weather is
fine but which retires within when storms are gathering. Wangenheim
appreciated my little joke as keenly as the rest of the diplomatic set.
In those early days, however, the weather for the German Ambassador was
distinctly favourable. The good fortune of the German armies so excited
him that he was sometimes led into indiscretions, and his exuberance one
day caused him to tell me certain facts which, I think, will always have
great historical value. He disclosed precisely how and when Germany had
precipitated this war. To-day his revelation of this secret looks like
a most monstrous indiscretion, but we must remember Wangenheim’s state
of mind at the time. The whole world then believed that Paris was doomed
and Wangenheim reflected this attitude in his frequent declarations that
the war would be over in two or three months. The whole German
enterprise was evidently progressing according to programme.
I have already mentioned that the German Ambassador had left for Berlin
soon after the assassination of the Grand Duke, and he now revealed the
cause of his sudden disappearance. The Kaiser, he told me, had summoned
him to Berlin for an imperial conference. This meeting took place at
Potsdam on July 5th. The Kaiser presided and nearly all the important
ambassadors attended. Wangenheim himself was summoned to give assurance
about Turkey and enlighten his associates generally on the situation in
Constantinople, which was then regarded as almost the pivotal point in
the impending war. In telling me who attended this conference Wangenheim
used no names, though he specifically said that among them were--the
facts are so important that I quote his exact words in the German which
he used--”_die Häupter des Generalstabs und der Marine_”--(The heads of
the general staff and of the navy) by which I have assumed that he meant
Von Moltke and Von Tirpitz. The great bankers, railroad directors, and
the captains of German industry, all of whom were as necessary to German
war preparations as the army itself, also attended.
Wangenheim now told me that the Kaiser solemnly put the question to each
man in turn: “Are you ready for war?” All replied “yes” except the
financiers. They said that they must have two weeks to sell their
foreign securities and to make loans. At that time few people had looked
upon the Sarajevo tragedy as something that would inevitably lead to
war. This conference, Wangenheim told me, took all precautions that no
such suspicion should be aroused. It decided to give the bankers time to
readjust their finances for the coming war, and then the several members
went quietly back to their work or started on vacations. The Kaiser went
to Norway on his yacht, Von Bethmann-Hollweg left for a rest, and
Wangenheim returned to Constantinople.
In telling me about this conference Wangenheim, of course, admitted that
Germany had precipitated the war. I think that he was rather proud of
the whole performance, proud that Germany had gone about the matter in
so methodical and far-seeing a way, and especially proud that he himself
had been invited to participate in so epoch making a gathering. I have
often wondered why he revealed to me so momentous a secret, and I think
that perhaps the real reason was his excessive vanity--his desire to
show me how close he stood to the inner counsels of his emperor and the
part that he had played in bringing on this conflict. Whatever the
motive, this indiscretion certainly had the effect of showing me who
were really the guilty parties in this monstrous crime. The several
blue, red, and yellow books which flooded Europe during the few months
following the outbreak, and the hundreds of documents which were issued
by German propagandists attempting to establish Germany’s innocence,
have never made the slightest impression on me. For my conclusions as to
the responsibility are not based on suspicions or belief or the study of
circumstantial data. I do not have to reason or argue about the matter.
I know. The conspiracy that has caused this greatest of human tragedies
was hatched by the Kaiser and his imperial crew at this Potsdam
conference of July 5, 1914. One of the chief participants, flushed with
his triumph at the apparent success of the plot, told me the details
with his own mouth. Whenever I hear people arguing about the
responsibility for this war or read the clumsy and lying excuses put
forth by Germany, I simply recall the burly figure of Wangenheim as he
appeared that August afternoon, puffing away at a huge black cigar, and
giving me his account of this historic meeting. Why waste any time
discussing the matter after that?
This imperial conference took place July 5th and the Serbian ultimatum
was sent on July 22d. That is just about the two weeks’ interval which
the financiers had demanded to complete their plans. All the great stock
exchanges of the world show that the German bankers profitably used this
interval. Their records disclose that stocks were being sold in large
quantities and that prices declined rapidly. At that time the markets
were somewhat puzzled at this movement but Wangenheim’s explanation
clears up any doubts that may still remain. Germany was changing her
securities into cash for war purposes. If any one wishes to verify
Wangenheim, I would suggest that he examine the quotations of the New
York stock market for these two historic weeks. He will find that there
were astonishing slumps in prices, especially on the stocks that had an
international market. Between July 5th and July 22d, Union Pacific
dropped from 155½ to 127½, Baltimore and Ohio from 91½ to 81, United
States Steel from 61 to 50½, Canadian Pacific from 194 to 185½, and
Northern Pacific from 111⅜ to 108. At that time the high
protectionists were blaming the Simmons-Underwood tariff act as
responsible for this fall in values, while other critics of the
Administration attributed it to the Federal Reserve Act--which had not
yet been put into effect. How little the Wall Street brokers and the
financial experts realized that an imperial conference, which had been
held in Potsdam and presided over by the Kaiser, was the real force that
was then depressing the market!
Wangenheim not only gave me the details of this Potsdam conference, but
he disclosed the same secret to the Marquis Garroni, the Italian
Ambassador at Constantinople. Italy was at that time technically
Germany’s ally.
The Austrian Ambassador, the Marquis Pallavicini, also practically
admitted that the Central Powers had anticipated the war. On August
18th, Francis Joseph’s birthday, I made the usual ambassadorial visit of
congratulation. Quite naturally the conversation turned upon the
Emperor, who had that day passed his 84th year. Pallavicini spoke about
him with the utmost pride and veneration. He told me how keen-minded and
clear-headed the aged emperor was, how he had the most complete
understanding of international affairs, and how he gave everything his
personal supervision. To illustrate the Austrian Kaiser’s grasp of
public events, Pallavicini instanced the present war. The previous May,
Pallavicini had had an audience with Francis Joseph in Vienna. At that
time, Pallavicini now told me, the Emperor had said that a European war
was unavoidable. The Central Powers would not accept the Treaty of
Bucharest as a settlement of the Balkan question, and only a general
war, the Emperor had told Pallavicini, could ever settle that problem.
The Treaty of Bucharest, I may recall, was the settlement that ended the
second Balkan war. This divided the European dominions of Turkey,
excepting Constantinople and a small piece of adjoining territory, among
the Balkan nations, chiefly Serbia and Greece. That treaty strengthened
Serbia greatly; so much did it increase Serbia’s resources, indeed, that
Austria feared that it had laid the beginning of a new European state,
which might grow sufficiently strong to resist her own plans of
aggrandizement. Austria held a large Serbian population under her yoke
in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and these Serbians desired, above everything
else, annexation to their own country. Moreover, the Pan-German plans in
the East necessitated the destruction of Serbia, the state which, so
long as it stood intact, blocked the Germanic road to the Orient. It had
been the Austro-German expectation that the Balkan War would destroy
Serbia as a nation--that Turkey would simply annihilate King Peter’s
forces. This was precisely what the Germanic plans demanded, and for
this reason Austria and Germany did nothing to prevent the Balkan wars.
But the result was exactly the reverse, for out of the conflict arose a
stronger Serbia than ever, standing firm like a breakwater against the
Germanic flood.
Most historians agree that the Treaty of Bucharest made inevitable this
war. I have the Marquis Pallavicini’s evidence that this was likewise
the opinion of Francis Joseph himself. The audience at which the Emperor
made this statement was held in May, more than a month before the
assassination of the Grand Duke. Clearly, therefore, we have the
Austrian Emperor’s assurances that the war would have come irrespective
of the assassination at Sarajevo. It is quite apparent that this crime
merely served as the convenient pretext for the war upon which the
Central Empires had already decided.