MY MEMOIRS

VOL. II

-

My Memoirs

:: :: By Grand-Admiral :: ::
:: :: Von Tirpltz :: ::

VOL. II

LONDON: HURST & BLACKETT, LTD.

:: :: PATERNOSTER HOUSE, E.C. :: ::
l$f*

CONTENTS

VOL. II

CHAPTER XVII

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR

I. Military opening. 2. The question of the principal enemy. 3. Our
weapons against England. 4. The possibility of a separate peace with
Russia. 5. The ideas of the war. 6. Home policy in the war.
7. The Fatherland Party. 8. Collapse . . . . pp. 289-343

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HIGH SEAS 'FLEET IN THE WAR

I. The navy at the beginning of the war. 2. The achievements of the navy.
3. The plan of operations. 4. My verdict. 5. The crippling of the fleet.
6. The lack of a Supreme Command. 7. The battle of Jutland.
8. The last phase pp. 344-390

CHAPTER XIX

THE SUBMARINE CAMPAIGN

I. The declaration of the war zone. 2. The first reverse. 3. Lusitania
and Arabic. 4. To and fro. 5. My resignation. 6. Sussex. 7. The
unrestricted submarine campaign, 1917. The sum total . pp. 391-444

v

vi CONTENTS

CONCLUSION
pp. 445-451

APPENDIX I

EXTRACTS FROM MY LETTERS WRITTEN DURING THE WAR
pp. 452-560

APPENDIX II

SOME REMARKS ON OUR SHIPBUILDING POLICY
PP. 561-586

INDEX

pp. 587-597

MY MEMOIRS

CHAPTER XVII

I. Military opening. 2. The question of the principal enemy. 3. Our
weapons against England. 4. The possibility of a separate peace with
Russia. 5. The ideas of the war. 6. Home policy in the war.
7. The Fatherland Party. 8. Collapse.

ENGLAND hoped to overwhelm our country with the Russian
steam-roller, whilst the Franco-Anglo-Belgian army brought
ours to a standstill, and intended them to stop the war if the
danger arose of the Russians winning too big a victory. The
enemy assumed that Italy's secession would upset our calcula-
tions and cancel our numerical superiority in the west during
the decisive weeks.

The enemy's well-founded hopes of victory were disap-
pointed by the way in which our military machine did its
work and the speed with which we seized Belgium. The
Russian masses did what could be expected of them. But
they had the misfortune soon to stumble across great generals,
who, favoured by the luck of battle, brought out by magnifi-
cent manoeuvres the best qualities of our nation in arms.
The Schlieflen plan of attacking France through Belgium was
intended to stave off from Germany the first vital danger.
I am not in a position to judge whether the plan of campaign,
which was unknown to me before the outbreak of war, was
absolutely right as a result of the increasing technical develop-
ments towards trench-warfare, and in view of our political
situation in the world. At any rate it ought to have been
ii I 289

ago MY MEMOIRS

carried out by those who possessed the genius completely to
control such a gigantic operation and the incidents which it
would naturally entail. Our army leaders could not estimate
too generously the coefficient of safety for the enormous circu-
lar movement ; but they ran it too fine. The army was
kept too small in time of peace, and the fatal omission was
made of not drawing sufficiently on Germany's defensive
powers. At the end of 1911 the Chancellor introduced an
Army Bill. This, however, was not big enough, and the 1913
Bill came too late to take full effect during the war. I myself
had proposed to the Minister of War, v. Heeringen, at a
suggestion from Admiral v. Miiller just before Christmas
1911, that together with me he should insist upon the im-
mediate introduction of a Defence Bill, and I expressed my
readiness to subordinate my demands to those of the army.
The opinion at General Headquarters in the autumn of 1914
was that the war against France would have been won if the
two army corps had been there which the General Staff had
allowed itself to be done out of in 1911-12, contrary to the
demands of its experts. In addition there was the under-
estimation of the British army, which our public still liked to
imagine as the Aldershot Tommies with their little caps and
swagger canes. When I warned the Chief of the General
Staff, after war had broken out, against rating these troops,
which were almost all sergeants, too lightly, he replied : " We
shall arrest them." In this hope he probably did not foresee
that he would have to detach two army corps from the right
flank for the eastern front. Even in the late autumn of 1914
I encountered doubts at General Headquarters as to the
seriousness of the new Kitchener armies. In August 1914
I wrote from Coblenz : " The difficulties will come when the
army thinks it is over the hill."

At that time it seemed to be more important than anything
else to cut through the English lines of communication and
to get to Calais. Everything else would have been easier for
us, if only we had compelled the English by cutting off the

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 291

Channel Ports to transport their troops to Cherbourg or
even Brest, across the Atlantic therefore instead of an inland
sea, and this would have put quite a different face upon the
war in France.

It was in vain that I urged Moltke to do this, and even
Field-Marshal von der Goltz, who shared my opinion, could
not do so. I could not obtain any influence over Falkenhayn's
decisions. My desire to cut the English lines of communica-
tion would only have been possible from the sea, in my opinion,
by engaging the High Sea fleet and not by isolated sorties of
lighter craft. This was only one side of my demands for the
use of the fleet. It is confirmed at this moment (beginning of
1919) by Lord Haldane, who, according to newspaper reports,
indicated in a letter to The Times, as a mistake of German
strategy, the fact that " it hesitated to make immediate use of
its submarines and torpedo boats to prevent the transportation
of the British army after its mobilisation on the morning of
August 3rd." If we had systematically prepared for this,
and then attempted it, the British High Seas fleet would un-
doubtedly have appeared, and the naval battle would then
have developed, so much the better for its being so soon.

Moltke was a very sick man. The reins trailed on the
ground, and the uniformity of the army's operations went to
pieces. In spite of his unfortunate personality I had perfect
confidence in Moltke. His successor did not give me the
impression of having been trained to master the task, which
the development of the war into a war of attrition increased
beyond all bounds after the battle of the Marne. Until then
the army had been animated by one idea : Cannae. In the
war of attrition, however, the superiority of the enemy, thanks
to his mastery of the seas, was bound to bear fruit more and
more. All victories on land trickled away owing to the
unparalleled disadvantages of Germany's position. Wedged
in between enemies on land, we could not even save ourselves
by making ourselves unassailable like a hedgehog. For our
life-threads ran across the seas. Therefore only the greatest

292 MY MEMOIRS

boldness and resoluteness could save us. Land war must also
adjust itself to the general aim. After the battle of the Marne
the army had to revise its methods. The Supreme Command
at that time allowed the big aims to go begging. Hindenburg
and Ludendorff, however, who offered a prospect of annihilating
the Russian armies in 1915 by turning their flank at Kovno,
and consequently did not agree with the frontal attack at
Gorlice, were not allowed to carry out their scheme. If it
had been successful, their position would certainly have
dominated that of General Headquarters. In war, a definite
great political aim is needed, towards which one can proceed
with concentrated politico-military forces. And indeed the
chief enemy decides in war. Partial victories over lesser
opponents are at best only means to the end. There ought
to be only one real aim : to strike at the heart of the
Coalition. Our fate depended on our realisation of this aim.

But who was our main opponent ? To me, without
doubt, he who had the greatest resources and the highest
determination in war. London, which had always been the
political nerve-centre of the Entente, became ever more
definitely the military centre also. It let no real opportunity
slip, not even the construction of a new Eastern Front in the
year 1918. In face of this, no victory over the Russians
could be regarded as more than a partial victory, serving
merely to render possible the swift conclusion of a separate
peace with the Tsar, and thus to free our strength for em-
ployment against the chief enemy.

But no dismemberment of the Tsar's empire, the aim of
our diplomacy and democracy, was of any help to us if we
could not strike down the chief enemy.

II

The people show a sound judgment in attributing not to
our military leaders but to the statesman Bismarck the

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 293

chief credit for the successful wars which have made
Germany free, united, and prosperous. As long as our
people remained sound and loyal, and our defence impene-
trable, as was the case in the first years of the world-war,
our statesmen had political, military and naval resources
enough to enable them to emerge with honour from the
war with England into which they had plunged us. The
army, which in its own particular domain was not drilled
to fight the English, under-estimated these elusive enemies.
I was attacked as a pessimist, and the saying at the
"Lion d'Or" at Charleville ran: "There isn't an
officer in G.H.Q. who doesn't think the war will be over
before April 1st, 1915, except the Naval Secretary of State."
In the Anglo-Saxon world I was regarded as an opponent
whose isolation within the German Government was most
welcome ; for this quite comprehensible predominance of the
" landsman's " point of view in the army would have been
quite harmless, if only the Chancellor had been on my side.
The war could not be won, even in a military sense, without
a sound policy which gave due weight to the naval position.
If the Chancellor had really understood the nature of the
war, the army would have been ready to attach more import-
ance, at the very beginning of the campaign, to the English
lines of communications. In that case we should have
carried out against England the offensive at sea which forms
the subject of this and the following chapters.

On August 1 9th, 1914, I said to the Chancellor, in the
presence of Moltke and Jagow, that whatever we achieved
against Russia was not an embarrassment but a relief to
England. Circumstances had forced us to fight on a front
which was not in accordance with our political interests.
The Russo-German War was very popular in England.
The English statesmen were absolutely determined to hold
out to the end. We could only save our future by pressure
on England. The decision of the war turned exclusively on
whether Germany or England could hold out the longer.

294 MY MEMOIRS

I added that it was absolutely necessary to occupy Calais and
Boulogne.

This reasoning seemed unintelligible to the Chancellor.
He held that, even if the war went favourably for us in the
West, we should have to limit our activities there and
concentrate our full strength on the East. As early as the
first half of August, he had remarked to a mutual acquaint-
ance : " The war with England is only a thunderstorm,
and will pass over quickly. Relations afterwards will be
better than ever." Bethmann's policy was to reach an under-
standing with England, and he accordingly held it right,
even in war, to handle that country gently. To him, Eng-
land was " a bulldog, which must not be irritated." He was
now seeking the hand of friendship, which he had not
found in Grey's proposal of a conference. He failed to
realise that England, now that she had once come into the war,
was clearly, coolly, and consistently bent on winning it.
The dry-land policy of the army, a certain weakness of
the Emperor, and the hazy political views of wide circles in
Germany, enabled the Chancellor time and time again to
rebuild his fallen house of cards. He remembered the
peaceable attitude of Grey in the first half of July, and as
he had never understood that the reason of this attitude was
simply the grave risks of a naval war, he took it for granted
even now that England had made up her mind for war, and
had had her prospects of victory strengthened by the circum-
stances in which the war had actually broken out, by our
failure to occupy the Channel coast, by the inactivity of our
navy, and by the events of the Marne. As I have already
said, England was following her old traditions in seeking to
increase her predominance by war against the strongest rival
power on the continent. Puritanically pharisaical, the
practical and utilitarian British politicians, dominated by the
interests of Anglo-Saxon capitalism, were absolutely united
in their determination to fight Germanism all the harder,
and more mercilessly, because up to July 1914 it had been

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 295

possible that we would outrival them in peace. How
could anyone think that England would not use to the full
the opportunity thus given to her, to strike down at the
very last moment the competitor who had very nearly over-
taken her in the race ? As our lack of determination showed
itself, England's determination increased ; the influence of
Lloyd George overshadowed Asquith's. With us, the
opposite development was seen, the determined leaders were
thrust into the background ; this course was bound to lead
to defeat.

Since 1911 our policy had consisted in chronic misunder-
standing of England. This mistake was continued during
the war. The Press were instructed not to speak too severely
against England, these instructions being repeated again
and again by the Foreign Office at the meetings of Press
representatives in Berlin. The English of course were not
ignorant of this, and drew their own conclusions, which were
certainly the opposite of what German Michael supposed.

As our leaders were ignorant of the strength and deter-
mination of England, they half assumed that they did not exist,
and never realised that we should have to accept defeat unless
we succeeded in pressing her so hard that she would regard
reconciliation as more to her advantage. Knowledge of
England, in spite of all our writers, from Gneisenau and
Frederick List to Karl Peters and A. von Pecz, had not
penetrated far. In the Bismarck era, which was largely used
as a model for the present time, our policy was of necessity
based on different problems and conditions. Outside the
navy, the power of England and her determination to thrust
us into the background were quite overlooked, and this all
the more readily as we were wholly ignorant of the means
we already possessed for combating this determination. The
navy was, however, still too young, and not sufficiently a
part of the national life, to impress its point of view upon
the people. The ever-increasing isolation of the navy, which
combined strong patriotism with over-seas experience

296 MY MEMOIRS

peculiarly useful for the world-war, showed that the nation,
or at all events its upper classes, was not ripe for such a war.
In the first months of the war, men from all classes of the
people approached me with the request that I should send
the fleet into action ; when later public opinion lost this
enthusiasm, it was merely following the lead given by its
political chiefs.

On August ayth and 28th, in connection with my plans
for the formation of a naval corps to attack England from
Flanders, I once again urged the Chancellor to concentrate
against England. It was then already almost incompre-
hensible to me how anyone could expect the war against
England to be won on land alone ; four weeks later,
when the fighting fronts had begun to stiffen, the idea seemed
absolutely Utopian.

As I have stated, I stood alone at General Headquarters,
and especially among the diplomats. I could now scarcely
discuss with anyone my view of the situation. Surrounded
by these men, who, in their superficial optimism, consciously
or unconsciously agreed in differing from me, I often asked
myself : " Have I been stricken with blindness, or have all
these others ? Do I take too black a view ? Have I really
been deceiving myself all through my career as to England's
stubborn determination to be master ? " Our leaders
showed not the least understanding of the nature of sea-
power, or of the fate that threatened us ; they refused to
realise that England wanted to drive us off the seas. Not
until events unfortunately proved me right did I fully under-
stand the terrible meaning of that English phrase : " but
you are not a sea-going nation."

Again and again I represented to the Chancellor that
England would never stop fighting while any prospect remained
of breaking our world-position. Our democrats, more than
any of us, should have been afraid of this. Had not Lloyd
George said : " I am not afraid of von Hindenburg, von
Mackensen, nor any other Von, but of the German

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 297

workmen " ? The longer the " knock-out " was delayed,
the more dangerous it became for us, for the main weapon of
the British, the fleet, could only be effective by long years
of blockade. Even on land, after England had failed to gain a
swift victory with other people's armies, years passed before
she created one of her own. But, once England committed
herself to this gigantic undertaking, staking her whole
economic organisation, it was certain that she would
demand a reward commensurate with her efforts, and the
assurance that she need not fear a recovery of the German
people for centuries to come.

To my urgent attempts to reason the Chancellor out of
his false estimate and incorrect treatment of England, he
returned, as his manner, no definite answer. There was no
doubt, however, that he was clinging to his old ideas. When
on August 1 9th he informed me that the British were diverting
into English ports Dutch corn ships and others bound for
Holland, I could not persuade him to expose this breach of
neutrality in the manner proposed by me. Even then I
said to him : " Every display of the desire to reach an under-
standing with England will simply work against an under-
standing and be regarded as weakness on our part. The
utmost stubbornness in dealing with England is the only
means of turning her from her present course."

I wish to state here that my advocacy of a determined
conduct of the war against England in the years 1914 to 1918
never prevented the Government from seeking a peace of
understanding with England. I am not seeking to defend
myself, for the story spread among the masses, that I had
prevented the Government from concluding an early peace
with England, is too foolish to require any defence on my
part. So far as I can tell, there never was in all those years
a moment in which England would have granted us any peace
but a peace of destruction. My influence was never strong
enough to have thwarted any possible peace, even if I had
wished to do so ? nor did the Chancellor ever communicate

298 MY MEMOIRS

to me any tangible possibility of peace. I am rather speaking
simply from the point of view of political tactics, which of
course became more and more important as our position
changed for the worse. The moment when one desired to
reach a tolerable peace of renunciation with England was
just the very time in the war when it was most necessary
to show a determined fighting front against England and
to seek a rapprochement with Russia. Such a point of view
in tactics is so simple and elementary that it is adopted by
everybody but the Germans. In national questions of life
and death, the German does not seem to have sufficient
enthusiasm to bear this principle in mind. 1

The last prospect of achieving a tolerable peace with
England disappeared when we adopted the exactly opposite
tactics of open peace offers. To show his good-will, the
German in international matters is quite ready to hand over
his trumps in advance to his opponents, in the hope of making
them more kindly disposed. Ever since these peace offers
the British statesmen watched with unerring certainty the
progress of our internal crumbling. Natural instinct ought
to have shown that it is stupid to strike the enemy with
one hand only, while one strokes him with the other.
That was, however, the way we acted, in order " not
to irritate " the chief enemy. Anyone who understands
the English knows that they can only be brought to

1 I could value it properly, even when it worked inconveniently for me.
For example, a decade earlier, when the Navy League was making higher
demands than I did myself, and was attacking me personally in a most un-
pleasant manner, its activities made it much more easy for me to get my more
moderate programme carried through the Reichstag. It was with the same
motive, with a view to giving the Government a tactical advantage by supplying
the necessary support in a firm moral at home, that at a later stage the
" Fatherland party " was founded. I have often been, and am still
amazed, that even intelligent men wholly failed to see the quietening effect
produced abroad, and often regarded the Fatherland party as>a mere breeding-
ground of uncritical optimism. Its true meaning and purpose could only
be understood by those who fully realised that we were fighting a foreign foe.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 299

reasonable terms by firmness and the utmost determination.
How justly were we criticised by the Irish, the Indians, the
Egyptians, and other enslaved peoples. They knew by long
and bitter experience the proper way to deal with the
British. They hoped to realise their freedom through us,
and now they saw how, by false tactics, we were humbling
ourselves before the Anglo-Saxons while our fighting strength
still stood unshaken.

When on September 4th, 1914, all the bourgeois parties
of the Reichstag, then in complete unity, planned a telling
demonstration against England, in the shape of a proposal
for the increase of the fleet, on their own initiative and
unprompted by me, the Chancellor prevented the motion
from being brought forward. In such a war, such a policy
of repressing national determination was nothing less than
morbid.

When I learnt in the early part of November that the
English, in order to block the entrance to the Channel, had
established a war zone by laying mines in the open waters
of the North Sea, thus committing an exceptionally grave
breach of the laws of the sea as they then stood, I could not
persuade Jagow to adopt the declaration of protest which
I drew up. In lieu of this, the Foreign Office, with the aid
of the Naval Staff, which had never previously had experi-
ence of such matters, drew up a declaration which may have
appealed to specialists in international law, but which was
in practice of more harm than good, as its meticulous and
juristical arguments served to throw doubt on our adherence
to the rules of international law, which up to that time
we had strictly observed. It had no effect because it
did not contain any reservation of the right to use
reprisals.

New proofs were continually arising to show that it would
have been better to show a determined front against England.
For this reason there was anxiety in England lest the Chan-
cellor might fall, and a stronger hand take up his workj

yy*Nk-^
&*% *

300 MY MEMOIRS

for this reason the exchanges rose in London when I resigned.
On the other hand the English worked skilfully to retain
the Chancellor at the helm. Since they had obtained in
1911 and 1912 an insight into his manner of doing business,
he seemed to them to offer the best guarantee of their
victory. Accordingly, wide circles in Germany looked on
Bethmann as Europe's most trustworthy man, and our
democrats, to whom for other reasons his weakness and
confusion were necessary, willingly fostered this legend.
It is tragic to reflect that this man, who had destroyed
our prestige and by his diplomacy had given to the
world the deadliest weapons against us, should be thought
capable of bringing the English into a lenient frame of mind.
The Emperor, however, thought himself compelled to stand
by the man who appealed to the German democrats and the
English. Thus did Bethmann retain his office, in spite of
his failure through three long years of war to provide any
evidence that England would concede him a favourable
peace. But the English declared that their irreconcilable
attitude was only directed against the leaders of the armed
forces of Germany, not Bethmann, and that, once these forces
were destroyed, all would be well. And many a good
German really believed that !

Even newspapers of the type of The Daily Mail sought
by their praise not to discredit, but to strengthen the Chan-
cellor, as may be seen from a few sentences from their leading
article, "The Chancellor and the Pirate," on August 3ist,
1915, after our diplomatic defeat in the Arabic case :

" It is difficult not to sympathise with the Chancellor in
his fight with Tirpitz. For the past year he has been Chan-
cellor only in name. His business has simply been to extricate
Germany from the complications brought upon her by the
real directors of German policy, the War Office and the
Admiralty. They pursue their courses with the usual dis-
regard for civilian opinion. His function is to clear up after
them. At last he is beginning to claim a voice in deciding

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 301

the policy of which the diplomatic consequences are borne
not by those who initiated it, but by himself."

Passages of this sort were quoted among us, and taken at
their face value. 1

The most obvious proofs that England and France, at first
at any rate, were unwilling to make a peace of understanding
were ignored. Our peace offer of December 1916, which was
accompanied, to the best of my knowledge, by the greatest
spirit of accommodation, was answered contemptuously with
the Entente's well-known programme of conquest. Even at
this time we should have been confronted with conditions
similar to those which the German Government accepted
in November 1918. In spite of this, the Chancellor and the
democrats still failed to realise that their tactics were wrong.
They went farther down the slippery incline, undermining
the confidence of the German people and strengthening
that of the enemy by an uninterrupted series of offers to
capitulate.

The worst feature was that this policy was fed on illusions
about a victory in the East. If England was to be regarded
as invincible, and our defeat was to be accordingly accepted
at once, that would after all have been better than years of
a war of exhaustion with the same result. But a certain part
of the Press in Germany, with which our political leaders un-
fortunately co-operated, was hostile to "Tsarism " for reasons
of internal politics. On England's alleged invincibility were
founded the prospects of a German victory over " Tsarism " 1
I would like to quote here a typical example. A Wilhelm-
strasse official, on April izth, 1916, calmly developed this

1 How well, on the other hand, the British people really understood con-
ditions with us may be shown by the following slight but characteristic example,
given to me by a German officer on his return from captivity in England.
He had heard an English coal-dealer, who had been called up for service, called
by his fellow soldiers in camp by the name of the Chancellor, and when he
asked the reason for this, he received the reply : " We always call him
Bethmann-Hollweg, because he says things which one must not say."

302 MY MEMOIRS

view of a future for Germany, founded on her defeat by
England :

" For us, as the central power of Europe, the first necessity
is to win on the continent, and to group our neighbours here
centripetally around us. 1 We must not compromise this
objective by unnecessarily embarking in a risky adventure. 1
On this firm European basis we can systematically build up
our position in the world, and our foreign trade. What has
up to now been done in this direction is pure dilettantism.
Any injury done to England is of course welcome, but it is
simply impossible to defeat her. We must, therefore, retain
sufficient strength and credit in the world to be able to con-
tinue our work of outstripping her after the war. In the
future, dangerous untapped forces are to be found in
Russia, not in the riddled purse of England. I think
that peace at Russia's expense offers a possible solution of
the problem. As this peace would be made at the expense
of reactionary Russia, it would not exclude the possibility
of future ad hoc understandings with another Russian Govern-
ment. If we become strong in Europe, and the guardian
power towards the East, an understanding with England
would not be difficult, and it might even be the case that
the interests of Albion would for once coincide with those
of the strongest continental power."

At the beginning of July 1916, Secretary Helfferich placed
before the heads of the German States the following views,
which I quote from a contemporary memorandum :

" We must make our choice between England and Russia,
in order to gain, for the ultimate peace as well as now, pro-
tection for our rear against one or other of these two main
enemies. We must side with England against Russia, since the
Russian programme is wholly inconsistent with our position
as the guardian power of Western European civilisation and
with our relations to Austria-Hungary, the Balkans, andTurkey.
On the other hand, a division of spheres of interest between

1 Poland ! 2 Submarine warfare.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 303

England and Germany is quite possible. Accordingly, we
must not treat the fleet as a necessity for Germany's existence,
and must weaken Russia as far as possible. We must do full
work at one task, instead of half working at many. England's
interests would permit us to work with our whole strength
against Russia. The determined stand against Russia restores
to our procedure in the world-war its moral justification,
which consists in coming to the aid of Austria, and not in
the fight for the freedom of the seas. The public indigna-
tion in Germany against England should accordingly be
diverted to Russia."

Thus wrote HelfTerich, closing his argument with the
following sentences :

"The above remarks will no doubt meet with the objec-
tion that I am reckoning without my host, seeing that in
England itself hatred and the lust for destruction make any
understanding impossible. Chamberlain sums up this ten-
dency with the cry, which had aroused considerable
opposition even before the war, * We must crush Germany ' ;
but both Chamberlain and our newspapers and pamphlets
omit the subordinate clause of the sentence, which contains
the logical explanation of the hostility, to wit, * before she
crushes us.'

" In the abyss of deep mutual mistrust, brought to a head
by conscienceless demagogues and too powerful to be checked
by the respective Governments, but having nevertheless no
foundation in the true political conditions, that is to say in
the conditions of existence of the two countries, lies the
whole tragedy of the situation ; and only the greatest wisdom
of the statesmen, combined with unconquerable determina-
tion, which must be present in equal strength on both sides,
can pull the coach out of the mire of demagogy. This hope
is not so vain as might appear, for Asquith's ministry of
demagogues is not assured of perpetual office. The English
desire for our destruction may in part exclude the possibility
of an understanding, but it in no way compels us to take up
the fight at the points where the English are strongest, that
is to say, on the seas and in Egypt."

304 MY MEMOIRS

Thus Helfferich too saw no more than vague hopes of an
understanding with England, and nothing tangible whatever.
But these vain wishes were enough to lead him and those
who shared his views to refrain, during the precious years
which could have been used to save Germany, from the one
step that might have forced England to relent to wit, an
understanding with the Tsar, and the utmost development
of our strength at sea. We did not deal the blows against
English sea-power that we could have done, and thus, by
sentimentality, too clever calculation, and an unmilitary
conception of sea warfare, there resulted the achievement
of England's desire to administer in this war the awful decisive
blow against the mighty German competitor, from which she
could never recover. In the autumn of 1916, when the
English defence against submarines was becoming as it were
settled, and our lack of courage had become notorious through
the Sussex case, Lloyd George ventured already to talk of a
" knock-out."

The hope above mentioned of a German victory to be
based on an English victory seems to be a mere riddle, but
it was unfortunately allowed to determine the fate of Germany
in her most anxious hour. Rebounding from England's
prestige, our statesmanship followed blindly the impetus
given it by England in the direction of Russia. Countless
Germans at home and at the front had a truer instinct, but
they could not prevail.

This attitude of the Wilhelmstrasse was accompanied by
the further pious and unconquerable conviction that the
outstripping of England, which was not permitted to the
German Empire while it was powerful by sea, would be
readily conceded to a navyless Germany. The Chancellor
and his friends, who hoped for a swift and complete recon-
ciliation with England after the " thunderstorm," believed
that the means to achieve this was to sacrifice the German
fleet. As late as October 1918, German politicians still
dreamt of buying the favour of the Anglo-Saxons by aban-

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 305

doning submarine warfare. Germany's awakening after
November 1918 was a cruel one, and it is now too late to
know better.

My standpoint was that we must either treat England as
invincible and accept our defeat, the sooner the better, or
else that we must use every political and military means to
shake her invincibility. In practice, I could of course only
contemplate the second course. But we must clearly under-
stand the way we were to follow. All the subtlety and
hesitation, not based on this plain choice, could only lead to
destruction. All my efforts for the occupation of the Channel
coast, for forcing a battle at sea, and for the early adoption
of submarine activity, were based not on any departmental
considerations, but simply on this line of reasoning.

Ill

What means did we possess for the exercise of military
pressure on England ?

At the outbreak of war I was surprised to learn that the
navy's plan of operations, which had been withheld from me,
had not b een arranged to conform with that of the army. The
army based itself on the view, quite comprehensible from its
own standpoint, that the war at sea, and indeed the whole
campaign against England, was merely a secondary matter.
Steps should have been taken before the war, under the control
of the Chancellor, to draw up a single plan for a war on
three fronts, or a world-war, but, as I have already stated, no
such steps had been taken. Only a homogeneous Supreme
Navy Command would have possessed the necessary authority
to compel a proper employment during the war of the valu-
able information and expert knowledge gained by the navy
as to the strength of the English ; and such a command was
never established.

Of the three possible means of fighting England, I will
first discuss the occupation of the Channel coast. It was
ii 2

306 MY MEMOIRS

easily to be seen by the end of August that the operations
of the army would lead us to the Flemish coast, and that the
capture of Antwerp would only be a question of time. This
rendered possible the use of Flanders as a base for naval
warfare, and a substantial improvement of our naval strategi-
cal position. In my capacity as Secretary of State, it lay
in my power to develop these possibilities, and I seized the
opportunity with all my strength, forming the naval corps
and fortifying the Flemish coast. 1 Beyond this, however,
an intelligent Government should have aimed at the capture
of Calais. So long as the army hoped to capture Paris, I
waited for the coast to fall into our hands of itself. I leave
undiscussed the question whether it would not have been
right to treat the coast as the objective from the start.
Stationed on Cape Grisnez, our artillery could have seriously
hindered traffic in the Channel, and our naval forces could
also have worked more effectively from there. The continual
interference with the traffic based on the Thames would have
caused grave interruption of English industry, and thus, at
that time, when Germany's strength was wholly uninjured
both at home and abroad, might have greatly increased
English readiness for peace. Later, too, it would have been
possible to shell London itself from Cape Grisnez, which in
view of the long duration of the war would have been far more
effective than the bombardment of Paris which was carried
out in 1918. As I have already stated, I have always opposed
measures that are of no military importance, including casual
air raids on towns in the interior. On the other hand, a
really effective concentrated bombardment of London by all
available means from land and air would have been thoroughly
justified as one way of shortening this inhuman war, and
particularly so since England was notorious for observing
the letter of international law only in so far as it suited her
own interest.

The second means of exercising pressure on England was
1 See Chapter XVIII.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 307

an engagement at sea. The Entente has defeated us by
means of the British ships of the line, which made the
starvation blockade possible, and whose prestige yoked to
England's chariot all the peoples of the world. Battleships
alone could save us. Of all the reproaches heaped upon me,
one only has really affected me, that I did not build more
battleships. The reader will, however, have learnt from an
earlier passage of this book that a sea battle would not have
been without prospects of success for our fleet. In the next
chapter I shall discuss the domestic considerations which
crippled the navy at that time. Here I will only mention in
advance the main point, the failure of our political leadership.
As already stated, the point of view of the Chancellor
was that, if we were to come to an understanding with Eng-
land, we were not to irritate her, and further that at the end
of the war the fleet should as far as possible be still intact,
in order to influence the peace negotiations. This latter
view has always been as incomprehensible to me as the former.
Other important persons shared the views of the Chancellor.
Ballin, for example, wrote to the Chief of the Cabinet and
to myself, that we should be content with the " fleet in
being," this being the only right policy during the war.
The Chief of the Cabinet fell in with this suggestion ; he
had never been much in touch with opinion at the front,
and in his close association with the Crown he became more
and more a compromise politician. Under his influence and
that of the Chancellor stood Admiral von Pohl, who wrote
to me on November I2th, 1915 : " While I held the office
of Chief of the Naval Staff, the Chancellor impressed upon
me many times that it was absolutely necessary that the
fleet should be preserved intact until the conclusion of peace."
In my opinion, it was simply nonsense to pack the fleet in
cotton wool. The " fleet in being " had some meaning for
England, for her fleet thus achieved its purpose of command-
ing the seas. But the principle was meaningless for Germany,
whose object must be to keep the seas free for herself.

3 o8 MY MEMOIRS

Besides, we could not allow the- war to develop into a war
of exhaustion, but must attempt to shorten matters. How
cleverly the English must have worked to cripple the deter-
mination of Germany's leaders is shown by the remark,
which is reported to have been made by one of the Emperor's
nearest advisers after the battle of Jutland, and which
is at any rate absolutely consistent with the whole outlook
of that clique : " What a pity ! We had been near to getting
peace from England." Among such influences, the Emperor's
own work was destroyed. In July 1914 our politicians were
playing a dangerous game, which, if it were to be played at
all, could only be based on a strong imperial sea-power. As
soon, however, as the war had broken out, the fleet was as
far as possible thrust into the background, and the impossible
task undertaken of defeating England before the walls of
Paris, and above all of bringing England, by fighting her in
a forbearing spirit, to consent to a favourable peace, which
she was simply not ready to grant. In peace the Chancellor
had wished from the bottom of his heart that we had no
fleet ; in war he behaved as if it did not exist. The German
Government had never approached the question how one
should win a war, simply leaving the matter to the General
Staff of the army, which in its turn was not competent to
deal with the political economic and naval questions raised
by a world-war. Thus the Chancellor's only hope of bringing
the war to an end rested on the generosity of the English !

Many persons will no doubt ask : " In the most favourable
circumstances, of what use would a successful sea battle
have been to us ? Were the English not in a position to
restore their North Sea fleet rapidly from their reserves,
and if necessary to draw on the French battle fleet ? "

The answer to these questioners is that the world-prestige
of the English rests in the main on the very belief in the
invincibility of their armada. A German sea victory, or
even a doubtful success for England, would have worked
the gravest injury to England's position. To estimate

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 309

correctly the importance of such a loss of prestige for England,
one must have seen the impression made abroad by our
victory in the battle of Coronel. The English fully under-
stood the effect of this victory, and for that reason they sent
out from home an overwhelming force to wipe out their
defeat. The fear of an even greater loss of prestige led them
to act with ever-increasing caution in the face of our North
Sea fleet. The question whether a victory at sea in 1914
would have had the effect of breaking the blockade was not
at that time in itself decisive, for the English, having regard
to their oversea position and the existence of Japan, could
not risk any substantial weakening of their sea-power. If
we had won naval prestige at that time, the whole course
of the war would have been different. Italy's secession to
the enemy camp would have been prevented, and our rela-
tions with the Scandinavian countries would have been
altered at one stroke.*

In particular the Tsar's leaning towards a separate
peace, and our prospect of an understanding with Japan,
increased as our prestige grew and that of the English
fell. It could not be contested that we were strong enough
at any rate to reduce the English fleet considerably. The
sea-power of the British lay like a nightmare on the whole
of the non-Anglo-Saxon world. We, and not the British,
were the natural protectors of the smaller maritime powers.
All eyes were turned on us. It was the critical hour of the

1 The occupation and fortification of the Aaland Islands, recommended
to me by Swedish friends, seemed to me to deserve special consideration.
With the occupation of the islands as a base we should have controlled
the Gulf of Bothnia, the main line of communication between Russia and
England, and strengthened the good-will of the Swedes. As our prestige
sank, both the sympathies and the business interests of the Swedes were more
and more transformed to the English. The absence of any general mobilisa-
tion before the war, and the departmental limitations of the naval staff in their
relations to me, were the cause of my being unable, until the war had actually
broken out, to consider the question of isolating Russia by the occupation of
the Aaland Islands.

310 MY MEMOIRS

world's freedom. Yet greater things were at stake on sea
than on land, and at sea many of our momentary enemies
secretly sympathised with us. Only strong measures could
save us. We were certain, at the least, to do substantial
injury to the " Grand Fleet." Any penetration of British
naval power would raise the Indian, Egyptian, and other
questions, deprive England of the further allies that she
needed to encompass our defeat, and incline her to peace.
England understood the danger, and appreciated our strength
at sea better than we did at home. That was why she had
hesitated to enter the war, and that is why, when she had
entered, she avoided battle. In the first year our prospects
were good, and even later they were still tolerable. In the later
stages of the war the English Press were merely echoing the
views of the British Admiralty when they spoke warningly
against an engagement at sea. England could, they argued,
gain nothing by a " precipitate and costly action." " So long
as the German fleet remains in hiding, we reap all the
advantages of sea-power," wrote The Daily Telegraph. If
this sea-power had only been challenged by us and kept in
doubt, we should at any rate have had s. better standing
among the neutrals. In the face of the British Fleet tactics,
we could only gain by taking the offensive, and not by passive
waiting. It is only with almost unbearable sorrow that I
can now think of the world- wide difference that would
have been produced had a sea battle been fought to a decision
in the early months of the war. Indeed, even an incomplete
engagement like the battle of Jutland would at that time
have had a great effect, whereas that engagement, victorious
although not fought to a finish, was unable, after nearly
two years of the war, to achieve any lasting political result,
in spite of our advantages in the battle itself; for in the
time that had elapsed the general position had changed and
settled too much in England's favour, and the countries that
were still neutral had lost their belief in our ultimate victory
since our surrender to Wilson's brutal and energetic note.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 311

Even an unfavourable sea battle would not have materially
damaged our prospects. It could be safely assumed that the
losses of the enemy would be as great as ours. Nothing,
indeed, that could happen to our fleet could be worse than
its retention in idleness.

The alleged inferiority of the German ships, which con-
stitutes one of the most tragic and disastrous libels in the
whole history of Germany, was invented and spread abroad
as an excuse at this time, to justify the inactivity of the fleet.
The " naval policy " of the pre-war years was, according
to the Chancellor's wishes, to be put forward as the true
cause of the war, although in 1896 and 1905 England had
been far more exacting in her demands on Germany, who
had then in the one case no fleet, and in the other only a
weak one, than she was in July 1914, after we had built
ourselves a fleet and had refused in 1911 and 1912 to abandon
it. But if the navy policy and myself were to be found
guilty, it was impossible, with the best will in the world,
to separate the person of the Emperor from this policy.
But for him such a policy could never have existed. And
now Bethmann intended to buy friendship and peace from
England at the price of the definite abandonment of the naval
policy, that is, in truth, of our one source of strength against
England. The Emperor, as the leader of the navy in war,
should have resisted this policy of self-deception, that con-
tradicted the whole nature of the world war. But when
the report was spread that the fleet could not go out to battle
because of its inefficiency and bad material, then I and I
alone was answerable, and the Emperor was relieved of all
responsibility to the people for the inactivity of the navy.
From the divergence of political views between the Chan-
cellor's party and myself there sprang an enormous flood of
allegations against the fleet material which were not disposed
of until the test of Jutland, and prior to that event it
had been used to persuade the Emperor to hold the fleet
in check, and had had great effect in crippling the activities

-JI2 MY MEMOIRS

of the navy. If the Emperor had taken other advice, if
he had followed his own real instincts, Germany would not
now be lying in ruins.

We were defeated by the old traditional English naval
prestige, which had never been put to the test in modern
times. This prestige made our governors fear to send our
fleet to battle while there was still time. And thus,
with the failure to use the best, indeed at first the only,
weapon against England, began the tragedy of our lost
opportunities. 1

After the prospects of a separate peace with Russia, and
with it the solution of our problems, had for the time being
become much more remote as a result of this naval policy,
of Italy's entry into the war, and of the failure to carry out
the Hindenburg plan of campaign for 1915, we were blessed
at the beginning of 1916 with another gift from Heaven
for the salvation of Germany in the shape of the submarine
campaign, which was then ripe for execution. A subsequent
chapter will give the story of the stupidities which led to
the employment of this last decisive weapon being under-
taken too late by the one crucial year, and to the conse-
quent ruin of our future. Time worked against us, and at
the beginning of 1916 we were no longer strong enough to
survive any further slovenly wasting of our strength and
our prestige.

I left the service at this period because the persons in
authority would not recognise our prospects at sea, and would
not act in a manner befitting the real seriousness of our
position. The economic war had become the main fight,
while the military front, in spite of the tremendous forces
which were necessarily employed in the defensive fighting,
was now the secondary theatre. Even the great leaders who
in 1916 were appointed to command our glorious army, and
who brought it renewed strength, were faced by but limited
possibilities of development. The moment had arrived, as
1 For details see Chapter XVIII.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 313

in the Seven Years' War, when the question of a separate
peace with the Tsar had definitely become a question of life
and death for us.

IV

In the autumn of 1916 I had conversations with certain
pro-German Russians, which in conjunction with other
indications gave me ground for the belief that a separate
peace was then a possibility. I of course could not then,
and cannot now, know the exact terms on which such a peace
could have been concluded ; but I assume that the following
basis of negotiations could be regarded as giving promise
of success : we should have to settle the Serbian question in
an accommodating spirit, agreeing to the ten points of the
ultimatum which the Tsar had accepted in 1914, and con-
senting to arbitration on the two remaining points, thus in
the main bringing about a Russian success without an Austrian
defeat. We could demand the Narew line on strategical
grounds, to protect East Prussia from invasions like that of
1914, offering Russia in exchange an equivalent portion of
Eastern Galicia, Austria in her turn being indemnified, if
necessary, in the Sanjak of Novi-Bazar and in Albania. We
should have to secure for the Russians the passage of vessels
of war through the Dardanelles, and also, if they made an
alliance with us, an island in the Aegean Sea. We should
either abandon the Bagdad railway, or share it with them.
We should leave Persia to them and take over their debts
to France. We could have given them even better terms if
they succeeded in obtaining peace with Japan also for us.
With reference to Constantinople, the Russians would have
to realise that we could not leave Turkey in the lurch. We
should have had to promise, however, gradually to drop our
Turkish policy. Provision could have been made for the
personal employment of the Grand Dukes, etc.

314 MY MEMOIRS

Austria could have been persuaded to join in such a peace,
and Italy could then have been forced to an understanding.

To the Japanese one could have suggested the restoration
to China of Tsingtau, to be held on lease by us, without
fortifications, on the terms that Japanese and Germans should
have equal rights there. We should pay them in return a
certain war indemnity, and should also propose an alliance
binding us to come to their aid if they were attacked by a
European power, as well as by a non-European power, they
in their turn having to help us if we were attacked by a non-
European power as well as by a European. All this is little
more than an indication of the sort of basis on which we
should have had to attempt to arrive at an understanding
with Russia and Japan. The important point beyond any
doubt was that at all stages our common policy should
have been directed against England. The Russo-Japanese
rapprochement of 1916 offered the foundation for this last
great anti-Anglo-Saxon alliance.

The matter should have been set in train by a personal
interview with the Tsar. If I may put myself in the place
of some person having the confidence of the Tsar, I conceive
that he might have spoken as follows : "Your Majesty has
expressly assured me that you did not desire war with Germany.
To me it appears as the greatest misfortune that Germans
and Russians should weaken each other, and unless this is
stopped the future development of both peoples, and the
thrones of the Hohenzollerns and the Romanoffs, are in
peril. I understand that your Majesty is convinced that
I have always attributed the greatest importance to
Russia's friendship. Give me, therefore, a man with whom
I may negotiate without the feeling that he is boxing my ears."
The effect after all depends less on what one says than on
success in catching the ear of the other party by intuition
or old acquaintance. The Tsar, for example, would listen
gladly to an officer. I know from my own experience it was
possible to address him in this manner. In addition he had

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 315

already, in the person of Sturmer, appointed a most suitable
negotiator.

Such a conversation could have been arranged by an
autograph letter from the Emperor to the Tsar, so worded
as to restore the latter's self-confidence, and pointing out, in
language that would be sure to have weight with him, that
there were no substantial conflicts of interest between the
two old friends that could not be adjusted, but that the
present unfortunate position threatened to become irremedi-
able ; that the letter was written from anxiety for their
two dynasties, in confidence in the Tsar's discretion, and in
the certainty that he would never allow it to become an
official document.

Once the Grand Duke Nicholas was removed, the party
of the Grand Dukes could not create any irremovable
obstacles. The Tsar was an honourable man. Such an
opportunity to escape from the cul de sac would have seemed
to him most tempting, and the undertaking, in the feeling
that prevailed at the Russian court, could only have ended in
success.

This attempt at negotiation was condemned to failure
by the much too ostentatious dispatch of Prince Max of
Baden, who was little fitted for the task. The premature
attempt through the Danish court failed equally, its only
result being to enlighten the Danes as to our need for
peace. Above all, however, no success was possible while
Bethmann continued to rain blows upon the Russians, com-
pelling them to believe that we were determined to betray
them to the English and the Poles. I doubt whether even
the German supporters of the Chancellor can have remained
unaware of the fact that his personality obstructed the
materialisation of the peace tendencies in Petrograd. The
Tsar would have presumably written in answer to a letter
from the Emperor : " I am ready for peace, but only with
a government which gives me some guarantee of anti-English
and pro-Russian sympathies, and which enjoys the confidence

316 MY MEMOIRS

of Japan." The attitude of our political leaders, as shown
in the above-quoted memorandum of Helfferich, was certainly
well calculated to lose this excellent opportunity to save our
country.

Never in the whole of our history had we had as much to
offer Russia as we had in 19,16.

Among other remoter possibilities, too, there were many
favourable prospects, as, for example, that of a revision of the
Treaty of Prague in the event of Denmark following Russia
and entering into more intimate relations with us both, which
was fully consistent with her natural interests and with her
geographical position with regard to both Russia and Germany.
Through the mediation of the Tsar, we could also have
brought the French in their position at that time to make
peace, by conceding them, say, the small portion of Alsace
which they had conquered. The peace of the whole con-
tinent could be, and ought to have been secured from
Petrograd.

By the time that the suicidal policy of Bethmann and the
German democrats had established the Polish kingdom,
making the Russians still more hostile to us and leading
them to their revolution, and by the time that the submarine
campaign, begun too late and under still less favourable
circumstances, had in combination with the clumsiness of
our diplomacy brought America into the war, 1 Germany was
externally so fast in the mire that the decision of the war
was for the future to be sought mainly in her internal affairs,
in the economic war, and in the comparative strength of
the nerves and patriotism of the German and the English.

V

The Anglo-Saxons had fully understood that in this tre-
mendous struggle the power of ideas bore within it the seeds

> See Chapter XIX.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 317

of victory. They cried aloud in all languages : " Hear, ye
nations of the world, there is among us a people which is
ever disturbing our concord, which declares war and desires
to conquer the world, while we are ever bringing you but
freedom. It began with Alsace, it seeks now the same end
in Belgium, and if it succeeds there a like fate awaits you.
This people is held in bondage by a bloodthirsty caste of
soldiers and Junkers, and their autocrat, the Kaiser, sets the
world aflame of his own will. Aid us to defeat this people,
that we may punish it as it deserves. Only when that is done
can that league of peoples be formed which is the desire of all
noble men, only then will there be peace upon the earth.
Mankind will then be as a herd of sheep, and so far as a shep-
herd be needed, we will readily perform the task." Thus,
more or less, flowed the story from the lips of the Anglo-
Saxon leaders in a thousand keys, with never-flagging
repetition. With such tales did they drug themselves and
their peoples. In order to maintain a sufficient degree of
hatred among their peoples to ensure war to the knife, they
cried to the world : " See these Germans, who destroy the
art of France, who violate her women, and with satanic lust
of cruelty hack off the hands of her children." For this
work our enemies' funds were poured out in all countries,
even in Germany itself where opportunity offered. Worse
still, use was made of the German's ignorance of the outside
world, and of that strain of self-destruction which runs like
a thread of blood through the thousand years of our history.
Clever advantage was taken also of international capitalism,
which here and there had found its way into Germany,
and of that ferment of decomposition which is so cleverly
represented by such organs as the Frankfurter Zeitung.

What response did our political leaders make to these
moral and commercial attacks of our enemies ?

They might have said : " For centuries you Anglo-Saxons
have set the peoples of the European continent one against
another. Out of scattered fragments of tribes and strips

3 i8 MY MEMOIRS

of territory Prussia rebuilt a united Germany, and the stronger
she has grown, the more clearly has she realised that it is
her mission to fight for the freedom of Europe against the
giant powers beyond the seas. For Europe, the sea-girt
continent of many states, will always reach the highest level
of intellectual achievement if her many closely neighboured
civilisations are free to develop and to help in each other's
development. Germany stands and falls with Europe, and
Europe with Germany. It is thus Germany's deepest interest
to maintain the peoples of the continent in their full liberty
and their full power. You Anglo-Saxons, on the other hand,
enslave the peoples body and soul. See, ye peoples of the
earth, how many of you have already sunk more or less to
the helpless condition of vassals, and how much greater
the danger will be in the days to come. Thus, we are fighting
for the freedom of the world against the strangling tyranny
of the Anglo-Saxons.

" You Anglo-Saxons call us militarists and autocrats, whilst
among yourselves you have established for the maintenance
of your own fighting spirit the most absolute dictatorship that
history has known, and single men exercise a military power
of Draconic severity without regard for personal freedom
or the principles of democracy. You rail at us for militarism,
but Germany is in truth the only independent power left
in the world, walking her own path and capable of maintaining
the balance in Europe. Your masters in the City of London
and in Wall Street, New York, know quite well that Germany
alone stands between them and the propagation over all
the world of their capitalistic ' Understanding theory.' If
they succeed in removing this last obstacle and in establish-
ing an unlimited world monopoly, then indeed will a Pax
Britannica bring the world the quiet of the graveyard for
many years to come."

A similar line of reasoning to that sketched out above should
have been encouraged before the war, and spread by all
possible means, for our people lacked great ambitions, and

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 319

their feelings of patriotism had not been correspondingly
developed, while they overrated the strength of the Anglo-
Saxons, and had allowed the sense of our imperative need
for external strength to be largely overlaid by cosmopolitan
Utopianism. But in the war itself, when life and death
depended on it, the will to live required to be awakened
and kept alive.

And what did our political leaders do ? They did on
several occasions, it is true, repudiate slander. But for the
rest their attitude was as follows : " It is true that we
declared war, but we do not want to defeat you, merely
to defend ourselves. It is true that we have done
Belgium a wrong, but we are ready, as far as possible, to
give compensation later ; we have no intention of wholly
conquering that country, but we should like to retain a part
of it. In this war, we have simply no aim, no objective,
no idea. We are, it is true, fighting for the balance of power
at sea, but for the present only with words, as we have at
the same time to secure that the reactionary and corrupt
Russian bureaucracy should not again lord it over the noble
Poles. That our unfortunate navy should incommode the
Anglo-Saxons, I can well understand, and I concede
their right to resent it, although our fleet has really only
half the strength of the English alone. Please do not be
angry about it ; I, your friend, could not prevent this fleet
being built, although strictly speaking I had as Chancellor
the power to do so, and am the responsible party. You
are right in the main, too, when you say that our institu-
tions are less democratic than yours. It is true that our
national character, the experience of our history and our
geographical position render an executive of very wide powers
a necessity of our Government, and that our Emperor has
not even the same power under the constitution as President
Wilson ; but we will alter all that. If I had had my way,
we should already, long ago, have handed over Alsace with
the Vosges barrier to the French propagandists, so that it

330 MY MEMOIRS

might be wholly free. On principle I support actively the
party quarrels in the Reichstag, in order to help forward
democratic feeling in Germany. It would no doubt be
better to leave such internal changes to be dealt with after
the war is over, as their discussion at present diverts the atten-
tion of our people too much from the terrible seriousness
of this hour of their fate ; but I feel, in agreement with my
democratic friends, that by democratising ourselves we may
win your approval and the good-will of the whole world. I
am accordingly taking steps in this direction at once, and as
I admit your nobility of character even while you are hostile
to me I feel sure that we shall soon reach a peace that will
be just to all parties."

To establish these views in Germany, the natural instincts
of our people, which were so emphatically displayed at the
outbreak of war, were systematically diverted and broken
by Press censorship and by a regular drainage system of
repression of opinion worked from the Wilhelms trass e,
which resulted finally in the destruction of the popular
moral and power of resistance, and indeed of all our self-
confidence. In the great dangers of our position, which
were obvious to every statesman, an active development of
patriotic ideas and a full maintenance of moral was essential
from the first day of the war if we were to hold our own and
reach a conclusion rendering it possible in some degree to
make good our heavy losses and to continue the mission of
Prusso-Germany in the world.

Bleeding from a thousand wounds, underfed, with its
back against the wall of its home, the best of Germany stood
fighting for its life, when suddenly the wall was overthrown
from behind, and the people lost their control and fell into
delirium.

The curse of history, and if Germany survives the curse
of posterity, will rest on the men who brought about this
disaster.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 321

VI

Our political leaders gained us neither allies nor sympathies
at the right time ; they neither gave the people inspiring
ideals for the fight, nor opened their eyes to the terrors of
defeat. The talk of a pure war of defence was an illusion,
and bound to lead us to destruction ; for England had already
during the war destroyed our position in the world, and
there was nothing more to defend, merely at the best some-
thing to rebuild in peace. The German people could not
hope to survive unless the terms of peace ensured this recon-
struction, but the thoughtless talk of a pure war of defence
concealed this necessity from the masses. How different was
Lloyd George, with his talk of the knock-out ! Those
Germans, however, who saw the alternatives clearly and
said with truth that either the English must achieve our
destruction or we must ourselves achieve our future, and that
there was no third way, were sacrificed by the government to
the hatred of the unintelligent masses. Bethmann's conduct
was the exact opposite to the statesmanship with which Lloyd
George and Clemenceau led their peoples to victory. The
Chancellor and his friends the demagogues ever directed the
sharp arrows of their policy against their homeland
instead of against the enemy. Thus they destroyed the
resistance of the people, and paved the way for the collapse,
until at last the people and the demagogues who had come
to rule over them threw down their arms and laid them-
selves at the feet of their enemies, with the cry : " We who
have always believed in the conscience of the world, for-
swear the accursed disciples olthe policy of force, the greedy
foes who wanted to seize you. We never wanted victory,
we feared it even, for would it not have left the yoke of the
autocrats and militarists firmly upon the neck of the enslaved
German people? Now defeat has freed the German people
from the despotism of the Emperor and the soldiers, has
ii 3

323 MY MEMOIRS

brought it happiness, and made it worthy of a splendid future.
Now we will compel you, not by hateful force, but by good
and noble words, to love the German people and further
their interests. We will gain the confidence of the world,
and make free the way that leads from Imperialism to Idealism ;
we will sow in German hearts, not hatred against the imper-
ialism of the British who have starved us, nor against the
French and the Poles who seek to dismember us, but hatred
against the men who once made the German Empire powerful,
who formed armies and built ships to protect it, and con-
structed a mighty dam to protect its prosperity against
covetous neighbours."

This end of Germany's power has been brought about
by the deception of the mass of the German people throughout
the war. Now that the awful test of facts has been applied,
it is terribly painful even to think of the false hopes which
Scheidemann and company, with the complaisance of the
Government, held out to the people. Their theory ran thus :
" I. If Germany will democratise herself, we can obtain a
peace of understanding; the only obstacles are the monarchy
and the militarists."

When the Northcliffe propaganda for the undermining of
the German army had made full and successful use of the
explosives thus supplied to it by the German democrats,
Prince Max of Baden, Erzberger, and Scheidemann could
not rest until they had tested their theory of the "peace of
justice, not of force," at the cost of our monarchy, our
army, our honour, and our freedom.

" 2. If we only state frankly that we will give up Belgium,
we can have a peace of understanding."

The doves of peace had been flying incessantly across
our frontiers since 1917, bearing in their beaks the renuncia-
tion of Belgium, but each flight merely confirmed the resolve
of our enemies to wait until the patent internal decay of
Germany had achieved their true war aim, the ruin of our
country.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 323

" 3. The Junkers, captains of industry, and annexationists
made the war, and prolong the war, for their own profit.
Overthrow them, and the freed peoples will stretch out their
hands to you, and perpetual peace will come."

Even ancient Rome knew how to build a policy on the
internal dissensions of the Germans. The Entente had
further help from the -jealousies of the agitator-ridden classes,
who are always ready to destroy the true upholders of their
own economic existence, since these " earned more " than
they did themselves.

Thus, many Germans welcomed the " Dawn of the Revo-
lution." Our proud, strong, respected empire has been
broken, not by our enemies, but from inside. Our uncon-
quered army collapsed because our people was not ripe to
fulfil its political tasks in the framework erected by Bismarck.
In London or Paris the man in the street feels himself
what is good for the country. Among us he fills himself
with illusions gathered from certain newspapers and parties,
well fitted to lead him on like a will-o'-the-wisp from disaster
to disaster. Only recently, in March 1919, the socialist
Paul Lensch, in the Glocke, showed how quiet those elements
among us now are, who, like the Berliner Tageblatt, and
papers of that stamp, have been assuring us for years that we
need but drive the " Pan-Germans " to the devil, and make a
frank declaration as to Belgium, to achieve a reasonable peace.
Whether these newspapers to which Lensch refers are ever
quiet, I cannot say. I am, however, quite certain, as must
everyone be who has followed the effusions of the Frankfurter
Zeitung with any attention and who believes himself to stand
for Germany, that this journal, in war and peace, has in
effect played right into the hands of our deadliest enemies.
With a lack of national feeling that would be inconceivable
in any English or French newspaper, it has always attacked
the State, and since the days of Bismarck has continually
advocated the decisions best calculated to weaken the power
and dignity of Germany ; at every critical moment it has

334 MY MEMOIRS

dealt its country a stab in the back ; and finally, abso-
lutely consistent, it has warmly welcomed the revolution,
the ruin of our honour and our future. In its task of deceiving
the German people, it has made a clever use of that ignorance
of the outside world which is characteristic of many of
our fellow-citizens, who know nothing of the spirit and
national pride of other peoples, and draw conclusions as to
foreigners from their own character. Loyal and simple,
but at the same time confused and forgetful of their duty,
they miss every opportunity for political achievement or
increase of strength. They fail to see that every weakness
involves an enemy advance and increased attacks ; they fail
to see that in our position in the world freedom and a
tolerable economic situation can only be maintained for
Germany by exceptional unity, honesty, and self-sacrifice
on all sides.

Another socialist, the federal minister Dr. David, said at
the beginning of 1919 : " The main cause of our defeat was
the weakness of our sense of duty to the State." That is
absolutely right. Many years ago an Italian friend, Admiral
Bettolo, said to me : " The only dangerous socialists are the
Germans, for they make a dogma, a religion, out of their
party principles, and are comrades first, and Germans only
second. Exactly the reverse is the case with the English and
the French and even with our socialists in Italy." The hope,
which I had cherished for a time in the autumn of 1914, that
the elements in our Social Democracy with a proper sense
of patriotism would gain the upper hand soon disappeared.
The international Marxist propaganda, after decades of
work, the narrow-minded class hatred, the German leaning
to utopianism, had sunk too deep for that. A number of
able men among the Social Democrats displayed during the
war sound patriotic instincts. If the Government had
encouraged them, instead of following at the heels of stupid
or malevolent demagogues of the international wing, the
German workmen might have grown with confidence in the

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 325

school of war to a ripe German patriotism, and they would
thus have been now in as good a position in the world as the
workers of England. But our politicians of the left showed
the basest ingratitude to the Prusso-German State, the best
of all governments. The wise and statesmanlike traditions
of Frederick the Great and Bismarck were as good as obsolete
compared with the views of agitators, the mention of whose
very names must be repugnant to true Germans, although
these cunning individuals, not content with having ruined
our country, are now actually ruling it for reward.

Thus large sections of the people fought passionately against
those truthful ones who from the first said : " Whatever we
do, whatever we offer to the enemy, this war must end
either in our complete self-assertion or in our complete
destruction."

When Germans contested this position they were injuring
our strength from behind. After the first years of the war
our enemies knew that the country was wearing itself out
with this friction, and the knowledge gave them more con-
fidence than their actual strength. Scheidemann thought
that, by loud and energetic renunciation of the idea of
victory, he could encourage the " comrades " in enemy
countries to take a like step. He never realised that he had
exactly the opposite effect, and that he enabled the enemy
Chauvinists to gain the upper hand over the peacemakers.
And what other real annexationists there were among our
enemies, in comparison with the men who were so labelled
in Germany !

A declaration by the Government and the majority parties
of positive war aims would not have prevented, but would
in fact have assisted, negotiations with England for a peace
of understanding. The German; alone did not know that
war aims the desirability of which is understood by the
population have the practical effect of reducing the demands
of the opponents.

In fact, in the fight for the life of a people there is but

326 MY MEMOIRS

one spirit which makes its armed forces invincible ; this
lies in the words :

" Man must soar, or cower low ;
Either conquer and be free,
Or lose all in slavery ;
Triumph or disaster know :
The hammer or the anvil be."

Owing to the attitude of the Government and the party
leaders, the masses remained wholly ignorant that the reviled
annexationists were really advocating nothing more than
this plain truth. They thought them monstrous, and con-
demned them without understanding.

Cohn, the member of the Reichstag, taught the masses to
sing :

" The rich draw profits from strife,
The poor pay with their life ! "

The name of " Prolonger of the war " became a term of
abuse. Gambetta had been canonised by his people because by
his work in prolonging the war he gained them better terms
of peace, and above all saved their honour and their self-
confidence, the foundations of all national prosperity. The
German people did not understand that England would not
have a peace of understanding (how warmly any possibility
of it would have been welcomed by us !), but was simply
waiting for the stupidity of our misguided masses to over-
throw our so-called " Prolongers of the war," that is, to prevent
the concentration of our strength, the straining of our energies.
The aim of the enemy was, as must now be plain even to
the most stupid among us, our destruction. There was, after
all, nothing to move England to a peace of understanding,
since that much, such were our policy and the conduct of
the war, brought about thereby, she could always have when
it suited her. It was thus clear that she wanted something
more. Every right-minded German would rather fight the

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 327

longest war, with the smallest prospect of victory, than
accept final judgment of destruction without the most crush-
ing necessity. This latter course was simply a betrayal of
the nation.

I do not of course overlook for a moment the trials to which
the nerves of the masses were exposed by the starvation
blockade. The mental and physical effects of this, the most
cruel of all weapons of war, which it was left to the English
to introduce into modern warfare, must not be underesti-
mated ; they offer indeed a strong excuse for the gradual
weakening of the power of resistance among the people.
But it was correspondingly the more urgent duty of our
national leaders, and indeed of every far-seeing politician, to
survey the problem calmly and to do everything possible
to maintain and direct into the proper channels the fighting
spirit of the people. Where, however, the real wish for victory
is absent, strength and spirit are crippled as well.

My so-called " annexationism " consisted simply in a
pessimistic view, which has unfortunately been proved
correct by subsequent history, of our politico-economic
prospects. I was unable to console myself with ideas about
a peace of justice and a league of nations, as did all our
varieties of international capitalists and socialists. I asked
myself what sort of an end of the war would be required to
secure to Germany, in her difficult geographical position, equal
weight with the other, natural, world-powers. Our world-
power could only cease to be artificial if we succeeded in
reaching a position of primus inter 'pares in Central Europe, a
position in which the majority of the continental nations had
seen the guarantee of their own full freedom. That was the
true objective, and until it was gained the power of Germany
would be as little consistent with the standing of the German
people in the world as in the eighteenth century the standing
of Prussia was with its material strength.

" Territory is Future" was a true motto for the empires
of the British, the Americans, the Russians, and even of the

328 MY MEMOIRS

French, who could expand in North Africa. Territory
in this sense could not be won by the German Empire,
wedged in in the heart of Europe. Her future rested
on her work in the world and for the world, and in the
existing political position could only be secured by concen-
trated defensive strength at home, compelling the respect
of her neighbours. That is the real reason why our enemies
wanted to crush Prussian militarism, for then our greatness
would be gone. For the Tsar or the French an army of
millions might perhaps be an immoral luxury, for who ever
thought of attacking those countries ? On the other hand,
we did need great military defensive strength to counter-
balance the extraordinarily unfavourable position of our terri-
tory and frontiers, and our neighbours' centuries-old lust of
conquest ; this was expressly confirmed by Lloyd George at
the beginning of 1914 and who could deny it now, after the
final experiences of the world- war ? But from the point of
view of international politics Germany could not after 1914
be capable of defence, or even of survival, unless the English
supremacy over Belgium was disposed of.

I never expected, not even before the battle of the Marne,
a complete German military victory in the sense of 1870.
In any case the Americans would have robbed us of many
of the fruits of victory. Even a century ago, in 1815, the
President of the United States, in spite of the hostility of the
United States to England at that time, is reported to have
stated in a Presidential message : " It will be the aim of a
resolute statesmanship to prevent the ripening of the seed
that lies in Germany." l

My own view was that a complete military victory of
either side was unlikely, and that the decision would rest
with the moral elements of determination and power of
resistance. I did not doubt that, if we succeeded in opening
the eyes of the German people to the full meaning of British

1 I only know this quotation from England's Predominance, the Days of the
Continental System, by A, von Peez and Paul Dehn (1912), p. 346.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 329

supremacy in Belgium, we should develop strength enough to
secure a peace that guaranteed us against that danger. In
the event of defeat, the fate of Germany would be subjection
to a foreign power. It was better to go to the farthest
lengths to tempt victory, than to accept such a helot status.

Since 1870 our greatly increased population, on which the
growth of our prosperity and power depended, could no
longer, with our limited territory, be all accommodated on
the soil. Land hunger thus led, as it had done in the early
days of German history, to the emigration and loss to Germany
of the surplus population. An artificial increase in the
numbers the country could support was only to be gained
by trade and industry. Even if our population had remained
stationary, we could not have remained the predominantly
agricultural country of a generation before, since after 1870
the great plains of America and Russia began to compete
with our agricultural exports, and had indeed put a stop to
them. To our export of raw materials, if our population
was to increase or even to keep its level, had to be added
the export of the manufactured goods, and for their pro-
duction we had again to import large quantities of raw
material, as indeed we had also for our agriculture, if it was
to increase its output so as to support an increased population.
Under these circumstances a stoppage of imports and exports
would amount to a terrible disease of the whole body politic,
a crash from wealth to misery unprecedented in the world's
history. Throughout the war there lay upon my mind like
a nightmare the picture of millions of starving and workless
proletarians, uprooted from their homes and driven to destroy
each other that the survivors might have bare room
to live.

Throughout history the possession of the coasts of the
Netherlands has always meant English domination on the
Continent. England has long regarded the Belgian question
as her own affair. If she held Antwerp, she held the Hague
too, and Cologne, and from her points of vantage on the

330 MY MEMOIRS

Scheldt and the lower Rhine she could master Europe.
Germany could not make her war losses good to any extent if
the Meuse territories, which had been part of the empire
for nearly a thousand years, were again brought under her
protection. For an export trade such as, up to 1914, lay at
the root of our national existence necessitated a high political
status in the world. Only German dreamers, who did not
know on what they themselves lived, could imagine that the
Anglo-Saxons would permit a Germany for which they did
not have a certain fear ever again to work so freely and un-
hindered for its own profit all over the world. Before 1914,
however, our world-position was not based so much on our
actual strength as on the respect won in 1870. If we did not
maintain this respect that is, if we did not emerge from the
war as well as England then we lost everything we had built
up in the world. Our homeland flourished on our prestige
abroad, and this would vanish like the old Hanse League if
we did not win an independent position with regard to
England.

If only in order to make good the enormous direct war
losses that we suffered overseas, it was vitally necessary for us
to emerge from the war on a broader economic basis in an
age when, as the British say, the great grow unceasingly and
the small become smaller. The maintenance of our pre-war
economic influence in Antwerp, the liberation of our kinsmen,
the Flemings, from the foreign rule of Franco- Walloons, the
removal of the English from the continental coast, were my
only material war aims, and they cannot be called annexa-
tionist. 1

I pass over here the point of view of naval strategy, which
laid down that our position in the Heligoland triangle became
untenable if England drew Belgium and Holland into her
group, and thus extended her political power to the Ems.

What harm could have been done if the whole German
people had taken the liberation of the Flemings as a serious
1 See above, pp. 1 83 tt sty.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 331

war aim ! And would this have been in any respect more
immoral than the reannexation of German Alsace by the
French ? One would have left the Flemings their independ-
ence, whereas the French refused even to grant the Alsatians
self-government. The only difference is that the French,
according to their own point of view, hold the government
of others to be their natural right, and the Germans while
gladly conceding this to the French, suffer from attacks of
conscience when an opportunity arises of themselves gaining
in influence.

Our aim should have been to maintain the economic
prosperity of our people, to preserve our beloved lands on the
Rhine from encroachment, to save our Hanse towns from
degenerating into English agencies, to secure our whole
country from the death by strangulation plotted for it by the
English, and finally to reconstruct after its collapse the whole
artificial structure of our position in the world. A peace,
however, which left the English standing on the Meuse and
the Scheldt meant for ourselves and for the whole of foolish
disunited Europe the end of freedom and prosperity, and was
only to be accepted if and when the very last chance of a better
end was really and finally lost.

After the war, however, there was no neutral Belgium, any
more than there has been at any time since 1905. Belgium
and Holland lived on our prosperity, as the outlet of our
industrial activity. It was to our interest to maintain them
in freedom and prosperity, while the English simply desired
them as bridge-heads.

The Government should have copied Lloyd George and
Clemenceau in giving the people an outward and visible war
aim, if only to divert them from vain and fruitless civil
strife over reforms which could not benefit any party in the
event of defeat. They should have taught the people to
look at the essentials, and to leave secondary matters alone.

I felt certain from the very beginning of the war that
defeat would be surely followed by a revolution, although I

332 MY MEMOIRS

certainly never dreamt that there could be Germans who
would yield, before the war was over, to the temptation to
revolt and deliver the whole country into the hands of a
foreign enemy. Our policy, leading as it did to disaster both
at home and abroad, led others too to take gloomy views ;
as early as 1915 the Crown Prince asked me whether I thought
he would ever govern the country. But if the old State were
to collapse, the strength of the German people would fall
with it, for they had hitherto always shown their incapacity to
prosper without firm leadership. They needed the Prusso-
German State. Their guardian angel was the tradition of
Frederick the Great and of Bismarck. Our people lack natural
political genius, such as, for example, the French possess.

We had a powerful monarchy because history had taught
the Germans that in their perilous position they could not
stand without it. And now we were demolishing our con-
stitution at the time of our greatest danger, while our enemies
were following exactly the opposite course, and increasing
the power of their executives to the greatest possible extent.
By this, we did not merely lose the advantage of homogeneous
leadership, which we had had at the beginning of the war.
We rather added to our material inferiority a moral and
spiritual weakness, by opposing in the last year of the war
to the dictatorships of Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau,
a weary, worn-out old man like Hertling, and finally by per-
mitting purely destructive party-leaders to divide up the
power among themselves.

The internal health of a people depends on the possibility
of its freely developing its strength abroad. By employing
their strength against each other at home, the Germans intro-
duced a new stage of decay in which the unhappy nation,
deluded by the sorry spectacle of demagogues squabbling over
" power," was to be robbed of its prosperity, its dignity, and
its great ideals.

In any event, and from whatever point of view the subject
was approached, the only escape from immeasurable misery

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 333

was to be found in making the people fully conscious of the
sorrows that threatened them, and really imbuing them with
heroism and loyalty to the State of their fathers. It would
then have been as possible for us to hold out as it was for
the French, and the German people would not have had to
undergo the physical and moral trials and humiliations which
their weakness and their internal collapse have brought upon
them.

VII

The lack of comprehension of the views developed above,
and the chronic tactical mistakes of our Government and our
democrats in the attempts to obtain peace, found disastrous
expression in the peace resolutions of July 1917. It at once
became clear to me that, after such an obvious nervous
collapse, the prospects either of the early conclusion of a
peace of renunciation or of a further successful prosecution
of the war were very seriously diminished. If there had
ever been in England any real desire for a termination of the
war by understanding, it was clear that after this proof of our
moral and political instability the well-known remark of Lloyd
George that England need never make any sacrifice for a
peace of renunciation, because that could still be had under
any circumstances gained a fuller meaning than ever. The
course we had chosen was, in addition, wholly unlikely to
help towards a separate peace with Russia.

If in these circumstances there was to be any hope of salva-
tion great hope there could no longer be the attempt
should have been made to develop a strong national counter-
movement among the people, in order to create the im-
pression abroad that the German power of resistance was still
strong, to give the Government a footing for the exercise of a
shrewd and strong policy, and finally to prevent, as far as
possible, any further advance down the slippery slope of open
peace offers. It was these considerations that led District

334 MY MEMOIRS

Governor Kapp and a number of East Prussians of all parties
to form the German Fatherland party. The first of the three
desired effects, the impression abroad, was undoubtedly
achieved by the tremendous national strength of the move-
ment. The German Government was, however, far from
understanding what a weapon the creation of this party had
placed in their hand. They never dared to make use of it,
doing on the contrary all in their power to hamper the move-
ment. Such an attitude, indeed, was prescribed by the
immediate counter-operations of the authors of the peace
resolutions, who, in order to maintain their position, suc-
ceeded by a well-organised campaign of lies in fathering
internal political aims on to the new party, and in bringing
it into suspicion as reactionary. Further, in complete and
thoroughly German misunderstanding of the object of a
" war aim," they charged the party and myself with
" annexationism." Apart from the fact that the leaders
of the party had held aloof from any particular policy of
annexation, merely making certain definite demands in respect
of Belgium, the crucial point as regards England, there was
no necessity to do more than impress, as above mentioned,
upon the people some sense of what was indispensable
to our future existence. This our Government had
unfortunately wholly omitted to do. It should at least have
been grateful that the task had been undertaken for it by a
great popular movement, and should have made use of the
movement in the way one can be sure that an English or
French Government would have done. At this very time, if
it was necessary and possible to conclude a peace of renuncia-
tion (which the Fatherland party could never prevent),
the Government, relying on the existence of that party,
could have stood out for better terms. It is also an essential
point that during the whole period of the party's existence
no opportunity arose for a peace of understanding. Nothing
but the everlasting and baseless delusion of our democrats,
that Germany, to obtain an acceptable peace, had but to ask

335

for it, made it possible to attach the name of " Prolongers of
the war " to the men whose views, had they been allowed
to prevail from the first, would have brought the war more
rapidly to one or the other conclusion. The parties really
guilty of prolonging the war are those who steadily under-
mined our power of resistance, and gave the Entente that
certainty to which Lloyd George has given expression.

The Fatherland party did not achieve its aim, and indeed
could not do so after it was opposed not merely by the hostility
of the authors of the peace resolution, but also by the strong
machinery of the Prusso-German State. Its work of political
explanation, however, was not in vain. If anything can give
us hope that German patriotism will again build us a strong
and habitable German home, it is the fact that, after three
hard years of war, and in spite of the activities of Bethmann
and the democrats, a movement could arise of such power
and patriotic feeling as the Fatherland party. The moral
and material liberation of our country, which is now fallen
under foreign domination, and the foundation of a new well-
being, can only be begun when disaster has led to disillusion-
ment and disillusionment has awakened in all classes of our
people a spirit of self-sacrifice and a determination to maintain
Germany's civilisation.

VIII

When in October 1918 the democrats who had come into
office seemed likely to make the terrible mistake, unprecedented
in history since the time of Carthage, that one could throw
oneself on the mercy of one's enemy without perishing, I
wrote the following letter to Prince Max of Baden, then
Chancellor :

" BERLIN,
"October ijtb, 1918.

" YOUR GRAND-DUCAL HIGHNESS,

" In accordance with orders, I have the honour to
transmit hereby my views on the present position.

336 MY MEMOIRS

" I regard as fundamentally false the political tactics which
we have adopted towards England and America both before
and, above all, during the war. We assume in our opponents
points of view which we alone, not they, possess. In these
tactics I perceive one of the greatest causes of the war and of
our present position. The aim of the Anglo-Americans,
followed with perfect political cleverness and the greatest
consistency, has been the destruction of Germany, as
a further step towards the world- domination of their
capitalism. It was only by a display of strength and parti-
cularly of determination that we could impress upon them
that the business was not a paying one, and thus secure for
ourselves tolerable conditions. Our continually repeated
public offers of peace have constituted grave tactical errors.
Wilson's demands rose at each such step. We did not under-
stand that we were faced by deliberate extortion. Their talk
of peace and the happiness of the nations are noble, but most
naively intended only for the benefit of their own peoples ;
they are designed, too, expressly for the politically unsuspicious
German people.

" Our latest offer of peace and armistice, which is so accom-
modating as to amount to a renunciation of any claim on our
part to rank as a great power, has been answered bluntly by
Wilson with a demand for our complete disarmament. He
knows quite certainly that the cessation of the submarine
campaign makes any further resistance on our part impossible.
This demand for cessation of submarine warfare, the present
and future importance of which is shown by Churchill's speech
to be thoroughly understood in the enemy camp, forms the
kernel of Wilson's note, which is surrounded by a husk of
pathetic moral indignation. As this indignation, were it
limited to the war at sea, would be too transparent, a further
covering is provided in shameless libels on the army. At the
same time, Wilson is beating the victory drum and working
his people up to the highest pitch of fury. He would certainly
not do this if he intended to treat us with any leniency after-
wards. The reverse will be the case, notwithstanding the
promises he has signed- These are merely the tricks of the
political extortioner.

" Wilson's answer shows further that it was quite a mistake

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 337

to assume, if anyone did assume, that the Entente would be
so obliging as to concede us an immediate armistice on any
terms that would admit of our putting our army and our
frontiers in a position of defence in case of the peace
negotiations breaking down.

" There is but one means left to secure better terms, perhaps
even but one means to secure the existence of German civilisa-
tion. We must make an appeal to the whole people to defend
with determination our honour and our future existence, and
we must at the same time act at once, both at home and abroad,
in such a manner as to leave not the least doubt of our deter-
mination. This is the right course to follow, even if we are
even now still desirous of answering in an accommodating
spirit. If we were to answer in that spirit, there is grave
risk that neither the enemy nor ourselves would believe that
we were in earnest. The decline in our moral and sense
of honour, beginning at home, has travelled through our
lines of communication and reached the fighting fronts.
The troops cannot hold out and fight when they see only
too clearly that everything is being sacrificed at home. What
are the men to fight for, and how are their officers to keep
up their moral ? It is impossible under such circumstances.

" We require resolute reinforcement of the western front
with every available man, the formation of citizen battalions
for the maintenance of order at home, and the relentless
prosecution of the submarine campaign, which has had far
greater effects than is believed at home. We must take every
imaginable measure to maintain the spirit of the troops,
the officers must have the same rations as the men, and the
Government itself must spread as widely as possible explana-
tions of what is really at stake. Every German must understand
that if we do not fight on, we fall to the level of wage-slaves
of our enemies.

" To carry through this policy, a dictatorship, such as the
enemy in direct contrast to ourselves have established, is
essential. It is absolutely immaterial of what party tendencies
this executive power is composed, for its activities must be
directed solely and exclusively against the external enemy.

" These are my views, hastily dictated, but the product of
the thought of years ; they have nothing whatever to do with

ii 4

338 MY MEMOIRS

Chauvinism, desire for annexation, or a failure to understand
our need for peace ; they are concerned solely with the
rescue of our people from the supreme danger. My policy
may not succeed, but it at any rate offers the only possible
avenue to success, for other courses lead with certainty to a
shameful issue.

" If your Grand-ducal Highness desires to have a further
opinion on our naval position, I strongly recommend you to
grant a short interview to Admiral von Trotha, the Chief of
Staff of our High Sea battle fleet, who is at present here.
There is no one so capable of giving so clear a general opinion
on the matter as this officer, who enjoys the confidence of
the whole navy. I believe that he is staying with Admiral
von Miiller, the Chief of the Naval Cabinet. Having regard
to the urgency of the subject, I have ventured to send a copy l
of this letter to Field-Marshal von Hindenburg and to Secre-
tary Scheidemann.

" Your Grand-ducal Highness,

" I remain with the greatest respect,

" VON TIRPITZ."

Prince Max's government was the victim of an unpre-
cedented maze of anti-nationalist insinuation. The sub-
marine campaign was abandoned, the capitulation broached,
and a peace of justice based on Wilson's fourteen points
" agreed to " with the Entente, and every one who dis-
agreed, every honest patriotic German, was treated as an
outlaw, although the army and navy could, without a
doubt, have held out until the spring of 1919, and thus have
rendered possible real negotiations for peace. In these, the

1 Prince Max read this letter with great care, marking certain passages, and
sending it on to the other Secretaries of State, at any rate to Vice-Chancellor
von Payer and Secretary Solf. On October iyth and 1 8th the majority in the
Imperial Government were in favour of negotiating sword in hand. On the
1 9th, however, the Scheidemann group, with the addition of Count Wolff-
Metternich (a particularly unfortunate selection), succeeded in bringing the
majority round. Wilson's desire, trading on our utter lack of political instinct,
to render us defenceless before the negotiations were opened, was fulfilled,
and with that our utter defeat was assured.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 339

blackest days of Germany's history, when we were still fully
capable of offering, sword in hand, a just peace to our
equally war-weary enemies, but instead rejected the oppor-
tunity and went down into chaos, I, in my capacity of
chairman of the Fatherland party, wrote a further letter
to the Chancellor, as follows :

" BERLIN,
" October $otb, 1918.

" YOUR GRAND-DUCAL HIGHNESS,

" You graciously received my respectful letter of the
I yth instant, but in one important respect, to wit in con-
nection with the submarine campaign, you have arrived at a
decision which is contrary to my advice, and, I am told, also
to that of our naval and military chiefs. I conceive it to be
my duty, in the existing situation, to bring once again to
the attention of your Grand-ducal Highness a consideration
which I did not sufficiently emphasise in that letter.

" Every military retreat, if it is not to develop into head-
long flight, has to be accompanied by well-timed and well-
planned counter-attacks against the advancing enemy. The
same rule holds good beyond doubt, indeed with even greater
force, in the case of a political retreat. Even if we feel
convinced that we can achieve nothing more by force of
arms, it must never be forgotten that for purely psycho-
logical reasons the desire of the enemy to avoid further
sacrifices has now risen very high. In 1871 a similar attitude
on the part of France, even after the armistice was con-
cluded, saved Belfort in the peace negotiations. In battle,
if a soldier lays down his arms, he can count on mercy. But
if this is done in the political field, if the losing party
disarms completely and surrenders without dignity, his
attitude commands anything but respect from the enemy, who
is on the contrary more inclined to relentless * punishment.'

" For these reasons, regarding the matter from a purely
material standpoint, and leaving on one side the centuries
of humiliation that would follow, I can think of no worse
peace than that which would be forced on us, if we were
simply to capitulate at a time when we still have left to us a
considerable power of resistance. The enemy, who can well

340 MY MEMOIRS

estimate our strength, will not treat us any more mercifully
if we disarm prematurely, but all the more roughly and
brutally, since to the sensation of victory will be added a
feeling of contempt for us. Here again we are faced by the
difference between our point of view and that of the enemy. In
this respect we should have fared better if we had sought peace
through England rather than through America and Wilson. 1
" I should like in conclusion to draw attention to the
following. At the moment, not only are our enemies enjoying
the full flush of victory, but their people have the feeling
that at last they are on the point of securing the peace that
they have longed for, for years, the end of sacrifices and
suffering. All the nerves of the masses are, as it were, screwed
up to this. If we now make up our minds, in the face of
the enemy demands, to a political ' Halt ! About turn ! '
if we show our teeth once more in determined fashion, and
declare his terms impossible, the sudden need to resume the
fight will have the greatest psychological effect. A terrible
disappointment will seize the war-weary masses of the enemy
peoples, and a powerful movement will develop for forcing
their Governments to modify the terms. In connection with
the increasing strength of the heroic resistance on our front,
and the well-founded fear of Bolshevism, such an attitude
can alone give us tolerable conditions.

" Your Grand-ducal Highness,

" I remain with the greatest respect,

" VON TIRPITZ."

As I wrote this, I had but fugitive hopes that the attitude
of our " rulers " might change. With the letter political
activities came to an end.

The unhappy result of the war has given to those who
are really responsible for the disaster the opportunity, although

1 I did not of course suggest that it would have been more advantageous to
throw ourselves on the mercy of England rather than on that of Wilson. Such
a capitulation meant national destruction in any case. I rather meant that,
for negotiations sword in hand, it would have been more favourable from a
business point of view to treat with England, mainly because of the effects of the
submarine campaign. I still hold this view.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 341

hardly the right, to accuse before the uncritical masses the
men who, if they had had a free hand, could have won the
war or at the least brought it to an honourable conclusion.
A court for State trials is, it is said, to be established ; if this
is done, there should be placed in the dock others than those
who will be called thither, including many who want to
sit as judges. I would gladly have spared the feelings of
these others, but I must expose before history the system
which has brought us to destruction.

This political system, which Bethmann-Hollweg, doubtless
unintentionally, did in fact develop, and which at present
enjoys an almost grotesque access of strength, involves the
sacrifice of all our constitutional progress in a blindly
credulous acceptance of the avaricious and dishonest misrepre-
sentations of our foreign enemies, and of certain international
extravagances of our own. We seem to have forgotten all our
traditions, and all the bitter experience of our history,
through which we shall need to pass again.

I am convinced that our enemies, in their desire to attack
us, found their opportunity, or their pretext, in this system.
At home, it so softened our policy that our people lacked
the necessary moral strength to hold out through the world-
war. The same system is the real reason why the strength
of our navy was not brought to bear in the war. The same
system gave us the wrong strategical aim during the war,
the defeat of Russia while sparing England. The same
system is to blame for the unexampled stupidity and loss
of dignity involved in our capitulation in the autumn of
1918, the terrible results of which it made worse by sub-
sequent follies. After the revolution the same system
raged against the last remnants of political intelligence
left to us, so that it appears to have become a shame and a
penalty to be a German, which was once my greatest joy
and pride. Firmly led, there is no more capable people in
the world than ours ; but in the hands of bad and incapable
leaders the German people is its own greatest enemy.

343 MY MEMOIRS

It will soon tire of the black-red-and-gold imitation of a
State that has for the present been foisted upon it ; but what
will then be left to it of the essence of the good old State,
which our enemies envied so much that with the help of our
radical democrats they set about the destruction of all its
strength : its monarchy, its fighting power, the integrity and
industry of its officials, the State-creating power of Prussian-
ism, its patriotism that defied death ?

We are now in a worse situation than we were at the end of
the Thirty Years War. Without a new Potsdam, and an
earnest effort to restore our self-consciousness, without a
spiritual renaissance, without an active and dignified
statesmanship, the German people will never again be free,
but will gradually or quickly, according to its education and
population, drop out of the ranks of the great nations ; and
then even a new Weimar will be wholly impossible. We have
fallen from the greatest heights to the lowest depths, and it is
idle to talk light-heartedly of reconstruction so long as we
are ever sinking deeper. The ascent is terribly hard
and difficult. It can and will succeed, if and only if our
people are united and resolute in national fortitude and
national determination, like the French, the Italians, the
English, the Serbians, and even in recent times the Indians.
So long as we remain the people with the weakest national
feeling, answering every seizure of our territory or other
indignity with talk of reconciliation, thus leaving the insult
unavenged and inviting further robbery, so long as, lacking
any national pride, we ape the forms and customs of other
nations, and so long as fighting fellow-Germans of other
parties means more to us than holding together against the
world, Germany can never recover, but only sink lower.
In the battle of the Alemanni, the Germans called to their
chieftains, "Down from your horses," and lost the battle.
Internal dissensions have again brought us to disaster, for our
generation, politically and in some sections morally too, was
not great enough for its time.

MAIN ISSUES OF THE WAR 343

Past, present, and future have thus shown me my duty, to
fight this system.

But if on the other hand the German people awakes from
the chaos of the collapse, and remembers with pride and
emotion the colossal strength, courage, and self-sacrifice which
even during the war it has displayed under the Prusso-
German State, then it will do right to count the world-
war among the most sacred memories of its national history.
How, in spite of the poor quality of our allies, we held our
ground against overwhelming superiority of strength, how we
defied England's world-conspiracy against us, how we kept
up our courage for years in spite of the slanders against
our peaceful disposition, and in spite of the brutal destruc-
tion of the countless little settlements of Germans in all
parts of the earth, and how our men by sea and land knew
how to strike the foe and give their lives for Germany, the
memory of all this shall make future generations of Germans
marvel, and strengthen their faith. But Germany was, as
in Luther's day, "A fine horse, needing but one thing, a
rider." In every respect the fight that was forced on us
bore at first promise of success, and even after all our errors
there was still a possibility in October 1918 of resisting a
peace of destruction. But the greed of domestic politics,
which throughout the war had been ready to capitulate to
the enemy, had seized the bridle of the riderless nation.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HIGH SEAS FLEET IN THE WAR

I. The navy at the beginning of the war. 2. The achievements of the navy.
3. The plan of operations. 4. My verdict. 5. The crippling of the fleet.
6. The lack of a Supreme Command. 7. The battle of Jutland.
8. The last phase.

I COME now to the most painful part of my task, the discussion
of the causes why our fleet, after our politicians had failed to
avoid the outbreak of war, was not allowed to win us a just
peace in battle, but itself met the most shameful end. I
have no intention of giving a naval history of the war, which
would be outside the scope of this book, but I desire merely
to mention the points that are essential for the formation of
a judgment on the fleet. In the first place I would mention
that even our army, which at the outbreak of v/ar had reached
a high state of perfection, had finally to succumb to over-
whelming superiority. I have already refuted the suggestion
that but for the navy, there would never have been a world-
war, for it has for many years been a cardinal point of
England's policy not to suffer any defeat of France.

In the year 1914 our naval power was already very consider-
able, but it was not great enough to provide that margin of
safety which is a necessity in peace and war ; it was still in the
full course of its development when it was faced with war
against the five greatest naval powers, to which in 1917 the
United States of America was added.

In spite of everything, I am to-day still convinced and
that is the tragedy of the result that the fleet could have
fulfilled its destiny, and could have aided us to secure an

344

THE HIGH SEAS FLEET IN THE WAR 345

honourable peace, if a right use had been made of it. The
fleet was good, the men full of eagerness for the fight and highly
trained, and the materiel was superior to the English. The
most striking proof of the fighting value of our navy, and of
the high opinion held of its capacities by the enemy, is to be
found in the fact that the longer the war lasted the more
definitely did the English avoid an engagement. In
spite of their ever-increasing superiority, they never attacked
our forces of set purpose. They never sought an encounter.
In the end our fleet was seized with the same disease as at-
tacked all Germany. If it broke out on our large ships a few
days earlier, and in a more striking form than occurred in the
army, the real reason for this is merely the close relations
which could spring up in the dockyards between the agitator-
ridden working classes and the ships' companies, and more
especially the stokers. This party movement which
was controlled from Berlin was permitted to exist by the
Government in power.

As in the whole population, so too in the fleet, the war
was begun with the confident belief that there was not a man
in Germany who had striven for war ; cleverly as England had
utilised the opportunity that was offered her in 1914 to
bring the war about, her long-prepared plan for the destruction
of our future had become only too widely known. As a result,
the moral of the navy at the beginning of the war was very
high, and permitted us to hope for the best. Old reservists
on their recall begged to be allowed to serve the guns and
not to work in safety below on the ammunition hoists.
Our torpedo-boat commanders were longing for the order,
" Z flag to the fore." * The cadets and midshipmen from
the naval college, which was closed, and the training ships,
which were placed out of commission, were wild in their
desire to get on board, even if only as captain's messengers.
The usual prizes for records in coaling were refused by the
stokers and seamen, who said : " We work without prizes."

1 The signal to attack.

346 MY MEMOIRS

Executive officers and engineers vied with one another in
bringing their ships to the highest point of readiness for
action.

Every man in the service was quite clear at the outbreak of
war that he was meeting an enemy possessed of a great
superiority in strength, and whose invincibility at sea had
become almost a dogma. French, Russians, Italians were, so
to speak, not reckoned at all as opponents. In peace the
German and English navies had had a particularly great respect
for each other. The story that our officers' messes used
to drink to " the day " (the battle with the British fleet) is
of course pure invention ; it is merely one of the many lies
in the long chapter of attempts to fasten on us a desire for war,
with which the Press of the world was flooded. Besides,
sympathy with the English naval officer was much too
strong before the war, and our admirably correct attitude
would have made such conduct wholly impossible, apart
altogether from the stupidity of wishing to seek battle with
an enemy of twice our strength.

Before dealing with the two main causes of our fleet's
being prevented from working out its destiny, I will give a short
account of the actual effects which the fleet did have on the
course of the war.

II

At home the fleet, unaided, kept our long coast from the
Memel to the Ems free from all enemy attacks ; not a gun
was fired at our coasts. Its virtually unlimited mastery of
the Baltic ensured the free import of the materials, and in
particular of the ores, which were urgently needed by our war
industries, and protected the left wing of our forces in the
East against attacks in the rear, which had been planned by the
Russians and had been a feature, I believe, of the naval con-
vention concluded between England and Russia in 1914.
Later the fleet rendered possible the transport of reinforce-

THE HIGH SEAS FLEET IN THE WAR 347

ments by sea. The successful undertaking against Osel
and the Moon straits under the command of Admirals Schmidt
and Behncke, in happiest co-operation with the army, assisted
in breaking the last resistance of the Russians.

The fact that our fleet was not defeated, and that the
English could not accordingly establish a closer blockade of
our coasts, made it possible for the northern powers and
Holland to remain neutral in spite of British threats. In the
first decade of the present century, when our fleet was still
weak, England had planned a landing in Jutland, involving a
violation of Denmark similar to that to which Greece was
later subjected. In face of the German fleet this was
impracticable.

If one imagines for a moment that our fleet had been com-
pletely defeated, or that it had never existed, one can realise
how grave the consequences would have been for us, both
economically and from a military point of view. With a
northern front broken in, or even severely threatened, we
could not have held our fronts in the east and west. But there
are other considerations too. Our fleet forced the British
to undertake an enormous increase of their own sea-power.
The -personnel of their navy alone was more than tripled.
The entire complement of men employed at sea on the
British side must have been from 1,500,000 to 2,000,000,
a figure involving a very great relief to our western front.

In the preceding chapter I have pointed out what a blow
would have- been dealt to England by the occupation of the
French Channel ports by our army. Such an occupation could
only, however, be a substantial, perhaps even a decisive,
danger for England if we had a fleet which could use these
ports as a base. In the hope of realising this, the naval
corps was formed, constituting the only direct activity
which I, in the Admiralty, could achieve in the fight against
England.

Our army, however, was unable to reach the northern
French ports, taking only the Flemish harbours, which, owing

348 MY MEMOIRS

to their geographical position, were of much less importance,
as they did not directly threaten the Channel. In addition,
they could only accommodate submarines and torpedo boats.
Nevertheless they had the great advantage that their distance
from the English coast was only a quarter of the distance
from our German harbours, and thus small submarines,
which could be built in a comparatively short time, were
suitable for employment here. Attacks by English naval
forces on Zeebrugge and Ostend were to be expected. As I
doubted whether the army would be ready to undertake the
necessary organisation of the coast defence, and as, on the
other hand, the fronts of our naval ports on the land side
were no longer really threatened, it seemed wise to form out
of the men thus released a Naval Corps for the defence of
the Flemish coast. The army consented to this, but only on
condition that the corps should be under army command.
In order to get at any rate something done, I agreed to this
stipulation, although experience shows that in all combined
operations of army and navy the danger is ever present that
the particular objectives of the latter may be neglected. The
Emperor studied the matter with the greatest understanding
and gave me extraordinary powers for this work. Our
naval infantry, which had to form three regiments out
of two battalions, were picked troops from the very first in
spite of this great dilution, thanks to their three years'
service. The naval gunners, drawn from various forts and
garrisons, were to renew their infantry training in the
neighbourhood of Brussels, but owing to the operations in
September had to be employed against the Belgian army
advancing from Antwerp, some of them being detrained
and sent straight into action. These troops showed their
value here, as well as later in the capture of Antwerp and in
four years of stationary warfare. With the passing of time
the Naval Corps under Admiral von Schroder rendered the
seaward flank of our western front impregnable, and with
various contrivances turned the Flemish ports into quite

THE HIGH SEAS FLEET IN THE WAR' 349

serviceable bases for T.B.D. and submarine warfare. Our
forces there, although unfortunately I had not the power
to secure them sufficient reinforcements from home to make
them as strong as Admiral Schroder and I could have wished,
were a sharp thorn in England's side right up to the autumn
of 1918.

In the early months of the war, also, the eastern half of the
Mediterranean developed into a theatre of war of increasing
importance.

By August 3rd, as news had come of the conclusion of an
alliance with Turkey, I had, in spite of the hesitation of
the Chief of the Naval Staff as to the Goeben and Breslau,
sent instructions to our Mediterranean squadron to attempt
to break through to Constantinople. This order was cancelled
on August 5th, as the embassy in Constantinople, in view of
the position there, thought that their arrival would not yet
be desirable. The vessels were then instructed to make for
Pola, or else to break through into the Atlantic.

There was a naval agreement, concluded in time of peace,
between Austria, Italy, and ourselves, according to which in
the event of war our combined naval forces were to be
mustered in the Straits of Messina against the double alliance.
On the proposal of the Italians, the command of the triple
fleet was to be in the hands of the Austrian Admiral Haus ;
I do not discuss the question whether this had been seriously
intended. The Emperor was particularly proud of our
Mediterranean squadron, while I regretted the absence from
the North Sea of the Goeben in particular. When the Goeben
and Breslau arrived at Messina, after successful bombardments
of Algerian ports, they met neither theltaliansnor theAustrians,
and the former, who had declared strict neutrality, scarcely
allowed them one coaling at Messina. Enemy ships were
cruising at both ends of the straits. As Austria had not yet
declared war on the powers ranged against us, formal diffi-
culties stood in the way of our gaining help from the Austrian
fleet. The Admiralty's demands were answered on the

350 MY MEMOIRS

afternoon of August 5th by the Foreign Office to the effect
that our Ambassador at Vienna had been instructed to press
urgently for a declaration of war. In the evening the news
arrived that the Austrian Commander-in-Chief, owing to
the position, the distance, and the state of readiness of his
fleet, was unable to help a typical instance of our political
preparation for the war. Under the circumstances Admiral
Souchon was informed by telegraph that he might himself
choose in what direction he should break through. He
thereupon, following the lines of the orders he had at first
received, chose the way to Constantinople.

A decisive turn was given to the whole Turkish question
by the success of this break-through. Before the war,
our Eastern policy had always seemed mistaken to me,
as Germany's only real prospects of release from encircle-
ment were to be found through Russia ; but once we were
actually at war with Russia all considerations of this sort
vanished. I accordingly supported Turkey so far as lay in
my power. Her weakness made it impossible for her to
remain neutral in the long run, and the arrival of our vessels
made it possible to ensure that she came in on our side instead
of against us. The support which the German navy was
able to give to Turkey under the difficult circumstances is
a chapter in itself, and it can only be mentioned here that
our navy took a leading part in the famous defence of the
Dardanelles, thus assisting in the saving of Constantinople.
On this depended victory or defeat on the Balkan front, which
was so important for the Central Powers. The approach
from the Mediterranean to Russia remained closed. The
maintenance of communications with Asia Minor rendered
possible our serious threats against the English in Egypt and
Mesopotamia, which drew off in that direction strong English
armies and transport vessels. With our continental point
of view we are apt to forget that the British attempt to force
the Dardanelles with her fleet was undertaken with insufficient
strength, and accordingly failed, only because our fleet forced

THE HIGH SEAS FLEET IN THE WAR 351

England to keep the greater part of her navy concentrated
in the North Sea. Thus the distant effects of our naval
strength protected Turkey. We helped Austria too by
sending her submarines, and established bases in Pola and
Cattaro.

The entry of Japan into the war wrecked the plan of a war
by our cruiser squadron against enemy trade and against the
British war vessels in those seas, leaving our ships with nothing
to do but to attempt to break through and reach home. On
its way home the squadron, under the brave Count Spec,
destroyed without appreciable loss to itself the English
squadron stationed off the coast of Chile, whose Commander-
in-Chief had only shortly before the outbreak of war enjoyed
friendly social intercourse with Spec. Only one small English
cruiser e;caped from the battle of Coronel.

The ammunition left to Count Spec after the heavy ex-
penditure in this engagement seemed to me insufficient for
a second battle, and we had news of the assembly of strong
English forces on the east coast of South America. I there-
fore proposed that we should place Spec, with whom we
could communicate by wireless via Valparaiso, at liberty to
avoid the east coast of South America, making his northwa