The myth of a guilty nation

UC-NRLF

MYTH
OTA
GUILTY
NATION

ALBERT

JAY
NOCK

THE MYTH OF A GUILTY NATION

THE MYTH OF A
GUILTY NATION

BY

ALBERT JAY NOCK

("HISTORICUS")

NEW YORK B.W. HUEBSCH, INC. MCMXXII

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
THE FREEMAN, INC.

COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
B. W. HUEBSCH, INC.

FEINTED IN U. 8. A.

LOAN STACK

••

•>

PREFACE

THIS book is made up of a series of articles
originally published in the Freeman. It was
compiled to establish one point and only one,
namely: that the German Government was not
solely guilty of bringing on the war. I have not
been at all concerned with measuring the Ger-
man Government's share of guilt, with trying to
show that it was either great or small, or that
it was either less or more than that of any other
Government or association of Governments. All
this is beside the point. I do not by any means
wish to escape the responsibility of saying that
I think the German Government's share of guilt
in the matter is extremely small; so small by
comparison with that of the major Powers allied
against Germany, as to be inconsiderable. That
is my belief, demonstrable as I think by such
evidence as has now become available to any
candid person. But this has nothing whatever to
do with the subject-matter of this volume. If
the guilt of the German Government could be

[5]

proved to be ten times greater than it was repre-
sented to be by the publicity-bureaux of the
Allied Powers, the conclusion established in the
following chapters would still remain. Guilty
as the German Government may have been;
multiply by ten any estimate that any person, in-
terested or disinterested, informed or uninformed,
may put upon its guilt; the fact remains that it
was far, very far indeed, from being the only
guilty party concerned.

If there were no practical end to be gained by
establishing this conclusion, if one's purpose were
only to give the German Government the dubious
vindication of a tu quoque, the effort would
be hardly worth making. But as I say at the out-
set, there is at stake an extremely important mat-
ter, one that will unfavourably affect the peace
of the world for at least a generation — the treaty
of Versailles. If the German Government may
not be assumed to be solely responsible for the
war, this treaty is indefensible; for it is con-
structed wholly upon that assumption. It be-
comes, not a treaty, but a verdict pronounced
after the manner of Brennus, by a superior
power which, without regard to justice, arrogates
to itself the functions of prosecutor, jury and
judge.

[6]

It is probably superfluous to point out that
this treaty, conceived in the pure spirit of the
victorious Apache, has, in practice, utterly broken
down. It has not worked and it will not work,
because it sets at defiance certain economic laws
which are as inexorable as the law of gravitation.
The incidence of these laws was well understood
and clearly foretold, at the time of the peace-
conference, by an informed minority in Europe,
notably by Mr. Maynard Keynes in his volume
entitled "The Economic Consequences of the
Peace." In this country also, a minority, suffici-
ently informed to know its right hand from its
left in economic affairs, stood aghast in contem-
plation of the ruinous consequences which it per-
ceived as inevitable under any serious attempt
to put this vicious instrument into operation.
But both here and in Europe, this minority was
very small and uninfluential, and could accom-
plish nothing against the ignorant and unreason-
ing bad temper which the politicians kept aflame.

The treaty had therefore to go to the test of
experiment; and of the results of this, one need
surely say nothing, for they are obvious. The
harder Germany tried to fulfill the conditions of
the treaty, and the nearer she came to doing so,
the worse things went in all the countries that

were presumably to benefit by her sacrifice. The
Central Empiies are, as the informed minority
in all countries has been from the beginning
anxiously aware, the key-group in the whole of
European industry and commerce. If they must
work and trade under unfavourable conditions,
they also thereby automatically impose corre-
spondingly unfavourable conditions upon the
whole of Europe ; and, correspondingly unfavour-
able conditions are thereby in turn automatically
set up wherever the trade of Europe reaches — for
example, in the United States. There is now
no possible doubt about this, for one has but to
glance at the enormous dislocations of interna-
tional commerce, and the universal and profound
stagnation of industry, in order to prove it to
one's complete satisfaction. Germany wisely and
far-sightedly made a sincere and vigourous effort
to comply with the conditions of the treaty; and
by so doing she has carried the rest of the world
to the verge of economic collapse. The damage
wrought by the war was in general of a spectacu-
lar and impressive type, and was indeed very
great — no one would minimize it — but the dam-
age, present and prospective, wrought by the
treaty of peace is much greater and more far-
reaching.

[8]

The political inheritors of tho^e who made the
peace are now extremely uneasy uc/out it. Their
predecessors (including Mr. Lloyd George, who
still remains' in office) had flogged up popular
hatred against the Central Empires at such a
rate that when they took office they still had, or
thought they had, to court and indulge this
hatred. Thus we found Mr. Secretary Hughes,
for example, in his first communication to the
German Government, laying it down that the
basis of the Versailles treaty was sound — that
Germany was solely responsible for the war. He
spoke of it quite in the vein of Mr. Lloyd George,
as a chose jugee. After having promulgated the
treaty with such immense ceremony, and raised
such preposterous and extravagant popular ex-
pectations on the strength of it, the architects of
the treaty bequeathed an exceedingly difficult
task to their successors; the task of letting the
public down, diverting their attention with this
or that gesture, taking their mind off their dis-
appointments and scaling down their expecta-
tions, so that in time it might be safe to let the
Versailles treaty begin to sink out of sight.

The task is being undertaken ; the curious piece
of mountebankery recently staged in Washington,
for example, was an ambitious effort to keep the

[9]

peoples, particularly those of Europe, hopeful,
confiding and diverted ; and if economic conditions
permit, if times do not become too hard, it may
succeed. The politicians can not say outright
that the theory of the Versailles treaty is dis-
honest and outrageous, and that the only chance
of peace and well-being is by tearing up the
treaty and starting anew on another basis en-
tirely. They can not say this on account of the
exigencies of their detestable trade. The best
that they can do is what they are doing. They
must wait until the state of public feeling permits
them to ease down from their uncompromising
stand upon the treaty. Gradually, they expect,
the public will accustom itself to the idea of re-
laxations and accommodations, as it sees, from
day to day, the patent impracticability of any
other course; feelings will weaken, asperities
soften, hatreds die out, contacts1 and approaches
of one kind or another will take place ; and finally,
these public men or their political inheritors will
think themselves able to effect in an unobtrusive
way, such substantial modifications of the treaty
of Versailles as will amount to its annulment.

The process is worth accelerating by every
means possible; and what I have here done is
meant to assist it. There are many persons in the

[10]

country who are not politicians, and who are cap-
able and desirous of approaching a matter of
this kind with intellectual honesty. Quite pos-
sibly they are not aware, many of them, that the
Versailles treaty postulates the sole responsibil-
ity of the German Government for bringing on
the war; undoubtedly they are not acquainted
with such evidence as I have here compiled to
show that this assumption is unjust and erron-
eous. Having read this evidence, they will be
in a position to review the terms of the Versailles
treaty and reassess the justice of those terms.
They will also be able to understand the un-
willingness, the inability, of the German people
to acquiesce in those terms; and they can com-
prehend the slowness and difficulty wherewith
peace and good feeling are being re-established
in Europe, and the extreme precariousness and
uncertainty of Europe's situation — and our own,
in consequence — throughout a future that seems
longer than one cares to contemplate.

The reader will perceive at once that this book
is a mere compilation and transcription of fact,
containing not a shred of opinion or of any orig-
inal matter. On this account it was published
anonymously in its serial form, because it seemed
to me that such work should be judged strictly

as it stands, without regard to the authority, or
lack of authority, which the compiler might hap-
pen to possess. Almost all of it is lifted straight
from the works of my friends Mr. Francis Neil-
son and Mr. E. D. Morel. I earnestly hope —
indeed, it is my chief motive in publishing this
book — that it may serve as an introduction to
these words. I can not place too high an estimate
upon their importance to a student of British and
Continental diplomacy. They are, as far as I
know, alone in their field; nothing else can take
their place. They are so thorough, so exhaus-
tive and so authoritative that I wonder at their
being so little known in the United States. Mr.
Morel's works,1 "Ten Years of Secret Diplo-
macy," "Truth and the War," and "Diplomacy
Revealed," are simply indispensable. Mr. Neil-
son's book "How Diplomats Make War," 2 is not
an easy book to read; no more are Mr. Morel's;
but without having read it no serious student can
possibly do justice to the subject.

ALBERT JAY NOCK

1 "Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy." $1.25. "Truth and the
War." $1.25. E. D. Morel. New York: B. W. Huebsch.

"Diplomacy Revealed." E. D. Morel. London, 8 & 9 John-
son's Court: National Labour Press.

2 "How Diplomats Make War." Francis Neilson. New
York: B. W. Huebsch. $2.00

[12]

THE MYTH OF
A GUILTY NATION

THE present course of events in Europe is im-
pressing on us once more the truth that military
victory, if it is to stand, must also be demon-
strably a victory for justice. In the long run,
victory must appeal to the sense of justice in the
conquered no less than in the conquerors, if it
is to be effective. There is no way of getting
around this. Mr. Gilbert K. Chesterton is right
when he says that if the South had not finally
accepted the outcome of the Civil War as being
on the whole just, Lincoln would have been wrong
in trying to preserve the Union; which is only
another way of expressing Lincoln's own homely
saying that nothing is ever really settled until it
is settled right. The present condition of Europe
is largely due to the fact that the official peace-
makers have not taken into their reckoning the

[13]

German people's sense of justice. Their mistake
— it was also Mr. Wilson's great mistake —
was in their disregard of what Bismarck called
the imponderabilia. The terms of the peace
treaty plainly reflect this mistake. That is
largely the reason why the treaty is to-day in-
operative and worthless. That is largely why
the Governments of Europe are confronted with
the inescapable alternative: they can either tear
up the treaty and replace it by an understanding
based on justice, or they can stick to the treaty
and by so doing protract indefinitely the dismal
succession of wars, revolutions, bankruptcies and
commercial dislocations that the treaty inaugu-
rated.

That is the situation; and it is a situation in
which the people of the United States have an
interest to preserve — the primary interest of a
creditor, and also the interest of a trader who
needs a large and stable market. It is idle to
suppose that American business can prosper so
long as Europe remains in a condition of in-
stability and insolvency. Our business is ad-
justed to the scale of a solvent Europe, and it can
not be readjusted without irreparable damage.
Until certain matters connected with the war are
resolutely put under review, Europe can not be

[14]

reconstructed, and the United States can not be
prosperous. The only thing that can better our
own situation is the resumption of normal eco-
nomic life in Europe; and this can be done only
through a thorough reconsideration of the in-
justices that have been put upon the German
people by the conditions of the armistice and the
peace treaty.

Of these injustices, the greatest, because it is
the foundation for all the rest, is the imputation
of Germany's sole responsibility for the war.
The German people will never endure that im-
putation; they should never be expected to en-
dure it. Nothing can really be settled until the
question of responsibility is openly and can-
didly re-examined, and an understanding estab-
lished that is based on facts instead of on official
misrepresentation. This question is by no means
one of abstract justice alone, or of chivalry and
fair play towards a defeated enemy. It is a
question of self-interest, immediate and urgent.
However it may be regarded by the American
sense of justice and fair play, it remains, to the
eye of American industry and commerce, a
straight question of dollars and cents. The
prosperity of the United States, as we are be-
ginning to see, hangs upon the economic re-es-

[15]

tablishment of Europe. Europe can not possibly
be settled upon the present terms of peace; and
these terms can not be changed without first vacat-
ing the theory of Germany's sole responsibility,
because it is upon this theory that the treaty of
Versailles was built. This theory, therefore,
must be re-examined in the light of evidence
that the Allied and Associated Governments have
done their best either to ignore or to suppress.
Hence, for the American people, the way to
prosperity lies through a searching and honest
examination of this theory that has been so deeply
implanted in their mind — the theory of a brigand-
nation, plotting in solitude to achieve the mastery
of the world by fire and sword.

Americans, however, come reluctantly to the
task of this examination, for two reasons. First,
we are all tired of the war, we hate to think of
it or of anything connected with it, and as far as
possible, we keep it out of our minds. Second,
nearly every reputation of any consequence in
this country, political, clerical, academic and
journalistic, is already committed, head over ears,
to the validity of this theory. How many of our
politicians are there whose reputations are not
bound up inextricably with this legend of a Ger-
man plot? How many of our newspaper-editors

[16]

managed to preserve detachment enough under
the pressure of war-propaganda to be able to come
forward to-day and say that the question of re-
sponsibility for the war should be re-opened?
How can the pro-war liberals and ex-pacifists ask
for such an inquest when they were all swept off
their feet by the specious plea that this war was
a different war from all other wars in the history
of mankind? What can our ministers of religion
say after the unreserved endorsement that they
put upon the sanctity of the Allied cause? What
can our educators say, after having served so
zealously the ends of the official propagandists?
From our journalists and men of letters what
can we expect — after all his rodomontade about
Potsdam and the Potsdam gang, how could we
expect Dr. Henry Van Dyke, for instance, to face
the fact that the portentous Potsdam meeting of
the Crown Council on 5 July, 1914, never took
place at all? There is no use in trying to put
a breaking-strain upon human nature, or, on the
other hand, in assuming a pharisaic attitude to-
wards its simplest and commonest frailties. It
is best, under the circumstances, merely to under-
stand that on this question every institutional
voice in the United States is tongue-tied. Press,
pulpit, schools and universities, charities and

[17]

foundations, forums, all are silent; and to ex-
pect them to break their silence is to expect more
than should be expected from the pride of opinion
in average human nature.

[18]

II

IN examining the evidence let us first take Mr.
Lloyd George's own statement of the theory. Ex-
cept in one particular, it presents the case against
Germany quite as it has been rehearsed by nearly
every institutional voice in the United States.
On 4 August, 1917 — after America's entry into
the war — the British Premier said:

What are we fighting for*? To defeat the most
dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of
nations ; carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely
planned in every detail, with ruthless, cynical deter-
mination.

Except for one point, this statement sums up
what we have all heard to be the essential doc-
trine of the war. The one missing point in Mr.
Lloyd George's indictment is that the great Ger-
man conspiracy was launched upon an unprepared
Europe. In Europe itself, the official propagan-
dists did not make much of this particular point,
for far too many people knew better; but in the

[19]

United States it was promulgated widely. In-
deed, this romance of Allied unpreparedness was
an essential part of the whole story of German
responsibility. Germany, so the official story ran,
not only plotted in secret, but she sprung her plot
upon a Europe that was wholly unprepared and
unsuspecting. Her action was like that of a
highwayman leaping from ambush upon a de-
fencfeless wayfarer. Belgium was unprepared,
France unprepared, Russia unprepared, Eng-
land unprepared; and in face of an unpro-
voked attack, these nations hurriedly drew to-
gether in an extemporized union, and held the
"mad dog" at bay with an extemporized de-
fence until they could devise a plan of common
action and a pooling of military and naval re-
sources.

Such, then, is a fair statement of the doctrine
of the war as America was taught it. Next, in
order to show how fundamental this doctrine is to
the terms of the peace treaty, let us consider an-
other statement of Mr. Lloyd George made 3
March, 1921 :

For the allies, German responsibility for the war is
fundamental. It is the basis upon which the structure
of the treaty of Versailles has been erected, and if that
acknowledgment is repudiated or abandoned, the treaty

[20]

is destroyed. . . . We wish, therefore, once and for all,
to make it quite clear that German responsibility for the
war must be treated by the Allies as a chose jugee.

Thus the British Premier explicitly declares
that the treaty of Versailles is based upon the
theory of Germany's sole responsibility.

Now, as against this theory, the main facts
may be summarized as follows: (i) The British
and French General Staffs had been in active
collaboration for war with Germany ever since
January 1906. (2) The British and French
Admiralty had been in similar collaboration.
(3) The late Lord Fisher [First Sea Lord of the
British Admiralty], twice in the course of these
preparations, proposed an attack upon the Ger-
man fleet and a landing upon the coast of
Pomerania, without a declaration of war. (4)
Russia had been preparing for war ever since
1909, and the Russian and French General Staffs
had come to a formal understanding that Russian
mobilization should be held equivalent to a dec-
laration of war. (5) Russian mobilization was
begun in the spring of 1914, under the guise
of "tests," and these tests were carried on con-
tinuously to the outbreak of the war. (6) In
April, 1914, four months before the war, the

[ai]

Russian and French naval authorities initiated
joint plans for maritime operations against Ger-
many. (7) Up to the outbreak of the war, Ger-
many was selling grain in considerable quantities
to both France and Russia. (8) It can not be
shown that the German Government ever in a
single instance, throughout all its dealings with
foreign Governments, demanded or intimated for
Germany anything more than a position of eco-
nomic equality with other nations.

These facts, among others to which reference
will hereafter be made, have come to light only
since the outbreak of the war. They effectively
dispose of the theory of an unprepared and un-
suspecting Europe; and a historical survey of
them excludes absolutely, and stamps as utterly
untenable and preposterous, the theory of a de-
liberate German plot against the peace of the
world.

[22]

Ill

LET us now consider the idea so generally held
in America, though not in Europe, that in 1914,
England and the Continental nations were not
expecting war and not prepared for war. The
fact is that Europe was as thoroughly organized
for war as it could possibly be. The point to
which that organization was carried by England,
France and Russia, as compared with Germany
and Austria, may to some extent be indicated
by statistics. In 1913, Russia carried a military
establishment (on a peace footing) of 1,284,000
men; France, by an addition of 183,000 men,
proposed to raise her peace-establishment to a
total of 741,572. Germany, by an addition of
174,373 men, proposed to raise her total to
821,964; and Austria, by additions of 58,505 al-
ready made, brought her total up to 473,643.
These are the figures of the British War Office,
as furnished to the House of Commons in 1913.
Here is a set of figures that is even more inter-
esting and significant. From 1909 to 1914, the

[23]

amount spent on new naval construction by Eng-
land, France and Russia, as compared with Ger-
many, was as follows:

ENGLAND

FRANCE

RUSSIA

GERMANY

1909

1910
1911
1912

1913
1914

£11,076,551

£14,755,289
£15,148,171
£16,132,558
£16,883,875
£18,676,080

£ 4,517,766
£ 4,977,682
£ 5,876,659
£ 7,"4,876
£ 8,893,064
£11,772,862

£ 1,758,487
£ 1,424,013
£ 3,216,396
£ 6,897,580
£12,082,516
£13,098,613

£10,177,062
£11,392,856
£11,710,859
£11,491,187
£11,010,883
£10,316,264

These figures can not be too carefully studied
by those who have been led to think that Ger-
many pounced upon a defenceless and unsuspect-
ing Europe like a cat upon a mouse. If it be
thought worth while to consider also the period
of a few years preceding 1909, one finds that
England's superiority in battleships alone was
.1 12 per cent in 1901, and her superiority rose to
nearly 200 per cent in 1904; in which year Eng-
land spent £42,431,000 on her navy, and Ger-
many £11,659,000. Taking the comparative
statistics of naval expenditure from 1900, in
which year England spent £32,055,000 on her
navy, and Germany spent £7,472,000, down tc
1914 it is absolutely impossible to make the
figures show that Germany enforced upon the
other nations of Europe an unwilling competition
in naval armament.

[24]

But the German army! According to all ac-
counts of German militarism which were suffered
to reach these shores, it is here that we shall find
evidence of what Mr. Lloyd George, on 4 Au-
gust, 1917, called "the most dangerous conspiracy
ever plotted against the liberty of nations; care-
fully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely planned
in every detail, with ruthless, cynical determina-
tion." Well, if one chooses to hold the current
view of German militarism, it must be admitted
that Germany had at her disposal some miracu-
lous means of getting something for nothing, get-
ting a great deal for nothing, in fact, for on any
other supposition, the figures are far from sup-
porting that view. In 1914 (pre-war figures),
Germany and Austria together carried an army-
expenditure of £92 million; England, France and
Russia together carried one of £142 million.
England "had no army," it was said; all her
military strength lay in her navy. If that were
true, then it must be said that she had as miracu-
lous a faculty as Germany's; only, whereas Ger-
many's was a faculty for getting more than her
money's worth, England's was for getting
less than her money's worth. England's army-
expenditure for 1914 (pre-war figures) was £28
million; £4 million more than Austria's. Nor

[25]

was this a sudden emergency-outlay. Going
back as far as 1905, we find that she laid out in
that year the same amount, £28 million. In that
year, Germany and Austria together spent £48
million on their armies; England, France and
Russia together spent £94 million on theirs. If
between 1905 and 1913, England, France and
Russia spent any such sums upon their armies
as their statistics show, and nothing came of it
but an unprepared and unsuspecting Europe in
1914, it seems clear that the taxpayers of those
countries were swindled on an inconceivably large
scale.

[26]

IV

AT this point, some questions may be raised.
Why, in the decade preceding 1914, did England,
France and Russia arm themselves at the rate
indicated by the foregoing figures'? Why did
they accelerate their naval development progres-
sively from about £17 million in 1909 to about
£43 million in 1914*? Why did Russia alone
propose to raise her military peace-establishment
to an army of 1,700,000, more than double the
size of Germany's army? Against whom were
these preparations directed, and understood to be
directed? Certainly not against one another.
France and Russia had been bound by a military
convention ever since 17 August, 1892; England
and France had been bound since January, 1906,
by a similar pact; and this was subsequently ex-
tended to include Belgium. These agreements
will be considered in detail hereafter ; they are now
mentioned merely to show that the military activ-
ity in these countries was not independent in pur-
pose. France, England, Russia and Belgium

[27]

were not uneasy about one another and not arm-
ing against one another ; nor is there any evidence
that anyone thought that they were. It was
against the Central Empires only that these prep-
arations were addressed. Nor can one who
scans the table of relative expenditure easily. be-
lieve that the English-French-Russian combina-
tion was effected for purely defensive purposes;
and taking the diplomatic history of the period
in conjunction with the testimony of the budgets,
such belief becomes impossible.

[28]

THE British Government is the one which was
most often represented to us as taken utterly by
surprise by the German onslaught on Belgium.
Let us see. The Austrian Archduke was assassi-
nated 28 June, 1914, by three men who, accord-
ing to wide report in Europe and absolute cer-
tainty in America, were secret agents of the Ger-
man Government, acting under German official
instruction. The findings of the court of inquiry
showed that they were Serbs, members of a pan-
Slav organization; that the assassination was
plotted in Belgrade, and the weapons with which
it was committed were obtained there.1 Serbia
denied all connexion with the assassins (the
policy of Serbia being then controlled by the
Russian Foreign Office), and then the Russian

1 Six months after the armistice, the bodies of the three as-
sassins were dug up, according to a Central News dispatch
from Prague, "with great solemnity, in the presence of thou-
sands of the inhabitants. The remains of these Serbian officers
are to be sent to their native country." This is a naive state-
ment. It remains to be explained why these "German agents"
should be honoured in this distinguished way by the Serbs !

[29]

Government stepped forward to prevent the hu-
miliation of Serbia by Austria. It is clear from
the published diplomatic documents that the
British Foreign Office knew everything that took
place between the assassination and the burial of
the Archduke; all the facts, that is, connected
with the murder. The first dispatch in the
British White Paper is dated 20 July, and it is
addressed to the British Ambassador at Berlin.
One wonders why not to the Ambassador at
Vienna; also one wonders why the diplomats ap-
parently found nothing to write about for nearly
three weeks between the Archduke's funeral and
20 July. It is a strange silence. Sir Edward
Grey, however, made a statement in the House of
Commons, 27 July, in which he gave the impres-
sion that he got his first information about the
course of the quarrel between Austria and Serbia
no earlier than 24 July, three days before. The
Ambassador at Vienna, Sir M. de Bunsen, had,
notwithstanding, telegraphed him that the Aus-
trian Premier had given him no hint of "the
impending storm" and that it was from a private
source "that I received, 15 July, the forecast of
what was about to happen, concerning which I
telegraphed to you the following day." Sir
Maurice de Bunsen's telegram on this important

[30]

subject thus evidently was suppressed; and the
only obvious reason for the suppression is that
it carried evidence that Sir E. Grey was
thoroughly well posted by 16 July on what was
taking place in Vienna. Sir M. de Bunsen's al-
lusion to this telegram confirms this assumption;
in fact, it can be interpreted in no other way.

On 28 July, the House of Commons was in-
formed that Austria had declared war on Serbia.
Two days later, 30 July, Sir E. Grey added the
item of information that Russia had ordered a
partial mobilization "which has not hitherto led
to any corresponding steps by other Powers, so
far as our information goes." Sir E. Grey did
not add, however, that he knew quite well what
"corresponding steps" other Powers were likely
to take. He knew the terms of the Russian-
French military convention, under which a mobili-
zation by Russia was to be held equivalent to a
declaration of war; he also knew the terms of the
English-French agreement which he himself had
authorized — although up to the eve of the war
he denied, in reply to questions in the House of
Commons, that any such agreement existed, and
acknowledged it only on 3 August, IQH-1 He

1 See footnote to chapter XVIII

[31]

had promised Sazonov, the Russian Foreign Min-
ister, in 1912, that in the event of Germany's
coming to Austria's aid, Russia could rely on
Great Britain to "stake everything in order to
inflict the most serious blow to German power."
To say that Sir E. Grey, and a fortiori Mr. As-
quith, the Prime Minister; Lord Haldane, the
Minister for War, whose own book has been a
most tremendous let-down to the fictions of the
propagandists; Mr. Winston Churchill, head of
the Admiralty, who at Dundee, 5 June, 1915,
declared that he had been sent to the Admiralty
in 1911 with the express duty laid upon him by
the Prime Minister to put the fleet in a state of
instant and constant readiness for war ; to say that
these men were taken by surprise and unprepared,
is mere levity.

Austria was supposed to be, and still is by
some believed to have been, Germany's vassal
State, and by menacing Serbia to have been doing
Germany's dirty work. No evidence of this has
been adduced; and the trouble with this idea of
Austria's status is that it breaks down before the
report of Sir M. de Bunsen, 1 September, 1914,
that Austria finally yielded and agreed to accept
all the proposals of the Powers for mediation be-

[32]

tween herself and Serbia. She made every con-
cession. Russian mobilization, however, had be-
gun on 25 July and become general four days
later; and it was not stopped. Germany then
gave notice that she would mobilize her army if
Russian mobilization was not stopped in twelve
hours ; and also, knowing the terms of the Russian-
French convention of 1892, she served notice
on France, giving her eighteen hours to declare
her position. Russia made no reply; France an-
swered that she would do what she thought best in
her own interest; and almost at the moment, on
1 August, when Germany ordered a general
mobilization, Russian troops were over her border,
the British fleet had been mobilized for a week
in the North Sea, and British merchant ships were
lying at Kronstadt, empty, to convey Russian
troops from that port to the Pomeranian coast,
in pursuance of the plan indicated by Lord
Fisher in his autobiography, recently published.
These matters are well summed up by Lord
Loreburn, as follows:

Serbia gave offence to the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
cause of just offence, as our Ambassador frankly admits
in his published dispatches. We [England] had no

[33]

concern in that quarrel, as Sir Edward Grey says in
terms. But Russia, the protectress of Serbia, came
forward to prevent her being utterly humiliated by Aus-
tria. We were not concerned in that quarrel either, as
Sir Edward also says. And then Russia called upon
France under their treaty to help in the fight. France
was not concerned in that quarrel any more than our-
selves, as Sir Edward informs us. But France was
bound by a Russian treaty, of which he did not know
the terms, and then France called on us for help. We
were tied by the relations which our Foreign Office had
created, without apparently realizing that they had cre-
ated them.

In saying that Sir E. Grey did not know the
terms of the Franco-Russian agreement, Lord
Loreburn is generous, probably more generous
than he should be; but that is no matter. The
thing to be remarked is that Lord Loreburn' s sum-
ming-up comes to something wholly different
from Mr. Lloyd George's "most dangerous con-
spiracy ever plotted against the liberty of na-
tions." It comes to something wholly different
from the notion implanted in Americans, of Ger-
many pouncing upon a peaceful, unprepared and
unsuspecting Europe. The German nation, we
may be sure, is keenly aware of this difference;
and therefore, any peace which, like the peace of
Versailles, is bottomed on the chose jugee of lay-

[34]

ing the sole responsibility for the war at the door
of the German nation, or even at the door of the
German Government, is simply impracticable and
impossible.

[35]

VI

IF the theory upon which the treaty of Versailles
is based, the theory of a single guilty nation,
were true, there would be no trouble about
saying what the war was fought for. The Allied
belligerents would have a simple, straight story
to tell; they could describe their aims and inten-
tions clearly in a few words that any one could
understand, and their story would be reasonably
consistent and not vary greatly from year to year.
It would be practically the same story in 1918
as in 1915 or at any time between. In America,
indeed, the story did not greatly vary up to the
spring of 1917, for the reason that this country
was pretty much in the dark about European in-
ternational relations. Once our indignation and
sympathies were aroused, it was for the propa-
gandists mostly a matter of keeping them as hot
as possible. Few had the information necessary
to discount the plain, easy, understandable story
of a robber nation leaping upon an unprepared
and defenceless Europe for no cause whatever

[36]

except the lofty ambition, as Mr. Joseph Choate
said, "to establish a world-empire upon the ruins
of the British Empire." Those who had this in-
formation could not make themselves heard; and
thus it was that the propagandists had no need to
vary the one story that was most useful to their
purpose of keeping us in a state of unreasoning
indignation, and accordingly they did not vary it.
In Europe and in England, however, the case
was different. International relations were bet-
ter understood by those who were closer to them
than we were; more questions were raised and'
more demands made. Hence the Allied poli-
ticians and propagandists were kept busy upon the
defensive. When from time to time the voice
of popular discontent or of some influential body
of opinion insisted on a statement of the causes
of the war or of the war-aims of the Allies, they
were confronted with the politician's traditional
difficulty. They had to say something plausible
and satisfactory, which yet must be something
that effectively hid the truth of the situation.
As the war hung on, their difficulty became des-
perate and they threw consistency to the winds,
telling any sort of story that would enable them
for the moment to "get by." The publication
of the secret treaties which had been seined out

[37]

of the quagmire of the old Russian Foreign
Office by the revolutionists made no end of
trouble for them. It is amusing now to remem-
ber how promptly these treaties were branded
by the British Foreign Office as forgeries; espe-
cially when it turned out that the actual terms
of the armistice — not the nominal terms, which
were those of Mr. Wilson's Fourteen Points, but
the actual terms — were the terms of the secret
treaties! The publication of the secret treaties
in this country did not contribute much towards
a disillusionment of the public; the press as a
rule ignored or lied about them, they were not
widely read, and few who did read them had
enough understanding of European affairs to in-
terpret them. But abroad they put a good deal
of fat into the fire; and this was a specimen of
the kind of thing that the Allied politicians had
to contend with in their efforts to keep their
peoples in line.

The consequence was that the official and semi-
official statements of the causes of the war and
of the war-aims of the Allies are a most curious
hotchpotch. In fact, if any one takes stock in
the theory of the one guilty nation and is there-
fore convinced that the treaty of Versailles is
just and proper and likely to enforce an endur-

[38]

ing peace, one could suggest nothing better than
that he should go through the literature of the
war, pick out these statements, put them in par-
allel columns, and see how they look. If the
war originated in the unwarranted conspiracy of
a robber nation, if the aims of the Allies were to
defeat that conspiracy and render it impotent
and to chastise and tie the hands of the robber
nation — and that is the theory of the treaty of
Versailles — can anyone in his right mind sup-
pose that the Allied politicians and propagandists
would ever give out, or need to give out, these
ludicrously contradictory and inconsistent expla-
nations and statements ? When one has a simple,
straight story to tell, and a most effective story,
why complicate it and undermine it and throw
all sorts of doubts upon it, by venturing upon
all sorts of public utterances that will not square
with it in any conceivable way*? Politicians, of
all men, never lie for the fun of it; their avail-
able margin of truth is always so narrow that
they keep within it when they can. Mr. Lloyd
George, for example, is one of the cleverest of
politicians. We have already considered his two
statements; first, that of 4 August, 1917:

What are we fighting for? To defeat the most
dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of

[39]

nations ; carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely
planned in every detail with ruthless, cynical deter-
mination.

— and then that of 3 March, 1921 :

For the Allies, German responsibility for the war is
fundamental. It is the basis upon which the structure
of the treaty of Versailles has been erected, and if that
acknowledgment is repudiated or abandoned, the treaty
is destroyed. . . . German responsibility for the war
must be treated by the Allies as a chose jugee.

A little over two months before Mr. George
made this latter utterance, on 23 December, 1920,
he said this: ,

The more one reads memoirs and books written in the
various countries of what happened before the first of
August, 1914, the more one realizes that no one at the
head of affairs quite meant war at that stage. It was
something into which they glided, or rather staggered and
stumbled, perhaps through folly; and a discussion, I
have no doubt, would have averted it.

Well, it would strike an unprejudiced person
that if this were true, there is a great deal of
doubt put upon Mr. Lloyd George's former state-
ments by Mr. Lloyd George himself. Persons
who plot carefully, skilfully, insidiously and clan-
destinely, do not glide; they do not stagger or
stumble, especially through folly. They keep go-

[40]

ing, as we in America were assured that the Ger-
man Government did keep going, right up to The
Day of their own choosing. Moreover, they are
not likely to be headed off by discussion; high-
waymen are notoriously curt in their speech and
if one attempts discussion with them they become
irritable and peremptory. This is the invariable
habit of highwaymen. Besides, if discussion
would have averted war in 1914, why was it not
forthcoming? Certainly not through any fault
of the Austrian Government, which made every
concession, as the British Ambassador's report
shows, notwithstanding its grievance against
Serbia was a just one. Certainly not through any
fault of the German Government, which never
refused discussion and held its hand with all the
restraint possible under the circumstances just de-
scribed. Well, then, how is it so clear that Ger-
man responsibility for the war should be treated
as a chose jugee?

[411

VII

PEOPLE who have a clear and simple case do not
talk in this fashion. Picking now at random
among the utterances of politicians and propagan-
dists, we find an assorted job-lot of aims assigned
and causes alleged, and in all of them there is
that curious, incomprehensible and callous dis-
regard of the power of conviction that a straight
story always exercises, if you have one to tell.
In November, 1917, when the Foreign Office was
being pestered by demands for a statement of the
Allied war-aims, Lord Robert Cecil said in the
House of Commons, that the restitution of Alsace
and Lorraine to France .was a "well-understood
war-aim from the moment we entered the war."
As things have turned out, it is an odd coincidence
how so many of these places that have iron or
coal or oil in them seem to represent a well-un-
derstood war-aim. Less than a month before, in
October, 1917, General Smuts said that to his
mind the one great dominating war-aim was "the
end of militarism, the end of standing armies."
Well, the Allies won the war, but judging by

[42]

results, this dominating war-aim seems rather to
have been lost sight of. Mr. Lloyd George again
on another occasion, said in the House of Com-
mons that "self-determination was one of the
principles for which we entered the war ... a
principle from which we have never departed
since the beginning of the war." This, too,
seems an aim that for some reason the victorious
nations have not quite realized; indeed in some
cases, as in Ireland, for example, there has been
no great alacrity shown about trying to realize it.
Viscount Bryce said that the war sprang from the
strife of races and religions in the Balkan coun-
tries, and from the violence done to the senti-
ment of nationality in Alsace-Lorraine which
made France the ally of Russia. But the fact
is that France became the ally of Russia on
the basis of hard cash, and since the Russian
Revolution, she has been a bit out of luck by
way of getting her money 'back. Mr. Asquith in
the House of Commons, 3 August, 1914 said:

If I am asked what we are fighting for, I reply in
two sentences. In the first place, to fulfil a solemn
international obligation. . . . Secondly we are fight-
ing ... to vindicate the principle that • small nation-
alities are not to be crushed in defiance of international
good faith.

[43]

Just so: and in the House of Commons, 20
December, 1917, he said:

The League of Nations . . . was the avowed purpose,
the very purpose . . . for which we entered the war and
for which we are continuing the war.

You pays your money, you see, and takes your
choice. The point to be made, however, is that
one who has a strong case, a real case, never
trifles with it in this way. Would the reader
doit4?

[441

VIII

MR. AsguiTH's citation of a "solemn interna-
tional obligation" refers to the so-called Belgian
treaties. It will be remembered that the case of
Belgium was the great winning card played by
the Allied Governments for the stakes of Amer-
ican sympathies ; and therefore we may here prop-
erly make a survey, somewhat in detail, of the
status of Belgium at the outset of the war.

Belgium had learned forty years ago how she
stood under the treaties of 1831 and 1839.
When in the late 'eighties there was likelihood of
a Franco-German war, the question of England's
participation under these treaties was thoroughly
discussed, and it was shown conclusively that
England was not obligated. Perhaps the best
summary of the case was that given by Mr. W.
T. Stead in the Pall Mall Gazette in the issues
of 4 and 5 February, 1887. After an examina-
tion of the treaties of 1831, 1839 and 1870 — an
examination unfortunately too long to be quoted
here — Mr. Stead briefly sums up the result of his
investigation in the following statement:

[45]

There is therefore no English guarantee to Belgium. It
is possible perhaps, to 'construct' such a guarantee; but
the case may be summed up as follows : ( 1 ) England is
under no guarantee whatever except such as is common
to Austria, France, Russia and Germany; (2) that
guarantee is not specifically of the neutrality of Belgium
at all ; and (3) is given, not to Belgium but to the
Netherlands.

This was the official view of the British Gov-
ernment at the time, and it is reflected in the cele-
brated letter signed "Diplomaticus" in the
Standard of 4 February, to which Mr. Stead re-
fers; which, indeed, he makes the guiding text
for his examination. The Standard was then the
organ of Lord Salisbury's Government, and it is
as nearly certain as anything of the sort can be,
that the letter signed ''Diplomaticus" was writ-
ten by the hand of the British Prime Minister,
Lord Salisbury himself.

How Mr. Asquith's Government in August
1914 came suddenly to extemporize a wholly
different view of England's obligations to Bel-
gium is excellently told by that inveterate diarist
and chronicler, Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt:

The obligation of fighting in alliance with France in
case of a war with Germany concerned the honour of
three members only of Asquith's Cabinet, who alone
were aware of the exact promises that had been made.

[46]

These, though given verbally and with reservations as
to the consent of Parliament, bound the three as a matter
of personal honour, and were understood at the Quai
d'Orsay as binding the British nation. Neither Asquith
nor his two companions * in this inner Cabinet could
have retained office had they gone back from their word
in spirit or in letter. It would also doubtless have en-
tailed a serious quarrel with the French Government
had they failed to make it good. So clearly was the
promise understood at Paris to be binding that President
Poincare, when the crisis came, had written to King
George reminding him of it as an engagement made
between the two nations which he counted on His
Majesty to keep.

Thus faced, the case was laid before the Cabinet, but
was found to fail as a convincing argument for war.
It was then that Asquith, with his lawyer's instinct,
at a second Cabinet meeting brought forward the neu-
trality of Belgium as a better plea than the other to
lay before a British jury, and by representing the neu-
trality-treaties of 1831 and 1839 as entailing an obliga-
tion on England to fight (of which the text of the
treaties contains no word) obtained the Cabinet's consent,
arid war was declared.

Belgium was not thought of by the British Cabi-
net before 2 August, 1914. She was brought in
then as a means of making the war go down with
the British people. The fact is that Belgium
was thoroughly prepared for war, thoroughly pre-

1 Sir E. Grey and Lord Haldane.

[47]

pared for just what happened to her. Belgium
was a party to the military arrangements effected
among France, England and Russia; for this we
have the testimony of Marshal Joffre before the
Metallurgic Committee in Paris, and also the
record of the "conversations" that were carried
on in Brussels between the Belgian chief of staff
and Lt.-Col. Barnardiston. On 24 July, 1914,
the day when the Austrian note was presented to
Serbia (the note of which Sir E. Grey had gotten
an intimation as early as 16 July by telegraph
from the British Ambassador at Vienna, Sir M.
de Bunsen), the Belgian Foreign Minister, M.
Davignon, promptly dispatched to all the Belgian
embassies an identical communication containing
the following statement, the significance of which
is made clear by a glance at a map :

All necessary steps to ensure respect of Belgian neu-
trality have nevertheless been taken by the Govern-
ment. The Belgian army has been mobilized and is
taking up such strategic positions as have been chosen
to secure the defence of the country and the respect of
its neutrality. The forts of Antwerp and on the Meuse
have been put in a state of defence.

It was on the eastern frontier, we perceive,
therefore — not on the western, where Belgium
might have been invaded by France — that all the

[48]

available Belgian military force was concentrated.
Hence, to pretend any longer that the Belgian
Government was surprised by the action of Ger-
many, or unprepared to meet it; to picture Ger-
many and Belgium as cat and mouse, to under-
stand the position of Belgium otherwise than
that she was one of four solid allies under definite
agreement worked out in complete practical de-
tail, is sheer absurdity.

[49]

IX

IF the official theory of German responsibility were
correct, it would be impossible to explain the Ger-
man Government's choice of the year 1914 as a
time to strike at "an unsuspecting and defenceless
Europe." The figures quoted in Chapter III
show that the military strength of Germany, rel-
atively to that of the French-Russian-English
combination, had been decreasing since 1910. If
Germany had wished to strike at Europe, she had
two first-rate chances, one in 1908 and another in
1912, and not only let them both go by, but threw
all her weight on the side of peace. This is in-
explicable upon the theory that animates the
treaty of Versailles. Germany was then in a po-
sition of advantage. The occasion presented it-
self in 1908, in Serbia's quarrel with Austria over
the annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina.
Russia, which was backing Serbia, was in no shape
to fight; her military strength, used up in the
Russo-Japanese war, had not recovered. France
would not at this time have been willing to go to

[50]

war with Germany over her weak ally's commit-
ments in the Danube States. Germany, however,
contented herself with serving notice on the Tsar
of her unequivocal support of Austria; and this
was enough. The Tsar accepted the fait accom-
pli of the annexation of Bosnia and the Herze-
govina; Serbia retired and cooled off; and Turkey,
from whom the annexed province was ravished,
was compensated by Austria. It is not to the
point to scrutinize the propriety of these transac-
tions ; the point is that Germany held the peace of
Europe in the hollow of her hand, with immense
advantages in her favour, and chose not to close
her hand. The comment of a neutral diplomat,
the Belgian Minister in Berlin, is interesting. In
his report of i April, 1909, to the Belgian For-
eign Office, he says:

The conference scheme elaborated by M. Isvolsky and
Sir Edward Grey; the negotiations for collective repre-
sentations in Vienna ; and the whole exchange of ideas
among London, Paris and Petersburg, were steadily
aimed at forcing Austria-Hungary into a transaction
which would strongly have resembled a humiliation.
This humiliation would have affected Germany as
directly and as sensibly as Austria-Hungary, and would
have struck a heavy blow at the confidence which is in-
spired in Vienna by the alliance with Germany. These
machinations were frustrated by Germany's absolutely

unequivocal and decided attitude, from which she has
never departed in spite of all the urgings with which
she has been harassed. Germany alone has accomplished
the preservation of peace. The new grouping of the
Powers, organized by the King of England, has
measured its forces with the alliance of the Central
European Powers, and has shown itself incapable of
impairing the same. Hence the vexation which is mani-
fested.

The last two sentences of the foregoing seem to
show — putting it mildly — that the Belgian Min-
ister did not suspect the German Government of
any aggressive spirit. In the same dispatch,
moreover, he remarks:

As always, when everything does not go as the French,
English or Russian politicians want it to, the Temps
shows its bad temper. Germany is the scapegoat.

Again, at the time of the Balkan War in 1912,
Germany had an excellent opportunity to gratify
her military ambition, if she had any, at the ex-
pense of an "unsuspecting and unprepared Eur-
ope" ; not as advantageous as in 1908 but more ad-
vantageous than in 1914. Serbia's provocations
against Austria-Hungary had become so great
that the Austrian Archduke (assassinated in 1914
at Sarajevo) told the German Emperor person-
ally that they had reached the limit of endurance.

[52]

On this occasion also, however, William II put
himself definitely on the side of peace, and in so
doing left the Austrian Government somewhat
disappointed and discontented. Another neu-
tral diplomat reports of the German Foreign
Minister that

whatever plans he may have in his head (and he has
big ideas), for winning the sympathies of the young
Balkan Powers over to Germany, one thing is absolutely
certain, and that is that he is rigidly determined to avoid
a European conflagration. On this point the policy of
Germany is similar to that of England and France,
both of which countries are determinedly pacifist.

This is a fair statement of the English and
French position in 1912. There was a great re-
vulsion of feeling in England after her close
shave of being dragged into war over Morocco
and her sentiment was all for attending to certain
pressing, domestic problems. Besides, it was
only in November, 191 1, and only through the in-
discretion -of a French newspaper, that the
British public (and the British Parliament as
well) had learned that the Anglo-French agree-
ment of 1904 had secret articles attached to it,
out of which had emanated the imbroglio over
Morocco; and there was a considerable feeling of
distrust towards the Foreign Office. In fact, Sir

[53]

E. Grey, the Foreign Minister, was so unpopular
with his own party that quite probably he would
have had to get out of office if he had not been
sustained by Tory influence. Mr. W. T. Stead ex-
pressed a quite general sentiment in the Review
of Reviews for December, 1911:

The fact remains that in order to put France in
possession of Morocco, we all but went to war with
Germany. We have escaped war, but we have not
escaped the national and abiding enmity of the German
people. Is it possible to frame a heavier indictment
of the foreign policy of any British Ministry? The
secret, the open secret, of this almost incredible crime
against treaty-faith, British interests and the peace of
the world, is the unfortunate fact that Sir Edward Grey
has been dominated by men in the Foreign Office who
believe all considerations must be subordinated to the
one supreme duty of thwarting Germany at every turn,
even if in doing so British interests, treaty-faith and
the peace of the world are trampled underfoot. I
speak that of which I know.

This was strong language and it went with-
out challenge, for too many Englishmen felt that
way. In France, the Poincare-Millerand-Del-
casse combination was getting well into the sad-
dle; but with English public opinion in this not-
ably undependable condition, English support
of France, in spite of the secret agreement binding

[54]

the two governments, was decidedly risky. There-
upon France also was "determinedly pacifist."
Now if Germany had been the prime mover in
"the most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted
against the liberty of nations," why did she not
take advantage of that situation4?

Russia, too, was "determinedly pacifist" in
1912, and with good reason. There was a party
of considerable influence in the Tsar's court that
was strongly for going to war in behalf of Serbia,
but it was finally headed off by the Foreign Min-
ister, Sazonov, who knew the state of public
opinion in England and its effect on France, and
knew therefore that the French-Russian-English
alliance was not yet in shape to take on large
orders. It is true that the Poincare-Millerand-
Delcasse war-party in France had proof enough
in 1912 that it could count on the British Gov-
ernment's support; and what France knew, Rus-
sia knew. Undoubtedly, too, the British Gov-
ernment would somehow, under some pretext or
other, possibly Belgian neutrality, have contrived
to redeem its obligations as it did in 1914. But
the atmosphere of the country was not favour-
able and the thing would have been difficult. Ac-
cordingly, Sazonov saw that jit was best for him
to restrain Serbia's impetuosity and truculence

[55]

for the time being — Russia herself being none too
ready — and accordingly he did so.

But how? The Serbian Minister at Peters-
burg says that Sazonov told him that in view of
Serbia's successes "he had confidence in our
strength and believed that we would be able to
deliver a blow at Austria. For that reason we
should feel satisfied with what we were to receive,
and consider it merely as a temporary halting-
place on the road to further gains." On another
occasion "Sazonov told me that we must work for
the future because we would acquire a great deal
of territory from Austria." The Serbian Min-
ister at Bucharest says that his Russian and
French colleagues counselled a policy of waiting
"with as great a degree of preparedness as possible
the important events which must make their ap-
pearance among the Great Powers." How, one
may ask, was the Russian Foreign Office able to
look so far and so clearly into the future? If
German responsibility for the war is funda-
mental, a chose jugee, as Mr. Lloyd George said
it is, this seems a strange way for the Russian
Foreign Minister to be talking, as far back as
1912. But stranger still is the fact that the Ger-
man Government did not jump in at this junc-
ture instead of postponing its blow until 1914

[56]

when every one was apparently quite ready to
receive it. When the historian of the future con-
siders the theory of the Versailles treaty and con-
siders the behaviour of the German Government
in the crisis of 1908 and in the crisis of 1912, he
will have to scratch his head a great deal to make
them harmonize.

[57]

BY the spring of 1913, the diplomatic repre-
sentatives of the Allied Danube States made no
secret of the relations in which their Governments
stood to the Tsar's Foreign Office. The Balkan
League was put through by Russian influence and
Russia controlled its diplomacy. Serbia was as
completely the instrument of Russia as Poland is
now the instrument of France. "If the Austrian
troops invade Balkan territory/' wrote Baron
Bey ens on 4 April, 1913, "it would give cause for
Russia to intervene, and might let loose a uni-
versal war." Now, if Germany had been plot-
ting "with ruthless, cynical determination," as
Mr. Lloyd George said, against the peace of Eu-
rope, what inconceivable stupidity for her not to
push Austria along rather than do everything pos-
sible to hold her back! Why give Russia the
benefit of eighteen months of valuable time for
the feverish campaign of "preparedness" that
she carried on^ Those eighteen months meant a
great deal. In February, 1914, the Tsar ar-

[58]

ranged to provide the Serbian army with rifles
and artillery, Serbia agreeing to put half a million
soldiers in the field. In the same month Russia
negotiated a French loan of about $100 million
for improvements on her strategic railways and
frontier-roads. During the spring, she made
"test" mobilizations of large bodies of troops
which were never demobilized, and these "test"
mobilizations continued down to the outbreak of
the war; and in April Russian agents made techni-
cal arrangements with agents of the British and
French Admiralties for possible combined naval
action.

Yes, those eighteen months were very busy
months for Russia. True, she came out at the
end of them an "unprepared and unsuspecting"
nation, presumably, for was not all Europe un-
prepared and unsuspecting*? Is it not so nom-
inated in the Versailles treaty4? One can not
help wondering, however, how it is that Ger-
many, "carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandes-
tinely planning in every detail" a murderous
attack on the peace of Europe, should have given
Russia the inestimable advantage of those eight-
een months.

[59]

XI

MR. E. D. MOREL, editor of the British monthly,
Foreign Affairs, performed more than a distin-
guished service — it is a splendid, an illustrious
service — to the disparaged cause of justice, when
recently he translated and published in England
through the National Labour Press, a series of
remarkable State documents.1 This consists of
reports made by the Belgian diplomatic repre-
sentatives at Paris, London and Berlin, to the
Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, covering the
period from 7 February, 1905 to 2 July, 1914.
Their authenticity has never been questioned.
They have received no notice in this country;
their content and import were carefully kept
from the American people as long as it was pos-
sible to do so, and consequently they remain un-
known except to a few who are students of inter-
national affairs or who have some similar special
interest.

1 Under the title "Diplomacy Revealed." National Labour
Press. 8 and 9 Johnson's Court, London, E.G., 4, England.

[60]

It can hardly be pretended by anyone that
Belgian officials had, during that decade, any
particular love or leaning towards Germany.
The Belgian Foreign Office has always been as
free from sentimental attachments as any other.
It has always been governed by the same motives
that govern the British, French, German and
Russian Foreign Offices. Its number, like theirs,
was number one; it was out, first and last, for
the interests of the Belgian Government, and it
scrutinized every international transaction from
the viewpoint of those interests and those only.
It was fully aware of the position of Belgium
as a mere "strategic corridor" and battle-ground
for alien armies in case of a general European
war, and aware that Belgium had simply to make
the best of its bad outlook, for nothing else could
be done. If the Belgian Foreign Office and its
agents, moreover, had no special love for Ger-
many, neither had they any special fear of her.
They were in no more or deeper dread of a Ger-
man invasion than of a British or French invasion.
In fact, in 1911, the Belgian Minister at Berlin
set forth in a most matter-of-fact way his be-
lief that in the event of war, Belgian neutrality
would be first violated by Great Britain.1 These

1This belief received some corroboration in the spring of

[61]

observers, in short, may on all accounts, as far
as one can see, be accepted as neutral and dis-
interested, with the peculiar disinterestedness of
one who has no choice between two evils.

Well, then, under the circumstances it is re-
markable that if Germany during the ten years
preceding August, 1914, were plotting against
the peace of the world, these Belgian observers
seem unaware of it. It is equally noteworthy
that if Germany's assault were unprovoked, they
seem unaware of that also. These documents re-
late in an extremely matter-of-fact way a con-
tinuous series of extraordinary provocations put
upon the German Government, and moreover,
they represent the behaviour of the German Gov-
ernment, under these provocations, in a very
favourable light. On the other hand, they show
from beginning to end a most profound distrust
of English diplomacy. If there is any uncer-
tainty about the causes of ill-feeling between
England and Germany, these Belgian officials
certainly do not share it. They regularly speak

1912, when in the course of military "conversations," the
British Military Attache, Lieutenant-Colonel Bridges, told the
Belgian Minister of War that if war had broken out over the
Agadir incident in 1911, the British Government would have
landed troops in Belgium with or without the Belgian Govern-
ment's consent. So much did the British Government think
of the "scrap of paper !"

[62]

of England's jealousy of Germany's economic
competition, and the provocative attitude to
which this jealousy gave rise. They speak of
it, moreover, as though it were something that
the Belgian Government were already well aware
of; they speak of it in the tone of pure common-
place, such as one might use in an incidental
reference to the weather or to a tariff-schedule
or to any other matter that is well understood
and about which there is no difference of opinion
and nothing new to be said. This is all the more
remarkable in view of the fact that it was nom-
inally to save Belgium and to defend the sanctity
of Belgian neutrality that England entered the
war in August, 1914. These Belgian agents are
invariably suspicious of English diplomacy, as
Mr. E. D. Morel points out, "mainly because
they feel that it is tending to make the war
which they dread for their country." They per-
sistently and unanimously "insinuate that if left
to themselves, France and Germany would reach
a settlement of their differences, and that British
diplomacy was being continually exercised to en-
venom the controversy and to draw a circle of
hostile alliances round Germany." This, indeed,
under a specious concern for the "balance of
power," has been the historic role of English

[63]

diplomacy. Every one remembers how in 1866,
just before the Franco-Prussian war, Mr. Mat-
thew Arnold's imaginary Prussian, Arminius
von Thunder- ten-Tronckh, wrote to the editor of
the Pall Mall Gazette, begging him to prevail
upon his fellow-countrymen "for Heaven's sake
not to go on biting, first the French Emperor's
tail, and then ours."

On 18 February, 1905, the Belgian Minister in
Berlin reported thus:

The real cause of the English hatred of Germany is
the jealousy aroused by the astonishing development of
Germany's merchant navy and of her commerce and
manufactures. This hatred will last until the English
have thoroughly learned to understand that the world's
trade is not by rights an exclusively English monopoly.
Moreover, it is studiously fostered by the Times and a
whole string of other daily papers and periodicals that
do not stop short of calumny in order to pander to the
tastes of their readers.

At that time the centre of the English navy
had just been shifted to the North Sea, to the
accompaniment of a very disturbing and, as at
first reported, a very flamboyant speech from the
Civil Lord of the Admiralty, Mr. Lee. Of the
sensation thereby created in Germany, the Belgian
Minister says :

[64]

In informing the British public that Germany does not
dream of any aggression against England, Count Biilow
[the German Chancellor] said no more than what is
recognized by every one who considers the matter dis-
passionately. Germany would have nothing to gain
from a contest. . . . The German fleet has been created
with a purely defensive object: The small capacity of
the coal-bunkers in her High Seas Fleet, and the small
number of her cruisers, prove besides that her fleet is
not intended for use at any distance from the coast.

On the other hand, he remarks in the same re-
port:

It was obvious that the new disposition of the English
navy was aimed at Germany ... it certainly is not be-
cause of Russia, whose material stock is to a great ex-
tent destroyed and whose navy has just given striking
proof of incompetence [in the Russo-Japanese war].

Such is the tone uniformly adopted by these
neutral observers throughout their reports from
1905 to 1914. On 24 October, 1905, the Bel-
gian Minister in Paris wrote :

England, in her efforts to maintain her supremacy and
to hinder the development of her great German rival, is
evidently inspired by the wish to avoid a conflict, but
are not her selfish aims in themselves bringing it upon
us *? . . . She thought, when she concluded the Japanese
alliance and gradually drew France into similar ties,
that she had found the means to her end, by sufficiently

[65]

paralysing Germany's powers as to make war impos-
sible.

This view of the Anglo-Japanese alliance is
interesting and significant, especially now when
that instrument is coming up for renewal, with
the United States standing towards England in
the same relation of economic competitorship that
Germany occupied in 1905. True, Viscount
Bryce assured the Institute of Politics at Wil-
liams College last summer that it was not Ger-
many's economic rivalry that disturbed England;
but on this point it would be highly advantageous
for the people of the United States, while there
is yet time, to read what the Belgian Minister in
Berlin had to say on 27 October, 1905:

A very large number of Germans are convinced that
England is either seeking allies for an attack upon Ger-
many, or else, which would be more in accordance with
British tradition, that she is labouring to provoke a Con-
tinental war in which she would not join, but of which
she would reap the profit.

I am told that many English people are troubled with
similar fears and go in dread of German aggression.

I am puzzled upon what foundations such an im-
pression in London can be based. Germany is absolutely
incapable of attacking England. . . . Are these people
in England really sincere who go about expressing fears
of a German invasion which could not materialize?

[66]

Are they not rather pretending to be afraid of it in
order to bring on a war which would annihilate Ger-
many's navy, her merchant-fleet and her foreign com-
merce? Germany is as vulnerable to attack as Eng-
land is safe from it ; and if England were to attack Ger-
many merely for the sake of extinguishing a rival, it
would only be in accordance with her old precedents.

In turn she wiped out the Dutch fleet, with the as-
sistance of Louis XIV ; then the French fleet ; and the
Danish fleet she even destroyed in time of peace and
without any provocation, simply because it constituted
a naval force of some magnitude.

There are no ostensible grounds for war between Ger-
many and England. The English hatred for Germany
arises solely from jealousy of Germany's progress in
shipping, in commerce and in manufacture.

Baron Greindl here presents an opinion very
different from that in which the majority of
Americans have been instructed; and before they
accept further instruction at the hands of Vis-
count Bryce, they had better look into the matter
somewhat for themselves.

Baron Greindl wrote the foregoing in October.
In December, the head of the British Admiralty,
Sir John Fisher, assured Colonel Repington that
"Admiral Wilson's Channel fleet was alone strong
enough to smash the whole German fleet." Two
years later. Sir John Fisher wrote to King Ed-

ward VII that "it is an absolute fact that Germany
has not laid down a single dreadnaught, nor has
she commenced building a single battleship or
big cruiser for eighteen months. . . . England
has . . . ten dreadnaughts built and building,
•while Germany in March last had not even be-
gun one dreadnaught ... we have 123 de-
stroyers and forty submarines. The Germans
have forty-eight destroyers and one submarine."
Hence, if Sir John Fisher knew what he was
talking about, and in such matters he usually did,
he furnishes a very considerable corroboration of
Baron Greindl's view of the German navy up to
1905. Looking back at the third chapter of this
book, which deals with the comparative strength
of the two navies and naval groups as developed
from 1905 to 1914, the reader may well raise
again Baron Greindl's question, "Are those people
in England really sincere'?"

[68]

XII

SUCH is the inveterate suspicion, the melancholy
distrust, put upon English diplomacy by these
foreign and neutral observers who could see so
plainly what would befall their own country in
the event of a European war. Such too, was the
responsibility which these observers regularly im-
puted to the British Foreign Office — the British
Foreign Office which was so soon to fix upon
the neutrality of Belgium as a casus belli and
pour out streams of propaganda about the sanctity
of treaties and the rights of small nations!
Every one of these observers exhibits this sus-
picion and distrust. In March, 1906, when
Edward VII visited Paris and invited the dis-
credited ex-Minister Delcasse to breakfast, the
Belgian Minister at Paris wrote:

It looks as though the king wished to demonstrate that
the policy which called forth Germany's active inter-
vention [over Morocco] has nevertheless remained un-
changed. ... In French circles it is not over well re-
ceived; Frenchmen feeling that they are being dragged
against their will in the orbit of English policy, a policy

[69]

whose consequences they dread, and which they generally
condemned by throwing over M. Delcasse. In short,
people fear that this is a sign that England wants so to
envenom the situation that war will become inevitable.

On 10 February, 1907, when the English King
and Queen visited Paris, he says: "One can
not conceal from oneself that these tactics, though
their ostensible object is to prevent war, are
likely to arouse great dissatisfaction in Berlin and
to stir up a desire to risk anything that may en-
able Germany to burst the ring which England's
policy is tightening around her." On 28 March,
1907, the Belgian charge d'affaires in London
speaks of "English diplomacy, whose whole effort
is directed to the isolation of Germany." On the
same date, by a curious coincidence, the Minister
at Berlin, in the course of a blistering arraign-
ment of French policy in Morocco, says: "But
at the bottom of every settlement that has been
made, or is going to be made, there lurks always
that hatred of Germany. ... It is a sequence
of the campaign very cleverly conducted with the
object of isolating Germany. . . . The English
press is carrying on its campaign of calumny
more implacably than ever. It sees the finger of
Germany in everything that goes contrary to
English wishes." On 18 April, 1907, Baron

[70]

Greindl says of the King of England's visit to
the King of Spain that, like the alliances with
Japan and France and the negotiations with
Russia, it is "one of the moves in the campaign
to isolate Germany that is being personally
directed with as much perseverance as success by
His Majesty King Edward VII." In the same
dispatch he remarks: "There is some right to
regard with suspicion this eagerness to unite,
for a so-called defensive object, Powers who are
menaced by nobody. At Berlin they can not
forget that offer of 100,000 men made by the
King of England to M. Delcasse."

On 24 May, 1907, the Minister at London re-
ported that "it is plain that official England is
pursuing a policy that is covertly hostile, and
tending to result in the isolation of Germany, and
that King Edward has not been above putting his
personal influence at the service of this cause."
On 19 June, 1907, Count de Lalaing again writes
from London of the Anglo-Franco-Spanish agree-
ment concerning the status quo in the Mediterra-
nean region, that "it is, however, difficult to im-
agine that Germany will not regard it as a further
step in England's policy, which is determined,
'by every sort of means, to isolate the German
Empire."

[71]

Perusal of these documents from beginning to
end will show nothing to offset against the view
of English diplomacy exhibited in the foregoing
quotations; nothing to modify or qualify that
view in any way. Baron Greindl, however,
speaks highly of the British Ambassador at Ber-
lin, Sir F. Lascelles, and praises his personal and
unsupported attempt to establish friendly rela-
tions between England and Germany. Of this
he says: "I have been a witness for the last
twelve years of the efforts he has made to accom-
plish it. And yet, possessing as he justly does
the absolute confidence of the Emperor and the
German Government, and eminently gifted with
the qualities of a statesman, he has nevertheless
not succeeded very well so far." The next year,
1908, when Sir F. Lascelles was forced to resign
his post, Baron Greindl does not hesitate to say
that "the zeal with which he has worked to dis-
pel misunderstandings that he thought absurd and
highly mischievous for both countries, does not
fall in with the political views of his sovereign."

[72]

XIII

KING EDWARD VII died 6 May, 1910. During
the early part of 1911, the Belgian Ministers in
London, Paris and Berlin report some indications
of a less unfriendly policy towards Germany on
the part of the British Government. In March
of that year, Sir Edward Grey delivered a reas-
suring speech on British foreign policy, on the
occasion of the debate on the naval budget. The
Belgian Minister in Berlin says of this that it
should have produced the most agreeable impres-
sion in Germany if one could confidently believe
that it really entirely reflected the ideas of the
British Government. It would imply, he says,
that "England no longer wishes to give to the
Triple Entente the aggressive character which was
stamped upon it by its creator, King Edward
VII." He remarks, however, the slight effect pro-
duced in Berlin by Sir E. Grey's speech, and infers
that German public feeling may have "become
dulled by the innumerable meetings and mutual
demonstrations of courtesy which have never pro-

[73]

duced any positive result," and he adds signifi-
cantly that "this distrust is comprehensible."

It must be remembered that at the time this
speech was delivered, England was under a secret
agreement dating from 1904 to secure France's
economic monopoly in Morocco. England was
also under a secret obligation to France, dating
from 1906, to support her in case of war with
Germany. It must be above all remembered that
this latter obligation carried with it a contingent
liability for the Franco-Russian military alliance
that had been in effect for many years. Thus if
Russia went to war with Germany, France was
committed, and in turn England was committed.
The whole force of the Triple Entente lay in
these agreements; and it can not be too often
pointed out that they were secret agreements.
No one in England knew until November, 1911,
that in 1904 the British Government had bar-
gained with the French Government, in return
for a free hand in Egypt, to permit France to
squeeze German economic interests out of Mo-
rocco— in violation of a published agreement,
signed by all the interested nations, concerning
the status of Morocco. No one in England
knew until 3 August, 1914, that England had for
several years been under a military and naval

[74]

agreement with France which carried the enor-
mous contingent liability of the Franco-Russian
military alliance. No matter what appeared on
the surface of politics; no matter how many
pacific speeches were made by Sir E. Grey and
Mr. Asquith, no matter what the newspapers
said, no matter how often and how impressively
Lord Haldane might visit Berlin in behalf of
peace and good feeling; those secret agreements
held, they were the only things that did hold,
and everything worked out in strict accordance
with them and with nothing else, least of all
with any public understanding or any statement
of policy put out for public consumption. It was
just as in the subsequent case of the armistice
and the peace — and this is something that has
been far too little noticed in this country. The
real terms of the armistice and of the peace were
not the terms of the Fourteen Points or of any
of the multitudinous published statements of
Allied war aims. On the contrary, they were the
precise terms of the secret treaties made among
the Allied belligerents during the war, and made
public on their discovery by the Soviet Govern-
ment in the archives of the Tsarist Foreign Office.
It is no wonder then, that the German Govern-
ment was not particularly impressed by Sir E.

[75]

Grey's speech, especially as Germany saw France
helping herself to Moroccan territory with both
hands, and England looking on in indifferent
complacency. In May, 191 1, on a most transpar-
ent and preposterous pretext, a French army was
ordered to march on Fez, the capital of Morocco.
The German Government then informed France
that as the Algeciras Act, which guaranteed the
integrity and independence of Morocco, had
thereby gone by the board, Germany would no
longer consider herself bound by its provisions.
In June, 30,000 French troops "relieved" Fez,
occupied it and stayed there, evincing no inten-
tion whatever of getting out again, notwith-
standing that the ostensible purpose of the ex-
pedition was accomplished; in reality, there was
nothing to accomplish. Two months before this
coup d'etat, Baron Greindl, the Belgian Minister
at Berlin, wrote to the Belgian Foreign Office as
follows :

Every illusion, if ever entertained on the value of
the Algeciras Act, which France signed with the firm in-
tention of never observing, must long since have vanished.
She has not ceased for one moment to pursue her plans
of annexation; either by seizing opportunities for pro-
visional occupations destined to last for ever or by ex-
torting concessions which have placed the Sultan in a

[76]

position of dependence upon France, and which have
gradually lowered him to the level of the Bey of Tunis.

A week later, 29 April, Baron Guillaume, who
had succeeded M. Leghait as Belgian Minister in
Paris, reported that "there are, so far, no grounds
for fearing that the French expedition will bring
about any disturbance of international policy.
Germany is a calm spectator of events." He
adds, significantly, ''England, having thrust
France into the Moroccan bog, is contemplating
her work with satisfaction."

France professed publicly that the object of
this expedition was to extricate certain foreigners
who were imperilled at Fez; and having done
so, she would withdraw her forces. The precious
crew of concessionaires, profiteers, and dividend-
hunters known as the Comite du Maroc had sud-
denly discovered a whole French colony living in
Fez in a state of terror and distress. There was,
in fact, nothing of the sort. Fez was never
menaced, it was never short of provisions, and
there were no foreigners in trouble. When the
expeditionary force arrived, it found no one to
shoot at. As M. Francis de Pressense says:

Those redoubtable rebels who were threatening Fez
had disappeared like dew in the morning. Barely did

[77]

a few ragged horsemen fire off a shot or two before turn-
ing around and riding away at a furious gallop. A too
disingenuous, or too truthful, correspondent gave the
show away. The expeditionary force complains, he
gravely records, of the absence of the enemy; the
approaching harvest season is keeping all the healthy
males in the fields ! Thus did the phantom so dex-
terously conjured by the Comite du Maroc for the benefit
of its aims, disappear in a night.

Nevertheless, the expeditionary force did not,
in accordance with the public professions of the
French Government, march out of Fez as soon
as it discovered this ridiculous mare's nest. It
remained there and held possession of the Moorish
capital. What was the attitude of the British
Government in the premises'? On 2 May, in the
House of Commons, Sir Edward Grey said that
"the action taken by France is not intended to
alter the political status of Morocco, and His
Majesty's Government can not see why any ob-
jection should be taken to it."

Germany had remained for eight years a toler-
ant observer of French encroachments in Morocco,
and quite clearly, as Baron Greindl observes in
his report of 21 April, 1911, could not "after
eight years of tolerance, change her attitude un-
less she were determined to go to war, and war

[78]

is immeasurably more than Morocco is worth."
In July, 1911, however, while the French force
of 30,000 was still occupying Fez, Germany dis-
patched a gunboat, the "Panther," which an-
chored off the coast of Agadir.

[79]

XIV

THIS was the famous "Agadir incident," of which
we have all heard. Did it mean that the worm
had turned, that Germany had changed her atti-
tude and was determined to go to war4? It has
been so represented; but there are many difficult
inconsistencies involved in that explanation of the
German Government's act, and there is also an
alternative explanation which fits the facts far
better. In the first place the "Panther" was
hardly more than an ocean-going tug. She was
of 1000 tons burden, mounting two small naval
guns, six machine-guns, and she carried a com-
plement of only 125 men. Second, she never
landed a man upon the coast of Morocco. She
chose for her anchorage a point where the coast
is practically inaccessible ; Agadir has no harbour,
and there is nothing near it that offers any possible
temptation to the predatory instinct. No more
ostentatiously unimpressive and unmenacing dem-
onstration could have been devised. Germany,
too, was quite well aware that Morocco was not

[80]

worth a European war; and as Baron Guillaume
said in his report of 29 April, "possibly she [Ger-
many] is congratulating herself on the difficulties
that weigh upon the shoulders of the French Gov-
ernment, and asks nothing better than to keep
out of the whole affair as long as she is not
forced into it by economic considerations." But
the most significant indication that Germany had
not changed her attitude is in the fact that if
she were determined upon war, then, rather than
two years later, was her time to go about it.
This aspect of Germany's behaviour has been
dealt with in a previous chapter. It can not
be too often reiterated that if Germany really
wanted war and was determined upon war, her
failure to strike in 1908, when Russia was pros-
trate and France unready, and again in 1912,
a few months after the Agadir incident, when the
Balkan war was on, is inexplicable.1

1 Critics of German foreign policy are hard put to it to show
that she was ever guided by territorial ambitions; which is an
extremely troublesome thing when one wants to believe that she
proposed in 1914 to put the world under a military despotism.
Can any one show where in a single instance she ever de-
manded anything more than economic equality with other
nations, in a foreign market? Certainly she never demanded
more than this in Morocco. Ex-Premier Caillaux says that
his predecessor Rouvier offered Germany a good Moroccan port
(Mogador) and some adjoining territory, and Germany de-
clined.

[81]

The dispatch of the "Panther" gave the three
Belgian observers a great surprise, and they were
much puzzled to account for it. Baron Guil-
laume's thoughts at once turned to England. He
writes 2 July :

It was long regarded as an axiom that England would
never allow the Germans to establish themselves at any
point of Moroccan territory. Has this policy been aban-
doned; and if so, at what price were they bought off?

During the month of July, while waiting for
a statement from the British Foreign Office, the
Belgian observers canvassed the possibility that
Germany's action was a hint that she would like
some territorial compensation for having been
bilked out of her share in the Moroccan market.
But the interesting fact, and for the purpose of
this book the important fact, is that none of these
diplomats shows the slightest suspicion that Ger-
many was bent on war or that she had any
thought of going to war. Baron Guillaume says,
28 July, "undoubtedly the present situation wears
a serious aspect. . . . Nobody, however, wants
war, and they will try to avoid it." He pro-
ceeds :

The French Government knows that a war would be
the death-knell of the Republic. ... I have very great

[82]

confidence in the Emperor William's love of peace, not-
withstanding the not infrequent air of melodrama about
what he says and does. . . . Germany can not go to
war for the sake of Morocco, nor yet to exact payment
of those compensations that she very reasonably demands
for the French occupation of Fez, which has become more
or less permanent. On the whole I feel less faith in
Great Britain's desire for peace. She would not be
sorry to see the others destroying one another; only,
under those circumstances, it would be difficult for her
to avoid armed intervention. ... As I thought from
the very first, the crux of the situation is in London.

By the end of July, a different conception of
Germany's action seemed to prevail. It began
to be seen that the episode of the "Panther" had
been staged by way of calling for a show-down
on the actual intentions and purposes of the
Triple Entente; and it got one. Mr. Lloyd
George, "the impulsive Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer," as Count de Lalaing calls him, made
a typical jingo speech at the Mansion House; a
speech which the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith,
and Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Minister, had
helped him to compose. The air was cleared at
once — England stood by France — and what better
plan could have been devised for clearing the
air than the dispatch of the "Panther"? Ger-
many stood for the policy of economic equality,

[83]

the policy of the open door to which all the
Powers interested had agreed in the case of
Morocco. France, at the end of a course of con-
tinuous aggression, had put 30,000 troops in oc-
cupation of the capital of Morocco on an infa-
mously unscrupulous pretext, and put them there
to stay, and the British Government "could not
see why any objection should be taken to it."
Germany, on the other hand, anchored an in-
significant gunboat off an inaccessible coast, and
without landing a man or firing a shot, left her
there as a silent reminder of the Algeeiras Act
and the principle of the open door — carefully and
even ostentatiously going no further — and the
British Government promptly, through the mouth
of Mr. Lloyd George, laid down a challenge and
a threat. Thereupon Germany and France under-
stood their relative positions; they understood,
even without Sir E. Grey's explicit reaffirmation
of 27 November of the policy of the Triple En-
tente, that England would stand by her arrange-
ments with France. Baron Greindl writes from
Berlin 6 December, and puts the case explicitly :

Was it not assuming the right of veto on German
enterprise for England to start a hue and cry because a
German cruiser cast anchor in the roads of Agadir,
seeing that she had looked on without a murmur whilst

[84]

France and Spain had proceeded step by step to conquer
Morocco and to destroy the independence of its Sultan1?
England could not have acted otherwise. She was
tied by her secret treaty with France. The explanation
was extremely simple, but it was not of a sort to allay
German irritation.

[85]

XV

LET us glance at British political chronology for
a moment. King Edward VII, the chief factor
in the Entente, the moving spirit in England's
foreign alliances, had been dead a year. In
December, 1905, the Liberal party had come into
power. In April, 1908, Mr. H. H. Asquith be-
came Prime Minister. In 1910, Anglo-German
relations were apparently improving; in July,
1910, Mr. Asquith spoke of them in the House
of Commons as "of the most cordial character.
I look forward to increasing warmth and fervour
and intimacy in these relations year by year."
The great question was, then, in 1911, whether
the Liberal Government would actually, when it
came down to the pinch, stick by its secret cove-
nant with France. Were the new Liberals, were
Mr. Asquith, Lord Haldane, Sir. E. Grey, Mr.
Lloyd George, true-blue Liberal imperialists, or
were they not4? Could France and Russia safely
trust them to continue the Foreign Office policy
that Lord Lansdowne had bequeathed to Sir E.

[86]

Grey; or, when the emergency came, would they
stand from under*? After all, there had been a
Campbell-Bannerman; there was no doubt of
that; and one, at least, of the new Liberals, Mr.
Lloyd George, had a bad anti-imperialist record
in the South African war.

The Agadir incident elicited a satisfactory
answer to these questions. The Liberal Govern-
ment was dependable. However suspiciously the
members of the Liberal Cabinet might talk, they
were good staunch imperialists at heart. They
were, as the theologians say, "sound on the es-
sentials." Baron Greindl wrote, 6 December,
1911 :

The Entente Cordiale was founded, not on the pos-
itive basis of defence of common interests, but on the
negative one of hatred of the German Empire. ... Sir
Edward Grey adopts this tradition without reservation.
He imagines that it is in conformity with English in-
terests. ... A revision of Great Britain's policy is all
the less to be looked for, as ever since the Liberal Min-
istry took office, and more especially during the last
few months, English foreign policy has been guided by
the ideas with which King Edward VII inspired it.

[87]

XVI

MR. LLOYD GEORGE'S speech at the Mansion
House in July, 1911, after the German gunboat
"Panther" had anchored off the Moroccan coast,
gave an immense impulse to the jingo spirit in
France, because it was taken as definite assurance
of England's good faith in seeing her secret agree-
ments through to a finish. M. Caillaux, the
French Premier, appears to have had his doubts,
nevertheless, inasmuch as the British Foreign
Office did not give a straight reply to the French
Foreign Office's inquiry concerning British action
in case the Germans landed a force in Morocco.
He says:

Are we to understand that our powerful neighbours will
go right through to the end with the resolve which they
suggest*? Are they ready for all eventualities? The
British Ambassador, Sir Francis Bertie, with whom I
converse, does not give me formal assurances. It is said,
of course, that he would see without displeasure the out-
break of a conflict between France and Germany ; his
mind works in the way attributed to a number of leading
British officials at the Foreign Office.

[88]

M. Caillaux here suggests the same suspicion of
British intentions which the Belgian diplomats at
London, Paris and Berlin intimate continually
throughout their correspondence since 1905.* He
accordingly favoured a less energetic policy to-
wards Germany, and was thrown out of office.
Count de Lalaing reported from London, 15 Jan-
uary, 1912, that the revelations which provoked
this political crisis were disagreeable for the
English Government. "They seem to prove,"
he says, "that the French Premier had been try-
ing to negotiate with Berlin without the knowl-
edge of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his
other colleagues, and this is naturally disquiet-
ing to a Government whose interests are bound
up with those of France, and which accordingly
can ill tolerate any lapses of this kind." He
adds:

These revelations have also strengthened the im-
pression that M. Caillaux had recently favoured an
ultra-conciliatory policy towards Germany, and this im-
pression was felt all the more painfully in English of-
ficial circles, as the full extent of the tension between
London and Berlin caused by the Cabinet of St. James's
loyal behaviour towards the Cabinet at Paris had hardly

1 This is worth noticing since M. Caillaux was the pioneer
victim of the charge of being "pro-German."

[89]

been grasped. People in England are reluctant to face
the fact that they have been 'more royalist than the King,'
and have shown themselves even less accommo-
dating than^the friend they were backing. . . . Accord-
ingly the press unanimously hails with delight the de-
parture of M. Caillaux, and trusts that sounder tradi-
tions may be reverted to without delay.

This comment on the position of M. Caillaux
is one of the most interesting observations to be
found in these documents.

[90]

XVII

THE Balkan war took place in 1912, and the
whole history of the year shows the most mighty
efforts of European politicians — efforts which
seem ludicrous and laughable in spite of their
tragic quality — to avert with their left hand the
war which they were bringing on with their right.
Mr. Lloyd George is right in saying that no one
really wanted war. What every one wanted, and
what every one was trying with might and main
to do, was to cook the omelette of economic im-
perialism without breaking any eggs. There was
in all the countries, naturally, a jingo nationalist
party which wanted war. In Russia, which was
then busily reorganizing her military forces which
had been used up and left prostrate by the war
with the Japanese, the pan-Slavists were influ-
ential and vociferous, but they were not on top.
In England there was a great popular revulsion
against the behaviour of the Government which
had so nearly involved the English in a war
against Germany the year before; and Mr. As-

[91]

quith's Government, which was pacifist in ten-
dency, was meeting the popular sentiment in
every way possible, short of the one point of re-
vealing the secret engagements which bound it to
the French Government and contingently to the
Russian Government. Lord Haldane undertook
an official mission to Berlin, which was attended
with great publicity and was popularly supposed
to be of a pacificatory nature; and really, within
the limits of the Franco-English diplomatic agree-
ment, it went as far as it could in the establish-
ment of good relations. In fact, of course, it
came to nothing; as long as the diplomatic agree-
ment remained in force, it could come to noth-
ing, nothing of the sort could come to anything;
and the diplomatic agreement being guarded as
a close secret, the reason why it must come to
nothing was not apparent. The German Gov-
ernment also made tremendous efforts in behalf
of peace; and it must be noted by those who ac-
cept the theory upon which the treaty of Ver-
sailles is based, that if Germany had wished or
intended at any time to strike at the peace of
Europe, now was the moment for her to do so.
Instead, the German Emperor in person, and the
German Government, through one of its best dip-
lomatic agents, Baron von Marschall, met every

pacific overture more than half-way, and them-
selves initiated all that could be thought of.
"There is no doubt," wrote Baron Beyens from
Berlin, "that the Emperor, the Chancellor and
the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (von
Kiderlen-Wachter) are passionately pacifists.''
Baron Beyens again says, 28 June, 1912, "The
Emperor is persistent and has not given up hopes
of winning back English sympathies, just as he
has succeeded up to a certain point in obtaining
the confidence of the Tsar, by the force of his
personal attractions." Those who believe in the
extraordinary notion of an unprepared and un-
suspecting Europe, should read the diplomatic
history of the year 1912, when all the chief office-
holders in England and on the Continent were
struggling like men caught in a quicksand, or
like flies on fly-paper, to avert, or if they could
not avert, to defer the inevitable war.

In one country, however, the jingo nationalist
and militarist party came on top; and that
country was France. M. Caillaux was succeeded
by Raymond Poincare; and in January, 1913,
Poincare became President of the Republic. Up
to 1912, the people of France were increasingly
indisposed to war and were developing a con-
siderable impatience with militarism, and the

[93]

French Government was responsive to this sen-
timent. It knew, as Baron Guillaume remarked
at the time of the Agadir incident, that "a war
would be the death-knell of the Republic." M.
Caillaux seems to have measured the feelings of
his countrymen quite well. Baron Guillaume
says that after the dispatch of the "Panther,"
the British Cabinet's first proposal was that the
British and French Governments should each
immediately send two men-of-war to Agadir ; and
that the French Cabinet strongly objected.
Again, he says in his report of 8 July, 1911, "I
am persuaded that Messrs. Caillaux and de Selves
regret the turn given to the Moroccan affair by
their predecessors in office. They were quite
ready to give way, provided they could do so
without humiliation."

The speech of Mr. Lloyd George at the Man-
sion House, however, which was taken by the
French (and how correctly they took it became
apparent on 3 August, 1914) as a definite assur-
ance of British support against Germany, gave
the militarist-nationalist party the encourage-
ment to go ahead and dominate the domestic pol-
itics of France. It put the Poincare-Millerand-
Delcasse element on its feet and stiffened its res-
olution, besides clearing the way in large measure

[94]

for its predominance. On 14 February, 1913,
Baron Guillaume reports from Paris thus :

The new President of the Republic enjoys a popu-
larity in France to-day unknown to any of his predeces-
sors. . . . Various factors contribute to explain his
popularity. His election had been carefully prepared
in advance; people are pleased at the skilful way in
which, while a Minister, he manoeuvred to bring France
to the fore in the concert of Europe ; he has hit upon some
happy phrases that stick in the popular mind.

The career of M. Poincare, in fact, and his
management of popular sentiment, show many
features which mutatis mutandis^ find a parallel
in the career of Theodore Roosevelt. Baron
Guillaume adds, however, this extremely striking
observation concerning the popularity of M. Poin-
care:

But above all, one must regard it as a manifestation
of the old French chauvinistic spirit, which had for
many years slumbered, but which had come to life again
since the affair of Agadir.

In the same communication to the Belgian For-
eign Office, Baron Guillaume remarks:

M. Poincare is a native of Lorraine, and loses no op-
portunity of telling people so. He was M. Millerand's
colleague, and the instigator of his militarist policy.

Finally, the first word that he uttered at the very

[95]

moment when he learned that he was elected President of
the 'Republic, was a promise that he would watch over and
maintain all the means of national defence.

M. Poincare had not been in office two months
when he recalled the French Ambassador at
Petersburg, M, Georges Louis, and appointed in
his stead M. Delcasse. Concerning this stupen-
dous move, Baron Guillaume reported 21 Feb-
ruary, 1913, to the Belgian Foreign Office thus:

The news that M. Delcasse is shortly to be appointed
Ambassador at Petersburg burst like a bomb here yester-
day afternoon. ... He was one of the architects of the
Franco-Russian alliance, and still more so of the Anglo-
French entente.

Baron Guillaume goes on to say that he does
not think that M. Delcasse' s appointment should
be interpreted as a demonstration against Ger-
many; but he adds:

I do think, however, that M. Poincare, a Lorrainer, was
not sorry to show, from the first day of entering on his
high office, how anxious he is to stand firm and hold aloft
the national flag. That is the danger involved in having
M. Poincare at the Elysee in these anxious days through
which Europe is passing. It was under his Ministry that
the militarist, slightly bellicose instincts of the French
woke up again. He has been thought to have a measure
of responsibility for this change of mood.

[96]

M. Georges Louis, who had represented the
French Government at Petersburg for three years,
was a resolute opponent of the militarist faction
in France, and was therefore distinctly persona
non grata to the corresponding faction in Russia.
At the head of this faction stood Isvolsky, who was
a friend of M. Poincare and a kindred spirit;
hence when M. Poincare became Premier, an
attempt was made to oust M. Louis, but it was
unsuccessful. M. Delcasse, on the other hand, is
described by Mr. Morel as "the man identified
more than any other man in French public life
with the anti-German war-party." Mr. Morel,
in commenting on the appointment of M. Del-
casse quotes the following from a report sent by
the Russian Ambassador in London to the Foreign
Office in Petersburg. It was written four days
after the appointment of M. Delcasse, and quite
bears out the impression made upon the Belgian
agents.1

When I recall his [M. Cambon, the French Ambas-
sador in London] conversations with me, and the attitude
of Poincare, the thought comes to me as a conviction,
that of all the powers France is the only one which, not
to say that it wishes war, would yet look upon it with-

1 But perhaps Count Beuckendorf was pro-German, too!

[97]

out great regret She [France] has, either rightly

or wrongly, complete trust in her army; the old effer-
vescing minority has again shown itself.

[98]

XVIII

THE French war-party, represented by MM.
Poincare, Millerand and Delcasse, came into pol-
itical predominance in January, 1912, and con-
solidated its ascendancy one year later, when M.
Raymond Poincare became President of the
French Republic. All through 1912 there was
an immense amount of correspondence and con-
sultation between the French and Russian Gov-
ernments, and all through 1913 Russia showed
extraordinary activity in military preparation.
In England, Mr. Asquith's Government had to
face a strong revulsion of popular feeling against
the attitude of its diplomacy, which had so nearly
involved the country in war with Germany at
the time of the Agadir incident.

As always, the figures of expenditure tell the
story; and the history of 1912-14 should be con-
tinually illustrated by reference to the financial
statistics of the period, which have been given in
earlier chapters. For instance, Russia, which
spent (in round numbers) £3^4 million on new

[99]

naval construction in 1911, spent £7 million in
1912, £12 million in 1913, and £13 million in
1914. The fact that, as Professor Raymond
Beazley puts it, in the ten years before the war,
and with increasing insistence, Paris and St.
Petersburg spent upon armaments £159 million
more than Berlin or Vienna, ought to suffice at
least to reopen the question of responsibility.

It must be carefully noted that by the spring of
1912, the Balkan League, which was engineered
by the Russian diplomat Hartwig, was fully
formed. This put the diplomacy of the Balkan
States under the direct control of the Russian For-
eign Office. It now became necessary for the
Russian Foreign Office to ascertain, in case war
between Serbia and Austria broke out, and Ger-
many should help Austria and Russia should help
Serbia, whether Russia could count on the support
of France and England. Russia received this
assurance in secret, and the terms of it were dis-
covered by the Soviet Government in the archives
of the Foreign Office and published in 1919.
This is a most important fact, and should be con-
tinually borne in mind in connexion with the
fact that the war was precipitated by the murder
of the Austrian Archduke by Serbian officers,
members of the pan-Slavist organization fostered

[100]

and encouraged by MM. Isvolsky and Hartwig.
On 9 August, 1912, M. Poincare, then Premier
of France, made a visit to St. Petersburg, where
he was joined by his kindred spirit, M. Isvolsky,
who was then the Russian Ambassador at Paris.
It was the usual visit of State, and Russia staged
an imposing series of military manoeuvres in M.
Poincare's honour. But the really important
events that took place were these. First, a naval
agreement was made between France and Russia,
whereby France agreed to concentrate her naval
forces in the Eastern Mediterranean in order to
support the Russian navy in the Black Sea. This
agreement was secret, and revealed by the Soviet
Government in 1918. Then, in the same month,
the Third French Naval Squadron was trans-
ferred from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.
M. Poincare told M. Isvolsky that "this decision
has been made in agreement with England, and
forms the further development and completion of
the arrangement already made previously between
the French and British Staffs" — referring to the
conference of Messrs. Asquith and Churchill and
Lord Kitchener at Malta, the month before, at
which the new disposition of the English and
French fleets was decided. The third matter of
consequence that took place in the month of

[101]

August was that the Russian Government began
to put pressure on the French Government to
re-establish the Three Years Military Service law.
So much for August. In the month of Sep-
tember, M. Poincare gave the Russian Foreign
Minister, M. Sazonov, assurance that if Germany
helped Austria in a struggle in the Balkans, and
if Russia were drawn in on the other side, France
"would not hesitate for a moment to fulfil its
obligations towards Russia." In the same month,
M. Isvolsky had an interview with the King of
England and Sir Edward Grey, the British
Foreign Minister, in which both King George and
Sir E. Grey assured him of the fullest British
co-operation in the same event. M. Isvolsky re-
ported to the Russian Foreign Office at St. Peters-
burg, that "Grey, upon his own initiative, cor-
roborated what I already knew from Poincare —
the existence of an agreement between France
and Great Britain, according to which England
undertook, in case of a war with Germany, not
only to come to the assistance of France on the
sea, but also on the Continent, by landing troops."
These two understandings between MM. Poin-
care and Sazonov, and between M. Isvolsky and
Sir E. Grey, were secret, and nothing was known
of them until 1919, when the memoranda of
[102]

them were published by the Soviet Government.1
A train of gunpowder, in other words, had been
laid from Belgrade through Paris and London to
St. Petersburg; and at the beginning of that train
was the highly inflammable and inflammatory
pan-Slavism, organized by M. Hartwig with the
connivance of M. Isvolsky. A spark struck in the
Balkans would cause the train to flash into flame
throughout its entire length.

1 On 10 March of the following year, Mr. Asquith, replying
to a question in the Commons from Lord Hugh Cecil, denied
that England was under an "obligation arising owing to an
assurance given by the Ministry in the course of diplomatic
negotiations, to send a very large armed force out of this coun-
try to operate in Europe." On 24 March, he made similar
denials in reply to questions from Sir W. Byles and Mr. King.
On 14 April, Mr. Runciman, in a speech at Birkenhead, denied
"in the most categorical way" the existence of a secret under-
standing with any foreign Power! On 3 May, the Secretary
for the Colonies, Mr. Harcourt, declared publicly that he
"could conceive no circumstances in which Continental opera-
tions would not be a crime against the people of this country."
On 28 June, the under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr.
Acland, declared publicly that "in no European question were
we concerned to interfere with a big army." On i July, Lord
Loreburn, Lord Chancellor from 1906 to 1912, said "that any
British Government would be so guilty towards our country as
to take up arms in a foreign quarrel is more than I can be-
lieve." On 28 April, 1914, and again on n June, Sir E. Grey
confirmed, in the House of Commons, Mr. Asquith's assertion,
made 10 and 24 March, 1913, of British freedom from engage-
ments with Continental Powers.

Yet, curiously the professions of politicians are still trusted,
and people still expect something from their machinations ; they
expected something substantial from the recent conference in
Washington, on the limitation of armaments, for instance — a
striking and pathetic example of the strength of superstition.

[103]

XIX

ON 25 April, 1912, the German Reichstag put
through its first reading a bill, with only per-
functory debate, for an increase in the German
army and navy. This measure has been regu-
larly and officially interpreted as a threat. Yet
nearly a year after, on 19 February, 1913, Baron
Guillaume, writing from Paris about the pros-
pects of the Three Years Service bill, reports
to the Belgian Foreign Office that the French
Minister of War "does not regard the measures
taken by Germany as a demonstration of hos-
tility, but rather as an act of prudence for the
future. Germany fears that she may one day
have to fight Russia and France together, perhaps
England too; and then any help that Austria
might give her would be seriously handicapped
by the fact that the Dual Monarchy [Austria-
Hungary] would have to withstand a coalition of
Balkan States."

Naturally. The bill was presented to the
Reichstag in April, and the "coalition of Balkan
[104]

States," M. Hartwig's Balkan League, had al-
ready completed its organization in February.
Not only so, but the very first step taken by this
exemplary organization provided for a division
of spoils in the event of a successful war with
Turkey; and six months after the organization of
the League was concluded, it served an ultimatum
upon Turkey over Albania, and in October went
to war. The German Government could quite
plainly see the future about to be inaugurated
through this consolidation of Balkan policy into
the hands of the Russian Foreign Office — any one
even an attentive reader of newspapers, could see
it — and it could see the vastly increased responsi-
bility of its Austrian ally, in case of a quarrel,
should it have to take on a coalition of the Balkan
States instead of a single one.

Count de Lalaing reported from London, 24
February, 1918, that the British Foreign Office
took the same sensible view of the German mili-
tary increases as, according to Baron Guillaume,
was taken by M. Jonnart. "The English press,"
he says, "is of course anxious to saddle Germany
with the responsibility for the fresh tension
caused by her schemes — a tension which may give
Europe fresh reasons for uneasiness." But, he
goes on —

At the Foreign Office I found a more equitable and
calmer estimate of the situation. They see in the re-
inforcement of the German armies not so much a provo-
cation as an admission that circumstances have weakened
Germany's military position, and that it must be strength-
ened. The Berlin Government is compelled to recognize
that it can no longer count upon being supported by the
whole force of its Austrian ally, now that a new Power,
that of the Balkan Federation, has made its appearance
in South-eastern Europe, right at the gates of the Dual
Empire. . . . Under these circumstances, the Foreign
Office sees nothing astonishing in Germany's finding it
imperative to increase the number of her army corps.
The Foreign Office also states that the Berlin Government
had told the Paris Cabinet quite frankly that such were
the motives for its action.

The same view was publicly expressed by Mr.
Lloyd George himself as late as i January, 1914,
when he said:

The German army was vital, not merely to the
existence of the German Empire, but to the very life and
independence of the nation itself, surrounded, as Germany
is, by other nations, each of which possesses armies as
powerful as her own. We forget that while we insist
upon a sixty-per-cent superiority (as far as our naval
strength is concerned) over Germany being essential to
guarantee the integrity of our own shores, Germany her-
self has nothing like that superiority over France alone,
and she has of course, in addition, to reckon with Russia

[106]

on her eastern frontier. Germany has nothing which
approximates to a two-Power standard. She has, there-
fore, become alarmed by recent issues, and is spending
huge sums of money on the expansion of her military re-
sources.

Those are the words, be it remembered, of the
same person who says to-day that German re-
sponsibility for the war which broke out six
months after he had made the foregoing state-
ment, is a chose jugeel The statement was made,
furthermore, not only after the German bill of
25 April, 1912, but after the bill of 8 April, 1913,
as well, which fixed the peace-strength of the
German army at 870,000.

The Three Years Service law passed the French
Chamber in August, 1913, after a passionate popu-
lar campaign. Of this measure Baron Guillaume
says that the French newspapers, Le Temps in
particular, "are wrong in representing the French
Government's plans as being in response to
measures adopted by Germany. Many of them
are but the outcome of measures which have
long been prepared." The French Minister, M.
Jonnart, told him that "we know very well what
an advantage our neighbour [Germany] has in
the continual growth of his population; still, we
must do all that lies in our power to compensate

[107]

this advantage by better military organization."
Probably this view of the Three Years Service
law was the view held by all save the relatively
small and highly-integrated war-faction; and in
so far as military measures are ever reasonable,
this, like the corresponding measures taken in
Germany, must be regarded as reasonable. As
M. Pichon told Baron Guillaume, "We are not
arming for war, we are arming to avoid it, to
exorcise it. ... We must go on arming more and
more in order to prevent war." There is no
reason whatever to suppose that this view was
not sincerely entertained by M. Pichon and by
many others, probably by a majority of the per-
sons most responsibly concerned.

But the consequences of the Three Years Ser-
vice law were contemplated by Baron Guillaume
with great apprehension. He reports on 12 June,
1913, that "the burden of the new law will fall
so heavily upon the population, and the expendi-
ture which it will involve will be so exorbitant,
that there will soon be an outcry in the country,
and France will be faced with this dilemma:
either renounce what she can not bear to forgo, or
else, war at short notice." Of the militarist
party now in the ascendancy, he says: "They
are followed with a sort of infatuation, a kind

[108]

of frenzy which is interesting but deplorable.
One is not now allowed, under pain of being
marked as a traitor, to express even a doubt of
the need for the Three Years Service."

Public opinion was evidently confiscated by the
Poincare-Millerand-Delcasse group, much as it
was in the United States in 1917 by the war-
party headed by Mr. Wilson. Baron Guillaume
uses words that must remind us of those days.
"Every one knows," he says, "that the mass of
the nation is by no means in favour of the pro-
jected reform, and they understand the danger
that lies ahead. But they shut their eyes and
press on."

[109]

XX

THE train of powder, however, had been laid by
the diplomatic engagements. Austria-Hungary
and Serbia came into collision in the spring of
1913 over the Scutari incident. In December,
1912, M. Sazonov had urged Serbia to play a
waiting game in order to "deliver a blow at
Austria." But on 4 April, 1913, Baron Beyens
reports from Berlin that the arrogance and con-
tempt with which the Serbs receive the Vienna
Cabinet's protests over Scutari

can only be explained by their belief that St. Petersburg
will support them. The Serbian charge d'affaires was
quite openly saying here lately that his Government
would not have persisted in its course for the last six
months in the face of the Austrian opposition had they
not received encouragement in their course from the
Russian Minister, M. de Hartwig, who is a diplomatist
of M. Isvolsky's school. . . . M. Sazonov's heart is
with his colleagues who are directing the policy of the
Great Powers, but he feels his influence with the Tsar
being undermined by the court-party and the pan-
Slavists. Hence his inconsequent behaviour.

[110]

The military activity which the Russian Gov-
ernment displayed in 1913 gives interest to this
estimate of M. Sazonov's position. No doubt
to some extent the estimate was correct; M.
Sazonov, like Sir E. Grey, was probably, when
it was too late, much disquieted by the events
which marshalled him the way that he was going.
In 1914, this military activity gained extraor-
dinary intensity. The Russian army was put
upon a peace-footing of approximately 1,400,000,
"an effective numerical strength hitherto unprec-
edented," said the St. Petersburg correspond-
ent of the London Times. From January to
June, the Russian Government made immense
purchases of war material. In February, it con-
cluded a loan in Paris for the improvement of its
strategic roads and railways on the German
frontier. Russia, as was generally known at the
time, had her eye on the acquisition of Constanti-
nople ; and in the same month, February, a council
of war was held in St. Petersburg to work out
"a general programme of action in order to secure
for us a favourable solution of the historical ques-
tion of the Straits." In March, the St. Peters-
burg newspaper which served as the mouthpiece
of the Minister of War, published an article stat-

[m]

ing that Russia's strategy would no longer be "de-
fensive" but "active." Another paper spoke of
the time coming when "the crossing of the Aus-
trian frontier by the Russian army would be an
unavoidable decision." In the same month,
Russia raised a heavy tariff against the importa-
tion of German grain and flour; thus bearing out
the evidence of German trade-reports that even
at this time Germany was still exporting grain
to Russia — a most extraordinary proceeding for
a nation which contemplated a sudden declara-
tion of war before the next harvest. In the same
month, the Russian Government brought in mili-
tary estimates of £97 million. It exercised heavy
pressure on the French Government in the pro-
tracted political turmoil over the maintenance of
the Three Years Service law. . In April, "trial
mobilizations" were begun, and were continued up
to the outbreak of the war. In May, M. Sazonov
informed the Tsar that the British Government
"has decided to empower the British Admiralty
Staff to enter into negotiations with French and
Russian naval agents in London for the purpose
of drawing technical conditions for possible action
by the naval forces of England, Russia and
France." In the same month, a complete mobil-
ization of all the reserves of the three annual
[112]

contingents of 1907-1909 was ordered for the
whole Russian Empire, as a "test," to take place
in the autumn. In the same month the Russian
Admiralty instructed its agent in London, Captain
Volkov, as follows:

Our interests on the Northern scene of operations re-
quire that England keeps as large a part of the German
fleet as possible in check in the North Sea. . . . The
English Government could render us a substantial service
if it would agree to send a sufficient number of boats to
our Baltic ports to compensate for our lack of means of
transport, before the beginning of war-operations.

This document, revealed by the Soviet Govern-
ment in 1919, is pretty damaging to the assump-
tion of an "unprepared and unsuspecting Europe" ;
especially as Professor Conybeare has given pub-
licity to the fact that "before the beginning of
war-operations" those English boats were there,
prompt to the minute, empty, ready and waiting.
In June, the Russian Ambassador warned the
Russian naval staff in London that they must
exercise great caution in talking about a landing
in Pomerania or about the dispatch of English
boats to the Russian Baltic ports before the out-
break of war, "so that the rest may not be jeopard-
ized." On 13 June, the newspaper-organ of the

["si

Russian Minister of War published an inspired
article under the caption: "Russia is Ready:
France must be Ready."

Two weeks later, the Austrian heir-apparent,
the Archduke Francis Joseph, was murdered at
Sarajevo, a town in Bosnia, by Serbian officers.
The murder was arranged by the Serbian Major
Tankesitch, of the pan-Slavist organization known
as the Black Hand; and this organization was
fostered, if not actually subsidized, by the Rus-
sian Minister at Belgrade, M. Hartwig, the pupil
and alter ego of M. Isvolsky, and the architect
and promoter of the Balkan League !

[114]

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