Before the War Part 3

I said that I believed this to be Sir Edward Grey's view also, and that he was anxious to communicate with the German Government beforehand whenever there was a chance of German interests being touched.

He went on to speak of the approaching Hague Conference, and of the difficulty Germany would have if asked to alter the proportion of her army to her population-a proportion which rested on a fundamental law. For Germany alone to object to disarmament would be to put herself in a hole, and it would be a friendly act if we could devise some way out of a definite vote on reduction. Germany might well enter a conference to record and emphasize the improvement all round in international relations, the desirability of further developing this improvement, and the hope that with it the growth of armaments would cease. But he was afraid of the kind of initiative which might come from America. The United States had no sympathy with European military and naval difficulties.

I said that I thought that we, as a Government, were pledged to try to bring about something more definite than what he suggested as a limit, but that I would report what he had told me.

He then pa.s.sed to general topics. He was emphatic in his a.s.surance that what Germany wanted was increase of commercial development. Let the nations avoid inflicting pin-p.r.i.c.ks, and leave each other free to breathe the air. He said that he thought we might have opportunities of helping them to get the French into an easier mood. They were difficult and suspicious, he observed, and it was hard to transact business with them, for they made trouble over small points.

On my return to London I sent to Herr von Tschirsky some English newspapers containing articles with a friendly tone, so far as the preservation of good relations was concerned. He replied in a letter from which I translate the material portion:

"I see with pleasure from the articles which your Excellency has sent me for his Majesty, and from other expressions of public opinion in English newspapers, that in the leading Liberal papers of England a more friendly tone toward Germany is making itself apparent. You would have been able to derive the same impression from reading our newspapers, with the exception of a few Pan-German prints. Alas! papers like The Times, Morning Post and Standard can not bring themselves to refrain from their att.i.tude of dislike, and are always rejoicing in being suspicious of every action of the Imperial Government. They contribute in this fashion appreciably to render weak the new tone of diminishing misunderstanding which has arisen between the two countries. If I fear that under these circ.u.mstances it will be a long time before mutual understanding has grown up to the point at which it stood more than a century ago, and as you and I desire it in the well-understood interests of England and Germany, still I hope and am persuaded that the relations of the two Governments will remain good."

A year after the visit I had paid to Berlin the Emperor came over to stay with King Edward at Windsor. This was in November, 1907. The visit lasted several days, and I was present most of the time. The Emperor was accompanied by Baron von Schoen, who had become Foreign Minister of Prussia, after having been Amba.s.sador to the Court of Russia, and by General von Einem, the War Minister, whose inclusion in the invitation I had ventured to suggest to the King, as an acknowledgment of his civility to myself as War Minister when in Berlin. There were also at Windsor Count Metternich and several high military officers of the Emperor's personal staff and military cabinet. To these officers and to the War Minister I showed all the hospitality I could in London, and I received them officially at the War Office.

But the really interesting incident of this visit, so far as I was concerned, took place at Windsor. The first evening of my visit there, just after his arrival in November, the Emperor took me aside and said he was sorry that there was a good deal of friction over the Bagdad Railway, and that he did not know what we wanted as a basis for co-operation.

I said that I could not answer for the Foreign Office, but that, speaking as War Minister, one thing I knew we wanted was a "gate" to protect India from troops coming down the new railway. He asked me what I meant by a "gate," and I said that meant the control of the section which would come near to the Persian Gulf. "I will give you the 'gate,'" replied the Emperor.

I had no opportunity at the moment, which was just before dinner, for pursuing the conversation further, but I thought the answer too important not to be followed up. There were private theatricals after dinner, which lasted till nearly one o'clock in the morning. I was seated in the theater of the Castle just behind the Emperor, and, as the company broke up, I went forward and asked him whether he really meant seriously that he was willing to give us the "gate," because, if he did mean it, I would go to London early and see Sir Edward Grey at the Foreign Office.

Next morning, about 7.30 o'clock, a helmeted guardsman, one of those whom the Emperor had brought over with him from Berlin, knocked loudly at the door and came into my bedroom, and said that he had a message from the Emperor. It was that he did mean what he had said the night before. I at once got up and caught a train for London. There I saw the Foreign Secretary, who, after taking time to think things over, gave me a memorandum he had drawn up. The substance of it was that the British Government would be very glad to discuss the Emperor's suggestion, but that it would be necessary, before making a settlement, to bring into the discussion France and Russia, whose interests also were involved. I was requested to sound the Emperor further.

After telling King Edward of what was happening, I had another conversation in Windsor Castle with the Emperor, who said that he feared that the bringing in of Russia particularly, not to speak of France, would cause difficulty; but he asked me to come that night, after a performance that was to take place in the Castle theater had ended, to his apartments, to a meeting to which he would summon the Ministers he had brought with him. He took the memorandum which I had brought from London, a copy of which I had made for him in my own handwriting, so as to present it as the informal doc.u.ment it was intended to be. Just before dinner Baron von Schoen spoke to me, and told me that he had heard from the Emperor what had happened, and that the Emperor was wrong in thinking that the attempt to bring in Russia would lead to difficulty, because he, Baron von Schoen, when he was Amba.s.sador to Russia, had already discussed the general question with its Government, and had virtually come to an understanding. At the meeting that night we could therefore go on to negotiate.

I attended the Emperor in his state rooms at the Castle at one o'clock in the morning, and sat smoking with him and his Ministers for over two hours. His Foreign Minister and Count Metternich and the War Minister, von Einem, were present. I said that I felt myself an intruder, because it was very much like being present at a sitting of his Cabinet. He replied, "Be a member of my Cabinet for the evening." I said that I was quite agreeable.

They then engaged in a very animated conversation, some of them challenging the proposal of the Emperor to accept the British suggestions, with an outspokenness which would have astonished the outside world, with its notions of Teutonic autocracy. Count Metternich did not like what I suggested, that there should be a conference in Berlin on the subject of the Bagdad Railway between England, France, Russia, and Germany.

In the end, but not until after much keen argument, the idea was accepted, and the Emperor directed von Schoen to go next morning to London and make an official proposal to Sir Edward Grey, This was carried out, and the preliminary details were discussed between von Schoen and Sir Edward at the Foreign Office.

Some weeks afterward difficulties were raised from Berlin. Germany said that she was ready to discuss with the British Government the question of the terminal portion of the railway, but she did not desire to bring the other two Powers into that discussion, because the conference would probably fail and accentuate the differences between her and the other Powers.

The matter thus came to an end. It was, I think, a great pity, because I have reason to believe that the French view was that, if the Bagdad Railway question could have been settled, one great obstacle in the way of reconciling German with French and English interests would have disappeared. I came to the conclusion afterward that it was probably owing to the views of Prince von Bulow that the proposal had come to an untimely end. Whether he did not wish for an expanded entente; whether the feeling was strong in Germany that the Bagdad Railway had become a specially German concern and should not be shared; or what other reason he may have had, I do not know; but it was from Berlin, after the Emperor's return there at the end of November, 1907, that the negotiations were finally blocked.

Altho these negotiations had no definite result, they a.s.sisted in promoting increasing frankness between the two Foreign Offices, and other things went with more smoothness. Sir Edward Grey kept France and Russia informed of all we did, and he was also very open with the Germans. Until well on in 1911 all went satisfactorily. In the early part of that year the Emperor came to London to visit the present King, who had by that time succeeded to the throne. I had ventured to propose to the King that during the Emperor's visit I should, as War Minister, give a luncheon to the generals who were on his staff. But when the Emperor heard of this he sent a message that he would like to come and lunch with me himself, and to meet people whom otherwise he might not see.

I acted on my own discretion, and when he came to luncheon at my house in Queen Anne's Gate there was a somewhat widely selected party of about a dozen to meet him. For it included not only Lord Morley, Lord Kitchener, and Lord Curzon, whom he was sure to meet elsewhere, but Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who was then leading the Labor Party, Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, our great naval commander, Lord Moulton, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Mr. Sargent, Mr. Spender, the editor of the Westminster Gazette, and others representing various types of British opinion. The Emperor engaged in conversation with everyone, and all went with smoothness.

He had a great reception in London. But enthusiasm about him was somewhat damped when, in July, 1911, not long after his return to Germany, he sent the afterwards famous warship Panther to Agadir. The French were naturally alarmed, and the situation which had become so promising was overcast. Our naval arrangements and our new military organization were ready, and our mobilization plans were fairly complete, as the German General Staff knew from their military attache. But the point was, how to avoid an outbreak, and to get rid of the feeling and friction to which the Agadir crisis was giving rise. Our growing good relations were temporarily clouded.

The sending of the Panther to Agadir was not a prudent act. It imported either too much or too little. It is said to have been the plan of Herr von Kiderlen-Waechter, at that time the Foreign Secretary and generally a sensible statesman, and to have been done in spite of misgivings expressed by the Emperor about its danger. The circ.u.mstances of the moment were such that one can not but feel a certain sympathy with the German perturbation at the time. The march of the French Army to Fez had come on them suddenly, and it at least suggested a development of French claims going beyond what Germany had agreed to at the Algeciras Conference nearly six years previously. Those who wish to inform themselves about the commotion the expedition of the French stirred up in Germany, and of the efforts the Emperor and Bethmann Hollweg had to make to restrain it, will do well to read the latter's account of what happened there in the second chapter of his recent book. But to think that the sending of a German warship could make things better was to repeat the error of judgment which had characterized "the ally in shining armor" speech of the German Emperor to Austria when she formally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina three years before. Instead of using diplomatic methods something that looked like a threat was allowed to appear, and the answer was Mr. Lloyd George's well-known declaration of July 21, 1911, in the City of London. The sending of the Panther, if intelligible, was certainly unfortunate.

In the winter, after the actual crisis had been got over, there was evidence of continuing ill-feeling in Germany, and the suspicion in London did not diminish. In January, 1912, an informal message was given by the Emperor to Sir Ernest Ca.s.sel for transmission through one of my colleagues to the Foreign Office.[2] I knew nothing of this at the time, but learned shortly afterward that it was to the effect that the Emperor was concerned at the state of feeling that had arisen in both countries, and thought that the most hopeful method of improving matters would be that the Cabinet of St. James's should exchange views directly with the Cabinet of Berlin. For this course there was a good deal to be said. The peace had indeed been preserved, but, as Herr von Bethmann Hollweg told me later on, not without effort. The att.i.tude of Germany toward France had seemed ominous. The British Government had done all it could to avert a breach, but its sympathy was opposed to language used in Germany, the spirit of which seemed to us to have in it an aggressive element. We did not hesitate to say what we thought about this.

Even after the Agadir incident was quite closed, the tension between Germany and England had not pa.s.sed away. The military party in the former country began to talk of a "preventive" war pretty loudly. Even so moderate an organ in Berlin as the Post wrote of German opinion that "we all know that blood is a.s.suredly about to be shed, and the longer we wait the more there will be. Few, however, have the courage to imitate Frederick the Great, and not one dares the deed."

The Emperor therefore sent his message in the beginning of 1912, to the effect that feeling had become so much excited that it was not enough to rely on the ordinary diplomatic intercourse for softening it, and that he was anxious for an exchange of views between the Cabinets of Berlin and London, of a personal and direct kind. As the result of this intimation, the British Cabinet decided to send one of its members to Berlin to hold "conversations," with a view to exploring and, if practicable, softening the causes of tension, and I was requested by the Prime Minister and Sir Edward Grey and my other colleagues to go to Berlin and undertake the task. Our Amba.s.sador there came over to London specially to discuss arrangements, and he returned to Berlin to make them before I started.

I arrived in the German capital on February 8, 1912, and spent some days in interviews with the Emperor, the Imperial Chancellor, the Naval Minister (Admiral von Tirpitz), and others of the Emperor's Ministry. The narrative of my conversations I have extracted from the records I made after each interview, for the preservation so far as possible of the actual expressions used during it.

My first interview was one with Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor. We met in the British Emba.s.sy, and the conversation, which was quite informal, was a full and agreeable one. My impression, and I still retain it, was that Bethmann Hollweg was then as sincerely desirous of avoiding war as I was myself. I told him of certain dangers quite frankly, and he listened and replied with what seemed to me to be a full understanding of our position. I said that the increasing action of Germany in piling up magnificent armaments was, of course, within the unfettered rights of the German people. But the policy had an inevitable consequence in the drawing together of other nations in the interests of their own security. This was what was happening. I told him frankly that we had made naval and military preparations, but only such as defense required, and as would be considered in Germany matter of routine. I went on to observe that our faces were set against aggression by any nation, and I told him, what seemed to relieve his mind, that we had no secret military treaties. But, I added, if France were attacked and an attempt made to occupy her territory, our neutrality must not be reckoned on by Germany. For one thing, it was obvious that our position as an island protected by the sea would be affected seriously if Germany had possession of the Channel ports on the northern sh.o.r.es of France. Again, we were under treaty obligation to come to the aid of Belgium in case of invasion, just as we were bound to defend Portugal and j.a.pan in certain eventualities. In the third place, owing to our dependence on freedom of sea-communications for food and raw materials, we could not sit still if Germany elected to develop her fleet to such an extent as to imperil our naval protection. She might build more ships, but we should in that case lay down two keels for each one she laid down.

The Chancellor said that he did not take my observations at all in bad part, but I must understand that his admirals and generals were pretty difficult.

I replied that the difficulty would be felt at least as much with the admirals and generals in my own country.

The Chancellor, in the course of our talk, proposed a formula of neutrality to which I will refer later on.

I left the Chancellor with the sense that I had been talking with an honest man struggling somewhat with adversity. However, next day I was summoned to luncheon with the Emperor and Empress at the Schloss, and afterward had a long interview, which lasted nearly three hours, with the Emperor and Admiral von Tirpitz in the Emperor's cabinet room. The conversation was mainly in German, and was confined to naval questions. My reception by the Emperor was very agreeable; that by Tirpitz seemed to me a little strained. The question was, whether Germany must not continue her program for expanding her fleet. What that program really amounted to we had not known in London, except that it included an increase in battleships; but the Emperor handed me at this meeting a confidential copy of the draft of the proposed new Fleet Law, with an intimation that he had no objection to my communicating it privately to my colleagues. I was careful to abstain even from looking at it then, for I saw that, from its complexity and bulk, it would require careful study. So I simply put it in my pocket. But I repeated what I had said to the Chancellor, that the necessity for secure sea-communications rendered it vital for us to be able to protect ourselves on the seas. Germany was quite free to do as she pleased, but so were we, and we should probably lay down two keels for every one which she added to her program. The initiative in slackening compet.i.tion was really not with us, but with Germany. Any agreement for settling our differences and introducing a new spirit into the relations of the two nations would be bones without flesh if Germany began by fresh shipbuilding, and so forced us to do twice as much. Indeed, the world would laugh at such an agreement, and our people would think that we had been fooled. I did not myself take that view, because I thought that the mere fact of an agreement was valuable. But the Emperor would see that the public would attach very little importance to his action unless the agreement largely modified what it believed to be his shipbuilding program.

We then discussed the proposal of the German Admiralty for the new program. Admiral von Tirpitz struggled for it. I insisted that fundamental modification was essential if better relations were to ensue. The tone was friendly, but I felt that I was up against the crucial part of my task. The admiral wanted us to enter into some understanding about our own shipbuilding. He thought the Two-Power standard a hard one for Germany, and, indeed, Germany could not make any admission about it.

I said it was not matter for admission. They were free and so were we, and we must for the sake of our safety remain so. The idea then occurred to us that, as we should never agree about it, we should avoid trying to define a standard proportion in any general agreement that we might come to, and, indeed, say nothing in it about shipbuilding; but that the Emperor should announce to the German public that the agreement on general questions, if we should have concluded one, had entirely modified his wish for the new Fleet Law, as originally conceived, and that it should be delayed, and future shipbuilding should at least be spread over a longer period.

The Emperor thought such an agreement would certainly make a great difference, and he informed me that his Chancellor would propose to me a formula as a basis for it. I said that I would see the Chancellor and discuss a possible formula, as well as territorial and other questions with him, and would then return to London and report to the King (from whom I had brought him a special and friendly message) and to my colleagues the good disposition I had found, and leave the difficulties about shipbuilding and indeed all other matters to their judgment. For I had come to Berlin, not to make an actual agreement, but only to explore the ground for one with the Emperor and his ministers. I had been struck with the friendly disposition in Berlin, and a not less friendly disposition would be found in London.

The evening after my interview with the Emperor I dined with the Chancellor. I met there and talked with several prominent politicians, soldiers, and men of letters, including Kiderlen-Waechter (the then Foreign Secretary), the afterward famous General von Hindenburg, Zimmermann of the Foreign Office, and Professor Harnack.

Later on, after dinner, I went off to meet the French Amba.s.sador, M. Jules Cambon, at the British Emba.s.sy, for I wished to keep him informed of our object, which was simply to improve the state of feeling between London and Berlin, but on the basis, and only on the basis, of complete loyalty to our Entente with France. It was, to use a phrase which he himself suggested in our conversation, a detente rather than an entente that I had in view, with possible developments to follow it which might a.s.sume a form which would be advantageous to France and Russia, as well as to ourselves and Germany. He showed me next day the report of our talk which he had prepared in order to telegraph it to Paris.

I had other interviews the next day, but the only one which is important for the purposes of the present narrative is that at my final meeting with the German Chancellor on the Sat.u.r.day (February 10). I pressed on him how important it was for public opinion and the peace of the world that Germany should not force us into a shipbuilding compet.i.tion with her, a compet.i.tion in which it was certain that we should have to spare no effort to preserve our margin of safety by greater increases.

M. PAUL CAMBON FRENCH AMBa.s.sADOR TO GREAT BRITAIN SINCE 1898.

He did not controvert my suggestion. I could see that personally he was of the same mind. But he said that the forces he had to contend with were almost insuperable. The question of a r.e.t.a.r.dation of building under the proposed Fleet Law was not susceptible of being treated apart from that of the formula of which he and the Emperor had both spoken. He suggested that we might agree on the following formula:

1. The High Contracting Powers a.s.sure each other mutually of their desire for peace and friendship.

2. They will not, either of them, make any combination, or join in any combination, which is directed against the other. They expressly declare that they are not bound by any such combination.

3. If either of the High Contracting Parties become entangled in a war with one or more other powers, the other of the High Contracting Parties will at least observe toward the power so entangled a benevolent neutrality, and use its utmost endeavor for the localization of the conflict.

4. The duty of neutrality which arises from the preceding article has no application in so far as it may not be reconcilable with existing agreements which the High Contracting Parties have already made. The making of new agreements which make it impossible for either of the Contracting Parties to observe neutrality toward the other beyond what is provided by the preceding limitations is excluded in conformity with the provisions contained in Article 2.

Anxious as I was to agree with the Chancellor, who seemed as keen as I was to meet me with expressions which I might take back to England for friendly consideration, I was unable to hold out to him the least prospect that we could accept the draft formula which he had just proposed. Under Article 2, for example, we should find ourselves, were it accepted, precluded from coming to the a.s.sistance of France should Germany attack her and aim at getting possession of such ports as Dunkirk, Calais, and Boulogne, a friendly occupation of which was so important for our island security. Difficulties might also arise which would hamper us in the discharge of our existing treaty obligations to Belgium, Portugal, and j.a.pan. The most hopeful way out was to revise the draft fundamentally by confining its terms to an undertaking by each Power not to make any unprovoked attack upon the other, or join in any combination or design against the other for purposes of aggression, or become party to any plan or naval or military combination, alone or in conjunction with any other Power, directed to such an end.

He and I then sat down and redrafted what he had prepared, on this basis, but without his committing himself to the view that it would be sufficient. We also had a satisfactory conversation about the Bagdad Railway and other things in Turkey connected with the Persian Gulf, and we discussed possibilities of the rearrangement of certain interests of both Powers in Africa. He said to me that he was not there to make any immediate bargain, but that we should look at the African question on both sides from a high point of view, and that if we had any difficulties we should tell him, and he would see whether he could get round them for us.

I replied that I also was not there to make a bargain, but only to explore the ground, and that I much appreciated the tone of his conversation with me, and the good feeling he had shown. I should go back to London and without delay report to my colleagues all that had pa.s.sed.

I entertain no doubt that the German Chancellor was sincerely in earnest in what he said to me on these occasions, and in his desire to improve relations with us and keep the peace. So I think was the Emperor; but he was pulled at by his naval and military advisers, and by the powerful, if then small, chauvinist party in Germany. In 1912, when the conversations recorded took place, this party was less potent, I think a good deal less, than it appears to have become a year and a half later, when Germany had increased her army still further. But I formed the opinion even then that the power of the Emperor in Germany was a good deal misinterpreted and overestimated. My impression was that the really decisive influence was that of the Minister who had managed to secure the strongest following throughout Germany; and it was obvious to me that Admiral von Tirpitz had a powerful and growing following from many directions, due to the backing of the naval party.

Moreover, sensible as a large number of Germans were, there was a certain tendency to swelled-headedness in the nation. It had had an extraordinarily rapid development, based on principles of organization in every sphere of activity-principles derived from the lesson of the necessity of thinking before acting enjoined by the great teachers of the beginning of the nineteenth century. The period down to about 1832 seems to me to correspond, in the intellectual prodigies it produced, to our Elizabethan period. It came no doubt to an end in its old and distinctive aspect. But its spirit a.s.sumed, later on, a new form, that of organization for material ends based on careful reflection and calculation. In industry, in commerce, in the army, and in the navy, the work of mind was everywhere apparent. "Aus einem Lernvolk wollen wir ein Thatvolk werden" was the new watchword.

No doubt there was much that was defective. When it came to actual war in 1914, it turned out that Germany had not adequately thought out her military problems. If she had done so, she would have used her fleet at the very outset, and particularly her destroyers and submarines, to try to hinder the transport of the British Expeditionary Force to France, and, having secured the absence of this force, she would have sought to seize the northern ports of France. Small as the Expeditionary Force was, it was enough, when added to the French armies, to make them so formidable as to render the success of von Kluck uncertain if the troops could be concentrated to resist him swiftly enough. Again, Germany never really grasped the implications of our command of the sea. Had she done so, I do not think she would have adventured war. She may have counted on England not coming in, owing to entanglements in Irish difficulties. If so, this was just another instance of her bad judgment about the internal affairs of other nations.

In fine, Germany had not adequately thought out or prepared for the perils which she undertook when she a.s.sumed the risks of the war of 1914. No doubt she knew more about the shortcomings of the Russian army than did the French or the British. On these, pretty exact knowledge of the Russian shortages enabled her to reckon. There we miscalculated more than she did. But she was not strong enough to make sure work of a brief but conclusive campaign in the West, which was all she could afford while Russia was organizing. Then, later on, she ought to have seen that, if the submarine campaign which she undertook should bring the United States into the war, her ultimate fate would be sealed by blockade. In the end she no doubt fought magnificently. But she made these mistakes, which were mainly due to that swelled-headedness which deflected her reasoning and prevented her from calculating consequences aright.