My Mission to London 1912-1914 Part 5

Unfortunately this confidential interview was made public, and Herr von Bethmann Hollweg thus destroyed the last chance of gaining peace through England.

The arrangements for our departure were perfectly dignified and calm.

The King had previously sent his equerry, Sir E. Ponsonby, to express his regrets at my departure and that he could not see me himself.

Princess Louise wrote to me that the whole family were sorry we were leaving. Mrs. Asquith and other friends came to the Emba.s.sy to take leave.

A special train took us to Harwich, where a guard of honour was drawn up for me. I was treated like a departing Sovereign. Such was the end of my London mission. It was wrecked, not by the wiles of the British, but by the wiles of our policy.

Count Mensdorff and his staff had come to the station in London. He was cheerful, and gave me to understand that perhaps he would remain there, but he told the English that we, and not Austria, had wanted the war.

RETROSPECT

Looking back after two years, I come to the conclusion that I realised too late that there was no room for me in a system that for years had lived on routine and traditions alone, and that only tolerated representatives who reported what their superiors wished to read.

Absence of prejudice and an independent judgment are resented. Lack of ability and want of character are praised and esteemed, while successes meet with disfavour and excite alarm.

I had given up my opposition to the insane Triple Alliance policy, as I realised that it was useless, and that my warnings were attributed to "Austrophobia," to my _idee fixe_. In politics, which are neither acrobatics nor a game, but the main business of the firm, there is no "phil" or "phobe," but only the interest of the community. A policy, however, that is based only on Austrians, Magyars, and Turks must come into conflict with Russia, and finally lead to a catastrophe.

In spite of former mistakes, all might still have been put right in July, 1914. An agreement with England had been arrived at. We ought to have sent a representative to Petrograd who was at least of average political capacity, and to have convinced Russia that we wished neither to control the straits nor to strangle Serbia. "_Lachez l'Autriche et nous lacherons les Francais_" ("Drop Austria and we will drop the French"), M. Sazonow said to us. And M. Cambon told Herr von Jagow, "_Vous n'avez pas besoin de suivre l'Autriche partout_" ("You need not follow Austria everywhere").

We wanted _neither wars nor alliances_; we wanted only treaties that would safeguard us and others, and secure our economic development, which was without its like in history. If Russia had been freed in the West, she could again turn to the East, and the Anglo-Russian rivalry would have been re-established automatically and without our intervention, and not less certainly also the Russo-j.a.panese.

We could also have considered the question of the reduction of armaments, and need no longer have troubled ourselves about Austrian complications. Then Austria would have become the va.s.sal of the German Empire, without any alliance--and especially without our seeking her good graces, a proceeding ultimately leading to war for the liberation of Poland and the destruction of Serbia, although German interest demanded the exact contrary.

I had to support in London a policy the heresy of which I recognised.

That brought down vengeance on me, because it was a sin against the Holy Ghost.

MY RETURN

As soon as I arrived in Berlin I saw that I was to be made the scapegoat for the catastrophe for which our Government had made itself responsible against my advice and warnings.

The report was deliberately circulated in official quarters that I had allowed myself to be deceived by Sir E. Grey, because, if he had not wanted war, Russia would not have mobilised. Count Pourtales, whose reports could be relied on, was to be protected, not least on account of his relationship. He had conducted himself "magnificently," he was praised enthusiastically, and I was blamed the more severely.

"What does Serbia matter to Russia?" this statesman said to me after eight years in office at Petrograd. The whole thing was a British trick that I had not noticed. At the Foreign Office they told me that war would in any case have come in 1916. Then Russia would have been ready; therefore it was better now.

THE QUESTION OF RESPONSIBILITY

As is evident from all official publications--and this is not refuted by our White Book, which, owing to the poverty of its contents and to its omissions, is a gravely self-accusing doc.u.ment--

1. We encouraged Count Berchtold to attack Serbia, although German interests were not involved and the danger of a world-war must have been known to us. Whether we were aware of the wording of the Ultimatum is completely immaterial.

2. During the time between the 23rd and 30th July, 1914, when M.

Sazonow emphatically declared that he would not tolerate any attack on Serbia, we rejected the British proposals of mediation, although Serbia, under Russian and British pressure, had accepted almost the whole of the Ultimatum, and although an agreement about the two points at issue could easily have been reached, and Count Berchtold was even prepared to content himself with the Serbian reply.

3. On the 30th July, when Count Berchtold wanted to come to terms, we sent an ultimatum to Petrograd merely because of the Russian mobilisation, although Austria had not been attacked; and on the 31st July we declared war on Russia, although the Czar pledged his word that he would not order a man to march as long as negotiations were proceeding--thus deliberately destroying the possibility of a peaceful settlement.

In view of the above undeniable facts it is no wonder that the whole of the civilised world outside Germany places the entire responsibility for the world-war upon our shoulders.

THE ENEMY POINT OF VIEW

Is it not intelligible that our enemies should declare that they will not rest before a system is destroyed which is a constant menace to our neighbours? Must they not otherwise fear that in a few years' time they will again have to take up arms and again see their provinces overrun and their towns and villages destroyed? Have not they proved to be right who declared that the spirit of Treitschke and Bernhardi governed the German people, that spirit which glorified war as such, and did not loathe it as an evil, that with us the feudal knight and Junker, the warrior caste, still rule and form ideals and values, not the civilian gentleman; that the love of the duel which animates our academic youth still persists in those who control the destinies of the people? Did not the Zabern incident and the parliamentary discussions about it clearly demonstrate to foreign countries the value we place on the rights and liberties of the citizen if these collide with questions of military power?

That intelligent historian Cramb, who has since died, an admirer of Germany, clothed the German conception in the words of Euphorion:

Dream ye of peace?[1]

Dream he that will-- War is the rallying cry!

Victory is the refrain.

[Footnote 1: The original has "war," presumably owing to a misprint.--TRANSLATOR.]

Militarism, which by rights is an education for the people and an instrument of policy, turns policy into the instrument of military power when the patriarchal absolutism of the soldier-kingdom makes possible an att.i.tude which a democracy, remote from military Junker influence, would never have permitted.

So think our enemies, and so they must think when they see that, in spite of capitalistic industrialisation and in spite of socialist organisation, "the living are still ruled by the dead," as Friedrich Nietzsche says. The princ.i.p.al war aim of our enemies, the democratisation of Germany, will be realised!

BISMARCK

Bismarck, like Napoleon, loved conflict for itself. As a statesman he avoided fresh wars, the folly of which he recognised. He was content with bloodless battles. After he had, in rapid succession, vanquished Christian, Francis Joseph, and Napoleon, it was the turn of Arnim, Pius, and Augusta. That did not suffice him. Gortschakow, who thought himself the greater, had repeatedly annoyed him. The conflict was carried almost to the point of war--even by depriving him of his railway saloon. This gave rise to the miserable Triple Alliance. At last came the conflict with William, in which the mighty one was vanquished, as Napoleon was vanquished by Alexander.

Political life-and-death unions only prosper if founded on a const.i.tutional basis and not on an international one. They are all the more questionable if the partner is feeble. Bismarck never meant the Alliance to take this form.

He always treated the English with forbearance; he knew that this was wiser. He always paid marked respect to the old Queen Victoria, despite his hatred of her daughter and of political Anglomania; the learned Beaconsfield and the worldly-wise Salisbury he courted; and even that strange Gladstone, whom he did not like, really had nothing to complain about.

The Ultimatum to Serbia was the culminating point of the policy of the Berlin Congress, the Bosnian crisis, the Conference of London: but there was yet time to turn back.

We were completely successful in achieving that which above all other things should have been avoided--the breach with Russia and England.

OUR FUTURE