CHAPTER IIIToC
THE GERMAN ATTITUDE BEFORE THE WAR
We now have before us the considered opinions of Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, the late Imperial Chancellor, and of Admiral von Tirpitz, the Minister who did much to develop the naval power of Germany, about the origin and significance of the war. Both have written books on the subject.[4] It is to be desired that in the case of each of these authors his book should be studied in English-speaking countries as well as on the Continent. For it is important that the Anglo-Saxon world should understand the divergences in policy which the two books disclose, not less than the points of agreement. That world has suffered in the past from failure to understand Germany, while the German world has displayed a total inability to interpret aright the Anglo-Saxon disposition. When I speak of two worlds I mean the governing classes of these worlds. The nations themselves, taken as aggregates of individual citizens, by a probable majority in each case, desired the continuance of peace and of the prosperity of which it is the condition. So, of course, did the rulers, those in Germany as much as those in London. But the German rulers had a theory of how to secure peace which was the outcome of the abstract mind that was their inheritance. It was the theory that was wrong, a theory of which Anglo-Saxondom knew little, and which it would have rejected decisively had it realized its tendency. This theory is described in Admiral Tirpitz's book, with an account of the efforts made to indoctrinate with it the people of Germany.
The two volumes are profoundly interesting. For in that of Admiral Tirpitz we have the doctrine set forth that in the end led to the war. In that written by the late Imperial Chancellor we have quite another principle laid down as the one which he was endeavoring to apply in his direction of German policy. But in this endeavor he failed. The school of Tirpitz in the main prevailed, and this was the more easy, inasmuch as it was simply continuing the policy which had been advocated by a noisy section of Germans, nearly without a break, since the days of Frederick the Great. It was a policy which had in reality outlived the days in which it was practicable. The world had become too crowded and too small to permit of any one Power asserting its right to jostle its way where it pleased without regard to its neighbors. An affair of police on a colossal scale had begun to look as if it would ensue, and ensue it ultimately did. No doubt had we all been cleverer we might have been able to explain to Germany whither she was heading. But we did not understand her, least of all our chauvinists, nor did she understand us. In the main what she really wanted was to develop herself by the application of her talent for commerce and industry. To her success in attaining this end we had no objection, provided her procedure was decent and in order. But she chose a means to her end which was becoming progressively more and more inadmissible. Tirpitz describes the illegitimate means. Bethmann Hollweg describes the legitimate end. Tirpitz thinks Bethmann Hollweg was a weakling because he would not back up the means. Bethmann Hollweg, firm in his faith that the end was legitimate and thinking of this alone, dwells on it with little reference to what his colleague was about. His accusation against the Entente Powers is that, at the instigation of Russia primarily, and in a less degree of France, they set themselves to ring round and crush Germany. It was really, he believes, a war of aggression, and England was ultimately responsible for it. Without her co-operation it was impossible, and altho she did not enter into any formal military alliance for the purpose, she began in the time of Edward VII. a policy of close friendship which enabled Russia and France in the end to reckon on her as morally bound to help. It was easy for these Powers to represent as a defensive war what was really a war of aggression. Such was truly its nature, and England decided to join in it, actually because she was jealous of Germany's growing success in the world, and was desirous of setting a check to it.
Such is Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's explanation. He is, I have no doubt, sincerely convinced of its truth, and he explains the grounds of his conviction in detail and with much ability. But there is a fallacy in his reasoning which becomes transparent when one reads along with his book that of his colleague. If we put out of sight the deep feeling awakened here by the brutality of the invasion of Belgium, to which violation of Treaty obligations the former declares that Germany was compelled by military considerations that were unanswerable, and look at the history of Anglo-German relations before the war, the inference is irresistible that it was not the object of developing in a peaceful atmosphere German commerce and industry that England objected to. Such a development might have been formidable for us. It would have compelled great efforts on our part to improve the education of our people and our organization for peaceful enterprises. But it would have been legitimate. The objection of this country was directed against quite other things that were being done by Germany in order to attain her purpose. The essence of these was the attempt to get her way by creating armaments which should in effect place her neighbors at her mercy. We who live on islands, and are dependent for our food and our raw materials on our being able to protect their transport and with it ourselves from invasion, could not permit the sea-protection which had been recognized from generation to generation as a necessity for our preservation to be threatened by the creation of naval forces intended to make it precarious. As the navies of Europe were growing, not only those of France and Russia, but the navy of Italy also, we had to look, in the interests of our security, to friendly relations with these countries. We aimed at establishing such friendly relations, and our method was to get rid of all causes of friction, in Newfoundland, in Egypt, in the East, and in the Mediterranean. That was the policy which was implied in our Ententes. We were not willing to enter into military alliances and we did not do so. Our policy was purely a business policy, and everything else was consequential on this, including the growing sense of common interests and of the desire for the maintenance of peace. I do not think that Admiral Tirpitz wanted actual war. But he did want power to enforce submission to the expansion of Germany at her will. And this power was his means to the end which was what less Prussianized minds in Germany contemplated as attainable in less objectionable ways. Such a means he could not fashion in the form of strength in sea power which would have placed us at his mercy, without arousing our instinct for self-preservation.
All this the late Imperial Chancellor in substance ignores. The fact is that he can only defend his theory on the hypothesis that no such policy as that of his colleague was on foot, and that the truth was that France, Russia, and England had come to a decision to take the initiative in a policy embracing, for France revenge for the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, for Russia the acquisition of Constantinople with domination over the Balkans and the Bosporus, and for England the destruction of German commerce. If this hypothesis be not true, and the real explanation of the alarm of the Entente Powers was the policy exemplified by Tirpitz and the other exponents of German militarism, then the whole of the reasoning in Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's book falls to the ground.
It may be asked how it was possible that two members of the Imperial Government should have been pursuing in the same period two policies wholly inconsistent with each other. The answer is not difficult. The direction of affairs in Germany was admirably organized for some purposes and very badly for others. Her autocratic system lent itself to efficiency in the preparation of armaments. But it was not really a system under which her Emperor was left free to guide policy. There is no greater mistake made than that under which it is popularly supposed that the Emperor was absolute master. The development in recent years of the influence of the General and Admiral Staffs, which was a necessity from the point of view of modern organization for war but required keeping in careful check from other points of view, had produced forces which the Emperor was powerless to hold in. Even in Bismarck's time readers of his "Reflections and Recollections" will remember how he felt the embarrassment of his foreign policy caused by the growing and deflecting influences of Moltke, and even of his friend Roon. And there was no Bismarck to hold the Staffs in check for reasons of expediency in the years before 1914. The military mind when it is highly developed is dangerous. It sees only its own bit, but this it sees with great clearness, and in consequence becomes very powerful. There is only one way of holding it to its legitimate function, and that is by the supremacy of public opinion in a Parliament as its final exponent. Parliaments may be clumsy and at times ignorant. But they do express, it may be vaguely, but yet sufficiently, the sense of the people at large. Now, notwithstanding all that had been done to educate them up to it, I do not think that the people at large in Germany had ever endorsed the implications of the policy of German militarism. The Social Democrats certainly had not. They ought, I think, to be judged even now by what they said before the war, and not by what some, tho not all of them, said when it was pressed on them in 1914 that Germany had to fight for her life. Had she possessed a true Parliamentary system for a generation before the war there would probably have been no war. What has happened to her is a vindication of Democracy as the best political system despite certain drawbacks which attach to it.
The great defect of the German Imperial system was that, unless the Emperor was strong enough to impose his will on his advisers, he was largely at their mercy. Had they been chosen by the people, the people and not the Emperor would have borne the responsibility, if the views of these advisers diverged from their own. But they were chosen by the Emperor, and chosen in varying moods as to policy. The result was that, excellent as were the departments at their special work in most cases, on general policy there was no guarantee for unity of mind. The Emperor lived amid a sea of conflicting opinions. The Chancellor might have one idea, the Foreign Secretary, a Prussian and not Imperial Minister, a different one, the Chief of the General Staff a third, the War Minister a fourth, and the Head of the Admiralty a fifth. Thus the Kaiser was constantly being pulled at from different sides, and whichever Minister had the most powerful combination at his back generally got the best of the argument. Were the Kaiser in an impulsive mood he might side now with one and again with another, and the result would necessarily be confusion. Moreover, he had constantly to fix one eye on public opinion in Germany, and another on public opinion abroad. It is therefore not surprising that Germany seemed to foreigners a strange and unintelligible country, and that sudden manifestations of policy were made which shocked us here, accustomed as we were to something quite different. Neither our pacifists nor our chauvinists really succeeded in diagnosing Germany. On the other hand, we ourselves were a standing puzzle to the Germans. They could not understand how Government could be conducted in the absence of abstract principles exactly laid down. And because our democratic system was one of choosing our rulers and trusting them with a large discretion within limits, the Germans always suspected that this system, with which they were unfamiliar, covered a device for concealing hidden policies. I wrote in some detail about this in an address delivered at Oxford in the autumn of 1911, and afterward published in a little volume called "Universities and National Life."
The war has not altered the views to which I had then come.
But it was not really so on either side, and it is deplorable that the two nations knew so little of each other. For I believe that the German system, wholly unadapted as it was to the modern spirit, was bound to become modified before long, and had we shown more skill and more zeal in explaining ourselves, we should probably have accelerated the process of German acceptance of the true tendencies of the age. But our statesmen took little trouble to get first-hand knowledge of the genesis of what appeared to them to be the German double dose of original sin, and, on the other hand, our chauvinists were studied in Germany out of all proportion to their small number and influence. Thus the Berlin politicians got the wrong notions to which their tradition predisposed them. I believe that Herr von Bethmann Hollweg was himself really more enlightened, but he could not control the admirals and generals, or the economists or historians or professors whom the admirals and generals were always trying to enlist on the side of the doctrine of Weltmacht oder Niedergang. Under these circumstances all that seemed possible was to try to influence German opinion, and at the same time to insure against the real risk of failure to accomplish this before it was too late.
In order to make this view of German conditions intelligible, it will be convenient in the first place to give some account of Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's opinions as expressed in his book, and afterward to contrast them with the views of his powerful colleague, Admiral von Tirpitz.
The ex-Imperial Chancellor commences his "Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege" by going back to the day when he assumed office. When Prince BÜlow handed over the reins to him in July, 1909, the Prince gave him his views on what, in the attitude of England, had been causing the former much concern. We are not told what he actually said, but we can guess it, for Bethmann Hollweg goes on to indicate the origin of the cause of anxiety. It was King Edward's "encirclement" policy. It might well be that the late King had no desire for war. But the result of the policy for which he and the Ministers behind him stood was, so he believes, that, in all differences of opinion as to external policy, Germany found England, France, and Russia solidly against her, and was conscious of a continuous attempt to lead Italy away from the Triple Alliance. "People may call this 'Einkreisung,' or policy of the balance of power, or whatever they like. The object and the achievement resulted in the founding of a group of nations of great power, whose purpose was to hinder Germany at least by diplomatic means in the free development of her growing strength." Sir Edward Grey, when taking over the conduct of foreign policy in 1905, had declared that he would continue the policy of the late Government. He hoped for improved relations with Russia, and even for more satisfactory relations with Germany, provided always that in the latter case these did not interfere with the friendship between England and France. This, says Bethmann Hollweg, had been the theme of English policy since the end of the days of "splendid isolation," and it remained so until the war broke out. He says nothing of the rapid advances which were proceeding from stage to stage in the organization of German battle-fleets to be added to her formidable army, or of the risk these advances made for England if she were to find herself without any friends outside.
As regards Russia, Isvolsky, who had never forgiven the Austrian Foreign Minister, Count d'Aerenthal, for his diplomatic victory in getting the annexation to Austria of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, was very hostile to Austria, and consequently to her Ally. In the case of France, again, it was indeed true that M. Jules Cambon had repeatedly emphasized to the ex-Chancellor the desire for more intimate relations between France and Germany. But the French had never forgiven the driving of DelcassÉ out of office, and the result of the Algeciras conference had not healed the wound. Besides this, there was the undying question of Alsace-Lorraine.
The outcome of the precarious situation, says the ex-Chancellor, was that England, following her traditional policy of balancing the Powers of Europe, was taking a firm position on the side of France and Russia, while Germany was increasing her naval power and giving a very definite direction to her policy in the East. The commercial rivalry between England and Germany was being rendered acute politically by the growth of the German fleet. In this state of things Bethmann Hollweg formed the opinion that there was only one thing that could be done, to aim at withdrawing from the Dual Alliance the backing of England for its anti-German policy. The Emperor entirely agreed with him, and it was resolved to attempt to attain this purpose by coming to an understanding with England.
Reading between the lines, it is pretty obvious that the ex-Chancellor was at times embarrassed by the public utterances of his imperial Master. Him he defends throughout the book with conspicuous loyalty, and is emphatic about his desire to keep the peace, a desire founded in religious conviction. But the Emperor's way was to see only one thing at the moment. I translate[5] a passage from his Chancellor's book:
"If from time to time he indulged in passionate expressions about the strong position in the world of Germany, his desire was that the nation, whose development beyond all expectation was filling him with conscious pride, should be spurred on to a fresh heightening of its energies. He sought to give it a continuous impulse with the energy of his enthusiastic nature. He wished his people to be strong and powerful in capacity to arm for their defense, but the German mission, which was for him a consuming faith, was yet to be a mission of work and of peace. That this work and this peace should not be destroyed by the dangers that surrounded us, was his increasing anxiety. Again and again has the Kaiser told me that his journey to Tangier in 1904, as to which he was quite unaware that it would lead to dangerous complications, was undertaken much against his own will, and only under pressure from his political advisers. Moreover, his personal influence was strongly exerted for a settlement of the Morocco crisis of 1905. And the same sense of the need of peace gave rise to his attitude during the Boer War and also during the Russo-Japanese War. To a ruler who really wanted war, opportunities for military intervention in the affairs of the world were truly not lacking.
"Critics in Germany had in that period frequently pressed the point that a too frequent insistence in public on our readiness for peace was less likely to further it than, on the contrary, to strengthen the Entente in its policy of altering the status quo. In a period of Imperialism in which the talk about material power was loud, and in which the preservation of the peace of the world was considered only accidentally, like the ten years before the war, considerations such as these are undoubtedly full of significance, and perhaps the same sort of thing explains a good deal of strong language on the part of the Kaiser about Germany's capacity in case of war. It is certain that such utterances did not lessen the feeling of nervousness that filled the international atmosphere. But the true ground of such nervousness was the policy of the balance of power, which had split Europe into two armed camps full of distrust of each other. The Ambassadors of the Great Powers knew the Kaiser intimately enough to realize what his intentions, in spite of everything, were, and it required an untruthfulness only explicable by the psychological effect of war to permit the suggestion of a hateful and distorted picture of him as a tyrant seeking for the domination of the world and for war and bloodshed."
I have translated this passage from the book because I think it is instructive in its disclosure of uneasy self-consciousness on the part of the author. Obviously, the Emperor made his quiet-loving Minister at times uncomfortable. I do not doubt that the Emperor really desired peace, just as Herr von Bethmann Hollweg tells us. Yet he not only indulged himself in warlike talk, but was surrounded by a group of military and naval advisers who were preaching openly that war was inevitable, and were instructing many of the prominent intellectual leaders in their doctrine. The Emperor may well have been in a difficult situation. But he was playing with fire when he made such speeches to the world as he frequently did. I believe him to have most genuinely desired to keep the peace. But I doubt whether he was willing to pay the price for entry on the only path along which it could have been made secure. He was a man of many sides, with a genius for speaking winged words as part of his equipment. He was a dangerous leader for Germany under conditions which had already caused even a Bismarck concern. The result was that the world took him to be the ally, not of Bethmann Hollweg, but of Tirpitz, and what that meant we shall see when we come to the latter's book. I can not say that I think the judgment of the world was other than, to put the matter at its lowest, the natural and probable result of his language, and I find nothing in the ex-Chancellor's volume to lead me to a different conclusion.
The argument of that volume is that England should never have entered the Entente, for that by doing so she strengthened France and Russia so as to enable them to indulge the will for war. He assumes that there was this will as beyond doubt. But suppose England had not entered the Entente, what then? On Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's own showing France and Russia would have remained too weak to entertain the hope of success in a conflict with the Triple Alliance. Germany could, under these circumstances, have herself compelled these Powers to an entente or even an alliance. England would have been in such a case left in isolation in days in which isolation had ceased to be "splendid." For great as was her navy, it could not have been relied upon as sufficient to protect her adequately against the combined navies of Germany, France, Russia, and Austria, with that of Italy possibly added. It was the apprehension occasioned by Germany's warlike policy that made it an unavoidable act of prudence to enter into the Entente. It was our only means of making our sea power secure and able to protect us against threats of invasions by great Continental armies. The Emperor and his Chancellor should therefore have thought of some other way of securing the peace than that of trying to detach us from the Entente.
The alternative was obvious. Germany should have offered to cease to pile up armaments, if our desire for friendly relations all round could be so extended as to bring all the Powers belonging to both groups into them, along with England. But the German policy of relying on superior strength in armaments as the true guarantee of peace did not admit of this. I am no admirer of the principle of the balance of power. I should like to say good-bye to it. I prefer the principle of a League of Nations, if that be practicable, or, at the very least, of an Entente comprising all the Powers. But if neither of these alternatives be possible there remains, for the people who desire to be secure, only the method of the balance of power. Now Germany drove us to this by her indisposition to change her traditional policy and to be content to rely on the settlement of specific differences for the good feeling that always tends to result. She had, it is true, the misfortune for so strong a nation to have been born a hundred years too late. She had got less in Africa than she might have had. We were ready to help her to a place in the sun there and elsewhere in the world, and to give up something for this end, if only we could secure peace and contentment on her part. But she would not have it so, and she chose to follow the principle of relying on the "Mailed Fist." Of this policy, when pursued recklessly, Bismarck well understood the danger. "Prestige politics," as he called them, he hated. In February, 1888, he laid down in a well-known speech what he held to be the true principle. "Every Great Power which seeks to exert pressure on the politics of other countries, and to direct affairs outside the sphere of interest which God has assigned to it, carries on politics of power, and not of interest; it works for prestige." But that principle was not consistently followed by William the Second. Into the detailed story of his departure from it I have not space to enter. But those who wish to follow this will do well to read the narrative contained in an admirable and open-minded book by Mr. Harbutt Dawson, "The German Empire from 1867 to 1914," in the second volume of which the story is told in detail.
Instead of trying to alter the traditional attitude of Germany to her neighbors, Herr von Bethmann Hollweg let it continue. That he did not want it to continue I am pretty sure. At page 130 of his book he appeals to me, personally, to recall the words he used in a conversation we had one evening in February, 1912, words in which he sought to show me that "a proper understanding between our two nations would guarantee the peace of the world, and would lead the Powers by degrees from the phantom of armed Imperialism to the opposite pole of peaceful work together in the world." I remember his words, and with them I would remind him that I wholly agreed. I had myself used similar language in anticipation, and had begged him not to insist on our accepting an obligation of absolute neutrality under all conditions which might prove inconsistent with our duty of loyalty to France, now a friendly neighbor, a duty which rested on no military obligation, but on kindly feeling and regard. It was such friendship and mutual regard that I was striving, with the assent of the British Cabinet, to bring about with Germany also, and by the same means through which it had been accomplished in the case of France. Not by any secret military convention, for we had entered into no communications which bound us to do more than study conceivable possibilities in a fashion which the German General Staff would look on as mere matter of routine for a country the shores of which lay so near to those of France, but by removing all material causes of friction. And when Herr von Bethmann Hollweg adds of my reply that "even he preferred the power of English Dreadnoughts and the friendship of France," I must remind him of the words sanctioned beforehand when submitted by me to Sir Edward Grey, with which I began our conversation. I reproduce them from the record I made immediately after the conversation to which I have already referred in the preceding chapter, on which I again draw for further minor details. And I wish to say, in passing, that both Herr von Bethmann Hollweg and Admiral von Tirpitz have given in their books accounts of what passed in my conversations with them which tally substantially, so far as the words used are concerned, with my own notes and recollections. It is mainly as to the inferences they now draw from my then attitude that I have any controversy with them, and, in the case of Admiral von Tirpitz, to some slight inaccuracies which have arisen from misconstruction.The ex-Imperial Chancellor asked the question whether I was to talk to him officially, the difficulty being that he could not divest himself of his official position, and that it would be awkward to speak with me in a purely private capacity. I said I had come officially, so far as the approval of the King and the Cabinet was concerned, but merely to talk over the ground, and not to commit either himself or my own Government at this stage to definite propositions. At the first interview, which took place in the British Embassy, on Thursday, February 8, 1912, and lasted for more than an hour and a half, I began by giving him a message of good wishes for the Conversations and for the future of Anglo-German relations, with which the King had entrusted me at the audience I had before leaving London. I proceeded to ask whether he wished to make the first observations himself, or desired that I should begin. He wished me to begin, and I went on at once to speak to him in the sense arranged in the discussions I had with Sir Edward Grey before leaving London.
I told him that I felt there had been a great deal of drifting away between Germany and England, and that it was important to ask what was the cause. To ascertain this, events of recent history had to be taken into account. Germany had built up, and was building up, magnificent armaments, and, with the aid of the Triple Alliance, she had become the center of a tremendous group. The natural consequence was that other Powers had tended to approximate. I was not questioning for a moment Germany's right to her policy, but this was the natural and inevitable consequence in the interests of security. We used to have much the same situation with France, when she was very powerful on the seas, that we had with Germany now. While the fact to which I had referred created a difficulty, the difficulty was not insuperable; for two groups of Powers might be on very friendly relations if there was only an increasing sense of mutual understanding and confidence. The present seemed to me to be a favorable moment for a new departure. The Morocco question was now out of the way, and we had no agreements with France or Russia except those that were in writing and published to the world.
The Chancellor here interrupted me, and asked me whether this was really so. I said it was so, and that, in the situation which now existed, I saw no reason why it should not be possible for us to enter into a new and cordial friendship carrying the two old ones into it, perhaps to the profit of Russia and France, as well as of Germany herself. He replied that he had no reason to differ from this view.
He and I both referred to the war scare of the autumn of 1911, and he observed that we had made military preparations. I was aware that the German Military AttachÉ in London had reported at that time to Berlin that we had so reorganized our army as to be in a position, if we desired to do so, to send six of our new infantry divisions and at least one cavalry division swiftly to France. The Chancellor obviously had this in his mind, and I told him that the preparations made were only those required to bring the capacity of our small British Army, in point of mobilization for eventualities which must be clear to him, to something approaching the standard of that celerity in its operations which Moltke had long ago accomplished for Germany and which was with her now a matter of routine. For this purpose we had studied our deficiencies and modes of operation. This, however, concerned our own direct interests, and was a purely departmental matter concerning the War Office, and the Minister who had the most to do with it was the one who was now talking to him and who was not wanting in friendly feeling toward Germany. We could not run the risk of being caught unprepared.As both Herr von Bethmann Hollweg and Admiral von Tirpitz have devoted a good deal of attention to these and other conversations in their books, I have felt at liberty here and in the last chapter to state what, I am bound to observe, had better not, as it seems to me personally, have been held back for so long—the exact nature of that which actually passed when I was sent to Berlin in February, 1912. Accordingly, it is only necessary that I should add here a few words more about what indeed appears in most of its detail from the versions given by the two German Ministers concerned themselves.
I refused, not only because I had been instructed to do so, but because in my own opinion it was vital that I should refuse, to negotiate excepting on the basis of absolute loyalty to the Entente with France and Russia. The German Government asked for a covenant of absolute neutrality. This I could not look at. I had the same feeling about such an agreement for unconditional neutrality as Caprivi had when he was asked to renew the Reinsurance Treaty which Bismarck made with Russia at Skiernevice in 1884, and under which, notwithstanding that Germany might come to owe a duty to Austria to support her as her military Ally, he bound Germany to observe neutrality in case Russia were attacked by her. So far as appeared this Reinsurance Treaty probably had suggested the wording of the analogous formula which the Chancellor was proposing to myself. But altho we were not under the obligation to France which Germany was under to Austria in 1884, I felt, to use the words of Caprivi himself, when he succeeded Bismarck, and was asked to renew the engagement with Russia, that the arrangement was "too complicated" for my comprehension. It would have been not only wrong to expose a friendly France to the risk of being dismembered by an unjustifiable invasion, while her friend England merely stood looking on, but it would also have been prejudicial to our safety. For to have allowed Germany to take possession of the northern ports of France would have been to imperil our island security. The Chancellor was entitled to make the request he did, but I was bound to refuse it. I also, at the same time, told him that if Germany went on increasing her Navy, any agreement with us meant to lead to better relations would be little more than "bones without flesh." Germany might, indeed, as he had said, need a third training squadron, in addition to the two she had already in the North Sea. This we could easily meet by moving more of our ships to northern waters, without having to increase the number we were building independently. But if she had the idea of adding to her fleet on a considerable scale we should be bound to lay down two keels to every one of her new ships, and the inevitable result would be, no proportionate increase in her strength relatively to ours, but of a certainty a good deal of bad feeling.
I may observe that at the date of this conversation the new German Fleet Bill had not been made public, and we knew nothing of its contents in London, excepting that a third squadron for training was to be added to the two which were already there. For this purpose it had been said that a few ships and a moderate increase in personnel would be all that was required. Before I left Berlin the Emperor, as I mentioned in the preceding chapter, handed to me, with friendly frankness and with permission to show it to my colleagues, an advance copy of the new Bill. It looked to me as if, when scrutinized, its proposals might prove more formidable than we had anticipated. But I asked his permission to abstain from trying to form any judgment on this question without the aid of the British Admiralty, and I put it in my pocket and handed it to the First Lord of the Admiralty at a Cabinet held on Monday, February 12, in the afternoon of the day on which I returned to London. I was not very sure as to what might prove to be contained in this Bill, and my misgivings were confirmed by our Admiralty experts, who found in it a program of destroyers, submarines, and personnel far in excess of anything indicated in the only rumors that had reached us. After we had to abandon the idea of getting Germany to accept the carefully guarded formula of neutrality which was all that we could entertain, the Cabinet sanctioned without delay the additions to our navy which were required to counter these increases. Our policy was to avoid conflagration by every effort possible, and at the same time to insure the house in case of failure.
I felt throughout these conversations that the Chancellor was sincerely desirous of meeting me in the effort to establish good relations between the two countries. But he was hampered by the difficulty of changing the existing policy of building up armaments which was imposed on him. In only one way could he manage this, and that was by getting me to agree to a formula of absolute neutrality under all circumstances. The other, the better, and the only way that was admissible for us, the way in which we had surmounted all difficulties with France and Russia, he was not free to enter on, tho I believe that he really wished to. Hence the attempt at a complete agreement failed. But, as he says himself, much good came of these initial conversations, and still more of the subsequent conversations which followed on them in London between Sir Edward Grey and the German Ambassador. Candor became the order of the day, minor difficulties were smoothed over, and a treaty for territorial rearrangements, of the general character discussed in Berlin, was finally agreed on, and was likely to have been signed had the war not intervened.
As to the rest of the narrative in the ex-Chancellor's book, this is not the place to deal with it. His view that Germany was doing her best to moderate the rash action in Vienna which resulted in the declaration of war on Serbia, while England was doing much less to restrain the course of events at St. Petersburg, is not one which it is easy to bring into harmony with the documents published. This is a part of the history of events before the war which has already been exhaustively dealt with by others, and it is no part of the purpose of these pages to write of matters about which I have no first-hand knowledge. For I had little opportunity of taking any direct part in our affairs with Germany after my final visit to that country, which was in 1912. My duties as Lord Chancellor were too engrossing.
There are, however, in this connection just two topics toward the end of the book which are of such interest that I will refer to them before passing away from it. The first is the story that there was a Crown Council at Potsdam on July 5, 1914, at which the Emperor determined on war. This Herr von Bethmann Hollweg denies. He explains that in the morning of that day the Austrian Ambassador lunched with the Emperor, presumably at Potsdam, and took the opportunity of handing to him a letter written by the Emperor of Austria personally, together with a memorandum on policy drawn up in Vienna. This memorandum contained a detailed plan for opposing Russian enterprise in the Balkan peninsula by energetic diplomatic pressure. Against a hostile Serbia and an unreliable Roumania resort was to be had to Bulgaria and Turkey, with a view to the establishment of a Balkan League, excluding Serbia, to be formed under the Ægis of the Central Powers. The Serajevo murder was declared to have demonstrated the aggressive and irreconcilable character of Serbian policy. The Austrian Emperor's letter endorsed the views contained in the memorandum, and added that, if the agitation in Belgrade continued, the pacific views of the Powers were in danger. The German Emperor said that he must consult his Chancellor before answering, and sent for Bethmann Hollweg and the Under-Secretary, Zimmermann. He saw them in the afternoon in the park of the Neues Palais at Potsdam. The Chancellor thinks that no one else was present. It was agreed that the situation was very serious. The ex-Chancellor says that he had already learned the tenor of these Austrian documents, altho he did not see the text of the subsequent ultimatum to Serbia until July 22. It was determined that it was no part of the duty of Germany to give advice to her Ally as to how she should deal with the Serajevo murder. But every effort was to be made to prevent the controversy between Austria and Serbia from developing into an international conflict. It was useful to try to bring in Bulgaria, but Roumania had better be left out of account. These conclusions were in accordance with the Chancellor's own opinion, and when he returned to Berlin he communicated them to the Austrian Ambassador. Germany would do what she could to make Roumania friendly, and Austria was told that in any case she might rely on her Ally, Germany, to stand firmly by her side.The next day the Emperor set off in his yacht for the northern seas. The Chancellor says he advised him to do this because the expedition was one which the Emperor had been in the habit of making every year at that season, and it would cause talk if this usual journey were to be abandoned.
The other point relates to the date on which the German Chancellor saw the text of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. He tells us that it was brought to him for the first time on the evening of July 22 by Herr von Jagow, the Foreign Secretary, who had just received it from the Austrian Ambassador. The Chancellor says that von Jagow thought the ultimatum too strongly worded, and wished for some delay. But when he told the Ambassador this the answer was that the document had already been dispatched, and it was published in the Vienna Telegraph the next morning.
The conclusion of the Chancellor is that the stories of the Crown Council at Potsdam on July 5, and of the co-operation of the German Government in preparing the ultimatum, are mere legends. The question of substance as regards the first may be left for interpretation by posterity. As to the controversy about the second, it would be interesting to know whether Herr von Tschirsky, the German Ambassador at Vienna, knew of the ultimatum before it assumed the form in which it reached Berlin on July 22. I shall have more to say about these incidents later on when I come to Admiral von Tirpitz's account of them.
My criticism of Herr von Bethmann Hollweg is in no case founded on any doubt at all as to his veracity. I formed, in the course of my dealings with him, a high opinion of his integrity. But in his reasoning he is apt to let circumstances escape his notice which are in a large degree material for forming a judgment. This does not seem to me to arise from any deliberate intention to be otherwise than candid. I am sure that he believes that he is telling the full truth at all times. But he became a convinced partizan, quite intelligibly. This fact, however creditable to his patriotism, seems to me not only to explain why he thought it right to continue in office and stand by his country as long as he could through the war, but also to detract somewhat from the weight that would otherwise attach to the opinions of an honorable and well-meaning man.
I pass to the examination of the concurrent policy against which he could not prevail, and the existence of which takes the edge off his reasoning. That policy is expounded fully and clearly by Admiral von Tirpitz, a German of the traditional Military School, a man of great ability, and one who rarely if ever allowed himself to be deflected from pursuing a concentrated purpose to the utmost of his power.
Of the general character of this purpose his colleague, Bethmann Hollweg, was conscious, as appears from passages in the book just discussed, of which I have selected one for translation.
"The fleet was the favorite child of Germany, for in it the onward-pressing energies of the nation seemed to be most vividly illustrated. The application of the most modern technical skill, and the organization that had been worked out with so much care, were admired, and rightly so. To the doubts of those versed in affairs whether we were pursuing our true path by building great battleships, there was opposed a fanatical public opinion which was not disciplined in the interest of those responsible for the direction of affairs. Reflections about the difficult international troubles to which our naval policy was giving rise were held in check by a robust agitation. In the navy itself the consciousness was by no means everywhere present that the navy must be only an instrument of policy and not its determining factor. The conduct of naval policy had for many years rested in the hands of a man who claimed to exercise political authority over his department, and who influenced unbrokenly the political opinion of wider circles. Where differences arose between the Admiralty and the civilian leadership, public opinion was almost without exception on the side of the Admiralty. Any attempt to take into consideration relative proportions in the strength of other nations was treated as being the outcome of a weak-minded apprehension of the foreigner."
When I was in Berlin in 1912, the last year in which, as I have already said, I visited Germany, there were those who thought that Bethmann Hollweg would shortly be superseded as Chancellor by his powerful rival, Admiral von Tirpitz. But in these days the peace party in that country was pretty strong, and the then Chancellor was regarded as a cautious and safe man. It was later on, in 1913, when the new Military Law, with £50,000,000 of fresh expenditure, was passed, that the situation became much more doubtful. But the hesitation that existed in Government circles in Berlin earlier was never shared by the author of the "Erinnerungen," to which I now pass. One has only to look at the portrait at the beginning of that volume to see what sort of a man the author is. A strong man certainly, a descendant of the class which clustered round the great Moltke, and gave much anxiety at times to Bismarck himself.
ADMIRAL ALFRED P. VON TIRPITZ
LORD HIGH ADMIRAL OF THE GERMAN IMPERIAL NAVY FROM 1911 TO 1916. ToList
The Admiral possesses a "General Staff" mind of a high order. A mind of this type has never been given a chance of systematic development in the English Navy, where the distinction between strategy and tactics, on the one hand, and administration on the other, has never been so sharply laid down as it has been, following the great Moltke, in Germany. Even Moltke himself was not satisfied with what had been accomplished in Germany in this direction by the Army. He is said to have complained that the General Staff building, which was put in the Thiergarten, while the War Office was in Berlin itself, near the corner of the Wilhelmstrasse, was only one mile distant from the War Office, when it should have been two. For he held that the exactness of demarcation of function, which was only to be attained if strategy and tactics were studied continuously by a specially chosen body of experts, could not be made complete if the War Office could get too easily at the General Staff. But what he accomplished at least gave rise to a school of exact military thought far in advance of any that had preceded it. The fruits of this were reaped in the war with Austria in 1866, and still more in that with France in 1870. And when the navy was first organized this principle was introduced into its organization, first by Stosch and then by Caprivi. Both of these had been trained in the great Moltke's ideas, and it was because of this that, altho soldiers, they were chosen to model the organization of the German Navy. It is true that we have beaten the German Navy. That was because, as Tirpitz himself admits, we possessed, not only superior numbers, but a tradition of long standing and a spirit in our fleet which Germany had not built up. But we shall do well not to overlook what he has to say about the procedure of basing strategy and tactics on exact knowledge, and careful study, especially when such ideas as that of landing small expeditionary forces on enemy territory by means of a naval expedition, are being considered, nor what he says of his efforts to make this procedure real. Numbers are not always sufficient. They are not likely to be large for a long time to come, and the study of all possibilities and of modern conditions is therefore more important than ever. The British Army knows this. It is not so clear that the British Navy is equally informed about the necessity of bearing the principle in mind.
Tirpitz never served in the army, but he was brought up under the influence of these great soldiers. His first experience was indeed mainly in technical matters of construction. But he never let go the true principle of an Admiral or War Staff, and the result was that he considered, and not wholly without reason, that he was leading the German Navy on lines which were in the end likely to make it, when fully developed, a more powerful instrument than the British Navy. Instead of studying merely the lessons of the past, as we here seek them in, for instance, the history of the Seven Years' War of more than a century and a half ago, or in the operations of Nelson carried out a hundred years since, he insisted that the German Navy should study systematically modern problems, and in particular combined naval and military operations. In England we had no War Staff for the Navy until 1911, and our Senior Admirals disliked the idea. Consequently such staff study of military problems has never been properly developed, the wishes of our junior naval officers notwithstanding. In Germany the idea was regarded as a vital one throughout by Tirpitz.
The first chapter of Tirpitz's book describes the beginnings of the German Navy. The second deals with the Stosch period. The third is devoted to the administration of Caprivi during the time when he was head of the Admiralty, and extends to the period when he became Chancellor. The fourth is devoted to construction. The fifth describes the disastrous breaking up of the Naval Administration into Boards, to which the author says the Emperor William II. allowed himself to be persuaded. The sixth chapter is directed to tactical developments, a subject in which Admiral Tirpitz himself did much. The seventh deals with naval plans. The eighth contains a very interesting description of how he was sent to find a naval base in Chinese waters, and how he selected and developed, with German thoroughness, Tsingtau (Kiaochow). The ninth chapter begins the story of the difficulties he experienced when refused sufficient money and freedom while he was Minister of Marine. The tenth gives a vividly written account of his visits to Bismarck. The next five chapters are devoted to the development of the German Navy and its relation to foreign policy. The sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth chapters are concerned with the author's views of the reasons for the outbreak of the war of 1914, and its history. The nineteenth is a chapter devoted to the submarine war, and to a farewell apostrophe to a Germany lost by bad leading and vagueness in objectives. There is also a supplement, containing letters written by him from time to time during the war, and his observations on what ought to have been the consistent policy of Germany in construction of battleships and submarines.
The great thesis of the book is that the only way to preserve the peace was to make Europe fear German strength, and that this imported such battle-fleets as would attract allies to Germany for protection, and would thus in the end weaken the Entente. England was the real enemy, and England could not be dislodged from her powerful position in the world so long as she was allowed to continue in command of the ocean. For Bethmann Hollweg's alternative policy of a peaceful rapprochement with England he has no words but those of contempt. He, too, he says, had ideas as to how to keep the peace, but they were diametrically different from those of his colleague the Chancellor. On him he pours scorn for his attempts at departure from the policy of Frederick the Great and Bismarck.
Tirpitz had been deeply impressed by the writings of Admiral Mahan. He himself drew from them the lesson that in ultimate analysis world-power for Germany depended on the sea-power which she had not got, and he set himself to build it up. He endeavored to educate on this subject, not only the Reichstag, where he says he had much opposition, but the public. Under Prince BÜlow this was less difficult than he subsequently found it. His account of how the Minister of Education and the University professors helped him, and of how he contrived to enlist the Press, is as interesting as it is significant. But his great difficulty was obviously with William the Second. The Emperor had done much for fleet construction, and was so interested in it that he meddled at every turn in technical and strategical matters alike. The Ministry of Marine was not allowed to carry out the Admiral's own plans and conceptions. And when Bethmann came on the scene the situation became, according to the former, even worse. He moans over the apparent limitlessness of the money and authority with which the English Admiralty was provided by Parliament and the nation. At last he carried with his colleagues and in the Reichstag the policy of Fleet Laws, under which the Reichstag passed measures which took construction, in part at least, from off the annual navy vote, and he got through the succession of Acts that laid down programs extending over several years. Richter and other distinguished public men fought Tirpitz over these, but, in part at least, he got his way, and secured the nearest approach to continuity that his ever-supervising Sovereign would permit to him.
What Tirpitz says he asked for above everything was a definite policy for war, and this he could not get the leave of Bethmann to lay down, nor could he get the volatile Emperor to stick to definite conceptions of it. For coast defense he had a supreme contempt. The great German Army would take care of this, so far as invasion was concerned, and an adequate battle-fleet would do the rest. It is noticeable that apparently he never even dreamed of trying to invade England with her fleet protection. It was in quite another way that he intended, if necessary, to harass this country. He wanted to threaten our commerce and to be able to break any blockade of Germany. German sea-power was to be made strong enough to attract allies by its ability to rally all free nations without any curatorship by the Anglo-Saxons.
This is what he says his war objectives were. He bitterly complains of the opposition to them and to himself which he met with from such papers as the Frankfurter Zeitung, and from the influence of certain of his colleagues. Constitutionalism he appears to have hated. The democracy of Germany was not suited to such leading as Lloyd George, during the war, gave to England, and Clemenceau to France. In Germany, he declares, a strong hand is always required, and a revolution is inevitable in case the hand is weak, and defeat follows. For Germany needed "the Prussian-German State." The tradition of Frederick the Great and Bismarck was its protecting spirit.
Can we wonder, if the narrative of this capable man is accurate, that Bethmann struggled for his rival policy of conciliation in the face of almost insuperable difficulties? Tirpitz had a strong party at his back, both in Prussia and elsewhere. What made it strong was largely that its members shared his view of England and of the situation. "They looked to us," he says, "it was the last chance of international freedom." I thought in 1912 that Bethmann might in the end win, for in the main at that time the Emperor was with him, and so were Ballin and many others of great influence. The Social Democrats, too, were gaining influence rapidly. But the presence of a powerful school of thought at the back of Tirpitz, a school which, had it succeeded, would have secured the place it desired by reducing to a precarious state the life of my own country, made me feel that, while we must do all we could to extend our friendships so as to convert and bring in Germany, the chances of success did not preponderate sufficiently to justify relaxation of either vigilance in preparation or resolution in policy. My feeling remained what I had tried to express in the address delivered at Oxford in August of 1911. "I wish," I said then, "all our politicians who concern themselves with Anglo-German relations, those who are pro-German as well as those who are not, could go to Berlin and learn something, not only of the language and intellectual history of Prussia, but of the standpoint of her people—and of the disadvantages as well as the advantages of an excessive lucidity of conception. Nowhere else in Germany that I know of is this to be studied so advantageously and so easily as in Berlin, the seat of Government, the headquarters of Real-politik, and it seems to me most apparent among the highly educated classes there."
Bismarck does not appear to have known much while in office about Tirpitz, and when the latter desired later on to enlist his outside support he did not find it at first easy. But, having with some difficulty got the assent of the Emperor to a new ship being named after Bismarck, he in the end got from the latter permission to visit him at Friedrichsruh in 1897. There Tirpitz arrived at noon. The family were at luncheon. He tells us how the Prince sat at the head of the table, and how he rose, cool but polite, and remained standing till Tirpitz was seated. The Prince assumed the air of one suffering from sharp neuralgic pain, and he kept pressing the side of his head with a small indiarubber hot-water bottle. It was only with an appearance of difficulty that he uttered, and his food was minced meat. However, when he had drunk a bottle and a half of German champagne (Sect) he became animated. After the dishes were removed, Countess Wilhelm Bismarck lit his great pipe for him, and with the other ladies quitted the room. The atmosphere was one of gloomy silence. But the great man suddenly broke it by raising his formidable eyebrows, and directing a grim look at Tirpitz, whom he appears next to have asked whether he himself was a tomcat that needed only to be stroked in order to procure sparks to be emitted. Tirpitz then timidly unfolded his plans and his policy of building big battleships. Bismarck was critical, and turned his criticism to other matters also. He denounced as disastrous the abrogation by Caprivi and William the Second of the treaty he (Bismarck) had made with Russia for Reinsurance. Bismarck declared that, in case of an Anglo-Russian war, our policy was contained in the simple words: neutrality as regards Russia. The modest Tirpitz ventured to suggest that only a fleet strong enough to be respected could make Germany worthy of an alliance in the eyes of Russia and other powers. Bismarck rejected this almost angrily. The English he thought little of. If they tried to invade Germany the Landwehr would knock them down with the butt-ends of their rifles. That a close blockade might knock Germany down never seemed to occur to him. However, in the end Tirpitz says that the Prince became mollified and expressed agreement with the view that an increased fleet was necessary.
Bismarck then invited the Admiral to go with him for a drive in the forest. Despite the neuralgia, this drive, which took place amid showers of rain, lasted for two hours. The carriage, moreover, was open. There were two bottles of beer, one on the right and the other on the left of the Prince, which they drank on the way, and he smoked his pipe continuously. "It was not easy to keep pace with his giant constitution."
For the details of the conversation, which was conducted in English so that the coachman might not understand it, I must refer the reader to the chapter in which it is described. The old warrior spoke with affection of the Emperor Frederick, but as regarded his son William, he appears to have let himself go. Tirpitz was to tell the latter that he, Bismarck, only wanted to be let alone, and die in peace. His task was ended. He had "no future and no hopes."
Tirpitz saw Bismarck twice subsequently. The last time was on the occasion of a surprize visit to him by the Emperor. This visit was not wholly a success. The conversation got on to unfortunate lines. Bismarck began to speak of politics, and the Emperor ignored what he said and did not reply. The younger Moltke, who was present, whispered to Tirpitz, "It is terrible," alluding to the Emperor's want of reverence. When the Emperor left, his Minister, von Lucanus, who was with him, held out his hand to the old Prince. But Lucanus had formerly intrigued against him. Consequently he "sat like a statue, not a muscle moved. He gazed into the air, and before him Lucanus made gestures in vain."
All this notwithstanding, Tirpitz seems to have made a good impression. For after these visits the Bismarck press began to speak favorably of him.
But I must not linger over side issues. The book is so full of interesting material that in writing about it one has to resolve not to be led away from the vital points by its digressions. One of these points is that to which I have already made reference in giving the Chancellor's views about it, the responsibility for what happened in July, 1914, and in particular for the decision taken on the 5th of that month at Potsdam.
It is interesting to compare Tirpitz's account of the meeting that took place then, on the invitation of the Emperor, with that of Bethmann, altho the former was not present, and bases his judgment only on what was reported to him as Minister. He gives an account of what happened which makes the meeting seem a more important one than the ex-Chancellor takes it to have been. The Admiral's view is that at this date what was urgently wanted was "prompt and frank" action. Austria should not have been allowed to rush upon Serbia, however just her causes for anger. On the other hand the German Emperor should have at once and directly appealed to the Czar to co-operate with him in endeavoring to secure such a response to reason and expression of contrition on the part of Serbia as would have eased off the situation, which was full of danger. For, with an unfriendly Entente interesting itself, no war which broke out was likely to be capable of being kept localized.Tirpitz was not in Berlin on July 5, but he received reports from there of what was happening. Neither he nor von Moltke, the Chief of the General Staff, was consulted, but Tirpitz declares that the Emperor saw at Potsdam the Minister of War, von Falkenhayn, and also the Minister of the Military Cabinet, von Lyncker. If so, whether or not the conference was technically a Crown Council, the meeting was a very important one.
Tirpitz confirms Bethmann in saying that, prompted by chivalrous feeling, the German Emperor responded to the Emperor of Austria by promising support and fidelity. He declares that the Emperor William did not consider the intervention of Russia to protect Serbia as probable, because he thought that the Czar would never support regicides, and that, besides, Russia was not prepared for war, either in a military or financial sense. Moreover, the Emperor somewhat optimistically presumed that France would hold Russia back on account of her own disadvantageous state of finance and her lack of heavy artillery. The Emperor did not refer to England; complications with that country were not thought of. The Emperor's view thus was that a further extension of dangerous complications was unlikely. His hope was that Serbia would give in, but he considered it desirable that Germany should be prepared in case of a different issue of the Austro-Serbian dispute. It was for that reason that he had on the 5th commanded the Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg; the Minister of War, von Falkenhayn; the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Zimmermann; and the Minister of the War Cabinet, von Lyncker, to Potsdam. It was then decided that all steps should be avoided which would attract political attention or involve much expense. After this decision the Emperor, on the advice of the Chancellor, started on his journey to the North Cape, for which arrangements had already been made. The duty of the Chancellor under the circumstances was to consider any promise to be given to Austria from the standpoint of German interests, and to keep watch on the method of its fulfilment. The Chancellor, says his critic, did not hesitate to accept the decision of the Emperor, apparently imagining that Austria's position as a Great Power was already shaken and would collapse unless she could insist on being compensated at the expense of the greedy Serbians. He probably had in his mind the success obtained in the earlier Balkan crisis over Bosnia and Herzegovina. He goes on to tell us that he was not informed as to what the Emperor was thinking of during his tour in northern waters, but that he had reason to believe that he did not anticipate serious danger to the peace of the world. And he observes, as a characteristic of the Emperor, that when he was not apprehensive of danger he would express himself without restraint about the traditions of his illustrious predecessors, but the moment matters began to look critical his became a hesitating mood. The Admiral thinks that if the Emperor had not left Berlin, and if the full Government machinery had been at work, means might have been found by the Emperor and the Ministry of averting the danger of war. As, however, the Chief of the General Staff, the Head of the Admiralty Staff, and Tirpitz himself were kept away from Berlin during the following weeks, the matter was handled solely by the Chancellor, who, being in truth not sufficiently experienced in great European affairs, was not able to estimate the reliability of those who were advising him in the Foreign Office.
Von Tirpitz goes on to say that by July 11 the Berlin Foreign Office had heard that the Entente had advised yielding at Belgrade. The Chancellor, he declares, could now have brought about a peaceful solution, but, convinced as he was that the Entente did not mean war, he drew the shortsighted conclusion that Austria, without considering the Entente, might force a march into Serbia and yet not endanger the world's peace. His optimism was disastrous. On July 13 he (the Chancellor) was, according to Tirpitz, informed of the essential points in the proposed Austrian ultimatum. Bethmann, as already stated, says that he did not see the ultimatum itself until the 22nd, when it had already been dispatched. But he does not say that he had been given no forecast of its contents from the German Ambassador at Vienna. Tirpitz quotes, but without giving its exact date, a memorandum sent to him at Tarasp apparently just after the 13th. It was forwarded from the Admiralty, and was in these terms: "Our Ambassador in Vienna, Herr von Tschirsky, has ascertained privately, as well as from Count Berchtold, that the ultimatum to be sent by Austria to Serbia will contain the following demands: I. A proclamation of King Peter to his people in which he will command them to abstain from greater Serbian agitation. II. Participation of a higher Austrian official in the investigation of the assassination. III. Dismissal and punishment of all officers and officials proved to be accomplices."
Tirpitz says that his first impression, when he received this document in Tarasp, was that Serbia could not possibly accept the terms of such an ultimatum. And he adds that he believed neither in the possibility of localizing the war nor in the neutrality of England. In his view the greatest care was required to reassure the Russian Government, especially as England would wish "to let war break out in order to establish the balance of power on the Continent as she understood it." But the Chancellor expressed the wish that he should not return to Berlin, for his doing so might give rise to remarks. If this be so, it seems to have been a very unfortunate step. The Emperor and his most important Ministers should all have been in Berlin at such a time. Bethmann's advice appears intelligible only if he thought, as is quite possible, that he could himself handle the negotiations best if the Emperor and Tirpitz were both out of the way. If so, he was not successful. He did not in the end respond to Sir Edward Grey's wish for a conference, and earlier he had failed to bridle the impulsive ally who was dashing wildly about. It looks as tho, however good his intentions may have been, he was taking terrible risks.
Now this was the crucial period. Grey was doing his very utmost to avert war, and was even pressing Serbia to accept the bulk of what was in the ultimatum. As to his real intentions, I may, without presumption, claim to be better informed than Admiral von Tirpitz. Sir Edward Grey and I had been intimate friends for over a quarter of a century before the period in which the Admiral, who, so far as I know, never saw him, diagnoses the state of his intentions. During the eight years previous to July, 1914, we had been closely associated and were working as colleagues in the Cabinets of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and Mr. Asquith. And in that July, throughout the weeks in question, Sir Edward was staying with me in my house in London, and considering with me the telegrams and incidents, great or small.
It is a pure myth that he had, at the back of his mind, any such intentions as the Admiral imagines. He was working with every fiber put in action for the keeping of the peace. He was pressing for that in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Berlin, in Vienna, and in Belgrade. He was not in the least influenced either by jealousy of Germany's growth or by fear of a naval engagement with her, as Tirpitz infers. All he wanted was to fulfil what, for him, was the sacred trust that had been committed to him, the duty of throwing the whole weight of England's influence on the side of peace. And that was not less the view of Mr. Asquith, whom I knew equally intimately, and it was the view of all my colleagues in the Cabinet.
Germany was going ahead with giant strides in commerce and industry, but we had not the slightest title to be jealous or to complain when she was only reaping the fruits of her own science and concentration on peaceful arts. I had said this myself emphatically to the Emperor at Berlin in 1906 in a conversation the record of which has already been given. There was no responsible person in this country who dreamt, either in 1914 or in the years before then, of interfering with Germany's Fleet development merely because it could protect her growing commerce. What responsible people did object to was the method of those who belonged to the Tirpitz school. The peace was to be preserved; I give that school full credit for this desire; but preserved on what terms? On the terms that the German was to be so strong by land and sea that he could swagger down the High Street of the world, making his will prevail at every turn.
But this was not the worst, so far as England was concerned. The school of von Tirpitz would not be content unless they could control England's sea power. They would have accepted a two-to-three keel standard because it would have been enough to enable them to secure allies and to break up the Entente. Now it was vital to us that Germany should not succeed in attaining this end. For if she did succeed in attaining it, not only our security from invasion, but our transport of food and raw materials, would be endangered. With a really friendly Germany or with a League of Nations the situation would have mattered much less. It was the policy of the school to which Tirpitz and the Emperor himself belonged which made the situation one of growing danger and the Entente a necessity, for these were days when other nations near us were beginning to organize great battle-fleets. If Bethmann Hollweg's policy had prevailed there would have been no necessity for any such Entente as was the only way of safety for us. But he could not carry his policy through, earnestly tho he desired to do so, and thus provide the true way to permanent peaceful relations. I think he believed that the only use Britain ever contemplated making of her Navy, should peace continue, was that of a policeman who co-operates with others in watching lest anyone should jostle his neighbor on the maritime highway. He believed in the Sittlichkeit, which we here mean when we speak of "good form." But that was not the faith of his critics in Berlin. They wanted to have Russia, and if possible France also, along with their navies, on the side of Germany. Peace, yes, but peace compelled by fear—a very unwholesome and unstable kind of peace, and deadly for the interests of an island nation. Hence the Entente!
What we had to do was to prevent, if we could, the Tirpitz school from getting its way, and we tried this not without some measure of success. Even to-day our pacifists now join with chauvinist critics of a policy which was pursued steadily for many years, and was that of Campbell-Bannerman as well as of Asquith. They reproach us for having entered on our path without having adequately increased our naval and military resources. The reproach is not a just one. It is founded on a complete misconception of the true military situation. It is only necessary to read carefully through Admiral von Tirpitz's very instructive volume to see that he took precisely the same view as we did, and as was held to unswervingly by our Committee of Imperial Defense. England's might lay in final analysis in her sea power. She needed also a small but very perfect army, capable of high rapidity in concentration by the side of the great French Army, in order to prevent the coasts of France close to our own from being occupied by an enemy invading French territory.
In his book the Admiral refers to a letter I wrote to The Times on December 16, 1918, pointing this out and the grounds on which the strategical conception was based. The Admiral expresses his agreement, and says that it was a fatal blunder of the German Highest Command not to use their submarine power at the very outbreak of the war to prevent our Expeditionary Force from crossing the Channel and co-operating in resisting the German advance towards Calais. From there Germany could have commanded the Channel and bombarded London.
So he says, and we were quite aware all along that he might well think so. The other thing that he makes plain by implication is that the direct invasion of England was never contemplated by Germany in the face of our command of the sea. I had long ago satisfied myself that this was the German view, by a study of their military textbooks and from conversations with high German officers. But, what was more important than what I personally thought, the Committee of Imperial Defense, on which I sat regularly during eight years, was clear about it, and this after close study, and after hearing what the most eminent exponents in this country of a different view had to urge before them.
Consequently our military policy was not doubtful. No doubt it would have been a nice thing could we have possessed in 1914 a great army fashioned and trained, not for firing rifles on the seashore, but for a struggle on French and Belgian soil. But such an army would have taken two generations at least to raise and train in peace time, and if we had laid out our money on it after 1870 instead of on ships, we should not have had the sea power which Tirpitz says gave us "bulldog" strength. In strategy and in military organization you can not successfully bestride two horses at once. He who would accomplish anything has to limit himself. Possibly it was because this was not clearly kept in view even in Germany that the volume before us is an exposition of a thesis which is novel in these islands, that it was not England that was unprepared, but Germany herself. For the confusion of objectives that led to this Tirpitz blames Bethmann's peace policy, the parsimony of the Reichstag, and the Emperor's failure to attain to clear notions about war aims.
He criticizes me for saying that there was in Germany before 1914 a war party alongside of a peace party. It was really only the Bethmann group, he declares, that believed in peace being built on anything else than preponderance in armed power. The tradition of the German nation and the view of all sensible statesmen in Germany, e.g., Prince BÜlow and the Emperor himself as a rule, was that the foundation of a lasting peace could only be laid with armaments. Now if this is so it is plain how the war came about. The "shining armor" oration in Austria, some years before war broke out, was simply one among many illustrations which so alarmed civilized nations that they huddled together for protection against this school of statesmen. Bethmann's was the true policy had he been allowed to carry it out. It is possible that he thought he had a better chance of carrying it out than could have been the case were they to be present, when he got the Emperor and Tirpitz to keep away from Berlin after the meeting at Potsdam on July 5. Unfortunately he underestimated the tendencies of Berchtold, Conrad von Hoetzendorf, Forgasch, and others in Vienna, who, with no misgivings such as those of Tirpitz as to the outcome, had determined on "losgehen." The proximate cause of the war was Austrian policy. A secondary cause was the absence of any effective attempt at control from Berlin. The third and principal cause was the Tirpitz theory of how to keep the peace, the theory that had come down from Frederick the Great and his father, and was barely a safe one in the hands of even a Bismarck.
The only circumstances that could have justified Germany in her tacit encouragement to Austria to take a highly dangerous step—a step which was almost certain to bring Russia, France, and England into sharp conflict with the Central Powers—would have been clear proof that the three Entente nations were preparing to seize a chance and to encircle and attack Germany or Austria or both.
Now for this there is no foundation whatever. Russia, whatever Isvolsky and other Russian statesmen may have said in moments of irritation over the affair of Bosnia and Herzegovina, did not want to plunge into war; France did not desire anything of the kind; and, as for England, nothing was more remote from her wishes. It was only in order to preserve the general peace that we had entered the Entente, and the method of the Entente policy, the getting rid of all specific causes of difference, was one which had nothing objectionable in it. We urged Germany also to enter upon this path with us. We offered to help her in her progress toward the attainment of a "place in the sun." The negotiations which took place with Sir Edward Grey in London after my return from Berlin in 1912 are evidence of our sincerity in this, for they culminated in agreement on the terms of a detailed Treaty, under which a vast number of territorial questions were settled to mutual satisfaction. We did not either in 1912, as Admiral von Tirpitz appears to imagine, in the conversation at the Schloss, or later on, offer territory that was not our own but belonged to Portugal, or Belgium, or France. The contrary is evident from the fact that the British government pressed Germany to consent to the immediate publication of the draft Treaty, agreed early in 1914, when signed. All we did on both occasions was to propose exchanges with Germany of territory that was ours for territory that was hers, to undertake not to compete for the purchase of certain other territory that might come into the market, in consideration of a corresponding undertaking on her part, and to agree about zones within which each nation should distribute its industrial energies and give financial assistance to undertakings.
The gallant Admiral gives an account of the meeting which took place on February 9, 1912, in the Emperor's Cabinet room in the Schloss between himself, the Emperor and myself. He represents me as making a "generous offer of colonial territories which the English neither possessed nor of which they had the least right of disposal, in order to flatter the Kaiser's desires." Now in this impression the Admiral was wholly wrong. What I spoke of was what I have just referred to, exchanges of parts of our own territory for parts belonging to Germany, and undertakings such as I have just referred to. These things I had considered the previous day with the Chancellor, and I do not think the Emperor was in the least under the impression which von Tirpitz entertained. The matter was indeed not one with which the Department of the Minister of Marine was likely to be familiar. My suggestions were made in accordance with my instructions, and were, of course, bona fide in all respects. What I was pressing for was the means for making possible a slackening in naval construction on both sides, and for acceptance of the Entente and of our position in it. What I desired was to extend its friendly relations so as to bring Germany and Austria and Italy within them and get rid of anxiety about the balance of power and the growth of armaments. I think the Emperor throughout understood this, and certainly the Chancellor did. Tirpitz appears to have suspected, in an attitude in which I was only aiming at being friendly and even cordial, concealment of an encircling and aggressive purpose. After studying his book I do not wonder! When one rises from reading it one understands the fixity of an idea, which amounted to an obsession, and compelled him to believe in the necessity for what would have amounted to the overthrow of Britain as a Great Power.
From the Emperor, on this as on other occasions, I met with nothing but the kindliest of receptions. Admiral von Tirpitz describes the luncheon party which preceded the conference in the Cabinet Room. He speaks of a certain "spanning" or tension which prevailed during the luncheon which the Emperor and Empress gave to the Berlin Cabinet and myself, and of restraint in the conversation. I can not say that I perceived any of these things, but then, of course, I was a foreigner. What I do remember was the general kindly feeling and the evident satisfaction produced by the production of the famous red champagne and great cigars with which the Emperor regaled his guests. For myself, special distinction was reserved. For, before proceeding to business, the Emperor read to me Goethe's poem, Ilmenau, of which he thought I might like to be reminded before we sat down to our task. He then observed that, out of consideration for Tirpitz, we must confer in German, while on the other hand this would be the harder on me because the naval matters with which we had to deal were not in my department, as they were in that of the Admiral. This was, of course, true. And then, in compensation for disadvantages which, as he said, would otherwise be unfair, he smilingly remarked that he had a plan for adjusting the balance of power on this occasion. He insisted on my occupying the Imperial chair, which stood at the head of the narrow Cabinet table, while His Majesty himself should sit on an ordinary chair on my left hand and the Admiral on another on my right. I thought that these arrangements suggested the possibility of a tough controversy, and as far as the Admiral was concerned it proved to be so. For the discussion lasted for two and three-quarter hours, and was fairly close. I said throughout that, while I came here to explore the ground with the authority of my Sovereign and his Cabinet, I had come, not to make a treaty at that stage, but on a preliminary voyage of discovery with a view to taking back materials with which the Cabinet of St. James's might be able to construct one, and that I had been delighted with the graciousness of my reception. I mention this because the Admiral appears not to have quite understood my position. I have no doubt that the Emperor understood it.
At the end of the conversation I felt for once a little tired, and was glad when the Emperor asked von Tirpitz to drive me back to the Hotel Bristol. I thought the manner of the latter during the journey highly polite and correct, but not wholly sympathetic. I can only say that on my part I had endeavored to put every card I had upon the table.
I have now touched on what seem to me the salient points in both of the volumes by these two famous statesmen. I have, I hope, brought out sufficiently the fact that on their own showing they were pursuing contradictory policies, and that it was the consequent failure to follow a policy that was consistent and continuous that in the end led Germany to the slippery slope down which she glided into war. The circumstances of the world before and in 1914 were so difficult, the piling up of armaments had been so great, that nothing but the utmost caution could secure a safe path. I believe the Emperor and Bethmann to have desired wholeheartedly the preservation of the peace. But to that end they took inadequate means, and the result was a disastrous failure to accomplish it.The disturbing presence of the policy of relying on a preponderance in power over England, to be gained by a great navy, to the side of which the smaller navies would be attracted, imposed on England the necessity of guarding against what was menacing the national life. As the outcome of this situation she was compelled, so long as Germany insisted on developing her naval policy, to sit down and take thought. The result of her deliberations may be summed up in eight propositions:
1. It was necessary, if the safety of England by sea was not to be put in jeopardy that she should enter into real and close friendships with other nations.
2. The great attraction to these other nations would lie in the maintenance of British sea power.
3. While the power of the British Navy was of the first importance to France, she might also, through no fault of her own, be placed in such peril as made it desirable that we should be able to render her help by land also.
4. But the military forces of France and her ally, Russia, were great enough to make it reasonable to estimate that a small army from England would be a sufficient addition to enable France to break the shock of an aggressive attack on her.
5. Even on purely military grounds it was impossible for Great Britain to raise in time of peace a great army for use on the Continent. The necessity of recruiting and educating the necessary corps of professional officers required to train and command such an army would have occupied at least two generations if the task were to be taken in hand in peace time. But it was possible to organize and prepare a small but highly trained Expeditionary Force, provided we discarded some of our old military traditions, and studied modern requirements and objectives in consultation with those who were best able to throw light on them.
6. Altho more than modern and scientific military organization on a comparatively small scale was not in our power, we could in carrying out even this much lay foundations which would enable expansion in time of war to take place.
7. In the result, as was believed here, and as Admiral von Tirpitz himself seems to have anticipated, sea power and capacity for blockade would decide the issue of the war. In this respect Germany seemed less well prepared than Great Britain.
8. The last thing wished for was war, and if we had to enter upon it we should do so only in defense of our own vital interests, as well as those of the other Entente Powers. Our entry, if it was to come, must be immediate and unhesitating. For if we delayed Germany might succeed in occupying the northern coast of France, and in impairing our security by sea.
I will conclude this chapter by appending an estimate of the Emperor William II, which is worth comparing with that of his German Ministers already referred to.
In the chapter on William II in Count Czernin's book on "The World War" there is a passage which may, I think, turn out to be pretty near the truth about the late Emperor's mood: "Altho the Emperor was always very powerful in speech and gesture, still, during the war he was much less independent in his actions than is usually assumed, and, in my opinion, this is one of the principal reasons that gave rise to a mistaken understanding of all the Emperor's administrative activities. Far more than the public imagine, he was a driven rather than a driving factor, and if the Entente to-day claims the right of being prosecutor and judge in one person in order to bring the Emperor to his trial, it is unjust and an error, as, both preceding and during the war, the Emperor William never played the part attributed to him by the Entente:
"The unfortunate man has gone through much, and more is, perhaps, in store for him.
"He has been carried too high, and can not escape a terrible fall. Fate seems to have chosen him to expiate a sin which, if it exists at all, is not so much his as that of his country and his times. The Byzantine atmosphere in Germany was the ruin of Emperor William; it enveloped him and clung to him like a creeper to a tree; a vast crowd of flatterers and fortune-seekers who deserted him in the hour of trial. The Emperor William was merely a particularly distinctive representative of his class. All modern monarchs suffer from the disease; but it was more highly developed in the Emperor William, and therefore more obvious than in others. Accustomed from his youth to the subtle poison of flattery, at the head of one of the greatest and mightiest States in the world, possessing almost unlimited power, he succumbed to the fatal lot that awaits men who feel the earth recede from under their feet, and who begin to believe in their Divine semblance.
"He is expiating a crime which was not of his making. He can take with him in his solitude the consolation that his only desire was for the best.
"It has already been mentioned that all the warlike speeches flung into the world by the Emperor were due to a mistaken understanding of their effect. I allow that the Emperor wished to create a sensation, even to terrify people, but he also wished to act on the principle of si vis pacem, para bellum, and by emphasizing the military power of Germany he endeavored to prevent the many envious enemies of his Empire from declaring war on him.
"It can not be denied that this attitude was often both unfortunate and mistaken, and that it contributed to the outbreak of war; but it is asserted that the Emperor was devoid of the dolus of making war, that he said and did things by which he unintentionally stirred up war.
"Had there been men in Germany ready to point out to the Emperor the injurious effects of his behavior and to make him feel the growing mistrust of him throughout the world, had there been not one or two but dozens of such men, it would assuredly have made an impression on the Emperor. It is equally true that of all the inhabitants of the earth the German is the one least capable of adapting himself to the mentality of other people, and, as a matter of fact, there were perhaps but few in the immediate entourage of the Emperor who recognized the growing anxiety of the world. Perhaps many of them who so continuously extolled the Emperor were really honestly of opinion that his behavior was quite correct. It is, nevertheless, impossible not to believe that among the many clever politicians of the last decade there were some who had a clear grasp of the situation, and the fact remains that in order to spare the Emperor and themselves they had not the courage to be harsh with him and tell him the truth to his face. These are not reproaches, but reminiscences which should not be superfluous at a time when the Emperor is to be made the scapegoat of the whole world."
FOOTNOTES:
[4] "Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege," Th. von Bethmann Hollweg. "Erinnerungen," Alfred von Tirpitz. Both translated into English under the Titles: "Reflections on the World War," and "My Memoirs."
