Part 23 (2/2)
[Footnote 192: Professor Schiemann: ”Wie England eine Verstandigung mit Deutschland verhinderte” (”How England prevented an Understanding with Germany”). Berlin, 1915; pp. 20-21: ”From the very commencement Berlin was convinced that the probability of a combined Franco-Russian attack was exceedingly small, if England's entrance to this Germanophobe combination could be prevented. Therefore we endeavoured to secure England's neutrality in case of war (1909), that is, if an Anglo-German alliance could not be achieved--an alliance which would have guaranteed the world's peace.” (Schiemann's insinuation that Germany desired an alliance is an instance of _suggestio falsi_. Germany had decided in 1902 never to conclude an alliance with this country.--Author.)]
Coming down to the last trial of diplomatic power, we are confronted by the immovable fact, that it too was a challenge on the part of the Central Empires. The conditions seemed peculiarly favourable to them, for the British Amba.s.sador declared to the Russian Government on July 24th, 1914, that Britain would never draw the sword on a purely Serbian question. Moreover, in the preceding year, a British minister, says Professor Schiemann, had given what we may style a remarkable semi-official promise that Great Britain would never go to war with Germany.
”On February 18th, 1913, Mr. Charles Trevelyan, M.P., paid me a visit, and a.s.sured me with the greatest certainty that England would under no circ.u.mstances wage war on Germany. A ministry which made preparations for war, would be immediately overthrown.”[193]
[Footnote 193: Ibid., p. 27. In the light of this revelation it would be interesting to know what was the real motive which induced Mr. Trevelyan to resign his office when war broke out. Either he was conscious of having seriously compromised his position as a Minister of the Crown, or he conscientiously believed that Britain was drawing the sword in an unjust cause. Unfortunately a section of the British public accepted the latter interpretation. In any case, Mr. Trevelyan's indiscretion affords overwhelming proof that he had an utterly false conception of Germany.--Author.]
Professor Schiemann affirms that his good impression was strengthened by a visit to London during March and April, 1914, and reports a conversation which he had with Lord Haldane when dining privately with the latter in London. After returning to Berlin, he says he received a letter from Lord Haldane dated April 17th, 1914, but from Schiemann's quotation it is not evident whether the following is an extract or the entire letter:
”It was a great pleasure to see you and to have had the full and unreserved talk we had together. My ambition is like yours, to bring Germany and Great Britain into relations of ever-closer intimacy and friends.h.i.+p. Our two countries have a common work to do for the world as well as for themselves, and each of them can bring to bear on this work special endowments and qualities. May the co-operation which I believe is now beginning become closer and closer.[194]
[Footnote 194: Lord Haldane has stated during the war that his visit to Berlin in 1912 had filled his mind with doubt and suspicion in regard to Germany.--Author.]
”Of this I am sure, the more wide and unselfish the nations and the groups questions make her supreme purposes of their policies, the more will frictions disappear, and the sooner will the relations that are normal and healthy reappear.[195] Something of this good work has now come into existence between our two peoples. We must see to it that the chance of growth is given.”[196]
[Footnote 195: A word or phrase appears to have been dropped in this sentence.--Author.]
[Footnote 196: Professor Schiemann's book, pp. 27-8.]
It is not difficult to conceive that such utterances, on the part of two British ministers, would raise hopes in the German mind, for it would be useless to imagine that Professor Schiemann would keep them secret for his own private edification. And it is possible that they led the German Government into a false reckoning as to what this country would do under certain circ.u.mstances, and so encouraged Germany into taking up an irreconcilable att.i.tude in the crisis of July, 1914.
Whatever Germany expected must, however, for the present, remain a matter of conjecture. Schiemann's comment on the above letter leaves no doubt that he expected Lord Haldane[197] to resign. ”When one remembers that Lord Haldane belonged to the inner circle of the Cabinet, and was therefore privy to all the secret moves of Sir Edward Grey, it is hard to believe in the sincerity of the sentiments expressed in this letter.
Besides, he did not resign like three other members of the Cabinet (Lord Morley, Burns and Charles Trevelyan) when Sir Edward's foul play lay open to the world on August 4th.”
[Footnote 197: Lord Haldane seems to have injured his reputation both in Great Britain and Germany. Professor Oncken designates him: ”the one-time friend of Germany, the decoy-bird of the British cabinet.”
_Vide_ ”Deutschland und der Weltkrieg,” p. 561.]
The most regrettable side of the whole incident is that the resignation of the above gentlemen has been proclaimed by innumerable German writers as proof of Sir Edward Grey's double dealing, and proof that Britain is waging an unjust war. Still, it may console these gentlemen to know that the nation which wages war on women and children acclaims them to-day ”all honourable men,” and doubtless without the Shakespearian intonation.
By reason of the above incidents, and more of a similar nature, Germans accuse the late Liberal Government with perfidy of the basest kind. The author is not in the least inclined to admit the charge, but thinks, rather, that the Government in question--individually and collectively--was astonis.h.i.+ngly ignorant of European conditions and problems, especially those prevailing in the Germanic Empires.
To what a degree Germany was obsessed by the idea that Britain was trying to strangle her by an encircling policy, is apparent in a diplomatic doc.u.ment quoted by Professor Oncken. Its author's name is not given, and it was doubtless a secret report sent to the German Foreign Office in 1912; its freedom from bias is also questionable. Moreover, it is probable that it belongs to the same category of doc.u.ments as those quoted in the French Yellow Book--reports intended to exercise due influence on the mind of the Emperor.
”French diplomacy is succeeding more and more in entangling England in the meshes of her net. The encouragement which England gives, directly or indirectly, to French chauvinism may one day end in a catastrophe in which English and French soldiers must pay with their blood on French battlefields for England's encircling policy. The seeds sown by King Edward are springing up.”
Another link in the chain of proof of Britain's guilt, is found in the doc.u.ments seized by the Germans in Brussels. The enemy seems to attach great importance to them, for they are being employed in much the same way that parliamentary candidates use pamphlets during an election. Yet they do not contain a particle of proof that Britain had hostile intentions against Germany, but only confirm the presence of the German menace.
The doc.u.ments[198] in question are reports sent by the Belgian Legation Secretaries in London, Paris and Berlin to the Minister for Foreign Affairs in Brussels. These gentlemen held opinions identical with those expressed again and again in German newspapers, and even in some British and French organs. Messieurs Comte de Lalaing (London), Greindl (Berlin), Leghait (Paris), evidently believed that the activities of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente endangered the peace of Europe.
[Footnote 198: Published by the Berlin Government as supplements to the _Nord-deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_, July 29th and 31st; August 4th, 8th and 12th, 1915.]
Further they believed the latter constellation to be the more aggressive of the two, and formally reported these convictions to the Belgian Government. If read as a modern edition of ”Pepys' Diary” they form entertaining literature, but by no stretch of the imagination could they be cla.s.sed as historical sources. A gentleman who reports to his Government that King Edward took breakfast in company with M. Delca.s.se and that the Press had neglected to chronicle the incident, can hardly rank as an historian.
Moreover, it is by no means clear why the German Press should laud M.
Greindl as a gentleman of German origin. If this be true it would probably explain everything which deserves explanation in the said doc.u.ments, and would probably account for the intimate, confidential treatment which M. Greindl received at the hands of German officials.
German newspapers are gloating over the fact that the British Government has not deigned to reply to these ”revelations.” There is really nothing to which it can reply; three observers expressed their opinion on contemporaneous happenings during the years 1905-1911. But a brutal sequence of events in 1914 showed them--if they had not been convinced during the preceding three years--that they had drawn false conclusions from their observations.
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