Part 8 (2/2)
The German way of looking at the relative strength and positions of the belligerents as modified by the vicissitudes of the campaign was realistic and statesmanlike. Starting from the principle that a people of about a hundred millions, animated by a lively faith in its own vitality and mental equipment, can neither be destroyed nor permanently crippled, they argued that the worst that Fate could have in store for them would be a draw. But before that end could be achieved the Teutonic armies must have been pulverized and Germany and Austria occupied by the allied troops. And of this there were no signs. ”We never fancied,” they said, ”that what happened in 1870 would be repeated in 1914. How could we make such a stupid mistake?
Then we had only France against us. To-day we encounter the combined forces of Russia, France, Belgium and England. This difference had to have its counterpart in the campaign. Thus we have not yet captured Paris. But then to-day we are wrestling with the greatest empires in the world, and we hold them in our grip. We are fighting not for a few milliard francs and a disaffected province, but for priceless spoils and European hegemony. Moreover, Belgium, which we possess and mean to keep, is a greater prize than the temporary occupation of Paris.
Besides, postponement is not abandonment. Whether we take the French capital one month or another is but a detail.
”And, over and above all this, we have reached the sea and are within a few miles of England's sh.o.r.es. Furthermore, Russia's army, which we lured into East Prussia until it fancied it was about to invest Konigsberg, has been driven back beyond Wirballen far into Tsardom, with appalling losses of men and material. Her other forces, which several weeks ago boasted that they were about to capture Cracow, will soon be driven out of Przemysl and Lemberg. Libau will fall into our hands. Riga is sure to be ours, and Warsaw itself will finally admit our victorious troops. Does this look like defeat at the hands of our enemies? And German soil is still as immune from invasion as though it were girded by the sea.”
In all our forecasts one important element of calculation was invariably left out of account: the consequences of our blunders, past, present and future. And these have added enormously to our difficulties and dangers. Not the least made was the mistake in allowing the two German wars.h.i.+ps _Goeben_ and _Breslau_ to enter the Dardanelles. To have pursued them into Ottoman waters would, it was pleaded in justification, have const.i.tuted a violation of Turkish neutrality. Undoubtedly it would, but the infringement would not have been more serious than many flagrant breaches of neutrality which the Sublime Porte had committed a short time before and was known to be about to perpetrate again.[73] But a scrupulous regard for the rights of neutrals has been, and still is, the groundstone of the Allies'
policy, irrespective of its effects on the outcome of the war. The rules of the game, it is contended, must be observed by us, however much they may be disregarded by the enemy. This considerateness and scrupulosity may be chivalrous, but they form an irksome drag on a nation at war with Teutons. The two s.h.i.+ps were at once transferred by Germany to the Turks.[74] Some two months later, deeming their war preparations completed, the latter suddenly bombarded the open Russian town of Theodosia in the Black Sea, and sank several small craft, thus realizing Germany's hopes and justifying her politico-economic policy.
It was now too late to lament the chivalrous att.i.tude which had permitted the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_ to steam into the Dardanelles, or to regret the indifference we had persistently displayed to Near Eastern affairs for well-nigh twenty years. The best that could be done at that late hour was to face the consequences of those errors with dignity and to strive to repair them with alacrity.
But all the efforts made were partial and successive. There was no attempt at co-ordination.
[73] Turkey had already violated her neutrality to our detriment many times. For instance, on September 25 she had erected military works against us on the Sinai frontier; as far back as August 25 Turkish officers had seized Egyptian camels laden with foodstuffs. Moslem fidahis in Ottoman service endeavoured to incite the Egyptian Mohammedans against the British Government during the first half of October.
[74] August 13, 1914.
Turkey's defection was a serious blow to the allied cause, not only in view of the positive, but also of the negative, advantages it was calculated to confer upon Germany. The Ottoman army, consisting of first-cla.s.s raw materials, had had its latent qualities unfolded and matured by German organization, discipline and training. Its supplies were replenished. Ammunition factories were established. Barracks were built and fortifications equipped in congruity with latter-day needs.
Three million pounds of German bar gold reached Constantinople, and were deposited in the branch offices of the Deutsche Bank there for the requirements of the army. In all this the Kaiser's Government ran no risks. The return was guaranteed by the politico-economic measures which had been continuously applied during the years of our ”disinterestedness.”
Enver had meanwhile risen to the zenith of his career. He was now War Minister and had surrounded himself with officers who would follow him whithersoever he might lead them. A low-sized, wiry man, seemingly of no account, Enver is pale of complexion, shuffling in gait. His eyes are piercing, and his gaze furtive. A soul-monger who should buy him at his specific value and sell him at his own estimate would earn untold millions. For, to use a picturesque Russian phrase, the ocean is only up to his knees. He is physically dauntless and buoyant. In the war against Italy he had fought well and organized the Arab and other native troops under conditions of great difficulty, winning laurels which have not yet withered. A Pole by extraction, Enver Pasha is a Prussian by training and sympathies, and a Turk by language and religion and by his marriage with a daughter of the Sultan. Political sense he has none. His one ideal was to earn the appreciation of the Prussian military authorities, to whom he looks up as a fervid disciple to peerless masters. German military praise melts his manhood and turns his brain. He possesses a dictatorial temper with none of the essential qualities of a dictator, and in the field he is distinguished, I am told, by splendid valour without an inkling of scientific strategy.
It was that Polish Turk and his German masters who formally made war upon Russia, France and Britain.[75] And the Turkish nation had no opportunity to sanction or veto their resolve. Nay, even the majority of the Cabinet, including the Grand Vizier, had had no say on the issue, were not even informed of what was being done until overt acts of hostility had actually clinched the matter. Indeed, there was a majority of Cabinet Ministers in favour of neutrality, but it was ignored. In this way Turkey threw in her lot with the Teutons,[76] to the astonishment of the Allies, who had hoped that a policy of forbearance and meekness would elicit a friendly response and frustrate the effect of the master strokes by which Germany, during a long series of years, had consolidated her ascendancy over Turkey and obtained the command of the Ottoman army. The childish notion that a sudden exhibition of pacific intentions and goodwill is enough to foil the carefully laid schemes of a clever enemy which have been maturing for decades, is the refrain that runs through the history of our foreign policy for the last thirty or forty years. And not only through the history of our foreign policy. Faith in the sacramental efficacy of an improvisation is a trait common to all the Allies, but in the British nation it is the faith that is expected to move mountains.
[75] November 3, 1914.
[76] On October 25, 1908, after having studied the origins of the Turkish Revolution and the antecedents of its authors, and while all Europe was still warmly congratulating the Young Turks on their bloodless victory and moderation, I dispatched the following telegraphic message to the _Daily Telegraph_--
”Most unwillingly do I give utterance to facts and impressions calculated to introduce a jarring note into the harmonious optimism of Western peoples, who confidently augur great things of the young Ottoman nation, and discern no difficulties likely to become formidable dangers to the new-born State. But a knowledge of all the essential data is indispensable to correct the diagnosis without which the malady cannot be successfully treated. Emanc.i.p.ation, then, has produced a beneficent enthusiasm for the political ideals of Europe in minds. .h.i.therto impermeable to Western notions, but has neither transformed the national character nor supplied the revolutionary movement with the requisite constructive forces. _Neither can it break the fateful continuity of Turkish history nor avert the defects of the destructive causes that have been operative here for generations._”
The negative aspect of Turkey's belligerency proved to be quite as irksome as the positive. For it involved the closing of the Dardanelles to Russia's corn export and the disappearance of the princ.i.p.al route for communications between the Tsardom and its Western allies. Archangel is blocked in winter and inadequately connected by rail with the two capitals in summer. This additional embarra.s.sment and its financial sequel compelled the attention of the Allies to the need of some kind of co-operation--just to satisfy actual needs. For neither then nor at any subsequent period was there any pretence of laying open the whole ground and building a complete structure upon that. A temporary expedient is all that was contemplated, and nothing more lasting was evoked. None the less, the Conference of the three Finance Ministers in Paris[77] marked a step in advance, and was subsequently followed up by a closer and more continuous contact.
[77] February 6, 1915, and the following three days.
CHAPTER XIII
PROBLEMS OF FINANCE
Finances are the nerve of warfare, and in a contest which can be decided only by the exhaustion of one of the belligerents they are, so to say, the central nerve system. The Germans being astute financiers, and aware that the war to which their policy was leading would soon break out, had made due preparations, with a surprising grasp of detail. Nothing was forgotten and nothing neglected. And success rewarded their efforts. The result was that they mobilized their finances long before they had begun to mobilize their troops.
France, on the contrary, persuaded that peace would not be disturbed, took no thought of the morrow. Yet her budgetary estimates showed an ugly deficit. This gap, however, would have been filled up in the ordinary course of things by a big loan which was about to be floated.
But M. Caillaux, probably the most clever financier in France, who, if he applied his knowledge and resourcefulness to the furtherance of his country's interests, could achieve great things, used them--and together with them his parliamentary influence--to upset the Cabinet and thwart the loan scheme. Then, taking over the portfolio of the Finance Minister in the new Cabinet, he arranged for borrowing a small instead of a large amount, thereby exposing his country to risks more serious than the public realized. For it was a heavy disadvantage on the eve of the most exhausting struggle ever entered upon by the French people, whose strongest position was weakened as no enemy could have weakened it.
Russia was in a different, but nowise better, position when suddenly called upon to meet the onerous demands of the world-contest. She, too, having pinned her faith to the maintenance of peace, had made no preparations for war, financial or military. Moreover, a considerable sum of her money was at the time deposited in various foreign countries, and especially in France, for the service of her loans and the payment of State orders placed with various firms. This money, on the outbreak of hostilities, was automatically immobilized by the moratorium, although the delicate question whether a moratorium can be legally applied to sums thus deposited by a foreign Government has not yet been decided with finality. As a matter of fact, Russia's deposits remained where they were, and could not be utilized. The consequences of this embargo were irksome, and for a time threatened to become dangerous. Little by little, however, these restrictions were removed, partly by the French Government and partly by the spontaneous efforts of the banks.
France, too, suffered in a like way from the paralysing effect of the moratorium. For the French had no less than half a milliard francs lent out at interest for short terms in Russia. This sum could, as it chanced, have been refunded at once without inconvenience, seeing that it was liquid in the banks of Petrograd, Moscow, Warsaw, and other cities of the Tsardom. But as the money was in Russian roubles, and all international exchange had ceased, it too was incapable of being converted into francs. Thus the two allies, although really flush of money, were undergoing some of the hards.h.i.+ps of impecuniosity, and to extricate them from this tangle was a task that called for the exercise of uncommon ingenuity. This happily was forthcoming.
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