Part 5 (1/2)
[Footnote 1: Out of several translations of this speech I have chosen as the fairest the one printed by the American a.s.sociation for International Conciliation, November, 1914, No. 84.]
It was against such weak excuses as this, against the vain pretext that the German war-lords were the attacked instead of the attackers, that Herr Harden made the frank protest which I have quoted above.
Meantime the falsehood of the tales of French preparation for invasion and of actual violations of German territory has been exposed by the evidence of Germans themselves. General Freytag-Loringhoven, in his essay on ”The First Victories in the West,” has shown that the French high command was taken off its guard by the swift stab through Luxembourg and Belgium, and could not get the Fifth Army Corps to the Douai-Charleroi line until August 22. The munic.i.p.al authorities of Nuremburg have declared that they have no knowledge of the dropping of bombs on that city by French aviators.
The falsehood of the Chancellor's promise that Germany would ”make good her injustice” to Belgium after attaining her military aims is foreshadowed to-day. (September 27.) The newspapers of this morning contain a semi-official press statement in regard to a note verbale handed by the Foreign Secretary to the Papal Nuncio at Berlin. Germany, if this statement is correct, now proposes to spoil the future of Belgium by splitting the nation into two administrative districts, Flemish and Walloon, thus injecting the poison-germ of disunion into the body politic. She also demands ”the right to develop her economic interests freely in Belgium, especially in Antwerp,” and a guarantee that ”any such menace as that which threatened Germany [from Belgium!]
in 1914 shall be excluded.” This is the German idea of making good an injustice by committing a fresh injury. It is in the style of a highwayman who says to his victim: ”I will reward you by letting you go.
But I must keep the big pearl, and you must permit me to break both your arms.” [Footnote 2]
[Footnote 2: For further confirmation of these ideas see the Memoir of the late General von Bissing, former Governor-General of Belgium, published by the Bergisch-Markische Zeitung, May 18, 1917, and by Das Grossere Deutschland, May 19, 1917.
”History now shows us that, neither prior to, nor at the outset of hostilities, were people able to rely to any great extent on a neutral Belgium, and, should we attach a certain importance to these historic truths, we shall not, however, on the conclusion of peace, suffer ourselves to allow of the revival of Belgium as a neutral state and country. An independent or neutral Belgium, or a Belgium whose status would be fixed by treaties of another kind, will be, as before the war, under the inauspicious influence of England and France, as well as the prey of America, who is seeking to utilize Belgian securities. There is only one way to prevent this, viz.: by the policy of force, and it is force that should achieve the result that the population, at present still hostile, should become used to German rule and submit to it.
Moreover, it will be necessary, through a peace a.s.suring us the annexation of Belgium, that we should be able to protect, as we are now compelled to do, the German subjects who have settled in this country, and the protection we shall be enabled to afford them will be of special service to us in the struggle about to take place in the world's market.
It is only by reigning over Belgium that we shall be able to utilize (verwerten), with a view to German interests, Belgian capital in savings and the numerous Belgian joint-stock companies already existing in enemy countries. We ought to have control over the important enterprises that Belgian capital has founded in Turkey, the Balkans, and China. . . .”]
[End Footnote 2]
Somewhere I have read a Latin line--the name of whose author has slipped my memory--which seems to fit the case perfectly: ”Quidquid non audet in historia Germania mendax!” [Footnote 3]
[Footnote 3: I have taken the references which follow, as far as possible, from Official Diplomatic Doc.u.ments, edited by E. von Mach, The Macmillan Co., New York, 1916. The comments and footnotes in this volume are untrustworthy, but the texts are presumably correct, and it is polite to judge the Germans from their own mouths. The book is quoted as Off. Dip. Doc.]
II
THE AUSTRIAN ULTIMATUM TO SERVIA
In the latter part of 1916 the New York Times published an admirable series of articles, signed ”Cosmos,” on The Basis of Durable Peace.[Footnote 4] With almost every statement of this learned and able writer I found myself in thorough accord. But the fourth sentence of the first article I could not accept.
[Footnote 4: These articles are now published in book form by the Scribners.]
”The question as to who or what power,” writes Cosmos, ”is chiefly responsible for the last events that immediately preceded the war has become for the moment one of merely historical interest.”
On the contrary, it seems to me a question of immediate, vital, decisive interest. It certainly determined the national action of France, Great Britain, and Italy. They did not believe that Germany and Austria were acting in self-defense. If that had been the case, Italy at least would have been bound by treaty to come to the aid of her partners in the Triple Alliance, which was purely a defensive league. But she formally declined to do so, on the ground that ”the war undertaken by Austria, and the consequences which might result, had, in the words of the German Amba.s.sador himself, a directly aggressive object.” (Off. Dip. Doc., p.
431.) The same ground was taken in the message of the President of the French Republic to the Parliament on August 4, 1914 (Off. Dip. Doc., p.
444), and in the speech of the British Prime Minister, August 6, the day on which the Parliament pa.s.sed the first appropriation for expenses arising out of the existence of a state of war (British Blue Book).
The conviction that the ruling militaristic party in Germany, abetted by Austria, bears the moral guilt of thrusting this war upon the world as the method of settling international difficulties which could have been better settled by arbitration or conference, is a very real thing at the present moment. It is shared by the Entente Allies and the United States. It is one of those ”imponderables” which, as Bismarck said long ago, must never be left out of account in estimating national forces. It will hold the Allies and the United States together. It will help them to win the war for peace under conditions for Germany which may not be ”punitive,” but which certainly must be ”reformatory”.
Understand, I do not imagine or maintain that the primary or efficient causes of this war are to be found in any things that happened in 1914 or 1913. They are inherent in false methods of government, in false systems of so-called national policy, in false dealing with simple human rights and interests, in false attempts to settle natural problems on an artificial basis.
All nations have a share in them. They go back to Austria's annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908; to the Congress of Berlin in 1878; to the Franco-Prussian War in 1870; to the Prusso-Austrian War in 1866; to the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453. Yes, they go back further still, if you like, to the time when Cain killed Abel! That was the first a.s.sertion of the doctrine that ”might makes right.”
But the ”occasional cause” of this war, the ground on which it was brought to a head and let loose by Germany, was the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, presented on July 23, 1914, at 6 P. M.
This remarkable state-paper, so harsh in its tone, so imperious in its demands, that it called forth the disapproval even of a few bold German critics, was apparently meant to be impossible of acceptance by Servia, and thus to serve either as the instrument for crus.h.i.+ng the little country which stood in the way of the ”Berlin-Baghdad-Bahn,” or as a torch to kindle the great war in Europe. I do not propose to trace its history and consequences in detail. I propose only to show, by fuller proofs than have hitherto been available, that Germany must share the responsibility for this flagitious and incendiary doc.u.ment.
On July 25, 1914, the German Amba.s.sador at Petrograd handed an official ”note verbale” to the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs which stated that ”The German Government had no knowledge of the text of the Austrian note before it was presented, and exercised no influence upon its contents.” (Off. Dip. Doc., p. 173.) Similar communications were presented in France and England.
This barefaced denial that the German Government knew what would be in the Austrian ultimatum, or had anything to do with the framing of it, was a palpable falsehood. It was discredited at the time. The antecedent incredibility of the statement has been well set forth by Mr. James N.