FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[31]In June 1904.[32]About 107 acres.[33]One square verst is equal to 0·44 square mile.[34]Cf.Novoye Vremya, October 5, 1914.[35]His name is Dr. Fritz Wertheimer. His writings are to be found in various periodicals. The essay from which these data are taken was published in theFrankfurter Zeitung, January 8, 1916.[36]Novoye Vremya, July 2, 1915.[37]By a law sanctioned by the Tsar, in February 1915, the German Colonists of Southern and Western Russia were obliged to sell their land to Russian subjects, and they received ten months’ grace for the purpose.[38]Cf.Contemporary Review, February 1911.[39]Cf. Duma debates of August 1914.[40]Cf.Novoye Vremya, August 17, 1915.[41]Virginio Gayda.[42]Cf.Novoye Vremya, February 24, 1915.[43]Cf.Utro Rossiyi, August 28, 1915.

[31]In June 1904.

[32]About 107 acres.

[33]One square verst is equal to 0·44 square mile.

[34]Cf.Novoye Vremya, October 5, 1914.

[35]His name is Dr. Fritz Wertheimer. His writings are to be found in various periodicals. The essay from which these data are taken was published in theFrankfurter Zeitung, January 8, 1916.

[36]Novoye Vremya, July 2, 1915.

[37]By a law sanctioned by the Tsar, in February 1915, the German Colonists of Southern and Western Russia were obliged to sell their land to Russian subjects, and they received ten months’ grace for the purpose.

[38]Cf.Contemporary Review, February 1911.

[39]Cf. Duma debates of August 1914.

[40]Cf.Novoye Vremya, August 17, 1915.

[41]Virginio Gayda.

[42]Cf.Novoye Vremya, February 24, 1915.

[43]Cf.Utro Rossiyi, August 28, 1915.

Oneof the most amazing phenomena of Entente statesmanship during the present European struggle, is the offhand readiness with which the Governments of France and Great Britain, yielding to abstract reasoning founded upon gratuitous assumptions, not only reversed the policy of centuries but committed themselves to a wholly new departure which was certain to raise up enemies to the Entente, to render its task immeasurably more arduous, and to lessen its means of achieving success. However well Russia deserved of her allies, however unquestionable her claim to the city of Constantine, no less suitable a moment could have been selected to press that claim than the spring of 1915. The only evidence we possess that the British statesmen primarily responsible for this capital blunder were conscious of the fateful character of this commitment, is the extreme care they took to have their responsibility shared by the members of the Opposition, which at that time was not represented in the Cabinet. But even with this indication before us, we cannot believe that even now this premature solution of a secular problem on lines suggested by transient episodes of a military campaign, has struck the responsible statesmen in proportion to its specific weight, the depth of its importance,and the nature of its consequences. To take but one of these, we find that towards the end of the second year of the campaign, Turkey is one of the two key-positions of the international situation. To conclude a separate peace with that Power is become a pressing, and would also be a feasible, task were it not that this earmarking of Constantinople for Russia constitutes an impassable barrier. No Turkish Cabinet would or could conclude a separate peace and strike up friendship with the nations that are making ready to deprive the Caliph of his capital. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that this premature allotment of Constantinople to Russia is the only obstacle to the conclusion of a separate peace with Turkey. There are also hindrances of a military nature which would have to be displaced before any decisive move in this direction could be expected of the young Turks.

But it cannot be gainsaid that the most formidable obstacle is that. Neither can it be questioned that that premature arrangement will, if the Allies emerge victorious from the ordeal, thrust into the foreground of practical politics a whole group of problems the most delicate and dangerous that were ever yet tackled by the inadequately equipped diplomacy of the Allied Governments. It is then that the Entente Powers will fully realize the deluge to which they made such haste to open the sluice-gates in the spring of 1915. And the only way practicable out of this blind alley would be the spontaneous abandonment by the Russian Government of the right it possesses, which however the Allies will certainly never call in question. Whether the Tsar’s Government believes such a sacrifice necessary,and whether, if they did, they could summon up the courage requisite to make it, are questions which Russia’s loyal allies have neither the right nor the wish to raise. We will carry out our obligations in the letter and the spirit. If the Russian people, in the person of their responsible organ, should renounce for the moment the claims which we have formally recognized and undertaken to enforce, this decision will have been come to spontaneously and without pressure or advice from their allies.

The extent to which the Teuton had his own way among the easy-going Russian people is hardly to be realized. It would be certainly inexplicable in an empire governed on national lines and conscious of its mission. For unlimited pliancy was the quality which German importunity evoked on the part of the highest authorities. One of many examples is worth recording. Among all industrial enterprises the Russian Government is most sensitive about that of high explosives. The manufacture of these they had always rigorously reserved for their own people, on obvious grounds. Well, the moment the Germans resolved to break down this barrier, they found the means to do it despite the objection raised by the Russian Press that it would be dangerous to confide the production of high explosives to foreigners and superlatively dangerous to confide it to prospective enemies. The prospective enemy carried the point, and the manufacture of high explosives was handed over to a German company, which built works for the purpose near the Russian capital, and had its headquarters and board of directors in Berlin![44]

As in Italy, so in the Tsardom, one of the principal levers of Teuton interpenetration was the regulation of the national trade and industry. That is to say, these were allowed to subsist and thrive up to, but not beyond, the point at which they were useful as adjuncts of German enterprise. And the regulators were principally two: the Treaty of Commerce extorted from the Tsar’s Government during the embarrassments caused by the Manchurian campaign, and the German banks, which in the empire paraded as Russian, just as in Italy they were decked as Italian. Many of those financial institutions were but branches of German houses, and their methods were identical with those of the Banca Commerciale: long credits and easy modes of repayment offered to all those who agreed to deal with German firms, while discredit, ostracism, and ruin threatened the recalcitrant. And as Italian money and Italian institutions were employed as instruments of German interpenetration in foreign countries,[45]so Russian funds and banks were used as helps to German interpenetration in Belgium and other lands.

A noteworthy instance of the ingenuity with which this intricate mechanism was worked came to light shortly before the outbreak of the war. In Brussels there was a branch of the Petrograd International Bank which purported to be a purely Russian concern. But once the Kaiser had sent his ultimatum to the Tsar’s Government, the Russian mask was doffed by the Brussels agency, which forthwith appeared in its true colours as a potent instrument of germanization in Belgium. There was found to be almostnothing Russian about the bank but the name. The staff, the language spoken, the methods of business, the political sympathies, the aims of the operations were all German. Out of the forty-three permanent members of the staff, thirty were German subjects, six Austrians, two German-Swiss, two Belgians, one was a Dutchman, one Turk, and there was a solitary Russian. The moment Count Berchtold presented his ultimatum to Serbia this “Russian” bank refused to change any Russian banknotes on any terms and let it be understood that they were valueless. A panic on the Belgian market was the immediate consequence. Russian travellers had to deposit their jewellery in pawn and pay exorbitant rates of interest on loans. The bank itself practised a kind of usury, and advanced only sixty per cent. of the face value of notes issued by the Imperial Bank of Russia. When the Belgian Government, after the declaration of war, began to tackle German espionage, this “Russian” bank was found to be one of the strongholds of the military spies. Certain of the employees were permanent agents of the German Military Attaché, and were at the same time inscribed as members of the staff of the Deutsche Bank of Berlin.

All those well-thought-out and successfully executed schemes may bear in upon the British people some notion of what is meant by German organization and co-ordination, and may also help them to gauge the chances of success, military, diplomatic and economic, on which the Allies, with their easy-going ways, their hope of somehow “blundering through,” and their lack of combination and of plan—can rely when pitted against amighty organism, disposing of the most redoubtable forces ever created by human science and skill, directed by a single mind, and served with ascetic self-abnegation and religious ardour by over a hundred million people. The courage and faith of the Allies in gazing for years upon this portentous engine of destruction without making suitable provision for the day when it would be turned against themselves, will fill future generations with amazement.

No bare enumeration of details can convey an adequate idea of the vastness, compactness and potency of the German organization which kept the Russian Colossus partially paralysed at home, while the Kaiser’s armies were dealing it stunning blows on the battlefield. It is a revelation which will be followed by a new birth of the whole political world. The German colonists, the wandering German commercial travellers who acted as political spies, the various banks, joint-stock companies, religious sects, journals, reviews, schools, clubs, Lutheran pastors, and other Teuton agents, were but so many wheels and springs of the mighty machine which was set in motion and kept working by the political leaders in Berlin. For all these firms and enterprises and individuals from the Fatherland scattered over the length and breadth of the Tsardom were welded together in one vast organism by far-seeing politicians who canalized every important current of the nation’s life and imparted to it the direction which German interests required. No enterprise was too vast, no detail too trivial, for the attention of these moulders of Germany’s destinies.

All those activities, commercial, financial,industrial, journalistic, religious, political, the German mind combined into a single idea, the co-ordinate parts of which were studied and regulated, not by party chiefs, but by qualified experts, who, although specialists, subjected them to organic treatment. In this respect the German may be likened to a massive sombre figure who, surrounded by a crowd of sprightly shadowy nobodies, discoursing with easy frivolity on grave subjects, is engrossed with the task of destroying a great part of the frame-work of the world in order to rebuild it after his own plan. Unfortunately the extraordinary enlargement of interest which marks the latter-day political conceptions, and inspires the fateful action of Germany’s acknowledged leaders, breeds in the allied peoples not so much a stern resolve to tame that revolutionary nation at all costs, as a sentimental longing for the return of the idyllic past, and an illusive hope that by dint of mild Christian charity it may yet be brought back.

FOOTNOTES:[44]Novoye Vremya, June 24, 1915.[45]For example, the Banca Franco-Italiana in Brazil.

[44]Novoye Vremya, June 24, 1915.

[45]For example, the Banca Franco-Italiana in Brazil.

Itis this Teutonic power of looking far ahead, this profundity of vision, this mingled comprehensiveness and concentration, and the marked success with which these qualities have hitherto been exercised to the lasting detriment of the Entente nations which looked on and naïvely applauded, that fill the thoughtful student with misgivings about the future. True, it may not be too late for effective counter measures. But two conditions are manifestly essential to the successful application of any remedy: first, that its necessity should be felt and realized; and, second, that the scrupulosity which at present hesitates to apply drastic measures should yield to higher considerations than those of individual delicacy of sentiment and over-refined humanitarianism. When an individual abuses laws and restraints which bind his fellow-men, in order to inflict a deadly injury on them, it is meet that they should free themselves from those checks in their dealings with him. For example, it may be theoretically wrong, after the conclusion of the present struggle, for our people to bear such a grudge against the individual German as would exclude him from communion and intercourse with the nations of the Entente. And this principle would seem to apply with greater force to those Germans who might bewilling to abandon their nationality and identify their aims, interests and strivings with those of the nation in which they would fain become incorporated. But when we reflect that almost every German, whatever his calling, how profound soever his debt of gratitude to a foreign people, considers himself first and always a member of his own country, works for its interests to the detriment of all others, and does not scruple to violate moral laws and social traditions in order to betray his new friends, we may well ask in virtue of what precept we should abstain from ostracizing him from the British Empire. His second nationality is so often a mere mask to enable him to perpetrate black treason, and it is so openly thus regarded by his own Government, which upholds and solemnly sanctions the principle, that it would be inexplicable folly on the part of the British nation to aid and abet its enemies by admitting them to the freedom of the community without taking effective precautions against treason.

And yet there is a large body of men in this country, as in France and Italy, who condemn the demand for these precautions as un-Christian and impolitic. Such laxness is the soil in which thrives the upas tree whose shade has so long darkened the organs of our empire and now threatens to blight the whole organism.

An all-important feature in the controversy which has arisen over the naturalization of German subjects is the utterly amoral view of it which underlies the attitude of the Kaiser’s Government. According to these authorities, whose utterances and acts are decisive and final, a German, unlike every other subject, may swear allegiance to two states, of whichone is his Fatherland, without being bound by his oath to the other. Various reasons, including material interests, may, it is argued, make it desirable that he should acquire citizenship in a foreign land; and the Kaiser’s Government, for the good of the empire, recognizes this necessity and facilitates the process by a law. This law, which was enacted in July 1913, authorizes the born German subject, having first made known his intention and motive, to swear allegiance to a foreign state without forfeiting, or intending to forfeit, the rights or escaping from the duties which flow from his German citizenship. Now this is a privilege which not even the Pope has ever claimed the faculty of according.

From the point of view of international law this double naturalization is inadmissible. Every individual in the community of nations is the subject of a certain state, and only of one, and whenever the interests of that state run counter to those of any other, he is bound legally as well as morally to promote the former to the best of his ability and means. The Teuton doctrine and practice are that Germans may insinuate themselves into a country, and in the guise of loyal citizens become conversant with its secrets, and then use them to its hurt. In the light of this law, which was a custom long before it became a statute, the number of Germans naturalized in various countries grew amazingly during the past fifteen years. In France, for example, where there were only 38,000 foreigners naturalized in the year 1896 and 65,000 in 1901, the figure reached 90,000 in 1906 and 120,000 five years later. And of these, four-fifths were Germans and Austrians. Many Germans firstbecame Swiss or British subjects in order the more easily to acquire the rights of Frenchmen. One in particular, named Wilhelm Hellpern, first became a Belgian, then as Willy Hellpern a British subject, and finally, with a view to obtaining a place on the Board of the Société Française de l’Industrie Chimique, applied for and received naturalization in France. This “Willy” Hellpern was a representative of the Central Gesellschaft für chemische Industrie.[46]

When war was declared in 1914 hundreds of Germans applied for papers of naturalization in Switzerland, and obtained them from various little Swiss communes which were in sore want of funds. Spies eager to place their machinations under the protection of Swiss citizenship found smooth ways to the desired goal. In the single canton of Zurich demands for naturalization rose from 260 during the nine months ending in October 1913,[47]to 732 in the corresponding nine months of 1915. Several cases of fraud were discovered during this rapid process of transforming foreign into Swiss citizens: one of the most salient being that of Friedrich Wilhelm Frank, a German who had taken out his naturalization papers in England and then decided to shake off his acquired British citizenship for that of the Helvetian Republic. As Frank had not been resident in Switzerland during the two years required by the law of that country he applied and paid for a false certificate of residence, and in this way achieved his object. But the trick was finally discovered and the naturalization cancelled.

We may protest as vigorously as we willagainst this infamous troth-mongering which is destructive of international relations, and indirectly of social intercourse, but no responsible government can afford to ignore the necessity of guarding against its consequences. For it is no ephemeral manifestation of temperament, nor the passing whim of a political party or a class. The law of double citizenship, coupled with a plenary indulgence for treason and perjury in the cause of the Fatherland, is but the solemn consecration of a principle which was long practised and is warmly approved by the entire German people. The Berlin Government publicly invoked it during the latter half of the year 1915, under circumstances which remove doubts on this score. On one and the same day in August that year all German official and non-official journals published a notice, which ran as follows: “It is alleged that in neutral countries, and particularly in the United States of America, men of Germanextraction” (the wordcitizenshipis not used, butextraction), “are employed as workmen, engineers or in other capacities in the production of war munitions for our enemies. All those who thus reinforce the military strength of our foes, thereby make the prosecution of the war more difficult for Germany, and not only burden themselves with a heavy load of moral turpitude, but also expose themselves—and many of them are seemingly unaware of this—to the operation of the German laws which punish high treason.”

In other words, subjects of, say the American Republic, who were born there of German parents or grandparents and never acknowledged any other government nor possessedthe citizenship of any other country, become guilty of high treason if they dare to avail themselves of the plenitude of the rights which that citizenship confers. They may not work for firms which supply the Allies because their fathers, or it may be only their grandfathers, happened to be Germans. The moral duties of German subjects still lie heavy on them, and they must execute the Kaiser’s will to-day on pain of being dealt with as traitors to the Fatherland.

Monstrous principles and revolting procedure of this kind are calculated to kindle a blaze of indignation in people who realize their effects and set value on the boons of civilization or Christianity. They are among the many new ideas which Kultur has contributed to the stock of weapons destructive of modern society. One might term them the asphyxiating gases of German international politics. In keeping with these teachings and practices were the theft of foreign passports by the German Government which handed them over to spies, as in the case of Lody, who was executed in London in the early part of the war. Thus the binding force of moral and of human law is dissolved whenever it clashes with German national, military, or commercial interests. This dogma lies at the roots of Kultur.

By the time war was declared, Germany had stretched forth her tentacles into various lands and was draining the life-juices of many peoples. Her footing in Italy, Russia, Belgium and France was firm. Observant students of international politics fancied they could determine the approximate date when, if the then rate of progress were maintained, Germany’s overlordship over Europe would be definitelyestablished and all armed conflicts on the Continent become thenceforth meaningless. They were all the more puzzled at what they set down as the egregious folly of jeopardizing the precious fruits of forty years’ well-sustained labours by precipitating a tremendous conflict of doubtful issue. But besides the sudden temptation to utilize a conjuncture of exceptionally favourable promise, the leaders of the Teutonic nations felt moved to appeal to arms by certain slow, but steady, currents which threatened to change the situation to Germany’s detriment in the space of another few years.

With the remoter causes of the Kaiser’s fatal resolve, we are not now concerned. It may suffice to know that they were numerous and that the trend of their operation had been for a few months unmistakable. Time, which was working wonders for the Teuton in one direction, was raising up redoubtable enemies against him in another. For one thing Russia was becoming transfigured. The dry bones of the nation which the Germans often declared was good only as ethnic manure had had life and a soul breathed into them by the great agrarian reform of which the credit belongs to Witte and Stolypin. The latter statesman in a series of conversations had in 1906 opened his mind to me on the subject, and frankly avowed that the Government, having gone astray in its estimate of the Russian peasants who turned out to be revolutionary and anarchistic, was resolved to render them conservative by giving them land and an interest in the maintenance of law and order. That, he informed me, was the aim and origin of the agrarian law, and I expounded the theory, itsworking and its anticipated consequences, in a series of articles published at the time.[48]

Down to the year 1861 the Russian serfs had been mostly bound to the soil. They were emancipated by Alexander II., who ordered each landowner to make over to the serfs as much of his landed property as was being actually cultivated by these. Wherever this amount seemed too extensive for the support of a family it was whittled down and the residue left with the landlord. Each of the various lots thus expropriated was given not to an individual, nor to a family, but to the village community. Each field was cut into as many strips as there were farms, and each farm had the use of one. Every year the peasants had to pay a certain sum to the landlord until the land was wholly redeemed, and liability for these payments, like the possession of the land, was common. Hence the drunkards and the lazy paid little or nothing. It was the community which decided when the sowing and when the reaping should take place. The results of this system were baneful. And little by little the more enterprising peasants who had no motive to improve the value of the land which they were allowed for a time to cultivate, migrated to the towns and joined the growing army of working men.

How long this state of things would have continued, if these immediate consequences had formed the only objection to it, is uncertain. But the Revolution of 1905-6 rendered it wholly untenable. The peasantry, on whom the Tsar and the Government counted for support, readily followed the lead of every anarchist and revolutionary who dangled thepromise of free land before their eyes, and gutted or burned the manors of the landlords. With no conception of the sacredness, nor, indeed, of the nature of property, they seized what they could by force, and were gravely disappointed when it was re-taken from them by law. Stolypin’s scheme, as he himself propounded it to me, was to enable the peasant to acquire the land he tilled, and not merely the scattered strips, but a compact farm capable of supporting himself and his family. And the system of collective liability for payments to the State was abolished, together with that of collective land-ownership.

This was in truth a genial reform, and the business-like way in which it was carried out did credit to the late Minister and the people. Even now it is far from completed, but already there are about six million peasant farms cut out and allotted. In European Russia approximately as many more remain to be apportioned. The effects of this innovation were rapid and encouraging. The value of the land rose enormously in consequence of the intenser culture and the increased yield. Under the old arrangement Russia’s harvest of cereals was barely enough to feed the population inadequately, to supply seed and to enable a limited amount of produce to be exported. And as this limited amount was in practice often exceeded, the food supply of the peasantry was cut down in proportion. At present all this has changed for the better and changed to a greater extent than the outside world realizes. One of the consequences of this betterment, coupled with the decrease of drunkenness, is the greater purchasing power of the peasant and the growth of his requirements. So beneficialand evident were the effects of this reform, that some patriotic Russians gladly saw their Government go to the very extreme of pliancy towards Germany rather than run the risk of a war and the danger of a break in this remarkable career of national regeneration. The process was noted and gauged by the Germans, who awakened to the fact that, in a few years more, the legend of Ilya Murometz would be exemplified in latter-day Russia, and a Colossus arise among the nations, which would hinder the tide of Teutondom from inundating Europe for all time.

Other considerations of a more pressing character weighed with the statesmen of the Wilhelmstrasse, whose survey of the international situation was, at any rate, comprehensive. Renascent Russia, for example, was, as we saw, resolved to withdraw from the German Empire the one-sided advantages accorded by the Commercial Treaty. And as this question would in any case become acute within two years, that date was one of the time-limits of the European war, and I ventured to designate it as such to two of the most prominent statesmen of the Entente in the month of March 1914. They both went so far as to say that my anticipation was extremely probable.[49]

However this may be, Germany, who works out her destinies by preventive wars, and therefore never leaves the initiative to her enemies or rivals, precipitated a conflict which would, she believed, break out in any case within a couple of years, and for which no more auspicious moment could be chosen than the end of July 1914, after the Kiel Canal hadbeen made navigable for her largest battleships and the harvest ingathered.

The year and month of the historic event had been fixed by her leaders a considerable time in advance, as we now know from incontrovertible evidence. So, too, had the choice of method, which was in harmony with the usual formula, that Germany is never the apparent aggressor, and that it is her enemies who must be made to appear the partisans of preventive war.

The principle was thus laid down by Bismarck when he altered King Wilhelm’s historic telegram from Ems: “Success essentially depends upon the impression which the genesis of the war makes on ourselves and others. It is important that we should be the party attacked.”[50]

Finally, the very day was determined—and almost on the very eve it was changed to the following day.

In connection with the date and the method I have a curious tale to unfold which has never yet been recounted in western Europe. The incident in some respects bears an unmistakable resemblance to the story of Bismarck’s forgery of the Ems telegram and is well worth relating[51]and remembering. The main features are as follows.

FOOTNOTES:[46]Cf.Hors du Joug allemand, par Léon Daudet.[47]The number for the entire year was 350.[48]In theDaily Telegraph.[49]Count Witte went farther and fixed the end of 1915 as the date.[50]Bismarck: His Reflections and Reminiscences.[51]My authority for the story is the principal observer, who was also an actor in a part of this subsidiary little drama: A. I. Markoff, who at that time represented the semi-official Russian Telegraph Agency, as its head correspondent in Berlin. He himself told me the story in Stockholm and authorized me to make it known.

[46]Cf.Hors du Joug allemand, par Léon Daudet.

[47]The number for the entire year was 350.

[48]In theDaily Telegraph.

[49]Count Witte went farther and fixed the end of 1915 as the date.

[50]Bismarck: His Reflections and Reminiscences.

[51]My authority for the story is the principal observer, who was also an actor in a part of this subsidiary little drama: A. I. Markoff, who at that time represented the semi-official Russian Telegraph Agency, as its head correspondent in Berlin. He himself told me the story in Stockholm and authorized me to make it known.

Theworld is now aware, although it can hardly be said to realize, how closely journalism approaches to being a recognized organ of the Imperial German Government. One of the most influential of the Berlin journals during the past ten years has been theLokal-Anzeiger. This paper was founded by Herr Scherl, one of those clever enterprising business men who have been so numerous, active and successful in the Fatherland during the past quarter of a century. His journal was a purely business concern, carried on congruously with the law of supply and demand and keeping pace with the shifting requirements of the public and the strongest currents in the Government. It had long enjoyed the reputation of being a semi-official organ, and it was Herr Scherl’s ambition that it should be formally promoted to that rank. In February 1914 he sold the paper to a group of four persons, two of whom were Herr Schorlmeyer and Count T. Winckler, and all four were members of the political party which looked for light and leading to the Crown Prince and his military environment. Thus theLokal-Anzeigerbecame the organ of the progressive military party, which was exerting itself to the utmost to force the pace of the Government towards the one consummationfrom which the realization of Germany’s dream of world-power was confidently expected. Among the privileges accorded to theLokal-Anzeigerfrom the date of its purchase for the behoof of the Crown Prince onward, was that of publishing official military news before all other papers, and not later even than theMilitär-Wochenblatt. Consequently, it thus became the most trustworthy source of military news in the Empire. This fact is worth bearing in mind, for the sake of the light which it diffuses on what follows.

War being foreseen and arranged for, much careful thought was bestowed on the staging of the last act of the diplomatic drama in such a way as to create abroad an impression favourable to Germany. The scheme finally hit upon was simple. Russia was to be confronted with a dilemma which would force her into an attitude that would stir misgivings even in her friends and drive a wedge between her and her ally or else would involve her complete withdrawal from the Balkans. The latter alternative would have contented Germany for the moment, who would then have dispensed with a breach of the peace. For it would have enabled the two Central Empires to weld together the Balkan States and Turkey in a powerful federation under their joint protectorate, and would not only have simplified Germany’s remaining task, but have supplied her with adequate means of accomplishing it against Russia and France combined. Great Britain’s neutrality was postulated as a matter of course.

Congruously with this plan, Russia was from the very outset declared to be the Power on which alone depended the outcome of the crisis.Upon her decision hung peace and war. On July 24, telegraphing from Vienna, I announced this on the highest authority,[52]with a degree of force and clearness which left no room for doubt as to the aims, intentions and preliminary accords of the two Central Empires. I stated that if in the course of the Austro-Serbian quarrel Russia were to mobilize, Germany would at once answer by general mobilization and war. For there will, then, I added, be no demobilization but an armed conflict. Before making that grave announcement, I had had convincing assurances and proofs that I was setting forth an absolute and irrevocable decision arrived at by the Central Empires on grounds wholly alien to the interests and issues which were then engaging the Austrian and Serbian Governments, and that a bellicose mood had gained a firm hold on the minds of the statesmen of Berlin and Vienna. Had that deliberate statement been subjected to adequate instead of the ordinary partial tests, the full significance of the crisis would have been realized by the Governments of the Entente.

In the course of the negotiations which were then hastily improvised, Germany, who strove hard to gain credit for the rôle of disinterested peacemaker, gradually revealed herself as the chief protagonist, whereas Austria was little more than a pawn in the game. Disguising her eagerness to provoke one of the two desired solutions, Russia’s abandonment of Serbia or her declaration of war, Germany succeeded in misleading the Governments of France and Britain as to her real intentions.

While M. Poincaré was in the Russiancapital proposing toasts and drawing roseate forecasts of the future, the German Ambassador in Paris, von Schön, was constantly in attendance at the Quai d’Orsay, endeavouring to impress on the minds of the Acting Minister and the permanent officials there, the sincerity of the Kaiser’s eagerness for peace and the growing danger of Russia’s aggressiveness. “You and we,” he kept saying, “are the only Continental Governments which are aware of the magnitude of the issues and the imminence of the danger. You and we perceive the utter folly, the sheer criminality, of plunging Europe in the horrors of a sanguinary war for the sake of a petty state governed by regicides and assassins. What interests have you or we to risk the welfare of our respective nations for the behoof of the Serbian military party whose dreams of greatness border on mania? No, it behoves us both to do all that lies in us to calm Russia’s passion and induce her to listen to the promptings of reason and self-interest. You, with the powerful influence which your friendship and alliance impart to your counsels, and we by dint of example, ought to succeed in averting this awful peril.” In this tone, Herr von Schön delivered his daily exhortations and found some willing listeners. His specious pleading made a deep and favourable impression, and would perhaps have led to representations by the French Government calculated to wound the susceptibilities and perhaps estrange the sympathies of France’s ally at the most critical hour of the alliance, had it not been for the presence at the Foreign Office of a man whose eye was sure and whose measurement of forces, political and personal, was accurate. That man was M. Berthelot. Gaugingaright this insidious appeal to the centrifugal forces of the political mind, he turned a deaf ear to von Schön’s suasive efforts and kept the ship of state on its course, without swerving. In this way what seemed to the Berlin politicians the line of least resistance was adequately reinforced and a formidable, because crafty, attack repulsed.

But besides attack, the Germans had also a problem of defence to engage their attention. And, curiously enough, it appears to have been particularly knotty in Austria. At that moment Count Berchtold was Minister of Foreign Affairs in name, but Count Tisza, the Hungarian Premier, was the man who thought, planned and acted for the Habsburg Monarchy. He it was who had drawn up the ultimatum to Serbia and made all requisite arrangements for co-operation with Germany. He was backed by the Chief of the General Staff, Konrad von Hoetzendorff, whose eagerness to provide an opportunity for displaying the martial qualities of the army was proverbial. But there were others in high places there who had no wish to see the Dual Monarchy drawn into a European war, and who would gladly have come to an agreement with Russia on the basis of such a compromise as Serbia’s reply to the ultimatum promised to afford. Whether, as seems very probable, this current bade fair to gain the upper hand, it is still too soon to determine with finality. There are certainly many indications that this was one of the dangers apprehended in Berlin. Russia’s moderation was another. And the interplay of the two might, had Germany held aloof, have led to a compromise. For this reason Germany did not stand aloof.

The date fixed for the German mobilization was July 31. The evidence for this is to be found in the date printed on the official order which was posted up in the streets of Berlin, but was crossed out and replaced by the words “1st of August,” in writing, as there was no time to reprint the text. It had been expected in Berlin that Russia would have taken a decision by July 30, either mobilizing or knuckling down. Neither course, however, had been adopted. Thereupon Germany became nervous and went to work in the following way.

On Thursday, July 30, at 2.25 p.m. a number of newspaper boys appeared in the streets of Berlin adjoining the Unter den Linden and called out lustily: “Lokal-AnzeigerSupplement. Grave News. Mobilization ordered throughout the Empire.” Windows were thrown wide open and stentorian voices called for the Supplement. The boys were surrounded by eager groups, who bought up the stock of papers and then eagerly discussed the event that was about to change and probably to end the lives of many of the readers. It does not appear that the Supplement was sold anywhere outside that circumscribed district. Now in that part of the town was situated Wolff’s Press Bureau, where the official representatives of Havas and the Russian Telegraphic Agency sat and worked.

The correspondent of the latter agency, having read the announcement of theLokal-Anzeiger, which was definitive and admitted of no doubt, at once telephoned the news to his Ambassador, M. Zverbeieff. During the conversation that ensued the correspondent was requested by the officials of the telephoneto speak in German, not in Russian. This was an unusual procedure. The Ambassador could hardly credit the tidings, so utterly were they at variance with the information which he possessed. He requested the correspondent to repeat the contents of the announcement, and then inquired: “Can I, in your opinion, telegraph it to the Foreign Office?” The answer being an emphatic affirmative, the Ambassador despatched a message in cypher to this effect to the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs. For there could be no doubt about the accuracy of information thus deliberately given to the public by the journal which possessed a monopoly of military news and was the organ of the Crown Prince. The Russian correspondent also forwarded a telegram to the Telegraphic Agency in Petrograd communicating the fateful tidings.

Within half an hour the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs telephoned to Wolff’s Bureau to the effect that the report about the mobilization order was not in harmony with fact, and it also summoned theLokal-Anzeigerto issue a contradiction of the news on its own account. This was duly done, and so rapidly that the second Supplement was issued at about 3 p.m. The explanation given by the newspaper staff was that they were expecting an order for general mobilization and had prepared a special Supplement announcing it. This Supplement was unfortunately left where the vendors saw it, and thinking that it was meant for circulation seized on all the copies they could find, rushed into the streets and sold them. On many grounds, however, this account is unsatisfactory. Copies of a newspaper supplement containing such momentous news are notusually left where they can be found, removed and sold by mere street vendors. Moreover, the date, July 30, was printed on the supplement, so that it was evidently meant to be issued, as a matter of fact it was circulated only in a very limited number of copies and in the streets around Wolff’s Bureau, where it was certain to produce the desired effect.

Half an hour later the correspondent of the Russian Agency received a request to call at the General Telegraph Office at once. On his arrival he was asked to withdraw his two telegrams which the Censor refused to transmit. To his plea that so far as he knew there was no censorship in Germany he received the reply that it had just been instituted and now declined to pass his telegrams. “In that case,” he said, “my consent is of no importance, seeing that the matter is already decided.” Finally, he asked to have his messages returned to him, but they would consent only to his reading, not to his retaining, them.

The Russian Ambassador also despatched an urgentmessage en clairto his Government embodying the contradiction communicated by the Wilhelmstrasse.

Now, the significant circumstance is that the Ambassador’s first telegram stating that general mobilization had been officially ordered throughout the German Empire was forwarded with speed and accuracy and reached the Russian Foreign Minister without delay. And this news was communicated to the Tsar, who by way of counter-measure issued the order to mobilize the forces of the Russian Empire. But the Ambassador’s second telegram was held back several hours and did not reach its destination until the mischief was irremediable.That curious incident is of a piece with the Bismarck’s Ems telegram.

It is by such devices that the German Government is wont to launch into war. The mentality whence they spring cannot be discarded in a year or a generation, nor will any Peace Treaty, however ingeniously worded, prevent recourse being had to them in the future. For this, among other reasons, more trustworthy guarantees than scraps of paper must be sought and found.

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