CHAPTER XXVIDIPLOMATIC METHODS: A COMPARISON
Diplomacy had succeeded in keeping the peace on two former occasions. In Western Europe it was believed that it would be successful again. Austria’s intention of going to war was not regarded as serious. The European financier especially could not bring himself to believe in war. Some of the ablest men in Europe sat in the open-air café on the Ringstrasse, unable to close an eye in sleep for fear that they should miss news of supreme importance and not be there to “cover” at the critical moment. At two in the morning the great houses on either side of the street shook as the motors carrying the big guns rumbled past the café. They were taken off at dead of night and deposited on the low-lying ground near the Danube. Next morning the great gun was taken to pieces. One half of the immenseengine of destruction was slung on big hooks on a frame made for the purpose. It looked like a great hollow cradle that would have provided sleeping accommodation for a couple of men as it swirled and rocked when the train took a steep gradient. “Why have they brought out their big guns, which are so difficult to transport on the steep gradients in this mountainous country, if they do not mean business?” “Merely to frighten Servia and cow her into submission.” “Then why is everything being done so secretly?” “Merely to heighten the effect,” was the reply. Foreign diplomacy was not so blind, but it sat tight, and refused to give any opinion.
The State controls the railways in Austro-Hungary, excepting for one or two lines. The great termini in Vienna lie at different ends of the city. Ordinary passengers had to cross the town in cabs. The Orient express, however, was allowed to make use of the military communication railway to save time. This circular railway joined up all the big junctions. It had been constructed for purely military purposes to pass troops and munitions from one station to the other quickly and secretly. In solitary places, sidings, with an iron pontoon for heavy guns, and perhaps an immense crane, stoodmoss-grown and idle. They were ready against the great day when Austria would go to war. The chief preparations were made in the Prater, an Imperial park that had been thrown open to the public many years before. In the waste swamp-land behind the park, which stretched down to the main stream of the Danube, there were cranes used for unloading barges that came up the river from the Balkans, and that also served for the mobilisation. Just beyond this ground there was a café much frequented by the diplomatists of Vienna. Close by was the British Golf Club. The café had, no doubt, come into fashion because the chiefs of the Diplomatic Service in Austria congregated there to meet military men, who took their morning ride, where they could supervise the training of recruits, in the waste land beyond. But the position of the golf ground needed explanation. Who had chosen to plump the course right in the midst of the probable scene of any military preparation?
No answer will ever be made to this question. The British diplomatist, when he has a streak of Celtic blood in his make-up, is undoubtedly the finest in the world. He has the great gift of silence. Other men of great repute and long training always envy the Englishman his imperturbableface, which serves him as a complete mask. Nothing provokes him into a display of emotion; his habitual calm prevents the enemy ever surprising him into a betrayal of his country’s secrets by a smile or a grimace. This is a unique gift. The secret police in every city of Europe will tell you that there is no catching an Englishman off his guard. His news is always sound. He does not care for information from doubtful sources; he misdoubts the foreigner and all his ways. He takes endless trouble in following up clues, but will not venture to draw conclusions. He is careful never to compromise himself by employing unworthy tools, and is never in “trouble” with the authorities or under suspicion like other diplomatists.
Unfortunately, there are always too few of him. He is hampered by having no residents in the British colony that he can consult. The first years of a diplomatist’s life in a foreign country are occupied in learning the lie of the land. Until he is acquainted with the rudiments of the language and the significance of the utterances of the different papers, he can do no useful work.
The German diplomatist, a man without a vestige of imagination, ignorant of the veryfirst rules of diplomacy, unaware of the meaning of delicacy in his conduct as the guest of a foreign monarch, nevertheless frequently contrives to defeat his opponents. Why is this? How is it done? The German would be incapable of producing the results that he has been able to show were it not for the powerful “hand behind the throne.” Diplomatists at a Court like Vienna must be noblemen, and it is a matter of general knowledge that German aristocrats are not astute as a general rule. They have no conception of anything beyond the obvious. Hints and allusions are quite thrown away upon them. Now a diplomatist must be a man of very delicate perceptions. It may be safely said that such a thing does not exist in Germany. The Prussian especially is very obtuse. The Germans possess one great virtue. They are aware of their deficiencies. The diplomatist, who feels he is lacking in all the essential qualities of a politician, takes a partner—a very active partner, who is never seen or heard, but, none the less, is responsible for much of the work. He is a Jew, who manages the whole organisation of the work. He finances the diplomatist. German diplomatists are not paid much in proportion to the show that they are expected to make.Everything is “solid,” but nothing more. The Government, however, authorises an almost unlimited expenses account. This money is not squandered. Much is spent in the form of tips to persons who may be of use. No other diplomatist could venture to pay small sums of money to all sorts of doubtful persons in the first years of his residence at a foreign Court. Such persons might be, and probably are, spies of the Government, or members of the secret police. The German diplomatist is not troubled with these doubts. On entering his embassy he finds a record of all the work, clean and unclean, done by his predecessors, and the financial man, who has been in the post for years, in charge. Every successful means of getting information is suggested to him. He thus gets the benefit of the experience of his predecessors, avoids their mistakes, and improves on their methods, as every new man can. No German nobleman could carry on this business unaided. The Jew is a man of business,par excellence. His principle is, “Never take anything without paying for it.” He not only pays for any little service rendered, delicately considering the feelings of the recipient, and where gold would give offence he sees that an order, or, perhaps, amuch-coveted title is bestowed, but he always makes sure that the recipient is satisfied. A Jew, concerned in statecraft, will never allow a tool, however humble, to go away discontented, for if he did he would have made him a dangerous enemy, instead of a grateful servant.
A young diplomatist starting for the Balkans will carry a set of instructions which regulate his every act in everyday life. “Put up at the —— Hotel.” “Give the waiter at the —— restaurant a big tip ... not sufficient to excite suspicion, but enough to render him communicative.” “Find means of getting to know the big German manufacturer at —— without being seen with him too much.” “Cultivate the men connected with travel bureaux as much as possible without compromising your position.” Imagine a young Englishman told off to cultivate men behind a counter! But the proud German will make any sacrifice, willingly, and, indeed, counts it no loss, for he is never a snob. Snobbism is unknown in either Germany or Austria-Hungary. Diplomatists are always born within the magic circle. They are always men belonging to families admitted to Court functions. This means an ancient family. Persons outside this circle are not regarded as equals. Far from it. They are sofar removed from the nobility that they are looked upon as people of different flesh and blood. The German aristocrat thinks of the commoner somewhat as the Spaniard of the Southern States regards a nigger. But just because he condescends, he is very polite. The poor commoner must not guess his feelings. He can treat him as a friend and a brother without any risk of suffering loss of caste in the eyes of his peers. Where comparison is impossible there is no fear of his losing rank by associating with men of a different mould.
The young Englishman might speak in the street to a prominent fellow-countryman engaged in trade. Never, however, would he condescend to sit down at one table with his vulgar wife, and thus make a willing slave of him for ever. The Jew, watching the steps of the new diplomatists, is very careful to ascertain that any favour conferred will be accepted with gratitude, otherwise it is never offered.
The German diplomatist always speaks a number of languages, sometimes with a slight accent, sometimes like a native. He learnt them in the nursery. The British diplomatist usually speaks the language of the country to which he is accredited more or less fluently, but he seldom knows a second language. French isthe language of the Balkans. But the variety spoken is very unlike pure Parisian. It is only possible to converse with Albanian princes, Turkish pashas, Rumanians, and other people from the south if one’s knowledge of French is very exact. Fluency in French makes intercourse with Italians and Russians easy, as they all speak it. A man who has business in the South or in the Tyrol should also speak Italian. The people there know German as well as Italian, but dislike speaking it. They feel mistrust towards anyone who uses the tongue of the oppressor. Besides they do not care to discuss politics or give information of any kind in a language that every spy or would-be spy within hearing can understand. No commercial traveller would start off without a thorough knowledge of the languages prevalent in the country in which he was to do business, but there is a great laxity of views in regard to the standard of linguistic talent required in the diplomatist.
The members of Embassies and Legations of the British Empire are, for the most part, purely British. Any strain of foreign blood impairs their usefulness to such an extent that this is well. The foreign politicians who deal with members of the Diplomatic Corps naturallymistrust any half-breeds, as they call them. They prefer to have to deal with a prospective enemy who declares his feelings openly, rather than to be obliged to negotiate with the son of a German mother, who may be secretly inclined to favour his mother’s race and make concessions that will not be ratified by the home Government.
If the British Diplomatic Service is unique in its special line because it is homogeneous, the men being all of the same type as theirconfrèresin the Home Office or War Office at home, the same cannot be said for the Consular Service, which, especially in remote parts of Europe, is of but small or no benefit to Britain, while it has been of immense advantage to her rivals in trade. In cases where there is a genuine Briton at the head of affairs, he naturally takes a British view of all disputes that come along and form his daily work. But he is a startling exception. Most of the men in the Consular Service were Germans or natives; they gave their services for nothing, saying that the title lent them importance. It did. It enabled them to interfere in the thousand and one difficulties that are always arising between shippers and the Government—their own Government—and to place the British casein a bad light. The shipper, not knowing the language, was quite helpless, and went back home the poorer in cash and disheartened. His owners were annoyed, and decided that they would cease to carry on dealings with the country in question. A German firm was quite ready to rush in to benefit by the facts which the consul had carefully ascertained during the negotiations, and snap up the trade. The German consul usually gave away large sums of money among the indigent in the British colony, and thus placed himself in a position that was very difficult to assail. If any powerful resident felt that the consul was not acting altogether in British interests, the latest subscription, probably a princely donation to some British charity, caused him to revise his hasty judgment. A man so truly charitable could not be guilty of meannesses such as he had suspected. He did not realise that the consul put the thumping big subscription down in his expenses account, entered as “Money to blind British residents.” The British merchant prince, perhaps, did not care to assist some poor countryman; he left it to the consul, who took the money ostensibly from his own pocket, and the Englishman, ashamed at his niggardliness, felt that his mouth was effectually shut,even when he was more than doubtful about some action taken with regard to his country’s interests. These things happened in many places, and led British subjects living abroad to regard justice and law as non-existent so far as they were concerned. They were forced to have resort to all kinds of subterfuges to obtain the most elementary rights. They avoided litigation at any cost, for they knew that with a German consul it could only go against them. Old residents who knew the language and customs of the country were able to carry on business even in the German strongholds, for, after all, the Englishman is the best business man in the world. But they had to work at a disadvantage. Germans stood ready to take up the trade should the creator of the connection be ill or die. And the resident consul was always ready to replace the Englishman by his own man.
In places where there was a British consul all this was different. The authorities, feeling that a strong hand would protect British subjects, hesitated to attack any one of them without due cause. In these cities the British subject enjoyed the same immunity from unwarranted interference as the Italian. The Italian consul, at the cost of much inconvenience and annoyance to himself, would stand bya fellow-citizen until he obtained his rights. The authorities, knowing this, were frightened to interfere with any man who was carrying on a legitimate business. The Italian consul knew that he had his Government behind him in protecting Italian trade, and that his mission was to carry on warfare with the German; nor did he scruple to use the same weapons as his adversary. He was even capable of going one better. Perhaps of all the peoples of Europe the Italian alone understands the peculiar character of the German—an experience that has been bought at the price of much suffering. He knows that it is fatal to wait until the German takes the offensive. The blow must come from the other side. Then the German’s indolence will make him careful of provoking an adversary of this calibre a second time. The Prussian is essentially a bully; he can only be brought to reason by a frontal attack, and those who know him will not hesitate to make it with or without excuse, provided they get in the first blow, for the struggle must come sooner or later.