CHAPTER III WHO WANTED WAR?

Such is the chronological order of events; but on the face of it, it explains little of the underlying causes of this conflagration. Why with the single exception of Italy had all the great naval and military powers of Europe, together with several smaller nations, suddenly plunged into war? Which of the combatants wanted war? ... To the latter question the answer can be given at once and with certainty—save Germany and Austria no nation wanted war, and even Germany and Austria did not want this war.

DESIRE FOR PEACE

Whatever opinion we may entertain of the Servian character or of her policy in recent times, it is at all events certain that she did not desire war with Austria. That she submitted to the very depths of humiliation in order to avoid war cannot be doubted by any one who has read her reply to the demands put forward by Vienna. Only a few months since, she had emerged from two sanguinary wars—the first against Turkey and the second against Bulgaria—and although victory had crowned her arms in both of these contests, her losses in men and material had been very severe.

That Russia did not desire war was equally plain. {23} She was still engaged in repairing the gigantic losses which she had sustained in her struggle with Japan. At least two years must elapse before her new fleet would be in a condition to take the sea, and it was generally understood that at least as long a period would be necessary, in order to carry through the scheme of reorganisation by which she hoped to place her army in a state of efficiency. Whatever might be the ultimate designs of Russia, it was altogether incredible that she would have sought to bring about a war, either at this time or in the near future.

Russia, like England, had nothing to gain by war. Her development was proceeding rapidly. For years to come her highest interest must be peace. A supreme provocation was necessary in order to make her draw the sword. Such a provocation had been given in 1909 when, ignoring the terms of the Treaty of Berlin, Austria had formally annexed the provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But at that time Russia's resources were not merely unprepared; they were utterly exhausted. Menaced simultaneously by Vienna and Berlin, she had been forced on that occasion to stand by, while her prestige in the Balkan peninsula suffered a blow which she was powerless to ward off. Now a further encroachment was threatened from the same quarters. A Serb power which looked to St. Petersburg[1] for protection was to be put under the heel of Austria.

Nor can any one believe that France wanted war. It is true that for a year, or rather more, after the Agadir episode[2] the spirit of France was perturbed. But no Foreign Office in the world—least of all that {24} of Germany—was so ill-informed as to believe that the sporadic demonstrations, which occurred in the press and elsewhere, were caused by any eagerness for adventure or any ambition of conquest. They were due, as every calm observer was aware, to one thing and one thing only—the knowledge that the Republic had come to the very end of her human resources; that all her sons who were capable of bearing arms had already been enrolled in her army; that she could do nothing further to strengthen her defences against Germany, who up to that time, had taken for military training barely one half of her available male population, and who was now engaged in increasing her striking power both by land and sea. The cause of this restlessness in France was the fear that Germany was preparing an invincible superiority and would strike so soon as her weapon was forged. If so, would it not be better for France to strike at once, while she had still a fighting chance, and before she was hopelessly outnumbered? But this mood, the product of anxiety and suspense, which had been somewhat prevalent in irresponsible quarters during the autumn of 1912 and the early part of the following year, had passed away. Partly it wore itself out; partly popular interest was diverted to other objects of excitement.

France, during the twelve months preceding Midsummer 1914, had been singularly quiescent as regards foreign affairs. Her internal conditions absorbed attention. Various events had conspired to disturb public confidence in the fidelity of her rulers, and in the adequacy of their military preparations. The popular mood had been sobered, disquieted, and scandalised to such a point that war, {25} so far from being sought after, was the thing of all others which France most wished to avoid.

THE CASE OF BELGIUM

It is unnecessary to waste words in establishing the aversion of Belgium from war. There was nothing which she could hope to gain by it in any event. Suffering and loss—how great suffering and loss even Belgium herself can hardly have foreseen—were inevitable to her civil population, as well as to her soldiers, whether the war went well or ill. Her territory lay in the direct way of the invaders, and was likely, as in times past, to become the 'cockpit of Europe.' She was asked to allow the free passage of the Germanic forces. She was promised restoration of her independence and integrity at the end of the war. But to grant this arrogant demand would have been to destroy her dynasty and wreck her institutions; for what King or Constitution could have withstood the popular contempt for a government which acquiesced in national degradation? And to believe the promise, was a thing only possible for simpletons; for what was such an assurance worth, seeing that, at the very moment of the offer, Germany was engaged in breaking her former undertaking, solemnly guaranteed and recorded, that the neutrality of Belgium should be respected? That the sympathies of Belgium would have been with France in any event cannot of course be doubted; for a French victory threatened no danger, whereas the success of German arms was a menace to her independence, and a prelude to vassalage or absorption in the Empire.

Neither the British people nor their Government wanted war. In the end they accepted it reluctantly, and only after most strenuous efforts had been made {26} to prevent its occurrence. To the intelligent foreign observer, however unfriendly, who has a thorough understanding of British interests, ideas, and habits of mind this is self-evident. He does not need a White Paper to prove it to him.

It is clear that Austria wanted war—not this war certainly, but a snug little war with a troublesome little neighbour, as to the outcome of which, with the ring kept, there could be no possibility of doubt. She obviously hoped that indirectly, and as a sort of by-product of this convenient little war, she would secure a great victory of the diplomatic sort over her most powerful neighbour—a matter of infinitely more consequence to her than the ostensible object of her efforts.

The crushing of Servia would mean the humiliation of Russia, and would shake, for a second time within five years, the confidence of the Balkan peoples in the power of the Slav Empire to protect its kindred and co-religionists against the aggression of the Teutons and Magyars. Anything which would lower the credit of Russia in the Balkan peninsula would be a gain to Austria. To her more ambitious statesmen such an achievement might well seem to open the way for coveted expansions towards the Aegean Sea, which had been closed against her, to her great chagrin, by the Treaty of Bucharest.[3] To others, whose chief anxiety was to preserve peace in their own time, and to prevent the Austro-Hungarian State from splitting asunder, the repression of Servia seemed to promise security against the growing unrest and discontent of the vast Slav population which was included in the Empire.

{27}

AUSTRIAN ILL-FORTUNE

For something nearer two centuries than one the Austro-Hungarian Empire has been miscalculating and suffering for its miscalculations, until its blunders and ill-fortune have become a byword. Scheming ever for safety, Austria has never found it. The very modesty of her aim has helped to secure its own defeat. Her unvarying method has been a timid and unimaginative repression. In politics, as in most other human affairs, equilibrium is more easily attained by moving forward than by standing still. Austria has sought security for powers, and systems, and balances which were worn out, unsuited to our modern world, and therefore incapable of being secured at all. The more she has schemed for safety the more precarious her integrity has become. There are things which scheming will never accomplish—things which for their achievement need a change of spirit, some new birth of faith or freedom. But in Vienna change in any direction is ill-regarded, and new births are ever more likely to be strangled in their cradles than to arrive at maturity.

Distracted by the problem of her divers, discordant, and unwelded[4] races, Austria has always inclined to put her trust in schemers who were able to produce some plausible system, some ingenious device, some promising ladder of calculation, or miscalculation, for reaching the moon without going through the clouds. In the present case there can be no doubt that she allowed herself to be persuaded by her German neighbours that Russia was not in a position to make {28} an effective fight, and would therefore probably stand by, growling and showing her teeth. Consequently it was safe to take a bold line; to present Servia with an ultimatum which had been made completely watertight against acceptance of the unconditional and immediate kind; to reject any acceptance which was not unconditional and immediate; to allow the Government of King Peter no time for second thoughts, the European Powers no time for mediation, her own Minister at Belgrade time only to give one hasty glance at the reply, call for his passports, and catch his train. So far as poor humanity can make certain of anything, Austria, with German approval and under German guidance, made certain of war with Servia.

But the impression produced, when this matter first began to excite public attention, was somewhat different. Foreign newspaper correspondents at Vienna and Berlin were specially well cared for after the Serajevo murders, and when the ultimatum was delivered, they immediately sent to England and elsewhere accounts of the position which made it appear, that the Austrian Government and people, provoked beyond endurance by the intrigues of Servia, had acted impetuously, possibly unwisely, but not altogether inexcusably.

At this stage the idea was also sedulously put about that the Kaiser was behaving like a gentleman. It was suggested that Germany had been left very much in the dark until the explosion actually occurred, and that she was now paying the penalty of loyalty to an indiscreet friend, by suffering herself to be dragged into a quarrel in which she had neither interest nor concern. In these early days, when {29} Sir Edward Grey was striving hopefully, if somewhat innocently, after peace, it was assumed by the world in general, that Germany, for her own reasons, must desire, at least as ardently as the British Foreign Minister, to find a means of escape from an exceedingly awkward position, and that she would accordingly use her great influence with her ally to this end. If there had been a grain of truth in this assumption, peace would have been assured, for France and Italy had already promised their support. But this theory broke down very speedily; and as soon as the official papers were published, it was seen never to have rested on the smallest basis of fact.

GERMANY USES AUSTRIA

So far from Germany having been dragged in against her will, it was clear that from the beginning she had been using Austria as an agent, who was not unwilling to stir up strife, but was only half-conscious of the nature and dimensions of the contest which was bound to follow. It is not credible that Germany was blind to the all-but-inevitable results of letting Austria loose to range around, of hallooing her on, and of comforting her with assurances of loyal support. But it may well be believed that Austria herself did not see the situation in the same clear light, and remained almost up to the last, under the delusion, which had been so industriously fostered by the German ambassador at Vienna, that Russia could not fight effectively and therefore would probably choose not to fight at all.

But although Austria may have had no adequate conception of the consequences which her action would bring about, it is certain that Germany foresaw them, with the single exception of British {30} intervention; that what she foresaw she also desired; and further, that at the right moment she did her part, boldly but clumsily, to guard against any miscarriage of her schemes.

Germany continued to make light of all apprehensions of serious danger from St. Petersburg; but at the eleventh hour Austria appears suddenly to have realised for herself the appalling nature of the catastrophe which impended. Something happened; what it was we do not know, and the present generation will probably never know. We may conjecture, however—but it is only conjecture—that by some means or other the intrigues of the war cabal at Vienna—the instrument of German policy, owing more fealty to the Kaiser than to their own Emperor—had been unmasked. In hot haste they were disavowed, and Austria opened discussions with Russia 'in a perfectly friendly manner,'[5] and with good hopes of success, as to how the catastrophe might still be averted.

On Thursday, July 30, we are informed, the tension between Vienna and St. Petersburg had greatly relaxed. An arrangement compatible with the honour and interests of both empires seemed almost in sight when, on the following day, Germany suddenly intervened with ultimatums to France and Russia, of a kind to which only one answer was possible. The spirit of the Ems telegram[6] had inebriated a duller generation. "A few days' delay," our Ambassador at Vienna concludes, "might in all {31} probability have saved Europe from one of the greatest calamities in history."[7]

SIR EDWARD GREY

As we turn over the official pages in which the British Government has set out its case, we are inclined to marvel—knowing what we now know—that our Foreign Minister should have shown so much zeal and innocence in pleading the cause of peace on high grounds of humanity, and with a faith, apparently unshaken to the last, that in principle at least, the German Government were in full agreement with his aims. The practical disadvantages of being a gentleman are that they are apt to make a man too credulous and not sufficiently inquisitive. Sir Edward Grey acted according to his nature. His miscalculation was one which his fellow-countrymen have not hesitated to forgive. But clearly he misjudged the forces which were opposed to him. He was deceived by hollow assurances. He beat hopefully, but vainly and pathetically, against a door which was already barred and bolted, and behind which (could he but have seen) the Kaiser, with his Ministers and Staff, was wholly absorbed in the study of war maps and tables of mobilisation.

Sir Edward Grey failed to prevent war, and in the circumstances it is hardly to be wondered at. But if he failed in one direction he succeeded in another. His whole procedure from first to last was so transparently disinterested and above board that, when war did actually come upon us, it found us, not merely as a nation, but also as an Empire, more united than we have ever been at any crisis, since the Great Armada was sighted off Plymouth Sound. English people felt that whatever else there {32} might be to reproach themselves with, they at any rate went into the fight with clean hands. What is even more remarkable, the people of all neutral countries, with the possible exception of the rigid moralists of Constantinople, appeared for once to share the same opinion.

This was a great achievement; nearly, but not quite, the greatest of all. To have prevented war would have been a greater achievement still.... But was war inevitable? Or was M. Sazonof right, when he said to our Ambassador, on the morning of the day when Servia replied to the Austrian ultimatum,[8] that if Britain then took her stand firmly with France and Russia there would be no war; but that if we failed them then, rivers of blood would flow, and in the end we should be dragged into war?[9]

Sir Edward Grey refused to take this course. He judged that a pronouncement of such a character would appear in the light of a menace to the governments of Germany and Austria, and also to public opinion in those countries; that it would only stiffen their backs; that a more hopeful way of proceeding was for England to deal with Germany as a friend, letting it be understood that if our counsels of moderation were disregarded, we might be driven most reluctantly into the camp of her enemies. To this, when it was urged by our Ambassador at St. Petersburg, the Russian Minister only replied—and the words seem to have in them a note of tragedy and weariness, as if the speaker well knew that he was talking to deaf ears—that unfortunately Germany was convinced that she could count upon the neutrality of Britain.[10]

{33}

The alternative was to speak out as Mr. Lloyd George spoke at the time of the Agadir crisis, 'to rattle the sabre,' and to take our stand 'in shining armour' beside the other two members of the Entente.

Sir Edward Grey believed that this procedure would not have the effect desired, but the reverse. Further, it would have committed this country to a policy which had never been submitted to it, and which it had never considered, far less approved, even in principle. The Agadir precedent could be distinguished. There the danger which threatened France arose directly out of treaty engagements with ourselves. Here there was no such particular justification, but a wide general question of the safety of Europe and the British Empire.

With regard to this wider question, notwithstanding its imminence for a good many years, the British Empire had not made up its mind, nor indeed had it ever been asked to do so by those in authority. Sir Edward Grey appears to have thought that, on democratic principles, he had not the right to make such a pronouncement as M. Sazonof desired; and that even if this pathway might have led to peace, it was one which he could not tread.

The one alternative was tried, and failed. We proffered our good offices, we urged our counsels of moderation, all in vain. That, at any rate, is among the certainties. And it is also among the certainties that, although this alternative failed, it brought us two signal benefits, in the unity of our own people and the goodwill of the world.

About the other alternative, which was not tried, we cannot of course speak with the same sureness. If Sir Edward Grey had taken the step which {34} M. Sazonof desired him to take, he would at once have been vehemently opposed and denounced by a very large body of his own fellow-countrymen, who, never having been taken frankly into the confidence of the Government with regard to the foundations of British policy, were at this early stage of the proceedings almost wholly ignorant of the motives and issues involved. This being so, if war had ensued, we should then have gone into it a divided instead of a united nation. On the other hand, if peace had ensued, it must have been a patched-up ill-natured peace; and it is not improbable that Sir Edward Grey would have been driven from office by enemies in his own household, playing the game of Germany unconsciously, as on previous occasions, and would have brought the Cabinet down with him in his fall. For at this time, owing to domestic difficulties, the Government stood in a very perilous position, and it needed only such a mutiny, as a bold departure in foreign affairs would almost certainly have provoked among the Liberal party, to bring Mr. Asquith's government to an end.

As one reads and re-reads the official documents in our present twilight, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that on the main point Sir Edward Grey was wrong and M. Sazonof right. Germany, with her eyes wide open, had determined on war with Russia and France, unless by Russia's surrender of her prestige in the Balkans—a surrender in its way almost as abject as that which had already been demanded of Servia—the results of victory could be secured without recourse to arms. Germany, nevertheless, was not prepared for war with Britain. She was reckoning with confidence on our standing aside, {35} on our unwillingness and inability to intervene.[11] If it had been made clear to her, that in case she insisted on pressing things to extremity, we should on no account stand aside, she might then have eagerly forwarded, instead of deliberately frustrating, Austria's eleventh-hour negotiations for an accommodation with St. Petersburg.

No one, except Germans, whose judgments, naturally enough, are disordered by the miscarriage of their plans, has dreamed of bringing the charge against Sir Edward Grey that he wished for war, or fomented it, or even that through levity or want of vigilance, he allowed it to occur. The criticism is, that although his intentions were of the best, and his industry unflagging, he failed to realise the situation, and to adopt the only means which might have secured peace.

The charge which is not only alleged, but established against Austria is of a wholly different order. It is that she provoked war—blindly perhaps, and not foreseeing what the war would be, but at any rate recklessly and obstinately.

The crime of which Germany stands accused is that she deliberately aimed at war, and that when there seemed a chance of her plan miscarrying, she promptly took steps to render peace impossible. Among neutral countries is there one, the public opinion of which has acquitted her? And has not Italy, her own ally, condemned her by refusing assistance on the ground that this war is a war of German aggression?


[1] The name of the Russian capital was not changed until after the declaration of war, and therefore St. Petersburg is used in this chapter instead of Petrograd.

[2] July-September 1911.

[3] August 1913.

[4] The total population of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including Bosnia-Herzegovina, is roughly 50 millions. Of these 11 millions are Germans and 10 millions Magyars. About 24 millions are composed of a strange variety of Slav races. The remaining 5 millions consist of Italians, Roumanians, and Jews.

[5] White Paper, No. 161.

[6] A harmless and unprovocative telegram from the King of Prussia to Bismarck in July 1870 was, by the latter, so altered in tone that when published it achieved the intention of its editor and served as 'a red rag to the Gallic bull' and brought about the declaration of war by Napoleon III.—Bismarck's Reflections and Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 100.

[7] White Paper, No. 161.

[8] Saturday, July 25.

[9] White Paper, No. 17.

[10] Ibid. Nos. 17 and 44.

[11] A proof of this is the outburst of hatred in Germany against England so soon as we ranged ourselves with France and Russia.