CHAPTER V PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY

Although in a technical sense the present war was brought on by Austrian diplomacy, no one, in England at least, is inclined to rate the moral responsibility of that empire at the highest figure. It is in Germany that we find, or imagine ourselves to have found, not only the true and deep-seated causes of the war, but the immediate occasions of it.

Not the least of our difficulties, however, is to decide the point—Who is Germany? Who was her man of business? Who acted for her in the matter of this war? Who pulled the wires, or touched the button that set the conflagration blazing? Was this the work of an individual or a camarilla? Was it the result of one strong will prevailing, or of several wills getting to loggerheads—wills not particularly strong, but obstinate, and flustered by internal controversy and external events? What actually happened—was it meant by the 'super-men' to happen, or did it come as a shock—not upon 'supermen' at all—but upon several groups of surprised blunderers? These questions are not likely to be answered for a generation or more—until, if ever, the archives of Vienna and Berlin give up their {43} secrets—and it would therefore be idle to waste too much time in analysis of the probabilities.

The immediate occasion of the catastrophe has been variously attributed to the German court, army, bureaucracy, professors, press, and people. If we are looking only for a single thing—the hand which lit the conflagration—and not for the profounder and more permanent causes and origins of the trouble, we can at once dismiss several of these suspects from the dock.

MEN OF LETTERS

Men of learning and letters, professors of every variety—a class which has been christened 'the Pedantocracy' by unfriendly critics—may be all struck off the charge-sheet as unconcerned in the actual delinquency of arson.

In fact, if not in name, these are a kind of priesthood, and a large part of their lives' work has been to spread among German youth the worship of the State under Hohenzollern kingship. It is impossible of course to make 'a silk purse out of a sow's ear,' a religion out of a self-advertising dynasty, or a god out of a machine. Consequently, except for mischief, their efforts have been mainly wasted. Over a long period of years, however, they have been engaged in heaping up combustibles. They have filled men's minds to overflowing with notions which are very liable to lead to war, and which indeed were designed for no other purpose than to prepare public opinion for just such a war as this. Their responsibility therefore is no light one, and it will be dealt with later. But they are innocent at all events of complicity in this particular exploit of fire-raising; and if, after the event, they have sought to excuse, vindicate, and uphold the action of their rulers it would be hard measure to condemn them for that.

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Nor did the press bring about the war. In other countries, where the press is free and irresponsible, it has frequently been the prime mover in such mischief; but never in Germany. For in Germany the press is incapable of bringing about anything of the political kind, being merely an instrument and not a principal.

Just as little can the charge of having produced the war be brought against the people. In other countries, where the people are used to give marching orders to their rulers, popular clamour has led to catastrophe of this kind more frequently than any other cause. But this, again, has never been so in Germany. The German people are sober, steadfast, and humble in matters of high policy. They have confidence in their rulers, believe what they are told, obey orders readily, but do not think of giving them. When war was declared, all Germans responded to the call of duty with loyalty and devotion. Nay, having been prepared for at least a generation, they welcomed war with enthusiasm. According to the lights which were given them to judge by, they judged every whit as rightly as our own people. The lights were false lights, hung out deliberately to mislead them and to justify imperial policy. But this was no fault of theirs. Moreover, the judgment which they came to with regard to the war was made after the event, and cannot therefore in any case be held responsible for its occurrence. This is a people's war surely enough, but just as surely, the people had no hand in bringing it about.

The circle of the accused is therefore narrowed down to the Court, the Army, and the Bureaucracy. And there we must leave it for the present—a joint indictment against all three. But whether these {45} parties were guilty, all three in equal measure, we cannot conjecture with the least approach to certainty. Nor can we even say precisely of what they were guilty—of misunderstanding—of a quarrel among themselves—of a series of blunders—or of a crime so black and deliberate, that no apologist will be able ever to delete it from the pages of history. On all this posterity must be left to pronounce.

GERMAN MILITARY OPINION

It is only human nevertheless to be curious about personalities. Unfortunately for the satisfaction of this appetite, all is darkness as to the German Army. We may suspect that the Prussian junker, or country gentleman, controls and dominates it. But even as to this we may conceivably be wrong. The military genius of some Hanoverian, Saxon, or Bavarian may possess the mastery in council. As to the real heads of the army, as to their individual characters, and their potency in directing policy we know nothing at all. After nine months of war, we have arrived at no clear notion, even with regard to their relative values as soldiers in the field. We have even less knowledge as to their influence beforehand in shaping and deciding the issues of war and peace.

This much, however, we may reasonably deduce from Bernhardi and other writers—that military opinion had been anxious for some considerable number of years past, and more particularly since the Agadir incident,[1] lest war, which it regarded as ultimately inevitable, should be delayed until the forces ranged against Germany, especially upon her Eastern frontier, were too strong for her to cope with.

In the pages of various official publications, and in newspaper reports immediately before and after {46} war began, we caught glimpses of certain characters at work; but these were not professional soldiers; they were members of the Court and the Bureaucracy.

Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor, comes upon the scene—a harassed and indignant official—sorely flustered—not by any means master of his temper—not altogether certain of his facts—in considerable doubt apparently as to whether things have not passed behind his back which he ought to have been told of by higher powers, but was not. He appears to us as a diligent and faithful servant,—one who does not seek to impose his own decisions, but to excuse, justify, and carry out, if he can, decisions which have been made by others, more highly placed and greedier of responsibility than himself.

Herr von Jagow, the Foreign Minister, is much affected. He drops tears—or comes somewhere near dropping them—over the lost hopes of a peaceful understanding between England and Germany. We can credit the sincerity of his sorrow all the more easily, for the reason that Herr von Jagow behaves throughout the crisis as the courteous gentleman; while others, who by position were even greater gentlemen, forget momentarily, in their excitement, the qualities which are usually associated with that title.

Then there is the German Ambassador at Vienna—obviously a firebrand—enjoying, one imagines, the confidence of the war parties in both capitals: also apparently a busy intriguer. The documents show him acting behind the back of the Berlin Foreign Office, and communicating direct with the Kaiser.

We gather very clearly that he egged on the {47} statesmen of Vienna, with great diligence and success, to press Servia to extremes, and to shear time so short that peace-makers had nothing left to catch hold of. Russia, he assured them, would never carry her opposition to the point of war. Even if she did so, he argued with much plausibility, she would be negligible. For she stood midway in a great military and naval reformation, than which no situation is more deplorable for the purposes of carrying on a campaign.

PRINCE LICHNOWSKY

When Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador in London, took his departure at the outbreak of war, he probably left no single enemy behind him. A simple, friendly, sanguine figure, with a pardonable vanity which led him to believe the incredible. He produced what is called in the cant of the day 'an atmosphere,' mainly in drawing-rooms and newspaper offices, but occasionally, one conjectures, even in Downing Street itself. His artistry was purely in air and touched nothing solid. He was useful to his employers, mainly because he put England off her guard. He would not have been in the least useful if he had not been mainly sincere.

But though he was useful to German policy, he was not trusted by the powers in Berlin to attend to their business at the Court of St. James's except under strict supervision. What precisely were the duties of Baron von Kuhlmann, Councillor to the Embassy? He was always very cheerful, and obliging, and ready to smooth any little difficulty out of the way. On the other hand, he was also very deft at inserting an obstacle with an air of perfect innocence, which imposed on nearly every one—even occasionally on the editors of newspapers. For {48} some reason, however, very few people were willing to accept this plausible diplomatist's assurances without a grain or two of salt. Indeed quite a large number were so misled by their prejudices against him, that they were convinced his prime vocation was that of a spy—a spy on the country to which he was accredited and on the Ambassador under whom he served.[2]

We know more of the Kaiser than of any of these others, and we have known him over a much longer period. And yet our knowledge of him has never enabled us to forecast his actions with any certainty. British ministers and diplomatists, whose business it is to gauge, not only the muzzle-velocity of eminent characters, but also the forces of their recoil, never seem to have arrived at any definite conclusions with regard to this baffling personality. Whatever he did or did not do, they were always surprised by it, which gives us some measure of their capacity if not of his.

The Kaiser is pre-eminently a man of moods. At one time he is Henry the Fifth, at another Richard the Second. Upon occasions he appears as Hamlet, cursing fate which impels him to make a decision. Within the same hour he is Autolycus crying up his wares with an unfeigned cheerfulness. He is possessed by the demon of quick-change and restlessness. We learn on good authority that he possesses an almost {49} incredible number of uniforms which he actually wears, and of royal residences which he occasionally inhabits. He clothes himself suitably for each brief occasion, and sleeps rarely, if reports can be believed, for more than two nights together under the same roof. He is like an American millionaire in his fondness for rapid and sudden journeys, and like a democratic politician in his passion for speech-making.

The phenomena of the moment—those which flicker upon the surface of things—engage his eager and vivacious interest. Upon such matters his commentaries are often apt and entertaining. But when he attempts to deal with deeper issues, and with the underlying principles and causes of human action, his utterances immediately lose the mind's attention and keep hold only of the ear's, by virtue of a certain resonance and blatancy. When the Kaiser discourses to us, as he often does, upon the profundities of politics, philosophy, and religion, he falls instantly into set forms, which express nothing that is living and real. He would have the world believe, and doubtless himself sincerely believes, that he has plunged, like a pearl-diver, into the deeps, and has returned thence laden with rich treasures of thought and experience. But in truth he has never visited this region at all, being of a nature far too buoyant for such enterprises. He has not found truth, but only remembered phrases.

The Kaiser is frequently upbraided for his charm of manner by people who have come under its influence and been misled. One of the commonest accusations against him is that of duplicity; but indeed it seems hardly more just to condemn him for duplicity than it would be to praise him for sincerity. He is a man dangerous to have dealings with, but this {50} is owing to the irresponsible effervescence of his ideas. At any given moment he probably means the greater part of what he says; but the image of one moment is swiftly expelled and obliterated by that of the next. The Kaiser's untrustworthiness arises not from duplicity, so much as from the quickness of his fancy, the shallowness of his judgment, and the shortness of his memory. That his communications frequently produce the same effects as duplicity, is due to the fact that he recognises no obligation either to stand by his word, or to correct the impression which his hasty assurances may have produced in the mind of his interlocutor. The statesman who is won over to-day by his advocacy of an English alliance, is astounded on the morrow to find him encouraging an English pogrom.[3]

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THE IDEA OF ANTICHRIST

When a violent convulsion shakes the world people immediately begin to look about them for some mighty and malevolent character who can be held responsible for it. To the generations which knew them, Cromwell, Napoleon, and Bismarck all figured as Antichrist. But in regard to the policy which produced the present war, of what man can it be said truly, either that he controlled that policy, or that he brought about the results which he aimed at? Which of the great personages concerned possesses the sublime qualities of the spirit of evil?[4]

It is conceivable, though very unlikely, that behind the scenes there was some strong silent man who worked the others like puppets on a string; but among those who have made themselves known to us in the pages of White Papers and the like, there is none whose features bear the least resemblance to our conception of Antichrist; none who had firm {52} control of events, or even of himself. There is none of whom it is possible to say truly that he achieved the results at which he aimed.

It is clear that the war which the joint efforts of these great personages brought into existence was a monstrous birth, and that it filled those who were responsible for it with dismay, only a degree less than it shocked other people. For proof of this, it is unnecessary to look further than the miscalculations of the political kind which became recognised for such within a few weeks after war was declared.


[1] July 1911.

[2] Prussian policy appears to be modelled upon the human body. Just as man is endowed with a duality of certain organs—eyes, nostrils, lungs, kidneys, etc.—so Prussian policy appears to proceed upon the principle of a double diplomatic representation, two separate Foreign Office departments, etc., etc. It is no doubt an excellent plan to have a second string to your bow; but it is not yet clear how far this can be carried with advantage in delicate negotiations without destroying confidence in your sincerity.

[3] A labour leader, highly impressed by the spectacle, gave a vivid description of an equestrian parade through the streets of Berlin after the declaration of war—the Kaiser in helmet of gold, seated on his white charger, frowning terribly, in a kind of immobility, as if his features had been frozen into this dramatically appropriate expression—following behind him in a carriage the Crown Prince and Princess, all vivacity and smiles, and bows to this side and the other—a remarkable contrast!

It is interesting to contrast the ornate and flamboyant being whom we know as Kaiser Wilhelm the Second with Carlyle's famous description of the great Frederick:—

"A highly interesting lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping figure; whose name among strangers was King Friedrich the Second, or Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, who much loved and esteemed him, was Vater Fritz,—Father Fred,—a name of familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is a King every inch of him, though without the trappings of a King. Presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture; no crown but an old military cocked-hat,—generally old, or trampled and kneaded into absolute softness, if new;—no sceptre but one like Agamemnon's, a walking-stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick (with which he hits the horse 'between the ears' say authors);—and for royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it; rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in colour or cut, ending in high over-knee military boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft with an underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened or varnished; Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to approach.

"The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing stature or costume; close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height; head, however, is of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a beautiful man; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. On the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, of much hard labour done in this world; and seems to anticipate nothing but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what joy there were, but not expecting any worth mention; great unconscious and some conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humour,—are written on that old face; which carries its chin well forward, in spite of the slight stoop about the neck; snuffy nose rather flung into the air under its old cocked hat,—like an old snuffy lion on the watch; and such a pair of eyes as no man or lion or lynx of that century bore elsewhere, according to all the testimony we have."—Carlyle, History of Frederick the Great, Bk. I. chap. i.

[4] A friend who has been kind enough to read the proofs of this volume takes exception to the rating of Antichrist. The Devil, he maintains, is not at all a clever or profound spirit, though he is exceedingly industrious. The conception of him in the old Mystery Plays, where he figures as a kind of butt, whose elaborate and painfully constructed schemes are continually being upset owing to some ridiculous oversight, or by some trivial accident, is the true Satan; the Miltonic idea is a poetical myth, not in the least borne out by human experience.