CHAPTER VII A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS

It may be said—up to the very outbreak of war it was said very frequently—that the mere power and opportunity to make an outrageous attack are nothing without the will to do so. And this is true enough. Every barber who holds his client by the nose could cut his throat as easily as shave his chin. Every horse could kick the groom, who rubs him down, into the next world if he chose to do so. What sense, then, could there be in allowing our minds to be disturbed by base suspicions of our enterprising and cultured neighbour? What iota of proof was there that Germany nourished evil thoughts, or was brooding on visions of conquest and rapine?

So ran the argument of almost the whole Liberal press; and a considerable portion of the unionist press echoed it. Warnings were not heeded. They came only from unofficial quarters, and therefore lacked authority. Only the Government could have spoken with authority; and the main concern of members of the Government, when addressing parliamentary or popular audiences, appeared to be to prove that there was no need for anxiety. They went further in many instances, and denounced {278} those persons who ventured to express a different opinion from this, as either madmen or malefactors. Nevertheless a good deal of proof had already been published to the world—a good deal more was known privately to the British Government—all of which went to show that Germany had both the will and intention to provoke war, if a favourable opportunity for doing so should present itself.

For many years past—in a multitude of books, pamphlets, leading articles, speeches, and university lectures—the Germans had been scolding us, and threatening us with attack at their own chosen moment. When Mr. Churchill stated bluntly, in 1912, that the German fleet was intended as a challenge to the British Empire, he was only repeating, in shorter form and more sober language, the boasts which had been uttered with yearly increasing emphasis and fury, by hundreds of German patriots and professors.

With an engaging candour and in every fount of type, unofficial Germany had made it abundantly clear how she intended to carry her designs into execution—how, first of all, France was to be crushed by a swift and overwhelming attack—how Russia was then to be punished at leisure—how after that, some of the nations of Europe were to be forced into an alliance against the British Empire, and the rest into a neutrality favourable to Germany—how finally the great war, which aimed at making an end of our existence, was to begin. And though, from time to time, there were bland official utterances which disavowed or ignored these outpourings, the outpourings continued all the same. And each year they became more copious, and achieved a readier sale.

{279}

Those, however, who were responsible for British policy appear to have given more credit to the assurances of German diplomacy than to this mass of popular incitement. The British nation has always chosen to plume itself upon the fact that the hearts of British statesmen are stronger than their heads; and possibly their amiable credulity, in the present instance, might have been forgiven, had their means of ascertaining truth been confined to the statements of incontinent publicists and responsible statesmen. But there were other proofs available besides words of either sort.


THE FIRST WARNING

The Liberal Government came into office in the autumn of 1905. Ministers can hardly have had time to master the contents of their various portfolios, before German aggression burst rudely in upon them. Conceivably the too carefully calculating diplomatists of Berlin had concluded, that the principles of the new Cabinet would tend to keep England neutral under any provocation, and that a heaven-sent opportunity had therefore arrived for proceeding with the first item in their programme by crushing France. It is a highly significant fact that early in 1906, only a few months after Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's advent to power, he found himself faced with the prospect of a European war, which was only averted when our Foreign Minister made it clear to Germany, that in such an event this country would range herself upon the side of France.[1]

{280}

This was the first warning.


THE SECOND WARNING

The British answer to it was to utter renewed protestations Of friendly confidence. As an earnest of our good intentions, the shipbuilding programme[2] of the previous Government was immediately reduced. The burden of armaments became the burden of innumerable speeches. In well-chosen words Germany was coaxed and cajoled to acquiesce in our continued command of the sea; but finding in our action or inaction an opportunity for challenging it, she turned a polite ear—but a deaf one—and pushed forward her preparations with redoubled speed. In vain did we on our part slow down work at our new naval base in the Firth of Forth. In vain did we reduce our slender army to even smaller dimensions.[3] In vain did we plead disinterestedly with Germany, for a reduction in the pace of competition in naval armaments, on the terms that we should be allowed to possess a fleet nearly twice as strong as her own. For the most part, during this period, official Germany remained discreetly silent, for the reason that silence served her purpose best; but when the persistency of our entreaties made some sort of {281} answer necessary, we were given to understand by unofficial Germany—rather roughly and gruffly—that a certain class of requests was inadmissible as between gentlemen.

Then suddenly, having up to that time lulled ourselves into the belief that our fine words had actually succeeded in buttering parsnips, we awoke—in the late autumn of 1908—to the truth, and fell immediately into a fit of panic. Panic increased during the winter and following spring, and culminated during the summer, in an Imperial Defence Conference with the Dominions.

We had curtailed our shipbuilding programme and slowed down our preparations. Thereby we had hoped to induce Germany to follow suit. But the effect had been precisely the opposite: she had increased her programme and speeded up her preparations. At last our Government became alive to what was going on, and in tones of reverberant anxiety informed an astonished nation that the naval estimates called for large additions.

Ministers, indeed, were between the devil and the deep sea. The supremacy of the British Fleet was menaced; the conscience of the Radical party was shocked—shocked not so much at the existence of the menace as at official recognition of it, and at the cost of insuring against it. It was so much shocked, indeed, that it took refuge in incredulity; and—upon the strength of assurances which were of course abundantly forthcoming from the German Admiralty, who averred upon their honour that there had been neither addition nor acceleration—roundly accused its own anointed ministers of bearing false witness against an innocent neighbour.

{282}

None the less, large sums were voted, and the Dominions came forward with generous contributions.

Sir Wilfrid Laurier, indeed, who had been nourished and brought up on a diet of dried phrases, was sceptical. To this far-sighted statesman there appeared to be no German menace either then or subsequently. The whole thing was a mere nightmare, disturbing the innocent sleep of Liberalism and democracy.[4]

This was the second warning.


THE THIRD WARNING

The third warning came in the form of subterranean rumblings, inaudible to the general public, but clearly heard by ministerial ears.

In July 1909, while the Imperial Conference on Defence was in session, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg succeeded Prince Bülow as German Chancellor. Up to that time there had been the menace of the mailed fist, the rattling sabre, and the shining armour. Henceforward there was the additional menace of a diplomacy playing for time, with a careless and unconcealed contempt for the intelligence, the courage, and the honour of the British people and their statesmen.[5] The German Government had clearly formed the opinion that our ministers were growing more and more afraid of {283} asking their party to support increased naval estimates, and that it was only necessary to go on, alternately dangling and withdrawing illusory proposals for a naval understanding and a general agreement, in order to steal ahead of us in the race. Here, as in many other instances, the Germans had observed not altogether incorrectly; but they had drawn the wrong inference from the facts.

During the summer and autumn of 1910 was held the famous but futile Constitutional Conference, the primary object of which was to settle the quarrel between the two Houses of Parliament. With steadily increasing clumsiness, German diplomacy, through all this anxious time, was engaged in holding out its hand and withdrawing it again; until even men whose minds were worried with more immediate cares, could no longer ignore the gravity of the situation.

The Conference adjourned for the holiday season, but resumed its sessions in October. The public assurances of those who took part in it on both sides agree in this, that nothing except the special subject for which it had been called into existence was ever discussed at its meetings. But many other things were certainly discussed outside its meetings—on the doorstep and the staircase, and in the anterooms. Among these topics the dangers of the international situation, and the peril of imperial security were the chief.

In October and November 1910 there was a great secret of Polichinelle. Conceivably we may learn from some future historian even more about it than we knew at the time. All that need be said here with reference to the matter is, that many persons on {284} both sides found themselves faced with a position of affairs, where the security of the country plainly required measures for its defence, of a character and upon a scale, which neither political party could hope to carry through Parliament and commend to the country, unless it were supported by the more responsible section of its opponents.

Neither party, however, was willing to pay the price necessary for the support of the other, and as a consequence imperial interests suffered. It is not necessary, however, to conclude from this lamentable failure that a sordid spirit of faction was the explanation. In the constitutional sphere certain principles were in conflict, which the parties concerned had the honesty to hold by, but lacked the sympathy, and possibly the intelligence, to adjust. The acrimony of an immediate controversy distorted the vision of those engaged in it; so that the proportions of domestic and foreign dangers were misjudged.

The failure of this constitutional conference was welcomed at the time by exultant shoutings among many, perhaps the majority, of the rank and file of politicians upon both sides. It was not so regarded, however, by the country, which in a remarkable degree refused to respond to the incitements of violence and hatred with which it was plied during the ensuing election. There was at this time, for no very definite reason, a widespread popular uneasiness, and something approaching a general disgust with politicians.

Among more considerate men on both sides, the breakdown was frankly spoken of as one of the great calamities in our political history. It was more {285} than that. It was in reality one of the greatest which have ever befallen Europe.


THE FOURTH WARNING

During the following July (1911), while in this country we were deeply engaged in the bitter climax of the constitutional struggle, there sounded a fourth strident warning from the gong of the German Chancellery.

The Agadir incident is one of the strangest which have occurred in British history during recent years. Its full gravity was not realised outside a very narrow circle at the time of its occurrence; and when subsequently it became more widely understood there was a curious conspiracy to hush it up—or, perhaps, not so much a conspiracy, as a general instinct of concealment—a spontaneous gesture of modesty—as if the British nation had been surprised bathing.

At the beginning of July the German cruiser Panther appeared at Agadir in Morocco. This visit was intended and understood as a direct challenge to France. Diplomacy was immediately in a stir.

Three weeks later Mr. Lloyd George spoke at the Mansion House, making it clear that England would not tolerate this encroachment. Even amid the anger and excitement which attended the last stages of the Parliament Bill, this statement created a deep impression throughout the country, and a still deeper impression in other countries.

Then the crisis appeared to fade away. Germany was supposed to have become amenable. We returned to our internecine avocations. The holiday season claimed its votaries, and a great railway strike upset many of their best-laid plans. The inhabitants of the United Kingdom are accustomed to think {286} only on certain topics during August and September, and it is hard to break them of their habits. To reconsider a crisis which had arisen and passed away some two and a half months earlier, was more than could be expected of us when we returned to work in the autumn.

But Mr. Lloyd George's speech was capable of only one interpretation,—if Germany had persisted in her encroachment, this country would have gone to war in August or September 1911 in support of France. His words had no other meaning, and every highly placed soldier and sailor was fully aware of this fact, and made such preparations in his own sphere as the case required. But from what has transpired subsequently, it does not seem at all clear that more than two or three of the Cabinet in the least realised what was happening. Parliament did not understand the situation any more than the country did.

Later on, when people had time to concentrate their minds on such matters, there was a thrill of post-dated anxiety—a perturbation and disapproval; criticism upon various points; a transference of Mr. McKenna from the Admiralty to the Home Office, and of Mr. Churchill from the Home Office to the Admiralty. Indignant anti-militarists, supporters for the most part of the Government, allowed themselves to be mysteriously reduced to silence. Business men, who had been shocked when they learned the truth, suffered themselves to be persuaded that even the truth must be taken with a pinch of salt. There was, in fact, a sort of general agreement that it was better to leave the summer embers undisturbed, lest a greater conflagration {287} might ensue. The attitude of the orthodox politician was that of a nervous person who, hearing, as he imagines, a burglar in his bedroom, feels happier and safer when he shuts his eyes and pulls the blankets over his head.


THE FIFTH WARNING

A few months later, at the beginning of the following year (1912), the fifth warning of the series was delivered.

It differed from its predecessors inasmuch as it was addressed to the ears of the British Government alone. Neither the Opposition nor the country heard anything of it until more than two years later—until the battles of Alsace, of Charleroi, and of Mons had been lost—until the battle of the Marne had been won—until the British Army was moving north to take up a position in Flanders. Then we learned that, when Lord Haldane had visited Berlin in the month of February 1912, he had done so at the special request of the Kaiser, in order to consider how Anglo-German misunderstandings might be removed.

Lord Haldane would have acted more wisely had he stopped his journey en route, and never entered Berlin at all. For, two days before the date appointed for his visit, proposals for large increases of the German Army and Navy were laid before the Reichstag. His mission was to abate competition in armaments, and here was an encouraging beginning! Was it contempt, or insolence, or a design to overawe the supposed timidity of the emissary; or was it merely a blundering effort to steal a march in the negotiations by facing the ambassador on his arrival with a fait accompli? Possibly it was a combination of all these; but at any rate it was {288} exceedingly clumsy, and no less significant than clumsy.

As to the mission—Germany was willing in a vague way to 'retard'—whatever that may mean—though not to abandon, or reduce, her naval programme, providing the British Government would agree to remain neutral in any war which Germany might choose to wage. France might be crushed and Belgium annexed; but in either event England must stand aside and wait her turn. On no other terms would the Kaiser consent to a rapprochement with this country, or allow the blessed words 'retardation of the naval programme' to be uttered by official lips.

An undertaking of this tenor went beyond those assurances of non-aggressive intent which Lord Haldane, on behalf of his own Government, was fully prepared to give. We would not be a party to any unprovoked attack on Germany—was not that sufficient? It was plainly insufficient. It was made clear that Germany desired a free hand to establish herself in a position of supremacy astride of Europe. So Lord Haldane returned profitless from his wayfaring, and the British Government was at its wits' end how to placate the implacable.

The way they chose was well-doing, in which they wearied themselves perhaps overmuch, especially during the Balkan negotiations. For Germany did not want war at that time, for the reasons which have been given already. And so, rather surlily, and with the air of one who was humouring a crank—a pusillanimous people whose fixed idea was pacifism—she consented that we should put ourselves to vast trouble to keep the peace for her benefit. If {289} war had to come in the end, it had much better have come then—so far as we were concerned—seeing that the combined balance of naval and military power was less unfavourable to the Triple Entente at the beginning of 1913 than it was some fifteen months later.... This was all the notice we took of the fifth warning. We earned no gratitude by our activities, nor added in any way thereby to our own safety.

THE HALDANE MISSION

The Haldane mission is a puzzle from first to last. The Kaiser had asked that he should be sent.... For what purpose? ... Apparently in order to discuss the foreign policy of England and Germany. But surely the Kaiser should have been told that we kept an Ambassador at Berlin for this very purpose; an able man, habituated to stand in the strong sunlight of the imperial presence without losing his head; but, above all, qualified to converse on such matters (seeing that they lay within his own province) far better than the most profound jurist in Christendom. Or if our Ambassador at Berlin could not say what was required, the German Ambassador in London might easily have paid a visit to Downing Street; or the Foreign Ministers of the two countries might have arranged a meeting; or even the British Premier and the German Chancellor might have contrived to come together. Any of these ways would have been more natural, more proper, more likely (one would think) to lead to business, than the way which was followed.

One guesses that the desire of the Kaiser that Lord Haldane should be sent, was met half-way by the desire of Lord Haldane to go forth; that there was some temperamental affinity between these {290} two pre-eminent characters—some attraction of opposites, like that of the python and the rabbit.

Whatever the reasons may have been for this visit, the results of it were bad, and indeed disastrous. To have accepted the invitation was to fall into a German trap; a trap which had been so often set that one might have supposed it was familiar to every Foreign Office in Europe! Berlin has long delighted in these extra-official enterprises, undertaken behind the backs of accredited representatives. Confidences are exchanged; explanations are offered 'in the frankest spirit'; sometimes understandings of a kind are arrived at. But so far as Germany is concerned, nothing of all this is binding, unless her subsequent interests make it desirable that it should be. The names of the irregular emissaries, German, British, and cosmopolitan, whom the Kaiser has sent to London and received at Berlin—unbeknown to his own Foreign Office—since the beginning of his reign, would fill a large and very interesting visitors' book. One would have imagined that even so early as February 1912 this favourite device had been found out and discredited even in Downing Street.

Lord Haldane was perhaps even less well fitted for such an embassy by temperament and habit of mind, than he was by position and experience. Lawyer-statesmanship, of the modern democratic sort, is of all forms of human agency the one least likely to achieve anything at Potsdam. The British emissary was tireless, industrious, and equable. His colleagues, on the other hand, were overworked, indolent, or flustered. Ready on the shortest notice to mind everybody else's business, he was allowed to mind far too much of it; and he appears to have {291} minded most of it rather ill than well. He was no more suited to act for the Foreign Office than King Alfred was to watch the housewife's cakes.

THE HALDANE MISSION

The man whose heart swells with pride in his own ingenuity usually walks all his life in blinkers. It is not surprising that Lord Haldane's visit to the Kaiser was a failure, that it awoke distrust at the time, or that it opened the way to endless misrepresentation in the future. What surprises is his stoicism; that he should subsequently have shown so few signs of disappointment, distress, or mortification; that he should have continued up to the present moment to hold himself out as an expert on German psychology;[6] that he should be still upheld by his journalistic admirers, to such an extent that they even write pamphlets setting out to his credit 'what he did to thwart Germany.'[7]

We have been told by Mr. Asquith,[8] what was thought by the British Government of the outcome of Lord Haldane's embassy. We have also been informed by Germany, what was thought of it by high officials at Berlin; what inferences they drew from these conversations; what hopes they founded upon them. We do not know, however, what was thought of the incident by the other two members of the Entente; how it impressed the statesmen of Paris and Petrograd; for they must have known of the occurrence—the English representative not being one whose comings and goings would easily {292} escape notice. The British people were told nothing; they knew nothing; and therefore, naturally enough, they thought nothing about the matter.

The British Cabinet—if Mr. Asquith's memory is to be relied on—saw through the devilish designs of Germany so soon as Lord Haldane, upon his return, unbosomed himself to the conclave in quaking whispers. We know from the Prime Minister, that when he heard how the Kaiser demanded a free hand for European conquests, as the price of a friendly understanding with England, the scales dropped from his eyes, and he realised at once that this merely meant the eating of us up later. But one cannot help wondering, since Mr. Asquith was apparently so clear-sighted about the whole matter, that he made no preparations whatsoever—military, financial, industrial, or even naval (beyond the ordinary routine)—against an explosion which—the mood and intentions of Germany being what they were now recognised to be—might occur at any moment.

COST OF AMATEUR DIPLOMACY

As to what Germany thought of the incident we know of course only what the high personages at Berlin have been pleased to tell the world about their 'sincere impressions.' They have been very busy doing this—hand upon heart as their wont is—in America and elsewhere. According to their own account they gathered from Lord Haldane's mission that the British Government and people were very much averse from being drawn into European conflicts; that we now regretted having gone quite so far as we had done in the past, in the way of entanglements and understandings; that while we could not stand by, if any other country was being threatened directly on account of arrangements it {293} had come to with England, England certainly was by no means disposed to seek officiously for opportunities of knight-errantry. In simple words the cases of Tangier and Agadir were coloured by a special obligation, and were to be distinguished clearly from anything in the nature of a general obligation or alliance with France and Russia.

It is quite incredible that Lord Haldane ever said anything of this kind; for he would have been four times over a traitor if he had—to France; to Belgium; to his own country; also to Germany whom he would thus have misled. It is also all but incredible that a single high official at Berlin ever understood him to have spoken in this sense. But this is what the high officials have assured their own countrymen and the whole of the neutral world that they did understand; and they have called piteously on mankind to witness, how false the British Government was to an honourable understanding, so soon as trouble arose in July last with regard to Servia. Such are some of the penalties we have paid for the luxury of indulging in amateur diplomacy.

The German bureaucracy, however, always presses things too far. It is not a little like Fag in The Rivals—"whenever it draws on its invention for a good current lie, it always forges the endorsements as well as the bill." As a proof that the relations of the two countries from this time forward were of the best, inferences have been drawn industriously by the high officials at Berlin as to the meaning and extent of Anglo-German co-operation during the Balkan wars; as to agreements with regard to Africa already signed, but not published, in which Downing {294} Street had shown itself 'surprisingly accommodating'; as to other agreements with regard to the Baghdad Railway, the Mesopotamian oil-fields, the navigation of the Tigris, and access through Basra to the Persian Gulf. These agreements, the earnest of a new entente between the Teuton nations—the United States subsequently to be welcomed in—are alleged to have been already concluded, signed and awaiting publication when war broke out.[9] Then trouble arises in Servia; a mere police business—nothing more—which might have been settled in a few days or at any rate weeks, if perfidious Albion had not seized the opportunity to work upon Muscovite suspicions, in order to provoke a world-war for which she had been scheming all the time!


THE SIXTH WARNING

The sixth warning was the enormous German Army Bill and the accompanying war loan of 1913. By comparison, the five previous warnings were but ambiguous whispers. And yet this last reverberation had apparently no more effect upon the British Government than any of the rest.

With all these numerous premonitions the puzzle is, how any government could have remained in doubt as to the will of Germany to wage war whenever {295} her power seemed adequate and the opportunity favourable for winning it. The favourite plea that the hearts of Mr. Asquith and his colleagues were stronger than their heads does not earn much respect. Knowing what we do of them in domestic politics, this excuse would seem to put the quality of their heads unduly low. The true explanation of their omissions must be sought elsewhere than in their intellects and affections.


It is important to remember that none of the considerations which have been set out in this chapter can possibly have been hidden from the Foreign Office, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Prime Minister, the Committee of Imperial Defence, or the inner or outer circles of the Cabinet. Important papers upon matters of this kind go the round of the chief ministers. Unless British public offices have lately fallen into a state of more than Turkish indolence, of more than German miscalculation, it is inconceivable that the true features of the situation were not laid before ministers, dinned into ministers, proved and expounded to ministers, by faithful officials, alive to the dangers which were growing steadily but rapidly with each succeeding year. And although we may only surmise the vigilant activity of these subordinates, we do actually know, that Mr. Asquith's Government was warned of them, time and again, by other persons unconcerned in party politics and well qualified to speak.

But supposing that no one had told them, they had their own wits and senses, and these were surely enough. A body of men whose first duty is the {296} preservation of national security—who are trusted to attend to that task, paid for performing it, honoured under the belief that they do attend to it and perform it—cannot plead, in excuse for their failure, that no one had jogged their elbows, roused them from their slumbers or their diversions, and reminded them of their duty.

INACTION OF THE GOVERNMENT

Mr. Asquith and his chief colleagues must have realised the interdependence of policy and armaments; and they must have known, from the year 1906 onwards, that on the military side our armaments were utterly inadequate to maintain our policy. They must have known that each year, force of circumstances was tending more and more to consolidate the Triple Entente into an alliance, as the only means of maintaining the balance of power, which was a condition both of the freedom of Europe and of British security. They knew—there can be no doubt on this point—what an immense numerical superiority of armed forces Germany and Austria together could bring, first against France at the onset of war, and subsequently, at their leisure, against Russia during the grip of war. They knew that a British Expeditionary Army of 160,000 men would not make good the difference—would come nowhere near making good the difference. They must have known that from the point of view of France and Belgium, the special danger of modern warfare was the crushing rapidity of its opening phase. They must have been kept fully informed of all the changes which were taking place in the military situation upon the continent to the detriment of the Triple Entente. They had watched the Balkan war and measured its effects. They knew {297} the meanings of the critical dates—1914-1916—better, we may be sure, than any section of their fellow-countrymen. And even although they might choose to disregard, as mere jingoism, all the boasts and denunciations of German journalists and professors, they must surely have remembered the events which preceded the conference at Algeciras, and those others which led up to the Defence Conference of 1909. They can hardly have forgotten the anxieties which had burdened their hearts during the autumn of 1910. Agadir cannot have been forgotten; the memory of Lord Haldane's rebuff was still green; and the spectre of the latest German Army Bill must have haunted them in their dreams.

There is here no question of being wise after the event. The meaning of each of these things in turn was brought home to the Prime Minister and his chief colleagues as it occurred—firstly, we may be sure, by their own intelligence—secondly, we may be equally sure, by the reports of their responsible subordinates—thirdly, by persons of knowledge and experience, who had no axe to grind or interest to serve.

It is therefore absurd to suppose that ministers could have failed to realise the extent of the danger, or of our unpreparedness to meet it, unless they had purposely buried their heads in the sand. They knew that they had not a big enough army, and that this fact might ruin their whole policy. Why did they never say so? Why, when Lord Roberts said so, did they treat him with contumely, and make every effort to discredit him? Why was nothing done by them during their whole period of office to increase the Army and thereby diminish the {298} numerical superiority of their adversaries. On the contrary, they actually reduced the Army, assuring the country that they had no use for so many trained soldiers. Moreover, the timidity or secretiveness of the Government prevented England from having, what is worth several army corps, and what proved the salvation of France—a National Policy, fully agreed and appealing to the hearts and consciences of the whole people.


The answers to these questions must be sought in another sphere. The political situation was one of great perplexity at home as well as abroad, and its inherent difficulties were immeasurably increased by the character and temperament of Mr. Asquith, by the nature no less of his talents than of his defects. The policy of wait-and-see is not necessarily despicable. There are periods in which it has been the surest wisdom and the truest courage; but this was not one of those periods, nor was there safety in dealing either with Ireland or with Germany upon this principle. When a country is fully prepared it can afford to wait and see if there will be a war; but not otherwise.

Sir Edward Grey is a statesman whose integrity and disinterestedness have never been impugned by friend or foe; but from the very beginning of his tenure of office he has appeared to lack that supreme quality of belief in himself which stamps the greatest foreign ministers. He has seemed at times to hesitate, as if in doubt whether the dangers which he foresaw with his mind's eye were realities, or only nightmares produced by his own over-anxiety. We have a feeling also that in the conduct of his office he had {299} played too lonely a part, and that such advice and sympathy as he had received were for the most part of the wrong sort. What he needed in the way of counsel and companionship was simplicity and resolution. What he had to rely on was the very reverse of this.

Lord Haldane, as we have learned recently, shared largely in the work of the Foreign Office; a man of prodigious industry, but over-ingenious, and of a self-complacency which too readily beguiled him into the belief that there was no opponent who could not be satisfied, no obstacle which could not be made to vanish—by argument.

SIR EDWARD GREY'S DIFFICULTIES

Moreover, Sir Edward Grey had to contend against enemies within his own household. In the Liberal party there was a tradition, which has never been entirely shaken off, that all increase of armaments is provocative, and that all foreign engagements are contrary to the public interest. After the Agadir crisis he was made the object of a special attack by a large and influential section of his own party and press, and was roundly declared to be no longer possible as Foreign Minister.[10] There can be no doubt that the attempt to force Sir Edward Grey's resignation in the winter 1911-1912 was fomented by German misrepresentation and intrigue, skilfully acting upon the peculiar susceptibilities of radical fanaticism. Nor is there any doubt that the attacks which were made upon the policy of Mr. Churchill, from the autumn of 1912 onwards, were fostered by {300} the same agency, using the same tools, and aiming at the same objects.

The orthodoxy of Mr. Churchill was suspect on account of his Tory ancestry and recent conversion; that of Sir Edward Grey on the ground that he was a country gentleman, bred in aristocratic traditions, trained in Foreign Affairs under the dangerous influences of Lord Rosebery, and therefore incapable of understanding the democratic dogma that loving-kindness will conquer everything, including Prussian ambitions.

Surely no very vivid imagination is needed to penetrate the mystery of Cabinet discussions on defence for several years before war broke out. Behind the Cabinet, as the Cabinet well knew, was a party, one half of which was honestly oblivious of all danger, while the other half feared the danger much less than it hated the only remedy. Clearly the bulk of the Cabinet was in cordial sympathy either with one or other of these two sections of their party. Sir Edward Grey accordingly had to defend his policy against an immense preponderance of settled convictions, political prejudices, and personal interests. And at the same time he seems to have been haunted by the doubt lest, after all, his fears were only nightmares. Mr. Churchill, there is no difficulty in seeing, must have fought very gallantly; but always, for the reason already given, with one hand tied behind his back. He had all his work cut out to maintain the Navy, which was under his charge, in a state of efficiency; and this upon the whole he succeeded in doing pretty efficiently.[11]

{301}

If we may argue back from public utterances to Cabinet discussions, it would appear that the only assistance—if indeed it deserved such a name—which was forthcoming to these two, proceeded from Mr. Asquith and Lord Haldane. The former was by temperament opposed to clear decisions and vigorous action. The latter—to whom the mind of Germany was as an open book—bemused himself, and seems to have succeeded in bemusing his colleagues to almost as great an extent.

In fancy, we can conjure up a scene which must have been enacted, and re-enacted, very often at Number 10 Downing Street in recent years. We can hear the warnings of the Foreign Minister, the urgent pleas of the First Lord of the Admiralty, the scepticism, indifference, or hostility expressed by the preponderant, though leaderless, majority in the Cabinet. Simple said, I see no danger; Sloth said, Yet a little more sleep; and Presumption said, Every Vat must stand upon his own bottom.... We can almost distinguish the tones of their Right Honourable voices.

EXCESSIVE TIMIDITY

The situation was governed by an excessive timidity—by fear of colleagues, of the caucus, of the party, and of public opinion—by fear also of Germany. Mr. Asquith, and the Cabinet of which he was the head, refused to look their policy between the eyes, and realise what it was, and what were its inevitable consequences. They would not admit that the Balance of Power was an English interest, or that they were in any way concerned in maintaining it. They would not admit that our Entente with France and Russia was in fact an alliance. They thought they could send British officers to arrange plans of {302} campaign with the French General Staff—could learn from this source all the secret hopes and anxieties of France—could also withdraw the greater part of their fleet from the Mediterranean, under arrangement for naval co-operation with our present ally[12]—all without committing this country to any form of understanding! They boasted that they had no engagements with France, which puzzled the French and the Russians, and convinced nobody; save possibly themselves, and a section of their own followers. They had in fact bound the country to a course of action—in certain events which were not at all improbable—just as surely by drifting into a committal, as if they had signed and sealed a parchment. Yet they would not face the imperative condition. They would not place their armaments on a footing to correspond with their policy.

Much of this is now admitted more or less frankly, but justification is pleaded, in that it was essential to lead the country cautiously, and that the Government could do nothing unless it had the people behind it. In these sayings there is a measure of truth. But as a matter of fact the country was not led at all. It was trapped. Never was there the slightest effort made by any member of the Government to educate the people with regard to the national dangers, {303} responsibilities, and duties. When the crisis occurred the hand of the whole British Empire was forced. There was no other way; but it was a bad way. And what was infinitely worse, was the fact that, when war was declared—that war which had been discussed at so many Cabinet meetings since 1906—military preparations were found to be utterly inadequate in numbers; and in many things other than numbers. The politician is right in thinking that, as a rule, it is to his advantage if the people are behind him; but there are times when we can imagine him praying that they may not be too close.

We have been given to understand that it was impossible for the Government to acknowledge their policy frankly, to face the consequences, and to insist upon the necessary preparations in men and material being granted. It was impossible, because to have done so would have broken the Liberal party—that great instrument for good—in twain. The Cabinet would have fallen in ruin. The careers of its most distinguished members would have been cut short. Consider what sacrifices would have been contained in this catalogue of disasters.

That is really what we are now beginning to consider, and are likely to consider more and more as time goes on.

VALUE OF SELF-SACRIFICE

A great act of self-sacrifice—a man's, or a party's—may sometimes make heedless people realise the presence of danger when nothing else will. Suppose Mr. Asquith had said, "I will only continue to hold office on one condition," and had named the condition—'that armaments should correspond to policy'—the only means of safety. He might thereupon have disappeared into the chasm; but like Curtius he {304} might have saved the City. It would have made a great impression, Mr. Asquith falling from office for his principles. Those passages of Periclean spoken after war broke out, about the crime of Germany against humanity—about sacrificing our own ease—about duty, honour, freedom, and the like—were wonderfully moving. Would there, however, have been occasion for them, if in the orator's own case, the sacrifice had been made before the event instead of after it, or if he had faithfully performed the simplest and chief of all the duties attaching to his great position?

The present war, as many of us thought, and still think, was not inevitable. None have maintained this opinion in the past with greater vehemence than the Liberal party. But the conditions on which it could have been avoided were, that England should have been prepared, which she was not; and that she should have spoken her intentions clearly, which she did not.

THE PRICE PAID

When the war is ended, or when the tide of it has turned and begun to sweep eastward, there will be much coming and going of the older people, and of women, both young and old, between England and France. They have waited, and what is it that they will then be setting forth to see? ... From Mons to the Marne, and back again to Ypres, heaps of earth, big and little, shapeless, nameless, numberless—the graves of men who did not hesitate to sacrifice either their careers or their lives when duty called them. Desolation is the heaviest sacrifice of all; and those who will, by and by, go on this pilgrimage have suffered it, ungrudgingly and with pride, because their country needed it. If this war was {305} indeed inevitable there is no more to be said. But what if it was not inevitable? What if there would have been no war at all—or a less lingering and murderous war—supposing that those, who from the trust reposed in them by their fellow-countrymen should have been the first to sacrifice their careers to duty, had not chosen instead to sacrifice duty to their careers? It was no doubt a service to humanity to save the careers of politicians from extinction, to keep ministers in office from year to year, to preserve the Liberal party—that great instrument for good—unfractured. These benefits were worth a great price; but were they worth quite so great a price as has been paid?


[1] The Editor of the Westminster Gazette should be an unimpeachable witness: "The (German) Emperor's visit to Tangier (March 1905) was followed by a highly perilous passage of diplomacy, in which the German Government appeared to be taking risks out of all proportion to any interest they could have had in Morocco. The French sacrificed their Foreign Minister (M. Delcasse) in order to keep the peace, but the Germans were not appeased, and the pressure continued. It was the general belief at this time, that nothing but the support which the British government gave to the French averted a catastrophe in the early part of 1906, or induced the Germans to accept the Algeciras conference as the way out of a dangerous situation."—The Foundations of British Policy (p. 15), by J. A. Spender.

[2] The Cawdor Programme.

[3] Mr. Haldane reduced the Army by nine battalions (i.e. 9000 men) in 1906. He stated that he had no use for them. This meant a great deal more, when the reserve-making power is taken into consideration.... "The Regular Army ... has been reduced by over 30,000 men; not only a present, but a serious prospective loss."—Lord Roberts in the House of Lords, April 3, 1913.

[4] Even four years later we find Sir Wilfrid Laurier wedded to the belief that the German Emperor was one of the great men of the present age; wonderfully endowed by intellect, character, and moral fibre; his potent influence was always directed towards peace.—Canadian House of Commons Debates, February 27, 1913, 4364. The whole of this speech (4357-4364) in opposition to Mr. Borden's Naval Forces Bill is interesting reading, as is also a later speech, April 7, 1913, on the same theme (7398-7411).

[5] How Britain Strove for Peace, by Sir Edward Cook: especially pp. 18-35; also Why Britain is at War, by the same author. These two pamphlets are understood to be a semi-official statement authorised by the British Government.

[6] Lord Haldane has explained German conduct in the present war by a sudden change of spirit, such as once befell a collie dog which owned him as master, and which after a blameless early career, was possessed by a fit of depravity in middle life and took to worrying sheep. Thus in a single metaphor he extenuates the German offence and excuses his own blindness!

[7] "Lord Haldane: What he did to thwart Germany." Pamphlet published by the Daily Chronicle.

[8] At Cardiff, October 2, 1914.

[9] If this were really so, it is remarkable that Germany has not published these opiate documents, which lulled her vigilance and were the cause of her undoing. In the New York Evening Post (February 15, 1915) there is a letter signed 'Historicus' in which the German version of the facts is not seriously questioned, although a wholly different inference is drawn: "This extremely conciliatory attitude of England is another proof of the pacific character of her foreign policy. But, unfortunately, German political thought regards force as the sole controlling factor in international relations, and cannot conceive of concessions voluntarily made in answer to claims of a more or less equitable nature. To the German mind such actions are infallible indications of weakness and decadence. Apparently Grey's attitude towards German claims in Turkey and Africa was so interpreted, and the conclusion was rashly reached that England could be ignored in the impending world-war."

[10] "The time has now come to state with a clearness which cannot be mistaken that Sir Edward Grey as Foreign Secretary is impossible."—Daily News, January 10, 1912. The Daily News was not a lonely voice speaking in the wilderness. Similar threats have been levelled against Mr. Churchill.

[11] It has been stated on good authority, that Mr. McKenna upheld the national interests with equal firmness, and against equal, if not greater opposition, while he was at the Admiralty.

[12] A large section of the Liberal party watched with jealous anxiety our growing intimacy with France. In 1913, however, they discovered in it certain consolations in the withdrawal of our ships of war from the Mediterranean; and they founded upon this a demand for the curtailing of our own naval estimates. France according to this arrangement was to look after British interests in the Mediterranean, Britain presumably was to defend French interests in the Bay of Biscay and the Channel. When, however, the war-cloud was banking up in July 1914, these very people who had been most pleased with our withdrawal from the Mediterranean, were those who urged most strongly that we should now repudiate our liabilities under the arrangement.