Germany before the war

by baron Beyens

I.

THE revolution of 1908 had set up in Turkey a constitutional system or, more properly speaking, a travesty of one, by unearthing the 1876 constitution from the dust in which it lay buried. Count von Aehrenthal, who in Vienna aimed at politics on the grand scale—a personal policy, modelled on that of the statesmen of Berlin—took advantage of the internal troubles arising from the overthrow of the Hamidian despotism to convert into a formal annexation (7th October 1908) the right of occupying Bosnia-Herzegovina granted to the Dual Monarchy by the Congress of Berlin. The pretext was ready to hand: Francis Joseph could not allow the inhabitants of provinces under his control to send deputies to a Parliament assembling at Constantinople. The Austrian minister thought to disarm the opposition of the Young Turks by withdrawing the Austro-Hungarian garrisons from the Sandjak of Novibazar. All he did, in reality, was to weaken the position of his Government in the ensuing conflict.

This conflict lasted through the winter of 1908-1909, and came near to provoking a European war. On the one side was Austria-Hungary, supported by Germany; on the other, not only Turkey, but also Serbia, with Russia at her back.

The Belgrade Cabinet had sent to the Powers a protest against the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, describing it as “a serious injury to the feelings, the interests, and the rights of the Serbian people.” Serbia’s concern in the Austro-Turkish quarrel, which was marked by a Turkish boycott of Austrian and Hungarian goods, is easily explained. The arbitrary act of the Vienna Cabinet threatened to cut off the Bosnian people forever from that of Serbia, to which it was attached by a common origin. The Serbians could not calmly endure the severing of these blood-ties, since it boded the ruin of their dearest national aspirations and the end of their dreams of a wider empire to come.

As regards the Cabinet of Berlin, we do not know whether it was consulted by Count von Aehrenthal as to the advisability of annexation, or merely informed that the step was about to be taken. We must entirely dismiss the view that Berlin itself suggested the playing of this shabby trick on Turkey. But did it more or less approve of what had been done? Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, who was then interim chief at the Wilhelmstrasse, and who had not the art of concealing his dislikes, always spoke of the Austrian minister in a sarcastic tone. He was certainly no supporter of Aehrenthal’s adventurous policy, nor can the Imperial Government have looked upon it with favour. The fall of absolutism at Constantinople was in itself a serious blow to German influence there, which was based upon Abdul Hamid’s friendship. This critical moment in William II.’s diplomacy was chosen by the minister of his most loyal ally for tearing up the Treaty of Berlin, for annulling with a stroke of the pen the Sultan’s shadowy rule over two ancient Ottoman provinces, and for thus lowering his religious prestige as Caliph in the eyes of Mussulmans and kindling the wrath of the Young Turks against Germanism. At the same time, the Prince of Bulgaria, acting in agreement with the Cabinet of Vienna, declared himself independent.

When Germany, however, saw Austria-Hungary at loggerheads with Russia, who had flown to the rescue of Serbia, she did not hesitate to stand firmly by her ally, and Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter was the first to suggest that the German ambassador in St. Petersburg should show a menacing front, in order to end the dispute as soon as possible. Doubtless the Foreign Secretary was not loath to show the presumptuous Aehrenthal that he could not get out of the scrape by his own unaided efforts. The successful result of his counsels, the retreat of Russia, followed by Belgrade’s resolve to drop its protest against the annexation, made Kiderlen-Wächter very popular in Court circles, and caused him to be looked upon as the coming man. From now onward, those best qualified to judge expected great things of this former welcome guest at Bismarck’s house and favourite pupil of the old professor of Teuton diplomacy, the celebrated Holstein.

The motives for Germany’s interference are well-known. She could not allow the solidity of the Triplice to be shaken. She owed a debt of gratitude to her ally, who had not withheld her support at the Algeciras Conference. Finally, since she fancied that England, Russia, and France were attempting to encircle her, she was anxious to prove that the mere gesture of putting her hand to her sword would be enough to dispel the illusions of her foes. The machinations of Paris and London would break down, she thought, at the touch of reality, at the collision with German military power. The risk of war, whatever may have been said at the time, was not very great. Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, who, as I have already said, was not at heart a fighter, though he humoured the Emperor’s newly-acquired taste for warlike phrases in diplomatic conversations, had seen this clearly enough. Russia had not yet recovered from the wounds inflicted on her by the struggle with Japan and by the revolutionary outbreaks to which that struggle gave rise. In France, the national sentiment, which had scarcely yet rallied from the shocks of the Moroccan disputes, was not likely to be roused by the call of Serbian aspirations. In London, it is true, the Government and public opinion had roundly condemned the infringement of the Treaty of Berlin by Austrian diplomacy. But it is a long way from an academic reproof to an effective intervention.

Yet the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the pressure brought to bear by the Count de Pourtalès at St. Petersburg had far more serious results than had been anticipated at Berlin. These moves exercised a far-reaching influence on all the later conduct of the Tsar’s Government, and their rebound could be clearly traced in the rigid attitude shown by that Government when a new Austro-Serbian conflict came to trouble the peace of Europe. The crisis of 1909 enabled Russia to realize the full value of M. Isvolsky’s skill and foresight, in that he had managed, since 1907, to draw her close both to her recent enemy in the Far East and to her age-long rival in Central Asia. But for the agreements formed by this statesman with Japan and England, the alliances of to-day would have been impossible. Another outcome of the 1909 crisis was that of revealing to the Slav Empire the need for being armed to the teeth against its arrogant neighbour, and thus of hastening on its military reorganization. If the Emperor William and his advisers had not had such short memories, they would have been less astonished than they seemed to be afterwards at the rapid progress of Russia’s armaments.

The annexation policy of Count von Aehrenthal, which may well be regarded as one of the indirect causes of the present war, had other unfortunate effects on the Dual Monarchy. The ease with which the triumph had been won led the bullies of Vienna and Buda-Pesth to imagine that high-handed methods would always be successful. They fancied that the Tsar’s Government, from fear of seeing the two Germanic Empires ranged against it, would not dare to cross Austria-Hungary’s path, if the latter set herself one day to chastise Serbia.

The clash of the Habsburg monarchy with the valiant people of Kara George over the Bosnian question was only the first lunge in a duel where the weaker of the two adversaries, compelled to be wary, became all the more dangerous in that he shifted his ground. A subterranean movement carried on by Pan-Serb societies which had long been at work with alternating fits of activity and quiescence began from this time forth to excite, without respite, the separatist feeling of the Bosnian and Croat communities. This was the most definite result of Aehrenthal’s rash policy, but he did not live to see it come to pass. He had tried to pour fresh blood into the veins of that great emaciated body, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, to make this dotard, racked with incurable diseases, play an active part on the European stage. All that he did was to embitter the mutual hatred of Austria and Serbia, and, by laying rash hands upon the work of Bismarck, Beaconsfield, and Andrassy, to revive the Eastern question—that fiery furnace, dreaded by several generations of diplomats, which still smouldered beneath the ashes of the Treaty of Berlin.