Germany before the war

by baron Beyens

VI.

The rise of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg to the position of Chancellor of the Empire has been a triumph for the bureaucracy. In looking for shoulders strong enough to bear the massive heritage of Bismarck, the Emperor, after applying in turn to the army, to the higher aristocracy, and to diplomacy, was bound to fall back upon the Prussian official caste. The fifth Chancellor has passed his whole career in the Civil Service, beginning as assessor, and advancing through the grades of district president, Prussian Minister of the Interior, and Imperial Secretary of State for Home Affairs, a post that carries with it the duties of Chancellor’s deputy. In less than twenty-five years he has thus managed to climb every rung of the administrative ladder, and to become the greatest man in the State after the Emperor. The fact that he was a fellow-student of William II.’s at Bonn University has presumably done nothing to retard this rapid promotion. Just as in France every conscript carries a field-marshal’s baton in his knapsack, so in Prussia, if the example of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg is anything to go by, every official at the outset of his career will be able to say that he carries with him his nomination to the post of Chancellor.

What are the striking qualities that determined the Emperor’s choice and gained for this favoured mandarin the honour of succeeding the brilliant Prince von Bülow? So far as his mind is concerned, when we have praised his honesty, his application to work, his intellectual culture and his strict religious principles, there is nothing more to say. If we add to this a frank, open face, a gigantic frame, and a genial manner, the portrait will be complete. Friend and foe alike declare that his private life is irreproachable, and all were sincerely sorry for the Chancellor when his wedded bliss was cut short by death. It must be admitted, however, that for a statesman who has to play the leading part among his colleagues in Europe, all the above qualities are of secondary importance. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg is certainly not without his personal views on politics, although they are far from easy to discover. They might perhaps be defined as follows: for home affairs, a Conservatism tempered with doctrinaire leanings, or, if you prefer, a Conservative system that does not exclude some very moderate Liberal tendencies; and as regards foreign policy, an extensive development of German influence, culture, and language, in rivalry with the French and the English, who—as he stated in an “inspired” letter published by the Berlin newspapers—know better than the Germans how to spread their national civilization beyond their own borders. The Chancellor lacks two gifts that would seem to be essential to his functions: a native eloquence and a firm will.

He is first and foremost the Emperor’s right-hand man, or rather the Emperor’s proxy; for the real Chancellor, although the fact is disguised by constitutional fictions, is the Sovereign himself. Caprivi, with his independent nature, and Bülow, with his keen desire to maintain his personal prestige, had disappointed William II. From Bethmann-Hollweg, it would seem, there is nothing of the sort to fear. He will always attempt to shield the Emperor’s actions with his own constitutional responsibility. He would cheerfully go to the stake and become a burnt-offering to public opinion, if such a sacrifice were needed for the saving of his master’s reputation. In Berlin he is known as the philosopher of Hohen-Finow, this being the name of his estate. A philosopher, if you will, in the equanimity with which he bears the failures of his administration, and with which he will arm himself in his retirement, when the hour of disgrace has struck; but above all a philosopher in his indifference or want of resolution where ethics and politics are concerned. His readiness to bow to the fiats of the Imperial will might more properly earn him the name of courtier-philosopher. For the matter of that, they are all courtiers in Berlin—all, that is to say, who on any rung of the ladder seek to be honoured with the favour or the confidence of the Sovereign.

In his position with regard to the Reichstag and his influence on that heterogeneous assembly, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg cannot be compared with his predecessor. He has lived and still lives as a being apart, amid the indifference or hostility of the middle-class (otherwise known as monarchical) parties. The Liberals expected him to carry out a promised reform of the Prussian electoral law; but, finding the measure indefinitely postponed, they view him with suspicion, in the Landtag (or Prussian Diet) no less than in the Imperial Parliament. The Catholic Centre cannot forgive this unbending Protestant for his refusal to restore the right to teach to the Jesuit Order, and on the other hand he is not reactionary enough to please the Conservatives. The latter reproached him most bitterly of all, three years ago, for the weakness with which he abandoned his scheme for the financial working of the recent military law and supported the Radical counter-scheme put forward by the Reichstag Committee. In fact, at the beginning of 1914, it seemed that Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg’s days as a minister were numbered, when suddenly the war came to interrupt all party strife, and the roar of the guns drowned the voice of criticism both in Press and in Parliament.

Officially, the Chancellor is Foreign Minister for the Empire. But the domain of world-politics as conceived by Prince von Bülow is so vast that his successor, better versed in the handling of home affairs, would have lost himself in it, had he not let himself be guided by an expert professional diplomat invested with the title of Secretary of State. The first of these guides was Baron von Schoen, followed by Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter, and the present Foreign Secretary is Herr von Jagow. On certain occasions, however, the Chancellor was compelled to make a statement on the foreign situation in the Reichstag. He painted his pictures with a broad brush, and presented the leading events of the day in a carefully thought out chiaroscuro well distributed over the canvas. His speeches, which he had learnt by heart, seemed tame and colourless, as is no doubt inevitably the case with this type of literary effort. They were entirely lacking in that singular clearness and note of sincerity that marked the kindred utterances of Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons.

Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg is a man of conciliatory temper, and a large blend of pacifism certainly enters into his nature. The need of a long spell of peace, to complete the splendid commercial and industrial expansion of Germany, could not have escaped his clear vision. This explains why he was the object of frequent appeals, outside the formal discussions, from the eminent diplomat who opposed Herr von Kiderlen-Wächter in the dangerous game that was being played in connection with Morocco. The French Yellow Book for 1911 contains a report of some conversations that M. Jules Cambon had with the Chancellor, and the impression they give is that the latter really wished to arrive at a final understanding. It was to the Chancellor, again, that the Ambassador turned when the time came for settling other thorny questions, such as the delimitation of railway concessions and spheres of influence in Asia Minor, and when the German negotiators proved too refractory. In other quarters, a genuine improvement in his country’s relations with Great Britain was Bethmann-Hollweg’s most cherished dream, without any latent thought (such as would perhaps have occurred to Prince von Bülow) of afterwards giving the death-blow, at the favourable moment, to England’s naval supremacy. There is no reason to believe that Herr von Jagow was not speaking the language of sincerity, when he expressed to Sir Edward Goschen,[5] in the course of their last, painful interview, “his poignant regret at the crumbling of his entire policy and that of the Chancellor, which had been to make friends with Great Britain, and through Great Britain to get closer to France.”

Is this regret compatible with Bethmann-Hollweg’s wavering attitude in the Austro-Serbian crisis? I think so. His personal preferences made him lean towards a peaceful solution, but this weak man let his hand be forced by the war party, and bowed, as usual, to the will of the Emperor. He was all the more ready to take this course in that he was nothing but a tool, and probably unaware of the real designs at the back of the Imperial brain. When he saw where this reckless policy was leading Germany, he should have stood out and protested; instead of this, his wrath turned against England, who had shattered the fond illusions of Berlin by refusing to look on quietly while the neutrality of Belgium was violated. The philosopher of Hohen-Finow was transformed into an irascible Teuton; all the Prussian violence that ran in his veins, mingled with his Frankfort blood, suddenly came to the surface, and the professional calm of the statesman, accustomed to control his nerves, gave place to a dramatic outburst of anger.

From the spirited account given by Sir Edward Goschen in his dispatch to Sir Edward Grey, we can readily picture to ourselves the historic scene that took place in the Chancellor’s room at the German Foreign Office on the 4th of August 1914, after England had declared war. We can call up the attitude of the two actors: the Chancellor, his gray-bearded face purple with rage, his tall form leaning towards the British Ambassador, while the latter’s pale features maintain the habitual coolness of his race. In voicing his indignation, the German hit upon phrases more vivid and picturesque than would have been expected from him.

“Belgian neutrality, a scrap of paper!” These unlucky words will stick for ever to the memory of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg. This man of wide culture, with a more exalted sense of justice than many of his countrymen, has shown us that respect for treaties no longer existed for him, so long as strategic considerations demanded that they should be broken. The inviolability of small States, their independence and their right to live, had no more value in his eyes than the international agreements that sanction these principles. On the same day, in the Reichstag, the Chancellor admitted, without any subterfuges—a frankness which he regrets to-day—that the Imperial Government, by the invasion of Belgium, had transgressed the law of nations. But, he pointed out, necessity knows no law, and he tried to excuse himself by attributing, without any probability or material proof, a similar design to the French. Belgium should quietly have let herself be invaded; she would have been indemnified later on!

It was a sad disillusion for those who, thinking that they knew Bethmann-Hollweg, would never have regarded him as an unscrupulous politician. If he could not be a great minister, he might at least have endorsed Prussia’s signature and guarded the honour of the young German Empire. A mere nod from the Emperor was enough to make him the zealous vindicator of a crime. His language in this tragic crisis was that of a court sycophant without courage or conscience, not that of a statesman. In spite of his philosophy, he resigned himself to an act that disgraced Germany, and thus played the part, not of a patriotic and independent thinker, but of a courtier-philosopher.