VII.
I learnt on 2nd August, from our military attaché (who had the news from an officer of the Emperor’s household), that the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg had been occupied. The route followed by the German army left me no doubt as to the coming invasion of Belgian Luxemburg, and I telegraphed this pessimistic forecast to my Government. Yet I had not gauged the full measure of the disaster that was about to overtake my country. It was on the evening of Monday, 3rd August, that I received the official telegram informing me of the German ultimatum and of our reply. At first I was dumbfounded; then came a fierce glow of indignation. I tried my utmost to betray no sign of this to my young secretaries, in order that their sorrow and their anger might not be needlessly increased. After urging them to be calm and collected, I spent a part of the night in reflecting on the questions that I would put to the Foreign Secretary at the earliest opportunity. I felt it my bounden duty to go to him and insist upon a downright explanation of the nameless act perpetrated by the German Government.
The readiness with which Herr von Jagow let me know that he hoped to see me at the Foreign Office on Tuesday morning proved that he was no less impatient than I to have this decisive interview. When I arrived, at nine o’clock, the old building was still almost empty, but the Foreign Secretary was already at work in his room. I will not give here a full report of our conversation; it has already been published in that crushing indictment of Germany by my fellow-countryman, M. Waxweiler: La Belgique neutre et loyale.
Before many words had passed between us, I saw that we were speaking two different languages, and that neither could understand the other’s tongue. I invoked Belgium’s honour, the honour that is no less sacred to a nation than to an individual; her obligations as a neutral, her past conduct, always thoroughly loyal towards Germany (this the Secretary of State ungrudgingly admitted), and her inability to answer the Imperial Government’s proposal in any other way than she had answered it already. He could not help acknowledging this, but he did so with an effort for the most part, and merely in his private capacity, refusing, by a subtle distinction, to compromise himself as an official.
He replied with cynical arguments, which seemed to him unimpeachable: that it was a question of life and death to Germany; that she was compelled to advance through Belgium in order to overpower France as speedily as possible; that the French frontier south of Belgium, with its chain of strong fortresses, was difficult to pierce. He repeated the Chancellor’s guarantee that my country’s independence would be respected and that an indemnity would be paid her. I fancy that he was reciting, word for word, a lesson drilled into him by the Chief of Staff. To these strategic reasons and these alluring promises he added an expression of regret on behalf of himself, his Emperor, and his Government, that they should have been driven to this extremity. When I announced my intention of leaving Berlin and of demanding my passports, he remonstrated: he did not want to break off relations with me! What had he expected from this interview, and what did he expect now?
As I withdrew, I shot the Parthian arrow that I had kept in reserve: the violation of Belgian neutrality would mean for Germany a war with England. Herr von Jagow had been speaking with emotion, in an earnest tone, which he tried to make persuasive; but at this he merely shrugged his shoulders. My shaft—telum imbelle, sine ictu—was blunted by my opponent’s armour of resolution or indifference.
During the afternoon the Emperor’s speech in the Reichstag exhorted the nation’s delegates to help in carrying to a triumphant issue this war that had been forced upon Germany! William II. said nothing about the violation of Belgium, but called down upon his arms the blessing of the Most High, his wonted confidant. The next speaker was the Chancellor. More honest than he has been since then, he unhesitatingly confessed the wrong that had been done to Belgium, and promised to make amends so soon as the military aim should have been attained.
I had not been at fault, however, in predicting to Herr von Jagow a war with England, one of the guarantors of our neutrality. That same evening I dined alone at the Kaiserhof, a prey, as may be imagined, to the gloomiest forebodings. As I left the restaurant, a handful of papers was flung to me from a Berliner Tageblatt motor car. Marvelling at the swift fulfilment of my prophecy, I read that Great Britain had declared war on Germany, and that her Ambassador, a few hours earlier, had handed in an ultimatum to the Imperial Government. I at once bethought myself of rushing to the British Embassy, in order to obtain some further details of this wonderful news. Was it thus that Heaven answered the appeals of her favourite?
Round about that part of the Wilhelmstrasse in which the British Embassy is situated a large crowd had forgathered. Respectably dressed citizens of both sexes were bellowing out, with frantic enthusiasm, their best-loved hymn, Deutschland über alles. The national anthem was succeeded by a volley of catcalls, after which came a shower of missiles—brickbats and lumps of coal, for no stones are to be found in the asphalt roadways of Berlin. The ground-floor windows of the Embassy were shivered to atoms, the two policemen posted on either side of the door making no attempt to interfere. I had seen and heard enough. As I was wending my way homewards, a gleam of hope stole into my heart amid all its grief and anguish. I saw a terrible face rising above the blood-red horizon—the face of the British Nemesis.