III
I must get back from this expression of my present feelings and views to the plain story of the experiences which gradually made me aware of the actual condition of affairs in Europe and the great obstacle to a durable peace in the world.
The first thing that disquieted me a little was the strange difficulty encountered in making the preliminary arrangements for the third peace conference. The final resolution of the second conference in 1907, unanimously recommended, first, that the next conference, should be held within a period of eight years, and second, that a preparatory committee should be appointed two years beforehand, to consider the subjects which were ripe for discussion, and to draw up a programme which could be examined in advance by the countries interested. That, of course, was necessary. No sensible government will go into a conference blindfold, without knowing what is to be talked about.
But in 1914, when the matter came into my hands, the lapse of time and the negligence of the nations (the United States included) had made it too late to fulfil both of these recommendations. If one was carried out the other must be modified or disregarded. The then Secretary of State, Mr. Bryan, instructed me to endeavor to have the conference called in 1915, that is, within the period of eight years. After careful investigation and earnest effort, I reported that it could not be done at that date. The first thing was to get the preparatory committee, which would require at least two years for its formation and work. Toward this point, then, with the approval of the President, I steered and rowed hard, receiving the warmest sympathy and most effective co-operation from Jonkheer Loudon, the Netherlands Minister of Foreign Affairs. Indeed the entire Dutch Government, with the Queen at the head, were favorable. Holland naturally likes to have the peace conferences at The Hague. They add to the dignity of the country. The honor is well-deserved, for Holland may fairly be called the fountainhead of modern international law, and has produced many of its best expounders, from Grotius and Bynkershoek to Asser. Moreover, as a side consideration, these meetings bring a multitude of visitors to the country, some famous and many profitable, and this is not bad for business. So the movement is generally popular.
My own particular suggestion toward getting the required "preparatory committee" seemed to its author to have the double advantage of practical speed and representative quality. It was to make use, at least for the first steps, of a body already in existence and in which all the nations were represented. But there is no need of describing it, because it did not go through. I was not so much stuck upon it that any other fair and speedy plan would not have received my hearty backing.
But the trouble was that, push as hard as we would, there was no plan that would move beyond a certain point. There it stood still. Washington and The Hague were earnest and enthusiastic. St. Petersburg was warmly interested, but showed a strong preference for its own plan, and a sense of its right to a leading place as the proposer of the first conference. London and Paris seemed favorable to the general idea, and took an expectant attitude toward any proposal of organization that would be on the level and fair for everybody. Berlin was singularly reserved and vague. It said little or nothing. It did not seem to care about the matter.
I talked informally with my German friends at The Hague. They were polite and attentive. They may have had a real interest in the subject, but it was not shown so that you could notice it. They expressed opinions on the value of peace conferences in general which I am not at liberty to repeat. The idea of a third conference at The Hague may have seemed beautiful to them, but it looked as if they felt that it was lacking in actuality. Possibly I did not understand them. That was just the trouble—I could not. It was all puzzling, baffling, mysterious.
It seemed as if all our efforts to forward the calling of the next conference in the interest of permanent peace brought up dead against an invisible barrier, an impassable wall like the secret line drawn in the air by magic, thinner than a cobweb, more impenetrable than steel. What was it? Indifference? General scepticism? Preoccupation with other designs which made the discussion of peace plans premature and futile? I did not know. But certainly there was something in the way, and the undiscovered nature of that something was food for thought.
The next jolt that was given to my comfortable hope that the fair weather in Europe was likely to last for some time was a very slight incident that happened in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, to which small sovereign state I was also accredited as American Minister.
The existence and status of Luxembourg in Europe before the war are not universally understood in America, and it may be useful to say a few words about it. The grand duchy is a tiny independent country, about 1,000 square miles of lovely hills and dales and table-lands, clothed with noble woods, watered by clear streams, and inhabited by about 250,000 people of undoubted German-Keltic stock and of equally undoubted French sympathies. The land lies in the form of a northward-pointing triangle between Germany, Belgium, and France. The sovereign is the Grand Duchess Marie Adelheid (of Nassau), a beautiful, sincere, high-spirited girl who succeeded to the crown on her father's death. The political leader for twenty-five years was the Minister-President Paul Eyschen, an astute statesman and a devoted patriot, who nursed his little country in his arms like a baby and brought it to a high degree of prosperity and contentment.
Like Belgium, Luxembourg was a neutralized country—the former by the Treaty of 1831; the latter by the Treaty of 1867; both treaties were signed and guaranteed by the Great Powers. But there was a distinct difference between the two neutralities. That of Belgium was an armed neutrality; her forts and her military forces were left to her. That of Luxembourg was a disarmed neutrality; her only fortress was dismantled and razed to the ground, and her army was reduced and limited to one company of gendarmes and one company of infantry. Thus Belgium had the right, the duty, and the power to resist if her territory were violated by the armed forces of a belligerent. But Luxembourg was made powerless to resist; she could only protest.
Remember this when you consider the fates which fell on the two countries. Remember how the proud and independent little duchy must have felt beforehand, standing without a weapon amid the mighty armed powers of Europe.
It was in February or early in March, 1914, that the Grand Duchess sent out an invitation to the Diplomatic Corps to attend a court function. We all went gladly because of the pleasantness of the land and the good hospitality of the palace. There were separate audiences with Her Royal Highness in the morning, a big luncheon given by the Cabinet and the city authorities at noon, a state dinner in the old Spanish palace at night, and after that a gala concert. It was then that the incident occurred. I had heard in the town that thirty military officers from the German garrison at Trier, a few miles away on the border, were coming, invited or self-invited, to the concert, and the Luxembourgers did not like the idea at all. Well, the Germans came in a body, some of them courteous and affable, the others stiff, wooden, high-chinned, and staring—distinctly a foreign group. They were tactless enough to propose staying over the next day. A big crowd of excited Luxembourgers filled the streets in the morning and gave every sign of extreme dissatisfaction. "What were these Prussian soldiers doing there? Had they come to spy out the land and the city in preparation for an invasion? Was there a stray prince or duke among them who wanted to marry the Grand Duchess? The music was over. These Kriegs-Herren had better go home at once—at once, did they understand?" Yes, they understood, and they went by the next train, which took them to Trier in an hour.
It was a very trivial affair. But it seemed to throw some light on the mentality of the German army. It also made me reflect upon the state of mind of this little unarmed country living next door to the big military machine and directly on the open way to France. Yet we all laughed and joked about the incident on the way back to Holland in the train. Only the French, German, Italian, and Belgian Ministers were not with us, for these countries have separate missions in Luxembourg.
At The Hague everything pursued its tranquil course as usual. Golf set in. The tulips bloomed in a sea of splendor. I strove at the footless task of promoting the third peace conference. It was not until the season of Pentecost, 1914, that I went to Luxembourg again, intending to gather material for a report on the flourishing steel industry there, which had developed some new processes, and to get a little trout-fishing on the side. During that pleasant journey two things happened which opened my eyes.
The first was at a luncheon which Prime Minister Eyschen gave me. It was a friendly foursome: our genial host; the German Minister, Von B.; the French Minister, M.; and myself. Mr. Eyschen's wine-cellar was famous, and his old Luxembourg cook was a wonder; she served a repast which made us linger at table for three hours. The conversation rambled everywhere, and there were no chains or padlocks on it. It was in French, English, and German, but mostly in French. One remark has stuck in my memory ever since. Mr. Eyschen said to me: "You have heard of the famous 'Luxembourger Loch'? It is the easiest military road between Germany and France." Then he continued with great good humor to the two gentlemen at the ends of the table: "Perhaps one of your two countries may march an army through it before long, and we certainly cannot stop you." Then he turned to Herr von B., still smiling: "Most likely it will be your country, Excellenz! But please remember, for the last ten years we have made our mining concessions and contracts so that they will hold, whatever happens. And we have spent the greatest part of our national income on our roads. You can't roll them up and carry them off in your pocket!" Of course we all laughed. But it was serious. Two months later the French Minister had to make a quick and quiet flight along one of those very roads.
A couple of days after the luncheon, at the beginning of June, I saw a curious confirmation of Eyschen's hint. Having gone just over the German border for a bit of angling, I was following a very lovely little river full of trout and grayling. With me were two or three Luxembourgers and as many Germans, to whom fishing with the fly—fine and far off—was a new and curious sight. Along the east bank of the stream ran one of the strategic railways of Germany, from Koln to Trier. All day long innumerable trains rolled southward along that line, and every train was packed with soldiers in field-gray—their cheerful, stolid bullet-heads stuck out of all the windows. "Why so many soldiers," I asked, "and where are they all going?" "Ach!" replied my German companions, "it is Pfingstferien (Pentecost vacation), and they are sent a changing of scene and air to get." My Luxembourg friends laughed. "Yes, yes," they said. "That is it. Trier has a splendid climate for soldiers. The situation is kolossal for that!"
When we passed through the hot and dusty little city it was simply swarming with the field-gray ones—thousands upon thousands of them—new barracks everywhere; parks of artillery; mountains of munitions and military stores. It was a veritable base of operation, ready for war.
Now the point is that Trier is just seven miles from Wasserbillig on the Luxembourg frontier, the place where the armed German forces entered the neutral land on August 2, 1914.
The government and the "grande armee" of the Grand Duchess protested. But—well, did you ever see a wren resist an eagle? The motor-van (not the private car of Her Royal Highness, as rumor has said, but just an ordinary panier-a-salade), which was drawn up across the road to the capital, was rolled into the ditch. The mighty host of invaders, having long been ready, marched triumphantly into the dismantled fortress, and along their smooth, unlawful way to France. I had caught, in June, angling along the little river, a passing glimpse of the preparation for that march.
But what about things on the French side of the border in that same week of June, 1914? Well, I can only tell what I saw. Returning to Holland by way of Paris, I saw no soldiers in the trains, only a few scattered members of the local garrisons at the railway stations, not a man in arms within ten kilometres of the frontier. It seemed as if France slept quietly at the southern edge of Luxembourg, believing that the solemn treaty, which had made Germany respect the neutrality of that little land even in the war of 1870, still held good to safeguard her from a treacherous attack in the rear, through a peaceful neighbor's garden. Longwy—the poor, old-fashioned fortress in the northeast corner of France—had hardly enough guns for a big rabbit-shoot, and hardly enough garrison to man the guns. The conquering Crown Prince afterward took it almost as easily as a boy steals an apple from an unprotected orchard. It was the first star in his diadem of glory. But Verdun, though near by, was not the second.
From this little journey I went home to The Hague with the clear conviction that one nation in Europe was ready for war, and wanted war, and intended war on the first convenient opportunity. But when would that be? Not even the most truculent government could well venture a bald declaration of hostilities without some plausible pretext, some ostensible ground of quarrel. Where was it? There was none in sight. Of course the danger of a homicidal crisis in the insanity of armaments was always there. And of course the ambition of Germany for "a place in the sun" was as coldly fierce as ever. The Pan-Germanists were impatient. But they could hardly proclaim war without saying what place and whose place they wanted. Nor was there any particular grievance on which they could stand as a colorable ground of armed conflict. The Kaiser had prepared for war, no doubt. The argument and justification of war as the means of spreading the German Kultur were in the Potsdam mind. But the concrete and definite occasion of war was lacking. How long would that lack hold off the storm? Could the precarious peace be maintained until measures to enforce and protect it by common consent could be taken?
These questions were answered with dreadful suddenness. The curtain which had half-concealed the scene went up with a rush, and the missing occasion of war was revealed in the flash of a pistol.