But the German army! According to all accounts of German militarism which were suffered to reach these shores, it is here that we shall find evidence of what Mr. Lloyd George, on 4 August, 1917, called "the most dangerous conspiracy ever plotted against the liberty of nations; carefully, skilfully, insidiously, clandestinely planned in every detail, with ruthless, cynical determination." Well, if one chooses to hold the current view of German militarism, it must be admitted that Germany had at her disposal some miraculous means of getting something for nothing, getting a great deal for nothing, in fact, for on any other supposition, the figures are far from supporting that view. In 1914 (pre-war figures), Germany and Austria together carried an army-expenditure of £92 million; England, France and Russia together carried one of £142 million. England "had no army," it was said; all her military strength lay in her navy. If that were true, then it must be said that she had as miraculous a faculty as Germany's; only, whereas Germany's was a faculty for getting more than her money's worth, England's was for getting less than her money's worth. England's army-expenditure for 1914 (pre-war figures) was £28 million; £4 million more than Austria's. Nor was this a sudden emergency-outlay. Going back as far as 1905, we find that she laid out in that year the same amount, £28 million. In that year, Germany and Austria together spent £48 million on their armies; England, France and Russia together spent £94 million on theirs. If between 1905 and 1913, England, France and Russia spent any such sums upon their armies as their statistics show, and nothing came of it but an unprepared and unsuspecting Europe in 1914, it seems clear that the taxpayers of those countries were swindled on an inconceivably large scale.
IV
At this point, some questions may be raised. Why, in the decade preceding 1914, did England, France and Russia arm themselves at the rate indicated by the foregoing figures? Why did they accelerate their naval development progressively from about £17 million in 1909 to about £43 million in 1914? Why did Russia alone propose to raise her military peace-establishment to an army of 1,700,000, more than double the size of Germany's army? Against whom were these preparations directed, and understood to be directed? Certainly not against one another. France and Russia had been bound by a military convention ever since 17 August, 1892; England and France had been bound since January, 1906, by a similar pact; and this was subsequently extended to include Belgium. These agreements will be considered in detail hereafter; they are now mentioned merely to show that the military activity in these countries was not independent in purpose. France, England, Russia and Belgium were not uneasy about one another and not arming against one another; nor is there any evidence that anyone thought that they were. It was against the Central Empires only that these preparations were addressed. Nor can one who scans the table of relative expenditure easily believe that the English-French-Russian combination was effected for purely defensive purposes; and taking the diplomatic history of the period in conjunction with the testimony of the budgets, such belief becomes impossible.
V
The British Government is the one which was most often represented to us as taken utterly by surprise by the German onslaught on Belgium. Let us see. The Austrian Archduke was assassinated 28 June, 1914, by three men who, according to wide report in Europe and absolute certainty in America, were secret agents of the German Government, acting under German official instruction. The findings of the court of inquiry showed that they were Serbs, members of a pan-Slav organization; that the assassination was plotted in Belgrade, and the weapons with which it was committed were obtained there.[3] Serbia denied all connexion with the assassins (the policy of Serbia being then controlled by the Russian Foreign Office), and then the Russian Government stepped forward to prevent the humiliation of Serbia by Austria. It is clear from the published diplomatic documents that the British Foreign Office knew everything that took place between the assassination and the burial of the Archduke; all the facts, that is, connected with the murder. The first dispatch in the British White Paper is dated 20 July, and it is addressed to the British Ambassador at Berlin. One wonders why not to the Ambassador at Vienna; also one wonders why the diplomats apparently found nothing to write about for nearly three weeks between the Archduke's funeral and 20 July. It is a strange silence. Sir Edward Grey, however, made a statement in the House of Commons, 27 July, in which he gave the impression that he got his first information about the course of the quarrel between Austria and Serbia no earlier than 24 July, three days before. The Ambassador at Vienna, Sir M. de Bunsen, had, notwithstanding, telegraphed him that the Austrian Premier had given him no hint of "the impending storm" and that it was from a private source "that I received, 15 July, the forecast of what was about to happen, concerning which I telegraphed to you the following day." Sir Maurice de Bunsen's telegram on this important subject thus evidently was suppressed; and the only obvious reason for the suppression is that it carried evidence that Sir E. Grey was thoroughly well posted by 16 July on what was taking place in Vienna. Sir M. de Bunsen's allusion to this telegram confirms this assumption; in fact, it can be interpreted in no other way.