To understand the practical necessity of such a survey, if we are to influence the opinion of neutrals, it is needful to bear in mind that all discussions which, so far, have been held on the causes of war, have been merely based on diplomatic documents published by the various belligerents, and that these documents merely refer to facts which preceded the outbreak of war only by a few weeks. But in a discussion which turns on a multitude of texts, belonging to different dates, all more or less near each other, and therefore liable to be confused, nothing is easier than for subtle, interested and dishonest reasoners like the Germans, to interpret the same facts in different ways, and so to arrive at conclusions diametrically opposed to the truth. In fact, this is exactly what has happened.
Thanks to its intense intellectual mobilization, which has been foreseen and carried out as powerfully as its military mobilization, Germany has succeeded, by fallacious interpretations of diplomatic documents, in profoundly misleading neutrals, even honest neutrals, as to the real responsibility for the outbreak of war. Nothing could give a better idea of the effect thus produced by Germany than the following remarks of the Swiss Colonel Gortsch published in the Intelligenzblatt of Berne:
“The events which happened at the end of July have convinced every reasonable man that Germany has been provoked to war, and that the Emperor William II. has waited long before he took up this challenge. History will lay the main guilt of the war and its intellectual responsibility on England; Russia and France will be considered as her accomplices.... It is the British policy, openly and selfishly free from any scruples, which has caused the World-War” (quoted by the Echo de Paris, 3rd January, 1916).
This is exactly the proposition which Bethmann-Hollweg wishes neutrals to believe. It is an absurd proposition to be entertained by any one who knew England intimately in the years before the war. During that period the leaders of the British Government were led by the one guiding thought—pleasant enough in itself, but entirely inaccurate—that war would not occur, since Great Britain did not wish war. The whole foreign policy of Great Britain has been inspired by this conception. It explains the attitude of extreme conciliation taken by the London Cabinet towards Germany at the time of the annexation of Bosnia and of Herzegovina (1909), during the Balkan wars (1912-1913), and also when it came to the question of the Bagdad railway, which most obviously threatened the road to India. The Liberal Cabinet of London reflected the dominant British opinion, which believed implicitly in Lord Haldane’s assurances. He was considered, though quite wrongly so, to have a most perfect knowledge of Germany, and in a speech at Tranent he affirmed to his countrymen: “Germany has not the slightest intention of invading us” (quoted by the Morning Post, 16th December, 1915). Up to the declaration of war, Sir Edward Grey, always inclined to believe in the acumen of his friend Lord Haldane, had resorted to every conceivable combination which might have allowed peace to be maintained if William II. had really wished to maintain it. Finally, does not the total unpreparedness of England for a continental war, which has been evident since the outbreak of hostilities, furnish the best proof of her sincerely pacific intentions before the war?
Other neutrals, and even some Frenchmen, still think that the struggle is a result of the so-called Delcassé policy. They say: “The Emperor William frequently tried to show himself friendly to France. If his advances had been accepted, war would have been avoided.” It is undeniable that at certain moments William II. has tried to draw France into his own orbit, but it was precisely in order the better to insure the accomplishment of the Pangerman plan, which has been his main pre-occupation ever since his accession. The present military events show clearly that if France had been beguiled by the smile of the Berlin tempter, any further efficient coalition of the great powers against Germany would have been a sheer impossibility. As to France, if she had believed in William II. she would not have suffered from war, for war would have been useless for German ends. Indeed, without a struggle, France would have practically been reduced to such a state of absolute slavery as has never yet been achieved in history except as the result of a totally ruinous war. Facts which have come to light enable us to convince ourselves by the most indisputable evidence, that such would have been the outcome of a “reconciliation” between France and Germany. We now know to what extent the Germans had already gained a footing in the greater part of the organic structure of French finance and industry. If the Paris Government had come to terms with Berlin nothing could have stopped the total pacific permeation of France by Germany. Little by little France would have ceased to be her own mistress; at the end of a few years she would have been exactly in the same position as Austria-Hungary, unable to free herself unaided from the Prussian hug.
Finally, can we believe for a moment that, had France carried out such a policy of “conciliation” with Berlin, it would have induced William II. to relinquish his dreams of domination? On the contrary, his easy capture of France in full enjoyment of peace, would merely have whetted the hereditary appetites of the Hohenzollerns. Had France once been disposed of by reason of her pacific permeation by Germany, the bulwark which she now forms against the Prussian domination would have been broken. The execution of the rest of the Pangerman plan, at the expense of Russia and England, could then have been effected without encountering any insuperable obstacle.
It is therefore not the policy called after M. Delcassé which has caused the war. M. Delcassé will have quite enough to answer for in regard to the application of his policy before and during war, without being reproached for a general principle which evidently was theoretically sound.
In upholding the alliance with Russia, in bringing about the slackening of tension with Italy, in achieving the Entente Cordiale, M. Delcassé has followed a policy, the principles of which are just. Actual events prove it convincingly.