Germany before the war

by baron Beyens

These disquieting suggestions were not made, of course, to the Belgian minister, but to the ambassador of another country. At the back of the diplomatic stage in a great capital, however, everything leaks out sooner or later; the personal views of the man who nominally directs foreign policy cannot be kept secret from interested parties. This was especially the case in Berlin, where, among the heads of legations, a certain number held more or less closely together, according as their countries were more or less exposed to the menace of the German colossus, whose growth and appetites they watched with a very natural vigilance.

If we append these remarks of Herr von Jagow to those made at his final interview with Sir Edward Goschen, in which he lamented the bankruptcy of his plans for friendship with England and reconciliation with France, we can readily guess what terms he and Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, those two pacifists, would have demanded for the formation of such an agreement. The two Western Powers would have been forced cheerfully to abandon to Germany the little States which obstruct her development along the North Sea coast and prevent her from breathing freely. They would have been compelled to allow Germany eventually to make these States, willing or unwilling, enter the Germanic federation, which would thus have become the great Empire, the heir of its remote mediæval prototype, ever present in the dreams of the German intellectuals.

VIII.

As you walk along the Wilhelmstrasse, coming from Unter den Linden, you see, to the right, a long building of only one story, in the obsolete style of the early nineteenth century. It looks very bare and unpretentious by the side of the eighteenth century mansions that flank it right and left and the palatial Government offices, of more recent construction, that lie opposite. This venerable edifice is no other than the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Auswärtiges Amt, of the Empire. Here, fifty years ago, were planned the changes that the Hohenzollerns wrought with their swords in the map of Europe; here is the real starting-point of their Imperial power. As you enter and go up the marble staircase, you catch the musty smell that comes from masses of papers and documents in an old and ill-ventilated building. Follow the main corridor which cuts it in half, and a polite attendant will escort you to a room that is scarcely any larger than a monastic cell. You go in, and find yourself face to face with the Under-Secretary of State.

Herr Zimmermann is a blond Teuton, with a military moustache and a pleasant smile that gives promise of a cordial welcome. This high official is a self-made man in the full sense of the term. He won such distinction by his services as consul in the Far East that the authorities recalled him and gave him an appointment at Foreign Office headquarters. Here, by sheer merit, he has risen to the exalted post in which his capacity for work and his sound judgment have won him the confidence of the Chancellor and of two successive Foreign Secretaries, as well as the good graces of the Emperor. Every one in Berlin thinks that Herr Zimmermann, who has gone so far, is likely to go still further.

He might reasonably be called a godsend to diplomats. Heads of legations and chargés d’affaires, looking for news or short of information, apply to him, in order to be able to apprise their Government of matters in which they are interested. The Under-Secretary of State merely says what has to be said, without betraying any secrets of the Imperial Chancellery; but this is enough to put his hearers on the right track, for his communications are always accurate.

Is it possible for us to divine his personal feelings with regard to the war? Would it be impugning his patriotism to doubt whether he was firmly convinced of its necessity? These questions are not easy to answer, for on this topic no German capable of frankness, unless he is hopelessly saturated with Pan-Germanism, will speak out nowadays before a stranger. What I can say, without fear of contradiction, is this: that the Under-Secretary of State was not a wholehearted supporter of the policy of alliances bequeathed by Bismarck, since he realized all the entanglements and dangers that they involved. How often, during the Balkan crisis, was he seen to express his impatience with the Cabinet of Vienna, when the latter turned a deaf ear to the good advice telegraphed from Berlin! When I took leave of him, before returning to my unhappy country, which had already been invaded by the advance-guard of the German army, he said to me, in a tone of unfeigned regret: “Ah, this war means the end of the policy of alliances!” What a world of sorrow and disappointment lay in this avowal!

His constant relations with the directors of great companies, with commercial and industrial magnates, who were invited to his bachelor table together with foreign diplomats, led the latter to suppose that their host shared the pacific ideas of their fellow-guests. A prolonged era of peace was required, if the vigorous development of the national resources was to continue. This is an incontestable truth, which cannot be repeated too often. Moreover, a prolonged era of peace would have enabled the Germans, by virtue of their genius for organizing, their methodical ways, and their capacity for hard work, to become the leading nation in almost every sphere of international competition, owning the main sources of industrial production, and holding the unquestioned economic supremacy of Europe. Yet they have been mad enough to make a bid for this supremacy by a war that is utterly at variance with the progress of civilization! It is difficult to see how so enlightened a man as Herr Zimmermann, one so closely in touch with the needs of industrial Germany, could have been anything but a pacifist.

The principal task of those who direct foreign affairs is the same in all great capitals. One must be a Bismarck to plan one war after another a long time in advance, while conducting the foreign policy of the State. Bismarck’s excuse lies in the fact that these wars were essential for German unity. Once his end was gained, the all-powerful minister put Prussia’s sword back in its sheath, and devoted himself to consolidating the glory and the conquests that had been won. The Berlin Foreign Office cannot really be suspected of having worked in the dark against the maintenance of a peace policy, such as was pursued during the last twenty years of the Iron Chancellor. To avoid needless conflicts, to scatter the clouds as soon as they gathered at any point on the horizon, to ward off the frightful perils of a European conflagration—this has been the noble duty and the thankless task of diplomats throughout the last few years, in the positions of watchmen or pilots which they have held in foreign countries or at the head of the home department. At the Wilhelmstrasse, as elsewhere, the officials were faced with the duty of trying to fulfil these lofty moral obligations; they did so with a mixture of civility and gruffness, and their changes of mood were too obvious, but they undoubtedly meant well.