For a long time he hoped to sow dissensions between his opponents, and to secure the inaction of Russia. At the Court of Berlin the Franco-Russian alliance was not regarded as a rock that nothing could shatter. The Potsdam agreement, concluded by M. Kokovtzow, and restricted in its scope (so far as we can tell) to Western Asia, seemed to open up a promising vista. Repeated advances were made to Tsar Nicholas; interviews took place, such as the one at Baltic Port, where William II. exercised all the seductive wiles at his command to cajole the Russian sovereign and win the confidence of his ministers. The Emperor himself remarked to me, only a few months before the war, that false ideas were current in France regarding the stability of the Dual Alliance; he was well informed as to the true feeling of the Tsar’s Court, for some exalted Russian personages, in passing through Berlin, had not scrupled to indicate the side on which their sympathies lay.
One of the main axioms of Bismarck’s policy was that Germany must always strive to maintain friendly relations with her great northern neighbour. This sound advice, which the Chancellor himself had not acted upon at the Congress of Berlin, was neglected by his successors. In March 1909, William II., in full accord with the views of Prince von Bülow, did not hesitate to inform St. Petersburg that he would give unswerving support to Austria, if the diplomatic debate on the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina should culminate in a war. The threatening front that Count de Portalès was ordered to show rankled in the hearts of Russian patriots, who were compelled to retreat before this menace. But at the Court of Berlin the memory of it soon faded, for it is characteristic of the Emperor to forget any ill-feeling of which he is the cause. He is always ready to pardon those whom he has insulted.
Even the Balkan War did not entirely dispel his illusions, although it showed clearly that France and Russia were firmly united, and determined to face the same risks hand in hand. The expert fingers of M. Delcassé, who was sent as ambassador to St. Petersburg during the events of 1912, tied the knot of the alliance more tightly than ever. After this, it is true, the Emperor paid great attention to Russian military activity on his eastern frontier; but it must have cost him much to abandon his dream of a neutral or inactive Russia in the event of a war with France. On March 2, 1914, the semi-official Kölnische Zeitung,[1] under the guise of a letter from its St. Petersburg correspondent, issued a final warning to the Tsar! This document denounced the increase of armaments and the ingratitude with which Russia was repaying the services that Germany had rendered to her at the time of the Macedonian war. The Russian newspapers replied in an acrimonious tone, hinting that the commercial treaty with Germany would not be renewed. Herr von Jagow, in a statement on foreign affairs read to the Reichstag some weeks later, confined himself to a general censure of these Press campaigns, the responsibility for which he assigned to the Pan-Slavic journals.
IV.
In William II.’s eyes France has always been the chief enemy. In spite of this, the idea of a reconciliation with her has repeatedly flitted across his romantic brain. Not for one moment, however, has he thought of restoring Alsace-Lorraine to her or of making it neutral territory. He regarded these questions as settled for good and all by the victories of 1870 and the Treaty of Frankfort, and would not even humour France to the extent of granting a more liberal constitution to the conquered provinces. Some Frenchmen, anxious to promote a better understanding between France and Germany, wished to see Alsace-Lorraine enjoy a complete autonomy, after the pattern of a federal State like Bavaria or Saxony. This suggestion, impressed Berlin as an unwarrantable interference in the internal affairs of the Empire.
Nevertheless, the Emperor has often believed in all sincerity that he might improve the relations between the two countries, ease the tension between Paris and Berlin, and even pave the way for an eventual friendship, by paying flattering attentions to Frenchmen and Frenchwomen, celebrities in politics, art, and society, who visited Germany. He considered that in paying these attentions to individuals and in supplementing them by smiles and compliments addressed to the Republican Government and to prominent people he was making real advances. His conversations with Coquelin and Mlle. Granier amused the Parisians, who thanked him with neatly turned paragraphs in the newspapers, and held themselves free of all further obligations. Those who thought that these displays of Imperial graciousness might be followed by a more favourable trend in Germany’s policy towards France were doomed to disappointment. Offers of association in commercial enterprises between subjects of the two countries in Morocco were made (without any success, by the way) after the agreement of 1909, but they must not be taken as instances of William II.’s good will towards a neighbour whom in reality he detested. He fancied that he could conquer the French by his winning ways, and in this his vanity deceived him, although at certain times, partly owing to his reputation as a pacifist, he was a not unpopular figure in Paris.
For some time previous to the war he had been cured of these fits of benevolence, after discovering that they were practically useless. In fact, during the last few months before the cataclysm he went to the other extreme, and when any French visitor was presented to him, his manner was unusually brusque and haughty. At a Court ball one evening in February 1914, while conversing with my friend and fellow-countryman Baron Lambert, he gave vent in my presence to the following epigram, more picturesque than true (it was one that he loved to repeat, for he had already uttered it to other diplomats): “I have often held out my hand to France; she has only answered me with kicks!” He followed this up with a diatribe against the Parisian Press, which, he said, attacked Germany day after day with unreasoning violence. He ended in a grave tone, exclaiming with those expressive gestures that added so much weight to his words: “They had better take care in Paris—I shall not live for ever!” While he was holding forth in this style, his mind, as will be seen later on, was already made up for war. Was he playing a part? Or should we rather see in all this a desire to heap up grievances, in order to justify his later acts?
Since he procured a regular supply of cuttings from the French nationalist organs, in which his Government was pilloried, why did he not read their German counterpart—the daily attacks of the Pan-Germanic Press upon France in general and President Poincaré in particular? Undoubtedly this warfare of pens was not merely regrettable, but dangerous in the interests of peace; still, it was carried on by each side in the tone and style characteristic of the two races. In order to form a conception of the haughtiness, insolence, and bad faith of certain German publicists, it would be enough to wade through some of the articles with which Dr. Schiemann, who had his little hour of favour and popularity at the Court of Berlin, regaled the Gallophobe and Russophobe readers of the Kreuzzeitung in his political notes of the week every Wednesday morning.
After Agadir, William II. came to regard a war with France as inexorably decreed by Fate. On the 5th and 6th of November 1913, the King of the Belgians was his guest at Potsdam, after returning from Lüneburg, where he had paid his usual courtesy visit to the regiment of dragoons of which he was honorary colonel. On this occasion the Emperor told King Albert that he looked upon war with France as “inevitable and close at hand.” What reason did he give for this pessimistic statement, which impressed his royal visitor all the more strongly since the belief in the peaceful sentiments of the Emperor had not yet been shaken in Belgium? He pointed out that France herself wanted war, and that she was arming rapidly with that end in view, as was proved by the vote on the law enacting a three years’ term of military service. At the same time he declared that he felt certain of victory. The Belgian monarch, who was better informed as to the real inclinations of the French Government and people, tried in vain to enlighten him, and to dispel from his mind the false picture that he drew from the language of a handful of fanatical patriots, the picture of a France thirsting for war.
On the 6th of November General von Moltke, Chief of the General Staff, after a dinner to which the Emperor, in honour of his guest, had invited the leading officials present in Berlin, had a conversation with King Albert. He expressed himself in the same terms as his Sovereign on the subject of war with France, asserted that it was bound to come soon, and insisted still more emphatically on the certain prospect of success, in view of the enthusiasm with which the whole German nation would gird up its loins to beat back the traditional foe. General von Moltke used the same blustering language that evening to the Belgian military attaché, who sat next to him at table. I have been told that later in the evening he showed a similar lack of reserve towards other military attachés in whom he was pleased to confide, or whom he wished to impress.