The conviction of the inherent impossibility of solving the problem was shared by many people in Germany—chiefly, of course, by those connected with the Navy; and some critics went so far as to say that Great Britain had never honestly meant to arrive at an understanding, or at any rate that Haldane—whose honesty and sincerity were beyond doubt—was disowned by his fellow-members in the Cabinet.
When Ballin, in compliance with the wishes of the Foreign Office, went to London during the critical period before the outbreak of the war in 1914, he wrote a letter from there to a naval officer of high rank with whom he had been on terms of friendship for years. This document is of interest now because it shows what Ballin’s own standpoint was with regard to the views described in the previous paragraph:
“People over here,” he wrote, “do not believe that negotiations with Great Britain on the subject of a naval agreement could possibly be crowned with success, and you yourself contend that it would have been better if such negotiations had never been started. Your standpoint is that the failure of any efforts in that direction would merely tend to aggravate the existing situation, a point of view with which I entirely concur.
“On the other hand, however, you cannot deny the soundness of the argument that, if the responsible leaders of British naval policy keep expressing their desire to enter into a discussion, the refusal of Germany to do so must cause the British to believe that we are pursuing aims far exceeding those we have openly avowed. My somewhat fatigued brain is unable to see whether the German contention is right or wrong. But naturally, I always look upon things from the business man’s point of view, and so I always think it better to come to some kind of an agreement with a competitor rather than allow him an unlimited measure of expansion. Once, however, I have come to the conclusion that for financial or other reasons this competitor can no longer keep pace with me, his further existence ceases altogether to interest me.
“Thus the views of the expert on these matters and those of the business man run counter to each other, and I am entitled to dismiss this subject without entering upon a discussion of the interesting and remarkable arguments which Winston Churchill put before me last night. I cannot, however, refrain from contradicting by a few brief words the contention that the motives which had prompted the Haldane mission were not sincere. A conversation with Sir Edward Grey the night before last has strengthened this conviction of mine still further. I regard Sir Edward as a serious, honest, and clever statesman, and I am sure you will agree with my view that the Haldane mission has cleared the atmosphere surrounding Anglo-German relations which had become very strained.”
It may be supposed that history, in the meantime, has proved whose standpoint was the correct one: that of the business man or that of the naval expert.
Not much need be said about the subsequent development of events up to the outbreak of the war.
The above-mentioned opinion which the Chancellor held regarding Churchill’s speech of March 18th, 1912, was probably arrived at on the strength of the cabled reports only. Whoever reads the full original text of the speech must fail to find anything aggressive in it, and there was no harm in admitting that it was a perfectly frank and honest statement concerning the naval rivalry of the two Powers. Among other things it contained the suggestion that a “naval holiday” should be agreed upon, i.e. both countries should abstain from building new ships for a definite period. We, at any rate, looked upon Churchill’s speech as a suitable means of making people see what would be the ultimate consequences of the interminable naval armaments. I made a German translation of it which, with the aid of one of the committees for an Anglo-German understanding, I spread broadcast all over the country. However, it proved a complete failure, as there were powerful groups in both countries who contended that the efforts to reconcile the two standpoints could not lead to any positive result, and that the old injunction, si vis pacem, para bellum, indicated the only right solution. Only a master mind could have overcome these difficulties. But Herr v. Bethmann, as we know, considered that the problem, for inherent reasons, did not admit of any solution at all, and the Kaiser’s initial enthusiasm had probably been damped by subsequent influences of a different kind. Ballin himself, in later years, ascribed the failure of the mission to the circumstance that the Kaiser and his Chancellor, between themselves only, had attempted to bring the whole matter to a successful issue instead of entrusting this task to the Secretary of Foreign Affairs and to Admiral Tirpitz, the Secretary for the Navy.
An interesting sidelight on the causes which led to the failure of this last important attempt to reach an understanding is thrown by the rumours which were spread in the German Press in March, 1912, to the effect that the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Herr v. Kiderlen, wished to resign, because he felt that he had been left too much in the dark with regard to the Anglo-German negotiations. It was also reported that the Chancellor’s position had been shaken, and that Admiral Tirpitz felt dissatisfied, because the Navy Bill did not go far enough. Probably there was some vestige of truth in all these rumours, and this may have been connected with the attitude which the three gentlemen concerned had taken up towards the question of the negotiations with Great Britain.