A scrap of paper

by Emile Joseph Dillon

Accordingly the British Foreign Office set its hand to the work of establishing peace, animated by a spirit of compromise which, sooth to say, is rare in these days of national egotism and narrow patriotic endeavour. Lord Haldane visited Berlin. An exchange of views took place between that capital and London. Hopes of arriving at an understanding on all points were entertained and expressed. And I, as a friend of peace and a citizen of my country, felt bound to second those endeavours to the best of my limited means. But I took care to accompany my support with a warning. For I regarded Prussia’s attitude as a snare. Acquainted with the methods of her diplomacy, I recognized the trail of the serpent in the movements of the dove. This is what I wrote:

After a long period of political estrangement Great Britain and Germany are now circumspectly endeavouring to make friends again. The effort is painful and success is dubious, but it is recognized that the present conjuncture is the flood-water of opportunity. It must be now or not until after distrust has become enmity, and peaceful rivalry has degenerated into war.... It is felt that whatever is feasible in the way of healing the wounds which are still aching must be effected at once. The British Government and nation not only favour an understanding, but are eager to see it arranged. They are prepared to make sacrifices for it, on condition that it is no mere semblance of a settlement.[12]

But I made it clear that we could “look for no abiding results” from any settlement of our differences to which we might come, because we were dealing with a Government and a nation whose assurances are worthless, and whose promises are no more than a scrap of paper. Since then the Imperial Chancellor has borne out what I then advanced in words and acts that have branded his nation with the stigma of infamy.

But the well-meaning pacifists of all shades and degrees, from the wordy interpreters of Prussian philosophies in high places down to the credulous man in the street, who pinned his faith to the business instincts of our German customers, clung tenaciously to their comfortable faith. At last, five months ago, I uttered a further warning:

Among the new or newly intensified currents of political life now traversing the Continents of Europe, none can be compared in its cultural and political bearings and influence with the rivalry between the Slav and Teutonic races. This is no mere dispute about territorial expansion, political designs, or commercial advantages. It is a ruthless struggle for mastery in all domains of national and international existence, which, so far as one can now see, may at most be retarded by diplomatic goodwill on both sides, but can hardly be settled with finality by any treaty or convention. For here we are dealing with an instinctive, semi-conscious movement which obeys natural laws, and not with a deliberate self-determining agency which may be modified by argument or swayed by persuasion.[13]

In that same article I gave Germany’s plea for a preventive war, which I felt was then in the air. And I quoted the pregnant remark of my German colleague of the Berliner Tageblatt, who deliberately wrote: “It cannot be gainsaid that the growth of Russia is in itself a peril.” This chosen people, these apostles of culture and humanity, could not brook the natural growth of a gifted neighbour. Russia must be exterminated that Germany might thrive.

The Governments of Germany and Austria-Hungary then considered that the odds against Russia’s participation in a war to shield Servia were, under the existing conditions, almost tantamount to certainty. The German Ambassador in Vienna stated this positively to our Ambassador there and to his other colleagues. It was an axiom which admitted of no question. It followed that France and Great Britain would also hold aloof, and a duel with a foregone conclusion could, under these propitious conditions, be fought by Austria against Servia. And this was the state of things for which the Central European Powers had been making ready from the conclusion of the Bucharest Treaty down to the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This monstrous crime, for which there are neither excuse nor extenuating circumstances, wholly changed the aspect of affairs, and provided the Teutonic allies with a most welcome war-cry which was sure to rally their friends, while immobilizing their enemies. It was not, therefore, to be wondered at that they took such a long time to study the ways and means of utilizing it to the fullest. And in this they succeeded so well that France, Great Britain, Italy, and even Russia freely admitted Austria’s right not merely to punish Servia for her aggressive agitation, but also to take effective guarantees for her future good behaviour.

Never before was European public sentiment so universally and whole-heartedly on the side of Austria-Hungary. Every nation and political party sympathized with her aged monarch and supported the legitimate claims of her Government. If the grievances ostensibly put forward in Vienna and Budapest, and recognized by all civilized peoples, had really represented the full extent of what Austria desired to see redressed once for all, there would have been no war. And left to herself, Austria would probably have contented herself with this measure of amends for the past and guarantees for the future. But she was not a free agent. In all fundamental issues she is the vassal of Prussia. And the development of this crisis brought out their inseparability in sharp outline and relief. Every act of the Austro-Hungarian Government, from the moment when the Archduke fell in Sarajevo to the declaration of war against Servia, was conceived with the knowledge and collaboration of Berlin, and performed sometimes at its instigation and always with its approval.

Germany herself is commonly said to have been bent upon war from the outset of the crisis. Conscious of her readiness for the struggle, she is supposed to have been eager to seize on the puissant war-cry afforded her by the crime of Sarajevo to profit by the military unpreparedness of France, Russia, and Great Britain, and the internal strife in these countries, which had seemingly struck their diplomacy with paralysis and disqualified their Governments from taking part in a European conflict.

That this theory is erroneous I know on the highest authority. Having watched, sometimes at close quarters, the birth, growth, cultivation, and ripening of the scheme which has now borne fruit in the bitterest and most tremendous war on record, and having had more than once some of the decisive State papers under my eyes, I can affirm that Germany’s hope and desire and striving were on the opposite side. She deprecated a European war sincerely. She sought to ward it off by every means compatible with the realization of her main scheme, and she was disappointed beyond words at her failure. Her main scheme was to deal with each of the Entente Powers separately, and to reserve Great Britain for the last. And it was presumably in furtherance of this programme that Admiral von Tirpitz tendered his advice to the Kaiser—as we are told he did—not to break with England yet, but to conciliate her by every available means, and thus to gain time for the German navy to reach the standard which would enable it to cope with ours.