A scrap of paper

by Emile Joseph Dillon

This, too, was well known and reckoned upon by the two Teutonic allies when laying their plans, one of which was to thrust into the foreground the Slavo-Teutonic character of the struggle and the immunity of British interests from detriment, whatever the outcome. But the British Foreign Secretary went much further than this. He said:

If Germany became involved and France became involved, we had not made up our minds what we should do; it was a case that we should have to consider. France would then have been drawn into a quarrel which was not hers, but in which, owing to her alliance, her honour and interest obliged her to engage. We were free from engagements, and we should have to decide what British interests required us to do. I thought it necessary to say that, because, as he knew, we were taking all precautions with regard to our fleet, and I was about to warn Prince Lichnowsky not to count on our standing aside, but it would not be fair that I should let M. Cambon be misled into supposing that this meant that we had decided what to do in a contingency that I still hoped might not arise.

This straight talk, coupled with the strenuous and insistent but vain exertions of the British Foreign Secretary to get first Austria and then Germany to stay their hand and accept full satisfaction and absolute guarantees from Servia, constitute the cardinal facts in the history of the origin of the present war. They furnish the measure of our peace efforts and of our self-containment. And they also reveal the two conspiring Powers working in secret concert, not, as was at first assumed, to remove the causes of the conflict, but to immobilize the Powers that were likely to take an active part in it. That is the clue to what seemed inexplicable in their fitful and apparently incongruous moves. Whenever Sir Edward Grey asked for an extension of time, for a Conference of the Powers, or for any other facilities for settling the Austro-Servian quarrel diplomatically, Germany and Austria were unable to comply with his request. Would Vienna consent to lengthen the time accorded to Servia for an answer? No, she was unable to do so. And in this Germany backed her up as behoves a brilliant second. Dealings with Belgrade, she held, must be effected expeditiously. And when Sir Edward Grey proposed to the German Government that the Servian reply might be used as a basis for conversations, the Imperial Chancellor regrets that things have marched too rapidly!

I was sent for again to-day by the Imperial Chancellor (writes Sir Edward Goschen), who told me that he regretted to state that the Austro-Hungarian Government, to whom he had at once communicated your opinion, had announced that events had marched too rapidly, and that it was therefore too late to act upon your suggestion.[29]

Thus having first fixed the time-limit at forty-eight hours and then refused to have it extended in order to allow time for a settlement, Germany expresses her regret that it is too late to act on the suggestion that a pause shall ensue to enable a peaceful arrangement to be arrived at.

The cynicism embodied in this answer is curiously like the pleas for mercy addressed by a young murderer to the jury before the verdict was brought in. “I am an orphan,” he said, “and alone in a cold, unsympathetic world. I can look neither to a father nor a mother to advise, chide, or comfort me. May I hope that you at least will show me pity and mercy?” A touching appeal it might well seem until read in the light of the circumstance that he who made it was being tried for the murder of both his parents.

With a prescience of the coming struggle which his own deliberate manœuvres were meant to bring about, the Chancellor displayed keen and, it was then believed, praiseworthy anxiety to impress our Government with the sincerity of his desire and the strenuousness of his efforts for peace.

From the fact that he (the Imperial Chancellor) had gone so far in the matter of giving advice at Vienna, his Excellency hoped that you would realize that he was sincerely doing all in his power to prevent danger of European complications.

The fact of his communicating this information to you was a proof of the confidence which he felt in you, and evidence of his anxiety that you should know he was doing his best to support your efforts in the cause of general peace, efforts which he sincerely appreciated.

His Excellency was aware of the necessity of preparing the ground for the next and most difficult move of all, and was providing for it in his own way. It was a German Captatio benevolentiæ.