A scrap of paper

by Emile Joseph Dillon

CHAPTER X
THE INFAMOUS OFFER

While the Kaiser and his advisers were thus adroitly pulling diplomatic and journalistic wires to secure coherence of time with place and auspicious conditions for dealing the premeditated blow, the British Government were treated with the fine blinding dust of ethical phrases and stories of persevering but baffled efforts put forth in the cause of European peace.

The German Ambassador (Sir Edward Grey writes to Sir Edward Goschen) has been instructed by the German Chancellor to inform me that he is endeavouring to mediate between Vienna and St. Petersburg, and he hopes with good success. Austria and Russia seem to be in constant touch, and he is endeavouring to make Vienna explain in a satisfactory form at St. Petersburg the scope and extension of Austrian proceedings in Servia. I told the German Ambassador that an agreement arrived at direct between Austria and Russia would be the best possible solution. I would press no proposal as long as there was a prospect of that, but my information this morning was that the Austrian Government have declined the suggestion of the Russian Government that the Austrian Ambassador at St. Petersburg should be authorized to discuss directly with the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs the means of settling the Austro-Servian conflict. The press correspondents at St. Petersburg had been told that the Russian Government would mobilize. The German Government had said that they were favourable in principle to mediation between Russia and Austria if necessary. They seemed to think the particular method of conference, consultation, or discussion, or even conversations a quatre in London too formal a method. I urged that the German Government should suggest any method by which the influence of the four Powers could be used together to prevent war between Austria and Russia. France agreed, Italy agreed. The whole idea of mediation or mediating influence was ready to be put into operation by any method that Germany thought possible if only Germany would “press the button” in the interests of peace.

Now at this same moment orders had been issued by the Government of which the Chancellor was the head to move the advance-posts of the German army on the French frontiers. And these orders were carried out on the following day, as we now know from the French Minister’s despatch to M. Cambon, dated July 31st. “The German army,” he writes, “had its advance-posts on our frontiers yesterday.” And we further learn from M. Sazonoff that even before this date “absolute proof was in possession of the Russian Government that Germany was making military and naval preparations against Russia—more particularly in the direction of the Gulf of Finland.”[30]

The disingenuousness, not to use a harsher term, of these diplomatic methods needs no comment. It is one of the inseparable marks of German diplomacy and German journalism, which are as odious in peace as are German methods of warfare during a campaign. Of plain dealing and truthful speech there is no trace. Underlying the assurances, hopes, and sincere regrets with which all German conversations with our diplomatists are larded, it is easy to distinguish the steady tendency to impress our Foreign Office with Germany’s fervid desire to maintain peace, her bitter disappointment at being forced step by step into war, and her humanitarian resolve to keep that war within the narrowest possible limits. And with all the documents and the subsequent facts before us, it is just as easy to perceive the real drift of the Kaiser’s scheming. Great Britain was to be made to feel that anything which Germany might be forced to do in the way of disregarding treaties would be done with the utmost reluctance and only under duress. The building up of this conviction was one of the main objects of the curious expedients resorted to by her clumsy statesmen, and was at the same time the overture to the last act in which the Treaty of 1839 was to be flung aside as a scrap of paper, but “without prejudice” to British interests.

The bid for British neutrality was the culminating phase of this unique diplomatic campaign. It was proffered with an intensity of emotion, a high-pitched feeling for the weal of the British nation, and a biblical solemnity which must, it was felt, tell with especial force with a people whose character so often merges in temperament and whose policy is always suffused with morality. Every consideration to which the Foreign Secretary, his colleagues, their parliamentary supporters, and the nation were thought to be impressible was singled out and emphasized. The smooth-tongued tempter at first, sure of his prey, approached the Liberal and pacific Cabinet through our political interests, elementary feelings, and national prejudices, winnowed by religious sentiment and passionate sincerity. With a penetrative intuition which would have proved unerring had it been guided by any of the lofty sentiments which it presupposed in its intended victim, they appealed to our loathing for crime, our hatred of oriental despotism, our indifference to Slav strivings, our aversion to the horrors of war, our love of peace, our anxiety to come to a permanent understanding with Germany, and by our attachment to all these boons of a highly cultured people they adjured us to hold aloof from the war and connive at their disregard of a treaty which they would have been delighted to respect had not brutal necessity compelled them to ignore it. But even this hard stroke of Fate—hard for them as for the Belgians—they would deaden to the best of their power by recognizing Belgium’s integrity anew at the end of the war.

It was at this end of the cleverly fashioned disguise that the cloven hoof protruded.

It is worth recalling that on the very day[31] on which the German Ambassador, acting on the instructions of his Chief, told Sir Edward Grey that the Chancellor was endeavouring to mediate between Vienna and St. Petersburg, “and he hopes (the Chancellor) with good success,” that same Chancellor, with that foreknowledge which is the sole privilege of the author of a movement, was cautiously preparing the scene for the next act on which he himself was soon to raise the curtain.

He said (our Ambassador in Berlin[32] wrote) that should Austria be attacked by Russia a European conflagration might, he feared, become inevitable owing to Germany’s obligations as Austria’s ally, in spite of his continued efforts to maintain peace. He then proceeded to make the following strong bid for British neutrality. He said that it was clear, so far as he was able to judge the main principle which governed British policy, that Great Britain would never stand by and allow France to be crushed in any conflict there might be. That, however, was not the object at which Germany aimed. Provided that neutrality of Great Britain were certain, every assurance would be given to the British Government that the Imperial Government aimed at no territorial acquisitions at the expense of France should they prove victorious in any war that might ensue.

I questioned his Excellency about the French colonies, and he said that he was unable to give a similar undertaking in this respect. As regards Holland, however, his Excellency said that, so long as Germany’s adversaries respected the integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands, Germany was ready to give his Majesty’s Government an assurance that she would do likewise. It depended upon the action of France what operations Germany might be forced to enter upon in Belgium, but when the war was over, Belgian integrity would be respected if she had not sided against Germany.