England and Germany

by Emile Joseph Dillon

The country was absolutely unequipped for the contest. The Lybian campaign had disorganized Italy’s national defences and depleted her treasury. Arms, ammunition, uniforms, primary necessaries—in a word, the means of equipping an army—were lacking. The expenditure of £80,000,000 sterling during the conflict with Turkey rendered the strictest economy imperative, and so intent was the Cabinet on observing it that the first candidate for the post of War Minister declined the honour, because of the disproportion between the sum offered to him for reorganization and the pressing needs of the national defences.

The outbreak of the present conflict, therefore, took Italy unawares and found her in a condition of military unpreparedness which, if her participation in the war had been a necessity, might have had mischievous consequences for the nation. Availing herself of this condition of affairs and of the pacific temper of the Italian people, Germany reinforced those motives by the prospect of Corsica, Nice, Savoy, Tunis and Morocco in return for active co-operation. But the active co-operation of Italy with Austria and Germany was wholly excluded. The people would have vetoed it as suicidal. The utmost that could be attempted was the preservation of her neutrality, and that this object would be attained seemed a foregone conclusion.

And it is fair to state that this belief was well grounded. When war was declared and Italy was summoned to march with her allies against France, Britain and Russia, she repudiated her obligation on the ground that the clause in their treaty provided for common action in defence only, not for co-operation in a war of aggression, such as was then about to be waged. And that plea could not be rebutted. This preliminary dissonance to which the Central empires resigned themselves was followed by disputes which turned upon the interpretation of the compensation clause of the Treaty, upon Italy’s territorial demands and Austria’s demurrers. Thus from first to last the issues raised were of a diplomatic order, and if German statesmen had received carte blanche to settle them, it is not improbable that a compromise would have been effected which would have left the Italian Government no choice but to persevere in its neutrality.

And German statesmen strove hard to wrest the matter from their ally and take it into their own hands, but were only partially successful. Both they and the Austrians selected their most supple and wily diplomatists to conduct the difficult negotiations. Prince Bülow was appointed German Ambassador to King Victor’s Government, Baron Macchio supplanted Merey in Rome, but the most sensational change effected was the substitution of Baron Burian for Count Berchtold in the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[90] This latter event was construed by the European public as the foretoken of a new and far-resonant departure in Austria’s treatment of international relations. In reality it was hardly more than the withdrawal from public business of a tired statesman malgré lui who had persistently sought to be relieved of his charge ever since his first appointment. Count Berchtold’s name is inseparably associated with events of the first magnitude for his country and for Europe, but on the creation or moulding of which he had little appreciable part. It is hardly too much to say that if, during the period while he held office, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been without a head, the mechanism would have worked with no serious hitch, and with pretty much the same results which we now behold. For he was but the intermediary between the mechanism and the real minister, who invariably appeared as a deus ex machina in all the great crises of recent years, and who was none other than the Emperor Francis Joseph himself.

Count Berchtold was a continuator. He endeavoured under adverse circumstances to carry out the feasible schemes of his predecessor, but the obstacles in his way proved insurmountable. He is a straightforward, truthful man, and in the best sense of the word a gentleman. The greatest achievement to which he can point during his tenure of power is the disruption of the Balkan League. Having had an opportunity of seeing the working of the scheme at close quarters, I may say that it was ingenious. Pacific by temperament and conviction, he co-operated successfully with the Emperor to ward off a European conflict more than once. But from the day when Count Tisza won over Franz Josef to the ideas of Kaiser Wilhelm, Count Berchtold’s occupation was gone.

His successor, Baron Burian, entered upon his office with an established reputation and a political programme. But so immersed were the Allies in the absurd illusions which ascribed disorganization to Germany and discord to the two imperial Governments, that Burian’s appointment was read by many as an omen that Austria-Hungary was already scheming for a separate peace. Events soon showed that the disorganization was not in Germany nor the discord on the side of the Central Empires.

Meanwhile the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Di San Giuliano, had succumbed to a painful illness, which, however, did not prevent him from writing and reading dispatches down to the very eve of his death.[91] His successor was Sydney Sonnino, perhaps the most upright, rigid and taciturn man who has ever had to receive foreign diplomatists and discourse sweet nothings in their ears. Devoid of eloquence, of personal magnetism and of most of the arts deemed essential to the professional diplomatist, he is a man of culture, eminent talents, fervid zeal for the public welfare, steady moral courage, and rare personal integrity. Pitted against the supple and versatile Bülow, his influence might be likened to that of the austere philosopher gazing at the incarnate Lamia.

Between these two statesmen conversations began[92] under favourable auspices. One of the conditions to which each of them subscribed was the maintenance of rigorous secrecy until the end of their labours. And it was observed religiously until Germany’s “necessity” seemed to call for the violation of the pledge, whereupon it was profitably violated. Baron Sonnino told the German plenipotentiary that “the majority of the population was in favour of perpetuating neutrality, and gave its support to the Government for this purpose, provided always that by means of neutrality certain national aspirations could be realized.”[93] Bülow at once scored an important point by taking sides with Italy against Austria on the disputed question whether Clause VII of the Triple Alliance entitled the former country to demand compensation for the upsetting of the Balkan equilibrium caused by Austria’s war on Serbia. That view and its practical corollaries set the machinery going. The Austrian Government abandoned its non possumus, and discussed the nature and extent of the compensation alleged to be due. But it never traversed the distances between words and acts.

One of the many wily devices by which the German Ambassador sought to inveigle the Consulta into forgoing its right to resort to war was employed within three weeks of the beginning of negotiations. Bülow confidentially informed Sonnino that Germany was sending Count von Wedel to Vienna to persuade the Cabinet there to cede the Trentino to Italy, and asked him whether, if Austria acquiesced, it would not be possible to announce to the Chamber that the Italian Government had already in hand enough to warrant it in assuming that the main aspirations of the nation would be realized.[94] “Absolutely impossible,” was Sonnino’s reply. But the Dictator Giolitti, whom Prince Bülow took into partnership, was more confident and pliable. This parliamentary leader, whose will was law in his own country and whose life-work consisted in eliminating ethical principles from politics, made known his belief—nay, his positive knowledge—that by diplomatic negotiations the nation could obtain concessions which would dispense it from embarking on the war. This pronouncement had a widespread effect on public opinion, confirming the prevalent belief that Austria would satisfy Italy’s claims.

There was no means of verifying those announcements, for the Rome Government scrupulously observed its part of the compact, and allowed no news of the progress of the conversations to leak out. In fact, it went much farther and deprived the Italian people systematically of all information on the subject of the crisis. Consequently the poisoners of the wells of truth had a facile task.