At the beginning, it might have been held from a philosophic point of view that the war was an unjust one as far as we were concerned, and that it had been provoked without sufficient reason for the purpose of conquest. But now the Empire had disappeared and France alone was face to face with Germany. Reparation was being offered for the damage which her Government had done in provoking the war. The French nation, which had never wanted the war, was now fighting for its existence and the integrity of its soil. France was now defending herself against invasion and conquest. She was therefore continuing the fight for a just and strong cause, and it was Germany that was refusing to end a war which had become an immoral and an impious one as far as the latter was concerned, since her haughtily avowed and only end was the brutal conquest of Alsace and Lorraine.
Mr. Gladstone did not deny the justice of this argument.
I went on, and asked him if he did not admit that a great nation might not only have the right but even, up to a certain point, the duty, of intervening in a war of this nature. Did not the necessity for intervention exist, if intervention not only served to maintain a just and moral cause, but were also to a nation’s own interest?
Mr. Gladstone again admitted that there might possibly be circumstances which would oblige England to take up arms and intervene in a struggle between two other Powers, but he held that there were no such circumstances in the present war.
I then told him that the future—perhaps the very near future—would give him cause to regret not having seized the opportunity of putting us under an obligation by going to war for a “moral cause,” and with the approval of the English people. I referred to the difficulties preparing for England in the East and the services we in our turn could render her in that direction. He answered that he did not consider the situation in the East as dangerous, and that he did not share the opinions of those who saw in it a source of grave complications for England; “I have no fears in that direction,” said he. “At any rate it must not be forgotten that Russia has German provinces and that she is more threatened by Prussia than we are. Moreover, we are sheltered from the attacks of Prussia by the natural situation of our country. The latter could not even attack the little island of Heligoland against our will.”
I then went on to another order of ideas. I spoke of the ancient friendship which united the two people and the great economic interests which were drawing them nearer to each other day by day. I asked him if England from this standpoint was not pledged to another attitude towards France than that of being an inert and impassive spectator at a time when her intervention could assure for France an honourable peace, a just and moral peace....
Mr. Gladstone freely recognised that France had rights to England’s friendship. “But,” he said, “I do not think those rights are such as to make us intervene in a war which France has commenced herself and without us. I do not think our friendship can go to the point of our declaring war against Prussia and fighting at your side.”
At this point Mr. Gladstone reproachfully repeated the charge which had everlastingly been made against us since the beginning of the war and which I encountered everywhere from those I addressed. “Who was it,” said he, “who definitely commenced this deplorable war? Who was it who provoked it without any reason and for the sole purpose of conquest, for the purpose, that is, of taking the Rhine?”
My answer was a very simple one. I looked at the question from Mr. Gladstone’s own standpoint and loyally recognised the wrong we had done. The war was the work of the French Government. The French Government alone had commenced it without sufficient reason and for a, from a philosophic standpoint, inexcusable and immoral purpose—that of conquest. I did not even try to exculpate the nation, by saying, as I might have done, that the French people were far from desiring the war, and that, had they been consulted, they would have refused it with all their energies.
I admitted the nation’s responsibility on the ground of their having supported the Imperial Government and accepted a régime which had the power of plunging them into such a war and in such circumstances. It is best to argue after his own fashion with a Minister who likes to mix philosophy and politics. “But do you not perceive that the situation is to-day no longer the same? The Government which commenced the war no longer exists. To-day the people are free and have pronounced their opinion—they have never wanted the war. To-day they want it less than ever. They are offering ransom to the enemy. Do you not think that the wrongs of the past have been made good, as far as the nation is concerned, by the overtures made by M. Jules Favre to M. de Bismarck at Ferrières?”