Lichnowsky was a friend of England, but he was no pacifist or "little German." His policy was to favour the peaceful expansion of Germany, in good understanding with England and France, on the seas and in the colonies. He aimed at "imperial development" on British lines; he abhorred the "Triple Alliance policy" of espousing Austria's quarrels, backing Turkey against the Balkan States, intriguing against Russia, and seeing all politics in the terms of European rivalries with a background of war. His own policy was one which, if followed loyally by the German Government, would have avoided the war and saved Europe.
There are one or two traits in Lichnowsky's language which show that, with all his liberality of thought, he is still a German. He accepts at once, on the report of a German secret agent, the false statement that Grey had concluded a secret treaty with France. He mentions, as if it were a natural thing, the strange opinion that the Standard was "apparently bought by Austria." He describes Mr. Asquith as a pacifist and Sir Edward Grey as both a pacifist and, ideally and practically, a Socialist. One must remember the sort of views he was accustomed to at Potsdam.
There can be no doubt that Lichnowsky was deliberately deceived by his Government, and not much that he was chosen for his post in London with a view to deceiving us. These things are all in gospel according to Bernhardi. Lichnowsky himself was both an honest and an able diplomatist, and there is the ring of sincerity in his words of self-reproach: "I had to support in London a policy the heresy of which I recognised. That brought down vengeance on me, for it was a sin against the Holy Ghost."
If Grey, in the tangle of terrific problems that surrounded him, ever erred, his sin was not against the Holy Ghost. The attack made on him at the [outset] of the war by Radical idealists was easy to confute. If ever a statesman strove, with due prudence, for peace, for friendship between nations, for a transformation of armed rivalries into cordial and democratic understandings, our great English Minister was that man. He was accused as a maker of secret treaties; and we find him all through the times of peace, and through all times when choice was still possible, a steady refuser of secret treaties. He was accused as a seeker for territory; and we find him, both in war and peace, steadily opposing all territorial aggrandisement. Such was the policy approved by the leaders of both English parties before the war.
It is an attack from the other side that now reaches him. If the war had been short and successful, this would not have occurred. But a long and bitter and dangerous war of necessity creates its own atmosphere, and the policy that was wisdom in 1913, when the world was at peace and our relations with Germany were improving, strikes us now perhaps as strangely trustful and generous. Yet, if we try to recover that mental calm without which the nations will never till the end of time be able to restore their wasted wealth and rebuild the shattered hopes of civilisation, I think most Englishmen will agree that Grey's policy was, as we all thought it at the time, the right and the wise policy. To let all the world know that we would never join in any attack on Germany, but would never permit any attack on France; to seek to remove all causes of friction between England and Germany, as they had been removed between England and France and between England and Russia; to extend the "Entente Cordiale" by gradual steps to all nations who would come into it, and to "bring the two groups of Europe nearer." This was the right policy, whether it succeeded or failed; and it will, in spirit at least, some day be the right policy again.
No Englishman, I think, will regret the generous courtesy which sent off the German Ambassador with a guard of honour, "like a departing sovereign." No one will regret our Prime Minister's silent tears when the war became inevitable, or Grey's conviction that it would be "the greatest catastrophe in history"—not even if mad German militarists drew the conclusion that the only motive for such grief must be the fear of defeat. For my own part I am glad that, at the last interview with Lichnowsky, Grey assured him that, if ever a chance came of mediation between the combatants, he would take it, and that "we have never wished to crush Germany."
Surely, even now in the crisis of the war, it is well to remember these things. The cleaner our national conscience the keener surely will be our will to victory. The slower we were to give up the traditions of generosity and trustfulness that came from our long security the firmer will be our resolution to hold out, through whatever martyrdom may be yet in store for us, until we or our children can afford once more to live generously and to trust our neighbours. In the long run no other life is worth living.
G. M.