Wangenheim not only gave me the details of this Potsdam Conference, but he disclosed the same secret to the Marquis Garroni, the Italian Ambassador at Constantinople. Italy was at that time technically Germany’s ally.
The Austrian Ambassador, the Marquis Pallavicini, also practically admitted that the Central Powers had precipitated the war. On August 18th, Francis Joseph’s birthday, I made the usual ambassadorial visit of congratulation. Quite naturally the conversation turned upon the Emperor, who had that day passed his eighty-fourth year. Pallavicini spoke about him with the utmost pride and veneration. He told me how keen-minded and clear-headed the aged Emperor was, how he had the most complete understanding of international affairs, and how he gave everything his personal supervision. To illustrate the Austrian Kaiser’s grasp of public events, Pallavicini instanced the present war. The previous May, Pallavicini had had an audience with Francis Joseph in Vienna. At that time, Pallavicini now told me, the Emperor had said that a European war was unavoidable. The Central Powers would not accept the Treaty of Bucharest as a settlement of the Balkan question, and only a general war, the Emperor had told Pallavicini, could ever settle that problem. The Treaty of Bucharest, I may recall, was the settlement that ended the second Balkan war.
This divided the European dominions of Turkey, excepting Constantinople and a small piece of adjoining territory, among the Balkan nations, chiefly Serbia and Greece. That treaty strengthened Serbia greatly; so much did it increase Serbia’s resources, indeed, that Austria feared that it had laid the beginning of a new European State that might grow sufficiently strong to resist her own plans of aggrandisement. Austria held a large Serbian population under her yoke in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and these Serbians desired, above everything else, annexation to their own country. Moreover, the Pan-German plans in the East necessitated the destruction of Serbia, the State which, so long as it stood intact, blocked the Germanic road to the East. It had been the Austro-German expectation that the Balkan war would destroy Serbia as a nation—that Turkey would simply annihilate King Peter’s forces. This was precisely what the Germanic plans demanded, and for this reason Austria and Germany did nothing to prevent the Balkan wars. But the result was exactly the reverse, for out of the conflict arose a stronger Serbia than ever, standing firm like a breakwater against the Germanic path.
Most historians agree that the Treaty of Bucharest made inevitable this war. I have the Marquis Pallavicini’s evidence that this was likewise the opinion of Francis Joseph himself. The audience at which the Emperor made this statement was held in May, more than a month before the assassination of the Grand Duke. Clearly, therefore, we have the Austrian Emperor’s assurances that the war would have come irrespective of the assassination at Serajevo. It is quite apparent that this crime merely served as the convenient pretext for the war upon which the Central Empires had already decided.
CHAPTER VII
GERMANY’S PLANS FOR NEW TERRITORIES, COALING STATIONS, AND INDEMNITIES
All through that eventful August and September Wangenheim continued his almost irresponsible behaviour—now blandly boastful, now depressed, always nervous and high-strung, ingratiating to an American like myself, spiteful and petty toward the representatives of the enemy Powers. He was always displaying his anxiety and impatience by sitting on the bench, that he might be within two or three minutes’ quicker access to the wireless communications that were sent him from Berlin via the Corcovado. He would never miss an opportunity to spread the news of victories; several times he adopted the unusual course of coming to my house unannounced, to tell me of the latest developments and to read me extracts from messages which he had just received. He was always apparently frank, direct, and even indiscreet. I remember his great distress the day that England declared war. Wangenheim had always professed a great admiration for England, and especially for America. “There are only three great countries,” he would say over and over again, “Germany, England, and the United States. We three should get together, then we could rule the world.” This enthusiasm for the British Empire now suddenly cooled when that Power decided to defend her treaty pledges and declared war. Wangenheim had said that the conflict would be a short one; Sedan Day (September 2nd) would be celebrated in Paris. But on August 5th I called at his Embassy and found him more than usually agitated and serious. Baroness Wangenheim, a tall, handsome woman, was sitting in the room reading her mother’s memoirs of the war of 1870. Both regarded the news from England as almost a personal grievance, and what impressed me most was Wangenheim’s utter failure to understand England’s motives. “It’s mighty poor politics on her part!” he exclaimed over and over again. His attitude was precisely the same as that of Bethmann-Hollweg with the “scrap of paper.”
I was out for a stroll on August 26th, and happened to meet the German Ambassador. He began to talk as usual about the German victories in France, repeating, as was now his habit, his prophecy that the German armies would be in Paris within a week. The deciding factor in this war, he added, would be the Krupp artillery. “And remember that this time,” he said, “we are making war. And we shall make it rücksichtslos (without any consideration). We shall not be hampered as we were in 1870. Then Queen Victoria, the Czar, and Francis Joseph interfered and persuaded us to spare Paris. But there is no one to interfere now. We shall move to Berlin all the Parisian art treasures that belong to the State, just as Napoleon took Italian art works to France.”
It is quite evident that the battle of the Marne saved Paris from the fate of Louvain.
So confidently did Wangenheim expect an immediate victory that he began to discuss the terms of peace. Germany would demand of France, he said, after defeating her armies, that she completely demobilise and pay an indemnity. “France now,” said Wangenheim, “can settle for $5,000,000,000; but if she persists in continuing the war she will have to pay $20,000,000,000.”
He told me that Germany would demand harbours and coaling-stations “everywhere.” At that time, judging from Wangenheim’s statements, Germany was not looking so much for new territory as for great commercial advantages. She was determined to be the great merchant nation, and for this she must have free harbours, the Bagdad railroad, and extensive rights in South America and Africa. Wangenheim said that Germany did not desire any more territory in which the populations did not speak German, for they had had all of that kind of trouble they wanted in Alsace-Lorraine, Poland, and other non-German countries. This statement certainly sounds interesting now in view of recent happenings in Russia. He did not mention England in speaking of Germany’s demand for coaling-stations and harbours; he must have had England in mind, however, for what other nation could have given them to Germany “everywhere”?