In England, as with us, there were two opinions, that of the optimists, who believed in an understanding, and that of the pessimists, who considered war inevitable sooner or later. Among the former were Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, Lord Haldane, and most of the Ministers in the Radical Cabinet, as well as leading Liberal organs, such as The Westminster Gazette, The Manchester Guardian, and The Daily Chronicle. To the pessimists belong especially Conservative politicians like Mr. Balfour, who repeatedly made his meaning clear to me; leading soldiers such as Lord Roberts, who insisted on the necessity of conscription, and on "the writing on the wall," and, further, the Northcliffe press, and that leading English journalist, Mr. Garvin of The Observer. During my term of office they abstained from all attacks and took up, personally and politically, a friendly attitude. Our naval policy and our attitude in the years 1905, 1908, and 1911 had, nevertheless, caused them to think that it might one day come to war. Just as with us, the former are now dubbed shortsighted and simple-minded, while the latter are regarded as the true prophets.
BALKAN QUESTIONS
The first Balkan war led to the collapse of Turkey and with it the defeat of our policy, which had been identified with Turkey for many years. Since the salvation of Turkey in Europe was no longer feasible, only two possibilities for settling the question remained. Either we declared we had no longer any interest in the definition of boundaries in the Balkan Peninsula, and left the settlement of the question to the Balkan peoples themselves, or we supported our allies and carried out a Triple Alliance policy in the East, thereby giving up the rôle of mediator.
I urged the former course from the beginning, but the German Foreign Office very much preferred the latter. The chief question was Albania. Our allies desired the establishment of an independent State of Albania, as Austria would not allow Serbia to reach the Adriatic, and Italy did not wish the Greeks to reach Valona or even the territory north of Corfu. On the other hand, Russia, as is known, favored Serbian, and France Greek, desires. My advice was now to consider the question as outside the alliance, and to support, neither Austrian nor Italian wishes. Without our support the establishment of Albania, whose incapability of existence might have been foreseen, was an impossibility. Serbia would have pushed forward to the coast; then the present world war would have been avoided. France and Italy would have remained definitely divided as to Greece, and the Italians, had they not wished to fight France, alone, would have been obliged to consent to the expansion of Greece to the district north of Durazzo. The greater part of civilized Albania is Greek. The southern towns are entirely Greek, and, at the time of the conference of Ambassadors, deputations from the larger towns came to London to carry through the annexation to Greece.
In Greece today whole groups are Albanian, and the so-called Greek national dress is of Albanian origin. The amalgamation of the preponderating Orthodox and Islamic Albanians with the Greek State was, therefore, the best solution and the most natural, if one leaves out of account Scutari and the northern part of Serbia and Montenegro. His Majesty was also in favor of this solution on dynastic grounds. When I encouraged the monarch by letter to this effect, I received violent reproaches from the Chancellor for supporting Austria's opponents, and he forbade all such interference in the future, and even direct correspondence. We had eventually, however, to abandon the tradition of carrying out the Triple Alliance policy in the East and to acknowledge our mistake, which consisted in identifying ourselves with the Turks in the south and the Austro-Magyars in the north; for the continuance of that policy, which we began at the Congress in Berlin and subsequently carried on zealously, was bound in time, should the necessary skill in conducting it fail, to lead to a collision with Russia and a world war.
TURKEY, RUSSIA, ITALY
Instead of uniting with Russia on the basis of the independence of the Sultan, whom the Russians also did not wish to drive out of Constantinople, and confining ourselves to economic interests in the East, while at the same time refraining from all military and political interference and being satisfied with a division of Asia Minor into spheres of interest, the goal of our political ambition was to dominate in the Bosporus. In Russia, therefore, the opinion arose that the way to Constantinople and to the Mediterranean lay through Berlin. Instead of encouraging a powerful development in the Balkan States, which were once free and are very different from the Russians, of which fact we have already had experience, we placed ourselves on the side of the Turkish and Magyar oppressors. The dire mistake of our Triple Alliance and our Eastern policies, which drove Russia—our natural friend and best neighbor—into the arms of France and England, and kept her from her policy of Asiatic expansion, was the more evident, as a Franco-Russian attack, the only hypothesis justifying a Triple Alliance policy, had to be eliminated from our calculations.
As to the value of the alliance with Italy, one word only. Italy needs our money and our tourists after the war, with or without our alliance. That our alliance would go by the board in the event of war was to be foreseen. The alliance, consequently, was worthless.
Austria, however, needed our protection both in war and peace, and had no other point d'appui. This dependence on us is based on political, national, and economic grounds, and is all the greater in proportion to the intimacy of our relations with Russia. This was proved in the Bosnian crisis. Since Count Beust, no Vienna Minister had been so self-conscious with us as Count Aehrenthal was during the last years of his life. Under the influence of a properly conducted German policy which would keep us in touch with Russia, Austria-Hungary is our vassal, and is tied to us even without an alliance and without reciprocal services; under the influence of a misguided policy, however, we are tied to Austria-Hungary. An alliance would therefore be purposeless.
I know Austria far too well not to know that a return to the policy of Count Felix Schwarzenberg or to that of Count Moritz Esterhazy was unthinkable. Little as the Slavs living there love us, they wish just as little for a return to the German Kaiserdom, even with a Hapsburg-Lorraine at its head. They are striving for an internal Austrian federation on a national basis, a condition which is even less likely of realization within the German Empire than under the Double Eagle. Austro-Germans look on Berlin as the centre of German power and Kultur, and they know that Austria can never be a leading power. They desire as close a connection as possible with the empire, but not to the extent of an anti-German policy.