A CAMPAIGN OF FALSEHOOD
The other campaign was one of falsehood, conducted by speeches and through the press, and intended to mislead public opinion. It was an effort to deceive both its own people and neutral nations by mendacious misrepresentations of German aims, purposes, and conduct, and by equally false descriptions of the aims, purposes, and conduct of Germany's antagonists, and especially of the British Government and the British people. It tried to represent the war as having been forced upon Germany by Britain. Germany, it said, was merely defending herself against an unprovoked attack. She desired to live at peace with her neighbors, developing her own resources, cherishing no aggressive designs. Her enormous army and navy had been created only to protect her against the jealous and malicious enemies by whom she was surrounded, and especially against Great Britain. Britain, it seems, was envious of Germany. Being herself "a decadent nation"—this was the prevailing German view—she feared the commercial competition of Germany, and tried to keep the latter out of all foreign markets. British policy—so they said—under the direction of King Edward VII., had formed alliances with France and Russia in order to hem in Germany, and after trying to block Germany's outlets in Africa and Asia, contrived this war to destroy by arms the rival whom she could not face up to in trade and manufacturing industry.
While these accusations were brought against Britain, attempts were made to excuse the invasion of Belgium by the false stories, dropped as soon as they had served their temporary purpose, that French officers had been sent into Belgium to help to organize the Belgian troops against Germany and that French aviators had been flying over German territory.
Grotesque as all these inventions were, they were repeated with such audacity as to produce some effect in neutral countries. But their chief and more lasting influence was on the German people. A large part of the German press, inspired and controlled by the German Government, had for some time past been holding up England as the persistent foe of Germany. It now redoubled its falsehoods, representing Sir Edward Grey as having plotted to bring about a war, and urged Russia to refuse a peaceful solution; and it added equally groundless charges that England had secretly planned with Belgium to attack Germany through Belgian territory. These fables, repeated incessantly by German politicians, as well as by the newspapers, found ready credence with the German people, easily led by their press, always docile to the orders of their Government, and now swept off their feet by a wave of patriotism and by the belief that they were about to achieve a victory as rapid and complete as that of 1870. It was this conviction of the malevolence and the grasping ambition of England that created that ferocious hatred of the English which has continued to display itself in the treatment of English prisoners and in the exultation over such crimes as the sinking of the Lusitania.
ORGANIZED HATE
This sudden outburst of hatred in a nation so intelligent startled and amazed us. It can be understood only when we remember that the German Government did everything in its power not only to create hatred, but also to stifle every voice that was raised to let the people know the truth. They never have been permitted to know the truth, and the disappointment that fell upon them when their march on Paris was arrested with the help of a British Army and their coasts strictly blockaded by a British fleet added fuel to their anger and has made it ever since an easier matter to keep the truth from them.
Now, what was the truth?
The British people bore no hatred whatever toward the German people. King Edward VII. meant no harm to Germany when he showed his liking for the French. Neither did his Ministers when they took steps to remove the differences that had been causing trouble between ourselves and France, and again when they came to a friendly understanding with Russia. These arrangements were made in the interests of European peace and good-will, not in order to damage Germany. British merchants and manufacturers never dreamed of fighting Germany to get rid of her commercial competition. Had such an idea occurred to them, they would have reflected that Germany was England's best foreign customer, not to add that two years of even a successful war would have inflicted far more loss upon them than the extension of German trade competition could have repaired in twenty years. British men of science and learning admired the immense contributions Germany had been making to the progress of knowledge, and they had many personal friends in Germany. British statesmen did not desire to add to British possessions abroad, feeling that we had already all we needed, and that the greatest interest of the British Empire was a universal peace.
No section of our people, neither traders, nor thinkers and writers, nor statesmen, had any idea of the dangers to the mind and the purpose of those who ruled Germany. We did not realize what the feudal aristocracy and military caste of Germany were pondering and planning, nor how little weight they attached to considerations either of good faith or of humanity. Hence, beyond maintaining a strong fleet, the indispensable protection of a country open to sea attack which did not maintain a large army, we had made no preparations for war, and had scarcely bethought ourselves of what action we should have to take on land if we became involved in war. In this belief and attitude there may have been less prudence than was needed. But our absence of suspicion is the best proof of how little we expected aggression. It is an absolute refutation of the calumny that Britain, with her tiny army, was planning an attack on the greatest military power in the world.
All this every Englishman knows. I repeat it only because it has now received not only a confirmation but also a valuable further proof in the Lichnowsky memorandum, a proof unsolicited and uncontemplated, and, moreover, unimpeachable, because it comes from one who bore a leading part in what it records, and who never meant to let it become known.