(Photo from Underwood & Underwood.)
“A Scrap of Paper”
Recent Versions of the German Chancellor’s Reference to the Belgian Treaty of Neutrality[2]
By Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg and Sir Edward Grey.
I.
GENERAL FIELD HEADQUARTERS OF THE GERMAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, via Berlin and London, Jan. 24.—"I am surprised to learn that my phrase, 'a scrap of paper,' which I used in my last conversation with the British Ambassador in reference to the Belgian neutrality treaty, should have caused such an unfavorable impression in the United States. The expression was used in quite another connection and the meaning implied in Sir Edward Goschen's report and the turn given to it in the biased comment of our enemies are undoubtedly responsible for this impression."
The speaker was Dr. Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Imperial Chancellor, and the conversation with a representative of The Associated Press occurred at the German Army Field Headquarters, in a town of Northern France, and in a villa serving as the office and dwelling for the Imperial Chancellor, for the Foreign Minister, Gottlieb von Jagow, and for the members of the diplomatic suite accompanying Emperor William afield.
The Chancellor apparently had not relished the subject until his attention was called to the extent to which the phrase had been used in discussion on the responsibility of the war. He then volunteered to give an explanation of his meaning, which in substance was that he had spoken of the treaty not as "a scrap of paper" for Germany, but as an instrument which had become obsolete through Belgium's forfeiture of its neutrality, and that Great Britain had quite other reasons for entering into the war, compared with which the neutrality treaty appeared to have only the value of a scrap of paper.
"My conversation with Sir Edward Goschen," said the Chancellor, "occurred Aug. 4. I had just declared in the Reichstag that only dire necessity and only the struggle for existence compelled Germany to march through Belgium, but that Germany was ready to make compensation for the wrong committed.