Before the War

by Viscount R. B. Haldane Haldane

In the summer of 1912 I became Lord Chancellor, and the engrossing duties, judicial as well as administrative, of that office cut me off from any direct participation in the carrying on of our efforts for better relations with Germany. But these relations continued to be extended in the various ways practicable and left open to Sir Edward Grey and the German Chancellor. The discussions which had been begun when I was in Berlin, about Africa and the Bagdad Railway, were continued between them through the Ambassadors; and just before the war the draft of an extensive treaty had been agreed on.

Then, after an interval of two years, came a time of extreme anxiety. No one had better opportunities than I of watching Sir Edward's concentration of effort to avoid the calamity which threatened. For he was living with me in my house in Queen Anne's Gate through the whole of these weeks, and he was devoting himself, with passionate earnestness of purpose, to inducing the German Government to use its influence with Austria for a peaceful settlement. But it presently became evident that the Emperor and his Ministers had made up their minds that they were going to make use of an opportunity that appeared to have come. As I have already said, I think their calculations were framed on a wholly erroneous basis. It is clear that their military advisers had failed to take account, in their estimates of probabilities, of the tremendous moral forces that might be brought into action against them. The ultimate result we all know. May the lesson taught to the world by the determined entry of the United States into the conflict between right and wrong never be forgotten by the world!

Why Germany acted as she did then is a matter that still requires careful investigation. My own feeling is that she has demonstrated the extreme risk of confiding great political decisions to military advisers. It is not their business to have the last word in deciding between peace and war. The problem is too far-reaching for their training. Bismarck knew this well, and often said it, as students of his life and reflections are aware. Had he been at the helm I do not believe that he would have allowed his country to drift into a disastrous course. He was far from perfect in his ethical standards, but he had something of that quality which Mommsen, in his history, attributes to Julius Cæsar. Him the historian describes as one of those "mighty ones who has preserved to the end of his career the statesman's tact of discriminating between the possible and the impossible, and has not broken down in the task which for greatly gifted natures is the most difficult of all—the task of recognizing, when on the pinnacle of success, its natural limits. What was possible he performed, and never left the possible good undone for the sake of the impossible better; never disdained at least to mitigate by palliatives evils that were incurable. But where he recognized that fate had spoken, he always obeyed. Alexander on the Hypanis, Napoleon at Moscow, turned back because they were compelled to do so, and were indignant at destiny for bestowing even on its favorites merely limited successes. Cæsar turned back voluntarily on the Thames and on the Rhine, and thought of carrying into effect even at the Danube and the Euphrates, not unbounded plans of world-conquest, but merely well-considered frontier regulations."

If only Germany, whose great historian thus explained these things, had remembered them, how different might have been her position to-day. But it may be that she had carried her policy too far to be left free. With her certainly rests the main responsibility for what has happened; for apart from her, Austria would not have acted as she did, nor would Turkey, nor Bulgaria. The fascinating glitter of her armies, and the assurances given by her General Staff, were too much for the minor nations whom she had induced to accept her guidance, and too much I think also for her own people. No doubt the ignorance of these about the ways of their own Government counted for a great deal. There has never been such a justification of the principle of democratic control as this war affords. But a nation must be held responsible for the action of its own rulers, however much it has simply submitted itself to them. I have the impression that even to-day in its misery the German public does not fully understand, and still believes that Germany was the victim of a plot to entrap and encircle her, and that with this in view Russia mobilized on a great scale for war. It is difficult for us to understand how real the Slav peril appeared to Germany and to Austria, and there is little doubt that to the latter Serbia was an unquiet neighbor. But these considerations must be taken in their context—a context of which the German public ought to have made itself fully aware. The leaders of its opinion were bent on domination to the Near East. No wonder that the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula became progressively alarmed, and looked to Russia more and more for protection. For it had become plain that moral considerations would not be allowed by the authorities at Berlin to weigh in the balance against material advantages to be gained by power of domination.

If there is room for reproach to us Anglo-Saxons, it is reproach of a very different kind. Germany was quite intelligent enough to listen to reason, and, besides, she had the prospect of becoming the dominating industrial and commercial power in the world by dint merely of peaceful penetration. It is possible that, if her relations with her Western neighbors, including Great Britain, had been more intimate than they actually were, she might have been saved from a great blunder, and might have come to understand that the English-speaking races were not really so inferior to herself as she took them to be. Her hubris was in part, at all events, the result of ignorance. Speaking for my own countrymen, I think that neither did we know enough about the Germans nor did the Germans know enough about us. They were ignorant of the innate capacity for fighting, in industrial and military conflicts alike, which our history shows we have always hitherto brought to light in great emergencies. And they little realized how tremendously moral issues could stir and unite democracies. We, on the other hand, knew little of their tradition, their literature, or their philosophy. Our statesmen did not read their newspapers, and rarely visited their country. We were deficient in that quality which President Murray Butler has spoken of as the "international mind."

I do not know whether, had it been otherwise, we could have brought about the better state of things in Europe for which I tried to express the hope, altho not without misgiving, in the address on "Higher Nationality" which I was privileged to deliver before distinguished representatives of the United States and of Canada at Montreal on September 1, 1913. I spoke then of the possibility of a larger entente, an entente which might become a real concert of the Great Powers of the world; and I quoted the great prayer with which Grotius concludes his book on "War and Peace." There was at least the chance, if we strove hard enough, that we might find a response from the best in other countries, and in the end attain to a new and real Sittlichkeit which should provide a firmer basis for International Law and reverence for international obligations. But for the realization of this dream a sustained and strenuous search after fuller mutual knowledge was required.

After this address had been published, I received a letter from the German Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, in which—writing in German and so late as September 26, 1913—he expressed himself to me as follows:

"If I had the happiness of finding myself in one mind with you in these thoughts in February, 1912, it has been to me a still greater satisfaction that our two countries have since then had a number of opportunities of working together in this spirit. Like you, I hold the optimistic view that the great nations will be able to progress further on this path, and will do so. Anyhow, I shall, in so far as it is within my power, devote my energies to this cause, and I am happy in the certainty of finding in you an openly declared fellow-worker."

But events swept him from a course which, so far as I know, he at least individually desired to follow. The great increase of armaments took place that year in Germany, and, when events were too strong for him, he elected, not to resign, but to throw in his lot with his country. His position was one of great difficulty. He took a course for which many would applaud him. But inherently a wrong course, surely. What he said when Belgium was invaded in breach of solemn treaty shows that he felt this. He let himself be swept into devoting his energies to bolstering up his country's cause, instead of resigning. His career only proves that, given the political conditions that obtained in Germany shortly before the war, it was almost impossible for a German statesman to keep his feet or to avoid being untrue to himself. And yet there were many others there in the same frame of mind, and one asks oneself whether, had they had more material to work with, they might not have been able to present a more attractive alternative than the notion of military domination which in the end took possession of all, from the Emperor downward.

It is, however, useless to speculate at present on these things. We know too little of the facts. The historians of another generation will know more. But of one thing I feel sure. The Germans think that Great Britain declared war of pre-conceived purpose and her own initiative. There is a sense in which she did. The opinion of Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, and of those of us who were by their side, was unhesitating. She could not have taken any other course than she did without the prospect of ruin and failure to enter on the only path of honor. For honor and safety alike necessitated that she should take, without the delay which would have been fatal, the step she did take without delay and unswervingly. The responsibility for her entry comes back wholly to Germany herself, who would not have brought it about had she not plunged into war. And to-day Germany lies prostrate.