King Albert vainly protested that it was a travesty of the intentions of the French Government to interpret them in this fashion. He found the Emperor "over-wrought and irritable."
M. Cambon suggested that the change in the Emperor's attitude was due to jealousy of the popularity of the Crown Prince, "who flatters the passions of the Pan-Germans." He also suggested that the motive of the conversation was to induce King Albert to oppose no resistance in the event of war. The French Ambassador warned his Government that the Emperor was familiarising himself with an order of ideas once repugnant to him. In other words, as long ago as 1913 the Kaiser was no longer working for the peace of Europe, but was already in the hands of the Prussian gang of militarists, who were working for war.
The French Yellow Book proves up to the hilt the guilt of Germany, in shattering the last hopes of peace at the end of July, 1914. Russia had proposed a formula for a direct agreement with Austria, but on July 30th Herr von Jagow, without consulting Austria, declared that this proposal was not acceptable. When Germany discovered that Austria was wavering and becoming more conciliatory, she threw off the mask, and suddenly hurled her ultimatum at Russia. M. Cambon reminded Herr von Jagow of his declaration that Germany would not mobilise if Russia only mobilised on the Galician frontier. What was the German Minister's reply? It was a subterfuge. He said: "It was not a definite undertaking." The German Government, in its White Paper, suppressed its despatches during the crucial period to Vienna. It did not publish them because, we now know, it did not dare to reveal the truth.
Germany, as I have shown, had for a long time planned the attack on France through Belgium. So long ago, indeed, as May 6th, 1913, von Moltke said: "We must begin war without waiting, in order to brutally crush all resistance." The evidence of the Yellow Book proves that the Emperor and his entourage had irrevocably resolved to frustrate all efforts of the Allies to preserve the peace of Europe. It confirms the Kaiser's secret intentions revealed in the previous chapter, and it establishes—fully and finally—the guilt of the Kaiser and of the German Government.
Those British newspapers which were most active and resolute in keeping the country unprepared for the war that has come upon us, and which, if they had had their way, would have left us to-day almost naked to our enemies, are now suddenly rubbing their eyes, and discovering that Germany had premeditated war for quite a long time. And this is up-to-date journalism! The public, alas! reposed confidence in such journals. Happily, they do not now. What the country will never forget, if it consents to forgive, is the perversity with which they so long refused to look facts in the face.
It is surely a damning coincidence that when the Kaiser and von Moltke were telling King Albert that war was inevitable, was the very time chosen by the National Liberal Federation to demand the reduction of our Navy Estimates, and to threaten the Government with a dangerous division in the party unless the demand were complied with!
Reduction in armaments, forsooth!
The Government knew the facts, and did indeed resist the demand; but for weeks there was a crisis in the Cabinet, and even in January, 1914, as the Globe pointed out, a Minister took the occasion to declare that a unique opportunity had arrived for revising the scale of our expenditure on Armaments!
While Mr. McKenna was, as late as last November, endeavouring in an outrageous manner to gag the Globe, and to prevent that newspaper from telling the public the truth of the spy-peril, Lord Haldane—the scales from whose eyes regarding his friend the Kaiser appear now to have fallen—made a speech on November 25th, 1914, in the House of Lords in which he, at last, admitted the existence of spies. The following are extracts from this speech:—