Class Book. ^\/)^3 GoipgtoN .. GQESBIGHT DEPOSIT; THE CRIME "Never in the history of the world has a greater crime than this been committed. Never has a crime after its commission been denied with greater effrontery and hypocrisy. " "J'Accuse." THE CRIME (DAS VERBRECHEN) BY A GERMAN THE AUTHOR OF "I ACCUSE!',' TRANSLATED BY ALEXANDER GRAY VOLUME II ANTECEDENTS OF THE CRIME NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY ^ .(k^ COPYRIGHT, 191 8, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY \ V *y. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NOV 30 1918 ©C1.A506744 MA \ NOTE In the course of publication it has been found necessary to publish in two volumes what had originally been intended to form the second volume of THE CRIME. The third volume will comprise the section on War-Aims, and references to the various chap- ters in that section must now be interpreted as referring to the third volume. Footnotes added in the course of translation are indicated in square brackets. CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE PREVENTIVE WAR) PAGE Preventive War or War of Conquest? — Honest and Dishonest " Preventive- Warriors " — Schiemann "The German Derou- lede" and other "Preventive- Warriors" — The True Traitors — Francis Delaisi — Schiemann and Greindl — The Entente an Aggressive Alliance? — The Aggressive Conspiracy of Reval (1908) and the Method of Snippets — The Bosnian Crisis, 1908-9 — The Tactics of Falsification of Schiemann and Co. — The German Military Law and the French Three Years Law — The Anglo-Russian Naval Consultations — The Entente Conspiracy Invented by Schiemann — Sir Edward Grey's Constant Disappointment — The Moroccan Agreement of 191 1 — The Venezuela Conflict — Italy's Role in the War — Lies have "Short Legs" — The Negotiations for an Anglo- German Understanding in the Light of Schiemann's His- torical Investigations. The Agadir Incident — Confession of a Preventive War and Other "Discrepancies" — Correspondence between Grey and Cambon, November, 191 2 — The Historical Antecedents and the History of the Crime . .^. . . . 13 CHAPTER II THE THEORY AND THE PRACTICE OF THE PREVENTIVE WAR Bismarck and the Preventive War — Strategy and Diplomacy — Frederick the Great — When is War Inevitable? — The Three Presuppositions of a Preventive War — The Military- Preparations of the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance — Which Side Made Greater Military Preparations before the War, the Triple Alliance or the Triple Entente? — Ef- fective Peace Strength of Army and Navy — The Fall of Del- casse (June, 1905)— The Jury Court of the World— Analogy vii viii CONTENTS PAGE of Criminal Procedure — The Historical Antecedents Furnish a Prima Facie Case for Germany's Will for War — That is War as We Love It no CHAPTER III GERMANY AND THE HAGUE CONFERENCES Those Guilty of the Past. Those Guilty of the Future. The First Hague Conference — Germany against Arbitration. White's Autobiography — International Commissions of In- quiry. "Good Services" and Mediation — Cour Permanente d' Arbitrage — The "Initiative" of the Hague Bureau — Pro- fessor Zorn and the Problems of The Hague — The Second Hague Conference — Obligatory Arbitration, World Treaty or Individual Treaty? — Hague Cause, Triple Entente Effect — German Anti-Pacifism in Theory and Practice — Taft's Treaties of Arbitration — The Bryan Treaties — Idealism or Egotism? — Schiemann and the Hague Conferences — The "Freedom of the Seas" — Between the First and Second Hague Conferences — One "Block," not "Blocks" in Europe . 165 CHAPTER IV ENGLISH PACIFISM IN WORD AND DEED England's Action during the Bosnian Crisis and the Balkan Con- flict — Bethmann's Reasons for Refusing the Conference — The Russian Mobilisation as a Reason for Refusing the Con- ference — England's Behaviour during the Bosnian Crisis and the Balkan Conflicts — An Article in the Pester Lloyd, a New Self-accusation of Austria — A Falsification of the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung — The Chancellor with the Iron Forehead 233 CHAPTER V THE ANGLO-GERMAN NEGOTIATIONS FOR AN UNDER- STANDING (1909-1912) Course of the Negotiations — "A Couple of Dreadnoughts, More or Less" — Germany's Last Word: Retardation but not Re- duction of Naval Construction — England's Neutrality as an Equivalent — Why was Germany Unwilling to Restrict Her Naval Armaments? — An Anglo-German Agreement Would Have Prevented the War — Metternich's Reports of Feb- March, 19 12 — Haldane — Voluntary Reduction of Naval Con- struction; Naval Holiday 259 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER VI THE SPOKESMEN OF MILITANT GERMANY PAGE Bernhardi — The Four Groups of the Defenders of Germany — Upholders of the Doctrine of Defence — Imperialists — Pre- ventionists — Preventive Imperialists — The German Chauvin- ists — The Crown Prince — The Other "August Personages" — Mercenary Armies; Universal Service — Policy of Brag — The Chauvinists and the German Nation — Otfried Nippold; "German Chauvinism" — The League for Promoting Inter- national Understanding — Pan-Germany; All Germany — Stages in the Policy of Force — Anthology from German Chau- vinistic Literature before the War — The Pan-German Union — Before the War — After the Outbreak of War — Herr von Bethmann and the Pan-Germans — Pan-German War Aims — Pan-Germans, Liberals, Social-Democrats — The Liberal Press before the War and the Chauvinists — "Spiritual Regenera- tion" — The Law of Adaptation — Heroes — Psychology of the Free-Lance — Houston Stewart Chamberlain — Germany, the only Shield of Peace — Who is Responsible for the War? — Chamberlain as Historian — Russia's Spirit of Compliance, a Question of Detail — Chamberlain on the German and English Peoples — Chamberlain's War-Aims — "Degenerate Sons" of the Fatherland — Preventive Imperialists — Gebsattel — Harden — Paul Rohrbach — The Agrarian Patriots — Prussian and Russian Reaction — Rohrbach on the War Path — War, the Father of All Things — The Fear of Peace — Germany's World- Domination — The Struggle for the "Place in the Sun" — The Three Prehminary Questions — The Main Question: Did We Stand in the Sun or the Shadow? — The "Standard of Life" in Germany — Concluding Observation 300 THE CRIME THE CRIME CHAPTER I THE PREVENTIVE WAR Preventive War or War of Conquest? In J'accuse I have already pointed out with all possible em- phasis that of the three descriptions which may be applied to this war, namely, that it is a defensive war, a preventive war, or an imperialistic war of conquest, in my opinion, so far as Germany is concerned, the third only is in point. The first description, that it is a war of defence against attack, is the one which after two and a half years of war still dominates public opinion in Germany. It is the formula with which the war was begun, and with which it is still being carried on to-day. On August ist, 191 5, the first anniversary of the outbreak of war, the Emperor spoke, in almost the same terms as he had used a year earlier, of "the struggle in de- fence of the highest possessions of the nation, its life and its freedom." After the success of the third war loan, the Emperor emphasised in his congratulatory telegram to Dr. Helfferich, the Secretary to the Treasury, the immovable will of the German people to "continue to a victorious conclusion the war that had been forced upon us by a criminal attack." Until to-day the same formula has remained in force. But untruths are not converted into truths by frequent repetitions, and all the constantly renewed efforts of the German authori- ties to represent the war as a war of defence continue to be vain in the eyes of the world, and as may be hoped will in the end also be vain before the German people. Notwith- 13 14 THE CRIME standing all denials on the part of the guilty, History has already pronounced in favour of the persecuted, despised and reviled author of J' accuse, and has inscribed on her iron tablets in ineffaceable letters the judgment: Germany and Austria are guilty of having consciously and intentionally brought about the European war. As a result of the documentary evidence which I produced in my book and in this supplementary work, this question is, so far as I am concerned, disposed of, and I neither intend, nor do I see any occasion, to return to it in the near future. Among the more astute people in Germany in all ranks in society, from the highest diplomatists and ex-ambassa- dors, down through professors and writers on international law, merchants, manufacturers, "intellectuals" of all kinds (who in part have found a meeting place in the "Bund Neues Vaterland") down to the Socialists on the Left, out of whom the authorities endeavour to drive the recognition of the truth by imprisonment and by proceedings for high treason', everywhere, even among Kreuzzeitung people like Schiemann and Zukunf t-wnttrs like Harden, it is coming more and more to be, not merely recognised, but acknowledged (although the acknowledgment under the influence of the censorship is con- cealed and veiled) that the war is in reality not a defensive war but a preventive war, or as I have expressed it in my book: "It is true that we were not attacked, but we would have been attacked later on, at a time which, from a military point of view, would have been more unfavourable to us; we therefore anticipated the attack at the moment that was more favourable to us." This confession that it is a preventive war represents in itself a substantial gain for those of us whose diagnosis is that it is an imperialistic war of conquest. It is a half-way advance to our point of view. It involves a confession that all the resonant phrases which were used two and a half years ago to inspire the German people to war, and are still THE PREVENTIVE WAR 15 incessantly repeated, rest on falsehood ; that neither the Rus- sians nor the French attacked us in the opening days of August, 1 914, that the sword was not pressed into our hands to "defend ourselves to the last breath of man and horse," that we were not called upon "to protect our holiest posses- sions, the Fatherland, our very hearth, against a ruthless attack." Whoever says that this is a preventive war, nec- essarily in so doing expresses the view that every sentence which was then spoken and written, and which is still being spoken and written, to induce in the nation a belief in a war of defence is an untruth; that the German people have been deceived, that they have been led to the slaughter-house and stirred to enthusiasm for something which was in fact non-existent, for a fancy, for a dream. So far as this negative aspect is concerned, the advocates of the preventive war and of the war of conquest are in agreement to the extent of denying that it is a war of de- fence. If they desire to be logical, the former group must also acknowledge that the German people have been deceived. No one, however, falsifies the truth out of mere pleasure, and since every deception must have a reason and an aim, these men must further admit that if the German people had known the truth, if they had known that they were not directly men- aced, that they had not been attacked, they would not have allowed themselves to be involved in the war, or at least to be involved in it with such unanimity and enthusiasm. Those who adhere to the view that the war is a preventive war are bound to admit the deception, and they could at most plead in its justification that the deception was necessary, because defence against a present attack was comprehensible to the simple and sound sense of the nation, whereas the prevention of a future attack would have appeared incomprehensible and inexcusable as a ground for war. Everyone who denies that this is strictly a war of defence must therefore pass the same moral judgment on the behaviour of the German Government towards their own people; he may justify in any way he chooses the German war of aggression, he may consider it as an aggressive war which was necessary to prevent future ag- 16 THE CRIME gressive wars being waged by the opposite side, or he may consider it as an aggressive war arising out of purely imperi- alistic tendencies and designed to serve imperialistic ends — in any case he acknowledges that it is not a war of defence, and from this fact it follows that the Rulers and Govern- ments have deceived the people. As I have clearly indicated in my book, I myself am one of those who judge that the war may be appropriately de- scribed, not as a preventive war, but as an imperialistic war of conquest. I have endeavoured to prove the correctness of my view by citing a series of political facts and by col- lecting testimony of weight from the national imperialistic literature of Germany. These political facts have been de- scribed as insignificant, and the attempt has been made to discredit the literary evidence on the ground that it is not authoritative. My opponents have endeavoured to refute my account of the attitude of Germany at the Hague Confer- ences and in the ensuing negotiations for an understanding with England — a subject to which I shall return in a sep- arate chapter. Pains have been taken to free the German Government from all responsibility for General Bernhardi and those who share his views, but no mention has been made of my pointed references to the views, the actions, and the writings of the German Crown Prince. In a further chap- ter I shall produce a copious selection from our Pan-German, chauvinistic and imperialistic literature, and I shall then prove that the matter is not disposed of merely by shaking off Bernhardi, that the Bernhardians still remain, people like Deimling, Keim and his satellites, the Pan-German Union with its Generals and its Admirals, with its influential Press, which unscrupulously directed itself to war as its object, and that, like the great Bernhardi himself, all the insignificant and petty Bernhardians have with a steady purpose (and yet with an unsteady mind) kept in view and have pursued the end which is expressed with all desirable clarity in the titles of Bernhardi's chapters : "Germany's Historical Mission," THE PREVENTIVE WAR 17 "World Power or Downfall," "The Right and the Duty to Make War." To this we shall return later. At the present moment we are speaking, not of the imperialistic, but of the preventive war. It is true that a rigid, infallibly certain line of differ- entiation cannot be drawn between the representatives of the two points of view. In Imperialistic literature also the idea of prevention against a hostile attack may frequently be heard. It is not every Imperialist who has the honesty and sincerity of the Prussian General, who expressly excludes an aggressive war on the part of the Triple Entente, and assigns to our diplomacy the task "so to shuffle the cards that we may be attacked by France. . . . Neither France nor Russia nor England need to attack in order to further their interests." It is not every Imperialist who is as candid as Bernhardi in expressing the view that Germany could arrive at the world- war which she desired and which was imperatively necessary for her future, only if she herself provoked the war. Many of our war-intriguers are more astute and prudent than the military plungers, and in addition to emphasising the neces- sity of a military ascent to world power, they also allow their writings to be coloured by the other motive, that of the "in- evitability" of the war, the motive that if we do not begin, the others will begin at a moment favourable to them. This, then, represents a fusion of the preventive and the imperial- istic motives, of which the latter are really decisive, whereas the former are hung round the naked brutality of war, like a mantle to conceal its shame. All these grounds for what was formerly the war of the future but is now the war of the present rest, as we have said, on the same negative basis that they stamp as a lie the assertion that we are waging a war of liberation and defence. The preventive war and the war of conquest are alike wars of aggression, and there exists only this difference between the two, that the war of conquest is purely a war of aggression, whereas the preventive war is, so to speak, an anticipatory war of defence. 18 THE CRIME Honest and Dishonest "Preventive-Warriors" The necessary premise of the preventive war is an intended attack from the other side. It is not sufficient to maintain the existence of this aggressive intention on the other side; it must be proved. Amongst those who support the theory that this is a preventive war it is again necessary to distin- guish between two groups, between those who have really be- lieved in the aggressive attentions of the Entente Powers against the Central Powers, and those who have merely acted as if this were their belief, whereas in reality they were in no way apprehensive of such an attack, and merely considered that it would serve their imperialistic aims of conquest to induce the people to believe in it. The former are the hon- est, the latter are the dishonest, "preventive-warriors." The arguments of the two groups are exactly the same, and since real belief or the mere affectation of belief is essen- tially a product of what occurs within the mind and the un- derstanding, it is a matter of difficulty to distinguish in the case of each individual war intriguer whether he should be classed among the honest or the dishonest "preventive-war- riors." The more intelligent among them would probably concur with the politicians of the Bernhardi school, who are purely bent on conquest, that neither France nor Russia nor England had in any way the slightest interest in provoking a European war, which, waged against the strongest military Power in the world, could not but be regarded as extremely dangerous for themselves, and as one of the greatest of ca- lamities for Europe and the world. The less intelligent may really have believed the blood-curdling story: That the Liberal English Cabinet which for almost ten years had sought an understanding with Germany in every possible way, and had endeavoured to secure inter- national arbitration and a limitation of armaments, had contemplated the provocation of a European war with THE PREVENTIVE WAR 19 a view to the destruction of their best purchaser and seller ; That the civil Government of the third French Re- public, which had to take into account the unqualified pacifist views of Jaures and his party as well as the sin- cere and universally recognised desire of the French people for peace, promised England, which was "envi- ous" of Germany, to share in the attack in order to cool in a European deluge her forty-year-old lust for re- venge ; That the Tsar, who was personally good-natured and peace-loving, the man who had suggested and promoted the Peace Conferences at The Hague, the ruler of a Russia which was already too great, internally unfree and permeated by revolutionary aspirations, supported his two accomplices in their plans for booty and revenge. The arguments of the honest and the dishonest preventive politicians are the same. The recipe out of which the poison- ous ragout of Germany's peril was and is concocted is as fol- lows: The historical calendars of the last fifteen years are opened and all the visits of Kings, Emperors and Presidents, all ministerial conferences, so far as they took place on the side of the Entente Powers, are carefully noted; mention is then made of the enthusiastic reception accorded to King Edward in Paris and to Fallieres and Poincare in Petrograd, of the meetings which took place in Reval and other maritime towns, of the imperial, royal and presidential toasts, of the jingoistic articles of the chauvinistic Press (known to exist in all countries, worst of all in Germany) ; the names of Del- casse, Clemenceau, Isvolsky, Northcliffe, Millerand and Poin- care are introduced as often as possible; the mixture is stirred and beaten together as may be required ; King Edward's pol- icy of "encirclement" is added as a sauce, and the dish is ready. It is served hot and steaming to the credulous German people, and appears in the menu as "The Entente Powers' Blutgericht for the German people." The bill presented for it takes the form of the approval of millions for new army 20 THE CRIME proposals, new soldiers, new cannons and new ships, and finally for the preventive war which is to save us from hav- ing to swallow the witches' brew concocted by the others at the moment which appears favourable to them. Anyone who reads all the writings now being issued in vast quantities by the defenders of the German Government and of their angelic innocence, the works of men like Schiemann, Chamberlain, Helmolt, Rohrbach, the whole professorial lit- erature of men like Oncken, Bergstrasser, Meyer, and their fellows, will find in all the same prescription : Articles in the French, English and Russian Press of an inciting character, meetings between monarchs and ministers, increases of mili- tary and naval forces (on the other side), diplomatic actions, entente agreements between England and France, between England and Russia, etc. The dishonest device, which by general consent has been and is still being applied in our chauvinistic literature with greater or less assurance and skill in order to place in the limelight before the German people the dangers of war which threatened from the side of the Entente Powers, consists primarily in representing all such incidents on the other side as preparations for a warlike at- tack, whereas all similar incidents on the side of the Triple Alliance are described merely as prudent measures of defence. If the German and Austrian General Staff confer with each other, as has indeed regularly taken place, in order to discuss together the condition of the two armies, to exchange stra- tegical ideas, and to outline in consultation plans for any war that may arise, these are as a matter of course merely de- fensive measures to meet the contingency of an attack by the Entente Powers, and are void of any suggestion of offensive intentions. But if English and French generals act in the same way, or if a similar exchange of opinion takes place between English and Russian army or naval officers, the Ger- man imperialist and chauvinist Press at once cries "Mur- der!" depicts in the most alarming colours the aggressive in- tentions of the Entente Powers, and acts like the Gracchi lamenting insurrection. The visits of King Edward to Paris, of Fallieres and Poin- THE PREVENTIVE WAR 21 care to Petrograd, the presence of the Grand Duke Nicolai Nicolaievitch at the French manoeuvres, English naval prac- tice in the North Sea and in the Baltic, the meeting between the Tsar and King Edward in the roadstead at Reval, even the harmless visit of courtesy paid by the "Einkreisung- King" to his old friend the Emperor Francis Joseph in Schonbrunn — all these events are emanations and symptoms of a devilish intention to attack Germany, which it was in- tended should in the first place be isolated and separated from her Austrian ally, and then strangled at leisure. In this process of reasoning the corresponding occurrences which took place between the rulers of Germany and of Rus- sia and between the rulers of England and of Germany are either discarded or represented as ceremonial visits without political significance or — a more effective course which is more frequently adopted — they are described as a cunning, lying manoeuvre, by which the poor Germans were to be lulled into security so that later on they might be all the more easily crushed. The meeting at Potsdam between the monarchs of Germany and Russia in the presence of their leading Minis- ters is described by the historian Helmolt as "the great Pots- dam lie"; according to the other historian, Schiemann, its only consequence "was the appearance of an improvement in the relations between Germany and Russia," notwithstand- ing the fact that Herr von Bethmann on December ioth, 191 o, in summarising the result of the Potsdam interview was able to state that "the two Governments would not enter into any kind of combination which could be directed aggres- sively against the other party." According to Helmolt, the agreements bearing on Balkan policy and on Persia were cer- tainly honourably intended by Germany, but not by Russia. Sazonof's accounts of the Potsdam agreement are described by Schiemann as "conscienceless." The practical result, how- ever, by virtue of which Russia agreed to place no difficulty in the way of Germany's Baghdad Railway enterprise, but on the contrary expressed her readiness to encourage its con- nection with the Russian railway-net in North Persia, is passed over in silence by the Berlin Kreuzzeitung professor. 22 THE CRIME SCHIEMANN "THE GERMAN DEROULEDE" AND OTHER "PREVENTIVE-WARRIORS " This Herr Schiemann, royal Prussian Privy Councillor, professor in the University of Berlin, Director of the Faculty of East European History and Geography, deserves a spe- cial chapter. He appears to be unable to sleep in peace unless he produces every month or two a new war pamphlet, pub- lished by the house of George Reimer, bearing the naked sword on the title page. He parcels out his great fourteen- volumed historical work, presumably because he has learned by experience that the parcelling business offers certain ad- vantages, that the sum of the individual component parts, when divided into convenient pamphlets, represents — in op- position to the laws of mathematics which elsewhere hold good — a greater value when measured in sales than would be possessed by a solid study of the sources, which would be accessible to only a few purses. He has therefore been care- ful not to lose the opportunity of publishing a pamphlet of sixty-eight pages concerning and against my book, under the attractive title A Slanderer, Notes on the Historical Ante- cedents of the War. Of these sixty-eight pages, however, scarcely four or five are devoted to my book of three hundred and seventy-eight pages, while all the rest is vapid talk round about and over the subject. The pamphlet devoted to the slanderer which has been written by the former editor of the Kreuzzeitung almost produces on the unprejudiced reader the impression that it had already been prepared without refer- ence to my book, and that then, to make it more attractive and piquant and with a view to a better sale, it had been adapted to my book by adding a few introductory and con- cluding words and the slanderer title. The central part of J'accuse, the essential proof of guilt (Chapter III, pages 146-315), is disposed of with the crush- ing words: We do not propose to enter into a polemic against his (the accuser's) exposition of the official publications THE PREVENTIVE WAR 23 of documents dealing with the period which elapsed be- tween the murder of the Archduke and the outbreak of war (page 67). Thus the question of guilt is a matter of indifference. Who provoked the European war in the critical days between July 23rd and August 4th, 1914; who on the other hand endeav- oured to prevent war and maintain peace — these are subsid- iary questions into which the Berlin professor of history does not enter. He refers to others who have already discussed these questions, and who have refuted the demonstrations of the accuser. Who and what these others are we have seen in the course of this treatise (volume I). It is impossible to reduce them all to absurdity, unless one is prepared to write countless volumes or rather libraries. Acting on the princi- ple: in majore et minus continetur it must suffice to refute Herr Helfferich, the most conspicuous and, as I gladly ad- mit, the most adroit and skilful, whose arguments are more or less repeated by all the others. Herr Schiemann, how- ever, who has the unprecedented audacity to bring at every step the charge of falsification, slander, malice and disloyalty against a book which deserves at least the recognition of hav- ing penetrated as a kind of pioneer with infinite industry and zeal into the difficult labyrinth of the immediate diplomatic antecedents of the war, was under an obligation to prove these charges in detail; he was under an obligation on this point not to stop at the less important chapter, "The Ante- cedents of the Crime," but to consider the chief and central chapter of my book, "The Crime." As he does not do this, but prefers to back out and conceal himself behind the shield of others, who, it is true, attack my arraignment but do not refute it, I throw back the charge of slander at Professor Dr. Theodor Schiemann, formerly editor of the Kreusseitung in Berlin, and declare that his pamphlet is a worthless scrib- ble, which cannot dispose of a single sentence or a single let- ter in the documentarily supported proof which I furnished. His insinuations as to the character of the accuser rebound ineffectively from the German who has neither a "past" to 24 THE CRIME conceal, nor anything for which to take "revenge," and who is not a "being far removed from his native soil." If the accuser does not mention his name, this is due to the fact that, unlike the Schiemanns, he is not in the happy position of be- ing able to give free expression to his opinion under the dom- ination of the military authorities and of the censorship in Germany, without exposing himself to the most grievous per- secutions, without running the risk of being reduced to silence for the future — perhaps even the silence of death. For him the internal peace 1 would end in the peace of the dungeon, as in the case of the courageous Liebknecht, for whom in my first book I expressed my admiration — and to whom to-day, now that he has become a martyr for his conviction, I ex- claim, "Greetings, brave comrade — you have been condemned to silence; all the more loudly and more distinctly will we who are left speak out." The True Traitors The accuser conceals his name, because he desires to keep unimpaired the right and the freedom to continue to speak and to act. All the unclean deluge of calumniation and insin- uation he calmly allows to pass over him, in the sure con- sciousness that he is honourably and incorruptibly serving the cause of truth and the true weal of the German people, more than all the Schiemanns taken together. For this may well be said to those who attack me : If they dare to denounce me as one who stands outside the German people, I reply, "You are not justified in speaking in the name of the Ger- man people. The true friends of Germany stand where I and those who think with me are standing. The Chauvinists and the Imperialists, the Nationalists and the Pan-Germans with the Junkers of the Kreuzzeitung at their head — these are the true enemies of the German people, these are the true traitors to their country." The plan of procedure adopted by the instigators of war has on every side always been the same; they incite and pro- 1 [Burgfrieden.] THE PREVENTIVE WAR 25 voke by word and by writing, and when the counter-effect of their incitements becomes manifest in the other country they make use of what appears there in order to show it to their own people in as exaggerated a guise as possible and thus to inflame their passions anew more strongly than be- fore. And so the game goes on from one side to the other, conducted by a few hundred, in the extreme case by a few thousand, persons. Every insignificant incident or episode, every irresponsible newspaper article, is exaggerated and in- flated and used for the greater incitement of the nations, until in the end the witches' kettle, constantly overheated, reaches the bursting point and a fearful explosion destroys the life and the well-being of the nations. These few hundreds or thousands, journalists, generals, dealers in military stores, manufacturers of armaments, reactionaries and Junkers, who seek to smother in the blood and smoke of war the nations' impulse to freedom, men of ambition who thirst for the glory of battle, heroes of the pen who thirst for the laurels of patriotic bombastic phraseology — these are the people who are guilty of the war. These, Herr Schiemann, are the crim- inals; these are the traitors to their country from whom the reawakened nations will turn away with loathing and con- tempt, for whom, however, it may be hoped that another and more bitter destiny is also reserved, corresponding to the greatness of their unutterable misdeeds. We, however, who bring forward these accusations — and how few are we in this sabre-rattling time of bondage! — we do not fear your lightning. We know that our hour and yours will come, the hour when the nations from whom you now seal our word will nevertheless hear, comprehend, and obey it — the hour of accusation and of judgment. Francis Delaisi Among all the German inciters to war, Herr Theodor Schiemann, the spokesman of the Junkers of the Kreuzzei- tiing, is one of the worst. He rightly bears the honorary title of "the German Deroulede," which a Frenchman, Francis 26 THE CRIME Delaisi, conferred upon him in his pamphlet La guerre qui vient. This pamphlet appeared in Paris in 191 1, and Herr Schiemann devotes to it no fewer than five pages in his Slanderer, that is to say, more space than he gives to the whole of J'accuse. This French brochure is extraordinarily adapted to the purposes of the German war-intriguers; they have dug it out, translated it and published it, because it con- tains a sharp attack on the policy of the Anglo-French En- tente, and represents a kind of f 'accuse pamphlet against the then French Government. This is, in fact, a general charac- teristic feature of the polemics of our chauvinists, that they praise for their higher insight those penetrating intellects who in other countries, in England, France and Russia, endeavour to combat certain political forces and to prove that they are possessed of dangerous nationalistic and imperialistic ten- dencies; and these men they set up as the type of true pa- triots — elsewhere, across the frontier! Francis Delaisi's pamphlet is called by Schiemann a sig- nificant essay, by which "too much dangerous truth . . . had been conveyed to the restricted understanding of the French people." He is for him "a man who has really something to say," etc. Exactly the same method of praising as truth and patriotism beyond the frontier what on this side is branded as slander and treachery is applied by all our war-intriguers, whenever they have occasion to speak of the Russian revolu- tionaries or of the English or French opponents of the war. The German Government bear the chief responsibility for the death of Roger Casement, since they supported his hopeless undertaking with arms, money and ships; yet Roger Case- ment, the revolutionary, is for our reactionary intriguers "the great Irish patriot." Bernard Shaw has even received the honour of being quoted by the Chancellor in his speech of August 19th, 19 1 5, when he referred to his very true expres- sion to the effect that the policy of the balance of power was an "incubator for wars ;" and, as is known, it is for this rea- son that Germany desires to substitute for the mistaken policy of the balance of power a policy of German preponderance. What would have been said in Germany if Mr. Asquith or THE PREVENTIVE WAR 27 M. Viviani had quoted the author of J'accuae as a clear- sighted German patriot? "Venal traitor of his country, stone him!" is the exclamation that has already been heard. What increase in the insults would have been devised if in other countries the same honourable mention had been ac- corded to the German Accuser as has been given by us to the opponents of English policy. With what undisguised satisfaction and recognition are the English opponents of the war, the critics of Grey, men like Ramsay Macdonald, Trevelyan, Morel, Brails ford and Norman Angell, quoted even in the official German Press, although, as we have elsewhere seen, these English critics without exception ascribe to Germany the immediate respon- sibility for the European war. I am not aware that my book, which was widely circulated in belligerent and neutral coun- tries, has ever been mentioned, praised or recommended by any English, French or Russian Minister, or by any official newspaper or telegraphic agency in these countries. On the other hand, I am aware that neither in England nor in France nor in Russia has the laudatory mention in Germany of the opponents of war in other countries been made into a rod for their backs, that they have not been branded as traitors, and had stamped on their foreheads the shameful sign of venality, that the praise accorded to them in Germany has not been represented as a proof of their depravity and infamy. Like so much else, this method of fighting is a speciality of the German chauvinist Press, which in this respect has received the shameful inheritance of Prussian hidebound reactionaries of the Kreuzzeitung set, of police spies and manufacturers of high treason. In the period following the foundation of the German Empire, these back-stair politicians fought even against the Junker Bismarck, who was one of their own class, resorting to the most outrageous personal calumniations when for ten years, in spite of the opposition of priests and junk- ers, he dared to govern on liberal principles the new Ger- many which had been built on a democratic electoral basis. Were not streams of ink poured out for years in the foulest insinuations and slanders even against Bismarck, the greatest 28 THE CRIME of all Prussian Junkers, who could not obtain forgiveness in the Kreuzzeitung camp for his apostasy — unfortunately only temporary — from the policy of Junkerdom and reaction? Schiemann and his companions are unable to refute the accuser, and therefore they abuse him. Schiemann turns away from him with "loathing" ; he purposes exposing him to "general contempt." The accuser, however, exclaims to his accuser : It is on your head and on the head of your com- rades that the curse of the German people will one day fall, when it shall have awakened from the numbing slumber into which it has been sunk by the asphyxiating gases of your lies, falsifications and perversions, when it shall have recog- nised that it is not from without but from within, that the menace of destruction came, that no foreign enemy desired to annihilate, to crush, or enervate Germany, but that it is the enemies within, the war-intriguers and the chauvinists, the men greedy of power, of glory and of booty, who by their cunning activity continued through many years, have engen- dered in the German people the delusion that they were per- secuted, in order in the end to convert those who passively imagined that they were persecuted into active persecutors and blind tools of their selfish endeavours. The German Deroulede has the glory of being one of the chief leaders of the German people on the path to war. The Frenchman, Francis Delaisi, the man "who really has some- thing to say," the clear-sighted analyst of the conditions then existing, the prophet of the conditions of to-day, accords to Herr Schiemann the following laudatory testimony: I am quite aware that the chauvinist newspapers across the Rhine (for they exist in Germany as well as among us) give utterance to terrible threats. Professor Schiemann, the German Deroulede, has said : "In the event of a war with England, we shall take France as a hostage." And Harden, the old disciple of Bismarck, has stated : "We shall fall upon France, and impose upon her a war-contribution of 20 milliards, and with this money we shall defray the cost of our war against England." But these are all rodomontades which are now enthusiastically used by our THE PREVENTIVE WAR 29 nationalists, but will not bear the slightest scrutiny." La Guerre qui vient, Germ, trans., page 34). In his pamphlet on the Slanderer Herr Schiemann is of course silent as to this testimony; but as in other matters he praises the Frenchman for his absolute trustworthiness, he is bound to accept from him the honorary designation of "the German Deroulede," and he will be unable to clear himself of the charge of having inflamed the French chauvinists, by means of his German chauvinistic rodomontades, and thus of having added fuel to the fire on both sides. Schiemann and Greindl The fatal significance of the part played by Schiemann in embittering and in rendering more acute the relations be- tween Germany and the Entente Powers is emphasised in various passages of the Belgian ambassadorial reports, as well as in Baron Beyens's book L'allemagne avant la guerre. 1 '' In his report of May 6th, 1908, Baron Greindl, of all Bel- gian Ambassadors the most friendly to Germany, refers to Schiemann's jingoistic activities on the occasion of the Moroc- can conflict, which was then again breaking out; he testifies on behalf of the Kreusseitung-^roitssor that "he is persona grata with the Emperor and in high favour with the Foreign Office, from which he obtains his information, and by which he is frequently inspired, without being in consequence in any way semi-official." In his report of May 13th, 1908, Greindl again emphasises that "serious consideration must be given to the articles of Herr Schiemann, although this journalist is in no way to be regarded as semi-official." Herr Greindl is quite lost in admiration before the great Schiemann ; in fact, he borrows from him a large portion of his views and his inferences. The attentive reader of Greindl's reports observes at every stage that the Belgian Ambassador was one of the most industrious and grateful readers of Schiemann's weekly reviews; everywhere in 1 [English translation: Germany before the War. Nelson.] 30 THE CRIME Greindl we find the demonstrations of the Entente Powers' guilt with which the Kreusseitung-iproiessor had coruscated, and with which he now coruscates in his war-pamphlets. "Herr Schiemann, whose great position as a journalist and whose relations to the Government are known to you, states . . . "; so we read in Greindl's report of February 17th, 1909, immediately after the visit to Berlin of King Edward and his consort. The manner in which Schiemann, to the accompaniment of Greindl's enthusiastic applause, represents the result of the English King's visit, is so characteristic of the method of this arch-firebrand that I should like to devote a few words to this episode. Even a Schiemann could not deny that the visit passed off in a satisfactory manner, and that, occurring just when it did during the crisis in connection with the annexa- tion of Bosnia, it was of the greatest importance. What therefore does he do? He expresses the view that it is neces- sary to wait at least five or six weeks, in order to learn the attitude of the English Press towards the royal visit: We shall wait to see whether by then a calming down of public opinion in England with regard to the German danger will have taken place; for so long as this phantom rests like a nightmare on the English people, everything is possible. It will therefore be necessary to watch the attitude of the Times, the Standard, the National Review and their companions, in order to determine whether the campaign of incitement against Ger- many will be continued or whether it has at last come to an end. For the rest it is admitted that friendly political conversations have taken place but no agreements. The Belgian Ambassador accompanies Schiemann's ac- count with the very significant commentary: On ne peut pas mieux dire It cannot be better expressed que meme si le roi d'Angleterre than by saying that even if the a un desir sincere de se rappro- King of England should possess cher de l'Allemagne, il est mal- the sincere desire for an ap- gre sa grande influence person- proximation with Germany, he nelle incapable de le realiser, would, notwithstanding his THE PREVENTIVE WAR 31 aussi longtemps qu'un revire- great personal influence, not be merit ne se sera pas opere dans in a position to give it effect, l'opinion publique anglaise. — until a revolution will have tak- Greindl. en place in English public opin- ion.— Greindl. x Thus on this occasion it suits the Kreuzzeitung-professor and his docile follower the Belgian Ambassador, to describe King Edward the Encircler, as pacific, and his Berlin visit, as calculated, in intention at least, to promote peace. Herr Greindl is, indeed, compelled to state that King Edward's diplomatic attendant, in his consultations with the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary, was in agreement with the Ger- man statesmen that the greatest efforts must be made to prevent any war aris- ing out of the Balkan question, ... there was agreement as to the necessity for calling a conference with the purpose, not of reviewing, but of recording the result of the negotiations taking place between the most interested Powers. Sir C. Hardinge thus assumed the Austrian standpoint. It was agreed that both parties should declare themselves satisfied with the result of the meeting in Berlin. Communications to the Press were drawn up in this sense. The account thus given by Greindl affords the completest refutation of the charge brought by Herr von Bethmann and his semi-official writers against the English Government, that they did nothing during the Bosnian crisis to bring about a 1 See Belgian Documents, 1905-1914; published by the Foreign Office (Berlin: Mittler & Son), No. 55. The official German translation is here guilty of the small but impor- tant error involved in translating the words : "Si le roi d'Angleterre a un desir" by "if the King of England should possess (besasse)," etc. To be correct, it should be "possesses" (besitzt). There is the further error involved in translating "il est incapable" by "he would not be in a posi- tion" (er ware ausserstande). It should be "he is not in a position" (er ist ausserstande). The difference between Greindl's original and the German translation is obvious : the Belgian diplomatist admits the pos- sibility that the English King is really pacific, whereas the German translator entirely cuts off this possibility by the use of the subjunctive. 32 THE CRIME peaceful understanding, but on the contrary, pressed for an armed conflict. I shall elsewhere demonstrate in detail the emptiness and, indeed, the dishonesty of this charge. Greindl's report of February 17th, 1909, affords weighty sup- port to this demonstration. Even at that time, however, in 1909, the obvious efforts for peace made by the English King and his Government in no way suited the purpose of Schie- mann and Greindl, who nearly always pulled together ; osten- sibly the aggressive conspiracy against Germany had been forged eight months earlier, in June, 1908, between the Tsar and the King of England in the roadstead at Reval (this is Schlemann's discovery, which later on I propose to consider further). They were thus in a dilemma: an aggressive con- spiracy in June, 1908, cannot very well be reconciled with pacific tendencies in February, 1909. As has been observed above, the German translator of Greindl's report helps him- self out of the difficulty by a mistranslation of the French text. But how do Schiemann and Greindl get out of it? Nothing is simpler than this. On this occasion, by way of a change, they represent the English King and his Government, not as the leaders of the alleged English policy of encircle- ment and aggression, but as the slaves of certain English Press organs, and they make their recognition of the official English peace policy dependent on the gracious concurrence of these journals. In other words, with England it is a case of "the Jew is always burned." x If King Edward does something which can be turned or twisted into a war policy, then he is the undisputed ''eader of Great Britain's foreign policy; if, however, he does something which obviously serves the maintenance of peace, his action can have no significance, until certain organs of the Press have communicated their concurrence; in such a case he is not the intellectual director of English policy, but merely the executive organ of public opinion. Since in every country, and especially in a demo- cratic country like England, authoritative organs of the op- position can always be found to criticise the actions of the 1 [Der Jude wird verbrannt — Nathan der Weise.] THE PREVENTIVE WAR 33 Government, it is always possible by resorting to this childish game to refuse any significance to the pacific actions of the Government, on the ground that they are not approved by public opinion. We shall elsewhere see in how masterly a fashion this cunningly devised system of accusation is carried out by the Schiemanns, and how confidingly it is aped by the credulous Greindl, who in the course of his long residence in Berlin had become quite identified with the views of the Wilhelmstrasse. The leading part played by the German Deroulede in the lit- erature of incitement on this side of the Rhine is also con- firmed, as has already been observed, by Baron Beyens, for- merly Belgian Ambassador in Berlin, in his book already mentioned. 1 Beyens speaks of the pernicious influences exer- cised on the national sentiment by the chauvinist Press in Germany and in France, and in particular he depicts the effect of its daily perusal on the views and the decisions of the Em- peror. Of all these criminal jingoes it is only Dr. Theodor Schiemann whom he mentions by name, exactly as in the case of Delaisi's pamphlet; he produces him as a specially appalling example "in order to form a conception of the haughtiness, insolence and bad faith of certain German pub- licists," and he explains Schiemann's fatal influence by ref- erence to the fact that he then "had his little hour of favour and popularity at the Court of Berlin, and regaled the Gal- lophobe and Russophobe readers of the Kreuzseitung in his political notes of the week every Wednesday morning." It will be seen that among the political writers of Germany Herr Schiemann was, and is, one of the most significant and influential phenomena, though, to be sure, in the worst sense of the word — in the sense more or less in which Disraeli said of Gladstone: "He is a good man, in the worst sense of the word." The fact that he of all men should be let loose by the Wilhelmstrasse against the accuser redounds greatly to my honour. I propose to return this compliment by dealing 1 L'Allemagne avant la guerre. [English translation. Nelson, page 36.] 34 THE CRIME as fully as possible with Schiemann's counter-pamphlet, and to place in the pillory, as he deserves, this noxious growth on the body of the German people, this chief journalistic insti- gator of the present war, this political poisoner of springs, who dares to charge those who are the true friends of their country with lack of patriotism. The Entente an Aggressive Alliance? It cannot be demanded of me that I should drain to the last drop the unpalatable concoction of Schiemann's and other similar war-writings, nor do I propose to impose upon myself such a task; I must be content to emphasise the essential points in these writings in order to place in their true light the historical minuticu of the KreuzEeitung-professor and his colleagues, Schiemann, as well as Helmolt, Rohrbach and Chamberlain, all without exception proceed from what is for them the clearly established principle that England, France and Russia have for years, ever since somewhere about the beginning of the century, desired and prepared for war against Germany and Austria, and that they only waited until their preparations were completed to the last ship and the last man in order to strike the blow. The Entente has been an aggressive alliance. This is the starting point of all their dis- cussions, and from this preconceived point of view, or rather from this point of view advanced against their better knowl- edge, they elucidate all the occurrences of the last fifteen years. Now in all the writings of this category, absolutely and without exception, there is an entire absence of even the slightest proof of the theory from which they thus proceed to argue. King Edward VII. promoted the Entente with France (1904) and the quasi-Entente with Russia (1907). As we know, these Ententes were essentially nothing more than an agreement with regard to questions of interest within and without Europe, and as a result of the removal of these sources of friction a more and more secure relation of politi- cal friendship gradually arose. Military discussions also took THE PREVENTIVE WAR 35 place, and it was intended that they should be continued. It is also unnecessary to dispute the fact that they were meant to be continued not only between France and England, but so far as naval matters were concerned between England and Russia as well. Schiemann and his comrades are greatly con- cerned because the extension of the military discussions to matters concerning the English and Russian navies was im- minent or had in fact been initiated. As from all other oc- currences on the side of the Entente, they infer from this fact the intention to conspire — an attempt which I have al- ready illustrated elsewhere, and shall later have an opportu- nity to discuss more closely. Everywhere there are insinua- tions, nowhere is there any proof! I am not in the happy position of knowing all that the Rohrbachs, the Helmolts and the Schiemanns maintain that they know with such enviable certainty with regard to secret agreements between rulers and diplomatists which have never been officially published. In my book and in this work also, I have restricted myself to publicly known historical facts and documents. I have nowhere given expression to pre- sumptions or theories resting on an arrangement of the facts. I have nowhere quoted newspaper articles of a more or less semi-official nature as evidence of facts or as the expression of the intentions of the Government. The history and the historical antecedents of the crime I have dealt with by refer- ence to, and on the basis of documents, and I do not propose to follow my opponents on the slippery and uncertain field of newspaper extracts and journalistic arrangements of facts. There is one exception to this rule which I shall be obliged to make in a later chapter intended to give a survey of Ger- man chauvinism before the war. In this case the newspaper extracts are, in fact, the documents. As the attempt is made to smuggle Bernhardi out of the way as an alleged "unique" concurrence, I am compelled to show that this "brav' gene- ral" is only one among many. The method adopted by the saviours of German innocence is in itself sufficient to indicate the impurity of their inten- tions and the weakness of their position. While in my "An- 36 THE CRIME tecedents" I support my statements by reference to figures, dates and documents, nailing down the German imperialists and their highly situated leader to their own words, statis- tically proving that Germany more than any other country already possessed the place in the sun alleged to have been denied to her, demonstrating the hollowness of the imperial- istic efforts to expand by figures and dates dealing with the development of industry and population in Germany; while by reference to the minutes of the Hague Conference and the authentic account of Anglo-German negotiations for an un- derstanding, I prove the resistance offered by Germany to every organisation resting on law and to every restriction of armaments, and as a consequence Germany's responsibility for the tension in the European situation, Schiemann and his comrades work all the time merely with snippets, snippets, snippets of paper. Whether they maintain the existence of suspicious diplomatic secret occurrences, or tax the other side with deceitfulness in what would appear to be conciliatory actions, they never support their arguments on documents, they constantly suppose, suggest or assort their material, relying on the help of a masterly arranged collection of snippets. The Aggressive Conspiracy of Reval (1908) and the Method of Snippets To take one example, Herr Schiemann naturally attaches the utmost importance to King Edward's visit to the Tsar in June, 1908, in the roadstead at Reval, and does so, starting from his preconceived thesis, on the ground that this visit was intended to bring about a further extension of the war- conspiracy. To prove the evil intentions against Germany pursued by King Edward in his visit — or at least to furnish' what Herr Schiemann understands by proof — he quotes the article appearing in a Russian paper Golos Moskwy of May 31st, 1908, which "as the organ of Gutschkof reflected at that time the opinion of very influential circles," and without more ado he adopts the assertion of this paper that the royal visit THE PREVENTIVE WAR 37 represented the introduction of an Anglo-Russian alliance directed against Germany. 'Tressed back on the west and the east by the armies of Russia and France, cut off from the sea by the English fleet, Germany would fall into a position of embarrassment from which there would scarcely be any way of escape" (A Slanderer, page 28). To the article taken from this paper Schiemann adds the observation : "Even then war was desired in Russia." The object of the war so far as Russia was concerned is said to have been the possession of Constantinople and the Dar- danelles; for France the reacquisition of Alsace-Lorraine, and for England the surrender of the German Fleet. 1 Ac- cording to Schiemann the leading politicians of the three Powers knew that these aims were not to be achieved with- out a struggle. It is in this way that he introduces the royal visit in the roadstead at Reval, supported by an unsigned article in an irresponsible Russian newspaper. Herr Schiemann is sufficiently modest not to affect a knowl- edge of what the Tsar and the King discussed with each 1 My attitude (distinctly one of disapproval) towards the intention proclaimed by the Russian authorities at the end of 1916 to conquer Constantinople and the Dardanelles is more closely discussed in the chapter on "War-Aims." Now that the Government of the Tsar has been swept away, these intentions have rapidly fallen into the back- ground and will completely disappear with the advance of the Revolu- tionary movement ; they will make way for the demand for the "inter- nationalisation of the straits" — a demand which can only be approved and supported by every friend of a pacific international organisation. At the same time, in view of the former designs of the Russian Authori- ties on Constantinople, which even now find support in many quarters, I should like to point out how entirely different are the two propositions (1) that a belligerent State, attacked by Germany and already robbed by the formal disseverance of Russian Poland and by the disseverance of the Baltic provinces for which preparations had been made, should herself make known annexational intentions in order to gain the long desired free outlet to the Mediterranean Sea as a reward for her mili- tary exertions, and (2) that the same State in the midst of peace (1908) should hatch with other States a conspiracy against Germany, in order to pursue her territorial expansion by means of a world war. This latter charge is the one that has been brought by the Schiemanns against Rus- sia, and no evidence has ever been produced in support of it. 38 THE CRIME other. On the other hand, he is completely informed of the way in which Sir Charles Hardinge and Isvolsky came to an understanding with regard to their future plans. Herr Schiemann knows all this, although the understanding that was arrived at was merely an oral one; he maintains that it came "to our knowledge later in a roundabout way." To what did this understanding amount? Isvolsky declared that he was ready to proceed with England against Germany when Russia should have sufficiently increased her military strength. As the latest point in time for this event, six to eight years were contemplated, that is to say from 1914- 1916. ... A fairly lengthy period of military preparation was as a matter of course contemplated for the three Powers. (A Slanderer, page 29.) This is the basis of all Schiemann's further assertions of the danger of war by which the German people were men- aced. Herr Schiemann knows that the resolution to make war was arrived at in the roadstead of Reval in June, 1908. The outbreak of war was only a question of time and of the completion of the military preparations of the Entente Powers. "Where is the evidence on which your assertion rests?" I ask the professor of history. If anyone were to assert that the Emperor William and the Archduke Francis Ferdinand had, in the course of their continual meetings, decided on the provocation of the "inevitable European war," and had de- termined all the details of the "when" and the "how," what would your comment be, Herr Professor? Would you, or would you not, ask for evidence? And would you be content with evidence similar to that which you are bold enough to produce as evidence of the decisions for war taken at Reval (pages 29 and 30 of your pamphlet), namely, that in Eng- land "immediately after the Reval days ... the agitation for the concentration of the Channel Fleet in the North Sea" began; that in England Hislam's well-known book appeared, that the Russian imperial council approved the construction of armoured cruisers, that England and Russia intervened THE PREVENTIVE WAR 39 for reforms in Macedonia, and that manoeuvres of the Eng- lish fleet took place in the North Sea ; that President Fallieres also made a visit to Reval, and King Edward met the Aus- trian Emperor in Ischl, and Clemenceau and Isvolsky in Marienbad? All these world-shaking facts are for Herr Schiemann parts of a great "machination" — a war-machina- tion 'which was to make an end of Germany, and even to divert Austria from her ally. I have intentionally selected this point, because the method of the German falsifiers of history must be illustrated by ex- amples, if it is to be made comprehensible. The decisive fact, the resolution of Russia and England to make war, arrived at, as is suggested, merely in an oral manner, is supported by absolutely no evidence whatever. A Russian newspaper arti- cle by way of introducing the Reval meeting, a series of events in themselves entirely insignificant compiled with Ger- man professorial thoroughness — I am repeatedly constrained to congratulate the professor on his incomparable collection of snippets and would be glad to learn how it is done — the book of a private English writer, English naval manoeuvres, presidential and royal visits, etc., all these come in useful to the German professor of history in creating the suspicion that the fact asserted by him may be true. He attempts by the most miserable methods to produce circumstantial proof, which is absolutely insufficient, and of which the individual links, even if they are true, in no way prove Schiemann's as- sertion of the existence of an offensive alliance. Nothing that Schiemann produces gives the slightest support to the contention that England and Russia intended to make war against Germany. Hislam's book? And what about our chauvinist and Pan-German literature of which I propose to give elsewhere some edifying examples? Naval manoeuvres in the North Sea? And what about our annual manoeuvres on sea and land towards the east, west, and the north ? Presi- dential and royal visits? Is it not the fact that a year before, in August, 1907, the Tsar and the King of England paid a visit in Swinemunde and Wilhelmshohe ? Is it not the case that the Emperor was at Windsor in November, 1907, and 40 THE CRIME was accorded a brilliant reception in the Guildhall at Lon- don? In August, 1908, King Edward, as is known, also visited the German Emperor accompanied by the same Sir Charles Hardinge, whose presence at Reval appears so ex- tremely suspicious to Herr Schiemann. And it was precisely on this occasion that the English Under-Secretary, acting on Grey's instructions, submitted to the German Emperor and the German Government proposals with regard to an agree- ment as to naval armaments on both sides — proposals which the Emperor William is known to have rejected from the outset. 1 King Edward's visit to the German Emperor in August, 1908, which Herr Schiemann naturally passes over in silence, and the contents of the negotiations conducted by the English Under-Secretary with the German Government, are in themselves sufficient to reveal the worthlessness of Schiemann's circumstantial evidence. But quite apart from such considerations, this evidence is entirely insubstantial in its character, in view of the fact that it is based on a ten- dencious compilation of completely insignificant facts. It is thus that history is made by us in Germany! Every- thing that took place after 1908, if it does not fit in with the theory of the Reval resolution to make war, is either passed over in silence, or falsified, or represented as an intentional cozening and misleading of Germany. Schiemann and his comrades proceed exactly on the same prescription as Herr Helfferich. According to Helfferich, the resolution of the three Entente Powers to strike was taken on July 29th, 19 14. Previously, contemporaneously, and subsequently, these Pow- ers took action in countless ways which flatly contradict Helfferich' s assertion. These actions and proposals are either passed over in silence, or falsified, or represented as insincere. Helfferich and Schiemann — par nobile fratrum! The Bosnian Crisis, 1908-9 As Herr Helfferich deals with the immediate historical antecedents of the war, so Herr Schiemann deals with the 1 See Cook : Hoiv Britain Strove for Peace, page 14. THE PREVENTIVE WAR 41 more remote, more particularly the historical facts which reduce to an absurdity his assertion of the conspiracy of Reval. He cannot conceal the fact that, after long negotia- tions between Aehrental and Isvolsky, Russia recognised in March, 1909, that Bosnia and Herzegovina belonged to the Hapsburg monarchy, and also persuaded Serbia to recognise the same fact; he does not, however, observe that this his- torically established fact overthrows his whole invention of the Reval conspiracy. He is of course silent on the fact that the chief credit for the peaceful settlement of the annexation crisis was due to the English Government and to Sir Ed- ward Grey's efforts for peace. Herr Schiemann is proud that he is able to say: "It was not he (Grey) but Kiderlen who carried his point" — in other words: It was Germany's mailed fist, threateningly raised behind Austria, that compelled the other European States, with England at their head, to give way. He does not, however, possess the sense of justice to recognise, as a merit of the English Government, the fact that this disposition to yield was exercised in the interests of European peace and that this course was recommended to Russia, but he adds to his account of the incident the further unproved insinuation that Sir Edward Grey expressed his annoyance, and directed against the Petrograd Cabinet very emphatic reproaches on account of their pacific attitude. Where does Herr Schiemann get this information? Where is the evidence in support of it? I, the insignificant author of J' accuse, can boast of no highly placed connections on either side of the German frontier. All that I know are the publicly known facts which are documentarily supported : in 1909, as in 1913, the English Government laboured with unweary- ing zeal for the maintenance of European peace, on both oc- casions by their moderating influence on Russia and on both occasions against the stiff-necked, unyielding resistance of Austria. It was only natural that Germany's attitude in the annexa- tion crisis, which appears to Herr Schiemann to have been "loyal and correct in every point," was somewhat differently viewed in England and Russia. Herr Schiemann speaks of 42 THE CRIME the "hatred" against Germany, which expressed itself in England "in the form of a panic." Hitherto I have only- heard that it is fear that can degenerate into a panic, whereas hatred can at most rise to bitterness. In any case, the dis- satisfaction in England and Russia was easily explicable, since Germany by her resolute support of Austria's act of violence could not fail to provoke feelings of passion in other countries, especially in Slavonic countries, and in this way she materially contributed to inflame the Great Serbian move- ment, and in the last analysis to provoke the present war. Here again Herr Schiemann inevitably confuses cause and effect. Certain utterances of English politicians and journal- ists, which were only the reaction of the attitude adopted by Austria and Germany, giving expression to the bitterness of feeling caused by the criminal endangering of European peace by such a policy of the mailed fist, are for Herr Schiemann so many facts in evidence of England's intentions to crush Germany. 1 Then, however, according to Schiemann, a sudden change of feeling took place in England. English clergymen visited Berlin; in June, 1909, the Tsar met the Emperor William and the speeches at the banquets which were then exchanged "permitted the inference that Russia would allow herself to become the ally neither of French revenge nor of the English policy of panic." 2 I was under the impression that a 3^ear previously war against Germany had been decided on at Reval ! King Edward's new meeting with Clemenceau in Marienbad in the summer of 1909 produces, according to Schiemann, "almost an elegiac impression." How does Herr Schiemann know this? At the end of 1909 Isvolsky was nominated as a member of the Imperial Council, and in Oc- tober, 1 910, was translated to Paris. In the English and Russian Press voices were heard which pleaded for the main- tenance of European peace. Indeed, Herr Schiemann as- sures us that he was informed by political friends in France 1 1 shall return later in detail to the Bosnian crisis and to the attitude of Germany and England on that occasion. 2 Slanderer, page 33. THE PREVENTIVE WAR 43 (1910) "that the public opinion of the country desires to maintain peace and is resolved not to act with England/' I thought that the conspiracy of the Triple Entente was de- cided upon in 1908 in the roadstead at Reval as something that was fixed for 1914-1916! How are all these indications of peace to be reconciled with the existence of the con- spiracy ? The Emperor William travels to London to attend King Edward's obsequies. The Tsar Nicholas comes to Potsdam accompanied by his Minister Sazonof. In consequence of the common efforts for peace made by all the Great Powers, the Moroccan crisis of 191 1 is happily solved. The Balkan crisis begins. Under Grey's leadership the London Con- ference of Ambassadors succeeds in overcoming once again apparently insuperable difficulties, and in maintaining the peace of Europe. Meanwhile, from 1909 to 19 12 the Anglo- German negotiations for an understanding are under con- sideration; in the beginning of 1912 Haldane's visit to Ber- lin takes place — events to which I will return in a separate chapter; — in the first half of 19 14 the Anglo-German agree- ment with regard to Asia Minor and the Baghdad line is concluded and the delimitation of spheres of interest in East and West Africa prepared by Lichnowsky and Grey; in the spring of 191 3 the monarchs of England, Russia and Ger- many meet in Berlin for the celebration of the marriage of the Emperor's daughter — in short, a series of political in- cidents and Court events of incisive importance takes place. For Schiemann and his fellows, however, all these occurrences have no significance whatever, since they do not adapt them- selves into their theory of a conspiracy. They are silent as to these incidents, or depreciate their value, or, acting on the well-known prescription, they represent them as malicious tricks on the part of the adversary : Parliament was also ignorant that war against Germany had been resolved on in principle since 1909, and that since that time it was only a question of seeking the occasion of bringing it about with the greatest possible assurance of a prospect of success. In 1905, 1908 and 191 1 it was believed in England that they were U THE CRIME near their goal, and it is not due to England that it was con- gresses and conferences, and not the sword, that decided the conflicts in these years. Thereafter, however, English policy took the new direction of postponing the outbreak of the struggle, the magnitude of which was rightly foreseen, until the Russian preparations as well as their own had proceeded as far as was required to give an assurance of success. At the earliest the year 19 15 was kept in view; until then every conflict must be avoided, and by negotiations on the problems then pending (the proportion of naval construction, the "naval holiday," African Colonies and the Baghdad line) Germany had to be persuaded to retain the view that she had little to fear from England. As is well known, we retained this view until the latest moment. Sir Edward Grey's game had been played with success. Now his cards are lying open before us, and we see that they are the cards of a professional card-sharper. (A Slanderer, pages 64- 65-) This is the fundamental idea on which the whole Euro- pean history of the last ten years is treated. Everything that contradicts this fundamental idea is passed over in silence, or else it was done "for the sake of appearances" to deceive Germany, or else it took place against the desire and the in- tention of the English Government. The Tactics of Falsification of Schiemann and Co. It is indeed monstrous to observe with how brazen a fore- head Schiemann and Company treat all events in this manner, particularly all events since 1905. Those incidents which cannot be suppressed or falsified and which it is impossible to deprive of their unmistakably pacific tendency are frigidly and derisively explained away on the ground that the Rus- sian, French and English military preparations had not yet proceeded far enough, and that it was therefore necessary to await the determined point in time before provoking the war that had long been resolved upon. On this plan, of course, the German falsifiers of history escape from their difficulties on every occasion. Whenever it is possible to ascribe a bellicose character to a political incident, to a royal THE PREVENTIVE WAR 45 visit, a ministerial conference, or a newspaper polemic, this course is inevitably adopted. Where this is absolutely im- possible the pacific character of the incident is admitted, but it is based on the motive: to postpone is not to give up; we must now appear pacific, because we are not yet ready; but as soon as we are ready, the great blow will be struck. Any- one who reads Schiemann's pamphlets A Slanderer and How England Prevented an Understanding with Germany, will find that on every occasion without exception when mention is made of a European peace-action under England's partici- pation or leadership (where possible it is suppressed) there is added the observation that it took place only "for the sake of appearances," only to deceive Germany, only in order that the preparations of the Entente Powers might be con- tinued undisturbed. As has already been pointed out above, the Potsdam inter- view "had as a consequence merely the appearance of an improvement in the relations between Germany and Russia" {A Slanderer, page 36). The plan of an Anglo-French naval demonstration before Agadir, which was discussed as a counter-stroke to the dispatch of the Panther, encountered Caillaux's resistance and also miscarried in the English Cab- inet — a decision which doubtless served the cause of peace, but which Herr Schiemann reports, adding that Sir Edward Grey was much "embittered" at the course of events (page 43). Here again, as on so many other occasions, I ask: How does Herr Schiemann know this? Of course he does not know; he invents it out of nothing because it fits in with his arraignment that Grey should have been embittered at the pacific decision. Everywhere in Schiemann's pamphlets we come across phrases similar to the following: "the war towards which English statesmen were working"; England's resolution "under all circumstances to maintain her high pol- icy on lines which must lead to a breach with Germany" ; "his (Grey's) system of political preparation for a war against Germany" ; "it was a policy of war, and the task was to de- mand everything that could be serviceable to the three Powers which had conspired against Russia at the moment of the 46 THE CRIME prospective conflict"; "the great conspiracy of the Entente Powers, directed against Germany and Austria-Hungary" ; "chess moves in preparation of that struggle for existence." In accordance with this theory, every peace action taken by England and the other Entente Powers is a "two-faced move." When peace was maintained by conferences, con- gresses and diplomatic negotiations, "it was in no way due to England." In the negotiations for a political understanding and for a simultaneous restriction of naval armaments the question was merely one of a "deceptive show." Lord Hal- dane was sent to Berlin "ostensibly to pave the way to an un- derstanding ; in reality to reconnoitre, and to procure new ar- guments for the policy of the Cabinet, which was already firmly established" (A Slanderer, page 47). In his other pamphlet mentioned above (page 24) Schiemann the historian expresses himself to the same effect regarding Haldane's mis- sion which, according to his account, was not seriously in- tended by the English Government, but "had no other object than to pacify the sentiment in England which continued to press more loudly for an understanding with Germany." The conclusion of the Anglo-German agreement with re- gard to Asia Minor and the Baghdad line is suppressed by Schiemann, because he cannot represent as a mere pretence a real settlement of real questions of national interests. On this subject, under the general heading "Double-dealing in England," he writes as follows: The long dormant negotiations with Germany on a settlement of mutual interests in the territory of the Baghdad railway and in Africa at the cost of Portugal were again resumed, and with apparent sincerity were brought quite near a conclusion, so that in September, 191 3, an agreement appeared to be quite imminent. That in this case, as in the negotiations with regard to a naval agreement which were also continued, the whole thing was merely a deceptive show, we know from Haldane's confession of July 5th, 19 1 5, quoted above. They were chess-moves in prepara- tion of that struggle for existence which Haldane on his return from Berlin in February, 1912, had represented to his colleagues in the Cabinet as inevitable. (A Slanderer, page 59.) THE PREVENTIVE WAR 47 As a matter of fact, the agreement with regard to Asia Minor and the Baghdad Railway was not merely "quite imminent in September, 191 3"; it was actually concluded in the spring of 1914. Further, the negotiations with regard to the spheres of interest of the two Powers in Africa were not, as Schiemann dishonestly says, a "deceptive show" ; they had proceeded so far that on the outbreak of war their con- clusion was near at hand. In both pamphlets Schiemann is silent as to the actual conclusion of the treaty with regard to Asia Minor — a fact which clearly reveals his mala fides. In so far as the agreement with regard to East and West Africa was not actually completed, it is better adapted to the lying insinuation of English insincerity; of this he asserts in the Understanding-pamphlet (page 26) that Grey had refused to give this treaty the definite form of a proposal to be laid be- fore both Houses of Parliament, because here again Grey was throughout concerned "merely with the appearance of conciliatoriness." This also is a deliberately lying insinua- tion intended to represent the whole English policy as having been for years a continuous system of specious manoeuvres. The agreement was indeed not yet complete in all points when the war broke out, and for special reasons a publication was impracticable, since the question involved was the delimita- tion of spheres of interest, not with regard to African sav- ages, but with regard to a European State, Portugal. Thus, in order to tune the English actions, which in reality served peace, into conformity with the war-conspiracy which is later to be produced, Schiemann is compelled at every stage either to suppress or to falsify the facts, or to ascribe to the English actions motives which are contradicted in the most unambiguous manner by the actions themselves. Or, if this is not possible, he is at least compelled to point out that the maintenance of peace was "not due to England," and took place entirely against the personal wish of the "inner circle of the Cabinet," in which he arbitrarily includes Asquith, Grey, Haldane and Churchill. 48 THE CRIME Another example of the perfidious policy of falsification may be taken. In his pamphlet on the Slanderer he entirely ignores the fruitful activity of the London Conference of Ambassadors, although otherwise he speaks at length of the Balkan War, of the London negotiations of the Balkan States with Turkey, of the failure of these negotiations, of the re- newal of the war, of the intestinal struggle of the allies, of the peace of Bucharest, and of the final conclusion of peace between Bulgaria and Turkey (page 54). He leaves entirely aside the activity in the cause of peace undertaken in com- mon by Germany and England, an activity which was hon- ourable to both parties, rich in result, and full of the most auspicious promise for the future peace of Europe, although it was to this activity that the maintenance of peace was exclusively to be attributed, and he concludes the paragraph on the subject with an observation which deliberately and completely reverses the then political situation : "All this created an entirely new political situation, the various stages of which were of decisive influence on the great conspiracy of the Entente Powers directed against Germany and Austria-Hungary." In the Understanding-pamphlet (page 26) Herr Schie- mann is so good as to make mention of the activity of Eng- land, in common with Germany, at the London Conference of Ambassadors, but he introduces the few sentences bearing on the subject with the base insinuation: He (Grey) and France also were resolved to defer the action prepared against Germany until Russia, who was eagerly arming, had completed her preparations, which had been critically re- viewed by General Joffre in August, 1913; among these were included, inter alia, the construction of railways, intended to lead in Poland to the Prussian and Austrian frontier. This consid- eration also explains the attitude of England during the Balkan imbroglios of 1912 and 1913. Thus Grey's activity for the maintenance of peace at the London Conference was also merely a specious manoeuvre with the object of postponing the outbreak of the intended THE PREVENTIVE WAR 49 European war until the Entente Powers had finished their military preparations. A military visit paid by General Joffre to Russia is thrown in by the way and represented as a link in the chain of the preparations for the offensive war. As if the Austrian and German rulers and generalissimos never visited each other and never reviewed each other's troops! It is in this way that the German Deroulede, from the beginning to the end of his war and jingoistic pamphlets, pursues his task of poisoning the political springs. He falsi- fies the facts or their motives ; but one fact he forgets, namely, that in so doing he is constantly placing himself in opposi- tion to the official declarations of the German Government. Grey's policy during the Balkan crisis of 19 12-13 not on ^Y received unstinted recognition and praise in Europe and the whole world, but was also eulogised by Herr von Jagow himself in the Reichstag on February 7th, 191 3, in the follow- ing words: One of the last statements — unless I am mistaken, quite the last — made by my late predecessor in the Reichstag dealt with our relations with England. He stated on that occasion that throughout the recent crisis (in the Near East) our relations with England had been specially trustful. He pointed out the good service rendered to the cause of an understanding among all the Powers by the frank conversation conducted in entire confi- dence between London and Berlin during all the phases of this crisis, and he expressed the expectation that they would continue to render this service. It affords me special satisfaction that on the first occasion which has presented itself for me to speak in this place I can affirm that this expectation has been absolutely and entirely fulfilled. The intimate exchange of view which we are maintaining with the British Government has very mate- rially contributed to the removal of difficulties of various kinds which have arisen during the last few months. We have now seen that we have not only points of contact with England of a sentimental nature, but that similar interests also exist. I am not a prophet, but I entertain the hope that on the ground of, common interests, which in politics is the most fertile ground, we can continue to work with England and perhaps to reap the fruits of our labours. (Quoted from Cook, page 35.) 50 THE CRIME This recognition on the part of the German Secretary of State, Herr von Jagow, and his predecessor completely dis- poses of the whole of Schiemann's lying account, and this applies not merely to his account of English activity at the London Conference, but to everything else which he has the audacity to produce with regard to the Anglo-Franco-Russian conspiracy since 1909. If it is true "that war with Ger- many had been resolved upon in principle since 1909" (A Slanderer, page 64) it would have been impossible for Grey during the Balkan crisis to have co-operated with Germany in the cause of peace in the sincere, open, honourable, and trust- ful manner for which he is praised by Jagow, who expressly appeals on the subject to his predecessor Kiderlen. The one possibility excludes the other. Herr Schiemann may there- fore be left to settle matters with Herr von Jagow and with the Manes of Herr von Kiderlen-Wachter. If the motive which Herr Schiemann ascribes to the Eng- lish Government in explanation of their earlier attitude were correct, they could not have laboured for the maintenance of peace during the critical days from July 23rd to August 4th, 1 9 14, so indefatigably, so devotedly and so energetically as is indicated in the praises which Herr von Bethmann be- stows upon them in the White Book. I have compiled in my book (pages 245-246) the list of the eulogies which Beth- mann devotes to the English Government; it concludes with the solemn recognition, contained in the declaration of war against Russia, of the English efforts for peace. How does Herr Schiemann explain the Chancellor's hymn of praise, if the damning judgment is correct, which he, the professor of history, dares to pass on English policy since 1908? "The hypocrisy with which the intrigue was conducted is unex- ampled," exclaims Schiemann in indignation. There were thus six years of the game of intrigue! A whole series of positive peace-actions, crowned by the peace-efforts in the critical July days of 19 14, which unfortunately remained fruitless; the amicable settlement of three Moroccan crises in 1905, 1909 and 191 1 — the prevention of an Austro-Russiari. war on account of the annexation of Bosnia in 1908-9 — THE PREVENTIVE WAR 51 the prevention of an Austro-Russian war and its inevitable sequel of a European war during the Balkan crisis in 191 2- 13 — added to this the comprehensive, exhausting, leading ac-. tivity for the prevention of the present war, 1 — all this is but trickery and hypocrisy, the action of a "professional card- sharper" continued throughout six long years. And yet all this was unnoticed in the Wilhelmstrasse I They continued to work with Grey; up till August 4th, 1914, they showered their praises upon him, and now Herr Schie- mann comes along and disowns, not Sir Edward Grey as might be imagined, but Herr von Bethmann, Herr von Jagow and their friends, and depicts them as the deceived and mis- guided victims of the slim Englishman, whose devices are now at last unveiled by the great Schiemann. One is in fact at a loss to know whether in these falsifiers of history one should most admire the brazen forehead with which they ex- ecute their falsifications, or the shameless contempt for the German intelligence to which they have the temerity to dish up their fables as historical facts. "The aggressive tendency of England is proved by the agreements with France and Russia, which we have noticed; above, and which are to-day publici juris" (How England, etc., page 21). These agreements, as I have already ex- plained above, were alleged to have been arrived at in the roadstead at Reval in June, 1908, between Hardinge and Isvolsky, "not officially but in an oral negotiation." Herr Schiemann is possessed of full knowledge of the contents of these oral agreements, the point of time at which they were to take effect, the aggressive tendency against Germany, the positive intention to make war; on these alleged agreements he builds his whole arraignment, but at no time has he ever produced the least shadow of proof for his assertions. With this phantom of a war-conspiracy of 1908 he disposes of all proved historical facts, just as Helfferich does with his war- conspiracy of July 29th, 1914; or else he seeks to falsify them to fit his thesis, and represents the leading German diplo- 1 See J 'accuse, page 242 et seq., and the relevant sections in Volume I of this work. 52 THE CRIME matists, whom I am certainly not called upon to defend, as such short-sighted dupes that they would really be justified in suing him for libel. Indeed, he goes so far as to cast on his personal friends in England aspersions which are un- worthy of a gentleman. Let anyone read in the concluding pages of his Understanding-pamphlet his conversations with Charles Trevelyan in February, 19 13, and with Lord Haldane in the spring of 1914, both members of Asquith's Govern- ment. Trevelyan assured him in the most definite manner that under no circumstances would England go to war ; a Govern- ment which made preparations for a war would be at once turned out. As is well known, Trevelyan, with Burns and Lord Morley, resigned on the outbreak of war; not however because they considered that the slightest blame for the out- break of war attached to Sir Edward Grey, or because they denied his sincere efforts for peace, but because, notwithstand- ing the outbreak of war, they considered it preferable that England should remain neutral. Lord Haldane's conversation "at a political supper a deux," a- few months before the outbreak of war, also confirmed Schiemann's impression that the inclination to an understand- ing with Germany prevailed in all the industrial circles of England. Haldane considered that the existing grouping of Powers furnished the best guarantee of peace, since Grey could curb Russia, and Germany could do the same with Austria-Hungary. The conversation turned on the injury done to English and German interests by "the present siege on both sides of the North Sea." In a letter from Haldane to Schiemann, the former assured his correspondent that "my ambition is to bring Germany and Great Britain into relations of ever closer intimacy and friendship. Our two countries have a common work to do for the world, and each of them can bring to bear on this work special endowments and qualities. . . . The less the nations and the groups treat political questions from a purely egotistical standpoint, the more will frictions disappear, and the sooner will the relations that are normal and healthy reappear. Something of this good work has now come into existence between the THE PREVENTIVE WAR 53 two peoples. We must see to it that the chance of growth is given." 1 This letter, which is inspired by an honourable and sincere friendship, is given by Schiemann with the com- mentary: "It is difficult to believe in the sincerity of the views here expressed, when it is reflected that Lord Haldane belonged to the inner circle of the Cabinet, and must, there-i fore, have been acquainted with the secret moves of Grey's policy" {How England, etc., page 28.) Thus not only did Grey lie consistently throughout the years, but Trevelyan and Haldane also lied. Schiemann's per- sonal impressions in England were deceptive. Albion's per- fidy extended, not only to the nation as such, but also to all the various individuals with whom Schiemann, the unsullied knight of truth, came into friendly relations. The English- men lied, and the good honest Germans were taken in by their lies. Immediately after narrating Haldane' s utterances, Schie- mann once more gathers together all Grey's lies. On August 4th, 1914, it had clearly emerged that the "conversations" of the diplomatists and of the military representatives of the Entente had become treaties, the Ententes had become Alli- ances, which previously had passed current only under false names. Six weeks after Grey had denied the existence of binding war obligations, "England placed us before the ac- complished fact of a struggle for life and death." This is not one of Grey's lies, but one of Schiemann's! We are now acquainted with the correspondence between Grey and Cambon of November 22nd/23rd, 1912, to which it is unnecessary that I should again return here ( see J' accuse,) page 85). In these letters there is no trace of an alliance; on the contrary, complete freedom is reserved for both the countries concerned to determine what their attitude would be in the event of an outbreak of war. On the outbreak of the European war England made full use of this freedom. She allowed the war between Germany and Russia to break out without participating in it; she gave the French no un- 1 [As given in the original English in Schiemann, except one sentence which is clearly misquoted.] 54 THE CRIME dertaking to participate in the war in the event of France be- coming involved, but merely the conditional and restricted promise of naval support (August 2nd, Blue Book, No. 148). England did not intervene in the war until she did so on account of the Belgian question, which directly affected Eng- lish interests, and this step, moreover, was only taken after the failure on August 4th of all the attempts to secure a with- drawal from the violation of Belgian neutrality (Blue Book, No. 160). Grey therefore did not "deliberately tell Parlia- ment an untruth," as he is accused by Schiemann of having done. He spoke the truth, and acted accordingly. The "accomplished fact of a struggle for life and death" was therefore not the consequence of secret alliances, but the con- sequence of Germany's action towards Belgium, of which England vainly endeavoured to secure the cancellation. Schiemann takes the liberty of telling a further lie, while accusing Grey of lying. I have already observed elsewhere that I do not have at my disposal the connections of the Kreuzzeitung professor which enable him to bring forward, and represent as proved, facts which are not known from public documents. Therefore I cannot say whether it is true, "as is known from Russian sources" (as Schiemann as-> serts without proof), that Grey had already accepted the Russian proposal for the conclusion of a naval agreement and had approved the working out of the relevant details by the naval staff on both sides. That may or may not be so. In any case it affords not the slightest evidence in sup- port of Schiemann's aggressive conspiracy. Military and naval agreements of a much more intimate character have existed time out of mind between Germany and Austria, and yet Schiemann and his friends assert that these agreements served defensive purposes only. Why then should Anglo- Russian naval conventions, if, indeed, they already existed or were contemplated, have unconditionally served offensive intentions ? In my book I have already dealt in detail with the grounds THE PREVENTIVE WAR 55 out of which there arose the deep and constantly increasing feeling of distrust towards Germany and her ally Austria- Hungary, not only among the Entente Powers, but alsa among the neutrals throughout the whole world, and I cannot here return to the question. The demeanour of the Central Powers at the Hague Conferences, the blunt refusal of any suggestion to assure peace by an organisation resting on law, of any restriction of armaments by international or partial agreements, the crassly egotistical policy adopted by Austria in the Balkans in ruthless pursuance of her own interests, the blind support given to this policy by Germany's "mailed fist" and "her shining armour," the criminal intrigues of the Pan-Germans, Prussian militarism which raised its head with increasing shamelessness — these and other circumstances which are narrated in my first and in this my second book had brought the Entente Powers together and had cemented them more and more closely to each other. There would therefore have been no occasion for surprise if in addition to the Anglo-French military discussions, discussions between England and Russia should also have taken place. This fact, however, does not furnish the slightest evidence of the exis- tence of an aggressive war-plan on the part of the "conspir- ing" Powers ; it merely proves that a European war was con- sidered as possible, and that the discussion of the military measures to be adopted in such a contingency was considered expedient. The whole train of thought, that military measures and agreements on the other side are aggressive whereas the same actions on this side are defensive, constantly recurs in the German literature of incitement to war; it might be designated as entirely fatuous if it were not devised with such devilish ingenuity, and planned with a view to its effect on the psy- chology of the German people as it existed then and now. The essence of the European balance of power was to be found in the idea that the military forces on both sides were to be so strengthened and linked together that the two groups of Powers should mutually balance. The strengthening of one 56 THE CRIME side was necessarily bound to provoke that of the other, in order that the scale on the one side should not sink to th£ disadvantage of the other. How, then, can it be made a charge against England that she sought to increase her in- sufficient land power by contingent agreements with France and Russia in order thus to hold the balance to some extent against the forces of Germany which were equally strong by land and by sea, although to these there had also to be added the forces of her ally Austria and, as had to be assumed, of Italy as well? How can it be made a charge against France that she answered the German Military law of 191 3 by introducing a three years' period of service, since in view of her considerably smaller population it was only by pro- longing the period of service that she could find something to adjust the gigantic increase of German troops? The German Military Law and the French Three Years Law Here again Schiemann and his fellows lie in representing France as having taken the lead with her three years period of service and in depicting the German Military Law as merely the consequence of the increase of the French army. The reverse of this is the truth. The German Military Law was introduced earlier, and was voted earlier (April, 191 3) than the French measure relating to the three years period of service (August, 1913). It was not in any way explained by reference to an imminent increase in the French forces through a prolongation of the period of service, but rather by the new political constellation in the Balkans, which might in certain circumstances create for the Austrian Empire a dangerous opposition in the South, and might thus make nec- essary an increase of German forces to compensate for a diversion of a part of the Austrian forces. There was no mention of the introduction of the three years period of ser- vice in France when the great German Military Law was in- troduced and elaborated. The idea of the three years period of service did not appear until after the German measures had THE PREVENTIVE WAR 57 been made known in France, and effect was not given to it until the increase of German troops had been approved. The Schiemanns cannot of course abolish these facts, of which the chronological order is clear, and to which I propose to return later. What then do they do in order to represent the French as "the bloke what begun it" ? They maintain — that is to say they imagine — that Poincare, on the occasion of the tour to Petrograd which he undertook as Premier in 1912, had already pledged himself to introduce the three years period of military service in France after his election as President of the Republic (A Slanderer, page 51). Where isj the evidence in support of this? Who could tell in the sum- mer of 19 12 that Poincare would be chosen as President of the French Republic in the beginning of 1913? Is it not the case that his election depended on all kinds of chances? Waa it not imperilled in the gravest manner by strong and intrigu- ing political opponents, as for example by Clemenceau? And are we to suppose that Russia was so stupid as to give, in return for this bill drawn on the future, definite promises to the French Government such as Schiemann would have us believe? The fact is that the last gigantic increases in the army which — as we Pacifists and Socialists rightly foretold — were bound to strain the condition of Europe to the breaking point, were also begun by Germany, and that her example was merely followed by France. The assertion that France would have been willing to make the beginning is entirely un- substantial and void of all proof. The Belgian ambassadorial reports, to which we know the German Government attaches so much evidential value, also place it beyond doubt that the relation between the German and the French increases in the army was that of cause and effect (as I shall prove in the special study of the Belgian documents). Thus constantly and everywhere we find the same policy pursued by the arraigners of the Entente; even facts, the chronological order of which is firmly established, they seek to remodel by baseless assertions and insinuations. 58 THE CRIME The Anglo-Russian Naval Consultations But let us return to Schiemann's record of lies against Grey. He seeks to represent the contemplated naval con-, sultations between English and Russian experts as a symp- tom of the aggressive conspiracy, and in doing so he gives us the following sentence {How England, etc., page 28) : "A war between the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance was thereby expressly contemplated, and the full alliance of Eng- land was the presupposition." This manner of expression is intentionally selected with so much ambiguity to induce in the reader the belief — again without the shadow of evidence — that war against Germany and her allies was positively intended and that England's support was completely assured. This again is a perfidious insinuation, to which from the outset it is difficult to give credence in view of the fact that Herr Schiemann, who, after all, was not consulted by the Anglo- Russian experts, cannot know what these experts "contem- plated," or how far English support was guaranteed to the Russians. But let us assume that Herr Schiemann was an eavesdropper at the door of the council chamber, if indeed it ever got so far as a consultation. Is it not entirely natural that the discussions of the naval experts were bound to con- template the contingency of a war between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente, and to presuppose the participation of England in such a war? What purpose could the con- sultations have had, if not to consider joint Anglo- Russian naval operations in the event of a European war? Did the consultations of the military experts of the States of the Triple Alliance, Germany, Austria, and Italy, not contemplate a European war and the participation of all three States? It was only to meet the contingency of a war that the two groups stood opposed to each other in arms. Agreement as to their operations was as much a part of their military preparations as troops, cannon and ships. Why need it occasion surprise, and why should it be regarded as suspicious, that Anglo- Russian experts should have based their deliberations on the THE PREVENTIVE WAR 59 same presupposition of the possibility of a European war, as did the Austro-German experts in the same circumstances? This entirely natural basis and presupposition of the de- liberations is transformed by Herr Schiemann by means of an intentionally ambiguous phraseology into a tendency to aggression. The war against the Triple Alliance was according to him "expressly contemplated," that is to say, it was intended. The complete alliance of England was a "presupposition," that is to say, it was guaranteed. And it is with this deceitful manoeuvre that Herr Schiemann here again trickles into the credulous souls of his German readers the poisonous slander that the aggressive conspiracy was already resolved upon and that agreement had been reached as to all its details. I have intentionally dwelt at somewhat greater length on this example, because it is characteristic of all the demonstrations given by Schiemann and his friends. They do not proceed inductively by collecting and bringing forward evidence in support of their thesis, but they proceed deductively, placing their thesis without any proof at the head of their dissertations like a mathematical or geometrical proposition, and then every individual occurrence, even the most insignificant and the most harmless, is brought forward in the light of their thesis. How long will they continue to have any success with the German people by resorting to these juggling devices? When will Truth finally dawn? When will Clio discard her pencil, and with broom in hand drive her faithless disciples from the temple of knowledge ? The Entente Conspiracy Invented by Schiemann It is extraordinarily significant to observe how these his- torical inquirers hasten, with the fear of detected criminals, past facts which they are unable to falsify or remodel. It is possible to arrive at any desired result by means of news^ paper articles, unproved reports regarding oral negotiations, etc. I will undertake to give a picture of the sentiment pre- vailing in any country, at any time that may be chosen, which will agree exactly with my wishes in the matter, if it is suffi- 60 THE CRIME cient to quote the speech of a politician (from which, of course, I would leave out what did not suit my purpose) or an article by a journalist, which exactly supports my opinion and the objects I have in view. In every country there are parties and diversities of opinion, to which expression is given in speech and in writing. It is only necessary that I should choose those which correspond to the picture I wish to draw, and I shall have proved that France, England or Russia at any given moment thought as it suits me to portray. This is Schiemann's system. The more we read him (an arduous task for anyone who honourably seeks thei truth!) the more we see behind his tricks. This "Schiemann" is the "snippet-man" nar' e&xyv. All the newspapers in the world are represented in his snippet-box. Mention is made of a political event in Russia; he draws out, as suits his purpose, an English, French, Roumanian or Belgian news- paper-cutting and by means of it refutes what has been as- serted. The subject in question is, let us say, the settlement of the Moroccan conflict in 191 1, and the successful co-operation of England in preventing the outbreak of war. ITerr Schie- mann opens his snippet-box and draws out — (guess, Reader, what he draws out!) — a number of the Leipsiger Illustrierte Zeitung of December, 191 1, in which the position of the English and German fleets in the summer months of 191 1 is graphically represented (A Slanderer, page 43). This praphic' representation of course proves nothing at all. It gives, how- ever, to Herr Schiemann, the student of history, the oppor- tunity of adding these sentences: These were the days in which consideration was given to the question of overwhelming our fleet by superior fo r ce. In Sep- tember the English officers were already informed of their des- tination on the Continent. This chart in the Leipziger Illustrierte Zeitung is thus another convincing proof that the only thing that England desired and sought was the opportunity to attack and annihilate us. On November 27th, 191 1, Sir Edward Grey delivered his THE PREVENTIVE WAR 61 famous speech in the English Parliament (see J' accuse, page 106), in which he expressed England's strong desire for the establishment of improved relations with' Germany; Great Britain had facilitated a friendly settlement of the Moroccan crisis between Germany and France; it was to be hoped that this settlement "had also cleaned the slate in respect of Ger- man relations with England." England's existing friendships did not constitute a hindrance to the conclusion of new friend- ships. He, Grey, would gladly welcome any wish on the part of Germany to improve their mutual relations, and there would be nothing of a grudging attitude in England's policy. 1 What does Herr Schiemann make of this sincere and honourable peace-speech of Grey? England was resolved, said Grey, as interpreted by Schiemann {A Slanderer, page 45), to maintain the form of her relations with France and Russia which, as Schiemann adds, "merely meant that Grey would continue his system of political preparation for a war against Ger- many." Was there ever a more preposterous and impudent falsification ? But now the snippet comes to his aid. The relevant port- folio is opened, and — consider what is drawn out — a tele- gram from Paris to the Journal de Geneve, in which the writer points out that the non-existence of a military convention between England and France, which Grey had correctly de- nied, did not justify the "inference that England and France had never contemplated the possibility of combining their forces." What evidence in favour of Schiemann's perversion of Grey's peace-parley into a fanfarade of war is furnished by this insignificant tattle wired to a Swiss newspaper by an unknown Parisian, of whose standing we are entirely igno- rant? No matter; a newspaper snippet has to be worked off. In this case, indeed, Herr Schiemann appears to have got hold of the wrong one in the portfolio, for the snippet from the Journal de Geneve has as much to do with Grey's speech as Herr Schiemann with the service of Truth. 1 See Cook, p. 29. 62 THE CRIME Take another example, this time a ludicrous one, of the great historian's method of using snippets. At the con- clusion of his pamphlet on the Slanderer (pages 65-67) he flatters himself that he has given the accuser a fatal blow in publishing, of all things in the world, the letter of an Englishman to a Chilian, which is said to have appeared in Santiago in the Gazeta militar there, and which consitutes for the historian "an important document in contemporary history." Thus, be it observed, we do not know who wrote the letter; we do not know whether he really exists; we are further not in a position to check whether the letter was writ- ten in English or in Spanish, or whether it appeared in Chile in the Gazeta militar in the words in which it is reproduced by the historian. We have to rely on its reproduction by Schiemann, who again takes it from the Kolnische Zeitung, and with this momentous document in his hand he trium- phantly exclaims to the accuser: There at last is a voice which openly acknowledges the mo- tives of the men who made the war; after all the official hypoc- risy here is a sincere word. We recommend it to the "accuser," for the correction of the appreciation he bestows on the unselfish love of peace of his English heroes. He has now obtained a picture of the real historical antecedents of the war, a frag- ment of the truth, so far as it can be established to-day. I pass over what the alleged English letter-writer com- municates to his Chilian correspondent, because I am reluctant to stoop to the low level of a historian who produces such anonymous stuff as a historical document, and actually makes use of it as the final volley for the pulverisation of the ac- cuser. To what a pass must the defenders of German inno- cence have come, when they debase themselves to such a meth- od of proof! It is, of course, unveiled to the Chilian people that it was England's commercial envy that caused the war, that the idea of a league to crush Germany had arisen in Bel- gium earlier even than in England (this is printed by Herr Schiemann in emphatic type), that the English manufactur- ers and commercial magnates aimed at the devastation of the THE PREVENTIVE WAR 63 Continent — including the "areas of France and Russia which were industrially the wealthiest" — for the more the Continent was devastated "the greater and more positive will be the resulting advantages for England." With this newspaper snippet, Herr Schiemann, you have certainly broken the record, and you have not only broken the record but have also broken me, the accuser. I feel my- self crushed. Now the "cards of the professional card- sharper" Grey are really uncovered. Now we have authentic information to show what criminals and rogues the English are. Illumination has come to us from Chile, and it is to you, Herr Professor, that we owe it. Sir Edward Grey's Constant Disappointment Herr Schiemann is obliged to have recourse to the most outrageous devices in order to adapt to his war-conspiracy all the facts which proclaim the pacific intention of the En- tente Powers. For this purpose he applies various methods. Either he represents the attitude of the Entente Powers, which was obviously directed to the maintenance of peace, as having been merely specious, and proves this by reference to any particular interests or situations which the Power in ques- tion had to take into account at a given moment. From this deceitful standpoint the maintenance of peace is never an end in itself, but merely the consequence imposed by a passing necessity. . The second method adopted by Schiemann, and at the same time the one that is most convenient, is to suppress the incident altogether. The third method is this: according as he wishes in the passage in question to represent England or France or Russia as the leader of the war conspiracy, he maintains that the two others for quite special reasons could not at the critical moment allow war to break out, but that the third, the leader and the instigator, "grievously disap- pointed" or "embittered," was forced to be a spectator of the peaceful issue of the crisis. This grievous disappointment and embitterment is repre- sented at every stage as the state of mind of the English 64 THE CRIME statesmen, especially of Sir Edward Grey. It is something of a miracle that this hapless wight has not ere now done away with himself out of sheer disappointment. The reader may be interested to hear what an accumulation of grievous disap- pointments are credited to Grey on page 19 of the Under- standing-pamphlet alone. It was a grievous disappointment for the English statesmen that in spite of the enormous din made by the Serbians and the emphatically bellicose attitude of Russia, Nicholas II. neverthe- less recognised the annexation of March 25th, 1909. The dis- appointment was all the greater inasmuch as shortly before this the Moroccan difficulties between Germany and France were also settled, notwithstanding the Casablanca conflict which was still pending. On the day on which King Edward made his first visit to Berlin, on February 9th, 1909, a Franco-German agree- ment with regard to Morocco was signed, and in the end of May the Casablanca conflict was also settled by arbitration to the tolerable satisfaction of both parties. Then the Bosnian crisis of 1908-9 was happily overcome by the compliant disposition shown by Russia towards the Austrian breach of law, the second Moroccan agreement be- tween Germany and France was brought to a safe conclusion, and the Casablanca conflict was also settled by arbitration. In arriving at these results the chief merit was to be ascribed to England, as the intermediary with Russia and with France. The peace of Europe had once again been maintained. Yet Herr Schiemann has the audacity to speak of a "grievous dis- appointment for the English statesman," and to add the sen- tence : "It is not too much to say that King Edward did what lay in his power to arrive at another issue. ..." (The Un- derstanding-pamphlet, page 19.) I have already spoken of another of Grey's embitterments ; he was "embittered" (A Slanderer, page 43) because the dispatch of the Panther was not answered by an Anglo-French naval demonstration; in this case he was embittered by the double resistance which it encountered from the French Gov- THE PREVENTIVE WAR 65 ernment and in his own Cabinet — all, of course, pure inven- tions on the part of Schiemann. The worst "disappointments," however, naturally befell the English war-politicians, Grey, Asquith and their partners, when the third Moroccan agreement of November, 191 1, took form, a result to which, as is well known, they had largely contributed. The English naval measures during the pro- longed crisis, which brought Europe to the brink of a war are, of course, represented as implying aggressive intentions. As early as 1905 — that is to say, after the fall of Delcasse — ■ "England considered in all seriousness the question of making an attack" {How England, etc., page 12), that is to say, three years before the agreements of Reval, which, as Schie- mann elsewhere maintains, first laid the foundation of the conspiracy. The merit of England in having brought about the third Moroccan agreement is naturally completely in- verted. "It was not due to Asquith and Grey that peace was notwithstanding finally maintained" (A Slanderer, page 44) : — so we read immediately after mention is made of the agree- ment. And in exactly the same way, with the object of at once effacing in the reader the impression produced by the fact that the dispute ended peacefully, mention is made in the same breath of the renewal of the Anglo- Japanese treaty of alliance, which was effected "clearly with the intention of assuring for herself an ally in the East against Germany, in the event of the war, for which the English statesmen were working, not breaking out until after August, 191 5, or in the event of its not yet being finished by that time" (A Slan- derer, page 43). Anyone who so far suppresses his nausea as to follow for a time Schiemann's system of falsification will be seized by a kind of admiration for this man, like the tribute of recogni- tion one is compelled to pay to the burglar who successfully breaks open even the strongest Milner safe. The criminal skill is the same in both, but the latter in the end produces gold, whereas Schiemann only brings forth lead. 66 THE CRIME The Moroccan Agreement of 191 i The Moroccan settlement of 191 1 is an inconvenient ob- stacle to Schiemann. In the first place he falsely says that the English statesmen, who materially contributed to bring it about, would have prevented it had they had their way. Thus on this occasion it is the Englishmen, on other occa- sions the leaders and the instigators of the trio of criminals, who are overruled. Then, however, in order to produce evi- dence (in the Schiemann manner) in support of his assertion of English opposition to the peaceful settlement, he has the assurance to represent the prolongation of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance as an act taken in preparation for war against Ger- many, although, as everyone knows, this treaty was concluded merely to afford Japan support against Russia. The use made of the Japanese Alliance against German possessions in East Asia, which was only a consequence of the outbreak of the European war, is thus represented as an intention entertained by England as far back as 191 1, and this invention is again used to prove that in the summer of 191 1, when England laboured for a settlement of the Franco-German conflict, she was in truth devoting her efforts not to the peace of Europe, but to war against Germany. What expression plays on the features of Herr Schiemann when he transcribes such falsi- fications, the true character of which is of course quite known to him? What contempt must his eyes reveal for the Ger- man reader, whom he seeks to humbug with such fairy tales; for he himself knows that in all the rest of the world there is no one who believes his inventions. Herr Schiemann, indeed, is so bold as to express his indig- nation that Sir Edward Cook should assert that Great Britain facilitated the conclusion of the Franco-German Moroccan agreement, The indignation, Herr Schiemann, is on our side. Cook correctly quotes Grey's speech of November 27th, 191 1, mentioned above (Cook, page 22; F accuse, page 106), in which Grey not merely truthfully emphasised England's activ- ity in the cause of peace in the Moroccan question, but also THE PREVENTIVE WAR 67 gave expression to England's strong desire for friendly rela- tions with Germany. The activity in the cause of peace dis- played by England, who no doubt gave diplomatic support to France, in accordance with the Anglo-French Moroccan agreement, but who nevertheless sought by every possible means to prevent a European war, is a historical fact which Herr Schiemann, in his approved method, seeks to get rid of by producing newspaper-snippets. In the spring of 191 1 an English naval paper gave an illustration of the German High Sea Fleet with the inscription: "The Enemy!" This is a proof of the bellicose intentions of the English Government! After the crisis was over, an open letter was addressed by Morel and Hirst to the members of the English Parliament, in which England's foreign policy during the last seven years was sharply criticised, and a protest entered against any alli- ance or political agreement which might force England to measures at variance with her own national interests {How England, etc., page 23; A Slanderer, page 45). Does this critical letter written by politicians of the opposition contain the slightest shadow of a charge that the English Govern- ment was intentionally pursuing a warlike policy? Is it not rather the case, on Schiemann's own quotations, that the writ- ers merely point out the danger that England might be in- volved in a war against her will, as the result of certain agree- ments with Continental Powers? Is the standpoint here as- sumed by Morel and Hirst not exactly the same as their atti- tude to the present war, the standpoint, that is to say, that the Liberal English Government desired and laboured for peace, but that it would have been a better policy for England in the past to have abstained from any Entente with Continental Powers? How little this criticism of English policy before the war has to do with the present war is confirmed by the following sentence which Morel wrote in an article in The New Statesman of February 13th, 191 5: I am not concerned with the first point about Belgium, because on the inevitableness of an Anglo-German war arising out of a German invasion in 1914 of Belgian territory, I imagine there can be no difference of opinion in this country. 68 THE CRIME This recognition of the fact that Belgium was the cause of the Anglo-German war, and was necessarily bound to be so, is all the more important when expressed by Morel, inas- much as in other matters he accuses English foreign policy of a long catalogue of errors. In any case Schiemann's snippet affords not the slightest proof in support of his assertion that the English Government worked against the Moroccan agree- ment, and, like the whole of the snippet collection, it is merely dust to throw in the eyes of the uncritical reader. The last device of the historian is this: If all other means are unavailing to transform the peace action of the Entente Powers into a preparation for war there always remains a last way of escape. He can always say that they were not yet ready; their military preparations were not yet completed; it was not until somewhere about 191 5 that the blow was to be struck, and until then the German Michel had to be kept in the dark regarding the evil designs of his enemies. I have already referred to these tactics and to their practical ap- plication. With the aid of these four methods Herr Schiemann is always safe. Grey and Asquith may pursue what line of action they chose. Either it never happened at all, or it was not seriously intended and only ostensibly served the cause of peace, being in reality dictated by their own interests ; or else it was the product of the necessity of the moment, or finally it was designed for the deception of Germany and for the preparation in safety for a later attack. We may take a pleasing example of the way in which this professor of history, the model historian, who accuses me of "the unscientific nature of my method of investigation," "the superficiality of historical knowledge," "the tendencious compilation of fragments of documents," etc., deals with the same facts according to the end he is pursuing at one place or another. It may be regarded as a historically incontro- vertible fact, that the crisis in connection with the annexa- tion of Bosnia would in all probability have led to a European THE PREVENTIVE WAR 69 war through the fault of Austria and of Germany which stood behind her, had not England and France exerted all their influ- ence on Russia, with whom they were connected by an En- tente and by an Alliance, and in the end induced the Russian as well as the Serbian Government to recognise the situation created by Austria. Schiemann also recognises the fact that there was a grave European crisis, which, as is well known, led to the Austrian and the Russian mobilisation, and which in March, 1909, had reached its culminating point. He fur- ther speaks of "a diplomatic campaign which was almost on the point of developing into a European war," of a "Press campaign of almost unexampled violence," of the protest of the Entente Powers against the annexation, and of the final surrender of Russia and Serbia after a Russo-Austrian war had appeared inevitable (A Slanderer, pages 30-32 ; How England, etc., page 19). I have already pointed out that on this occasion also Schiemann ascribes to the English Govern- ment the intention of driving matters to war. At the moment I am only concerned to make it clear that Russia, supported by the Entente Powers, protested against the Austrian an- nexation, that Austria and Russia mobilised, and that a Euro- pean war was imminent. At another place in his Slanderer the state of affairs so determined does not suit Herr Schiemann's purpose. He is displeased that in my book I should represent the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a challenge addressed to Russia and Serbia, as one of the many systematically accomplished Austrian actions which for the sake of purely selfish interests constantly imperilled the peace of Europe and in the end pro- voked this terrible war. What, then, does Herr Schie- mann do? He calls the Austrian action of 1908 (A Slan- derer, page 22) "the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was carried out in agreement with Russia and with her previous concurrence." This outsoars all that has ever been achieved in reshaping facts according to the momentary pur- pose of the narrative. The grave European crisis, the diplo- matic campaign which was almost on the point of developing into a European war (A Slamderer, pages 31-32), the resolute 70 THE CRIME militant attitude of Russia {How England, etc., page 19)/ these dangerous facts are transformed in the skilful hands of the historical juggler into an "annexation carried out in agreement with Russia and with her previous concurrence" ; and this is done merely because on one occasion the one asser- tion, on another the other, is better suited to the juggler's pur- pose. I have already quoted in my book the English proverb that a liar should have a good memory. Herr Schiemann has already forgotten on page 31 what he wrote on page 22. The Venezuela Conflict I should like to illustrate by a further example Schiemann' s system of hunting out such newspaper snippets as may be required in order to throw into prominence feelings and tendencies in the English people which suit his argument at the moment. This example is all the more striking because here I can refute Schiemann by Schiemann himself. In his Slanderer pamphlet one point on which he makes a great fuss and accuses me of having suppressed important facts is that in the interval between the first and the second Hague Con- ferences I failed to mention — who would guess it ? — the Vene- zuela incident (1902-3) ! Now I must confess to my shame that even now, notwith- standing Schiemann's explanations, I have been unable to grasp the connection between the Venezuela conflict and the ideals of the Hague Conference (establishment of arbitration for international disputes, limitation of armaments, etc.). It is well known that the English and German Fleets co- operated in the winter of 1902-3 to compel Castro, the Vene- zuelan tyrant, to observe his international obligations. This co-operation was inevitably received with great sympathy by all sections disposed to peace in both countries and was inter- preted as a favourable sign for the future. Of course there always have been, and there still are, in England as well as in Germany, elements which direct their efforts against the peaceful co-operation of the nations, and which find their bread and their profit in the incitement of one pacific people THE PREVENTIVE WAR 71 against others. These bands of intriguers and conspirators, from the lowest selfish or class interests, make a trade of poisoning public opinion; they seek by subterranean channels to conduct their unclean water to authoritative places and when at last after years of boring, after years of intrigue and of agitation, the world-conflagration breaks out and the dev- astating fire consumes all the nations, they then stand forth and point with their finger across the frontier, exclaiming: "There stands the incendiary!" Herr Schiemann, the German Deroulede, knows better than anyone else this criminal circle in Germany. To him, as to all his fellows on both sides of the German frontier, one may properly apply the words which at the conclusion of the Slan- derer he addresses to those in England, France and Russia alleged to have been guilty of the war: "The blood which has been shed in this war, and all the misery which has accompanied it, cries aloud to Heaven for retribution. It will recoil on the heads of those who have instigated the war." In this hope I participate. This is one of the few points in which I am in agreement with the Kreuzzeitung professor. To the lamp-post with the guilty! will, it is to be hoped, be the battle-cry of all nations after this insensate carnage. To the lamp-post with all Derouledes, those on this side as well as on that! I should, however, like to guard against a misunderstand- ing which might arise from the conjunction of the German and the French Derouledes. It was not I, but a Frenchman, who linked his countryman, the enthusiastic patriot who no doubt wrought much harm in his honourable excess of zeal, with a German falsifier of history who is destitute of honour and of true patriotism (he was not even born a German!), who possesses not a spark of enthusiasm for an ideal cause; on the contrary, he sits and sneers in cold blood in his study and twists and moulds dates and facts until they produce the picture desired by those in high places. The true Deroulede 72 THE CRIME was an honourable enthusiast inspired for a great cause, the false is a dishonest manufacturer of history who pursues base ends by petty means. The two Derouledes have nothing in common with each other, apart from their success in ren- dering national divergencies more acute. The Frenchman courageously drew his sword, and called upon his coun- trymen in glowing songs to regain their lost provinces. The German, on the other hand, created dangerous poisons in his secret laboratory, and by night privily infected the public springs. Paul Deroulede did not deserve to give his name to a Theodor Schiemann. I owe this testimony to the Manes of the French patriot. * * H« * * * Let us return to Venezuela. In his construction of the conspiracy which he attributes to King Edward from the beginning of his reign (1901) Herr Schiemann is embarrassed by the common action for peace taken by England and Ger- many which, notwithstanding the failure of the first Hague Conference, clearly proclaimed the existence, on the English side also, of a desire for action in common. According to Schiemann, it is a fact that "the one political idea which was firmly established so far as the King was concerned since the beginning of his reign was to make the central point of Eng- lish policy the exploitation of the French idea of revenge which still survived" (How England, etc., page 11). The exploitation of the idea of revenge, a conspiracy to make war against Germany and a pacific collaboration in Venezuela — these obviously do not fit into* each other. The conjurer must therefore set to work without delay! One, two, three ! Hey, presto, hey ! The quickness of the hand deceives the eye ! x The snippet-box is therefore opened, and a snippet pro- duced which is alleged to come from the National Review ( I am not in a position to check the existence and the contents 1 [Hokus, Pokus, eins, zwei, drei ! Geschwindigkeit ist keine Hexerei!] THE PREVENTIVE WAR 73 of this Press-utterance of which the text is not given). Im- mediately after chronicling the fact of co-operation in Vene- zuela it is asserted on the strength of the utterance in the National Review that a group of conspirators in England and Russia had taken as their watchword "a world-alliance against Germany," and that they had thus made use of the action of peace to evolve a war-cry. Here again we have the same sys- tem ! an attempt to obliterate a historical fact by means of any sort of newspaper extract, which cannot be checked and is not even quoted verbatim, and which even if it really exists reflects the unauthoritative ideas of a band of intriguers, not, however, the ideas of the English people nor of their Gov- ernment. In the case before us. — and it is for this reason that I de- vote some time to the present incident — it is possible to prove by means of Schiemann himself the untenability and the ob- jectionable character of this method. While in the Slanderer (page 17) he bases his inference of a world-alliance against Germany on an utterance in the National Review, he impru- dently quotes in his Understanding-pamphlet (page 11), since he apparently considers that his readers are even more un- critical than they really are, a speech delivered by Balfour, then Prime Minister, on February 13th, 1903, in which he combated with the greatest energy the incitement of English public opinion against Germany: Let us remember — said Balfour, according to Schiemann's quotation — that the old ideal of Christendom should still be our ideal; and all those nations who are in the forefront of civili- sation should learn to work together by practicable means for the common good, and that nothing militates against the realisa-* tion of that great ideal so conclusively as the encouragement of these international bitternesses, these international jealousies, these international dislikes. ... So far as Venezuela is concerned, that will pass. ... As regards the future, I am filled with dis- quietude when I think how easy it is to fan these international jealousies, how difficult it seems to me to be to allay them. 1 * [Speech delivered at Liverpool.] 74 THE CRIME This speech of the Prime Minister's, which is prudently concealed from the readers of the Slanderer, necessarily dis- poses altogether of the alleged utterances of the National Review. The responsible Government, the Conservative Gov- ernment then in power, as well as the Liberal Government to- day, were, in fact, absolutely disposed to peace; they sought for an understanding with Germany and a cessation of the ruinous naval competition, and they entered into the Ententes, not to provoke a war, but for the maintenance of peace — for the maintenance of peace by means of the European balance of power, which was still considered to hold out a prospect of success. How does the historical juggler escape from the difficulty involved in reconciling the words of the English Prime Min- ister, quoted by himself, with his fundamental thesis of a "war-conspiracy against Germany" ? Nothing is easier. The magician here again works with the double devices of his art. Balfour expressed the views of the English Government, the National Review and its journalistic comrades expressed "the spiritual sentiments which, as was well known in these jour- nalistic circles, animated King Edward" {How England, etc., page 10). It will be seen that the "new Prussian" historian of Russian Baltic origin is never in a difficulty. The in- triguers agitate against Germany. The leader of the Cabinet attacks them with the greatest emphasis, but the King secretly stands behind the intriguers — against his own Ministers! — and so we are again furnished with the desired picture of the Royal English war conspiracy against Germany. It is spe- cially worthy of remark in this juggling device that on every other occasion, when the Schiemanns find it convenient, King Edward is represented in his very own person as the instigator and the inciter of the devilish policy of "encirclement" and of war, and his Ministers are represented merely as his execu- tive agents. Here, however, in the Venezuela incident, where the Minister unmistakably turned against the intriguers, it is necessary to construe a lack of harmony between the royal will, which on other occasions alone decided matters, and his Ministry — solely for the purpose of transforming the Vene- THE PREVENTIVE WAR 75 zuelan action of peace into an element in the preparation for war. Italy's Role in the War In his hopeless endeavour to refute my "Antecedents of the Crime," it is only natural that Herr Schiemann should scarcely consider the points discussed by me, which in all essential matters rest on historically established facts and documents. To this aspect of the matter I propose to return in a further section. On the other hand, by way of creating a diversion, he seeks to invoke the whole history of the world, everything that has anywhere happened on the globe, in Japan, South America or elsewhere, though it has not the slightest connection with my demonstration that Germany and Austria are primarily responsible for the state of tension in Europe; he seeks to introduce every possible remote incident, and finally concludes this compilation of insignificant or unproved facts with the proud words: I think that these facts will suffice to illumine a page of the "Antecedents of the Crime," of which the "accuser," who claims to know the truth, has obviously had no knowledge. (A Slan- derer, pages 21, 22.) Evidence of the existence of the war-conspiracy is thus also discovered by the historian in the "Franco-Italian intrigue," as he chooses to designate the relations between France and her partners in the Entente towards Italy from 1902 down to the entrance of Italy into the war. I should here like to make it clear that I regard the attitude of Italy down to the declara- tion of neutrality as entirely correct and loyal, such an atti- tude as was demanded, not only by Italian interests, but also by political fidelity and honour — which for me are "no empty delusion." I have nothing to retract in the judgment which I have already passed in my book. On the other hand, I have no hesitation in condemning — as the most distinguished states- man of Italy, Giolitti, has condemned — the later action of the Ministry of Salandra during its negotiations with Austria and Germany, the higgling and bargaining on both sides, and the 76 THE CRIME final resolution for war against her former allies. The cele- brated "parecchio" of the shrewd Piedmontese ("What Aus- tria offers us is, after all, something"), and the conclusion he drew from this that a bird in the hand is preferable to two in the bush, I still consider to-day — indeed, more than ever to-day, after two years of war between Italy and Austria — the shrewdest word that could be spoken, the shrewdest ad- vice that could be given to the Italian people. I am by no means certain that the King, the Government, and the people of Italy would not have been glad to-day if they had accepted the compensation offered in May, 191 5, for their neutrality, which they could then have gained without any sacrifice of wealth or life, but which they rejected on the ground of its insufficiency. Perhaps the moment is no longer far distant when the man who, like so many other true patriots in other countries, was reviled and branded as a traitor on the out- break of war, will return as the saviour of his country and will restore peace to Italy and to Europe also. However this may be, those who regard Italy's military accession to the Entente as a crime have in no way any right to raise such a charge. Italy's accession was a consequence of the European war, as was also the participation of other Powers, of Turkey, Bulgaria and Roumania. None of these declarations of participation in the war, on one side or the other, have anything to do with the origin of the war. They were occasioned by special national aspirations which made use of the European storm as a favourable opportunity to fish out of the general deluge the booty that had been so long de- sired. Had not the war been provoked by Germany and Aus- tria, these special crusades for plunder would have been im- possible. The great originators of the war have, therefore, no right to reproach for their behaviour the minor people who have endeavoured to turn it to their advantage. This I say to make clear my standpoint with regard to the action of Italy. But now to return to Schiemann and his meth- od of falsification. According to his account, Italy had al- THE PREVENTIVE WAR 77 ready sold herself to France in 1902 and to Russia in 1909 in Racconigi. As always happens, Schiemann maintains that he is fully informed of the Franco-Italian and the Russo- Italian agreements, which, of course, like everything else that Schiemann produces, were directed against Germany and Austria. Although he must himself admit that Italy's agree- ments with France were kept strictly secret, he finds the proof of Italy's accession to the conspiracy in the fact "that the troops sent to Tripoli were taken, not from the neutral Swiss or from the Austrian frontiers, but from the French frontier, which Italy entirely denuded of troops" (A Slanderer, page 19). This, again, is a favourite trick of the juggler. When he desires to prove diplomatic agreements and his collection of snippets does not render him the necessary service in the matter, he advances military measures in evidence : for exam- ple, English naval manoeuvres in the North Sea or the Baltic, French Army manoeuvres on the eastern frontier, Russian manoeuvres on the western frontier. These are all supposed to prove bellicose intentions against Germany. As if the French could start manoeuvres towards the Atlantic Ocean, Russia towards Kamchatka, England towards Iceland! As if it were not the fact that Germany also had chosen to carry out her manoeuvres on the eastern or western frontiers to- wards Russia or France, but not towards Austria or Switzer- land! In many passages in his war-pamphlets Schiemann makes use of such references to manoeuvres in confirmation of warlike intentions, apparently with success so far as his credulous readers are concerned. At the conclusion of his Understanding-pamphlet, for example, we read : — The hypocrisy with which the intrigue was carried out is un- exampled. The palm is doubtless due to the friendly visit of the English squadron to Kiel under the leadership of Admiral Beatty. Two days after the murder of the Archduke it began its return journey through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, in order to join the concentrated forces of the entire English fleet, which was lying ready for battle before Spithead. 78 THE CRIME Thus the return of the English squadron from Kiel on June 30th, 1 9 14, and its union with the rest of the fleet for the purpose of naval manoeuvres — an event which took place twenty-three days before the Austrian Ultimatum, which evoked the danger of a European war, was sent to Serbia — the return of the English vessels to their home-ports and the institution of naval manoeuvres on a large scale (not even on the North Sea or Baltic coasts of Germany, which elsewhere is represented as so incriminating a circumstance), this en- tirely inoffensive incident deserves, according to Schiemann, "the palm of hypocrisy," and forthwith attaches to the Eng- lish manoeuvre-fleet the suspicion that it was "lying ready for battle before Spithead"! The German patriot, Schiemann, does not appear to con- sider that his German readers are capable of realising what results must necessarily follow from this entirely idiotic sys- tem of transforming manoeuvre incidents into bellicose inten- tions. Every conclusion that he has anywhere or at any time deduced from the land or sea manoeuvres of the Entente Powers could be applied with the same logic to the Powers of the Triple Alliance. They also have manoeuvred every year on sea and on land; they also have, as a matter of course, manoeuvred only on the sides on which a possible war could take place. The tactical principles of German military science lay down that "the best defence is found in the attack," and in accordance with this doctrine the German manoeuvres were always offensive and not defensive; they always took place towards the east, the west or the north, and were thus directed towards the Entente Powers. On Schiemann' s logic this fact must furnish indisputable evidence to the Schiemanns of Eng- land, France, and Russia that Germany for forty-five years has devoted all her preparations to an offensive against the Entente Powers. But this in no way troubles the great mind of Schiemann, nor apparently his readers. In the general rise in prices in Germany, logic has clearly become an object which is beyond the reach of these people. It need occasion no surprise that in creating the Franco- Italian intrigue, for which no other evidence was available, THE PREVENTIVE WAR 79 Italian military measures should be called to his assistance. Because Italy took her troops for Tripoli from the French frontier and not from the Swiss or the Austrian frontier, the conclusion of the Franco-Italian plot is, so far as Schiemann is concerned, proved for a date as far back as 191 1. There was no cause for apprehension from France — France had al- ready become the "secret ally" of Italy. From Austria, how- ever, everything was to be apprehended, although Italy was united with Austria in the Triple Alliance, and although the Treaty on which the Triple Alliance rested was renewed with- out modification in the following year, 191 2, even before its expiration. What, however, was there to apprehend from Switzerland. If the fact that troops were left on the frontier facing Austria was an indication of the dissension which al- ready existed between Austria and Italy, was the fact that troops were left on the Swiss frontier a sign of dissension or perhaps even of an aggressive conspiracy on the part of Italy and the Entente Powers against Switzerland? Ah, yes, the logic of it all ! You are a bitter enemy of the truth, Herr Schiemann. But you fight it without understanding and without logic, and you allow yourself to be caught only too often in your own snares. But there is something better to come: In the circles of the Triple Alliance the conclusion was rightly drawn (from the denudation of the Franco-Italian frontier) that the question now must be to gain Italy for an active co-operation with the enemies of Germany and Austria. (A Slanderer} page 19.) Thus the removal of troops from the French frontier, and exclusively from this frontier — which Schiemann asserts, without, however, producing a shadow of proof in support of his assertion, and which, even if true, may have happened for all sorts of strategical and not political reasons — this insig- nificant and unproved fact gave the Entente Powers the signal that poor Italy was now to be completely entangled, and drawn to their side against the Central Powers. Schiemann 80 THE CRIME needs and makes use of this fact, in order to prove once more by reference to this example the diabolical preparations for war pursued by the Entente Powers throughout many years. In this arbitrarily devised inference he is nevertheless much inconvenienced by one fact, which, unfortunately, he cannot conjure out of the way, namely, the renewal of the Triple Alliance. What then does he do? He construes a further conspiracy, in which, "as it appears, Isvolsky had directly or indirectly a part" (without Isvolsky, Delcasse or Grey it is impossible to get along). As a result, the conspirators re- solved no longer to direct their efforts to Italy's withdrawal from the Triple Alliance; it was, on the contrary, considered preferable to continue as more advantageous "the existing relation in which Italy in fact paralysed the policy of the other side." Thus as far back as 1911-12, simultaneously with the formal renewal of the Triple Alliance, there was a kind of secret treaty between Italy and the Entente Powers, the effect of which was that Italy should only ostensibly re- main a member of the Triple Alliance, whereas, in fact, she should be subservient to the interests of the Entente Powers. Has there ever been such a falsification of history? Is it not a notorious fact that it was only under the protection and with the support of her partners in the Triple Alliance that Italy was able to carry out with success her campaign in Tripoli? Is it not well known that it was just the policy of England and of France, of whom the former was apprehen- sive for Egypt and the latter for Tunis, which put all kinds of difficulties in the way of the Italians in their Libyan cam- paign? We may recall the very serious disputes which broke out between France and Italy on account of certain naval inci- dents in the Mediterranean Sea, and which might have in- volved grave consequences had it not been for the support given by the Central Powers. We may recall the French oc- cupation of the hinterland of Tripoli, and the English claims on certain frontier territories between Egypt and Cyrenaica. It was exclusively the existing Triple Alliance that Italy had to thank for the success of her African campaign of plunder. Herr Schiemann suppresses everything that contradicts his THE PREVENTIVE WAR 81 assertion of the existence since 1912 of a Franco-Italian con- spiracy, as well as of a general European conspiracy to make war against Germany and Austria. He is, for instance, en- tirely silent with regard to Giolitti's revelations, which con- stitute a decisive and essential part of my "Antecedents of the Crime." x In contradistinction to the snippets of the professor of history, these revelations however are docu- mentarily proved, both in their date and their text ; they have never at any time been disputed by Austria or Germany, and they prove beyond doubt that in the summer of 19 13 Austria had already planned an aggressive war against Serbia, which was then put into execution in the summer of 19 14. In con- nection with the point now under discussion (the secret agree- ment alleged to have existed for years between Italy and the Entente), Giolitti's revelations prove that such a secret agree- ment cannot possibly have existed : for had it existed, it could not have remained concealed from Austrian and German diplomacy until the summer of 1913, and before executing her aggressive intentions against Serbia, Austria would have taken care not to have asked Italy for her eventual support in any European war that might break out. That later, in the course of the present war at a given point in time, Italy began negotiations with the Entente Powers, and finally in- tervened on their side is another question, on which I have already expressed my opinion. That, however, is a step which was taken after the outbreak of the European War. On the other hand, Schiemann's construction of a conspiracy be- tween Italy and the Entente Powers existing long years be- fore the war (intended along with his other untenable proofs of guilt to confirm the bellicose intentions of the Triple En- tente) is entirely nebulous in its character, and is in contra- diction with all the firmly-established historical facts. On this occasion Schiemann is guilty of a pleasing lapsus. He accuses the Italian Government of that time (1911-12) of a "non plus ultra in perfidy," and this perfidy is to be found more particularly in the fact that the Italian diplomatists stood in the most confidential relations with their Entente 1 See J'accuse, p. 121. 82 THE CRIME friends, but that "simultaneously they allowed the Italian General Staff to consider military measures with ours to meet the event of a war." (A Slanderer, page 20.) Thus the Italian General Staff, and not merely the Austrian, in other words the whole Triple Alliance had down to 19 12, and therefore in all preceding years as well, considered military measures to meet the event of a war! What else did the English, the Russian and the French naval and military staffs do? Did they not also consider military measures to meet the event of a war? Why is it that what they contemplated was on their side an offensive war, whereas on the side of the Triple Alliance it was merely a defensive war? Thus Herr Schiemann disposes of his own argument. These are the "crushing proofs," with which he endeavours to slay the accuser. I should require to write volumes, if I desired to pursue in detail this ludicrous manner of demon- stration, resting on newspaper snippets, on arbitrary con- structions and insinuations, on the interpretation of similar incidents in one sense or another, according to the side from which they emanate. Schiemann's untenable and inconse- quent pamphlets of intrigue are unworthy of so great pains, Nevertheless, it is worth while to show clearly on one point the method adopted by these writers, in order to prove to the German people by what means and by what malice — for Schiemann himself does not believe a word of his accusa- tions — it has been deceived, incited, and no matter how the war ends, led to disaster. If in this place I consider in detail the machinations of Schiemann, what I say applies as em- phatically to the other professor of history, Herr Hans F. Helmolt, whose book, The Secret Antecedents of the World War, teems with as many perversions of the truth as the war- pamphlets of his colleague, Schiemann. The proof of this fact I must reserve for another occasion. The Esprit d'es- calier of the World's History x has ordered that Herr Helmolt should bring out a book under this title — a book which in its sub-title is described as a collection "of historical errors, perversions and inventions." The book is written by 1 [Treppenwitz der Weltgeschichte.] THE PREVENTIVE WAR 83 W. L. Hertslet, and in its eighth edition was prepared and edited by Herr Professor Helmolt. I may express the hope that the ninth edition may be considerably enlarged and en- riched by the perversions and inventions of Herr Helmolt and Herr Schiemann. Lies Have "Short Legs" It is throughout possible to determine how short are the legs with which Schiemann's lies are furnished. Ostensibly the war-conspiracy was hatched in the summer of 1908 in the roadstead at Reval. Nevertheless, Russia's climb-down in the crisis caused by the annexation of Bosnia took place in the spring of 1909; in the summer of 1909, as Schiemann himself relates, the Tsar and the Emperor William met, and the speeches which were then exchanged "permitted the in- ference that Russia would allow herself to become the ally neither of French revenge, nor of the English policy of panic." (A Slanderer, page 33.) Isvolsky is removed from his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Sazonof appointed in his place (Autumn, 1910) ; English and Russian journalists point to the dangers of European tension and preach reconciliation ; from France po- litical friends of the professor write to him "that the public opinion of the country desires to maintain peace, and is re- solved not to act with England" (A Slanderer, page 35). The Emperor William, who stands in the best personal rela- tions to the new English King, George V., goes to London to the funeral of King Edward VII. ; the Tsar comes to Pots- dam accompanied by Sazonof. These are all facts which Schiemann himself relates in detail (A Slanderer, pages 34- 36) ; but in so doing he completely forgets that a few pages previously he has given us a picture of the war-conspiracy, and a few pages later he again depicts it in his pages. In order to solve all these contradictions, mention is made of "contradictory political tendencies" in England, France and Russia, and, in passing, of the lack of independence of the rulers in relation to their bellicose Governments. In short, 84 THE CRIME that he may be able to continue to spin the red thread of the war-conspiracy, the historical scribbler plays ducks and drakes with historical facts, and fits in everything to the needs of the theories which he is construing. The Negotiations for An Anglo^German Understand- ing in the Light of Schiemann's Historical Investigations. The Agadir Incident In the first half of 191 1 the Emperor William went to Lon- don to the unveiling of the memorial to Queen Victoria, and was enthusiastically received by the population. Shortly afterwards, the German Crown Prince attended the corona- tion of King George, and was also most sympathetically re- ceived. In the same period there took place between the two Governments the extremely important negotiations with a view to a political understanding and a simultaneous limitation of naval armaments, which I have already discussed in J'accuse (pages 99-114), and to which I will return in detail in a special chapter. These negotiations were also reflected in the meetings of Parliament in both countries. It may be sufficient to refer here to the meetings of the Reichstag of February 23rd and March 30th, 191 1, in which violent charges — and these not merely from the side of the opposition — were directed against the Chancellor, Herr von Bethmann, on account of the frigid attitude he had assumed towards the English proposals, and in a resolution couched in fairly sharp terms a request was directed to the Government to enter into negotiations with other Powers on the subject of a simultaneous and propor- tional limitation of armaments. I would also refer in this place to Grey's memorable speech of March 13th, 191 1, in which he described the level of the English naval estimates of that time as the "high-water mark," and prophesied the breakdown of civilisation, if some way were not found of restricting the increase of expenditure on armaments, and of arriving at an agreement with Germany. Grey's words and proposals of peace should be compared with the answer of THE PREVENTIVE WAR 85 the Chancellor, von Bethmann Hollweg, in the meeting 1 of the Reichstag of March 30th, 191 1, which merely repeated the wretched hackneyed argument on the other side, that it would be impossible to be sure that the other side was not secretly exceeding the agreed limits (although, as everyone knows, not a gaiter-button on the other side can be concealed from the wonderfully organised system of espionage of all countries, Germany being the most efficient) and that there- fore the question of general disarmament "was insoluble so long as men are men and States are States." And in this argument the Chancellor, acting on the traditional policy of the Prussian opponents of every agreement as to armaments, produced in conscious perversion the bogey of general dis- armament, although in reality in the English proposals of that time, and in all similar proposals, the question was in no way one of general disarmament, but in the first place of a suspension only of armaments on the basis of the status quo, and it was only as a possibility that a later proportional re- duction of armaments was contemplated. As I have said, I propose to enter more fully into this question in a special chapter devoted to the Anglo-German negotiations. For the moment, in settling accounts with the German Deroulede my only purpose is to place in the pillory his tactics of suppression and falsification as exemplified on this point also. Schiemann has not a word to say of all these epoch-making negotiations between the Governments in the first half of 191 1, of their reaction on the parliamentary ne- gotiations, of Grey's peace-utterances, and of their frigid re- jection by the Chancellor. Of Haldane's mission he speaks only in passing. For the better instruction of the accuser he refers to his Understanding-pamphlet Even in this pamphlet, however (pages 22-23), I seek in vain for any- thing bearing on the important events of 191 1. It is true that Schiemann mentions Asquith's speech of July, 19 10, and also the answer which Bethmann gave in December, 1910, although, of course, he is careful not to refer in closer detail to the contents, which implicate the German Govern- ment while exculpating that of England. He makes no men- 86 THE CRIME tion whatever of the speeches and negotiations of the first half of 191 1, down to the occurrence of the Agadir incident; he suppresses also the Crown Prince's visit (although other- wise he attaches enormous importance to the visits of Princes) and instead of dwelling on this, he adds to his ac- count of the Emperor's visit an observation, which it is impossible to verify, in the following words: Immediately after his (the Emperor's) departure, the cam- paign was again renewed, and even while the Emperor William was in London, Grey had already stated to Metternich, our Ambassador, that the agreements concluded between England and France imposed on England the duty of supporting France even if they should remain in Fez for a lengthy period; this could only be understood as signifying that England had promised the French the right of gradually annexing Morocco, and that she was resolved to support them in the process by force of arms. (A Slanderer, page 41.) Since Schiemann omits to quote his authority, I am un- able to determine whether Grey made these observations to Metternich, and if so in what form. Having regard to the complete incredibility of this student of history I do not hesi- tate to tell him to his face that a statement by Grey in the sense that England promised the French the right to annex Morocco and that she would support her in this matter by force of arms, was not and cannot have been made. Pro- duce your evidence, Herr Schiemann. Without evidence I believe nothing you say. Your own statement that the Eng- lish Government had declined to concur in the suggestion of an Anglo-French naval demonstration against the dispatch of the Panther, above all the fact that the English efforts to reach agreement were crowned with success, prove that so prudent a diplomatist as Grey cannot possibly have given expression to such a brutal threat of war, especially while the Emperor was still in London. You invented it, Herr Professor, like nearly all your other similar stories, in order to reveal in that incident, which promoted and promised THE PREVENTIVE WAR 87 peace, the cloven hoof of the war-conspiracy you yourself imagined. The further observations which Schiemann links to his account of the Emperor's visit and to the dispatch of the Panther are extraordinarily characteristic of his method: Our general staff received from their agents information which indicated the gravity of the situation. They pointed to the inten- tion of England to occupy Belgium or Copenhagen in the event of a war. Thus our military attache in Berne on absolutely trustworthy information intimated that the landing of English troops in Belgium had been directly imminent in the course of the summer. It was also an extremely suspicious fact that the tours of the French General Staff at that time and the manoeuvres of the third, fourth and fifth cavalry divisions took place exclu- sively on the Belgian frontier. (A Slanderer, page 42.) Thus: ( 1 ) The agents of our General Staff pointed to England's intention to occupy Belgium or Copenhagen. Our military attache in Berne — Berne of all places! presumably because of its geographical proximity to Brussels and Copenhagen — was quite sure of this. A remarkable state of affairs! Why was it that English troops only appeared in Belgium eigh- teen days after the German invasion of August 4th, 1914, 1 although the Belgian Government had asked for military assistance on August 5th, and Belgium had, as is well known, "sold herself to England many years ago"? Further, why was it that the English in the summer of 1914 did not oc- cupy Copenhagen, which in the summer of 191 1 they had firmly intended to occupy? From the Understanding- pamphlet (page 24) we learn where Herr Schiemann and the German General Staff got this terrifying information with regard to England's intentions: It has not become publicly known, but it has been determined on reliable authority that at that time the English naval attache 1 Waxweiler, page 191. 88 THE CRIME in Rome indicated that in the event of the war which he expected, England would be compelled to occupy Belgium ot Copenhagen. This would certainly be a brutal action, but it would be demanded by historical precedent as well as by the circumstances of the case. We thus have the whole intrigue before us. The English naval attache in Rome (this is in Schiemann's view "deter- mined on reliable authority") indicates that England would be compelled to occupy Belgium or Copenhagen. This stra- tegical idea, the peculiar property of the English naval at- tache in Rome, is communicated to the German military attache in Berne, and by him conveyed to the German Gen- eral Staff. On the way from Rome to Berlin via Berne, the strategical opinions of the English naval attache are trans- formed into a firm intention on the part of the English Gov- ernment and into the immediate imminence of the predatory act in question. It is thus that history is made by Herr Schiemann ! (2) The tours of the French General Staff and the ma- noeuvres on the Belgian frontier constituted, according to Schiemann, "an extremely suspicious fact." I have already asked : Where, then, were the French to manoeuvre, in order not to strike Herr Schiemann as suspicious? Towards the Pyrenees, perhaps, or the Atlantic Ocean?' If Herr Schie- mann were to be satisfied they would not even have been al- lowed to manoeuvre towards the Italian frontier, for in that case he would at once have exclaimed : "Aha ! another proof of the Franco-Italian intrigue; the French are manoeuvring on the Italian frontier in secret agreement with Italy, in order to make it appear as if they considered it possible for a war to arise with the partner in the Triple Alliance; whereas in reality they are all tarred with the same brush." Once more, then, what manoeuvres would really appear to you to be un- suspicious, Herr Schiemann? Clearly, only the Prussian manoeuvres when directed towards Russia and France, and the Austrian when they took place on the Galician frontier. Here again we have the same picture of the student of his- THE PREVENTIVE WAR 89 tory, as we find him in his book, before whom the accuser with his "unscientific method" must stand uncovered. The man omits the most important negotiations between Parlia- ments and Governments, and instead of these he carries on his operations by means of tours of the General Staff, ma- noeuvres and reports from a military attache at Berne — all matters, be it observed, which are not merely insignificant but also unproved. Schiemann achieves a further preposterous falsification in his account of English sentiment after the settlement of the Moroccan conflict. In conscious contravention of the truth he construes a divergency between the tendencies of a section of Liberal public opinion in England and Asquith's Cabinet. This divergency is sheer imagination. All the members of Asquith's Cabinet stood, not in opposition to, but at the head of the movement for an understanding, which arose directly out of the dangerous Agadir conflict. The initiation of the campaign for an understanding is to be found in Grey's speech delivered in Parliament on November 27th, 191 1, of which mention has already been made. The same honour- able fundamental note of a sincere desire to improve the rela- tions with Germany, and in this way to secure a rapproche- ment between the two groups of European Powers, runs through all the speeches and actions of the English Ministers at this time. It would take us too far to consider all these utterances here. I challenge the professor of history to point out a single utterance of Asquith, Haldane, Churchill, or Lloyd George, or of the other members of the English Cab- inet in which they occupied a position which is inconsistent with the Liberal Press notices quoted by Schiemann himself, or in which they preached anything else than an understand- ing and a reconciliation with Germany. Grey's speech of November 27th, 191 1, which has been mentioned on several occasions, is perverted by Schiemann, as I have already pointed out, into its direct contrary, both in its meaning and in its tendency (see Cook, page 29, J 'accuse, pages 106, 107). 90 THE CRIME The speech is, in fact, the initiation of the resumption of the Anglo-German negotiations for an understanding which had been interrupted by the Agadir conflict. Grey expressly em- phasised the fact that the Franco-German settlement "cleaned the slate" with regard to Anglo-German relations as well. Even Schiemann cannot avoid producing from his register of snippets significant English Press extracts in favour of an Anglo-German understanding. Further, he cannot con- ceal the fact that a real military convention between France and England did not exist, but that there was rather another condition of affairs which he depicts as follows: On every occasion when a war appeared to be more or less threatening, the two Governments consulted together, and prom- ised to afford each other mutual military support for a definite pe- riod of time. This was the case in the course of the summer of 1905, as well as at the time of the incident of Casablanca. In the course of this year, however, the Entente Cordiale had become so flexible an instrument, that whenever the circumstances ap- peared to demand it, a military agreement was orally concluded to remain in force for the duration of the crisis, and this led to the exchange of very precise views as to how the military forces of the two nations were to be used. (A Slanderer, page 45.) Here again the Professor gives himself away by involun- tarily revealing the character of the Entente as a defensive and not as an offensive union. Military agreements which were concluded only from case to case, when a war more or less "threatened," or "whenever the circumstances appeared to demand it," and then were only orally determined "for the duration of the crisis," cannot possibly have been agree- ments for an offensive war and for a military attack. The words used by Schiemann himself, "when a war appeared to be threatening," etc., clearly indicate that on all the occa- sions cited by him (1905, 1909, 191 1) war was not intended by the Entente Powers, but was merely dreaded by them — a state of affairs which is diametrically opposed to an inten- tional provocation of war — and that their agreements were designed for defence, and not for aggression. So here again, THE PREVENTIVE WAR 91 as everywhere, lies have short legs because the liars have short memories. I shall speak elsewhere of Haldane's mission of February, 1 91 2 — the immediate consequence of the approximation of the English and German Governments to each other. Here it is sufficient to point out Schiemann's perfidious insinua- tion, which is in agreement with his whole general system, that this mission also was not sincerely intended, but was merely designed "to pacify the sentiment in England, which continued to press more loudly for an understanding with Germany" {How England, etc., page 24), or as we find it expressed in the Slanderer, page 47, "ostensibly to pave the way to an understanding, in reality to reconnoitre and pro- cure new arguments for the policy of the Cabinet which was already firmly established." It is always the same old song. The English Ministers may do what they like; they may make pacific speeches in Parliament — their speeches are sup- pressed or falsified; they may travel to Berlin to negotiate an understanding — deceitful and dishonest motives are ascribed to their journeys; they may make positive proposals for a political understanding and a restriction of armaments — these proposals are ascribed to the evil arriere pensee, that they are designed merely to lull Germany to sleep and to weaken her from a military point of view, in order that stupid Michel might be attacked with the greater security later on. To the account of the failure of Haldane's mission and of Haldane's report (distorted by Schiemann), to which I re- turn later, there is at once added the lying sentence, intended to obliterate in the credulous reader the impression of Eng- land's efforts for peace: It was a policy of war, and the task was to promote every- thing that could be required by the three conspiring Powers against Germany at the moment of the contemplated conflict. That the breach was not provoked earlier was due to considera- tion for Russia, which was backward with her preparations for war and could appeal to the fact that a further period of time 92 THE CRIME had been granted to her in the negotiations of Reval. (A Slanderer, page 48.) In the further description of Anglo-German relations the system of falsification is gaily continued. Churchill's well- known proposals for a naval holiday, which were twice made by the English Minister (in 1912 and 191 3) are quoted by the man of the scientific method of investigation, the de- fender of the truth, who has the audacity to accuse others of conscious slander. He refers to these proposals in the fol- lowing sentence (A Slanderer, page 48) : "Immediately after Haldane's return Churchill delivered his notorious speech, in which he declared that the German fleet was a luxury but the English fleet a necessity." Here again Schie- mann's jugglery consists in selecting from Churchill's speech, though it is true he gives it in a falsified form, an idea which, in fact, occurred in many English ministerial speeches, and which was entirely justified, 1 yet he nevertheless entirely suppresses the essential substance of Churchill's statements. Certainly no one can dispute the justice of the idea expressed by English statesmen, that for England with her then insig- nificant land force, her insular position, and world-wide co- lonial possessions, the navy had a very different importance from what it had for Germany, which, after all, is primarily a Continental State, with relatively insignificant colonial pos- sessions, and with land forces exceeding that of all other countries in efficiency and striking power. This was exclu- sively the idea to which English statesmen gave frequent expression, not with the object of hindering Germany in the development of her fleet, but of explaining their point of view, that England must always adhere to the principle that her naval forces should maintain a certain proportional su- periority over those of Germany. The falsifier of history tears this correct idea from Churchill's speech in a garbled form, and he suppresses the sagacious and weighty proposals 1 See also Grey's speech in Parliament, March 29th, 1909. Cook, page 8. THE PREVENTIVE WAR 93 of the English First Lord for the introduction of a naval holiday between the two countries. Anyone who reads the more detailed accounts of Church- ill's proposal contained in Cook (page 33) and in my book, and compares with these the three lines which the Slanderer gives to Churchill's speech, will be able to form some idea of the love of truth which inspires this journalistic leader of the "true Prussian people." I have carefully ex- amined both his pamphlets, and only once in an enumeration of all the English "specious manoeuvres" of recent years have I found any indication of the naval holiday, and that is contained in a single word without any more detailed ac- count of what it involved {A Slanderer, page 65). While he thus suppresses the essential contents of Churchill's state- ments, in the same passage as that in which he is guilty of this suppression he does not fail to quote as symptomatic of opinion in England English Opposition papers which write against the policy of bringing about an understanding pur- sued by the Liberal Government, and at the same time he quotes the epoch-making fact that Englishmen and French- men took part in the Sokol celebration in Prague, "of which the anti-German character was then so clearly manifested" {A Slanderer, page 48). Over this historical hotch-potch some sauce is then poured from the Temps, and from a mili- taristic speech by Lord Roberts ; the presence of Russian offi- cers and later of the Grand Duke Nicolai Nicolaievitch in France is emphasised, an indiscretion of Gil Bias is added, Poincare's tour to Petrograd and the conspiracy in the Bal- kans are denounced, extracts from Novoye Vremya are in- troduced, the London peace negotiations and finally the Peace of Bucharest are mentioned, more or less in passing, and in the end there is given to this medley of suppression, falsifi- cation and suppression the title: "The great conspiracy of the Entente Powers directed against Austria-Hungary" {A Slanderer, page 54). It is difficult, and indeed impossible without the quotation of whole pages, to give the reader a faithful picture of Schie- mann's poisonous mixture. The reader, overcoming his 94 THE CRIME natural repugnance, should peruse pages 48-54 of the Slan- derer in order to gain enlightenment as to the author and his methods. Lord Roberts, for example, who is well known to have been the most zealous protagonist of universal serv- ice in England, and who in his other views, which were purely militarist in character, showed much similarity to our Bernhardi, is quoted in the same breath as Churchill, Hal- dane and the other Liberal Ministers. And in doing so, the fact is intentionally overlooked that our Bernhardi, whom it is true many would now like to disown, gave classical ex- pression to the views and the endeavours of our imperialists, militarists, Pan-Germans and Junkers, that is to say, of those who were in fact the dominant classes who controlled the Government, whereas Lord Roberts with his militaristic aims stood in sharp opposition to the views and the actions of the Liberal English Cabinet. The authoritative Liberal paper, The Nation, called the ideas of Lord Roberts a code of "morals fitter for a wolf -pack than for a society of Chris- tian men." * It was such wolfish morality that directed Ger- man policy, but in England it was void of significance, nor had it any influence on public opinion, not to speak of the actions of the English Government. It was not until the war had lasted for more than a year that universal compulsory service, which had for years been demanded by Roberts, was introduced into England under the pressure of military necessity. Confession of a Preventive War and Other "Discrepancies" "The brave books of Bernhardi, rightly foreseeing how things were being prepared, pointed to the necessity of seizing the sword before the conspiracy which threat- ened Germany proceeded to action. To-day scarcely anyone will deny that Bernhardi rightly saw and recog- nised the position of affairs" {A Slanderer, pages 6 and 7). [The Nation, October 26th, 1912.] THE PREVENTIVE WAR 95 In these words Herr Schiemann defends the Roberts-Bern- hardi code of wolfish morality, which he condemns for Eng- land, as a right and a necessity for Germany. This is a grateful confession, which involves the clear recognition of the fact that we are not waging a war of defence, but a pre- ventive war. So here again Herr Schiemann has let him- self in. He does so, in fact, at every stage. Immediately after the great conspiracy which for him shines out from the Balkan occurrences, he tells of Poincare's election as President and of Delcasse's appointment as Ambassador at Petrograd (be- ginning of 1913) : "His (Delcasse's) task was to transform the Franco-Russian defensive alliance into a defensive and offensive alliance" (A Slanderer, page 54). So that up till then it was only a defensive alliance! I had thought that ever since the Entente of 1904 between England and France, ever since the Anglo-Russian Entente of 1907, and more par- ticularly since the meeting in Reval in 1908, the war of the Triple Entente against the Triple Alliance was a settled affair. And now suddenly, in 191 3, the offensive alliance is not even yet concluded, but is only in course of preparation as a result of Delcasse's endeavours in Petrograd! Here again I would ask the professor for a friendly explanation of a contradiction which cannot be reconciled by my limited intelligence. There then follows an account of alleged French and Russian intriguing manoeuvres supported by a copious sup- ply of newspaper extracts. The Slav banquets and the ex- change of telegrams with the Tsar in the winter of 191 3, reports from the Temps and from Russian papers which are not even mentioned by name (where does the snippet on page 56 come from?) are all represented as indications of bellicose sentiment. The essential point, however, is again ignored that at the London Conference of Ambassadors Russia, France and England gave way to all the Austrian demands without exception, that they politely turned the Montenegrins out of Skutari, which they had purchased with streams of 96 THE CRIME blood, that they pushed the Serbians back from the Adriatic coast, that they interposed what purported to be the princi- pality of Albania in the way of Serbian efforts to expand, and did not even allow the Serbians their celebrated window on the Adriatic. In short, the Entente Powers accorded an unconditional victory along the whole diplomatic line to the insatiability of Austria, who in certain questions acted in agreement with Italy, her partner in the Triple Alliance. The professor of history suppresses all the facts which are essential and decisive and confines himself to subsidiary points, to banquets, to telegraphic correspondence (in our case also correspondence between Pan-Germans and reigning personalities might be voluminously quoted) and thus he perverts historical truth into its opposite. A masterpiece of creative and inventive talent is achieved by Herr Schiemann in his narrative of the ministerial coun- cil, which the Tsar summoned to his Winter Palace at the beginning of March, 19 13, in order, as Schiemann maintains, to decide on the question of war or peace. The Tsar himself is supposed to have communicated the result of the delibera- tions to the gentlemen in his immediate entourage in the fol- lowing words: "We shall have no war. Suchomlinof, Sazo- nof and Kokofzef say that we require from five to six years in order to get ready" (page 56). I ask Herr Schiemann how he knows so exactly the words which the Tsar spoke to those who were in his immediate presence? How does he know, and how can he prove, that the Tsar indicated that the Russian army would in from five to six years be in a state of preparedness, in the sense which the historian ascribes to him, namely, that in five to six years the aggressive war against Austria and Germany was to begin? I take the liberty of asserting that this narrative of Schie- mann's is a pure invention. As he quotes no authorities, and mentions as witnesses only those who were in the immediate presence of the Tsar, I await his proofs. What is a fact is the compliant disposition shown by Russia in every question without exception which occupied the attention of the Lon- THE PREVENTIVE WAR 97 don Conference of Ambassadors. It is further a fact — and this also is not denied by Schiemann — that after the settle- ment of the questions dealt with at the Conference the ten- sion between Austria and Russia disappeared and an under- standing as to demobilisation was arrived at between them. Finally, it is a fact that it was Austria, and not Russia, who refused to be satisfied with the results of the peace of Bu- charest and in the summer of 191 3 (see Giolitti's revela- tions) contemplated an attack upon Serbia, which had now become too strong for her plans. The historian seeks to get rid of these decisive facts, of which only the second is men- tioned, by inventing the words used by the Tsar regarding the aggressive war intended for a later date. How long will the German people continue to give ear to such perverters of the truth and to follow their words? It is clear that Herr Schiemann must fall into difficulties at every step when he seeks to bring his inventions into har- mony with historically established facts which he is not al- ways in a position to suppress. He then gets out of the diffi- culty by the evasion that the undeniable fact in question is "especially surprising," "very remarkable," etc. The exist- ence of this element of surprise and remarkability depends entirely on Schiemann's inventions being true. Then, indeed, there would be a hitch. But if they are unmasked as inven- tions, the occurrences in question appear at once as entirely logical and reasonable, and are seen to be in complete har- mony with the other facts. Herr Schiemann, for example, is inordinately surprised by the fact (for which he can find no explanation) that in the autumn of 191 3 Russia acqui- esced in Serbia yielding to an Austrian Ultimatum on the occasion of a grave new Austro-Serbian crisis which arose on account of Albania. To anyone who truthfully gives an account of Russia's attitude during the Bosnian crisis of 1908-9 and during the Balkan crisis of 1912-13 there is nothing surprising in Russia's compliant attitude in the au- tumn of 1913. The fact is that Russia always gave way to the Austrian demands, and moved Serbia to compliance. 98 THE CRIME The furthest point to which Russia went in this direction is to be found in the Austro-Serbian conflict of July, 19 14, when she induced the Serbian people, who were akin to her, to submit to a complete diplomatic subjection to the out- rageous and unprecedented demands of Austrian pride. For Herr Schiemann, the inventor and the upholder of the Anglo- Franco-Russian conspiracy, all this is bound to be "remark- able" and "surprising." But to us who know Russia's love of peace and compliant disposition in all conflicts with Aus- tria there is nothing in this which is in any way surprising; it is but the simple continuation of what had throughout been the attitude of the Russian rulers and of their Government towards the maintenance of European peace. Special importance is attached by Schiemann to a visit to Paris made by King George in April, 19 14, accompanied by Grey. In order to show the importance of this visit, he quotes extensively the unsigned reports of German agents in foreign capitals, which are contained in the second German White Book, "Documents relating to the Outbreak of War" (pages 49-57). If the apologists of the German Govern- ment frequently deny the credibility of official papers pub- lished by the Entente Powers in their collections of docu- ments, even when these papers are signed and confirmed by the complete connection existing between the diplomatic oc- currences and the publications, we may well be allowed to add a large mark of interrogation to the anonymous reports which the second German White Book ventures to describe as "Official documents relating to the Outbreak of War," of which, however, we neither know the author nor the place of origin. From what shady sources these unconfirmed re- ports spring may be seen from No. X (White Book, page 56), where we are furnished with a copy of a letter, dated from Petrograd on July 12/2 5th, 19 14, and addressed by his adjutant to a Russian Grand Duke who was at the time abroad. The letter "proves in my humble way of thinking" ■ — so the agent who transmits it observes in his covering letter — "that since the 24th of the month war has been re- THE PREVENTIVE WAR 99 solved on in Russia." How can the German agent have obtained the copy of such a private letter? What can have been the "confidential method" of which he made use for this purpose? For the rest these "official documents" fur- nish not the slightest proof for the assertion which Schie- mann extracts from them "that the war against Germany- had been resolved on in principle since 1909, and that since that time it was merely a question of seeking the opportunity of conducting it with the greatest possibility of an assured prospect of success" (A Slanderer, page 64). Correspondence Between Grey and Cambon, November, 1912 The "agreement" between England and France — if the correspondence of November 22nd and 23rd, 1912, between Grey and Paul Cambon (Blue Book, No. 105; Enclosures 1 and 2) can indeed be called an agreement — bore, as Schie- mann himself is forced to admit, a conditional character "pour sauver la face." In reality it was neither an agree- ment, nor did it- bear a conditional character, but on the con- trary made it quite clear that each of the two Governments, notwithstanding the consultations which had taken place be- tween naval and military experts, should retain full free- dom to decide whether they would or would not afford mili- tary support to the other in the event of a future war. ("That such consultation does not restrict the freedom of either Government to decide at any future time whether or not to assist the other by armed force. We have agreed that consultation between experts is not, and ought not to be re- garded as, an engagement that commits either Government to action in a contingency that has not arisen and may never arise. The disposition, for instance, of the French and Brit- ish fleets respectively at the present moment is not based upon an engagement to co-operate in war.") Even in the event of an unprovoked attack on France or England by a third Power, that is to say, in the event of a purely defensive war, the other Power was to be under no 100 THE CRIME obligation to give military assistance, but "it should immedi- ately discuss with the other whether both Governments should act together to prevent aggression and to preserve peace, and, if so, what measures they would be prepared to take in common. If these measures involved action, the plans of the General Staffs would at once be taken into considera- tion, and the Governments would then decide what effect should be given to them." Anyone who desires to form an independent view of these Anglo-French negotiations, which in the discussions of the defenders of the German Government play a much greater part than they really deserve, is recommended to read care- fully the correspondence between Grey and Paul Cambon (Blue Book, No. 105; Enclosures 1 and 2). He who under- takes the slight trouble involved in so doing will at once rec- ognise that all the conclusions drawn from these documents by our German Governmental Press are entirely void of sub- stance, and that in reality these documents do not impose on one Power or on the other the slightest obligation to afford military support. The external form of the correspondence — Grey writes, "My dear Ambassador," and Cambon an- swers, "Cher Sir Edward" * — is in itself an indication that we are here concerned, not with treaties between States, but with a written confirmation of oral conversations, which it was desired to protect against misunderstandings or possible perversions in malicious quarters. Of course if all the ut- terances of the Entente diplomatists are represented as de- liberate deception "pour sauver la face," as is systematically done by our "historians," and if some other concealed inten- tion is sought behind every word, then here again it would be possible, as is, in fact, done by Helfferich, Schiemann, and their friends in the case of the letters exchanged in Novem- ber, to describe the written confirmation of oral conversa- tions as a specious manoeuvre, and to seek behind the ap- pearance a reality for which no evidence whatever exists. 1 It is significant that the intimate form of address thus adopted by Cambon is omitted in the German White Book (page 51), whereas it is included in the second enclosure to No. 105 of the Blue Book. THE PREVENTIVE WAR 101 Anyone who reads the words which Schiemann adds in men- tioning the "agreement" of November, 19 12, according to which "England, bound hand and foot, was, in fact, in a state of dependence on the decisions which it might please Russia or France to take" (page 64) and compares with this statement the strict emphasis which Grey laid on the fact that each Government was to reserve full freedom in arriv- ing at a decision in the event of an unprovoked attack, will be able to appreciate the degree of brazen perversion to which these Prussian historians have advanced. Moreover, not merely the frank manner in which the Eng- lish Government made public the letters exchanged in No- vember, 1912 (in the Blue Book and in Grey's speech of August 3rd, 19 14), but also the actual behaviour of England after the outbreak of war between Germany and Russia and between Germany and France, proves that England was nei- ther bound to France or Russia by her hands or her feet, nor even by her little finger, but rather that she remained com- plete mistress of her own decisions. If the letters in ques- tion had in fact constituted an obligation resting upon Eng- land to make war, which had been in existence for two years, the English Government would not have printed them in the Blue Book, and laid them before a public session of Parlia- ment. Had England been bound to France since the end of 1912, it would be impossible to explain the conditional and restricted promise of naval support which Grey gave on August 2nd, 191 4, and the feeling of satisfaction evoked in France in consequence. The promise of August 2nd, when contrasted with the agreement of November, 19 12, would have been a diminution, and France ought in consequence to have been indignant instead of being satisfied and grateful. Had the letters exchanged in 191 2 bound England hand and foot to make war, England would not have been in a position to send to Germany on the evening of August 4th, an Ulti- matum which demanded exclusively the non-violation of Bel- gian neutrality, and thus in the event of compliance with this demand desisted from participation in the war. Had Eng- land been bound hand and foot for two years, she would in 102 THE CRIME any case have been obliged, with or without the violation of Belgian neutrality, to intervene as the ally of France when war broke out on the previous day between France and Ger- many. Thus the text of the letters, the circumstances of their pub- lication, and the actual behaviour of England prove beyond dispute that the documents of November, 1912, are to be understood in the sense in which they were written, that they represent, not an external show, but the substance itself, and that this substance is something entirely negative, the exclusion of any obligation to give assistance in a war. Further, the manner in which Paul Cambon in his con- versation with Grey on July 30th, 191 4 (Blue Book, No. 105), referred to the correspondence of 191 2 confirms the absolutely unbinding character of this correspondence. Cam- bon reminded the English Secretary of State of the letters exchanged, but expressly added that he did not wish to ask Grey to say directly that England would intervene, but he would like to hear from Grey what England would do if cer- tain circumstances arose, "the particular hypothesis he had in mind was an aggression by Germany on France." Grey declined to enter into the questions raised by Cambon, and referred him to the meeting of the Cabinet next day. I have already shown elsewhere in detail that the result of the meeting of the Cabinet was a strict refusal to give any un- dertaking to intervene in any war that might arise (Blue Book, Nos. 106 and 119). Would it have been possible for the English Cabinet to assume this attitude if the corre- spondence of 1912 had constituted an obligation binding England hand and foot, a state of dependence on France and Russia, as Schiemann endeavours to delude his readers into believing? At every stage we are presented with the same picture : the concealed intentions ascribed to the English Government are in contradiction with all the documentarily proved facts. On the other hand, if the actions and the statements of England, as of her partners in the Entente, are taken as what they pur- THE PREVENTIVE WAR 103 port to be, as the honourable expression of their real inten- tions, they are found to be in complete agreement with all the proved facts and to form a complete chain of evidence — a fact which no doubt is highly inconvenient to our German historians. When Grey stated in Parliament on June nth, 191 4, as Asquith had done a year previously, that "there were no unpublished agreements which would restrict or hamper the freedom of the Government or of Parliament to decide whether or not Great Britain should participate in a war," he was not, as Schiemann suggests, guilty of a Mac- chiavellian statement intended to conceal the truth; on the contrary, he represented in the most correct manner the true situation of affairs. The naval discussions with Russia, the authenticity of which I am neither in a position to dispute nor to admit, could not possibly have a more extensive char- acter than the discussions between English and French mili- tary officers initiated some years before. The significance or the latter, or rather their complete lack of significance in the sense of an alliance for war, may be seen in the corre- spondence of November, 1912. If similar discussions be- tween English and Russian naval experts were proposed, or if they had already been initiated, the only purpose to which they could be directed would be that of technical consulta- tions to meet the contingency of a war; they could in no way constitute the basis of an obligation resting on England to participate in war. When Grey denied not only the exist- ence of any agreement as to an alliance, but also the fact that any such negotiations were in progress and finally -even the likelihood that any such negotiations would ever be en- tered upon, I do not know how he could have expressed him- self more comprehensively or more precisely. The German Government itself in its Documents relating to the Outbreak of War (pages 53, 54) cannot avoid quoting expressions from English papers and politicians which define the mean- ing of Grey's speech in the following sense : "England is not in the leading-strings of any other country. She is not the vassal of Russia, nor the ally of France, and she is not the enemy of Germany." Someone in intimate relations with 104 THE CRIME Grey — so reports the second German White Book — had most definitely given the assurance: that no agreements of a military or naval nature existed between England and France, although the desire for such had repeatedly been made known on the French side. What the English Cabinet had refused to give to France it would not grant to Russia. No naval convention had been concluded with Russia, and none would be concluded. The assertion that England before the outbreak of war had, at an earlier or later date, already undertaken an obliga- tion towards Russia or France to participate in the war is thus not only unproved but is directly refuted. Even if we assume that such a promise of participation were proved (which is not the case), the further assertion that this par- ticipation in war was promised for an offensive, and not merely for a, defensive war is quite unsubstantiated. This, however, is the cardinal point in the whole affair. Could an accusation rightly be brought against England even if she had in fact made herself the ally of France or Russia against an unprovoked attack on the part of Germany? Had not England the same right as Germany to conclude defensive alliances? An accusation could only be brought against Eng- land if she had allied herself with Russia and France for an aggressive war against Germany and Austria. This is the only point that matters. This is the object pursued by all the discussions of Schiemann and his friends. As they are, however, unable to produce even a vestige of proof in sup- port of the assertion that England had made any kind of a promise to participate in war, still more do they fail to fur- nish any proof that she gave any such undertaking with re- gard to an offensive war. No attempt even is made by any of the defenders of Germany to prove this. They invent the alliance for war, and they add to this the further invention of an alliance for an offensive war. On a paper foundation they erect a structure of clay; it need surprise no one that their construction miserably collapses. THE PREVENTIVE WAR 105 In these discussions on the agreements for a conspiracy alleged to have been made in Paris in the spring of 1914 Herr Schiemann has also, as so often happens, the misfortune of giving himself away and of forgetting the part he is playing. We all know that the conspiracy for war was concluded, ac- cording to Schiemann, at Reval in June, 1908. The war of the Entente against Germany and Austria was from that mo- ment a settled affair, and henceforward it was merely a ques- tion of waiting for the most favourable opportunity of strik- ing the blow. If this is correct, a naval agreement with Russia must have been in the highest degree welcome to the English Government. The English Government must also have endeavoured to prepare, as far as in them lay, the in- tended annihilation of Germany by entering into increasingly closer military relations with the two other Entente Powers. Nevertheless, the anonymous writer of a Report in the Ger- man White Book (page 52) tells us — and Schiemann inad- visedly repeats what he says — that "the satisfaction of the Russian and French diplomatists on the fact that the English politicians had again been taken by surprise was great." The "surprise" consisted in the common decision of the Entente Powers to consider a naval agreement between England and Russia, and to conduct the negotiations on the matter be- tween English and Russian naval officers in London. How, I ask, should this be a "surprise," if England had already been since 1908 an ally of the two other robber States, and was eagerly awaiting the most favourable moment for the attack? You again contradict yourself, Herr Schiemann! Your "surprise" is inconsistent with the conspiracy of Reval. The Historical Antecedents and the History of the Crime As I have already pointed out, the author of the Slanderer does not enter into the essential contents, the central point of my book, that is to say, the inquiry into the immediate cause of the war and the responsibility for the war. He refers to certain books and writings, which are said to in- 106 THE CRIME vestigate the question of guilt by reference to the official publications "with scientific thoroughness, exhaustively and impartially," and to leave "not a point standing in the asser- tions of the accuser" (page 67). For my part I decline to honour the draft which the historian Schiemann has drawn on other alleged investigators of history and to take up the cudgels with Herr Ludwig Bergstrasser whom Schiemann puts before him as a screen. I have chosen a more weighty and more highly-placed opponent, the Secretary for State, Dr. Helfferich; and I am conscious that in J' accuse and in this supplementary work I have annihilated the degree of guilt against the Entente Powers expressed, and presumed to have been proved, by him, and I am satisfied that I have proved more firmly and unshakably than before my own de- cree of guilt against the Central Powers. It is an impossible task which would demand half a lifetime, if after the chief opponent is out of the way, it should still be necessary to cross swords with all his seconds. The method of these gen- tlemen is everywhere the same. In refuting Helfferich, they are all refuted. I believe that I may rest content with having disposed of Helfferich's thesis of incendiarism. Herr Schiemann, however, sets himself too easy a task. He discusses, in his own way, in sixty-seven pages the more remote antecedents of the war, but, relying on other inquir- ers, he declines any discussion of the immediate antecedents. This standpoint is in itself mistaken and illogical. It is sug- gestive of the action of a barrister who should restrict him- self to an inquiry into the past life of the accused, without discussing the charge brought against him. Even if Schie- mann's assertion that France, Russia and England had planned and intended an aggressive war against the Central Powers were as correct and as completely demonstrated as it is incorrect and undemonstrated, it would not by a long way follow that the present war was the aggressive war in- tended by the Entente Powers. This is all the less so, inas- much as Schiemann himself postpones the aggressive inten- tions until a later period of time. If two persons, of whom one has a shady past and the other a spotless record, are THE PREVENTIVE WAR 107 suspected of an action that has in fact taken place, it does not follow from the shady past of the one that he has com- mitted the deed. Even if the suspected man were a pre- viously convicted criminal, and not merely a man in whom there is ground "for suspecting the deed," his past life is in no way sufficient to justify his being regarded as convicted of the deed. His past life gives a reason for suspicion, and nothing more. The deed itself has to be proved against him. It is exactly the same in passing a judgment on the respon- sibility for the present war. Even if France, England or Russia had been previously convicted criminals, that is to say (transferred into the sphere of politics) even if in the course of post-Napoleonic history since the rearrangement of Europe by the Congress of Vienna, they had carried out warlike attacks on European Great Powers — which in view of Bismarck's confessions with regard to the origin of the war of 1870, cannot as we know be asserted even of the France of the time of Napoleon III. — they would not, by vir- tue of this criminal past, be thereby convicted of the guilt of the present war. Even acts of war in the past would not suffice to prove guilt, still less would intentions to make war in the future. Even if I were to take at their face value all that Schie- mann and his friends bring forward with regard to the malicious and treacherous war conspiracy of the Entente Powers, even if I were to forget for the moment Bernhardi's assertion that the Entente Powers had no need to think of an aggressive war, 1 in short, if I were to take as immovable verities the brazen falsifications of the professor of history, there has still been produced not the slightest proof that this war of 19 14 was provoked by France, Russia and Eng- land. The position is quite otherwise. The evil intentions of the other side would be proved, but not the execution of these intentions, to which indeed, if we accept the time given by Schiemann himself, effect was only to be given some 1 See J' accuse, page 28. ( 108 THE CRIME years later. Just because of the evil intentions of the En- tente Powers, which after all must have been known to the German Government as well as to Herr Schiemann, it would be reasonable to consider that there were grounds for the suspicion, indeed for considering it probable, that Germany- had anticipated the aggressors, in order to avoid by a pre- ventive war the attack which was alleged to be intended. Thus all the arguments of Schiemann and his people tend to confirm the preventive war, but contradict, although in- voluntarily, the thesis of a war of defence. In an earlier passage I have already pointed out an open admission on the part of Schiemann that this is a preventive war. Another admission of the same nature runs as follows : "It is also historically an untenable view that a pre- ventive war cannot in view of its character be a war of defence. What, then, was the war which for seven long years Frederick the Great waged for the main- tenance of the Prussian State, if it were not a war of defence, a war in which he would have been lost, had he not chosen to anticipate events? The saying which was often applied in the 17th century, Melius est prae- venire quam praeveniri, is an entirely fitting description of the decision before which Frederick stood, and cor- responds to the facts with which we had to reckon in August, 1 914" {A Slanderer, page 7). In this passage the whole of official Germany, from the Emperor down to the last Governmental hack, are given the lie. Schiemann, the spokesman of the Prussian Junker party, the habitue and the confidant of the Wilhelmstrasse, the much read and, especially in the highest place of all, the much respected weekly reviewer of the Kreuzzeitung, the mouth- piece and frequently also the prompter of the Prussian au- thorities — Schiemann, who must know better than anyone else, admits that Germany was not attacked but provoked the war, in order to anticipate a future attack. It only remains to investigate the questions, THE PREVENTIVE WAR 109 Firstly, whether a preventive war can, in fact, be defended on moral and political grounds; and Secondly, in the event of the first question being answered in the affirmative, whether the actual presuppositions of pre- vention existed in the summer. of 191 4. We shall go into these questions in detail in the following chapter. CHAPTER II THE THEORY AND THE PRACTICE OF THE PREVENTIVE WAR When in my book I spoke of the "gigantic lie" by means of which the German people has been enticed into this war, I intended primarily to give expression merely to the nega- tive thought that the assertions that there had been a hostile attack and that this was a war of defence were deliberate untruths, designed for the deception of the German people. Of these untruths all have been guilty who knew that no such attack had been made, above all those who provoked the war by word and writing, and by the course of action which they in fact pursued. The motives which induced the various individuals or groups to act as they did are a matter of in- difference so far as the moral judgment is concerned. The supporters of the view that this is a preventive war have lied equally with those who advocate a war of conquest. In the case of the former it is at the most possible to allow mitigating circumstances, if they earnestly and sincerely be- lieved in the future attack and considered that anticipation was necessary. Mitigating circumstances, I say, may be allowed, but there can be no acquittal. Bismarck and the Preventive War On the question of the moral justification of preventive wars much, and it must be admitted much that is contradic- tory, has been spoken and written. The strongest witness against preventive wars is Prince Bismarck. His observa- tions against preventive wars contained in his Gedanken und 110 THEORY AND PRACTICE 111 Erinnerungen 1 have frequently been quoted and have also been mentioned in my book (page 44). In his famous speech in the Reichstag on February 6th, 1888, he spoke as follows: "If I were to come before you and say: We are seriously menaced by France and by Russia : it is to be foreseen that we shall be attacked; that is my conviction as a diplomatist, based also on military information; for our defence it is better to em- ploy the anticipatory thrust of the attack and open hostilities at once; accordingly I ask the Reichstag for a credit of a milliard of marks in order to start the war against both our neighbours — well, gentlemen, I do not know whether you have sufficient con- fidence in me to vote such a grant. I hope not. ... It is not fear which disposes us to peace, but the consciousness of our strength, the consciousness that even if we were attacked at an unfavourable moment, we shall be strong enough for our defence ; and we shall keep the chance of peace, leaving it to Divine Provi- dence to determine whether in the meantime the necessity of war may not disappear. The attempt has been made to create a divergence between the Bismarck after 1870 and the Bismarck before 1870, and it has been asserted that his later aversion from preventive wars was a "mere trifle," after he himself, especially in the provocation of the Franco-German War, had successfully made use of the means of prevention with all the ruthless- ness of genius. This attempt of our Imperialists and chau- vinists to claim the great German statesman as an abettor in their instigations to war is baseless. Napoleon's attitude after the day of Sadowa, during the Luxemburg crisis of 1867 and throughout the following years down to the outbreak of war, proved conclusively that the impulse of the German people towards a new German Empire, an impulse justified from the historical and national point of view, found in the French Emperor an inexorable opponent, and that this hos- tility could be overcome only by blood and by iron. Napo- leon's enmity to German unity was a fact, not an apprehen- 1 [English translation. Bismarck: His Reflections and Reminiscences. Smith Elder.] 112 THE CRIME sion or a supposition. The establishment of this unity was a national right, and the effort in this direction was a his- torical necessity for the German people. It was an effort towards a new formation within and towards consolidation, which was not aggressively directed against other European Powers and contained no expansive tendencies beyond the German frontier; it was in no way intended to injure the rights and the interests of third parties. To place obstacles in the way of this effort for national unity on the part of the German people was a crime. The watchword, "revanche pour Sadowa," was a nefarious cry, an act of presumption against which the national consciousness of the German peo- ple rightly revolted. The decision to free Germany from this Bonapartist tutelage was not a preventive act, but the shaking off of a political yoke which in fact existed ; it was a struggle of the German people for freedom, for the right to control its destinies in its inner political development; it was a counterpart to the struggle for freedom of 1813, which had shaken off externally the yoke of foreign domination. From all this it follows that the opposition on principle to preventive wars shown by the great German statesman was not merely the attitude of the sated beast of prey, which after the satisfaction of its appetites lies carelessly in the sun with no thought of further murder; on the contrary, it corresponded to Bismarck's deeply-rooted inner views, which rested on moral and religious grounds alike, as well as on grounds of practical statesmanship. As a matter of fact, the Prussian Junker, Herr von Bismarck-Schonhausen, had already spoken the following words in the Prussian Landtag in December, 1850. 1 It is easy for a statesman in his office or his chamber to blow the trumpet of war with the breath of popularity and all the time to sit warming himself by the fireside, or to deliver fiery speeches from the tribune, while he leaves it to the rifleman who lies bleed- 1 1 have taken the following quotations from Bismarck from the excel- lent little pamphlet published by the Society "Neues Vaterland," under the title 'What would Bismarck have done?" THEORY AND PRACTICE 113 ing on the snow, whether his system attains victory and glory. Nothing is easier ; but woe to the statesman who at such a time does not look about for a reason for the war which will be valid when the war is over. 1 The attitude which he took up against Moltke's desire for the provocation of war in 1867 on the occasion of the Luxemburg question is explained by Bismarck in his Gedan- ken und Erinnerungen (Volume II, page 230) as follows: At the time of the Luxemburg question ( 1867) I was an op- ponent on principle of preventive wars, that is to say of aggressive wars which we would conduct only because we presumed that we would later have to wage them against a better armed enemy. The same point of view against "anticipatory wars" was adopted by an article in the Hamburger Nachrichten, in- spired by the old Chancellor (November 4th, 1892) : The conclusion has sometimes been drawn in military circles that the prospect of having probably to wage a war later furnishes sufficient grounds for beginning it earlier under more favourable circumstances ; and one of the chief reasons for the dislike mani- fested by these classes towards the then Chancellor is to be found in the fact that at all times he very definitely opposed such antic- ipatory wars. An article which appeared in the Hamburger Nachrichtert (evening edition of May 3rd, 1890) a few weeks after Bis- marck's resignation, breathing in every word the spirit and the style of the old Chancellor, attacks even more strongly the supporters of preventive wars. The Kreuszeitung recently published, with entire approval and laudatory recognition of its contents, extracts extending to col- umns from an anonymous pamphlet published by Kay in Cassel bearing the title : Videant consules ne quid res publica detrimenti capiat. The pamphlet, which is directed against the foreign and military policy pursued under Prince Bismarck, comes to the conclusion that Germany, while she was still the stronger party • (See Headlam : Life of Bismarck, page 83.] 114 THE CRIME from the military point of view, should have again settled matters with France, and should then have turned her whole forces against Russia, the true enemy of the nation; but that Prince Bismarck prevented this, so that all the sacrifices imposed on the German people have been in vain. By its attitude towards a pamphlet which makes it a charge against Prince Bismarck that he prevented two bloody wars, the Kreuzzeitung confirms the existence of bellicose undercurrents which on other occasions it has zealously combated. . . . We leave it to the Kreuzzeitung to determine how it is to explain the situation in which it has thereby brought itself ; but we are struck by the frankness with which the paper acknowledges the nefarious programme devel- oped in the pamphlet. On another occasion Bismarck coined the epigram which is so characteristic of his plastic method of expression, that the anticipation of a possible attack seemed to him like sui- cide in the expectation of death. These and similar expressions of Bismarck are well known. Less well known, however, are the individual cases in which he had to exert all his authority in order to oppose military influences on the decision of questions relating to the beginning or the conclusion of wars. Strategy and Diplomacy In a short paper of much interest entitled, "Military Strategy Versus Diplomacy in Bismarck's Time and After- wards" Munroe Smith, Professor of Jurisprudence in Co- lumbia University, shows by reference to Bismarck's memoirs and other similar German works the almost uninterrupted struggle which the old Chancellor had to carry on against the generals, with Count Moltke at their head — the struggle on the question whether wars which appear inevitable should or might be intentionally provoked at a moment when military superiority over the enemy is assured. Even in 1864, in the war waged in common by Germany and Austria against Denmark, strong military influences were at work to persuade the King of Prussia to cross the Jut- THEORY AND PRACTICE 115 land frontier alone without Austria. The old Field-Marshal Wrangel could not refrain from sending to the King the most calumnious telegrams against Bismarck, and that not even in cipher, and he even went so far as to speak of diplo- matists who belonged to the gallows. 1 In 1866 the opposition of the military party to Bismarck's statecraft was shown not only before the beginning of the war, but still more at its conclusion. Although the war with Austria appeared inevitable, Bismarck did not at once precipitate matters, but allowed Austria to take the lead at every stage in the military preparations. In the middle of March Austria concentrated her troops in Bohemia. Prussia's answer to this was restricted to placing her active army in a state of readiness for war. In the course of April some of the German Federated States began to make military preparations. On April 8th Bismarck concluded a treaty with Italy. Austria and Italy mobilised. It was not until the first half of May that Prussia mobilised her reserves and began to concentrate troops on the Saxon frontier and in Silesia. Then Bismarck waited; Moltke, however, lost pa- tience and wished military operations to begin forthwith since every day's delay would strengthen the enemy's forces which so far were imperfectly equipped and only partially concentrated. King William, however, supported Bismarck and kept the Prussian troops mobilised for almost a month without attacking. It was not until open aggression on the part of Austria took place that Bismarck authorised the begin- ning of hostilities. 2 The same differences between the statesmen and the strate- gists as we find at the beginning of the war of 1866 are also shown on its conclusion in the formulation of the conditions of peace. Here again Bismarck put in practice the principles which in his Gedanken and Erinnerungen he defines in the statement that "the determination and the delimitation of the objects of a war are, both before and during the war, political and not strategical problems, and that the responsible states- 1 Gedanken und Erinnerungen, page 323. 2 Sybel, Begriindung des deutschen Retches, vol. iv., page 421. 116 THE CRIME man, in order to find the right way to the attainment of these aims, dare not remain without influence on the conduct of the war itself." As is known, it was on these principles that he acted on the conclusion of peace with Austria. He waived the victorious entry into Vienna, the cession of Austrian ter- ritory, the imposition on Austria of a large war-indemnity, because even then he foresaw that he would need Austria as an ally in Europe, and that therefore he could not afford to incur her enduring enmity by the imposition of degrading and oppressive conditions of peace. Special interest attaches to Munroe Smith's reference to the divergence of view which existed between Bismarck and Moltke a year after the war between Austria and Prussia on the possibility of a Franco-German war on the occasion of the Luxemburg question in 1867. As far back as 1867 Moltke desired the outbreak of war with France, which he considered absolutely inevitable. He desired an immediate breach, because he was of the opinion that the indubitable superiority which Germany then enjoyed from a miltary point of view might later be made good by France. Count Bethusy-Huc communicated Moltke' s view to the Chancellor, who did not indeed disapprove of the military considerations advanced by Moltke, but refused to accept any responsibility for the provocation of a war. The per- sonal conviction of a statesman that a war might ultimately break out, no matter how well founded it might be, could not in his opinion justify its provocation. Unforeseen events might alter the situation and avert what appeared inevitable. 1 After the Franco-German War Bismarck again resisted military influences and declined the confiscation of purely French territories which was desired and suggested by the military authorities. He contented himself with the an- nexation of Alsace-Lorraine, and in this case it is true that alongside the national point of view he also allowed military 1 See Moltke's Memoiren, Vol. II., 204 and Bismarck's Gedanken und Erinnerungen, page 441. THEORY AND PRACTICE 117 considerations to have influence to a certain extent. This, perhaps the only, concession made by Bismarck to military considerations has had fatal consequences for Germany and for Europe. It is indeed, in the last analysis, the origin and the germ of the present war. Had France then received the treatment meted out to Austria after 1866 there would presumably have arisen from the first a more friendly re- lation between the two neighbouring countries, more particu- larly as the war had after all been begun only against the French Empire and not against the third Republic. It may be presumed that the frenzy of armaments would not have assumed the enormous proportions which in the end could not but lead to war. In place of the dangerous system of the balance of power, there would have arisen a European condition of peace, which would have guaranteed to each State its natural conditions of existence, and would have pre- pared a propitious soil for the pacific settlement of all extra- European questions. Bismarck's one concession to the gen- erals was fatal for the whole of Europe's future. This should have been a warning and an instructive ex- ample for our present-day statesmen. Had they not fallen in with "the purely military consideration of the question by the General Staffs" (Red Book, No. 28), had they fol- lowed during the critical days from July 29th to July 31st the Bismarckian principle that no explanation should be de- manded from neighbouring States as to concentrations of troops, but that the answer in such cases should be restricted simply to military counter-measures (see Bismarck's speech on February 6th, 1888), had they been content with the threat expressed in Jhe Ultimatum of July 31st, that mobilisa- tion would be answered by mobilisation instead of changing it seventeen hours later into the formula, "The answer to mobilisation is war," — had they so comported themselves, we would not have been to-day in the midst of a European war. * * * * * * Bismarck's successor, Caprivi, like his predecessor, was also called upon to suffer from the craving for war of a 118 THE CRIME camarilla which on every occasion admitted the validity merely of the point of view of momentary military superi- ority, while attaching no importance to political, moral, or humane considerations. He also, in one of his speeches in the Reichstag, expressed himself with the utmost emphasis against the preventive war (November 23rd, 1892). I have found the view put forward in the Press, and also ad- vanced by well-meaning and highly patriotic men: "Yes, but think of the position that arises from the fact that armaments are so heavy as these we now have to bear, and that they are likely to become even heavier. Will such a position not in time become intolerable, and would we not be acting more wisely to put an end to it by grasping the sword ourselves, by seizing the favourable moment and then by making use of the victory which we may hope to achieve, once more secure peace for twenty or thirty years?" I believe that that is a view which the Govern- ments, and the German people also, will never be disposed to accept. Apart from moral scruples which lie in the way, there are also grave material considerations which oppose the execu- tion of such ideas. ... I am firmly convinced that even after a happy issue of a prophylactic war the condition in which we would be placed would be much more unfavourable than that in which we are now situated. I repeat, then, not only as my own conviction but so far as is known to me as the view of the Governments, that such a preventive war will never be waged by Germany. A. H. Fried rightly points out in mentioning the speech of Caprivi, how little cogency there is in the phrase about the "inevitability" of a war, which is constantly repeated by the inciters of strife. At that time, in 1892, "well-meaning and highly patriotic men" thought of securing peace for twenty or thirty years by a new Franco-German war, which would undoubtedly have been widened into a European war. Yet even without such a war, peace was secured for twenty- two years, and would have been continuing at this moment, had the Governments and the rulers of Germany and Austria resisted the suggestion of the militarists and war-inciters as Bismarck and Caprivi did. In any case, it has been shown THEORY AND PRACTICE 119 subsequently that the war alleged to be inevitable in 1892 was in fact avoided, and that notwithstanding this it was still possible that a peace of twenty or thirty years could result. Frederick the Great The defenders of the preventive war show a predilection for relying on certain expressions used by Frederick the Great : There are wars of prevention, and princes act wisely when they undertake these. They are really wars of aggression, but they are not therefore less just. When the excessive power of a State threatens to overflow its banks and inundate the world, it is prudent to place dams in its way and to stem the tearing stream while such a course is still possible. It is seen that the clouds are gathering, that the thunderstorm is drawing near and the lightning proclaims its approach. If a prince who is menaced by such a danger cannot avert the storm acting alone, he will, if he is wise, unite with all those to whom a common danger brings common interests. Had the Kings of Egypt, Syria and Macedonia united against the power of Rome, Rome would never have been in a position to overthrow these empires. A wisely concluded alliance and a war waged with decision would have annihilated those ambitious plans whose fulfilment forged fetters for the world. It is wise to prefer the lesser evil to the greater, and to choose the surest way to avoid what is uncertain. A prince therefore adopts the better course in undertaking an aggressive war, so long as it is still open to him to choose between the laurel-wreath and the olive branch, instead of waiting until the time of need when a declaration of war can only postpone for a short time his bondage and his downfall. It is a well- established principle that it is better to anticipate than to be an- ticipated; the great men have thus always acted well when they exercised their power before the enemy could take measures which might have bound their hands and robbed them of their strength. These and similar expressions of the Great Prussian king are to be explained by reference to the conditions of his time. The political conformation of Europe at that time still re- 120 THE CRIME sembled a molten fiery mass which required many years before it could cool down to a relatively solid state. In par- ticular the small State of Prussia, which had become a king- dom only within the last fifty years, was on the point of gain- ing a territorial position corresponding with her inner strength and efficiency, and the opposition that was put in the way of this development came pre-eminently from the old power of the Hapsburgs, who had allied themselves with the French and the Russians for the suppression of the new rival. The State of Prussia, at that time really "encircled" on all sides and compelled to make good the defects of her territorial, political and financial situation by military preparedness and extreme rapidity of action, was then struggling to rise, and in the time of Frederick the Great it might under certain circumstances find its only salvation in the anticipation of imminent attacks, and by peacefully waiting might find its destruction compassed. In addition, the danger of wanton wars, springing from dynastic considerations or from motives of power and conquest, is to-day quite different from what is was then, when dynasties fought out their battles almost exclusively with armies of mercenaries, without Parliamen- tary control or approval of war-expenditure, without any in- fluence being exercised by the peoples on the provocation or the conclusion of the wars which had been decided upon by the absolute monarchs. At that time a small, struggling State, which was inconvenient to its great neighbours was indeed confronted by the danger of being surprised in a sense which is no longer true to-day, when, after all is said, not- withstanding all open or concealed absolutism, the nations are entitled to a share in counsel and in action. Or perhaps we should rather say: "In a sense which should no longer be true to-day," for, unfortunately, the history of the origin of this war, especially the attack on Belgium, has taught us that we have no occasion to boast pharisaically of our prog- ress in civilisation as compared with past times. In passing judgment on Frederick's preventive theories, it is further necessary to consider the enormous difference between the consequences of a war at that time, even of THEORY AND PRACTICE 121 one extending over seven years, and those of a world-war to-day. Seven days of the present world-war inflicts on the whole world, on belligerent countries, and on neutrals, a thousand-fold greater distress, a thousand-fold greater loss in life and in well-being and in the ruin of civilisation than seven years of the war which Prussia then waged against Austria and her allies. At that time in the age of stage- coaches and sailing vessels, there was yet no question of a world-trade, a world-intercourse, a world-exchange of spir- itual and material goods. Who will compare the present age of wireless telegraphy, of electricity, or aeronautics, of tele- phonic intercourse over remote distances with the mercantile system of internal trade then existing, which indeed was not without the impulse to external development, but lacked the appropriate means of communication for settlement and de- livery? If Frederick's idea of anticipating by an aggres- sive war an attack of which there was an assured menace, was at that time open to question, to-day, at any rate, in view of the improbability of the premises postulated and of the immeasurable consequences which are bound to ensue, it does not admit of discussion, and an attack which is carried out for such a reason can only be reckoned in the category of wars which Bismarck once branded as "a Bonapartist de- pravity." When is War Inevitable? The question whether a war is inevitable, whether it is in reality intended sooner or later by the other side, is one of the most difficult which can be presented to a statesman for solution. It is impossible that it should ever be answered with a definite yea or nay. The existence of warlike ten- dencies in neighbouring countries is not sufficient to prove that these tendencies have acquired or will acquire domination over the supreme heads and leaders of the State. Such ten- dencies are always, or at any rate most frequently, merely emanations of minorities, and in judging of their dangerous- ness the essential question to be considered is whether these 122 THE CRIME minorities have the power in their hands, or are in a position, to develop into majorities. The success, however, of the incitement to war, even within these criminal strata, very frequently depends on the life or death of individual leading personalities. If the war- intriguers occupy positions in the Government itself, they may become innocuous if they are dismissed from their office, either by the peremptory decree of a monarch, or by the ac- tion of a majority in Parliament or among their colleagues in the Ministry. If the desire and the danger of war exist in the ruler himself, there are innumerable personal and ma- terial factors which may supervene and remove or weaken even this the greatest of all dangers, A ruler in sickness will not so lightly decide on war as a ruler in health. A rup- ture in the king may in certain circumstances prevent a rupture in diplomatic relations; an attack of gout in the Emperor may prevent a military attack on his neighbours; a gall-stone in the prince may be the stone of offence over which all the war-intriguers stumble, be they never so power- ful. The king who is thirsting for war may die, and a peace- loving successor may mount the throne. Strong popular sentiments, movements in the nation or tendencies in Parlia- ment which conflict with the bellicose intentions of the ruler, may convince him of the impossibility of executing his plans or of the danger to his monarchical position which might be evoked by the attempt to give them effect. How strongly the influence of individuals on the main- tenance of peace or the outbreak of war is assessed even by leading politicians is proved, apart from countless other ex- amples, by the Delcasse incident of June, 1905. The view that the French Foreign Minister of that day was by his Moroccan policy unintentionally, no doubt, but unconsciously and involuntarily, creating a situation involving the danger of war for Europe was disseminated not merely on this side of the Vosges but on the other side as well, and was ex- pressed in the historical meeting of the Cabinet of June 6th, 1905, when Rouvier, the Prime Minister, and his colleagues compelled the too temperamental Foreign Minister to resign. THEORY AND PRACTICE 123 (It is said to have been on this occasion that Rouvier coined the phrase that Delcasse, the little Don Juan, had not only ensnared England, Russia and Spain, but had ended by seduc- ing Italy as well: "L'Allemagne vous reproche d'avoir debauche lTtalie.") It is incontestable that the period of most dangerous tension between Germany and France since the war of 1870 was the time of Boulangism. After the fall of the "brav' General" and the removal of his most con- spicuous adherents, a calmer relation between Germany and France supervened, which was again stirred to tempestuous- ness by the Dreyfus affair, but soon after the conclusion of this affair quieter waters were again entered. Our chau- vinists attach importance to Poincare's election as President of the French Republic as symptomatic of the re-awakening of French intentions of revenge, although they are wrong in so doing. On what chance, on what unforseeable result of Parliamentary intrigue did it depend that M. Pams, the most harmless of all candidates for the presidency, was not called to the Ely see in place of the Lorrainer of alleged "nation- alist" sympathies. The tour of the Austrian successor, Francis Ferdinand, to Serajevo furnished the external oc- casion on which the European War depended. It will be remembered that the old Emperor Francis Joseph was for months seriously ill in the year preceding this tour, and that at that time he was constantly hanging between life and death. Had the Emperor died then, Francis Ferdinand would presumably not have proceeded to the Bosnian capital, and the European conflagration would not have burst out, or at least not from this cause. We have in Germany the comfort and the agreeable pros- pect of possessing a future Emperor who, as I have shown from many of his writings, speeches and actions, belongs to the worst category of "heroes of war." He is one of those who, exposed to no personal dangers, love war for war's sake, who still regard international peace as "a dream and not even a beautiful dream," who look upon the laceration and the dismemberment of millions of human bodies, upon the misery, hunger and destitution of countless millions of 124 THE CRIME unhappy men and women, of babes and of those stricken in years who have been driven from house and home, who look upon fire and devastation, upon economic and cultural de- struction as a wholesome medicine, as a "steel-bath" to re- store once more the relaxed nerves — not their own nerves, be it observed, but those of the labouring classes. It is clear that such views, if entertained on an imperial throne, rep- resent the gravest danger for the world. But if by chance the eldest son of the German Emperor had been differently constituted, if he had shared the views of all nations and of all modern rulers of humane sensibilities that it is not in pulling down but in building up and in promoting further de- velopment that the lofty task of all Governments and rulers lies, that it is peace which is the highest possession of the nations, the only sure foundation of their well-being and pros- perity — if by chance the eldest son, the successor to the throne, had been like his grandfather, a prince of peace, and if perhaps the military note of the Hohenzollerns had been transmitted to a harmless younger son, then the danger from above would at once have been avoided, and the maintenance of the peace of the world would have been rendered much more probable. Thus by this example we see how the des- tinies of countries and of nations may be determined by the accident of primogeniture — which, however, can be again eliminated, and as may be hoped will be eliminated, by a further accident in the disappearance of this first-born (by death, sickness or other "unforeseen" circumstance). Everywhere in the fate of men and in fate of nations there is chance, nowhere is it possible to make a sure cal- culation in advance. Even within the unpretentious bounds of private life, who would venture to< say that a certain de- velopment must inevitably and by predetermination happen in such or such a way? "Man proposes and God disposes." This true proverb, which is also popularly expressed in the words that "the unexpected always happens," should be well pondered by the pious and the faithful in the land. "Nothing is so constant as change" — these words should be borne in mind by those who are constantly speaking of the "inevi- THEORY AND PRACTICE 125 lability" of wars, and yet cannot themselves foretell whether in the evening they will sit round the table with their families, or will have fallen a victim to the reaper who is indeed in- evitable. Chance, it is nothing but chance, which governs the destinies of individuals and of nations — so say the sceptics and the unbelievers. What is chance other than "the little finger on the hand of Almighty God" ? — say, with Jean Paul, the faithful and the believers in God. Everywhere this fatalism is expressed. "Kismet" is what the Turks call it, avayni) is what it was called by the Greeks. We cannot see the cards of Providence far enough ahead to anticipate historical development according to our own calculations — so Bismarck spoke and acted. On this one ground alone, by reason of the impossibility of calculating human events in advance, the provocation of a war because it must come some day, that is to say the provocation of a war to anticipate an aggressive war, is a crime as grave as the impious misdeed of a war of pure aggression and conquest. The Three Presuppositions of a Preventive War The defenders of the aggressive war waged for the pur- pose of prevention must prove three points in order to justify their thesis, and the burden of proof lies on them, the ag- gressors, not on us who deny their right of aggression: i. They are bound to answer in the affirmative the question of principle, whether an aggressive war, under- taken as an anticipatory war of defence, is justifiable on political and moral grounds as well as on grounds of humanity. That in modern political life and for modern statesmen this question is on principle to be answered in the negative I believe that I have proved elsewhere, and will turn to the question later. 2. If the question of principle is answered by them in the affirmative they are bound to prove that the ac- tual premises of the war of prevention which they ad- vance as permissible or even as imperative exist in the 126 THE CRIME particular case; in other words, that the aggressive war from the other side was beyond question intended, de- termined and imminent, and that therefore, so far as the State which is now attacking is concerned, the only- question at issue is whether it will have to meet its op- ponent in battle at an earlier or a later date. 3. They must prove that the responsibility for the political and diplomatic situation which made the attack from the other side inevitable is also to be attributed to the other side, and is therefore not a product of the mistakes and the offences of the State which is now at- tacking; in other words, that the other side has not merely created a dangerous situation, without any blame resting on the State now attacking, but also that it was on the point of putting an end to this situation by the provocation of war. All these questions, the question of principle relating to the justification of preventive wars in general as well as the two questions of fact indicated in the second and third para- graphs, must simultaneously be answered in the affirmative, if the preventionists wish to justify their point of view. If, for example, only the second question could be answered in the affirmative, the answer to the third being in the nega- tive, the final link in the logical chain leading to the justifica- tion of the preventive war would at once be lacking. In that case the intention of the other side to provoke war at a later moment would no doubt be proved, but it woula at the same time be made clear that this intention had its origin in a political situation of which the dangerousness was properly to be entered in the debit account of the present aggressor, and not in that of the possible later aggressor. If A by his provocations, his actions of violence, his disregard for B's honour and interests excites in B feelings of exasperation and the impulse to revenge, and then anticipates the prospective act of vengeance on the part of B by opening hostilities him- self, he is doubly to be condemned, because he provoked B in the first place, and because in addition to this he then an- THEORY AND PRACTICE 127 ticipated, instead of awaiting, the natural consequence of this provocation. The situation is different when the provoca- tion emanated from B, when B, apart from the provocation, has also manifested the demonstrable intention of forcibly- proceeding against A, and when A, by his actual attack, an- ticipates the imminent act of violence of B, the provocator. In this case the second and third questions above are to be answered in A's favour, and his attack, always assuming the permissibility on principle of the preventive war, can be justi- fied, or at least excused. Although, on grounds of principle, I myself uncondition- ally reject the preventive war, I have in my book already investigated from this point of view the question whether Germany and Austria are in a position to justify, at any rate from their point of view, their aggressive war as a war of prevention. I have been obliged to answer this question in the negative. I undertook to prove: First, that France, Russia and England did not intend to attack Germany and Austria, but rather that their alliances and ententes had only a defensive character. Secondly, that even if the strained European situation was, in fact, pressing towards an "inevitable" war, the respon- sibility for this was not to be ascribed to the Entente Powers but, at any rate in an overwhelming degree, to the Central Powers. The attempt of the Central Powers to put an end by a European war to a state of tension, which they themselves brought about, is thus criminal in a double sense. The German preventionists are, as a rule, content to an- swer the second of the questions indicated above. From the antecedents of the war, from the attitude of the Entente Powers and the agreements which they made with each other, from King Edward's policy of "encirclement," from the 128 THE CRIME alleged revenge policy of Pomcare and Delcasse, from the Pan-Slav tendency in Russia, which had gradually become convinced "that the way to Constantinople lay through the Brandenburger Gate," from the commercial envy of the Eng- lish huckster-people which throughout the course of history had always endeavoured by alliances with other continental States to secure the suppression of the strongest continental sea Power for the time being, from such facts as these the German chauvinists and preventionists seek, after the manner of Schiemann, to prove the existence of an offensive alliance directed to the destruction of the Central Powers. On the other hand, they pass in significant silence over the other question how far Germany and Austria are themselves re- sponsible for the creation and the consolidation of this union. I have already pointed out in my book and in the previous section of this work : That in all the German writings which assert that the authorship of the war rests with the Entente Powers not a scrap of evidence is produced in support of the offensive intentions of these Powers: That their initial union and the increasing closeness of the links between them are rather to be ascribed ex- clusively to the fear of the military imperialistic inten- tions of Germany, to her efforts to establish world- power and hegemony, to the immeasurable increase in the land and sea forces of the German Empire, to the military enthusiasm and the incitement to war of the "Pan-German Union," and its affiliated associations the "German Defence League" and the "German Navy League" ; That all the military and naval agreements and dis- cussions between France and England, and between France and Russia, as well as the prospective agreements between England and Russia, were intended merely for the purpose of defence against a possible German attack, but never contemplated a spontaneous attack on Ger- many. THEORY AND PRACTICE 129 I have explained fully the reasons which evoked an in- creasing feeling of distrust not only in France, England and Russia, but also in the whole of the neutral world, towards Germany's intentions and towards the sincerity and the hon- esty of her assurances of peace. Essentially these reasons were as follows: The attitude of Germany and of her ally Austria- Hungary at the Hague Conferences, and the decisive resistance offered to compulsory arbitration and to any restriction of land and naval armaments; Her ambiguous and suspicious behaviour during the Anglo-German negotiations for an understanding in 1909-1912; The doctrines of Bernhardi and Treitschke, these brutal theories of war and of world-power, which were more and more carried by apt pupils, in and out of uni- form, amongst various classes of society, and which were more and more made use of cunningly to poison the soul of the German people; The impulsive policy of fits and starts pursued by the Emperor, who in grave European situations preferred to strike on the table with the mailed fist rather than have recourse to diplomatic negotiations, who chose to appear in shining armour rather than in the diploma- tist's garb, constantly speaking of the sharp gleaming sword and the dry powder, recalling with threatening mien in the midst of peace the battles of the past, the struggle for freedom of 18 13, and the days of Worth, Weissenburg and Sedan 1 ; The provocative, nerve-wracking, theatrical policy which found appropriate expression in the Emperor's action in sending first of all the Kruger-telegram and then in despatching a South African plan of campaign to 1 See, inter alia, the speeches of the Emperor William in the summer of 1904 at Karlsruhe and at Mainz, his address to Prince Henry before his departure for East Asia (1897) and his answer to the Burgomeister of Vienna in 1910. 130 THE CRIME his royal grandmother, in his private letter to Lord Tweedmouth, in the landing in Tangier and in the Agadir spring of the Panther, — a policy which in the internal life of Germany, especially in the Reichsland in the hard Prussian treatment meted out to the inhabi- tants of Alsace-Lorraine, in the encroachments of the military power on civil authority, offered a true reflec- tion of external policy. All these facts increased the distrust felt towards the Prusso-German policy in Europe to such a degree that it was only by an increasingly firm and strong counter-alliance that the possibility of the maintenance of the peace of Eu- rope appeared to be assured. With the continuation of this electrically charged state of tension no surprise need have been occasioned even if the union of the Entente Powers were constantly to advance to closer agreements. If the outbreak of war had not inter- vened, the preliminary steps to the Anglo-Russian naval con- vention in the spring of 19 14 would possibly have led to a conclusion of the negotiations, to a system of co-operation of the two fleets worked out in all its details. And yet, not- withstanding all this, it is possible to read through the whole of the war literature of Germany from beginning to end without findi'ng any tangible evidence, or even any attempt to prove, that the approximation and the cohesion of the Entente Powers had for its object an attack on Germany or her allies. Their union was not the cause but the effect of the state of European tension. King Edward's policy, which has been called a policy of "encirclement," should more cor- rectly be described as the policy of rendering innocuous the militant efforts of Germany to achieve world-power. Two years before King Edward ascended the throne, the first Hague Conference had taken place without result, chiefly owing to the fault of Germany; compulsory arbitration, sup- ported by England, had been declared by Germany; the discussion of a restriction of armaments, in accordance with treaty agreements, had been rejected by Germany but in- THEORY AND PRACTICE 131 stead of this, by the German Navy Law there was laid the beginning of a sea power which in the course of years threatened to approximate more and more closely to Eng- lish supremacy on the sea, and was also bound to awake in the pacific English people, who had at their disposal no land forces of any importance, apprehensions for the security of the United Kingdom. Complete failure attended all the attempts undertaken in the first place by the Unionist and later in increased measure by the Liberal English Cabinet to bring to a stop by restrictions resting on treaty, the ruinous competition in armaments between the two countries. The Emperor William and his Grand Admiral, von Tirpitz, had taken their passionately adored child, the new-born German Navy, too much to their hearts to allow any hindrances and restrictions to be laid in the way of the growth of this offspring. A word may occasionally have fallen from the lips of the Grand Admiral, indicating that Germany might perhaps consider the idea of a certain proportion between the strengths of the two fleets. But no practical consequences followed any such statement; Germany wished to remain free, and did remain free in the development of her naval forces. So far as the most important question which occupied it was concerned, the second Hague Conference passed off as ineffectively as the first. The crisis with regard to Bosnia-Herzegovina revealed Germany as the second stand- ing behind her ally with mailed fist threateningly raised aloft; and it brought the danger of a European war so near at hand that it required all the compliance which Russia could muster and all the good counsel of England and France to prevent even at that date the outbreak of the world con- flagration. All these facts, and many others which would take too long to enumerate here, occasioned and promoted King Ed- ward's policy of rendering the situation innocuous; it was not a policy of war, but a policy of peace; its tendency was directed, not to the disturbance, but to the maintenance of European peace. This maintenance, it was rightly believed, 132 THE CRIME could best be achieved by the creation of a Triple Entente as nearly as possible equal in value and in strength to the Triple Alliance. As the tendency of German naval prepara- tion was expressly in the direction of securing the creation of a navy so strong, that even the strongest opponent could not oppose it in war without danger to her own sea power, so the tendency in the creation of the Entente was in the 'direc- tion of opposing to the Triple Alliance with the super-power- ful Germany at its head, a coalition which, it was true, was only in part linked together by a firm alliance but which on the approach of any dispute which threatened war was designed to constitute so strong an opposition that even the greatest military power in the world could not risk a war without danger to herself. From this standpoint, from the point of view of the peace- ful intentions of the Triple Entente — which as we shall see later cannot be transformed into an intention for war even by the revelations of the Belgian archives — the greater part of German war literature, in so far as it relates to the more remote antecedents of the war, appears at once as untenable and fatuous. The defenders of Germany are constantly refer- ring to the discussions between English and French military officers, and between English and Belgian military officers, to the correspondence between Grey and Paul Cambon in No- vember, 1 9 12, to the intended Anglo-Russian naval conven- tion, the foundations of which are said to have been laid by Isvolsky in the spring of 19 14 on the occasion of the visit to Paris of the English King and Queen. All the details of these military agreements between the Entente Powers are dished up in a sensational form to the German public, who are informed of the landing of English troops in Denmark or Schleswig-Holstein, the transport of Russian troops to Pom- mern by English merchantmen, the dispatch of auxiliary Eng- lish troops to Belgium and France, etc. Even if all these de- tails were true, they do not furnish the slightest proof of the intention to carry out a predatory attack; they rather represent military measures which in themselves might just THEORY AND PRACTICE 133 as well serve a war of defence as a war of aggression. They thus furnish no circumstantial evidence to which appeal could be made as the basis for a preventive war. Indeed one may go even further; even if it were proved — for which, however, there is in fact no evidence — that these actions of a military and naval character, which are alleged to have been concerted, were primary in character and that thus they were acts intended to anticipate a German attack, even this would not show that they were designed to serve a predatory war of aggression. Is it not the case that a Prussian has laid down the military principle that "the best defence lies in the attack"? Are we not told that Germany and Austria began the present "war of defence" by issuing the decisive declarations of war themselves, and by the in- vasion of foreign countries? How can the people who at- tacked Serbia, Belgium, Russia and France, the people who wage a war that has been "forced upon" them, dare to as- sert that an aggressive war cannot at the same time be a war of defence. Even if the military agreements between the general army and naval staffs of the Entente Powers had constituted an alliance of obligation — which is not the case — even if they had been contrived as military measures of aggression and were proved as such — which is still less the case — there would still be not the slightest evidence for the assertion that the Entente Powers contemplated a predatory attack on Germany and her allies; there would still remain the explanation, for which equal justification could be ad- vanced, that these military actions were intended, on the Prus- sian model, as acts of aggression for the purpose of de- fence. The burden of proving the intention to embark on purely spontaneous acts of aggression directed towards the anni- hilation and dismemberment of Germany lies on those who deduce from these aggressive intentions the fact that Ger- many had a right to adopt preventive measures. Such a proof, if it is to form the basis of so portentous a decision for war, must conform to strict standards and must not rest merely on probabilities and presumptions. The proof of this 134 THE CRIME has, however, been nowhere seriously embarked upon, much less furnished with success. In dealing with Schiemann I have sufficiently characterised the methods of proof adopted, and I need not return to the point here. The question has been put with sufficient precision by the preventionists ; it is the question, already touched on above, of the "inevitable" war; but the answer which they give is distinguished by any- thing but precision. What is the meaning of "inevitable"? We may describe a thing as inevitable when it can in no way be avoided, when its occurrence is absolutely certain, like the rising of the sun in the morning or its setting in the evening. What mortal man will presume so to penetrate into the mysteries of in- scrutable destiny as to dare to predicate the inevitability of a future event? Who claims the gift of prophecy whereby he can foretell the future with such certainty as to build on a future event the most momentous resolutions in the present ? Who possesses the Promethean presumption to speak of "in- evitability" in matters of human decision which can always be averted and which, whether in agreement with or contrary to the will of the actors, may turn out for good or for evil? It is only the forces of Nature that are inevitable because they are not subject to the determination of the human will. Where man has to will and to act, everything can be averted except the consequences of his actions, and these follow his actions as a shadow follows the human figure, small or great, broad or narrow, according as they are illumined by the sun of a higher power of destiny. The rumble of an earthquake, the outburst of a thunderstorm are inevitable. The rumble of war, the outburst of a revolution can always be averted. It is therefore something "beyond our power," indeed be- yond the power of our nationalistic supermen, to prove the inevitability of a war even if they attempted to furnish this proof by better means than those on which in fact they rely. I have undertaken to prove the contrary proposition in op- position to their assertion that the Entente Powers intended a European war and that they meant in this way to an- nihilate Germany and Austria. This counter-proof may be THEORY AND PRACTICE 135 regarded as successful or unsuccessful, but the failure of the counter-proof in no way implies the success of the proof of the main proposition, the burden of which falls on my op- ponent. I have proved, and by means of further evidence I will later on support my assertion : That the tendencies to war were stronger and more dangerous in Germany than anywhere else in the world; That the military preparations of Germany exceeded those of all other countries in strength and extent; That the collaboration for war between the German and the Austrian armies was more precisely and more carefully studied and prepared than in the case of the Entente Powers; That the strategic plans of Germany (the attack on Belgium and France as the prelude, followed by the crushing of Russia) had an expressly aggressive charac- ter. I have quoted from Bernhardi's famous book the sentence which pitilessly demolishes all the preventionists : "Neither France nor Russia nor England need to attack in order to further their interests." I shall quote later a series of utter- ances in the imperialistic Press, which, like Bernhardi, pro- claim the imperialistic war of conquest without any rag to cover their shame in the form of talk about "prevention against hostile attack." These gentlemen might indeed be left to themselves : the imperialist completely disposes of the preventionist. Many who oscillate backwards and forwards between preventionism and imperialism, like Harden for ex- ample, at one time declare that it is a shameful thing to con- ceal the good German right to strive for world-power behind the cowardly bulwark of the "defence of the frontier/' while at another time, when preventionism suits their purpose, they speak of the right and the duty of the anticipated defence against future attack. Although the burden of proof does not lie upon me, I have produced sufficient proof and testimony from the German 136 THE CRIME imperialistic camp itself (and later will produce more) in sup- port of my assertion that the Entente Powers did not intend the European War. The proof of the contrary assertion is still lacking. The basis of the theory of prevention thus fails; it is left hanging in mid-air, since its presupposition, the in- evitability of a hostile attack, is, to say the least, unproved — in reality, for anyone who will follow what I have said, it is directly refuted. The Military Preparations of the (Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance I said above that the miltary preparations of Germany had exceeded those of all other countries in strength and extent. In J' accuse (page 32) in a section entitled: "Have we been attacked or were we going to be attacked?" I have already pointed out the grounds which for years have been deceitfully advanced by the German War party to prove the aggressive attentions of the Entente Powers: " 'What did they mean by their enormous preparations ?' is what they most frequently say. And what about our prepara- tions? I reply, which were certainly greater and more compre- hensive than in any other country in the world. Did ever any country in time of peace act as we did in 19 13 when we suddenly raised the strength of our army on a peace footing by 140,000 men, that is to say, from 720,000 to 860,000, and when we rose to an extraordinary war tax of £50,000,000?" This sentence has been attacked by various of my oppo- nents and the contrary assertion has been advanced that the Entente Powers, Russia, England and France, were more strongly armed for war than Germany, Austria and Italy, the Powers of the Triple Alliance. Since the assertion also frequently recurs in the German literature of defence, ^con- sider it expedient to enter more closely into this question of military statistics, although it is only very loosely connected with my sentences quoted above. Every unprejudiced reader will at once see that these sentences in my book did not pur- THEORY AND PRACTICE 137 port to give a statistical comparison of figures, but that the whole stress was laid on the sudden increase in the effective peace strength by 140,000 men and on the unprecedented German device of a war tax of £50,000,000 in times of peace. Such a sudden and entirely unexplained increase in the effec- tive peace strength of the army never took place to the same extent in any other country and it evoked the alarm and the astonishment of the whole world and materially con- tributed to the baneful process of rendering more acute the tension in the European situation; it is for this unprovoked and provocative increase, taken in conjunction with the sudden war-tax of £50,000,000 and current over-expenditure of £10,000,000 that J' accuse reproaches the German Govern- ment and their war-intriguers, when these deceive the Ger- man people by representing the military preparations of the other side as indications of an aggressive intention. It is this fatal incident of the military law of 191 3 which the de- fenders of Germany now endeavour, by giving falsely the sequence of events in time, to represent as the consequence of the prolongation of the period of service in France, whereas in fact it was its cause — it is this irresponsible attack on the quiet and peaceful development of Europe, which at that moment appeared to some extent to be secured as a result of the propitious efforts for peace in the Balkan crisis — it is this dangerous preparation for war and the awakening of bellicose instincts which the sentences in question were meant to denounce; it was not intended to furnish numerical statis- tics relating to the military strength of the various nations on a peace basis. Only a malicious misapprehension of the meaning and context of the relevant sentences could lead my opponents to display their statistical compilations in refutation of my alleged assertions. Tant pis pour eux! I will now prove that even on the ground of statistics, that is to say of correct and appropriate statistics, their assertion that the Entente Powers were more strongly armed is un- tenable, and that, on the contrary, there was a consider- able preponderance in armaments on the part of the Powers of the Triple Alliance. 138 THE CRIME Which Side made greater Military Preparations before the war, the triple alliance or the Triple Entente? It is clear that in answering the question which of the two groups made greater military preparations it is neces- sary to ignore entirely the arrangements which have been produced in the course of this war. These arrangements could not be foreseen with certainty by either side and might, according to the formation assumed, strongly modify or in- deed completely upset the proportional strength of the two groups. If, for example, England had remained neutral — a consummation which up to the last moment Germany sought to attain — the military preponderance would from the first moment have been on the side of the Central Powers, even if Italy had refrained from entering, or indeed even if she had supported the other side. While on the one side Italy and Roumania have increased the military forces of the Triple Entente, on the other side Bulgaria and Turkey have joined the group of the Central Powers. Further, the possibility of other groupings in the future is not excluded. It is im- possible to base a comparison of the strength of the two parties on all these transpositions which have already taken place, or may yet take place, or to invoke them in answering the question which side had made greater military prepara- tions before the war. This question can only be decided ac- cording to the state of the alliances or ententes as they then existed. The purpose of these groupings was the mutual keeping-in-check by means of the menace exerted by the in- struments of force on both sides. The increase of these in- struments of force on the one side, that is to say, the height- ened menace had to be compensated by an increase of the in- struments of force on the other side. This was the famil- iar endless screw. The investigation with which we are at the moment concerned is aimed at determining which group took the initiative in putting the screw on more tightly, and thereby rendered more acute the state of tension in Europe. THEORY AND PRACTICE 139 This question can be determined only on the basis of the for- mation of groups as they then existed, not on the basis of war-combinations which have supervened at a later date. A further point of departure which is obvious for everyone of impartial judgment, and for this reason is almost univer- sally ignored by my opponents is that the comparison of the armaments of the two groups of Powers cannot be established by reference to absolute numbers, but only in comparison to the figures for the population. It is only a fool or a knave who could undertake the task of comparing together absolute 'figures with reference to military armaments, in order to deduce conclusions with re- gard to the greater or less "militarism" of the States in ques; tion. That militarism is not identical with military prepara- tions is a point I have elsewhere sufficiently explained, and I need not return to it here. If the object is to institute a com- parison between military figures, it is self-evident that abso- lute figures give no standard for the degree of these military preparations ; in each State the important point is rather that of the proportion between the entire population and the strength of the army on a peace and a war basis. By means of absolute figures we arrive at entirely meaningless con- clusions. Let us assume that a State of five million inhabi- tants supports 500,000 soldiers in time of peace, that is to say 10 per cent, of its population, and that another with thirty million inhabitants supports 1,000,000, that is to say 3 1-3 per cent, of its population. Which is more strongly armed, the former or the latter State? Without doubt the former, although taking the absolute figures it supports only half the soldiers of the latter. Those who are perpetually blind would, however, see in the State of thirty million inhabitants half a million more combatants on the field, and would at once triumphantly exclaim : "You see for yourself which side is making the stronger preparations." The comparison of military figures is an extremely diffi- cult operation since the statistics in the various countries are estimated from different points of view, and the various cate- 140 THE CRIME gories of troops are arranged in different ways. I confess that I am a layman in military matters and must be content to assure the reader that to the best of my knowledge and conscience I have made use of various sources which I have compared together, and that I have entered in my tables those figures which receive general confirmation. The books which I have consulted are: Hickmann, Universal Pocket-Atlas of 1915; Justus Perthes (Gotha), Pocket Atlas of 1916; The Statistical Y ear-Book for the German Empire of 19 14, etc. In order to overcome my defective knowledge of the special subject and to avoid any charge of tendencious compilation, in addition to my own compilations from the sources men- tioned I have consulted a military expert belonging to a neu- tral country. The statements of this expert with regard to the war and the peace strength of the six European great States are, according to the assurance of this gentleman, "de- termined by a similar method of calculation, so far as this is possible having regard to the divergency in the organisa- tions of the armies." All these difficulties in the comparison of military statistics have, of course, no existence for most of my opponents; as a rule they rely on any compilation which appears to be particularly favourable to their asser- tions, whether or not it can lay claim to any special authority. They omit any comparison with other estimates, any more detailed investigation of the system of calculation adopted by their authority, and by means of this most superficial of all methods of demonstration they seek to refute alleged asser- tions of the accuser which, in fact, he never advanced. In the first place I accused the Government and the rulers of Ger- many of having always taken the lead in turning still further with a dangerous suddenness the endless screw of arma- ments, and further that they and their allies were relatively — that is to say, in proportion to the figures of the popula- tion — more strongly armed than the other European Great States. The former charge I have already proved elsewhere. The latter charge I will now prove. THEORY AND PRACTICE 141 I Effective Peace Strength of Army and Navy Germany 1 .. 868,000 men France .. 713,000 men Austria .. 435,000 " Russia .. 1,448,000 " Italy . . 343,000 " England 2 . . 613,000 " 1 ,646,000 men 2,774,000 men Accordingly, the proportion existing between the military preparations of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente in times of peace is approximately 1 :i.68; this, be it observed, is on the basis of the figures most favourable to the Triple Alliance. If in place of the above figures I take those furnished to me by my military expert, the relation between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente is as follows: Germany . . 870,000 France . . 750,000 Austria-Hungary 414,000 England .. 170,000 Italy . . 305,000 Russia . .1 1,200,000 1,589,000 2,120,000 According to these figures, the ratio of the military prepa- rations of the Triple Alliance to those of the Triple Entente in time of peace is approximately 1 :i-33. 1 So far as the forces of the German Empire by sea and land are con- cerned the Year Book for 1914 gives a total strength in peace of approxi- mately 880,000 men. In order to apply the same standard to Germany and to other countries, I have restricted myself to the compilation in Gotha, which gives for Germany 868,000 men, and thus falls short of the official figures. 2 The total English strength is given by Hickmann at only 570,000 men, including the troops stationed in India. In order to avoid the charge of a prejudiced reduction of the figures, I have taken the higher figure from Gotha. One of my opponents indeed estimates the English army on a peace footing at only 285,000 men; although, it is true, he estimates the entire peace strength of the Entente at 3,035,000. 142 THE CRIME II What now is the ratio between the figures for the popula- tion of the two groups? Here again I follow Gotha, and dis- tinguish between the European population and the whole population. European Population Germany- Austria Italy 68 millions 53 " 36 " France Russia England 40 millions 140 46 " 157 millions 226 millions The European populations of the two groups of Powers thus stand to each other in the ratio of approximately 1 n.44, so that the peace strength of the Entente Powers, measured on the basis of the European population: (a) If I take the figures in Gotha, only exceeds that of the Triple Alliance by 0.24 (1.68 — 1.44) ; (&) If I take the figures of my expert, it is indeed 0.11 (1.44 — i-33) behind that of the Triple Alliance. Had I chosen to make use of statistics which give the figures for the Triple Alliance slightly higher and those of the Triple Entente slightly lower than those given in Gotha, the ratio between the number of troops and the population would have been almost identical in the two groups. In the face of these facts one of my opponents ventures the assertion that in 19 14 the peace-strength of the armies of the Triple Entente was more than double that of the Triple Alliance ! 5|C ?Ji 3|C 5Jt 3J5 #|* This is the situation if the calculation is based on the European population of all the States. This standard is, how- ever, not appropriate; for not only are the armies partially composed of colonial troops, but they are also intended to afford protection by sea and by land to the colonies outside THEORY AND PRACTICE 143 the Mother Country. The greater the extent of the colonial territory and the colonial population, the stronger will be the protection required for possessions abroad. In deciding the question which was more strongly armed in peace, it is thus impossible to leave aside the other question : Which side had a greater population to protect by its military forces within and without Europe? Apart from this point of view consideration must also be given to the other point already indicated above. The ratio of the number of troops in each country to its own popula- tion becomes less the wider the circle of this population is drawn. If the English military forces are compared with the 46 million inhabitants of the United Kingdom, a very different result is obtained from that arrived at if the 377 million inhabitants outside the kingdom are included. In reality they must be included, for the English peace-army is not only partially recruited from English possessions in other quarters of the globe, but it also serves to protect these pos- sessions and to maintain the English world-empire. In the case of Russia the addition of the Asiatic posses- sions, etc., with approximately 36 million inhabitants to the 140 millions of European Russia is all the more imperative, inasmuch as the Russian Empire forms a connected territory complete in itself, and therefore its military forces cannot be divided into a European and an extra-European force. In order to arrive at a result in our calculation in correspond- ence with the actual relations, it is necessary to compare the entire Russian population (as well as the English and French) with their military forces by sea and by land. From this point of view the following result is obtained: Entire Population Germany . . 80 millions France . . 86 millions Austria • • 53 " Russia ..176 " Italy ..38 " England ..1423 " 171 millions 685 millions 144 THE CRIME The figures for the population of the two groups of Pow- ers are thus almost in the ratio of 1:4. Their strength on a peace-basis, as we have seen above, is according to Gotha only 1 :i.68. In other words in order to be armed to the same extent as the Triple Alliance the Entente Powers ought to have had four times as many soldiers in times of peace as those maintained by the Triple Alliance; instead of 2,774,000 men they ought to have had 6,600,000 men under arms. They were thus 4,000,000 men below the level of the military preparations of the Triple Alliance. Ill Even more surprising is the result if we investigate the War-Strength of the two groups of Powers by reference to the figures for the population. The ratio of the European populations to each other, as I have shown above, is according to Gotha 1:1.44; the Triple Alliance comprises 157 million and the Triple Entente 226 million. The ratio of the entire population in the two cases is, ac- cording to Gotha, almost the same as given by Hickmann, namely, 1 : 4=171 million : 685 million. (a) According to Hickmann we get the following figures for the war-strength for the army and navy: Germany . . 3,000,000 men France . . 2,350,000 men Austria . . 1,800,000 " Russia . .1 4,600,000 " Italy . . . . 1,100,000 " England . . 1,080,000 " 5,900,000 men 8,030,000 men The ratio is thus 1 :i-36. Since the European populations of the two groups of Powers are in the ratio of 1:1.44 there is a deficiency in the military preparations of the Entente Powers for war of THEORY AND PRACTICE 145 0.08. If, however, as I consider is necessary, we take as the standard the entire population of all States within and with- out Europe, the ratio of which is 1:4, there is a deficiency in military preparations on the part of the Triple Entente of 2.64 (4 — 1.36) ; in other words, the Triple Alliance could have increased its war-preparations to 23,600,000 men (four times the war-preparations of the Triple Alliance) and would only then have reached the level of preparation of the Triple Alliance. (b) According to Gotha, the figures are as follows: Germany.. 5,077,000 men France . .» 4,120,000 Austria . . 1,920,000 " Russia . . 4,048,000 Italy . . 1,220,000 " England . .1 1,281,000 8,2 1 7,000 men 9,449,000 men The ratio is thus 1 11.15. (c) According to the calculations of my military expert, the strength of the European Great Powers on a war basis is as follows: Germany . . 5,800,000 France . . 4,200,000 Austria-Hungary 2,000,000 England . . 800,000 Italy . . 1,100,000 Russia . . 7,668,000 8,900,000 12,668,000 The ratio is thus 1 :i.42. Accordingly, on the basis of the figures in Gotha, it fol- lows that if only the European population is taken into con- sideration, there is a deficiency in the military preparations of the Entente States compared with the Triple Alliance of 1.44— 1.15=0.29. If the calculation is based on the figures of my military expert and the European population as given by Gotha, there is on the part of the Entente less preparation for war by 0.02 than in the case of the Triple Alliance (1.44 — 1.42). 146 THE CRIME If, however, as I consider necessary and right, the entire population is considered, we find on the figures' given by Gotha the enormous deficiency in military preparation on the part of the Entente Powers of 4 — 1.15 = 2.85 ; on the figure of my expert of 4 — 1.42 = 2.58. In other words the Triple Alliance could have raised its war-preparation to 32,- 800,000 or to 35,600,000 men (four times the war-prepara- tion of the Triple Alliance) and would only then have reached the level of preparation of the Triple Alliance. The deficiency in the preparations of the Entente Powers appears most stupendous, if we accept as correct the war- strengths of the two groups of Powers as put forward by one of my opponents on the basis of his authorities, and if we are allowed to compare the strength on a war basis as so given with the entire populations. The writer