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Some Personal Impressions 
 

SOME PERSONAL 
 IMPRESSIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 TAKE JONESCU 
 
 FORMER PRIME MINISTER OF ROUMANIA 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 VISCOUNT BRYCE, O.M. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
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CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 I Monsieur Poincare 3 
 
 II Prince Liciinowsky 11 
 
 III Count Berciitold 25 
 
 IV The Marquis Pallavicini ... 33 
 V Count Goluciiowsky 43 
 
 VI August 2, 1914 51 
 
 VII Kiderlen-Waeciiter 61 
 
 VIII Count Aehrentiial 79 
 
 IX Count Czernin 91 
 
 X Count Mensdorff 105 
 
 XI England's Antipathy to War . . 113 
 
 XII The Responsibility for the War . 119 
 
 XIII King Charles of Roumania . . . 125 
 
 XIV Herr Riedl 141 
 
 XV Count Szeczen 151 
 
 XVI Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace . 157 
 
 XVII Baron Banffy 1C3 
 
 XVIII Roumanian Policy 171 
 
 XIX Tragedy 177 
 
 XX Count Tisza 183 
 
 XXI Talaat Pasha 189 
 
 V 
 
vi CONTENTS 
 
 PAOK 
 
 XXII PfilNCE von Hi. low £03 
 
 XXIII Tatichkff 215 
 
 XXIV France and the Teuton .... ££S 
 XXV A Cousin oi Tissa £S1 
 
 XXVI New Italy 887 
 
 XXVI I My Four Last Germans . . . . 24S 
 
 XXVI11 Eleutherios Veniselos .... 269 
 
 XXIX The k user 281 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY VISCOUNT BRYCE 
 
 Tins book should need no introduction, for all 
 who have tried to follow the course of events 
 in the Danubian States and Balkan States 
 during the last few years cannot but know the 
 name and fame of Mr. Take Jonescu, one of 
 the most active and gifted, as well as one of 
 the most highly cultivated statesmen in East- 
 ern Europe. However, at the request of its 
 author, whose acquaintance I had the good 
 fortune to make when traveling in Roumania 
 fourteen years ago, I willingly write a few 
 sentences of Preface to this English transla- 
 tion. The French original (for Mr. Jonescu 
 writes French with singular facility, clearness, 
 and grace) has already found many readers, 
 and this version deserves to win for it a still 
 larger circle here and in America. 
 
 Those of us who in France and the English- 
 speaking countries have grown familiar with 
 the names of the more prominent actors in the 
 
viii INTRODUCTION 
 
 great and gloomy drama of the last ten or 
 twelve years, must have often wished to know 
 something of the personalities that lay behind 
 the names. What were their talents, their 
 characters, their manners? What were the 
 ideas and motives which prompted either their 
 avowed purposes or their secret aims? In 
 some eases these motives may long remain ob- 
 scure, but in others the recorded words and 
 acts are sufficient to enable those who were in 
 close touch with them to form a just estimate 
 and present to us true portraits, provided al- 
 ways that such observers bring discernment 
 ami impartiality to the task. The book is 
 modestly entitled "Some Personal Impres- 
 sions"; and the descriptions it contains are for 
 the most part vigorous sketches rather than 
 portraits. Some, however, may be called vig- 
 nettes, more or less finished drawings, each 
 consisting of few lines, but those lines sharply 
 and firmly drawn. Intermingled with this 
 score of personal sketches there are also a few 
 brief essays or articles which set before us 
 particular scenes, little fragments of history 
 in which the author bore a part, all relating to 
 the persons who either figured in the war. or 
 were concerned with the intrigues from which 
 it sprang. Among these we find several Cer- 
 
INTRODUCTION ix 
 
 man statesmen — Kiderlin-Waechter, Prince 
 Biilow, and Prince Lichnowsky, a large num- 
 ber of Austrians, among whom Counts Berch- 
 told, Achrcnthal, Goluchowsky, Czernin and 
 Mensdorff, are the best known ; the late King 
 Charles of Roumania, the German Emperor, 
 Eleutherios Venizelos, and lastly the most 
 ruthless and unscrupulous ruffian (with the 
 possible exception of Trotsky) whom the war 
 has brought to light, the Turkish Talaat 
 Pasha. 
 
 These, with some minor personages, make 
 an interesting gallery, for though most of 
 them are dealt with very briefly — sometimes 
 merely by telling an anecdote or reporting a 
 single conversation — still in every case a dis- 
 tinct impression is conveyed. We feel that 
 the man described is no longer a name but a 
 creature of flesh and blood, with something by 
 which we can recognize him and remember 
 him for future use. National characteristics 
 are lightly but brightly touched. Among the 
 Germans, Kiderlin-Waechter stands out as in 
 Mr. Jonescu's judgment the ablest, and Biilow 
 the cleverest. If the Austrian statesmen are, 
 or were, what he paints them (and there seems 
 no reason to doubt the general justice of his 
 observations), the hideous failure of their di- 
 
x INTRODUCTION 
 
 plomacy becomes comprehensible. A dynasty 
 guided by such servants was fated to perish in 
 the storm its folly had raised. Aehrenthal and 
 Tisza were at least men of force and ability, 
 but an ability which did not exclude bad prin- 
 ciples and rash unwisdom. The rest were 
 mostly ciphers; while of Count Berchtold, the 
 description given by Mr. Jonescu successfully 
 conveys to the reader that there was nothing 
 to describe, at least on the intellectual side. 
 One may pity the people which was guided by 
 such statesmen, for they were not its choice, 
 but one cannot pity the dynasty which did 
 choose them. It well deserved to perish, after 
 three centuries of pernicious power. 
 
 Besides the illuminative glimpses of curious 
 scenes, and the vivacious sketches of notable 
 personages, which these pages contain, the 
 reader will find in them some contributions to 
 history of permanent interest. We are helped 
 to apprehend the views, and comprehend what 
 is now called the "mentality" with which the 
 ruling caste in Germany entered the war. It 
 has been often said of late that the men in 
 whose hands great decisions lay were not great 
 enough for the fateful issues they had to decide. 
 Quan tul a sapientia regitur mundus seems even 
 
INTRODUCTION xi 
 
 truer now than it did in the days of Oxen- 
 stierna. Among all the "Impressions" this 
 book records, that is the one which stands out 
 conspicuous. 
 
Monsieur Poincare 
 
MONSIEUR POINCARE 
 
 On New Year's Eve, 1913, I arrived in Paris. 
 I was on my way to London, where the 
 Balkan Conference was then sitting. Negotia- 
 tions between the Turks and the Balkan 
 States had come to a deadlock, and I hoped 
 to profit by this to the extent of coming to 
 some pacific settlement of our territorial dif- 
 ferences with Bulgaria. It was my intention 
 to offer the support of Roumania to Bulgaria, 
 which at that date meant the Balkan league, 
 and if necessary to promise military assistance 
 in order to force the Turk to give up Adrian- 
 ople. 
 
 The Powers had no notion what to do. It 
 was felt that there was little chance of mere 
 collective notes having any success, and as for 
 a naval demonstration, which alone could have 
 saved the face of Kiamil's government, the 
 Powers were too jealous and distrustful of 
 each other to act together in this way. On 
 the other hand it was certain that the armed 
 
 3 
 
4 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 resistance of Turkey was shattered and that to 
 force her hand would really be doing her a 
 kindness. It' only it had been done then. 
 Turkey would have escaped Enver and her 
 
 present misfortunes. 
 
 It is useless to repeat what I have so often 
 said, that the idea of a war with Bulgaria, and 
 possibly with all the Balkan States — our tradi- 
 tional friends — was utterly repugnant to me. 
 It was even possible that such a war might 
 bring about the expected European con- 
 flagration, in which we should find ourselves 
 on the side of Austria-Hungary, a prospect 
 that was altogether odious to me, for in it I 
 saw the grave of our future and of our 
 national ideal. 
 
 I hoped the Bulgars would appreciate the 
 situation and would hasten to accept my sug- 
 gestions. If only they had done so, peace with 
 Turkey would have been signed in the first 
 week of January. 1913, the second Balkan 
 war would probably not have taken place, and 
 the European war would have been averted 
 for an indefinite number of years. 
 
 Although my hopes oi' arriving at an under- 
 standing with Bulgaria were high. I took the 
 possibility of failure into consideration and 
 
MONSIEUR POINCARE 5 
 
 realized that I might want the friendly sup- 
 port of the Great Powers. This was why, 
 before leaving Bucharest, I intimated to Mon- 
 sieur Poincare, then Prime Minister of 
 France, that I was about to visit him. 
 
 ii 
 
 M. Poincare received me on the 1st of 
 January, 1913, at half-past eight in the morn- 
 ing, an hour that in Paris is certainly an 
 absurd time for an appointment; but I had to 
 go to London in the afternoon, and on ac- 
 count of its being New Year's Day, Monsieur 
 Poincare was due at the ISlysee at ten o'clock 
 for the official ceremonies. 
 
 I asked Monsieur Poincare for the support 
 of France in our difficulties with Bulgaria. 
 He made the warmest declarations of friend- 
 ship for Roumania; promised me his own per- 
 sonal cooperation, but said, "My action is 
 naturally limited by the fact that relations 
 with our ally are most cordial while, owing to 
 your military convention with Austria and 
 Germany, you will be in the enemy's camp if 
 war breaks out. You know well," and he 
 could not have spoken with greater sincerity, 
 "that we do not want war, and are doing 
 
6 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 everything to avoid it. But if our adversaries 
 force us to go to war the fact that your 300,- 
 
 000 rifles are on their side cannot be a matter 
 of indifference to us." 
 
 As the Treaty between Roumania and the 
 Triple Alliance was supposed to be kept secret 
 
 1 had to pretend that I knew nothing about 
 the obligation he was alluding to. 
 
 The French Prime Minister, who knew the 
 situation precisely, then asked me if I could 
 assure him that in the event of war — a war 
 that France would never provoke — he could 
 hope that France and her allies would not 
 find the Roumanian army against them. 
 
 Personally I had not believed for many 
 years that the Roumanians and Magyars 
 would ever fight side by side, but on the 1st 
 of January, 1913, it was impossible for me 
 to make any valid promise in Roumania's 
 name. 
 
 I could only tell Monsieur Poincare that I 
 could not give him an answer, but that if I 
 were in his place I should grant Roumania 
 as much help as was compatible with my al- 
 liances and my obligations, and leave it to the 
 future to prove whether I had acted wisely 
 or not. 
 
MONSIEUR POINCARE 7 
 
 III 
 
 The events of 1913 confirmed my beliefs. 
 With great clearness I saw that the idea of 
 shedding Roumanian blood to glorify Magyar- 
 ism was such an absurdity that no one on 
 earth could give effect to it. 
 
 On the 9th of September, 1913, I paid 
 Monsieur Poincare another visit. He was 
 then President of the Republic. He con- 
 gratulated me on the success of Roumania, 
 and I took occasion to say: "On New 
 Year's Day you asked me a question which 
 I could not then answer; I will give you your 
 answer to-day. If war does break out — and 
 I devoutly hope humanity may be spared 
 such a calamity — you will not find the Rou- 
 manian army in your enemies' camp." 
 
 "Have you cancelled the treaty of al- 
 liance?" he asked. 
 
 "I know nothing about any treaty. All I 
 know is that the Roumanian army will not 
 be in your enemies' camp. I am quite certain 
 about it, and if I did not know that we are 
 both believers in peace and are doing all we 
 can to preserve it, I should say that events 
 will prove me right. Let us hope that they 
 may never have occasion to do so." 
 
8 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 "But are you sure to remain long in 
 power?" he asked. 
 
 "Far from it, I shall be out of office in two 
 months, but that doesn't matter. What I am 
 telling you is true irrespective of what min- 
 isters comprise the government. After what 
 has happened this summer no one will be able 
 to make Roumanians fight against their will 
 or against the dictates of national honor and 
 interest;" 
 
Prince Lie know sky 
 
II 
 
 PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 
 
 Twenty years ago Prince Lichnowsky was 
 Secretary to the German Legation in Bucha- 
 rest. 
 
 I knew him in those days as an intelligent 
 young man, gay, witty and a real grand 
 seigneur. Though a German diplomat he 
 was Polish by origin and had all the adapta- 
 bility, vivacity and brilliance of his race. We 
 got on admirably. 
 
 I did not see him again until early in 
 January, 1913, when I went to London to try 
 and come to an understanding with Monsieur 
 Danef over Bulgar-Roumanian difficulties. 
 
 Prince Lichnowsky had come back into the 
 Diplomatic Service after a very long absence. 
 He had only done so at the reiterated request 
 of the Kaiser, who believed him to be the only 
 man capable of succeeding Baron Marschall 
 in London, Baron Marschall at that time hav- 
 ing the reputation of being the ablest diplo- 
 mat in the German service. I may as well say 
 
 11 
 
12 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 here that in spite of his ability Marschall had 
 not been much of a success in England. He 
 had lived too long in Constantinople to make 
 a good Ambassador at St. James's. 
 
 Prince Lichnowsky took his task seriously. 
 He spared himself no trouble to win people's 
 confidence, and in a short time had accom- 
 plished marvels in this direction. He was 
 extremely frank, and his clear picturesque 
 way of talking impressed people. It was he 
 who, in speaking to me of the two little bits 
 of Bulgar territory that jutted out into our 
 Dobrudja, which Danef was at the time of- 
 fering me as a complete satisfaction for our 
 claims, contemptuously described them as 
 "the two dugs of the bitch." 
 
 I will not now describe my interviews with 
 Lichnowsky in 1913. I must admit, however, 
 he was more than friendly and kind, and did 
 me real services. He went so far even with- 
 out waiting for the sanction of his Govern- 
 ment as to make a proposal favorable to us 
 at the Balkan Conference then sitting in Lon- 
 don. I shall have something to say of all this 
 another time. 
 
 I must, however, mention two points relat- 
 ing to that moment. One day Lichnowsky 
 assured me that the relations between Eng- 
 
PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 13 
 
 land and Germany were excellent. The next 
 day Sir E. Grey said to me, "If Prince Lich- 
 nowsky makes the proposal you speak of I 
 shall receive it most favorably, as I do every- 
 thing that comes from the German Ambassa- 
 dor. We are on excellent terms." 
 
 This was really remarkable when one thinks 
 of the then recent Agadir crisis. I came to 
 the conclusion that there was no danger of 
 European war, and on the 7th of January, 
 1913, I wrote to King Charles that I was 
 positive the great war would not break out 
 yet awhile. 
 
 At that same time Lichnowsky said to me, 
 "We will do what we can for you, but our 
 means are limited. You should really apply 
 to Vienna, as Austria can do a good deal at 
 Sofia if she wishes to. I am sure there is 
 something brewing between Austria and Bul- 
 garia. I don't know exactly what it is, but 
 something is going on." 
 
 In the spring of 1914 I was again in Lon- 
 don for six days. Prince Lichnowsky gave a 
 luncheon in my honor. All the Embassy staff 
 were there, including the notorious Kiihlman, 
 then Councilor of the Embassy, now Min- 
 ister at the Hague, who at that time was un- 
 fortunately corresponding with the Kaiser over 
 
14 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 the head of Lichnowsky and was giving false 
 information to Berlin as to the state of affairs 
 in England. 
 
 1 asked Lichnowsky how matters stood be- 
 tween England and Germany, and if he was 
 as pleased with things as he had been in 
 January, 1918. He replied that he had suc- 
 ceeded in his efforts, and that Germany and 
 Great Britain were on the best of terms. 
 
 "I told the Kaiser," he said, "that nothing 
 could be easier for ns than to keep up good 
 relations with England— because England 
 genuinely cares for peace. But in order to 
 do this we should never attack or annoy 
 France, because in that ease England would 
 hack her to the last man and the last shilling, 
 and as it is not to our interest to irritate 
 France, you see that our relations with Eng- 
 land will remain of the best." 
 
 My impressions accorded with those of the 
 German Ambassador. 1 felt that England 
 would not tolerate an attack on France, hut 
 putting that aside it was certain that in Lon- 
 don the desire was to be on good terms with 
 Germany, In that one saw the guarantee of 
 peace. 
 
 On July the 12th, 1914, I again arrived in 
 London. I saw Lichnowsky and discussed the 
 
PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 15 
 
 Albanian question with him, which had by 
 then become disquieting, and also the silence 
 of Austria as to what line she was going to 
 take over the Serajevo drama. Lichnowsky 
 felt that Austria had something up her sleeve. 
 His Austrian colleague Count Mensdorff was 
 uncommunicative. Lichnowsky had been in 
 Berlin since the Serajevo assassination, and he 
 was not pleased with what he had seen in the 
 Wilhelmstrasse. "They are giving Austria a 
 free hand," he said, "without thinking where 
 it may lead us. I warned them, but I am not 
 happy about it, and am beginning to regret 
 that I did not stay in Berlin." Lichnowsky 
 did not conceal the fact that Tchirsky, the 
 German Ambassador at Vienna, was encour- 
 aging the bellicose tendency of Austria. 
 
 Lichnowsky's apprehensions were well 
 grounded. The German Chancellor, Beth- 
 man-Hollweg, had never been well up in ques- 
 tions of foreign politics — far from it. As for 
 Von Jagow, I knew that at the time he was in 
 Rome he had told one of his colleagues that in 
 the Balkan incidents he saw the proof of the 
 approaching disintegration of Austria-Hun- 
 gary, and that it was a disturbing problem. 
 With a fixed idea like that in his head it would 
 be easy to make mistakes. 
 
1(> SOME PERSONAL OPPRESSIONS 
 
 On Wednesday, July the 22d, I dined with 
 Baroness Deichman, sister of Sir Maurice de 
 Bunsen, British Ambassador in Vienna. The 
 house was one of the social centers of London 
 and lent itself most favorably to an Anglo- 
 German understanding. I knew thai I was to 
 meet Lichnowsky, who had expressed a wish 
 to talk to me thai very day, 
 
 After dinner 1 went with Lichnowsky into 
 a sitting-room in which there hung - a fine 
 portrait o( Sir Maurice de Bunsen, painted, 
 it' I am not mistaken, by the great English 
 artist, Herkomer, 
 
 Lichnowsky was in Court dress; he was to 
 see the King that evening. I do not know 
 what the occasion was. \\c told mo ho had 
 not yel succeeded in finding out the text ot' 
 the demands Austria was making of Serbia, 
 hut that ho had Learned enough to know that 
 
 they would ho very, very harsh. Ho know that 
 amongst other things Austria had asked for 
 the suppression o( a nationalist society in 
 Serbia, and that alone seemed to him to bo 
 going pretty far. He earnestly begged mo to 
 suggest to tho Roumanian Government that 
 they should use any influence they had at 
 Belgrade to gel the Austrian note, no matter 
 was, accepted by Serbia, "1 promise 
 
PRINCE LI( IINOVVSKV IT 
 
 you," he said, "thai in the carrying of it out, 
 the Serbs can whittle it down or evade the 
 conditions, and we can sec i<> it that nothing 
 is said. I take that <>u myself. We must get 
 
 round fchlS crisis somehow. For instance, the 
 order to SUppreSS a patriotic Society need 
 
 not really mean anything. In a few months 
 they eoidd resurrect it under another name." 
 I promised him to do whal I could. That 
 very night I telegraphed what the German 
 Ambassador had communicated to me to Mon- 
 sieur Bratiano, the then President of the 
 Roumanian Council, 
 
 ii 
 
 On Friday, July the 24th, the Austrian 
 Ultimatum was published, [n reading the 
 Times- I said to my wile, "This means Eu- 
 ropean war; we must get hack to Roumania." 
 
 I went to sec Liehnowsky in the morning. 
 
 lie was at the Foreign Office. I went to 
 
 his house later and found him very much 
 upset. Obviously the /Austrian note had ex- 
 ceeded his expectations. He was, however, 
 
 firmly convinced that there was no danger of 
 
 war. He was sure that some way of preserv- 
 ing peace would be found. lie (old me with 
 an ironic* smile that he had heen instructed to 
 
18 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 advocate to the English Cabinet the "localiza- 
 tion" of the question at issue between Serbia 
 and Austria. He did not express his opinion 
 of this folly, but it was evident that he thought 
 it ridiculous. He was so certain of peace that 
 he asked me if I were going direct to Aix-les- 
 Bains from Brighton or whether I should re- 
 turn to London for one night. When I an- 
 swered that it would depend on the political 
 situation he said good-by, being certain that 
 I should go straight on to Aix from Brighton. 
 He was so assured in bearing that I tele- 
 graphed to Paris and Aix to announce my 
 arrival. 
 
 At Brighton in the afternoon of Saturday 
 and again on Sunday I received communica- 
 tions from London that showed me that Lich- 
 nowsky was deceiving himself and that Tchir- 
 sky, the German Ambassador at Vienna, was 
 pushing Austria on to take up an overbear- 
 ing attitude. I telegraphed to my friend 
 Mishu, Roumanian Minister in London, ask- 
 ing him to book places for me in the Ostend 
 Express for Tuesday morning, the 28th of 
 July, and I informed my brother at Aix-les- 
 Bains that I had given up my journey thither. 
 
 I returned to London on Monday morning 
 the 27th of July. From the station where my 
 
PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 19 
 
 friend Mishu met me I went straight to Prince 
 Lichnowsky and told him of my agitation and 
 of my decision to go back to lloumania. He 
 told me I was wrong, that there was no possi- 
 bility of war, not a hundred to one chance of 
 it ; that in my place he would stay on in Lon- 
 don because it would be so tiresome to go from 
 London to Aix-les-Bains via Bucharest. In- 
 sisting on the danger of war, I said, "It is 
 all the more serious — because we must not 
 delude ourselves as to the attitude of Eng- 
 land. In spite of the pacifism of its Gov- 
 ernment, England will certainly come in." 
 
 Lichnowsky, forgetting what he had said to 
 me in the spring, said, "Of that I am not so 
 sure as you are." "You are wrong," I said. 
 "I know the English. No one in the world 
 will be able to prevent them mixing them- 
 selves up in a war provoked with so much 
 injustice. If you believe the contrary you 
 are profoundly mistaken." 
 
 He went on repeating that it might be 
 possible, but that he was not so sure of Eng- 
 land's coming in as I was. That is the one 
 weakness that I found in Lichnowsky 's judg- 
 ment at that time. Of course like a great 
 many other people he had been blinded by the 
 Irish question. 
 
20 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 I followed Lichnowsky's advice. I gave up 
 my tickets for Tuesday the 28th, but being 
 more distrustful than the German Ambassa- 
 dor I took places on the express for the fol- 
 lowing day, Wednesday the 29th. It turned 
 out to be the last through train. 
 
 On the morning of Tuesday the 28th, when 
 I saw Lichnowsky, he was a changed man. He 
 had begun to lose confidence. He only saw a 
 seven to three chance of peace, and although 
 he assured me of his hope that humanity would 
 be spared such a nameless folly, he said, "Go 
 back to Roumania. There are none too many 
 good brains about; don't deprive your coun- 
 try of yours. I hope you will soon come back, 
 but I understand your going." v 
 
 I saw him for the last time in the afternoon 
 of Tuesday the 28th. He was pale — a man 
 undone. He told me the peace of the world 
 hung by a thread. I have seldom seen any- 
 one so overcome. 
 
 I had a profound conviction that this man 
 was sincere, that he had genuinely worked 
 for peace, that he had served his country with 
 all his strength, and that for all the calamities 
 unchained by the black executioner of Buda- 
 pesth and the criminals of Berlin he deserves 
 no blame. 
 
 
PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 21 
 
 I hope Prince Lichnowsky, for whose con- 
 fidence and friendship I am grateful, will 
 forgive me for witnessing to history in such 
 detail. The day will come when the German 
 people — once more sober — will remember that 
 their true servants are those who did their 
 best to save their country from the torrent of 
 universal hate unloosed against it by this war 
 — a war naked of all excuse. 
 
Count Berchtold 
 
Ill 
 
 COUNT BERCHTOLD 
 
 I HATE only had two political conversations 
 with Count Berchtold during my life, but they 
 were enough to enable me to take the measure 
 of the man. After each of them I wondered 
 to myself how it was possible that such a per- 
 son could be Minister of Foreign Affairs to a 
 Great Power. The phenomenon was ex- 
 plained to me by a Viennese journalist. "In 
 our country it is necessary for a Count to suc- 
 ceed a Count." I state this for what it is 
 worth, but I have never succeeded in finding 
 a better reason. 
 
 Count Berchtold is a fine-looking man, if 
 one admires that type of person. Gentle- 
 manly, extremely gentlemanly, with good 
 manners — and that is all there is to him. I 
 should have nothing to add if I wanted to 
 paint his portrait. 
 
 I was motoring in Northern Italy when 
 Count Berchtold went to Sinaia in Septem- 
 ber, 1912, to pay a visit to King Charles. A 
 
 25 
 
SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 o Sinaia caught me at Ven 
 In it i med me that it was eon- 
 
 ild stop at Vienna 
 ad se< Count Berchtold, 
 1 and< in that Bang Charles 
 
 thought a change in the Austrian Govern- 
 ment imminent and that he wished me to he in 
 personal touch with the new director of Aus- 
 v. 1 acquainted Count Berchtold 
 
 th my wish to visit him. and he eame in 
 from the country to Vienna in order to re- 
 e me. 
 
 We chatted for an hour, lie tried to ex- 
 plain to me his notorious Circular on the 
 deeentrali/ation of the Ottoman Empire-— the 
 
 i ular that precipitated the outbreak of the 
 Balkan War. 1 could make nothing of it. 
 Re complained that his intentions had been 
 misunderstood everywhere, lie laid himself 
 out to reveal them to me. but again 1 did not 
 understand him any the better. Was the 
 business too intricate, or was I too limited- 
 I don't really know. 
 
 Speaking to him of the tieklish condition 
 of Balkan affairs, 1 said, '"If you can keep 
 the peaee for another couple of months the 
 situation will be saved. "Mountain wars are 
 not undertaken after November." "Whv 
 
COUNT BERCHTOLD 27 
 
 should the peace be kept for two months 
 only? 1 am sure that peace is in no way 
 threatened in the Balkans. You can be cer- 
 tain of that," he replied confidently. Did 
 he want to mystify me or did he not know 
 the real situation? 
 
 In the course of conversation I spoke of the 
 folly of competitive naval armaments and 
 asked why Austria too should be travelling 
 down the same road. "Why," I asked, "do 
 you want a big fleet? You have no Colonies; 
 you never will have any Colonies, and your 
 oversea trade will never be of much impor- 
 tance. What good is a fleet to you? If you 
 are seeking security against Italy you are 
 committing a fundamental error. You will 
 never be able to fight Italy on the sea, not 
 only because she will always be your superior, 
 but also because, in the event of such a con- 
 flict, she would be the ally of France and Eng- 
 land, and your Dreadnoughts would never 
 even put to sea. If, on the other hand, you 
 expect to be on Italy's side she will not need 
 your fleet. She would prefer to increase her 
 own. Besides," I added, "I don't understand 
 what Germany is up to either"; and there- 
 upon I repeated to him what I had said to 
 
88 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Kiderlen-Waeehter in Berlin some ten months 
 previously. 
 
 In reply Count Berchtold explained to 
 me what 1 had already suspected — that the 
 increase of the Austrian Navy had been 
 demanded by Germany, and that the day 
 was coming when the Austro-German fleets 
 would have a real superiority over the Eng- 
 lish fleet. He recogniied that England 
 could always build more ships than the two 
 Teutonic Empires, but he was sure that she 
 would soon bo short of erews. "With their 
 system of voluntary enlistment the supply o( 
 recruits will soon fail, whereas we with our 
 compulsory service can always get as many 
 men as we want. Then we could attack and 
 destroy England." 
 
 I listened with amazement to this "Minister 
 of a Great Tower, lie did not seem to 
 realize that the day England found she could 
 not get enough volunteers for her Navy, that 
 day she would introduce compulsory service, 
 but that she never could allow herself to be 
 outclassed by Germany at sea. 
 
 II 
 
 The second time I saw Count Berchtold 
 was on the 11th or 12th of September, 1013. 
 
COUNT BERCHTOLD 29 
 
 I am not quite sure of the clay. I rather 
 think, however, it was the 11th. He hegan 
 by making most ample apologies both on 
 his own account and on that of Count Tisza 
 for an incident that had recently occurred at 
 Deva, when the small Roumanian flags on my 
 wife's motor had been torn off by Hungarian 
 police. We then spoke of the great political 
 crisis we had just been through. He told me 
 he had been much criticized and had been ac- 
 cused of not having protected the rights and 
 position of Austria-Hungary. I replied — in 
 accordance with my genuine conviction — that 
 even if it were really true that the designs on 
 Salonika attributed to Austria were but a 
 calumny, Austria had lost nothing through 
 the Balkan crisis, that even her caprices had 
 been satisfied, and that therefore she had 
 absolutely no cause for grievance. I added 
 that he could, if he would, establish good 
 relations with Serbia, more especially as for 
 at least fifteen or twenty years to come the 
 Serbians would be more than busy with their 
 newly acquired territory. I assured him that 
 this was the genuine belief of Monsieur 
 Pasitch, and that if Austria would but show 
 herself a little less hostile everything would 
 once more go smoothly. 
 
130 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 We talked, too, of Albania, which he looked 
 upon as his own creation, and seemed sur- 
 prised that I know the Albanians and Al- 
 banian affairs as well as I did. I must own 
 that on this subject he was very well in- 
 formed, but all the same he seemed to me com- 
 pletely deluded. For example, he told me 
 that at that moment law and order in Albania 
 Mas better assured than in any other country 
 in Europe! 
 
 This second conversation did not make me 
 change my opinion of Count Berchtold. I am 
 quite persuaded that since the death of Fran- 
 cis Ferdinand it was Tisza and not Berchtold 
 who directed Austrian policy. lie has been 
 the plaything of the really strong man. Far 
 from this being an excuse for him, it means 
 that he is doubly guilty, for no one has the 
 right to accept a position that is above his 
 capacity. 
 
 1 am sure we shall never hear of Count 
 Berchtold in Fmropean politics again. That 
 episode is ended. 
 
The Marquis Pallavicini 
 
IV 
 THE MARQUIS PALLAVICINI 
 
 A pure Magyar answers to this Italian name. 
 In his youth the Marquis Pallavicini must 
 have been an Imperialist, like so many other 
 Hungarian aristocrats; but at the time I knew 
 him he was already a Magyar in the full ac- 
 ceptance of the word. This is all the more 
 remarkable as it seems the Marquis speaks 
 pretty indifferent Magyar. He has made up 
 for this by bringing up his sons, the children 
 of a charming English woman, to be such 
 chauvinists that they would never even learn 
 their mother's tongue. 
 
 Like all good Hungarians, the Marquis 
 Pallavicini has always been an ultra- Ser- 
 bophobe. It gave him great pleasure to 
 describe to me how, when he was Minister at 
 Belgrade, whenever the poor Serbian Gov- 
 ernment resisted any demand of Austria, he 
 would discover that all the Serbian pigs were 
 stricken with sudden illness, and how directly 
 the Serbian Government gave in, the pigs 
 
 33 
 
84 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 were instantly and miraculously cured, SO that 
 their export might be resumed. 
 
 No mere words can do justice to the 
 physiognomy of the Marquis Pallavicini, when 
 he was explaining these incidents in Anstro- 
 Serbian relations or rattier in the martyrdom 
 
 of Serbia. A smile which was almost a grin 
 pervaded his face, his short-sighted eyes closed 
 till they became invisible, and his pining voice 
 took on a Mephistophelian tone. The very 
 wagging o\ y his head, his short awkward 
 gestures, all seemed to diffuse a smell oi' 
 sulphur! 
 
 The Marquis Pallavicini is the antithesis of 
 the traditional Austrian diplomat. Usually 
 such people are good to look at, they have a 
 presence which impresses the unwary, and 
 one must see a good ileal oi' them to under- 
 stand their remarkable emptiness. To put it 
 shortly, they look more intelligent than they 
 really are. 
 
 In the case of Pallavicini it is just the 
 opposite. His face is not his fortune. He 
 looks rather a simpleton, and yet one would 
 be wrong to trust in his ease to appearances. 
 Pallavicini may not be a great mind, but at 
 any rate he is a very observing, very well- 
 informed, and a very subtle person. In a 
 
THE MARQUIS PALLAVICINI 35 
 
 word, the Austro-IIungarian Ambassador to 
 Constantinople is a much abler man than he 
 looks, and one would make a blunder if in 
 dealing with him one judged by appearances. 
 
 n 
 
 I have had relations with the Marquis 
 Pallavicini for years. We have talked to- 
 gether for hours. Of all these conversations 
 three only present themselves to my mind 
 when I recall the past. 
 
 The first concerned the domestic politics of 
 Hungary. It was a few weeks prior to the 
 well-remembered general election when the 
 Tisza Government was beaten by the coalition. 
 We were both lunching with Count Larisch 
 at Bucharest. Pallavicini believed that Tisza 
 would be successful. I made a bet with him 
 that the coalition would triumph and win 
 easily, and he never understood how it was 
 that I guessed correctly. Pallavicini was com- 
 pletely unable to understand the compelling 
 force of parliamentary freedom for which the 
 coalition fought, and that is why he was at 
 that time an Imperialist. 
 
 Our second talk took place at Constanti- 
 nople on my return from Athens in Novem- 
 ber, 1913. The occasion was a reception at 
 
06 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 the Roumanian Legation. Pallavicini wanted 
 a tite-d-tite with me which I could not refuse 
 him. In this interview, which followed one 
 that I had had with Monsieur de Criers, the 
 Russian representative, the Austro-Hungarian 
 Ambassador to Turkey strongly advised me to 
 try and improve our relations with Bulgaria. 
 I replied that I asked nothing better, but that 
 as the Bulgarians were discontented and we 
 were satisfied, an understanding between us 
 was unthinkable, unless it were motived by 
 an attack on some third party; and I con- 
 cluded by saying, "An understanding with 
 Bulgaria is all very well, but at whose expense 
 is it to be?" "At that of Serbia, of course," 
 he replied. This Mas early in November, 
 1913! 
 
 At the third and last conversation I had 
 with the Marquis Pallavicini — which will with- 
 out doubt forever be the last — I spoke so much 
 that I feel awkward about referring to it. 
 
 It was the spring of 1914. Ever since our 
 military promenade into Bulgaria the Austro- 
 Hungarian press had been irrepressible. At 
 Budapesth two things had been noted, both 
 equally disagreeable to the Magyar oligarchy. 
 One was that the Roumanian expedition 
 across the Danube indicated the first step in 
 
THE MARQUIS PALLAVICIM 37 
 
 our emancipation from the Austro-Hungarian 
 yoke; the other that nothing had done more 
 for the greater Roumania idea than the new 
 prestige which free Roumania had just ac- 
 quired. Our soldiers' phrase in the summer 
 of 1913 was, "We pass through Bulgaria in 
 order to get to Transylvania." This phrase 
 expressed a profound truth which even Buda- 
 pesth could not hut realize. The Austrian 
 press opened a most comic campaign on the 
 question of Austro-Roumanian relations. 
 Were they the same? And if they were 
 chilled, how far would the congealing process 
 go? And what ought to be done to make 
 relations once more idyllic? An enormous 
 amount of ink was wasted in Vienna and 
 Budapesth. At Bucharest they were regarded 
 as unwholesome, people had had enough of 
 these false declarations of love, which after 
 all were none too decent, as they presupposed 
 an unnatural attachment on our part. 
 
 The Austrians decided to send Pallavicini 
 to Bucharest. He had once lived five years 
 amongst us, and had the reputation of being 
 a convinced anti-Roumanian. They said we 
 could not deceive a man like him as they 
 alleged we had done in the case of so many 
 others. 
 
38 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Pallavicini arrived at Bucharest in the 
 spring of 1914, He stayed there three days; 
 visited King- Charles and our politicians, and 
 went away annoyed. Naturally he came to 
 see me. He stayed more than an hour, and 
 frankly told me that he wanted to know 
 whether our alliance with Austria still held 
 good, hecause if not the Austrian* would 
 have to apply elsewhere — to Bulgaria, in short. 
 He told me he had not taken this step yet, 
 which was a lie, hut that he would he obliged 
 to do it if he could not count on us. I an- 
 swered him with diplomatic politeness, which 
 meant nothing. When he returned to the 
 charge I said nothing was more intolerable 
 than to be asked every moment, "Do you love 
 me?" and that that was what the Austrian 
 press was doing all the time. I did not con- 
 ceal from him that this error in taste had 
 ended bv really annoying us. 
 
 "You have seen the King," I said, "and 
 you know what his power is. You must at 
 any rate be pleased with the King." He said 
 "No," that the King had declared to him that 
 Roumania would range herself against those 
 who provoked war, and that that was not good 
 enough for him. 
 
 And when I put it to him that I no longer 
 
THE MARQUIS PALLAVICINI 39 
 
 understood the hang of things, as for thirty 
 years it had been dinned into us that it was 
 Russia who wished to provoke war and Aus- 
 tria-Hungary that desired nothing but peace, 
 he dished up to me the old theme of preven- 
 tive war. He explained to me that it was im- 
 possible for Austria-Hungary to remain in 
 the position in which Balkan events had placed 
 her, that Serbia was a menace to her, and that 
 sooner or later war must break out. Austria 
 might soon be led to provoke it herself. 
 
 It was all very well for me to marshal my 
 arguments against the folly of preventive war 
 and to try and prove the absurdity of talk- 
 ing of the Serbian danger to the Dual Empire; 
 nothing was of any avail. The Marquis in- 
 sisted at length that it was necessary for 
 Austria to bring about a European war. I 
 have already said that he repeated the word 
 "war" five times during our interview. I made 
 a pencil mark each time he said it. 
 
 This conversation with the Marquis Palla- 
 vicini was one of the gleams that lit up my 
 mind on the European situation. Through- 
 out the Balkan crisis I had many proofs that 
 Austria-Hungary was trying to provoke war 
 at any cost, but since the treaty of Bucharest 
 I had hoped that the storm was overpast. The 
 
40 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Marquis made me realize, however, that I was 
 mistaken. 
 
 Magyar policy was so well served by the 
 assassin Prineip that if I had the same men- 
 tality as the politicians of Budapesth I should 
 say that they had suggested to him his useless 
 crime. 
 
 It would be an exaggeration to suggest that 
 the Marquis Fallavicini was one of the au- 
 thors of the world war, but he was one of the 
 most active and adroit of the auxiliaries. On 
 this account he may find a place in history. 
 
Count Goluchowsky 
 
COUNT GOLUCHOWSKY 
 
 I have very agreeable memories of my inter- 
 course with Count Goluchowsky. He is a 
 great gentleman and his manners are perfect. 
 Moreover, during his long stay in Roumania 
 he did his best to minimize the painful side 
 of the inevitable clash between Roumanian 
 and Magyar interests. I only had one dis- 
 cussion with him that was really disagreeable, 
 and then he forgot himself so far as to tell me 
 straight out that the capitulations were still 
 in force in Roumania. The discussion became 
 so desperately animated that I thought per- 
 sonal communication would be impossible in 
 the future. Count Goluchowsky quite under- 
 stood the mistake he had made, just as on 
 another occasion he understood a still greater 
 blunder he made in the case of the late 
 Alexander Lahovary. The papers dealing 
 with this incident should be in the possession 
 of Madame Lahovary. 
 
 Everyone was grateful to Count Goluchow- 
 
 43 
 
H SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 sky for the really pacific orientation he had 
 given to Austrian policy during his long 
 tenure of offiee. He pushed his pacifism to 
 
 the point of inventing a kind of entente of 
 European Powers to resist the American 
 danger, a clumsy scheme that made people 
 laugh at his expense, but which at any rate 
 showed that he wished to preserve peace 
 amongst the nations of Europe. 
 
 It is true that the Emperor Francis Joseph, 
 who was then full of vigor, had made the ap- 
 pointment of Count Goluchowsky to the Min- 
 istry of Foreign Affairs conditional on his 
 not making trouble for him, and allowing him 
 to finish his long reign in peace. 
 
 The only weakness Count Goluchowsky 
 gave way to at the Ballplatz Mas his exagger- 
 ated hatred of Serbia. He utterly despised 
 the Serbs. His aristocratic prejudices had 
 something to say to this; the Serbs were after 
 all to him a nation of uncouth peasants. Many 
 times did King Charles point out to Count 
 Goluchowsky that he was making a great mis- 
 take in refusing consideration to the Serbs, 
 and many times did the Count say that it 
 would only require two monitors at Belgrade 
 to bring "the worthy Serbs'' to reason. 
 
 In spite of this it would be extremely un- 
 
COUNT GOLUCHOWSKY 45 
 
 just not to recognize that Count Goluchowsky, 
 who had never posed as a star of the first 
 magnitude, filled his post of Foreign Minister 
 with distinction. He was not as provocative 
 as Count Aehrenthal, who, though a man of 
 clearly superior capacity, was also liable to 
 make big mistakes. 
 
 Count Goluchowsky inspired me with the 
 sort of esteem that one has for a man who 
 has played an important role well and who 
 can bear disgrace with dignity. 
 
 II 
 
 I had not seen Count Goluchowsky for 
 many years when I ran into him in the dining- 
 room of the Hotel Bristol at Vienna at eight 
 o'clock on Thursday, the 30th of July, 1914. 
 I was on my way from London to Bucharest, 
 and was agonized by the thought of the great 
 disaster which might at any moment over- 
 whelm humanity. 
 
 Count Goluchowsky was sitting with a 
 young Austrian whom I had met before. He 
 wore a miniature of the Order of the Golden 
 Fleece in the button-hole of his short dinner 
 jacket. This was a characteristic detail. If 
 one happens to be one of the twenty or thirty 
 persons who have been honored with this deco- 
 
16 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 ration, it would seem to me a dreadful error 
 in taste to wear it in miniature on a dinner 
 jacket, and it surprised me that a man who 
 represented the last word in breeding- eould 
 do such a tiling. 
 
 1 went up to the Count, and we naturally 
 talked of the great evil that was menacing the 
 world, lie answered with a smile that was 
 almost jovial that the worthy Serbs would 
 now be brought to their senses and that this 
 affair concerned Austria and nobody else. 
 When I told him that it was no longer a Serb- 
 ian question and that if Austria did not aet 
 reasonably Russia and France would be forced 
 to intervene, and that that would mean a Euro- 
 pean war. he replied with the same smile, the 
 same gay light-heartedness and his g-ayety 
 was o{ a kind 1 had seldom seen in him — "So 
 much the worse for the worthy Russians and 
 the worthy French." 1 went on to say that 
 that was not all: that I had just come from 
 London, and eould assure him that, although 
 the English Government was the most pacific 
 in history, the logic of events would prove 
 stronger than the will o( Governments, and 
 that if Austria persisted in its overbearing 
 attitude. England would tight to her last man 
 and her last shilling. 
 
COUNT GOLUCHOWSKY 47 
 
 The smile on Count Goluchowsky's face 
 expanded, and he said, "So much the worse 
 for the worthy English." 
 
 At that moment my last meeting with Sir 
 Edward Grey on July 21, 1914, passed like 
 a vision before my eyes. On that occasion he 
 had spoken to me with austere gravity, saying 
 that the situation gave cause for deep anxiety, 
 but that in spite of it he hoped for peace; 
 because for his part he could not imagine that 
 the man existed who could shoulder the re- 
 sponsibility of provoking a calamity which 
 would spell the bankruptcy of civilization, and 
 of which no one in the world could foresee the 
 consequences. There came another vision — 
 that of Monsieur Poincare, who, on the 1st 
 of January, 1913, spoke to me with most 
 poignant emotion of the terrible eventuality 
 of a European war, a war in which he refused 
 to believe and against which he was working 
 with all his strength. 
 
 In memory I re-read Kiderlen-Waechter's 
 last letter to me, written in November, 1912, 
 a few months before his death, the letter of a 
 man who, most unfortunately for Germany 
 and for the world, was no longer with us, a 
 letter which stated that he was convinced that 
 peace would be maintained because at the last 
 
4S SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 moment the whole world would hesitate to em- 
 bark on a venture which this time was a ques- 
 tion of lite or death for all. 
 
 With the eyes oi' my soul I saw Grey, Poin- 
 eare, Kiderlen; with my physical eyes I saw 
 the broad smile and the indescribable levity of 
 Count Goluchowsky, And I became more 
 than ever confirmed in my belief that Vienna, 
 now a mere suburb of Budapesth, was the 
 criminal, the great criminal, in that it was 
 ready to plunge humanity at any moment into 
 the unspeakable horror of war. 
 
August 2, IQ14 
 
VI 
 
 AUGUST *, 1914 
 
 J arrived hack at Sinaia from London at 
 J 1 :.'i0 a.m. on Sunday, the 2d of August. 
 Germany had declared war on Russia the 
 previous evening, so the horrible slaughter was 
 about to begin. On the Saturday evening in 
 Bucharest J had already heard (in a way that 
 J shall divulge one day) that a Privy Council 
 was to he held at Sinaia on Monday, the 3rd 
 of August, that this Privy Council had heen 
 postponed for forty-eight hours in order that 
 J might he present at it, and that King 
 Charles was insisting that Rournania should 
 go into the war on the side of Austria and 
 Germany. 
 
 I am keeping hack for a future occasion my 
 account of the conversations I had on the eve- 
 ning of Saturday, the 1st of August, at 
 Bucharest, on Sunday, the 2nd of August, at 
 the Sinaia station on my arrival, and still 
 more important, those of Sunday afternoon. 
 As I was leaving the station an invitation 
 
5ft SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 reached me to go and lunch at the Royal 
 Palace* at one o'clock. There was barely lime 
 to go to my villa and dress my poor villa thai 
 no longer exists. 
 
 I realized that in order to convert me to 
 his ideas the King was about to make an 
 onslaught on me. Less than a month ago in 
 that Same Palace the King had confided to 
 nn« the great secret to wit, that the Emperor 
 William had decided to bring about a Eu- 
 ropean war, which would nol take place, how- 
 ever, for three or four years. On that oc- 
 casion the King had gone so Tar as to explain 
 to me that this breathing Space of three years 
 would Suffice to complete both our constitu- 
 tional reforms and our military preparations. 
 
 As 1 had made up my mind to face him 
 with an absolute nan possum us attitude at the 
 Privy Council the following day, I was 
 anxious to avoid argument, which must al- 
 ways be a painful business with an elderly 
 monarch, and 1 made up my mind that dur- 
 ing luncheon 1 would give the talk a turn 
 that would leave him no ray of hope. 
 
 Hardly had 1 sat down next to Queen 
 Elizabeth at the luncheon table than I found 
 I was in a house divided against itself. It was 
 obvious that the King was more than worried, 
 
AUGUST 2, 1914 53 
 
 that the Queen was more bellicose than the 
 King* and that the Crown Princess, now 
 the reigning Queen Marie, was dead against 
 the policy of her uncle and aunt, and did not 
 conceal it from them. It even seemed to me 
 that tears had recently been shed in that 
 Royal Palace. 
 
 It was the Queen who first began to speak 
 on the burning question of war. I told her 
 that I was sure that war had been inevitable 
 since the day Austria had addressed her in- 
 famous ultimatum to Serbia, arid that I knew 
 the ultimatum was the work of the Magyars, 
 of Tisza, Forgaseh, Berehtold, who had the 
 support and collaboration of Tchirsky, the 
 German Ambassador at Vienna. I added as 
 a self-evident truth that a German victory 
 meant a Hungarian victory, and therefore was 
 not compatible with maintaining the inde- 
 pendence of the Kingdom of Roumania. The 
 King, who sat opposite, and was listening with 
 fixed attention, understood me, and that is 
 why, as I shall explain presently, he spared 
 me from the onslaught I wished to avoid. 
 
 Intelligent as she was, and though really a 
 woman above the average, the Queen was not 
 sufficiently versed in politics to understand a 
 word of this. She was all for explaining that 
 
54 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 a Magyar victory would mean nothing for a 
 very long time to come, etc, . . . When 1 i<>l<l 
 her again o[' my extreme anxiety in view of 
 Mil- fact that Germany had such a formidable 
 force at her disposal and that if she were suc- 
 cessful it would be the end of Roumania, she 
 passed on to another subject. 
 
 She asked me what I thought would he the 
 
 probable consequences of such a war. I an- 
 swered with all eyes upon me — that no 
 human being would he presumptuous enough 
 to say he knew or could even guess what all 
 the consequences of such a war might be. "I 
 
 know, however," 1 added, "what four of them 
 will he, and these four I will explain to you 
 in a few words. The first consequence will 
 he a revival of international hatreds on such 
 a scale as Europe has not seen for centuries. 
 This is as sure as that the night follows the 
 day. 
 
 "The second consequence will he a. sudden 
 veering o[' opinion towards the ideas of the 
 
 Extreme Left, what we call socialist ideas. 
 
 "Of course in the long run nothing that is 
 inherently absurd can triumph, hut there is 
 hound in all countries to he a trend to the Ex- 
 treme Left, once the unloosing of this appall- 
 ing catastrophe has made the governing classes 
 
AUGUST 2, 1914 55 
 
 appear more incapable in the eyes of the 
 masses than they have hitherto believed them 
 to be. 
 
 "In the third place, Madam, there will be 
 what I can only describe as a cataract of 
 crowns. Your Majesty has so often told me 
 you are a Republican that you will hardly be 
 surprised at this prophecy. Only those mon- 
 archies which are in truth hereditary presi- 
 dencies of republics, like the British Royal 
 House, have any chance of escaping this 
 dreadful flood, the flood that must inevitably 
 rise out of a war engineered by absolute mon- 
 arch s." 
 
 I also explained to the Queen that as yet 
 another result of the war, the revolutionary 
 movement, which for several decades had 
 ceased to he political and had become economic, 
 would inevitably become political once more. 
 
 "And lastly," I added, "this war will pre- 
 cipitate by at least half a century the estab- 
 lishment of America in the moral hegemony 
 of the white race, an achievement inevitable 
 in any case, but which the war will hasten." 
 
 My fourth statement provoked animated 
 discussion. I said I saw nothing in this event 
 to object to, as the most interesting experience 
 humanity had as yet seriously embarked on 
 
56 SOME PEHSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 was this new effort in civilization on the part 
 oi' the United States; since it would moan a 
 civilization without prejudices, without castes, 
 without monarehial or aristocratic institutions, 
 and without historic quarrels. 
 
 A few days later I published four articles 
 developing these ideas with the titles "The 
 Hatreds/' "The Movement to the Left," "The 
 Cataract of Crowns," and "The Coming of 
 America." 
 
 When I think oi' this date, the 2nd oi' 
 August, 191 fej already so remote, 1 wonder 
 how it is that these conclusions, which at the 
 time appeared to me self-evident, were not so 
 to the world in general, and 1 reflect once 
 again how tenacious on most of us is the grip 
 oi' the ideas o( the past. 
 
 After luncheon we took coffee in the great 
 hall, and I noticed that the King was hesitat- 
 ing between his wish to talk to me and his fear 
 oi' hearing too soon the refusal for which my 
 animated and provocative conversation at 
 luncheon hail prepared him. 
 
 Before the King spoke to me the Crown 
 Princess, now the reigning Queen, came up 
 to me with Queen Elizabeth and asked me 
 whether or no England would remain neutral 
 in the war. Tt should not be forgotten that 
 
AUGUST 8, 1914 57 
 
 this was Sunday, and that it was on the pre- 
 vious Wednesday J had left London. As the 
 Princess spoke to me in English J replied in 
 English, saying that her question surprised 
 
 me, as she must know as well as I did that 
 England, as in Napoleon's day, would go into 
 the war with her last man and her last shill- 
 ing. In a nervous voice she then said, "Yon 
 hear what he says, aunt," and turning to me, 
 "That is what I tell them all the time, and 
 they refuse to understand it. They under- 
 stand nothing in tfiis house." She then went 
 away with the Queen. 
 
 A few minutes later the King addressed 
 me: "Yon know yon must bring two of your 
 friends to the Privy Council to-morrow. 
 Whom have yon selected?" 
 
 "I have asked several to come to Sinaia, 
 Sir," I replied, "and I will make my choice 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 "Oh, well," said the King, "the selection 
 doesn't really matter, for your party at any 
 rate is disciplined." As I still did not appear 
 to understand, the King added, "You have al- 
 ways said that if ever we went to war we 
 should have to hegin by publishing all our 
 treaties of alliance." "Yes, Sir," I replied, 
 "and if because of a treaty honestly inter- 
 
58 SOME PERSONAL [MPRESSIONS 
 
 preted we were genuinely forced to go to war, 
 they must be published, because before every- 
 thing a nation musl honor its signature." 
 
 This time the King understood and re- 
 signed himself to the inevitable, lie knew 
 thai as Germany had provoked war we weir 
 hound neither by the letter nor the spirit of 
 the treaties. 
 
 The next day at the Crown Council he 
 tried to put another interpretation oi\ the text 
 of the treaties, hut on this Sunday, the '2nd 
 oi' August, he attempted nothing of the kind. 
 
 Many of my recollections of the four ter- 
 rible years are as sharp and clear as at the 
 moment the events happened. There are few 
 thai have remained in my memory so dis- 
 tinctly as this luncheon of the '2nd of August, 
 1911, in the Royal Palace at Sinaia. 
 
K iderlen-IV aechter 
 
VII 
 
 KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 
 
 For more than ten years I was very intimate 
 with the late Kiderlen-Waechter. That is to 
 say, I had opportunities of seeing him exactly 
 as he was and to know both his good and his 
 bad qualities. Above all Kiderlen was a great 
 intellectual force. There was no doubt about 
 it. One could not be often in his company 
 without realizing that one had to do with the 
 kind of mind which is an ornament to the 
 human race. Kiderlen was nearly all mind. 
 Not that he was lacking in heart, for during 
 his life he gave undoubted proofs of deep and 
 unchanging attachment towards certain peo- 
 ple. He loved quietude and adored animals. 
 But taking him all in all, one can without 
 doing him an injustice say that Kiderlen was 
 neither a sentimentalist nor an idealist, but 
 that he was in the last resort a sound working 
 mind, though naturally a mind which was rep- 
 resentative of his country and his time. 
 He had been under the influence of Bis- 
 
 61 
 
G2 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 marck as well as under that of Holstein, who, 
 like Richelieu's Fere Joseph, played a part 
 behind the scenes out of all proportion to his 
 nominal position. From those early associates 
 Kiderlen derived a certain vein of brutality, 
 the mention of which cannot be omitted. 
 Moreover, he lent himself readily to advertise- 
 ment, because he believed it to be the indis- 
 pensable adjunct of all political action. It 
 was he and he alone who framed the famous 
 ultimatum to Russia during the Bosnian crisis, 
 although he was at the time only Minister at 
 Bucharest on leave at Berlin. "I knew the 
 Russians were not ready for war, that they 
 could not go to war in any case, and I wanted 
 to make what capital 1 could out of this 
 knowledge. I wished to show them that Ger- 
 many, which had been in Russian leading 
 strings since 1815, was now free of them. 
 Never would Schoen and Co. have ventured 
 to do what I did on my own responsibility." 
 It was in this way that he explained to me his 
 overemphasis of Germany's action in this 
 case, an emphasis that contributed appreciably 
 to the unrest of Europe. 
 
 Kiderlen never wanted to go to the Foreign 
 Office. "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 
 our Government," he said, "is the worst of all 
 
KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 63 
 
 posts. If a tiling succeeds the Chancellor 
 takes the credit, if it fails the blame lies oil 
 the Secretary of State." What lie would 
 have really liked was the Embassy at Con- 
 stantinople. By a whim of the Emperor it 
 was snatched from under his nose and given 
 to Wangenheim, whom the Kaiser often met 
 at Corfu. 
 
 Yew people know of the way in which Ki- 
 derlen was appointed to the Ministry of For- 
 eign Affairs. The story is worth telling. 
 When Bethmann-IIollwcg, by the pure ca- 
 price of the Kaiser, was appointed Chancellor 
 of the Empire he knew nothing at all about 
 foreign politics. Naturally he looked out for 
 someone who did, and hoping to find the right 
 man in Kiderlen he asked him for a report on 
 the political world situation. Kiderlen at the 
 time was Minister at Bucharest, but doing 
 duty at Berlin. I never saw the report he 
 produced at that time, though I knew of its 
 existence. Since then I have been told that 
 it was copied by Ilerr von Busche, who was 
 at the time German Minister in Roumania. 
 Bethmann-ITollweg read the report, and 
 promptly told the Emperor that he would 
 only consent to remain Chancellor if Kiderlen 
 was appointed Foreign Minister. 
 
64 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 The Emperor had to give in. I say "give 
 in," because it was some years since Kiderlen 
 had been in the Kaiser's good graces. Once 
 he had been greatly appreciated in that quar- 
 ter on account of his clear thinking and 
 vivacity. No one knew better than he how 
 to tell spicy stories, and the Emperor, who is 
 very fond of them, never got tired of listen- 
 ing to them. But one day the Kaiser chaffed 
 Kiderlen on some private matter. Kiderlen 
 showed himself offended, and his reply was 
 such that he at once fell from royal favor. 
 
 One must remember that Kiderlen was ex- 
 ceedingly free in manner with the Kaiser. He 
 was no courtier and never flattered anyone, 
 and to him appreciation and friendship of his 
 Sovereign seemed to be essentially the same 
 as the friendship of other people. Kiderlen 
 was perfectly direct with the Kaiser, so direct 
 that he flatly refused to submit to certain con- 
 ditions that the Kaiser wished to impose on 
 him at the time of his appointment to the 
 Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "I shall go to 
 the Foreign Office to do as I think right in 
 that post or I shall not go there at all," was 
 his proud reply, and he had his way. 
 
 In the course of a conversation in 1911, 
 
KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 65 
 
 which I will speak of again later on, he said 
 to me, "If I am alive and in office there will 
 be no war between us and England. If ever 
 he decides differently he will have to find an- 
 other man. I allow no one to domineer over 
 my conscience." 
 
 This sense of dignity was one of the finest 
 traits in Kiderlen's nature. The former presi- 
 dent of the Roumanian Council, Monsieur 
 Maioresco, knows something about it, for dur- 
 ing the summer of 1912 he thought he under- 
 stood that Kiderlen had expressed a wish to 
 be asked to stay with the King at Sinaia, 
 and he made the mistake of asking the Ger- 
 man Minister whether Kiderlen's position 
 with the Emperor was sufficiently good to 
 warrant such an invitation. 
 
 Kiderlen heard about it, was furiously 
 angry, and wrote a crushing letter saying he 
 should like it known that he never had asked 
 and never would ask for an invitation from 
 anyone, no matter whom. 
 
 And yet he had a great admiration for King 
 Charles, and kept him informed of everything 
 from Berlin. In the Spring of 1912, he told 
 him for his private information only the great 
 news of the Balkan alliance. He added that 
 he had learned it from a most exceptional 
 
(it; SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 source, which would dry up forever it' the 
 King was in the least indiscreet with the 
 
 news. 1 was never able to discover who this 
 mysterious informant was. 
 
 Another o( Kiderlen's characteristics was 
 his wit. For example, one day the Roumanian 
 Minister for Foreign Affairs, General La- 
 hovary, said to him at a diplomatic reception, 
 "I do not understand what you are after in 
 Morocco. France alone has rights in Mo- 
 rocco." Kiderlen replied, "I don't know- 
 either. You see my Government only keeps 
 me informed of questions that are supposed 
 to affect Roumania. They did not look upon 
 Morocco in this light; but since you have 
 pointed out to me that they are wrong, 1 will 
 ask Berlin for a special explanation for your 
 Excellency.*' 
 
 I don't pretend here to draw Kiderlen's 
 portrait. 1 shall try to do so one day. These 
 few words of introduction are. however, in- 
 dispensable to the story which follows of the 
 statements made to me by Kiderlen at the 
 time of the Morocco erisis. 
 
 II 
 
 When Kiderlen was made "Minister of For- 
 eign Affairs he had to leave Kouniania. A 
 
KroERLEN-WAECHTER 07 
 
 few days before his departure we were out 
 walking, as was our habit, and he began to 
 sketch out his program in so far as it con- 
 cerned German relations with France. 
 
 "I have told them," he said, "that every 
 effort at an alliance with France is doomed 
 to failure. It is simply impossible for us to 
 win her friendship. I know better than any- 
 one that France wants peace and that she will 
 never attack us. I am perfectly sure about 
 this, but I also know that if we were attacked 
 by any other Power no Government would be 
 strong enough to prevent France attacking us 
 at the same time. Therefore all we can do is 
 to maintain good peaceable relations with 
 France and not try for anything more am- 
 bitious. For this reason I advised them" (and 
 by them he meant the Kaiser) "to give up all 
 designs on Morocco, and I explained to them 
 that so long as the Morocco question was open 
 England would side with France all over the 
 world and on all questions at issue between us. 
 Now that would not suit us one little bit. 
 England, of course, cannot abandon France 
 on the Morocco question. She knows well 
 enough that in exchange for something she 
 did not possess in Morocco she received from 
 the French their positive rights in Egypt. 
 
68 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 England owes a debt of honor to France. It' 
 we want to get rid o( all the disadvantages 
 which Anglo-French diplomatic cooperation 
 
 connotes for us we must give the French a 
 free hand in Morocco and so help England to 
 pay her debt to France. And we shall he 
 Sacrificing nothing, for we cannot set ourselves 
 down in Morocco in face of English opposi- 
 tion. Then why maintain this useless ten- 
 sion: It' we can get something for ourselves 
 on this occasion so much the better, but we 
 must not make that a condition o( the settle- 
 ment." 
 
 '"And do you believe that this policy will bo 
 adopted;" I asked, 
 
 "Of course, as they have appointed me to 
 the Foreign Office, for you know perfectly 
 well that 1 am not the kind o{ man who carries 
 out any policy but my own." 
 
 '"Then." 1 said, "we need not worry our- 
 selves over the Morocco question. Peace will 
 not be threatened in that quarter." 
 
 "Certainly not. and besides you know how 
 truly 1 long for peace. We have nothing to 
 gain from victory, and in the case of defeat 
 we have only too much to lose. Time is in 
 our favor. Every decade we become stronger 
 than our enemies. You have no conception o( 
 
KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 60 
 
 the prodigious strides made in our national 
 economy. And what good would a war be? 
 Admitting that we are victorious; if we take 
 new territory we only increase our difficulties. 
 Then there is another thing you may not have 
 considered. Every big victory is the work of 
 the people, and the people have to be paid for 
 it. We had to pay for the victory of 1870 
 with that pestilential thing, universal suffrage. 
 After another victory we should have the 
 parliamentary system — and you know what I 
 think about that for us Germans. It would 
 be an irreparable evil. No German would ever 
 submit to party discipline. Every German, 
 every German deputy wants to form his own 
 party, or at least his own group. We have no 
 need of war. If we don't bring it on, nobody 
 will. The Republican regime in France is es- 
 sentially pacific. The English don't want war, 
 and will never provoke it in spite of what the 
 newspapers say. As for Russia, she knows 
 that she cannot make war on us with any 
 chance of success. Of course there will always 
 be delicate questions, and of course there will 
 be anxious moments, but war will not come. 
 You may make your mind easy about Mo- 
 rocco." 
 
 Kiderlen went on in this strain. He ex- 
 
70 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 plained his whole policy to me, and I believed 
 his declarations to be sincere, for he had never 
 given me any reason to doubt him; but after 
 this talk I was naturally astonished when the 
 Agadir incident occurred. 
 
 At the time of the incident I was in Lon- 
 don, and on the evening Lloyd George made 
 his famous speech at the Mansion House I 
 had some people dining with me at the Carl- 
 ton. After dinner a friend who had heard the 
 speech came in and repeated the gist of it, 
 and when he told me that the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer, who was well known to be 
 most peacefully inclined, had read the pas- 
 sage relating to Foreign Affairs from a slip 
 of paper, I realized how grave the situation 
 was, and shivered at the idea of European 
 war. 
 
 Calm soon reigned again, for Germany 
 wisely withdrew. I breathed freely, but from 
 that moment German policy became for me an 
 enigma. 
 
 in 
 
 In the autumn of 1911 I went to Brussels 
 for a family gathering. On my way home I 
 stopped at Berlin to pay my friend Kiderlen a 
 long-promised visit. I stayed three days and 
 
KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 71 
 
 met him continually, but the conversation on 
 the first day was the most interesting. Kider- 
 len had invited me to lunch with him alone. 
 He was late in arriving, because he had been 
 detained at the Reichstag, where he had been 
 heckled over what was called his Moroccan 
 defeat. There was one man in particular, the 
 socialist deputy Ledehour, who was a perfect 
 nightmare to Kiderlen. 
 
 Before he arrived I looked round his study, 
 which was littered with papers and maps. 
 There were a few photographs, of course — 
 mostly of kings. As for photographs of ordi- 
 nary human beings I only saw three, that of 
 an Austrian whose name I forget, that of 
 Monsieur Cambon, with an autograph and 
 dedication, and my own. Cambon and I were 
 often said by Kiderlen to be alike, and he used 
 to say that we were the only foreigners he 
 talked frankly to, because we had never told 
 him anything but the truth. 
 
 Kiderlen was very tired, and we sat down to 
 luncheon at once. The wonderful Sevres 
 given him by the President of the French Re- 
 public in memory of the agreement of 1909, 
 was on the table. "That is the price of trea- 
 son," he said jokingly. 
 
 During luncheon and afterwards until four 
 
78 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 o'clock we had leisure to discuss every ques- 
 tion that interested us. Of course I did not 
 conceal my astonishment over his Moroccan 
 policy, which had nearly brought on a war 
 with England, a war which he had always 
 characterized as absurd. He explained that 
 he never meant actually to go to war, but that 
 his only object was that of settling the Mo- 
 rocco question once and for all. 
 
 lie alleged that France was not carrying 
 out the agreement reached in 1909. and that 
 he had to deal her a blow to make her see that 
 things were serious. He maintained that the 
 blow had done its work, because they had sub- 
 sequently arrived at an understanding, and 
 that in future relations with France would be 
 normal and relations with England might be- 
 come friendly. He did not admit to me what 
 I well knew to be his real object — namely, 
 to test the solidity of the Anglo-French un- 
 derstanding and if possible to smash it. He 
 complained that he was growing more and 
 more unpopular owing to his wish to avoid 
 war, and he assured me in the most categorical 
 manner that the Emperor was at one with him 
 in keeping the peace, and this in spite of the 
 frankly bellicose attitude of the whole im- 
 perial family, including those who had never 
 
KIDERLEN-WAECHTER 73 
 
 before mixed themselves up in polities. He 
 told me at some length of a conversation he 
 had had with the Crown Prince in that same 
 room in the chair I was then occupying, a con- 
 versation which was entirely to Kiderlen's 
 credit. He told me that the Crown Prince was 
 worse than a ninny, and that he had said to 
 him that it was not in the society of little officer 
 boys that politics could be learned, and that 
 he ought not to meddle with matters which he 
 did not understand. 
 
 Referring once more to Anglo-German re- 
 lations, he again told me of his wish to reach 
 an understanding with England. He did not 
 conceal from me what I already knew so well 
 that, like Bismarck, he detested England prin- 
 cipally on account of her parliamentary insti- 
 tutions, but he told me that he believed what 
 Bismarck had once written to Holstein was 
 true, that England was one of the great con- 
 servative factors of the world, and it was not 
 in anyone's interest to destroy it. In this let- 
 ter Bismarck added that the day England be- 
 came revolutionary the whole world would 
 become revolutionary too. 
 
 "But if you are so anxious to come to an 
 understanding with England," I said, "why 
 don't you do the one thing to ensure it? Why 
 
74 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 do you refuse to compromise on the question 
 of naval armament! What is your object in 
 pushing to its limit the competitive policyl 1 
 
 understood your attitude when it was still a 
 question o{ your becoming the second great 
 
 sea-power of the world. That you already 
 are. and what more do you want ! Do you 
 aspire to he not only the greatest military 
 power in the world, but also the greatest naval 
 power- That would mean universal domina- 
 tion, and it is not realizable. Others have tried 
 it. Spain and France, for example, but they 
 wont under. You are too intelligent not to 
 understand that until she has been utterly 
 crushed it is impossible for England to let 
 herself be outbuilt on the sea. You may build 
 :i\e dreadnoughts, she will build thirteen. 
 Where are you going to stop! You are head- 
 ing straight for a war with England, and that, 
 you know, will be no joke. Admitting for a 
 moment that you gain the victory. How long 
 will that last! You would raise against your- 
 self a world coalition. So hated would you 
 be that the very rabbits would enroll them- 
 selves against you. Don't follow dreams — ami 
 what you are after now is a dream.' 1 
 
 Kiderlen replied rather bitterly. "I wanted 
 to have an understanding over the limitation 
 
KIDERLEN WAECHTER 75 
 
 of armaments, but I couldn't manage it. I 
 have said everything you have s ; > i < I to me, 
 though perhaps I have not put- it so well. I 
 have said ii t<> Tirpitz, who was sitting in this 
 armchair of mine. I was sitting in yours." 
 
 "And?" 
 
 "I did not succeed iu convincing him," he 
 answered. 
 
 "Rui the Emperor?" I asked. 
 
 "He sided with Tirpitz." 
 
 And then he went on to asseverate that in 
 spite of this he would do all he possibly could 
 to conic lo tin agreement with England. He 
 suggested even that I should tell my friends 
 in London to send him as Ambassador some- 
 one who had a great position in Kngland, SO 
 that the work would not have to he done twice 
 over, in London and Berlin. We then went 
 on to talk about the agreement he had just 
 concluded with France. He assured me that 
 if by accident the French Parliament rejected 
 the agreement it would mean war. The agree- 
 ment represented the maximum concession 
 that the people of Germany would stand. 
 
 That very day I took pains to write my 
 impressions to a friend in Paris. My friend 
 showed my letter to M. Caillaux, then Prime 
 
76 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Minister, who read it to the Foreign Affairs 
 Committee of the Senate. 
 
 This was the last occasion on which I had 
 any prolonged talk with Kiderlen. From this 
 time on we simply wrote to each other. 
 
 On the evening of the 30th of December, 
 1912, I was due to meet him at Stuttgart, 
 where he had been spending the Christmas 
 holidays, and where he remained. At the rail- 
 way station at Salzbourg I heard of his most 
 unexpected death, and the next day at Stutt- 
 gart they told me that my name was one of 
 the last words he had spoken. 
 
 Perhaps it was only an illusion of friend- 
 ship, but I cannot help believing that in Kid- 
 erlen we lost one of the mainstays of peace. 
 Not that my friend was a sentimentalist, far 
 from it; but he was a man of genuinely well- 
 set mind, and his real intellect kept him to the 
 last of the opinion that a war of Germany 
 against the world was altogether a bad busi- 
 ness. 
 
Count Aehrenthal 
 
VIII 
 COUNT AEHRENTHAL 
 
 Count Aehrenthal was the most bril- 
 liant Austrian Foreign Minister since the days 
 of Beust. His capacity is the measure of liis 
 
 blunders. Without exaggerating, one may 
 say that he was to a greal extent the author 
 of the war. As a matter of fact. Prom L866 
 down to this day the Hapsburgs have main- 
 tained a prudent political reserve, and though 
 Count Andrassy gave himself airs at the time 
 of the Berlin Congress everyone knew that it 
 was nothing hut showing off. Achrenlhal 
 alone took the idea seriously that Austria- 
 Hungary was still a great power and destined 
 to aet an important part in the worlds af- 
 fairs. On several occasions he tried to play 
 first fiddle in the European orchestra, to the 
 great disgust of Berlin, whieh could not bear 
 that Austria should even pretend to emanci- 
 pate herself from its yoke. 
 
 The key to Count Aehrenthal's active and 
 dangerous policy must he sought in a personal 
 
 7!) 
 
SO SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 matter. He was extraordinarily intelligent 
 for an Austrian, and his quickness of under- 
 standing, his faculty for adaptation, his charm- 
 ing vivacity can only be explained by the drop 
 of Jewish blood that ran in his veins. 
 
 Count Aehrenthal knew his own value, es- 
 pecially when he compared himself with other 
 Austrian diplomats. lie was very ambitious 
 and believed he was destined for great things, 
 and he intended to use the power o( the mon- 
 archy for his own aggrandizement and per- 
 sonal fame. 
 
 He was a Bohemian and detested Slavs. I 
 remember a day when he received news of 
 anti-German excesses in Prague, "Czechs." 
 he said, "have such hard heads that they have 
 to be broken in order to make them under- 
 stand anything." 
 
 He had been in Russia for a long time, and 
 knew all the weaknesses o( that colossus. In 
 his thirst for success he exaggerated them and 
 underestimated the infinite resources of her 
 clumsy organism. 
 
 I saw a great deal of Count Aehrenthal dur- 
 ing his long stay in Koumania, and have many 
 letters from him. One day he tried to do me 
 an irreparable injury in making use of some 
 information he had dragged out o( me at mv 
 
COUNT AEHRENTHAL 81 
 
 own luncheon table. I naturally resented this 
 very much, and though, luckily for me, I was 
 able to counter his maneuver in time, our re- 
 lations after this became purely official. 
 
 On the eve of his final departure from Rou- 
 mania, he let me know that he wished to do 
 more than leave a p.p.c. card on me, and that 
 he would like to see me. In this last interview 
 he told me that we should probably both serve 
 our countries for some time to come, that we 
 should therefore have to meet each other, and 
 that it would be better to forget the past. I 
 told him that as he had not succeeded in in- 
 juring me and as he believed he was serving 
 his country in trying to do so, I was quite 
 willing to resume our old footing. 
 
 Later on when he was transferred from the 
 Embassy at Petrograd to the Foreign Office I 
 used to go and see him. I am now going to 
 tell of two of those interviews. 
 
 The first took place on a September day in 
 1909 or 1910. I don't know which, I only 
 know that it was after Tangier and before 
 Agadir. 
 
 He asked me what impressions I brought 
 back from my three months' tour in France 
 and England. 
 
 "I brought back two impressions," I said. 
 
82 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 "The first is that the alliance between Eng- 
 land and France cannot be broken — at any 
 rate in this generation. It is tinner even than 
 your alliance with Germany." 
 
 "But," he objected, "there is no treaty of 
 alliance." 
 
 "Of course there is no treaty, but there is 
 something better. Don't forget that those two 
 nations are free nations governing themselves. 
 Well, they are firmly convinced that their in- 
 terests are the same, and they have decided to 
 act together. No government could break 
 such an agreement which springs from the 
 mind of the two peoples." 
 
 "But such an alliance is ridiculous!" he ex- 
 claimed. "France stands to gain nothing from 
 England, whereas from Germany she could 
 have anything she wanted." 
 
 "France realizes." I answered, "that in ally- 
 ing herself with Germany she would be ally- 
 ing herself against England. If England 
 were overcome France would be nothing but 
 the vassal of Germany. That is a position yon 
 have accepted for yourselves. France has too 
 glorious a history behind her to accept a simi- 
 lar position without being crushed first." 
 
 "What!" said he briskly. "Austria is Ger- 
 manv's vassal?" 
 
COUNT AEHRENTHAL 83 
 
 "Yes, just as Roumania is the vassal of 
 Austria." I said this to coat the hitter pill. 
 
 "Aud what was your second impression?" 
 
 "I will tell you in a few words. France is 
 no longer afraid. She desires peace passion- 
 ately; she will never provoke war; but she is 
 no longer afraid. Henceforth if you bully 
 her realize that it means war. The time for 
 bluffing is gone by. If you want war that is 
 another thing, but intimidation and bluff will 
 no longer work." 
 
 "But it is mad," he said. "The French 
 army, far from being stronger than it was a 
 few years ago, is much weaker." 
 
 "Fear," I said, "is a physical question. One 
 may be weak and yet not be afraid. For one 
 reason and another, because perhaps she has 
 been too much bullied in the past, France, who 
 was afraid at the Tangier crisis, is now no 
 longer afraid; of that I am profoundly con- 
 vinced." 
 
 "It is very odd," said Aehrenthal in ending 
 the conversation; "our ambassadors have not 
 formed the same conclusions as you have." 
 
 "I can only give you my own," I replied, 
 and we passed on to talk of other things. 
 
84 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 II 
 
 The last time I saw Count Aehrenthal was 
 during the autumn of 1911, a few months be- 
 fore his death. 
 
 His illness had marked him heavily. He 
 had been spending a few weeks in the beauti- 
 ful surroundings of Mendel — henceforward I 
 hope to be Mendola — but he was not much 
 better for it. There was something very pe- 
 culiar about his condition, something I had 
 never seen before. He had kept his clearness 
 of mind intact, but he found great difficulty 
 in expressing himself — he stammered. He 
 only did this for the first few words of a sen- 
 tence. Once he had got a phrase out the rest 
 went easily. And this took place each time 
 that he began to speak. I must leave the ex- 
 planation of this symptom to the doctors. 
 
 Count Aehrenthal was embittered, very 
 much embittered, by his struggles with the 
 Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his protege, 
 Conrad von Hoetzendorf, whom he had just 
 triumphed over. He did not explain things 
 straight out to me, but he let me understand. 
 
 "There are people who think I was wrong 
 in preventing war with Italy.'' he said. "They 
 say that Italy would never in any case fight 
 
COUNT AEHRENTHAL 85 
 
 on our side and that it would have been better 
 to square accounts now. But I think I was 
 right. Even if Italy never fights on our side 
 we should be quite wrong to attack an ally 
 when she was engaged elsewhere." 
 
 Naturally I agreed with him. 
 
 And then forthwith we returned to the sub- 
 ject that we had so often discussed at Bucha- 
 rest. 
 
 I had always maintained that monarchies 
 were doomed and that only those monarchies 
 which were literally and really constitutional 
 had any chance of surviving; the rest seemed 
 to me to be nearer their end than anyone be- 
 lieved. Aehrenthal, absolutist and reaction- 
 ary as he always was, fought this opinion of 
 mine bitterly. Imagine my surprise at find- 
 ing Count Aehrenthal almost converted to re- 
 publicanism. 
 
 He told me that on reflection he had 
 changed his mind, and was no longer preju- 
 diced against the republican system. He also 
 explained that it was chiefly on account of 
 foreign policy that he had once believed so 
 firmly in the monarchical system. 
 
 "But now," he said, "France gives the lie to 
 all my theories. The foreign policy of the 
 French Republic is skillfully conducted and 
 
86 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 undoubtedly successful. Although France] 
 thanks to her political institutions, uses up 
 
 move men than any other country, she has a 
 constant supply o( first-rate men at her helm. 
 Look at her diplomacy, The whole German 
 
 and Austrian Diplomatic Corps together are 
 not worth the brothers Cambon and Barrere, 
 
 to mention only these three." 
 
 "What," I said laughingly, "and it is you, 
 
 Count Aehrenthal— here in the Ballplata, fac- 
 ing the portraits of Metternieh and Kaimitz 
 —who tell me that!" 
 
 "Yes, I do. Life teaches us many things,* 1 
 he replied. 
 
 1 understood more clearly than ever how 
 greatly Aehrenthal must have suffered re- 
 cently from the interference ot' Francis Ferdi- 
 nand in his policy, lie who had been so sure 
 of his mastery over the world of archdukes 
 had himself experienced the bitterness, the in- 
 dignity of despotic government And before 
 his death he had a revulsion ot' feeling that 
 gave him a vision of certain truths, a vision 
 that men who pass their lives as slaves never 
 attain to. Once again I recognized the signs 
 o{' Jewish blood: without it no Austrian Count 
 and Foreign Minister of his Apostolic Maj- 
 esty could have spoken in such a fashion. 
 
COUNT AEHRENTHAL 87 
 
 None the less, Aehrenthal bears his share 
 of the responsibility for the war. lie wished 
 to live in history, he seriously wished to ex- 
 pand Austria-Hungary. But all the same in 
 pressing this policy he had his tongue in his 
 cheek. The Magyar party adopted his policy 
 as its own, and the result is that Austria-Hun- 
 gary has perished. 
 
 It is the strongest men who are liable to 
 commit the worst mistakes. 
 
Count Czernin 
 
IX 
 
 COUNT CZERNIN 
 
 The last time I talked politics with Count 
 Czernin, a conversation to which I shall have 
 occasion to refer again, the Austrian minister 
 began by saying that he had a great favor to 
 ask me. 
 
 It was a few days after the fall of Lemberg 
 in 1914. "We shall soon be at war witli each 
 other," he said. "But after the war we shall 
 have peace. Promise me that when once the 
 war is over and I have the pleasure of meet- 
 ing you again, we shall be the same friends 
 as ever." He punctuated his request with 
 compliments which it is not for me to repeat. 
 
 As he was in my house I had to make a 
 civil answer. I hunted about for something to 
 say, and then with a certain measure of em- 
 barrassment I said something of this kind: "I 
 don't know whether we are going to be at war 
 or not. But if we were it would only be be- 
 cause our respective nations believed that it 
 was their interest or their duty to fight one 
 
 91 
 
9* SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 another. We are both of as eivili;ed men. 
 There is no earthly reason why after the war 
 we should not in our individual capacity be 
 nds again." 
 
 At that time I did not believe Count C.vv- 
 nin was capable of doing what he did later on. 
 when he cancelled my Austrian decoration 
 and. denying his own words, . vately lied 
 
 to me. 
 
 If 1 had known him better my answer would 
 e been quite different, but Count Caernin 
 is really a most accomplished type of A::>- 
 trian. 
 
 Wo all knew, md wo all say. that there is 
 no sueh thing as an Austrian nation. It is 
 true in the real sense of the word. An Aus- 
 trian people in the sense of a collection of men 
 i collective conscience does not exist 
 and could not exist. But Austrians do exist 
 Fhey are members of a clique recruited from 
 
 ong the nations of the earth., serving the 
 SapsburgS from father to son. living on the 
 Imperial favor and forming a sort of civilian 
 general start' to that family — which is the only 
 link existing amongst the nations composing 
 the Empire, 1 Amongst themselves these peo- 
 ple talk German, but intellectually they 
 
COUNT CZERNIN 93 
 
 not Germans. Though by origin they may be 
 Czechs Polish, I Lilian, Croatian, German, yet 
 they are not Czechs or Poles or Italians or 
 Croats or Germans. Until quite recently they 
 could even be of Magyar origin without, how- 
 ever, being really Magyars. All those people, 
 all the members of this little clique, are Aus- 
 trians. They are, in fact, the only Austrians 
 in the world. Their essential characteristic is 
 the absence oi' real intelligence, yet they are 
 not quite as innocent as they look, for they 
 have bureaucrat ie traditions and a guile that 
 stands them in lieu of intelligence. 
 
 When one first sees them one is charmed by 
 their beautiful manners and what I can only 
 describe as their encyclopedic polish. This 
 prevents one realizing their hopeless nonen- 
 tity. Then one is liable to err in the other 
 direction. From astonishment at their igno- 
 rance and want of brain one comes to believe 
 them to be harmless. It is only after a time 
 that one learns the real truth. Then one per- 
 ceives that at bottom these people are rogues, 
 and that one should not reckon too much on 
 their intellectual nonentity. 
 
 Count Czernin is a most typical Austrian, 
 and intercourse with him is most agreeable, 
 as his manners, at any rate in appearance, are 
 
94 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 perfectly charming. He lias a rudimentary 
 intelligence, but it is amply supplemented by 
 guile, He has. too, a fund of humor which 
 sometimes miirht almost be regarded as wit, 
 
 'Thus one day he said to Radef, a former Bul- 
 garian comitadji, "Neither you nor I will ever 
 make good diplomats, because 1 never lie and 
 you never speak the truth." And again, to his 
 colleague Busche, who was always boasting 
 about the superiority of Germany to poor 
 Austria, he said. '"But at least there is one 
 point on which you will have to admit that 
 Austria is superior to Germany,*' And when 
 Busche, who was intelligent but rather un- 
 couth, persisted that this was impossible. C.er- 
 nin said slyly. "We have a better ally than 
 Germany has!" 
 
 Count Caernin was in retirement in 1013 
 when Vienna thought tit to replace Count 
 Piirstenherg, the then minister to Houmania, 
 because he had failed to prevent Roumanians 
 making war on Bulgaria, the Peace o( Bu- 
 charest as the consequence. 
 
 The Archduke Francis Ferdinand picked 
 OUt Caernin for the post, lie had always in- 
 tended one day to make him Minister oi For- 
 eign Affairs, In the meantime he sent him to 
 Bucharest with the definite mission o( patch- 
 
COUNT CZEBNIN 95 
 
 ing up Austro-Roumanian relations at the 
 price of serious concessions in Transylvania 
 which he meant the Maygars to make to the 
 Roumanians. I met Count Czernin for the 
 first time immediately after his arrival at the 
 opening of an industrial museum. 
 
 In spite of the crowd all around us Count 
 Czernin took me into a corner and explained 
 that he had only come to Bucharest with a 
 view to consolidating our relations by con- 
 cessions which the Magyars were to make to 
 us. lie assured me that these concessions 
 would he made whether Budapesth liked it or 
 not. In the long run it was certain that Buda- 
 pesth would sec reason, because not only was it 
 a matter of justice, but it was absolutely nec- 
 essary. And in conclusion he said, "Unless 
 the Magyars make large concessions the Aus- 
 tro-Roumanian alliance cannot go on." 
 
 In speaking like this he showed true cour- 
 age, and I have no doubt that he was himself 
 deluded as to the possibility of serious conces- 
 sions. It was distinctly honorable on the part 
 of an Austro-IIungarian Minister to admit 
 that he regarded them as absolutely necessary. 
 At the same time for him to tell me so bluntly 
 in the middle of a crowd at our first meeting 
 seemed to me a very singular proceeding, but 
 
96 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 it only strengthened my opinion of Austrian 
 diplomats. 
 
 Later on it became evident even to Count 
 Czernin that the tale of Magyar concessions 
 to Roumania was nothing but an Arabian 
 Nights' romance, and each time I saw him he 
 referred to it less explicitly. It was easy to 
 see that he felt awkward and knew that he had 
 gone too far, and that he was looking out for 
 an honorable way of retreat. 
 
 At the beginning of the world war our rela- 
 tions were most correct, but our political con- 
 versations were confined to the ordinary gos- 
 sip of society. 
 
 When I returned from England in the early 
 days of the war on the eve of the Privy Coun- 
 cil of August 3rd at Sinaia I often met Count 
 Czernin, who like me had his headquarters at 
 Sinaia. He was trying like so many others to 
 defend Austria against the accusation of hav- 
 ing unchained the war. I protested vigor- 
 ously, and he thereupon asked me to explain 
 to him unreservedly what made me affirm the 
 contrary. At that time Waldhausen, the Ger- 
 man Minister, Czernin and I had a talk at the 
 Palace Hotel at Sinaia which lasted nearly 
 three hours. Having obtained permission to 
 speak freely, and taking no notice of their na- 
 
COUNT CZERNIN 97 
 
 tionality, I made out a regular indictment of 
 Germany, and of Austria in particular. I 
 produced so many proofs, quoted so many 
 facts of which the public was still ignorant, 
 and used such crude language that of necessity 
 my relations with Count Czernin were af- 
 fected. He naturally pretended that I was 
 mistaken, but congratulated me on my frank- 
 ness and courage, at the same time stating 
 that he should look upon me as one of the 
 most implacable enemies of his country. 
 
 If I repeated this conversation it would con- 
 sist chiefly in a monologue, and it would only 
 mean reiterating all I have said and written on 
 the origin of the war, and just a few other 
 things that I have not yet made public. It 
 would have little or nothing to do with Count 
 Czernin. 
 
 From that day we ceased to call on each 
 other, but this did not prevent our talking if 
 we happened to meet. It was not till some 
 weeks later, when I had proof of his having 
 taken part in the hateful work of political 
 corruption, that we ceased to bow to each 
 other. 
 
 One day on the boulevard at Sinaia he 
 stopped and asked me if it were true that 
 Talaat and Zaimis were coming to Roumania 
 
OS SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 in order to try and come to an arrangement 
 over the Turco-Greek difficulty about the Is- 
 lands. 
 
 When 1 answered that it was true, he asked 
 me with a malicious smile if I believed Talaat 
 was really coming for that purpose. 
 
 I straightway said '"No." and added that 
 Talaat had stayed at Sofia on his way and 
 that it was obvious that he was coming to 
 Roumania to try and arrange a Turco-Bul- 
 crar-Roumanian alliance against Russia. 
 
 "Well." said C/ernin. "and if they make a 
 proposition of the kind what are you going to 
 say ?" 
 
 "1 am not the Government," 1 said, "hut if 
 1 were and a proposition o( this kind were put 
 forward. I should tell them quite straight out 
 that if 1 wanted to go hand in hand with Aus- 
 tria I should diseuss the matter with her and 
 not with her household servants." 
 
 C/ernin thought my language rather pic- 
 turesque ami dropped the subject, 
 
 A few days after Lemberg had fallen Count 
 C/ernin telephoned to know whether 1 could 
 see him. lie said he wanted to bring me back 
 some books I had lent him. I naturally said 
 "Yes," all the more willingly as it was several 
 weeks since he had been to see me. I was curi- 
 
COUNT CZERNIN 99 
 
 <>iis to know why he was coming; the books 
 were too transparent an excuse. I received 
 him in my study; it was our last conversation, 
 and it is so strange as to be worth recording. 
 Count Czernin began by referring to a mat- 
 ter I have already mentioned, the question of 
 our private friendship after the war. .Just as 
 
 I was saying that neither war nor peace de- 
 pended on me, he said, "You are going to 
 make war on us. That is self-evident. It is 
 your interest and your duty to do so. If I 
 were a Roumanian I would attack Austria, 
 and I cannot see why you should not do what 
 I should do in your place. Of course it is not 
 very pretty to go for an ally, but history is 
 made up of such rascalities, Austrian history 
 as much as that of any other state, and I don't 
 see why Roumania should be the only excep- 
 tion;" and then, as I told him he was making 
 me feel perfectly at home, he went on: "All the 
 same I must ask one thing of you. Just wait 
 for a fortnight. In a fortnight the whole mili- 
 tary situation will have changed in our favor, 
 and whatever your present interest may be in 
 making war on us you will then see that it 
 would he a mistake." I smiled, and Czernin 
 went on, "No, not a fortnight, let us say three 
 weeks; that is all I ask of you. If the situa- 
 
\00 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 tion has not changed in three weeks, attack 
 us. 1 should do so in your place. I insist, 
 however, on the three weeks, for, mark you, 
 this will be a war of extermination. If we 
 
 are victorious we shall suppress Roumania. 
 If we are beaten Austria-Hungary will cease 
 to exist." 
 
 I again said that the Avar did not depend on 
 me. and that judging from what 1 saw he 
 might count, not on three weeks, but a far 
 longer time, even if war were eventually to 
 break out between us. I added that it seemed 
 an exaggeration to talk oi J extermination, and 
 went on to say, "Our circumstances are in no 
 way parallel. For example, if Roumania were 
 suppressed I should lose everything, and 
 should be but a pariah wandering through the 
 work!, while you, who are by way of being a 
 good German, stand to lose nothing when 
 Austria disappears. You may even be a 
 gainer by it. as Germany can never be sup- 
 pressed." 
 
 On this we parted. It was in the after- 
 noon, and in the evening I heard from Fili- 
 peseo that Czernin had that very day said 
 precisely the same things to him. 
 
 This last talk with Count Czernin is per- 
 haps the strangest I ever had with any diplo- 
 
COUNT CZERNIN 101 
 
 mat. For the representative of Austria-Hun- 
 gary to say that if he were a Roumanian he 
 would make war on Austria because it was the 
 interest and duty of Houmania so to do would 
 have been extraordinary and utterly incredible 
 if I had not myself heard it. 
 
 It seems to me that after this talk it was 
 not becoming in Count Czcrnin to bring him- 
 self to treat the King of Houmania and our 
 statesmen in the way he did. He had no right 
 to ask us to be blinder than he was himself 
 to the interest and duty of Roumania. 
 
Count Mensdorff 
 
COUNT MENSDORFF 
 
 I abbived in London on the 12th of July, 
 1914, in the evening. I was much worried, 
 although on the 9th of July, only three days 
 earlier, King Charles had positively assured 
 me that peace would he preserved for at least 
 three years Longer. It was quite impossible 
 for me to forget the horrible way in which 
 the Marquis Pallavicini had spoken to me in 
 the spring of 1914, and from my own observa- 
 tion during the whole of the Balkan crisis I 
 knew that Austria really wanted war. 
 
 So when the Serajevo outrage occurred it 
 was easy for me to appraise the full gravity 
 of the situation. And when I saw Austria — 
 in oilier words, Count Tisza, who since the 
 death of Francis Ferdinand was virtually dic- 
 tator of the Empire — preserve an inscrutable 
 altitude while preparing a so-called case, but 
 giving no indication of her intentions, my 
 anxiety deepened still further. 
 
 105 
 
106 SOME PERSON M IMPRESSIONS 
 
 It was in this state of mind th:it 1 arrived 
 
 in London, 
 There I found ■ verj strange situation. A 
 
 on of the Press was in all good faith 
 friendly to Austria. In England the old no- 
 tion of a pacific Austria necessary to the bal- 
 ance of power in Europe still obtained. I 
 must admit that the Austrian Ambassador, 
 Count Mensdorff, aiul his friends had done 
 their work well. It is well known that the 
 English Press is immune against any form of 
 uption. but. on the other hand, personal 
 relations and friendships play a great part in 
 this journalistic world, where people are in- 
 clined to be over-confiding because they are 
 fundamentally honest. The soil, too, was fa- 
 vorable. England had not yet forgotten the 
 horror felt over the assassination of King 
 Alexander and Queen Draga, 
 
 Count Mensdorff was the embodiment o( 
 the best type of Austrian diplomat. He was 
 a true aristocrat and a tine-looking man. but 
 he was not well educated and not at all in- 
 telligent, though perhaps on this account all 
 the more plausible and untrustworthy. 
 
 During the preceding weeks he had been 
 assiduously making up to journalists. As 
 Prince 1 ichnowsky said to me at the time. 
 
COUNT MENSDORFF 107 
 
 "ITe is concocting something or other." This 
 "something" obviously was to launch English 
 public opinion on the wrong scent in other 
 words, to spread the suspicion thai Serbia was 
 particularly responsible for the assassination 
 of the Archduke, since she had been over- 
 tolerant of revolutionary movements. Count 
 Mensdorff's agents had had recourse to an old 
 device of Austrian diplomacy, a forgery. 
 Some rascal had given John Bull a document 
 
 purporting to have emanated from the Ser- 
 bian Legation in London which proved that 
 the assassination of the Archduke was the 
 
 work of the Government of Belgrade. When 
 
 1 met the Serbian Minister, M. BoSCOVitch, al 
 St. Ann's Hill, the house of my friend, Sir 
 Albert Rollit, he asked me as to the propriety 
 of bringing a libel action against John Hull. 
 The document seemed to me such an obvious 
 fabrication that I said it was unnecessary. 
 War sell led the question of this new Austrian 
 forgery. 
 
 The English Press was on the wrong tack. 
 It honestly believed that Austria was out for 
 
 the punishment of the assassins, and never for 
 a moment suspected the criminal designs of 
 the Hapsburgs. 
 
 I realized at once that this attitude of the 
 
108 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 English Press might well constitute a real 
 danger to the peace of Europe. I was posi- 
 tive that the Government of Vienna, which 
 was totally incapable of believing in disinter- 
 ested motives or in frank dealing, would read 
 heaven knows what ultra-pacific tendencies 
 into the English papers and that it would en- 
 courage them to make most unreasonable de- 
 mands on Serbia. And I feared this all the 
 more, as I found out that Sir Edward Grey 
 had completely failed in obtaining any light 
 as to the intended demands of Austria. 
 
 I made up my mind to do the best I could 
 in my own modest capacity, and in the after- 
 noon in my own room at the Ritz I saw Mr. 
 Steed, then foreign editor of the Times, and 
 author of the well-known book on the Haps- 
 burg Monarchy; Mr. Gwynne, editor of the 
 Morning Post, a friend of twenty-five years' 
 standing; and Professor Gerothwohl, who 
 wrote for the Standard. 
 
 My friends knew Vienna too well to be 
 taken in, but all around them were the many 
 victims of Count Mensdorff's honeyed tongue. 
 
 I explained to them that, knowing as I did 
 the bellicose disposition of Austria, they were 
 endangering the peace of Europe in encour- 
 aging her. I begged them in the interests of 
 
COUNT MENSDORFF 109 
 
 peace to warn Austria, and to do it in a pretty- 
 stiff tone, the only tone understood in Vienna 
 and Budapesth. I added that I took upon my- 
 self full responsibility for this Press campaign, 
 which I believed to be useful, not only in the 
 interests of peace, but of the wretched Haps- 
 burg Monarchy itself. 
 
 On the following morning, both the Times 
 and the Morning Post published vehement 
 leaders denouncing the Austrian plot and giv- 
 ing the Hapsburgs a warning which should 
 have prevented them from taking the plunge 
 if the Tisza-Forgasch-Berchtold trio had not 
 been completely demented. At any rate Eng- 
 lish public opinion was awakened. Most of 
 the Press followed the example given by the 
 Times and Morning Post. The alarm signal 
 had been given. 
 
 When, a few days later, on the morning of 
 the 24th, Austria's monstrous ultimatum ap- 
 peared, everything was made clear even to the 
 most unbelieving. At any rate in England 
 prejudice in favor of Austria was dead for- 
 ever. 
 
 We who had given the alarm signal were 
 right. How happy we should have been to 
 have been wrong! 
 
England's Antipathy to War 
 
XI 
 
 ENGLAND'S ANTIPATHY TO WAR 
 
 During my long official life I have made and 
 received too many confidences not to know the 
 obligations attaching to my position. It is 
 only the insistence with which Germany dis- 
 seminates the false legend that the war is the 
 work of the British Empire that forces me to 
 depart from my usual discretion, which I be- 
 lieve up till now has been faultless. 
 
 I am going to tell of two personal matters, 
 the first of which dates from January, 1913. 
 
 I was then in London, and through conver- 
 sation with the British Foreign Minister and 
 other authoritative representatives of English 
 thought I had acquired a deep conviction that 
 England passionately longed for peace. For 
 this reason I believed her relations with Ger- 
 many — who at the moment was usefully em- 
 ployed in muzzling the warlike proclivities of 
 her ally, Austria-Hungary — were becoming 
 closer and more cordial. Thus on the 7th of 
 January, 1913, I allowed myself to write to 
 
 113 
 
114 SOME PERSONAL IMrRESSIONS 
 
 the late King Charles telling him that given 
 the unshakable determination of England and 
 Germany to prevent European war, I was 
 certain it would never break out. But that, 
 as people will say, is ancient history. 
 
 Well, on Tuesday, the 21st of July, 1914, 
 two days before the Austrian ultimatum was 
 presented to Serbia, I had the honor of being 
 received in a long audience by Sir Edward 
 Grey, 1 Minister of Foreign Affairs to the 
 British Empire. 
 
 I wanted to get him to assist the State of 
 Albania to get out of the impasse it was in. 
 And I tried to convince him of the necessity 
 of sending an international contingent to Al- 
 bania and of putting a little more money at 
 the disposal of the Prince of Wied. 
 
 After explaining to him the European as- 
 pect of Albanian difficulties, I pointed out that 
 Albania was liable to reduce Austria to the 
 state of nerves she had been in during the 
 Balkan war. This is literally what I said: "I 
 know that there are people who imagine that 
 a war between Austria and Italy may be the 
 result of tolerating the present mix-up in Al- 
 bania and that it is a way of detaching Italy 
 
 , Now Viscount Grey. 
 
ENGLAND'S ANTIPATHY TO WAR 115 
 
 from the Triple Alliance, but this would be a 
 short-sighted, dangerous policy." 
 
 Sir Edward Grey, in a tone of real sin- 
 cerity — that particular sincerity of English 
 statesmen which imposes respect and confi- 
 dence in the world — interrupted me with a 
 display of emotion rare in such a collected 
 person, saying, "But I do not want to detach 
 Italy from the Triple Alliance and I have 
 never tried to do so. I have always realized 
 that if Italy left the Triple Alliance and 
 joined France and Russia the combination 
 against Germany and Austria would become 
 so powerful that the peace of Europe, which 
 rests on the balance of power, would be en- 
 dangered. I want nothing but peace, I work 
 for nothing but peace." And in order that we 
 may fully realize the importance of this com- 
 munication, I must add that a few minutes 
 later Sir Edward Grey spoke to me of the ex- 
 treme gravity of the political situation owing 
 to the Austro-Serbian quarrel. He was fully 
 aware of the possibilities inherent in the situa- 
 tion, and was all the more acutely anxious, as 
 it had been impossible for him to discover 
 what Austria's terms to Serbia were. 
 
 This happened forty-eight hours before the 
 fatal ultimatum which was, and will remain, 
 
116 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 one of the most tragic blots on the escutcheon 
 of European history. The ultimatum will 
 also be remembered as the most formidable 
 blow ever delivered at small nations whose ex- 
 istence, compared with that of the large na- 
 tions, is so difficult, so anxious, and so painful. 
 
The Responsibility for the War 
 
XII 
 
 THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 
 
 The true history of the responsibility for the 
 war may be summed up as follows: 
 
 Austria, who had never given up the idea 
 of obtaining compensation in the Balkan Pen- 
 insula for her losses in Italy, allowed the 
 Turco-Balkan war of 1912 to take place, be- 
 cause she, like Germany, was convinced that 
 the Turks would win. Was there not in Tur- 
 key a Military Mission, and was it possible 
 to think that the pupils of the Germans could 
 be beaten? Was it thinkable that wretched 
 serfs could be of serious military value? 
 
 The defeat of the Turks falsified all the cal- 
 culations of Austria, and from that moment 
 she lost her head and conceived the project 
 of plunging Europe into blood and fire in or- 
 der to regain for herself the prestige which 
 she thought had passed away from her. 
 
 I repeat the charge that during the whole 
 period between the battle of Lule-Burgas un- 
 
 119 
 
120 SOME TERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 til the Peace of London, Austria wished to 
 provoke a European war. 
 
 The Anglo-German entente for preserving 
 the benefits of peace for Europe, an entente 
 that at the time was genuine, proved an in- 
 superable barrier to the prospects of Austria. 
 Nevertheless she did not give up her inten- 
 tions. With remarkable intuition as to hu- 
 man weakness she scented the possibility of 
 war amongst the victors, and she encouraged 
 Bulgaria to commit the fatal act which 
 brought it about. 
 
 When she found herself once more mistaken 
 in her calculations and Bulgaria beaten by 
 the hated Serbs, Austria decided herself to 
 fall upon Serbia — M. Giolitti has given us 
 irrefutable proofs of this. And now we are 
 going to allow ourselves to imitate M. Giolitti 
 and produce another proof which hitherto has 
 remained unknown. 
 
 In May, 1913, Count Berchtold charged 
 the Austro- Hungarian Minister in Bucharest 
 to make a communication to the Roumanian 
 Government (to whom both the Serbs and the 
 Greeks had appealed in view of the possibility 
 of attack by Bulgaria), and the communica- 
 tion was this: "Austria will defend Bulgaria 
 by force of arms," In other words, Roii- 
 
THE RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WAR 121 
 
 mania, although the ally of Austria, would be 
 attacked by Austria if she opposed the crush- 
 ing of Serbia! 
 
 Count Andrassy can put his hands on this 
 document in the Ballplatz, but our Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs will find no copy of it in our 
 archives, because Count Berchtold's note was 
 only read to a single minister — myself. Though 
 I was not the Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
 Prince Fiirstenberg read it aloud to me, and 
 my reply was such that he refrained from 
 delivering it to the person for whom it was 
 really intended. 
 
 Events gradually became as clear as the 
 day. On two different occasions in 1913 Aus- 
 tria-Hungary tried to make war on Serbia. 
 She was prevented from doing so by Ger- 
 many, Italy and Roumania, but she did not 
 give up the idea. 
 
 In April, 1914, at Bucharest she put for- 
 ward the idea of a preventive war very seri- 
 ously. When the crime of Serajevo took place 
 she was on the alert, we know with what re- 
 sult. 
 
 It is now quite certain that the tragedy of 
 Serajevo was a pretext and not a cause of the 
 war. It is known that the person guilty of 
 provoking this monstrous conflict was Count 
 
IS* SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Tisza who, because o? his great ability, was in 
 charge o( Austrian policy during the mouths 
 that led up to the war. 
 
 It is no use to argue that, in the days im- 
 mediately preceding the declaration of war, 
 Count Tisza and Berchtold, realizing that 
 their game was turning into a tragedy, took 
 fright and wished to retreat, but were pre- 
 vented from doing so by the impatience of the 
 G erman Emperor. 
 
 Count Tisza, who had been miraculously 
 delivered from the Archduke Francis Ferdi- 
 nand — whose anti-Magyarism was an open se- 
 cret — saw in this very incident an unique op- 
 portunity oi' consolidating the dominion of the 
 Magyars in Hungary and the domination of 
 Hungary in the Empire, Tie hurled himself 
 into the adventure witli his overbearing en- 
 ergy, that brutal energy which had so often 
 been exercised in the Parliament at Buda- 
 pesth. 
 
 Tisza took the risk of Europe being 
 drenched in blood in order that Magyarism 
 might triumph. lie succeeded, but it is only 
 just that among those things which have been 
 struck down by the eternal Nemesis, the crime 
 o( Magyarism should be the most heavily pun- 
 ished. 
 
King Charles of Roumania 
 
XTII 
 
 KING CHARLES OF ROUMANLA 
 
 I do not propose here to draw a portrait or 
 even a sketch of King Charles. One day it is 
 my intention to outline in detail the features 
 of this King I knew so well, who without be- 
 ing a great man was undeniably a personality. 
 I will do it with complete Impartialityi for I 
 have never been and it is not in me to be — 
 a courtier, but at the same time with the sym- 
 pathy I naturally feel for a sovereign whose 
 adviser I was during so many years. For the 
 moment I only wish to say enough to render 
 intelligible his attitude during the war. 
 
 King Charles was one of those spirits, east 
 in a narrow circumscribed mold, which are 
 just as incapable of a folly as of action on a 
 great scale. Tie had impeccable tact, a mar- 
 velous capacity for seeing both sides of every 
 question, tireless industry, a sound sense which 
 could easily be mistaken for genuine intelli- 
 gence, a deep sense of duty, cultivation un- 
 usual in a monarch, perfect manners, a pa- 
 
 125 
 
1*6 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 tience which sometimes seemed, quite wronglv. 
 like indifference, and with all this a great and 
 quite legitimate regard tor what history would 
 say of him in the future. For normal times, 
 therefore. King Charles was remarkably well 
 equipped. But for moments of erisis the 
 characteristics 1 have enumerated are inade- 
 quate and almost tiresome. With all his pow- 
 ers. King Carl, whose physical courage was as- 
 suredly beyond question, was lacking m moral 
 courage, and the very idea o'i initiative was 
 foreign to him. It is this eombination of 
 qualities and defects, emphasized by age. 
 which explains the part played by the King 
 during the world war. So far as it speeially 
 relates to Roumanian policy 1 do not propose 
 to describe his attitude. The whole situation 
 will be dealt with fully in my coming Me- 
 moirs on the origin of the war and the share 
 taken in it by Koumania. 
 
 To tell all 1 know about those who have 
 played any part in these unprecedented cir- 
 cumstances is a debt 1 owe to history, and per- 
 haps, when everything that took plaee behind 
 the scenes is known, some moments of deplor- 
 able hesitation and moral weakness, otherwise 
 inexplicable, will be understood. Inevitably I 
 shall have to concern myself from the outset 
 
KING CHARLES OF R0UMAN1A 127 
 
 with the position of King- Charles, not only 
 for what he did himself, but above all for what 
 others did in their eagerness to anticipate his 
 thoughts and his wishes. I desire now only 
 to relate his (minions on the world war and its 
 consequences. 
 
 King Charles, it is only fair to say, was no 
 admirer of the Emperor William. The Kai- 
 ser's stormy and ill-regulated activity was ut- 
 terly distasteful to him; in addition he cher- 
 ished a genuine love of peace. lie had too 
 much sense to overlook the peril and misery 
 involved in a general war or to face it with 
 a light heart. Again, in justice to the King, 
 let me add that within his limits he really 
 worked for peace. I shall never forget that 
 in February and March, 1913, King Charles 
 was the one convinced champion of my policy, 
 the ohject of which was to prevent a san- 
 guinary conflict between Bulgaria and our- 
 selves, a conflict which would at that time 
 have inevitably resulted in universal war. It 
 is true that at a certain moment he deserted 
 me, but when I none the less maintained an 
 absolute non possumus, the King frankly con- 
 fessed to me that he would never have given 
 way to the war party if he had not been cer- 
 tain that I would stand my ground. Mon- 
 
128 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 archs sometimes make us unexpected confi- 
 dences. Did not King Charles one day ex- 
 plain to me for a full half-hour the reasons 
 which made him fundamentally ungrateful? 
 
 Until 1912 the King had lived in the con- 
 viction that the general war would not break 
 out during his lifetime. In the autumn of 
 1912 he sent his nephew — now King Ferdi- 
 nand of Roumania — to Berlin to learn the in- 
 tentions of the Emperor William. The Crown 
 Prince brought back the answer that the Em- 
 peror believed a conflict between pan-German- 
 ism and pan-Slavism to be inevitable, but that 
 he hoped it would not take place while he lived. 
 King Carl for his part was so convinced of the 
 stability of peace that he ventured in the 
 spring of 1914 to receive a visit from the 
 Czar at Constanza, which he would never have 
 done had he thought that a few months after- 
 wards he might have to consider the possibil- 
 ity of declaring war on him. Even on July 5, 
 1914, when King Charles confided to me 
 at Sinaia the Kaiser's great secret — namely, 
 that he had decided to bring about the Euro- 
 pean war — he added that this would not take 
 place for three or four years. That the old 
 King was quite honest in saying so I am ab- 
 solutely convinced for a thousand reasons, the 
 
KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 129 
 
 strongest of which, based on his own tempera- 
 ment, is that had King Charles imagined that 
 the world war on which the Kaiser had deter- 
 mined would break out twenty-two days later, 
 he would have begun at once to take steps to 
 ensure that his personal policy should at least 
 have every possible chance of success. In 
 point of fact, he took no such step until the 
 days just preceding the declaration of war. 
 Now during the whole of his reign he had sub- 
 ordinated everything to the single idea of 
 making himself the autocrat of Roumania's 
 foreign policy. lie would not have left him- 
 self completely unarmed on the day of the 
 crisis had he known beforehand the date on 
 which that crisis would occur. 
 
 Before the meeting of the Crown Council 
 on August 3, 1914, King Charles had con- 
 fined any action on his own part solely to con- 
 versations with his Ministers. Of these conver- 
 sations history will have more to say. The 
 cardinal point, which is within my personal 
 knowledge, is that the King always contended 
 that England would remain neutral. Like 
 nearly all Germans, King Charles was not 
 merely ignorant of England, but totally in- 
 capable of understanding her. The Anglo- 
 Saxon world is always surprised that Ger- 
 
180 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 mans arc as blind as they arc where England 
 is concerned: the truth is that, apart from very 
 rare and partial exceptions, the German is 
 organically unable to appreciate the English 
 
 spirit. England was simply excluded from 
 the old King's calculations, and with the tone 
 oi' authority which monarehs are accustomed to 
 use. especially on subjects which they know 
 
 nothing about, he pronounced his opinion as 
 if it were gospel. 
 
 King Charles was equally ignorant oi' the 
 workings o^ the Italian mind. lie could not 
 believe that Italy would dare to detach her- 
 self from Germany, and the attitude she ac- 
 tually adopted disconcerted no less than it 
 surprised him. So convinced was he that Italy 
 would not venture to separate herself from 
 her all-powerful allies, that when the Italian 
 "Minister came to inform him confidentially of 
 the intentions of his Government, in event of 
 war resulting from the ultimatum to Serbia, 
 and emphasized the fact that he was only au- 
 thorized to communicate this to the King on 
 the understanding that His Majesty pledged 
 himself to repeat no word of it to anyone. 
 King Charles naively asked him if he must 
 keep it a secret even from Berlin. The Min- 
 ister's answer was that this went without say- 
 
KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 131 
 
 ing, since when the Italian Government wished 
 to make a communication to the German Gov- 
 ernment, it would take particular care to do 
 so at Berlin and not at Sinaia. It should be 
 added that there was no love lost between 
 these two. The King disliked the Italian 
 Minister and the latter reciprocated his senti- 
 ments with interest. 
 
 Given these views on England and Italy, 
 together with his profound admiration for the 
 German military organization and the opin- 
 ions which were so widely entertained in half- 
 informed circles on the military deficiencies of 
 France, it is far from surprising that King 
 Charles allowed himself to be convinced, not 
 only that Germany would win, but that she 
 would do so very rapidly. When one con- 
 siders his conduct during the Summer and 
 Autumn of 1914, which accorded so ill with 
 the higher interests of the country he had 
 made his own, one must take into account the 
 extenuating circumstances that, with the best 
 will in the world, a Roumanian by adoption 
 could not be conscious of the problem of our 
 national unity in the same sense as a Rou- 
 manian by birth, and that the King was more 
 than sincere in his belief that Germany could 
 not be beaten. 
 
18fl SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 When at the Crown Council of August 8, 
 1914, the King told us that by our refusal to 
 
 allow him to enter the war at the side of the 
 Central Empires we had destroyed the whole 
 great work o( the Roumanian renaissance, that 
 we had ruined our country forever, and that 
 the immediate future would show us how right 
 he was. he was perfectly sincere, lie was sure 
 of a German victory, and Kins Charles was 
 never one of those who can rise to the level o( 
 understanding that it is better to be beaten 
 in the defense of right than to follow the eall 
 of triumphant wrong. 
 
 So little did King Charles believe in the 
 possibility of resisting Germany, that some 
 days after the famous Crown Council he was 
 at pains to inform me exactly how the war 
 would develop. According to him. it was to 
 last, at the most, until December, and in Jan- 
 uary, if not sooner, the Peace Conference, 
 which would change the organization of the 
 world from top to bottom, would be called to- 
 gether. Before the loth o( September the 
 Emperor William was to be in Paris. Imme- 
 diately afterwards a revolution would break 
 out in France, and Germany would grant her 
 defeated enemy a peaee. generous beyond all 
 expectations, only depriving her o( her eol- 
 
KIN(J CHARLES OF KOUMANIA 133 
 
 onies and a mere trifle of territory. Germany, 
 added the King, would never repeat the error 
 of maintaining the French Republic. On the 
 contrary, she would help in the restoration of 
 the monarchy, in the person of Prince Victor 
 Napoleon. Once peace was signed in France, 
 the Emperor would turn with all his force 
 against Russia, and before December would 
 achieve the task, which had been too much for 
 Napoleon, of occupying Moscow and Petro- 
 grad. This would be the end of the war, to 
 be followed by the dismemberment of Russia 
 on the lines of the famous scheme dating from 
 Bismarck's time, which, however, it must be 
 remembered, the great Chancellor insisted 
 should only be carried out in concert with 
 England. It is needless to dwell on what I 
 said in reply to this fantastic dream, which 
 from the lips of a man ordinarily so full of 
 common-sense as King Charles, impressed me 
 very strangely. Quite vainly I tried to make 
 him understand that there would be no rev- 
 olution in France, that there would be no res- 
 titution of the monarchy, and that it was in- 
 comprehensible that the Napoleons, children of 
 victory, should ever owe the recovery of their 
 throne to a defeat. The King seemed to have 
 been hypnotized. The more he spoke to me 
 
184 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 the more conscious I became of that terribly 
 intoxicating quality in the idea of German 
 
 omnipotence, which could at so great a dis- 
 tance enchain the mind of an old man whose 
 deliberate judgment had always been his mas- 
 ter quality. 
 
 King Charles had reached such a point of 
 conviction that Germany must win that he 
 quite openly criticized his nephew. King Al- 
 bert, of whom he was really fond, for what he 
 called his fatal error in imposing the march 
 of the German troops through Belgium. There 
 was something very painful to me in the 
 King's insistence on this subject, and one 
 August day. when he happened to say that the 
 war had not brought to the front a single 
 great man. 1 replied to him that he was mis- 
 taken, for there was already one name in- 
 scribed on the page of immortality — that of 
 his nephew. King Albert. of whom he had full 
 cause to be proud. And since the King main- 
 tained his point of view that another policy 
 would have been more to Belgium's advan- 
 tage, 1 repeated to him the answer I had given 
 the evening before to the German Minister, 
 when he, too. had said the same thing. I had 
 asked the German Minister if he had never 
 sacrificed his interest to his honor. When he 
 
KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 185 
 
 assured mc tliat he would never do .anything 
 else, I replied in my turn that nations had 
 the right to consider their persona] honor as 
 well as individuals. 
 
 On the anniversary of Sedan, or the day 
 before, the Emperor William telegraphed 
 Prom Rheims to King Charles that lie could 
 assure him, after having consulted his military 
 chiefs, that at Length France was at his feet. 
 The King had thai day the last genuine grati- 
 fication of his life. Not that he hated France, 
 Par Prom it, and nothing would have pleased 
 him belter than an understanding between 
 France and Germany; but he thought he saw 
 his forecast justified. The Sovereign, who 
 bad been touched to his innermost being by 
 discovering bis inability to impose bis will on 
 Roumania, as lie had hitherto done through- 
 out his reign, cherished a last hope of at least 
 being able to say to us one day: "You see, I 
 was right." Further, it is by no means certain 
 that he did not hope to revive bis policy and 
 see Roumania, after all, at Germany's side 
 when the German victory was established be- 
 yond dispute. That this was his hope I my- 
 self believe. 
 
 Cruel awakening as the battle of the Marne 
 
136 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 was for King Charles, he tried to deceive him- 
 self on the consequences of that critical event. 
 I saw him a few days after this marvelous 
 victory, which will remain one of the happiest 
 and most significant dates in the annals of 
 mankind. The King told me that what had 
 happened was nothing but a strategic retreat; 
 as always, he clung to the idea that the Ger- 
 man army could not be beaten. I could not 
 control myself and, forgetting the respect due 
 to his position and his years, I explained to 
 him, in unrestrained terms, the absurdity of 
 the idea that an army, which had sacrificed 
 everything for the sake of advancing at head- 
 long speed, had determined to lose all the 
 benefit of this forward movement without 
 having been defeated. King Charles — the 
 words dropping slowly from his lips in a fash- 
 ion which told plainly how his spirit had been 
 overwhelmed by a reality he had never dared 
 to suspect — said to me very gently, "Perhaps, 
 then, I am mistaken; perhaps you are right; 
 perhaps they have been beaten." The more 
 I think of this conversation the more I am 
 conscious of King Charles' moral distress dur- 
 ing this last period of his life. I often saw 
 him then, although I never asked for an audi- 
 
KING CHARLES OF ROUMANIA 137 
 
 ence. It was always the King who, deeply- 
 pained as he was by the campaign I was con- 
 ducting against Germany, sent for me. 
 
 At one of these interviews our talk touched 
 on the name of his sister, the Countess of 
 Flanders, mother of King Albert. In a tone 
 of deep despair the old King said to me: "God 
 has been good to her, he has taken her before 
 this terrible day. Up to now the Almighty 
 has been good to me also, but he has deserted 
 me at last. How much better it would have 
 been for me to die before this war." I was 
 deeply touched, and answered him that I per- 
 fectly understood him, and that in truth it 
 would have been better for him to have died 
 before war broke out. It was with these 
 melancholy reflections that my last serious in- 
 terview with King Charles came to an end, 
 and I am convinced that it was the spectacle 
 of the collapse of his fondest beliefs that has- 
 tened his end. 
 
 He was one more victim of the belief which 
 for every German had become a maxim of 
 life, that Germany was so strong that she was 
 invincible. Before the battle of the Marne he 
 expressed it by saying, "For a century pan- 
 Germanism will be supreme: then will come 
 
138 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 the era of the Slav." King Charles believed 
 the day of the Latin world was done, and as 
 for the Anglo-Saxon world, he never even 
 began to understand it. 
 
Herr Riedl 
 
XIV 
 
 HERR RIEDL 
 
 During the Balkan crisis Roumania found 
 herself in a most painful position. She had let 
 the opportune moment pass for discussing 
 with Bulgaria the pushing of her frontier be- 
 yond the Danube. The best moment was be- 
 fore Bulgaria mobilized, or at any rate the 
 few days between the calling-up order and the 
 beginning of the campaign. It was not till 
 after the battle of Lule-Burgas, when a new 
 Government, in which my party held half the 
 portfolios, came into office that overtures with 
 Bulgaria were begun. We know how difficult 
 they were. 
 
 Russia did not conceal her intention of help- 
 ing Bulgaria if it so happened that we at- 
 tacked her. 
 
 The eventuality of Roumania asking for 
 Austrian aid also came into the category of 
 possibilities. 
 
 It was at that moment that Austria thought 
 fit to hand us the note prepared in anticipa- 
 
 141 
 
148 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 tion of her eventual assistance. She sent a M. 
 Riedl to Bucharest, a gentleman I prefer call- 
 ing fferr Riedl, for rarely have I seen so rep- 
 resentative a type of man replete with that 
 particular form of bookish undigested infor- 
 mation which is almost a monopoly of the 
 German race. 
 
 He filled some very high position in the 
 Viennese bureaucracy, and was the confiden- 
 tial agent of Francis Ferdinand, some said his 
 future Finance Minister. His mind was most 
 dogmatic. It is hardly worth while to add that 
 he knew nothing about human psychology. 
 Germans find it an inaccessible realm. 
 
 Herr Riedl's first business was with our 
 Minister of Finance and our Minister of Com- 
 merce. I don't know whether our Finance 
 Minister saw through him, but our Minister 
 of Commerce did, and rang me up to tell me 
 Riedl had asked him to conclude a customs 
 union with Austri a -Hungary, neither more 
 nor less. He added that Herr Riedl was com- 
 ing on to see me. 
 
 He came, and stayed with me for over an 
 hour. The talk consisted, for the most part, 
 of a monologue. His French was bad. but it 
 did not prevent him from saying what he 
 thought. He became quite lost among his 
 
HERR RIEDL 143 
 
 own theories and statements. He arranged 
 facts to suit himself, instead of basing his the- 
 ories on existing facts. His dogmatism in no 
 wise precluded his having recourse to cunning. 
 Herr Riedl, in fact, would have made an ex- 
 cellent diplomatist to deal with imbeciles. He 
 would have impressed them by his scientific 
 jargon and he would have taken them in by 
 his appearance of candor. 
 
 Herr Riedl began by laying down that 
 Turkey in Europe must be divided amongst 
 the Balkan nations. Therefore Austria, who 
 stood to lose the Turkish market, had a claim 
 to economic compensation, and in dealing with 
 this question of compensation she was anxious 
 to arrive first at an understanding with Rou- 
 mania. If we made difficulties she would be- 
 gin with Bulgaria. The blackmail was ob- 
 vious. 
 
 Herr Riedl, who was out to ask for a cus- 
 toms union, was careful not to mention these 
 words. He preferred a preferential tariff. 
 
 He explained to me at some length that the 
 system known as the favored nation treatment 
 had had its day, and that in future the world 
 would advance to the tune of the preferential 
 tariff. Austria wished to inaugurate the sys- 
 tem, and it consisted in this: Austria, in re- 
 
144 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 turn for a certain limited quantity of our food 
 products- the quantity necessary for her own 
 consumption would allow us preference, and 
 we wore to do the same for certain industrial 
 products from Austria, but we were not to be 
 allowed to grant a similar preference to other 
 nations. The system was to be carried into 
 effect when our existing commercial treaties 
 expired, but we were to conclude the agree- 
 ment immediately. 
 
 When 1 objected that we should thus run 
 the risk o( having no other state to trade with 
 us, he recognized that this was quite possible. 
 Austria and Roumania would then have a 
 tariff war with all the rest of the world. And 
 when I said that all it meant was our entry 
 into a customs union with Austria, he was 
 obliged to admit that I was right. 
 
 I pointed out to him that his system had 
 not been tried anywhere, and he instanced 
 the preferential tariffs of Canada and South 
 Africa in favor of England. "But they are 
 parts of the British Empire." 1 said, "and 
 Roumania is a state independent of Austria." 
 He pretended not to understand my objec- 
 tion. At bottom he knew well enough that 
 for us to enter a customs union with Austria 
 would mean the loss of our independence. 
 
HERB RIEDL 145 
 
 Probably he thought that we should be flat- 
 tered by this prospect. 
 
 J proved to him at length why we never 
 could aeeept his system, and I explained to 
 him that we meant to develop our industries. 
 I told him we wished to control our own tariff 
 system, and that as for our cereals, our wood 
 and our petrol, we could export them every- 
 where, especially to the west and to Germany, 
 without any preference in the Austrian mar- 
 ket. J added that we clung too tightly to our 
 political and economic independence to be 
 tempted by the dole of a little extra profit on 
 our cereals. 
 
 Then he let his imagination loose. lie told 
 me that the world could no longer continue 
 as it was, that Europe must organize herself 
 against the tyranny of pirate powers and of 
 America. 
 
 He divided old Europe into three groups. 
 The first, composed of England and France, 
 were pirate states, which lived not by their 
 own production but by exploiting colonies. 
 He developed this nonsense with so much 
 gravity and emphasis that I had greatly diffi- 
 culty in preventing myself from laughing. 
 The two pirate states ought to be hunted out 
 
146 SOME PERSONA] IMPRESSIONS 
 
 of the European market and isolated and left 
 to pine alone. 
 
 The second group consisted of Russia, who 
 luul no right to remain in Europe, She ought 
 
 to be hunted into Asia, or at any rate banished 
 beyond MOSCOW, Hussia ought to be cut off 
 from the Baltic and from the Black Sea. and 
 thus reduced, should be left to her proper eco- 
 nomic fate. 
 
 The rest o\' Europe was to be organized into 
 a great tariff union, oi' which the Austro- 
 Roumanian agreement was to be the corner- 
 stone. lie said that Austria would take upon 
 herself to get the consent o( Germany to his 
 scheme. Once this was done. Switzerland, 
 Italy, Belgium, and Holland, the states of the 
 north ami the states cut away from Russia 
 would be compelled to enter this union, and 
 the world would be transformed. 
 
 When I objected that Germany had much 
 to lose in such an arrangement, as she risked 
 forfeiting that oversea commerce which played 
 so great a part in her national economy, he 
 replied that it was precisely in order to tight 
 the United States that the new organization 
 o{ Europe had become necessary. Ami he let 
 himself go about the American invasion, the 
 American danger, and so on. 
 
HERB RIEDL 147 
 
 He was immensely astonished when I told 
 him that I jaw nothing to worry about in the 
 development ot America, that it was perfectly 
 natural, arid that the hegemony of the white 
 races would pass to the other ride of the At- 
 lantic. 
 
 "Just think," J said. "The nations 
 there are not hampered by our military slav- 
 ery, our prejudices, our monarchies, our aris- 
 tocracies. For this reason they are greatly 
 luperior to us, and it is impossible that they 
 should not get the tipper hand." 
 
 At that moment I was not able to add the 
 strongest argument of all the madness of a 
 universal war, which has brought the transfer 
 of this hegemony nearer by half a century. 
 
 J think this was the climax for I [err RiedL 
 Tie realized that there was nothing to he done 
 with me, and though he still paid calls and 
 pretended to take quite seriously the promi 
 made to him of examining his system care- 
 fully, he was under no illusions, and went hack 
 to Vienna. 
 
 I have never heard of him since. 
 
Count Szeczen 
 
XV 
 COUNT BZECZEM 
 
 Count Szeczes was the last Austro-Hun- 
 
 garian ambassador in Paris, and wre must hope 
 he will remain the last. Whatever siirvh 
 of the Hapsburg monarchy, if by ill fortune 
 
 anything does survive, v.il] never be able to 
 afford the luxury of having an ambassador. 
 
 There is nothing either good or had about 
 Count S/eezen which makes him stand out. 
 He is just one of those many Counts out of 
 whieh the Dual Empire manufactured diplo- 
 matists. If he took the trouble to look at 
 my souvenirs he would find out that he was 
 the first Hapsburg diplomat to appear to me 
 under a new and purely Magyar form. Since 
 then I have seen many more of them. But 
 before I met Count S/eezen I had only met 
 what are called "Kaiserlieks" even among the 
 Magyars. My memory of Szeczen is distinct 
 because of that. P^ven twenty years ago, 
 though he represented the Dual Monarchy 
 and received his instructions from Vienna, he 
 
 151 
 
SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 was Magyar, very "Magyar ami nothing but 
 Magyar. At the time of which 1 am speaking 
 he was first secretary of the Legation o( 
 Bucharest, under Count Goluchowsky, There 
 
 was an agitation at the time in our country 
 over the Roumanians in Hungary. The 
 Magyars had made harsher the rule to which 
 they subjected non-Magyar nationalities in 
 their midst, and naturally we were not able 
 to hide the sense of bitterness which Magyar 
 injustice left in our souls. The press was 
 violent and all sorts o( demonstrations took 
 plaee. 
 
 Similarly the Austro-Hungarian Govern* 
 ment began to take umbrage, and the Rou- 
 manian Government, o( which I was a mem- 
 ber, did not know which way to turn. 
 
 I was very intimate with Count S/.eczen. 
 We saw each other constantly; and tacitly 
 agreed never to touch on the question of the 
 Roumanians in Hungary. This often was 
 awkward, but we pretended not to be aware 
 o( it. Our intimacy was only possible on 
 these terms. 
 
 One day Count S/eezen broke the silence. 
 An incident had occurred which was o( no par- 
 ticular gravity, but it was something Count 
 S/.eczen could not swallow. I think a Hun- 
 
COUNT SZECZEN 153 
 
 garian flag had been lorn up. He had just 
 had Luncheon with me, and he made up his 
 mind to speak to me as soon as we were alone 
 together in my study. He began bitterly by 
 imputing motives of tolerance or complicity 
 to our Government, as wo had not taken 
 action against the demonstrators, and, warm- 
 ing up, Ik: said word Tor word almost as fol- 
 lows: "You are now playing a dangerous 
 game. You accept the axiom that we can 
 never come to an understanding with Russia 
 and you count on a future war between us 
 and the Russians. Well, you are mistaken. 
 If the time ever comes that we are convinced 
 that we cannot count on you as the loyal ally 
 of the Magyar Union, the only state which 
 concerns US and one which we would defend 
 with the last drop of our blood, we shall come 
 to an understanding with Russia. After all, 
 the Carpathians make a first- rate frontier, and 
 Galicia, Roumania, Constantinople even, are 
 
 as nothing when it is a question of preserving 
 to Hungary its character as a Magyar Union. 
 Relieve me, nothing is more possible than a 
 definite and permanent understanding between 
 
 Magyars and Russians. We shall be on one 
 slope of the Carpathians, looking towards the 
 Adriatic, they will be on the other slope, fac- 
 
154* SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 ing towards the Black Sea. And that will be 
 the end for ever of the Roumanian question, 
 not only in Hungary but everywhere." 
 
 I let Count Szeczen unfold his scheme. He 
 was furious, and paid no heed to the fact that 
 it was very strange that an Austro-IIungarian 
 diplomat should speak in this way to a Rou- 
 manian Minister. 
 
 When I replied that I had never had any 
 doubt about the hostility of Magyar feeling 
 towards us, but that all the same his threats 
 had no effect on me, as I did not believe in the 
 possibility of a Russo-Magyar alliance, he saw 
 his mistake and stammered out an excuse that 
 was no excuse. As we neither of us had any 
 wish to quarrel we let the discussion drop. 
 
 That day Szeczen had revealed to me the 
 depths of his Magyar soul. This proud preda- 
 tory people will never become resigned to live 
 its own life as a national state like England, 
 France, Spain or Italy. They mean to domi- 
 nate other nationalities or perish. Any other 
 solution is impossible. 
 
 Count Karolyi's policy cannot be explained 
 iu any other way. It is identical with that with 
 which Count Szeczen in an angry moment 
 threatened me more than twenty years ago. 
 Often what appears to be new is really old. 
 
Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace 
 
XVI 
 
 SIR DONALD MACKENZIE WALLACE 
 
 Many, many years ago, during the last period 
 of the reign of the great Queen Victoria, Sir 
 Donald Mackenzie Wallace was my guest at 
 Sinaia. Sir Donald was very well known in 
 England. He began life in diplomacy, di- 
 rected the foreign policy of the Times for a 
 very long period, was Lord Dufferin's right- 
 hand man in India, and was extremely intimate 
 up till the day of his death with King Edward, 
 then Prince of Wales. Sir Donald wrote a 
 classic on Russia, a book which has been trans- 
 lated into all languages. He was chosen by 
 King Edward to accompany King George, 
 then Prince of Wales, in his tour around the 
 Empire, and he wrote an account of the trip. 
 He attended the peace conferences of Ports- 
 mouth and Algeciras; and at Petrograd he 
 was the guest of Sir Arthur Nicholson when 
 the Anglo-Russian alliance was concluded. 
 
 I have had many interesting interviews with 
 Sir Donald during my life. The one I am 
 
 157 
 
158 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 about to relate is of extraordinary impor- 
 tance. 
 
 We were walking in a splendid forest, and 
 our conversation naturally turned to world 
 politics. Sir Donald said: 
 
 "The present policy oi' the European Pow- 
 ers is absurd. We are all victims of the prej- 
 udices oi' the elder statesmen who perpetuate 
 the truths oi' their youth which no longer cor- 
 respond with actuality. For example, in 
 England we are dominated by two so-called 
 axioms, both equally out oi' date. We live in 
 dread oi' the bogey of Russia wishing to chase 
 us out oi' India., and wo believe ourselves the 
 eternal rival oi' France. Now all that is un- 
 true — utterly untrue. There is enough room 
 on Asia for England as well as Russia, per- 
 haps we already take up more room there than 
 the Asiatics approve oi\ Anglo-French riv- 
 alry is a prehistoric peep dating from the 
 epoch when there were only two great powers 
 in the world. France and England. To-day 
 it means nothing whatever. England always 
 has been and always must be an essentially 
 pacific power, essentially conservative so 
 far as international politics are concerned. 
 France, for a thousand reasons, is now an 
 equally pacific and conservative power. The 
 
SIR DONALD MACKENZIE WALLACE 159 
 
 only revolutionary power in international poli- 
 ties is Germany, it is Germany who keeps 
 the world on the alert, it is Germany alone 
 wlio threatens its peace. You may expect to 
 see great changes when the elder statesmen 
 have given way to another generation. You 
 will see England become France's greatest 
 friend, and the famous antagonism between 
 England and Russia relegated to a museum of 
 antiquities." 
 
 When Sir Donald predicted this, speaking 
 so succinctly and frankly, it was a new point of 
 view. But since then it has all happened. 
 
 That evening we spoke of Roumania, of her 
 
 people, of her future-. Sir Donald had studied 
 
 the question of the Roumanians in Hungary 
 in de-tail. lie had even been to Brashov, 
 Sihiu and Blaj, the districts chiefly concerned, 
 
 and had talked to the representative Rouma- 
 nians living there. 
 
 Suddenly he asked me- the great question: 
 "You have a treaty of alliance with Austria 
 — you needn't deny it, I know it. But do you 
 think that when the- moment comes for you to 
 put it into effect you will be able to do it? 
 Personally I cannot see how you ean." 
 
 "I do not know whether we have a treaty of 
 alliance with Austria or not," I replied, for I 
 
160 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 was bound to absolute secrecy, "If it exists 
 I agree with you no one in the world would 
 carry it into effect." 
 
 Sir Donald must have made a mental note 
 of my statement, which was as clear as his 
 own. 
 
 Circumstances have shown that I, in my 
 turn, was a true prophet. 
 
Baron Banffy 
 
XVII 
 
 BARON liAM'I'Y 
 
 I saw Baron Banffy, the most overbearing of* 
 all Hungarian ministers (and that is saying a 
 good deal;, but once. It- was in the first days 
 of January, 1890. Banffy was a hi# cheery 
 fellow with pointed mustaches, who looked 
 like a Magyarized edition of a typical French 
 official. 
 
 lie was a second rate man, but in spite of 
 this his extreme energy imposed on people 
 even when he was expressing himself in a 
 language be spoke badly. Banffy came from 
 Transylvania, and could speak Roumanian* 
 As a prrf/'l (for he had begun by being a 
 prSfet) ho had served a good apprenticeship 
 in working the political oracle among the 
 electorate, first as a district official and later 
 on as Prime Minister of Hungary. 
 
 Wnen I was in Vienna in January, ihimi, he 
 intimated his wish to make my acquaintance 
 through a Hungarian deputy of the Independ- 
 ent Party. The reason that the Hungarian 
 Premier wanted to see me was not far to seek. 
 
 163 
 
164 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 It was merely curiosity. It was because I was 
 the first Roumanian Minister to give subsidies, 
 secret subsidies, not only to the Roumanian 
 schools and churches of Transylvania, but also 
 to newspapers and political committees. In 
 order to subsidize the papers I commissioned 
 journalists to write class books ostensibly for 
 use in the Roumanian schools of Macedonia, 
 and I paid for the work right royally. I need 
 hardly explain that the class books were not 
 always written. 
 
 Banffy after a while had scented something 
 of this political activity, of which, as a matter 
 of fact, my colleagues in the Cabinet, with the 
 exception of the Prime Minister, Lascar Ca- 
 targi, were unaware, and I only told him after 
 having done it for two and a half years. He 
 did not blame me, but my political opponents 
 in Roumania denounced my activities, and it 
 was in this way that Banffy came to be cer- 
 tain of what I was up to. As I had been 
 turned out of office in October, 1895, Banffy 
 was anxious to see the enemy of his people at 
 close quarters. 
 
 After leaving Vienna I stayed at Buda- 
 pesth, and asked for an audience from the 
 Hungarian Prime Minister. He received me 
 in the wonderful Royal Palace of Bude, from 
 
15 A RON BANFFY 165 
 
 which one gets such a glorious view over the 
 Danube and over Pesth. Banffy quite natu- 
 rally spoke to me on the subject of the Rou- 
 manians in Hungary. 
 
 He began rather brusquely by saying, "I 
 hope you are not going to tell me that you 
 don't want to annex Transylvania." "No," I 
 replied, "I shall not tell you that; if I did you 
 would not believe it, and would only think 
 that you were dealing with a liar or with a 
 man who docs not love his country. I want 
 to annex Transylvania, but I can't do it." 
 
 And then in my turn I said to him, "I hope 
 you are not going to tell me that you don't 
 wish to move the frontiers of the Magyar state 
 to the Black Sea." With real good temper 
 Banffy replied, "No, I won't tell you that. I 
 do want to move Hungary's frontier to the 
 Black Sea, but I can't do it." 
 
 Then I said, "As the historical case between 
 us cannot be settled either in your favor or in 
 mine, and since we are neighbors, is it not 
 possible for us to find a modus Vivendi? You 
 have made the conditions for Roumanians in 
 Hungary intolerable, why don't you change 
 them?" 
 
 Banffy began a series of explanations, one 
 falser than the other, in order to prove that 
 
166 SOME PERSOXA1 IMPRESSIONS 
 
 the ppi ession, And by n ai 
 
 of something final he asked me why Rouma- 
 nians in U 5 would not take part in elec« 
 os and would not come to the Parliament 
 . >th to put Forward their grievances, 
 I must explain that at this period the Rou- 
 manians of Hungary ha d adopted the policy 
 passive resistance, which included absten- 
 arce known in Hungary as 
 elections, I looked Baron Banffy straight 
 ween the eyes, knowing that 1 was deal 
 th a vain man from whom one might 00- 
 n anything by flattering his vanity. "Look 
 On Banffy," 1 said, "we both know 
 tions are in our respective countries. 
 v • you tell me perfectly truthfully that if 
 Roumanians were to offer themselves for elee- 
 tion and yon did not wish them to be elected 
 tlu- id be a single one who Could be re- 
 turned against your will" Banffy answered, 
 "Not a single one if 1 did not wish it." Thus 
 I got him to discard his little joke about 
 Roumanians participating in elections, a pro- 
 ding devoid of all sense unless Roumanians 
 and Mi were to come to a mutual un- 
 derstanding. Then going back to the idea o( 
 a I said, "l have no mandate 
 the Roumanians of Humrary, I am not 
 
BARON BANFE v 
 
 hpwikittit in t.h':ir wi.ui<:, but iro ild bn- 
 
 poaiible fc 
 
 in 'J 
 
 churches, then 
 (ion*?" 
 BanfTy cred iriti] the moat bi 
 
 frankix 
 
 in Transylvania are b il 2 HJ in n 
 and tb • ..-.' than too miles from 
 Germani of '. 
 
 nianj i r j J fur.; If rnil- 
 
 lioni ftrong and apbicall 
 
 oui to the Bo I ft ftw 
 
 W': continued to i tiie I 
 
 ed bun whether it would not at 1' 
 
 possible to give Trail 
 
 toral fran< . II ,r.; :j'J th': 
 
 ballot. 
 "V anx 
 
 II'. rang and ordered the ':-' r p of 
 
 the Kingdom of II ^ r .; ; jn. 
 
 \/><>V. at this ma] die pin 
 
 ftfagyai i of Hungai I 
 
 deputies, that 
 
 with A the Old 
 
 Magyar domii 
 
168 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 the governments that have gone before and 
 those which will follow after, only exists be- 
 cause of the division amongst nationalities* 
 With the secret ballot we should lose this 
 advantage; in short, we could no longer 
 govern**' 
 
 After an hour o\' useless talk BanfFy asked 
 me if there was a single point on which we 
 agreed. 
 
 "Yes," I said, "we arc agreed that we 
 never can agree on any point." 
 
 When 1 rose to bid him farewell we walked 
 past the window with the view over the 
 Danube and over Pesth. "What a magnificent 
 eapital you have there." I remarked. "Well 
 come ami take it." gaily answered Banffy, 
 
 "Even if 1 Could, I never would take it: 
 but its occupation is quite another matter," 
 said 1. 
 
 Most o( this conversation with Karon 
 Banffy has already appeared in the pages o( 
 
 Sir Mount Stuart Grant Duff*S diary. I had 
 told him about it in London some years after 
 it happened. 
 
 "Never have 1 hail so elear and categorical 
 an explanation from any Hungarian states- 
 man of the irremediable antagonism o( our 
 two points of view. 
 
Roumanian Policy 
 
XVIII 
 
 ROUMANIAN POLIC1 
 
 In 1^08 I was dining at the bouse of a great 
 friend in Fan's. There were a number of 
 people there, amongst them two former 
 French Foreign Ministers. If they read this 
 they will remember the conversation I am 
 about to relate. 
 
 One of them, whom we will call X, was a 
 widely erudite man and a writer of great tal- 
 ent, but the sort, of nature which does riot, re- 
 tain its impressions. The other, V, was con- 
 centrated by nature and spoke little and 
 seldom. 
 
 After dinner, when most of the guests had 
 gone off to listen to music, we three found 
 
 ourselves alone in trie study. 
 
 We talked of Roumania, which had just 
 made an act of unnecessary submission to 
 Austria, and X suddenly exclaimed: 
 
 "The more I think about it, the less I under- 
 stand the policy of Roumania. You have no 
 chance of becoming a great nation except at 
 
 171 
 
172 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Hungary's expense. Yet you are the allies of 
 Hungary; for make no mistake, Austria no 
 longer exists. In reality you are in the first 
 place allies of Hungary, and in the second 
 place allies of Germany. It is impossible for 
 me to understand your policy." 
 
 "Do you understand the policy of Italy?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "Of course," X replied, "it is the policy of 
 fear." 
 
 "And why do you think that Italy is the 
 only country that is afraid V* 
 
 Y, who had said nothing, began to speak. 
 He recognized that the policy of Roumania 
 was to be explained by fear, and the conversa- 
 tion turned on the profound difference be- 
 tween the Triple Alliance and the Triple 
 Entente. In the Triple Alliance, or rather 
 the Austro-German alliance, there was com- 
 plete unity of control, as Berlin alone w r as in 
 command; in the Triple Entente the bonds 
 were so intangible that it w r as difficult at the 
 moment to rely on them. 
 
 "What can we do," asked X, "in order to 
 show you the great interest we take in your 
 happenings and in your future?" 
 
 Y then said, "All we can do for Roumania 
 is to help her to become strong, so that when 
 
ROUMANIAN POLICY 173 
 
 the day of the great catastrophe arrives and 
 she has to make her choice, she may choose 
 with perfect freedom." 
 
 I thanked these two ex-ministers, and told 
 them that in spite of the apparent political 
 slavery of Roumania and in spite of the diplo- 
 matic folly she had just perpetrated, a folly 
 that consisted in informing Sofia that she 
 would be obliged to intervene if Bulgaria took 
 advantage of troubles in Constantinople to at- 
 tack Turkey — in spite of these things I prom- 
 ised that Roumania's choice would be made in 
 perfect freedom. 
 
 My friends must now see I was right, and 
 they cannot regret the support given us by 
 France in 1913. 
 
Tragedy 
 
XIX 
 
 TRAGEDY 
 
 The scene was London, on the 27th of July, 
 1014. 
 
 In spite of the pacific assurances which had 
 in all good faith been given me that morning 
 by Prince Lichnowsky, who had been studi- 
 ously kept in ignorance of the warlike designs 
 of the Emperor, I saw the world war ap- 
 proaching and I was gripped by the horror of 
 it. The last chance of salvation lay in adopt- 
 ing the English proposal for a conference of 
 the four Great Powers, but that had come to 
 nothing, owing to Germany's refusal to take 
 any part in it. 
 
 Although I was convinced that no one 
 would ever make the Roumanian army fight 
 side by side with Hungarian troops, yet I was 
 anxious, for I could not foresee how the war 
 would open, or be certain that Germany and 
 Austria would not, by some diabolic stroke of 
 ingenuity, arrange things in such a way as to 
 force Russia to declare war herself, 
 
 177 
 
178 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Not having the text of our treaty oi' alliance 
 under my eyes, 1 could not be sure thai we 
 could escape its entanglements without ap- 
 pearing to violate the letter of our engage- 
 ment, In particular 1 could not recall exactly 
 how the key phrase, "without provocation on 
 her part." was worded. 
 
 In the afternoon I asked my old friend, the 
 Italian Ambassador in London, the M..rquis 
 Imperial!, to come and see me. Having played 
 an important part in affairs in his own coun- 
 try, I felt sure he would know the text of the 
 Italian treaty, the provisions of which were 
 identical with those of the Roumanian treaty 
 which 1 had read through in June, 1908. 
 
 We talked together for a long while over 
 the grave peril that threatened European 
 civilization. We hoped against all hope. We 
 even imagined we had discovered catchwords 
 which would make the war impossible, so 
 monstrous did it all seem to us. 
 
 But we did more than this, for we also dis- 
 cussed the war as a real possibility. It did not 
 take us Long to find out. firstly, that we were 
 completely agreed that if war did break out 
 the blame would he entirely with Germany 
 and the Magyars, and secondly, that the fate 
 
TRAGEDY 179 
 
 of the world for generations to come must de- 
 pend on the result of the war. 
 
 We both wen: clearly of opinion that in the 
 event of a German victory the future of 
 Eloumania as well as Italy would be seriously 
 compromised, if not destroyed. Supposing 
 Germany and Austria to be the victors, all the 
 risorgimetitOj all the battles and sacrifices of 
 the Italian people would be in vain. For 
 Eloumania a German rictory meant even more 
 than this, if. meant sudden death, while Italy 
 at the worst might accustom herself to slow 
 strangulation. 
 
 We believed in the wisdom of our respective 
 Governments, and we also felt certain that if 
 our rulers attempted to force our people to 
 fight side hy side with the enemies of all 
 libera] civilization, our people would resist. 
 All the same we asked ourselves, in our 
 wretchedness, whether \>y the litem.! interpre- 
 tation of treaties we were obliged to acquiesce 
 in race-suicide. 
 
 The Marquis Imperial] had read the treaty 
 - as a matter of fart he had done so hefore I 
 did and we tried together to reconstitute the 
 text, hut we could not do it. I shall never 
 forget our despair, our misery, at not. being 
 able to say with certainty what the exact word- 
 
180 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 ing o( the treaty really was. Yet on the fetter 
 iif the treaty for, remember, we had not yet 
 become acquainted with the "scrap oi' paper" 
 doctrine depended our honor and our future. 
 
 "What a tragedy!" we said to each other. 
 
 We both felt tears trickling down our faces, 
 and we were not ashamed o( them: but our 
 talk came to an endj and with a prolonged 
 hand-grip we said farewell. 
 
 1 have never seen the Marquis Imperial] 
 since that day, hut when he reads this he will 
 forgive me for having preserved the memory 
 of his tears. We wept together. 
 
Count Tisza 
 
XX 
 
 C0UN1 TISZA 
 
 I ').< ■:■■: ( .', inl 'J . / 
 
 man tilC r '.'.'"-• J - H' 
 
 . the prime mover iri ur.- 
 flicfc Tisza provoked the si carnaj 
 
 but. vrithout tl '' ould 
 
 not have dared v. 'J'. 
 
 minal must f,< ; \</>V.<:<\ for a. Berlin. H'. 
 ran Hu - j ^fj an <:n< .- of a ; . 
 
 ter ca we, and paid for hii crinu life- 
 
 The punishment has beei ed out 
 
 f ;) /: for the proie* ution ii f J'' 
 
 I only met 'i / 
 
 JJ< then chairman of the board of a 
 
 Budapest]] bank v. >^ j <--} j did bo rtth an 
 
 industrial company in Roumania oi I 
 
 . chairman. V\'<: talked business and travel, 
 
 not. a jrord of politic .. But tl con- 
 
 rerfatioi] sufficed to give me an idea of 
 personality, if': irai strong hi r 
 
 the word. Cold as Hie blade of a knife; with 
 a wiJJ of extreme brutality, and a demeanor 
 
is t SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 as serious as an English non-conformist min- 
 ister's. 
 
 Though he was a strong man he could never 
 be a popular one. lie had no magnetism, no 
 
 emotional quality, no outward sign o( the di- 
 vine tire, none of the things that enable a public 
 man to influence a crowd. 
 
 I have often wondered how it was possible 
 for so strong a man to blunder so badly, lie 
 committed the unspeakable crime oi' provoking 
 a Avar that would end Magyar domination, 
 
 which, in Tisza*S eyes, was synonymous with 
 Magyar patriotism. There evidently must 
 have been several reasons why Tis/.a made 
 such a mistake, but Magyar megalomania is 
 not the least o( them. 
 
 The recollection of my solitary Conversa- 
 tion with Tis/.a helps me. however, to under- 
 stand this psychological problem. 
 
 The intellectual isolation in which Tisza 
 lived may have had something to say to it, too, 
 for it prevented him from realizing what was 
 happening in other countries. In talking with 
 him I asked him whether it was long since he 
 had visited the west o( Europe. He answered 
 me that it was seven years since he had left 
 Austria-Hungary and that he felt no need 
 ever to leave it again. 
 
COUNT TISZA 185 
 
 "I should die if I went in for the same 
 i*igime" I said. "I leave Roumania three 
 times a year and pass four months in West- 
 ern Europe) and look upon these journeys as 
 a necessity — a sort of intellectual hygiene. 
 
 "If we stay at home too long our horizon 
 contracts. Little local questions assume an 
 importance which they do not really possess. 
 One must treat events in the political world as 
 one does Mont Blanc; if one wishes to ap- 
 preciate its size, one must go away from it. 
 I have to cross the frontier in order to under- 
 stand how small are the questions which at 
 Bucharest seem to me of the first magnitude." 
 
 Tisza listened to me, hut did not under- 
 stand. He was satisfied with knowing the 
 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, and more espe- 
 cially the Kingdom of Hungary, and from 
 that standpoint to judge the course of human 
 events. 
 
 This political myopia must have Winded the 
 strongest man the Central Empires possessed 
 and led him to unloose a war in which were 
 to founder the hegemony of his race, the inter- 
 ests of his caste and his own historical reputa- 
 tion. 
 
 One must at any rate do this much justice 
 
186 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 to Tisza. He made his exit from the scene 
 better than the two Emperors who had banded 
 themselves together against the liberty of the 
 world. 
 
Talaat Pasha 
 
X X J 
 TALAA1 J'.'.-, ha 
 
 IToung Turk Paj I ■ J ) 
 
 formed, Djem*] more cultured, E 
 
 more noise* but Tflla&t* pritbout doubt, I 
 
 more rtrength of ohaj N . a 'I • 
 
 but a Turk h i f><: a n 
 
 }.',/.' .' : .::.:■ ting 0.- 
 
 E iropean, He »ra# in 
 
 jrthing, bad traveled i r 
 
 knew now; of t.ho 
 
 man bond among public men m V'.' 
 countries Talaat nude lefi- 
 
 ' .' r* .' . by a prill of ii 
 
 and by a quality irbick 
 
 Turks, a quickne a Unun*-.;-, 
 
 in execution »rl ■ ;■■ r ) ■ - tali bo ri 
 
 tbenL 
 
 Lik<: all Hie SToung '\ ■ Talaat iri 
 
 Jingo. When I n for th*: v/:or.\ 
 
 on my return from Atheni in Noremh 
 
 1918, whw: J had a 
 
190 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 of peace between Turkey and Greece] Talaat 
 explained to me how he had plotted and 
 bought about the recapture of Axlrianople in 
 191& It was • wonderful example of rash- 
 ness and of resolution. In twenty-four hours 
 he had forced his will upon the Cabinet, the 
 Generals and the threat Powers, in order to 
 procure the necessary money to carry out an 
 expedition which the Bulgarians Could easily 
 have turned into a disaster for the Turks hail 
 they wished to do so. On the eve of this 
 Talaat had found few people to approve o( it. 
 
 on the morrow everyone was his accomplice. 
 "As to the Great Towers." said he to me, "1 
 
 knew that they would not mo\ e. and that the 
 very audacity o\' the thing would foree it on 
 them. I shall soon do the same thing when 1 
 suppress the eapitulations. 'We do not mean 
 to have those capitulations any more. I know- 
 quite well that Europe will protest, but she 
 will not act" lie showed the same determin- 
 ation in discussing the Sultan. I had asked 
 him if the Sultan or the heir-apparent might 
 not wish to reeover the powers o\' former 
 sovereigns. "We will never allow him to." 
 replied Talaat. "We are the masters, and if 
 a Sultan thinks he is going to run things as 
 he pleases we shall simply depose him." 
 
TALAAT PASHA 10] 
 
 These qualities of Talaat's were spoilt by a 
 spirit of party prejudice, which we in the west 
 find .offf: difficulty in realizing. For example, 
 wrV n after my return from Athens I was 
 discussing with Talaat a proposal for an 
 understanding between Turkey and Greece 
 about which Venizelos had charged me to 
 sound the Turks, I felt that party interests 
 more than anything else lay behind the argu- 
 ments which Talaat used to me in countering 
 my proposal. Talaat would hare liked to raise 
 the popularity of the Young Turk Party \>y 
 striking at a neighbor, and his Greek neigh- 
 bor seemed to him the easiest to hit without 
 incurring too big a risk. 
 
 VV/k.tj I saw Talaat for the first time he 
 impressed me by bis thoroughly un-Turkish 
 characteristics. Early in November, iokj, J 
 went from Sinaia to Athens under the pretext 
 of a pleasure trip, but in reality to try to 
 induce Turkey to make peace with Greece* 
 Turkey was being encouraged in her attitude 
 by Bulgaria, and thought ot nothing less than 
 restarting the Balkan war. My friend 
 Venizelos was of opinion that my going there 
 might perhaps cause the Turks to pause in 
 their insane project. 
 
 J said nothing about my int.frjt.ioo-, to any- 
 
W SOMF n.KSONAl IMPRESSIONS 
 
 . in Roumania except King Charles, with 
 whom 1 arranged that it' I succeeded the credit 
 it should go to Roumania, but that if I 
 failed the blame should be mine tor having 
 undertaken ;i mission which no one had 
 charged me with. 
 
 I asked an old friend, a Roumanian of 
 Macedonia, formerly in the Young Turk Gov- 
 
 unent, Batiaria by name, to moot me at 
 Constantinople, where I only intended stop ■ 
 ping a couple of hours. I wanted him to 
 toll his friend Talaat, whom 1 did not at that 
 time know, what a dangerous game the Turks 
 and Bulgarians were playing, and how de- 
 termined Roumania was not to tolerate a new 
 conflagration in the Balkans. To my great 
 surprise Talaat himself turned up. He made 
 a good impression on mo. We talked for 
 more than an hour. He complained that my 
 going to Athens at such a moment looked like 
 a demonstration against Turkey. I replied 
 that I certainly intended to demonstrate in 
 favor of poaoo and against Turkey it" she al- 
 lowed herself to ho worked up by Bulgar 
 intrigues, and added that Roumania was de- 
 termined to striko at anybody, no matter 
 whom, who disturbed the poaoo of Bucharest, 
 
 and that she >vas quite in a position to do so. 
 
TALAAT PASHA 193 
 
 Talaat was much moved, and jre at lei 
 reached a point, at which he requested me to 
 set m arbitrator between the Turki and the 
 Greeki on aJJ the question! which divided 
 them and they wett rei ' numerous 'j 1 -' 
 tiom which had brought about a complete 
 deadlock in the negotiation! at Athens* J 
 cepted the mission, and, ai ii well known, I 
 
 ceeded. But at this in * J laid to 
 
 Talaat that be must prove to rrjf: that be rep- 
 resented something different from the old Tur- 
 key, and mutt Ho go by undertaking to push 
 t.fi': affair through in three days* \\<. agreed 
 to tbia stipulation, an almoit unheard-of pro- 
 ceeding for a Turk, and ai a matter of I 
 everything wai put through in Athem iri 
 days, though not. without, diihcultiei and 
 worriei which need rjot. be detailed now, 
 
 Talaat promised to return the risit which I 
 had paid to him on my iray back from Ath< 
 and came to Bucharest in the Spring of 1914, 
 when J was mo longer a member of the Gov- 
 ernment. He made the lame impression f >n 
 me, of being a determined man, energetic and 
 brave, hut. completely ignorant of European 
 
 m';n and affail 
 
 The last time J law him wai at. Sinaia, and 
 
liH SOME PKRSONA1 IMPKKSSIONS 
 
 I then rcaliied that his blindness must In the 
 long van prove fatal to Turkey, 
 
 It is well known that in spite of the peace 
 which 1 had succeeded in negotiating at Athens 
 the question of the islands remained to be 
 settled between Turkey and Greece, This 
 
 matter was net b\ its nature a question tor 
 
 Roumanian arbitration, but for settlement by 
 the Great Po* ers, 
 
 In the early days o( the great European 
 
 war. when I was still at my \ ilia in Sinaia. 1 
 learned that Talaat. accompanied by Hakki. 
 then president of the Turkish Chamber of 
 
 Deputies, had arranged i meeting in Rou- 
 
 mania with the Greek delegates, Messrs, 
 
 mis and Politis, to discuss the question of 
 
 the islands. 
 
 On the way the Turkish delegates stopped 
 
 two or three days at Sofia, which was a clear 
 
 indication o\' their intentions; the so-ealled 
 
 negotiations being but a trap laid by Austria 
 and Germany, The discussions were carried 
 on at Bucharest, but the Turkish delegates, 
 under pretext of seeking country air, estab- 
 lished themselves at Sinaia. The truth is that 
 they wished to be in elose toueh with the Ger- 
 man, Bulgarian and Austrian Ministers who 
 were then at Sinaia. 
 
TALAA1 PASHA 196 
 
 The negotiations did not prog 
 irere not meant to. The orj J 7 thing the Turki 
 fronted vtao to find ft ftzszis &#//i ; ■■;-. iinst Greet 
 the sooner to bring about the conflagration in 
 tjj<: iriiole Balkan Peninsula. 
 
 Talaat naively believed that King Charles, 
 who against hii frill had acquiesced in the 
 neutrality oi Roumania, might still drag the 
 country into a irar against Russia by allying 
 himself irith Bulgaria and Turkey, I* 
 ridiculous, but although Talaat bad plenty of 
 determination h<: wm quite ignorant of r/j':rj 
 and things, 
 
 One incident in these precious negotiations 
 i. worthy of being noted. It. is, moreover, the 
 first and last occasion on prhich I bad a really 
 mi talk with Talaat, 
 
 One evening I ' e f asino at Sinaia, 
 
 having a talk irith the Russian and Italian 
 Ministers, [t wm about ten o'clock at night, 
 vrben one of r/jy journalist friends came to 
 
 rn me that the next day the Turkish dele- 
 gates intended to present an ultimatum to the 
 Greek delegates at Bucharest, and finish off 
 the procedingi by a declaration of war. 
 
 The rery idea that the Turks egged on by 
 the Centra] Powers and by the Bulgarians, 
 
 re about to let loose a fresh Balkan ■--. 
 
196 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 from Bucharest on the hospitable soil of Rou- 
 mania was hateful to me. At once I cast 
 about for means to prevent such a calamity 
 happening. I knew that Talaat and his col- 
 leagues were certain to come into the gambling 
 room, as they were not due to go to Bucharest 
 until the next morning at eight o'clock, and as 
 a matter of fact they turned up soon after 
 eleven o'clock. J. at once spoke to Talaat, 
 and told him that I must have a word with 
 him. He tried to put me off by making an 
 appointment for the following evening, after 
 his return from Bucharest, to which I replied 
 that that would be too late, that I must speak 
 to him immediately; that the business was one 
 of extreme urgency, and that the least he 
 could do was to accede to my request. 
 
 Much against his will Talaat consented, and 
 asked me whether Hakki could also take part 
 in our conversation. Firmly I replied "No," 
 but said that if he wished to communicate 
 what I said to Hakki that was his own busi- 
 ness, but that so far as I was concerned I 
 meant to speak to him alone. 
 
 Leading Talaat off into a corner, I made 
 him sit down facing me, and the following 
 strange conversation began. 
 
 The general public which crowded round 
 
TALAAT PASHA 197 
 
 the baccarat tables paid no attention to us, 
 but the Russian and Italian Ministers, who 
 knew what I was about, kept their eyes fixed 
 on our little group. 
 
 In a sharp voice I told Talaat that I knew 
 of his plan for the morrow, and that I asked 
 him, in the name of the respect which he 
 owed to Roumanian hospitality, to give it up. 
 
 Talaat tried to stammer out that I was mis- 
 taken as to his intentions and so on. 
 
 I replied that he was wrong to deny it, as 
 I knew everything, whereupon Talaat ac- 
 knowledged his scheme, and added that he 
 was convinced that sooner or later Roumania 
 would go to war against Russia side by side 
 with Turkey and Bulgaria. 
 
 Thoroughly angry, I asked him whether he 
 had warned the King of his scheme to provoke 
 war while a guest on Roumanian soil. He 
 admitted that he had not done so, but stated 
 that he knew that the King remained favor- 
 able to the policy of war in alliance with the 
 Austro-Germans. I then pressed Talaat as 
 hard as I could. Carried away by my feelings, 
 I gesticulated in a way I never do, and so 
 completely forgot the consideration due to a 
 guest that I told him that Roumania would 
 never forget the insult which the Turkish 
 
198 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 delegates were about to offer her by thus 
 abusing Roumanian hospitality, 
 
 "You shall not do it in Koumania. I give 
 
 you a fair warning, and believe me that in 
 doing so 1 speak for all Koumania. If you do 
 it you will repent of it." 
 
 1 pressed Talaat so hard that he ended by 
 giving me his word o\' honor that he would not 
 present an ultimatum to Greece next day at 
 Bucharest. 1 suggested to him to propose an 
 adjournment of the question sine die 
 
 "All right," said he, "provided the Greeks 
 don't provoke me to-morrow." 
 
 Once 1 got Talaat's promise to give up his 
 plan 1 added, "1 have given you a warning and 
 
 you have frankly heeded me. Now I wish to 
 give you a piece o\' information and a piece o\' 
 advice. The piece oi' information is this: 
 owing to the ambiguous language o( certain 
 personages you may perhaps have deluded 
 yourself into thinking that circumstances 
 might arise in which Koumania may find her- 
 self at war against the Towers o\' the Entente. 
 Well, believe me, that will never happen, and 
 nobody in the world -understand me clearly, 
 nobody in the world is strong enough to drag 
 Koumania into a war against the Powers oi % 
 the Entente. The exact opposite is not only 
 
TALAAT I'ASIIA 1!)!) 
 
 possible l>ut is more than probable. I give you 
 this piece of information so that you may not 
 deceive yourself in weighing the probabilities 
 which will decide the policy of your country." 
 As Talaat still seemed to doubt whether I 
 
 was speaking from facts, and as he still ques- 
 tioned me ;is to the will of the King, I reiter- 
 ated my point again, and said to him, 'Wo one, 
 absolutely no one, is strong enough to prevent 
 Roumania following the policy dictated by her 
 
 national instinct." 
 
 "And now for the piece of advice," I said 
 to him. "Providence has not entrusted me 
 with the task of looking after the fate of 
 Turkey; it is quite enough for me to worry 
 about that of my own country; but f will give 
 you one piece of advice as a true friend. Re- 
 main neutral. Never has Turkey had a bet- 
 ter chance of living, if she has any vitality in 
 her, than by remaining neutral in this war. 
 In return for your neutrality demand of the 
 Entente the guarantee of your independence, 
 demand the abolition of the capitulations. 
 You will get everything, but war can bring 
 you nothing. If you are beaten, and yon wdl 
 be beaten, you disappear. If you are vic- 
 torious you will get nothing. A victorious 
 Germany, even if such a thing is possible, will 
 
200 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 never commit the folly you dream of, of giving 
 you the Caucasus or Egypt. She would take 
 them for herself if she could: but once more 
 this is merely advice, and the day will come 
 when you will see whether it came from a 
 friend or not." 
 
 The next day at Bucharest Talaat kept his 
 word. 
 
 1 warned the Greeks by a letter sent to them 
 that very night by special messenger, and the 
 conference was adjourned for good. 
 
 Since those days 1 have never seen Talaat. 
 At the time o( the English expedition to 
 Gallipoli 1 wrote to him and asked him to 
 make peace with the Entente, telling him that 
 it was the last chance o\' salvation for Turkey. 
 Talaat sent me a verbal reply to this letter in 
 the Spring oi' 1916 by the Roumanian Min- 
 ister at Constantinople, saying that events had 
 proved that he was right and that 1 was 
 wrong. 
 
 But how do things stand to-dav? 
 
Prince Von Billow 
 
XXJJ 
 
 PRIM E VOX BULOW 
 
 J bate known many of the mm irbo hi 
 played an important part in German polk 
 Only three of them gave in<; the impression 
 that I bad to do irith really strong men. Two 
 are dead, Kiderlen-Waechter and Baron Mar- 
 ichalL The third iras Pi «i Biilo* 
 
 So far from being a man of the part, like 
 the Gokicho . and the Berchtolds, Prince 
 von Btilow u at this moment a man of to-di 
 Everything about him is therefore of interest 
 iff: has a remarkable mind, one of those minds 
 which bring a man to the front in aJ] countries 
 and in aJJ ages. Of course be think-, J ike a 
 German, like a reactionary, and like a coun- 
 try gentleman; but in spite of these drawbacks 
 his mind is of the most brilliant quality. J Jc 
 posse . leg remarkable clearne don, ability 
 
 1 if the German! bad been nfl*e they irould bar* made I 
 von Btilow th'-ir rep <: at the P 
 
 the only man I been Inti 
 
 en Talleyrand . well 
 
 Dd irbJdi M. 1 tallied is IS7L 
 
 203 
 
SOI SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 to appreciate situations, adroitness and under- 
 standing. It is impossible to be in his com- 
 pany without feeling that he is a man whose 
 
 family position has merely been an accessory 
 to a distinguished career. 
 
 To say that Prince von Billow is a great 
 man would be an exaggeration, ami I believe 
 that he has Sufficient sense not to claim any- 
 thing of the kind. He is even below the level 
 o( Kiderlen. merely to instance another Ger- 
 man. but he is a strong man. thoroughly able 
 to understand things ami to find the best solu- 
 tion of a given problem. In the intellectual 
 desert o( German public life that alone is a 
 great quality. 
 
 Prince vim Billow is. also, a man of great 
 personal charm, which is always to the good, 
 and his conversation is most entertaining. Al- 
 though one must not expect l>ismarekian 
 aphorisms to fall from his lips, yet his con- 
 versation is not tainted by any touch of 
 brutality, roughness or arrogance. 
 
 At first sight one can almost believe oneself 
 to be dealing with a Latin, so flexible, so in- 
 sinuatingly frank and almost caressing is his 
 manner oi' talking, and though it would be 
 wrong to be taken in by appearance, the charm 
 is undeniable. 
 
PRINCE VON BULOW 205 
 
 'Hie first time I bad a serious political talk 
 
 with Prince von IJiilow W&B towards the end 
 
 of the year ihhh. In April he bad been ap- 
 pointed Minister at Bucharest, and was to 
 have remained there until December, 1808, 
 He came from Petrograd, and was seemingly 
 thoroughly conversant with Russian affairs, 
 and he told me that lie bad spent the last i'cw 
 weeks in the Russian capita] studying the 
 Roumanian question in the archives of the 
 German Embassy. His studies had given 
 him, he said, great confidence in the virtue, 
 and ability of the Roumanian people, for 
 whom be foresaw a great future. 
 
 No doubt this was a very good way of be- 
 ginning a conversation with me on the prob- 
 lems of European policy, in so far as they 
 
 affected Roumania and the Roumanian peo- 
 ple, for, unlike the late Kidcrlen, Prince von 
 Bulow recognized the existence of the na- 
 tionality question. 
 
 In this long conversation, which touched on 
 all subjects and consequently on OUT own pub- 
 lic men, we came to talk about Cogalniccano, 
 who was not only one of our most shining 
 lights, but what is more important, a really 
 great man. 
 
 Biilow did not understand why Cogalniceano 
 
806 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 was inimical to the policy of an Austro-Ger- 
 inan alliance, lie was too intelligent to at- 
 tribute mean motives to Cogalniceano, for he 
 knew his patriotism, his great soul, ami his 
 high capacity, lie was astonished, however, 
 that he seemed to take no account of the Rus- 
 sian danger for Koumania or see that our 
 salvation lay in an alliance with Germany, who 
 could protect us. 1 answered Prince von 
 Biilow by repeating to him as well as 1 could 
 all the arguments which Cogalniceano had 
 used so many times to me against the policy 
 o( an alliance with Austria and Germany, and 
 this in spite of the genuine admiration which 
 he had at that time for Germany, 
 
 After I had repeated these arguments to 
 Prince vt>n Billow he made a statement which 
 I now record. 
 
 Amongst other things. Cogalniceano had 
 said to me. "This Austro-German policy is 
 perfectly absurd, because it is based on the 
 idea of a war between Russia and Germany. 
 Now. such a war will never take place, it 
 would be too much against the traditions of 
 the House of Prussia ami too much against 
 the interests of Germany. " In 188S this rea- 
 soning seemed faultless. "He is wrong," in- 
 terrupted Prince von Biilow. "Under the last 
 
PRINCE VOX BULOW 207 
 
 reign M. Cogalniceano would have been right, 
 
 but I am anxious to make you realize that 
 the new reign will show a complete change of 
 front. It will be one of the cardinal points of 
 the policy of the new reign [William 11 had 
 
 been on the throne since June, 1888] to he on 
 guard against Russia. Vou wril] soon see that 
 
 ou j- poJiey will not leave room for doubt as to 
 this question." 
 
 Then the talk switched off to other sub- 
 jects, as invariably happens in Uie case of con- 
 versation without any definite objective. 
 
 Later on, when I saw the new Emperor go 
 in for a pro-Polish policy, I understood that 
 Prince von Billow bar] not been mistaken. It 
 did not last long-, but what could last long in 
 the case of an absolute Monarch who is strong 
 enough to wish to guide everything and not 
 strong enough to be able to do so? Anyway 
 the fact stands that this first talk of mine with 
 Prince von Bulow (and I have had many 
 others since then) remains deeply engraved in 
 my memory. It explained to me many things 
 which have happened during the last twenty- 
 eight years. 
 
 Dr. Dillon, the very distinguished writer, 
 has lately published in an English review a 
 most interesting account of Prince von 
 
208 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Billow's intrigues for the entanglement of 
 Italy, contrary to the dictates of her honor 
 and her national will, in the war. 
 
 This article has been republished in the 
 Roumanian papers, and has given its readers 
 a welcome opportunity of getting a good idea 
 of German methods in neutral countries. It 
 is the first instance in modern history in which 
 a foreign power has mixed itself up in the 
 internal affairs of another country on so great 
 a scale; has bought political honor like mer- 
 chandise in the market place, and has framed 
 real plots against a foreign state and its 
 sovereign will. 
 
 AY hen one reads it all one shivers at the idea 
 of what the fate of Europe, the fate of hu- 
 manity would have been if the Nero of Berlin 
 had been the conqueror in this war. For- 
 tunately it is now no more than a bad dream. 
 
 One regrets that Prince von Biilow ever 
 thought it his duty to be mixed up in so un- 
 savory a business. Even patriotism cannot 
 excuse everything. Civilization also has its 
 rights, though modern Germany repudiates 
 this idea; for her doctrine is that German in- 
 terests are superior to right, honor, decency 
 and humanity, and if we hold the same ideas 
 on these questions as Germany, how can we 
 
PRINCE VON BULOW 209 
 
 explain the sacred indignation which burns in 
 every breast? 
 
 Von ]$ulow deserved a better fate. lie had 
 shown himself one of the most brilliant men of 
 present-day Germany, and, in spite of his 
 book, remained in comparison with his con- 
 temporaries on a pedestal. 
 
 Prince von liiilow had one great merit in 
 the eyes of those who think, for he was the 
 first German Minister who dared to put the 
 Kaiser in his place. In an autocratic country 
 where Parliament is nothing, where the First 
 Minister of the Crown is chosen by the 
 Sovereign, and is responsible only to the 
 Sovereign and can be dismissed by the 
 Sovereign without it being possible for the na- 
 tion — as in the case of Venizelos — to compel 
 his return; in a country whose political or- 
 ganization was out of date by several centuries, 
 the courage of this act was astonishing. Prince 
 von Biilow's celebrated speech was received 
 with a general paean of admiration. In the 
 course of that ovation, with masterly skill he 
 taunted his Sovereign with useless speechify- 
 ing, and undertook in the presence of a phan- 
 tom parliament that the Monarch should not 
 repeat his mistake. It was a first step, a 
 modest step, it is true, but the first step to- 
 
210 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 wards popular government in Germany. This 
 criticism of the Emperor in the Reichstag was 
 the dawn of a revolution, a revolution de- 
 signed to save Germany and the world from 
 the absurd regime which could only result in 
 the horrors of the great war. 
 
 And why was the attempt not followed up? 
 Why did it fail? 
 
 Perhaps Prince von Billow never formed a 
 clear estimate of the enormity of his daring. 
 Who knows whether he was not even alarmed 
 by it himself? It is difficult for the soul of 
 the free man to emerge from generations who 
 have indulged in the fetish worship of mon- 
 archy. 
 
 What is certain is that the Kaiser watched 
 von Billow like a cat on the pounce to take his 
 revenge. The day the Chancellor committed 
 the mistake of making up to our Nero in the 
 hope that he would forget this salutary though 
 distasteful reprimand, William realized that 
 von Billow was no Cromwell, not even a Bis- 
 marck, and he decided to make him undergo 
 the fate oi' Seneca, though in a modern fash- 
 ion. In the same Reichstag in which von 
 Eiilow had allowed himself to speak on one 
 occasion as if to an assembly of free men, the 
 Emperor raised against him a reactionary 
 
PRINCE VON JHILOVV 211 
 
 intrigue, and he fell. The rest of the story is 
 well known. Prince von Biilow retired with 
 a great deal of dignity and without sulking. 
 
 I [e divided liis time between Norderney and 
 Rome. From the Eternal City he watched 
 with a fine sense of irony the performances of 
 his former master, whose inevitable collapse 
 he foresaw might take place any day. 
 
 When the collapse came Nero recalled 
 Seneca and demanded of him the supreme 
 sacrifice, a harikari, not of his body, but of his 
 reputation and of his name in history. 
 
 Prince von Biilow must be congratulated 
 that his patriotism got the better of a very 
 proper feeling of resentment. He was bound 
 to know that he was going to certain defeat, 
 and he knew Italy too well to deceive himself 
 either as to her intelligence or her sense of 
 honor. For that he deserves the commisera- 
 tion of all mankind. But he lost his head. He 
 was not made of fine enough stuff for the 
 sacrifice, and he ended by believing success to 
 be possible, and then stooped to the task which 
 Dr. Dillon has described, a task which has 
 robbed our modern Seneca of all claim to a 
 martyr's halo. 
 
 What a pity for him, and what a triumph 
 for Nero! 
 
Tatichefj 
 
XXIII 
 'I ..'J [< HEFF 
 
 Tatichefi 14 no Kongei a irell known name in 
 t,}jr : vrorld of European politics, and yet to 
 one of the mott genuinely intelligent people it 
 bai ever been my lot to meet. I had a tails 
 with him twice, both timet in London, 
 
 The first tinn f . a dinner at the St 
 
 James Club, Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallac* 
 then foreign editor of the Time:-., and Lord 
 Reay, a fornn i rnor of* Bombay, a man 
 
 v.f II known in the world of international jui 
 prudence, w< ent. 
 
 The lecond t. J r r i r ; 'i itichenTs boufe, 
 
 and I talked for a few minutes to Stead, the 
 well-known publicist, who was to low hi i life 
 later on in the Titanic disaster* At the 
 moment Tatichefl was the late Wil 
 in England. Everyone will remember Wi1 
 tjjr ; great Finance Minister of the B 
 umpire, irho as an adjunct to his dictatorship 
 had financial representatives in all the capitals 
 
£16 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 in Europe, which in reality l\>vnu\l a second 
 diplomatic body, controlled by himself alone. 
 
 Taticheff had a very singular history. He 
 had begun life brilliantly in diplomacy, Ap- 
 pointed to fche Embassy at Vienna, he began 
 to work in an anti-German sense, or to say the 
 least of it. not in a pro-German sense. At 
 that time it was a most dangerous game to 
 play, and Bismarck, who never overlooked 
 anything and whose influence in governing 
 circles in Petrograd is well known, determined 
 to destroy him. An incident in the senti- 
 mental side of TatichefTs life gave the Iron 
 Chancellor the opportunity he sought. The 
 Petrograd Cabinet broke Taticheff, who at 
 once began to avenge himself after the fashion 
 oi' a strong man. lie devoted himself to the 
 study o( history, and produced books that 
 gave him a great reputation. During the war 
 o( 1ST 7 he served as a volunteer, ami behaved 
 in such a way as to win the Cross of St. 
 George, Then he went on with his literary 
 career, until Witte took him back to the 
 service o( the state, in the capacity o\' financial 
 agent. Death overtook him before he had at- 
 tained the summit of his powers. 
 
 Like all intelligent Russians. Taticheff was 
 a most attractive talker. He had subtlety, im- 
 
TATICHEFF 217 
 
 agination, wit and charm, and beyond this a 
 sort of courage which enabled him to touch on 
 delicate mutters with perfect tact. 
 
 Naturally we discussed Russo-Ronmanian 
 relations. They irere in a very had way. 
 Being afraid of Russia, we were plunged into 
 a sea of Germanism, and TatichefJ was well 
 informed on this point. He explained to me 
 
 the plain truth of the matter, whieh was that 
 
 tlic interests of Roumanian national unity 
 were absolutely opposed to a Russophobe 
 
 policy, and that consequently we were travel- 
 ing on a wrong roao 1 , since any day might 
 find the interests of self-preservation driv- 
 ing us inevitably to reverse our existing pro- 
 gramme. 
 
 It is easy to imagine TatichefFs line of 
 argument; there is no need for me to dwell on 
 it. To-day the arguments used by the Rus- 
 sian writer are established in the head and 
 heart of every Roumanian, 
 
 Taticheff came, of course, to the question of 
 Bessarabia. He recognized that the Russian 
 
 Government had been wrong to insist on our 
 
 exchanging the three districts of Bessarabia 
 for the Dobrudja. He was of opinion that 
 Russia ought merely to have offered us this 
 
218 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 exchange and to have abstained from it if we 
 refused to accept it. 
 
 "But," he said, "you would have been very 
 wrong to refuse it. I quite understand Rou- 
 manian sentiment about Bessarabia, but this 
 sentiment is not bound up only with the three 
 southern districts, the least Roumanian of all, 
 but with the entire province, the entire terri- 
 tory between the Pruth and the Dniester lost 
 in 1812. I understand this feeling of sad 
 regret and also your keen aspirations in the 
 matter. It is too human and natural for a 
 friend of truth to be able to deny it. But 
 what I do not understand is why the preserva- 
 tion of these three districts, separated from 
 Russian Bessarabia by the most conventional 
 of frontiers, could satisfy the Roumanian in- 
 stinct towards national unity or augment the 
 chances of the future acquisition of the whole 
 of Bessarabia. Danubian Bessarabia, except 
 for the district of Cahul, is the least Rou- 
 manian corner of the Roumanian state, and 
 although the possession of Kilia has played a 
 great part in Roumanian history we should 
 recognize the fact that Moldavian rule has 
 never been more intermittent in any other 
 province of the former state of Moldavia. To 
 envisage the marshes of southern Bessarabia 
 
TATICHEFF 219 
 
 as a strategic point from which to advance on 
 the Dniester is simply childish. The delta of 
 the D ami he is of course very valuable. But 
 a Roumania, mistress of the left bank of the 
 Kilia branch, with Bulgaria on the opposite 
 side of the stream, would have been far less 
 mistress of the Danube delta than she would 
 be in the situation created by her annexation 
 of the Dobrudja. As for access to the sea, 
 one cannot compare the two solutions. The 
 Bessarabian coast even with the proposed 
 bridge at Jibriani would never really have 
 given Roumania proper access to the sea, 
 whereas with Sulina, Constantza and Man- 
 galia it is quite another matter. And it was 
 up to you to add Varna, the best port on the 
 Black Sea — Varna, which in 1878 might have 
 been anything you liked to make it, except a 
 Bulgarian town." 
 
 And as I tried to interrupt him, Taticheff 
 added, "I say once more that we were wrong 
 to force your hand and you were still more 
 wrong in refusing an exchange so favorable 
 to yourself. If it had been a question of ob- 
 taining possession of the whole of Bessarabia 
 I should have understood your policy, but 
 it was not a question of that or anything 
 approaching it. In 1878 you had a rare 
 
220 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 opportunity of making capital out of your al- 
 liance with Russia, especially after the glori- 
 ous days of Plevna. You lost the opportunity, 
 and what did you gain in exchange? Sooner 
 or later the nemesis of history which has 
 placed the greater number of your nationals 
 in Austria-Hungary, that is to say among 
 the Germans, will oblige you to draw near to 
 us, will make you our ally in war, if you do 
 not yourselves intend to seal the destruction 
 of your race and of your independence. And 
 then," said Taticheff, "in spite of these treaties 
 of yours, treaties you pretend not to know the 
 existence of, but which I know to be real 
 enough, I am counting on you as allies when 
 the great day of reckoning comes. I cannot 
 admit that nations can ever commit suicide. 
 They may delude themselves for a time, but 
 they are obliged to come back to the truth in 
 the end. I hope the great day will find you 
 strong and ready. 
 
 Taticheff was right. In the end truth pre- 
 vailed. 
 
France and the Teuton 
 
XXIV 
 
 FRANCE AND THE TEUTON 
 
 Everyone in Roumania knew the late Cou- 
 touly, formerly French Minister in Bucharest, 
 and everyone appreciated his gentle character 
 and his real friendliness towards our country. 
 
 Gustave de Coutouly had served in the 
 garde mobile in 1870 and also bad assisted in 
 suppressing the Commune. It was quite 
 natural that be should cherish an unfading 
 memory of thai dreadful year, and that in his 
 heart there should ever hum the passionate 
 feelings of the vanquished. 
 
 The last time I saw him in Paris was at the 
 time of* the Tangier difficulty: it will be re- 
 membered that the incident which accelerated 
 the first Morocco crisis and almost set Europe 
 ablaze was the famous landing of the Emperor 
 at Tangier. It was like a thunderclap in 
 Paris. People had become accustomed to the 
 idea of peace, and if. was believed that France 
 was safe from any new sort of aggression on 
 the part of Germany. This thunderclap out 
 
 22 I 
 
SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 of a blue sky was in truth the beginning of I 
 now era in the psychology of the people of 
 France, 
 
 Some precautions against the possibility of 
 :i sudden and absolutely unjustified attack 
 had boon taken, The eastern garrisons had 
 boon strengthened and frontier regiments were 
 kepi always on the alert. 
 
 Monsieur de Coutouly*s only son was serv- 
 ing in one of these regiments. He was killed 
 in the war. forhtinff irallantly, two days after 
 his marriage, 
 
 1 was discussing the gravity o( the time with 
 my friend de Coutouly, when he began to 
 read me a lot tor which his son had sent from 
 the frontier. The young soldier expressed 
 himself in this letter with the magnificent 
 courage, the gayety, the humor, which is char- 
 acteristic of tho Frenchman, He told his 
 father he had nothing to fear, that the new 
 generation, in spite o( its apparent softness 
 and indifference, would do its duty as French- 
 men, would prove worthy of their ancestors, 
 and that it' war broke out the heroes who were 
 the glory of French history would have reason 
 to be proud of the exploits o( the French of 
 to-day. "But," he added, "it is impossible 
 for us to hate. You who were beaten in is?o 
 
D THE TEUTO 
 
 <).<•.}> a i 
 
 ■■■:■ \ ...;■. ■ 
 
 A I/.-,", and I. 
 
 ■//J J '.!.• Mood 
 
 bflCk* btlt I r 
 
 'i ',;•- flier m ] 
 
 deptbi of the Lai 
 
 r» .'.' ;'. . . ' r;Ti t/j 
 
 DA 
 
 " f J fj<; n<;V/ ; 
 
 tf]': I 
 
 in H 
 
 Ar>'\ '<y. I 
 pu:, 
 
 in (',*:nntiri 
 
 . not r 'j f ;'i aftei WO. ] 
 
 tor tlk momenl irben tney couM on':': ovj 
 
11*6 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 hurl themselves upon her, this time to destroy 
 
 her forever. 
 
 When WM broke out, a great friend o( mine. 
 Titulesco, was in Stockholm. In order to get 
 home he had to go through Berlin, and he 
 
 stopped there ten days or more. From Berlin 
 
 he wrote me a letter, which 1 have kept, as it 
 
 does great honor to Titulesco*S spirit of ob- 
 servation and the depth o( his judgment. He 
 showed himself dumbfounded by what he saw. 
 but the number o\' guns and the wonderful 
 organization of material was not what inter- 
 ested him. the important factor to him was the 
 German soul. That soul astonished and ap- 
 palled him at the same time, lie witnessed 
 its manifestations. lie saw the happy ex- 
 pression with which parents and friends read 
 the names o\' their clearest in the lists o( killed, 
 and he wrote: "It is perfectly dear to me that 
 these people have been waiting for forty years 
 with intense impatience for this day. To this 
 people the war has brought positive happiness: 
 this people desired war with all its strength, 
 they looked upon it as Christians look upon 
 the advent of the "Messiah, and in the joy o( 
 striking France even natural feelings disap- 
 pear." 
 
 I pondered over the two mentalities, the 
 
PRAM E AND THE TEUTON 
 
 ions of the conquered Latins who are unable 
 to bate their conquerors, and the sons of the 
 (/' rman conquerors who could not forego their 
 hatred of their \'<>rin<:r victims. 
 
 u 
 
 STesterday evening in my little country 
 library I took down ISAwtUe Terrible from 
 the poet's shelf. J bad not read it. for a long 
 while. The great poet, the greatest lyric poet 
 of modern tunes, speaks of the choice between 
 the two nations. 
 
 Jf^ begins with Germany, to whom be de- 
 votes three pages, opening with this verse. 
 
 "Aucune nation n'eft pJ n--. grandc q 
 
 and which end 
 
 "L'/\\]f.Ti):i'y!n<: ftst puiH«ant': ct '-.';f,<:r ; . 
 
 and for France be adds only three words: 
 
 "O rn-'i I I 
 
 It. was in September, J 870, that Victor 
 Jfu^o wrote like this, the September in which 
 Germany, having finished her war with the 
 Austrian Empire, began her war against 
 France. 
 
228 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 How can Germans ever understand the 
 French soul? 
 
 How can they fail to be mistaken as to the 
 power and decision of France? 
 
A Cousin of Tisza 
 
XXV 
 
 A COUSIN OF TJSZA 
 
 I was talking in Vienna on the evening of the 
 80th of July, L914, to a friend an intimate 
 of Count Berchtold's. This friend happened 
 to be an Englishman who did not believe that 
 England would fight. 
 "They are keenly anxious for war here," he 
 
 Said, "and to tin's end they drafted the ulti- 
 matum to Serbia in such a way that it could 
 not possibly be accepted. They were greatly 
 disappointed when the report — which, hy the 
 way, turned out to he false — got about that 
 the Serbs had accepted it without modification, 
 for they are so weJJ prepared as to be confi- 
 dent of victory. The present Roumanian 
 Government does not count for much here, as 
 it does not appear fully to realize the situa- 
 tion. They tell me if only you were in power 
 a good deal could he done with Roumania. 
 Not only could the whole of Bessarabia 
 lost in 18J 2 be regained, but Odessa also, 
 and ..." 
 
 231 
 
^s* somk rr.uso\ ai. mrurssiONS 
 
 1 listened to my friend's words: he was quite 
 an intelligent person, and I said to myself, 
 "People in Vienna are up to the neck in 
 ignorance and folly." 
 
 11 
 
 On the morning o( the 8rd o( August, 1914, 
 
 1 called B party meeting at my house at 
 Sinaia. It was attendee! by MM, Dissesco, 
 [strati, Cantacuiene-Pashcano, Badarau and 
 Cinco, 
 
 To them 1 explained the situation and the 
 matters to be discussed and settled at the 
 Privy Council that afternoon. 
 
 1 asked each person for his opinion before 
 giving my own. Then I put forward my own 
 views, and added that 1 was happy to think 
 nearly all were o( the same opinion as I was 
 as to the effect on our country o\' a German 
 victory. It would be the death of Koumania. 
 and it was morally impossible that we should 
 assist at our own funeral. 
 
 I said that if they had not been o( my 
 opinion I should have retired from the leader* 
 ship of the Conservative Democratic Party. 
 And even then I should not have lost faith in 
 my country's destiny, but should have worked 
 
A COUSIN 01 'J J.-.ZA £30 
 
 on a* a private individual in complete tree- 
 dona and with redoubled energy. 
 
 in 
 
 J was stiJJ at my little vjJJa at SinaJa in 
 September, JOJ !•, just before the faJi of Lem- 
 berg, when a Hungarian friend, a cousin of 
 Count Tisza, came to see me. He was a 
 
 charming man, and as a rule did not mix 
 himself up in polil 
 
 He spoke of my own attitude in the great 
 European crisis, an attitude which, he said, 
 might prove fatal to me. Jf o gave me to 
 
 understand what J already knew '.'eJJ, that 
 Tisza was the real pilot of the Dual Empire, 
 and that after the Peace he intended to he- 
 come Minister of Foreign Affairs, a post he 
 could keep for life if it pleased him to do so. 
 With the utmost civility he pointed out to me 
 the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of my 
 ever coming hack to power in Room am a, a a 1 
 could never have any decent relations with 
 Count Tisza's Government because of the 
 attitude I was taking. lb: insinuated that 
 there was still time for me to retreat, and that 
 the Central Powers v^-s(: confident of victory. 
 J told him that every man was bound to 
 obey the call of duty without heeding risk or 
 
£34 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 danger, and that I was unite well aware that 
 in the event of the Germans being victorious 
 
 it would t>e my patriotic duty not to em- 
 barrass the policy o( my country by remain- 
 ing in public life, ami that when countless 
 human lives were being sacrificed on countless 
 battlefields it was ridiculous to stop at the 
 sacrifice o( a man's political career, no matter 
 who the man was. 
 
 My visitor took the hint, and by way of 
 excusing himself, assured me that his advice 
 had been inspired only by his feelings of friend- 
 ship. It is. however, the same adviee which, 
 since then, has been ottered me on several oc- 
 casions, and by quite different people* 
 
New Italy 
 
XXVI 
 
 NEW ITALY 
 
 A fortnight before the outbreak of the 
 Russo-Japanese war I was discussing the 
 
 chances of peace with King Charles, who was 
 not only a statesman but a great soldier. 
 Both of us thought w'ar certain, in spite of 
 the peaceful assurances of the Embassies. I 
 told him of my profound conviction that the 
 Japanese would be victorious all along the 
 line. lie answered me with the usual objec- 
 tions, saying that there would be ninety Rus- 
 sian divisions against thirteen Japanese di- 
 visions, and so on. 
 
 When we had finished arguing he asked me 
 on what I based my conviction. "I believe," 
 I said, "in the moral factor. History teaches 
 that it is this moral factor rather than the 
 mere number of battalions which gives vic- 
 tory. For the Russians this war is an absurd 
 colonial affair, which they do not understand; 
 hut for the Japanese victory is a vital neces- 
 sity. They know quite well that until they 
 
 237 
 
238 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 have beaten a white race they will continue to 
 be despised. 
 
 "Now for the Japanese honor is the su- 
 preme good, and it is necesary for them to 
 win in order to make themselves our equal." 
 
 My questioner persisted in his view. "Look 
 here," I said, "you have often told me that the 
 Austrian army was first rate, that its infantry 
 was better than the German infantry, and that 
 the higher command, since they had admitted 
 to it people who were not noble by birth, had 
 made astonishing progress ; well, I am perfect- 
 ly certain that, given equal numbers or there- 
 abouts, the Austrian army could be beaten by 
 any other army in the world. It has not, and 
 never can have, the moral factor." He ap- 
 peared to find me rather ridiculous, and so I 
 added, "I know that you have a pretty moder- 
 ate opinion of the Italian army, but I am 
 quite certain that, given equal numbers, the 
 Italian army could beat the Austrian army 
 into a cocked hat." 
 
 After a few other remarks I added, "You 
 do not know new Italy; our misfortune is that 
 we preserve the opinions of our first youth 
 and we do not adapt ourselves quickly enough 
 to the new facts around us. Italy, for example, 
 is passing through a moral revolution of which 
 
NEW ITALY 239 
 
 people in general have no idea. The new gen- 
 eration which has grown up in a free Italy is 
 filled with patriotism, I might say pride, 
 which the extreme politeness of Italians does 
 not make apparent. Italy will no longer stand 
 taking the part of Cinderella among the 
 Great Powers. A working democracy like 
 Italy will never trouble the peace of the 
 world, but if it is forced to go to war it will 
 astonish everyone by the decision of its action 
 and by its heroism." 
 
 I realized that I had not convinced King 
 Charles as to the certainty of a Japanese vic- 
 tory, nor as to the superiority of the Italian 
 army over the Austrian army. Perhaps he 
 realized later that I had observed and under- 
 stood correctly. 
 
 Now that the Italians have astonished the 
 world by the valor of their troops, I call to 
 mind this conversation which took place in 
 1904, and I feel very pleased with myself at 
 having foreseen that which all the world now 
 realizes. 
 
 In the month of August, 1901, I climbed 
 Mount Tabor, which is celebrated for the fine 
 panorama one sees from the summit. The 
 ascent is easy, but as it is a question of climb- 
 ing 10,000 feet it is a lengthy and fatiguing 
 
840 SOME PERSONAL [MPRESSIONS 
 
 business. I chatted with my guide, a good 
 chamois hunter, and pointing out to him a 
 
 Steep precipice, which appeared to me quite 
 unclimbable, 1 asked him if it were possible lo 
 
 get up it. lie answered it was very difficult, 
 
 and he advised me not Lo try, and then added: 
 "A month ago some Italian Alpini were here. 
 The commandant of the battalion was a little 
 fat man, who was not much to look at. lie 
 asked me to help him get up the precipice 
 which you arc now pointing out to inc. I told 
 him that only chamois could pass that way. 
 He answered, "Fake: me all the same; where 
 the chamois ean go man can go, and where 
 men can go my battalion can go.' I obeyed 
 him, and the battalion went that way just as 
 the commandant had said." 
 
 The Italian Alpini have since won for them- 
 selves immortal fame. 
 
My tour Last Germans 
 
XXVJJ 
 
 :.iv POUB \.::~:\ GEB I 
 
 J J j. j ok*: of Ger- 
 
 □ oo into of them among 
 
 friends* Irj A ig ist, 1914, my relation! with 
 
 ud Germ and 
 
 COol'.r. and St tin f: '/.'':' 
 
 i 'J to exist I. eh ram- 
 
 stan' ' I ted in four 
 
 Germans, and I am going to record the un- 
 made 00 :;. r :. 
 
 J 
 
 One ii of a B 
 
 B ■ che, the German Mini \ J ... 
 
 Hen roo B - / .-. f . be] liplo- 
 
 He i . a man of 
 but absolutely v. it.}. . jj . dar- 
 
 liiig ambition andtheonel eahze 
 
 - u to be taken tor a grand $dgneur 4 J 
 only bad one conversation with bun, and J 
 
 gnized bin] at una H- 
 
 ron Buscbe u Uke a piece of cheafS furniture 
 
244 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 — on the surface a thin veneer of oak or wal- 
 nut, but the substance common deal. 
 
 Herr von Busche was sent to Ronmania just 
 after the beginning of the war, when Berlin 
 had made the discovery that its Minister at 
 Bucharest, quite an excellent man and one of 
 prodigious wealth, was altogether inadequate. 
 He had hardly arrived at Sinaia when, before 
 being presented either to the Premier or the 
 Foreign Minister, he had a secret interview 
 with King Charles. Thanks to a private po- 
 lice of my own, which has always done me good 
 service, probably because I have never paid 
 for it, I knew of this visit the same day. After 
 his visit to the King, Herr von Busche pro- 
 ceeded to Bucharest to introduce himself offi- 
 cially to the Government. Returning to 
 Sinaia, he sent his Councilor of Legation to 
 ask for an appointment with me, which I 
 fixed for the same dajr (this, as I say, was at 
 the beginning of the war), and I waited for 
 him in my drawing-room, where there hap- 
 pened to be a portrait of Kiderlen-Waechter 
 with a very cordial inscription. At exactly 
 six o'clock Herr von Busche came in, but- 
 toned tightly up in a frock coat which was 
 plainly intended to suggest London, but as 
 evidently hailed from Berlin — one of those al- 
 
MY FOUR LAST GERMANS M5 
 
 most invisible distinctions which make a world 
 of difference. 
 
 Herr Busche, who had been apprised how 
 completely I was convinced of Germany's 
 criminal culpability, affected to know nothing 
 of this, and began by informing me that he 
 could claim a double introduction to me: one 
 was from Prince Biilow, who had begged him 
 to give me his most friendly remembrances; 
 the other was the memory of the late Kiderlen- 
 Waechter, whose pupil he had been in diplo- 
 macy. I replied that Prince Biilow had often 
 shown me his friendly feelings, and that to 
 know the terms on which I had been with 
 Kiderlen he had only to look at his photograph 
 — "the photograph," I added, "of a man who 
 would never have allowed himself to be as- 
 sociated with Germany's recent actions." 
 
 Having come expressly to plead Germany's 
 innocence, Herr Busche endeavored to con- 
 vince me that Kiderlen's successors had been 
 as much in favor of peace as himself, and that 
 Germany was righting a defensive war. I 
 opposed this view energetically, and in the 
 course of our conversation I made Herr von 
 Busche understand that I was well acquainted 
 with what had happened at Berlin, since I 
 knew the circumstances under which Kiderlen- 
 
246 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Waechter had become Foreign Minister, and in 
 particular I referred to the famous memo- 
 randum on the world situation which he had 
 presented to Bethmann-Hollweg, after read- 
 ing which the Chancellor had told the Em- 
 peror that he would not consent to stay in 
 office unless Kiderlen had charge of foreign 
 affairs. Herr von Busche showed considerable 
 astonishment at my knowledge of so intimate 
 an incident of German diplomacy, and he took 
 the trouble to let me know that he had made 
 the copy of Kiderlen-Waechter's memoran- 
 dum with his own hand. 
 
 "Well," I said, "you see I know more than 
 you expected of your country's policy;" and I 
 related to him how Kiderlen had failed to ob- 
 tain the Emperor's consent to the limitation 
 of naval armaments, which would have se- 
 cured peace, because von Tirpitz had opposed 
 it. I added that Kiderlen had made no secret 
 of his absolute conviction that France would 
 never provoke war. "Any attempt," I added, 
 "on your part to argue that France is morally 
 the author of this catastrophe is, so far as I 
 am concerned, pure waste of energy." 
 
 Von Busche accordingly shifted the ground 
 from France and fell back upon England, 
 repeating like a gramophone all the German 
 
MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 247 
 
 absurdities about England's bellicose intentions 
 and intrigues. I cut short this piece of mala- 
 droit special pleading by a simple statement 
 which completely upset my visitor. "You are 
 giving yourself perfectly useless trouble," I 
 told him. "I know England too well for that. 
 It is Hungary and Germany who have started 
 universal war." And I argued this so vigor- 
 ously that von Busche persisted no further 
 and changed the subject. But before doing so 
 he was at pains to repeat once again that Ger- 
 many was waging a defensive war, and that 
 the German people were convinced of it. 
 
 "There you are right," I replied. "What 
 astonishes me most in your country is neither 
 its military power, formidable as it is, nor its 
 remarkable organization, but your success in 
 having so disciplined your people that you can 
 control their convictions, as if by police regula- 
 tion, however contrary they are to the facts. 
 This is indeed a unique and unprecedented 
 achievement." 
 
 From this stage the conversation began to 
 languish. The German Minister was obviously 
 looking for an opportunity to escape, but the 
 Councilor of Legation, for whom he was wait- 
 ing, had not yet arrived. When at length he 
 came in Herr von Busche — again the base 
 
218 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 metal revealing itself — felt it necessary to ex- 
 cuse himself for leaving so soon. "But," he 
 said, "I have an audience with the King at a 
 quarter past seven." 
 
 "I congratulate you," I said, "on seeing His 
 Majesty twice in three days. It is a good 
 augury for your mission." Von Busche turned 
 pale and said that he did not understand me, 
 as in a few minutes he was going to see the 
 King for the first time. He added that it 
 would have been impossible for him to see the 
 King before he had been officially presented 
 to his Ministers. 
 
 "Oh," said I, "in that case it is, of course, 
 my mistake." And these were the last words 
 exchanged between Germany's last Minister to 
 Roumania and myself. 
 
 This attempt, doomed in advance to failure, 
 to prove that the author of the world war was 
 England, and the lie with regard to his hav- 
 ing met the King, may be fairly regarded as 
 an epitome of the whole German diplomatic 
 method. 
 
 ii 
 
 A few days after the battle of the Marne I 
 was on my way from my villa at Sinaia to the 
 Palace Hotel when a motor car stopped in 
 
MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 249 
 
 front of me. A man smothered in dust got 
 out of it to speak to me. As he said he had 
 come from Berlin on behalf of Ilerr Zimmer- 
 mann solely in order to speak to me, I arranged 
 to see him at once. In my house a few minutes 
 later he withdrew this, and explained that 
 Zimmermann had not really sent him. 
 
 My visitor from Berlin was, in faet, a Ger- 
 man engineer who had lived many years in 
 Roumania, married a Roumanian lady, been 
 appointed a teacher in one of our higher-grade 
 schools, and, in fact, had become so completely 
 one of ourselves that I firmly believed he had 
 been naturalized as a Roumanian. At the out- 
 break of war Mr. S. happened to be in Berlin, 
 and before Roumania had definitely declined 
 to enter the war at the side of Germany, he 
 had made it his business to assist in bringing 
 this about. With this object he used to 
 send us from Berlin immense telegrams, some- 
 times two or three a day, containing remark- 
 ably biassed information on the progress of 
 the war, evidently designed to work upon our 
 fears. This reckless outlay made it clear to 
 me that Mr. S. was doing his work at 
 Germany's expense, which on the part of a 
 naturalized Roumanian made me very angry. 
 Immediately on meeting him I had reproached 
 
250 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 him vehemently for thus allowing himself to 
 forget that he had hecome a Roumanian citi- 
 zen, and my indignation fairly carried me 
 away. Its object excused himself to me on 
 the ground that he had not, in fact, ever been 
 naturalized, but the violence with which I had 
 spoken to him had made its impression, and 
 when he came to my house all his earlier 
 audacity had disappeared. 
 
 Mr. S.'s proposal was really paralyzing. He 
 began by admitting that my attitude towards 
 Germany was quite naturally explained by 
 my affection for France; "but," he added, 
 "we Germans are also very fond of France 
 and have no complaint to make of her. On 
 the contrary, the idea of being at war with 
 France is exceedingly painful to us. Such 
 being Germany's feelings for France, I have 
 come to you, since I have long considered you 
 as one of the clearest-sighted men in Europe 
 — an opinion which is also shared by the 
 political world of Berlin — to give you the 
 opportunity of rendering to Roumania, 
 France, and humanity alike a service which 
 will ensure your name being forever enshrined 
 in history. 
 
 "Go to Paris, where everyone — very rightly 
 — trusts you. Propose to France a separate 
 
MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 251 
 
 peace. We will offer her terms of peace, 
 magnificent terms, beyond her utmost hopes: 
 and, after that, we will punish, as they de- 
 serve, the Russians, and above all the English, 
 the real criminals who have provoked the war 
 and are responsible for this catastrophe. You 
 have more chance than anyone else in the 
 world of being listened to." 
 
 I answered my German as any other man 
 in my place must have answered: I told him 
 that he had no shred of reason to believe it 
 possible that I could listen to such a sugges- 
 tion. What he was proposing to me was an 
 infamy of which he should have known I was 
 incapable. If France ever wished to be guilty 
 of such abominable treachery she would not 
 require any intervention on my part, and to 
 suppose anything else was not only to lose all 
 sense of proportion but to be quite abnormally 
 stupid. I then dismissed S. as he deserved, 
 but not without first telling him how little 
 I thought of Germany for her ignorance of 
 the spirit of France and of her other adver- 
 saries. 
 
 That Berlin should have thought me so 
 
 foolish as to suppose myself able to play such 
 
 a part, and base enough to wish to play it, is 
 
 nothing: it is merely an erroneous estimate 
 
252 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 of an individual. But that Berlin could im- 
 agine that France would betray England, who 
 had come to her help without any obligation, 
 made it perfectly clear to me that people at 
 Berlin had completely lost, not only all sense 
 of right, but what is sometimes more danger- 
 ous, all intelligence as well. 
 I have not accn Mr. S. again. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In November, 11)14, at Bucharest, I re- 
 ceived tlie last visit of a German friend with 
 whom my relations had been very close. 
 
 Mr. X. is a man of business; he is also a 
 man of brains, one of those singularly clear 
 intellects which impress one from the first and 
 in the presence of which one feels that here is 
 a man who would have been a success at any 
 period, in any country and in any career. 
 Mr. X. is also one of the most international 
 of Germans; his mother was a Russian, his 
 wife is English, he has one sister married in 
 Russia and another in the United States. lie 
 has passed a great part of his life in Russia, 
 in England and in Roumania. With all this 
 he is highly educated, astute and witty. I 
 say all this, because in November, 1914, X. 
 gave me an unexpected opportunity of seeing 
 
MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 258 
 
 how the German war could pervert even so 
 cultivated an intelligence as bis. When I 
 record what X. said to me my astonishment 
 will he intelligible. It will be understood also 
 why, when after three hours' conversation he 
 left me, I said to some friends who were wait- 
 ing for me to dine with them, "I have just 
 been spending three hours in a lunatic 
 asylum." 
 
 X. had always entertained for me a genuine 
 friendship, and had come in reality to see 
 whether he could do nothing to make me less 
 Germanophobe. Too well brought up to re- 
 veal his plans openly, he began by offering me 
 Ilerr von Busche's excuses for no longer 
 visiting me. "If it was only Germany you at- 
 tacked," he said, "it would always be a pleas- 
 ure to Ilerr Busche to call upon you, but you 
 attacked the Kaiser, and that he cannot ig- 
 nore." 
 
 I replied that Ilerr von Busche was per- 
 fectly right not to call on me, because in no 
 case should I return his visit. I added that if 
 ever Ilerr von Busche met me I begged that 
 he would not bow to me, since I had quite 
 made up my mind not to return it. 
 
 In terms most nicely calculated not to of- 
 fend me, X. then said how profoundly he re- 
 
854 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 gretted, not only on my account but on that of 
 Roumania, to sec me afloat in a vessel which 
 was bound to founder; and very delicately he 
 
 alluded to certain strokes of the oar which, 
 taken at the right moment, might effect a 
 complete change of course. As I did not wish 
 to handy words with him, I pretended not to 
 understand, and replied that 1 had not, in- 
 deed, any boat beneath me, but that I was a 
 lone swimmer in an ocean full of danger, obey- 
 ing simply the imperative behests of my con- 
 science, and without ever asking myself 
 whether or not I had any prospect of reach- 
 ing land. And as X. insisted on Roumania's 
 misfortune in losing the only politician who, 
 according to hirn, was of real worth, I cut him 
 short with the words, which I have so often 
 repeated, "How can one concern oneself 
 with the situation of an individual when the 
 fate of the world is at stake?" Accordingly 
 X., abandoning all hope of convincing me, 
 left the personal question and began a mono- 
 logue, like a man thinking aloud. For more 
 than two hours he explained to me why Ger- 
 many must be victorious, why it was impos- 
 sible that she should be otherwise, and why all 
 those who placed themselves across the Ger- 
 man path would be crushed to the earth with- 
 
MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 865 
 
 out any advantage to themselves or to the 
 cause which they wished to serve. According 
 to him, Germany was at least half a century 
 
 in advance of the rest of the world, because 
 she understood what organization meant, while 
 all other countries were still relying on the 
 futilities of individual initiative. "For that 
 reason more than any other," he said, "Ger- 
 many's victory, which is just as much beyond 
 dispute as the sun in the sky, will he an ad- 
 vantage to the whole human race, since even 
 the nations she conquers will feel the benefit 
 of her supremacy. 
 
 "Of all our enemies France is the only on* 
 with whom we need reckon. Her soldiers, her 
 officers, her General Staff, are just as good as 
 ours, hut thirty-eight millions of men can do 
 nothing against seventy millions. France will 
 he ground to powder, and we Germans will he 
 sorry for it. 
 
 "Russia gives us no anxiety. Numbers arc- 
 not the main factor in war. Russia, believe 
 me, will go from collapse to collapse. Each 
 lime you fancy that Russia is on the point 
 of an achievement you will have a repetition 
 of the Mazurian lakes. Thanks to Russia's 
 disorder, Russia's indifference, her absolute 
 lack of organization and her fundamental in- 
 
856 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 ability to create it, the famous steam-roller Is 
 a perilous illusion. Believe me, the Russians 
 will be beaten at just that moment when their 
 allies will have special need of them, and they 
 will he first to quit the held. 
 
 "There remains England. Obviously she 
 might have been formidable. 11' England had 
 
 begun to arm herself ten years ago Ave should 
 never have dared to venture on war. But 
 England wishes to do in a few months what 
 has taken Russia a hundred years. That is 
 asking too much of human capacity, and it 
 will never come to pass. You will see what 
 will be the course of events. The war will 
 last a few months more, at the very most a 
 year. Then the Kaiser, at the head of his 
 troops, will enter Paris, Moscow and Lon- 
 don." I smiled at this, and X. replied: "Yes, 
 London. It is there, at Westminster, that 
 the Emperor will dictate the world's peace and 
 the reorganization of the human race." 
 
 Nothing was further from X.'s mind than 
 bluff. Tie was profoundly convinced of his 
 own prophecy, which, indeed, in his view, 
 amounted to evidence. Yet I repeat that X. 
 is a man of education and brains, who has 
 traveled, who is at home all the world over, 
 
MY POUR LAST GERMANS 257 
 
 and having lived all his life among foreigners 
 might well have a more open mind. 
 
 He gave me the solution himself when he 
 said that since the war no one could feel him- 
 gelf more of the German Michael 1 than he did. 
 
 In the Spring of 1915 a friend came to tell 
 me that a German diplomatist with whom 1 
 had been very friendly, hut to whom 1 had not 
 bowed for some months, was begging to meet 
 me at any cost. It was suggested to me that 
 we should come across each other, as if by 
 chance, at my friend's house. After much 
 persuasian J agreed, on the expre8S condition 
 that no word of politics should he mentioned. 
 I knew perfectly well that the German diplo- 
 matist would not respect this undertaking, 
 but the agreement to exclude politics was in- 
 dispensable if I were to be able, without rude- 
 ness, to bring our conversation to an end at 
 the moment of my choice. 
 
 Next afternoon, at half-past five, I was duly 
 calling on my friend when the German diplo- 
 matist earne in. lie told me that he realized 
 that Roumania would soon be at war with Ger- 
 many, that consequently he would have to 
 leave Bucharest, and that he had come to beg 
 me, when the occasion arose, to take charge 
 
 'Michael: the German equivalent of "John Bull." 
 
258 SOME TERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 of the keys of his flat, feeling sure that he 
 could count upon me to see that his property 
 was respected. It is quite needless to say 
 that he had no intention of doing anything of 
 the kind, and that when Roumania declared 
 war on Germany in August, 1916, he never 
 even thought of it. It is, however, a pleasure 
 to me to recall that a German diplomat reck- 
 oned on me for the preservation of his house 
 and furniture, when I rememher that in De- 
 cember, 1916, when the German armies occu- 
 pied Bucharest, Field Marshal von Macken- 
 sen not only gave orders for my house to be 
 sacked, with the most complete and what I 
 may be forgiven for calling the most Hunnish 
 particularity, but came in person a few days 
 afterwards, accompanied by his staff, to ad- 
 mire the way in which his instructions had 
 been carried out. There are things that the 
 Germans do differently from other people. 
 
 My German diplomatist asked me with 
 irresistible frankness on what my conviction 
 that Germany would be defeated was based. 
 I answered him without any reserve. I ex- 
 plained to him my reasons, which were those 
 of ordinary common sense, and we passed, step 
 by step, from one point to another, until at 
 length he reached that of making the follow- 
 
MY FOUR LAST GERMANS 259 
 
 ing remarkable admission: "All you say is per- 
 fectly true. The militarism of Prussia, the 
 martinet spirit of Prussia, is the most abomi- 
 nable thing on the face of the earth. But it 
 happens to be invincible. And there is noth- 
 ing for us — for any of us — to do but bow be- 
 fore it as to fate." 
 
 My only reply was to tell my German dip- 
 lomatist, who happened to be a Saxon by 
 birth, that I would see him again at the end 
 of the war. 
 
Eleutherios Venizelos 
 
XXVIII 
 
 ELEUTIIERIOS VENIZELOS 
 
 All greatness is rare, and human greatness is 
 the rarest of all. By human greatness I mean 
 a harmonious personality made up of high 
 intelligence, moral beauty and inflexibility of 
 will. Great minds are not so scarce as men 
 think, moral beauty is fortunately fairly com- 
 mon, especially amongst humble folk. Tenac- 
 ity of will is often combined with moral per- 
 versity. But the combination of these quali- 
 ties in a whole which, according to my own 
 idea, alone constitutes true human greatness, 
 is so rare that one may go through life with- 
 out meeting it. 
 
 Venizelos 1 is a true example of human 
 greatness, and of a greatness such that one 
 may unreservedly admire it. It should not be 
 forgotten that in sincere profound admiration 
 we may find one of those rare springs of joy 
 
 1 This appreciation was written in 1915, before M. Veni- 
 zelos' recall to power. 
 
 263 
 
864 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 which from lime lo time create ."in illusion as 
 to the value of life, 
 
 Shakespeare, the greatest poet humanity 
 has ever produced, presents this remarkable 
 and almost unique characteristic— -that we 
 know nothing of his life. Venizelos is rather 
 
 like him. Until recent years his life was so 
 devoid of incident that it leaves a vast field 
 lo he occupied by Legend. The only thing 
 
 known about his early career is the time he 
 spent in the mountains with other Cretans 
 fighting for his country's independence. This 
 was a moral education. People do not know, 
 however, that this Cretan carried hooks about 
 with him in the hush, in order to perfect him- 
 self in the study of French. 
 
 ii 
 
 Before the time of Venizelos, Greece had 
 fallen low, as we know only too well. If she 
 had not since then risen again so marvelously, 
 I, who owe an eternal debt to the Hellenic 
 people, should not dare to speak of their past. 
 During the war of independence Greece had 
 accomplished marvels of heroism and moral 
 beauty which in the end drew to it the pro- 
 tection of the three Great Powers, France, 
 England and Russia — the three Powers that 
 
ELEUTHERIOS VENIZEL08 265 
 
 are dated in history with noble 
 
 action, trhether they act independently or to- 
 gether. J>ut t } j i s same Greece had started down 
 a real incline almost immediately after her 
 emancipation. She made an unhappy choice 
 in her first king. How could any rigid .Ba- 
 varian understand the Greek soul? Her sec- 
 ond king made a rule of leaving the Gre< 
 entirely free, he did not so much as guide them 
 through difficult moments, and there resulted 
 a period of unchecked quarreling between po- 
 litical parties, the system of dividing the spoil 
 pushed to its utmost limits, and in spite of the 
 efforts of another great man, TricoupiS, the 
 Greek people, one of the most gifted on the 
 earth, knew all the misery of defeat and bank- 
 rupt 
 
 As ever, the nation was saved on the i 
 of the abyss by the only means of salvation 
 that history knows revolution, and by the 
 most dangerous form of revolution, that 
 known as the military covj) d'etat. King 
 George, who had done.- nothing to i it, 
 
 drank the full cup of humiliation to the dregs. 
 With his own hand he signed the order cashier- 
 ing his own sons from the army, including 
 the Crown Prince, whose name was for the 
 Greeks forever associated with their defeat 
 
866 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 at Domokos in ih<)7. Whatever liis faults 
 may have been, ,-i martyrdom like his should 
 have expiated bhem. A Tier having destroyed, 
 ii was necessary i<» rebuild, Hut military rev- 
 olution, unless it throws up a Napoleon, 
 though very effective In clearing the ground, 
 rinds reconstruction beyond its powers. 
 
 Greece was in a state of veritable chaos* 
 The new Chamber not only wanted to set 
 about revising the fundamental laws of the 
 state, but it also wanted to proclaim its own 
 supremacy, though the exercise of such su- 
 premacy was something quite beyond its pow- 
 ers as they had then developed. 
 
 It was at this moment that the Cretan ar- 
 rived. 
 
 I Fe came alone; without elansincn, or family, 
 
 or fortune; withoul past or parly or support- 
 ers. He stood, as I say, alone. 
 
 He was received like a god crowds arc 
 occasionally endowed wilh divine intuition of 
 ihis kind. Received as a god, he acted from 
 
 the (irsl inomenl as a man. 
 
 There are lew finer pages in history than 
 I he account of how the Cretan faced the peo- 
 ple of Alliens. They were shouting with all 
 their might, "Long live Venizelos! Long live 
 the Constitutional Assembly!" and he forced 
 
ELEUTHERI08 VENIZELOS 907 
 
 upon them the alternative ay, I .' 
 ion of the Con rtitution ! ' 
 
 This man was v.; 
 
 wrong. Like all i . be began by 
 
 ing everything. J J'- crushed the parties, or 
 
 ber die old elk] d brought 
 
 Greece to destruction Jf<; made another na- 
 tion. Amongst an excitable peopfc red 
 to insist on the permanei . of 
 
 .ant, his selection by ' na- 
 
 tion, and nil promotion on the recommenda- 
 tion of bif coUeag 
 
 He ble o ri bettei even than 
 
 the Herculej of legend* An a 
 rope co ild indulge itself in the le of* a 
 
 great man come to light 
 
 n 
 
 After having remade Greece himself, be 
 turned to the Hellenism in the world 
 
 at large. 
 During the whole Balkan crisii and One 
 
 , quite truthfully ( 1 
 
 t, thanks to the genius of Veni/.clo-.. irith 
 of ail at her di.po-.a]. con- 
 trolled f 
 With the insight of a man* Vemzeloa 
 
 lized the true rahie o: - . ed 
 
2G8 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Serbia to Greece, and at all times and in all 
 circumstances dominated M. Pasitch by the 
 power of his personal attraetion. When it was 
 found impossible to arrive at an understand- 
 ing with Turkey on the subjeet of Crete, 
 owing to the hopeless incapacity of the Turks, 
 Venizelos accomplished the miracle of con- 
 cluding an alliance with the Bulgarians, a 
 race that the Greek people traditionally re- 
 garded in the light of an hereditary and un- 
 compromising enemy. In concluding this al- 
 liance he saw clearly how necessary it was to 
 keep out of the treaty all reference to the 
 division of territories that might be conquered 
 in the future. King George and the Crown 
 Prince (afterwards King Constantine) op- 
 posed Venizelos bitterly, but the Cretan once 
 more gained his point, and the treaty was 
 silent as to the division of the spoils. Be- 
 cause of his prevision, Greece escaped the im- 
 putations and difficulties in which Serbia is 
 still involved. 
 
 In London Venizelos imposed his person- 
 ality on all political and diplomatic circles, 
 and this in spite of his reserve and modesty, 
 which was such a contrast to the foolish ar- 
 rogance of Danef. 
 
 It was just at that time that I had the hap- 
 
ELEUTHERIOS VEXIZELOS 269 
 
 piness of getting to know him, and of forming 
 one of those friendships, based on confidence 
 and sympathy, which death alone can break. 
 
 I only saw Venizelos twice at that time, but 
 it sufficed for me to know that I had before 
 me not only a great man but a gentleman, a 
 man in whom one might repose unlimited con- 
 fidence without running the risk of being de- 
 ceived. I knew he was in profound disagree- 
 ment with the Bulgarians at the Balkan Con- 
 ference which was then sitting, but he had too 
 much delicacy to say a word to me about diffi- 
 culties between him and his allies. 
 
 The first time I saw him I asked him the 
 secret of his extraordinary success. lie replied 
 that he had arrived at the right moment, and 
 that he had adopted two rules of conduct: to 
 tell his people the whole truth in all circum- 
 stances, and to be ready to leave office at any 
 moment without regret. 
 
 I had a very animated conversation with 
 him at Bucharest. He became very angry 
 when I told him it was a mistake to insist 
 upon getting Kavalla. 
 
 From his anger I could see — what later on 
 I found to be true — that he was not the only 
 director of bis country's policy. At the time 
 I was dreaming of completing the Treaty of 
 
270 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 Bucharest by a treaty of alliance between the 
 four kingdoms of Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, 
 and Roumania. 
 
 When all the secrets of the Balkan crisis 
 are revealed, when men know all that Veni- 
 zelos did, our admiration for him as a great 
 man will be enhanced. Here, at least, we have 
 an individual who need not fear that all his 
 actions and even his secret thoughts should be 
 revealed. 
 
 After the Treaty of Bucharest, Venizelos 
 found he had to fight Austrian intrigues at 
 Constantinople. I do not want to tell the 
 history of the Treaty of Athens now, nor to 
 insist on the fact that on several occasions a 
 new war between Turkey and Greece was on 
 the point of breaking out and that Venizelos 
 was prepared for all eventualities. All I want 
 to do at the moment is to render public hom- 
 age to the moral beauty of Venizelos, who, 
 far from wishing to ignore the services I was 
 able at that time to do Greece and the cause 
 of peace, insisted on giving them the widest 
 publicity. 
 
 At the end of October, 1913, he wrote me 
 a letter of generous appreciation, in which he 
 said: "Our recent friendship has been rich in 
 practical results for my country, and I rejoice 
 
ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 271 
 
 that Roumania lias again so well played the 
 part of arbiter in the conclusion of peace in 
 the Balkans. It is a new bond between our 
 two nations; we who are already bound by 
 the same interests are destined to advance to- 
 gether on the path of civilization." Magna- 
 nimity is always the mark of greatness. 
 
 Venizelos had the question of Epirus on his 
 hands at the time. He knew quite well that 
 it was impossible for Greece to oppose the 
 unanimous wish of the Great Powers, and that 
 it would be unworthy of him to be the cause 
 of a general war. He sacrificed himself to his 
 duty, knowing well that the day would come 
 when he would be able to obtain Epirus with- 
 out provoking Europe. But in making good 
 this policy he spent himself, just as he spent 
 himself at Bucharest when he failed in ob- 
 taining for the Greeks the sun, the moon and 
 the constellations. His actions were closely 
 watched at Athens. Every concession this 
 great man made for the peace of Europe and 
 the security of his country was made the oc- 
 casion of attacking him as a coward soul who, 
 having no faith in the force of Hellenism, did 
 not dare show himself implacable. 
 
 Nothing is easier than to obtain vulgar pop- 
 ularity by siding with those who shout loudest 
 
878 SOME PERSONAL [MPRESSIONS 
 
 at a time when, at the risk <>f unpopularity, 
 another man takes upon himself to defend 
 his country. 
 
 1 1 is io this incident that Venizelos owes the 
 enmity of IM. Zographos, just as later on, as a 
 reward for his efforts over the [islands, he had 
 to submit to all the epithets coined by the 
 envious and the disappointed. 
 
 in 
 
 Everyone who lms studied history suffi- 
 ciently to know that great men are sometimes 
 rather a burden on their country, will under- 
 stand that Venizelos could not remain long 
 in power. 
 
 A Tier the Treaty of Bucharest had been 
 signed IM. Pasitch invited us all to luncheon 
 at the Palace Hotel. Speaking to my right- 
 hand neighbor, I told him of a wish I had 
 cherished Tor many years <>l' visiting Japan in 
 
 the summer of 1914. Veni/elos heard me, 
 
 and asked me if I would take him as a travel- 
 ing companion. Then he went on to ask with 
 a smile whether I was sure I should be free 
 in the first half of the year 1914. lie was 
 alluding to the opinion generally held that the 
 
 men who had accomplished the work of 1918 
 would be retained in office by their peoples. 
 
ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 873 
 
 J told him, and the other gu 
 gurprised at it, that J " of thi 
 
 dom, not only for myself, but also for him. 
 A . far a . Venizeloa i i oni a ■■'■A, I i 
 ong by But for the I gland q 
 
 tion and the surprise of the Europeai 
 Ik; nrould have been out of office at the 
 period I predicted. Hi-, greatnesi offended 
 people in ould hardly imagine. 
 
 The man irhc d modern Greece had at. 
 
 all - from the scene in order 
 
 thai might emerge {'r<>iii 
 
 their obscurity. J felt it first in July, 1913, 
 
 and J became firmly convinced of it in the 
 
 months that followed. 
 
 When European v.ar hrok': out J had 
 no doul ' ' .1 knew 
 
 that be iranted a . and lasting alliance 
 
 amongst the little nations, and I could not 
 believe lize 
 
 the liberty, th 
 
 hound up. 
 
 indeed irere the independence and . 
 of Roumai] : . the defeat of Austria and 
 
 Germany, J}., bethought 
 
 i . I did, and as a con .o^.uorj^o- that he realized 
 from the beginning that our highest moral 
 duty, not ! o. hut aJso in . 
 
874 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 sped, of our interests as nations, was to do all 
 in our power to bring about the victory of the 
 Triple Entente. 
 
 Willi the fixed idea in my head of bring' 
 ing over all the Balkan nations to the side of 
 the Triple Entente, and in spite of Austro- 
 German affirmations concerning their hold on 
 Bulgaria, I allowed myself to telegraph and 
 write to Venizelos, begging him to help us to 
 show, in this European crisis, that we were 
 broad-minded Europeans. 1 said it would he 
 the worse for us if we showed ourselves petty 
 and provincial. A victorious Germany would 
 spell moral and material death. A Triple 
 Entente victorious without our help would 
 spell our moral undoing. 
 
 I told him that just as I was advising my 
 country to make territorial concessions to the 
 Bulgarians, and advising the Serbs to do the 
 same thing on a substantial scale, as the war 
 would give them a magnificent territory ex- 
 tending up to the frontiers of Italy, so Greece, 
 in a lesser degree, should also set an example, 
 more especially as splendid compensation 
 awaited her in Asia Minor. It was in Au- 
 gust and Septemher, 1914, that I ventured to 
 write in this strain to my friend at Athens. I 
 will come hack to it later. For the sake of 
 
ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 275 
 
 truth I ought to say that Venizelos replied 
 to me in the autumn that Greece could not 
 make any territorial concessions, and I felt 
 rather hitter about it. Bitter because, al- 
 though I did not think that I could influence 
 the decisions of a Venizelos, I saw that Veni- 
 zelos was even more than I had guessed the 
 victim of difficulties originating in people 
 without foresight, and who, therefore, cannot 
 understand those who have this divine gift. 
 The revelations Venizelos has recently made- 
 have completely cleared this matter up. 
 
 Never did he appear to me greater than 
 after I had read the two memoranda he ad- 
 dressed to King Constantino. 
 
 I am one of those who have read and re- 
 read Bismarck's Memoirs. There is nothing in 
 them which approaches the greatness of soul 
 revealed in the two documents penned by 
 Venizelos. How could a man like myself fail 
 to resent the ironic fate of these two papers, 
 addressed as they were to people incapable of 
 using them. 
 
 The publication of the documents not only 
 exalts Venizelos higher than ever, hut is an 
 inestirnahle service to Greece. 
 
 To prove to the Bulgarians that a Greek 
 existed, the greatest Greek of all, who eon- 
 
876 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 ceived the possibility of sacrifice in order i<> 
 secure peace witli his neighbors, that is a Oner 
 work than striking medals with the effigy of 
 King Constantine <>n them, entitled the 
 "Slayer 6f Bulgars." 
 
 And now we eome to Venizelos' last act. 
 A i fifty he retired from political life, an- 
 nouncing that if ever his country found her- 
 self faced with a great foreign crisis he would 
 return to the fray, ms would be his right and his 
 duty. And after having affirmed with all his 
 strength his right as a free man to fight no 
 matter whom, he retires as a free man, an- 
 aouncing to his people thai it is the last serv- 
 ice he can render the Crown. 
 
 This resignation of Venizelos, however dis- 
 tracting \'nv all the friends of Greece, presents 
 
 one with the spectacle of almost superhuman 
 greatness. This man would only have to 
 march straight ahead and everything would go 
 down before him. But afraid of wounding 
 
 Greece, he performed an act of sacrifice that 
 
 was harder than dying itself, and exiled him- 
 self from the company of the living. 
 
 Compare the fall of Venizelos with that of 
 Bismarck, and the superiority of our GrSBCO- 
 
ELEUTHERIOS VENIZELOS 277 
 
 Latin race over the Germans will stand out in 
 all its sublimity. Dismissed by a young Em- 
 peror, Bismarck knows neither how to fight 
 as a man or be silent as a man. He scolds 
 like a discharged cook. Why this difference? 
 Was Bismarck of inferior metal to Venizelos? 
 It was not this, but that Bismarck belonged 
 to a nation which for centuries has held the 
 notion that the statesman is not the servant 
 of his country but the servant of his king, and 
 that the king himself is not the highest ex- 
 pression of the national will, but another will 
 superimposed on that of the nation. 
 
 Bismarck was heavily weighted by medieval 
 institutions and a life of obedience, and, when 
 dismissed like a servant, like a servant he cried 
 aloud. The Greek, true son of the French 
 revolution, knows that he is the servant of the 
 people, and when he surrenders everything it 
 is to the people that he makes his sacrifice. 
 He withdraws as a free man without recrimi- 
 nation. 
 
 And now for a final recollection! 
 
 The last time Venizelos came to Roumania, 
 I had a talk with him in the embrasure of one 
 of the windows of the Palace. We spoke of 
 
8T8 BOMB PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 that political philosophy bo which men con* 
 cerned with the busincn <>f Government al* 
 
 wji.vs Imik Iciek. Amongst oilier things, we 
 
 spoke of the relations between the statesman 
 ;»imI his Sovereign in countries where mon* 
 ttrchy is still an institution And the Cretan 
 said i<> me: "It is our duty i<> devote our 
 heart, our brain, our life to strengthening and 
 supporting our sovereigns! We know well 
 enough that» in their turn, they will only dis- 
 miss us if they cannol destroy us ( All the 
 same, we must do <mr duty, because ii is our 
 
 duly." 
 
 Venizelos has done his. 
 
7 - t Kat jet 
 

XXIX 
 
 THE KAISER 
 
 I have only seen the Kaiser once. To speak 
 of him after this single interview would be 
 rash, if the Kaiser were not one of those fig- 
 ures which are always posed for the camera 
 and whose characteristics can be almost in- 
 stantaneously caught. Pope Leo XIII had 
 also only seen him once, at the outset of his 
 reign, when he said of him, "This man will 
 end in a catastrophe. ,, 
 
 It was in January, 1907, at Berlin, that I 
 was received in audience by the Kaiser. There 
 was luncheon afterwards, to which, apart from 
 the Court, no one else was asked except Herr 
 Tchirsky, then Foreign Minister, and the 
 Roumanian Minister to Germany, on whose 
 unfortunate behaviour during our war it is be- 
 yond me to express an opinion. I was waiting 
 and chatting with the Empress in a little room 
 opening into the dining-room, when the Kaiser 
 came in. I was at once struck by his machine- 
 made stride, and when he planted himself less 
 
 281 
 
2H2 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 than two puces in front of me, his steely eyes 
 
 Looking Straight into mine, the impression of 
 
 something mechanical became still stronger. 
 The Kaiser's stare is like nothing I have ever 
 seen before, quite abnormal in its intensity, 
 and distinctly suggestive of madness. For 
 
 perhaps ten minutes he talked to me in 
 the anteroom. Question followed question 
 breathlessly, giving me scarcely time to frame 
 an answer to one before it was followed by 
 another. 
 
 It was clear that the Emperor meant to 
 make himself pleasant. The evening before 
 he had taken the trouble to inquire whether 
 I would rather be talked to in French or 
 English. I had said I would prefer French. 
 Needless to say, I was surprised at so obvious 
 an intention of ingratiating himself: a Rou- 
 manian Minister of Finance was hardly so 
 important that the Fmperor of all-powerful 
 Germany should be at such pains to please 
 him. I naturally concluded that the Kaiser 
 was a master of the art of seduction, and 
 later on my impression of this resemblance to 
 Nero was confirmed. 
 
 The Kaiser started by telling me that he 
 knew me very well already from the reports 
 of Kidcrlen-Waechter, his Minister in Rou- 
 
THE KAISER 98$ 
 
 mania, who bad told him aB about me. "1 
 don't know," be said, "if your brother* are 
 fond of you, but my Minister'* apprei 
 
 and affection for more than broth- 
 
 erly." If': nrent on to talk to me of the diffi- 
 culties of a Minister of 1 nance in our time; 
 then leading the conversation— if an avalanche 
 
 of interjections can be called a co nv ersation — 
 to the question of petroleum in Roumania ; he 
 said to me in a cutting tone that he did not 
 propose to have any interference from Amer- 
 ica in Europe an affairs, and that he looked 
 upon the full exploitation of our petroleum 
 one of the bulwarks against her eneroach- 
 mer. 
 
 Of this preliminary conversation this 
 the one point clearly impressed on me. It 
 . plain that the Kaiser, as the world has 
 since had ample reason to know, detested 
 America. 
 
 During lunch — I was seated on the I. 
 peroral left, his daughter being on mi right 
 hand — and afterwards for more than an hour 
 in the smoking-room, William II talked to 
 me without ce PPHlg from one sub- 
 
 ject to another with an inconsequence and a 
 feverish impatience which I bad never pre- 
 viously encountered. EL bent on .ho/.- 
 
884 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 in^» me that lie was little short of omniscient; 
 he even talked to me of the Roumanian monu- 
 ment in the Dobrudja the so-called Tropeum 
 hy Adam Ceissi and h<- was evidently pleased 
 
 and surprised when I told him that Molll c 
 
 had spoken of it in his hook on his early 
 travels. 
 
 Among a thousand other things, the Kaiser 
 asked me how King Charles had always man- 
 aged to get his own way, in spite of our par- 
 liamentary system. I told linn in reply that 
 the King had always had the wisdom to let 
 matters take their course, except in special 
 questions which he thought of particular im- 
 portance, and that in these his influence was 
 consequently decisive! The Emperor then 
 asked me why his brother-in-law, King George 
 of Greece, was not similarly successful, and I 
 gave him my explanation. During tin's part 
 of the conversation I realized again how pro- 
 found was the Kaiser's contempt for liberal 
 ideas and the constitutional system. It was 
 plain that he was sincere when he declared 
 that Providence had chosen him as its instru- 
 ment to insure the happiness of this poor- 
 world, just as Nero was sincere when be be- 
 lieved himself a great artist. 
 
 After that we wi:rc talking of sport, espe- 
 
THE KAI8EB 280 
 
 . : I I 
 
 me if King < I 
 
 • 'J. 'J bat fa . 
 d Ac K 
 re* r d tempt r ' 
 
 I 
 . . . 
 Here I bad I duo, 
 
 taJ i 
 
 P 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 [ . 
 
 H 
 
 I 
 Junrrh, but 
 
180 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 by Monsieur Teliii :,l. y, AS "a. souvenir of my 
 
 vi, ii to Berlin," 
 
 I li.-iv( never seen the Kaiser since, but some 
 years later, in conversation at Potsdam with fl 
 Roumanian lady, a musician, married to ft 
 German, the Emperor asked her if she was 
 German by birth, and when she answered that 
 she was a Roumanian the Kaiser said in reply: 
 "Well, and how is our good Take Jonesou?" 
 and my musical friend, who was tempera- 
 mentally a courtier, told me of this [mperial 
 apostrophe as if it were almost s divine honori 
 
 Of my single interview with the German 
 autocrat I retain a disquieting recollection, Et 
 was plain to me that he was a man out ol* 
 the ordinary mn, and yet there was soon 
 thing abnormal, almost unhealthy, about him 
 wliieli kept in*- perpetually asking myself what 
 be would ultimately do. The contemplation 
 
 Of Peal greatness provokes a serene sense of 
 
 admiration. That was not the impression left. 
 on me by the Kaiser. On the other hand, li< - 
 did not strike me as a man of commonplace 
 qualities, whom the accident of birth had 
 placed in a situation out of all proportion 
 to his natural capacity, Rather, there was 
 something exceptional about him, but it was 
 something incalculable and alarming, 
 
THE KAISEB 287 
 
 From Kiden'en-V. ei I knew already 
 
 Hie Ka. .'.: . ::.'. bods of E at 
 
 and fuJi of danger. Every morn- 
 ing he went to the Foreign Mi 
 
 be had all the telegram* read to him and de- 
 manded immediate replies. Then he drank a 
 glass of port, ate two biscuits and departed. 
 To prevent his monarch's impulsiveness re- 
 sulting in complications. Kiderlen had re- 
 course to a plan of his own. He only showed 
 the Kaiser such telegram* as had been received 
 up to one o'clock in the morning, those, that 
 is, which he had himself had time to consider, 
 so that he was in a ;. ary, to 
 
 withstand the Emperor's impetuosity. 
 
 The great question which remains, and will 
 always remain,, to be answered is how the 
 Kaiser, whom a German once described to 
 me as a lath painted to look like steel, brought 
 himself to the point of launching universal 
 war. and when he actually chc . date of 
 
 August, 1914. The oftener I recall the im- 
 pr<: left on me by my interview with 
 
 him. the more firmly I believe that the war 
 had long been part of his deliberate pol 
 but that the choice of the moment and the 
 form of its declaration were due to hnpul 
 It would otherwise be incomprehensible that 
 
288 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 the Kaiser, who certainly did not lack brains 
 (like his son, whom Kiderlen-Waechter 
 frankly treated as deficient), should have 
 
 risked Jill the hopes of his country and his 
 
 house at that particular moment, and for the 
 sake of a question which exclusively concerned 
 Austria-Hungary. For in the future of Aus- 
 tria-Hungary William 11 had no confidence. 
 So long ago as the autumn of* L012 Heir von 
 JagOW, a favorite of the Kaiser, and then Ger- 
 man Ambassador at Home, said to the Rou- 
 manian Minister thai the great question of the 
 hour was to discover how the inevitable dis- 
 solution of Austria-Hungary could take place 
 without the destruction of the European 
 fabric. Again, in the early days of Novem- 
 ber, 1918, on my way hack from Athens, 
 where I had succeeded in making peace be- 
 tween Turkey and Greece, I was dining with 
 
 the Russian Ambassador at Constantinople. 
 During the evening the German Ambassador, 
 
 von Wangenheim, now dead, who was also a 
 favorite of the Kaiser, and whom I then met 
 for the first time, carried me off into the bay 
 of a window, and after first congratulating 
 me on what I had done at Athens, said to me, 
 in so many words, "You will see that the sick 
 man of Europe, the Turk, will still be here 
 
THE KAISEB %H f .) 
 
 when Austria-Hungary is no more Hum 
 toiical recollection." So the Kaiser i 
 hare been under no illu to the po ..- 
 
 bflity of giving the Hapsburg Empire a new 
 lease of life 
 
 How then can ire explain his policy? Per- 
 haps the key Cfln be found in a confidential 
 statement be made at Potsdam in the early 
 days of August. 191 * ; to the Crown Prince of 
 Roumania. The E m peror told him that it 
 
 i in the interest of Roumania • r : ber- 
 
 at the side of Gerrnar ory 
 
 beyond question, be Austria-Hun- 
 
 gary could not last for more than twenty 
 
 Irs, and Germany would tl e Transy!- 
 
 vania to Roumania. The Kaiser's crime 
 ag;, world is therefore all 
 
 the more unpardonable, because in bis inm 
 heart he could not believe that it would bring 
 9 of great European upheavals to a 
 close. Ife drew the sword, not to pi 
 Austria, but b I to dispose of her ulti- 
 
 mately in his own fashion and at his own time. 
 
 It must not be supposed.. l I have 
 
 only spoken to the Kaiser once, that this con- 
 versation is my only material for the estinv 
 I have framed of him. At. I Will ill tin. 
 
 e explanation of his d er, and 
 
890 SOME PERSONAL [MPRESSIONS 
 
 like all men who are not really courageous, 
 when the Kaiser decided i<> make daring the 
 keynote <>f his policy, he overdid ii. An inci- 
 dent of the early years <>l" his reign with which 
 I nin acquainted reveals him precisely. Bis- 
 marck had no love Tor him, and lost no occa- 
 sion to make the Kaiser understand that li<' 
 was a figurehead, and that the real authority 
 rested with his Chancellor. Me went so Car in 
 
 this that one day, when Hie Kmperor asked 
 
 him to promote a diplomatist <>r minor rank 
 
 for whom he had a, liking, Bismarck enrlly 
 
 refused. In spile of this the Emperor stuck 
 
 to his point and returned to it several times. 
 
 Bismarck remained immovable. Paced with 
 this situation, the Emperor had neither the 
 strength of mind to abandon his demand nor 
 
 to give his instructions aS an order. The ten- 
 sion became so great that someone in the 
 
 Kaiser's immediate circle went to Ilolslein 
 and asked him to use his well-known influence 
 with Bismarck to bring an impossible situa- 
 tion to an end. Bismarck would not hear a 
 word of it. Ilolslein at length decided to 
 
 make a fresh attempt the day before tne 
 
 Kaiser was starting on a cruise in the North 
 Sea. Just as he was embarking he was told 
 that there were indications of Bismarck giv- 
 
THE KAISEB 291 
 
 ing way. During the whole the Bm- 
 
 per< restless* nervous, and irritable, and 
 
 dared to say a word against 
 ChanoeUor. At Hie first point at winch be 
 touched in Norway be learned the news thai 
 Bismarck had at last yielded Hi* delight 
 was overwhelming. He atly 
 
 pjf:. a child, Kiderlen-Waechter, •■ 
 
 accompanied hirn. and had told Hoi stein how 
 necessary it was that this small satisfaction 
 should be given to the Emperor, was more 
 than astonished at the spectacle of the master 
 of all Germany literally jumping with joy at 
 having been able to promote a eivil servant. 
 This is the same man who. when the day came 
 on whieh he decided to o '.he builder of 
 
 modern Germ cted with recklesf audac- 
 
 ity and an absolute want of proportion or 
 delicacy-- once a the weak man over- 
 
 doing it. It was probably in the same fashion 
 that he brought about the world war. J'"or 
 years be bad wished for it, but he shrank from 
 making the election. As soon as he had made 
 a step forward he recoiled from the decisive 
 measure — the essentially timorous man again, 
 willing to wound but yet afraid to strike. 
 
 B it on the day when he had screwed his 
 courage to the sticking point his impetuosity 
 
2<)2 SOME PERSONAL IMPRESSIONS 
 
 became nearly insane, for it was insanity on 
 the part of the Kaiser to declare war himself 
 in place <>r provoking his adversaries and 
 forcing them to declare it on him. 
 The complex personality of the Emperor 
 
 William and the dreadful penalty which hu- 
 manity has paid because the last Hohenzollern, 
 
 instead of being the traditional Prussian sov- 
 ereign, not too intellectual but full of com- 
 mon-sense, was half a madman and half a 
 genius, must confirm US all in the profound 
 conviction that the well-being of a country 
 and of the world is a charge too serious to 
 depend on the accidents of absolutism.