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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Bought with the income
of the
ALFRED E. PERKINS FUND

BEFORL THE WAR

BEFORE THE WAR

BY
VISCOUNT HALDANE

GASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
1920

First published January 1920.

PREFATORY NOTE
The chapters of which this little volume consists
were constructed with a definite purpose. It was
to render clear the line of thought and action
followed by the Government of this country before
the War, between January in 1906 and August in
1914. The endeavour made was directed in the
first place to averting war, and in the second place i
to preparing for it as well as was practicable if it
should come. In reviewing what happened I have
made use of the substance of various papers
recently contributed to the Westminster Gazette,
the Atlantic Monthly, Land and Water, and the
Sunday Times. The gist of these, which .were
written ^with their inclusion in this book in view,
has been incorporated in the text together with
other material. I have to thank the Editors of
these journals for their courtesy in agreeing that
the substance of what they published should be
made use of here as part of a connected jvhole.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER PACE
1. Introduction  1
2. Diplomacy Before the War . . 20
3. The German Attitude Before the
War  83
4. The Military Preparations . . 156
5. Epilogue  183
Index  201

BEFORE THE WAR
CHAPTER I
introduction
The purpose of the pages which follow is, as I
have said in the Preface, to explain the policy
pursued towards Germany by Great Britain
through the eight years which immediately pre
ceded the great war of 1914. It was a policy .which
had two branches, as inseparable as they were
distinct. The preservation of peace, by removing!
difficulties and getting rid of misinterpretations,!
was the object of the first branch. The second |!
branch was concerned with jvhat might happen if l
we failed in our effort to avert war. Against any
outbreak by which such failure might be followed
we had to insure. The form of the insurance had
to be one which, in our circumstances, was prac
ticable, and care had to be taken that it was not
of a character that would frustrate the main pur
pose by provoking, and possibly accelerating, the
very calamity against .which it was designed to
provide. The situation was delicate and difficult. The

Before the War
public most properly expected of British Ministers
that they should spare no effort for peace and for
security. It .was too sensible to ask for every detail
of the steps taken for the attainment of this end.
There are matters on which it is mischievous to en
courage discussion, even in Pariiament. Members
of Parliament know this well, and are sensible
about it. The wisest among them do not press for
open statements which if made to the world would
imperil the very object 'which Parliament and the
public have directed those responsible to them to
seek to attain. What is objected to in secret
diplomacy hardly includes that which from its very
nature must be negotiated in the first instance
between individuals.
The policy actually followed was in principle
satisfactory to the great majority of our people.
To them it was familiar in its general outlines.
But for the minority, which included both our
pacifists and our chauvinists, it was either too much
or too little. For, on the one hand, its founda
tion was the theory that, amid the circumstances
of Europe in which it had to be built up, human
nature could not be safely relied on unswervingly
to resist warlike impulses. On the other hand,
this peril notwithstanding, it was the considered
view of those responsible that war neither ought

Introduction
to be regarded as being inevitable, nor was so in
fact. It was quite true that the development of
military preparations had been so great as to make
Europe resemble an armed camp ; but, if actual
conflict could be averted, the burden this state of
things implied ought finally to render its continu
ance no longer tolerable. What was really required
was that unbroken peace should be preserved, and
the hand of time left to operate.
In the course of history it has rarely been the
case that any ,war that has broken out was really
inevitable, and there does not appear to be any
sufficient reason for thinking that the war of 1914
was an exception to the general rule. It seems
clear that, if Germany had resolved to do_sOj_she
could quite safely have ^abstained -iroJiL. entering
upon it and from encouraging Austria in .a„.madr-
adventure. The reason why the war came appears
to have been that at some period in the year 1913
the German Government finally laid the reins on
the necks of men .whom up to then it had held in
restraint. The decision appears to have been
allowed at this point to pass from civilians to
soldiers. I do not believe that even then the
German Government as a whole intended deliber- j
ately to invoke the frightful consequences of actual/
war, even if it seemed likely to be victorious. But
3

Before the War
I do beheve that it elected to take the risk of
what it thought improbable, a general resistance by
the Entente Powers if Germany were to threaten
to use her great strength. In thus departing in
1913 from the appearance of self-restraint which
in the main they had displayed up to then, the
Emperor and his Ministers misgudged the situa
tion. They did not foresee the crisis to which their
policy was conducting, and when that crisis arrived
they lost their heads and blundered in trying to
deal .with it. They did not perceive the whirlpool
towards which they were heading. They thought
that they could safely expose .what was precarious
to a strain, and secure the substance of a real
victory without having to overcome actual resist
ance. Had they put an extreme ambition for their
country aside, and been careful in their language
to others, they might have attained a considerable
success without a shot being fired. But they were
over ambitious and in their language they were far
from careful. A few unlucky words made all the
difference in the concluding days of July, 1914 :
" Ten lines, a statesman's life in each."
We here had done the best .we could, according
to our lights, to keep Germany from misjudging
us. It was not always easy to do this. The genius
4

Introduction
of our people was not well adapted for the particu
lar task. If the only question to-day ^were whether
we always rendered ourself intelligible to her, she
might say with some show of reason that we did
not. She might have grumbled, as Bismarck used
to do, over our apparent indefiniteness. But that
indefiniteness in policy was only apparent. Its
form ,was due to the habit of mind which .was,
what it always has been and probably always
will be, the habit of mind of the people of these
islands. It jvas the defect of her qualities that
prevented Germany from understanding what this
habit of mind truly imported, and we have never
fully taken in at any period of our history how
little she has ever understood it. Let anyone jvho
doubts this read the German memoirs which have
appeared since the war. But it remains not the
less true and obvious that the purpose of the
British Government .jvhich fashioned the policy in
question was to leave no stone unturned in the
endeavour to find a way of keeping the peace
between Germany and the Entente Powers. Now
success in that endeavour was not a certainty, and
it was necessary to insure against the risk of
failure. The second branch of British policy
related to the provision for defence rendered
imperative by the element of uncertainty which
5

Before the War
was unavoidable. The duty of the Government
of this country was to make sure that, if their
endeavour to preserve peace failed, the country
should be prepared, in the best way of those that
were practicable, to face the situation that might
emerge. Impetuous persons ask why, if there was even
a chance of a great European war in which we
might be involved, we did not appreciate the
magnitude of what was at stake, and, laying
everything else aside, concentrate our efforts on
the immediate fashioning of such vast military
forces as we possessed towards the end of the war ?
The answer will be found in the fourth chapter.
We were aware of the risk, and we took what
we thought the best means to meet it. Had we
tried to do what we are reproached for not having
done, we must have become weaker before we
could have become stronger. For this statement
I have given the military reasons. In a time of
peace, even if the country had assented to the
attempt being made, it is certain that we could
not have accomplished such a purpose without long
delay. It is probable that the result would have
been failure, and it is almost certain that we should
have provoked a " preventive jvar " on the part
of Germany, a war not only with a very fair
6

Introduction
prospect, as things then stood, of a German
success, but with something else that would have
looked like the justification of a German effort to
prevent that country from being encircled. Such
a war would, with equal likelihood, have been the
outcome even of the proclamation at such a time
of a military alliance between the Entente Powers.
Other critics, belonging to a wholly different
school of political thought, ask why ,we moved at
all, and why we did not adhere to the good old
policy of holding alotffs^ from interference in
Continental affairs. The Answer is simple^J^The
days when " splendid isolation " was possible were
gone. Our sea power, even as an instrument of
self-defence, was in danger of becoming inadequate
in the absence of friendships which should ensure
that other navies would remain neutral if they did
not actively co-operate with ours. It was only
through the medium of such friendships that ulti
mate naval preponderance could be secured. Thei^
consciousness of that fact pervaded the Entente.^
With those responsible for the conduct of
tremendous affairs probability has to be the guide
of life. The question is always not what ought to
happen but what is most likely to happen.
On the details of the diplomatic aspect of our
endeavour, and on the spirit in which it was sought
7

Before the War
to carry it out, the second and third chapters of
the book may serve to throw some light. The
fourth chapter relates to the strategical plan,
worked out after much consideration, for the
possible event of failure. The plan was throughout
based on the maintenance of superior sea power as
the paramount instrument. As is indicated, the
conservation of sufficient sea power implied as
essential close and friendly relations with France,
and also with Russia. Had there been no initial
reason for the Entente policy, to be found in the
desire to get rid of all causes of friction with
these two great nations, the preservation of the
prospect of continuing able to command the
sea in war would in itself have necessitated the
Entente. This conclusion was the result of the
stocktaking of their assets for self-defence which
the Entente Powers had to make when confronted
with the growing organisation for war of the
Central Powers.
To set up the balancing of Powers as a principle
was what we in this country would have been glad
to have avoided had it been practicable to do so.
We should have preferred the freedom of our old
position of ' ' splendid isolation. ' ' But the growing
preparations of the Central Powers compelled
Great Britain, France, and Russia to think of safety

he.'

Introduction
for each of them severally as to be secured only by
treating such safety as a common interest. In the
face of a new and growing danger we dared no
leave ourselves to the risk of being dealt with in'
detail. The first thing to be done was, if possible,
to convince the Central Powers that it would be to
their own advantage to come to a complete agree
ment with us, an agreement of a business charac
ter, analogous to that which Lord Lansdowne had
so satisfactorily concluded with France, and
accompanied by cessation of the reasons which had
led them to pile up armaments. There were highly
influential persons in Germany who were far from
averse to the suggested business arrangement.
The armament question presented greater difficulty
in that country, largely because of its tradition.
But its solution .was vital, for there were also those
in Germany whose aim was to dispute with Great
Britain the possession of the trident. Now for
us, who constituted the island centre of a scattered
Empire, and who depended for food and raw
materials on freedom to sail our ships, the question
of sea power adequate for security was one of life
or death. We could not sit still and allow Germany
so to increase her navy in comparison with ours that
she could make other Powers believe that their
safest course was to throw in their lot and join
B 9

Before the War
their fleets .with hers. We were bound to seek to
make and maintain friendships, and to this end not
only to preserve our margin of strength at sea, but
to make ourselves able, if it became essential, to
help our friends in case of aggression, thereby
securing ourselves. That was the new situation
which in the final result the old military spirit in
Germany had created.
The balance of power is a dangerous principle ;
a general friendship between all Great Powers, or,
better still, a League of the Nations, is by far pre
ferable. But that consideration does not touch the
actual point, which is that we did not seek to set
up the principle of balancing that has given rise to
so many questions. It was forced on us and was
a sheer necessity of the situation. We did all we
could to avoid it by negotiations with Germany,
whicn, had they succeeded in the end, would have
relieved France and Russia as much as ourselves
and would have prevented the war.
Our efforts to preserve the peace ended in
failure. The cause of that failure was nothing
that we failed to do or that France did. It was
proximately Austrian recklessness and indirectly,
but just as strongly, German ambition. A real
desire in July, 1914, on the part of the Central
Powers to avoid war would have averted it. That
IO

Introduction
Serbia may have been a provocative neighbour is
no answer to the reproaches made to-day against
the old Governments in Vienna and Berlin.
They failed to take the stgps requisite if peace
were to be preserved.
People ask why the British Government
between 1906 and 1914 did not discuss in public
a situation which it understood well, and appeal to
the nation. The answer is that to have done so
would have been greatly to increase the difficulty
of averting war. Up to the middle of 1913 the
indications were that it was far from unlikely that
war might in the result be averted. That was
the view of some, both here and on the Continent,
who were most competent to judge, men who
had real opportunities for close observation from
day to day. It is a view which is not in material
conflict -with anything we have since learned.
The question .whether war is inevitable has always
been, as Bismarck more than once insisted, one
for the statesmen of the countries concerned,
and not for the soldiers and sailors who have a
restricted field to work in, and for whom it is in
consequence difficult to see things as a whole.
Nor does great importance attach to-day to the
triumphant declarations of 'fiiose who, having
chanced to guess aright, take pride in the cheap
II

Before the War
title to wisdom which has become theirs after the
event. Still less does respect attach to the small
but noisy minority in each of the countries
concerned who in the years before 1914 were
continuously contributing to bringing war on our
heads by expressions of dislike to neighbouring
nations, land by prophecies that war with them
must come. In the main Germany was worse in
this feature than ourselves. But there were those
here whose language made them useful propagan
dists for the German military party, to whom they
were of much service.
Few wars are really inevitable. If we knew,
better how we should be careful to comport our
selves it may be that none are so. But extremists,
whether chauvinist or pacifist, are not helpful in
avoiding wars. That is because human nature is
what it is.
Those who had to make the effort to keep the
peace failed. But that neither shows that they
ought not to have tried with all the strength they
possessed in the way they did, nor that they would
have done better had they discussed delicate details
in public. There are topics and conjunctures in
the almost daily changing relations between
Governments as to which silence is golden. For
however proper it may be in point of broad prin-

Introduction
ciple that the people should be fully informed of
what concerns them vitally, the most important
thing is those to whom they have confided their
concerns should be given the best chance of success
in averting danger to their interests. To have said
more in Parliament and on the platform in the
years in question, or to have said it otherwise,
would have been to run grave risks of more than
one sort.Plt is my strong impression that Lord
Grey of Fallodon took the only course that was
practicable, and that, had the danger of the
catastrophe to be faced again and for the first
time, the course he took would, even in the light
of all we know to-day, again afford the best chance
of avoiding it. jHe succeeded in improving greatly
for the time the relations between this country and
Germany, and but for the outbreak in the
Near East he would probably have succeeded in
na^^gatmg the dangerous waters successfullyT^The
chance .was far from being a hopeless one, and
subsequent study of the facts has strengthened my
impression that down to at least about the
middle of the year 1913 the chanceswere sub
stantially in His^ favour. A sufficiency at least of
theTeaflers-'in other countries were co-operating
with him, not all the leaders, but those who were
in reality most important. The war when it came
13

Before the War
was due, not only to the failure of certain of the
prominent men in the capitals of the Central
Powers to adhere to principles to which for a long
time they had held fast, but to the accident of
untoward circumstances and the contingency that
is inseparable from human affairs.
Such are some of the reasons which have led me
to say what I have tried to express in the pages
which follow. I have never been able to bring
myself to believe that there are vast differences
between the ways of thinking and habits of mind
of the great and most highly civilised peoples of
Europe. I have seen something of the Germans,
and what I have learned of them and of their
history has led me to the conclusion that, certain
traditions of theirs notwithstanding, they resemble
us more than they differ from us. If this be
so, the sooner we take advantage of our present
victory by seeking to turn our eyes from the past
as far as can be, and to look steadily toward a
future in which the misery and sin which that past
saw shall be dwelt on to the least extent that is
practicable, the better it will be for ourselves as
well as for the rest of the world.
That world has been reminded of a great truth
which had been partly forgotten by those whose
faith lay in militarism. It is that to set up might

Introduction
as the foundation of right may in the end be to
inspire those around with a passionate desire to hold
such might in check and to overcome it. Demo
cracy is not a system that lends itself easily to
scientific preparation for war, but when democratic
nations are really aroused their staying power,
just because it rests on a true General Will, is
without rival. The latent force in humanity which
has its foundation in ethical idealism is the greatest
of all forces for the vindication of right. German
militarism managed to fail to understand this. Let
us take pains to show our late enemies that if they
make it clear that they have extinguished such
militarism in a lasting fashion, the quarrel with
them is at an end.
I am far from thinking that we here are perfect '
in our habits as a nation. We are apt not to keep .
in view how what we do is likely to look to others.
We are somewhat deficient in the faculty of self-
examination and self-criticism. Want of clarity of
ground-principle in higher ideals is apt to prove a
hindrance to more than the individual only. It
generally brings with it want of clarity in the sense
of social obligation. And this sometimes extends
even to our relations to other countries.
It leads to our being misinterpreted as a nation.
We have suffered a good deal in the past from hav-
15

Before the War
ing attributed to us motives which were not ours.
The reason was the assumption that the apparent
absence of definiteness in national purpose must
have been designed as a cover for hidden and selfish
ends, it is not true. We are indeed very insular,
and what has been called the international mind is
not common among the people of these islands.
But we are kindly at heart, and when we have
seemed self-regarding it has been simply because
we were not conscious of our own limitations and
had not much appreciation of the modes of thought
of other people. We have paid the penalty for
this defect at periods in our history. At one time
France suspected us, I think in the main unjustly.
Later on Germany suspected us, I think of a
certainty unjustly. Now these things arise in
part at least from our reputation for a particular
kind of disposition, our supposed habitual and
deUberately adopted desire to wait until the par
ticular international situation of the moment should
show how we could profit, before we gave any
assurance as to the way in which we should act.
What has given rise to this misunderstanding of our
attitude in our relations to other countries is simply
an exemplification of what has prevented us from
fully understanding ourselves. It is our gift to be
able to apply ourselves in emergencies, at home
i6

Introduction
and abtoad, with immense energy, and our success
in promptly pulling ourselves together and coping
with the unexpected has often suggested to out
siders that we had long ago looked ahead. This has
been said of us on the Continent. It is not so. We
do not study the art of fishing in troubled waters.
The waiting habit in our transactions, domestic as
well as foreign, arises from our inveterate prefer
ence for thinking in images rather than in concepts.
We put off decisions until the whole of the facts can
be visualised. This carries with it that .we often
do not act until it is very late. Our gifts enable
us to move with energy, if not always with pre
cision. To predict what we will do in a given case
is not easy for a foreigner. It is not easy even for '
ourselves. We have few abstract principles, and
reliable induction from our past is not easy. We
are often guided by what Mr. Justice Wendell
Holmes has called " the intuition more subtle than
any particular major premise." Nor is help to be
derived from any study of our general outlook on
life, for that outlook is hard to formulate even to
ourselves. Now all this, our peculiar gift, if kept under
control, may well have its practical advantage, but,
as the case stands, it is apt to bring in its train
a good deal of disadvantage. In periods when
17

Before the War
nations are trying to render firm the basis cf peace
by remoulding and giving precision to their aims,
so that these can be made common aims, lack of
definiteness in national ideals is a sure source of
embarrassment. At a time when democracy is
more and more claiming in terms to occupy the
whole field it becomes increasingly desirable that
the higher purposes of democracy should become
clear to the people themselves. For the practice
of a country can never be wholly divorced from its
theory of life. The tendencies of the national will
are bound up with the nation's science, with its
literature, with its art, and with its religion. These
tendencies are affected by the capacity of the nation
to understand and express its own soul. Beyond
science, literature, art and religion there lies some
thing that may be called the national philosophy, a
disposition rather than a definite creed. This sort
of philosophy is different in France from what it
is in Germany, and in Germany from .what it is
in the English-speaking countries. The philosophy
of a people takes shape in the attitude its leaders
adopt in their estimation of values and of the order
in which they should be placed. And this turns
on the conceptions and ideas which are current in
the various departments of mental activity. It is
thus that a philosophy of life has to be given some
i8

Introduction
sort of place in his professions even by the states
man who has to address Parliament and the public.
He is driven to make speeches in which a good
many conceptions and ideas have to be brought
together. And it gives rise to a great difference of
quality in such utterances if the general outlook of
the speaker be a large one. But this requires that
he should know himself and be aware of the con
ceptions and ideas which dominate his mind, and
should have examined their scope before employing
them. How some of those who were deeply respon
sible for the conduct of affairs tried to think in the
anxious years before the war, and how they
endeavoured to apply their conclusions, is what I
have endeavoured to state in the course of what
fcyllows. They doubtless made mistakes and fell
short of accomplishment in what they were aiming
at. It is human so to do. But they tried what
seemed to them the wisest course, and I have yet
to learn that it was practicable to have followed
any different course without a failure .worse than
any that occurred. After all, in the end the British
Empire won, however hard it had to fight, njuti

19

CHAPTER II
diplomacy before the war
If in this chapter I speak frequently in the first
person and of my own part in the negotiations
which it records, it is not from any desire to make
prominent either my own personality or the part
it fell to me to play. The reason is that I have
endeavoured to write of what I myself heard and
saw, and that in consequence most of what follows
is, for the sake of accuracy, largely transcribed
from my personal diaries and records made at the
time when the events to which they related took
place. So frequent an employment of the personal
pronoun as has been made in these pages would
ordinarily be a blemish in taste, if not in style also,
but in this case it seemed safer not to try to
avoid it.
Many things that happened in the years just
before 1914, as well as the events of the great
war itself, are still too close to permit of our
studying them in their full context. But before
20

Diplomacy Before the War
much time has pa.s9ed the historians will have
accumulated material that will overflow their
libraries, and their hands will remain occupied for
generations to come. At this moment all that
safely can be attempted is that actual observers
should set down what they have themselves
observed. For there has rarely been a time when
the juridical maxim that " hearsay is not
evidence " ought to be more sternly insisted
on. If I now venture to set down what follows in
these pages, it is because I had certain opportuni
ties for forming a judgment at first hand for
myself. I am not referring to the circumstance
that for a brief period I once, long ago, lived the
life of a student at a German University, or that
I was frequently in Germany in the years that
followed. Nor do I mean that I have tried to
explore German habits of reflection, as they may
be studied in the literature of Germany. Other
people have done all these things more thoroughly
and more extensively than I have. What I do
mean is that from the end of 1905 to the summer
of 1912 I had special chances for direct observa
tion of quite another kind. During that period I
was Secretary of State for War in Great Britain,
and from the latter year to April, 1915, I was the
21

Before the War
holder of another office and a member of the
British Cabinet.
During the first of the above periods it fell
to me to work out the military organisation
that would be required to insure, as far as was
practicable, against risk, should those strenuous
efforts fail into which Sir Edward Grey, as he then
' was, had thrown his strength. He was endeavour
ing with all his might to guard the peace of
Europe from danger. As he and I had for many
years been on terms of close intimacy, it was
not unnatural that he should ask me to do ,what I
could by helping in some of the diplomatic work
which was his, as well as by engaging in my own
special task. Indeed, the two phases of activity
could hardly be separable.
I was not in Germany after May, 1912, for
the duties of Lord Chancellor, on which office I
then entered, made it unconstitutional for me to
leave the United Kingdom, save under such ex
ceptional conditions as were conceded by the King
and the Cabinet when, in the autumn of 1913, I
made a brief yet memorable visit to the United
States and Canada. But in 1906, whilst War
Minister, I paid, on the in'sdtation of the German
Emperor, a visit to him at Beriin, to which city
I went on after previously staying with King
22

Diplomacy Before the War
Edward at Marienbad, where he and the then
Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman,
were resting.
While at Berlin I saw much of the Emperor,
and I also saw certain of his Ministers, notably
Prince von Billow, Herr von Tschirsky and General
von Einem, the first being at that time Chancellor,
and the last two being respectively the Foreign
and War Ministers. I was invited to examine
for myself the organisation of the German War
Office, which I wished to study for purposes of
reform at home; and this I did in some detail,
in company with an expert adviser from my per
sonal staff. Colonel Ellison, my military private
secretary, who accompanied me on this journey.*
There the authorities explained to us the general
nature of the organisation for rapid mobilisation
which had been developed under the great von
Moltke, and subsequently carried farther. The
character of this organisation was, in its general
features, no secret in Germany, although it was
* ot course I neither tried to obtain nor did obtain from the authori
ties in Germany any information that was not available to the general
public there. I went simply to see the system of administration and
how it was worked. Not even Count Reventlow, in his highly critical
accounts of my visits in the book " Deutschlands Auswartige Politik,"
imagines that I had access to information which I was not free to use.
The German Government had ascertained for itself that a new organisa
tion of the British Army was on foot, but it neither told its own secrets
nor asked for ours. 23

Before the War
somewhat unfamiliar in Anglo-Saxon countries;
and it interested my adviser and myself intensely.
At that time there was an active militarist party
in Germany, which, of course, .was not wholly
pleased at the friendly reception with which we
met from the Emperor and from crowds in the
streets of Berlin. We were well aware of the
activity of this party. But it stood then unmistak
ably for a minority, and I formed the opinion that
those who wanted Germany to remain at peace,
quite as much as to be strong, had at least an excel
lent chance of keeping their feet. I realised, and
had done so for years past, that it was not merely
because of the beaux yeux of foreign peoples that
Germany desired to maintain good relations all
round. She had become fully conscious of a grow
ing superiority in the application to industry of
scientific knowledge and in power to organise her
resources founded on it ; and her rulers hoped, and
not without good ground, to succeed by these
means in the peaceful penetration of the .world.
I had personally for some time been busy in
pressing the then somewhat coldly received claims
for a better system of education, higher and tech
nical as well as elementary, among my own coun
trymen, and had met with some success in asking
for the establishment of teaching universities and of
24

Diplomacy Before the War
technical colleges, such as the new Imperial College
of Science and Technology at South Kensington.
Of these we had very substantially increased the
number during the eight years which preceded my
visit to Berlin; but I had learned from visits of
inspection to Germany that much more remained
to be done before ,we could secure our commercial
and industrial position against the unhasting but
unresting efforts of our formidable competitor.
As to the German people outside official circles
and the universities, I thought of them then what I
think of them now. They were very much like
our own people, except in one thing. This was
that they were trained simply to obey, and to carry j
out whatever they were told by their rulers. I used,
during numerous unofficial tours in Germany, to
wander about incognito, and to smoke and drink
beer with the peasants and the people whenever I
could get the chance. What impressed me .was the
little part they had in directing their own govern
ment, and the little they knew about what it was
doing. There was a general disposition to accept,
as a definition of duty which must not be ques
tioned, whatever they were told to do by the
Vorstand. It is this habit of mind, dating back to
the days of Frederick the Great, with only occa
sional and brief interruptions, which has led many
C 25

Before the War
people to think that the German people at large
have in them ' ' a double dose of original sin . " Even
when their soldiers have been exceptionally brutal
in methods of warfare, I do not think that this is
so. The habit of mind which prevails is that of
always looking to the rulers for orders, and the
brutality has been that enjoined — ^in accordance
with its own military policy of shortening war by
making it terrible to the enemy — by the General
Staff of Germany, a body before whose injunctions
even the Emperor, so far as my observation goes,
always has bowed.
But I must now return to my formal visit to
Berlin in the autumn of 1906. I was, as I have
already said, everywhere cordially welcomed, and
at the end the heads of the German Army enter
tained me at a dinner in the War Office, at which
the War Minister presided, and there was present,
among others, the Chief of the German General
Staff. They .were all friendly. I do not think
that my impression was wrong that even the re
sponsible heads of the Army were then looking
almost entirely to "peaceful penetration," with
only moral assistance from the prestige attaching
to the possession of great armed forces in reserve.
Our business in the United Kingdom was there
fore to see that we were prepared for perils that
26

Diplomacy Before the War
might unexpectedly arise out of this poHcy, and
not less, by developing our educational and indus
trial organisation, to make ourselves fit to meet
the greater likelihood of a coming keen competi
tion in the peaceful ar'ts.
One thing that seemed to me essential for the
preservation of good relations was that cordial and
frequent intercourse between the people of the
two countries should be encouraged and developed.
I set myself in my speeches to avoid all expres
sions which might be construed as suggesiting a
critical attitude on our part, or a failure to recog
nise the existence of peaceful ideas among what
was then, as I still think, a large majority of the
people of Germany. The attitude of some news
papers in England, and still more that of the
chauvinist minority in Germany itself, did not
render this quite an easy task. But there were
good people in these days in Germany as well as in
England, and the United States might be counted
on as likely to co-operate in discouraging friction.
Meanw'hile there was the chance that the
course of this policy inight be interrupted by some
event which we could not control. A conversation
with the then Chief of the German General Staff,
General von Moltke, the nephew of the great man
of that name, satisfied me that he did not really
27

Before the War
look with any pleasuraible military expectation to
the results of a war with the United Kingdom
alone. It would, he observed to me, be in his
opinion a long and possibly indecisive war, and
must result in much of the overseas trade of both
countries passing to a tertius gaudens, by which he
meant the United States.
I had little doubt that what he said to me on
this occasion represented his real opinion. But I
had in my mind the apprehension of an emergency
of a different nature. Germany was more likely
to attack France than ourselves. The German
Emperor had told me that, although he was trying
to develop good relations .with France, he was
finding it difficult. This seemed to me ominous.
The paradox presented itself that a war with
Germany in which we were alone would be easier
to meet than a war in which France was attacked
along with us ; for if Germany succeeded in over
running France she might establish naval bases on
the northern Channel ports of that country, quite
close to our shores, and so, with the possible aid of
the submarines, long-range guns and air-machines
of the future, interfere materially .with our naval
position in the Channel and our fleet defences
against invasion.
I knew, too, that the French Government was
28

Diplomacy Before the War
apprehensive. In the historical speech which Sir
Edward Grey made on August 3, 1914, the day
before the British Government directed Sii;
Edward Goschen, our Ambassador in Berlin, to
ask for his passports, he informed the House of
Commons that so early as January, 1906, the
French Government, after the Morocco difficulty,
had drawn his attentiqn to the international
situation. It had informed him that it considered
the danger of an attack on France by Germany
to be a real one, and had inquired whether, in the
event of an unprovoked attack, Great Britain
would think that she had so much at stake as to
make her willing to join in resisting it. If "this
were to be even a possible attitude for Great
Britain, the French Government had intimated to
him that it was in its opinion desirable that con
versation should take place between the General
Staff of France and the newly created General
Staff of Great Britain, as to the form which mili
tary cooperation in resisting invasion of the
nortfliern portions of France might best assume.
We bad a great Navy, and the French had a great
Army. But our Navy could not operate on land,
and the French Army, although large, was not so
large as that which Germany, with her superior
resources in population, commanded. Could we,
29

Before the War
then, reconsider our military organisation, so that
we might be able rapidly to dispatch, if we ever
thought it necessary in our own interests, say,
100,000 men in a well-formed army, not to invade
Belgium, which no one thought of doing, but
to guard the French frontier of Belgium in case
the German Army should seek to enter France in
that way. If the German attack were made
farther south, where the French chain of modern
fortresses had rendered their defensive positions
strong, the French Army would then be able, set
free from the difficulty of mustering in full
strength opposite the Belgian boundary, to guard
the southern frontier.
Sir Edward Grey consulted the Prime
Minister, Sir Henry Campbeil-Bannerman, the
Chancellor of the Exdhequer, Mr. Asquith, and
myself as War Minister, and I was instructed, in
January, 1906, a month after assuming office, to
take the examination of the question in hand.
This occurred in the middle of the General Elec
tion which ,was then in progress. I went at once
to London and summoned the heads of the British
General Staff and saw the French military attache,
Coilonel Huguet, a man of sense and ability. I
became aware at once that there was a new army
problem. It was, how to mobilise and concentrate
30

Diplomacy Before the War
at a place of assembly to be opposite the Belgian
frontier, a force calculated as adequate (with the
assisitance of Russian pressure in the East) to make
up for the inadequacy of the French armies for
their great task of defending the entire French
frontier from Dunkirk down to Belfort, or even
farther south, if Italy should join the Triple
Alliance in an attack.
But an investigation of a searching character
presently revealed great deflciencies in the British
military organisation of these days. We had
never contemplated the preparation of armies for
warfare of the Continental type. The older
generals had not been trained for this problem.
We had, it ,was true, excellent troops in India and
elsewhere. These were required as outposts for
Imperial defence. As they had to serve for long
periods and to be thoroughly disciplined, they had
to be professional soldiers, engaged to serve in most
cases for seven years with the colours and after
wards for five in the reserve. They were highly
trained men, and there was a good reserve
of them at home. But that reserve .was not
organised in the great self-contained divisions
which would be required for fighting against
armies organised for rapid action on modern Con
tinental principles. Its formations in peace time
31

Before the War
were not those which would be required in such
a war. There was in addition a serious defect in
the artillery organisation which would have pre
vented more than a comparatively small number
of batteries (about forty-two only in point of fact)
from being quickly placed on a war footing. The
transport and supply and the medical services were
as deficient as the artillery.
In short, the close investigation made at that
time disclosed that it was not possible, under the
then existing circumstances, to put in the field
more than about 80,000 men, and even these only
after an interval of over two months, which would
be required for conversion of our isolated units into
the new war formations of an army fit to take the
field against the German first line of active corps.
The French naturally thought that a machine so
slow moving would be of little use to them. They
might have been destroyed before it could begin
to operate effectively. Both they and the Germans
had organised on the basis that modern Continental
warfare had become a high science. Hitherto we
had not, and it was only our younger generals who
had even studied this science.
There was, therefore, nothing for it but to
attempt a complete revolution in the organisation
of the British Army at home. The nascent General
32

Diplomacy Before the War
Staff was finally organised in September, 1906, and
its organisation was shortly afterwards developed
so as to extend to the entire Empire, as soon as a
conference had taken place with the Ministers of
the Dominions early in the following year. The
outcome was a complete recasting, which, after
three years' work, made it practicable rapidly to
mobilise, not only 100,000, but 160,000 men ; to
transport them, with the aid of the Navy, to a place
of concentration which had been settled beween
the staffs of France and Britain ; and to have them
at their appointed place within twelve days, an
interval based on what the German Army required
on its side for a corresponding concentration.
All the arrangements for this were worked out
by the end of 1910. Both Sir John French and Sir
Douglas Haig took an active part in the work.
Behind the first-line army so organised, a second-
line army of larger size, though far less trained,
and so designed that it could be expanded, was
organised. This was the citizen or " Territorial "
army, consisting in time of peace of fourteen
divisions of infantry and artillery and fourteen
brigades of cavalry, with the appropriate medical,
sanitary, transport and other auxiliary services.
Those serving in this second-line army were
civilians, and, of course, much less disciplined than
33

Before the War
the officers and men of the first line. Its primary
function was home defence, but its members .were
encouraged to undertake for service abroad, if
necessary ; and a large part of this army, in point
of fact, fought in France, Flanders and in the East
soon after the beginning of the .war, in great
measure making up by intelligence for shortness of
training. To say, therefore, that we were caught unpre
pared is not accurate. Compulsory service in a
period of peace was out of the question for us.
Moreover, it would have taken at least two
generations to organise, and meanwhile we should
have been weaker than without it. We had studied
the situation and had done the only thing we
thought we could do, after full deliberation. Our
main strength was in our Navy and its tradition.
Our secondary contribution was a small army
fashioned to fulfil a scientifically measured
.function. It was, of course, a very small army,
but it had a scientific organisation on the basis
of which a great expansion was possible. After
all, what we set ourselves to accomplish we did
accomplish. If the margin by .which a just
sufficient success was attained in the early days
of the war seems to-day narrow, the reason of
the narrow margin lay largely in the unprepared
34

Diplomacy Before the War
condition of the armies of Russia, on which
we and France had reckoned for rapid co
operation. Anyhow, we fulfilled our contract, for
at eleven o'clock on Monday morning, August 3,
1914, we mobilised without a hitch the whole of the
Expeditionary Force, amounting to six divisions
and nearly two cavalry divisions, and began its
transport over the Channel when ,war was declared
thirty-six hours later. We also at the same time
successfully mobilised the Territorial Force and
other units, the whole amounting to over half a
million men. The Navy was already in its war
stations, and there was no delay at all in putting
wjiat we had prepared into operation.
I speak of this with direct knowledge, for as the
Prime Minister, who was holding temporarily the
seals of the War Secretary, was overwhelmed with
business, he asked me, though I had then become
Lord Chancellor, to go to the War Office and give
directions for the mobilisation of the machinery
with which I was so familiar, and I did this on the
morning of Monday, August 3, and a day later
handed it over, in working order, to Lord
Kitchener. I now return to w'hat was the main object or
British foreign policy between 1905 and 1914, the
prevention of the danger of any outbreak with
35

Before the War
Germany. Sir Edward Grey worked strenuously
with this well-defined object. If France were
overrun, our island security would be at least
diminished, and he had, therefore, in addition to
his lanxiety to avert a general war, a direct national
interest to Strive for, in the preservation of peace
between Germany and France. Ever since the
¦^mutilation which the latter country had suffered,
as the outcome of the War of 1870, she had felt
sore, and her relations with Germany were not
easy. iBut she did not seek a war of revenge. It
would have been too full of risk even if she had not
desired peace, the Franco-Russian Dual Alliance
notwithstanding. The notion of an encirclement
of Germany, excepting in defence against
aggression by Germany herself, existed only in
the minds of nervous Germans. Still, there was
suspicion, and the question was, how to get rid
of it. I have already referred to the visit I paid to the
Emperor at Berlin in the autumn of 1906. He
invited me to a review which he held of his troops
there, and in the course of it rode up to the car
riage in which I was seated and said, " A splendid
machine I have in this army, Mr. Haldane ; now
isn't it so? And what could I do without it,
situated as I am between the Russians and the
36

Diplomacy Before the War
French? But the French are your allies — ^are they
not? So I beg pardon."
I shook my head and smiled deprecatingly, and
replied that, were I in his Majesty's place, I should
in any case feel safe from attack with the posses
sion of this machine, and that for my own part I
enjoyed being behind it much more than if I had
to be in front of it.
Next day, when at the Schloss, he talked to me
fully and cordially. What loUows I extract from
the record I made after the conversation in my
diaries, which were kept by desire of King
Edward, and which were printed by the Govern
ment on my return to London.
He spoke of the Anglo-French Entente. He
said that it would be wrong to infer that he had
any critical thought about our entente with
France. On the coritrary he believed that it might
even facilitate good relations between France and
Germany. He wished for these good relations,
and was taking steps through gentlemen of high
position in France to oibtain them. Not one inch^
more of French territory would he ever covet.
Alsace and Lorraine originally had been German,
and now even the least German of the two,
Lorraine, because it preferred a monarchy to
a republic, was welcoming him enthusiastically
37

Before the War
whenever he went there. That he should have
gone to Tangier, where both English and French
welcomed him, was quite natural. He desired no
quarrel, and the whole fault was Delcasse's, who
had wanted to pick a quarrel and bring England
¦ into it.
I told the Emperor that, if he would allow me
;to speak my mind freely, I would do so. He
assented, and I said to him that his attitude had
j caused great uneasiness in England, and that this,
' and not any notion of forming a tripartite alliance
of France, Russia and England against him, was
;the reason of the feeling there had been. We
were bound by no military alliance. As for our
.entente, some time since ,we had difficulties with
, France over Newfoundland and Egypt, and ,we
•had made a good business arrangement (gutes
.GeschSft) about these complicated matters of
I detail, and had simply carried out our word to
France.
, He said that he had no criticism to make on
jthis, except that if we had told him so early there
would have been no anisunderstanding. Things
Were better now, but .W:e had not always been
pleasant to him and ready to meet him. His army
^as for defence, not for offence. As to Russia,
he had no Himalayas between him and Russia,
38

Diplomacy Before the War
more was the pity. Now what about our Two-
Power sfemdard. All this was said with earnest
ness, but in a friendly way, the Emperor laying
his finger on my shoulder as he spoke. Sometimes
the conversation was in German, but often in
English. I said that our fleet was like his Majesty's army.
It was of the Wesen of the nation, and the Two-
Power standard, while it might be rigid and so
awkward, was a way of maintaining a deep-seated
national tradition, and a Liberal Government must
hold to it as firmly as a Conservative. Both coun
tries were increasing in .wealth — ours, like Ger
many, very rapidly — and if Germany built we must
build. But, I added, there was an excellent oppor
tunity for co-operation in other things. I instanced
international free trade developments which would
smooth other relations.
The Emperor agreed. He was convinced that
free trade was the true policy for Germnay also,
but Germany could not go so quickly here as
England had gone.
I referred to Friedrich List's great book as
illustrating how military and geographical con
siderations had affected matters for Germany in
this connection.
The Emperor then spoke of Chamberlain's
39

Before the War
policy of Tariff Reform, and said that it had caused
him anxiety.
I repUed that jvith care we might avoid any real
bad feeling over trade. The undeveloped markets
of the world .were enormous, and we wanted no
more of the surface of the globe than we had got.
The Emperor's reply was that what he sought
after was not territory but trade expansion. He
quoted Goethe to the effect that if a nation wanted
anything it must concentrate and act from within
the sphere of its concentration.
We then spoke of the fifty millions sterling
per annum of chemical trade which Germany had
got away from us. I said that this was thoroughly
justified as the result of the practical application
of high German science.
" That," said he, " I delight to think, because
it is legitimate and to the credit of my people."
I agreed, and said that similarly we had got the
best of the world's shipbuilding. Each nation had
something to learn.
The Emperor then passed to the topic of The
Hague Conference, trusting that disarmament
would not be proposed. If so, he could not go in.
I observed that the word " disarmament " was
perhaps unfortunately chosen.
" The best testimony," said the Emperor, " to
40

Diplomacy Before the War
my earnest desire for peace is that I have had no
war, though I should have had war if I had not
earnestly striven to avoid it."
Throughout the conversation, which was as
animated as it was long, the Emperor was cordial
and agreeable. He expressed the wish that more
English Ministers would visit Berlin, and that he
might see more of our Royal Family. I left the
Palace at 3.30 p.m., having gone there at 1.0.
On another day during this visit Prince von
Billow, who was then Chancellor, called on me. I
was out, but found him later at the Schloss, and had
a conversation with him. He said to me that both
the Emperor and himself were thoroughly aware
of the desire of King Edward and his Government
to maintain the new relations with France in their
integrity, and that, in the best German opinion,
this was no obstacle to building up close relations
with Germany also.
I said that this was the view held on our side
too, and that the only danger lay in trying to force
everything at once. Too great haste was to be
deprecated. He said that he entirely agreed, and quoted
Prince Bismarck, who had laid it down that you
cannot make a flower grow any sooner by putting
fire to heat it.
D 41

Before the War
I said that, none the less, frequent and cordial
interchanges of view were very important, and that
not even the smallest matters should be neglected.
He alluded with satisfaction to my personal
relations with the German Ambassador in
London, Count Metternich.
I begged him, if there were any ismall matters
which were too minute to take up officially, but
which seemed unsatisifadtory, to let me know of
them in a private capacity through Count Metter
nich. This I did because I had discovered some
soreness at restrictions which had been placed on
the attendance of German military officers at
manceuvres in England, and I had found that
there had been some reprisals. I did not refer to
these, but said that I had the authority of the
sovereign to give assistance to German officers who
were sent over to the manoeuvres to study them.
I added that while our army was small, compared
with theirs, it had had great experience in the
conduct of small expeditions, and that there were
in consequence some things worth seeing.
He then spoke of the navy. It was natural
that with the increase of German commerce Ger
many should wish to increase her fleet — from a
sea-police point of view — ^but that they had
neither the wish, nor, having regard to the strain
42

Diplomacy Before the War
their great army put on their resources, the power
to build against Great Britain.
I said that the best opinion in England fully
understood this attitude, and that we did not in
the least misinterpret their recent progress, nor
would he misinterpret our resolve to maintain, for
purely defensive purposes, our navy at a Two-
Power 'Standard. Some day, I said, there might
be rivalry, but I thought we might assume that, if
it ever happened, it would not be for many years,
and that our policy for the present was strongly for
Free Trade, so that the more Germany exported
to Great Britain and British possessions, the more
we should export in exdtmnge to them.
He expressed himself pleased that I should say
this, and added that he was confident that a couple
of years' interchange of friendly communications
in this spirit would produce a great development,
and perhaps lead for both of us to pleasant relations
with other Powers also.
There were during this visit in 1906 other con
versations of which a record was preserved, but
I have referred to the m^ost important, and I will
only mention, in concluding my account of these
days in Berlin in September, 1906, the talk I had
with the Foreign Minister, Herr von Tschirsky,
afterwards the German Ambassador at Vienna
43

Before the War
before the war, and reported as having been a
fomenter of the Austrian outbreak against Serbia.
He may have been anti-Slav and anti-Russian,
but I did not find him, in the long conversation
we had in 1906, otherwise than sensible as regards
France. I explained that my business in Berlin was
merely with War Office matters, and, even as
regards these, quite unofficial.
He said that there had been much tendency to
misinterpret in both countries, but that things
were now better. I might take it that our pre
cision about the Entente with France, and our
desire to rest firmly on the arrangement we had
made, were understood in Germany, and that it
was realised that we were not likely to be able to
build up anything with his own country which
did not rest on this basis. But he thought, and
the Emperor agreed, that the Entente was no
hindrance to all that was necessary between Ger
many and England, which was not an alliance but
a thoroughly good business understanding. Some
day we might come into conflict, if care were not
taken; but if care was taken, there was no need
of apprehension. I said that I believed this to be Sir Edward
Grey's view also, and that he was anxious to com-
44

Diplomacy Before the War
municate with the German Government before
hand whenever there was a dhance of German
interests being touched.
He went on to speak of the approaching
Hague Conference, and of the difficulty Germany
.would have if asked to alter the proportion of
her army to her population — a proportion which
rested on a fundamental law. For Germany
alone to object to disarmament would be to put
herself in a hole, and it would be a friendly act
if we could devise some way out of a definite
vote on reduction. Germany might well enter
a conference to record and emphasise the improve
ment all round in international relations, the
desirability of further developing this improve
ment, and the hope that with it the growth of
armaments would cease. But he was afraid of the
kind of initiative which might come from America.
The United States had no sympathy with European
military and naval difficulties.
I said that I thought that we, as a Gk)vern-
ment, were pledged to try to bring about some
thing more definite than what he suggested as a
limit, but that I would report what he had told me.
He then passed to general topics. Lie was
emphatic in his assurance that what Germany
wanted was increase of commercial development.
45

Before the War
Let the nations avoid inflicting pin-pricks, and
leave each other free to breathe the air. He said
that he thought we might have opportunities of
helping them to get the French into an easier
mood. They were difficult and suspicious, he
observed, and it was hard to transact business with
them, for they made trouble over small points.
On my return to London I sent to Herr von
Tschirsky some Englisfh newspapers containing
articles with a friendly tone, so far as the preserva
tion of good relations was concerned. He replied
in a letter from which I translate the material
portion :
"I see with pleasure from the articles which
your Excellency has sent me for his Majesty, and
from other expressions of public opinion in English
newspapers, that in the leading Liberal papers of
England a more friendly tone toward Germany is
making itself apparent. You would have been able
to derive the same impression from reading our
newspapers, with the exception of a few Pan-
German prints. Alas ! papers like The Times,
Morning Post and Standard cannot bring them
selves to refrain from their attitude of dislike, and
are always rejoicing in being suspicious of every
action of the Imperial Government. They contri
bute in this fashion appreciably to render weak the
46

Diplomacy Before the War
new tone of diminishing misunderstanding which
has arisen between the two countries. If I fear
that under these circumstances it will be a long time
before mutual understanding has grown up to the
point at which it stood more than a century ago,
and as you and I desire it in the well-understood
interests of England and Germany, still I hope and
am persuaded that the relations of the two Govern
ments will remain good. ' '
A year after the visit I had paid to Berlin the
.Emperor came over to stay with King Edward at
Windsor. This .was in November, 1907. The visit
lasted several days, and I was present most of the
time. The Emperor iwas accompanied by Baron
von Schoen, who had become Foreign Minister of
Prussia, after having been Ambassador to the
Court of Russia, and by General von Einem, the
War Minister, whose inclusion in the invitation I
had ventured to suggest to the King, as an acknow
ledgment of his civility to myself as War Minister
when in Berlin. There were also at Windsor
Count Metternich and several high military officers
of the Emperor's personal staff and military
cabinet. To these officers and to the War Minister
I showed all the hospitality I could in London, and
I received them officially at the War Office.
But the really interesting incident of this visit,
47

Before the War
so far as I was concerned, took place at Windsor.
The first evening of my visit there, just after his
arrival in November, the Emperor took me aside
and said he was sorry that there was a good deal
of friction over the Bagdad Railway, and that he
did not know what we wanted as a basis for
co-operation. I said that I could not answer for the Foreign
Office, but that, speaking as War Minister, one
thing I knew .we wanted was a " gate " to protect
India from troops coming down the new railway.
He asked me .what I meant by a " gate," and I
said that meant ithe control of the section which
would come near to the Persian Gulf. " I will
give you the 'gate,' " replied the Emperor.
I had no opportunity at the moment, which
was just before dinner, for pursuing the conversa
tion further, but I thought the answer too im
portant not to be followed up. There were private
theatricals after dinner, which lasted till nearly one
o'clock in the morning. I was seated in the
theatre of the Castle just behind the Emperor,
and, as the company broke up, I went forward
and asked him whether he really meant seriously
that he was willing to give us the " gate," because,
if he did mean it, I would go to London early and
see Sir Edward Grey at the Foreign Office.
48

Diplomacy Before the War
Next morning, about 7.30 o'clock, a hehneted
guardsman, one of those whom the Emperor had
brought over with him from Berlin, knocked
loudly at the door and came into my bedroom, and
said that he had a message from ithe Emperor. It
was that he did mean what he had said the night
before. I at once got up and caught a train for
London. There I saw ithe Foreign Secretary,
who, after taking time to think things over, gave
me a memorandum he had drawn up. The sub
stance of it was "that the British Government
would be very glad to discuss the Emperor's sug
gestion, but that it would be necessary, before
making a settlement, to bring into the discussion
France and Russia, whose interests also were in
volved. I was requested to sound the Emperor
further. After telling King Edward of what was hap
pening, I had another conversation in Windsor
Castle with the Emperor, who said that he feared
that the bringing in of Russia particularly, not to
speak of France, would cause difficulty; but he
asked me to come that night, after a performance
that was to take place in the Castle theatre had
ended, to his apartments, to a meeting to which
he would summon the Ministers he had brought
with him. He took the memorandum which I
49

Before the War
had brought from London, a copy of which I had
made for him in my own handwriting, so as to
present it as the informal document it was in
tended to be. Just before dinner Baron von
Schoen spoke to me, and told me that he had
heard from the Emperor what had happened, and
that (the Emperor was wrong in thinking thalt the
attempt to bring in Russia would lead to difficulty,
because he. Baron von Schoen, when he was Am
bassador to Russia, had already discussed the
general question wi)th its Government, and had
virtually come to an understanding. At the
meeting that night we could therefore go on to
negotiate. I alttended the Emperor in his state rooms at
the Castle at one o'clock in the morning, and sat
smoking with him and his Ministers for over two
hours. His Foreign Minister and Count Metter
nich and the War Minister, von Einem, were
present. I said that I felt myself an intruder,
because it was very much like being present at a
sitting of his Cabinet. He replied, " Be a mem
ber of my Cabinet for the evening." I said that
I was quite agreeable.
They then engaged in a very animated con
versation, some of them challenging the proposal of
the Emperor to accept the British suggestions,
so

Diplomacy Before the War
with an outspokenness which would have astonished
the outside world, with its notions of Teutonic
autocracy. Count Metternich did not like what
I suggested, that there should be a conference
in Berlin on the subjedt of the Bagdad Railway
between England, France, Russia and Germany.
In the end, but not until after much keen argu
ment, the idea was accepted, and the Emperor
directed von Schoen to go next morning to
London and make an official proposal to Sir
Edward Grey. This was carried out, and the pre
liminary details were discussed between von
Schoen and Sir Edward at the Foreign Office.
Some weeks afterward difficulties were raised
from Berlin. Germany said that she was ready to
discuss with the British Government the question
of ifche terminal portion of the railway, but she did
not desire to bring the other two Powers into that
discussion, because the conference would probably
fail and accentuate the differences between her and
the other Powers.
The matter thus came to an end. It was, I
think, a great pity, because I have reason to believe,
that the French view was that, if the Bagdad
Railway question could have been settled, one
great obstacle in the way of reconciling German
with French and English interests would have
51

Before the War
disappeared. I came to the conclusion afterward
that it was probably owing to the views of Prince
von Billow that the proposal had come to an
untimely end. Whether he did not wish for an
expanded entente ; whether the feeling was strong
in Germany that the Bagdad Railway had become
a specially German concern and should not be
shared ; or what other reason he may have had, I
do not know; but it was from Berlin, after the
Emperor's return there at the end of Novem
ber, 1907, that the negotiations were finally
blocked. Although these negotiations had no definite
result, they assisted in promoting increasing frank
ness between the two Foreign Offices, and other
things went with more smoothness. Sir Edward
Grey kept France and Russia informed of all we
did, and he was also very open with the Germans.
Until well on in 1911 all went satisfactorily. In
the early part of that year the Emperor came to
London to visit the present King, who had by that
time succeeded to the throne. I had ventured to
propose to the King that during the Emperor's
visit I should, as War Minister, give a luncheon to
the generals who were on his staff. But when the
Emperor heard of this he sent a message that he
would like to come and lunch with me himself, and
52

Diplomacy Before the War
to meet people whom otherwise he might not
see. I acted on my own discretion, and when he
came to luncheon at my house in Queen Anne's
Gate there was a somewhat widely selected party
of about a dozen to meet him. For it included not
only Lord Moriey, Lord Kitchener and Lord
Curzon, whom he .was sure to meet elsewhere, but
Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, who was then leading the
Labour Party, Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, our
great naval commander. Lord Moulton, Mr.
Edmund Gosse, Mr. Sargent, Mr. Spender, the
editor of the Westminster Gazette, and others
representing various types of British opinion. The
Emperor engaged in conversation with everyone,
and all went with smoothness.
He had a great reception in London. But
enthusiasm about him was somewhat damped
when, in July, 1911, not long after his return to
Germany, he sent the afterwards famous warship
Panther to Agadir. The French .were naturally
alarmed, and the situation which had become so
promising was overcast. Our naval arrangements
and our new mihtary organisation were ready, and
our mobilisation plans were fairly complete, as
the German General Staff knew from their mili
tary attache. But the point was, how to avoid an
53

Before the War
outbreak, and to get rid of the feeling and friction
to which the Agadir crisis was giving rise. Our
growing good relations were temporarily clouded.
The sending of the Panther to Agadir was not
a prudent act. It imported either too much or
too little. It is said to have been the plan of Herr
von Kiderlen-Waechter, at that time the Foreign
Secretary and generally a sensible statesman, and
to have been done in spite of misgivings expressed
by the Emperor about its danger. The circum
stances of the moment were such that one cannot
but feel a certain sympathy with the German
perturbation at the time. The anarch of the French
Army to Fez had come on them suddenly, and it
at least suggested a development of French claims
going beyond what Germany had agreed to at the
Algeciras Conference nearly six years previously.
Those who wish to inform themselves about the
commotion the expedition of the French stirred up
in Germany, and of the efforts the Emperor and
Bethmann HoUweg had to make to restrain it, will
do well to read the latter's account of what hap
pened there in the second chapter of his recent
book. But to think that the sending of a German
warship could make things better was to repeat the
error of judgment which had characterised " the
ally in shining armour " speech of the German

Diplomacy Before the War
Emperor to Austria when she formally annexed
Bosnia and Herzegovina three years before.
Instead of using diplomatic methods something
that looked like a threat was allowed to appear,
and the answer was Mr. Lloyd George's well-
known declaration of July 21, 1911, in the City
of London. The sending of the Panther, if
intelligible, was certainly unfortunate.
In the winter, after the actual crisis had been
got over, there was evidence of continuing ill-
feeling in Germany, and the suspicion in London
did not diminish. In January, 1912, an informal
message was given by the Emperor to Sir Ernest
Cassel for transmission through one of my col
leagues to the Foreign Office.* I knew nothing of
this at the time, but learned shortly afterward that
it was to the effect that the Emperor was concerned
at the state of feeling that had arisen in both coun
tries, and thought that the most hopeful method
of improving matters would be that the Cabinet
of St. James's should exchange views directly
with the Cabinet of Berlin. For this course there
was a good deal to be said. The peace had indeed
* This message was the response to a memorandum which Sir
Ernest Cassel had brought to Berlin from some influential members
of the Cabinet in London, and it contained suggestions for the improve
ment of the relations between the two countries. An account of Sir
Ernest Cassel's visit, and of what passed when he delivered his message
from London, is given in Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's recent book.
55

Before the War
been preserved, but, as Herr von Bethmann
HoUweg told me later on, not without effort. The
attitude of Germany toward France had seemed
ominous. The British Government had done all
it could to avert a breach, but its sympathy was
opposed to language used in Germany, the spirit
of which seemed to us to have in it an aggressive
element. We did not hesitate to say what we
thought about this.
Even after ?he Agadir incident was quite
closed, the tension between Germany and Eng
land had not passed away. The military party in
the former country began to talk of a " preven
tive" war pretty loudly. Even so moderalte an
organ in Berlin as the Post wrote of Gksrman
opinion ithat " we all know that blood is assuredly
about Ito be shed, and the longer we wait the more
there will be. Few, however, have the courage to
imitate Frederick the Great, and not one dares
the deed."
The Emperor therefore sent his message in
the beginning of 1912, to the effect that feeling
had become so much excited that it was no!t enough
to rely on ithe ordinary diplomatic initeroourse for
softening it, and thalt he was anxious for an ex
change of views between the Cabinets of Berlin
and London, of a personal and direct kind. As
56

Diplomacy Before the War
the result of this intimaltion, the Britis:h Cabinet
decided to send one of its members to Berlin to
hold " conversations," with a view to exploring
and, if practicable, softening the causes of tension,
and I was requested by the Prime Minister and
Sir Edward Grey and my other colleagues to go
to Berlin and undertake the task. Our Ambas
sador (there caone over to London specially to dis
cuss arrangements, and he returned to Berlin to
make them before I started.
I arrived in the German capital on February 8,
1912, and spent some days in interviews with the
Emperor, the Imperial Chancellor, the Naval
Minister (Admiral von Tirpitz), and others of the
Emperor's Ministry. The narrative of my conver
sations I have extracted from the records I made
after each interview, for the preservation so far as
possible of the actual expressions used during it.
My first interview was one with Herr von
Bethmann Hollweg, the Imperial Chancellor. We
met in the British Embassy, and the conversation,
which was quite informal, was a full and agreeable
one. My impression, and I still retain it, was that
Bethmann Hollweg was then as sincerely desirous
of avoiding war as I was myself. I told him of
certain dangers quite frankly, and he listened and
replied with what seemed to me to be a full under-
E 57

Before the War
standing of our position. I said that the increasing
action of Germany in piling up magnificent arma
ments was, of course, within the unfettered rights
of the German people. But the policy had an
inevitable consequence in the drawing together of
other nations in the interests of their own security.
This was what was happening. I told him frankly
that we had made naval and military preparations,
but only such a.i^^'defence required, and as would
be considered in Germany matter of routine. I
went on to observe that our faces were set against
aggression by any nation, and I told him, what
jseemed to relieve his mind, that we had no secret
military treaties. But, I added, if France were
attacked and an attempt made to occupy her
territory, our neutrality must not be reckoned on
by Germany. For one thing, it was obvious that
our position as an island protected by the sea would
be affected seriously if Germany had possession of
the Channel ports on the northern shores of France.
Again, we were under treaty obligation to come
to the aid of Belgium in case of invasion, just as
we were bound to defend Portugal and Japan in
certain eventuahties. /In the third place, Owing to
our dependence on freedom of sea-communications
for food and raw materials, we could not sit still
if Germany elected to develop her fleet to such an
\ 58

Diplomacy Before the War
extent as to imperil our naval protection. She
imight build more ships, but we should in that case
lay down two keels for each one she laid down.
i The Chancellor said that he did not take my
observations at all in bad part, but I must under
stand that his admirals and generals were pretty
difficult. I replied that the difficulty would be felt at
least as much with the admirals and generals in
my own country.
The Chancellor, in the course of our talk,
proposed a formula of neutrality to which I will
refer later on.
I left the Chancellor jvith the sense that I had
been talking with an honest man struggling some
what with adversity. However, next day I was
summoned to luncheon with the Emperor and
Empress at the Schloss, and afterward had a long
interview, which lasted nearly three hours, with the
Emperor and Admiral von Tirpitz in the Em
peror's cabinet room. The conversation was mainly
in German, and was confined to naval questions.
My reception by the Emperor was very agreeable ;
that by Tirpitz seemed to me a little strained.
The question was, whether Germany must not
continue her programme for expanding her fleet.
What that programme really amounted to we had
59

Before the War
not known in London, except that it included an
increase in battleships ; but the Emperor handed
me at this meeting a confidential copy of the draft
of the proposed new Fleet Law, with an intimation
that he had no objection to my communicating
it privately to my colleagues. I was careful to
abstain even from looking at it then, for I saw
that, from its complexity and bulk, it would
require careful study. So I simply put it in my
pocket. But I repeated what I had said to the
Chancellor, that the necessity for secure sea-
communications rendered it vital for us to be
able to protect ourselves on the seas. Germany
was quite free to do as she pleased, but so were
we, and we should probably lay down two keels
for every one which she added to her programme.
The initiative in slackening competition was really
not with us, but with Germany. Any agreement
for settling our differences and introducing a new
spirit into the relations of the two nations would
be bones without flesh if Germany began by fresh
shipbuilding, and so forced us to do twice as much.
Indeed, the world would laugh at such an agree
ment, and our people would think that we had
been fooled. I did not myself take that view,
because I thought that the mere fact of an agree
ment was valuable. But the Emperor would see
60

Diplomacy Before the War
that the public would attach very little import
ance to his action unless the agreement largely
modified what it believed to be his shipbuilding
programme. We then discussed the proposal of the German
Admiralty for the new programme. Admiral von
Tirpitz struggled for it. I insisted that funda
mental modification was essential if better relations
were to ensue. The tone was friendly, but I felt
that I was up against the crucial part of my task.
The admiral wanted us to enter into some under
standing about our own shipbuilding. He thought
the Two-Power standard a hard one for Germany,
and, indeed, Germany could not make any admis
sion about it.
I said it was not matter for admission. They
were free and so were we, and we must for the
sake of our safety remain so. The idea then
occurred to us that, as we should never agree about
it, we should avoi^ trying to define a standard
proportion in any general agreement that we might
come to, and, indeed, say nothing in it about
shipbuilding; but that the Emperor should an
nounce to the German public that the agreement
on general questions, if we should have concluded
one, had entirely modified his wish for the new
Fleet Law, as originally conceived, and that it
6i

Before the War
should be delayed, and future shipbuilding should
at least be spread over a longer period.
The Emperor thought such an agreement
would certainly make a great difference, and he
informed me that his Chancellor would propose to
me a formula as a basis for it. I said that I would
see the Chancellor and discuss a possible formula,
as well as territorial and other questions with him,
and would then return to London and report to
the King (from whom I had brought him a special
and friendly message) and to my colleagues the
good disposition I had found, and leave the
difficulties about shipbuilding and indeed all other
matters to their judgment. For I had come to
Berlin, not to make an actual agreement, but only
to explore the ground for one with the Emperor
and his ministers. I had been struck with the
friendly disposition in Berlin, and a not less
friendly disposition would be found in London.
The evening after my interview .with the
Emperor I dined with the Chancellor. I met there
and talked with several prominent politicians,
soldiers, and men of letters, including Kiderlen-
Waechter (the then Foreign Secretary), the after
wards famous General von Hindenburg, Zimmer-
mann of the Foreign Office, and Professor
Hamack. 62

Diplomacy Before the War
Later on, after dinner, I went off to meet the
French Ambassador, M. Jules Cambon, at the
British Embassy, for I wished to keep him
informed of our object, which was simply to
improve the state of feeling between London and
Berlin, but on the basis, and only on the basis, of
complete loyalty to our Entente with France. It
.was, to use a phrase which he himself suggested
in our conversation, a dStente rather than an
entente that I had in view, with possible develop
ments to follow it which might assume a form
which .would be advantageous to France and
Russia, as well as to ourselves and Germany. He
showed me next day the report of our talk which
he had prepared in order to telegraph it to Paris.
I had other interviews the next day, but the
only one which is important for the purposes of
the present narrative is that at my final meeting
with the German Chancellor on the Saturday
(February 10). I pressed on him how important
it was for public opinion and the peace of the
world that Germany should not force us into a
shipbuilding competition with her, a competition
in which it was certain that we should have to
spare no effort to preserve our margin of safety
by greater increases.
He did not controvert my suggestion. I could
63

Before the War
see that personally he was of the same mind. But
he said that the forces he had to contend with were
almost insuperable. The question of a retardation
of building under the proposed Fleet Law was not
susceptible of being treated apart from that of the
formula of which he and the Emperor had both
spoken. He suggesited that we might agree on the
following formula :
1. The High Contracting Powers assure each
other mutually of their desire for peace and friend
ship. 2. They will not, either of them, make any
combination, or join in any combination, which
is directed against the other. They expressly
declare that they are not bound by any such
combination. 3. If either of the High Contracting Parties
become entangled in a war with one or more other
powers, the other of the High Contracting Parties
will at least observe toward the power so entangled
a benevolent neutrality, and use its utmost en
deavour for the localization of the conflict.
4, The duty of neutrality which arises from the
preceding article has no application in so far as it
may not be reconcilable with existing agreements
which the High Contracting Parties have already
made. The making of new agreements which make
it impossible for either of the Contracting Parties
to observe neutrality toward the other beyond
64

Diplomacy Before the War
what is provided by the preceding limitations is
excluded in conformity with the provisions con
tained in Article 2.
Anxious as I was to agree with the Chancellor,
who seemed as keen as I was to meet me with ex
pressions which I might take back to England for
friendly consideration, I was unable to hold out to
him the least prospect that we could accept the
draft formula which he had just proposed. Under
Article 2, for example, we should find ourselves,
were it accepted, precluded from coming to the
assistance of France should Germany attack her
and aim at getting possession of such ports as Dun
kirk, Calais, and Boulogne, a friendly occupation
of which was so important for our island security.
Difficulties might also arise which would hamper
us in the discharge of our existing treaty obligations
to Belgium, Portugal, and Japan. The most
hopeful way out was to revise the draft funda
mentally by confining its terms to an undertaking
by each Power not to make any unprovoked attack
upon the other, or join in any combination or design
against the other for purposes of aggression, or
become party to any plan or naval or military com
bination, alone or in conjunction with any other
Power, directed to such an end.
He and I then sat down and redrafted what he
65

Before the War
had prepared, on this basis, but without his
committing himself to Ithe view that i;t would be
sufficient. We also had a satisfactory conversation
about the Bagdad Railway and other things in
Turkey connected with the Persian Gulf, and we
discussed possibilities of the rearrangement of
certain interests of both Powers in Africa. He
said to me that he was not there to make any
immediate bargain, but that we should look at the
African question on both sides from a high point
of view, and that if we had any difficulties we
should tell him, and he would see whether he could
get round them for us.
I replied that I also was not there to make a
bargain, but only to explore the ground, and that
I much appreciated the tone of his conversation
with me, and the good feeling he had shown. I
should go back to London and without delay report
to my colleagues all tliat bad passed.
I entertain no doubt that the German Chan
cellor was sincerely in earnest in what he said to
me on these occasions, and in his desire to improve
relations with us and keep t2ie i>eace. So I think
was the Emperor; but he was pulled at by his
naval and military advisers, and by the powerful,
if then small, chauvinist party in Germany. In
1912, when the conversations recorded took place,
66

Diplomacy Before the War
this party .was less potent, I think a good deal less,
than it appears to have become a year and a half
later, when Germany had increased her army still
further. But I formed the opinion even then that
the power of the Emperor in Gennany was a good
deal misinterpreted and overestimated. My im
pression was that the really decisive influence was
that of the Minister who had (managed to secure
the strongest following throughout Germany ; and
it was obvious to me that Admiral von Tirpitz
had a powerful and growing following from many
directions, due to the backing of the naval party.
Moreover, sensible as a large number of
Germans were, there was a certain tendency to
swelled-headedness in the nation. It had had an
extraordinarily rapid development, based on prin
ciples of organisation in every sphere of activity —
principles derived from the lesson of the necessity
of thinking before acting enjoined by the great
teachers of the beginning of the nineteenth cen
tury. The period down to albout 1832 seems to
me to correspond, in the intellectual prodigies it
produced, to our Elizabethan period. It came no
doubt to an end in its old and distinctive aspect.
But its spirit assumed, later on, a new form, that^
of organisation for material ends based on careful
reflection and calculation. In industry, in com-
67

Before the War
merce, in the army, and in the navy, the work of
mind was everywhere apparent. " Aus einem
Lernvolk wollen wir ein Thatvolk werden " was
the new watchword.
No doubt there .was much that was defective.
When it came to actual war in 1914, it turned out
that Germany had not adequately thought out her
military problems. If she had done so, she would
have used her fleet at the very outset, and particu
larly her destroyers and submarines, to try to
hinder the transport of the British Expeditionary
Force to France, and, having secured the absence
of this force, she would have sought to seize the
northern ports of France. Small as the Expedi
tionary Force was, it was enough, when added to
the French armies, to make them so formidable as
to render the success of von Kliick uncertain if the
troops could be concentrated to resist him swiftly
enough. Again, Germany never really grasped
the implications of our command of the sea. Had
she done so, I do not think she would have adven
tured war. She may have counted on England not
coming in, owing to entanglements in Irish diffi
culties. If so, this was just another instance of
her bad judgment about the internal affairs of
other nations.
In fine, Germany had not adequately thought
68

Diplomacy Before the War
out or prepared for the perils which she undertook
when she assumed the risks of the war of 1914.
No doubt she knew more about the shortcomings
of the Russian army than did the French or the
British. On these, pretty exact knowledge of the
Russian shortages enabled her to reckon. There
we miscalculated more than she did. But she was
not strong enough to make sure work of a brief
but conclusive campaign in the West, which was
all she could afford while Russia was organising.
Then, later on, she ought to have seen that, if the
submarine campaign which she undertook should
bring the United States into .the war, her ultimate
fate would be sealed by blockade. In the end she
no doubt fought magnificently. But she made
these mistakes, which were mainly due to that
swelled-headedness which deflected her reasoning
and prevented her from calculating consequences
aright. There was a good deal of this apparent even in
1912i It had led to the Agadir business in the
previous summer, and the absence of wise prevision
was still apparent. I believed that this phase of
militarism would pass when Imperial Germany
became a more mature nation. Indeed, it was
passing under the growing influence of Social
Democracy, which was greatly increased by the
69

Before the War
elections which took place .while I was in Berlin
in 1912.* But still there was the possibility of an
explosion; and when I returned to London,
although I was full of hope that relations between
the two countries were going to be improved, and
told my colleagues so, I also reported that there
.were three matters about which I was uneasy.
The first was my 'strong impression that the
new Fleet Law would be insisted on.
The second was the possibility that Tirpitz
might be made Chancellor of the Empire in place
of Bethmann Hollweg. This was being talked of
as possible when I was in Berlin.
^ The (third .was the want of continuity in the
supreme direction of German policy. Foreign
policy especially was under divided control. Von
Tschirsky observed to me in 1906 that what he
* An anecdote illustrating the change that was coming over
political opinion in Germany in 1912, may be worth relating. I was
present at a supper party, given by one of the professors in a well-
known German University town, In May of that year. I asked him
whether the old Conservative member who had for long represented the
town had been again returned. " Returned I no," he replied. " It
was impossible to return a man of moderate opinions. 'We only
escaped a Social Democrat by a few votes. We managed to get
enough of the popular vote to return a fairly sensible railway servant
for this University town." I inquired what party he belonged to.
" No old party," was his answer, " and it will interest you to know
that his programme was an English one; Lloyd Georgianismus."
I then inquired what was his text book. "Die Reden von Lloyd
George," was the answer. " Did it contain anything about a place called
Limehouse ? " " Limhaus, ach ja ; das war eine vorlreffliche Rede I "
70

Diplomacy Before the War
had been saying about a question we were discuss
ing represented his view as Foreign Minister of
Prussia, but that next door was the Chancellor,
who might express quite a different view to me
if I asked him; and that if, later on, I went to
the end of the Wilhelmstrasse and turned down
Unter den Linden I .would come to the Schloss,
where I might derive from the Emperor's lips an
iimpression quite different from that given by either
himself or the Chancellor. This made me feel that,
desirous as Bethmann Hollweg had shown himself
to establish and preserve good relations, we could
not count on his influence being maintained or
prevailing. As an eminent foreign diplomatist
observed, " In this higTily organised nation, when
you have ascended to the very top story you find
not only confusion but chaos."
However, after I had reported fully on all the
details and the Foreign Office had received my
written report, matters were taken in hand by Sir
Edward Grey, and by him I was kept informed.
Presently it became apparent that there were those
in Berlin who were interfering with the Chancellor
in his efforts for good relations. A dispatch came
which was inconsistent with the line he had pursued
with me, and it became evident that the German
Government was Hkely to insist on proceeding with
71

Before the W^ar
the new Fleet Law. When we looked closely into
the copy of the draft which the Emperor had given
to me, we found very large increases contemplated,
of which we had no notion earlier, not only in the
-battleships, about which we did know before, but
in small craft and submarines and personnel. As
these increases were to proceed further, discussion
about the terms of a formula became rather futile,
and we had only one course left open to us — to
respond by quietly increasing our navy and con
centrating its strength in northern seas. This
was done with great energy by Mr. Churchill, the
result being that, as the outcome of the successive
administrations of the fleet by Mr. McKenna and
himself, the estimates were raised by over twenty
millions sterling to fifty-one millions.
In the summer of 1912 I became Lord Chan
cellor, and the engrossing duties, judicial as well
as administrative, of that office cut me off from any
direct participation in the carrying on of our efforts
for better relations with Germany, But these
relations continued to be extended in the various
ways practicable and left open to Sir Edward Grey
and the German Chancellor. The discussions which
had been begun when I was in Berlin, about Africa
and the Bagdad Railway, were continued between
them through the Ambassadors; and just before
72

Diplomacy Before the War
the war the draft of an extensive treaty had been
agreed on.
Then, after an interval of two years, came a
time of extreme anxiety. No one had better
opportunties than I of watdiing Sir Edward's
concentration of effort to avoid the calamity which
threatened. For he was living with me in my
house in Queen Anne's Gaite through the whole of
these weeks, and he was devoting himself, with
passionate earnestness of purpose, to inducing the
German Government to use its influence with/
Austria for a peaceful settlement. But it presently
became evident that the Emperor and his Ministers
had made up their minds that they were going to
make use of an opportunity that appeared to have
come. As I have already said, I think their cal
culations were framed on a wholly erroneous basis.
It is clear that their military advisers had failed to
take account, in their estimates of probabilities, of
the tremendous moral forces that might be brought
into action against them. The ultimate result we
all know. May the lesson taught to the world by
the determined entry of the United States into th^
conflict between right and wrong never be for
gotten by the world ! 1
Why Germany acted as she did then is a matter
that still requires careful investigation. My own
.1' 7^

Before the War
feeling is that she has demonstrated the extreme
risk of confiding great political decisions to mili
tary advisers. It is not their business to have the
last word in deciding between peace and war. The
problem is too far-reaching for their training. Bis
marck knew this well, and often said it, as students
of his life and reflections are aware. Had he been
at the helm I do not believe that he would have
allowed his country to drift into a disastrous course.
He was far from perfect in his ethical standards,
but he had something of that quality which Momm-
sen, in his history, attributes to Julius Csesar. Him
the historian describes as one of those " mighty
ones who has preserved to the end of his career the
statesman's tact of discriminating between the
possible and the impossible, and has not broken
down in the task which for greatly gifted natures
is the most difficult of all — the task of recognising,
when on the pinnacle of success, its natural limits.
What was possible he performed, and never left
the possible good undone for the sake of the im
possible better ; never disdained at least to mitigate
by paUiatives evils that were incurable. But where
he recognised that fate had spoken, he always
obeyed. Alexander on the Hypanis, Napoleon at
Moscow, turned back because they were compelled
to do so, and were indignant at destiny for bestow-
74

Diplomacy Before the War
ing even on its favourites merely limited successes.
Csesar turned back voluntarily on the Thames and
on the Rhine, and thought of carrying into effect
even at the Danube and the Euphrates, not un
bounded plans of world-conquest, but merely well-
considered frontier regulations."
If only Germany, whose great historian thus
explained these things, had remembered them,
how different might have been her position to-day.
But it may be that she had carried her policy too
far to be left free. With her certainly rests the
main responsibility for what has happened ; for
apart from her, Austria would not have acted as she
did, nor would Turkey, nor Bulgaria. The fas
cinating glitter of her armies, and the assurances
given by her General Staff, were too much for the
minor nations whom she had induced to accept her
guidance, and too much I think also for her own
people. No doubt the ignorance of these about
the ways of their own Government counted for a
great deal. There has never been such a jusitifica-
tion of the principle of democratic control as this
war affords. But a nation must be held responsible
for the action of its own rulers, however much
it has simply submitted itself to them. I have
the impression that even to-day in its misery the
German public does not fully understand, and still
75

Before the War
believes that Germany was the victim of a plot
to entrap and encircle her, and that with this in
view Russia mobilised on a great scale for war. It
is difficult for us to understand how real the Slav
peril appeared to Germany and to Austria, and
there is little doubt that to the latter Serbia was an
unquiet neighbour. But these considerations must
be taken in their context — a context of which the
German public ought to have made itself fully
aware. The leaders of its opinion were bent on
domination to the Near East. No wonder that
the Slavs in the Balkan Peninsula became progres
sively alarmed, and looked to Russia more and
more for protection. For it had become plain that
moral considerations would not be allowed by
the authorities at Berlin to weigh in the balance
against material advantages to be gained by power
of domination. If there is room for reproach to us Anglo-
Saxons, it is reproach of a very different kind.
Germany was quite intelligent enough to listen to
reason, and, besides, she had the prospect of
becoming the dominating industrial and com
mercial power in the world by dint merely of
peaceful penetration. It is possible that, if her
relations with her Western neighbours, including
Great Britain, had been more intimate than they
76

Diplomacy Before the War
actually were, she might have been saved from a
great blunder, and might have come to understand
that the English-speaking races were riot really so
inferior to herself as she took them to be. Her
hubris was in part, at all events, the result of
ignorance. Speaking for my own countrymen, I
think that neither did we know enough about the
Gtermans nor did the Germans know enough about
us. They were ignorant of the innate capacity for
fighting, in industrial and military conflicts alike,
which our history shows we have always hitherto
brought to light in great emergencies. And
they little realised how tremendously moral issues
could stir and unite democracies. We, on the
other hand, knew little of their tradition, their
literature, or their philosophy. Our statesmen
did not read their newspapers, and rarely visited
their country. We were deficient in that quality
which President Murray Butler has spoken of as
the "international mind."
I do not know whether, had it been otherwise,
we could have brought about the better state of
things in Europe for which I tried to express the
hope, although not without misgiving, in the
address on " Higher Nationality " which I was
privileged to deliver before distinguished repre
sentatives of the United States and of Canada at
77

Before the War
Montreal on September 1, 1918. I spoke then of
the possibility of a larger entente, an entente which
might become a real concert of the Great Powers
of the world ; and I quoted the great prayer .with
which Grotius concludes his book on "War and
Peace." There was at least the chance, if we
strove hard enough, that we might find a response
from the best in other countries, and in the end
attain to a new and real Sittlichkeit which should
provide a firmer basis for International Law and
reverence for international obligations. But for
the realisation of this dream a sustained and
strenuous search after fuller mutual knowledge
was required.
After this address had been published, I
received a letter from the German Chancellor,
Bethmann Hollweg, in which — writing in German
and so late as September 26, 1913 — ^he expressed
himself to me as follows :
" If I had the happiness of finding myself in one
mind with you in these thoughts in February 1912,
it has been to me a still greater satisfaction that our
two countries have since then had a number of oppor
tunities of working together in this spirit. Like you,
I hold the optimistic view that the great nations will
be able to progress further on this path, and will do so.
Anyhow, I shall, in so far as it is within my power,
devote my energies to this cause, and I am happy in
78

Diplomacy Before the War
the certainty of finding in you an openly declared
fellow-worker." But events swept him from a course which, so
far as I know, he at least individually desired to
follow. The great increase of armaments took
place that year in Germany, and, when events
were too strong for him, he elected, not to resign,-'
but to throw in his lot with his country. His
position was one of great difficulty. He took a
course for which many would applaud him. But
inherently a wrong course, surely. What he said
when Belgium was invaded in breach of solemn
treaty shows that he felt this. He let himself be
swept into devoting his energies to bolstering up
his country's cause, instead of resigning. His
career only proves that, given the political con
ditions that obtained in Germany shortly before
the war, it was almost impossible for a German
statesman to keep his feet or to avoid being untrue
to himself. And yet there were many others there
in the same frame of mind, and one asks oneself
whether, had they had more material to work with,
they might not have been able to present a more
attractive alternative than the notion of military
domination which in the end took possession of all,
from the Emperor downwards.
It is, however, useless to speculate at present
79

Before the War
on these things. We know too little of the facts.
The historians of another generation will know
more. But of one thing I feel sure. The Germans
think that Great Britain declared war of pre
conceived purpose and her own initiative. There
is a sense in which she did. The opinion of Mr.
Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, and of those of us
who were by their side, was unhesitating. She
could not have taken any other course than she did
without the prospect of ruin and failure to enter
on the only path of honour. For honour and
safety alike necessitated that she should take,
without the delay which would have been fatal, the
step she did take immediately and unswervingly.
The responsibility for her entry comes back wholly
to Glermany herself, who would not have brought
it about had she not plunged into war. And
to-day Germany lies prostrate.
But she is not dead. I do not think that for
generations to come she will dream of building
again on military foundations. Her people have
had a lesson in the overwhelming forces which are
inevitably called into action where there is brutal
indifference to the moral rights of others. What
remains to her is that which she has inherited and
preserved of the results of the great advancement
in knowledge whieh began under the inspiration
80

Diplomacy Before the War
of Lessing and Kant, and culminated in the teach
ing of Goethe and Schiller and of the thinkers who
were their contemporaries. That movement only
came to a partial end in 1882. No doubt its
character changed after that. The idealists in
poetry, music, and philosophy gave place to great
men of science, to figures such as those of Ludwig
and Liebig, of Gauss, Riemann, and Helmholtz.
There came also historians like Ranke and Momm-
sen, musicians like Wagner, philosophers like
Schopenhauer and Lotze, a statesman like Bis
marck, To-day there are few men of great stature
in Germany ; there are, indeed, few men of genius
anywhere in the world. But Germany still has a
high general level in science, and of recent years
she has produced great captains of industry. The
gift for organisation founded on principle, and for
applying science to practical uses, was there before
the war, and it is very unsafe to assume that it is
not there in a latent form to-day. If it is,
Germany will be heard of again with a field of
activity that probably will not include devotion to
military affairs in the old way. Against her com
petition of this other kind, formidable as soon as
she has recovered from her misery, we must
prepare ourselves in the only way that can succeed
in the long run. We, too, must study and
8i

Before the War
organise ton the basis of widely diffused exact
knowledge, and not less of high ethical standards.
I think, if I read the signs of the times aright,
that people are coming to realise this, both in
the United States and throughout the British
Empire.

82

CHAPTER III
THE GERMAN ATTITUDE BEFORE THE WAR
We now have before us the considered opinions of
Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, the late Imperial
Chancellor, and of Admiral von Tirpitz, the
Minister who did much to develop the naval power
of Germany, about the origin and significance of
the war. Both have .written books on the subject.*
It is to be desired that in the case of each of these
authors his book should be studied in English-
speaking countries as well as on the Continent.
For it is important that the Anglo-Saxon world
should understand the divergences in policy which
the two books disclose, not less than the points of
agreement. That world has suffered in the past
from failure to understand Germany, while the
German world has displayed a total inability to
interpret aright the Anglo-Saxon disposition.
When I speak of two worlds I mean the governing
classes of these worlds. The nations themselves,
* " Betrachtungen Zum Weltkriege," Th. von Bethmann Hollweg.
" Errinnerungen," Alfred von Tirpitz. Both translated Into English
under the titles : " Reflections on the World War," and " My
Memoirs." 83

Before the War
taken as aggregates of individual citizens, by a
probable majority in each case, desired the continu
ance of peace and of the prosperity of .which it is
the condition. So, of course, did the rulers, those
in Germany as much as those in London. But the
German rulers had a theory of how to secure peace
which was the outcome of the abstract mind that
was their inheritance. It was the theory that was
wrong, a theory of which Anglo-Saxondom knew
little, and which it would have rejected decisively
had it realised its tendency. This theory is de
scribed in Admiral Tirpitz 's book, with an account
of the efforts made to indoctrinate with it the
people of Germany.
The two volumes are profoundly interesting.
For in that of Admiral Tirpitz we have the doctrine
set forth that in the end led to the war. In that
written by the late Imperial Chancellor we have
quite another principle laid down as the one which
he was endeavourihg to apply in his direction of
German poHcy, But in this endeavour he failed.
The school of Tirpitz in the main prevailed, and
this was the more easy, inasmuch as it was simply
continuing the policy which had been advocated by
a noisy section of Germans, nearly without a
break, since the days of Frederick the Great, It
was a policy which had in reality outUved the days
84

The German Attitude
in which it was practicable. The world had become
too crowded and too small to permit of any one
Power asserting its right to jostle its way where it
pleased without regard to its neighbours. An affair
of police on a colossal scale had begun to look as
if it would ensue, and ensue it ultimately did. No
doubt had we all been cleverer we might have been
able to explain to Germany whither she was head
ing. But we did not understand her, least of all
our chauvinists, nor did she understand us. In the
main what she really wanted was to develop herself
by the application of her talent for commerce and
industry. To her success in attaining this end we
had no objection, provided her procedure was'
decent and in order. But she chose a means to her
end which was becoming progressively more and
more inadmissible. Tirpitz describes the illegiti
mate means. Bethmann Hollweg describes the
legitimate end. Tirpitz thinks Bethmann Hollweg
was a weakling because he would not back up the
means. Bethmann Hollweg, firm in his faith that
the end was legitimate and thinking of this alone,
dwells on it with little reference to what his col
league was about. His accusation against the
Entente Powers is that, at the instigation of Russia
primarily, and in a less degree of France, they set
themselves to ring round and crush Germany. It
8s

Before the War
was really, he believes, a war of aggression, and
England was ultimately responsible for it. With
out her co-operation it was impossible, and
although she did not enter into any formal military
alUance for the purpose, she began in the time of
Edward VII. a policy of close friendship which
enabled Russia and France in the end to reckon
on her as morally bound to help. It was easy for
these Powers to represent as a defensive war what
was really a war of aggression. Such was truly its
nature, and England decided to join in it, actually
because she was jealous of Germany's growing
success in the world, and was desirous of setting a
check to it.
Such is Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's ex
planation. He is, I have no doubt, sincerely
convinced of its truth, and he explains the grounds
of his conviction in detail and with much ability.
But there is a fallacy in his reasoning which
becomes transparent when one reads along with his
book that of his colleague. If we put out of sight
the deep feeling awakened here by the bnitality
of the invasion of Belgium, to which violation of
Treaty obligations the former declares that Ger
many was compelled by military considerations that
were unanswerable, and look at the history of
Anglo-German relations before the war, the
86

The German Attitude
inference is irresistible that it was not the object of
developing in a peaceful atmosphere German com
merce and industry that England objected to. Such
a development might have been formidable for
us. It .would have compelled great efforts on our
part to improve the education of our people and our
organisation for peaceful enterprises. But it would
have been legitimate. The objection of this country
.was directed against quite other things that were
being done by Germany in order to attain her
purpose. The essence of these was the attempt to
get her way by creating armaments which should
in effect place her neighbours at her mercy. We
w'ho live on islands, and are dependent for our food
and our raw materials on our being able to protect
their transport and with it ourselves from in
vasion, could not permit the sea-protection which
had been recognised from generation to generation
as a necessity for our preservation to be threatened
by the creation of naval forces intended to make it
precarious. As the navies of Europe were growing,
not only those of France and Russia, but that of
Italy also, we had to look, in the interests of our
security, to friendly relations with these countries.
We aimed at establishing such friendly relations,
and our method was to get rid of all causes of
friction, in Newfoundland, in Egypt, in the East,
87

Before the War
and in the Mediterranean. That was the policy
which was impUed in our Ententes. We were not
willing to enter into military alliances and we did
not do so. Our policy was purely a business policy,
and everything else was consequential on this,
including the growing sense of common interests
and of the desire for the maintenance of peace. I
do not think that Admiral Tirpitz wanted actual
war. But he did want power to enforce submission
to the expansion of Germany at her will. And this
power was his means to the end which was what
less Prussianised minds in Germany contemplated
as attainable in less objectionable ways. Such a
means he could not fashion in the form of strength
in sea power which would have placed us at his
mercy, without arousing our instinct for self-
preservation. All this the late Imperial Chancellor in sub
stance ignores. The fact is that he can only defend
his theory on the hypothesis that no such policy as
that of his colleague was on foot, and that the truth
was that France, Russia, and England had come
to a decision to take the initiative in a policy em
bracing, for France revenge for the loss of Alsace
and Lorraine, for Russia the acquisition of Con
stantinople with domination over the Balkans and
the Bosphorus, and for England the destruction of

The German Attitude
German commerce. If this hypothesis is not true,
and the real explanation of the alarm of the Entente
Powers was the policy exemplified by Tirpitz and
the other exponents of German mihtarism, then
the whole of the reasoning in Herr von Bethmann
Hollweg's book falls to the ground.
It may be asked how it was possible that two
members of the Imperial Government should have
been pursuing in the same peribd two policies
wholly inconsistent with each other. The answer
is not difficult. The direction of affairs in Ger
many was admirably organised for some purposes
and very badly for others. Her autocratic system
lent itself to efficiency in the preparation of arma-
^ments. But it was not really a system under which
her Emperor was left free to guide policy. There
is no greater mistake made than that under which
it is popularly supposed that the Emperor was
absolute master. The development in recent years
of the influence of the General and Admiral
Staffs, which was a necessity from the point of
view of modern organisation for war but required
keeping in careful check from other points of view,
had produced forces which the Emperor was power
less to hold in. Even in Bismarck's time readers
of his "Reflections and Recollections" will re
member how he felt the embarrassment of his
G 89

Before the War
foreign policy caused by the growing and deflecting
influences of Moltke, and even of his friend Roon.
And there was no Bismarck to hold the Staffs
in check for reasons of expediency in the years
before 1914, The military mind when it is highly
developed is dangerous. It sees only its own bit,
but this it sees with great clearness, and in con
sequence becomes very powerful. There is only
one way of holding it to its legitimate function,
and that is by the supremacy of public opinion in
a Parliament as its final exponent. Parliaments
may be clumsy and at times ignorant. But they
do express, it may be vaguely, but yet sufficiently,
the sense of the people at large. Now, notwith
standing all that had been done to educate them up
to it, I do not think that the people at large in
Germany had ever endorsed the implications of the
policy of German militarism. The Social Demo
crats certainly had not. They ought, I think, to
be judged even now by what they said before the
war, and not by what some, though not all o£
them, said when it was pressed on them in 1914
that Germany had to fight for her life. Had she
possessed a true Parliamentary system for a genera
tion before the war there would probably have
been no war. What has happened to her is a
vindication of Democracy as the best political
90

The German Attitude
system despite certain drawbacks which attach
to it. The great defect of the German Imperial system
was that, unless the Emperor was strong enough
to impose his will on his advisers, he was largely
at their mercy. Had they been chosen by the
people, the people and not the Emperor would
have borne the responsibility, if the views of these
advisers diverged from their own. But they were
chosen by the Emperor, and chosen in varying
moods as to policy. The result was that, excellent
as were the departments at their special work in
most cases, on general policy there was no guaran
tee for unity of mind. The Emperor lived amid a
sea of conflicting opinions. The Chancellor might
have one idea, the Foreign Secretary, a Prussian
and not Imperial Minister, a different one, the
Chief of the General Staff a third, the War
Minister a fourth, and the Head of the Admiralty a
fifth. Thus the Kaiser was constantly being pulled
at from different sides, and whichever Minister had
the most powerful combination at his back
generally got the best of the argument. Were the
Kaiser in an impulsive mood he might side now
with one and again with another, and the result
would necessarily be confusion. Moreover, he had
constantly to fix one eye on public opinion in
91

Before the War
Germany, and another on pubUc opinion abroad.
It is therefore not surprising that Germany seemed
to foreigners a strange and unintelligible country,
and that sudden manifestations of policy were
made which shocked us here, accustomed as we
were to something quite different. Neither our
pacifists nor our chauvinists really succeeded in
diagnosing Germany. On the other hand, we our
selves were a standing puzzle to the Germans.
They could not understand how Government
could be conducted in iJie absence of abstract
principles exactly laid down. And because our
democratic system was one of choosing our rulers
and trusting them with a large discretion within
limits, the Germans always suspected that this
system, with which they were unfamiliar, covered
a device for concealing hidden policies. I wrote
in some detail about this in an address delivered
at Oxford in the autumn of 1911, and afterwards
published in a little volume called " Universities
and National Life."
The war has not altered the views to which I
had then come.
But it was not really so on either side, and it is
deplorable that the two nations knew so little of
each other. For I believe that the German sys
tem, wholly unadapted as it was to the modem
92

The German Attitude
spirit, was bound to become modified before long,
and had we shown more skill and more zeal in ex
plaining ourselves, we should probably have
accelerated the process of Gierman acceptance of
the true tendencies of the age. But our states
men took little trouble to get first-hand knowledge
of ithe genesis of what appeared to them to be the
German double dose of original sin, and, on the
other hand, our chauvinists were studied in Ger
many out of all proportion to their small number.
and influence. Thus the Berlin politicians got the
wrong notions to which their tradition predis
posed them. I believe that Herr von Bethmann
Hollweg was himself really more enlightened, but
he could not control the admirals and generals,
or the economists or historians or professors whom
the admirals and generals were always trying to
enlist on the side of the doctrine of Weltmacht
oder Niedergang. Under these circumstances
all that seemed possible was to try to influence
German opinion, and at the same time to insure
against the real risk of failure to accomplish this
before it was too late.
In order to make tiiis view of German condi
tions inteUigible, it will be convenient in the first
place to give some account of Herr von Bethmann
Hollweg's opinions as expressed in his book, and
93

Before the War
afterwards to contrast them with the views of his
powerful colleague. Admiral von Tirpitz.
The ex-Imperial Chancellor commences his
"Betrachtungen zum Weltkriege" by going
back to the day when he assumed office. When
Prince Bulow handed over the reins to him in
July, 1909, the Prince gave him his views on what,
in the attitude of England, had been causing the
former much concern. We are not told what he
actually said, but we can guess it, for Bethmann
Hollweg goes on to indicate the origin of the cause
of anxiety. It was King Edward's " encircle
ment " policy. It might well be that the late King
had no desire for war. But the result of the policy
for which he and the Ministers behind him stood
was, so he believes, that, in all differences of
opinion as to external policy, Germany found
England, France and Russia solidly against her,
and was conscious of a continuous attempt to lead
Italy away from the Triple Alliance. " People
may call this ' Einkreisung,' or policy of the
balance of power, or .whatever they like. The
object and the achievement resulted in the found
ing of a group of nations of great power, whose
purpose was to hinder Germany at least by dip
lomatic means in the free development of her
growing strength." Sir Edward Grey, when
94

The German Attitude
taking over the conduct of foreign policy in 1905,
had declared that he would continue the policy of
the late Government. He hoped for improved
relations with Russia, and even for more satisfac
tory relations with Germany, provided alwavs that
in the latter case these did not interfere with the
friendship between England and France. This,
says Bethmann Hollweg, had been the theme of
English policy since the end of the days of
" splendid isolation," and it remained so until the
war broke out. He says nothing of the rapid ad
vances which were proceeding from stage to stage
in the organisation of German battle fleets to be
added to her formidable army, or of the risk these
advances made for England if she were to find her
self without any friends outside.
As regards Russia, Isvolsky, .who had never
forgiven the Austrian Foreign Minister, Count
d'Aerenthal, for his diplomatic victory in getting
the annexation to Austria of Bosnia and Herze
govina in 1908, was very hostile to Austria, and
consequently to her Ally. In the case of France,
again, it was indeed true that M. Jules Cambon
had repeatedly emphasised to the ex-Chancellor the
desire for more intimate relations between France
and Germany. But the French had never forgiven
the driving of Delcasse out of office, and the
95

Before the War
result of the Algeciras conference had not healed
the wound. Besides this, there^was the undying
question of Alsace-Lorraine.
The outcome of the precarious situation, says
the ex-Chancellor, was that England, following
her traditional policy of balancing the Powers of
Europe, was taking a firm position on the side of
France and Russia, while Germany was increasing
her naval power and giving a very definite direc
tion to her policy in the East. The commercial
rivalry between England and Germany was being
rendered acute politically by the growth of the
German fleet. In this state of things Bethmann
Hollweg formed the opinion that there was only
one thing that could be done, to aim at withdraw
ing from the Dual Alliance the backing of Eng
land for its anti-German policy. The Emperor
entirely agreed with him, and it was resolved to
attempt to attain this purpose by coming to an
understanding with England.
Reading between the lines, it is pretty obvious
that the ex-Chancellor was at times embarrassed
by the public utterances of his imperial Master,
Him he defends throughout the book with con
spicuous loyalty, and is emphatic about his desire
to keep the peace, a desire founded in religious
conviction. But the Emperor's way was to see
96

The German Attitude
only one thing at the moment. I translate* a
passage from his Chancellor's book :
" If from time to time he indulged in passionate
expressions about the strong position in the world
of Germany, his desire was that the nation, whose
development beyond all expectation was filling him
with conscious pride, should be spurred on to fresh
heightening of its energies. He sought to give it
a continuous impulse with the energy of his en
thusiastic nature. He wished his people to be
strong and powerful in capacity to arm for their
defence, but the German mission, which was for
him a consuming faith, was yet to be a mission of
work and of peace. That this work and this peace
should not be destroyed by the dangers that sur
rounded us, was his increasing anxiety. Again and
again has the Kaiser told me that his journey to
Tangier in 1904, as to which hewas quite unaware
that it would lead to dangerous complications, was
undertaken much against his own will, and only
under pressure from his political advisers. More
over, his personal influence was strongly exerted
for a settlement of the Morocco crisis of 1905. And
the same sense of the need of peace gave rise to his
attitude during the Boer War and also during the
* In both cases I am writing with the books before me in the
original. 97

Before the War
Russo-Japanese War. To a ruler who really
wanted war, opportunities for military intervention
in the affairs of the world were truly not lacking.
" Critics in Germany had in that period fre
quently pressed the point that a too frequent insist
ence in public on our readiness for peace was less
likely to further it than, on the contrary, to
strengthen the Entente in its policy of altering the
status quo. In a period of Imperialism in .which
the talk about material power was loud, and in
which the preservation of the peace of the world
was considered only accidentally, like the ten years
before the war, considerations such as these are
undoubtedly full of significance, and perhaps the
same sort of thing explains a good deal of strong
language on the part of the Kaiser about Ger
many's capacity in case of war. It is certain that
such utterances did not lessen the feeling of nerv
ousness that filled the international atmosphere.
But the true ground of such nervousness was the
policy of the balance of power, which had split
Europe into two armed camps full of distrust of
each other. The Ambassadors of the Great Powers
knew the Kaiser intimately enough to realise what
his intentions, in spite of everything, were, and it
required an untruthfulness only expUcable by the
psychological effect of war to permit the suggestion
98

The German Attitude
of a hateful and distorted picture of him as a tyrant
seeking for the domination of the world and for
war and bloodshed."
I have translated this passage from the book
because I think it is instructive in its disclosure of
uneasy self-consciousness on the part of the author.
Obviously, the Emperor made his quiet-loving
Minister at times uncomfortable. I do not doubt
that the Emperor really desired peace, just as Herr
von Bethmann Hollweg tells us. Yet he not only
indulged himself in .warlike talk, but was sur
rounded by a group of military and naval advisers
who were preaching openly that war was inevitable,
and were instructing many of the prominent intel
lectual leaders in their doctrine. The Emperor
may well have been in a difficult situation. But
he was playing with fire when he made such
speeches to the world as he frequently did. I
believe him to have most genuinely desired to keep
the peace. But I doubt whether he was willing to
pay the price for entry on the only path along
which it could have been made secure. He was
a man of many sides, with a genius for speaking
winged words as part of his equipment. He was a
dangerous leader for Germany under conditions
which had already caused even a Bismarck concern.
99

Before the War
The result was that the world took him to be the
ally, not of Bethmann Hollweg, but of Tirpitz,
and what that meant we shall see when we come to
the latter's book. I cannot say that I think the
judgment of the world was other than, to put the
matter at its lowest, the natural and probable result
of his language, and I find nothing in the ex-
Chancellor's volume to lead me to a different
conclusion. The argument of that volume is that England
should never have entered the Entente, for that by
doing so she strengthened France and Russia so as
to enable them to indulge the will for war. He
assumes that there was this will as beyond doubt.
But suppose England had not entered the Entente,
what then? On Herr von Bethmann Hollweg's
own showing France and Russia would have
remained too weak to entertain the hope of success
in a conflict with the Triple Alliance. Germany
could, under these circumstances, have herself
compelled these Powers to an entente or even an
alliance. England .would have been in such a case
left in isolation in days in which isolation had ceased
to be " splendid." For great as was her navy, it
could not have been relied upon as sufficient to
protect her adequately against the combined navies
of Germany, France, Russia and Austria, with that
IOC

The German Attitude
of Italy possibly added. It was the apprehension
occasioned by Germany's warlike pohcy that made
it an unavoidable act of prudence to enter into the
Entente. It .was our only means of making our
sea power secure and able to protect us against
threats of invasions by great Continental armies.
The Emperor and his Chancellor should therefore
have thought of some other way of securing the
peace than that of trying to detach us from the
Entente. The alternative was obvious. Germany should
have offered to cease to pile up armaments, if our
desire for friendly relations all round could be so
extended as to bring aU the Powers belonging to
both groups into them, along .with England. But
the German policy of relying on superior strength
in armaments as the true guarantee of peace
did not admit of this. I am no admirer of the
principle of the balance of power. I should like
to say good-bye to it. I prefer the principle
of a League of Nations, if that be practicable, or,
at the very least, of an Entente comprising all the
Powers. But if neither of these alternatives be
possible there remains, for the people who desire
to be secure, only the method of the balance of
power. Now Germany drove us to this by her
indisposition to change her traditional policy and
lOI

Before the War
to be content to rely on the settlement of specific
differences for the good feeling that always tends
to result. She had, it is ttue, the misfortune for
so strong a nation to have been born a hundred
years too late. She had got less in Africa than she
might have had. We were ready to help her to a
place in the sun there and elsewhere in the world,
and to give up something for this end, if only we
could secure peace and contentment on her part.
But she would not have it so, and she chose to
follow the principle of relying on the " Mailed
Fist." Of this policy, when pursued recklessly,
Bismarck well understood the danger, " Prestige
pohtics," as he called them, he hated. In Feb
ruary, 1888, he laid down in a well-known speech
what he held to be the true principle. " Every
Great Power which seeks to exert pressure on the
politics of other countries, and to direct affairs out
side the sphere of interest which God has assigned
to it, carries on politics of power, and not of in
terest; it works for prestige." But that principle
was not consistently followed by WiUiam the
Second. Into the detailed story of his departure
from it I have not space to enter. But those who
wish to follow this will do weU to read the narrative
contained in an admirable and open-minded book
by Mr, Harbutt Dawson, " The German Empire

I02

The German Attitude
from 1867 to 1914," in the second volume of which
the story is told in detail.
Instead of trying to alter the traditional atti
tude of Germany to her neighbours, Herr von
Bethmann Hollweg let it continue. That he did
not want it to continue I am pretty sure. At page
130 of his book he appeals to me, personaUy, to
recall the words he used in a conversation we had
one evening in February, 1912, words in which
he sought to show me that " a proper understand
ing between our two nations would guarantee the
peace of the world, and would lead the Powers by
degrees from the phantom of armed Imperialism
to the opposite pole of peaceful work together in
the world." I remember his words, and with them
I would remind him that I whoUy agreed. I had
myself used similar language in anticipation, and
had begged him not to insist on our accepting an
obligation of absolute neutrality under all condi^
tions which might prove inconsistent with our duty
of loyalty to France, now a friendly neighbour, a
duty which rested on no military obligation, but on
kindly feeling and regard. It was such friendship
and mutual regard that I was striving, with the
assent of the British Cabinet, to bring about with
Germany also, and by the same means through
which it had been accomplished in the case of
103

Before the War
France. Not by any secret military convention,
for we had entered into no communications which
bound us to do more than study conceivable possi
bilities in a fashion .which the German (General
Staff would look on as mere matter of routine for
a country the shores of which lay so near to those
of France, but by removing aU material causes of
friction. And when Herr von Bethmann Hollweg
adds of my reply that "even he preferred the
power of English Dreadnoughts and the friend
ship of France," I must remind him of the words
sanctioned beforehand when submitted by me to
Sir Edward Grey, with which I began our con
versation. I reproduce them from the record I
made immediately after the conversation to which
I have already referred in the preceding chapter,
on which I again draw for further minor details.
And I wish to say, in passing, that both Herr von
Bethmann Hollweg and Admiral von Tirpitz have
given in their books accounts of what passed in my
conversations with them which tally substantially,
so far as the words used are concerned, with my
own notes and recollections. It is mainly as to the
inferences they now draw from my then attitude
that I have any controversy with them, and, in the
case of Admiral von Tirpitz, to some slight in
accuracies which have arisen from misconstruction.
104

The German Attitude
The ex-Imperial Chancellor asked the question
whether I was to talk to him officially, the diffi
culty being that he could not divest himself of his
official position, and that it would be awkward to
speak with me in a purely private capacity. I said
I had come officially, so far as the approval of the
King and the Cabinet was concerned, but merely
to talk over the ground, and not to commit either
himself or my own Government at this stage to,
definite propositions. At the first interview, which
took place in the British Embassy, on Thursday,
February 8, 1912, and lasted for more than an
hour and a half, I began by giving him a message
of good wishes for the Conversations and for the
future of Anglo-German relations, with which the
King had entrusted me at the audience I had before
leaving London. I proceeded to ask whether he
wished to make the first observations himself, or
desired that I should begin. He wished me to
begin, and I went on at once to speak to him in
the sense arranged in the discussions I had with
Sir Edward Grey before leaving London.
I told him that I felt there had been a great
deal of drifting away between Germany and
England, and that it was important to ask what
was the cause. To ascertain this, events of recent
history had to be taken into account. Germany
H 105

Before the War
had built up, and was building up, magnificent
armaments, and, with the aid of the Triple Alli
ance, she had become the centre of a tremendous
group. The natural consequence was that other
Powers had tended to approximate. I was not
questioning for a moment Germany's right to her
policy, but this was the natural and inevitable con
sequence in ithe interests of security. We used to
have much the same situation with France, when
she was very powerful on the seas, that we had with
Germany now. While the fact to which I had
referred created a difficulty, the difficulty was not
insuperable ; for two groups of Powers might be on
very friendly relations if there was only an increas
ing sense of mutual understanding and confidence.
The present seemed to me to be a favourable
moment for a new departure. The Morocco ques
tion was now out of the way, and we had no agree
ments with France or Russia except those that
were in writing and published to the world.
The Chancellor here interrupted me, and asked
me whether this was really so. I said it was so,
and that, in the situation which now existed, I saw
no reason why it should not be possible for us to
enter into a new and cordial friendship carrying
the two old ones into it, perhaps to the profit of
Russia and France, as well as of Germany herself.
io6

The German Attitude
He replied tJhat he had no reason to differ from
this view.
He and I both referred to the war scare of the
autumn of 1911, and he observed that we had
made military preparations. I was aware that the
German Military Attache in London had reported
at that time to Berlin that we had so reorganised
our aimy as to be in a position, if we desired to do
so, to send six of our new infantry divisions and
at least one cavalry division swiftly to France.
The Chancellor obviously had this in his mind, and
I told him that the preparations made were only
those required to bring the capacity of our small
British Army, in point of mobilisation for eventu
alities which must be clear to him, to something
approaching the standard of that celerity in its
operations whidh Moltke had long ago accomplished
for Gtermany and which was with her now a matter
of routine. For this purpose we had studied
our deficiencies and modes of operation. This,
however, concerned our own direct interests, and
was a purely departmental matter concerning the
War Office, and the Minister who had the mcst to
do with it was the one who was now talking to him
and who was not wanting in friendly feeling to
wards Germany. We could not run the risk of
being caught unprepared. 107

Before the War
As both Herr von Bethmann HoUweg and
Admiral von Tirpitz have devoted a good deal of
attention to these and other conversations in their
books, I have felt at liberty here and in the last
chapter to state what, I am bound to observe,
had better not, as it seems to me personally, have
been held back for so long — ^the exact nature of
that which actually passed when I was sent to
Berlin in February, 1912. Accordingly, it is only
necessary that I should add here a few words more
about .what indeed appears in most of its detail
from the versions given by the two German
Ministers concerned themselves.
I refused, not only because I had been in
structed to do so, but because in my own opinion
it was vital that I should refuse, to negotiate
excepting on the basis of absolute loyalty to the
Entente Avith France and Russia. The German
Government asked for a covenant of absolute
neutrality. This I could not look at. I had the
same feeling about such an agreement for uncon
ditional neutrality as Caprivi had when he was
asked to renew the Reinsurance Treaty which
Bismarck made with Russia at Skiernevice in 1884,
and under which, notwithstanding that Germany
might come to owe a duty to Austria to support
her as her miUtary AUy, he bound Germany to
1 08

The German Attitude
observe neutrality in case Russia were attacked by
her. So far as appeared this Reinsurance Treaty
probably had suggested the .wording of the analo
gous formula which the Chancellor was proposing
to myself. But although we were not under the
obligation to France which Germany was under to
Austria in 1884, I felt, to use the words of Caprivi
himself, when he succeeded Bismarck, and was
asked to renew the engagement with Russia, that
the arrangement .was "too complicated" for my
comprehension. It would have been not only
wrong to expose a friendly France to the risk of
being dismembered by an unjustifiable invasion,
while her friend England merely stood looking on,
but it would also have been prejudicial to our
safety. For to have allowed Germany to take
possession of the northern ports of France would
haA^~teen"^Rri:mpieril"' oi^^^^^ security . The
Chancellor was entitled to make the request he did,
but I was bound to refuse it. I also, at the same
time, told hion that if Germany went on increasing
her Navy, any agreement with us meant to lead to
better relations would be little more than " bones
without flesh. ' ' Germany might, indeed, as he had
said, need a third training squadron, in addition
to the two she had already in the North Sea. This
we could easily meet by moving more of our ships
109

Before the War
to northern waters, without having to increase the
number we were building independently. But if
she had the idea of adding to her fleet on a con
siderable scale .we should be bound to lay down two
keels to every one of her new ships, and the inevit
able result would be, no proportionate increase in
her strength relatively to ours, but of a certainty
a good deal of bad feeling.
I may observe that at the date of this conversa
tion the new German Fleet Bill had not been made
public, and we knew nothing of its contents in
London, excepting tihat a third squadron for train
ing was to be added to the two which were already
there. For this purpose it had been said that a
few ships and a moderate increase in personnel
would be all that was required. ( Before I left
Berlin the Emperor, as I mentioned in the
preceding chapter, handed to me, with friendly
frankness and with permission to show it to
my coUeagues, an advance copy of the new Bill.
It looked to me as if, when scrutinised, its pro
posals might prove more formidable than we had
anticipated. But I asked his permission to abstain
from trying to form any judgment on this question
.without the aid of the British Admiralty, and 1
put it in my pocket and handed it to the First Lord
of the Admiralty at a Cabinet held on Mondayv,
no

The German Attitude
February 12, in the afternoon of the day on which
I returned to London, I was not very sure as to
what might prove to be contained in this BiU, and
my misgivings were confirmed by our Admiralty
experts, who found in it a programme of de
stroyers, submarines, and personnel far in excess
of anything indicated in the only rumours that had
reached us. After we had to abandon the idea of
getting Germany to accept the carefully guarded
formula of neutrality whidh was all that we could
entertain, the Cabinet sanctioned without delay
the additions to our navy .which were required to
counter these increases. Our policy was to avoid
conflagration by every effort possible, and at the
same time to insure the house in case of failure.
I felt throughout these conversations that the
Chancellor was sincerely desirous of meeting me
in the effort to establish good relations between
the two countries. But he was hampered by the
difficulty of changing the existing policy of build
ing up armaments which was imposed on him. In
only one way could he manage this, and that .was
by getting me to agree to a formula of absolute
neutrality under all circumstances. The other, the
better, and the only way that was admissible for
us, the way in whieh we had surmounted all diffi
culties with France and Russia, he was not free to
ill

Before the War
enter on, though I beheve that he reaUy wished to.
Llence the attempt at a complete agreement failed.
' But, as he says himself, much good came of these
initial conversations, and still more of the subse
quent conversations which followed on them in
London between Sir Edward Grey and the Ger
man Ambassador. Candour became tlie order of
the day, minor difficulties were smoothed over,
and a treaty for territorial rearrangements, of the
general character discussed in Berlin, was finally
agreed on, and was likely to have been signed had
the war not intervened.
As to the rest of the narrative in ithe ex-
Chancellor's book, this is not the place to deal with
it. His view that Germany was doing her beslt to
moderate the rash action in Vienna which resulted
in the declaration of war on Serbia, while England
was doing much less to restrain the course of events
at St. Petersburg, is not one which it is easy to
bring into harmony with the documents published.
This is a part of the history of events before the
war which has already been exhaustively dealt with
by others, and it is no part of the purpose of these
pages to write of matters about which I have no
first-hand knowledge. For I had little opportumty
of taking any direct part in our affairs with Ger
many after my final visit to that country, which
112

The German Attitude
was in 1912. My duties as Lord Chancellor were
too engrossing.
There are, however, in this connection just
two topics towards the end of the book which are
of such interest that I will refer to them before
passing away from it. The first is the story that
there was a Crown Council at Potsdam on July 5,
1914, at which the Emperor determined on war.
This Herr von Bethmann Hollweg denies. He
explains that in the morning of that day the
Austrian Ambassador lunched .with the Emperor,
presumably at Potsdam, and took the opportunity
of handing to him a letter written by the Emperor
of Austria personally, together with a memoran
dum on policy drawn up in Vienna. This
memorandum contained a detailed plan for oppos
ing Russian enterprise in the Balkan peninsula by
energetic diplomatic pressure. Against a hostile
Serbia and an unreliable Rumania resort was to be
had to Bulgaria and Turkey, with a view to the
establishment of a Balkan League, excluding
Serbia, to be formed under the aegis of the Central
Powers. The Sarajevo murder was declared to
have demonstrated the aggressive and irreconcilable
character of Serbian policy. The Austrian
Emperor's letter endorsed the views contained in
the memorandum, and added that, if the agitation
"3

Before the War
in Belgrade continued, the pacific views of the
Powers were in danger. The German Emperor
said that he must consult his Chancellor before
answering, and sent for Bethmann HoUweg and
the Under-Secretary, Zimmermann. He saw
them in the afternoon in the park of the Neues
Palais at Potsdam. The Chancellor thinks that
no one else was present. It was agreed that the
situation was very serious. The ex-Chancellor says
that he had already learned the tenor of these
Austrian documents, although he did not see the
text of the subsequent ultimatum to Serbia until
July 22. It was determined that it was no part of
the duty of Germany to give advice to her AUy as
to how she should deal with the Sarajevo murder.
But every effort .was to be made to prevent the
controversy between Austria and Serbia from
developing into an international conflict. It was
useful to try to bring in Bulgaria, but Rumania
had better be left out of account. These conclu
sions were in accordance with the Chancellor's
own opinion, and when he returned to Berlin he
communicated them to the Austrian Ambassador.
G^ermany would do what she could to make
Rumania friendly, and Austria was told that in any
case she might rely on her AUy, Germany, to stand
firmly by her side. 114

The German Attitude
The next day the Emperor set off in his yacht
for the northern seas. The Chancellor says he
advised him to do this because the expedition was
one which the Emperor had been in the habit of
making every year at that season, and it .would
cause talk if this usual journey were to be
abandoned. The other point relates to the date on which the
German Chancellor saw the text of the Austrian
ultimatum to Serbia. He tells us that it was
brought to him for the first time on the evening of
July 22 by Herr von Jagow, the Foreign Secre
tary, who had just received it from the Austrian
Ambassador. The Chancellor says that von Jagow
thought the ultimatum too strongly worded, and
wished for some delay. But when he told the
Ambassador this the answer was that the document
had already been dispatched, and it was published
in the Vienna Telegraph the next morning.
The conclusion of the Chancellor is that the
stories of the Crown Council at Potsdam on July 5,
and of the co-operation of the German Govern
ment in preparing the ultimatum, are mere legends.
The question of isubstance as regards the first may
be left for interpretation by posterity. As to the
controversy about the second, it would be interest
ing to know whether Herr von Tschirsky, the
"5

Before the War
German Ambassador at Vienna, knew of the
ultimatum before it assumed the form in which it
reached Berlin on July 22. I shaU have more to
say about these incidents later on when I come to
Admiral von Tirpitz's account of them.
My criticism of Herr von Bethmann Hollweg
is in no case founded on any doubt at all as to his
veracity. I formed, in the course of my dealings
with him, a high opinion of his integrity. But in
his reasoning he is apt to let circumstances escape
his notice which are in a large degree material for
forming a judgment. This does not seem to me
to arise from any deliberate intention to be other
wise than candid. I am sure that he believes that
he is telling the full truth at all times. But he
became a convinced partisian, quite intelligibly.
This fact, however creditable to his patriotism,
seems to me not only to explain why he thought it
right to continue in office and stand by his country
as long as he could through the war, but also to
detract somewhat from the weight that would
otherwise attach to the opinions of an honourable
and well-meaning man.
I pass to the examination of the concurrent
policy against which he could not prevail, and the
existence of which takes the edge off his reason
ing. That policy is expounded fully and clearly
ii6

The German Attitude
by Admiral von Tirpitz, a German of the tradi
tional Military School, a man of great ability, and
one who rarely if ever aUowed himself to be de
flected from pursuing a concentrated purpose to
the utmost oif his power.
Of the general character of this purpose his
colleague, Bethmann Hollweg, was conscious, as
appears from passages in the book just discussed,
of Which I have selected one for .translaition.
" The fleet was the favourite child of Germany,
for in it the onward-pressing energies of the
nation seemed to be most viVidly illustrated. The
application of the most modern technical skiU, and
the organisation that had been worked out with so
much care, were admired, and rightly so. To the
doubts of those versed in affairs jvhether ^e were
pursuing our true path by building great battle
ships, there was opposed a fanatical public opinion
which was not disciplined in the interest df those
responsible for the direction of affairs. Reflections!,
about the difficult internaltional troubles to Which
our naval policy was giving rise were held in check
by a robust'^agitationT In the navy itself the con
sciousness was by no means everywhere present
that the navy must be only an instrument of policy
and not its determining factor. The conduct of
naval policy had for many years rested in the hands
117

Before the War
of a man who claimed to exercise political authority
over his department, and who influenced un-
brokenly the political opinion of wider circles.
Where differences arose between the Admiralty
and the civUian leadership, pubUc opinion was
almost witiiout exception on the side of the Ad
miralty. Any attempt to take into consideration
relative proportions in the strength of other nations
was treated as being the outcome of a weak-minded
apprehension of the foreigner."
"" When I was in Beriin in 1912, the last year in
which, as I have already said, I visited Germany,
there were those who thought that Bethmann
Hollweg would shortly be superseded as Chiancellor
by his powerful rival. Admiral von Tirpitz. But in
these days the peace party in that country was
pretty sitrong, and the .then Chancellor was re
garded as a cautious and safe man. It was later
on, in 1913, when the new Military Law, with
£50,000,000 of fresh expenditure, was passed, that
the situation became much more doubtful. But the
hesitation that existed in Government circles in
Berlin earlier was never shared by the author of
the Errinnerungen, to which I now pass. One has
only to look at the portrait at the beginning of that
volume to see what sort of a man the author is. A
strong man certainly, a descendant of the class
ii8

The German Attitude
which clustered round the great Moltke, and gave
much anxiety at times to Bismarck himself. ^
The Admiral possesses a "General Staff"
mind of a high order. A mind of this type has
never been given a chance of systematic develop
ment in the EngUsh Navy, where the distinction
between strategy and tactics, on the one hand, and
administration on the other, has never been so
i^harply laid down as it has been, following the
great Moltke, in Germany. Even Moltke himself
was not satisfied with what had been accompHshed
in Germany in this direction by the Army. He is
said to have complained that the General Staff
building, which was put in the Thiergarten, while
the War Office was in Berlin itself, near the corner
of the WiUielmstrasse, was only one mile distant
from the War Office, When it should have been
two. For he held that the exactness of demarca
tion of function, which was only to be attained if
strategy and tactics were studied continuously
by a specially chosen body of experts, could not
be made complete if the War Office could get too
easily at the General Staff. But what he accom
plished at least gave rise to a school of exact
military thought far in advance of any that had
preceded it. The fruits of this were reaped in the
war with Austria in 1866, and stiU more in that
119

Before the War
with France in 1870. And when the navy was
first organised this principle Was introduced into
its organisatiion, first by Stosch and then by
Caprivi. Both of these had been trained in the
great Moltke's ideas, and it was because of this
that, although soldiers, they were chosen to model
the organisation of the German Navy. It is true
that we have beaten the German Navy. That was
because, as Tirpitz himself admits, we possessed,
not only superior numbers, but a tradition of long
standing and a spirit in our fleet whidh Germany
had not built up. But we shall do well not to
overlook what he has to say about the procedure of
basing strategy and tactics on exact knowledge and
I careful study, especially when such ideas as that
j of landing small expeditionary forces on enemy
territory by means of a naval expedition, are being
considered, nor what he says of his efforts to make
this procedure real. Numbers are not always suf
ficient. They are not likely to be large for a long
time to come, and the study of all possibilities and
of modern conditions is therefore more important
[than ever. The British Army knows this. It is
not so clear that the British Navy is equally in-
; formed about the necessity of bearing the principle
' in imind. Tirpitz never served in the army, but he was

The German Attitude
brought up under the influence of these great
soldiers. His first experience was indeed mainly
in technical matters of construction. But he never
let go the true principle of an Admiral or War
Staff, ^nd the result was that he considered, and
not wholly without reason, that he was leading the
German Navy on lines which were in the end
likely to make it, when fully developed, a more
powerful instrument than the British Navy. In
stead of studying merely the lessons of the past,
as we here seek them in, for instance, the history
of the Seven Years War of more than a century
and a half ago, or in the operations of Nelson'
carried out a hundred years since, he insisted that
the German Navy should study systematically
modern problems, and in particular coonbined naval
and military operations. In England we had no
War Staff for the navy until 1911, and our Senior
Admirals disliked the idea. Consequently such
staff study of military problems has never been
properly developed, the wishes of our junior naval
officers notwithstanding. In Germany the idea:
was regarded as a vital one throughout by Tirpitz. _
The first chapter of Tirpitz's book describes
the beginnings of the German Navy. The second
deals with the Stosch period. The third is devoted
to the administration of Caprivi during the time
I I2l'

Before the War
when he was head of the Admiralty, and extends
to the period when he became ChanceUor. The
fourth is devoted to construction. The fifth
describes the disastrous breaking up of the Naval
Administration into Boards, to which the author
says the Eknperor WiUiam II. allowed himself to
be persuaded. The sixth chapter is directed to
tactical developments, a subject in which Admiral
Tirpitz himself did much. The seventh deals with
naval plans. The eighth contains a very interest
ing description of how he was sent to find a naval
base in Chinese waters, and how he selected and
developed, with German thoroughness, Tsingtau
(Kiauchou). The ninth chapter begins the story
of the difficulties he experienced when refused
sufficient money and freedom while he was
Minister of Marine. The tenth gives a vividly
written account of his visits to Bismarck. The
next five chapters are devoted to the development
of the German Navy and its relation to foreign
policy. The sixteenth, seventeenth and eig'hteenth
chapters are concerned with the author's views of
the reasons for the outbreak of the war of 1914,
and its history. The nin^eenth is a chapter
devoted to the submarine war, and to a farewell
apostrophe to a Germany lost by bad leading and
vagueness in objectives. There is also a supple-

The German Attitude
ment, containing letters written by him from time
to time during the war, and his observations on
what ought to have been the consistent policy
of Germany in construction of battleships and
submarines. ,,.,
The great thesis of the book is that the only
Way to preserve the peace was to imake Europe fear
German strength, and thiat this imported such
battle fleets as would attract allies to Germany for
protection, and would thus in the end weaken
the Entente. England was the real enemy, and
England could not be dislodged from her power
ful position in the world so long as she was
allowed to continue in command of the ocean. For
Bethmann Hollweg's alternative policy of a peace
ful rapprochement with England he has no words
but those of contempt. He, too, he sfays, had ideas
as to how to keep the peace, but they were dia
metrically different from those of his colleague
the Chancellor. On him he pours scorn for his
attempts at departure from the policy of Frederick
the Great and Bismarck. ^/
Tirpitz had been deeply impressed by the
writings of Admiral Mahan. He himself drew
from them the lesson that in ultimate analysis
world-power for Germany depended on the sea-
power which she had not got, and he set himself
123

Before the War
to build it up. He endeavoured to educate on
this subject, not only the Reichstag, where he says
he had much opposition, but the public. Under
Prince Billow this ,was less difficult than he sub
sequently found it. His account of how the
Minister of Education and the University pro
fessors helped him, and of how he contrived to
enlist the Press, is as interesting as it is significant.
But his great difficulty was obviously with William
the Second. The Emperor had done much for
fleet construction, and was so interested in it
that he meddled at every turn in technical and
strategical matters alike. The Ministry of Marine
was not allowed to carry out the Admiral's own
plans and conceptions. And When Bethmann
came on the scene the situation became, accord
ing to the former, even worse. He moans over
the apparent limitlessness of the money and
authority with which the English Admiralty was
provided by Parliament and the nation. At last
he carried with his colleagues and in the Reichstag
the policy of Fleet Laws, under which the Reichs
tag passed measures which took construction, in
part at least, from off the annual navy vote, and
he got through the succession of Acts that laid
down programmes extending over several years.
Riohter and other distinguished public men fought
124

The German Attitude
Tirpitz over these, but, in part at least, he got his
way, and secured the nearest approach to continuity
that ihis ever-'supervising Sovereign would permit
to him. What Tirpitz says he asked for above every
thing was a definite policy for war, and this he
could not get the leave of Bethimann to lay down,
nor could be get the volatile Emperor to stick to
definite conceptions of it. For coast defence he
had a supreme contempt. The great German
Army would take care of this, so far as invasion
was concerned, and an adequate battle fleet would
do the rest. It is noticeable that apparently he
never even dreamed of trying to invade England
with her fleet protection. It was in quite another
way that he intended, if necessary, to harass this
country. He wanted to threaten our commerce''
and to be able to break any blockade of Germany.
German sea-power was to be made strong enough
to attract allies by its ability to rally all free nations
without any curatorship by the Anglo-Saxons.
This is what he says his war objectives were.
He bitterly complains of the opposition to theirt'
and to himself which he met with from such papers
as the Frankfurter Zeitung, and from the influence
of certain of his colleagues. Constitutionalism he
appears to have hated, Tbe democracy of Ger-

Before the War
many was not suited to such leading as Lloyd
George, during the war, gave to England, and
Clemenceau to France. In Germany, he declares,
a strong hand is always required, ^d a revolution
is inevitable in case the hand is weak, and defeat
follows. For Germany needed "the Prussian-
German State." The tradition of Frederick the
Great and Bismarck was its protecting spirit.
Can we wonder, if the narrative of this capable
man is accurate, that Bethmann struggled for his
rival policy of conciliation in the face of almost
insuperable difficulties? Tirpitz had a strong
party at his back, both in Prussia and elsewhere.
What made it strong was largely that its members
shared his view of England and of the situation.
"They looked to us," he says, "it was the last
chance of international freedom." I thought in
1912 that Bethmann might in the end win, for iu
the main at that time the Emperor was with him,
and so were Ballin and many others of great
influence. The Social Democrats, too, were gain
ing influence rapidly. But the presence of a
powerful school of thought at the back of Tirpitz,
a school which, had it succeeded, would have
secured the place it desired by reducing to a pre
carious state the life of my own country, made me
feel that, while we must do all we could to extend
136

The German Attitude
our friendships so as to convert and bring in Ger
many, the chances of success did not preponderate
sufficiently to justify relaxation of either vigilance
in preparation or resolution in policy. My feeling
remained what I had tried to express in the address
delivered at Oxford in August of 1911. "I wish,"
I said then, " aU our politicians who concern them
selves with Anglo-German relations, those who are
pro-German as well as those who are not, could go
to Berlin arid learn something, not only of the
language and intellectual history of Prussia, but
of the standpoint of her people — and of the disad
vantages as well as the advantages of an excessive
lucidity of conception. Nowhere else in Germany
that I know of is this to be studied so advan
tageously and so easily as in Berlin, the seat of
Government, the headquarters of Real-politik, and
it seems to me most apparent among the highly
educated classes there."
Bismarck does not appear to have known much
while in office about Tirpitz, and when the latter
desired later on to enlist his outside support he
did not find it at first easy. But, having with some
difficulty got the assent of the Emperor to a new
ship being named after Bismarck, he in the end
got from the latter permission to visit him at
Friedrichsruh in 1897- There Tirpitz arrived at
r27

Before the War
noon. The family were at luncheon. He tells us
how the Prince sat at the head of the table, and
how he rose, cool but polite, and remained stand
ing till Tirpitz was seated. The Prince assumed the
air of one suffering from sharp neuralgic pain, and
he kept pressing the side of his head with a small
indiarubber hot- water bottle. It was only with
an appearance of difficulty that he uttered, and
his food was minced meat. However, when he had
drunk a bottle and a half of German champagne
(Sect) he became animated. After the dishes were
removed. Countess Wilhelm Bismarck lit his great
pipe for him, and with the other ladies quitted the
room. The atmosphere was one of gloomy silence.
But the great man suddenly broke it by raising his
formidable eyebrows, and directing a grim look
at Tirpitz, .whom he appears next to have asked
whether he himself was a tomcat that needed only to
be stroked in order to procure sparks to be emitted.
Tirpitz then timidly unfolded his plans and his
policy of building big battleships. Bismarck was
critical, and turned his criticism to other matters
also. He denounced as disastrous the abrogation
by Caprivi and WiUiam the Second of the treaty
he (Bismarck) had made with Russia for Reinsur
ance. Bismarck declared that, in case of an
Anglo-Russian war, our policy was contained in
128

The German Attitude
the simple words : neutraUty as regards Russia.
The modest Tirpitz ventured to suggest that only
a fleet strong enough to be respected could make
Germany worthy of an alliance in the eyes of
Russia and other powers. Bismarck rejected this
almost angrily. The English he thought little of.
If they tried to invade Germany the Landwehr
.would knock them down with the butt-ends of
their rifles. That a close blockade might knock
Germany down never seemed to occur to him.
However, in the end Tirpitz says that the Prince
became mollified and expressed agreement with the
view that an increased fleet was necessary.
Bismarck then invited the Admiral to go with
him for a drive in the forest. Despite the
neuralgia, this drive, which took placed amid
showers of rain, lasted for two hours.^. The
carriage, moreover, was open. There were two
bottles of beer, one on the right and the other
on the left of the Prince, which they drank on
the way, and he smoked his pipe continuously.
" It was not easy to keep pace with his giant
constitution." For the details of the conversation, which was
conducted in English so that the coachman might
not understand it, I must refer the reader to the
chapter in which it is described. The old .warrior
129

Before the War
spoke with affection of the Emperor Frederick,
but as regarded his son William, he appears to
have let himself go. Tirpitz was to tell the latter
that he, Bismarck, only wanted to be let alone,
and die in peace. His task was ended. He had
" no future and no hopes."
Tirpitz saw Bismarck twice subsequently. The
last time was on the occasion of a surprise visit
to him by the Emperor. This visit was not wholly
a success. The conversation got on to unfortunate
lines, Bismarck began to speak. of politics, and
the Emperor ignored what he said and did not
reply. The younger Moltke, who was present,
.whispered to Tirpitz, " It is terrible," alluding to
the Emperor's want of reverence. When the
Emperor left, his Minister, von Lucanus, who was
with him, held out his hand to the old Prince.
But Lucanus had formerly intrigued against him.
Consequently he "sat like a statue, not a muscle
moved. He gazed into the air, and before him
Lucanus made gestures in vain."
All this notwithstanding, Tirpitz seems to have
made a good impression. For after these visits the
Bismarck press began to speak favourably of him.
But I must not linger over side issues. The
book is so full of interesting material that in writing
about it one has to resolve not to be led away from
13a

The German Attitude
the vital points by its digressions. One of these
points is that to which I have already made refer
ence in giving the Chancellor's views about it, the
responsibility for what happened in July, 1914,
and in particular for the decision taken on the
5th of that month at Potsdam.
It is interesting to compare Tirpitz's account
of the meeting that took place then, on the invita
tion of the Emperor, with that of Bethmann,
although the former was not present, and bases
his judgment only on what was reported to him
as Minister. He gives an account of .what hap
pened which makes the meeting seem a more
important one than the ex-Chancellor takes it to
have been. The Admiral's view is that at this
date what was urgently wanted was " prompt and
frank " action. Austria should not have been
allowed to rush upon Serbia, however just her
causes for anger. On the other hand the German
Emperor should have at once and directly appealed
to the Czar to co-operate .with him in endeavouring
to secure such a response to reason and expression
of contrition on the part of Serbia as would have
eased off the situation, which .was full of danger.
For, with an unfriendly Entente interesting itself,
no war which broke out was likely to be capable
of being kept localised.

Before the War
Tirpitz was not in Beriin on July 5, but he
received reports from there of what was happen
ing. Neither he nor von Moltke, the Chief of the
General Staff, was consulted, but Tirpitz declares
, that the Emperor saw at Potsdam the Minister of
War, von Falkenhayn, and also the Minister of
the Military Cabinet, von Lyncker. If so, whether
or not the conference was technically a Crown
Council, the meeting was a very important one.
Tirpitz confirms Bethmann in saying that,
prompted by chivalrous feeling, the German
Emperor responded to the Emperor of Austria by
promising support and fidelity. He declares that
the Emperor William did not consider the inter
vention of Russia to protect Serbia as probable,
because he thought that the Czar would never
support regicides, and that, besides, Russia was
not prepared for war, either in a military or
financial sense. Moreover, the Emperor somewhat
optimistically presumed that France would hold
Rus.sia back on account of her own disadvantageous
state of finance and her lack of heavy artillery.
The Emperor did not refer to England; compli
cations vrith that country were not thought of.
The Emperor's view thus was that a further
extension of dangerous complications was unlikely.
His hope was that Serbia would give in, but he
132

The German Attitude
considered it desirable that Germany should be
prepared in case of a different issue of the Austro-
Serbian dispute. It was for that reason that he
had on the 5th commanded the Chancellor, Beth
mann Hollweg ; the Minister of War, von Falken
hayn; the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, Zimmermann; and the Minister of the
War Cabinet, von Lyncker, to Potsdam. It was
then decided that all steps should be avoided which
would attract political attention or involve much
expense. After this decision the Emperor, on the
advice of the Chancellor, started on his journey to
the North Cape, for which arrangements had
already been made. The duty of the Chancellor
under the circumstances was to consider any.
promise to be given to Austria from the stand
point of German interests, and to keep watch on
the method of its fulfilment. The ChanceUor,
says his critic, did not hesitate to accept the
decision of the Emperor, apparently imagining
that Austria's position as a Great Power was
already shaken and would collapse unless she could
insist on being compensated at the expense of the
greedy Serbians. He probably had in his mind the
success obtained in the earlier Balkan crisis over
Bosnia and Herzegovina. He goes on to tell us that
he was not informed as to what the Emperor was
133

Before the War
thinking of during his tour in Northern waters, but
that he had reason to believe that he did not antici
pate serious danger to the peace of the world. And
he observes, as a characteristic of the Emperor,-
that when he was not apprehensive of danger he
would express himself without restraint about the
traditions of his illustrious predecessors, but the
moment matters began to look critical his became
a hesitating mood. The Admiral thinks that if
the Emperor had not left Beriin, and if the fuU
Government machinery had been at work, means
might have been found by the Emperor and the
Ministry of averting the danger of war. As, how
ever, the Chief of the General Staff, the Head of
the Admiralty Staff, and Tirpitz himself were kept
away from Beriin during the following weeks, the
matter was handled solely by the ChanceUor, who,
being in truth not sufficiently experienced in great
European affairs, was not able to estimate the
reliability of those who were advising him in the
Foreign Office.
Von Tirpitz goes on to say that by July 11
the Beriin Foreign Office had heard that the
Entente had advised yielding at Belgrade. The
Chancellor, he declares, could now have brought
about a peaceful solution, but, convinced as he
was that the Entente did not mean war, he drew
134

The German Attitude
the shortsighted conclusion that Austria, .without
considering the Entente, might force a march into
Serbia and yet not endanger the .world's peace.
His optimism was disastrous. On July 13 he (the
Chancellor) was, according to Tirpitz, informed
of the essential points in the proposed Austrian
Ultimatum, Bethmann, as already stated, says
that he did not see the Ultimatum itself until the
22nd, when it had already been dispatched. But
he does not say that he had been given no forecast
of its contents from the German Ambassador at
Vienna. Tirpitz quotes, but without giving its
exact date, a memorandum sent to him at Tarasp
apparently just after the 13th. It was forwarded
from the Admiralty, and was in these terms :
"Our Ambassador in Vienna, Herr von
Tschirsky, has ascertained privately, as well as
from Count Berchtold, that the Ultimatum to be
sent by Austria to Serbia will contain the follow
ing demands : I. A proclamation of King Peter
to his people in which he will command them to
abstain from greater Serbian agitation. II. Par
ticipation of a higher Austrian official in the
investigation of the assassination. III. Dismissal
and punishment of all officers and officials proved
to be accomplices."
Tirpitz says that his first impression, when he
135

Before the War
received this document in Tarasp, was that Serbia
could not possibly accept the terms of such an
Ultimatum. And he adds that he beUeved neither
in the possibility of localising the war nor in the
neutrality of England. In his view the greatest
care was required to reassure the Russian Govern
ment, especially as England would wish "to let
war break out in order to establish the balance of
power on the Continent as she understood it."
But the ChanceUor expressed the wish that he
should not return to Beriin, for his doing so might
give rise to remarks. If this be so, it seems to
have been a very unfortunate step. The Emperor
and his most important Ministers should all have
been in Berlin at such a time. Bethmann 's advice
appears intelligible only if he thought, as is quite
possible, that he could himself handle the negotia-'
tions best if the Emperor and Tirpitz were both
out of the way. If so, he was not successful. He
did not in the end respond to Sir Edward Grey's
wish for a conference, and earlier he had failed to j
bridle the impulsive ally who was dashing wildly [
about. It looks as though, however good his
intentions may have been, he was taking terrible
risks. Now this .was the crucial period. Grey was
doing his very utmost to avert war, and was even
136

The German Attitude
pressing Serbia to accept the bulk of ,what was in
the Ultimatum. As to his real intentions, I may,
without presumption, claim to be better informed
than Admiral von Tirpitz. Sir Edward Grey and
I had been intimate friends for over a quarter of
a century before the period in which the Admiral,
who, so far as I know, never saw him, diagnoses
the state of his intentions. During the eight years
previous to July, 1914, we had been closely
associated and were working as colleagues in the
Cabinets of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and
Mr. Asquith. And in that July, throughout the
weeks in question. Sir Edward was staying with
me in my house in London, and considering with
me the telegrams and incidents, great or small.
It is a pure myth that he had, at the back of
his mind, any such intentions as the Admiral
imagines. He was working with every fibre put in
action for the keeping of the peace. He was press
ing for that in St. Petersburg, in Paris, in Berlin,
in Vienna, and in Belgrade. He was not in the
least influenced either by jealousy of Germany's
growth or by fear of a naval engagement with her,
as Tirpitz infers. All he wanted was to fulfil what,
for him, was the sacred trust that had been com
mitted to him, the duty of throwing the whole
weightof England's influence on the^ide of peace.
J 137

Before the War
And that was not less the view of Mr. Asquith,
.whom I knew equally intimately, and it was the
view of aU my colleagues in the Cabinet.
Germany was going ahead with giant strides
in commerce and industry, but we had not the
slightest title to be jealous or to complain when
she was only reaping the fruits of her own science
and concentration on peaceful arts. I had said
this myself emphatically to the Emperor at Berlin
in 1906 in a conversation the record of which has
already been given. There was no responsible
person in this country who dreamt, either in 1914
or in the years before then, of interfering with
Germany's Fleet development merely because it
could protect her growing commerce. What
responsible people did object to was the method
of those who belonged to the Tirpitz school. The
peace was to be preserved ; I give that school full
credit for this desire; but preserved on .what
terms ? On the terms that the German was to be
so strong by land and sea that he could swagger
down the High Street of the world, making his
will prevail at every turn.
But this was not the worst, so far as England
was concerned, /••The school of von Tirpitz'/^wouM
not be content unless they could control England's
sea power. They would have accepted a two-to-
138

The German Attitude
three keel standard because it would have been
enough to enable them to secure allies and to-
break up the Entente. Now it was vital to us
that Germany should not succeed in attaining this
end. For if she did succeed in attaining it, not
only our security from invasion, but our transport
of food and raw materials, would be endangered.
With a really friendly Germany or .with a League
of Nations the situation would have mattered much
less. ,It was the policy of the school to which
Tirpitz and the Emperor himself belonged .which
made the situation one of growing danger and the
Entente a necessity; 'lor Ibhese^Were days' when
other nations near us were beginning to organise
great battle fleets. If Bethmann Hollweg's policy
had prevailed there would have been no necessity
for any such Entente as was the only way of
safety for us. But he could not carry his policy
through, earnestly though he desired to do so, and
thus provide the true way to permanent peaceful
relations. I think he believed that the only use
Britain ever contemplated making of her navy,
should peace continue, was that of a poUceman
who co-operates with others in watching lest any
one should jostle his neighbour on the maritime
highway. He believed in the Sittlichkeit, which
we here mean when we speak of "good form."
139

Before the War
But that .was not the faith of his critics in Beriin.
They wanted to have Russia, and if possible France
also, along with their navies, on the side of
Germany. Peace, yes, but peace compelled by
fear — a very unwholesome and unstable kind of
peace, and deadly for the interests of an island
nation. Hence the Entente !
What we had to do was to prevent, if we could,
the Tirpitz school from getting its way, and we
tried this not without some measure of success.
Even to-day our pacifists now join with chauvinist
critics of a policy which was pursued steadily for
many years, and was that of Campbell-Bannerman
as well as of Asquith. They reproach us for having
entered on our path without having adequately
increased our naval and military resources. The
reproach is not a just one. It is founded on a
complete misconception of the true military situa
tion. It is only necessary to read carefully through
Admiral von Tirpitz's very instructive volume to
see that he took precisely the same view as ,we
did, and as was held to unswervingly by our
Committee of Imperial Defence. England's
might lay in final analysis in her sea power. She
needed also a small but very perfect army, capable
of high rapidity in concentration by the side of
the great French Army, in order to prevent the
140

The German Attitude
coasts of France close to our own from being
occupied by an enemy invading French territory.
In his book the Admiral refers to a letter I
wrote to The Times on December 16, 1918,
pointing this out and the grounds on which the
strategical conception was based. The Admiral
expresses his agreement, and says that it was a fatal
blunder of the German Highest Command not to
use their submarine power at the very outbreak of
the war to prevent our Expeditionary Force from
crossing the Channel and co-operating in resisting
the German advance towards Calais. From there
Germany could have commanded the Channel
and bombarded London.
So he Says, and we were quite aware all along
that he mi^ht well think so. The other thing that
he makes plain by implication is that the direct
invasion of England was never contemplated by
Germany in the face of our command of the sea.
I had long ago satisfied myself that this was the
German view, by a study of liieir military text
books and from conversations with high German
officers. But, what was more important than what
I personally thought, the Committee of Imperial
Defence, on which I sat regularly during eight
years, was clear about it, and this after close study,
and after hearing what the most eminent exponents
141

Before the War
in this country of a different view had to urge
before them.
Consequently our military policy was not doubt
ful. No doubt it would have been a nice thing
could we have possessed in 1914 a great army
fashioned and trained, not for firing rifles on the
seashore, but for a struggle on French and Belgian
soil. But such an army would have taken two
generations at least to raise and train in peace time,
and if we had laid out our money on it after 1870
instead of on ships, we should not have had the
sea power which Tirpitz says gave us "bulldog"
strength. In strategy and in military organisation
you cannot successfully bestride two horses at once.
He who would accomplish anything has to Umit
himself. Possibly it was because this was not
clearly kept in view even in Germany that the
volume before us is an exposition of a thesis .which
is novel in these islands, that it was not England
that was unprepared, but Germany herself. For
the confusion of objectives that led to this Tirpitz
blames Bethmann's peace policy, the parsimony
of the Reichstag, and the Emperor's failure to
attain to clear notions about war aims.
He criticises me for saying that there was in
Germany before 1914 a war party alongside of a
peace party. It was reaUy only the Bethmann
142

The German Attitude
group, he declares, that believed in peace being
built on anything else than preponderance in
armed power. The tradition of the German nation
and the view of all sensible statesmen in Germany,
e.g.. Prince Bvilow and the Eonperor himself as a
rule, was that the foundation of a lasting peace
could only be laid with armaments. Now if this
is so it is plain how the war came about. The
" shining armour " oration in Austria, some years
before war broke out, was simply one among many
illustrations which so alarmed civilised nations that
they huddled together for protection against this
school of statesmen. Bethmann's was the true
policy had he been allowed to carry it out. It is
possible that he thought he had a better chance of
carrying it out than could have been the case were
they to be present. When he got the Emperor and
Tirpitz to keep away from Berlin after the meeting
at Potsdam on July 5. Unfortunately he under
estimated the tendencies of Berchtold, Conrad von
Hoetzendorf, Forgasch, and others in Vienna -
who, with no misgivings such as those of Tirpite
as to the outcome, had determined on " los-
gehen." The proximate cause of the war was
Austrian policy. A secondary cause was the
absence of any effective attempt at control from
Berlin. The third and principal cause was the
143

Before the War
Tirpitz theory of how to keep the peace, the theory
that had come down from Frederick the Great and
his father, and was barely a safe one in the hands
even of a Bismarck.
The only circumstances that could have justified
Germany in her tacit encouragement to Austria
to take a hig'hly dangerous step — a step which was
almost certain to bring Russia, France and Eng
land into sharp conflict with the Central Powers —
would have been clear proof that the three Entente
nations were preparing to seize a chance and to
encircle and attack Germany or Austria or both.
Now for this there is no foundation whatever.
Russia, whatever Isvolsky and other Russian
statesmen may have said in moments of irritation
over the affair of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, did
not want to plunge into war ; France did not desire
anything of the kind ; and, as for England, noliiing
was more remote from her wishes. It was only in
order to preserve the general peace that we had
entered the Entente, and the method of the
Entente policy, the getting rid of all specific
causes of difference, was one which had nothing
objectionable in it. We urged Germany also to
enter upon this path with us. We offered to help
her in her progress towards the attainment of a
" place in the sun." The negotiations which took
144

The German Attitude
place with Sir Edward Grey in London after my
return from Berlin in 1912 are evidence of our
sincerity in this, for they culininated in agreement
on the terms of a detailed Treaty, under which a
vast number of territorial questions were settled
to mutual satisfaction. We did not either in 1912,
as Admiral von Tirpitz appears to imagine, in the
conversation at the Schloss, or later on, offer
territory that was not our own but belonged to
Portugal, or Belgium, or France. The contrary
is evident from the fact that the British Govern
ment presised Germany to consent to the immediate
publication of the draft Treaty, agreed early in
1914, when signed. All we did on both occasions
was to propose exchanges with Germany of terri
tory ithat was ours for territory tliat was hers, to
undertake not to compete for the purchase of
certain other territory that might come into the
market, in consideration of a corresponding
undertaking on her part, and to agree about
zones within which each nation should distribute
its industrial energies and give financial assistance
to undertakings. The gallant Admiral gives an account of the
meeting which took place on February 9, 1912,
in the Emperor's Cabinet room in \he Schloss be
tween himself, the Emperor and myself. He
M5

Before the War
represents me as making a "generous offer of
colonial territories which the English neither
possessed nor of which they had the least right of
disposial, in order to flatter the Kaiser's desires."
Now in this impression the Admiral was whoUy
wrong. What I spoke of was what I have just
referred to, exchanges of parts of our own terri
tory for parts belonging to Germany, and under
takings such as I have just referred to. These
things I had considered the previous day with the
Cbancellor, and I do not think the Emperor was
in the least under the impression which von Tirpitz
entertained. The matter was indeed not one with
which the Department of the Minister of Marine
was likely to be familiar. My suggestions were
made in accordance with my instructions, and
were, of course, bond fide in all respects. What
I was pressing for was the (means for making
possible a slackening in naval construction on both
sides, and for acceptance of the Entente and of
our position in it. What I desired was to extend
its friendly relations so as to bring Germany and
Austria and Italy within them and get rid of
anxiety about the balance of power and the growth
of armaments, I think the Emperor throughout
understood this, and certainly the Chancellor did,
Tirpitz appears to have suspected, in an attitude in
146

The German Attitude
which I was only aiming at being friendly and
even cordial, concealment of an encircling and
aggressive purpose. After studying his book I do
not wonder ! When one rises from reading it one
understands the fixity of an idea, which amounted
to an obsession, and compelled him to believe in
the necessity for what would have amounted to the
overthrow of Britain as a Great Power.
From the Emperor, on this as on other occa
sions, I met with nothing but the kindliest of
receptions. Admiral von Tirpitz describes the
luncheon party which preceded the conference in
the Cabinet Room, He speaks of a certain " span
ning " or tension which prevailed during the
luncheon which the Emperor and Empress gave
to the Berhn Cabinet and onyself , and of restraint
in the conversation, I cannot say that I perceived
any of these things, but then, of course, I was a
foreigner. What I do remember was the general
kindly feeling and the evident satisfaction produced
by the production of the famous red champagne
and great cigars with which the Emperor regaled
his guests. For myself, special distinction was
reserved. For, before proceeding to business, the
Emperor read to me Goethe's poem, Ilmenau,
of which he thought I might like to be reminded
before we sat down to our task. He then
H7

Before the War
observed that, out of consideration for Tirpitz,
we must confer in German, while on the other
hand this would be the harder on me because
the naval matters with which we had to deal
were not in my department, as they were in
that of the Admiral. This was, of course,
true. And then, in compensation for disadvan
tages which, ^is he said, would otherwise be unfair,
he smilingly remarked ithat he had a plan for
adjusting the balance of power on this occasion.
He insisted on my occupying the Imperial chair,
which stood at the head of the narrow Cabinet
table, while His Majesty himself should sit on an
ordinary chair on my left hand and the Admiral
on another on my right. I thought that these
arrangements suggested the possibility of a tough
controversy, and as far as the Admiral was con
cerned it proved to be so. For the discussion lasted
for two and three-quarter hours, and was fairly
close. I said throughout that, while I came here
to explore the ground with the authority of my
Sovereign and his Cabinet, I had come, not to
make a treaty at that stage, but on a preliminary
voyage of discovery with a view to taking b§ck
materials with which the Cabinet of St. James's
might be able to construct one, and that I had been
delighted with the graciousness of my reception.
148

The German Attitude
I mention this because the Admiral appears not
to have quite understood my position. I have no
doubt that the Emperor understood it.
At the end of the conversation I felt for once
a little tired, and was glad when the Emperor
asked von Tirpitz to drive me back to the Hotel
Bristol. I thought the mariner of the latter during
the journey highly polite and correct, but not
wholly sympathetic. I can only say that on my
part I had endeavoured to put every card I had
upon the table.
I have now touched on what seem to me the
salient points in both of the volumes by these two
famous statesmen. I have, I hope, brought out
sufficiently the fact that on their own showing they
were pursuing contradictory policies, and that it
was the consequent failure to foUow a policy that
was consistent and continuous that in the end led
Germany to the slippery slope down which she
glided into war. The circumstances of the world
before and in 1914 were so difficult, the piling up
of armaments had been so great, that nothing but
the utmost caution could secure a safe path. ^I
believe the Emperor and Bethmann to have desired
wholeheartedly the preservation of the peace. But
to that end they took inadequate means, and the
result was a disastrous failure to accompHsh it.

Before the War
The disturbing presence of the policy of relying
on a preponderance in power over England, to be
gained by a great navy, to the side of which the
smaller navies would be attracted, imposed on
England the necessity of guarding against what was
menacing the national life. As the outcome of this
situation she was compelled, so long as Germany
insisted on developing her naval policy, to sit down
and take thought. TTie result of her deliberations
may be summed up in eight propositions :
1. It was necessary, if the safety of England
by sea was not to be put in jeopardy, that she
should enter into real and close friendships with
other nations.
2, The great attraction to these other nations
would lie in the maintenance of British sea power.
3. While the power of the British Navy was
of the first importance to France, she might also,
through no fault of her own, be placed in such
peril as made it desirable that we should be able
to render her help by land also.
4. But the military forces of France and her
ally, Russia, were great enough to make it reason
able to estimate that a small army from England
would be a sufficient addition to enable France
to break the shock of an aggressive attack on her.
5. Even on purely military grounds it was
impossible for Great Britain to raise in time of
150

The German Attitude
peace a great army for use on the Continent.
The necessity of recruiting and educating the
necessary corps of professional officers required
to train and command such an army would have
occupied at least two generations if the task were
to be taken in hand in peace time. But it was
possible to organise and prepare a small but highly
trained Expeditionary Force, provided we discarded
some of our old military traditions, and studied
modem requirements and objectives in consulta
tion with those who were best able to throw light
on them.
6. Although more than modern and scientific
military organisation on a comparatively small
scale was not in our power, we could in carrying
out even this much lay foundations which would
enable expansion in time of war to take place,
7. In the result, as was believed here, and as
Admiral von Tirpitz himself seems to have antici
pated, sea power and capacity for blockade would
decide the issue of the war. In this respect
Germany seemed less well prepared than Great
Britain. 8. The last thing wished for was war, and if
we had to enter upon it we should do so only in
defence of our own vital interests, as weU as those
of the other Entente Powers. Our entry, if it
was to come, must be immediate and unhesitating.
For if we delayed Germany might succeed in occupy
ing the northern coast of France, and in impairing
our security by sea.

Before the War
I will conclude this chapter by appending an
estimate of the Emperor WiUiam IL, which is
worth comparing with that of his German Ministers
already referred to.
In the chapter on WiUiam II. in Count
Czernin's book on " The World War " there is
a passage which may, I think, turn out to be pretty
near the truth about the late Emperor's mood :
" Although the Emperor was always very power
ful in speech and gesture, still, during the war he
was much less independent in his actions than is
usually assumed, and, in my opinion, this is one
of the principal reasons that gave rise to a mis
taken understanding of all the Emperor's adminis
trative activities. Far more than the public
imagine, he was a driven rather than a driving
factor, and if the Entente to-day claims the right
of being prosecutor and judge in one person in
order to bring the Emperor to his trial, it is unjust
and an error, as, both preceding and during the
war, the Emperor William never played the part
attributed to him by the Entente.
" The unfortunate man has gone through
much, and more is, perhaps, in store for him.
" He has been carried too high, and cannot
escape a terrible faU. Fate seems to have chosen
him to expiate a sin which, if it exists at all, is
152

The German Attitude
not so much his as that of his country and his
times. The Byzantine atmosphere in Germany
was the ruin of Emperor William; it enveloped
him and clung to him like a creeper to a tree ; a
vast crowd of flatterers and fortune-seekers who
deserted him in the hour of trial. The Emperor
William was merely a particularly distinctive re
presentative of his class. All modem monarchs
suffer from the disease ; but it was more highly
developed in the Emperor WiUiam, and therefore
more obvious than in others. Accustomed from
his youth to the subtle poison of flattery, at the
head of one of the greatest and mightiest States
in the world, possessing almost unlimited power,
he succumbed to the fatal lot that awaits men
who feel the earth recede from under their feet,
and who begin to believe in their Divine
semblance. " He is expiating a crime which was not of
his making. He can take with him in his solitude
the consolation that his only desire was for the
best. " It has already been mentioned that all the
warlike speeches flung into the world by the
Emperor were due to a mistaken understanding
of their effect. I allow that the Emperor wished
to create a sensation, even to terrify people, but
K 153

Before the War
he also wished to act on the principle of si vis
pacem, para bellum, and by emphasising the
military power of Germany he endeavoured to
prevent the many envious enemies of his Empire
from declaring war on him.
" It cannot be denied that this attitude .was
often both unfortunate and mistaken, and that it
contributed to the outbreak of war; but it is
asserted that the Em^peror was devoid of the dolus
of making war, that he said and did things by
which he unintentionally stirred up war.
" Had there been men in Germany ready to
point out to the Emperor the injurious effects of
his behaviour and to make him feel the growing
mistrust of him throughout the world, had there
been not one or two but dozens of such men, it
would assuredly have made an impression on the
Emperor. It is equally true that of all the in
habitants of the earth the German is the one least
capable of adapting himself to the mentality of
other people, and, as a matter of fact, there were
perhaps but few in the immediate entourage of
the Emperor who recognised the growing anxiety
of the world. Perhaps many of them who so
continuously extoUed the Emperor were really
honestly of opinion that his behaviour was quite
correct. It is, nevertheless, impossible not to
154

The German Attitude
believe that among the many clever politicians of
the last decade there were some who had a clear
grasp of the situation, and the fact remains that
in order to spare the Emperor and themselves
they had not the courage to be harsh .with him
and tell him the truth to his face. These are not
reproaches, but reminiscences which should not
be superfluous at a time when the Emperor is to
be made the scapegoat of the whole world."

155

CHAPTER IV
THE MILITARY PREPARATIONS
When more time has passed and heads have be
come cooler the critics will have to decide whether
Great Britain was as fully prepared as she ought
to have been for the possibility of the great struggle
into which she had to enter in August, 1914.
Hundreds of speeches have been made, and still
more articles have been written, to demonstrate
that she was caught wholly unready. On the other
hand authoritative writers in Germany have made
the counter-assertion that she had prepared
copiously, not merely to defend herself, but to
join in encircling and crushing Germany.
I shall venture to submit some reasons fcr say
ing that neither of these views is the true one.
During the whole of the period between the com
mencement of 1906 and the autumn of 1914 I
sat on the Committee of Imperial Defence and
took an active part in its deUberations. For over
six of these eight years I was Minister for War,
and I was in continuous co-operation with the
coUeagues who were, like myself, engaged in
156

The Military Preparations
carrying into execution the methods whidti we had
gradually worked out. Such as the plans were, the
preparations .which they required were completed
before the war. As to the bulk of these prepara
tions I speak from direct knowledge.
The Expeditionary Force, the Territorial
Force, and the Special Reserve had been organ
ised under my own eye, by soldiers who had
studied modern war upon What was in this country
a wholly new principle. Before they took matters
in hand not only was there no divisional organisa
tion, but hardly a brigade could have been sent to
the Continent without being recast. For there
used to be a peace organisation that was different
from the organisation that was required for war,
and to convert the former into the latter meant a
delay that would have been deadly. Swift mobili
sation, like that of the Germans even in 1870, was
in these older days impracticable.
All this had been changed for the Regular
Army at home by the end of 1908, and it was after
that year easy to mobilise. Other changes, also of
a sweeping character, had been made to complete
the new structure. On August 4, 1914, Lord
Kitchener took deUvery of an army in being,
small, but not inferior in quality to the best that
the enemy possessed. With the creation of the
^57

Before the War
new armies, for which the Expeditionary Force
was the pattern — and, indeed, with the general
management of the war — I had very little to do.
But I saw a good deal of Lord Kitchener, enough
to impress me from the day when he became War
Minister with his extraordinary individuality and
his remarkable courage and energy, and to make
me feel .what an invaluable asset his personality
was for putting heart into the British nation.
I have referred to my own and earlier part in
the matter only to make plain that I do not speak
about it from mere hearsay. And to say this has
been necessary, because I shall have to submit
some observations which, if true, do not har
monise with assertions made by some of the critics
of the successive Governments .which were at work
on the business of preparation for possible con
tingencies between 1906 and 1914. I will, how
ever, begin by making these critics a present of
a definite admission. We never intended to create
an army capable of invading or encircling
Germany, and we should, in our own view, have
found ourselves unable to do so even had we
desired any such thing.
Our purpose was quite a different one. It was
purely defensive. We knew how high a level of
military organisation had been attained in France.
158

The Military Preparations
She had a large army, an army not so large as
that of Germany, but comparable .with it in
quality. Her ally,^ Russia, also had a large army
on the other side of Germany, though not so
perfectly organised as that of France. By adding
to the French military defensive forces a com
paratively small British Expeditionary Force of
very high quality, organised as far as possible on
the principle about which von der Goltz, in the
introduction to his famous book, " The Nation in
Arms," had written, we could provide what that
eminent writer had suggested would be formid
able, could it be properly organised, even against
the German masses of troops. In the introduction
to his " Nation in Arms " he had declared that,
" Looking forward into the future we seem to
feel the coming of a time when the armed millions
of the present will have played out their part. A
new Alexander will arise who, with a small body
of weU-equipped and skilled warriors, will drive
the impotent hordes before him, when, in their
eagerness to multiply, they shaU have overstepped
all proper bounds, have lost internal cohesion, and,
like the green-banner army of China, have become
transformed into a numberless but effete host of
Philistines." This, of course, did not mean that the little
1 59

Before the War
Expeditionary Force could by itself cope with the
admirably organised and enormous German Army,
but it did point to the grovring importance in
these times of high morale and quaUty, and to
the value that even a small force, if sufficiently
long and closely trained, might prove to have, if
placed in a proper position alongside the excellent
soldiers of France. A careful study had made us
think that the addition of even a smaU force of
such quality to those of France and Russia would
provide the combined armies with a good chance
of defeating any German attempt at the invasion
and dismemberment of France.
But in addition to and apart from all this, the
British Navy had been raised before 1914 to a
strength imexampled in its history, and Mr.
Churchill had for the first time introduced in the
autumn of 1911 the valuable principle of a war
staff, fashioned with a view to the systematic study
of modem naval .war in co-operation with the
forces on land.
These naval reforms had helped to confer the
fresh power which took shape in the blockade
which was in the end to prove decisive in the
struggle. The heads of the newly organised MiU
tary General Staff met the representatives of
the Admiralty War Staff at systematicaUy held
i6o

The Military Preparations
meetings of the Committee of Imperial Defence,
under the presidency of the successive Prime
Ministers — ^first of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
and then of Mr. Asquith. Not only were the
Ministers at the head of the Admiralty and the
War Office present to listen to what their experts
had to say and to assist in arriving at conclusions
on the questions discussed at these meetings, but
other Ministers (includirig Lord Crewe, Sir Edward
Grey, Lord Morley, Mr. Lloyd George, and Lord
Harcourt) attended regularly. The function of
this committee was to consider strategical difficul
ties with which the nation might conceivably find
itself confronted, and to work out the solutions.
It was a committee the members of which were
selected and summoned by the Prime Minister, to
whom it was advisory. He determined the subjects
to be investigated. Secrecy was of course essen
tial, excepting so far as the Cabinet was concerned.
The presence of the non-military Ministers to
whom I have referred was a proper guarantee that
from the Cabinet there was no desire to withhold
information. Possible operations on the Con
tinent of our army occupied much of the time of
the committee. About the propriety of the con
versations which took place between members of
the General Staffs of France and England questions
i6i

Before the War
have been raised. But these conversations were
concerned with purely tedhnical matters, and
doubts as to their justification will hardly arise in
the minds of people who are aware what modem
war implies in the way of preliminary inquiries as
to its conditions.
We were not engaging in any secret under
taking. We were merely providing what modern
military requirements had rendered essential.
Without study beforehand by a General Staff
military operations in these days are bound to
fail. If at any time we had, by any chance what
ever, to operate in France it was essential that our
generals should possess long in advance the know
ledge that was requisite, and this could only be
obtained with the assistance of the General Staff
of France itself. We committed ourselves to no
undertaking of any kind, and it was from the first
put in writing that we could not do so. The con
versations were just the natural and informal out
come of our close friendship with France.
The French had said that if it was to be
regarded as even possible that we should come to
their assistance in resisting an attack, which might,
moreover, result if successful in great prejudice to
our own security in the Channel, we should find
this study vital. Our General Staff took the same
162

The Military Preparations
vieWj and at the request of Sir Edward Grey, who
had written to him, I saw Sir Henry Campbell-
Bannerman at his house in London in January,
1906. He was a very cautious man, but he was also
an old War Minister. He at once saw the point,
and he gave me authority for directing the Staff
at the War Office to take the necessary steps. He
naturally laid down that the study proposed was to
be carefully guarded, so far as any possible claim
of commitment was concerned, that it was not to
go beyond the limits of purely General Staff work,
and further that it should not be talked about.
The inquiry into conditions thus set on foot was
conducted by the three successive generals who
occupied the position of Director of Military
Operations — the late General Grierson, General
Ewart, and General Wilson. Each of these dis
tinguished soldiers from time to time explained
the progress made in working out conceivable
plans for using the Expeditionary Force in France
and in more distant regions, to the full Committee
of Imperial Defence, and obtained its provisional
approval. I should like to say how much the Committee
of Imperial Defence, which was originally a very
valuable contribution made by Mr, Balfour, when
Prime Minister, to the organisation of our pre-
163

Before the War
paredness for war, owed to its secretaries. To such
men as Admiral Sir Charles Ottley and, after his
time, to Colonel Sir Maurice Hankey, the nation is
under a great debt, and it was Ithe least that could
be done to include the latter in the thanks of Parlia
ment to the sailors and soldiers to whom our actual
success was due. It was he who, assisted by a
brilliant staff on which the late Colonel Grant
Duff was prominent, planned and prepared that
remarkable War Book, which was completed in
excellent time before the outbreak of hostilities,
and which contained full instructions for every
department of Government which could be called
on to assist if war broke out. Not only the
drafts of the necessary orders, but those of the
necessary telegrams, were written out in advance
under Sir Maurice Hankey 's instmotions. He arid
Sir Charles Ottley, themselves sailors, formed real
links between the navy and the army, and did an
enormous amount of work in co-ordinating war
objectives. Of the Navy I need say nothing, for its pre
parations are weU understood. Nor need I say
much of the details in the reorganisation of the
army. The general principle of this was to com
plete the CardweU system by shaping the home
battalions into six great divisions, and so providing
164

The Military Preparations
them with transport, munitions, stores, and medical
and other equipment, as to make them instantly
ready for war. The characteristic of the old British
Army, as it was up to 1907, was, as I have already
observed, that it lived in peace formations only, in
small and detached units Which .would have to be
refashioned into quite different formations before
they could be ready to be sent to fight.
This state of things involved much delay in
mobilisation. A careful inquiry made in 1906 dis
closed that in order to put even 80,000 men on the
Continent, a period which might be well over two
months was the minimum required. Besides this
great difficulty, the other items to which I have
referred as required for the six divisions were not
there in any shape even approaching sufficiency.
The artillery too was deficient.
There is no more amusing myth than the one
according to which the horse and field artillery
were reduced. The batteries .which could be made
instantly effective for war were, in fact, raised from
forty-two to eighty-one. The personnel of this
artillery was increased by a third for mobilisation.
For the first time the horse and field artillery was
given the modern organisation which Cardwell had
not been able to give it. The establishments had
been merely peace estabUsihments. There were
i6s

Before the War
ninety-nine batteries which could parade about
on ceremonial occasions, but if war had broken
out they would have had to be rolled up, and
the personnel of fifty-seven of them taken to
produce the mobilised forty-two which were all
that could be put into the field. The difficulty
was got over by the organisation of eighteen
of the ninety-nine into training brigades, and
the additional men needed for the mobilisation of
eighty-one fighting batteries were thus obtained.
No doubt some of the artillery officers did not like
being set to training work, and complained that
they were being reduced. But it was a reduction
from unreal work of parade in order to double
fighting efficiency. Not a man or a gun of the
regular horse and field artillery was ever reduced in
any shape or form, and not only were the effective
batteries largely increased, but over 150 serviceable
batteries were created and made part of the Second
Line, or Territorial, Army. This was a force
which could be used either for home defence or for
expansion of an expeditionary force of Regulars.
The Militia, which was not under obligation to
serve abroad, was abolished, and its substance was
converted into third regular battalions, organised
for the purpose of training and providing drafts to
meet the wastage of war in the first and second
1 66

The Military Preparations
regular battalions of their regiments. Some of
those third battalions are said to have trained and
feent out as many as twelve thousand men apiece
in the course of the war.
All these things were done under the direction
of such young and modern soldiers as Sir Douglas
Haig on the General Staff side, and as Sir John
Cowans on the administrative side. Both of these
officers were brought home from India for the
purpose. Sir Herbert Miles, as Quartermaster-
General, and Sir Stanley von Donop, as Master-
General of the Ordnance, also rendered much help.
The newly organised General Staff thought the
plans out under the direction, first of Sir Neville
Lyttelton, and then of Sir William Nicholson, its
successive chiefs. The latter and Sir Douglas
Haig in addition worked out, in consultation
with the representatives of the Dominions, the
organisation of their troops in units and with staffs
and weapons corresponding as nearly as was prac
ticable to our own. Systematic conferences be
tween the British and Dominion War and other
Ministers prepared the ground for this. Sir
Wilfrid Laurier and General Botha and others of
the Dominion Ministers came to London and
co-operated. It is sometimes said that all these things were

Before the War
very weU, but that we should have at once raised
a much larger army, as in the course of the war we
ultimately had to do. The answer is that in a time
of peace we could not possibly have raised a large
army on the Continental scale. If we had tried to
we should have made a miserable and possibly
disastrous failure. The utmost we could do towards
it was to provide the organisation in Which the com
paratively small force which was all we could create
might be expanded after a war broke out.
How this nucleus organisation, on the basis
of which the later expansions took place, was
fashioned so as to afford a general pattern, anyone
may see who chooses to expend a shilling on the
purchase of the little volume called " Field Service
Regulations, Part II," This piece of work took
nearly three years to prepare. With the organisa
tion of which I have spoken, which was made in
accordance with its principles, the whole of the
task of recasting the British Army was performed
by 1911.
What we had by that time attained was the
power to send an army of, not 100,000 men, which
was all that had originally been suggested, but of
160,000, to a place of concentration opiMJsite the
Belgian frontier, and to have it concentrated there
within a time which .was fifteen days in 1911, but
i6S

The Military Preparations
was a little later reduced to twelve. No German
army could mobilise and concentrate at such a dis
tance more rapidly. So far as I know none of the
necessary details were overlooked, and the time
tables and arrangements for the concentration
worked out, when the moment for their use came,
without a hitch. Wliat had been done was to take
the old-fashioned British Army and to rid it of
superfluous fat, to develop muscle in place of mere
fle^h, and to put the whole force into proper
training. If the warrior looked slender he was at
least as well prepared for the ring as science could
make him.
It is said that this army ought to have been
provided from the first with more heavy artillery.
But the reason why its artillery, and that of the
French armies also, were of a comparatively light
pattern was not due to any notion of economy or
to civilian interference. We had enough money,
even in those difficult days, for every necessary
purpose. The real reason was that the General Staffs of
both the French and the British Armies had advised
that the campaign would probably be one in which
swiftness in moving troops would prove the deter
mining factor. Heavy artillery, and even any large
number of the ponderous machine-guns of that
I, i6g

Before the War
period (the Lewis gun had not yet appeared),
would have been a serious impediment to such
mobility. What was anticipated was a series of
great battles. "It was supposed by certain
soldiers," says a well-iiiformed military critic
(Colonel A 'Court Repington, at page 276 of his
"Vestigia"), "that the war against Germany
would be decided by the fighting of some seven
great battles en rase campagne, where heavies
would be a positive encumbrance."
So far the staffs proved to be right, for in the
early period of the war mobility did count for a
very great deal, and it was not until later that
trench warfare became the dominant factor, a
stage for which even the Germans themselves, as
we now know, from the memoirs of Admiral
Tirpitz and other books, were not adequately pre
pared in point of guns, or of shells and powder,
either. It is said that we in Great Britain ought, before
entering on the Entente, to have provided an army,
not of 160,000, but of 2,000,000 men. And it is
remarked that this is what we had to do in the
end. This suggestion does not, however, bear
scrutiny. No doubt it would have been a great
advantage if, in addition to our tremendous navy,
we could have produced, at the outbreak of the war,
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The Military Preparations
2,000,000 men, so trained as to be the equals in
this respect of German troops, and properly
fashioned into the great divisions that were neces
sary, with fuU equipment and auxiliary services.
But to train the recruits, and to command suCh an
army when fashioned, would have required a very
great corps of professional officers of hig'h xnilitary
education, many times as large as we had actually
raised. How were these to have been got?
I sometimes read speeches, made even by
officers who have served with distinction at the head
of their m.en in the field, which express regret that
the British nation was so shortsighted as not to have
provided such an army before the war. They point
to the effort it made later on with such success
during the war. But to raise armies under the
stress of war, when the people submit cheerfully
to compulsion, and when highly intelligent civiUan
men of business readily quit their occupations to
be trained as rapidly as possible for the work of
every kind of officer, is one thing. To do it in
peace time is quite another. I doubt whether
more was possible in this direction than, in the
days prior to the war, to organise the Officers'
Training Corps, which contained over twenty
thousand partially prepared young men, and began
at once to expand to yet larger dimensions from

Before the War
the day when war broke out. For the corps of
matured officers, required to train recruits and to
command them in war when organised in their
units, would have had to consist of soldiers, them
selves highly trained in military organisation, who
had devoted their lives to this work as a profession.
It takes many years in peace time to train such
officers. Because they must be professional, they
can only be recruited under a voluntary system.
Now, before the war it was difficult enough to
recruit even so many as the number we then had
got, a number totally inadequate for any army
larger than the small one we actually put into
shape at home. Every source had been tried in
my time by the able administrative generals who
were working under me at the War Office. I say
"administrative generals," for here comes in the
source of the confusion which at times leads not
a few — ^including some whose military training has
been exclusively in the leading of troops and in
strategy and tactics — to miss the point.
Under the modern military principle, .which
is the secret of rapidity and efficiency in mobiUsa-
tion, duties are carefully defined and divided.
The General Staff does not administer, and is not
trained in the business of administration. This
kind of military business is entrusted to the
172

The Military Preparations
administrative side of the army, the officers of
which receive a different kind of training. The
General Staff says what is necessary. The admini
strative side provides it as far as it can. And
among the exclusive functions of the administra
tive side of the War Office is the recruiting of
personnel by the Adjutant-General and the
Military Secretary. It is true that the Director
of Military Training, who supervises the training
of the young officer when obtained, belongs to
the General Staff. That is because his work is
educational. With obtaining the young officer it
is only accidentally that he is at all concerned.
When, therefore, even distinguished com
manders in the field express regret at the want of
foresight of the British nation in not having pre
pared a much larger army before 1914, I would
respectfully ask them how they imagine it could
have been done.
To raise a great corps of officers who have
voluntarily selected the career of an officer as
an exclusive and absorbing profession has been
possible in Germany and in France. But it has
only become possible there after generations
of effort and under pressure of a long-standing
tradition, extending from decade to decade, under
which a nation, armed for the defence of its land
173

Before the War
frontiers, has expended its money and its spirit in
creating such an officer caste.
Now, the British nation has put its money and
its fighting spirit primarily into its Navy and its
oversea forces. Why? Because, just as the
Continental tradition had its genesis in the
necessity for instant readiness to defend land
frontiers, so our tradition has had its genesis in
the vital necessity of always commanding the sea.
Possibly if, just after the war of 1870, we had
endeavoured to enter on a new tradition, and to
develop a great army, we might have succeeded in
doing so. With forty years' time devoted to the
task and a very large expenditure we might con
ceivably have succeeded. But I think that had
we done so we should have been very foolish. Our
navy would inevitably have been diminished and
deteriorated. You cannot ride two horses at once,
and no more can you possess in their integrity two
great conflicting military traditions.
But what I am saying does not rest on my
own conclusions alone. In the year 1912 the then
Chief of the General Staff told me that he and
the General Staff would like to investigate, as a
purely miUtary problem, the question whether .we
could or could not raise a great army. I thought
this a reasonable inquiry and sanctioned and found
J 74

The Military Preparations
money for it, only stipulating that they should
consult with the Administrative Staffs when
assembling the materials for the investigation.
The outcome was embodied in a report made to
me by Lord Nicholson, himself a soldier who had
a strong desire for compulsory service and a large
army. He reported, as the result of a prolonged
and careful investigation, that, aUke as regarded
officers and as regarded buildings and equipment,
the conclusion of the General Staff was that it
would be in a high degree unwise to try, during
a period of unrest on the Continent, to commence
a new military system. It could not be built up
excepting after much unavoidable delay. We
might at once experience a falling off in voluntary
recruiting, and so become seriously .weaker before
we had a chance of becoming stronger. And the
temptation to a foreign General Staff to make an
early end of what it might insist on interpreting
as preparation for aggression on our part would be
too strong to be risked. What we should get
might prove to be a mob in place of an army. I
quite agreed, and not the less because it was highly
improbable that the country would have looked at
anything of the sort.
What we actually could produce in the form
of an army had to be estimated, not as if we were
175

Before the War
standing alone, but as being an adjunct to what
was possessed by France and Russia. They had
large armies and small navies. We had a large
navy and a small army. When these were con
sidered in conjunction, I do not think that the
hope of some of our best military authorities, that
an aggressive attempt by the Central Powers could
be made abortive, was an over-sanguine one.
Much of what we did owe for the excellence
of the Expeditionary Force, such as it .was in point
of size, and much of what we have since owed
for the excellence of the great armies that we
subsequently raised, was due to the unbroken work
of the fine Administrative Staff, developed in those
days, to which I have already referred. I often
regret that when the nation gave its thariks
through Parliament to the army, the splendid
contribution made by those who prepared the
administrative services was not adequately recog
nised. But this arose from the old British tradition
under which fighting and administration were not
distinguished as being quite separate and yet
equally essential for fighting. The public had not
got into its head the reality of the process of
defining the two different functions with pre
cision, and of confiding them to different sets of
officers differently trained. 176

The Military Preparations
Tl\e principle was a novel one in the army
itself, and why one set of officers should be trained
at the Staff College and another at the London
School of Economics was not a question the answer
to which was quite familiar, even to all soldiers.
It is, I think, certain that for purely military
reasons, even if, in view of political (including
diplomatic) difficulties any party in the State had
felt itself able to undertake the task of raising a
great army under compulsory service, and to set
itself to accomplish it, say, within the ten years
before the war, the fulfilment of the undertaking
could not have been accomplished, and failure in
it would have made us much weaker than we were
when the war broke out. The only course really
open was to make use of the existing voluntary
system, and bring its organisation for war up to
the modern requirements, of which they were in
1906 far short. It is true that the voluntary system
could not give us a substantially larger army, or
more than a better one in point of quality. The
stream of voluntary recruits was limited. When
the 156 battalions of the line which existed on
paper in 1906 were in that year nominally reduced
to 148, there was no real reduction, although some
money was saved which was required for some
other essential military purposes. For the remain-
177

Before the War
ing battalions were short of their proper strength,
and it took aU the recruits set free by the so-called
reductions to bring the 148 — some of which were
badly short of officers and men alike — to the proper
estabUshment required for the six new divisions of
the Expeditionary Force.
I remember .weU the then Adjutant-General,
Sir Charles Douglas, one of the ablest men of
business who ever fiUed that position in this
country, informing me at that time that he could
not raise a single further division to be added to
the six at home.
But if the voluntary system had disadvantages,
it also presented us with advantages. The pro
fessional and therefore voluntary nature of our
army, which, because it was professional, was
always ready for sending overseas on expeditions,
was in reality made necessary by our position as
the island centre of a great and scattered Empire.
We had increased that Empire enormously by the
possession of a voluntarily serving army. Whether
this vast increase of the Empire has been always
defensible I am not discussing. What I am saying
is that we owe the actual increases largely to this,
that we were the only Power in the world that
was ready to step in at short notice and occupy
vacant territory. We always had a much larger
178

The Military Preparations
Expeditionary Force available for this special
purpose than Germany or any other country.
That has been our tradition, as contrasted with
the tradition of other nations who have been
limited in this kind of capacity by the necessity
of putting their military forces on a compulsory
basis and keeping them at home for the protection
of their land frontiers. Ours was the method in
which we had been schooled by experience.
It is for such reasons as I have now submitted
that I am wholly unable to assent to the suggestion
that we did not look ahead, or considered within
the years just before the war whether we were
preparing to make the sort of contribution that
our own interests and our friendships alike
required. Sea power was for us then, as always
before in our history, the dominant element in
military policy. I have little doubt that we made
mistakes over details. That is inherent in human
and therefore finite effort. But I believe that
we did in the main the best we could for the fulfil
ment of our only purpose, which was to preserve
ihe peace of the world and avoid contributing to
its disturbance, and also to prepare to defend our
selves and our friends against aggression. Talk
to the public we could not, for it would have
hindered and not helped us to do so. A " pre-
179

Before the War
ventive war," which the Entente Powers would
not have been so ready to meet as they became
later on, might weU have been the result.
Rhetorical declarations on platforms would have
been wholly out of place. But we could think,
and to the best of such abilities as we and our
expert advisers possessed, we did try to think.
•-' A curious legend which had its origin in Beriin,
in October, 1914, has obtained such currency that
it is worth while to make an end of it. The legend
is that the British Military Attache at Bmssels,
the late General Barnardiston, had informed the
Chief of the Belgian General Staff of secret plans,
prepared at the War Office in London, to invade
Belgium, and if necessary to violate her neutrality,
in order to make an expedition, the purpose of
which was to attack Germany through that
country. The story appears to have emanated
from Baron Greindl, who was the Belgian Minister
at Berlin in 1911. He had been completely mis
informed, no doubt in that capital, and there is
no truth whatever in what he had been told about
what he called the "perfidious and naif revela
tions " of the British Military Attache at Brussels.
Him the story represents as having said that his
Minister (by whom I presume myself, as the then
Secretary of State for War, to have been intended)
I So

The Military Preparations
and the British General Staff were the only per
sons in the secret. I have to observe, in the first
place, that I never during my tenure of office,
either suggested any such plan, or heard of anyone
else suggesting it. When the story was brought
to my knowledge, which was not until November,
1914, I inquired at once of General Barnardiston
and of his successor. Colonel Bridges, whether
there was any foundation for it. The reply from
each of these distinguished officers was that there
was none.
We were among the guarantors of Belgian
neutrality, and it was of course conceivable that,
if she called on us to do so, we might have had
to defend her. It would be part of the duty of
our MiUtary Attache to remember this, and, if
opportunity offered, to ascertain in informal con
versation the view of the Belgian General Staff
as to what form of help they would be likely to
ask us for. This he doubtless did, and indeed it
appears from what the Chief of the Belgian
General Staff wrote to the Belgian War Minister
that the former had discussed the contingency of
Belgium desiring our help with General Barnardis
ton, and had done so gladly. But even so the
conversation must have been very informal, for
in the account of it by the Chief of the Belgian
i8t

Before the War
General Staff there are errors about the com
position of the possible British Force Which in
dicate that either he took no notes, or else that
Colonel Barnardiston had not thought it an occa
sion which required him to obtain details from
London. At all events, such talk as there was
appears to have had relation only to what we
ought to do, if requested by Belgium to help,
in case of her being invaded by another Power.
The documents will be found in the volume
of Collected Diplomatic Documents relating to
the outbreak of the war, presented to Parliament
in May, 1915 (Cd. 7860). This volume includes
a vigorous denial by Sir Edward Grey of the
insinuation.

182

CHAPTER V
EPILOGUE
The great .war is over, and the Powers of the
West have conquered. In the earlier pages I
have given my own view of why they won in
the tremendous struggle that now. belongs to
history. They had on their side moral forces which
were lacking to their adversaries.
Germany .went into the war with a conviction
that had been carefully instilled into her people.
It was that she was being ringed round with the
intention that she should be crushed, and that
presently it would be too late for her to deliver
herself. The lesson so taught to her was not a
true one. She might easily have obtained guaran
tees of peace which ought to have satisfied her,
without undertaking a risk which in the end
was to prove disastrous. No one here wanted
to ruin her, no one who counted seriously in this
country. And if we did not want to, no more
in reality did France or Russia. She brought her
fate on her head by the unwisdom of her methods.
But her people hardly desired the dangers of
183

Before the War
unnecessary war, and her rulers dared not have
ventured these dangers had they not first of aU
preached a wrong doctrine to those over whom
they ruled. They had their way in the end, and
disaster to sixty-eight miUions of Germans was the
consequence. The calculations of their chiefs were
bad from the beginning. It is almost certain that
the best and most eminent among even these really
desired peace. They blundered in method. It was
not by continually flashing the sabre that peace was
to be secured.
It is scarcely likely that the conditions under
which this war became possible vrill recur. It is
more than unlikely that they will recur in our time.
But it is none the less worth while to consider how
the unlikelihood can be made to approach most
nearly to a certainty.
Not, I think, by causing the millions of German-
speaking people to feel that they are in chains
without possibility of freedom. More certainly,
surely, by leading them to the faith that if they wUl
play a part in the great world effort for permanent
peace and for reconstruction they will be welcomed
to the brotherhood of nations. The individual
German citizen is more like the individual Anglo-
Saxon than he is different from him. The same
hopes and the same fears animate him, and he is
^ 184

Epilogue
sober and industrious quite as much as we are.
He has similar problems and similar interests.
Time must pass before the angry feeling that
a great struggle produces can die down. But there
are already indications that this feeling is not as
intense with us as it was even a short time ago.
Germany made a colossal and unjustifiable blunder.
She is responsible for the action of her late
Government. We think so, and we are not likely
to change our opinion on this point. The grief of
our people over their dead, over the lives that were
laid down for the nation from the highest kind of
inspiration, will keep the public mind fixed on this
conclusion. And so will the waste and misery to
the whole world which an unnecessary war has
brought in its train. But presently ,we shall ask
ourselves, in moments of reflection, whether this
ought to be our final word, and also, perhaps,
whether some want of care on our own part, and
certain deficiencies of which we are now more
conscious than we used to be, may not have had
something to do with the failure of other people
to divine our real mood and intentions. I am
not sure that in days that are to come we shall
give ourselves the whole benefit of the doubt.
However this may be, we are in no case a vindictive
people. M i8s

Before the War
But in any view something serious is at stake.
It will be a bad thing for us, and it will be a bad
thing for the world, if the people of the vanquished
nations are left to feel that they have no hope of
being restored to decent conditions of existence.
At present despair is threatening them. Their
estimate is that the crushing burden of the terms
of peace, if carried out to their full possibilities,
bars them from the prospect of a better future.
Their only way of deliverance may well come to
seem to them to lie in the grouping of the dis»-
contented nationalities, and the faith that by this
means, at some time which may come hereafter,
a new balance of power may begin to be set up.
Now this is not a good prospect, and the sooner
we succeed in softening the sense of real hardship
out of which it arises the better. Germany and
Austria must pay the penalty they have incurred
before the tribunal of international justice. But
that penalty ought to be tempered by something
that depends on even more than mercy. It is
intended to be inflicted for the good of the world,
and if it assumes a form which threatens the future
safety of the world it is not wise to press it to its
extreme consequences. We have to work towards
a better state of things than that which is promised
to-day. We have never hitherto kept up old
i86

Epilogue
animosities unduly long, and that has been one
of the secrets of our strength in the world. The
lessons of history point to the expediency of
trying to heal instead of to keep open the
wound which exists. Those who know the growth
in the past of literature, of music, of science,
of philosophy, of industry and of commerce,
do not wish the German people to die out. It
is only the ignorant that can desire this, and
ihitherto, in the course of our history, the ignorant
have neither proved to be safe guides nor have
they prevailed. To-day, as before, we must think
of generations other than our own if we would
preserve our strength.
I hope that a time is near in which we shall
no longer proclaim old grievances, but instead
cease to dwell on the past in this case, just as we
have ceased in the cases of the French, the Spanish,
the Russians and the Boers. It is best in every way
that it should come to be so.
It is not with any hope that these pages will
satisfy the extremists of to-day that they have
been written. They are intended for those who
try to be dispassionate, and for them only, as
a contribution to a vast heap of material that is
being gathered together for consideration. It is
well that those who were in any way directly
187

Before the War
connected with the story to which they relate
should place on record what they saw. But the
whole story in its fullness is beyond the knowledge
of anyone of our time. The history of the world is,
as has been said, the judgment of the world. It is
therefore only after an interval that it can be
sufficiently written. The ultimate and real origin
of this war, the greatest humanity has ever had to
endure, ,was a set of colossal suspicions of each
other by the nations concerned. I do not mean
that none of them were in the right or that some
of them were not deeply in the wrong. What I do
mean is that if there had been insight sufficient all
round the nations concerned would not have
misinterpreted each other. ,
To us it looks as though Germany had been
inspired throughout by a bad tradition, a spirit
older than even the days of Frederick the Great.
Had she been wise we think that she would have
changed her national policy after Bismarck had
brought it to unexampled success in things mate
rial. There are not .wanting indications that he
himself had the sense of the necessity of great
caution in pursuing this poUcy farther, and felt
that it could not be safely continued without modi
fication. It was no poUcy that was safe for any
but the strongest and sanest of minds, and even
i88

Epilogue
for those it had ceased to be safe. The potential
resistance to it was becoming too serious.
But we do not need to doubt that there were
many in Germany itself who saw this and did not
desire to rely merely on blood and iron. The men
and women in every country resemble those in
other countries more than they differ from them.
Germany was no exception to the rule. It is a
great mistake to judge her as she was merely
from a few newspapers and by the reports from
Berlin of their special correspondents. Sixty-eight
millions of people could not be estimated in their
opinions by the attitude of a handful, however
eminent and prominent, in the home of " Real
politik." It is, of course, true that the Germans
were taught to believe that they were a very great
nation which had not got its full share of the good
things of this world, a share of which they were
more worthy and for which they were better
organised than any other. But it is also true that
we here thought that we ourselves were entitled to
a great deal to which other people did not admit our
moral title. It was not only Germany that was
lacking in imagination. No doubt many Germans
had the idea that we wished to hem them in and
that we did not like them. Our failure to make
ourselves understood left them not without reason
189

Before the War
for this belief. But dislike of Germany was not the
attitude of the great mass of sober and God-fearing
Englishmen, and I do not believe that the counter-
attitude was that of the bulk of sober and God
fearing Germans. They and we alike mutually
misjudged each other from what was written in
newspapers and said in speeches by people who
were not responsible exponents of opinion, and
neither nation took sufficient trouble to make clear
that what was thus written and said was not suf
ficient material on which to judge it. It is very
difficult to diagnose general opinion in a foreign
nation, and one of the reasons of the difficulty is
that people at home do not pay sufficient attention
to the fact that their unfriendly utterances about
their neighbours are likely to receive more publicity
and attention than the utterances that are friendly.
It makes little difference that the latter may greatly
preponderate in number. They are read in the
main only in the country in which they are made.
Neither Germans nor Englishmen were careful
before the war always to be pleasant to each other,
and the same used to be true of Frenchmen and
Englishmen. But just as we are coming to
understand why and how France and England
misinterpreted each other systematically a century
and a half ago, so we may yet learn how we came to
190

Epilogue
present, more than a hundred years later, difficul
ties to the Germans not wholly unlike those which
they presented to us. No mere record of the dry
facts will be enough to render this intelligible in its
full significance. The historian who is to carry
conviction must do more than present photographs.
He must create a picture inspired by his own study
and from the depth of his own mind, and presented
in its real proportions with its proper lights and
shadows, as a true artist alone can present it.
Browning has told us something worth remember
ing. It is at the end of " The Ring and the
Book": Art may tell a truth
Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought,
Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word.
So may you paint your picture, twice show truth,
Beyond mere imagery on the wall, —
So, note by note, bring music from your mind.
Deeper than ever e'en Beethoven dived, —
So write a book shall mean beyond the facts,
Suffice the eye and save the soul beside.
The truth in its fullness and completeness can
not be compassed in any single narrative of events.
It is, of course, the case that history depends for
its value on scientific accuracy, but that is not the
only kind of truth on which it depends. No man,
even the most careful and exacting, can rely on
191

Before the War
having the whole of the materials before his eye, and
if he had them there they would not only be pre
sented in tints depending on his outlook, but would
be too vast to admit of his using more than isolated
fragments to work into his picture of the whole.
Selection is a necessity, and .when to the fact that
there must be selection there is added the other
fact that every historian has his personal equation,
the notion of a history constructed by a single man
on the methods of the physicist is a delusion. The
best that the great historian can do is to present the
details in the light of the spirit of the period of
which he is writing, and in order that he may
present his narrative aright, as his mind has recon
structed it, he must estimate his details in the order
in importance that was actually theirs. Now for
this the balance and the measuring rod do not
suffice. Quality counts as much as does quantity
in determining importance. What is merely inert
and mechanical is the subject neither of the artist
nor the historian. It is, of course, necessary that by
close and exact research the materials should first
of all be collected arid assembled. But that is only
the first step, and it always has to be followed by a
process of grouping and fashioning. The result
may have to be the leaving out (or the leaving over
for presentation by other artists) of aspects whieh
192

Epilogue
are not dealt with. We see this when we compare
even the best portraits. They do not wholly agree ;
it is enough if they correspond. For portraits may
vary in expression and yet each may be true. The ;
characteristic of .what is alive and is intelligent and
spiritual is that it may have many expressions, every
one of which really harmonises with every other.
It is because they can bring out expression in this
fashion that we continue to set high store on the
work of a Gibbon or a Mommsen.
The moral of this is twofold. We must, to
begin with, be content for the present to remain
in the stage at which all that can be done is to
collect and assemble facts and personal impressions
with as great care as we can. The whole truth we
cannot bring out or estimate until the later period,
although we may be sure enough of what we have
before us to make us feel capable of doing justice
of a rough kind, so far as necessary action is
concerned. And there is yet another deduction to be
drawn. It is at all events possible that the wider
view of a generation later than this may be one in
which Germany will be judged more gently than
the Allies can judge her to-day. We do not now
look on the French Revolution as our forefathers
looked on it. We see, because recent historians
193

Before the War
have impressed it on us, that it was a violent up
rising against, not Louis XVI., but a Louis XIV.
What France really made her great Revolution
to bring about was the establishment of a Con
stitution. Horrible deeds were perpetrated in
the name of Liberty, but it was not due to
any horrible national spirit that they were per
petrated. France was responsible no doubt for
the deeds of the men who acted in her name. But
she could hardly have controlled them even had
she passionately desired to do so. And she did not
passionately desire to do so because, however little
the mass of the people outside Paris may have
wished to massacre the adherents of the old
regime, the people as a whole welcomed deliverance
from calamity, even at the price of violent action.
We judge the French nation wholly differently
to-day from the way we judged it then, and it
judges us differently. Yet it would have been weU
had we not in the end of the eighteenth century
taken an exaggerated view of the French state of
mind. We now realise that even so great a man
as Burke mistook a fragment for the whole. Much
blood and treasure might have been spared, and
Napoleon might never have come into existence,
had we and others been less hasty.
It is therefore a good thing to keep before us
194

Epilogue
that it is at least possible that the verdict of man
kind will be hereafter that when the victory was
theirs the Allies judged the people of Germany in
a hurry and reflected this judgment in the spirit in
which certain of the terms of peace were declared.
The war had its proximate origin in the Near East.
It arose out of a supposed menace to Teuton by
Slav. The Slavs were not easy people to deal with,
and the Teutons were not easy people either. It
was easy to drift into war. It may well prove true
that no one really desired this, and that it was
miscalculation about the likelihood of securing
peace by a determined attitude that led to
disaster. It is certain that the German Govern
ment was deeply responsible for the conse
quences. In the face of its traditional policy
and of utterances that came from Berlin the
members of that Government cannot plead a
mere blunder. None the less, a great deal may
have been due to sheer ineptitude in estimating
human nature. How much this was so, or how
much an immoral tradition had its natural results,
we cannot as yet fully teU, for we have not the
whole of the records before us. No one disputes>
that we were bound to impose heavy terms on the
Central Powers. The Allies have won the war and
they were entitled to reparation. This the Germany
195

Before the War
do not appear to controvert. They are a people
with whom logic is held in high esteem. But .we
have to do something more than define the mere
consequences of victory. We have also to make
plain on what footing we shall be willing to live
with the German nation in days that lie ahead.
And here some enlargement of the spirit seems to
be desirable in our own interests. We do not
want to fall again into the mistake that Burke
made. The spirit is at least as important as the letter
in the doctrine of a League of Nations. Such a
League has for its main purpose the supersession of
the old principle of balancing the Powers. In the
absence of a League of Nations, or — what is the
same thing in a less organised form — of an entente
or concert of Powers so general that none are left
shut out from it, the principle of balancing may
have to be relied on. I believe this to have
been unavoidable when the Entente between
France, Russia and Great Britain was found to
be required for safety if the tendency to dominate
of the Triple Alliance was to be held in check.
But in that case, and probably in every other
case, reliance on the principle could only be
admissible for self-protection and never for the
mere exhibition of the power of the sword. If
196

Epilogue
the principle is resorted to with the latter object
the group that is suspected of aggressive intentions
will by degrees find itself confronted with another
group of nations that have huddled together for
self-protection and may become very strong just
because they have a moral justification for their
action. It was this that happened before the war
which broke out in 1914, and it was the state of
tension which ensued that led up to that war. Had
there been no counter-grouping to that of the
Central Powers there would probably have been
war all the same, but with this difference, that
defeat and not victory would have been the lot
of the Entente Powers.
Now the German-speaking peoples in the world
amount to an enormous number, at least to a
hundred millions if those outside Germany and
Austria, and in the New World as well as the Old,
are taken into account. It may be difficult for
them to organise themselves for war, but it will
be less difficult for them to develop a common spirit
which may penetrate all over the world. It is just
this development that statesmen ought to watch
carefully, for, given an interval long enough, it is
impossible to predict what influence these hundred
millions of people may not acquire and come to
exercise. We do not want to have a prolonged
197

Before the War
period of growing anxiety and unrest, such as
obtained in our relations with the French, notwith
standing the peace estabUshed by the Treaty of
Vienna. Of the anxiety and unrest which were
ours for more than one generation, the history of
the Channel fortifications, of the Volunteer force
and of several other great and often costly institu
tions, bears witness. Let us therefore take thought
while there is time to do so. We do not wish to see
repeated anything analogous to our former experi
ence. The one thing that can avert it is the spirit
in which a League of Nations has been brought
to birth. That spirit alone can preclude the gradual
nascence of desire to call into existence a new
balance of power. It is not enough to tell Germany
and Austria that if they behave weU they wfll be
admitted to the League of Nations. What really
matters is the feeling and manner in which the
invitation is given, and an obvious sincerity in
the desire that they should work with us as equals
in a common endeavour to make the best of a world
which contains us both. One is quite conscious of
the difficulties that must attend the attempt to
approach the question in the frame of mind that is
requisite. We may have to discipline ourselves
considerably. But the people of this country are
capable of reflection, and so are the people of the
198

Epilogue
American Continent. The problem to be solved
is one that presses on our great Allies in the United
States, where the German-speaking population is
very large, quite as much as it does on us. France
and Belgium have more to forgive, and France has
a hard past from which to avert her eyes. But she
is a country of great intelligence, and it is for the
sake of everybody, and not merely in the interest
of our recent enemies, that enlargement of the
spirit is requisite.
How the present situation is to be softened, how
the people of the Central Powers are to be brought
to feel that they are not to remain divided from us
by an impassable gulf, this is not the occasion to
suggest. It is enough to repeat that the question is
not one simply of the letter of a treaty but is one of
the spirit in which it is made. Conditions change in
this world with a rapidity that is often startling.
The fashion of the day passes before we know that
what is novel and was unexpected has come upon
us. The foundations of a peace that is to be
enduring must therefore be sought in what is
highest and most abiding in human nature.

199

INDEX

Agadir incident, the, 53
Algeciras Conference, the, 54,
96
Alsace-Lorraine, question of,
96
the Kaiser on, 37, 38
America, Tschirsky on, 45
Anglo-French Entente, Bulow
on, 41
Tschirsky on, 44
views of German Emperor
on, 37
Armaments, difficulty of ques
tion of, 9
Germany's, 79, 143
Army, British, advantages of
voluntary system in, 178
question of compulsory ser
vice, 177
Asquith, Mr., consulted by Sir
Edward Grey, 30
Premier and War Secretary,
35
presides at Imperial Defence
Committee, 161
Austria annexes Bosnia and
Herzegovina, 55, 95
ultimatum to Serbia, 115

Bagdad Railway, the, WilUam
II. and, 48 et seq.
Balance of power, and the
League of Nations, 198
principle of, 8, 10, 101
Balfour, A. J., and Imperial
Defence, 163

Ballin, Herr, and Tirpitz,
126
Barnardiston, General, an un
founded charge against,
180
Berchtold, Count, and the ul
timatum to Serbia, 135
BerUn, a curious legend origin
ating in, 180
and the Bagdad Railway
question, 51
author's visit to, 22
Bethmann Hollweg, and the
Agadir crisis, 54, 56
at Potsdam conference, 133
author's interview with, and
the formula of neutrality,
56, 58, 63, 64, 108
desires preservation of peace,
149
his accusation against En
tente Powers, 85
informed of Austrian ulti
matum, 135
letter to author after the
Montreal address, 78
loyalty to the Kaiser, 96
succeeds Prince Biilow as
Chancellor, 94
Bismarck, Countess Wilhelm,
128
Bismarck, Prince, a dictum of,
41
and Britain's indefinite
pohcy, 5
and the inevitability of war,
11

N

20I

Index

Bismarck, Prince, and the miU
tary party in Germany, 74
and Tirpitz, 127-30
denounces abrogation of Re
insurance Treaty, 128
his affection for Emperor
Frederick, 130
his hatred of " prestige poli
tics," 102
Reinsurance Treaty with
Russia, 108
Boer War, the, attitude of the
Kaiser during, 97
Bosnia, annexation of, 55, 95
Botha, General, co-operates in
military preparations, 167
Bridges, Colonel, British Mili
tary Attach^ at Brussels,
181
Britain's command of the sea,
174
British Army, the, reorganisa
tion of, 32
British Expeditionary Force,
the, mobilisation of, 35
organisation of, 157
unrecognised work of, 176
British Government, the, para
mount duty of, 6
British Navy, a War Staff in
troduced into, 121, 160
(See also Navy, British)
Biilow, Prince von, author's
meeting with, 23
on the Anglo-French|JEn-
tente, 41
opposes Bagdad Railway
proposal, 52
succeeded by Bethmann
Hollweg as Chancellor, 94

Cambon, M. Jules, and rela
tions between France and
Germany, 95

Cambon, M. Jules, informed of
Berlin " conversations,"
63
Campbell - Bannerman, Sir
Henry, and Imperial De
fence, 161, 163
at Marienbad, 23
Caprivi and the organisation of
German Navy, 120
and the Reinsurance Treaty,
108, 109
Cassel, Sir Ernest, visits Ber
lin, 55 (and note)
Central Powers, the, prepara
tions for war, 8
their responsibility for the
world war, 10
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J.,
Tariff Reform poUcy of, 39
Churchill, Winston, naval
pohcy of, 72, 160
Committee of Imperial De
fence, the, and its func
tions, 140, 141, 156,
161
Compulsory service, author's
views on, 177
Cowans, Sir John, and the
military preparations, 167
Crewe, Lord, attends meetings
of Committee of Imperial
Defence, 161
Curzon, Lord, meets German
Emperor, 53
Czernin, Count, on William II.,
152

D'Aerenthal, Count, diplo
matic victory of, 95
Dawson, Harbutt, " German
Empire " of, 102
Democracy and war, 15
vindicated by the war, 90
(See also Social Democracy)

202

Index

Diplomacy before the war, 20
et seq.
Disarmament, German objec
tions to, 40, 45
Donop, Sir Stanley von, Master-
General of the Ordnance,
167
Douglas, Sir Charles, and the
voluntary system, 178

Education, author's activities
for, 24
Edward VIL, King, at Marien
bad, 23
" encirclement " policy of :
Bethmann Hollweg on, 94
entertains the German Em
peror, 47
Einem, General von, at Wind
sor, 47
author's interview with, 23
Ellison, Colonel, at Berlin, 23
England, a War Staff for the
Navy in, 121, 160
commercial rivalry with Ger
many, 96
conservation of sea power
and what it implied, 8, 9
efforts to preserve peace end
in failure, 10
her alleged plans to violate
Belgian neutrality, 180
propagandists for German
military party in, 12
reorganisation of army in,
164
voluntary military system
of, and its advantages, 178
(See also Great Britain)
England's precautions against
Germany's war designs,
150-1
Englishmen, defects and fail
ings of, 16

Englishmen, psychology7of, 5
Entente, the, England's entry
into — and the alternative,
100, 101, 144
pohcy of, 88
Ewart, General, and the Com
mittee of Imperial De
fence, 163
Expeditionary Force (see
British Expeditionary
Force)

Falkenhayn, von, com
manded to Potsdam, 132,
133
France, apprehensive of Gep
many's intentions, 29
army of, 159
Frankfurter Zeitung opposes
Tirpitz's war objectives,
125
Free Trade, Prince von Billow's
views on, 43
WilUam II. on, 39
French Revolution, the, 193
French, Sir John, and reorgani
sation of British Army, 33

George V., King, entertains
German Emperor, 52
George, Lloyd, and the Agadir
crisis, 55
at meetings of Committee of
Imperial Defence, 161
German desire of commercial
development, 40, 43, 45
foreign policy : divided con
trol of, 70
Germans, psychology of, 25
Germany, and the Agadir in
cident, 53
and the Hague Conference,
45

263

Index

Germany, attitude of, before
the war, 83 et seq.
cause of her downfall, 149
Chauvinist party in, 66
commercial rivalry with Eng
land, 96
decides upon war, 73
defect of Imperial system in,
91
desire for commercial expan
sion, 85
Fleet Laws passed in the
Reichstag, 124
her responsibility for the
world war, 75
increases her armaments, 9,
79, 143
influence of General Staff,
26, 89
militarist party of, 24, 74, 90
miscalculations at outbreak
of war, 68, 141
naval programme of, 124,
138
new Military Law passed,
118
organisation of her Navy,
120
over-ambition of, 4
peaceful penetration policy
of, 24, 26
politics in : an anecdote of,
70 (note)
result of military spirit in, 3,
10
scaremongers in, 12
shipbuilding programme of,
59
the new Fleet Law, 60, 64,
72, 110
the Press and Tirpitz, 125
two inconsistent policies in,
89
why she entered the war,
183

Goltz, von der, his " Nation in
Arms," 159
Goschen, Sir Edward, demands
his passports, 29
Gosse, Edmund, meets the Em
peror, 53
Grant Duff, Colonel, 164
Great Britain and Belgian neu
trality, 181
ante-war policy of, 1, 5
deficiencies in miUtary or
ganisation of, 31
enters the war, 80
her sea power before the
war, 7
indefinite poUcy of, 5, 16, 18
question of her preparedness
for war, 6, 156
the educational problem in,
24
Great War, the, and Germany's
responsibility, 3
causes of, 143
Greindl, Baron, and a curious
legend, 180
Grey, Sir Edward (Lord Grey
of Fallodon), an historical
speech by, 29
and the Bagdad Railway
question, 49
at meetings of Imperial De
fence Committee, 161
Bethmann Hollweg on, 95
denies an insinuation origin
ating in BerUn, 182
his efforts for peace, 13, 36,
73, 136, 137
negotiates with Germany,
145
presses Serbia to accept ulti
matum, 137
proposes a conference, 136
Grierson, General, and the
Committee of Imperial De
fence, 163

204

maex

Hague Conference, the, 40
Germany's difficulty, 45
Haig, Sir Douglas, and military
preparations for war, 167
and the reorganisation of
British Army, 33
Haldane, Lord, a luncheon to
the German Emperor, 52
a visit to the United States
and Canada, 22
addresses at Montreal and
Oxford, 77, 127
advocates improved system
of education, 24
and Expeditionary and Ter
ritorial Forces, 33, 35, 157
and the Bagdad Railway
question, 48 et seq.
becomes Lord Chancellor, 22,
72
" conversations " at Berlin,
¦ 57, 106
criticises Bethmann Holl
weg's book, 83 et seq.
dines with the Cha«cellor, 62
entertained by General Staff,
26
examines organisation of
German War Office, 23
frank conversation with Wil
liam II., 37 et seq.
lunches with lEmperor and
Empress, 59
on military preparations, 156
et seq.
post-war problems and how
they should be met, 184 et
seq.
rebuts a statement by Tir
pitz, 146
Secretary of State for War, 21
studies in Germany, 21
visits German Emperor, 22
witnesses review of German
troops, 36

Hankey, Sir Maurice, his
work recognised by Par
Uament, 164
Harcourt, Lord, at Imperial
Defence Committee meet
ings, 161
Harnack, Professor, author's
meeting with, 62
Herzegovina, annexation of, 55,
95
Hindenburg, General von,
author's meeting with, 62
Huguet, Colonel, interviewed
by author, 30

Imperial Defence Committee,
the, 140, 141, 156, 161
Isvolsky, M., 95, 144

Jagow, Herr von, and the ulti
matum to Serbia, 115 ^

Kiauchou (see Tsingtau)
Kiderlen-Waechter, Herr von,
a talk with, 62
and the Agadir incident, 54
Kitchener, Lord, meets the
Emperor, 53
personality of, 158
Kitchener's Army, 35, 157

Lansdowne, Lord, and the
agreement with France, 9
Laurier, Sir Wilfrid, co-oper
ates in military prepara
tions, 167
League of Nations, the, 196,
198
Lucanus, von, snubbed by Bis
marck, 130

205

Index

Lyncker, von, commanded to
Potsdam, 132, 133
Lyttelton, Sir Neville, 167

MacDonald, Ramsay, lunches
with Germrn Emperor, 53
Mahan, Admiral, his works
studied by Tirpitz, 123
McKenna, Mr., and the Navy,
72
Metternich, Count, and Bagdad
Railway question, 51
at Windsor, 47
author's relations with, 42
Miles, Sir Herbert, assists in
military preparations, 167
Military preparations, the, 156
et seq.
Moltke, Count von, his scheme
for rapid mobilisation, 23
Moltke, General von, a chat
with, 27
present at meeting of Bis
marck and Kaiser, 130
Morley, Lord, at luncheon to
the Emperor, 53
attends meetings of Com
mittee of Imperial Defence,
161
Morocco difficulty, the, 97
France's request to England,
29
Moulton, Lord, meets German
Emperor, 53

National philosophy, German,
18
Navy, British, mobilisation of,
35
sea power the dominant ele
ment in military policy,
179

Navy, British, why strength
ened and increased, 72,
111, 160
Navy, German, Biilow on, 42
WilUam II. and, 39
Nicholson, Lord, and a new
military system, 175
chiefof General Staff, 167

Officers' Training Corps, or
ganisation of, 171
Ottley, Admiral Sir Charles,
secretary of Committee of
Imperial Defence, 164

Panther sent to Agadir, 53
Peace terms, the, burden of,
186
Post-war problems, and how
they should be met, 184
Potsdam, a reported Crown
Council at, and Tirpitz's
version of, 113, 131

Reinsurance Treaty of 1884,
108, 128
Repington, Col. A'Court, 170
Reventlow, Count, 23 (note)
Richter opposes Tirpitz on the
naval programme, 124
Russia, army of, 159
her hostility to Austria, 95
not wishful for war, 144
Russo-Japanese War, William
IL and, 98

Sargent, J. S., lunches with
the Emperor, 53
Schoen, Baron von, accom
panies WiUiam II. to Eng
land, 47

2o6

inaex

Schoen, Baron von, and the
Bagdad Railway question,
50
Serbia as " provocative neigh
bour," 11
ultimatum to, 115
Skiernevice (see Reinsurance
Treaty)
Social Democracy, and militar
ism, 90
in Germany, 69, 126
Special Reserve, the, organisa
tion of, 157
Spender, J. A., meets the Em
peror, 53
Stosch, and the German Navy,
120

Tangier, William II. at, 38.
97
Tariff Reform, the Kaiser on,
40
Teaching universities, author
and, 24
Technical colleges in England,
25
Territorial Force, the, its part
in the world war, 34
mobilisation of, 35
organisation of, 33, 157
Tirpitz, Admiral von, an ad
mission by, 120
an interview with, 59
and Bethmann Hollweg's
policy, 123
criticises author, 142
demands a definite policy for
war, 125
his " Errinnerungen " dis
cussed, 118 et seq.
his influence in Germany, 67
informed of Austria's de
mands to Serbia, 135
mentality of, 119

Tirpitz, Admiral von, outstand
ing thesis of his book, 123
tribute to British sea power,
143
visits Bismarck, 127, 130
Trench warfare, unprepared-
ness for, 170
Tschirsky, Herr von, and the
ultimatum to Serbia, 135
author's interview with, 23
on Anglo-French Entente, 44
on the English Press, 46
Tsingtau as German naval base,
122
Two-Power standard, discussed
with German Emperor and
Prince Biilow, 39, 42
Tirpitz and, 61

United States (see America)

Voluntary system, the, ad
vantages of, 178

William IL, Emperor, an
ominous admission by, 28
and the Agadir crisis, 54, 55
and the Anglo-French En
tente, 37
Bismarck's message to, 130
consults Bethmann Hollweg
and Zimmermann, 114
Count Czernin on, 152
desires exchange of views be
tween BerUn and London,
55, 56
Emperor of Austria's letter
to, and memorandum on
policy, 113
frank speech with author, 37
et seq.

2tfJ

Index

William IL, Emperor, his pro
posal on Bagdad Railway
question, 51
his reception in London,
53
incautious speeches of, 54,
99> 143
pays surprise visit to Bis
marck, 130
promises support to Austria,
132
reads a poem to author, 147
reviews his troops, 36
Tirpitz and, 124

William IL, Emperor, visits
King Edward and King
George, 47, 52
Wilson, Admiral Sir Arthur,
meets the Emperor, 53
Wilson, General, and the Com
mittee of Imperial De
fence, 163
Wi^sor, the German Em
peror's visit to, 47
Zimmermann, Herr, atPotsdam
conference, 133
meets author, 62

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