England and Germany

Each of the Allies was isolated, cooped within its own narrow circle of ideas, buoyed up by its own hopes, bent on the attainment of its own special aims. The first step towards amalgamation was negative in character, but superlatively politic. It took the form of a covenant by which it was stipulated that none of the Allies should conclude a separate peace with the enemy. But beyond that nothing was done, nor was anything more considered necessary.

In Britain the consciousness that the country was at war spread very slowly, while the conviction that this was a life-and-death struggle which would seriously affect the lives and rights and habits of every individual made no headway. Only a few grasped the fact that a tremendous upheaval was going forward which marked the rise of a new era and a complete break with the old. By the bulk of the population it was treated as a game calling for no extraordinary efforts, no special methods, no new departures. It was construed as a hateful parenthesis in a cheerful history of human progress, and the object of the nation was to have it swiftly and decently closed. Hence the machinery of the old system was not discarded. Voluntary enlistment was belauded and agitation against joining the army magnanimously tolerated. Attacks on the Government were permitted. The manufacture of munitions was confided to private firms and to the whims of dissatisfied workmen, and co-operation among the various sections of the population was left to private initiative.

Most of us are prone to consider this war as a fortuitous event, which might, indeed, have been staved off, but which, having disturbed for a time the easy movement of our insular life, will die away and leave us free to continue our progress on the same lines as before. But this faith is hardly more than the confluence of hopes and strivings, habits, traditions, and aspirations untempered by accurate knowledge of the facts. And the facts, were we cognizant of them, would show us that the agencies which brought about this tremendous shock of peoples without blasting our hopes or exploding our pet theories, will not spend their force in this generation or the next, and that already the entire fabric – social, political, and economical – of our national life is undergoing disruption.

The shifting of landmarks, political and social, is going steadily if stealthily forward; and the nation waking up one day will note with amazement the vast distance it has imperceptibly traversed. If only we could realize at present how rapidly and irrevocably we are drifting away from our old-world moorings, we should feel in a more congenial mood for adjusting ourselves to the new and unpopular requirements of the era now dawning. Already we are becoming a militarist and a protective State, but we do not yet know it. We have broken with the traditions of our own peculiar and insular form of civilization, of which poets like Tennyson were the high priests, yet we hesitate to bid them farewell. We still base our forecasts of the future political life on the past and calculate the outcome of the next elections, the fate of Disestablishment and Home Rule, the relative positions of the chief Parliamentary parties on the old bases, and draw up our plans accordingly. In short, we still bear about with us the fragrant atmosphere of our previous existence which will never be renewed. And it is owing to the effects of that disturbing medium that our observations have been so defective and our mistakes so sinister. We still fail to perceive that decay has overtaken the organs of our Party Government and the groundwork of our State fabric is rotten. Yet everything about and around us is in flux. We are in the midst of a new environment.

When this war is over we shall search in vain for what was peculiarly British in our cherished civilization. Of that civilization which reached its acme during the reign of the late King Edward, we have seen the last, little though most of us realize its passing. It was an age of sturdy good sense, healthy animalism, and dignity withal, and not devoid of a strong flavour of humanity and home-reared virtue. But in every branch of politics and some departments of science it was an age of amateurism. Respect for right, for liberty, for law and tradition, for relative truth and gradual progress, was widely diffused. Well-controlled energy, responsiveness to calls on one’s fellow-feeling, and the everyday honesty that tapers into policy were among its familiar features. But if one were asked to sum it all up in a single word it would be hard to utter one more comprehensive or characteristic than the essentially English term, comfort. Comfort was the apex of the pyramid which is now crumbling away. And it is that Laodicean civilization, and not the fierce spirit of the new time, which is incarnate in the present official leaders of the British nation.

The French, too, approached the general problem from their own particular standpoint. Provided with a serviceable military organization, the same unconsciousness of the need of mobilizing all the other national resources pierced through their policy. Parties and factions subsisted as before, and half-way men who would have been satisfied with driving the enemy out of France and Belgium lifted up their voices against those who insisted on prosecuting the war until Prussianism was worsted. The French Socialists met in London72 and passed resolutions in which the usual claptrap of the war of classes, the boons of pacifism and the wickedness of the Tsardom occupied a prominent place. And the Congress was honoured by the presence of two Cabinet Ministers, MM. Guesde and Sembat.

Russia, true to her old self, carried the narrow spirit of the bureaucracy into the fiercest struggle recorded by history, seemingly satisfied that the clash of armies and navies would leave antiquated theories and moulding traditions intact. When the revolutionist Burtzeff published his patriotic letter to the French papers approving Russia’s energetic defence of civilization, he was applauded by all Europe. “Even we,” he wrote, “adherents of the parties of the Extreme Left and hitherto ardent anti-militarists and pacifists, even we believe in the necessity of this war. The German peril, the curse which has hung over the world for so many decades, will be crushed.” Yet when he returned to his country resolved to support the Tsar’s Government and lend a hand in the good work, he was sent to Siberia, in commemoration of the old order of things.

Germany alone took her stand on the new plane and accommodated herself to the new conditions. Thoroughness was her watchword because victory was her aim, its alternative being coma or death. With her gaze fixed on the end, she rejected nothing that could serve as means.

In congruity with these divergent views and sentiments was the reading of the war’s vicissitudes in the various belligerent countries. The allied Press was over-hopeful, right being certain to triumph over might wedded to wrong. Publicists pitied the Teutons in anticipation of the fate that was fast overtaking them. Pæans of victory resounded, allaying the apprehensions and numbing the energies of the leagued nations. The German, it was asseverated, had shot his bolt and was at bay. Russia had laid siege to Cracow, and would shortly occupy that city as she had occupied Lemberg. The Tsar’s troops might then be expected to push on to Berlin, and to reach it in a few months. And, painfully aware of the certainty of this consummation, Austria was dejected and Hungary secretly making ready to secede from the Habsburg Monarchy. To this soothing gossip even serious statesmen lent a willing ear. The writer of these remarks was several times asked by leading personages of the allied Governments whether internal upheavals were not impending in Germany and Austria, and his assurance that no such diversion could be looked for then or in the near future was traversed on the ground that all trustworthy accounts from Berlin, Vienna and Budapest pointed to a process of fermentation which would shortly interpose an impassable barrier to the further military advance of the Central empires. But he continued to express himself in the same strain of warning, which subsequent events have unhappily justified.

In October 1914, for instance, he wrote —

“Germany has already shot her bolt, people tell us. Already? The people who for forty years have been preparing to establish their rule from Ostend to the Persian Gulf have expended their energies after three months of warfare? And the concrete foundations built at such pains and expense in the German factory that dominates Edinburgh? Was the Teuton simple-minded enough to fancy that he would be in a position to utilize this and the other emplacements for his giant guns within three months after the outbreak of hostilities? Let us be fair to our enemy and just to ourselves. The German has not shot his bolt. If time is on our side, it will also remain on his up to a point which we have not yet reached. Those who urge that the German must make haste imply that his resources are gradually drying up, and that neither his food supplies, nor his chemicals, nor his metals can be imported so long as we hold command of the seas. His armies will therefore die of inanition, or their operations will be thwarted for lack of munitions. This would indeed be joyful tidings were it true. If false, it is a mischievous delusion.

“We are told that the German time-table has been upset. Unquestionably it has. But is the time-table identical with the programme for which it was drawn up? If it is, then the march on Paris has been definitely abandoned. Now is this conclusion borne out by what we behold? What, then, is the meaning of the plan to capture Belfort and Calais? What is the object of the vast reinforcements now on their way from the east to Von Kluck’s army? Personally, I have not a doubt that Paris is the objective, or that the Germans are still striving to carry out their programme in its entirety, which is the extension of their empire over Europe and Asia Minor. The immediate object of the Allies is to foil this design, and only after we have accomplished that can we think of assuming the offensive and crushing Prussian militarism. We have not compassed that end; the battlefields are still in the Allies’ countries, and the initiative rests with the enemy. Now to whatever causes we may attribute this undesirable state of things – and it certainly cannot be ascribed to lack of energy on the part of the British Government or our military authorities – it is right that those who are acting for the nation should ask themselves whether those causes are still operative. If they are – and on this score there is hardly room for doubt – it behoves the Allies, and the British people in particular, to rise to a just sense of the unparalleled sacrifices they must be prepared to make during the ordeal which they are about to undergo.”

The German way of looking at the relative strength and positions of the belligerents as modified by the vicissitudes of the campaign was realistic and statesmanlike. Starting from the principle that a people of about a hundred millions, animated by a lively faith in its own vitality and mental equipment, can neither be destroyed nor permanently crippled, they argued that the worst that Fate could have in store for them would be a draw. But before that end could be achieved the Teutonic armies must have been pulverized and Germany and Austria occupied by the allied troops. And of this there were no signs. “We never fancied,” they said, “that what happened in 1870 would be repeated in 1914. How could we make such a stupid mistake? Then we had only France against us. To-day we encounter the combined forces of Russia, France, Belgium and England. This difference had to have its counterpart in the campaign. Thus we have not yet captured Paris. But then to-day we are wrestling with the greatest empires in the world, and we hold them in our grip. We are fighting not for a few milliard francs and a disaffected province, but for priceless spoils and European hegemony. Moreover, Belgium, which we possess and mean to keep, is a greater prize than the temporary occupation of Paris. Besides, postponement is not abandonment. Whether we take the French capital one month or another is but a detail.

“And, over and above all this, we have reached the sea and are within a few miles of England’s shores. Furthermore, Russia’s army, which we lured into East Prussia until it fancied it was about to invest Königsberg, has been driven back beyond Wirballen far into Tsardom, with appalling losses of men and material. Her other forces, which several weeks ago boasted that they were about to capture Cracow, will soon be driven out of Przemysl and Lemberg. Libau will fall into our hands. Riga is sure to be ours, and Warsaw itself will finally admit our victorious troops. Does this look like defeat at the hands of our enemies? And German soil is still as immune from invasion as though it were girded by the sea.”

In all our forecasts one important element of calculation was invariably left out of account: the consequences of our blunders, past, present and future. And these have added enormously to our difficulties and dangers. Not the least made was the mistake in allowing the two German warships Goeben and Breslau to enter the Dardanelles. To have pursued them into Ottoman waters would, it was pleaded in justification, have constituted a violation of Turkish neutrality. Undoubtedly it would, but the infringement would not have been more serious than many flagrant breaches of neutrality which the Sublime Porte had committed a short time before and was known to be about to perpetrate again.73 But a scrupulous regard for the rights of neutrals has been, and still is, the groundstone of the Allies’ policy, irrespective of its effects on the outcome of the war. The rules of the game, it is contended, must be observed by us, however much they may be disregarded by the enemy. This considerateness and scrupulosity may be chivalrous, but they form an irksome drag on a nation at war with Teutons. The two ships were at once transferred by Germany to the Turks.74 Some two months later, deeming their war preparations completed, the latter suddenly bombarded the open Russian town of Theodosia in the Black Sea, and sank several small craft, thus realizing Germany’s hopes and justifying her politico-economic policy. It was now too late to lament the chivalrous attitude which had permitted the Goeben and the Breslau to steam into the Dardanelles, or to regret the indifference we had persistently displayed to Near Eastern affairs for well-nigh twenty years. The best that could be done at that late hour was to face the consequences of those errors with dignity and to strive to repair them with alacrity. But all the efforts made were partial and successive. There was no attempt at co-ordination.

Turkey’s defection was a serious blow to the allied cause, not only in view of the positive, but also of the negative, advantages it was calculated to confer upon Germany. The Ottoman army, consisting of first-class raw materials, had had its latent qualities unfolded and matured by German organization, discipline and training. Its supplies were replenished. Ammunition factories were established. Barracks were built and fortifications equipped in congruity with latter-day needs. Three million pounds of German bar gold reached Constantinople, and were deposited in the branch offices of the Deutsche Bank there for the requirements of the army. In all this the Kaiser’s Government ran no risks. The return was guaranteed by the politico-economic measures which had been continuously applied during the years of our “disinterestedness.”

Enver had meanwhile risen to the zenith of his career. He was now War Minister and had surrounded himself with officers who would follow him whithersoever he might lead them. A low-sized, wiry man, seemingly of no account, Enver is pale of complexion, shuffling in gait. His eyes are piercing, and his gaze furtive. A soul-monger who should buy him at his specific value and sell him at his own estimate would earn untold millions. For, to use a picturesque Russian phrase, the ocean is only up to his knees. He is physically dauntless and buoyant. In the war against Italy he had fought well and organized the Arab and other native troops under conditions of great difficulty, winning laurels which have not yet withered. A Pole by extraction, Enver Pasha is a Prussian by training and sympathies, and a Turk by language and religion and by his marriage with a daughter of the Sultan. Political sense he has none. His one ideal was to earn the appreciation of the Prussian military authorities, to whom he looks up as a fervid disciple to peerless masters. German military praise melts his manhood and turns his brain. He possesses a dictatorial temper with none of the essential qualities of a dictator, and in the field he is distinguished, I am told, by splendid valour without an inkling of scientific strategy.

It was that Polish Turk and his German masters who formally made war upon Russia, France and Britain.75 And the Turkish nation had no opportunity to sanction or veto their resolve. Nay, even the majority of the Cabinet, including the Grand Vizier, had had no say on the issue, were not even informed of what was being done until overt acts of hostility had actually clinched the matter. Indeed, there was a majority of Cabinet Ministers in favour of neutrality, but it was ignored. In this way Turkey threw in her lot with the Teutons,76 to the astonishment of the Allies, who had hoped that a policy of forbearance and meekness would elicit a friendly response and frustrate the effect of the master strokes by which Germany, during a long series of years, had consolidated her ascendancy over Turkey and obtained the command of the Ottoman army. The childish notion that a sudden exhibition of pacific intentions and goodwill is enough to foil the carefully laid schemes of a clever enemy which have been maturing for decades, is the refrain that runs through the history of our foreign policy for the last thirty or forty years. And not only through the history of our foreign policy. Faith in the sacramental efficacy of an improvisation is a trait common to all the Allies, but in the British nation it is the faith that is expected to move mountains.

The negative aspect of Turkey’s belligerency proved to be quite as irksome as the positive. For it involved the closing of the Dardanelles to Russia’s corn export and the disappearance of the principal route for communications between the Tsardom and its Western allies. Archangel is blocked in winter and inadequately connected by rail with the two capitals in summer. This additional embarrassment and its financial sequel compelled the attention of the Allies to the need of some kind of co-operation – just to satisfy actual needs. For neither then nor at any subsequent period was there any pretence of laying open the whole ground and building a complete structure upon that. A temporary expedient is all that was contemplated, and nothing more lasting was evoked. None the less, the Conference of the three Finance Ministers in Paris77 marked a step in advance, and was subsequently followed up by a closer and more continuous contact.