Even on August 1 the King had given the President an evasive reply. But England was already mentioned as an opponent in the telegram from Berlin announcing the imminent danger of war. Berlin was therefore already reckoning on war with England. Whether this meant that Berlin realized that, despite all appearances to the contrary, we should do our duty, or whether it was believed to be Germany's interest to force us into the war, we cannot guess. The PRINCE LICHNOWSKY had a final interview with Sir Edward Grey at the latter's house on August 5 [1914]. "I had called at his request. He was deeply moved. He told me he would always be prepared to mediate. We don't want to crush Germany.' Unfortunately this confidential interview was made public, and Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg thus destroyed the last chance of gaining peace through England." Again we must be grateful to our worst enemies, as there is no knowing what might have happened had Whig language been talked by Germany while German armies advanced everywhere. When the Prince took his leave he was overwhelmed with civilities. "A special train took us to Harwich, where a guard of honour was drawn up for me. I was treated like a departing Sovereign. Such was the end of my London Mission. It was wrecked, not by the wiles of the British, but by the wiles of our policy." The final scene was graced by the Austrian Mephistopheles. "Count Mensdorff and his staff had come to the station in London. He was cheerful, and gave me to understand that perhaps he would remain there, but he told the English that we, and not Austria, had wanted the war." In a retrospective passage the exAmbassador declares that Germany needed neither wars nor alliances; we wanted only treaties that would safeguard us and others, and secure our economic development, which was without its like in history. If Russia had been freed in the West, she could again turn to the East, and the AngloRussian rivalry would have been re-established automatically and without our intervention, and not less certainly also the Russo-Japanese. On his return home a report was deliberately circulated in official quarters" that I had allowed myself to be deceived by Sir E. Grey, because, if he had not wanted war, Russia would not have mobilized," whereas Count Pourtalès was pronounced to have conducted himself "magnificently." "The whole thing was a British trick that I had not noticed. At the Foreign Office [in Berlin] they told me that war would in any case have come in 1916. Then Russia would have been ready; therefore it was better now." Prince Lichnowsky thus indicts German policy: (1) We encouraged Count Berchtold to attack Serbia, although German interests were not involved and the danger of a World War must have been known to us. Whether we were aware of the wording of the Ultimatum is completely immaterial. (2) During the time between July 23 and 30, 1914, when M. Sazonow emphatically declared that he would not tolerate any attack on Serbia, we rejected the British proposals of mediation, although Serbia, under Russian and British pressure, had accepted almost the whole of the Ultimatum, and although an agreement about the two points at issue could easily have been reached, and Count Berchtold was even prepared to content himself with the Serbian reply. (3) On July 30, when Count Berchtold wanted to come to terms, we sent an Ultimatum to Petrograd merely because of the Russian mobilization, although Austria had not been attacked; and on July 31 we declared war on Russia, although the Tsar pledged his word that he would not order a man to march as long as negotiations were proceeding-thus deliberately destroying the possibility of a peaceful settlement. Our pseudo-Potsdam Party are seriously perturbed by the closing pages of the Lichnowsky Memorandum, which emphasizes Germany's guilt and Britain's duty. "In view of the above undeniable facts it is no wonder that the whole of the civilized world outside Germany places the entire responsibility for the World War upon our shoulders." Under the circumstances, he asks: Is it not intelligible that our enemies should declare that they will not rest before a system is destroyed which is a constant menace to our neighbours? Must they not otherwise fear that in a few years' time they will again have to take up arms, and again see their provinces overrun and their towns and villages destroyed? Have they not proved to be right who declared that the spirit of Treitschke and Bernhardi governed the German people, that spirit which glorified war as such, and did not loathe it as an evil, that with us the feudal knight and Junker, the warrior caste, still rule and form ideals and values, not the civilian gentleman; that the love of the duel which animates our academic youth still persists in those who control the destinies of the people? Prince Lichnowsky adds, doubtless with an eye over here and elsewhere, which may have made von Kühlmann favourable to the "indiscretion" to which we owe the publication of this priceless document: We can obtain a Peace by compromise only by evacuating the occupied territory, the retention of which would in any event be a burden and cause of weakness to us, and would involve the menace of further wars. Therefore everything should be avoided which would make it more difficult for those enemy groups who might possibly still be won over to the idea of a Peace by compromise to come to terms-namely, the British Radicals and the Russian Reactionaries. From this point of view alone the Polish scheme is to be condemned, as is also any infringement of Belgian rights, or the execution of British citizens-to say nothing of the insane U-boat plan. 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OF WAR I AM neither a philosopher nor a theologian, but a soldier. Yet it would appear to me that the only religious interpretation of war is that it is the judgment of God upon mankind. War is to men collectively what disease is unto man individually. This view may be right or it may be wrong, but it is widely held and I have known many a man meet his death in action with this belief in his heart. It is symptomatic of the awe with which the human soul contemplates these two phenomena: war and disease. And, indeed, war is a terrible thing. Long before this worldconflagration started, some of the greatest writers furnished us with wonderful descriptions of the horror and the desolation of the battlefield, and this in some cases-I am thinking, for example, of Tolstoy-with a punctilious realism which was to serve the express purpose of turning the mind of man away from war as a thing too barbaric, too gruesome, to contemplate. Yet there can be no sane man living who has ever been in battle who would not say emphatically that the reality surpasses the anticipation; to such an extent, in fact, that, as any soldier will tell you, the scene of battle is of a kind such as no man can visualize unless he has himself passed through the torment of fire. With all that, what are the facts of the case? I have known men, highly strung men, intellectual men, weaklings (or what we considered weaklings prior to the war, for some of these proved themselves heroes), pass through barrage after barrage, go into battle and out of it and then back again, men with great minds and noble hearts who hated it all-hated it from the very depth of their soul-yet went time after time, recovering from wounds and receiving fresh ones-with their imagination not blunted in any way by the sight of blood and murder-going on and on in the fulfilment of their duty. "This Yet some of these as they came out of battle would tell me, "I can never face it again"; "It is too horrible " method of settling differences among men must cease; it does not conform to the spirit of our age," etc. etc. But they all went back. |