The causes and consequences of the war

Preface

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Preface

a permanent feature of international relations. Our business is not to foster them but to prepare to consign them to oblivion.

Neither passion nor revenge, but foresight, must inspire the treaty to come.

I have hoped to contribute something towards it by trying to eliminate worn-out dynastic traditions, old diplomatic formulae for so long accepted as international currency, the untruths and halftruths of historical law, vague ideas about races and nationalities, inexact and deceptive catchwords, and to replace them by the solid conception, after the manner of Bentham, of a utilitarian policy.

Yves Guyot.

VI

I am very happy to present this book to the English public, which has always shown me great kindness. Among the Press notices of the first French edition none gave me greater pleasure than that of Mr. A. J. Wilson, the well-known editor of the Investors' Reviezv, who recommended my book to his readers, and added :

" This notice cannot be closed without a word of commendation in regard to the lucid risumes of history embraced in the book. Where we have tested these we have found them correct ; as, for example, in Chapter IV. of Part III., devoted to the historical causes of the war — where we get a most lucid review of the history of Prussia and Austria from 1847 to 1866."*

From another quarter, M. Paul Muller, an Alsatian of wide literary knowledge and a specialist in the history of his country, wrote to me :

" The prospectus of your book ought to have given prominence to the section devoted to the history of Franco-German diplomacy from 1871 to 1914. You are the first to give a clear recital of the facts in forty pages."

I value very highly these words of appreciation and others of the same tenor, for the object I put before me in undertaking this work was to present the facts in a manner which all could understand, not with a view to fostering prejudice and inflaming passion, but in the hope, as far as possible, of extracting from the truth the materials necessary to the formation of sound judgments.

The text has undergone no change, and there have been no mistakes to correct. Subsequent events and additional documents that have been published since the book was written have only confirmed what I said.

I. — The Pact of KoNOPisHTf

Certain new and recent revelations as to the beginning of the war have been published and are of importance.

* Investors' Review, September 4th, 1915.

t The authority on this topic is Mr. H. Wickham Steed, who has discussed it in The Nineteenth Century and After.

vii

I have referred to the suspicions which gathered round the Sarajevo crime at the outset. Confirmation is now forthcoming. The family of the Hapsburgs comprises eighty Archdukes and Archduchesses, all subject to their head, the Emperor Francis Joseph, guardian of the " Family Law." They are all equally interested in the preservation of their family rights and inheritance. In May, 1896, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand became heir to the throne on the death of his father, the Archduke Charles Louis, brother of Francis Joseph, and was sent on a voyage round the world. On his return he became a regular visitor to the Archduke Frederick at his palace in Vienna and his castle at Pressburg. The Archduchess was under the impression that he wished to marry her eldest daughter, but discovered one day that he was wooing one of her maids of honour, the Countess Sophie Chotek, of a noble but poor Bohemian family. She promptly showed him the door, but the Archduke Francis Ferdinand was not to be turned from his purpose of rescuing the girl from the convent to which she fled, and marrying her.

The price of his triumph over the Emperor's resistance was his submission, on June 1st, 1909, to a humiliating ceremony, at which he was compelled, before the assembled members of his family, to renounce on oath the right of his children to succeed to the throne. The Emperor then laid this renunciation before the Austrian Parliament, which duly recorded it, and the Hungarian Parliament, which incorporated it in the Constitution. The relations of the Archduke and his wife with the other members of the Royal Family were a mixture of cruel humiliation and jealous hatred.

The new wife was allowed the title of Duchess of Hohenberg, which only gave her precedence in the Court ceremonies after all the Archduchesses, even the youngest of them. The Archduke tried in vain to procure for her the title of Archduchess. The Emperor's flat refusal was dictated mainly by the consideration that, in virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1 722-1 723, that title would have given to the children of the marriage the succession to the throne of Hungary, and, as the husband would be Emperor of Austria, to the throne of Austria also.

Three children were born of the marriage : the Princess Sophie Hohenberg in 1901, Prince Charles Maximilian in 1902 and Prince Ernest in 1904. Francis Ferdinand in no wise desisted from his efforts to assure their future, though the other members of the family persisted in regarding them as interlopers. It was plain that he

viii could only alter the situation by some change in his personal position, such as might be produced by a war. As a clerical of clericals he had a bitter hatred of Italy. He was the head of the War Party, which was exasperated when war was avoided in 1909 after the annexation of Bosnia and Herzgovina.

Never very balanced in mind and the victim of some disease which has only been hinted at, though its attacks were far from infrequent, he pursued a restless and perilous policy which was inspired by his almost insane hatred of Jews, Hungarians and Italians.

The Emperor William decided to make use of the jealousies and humiliations of the Archduke and the Duchess of Hohenberg. True, the fanatical clericalism of the Archduke stood in his way, but after the annexation of Bosnia and Herzgovina he established direct contact with him, and lent a sympathetic ear to his schemes for solving the Southern Slav question in favour of the Hapsburg dynasty and Catholicism by opening the road to Salonica. In 1909 the Kaiser invited the Archduke and his wife to Potsdam.

On June 12th, 19 14, they received him, accompanied by Admiral von Tirpitz, at their castle of Konopisht in Bohemia. During this visit the Emperor of Germany is said to have proposed to the Archduke an arrangement, the terms of which have been sent to Mr. Henry Wickham Steed, for ten years the foreign correspondent of The Times at Vienna and now its foreign editor.

The Kaiser seems to have suggested to the Archduke and his wife the formation of two kingdoms : one, comprising Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine, extending from the Baltic to the Black Sea, would be given to the Archduke and would form the inheritance of his elder son, while the other, to be governed by his second son under his direction, would be composed of Bohemia, Hungary and the larger part of the Slav districts of Austria, with Serbia and the Slav coasts of the Adriatic. The Kaiser promised to hand over a part of the Duchy of Posen to the first kingdom, and, as compensation, German Austria with Trieste, under the government of the Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, would be annexed to the German Empire.

There would be a perpetual military and economic alliance between the German Empire, the Kingdom or Empire of Poland and the new Kingdom of Bohemia, Hungary and the Southern Slavs. That alliance, master of the Balkans and the routes to the East, would become the arbiter of Europe. No Power would be able to prevent Germany from annexing Belgium and Holland.

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II. — The Sarajevo Crime

On June 28th, fifteen days later, the Archduke and his wife were assassinated at Sarajevo.

The police of Sarajevo had received orders from the military authorities to make no special preparations for the Archduke's visit, which was exclusively their affair. There were only one hundred and twenty police agents on a route of more than three and a half miles. The first bomb was thrown by a young man named Cabrinovitch, the son of an Austrian police agent, who had spent part of the previous winter at Belgrade on some suspicious task or other. Nothing had been done for the Archduke's safety. No measures were taken after his call at the Town Hall, when he started out for the hospital. Another young man, Princep, a son of the Chief of the Secret Service in Bosnia, stationed himself at the corner of a street and killed the Archduke and his wife with three shots from his revolver. General Potiorek, who was in command at Sarajevo, remained Governor. He received the command of the first army which invaded Serbia and after his defeat was pronounced insane and shut up in an asylum. Says Mr. Wickham Steed :

" In the light of the ascertained facts concerning the production of the anti- Serbian forgeries employed by Austria during the Annexation crisis of 1908-9, and exposed during the Friedjung trial of December, 1909, it would certainly not be beyond the power of Austro-Hungarian Secret Service agents to work up a plot at Belgrade or at Sarajevo, were it considered desirable, for reasons of Imperial policy, either to ' remove ' obnoxious personages or to provide a pretext for war."

The funeral arrangements, carried out by Prince Montenuovo in accordance with the Emperor's wishes, were such as to confirm all suspicions. Mr. Steed's conclusion is this :

" If, however, the Emperor Francis Joseph and the Imperial Family obtained, before or after the assassination, knowledge of an agreement such as that alleged to have been made between the Archduke and the Emperor William at Konopisht, much that has hitherto been obscure would become intelligible."

As this pact envisaged the abandonment, by the heir to the Austrian Empire, of the hereditary provinces of the Hapsburgs to the German Empire, it must have aroused intense uneasiness and disgust in the Imperial Family.

Lorali, the Transylvanian priest who offered himself for election to the Roumanian Chamber, but withdrew to avoid embarrassing the Roumanian Government, declared in his election address that he possessed documents which proved that Count Tisza and certain Austro-Hungarian high officials were the authors of the Sarajevo crime.

If Count Tisza actually procured the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand in order to rid the Hungarians of a man they detested and the Imperial Family of the ill-starred couple, and if his ultimate motive was to have an excuse for a war against Serbia, he may congratulate himself on his immediate success, but he must be somewhat uneasy as to the final result.

The Emperor Francis Joseph, in his rescript of July 5th, 1914, did not appear to intend making the assassination a pretext for war. He denounced it as " the work of a small band of maniacs," and declared that " he would continue to pursue the policy which seemed to him most likely to further the welfare of his people." Nevertheless, the Ballplatz, instructed by the Wilhelmstrasse, launched an ultimatum on the 14th of July. Francis Joseph hesitated to sign it, but at length gave way under pressure from the War Party, and especially Count Tisza, who became more and more the dominating figure. Count Berchtold, in spite of appearances, was only a tool during these events, and he eventually disappeared without leaving traces behind him, and gave place to Baron Burian, who is only Tisza's vassal just as Tisza is Wilhelm II. 's vassal.

What a fine pretext the Sarajevo crime afforded him !

He pushed Austria-Hungary into the conflict. Instead of appearing in the role of aggressor, he chose that of faithful ally, taking up the task of inflicting just punishment on the authors and actors of a hideous crime against a prince ! All sovereigns and princes should owe him a debt of gratitude.

III. — The Assassination of Prince Yusuf Izzedin

On February 3rd, 1916, the Young Turk Government informed the world of the death of Prince Yusuf Izzedin in the following communique :

" May God grant long life to His Imperial Majesty ! In consequence of the

malady from which he suffered so long, His Highness the Heir to the Throne

ommitted suicide at half-past seven this morning in the bedroom of the harem

xi pavilion of the summer-house at Zindjirly, by opening the veins of his left arm.

" The death of His Highness has caused His Imperial Majesty the Sultan and the Imperial Government the most profound grief."

All those who read that communique came away convinced that the Young Turks had had recourse to a time-honoured practice on the shores of the Bosphorus. They had made the heir to the throne " commit suicide."

Information from many quarters confirms that suspicion. The Prince was neither a Young Turk nor an old Turk. He was a Turk, and, as such, hated by Enver Pasha, the tool of Germany. After the bombardment of Odessa by the Turkish fleet he indicated his disapproval in no uncertain manner. From that moment he was doomed.

When the Sultan fell ill in the summer of 191 5, a conference was called at the house of Hai'ri Bey, the Sheik-ul-Islam, at which Enver Pasha, Talaat Pasha, Bedri Bey, the Prefect of Police, the Vice- President of the Turkish Parliament, and the Prince's own doctor took part. Hussein Djahid pointed out that the supply of munitions was in danger of giving out, and that if the Allies won Yusuf Izzedin might be useful in obtaining better terms of peace. These ideas met with a hostile reception. If the Sultan died and Yusuf Izzedin succeeded him, the Committee of Union and Progress were likely to lose its mastery and find a master. Enver Pasha was strongly in favour of " removing " the Prince at once. Certainly his substitute, Prince Mahid-ed-Din, did not offer complete guarantees of complacency, but they recognized the difficulty of killing off the whole Imperial Family and so resolved to run the risk of acquiescing in his accession to the throne.

There were several other meetings, but nothing decisive was settled, owing to external events, until after the evacuation of the Dardanelles by the Allies, when the Committee considered that the time was ripe for putting their scheme into execution. The friends of the Prince are certain that the assassination was planned at the German Embassy and carried out by his orderly officer, Hassan Bey.

No European doctor, not even a German doctor, would sign the certificate of suicide and finally it was given by nineteen Turkish doctors, including in their number the Director of the Army Medical Services, one of Enver Pasha's creatures, the oculist Essad, a friend of Talaat Bey, an accoucheur, Omer, who had made a fortune out of

xii the Turkish Red Cross, Kassim Izz-ed-Din, a member of the secret section of the Committee of Union and Progress, Halid, a spy and friend of the head of the Secret Police, and, lastly, the Prince's own doctor, who had voted in favour of his death at the meeting in the house of the Sheik-ul-Islam.

Yusuf Izzedin was assassinated on the day before he was to start for Europe. He had wired to the United States Minister at Sofia to arrange an appointment.

This murder was committed on the shores of the Bosphorus ; yet the Young Turks, who are entirely responsible for it, had claimed that they overthrew the " red " Sultan, Abdul Hamid, to put an end to the crimes which had distinguished his rule. They were cynically repeating his policy. But they were not the sole criminals. They were urged on and assisted by the representatives of the nation which boasts of possessing the most advanced Kultur of the human race.

This crime is an outstanding proof of the backwardness of German civilization. It is in the same category as the crimes of her soldiers in Belgium and other occupied countries, acts like the destruction of Louvain and the murder of Miss Cavell, the exploits of her submarines, and the hypocritical lies by which her Government has sought to justify her conduct.

IV. — New Details of German Manoeuvres

When The Times unfolded the story of the letter it was intended to publish and which was to be reproduced by the Wolff Bureau,* it did not give the name of the writer. It has done so since and revealed the name of Herr Ballin, President of the Hamburg-American Line.

Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg said in his speech on December 2nd, 1914 : " At the beginning of June, 1914, I informed the British Government that I had knowledge of secret Anglo-Russian proposals for a naval convention. I pointed out that such proposals involved great dangers to the peace of Europe."! This story, told with the object of presenting Germany as the object of a sinister persecution, compelled to defend herself, was a mere invention. On October 28th,

* See Part I., ch. xvi., infra. t See Part I., ch. xvi., infra.

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191 5, Sir Edward Grey stated that " there was no naval or military agreement with Russia . . . prior to the agreement of September 5th,

1914."

V. — The Peace Conditions

I feel I have nothing to change as regards the conditions of peace which I suggested.

I said :

" I say nothing of Greece, Bulgaria and Montenegro, because the settlement of the questions which interest them will only be of secondary importance when the time for negotiations arrives."*

The events which took place in the Balkans in the month of September have done nothing to shake that opinion.

The diplomatists of the Triple Entente attempted to revise the Treaty of Bucharest to the advantage of Bulgaria at the expense of Serbia, Greece and Roumania. When they disastrously failed they hastened to attribute that failure to the French and English publicists and members of Parliament who had dared to express the opinion that the occupation of Constantinople by Russia was the only possible solution of the question of the Straits. I myself held that view, and have seen no reason to change it. I ask those who were so anxious to shift the responsibility for their mistakes on to others if they were ignorant of Ferdinand's past, his close connection with the House of Hapsburg and William II., his attack in 191 3 on the Serbs and Greeks, and the loan, payable in munitions of war, which he contracted at Berlin early in 1915.+

The terrible events which were the logical consequence of the unaccountable errors of English, French and Russian diplomacy have added a horrible page to the history of martyred Serbia.

On November 2nd Mr. Asquith declared that the maintenance of Serbian independence was one of the essential aims of the Allies. This is not enough. Serbia must form a State or Federation with the Southern Slavs. I distrust both the origin and the tendency of the insidious question which is sometimes raised : " Will Serbia be strong enough not to abuse her aggrandizement ? "

We hear little of what is taking place in Bohemia and Croatia. Yet such news as comes through shows that the Austro-Hungarian Government have intensified their repressive measures. Early in

* See p. 312. f See the Appendix: The Bulgarian Question.

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March Dr. Liebknecht said in the Prussian Landtag that " in Austria persecution has been worse than anything hitherto experienced. ,, When the Emperor Francis Joseph ordered the execution of all the surviving officers of the 28th Czech Regiment of Infantry, which surrendered almost en bloc to the Russians, he proved that the war has done nothing to reconcile the conflicting sentiments and interests which keep the nations of the Austro-Hungarian Empire apart.* In the Hungarian Parliament Urmauzy denounced the treachery of the Czech troops in Serbia, while M. Kelemen put a question as to the serious disorders in Szegedin caused by Czech officers and men who were transferred there from Bohemia. It seems that they fraternized with Roumanian officers and men, joined in singing Roumanian national songs and the Slav national hymn, Onward, Slavs! and overtly displayed their hatred of the Magyars. M. Kelemen dropped his interpellation on a hint from Count Tisza and the President of the Chamber that a discussion of the affair would be contrary to the national interest.!

I have ridiculed the triumph of German diplomacy in replacing Italy by Turkey in the Triple Alliance. To-day Italy has added her armed strength to that of the Triple Entente. I paid a visit to Rome and Milan in December and came away with a feeling of perfect confidence in her fixity of purpose. The vote of the Italian Parliament on the 1 8th of March, giving a majority of 394 to 64 to the Salandra Ministry, proves that my confidence rested on a solid basis. Like Japan, she has adhered to the Compact of London signed on September 6th, 1914, by Great Britain, France and Russia, providing that none of these nations would conclude peace separately. This in itself is sufficient to make her at war with Germany as well as Austria-Hungary.

Great Britain has forced Germany to hide away her Dreadnoughts and rely entirely on a submarine war, which has done nothing but add to her execrable record. England has not only won and maintained maritime supremacy for the Allies, but has succeeded in raising an army of more than three millions, while more than five million men voluntarily offered themselves for service.

One Saturday evening, towards the end of January, I was in London in the company of one of the directors of munition making.

* See the Journal des ficonomistes, January, 1916 : La Situation Internationale, p. 19;

t The Journal des DSbats, March 6th : News from Bucharest*

XV

He suggested a visit to a munitions factory the next day. " But to-morrow is Sunday," I said. " Sunday does not exist so far as munitions are concerned," he replied.

The Allies are not sufficiently informed of each other's efforts. The Russians have shown that their leadership is of the first order, and that the rank and file are magnificent both in attack and defence. Notwithstanding difficulties of supply, and at times even the lack of arms and munitions, they have fought the Austro-German armies to a standstill ; by taking Erzrum and Trebizond they have demonstrated once more the unity of purpose which inspires the Allies. The Turks have turned their backs on Egypt and abandoned their design of cutting the Suez Canal for the benefit of Germany. They are less anxious than ever to co-operate in the attack on Salonica and the alarmists who anticipated the presence of a Turkish army in Champagne and Artois may recover their composure. Instead of setting out to conquer Persia and the Persian Gulf, they are thinking more of the defence of Constantinople. William II. 's great schemes for extending German domination to the East have not materialized.

In 19 14 the Germans rushed upon Paris. In the epic battle of the Marne they were driven back. In October they assaulted the Ypres- Armentieres front with Calais as their objective. Their onslaught was broken. In April, 19 15, they made a violent attack upon the Yser front. It was the only great offensive they attempted on the West front in the course of that year. In February of this year they began a terrific battle before Verdun. Again they have failed to break our lines. In this long-drawn conflict the French soldier has made up for the grave technical defects in our military preparations by his heroism and resource. His courage, determination and will to conquer, combined with the exhaustion of the German reserves,* enable us to look forward to overwhelming victory.

Having secured supremacy at sea, the Allies have the resources of the world at their disposal, limited only by economic considerations. Great Britain has shown that she is what she has always been, the greatest financial Power in the world — an argument in favour of Free Trade which is unanswerable.

True, the Allies had in their midst a number of Germanomaniacs, who were hypnotized by the victors of Sedan, and agreed with the Kulturkrieger (Intellectuals) in dating the economic greatness of

* See the articles of M. L. Gcawy, the Journal des Economistes, February, 191 5, January and March, 19 16,

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Germany from that event. They forgot that the era of Sedan coincided with certain discoveries and inventions which have been far more beneficial to Germany than the war indemnity of 187 1. The Bessemer process, the Martin-Siemens furnace, the Gruner process, known as " Thomas and Gilchrist " — all date from that period. These inventions, the product of English and French brains, have made the metallurgical fortune of Germany.* The development of her industry in dyes manufactured from coal-tar was due to the discoveries of an Englishman, Perkins, and Verguin, a chemist of Lyons. If the Germans have made a better use of those discoveries than the English and French, they have to thank, not Bismarck, nor Von Moltke, but the chemist Liebig, who introduced the practical study of chemistry at Giessen in 1827.

The transformation of industry has done far more for the prosperity of German industry than her victories in 1870. Those victories and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine imposed upon her a crushing military burden and a disquieting policy, the evil effects of which she has felt as much as those against whom it was directed and which has finally led to the present cataclysm.

The fatal results of the triumph of militarist over economic policy, patent though they are, have not deterred those Germanomaniacs, who, in their patriotic zeal for England and France, desire to make their countrymen adopt German imperialism, which is only the exploitation of the weak by the strong.f Confusing war, which is an affair between States, and commercial intercourse, which is an affair between individuals, these enemies of Germany, saturated with " Germanism," help to complicate the problem of the political and economic future of Europe. They are a prey to doubt and hesitation when it is shown that the only guarantee of future peace is the dissolution of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, yet they are spoiling for an economic war after the conclusion of peace. Their arguments, inspired by the old spirit of monopoly and commercial jealousy, are the same as those used against England by them and their fathers before them.

They talk of an economic war and dream of a treaty of peace

* See La MUallurgie Allemande, by Fritz Thyssen. Revue Economique Internationale, June 20th, 191 1.

I L'Imperialisme Economique, by Yves Guyot. Journal des Economistes, March, 191 3. — La Jalousie Commerciale et les Relations Internationales, by Yves Guyot (Pamphlet of the Ligue du libre-echange}.

xvii B which will usher in an era of commercial boycotting. They would like to obliterate from Central Europe its population of 115 to 120 million individuals, who will need food and commercial intercourse, and whose foreign trade before the war was worth hundreds of millions. They would forbid the Russians to sell wheat and barley to the Germans, and the French to buy German coke and coal from the Ruhr mines for the blast-furnaces of the Briey district.

The effect of such a policy would be not only to maintain a state of war after the conclusion of peace, but to reveal conflicting interests among the Allies. It is elementary that in these days no nation, not even a group of nations, can be altogether self-sufficing.* If we attempt to set up an economic system which can only have the effect of fostering the passion for revenge of our beaten foes, we shall be behaving as slavish imitators of the Germans and Turks. We make war because we are determined to have peace. That peace can only be permanent if the beaten nations cease to hanker after the imperialistic madness which has brought them to defeat and ruin, if they are able to resume their national life and if they know that the road to prosperity lies through well-directed energy and productive activities. In that case, moral dissolution will follow political dissolution, but otherwise the hope of a permanent peace is vain. It is for this reason that I emphasize the distinction between the political and economic solutions.

From the first days of the war English, French and Russian statesmen have declared that the struggle can only end with the destruction of Prussian militarism. Militarism is only an effect, and its destruction involves the dissolution of the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, as well as the end of the Hapsburg and Hohenzollern dynasties.

Mr. Shadwell, who has special information of the situation in Germany, says :

" The war cannot be ended by negotiation or compromise, because no treaty of peace concluded with Germany would be worth the paper it is written on. None of the neutral countries trusts Germany now. Those nearest to her are armed to the teeth and anxiously watching their frontiers day and night, because