The roots of the war...

Front matter

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Introduction

This history has been written during the stressful period since the United States became a participant in the ' great World War. It is not, however, merely a "war book." It is an attempt to relate in a non-technical fashion the history of the development of the various forces that led up to the catastrophe of 1914. The leader of the American Republic, himself a historian as well as a statesman, has stated that "you can explain most wars very simply, but the explanation of this war is not so simple. Its roots run deep into all the obscure soils of history. " 1 It is to discover some of these roots and their fateful growths that this book is written.

By general consent the period of history which ended hi 1914 saw its beginning in 1870 when the Prussian militarists won their original triumph over France, thereby establishing a precedent for the use of armed force as a wise supplement to flagging diplomacy, a precedent that was to be applied with incalculable effect upon a much greater field of action forty-four years later. During this interval many national and international forces were at work simultaneously, which all together helped to produce the climax of Armageddon. Of course, however, not all the factors that were very prominent in the history of the period contributed directly to this terrific end. For example, socialism, potent as it was, does not seem to have helped to bring about the final war, except indirectly, by making the junker lords of Prussia fearful at its progress, and therefore the more willing to try desperate remedies to wean the German people from the new heresy by the counter-excitements and joys of a great military victory. The many colonial and domestic questions of Great Britain also, although of large historical importance, did little directly to hasten the war, save by making the Pan-Germans believe that their island rivals were so beset with internal

i President Wilson, address at Buffalo, November 12, 1917.

INTRODUCTION

issues that Britons would probably let the Teutonic empires crush France and Russia unhindered, leaving the British Empire to be devoured a little later.

Many things, therefore, that would have an honored place in any comprehensive general history can be wisely omitted from this: nor has there been any attempt at formal discussion of the interests of the United States in Old World affairs before 1914. But in the opinion of the writers of this book there were three dominant factors in the international relations of the last forty years that enabled the Pan-German conspirators to bring on the great calamity in the precise form in which it finally inflicted itself upon the world. These were:

I. The old hate between France and Germany, nourished by the unhealed and unforgetable Alsace-Lorraine question.

II. The newer hate between Britain and Germany, caused partly by commercial rivalry, but much more by the overweening jealousy of the Pan-Germans of the British colonial empire, and by the antipathy inevitable between two great nations, one essentially liberal and non-militaristic, the other precisely the reverse.

III. The eternal Balkan question, the problem of the disposition of the dying Turkish Empire and the straining anxiety of Russia on the one hand and Germany and Austria on the other to become the preferred heirs to the "Sick Man of Europe."

These three factors came to play simultaneously into the hands of the Pan-German schemers, master-financiers and manufacturers, doctrinaire professors, irresponsible journalists, highly-titled officers, princely and royal "Serenities" and "Highnesses," and above these finally, it would seem, the "All-Highest" himself, in their deliberate conspiracy to achieve at one or, at most, two or three ruthless and gigantic strokes of the sword, the establishment of a world empire, an Empire of Teutonia, indescribably vaster, richer, more irresistible, more universal than that of imperial Rome.

This book undertakes to outline the circumstances that made this inconceivably daring attempt seem possible.

AUTHORS' NOTE

The majority of the chapters of this book have been written by Mr. William Stearns Davis. Chapters VII, VIII, and XVI have been written by Mr. William Anderson, and chapters XIV, XIX, and XXI by Mr. Mason W. Tyler. Each collaborator is responsible for the final form of his statements, although in every case his two friends have given careful scrutiny to his work. The maps and statistical tables have been prepared by the kindness of Mr. Paul S. Smith, assistant in history in this university.

The authors have felt keenly the difficulty of handling highly controversial subjects in a scientific spirit during this time of great public stress. They have sometimes expressed robust opinions and have not hesitated to call a spade a spade. They have made a faithful effort, however, to write with a due sense of historical as well as patriotic responsibility, and to record nothing that they would, as scholars, be ashamed to review after peace and normal councils have returned. They are all three absolutely persuaded of the justice of the great cause in behalf of which this book is written, and their spirit was well expressed by a British scholar, Mr. J. W. Headlam, when he wrote in the preface of his ' ' History of Twelve Days, ' ' published in 1915 : "It would be foolish to claim the merit of impartiality. Impartiality means indifference to the results of investigation, and to us the results are of vital moment. I will say this [however]. ... I have written nothing which I do not believe to be true. Had I found in the course of the work that the result would be unfavorable to the justice and honesty of the cause [of the foes of Germany], I should have adopted the only possible course and kept silent until the war was over. ' '

W. S. D.

The University of Minnesota: W. A.

Minneapolis, Minnesota. M. W. T.

Contents

PAGE CHAPTER ^ _. q

I The Great War Which Bred a Greater . . . . a

II Bismarck and the Europe op 1871 24

Appendix

Lists of Rulers of Great Powers of Europe Since 1870 537

Growth of the British, German, and French Colonial Empires Since 1870 538

Populations of the Great European Powers in the Generation Before 1914 540

Books on European Diplomacy 541

Index 547

LIST OF MAPS

FACING PAGE

Turkey in Europe and Its Dependencies Before 1876 . . 64

The Danish, Polish, and Alsatian Frontier-Lands of Germany 232

The Balkan Peninsula After the Settlements of Berlin, 1878 254

Turkey-in-Asia 274

The Races of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 1914 . . . 294

The Balkan Peninsula After the Treaty of Bucharest,

1913 446

THE GENIUS OF PBUSSIANISM

"The decision on these principles [of liberty against monarchy] will not come by parliamentary debates, nor by majorities of eleven votes. Sooner or later the God who directs the battle will cast His iron dice." (Bismarck, in the Prussian assembly, March 22, 1849.)

"I look for Prussian honor in Prussia's abstinence from any shameful union with democracy." (Bismarck, speaking in 1850.)

"Thor stood at the mid-night end of the world,

His battle-mace flew from his hand: 'So far as my clangorous hammer I 've hurled

Mine are the sea and the land !' And onward hurtled the mighty sledge

O'er the wide, wide earth to fall At last on the Southland's furthest edge

In token that his was all. — Since then 'tis the joyous German right

With the hammer lands to win.

We mean to inherit world-wide might

As the Hammer-God's kith and kin."

(Felix Dahn, in 1878.) 1

"I hope that to Germany it will be granted ... to become in the future as closely united, as powerful, and as authoritative as was once the Roman Empire." (Emperor William II, speaking in 1900.)

THE FRUITAGE OF PRUSSIANISM

"The object of this war [against Germany] is to deliver the free peoples of the world from the menace and actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible government which, having secretly planned to dominate the world, proceeded to carry out the plan without regard either to the sacred obligations of treaty or the long established practices of international action and honor: which chose its own time for the war: delivered its blow fiercely and suddenly: stopped at no barrier either of law or of mercy: [and] swept a whole continent within a tide of blood — not the blood of soldiers only, but the blood of innocent women and children also and of the helpless poor." (President Wilson to Pope Benedict XV, August 27, 1917.)

i By kind permission of Doubleday, Page and Company.

Chapter I The Great War Which Bred A Greater

ON the evening of July 13, 1870, three high-born gentlemen found themselves around a dining-table in Berlin. The first of these was Otto von Bismarck, minister-president of Prussia: the second was llellmuth von Moltke, chief of staff of the Prussian army : the third was Albrecht von Roon, Prussian minister of war.

While they discussed the international situation, a telegram was brought in to Bismarck, and the others watched him anxiously. The wire was from their king, William I of Prussia, who was at the watering-place of Ems, and related to an interview he had had with the French ambassador, Benedetti, relative to the proposed candidacy of a Hohenzollern prince for the vacant throne of Spain. Foolish speeches against "Prussian aggressions " and ambitions in Spain had been uttered in Paris, and the French ambassador had been unduly importunate in demanding of the king not merely that he discourage his kinsman, the Prince of Hohenzollern, from seeking the Spanish throne at that time, but that he also pledge the same policy for all the future. King William I, however, was a kind-hearted and moderate man, and although he refused the French requests, he had parted with Benedetti in a manner that left an honorable retreat open to the Paris cabinet and to its emperor, Napoleon III. In France there were, indeed, headstrong fire-eaters, but there were also sensible statesmen who were quite willing to meet the king half-way and not let a petty incident provoke a great war. Therefore King William had sent a fair and non-irritating account of what had taken place in Ems, and had left to Bismarck, his minister, the task of deciding whether or not to communicate the facts to the public.

But Bismarck's heart was not set on peace, nor was that of Moltke, nor that of Roon. The prime-minister who a few years earlier had publicly avowed that German national unity could be won only by "blood and iron," and who in behalf of that unity had provoked two easily avoidable wars, first with Denmark in 1864 and then with Austria in 1866, had now come to believe that France would never be a contented neighbor to a consolidated Germany, that war with her was in- \ evitable, and that such a war would bring into the union led . by Prussia those South German states that had refused to j enter the North German Confederation founded by Bismarck after the defeat of Austria in 1866.

He had been filled with wrath at what seemed the too yielding attitude of his king toward France, and his feelings were completely shared by Moltke and by Roon. They saw the opportunity for precipitating a war with France slipping | away, and were depressed and melancholy at the whole pros- ; pect. Perhaps at some later day, when France had modernized her army and had secured an abler leader than the semiinvalid Napoleon III, they would have to fight at greater military disadvantage. Also the desired inclusion of Baden, \ Wurtemberg, and Bavaria under Prussian leadership might have to wait a few years longer. These three high-born gentlemen, therefore, had been sitting over their Rhenish, silent | and moody; but now Bismarck, studying the telegram, sud- j denly realized that the fates were playing into his hands. The king had given him permission to decide what kind of an abstract of his message to give to the papers, and the man who had crushed Denmark and Austria would use all his j power.

The minister-president therefore strode into the next room and, bending over a table, with ready pencil "edited" the royal despatch. By striking out a clause here, by rendering a shade harsher a phrase there, and by generally excluding all expressions of conciliation and kindliness, Bismarck trans-

I formed what had been a studiously moderate document into what seemed a deliberate challenge to war. William was made to treat the French envoy with almost incredible bruskness and discourtesy, and finally to have ''shown him the door " ; as at least all Paris soon furiously asserted.

The revised despatch was read to Moltke and Roon amid their warmly expressed approval.

"Before it sounded like a parley," declared Moltke; "now it is a defiance."

Bismarck asked a few questions about the state of the army. Roon assured him that all was ready. Moltke declared that nothing could be absolutely certain in a great war, but that he looked on the future with calm anticipation. So the minister and the two generals spent a merry social hour, confident now that all chances of peace were gone and that two mighty nations were headed straight toward bloodshed, and thanking their "good old German God" who had brought it all to pass.

Soon another messenger was summoned. Bismarck gave him the new despatch, to be published under the inaccurate date-line of "Ems" in every German newspaper, and to be wired to every Prussian embassy. The next morning all the world was reading how the King of Prussia had "turned his back" on the French ambassador. "There is little doubt," says an authoritative historian, peculiarly favorable to the German cause, "that had this telegram been worded differently, the Franco-German struggle might have been avoided." * The responsibility for deluging two great nations with blood and, incidentally, for sowing very many of the dragon's teeth that were to spring up for a fearful harvest in 1914 must, therefore, rest largely with Otto von Bismarck and his two jovial friends.

This does not save the ministers of Napoleon III from the charge of criminal folly and recklessness in forcing the quarrel about the "Spanish candidacy" to a point where Bismarck could catch them in the terrible dilemma of either

i Henderson, "Short History of Germany," II, p. 419.

submitting to national humiliation or declaring a war for t which they were grievously unprepared.

The foreign minister, Gramont, afterward plaintively excused himself by saying that he would never have pressed the : issue had not the military men grossly misled him as to the state of the French army. Bismarck, however, bears all the responsibility of a calm, intelligent man who deliberately eggs on an excited, ignorant one to begin a bloody quarrel.

The great minister in later years was to boast of his act and to expatiate upon the details. The facts are undeniable, f and in after days German statesmen, to whom the example of Bismarck loomed as that of a second Jupiter, were taught to consider robust deeds like these to be the very essence of wise i patriotism. The Ems despatch was in the mind of every officer and diplomat who met around the council table of the grandson of William I, when that grandson summoned his mighty men to Potsdam late in July, 1914, to consider declaring war on Russia and France and violating the neutrality of Belgium.

" Nothing succeeds like success." This is an American saying, probably of slight ethical value. During the next decades, however, it made Bismarck seem the king of all statesmen. There had been a strong peace party at Paris, despite much jealousy and dislike toward Prussia. The ''Spanish-candidature" episode had seemed on the point of being happily lived down, despite high words and newspaper froth. Then, like a bolt from the blue, came the outrageous Bismarckian version of the king's interview with Benedetti. The warm summer weather had filled the Paris boulevards, and the light-headed irresponsible mob simply thundered its cries for war, ' ' To Berlin ! ' ' French honor, the honor of the most sensitive people in Europe, had been insulted before all the world. The last arguments for peace were stifled in the French cabinet. Napoleon III, the great adventurer, was none too secure upon his throne. To have refused this challenge to arms would have ruined his prestige with the two elements which then held the rulers of France in the hollow of their hands, the army and the populace of Paris. The

French Chamber of Deputies was in a white heat. Ollivier, the premier, almost a pacifist in his former tendencies, uplifted his voice for action. "If ever a war was necessary/ ' he cried, "it is this war to which Prussia drives us. We continued to negotiate [for a peaceful issue], and in the meantime they announce to Europe that they have shown our envoy the door. ' ' The chamber voted for war by two hundred and forty-six, against only ten for peace. The streets of Paris rang with cheers and patriotic music, while men stood about telling tales of Jena and of the first Napoleon's victorious march through Prussia, followed by the glorious peace of Tilsit. In a few days the opposing diplomats had closed their embassies in Berlin and Paris, exchanged declarations of war, and had bowed their respective farewells "with the highest personal consideration," while the two greatest nations of continental Europe rang with the turmoil of mobilization. Bismarck and Moltke were to have their wish.

The story of the months that followed should have been writ large in the school history -books of every American who had grown up imagining that successful armies could be created in a day. It was because the fearful facts developed in 1870 were not forgotten by the French nation that the world did not fall promptly under Teutonic dominion in 1914, when an even greater struggle was loosed upon the earth. Recent events have amply demonstrated, even to their foes, that the French are, at the very least, as brave, as valorous, and as capable of patriotic effort and sacrifice as any of their rivals, and are past-masters in the modern science of war. But the contest of 1870 gave a perfect illustration of the futility of mere bravery and patriotism, when without proper preparation or leadership it is required to cope with a scientifically constructed war-machine controlled by a competent general staff.

The army of Prussia and of the South German allied states (Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden) was essentially the same type of army as that which in 1914 went across Belgium and which was halted only at the Marne. Between 1870 and the later date it had, of course, become larger, with more up-todate weapons and other military appliances, and with some . improvements in organization. But, in the main, in 1914 it was still essentially the developed creation of Moltke and of Roon, perpetuated, but not case-hardened.

The army of France in 1870 was absolutely different from that second fighting machine which, mobilizing a little more slowly in 1914 than its rival and swept back at first, turned, j nevertheless, and saved Paris, France, and the world for democracy in those great September days one short month after the beginning of Armageddon. The soldier of Napoleon III was just as skilful, brave, and patriotic as his grandsire under Napoleon the Great, or his son under Joffre, but the lack of scientific preparation and capable leadership doomed him to fight with one hand tied behind his back. The result was the abject humiliation of France.

Napoleon III, the purple-clad adventurer "condemned to be brilliant," who had vainly tried to persuade the world that he was a worthy successor of his mighty uncle, had gained his throne by too devious methods to be able to place the best talent of France in charge of his armies. Many of his generals were superannuated and incapable; others were downright soldiers of fortune, more loyal to their own interests than to their nation. Universal military training had been introduced into France very imperfectly. A large part of the population had been exempted from conscription. The reserves for the regular professional army were inadequate. The railways were ill-arranged for mobilization. Many articles for equipping the troops were missing. The field-artillery guns were notoriously inferior to the German. Above all, a competent commander-in-chief was soon discovered to be utterly lacking. Everything, in short, was amiss, except the bravery and patriotism of the private and field officers, and in the circumstances these were to be miserably sacrificed. It was a case where a nation, proud, courageous, and potentially containing the best fighting material in the world, but acting under an overwhelming handicap, was to be pitted against Moltke 's relentless fighting-machine.

When the French armies began to mobilize around their great frontier towns of Metz and Strassburg, the confusion of their system would have been ludicrous, had not the price of the laugh been the ruin of the nation. The officers sent to defend the boundary telegraphed back that they had no maps of France, although they had many of Germany "soon to be invaded." An artillery general reported that out of eight hundred horse-collars sent him, five hundred were too tight for his horses. A brigadier-general wired Paris: "I have not found my brigade or my superior commander. What shall I do? Don't know the whereabouts of my regiments." Yet all the time Moltke's mobilization was proceeding like clock-work, so much so that, according to a popular tale, when the final declaration of war had been handed the general late one night, he had simply turned to his orderly, saying, "Go

to my desk and telegraph file No. ," and had peacefully

retired to bed. All had been prearranged. Prussian and South German mobilization had proceeded without the slightest hitch or hindrance, and speedily vast hosts were pouring down to the Rhinelands, ready to burst over the frontiers.

When actual hostilities began, Moltke disposed of nearly five hundred thousand men, besides ample reserves. Napoleon TIT, if certain paper projects had been executed, should have had nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand, but the French program had been only nominally executed. In fact, the very year that the war broke out a scheme for reducing the size of the army had been agitated by the pacifists of 1870. Napoleon III had not assembled many more than three hundred and fifty thousand men before he ceased to be emperor. Some of these troops were grievously ill-equipped, and not one of the major armies was properly concentrated. The only real chance the French had for victory was by a quick dash into southern Germany, where the alliances between the local governments and Prussia were still new, and very possibly, in case of defeats, unstable. A blow there, before Prussian mobilization was completed, might have produced great results, but this chance was entirely thrown away by the delay in assembling the French armies. Napoleon III, therefore, seemed able only to string out his men in rather isolated detachments along the frontiers and await the Prussian thun- I derbolt. The initiative had thus passed at the outset to Ger- I many, and to secure the initiative in war involves winning « half the battle. In Paris, meanwhile, the crowds, deceived | by a mendacious censorship and assured by the imperial ministers that "the army was ready down to the last gaiterlacing,' ' complained angrily because no great victories were as yet reported.

Napoleon III had one really capable general, Marshal Mac- Mahon, but he was not in command at Metz, where the main French Army was mustering. The emperor, sick, distracted by silly counsels, and beset with fears for his political future, tried for a while to play the commander-in-chief himself. MacMahon was put in charge of the forces in Alsace, the second theater of war, where he was isolated from his supports and inferior in numbers to the Germans concentrating against him. On August 6, Prince Frederick Charles, leader of the Prussian advance, fell upon him at the heights of Worth. The French cavalry scouting had been very poor, and they did not realize how they were outnumbered, or they might not have risked a battle. As it was, forty thousand Frenchmen tried to halt the progress of eighty thousand Teutons. Mac- Mahon beat off all frontal attacks, until superior numbers turned his flank and made his case hopeless. The French did all that brave men well could, but presently they left the field in what was little better than a rout. Moltke's machine had struck its first blow.

On this same day there had been a second battle in Lorraine, at Spicheren, where another German army collided with General Frossard's corps. At first the French had superior numbers and superior chances. But by a fatality Frossard himself was absent from the field when the fight began, telegraphing to his superiors at Metz. No subordinate dared order a grand charge. Still the French held their own, and did even better until almost evening, when Frossard, who had returned to find his opportunity gone, began to fear lest German reinforcements were getting near his line of retreat, and ordered a complete retirement. The French had almost won the day, and yet they lost the battle. The soldiers were becoming sullen and were beginning to lose confidence in their leaders, who obviously were without ability as organizers, strategists, or tacticians.

After these two blows there was still greater demoralization and almost despair at the imperial headquarters in Metz. The Germans were pressing forward relentlessly ; nevertheless the main French Army was still unbeaten. Under a good commander it could have made a successful stand, but Napoleon III and his parasites were losing their grip on the situation. After wasting time in senselessly marching and counter-marching much of the army, the emperor resigned the actual command at Metz to Marshal Bazaine. The latter was a bluff, high-speaking officer, with a considerable reputation founded on easy successes in Mexico, but he also had a tendency to play the politician as well as the soldier. The position at Metz was so bad that Bazaine quickly resolved to retreat across the Moselle and put his army under the forts of Verdun. But now intervened more procrastination and irresolution, and the Prussians came still closer at his heels. On the fourteenth of August, while Bazaine was trying to march out of Metz to the west, the German advance-guard attacked his rear from the east. The French flung back this force, but it was no real victory. Bazaine 's retreat had been halted at a time when every hour had become precious. On the fifteenth the German cavalry was over the Moselle, south of Metz, and threatened to cut the roads to Verdun. On the sixteenth there was infantry with the cavalry, and the battle of Mars-la-Tour, or Vionville, was fought.

The next day Bazaine pretended that he had won a success. Actually he had sustained a disastrous defeat. One hundred and thirty thousand French troops were on the scene and only half as many Prussians ; yet the Teutons throughout kept the offensive, and their foes had one exhibition after another of the bungling of their own commanders. "When some French divisions won ground, there came no reinforcements, because Bazaine worried more about keeping open the road in his rear, toward Metz, than the one to safety, toward Verdun.

On the seventeenth the great main French Army ignominiously fell back on Metz for ammunition and supplies, while the steady advance of King William 's legions over the Moselle bridges brought nearer the next act in the tragedy.

On the eighteenth of August, Moltke attacked Bazaine before Metz. His aim was to drive the French back under the fortress's guns, block their roads of retreat west and north, and so pen up the whole army. This battle is commonly | called Gravelotte, from one of the small villages around which the tempest raged. The German victory was complete. Moltke had now about two hundred thousand men against only one hundred and forty thousand Frenchmen. But if Bazaine had been a great leader he need not have lost. He was, in fact, only a small man overwhelmed by a tremendous situation. Many of his corps held their own admirably against all attacks, but his right wing, where the German assault proved fiercest, received no reinforcements, although within a few miles of the danger-point lay ample reserves. Bazaine was holding these back, because he was foolishly in terror for his left wing, where there was not the slightest real danger. The French right was thus crumpled up, and their whole line being outflanked, they fell back hastily upon the strong fortress of Metz.

The main French army was, therefore, mewed up around Metz. Speedily it became evident that Bazaine lacked both energy and power to cut his way through to safety. The railroad and telegraph were, of course, soon severed by the enemy, and he could only communicate occasionally with the emperor by means of disguised messengers. It is needless to say that he called lustily for help.

A semblance of an army was still left to Napoleon III, however. MacMahon, after escaping from Worth, had been reorganizing his beaten forces, plus some reinforcements and some unreliable reserve divisions at Chalons. This array was so obviously inferior to the host that Moltke could detach from the siege of Metz and aim straight toward Paris, that MacMahon considered it futile to risk another pitched battle. Sorely as it hurt his French pride, the marshal realized that there was only one really wise thing to do, to retire from Chalons toward Paris, fighting delaying actions and, for a while at least, leaving Bazaine to his fate. The latter had supplies to hold out for two months and by drawing the Germans far from their base and by allowing time to organize the great resources of France, MacMahon could hope to turn and rend the invader. This was an intelligent program. It was very like Joffre's scheme in 1914, when after the first efforts to hold the lines in Belgium had failed, that doughty Frenchman retreated to the Marne and under better conditions won a terrific battle. But MacMahon was far less fortunate than his successor. Behind Joffre was a Government brave and willing to trust France. Behind MacMahon was a coterie of self-seeking adventurers and sordid politicians who constituted the court and cabinet of "Napoleon the Little." Already Paris was growling because no victories had been reported and because the invader was on French soil. The emperor was vainly telegraphing * ' all can be recovered, ' ' and his ministers were now reduced to the shifts of issuing lying bulletins, pretending that it was only for high strategic reasons that they did not give out news which would cause the capital "to be illuminated. ' ' At the Tuileries, in fact, there was much more fear of the Paris mob than of the advancing Prussians. Base politics had left France unprepared for Avar; baser politics were now to destroy her last chance of averting defeat.