The Great War and How It Arose Part 10

[98] Cd. 7717, No. 83.

[99] Cd. 7626, No. 46.

[100] Cd. 7717, No. 78.

[101] Cd. 7717, Appendix 5, No. 3.

[102] Cd. 7717, No. 87.

[103] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 95.

APPENDIX B.

HOW GERMANY MISLED AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

Germany's view is very clearly indicated in a despatch from the British Amba.s.sador at Vienna, dated July 26, 1914:--

"According to confident belief of German Amba.s.sador, Russia will keep quiet during chastis.e.m.e.nt of Serbia, which Austria-Hungary is resolved to inflict, having received a.s.surances that no Serbian territory will be annexed by Austria-Hungary. In reply to my question whether Russian Government might not be compelled by public opinion to intervene on behalf of kindred nationality, he said that everything depended on the personality of the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, who could resist easily, if he chose, the pressure of a few newspapers. He pointed out that the days of Pan-Slav agitation in Russia were over, and that Moscow was perfectly quiet. The Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs would not, his Excellency thought, be so imprudent as to take a step which would probably result in many frontier questions in which Russia is interested, such as Swedish, Polish, Ruthene, Roumanian and Persian questions, being brought into the melting-pot. France, too, was not at all in a condition for facing a war.... He doubted Russia, who had no right to a.s.sume a protectorate over Serbia, acting as if she made any such claim. _As for Germany, she knew very well what she was about in backing up Austria-Hungary in this matter._"[104]

Germany's view is further explained by the British representative at Berlin, on July 26, 1914:--

"Under-Secretary of State likewise told me that German Amba.s.sador at St. Petersburg had reported that, in conversation with Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, latter had said that if Austria annexed bits of Serbian territory Russia would not remain indifferent. Under-Secretary of State drew conclusion that Russia would not act if Austria did _not_ annex territory."[105]

The result of this German influence is shown on the Austrian Amba.s.sador in Berlin by the following despatch from Sir Edward Goschen, the British Amba.s.sador at Berlin, dated July 28, 1914:--

"Austrian colleague said to me to-day that a general war was most unlikely, as Russia neither wanted nor was in a position to make war. I think that that opinion is shared by many people here."[106]

So successful were the Germans in impressing this false view upon the Austrians that the position is best described by the British Amba.s.sador in Vienna in his despatch to Sir Edward Grey, dated July 27, 1914:--

"I have had conversations with all my colleagues representing the Great Powers. The impression left on my mind is that the Austro-Hungarian note was so drawn up as to make war (with Serbia) inevitable; that the Austro-Hungarian Government are fully resolved to have war with Serbia; that they consider their position as a Great Power to be at stake; and that until punishment has been administered to Serbia it is unlikely that they will listen to proposals of mediation. This country has gone wild with joy at the prospect of war with Serbia, and its postponement or prevention would undoubtedly be a great disappointment."[107]

Added to which we have further proof in a despatch from the British Amba.s.sador at Rome, dated July 23, 1914:--

"Secretary-General, whom I saw this morning at the Italian Foreign Office, took the view that the gravity of the situation lay in the conviction of the Austro-Hungarian Government that it was absolutely necessary for their prestige, after the many disillusions which the turn of events in the Balkans has occasioned, to score a definite success."[108]

FOOTNOTES:

[104] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 32.

[105] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 33.

[106] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 71.

[107] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 41.

[108] _Great Britain and the European Crisis_, No. 38.

APPENDIX C.

SOME GERMAN ATROCITIES IN BELGIUM.

In December, 1914, a Committee was appointed by the British Government to inquire into the German outrages in Belgium and France. Under the Chairmans.h.i.+p of Lord Bryce, this Committee was composed of:--

THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE, O.M. (Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford, 1870; Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1886; Chancellor of Duchy of Lancaster (with seat in Cabinet), 1892; President of Board of Trade, 1894; one of the British Members of the International Tribunal at The Hague; Chief Secretary for Ireland, 1905-6; His Majesty's Amba.s.sador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary at Was.h.i.+ngton, 1907-12).

THE RT. HON. SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, Bt., K.C., LL.D., D.C.L. (Judge of Admiralty Court of Cinque Ports since 1914; Editor of Law Reports since 1895; Chairman, Royal Commission on Public Records, 1910; Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence, Oxford, 1883-1903; Author of The Law of Torts, 1887; History of English Law, 1895.)

THE RT. HON. SIR EDWARD CLARKE, K.C. (Solicitor-General, 1886-92).

SIR ALFRED HOPKINSON, K.C. (Professor of Law, Owen's College, Manchester (Princ.i.p.al, 1898-1904); Adviser to the Bombay University, 1913-14).

MR. H. A. L. FISHER (Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University; Chichele Lecturer in Foreign History, 1911-12).

MR. HAROLD c.o.x, M.A. (Editor, _Edinburgh Review_).

SIR KENELM E. DIGBY, K.C., G.C.B. (Permanent Under-Secretary of State at Home Office, 1895-1903).

This eminent and impartial Tribunal, after carefully weighing the evidence (Cd. 7894 and Cd. 7895) came to the following grave conclusions:--

"(i) That there were in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organised ma.s.sacres of the civil population, accompanied by many isolated murders and other outrages.

"(ii) That in the conduct of the war generally innocent civilians, both men and women, were murdered in large numbers, women violated, and children murdered.

"(iii) That looting, house burning, and the wanton destruction of property were ordered and countenanced by the officers of the German Army, that elaborate provision had been made for systematic incendiarism at the very outbreak of the war, and that the burnings and destruction were frequent where no military necessity could be alleged, being indeed part of a system of general terrorisation.

"(iv) That the rules and usages of war were frequently broken, particularly by the using of civilians, including women and children, as a s.h.i.+eld for advancing forces exposed to fire, to a less degree by killing the wounded and prisoners, and in the frequent abuse of the Red Cross and the White Flag.

"Sensible as they are of the gravity of these conclusions, the Committee conceive that they would be doing less than their duty if they failed to record them as fully established by the evidence.

Murder, l.u.s.t, and pillage prevailed over many parts of Belgium on a scale unparalleled in any war between civilised nations during the last three centuries."

The Report makes it plain that apart from the first outbreak of outrages intended to cow the Belgians into submission, fresh bursts of plunder and rapine took place on specific occasions when the Germans suffered defeat. Cowardly vengeance was thus wreaked on the innocent Belgian civilians for the defeat of German arms. For example, on August 25, 1914, the Belgian Army, sallying out from Antwerp, drove the enemy from Malines. The Germans promptly ma.s.sacred and burnt at Louvain, "the signal for which was provided by shots exchanged between the German Army retreating after its repulse at Malines and some members of the German garrison of Louvain, who mistook their fellow-countrymen for Belgians."[109] Similarly when a successful sortie from Antwerp drove the Germans from Aerschot, they retaliated by a blood-vendetta upon the civil population.

The Germans have endeavoured to justify their brutal excesses by bringing counter-charges against Belgian civilians. For instance, the Chancellor of the German Empire, in a communication made to the press on September 2, 1914, and printed in the _Nord Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung_, of September 21, said: "Belgian girls gouged out the eyes of the German wounded. Officials of Belgian cities have invited our officers to dinner, and shot and killed them across the table. Contrary to all international law, the whole civilian population of Belgium was called out, and after having at first shown friendliness carried on in the rear of our troops terrible warfare with concealed weapons. Belgian women cut the throats of soldiers whom they had quartered in their homes while they were sleeping."

Upon this Lord Bryce's Committee make the comment: "No evidence whatever seems to have been adduced to prove these tales."[110]

Of both individual and concerted acts of barbarity, the report teems--for example:--[111]

"It is clearly shown that many offences were committed against infants and quite young children. On one occasion children were even roped together and used as a military screen against the enemy, on another three soldiers went into action carrying small children to protect themselves from flank fire. A shocking case of the murder of a baby by a drunken soldier at Malines is thus recorded by one eye-witness and confirmed by another:--