Why We Are At War Part 2

which all thinking men have condemned as an insupportable, tax upon Western civilization, and which has aggravated all the evils that it was intended to avert.

The beginning of the evil was perhaps due to France; but, if so, it was to a France which viewed with just alarm the enormous strides in population and wealth made by Germany since 1871. The 'Boulanger Law' of 1886 raised the peace footing of the French army above 500,000 men, at a time when that of Germany was 427,000, and that of Russia 550,000.

Bismarck replied by the comparatively moderate measure of adding 41,000 to the German peace establishment for seven years; and it is significant of the difference between then and now that he only carried his Bill after a dissolution of one Reichstag and a forcible appeal to its successor.

France must soon have repented of the indiscretion to which she had been tempted by a military adventurer. With a population comparatively small and rapidly approaching the stationary phase it was impossible that she could long maintain such a race. In 1893 Count Caprivi's law, carried like that of Bismarck after a stiff struggle with the Reichstag, raised the peace establishment to 479,000 men. Count Caprivi at the same time reduced the period of compulsory service from three years to two; but while this reform lightened the burden on the individual conscript, it meant a great increase in the number of those who pa.s.sed through military training, and an enormous increase of the war strength. The Franco-Russian _entente_ of 1896 was a sign that France began to feel herself beaten in the race for supremacy and reduced to the defensive.

In 1899 the German peace strength was raised to 495,000 for the next six years; in 1905 to 505,000. On the second of these occasions the German Government justified its policy by pointing out that the French war strength was still superior to that of Germany, and would become still stronger if France should change the period of service from three years to two. The German law was announced in 1904; it had the natural effect.

The French Senate not only pa.s.sed the new law early in 1905, but also swept away the changes which the Lower House had introduced to lighten the burden of annual training upon territorial reserves. France found her justification in the Moroccan episode of the previous year.

This was not unreasonable; but since that date France has been heavily punished for a step which might be taken to indicate that _Revanche_ was still a feature of her foreign policy. Since 1886 her utmost efforts have only succeeded in raising her peace establishment to 545,000 (including a body of 28,000 colonial troops stationed in France), and her total war strength to 4,000,000. In the same period the peace establishment of Germany was raised to over 800,000, and her total war strength of fully trained men to something like 5,400,000. It is obvious from these figures that a policy of isolation has long ceased to be possible to France; and that an alliance with Russia has been her only possible method of counterbalancing the numerical superiority of the German army, which is certainly not less well equipped or organized than that of France.

This Russian alliance of France has been the only step in her continental policy which could be challenged as tending to overthrow the European balance. Undoubtedly it is France's prime offence in German eyes; and her colonial policy has only been attacked as a pretext for picking a quarrel and forcing on a decisive trial of strength before the growth of Russian resources should have made her ally impregnable.

Let us now look at the German military preparations from a German point of view. The increases of the last twenty years in military expenditure and in fighting strength have been openly discussed in the Reichstag; and the debates have usually run on the same lines, because the Government up to 1912 pursued a consistent policy, framed for some years ahead and embodied in an Army Act. The underlying principle of these Army Acts (1893, 1899, 1905, 1911) was to maintain a fairly constant ratio between the peace strength and the population. But the war strength was disproportionately increased by the Caprivi Army Act of 1893, which reduced the period of compulsory service from three years to two. The hardly-veiled intention of the German War Staff was to increase its war resources as rapidly as was consistent with the long-sufferance of those who served and those who paid the bill. It was taken as axiomatic that an increasing population ought to be protected by an increasing army. National defence was of course alleged as the prime consideration; and if these preparations were really required by growing danger on the two main frontiers of Germany, no German could do otherwise than approve the policy, no foreign Power could feel itself legitimately aggrieved.

Unfortunately it has been a maxim of German policy in recent years that national independence means the power of taking the aggressive in any case where national interests or _amour-propre_ may prompt it. The increase of the German army, either in numbers or in technical efficiency, seems to be regularly followed by masterful strokes of diplomacy in which the 'mailed fist' is plainly shown to other continental Powers. Thus in 1909, at the close of a quinquennium of military re-equipment, which had raised her annual army budget from 27,000,000 to 41,000,000, Germany countenanced the Austrian annexation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, and plainly told the authorities at St.

Petersburg that any military action against Austria would bring Russia into a state of war with Germany. It was a startling step; _radix malorum_ we may call it, so far as the later development of the continental situation is concerned. Russia withdrew from the impending conflict in 1909, but it is improbable that she has ever forgiven the matter or the manner of the German ultimatum.

In 1911 followed the episode of Agadir, which was clearly an attempt to 'force a quarrel on France.' But in 1911 Germany realized that her military calculations had been insufficient, if she wished to continue these unamiable diplomatic manners. It was not a question of self-preservation; it was a question, as the German Chancellor told the Reichstag, of showing the world that 'Germany was firmly resolved not to be pushed aside.' Hence the sensational Army Bill of 1912, necessitated, as the Government told the Reichstag, by the events of 1911. The Russian peril could hardly be described as imminent. The Prussian Minister of War said publicly in 1911 that 'there was no Government which either desired or was seeking to bring about a war with Germany.' Russia had recently taken steps which, at Berlin, perhaps, were read as signs of weakness, but elsewhere were hailed as proofs of her desire for general peace. M. Isvolsky, the supposed champion of Balkan ideals, had retired from office; his successor, M. Sazonof, had accompanied the Czar to the Potsdam interview (1910); the outstanding disputes of Germany and Russia over their Persian interests had been settled by agreement in 1911.

But the German Army Bill of 1912 was followed by Russia's intervention in the Balkans to secure for Servia at least commercial access to the Adriatic. This compromise, ostensibly promoted and belauded by German statesmans.h.i.+p, only increased the determination of the German Government to 'hold the ring' in the Balkans, to claim for Austria the right of settling her own differences with Servia as she would, and to deny Russia any interest in the matter. In 1913 came the supreme effort of the German General Staff: an Army Act for raising the peace strength by instalments until it reached 870,000, and for the eventual provision of a war strength of 5,400,000 men. This enormous increase was recommended 'by the unanimous judgement of the military authorities' as being 'necessary to secure the future of Germany.' The Chancellor warned the Reichstag that, although relations were friendly with Russia, they had to face the possibilities involved in the Pan-Slavist movement; while in Russia itself they had to reckon with a marvellous economic development and an unprecedented reorganization of the army. There was also a reference to the new law for a return to three years' service which France was introducing to improve the efficiency of her peace establishment. But it was obvious that Russia was the main preoccupation. Germany had forced the pace both in the aggrandizement of her military strength and in the methods of her diplomatic intercourse.

Suddenly she found herself on the brink of an abyss. She had gone too far; she had provoked into the compet.i.tion of armaments a Power as far superior to Germany in her reserves of men as Germany thought herself superior to France. It was not too late for Germany to pause. On her future behaviour towards other Powers it depended whether the Bill of 1913 should be taken as an insurance against risks, or as a challenge to all possible opponents.

The other Powers shaped their policy in accordance with Germany's example. In France, on March 4, the Supreme Council of War, having learned the outline of the German programme, decided to increase the effective fighting force by a return to the rule of three years'

service. Before the German Bill had pa.s.sed (June 30), the French Prime Minister announced (May 15) that he would of his own authority keep with the colours those who were completing their second year's service in the autumn. The French Army Bill, when finally pa.s.sed (July 16), lowered the age limit for commencing service from twenty-one to twenty, and brought the new rule into force at once. A few weeks earlier (June 20) Belgium introduced universal military service in place of her former lenient system. In Russia a secret session of the Duma was held (July 8) to pa.s.s a new Army Budget, and the term of service was raised from three to three and a quarter years. Austria alone provided for no great increase in the numerical strength of her army; but budgeted (October 30) for extraordinary naval and military expenditure, to the extent of 28,000,000, to be incurred in the first six months of 1914. Thus on all sides the alarm was raised, and special preparations were put in hand, long before the crisis of 1914 actually arrived. It was Germany that had sounded the tocsin; and it is difficult to believe that some startling _coup_ was not even then being planned by the leaders of her military party.

We have been told that, whatever the appearance of things might be, it was Russia who drove Germany to the extraordinary preparations of 1913; that Germany was arming simply in self-defence against a Slavonic Crusade. What are the facts? Economically Russia, as a state, is in a stronger position than the German Empire. In 1912 we were told that for the past five years the revenue of Russia had exceeded expenditure by an average sum of 20,000,000 per annum. The revenue of Russia in 1913 was over 324,000,000; she has budgeted for 78,000,000 of military expenditure in 1914, of which some 15,000,000 is emergency expenditure.

The total revenue of the German Empire in 1913 was 184,000,000; she has budgeted for a military expenditure in 1914 of 60,000,000. To adopt the usual German tests of comparison, Russia has a population of 173 millions to be defended on three land-frontiers, while Germany has a population of 65 millions to be defended on only two. The military efforts of Russia, therefore, have been made on a scale relatively smaller than those of Germany.

We must, however, add some further considerations which have been urged by German military critics; the alleged facts we cannot test, but we state them for what they may be worth. The reorganization of the Russian army in recent years has resulted, so we are told, in the grouping of enormously increased forces upon the western frontier. The western fortresses also have been equipped on an unparalleled scale. New roads and railways have been constructed to accelerate the mobilization of the war strength; and, above all, strategic railways have been pushed towards the western frontier. Thus, it is argued, Russia has in effect gone behind the Potsdam Agreement of 1910, by which she withdrew her armies to a fixed distance behind the Russo-German frontier. We confess that, in all this, while there may have been cause for watchfulness on the part of Germany, we can see no valid cause for war, nothing that of necessity implies more than an intention, on the part of Russia, not to be brow-beaten in the future as she was in 1909 and 1912.

These military developments did not escape English notice. They excited endless speculation about the great war of the future, and the part which this country might be asked to bear in it. Few, however, seriously supposed that we should commit ourselves to a share in the fighting upon land. The problem most usually discussed in this connexion was that of preparation to resist a sudden invasion from abroad. Was it possible to avoid compulsory service? Was the Territorial Force large enough and efficient enough to defend the country if the Expeditionary Force had gone abroad? Great Britain was infinitely better equipped for land warfare in August, 1914, than she had ever been in the nineteenth century. But her Expeditionary Force was a recent creation, and had been planned for the defence of India and the Colonies. In practice the country had clung to the 'Blue Water' policy, of trusting the national fortunes entirely to the Navy. The orthodox theory was that so long as the Navy was kept at the 'Two Power' standard, no considerable invasion of the British Isles was possible.

But from 1898 the programmes of the German Navy Laws const.i.tuted a growing menace to the 'Two Power' standard, which had been laid down as our official principle in 1889, when France and Russia were our chief European rivals at sea. That France or Russia would combine with Germany to challenge our naval supremacy was improbable; but other states were beginning to build on a larger scale, and this multiplied the possible number of hostile combinations. That Germany should wish for a strong fleet was only natural. It was needed to defend her foreign trade, her colonial interests, and her own seaports. That Germany should lay down a definite programme for six years ahead, and that the programme should become more extensive at each revision, was no necessary proof of malice. But this country received a shock in 1900, when the programme of 1898 was unexpectedly and drastically revised, so that the German Navy was practically doubled. England was at that moment involved in the South African War, and it was hard to see against whom the new fleet could be used, if not against England. This was pointed out from time to time by the Socialist opposition in the Reichstag. The orthodox official reply was that Germany must be so strong at sea that the strongest naval Power should not be able to challenge her with any confidence. But the feeling of the semi-official Navy League was known to be violently hostile to England; and it was obvious that the German navy owed its popularity to the alarmist propaganda of that league.

It was impossible for English statesmen to avoid the suspicion that, on the sea as on land, the Germans meant by liberty the right to unlimited self-a.s.sertion. Common prudence dictated close attention to the German Navy Laws; especially as they proved capable of unexpected acceleration.

The 'Two Power' standard, under the stress of German compet.i.tion, became increasingly difficult to maintain, and English Liberals were inclined to denounce it as wasteful of money. But, when a Liberal Government tried the experiment of economizing on the Navy (1906-8), there was no corresponding reduction in the German programme. The German Naval Law of 1906 raised the amount of the naval estimates by one-third; and German ministers blandly waved aside as impracticable a proposal for a mutual limitation of armaments.

In 1909 this country discovered that in capital s.h.i.+ps--which now began to be considered the decisive factor in naval warfare--Germany would actually be the superior by 1914 unless special measures were taken. The British Government was awakened to the new situation (it arose from the German Naval Law of 1908), and returned unwillingly to the path of increasing expenditure. The Prime Minister said that we regretted the race in naval expenditure and were not animated by anti-German feeling; but we could not afford to let our supremacy at sea be imperilled, since our national security depended on it (March 16, 1909). The 'Two Power'

standard was dropped, and the Triple Alliance became the object of special attention at the Admiralty. The First Lord said on March 13, 1911, that we should make our navy superior to any foreign navy and to any _probable_ combination which we might have to meet single-handed. In practice this meant a policy of developing, in the matter of Dreadnoughts, a superiority of sixty per cent, over the German navy; this, it was officially explained in 1912, had been for some years past the actual Admiralty standard of new construction (Mr. Winston Churchill, March 18, 1912).

But even this programme had to be stiffened when the year 1912 saw a new German Navy Bill which involved an increased expenditure of 1,000,000 annually for six years, and had the effect of putting nearly four-fifths of the German navy in a position of immediate readiness for war. Earlier in the year the British Government had announced that, if the German policy of construction were accelerated, we should add to our programme double the number which Germany put in hand; but if Germany relaxed her preparations we should make a fully proportionate reduction. The German Bill came as an answer to this declaration; and it was followed in this country by supplementary estimates on naval account, amounting to nearly a million pounds; and this was announced to be 'the first and smallest instalment of the extra expenditure entailed by the new German law.' The new British policy was maintained in 1913 and in 1914, though in 1913 the First Lord of the Admiralty made a public offer of a 'naval holiday,' a suspension of new construction by mutual consent. The Imperial Chancellor responded only by suggesting that the proposal was entirely unofficial, by asking for concrete proposals, and by saying that the idea const.i.tuted a great progress; and his naval estimates in 1913 were half a million higher than those of 1912.

From these facts, viewed in their chronological order, it is clear that on sea as on land Germany has set the pace. Thirty years ago the German navy did not enter into England's naval calculations. For the last six years, if not for a longer period, it has been the one navy which our Admiralty felt the necessity of watching from year to year, and indeed from month to month. It is the first time for more than a hundred years that we have had to face the problem of 'a powerful h.o.m.ogeneous navy under one government and concentrated within easy distance of our sh.o.r.es.'

On German principles we should long ago have adopted the 'offensive-defensive.' We have been at least as seriously menaced by Germany at sea as Germany has been menaced by Russia upon land. But we can confidently say that in the period of rivalry our fleet has never been used as a threat, or turned to the purposes of an aggressive colonial policy. Rightly or wrongly, we have refused to make possible intentions a case for an ultimatum. We have held by the position that only a breach of public law would justify us in abandoning our efforts for the peace of Europe.

NOTE

_Abstract of Anglo-French Agreement on Morocco_.

In April, 1904, England and France concluded an agreement for the delimitation of their interests on the Mediterranean littoral of North Africa. The agreement included five secret Articles which were not published until November, 1911. The purport of the Articles which were published at the time was as follows. By the first Article England stated that she had not the intention of changing the political state of Egypt; and France declared that she would not impede the action of England in Egypt by demanding that a term should be fixed for the British occupation or in any other way. By the second Article France declared that she had not the intention of changing the political state of Morocco; and England recognized that it appertained to France, as the Power conterminous with Morocco, to watch the tranquillity of this country and to a.s.sist it in all administrative, economic, financial, and military reforms which it required, France promised to respect the customary and treaty rights of England in Morocco; and by the third Article England made a corresponding promise to France in respect of Egypt. By the fourth Article the two Governments undertook to maintain 'the principle of commercial liberty' in Egypt and Morocco, by not lending themselves in either country to inequality in the establishment of Customs-duties or of other taxes or of railway rates. The sixth and seventh Articles were inserted to ensure the free pa.s.sage of the Suez Ca.n.a.l and of the Straits of Gibraltar. The eighth declared that both Governments took into friendly consideration the interests of Spain in Morocco, and that France would make some arrangements with the Spanish Monarchy. The ninth Article declared that each Government would lend its diplomatic support to the other in executing the clauses relative to Egypt and Morocco.[21] Of the secret Articles two (Nos. 3 and 4) related to Spain, defining the territory which she was to receive 'whenever the Sultan ceases to exercise authority over it,' and providing that the Anglo-French agreement would hold good even if Spain declined this arrangement. Article 1 stipulated that, if either Government found itself constrained, by the force of circ.u.mstances, to modify its policy in respect to Egypt or Morocco, nevertheless the fourth, sixth, and seventh Articles of the public declaration would remain intact; that is, each would under all circ.u.mstances maintain the principle of 'commercial liberty,' and would permit the free pa.s.sage of the Suez Ca.n.a.l and the Straits of Gibraltar. In Article 2 England, while disclaiming any intention to alter the system of Capitulations or the judicial organization of Egypt, reserved the right to reform the Egyptian legislative system on the model of other civilized countries; and France agreed on condition that she should not be impeded from making similar reforms in Morocco. The fifth Article related to the Egyptian national debt.

Notes:

[Footnote 10: Quoted from Headlam's _Bismarck_, p. 444.]

[Footnote 11: _Correspondence respecting the European Crisis_ (Cd.

7467), No. 85. Sir E. Goschen to Sir E. Grey, July 29, 1914. See _infra_, Appendix II.]

[Footnote 12: For these agreements see _The Times_, April 12, 1904, and November 25, 1911. See note at end of this chapter.]

[Footnote 13: White Paper, Morocco No. 1 (1906).]

[Footnote 14: _Correspondence_, No. 105 (Enclosure 1). Sir E. Grey to M.

Cambon, November 22, 1912. See Appendix II.]

[Footnote 15: _Correspondence_, No. 87. Sir E. Grey to Sir F. Bertie, July 29, 1914.]

[Footnote 16: _Times_, July 7, 1911.]

[Footnote 17: _Times_, July 27, 1911.]

[Footnote 18: _Times_, July 22, 1911.]

[Footnote 19: _Correspondence_, p. 57 (Enclosure 1 in No. 105). See Appendix II.]

[Footnote 20: _Ibid_. p. 57 (Enclosure 2 in No. 105).]

[Footnote 21: _Times_, April 12, 1904.]

CHAPTER III

THE DEVELOPMENT OF RUSSIAN POLICY

Until the year 1890 Russia and Germany had been in close touch. Dynastic connexions united the two imperial houses; and the common policy of repression of Polish nationality--the fatal legacy of the days of Frederic the Great and Catharine II--united the two empires. National sentiment in Russia was, however, always anti-German; and as early as 1885 Balkan affairs began to draw the Russian Government away from Germany. In 1890 Bismarck fell; and under William II German policy left the Russian connexion, and in close touch with Austria embarked on Balkan adventures which ran counter to Russian aims, while Russia on her side turned to new allies.

The new direction of Russian policy, which has brought the aims of the Russian Government into close accord with the desires of national Slav sentiment, was determined by Balkan conditions. Bismarck had cherished no Balkan ambitions: he had been content to play the part of an 'honest broker' at the Congress of Berlin, and he had spoken of the Bulgarian affair of 1885 as 'not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier.'

William II apparently thought otherwise. At any rate Germany seems to have conducted, for many years past, a policy of establis.h.i.+ng her influence, along with that of Austria, through South-Eastern Europe. And it is this policy which is the _fons et origo_ of the present struggle; for it is a policy which is not and cannot be tolerated by Russia, so long as Russia is true to her own Slav blood and to the traditions of centuries.

After Austria had finally lost Italy, as she did in 1866, she turned for compensation to the Balkans. If Venetia was lost, it seemed some recompense when in 1878 Austria occupied Bosnia and the Herzegovina.

Hence she could expand southwards--ultimately perhaps to Salonica.

Servia, which might have objected, was a va.s.sal kingdom, the protege of Austria, under the dynasty of the Obrenovitch. As Austria might hope to follow the line to Salonica,[22] so Germany, before the end of the nineteenth century, seems to have conceived of a parallel line of penetration, which would carry her influence through Constantinople, through Konieh, to Bagdad. She has extended her political and economic influence among the small Slav states and in Turkey. In 1898 the King of Roumania (a Hohenzollern by descent) conceded direct communication through his territories between Berlin and Constantinople: in 1899 a German company obtained a concession for the Bagdad railway from Konieh to the head of the Persian Gulf. In a word, Germany began to stand in the way of the Russian traditions of ousting the Turk and ruling in Constantinople: she began to b.u.t.tress the Turk, to train his army, to exploit his country, and to seek to oust Russia generally from South-Eastern Europe.

In 1903 the progress of Austria and Germany received a check. A blood-stained revolution at Belgrade ousted the pro-Austrian Obrenovitch, and put in its place the rival family of the Karageorgevitch. Under the new dynasty Servia escaped from Austrian tutelage, and became an independent focus of Slav life in close touch with Russia. The change was ill.u.s.trated in 1908, when Austria took advantage of the revolution in Turkey, led by the Young Turks, to annex formally the occupied territories of Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Servia, which had hoped to gain these territories, once a part of the old Servian kingdom, was mortally offended, and would have gone to war with Austria, if Russia, her champion under the new dynasty, could only have given her support. But Russia, still weak after the j.a.panese war, could not do so; Russia, on the contrary, had to suffer the humiliation of giving a pledge to the Austrian Amba.s.sador at St. Petersburg that she would not support Servia. That humiliation Russia has not forgotten. She has saved money, she has reorganized her army, she has done everything in her power to gain security for the future. And now that Austria has sought utterly to humiliate Servia on the unproved charge (unproved, in the sense that no legal proof was offered)[23] of complicity in the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Russia has risked war rather than surrender her protection of a Slav kingdom. Slav sentiment imperatively demanded action in favour of Servia: no government could refuse to listen to the demand. The stake for Russia is not merely the integrity of Servia: it is her prestige among the Slav peoples, of which she is head; and behind all lies the question whether South-Eastern Europe shall be under Teutonic control, and lost to Russian influence.