Part 33

Is it not intelligible that our enemies declare that they will not rest until a system is destroyed which constitutes a permanent threatening of our neighbors? Must they not otherwise fear that in a few years they will again have to take up arms, and again see their provinces overrun and their towns and villages destroyed? Were these people not right who prophesied that the spirit of Treitschke and Bernhardi dominated the German people--the spirit which glorifies war as an aim in itself and does not abhor it as an evil; that among us it is still the feudal knights and Junkers and the caste of warriors who rule and who fix our ideals and our values--not the civilian gentleman; that the love of dueling, which inspires our youth at the universities, lives on in those who guide the fortunes of the people? Had not the events at Zabern and the Parliamentary debates on that case shown foreign countries how civil rights and freedoms are valued among us, when questions of military power are on the other side?

Cramb, a historian who has since died, an admirer of Germany, put the German point of view into the words of Euphorion:

Träumt Ihr den Friedenstag? Träume, wer träumen mag! Krieg ist das Losungswort! Sieg, und so klingt es fort.

Militarism, really a school for the nation and an instrument of policy, makes policy into the instrument of military power, if the patriarchal absolutism of a soldier-kingdom renders possible an attitude which would not be permitted by a democracy which had disengaged itself from military-junker influences.

That is what our enemies think, and that is what they are bound to think, when they see that, in spite of capitalistic industrialization, and in spite of socialistic organization, the living, as Friedrich Nietzsche says, are still governed by the dead. The principal war aim of our enemies, the democratization of Germany, will be achieved.

JEOPARDIZING THE FUTURE

Today, after two years of the war, there can be no further doubt that we cannot hope for an unconditional victory over Russians, English, French, Italians, Rumanians, and Americans, and that we cannot reckon upon the overthrow of our enemies. But we can reach a compromised peace only upon the basis of the evacuation of the occupied territories, the possession of which in any case signifies for us a burden and weakness and the peril of new wars. Consequently, everything should be avoided which hinders a change of course on the part of those enemy groups which might perhaps still be won over to the idea of compromise--the British Radicals and the Russian Reactionaries. Even from this point of view our Polish project is just as objectionable as any interference with Belgian rights, or the execution of British citizens--to say nothing of the mad submarine war scheme.

Our future lies upon the water. True, but it therefore does not lie in Poland and Belgium, in France and Serbia. That is a reversion to the Holy Roman Empire, to the aberrations of the Hohenstaufens and Hapsburgs. It is the policy of the Plantagenets, not the policy of Drake and Raleigh, Nelson and Rhodes.

Triple Alliance policy is a relapse into the past, a revolt from the future, from imperialism, from world policy. Central Europe is mediaevalism; Berlin-Bagdad is a cul de sac, and not a road into the open, to unlimited possibilities, and to the world mission of the German people.

I am no enemy of Austria, or Hungary, or Italy, or Serbia, or any other State; I am only an enemy of the Triple Alliance policy, which was bound to divert us from our aims, and to bring us on to the sloping plane of Continental policy. It was not German policy, but Austrian dynastic policy. The Austrians had accustomed themselves to regard the alliance as a shield, under whose protection they could make excursions at pleasure into the East.

RUINOUS RESULTS

And what result have we to expect from the struggle of peoples? The United States of Africa will be British, like the United States of America, of Australia, and of Oceania, and the Latin States of Europe, as I said years ago, will fall into the same relationship to the United Kingdom as the Latin sisters of America to the United States. They will be dominated by the Anglo-Saxon; France, exhausted by the war, will link herself still more closely to Great Britain. In the long run, Spain also will not resist.

In Asia, the Russian and Japanese will expand their borders and their customs, and the south will remain to the British.

The world will belong to the Anglo-Saxon, the Russian, and the Japanese, and the German will remain alone with Austria and Hungary. His sphere of power will be that of thought and of trade, not that of the bureaucrats and the soldiers. The German appeared too late, and the world war has destroyed the last possibility of catching up the lost ground, of founding a colonial empire.

For we shall not supplant the sons of Japheth; the program of the great Rhodes, who saw the salvation of mankind in British expansion and British imperialism, will be realized.

Tu regere imperio populos Romano, memento. Hae tibi erunt artes: pacisquqe imponere morem, Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos.

Krupp Director Confirms Prince Lichnowsky's Indictment

Coincident with the publication in Germany of the famous memorandum of Prince Lichnowsky squarely putting the blame for the outbreak of the world war upon the Kaiser and the German militarists, there also appeared in circular form in Germany a letter written by a certain Dr. Mühlon, a former member of the Krupp Directorate now living in Switzerland, corroborating the charges made by the Prince. The Mühlon letter was briefly referred to in an official dispatch from Switzerland received in Washington on March 29 as having produced an animated discussion throughout the empire.

A copy of the Leipziger Volkszeitung of March 20 tells how, in a discussion of the Lichnowsky and Mühlon memoranda before the Main Committee of the Reichstag on March 16, Vice Chancellor von Payer tried to minimize the value of Dr. Mühlon's statements by asserting that the former Krupp Director was a sick, nervous man who no doubt did not intend to injure his country's cause, but who was hardly responsible for his actions because of his many nervous breakdowns. Later, the Berliner Tageblatt printed the text of Dr. Mühlon's letter, which was evidently written before the resignation of Dr. Karl Helfferich as Vice Chancellor last November. As translated by The London Times, Dr. Mühlon's memorandum reads:

TALK WITH HELFFERICH

"In the middle of July, 1914, I had, as I frequently had, a conversation with Dr. Helfferich, then Director of the Deutsche Bank in Berlin, and now Vice Chancellor. The Deutsche Bank had adopted a negative attitude toward certain large transactions in Bulgaria and Turkey, in which the firm of Krupp, for business reasons--delivery of war material--had a lively interest. As one of the reasons to justify the attitude of the Deutsche Bank, Dr. Helfferich finally gave me the following reason:

"The political situation has become very menacing. The Deutsche Bank must in any case wait before entering into any further engagements abroad. The Austrians have just been with the Kaiser. In a week's time Vienna will send a very severe ultimatum to Serbia, with a very short interval for the answer. The ultimatum will contain demands such as punishment of a number of officers, dissolution of political associations, criminal investigation in Serbia by Austrian officials, and, in fact, a whole series of definite satisfactions will be demanded at once; otherwise Austria-Hungary will declare war on Serbia.

"Dr. Helfferich added that the Kaiser had expressed his decided approval of this procedure on the part of Austria-Hungary. He had said that he regarded a conflict with Serbia as an internal affair between these two countries, in which he would permit no other State to interfere. If Russia mobilized, he would mobilize also. But in his case mobilization meant immediate war. This time there would be no oscillation. Helfferich said that the Austrians were extremely well satisfied at this determined attitude on the part of the Kaiser.

"When I thereupon said to Dr. Helfferich that this uncanny communication converted my fears of a world war, which were already strong, into absolute certainty, he replied that it certainly looked like that. But perhaps France and Russia would reconsider the matter. In any case, the Serbs deserved a lesson which they would remember. This was the first intimation that I had received about the Kaiser's discussions with our allies. I knew Dr. Helfferich's particularly intimate relations with the personages who were sure to be initiated, and I knew that his communication was trustworthy.

KAISER FOR WAR

"After my return from Berlin I informed Herr Krupp von Böhlen and Halbach, one of whose Directors I then was at Essen. Dr. Helfferich had given me permission and at that time the intention was to make him a Director of Krupps. Herr von Böhlen seemed disturbed that Dr. Helfferich was in possession of such information, and he made a remark to the effect that the Government people can never keep their mouths shut. He then told me the following. He said that he had himself been with the Kaiser in the last few days. The Kaiser had spoken to him also of his conversation with the Austrians, and of its result; but he had described the matter as so secret that he [Krupp] would not even have dared to inform his own Directors. As, however, I already knew, he could tell me that Helfferich's statements were accurate. Indeed, Helfferich seemed to know more details than he did. He said that the situation was really very serious. The Kaiser had told him that he would declare war immediately if Russia mobilized, and that this time people would see that he did not turn about. The Kaiser's repeated insistence that this time nobody would be able to accuse him of indecision had, he said, been almost comic in its effect.

GERMAN DUPLICITY

"On the very day indicated to me by Helfferich the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia appeared. At this time I was again in Berlin, and I told Helfferich that I regarded the tone and contents of the ultimatum as simply monstrous. Dr. Helfferich, however, said that the note only had that ring in the German translation. He had seen the ultimatum in French, and in French it really could not be regarded as overdone. On this occasion Helfferich also said to me that the Kaiser had gone on his northern cruise only as a 'blind'; he had not arranged the cruise on the usual extensive scale, but was remaining close at hand and keeping in constant touch. Now one must simply wait and see what would happen. The Austrians, who, of course, did not expect the ultimatum to be accepted, were really acting rapidly before the other powers could find time to interfere. The Deutsche Bank had already made its arrangements, so as to be prepared for all eventualities. For example, it was no longer paying out the gold which came in. That could easily be done without attracting notice, and the amount day by day reached considerable sums.

"Immediately after the Vienna ultimatum to Serbia the German Government issued declarations to the effect that Austria-Hungary had acted all alone, without Germany's previous knowledge. When one attempted to reconcile these declarations with the events mentioned above, the only possible explanation was that the Kaiser had tied himself down without inviting the co-operation of his Government, and that, in the conversations with the Austrians, the Germans took care not to agree upon the text of the ultimatum. For I have already shown that the contents of the ultimatum were pretty accurately known in Germany.

"Herr Krupp von Böhlen, with whom I spoke about these German declarations--which, at any rate in their effect, were lies--was also by no means edified. For, as he said, Germany ought not, in such a tremendous affair, to have given a blank check to a State like Austria; and it was the duty of the leading statesmen to demand, both of the Kaiser and of our allies, that the Austrian claims and the ultimatum to Serbia should be discussed in minute detail and definitely decided upon, and also that we should decide upon the precise program of our further proceedings. He said that, whatever point of view one took, we ought not to give ourselves into the hands of the Austrians and expose ourselves to eventualities which had not been reckoned out in advance. One ought to have connected appropriate conditions with our obligations. In short, Herr von Böhlen regarded the German denial of previous knowledge, if there was any trace of truth in it, as an offense against the elementary principles of diplomacy; and he told me that he intended to speak in this sense to Herr von Jagow, then Foreign Secretary, who was a special friend of his.

GERMAN GOVERNMENT BLAMED

"As a result of this conversation Herr von Böhlen told me that Herr von Jagow stuck firmly to his assertion that he had had nothing to do with the text of the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum, and that Germany had never made any such demands. In reply to the objection that this was inconceivable, Herr von Jagow replied that he, as a diplomatist, had naturally thought of making such a demand. When, however, Herr von Jagow was occupying himself with the matter and was called in, the Kaiser had so committed himself that it was too late for any procedure according to diplomatic custom, and there was nothing more to be done. The situation was such that it would have been impossible to intervene with drafting proposals. In the end, he [Jagow] had thought that non-interference would have its advantages--namely, the good impression which could be made in Petersburg and Paris with the German declaration that Germany had not co-operated in the preparation of the Vienna ultimatum."

A REMARKABLE LETTER

Herr Mühlon authorized the Humanité, a Paris Socialist paper, through its Swiss correspondent, to publish the following remarkable letter which he addressed from Berne, on May 7, 1917, to Herr von Bethmann Hollweg, then Imperial Chancellor:

"However great the number and weight of the mistakes accumulated on the German side since the beginning of the war, I nevertheless persisted for a long time in the belief that a belated foresight would at last dawn upon the minds of our Directors. It was with this hope that I put myself to a certain extent at your disposal, in order to collaborate with you in Rumania, and that I indicated to you that I was disposed to help in Switzerland, where I am living at present, if the object of our efforts was to be rapprochement of the enemy parties. That I was, and that I remain, hostile to any activity other than reconciliation and restoration I proved soon after the opening of hostilities by the definite resignation of my Directorship of Krupps' works.

"But since the first days of 1917 I have abandoned all hope as regards the present Directors of Germany. Our offer of peace without indication of our war aims, the accentuation of the submarine war, the deportations of Belgians, the systematic destruction in France, and the torpedoing of English hospital ships have so degraded the Governors of the German Empire that I am profoundly convinced that they are disqualified forever for the elaboration and conclusion of a sincere and just agreement. The personalities may change, but they cannot remain the representatives of the German cause.

"The German people will not be able to repair the grievous crimes committed against its own present and future, and against that of Europe and the whole human race until it is represented by different men with a different mentality. To tell the truth, it is mere justice that its reputation throughout the whole world is as bad as it is. The triumph of its methods--the methods by which it has hitherto conducted the war both militarily and politically--would constitute a defeat for the ideas and the supreme hopes of mankind. One has only to imagine that a people exhausted, demoralized, or hating violence, should consent to a peace with a Government which has conducted such a war, in order to understand how the general level and the chances of life of the peoples would remain black and deceptive.

"As a man and as a German who desires nothing but the welfare of the deceived and tortured German people, I turn away definitely from the present representatives of the German régime. And I have only one wish--that all independent men may do the same and that many Germans may understand and act.

"In view of the fact that it is impossible for me at present to make any manifestation before German public opinion, I have thought it to be my absolute duty to inform your Excellency of my point of view."

Reichstag Debate on Lichnowsky

The Main Committee of the Reichstag dealt with Prince Lichnowsky's memorandum on March 16. Herr von Payer, Vice Chancellor, stated that Prince Lichnowsky himself on March 15 made a statement to the Imperial Chancellor, in which he said:

"Your Excellency knows that the purely private notes which I wrote down in the Summer of 1916 found their way into wider circles by an unprecedented breach of confidence. It was mainly a question of subjective considerations about our entire foreign policy since the Berlin Congress. I perceived in the policy hitherto pursued of repelling (in der seitherigen Abkehr) Russia and in the extension of the policy of alliances to Oriental questions the real roots of the world war. I then submitted our Morocco naval policy to a brief examination. My London mission could at the same time not remain out of consideration, especially as I felt the need in regard to the future and with a view to my own justification of noting the details of my experiences and impressions there before they vanished from my memory. These notes were intended in a certain degree only for family archives, and I wrote them down without documentary material or notes from the period of my official activity. I considered I might show them, on the assurance of absolute secrecy, to a very few political friends in whose judgment as well as trustworthiness I had equal confidence."

LICHNOWSKY RESIGNS RANK

Prince Lichnowsky then described in his letter how the memorandum, owing to an indiscretion, got into circulation, and finally expressed lively regret at such an extremely vexatious incident.

Herr von Payer said that Prince Lichnowsky had meanwhile tendered his resignation of his present rank, which had been accepted, and as he had doubtless no bad intention, but had simply been guilty of imprudence, no further steps would be taken against him. The Vice Chancellor proceeded:

"Some assertions in his documents must, however, be contradicted, especially his assertions about political events in the last months preceding the war. Prince Lichnowsky was not of his own knowledge acquainted with these events, but he apparently received from a third, and wrongly informed quarter, inaccurate information. The key to the mistakes and false conclusions may also be the Prince's overestimation of his own services, which are accompanied by hatred against those who do not recognize his achievements as he expected. The entire memorandum is penetrated by a striking veneration for foreign diplomats, especially the British, who are described in a truly affectionate manner, and, on the other hand, by an equally striking irritation against almost all German statesmen. The result was that the Prince frequently regarded Germany's most zealous enemy as her best friend because they were personally on good terms with him.

"The fact that, as he admits, he attached at first no great importance to the assassination of the heir to the Austrian throne, and was displeased that the situation was judged otherwise in Berlin, makes it plain that the Prince had no clear judgment for the events that followed and their import."

The Vice Chancellor then characterized as false all Prince Lichnowsky's assertions about General von Moltke's urging war at the Potsdam Crown Council of June 5, 1914, and the dispatch of the Austrian protocol on "this alleged Crown Council" to Count Mensdorff, containing the postscript that it would be no great harm even if war with Russia arose out of it.

PAYER'S DEFENSE

Herr von Payer also denied the statement that the then Foreign Secretary was in Vienna in 1914, as well as the statement that Count von Pourtalès, the German Ambassador in Petrograd, had reported that Russia would in no circumstances move. The Sukhomlinoff trial had shown how unfounded were Prince Lichnowsky's reproaches against Germany for replying to the Russian mobilization by an ultimatum and a declaration of war. It was also false to assert that the German Government rejected all Great Britain's mediation proposals. Lord Grey's last mediation proposal was very urgently supported in Vienna by Berlin. The aim of the memorandum was obvious. It was to show the reader how much better and more intelligent Prince Lichnowsky's policy was, and how he could have assured the peace of the empire if his advice had been followed.

The Vice Chancellor continued:

"Nobody will reproach the Prince with this belief in himself. He was also free to make notes about events, and his attitude toward them, but he should then have considered it a duty that his views should not have become known to the public, and, no matter how small his circle of readers was, it was his duty to state nothing contradicting facts which he knew. As things now are, the memorandum will cause enough harm among malevolent and superficial people. The memorandum has no historical value whatever."

Referring to a manifolded copy of a letter from Dr. Mühlon, who is at present in Switzerland, and at the outbreak of war was on Krupps' Board of Directors, Herr von Payer said that the letter related to the utterances of two highly placed gentlemen from which he drew the conclusion that the German Government in July, 1914, lacked a desire for peace. Both these gentlemen had stated in writing that Dr. Mühlon had suffered from nerves, and he (Herr von Payer) also took the view that his statements were those of a man of diseased mind.

In the discussion that followed, Herr Scheidemann said that the Socialist Party regarded imperialism as the fundamental cause of the war. Prince Lichnowsky's memorandum, in which he attempted to put the blame for the war on Germany, could, in his opinion, only make an impression on so-called out-and-out pacifists.

Herr Müller-Meiningen said that, notwithstanding what Dr. Mühlon and Prince Lichnowsky had said, he was absolutely convinced that the overwhelming majority of the German people, the Chancellor, and the representatives of the Foreign Office, and, above all, the German Emperor, always desired peace.

Herr Stresemann expressed a desire to see the last White Book supplemented. Prince Lichnowsky's memorandum could not be taken seriously.

Herr von Payer, intervening, said that the question as to whether criminal or disciplinary action might be taken against Prince Lichnowsky was considered by the Imperial Department of Justice. The result was that, on various legal grounds, neither a prosecution of the Prince for diplomatic high treason in the sense of Paragraph 92 of the Penal Code, nor proceedings under Paragraph 89 or Paragraph 353, the so-called Arnim paragraph, would have offered any chance of success. After the Prince's retirement, there was no longer any question of disciplinary proceedings against him. The Prince has been prohibited by the Foreign Office from publishing articles in the press.

LICHNOWSKY'S "OPTIMISM"