Chapter 14

THE SUPPRESSED EVIDENCE

The official defenses of England, Russia, France, and Belgium do not apparently show any failure on the part of either to submit any essential diplomatic document in their possession. They have respectively made certain contentions as to the proposals that they made to maintain the peace of the world, and in every instance have supported these contentions by putting into evidence the letters and communications in which such proposals were expressed.

When the German _White Paper_ is examined it discloses on its very face the suppression of documents of vital importance. The fact that communications passed between Berlin and Vienna, the text of which has never been disclosed, is not a matter of conjecture. Germany asserts as part of its defense that it faithfully exercised its mediatory influence on Austria, but not only is such influence not disclosed by any practical results, such as we would expect in view of her dominating relations with Austria, but the _text_ of these vital communications is still kept in the secret archives of Berlin and Vienna. Germany has carefully selected a part of her diplomatic records for publication but withheld others. Austria has withheld all.

Thus in the official apology for Germany it is stated that, in spite of the refusal of Austria to accept the proposition of Sir Edward Grey to treat the Servian reply "as a basis for further conversations,"

we [Germany] continued our mediatory efforts to the utmost and _advised_ Vienna to make any possible compromise consistent with the dignity of the Monarchy.[3]

[Footnote 3: German _White Paper_.]

This would be more convincing if the German Foreign Office had added the _text_ of the advice which it thus gave Vienna.

A like significant omission will be found when the same official defense states that on July 29th the German Government advised Austria "to begin the conversations with Mr. Sazonof." But here again the _text_ is not found among the documents which the German Foreign Office has given to the world. The communications, which passed between that office and its ambassadors in St. Petersburg, Paris, and London, are given _in extenso_, but among the twenty-seven communications appended to the German _White Paper it is most significant that not a single communication is given of the many which passed from the Foreign Office of Berlin to that of Vienna and only two which passed from the German Ambassador in Vienna to the German Chancellor_. While the Kaiser has favored the world with his messages to the Czar and King George, he has wholly failed to give us any message that he sent in those critical days to the Austrian Emperor or the King of Italy. We shall have occasion to refer hereafter to the frequent failure to produce documents, the existence of which is admitted by the exhibits which Germany appended to its _White Paper_.

This cannot be an accident. The German Foreign Office has seen fit to throw the veil of secrecy over the text of its communications to Vienna, although professing to give the purport of a few of them. The purpose of this suppression is even more clearly indicated by the complete failure of Austria to submit any of its diplomatic records to the scrutiny of a candid world. Until Germany and Austria are willing to put the most important documents in their possession in evidence, they must not be surprised that the World, remembering Bismarck's garbling of the Ems dispatch, which precipitated the Franco-Prussian War, will be incredulous as to the sincerity of their pacific protestations.

ADDENDUM

The Austrian _Red Book_, published more than six months after the declaration of war, simply emphasizes the policy of suppression of vital documents, which we have already discussed. Of its 69 documentary exhibits, _there is not one which passed directly between the Cabinets of Berlin and Vienna_. The text of the communications, in which Germany claims to have exercised a mediatory and conciliatory influence with its ally, is still withheld. _Not a single document is produced which was sent between July the 6th and July the 21st_, the period when the great _coup_ was secretly planned by Berlin and Vienna.

In the _Red Book_ we find eight communications from Count Berchtold to the Austrian Ambassador at Berlin and four replies from that official, but not a letter or telegram passing between Berchtold and von Bethmann-Hollweg or between the German and Austrian Kaisers. The Austrian _Red Book_ gives additional evidence that at the eleventh hour, and shortly before Germany issued its ultimatum to Russia, Austria did finally agree to discuss the Servian question with Russia; but the information, which Germany presumably gave to its ally of its intention to send the ultimatum to Russia, is carefully withheld. Notwithstanding this suppression of vital documents, the diplomatic papers of Germany and Austria, now _partially_ given to the world, disclose an unmistakable purpose, amounting to an open confession, that they intended to force their will upon Europe, even though this course involved the most stupendous war in the history of mankind.

March 1, 1915.