One court function is like another: the long line of carriages which drive in à la file through the palace gates; the broad, covered steps adorned with flowers, where the liveried lackeys stand on either side and with dumb show indicate the way; the lofty, gilded drawing-rooms with polished parqueted floors; the numberless uniforms and gala court costumes of the men, the trailing light robes of the ladies, who are adorned with diamonds, flowers, and heron plumes; the atmosphere full of excitement and expectation.
The first halls through which we pass are rather empty; we are shown by the master of ceremonies through a vast, half-filled room, and farther still into a salon which is quite densely crowded. Here people are standing almost tête-à-tête. Nods of recognition and greetings are exchanged; there is lively conversation. Some one remarks that it is different at the English court. There the appearance of the Queen is awaited in religious silence.
A half hour elapses. In the adjoining drawing-room the guests take their places round the center, which is left vacant. These are the diplomats and their wives, for whom their majesties will hold court. The Chinaman and his wife again make the most striking appearance in this circle. They are in silken robes with rich embroidery of flowers, but Mrs. Yang wears for the adornment of her head only the usual paper flowers hanging down over her temples.
“Leurs Majestés les Reines!”
A lane is made in the circle and in come Queen Wilhelmina and Queen Emma surrounded by their courtiers. Both are in white. A white veil flows down from the Queen mother’s diadem. The girl Queen wears the broad band of the Order of Catherine, which this day was conferred upon her by Herr von Staal in the name of the Tsar.
The circle is completed. The Queen stands for a moment before each lady and gentleman, bows, speaks a few words, bows again, and passes on.
After this diplomatic court is over, the other presentations are made. Frau von Okoliczany leads me up to her Majesty and calls me by name.
A brief conversation in French ensues. The young Queen, graciously smiling, asks me, just as she probably asks most of the others, if this is the first time I have ever visited The Hague and how I like it. I include in my reply the observation that my sojourn in Holland is made particularly happy by the greatness of the cause that brought me there. The gracious little sovereign nods at that but says nothing.
I was presented also to Queen Emma by our ambassador’s wife.
After the two royal women have spoken with all present, the whole company withdraws into a third salon, an enormous room, probably the ballroom, where a long table, covered with flowers, fruits, cold dishes, tea, and other liquid refreshments, stands along one side, while near the other are little round tables at which the guests may sit. An orchestra in the gallery plays various concert pieces. As I listened I was surprised to hear the intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana.
But not much attention is given to the music. Ear and eye and mind are occupied with other things. Did I begin by saying that this court function was like all others? That was wrong. This is a court function such as has never been seen before since courts began,—a court function which only a year ago, if prophesied, would have been laughed to scorn as the wildest freak of the imagination.
“Baroness, the Minister of War desires to be presented to you.”
Then again,—“Gracious lady, permit me to introduce myself; my name is Kramer, Secretary in the Ministry of War, and I am eager to tell you that the ideal for which you stand in your novel I have been cherishing in silence for two and thirty years, and now I am heartily rejoiced to see its accomplishment drawing nearer.”
I had a long conversation with Lu Tseng-Tsiang, Secretary of the Chinese Embassy in St. Petersburg.
“For us Chinese especially,” he remarked, “the attainment of the object set by the Conference would be most highly desirable, for we are particularly threatened by the most serious dangers of the European policy of force.”
Herr von Staal talks with me and Herr von Descamps about Johann von Bloch and his book. “C’est un homme remarquable,” he observes. “He wants to prove that peace is no longer a Utopia, but that, in the present state of arms and armies, it is Utopia for civilized nations to wage war. And,” adds the Russian diplomat, “he may be right.”
May 25. A card is brought me, announcing the Earl of Aberdeen. I have been for some time in correspondence with Lady Isabel Aberdeen, who is to preside at the forthcoming Congress of Women in London.
The earl, formerly Governor of Canada,—still a young man of tall, slender figure, with a short, black beard,—brings me greetings from his wife. He tells me that he has been taking an active part in the great campaign of meetings organized by Stead, and has spoken at the gatherings. Charles Richet joins us, also a few German newspaper correspondents, who hitherto have heard and written only things derogatory to the cause of peace; they lay stress especially on the principle that the only guaranty for peace lies in the thorough armament of Germany, since all the other nations are hungry for war. It was a great satisfaction to me that they could hear the Frenchman and the Englishman defend the cause in perfect unanimity and with the most powerful arguments. At the same time, these two men are no “obscure cranks,” but one of them is among the highest dignitaries of the British Empire and the other is one of the most distinguished savants of the University of Paris.
In the afternoon, at the reception at the Russian Embassy, we meet Sir Julian Pauncefote. He is seventy-one years old, but of robust physique; his head and beard are already white, his beard cut in Austrian style with the chin shaven; figure tall and slender; expression of face friendly and noble. Just as services rendered on the battlefield justify promotion to a superior command in a campaign of war, so distinguished deeds in behalf of peace give a suitable title to appointment as a delegate to this Conference. Sir Julian in his diplomatic career has to his credit two great victories in the campaign of peace.
He was ambassador in Washington when Cleveland’s message on the Venezuela question startled the world, and everywhere the tidings flew that war between the United States and England was unavoidable. If a Chamberlain had been in his place at that post, possibly matters might have gone to hostilities. Sir Julian was able to conduct affairs in such a calm and conciliatory tone that the matter was submitted to the court of arbitration which, at this very moment, under the chairmanship of Professor von Martens, is deliberating on it in Paris. Secondly, Sir Julian is the man who, together with the United States Secretary of State Olney, on the eleventh of January, 1899, signed the famous arbitration treaty between America and Great Britain—the first treaty of the sort that was ever drawn up. He is not responsible for the fact that the ratification which had to ensue failed by three votes of the requisite two-thirds majority.
Just as Dr. White had told us a few days before of the plan of the Americans, so now Sir Julian assures us that his delegation, too, will come out with a definite proposal in the third committee (that on arbitration). He cherishes the strongest hopes of a positive result. I bring the conversation to the stillborn Anglo-American treaty. He replies that the matter will certainly be taken up again. “What does not succeed on the first throw, my dear Baroness, succeeds on the second or the third.”
In the evening a party at the house of the Queen’s head chamberlain. Again make the acquaintance of many great people, among them distinguished “foreigners.” The German delegation is the only one from which no one does me the honor of greeting me. Count Münster treats me as if I were a rattlebrain. When Professor Stengel spoke in his pamphlet of the “comical persons” of the peace movement, from whose grotesque behavior and ideas he could not sufficiently warn people, he evidently included me in the number.
May 26. Bloch has conceived the idea of having a series of lectures to which the public shall be invited. No other place, no other opportunity, is so well suited for representing the “Utopia of War.” The documentary and statistic-bolstered facts and conclusions which these lectures will contain must be of especial interest, he says, to the military delegates. My Own and I are assisting him in his arrangements, going round with him in search of halls, giving orders, and the like.
A visit from the correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung. He has just come from Herr von Stengel, who assured the reporter that he had protested only against the excrescences of the peace movement (well, yes, the comical persons),—that, nevertheless, as a delegate he should do his best to help the cause along. Very good!
The correspondents of Figaro and of the Écho de Paris interview me. Mr. Leveson-Gower, Secretary of the British Embassy, in behalf of the North American Review asks me to furnish an article on the movement for the July number.
At three o’clock, in Hotel Vieux Doelen, on business. Meet Stead there.
“At last I see you,” I cried. “I always expect news from you, as you are on such intimate terms with the delegates....”
“And you shall have it. More important and better news to-day than you could have hoped. Here is a copy of the report which I have just sent to the English newspapers. Read it and rejoice with me. The Conference has done a wonderfully fine stroke of work.”
Here is an extract from the report:
On the Order of the Day the subject of the third committee is “Peaceable Adjustment of International Controversies.”
Herr von Staal introduces the Russian proposals as a basis for the deliberations. It is a document consisting of eighteen articles bearing the title, “Elements for the Elaboration of a Convention to be concluded between the Powers taking Part in the Conference.” These elements are (1) Good offices and mediation, (2) International arbitration, (3) International commissions of inquiry.
Before the discussion of the articles begins, Sir Julian Pauncefote rises in the name of his government and moves that a supplementary article be added to the Russian plan, namely, the organization of a permanent court of arbitration. In a brief but very impressive speech the English delegate advocates this motion. He refers to the arguments which are contained in his colleague Descamps’s “Address to the Governments.”[33]
The words and the positive action of the chief of the English delegates evidently cause a great sensation. As he ends his speech, a solemn silence reigns. Many of the members look at one another in sheer astonishment—many of them, perhaps, for the first time appreciate that serious matters are to be treated, brought forward by practical statesmen acting with sincerity.
Still greater is the surprise when Herr von Staal declares that the Russian government also has in readiness a plan, in twenty-six articles, for the establishment of a permanent court of arbitration.
Next comes Dr. White with the American proposition. In the introduction it says: “The proposition shows the earnest desire of the President of the United States that a permanent international tribunal be established for the adjustment, by means of arbitration, of the controversies between nations, and shows the readiness of the President to assist in its establishment.” How radical this proposal was in its intentions can be seen in the third and fourth articles.
“Article III. The tribunal is to be permanent, and ready at any moment to undertake all cases that are submitted.
“Article IV. All controversies of every kind[34] shall be subject to decision by mutual agreement, and every case submitted must be accompanied by a pledge to abide by the decision of the tribunal.”
Indeed a fine stroke of work! So here at the very beginning are positive, concrete plans in the name of four governments, proposed for discussion and settlement. What a pity that such initiatives have not come also from Austria, Germany, and France!
What a pity, too, that the reports of this session, together with the exact texts of the propositions, are not instantly telegraphed into all the four quarters of the world and published and discussed in all the newspapers, so that some understanding of the great interests here involved may begin to dawn upon the world, and it may be a witness and a judge as to the way and manner, how and by whom, these interests are here represented!
May 28. Novikof arrived. What kind of a man do you think is the author of sociological-philosophical works of seven hundred royal-octavo pages each, with such titles as Les luttes entre sociétés humaines et leurs phases successives, La théorie organique des sociétés, and the like? I have read these books and this is the idea of the man which I had in my mind: White bearded, with spectacles, in externalities a trifle neglectful of appearances,—for if a person sticks all day long poring over learned books and carries round socialistic problems in his head, he can scarcely be expected to bother himself with the petty vanities of the toilet; I imagined him very earnest but free from pedantry,—for his style is fresh and sparkling,—and probably a bit gloomy, for if one looks so searchingly into the motive powers of the world, has been busied so incessantly with the phenomena of wretchedness and suffering, a mood of melancholy might well be expected.
And the actual Novikof? An elegant man of the world, the jolliest of companions, with far too youthful an appearance for his forty-nine years; full of wit and entrain in his conversation. I believe these characteristics, charming as they are, injure him to a certain extent. Any one who has not read his books would not suspect what a man he is, would not take up the reading of them with that feeling of awe with which one should bury one’s self in scientific works.
In the forenoon a reception at the house of the Baroness Grovestins. Almost all the delegates are present. On the stairs I meet Count Münster and his daughter. In the drawing-room the family of the Chinese delegate forms the center of a numerous group. Madame Yang wears the selfsame coiffure as at the court, the same paper flowers down her temples, and though it is daytime she is painted like a mask, just as if she were under a chandelier. And yet there is a touch of lovableness in her pretty little face. Her gestures when she extends her hand are something like a wooden doll’s; but then she shakes the hand of the other person so heartily that it seems to mean, “For life, old comrade!” Her son of twelve and her little daughter of eight, both also in Chinese costume, accompany her, and they bear the brunt of the conversation, for they speak both English and French.
These children will not be brought up as pure, unadulterated Chinese. Behind their wall lies henceforth for them a piece of the world,—a world, moreover, in which all nations are joined to treat together in the name of universal peace; this idea will remain all their lives bound up with the recollection of the sweetmeats which Fräulein von Grovestins, with pretty speeches, offers them on a Delft plate. Gradually all Chinese walls—there are others than that one which bounds the Middle Kingdom—will fall. We already see them tottering.
Make new acquaintances, among them Dr. Holls, the second American delegate.[35] He sits down with me on a small corner sofa. We talk German together. He is by profession a lawyer in New York; comes from a German-American family; has a tall, thick-set, angular figure, and his eyebrows are outlined high on his forehead like circumflex accents. He confirms the news that I have heard from Stead. He informs me that public interest in the Conference is nowhere else so keen as in his own country. Cablegrams are received every day; resolutions and letters of sympathy come from all the states and from the most diverse circles. Each one of these messages is gratefully acknowledged, and they not only are instrumental in strengthening the American delegates but also make a strong impression on the representatives of other countries, who cannot fail to see in this interest displayed by the Republic of the West a significant sign of the times. I express my regret that this information does not immediately make the round of the European press.
“Yes,” assents Holls, “the exclusion of journalists was a great mistake. The majority of the European states are represented here by diplomats who see in mystery and secrecy the factors of successful diplomacy. We Americans and a few others were opposed to it—but the majority decided. Now it may result that the representatives of the great newspapers will feel insulted and go away—a few have already done so. Their editors will retaliate by belittling or ignoring the Conference.”
May 29. By way of exception, no party. Spend the evening at home with a group of friends,—Fried, the Grelix couple, the painter Ten Kate, and Novikof. We get a scornful satisfaction in reading aloud a package of extracts from the German nationalistic press.
As the various Neueste Nachrichten and the various Lokalanzeiger in Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, Munich, and elsewhere comment on the Conference, we find unqualified such expressions as “The disgusting drama at The Hague,” “The Conference of Absurdities,” “The noxious nuisance now under way, which must arouse righteous indignation in all right-thinking men and genuine Germans,” “For the development of universal history the comedy at The Hague will signify about as much as a visit from ‘Charley’s Aunt’ would signify in the life of a single individual.”
And even Vorwärts (et tu, Brute!)—which is not nationalistic but scouts the Conference because it was called together by an autocrat and is composed of aristocrats and bourgeois—even Vorwärts writes: “How long will the augurs restrain themselves before they burst out into Homeric laughter and separate amid the laughter of the world?”
Give heed, ye contemporaries! If ye fail to take seriously such a serious work of beneficence, and to remind those who are engaged in it—even though there be among them men of contrary opinion—of the seriousness of their task, to hold them responsible for its accomplishment, to take them at their word,—take care, I say, lest ye yourselves have to repent not amid the laughter but amid the tears of the world!
May 30. Excursion to Scheveningen. From the city, which lies in the midst of a garden, you drive a couple of miles through avenues lined all the way with trees, like a park, down to the seashore. Along the way, to right and left, are multitudes of villas behind flowering gardens. In Scheveningen itself, along the shore, multitudes of hotels. Everything as yet is deserted. A cold, salty wind blows from the North Sea, which under a gray sky rolls in gray billows. The wicker chairs are not yet brought down on the beach and the bathing machines are not in their accustomed places. On the broad terrace of the Kurhaus, around the silent music pavilion, already stand countless rows of tables and chairs, but all unoccupied. On the sea no ships or boats are to be seen; the bathing season does not seem to be open yet even for the sea gulls.
Only a few carriages and pedestrians enliven the beach and the streets. Scheveningen is indeed for all the residents of The Hague, and now specially for the members of the Conference, a general goal for promenading. We exchange greetings with many acquaintances. Our fellow-countryman, Count Welsersheimb, has come down on his bicycle, and chats with us as he wheels for some distance beside our carriage. Herr von Okoliczany, accompanied by his slender daughter, rides by. The Chinese flag is seen waving over the Hotel Oranje; Yang-Yü, with his family, is the only delegate who has already left The Hague and taken up his residence at Scheveningen.
All those dikes, those structures! How painstaking and courageous the Dutch people have been in rescuing their land from the waters! Those are battles worthy of men—against the weight and the wrath of the elements. Should the dike-building against the wrath of our fellow-men be alone unaccomplishable?
We gave a small dinner, the party consisting of Rahusen, president of the Chamber; Von Khuepach, the Austrian military delegate; the second Russian delegate, Vasily[36]; Novikof, Bloch, and we three,—a small circle at a round table, the most advantageous arrangement for general and animated conversation. When the coffee was brought, we were joined by the correspondent of the Neue Freie Presse, Dr. Frischauer, whom I had invited, but who was prevented from coming sooner.
After dinner a soirée at the Karnebeeks’. Frau von Staal tells me, in the course of a conversation, how her husband is besieged every day with addresses, memoranda, pamphlets, and deputations from all parts of the world.
“And I suppose with numberless letters also, many of them right crazy ones?”
“Oh, yes, even with threatening letters! Anonymous warnings that there is a plan on foot to assassinate him.”
“Why! that is horrible! How does Herr von Staal take that?”
“He smiles at it!”
The artist Ten Kate to-day gives us a jolly dinner at the hotel Twe Steeden, where he lives during his sojourn at The Hague—his own home is the estate Epé. His lovely wife does the honors. Among the guests are Mesdames von Waszklewicz and Selenka, Herr von Bloch, Novikof, Dr. Trueblood, and A. H. Fried,—in short, a little Peace Congress in itself; and it is still more a Peace Congress when after dinner the door opens and in comes the Chevalier Descamps.
“Excuse the intrusion,” he exclaims; “my rooms are situated above this dining-room. Your jolly voices reached me up there, and when I asked who were celebrating a wedding downstairs I learned who were here, and so I come, uninvited, but as the bringer of good tidings; we had a splendid session to-day.”
He is surrounded and interrogated. He tells us the third committee has been that very afternoon wrestling with the question of the arbitration tribunal, and indeed, as Descamps assures us, in a very satisfactory manner. The plan broached in the well-known “memorandum to the governments” has been taken as a basis of the new scheme; and the firm intention of the majority of the members of the committee to bring the matter to a positive result was manifested in that session. Descamps himself has been intrusted with the report on the project. So the matter is certainly in good hands.
A call from Beernaert and his wife. He tells me with satisfaction the result of the session from which he has just come. The second committee, of which he is chairman, has voted to recommend the Brussels Treaty (an extension of the Geneva Convention of 1864).
“It delights me that you are delighted,” I replied, “but I tell you frankly that the question of the humanization of war—especially in a Peace Congress—cannot interest me. The business concerns the codification of peace. Saint George rode forth to kill the dragon, not merely to trim its claws. Or, as Frédéric Passy says, On n’humanise pas le carnage, on le condamne, parce qu’on s’humanise” (“Carnage is not humanized, it is condemned because men grow more human”).
“Vous êtes une intransigeante—an irreconcilable,” he remarks with a smile, and consoles me with the simultaneous progress of the Conference on the arbitration question, of which I know he is the steadfast promoter.
I received the following letter from the editor of the Berliner Tageblatt, to whom I had expressed my regret and astonishment that no correspondence from the Conference was to be found in a paper of such wide circulation:
Your kind letter of yesterday’s date compels me to inform you that, in the first place, we are not unrepresented at the Hague Congress, so that we are informed of everything necessary and worth knowing; and, in the second place, that, in view of the hostile treatment the members of the Congress have seen fit to accord the press, I consider it unbecoming to degrade journalism by dancing attendance on the various statesmen.
Since the gentlemen, nevertheless, can only by the aid of publicity show any proof of their industry and their good behavior,—a proof which they must have to show to their superiors,—I quietly wait until things come to me, and communicate to my readers only what is worth their knowing.
If such a man as Mr. Stead complains that nothing is told him, you will easily comprehend that men who are not accustomed to be received by the Tsar feel somewhat cool toward the actions of diplomacy.
All this will not prevent me from joyously recognizing even the slightest advance toward better things made during the deliberations of the Congress, but I consider my paper and my readers too good to snap up the crumbs that may fall from the news table of the Congress.
I trust that you will be able to appreciate this attitude of an independent and liberal newspaper, and that you will not, after this statement, find anything strange in our position.
With the expression of the most especial consideration I have the honor of remaining
An unwarranted standpoint. Events of the day have to be communicated by the press in accordance with their significance and entirely apart from the sensibilities of the journalists. Consideration for the public must turn the scale.
To-day the bathing season and the Kurhaus at Scheveningen were opened. Herr von Bloch invited us to a dinner at the Kurhaus. Among those present were the journalists, Dillon and Dr. Frischauer. He tells us, from information communicated to him by Professor Martens, that the principle of mediation has been incorporated into the text of the Convention; especially the duty of neutral states to offer “good offices” at the threat of war or after the outbreak of hostilities, and this henceforth shall never be regarded as an “unfriendly act.” Count Nigra is to be thanked for this last paragraph.
June 2. Dr. Frischauer takes his departure. He comes to say good-by to us, and authorizes me to send to the Neue Freie Presse in the form of telegrams and letters everything interesting that may happen.
In the evening the usual Friday reception at the Beauforts. Make several new acquaintances; among them Turkhan Pasha. In his elegant external appearance he reminds me of Rudolf Hoyos; he has been for many years Minister of Foreign Affairs, and bears the title of Vizier. He enjoyed the dubious fortune of having been military governor of the island of Crete. He speaks the purest French, is courteous and gracious, but a slightly satirical tone dominates his conversation.
I also meet Noury Bey, the second Turkish delegate, a man at least forty years of age, with very delicate features and reddish beard; he is inspector in the Ministry of Public Works. Last year he was sent as delegate from Turkey to the anti-anarchist Congress at Rome. Both the Ottoman dignitaries give me the impression of not regarding the success of the business here as especially likely or desirable.
Chedomille Myatovic, former Servian Minister of Foreign Affairs and now Minister Plenipotentiary at London, is on the other hand an enthusiastic adherent of the ends proposed by the Conference.
Augustin d’Ornellos Vasconsellos, the delegate from Portugal, tells me that he has translated Goethe’s Faust into his vernacular.
I meet De Mier, Mexican ambassador in Paris. Except the United States and Mexico, no American country is represented here.
June 3. The evening of Bloch’s lecture. The public invited. Almost all the delegates present. Many journalists, Dutch and foreign. Subject, “The Development of Firearms.” Behind the lecturer’s desk a white background for the stereopticon pictures. Bloch speaks with great naturalness and simplicity; never seeks oratorical effects. It is evident that he does not care to “deliver an address,” but only to say what he has to say. He wants to show a picture of the war of the future. And where would he find a more suitable public than the audience assembled here,—diplomats and military men who would be called upon to deliberate over some such war or to wage it, but are now called upon to avoid it?
The historic development of firearms, from the first flintlock down to the latest models, is displayed before the audience by means of pictures and charts. The projectile of the new infantry weapon sweeps away everything that it encounters, within a range of six hundred meters. But still greater improvements beckon. In all armies experiments are being made with rifles of smaller caliber. It is calculated that if in the Franco-Prussian War the present-day guns had been used, the losses would have been at least four times as great; if the newest models had been used, the losses would have been thirteen times as great. To be sure, such a transformation in the armies of the Dreibund and of the Zweibund would cost four billion francs.
(Now, in view of such a fine result—just consider, thirteen times more dead and maimed than with the primitive musket—four billions would not indeed be too much, and this sum is easily raised by somewhat increasing the living expenses of the laboring people!)
That parenthesis is mine, not Bloch’s. His lecture is quite objective; he makes no bitter attacks; he adduces figures and data; the drawing of conclusions he leaves to the reason and the conscience of his hearers.
The lecture is interrupted by a half hour’s recess. In an adjoining hall, tables are loaded with all kinds of refreshments, which are passed round. Bloch is host, and the lecture halls are transformed into drawing-rooms, where greetings are exchanged, new acquaintances are made, and impressions of the lecture are compared.
June 5. The editor of the Dagblad has granted Stead the first pages of his paper for the publication of a daily chronicle of the Conference. To-day the first number appeared. Excellently prepared. Will be of great use. A splendid man, this Stead. First his nine months’ campaign in writing and speaking, and now this labor!
A seventeen-year-old son of Vasily’s calls on me. He brings an album, on the cover of which appears in relief the word “Pax,” and he is getting all the members of the Conference and the friends of peace who are here to write their names in it. How many high military officers will immortalize themselves in the Pax album! And the impression made on this youth will certainly never be effaced. In what an entirely different way the generation that will succeed us will approach the idea of universal peace—they who will have been witnesses of this idea rising up and forcing its way into official circles and into the foreground of contemporary history. In our youth such a thing was either quite unknown or made a matter of ridicule. If this boy who is making a collection of contemporary autographs under the rubric “Pax” shall sometime obtain office and honors, perhaps have to speak a weighty word in the political questions of the future, then he will think very differently from our grizzled politicians about the cause of national justice, and if at that day a new official Peace Congress should be called, in which he and his like should have to give their votes, then the proceedings would be attended by many less doubts and difficulties than can possibly be the case with the present Conference, the first of its kind.
June 6. We move down to Scheveningen to the Hotel Kurhaus. It does not take us long to get settled. At the end of two hours our corner drawing-room looks as cozy as if it had been occupied for two years—thanks to the kindness of the manager, Herr Goldbeck, who permits us to arrange everything in our rooms just as we please. The prettiest furniture of the as yet rather empty hotel is put entirely at our service. Great studio windows occupy nearly all of two walls. One, opposite the door, frames a picture of the sea; at the other the red silken shades are pulled down and cause the whole room to be bathed in a ruddy glow. Flowers in vases, in jardinières, and in pots; splendid baskets of fruit, pineapples, melons, grapes,—the last a delicate attention of Herr von Bloch’s; books, pamphlets, maps, newspapers.
At yesterday’s session M. Descamps reported on the work of the committee. Léon Bourgeois presided. How pleasant that now Stead’s chronicle contains all these details of the sessions and the authentic texts of the articles proposed. Now one can follow the course of events quite accurately. An agreement has been reached regarding several articles of the Russian proposal concerning good offices and mediation.
Only there stands in the articles the fatal clause, “If circumstances permit.” Here is clearly seen the result of compromise, which is generally contained in the text of resolutions of such committees, composed of advocates and opponents of any cause. Only under the condition of a rider which robs the main article of its universal validity will those of the other party give up their opposition. The back door is saved, and that is the main thing with them.
Arrival of Baron Pirquet. He has been in Brussels, where the council of the Interparliamentary Union held a session in order to lay out a programme for the Conference that is to take place in August at Christiania; and he brings a letter from the Union to the colleagues that are attending the Hague Congress.
Pirquet breaks the news to me that my cousin Christian Kinsky, in whose house we had spent so many pleasant hours, had died suddenly a few days before.
In the evening Bloch’s second lecture. He depicts the difficulties that would attend the mobilization of the modern millionfold armies. After the first fortnight of a war of the future a tenth part of the armies—not counting the wounded—would be in the hospitals. He also cites a statement made by General Haeseler: “If the improvement of firearms continues, there will not be enough survivors to bury the dead.”
This lecture, like the first, was interrupted by a recess for conversation and refreshments. We talked with Léon Bourgeois about events in Paris. There, it seems, a band of young men of title (Boni de Castellane and others) attacked the President’s hat with their canes. Bourgeois grants that this is disgusting; “but,” he adds, “it is no more dangerous than the foam on the seashore.”
June 7. At yesterday’s session the deliberations of the first committee (on the laws of war, weapons, etc.) had the floor. Concerning this I make no entry in my diary. The securing and organizing of peace have nothing to do with the regulation of war, nothing at all—quite the contrary! It is desired—that is, it is desired by many—that the opposition between the two ends be abolished; they desire that the one be substituted in place of the other! They are driving in the wedge that shall split the work of peace.
Imagine a congress convened for the enfranchisement of slaves; would a convention then be necessary in regard to the treatment of the negroes, concerning, for instance, the number of blows that might be meted out to them when they should show themselves lazy in the work of the sugar plantations?
Or in the movement against torture as a means of securing justice, would the agreement that the oil to be dropped into the victim’s ears should be heated only to thirty degrees instead of up to the boiling point have been a stage on the way to the goal, or rather a tarrying on that other way which was to be abandoned?
June 9. My Own waked me with a kiss and a warm “I thank thee!”
“What for?”
“That thou wert born!”
Yes, quite right,—it is my birthday. That does not interest me, but what is going to be born here,—national justice; that takes my whole mind captive. Yesterday was devoted to the work of the third committee on Article X of the proposal for a court of arbitration,—namely, the article that shall determine the cases in which appeal to the court of arbitration is to be obligatory, cases which “do not touch either vital interests or the honor of states.” There again the back door, or rather a barn door, for the entrance of war. He has good defenders here, the brutal fellow!
Great dinner at the residence of our ambassador, Okoliczany. My neighbors are the Russian chargé d’affaires and M. Pichon, assistant secretary of the French Delegation,—a young lieutenant with a saucy little mustache. But he has understanding, and sympathy for our cause, and is a great admirer of D’Estournelles. He acknowledges that the world is progressing, and that a coming civilization will have no more room for war; only he defends the colonial policy of war. He himself has been in the Sudan.
June 10. It is hard for me to keep up with my correspondence. I have never before in the course of a whole year received so many letters, telegrams, and voluminous writings as now, while I am here at The Hague. They announce schemes, proposals, infallible methods for securing peace. And all of this I am expected to make comprehensible to the delegates! Inventors of airships and flying machines send me their plans and prospectuses. By the conquest of the atmosphere the boundaries with their customhouses and fortifications must needs disappear, opine these aëronautical letter writers.
Or is it true that the ministers of war are hurrying to build air fleets? and to form flying regiments of uhlans? All new inventions are invariably employed by the war authorities. And yet I am firmly persuaded that every technical improvement, especially all means of easier communication, ultimately lead to universal peace.
Yesterday the arbitration committee took up Article XIII of the Russian plan, calling for immediate consideration of the question of a permanent tribunal, and that, too, of a tribunal not merely in posse but in esse.
While they are here treating theoretically about arbitration, it is said that the matter is to be put to a practical test once again. President Kruger has proposed to Sir Alfred Milner that certain differences of opinion should be submitted to arbitration. Sir Alfred objected that such an action would put in question England’s sovereignty.
June 11. At the Grovestins’s Sunday reception something amusing happened to me. A Spanish lady, Señora Perez, asked me what I thought of peace. I must have made a dubious face, for she anticipated my answer, saying, “Do not decide, I beg of you, until you have read a book entitled Die Waffen nieder. Have you heard of it?”
“Oh, yes, until I am sick of it.”
“Oh, no, no; first read it, and then express your opinion. The author is said to be at The Hague.”
“The author is sitting next you.”
As so often happens, Señora Perez had missed my name when we were introduced.
Bloch gives a small dinner at the Hotel Royal. After dinner we drive to his third lecture. Subject, “Naval Warfare.” The fate of wars is decided not at sea but on land. Between two evenly matched fleets there will be no decisive victory, but mutual destruction of the fleets. The impossibility of protecting marine commerce in times of war. Comparison of the expenses for the fleet with the value of commerce; the pretended protection costs a hundred times more than the worth of what is protected.
Count Nigra sits near me. Bloch’s deductions greatly interest him. We speak of the results to be expected.
“The world finds it hard to understand,” said Nigra, “how momentous are the foundations here being laid for the building of the future; nor does it understand that the calling of the Conference is in itself an event of supreme importance.”
During the intermission an alarming rumor circulates, to the effect that in the debate about the court of arbitration the “dead point” was reached,—a decisive opposition on the part of one of the great powers.
June 12. During the morning our quiet excursion in celebration of our twenty-third wedding anniversary. In the evening a few guests at dinner,—Bihourd, the French ambassador at The Hague, Captain Sheïn, of the Russian navy, Léon Bourgeois, Bloch, and Theodor Herzl.
I hardly ever had a more interesting table companion than Bourgeois. What made our conversation so particularly enjoyable was our complete agreement in matters concerning peace. The former—and perhaps the future, who knows?—French Premier is enthusiastic for the objects of the Conference. The task which he has to fulfill here seems to him far more productive and important than the formation of a cabinet. In Paris a ministerial crisis is at hand and Bourgeois will probably be recalled; but he firmly intends to return so as to bring to an end to the best of his ability the work here, “which promises to be useful to the world and at the same time to his fatherland.”
We talk among other things of the French national press. I regret the hectoring tone, especially in that portion of the press which the people at large read.
“That is not so bad,” he replies. “Nowhere else do the people—especially the workingmen—read the newspapers so much as with us; but they have no faith in them. The French laborer buys a newspaper, reads it, chatters about it, but doesn’t pin his faith to it. His mind is open, awake, and he is thirsty for everything that is free and upright. Race hatred disgusts him. I know what is thought in the workingmen’s circles, for I myself come from them.”
I ask him about the “dead point” in the arbitration question.
“I cannot say anything just now,” is his reply, “but be assured—nothing will be left untried.”
We conclude the evening in the great music hall, where a concert arranged by Manager Goldbeck is given in honor of the delegates. Bourgeois is obliged to depart before the other guests; he must go back to the city, he explains apologetically.
After a while Count Nigra comes up to me: “Do you know the news? The French ministry fell some hours ago. M. Bourgeois has just been summoned to Paris by telegraph.”
June 13. The Neues Wiener Tagblatt prints a dispatch from The Hague: “The negotiations regarding the court of arbitration, as we learn by telegraph from Brussels, have completely gone to pieces.”
I send a line to Chevalier Descamps, requesting him, if the above-mentioned news is false, to write a denial and let me send it immediately to the paper. Descamps himself comes to bring me the answer. The news is false, and he allows me to make the desired correction. At the same time he begs me to write this very day to Émile Arnaud, asking him if he will not cease attacking in the Indépendance belge the projected system of a permanent bureau and pleading for permanent treaties instead; one at a distance cannot judge what at the moment is to be attained, and what an obstacle it is in the way of the workers here if what has been secured with difficulty meets with the opposition of its own friends.
June 14. Up to the present time the question of armaments has been considered in the Conference only from one side, namely, to the end that agreements may be reached as to renouncing further perfection of weapons. Yet the idea was regarded as impracticable. In spite of a very eloquent plea of General den Beer Poortugael, who proposed that all the armies should retain the present type of arms, the committee came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to carry out such a regulation. Nothing as yet has been said about Emperor Nicholas’s own proposition as to limitation of armaments. The debates steer clear of this question so far. A favorable result would be all the more desirable, since lately Admiral Goschen declared in the House of Commons that the projected increase of the British fleet would be immediately stopped if at the Hague Conference a limitation of armaments should be determined upon.
Stead tells me what Emperor Nicholas said to him four weeks ago:
“Why are they always talking about disarmament? I never used the expression; it does not appear in the rescript. I know only too well that immediate disarmament is excluded. It is, indeed, difficult to speak of the diminution of armaments. Surely the most practical step, and the first that should be taken, would be an attempt to come to an agreement to refrain from increasing armaments for a term of years. After four or five years we should learn to trust one another and to keep our word. By this means we should secure a basis for a proposal to reduce the armaments.”
These words lead to the conclusion that the Russian delegates will offer in the Conference a motion for stopping the increase of armaments.
Meantime the rumor grows more and more prevalent that the question of a court of arbitration has come to a pause, owing to the declarations of the German delegates that the principle of arbitration is directly contrary to the principle of state sovereignty, which Germany in no circumstances will renounce.
I receive from Berlin the telegraphic query, “How about Zorn’s[37] speech?”
I send the telegram to the professor named, who is staying also at the Kurhaus, and receive for answer, “I know nothing about a speech by Zorn.”
Stead, in his to-day’s chronicle, contradicts the alarming rumors and writes:
Whatever may be the attitude which the German government may ultimately assume, nothing could be more correct than the attitude of the German delegates. They are working with their colleagues in what we hope will prove a great establishment for assuring universal peace, and it is to be greatly regretted that their coöperation has been so misrepresented during the last few days.
In the evening Bloch’s last lecture. Subject, “The War of the Future from the Economic Standpoint.” Almost all the delegates, also President Staal, present. I learn that some Russian military members of the Conference were very indignant over Bloch’s lectures, and demanded his arrest.