Over and over again I heard the chances of British neutrality and belligerency discussed by statesmen of the two military Empires, and the odds in favour of our holding strictly aloof from hostilities were set down as equivalent to certainty. The grounds for this conviction were numerous, and to them convincing. Great Britain, it was argued, possesses no land army capable of throwing an expeditionary force of any value into the Continental arena. All her fighting strength is concentrated in her navy, which could render but slight positive services to the mighty hosts in the field with whom the issue would lie. Consequently the losses she would sustain by breaking off commercial intercourse with her best customer would be enormous as compared to the slender help she could give her friends. And if the worst came to the worst Germany might take that help as given, and promise in return for neutrality to guarantee spontaneously whatever the British Navy might be supposed capable of protecting efficaciously.

Again, public opinion in Great Britain is opposed to war and to Continental entanglements. And for that reason no binding engagements have been entered into by the British Government towards France or Russia, even during the course of the present crisis. Had any intention been harboured to swerve from this course, it would doubtless have manifested itself in some tangible shape before now. But no tokens of any such deviation from the traditional policy has been perceived. On the contrary, it is well known to the German Government that the Cabinet actually in power consists of Ministers who are averse on principle to a policy which might entangle their country in a Continental war, and who will stand up for that principle if ever it be called in question. And in support of this contention words or acts ascribed to the Cabinet and to certain of its members were quoted and construed as pointing to the same conclusion.

One little syllogism in particular engraved itself on my memory. It ran somewhat as follows. The Asquith Cabinet is dependent on the votes of the Radicals and the Irish Home Rulers. Now, the former hate Russia cordially, and will not allow this opportunity of humiliating her to lapse unutilized. And the latter, with a little war of their own to wage, have no superfluous energies to devote to a foreign campaign. Consequently, the Government, even were it desirous of embarking on a warlike adventure, is powerless. It cannot swim against a current set by its own supporters.

Those and other little sums in equation were almost always capped by a conclusive reference to the impending civil war in Ireland and England, the danger of risings in Egypt and India, and the constant trouble with the suffragettes. Whenever this topic came up for discussion I was invariably a silent listener, so conversant were the debaters with all the aspects and bearings of the Ulster movement, and so eager were they to display their knowledge. I learned, for instance, that numerous German agents, journalists, and one diplomatist well known to social London had studied the question on the spot, and entertained no doubt that a fratricidal struggle was about to begin. I received the condolence of my eminent friends on the impending break-up of old England, and I heard the reiterated dogma that with her hands thus full she would steer clear of the conflict between the groups of Continental Great Powers. I was comforted, however, by the assurance that at the close of hostilities Great Britain might make her moderating influence felt to good purpose and resume the praiseworthy efforts to the failure of which the coming catastrophe was to be attributed.

In all these close calculations the decisive element of national character was left out, with the consequences we see. Despite their powers of observation and analysis, the Germans, even those who are gifted and experienced, are devoid of some indefinable inner sense without which they must ever lack true insight into the soul-stuff, the dormant qualities of the people whose wrath they have wantonly aroused. To the realm of British thought and feeling they, with their warped psychological equipment, find no access. Its secondary characteristics they grasp with their noted thoroughness and seek to practise upon with their traditional cynicism. But the deeper springs of our race-character, its clear-souled faith, its masculine vigour, and its vast reserve of elemental force, lie beyond their narrow range of vision. To the sentient and perceptive powers even of the most acute German observer, the workings of the British soul, its inherited nobilities, its deep moral feeling, are inaccessible. And here, more than in any other branch of the “intelligence department,” a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

This want of penetration accounts for the greatest and most calamitous mistake into which the Kaiser and his numerous “eyes” in this country fell. They watched the surface manifestations of public life here, and drew their inferences as though there were no other, no more decisive, elements to be reckoned with. Herr von Kuhlmann, in particular, had made a complete survey of the situation in Ireland, and his exhaustive report was corroborated by emphatic statements of a like tenor received from independent witnesses whose duty it was to collect data on the spot. Utterances of public men and influential private individuals in this country were reported in full. Plans, dates, numbers were set down with scrupulous care. Local colour was deftly worked in, and the general conclusions bore the marks of unquestionable truths. Even the suffragette movement was included in this comprehensive survey, and was classed among the fetters which must handicap the British Cabinet, should it display any velleity to join hands with France and Russia. Every possible factor except the one just mentioned was calculated with the nicety of an apothecary compounding a prescription. Nothing, apparently, was left to chance.

Summaries of these interesting documents were transmitted to Vienna, where they served merely to confirm the conviction, harboured from the beginning, that whatever conflicts might rage on the Continent, Great Britain would stick to her own business, which was bound to prove uncommonly engrossing in the near future. Not the faintest trace of doubt or misgiving was anywhere perceptible among Germans or Austrians down to July 30th. On the previous day the German Ambassador in London had had a conversation with Sir Edward Grey, which appears to have made a far deeper impression on him than the words uttered by the British Foreign Secretary would necessarily convey. He had been told that the situation was very grave, but that, so long as it was restricted to the issues then actually involved, Great Britain had no thought of identifying herself with any Continental Power. If, however, Germany took a hand in it and were followed by France, all European interests would be affected, and “I did not wish him to be misled by the friendly tone of our conversation—which I hoped would continue—into thinking that we should stand aside.” Characteristic is the remark which these words elicited from Prince Lichnowsky. “He said that he quite understood this.” And yet he could not have understood it. Evidently he interpreted it as he would have interpreted a similar announcement made by his own chief. To his thinking it was but a face-saving phrase, not a declaration of position meant to be taken seriously. Otherwise he would not have asked the further question which he at once put. “He said that he quite understood, but he asked whether I meant that we should, under certain circumstances, intervene.”

Not so much this plain statement of the British case as the impressive way in which it was delivered startled the Kaiser’s representative and flashed a blinding light on the dark ways of German diplomacy. That same evening the Prince made known the personal effect upon himself of what he had seen and heard, and it was that Great Britain’s neutrality “could not be relied upon.” This “subjective impression,” as they termed it, was telegraphed to Vienna, where it was anxiously discussed. And, curiously enough, it sufficed to shatter the hopes which Austrian statesmen had cherished that nothing was to be feared from Great Britain. Psychologically, this tragic way of taking the news is difficult to explain. Whether it was that the Austrians, having less faith in the solidarity of their Empire and the staying powers of their mixed population, and greater misgivings about the issue of the war, were naturally more pessimistic and more apt to magnify than to underrate the dangers with which a European conflict threatened them, or that they had received unwelcome tidings of a like nature from an independent source, I am unable to determine. I know, however, that Prince Lichnowsky’s own mind was made up during that colloquy with Sir Edward Grey. And he made no mystery of it. To a statesman who brought up the topic in the course of an ordinary conversation he remarked:

That view was also adopted by the statesmen of Austria-Hungary, who communicated it to me on the following day.28 It was on July 29th that the German Chancellor had tendered the “strong bid” for British neutrality from which the wished-for result was anticipated. And to this “infamous proposal” the answer was not telegraphed until July 30th. In Vienna we had cognizance of it on the following day. But I was informed on Saturday that, however unpromising the outlook, further exertions would be put forth to persuade Great Britain not to relinquish her rôle of mediatrix, but to reserve her beneficent influence on the Powers until they had tried issues in a land campaign and were ready for peace negociations. Then she could play to good purpose the congenial part of peacemaker and make her moderating influence felt by both parties, who, exhausted by the campaign, would be willing to accept a compromise.

These efforts were ingeniously planned, the German statesmen using British ideas, aims, and traditions as weapons of combat against the intentions—still wavering, it was believed—of the Liberal Government to resort to force if suasion and argument should fail, in order to redeem the nation’s plighted word and uphold Belgian neutrality. Among these aims which our Government had especially at heart was a general understanding with Germany, and the perspective of realizing this was dangled before the eyes of our Government by the Chancellor. But the plan had one capital defect. It ignored the view taken in this country of the sanctity of treaties. The course taken by the conversations, which were now carried on with rapidity to the accompaniment of the march of armed men and the clatter of horses’ hoofs, is worth considering. Down to the last moment the British Government kept its hands free. M. Sazonoff’s appeals to our Ambassador to move his Government to take sides fell on deaf ears. The endeavours of the Government of the French Republic were equally infructuous. “In the present case,” Sir Edward Grey told the French Ambassador in London, “the dispute between Austria and Servia was not one in which we felt called on to take a hand.” That was the position consistently taken up by the British Government in every Balkan crisis that had broken out since Aehrenthal incorporated Bosnia and Herzegovina. And it was also one of the postulates of the German conspiracy, which undertook to prove that whatever complications might arise out of Austria’s action, the crucial question and the one issue was the crime of Sarajevo.

But Sir Edward Grey did not stop here. He went much further and destroyed the illusions of those who imagined the British Empire would be so materially affected by an Austrian campaign against Russia that it would proffer assistance to the Slav Empire. In fact, he consistently withheld encouragement from all would-be belligerents.

This, too, was well known and reckoned upon by the two Teutonic allies when laying their plans, one of which was to thrust into the foreground the Slavo-Teutonic character of the struggle and the immunity of British interests from detriment, whatever the outcome. But the British Foreign Secretary went much further than this. He said:

This straight talk, coupled with the strenuous and insistent but vain exertions of the British Foreign Secretary to get first Austria and then Germany to stay their hand and accept full satisfaction and absolute guarantees from Servia, constitute the cardinal facts in the history of the origin of the present war. They furnish the measure of our peace efforts and of our self-containment. And they also reveal the two conspiring Powers working in secret concert, not, as was at first assumed, to remove the causes of the conflict, but to immobilize the Powers that were likely to take an active part in it. That is the clue to what seemed inexplicable in their fitful and apparently incongruous moves. Whenever Sir Edward Grey asked for an extension of time, for a Conference of the Powers, or for any other facilities for settling the Austro-Servian quarrel diplomatically, Germany and Austria were unable to comply with his request. Would Vienna consent to lengthen the time accorded to Servia for an answer? No, she was unable to do so. And in this Germany backed her up as behoves a brilliant second. Dealings with Belgrade, she held, must be effected expeditiously. And when Sir Edward Grey proposed to the German Government that the Servian reply might be used as a basis for conversations, the Imperial Chancellor regrets that things have marched too rapidly!

Thus having first fixed the time-limit at forty-eight hours and then refused to have it extended in order to allow time for a settlement, Germany expresses her regret that it is too late to act on the suggestion that a pause shall ensue to enable a peaceful arrangement to be arrived at.

The cynicism embodied in this answer is curiously like the pleas for mercy addressed by a young murderer to the jury before the verdict was brought in. “I am an orphan,” he said, “and alone in a cold, unsympathetic world. I can look neither to a father nor a mother to advise, chide, or comfort me. May I hope that you at least will show me pity and mercy?” A touching appeal it might well seem until read in the light of the circumstance that he who made it was being tried for the murder of both his parents.

With a prescience of the coming struggle which his own deliberate manœuvres were meant to bring about, the Chancellor displayed keen and, it was then believed, praiseworthy anxiety to impress our Government with the sincerity of his desire and the strenuousness of his efforts for peace.

His Excellency was aware of the necessity of preparing the ground for the next and most difficult move of all, and was providing for it in his own way. It was a German Captatio benevolentiæ.