JOHN WILLIAM BURGESS
THE EUROPEAN WAR OF 1914
Its
Causes, Purposes, and Probable Results
1915
CHAPTER II
p. 45—81
45
CHAPTER II
THE PROXIMATE CAUSES OF THE WAR
FOR a correct and exhaustive understanding of
these we must go back at least to the formation of the present German
Empire. After the disrupture of the German Confederation in the year
1866, by the withdrawal or expulsion of Austria from this connection,
the French Empire became the leading state of Continental Europe, at
least west of Russia.
According to the well established principles of
British diplomacy, France was then the state whose wings must be
clipped and it was Great Britain's problem to find "some George who
would do it." This was not difficult. The formation of the North German
Union in 1867, embracing all of the German States north of the Main,
and of the German Zollverein, including all the
46 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
members of the
old German Confederation, except Austria, excited the apprehension of
France for her leadership in Continental Europe.
France sought an opportunity for war with the North
German Union in the year 1870 and found it in the Spanish question. We
must not, however, delude ourselves with the idea that this question
caused the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The cause of that war was
the determination of France not to allow the North German Union to grow
into the present German Empire. The Spanish question was only the
pretext.
What attitude would now the other powers of Europe
assume towards the conflict? Russia had not forgiven France for the
defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-56. She, therefore, remained neutral.
Italy was still mourning over the loss of Savoy and Nice, which she had
been obliged to transfer to France for Napoleon's aid in her supreme
effort for the expulsion of the Austrians in
1859, was also still suspicious of the plans
47 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
of France for
gaining a further foothold in her borders, and was resentful at the
maintenance of the French garrison for upholding the Pope's supremacy
in Rome. This was a sufficient balance to the gratitude of Italy
towards France for the latter's assistance in 1859 to keep Italy quiet
in 1870. Austria was still smarting under the defeat of 1866, but her
partner in the dual monarchy, Hungary, had profited by it, and whatever
intentions hostile to the North German Union Austria may have
entertained were suppressed by the rapid and decided victories of the
North German arms.
Lastly, Great Britain saw, at that moment, in the
French Empire her only possible rival on the sea and had not forgotten
the long struggle with France for the mastery of the sea. The growth of
Germany as a Continental power merely did not seem to threaten her
interests, but rather to be a protection to her against French colonial
aspirations. The one point necessary to her traditional policy was to
prevent the coast of the Chan-
48 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
nel from
Dunkirk to Antwerp from falling into the hands of either party, that
is, to maintain the independence of Belgium. Napoleon had already
revealed intentions upon Belgium, and although the Treaty of 1839
guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium and signed by Great Britain,
France, and Prussia, as well as Russia and Austria, had never been
formally repealed, yet Great Britain deemed it necessary, for the
safe-guarding of her own interests more than those of Belgium, and for
their safe-guarding rather against France than against the North German
Union, to exact from France and the North German Union separate but
identical treaties with her, guaranteeing during the period of the
impending war and for a year following its close the neutrality of
Belgium. Under these treaties she was willing to remain neutral and let
the war take its course. While the triumph of the German arms and the
organization of the German Empire by the union of the South German
States with the North German Federation did not
49 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
seem to give
the British Statesmen much concern, the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine
seemed to require some explanation in order to give assurance that this
was not the first step in a policy of conquest to be followed by the
new German Empire. It was of course easy to show historically that
Germany was only reclaiming her own, but the more convincing
justification was that the mountain range on the west side of this
territory was the natural military boundary on the southwest between
Germany and France, and that its possession by France was a constant
menace to German unity and safety. This was Germany's chief ground, and
it was satisfactory to Europe generally, except to France herself. To
France it was the symbol of her reduction from the first to the second
place among the states of Continental Europe west of Russia. The
determination of France to regain her leadership made itself concrete
in the Alsace-Lorraine cult and indicated thus to the shewd diplomats
of Europe what note to strike in dealing with
50 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
France in
order to charm and seduce her to their purpose.
The new Empire was conscious at first of danger
chiefly, if not wholly, from France, and shaped its policy and
diplomacy to meet it. It built the University at Strasburg, introduced
compulsory education for stamping out the general illiteracy of the
people in the annexed territory, established sanitary reforms therein,
improving the housing of the residents of the towns and villages and
clearing away slums and the proletariat of which they were the haunts,
taught the peasantry better methods of agriculture, and promoted new
industries in the towns for the profit and welfare of their
inhabitants. Anyone who knew by personal observation, as I did, the
Alsace-Lorraine of 1871 and the Elsass-Lothringen of forty years later,
could not help feeling astonishment and admiration for the vast
improvement of the people in education, health, vigor, industry,
enterprise, and prosperity, within this period.
At the same time that the new Empire
51 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
began
inaugurating these reforms for the well-being of Elsass-Lothringen, it
effected diplomatically an understanding with Russia and
Austria-Hungary, in what was called the "Three Emperor Alliance" of
1872, for maintaining the peace of Europe. As a young student in the
University of Berlin, I witnessed the meeting of the three Emperors,
William I, Alexander II, and Francis Joseph in the Lustgarten at the
head of the Linden between the Palace of Frederick the Great and the
Museum, and remember distinctly the high hopes for permanent peace,
contentment, and prosperity in Europe which were expressed in
connection therewith.
But, alas, in less than five years from that
promising September day, Russia blasted the hopes which she had helped
to raise by entering upon the campaign for the harvesting of the fatal
legacy bequeathed by Peter the Great to his successors, the policy of
the conquest of Constantinople. The Powers stood quietly by and saw her
march her armies almost to the gates of the City and dictate
52 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
to the humbled
Turks the Treaty of San Stefano. Then they interfered, in the interest
of Europe, against this unconscionable aggression, and required Russia
to lay the Treaty for revision before the powers gathered in Congress
at Berlin. That Congress was dominated by the British Premier, Lord
Beaconsfield, and the German Chancellor, Prince Bismarck, and it
ameliorated the hard terms of the Treaty and saved the Ottoman Empire
from destruction.
From that moment Russia began to change her feeling
and policy towards the German Empire and to cultivate a rapprochement
with France. The astute Bismarck perceived the change and worked with
all his might to check it. He did finally, in the year 1884, succeed in
inducing Russia to enter with Germany into a neutrality agreement for a
few years in case either should be attacked by a third power. When this
period expired Russia turned away from all agreements with Germany and
gravitated towards France.
53 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
So soon as Bismarck became aware of Russia's displeasure in 1879, he
had turned to Austria-Hungary and had formed with the Hapsburg Empire a
defensive alliance directed chiefly against Russian attack. Four years
later, in 1883 — some writers place it a little earlier — when the
approach of Russia to France had become clearly manifest, Italy joined
this Alliance, called thereafter the Triple Alliance, which was now
directed against an attack upon either member of the Alliance by either
Russia or France.
The keynote of Bismarck's policy was the
consolidation of the German Empire as a Continental European state and
the pursuance of a world policy, that is a policy of colonial expansion
and foreign trade, only in so far as it did not endanger the
Continental position and interests of the Empire. From the location of
the Empire in the middle of Europe, surrounded by powerful states
already regarding it with dislike, this was most necessary. Under such
conditions it was most difficult to adjust properly the
54 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
elements of
such a policy. Already by 1890 Germany had emerged from the stage of an
agricultural community and was fast becoming a great manufacturing and
commercial state. This had been made necessary by the rapid increase of
her population, which could with difficulty be supported by agriculture
alone upon her two hundred and eight thousand square miles of
territory. But this change required foreign markets, and Spain, France,
Holland, and lastly Great Britain had taught the world that the way to
get and preserve these was by the establishment of colonies.
There is no doubt that it was with considerable
apprehension that Bismarck brought himself to take over some unclaimed
African territory and begin the establishment of a German colony. He
soon experienced the jealous watchfulness of Great Britain, but for
this once he turned it to advantage in yielding to British demands in
South Africa, acquiring as compensation for Germany the island of
Helgoland. This was accomplished
55 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
in the year of
his retirement from office, 1890, in fact under his successor, and it
corresponded with his policy of looking out first for the interests of
the Empire at home. It was also a point gained that Great Britain was
induced to recognize that Germany had any right to appear outside of
her Continental boundaries.
Whether the approach of France and Russia was
facilitated by this event or not we do not surely know, but we do know
that in 1894, the understanding between them had ripened into a treaty,
the contents of which were kept secret, but which we must now conclude
pledged the two, at an oportune moment, to make war upon Germany.
Germany understood the danger and sought to avert it
by encouraging Russia to pursue her policy of expansion in Asia, hoping
thus to deliver Europe from her encroachments. Germany, therefore,
supported Russia in the year 1895 against Japan in Russia's effort to
keep Japan from the Pacific coast at the points where Russia might
56 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
find an
ice-free port for the Pacific terminus of her Siberian Railway. This
irritated Japan against Germany and the vindictive little yellow man
watched patiently for his opportunity to revenge himself, which has at
last come. In 1898 Germany leased from China some two hundred square
miles of territory, the port of Kiau-chau and placed thus a pawn in the
reach of Japan. At the same time Russia leased Port Arthur at the head
of the Liao-tung peninsula from China and created thus a point of
friction between herself and Japan.
From 1890 to 1898, Germany, all the time in rapid
development as a great manufacturing and commercial state, had acquired
not over two thousand square miles of territory for colonial purposes,
and the most of this was not intended for colonization but simply for
coaling and supply stations, while Great Britain, France, and Russia
were seizing hundreds and hundreds of thousands of square miles of
territory by military force all over the world. Germany had already
57 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
begun to
learn, thus, that foreign trade might exist without colonies, in fact
was more profitable without them, if only the doors of all countries
should be made open and kept open.
For some time Germany had been looking upon the
Turkish Empire in Asia as a new and profitable region for trade, and in
the year 1898 the German Emperor made his famous visit to
Constantinople, Damascus, and Jerusalem, and in the year 1900 a German
company or syndicate received a concession from the Turkish Government
to build and operate a railroad from Constantinople through the middle
of the Turkish Empire in Asia to the Persian Gulf. In the same year,
1900, the Navy Bill for the systematic and continuous development of
the German Navy was passed by the Imperial Parliament and became law.
The German idea was that, instead of following any
further the expensive and destructive and immoral policy of
dismembering the Turkish Empire, it would be more eco-
58 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
nomical,
constructive, and humane to maintain its integrity, and to seek its
regeneration by bringing it into closer contact wtih Europe and the
world, through active trade, commerce, and communication. The German
idea was prompted not only by the desire to extend German trade, not
only by the desire to help on the development of the inhabitants of the
Turkish Empire, and not only by the conviction that the Turks were the
best fitted among all the races of the Empire to govern, but also by
the desire of removing the Turkish question, that is, the question of
the partition of Turkey, as the great disturbing factor of European
peace, from the arena of European politics; while the purpose of the
development of the fleet was to be able to protect the rapidly growing
German merchant marine and commerce against all possible attack and
unlawful interference.
Great Britain, on the other hand, evidently did not
understand the German idea or did not trust the German intentions. Her
states-
59 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
men appeared
to apprehend that the intentions of Germany were territorial
acquisitions in the Turkish Empire and naval hostility to Great
Britain. Great Britain had practiced the policy of territorial
aggrandizement so long as the solution of the commercial question that
it was very difficult for her to understand that there could be any
other solution.
At the same time the Russian activity in Asia was
giving Great Britain great concern about her possessions and position
upon that vast continent, and the support of Germany to Russia in
keeping Japan out of the Liao-tung peninsula suggested to the British
diplomatists the existence of some more friendly relations between
Russia and Germany than they had before this supposed.
After the accession of King Edward in 1901 — I will
not venture to say in consequence of it — the diplomacy of Great
Britain towards Russia and Germany seems to have been based on those
suspicions. An understanding between Russia, Germany, and
60 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
Turkey in the
Asiatic question could to the British mind mean just one thing, namely,
the shunting of Russia away from Constantinople and from the bay of
Alexandretta and her advance from the Trans-Caucasus through Persia to
the Persian Gulf. Here Russia would at last reach the open sea and have
an ice-free port. But she would then flank India. This mortal danger to
the British Empire must, at any cost, be averted. It is to this task
that the British diplomacy of the years between 1901 and 1914 has
addressed itself.
Judging from the conversations in the political
centres of Europe, from occasional statements coming from highly
informed and responsible sources, and from the course of events during
that period, the plan of the British Government then formed and now
pursued by force of arms is the acquisition of the vast territory lying
between Egypt and the Levant on the west and lower Persia on the east,
the connection of the same with Egypt and the ports of the Levant by a
61 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
railroad
leading from Alexandria to the Persian Gulf, and the establishment,
probably at Mecca or Cairo, of a new Caliphate of the Mohammedan
believers, under the control of the British government. This would
defend the British possession of India in two ways, namely, from
territorial aggression by Russia, possibly supported or countenanced by
Germany, and from the spiritual power of the Turkish Sultan as Caliph
of all Mohammedan believers, and it might open the way some day for the
acquisition of all Mohammedan North Africa by the British Empire.
Now how could such a gigantic plan be realized?
Naturally the first and entirely indispensable step must be the turning
of the supposed new friendship between Russia and Germany into
hostility, and the weakening of both Russia and Germany. Let us see
whether this was the course which Great Britain pursued. It has been
recently asserted by persons closely connected with the German
Government that in 1902 Great
62 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
Britain
offered Germany an alliance with herself and Japan, the point of which
was directed against Russia, and that Germany declined it. Japan, on
the other hand, entered into it and in less than two years began the
war upon Russia with the purpose of driving Russia back from her outlet
upon the Pacific at Port Arthur and in Manchuria. In this she was
successful and the results were most advantageous to Great Britain.
Russia, weakened by defeat and revolution, was driven back upon Europe,
that is upon Germany and Austria-Hungary, and rendered incapable of
pursuing her policy of expansion in Asia, and Germany and
Austria-Hungary were compelled to face the probability of Russia's
resuming her traditional policy of seizing Constantinople.
This first and most important step in the
realization of the British plan for connecting Egypt and India having
been thus successfully taken, the British diplomatists could now
advance to the second. This second step was to remove the participation
of France in
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the
administration of Egypt, leaving Great Britain thus the sole power
therein, subject of course, for the moment, to the nominal sovereignty
of the Turkish Sultan, and at the same time to gain the support of
France for the acquisition of the territory between Egypt and Persia.
The opportunity for this came at the very moment of Russia's defeat by
Japan.
France had been for several years maneuvering and
intriguing with Spain for the seizure and partition of Morocco. When
Great Britain became aware of these movements in 1904, perhaps earlier,
she manifested opposition, of course, but immediately improved the
opportunity for getting rid of the French right of participation in
administering the finances of Egypt, and for getting the consent of
France for the acquisition of the vast territory between Egypt and
Persia, by agreeing to the French occupation of Morocco. But Germany
now stepped in and demanded the submission of the Morocco question to a
Congress of the Powers.
64 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
France
regarded this as very impertinent on the part of Germany and her spirit
of revenge for 1870 received a new incitement. Nevertheless Germany
insisted and the Congress of the Nations at Algeciras was assembled in
1906. This Congress ordained the independence and integrity of Morocco,
under her own Sultan, accorded certain very limited police powers to
France, Spain, and Switzerland therein, and decreed the open door for
the trade of all the nations therewith. We shall see a little further
on how France disregarded these provisions of the Algeciras Convention,
and how Great Britain protected her disregard of the pact.
With Russia weakened by defeat and revolution, with
her French ally dependent upon British support in Africa, and with
Germany again apprehensive of the revival of Russia's designs upon
Constantinople, Great Britain was now, as third step in the realization
of her plan, able to bring Russia to the Persian Agreement of 1907,
according to which Russia recognized the southern half of
65 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
Persia as
belonging to the sphere of British influence, as they call it, which is
nothing more nor less than the preliminary to annexation. With this
Russia gave up the route to the open sea on the south through Persia
and the Persian Gulf. This she certainly would never have done had not
advantage been taken of her extreme exhaustion, because this is the
only route by which she can immediately reach the open sea on the
south. The other routes lead only to the Mediterranean, and Great
Britain guards both outlets of this lake into the open sea.
Moreover, it was to be surmised that Great Britain
would oppose the passage of Russia from the Trans-Caucasus over Armenia
to the harbor of Alexandretta in the northeast corner of the
Mediterranean. Russia once in possession of the plateau of Armenia
would not only command all of the routes from Asia into Asia Minor, but
could occupy at pleasure the entire valley of the Euphrates and the
Tigris down to the Persian Gulf. This would conflict with the
66 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
British plan
for annexing Mesopotamia to Egypt, and would bring the two great
land-grabbing Empires of the world face to face across the imaginary
line of the surveyor.
Great Britain would certainly prefer the Turk to the
Russian for her neighbor. She would certainly prefer to have Russia
take Constantinople than Armenia and Alexandretta. In fact after the
agreement of 1907, and by it, Russia was brought back to the conviction
that her aspiration to reach the sea on the south was, as to its
probable fulfillment, confined to the route through Constantinople. But
from the moment of the conclusion of that Treaty of 1907, the route to
Constantinople, lay, as the Russians now say, through Berlin. In other
words, the plan of Great Britain for the annexation of Southeastern
Turkey and Arabia to Egypt, the Treaty of 1907 with Russia as to
Southern Persia, the German Bagdad Railroad, and the alliance of France
with Russia and Great Britain, left, of all the great powers, united
for the defense of the
67 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
integrity of
the Ottoman Empire in the Congress of 1878 at Berlin, only Germany and
Austria-Hungary, and ranged Great Britain with her old foe in this
question, Russia, with whom she is now endeavoring to destroy and
despoil the Ottoman Empire, at the same time that she holds the island
of Cyprus in trust as a basis of operations for her pledged defense,
especially against Russia, of the integrity of that Empire.
The plans were fast ripening for the blow. In June
of 1908 the meeting between King Edward and the Czar took place on
shipboard near Reval in the Gulf of Finland, and was almost immediately
followed by that between the Czar and President Fallieres of France at
the same place. The purpose of these interviews, it is understood, was
to arrange for intervention in the affairs of Macedonia, the burning
question in the relations between Turkey and her Balkan subjects. Of
course, the Entente Powers knew that such intervention by them would
meet with objection from Germany and Austria-
68 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
Hungary.
Italy, the other member of the Triple Alliance, had apparently given
ear to the seductions of Russia, exciting her aspirations in South
Tyrol and along the Dalmatian Coast and influencing the feelings of the
Italian Royal House through its connection with the Princely House of
Montenegro. Italy, they calculated, would at least remain neutral and
might even be induced to abandon her allies and cast her lot with them.
Then came almost like a thunderbolt out of clear sky
the Young Turkish revolution in July, 1908. Its purpose was the
establishment of Constitutional Government. It is quite evident that
Great Britain was shaken by it more than the other members of the
Entente. Great Britain probably supposed that the cordiality between
Germany and Turkey was only a cordiality between Germany and the
Government of Abdul Hamid and that the overthrow of this Government and
the establishment of Constitutional Government with a new Sultan or
possibly President would dispel it and substitute therefor a
69 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
friendly
feeling towards Great Britain as the Mother of Parliaments.
Great Britain did not then understand at all that
the cordiality between Germany and Turkey was based upon the conviction
on the part of the Turkish people that Germany was only seeking their
trade, while Great Britain and Russia were seeking their territory,
that it was therefore the interest and purpose of Germany to observe
and protect Turkey's integrity and independence, while it was the
interest and purpose of Great Britain and Russia to undermine and
destroy them.
Whatever may have been the reason, the intervention
in Macedonia did not come off. The claimed necessity for it seemed to
be forestalled by the establishment of the new Constitutional
Government at Constantinople, or, more truthfully said, the pretext for
it was stripped of all show of respectability.
But something else did happen which brought Europe
to the very brink of war. Bulgaria and the Austro-Hungarian province
70 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
of
Bosnia-Herzegovina were still subject to the nominal suzerainty of the
Turkish Sultan. It was certainly a very slender tie. For thirty years
Bulgaria had been essentially an independent sovereign state and for
the same period Bosnia-Herzegovina had been administered and developed
and really redeemed to civilization by Austria-Hungary. The
apprehension now seized upon Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary that the new
Turkish Government contemplated the restoration of its actual supremacy
over these former Turkish provinces by including them in the
representation in the new Constitutional Parliament at Constantinople.
Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary forestalled this danger
on the selfsame day, October 5, 1908, by simply repudiating the
suzerainty of the Sultan. This suzerainty had been reserved by the
Berlin Congressional Act of 1878, that is, by the act of the great
powers of Europe represented in that Congress, and it remained now to
be seen whether they would intervene and uphold the suzerainty of
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the Sultan. It
would have been out of all reason for them to have done so, and they
did not. Austria-Hungary, however, paid the Porte some ten millions of
dollars indemnity. But Servia made a great ado about it and was backed
up by Russia. This was a revelation of the plan for holding
Bosnia-Herzegovina at least in this relation until Russia should be
ready to tear it away by main force from Austria-Hungary, either by the
right of might or by capturing Constantinople, succeeding thus to the
powers of the Turkish Government, and then reclaiming it through the
reserved suzerainty over it. It was at this critical moment that
Germany stepped in and stayed the hand of Russia and preserved the
peace of Europe. The plan of the Entente shipwrecked for this once upon
the unpreparedness of Russia, the hesitation of Great Britain, and the
decision and firmness of Germany.
The following year King Edward passed away and the
indecision of the British Government seemed to be increased by this
event.
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This, together
with the hope of at least weakening the friendship between Germany and
Turkey, under the new regime, and several other things, such as the
supposed friendly policy of the new German Chancellor, the influence of
the German example on the new socialistic legislation of the British
Parliament and pre-occupatlon with the Irish question, seemed to modify
the attitude of Great Britain towards Germany in the direction of a
better understanding of Germany's purposes. Especially did Great
Britain seem to show more comprehension of idea that Germany's
interests and undertakings in Turkey were economic and commercial,
while those of Russia were territorial and political.
But these appearances were quickly dispelled again
by the movements of France in Morocco. During the five years between
1906 and 1911, France had been continually doing little things in
Morocco, which, by a fair interpretation of the Algeciras Convention,
were stretches of the powers conferred upon her, and doing them under
pretexts
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which she
herself created, as for example in the Casablanca affair, where the
French officials excited the Moors by desecrating one of their
cemeteries and then shelled the town from a warship in order to quell
the riot.
Finally, in 1911, France proclaimed that the foreign
residents of Fez were in great danger and sent an army of some sixteen
thousand men to occupy the capital of Morocco. There was nothing wrong
in Fez except the French military occupation of it. That was nothing
more nor less than the conquest of Morocco in the face of the Algeciras
Convention forbidding it. Spain, one of the signatories of it,
immediately occupied a position on the west coast of Morocco, and
Germany, another signatory, sent The Panther,
a little warship,
to another place, Agadir, not far away from the position of the
Spaniards. Great Britain immediately espoused the French cause,
although she herself was one of the signatories of the ruptured
Algeciras Convention, and almost threatened Germany with war. The
British justified them-
74 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
selves for
this apparently strange position of upholding the violator of a
compact, to which she herself was a signatory, against the protest of
another signatory by representing that Germany was seeking at Agadir a
naval base for interfering with the trade between Great Britain and
South America. But this was only the pretext. The real reason for the
British attitude lay a great deal deeper. It was to secure the
compensation to France for the French withdrawal of rights in Egypt and
the French approval of the British plan for annexing to Egypt the
regions between Egypt and Persia. The Germans knew this well enough
then, and there were many among them who thought that Germany should
have assumed the risk of war at that juncture under the issue of
upholding the Algeciras Convention, but the Emperor would have none of
it. His diplomatists succeeded in settling the matter peaceably by
accepting from France a concession which was barely sufficient to save
Germany from humiliation.
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During this same time, 1911-1912, another significant movement was in
course of accomplishment further eastward. I mean the occupation of
Tripoli by Italy. It is most difficult to believe that this was really
supported or desired by Italy's allies of the Triple Alliance and there
is no evidence that it was. It exhausted Italy's strength at the same
time that it exhausted Turkey's strength, and made Italy and Turkey
enemies, all of which things were directly contrary to the interests of
Germany and Austria-Hungary, if Italy was to remain true to her allies.
As said in the preceding chapter, I have it from excellent British
authority that it was Great Britain which prompted Italy to this
adventure, her object being to place Italy in a position where, in case
of a war between the Powers of the Entente and the Powers of the Triple
Alliance, Italy would not be able to discharge her duty to her allies.
This is entirely intelligible. It is also easy to understand that Great
Britain might prefer to have Italy as her immediate neighbor in
76 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
North Africa
rather than France. If it was British diplomacy which instigated this
enterprise, it was certainly a fine stroke, and the British Foreign
Secretary may well be proud of it. Moreover, the instigation of the
Balkan League at this same moment by Great Britain's ally, Russia,
against Turkey and Austria-Hungary points to the same origin of Italy's
Tripoli enterprise.
The final developments of the proximate causes of
the great catastrophe follow now rapidly upon each other. While France
and Russia were organizing and financing the Balkan League, Great
Britain seemed to become apprehensive of the destruction of Turkey and
the advance of Russia to the Mediterranean. She seemed, for the moment,
to prefer the German commercial interests in Asiatic Turkey to the
Russian territorial projects. It is claimed that some understanding
with Germany about the Bagdad railroad was in process of realization.
Then the storm broke. The Balkan allies attacked Turkey first, while it
is claimed by
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many
well-informed persons that Russia intended them to attack
Austria-Hungary first. During the autumn of 1912 they were generally
victorious and drove the Turkish forces back to their last defensible
line before Constantinople.
At this moment, in the first days of 1913, Russian
military movements from the Trans-Caucasus towards Armenia were
discovered. Both Germany and Great Britain understood them fully. They
meant the seizure of a broad belt of Turkish territory extending
through Armenia to the northeast corner of the Mediterranean. They
meant the destruction of the Turkish Empire in Asia, the destruction of
the German commercial interests therein, and an uncomfortable nearness
of Russia to Egypt and the Suez Canal. In possession of the Armenian
plateau, Russia would be able, according to military opinion, not only
to reach the bay of Alexandretta, but to occupy at pleasure Syria,
Babylonia, and Mesopotamia; in other words, to defeat the British plan
for joining Egypt with
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Persia by the
occupation of the regions lying between them.
Germany again interfered at the critical moment and
demanded the cessation of this movement. Great Britain felt that, for
the moment, her own interests coincided with those of Germany, and
Russia yielded, though with a very bad grace, and with increased anger
against Germany. At the same moment the ambitions of Bulgaria ruptured
the Balkan League and turned the war against Turkey into a war between
the Balkan states. This saved Austria-Hungary for the moment from the
attack which the Balkan states, following the victory over Turkey, were
to have made upon her. The European war appeared to be again averted
and Great Britain seemed to be nearing Germany. But, alas! it was only
appearance.
Turned back by Germany from the way through Armenia
to the Mediterranean, Russia became now fully determined to revert to
the old policy of seizing Constantinople, and Great Britain must have
become con-
79 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
vinced that of
the three ways for Russia to reach the sea on the south, the one
through Constantinople would be least injurious to British interests.
Great Britain, moreover, understood that Germany and Austria-Hungary
would stand across this way also, and that even if Russia succeeded in
overcoming their opposition she would come out of the struggle so
exhausted that she need no longer be feared, and that also Germany and
Austria-Hungary would be weakened, one of the chief points of British
diplomacy.
Angered by the opposition of Germany to her plan for
seizing Armenia, Russia now turned to her French ally and obtained from
her the reintroductlon of the three years' term of active military
service, raising the peace footing of the active army to 800,000 or
more and the promise of a new loan of five hundred million dollars.
The Germans knew only too well that the hour was
rapidly approaching, and made their own preparations to meet the
increase of military strength on the part of France
80 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
and Russia.
The German Government still hoped, however, that the danger to British
interests involved in the threatened dissolution of the Ottoman Empire
by the Russian plan, either by way of Armenia or Constantinople, might
deter Great Britain from becoming the military ally of Russia and
France in their attack on Germany and Austria-Hungary. But the German
Government and the German people did not sufficiently appreciate Great
Britain's fear of the German competition in trade and commerce and of
the growth of the German Navy.
The British Government must have had serious
misgivings. The resignation of three members of the Cabinet is good
evidence of that. But the majority of that body evidently reached the
conclusion that, after the general exhaustion of the Continental Powers
by unrelenting war, Great Britain would be better able to deal with
Russia later on than she was then to cope with the rapidly developing
power and prosperity of Germany. And so when the Russian puppet in the
Bal-
81 THE PROXIMATE CAUSES
kans touched
the match to the train that had thus been laid, and Austria-Hungary
sought to defend its own house against the conflagration, the British
Government encouraged Servia to resist, encouraged Russia to interfere,
encouraged France to support Russia and promised her own support to
France. This is the bare and bald truth. All the rest is the diplomatic
veil of deception. The history of the proximate causes of the war
sustains, thus, the interpretation we have placed upon the British
White Paper, and is reconcilable with no other interpretation.
There are, however, still deeper causes for this war
which spring out of the irresistible movements and purposes of that
Destiny which guides the world through the different stages of its
civilization. Let us try to get a glimpse of these.
Last update: August 4th, 2014
