England and Germany

And the longer this process of – shall we call it mutual? – exhaustion goes on, the more important grow the neutral States and the louder sound their voices. They are like Jeshurun, who waxed fat and kicked. Without special aptitudes for arithmetic one may calculate, with a rough approach to accuracy, the time when the process of mutual exhaustion will enable the neutrals to exert an absurdly disproportionate and possibly dangerous influence over the belligerents. That is a calculation which those optimists would do well to make who tell us that all is well because “time is on our side.”

It is still open to us to utilize our superior resources, realize our latent strength, and ward off the dangers that beset us. But the first advance towards the goal must be to face the facts, behold things and persons as they are, and apply our new-found knowledge to the work of self-rescue. Our conception of the nature of the contest in which we are engaged must be recast. Our demands on our national leaders – not those now in power who only mislead – must be greatly enlarged. Truth, however bitter, must take the place of fancy. Ideas and institutions incongruous with the new social and political conditions must be displaced. The nation’s aims and policy should be stated boldly and clearly, and adequate machinery set up to achieve them. In a word, system will have to be substituted for confusion, method for haphazard. Destitute of a great or strong man, it behoves us to imitate our enemy and create a vast organization with branches all over the empire. But the influence of the government ever since the outbreak of the war has militated against all those reforms.

If these changes had been effected at the outset the story of the present campaign would have been different from what it is. A group of belligerents representing only 5,921,000 square kilometres of territory and 150,199,000 inhabitants, or, say, 4 per cent. of dry land and 9·1 per cent. of human beings, would not have held its own for twenty-one months against a group disposing of 68,031,000 square kilometres of territory and a population of 770,060,000, or 46 per cent. of the land on the globe and 47 per cent. of the human race. Providence has bestowed upon the Allies the wherewithal to attain their legitimate ends. The Allies’ leaders are frittering them away.

For the thirty years of preparation do not afford us an adequate explanation of the Teuton superiority. The clue is to be found in the psychological factor. Germany is wholly alive, physically, intellectually and psychically. And she lives in the present and future. We either drowse or vegetate in and for the past. She has the decisive advantage of possessing organization and organizers. Therein lies the secret of her sustained success. The Allies lack both, and are hardly conscious of the necessity of making good the deficiency. Therein lies their weakness. It has made itself felt throughout the campaign and will determine the upshot of the war. And in the politico-economic struggle that will follow the war, it is the same psychological factor which the Allies rate so low that will decide the final issue.

Unless we wake up to the reality and readjust our ideas and methods to that – and of such awakening there is as yet no sure token – the outcome of the present war will be a draw, and the final upshot of the larger contest will be our utter defeat. No journalistic optimism, no ministerial magniloquence can alter that. These contingencies are already fullfronting us, as we shall soon learn to our cost, and the people who are veiling them from the public view, however praiseworthy their intentions may be, are leading the nation to ruin. And if we continue to uphold our present chiefs and methods national disaster is as inevitable as destiny. But it is well to remember that it is not Fate that is pursuing us; it is we who are overtaking Fate.

1

The Kaiser is one of the largest shareholders in the great mercury mines of Italy.

2

Cf. L’Invasione tedesca in Italia. Ezio M. Gray. Firenze.

3

Op. cit., p. 113.

4

Cf. L’Invasione tedesca in Italia, pp. 118, 119.

5

1050 million francs.

6

Op. cit., p. 120.

7

An instructive article on the subject by Mr. Moreton Frewen appeared in the Nineteenth Century of February, 1916.

8

This secret information bureau is everywhere a potent engine of attack in German hands. It renders deliberate libellers and defamers immune against the action of the law. The victims feel the effects but cannot point to the cause. The fiches, as the certificates are called, are couched in conventional terms and bear no signature. In the case of persons whom the bank desires to ruin, these documents are sentences of commercial death.

9

Cf. Preziosi, La Germania a la Conquista dell’ Italia, p. 57 fol.

10

L’Invasione tedesca, p. 147.

11

L’Invasione tedesca in Italia, p. 149.

12

Op. cit., p. 150.

13

It is an American Company for the sale of certain machines. The Russian organ mentions all the names. For my purpose this is unnecessary. The curious may find them in the Novoye Vremya of 5/18 August, 1915.

14

Novoye Vremya, 5/18 July, 1916.

15

Their names are Johann Assman and Rudolf Meyer. Cf. Novoye Vremya, 11/24 August, 1915.

16

Rassegna Contemporanea.

17

L’Invasione tedesca in Italia, p. 171.

18

Op. cit., p. 171.

19

Cf. L’Idea Nazionale. The words “even now” refer to November 22, 1915, and may be equally true to-day.

20

Felix Deutsch, Karl Zander, Otto Joel, Karl von Siemens, Walter Boveri, Karl Kapp, etc.

21

L’Idea Nazionale, September 8, 1915.

22

On May 21, 1915.

23

L’Idea Nazionale, November 8, 1915.

24

Giornale d’Italia, November 17, 1915.

25

Cf. Preziosi, La Germania a la Conquista dell’ Italia, p. 66.

26

Ibid., p. 67.

27

Signor Preziosi gives the names of those agents as MM. Volpi, Bertolini and Nogara (op. cit., p. 71).

28

Professor Bondi, ex-Questor of Milan.

29

Rivelazioni postume alle Memorie di un questore, 1913. Cf. Preziosi, La Germania a la Conquista dell’ Italia, p. 75 ff.

30

1915.

31

In June 1904.

32

About 107 acres.

33

One square verst is equal to 0·44 square mile.

34

Cf. Novoye Vremya, October 5, 1914.

35

His name is Dr. Fritz Wertheimer. His writings are to be found in various periodicals. The essay from which these data are taken was published in the Frankfurter Zeitung, January 8, 1916.

36

Novoye Vremya, July 2, 1915.

37

By a law sanctioned by the Tsar, in February 1915, the German Colonists of Southern and Western Russia were obliged to sell their land to Russian subjects, and they received ten months’ grace for the purpose.

38

Cf. Contemporary Review, February 1911.

39

Cf. Duma debates of August 1914.

40

Cf. Novoye Vremya, August 17, 1915.

41

Virginio Gayda.

42

Cf. Novoye Vremya, February 24, 1915.

43

Cf. Utro Rossiyi, August 28, 1915.

44

Novoye Vremya, June 24, 1915.

45

For example, the Banca Franco-Italiana in Brazil.

46

Cf. Hors du Joug allemand, par Léon Daudet.

47

The number for the entire year was 350.

48

In the Daily Telegraph.

49

Count Witte went farther and fixed the end of 1915 as the date.

50

Bismarck: His Reflections and Reminiscences.

51

My authority for the story is the principal observer, who was also an actor in a part of this subsidiary little drama: A. I. Markoff, who at that time represented the semi-official Russian Telegraph Agency, as its head correspondent in Berlin. He himself told me the story in Stockholm and authorized me to make it known.

52

On 24th July I received this official information. It was published on Monday, 27th.

53

Several Russian “knife-grinders” are alleged to have been discovered in various parts of Sweden, moving from place to place, with maps of various districts and a good deal of money in their pockets. The Swedes declare that they are Russian spies.

54

The value of wares she sold to Sweden in 1911 is computed at 275,423,000 krons as against 170,999,000 krons’ worth purchased from Great Britain.

55

See Le Temps, October 31, 1915.

56

Mr. M. Civinini of the Corriere della Sera. See Corriere della Sera, October 11, 1915.

57

In September 1914. See Morning Post, September 4, 1914.

58

The Batak massacre of Bulgarians by order of Abdul Kerim Pasha had called forth Gladstone’s pamphlet: Bulgarian Atrocities, and aroused the horror of civilized men. But the Hungarian aristocracy sympathized with the mass murderer, and presented him with a golden hilted sabre. The list of subscribers for this mark of aversion to the Bulgarian people can still be viewed in the Museum at Budapest. The third name on that list – Princess Clementine – is followed immediately by that of her son Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, who gave one hundred florins as a token of his admiration for the exterminator of his future subjects! It need hardly be added that he was not yet Prince of Bulgaria.

59

General Fitcheff has since become Minister of War.

60

This narrative was published by M. Wesselitsky in the Novoye Vremya, November 6, 1915.

61

One of the suburbs of Adrianople ceded in July 1915.

62

Roumania’s annual imports from Austria-Hungary, according to the latest available statistics, were valued at 136,906,000 francs; from Germany at 183,713,000; and from Great Britain at only 85,470,000 francs. France exported thither goods valued at no more than 35,273,000 francs.

63

The Highest of All is the official designation of the Kaiser: der Allerhöchste.

64

August 17, 1914.

65

August 20, 1914.

66

August 22, 1914.

67

August 23, 1914.

68

August 29, 1914.

69

September 12, 1914.

70

Cf. Contemporary Review, November 1914. I was requested to suppress an article on the subject of “Coalition Government” and another on the subject of “Tariff Reform during and after the War.”

71

August 5, 1914.

72

February 1915.

73

Turkey had already violated her neutrality to our detriment many times. For instance, on September 25 she had erected military works against us on the Sinai frontier; as far back as August 25 Turkish officers had seized Egyptian camels laden with foodstuffs. Moslem fidahis in Ottoman service endeavoured to incite the Egyptian Mohammedans against the British Government during the first half of October.

74

August 13, 1914.

75

November 3, 1914.

76

On October 25, 1908, after having studied the origins of the Turkish Revolution and the antecedents of its authors, and while all Europe was still warmly congratulating the Young Turks on their bloodless victory and moderation, I dispatched the following telegraphic message to the Daily Telegraph—

“Most unwillingly do I give utterance to facts and impressions calculated to introduce a jarring note into the harmonious optimism of Western peoples, who confidently augur great things of the young Ottoman nation, and discern no difficulties likely to become formidable dangers to the new-born State. But a knowledge of all the essential data is indispensable to correct the diagnosis without which the malady cannot be successfully treated. Emancipation, then, has produced a beneficent enthusiasm for the political ideals of Europe in minds hitherto impermeable to Western notions, but has neither transformed the national character nor supplied the revolutionary movement with the requisite constructive forces. Neither can it break the fateful continuity of Turkish history nor avert the defects of the destructive causes that have been operative here for generations.”

77

February 6, 1915, and the following three days.

78

August 23, 1914.

79

November 6, 1914.

80

July 1915.

81

In the Petit Journal, the Homme Enchaîné, l’Illustration, the Revue Hebdomadaire, and the Revue.

82

Fevrier, Revue, 1915, p. 195.

83

Cf. Novoye Vremya, June 26, 1915.

84

See Hayashi’s Secret Memoirs.

85

October 10, 1914.

86

September 8, 1914.

87

October 13, 1914.

88

December 6, 1914.

89

February 15, 1915.

90

January 15, 1915.

91

Di San Giuliano died on October 18, 1914. He was working for a short time on the 17th.

92

On December 20, 1914.

93

Italian Green Book, Despatch N. 8.

94

Italian Green Book, January 14, 1915, Despatch N. 11.

95

Italian Green Book, Dispatch N. 64.

96

Italian Green Book, Dispatch N. 71, April 16, 1915.

97

May 3, 1915. Cf. Italian Green Book, Dispatch N. 76.

98

Cf. Daily Telegraph, May 10, 1915.

99

March 16, 1916.

100

Giornale d’Italia, June 19, 1915. Corriere della Sera, June 20, 1915.

101

La Roumanie, July 26, 1915.

102

Gazette de Lausanne, July 6, 1915, and Corriere della Sera, July 8, 1915.

103

July 22, 1915.

104

Cf. Daily Telegraph, March 14, 1916, in telegram from Athens.

105

Novoye Vremya, July 22, 1915.

106

Arbeiter Zeitung.

107

Cf. L’Idea Nazionale, March 7, 1915; Tribuna, April 1, 1915.

108

A spirited protest against this poisonous endeavour was published by a number of Belgians, including Camille Huysmans, who refused to accept any favours from the Germans.

109

One-third gold cover is the amount fixed. Cf. Professor J. Plenge, Der Krieg und die Volkswirtschaft.

110

These figures are drawn from statistics published in July 1914. Cf. Dr. Karl Hildebrand, Ein starkes Volk.

111

Cf. Messenger of Europe, April 1915, M. Lurié.

112

Der Zentral-Verband Deutscher Industrieller and Der Bund der Industriellen.

113

It is affirmed by contrabandists in Scandinavia who are acting on Germany’s behalf, that many of the commissions for the acquisition of raw stuffs for Germany are composed almost exclusively of non-Russian subjects of the Tsar.

114

Cf. Karl Hildebrand, Ein starkes Volk, p. 122.

115

It is noticed by the Italian and French press; cf., for instance, Roma, October 31, 1915.

116

On March 16, 1916.

117

The New York World, in a leading article published March 18, writes: “No pacifist proclaims the doctrine that, although Americans had a legal right to live near the border, they should have taken themselves out of the danger zone in the interest of peace. No German-American Alliance holds meetings to proclaim the dead at Columbus as ‘Guardian angels.’ No German language newspaper has spoken of the New Mexico massacre as undertaken in a holy cause, or referred to the President as incapable of understanding either German militarism or German Kultur. Yet the Americans who were assassinated on the Lusitania and the Arabic had as much right to be where they were as the Americans who were dragged from their beds at Columbus and slaughtered. The Lusitania murder was deliberately planned and ordered by the Government in Berlin, which has assumed full responsibility therefore, and presented but one excuse, that its victims were unexpectedly numerous. The New Mexico murder was planned and executed by a savage, with no pretence that there is a Government behind him, the guilt of the outlaw of the border being not one whit less than that of the outlaw of the sea.”

118

Mr. Lloyd George’s speech at Bristol. Cf. Daily Telegraph, September 10, 1915.

119

Ibid.

120

Ibid.

121

Mr. Lloyd George’s speech at Bristol. Cf. Daily Telegraph, September 10, 1915.

122

Berliner Tageblatt, March 9, 1916.

123

It is but fair to say that venality is not one of the characteristics of the German bureaucracy. Their sense of duty towards the State is the nearest approach to morality of which they now seem capable.

124

The German press gave great prominence to this item of news. Cf. Frankfurter Zeitung, January 8, 1916.

125

The Bourse Gazette, February 21.

126

Cf. Reitch (about February 17, 1916), March 5, 1916.

127

A pood is equal to 36.11 lbs.

128

Cf. Novoye Vremya, October 9, 1915.

129

The German press welcomes items of information like this. Cf. Frankfurter Zeitung, January 13, 1916.

130

Over a hundred million head.

131

Cf. the Russian journal, Kieff, also the Frankfurter Zeitung, January 29, 1916.

132

Novoye Vremya, January 1916. Frankfurter Zeitung, January 21, 1916.

133

Le Journal, November 26, 1915.

134

Le Journal, November 26, 1915.

135

Le Journal, November 26, 1915.

136

Le Journal, December 2, 1915. They were photographed and the photograph reproduced in that paper.

137

That was published in December 1915.

138

Le Journal, December 2, 1915.

139

Le Journal, December 4, 1915.

140

Journal Official, answer to question No. 5730.

141

Karl Hildebrand, Ein starkes Volk, p. 108.

142

The Figaro, February 22, 1916.

143

Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift.

144

Cf. Friedrich Naumann, Mitteleuropa.

145

Giornale del lavori pubblici. Cf. also Giornale d’Italia, August 22, 1915.

146

Zeitschrift des Handelsvertragsvereins, March 30, 1915. Cf. also La Gazette de Lausanne and L’Idea Nazionale, December 5, 1915.

147

Neue Zurcher Zeitung.

148

Neue Zurcher Zeitung, also L’Idea Nazionale, December 5, 1915.

149

Giovanni Preziosi, La Germania alla Conquista d’Italia, 2d edizione, p. 150.

150

Deutsche Bank, 248 million marks; Diskonto Gesellschaft, 149 millions; Dresdner Bank, 261 millions; Darmstädter Bank, 192 millions; Berliner Handelsg. 145 millions; Commerz- u. Diskonto Bank, 100 millions; Nationalbank, 98 millions; Mitteldeutsche Kreditbank, 69 million marks.