by Simon Heffer
Bertie advised Grey that in Paris ‘the feeling … is that peace between the Powers depends on England … for Germany will not face the danger to her of her supplies by sea being cut off by the British Fleet at a time when she could not get them from Russia and France and little from Austria’.178 He said the press, but not the people, were becoming bellicose; he criticised the French government for not urging Russia to pull back, and agreed with London that a British show of support would simply encourage the Russians. The Paris bourse was virtually closed and the banks were refusing to issue coin in return for notes. Britain’s military attaché in Paris had discovered that all the necessary preliminaries for a general mobilisation had been carried out.
By 31 July, a Friday, continental bourses had closed, and London joined them. Despite Lloyd George’s attempts to instil calm, panic pervaded the City, with business at a standstill. People had been ‘flocking’ to the Bank of England the previous day ‘to change notes for gold,’ a discount house reported.179 The Bank raised its discount rate from 4 per cent to 8 per cent, to defend its supply of gold, and announced that it ‘contemplated’ an issue of £1 banknotes because of the hoarding of gold sovereigns.180 The next day the rate would reach 10 per cent. When customers demanded gold from clearing banks they were given notes and told to take them to the Bank of England, resulting in hundreds queuing around Threadneedle Street. This provoked Walter Cunliffe, the charm-free governor of the Bank, to visit Lloyd George after lunch on 31 July to complain about the joint-stock banks ‘acting against and not with the Bank of England’ in encouraging people to deplete the gold reserves. Cunliffe wanted the government to order the suspension of cash payments, but the Treasury refused: the Bank’s reserves were down to £17 million, and it was agreed a loss of another £5 million would be the ‘tipping point’.181
That morning The Times declared that ‘the instinct of self-preservation, which is the strongest factor in national life … compels us … to be ready to strike with all our force for our own safety and that of our friends’: it feared a German push to capture the Channel ports in France and Belgium, ‘which might then become German naval bases against England.’182 It said that even an occupation of Belgium and northern France without control of the ports would threaten national security, and the enormous Army and Navy Britain would need to defend herself would crush the economy. However, the main travel agencies reported that their business was ‘not much affected’, and tours planned for the following week to France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and Switzerland were proceeding as planned.183 The Neutrality League put up 10,000 posters around England and had 362 men on London’s streets with sandwich boards: the feeling against war remained strong.184
The cabinet, now acutely alert to the possibility of a German infringement of Belgian sovereignty, following Goschen’s report of his meeting with Bethmann and their exchange about British neutrality, met at 11 a.m. It discussed Belgium again, and agreed that everything hinged on whether its neutrality was respected. Morley noted how two factions – quite open, with no element of intrigue – were now operating for and against a military intervention. Grey had declared himself; Churchill was spoiling for a fight, whereas Harcourt was organising opinion in favour of neutrality. Asquith, in Morley’s feline phrase, was ‘seeing and waiting’.185 Lloyd George had reported that financiers and industrialists to whom he had spoken were ‘aghast’ at the prospect of Britain joining a European conflict, because it would wreck London’s place as the centre of the international system of credit.186 When he eventually came out as pro-war, and Morley reminded him of this, he replied that he had never believed those sentiments, but had merely reported them. Morley also aired his fears about how things would be if Russia were to win such a war as a result of Britain fighting Germany. ‘Will that be good for Western civilisation? I at least don’t think so … Germany is unpopular in England, but Russia is more unpopular still.’187 He added: ‘Lloyd George told me after that he had never thought of all that.’ By now Morley and John Burns had made common cause, with an unspoken understanding that neither would stay in a cabinet committed to war.
It was now, indeed, Russia that was making the running. Bethmann, so Goschen reported, had heard that Russia had effectively closed its frontier with Germany, and evacuated people and money into the interior. Crowe interpreted this as an attempt to blame Russia for any ensuing catastrophe, and Nicolson felt the Russians were simply taking sensible precautions. Cambon told Grey that Germany was mobilising unannounced: he believed Germany wanted France to announce its mobilisation first and thus appear the aggressor.
Grey told Lichnowsky that if Russia and France rejected any reasonable proposal that Germany could broker with Austria, Britain would wash its hands of the matter. Otherwise, he warned him that if France were drawn in so would Britain be. That afternoon the German embassy informed the Foreign Office that unless Russia withdrew its general mobilisation within twelve hours, ‘Germany would be obliged to mobilise in her own defence.’188 This would happen on both the Russian and French frontiers. Grey – in what he called ‘a diplomatic step that contemplated the contingency of war’ – asked the French and German governments separately whether each was prepared to respect Belgian neutrality, provided no other power violated it.189 He also sought from Brussels confirmation that Belgium would ‘to the utmost of her power maintain neutrality and desire and expect other Powers to observe and uphold it.’190
Until a treaty obligation was invoked, Britain’s official position would not change. Grey said a refusal to observe neutrality would make it ‘extremely difficult to restrain public feeling’.191 Just as the Commons was rising that Friday, at 5 p.m. Asquith – who had just been to Buckingham Palace to brief the King and discuss a ‘depressing’ telegram the Sovereign had had from the Kaiser attacking the ‘perfidy’ of the Tsar – made a short statement to confirm that the Foreign Office had heard (from Germany, he emphasised, and not from Russia) ‘that Russia has proclaimed a general mobilisation of her Army and Fleet, and that in consequence of this, martial law was to be proclaimed in Germany. We understand this to mean that mobilisation will follow in Germany.’192 He declined to answer any questions until Monday: events would, however, move faster than he imagined.
Grey and his advisers now saw war approaching: the foreign secretary felt Germany had ‘precipitated war’.193 In fact, it was the Russian mobilisation that had made it impossible for Germany to stand aside: which may have been how Germany had wanted it. Bertie told Grey late on 31 July that The Times’s correspondent in Paris had been summoned by the French Foreign Ministry and briefed on German troop movements, and how these exceeded anything France had done. The correspondent assumed France wanted British public opinion softened up before a British mobilisation. The French formally asked Grey what Britain’s attitude would be if Germany mobilised. Bertie said the German ambassador to Paris was calling on the French foreign minister at 1 p.m. on Saturday 1 August to receive France’s response, and had intimated he would require his passports. Opinions hardened further in London with news that the Germans had appropriated French trains that were just over their frontier and had torn up lines going into France. Crowe felt Germany ‘is throwing dust into our eyes for the purpose of delaying if not hindering … British preparations’; and Nicolson that ‘Germany has been playing with us for the past few days.’194
Grey told Cambon it was ‘quite wrong to suppose that we had left Germany under the impression that we would not intervene. I had refused overtures to promise that we should remain neutral.’ But he admitted that the cabinet, when it had met earlier, had concluded it was still not in a position to make a pledge. ‘The commercial and financial situation was exceedingly serious; there was danger of complete collapse that would involve us and everybody else in ruin.’195 He warned Cambon that British neutrality might be the only means of preventing a Europe-wide collapse of credit, which is why that position was reserved. Grey, taking a line agreed with Asquith and the cabinet, stres
sed Parliament would have to be consulted, and public opinion gauged: and noted how ‘the preservation of Belgian neutrality might be, I would not say a decisive, but an important factor, in determining our attitude.’196 Cambon registered ‘great disappointment’, the greater when Grey still could not promise support for France if Germany attacked her. He asked Grey to resubmit his question to a meeting of the cabinet; Grey could only reply that the cabinet would meet again after further developments.
Asquith and Lloyd George managed that evening to reassure the directors of the Bank of England about the financial situation; and then Asquith dined with Edwin Montagu, under-secretary for India, and Grey: but after dinner Asquith heard from Berlin ‘that the German Emperor’s efforts for peace had been suddenly arrested and frustrated by the Tsar’s decree for a complete Russian mobilisation.’197 The Foreign Office had confirmation from the German embassy at midnight on 31 July that the Tsar had asked the Kaiser to mediate between Austria–Hungary and Russia. The Kaiser had immediately agreed and had spoken to Vienna, only to learn of the Russian mobilisation, ‘whereupon the Emperor at once informed the Tsar that such action rendered his mediation illusory’.198 The Kaiser asked Tsar Nicholas to stop his own mobilisation; the Tsar refused. The German mediation had continued nonetheless, and on the lines suggested by Grey, but the announcement of the mobilisation of the whole Russian army and fleet made any constructive answer ‘impossible’. That, according to the message from the embassy, was why Germany had issued the twelve-hour ultimatum to Russia, and had asked France where it stood.
Cambon sought, and received, an audience of the King just before midnight on 31 July; but the King could act only on the advice of his ministers, and could say nothing to Cambon different from what Grey had already told him. Asquith hailed a taxi and followed him to the Palace at 1.30 a.m., with a draft of a personal message from the King to the Tsar. ‘The King was hauled out of his bed, and one of my strangest experiences was sitting with him, clad in a dressing-gown, while I read the message and the proposed answer.’199 London also learned that the Belgian army had mobilised, and railway communications between Belgium and Germany had ceased. The question of the 1839 Treaty of London, and its guarantees of Belgian neutrality, were becoming less theoretical by the hour.
Bertie told Grey that the German embassy in Paris was packing up and that the French government had reiterated its request to Britain on where it stood should Germany attack. The French also answered Grey’s question about Belgian neutrality, which they promised to respect: no reply came from Berlin until 3.30 a.m. on 1 August, in which Goschen reported Jagow saying he must consult the Kaiser and Bethmann before answering; Goschen asked him to do so quickly. Jagow responded that Belgium had ‘already committed certain acts which he could only qualify as hostile’, and cited an embargo on a grain shipment destined for Germany as an act of provocation.200 He then admitted it was ‘unlikely’ he could give an answer.
Grey, having been briefed by Cambon and Bertie, told Lichnowsky that France proposed to observe Belgian neutrality. In the early hours of 1 August the Foreign Office sent the personal message from the King to the Tsar, urging him to talk to Austria again and halt his war preparations: the King said this was vital ‘to secure the peace of the world’.201 The message was copied to Paris and shown to Poincaré, to reassure him. In the early hours of 1 August the Foreign Office heard from Goschen that Jagow felt he could do nothing further until he heard from Russia; and since he conceded the message Germany had sent Russia was de facto an ultimatum, the chances of a constructive reply were unpromising. Goschen reported that the demands to Russia had been printed in the Berlin evening papers, ‘and large crowds are parading the streets singing patriotic songs.’202 Britain’s man in Brussels, Sir Francis Villiers, reported that not only would Belgium fight to defend its neutrality, it also expected other powers to support it. The Belgian foreign minister separately had a message delivered to the Foreign Office about the importance of the treaty of 1839; by that stage, such a reminder was unnecessary.
Nicolson had told Grey late on 31 July that it was ‘essential’ for Britain to give the order to mobilise.203 ‘It is useless,’ he told the foreign secretary, ‘to shut our eyes to the fact that possibly within the next twenty-four hours Germany will be moving across the French frontier’. He believed public opinion would rapidly shift in favour of France in those circumstances. Grey agreed, and said the matter would be considered the following morning: the cabinet had been summoned for 11 a.m. Crowe was even more incendiary, sending Grey a private memorandum that evening, which he invited Grey to disregard if he thought it ‘worthless’.
‘The theory that England cannot engage in a big war means her abdication as an independent state,’ he began. ‘She can be brought to her knees and made to obey the behests of any Power or group of Powers who can go to war, of whom there are several.’204 He argued that such an attitude negated the point of an army and navy at an ‘enormous annual cost’; the principle of force as a last resort on which British foreign policy stood would be exposed as ‘an empty futility’; the balance of power could not be maintained by a state incapable of fighting. He warned Grey not to be deceived by ‘commercial panic’, the prelude to all conflict. He blamed the City panic on the behaviour of German financial houses, as part of that country’s war preparations to destabilise others. Grey had, rightly in Crowe’s view, dismissed the German proposal for Britain to remain neutral as ‘dishonourable’. Refusing to fight for France would, however, be just that.
Crowe called the entente cordiale ‘a moral bond’, even if it was no treaty.205 To repudiate it would cost Britain its name, and to endorse the idea that Britain could not go to war would be ‘political suicide’. The French question was one of right or wrong first, political expediency second. ‘I feel confident that our duty and our interest will be seen to lie in standing by France in her hour of need,’ he concluded. The official collection of documents, which reproduces the memo in full, says it ‘was written under the stress of intense emotion; he believed that decisions were being made which would hazard the whole future of the country and a policy was being considered which would irreparably destroy its reputation.’206 Grey agreed with Crowe, but pending cabinet endorsement could not immediately act in accordance with the advice.
The Times echoed Crowe’s line on 1 August, though praised the ‘cool heads’ in Germany trying ‘to prevent the outbreak of a devastating war which will bring into collision Powers which have no good cause of quarrel, and are, on the contrary, knit together by many ties of interest.’207 The Times’s editorials remained bellicose – its proprietor, Lord Northcliffe, had longed for a fight with Germany for years – and that morning it warned its readers that a war ‘may even threaten our national existence’.208 The King, receiving a constant stream of Foreign Office telegrams, decided there was practically ‘no chance of peace’.209 The government took further precautionary measures: not only were dockyards, magazines and other stores given garrisons, but guards were placed on strategic communications such as railway junctions, signal boxes, bridges and tunnels. Military and civilian dockyards and shipyards were guarded, and entry to Portsmouth, Devonport, Sheerness and other important naval areas restricted. Word arrived from Canada, Australia and New Zealand that those countries were ready to send expeditionary forces to Europe to defend the mother country. The imperial family meant any conflict would have a global aspect.
Grey had a political as well as a diplomatic problem. He warned Asquith before the cabinet that morning that if ‘an out-and-out and uncompromising policy of non-intervention at all costs is adopted’ he would resign.210 As he recalled, ‘outside the Cabinet I felt sure that the anti-war group were meeting, were arranging concerted action, if need be, to keep this country out of war or to resign if they failed in doing so.’211 He knew the group included some of the most influential Liberals, ‘sufficient in number to have broken up the Cabinet.’ Hence he proceeded with the caution Crowe found so f
rustrating. Also, Grey made no attempt to change the minds of those who did not think like him: if war came, he wanted it prosecuted with unanimity: he didn’t want anyone ‘manoeuvred’ into it. He knew the pledge to support France that he would have liked would not be forthcoming, and that it might bring the government down to try to procure it. He also sensed that while some wanted to take on Germany because of a hatred of Prussian militarism – perhaps he had Northcliffe in mind – most Britons wanted peace. Industry, he knew, especially did not want war, because trade was good. There was some pro-French feeling: few gave a damn about Serbia. Asquith resolved that if Grey went he would resign too. Yet he felt only Morley, and possibly Simon, would object to intervention if Belgium were invaded.
However, it would not come to that. In his memoirs, Grey said the mood of the ‘anti-war group’ in the cabinet changed by 1 August.212 He attributed this to colleagues thinking about the consequences if war broke out; and, as they did, ‘the more uneasy they became at the prospect of Britain sitting still and immoveable, while great events fraught with incalculable consequences were happening at her very doors.’ The idea of the German fleet steaming down the Channel, bombarding France within sight of the English coast, was, he felt, what hardened opinion behind him. ‘My recollection of those three days, August 1, 2 and 3, is of almost continuous cabinets and of immense strain,’ he wrote in 1925.213