by Simon Heffer
Matters were complicated by the Germans impeding telegraph traffic from Berlin: but when Goschen finally got through to Nicolson he warned him that not only were the Germans reluctant to answer Grey’s enquiry about Belgian neutrality, but they were also cooking up stories about Belgian misbehaviour to provide a case for invading, starting with the supposed stoppage of the consignment of grain. At 7 p.m. on 2 August the Belgian government received an ultimatum from the Germans, offering an entente if Belgium would facilitate movements of German troops; the Belgian cabinet was meeting, and an answer was requested by 7 a.m. Belgium’s answer was to reject the ultimatum absolutely; the French said they had five army corps ready to enter Belgium to fight the Germans, if Belgium wished. When he wrote to Venetia Stanley that evening Asquith emphasised that ‘we have no obligation of any kind either to France or Russia to give them military or naval help’, but added that ‘it is against British interests that France should be wiped out as a Great Power.’ This confirmed that he, at least, had made up his mind about what the security of Britain and its place in the world required the government to do.
VI
On Monday 3 August – a bank holiday – The Times wrote: ‘The die is cast. The great European struggle which the nations have so long struggled to avert has begun.’245 It added, presciently, that ‘Europe is to be the scene of the most terrible war that she has witnessed since the fall of the Roman Empire.’ It had no doubt where fault lay: ‘The blame must fall plainly on Germany,’ a fulfilment of Northcliffe’s much-rehearsed prophecies. It argued that Germany could have called off Austria’s dogs, a questionable assumption: and it took no account of Russia’s precipitousness. Such assertions – made also in the Daily Mail, Northcliffe’s other organ of opinion – defined the problem for most of the public, albeit somewhat inaccurately. But about Germany’s breaches of faith and high-handed attitude towards Belgium and Luxembourg there could be little argument: Northcliffe had always said Germany was ruthless, and had been vindicated.
That morning Asquith’s question about his chancellor was at last answered. After his breakfast, Morley had written to Asquith ‘with heartfelt pain’ to say that he could ‘contribute nothing useful to your deliberations’ and so had decided to go after that morning’s cabinet meeting.246 He told Lloyd George this before the meeting began, noting the chancellor seemed ‘astonished’. What followed was confirmation of Lloyd George’s volte face. He told him: ‘But if you go, it will put us who don’t go, in a great hole.’ Germany’s ‘bullying’ of Belgium was given as Lloyd George’s reason for changing his mind, to which Morley said that ‘war is not the only reply’. Morley was sure Churchill had talked Lloyd George round: he felt the chancellor had chosen ‘the politics of adventure; and found in the German ultimatum to Belgium a sufficiently plausible excuse.’ Esher, a gossip whose sources were superior to almost anyone else’s, recorded in his diary that ‘the Chancellor of the Exchequer, at first hostile to Germany, had been influenced to join the Peace Party of the Cabinet by the strong representations made to him by the Liberal Members of Parliament and by his supporters in the country.’247 Esher did not record a reason for Lloyd George’s final change of mind, which appears to have been a desire to be with the majority.
With the cabinet now moving towards a consensus, it became urgent to ensure that military preparations for a conflict were adequate. Asquith was also acting Secretary of State for War, having held the post as well as the premiership since Jack Seely’s resignation over the Curragh incident in March.248 So much had he concentrated on the overall picture that he was giving inadequate attention to preparing the Army for conflict. Henry Wilson had told Amery early on 2 August that there was ‘absolutely nothing being done at the War Office.’249 Haldane now took temporary charge of the War Office, and summoned the Army Council and ordered preparations for immediate mobilisation. He and General Sir John French, who would command the BEF, wanted six divisions to go to France at once: they were outvoted by other members of the council, who wanted to send four, with a fifth following shortly.
That left the question of who would be permanently appointed to the War Office, as Asquith could not possibly do that job as well as being prime minister. Grey believed the prime minister’s first thought had been to send Haldane back to a job he had done from 1905 to 1912, and in which he had distinguished himself by implementing reforms of the Army. These had cut the size of the Army and made it more efficient, and had prepared it for a continental war. Grey had persuaded Haldane as early as 1907 that the most likely enemy the Army would have to fight would be Germany. Haldane had shared some of Asquith’s burdens with him for the last four months, as the prime minister did not have the time to do the war secretary’s job properly, so it would have been a natural move.
However, to many people the obvious candidate was one of those Army Council members who had voted for four divisions: Field Marshal Earl Kitchener of Khartoum, in London on leave from Egypt, where he was Consul General. He had many supporters. The Times, clearly well briefed, called the following morning for Kitchener to become war secretary for the duration, the cry led by its military correspondent, Lt Col. Charles à Court Repington, a crony of the Field Marshal, society ladies’ man, philanderer and egomaniac. Churchill, egged on by Balfour, had suggested to Asquith that Kitchener should have the War Office. It was not a novel idea: Rosebery had advocated it after the Boer War. More recently, when Asquith had taken on the job, the mountebank, huckster and bankrupt Horatio Bottomley had suggested it in his magazine John Bull. Asquith tipped Haldane off that Kitchener would be appointed Secretary of State for War in the event of hostilities.
The cabinet met at 11.15 a.m., after the Privy Council meeting that had issued the proclamations. Asquith began by saying he had the resignations of four ministers – Beauchamp and Simon had joined Burns and Morley, whom he called ‘the greatest source of the moral authority of the Government.’250 Maurice Hankey, secretary of the Committee of Imperial Defence and a man whose name would be made by the war, recorded that Ramsay MacDonald, the leader of the Labour Party, had also been asked to join the government but, influenced in part by Morley, had refused.251 Accepting that many Liberal MPs felt the same, Asquith said that if more ministers went he would have to offer his resignation to the King. He did not think any putative leader would handle the crisis better than he had; or that a coalition would work. Lloyd George spoke in his support and against further resignations, which calmed matters, and all four resigners promised to say nothing and to preserve national unity, for the moment.
Asquith had already had talks with Lansdowne and Law, and they had pledged support for the government if war was declared. Fighting with France, however, was still not an argument that would carry the cabinet to justify war: but defending Belgian neutrality was, and by the end of that meeting on 3 August the cabinet, with the exception of the resigners, was resolved that Britain would have to fight in that cause. Morley was deeply affected by breaking a relationship with Asquith of nearly thirty years: but could not reconcile with his conscience the cabinet decision to ‘bind ourselves to Russia’ by supporting France.252 Over breakfast that day Grey persuaded Simon, whose ambition was legendary, and then Asquith persuaded Beauchamp, who had a genuine sense of duty, to go back. In his memoirs, Simon recalled ‘the atmosphere of anxiety and distress into which many patriotic Liberals felt themselves plunged.’253 For a time, he managed to surface.
At 12.30 p.m. Grey heard from the Consul General in Antwerp that Germans had crossed the Belgian border and occupied Tongres. Lichnowsky claimed that stories of Germans entering France were ‘complete fabrications’.254 The promise that the Royal Navy would defend the French coast had had an effect, since the Germans said there would be no attacks on that coast while Britain remained neutral. Now, that neutrality was becoming a German obsession. Later on 3 August Germany’s London embassy sent the Foreign Office a list of alleged border violations by the French, pleading: ‘Great Britain will no doubt recogn
ise that Germany has done her utmost to preserve peace and the provocation of her enemies have [sic] forced her to take up the arms in order to maintain her existence.’255
Despite the bank holiday, Parliament met. There was an uneasy combination in the country of relaxation tempered by tension as the crisis loomed over people’s lives. Day-trippers seeking trains found services cancelled, as rolling stock was diverted for troop movements and the government took over the railways. Instead of seaside excursions, many Londoners crowded into Whitehall and around Downing Street to witness the comings and goings. Hawkers sold huge quantities of little Union flags for the crowds to wave. Asquith noted how, as he went to and from the Commons, ‘we are now always surrounded and escorted by cheering crowds of loafers and holiday-makers.’256 London’s museums reported attendances well down on 1913. The boat trains from Victoria were full, not of English travellers, but of Europeans returning to the Continent, ‘their exceedingly grave expressions testifying to their anxiety,’ as The Times reported.257
By Monday naval reservists swelled the crowds leaving Victoria; those whose excursions had been cancelled stood on the concourse and cheered the reservists. For many, however, nothing could dampen the holiday spirit: 60,000 went by train from London to Southend, for example, and others by steamer to there, Margate and Ramsgate.258 Nearly 15,000 people filled the Oval to watch Surrey put up 472 for 5 against Nottinghamshire: Jack Hobbs made 226. But at the Canterbury cricket festival, where Kent also batted well, the Buffs’ tent was almost empty, and tension hung over the ground. Elsewhere, the immediacy of a national emergency was palpable. British merchant ships were reported to be leaving German ports and heading for home or neutral berths. Experimental wireless stations were closed, and merchant shipping was banned from using wireless in British waters; the King issued a proclamation allowing the state to requisition merchant ships as troop transports. Another proclamation banned the export of goods that could be useful in war, from aeroplanes to pack animals, and explosive components to bandages and dressings.
The foreign secretary rose in a packed House of Commons just before 3 p.m. He had considered reading out Bethmann’s request for British neutrality, and his response, but declined for fear it would cause ‘indignation’: Grey was determined a decision for war should be taken coolly, not in anger. He found Prussian militarism ‘hateful’, but his personal feelings were not enough.259 His remarks, therefore, contained a calm assessment of developments up to that point, but he did not dilute the severity of the crisis: ‘Events move so rapidly that it is exceedingly difficult to state with technical accuracy the actual state of affairs, but it is clear that the peace of Europe cannot be preserved. Russia and Germany, at any rate, have declared war upon each other.’260
The aim, he said, of the diplomatic activity of the preceding days had been to maintain peace: that approach had worked in the Balkan crisis of 1912, for the powers had united and, even though the Balkan League and the Turks had gone to war over Turkey’s continued occupation of parts of mainland Europe, the great powers – led by France and Austria–Hungary – had agreed to keep out of the fight. However, diplomacy had not worked now. Grey blamed ‘a disposition … to force things rapidly to an issue.’261 He wanted the House to ‘approach this crisis in which we are now, from the point of view of British interests, British honour, and British obligations, free from all passion as to why peace has not been preserved.’ Unusually, he promised to publish the diplomatic correspondence, to prove Britain’s good faith: when the book came out it proved a bestseller, was translated into several languages, and left the public in little doubt that the Foreign Office had sought, albeit ineffectually, to get the powers talking.
Grey said that until the preceding day Britain had promised nothing except diplomatic support to any party in the quarrel: he emphasised it would be for the Commons to decide whether to take further steps. He mentioned Britain’s entente with France, and that the French had no desire to fight anyone over Serbia: but France’s formal alliance with Russia forced them. Britain was not party to that alliance, and did not even know its terms; but he made public that any bombardment of France’s Channel coast by a third party would not be a situation in which Britain could stand aside. ‘I believe that would be the feeling of this country,’ he added.262
He wished to regard Britain’s predicament not in terms of sentiment, but of the national interest: and it was very much in British interests to keep the friendly French fleet in the Mediterranean, helping to keep open trade routes. He read out the statement he had made to Cambon to that effect. However, he said it was not a declaration of war, and nor did it entail aggressive action, but bound Britain to take such action should the contingency arise. Grey pointed out that the Germans undertaking not to attack the north French coast was not enough. ‘There is the more serious consideration – becoming more serious every hour – there is the question of the neutrality of Belgium.’263
He explained Britain’s obligations as guarantor of Belgian neutrality under the treaties of 1839 and 1870, citing Gladstone who, in 1870, had said how Britain’s honour and interests rested on protecting Belgian neutrality, had that been necessary as a result of the Franco-Prussian War. He informed the House of his discussions with Paris and Berlin about the question; and disclosed that the King of the Belgians had just appealed to George V for a ‘diplomatic intervention’.264 Grey had made such an intervention: but circumstances seemed to have advanced beyond that. He confirmed Britain’s ‘great and vital interests’ in maintaining Belgian independence, for Belgium’s sake and for the sake of other small European countries that might be threatened by larger ones.
This was a moral as much as a strategic question, and again it was Gladstone who was brought to bear on the problems of August 1914. He had stated, in 1870: ‘We have an interest in the independence of Belgium which is wider than that which we may have in the literal operation of the guarantee. It is found in the answer to the question whether under the circumstances of the case, this country, endowed as it is with influence and power, would quietly stand by and witness the perpetration of the direst crime that ever stained the pages of history, and thus become participators in the sin.’265 For Grey and the government, those words described the present: to do nothing would allow what Gladstone had called ‘the unmeasured aggrandisement’ of another great power, and to encourage attacks on smaller countries. If France were beaten (though Grey said he was sure France would not be), that would leave Europe under German domination.266
Grey gave one notable hostage to fortune. Having made the case to support Belgium, he added that ‘if we are engaged in war, we shall suffer but little more than we shall suffer even if we stand aside.’ Like all others, he did not foresee the hecatombs of dead the Great War would build. His reasoning was that, even if Britain did not fight, foreign trade would stop, because there would be no customers; and that after the war it would have neither the wealth nor the moral authority to undo all the harm done during it. ‘I am quite sure,’ he said, ‘that our moral position would be such as to have lost us all respect.’267 Privately, he believed that if Britain did not fight, it would be ‘isolated, discredited and hated’.268
He confirmed that no decision had yet been taken to send an expeditionary force, though confirmed the order to mobilise both the Fleet and the Army, the proclamation for which would be issued the following day. He refused to confirm unconditional neutrality on behalf of Britain, for the reasons he had outlined, and to avoid ‘the most serious and grave economic consequences’.269 He began his peroration: ‘The most awful responsibility is resting upon the Government in deciding what to advise the House of Commons to do … We believe we shall have the support of the House at large in proceeding to whatever the consequences may be and whatever measures may be forced upon us by the development of facts or action taken by others.’270 He added: ‘I believe the country, so quickly has the situation been forced upon it, has not had time to realise the issue. It perhaps is stil
l thinking of the quarrel between Austria and Servia, and not the complications of this matter which have grown out of the quarrel between Austria and Servia.’ It was not merely the public who were at a loss, because of the speed of events. He admitted, apparently bewildered, that ‘it is most difficult to describe what has actually happened.’271 However: ‘When the country realises what is at stake, what the real issues are … we shall be supported throughout, not only by the House of Commons, but by the determination, the resolution, the courage, and the endurance of the whole country.’ Lord Hugh Cecil, a Tory not easily pleased, told a friend that ‘Grey’s speech was very wonderful – I think in the circumstances one may say the greatest speech delivered in our time … the greatest example of the art of persuasion that I have ever listened to.’272
Law was sure Grey, and the government, had done everything possible to preserve peace, and offered the ‘unhesitating support’ of the Opposition in whatever the government did for the ‘honour and security’ of the country.273 John Redmond, leader of the Irish Nationalists, said that whatever might have happened before, at times of difficulty for Britain, because of the move towards Home Rule sympathies had changed in Ireland. ‘The democracy of Ireland,’ he said, ‘will turn with the utmost anxiety and sympathy to this country in every trial and every danger that may overtake it.’ He hoped that the two bodies of volunteers in Ireland threatening a civil war – the Unionist and the Nationalist – would join ‘in comradeship’ to defend ‘our country.’274