Just before three, Grey left the Foreign Office to walk to the Houses of Parliament. The crowd in Whitehall was so dense that police had to open a path. Grey found the House of Commons80 overflowing: the green benches packed with members, shoulder to shoulder; other members sitting in rows of chairs placed four abreast in the Gangway. In the Peers’ Gallery, Lord Lansdowne was wedged next to the Archbishop of Canterbury; Lord Curzon, unable to find a seat, stood behind in a doorway. Every seat in the Diplomatic Gallery was taken except two, which attracted attention as if they had been painted orange; they belonged to the German and Austrian ambassadors. Despite the packed hall, the crowd was silent and members were startled when the Chaplain, backing away from the Speaker, stumbled noisily over chairs unexpectedly placed in the aisle behind him.
Grey came onto the floor of the House, wearing a light summer suit and carrying two worn red Foreign Office dispatch boxes. His entry was unobtrusive; he had taken his seat on the Treasury Bench before he was noticed and cheered. From the Press Gallery, his face seemed “extraordinarily pale, with a curious redness, of nights without sleep, too much reading and writing, around the eyes.” Lloyd George and Churchill came in together, the Chancellor with dishevelled hair and a face drained of color, the First Lord with his eyes on the floor and a cone of paper twisting perpetually in his hands. The House cheered them both, but the louder acclaim was for Churchill, no longer the Tory renegade, now the man responsible for the British Navy. Asquith came in, his face pink, his hair brilliantly white, and, to further cheers, took his seat before the Dispatch Box.
As he sat waiting to deliver the most important speech of his life, Grey’s thoughts went back twenty-eight years to April 1886, when, as a new Member and a new bridegroom, he had watched Gladstone introduce his first Home Rule bill to a crowded House. At the thought of all that had happened in the interim—the death of his wife, the present imminence of war—Grey (he confessed later to a friend) almost broke down. Yet when the Speaker called his name, he remembered later that “I do not recall feeling nervous. At such a moment there could be neither hope of personal success nor fear of personal failure. In a great crisis, a man who has to act or speak stands bare and stripped of choice. He has to do what is in him to do.”
At three-ten P.M., Grey rose and began to speak. His words were “grave,” “dignified,” “clear,” and “unadorned,” although behind the quiet voice, correspondents noted “suppressed fire” and “a certain terrible indignation.” He began with the simple, dreadful truth:
“Mr. Speaker, last week I stated that we were working for peace, not only for this country, but to preserve the peace of Europe. Today it is clear that the peace of Europe cannot be preserved.” He asked the House to approach the crisis from the point of view of “British interests, British honour, and British obligations.” He gave the history of the military conversations with France. He reminded his listeners that he had always promised that he “would have no secret engagement to spring upon the House” and declared this still to be true. France had a treaty with Russia which was dragging her into war, but “we are not parties to the Franco-Russian alliance and we do not even know the terms of that alliance.” Nevertheless, Britain was bound to France, if not by obligation, then by honor and interest. He revealed the naval arrangement by which the French Fleet had been transferred to the Mediterranean, leaving “the northern and western coasts of France absolutely undefended.” He reiterated that Britain had made no commitment to defend those coasts. Nevertheless, he said, “my own feeling is that if a foreign fleet, engaged in a war which France had not sought and in which she had not been the aggressor, came down the English Channel and bombarded and battered the unprotected coasts of France, we could not stand aside [cheers broke out in the House] and see the thing going on practically within sight of our eyes, with our arms folded [the cheering mounted in volume], looking on dispassionately, doing nothing!”
Grey clenched his right fist, raised it, and at the word “nothing,” slammed it down on the Dispatch Box. The House, observing this unique display of emotion by the Foreign Secretary, exploded with a roar. When the noise subsided, Grey added quietly, “And I believe that would be the feeling of this country.”
In the greater roar that followed, Grey knew that he had won the House’s approval for the Cabinet’s Sunday decision to bar the German Fleet from the English Channel.
If defending the Channel and the coast of France was a matter primarily of honour, defending the independence of Belgium—to which Grey turned next—was a matter of treaty obligation, interest, and honor, all wrapped together. The Foreign Secretary cited the language of those treaties. He addressed the temptations of neutrality: “It may be said, I suppose, that we might stand aside, husband our strength, and that, whatever happened in the course of the war, at the end of it, intervene with effect to put things right and to adjust them to our point of view.” This course, Grey warned, would sacrifice both British honor and British interests: “If in a crisis like this we ran away from those obligations of honour and interest as regards the Belgian Treaty, I doubt whether whatever material force we might have at the end of the war would be of very much value in the face of the respect that we should have lost.” The theme which had guided Grey’s diplomacy during the eight years of his ministry then came to the fore: Britain must not permit “the whole of the west of Europe opposite us... falling under the domination of a single power.” “Now, Sir, I ask the House from the point of view of British interests, to consider what may be at stake. If France is beaten in a struggle of life and death, beaten to her knees, loses her position as a Great Power, becomes subordinate to the will and power of one greater than herself... and if Belgium fell under the same dominating influence, and then Holland and then Denmark...” Grey concluded by noting that “the most awful responsibility is resting upon the Government in deciding... what to do.” He asked for support “not only by the House of Commons, but by the determination and the resolution, the courage and the endurance of the whole country.”
Grey’s speech achieved its purpose: he prepared a divided British Parliament and public for war. He had spoken for an hour and fifteen minutes, his words punctuated and interrupted often by fervent, hoarse cheers from the Unionist opposition. His own party had been more subdued, reacting with “brooding anxiety” and “sombre acquiescence.” Asquith, describing the speech to Venetia Stanley, was only moderately generous: “For the most part conversational81 in tone with some of Grey’s usual ragged ends, but extraordinarily well-reasoned and tactful and really cogent.” Lord Hugh Cecil was more acute and more admiring: “Grey’s speech was very wonderful82—I think in the circumstances one may say the greatest speech delivered in our time.... Taking the importance of the occasion, the necessity of persuading many doubtful persons, the extraordinary success it had in that direction, its great dignity, warm emotion, and perfect taste... [it was] the greatest example of the art of persuasion that I have ever listened to.”
When Grey sat down, speakers arose whose divergent messages evoked contrasting reactions. Bonar Law officially confirmed Unionist support of the government’s policy; this was foreknown and the House’s approval was warm but predictable. Then came something wholly unexpected: John Redmond, leader of the Irish Nationalists, announced that Ireland was no longer an issue. “I say to the Government that they may withdraw every one of their soldiers from Ireland. The coasts of Ireland will be defended by her armed sons... the armed Nationalist Catholics in the South will be only too glad to join the armed Protestant Ulstermen in the North.” Members, shouting with joy, leaped to their feet and waved their handkerchiefs. As Redmond later left the hall, Unionist M.P.’s, his implacable foes of a week before, reached to shake his hand. Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Labour Party, struck a dissident note. Grey’s speech, he said, would send “echoes down through history.” But, said MacDonald, “I think he is wrong. I think the Government... is wrong.” Grey had not persuaded him that the country was truly
in danger. “There has been no crime committed by statesmen of this character without those statesmen appealing to their nation’s honour. We fought the Crimean War because of our honour. We rushed to South Africa because of our honour.” The House did not like MacDonald’s speech, and showed its displeasure; next morning, the Daily Mail called the speech “incomprehensible.”fn4
The debate was suspended for dinner. When it resumed, Grey, still on the Front Bench, was handed a message from the Belgian Ambassador in London. It announced the German ultimatum to Belgium. The Belgian Council of State had been given twelve hours to make its decision. The Council required only nine hours. Declaring that to accept the German demand would “sacrifice the honor83 of the nation,” Belgium declared itself “firmly resolved to repel by all means in its power every attack upon its rights.”
Grey passed the dispatch to the Prime Minister and then to others on the Front Bench. Leaving the House with Grey, Churchill asked the Foreign Secretary, “What happens now?”84 “Now,” replied Grey, “we shall send them an ultimatum to stop the invasion of Belgium within 24 hours.” Back in his room, he received the American Ambassador, Walter Page. Did Britain expect Germany to bow to her ultimatum? Page asked. Grey shook his head. “No, of course everybody knows85 there will be a war.” He stopped for a moment, struggling for words. When he resumed, his eyes were filled with tears. “Thus, the efforts of a lifetime86 go for nothing. I feel like a man who has wasted his life.” At dusk that evening, Grey stood with a friend at his window in the Foreign Office, looking down at the lamps being lit in St. James’s Park. It was then that the unpoetic Sir Edward Grey uttered the lines which memorably signalled the coming of the First World War. “The lamps are going out87 all over Europe,” he said. “We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.”
At this hour, Germany declared war on France. Excusing the blow that Moltke was about to deliver, Bethmann told the Reichstag that France was at fault. He cited several violations of the German frontier and German airspace: eighty French officers in Prussian uniforms had tried to cross the frontier in twelve motorcars; French aviators had thrown “bombs on the railway88 at Karlsruhe and Nuremberg.” (A subsequent check of German newspapers published in the allegedly bombed areas revealed that both planes and bombs had gone unnoticed.) Jagow, hoping to influence foreign opinion, telegraphed the German ambassadors in London and Rome that “a French physician89 with the aid of two disguised officers attempted to infect the wells of... Metz with cholera bacilli. He [the physician] was shot.”
On Tuesday morning, August 4, the German Army crossed the Belgian frontier. The British Cabinet met at eleven o’clock to hold what Asquith dryly described as an “interesting” session: “We got the news90 that the Germans had entered Belgium and had announced... that if necessary they would push their way through by force of arms. This simplifies matters, so we sent the Germans an ultimatum to expire at midnight.” At two o’clock, Asquith walked to the House to announce the sending of the ultimatum. Again, Whitehall was filled with excited crowds wildly cheering every person going in or out of 10 Downing Street. The Commons took the news of the ultimatum “very calmly and with a good deal of dignity,” Asquith reported. This dispassionate style belied the emotions churning beneath. “This whole thing92 fills me with sadness,” he confessed to Venetia Stanley. “We are on the eve of horrible things.” Margot saw her husband immediately after his speech when she went to visit him in the Prime Minister’s room at the House of Commons:
“‘So it is all up,’93 I [Margot] said.
“He answered without looking at me:
“‘Yes, it’s all up.’
“I sat down beside him with a feeling of numbness in my limbs.... Henry sat at his writing table leaning back.... What was he thinking of?... His sons?... would they all have to fight?... I got up and leaned my head against his; we could not speak for tears.”
Asquith went for an hour’s drive by himself. He returned to Downing Street to wait for the expiration of the British ultimatum. The hours passed. Margot looked in on her sleeping children, then joined her husband, who was sitting around the green table in the Cabinet Room with Grey, Haldane, and others, smoking cigarettes. At nine o’clock Lloyd George arrived. No one spoke. Eyes wandered back and forth from the clock to the telephone which linked the Cabinet Room to the Foreign Office. Through the windows, open to the warm night air, came the sound of an immense crowd singing “God Save the King.” Against the anthem, the chimes of Big Ben intruded, signalling the approach of the hour. Then—“Boom!”—the first stroke sounded. Every face in the Cabinet Room was white. “Boom! Boom! Boom!”—eleven times the clapper fell against the great bell. When the last stroke fell, Great Britain was at war with Germany.
fn1 An English appreciation of France’s courage came after the war, from Churchill:
“There was never any chance41 of France being allowed to escape her ordeal. Even cowardice and dishonour would not have saved her. The Germans had resolved that if war came from any cause, they would take and break France forthwith as its first operation. The German military chiefs burned to give the signal, and were sure of the result. She would have begged for mercy in vain. She did not beg.”
fn2 Indeed, so confident was the German General Staff of the minimal impact of the British Expeditionary Force that Moltke advised Tirpitz not to risk any ships trying to prevent the transfer of the BEF to the Continent.
fn3 The Tsar replied to King George’s telegram that he “would gladly71 have accepted your proposals had not the German ambassador this afternoon presented a note to my government declaring war.”
fn4 In 1924, Ramsay MacDonald became the first Labour Prime Minister of Great Britain.
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Appendix
The Dreadnought Race 1905-1914
Queen Victoria, a Diamond Jubilee portrait, 1897
The Prince of Wales (Bertie) at 27 in 1869
King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra aboard the yacht Victoria and Albert at Cowes, 1909. The King is 67, the Queen 64
The Empress Frederick (Vicky)
The Emperor Frederick III (Fritz)
Prince William’s parents
Prince William and his mother
Kaiser William II
Kaiser William and his wife, Kaiserin Augusta Victoria (Dona)
The Kaiser at Kiel, 1909. Note the use of gloves to extend the apparent length of his miniature left arm.
The Kaiser and his uncle, Edward VII, in Berlin, 1909
Otto von Bismarck
Bismarck and the young Kaiser
“Dropping the pilot” (See here)
Holstein
Caprivi
Eulenburg
Hohenlohe
Bernhard von Bülow
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
Alfred von Tirpitz
Lord Salisbury
Joseph Chamberlain
The Colonial Secretary and his wife, Mary
Cecil Rhodes
Lord Lansdowne
Arthur Balfour as Prime Minister, 1902
Captain John Fisher of H.M.S. Excellent, 1883
Fisher as Vice Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet in the admiral’s cabin of the battleship Renown, 1900
First Sea Lord
Lord Charles Beresford
Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
H. H. Asquith
Margot Tennant
Venetia Stanley
The Asquith family and friends in Ireland, 1912. Front row: the Prime Minister (second from left). Margot Asquith (third from left). Violet Asquith. Asquith’s daughter by his first marriage (far right). Back row: Two of Asquith’s sons by his first marriage–Arthur, (second from left) and Cyril (fifth from left).
David Lloyd George
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