The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914

by Barbara W. Tuchman

  GREAT BRITAIN, FOREIGN OFFICE, Correspondence respecting the Proposal of HM the Emperor of Russia for a Conference on Armaments, Russia, No. 1 (1899), Cd. 9090, London, HMSO.

  ——, Correspondence respecting the Peace Conference held at The Hague in 1899, Misc. No. 1 (1899), Cd. 9534, London, HMSO. (The material in these two volumes is referred to in the Notes as F.O. 83, 1695–6-7–8-9 and 1700. These are the reference numbers for the autograph originals in the Public Record Office which I consulted in preference to the published version.)

  ——, Correspondence respecting the Second Peace Conference held at The Hague in 1907. Misc. No. 1 (1908), Cd. 3857, London, HMSO.

  ——, Further Correspondence, Cd. 4174, Misc. No. 5 (1908).

  HAGUE, THE, The Proceedings of The Hague Peace Conference, 4 vols. Translation of the official texts (originally published by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs), prepared in the Division of International Law of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; ed. James Brown Scott, Oxford Univ. Press, 1920–21, Vol. I, 1899; Vol. II, III, IV, 1907.

  UNITED STATES, The Hague Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, ed. James Brown Scott, 2 vols., Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Press, 1909. The second volume contains the instructions to and reports of the American delegates and the correspondence in 1904 and 1906 relating to the calling of the Second Conference.

  Other Sources

  ADAM, PAUL, “Physionomie de la Conférence de la Haye,” Revue de Paris, August 1, 1907, 642–72.

  BACON, ADMIRAL SIR REGINALD HUGH, The Life of Lord Fisher of Kilverstone, 2 vols., London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1929.

  BERGENGREN, ENK, Alfred Nobel, tr., London, Nelson, 1962.

  BLOCH, IVAN S., The Future of War, tr., with a “Conversation with the Author” by W. T. Stead, Boston, Ginn, 1902.

  BÜLOW, BERNHARD, PRINCE VON, Memoirs, 4 vols., Boston, Little, Brown, 1931–32.

  CHIROL, SIR VALENTINE, Fifty Years in a Changing World, New York, Harcourt, 1928.

  CHOATE, JOSEPH HODGES, The Two Hague Conferences, Princeton Univ. Press, 1913.

  CURTI, MERLE, Peace or War: The American Struggle, 1636–1936, New York, Norton, 1936.

  DAVIS, CALVIN DE ARMOND, The United States and the First Hague Peace Conference, Cornell Univ. Press, 1962.

  DILLON, E. J., The Eclipse of Russia, New York, Doran, 1918.

  FISHER, JOHN ARBUTHNOT, LORD, Records, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1919.

  FISHER, JOHN ARBUTHNOT, LORD, Fear God and Dread Nought: Correspondence of Lord Fisher, ed. Arthur J. Marder, Vol. 1, 1854–1904, Harvard Univ. Press, 1952; Vol. 2, 1904–14, London, Cape, 1956.

  FULLER, J. F. C., Armament and History, New York, Scribner’s, 1945.

  HENDRICK, BURTON J., The Life of Andrew Carnegie, 2 vols., Garden City, Doubleday, 1932.

  HULL, WILLIAM I., The Two Hague Conferences, Boston, Ginn, 1908.

  JESSUP, PHILIP G., Elihu Root, 2 vols., New York, Dodd, Mead, 1938.

  LEMONON, ERNEST, La Seconde Conférence de le Paix, Paris, 1908.

  MOWAT, ROBERT B., Life of Lord Pauncefote, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1929.

  NEF, JOHN J., War and Human Progress, Harvard Univ. Press, 1950.

  NOWAK, KARL FRIEDRICH, Germany’s Road to Ruin, New York, Macmillan, 1932.

  PALMER, FREDERICK, With My Own Eyes, Indianapolis, Bobbs Merrill, 1932.

  PINSON, KOPPEL S., Modern Germany, New York, Macmillan, 1954.

  SPENDER, J. A., The Life of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, 2 vols., Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1924.

  STEAD, W. T., “Character Sketch: Lord Fisher,” Review of Reviews, February, 1910.

  *SUTTNER, BERTHA VON, Memoirs, 2 vols., Boston, Ginn, 1910.

  TATE, MERZE, The Disarmament Illusion, New York, Macmillan, 1942.

  *Temps, Le, Reports of Special Correspondent at The Hague.

  USHER, ROLAND, Pan-Germanism, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1913.

  *WHITE, ANDREW D., Autobiography, 2 vols., New York, Century, 1905.

  *WHYTE, FREDERIC, Life of W. T. Stead, London, Cape, 1925.

  WITTE, COUNT SERGEI, Memoirs, New York, Doubleday, 1921.

  WOLFF, THEODOR (editor of Berliner Tageblatt), The Eve of 1914, tr. E. W. Dickes, New York, Knopf, 1936.

  Notes

  As primary sources for what was said and what occurred at The Hague, I used the delegates’ reports to their Governments contained in the Foreign Office Correspondence and Grosse Politik; the account in diary form by Andrew White in his Autobiography, and the reports of the Special Correspondent of Le Temps. Written while events were still hot, these make livelier reading than the tedious verbatim proceedings, collected and edited afterward. (Le Temps’ correspondent signed himself X or sometimes XX, suggesting the possibility of two different people. Inquiries to Le Monde, successor of Le Temps, and to the Archivist of the Quai d’Orsay failed to penetrate his anonymity.) Unless otherwise stated all quotations by the delegates are from these sources; specific references are given only where it seems important. All material relating to Baroness von Suttner, including Nobel’s letters, is from her Memoirs. All quotations from Roosevelt are from his Letters (see Chap. 3).

  118 “The Czar with an olive branch”: Neue Freie Presse, q. Figaro, roundup of press comment, Aug. 30, 1898.

  119 “It will sound like beautiful music” and other press quotations in this paragraph: ibid.; also The Times and Le Temps, roundup of foreign press comment, same date.

  120 Kipling: The poem was first published in Literature, Oct. 1, 1898.

  121 “A sword stroke in water”: q. Figaro, Aug. 31, 1898. “Our future”: Nowak, 237.

  122 Liebknecht: Suitner, II, 198.

  123 Godkin, “splendid summons”: Evening Post, Aug. 29, 1898.

  124 Olney on defeat of Arbitration Treaty: Mowat, 171.

  125 Julien Benda: (see Chap. 4), 203.

  126 Figures on world’s mechanical energy: W. S. and E. S. Woytinsky, World Population and Production, New York, 1953, 930, Table 394.

  127 “We are sailing with a corpse”: q. Masur (see Chap. 4), 237.

  128 Salisbury’s Guildhall speech: The Times, Nov. 10, 1897.

  129 Czar and his mother’s chambermaids: q. David Shub, Lenin, 72.

  130 Czar’s letter to his mother: Secret Letters of the Last Czar, ed. E. J. Bing, New York, 1938, 131.

  131 Kuropatkin and genesis of Peace Conference: Witte, 96–97; Report of German Ambassador Radolin to Chancellor Hohenlohe, July 13, 1899, GP, XV, No. 4350; Dillon, conversation with Kuropatkin, 275–77.

  132 “Keep people from inventing things”: q. White, II, 70.

  133 “Except at the price of suicide,” et seq.: Bloch, xxxi, lxii, 349, 355–56.

  134 British Ambassador’s report: Sir Charles Scott to Salisbury, Aug. 25, 1898, Cd. 9090.

  135 “It is the greatest nonsense”: Warwick, 138.

  136 Diplomatic reactions: GP, XV, Nos. 4223, 4224, 4236, 4237, 4248, 4249; also Foreign Office, Plunkett from Brussels, Jan. 11, 1899; Rumbold from Vienna, Feb. 3, 1899.

  137 Kaiser, “Idiot”: GP, XV, No. 4233.

  138 “To my People”: Pinson, 279; “When your Emperor commands”: ibid., 278; “There is only one master”: ibid.; “Me and my 25 army corps”: q. Bernadotte Schmitt, The Coming of the War, 1914, New York, 1930, I, 29; “Ally of my House”: q. Chirol, 275.

  139 Prince of Wales, “how different” and not so absurd: q. White, II, 113–14.

  140 Kaiserin on Kaiser’s annoyance: Bülow, I, 275; Eulenberg quoted: ibid. 241 Kaiser’s telegram to Czar and subsequent comments: GP, XV, Nos. 4222, 4216, 4228, 4231.

  141 Muraviev told Eulenberg: ibid., 4231.

  142 Kuno Francke pictured Germany: “German Ideals of Today,” Atlantic Monthly, Dec., 1905.

  143 Pan-German program and “We want territory”: Encyc. Brit., “Pan-Germanism.”

  144 Admiral Dewey, on German bad manners: Palmer, 115.

  145 Hay, “To the German mind”: q. A. L. P. Dennis, in S. F. Bemis, ed., Ameri
can Secretaries of State, IX, 124.

  146 “Sheepsheads”: Pinson, 278.

  147 “Not even the tamest liberal”: Wolff, 310.

  148 “Always wear a good black coat”: q. Pinson, 286.

  149 Bülow and the lapels: Nowak, 226.

  150 Holstein’s explanation and Bülow’s instructions: GP, XV, Nos. 4255, 4217, 4245–6-7.

  151 Public resolutions: F.O. 83, 1699.

  152 Balfour, “A sanguine view”: ibid.

  153 Stead: All the material on Stead in these pages is from Whyte’s biography with the exception of the story about Charles II, which is from Esher, I, 229; the Prince of Wales’s opinion of the Czar as “weak as water,” which is from Warwick, 136; and the Russian complaint of being “embarrassed,” which was relayed by Ambassador Sir Charles Scott, Jan. 14, 1899, F.O. 83, 1699.

  154 Henley, “the battle spirit”: from “Rhymes and Rhythms,” No. XVI, first published in Poems, 1898.

  155 Nevinson: Changes and Chances (see Chap. 1), 130.

  156 Mahan, “no greater misfortune”: q. Puleston (see Chap. 3), 171.

  157 “Assured of certain certainties”: T. S. Eliot, “The Waste Land.”

  158 Yeats’ poem: in his autobiography, The Trembling of the Veil, 415.

  159 Boston Peace Crusade “permanent tribunal”: Davis, 62.

  160 McKinley urged to appoint Eliot: ibid., 68.

  161 Kaiser on Mahan, “Our greatest foe”: GP, XV, n. to 4250.

  162 Bourgeois, “amiable, elegant”: Zevaès (see Chap. 4), v. 141, 202; “cultivated fine beard”: Suarez (see Chap. 8), I, 420.

  163 “To renounce war”: General Barail, q. Figaro, Aug. 31, 1898.

  164 Mme Adam, “I am for war”: Suttner, II, 233.

  165 “Beating empty air”: q. Davis, 88.

  166 Baron Stengel’s pamphlet: Drummond to F.O., Apr. 6, 1899; Tate, 230, n. 44.

  167 “Never give way”: Mowat, 300; “soul of honor”: ibid., 295.

  168 “When Peel lost his temper”: Birrell (see Chap. 7), 126–27.

  169 Fisher: the material in these three paragraphs is from Bacon’s biography except for the last line, “So I did,” which is from Fisher’s Records, 55.

  170 The Hague during the Conference: chiefly from reports by the correspondent of Le Temps, May 10, 20, 24, 25; Figaro, May 20; White, Mowat, Suttner. The Huis ten Bosch was visited by author in 1963.

  171 “A printer’s error”: q. Davis, 86.

  172 Beernaert “greatest cynic”: Neal Ascherson, The King Incorporated, London, 1963, 142.

  173 Münster, “political riff-raff”: GP, XV, 4327.

  174 Reichstag deputies: The Times, May 11, 1899.

  175 Fisher, “humanizing war!” et seq.: Stead, Review of Reviews, Feb., 1910, 117.

  176 Hotel Kurhaus: Letters, I, 142.

  177 Stead on Fisher: q. Bacon, I, 121.

  178 He learned from German naval delegate: ibid., 128, 177.

  179 “Deepest seriousness”: q. Taylor (see Chap. 3), 99.

  180 Fisher on neutral coal: Bacon, I, 128.

  181 Captain Siegel’s argument: GP, XV, 4274.

  182 Ardagh’s speech on dumdums: June 14, F.O. 83, 1695.

  183 “The angel of arbitration”: q. Reinach (see Chap. 4), V, 173, n. 2.

  184 Society’s “awful conscience”: Hunter (see Chap. 8), 30.

  185 D’Estournelles’ story of Jaurès: White, 300.

  186 Kaiser, “this whole hoax”: GP, XV, 4276.

  187 Efforts to persuade Germany on arbitration: White, II, 265–313. Pauncefote Memorandum, June 19, F.O. 83, 1695, and other reports in F.O. 83, 1700; GP, XV, 4276, 4280, 4284, 4317, 4320, 4349.

  188 Kaiser’s disgust, “I consented …”: GP, XV, 4320.

  189 “Zeal almost macabre”: Le Temps, editorial, July 27.

  190 Mahan blocks arbitration: Puleston (see Chap. 3), 211; White, 338–41.

  191 As if the hand of God: Clynes (see Chap. 7), 98; “With a kind of shiver”: M. Radziwill, Letters (see Chap. 4), Jan. 2, 1900, 237.

  192 Kaiser to Fritz Krupp: from the Krupp archives, q. William Manchester, “The House of Krupp,” Holiday, Dec., 1964, 110.

  193 Three hundred men “all acquainted”: q. Kessler (see Chap. 8), 121.

  194 “Then in 1900,” wrote Yeats: Introduction to Oxford Book of Modern Verse.

  195 Henry Adams expecting a bomb: Education, 494–95.

  196 Exposition: l’illustration and Le Monde Illustré, passim through the summer; Outlook, Sept. 8, Nov. 10, 1900, Jan. 5, 1901; Harper’s Monthly, Sept., 1900; Blackwood’s, July, 1900; Nation, June 28, 1900.

  197 “It seemed merely a matter of decades”: Zweig (see Chap. 6), 3.

  198 Balfour wished to appoint Mahan Regius Professor: Magnus, Edward VII, 306.

  199 Jusserand and Philander Knox on Roosevelt: Jules Jusserand, What Me Befell, Boston, 1934, 241; Sullivan (see Chap. 3), II, 438 n.

  200 Roosevelt’s visit to Eliot: James, Eliot (see Chap. 3), II, 159.

  201 Roosevelt, “foolish theory”: to Spring-Rice, Dec. 21, 1907, VI, 871; “weakening of fighting spirit”: ibid.; “I abhor men like Hale: to Speck von Sternberg, July 16, 1907, V, 721; “General softening of fibre”: to White-law Reid, Sept. 11, 1905, V, 19.

  202 Kaiser, “That’s my man!”: Bülow, I, 658.

  203 D’Estournelles’ visit to Roosevelt: Suttner, II, 390–91.

  204 Hay, “I have it all arranged”: Tyler Dennett, John Hay, New York, 1933, 346.

  205 Fisher proposes to “Copenhagen” German fleet: Bacon, II, 74–75.

  206 “Ach, that damned Reichstag!”: Bülow, II, 36–37.

  207 Czar’s hint conveyed to Washington: Roosevelt to Carl Schurz, Sept. 15, 1905, V, 30–31. The letter to Root, Sept. 14, 1905, V, 26.

  208 C.-B., “so straight, so good-tempered”: Lee (see Chap. 1), II, 442.

  209 C.-B., “What nobler role”: at Albert Hall, Dec. 21, 1905, Spender, II, 208.

  210 Damnable, Domineering and Dictatorial: Bacon, I, 207.

  211 Izvolsky, “a craze of Jews”: GP, XXIII, 7879.

  212 C.-B., “Long live the Duma!”: C.-B. delivered the speech in French, Spender, II, 264.

  213 Kaiser hoped Conference “would not take place”: GP, XXIII, 7815. On King Edward’s visit: ibid.; also 7823, 7825–26.

  214 “Alert, aggressive, military”: to Oscar Straus, Feb. 27, 1906, V, 168.

  215 “Maudlin extreme”: to Reid, Aug. 7, 1906, V, 348; talk with Count Gleichen: Lee, II, 437. Another visitor who found American amenities less than satisfactory was Count Witte. During his mission to the Portsmouth Peace Conference he said the only decent meal he had had in America was on board Morgan’s yacht (Witte, 169).

  216 Navy “more potent for peace”: Sept. 22, 1906, V, 421.

  217 Carnegie agreed to donate Peace palace: Hendrick, II, 164.

  218 Root, “failures necessary steps”: Jessup, II, 70.

  219 First issue of the Nation: Mar. 2, 1907.

  220 “I suppose he will support”: Lee, II, 467.

  221 Sir Edward Grey and all other diplomatic exchanges: Nevins (see Chap. 1), 249, 252, 258–59; Hull, 49–50; U. S., Scott, Vol. II; GP, XXIII, 7750, 7869, 7927, 7986.

  222 Carnegie’s visit to Kaiser: Hend rick. II, 299–318.

  223 Mahan, “prepossession of the public mind”: Puleston (see Chap. 3), 270, 280.

  224 German officers drank to “The Day”: Usher, 1.

  225 Visiting Englishman at spa near Bayreuth: Buchan (see Chap. 1), 55.

  226 Root, “tendency toward war”: Jessup, II, 25.

  227 Landsowne on Old Age Pensions: The Times, July 21, 1908.

  228 Marquis de Soveral: Warwick, Discretions, 20; also F. Ponsonby, 216 (both Chap. 1).

  229 “A damned good fellow”: q. Mowat, 297.

  230 Baron Marschall’s appearance and habits: Gardiner, Pillars (see Chap. 1), 160–68; Barclay (see Chap. 4), 281. His opinions of delegates: to Bülow, July 28, 1907, GP, XXIII
, 7961.

  231 Austin’s letter to The Times: Oct. 17, 1907.

  232 Domela Nieuwenhuis: Adam, 655.

  233 Fry’s speech and comments: Hull, 72–74; White, II, 291.

  234 Proceedings of the Conference: Scott, I, 110, et seq. Baron Marschall’s report to Bülow, GP, XXIII, 7963; Grey’s instructions on limiting “prospective liability” is No. 11 in F.O. correspondence, Cd. 3857.

  235 Roosevelt, “I have not followed”: July 2, 1907, V, 700; “Utterly disgusted”: July 16, 1907, V, 720–21.

  236 “Decayed Oriental states”: M. W. Hazeltine, “The Second Peace Conference,” North American Review, Nov., 1907.

  237 “Was it a Peace Conference?”: q. Choate, 40.

  238 “Gradual, tentative, delicate”: Choate, 22.

  6. “Neroism Is in the Air”

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