Dreadnought, Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War

by Robert K. Massie

  Churchill's statement triggered fresh cries against "bloated" spending on the navy. "When will First Lords and naval experts realize that a financial reserve is one of the most important sinews of war?" asked the Daily Chronicle. "If other countries will not join us in the naval holiday, let us take a holiday ourselves," declared a former governor of the Bank of England. Forty Liberal M.P.'s called on the Prime Minister in a body to express their opposition to a further increase in the Naval Estimates. Margot Asquith wrote imperatively to Lloyd George: "Don't let Winston have too much money-it will hurt our party in every way… If one can't be a little economical when all foreign countries are peaceful I don't know when one can." Even the First Lord's aunt, Lady Wimbourne, wrote to her nephew, citing the "error of judgement" of "your dear Father" which left him "eating his heart out in years of disappointment." "You are breaking with the traditions of Liberalism in your naval expenditure," she cautioned. "You are in danger of becoming purely a 'Navy man' and losing sight of the far greater job of a great leader of the Liberal party… Nothing is doing the present Government so much harm as this naval expenditure. They will either have to drop you or suffer defeat."

  Unionists saw the issue differently. The image of the former apostate was transformed, especially in the eyes of Conservative navalists. They now hailed Churchill as a hero battling the forces of ignorance. Punch noted his change in status in a cartoon depicting the First Lord in a sailor suit and behind him a chorus of Tories singing, "You made me love you; I didn't want to do it…"

  The public battle was raging when Churchill presented the figures in the new Naval Estimates to the Cabinet on December 5. The total was £50,694,800, up almost £3 million from the previous year. Economies had been made: the First Lord sought only four new dreadnoughts instead of five and only twelve destroyers in place of the previous year's twenty. The increased cost, he explained, came mainly from the rise in costs of construction: "the boom in the shipbuilding trade caused an advance in the price of materials of about 15 percent."

  Immediately, the Cabinet plunged into debate. "We had a Cabinet which lasted nearly three hours, two and three quarters of which was occupied by Winston," Asquith wrote to Venetia Stanley at midnight on December 8. The major antagonists were the erstwhile allies Churchill and Lloyd George. As the First Lord raised the Estimates, the Chancellor faced either a deficit or a tax increase. In the Chancellor's view, this was betrayal. "When he [Churchill] went to the Admiralty, I made a bargain with him," Lloyd George told a friend on December 13. "He has not kept it. He has been extravagant." Three days later, at a meeting of the Cabinet, Churchill buttressed his case with detailed facts and figures, item by item. Lloyd George opposed him. There was an exchange of notes across the Cabinet table.

  Churchill to Lloyd George:

  I consider that you are going back on your word: in trying to drive me out after we had settled and you promised to support the Estimates.

  Lloyd George to Churchill:

  I agreed to the figure for this year and have stood by it and carried it much to the disappointment of my economical friends. But I told you distinctly I would press for a reduction of a new program with a view to 1915 and I think respectfully you are unnecessarily stubborn. It is only a question of six months postponement of laying down. That cannot endanger our safety.

  Churchill to Lloyd George:

  No. You said you would support the Estimates.

  On New Year's Day 1914, the Chancellor gave an interview to the Daily Chronicle in which he publicly attacked the Naval Estimates. Anglo-German relations were friendlier than they had been for years; Germany was spending large sums on its army, making it impossible for her to challenge British naval supremacy. Further, the industrial masses of all countries were revolted by the "organized insanity" of the arms race. For these reasons, he was urging that the Naval Estimates be lowered, not increased. In the interview, the Chancellor went beyond policy and administered a personal slap to the First Lord. He reminded readers that Lord Randolph Churchill had resigned rather than agree to "bloated and profligate" Admiralty Estimates. When he read the interview, Churchill, hunting wild boar in France with his friend the Duke of Westminster, wrote to a colleague, "The Chancellor of the Exchequer's interview… is a fine illustration of his methods." Churchill fended off the press, saying it was not his policy "to give interviews to newspapers on important subjects of this character while they were still under the consideration of the Cabinet." On this point, most of Lloyd George's colleagues supported Churchill; Asquith called the interview "needless folly"; Grey was "furious… and refuses to be placated."

  In January 1914, the crisis reached its peak. Churchill told a friend that he had his "back against the wall"; Lloyd George announced that "the Prime Minister must choose between Winston and me." Antagonism was focussed on the issue of four new dreadnoughts or two. Churchill promised the Sea Lords and the navy that "if the declared program of four ships was cut down" he would resign. If the number was reduced below four, the First Lord informed Asquith, "there is no chance whatever of my being able to go on." He wrote to the King that the matter was "vital" and "fundamental." The King agreed: "Without a doubt… this year's program of four battleships must be adhered to." Asquith, unwilling to lose either colleague, commanded Lloyd George and Churchill to reach agreement before the next Cabinet meeting. The two old friends met-they still referred to each other as "My dear David" and "My dear Winston"-and the Chancellor suggested a compromise: Churchill would promise that future Naval Estimates would be lower if the current figure were approved. Churchill stiffly refused: "No predecessor of mine had ever been asked or has ever attempted to forecast the Estimates of any but the coming year and I cannot undertake to do so now… While I am responsible, what is necessary will have to be provided… I cannot buy a year of office by a bargain under duress about the estimates of 1915-16."

  On January 27, Lloyd George wrote to both the First Lord and the Prime Minister. To Churchill, he said: "My dear Winston… Your letter has driven me to despair and I must now decline further negotiations, leaving the issue to be decided by the Prime Minister and the Cabinet… I now thoroughly appreciate your idea of a bargain: it is an argument which binds the Treasury not even to attempt any further economies in the interest of the taxpayer, whilst it does not in the least impose any obligation on the Admiralty not to incur fresh liabilities." To Asquith, the Chancellor wrote: "My dear Prime Minister, I have laboured in vain to effect an arrangement between Churchill and the critics of his Estimates… I have utterly failed."

  The Cabinet meeting of January 29 was devoted primarily to the Naval Estimates. Over strong objection from the Chancellor, it was agreed to spend £52,800,000 and to build four dreadnoughts. Lloyd George pointed out that this would mean a government deficit of £9,000,000, which would have to be met by new taxation. He pleaded for a reduction in operating and maintenance costs. After the meeting, Asquith sent a note to Churchill:

  My dear Winston,

  Very largely in deference to my appeal, the critical pack (who know very well that they have a large body of party opinion behind them) have slackened their pursuit. I think that you on your side, should… show a corresponding disposition and throw a baby or two out of the sledge.

  Churchill retorted that maintenance costs already had been "searched and scrubbed… as never before… I see absolutely no hope of further reductions… I do not love this naval expenditure and am grieved to be found in the position of taskmaster. But I am myself the slave of facts… The sledge is bare of babies and though the pack may crunch the driver's bones, the winter will not be ended."

  Churchill had the support of the King, the Foreign Secretary, and, ultimately, of the Prime Minister. Lloyd George knew this. The night before the Cabinet's final meeting on the subject, he said to Churchill, "Come to breakfast tomorrow and we shall settle the matter." Churchill arrived, feeling that later that day one of them would have to resign. Lloyd George greeted him and said, "Oddly enough,
my wife spoke to me last night about this dreadnought business. She said, 'You know, my dear, I never interfere in politics, but they say you are having an argument with that nice Mr. Churchill about building dreadnoughts. Of course I don't understand these things, but I should have thought it would be better to have too many rather than too few.' So I have decided to let you build them. Let's go in to breakfast."

  On March 17, 1914, Churchill presented the last prewar Naval Estimates to the House of Commons. His speech took two and a half hours and was described by the Daily Telegraph as "the longest and perhaps also the most weighty and eloquent a speech to which the House of Commons have listened from a First Lord… during the present generation." The First Lord spoke about the role of the British Navy, the nature of the British Empire, and the danger of war:

  "The burden of responsibility laid upon the British Navy is heavy and its weight increases year by year. All the world is building ships… None of these powers need, like us, navies to defend their actual independence or safety. They build them so as to play a part in the world's affairs. It is sport to them. It is life and death to us… Two things have to be considered: First, that our diplomacy depends in great part for its effectiveness upon our naval position, and that our naval strength is the one great balancing force which we can contribute to our own safety and to the peace of the world. Second, we are not a young people with a blank record and a scant inheritance. We have won for ourselves, in times when other powerful nations were paralysed by barbarism or internal war, an exceptional, disproportionate share of the wealth and traffic of the world.

  "We have got all we want in territory, but our claim to be left in undisputed enjoyment of vast and splendid possessions, largely acquired by war and largely maintained by force, is one which often seems less reasonable to others than to us…

  "We have responsibilities in many quarters today. We are far from being detatched from the problems of Europe… the causes which might lead to a general war have not been removed… On the contrary, we are witnessing this year increases of expenditure by Continental Powers in armaments beyond all previous experience. The world is armed as it was never armed before."

  The Naval Estimates passed. Four 27,000-ton battleships with 15-inch guns, four light cruisers, and twelve destroyers were authorized. None of these ships had been laid down when war broke out five months later.

  CHAPTER 44

  "The Anchors Held… We Seemed to Be Safe"

  As the Ottoman Empire continued to disintegrate, provinces sloughed away "like pieces falling off an old house." Cyprus in 1878, Tunisia in 1881, Egypt in 1882, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, Tripoli in 1911. Exposure of Turkey's weakness by Italy's wrenching away of Tripoli spurred the ambitions of the small Christian states of the Balkans-Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, Bulgaria-themselves once provinces of the Ottoman Empire. In October 1912, these four powers suddenly attacked European Turkey. The Turkish Army collapsed. By November 3, the Bulgarian Army stood before the walls of Constantinople. On November 8, the Greek Army entered Salonika. On November 28, the Serbs took the port of Durazzo on the Adriatic, providing Serbia with a link to the sea. On December 3, the Turkish government begged the Balkan allies for an armistice.

  The Ottoman defeat surprised and dismayed the three Great Powers of Central and Eastern Europe. Germany had been nurturing her relations with Turkey and constructing the Berlin-to-Baghdad Railway. Austria, expecting a quick humbling of the upstart Serbs, instead saw Serbia triumphant on the Adriatic. When Serbian troops entered Durazzo, Austria mobilized 900,000 men and demanded that the Serbs withdraw. If Austria moved against Serbia, Russia, which had endorsed the formation of the Balkan League and promised to defend its conquests from Turkey, would become involved and European war would be inevitable. Paradoxically, Russia was displeased by the success of Bulgaria; Russia had always intended Constantinople to be occupied by a Russian, not a Bulgarian, army.

  Sir Edward Grey, seeking to contain the conflict, proposed a Conference of the Great Powers. The Powers agreed to meet in London, and the Conference opened on December 10, 1912. The Turks were willing to give up what they had lost to Serbia and Greece, but refused to cede Adrianople (now Turkish Edirne), still held by the Turkish Army, to Bulgaria. The Bulgars insisted; the Turks would not yield. In February, the armistice collapsed and a second war began. This time, Adrianople fell to a combined Bulgarian-Serbian army. Again, the Turks sued for peace. Austria insisted that, if the port of Durazzo were not returned to Turkey, it must become independent; it could not remain in Serbian hands. Under Russian pressure, the Serbs gave up Durazzo. On May 30, 1913, the Treaty of London was signed. Adrianople was awarded to Bulgaria, Salonika was given to Greece, and the new state of Albania was created out of Durazzo and the surrounding territory. Peace lasted only one month. On June 29, Bulgaria attacked her former allies, Serbia and Greece, seized Salonika, and defeated the ill-prepared Serbian Army. At this moment, Romania, which had remained neutral in the first two Balkan Wars, fell on Bulgaria's undefended rear. The Romanian Army crossed the Danube and threatened Sofia. The Turks then took advantage of Bulgaria's fresh troubles to emerge from Constantinople and recapture Adrianople. The Kaiser backed his cousin King Carol of Romania; the Tsar was unwilling to support the maverick Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria; and the Third Balkan War ended on August 6 with the Treaty of Bucharest. Bulgaria was stripped of most of the gains of her wars against Turkey, Salonika was returned to Greece, and a piece of Bulgarian territory was sliced off and incorporated into Romania.

  For Europe, the significance of the three Balkan wars lay less in the backstabbing between allies or the subsequent shifts of territory than in the Great Power decision that little wars should not be allowed to spread. The Conference of London consisted of Grey, who took the Chair, and the Ambassadors to Great Britain of Germany, Austria, Russia, France, and Italy. Sessions, held in St. James's Palace, were informal. "We met in the afternoons, generally about four o'clock," Grey recorded, "and, with a short adjournment to an adjoining room for tea, we continued till six or seven o'clock." Meetings occurred whenever any ambassador wished; many were so boring that Paul Cambon feared the Conference would continue until "there were six skeletons sitting around the table." Nevertheless, useful work was done. When Austria announced that Serbia must give up its gains on the Adriatic and permit an independent Albania, Benckendorff of Russia replied-to the delighted surprise of Mensdorff of Austria-that Russia accepted. There was haggling over villages along the borders. Austria demanded that Montenegro give up the town of Scutari, which it had captured; the Powers supported Austria and discussed methods to induce Montenegro to withdraw. "Eventually," Grey said, "a blend of threat of coercion and the offer of money compensation settled the matter to the satisfaction of Austria, perhaps also to the satisfaction of the King of Montenegro, and this danger to European peace was laid to rest."

  In August 1913, after ten months and with the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest, the Conference ended. "There was no formal finish," Grey said. "Nobody went home, we were not photographed in a group; we had no votes of thanks; no valedictory speeches; we just left off meeting. We had not settled anything, not even all the details of Albanian boundaries; but we had served a useful purpose. We had been something to which point after point could be referred; we had been a means of keeping all the six Powers in direct and friendly touch. The mere fact that we were in existence, and that we should have to be broken up before peace was broken, was in itself an appreciable barrier against war. We were a means of gaining time and the longer we remained in being the more reluctance was there for us to disperse. The Governments concerned got used to us and to the habit of making us useful. When we ceased to meet, the present danger to the peace of Europe was over; the things that we did not settle were not threatening that peace; the things that had threatened the relations between the Great Powers in 1912-13 we had deprived of their dangerous features."

  Grey modestly described his part in the Conference as "
very drab and humdrum," but his prestige soared. It was clear to his confreres and to their governments that Grey was not interested in personal prestige or a triumph for British diplomacy; he worked to preserve the peace of Europe. After the war, Grey noted sadly the hope engendered by the Conference of London and the disappointment of that hope which lay ahead:

  "In 1912-13 the current of European affairs was setting towards war. In agreeing to a Conference… it was as if we all put out anchors to prevent ourselves from being swept away. The anchors held. Then the current seemed to slacken and the anchors were pulled up. The Conference was allowed to dissolve. We seemed to be safe. In reality it was not so; the set of the current was the same, and in a year's time we were all swept into the cataract of war."

  The London Conference had scarcely begun when Alfred von Kid-erlen-Waechter died. To replace him, Bethmann-Hollweg summoned from the German Embassy in Rome a diminutive Prussian nobleman primarily known in Berlin for self-effacement and preoccupation with health. Gottlieb von Jagow was a protege of Bulow. In 1895, when Bulow was ambassador to Italy, he had received a letter from an old regimental comrade, Hermann von Jagow. Jagow's younger brother, Gottlieb, a nervous, puny man in poor health, yearned to be a diplomat. Could Bernhard, his old comrade in arms, find a place for him? Bulow, in the spirit of regimental camaraderie, cleared it with the Foreign Office and invited the young man to join his staff at the Palazzo Caffarelli. Bulow's invitation was "the fulfillment of Gottlieb's wildest dreams and hopes" and the new diplomat reported for duty where, Bulow reported, he was treated "as a son."

  When Bulow left Rome for the State Secretaryship in Berlin, his patronage of Gottlieb continued. Jagow was assigned wherever he wanted to go: to Hamburg, to Munich, then back for a prolonged stay in Rome. In 1906, he was summoned for a tour of duty in the Wilhelmstrasse. Jagow promptly went to see Bulow, then Chancellor. Pleading the strain of office work on his delicate health, Jagow asked for a Ministry abroad; Bulow gave him Luxembourg, where work was minimal. In 1909, Bulow suggested him as Ambassador to Italy. The Kaiser was astonished. He and Jagow had been members of the same exclusive student Corps at Bonn University; both were entitled to wear the peaked Sturmer cap and black and white ribbon of the elite Borussia Corps; bystanders were often surprised to hear the emperor addressing Jagow by the intimate Du used between Corpsbruder. But the fraternal relationship had not affected William's low opinion of Jagow. "What?" he said when Bulow proposed to send Jagow to Rome. "Do you really want to send that little squirt out into the world as an ambassador?" Bulow persisted and William agreed. Jagow was ecstatic. "My love for Your Highness will never cease as long as I live," he said to Bulow and joyfully went off to Rome.