The Hague Conference laid down the ‘laws of war’ (which were constantly ignored between 1914 and 1918) but failed to do much more. Von Bülow announced that Germany would veto both proposals for and discussion of disarmament proposals. It was a sad blow to Campbell-Bannerman’s hopes of a more peaceful world, but he remained radical to the last. Addressing a London meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union a few days after the Csar’s cossacks had suppressed the Russian parliament in 1907 he began his speech, ‘La Douma est morte. Vive la Douma!’ The romantic incident was overshadowed by the news that Germany was rearming again. It was a dangerous moment, for the two senior admirals of the British Navy were in public and bitter disagreement.
Admiral Lord Charles Beresford and Admiral Sir John ‘Jacky’ Fisher had never got on. Part of the problem was temperamental. There was also an element of jealousy – Beresford thought he should be First Sea Lord – and a genuine difference of opinion about how the Royal Navy should be run. Lord Charles, supported by the Navy League, wanted a general inquiry into Admiralty policy. Fisher, not unreasonably, refused outright. On 25 January 1908 he told the Cabinet, ‘the Admiralty fear no inquiry, but it would be simply impossible for Members of the Board to retain office if such a blow to the authority of the Admiralty as an investigation into its fighting policy by its subordinates were to be sanctioned.’17 The Navy League and Lord Charles Beresford’s supporters launched a press campaign for Fisher’s removal.
A few weeks before Asquith became Prime Minister, the argument about the Navy’s state of readiness descended to the level of farce. Lord Esher, attempting to defend Admiral ‘Jacky’ Fisher, the First Sea Lord, against calls for his resignation, wrote a reckless letter to The Times.18 ‘There is not a man in Germany,’ it ended, ‘from the Emperor downwards, who would not welcome the fall of Sir John Fisher.’ The Kaiser – offended by Esher’s implication of hostility – told his uncle, Edward VII, that he proposed to complain personally to the First Lord of the Admiralty. The King, meaning to patronise his nephew, agreed to ‘the new departure’ and nine pages of imperial rebuke duly arrived at Admiralty House. Lord Tweedsmuir, the First Lord, was so impressed by the direct approach that he demonstrated his goodwill by sending the following year’s naval estimates to Berlin – before they had been presented to the House of Commons. When Asquith formed his government, Tweedsmuir was replaced by Reginald McKenna.
The mood, as well as the Prime Minister, changed. Germany was building battleships at a speed which Britain had not attempted to match. McKenna, using the authority of recent appointment, proposed that the potential discrepancy between German and British sea power should be forestalled by the simple but expensive expedient of ‘laying down’ eighteen Dreadnoughts during the next three years. Churchill and Lloyd George – ‘the economists’ – resisted the proposal with such vigour that Asquith confessed ‘there are moments when I am disposed summarily to cashier them both’.19 Several compromises were proposed. None of them suited both the extremes. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the German minister of marine, then told the Reichstag that the shipyards of Hamburg and Stettin were ready and anxious to accelerate their shipbuilding programme. The naval lobby began to press for eight new Dreadnoughts to be laid down at once. The popular clamour – encouraged by the yellow press and Balfour’s expression of ‘profound anxiety’20 – was encapsulated in the slogan, ‘We want eight and we won’t wait’.
Cabinet agreement was eventually secured around an amendment to Lloyd George’s original solution – a flexible building programme which could be varied according to circumstances. Four Dreadnoughts were to be laid down immediately and plans were made for another four to be commissioned if the need arose. Fisher had won his most important naval battle.
The British government, however, remained anxious to promote peace and in 1911 suggested, as a friendly gesture, that it would reduce its reliance on battleships if Germany would do the same. It seemed that the offer was welcomed in Berlin. Sir Ernest Cassel, Edward’s old friend, was told that the German government would welcome a visit from a British minister. Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, who, according to King Edward, was a ‘German professor’, was chosen for the task. He discovered that the Germans hoped that the meeting would end with an agreement that Britain would remain neutral if war was forced upon Germany or, in other words, would not go to France’s assistance in the event of a German invasion. No such assurance was possible. Britain and France were not partners in a formal alliance, but the Entente carried undeniable implications. The German démarche acted as an early warning. France and Britain began to work more closely together.
Events on the very edge of Europe took over from diplomacy in determining the prospects for peace. The Christian states of the Balkans formed a secret alliance. In September 1912 they mobilised on the pretext of protecting their co-religionists within the chronically turbulent Ottoman Empire. Fearful that the balance of power would be disturbed, Germany and Austria announced that they would not tolerate a change in the status quo. The Christian states nevertheless invaded and defeated the Turks – to the universal acclaim of European liberal opinion.
Russia – as always wanting to secure a warm water port – would have welcomed a weak Turkey. That, matched by her own domination of the Slav Peninsula, would, she believed, guarantee access to the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. The Austro-Hungarian Empire wanted the Slav States to stay small, weak and divided so that they would not rise up against her. The victory of the Balkan Christians over the Turks gave a clear advantage to Russia – the one Great Power which had been made party to their secret compact. It also set off a chain reaction which, every statesman knew, could ignite an explosion across Europe. Germany could not look passively on while Austria’s interests were diminished by an extension of Russian influence. If war came, France would be obliged, under the terms of its Dual Alliance with Russia, to come to the assistance of its ally. Even if Britain remained neutral, the Channel ports would be at risk.
In London, a conference of ambassadors aimed at keeping the peace by finding a mutually acceptable role for Turkey. In the chair, Sir Edward Grey astonished participants by showing an obvious sympathy for the Austro-German axis. He believed that both Berlin and Vienna feared encirclement by unfriendly states and he wanted to reassure them that he understood their concern. His attempt at emollience was not a success. The Germans and Austrians were not in a mood to be comforted, and the Balkan Christians, who hoped to divide up the European territories which they had captured from the Turks, refused to abandon the spoils of war. Romania then attacked Bulgaria.
In the reallocation of territory which eventually resulted, Serbia was the one real winner. The gains were about to be ratified in the Treaty of Bucharest when Austria suggested to Germany and Italy that they should make a direct assault on Belgrade. Italy declined and thus postponed the Great War by a full year. Few politicians in continental Europe – and no one in Germany – doubted that war was coming. The Reichstag was asked to legislate for a conflict which the Kaiser clearly regarded as desirable as well as unavoidable. There was to be no exemption from military service. All fit men would be conscripted, increasing the number of annual recruits from 280,000 to 343,000. A capital levy of 1,000 million marks was to be raised to cover the added expenditure. Germany was not, as Grey had believed, concerned about being surrounded. It was determined to expand.
The likelihood is that Germany had decided to go to war in August 1914 more than a full year before its advance into Belgium began. August was the month in which its army was at full strength and at the height of readiness. The Schlieffen Plan allowed six weeks for the defeat and occupation of France. If the German army was at the Channel by mid-September, there would still be time to turn east against Russia before the winter set in. And by the first week in August the widening of the Kiel Canal would be complete. The Grand Fleet would then have an easy passage from the Baltic to the North Sea again.
Britain, in the unlikely for
m of Winston Churchill, by then First Lord of the Admiralty, retained its faith in negotiation. Germany planned to lay down two capital ships during 1913 and Britain four. Twice during the year, Churchill suggested a ‘naval holiday’ in which neither navy expanded. Twice the Germans refused the offer. The rebuff did not encourage Britain to increase its preparations for war. Three major naval bases – Rosyth, Cromarty and Scapa Flow – were known to be vulnerable to attack. Nothing was done to improve their defences. Instead, ministers (who wanted to believe that there would be no war) told each other that Prince Lichowsky, the German Ambassador, was a gentleman whose goodwill to Britain was not in doubt and that he expressed the true position of the government which he represented. In early 1914, Lloyd George was actually pressing for a reduction in the naval estimates.
Germany at least deserved credit for the thoroughness of its preparations. When war broke out it was discovered that Germany had collected almost all her foreign debts while leaving her own international creditors waiting for payment. As a result the Bundesbank held record gold reserves.
In May 1914 the German and Austro-Hungarian chiefs of staff (Helmut von Molke and Conrad von Hotzendorf) had one of their remarkably rare meetings. They agreed that the time had come. But the Berlin foreign ministry insisted on waiting. Britain and Germany were engaged in discussions over the future of Mesopotamia and diplomats retained the hope that the government in London would choose to remain aloof from Europe. Gladstone had felt no obligation to rally to the defence of France in 1870. Why should his successor feel any differently in 1914? Molke knew better. The Schlieffen Plan involved German troops invading Belgium on their way to France. Britain, he had no doubt, would feel an obligation to defend the sovereignty of so small a nation. He pressed for an earlier start and a quick finish so that the war in Europe would be over before the British naval blockade began to take effect. France and Russia – not realising that the first casualty would be Belgium – felt less certain that Britain would come to their aid. The Czar expressed his concern about the Russian state of readiness and the Duma agreed to raise the strength of the army from 1,240,000 to 1,700,000 men. Europe had reached the position in which the preparedness for war made war inevitable.
President Woodrow Wilson, in office for a year, exhibited the instinct which made him pioneer the League of Nations. He sent a personal (and secret) emissary, Colonel House, to Europe. In Berlin, House found the German army determined to go to war. London remained sceptical. British ministers retained their confidence in the German ambassador’s good faith.
Asquith also had Ireland on his mind. Carson was at his most vociferous and the Army remained anxious about what role it would play if Ulster did rebel. The Prime Minister felt less of an obligation to Belgium than Molke imagined. ‘The Cabinet’, he told the King, ‘consider this matter … one of policy rather than legality.’21 And his ministers were bitterly divided. He judged (correctly) that Burns and Haldane would go if Britain joined the war and that Grey would only stay if war was declared. The rest of the Cabinet, in typical British spirit, hoped it would not happen.
On 28 June 1914, the Archduke Ferdinand, heir apparent to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was assassinated during a state visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia. The assassins were Austrian, but there was no doubt that they were motivated by the desire to end Vienna’s influence over Serbia. The causus belli, for which the German and Austrian general staff had waited so impatiently, had at last been created.
On the day that the news of the Sarajevo assassinations reached Britain, London papers printed two special editions. One reported the murder of the Archduke and Archduchess. The other recorded the death of Joe Chamberlain. He had been paralysed and virtually mute for eight years as the result of a stroke which he had suffered two days after he had celebrated his seventieth birthday with the people of Birmingham. But since then – incredibly, even by the standards of the time – he had twice been returned to Parliament unopposed. He was incapable of signing the register, so, on his last visit to the House of Commons, he was carried into the chamber at the end of a day’s business when all other Members had left. ‘For a moment he sat, piteously but proudly motionless, while his eye slowly surveyed the empty benches and galleries and then he indistinctly repeated the oath to the clerk. To sign the roll was, for him, a physical impossibility but Austen [his son] guided his hand sufficiently for him to make a shaky cross.’22 Despite the eight-year silence (and the widespread animosity which had prompted him to tell Winston Churchill that ‘if a man is sure of himself’, abuse ‘only sharpens him and makes him more effective’), 23 his death was marked by the expression of almost universal sadness. The people knew that a chapter of British history had closed.
There were new men ready and anxious to complete the new chapter which was about to begin. Amongst them was Winston Churchill, the minister who one day was to hold Britain’s destiny in his hand. In the summer of 1914 (as at many other moments of his career) he was blessed with unreasonably good fortune. In the middle of the year the fleet had been congregated in the home ports to take part in a ‘trial mobilisation’ in place of the usual manoeuvres. The exercise had been planned as an economy measure. Ships in port are less expensive than ships firing shells at sea. The presence of so many capital ships in and about the Channel meant that, during the crisis which followed the assassination, the Navy was ready to go into action. In fact, when the news from Sarajevo reached London, some of the smaller ships had already left port – but Prince Louis of Battenberg, the First Sea Lord since 1912, stopped the dispersal without consulting higher authority. Churchill immediately endorsed his action. His first stint as First Lord was to end with the disaster of the Dardanelles. It began with the success that only Providence can provide.
It was the one happy chance in a miserable month for a Cabinet which was almost united in its detestation of war and the thought of war. On 3 August, when Germany demanded what it described as ‘free passage’ through Belgium, even Lloyd George, who had been the most senior advocate of continued neutrality, accepted that the government now had no choice. Grey issued a rival British ultimatum to Germany. Unless Berlin made clear, by midnight, that an invasion of Belgium was neither planned nor contemplated, a state of war would exist between the two nations.
The third of August was a clear English summer’s day. Crowds gathered in London and cheered the Prime Minister on his way to Parliament. He expressed his loathing for the levity and quoted Robert Walpole. ‘Now they ring the bells but soon they will wring their hands.’24 As eleven o’clock approached (midnight by Berlin time), Whitehall was packed with a cheering crowd. At eleven-thirty, Asquith invited Lloyd George to join him in the Cabinet Room. When he arrived, he found Grey and McKenna (by then Home Secretary, having exchanged jobs with Churchill) were already there. So was Mrs Asquith. Grey was still not sure that war was inevitable. Then he received a message that the British Ambassador to Berlin had left the Embassy and was on the way home.
The crowd outside Downing Street went quiet as the hour struck. In the Cabinet Room, the Prime Minister and his guests sat in silence for several minutes. Then Winston dashed into the room’. Margot Asquith recorded the scene. Churchill was ‘radiant, his face bright, his manner keen and he told us – one word pouring out on the other – how he was going to send telegrams to the Mediterranean, the North Sea and God knows where! You could see that he was really happy.’25
Winston Churchill was just forty. He had already held one of the Great Offices of State, as well as two other Cabinet posts, and had confirmed his reputation as a ‘coming man’ by the uninhibited enthusiasm with which he had charged at every task. That night in Downing Street his Cabinet colleagues, not surprisingly, thought his brash exuberance wholly out of place. They could not possibly have anticipated the horrors of the First World War. But they were, instinctively as well as intellectually, opposed to war itself for reasons which went far beyond their abhorrence of the death and destruction w
hich were bound to be its consequence. War would disturb the established order and change the world from the steady state which Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, had worked so hard to maintain. Only once, in a hundred years, had Britain fought on the continent. And the campaign, far away in the Crimea, had ended in disaster. Yet in August 1914, the lights were going out all over continental Europe and the darkness was spreading across the Channel. Nothing would ever be quite the same again and few people – perhaps not even the eternally optimistic Winston Churchill, believed that the world would be changed for the better.
The pessimists were wrong. The inexorable march of progress continued. The course of improvement did not run smooth – the slaughter of 1916 and the slump of 1929 lay ahead. But fifty years on life was far better for the average family than it had been in 1914 – just as it was better in 1914 than in 1864. But the real error, shared by the solemn ministers assembled in Downing Street that night, was the belief that the world was about to be turned upside down. The political, social and cultural revolution had already happened. Modern Britain was born in the opening years of the twentieth century. It is the legacy of the Edwardians.
NOTES
Part One: ‘Anxieties for England’
Chapter 1: A Cloud Across the Sun
1. Daily Telegraph, 4.2.01.
The Edwardians Page 56