NEW LIGHT ON THE ORIGINS OF THE WORLD WAR, I. BERLIN AND VIENNA, TO JULY 29 AFTER the revolution of November 9, 1918, the new German republic at once made Karl Kautsky assistant secretary of state for foreign affairs, and authorized him to edit the documents which would throw light on the origins of the World War. By March, 1919, he and his assistants had carefully copied, dated, arranged, and annotated a mass of papers contained in eighteen volumes in the archives of the Foreign Office. He was eager to publish this material as soon as possible during the Peace Conference at Versailles, in order to convince the world how completely the new régime had broken with the old Junker rulers of 1914. But the Ebert government feared that Kautsky's known opposition to the Kaiser and the old imperial government might lay his edition of the documents open to the charge of party bias. It therefore delayed its publication until it could be examined and edited by three scholars of different political views, Dr. Walter Schücking, Count Montgelas, and Professor Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. These co-editors found that Kautsky had done his work most conscientiously and carefully. Meanwhile, however, in June, the Ebert government published a White Book, Germany Guilty?, drawn up by Hans Delbrück, the well known historian, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Count Montgelas, and Max Weber. It was intended as a reply to the report which the Allied commissioners at Versailles had made on the responsibility for the ward But as it repeated many of the old arguments of tot trying to exculpate Germany and throw the blame on Austria, it had quite the opposite effect from convincing the world that the new Germam had completely broken with the past. This White Rood as Kautsky bitter complained, was nothing but a "whiteWashing Avd" He fet all the more aggrieved because he himself one a doek en t'e causes of the war, quoting large VXDAGIN 1909 2e damens der dad agreed not to make it public u ce de documents Nad en ofcially published. In Decembe documents were finally published ryotes They comprise 1123 docu Not er die Verantwortlichkeit Casasbruck: Tollständige Sammlung ments, of which 937 are given in extenso and the remainder in a sufficiently full summary. Included also are the complete texts of the secret Triple and Rumanian alliances, translations of which have recently been edited by Professor Coolidge.3 There is no reason to believe that any material documents which passed through the German Foreign Office have been deliberately withheld by the editors. The editors have wisely refrained, absolutely, from all subjective comment, but have conveniently given cross-references, indexes, and all existing official indications as to the exact day, hour, and minute, when despatches were sent and received. This precise information, unfortunately lacking in the various colored books issued at the beginning of the war, now makes it possible to determine just how much an official knew when he took an action; it enables one to judge with nicety as to the motives, honesty, and ability of the men in charge of Germany in 1914. Most interesting from the point of view of the Kaiser's psychology are his numerous marginal annotations, which have been much featured in the press, and which led Kautsky to many jibes at royalty revealed in Unterhosen. As publication of the official compilation of documents was still delayed beyond the date agreed, Kautsky's publishers at last lost patience and published in November, 1919, the work which he had written in the preceding May, How the World War arose. It is distinctly a partizan attack on the old régime, and is, of course, much less trustworthy than the documents themselves." In Vienna Dr. Richard Gooss did for the Austrian Foreign. Office what Kautsky had done for the German. He edited anony mously, without such detailed information as to dates, a threevolume Red Book containing 352 documents, dealing with the four burg, 1919); referred to hereafter not by page but by document number, as Kautsky Docs." For Count Montgelas's own interesting account of the documents, see Littell's Living Age, January 24, 1919, pp. 218-220. 3 A. F. Pribram, The Secret Treaties of Austria-Hungary, 1879–1914, ed. A. C. Coolidge (Cambridge, 1920). 4 There may, however, very probably be documents which did not pass through the Foreign Office, which may yet be published. There are no documents from the General Staff except a few sent in to the Foreign Office. These would of course give needed light on the vexed question of mobilization. Some are reproduced in Littell's Living Age, January 10, 1920, pp. 63-67. 6 K. Kautsky, Wie der Weltkrieg entstand (Berlin, 1919). As this pamphlet, costing only six marks, tended to injure the sale of the official documentary compilation, published a few days later and costing five times as much, he was sued on December 10 for breaking his agreement about priority of publication. Cf. New York Times, February 9, 1920. 7 It is subjected to severe criticism by Hans Delbrück, "Die Kautsky Papiere", in Preussische Jahrbücher, CLXXIX. 71-100 (January, 1920). weeks prior to the outbreak of war.8 Like Kautsky, he also published prior to his official compilation a volume summing up his own conclusions and interpretations. It is a valuable book, more temperate than Kautsky's, and contains much information not given in the Red Book. It is curious to see how zealously each of these two men, after studying one set of documents, assigns exclusively the whole blame for the war to his own former government. According to Kautsky, Germany eagerly pushed a hesitating Berchtold into the attack on Serbia and a world war. According to Gooss the unsuspecting Emperor William was the sacrificial lamb offered up on the altar of Berchtold's reckless perfidy and obstinacy. In addition to the Kautsky Documents and the Red Book, the two great sources on which writers will largely base the future war of words as to the immediate responsibility for the World War, a flood of exculpatory memoirs and pamphlets followed the German collapse of 1918, similar to that which followed the French débâcle of 1870. Jagow10 rests his work mainly on his reply to Lichnowsky,11 and on the already well-known material in the various colored books.12 Pourtalès, 13 the German ambassador at Petrograd, gives a very straightforward account of his share in the events at Petrograd and of his honest efforts to carry out the instructions of his government to keep Russia quiet and preserve the peace by localizing the conflict. His narrative is based on the contemporary notes. which he made on his journey home in August, 1914,14 and on the embassy telegrams which he appears to have taken with him. Bethmann-Hollweg's Observations15 still insist that England was chiefly responsible for the war: England encouraged Russia with 8 Diplomatische Aktenstücke zur Vorgeschichte des Krieges, 1914: Ergänzungen und Nachträge zum Oest.-Ungar. Rotbuch (Vienna, 1919, 3 vols.); quoted hereafter as Red Book. 9 Das Wiener Kabinett und die Entstehung des Weltkrieges (Vienna, 1919). 10 G. von Jagow, Ursachen und Ausbruch des Weltkrieges (Berlin, February, 1919). 11 First printed in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, March 23, 1918, and translated with Lichnowsky's own Memorandum in Disclosures from Germany (American Association for International Conciliation, June, 1918), no. 127, pp. 352-357. 12 Collected Diplomatic Correspondence relating to the Outbreak of the European War (London, 1915); quoted hereafter as Dipl. Corresp. 13 Graf Pourtalès, Am Scheidewege zwischen Krieg und Frieden (Berlin, February, 1919). 14 Published in Kautsky Docs., app. V. 15 Bethmann-Hollweg, Betrachtungen zum Weltkrieg (Berlin, May, 1919). the hope of support, and Russia was consequently encouraged to interfere in the Austro-Serbian crisis which Germany had intended to localize. Tirpitz,10 however, like Lichnowsky, takes Bethmann severely to task for having trusted too optimistically in thinking that Russia and France would not dare to call the bluff which Germany was allowing Austria to make. Helfferich agrees with Tirpitz that the German Foreign Office and the German people made their great mistake in taking the Serajevo crime so calmly and in thinking that war could be avoided as in 1909 and the later Balkan crises, if only Germany and Austria stood firm. The Austrians, and with good reason, have made little effort to exculpate themselves. Berchtold, who more than any one else was responsible for the World War, has kept silent except for a very short and lame letter of excuse.18 Count Czernin's interesting volume deals mainly with diplomacy during the war, but in an introductory chapter he expresses the view, in which there may be truth, that the German ambassador at Vienna, Tschirschky, like so many German militarists, "was firmly persuaded that in the very near future Germany would have to go through a war against France and Russia, and he considered that the year 1914 would be more favorable than a later date. . . . That, however, was his policy, not Bethmann's." Tschirschky was one of those ambassadors who “did not keep to the instructions from their governments; they communicated messages correctly enough, but if their personal opinion differed, they made no secret of it, and it certainly weighed in the balance ".19 Count Tisza, the Hungarian premier, by what we know of his character and attitude in July, 1914, might have been able to tell the truth fearlessly, but he lies in a bloody grave, assassinated, his lips sealed forever.20 16 A. von Tirpitz, Erinnerungen (Leipzig, April, 1919). Lord Haldane, who had such good opportunities to judge Bethmann and Tirpitz from personal contact, gives an admirable review of their books in his own volume, Before the War (London, 1920), pp. 101-173. See also reviews of Tirpitz and Helfferich by Professor Gauss, pp. 496-500, above. 17 K. Helfferich, Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges (Berlin, March, 1919). 18 Letter to K. H. von Wiegand, in Chicago Herald and Examiner, October 10, 1919; reprinted as an appendix in Goričar, The Inside Story of Austro-German Intrigue (New York, 1920), pp. 299–301. " in 19 Count Czernin, In the World War (New York, 1919), pp. 9-11. 20 See "Some New Sources of European History ", by "Tramontana' The New Europe, nos. 162, 163, 167 (November 20, 27, December 25, 1919). See also C. Oman, The Outbreak of the War of 1914-1918 (London, 1919); M. Ritter, "Deutschland und der Ausbruch des Weltkrieges", in Historische Zeitschrift, CXXI. 23–92 (1919); K. F. Nowak, Der Weg zur Katastrophe (Berlin, AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXV.--41. During the quarter of a century following Bismarck's dismissal in 1890, the Triple Alliance had lost much of that dominating position in Europe which he had left as his heritage to the irresponsible, ambitious, erratic young master who succeeded him. Emperor William by a series of often well-intentioned, but usually ill-judged, moves, had essentially weakened, instead of strengthened, Germany's diplomatic position. He had lowered her prestige and had alarmed his neighbors who consequently drew closer together. The Triple Entente, in spite of its exterior position, divergent interests, and different forms of government as represented by republican France and autocratic Russia, represented in man-power and sea-power a far stronger combination than that of the Triple Alliance supported by Rumania. Moreover, the Triple Alliance was beginning to develop dangerous disruptive tendencies within itself. Italy held close to her old friendship with England, and since 1902 had begun to coquette with France. She had not hesitated to embarrass the Triple Alliance by her attack on Germany's friends in 1911, and she had developed inconvenient ambitions in the Balkans, antagonistic to Austria's interests, ambitions which found expression at the renewal of the Triple Alliance in 1912, and in her alleged refusal to back Austria in action against Serbia in August, 1913. Above all, Italy's nationalistic aspirations and traditions made her people still hate her Austrian ally, and covet the terra irredenta still under Austrian domination.21 Similarly, Tisza's nationalistic Magyar policy toward the Rumanians in Hungary had created such a strong anti-Austrian feeling in Rumania that King Carol admitted his doubt whether in the event of an Austro-Russian war he could stand against public feeling and fulfill his obligations to the Triple Alliance. He even seemed to be shifting to the side of Russia, judging at any rate by the tsar's visit to Bucharest in the spring of 1914 to attend a marriage uniting the royal houses of Russia and Rumania. But the most ominous danger for the Triple Alliance lay in the situation in Austria. The disruptive tendency of the increasingly powerful nationalistic aspirations of the subject nationalities had long led political Cassandras to prophesy the dissolution of the Dual 1919); Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story (New York, 1918); R. Hoeniger, Russlands Vorbereitung zum Weltkrieg (Berlin, 1919); Lord Loreburn, How the War came (London, 1918); and Goričar, The Inside Story of AustroGerman Intrigue (New York, 1920). 21 The strength of this popular feeling and San Giuliano's consequent pessimism on the subject of the Triple Alliance, even before Austria's ultimatum to Serbia, are strikingly revealed in the numerous despatches of Flotow, the German ambassador at Rome. Kautsky Docs., nos. 59, 60, 64, 73, 75, 78, 109, 119. |