A Short History of the Great War | Page 6

Government that there was anything to fear from
the British Empire. Mr. Lloyd George has claimed it as one of the
advantages we derive from the British press that it misleads public
opinion abroad, and a study of "The Times," the only British newspaper
that carries much weight in foreign countries, may well have persuaded
the German Government in 1914 that eight years of Liberal
administration were not likely to have provided England with the
means, or left it the spirit, to challenge the might of Germany. She was
known to have entered into no binding alliance with France or Russia;
the peace had never in all their history been broken between the two
great Protestant Powers; and, while there had been serious naval and
colonial rivalry and some diplomatic friction, relations in 1913-14
seemed to have entered calmer waters. Germany had been well satisfied
with the efforts and sacrifices England had made to prevent the Balkan
crisis from developing into a European war; and Lichnowsky was
successfully negotiating treaties which gave Germany unexpected
advantages with regard to the Baghdad railway and African
colonization. On the eve of war the English were hailed as cousins in
Berlin, and the earliest draft of the German official apology, intended
for American consumption, spoke of Great Britain and Germany
labouring shoulder to shoulder to preserve the peace against Russian
aggression. The anger of the Kaiser, the agitation of the Chancellor,
and the fury of the populace when England declared war showed that
Germany had no present intention of adding the British Empire to her
list of enemies and little fear that it would intervene unless it were
attacked. Any anxiety she may have felt was soothed by the studied
assumption that England's desire, if any, to intervene would be
effectively checked by her domestic situation. Agents from Ulster were
buying munitions to fight Home Rule with official connivance in
Germany, and it was confidently expected that war would shake a
ramshackle British Empire to its foundations; there would be rebellions
in Ireland, India, and South Africa, and the self-governing Dominions
would at least refuse to participate in Great Britain's European
adventures. In such circumstances "the flannelled fool at the wicket and
the muddied oaf at the goal" might be trusted to hug his island security

and stick to his idle sports; and the most windy and patriotic of popular
British weeklies was at the end of July placarding the streets of London
with the imprecation "To hell with Servia."
The object of German diplomacy was to avoid offence to British
susceptibilities, and the first requisite was to keep behind the scenes.
The Kaiser went off on a yachting cruise to Norway, where, however,
he was kept in constant touch with affairs, while Austria on 23 July
presented her ultimatum to the Serbian Government. The terms
amounted to a demand for the virtual surrender of Serbian
independence, and were in fact intended to be rejected. Serbia, however,
acting on Russian and other advice, accepted them all except two,
which she asked should be referred to the Hague Tribunal. Austria
refused on the ground that the dispute was not of a justiciable nature;
and the meagre five days' grace having expired on the 28th, Austrian
troops crossed the Save and occupied Belgrade, the Serbians
withdrawing without resistance. Meanwhile feverish activity agitated
the chancelleries of Europe. The terms of the ultimatum had been
discussed by the British Cabinet on Friday the 24th, and the British
Fleet, which had been reviewed at Spithead on the previous Saturday,
was, instead of dispersing at Portland, kept together, and then, on the
29th, dispatched to its war stations in the North Sea. Simultaneously
the German High Seas Fleet withdrew on the 26th to Kiel and
Wilhelmshaven. Russia replied to the Austrian invasion of Serbia by
mobilizing her southern command and extending the mobilization, as
the hand of Germany became more apparent, to her northern armies. Sir
Edward Grey made unceasing efforts to avert the clash of arms by
peaceable negotiation, and proposed a conference of the four Great
Powers not immediately concerned in the dispute--Germany, France,
Italy, and Great Britain. Germany, knowing that she would stand alone
in the conference, declined. The dispute, she pretended, was merely a
local affair between Austria and Serbia, in which no other Power had
the right to intervene. But she refused to localize the dispute to the
extent of regarding it as a Balkan conflict between the interests of
Austria and Russia. Austria was less unyielding when it became
evident that Russia would draw the sword rather than acquiesce in
Serbia's subjection, and on the 30th it seemed that the way had been

opened for a settlement by direct negotiation between Vienna and
Petrograd. At that moment Germany threw off the diplomatic disguise
of being a