Before the War | Page 7

in taste, if not in style also, but in this case it seemed safer not to try to avoid it.
Many things that happened in the years just before 1914, as well as the events of the great war itself, are still too close to permit of our studying them in their full context. But before much time has passed the historians will have accumulated material that will overflow their libraries, and their hands will remain occupied for generations to come. At this moment all that safely can be attempted is that actual observers should set down what they have themselves observed. For there has rarely been a time when the juridical maxim that "hearsay is not evidence" ought to be more sternly insisted on.
If I now venture to set down what follows in these pages, it is because I had certain opportunities for forming a judgment at first hand for myself. I am not referring to the circumstance that for a brief period I once, long ago, lived the life of a student at a German University, or that I was frequently in Germany in the years that followed. Nor do I mean that I have tried to explore German habits of reflection, as they may be studied in the literature of Germany. Other people have done all these things more thoroughly and more extensively than I have. What I do mean is that from the end of 1905 to the summer of 1912 I had special chances for direct observation of quite another kind. During that period I was Secretary of State for War in Great Britain, and from the latter year to April, 1915, I was the holder of another office and a member of the British Cabinet.
During the first of the above periods it fell to me to work out the military organization that would be required to insure, as far as was practicable, against risk, should those strenuous efforts fail into which Sir Edward Grey, as he then was, had thrown his strength. He was endeavoring with all his might to guard the peace of Europe from danger. As he and I had for many years been on terms of close intimacy, it was not unnatural that he should ask me to do what I could by helping in some of the diplomatic work which was his, as well as by engaging in my own special task. Indeed, the two phases of activity could hardly be separable.
I was not in Germany after May, 1912, for the duties of Lord Chancellor, on which office I then entered, made it unconstitutional for me to leave the United Kingdom, save under such exceptional conditions as were conceded by the King and the Cabinet when, in the autumn of 1913, I made a brief yet memorable visit to the United States and Canada. But in 1906, while War Minister, I paid, on the invitation of the German Emperor, a visit to him at Berlin, to which city I went on after previously staying with King Edward at Marienbad, where he and the then Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, were resting.
While at Berlin I saw much of the Emperor, and I also saw certain of his Ministers, notably Prince von Bülow, Herr von Tschirsky and General von Einem, the first being at that time Chancellor, and the last two being respectively the Foreign and War Ministers. I was invited to examine for myself the organization of the German War Office, which I wished to study for purposes of reform at home; and this I did in some detail, in company with an expert adviser from my personal staff, Colonel Ellison, my military private secretary, who accompanied me on this journey.[1] There the authorities explained to us the general nature of the organization for rapid mobilization which had been developed under the great von Moltke, and subsequently carried farther. The character of this organization was, in its general features, no secret in Germany, altho it was somewhat unfamiliar in Anglo-Saxon countries; and it interested my adviser and myself intensely.
At that time there was an active militarist party in Germany, which, of course, was not wholly pleased at the friendly reception with which we met from the Emperor and from crowds in the streets of Berlin. We were well aware of the activity of this party. But it stood then unmistakably for a minority, and I formed the opinion that those who wanted Germany to remain at peace, quite as much as to be strong, had at least an excellent chance of keeping their feet. I realized, and had done so for years past, that it was not merely because of the beaux yeux of foreign peoples that Germany desired to maintain good relations all round. She had become fully conscious of a