The Myth of a Guilty Nation

MR. ASQUITH’S citation of a “solemn international obligation” refers to the so-called Belgian treaties. It will be remembered that the case of Belgium was the great winning card played by the Allied Governments for the stakes of American sympathies; and therefore we may here properly make a survey, somewhat in detail, of the status of Belgium at the outset of the war.

Belgium had learned forty years ago how she stood under the treaties of 1831 and 1839. When in the late ’eighties there was likelihood of a Franco-German war, the question of England’s participation under these treaties was thoroughly discussed, and it was shown conclusively that England was not obligated. Perhaps the best summary of the case was that given by Mr. W. T. Stead in the Pall Mall Gazette in the issues of 4 and 5 February, 1887. After an examination of the treaties of 1831, 1839 and 1870—an examination unfortunately too long to be quoted here—Mr. Stead briefly sums up the result of his investigation in the following statement:

There is therefore no English guarantee to Belgium. It is possible perhaps, to ‘construct’ such a guarantee; but the case may be summed up as follows: (1) England is under no guarantee whatever except such as is common to Austria, France, Russia and Germany; (2) that guarantee is not specifically of the neutrality of Belgium at all; and (3) is given, not to Belgium but to the Netherlands.

This was the official view of the British Government at the time, and it is reflected in the celebrated letter signed “Diplomaticus” in the Standard of 4 February, to which Mr. Stead refers; which, indeed, he makes the guiding text for his examination. The Standard was then the organ of Lord Salisbury’s Government, and it is as nearly certain as anything of the sort can be, that the letter signed “Diplomaticus” was written by the hand of the British Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury himself.

How Mr. Asquith’s Government in August 1914 came suddenly to extemporize a wholly different view of England’s obligations to Belgium is excellently told by that inveterate diarist and chronicler, Mr. Wilfred Scawen Blunt:

The obligation of fighting in alliance with France in case of a war with Germany concerned the honour of three members only of Asquith’s Cabinet, who alone were aware of the exact promises that had been made. These, though given verbally and with reservations as to the consent of Parliament, bound the three as a matter of personal honour, and were understood at the Quai d’Orsay as binding the British nation. Neither Asquith nor his two companions1 in this inner Cabinet could have retained office had they gone back from their word in spirit or in letter. It would also doubtless have entailed a serious quarrel with the French Government had they failed to make it good. So clearly was the promise understood at Paris to be binding that President Poincaré, when the crisis came, had written to King George reminding him of it as an engagement made between the two nations which he counted on His Majesty to keep.

Thus faced, the case was laid before the Cabinet, but was found to fail as a convincing argument for war. It was then that Asquith, with his lawyer’s instinct, at a second Cabinet meeting brought forward the neutrality of Belgium as a better plea than the other to lay before a British jury, and by representing the neutrality-treaties of 1831 and 1839 as entailing an obligation on England to fight (of which the text of the treaties contains no word) obtained the Cabinet’s consent, and war was declared.

Belgium was not thought of by the British Cabinet before 2 August, 1914. She was brought in then as a means of making the war go down with the British people. The fact is that Belgium was thoroughly prepared for war, thoroughly prepared for just what happened to her. Belgium was a party to the military arrangements effected among France, England and Russia; for this we have the testimony of Marshal Joffre before the Metallurgic Committee in Paris, and also the record of the “conversations” that were carried on in Brussels between the Belgian chief of staff and Lt.-Col. Barnardiston. On 24 July, 1914, the day when the Austrian note was presented to Serbia (the note of which Sir E. Grey had gotten an intimation as early as 16 July by telegraph from the British Ambassador at Vienna, Sir M. de Bunsen), the Belgian Foreign Minister, M. Davignon, promptly dispatched to all the Belgian embassies an identical communication containing the following statement, the significance of which is made clear by a glance at a map:

All necessary steps to ensure respect of Belgian neutrality have nevertheless been taken by the Government. The Belgian army has been mobilized and is taking up such strategic positions as have been chosen to secure the defence of the country and the respect of its neutrality. The forts of Antwerp and on the Meuse have been put in a state of defence.

It was on the eastern frontier, we perceive, therefore—not on the western, where Belgium might have been invaded by France—that all the available Belgian military force was concentrated. Hence, to pretend any longer that the Belgian Government was surprised by the action of Germany, or unprepared to meet it; to picture Germany and Belgium as cat and mouse, to understand the position of Belgium otherwise than that she was one of four solid allies under definite agreement worked out in complete practical detail, is sheer absurdity.

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2Sir E. Grey and Lord Haldane.

• 1Six months after the armistice, the bodies of the three assassins were dug up, according to a Central News dispatch from Prague, “with great solemnity, in the presence of thousands of the inhabitants. The remains of these Serbian officers are to be sent to their native country.” This is a naïve statement. It remains to be explained why these “German agents” should be honoured in this distinguished way by the Serbs!
• 2THE British Government is the one which was most often represented to us as taken utterly by surprise by the German onslaught on Belgium. Let us see. The Austrian Archduke was assassinated 28 June, 1914, by three men who, according to wide report in Europe and absolute certainty in America, were secret agents of the German Government, acting under German official instruction. The findings of the court of inquiry showed that they were Serbs, members of a pan-Slav organization; that the assassination was plotted in Belgrade, and the weapons with which it was committed were obtained there. Serbia denied all connexion with the assassins (the policy of Serbia being then controlled by the Russian Foreign Office), and then the Russian Government stepped forward to prevent the humiliation of Serbia by Austria. It is clear from the published diplomatic documents that the British Foreign Office knew everything that took place between the assassination and the burial of the Archduke; all the facts, that is, connected with the murder. The first dispatch in the British White Paper is dated 20 July, and it is addressed to the British Ambassador at Berlin. One wonders why not to the Ambassador at Vienna; also one wonders why the diplomats apparently found nothing to write about for nearly three weeks between the Archduke’s funeral and 20 July. It is a strange silence. Sir Edward Grey, however, made a statement in the House of Commons, 27 July, in which he gave the impression that he got his first information about the course of the quarrel between Austria and Serbia no earlier than 24 July, three days before. The Ambassador at Vienna, Sir M. de Bunsen, had, notwithstanding, telegraphed him that the Austrian Premier had given him no hint of “the impending storm” and that it was from a private source “that I received, 15 July, the forecast of what was about to happen, concerning which I telegraphed to you the following day.” Sir Maurice de Bunsen’s telegram on this important subject thus evidently was suppressed; and the only obvious reason for the suppression is that it carried evidence that Sir E. Grey was thoroughly well posted by 16 July on what was taking place in Vienna. Sir M. de Bunsen’s allusion to this telegram confirms this assumption; in fact, it can be interpreted in no other way.