78

So.

A Secret of Diplomacy

beginning with the Sultan, and thereby done his best unwittingly to court a European war. Turkey had a treaty right to march troops into Bulgaria to undo the union, and would have had the support of Austria, Germany, and Servia in doing But Lord Salisbury's decision saved the situation. Even as it was, Austria egged Servia on to declare an unprovoked war against Bulgaria-Austria herself, as usual, lying low, in the hope of picking up some of the spoils won by others. But Austria underrated the strength and bravery of the Bulgarian army, and the military capacity of its gallant chief; and Servia got a sound beating for her pains, and was saved from disaster by the intervention of Austria. The Sultan was prevented from intervening by a warning from Lord Salisbury. So much for separate action '!

My next

All this is a matter of history. point is as yet, in its full details, one of the secrets of diplomacy. Lord Salisbury's warning to the Sultan in his Guildhall speech, and later at Brighton, has been characterised by some as a mere brutum fulmen. My belief is that Lord Salisbury meant business. It will be remembered that Mr. Goschen made a speech last March in which he said that England's splendid isolation' was not compulsory, since she had refused invitations from some Powers to act with them on the Armenian question. What did Mr. Goschen mean? I was on the Continent at the time, and

2

Proposed Naval Demonstration

79

was told on first-hand authority that Austria had proposed a demonstration of the fleets of the six Powers before Constantinople to bring the Sultan to reason on pain of deposition. Russia and France refused, doubtless suspecting some concealed design upon Constantinople. Austria and Germany then proposed that the other fleets should still carry out their programme; the fleets of England, Italy, and Austria passing the Dardanelles, while Germany lay in wait to join the three Powers in case Russia and France made any attempt to oppose them. Lord Salisbury, while ready to join in a naval demonstration by all the Powers, or by some of them with the acquiescence of the rest, refused to have anything to do with an enterprise which embraced the contingency of a combined attack on France and Russia.

Such is the story which I was told by one who was in a position to know, and there is nothing inherently improbable in it. The secular policy of Germany and Austria is to keep Russia away from Constantinople and the region of the Danube, and England has hitherto been good enough to play their game and fight their battle. The Franco-Russian alliance is a formidable fact for the two Northern Powers, and it would suit them well to get England and Italy to help them to seize Constantinople by a coup de main. The combination could have crushed the united fleets of France and Russia. England would

England's Greatest Enemy

have been ensnared into the Triple Alliance, and Germany and Austria would have been rid of the nightmare of the Franco-Russian alliance. Or, if it suited his game, the 'honest broker' would have left his dupes in the lurch, and come to terms with France and Russia. For Bismarck is still the ruling spirit of the German Foreign Office. It escaped notice at the time that the German Emperor paid a flying visit to Friedrichsruh before sending the famous Kruger telegram. Bismarck's method has always been first to dupe and then to betray and crush his victim. His nefarious acquisition of the Elbe Duchies; his bamboozling of the Germanic Confederation and absorption of the minor States; his wars on Austria and France after first lulling their suspicions with false promises and hopes; his use of Russia to keep Austria in check while he was crushing France, and then his betrayal of her at the Congress of Berlin by putting Austria in a position to dominate the Balkan States and watch her opportunity to seize Constantinople: these are examples of Prince Bismarck's diplomacy. He is the greatest enemy of England since the first Napoleon; and his enmity springs from two causes. In 1870 Mr. Gladstone refused to give implicit credence to Prince Bismarck's story of the Bismarck-Benedetti draft treaty for the spoliation of Belgium, and required both Prussia and France to sign a treaty with England to respect Belgium on pain

Motives of his Enmity

81

of reckoning with England as an ally against the Power that invaded Belgium. In 1875 Lord Beaconsfield's Government joined that of Russia in preventing Bismarck and Moltke from an unprovoked war against France, whose rapid recovery from her great defeat surprised and alarmed them, and whom they wished this time, in Prince Bismarck's phrase, 'to bleed white.' 'I will not permit all the laws of the civilised world to be transgressed and Europe plunged into the horrors of war again,' said the Tsar to the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg.*

6

The old Emperor,' said Lord Derby to the French Chargé d'Affaires in London, 'does not wish for another war, and was ignorant, as we have seen, of the plot going on around him. Prince Bismarck desires it, and is in a hurry to bring it on during the Emperor William's lifetime.' It now appears that our Queen also intervened effectively by a letter to the German Emperor, for Prince Bismarck has lately published in his Hamburg organ his own insolent attack on Her Majesty and the Empress Frederick, in his reply to the Emperor's request for an explanation. Prince Bismarck seems to be a man who, spite of all his greatness, is unable to forgive a check or slight, and has vindictively pursued even the wretched printer

* See Alexander II., sa Vie, son Euvre, p. 292.

† See M. Gavard's Notes in the Correspondant of November 25, 1894.

G

82

Motives of Bismarck's

of a pamphlet unfavourable to the great statesman. He has never forgiven England for the checks of 1870 and 1875.

But there is a deeper reason for his hostility to Great Britain. His huge armaments are an intolerable burden to the Fatherland, and the conscription is driving crowds of able-bodied Germans every year into foreign lands. Germany therefore needs colonies rich and attractive enough to allure Germans, who would thus remain still available as soldiers. If Bismarck could only destroy the naval supremacy of England, he might oust her from South Africa and supplant her commercial marine primacy. He has accordingly devoted his ingenuity for the last quarter of a century to the task of provoking a war between England and Russia, or England and France-a war which would have the additional advantage of crippling for a time one of the Powers which he dreads. Hence the excitement of the Press of Germany and Austria just now, caused by the visit of the Tsar and Tsaritsa to Balmoral. Hence the canards about a Russian General inspecting the fortifications of the Dardanelles, and the Russian Dragoman secretly advising the Sultan to reject the proposals of the Powers. Austria and Germany are in mortal fright lest England and Russia should come to a friendly understanding, and their Press has begun again its congenial occupation of sowing distrust between them. But in vain is the net

"