Bethmann’s proposal astounded Whitehall. It was not only that Germany was openly revealing her intention of attacking France and probably Belgium. It was the Chancellor’s naked suggestion that England cynically betray France on the basis of a German promise. Grey’s reaction mingled despair and indignation: “The document made it clear29 that Bethmann now thought war probable.... The proposal meant everlasting dishonour if we accepted it.... Did Bethmann not see that he was making an offer that would dishonour us if we agreed to it? What sort of man was it who could not see that? Or did he think so badly of us that he thought we should not see it?”
Grey immediately wrote a reply to Goschen: “His Majesty’s Government cannot30 for a moment entertain the Chancellor’s proposal.... It would be a disgrace for us to make this bargain with Germany at the expense of France31—a disgrace from which the good name of this country would never recover.” He walked across to 10 Downing Street with the telegram in his hand. Asquith agreed that they need not wait for Cabinet approval, and the telegram was dispatched. That afternoon, Goschen’s telegram, containing the German Chancellor’s proposal, and Grey’s reply were read to the Cabinet. Grey’s decision was approved.
Bethmann had hinted that if war came Germany meant to attack France. Jagow confirmed this to Goschen later on the thirtieth, when he told the British Ambassador that if Germany mobilized, it would be against France as well as Russia. The French government knew what was coming. France’s diplomacy since the delivery of the Austrian ultimatum had been hampered by the absence from Paris of both President Poincaré and Foreign Minister René Viviani. Returning from St. Petersburg aboard the battleship France, they had cancelled their state visit to Denmark, but arrived back in the capital only on the afternoon of July 29. While France had supported Britain’s efforts to establish mediation machinery, she had consistently reassured her Russian ally of her willingness to meet the obligations of the Dual Alliance. Secret military preparations were under way; officers and men excused for the harvest were recalled on the twenty-sixth; French battalions in Morocco were ordered home on the twenty-seventh. On July 28, the French General Staff informed the Russian Military Attaché in Paris of France’s “full and active readiness32 faithfully to execute her responsibilities as an ally.”
France, facing the overwhelming threat of the German Army, pleaded with Britain for a commitment to intervene. One of Viviani’s first moves on his return to the Quai d’Orsay was to ask Paul Cambon in London to “remind” Sir Edward Grey of the 1912 letters promising that the two Powers would take “joint steps33... in the event of tension in Europe.” On the evening of July 30, President Poincaré summoned Sir Francis Bertie, the British Ambassador to France, and urged Britain to take a stand. “He [Poincaré] is convinced34 that... if His Majesty’s Government announce that, in the event of conflict between Germany and France... England would come to the aid of France, there would be no war for Germany would at once modify her attitude,” Bertie reported. “He is convinced that preservation of peace... is in the hands of England.” Bertie was obliged to tell the President of the Republic “how difficult it would be35 for His Majesty’s Government to make such an announcement.”
Even after Austria declared war and bombarded Belgrade, few in Britain had an inkling that within seven days, England would enter a world war. The man in the street, the majority in the Cabinet and House of Commons still saw the crisis as a distant furor over “Serbian murderers.” The Liberal Party in the House of Commons felt that this was a fight between the great Continental alliances and—as Churchill recalled later—that “British participation36 in a continental struggle would... [be] criminal madness.” The Cabinet approved the use of Britain’s influence to keep the peace and unanimously endorsed Grey’s proposal for a Six Power Conference in London. At the same time, the Cabinet also approved the cautionary Admiralty decisions to keep the fleet concentrated at Portland and then to send it to sea. The Cabinet was even willing to authorize Grey’s vague warning to the Germans that they should not count absolutely on British neutrality. But it was not willing to give France the guarantee of support for which Poincaré and Cambon were pleading. Within the Cabinet there existed a strong and vocal minority who absolutely opposed British participation in any Continental war. As the probability of war in Europe loomed larger, this group became more active in its determination to keep Great Britain out: the British people wanted peace; the nation had no legal or moral commitments requiring it to go to war. Should the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary steer a course toward war, these noninterventionists, including Lloyd George, threatened to resign. Grey’s hands were tied. “It was clear to me,”37 he wrote, “that no authority would be obtained from the Cabinet to give the pledge for which France pressed more and more urgently, and that to press the Cabinet for that pledge would be fatal; it would result in the resignation of one group or another and the consequent breakup of the Cabinet altogether.”
Within the Cabinet, the burden of the crisis fell on Grey. The Foreign Secretary, fifty-two, a widower for nine years, childless, was gradually going blind. In the autumn of 1913, he had been forced to give up squash because of his trouble seeing the ball. By May 1914, his condition had worsened. He was told that he would eventually lose the power of reading. Doctors suggested six months of rest and country life. Grey, who had always worked more from a sense of duty than from love of office, refused. During the absorbing days of July and August, the climax of his career, there were Cabinet meetings once, then twice a day, lasting two or three hours apiece. It was Grey’s responsibility to meet and brief foreign ambassadors on the latest developments in British policy. As pressure from France and Germany increased, Cambon and Lichnowsky were constantly at his door, each urgently pleading his country’s case. After these interviews, Grey dictated a summary that was telegraphed to British representatives around the world. Communications poured in from British ambassadors in every capital in Europe; Grey was obliged to read and respond with special care to Buchanan in St. Petersburg, Bertie in Paris, and Goschen in Berlin. No matter how tired, Grey could not rest. He was the pivotal figure, not only in the formulation of British foreign policy within the Cabinet but in conducting the diplomacy that would make it work.
Haldane did what he could to help. Grey, at that time, was renting Churchill’s house at 33 Eccleston Square (the First Lord was living in a house provided by the Admiralty), but during the crisis he moved in temporarily with Haldane at Queen Anne’s Gate. Telegrams and dispatches for the Foreign Secretary were coming in at every hour of the night. So that Grey could get some uninterrupted sleep, Haldane kept a servant sitting up by his door with instructions to bring the dispatch boxes to his bedroom as they arrived and to awaken him. The Lord Chancellor opened the boxes, read the contents, and decided whether the matter was sufficiently urgent to awaken Grey.
Grey sympathized entirely with France and recognized that France had legitimate moral, if not legal, claims on Britain’s support. There was no treaty of alliance, but during his nine years of stewardship at the Foreign Office, the bonds between England and France had been woven ever tighter. Grey’s feelings were not based on simple Francophilia; he “felt that to stand aside38 would mean the domination of Germany, the subordination of France and Russia, the isolation of Great Britain. Ultimately, Germany would wield the whole power of the Continent. How would she use it as regards England?” The professional diplomats at the head of the Foreign Office were even more convinced that England must stand by France. Crowe’s voice was insistent: “The argument39 that there is no written bond binding us to France is strictly correct,” he wrote in a forceful memorandum for the Foreign Secretary. “There is no contractual obligation. But the Entente has been made, strengthened, put to the test and celebrated in a manner justifying the belief that a moral bond was being forged. The whole policy of the Entente can have no meaning if it does not signify that in a just quarrel England would stand by her friends. This honourable expectation has been rais
ed. We cannot repudiate it without exposing our good name to grave criticism.... I feel confident that our duty and our interest will be seen to lie in standing by France in her hour of need. France has not sought the quarrel. It has been forced on her.”
In the week before Britain went to war, Grey structured his thoughts around four convictions: First, he believed that a great European war would be an unimaginable catastrophe in destruction of life and national wealth. Once the nations saw this, then, rationally, they must step back from the abyss. Second, he considered that Germany held the key. “Germany was so immensely strong40 and Austria so dependent on German strength that Germany would have the decisive voice.... It was therefore to Germany that we must address ourselves.” Third, if, despite everything, war came, the long-range interest of Great Britain demanded that she side with France. If a majority in the Cabinet, Parliament, and the country could not be persuaded to accept his view, then he was prepared to resign. Fourth, in the meantime, while Cabinet, Parliament, and country were coming to grips with these facts and their implications, he must make no pledges on behalf of England that the nation might not fulfill. Better to disappoint by refusing to make a commitment now, than to betray later by reneging.
This struggle came to a head on Friday, July 31. France had received the German ultimatum demanding that she turn over the fortresses of Toul and Verdun as a pledge of neutrality in the coming Russo-German war. The French government was preparing to refuse and to order mobilization.fn1 It was imperative for France to know where Britain stood. Paul Cambon went to see Sir Edward Grey. The Ambassador’s mind was focussed on the massive German troop concentrations on the eastern frontiers of France and Belgium. His task was to extract from Britain the strongest possible commitment. He was aware of the reluctance of the British Cabinet; he knew that Grey had not yet dared to inform Parliament of the existence of the 1912 letters, though the letters clearly spelled out the limited nature of the Anglo-French Entente. But Cambon held two strong cards. One was Grey’s conviction that Britain owed loyalty to France. Cambon had to be careful not to push Grey too far; if the Foreign Secretary demanded too much of the Cabinet, was repudiated, and then in consequence resigned, Cambon and France were lost. Grey had advanced in France’s direction as far as he could. Cambon’s other card was the transfer of the French Fleet to the Mediterranean in 1912, accompanied by an unwritten understanding that the British Fleet would protect France’s northern coasts. The 1912 letters specifically stated that this movement of ships was not accompanied by a guarantee of wartime cooperation, but Grey and Churchill both knew that this was what France expected.
Grey’s mind was clear; the Cabinet might retreat behind the letters and disavow responsibility, but if it did, he was resolved to resign. Meanwhile, he could only put off the desperate French Ambassador. It was a painful moment: “the very existence of his country42 as a great nation was at stake and it was vital to France to know what Britain would do,” Grey said. But the Foreign Secretary did not dare hold out hopes which might be unjustified. He did not permit himself to “go one inch beyond43 what the Cabinet had authorized.” “The Cabinet thought44 that for the moment the British Government were unable to guarantee us their intervention,” Cambon reported Grey saying. “Public opinion in Britain and the present mood of Parliament would not allow the Government to commit Britain formally at present.” Cambon permitted himself to ask whether England “would await the invasion45 of French territory before intervening”; in that case, he added dryly, “intervention would be too late.” He reminded the Foreign Secretary of what Grey already knew: that an isolated Britain, facing a victorious Germany, “would find herself in a state46 of dependence.” Grey could only repeat that the Cabinet could not make a commitment without consulting Parliament. In this respect, he added significantly, “the question of Belgian neutrality47 could become an important factor and it is probably that point which Parliament will raise first with the Cabinet.”
The rallying point for those members of the Cabinet wishing to avoid entanglement in war was that while Britain might have a moral obligation to and a strategic interest in France, the British government was not bound by treaty to come to France’s aid. Belgium was different. Since the sixteenth century, England had been unwilling to see the Low Countries in the hands of a Great Power. To keep the Channel coasts out of threatening hands, England had fought Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV, and the Emperor Napoleon. The nation of Belgium had arisen from the ruins of Bonaparte’s empire, and in 1839 its perpetual neutrality had been guaranteed by France, Britain, Prussia, and Austria. When war broke out between Prussia and France in 1870, Gladstone made certain that Bismarck understood Britain’s commitment to Belgian neutrality. The Prussian Chancellor gave assurances and the army of the elder Moltke advanced into France without trespassing on Belgium. The language of the 1839 treaty was unusual on one point: it gave the signatories the right, but not the duty, of intervention in case of violation. In 1914, as the possibility of German violation loomed, the noninterventionists in the Cabinet clung to this point. Britain, they said, had no obligation to defend Belgium, especially if Belgium itself chose not to fight. If the Belgian Army simply lined the roads while the German Army passed, British troops need not be committed. No one knew what Belgium would do. Even Churchill, keenly aware of the threat posed by a Belgium in German hands, believed that, given a German ultimatum, Belgium would protest formally and then submit.
Each day during this crisis week, the Conservative Party leader, Andrew Bonar Law, came to Grey’s room off the Commons Chamber to get the latest news. Bonar Law said that his party’s feelings had not yet jelled. He doubted that Conservatives would be overwhelmingly in favor of war unless Belgium was invaded; in that event, he said, the party would be unanimous.
In the Liberal Party, antiwar feelings ran high: “About the same time48 a very active Liberal member came up to me in the Lobby,” Grey wrote, “and told me that he wished me to understand that under no circumstances whatever ought this country to take part in the war, if it came. He spoke in a dictatorial tone, in the manner of a superior addressing a subordinate, whom he thought needed a good talking to.... I answered pretty roughly... that I hoped we should not be involved in a war, but that it was nonsense to say that there were no circumstances conceivable in which we ought to go to war. ‘Under no circumstances,’ was the [Member’s] retort. ‘Suppose Germany violates the neutrality of Belgium?” [Grey asked]. For a moment he paused, like one who, running at speed, finds himself suddenly confronted with an obstacle unexpected and unforeseen. Then he said with emphasis, ‘She won’t do it.’ ‘I don’t say she will, but supposing she does,’ [Grey persisted.] ‘She won’t do it,’ he repeated confidently, and with that assurance he left me.”
Late on the thirty-first, after Germany had issued its twelve-hour ultimatum to Russia, Grey tried to position Belgium outside the arena of war. In similar dispatches, addressed to both the French and German governments, he asked each for an assurance that Belgian neutrality would be respected provided it was not violated by another Power. France immediately agreed. The German reply was evasive. Jagow told Goschen that he would have to consult the Emperor and the Chancellor before he could answer, and “he rather doubted49 whether they could answer at all, as any reply they might give could not fail, in the event of war, to have the undesirable effect of disclosing to a certain extent part of their plan of campaign.”
Grey’s official diplomatic contacts in Berlin were with the Chancellor, Bethmann, and the State Secretary, Jagow. Although disappointed when they rejected his conference proposal, he refused to assign blame. Bethmann remained Chancellor and, said Grey, “the issues of peace and war50 seemed to depend still more on him than on anyone.” Nevertheless, as the days slipped away and no positive signal came from Berlin, Grey began to feel “there were forces51 other than Bethmann-Hollweg in the seat of authority in Germany. He was not the master of the situation.” Grey’s fear that Bethmann was losing control wa
s far more justified than the Foreign Secretary could know. The German General Staff was in command; nothing the Chancellor could do, even pleading certain knowledge that violation of Belgium’s neutrality would bring England into the war, made any difference. At stake, in the eyes of the generals, was victory or defeat. Only adherence to the carefully sculpted, immensely detailed Schlieffen war plan could guarantee victory. The Schlieffen plan meant attacking France by way of Belgium.
The interlocking gears of the European alliance systems gave events a grim inevitability. Germany was obliged by the terms of her alliance with Austria to support her ally in a war with Russia. France was obliged by the terms of her alliance with Russia to enter any conflict involving Russia and Germany. Germany, thus, had known for twenty years that if she went to war, it would be on two fronts: against Russia and France. Observing the principle of concentration of forces, Count Alfred von Schlieffen, Chief of the German General Staff from 1891 to 1906, decreed that, in a two-front war, “the whole of Germany52 must throw itself upon one enemy, the strongest, most powerful, most dangerous enemy, and that can only be France.” The Russian Army, though larger, was ponderous and ill equipped; Russia could always frustrate victory by retreating, as Kutuzov had done when facing Napoleon. France, the first victim, was to be overwhelmed by the suddenness and power of the German lunge; in 1906, before retiring, Schlieffen allocated seven eighths of the German Army to the west, while one eighth was to fend off the Russians in the east. The French campaign, he estimated, would take six weeks.
The French Army was inferior to the German in numbers, but not in equipment, patriotism, or courage. Dug in behind the massive fortress system constructed along the Franco-German frontier, its flanks anchored in the neutral territory of Belgium in the north and Switzerland in the south, France’s army felt confident of holding the Teutons until the Slav steamroller began to crunch down upon the German rear. Schlieffen assessed this and came to an inescapable conclusion: to guarantee speedy victory in the west, he could not allow Belgium to remain neutral. By travelling through Belgium, he could avoid a frontal assault on the French fortresses, envelop the French left flank, rush down on Paris, and destroy the French Army. Accordingly, he allocated sixteen army corps (700,000 men in thirty-four divisions) to the massive right wing of the German Army in the west. This juggernaut was to roll through Belgium. Schlieffen hoped that the Belgian Army of six divisions would not resist and, especially, that it would not destroy the railways and bridges he needed to maintain his tight schedule. If Belgium did fight, she would be annihilated. Schlieffen’s plan was never seriously questioned by the Kaiser or the civilian leaders of the Reich. It was adopted and fine-tuned by his successor, Helmuth von Moltke, nephew of the victor of the Franco-Prussian War. Moltke had no qualms: “We must put aside53 all commonplaces as to the responsibility of the aggressor,” he said. “Success alone justifies war.”