The average Englishman in the street, the House of Commons, or the Cabinet had no inkling of the Schlieffen plan. To him, the neutrality of Belgium was fixed and immutable. A breaking of the 1839 treaty and a violation of Belgian neutrality were the only Continental events which might bestir such an Englishman to war. The German generals knew this and did not care. Expecting a short, victorious Continental war, they had taken the likelihood of British belligerency into account and estimated it to be of minimal significance. The size of the British Expeditionary Force—four or six divisions—was well known; should the English choose to place these men in the path of the German juggernaut, they would be ground under along with any Frenchmen or Belgians who got in the way. “The more English the better,”54 Moltke said to Tirpitz, meaning that if the British Army were disposed of in Belgium, he wouldn’t have to worry about it turning up elsewhere.fn2 Bethmann abjectly surrendered to the General Staff on invading Belgium. “Military opinion55 held that a condition of success was passage through Belgium,” he wrote after the war. “The offense against Belgium was obvious and the general political consequences of such an offense [i.e., England’s reaction] were in no way obscure.... General von Moltke was not blind to this consideration, but declared that it was a case of absolute military necessity. I had to accommodate my view to his.... It would have been too heavy a burden of responsibility for a civilian authority to have thwarted a military plan that had been elaborated in every detail and declared to be essential.”
Moltke remained at his spa in Karlsbad while Austria prepared and delivered her ultimatum. The General was not needed in Berlin because every soldier, bullet, soup kitchen, and railway car had been assigned; meanwhile, his absence from the capital helped create the image of calm which the Wilhelmstrasse was promoting. Once Moltke returned, he began sending memoranda to Jagow and Bethmann. On July 26, he sent Jagow a draft of a German ultimatum, demanding free passage of German troops through Belgium. The demand was excused by saying that Germany had “reliable information”56 of “France’s intention to advance against Germany through Belgian territory.” If Belgium did not resist, she was to be offered restoration of independence after the war and possible territorial aggrandizement at the expense of France. If Belgium resisted, she would be treated as an enemy. Jagow prettied up the ultimatum with cushioning phrases (“...with the deepest regret”;57 “...with the best of good will”) and on July 29 sent it to the German Ambassador in Brussels, instructing him to keep it in his office safe until further notice.
On Sunday, August 2, Moltke sent “some suggestions58 of a military-political nature” to Jagow. Moltke revealed that he had already drafted a treaty of alliance with Switzerland and sent a copy to the Chief of the Swiss General Staff; all the Wilhelmstrasse had to do, he said, was to ratify the documents. Moltke suggested instigating uprisings against the British in India, Egypt, and South Africa; he urged that Sweden be persuaded to attack Russia in Finland; he proposed that Japan be urged to attack Russia in the Far East. By August 3, Moltke’s tone with Jagow became peremptory: “The Belgian Government must be informed59 on Tuesday, 4 August... that to our regret, we shall be forced... to put into execution the measures of self-protection against the French menace which we have already described.... This communication is a necessity, inasmuch as our troops will already be entering upon Belgian territory early tomorrow morning.” On August 4, Moltke ordered the State Secretary to tell Great Britain that “Germany’s procedure in Belgium60 was compelled.... This war... is a question for Germany not only of her whole national existence and of the continuation of the German Empire created through so many bloody sacrifices, but also of the preservation and maintenance of German civilization and principles as against uncivilized Slavdom. Germany is unable to believe that England will be willing to assist, by becoming an enemy of Germany, in destroying this civilization—a civilization in which English spiritual culture has for ages had so large a share. The decision... lies in England’s hands.” To ensure that everyone in London read his words, Count von Moltke instructed Jagow to send the message “uncoded.”61
On Saturday morning, August 1, when Asquith met the Cabinet, Russia had mobilized; Germany and France were on the brink. The Cabinet was deeply divided on the question of British intervention: some were opposed no matter what the provocation; most were willing to consider it only if Belgian neutrality was threatened. Grey, torn between his sympathies for France and his loyalty to the principle of Cabinet responsibility, wished to move the ministers as far as he could in the direction of France without forcing resignations. Asquith privately supported Grey and was resolved to resign if the Foreign Secretary departed, but in public he temporized, trying to hold his government together. “Winston very bellicose62 and demanding immediate mobilization, occupied at least half the time,” he wrote to Venetia after the meeting. “Resignations were threatened. Morley declared, ‘We should declare now and at once that in no circumstances will we take a hand.’ The main controversy pivots upon Belgium and its neutrality. We parted in a fairly amicable mood and are to sit again at 11 tomorrow, Sunday.... If we go to war, we shall have a split in the Cabinet. Of course, if Grey went, I should go and then the whole thing would break up.”
Maneuvering within the Cabinet, Grey had two goals: maximum support for France and an unconditional guarantee of Belgian neutrality. On Saturday morning, the strength of the antiwar group precluded both. On Saturday afternoon, Cambon reminded Grey through Nicolson that “it was at our request63 that France had moved her fleets to the Mediterranean, on the understanding that we undertook the protection of her northern and western coasts.” Now, failing the protection of the British Fleet, France’s Channel and Atlantic coasts lay naked to the High Seas Fleet. Grey promised that he would present the problem to the Cabinet on Sunday morning.
Belgian neutrality was the single issue which created a Cabinet majority, but Germany had not yet directly threatened Belgium. Further, Britain could not be sure that the Belgians would resist a German invasion. Britain could not compel Belgium to fight; neither could Britain go to war to defend a passive Belgium. Indeed, it was the position of the peace group in the British Cabinet that a “simple traverse”64 of Belgian territory by German troops would not be a cause for British intervention.
On Saturday morning, while the Cabinet was meeting, the men of the City, the managers of British capital and finance, awoke in panic to war’s proximity. The Governor of the Bank of England called on Lloyd George to let him know that the City was vehemently opposed to British intervention. Lloyd George later used this episode to refute the accusation that “this was a war intrigued65 and organized and dictated by financiers for their own purpose.” “I saw Money66 before the war,” the Chancellor wrote. “I lived with it for days and did my best to study its nerve, for I knew how much depended on restoring its confidence; and I say that Money was a frightened and trembling thing: Money shivered at the prospect. It is a foolish and ignorant libel to call this a financier’s war.” Asquith received the same message, not only from bankers and financiers but from cotton men, steel men, and coal men from the north of England. All were “aghast at the bare idea67 of our plunging into a European conflict, how it would break down the whole system of credit with London at its center, how it would cut up commerce and manufacture...” The Prime Minister hit hard at these critics. The men of the City, he said, “are the greatest ninnies68 I ever had to tackle. I found them all in a state of funk like old women chattering over teacups in a cathedral town.”
Asquith’s foresight was as flawed as that of his countrymen. When the crisis arose, he saw no reason why Britain should be more than a spectator to the Continental Armageddon. On July 26, when a visitor mentioned Belgium, Asquith declared, “We have made no pledges69 to them.” As the crisis evolved and magnified within the Cabinet, it became clear that, whatever he did, Asquith would suffer losses. If he supported Grey, then Morley, Burns, and others would go; without Grey, he would go. The key lay with a
middle group, who clung to Britain’s lack of treaty obligation to France and assumptions that moral obligation could not dictate intervention in a war which was a struggle between the two Continental alliance systems. These men reflected the views of the vast majority of Liberals in the House, the Liberal press, and Liberal voters in the country. Asquith begged his colleagues to compromise; he asked ministers to sleep on their views, to see where adjustments were possible. Meanwhile, he went on with his life. He attended small dinner parties, played bridge, golfed and motored on weekends. His mind was still on Ireland; and on July 30, after the Fleet had gone to Scapa Flow and Grey had rejected the German bid for British neutrality, Asquith still was sitting in the Cabinet Room, a large map of Ulster spread across his lap, trying to make sense of the statistics of population and religion in the six counties. He wrote to Venetia Stanley several times a day, complaining that events were conspiring to keep them apart, and confiding in her every twist of Cabinet argument. It was Venetia he told about getting the King out of bed after midnight on Friday, July 31: Late that evening, Asquith learned that the Kaiser was complaining that his peace efforts were being frustrated by the Tsar’s decree of general mobilization. Asquith drafted a personal appeal on the subject from King George to Nicholas II, and at 12:45 A.M. took a taxi to Buckingham Palace to obtain the sovereign’s approval. The King awakened, pulled a brown dressing gown over his nightshirt, and came to the Audience Room to meet the Prime Minister and read and sign the proposed appeal. His only change was to begin with “My dear Nicky”70 and close with “Georgie.”fn3
In the end, Asquith permitted events on the Continent to outpace and influence decisions of the British government. The German ultimatum demanding submission by Belgium within twelve hours forced Britain to choose. Asquith’s achievement was that, when the choice was made, Government, Party, and country were united behind him.
On Saturday evening, August 1, Churchill sat in his room at the Admiralty. He still thought that peace had a chance. Not a shot had been fired between the Great Powers; personal telegrams were humming back and forth between the Kaiser and the Tsar. Then came the news that Germany had declared war on Russia:
“I walked across the Horse Guards Parade72 and entered 10 Downing Street by the garden gate. I found the Prime Minister upstairs in his drawing room; with him were Sir Edward Grey [and] Lord Haldane.... I said that I intended instantly to mobilize the Fleet... and that I would take full personal responsibility to the Cabinet the next morning. The Prime Minister, who felt himself bound to the Cabinet, said not a single word, but I was clear from his look that he was quite content. As I walked down the steps of Downing Street with Sir Edward Grey, he said to me, ‘You should know I have just... told Cambon that we shall not allow the German fleet to come into the Channel.”
Grey was ahead of himself in making this commitment. On Sunday morning, Grey brought the Cabinet along, urging that “we could not stand73 the sight of the German Fleet coming down the Channel and, within sight and sound of our shores, bombing the French coast.” The majority agreed and Grey was authorized to tell Cambon officially what he had already said the night before: the High Seas Fleet would be held at bay. This was too much for John Burns, who promptly resigned.
Asquith’s day had begun when, while he was still at breakfast, Lichnowsky was announced. “He was very emotional,”74 Asquith recorded, “and implored me not to side with France. He said that Germany, with her army cut in two between France and Russia, was far more likely to be crushed than France. He was very agitated, poor man, and wept. I told him that we had no desire to intervene and that it rested largely with Germany to make intervention impossible if she would 1) not invade Belgium, and 2) not send her fleet into the Channel to attack the unprotected north coast of France. He was bitter about the policy of his government in not restraining Austria and seemed quite broken-hearted.”
There were two Cabinet meetings on Sunday, August 2, from eleven A.M. to two P.M. and again from six-thirty P.M. to eight-thirty P.M. At the second, the majority of the Cabinet agreed that if Belgian neutrality was violated and Belgium resisted, Britain would enter the war. Ministers could not imagine Belgium fighting valiantly against the invader while appealing in vain to Great Britain. Sunday evening, Grey and Haldane dined together at the Lord Chancellor’s house in Queen Anne’s Gate. It was evident, Haldane wrote later, “that the country would... be unable75 to keep out of the war. We had arrived at this same conclusion on different grounds. He felt what we owed to France and that our national interest was bound up with her preservation. I thought from my study of the German General Staff that once the German war party had got into the saddle and the sword had been drawn from the scabbard, it would be a war not merely for the overthrow of France and Russia but for the domination of the world. I knew that if we kept out and allowed Germany to get possession even for a time of the northeastern shores of France, our turn would come later and that we should be in the greatest peril, our Navy notwithstanding, and that we might go down without a friend in the world, under a tremendous combination against us.” While the two friends talked, a box was brought in to the Foreign Secretary announcing the German ultimatum to Belgium. “Grey asked me76 what my prescription was,” Haldane said. “My answer: Immediate mobilization. He agreed. We decided to go without delay to see the Prime Minister. We found him with some company and took him into another room.... Asquith agreed at once. I said to the Prime Minister, who was also War Minister, that as on the next day he would be occupied overwhelmingly with Cabinets and communications to Parliament, he had better write a letter entrusting to me the business91 of going over to the War Office and in his name, mobilizing my old organization. He agreed.”
Within thirty-six hours, the mood in London was transformed. On Saturday morning, a majority of Britons had been resolved that Britain must not become involved in a Continental war. Tens of thousands of Londoners planned to attend a great antiwar demonstration scheduled on Sunday for Trafalgar Square. Then came the news of the threatened German invasion of Belgium. A wave of indignation rolled over the nation, sweeping up the mass of Britons who, although reluctant to fight for France, sprang to the side of neutral Belgium. The Trafalgar Square demonstration evaporated, and on Sunday afternoon, crowds shouting for war with Germany poured into Whitehall, jamming Downing Street. The next morning, Monday, August 3, a Bank Holiday, was a beautiful, cloudless English summer day. The city was packed with excited holiday crowds wanting to participate in the rapidly unfolding historic events. By noon, a dense mass filled Whitehall from Trafalgar Square to the Houses of Parliament; hundreds were buying and waving small Union Jacks, and groups of young men attempted to sing the “Marseillaise.”
At eleven A.M. the Cabinet met. During the night, King George had received an appeal from King Albert of the Belgians asking Great Britain to uphold her treaty obligation to defend his nation’s neutrality. The German ultimatum and Belgium’s decision to oppose the passage of Alexander von Kluck’s thirty-four divisions still were unreported in London, but enough was known to galvanize the British Cabinet. Before the meeting, two ministers, Sir John Simon and Lord Beauchamp, resigned, joining Morley and Burns, but there the defections stopped. Lloyd George, the key figure, was moving toward Asquith and Grey. The Cabinet sanctioned mobilization of the British Fleet and Army, although no decision to send the Expeditionary Force to France was made. Discussion of Grey’s speech to the Commons that afternoon absorbed the session; the Foreign Secretary reviewed the points he intended to make; the Cabinet assented. As the Cabinet was meeting, Haldane had gone to the War Office. He returned to his old room as Minister of War and summoned the Army Council. “Their breath was somewhat77 taken away,” he wrote, “when I told them that I had come with authority to direct immediate mobilization of the Expeditionary and Territorial forces.... I told the generals that the question of whether the Expeditionary Force would actually be dispatched... would not be decided until the issue of peace or war had been disposed of
by the Cabinet, the Sovereign, and Parliament, but they must be ready.”
Grey had begun making notes for his speech to the Commons after the Cabinet meeting on Sunday evening. He did not finish before falling asleep. On Monday morning he was overwhelmed by telegrams. From eleven to two he was with the Cabinet and at two he returned to his room at the Foreign Office. He had one hour before he was to rise in the House. He hoped to use the time to slip away for lunch at Queen Anne’s Gate and then work on his notes. It was not to be. Immediately upon returning to the Foreign Office, he was informed that the German Ambassador was waiting to see him. Grey felt he had no choice—“time must be made78 to see him.” “Lichnowsky’s first words told me that he had brought nothing from Berlin,” but the Ambassador must report to Berlin what was happening in London. What had the Cabinet decided? What was Grey going to say to the House? Would it be a declaration of war? The Foreign Secretary replied that he would not propose a declaration of war but would offer a statement of conditions. What conditions? Lichnowsky asked. Would the neutrality of Belgium be one of them? The Foreign Secretary answered that, much though he wished to satisfy Lichnowsky—“for no man had worked harder79 to avert war... or more genuinely hated this coming war”—he could give no information in advance of his speech. Lichnowsky begged that Belgium neutrality not be named as a casus belli. He knew nothing of the plans of the German General Staff, he said, and he could not believe that they included “a serious violation” of Belgian neutrality. But it might be that Moltke’s soldiers would “go through one small corner of Belgium.” Grey was convinced that the German Ambassador was telling the truth in his disclaimer of personal knowledge of German military plans. Immensely saddened, hard pressed for time, unable to arrest the onrushing tide of war, Grey spoke to Lichnowsky for half an hour, standing in front of his door. The Ambassador departed. It was the last time the two men saw each other officially.