April 25, 2015

Finest Hour 117, Winter 2002-03

Page 30

By Rudolf Kircher

“An Abundantly Full Life”: Churchill Through German Eyes Part II: His Book, The World Crisis

In his book on the war, Churchill’s German Admiralty counterpart von Tirpitz says “Those who suggest that Germany’s naval policy was responsible for the war cannot even appeal to the enemy as a witness.” He goes so far as to suggest that the seventeen years of naval construction actually improved the prospects of an acceptable peace with England.

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“Is it possible to be further from the truth than this?” is Winston Churchill’s reply. “With every rivet that von Tirpitz drove into his ships of war, he united British opinion throughout wide circles of the most powerful people in every walk of life and in every part of the Empire. The hammers that clanged at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven were forging the coalition of nations by which Germany was to be resisted and finally overthrown.”

Nothing did more to confirm Englishmen in the belief that Germany would use her power to tyrannise over others than the repeated attempts made to persuade England to adopt a neutral attitude in case of a German conflict with France. All the English books on the war, particularly those written by Grey and Churchill, make this indisputably clear. “I would have given up the whole Navy Bill for the sake of a really sound treaty of neutrality,” von Tirpitz says in his account of the famous Haldane mission. It was always the combination of these two facts, armament and the simultaneous endeavour to secure England’s neutrality by creating this risk to the British fleet, that aroused a conviction in the minds of English statesmen that a catastrophe was impending. And the more they recognised this, the less inclined they were to give the drivers of the German war machine a free hand by pledging England to neutrality.

Churchill assures us that Germany’s colonial policy did not trouble the English people. He does not say whether he includes such enterprises as the Baghdad railway in normal colonial policy. What turned England against Germany, however, was that the latter lost no opportunity of trying to impose her will on others and to extort concessions by bullying and misusing her power, relying on her newly created strength, as at Algeciras and Agadir, and during the Bosnian crisis.

This, Winston Churchill tells us, was the conclusion the English people reached. Was England to promise her neutrality to such an unpleasant comrade, in the case of a Franco-German war, that would leave von Tirpitz in possession of the Channel ports? All efforts to bring about an Anglo-German alliance split on this rock; Haldane’s mission failed on that account; Ballin, who came to London as the Kaiser’s emissary in July 1914, failed for the same reason, and finally Bethmann-Hollweg’s official attempt, at the last moment, to induce England to remain neutral, broke down. War, whatever its consequences might be, seemed to the English people preferable to cowardly neutrality which would have the intolerable result of giving von Tirpitz a footing on the Channel. This is why the face of Winston beamed when, the choice being between such neutrality and war, the Cabinet decided in favour of war.

Churchill’s description of the gradual change in his and Lloyd George’s views during the last ten years before the war reveals all the tragedy of the course of events in Europe. It was not until July 1911, after the Agadir episode, that Lloyd George, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time, joined the ranks of Germany’s enemies. Churchill himself had begun to notice a tendency which changed his attitude towards Germany some years earlier, in the spring of 1909. The proceedings in connection with the annexation of Bosnia roused his suspicion. But they did not trouble him at first. He still believed in peace and friendship with Germany.

Churchill and Lloyd George threw their powerful weight into the scale with Lord Morley and Lord Loreburn. They formed the strong Radical and pacifist wing in the Liberal Cabinet. Asquith, who became Prime Minister in 1908, seemed to adopt an impartial position, but Churchill says that his heart and sympathies were always with Sir Edward Grey, the War Office and the Admiralty.

The great change in Mr. Lloyd George, he tells us, took place on the 21st of July 1911. “On the morning of 21 July, when I called on him before the Cabinet, I found a different man. His mind was made up. He saw quite clearly the course to take. He knew what to do, and how and when to do it. The tenor of his statement to me was that we were drifting into war.” On the same day, Lloyd George made the celebrated speech in which he gave Germany to understand that if the German Government wanted war, they would have to reckon with England as an enemy. Churchill says: “The accession of Mr. Lloyd George in foreign policy to the opposite wing of the Government was decisive.”

Winston himself was transferred from the Home Office to the Admiralty. Readiness for war became the English watchword! True, the Agadir incident was peacefully disposed of quickly enough, but there still remained the anxious question of when the next danger of war would arise. What Lloyd George said meant that England would tolerate no further bullying without taking action. From that time forward Churchill’s mind was occupied with but one thought—to be ready for the day!

This was a very serious state of affairs. Every country in Europe was thinking of the danger of war. As to Winston Churchill, he was arming day and night, building ships, training, guarding the magazines; nothing escaped him. Great charts of the North Sea were fitted within the doors of a case that stood behind his writing table, and he tells us that a Staff Officer marked the position of the German Fleet on this chart with flags, every day, from 1911 to 1914 and onwards. The first thing Winston Churchill did on entering the room in the morning was to look at this chart.

And yet both he and Lloyd George still hoped to avert the evil for which they armed. It was they who proposed Sir Ernest Cassel’s mission to Berlin, to sound the Kaiser as to the possibility of an understanding with regard to the Fleet. That was at the beginning of 1912.

Cassel’s visit went off well. He brought back a friendly letter from the Kaiser, and a written statement of Germany’s naval policy from Bethmann-Hollweg, which made a favourable impression on the London Cabinet. Cassel telegraphed this to Berlin. The way to negotiations seemed to be smoothed. Haldane and Cassel went to Berlin on the 6th of February. (Those were historical days!) A speech from the throne intervened; the Kaiser spoke of strengthening the German armaments on land and water…of Germany having no lack of young men fit to bear arms. Churchill, astonished and indignant, replied at Glasgow by speaking of the German Fleet as a luxury: a pleasant beginning to Haldane’s mission!

Notwithstanding this, there seemed to be no great difficulty in reaching a naval agreement. But England refused to agree to the clause stating that, in return, she would observe at least a benevolent neutrality should war be forced upon Germany. What did “forced” mean? Who was to decide, and what safeguard would there be against abuse of a victory? Even now, after the common sacrifice of millions of lives, England cannot agree to guarantee such a thing to her ally in the World War, France. But Bethmann and von Tirpitz made a mere “understanding,” the reduction of their naval programme by a couple of wretched warships, conditional on this promise of neutrality. Thus this last effort to get back to the path of reason ended badly. The Germans were afraid of the Triple Entente, and wanted “security,” but England’s suspicions were strengthened. “Neutrality”—that was what Germany wanted!

Then when the crisis of July 1914 was reached, the same spectre cropped up again—neutrality. This time there could be no doubt as to Germany’s sinister intentions, so it seemed to the English people, and the former friends became enemies. Churchill’s eyes were full of tears when he took leave of Ballin; then he threw himself with enthusiasm into the turmoil of the World War—“a splendid fighting animal, holy and satanic.”

Engländer, first published in German, was translated with revisions and additions by Constance Vessey and published by Collins in new York in 1928. The illustrations opposite, from the time the book was published, were published in The Graphic, 15 March 1924.