BULOW FURIOSO.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 137, 11 June 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

BULOW FURIOSO.

MORE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS

CRASH Or AN EMPIRE.

(By CYRANO.)

Most of us have considered during the last fourteen years, if only at odd moments, what would have been our position if we had lost the war. How should we have taken defeat? Would there have been an upheaval in Britain? Would we have dissipated much of our energy in recriminations? Even as it is there is quite a large body of history and memoirs in which British statesmen blame statesmen, and soldiers soldiers, and journalists both. I ask myself the question again in considering the two books before me.* One is the history of a German of a period before, the war, the other is the third volume of the memoirs of the man who was German Chancellor from 1905 to 1909, who saw as a powerless outsider his country and its ally plunge the woVld into war, who was sent to Italy to prevent her joining Germany's enemies, who witnessed the ruin of Germany and the crash or lier Empire, and who watched from his apartments in Berlin the forces of the revolution straggle through the streets. To this highly cultivated German aristocrat of the old school — '"perhaps the last authentic political grand seigneur," a Communist called him — that revolution was "like an old bug, toothless and bald, her great feet slipshod and down at heel." Tim first book need not detain us.long. It has its value. It supplies fresh evidence of the folly with which pre-war Germany was governed. Its theme is that the Emperor persistently aimed at a complete understanding with Britain or Russia or both, and that his poiicy was persistently thwarted by Bulow and Holstein, that evil genius of the Foreign Office, whose career so tragically illustrates Wilde's definition of a cynic as he who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Bulow was certainly blameworthy for much that happened, but was William capable of persistence in anything? These books underline and underline repeatedly the particularly fatal characteristics of the man—his waywardness, his lightmindedness, and his vanity.

An Unforgiving Chronicler. The Bulow volume is a different matter. The second volume, reviewed in this papei some months ago, was an extraordinarily interesting record of his Chancellorship. It was packed with bril-

liant pictures of men and women and events, so tliat so competent a judge as Mr. J. C. Squire described it as the most fascinating book of political reminiscences he had ever read. The new volume lias the same brilliancy, the same gift of phrase, the same amazing range of allusion. Bulow seems to have read and remembered everything worth reading in the classics of Greece and Rome and of his own country, and to have had an astonishingly wide • acquaintance with English, French and Italian literature. And there is the war, as seen by a statesman who, save for his brief mission to Italy, had to stand by and do nothing. The Emperor never forgave Bulow for letting him down over the "Daily Telegraph" interview, and refused to employ or even consult him, though at one stage during the war he had to accept as Chancellor a man of whom he knew nothing. In England Bulow would have been an "elder statesman" of position and weight. Under the German system lie was of no account. Unfortunately, Bulow could not, on his part, forgive the Emperor or his enemies around his Sovereign. Highly born, steeped in culture and tradition, with remarkable gifts for administration and diplomacy, he seems to have had fatal gifts of character. He was untruthful and vain. His vanity comes out over and over again In these volumes. Tie seems to have kept every letter of commendation and (lattery, to have noted every piece of praise, and to have put all, or most, into his memoirs. And in the opinion or first-rate English authorities the value of this war record is lessened by his animosity towards the Emperor and to those who, so he believed, were bent on keeping him from returning to ollice. Everybody, moreover, was to blame but himself.

Incompetence and Tragedy. Yet, when all allowance is made for •this, what a picture of incompetence is here presented, and what a tragedy unfolded! Never in the ' history of the world, one is inclined to think, were the interests of a great nation so recklessly thrown away. Bulow will not have it that Germany deliberately willed the war. Again and again he protests that this is a lie. But he is aghast at tile bungling that led Germany into it— the giving of u free hand to Austria, the appalling levity with which Vienna and Berlin took the risk of a great war, the stupidity that brought Britain into the struggle". Bethiuann-Hollweg and Jagow, he says, "pursued their imprudent policy with "the guilelessness of children in a wood gathering mushrooms.'' As Mr. Wk'kham Steed says in his r»view of this book, after the Austria-German humiliation of Russia in 1009, it was an axiom of European politics that Russia would not give way a second time, and shortly before the "war a Russian diplomat warned Billow to this elVcct. Billow could do nothing. Vienna was prepared to take the risk, and Bethmaiiu-Uollweg

told Bulow that he was sure Russia would not move. Poor Hollwog was so wrongly sure of many things. He was sure England would remain neutral; even after the war began he talked of an arrangement with her, and lie was sure that she would never introduce conscription. When well on in the war Bulow warned him that Britain might use all her manhood, Hollweg was amused. Did his dour Prince not know that this was quite contrary to English principles? Immediately afterwards Britain resorted to conscription.

So it was almost all along the lineBerlin and Vienna antagonised everybody. Bulow is furious about Hollweg's "neccssity-knows-uo-law" epoecn in the Reichstag, and his "scrap-of-paper" remark to the British ambassador. Bulow's "heart stood still" when he read that "unbelievably stupid oration" on the invasion of Belgium, for he realised its enormous moral effect abroad. As for the "scrap of paper," Hollweg should have immediately denied that lie ever used the phrase, and his "No" would have weighed equally with Goschen's "Yes." Unfortunately Hollweg, with all his faults, was a truthful num. The comment throws a light on Bulow's character. The fact is, of course, that he had in a large measure prepared the way for the situation that arose in 1914. He had humiliated Russia in 1909 and yet he blames Hollweg for trying to repeat his manoeuvre live years later.

Bidding for Italy. In Koine Bulow'e task seems to have been hopeless. The Allies and the Central Powers were bidding for Italy's support and Austria, which held what Italy wanted, would not go high enough. Austrian diplomacy is pictured as in the hi..best degree stupid, and up to Italy's declaration of war neither Berlin nor Vienna would believe that Italy would so act. The Queen-Mother, on being assured "before Mod" by Princess Bulow, who was ail Italian and an old friend, that Germany had not wanted war in the least, commented: "Well, then, all 1 can say i* that the German Ministers and diplomats in power in the -summer of 11)14 are the biggest fool? the world has ever known." These "biggest fools" remained in power. So Bulow had to return to Germanv, to watch the tragedy continue—national valour and tor the most part able leadership in the field, and stupidity and jealousy on the home front. One exception in military leadership probably covit Germany the war. At first the supreme direction lay in the hands of Moltke, who, when the war broke out, was a sick man. He lost control—and well it was for the Alhethai he did—of the huge armies that invaded France, and left it to a rMlbordi nate to order the retreat from the Maine. Later he told Bulow that the