RUSSIA & THE BOER WAR

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 75, 25 September 1914, Page 8

RUSSIA & THE BOER WAR

• PROPOSED COALITION AGAINST ENGLAND. In an article on the "Interests and Duty of Great Britain," it is asserted that "whlen disaster overtook us in South Africa we were without a friend on the Continent, and were only saved from , attack by a European coalition, because the Emperor of Russia declined to sanction such a policy." This, says an English paper, is an astounding statement which ought not to bo allowed to pass unchallenged. With regard to the assertion that we were without a friend during the Boer War it is only necessary to refer to the statement made the other day to a representative of the Neve Freie Presse by the Hon. Theo. Russell, the secretary ot our Embassy in Vienna, to the effect that "as an Englishman he wishes his countrymen to remember that at the time of the Boer War the Emperor Francis Joseph publicly expressed to the British Ambassador ,his unalterable friendship and good will towards tlje British nation." .The German Emperor, too, in his famous interview in the Daily Telegraph of 28th October, 1908, told the public how, in spite of the unfriendly sentiments of large sections of the population, he tried to assist this country by suggestions and oven plans of campaign, and how he refused an invitation from the French and Russian Governments to 30m in a coalition ag^inbt England. So far, then, from having no friend on the Continent at the time of the Boer War, it was precisely Austria and Germany who were our friends. The declaration of the Kaiser in hi» Daily Telegraph interview on the subject of the anti-English coalition leads us to the second point. From this declaration it appears that it was Germany, not Russia, who saved us at that time from an attack by a European coalition. But the word of the Kaiser is not to be relied upon, is it? Let us hear, then, what the other side says. We take M. Rene Pinon, the famous writer on international politics in the Revue dcs Deux Mondes, who, in his book, "France et Allemagne," speaking of the difficulties in which England was landed at the time of the Boer War, says: — "In fact, history will ask itself how it was that so soon after Fashoda, Franco-Russian policy did not succeed in drawing some advantage from England's embarrassment, and, if it remained neutral, did not compel payment for its neutrality. The explanation of this puzzle is possibly to be sought in. the contradictory whims of German policy. •If Germany had really wanted a rapprochement with France and Russia she would have seized the opportunity, but she did .nob do so, or her terms were so vague as ■to have aroused suspicion as to whether she did not simply want to elicit from us confidential propositions which she would have afterwards laid before England. In fact, the German Emperor subsequently boasted in the Daily Telegraph interview that he had saved England from European intervention." This testimony of a very patriotic publicist who is in close touch with French diplomacy cannot be gainsaid, and is corroborated by M. Andre Mcvii, of the Nationalist Echo do Paris, who, in liis book, "Do la Paix de Frankfort a la Conference d'Algeciras,"' tells us how in 1901, during the late Marquis Ito's visit to St. Petersburg, France and Russia, together with Japan, were trying to get up a coalition against England, but all efforts to induce Germany to join in proved without avail. In further corroboration of this assertion our correspondent quotes a statement by Count Witte, the, former Russian Premier, and for many years Minister of Finance.