The Evening Star FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1916.

Evening Star, Issue 16196, 18 August 1916, Page 4

The Evening Star FRIDAY, AUGUST 18, 1916.

WnETKij; tlie comments reported by the Loudon 'Daily Xews/ on The Kaiser's Use authority of an Disclaimer, "eminent neutral." as having been made by the German .Kaiser were or wo:« not actually uttered at the time and in the form stated dors not Keiiotisly matter. I'hoy bear the impress of truth -. and, though characterised by a restraint that is rate in similar utterartces from the same quarter, tlicir sentiment is in keeping with all that has gone before. The gist of this, the most recent of royal deliverances, is that the Kaiser, contrary to ,ill the known evidence, to the universal belief, and to the power that jested ijt his hands as the .All-Highest WaxLord to speak the linal "yea" or "nay." is not responsible for the war. that he strove hard for peace, and that war was inevitable. The uncompromising and sweeping nature of the statement, will inevitably provoke sharp replies within and without Oiimany. Those that' ate made within may not reach us. while of those that come from outside many will have already b.en made. In all* probability there has never been (m ; ,, 1V previous occasion • greater unanimity among the dispassionate and unprejudiced, to say nothing of the belligerents themselves, on the question not alone of losnonsibility. but of deliberate and detei mined provocation to war. \ot. though this is so, we are once again told that thv unanimity is based on utterly fake p:omises. Ft is false to say. as J!err Maximilian Harden has done, that Germany "willed this war, and "'is responsible t-> no earthly Power there"for." And it isvvt more false tu insist that Great lMitn.ni desired to summon a peace conference, in. which desito all the chief Powers, f.ave C!erma"y. concurred; or that the Tsar of liussia personally telegraphed jto the Kaiser bocging him to cnbmit the I Austro-Serbiau dispute to. The Ha sine Con- | foronee ; or that Sir I'd ward (now Viscount) Grey, with the object of clisperc-ing German suspicion- (> F ; joint IhancoTSussia:) attack on the Fatherland, had pledged Fngktnd in any .stick nnlike-lv event to "resisting such attack. AH tiv.se- fa,,,] t .i ley (lo , 10t ex i lau:it the li.-G are either fantastic dreams or deliberate inventions. The Kaiser—!;, other words. Geimany—is nofc responsible for the vat; lie .strove hard for peace; and, in any event, war was inevitable.

We need not recapitulate, in detail the overwhelming nature of the -evidence that has long vj„ re exposed the unashamed audacity of statements, which must have been mad- (i f mad*; at all) in view of the beginning of the coming of the inevitable end, or -:!,e. t'.iw early, to attempt to dissociate the chief culprit from the consequences of Ids ninny.. If the German Kaiser (who in this instance is none other than Germany) is not responsible' for the war. who is? Was Bckium? Men high in the German Government'have not hesitated to say " Yes." The 2 uilt of unbhishingly declared Hen- Yon Jagow, is known to us. Of which it is sufficient to say that serious men do not answer dialectical lunacies of this nature; they merely sweep them back to the moral sewer -whence they came. Was Franco responsible'r The whole world knows that France had as much thought of going to war-as an unborn babe. France wasnotprepaivd for war,' and strove to avoid it by wery honorable mean« short of submission, winch would have Uevii ignominious, not horioiabie. \\" as . l{ UKS j ;l .'/ Germany jusliiicd her declaration of war against her Eastern neighbor <m .the paltry ground that the latter was mobilising her armies, and would not demobilise them when commanded to do so. Tiie answer is simple. Lk-rmaiiy and Austria, were determined to peis.ti-t in theiv universal murder game, no.jna.Uei- win.l <-iUu-i- Belgium or France or Bus.iia might do. tiie occasion was too opuoitur.e to be missed. In a recent 'Pester Lloyd,' a leading pro-German tfiuigaiian newspaper, the following frank avowal was made •

if .Sir Edward Grey would judge how de-;p iui-d irrevocable wa.i our desire, to settle matters with .Serbia in such a Wiiy a- to ■.'Hmiuate once for all the criminal m.Miace to peace- which tamo trim this quarter, Ire can obtain some idea of it fiom the following I acts, which we admit in all simcuty. riven if the Government had abstained from onUriug the mobilisation of their forces, which, chcy vonlinUfd secretly in spile of, iheit' ptomiscs ami-, hypocritical aliir.uations, and oven if they .stopped tu«; mobilu-atiim. Austaa-iiungary would not have gone to any conference, but sue would haw peciisU'd in settiiug matters with .Serbia according to the" needs ot her fuliiit; security, and without wish-

ing to be bound in this by a third per toll.

In the presence of avowals like these and tho known fact--: it is worse than puerile for the Austrian Foreign Minister (Baron Burian) to assert that " we. were dragged into war by force and in self-defence." Dragged in by whom? Austria's imperious demands, thr> most humiliating ever made by one sovereign State upon another, had, in the cause of peace and in deference to the Allies, been accepted by .Serbia. Nothing, therefore but the determination to have war at anycost blocked the way to peace and finallv killed all hope of attaining it. Austria most probably was "dragged into war," but not in ''.self-defence." Xo one meant to attack her provided she did not attack Serbia. And if a war of defence, where was the third partner to the Triple Alliance—ltaly? Italy was pledged actively to side with either Germany or Austria, or both, it they were attacked. Yet Italy

stood aside, and in the end threw in hex lot with the Allies and against her former partners. Why? Boca-use, in her opinion, the war upon which they had entered waa not a defensive but nn offensive one. The Kaiser "strove for peace"! How and when? Was or was not the policy of William 11. responsible for the appalling piling up of armaments that for years had actuated the great European Powers? Whence came the German Navy Law of 1899 and its subsequent many amendments? Who was the author of those bombastic mouthings concerning "the mailed fist," "rattling the sword in its scabbard," " our future is upon the ocean," " standing forth a, knight in shining armor," "no European question must " henceforth be decided without Ger- " many's concurrence," and so on? A shiver went down the spine of nations and individuals alike every time this royal poseur mounted the stage and shook his list (mailed) in the face of the world. It is this same man—shorn somewhat of his former theatrical .strutting and "strafeinj,'"—who to-day brazenly asserts "I " strove hard for peace, but war was inevitable." Why was war inevitable? Three years or so ago Mr Bonar Law declared, amid the cheers of the crowded House of Commons: "I do not believe in inevitable war." Nor do we. War- is inevitable only when men who, in the inscrutable dispensation of Providence, have tiie means and the power at their command to make it inevitable. And this war, says the Kaiser, was inevitable. We repeat our question: " Who made it so?"