PRINCE LIGHNOWSKY

Evening Star, Issue 19759, 9 January 1928, Page 8

PRINCE LIGHNOWSKY

MAN WHO WARNED GERMANY AMBASSADOR AND HIS “TRAGEDY.” Prince Liehnowsky, German Ambassador to the Court of St. James at the outbreak of the Great War, has performed the useful part of collecting his London reports and other writings in volumes which aro published in Dresden.

The P.rinco reiterates his well-known view that Germany’s alliance with Aus-tria-Hungary was fatal to her interests, and that the policy she should have pursued was friendship with Russia. None of his reports is so striking as tho celebrated one made in 191(5, which by an indiscretion became known abroad and was published in England and America, to tho dismay of the German authorities, and which is included in the first of these volumes. in his preface Prince Liehnowsky speaks of the opposition of the Emperor William I. to Bismarck’s plan For an a.I Banco with Austria-Hungary, and erics: “Had he- only remained firm, had he only let him (Bismarck) go, then the greatest catastrophe in the world’s history would have, been impossible, and the German people woidd to-day be the first in Europe.” 151SMA RCK ’ S BLINDN ESS. Ho denounces tlio blindness of Bismarck, and points out that the noisy renewal of the Triple Alliance was the cause of tho Eraneo-Russiau Treaty of 1892. “Wo threw Russia into tho arras of France, and then England,” ho says. He sums up Germany’s folly in the following passage:— “ We were by far the strongest in Europe, and disquieted tho world by ever-increasing armaments on land and sea, by refusing any limitation of armaments at peace conferences, by challenging orations about tho ‘ mailed list,’ and by similar fanfares and rho.domontade, and by repeated senseless crises which left the others only tho choice between humiliation and war, and which created the impression that a new passage of arms would not be unwelcome to us. “This attitude brought about the rapprochement of other Powers, who buried their differences and came to an understanding for their mutual protection.- Then people called it tho ‘encirclement.’ ” The Rrinco recalls tho fact that it was Herr Von Holstein who caused the Morocco crisis, and that, when M. Dclcasse expressed the willingness of France to enter into negotiations, the German diplomat no more desired an understanding with France than his i successor wanted one with England ten | years later. | FATHER OF THE WAR. Ho denounces Von Holstein as “ a national misfortune —the real father of the World War.” He is, however, careful to state he never said German statesmen in July, 1914, -wanted the war so far as they actually know what they wanted. Ho had tried to show that the World War was the result of a fool’s policy. Prince Liehnowsky once more summarises his wdl-known view of British policy: “ I always insisted that, however much the British Government, especially Sir Edward Grey, strove to acquiesce in our wishes and come to an understanding with us to bridge oyer all difficulties and find a solution satisfactory to both sides no British Government would again take up an attitude of benevolent neutrality towards us, as iu 1870-71, in tho event of a FrancoGerman war.” And again he writes: “With Sir Edward Grey w© could get practically everything. He was ready to meet us on every question; only there was one thing I could not get; to deter him from entry into the World War when we declared war on, France and on top of that infringed Belgian neutrality. This is the tragedy of my mission.”