THE GREAT LIE

Maoriland Worker, Volume 13, Issue 1, 3 January 1923, Page 7

THE GREAT LIE

By W. N. EWER, ia the -'Daily Herald." On July 31, 1914 —a day uexore tne German mobilisation, two days before war began between France and Germany—the Russian Military Attache In Paris wired to the Russian Minister of War:— The Freneli Minister of War declared to nie s in a highly eortKal tone, that the (.ioveriiincnt was Hrm» ly decide*! ou war, and asked mc to exiwess the Ilioye oi Hb» iFrench. (Jeaersil Stafi • all our activities ivonld fee dirocted against (Germany, and that Austria would be treated as a negligible qnaJitMy. That fact destroys at a blow the myth that Germany alone willed tie war. and that she launched a sudaeu attack on a peacefully intentioued. ana unprepared France and Russia. Had we known in August, 1914, that the French Government. was "firmly decided on war ..." But we did not know. That■ ane very many other vital facts were caro-fulu-ly kept from us.

SUPPRESSED DOCUMENTS. The Government, you will remember, took us into its confidence. It declared, with a great gesture, that all the facts should be laid before us: that Aye should have the actual documents, which told the story of the negotiations: and that from those documents we should see for ourselves that Germany was all-guilty, the Allies entirely innocent. ' . The British Government published its Blue Book, the French its Yellow Book, the Russian its Orange Book. They were the evidence which the Allied Governments offered to prove that Germany made the war.

Some of us suspected even at tne time that there was something wrong. Careful comparison of the documents showed some curious discrepancies: there was evidence of the existence oi important telegrams which were not included in the published versions.

That was suspicious. But now at last, we have definite proof that the suspicion was justified—-that these documents were very thoroughly edited before publication. < What we were given v> , as not the original, but a revised version. Carefully selected passages from carefully selected dispatches, from which everything which told for Germany or against the AHies, had been meticulously expunged.

Here is the proof. The full text of the telegrams which passed between the Russian Government and the Russian Embassy in Paris has just been published.* That they are genuine is without doubt. Damning thouch they arc, no one has dared to challenge their authenticity. Compare them with the -version of that same correspondence published in 1914 in the Russian Orange Book. In a momtnt it becomes clear that Uifc Orange Book, from b-;yinning to end, is an elaborately falsified document.' Whole dispatches—-like that illuminating one of the Military Attache which 1 have quoted above —have been suppressed. From others inconvenient passages—like the statement that on August 1 five French army corps had been .got ready for war, or the statement that on July 29 the French Government decided to forbid antiwar demonstrations^—have been cut out. Sometimes words are deleted, sometimes words are inserted, either tv conceal a fa.ct or to alter the tone of a dispatch. But the new documents not only show that the Russian documents were falsified. They show, too, that the Jtritish documents wt're falsified. One instance will suffice.

THE FIRST PEACE MOVE. I On July 24 (the day of the delivery of the Austrian ultimatum- to Serbia) Sir Edward Grey made his first peace move. Ke proposed that England, Germany, France, and Italy should exercise "moderating influence" simultaneously at Vienna and Petrograd (British Blue Book. Nos. 10, 11, 2*4.) Germany agreed. (Blue Book. No. 18.) Italy agreed. (Blue Book. No. 29.) But the Russian Foreign Minister flatly rejected Sir Edward's proposal. "If," he wired to Paris and London on July 27, "it is proposed that a moderating: influence should be exercised in St. Petersburg, we absolutely refuse such a suivgestio'n." The disnatch in. which that sentence occurs went.. 'simultaneously to London and Paris. It was communicated to Sir Edward Grey: Pail of it is printed in the British Blue Bcok (No. 53). IJtit that damning sentence which shows wot Germany, but Russia, rejecting the first peace proposal, has bden cut out* It is enough.. If one dispatch has been doctoreci in order to hide an embarrassing fact, it is safe to aasmue