GREAT HISTORY.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14727, 4 August 1921, Page 2

GREAT HISTORY.

CAUSES OF WAR.

BENEATH THE SURFACE.

(From Arnold Bennett's "Liberty.")

The German and Austrian bsanches of the military caste worked in secret together. And when they had reached a decision —and not before, according to my information —the German Imperial Chancellor and\ the German Foreign Secretary were permitted to learn the inwardness of the state of affairs. An impossible ultimatum was sent to Servia, and the thing was done. The fall on the Bourses, before the delivery of the Servian reply, showed that the supreme financial magnates had " been "put wise." Every Embassy knew. All diplomacy was futile, and most of it was odiously hypocritical. Sir Edward Grey, alone in Europe, strove against the irrevocable. With the most correct urbanity, Germany frustrated him at each move. Neither France nor Italy desired ought but peace. Whether or not Russia desired war I cannot say: but it is absolutely certain that Germany and Austria desired war, though at the moment Austria quailed. They have got war, and more than they expected. GREAT BRITAIN'IN THE FRAY. The one genuine manifestation in the last days, among German diplomats and war-lords and their hired journalists, was surprise at the fighting attitude of Great Britain. The hollow periods of the leading articles in the venal , Press by which the caste influences its huge victim were inspired for once with a genuine emotion —that of startled anger. And here is the surpassing proof of the artlessriess of the German official mind, so self-satisfj'ing in its cunning.

It is scarcely conceivable that Germany should have expected British statesmen, fully informed of the whole situation, to remain neutral .when Germany attacked France. Yet Germany expected just that —nay, firmly upon it. I say. that Germany counted upon it, for the simple reason that her plan of cam paign against France included invasion of Belgium, which invasion was not only an appalling and inexcusable crime—the foulest crime, against civilisation since Napoleon—but. a shameless violation of a treaty to which England was a party, and a direct menace to England hersel:'. Germany's intention to invade Belgium was no secret. She never tried to conceal it. Belgium was only a little country, and could not invade back. Belgium knew of the intention against her, and several years ago began to take defensive\measures accordingly. France was well aware of it; so was Great Britain. Great Britain was under a clear treaty obligation to Belgium. In Germany, by public admission, treaties do not count, and international honour is an absurdity. Germany, however, is not yet the whole world, and in England a treaty still counts. A STRONGER MOTIVE. • Let me be sincere, and admit that Great Britain had a still stronger motive in taking arms—that of selfpreservation. The arch-propagandist and strategist, Treitschke, the leader of the whole school of German belli -cose writers, followed by his flock, had laid it down that Germany's world scheme for the spreading of her culture was to dispose of Russia and France first, and then to smash Great Britain. Just as there was no concealment about her minor intention in regard to Belgium, so thera was no concealment about her major intention in regard to Great Britain It follows, therefore, that these simple Germans expected Great Britain to wait until her turn came. If Great Britain had sat still, and Germany had beaten France once more (whether she defeated Russia or not), it is a certitude that Belgium would have seen the last of her independence, that Holland would have been swallowed at a second gulp, and Denmark at a third; and probably a piece of the north-west coast of France would have rounded off the beauteous territory perfection of the German Empire. The entire European coast from Memel to Calais would have been Germany's jumping-off ground for the grand attack on England. In joining in this war, Great Britain had nothing to gain, but she had something to keep —her word to Belgium-—and she had simply everything to lose by standing out of it. Hence she was-in it.