An Island Story, H. E. Marshall [learn to read books txt] 📗
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So one day an Englishman asked one of the German princes why they were building such a lot of war ships. It was an awkward question, and he could not give any satisfactory answer. “At any rate,” he said, “we are not going to use them against Uncle Edward.”
King Edward was not alone in his love of, and desire for, peace. The Czar of Russia, Nicholas II., also desired it. Even before King Edward had come to the throne he had tried to turn the thoughts of Europe towards the idea of peace, and he had persuaded all the chief nations of Europe to come to a Peace Conference at the Hague in Holland.
This conference was called together to try to find out if there was any means of persuading the peoples of Europe to reduce their armies and navies. To keep up a large army or large navy costs a great deal of money. To pay for them the people must be taxed, sometimes heavily taxed. Even if the people could easily afford to pay the taxes many people felt that the money spent on armaments, as such things are called, might be put to much better uses; that it might be spent in making life happier, better and safer. But of course it is impossible for one country to disarm if other countries will not agree to do the same. So this conference was called to see if all countries could be brought to consent, not to disarm altogether, but to reduce their armaments. It was also called to discuss the possibility of settling disputes between quarreling nations by arbitration instead of by war. Which means that if two nations quarreled, instead of fighting they should lay their quarrel before some other nation or group of nations, and let them decide who was right and who wrong.
The conference failed utterly to reduce armies and navies, because Germany would not agree to it. Germany, said her spokesman, was very well content with things as they were. The German people were not crushed under a load of taxes, they were not nearing ruin. On the contrary, life was every year becoming easier. They did not think that forced military service was a heavy burden, but looked upon it as a sacred and patriotic duty.
For years Germany had taken the lead in Europe in increasing both army and navy. To such an extent, indeed, had she done this that other nations had begun to fear her. Now as she refused to decrease either the one or the other, no nation dared do so. Therefore on that point the conference was a failure. But in the matter of arbitration it succeeded very well, and since then many disputes, such as those over boundaries between countries, have been peacefully settled by the Hague Court of Arbitration.
A second Peace Conference was called at the Hague in 1907. At this there were delegates from nearly every country in the world. But again the attitude of Germany prevented success, for her representative refused altogether to discuss the question of armaments, and even stood out against arbitration. “Arbitration,” said he, “must be hurtful to Germany, as Germany is ready for war as no other country can be.” It was only after great arguments, and when it seemed certain that further resistance would greatly harm Germany in the eyes of all the world, that the Emperor gave way, and his delegate agreed to the founding of the Hague Court of Arbitration.
Even in spite of Germany with her despotic ideas, which seemed to come straight out of the Middle Ages, the Hague conferences proved that the world had advanced, and that the cause of peace had made great strides against the cause of war. Yet we must rather sadly note, that in the very year in which the first conference took place war broke out between Great Britain and the Boer States of South Africa, and that a few years later, in 1904, the Czar, who had invited the conference to meet, was at war with Japan. But we must also note, that had it not been for the calmer temper of nations, of which the conference was a sign, the war between Japan and Russia might have spread, and many other nations might have been involved.
To the astonishment of almost every one, in 1902 Britain had made an alliance with Japan, and when the war broke out Russia accused Britain of helping to bring the war about by signing that treaty. Feeling ran so high that certainly fifty or a hundred years earlier Britain would have been dragged into war.
Then to make matters worse, one dark October night, the Russian fleet, passing through the North Sea on its way to the East, fired upon some English fishing smacks. One steam trawler was sunk, two men killed, and several wounded.
When the story was spread abroad England was shaken with wrath. This was an act of war, cried the hot-heads. If Russia wanted war, Russia should have war.
But the leaders of the country were calm. The Czar said he was sorry, the Russian admiral explained that it was a mistake, that he had mistaken the fishing smacks for Japanese torpedo boats. It sounded rather a lame explanation, but the British accepted it, and agreed that the whole matter should be settled by arbitration. So war was averted, and one more victory gained for peaceful methods.
King Edward VII. reigned for nine years, and when one day in May 1910 after a very short illness he died, the country mourned as it had never mourned, even at the death of the great Victoria. For King Edward was very human, and no king perhaps ever touched life at so many points on a level with his people. He was a good sportsman, a good farmer, a diligent man of business, and a charming man of the world. He enjoyed life. He wanted others to enjoy life too, and he was filled with deep sympathy towards those who suffered. When he died his people felt that they had lost a friend as well as a king.
GEORGE V.—ARMED PEACE
EDWARD VII. was succeeded by his second son, George, his eldest son, the Duke of Clarence, having died in 1892, while he himself was still Prince of Wales.
George V. came to the throne in a time of peace and good will. We were at peace within our own borders, we lived in greater friendship with our neighbors on the Continent, and our understanding with the United States of America, the greatest power of the New World, was far better than it had ever been.
George V. came to the throne in a time of peace, but soon the peace not of Great Britain alone, but of the whole world was shattered.
Throughout this book I have tried to give you reasons for the many wars, in which, during the long ages since our story began, Englishmen have taken part. In many cases the cause was easy to find, but to find the real cause of the World War which began in 1914 is not easy, for “its roots run deep into all the obscure soils of history.” But so far as it is possible to do so shortly I will try to explain.
In 1870 the Franco-German war broke out. In that war the French were defeated, and as victors the Germans not only made the French pay an enormous sum of money, but took from them part of their land—the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.
The money did not matter much. It was paid and forgotten. Not so the loss of land. That was neither forgiven nor forgotten. The memory indeed rankled until in the hearts of Frenchmen an undying sorrow for the lost provinces was born. Outwardly there was peace between the two countries, but the sorrow for the lost provinces was never stilled, and never so long as they were misruled by Germany could there be other than bitterness between the two countries. Yet France had no real thoughts of war, and unprovoked she would probably never have attacked Germany.
At one time Turkey in Europe was a large country stretching from the Bosporus to the Adriatic. But after a war between Russia and Turkey in 1877-8, by the Treaty of Berlin, Turkey lost a great deal of territory. The Treaty was “made in Germany,” however, and it left Turkey too powerful, Russia dissatisfied, and the subject people, who had been oppressed by the Turks, restless. Almost even since that day the Balkans have been filled with intrigue and unrest.
Among other things the Treaty gave to Austria two provinces called Bosnia and Herzegovina which had belonged to Turkey, but which were on or near the Adriatic. They were not given to Austria outright, but merely to rule and protect until their peace and prosperity should once more be restored. No one believed that they would ever be given back to the misrule of Turkey, but meanwhile, in theory, they remained part of the Turkish Empire.
Now Bosnia and Herzegovina were peopled with Slavs, as were also the countries adjoining, such as Servia and Montenegro. And, as was very natural, in time all those Slav peoples began to wish to join together into a Greater Servia. But that was the wish neither of Austria nor of Germany, for Germany had designs of “expansion” towards the East. For this expansion a clear highway through southeast Europe was necessary, and this highway a peaceful and united Servia would have fatally blocked. So the Slav peoples were rudely awakened from their dream of union by the Emperor of Austria, who announced in 1908 that he intended to annex Bosnia and Herzegovina outright.
By this unjust annexation all the Slav hopes of a greater Servia were shattered, and two Slav provinces were bound to a country with which they had nothing in common. But the blow was not taken quietly. The whole land seethed with rebellion, Servia was ready to fight for the freedom of her sister states, and they all looked to the greatest of Slav rulers, the Czar of Russia, for aid.
Russia had not yet recovered from the disaster of the Japanese war. Still the Czar seemed not unwilling to undertake this new adventure. It was not, however, the will of Germany that Austria should thus be baulked. In his grandest manner, therefore, the Emperor of Germany let it be known that should Austria be attacked, “a knight in shining armor” would come to her aid.
The Czar could not fight both Austria and Germany and bitterly humiliated he gave up the idea of helping the Slavs. But this German interference in a purely Slav question humiliated not only the Czar but all Russia, and henceforth Russia was the enemy of both Austria and Germany. Servia too was the enemy of Austria. Italy, the ally of both Germany and Austria, was not pleased, because it seemed to her that Italy had far more right to provinces on the Adriatic coast than had Austria.
In 1912 there was a war among the Balkan states. But when it was over it seemed for a short time as if the Slav peoples, the Bulgarians, and the Greeks might forget their quarrels, and be united into a Balkan federation. But again Austria and Germany interfered, and as a result instead of a federation a second and far more deadly war broke out in 1913. It ended in the utter defeat of Bulgaria, the catspaw, and of Turkey, the ally and tool, of Germany. It left Germany also with the fear that a Balkan federation might still be formed which would block her way to the East.
There were other causes of jealousy and rancor, too many and too complicated to tell here. But from what
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