PREVIOUS WRITINGS OF PAUL S. REINSCH


  The Common Law in the Early American Colonies, 1899.

  World Politics at the End of the Nineteenth Century as
    Influenced by the Oriental Situation, 1900.

  Colonial Government, 1902.

  Colonial Administration, 1905.

  American Legislatures and Legislative Methods, 1907.

  Intellectual Currents in the Far East, 1911.

  International Unions, 1911.

  An American Diplomat in China, 1913–1918, 1922.




  SECRET DIPLOMACY

  HOW FAR CAN IT BE ELIMINATED?

  BY
  PAUL S. REINSCH

  [Illustration]

  NEW YORK
  HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY




  COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
  HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.


  PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY
  THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY
  RAHWAY, N. J.




The principal conclusions based on the material contained in this
book were presented by the Author at a joint meeting of the American
Historical Association and the American Political Science Association,
in his address as President of the latter, on December 28th, 1920.




CONTENTS


                                                     PAGE
        INTRODUCTION                                    3

  CHAPTER
     I. EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DIPLOMACY                   22

    II. OLD DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE                  36

   III. AFTER THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA                   45

    IV. NAPOLEON III, DISRAELI, BISMARCK               58

     V. TRIPLE ALLIANCE DIPLOMACY AND MOROCCO          70

    VI. ENTENTE DIPLOMACY                              84

   VII. THE CRISIS OF 1914                            102

  VIII. THE SECRET TREATIES OF THE WAR                116

    IX. HOPES FOR IMPROVEMENT DEFERRED                129

     X. THE DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE          136

    XI. PARLIAMENT AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS                149

   XII. THE PUBLIC AND DIPLOMACY                      166

  XIII. A SURVIVAL OF ABSOLUTISM                      181

   XIV. RECENT AMERICAN EXPERIENCE                    194

        CONCLUSION                                    211

        INDEX                                         225




SECRET DIPLOMACY




INTRODUCTION


Is secret diplomacy the evil spirit of modern politics? Is it the
force that keeps nations in a state of potential hostility and does
not allow a feeling of confidence and of wholehearted coöperation to
grow up? Or is it only a trade device, a clever method of surrounding
with an aura of importance the doings of the diplomats, a race of men
of average wisdom and intelligence who traditionally have valued the
prestige of dealing with “secret affairs of state”? Or is it something
less romantic than either of these--merely the survival from a more
barbarous age of instincts of secretiveness and chicane acquired at a
time when self-defense was the necessity of every hour?

It is quite patent that the practice of secret diplomacy is
incompatible with the democratic theory of state. Even in the Liberal
theory of state it finds little favor, although that is disposed
to grant a great deal of discretion to the representatives who are
given the trusteeship of public affairs. Yet the essential idea of
Liberalism, government by discussion, includes foreign affairs
within its scope fully as much as those of purely domestic concern.
In applying to public affairs the experience of private business it
is often argued that as the directorate of a corporation could not
be expected to transact its business in public, even so diplomatic
conversations are not to be heralded from the house tops. How far
this particular analogy between private business and public affairs
will hold, is a point we shall have to examine later. At first sight
the planning of private enterprises and the consideration of benefits
and losses, can hardly furnish completely satisfactory rules for the
conduct of public affairs, particularly those involving the life and
death of the persons concerned. Stockholders would be reluctant to
allow such matters to be determined by a board of trustees in secret
conclave.

Divesting ourselves of all prejudices, even of righteous indignation
against plainly unconscionable practices, we shall try to examine and
analyze the action of great diplomats and to see to what extent really
important results achieved by them have depended upon the use of secret
methods. In the 18th Century, diplomacy was still looked upon as a
sharp game in which wits were matched, with a complete license as to
the means pursued; provided, however, that embarrassing discovery
must be avoided, in other words, that the exact method of deception
must be so closely guarded that only the results will show. The great
diplomats of the beginning of the 19th century--Metternich, Talleyrand,
Pozzo di Borgo--while they talked much about humanitarian principles,
continued to play a barren game of intrigue. Napoleon III, that master
of devious statecraft, will always be cited by excoriators of secret
diplomacy as an abhorrent example--a man undone by the results of his
own plotting. Bismarck indeed prided himself on looking down upon
petty secret manœuvering and cast a certain amount of contempt on the
whole diplomatic business; he often disconcerted his opponents by an
unaccustomed frankness. Yet the orientation of his statesmanship was
based upon the idea of helping history to find a short-cut to her aims
through masterful plotting. He took the reins out of the hands of
Providence.

But let us return to our first question: “Is secret diplomacy the
evil spirit of modern politics?” It is indeed worth inquiring how far
our secretive methods in foreign affairs are to blame for the pitiful
condition in which the world finds itself to-day. No doubt there is a
general belief that secret diplomacy and ever-increasing armaments
led Europe into the terrible destruction of the Great War and that the
continuance of such methods is chiefly to blame for the deplorable
condition since the Armistice. There may be deeper causes, but these
evidences are so obtrusive that they naturally attract most attention
and are given most blame for the evils we endure. It is plain that
secret diplomacy is a potent cause for continued distrust, fear and
hate. There are few statesmen that would not shrink from deliberately
planning and staging a war. Yet they nearly all participate in methods
of handling public business from which it is hardly possible that
anything but suspicion, fear and hatred should arise. Distrust is
planted everywhere. There is no assurance of what is the truth; true
reports are questioned; false reports, believed. All motives are under
suspicion. The public conscience and will are beclouded; nothing stands
out as reliable but stark military force.

It would seem that we have learned very little from the war. The same
dangerous and unhealthy methods continue to be used with inveterate
zeal. The result is that suspicion has now grown up among those who
fought side by side and who shed their blood together. Realizing the
fundamental importance of basing international life on sound opinion
and fair dealing, the framers of the League of Nations tried to secure
the publicity of all international agreements. Yet this moderate
provision of the covenant has not been obeyed by some of the strongest
contracting powers. Some outsiders, indeed, such as Russia, have quite
willingly published their treaties and furnished them to the bureau of
the league.

That the first act of peace-making was to shut the door of the
council chamber in the face of the multitudes who had offered their
lives and shed their blood for the rights of humanity was a tragic
mistake. In the defense of secret procedure, published on January 17,
1919, it was said “To discuss differences in the press would inflame
public opinion and render impossible a compromise.” So all connection
between the great public that was paying the price of the game and the
benevolent elder statesmen who thought they would shoulder the burden
of responsibility alone, was cut off. The men in the council chamber
were not strengthened in this great crisis by a feeling of intimate
touch with a strong and enlightened public opinion. The public itself
was disillusioned; suspicion and contempt were the natural result. The
bald statements given to the press concerning the negotiations did not
satisfy any one. Most of what was going on became known to outsiders.
But its authenticity was so uncertain and it was so commingled with
mere rumor that the public soon gave up in despair. It will be
important to inquire as to what is the proper perspective between
confidential deliberation and publicity of results, in conferences,
which are becoming the usual agency for discussing and settling
international affairs.

When secrecy is confined merely to the methods of carrying on
negotiations, its importance for good and evil is certainly not so
great as when the secrecy of methods includes concealment of aims and
of the agreements arrived at. We could imagine that even a statesman
who seeks the closest relationship with public opinion, even a
Lincoln, could not at all times eliminate all use of confidential
communications. But the temper of the whole system of foreign affairs
is a different matter; and any broad effort to conceal the tendency of
action or its results is certainly productive of evil, no matter how
salutary or beneficial it may seem to the men employing it at the time.

But, it is said, we must trust to experts. International relations are
so intricate and have so many delicate shadings that they elude the
grasp of the ordinary man, and can be held together and seen in their
proper relations only by the comprehensive and experienced mind of the
seasoned statesman. There is, however, a distinction which ought to be
noted. The public relies in most cases unreservedly upon expertship in
matters of engineering, science, accounting, business management, and
even in medicine, though in the latter with a feeling of less complete
security. In all these cases we know that the processes applied and
the methods pursued are demonstrable, and mathematically certain to
produce the results anticipated. But in the affairs of international
politics into which the human equation and other inexactly calculable
factors enter, there is no such mathematical certainty which can be
tested and ascertained by any group of experts. It is all a matter of
wisdom in choosing alternatives, and we may well doubt whether any man
or small group of men, under modern conditions of life and public state
action, can be wiser in such matters by themselves than they would be
if they constantly kept in direct touch with public opinion. Society,
when properly organized, will have at its disposal on every question
of importance, groups of men who have expert knowledge. Expertship
in foreign affairs is not confined to the foreign offices or the
chanceries; many thoughtful men observing and thinking intensely,
traveling widely, seeing foreign affairs from an independent angle,
have opinions and judgments to contribute that the officials cannot
safely ignore. In an inquiry of this kind we shall have to consider
the broader setting of diplomacy as a part of public life within the
nation and throughout the world. The element of secrecy is appropriate
only when we consider diplomacy as a clever game played by a small
inner privileged circle; it appears out of place in a society organized
on a broader basis. As a matter of fact the defense of secrecy, from
the point of view of the inner politics of the state, resolves itself
almost entirely into an opinion that the ignorance and inexperience of
the people does not fit them to judge of foreign relations. That, it
must be confessed, does not seem to be a very sound or convincing basis
for the choice of methods of public action in a modern state.

But the real strength of the argument for secrecy comes when the
external aspects of state action are considered. Then there is, on the
surface at least, an apparent justification for secretiveness, in the
interest of a closely knit society engaged in competitive struggle with
similar societies and obliged to defend itself and to safeguard its
interest by all available means.

Regarded in its broader aspects there are two conceptions of diplomacy
which are quite antagonistic and which have divided thinkers since
the time of Machiavelli and Grotius. These two great minds may indeed
be considered as typifying the two tendencies and expressing them in
themselves and through the sentiments which their thought and writings
have engendered in their successors.

We have the conception of diplomacy as working out a complex system
of state action, balancing and counterbalancing forces and material
resources and giving direction to the innermost purposes of the state.
It is probable that all professional diplomats are more or less
enchanted by this ideal. Up to the great war, Bismarck was generally
considered the ablest master of diplomacy, and his action seemed to
supply short-cuts for historical forces to work out their natural aims.
Nationalism was the word of the day and the creation of the German
national state, foreordained as it seemed by the laws of history, was
accelerated by the masterful action of the great diplomat. But we are
now able to see wherein lay the limitations of this method as applied
by Bismarck. Notwithstanding his grasp of historic principles of
development, he did not, after all, work in unison with broad natural
forces, but relied on his power to dominate other men through forceful
mastery, with dynastic associations. He was a superman rather than a
great representative of a people’s aspirations. So while he proclaimed
the truthfulness of his diplomacy, it was nevertheless kept essentially
as his own and his master’s affair and business, rather than the
people’s. The base of his policy was narrow. He understood nationalism
from a Prussian point of view. He severed Austria from Germany, and
then antagonized France by taking Lorraine; far more important still,
he failed to strengthen German relations with Central Europe and thus
made it later seem necessary for Germany to go on to the sea and thus
to arouse the apprehensions and enmity of England. Thus while he
himself would probably have in the end avoided confronting the entire
world as enemies, the foundations he had laid did not provide a safe
footing for the more ordinary men who followed him. His diplomacy, once
considered so great, had contained no adequate and sound foundation
for permanent national life. Such have been the results of the most
distinguished and successful work of manipulative diplomacy during the
Nineteenth Century.

What then shall we say of the justification of wars brought about
as a part of such a system; under which statesmen consider it quite
natural to contemplate “preventive war” and to assume responsibility
for wholesale slaughter because their plan of action seems to reveal
a necessity for it. The idea of conscious planning, or striving to
subject national and economic facts and all historic development
to the conscious political will,--that conception of diplomacy is
synonymous with the essence of _politics_ and will stand and fall
with the continuance of the purely political state. Manipulative, and
hence secret, diplomacy is in fact the most complete expression of
the purely political factor in human affairs. To many, it will seem
only a survival of a hyper-political era, as human society now tends
to outgrow and transcend politics for more comprehensive, pervasive
and essential principles of action. We need not here rehearse the
fundamental character of _politics_ as a struggle for recognized
authority to determine the action of individuals, with the use of
external compulsion. Politics is a part of the idea of the national
state seen from the point of view of a struggle for existence among
different political organizations, in which one class originally
superimposed its authority upon a subject population and in which,
after authority is firmly established within, political power is
then used to gain advantages from, or over, outside societies. It is
Machiavelli as opposed to Grotius who gives us the philosophy of this
struggle. The narrowness of this basis for human action and the direful
effect of conscious and forceful interference with social and economic
laws, is now beginning to be recognized.

But there is also a broader conception of diplomacy which is
influencing the minds of men although it is not yet fully embodied
in our daily practice. This conception looks upon humanity, not as a
mosaic of little mutually exclusive areas, but as a complex body of
interlocking interests and cultural groups. As this conception gains
in strength, the center of effort in diplomacy will not be to conceal
separatist aims and special plots, but to bring out into the clear
light of day the common interests of men. The common work for them to
do in making the world habitable, in dignifying the life of men and
protecting them against mutual terror and massacre,--that ideal of
coöperation and forbearance, is as yet only partially embodied in our
international practices, although it arouses the fervid hopes of men
throughout the world. Whether a system of local autonomy combined with
full coöperation and free interchange of influences can be brought
about without the exercise of an overpowering influence on the part
of a group of allied nations, is still doubtful. But if it should be
achieved, then plainly the old special functions of diplomacy will fall
away and administrative conferences will take the place of diplomatic
conversations. When Portugal became a republic, the proposal was made
to abolish all diplomatic posts and have the international business of
Portugal administered by consuls. That would eliminate politics from
foreign relations.

Diplomacy in the spirit of Grotius has always had its votaries even
in periods of the darkest intrigue, but there has only recently come
into general use a method of transacting international business which
favors open and full discussion of diplomatic affairs. Such business
will be dealt with less and less in separate negotiation between two
powers; there will generally be more nations involved, and conferences
and standing committees or commissions will be at work, rather than
isolated diplomats. Indeed, international conferences are still largely
influenced by the old spirit of secretive diplomacy. Yet the practice
of meeting together in larger groups is itself inimical to the strict
maintenance of the older methods and we may expect a natural growth of
more simple and direct dealings. It will be interesting to watch the
use of the older methods of diplomacy under these new conditions and to
see how far and how fast they will have to be modified in order to bear
out the underlying principle in human development to which action by
conference responds.

The Washington Conference of 1921 afforded the first notable occasion
for bringing into use open methods in diplomatic discussion. Secretary
Hughes in his introductory speech struck a keynote hitherto not
heard in negotiations on international matters. A new era seemed to
have dawned in which great issues and all-important interests could
be discussed openly and decided on their merits. A great wave of
enthusiasm passed over the public. But it cannot be said that the
temper of this auspicious opening was sustained throughout. As the
conference descended from general declarations to important questions
of detail there was an unmistakable reversion to old methods, which
obstructed the straightforward aims of Secretary Hughes. Even the
generous initial proposal of the American government was made by
one of the powers a trading subject. The result was that some of the
attendant evils of secret diplomacy invaded even this conference,
and that the public soon became somewhat confused as to its object
and purposes, through an abundance of guesses which put a premium
on the sensational imagination. It must be said that the temper of
the press, encouraged by the manner in which the Conference had been
inaugurated, was one of restraint and responsibility. Viewing the
questions which were before this Conference, there can be no doubt that
the very problems about which there was hesitation and exaggerated
secretiveness, were exactly those which could have been best judged of
by the well-informed public opinion. One could not avoid the conclusion
that the fear of publicity is in all cases inspired by motives which
cannot stand the test of a world-wide public opinion.

At the present day, as yet, the fatal circle has not been broken:
secret diplomacy, suspicion, armaments, war. We had thought that we
should escape from it quite easily, after the terrible sacrifices laid
on mankind and the light which had been flashed on us in that darkness.
But the passions which had been stirred up and the fear and terror
which had been aroused in that dire experience may for some time yet
serve to strengthen the reactionary forces in human affairs, and retard
those which tend to liberate humanity from terror and suffering. But it
is lack of leadership toward better things, that is most to blame.

To America, to the government and the people, the elimination of
secret dealings in international affairs is nothing short of a primary
interest. The entire character of our foreign policy is inspired with,
and based upon, the belief in open dealings and fair play. We have a
broad continental position which makes secret plotting and devious
transactions unnatural, inappropriate and unnecessary. Our national
experience of one hundred and fifty years has expressed itself quite
spontaneously in proposals for the peaceful settlement of international
disputes by discussion, for the improvement of international relations
through conferences, and in the great policies of the Open Door, which
means commercial fair play, and the Monroe Doctrine, which means
political fair play to the American sister republics. A policy such as
this has nothing to seek with secret methods and concealed aims.

To tolerate secrecy in international affairs would mean to acquiesce
in a great national danger. For good or ill we can no longer conceive
ourselves as isolated. Our every-day happiness and permanent welfare
are directly affected by what other nations do and plan. Continued
secrecy would mean that we should feel ourselves surrounded by
unknown dangers. We should have to live in an atmosphere of dread and
suspicion. We could find peace of mind only in the security of vast
armaments. In international affairs we would be walking by the edge
of precipices and over volcanoes; our best intentioned proposals for
the betterment of human affairs would be secretly burked, as in the
case of Secretary Knox’ plan of railway neutralization in Manchuria.
Our rights would be secretly invaded and our security threatened, as
at the time when England and France agreed with Japan that she should
have the North Pacific islands, behind our backs, though our vital
interests were involved. In all such matters secrecy will work to the
disadvantage of that power which has the most straightforward aims
and policies. America cannot willingly submit to such a condition. It
is unthinkable that with our traditions of public life and with our
Constitutional arrangements, we should ourselves play the old game of
secret intrigue; it is for us to see, and to the best of our power and
ability to assure, that it will not be played in the future by others.

Nations will respond to the call for absolutely open dealings in
international affairs, with a varying degree of readiness and
enthusiasm. We are perhaps justified in saying that wherever the people
can make their desires felt they will be unanimously for a policy of
openness. The English tradition of public life would also be favorable
to such a principle of action, were it not that such special imperial
interests as the British raj in India frequently inspires British
diplomacy with narrower motives and with a readiness to depart from
open dealings from a conviction that imperial interests so require.
The Russian Soviet government in giving to the public a full knowledge
of international affairs, was at first inspired primarily by a desire
to discredit the old régime. But it is also undoubtedly true that the
hold which this government has on the party which supports it, is in
a measure due to the fact that all foreign policies and relationships
are freely reported to, and discussed in, the party meetings and the
soviets. No matter what the aims of this government may be, it cannot
be denied that it has strengthened itself by the openness of its
foreign policy. The Chinese people have manifested a deep faith in
public opinion and their chief desire in international affairs is that
there shall be open, straightforward dealings so that all the world may
know and judge. Through all their difficulties of the last decade they
have been sustained by this faith in the strength of a good cause in
the forum of world-wide public opinion.

The peoples of the Continent of Europe undoubtedly would welcome a
reign of openness and truth, for they have suffered most from secret
dealings in diplomacy. But those who govern them find it difficult to
extricate themselves from the tangle of intrigue. As President Wilson
expressed it:

  “European diplomacy works always in the dense thicket of ancient
  feuds, rooted, entangled and entwined. It is difficult to see the
  path; it is not always possible to see the light of day. I did
  not realize it all until the peace conference; I did not realize
  how deep the roots are.”




I

EIGHTEENTH CENTURY DIPLOMACY


During the eighteenth century, diplomatic action was dominated entirely
by the tactics and stratagems of war. Diplomacy was a continuous
struggle for political advantage and power, seeking to accomplish the
purposes of war through keen intriguing; it was war pursued in the
council chamber. The temper of diplomacy was not that of a commercial
transaction, or of coöperation in the works of peace and betterment;
but it was intent upon selfish advantage--power, prestige, preferment,
and all the outward evidences of political success. It did not have
the conscience of peaceful enterprise and coöperation, but on the
contrary emulated the keen, restless, alert, and all-suspecting spirit
of the military commander in action. All the ruses, deceptions,
subterfuges, briberies and strategies which the struggle for existence
in war appears to render justifiable, diplomacy made use of. It was
essentially a political secret service informed with the spirit of
life-and-death competition. As, among individuals in that society, all
action was dominated by the constantly overhanging hazard of private
duel, bringing into life something of the keenness and cruelty of the
tempered blade; so among nations warlike rivalry inspired all political
action. War was either going on or impending and being prepared for;
humanity was living true to the old adage: “Man a wolf to man.”

Diplomacy was personal in that the ambassador was held to be an _alter
ego_ of the monarch. It was surrounded with the glamor of high state
and important enterprise, and inspired with a great pride of office.
The fact that he represented absolute power in its contact with the
absolute power of others, gave the diplomat a sense of high importance.
The monarchs, themselves, were generally governed by personal motives
and considerations. They looked upon politics as a keen game for
personal or family power in which populations of subjects, territory,
and war indemnities were the stakes, and human lives the pawns; the
highest happiness and good fortune of the subject was supposed to be
the right to die for his king. The diplomatic representatives quite
naturally fell into the same way of regarding affairs of state from the
viewpoint of political power to be gained, maintained and constantly
increased. It was a rather narrow game as seen by the rank and file of
the diplomatic world; only a few far-seeing and statesmanlike minds
could at that time appreciate the broad underlying human foundation of
all political action.

Such broader insight would often have been a real obstacle to the
success of the keen and clever player of the game. The mastery of
underlying principles which made Grotius famous for all ages did not
contribute to his success as a diplomat. The wheel of fortune turned
fast, and fleeting advantage had to be caught by quick, clever though
often superficial, machinations. Even as late as 1830, John Quincy
Adams observed that deep insight and unusual ability was something of a
hindrance to a diplomat. Yet the keen edge of the successful diplomats
of the powdered wig period is in itself one of the noteworthy qualities
of that sociable though unsocial age.

Throughout this period Machiavelli’s _Prince_ may be taken as the
fitting commentary on political action. The men of this age had not
yet grown up to the realization which Machiavelli already had of the
nature and importance of the national principle; but Machiavelli’s
thought concerning the means by which, in a period of unrest and sharp
rivalry, political power may be established, built up and preserved,
with total disregard of every feeling and ideal and the single-minded
pursuit of political success,--that thoroughly explains the spring of
action of this period.

In reading the memoirs and letters of this time, one will encounter
a great many protestations of conventional morality, as well as an
understanding of human nature and a comprehensive grasp of the details
of international rivalry. But far-seeing ideals of wisdom, moderation,
and justice, and of human coöperation will not frequently be met with;
there is no searching vision of realities. Nor will one gain from these
memoirs very specific information about the actual methods of doing
diplomatic business. These methods, even the particularly unscrupulous
ones, were probably considered almost as natural processes, to be
passed by without mention. But incidentally, one may receive hints,
even in the correspondence of the most correct and guarded diplomat,
sufficient to reconstitute their current manner of thought and action.

We encounter there all the artifices of a secret service versed
in the stratagems and tricks through which information can be
obtained,--the stealing of documents, bribery of public officials,
general misrepresentation and deceit. Matters are often so inextricably
complicated that it must have required the greatest effort to remember
what each participant in that particular intrigue knew or was supposed
not to know, what he could be told and what must be kept from him.
These are still the more venial methods; but when the welfare of the
state required, it might even be necessary, as in the case of war, to
dispose of inconvenient and obstructive individuals by wrecking their
reputation or even by putting them out of the way altogether.

Even the learned and dignified authorities on international law
could not entirely ignore the methods employed in actual diplomatic
intercourse. Grotius held that “amphibologies”--a term apparently
coined by him to designate statements, which could be understood in
several ways--were admissible, except in certain cases where there
existed a duty to unmask, as in matters involving the “honor of God,”
or charity towards a neighbor, or the making of contracts, or others
of like nature. His successor, Vattel, draws a distinction between
a downright lie, “words of him who speaks contrary to his thoughts
on an occasion when he is under obligation to speak the truth”; and
a “falsiloquy,” which he considers venial, and which is “an untrue
discourse to persons who have no right to insist on knowing the truth
in a particular case.” This distinction gives a rather ample latitude
to the discretion of a diplomat in the matter of truthfulness.
According to the good and learned Vattel, the duty of any one to
tell the truth was binding only towards another who had the right to
demand that the truth be spoken. In his day, very few people indeed
could claim the right of demanding an insight into diplomatic affairs,
so that his rule did not put the diplomat under a very severe moral
constraint. Even to the present day there have been known individual
envoys whose utterances plainly are made in the spirit of Vattel’s
distinction.

Callières, who wrote on the Practice of Diplomacy, in the year 1716, is
full of admiration of all that a shrewd, clever diplomat may accomplish
in stirring up trouble and confounding things generally in the state
to which he is accredited. To the question, “What can be achieved by a
negotiator?” Callières answers, “We see daily around us its definite
effects--sudden revolutions favorable to a great design of state, use
of sedition and fermenting hatreds, causing jealous rivals to arm, so
that the third party may rejoice (_ut tertius gaudeat_), dissolution
by crafty means of the closest unions. A single word or act may do more
than the invasion of whole armies, because the crafty negotiator will
know how to set in motion various forces native to the country in which
he is negotiating and thus may spare his master the vast expense of a
campaign.... It frequently happens that well chosen spies contribute
more than any other agency to the success of great plans. They are not
to be neglected. An ambassador is an honorable spy because it is his
function to discover great secrets. He should have a liberal hand.”
That admiration of successful deceit and mental cleverness in obtaining
results that could only be gained by force through great sacrifice of
life, inspired also the Italian admiration for clever deceit, such
as shown by Machiavelli in his eulogy of Pope Alexander VI for his
unrivaled eminence in prevarication.

It is remarkable that the famous witticism of Sir Henry Wotton that “an
ambassador is a person sent abroad to lie for the good of his country,”
did not occur to some one much earlier; but though the _bon mot_ had
not been coined, the idea itself was quite familiar. Louis XI quite
bluntly instructed his embassies, “If they lie to you, lie still more
to them.” But through all this period the virtue of sincerity and
of truthfulness also had their admirers: Callières, speaking of the
successful diplomat, says, “Deceit is but the measure of smallness of
mind and intelligence. A diplomat should have a reputation for plain
and fair dealing and should observe the promises he has made.” It
may, however, be suspected that the good writer here contemplates the
dangers of unsuccessful deceit and of too transparent ruses, rather
than the positive value of truth itself.

James Harris, Lord Malmesbury, who was certainly conversant with all
the ins and outs of eighteenth century diplomacy, wrote in a letter
of advice (April 11, 1813) addressed to Lord Camden: “It is scarce
necessary to say that no occasion, no provocation, no anxiety to rebut
an unjust accusation, no idea, however tempting, of promoting the
object you have in view, can need, much less justify, a falsehood.
Success obtained by one is a precarious and baseless success. Detection
would ruin, not only your own reputation for ever, but deeply wound
the honor of your Court.” In this sage advice, too, the dominant idea
seems to be that detection is ruinous. The homage which is thus paid to
the ideal of truth and sincerity is compatible with the use of quite
opposite methods provided they are successful and so cleverly guarded
that they are not discovered.

However, at all times there must have existed, among the people at
large and even among those playing the game of politics, men who had
a natural inborn desire for truth and a simplicity of nature which
brought them closer to the true underlying forces than were the common
run of courtiers and politicians. The ever recurring admiration
expressed for the diplomacy of Cardinal d’Orsat, the envoy of Henry IV
to the Pope, indicates a real appreciation, even among the profession,
of high standards of straightforwardness in diplomatic negotiations.
Cardinal d’Orsat seems to have disdained all shallow devices of
deceptive cleverness. He relied upon simple reasonableness and honesty
in proposing an arrangement mutually beneficial, to win after others
had exhausted all possible tricks and stratagems. In discussing
diplomacy, Mably says that such methods alone are calculated to secure
positive and permanent results while the devices of clever deceit can
only serve to delay and confuse.

Several statesmen have discovered that the telling of the actual
truth often exerts a somewhat befuddling effect on diplomats, so that
they may easily be misled by telling them real facts which they will
interpret in a contrary sense. This method has usually been associated
with the name of Bismarck who on one occasion said, “It makes me
smile to see how puzzled all these diplomats are when I tell them the
truth pure and simple. They always seem to suspect me of telling them
fibs.” The discovery had, however, been made by many statesmen before
Bismarck. As early as 1700, de Torcy had arrived at the conclusion that
the best way of deceiving foreign courts is to speak the truth. Lord
Stanhope said quite complacently that he could always impose upon the
foreign diplomats by telling them the naked truth, and that he knew
that in such cases they had often reported to their courts the opposite
to what he had truthfully told them to be the facts. At a later date,
Palmerston also prided himself on being able to mislead by the open
and apparently unguarded manner in which he told the truth. It would,
however, manifestly be difficult to use this method successfully more
than in spots; it would have to be interspersed from time to time with
a judicious amount of prevarication, in order to throw the other party
off the scent.

_To appear_ simple and true has always been greatly desired of
diplomats. Count Du Luc, French Ambassador to Vienna, said in a
letter, “My great desire, if I may be permitted to speak about myself,
is to appear simple and true. I flatter myself that I possess the
latter qualification; but you know my method of manœuvering.” The
appearance of frankness has indeed been most valuable to diplomats
in all ages; though one naturally suspects the man who in and out
of season explicitly declares and protests that virtue. Diplomatic
frankness is a part of that elaborate and complicated system of
self-control and coolness together with a mastery of all the outward
expressions of different affections and passions, which notable
diplomats have sought to achieve. It would not take an expert to advise
against pomposity. Callières counsels, “Be genial. Avoid the sober,
cold air. An air of mystery is not useful.”

In that century in which keenness and cleverness were so intensively
cultivated with the high pitch of the personal duel transferred to
affairs of state, the complete self-control of diplomats, their
quickness and their gift of taking advantage of any favorable turn in
the situation, are certainly worthy of admiration, as we reanimate
in our minds the life portrayed in these old memoirs and letters.
Occasionally a mishap occurs like that of the British Minister,
Mr. Drake, who boasted to Mehée de la Touche of the very careful
precautions he had taken to guard his secret correspondence; which
vainglory resulted quite disastrously to his collection of secrets.
Instances of delightful cleverness and cool-headedness are frequent.
Cardinal Mazarin, who in his methods and principles was quite the
opposite to Cardinal d’Orsat and who was particularly free from any
scruples whatsoever concerning the truth, won his first striking
diplomatic success through a ruse. What a quick mind and daring spirit
his, when on his first mission to the court of the Duke of Feria, as
a very young man, he attained his object so completely. How otherwise
could he have ascertained the true opinion of His Highness on the
matter of great importance to the Court of France which Mazarin was
especially sent to ascertain, as there were great doubts about it
and the duke entirely unwilling to express himself? A keen observer,
Mazarin had soon learned that the duke was irascible and unguarded when
in anger; but few would have followed him in suddenly, out of the clear
sky, deliberately, so stirring the duke to anger that he, entirely
off his guard, blurted out things which unmistakably gave a clue to
his real opinions on the important matter of state in question. What
a vivid satisfaction the young man must have had, which, however, he
needs must carefully conceal to feign grief and despair because he had
been hapless enough to arouse the ill will of His Highness. Mazarin was
throughout his life noted for a perfect command of the expressions of
all the moods, sentiments and passions, used by him at will so that it
was impossible for any one to penetrate his mask. The same achievement
was attained in a notable manner by the great diplomats of the old
school, Talleyrand and Metternich, who held the stage at the beginning
of the nineteenth century; and it has been emulated in greater or less
perfection by successive generations of Ministers, Counselors, and
Secretaries.

When Cromwell had allowed himself to be tangled up in double-faced
negotiations with the Spanish and the French courts of which the
latter had obtained complete knowledge, the French envoy, DeBass, very
cleverly rebuked him for the inconstancy and disingenuousness of his
action. The envoy related to Cromwell in complete detail, but as an
“unauthenticated report,” all the facts of the dubious negotiation, and
then asked the Protector kindly to extricate him from this labyrinth.
Cromwell was entirely taken aback and took his departure abruptly
on urgent business, leaving his secretary to make excuses. The star
performance of Metternich was when Napoleon, returning from a hunt
in a fit of heated excitement, in the presence of the other foreign
representatives, rushed up to him shouting, “What the deuce does your
Emperor expect of me?” Metternich replied with the greatest composure,
“He expects his ambassador to be treated with respect.”




II

OLD DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE


The correspondence of diplomats of the eighteenth century is full of
interest because of the particular intimacy which characterized social
life at that time. But we receive from it also direct and invaluable
information on the spirit and methods of diplomacy. The correspondence
from St. Petersburg at the time of Catherine the Great gives a complete
picture of the less noble features of diplomatic life and action. At
that Court, presided over by a woman of great ambition whose every
movement and mood the diplomats felt necessary to take into account
and carefully to calculate, at a time when England and France as well
as other nations were involved in almost constant hostilities, the
sharpest characteristics of eighteenth century diplomacy came to the
surface. Politics is seen as a game of forfeits and favors in which
wars were made for personal and dynastic reasons and territories traded
off in the spirit of the gamester without regard to natural or ethnic
facts, or the welfare of the population.

A letter written near the beginning of Catherine’s reign, addressed
by Sir George Macartney to the Earl of Sandwich, most strikingly
illustrates the character of the period. The British Minister first
reports that M. Panin, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, had
signed a treaty of alliance with Denmark, contemplating war with
Turkey. By a most secret article, Denmark promises “to disengage
herself from all French connections, demanding only a limited time to
endeavor to obtain the arrears due to her by the Court of France. At
all events, she is immediately to enter into all the views of Russia
in Sweden, and to act entirely, though not openly, with her in that
kingdom.” The writer then reports that it is the ardent wish of the
Empress “to make a common cause with England and Denmark, for the
total annihilation of the French interest there (in Sweden). This
certainly cannot be done without a considerable expense; but Russia,
at present, does not seem unreasonable enough to expect that we should
pay the whole.” The amount necessary absolutely to prevent the French
from ever getting at Stockholm again is suggested. As the Swedes are
highly sensitive because of their dependent situation in recent years,
the Russian Court desires “that we and they should act upon separate
bottoms, still preserving between our respective Ministers a confidence
without reserve. That our first care should be, not to establish a
faction under the name of a Russian or of an English faction; but,
as even the wisest men are imposed upon by a mere name, to endeavor
to have our friends distinguished as the friends of liberty and
independence.” The Minister then reports that an alliance with Russia
is not to be thought of unless by some secret article England would
agree to pay a subsidy to Russia in case of a Turkish war (Turkey
happened at the time to be in alliance with England). The Minister
relates that a similar proposal which was put up to the King of Prussia
by a Russian official who was his mortal enemy and who hoped greatly to
embarrass him thereby, was unexpectedly and quite blandly accepted by
Frederick II. The letter closes with the earnest entreaty on no account
to mention to M. Gross, the Russian Minister in London, the secret
article of the treaty which his own Government had just concluded with
Denmark.

The correspondence of James Harris, Lord Malmesbury, is a particularly
full and continuous account of court and diplomatic life in the
eighteenth century. In describing his diplomatic struggles in a
Court in which everything turned round the whims and ambitions of an
unscrupulous woman who had come to the throne through putting out of
the way its rightful occupant, the vicious practices of the day are
presented in all their corruption and deceitfulness. Before going
to Russia, Sir James Harris was Minister at Berlin. He paints the
character of Frederick the Great in the following words: “Thus never
losing sight of his object, he lays aside all feelings the moment that
is concerned; and, although as an individual he often appears, and
really is, humane, benevolent, and friendly, yet the instant he acts
in his Royal capacity, these attributes forsake him, and he carries
with him desolation, misery, and persecution, wherever he goes.” A
German scholar of the period, an admirer of the great monarch, used
the following language: “The art, till then unknown in Europe, of
concluding alliances without committing one’s self, of remaining
unfettered while apparently bound, of seceding when the proper
moment is arrived, can be learnt from him and only from him.” These
descriptions of the political character of Frederick II set forth the
essential _political_ factor as it was understood at the time and
as it has been understood by a continuous line of statesmen from
Machiavelli to the present. As in physical science, every factor has to
be disregarded except those essential to the experiment which is being
conducted, so in the intensive politics of the modern state, in the
mind of such men, abstraction is made from all sentiment, virtue and
quality, to the sole pursuit of a closely calculated political effect.
The same German scholar credits Frederick the Great with a superior
straightforwardness. That quality, however, is manifested by such a man
mostly on occasions where he is so sure of himself and of his plans
that he can challenge the worst attempts of his enemies to upset them
and can confound them utterly by flinging his plans in their faces, as
did Bismarck at a later time. A startling and fearless frankness is one
of the characteristics of political genius.

But to return to the correspondence of Lord Malmesbury. All the devices
and foibles of the profession at that period are there mirrored. When
he (still as Sir James Harris) reports the coming of a new French
Minister to St. Petersburg, he expresses the hope that the new envoy
will not be so difficult to deal with as the present chargé d’affairs,
“who, though he has a very moderate capacity, got access to all the
valets de chambre and inferior agents in the Russian houses, who very
often conjured up evil spirits where I least of all expected them.” A
little later he reports to the British Foreign Minister, Lord Stormont,
as follows: “If, on further inquiry, I should find, as I almost
suspect, that my friend’s (Prince Potemkin) fidelity has been shaken,
or his political faith corrupted, in the late conferences, by any
direct offers or indirect promises of reward, I shall think myself, in
such a case, not only authorized but obliged to lure him with a similar
bait.” He reminds His Lordship of the fact that Prince Potemkin is
immensely rich and that, therefore, perhaps as much may be required as
de Torcy offered to the Duke of Marlborough (two million francs).

In a letter of June 25, 1781, Sir James Harris, writing to the same
Minister, speaks of having obtained information of the conclusion
of a secret treaty between Russia and Austria from the confidential
secretary of a Russian minister. He adds: “I trust I shall keep him to
myself, since I have lost almost all my other informers by being outbid
for them by the French and Prussians.” He adds that it is painful to
him that the secret service expenses come so very high but he explains
that the avid corruption of the court is ever increasing and that
his enemies are favored by the fact that they can join in the expense
against him, their courts moreover supplying them most lavishly. He
adds: “They are also much more adroit at this dirty business than I am,
who cannot help despising the person I corrupt.”

The Foreign Minister of Russia at this time, and for many years before
and after, was Count Panin. It was then suspected and is now known
that he was firmly bought by Frederick II. But there has been some
doubt as to whether he entered upon this corrupt relation behind the
back of Empress Catherine or at her bidding. It is known that she
often encouraged her ministers at foreign courts to accept bribes and
apparently to sell themselves to foreign governments, because through
the relationship of confidence thus established they might gather
information useful to their own government. This is one of the many
ways in which the game of corruption tended to defeat itself.

As far as the letters of this period deal with diplomatic policies
they are no more reassuring than when they relate the details of
diplomatic practice. On August 16, 1782, Sir James Harris made a long
confidential report to Lord Grantham. He observes that Count Panin
is powerfully assisting the King of Prussia, the French Minister is
artful and intriguing, working through Prince Potemkin and the whole
tribe of satellites which surrounded the Empress, whom he calls “barber
apprentices of Paris.” He then unfolds his own policy of winning the
favor of the Empress for England by giving her the island of Minorca
as a present. His idea had been adopted by the British Foreign Office
and he writes, “Nothing could be more perfectly calculated to the
meridian of this Court than the judicious instructions I received on
this occasion.” He decided,--hand in hand with the proposed cession
of Minorca,--to designate the Empress as a friendly mediatrix between
England and Holland; he says: “I knew, indeed, she was unequal to the
task but I knew too how greatly her vanity would be flattered by this
distinction.” Farther on he reports how, gradually, after several
British Ministers had incurred the ill humor of Catherine, Fox and
the present Minister of Foreign Affairs have finally found favor and
smoothed the road for Sir James. He hopes that all these great efforts
and sacrifices may result in “lighting the strong glow of friendship
in Her Imperial Majesty in favor of England.” At this distance a slim
result of so much effort. The characterization of Catherine with which
he closes, few historians would now accept.[A]

    [A] “With very bright parts, an elevated mind, an uncommon
        sagacity, she wants judgment, precision of ideas,
        reflection, and l’esprit de combinaison.”

American diplomats had their first taste of European diplomatic methods
in 1797, when Pinckney, Gerry and Marshall were sent to France on their
special mission. Every attempt at delay and mystification was practised
on them. After various secret agents had tried the patience of the
Americans and had finally come out with the plain demand of Talleyrand
for a million francs as the price for peace and good relations, they
resolutely turned their back on Paris. Meanwhile Pitt was seriously
considering buying peace on similar terms.




III

AFTER THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA


The convulsions of the French revolution and the Napoleonic conquests
did not seem materially to affect the principles and practices of
diplomacy. When the Congress of Vienna met to rearrange the state
of Europe, it was guided by men who still looked upon diplomacy
entirely in the manner of the 18th century, when, in the words of
Horace Walpole, “it was the mode of the times to pay by one favor for
receiving another.” The idea of restoring the balance of Europe or
patching up the rents and cracks in the old system which had been so
severely shaken was the purpose which animated these men. They viewed
everything from the dynastic interests of their respective rulers and
traded off lesser kingdoms and slices of territory with the same spirit
of the gamester that has always characterized the absolutist diplomacy.

Of the three master minds of the Congress of Vienna, Talleyrand,
Metternich and Pozzo di Borgo, it may indeed be said that they
illustrated both the qualities and the vices of the old diplomacy in a
superlative degree. The last named has characterized Talleyrand as “a
man who is unlike any other. He wheedles, he arranges, he intrigues,
he governs in a hundred different manners every day. His interest in
others is proportioned to the need which he has of them at the moment.
Even his civilities are luxurious loans which it is necessary to repay
before the end of the day.” Talleyrand, himself, has said: “Two things
I forbid--too much zeal and too absolute devotion--they compromise
both persons and affairs.” He did not, indeed, betray his great master
Napoleon, he only quitted him in time.

Metternich, who resembled Talleyrand in the complete self-control of
a passionless diplomat, had a long and brilliant, but essentially
sterile, career. His correspondence shows a keen and luminous spirit
with a great mastery of detail, and capacity for manipulating the human
pawns; but there is no deep insight, no real constructive policy.
Indeed, he supported Alexander I in his efforts for a Holy Alliance or
sacred league among nations, but it was conceived in such a form that
it would not have interfered with the traditional game of diplomacy.
Metternich indeed often pays his compliments to the ideal, as when he
praises the league as resting on the same basis as the great Christian
society of man, namely, the precept of the Book of Books, “Do unto
others as you would that they should do unto you.” But the details of
his policy were governed entirely by the barren principles of balance
of power and legitimacy, and showed an utter disregard for the natural
and ethnic facts underlying government. Metternich indeed himself at
times realized the vanity of political intrigue, as when he wrote to
his daughter from Paris in 1815, “This specific weight of the masses
will always be the same, while we, poor creatures, who think ourselves
so important, live only to make a little show by our perpetual motion,
by our dabbling in the mud or in the shifting sand.”

When Alexander himself left the realm of vague ideals and descended to
details, his impulses often took a form somewhat like the proposal made
to Castlereagh at Vienna, “We are going to do a beautiful and grand
thing. We are going to raise up Poland by giving her as king one of my
brothers or the husband of my sister.” The British statesman does not
seem to have been immediately carried away with this generous design.

It was consistent with the character and temper of the Congress
of Vienna that there flowed in it innumerable currents and
counter-currents of intrigue. In January, 1815, the representatives of
England, France and Austria agreed upon a secret treaty of alliance,
directed against Russia and Prussia. When Napoleon returned from Elba
he found this document and showed it to the Russian Minister before
tearing it up.

The first half of the nineteenth century was dominated by the
principles that had prevailed at Vienna. In the details of diplomatic
intercourse, indirection, bribery and deceit continue to prevail
although in a less flamboyant fashion than in the eighteenth century.
As the principle of nationalism comes more clearly to emerge, the
secrecy of diplomatic _methods_ is distinguished from the secrecy of
diplomatic _policy_ with increasing condemnation of the latter; a
greater sense of responsibility to the nation as a whole begins to show
itself, and the traditional resources of diplomacy are no longer quite
adequate.

Nevertheless, the diplomatic literature of the age still looks upon
diplomacy as essentially a tactical pursuit, conditioned by the
continuous enmity of states. The French writer, Garden, in his _Traité
de diplomatie_, gives the following elucidation: “Put on this plane,
diplomacy becomes like a transcendent manœuvering of which the entire
globe is the theater, where states are army corps, where the lines of
combat change unceasingly, and where one never knows who is a friend,
and who is an enemy. It is a political labyrinth in the midst of
which ability alone is capable of moving with ease and without being
smothered by detail.”

The memoirs and anecdotal literature of the period afford numerous
instances of the persistence of that desire for cleverness in dealing
with secrets, which often brings about amusing incidents.

At the time when Frankfort was the capital of the North German
Confederation, the Austrian government provided its representative
there (Count Rechberg) with duplicate instructions; one to the effect
that he must exhaust every energy to maintain the most friendly
and mutually helpful relations with Prussia; the other of quite
the opposite tenor. The former was to be shown to the Prussians.
Unfortunately, at the critical moment the Austrian Minister showed the
wrong letter to Bismarck, who guessed the situation; suppressing his
amusement as best he could, Bismarck tried to console the embarrassed
Austrian by promising not to take any advantage of the slip.

A Prussian Minister for Foreign Affairs (Manteuffel) had hired a
police agent to sneak into the French Embassy in order to secure some
documents there. When he delightedly showed one of the letters secured
to General Von Gerlach, the latter said: “I could have written you ten
such letters for what this cost you.”

Disraeli, in a letter to his sister, spoke of the Danish Minister at
London as his secret agent in the diplomatic corps.

There were also more innocent means of gaining advantages such as are
practised in many other branches of human enterprise. For instance,
Labouchere relates his discovery, when attaché at Washington, that
Secretary Marcy was put in a terrible ill-humor whenever he lost at
whist. Upon a hint from Labouchere, the British Minister managed
thereafter regularly to lose in his games with Marcy who was immensely
pleased at “beating the British at their own game.” Labouchere adds:
“Every morning when the terms of the treaty were being discussed we had
our revenge and scored a few points for Canada.”

There was all this time an increasing tendency to discount the
importance of the traditional arts of diplomacy and to believe that
a great deal of this carefully nurtured secrecy was merely a trick of
the trade. Bismarck expressed himself in the following language on
diplomatic literature: “For the most part it is nothing but paper and
ink. If you wanted to utilize it for historical purposes, you could not
get anything worth having out of it. I believe it is the rule to allow
historians to consult the Foreign Office archives at the expiration of
thirty years (after the date of despatches). They might be permitted
to examine them much sooner, for the despatches and letters, when they
contain any information at all, are quite unintelligible to those
unacquainted with the persons and relations treated of in them.” In
reporting this statement, Labouchere observes: “If all foreign office
telegrams were published they would be curious reading.”[B] He also
relates how his youthful efforts at secret diplomacy were received by
the Foreign Office. He had succeeded at St. Petersburg in being able
quite regularly, through the assistance of a laundress, to get from
the government printing office loose sheets of confidential minutes of
State Council meetings. When Lord John Russell discovered the method in
which this interesting information was obtained, he put a stop to the
simple intrigue; Labouchere concludes his account of this experience
thus: “For what reason, I wonder, did Russell imagine diplomacy was
invented?”

    [B] He writes that when “I was an attaché at Stockholm, the
        present Queen, the Duchess of Ostrogotha, had a baby, and
        a telegram came from the Foreign Office desiring that Her
        Majesty’s congratulations should be offered, and that she
        should be informed how the mother and child were. The
        Minister was away, so off I went to the Palace to convey
        the message and to inquire about the health of the pair. A
        solemn gentleman received me. I informed him of my orders,
        and requested him to say what I was to reply. ‘Her Royal
        Highness,’ he replied, ‘is as well as can be expected, but
        His Royal Highness is suffering a little internally, and
        it is believed that this is due to the fact of the milk
        of his nurse having been slightly sour last evening.’ I
        telegraphed this to the Foreign Office.”

The term “secret diplomacy” is during this period used in a special
sense, referring to a secret intrigue on the part of a monarch
or minister without the knowledge of those who have the public
responsibility in the matter. Earlier monarchs often played their
own game without informing their ministers and attempted to keep the
threads of foreign intrigue in their own hands. Louis XV did great
injury to his country by pursuing this method.

Napoleon III was a great offender in this respect. Not only was his
international policy prone to unscrupulous attempts and proposals,
but he acted in these matters frequently without informing those who
were responsible before the country. Most of his secret advances to
Bismarck were made entirely on his own responsibility; he did not
inform the Foreign Minister, Ollivier, of the fateful instructions to
Benedetti to the effect that he should demand of Prussia assurances
that no German prince should ever again be suggested for the Spanish
throne; his Mexican policy, too, was worked out by himself, in
conjunction with the Duc de Morny and Jecker, the banker, rather than
with his ministers. The disastrous consequences of the secret diplomacy
of Napoleon III will be reverted to later on.

It has also repeatedly happened that envoys have incurred a strong
suspicion of playing a political game of their own without the
authorization or even the knowledge of their Foreign Minister. While
a diplomatic representative in taking such action risks disavowal
and dismissal, yet the temptation felt by a strong-willed man who
is confident that he knows the local situation and the needs of his
country there better than any one else, has often been too powerful
to be resisted. When the unauthorized action has been successful in
gaining some advantage, it has generally been condoned.[C] But though
the home government is at all times able theoretically to disavow
unauthorized actions of its foreign representatives, yet the latter
through their self-willed acts may have set in motion forces which can
no longer be controlled. Very often also doubt and confusion is cast on
the real causes of important events and a general feeling of suspicion
is thus generated.

    [C] Frequently, indeed, ministers have been encouraged to make
        certain démarches “on their own account”; if successful,
        they could be sanctioned after the event. Such is the
        procedure which Palmerston criticized in a letter to Lord
        Clarendon (May 22, 1853):

        “The Russian Government has always had two strings to its
        bow--moderate language and disinterested professions at
        Petersburg and at London; active aggression by its agents
        on the scene of operations. If the aggressions succeed
        locally, the Petersburg Government adopts them as a _fait
        accompli_ which it did not intend, but cannot, in honor,
        recede from. If the local agents fail, they are disavowed
        and recalled, and the language previously held is appealed
        to as a proof that the agents have overstepped their
        instructions.”

One of the most self-willed of British Ministers was Stratford Canning
(Lord Stratford de Redcliffe). It is generally accepted that his
personal diplomacy at Constantinople, where he began his diplomatic
career in 1808 and where he ended it in 1858 after various intervening
missions, was one of the causes which brought on the Crimean war.
After reciting that Lord Stratford constantly held private interviews
with the Sultan and did his utmost to alarm him, urging him to reject
accommodation with Russia, and promising him the armed assistance of
England, John Bright stated that all this was done without instructions
from the home government. Lord Clarendon wrote: “He is bent on war and
on playing the first part in settling the great Eastern question.” When
the war came on, Lord Granville wrote: “We have generals whom we do not
trust, and whom we do not know how to replace. We have an Ambassador at
Constantinople, an able man, a cat whom no one cares to bell, whom some
think a principal cause of the war, others the cause of some of the
calamities which have attended the conduct of the war; and whom we know
to have thwarted or neglected many of the objects of his Government.”

Labouchere, who served under Lord Stratford in 1862, wrote afterwards
that the despatches of Stratford during the Crimean war could not
be recognized as the originals from which Mr. Kinglake drew his
material for a narrative of the ambassador’s career.[D] He thought
that Stratford’s great power at Constantinople was due to his long
stay there which made it necessary for the Turks to remain on good
terms with him. Labouchere also claims that Lord Stratford misled
his own government by getting the Sultan to publish certain reform
decrees which he would send home as evidence of good government, never
explaining that such decrees were entirely dead letters.

    [D] Labouchere wrote: “Lord Stratford was one of the most
        detestable of the human race. He was arrogant, resentful
        and spiteful. He hated the Emperor Nicholas because he had
        declined to accept him as Ambassador to Russia and the
        Crimean war was his revenge. In every way he endeavored to
        envenom the quarrel and to make war certain.”

The danger and disadvantage of having a diplomat or ruler inject his
personal ambitions and dislikes into his diplomacy have, unfortunately,
been frequently exemplified. With respect to the causes of the Crimean
war, it will be remembered that Napoleon III had a personal grudge
against Emperor Nicholas who had addressed him “Sire and Good Friend”
instead of “Brother” as is customary among monarchs. Though Napoleon
answered him, acknowledging the compliment implied from the fact that
one may choose one’s friends but not one’s brothers, yet he never
forgot the slight.

Lord Palmerston as Foreign Minister quite openly regarded himself as a
power independent not only of Parliament but of the Cabinet itself, and
not bound to consult his colleagues provided he could justify himself
later before the House of Commons. But when in December, 1851, he had
entirely on his own responsibility approved the _coup d’état_ by
which Napoleon III made himself emperor, Lord John Russell instantly
dismissed him and thus vindicated the rule that the Foreign Minister
must always pay regard to the joint responsibility of the Cabinet.

In 1861 a select committee of Parliament on the diplomatic service
was appointed. It took evidence, among other things, on the existence
of “secret diplomacy” in the British service. By this term was
understood private correspondence or private action affecting the
conduct of public affairs, which did not become part of the record
in the ministry. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the Earl of Clarendon,
Lord Cowley, and Lord John Russell, all gave evidence with respect to
the conduct of business by private correspondence. They all seemed to
agree that private correspondence between the Foreign Minister and the
individual representatives abroad was useful and even necessary for
supplementing the formal instructions and reports. But they stated
their belief that whenever any such private correspondence should begin
to affect the actual conduct of public affairs it would certainly get
into the record; if, however, it should come to nothing, then it might
not be referred to in public despatches.




IV

NAPOLEON III, DISRAELI, BISMARCK


We have so far been dealing primarily with the methods of diplomacy.
During the old régime both the methods and the general policy of
diplomatic action were controlled by the secret councils of the monarch
and of a few ministers. With the growth of representative government
public opinion began to concern itself more directly with foreign
affairs. There grew up gradually, although with many relapses and
with many breaks of continuity, a consensus that while the methods
of diplomatic action might be secret, the general trend of policy
should regularly be laid before the representatives of the people
who should also be informed of any individual action involving the
responsibilities of the nation. When, therefore, in contemplating the
history of the last one hundred years, secret diplomacy is spoken
of in condemnatory terms, the attempted secrecy of national foreign
_policy_, rather than of methods, is usually thought of. When important
engagements are undertaken which involve the nation in responsibility
to others, particularly for the use of armed forces; when by a series
of specific acts a tendency is given to foreign policy which is not
avowed to the representatives of the people; then there exists secret
diplomacy in a reprehensible sense. A further method of concealment
works through a false statement of motives. Often narrowly selfish
action has been camouflaged with the avowal of noble aims and high
ideals; or there has been fencing for position in order that at the
beginning of a war the opprobrium of being the assailant could be
thrown on the other party. Undoubtedly sometimes statesmen may persuade
themselves of the presence of high motives in matters in which their
specific action or that of their successors, working with the same
materials, takes on a contrary direction.

At the conclusion of the Crimean war, Lord Palmerston wrote to Lord
Clarendon (March 1, 1867) as follows:

  “... the alliance of England and France has derived its strength
  not merely from the military and naval power of the two states,
  but from the force of the moral principle upon which that union
  has been founded. Our union has for its foundation resistance to
  unjust aggression, the defence of the weak against the strong,
  and the maintenance of the existing balance of power. How, then,
  could we combine to become unprovoked aggressors, to imitate
  in Africa the partition of Poland by the conquest of Morocco
  for France, of Tunis and some other state for Sardinia, and of
  Egypt for England? And, more especially, how could England and
  France, who have guaranteed the integrity of the Turkish Empire,
  turn round and wrest Egypt from the Sultan? A coalition for such
  a purpose would revolt the moral feelings of mankind, and would
  certainly be fatal to any English Government that was a party to
  it. Then, as to the balance of power to be maintained by giving
  us Egypt, but we do not want the burden of governing Egypt, and
  its possession would not, as a political, military, and naval
  question, be considered, in this country, as a set-off against
  the possession of Morocco by France. Let us try to improve all
  these countries by the general influence of our commerce, but let
  us all abstain from a crusade of conquest which would call upon
  us the condemnation of all other civilized nations.”

This program of liberal principles applied to foreign affairs, of
high-toned and high-minded diplomacy, one reads with mixed feelings in
view of the things which have come thereafter.

In the period between the Crimean and the Franco-Prussian war, Napoleon
pursued a policy, or a series of policies, which fitly illustrate the
worst features of secret diplomacy. In 1858 Napoleon III obtained
from Cavour a promise that Savoy and Nice should be ceded to France.
These arrangements, made without the knowledge or the desire of the
French people, involved Napoleon in the war of 1859 and led to a
fatal weakening of his position. In 1864 Napoleon secretly suggested
to Prussia that she might take Schleswig-Holstein, thus greatly
encouraging her to undertake the war of 1864. France at this time was
under treaty obligations to Denmark which made such action doubly
dishonest. When the war between Austria and Prussia broke out in
1866, Napoleon concluded a secret treaty with Austria which contained
a bargain that he would assist Austria to recover Silesia in return
for a cession of Venetia to Italy, to compensate the latter for Savoy
and thus to eradicate the evil effects of the arrangement of 1858.
As this treaty became known, it absolutely alienated Prussia from
France. At the same time Napoleon had secretly demanded from Prussia
the cession of the Rhenish Palatinate which belonged to Bavaria; this
would mean of course that Prussia and France together would first have
to take it from Bavaria. Bismarck secretly informed Bavaria of this
demand and thus turned her decisively against Napoleon; so that he was
enabled to make secret treaties of alliance not only with Bavaria but
with Wurtemberg and Baden for their military support in case of war.
Napoleon had thus managed unwittingly to bring about the coalition of
German states which proved disastrous to him in 1870. Had the French
government known of these three German treaties, it would probably have
avoided war; as it was, France did not know that she would have all
Germany against her. In 1866 Napoleon, through Benedetti, submitted to
Bismarck a draft treaty according to which, in case the French Emperor
should decide to send his troops to enter Belgium, the King of Prussia
would grant armed aid to France and support her with all his forces,
military and naval, in the face of and against every other power which
might in this eventuality declare war. Though this draft treaty, which
became known in Great Britain and caused high excitement there, was
not adopted in this form, a secret compact was made between France and
Prussia in 1867, one article of which stated that Prussia would not
object to the annexation of Belgium by France. The fact that both of
these powers had signed the treaty of 1839, guaranteeing the neutrality
of Belgium, aggravates the noxiousness of this conspiracy. Early in
1870 Napoleon was secretly negotiating with Austria with a view to a
joint war against North Germany. The negotiations were in progress when
the war of 1870 broke out. Probably Bismarck was informed of what
was going on and was therefore the more anxious to face at once what
he considered an inevitable war. As already stated, Napoleon did not
communicate to his responsible minister his decision to require of the
King of Prussia the absolute assurance that no German prince should
ever again be nominated for the throne of Spain. In doing so he put
himself in a position where Bismarck could manœuver him into a dilemma
from which there seemed no exit except war.

This was done by the famous editing of the Ems dispatch through which,
taking advantage of King William’s permission to modify and eliminate,
Bismarck gave to the report sent by the king the appearance that
nothing further could be said between the king and the French envoy
and that therefore the only alternative to the French was retreat
or war. This act illustrates one of the most terrible dangers of
secret diplomacy in that just at the time when inflammable material
is at hand in abundance, one word or phrase may give a decisive turn
to developments and force an issue, in a certain direction, without
allowing a chance for calm consideration of all that is involved.

Bismarck considered that the unification of Germany required a war
because only thus could the feeling of unity among the German people,
until then divided into numerous small states, be molded into political
oneness. But in bringing on the Franco-Prussian war, no matter how
inevitable he might consider such a struggle, he was too confident of
his ability to play the part of a Providence and to cut short the slow
processes of historic development. Therefore, though he attempted to
work in the interest of outstanding national factors, his policy was
not of a nature to develop that public confidence in the aims of his
nation on which alone a statesman can permanently build. His was the
diplomacy of authority, often announcing its aims with great frankness,
indeed, but always retaining the old method so that the public mind
remained often in the dark. His politics directed German development
into a dangerous course. He abhorred German disunion, but tried to
cure it with means too forceful and artificial. The solutions brought
about further problems. The taking of Alsace-Lorraine was the cause of
future war. In 1871, Bismarck offered Mulhouse to Switzerland secretly,
but the gift was declined. In the years after 1871, Bismarck always
threatened Parliament with the danger of war whenever he wanted to put
anything through.

The Russo-Turkish war of 1878, being in its nature a conflict about the
merits of which only vague ideas could be current among the Western
nations, produced a whole nest of secret treaties. The treaty of San
Stefano itself was kept secret by Russia and Turkey. The British
Foreign Secretary in a diplomatic note which was much admired at the
time, demanded that the treaty must be submitted to the European powers.

Meanwhile a second secret treaty had been made between Russia and
Austria wherein, as is customary in such transactions, “compensations”
were distributed out of property belonging to neither of the
contracting parties, at the cost of somebody else; it was agreed that
Austria should have Bosnia and Herzegovina. Meanwhile the British
Foreign Office, though it had just declaimed in indignant tones against
the secret terms of San Stefano, made an agreement, equally secret,
with Russia (May 30, 1878), concerning the points on which Great
Britain would insist in the final adjustment. Through the wrongful
action of an employee of the Foreign Office this agreement leaked out
and a summary of it was published on May 31st. When questioned in
the House of Lords, the Marquis of Salisbury, who at all times had a
well-deserved reputation for sincerity, nevertheless qualified the
statement in the _Globe_ as “wholly unauthenticated and not deserving
of any confidence on the part of the House of Lords.” The full text
of the agreement was published by the _Globe_ on June 14th, and when
challenged by Lord Rosebery concerning his _dementi_, Lord Salisbury
calmly stated: “I described it as unauthentic simply because it was so,
and because no other adjective actually described it, and I shall be
able to state why I so described it.” The explanation which followed
was, however, quite lame, and consisted mainly in stating that the
document as published did not give a complete view of the situation.
The impression produced by these tactics was far from favorable. Lord
Granville, with a great deal of justice, wanted to know “where the
House of Lords would have been had it not been for the immoral action
of the man who gave the secret treaty to the newspaper. They would
have had blue books and copies of instructions, protocols and other
documents, but they would have been perfectly duped as to the way in
which the government had actually proceeded.”

But there followed another, a fourth secret treaty, growing out of
the Turkish situation, an agreement between Great Britain and Turkey
concluded on June 4th, at Constantinople. As a result of erroneous
information having been telegraphed from Constantinople by Mr. Layard,
the British envoy, to the effect that in spite of the armistice
the Russians were moving on Constantinople, a large war credit was
voted in the British House, although against the opposition of the
Liberals under Gladstone and Bright. Orders were also given to the
Indian Government to send troops to Cyprus. A secret treaty was then
concluded in which Great Britain received a protectorate over Cyprus in
return for the engagement on her part to protect the Asiatic domains
of Turkey. Never was the blood of a nation without its own knowledge
and consent risked in a more doubtful adventure than in this famous
transaction of Lord Beaconsfield. Gladstone, on July 20th, analyzed the
treaty as providing for three things: the occupation and annexation of
Cyprus, the defense of Turkey in Asia against any attempt Russia may
make (“to go two thousand miles from your own country, alone and single
handed, in order to prevent Russia making war at any time upon Turkey
in Asia”), and responsibility for the government of Turkish territory
in Asia; and all that was undertaken without the consent and knowledge
of the British people, to be done at their expense by the blood of
their children. Mr. Gladstone concluded: “There is but one epithet
which I think fully describes a covenant of this kind. I think it is an
insane covenant.”

Disraeli had formerly said of Palmerston: “With no domestic policy, he
is obliged to divert the attention of the people from the consideration
of their own affairs to the distraction of foreign politics. His scheme
of conduct is so devoid of all political principle that when forced
to appeal to the people, his only claim to their confidence is his
name.” The same language could with equal justice have been applied to
Beaconsfield himself. His speeches in defense of his foreign policy are
usually a superficial appeal to imperialist passion, and deal in such
phrases as “What is our duty at this critical moment?” “To maintain
the empire of England.” (Loud cheers.) “Empire” is taken for granted
as covering everything desirable, but the actual relationship of these
adventurous foreign policies to the welfare and true development of the
English people is never reasoned out.

While Beaconsfield had opposed the first Afghan war, he readily changed
his views when he came into power and began the second war in 1878
on the avowed ground that the Ameer had refused to receive a British
mission. But with a sudden change of tactics, at a dinner at the
Mansion House on November 9, Lord Beaconsfield solemnly announced that
the war had been made because the frontier of India was “a haphazard
and not a scientific one.” Yet a little before, when condemning the
first Afghan war, he had described the frontiers of India as “a perfect
barrier.” He did not give to any organization of public opinion a
chance to influence him in this matter, or even to be heard. On
December 9, Lord Derby said in the House of Lords: “We are discussing,
and we know we are discussing, an issue upon which we have no real or
practical influence.”




V

TRIPLE ALLIANCE DIPLOMACY AND MOROCCO


Toward the end of the nineteenth century the dominating development
in the diplomacy of Europe was the actual formation of the two
great alliances--the Triple Alliance created by Bismarck, and
the Russo-French Alliance which had come into being in 1896 as a
counterpoise to the former. The treaties upon which these alliances
rested were made secretly; they were part of an authoritative policy
based on the theory of balance of power. The texts of the Triple
Alliance Treaty were not published until after the beginning of the
Great War. The so-called Counter-Insurance Treaty with Russia by which
Bismarck attempted to stabilize the situation and isolate France
through a mutual neutrality agreement between Russia, Austria and
Germany, was one of the most characteristic examples of complicated
methods followed by the old diplomacy; it was, of course, also kept
secret. When after Bismarck’s retirement the German Government did
not renew this secret treaty, it made possible a fundamental change in
the grouping of powers with the result that Russia, after a very short
interval, identified herself with France in the Dual Alliance.

While Bismarck had been in control of German diplomacy, the main lines
of German foreign policy were kept quite clear and their general
direction was definite, no matter how complicated and indirect were
the means frequently applied to carry it out. Emperor William II
sought to free himself from the tutelage of the powerful Chancellor,
but from then on the orientation of German diplomacy was far from
definite. No one could be clear where its main objective lay; it seemed
to seek expansion of influence in Asia Minor, the Far East, Morocco,
South Africa, and almost everywhere, even with the inclusion of South
America. Germany appeared to have many irons in the fire, although
meanwhile she did not make much progress in any specific direction.
This uncertainty of her diplomatic aims in an increasing manner aroused
the apprehension of her neighbors; none of them felt any assurance
about what Germany actually wanted. That her actual wants may not have
been unreasonable, that she herself apparently did not know exactly
which of her interests should predominate, did not help matters; all
those who had more possessions than she felt themselves endangered, and
a general suspicion and lack of confidence resulted.

In the years after the Chino-Japanese war the German Government showed
a great desire to play a prominent part in Far Eastern affairs. Thus,
it took the lead in bringing about the joint intervention of Russia,
France and Germany, which obliged Japan to surrender Port Arthur, a
part of the spoils of war just taken from China. The three powers who
had thus come to the rescue, however, forthwith proceeded to exact
from China an enormous commission for their good offices, and forced
her to make to them grants of lease-holds and other concessions, in
which was included the very territory that they had rescued from Japan.
In this keen onset, which amounted to an attempt to divide up the
Chinese Empire, Great Britain in her turn also participated. The Far
Eastern situation was rendered decidedly unstable, and the frantic and
unorganized resistance of the Boxer levies was the result.

After the settlement of these troubles, in 1901, the German Government,
as we now know, tentatively suggested the formation of an alliance
including Great Britain and Japan. This proposal shows how far
German diplomacy at the time had departed from the fundamentals of
policy under Bismarck. Japan proceeded most assiduously to work on
this suggestion, but Germany was left out when the highly important
Anglo-Japanese Alliance was secured by the Japanese Minister in London.
Negotiations between Great Britain and Japan were carried on with the
greatest secrecy. Lord Lansdowne himself seems at one time to have been
very anxious for prompt action; he said to Count Hayashi, as reported
by the latter, that “there was great danger in delay, as the news of
the proposed treaty might leak out and objections might then be raised.”

It is significant that while Lord Lansdowne and Count Hayashi were in
the depth of their negotiations, Marquis Ito, on his return journey
from the United States, proceeded to Russia and, entirely in opposition
to the express judgment of Count Hayashi, “plunged into conversations
on the most delicate of matters” at St. Petersburg. In fact, the
Japanese Government allowed almost identical secret negotiations to
be carried on in London and St. Petersburg at the same time. Count
Hayashi considered this procedure as implying “a lack of faith and a
breach of honor.” When the Anglo-Japanese treaty had been actually
signed it was, through the indiscretion of some official, published in
Japan three days too soon. The Japanese Foreign Office promptly denied
its existence, and Baron Rosen, the Russian Minister at Tokyo, who no
doubt knew of the Ito negotiations at St. Petersburg, very emphatically
denied the very possibility of such a treaty. The effect on Russia of
the truth when it became known there, can be readily imagined. In the
Anglo-Japanese treaty, England, which had recently joined in the solemn
guarantee of the integrity of China and of the independence of Korea,
made engagements scarcely consistent with either.

Lord Rosebery, in a public address, October, 1905, expressed his
sense of the great importance of this treaty. “The treaty,” he
said, “is an engine of tremendous power and tremendous liability.
Whatever else is certain, this at least is sure, that it will lead to
countless animosities, many counter intrigues, and possibly hostile
combinations. But I want to point out to you the enormous importance of
the engagements in which this treaty involves you, the reactions which
it will cause elsewhere, and to bid you to be vigilant and prepared,
and not negligent, as sometimes you are, of the vast bearings of your
foreign policy.”

The German Emperor, having failed to obtain a treaty with England, now
turned to his Russian cousin with the design of inducing him to make
an alliance. The Willy-Nicky correspondence which was published by the
Russian Revolutionary Government in 1917, as well as the memoirs of
Isvolsky, give us a complete insight into the action of William II in
this matter. The correspondence shows that Emperor William neglected no
means of arousing resentment and suspicion of England in the mind of
Nicholas, particularly in attempting to show a complicity of England
with Japan in the war against Russia. In November, 1904, William
proposed the immediate signature by Russia, without the knowledge of
France, of a defensive treaty of alliance, evidently directed against
Great Britain. France was to be invited to join _after_ the signature
by Germany and Russia. The Czar, however, insisted that he could not
entertain this proposal without first submitting it to his ally.
William, in a long telegram, argued insistently upon the danger of
informing France before the signature. He said: “Only the absolute,
undeniable knowledge that we are both bound by the treaty to give
mutual aid to each other, can induce France to exercise pressure upon
England to remain tranquil and in peace, for fear of placing France
in a dangerous situation. Should France know that a German-Russian
agreement is simply in preparation and not yet signed, she would
immediately inform England. England and Japan would then forthwith
attack Germany.” Therefore, William concluded that if the Czar should
persist in refusing to sign the treaty without the previous consent
of France, it would be better not to attempt making an agreement at
all. He stated that he had spoken only to Prince Buelow about it, and
that as undoubtedly the Czar had spoken only to Count Lamsdorff, the
foreign minister, it would be easy to keep it an absolute secret. He
then congratulated the Czar on having concluded a secret agreement of
neutrality with Austria. As a matter of fact, Count Lamsdorff had not
been informed by the Czar of the Emperor’s proposal.

In the summer of 1905, Emperor William returned to the charge, taking
advantage of the discouragement of the Czar due to many external and
internal troubles resulting from the Japanese war. He visited the Czar
at the Island Bjorkoe in July, and used every resource of his personal
influence to prevail on Nicholas. This time he succeeded, and the two
sovereigns signed a secret treaty of alliance, which contained four
articles to the following effect:

(1) If any European state shall attack either of the empires the allied
party engages itself to aid with all its forces on land and sea.

(2) The contracting parties will not conclude a separate peace.

(3) The present agreement comes in force at the moment of conclusion of
peace between Russia and Japan, and may be denounced with one year’s
notice.

(4) When the treaty has come into force Russia will take the necessary
steps to inform France and to propose to her to adhere to it as an ally.

On this occasion the Emperor was accompanied by Von Tschirsky, who
soon after became German Foreign Minister and who countersigned the
agreement. The Russian Foreign Minister was not present but Admiral
Birileff, the Minister of the Navy, was called in to countersign the
Czar’s signature. After his return to St. Petersburg, the Czar allowed
fifteen days to pass before informing Count Lamsdorff. When informed,
the Czar’s advisers took a very strong position against the agreement,
with the result that notwithstanding the insistent arguments of
Emperor William, who in his telegram signed himself “Your friend and
ally,” the treaty was never given full force. William strongly appealed
to the gratefulness of the Czar for having stood by him during the
Japanese war, at a time when, “as afterwards the indiscretions of
Delcassé have shown, although allied to Russia, France had nevertheless
made an agreement with England to attack Germany without warning, in
time of peace.” The latter phrase gives the effect upon William’s mind
of all he knew or believed to know about the arrangements concluded
between France and Great Britain concerning Morocco.

The Moroccan intrigues and secret negotiations, during the first decade
of the twentieth century, contributed in no small measure to rendering
international relations strained and generating a general sense of
insecurity and suspicion. In July, 1901, a protocol was signed between
the Sultan of Morocco and the French Government in which the latter
declared its respect for the integrity of Morocco. At the same time M.
Delcassé began secret negotiations with Spain for a delimitation of
spheres of influence in that country. In September, 1902, the first
Franco-Spanish secret treaty concerning Morocco was given its final
form. It was, however, not ratified because of British opposition at
the time. In 1904, the formation of the Anglo-French Entente agreement,
in which the French Government declared that it had no intention “of
altering the political status of Morocco,” was accompanied by the
conclusion of a secret understanding concerning Morocco which was not
revealed until 1911. According to the terms of that agreement the
British Government was to be informed of any understanding on Morocco
which might be concluded between France and Spain. These two countries,
in fact, on October 3, 1904, consummated a convention for the partition
of Morocco into spheres of influence. A copy of this secret agreement
was given to Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Minister, who wrote,
in acknowledging it: “I need not say that the confidential character of
the Convention entered into by the President of the French Republic and
the King of Spain in regard to French and Spanish interests in Morocco
is fully recognized by us, and will be duly respected.”

The German Government, which had been ignored, now suggested the
holding of an international conference. After considerable opposition
the conference met at Algeciras, in February, 1906. The Powers
represented there again solemnly recognized the independence and
integrity of Morocco. Meanwhile, various incidents were brought on
by the actions of French and Spanish commissaries in Morocco. The
French parliament repeatedly reiterated its intention to observe the
act of Algeciras, particularly in the declaration of February, 1909,
regarding Morocco, in which declaration Germany joined. In 1911, events
happened which induced a serious European crisis. The French Government
undertook military operations against Fez, the capital of Morocco, on
the ground that the foreign colony there was in danger. In reply to
questions in the House of Commons, Sir Edward Grey confirmed that such
measures were being undertaken by the French Government “for the succor
of Europeans in Fez.” He added: “The action taken by France is not
intended to alter the political status of Morocco, and His Majesty’s
Government cannot see why any objection should be taken to it.”

The facts of the Fez affair have been thus described by the French
publicist, Francis de Pressensé:

  “At this point the Comité du Maroc and its organs surpassed
  themselves. They organized a campaign of systematic untruth.
  Masters of almost the entire press, they swamped the public with
  false news. Fez was represented as threatened by siege or sack.
  A whole European French Colony was suddenly discovered there,
  living in anguish. The ultimate fate of the women and children
  was described in the most moving terms.... At all costs the
  Europeans--the Sultan, Fez itself must be saved.... As ever from
  the beginning of this enterprise, the Government knew nothing,
  willed nothing of itself.”

While these events were happening, the Foreign Offices both in Paris
and London failed to give any information concerning the aims which
underlay the action taken. On May 23d, Mr. Dillon in the House of
Commons asked to what extent England was committed to this “ill-omened
and cruel expedition.” The Foreign Secretary replied, “We are not
committed at all.” The French Foreign Minister declared at the same
time that he had never heard of any treaty with Spain concerning
Morocco.

When the international crisis came to a head suddenly in July, 1911,
through the disconcerting action of the German Government in sending a
war vessel to Agadir, the public was totally taken by surprise and was
absolutely in the dark as to the issues and interests involved as well
as to the commitments which had been made by the British and French
foreign offices. The text of the secret treaty between France and Spain
had, however, now been secured by the Paris papers _Le Temps_ and
_Le Matin_. This revelation led to party attacks on secret diplomacy
in the British House of Commons and in the French Parliament. Baron
d’Estournelles de Constant, in February, 1912, said:

  ... “Why was the French Parliament told only half the truth
  when it was asked to pass its opinion upon our arrangement with
  England? Why was it allowed to suspect that this arrangement had
  as its complement and corrective some secret clauses and other
  secret treaties? It is this, it is this double game towards
  Parliament and towards the world which becomes morally an abuse
  of trust.... Now the whole effort of the arrangement of 1904
  appears to-day in its truth and in its vanity. It was a treaty of
  friendship with England recognizing the freedom of our political
  action in Morocco and also proclaiming our will to respect the
  integrity of that country; that was what the public knew and
  approved. But the public was ignorant that at the same time, by
  other Treaties and by contradictory clauses hidden from it, the
  partition of Morocco between Spain and France was prepared, of
  that Morocco of which we guaranteed the integrity.”

In the House of Commons, Mr. John Dillon charged that “the Foreign
Office policy has become during the last ten years progressively more
secret every year. For ten years the foreign policy of this country has
been conducted behind an elaborate screen of secrecy.”




VI

ENTENTE DIPLOMACY


As the commitments of the British Government gradually became more and
more known the question arose as to how deeply and extensively Great
Britain had been involved in continental affairs. Lord Rosebery, who
was uninformed, with the rest of Parliament and the public, as to the
actual details, said in a speech at Glasgow in January, 1912:

  “This we do know about our foreign policy, that, for good or for
  evil, we are now embraced in the midst of the Continental system.
  That I regard as perhaps the gravest fact in the later portion of
  my life. We are, for good or for evil, involved in a Continental
  system, the merits of which I do not pretend to judge, because
  I do not know enough about it, but which, at any rate, may at
  any time bring us into conflict with armies numbering millions,
  and our own forces would hardly be counted in such a war as they
  stand at present.”

Lord Rosebery realized perhaps more fully than most of the leaders of
English public life the complications adherent to what had already
become public knowledge at the time.

Meanwhile the government, in Parliament, confined itself to plain
denials whenever the matter of international undertakings and
obligations of a general nature was brought up. The denials could be
justified from the point of view that the situation as stated by the
uninformed questioner in Parliament, in each case did not exactly
correspond to the facts. But the impression created by such denials
that no serious obligations had been incurred was, as the result
showed, entirely misleading.

On March 8, 1911, Mr. Jowett asked in the House of Commons whether any
undertaking, promise or understanding had been given to France that
in certain eventualities British troops would be sent to coöperate
with the French army. The Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs
replied: “The answer is in the negative.” On December 6, 1911, the
Prime Minister said:

  “As has been stated, there were no secret engagements with France
  other than those that have now been published, and there are no
  secret engagements with any foreign Government that entail upon
  us any obligation to render military or naval assistance to any
  other Power.”

Upon another occasion Mr. Yerburgh, M.P., inquired:

  “May I ask whether or not we are to understand that the
  Government arrived at no decision upon this particular question?
  Is the right honorable gentleman not aware that this new
  definition of the two-Power standard is a question of supreme
  importance, and that in arriving at our standard of naval
  strength previous Governments had regard to the power of the
  fleets of other countries?”

The Prime Minister replied only:

  “I think this question shows the inconvenience of dealing with
  these matters by way of question and answer.”

In December, 1912, Lord Hugh Cecil made the following inquiry:

  “There is a very general belief that this country is under an
  obligation, not a treaty obligation, but an obligation arising
  out of an assurance given by the Ministry in the course of
  diplomatic negotiations, to send a very large armed force out of
  this country to operate in Europe. That is the general belief. It
  would be very presumptuous of any one who has not access to all
  the facts in possession of the Government--”

The Prime Minister interrupted him with: “I ought to say that it is
not true.” Lord Cecil thereupon expressed his satisfaction for having
elicited this explanation, “because,” he stated, “it was certainly
widely believed that the Government has engaged in a military
policy of an adventurous kind and that if such a policy had actually
been contemplated by the Government it would involve a very serious
consideration of the military resources of the country.” As a matter of
fact, the latter was a just conclusion from the actual situation as it
really existed, notwithstanding the denial by the Prime Minister.

In March, 1913, when during the discussion of the Navy estimates, the
Mediterranean situation came up, Lord Beresford suggested that Mr.
Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty) must be trusting to France
the duty of guarding the Mediterranean. Mr. Churchill had said in the
course of these discussions: “In conjunction with the Navy of France,
our Mediterranean Fleet would make a combined force superior to all
possible combinations.” Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke referred to this as a
remarkable statement, and one “somewhat difficult to reconcile with the
recent pronouncement of the Prime Minister as to our understanding with
France in the matter of armaments.” He added: “In one case we have the
Prime Minister repudiating an obligation on our side of any kind, and
in the other we have the First Lord of the Admiralty relying for the
safety of our Eastern Empire, our trade and our food supply, upon the
assistance which he presumes will be ready at any moment to be given to
us by France.”

On March 24, 1913, Mr. Asquith, Prime Minister, made a comprehensive
answer to a question of Sir W. Byles in the following terms:

  “As has been repeatedly stated, this country is not under any
  obligation, not public and known to Parliament, which compels
  it to take part in a war. In other words, if war arises between
  European Powers, there are no unpublished agreements which will
  restrict or hamper the freedom of the Government or Parliament to
  decide whether or not Great Britain should participate in a war.”

In August, 1913, Lord Haldane made a statement to the effect that the
very friendly relationships with France rendered the situation in the
Mediterranean most satisfactory. On June 11, 1914, this same general
matter was up again for discussion. Sir Edward Grey, in answering a
question, referred back to the statement made by Mr. Asquith on March
24, 1913, and added: “It remains as true to-day as it was a year ago.”

The nation was meanwhile left entirely in the dark with respect to the
actual matter of the relationships which had developed between Great
Britain and France, and it was only after the Great War had broken
out that Sir Edward Grey, in his speech of August 3, 1914, gave to
Parliament some account of what had actually happened.

The first important step in the new international policy of Great
Britain was taken immediately after the Liberal Government had been
formed on December 12, 1905. It appears that Sir Edward Grey consulted
in this matter particularly Mr. Asquith and Lord Haldane, informing
the Prime Minister, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, but not his other
Cabinet colleagues. The above three men were the leaders of the Liberal
Imperialist faction, and it is not at all certain that in an aggressive
foreign policy they would have been at that moment readily followed by
their whole party.

When in consequence of the attempted division of Morocco, relations
between France and Germany became somewhat strained, Sir Edward Grey,
Foreign Minister, made communications to the French Ambassador to the
effect that, while no promises could be given to any Foreign Power,
yet in Sir Edward Grey’s opinion, if war was then forced upon France
on the question of Morocco, public opinion in England would rally to
the material support of France. Sir Edward Grey, as related in his own
words, said: “I made no promises and I used no threats, but I expressed
that opinion.” The accuracy of that opinion has been questioned, in
view of the temper of the House of Commons elected at a time when
resentment at the imperialist war in South Africa was powerful.

On the basis of the statement made by Sir Edward Grey, the French
Government said to the British Foreign Minister, as reported by him:

  “If you think it possible that the public opinion of Great
  Britain might, should a sudden crisis arise, justify you in
  giving to France the armed support which you cannot promise in
  advance, you will not be able to give that support, even if you
  wish it when the time comes, unless some conversations have
  already taken place between naval and military experts.”

Sir Edward Grey saw merit in this proposal and agreed to it. He
authorized that conversations should take place, but with the distinct
understanding that nothing which would bind either Government should
occur. However, the holding of conversations between two Powers
concerning military coöperation is in itself a sufficiently serious
matter out of which expectations and relationships are apt to arise
that cannot be overlooked in future action. The Cabinet was not
informed of the authorization given by Sir Edward Grey until later. He
did not state how much later.

We know from official sources that Colonel Barnardiston proceeded to
Belgium and had interviews with the Chief of the Belgian General Staff
concerning combined operations in the event of a German attack directed
against Antwerp. Colonel Barnardiston confided to the Belgian Chief
of Staff that his Government intended to move the British base of
supplies from the French coast to Antwerp as soon as the North Sea had
been cleared of all German warships. When the Belgian documents were
published in Germany, it was attempted by the press to represent these
conversations as an actual convention. These consultations occurred
during the first quarter of 1906.

From an official source comes the statement that in July, 1911, the
British Government informed the German, that on certain contingencies,
Great Britain would support France (if Germany should demand the whole
of French-Congo and Agadir as a naval base). What actually happened at
this time has never been fully revealed.

In April, 1912, the British military attaché at Brussels informed the
Belgian General Jungbluth that Great Britain had 160,000 men available
for despatch to the continent, and added that the British Government
in certain contingencies during recent events would have immediately
landed troops on Belgian territory.

About this time the Cabinet had a discussion of the whole situation
and of the special relationship with France; and it was decided that
there should be some definite expression in writing, of the latter.
Accordingly, in November, 1912, an exchange of notes took place between
Sir Edward Grey and the French Ambassador. The British Foreign Minister
wrote the following letter:

                                        Nov. 22nd (1912).

  “MY DEAR AMBASSADOR:

  “From time to time in recent years the French and British Naval
  and Military experts have consulted together. It has always
  been understood that such consultation does not restrict the
  freedom of either Government to decide at any future time
  whether or not to assist the other by armed force. We have
  agreed that consultation between experts is not and ought not to
  be regarded as an engagement that commits either Government to
  action in a contingency that has not yet arisen and may never
  arise. The disposition, for instance, of the French and British
  fleets respectively at the present moment is not based upon
  an engagement to coöperate in war. You have, however, pointed
  out that if either Government had grave reason to expect an
  unprovoked attack by a third Power it might become essential
  to know whether it could in that event depend upon the armed
  assistance of the other. I agree that if either Government had
  grave reason to expect an unprovoked attack by a third Power,
  or something that threatened the general peace, it should
  immediately discuss with the other whether both Governments
  should act together to prevent aggression and to preserve peace,
  and, if so, what measures they would be prepared to take in
  common. If these measures involved action, the plans of the
  General Staffs would at once be taken into consideration and the
  Governments would then decide what effect should be given to
  them.”

A reply from the French Ambassador accepted this understanding.

Side by side with the Anglo-French military and naval collaboration,
there went the making of joint plans by France and Russia which
culminated in the Franco-Russian military convention of August, 1912.
At the same time Russia had pressed upon France the need of increasing
her army by raising the term of service to three years. Concerning the
new disposal of the French fleet, according to the desires of Russia,
President Poincaré stated to Ambassador Isvolsky in November, 1912:

  “This decision has been made in agreement with England, and forms
  the further development and completion of arrangements already
  made previously between the French and English staffs.”

Thus the chain of coöperation was completed, and England was
effectively tied up with the situation in the Balkans, in which only
Russia had a primary interest.

Meanwhile, the repeated denials previously set forth kept the British
Parliament and public from all knowledge of the exceedingly important
relationships which were growing up between the Naval and Military
establishments of Great Britain and France.

How these relationships, though only partially known and suspected,
were looked upon by outsiders is shown from expressions in the reports
of Belgian diplomats. Count de Lalaing wrote from London in 1907:
“England is quietly pursuing a policy opposed to Germany and aimed
at her isolation.” Baron Greindl wrote from Berlin in 1908: “Call it
alliance or what you will, the grouping constitutes, none the less, a
diminution of Germany’s security.” Baron Guillaume wrote, in 1911, from
Paris: “I have less faith in the desire of Great Britain for peace.
She would not be sorry to see the others eat one another up.” These
expressions are not, of course, evidences of British policy, but simply
of the impression which whatever leaked out concerning that policy,
made upon outside diplomats.

In his clear and convincing analysis of the situation created by the
gradual formation in secret, of these relationships, Lord Loreburn
brings out the following points: Through the communications with the
French Ambassador and military and naval conversations concerning
plans for joint action, France was encouraged more and more to expect
that Great Britain would stand by her in arms if she were attacked by
Germany. Such a policy of a defensive understanding with France, no
matter how right in itself, was obviously a new departure of tremendous
importance. Its execution and effectiveness could be assured only if
understood by Parliament as a national policy, with all the risks
involved, so that proper preparations could be made. Parliament was,
however, never warned of the danger England stood of being thrown
suddenly into a European war. Had Germany been told in July, 1914,
that Great Britain would support France and Russia, the war would
undoubtedly have been prevented; but while the ministers had in fact
incurred moral obligations over against France, they had not assured
themselves of the necessary Parliamentary support and could therefore
not make a statement involving such risk as the above declaration to
Germany would have created.

Of Sir Edward Grey’s speech of the 3rd of August, 1914, Lord Loreburn
says:

  “This remarkable speech began with an elaborate effort to prove
  that the House of Commons was perfectly free to determine either
  for peace or war. It ended with a passionate declaration that
  this country would be disgraced if we did not declare war, and
  the reasoning of the speech proved that Sir Edward Grey had
  committed himself irretrievably. It left the House of Commons
  convinced that it had in honor no choice but to join France in
  arms. It is an epitome of the reasoning by which Sir Edward Grey
  had been brought to believe that he could say and do what he said
  and did without limiting his freedom of action. But if this is
  legitimate we ought not to keep up the pretense that we are a
  self-governing nation in foreign affairs.”

Thus a minister, to whom national intrigue and duplicity were
essentially foreign, who was trusted by his country and who wanted
peace, was brought by the methods of secret diplomacy into a position
where he had actually incurred the moral obligation to assist another
country without having the power for peace which the ability to avow
that relationship openly, to take the responsibility, and to confront
Germany therewith, would have given him.

As early as November, 1911, Lord Lansdowne, one of the founders of
the Entente, in speaking of the secret agreement of 1904 concerning
Morocco, which had then just become known to the public, had admitted
that in such a case the promise of purely diplomatic support might
easily bring on the obligation to assist in other ways; that an entente
cordiale creates close relationships between two countries; and that,
should one of them get into difficulties without its guilt, it would
expect to receive support.

The moral responsibilities in which the Foreign Minister had involved
the British Government were not simple, nor did they exist against
France alone. Because of the Franco-Russian alliance the relationship
established between Great Britain and France virtually involved sharing
in the defense of France against the consequences of her alliance with
Russia, as the subsequent events showed; any serious situation arising
in the Balkans and affecting Russian interests would thereafter involve
France, and through her, Great Britain. Accordingly, the effect of
this policy was to make the peace of Great Britain depend upon, and to
involve it with, the complex struggle for influence in the Balkans.

After Sir Edward Grey’s speech of August 3rd, Mr. T. Edmund Harvey,
M.P., said: “I am convinced that this war for the great masses of the
countries of Europe is no peoples’ war. It is a war that has been
made by men in high places, by diplomatists working in secret, by
bureaucrats out of touch with the people, by men who are a remnant of
an older evil civilization.”

Lord Loreburn sums up his indictment of secret diplomacy in the
following language: “Secret diplomacy has undergone its ‘acid test’ in
this country. It had every chance. The voice of party was silent. The
Foreign Minister was an English gentleman whom the country trusted and
admired, who was wholly free from personal enmities of every kind, and
who wanted peace. And secret diplomacy utterly failed. It prevented us
from finding some alternative for war, and it prevented us from being
prepared for war, because secret diplomacy means diplomacy aloof from
Parliament.” The issue is here quite clearly stated. Those who see in
the methods and spirit of the old diplomacy the chief cause of war,
do not hold, on the one hand, that secret diplomacy involves at all
times and in all cases unscrupulous plotting. But they believe that the
method of dealing with foreign affairs as a mysterious matter, fit to
be handled only by the select, and the reliance on a policy of bargains
and compensations, with the aim thus artificially to maintain a balance
of power, may be blamed for this great catastrophe; for they stood
in the way of dealing with great public affairs in a sounder manner,
that is, with more regard of the actual public interest and of the
underlying racial and popular factors.

Those British critics who have attacked this method as practised in
their own country before and during the war, do not thereby mean to
impute to British statesmen a major share in the responsibility for
the war. The high-mindedness and public spirit of the responsible
statesmen is recognized by all fair critics, and most of them imply
that Great Britain has far less to fear from this system than have
nations with less responsible governments and a less sound tradition
of statesmanship. They attack the system as a whole as it exists
throughout European diplomacy, and as it has been used by the British
Government.

From the point of view of historic evidence, and of strict reasoning
from cause to effect, a great deal of doubt still remains as to how
far secret diplomacy in itself,--that is, the failure to publish
to parliament and the people, details of the situation as it
developed,--could properly be considered the specific cause of the
war; no matter how definite may be our judgment and belief that the
secrecy and tortuousness of foreign policy are bound to generate an air
of uncertainty and suspicion which will so greatly favor militarist
intrigues and influence as to render the making of wars far more easy
than they would otherwise be, were time and opportunity given to the
public to consider the details of a critical situation. Yet it might
be difficult to prove by historic evidence, the specific proposition
that the war of 1914 was directly due to the fact that the development
of international affairs was quite generally kept from the knowledge
of the public. Nevertheless, unquestionably the atmosphere of secret
diplomacy is a medium exactly suited to the most baneful influences.

Viscount Haldane has made a strong defense of the policy of Sir Edward
Grey. He asserts that “the failure of those who had to make the effort
to keep the peace, does not show that they would have done better had
they discussed delicate details in public.” He continues: “There are
topics and conjunctures in the almost daily changing relations between
Governments as to which silence is golden. For however proper it may be
in point of broad principle that the people should be fully informed
of what concerns them vitally, the most important thing is that those
to whom they have confided their concerns should be given the best
chance of success in averting danger to their interests. To have said
more in Parliament and on the platform in the years in question, or
to have said it otherwise, would have been to run grave risks of more
than one sort.” This defense, however, also makes certain assumptions,
particularly the underlying one that the war was not to be avoided by
any method. It is based on the traditional concept of foreign affairs
which considers that it is best to leave them at the discretion of a
few initiated and responsible officials. There can be no question that
from the highest plane conceivable under the older ideas and norms of
diplomacy, the conduct of foreign relations by Sir Edward Grey must be
considered as a model of sagacity and caution. But when Lord Cromer
describes the secret arrangements concerning Morocco as “a wise measure
of preventive diplomacy,” it is not easy to follow him.




VII

THE CRISIS OF 1914


If secret diplomacy exhibits its drawbacks even in a country where
parliamentary government is so highly developed as in England and
where political intelligence and independence of judgment exist, we
shall not be surprised at the continuous prevalence of devious methods
in diplomacy in countries where the conduct of foreign affairs is
considered quite frankly a matter only for the initiated, and where
little pretense is made of an appeal to public opinion except in the
sense of holding it in subjection by vague general ideas of national
danger, necessity, and honor. The main faults of German diplomacy
were due to its bureaucratic point of view and its lack of contact
with public opinion, both at home and abroad. It was distinctly
an expression of the authoritative will of the state, guided by a
supposed inner knowledge of its dangers and needs, but without any real
effort to strengthen itself through contact with the public mind. The
Reichstag was indeed occasionally informed of foreign developments,
perhaps as frequently as in England, but there was no real mutual
influence between the nation and the officials conducting foreign
affairs. As has already been pointed out, German diplomacy failed to
reassure either the neighbors or the people of Germany; its lack of
clear objectives was puzzling and disquieting. It was also hurt by
its constant, evident dependence on what should have been only the
very last resort--military force. A further disquieting characteristic
of German politics was that there seemed to be a cynical approval of
certain courses of action which might indeed resemble what some other
nations were doing, but which were treated by the latter rather as
regrettable necessities. Thus there is, for instance, the conception of
_Realpolitik_, of which Frederick the Great’s statement is an extreme
instance: “Before declaring my intentions I consider on the one side
the adverse incidents which I must risk; on the other, the good fortune
which I might hope; and after thorough consideration of pro and con, I
decide for war.”

Coming now to the fateful crisis of 1914, it would appear that at this
time a great danger was allowed to grow up without the men in control
of the government giving themselves a full account as to the fatal
probabilities involved, whereas the parliament and the public remained
entirely uninformed. Germany had always more or less backed her
Austrian ally in the Balkan policy of the latter. Bismarck had indeed
been very cautious in this respect, and had been fully aware of the
danger inherent in such a policy, of committing Germany through giving
Austria too much head. When the Servian question became acute, the
heads of the German Government were indeed so reckless in encouraging
strong Austrian action as to justify the impression that they desired
to push Austria-Hungary into a conflict. It would, however, appear,
from a full study of all the data which is now possible, that the
Kaiser and Bethmann-Hollweg were quite optimistic in believing that
the conflict could be localized and that the solution could be left
to Austria and Servia. When it was beginning to become quite clear
that Russia would in this instance not stand aside and that therefore
France, too, would be thrown into the conflict, the German Chancellor
began to make belated efforts to induce Austria to accept the mediation
of the Powers on the basis that Belgrade should be occupied to assure
compliance with the Servian promises. The Austrian premier, Count
Berchtold, however, was not inclined to reverse his engines. He took
advantage of the encouragement given to Austria in the first place, to
persist in an irreconcilable attitude toward Servia. The documentary
material which has so far been published, shows that Berchtold
insinuated to the Russian and British embassies that he was favorable
to mediation; meanwhile, he did not answer the proposals to that effect
made from Berlin, but in fact stubbornly pursued his stern policy
against Servia. In turning a deaf ear to all proposals of mediation at
this time, Berchtold gave the militarists at Berlin and Petrograd the
control of the situation.

Berchtold had inherited the Balkan policy of Aehrenthal, who had in
1909 carried out the ambition of laying the two Slavic Provinces,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, “at the feet of Emperor Francis Joseph at his
Sixtieth Jubilee.” Count Berchtold himself was not considered a man
of strong initiative; he vacillated and was undecided upon questions
of great moment; he, however, displayed great stubbornness on the
fatal point that the “honor” of Austria-Hungary did not permit of
any mediation with Servia. Count Forgach, who was his chief adviser,
hated Russia and Servia intensely, and it is believed that he was very
influential in spurring Count Berchtold to aggressive action. Countess
Leutrum holds him responsible for the war, “next to Aehrenthal.” The
German Ambassador at Vienna, Von Tschirsky, also harbored a great deal
of personal resentment against Russia. There would appear to be great
reason to doubt whether such efforts as Bethmann-Hollweg made to urge
moderation upon Berchtold were strongly emphasized by the personal
influence of the German ambassador. Count Czernin states that all of
Herr von Tschirsky’s private speeches at this time were attuned to
“Now or Never,” and he asserts that the German ambassador declared
his opinion to be “that at the present moment Germany was prepared
to support our point of view with all her moral and military power,
but whether this would prove to be the case in future if we accepted
the Serbian rebuff appears to me doubtful.” Count Czernin believes
that Tschirsky in particular was firmly persuaded that in the very
near future Germany would have to go through a war against France and
Russia, and that he considered the year 1914 would be more favorable
than a later date. Count Czernin adds: “For this reason, because first
of all he did not believe in the fighting capacity of either Russia or
France, and secondly, because--and this is a very important point--he
was convinced that he could bring the Monarchy into this war, while
it appeared doubtful to him that the aged and peace-loving Emperor
Francis Joseph would draw the sword for Germany on any other occasion
where the action would center less round him, he wished to make use of
the Servian episode so as to be sure of Austria-Hungary in the decisive
struggle. That was his policy, and not Bethmann’s.... I am persuaded,
however, that Tschirsky, in behaving as he did, widely overstretched
his prescribed sphere of activity. Isvolsky was not the only one of his
kind.”

It is not the purpose of this essay to enter into the difficult
question of the specific guilt for bringing on the war of 1914.
However, in examining the quality and methods of contemporary diplomacy
it is not possible to avoid considering some of the phases of this
difficult question. The documents and other evidence which have
recently been published, make it appear that Bethmann-Hollweg, when
the terrible crisis was actually at hand, honestly attempted to bring
about a moderation of the course pursued by Austria. The original
belief of the German statesman itself could, however, be accounted
for, only on one of two alternative reasons, either because of an
unbelievable lack of foresight, or the conviction that a threatening
attitude would again, as in 1909, be successful, and that Russia would
not dare to follow up her constantly declared interest in the Servian
situation. And if worst should come to worst, “well then,” the German
leaders seemed to think, “now will be better than later.” No matter
what reasonable occasion German statesmen had during the years leading
up to the war to fear a hostile policy on the part of neighboring
governments, yet their attitude and action at a critical time shows
uppermost in the minds of these statesmen and diplomats, a narrowly
tactical, primarily bureaucratic, view of the factors involved. There
was always present in the background the notion of the necessity of
a preventive war. Those who make the actual decision to begin a war
without any immediate provocation making it plainly defensive, who
begin it because of contingent dangers in the future, no matter how
great, take a very serious responsibility. As has been said, the
indicative “Germany made war,” is far more apt to leave a powerful
impression in the record of history than the subjunctive, “If Germany
had not made war then the others would have done so later on.”

The fact that military action against Servia would probably involve
Russia and thus set in motion the complete chain of international
forces involving Europe in a world war, that is, the futility of the
attempt to localize the struggle in Servia, is practically admitted in
the statement of the German White Book, issued August 3, 1914, to the
following effect: “We were aware of the fact that warlike undertaking
against Servia would bring Russia into the war and that therefore our
duty as an ally might entangle us likewise. We could, however, not
advise our Ally to yield in a manner incompatible with its dignity, nor
could we deny our assistance at this difficult moment.”

Austria-Hungary had judged that it would be incompatible with its
dignity and honor to submit the Servian matter to arbitration. This
illustrates a very characteristic feature of contemporary diplomacy,
still adhering to the traditions and prejudices of the past. The
term “honor” is one that is not translatable into terms which can be
reasoned about. It is in fact a direct descendant of the conception of
“honor” during the eighteenth century, in the code of the duelist. Men
constantly translate the concepts of their private life into public
affairs, and to these men who at Vienna, Petersburg and Berlin, had
the destiny of the world in their hands, honor was an indefinable term
which could be felt but not discussed. In practice, when applied to
human affairs of the utmost importance, it cannot be distinguished from
the character of the personal duel, in which the conception of justice
was entirely subordinate. When it was said that Austria-Hungary found
arbitration “beneath its dignity,” there was speaking the mentality of
the Feudal junker who considers himself too noble to appeal to a court
against a peasant neighbor, but prefers to send his servants to give
him a thrashing. The honor of Austria-Hungary is of such a special
kind in the mind of these men that it does not suffer arbitration, but
sees in war the only possible satisfaction. In this as in many other
points, secret diplomacy is a superstition of the past. As late as May,
1916, the _Pester Lloyd_, a semi-official paper, declared: “Even if the
Russian Government had stopt its mobilization, which it had secretly
begun notwithstanding all its hypocritical assurances, nevertheless
Austria-Hungary would not have gone to any conference but would have
insisted without interference from third parties to settle its affairs
with Servia in consonance with the future security of Austria-Hungary.”
It would appear plain that the Austrian leaders wanted war, but with
Servia alone; trusting that the formidable power of their great ally
would again block outside intervention.

Thus when we look at the men in whose hands at this time such a fateful
power of decision was placed, we find them, as the great crisis
approaches, themselves stunned by the enormity of the forces about to
be unchained, seeking still and hoping for some fortunate escape; yet
guided in their specific action, not by a general masterly grasp of
the entire situation, such as is ordinarily expected of the diplomatic
superman, but just by details happening to be most prominent in their
mind, such as the incompatibility of arbitration with the honor of
Austria, or the personal judgments and inclinations of individual
diplomats. As to a correct estimate of how the forces would work out,
as to foresight of determining factors, these men showed no unusual
ability; in fact, the guess of the intelligent man on the street would
have been as safe as their judgment. They stood on too narrow a base;
they believed that Italy would remain neutral, that England would not
enter the contest, and later that the United States would never engage
in hostilities. When we consider the mental attitude of the controllers
of foreign affairs in all countries during this long period of secret
manipulations, we can find nothing sacrosanct about the deductions
and judgments of secret diplomacy; in fact, the lack of contact with
public opinion and the deeper forces of life, is everywhere painfully
apparent. A Swiss writer has stated: “The World War is the work of a
small minority of men in power. Their power rests on the principle of
authority, and on the erroneous supposition of wisdom and foresight
exceeding the average. The means of maintaining this erroneous
supposition is secret diplomacy, which deprives the people of all
possibility of insight and control in the most momentous questions. The
result of this system is the ruin of Europe.” It is too great a risk
to take, to leave in the hands of individual men, no matter how highly
gifted personally, the control of such forces and the playing of such
chances.

In Russia, the conduct of foreign affairs under the Empire was in the
hands of a narrow group of men of special training and experience, but
without an element of responsibility to the public at large, except
that involved in the general results of diplomatic policy. It is a
notable fact that during the nineteenth century only six men held the
position of foreign ministers in Russia. This is by far the longest
average tenure in any country. Sazonov, who became foreign minister
in 1911, further emphasized the esoteric character of foreign policy
by definitely divorcing it from home affairs. He did not consult
with the Council of Ministers, but only with men of his own chosen
environment, a select group of a few collaborators. Russian foreign
policy was therefore controlled by a very small clique, representing
the traditions of secret diplomacy, and playing at a game of chance,
though never so shrewdly, with the lives, fortunes and interests of
vast populations. In the Balkan states Russian diplomacy had for a
long time applied all its arts in order to establish the predominance
of Russian influence. The secret alliance between Servia and Bulgaria
was nurtured by Russia evidently with the desire of raising a barrier
to the eastward expansion of Austrian influence. In 1912, the fear was
entertained that the alliance might spend its main efforts against
Turkey instead of Austria. At this time a loan was arranged for King
Ferdinand of Bulgaria, the funds for which were advanced by the Czar.
The Russian Foreign Office was fully informed concerning the Balkan
alliance, which commenced the war in 1912 with Russian assent and
encouragement. What direction the thoughts of Russian diplomats were
taking, is apparent from a remark of Sazonov, Russian Minister of
Foreign Affairs, to the Servian Minister, on April 29, 1913, reported
by the latter as follows:

  “Again Sazonov told me that we must work for the future because
  we would acquire a great deal of territory from Austria. I
  replied that we would gladly give Bulgaria Monastir (Bitollia) if
  we could acquire Bosnia and other territory of Austria.”

A Belgian diplomat, in a report written from Berlin in 1913, says that
notwithstanding the great Russian influence in the Balkans, Russian
diplomacy had vacillated a great deal there since the beginning of
the Balkan war; he goes on to say: “In a moment of confidence the
French ambassador spoke particularly concerning the influence which M.
Isvolsky has maintained, who has a personal desire of revenge against
Austria-Hungary, and takes great pains to spoil the game whenever there
is any appearance of Austrian success.” (Baron Beyens to the Belgian
Minister for Foreign Affairs, March 18, 1913.)

When the great crisis came on, the diplomacy of Russia worked in close
connection with the militarists. The irreconcilable stubbornness of
Count Berchtold greatly strengthened the hands of the militarists,
both in Petersburg and Berlin, and virtually put the decision in their
hands. The Russians did their part to bring on the war by first
ordering mobilization and making that mobilization general almost
immediately. The facts concerning this matter have become known. On
July 29, 1914, General Janushkevich, the Russian Minister of War, under
directions from the Foreign Minister Sazonov, gave the German military
attaché his word of honor as a soldier, to the effect that “no general
mobilization had taken place, or was desired.” At the very time, he
had with him the Czar’s mobilization order. During the night of July
29th, the Czar gave directions to suspend the execution of the order
for general mobilization. Generals Janushkevich and Sukhomlinoff, with
the approval of M. Sazonov, made the momentous decision to go on with
the execution of the order, in disregard of the Czar’s command. It is
quite evident that this action made the peaceful settlement of the
crisis far more difficult, and gave full control into the hands of
the military party in Berlin. As late as July 31, M. Viviani told the
German Ambassador at Paris that he was in no way informed of a general
mobilization in Russia. The Russian militarists had got away.




VIII

THE SECRET TREATIES OF THE WAR


While the war lasted, the demands of self-protection required the
careful concealment of negotiations and policies from enemy knowledge.
But though it is easy to understand the need of secrecy at such a
time, yet the spirit displayed in these negotiations had but little in
common with the ideals professed in the same breath. Moreover, there
was a lack of complete sincerity among the Allies themselves, and
particularly was there a concealment from some of them of important
facts and agreements affecting their interests. However, the most
baneful effect of secret diplomacy during the war is found in the
undermining of public confidence in a moral foundation of public
action. As Lord Loreburn says: “It was not wholesome that while our
people were stimulated to unparalleled exertions by a parade of lofty
motives there should be at the same time in existence agreements of
this kind, of which no public mention could be made, and from which
little has resulted except the right of foreign Powers to demand
their fulfilment on our part.” That at a time when the people in the
vast armies were actually fighting for ideals of freedom and peace,
common to humanity, the chief care of responsible statesmen should have
been the division of prospective spoils, did certainly not lay solid
foundations for peace.

Japan in her action with respect to Shantung and in secretly making the
twenty-one demands on China, was first in the attempt to utilize the
great struggle for narrowly selfish gain, in this case not entirely
at the expense of the enemy but of a neutral and of her allies. Nor
did other governments keep themselves free from the temptations of
prospective conquest, with the risk of making war interminable and
putting the world face to face with revolution, anarchy and famine.
As early as February, 1915, the Russian Foreign Minister informed
the French and British ambassadors of the territorial acquisitions
which Russia desired to make through the war, including a great part
of Turkey in Europe and in Asia. The French and British Governments
expressed their readiness to agree, provided a number of claims made by
France and England were satisfied. Italy entered the war, as is well
known, on condition of her claims for territorial annexations being
satisfied. She agreed to the Russian demands on the same condition.

On March 9, 1916, the Russian Foreign Minister instructed the Russian
Ambassador at Paris to the following effect: “It is above all necessary
to demand that the Polish Question should be excluded from the
subjects of international negotiation, and that all attempts to place
Poland’s future under the guarantee and control of the Powers should
be prevented.” Thus did the Russian Government attempt secretly to
lock the door against any chance of Poland regaining her lost national
rights. The entry of Roumania in 1916 led to additional arrangements.
These agreements were kept strictly secret and the millions who were
laying down their lives in the war had no conception of this intricate
web of bargains.

An effort to settle at a time when the Allies were united in their
main aim in the furnace heat of the war, questions which might divide
them when peace had come in sight, could be understood; and that such
agreements should be kept secret during the war, might have been
considered a necessity. However, the necessity of war in this case was
stretched to cover arrangements which in themselves went diametrically
contrary to the publicly professed principles for which the war was
being fought, and gave rise to the just suspicion that in several cases
at least, very specific advantages had been the controlling incentive
for entering the war. But these agreements have aroused the greatest
resentment because they were in several cases directed against the
interests of third parties, and particularly because when the United
States was making its enormous and unselfish sacrifices, these treaties
were kept from its knowledge. That the American Government should not
have been informed of the secret treaties made at the instance of Japan
in which American interests were most seriously affected, and that just
after these agreements had been concluded the statesmen who had been
closely connected with acceding to these arrangements on the part of
Great Britain, at the price of the British control of the islands of
the South Pacific, came to the United States to stimulate the practical
devotion there to the cause of the Allies, is a fact that will
unfortunately help to give munition to those who are unfavorable to
any real friendly understanding between the two great English-speaking
powers. The secret commercial policy pursued by Great Britain during
the war is also justly subject to severe criticism as giving food and
subsistence to the growth of deep suspicion on the part of even the
most faithful of friends.

The secret treaties relating to the division of territories in Europe
did not come to the knowledge of the public until 1918. At that
time they were republished by one or two British papers, but were
suppressed by the remainder. The treaties were, however, distributed
in innumerable copies by their own governments among the troops of
the Central Powers in order to stimulate them to fight in a spirit of
self-defense. It is reported from various reliable sources that the
Slovenes were the most eager to fight, of any part of the Austrian
army, after the Pact of London had become known to them, with its
various promises to Italy.

The secret assurances which had been given to Italy in the Compact
of London were probably the cause of prolonging the war, with its
enormous slaughter, for more than a year. In the Spring of 1917,
secret negotiations were pursued between the Emperor of Austria, the
President and Premier of France, and the British Prime Minister. The
intermediaries in these negotiations were the Bourbon Princes Sixtus
and Xavier, brothers of the Empress of Austria. The negotiations were
carried on from Switzerland with a confidential envoy of the Emperor
of Austria. Only the Emperor, the Empress and the Duchess of Parma
were in the secret. Count Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian Minister of
Foreign Affairs at this time, at first knew only of the general fact,
not of the details. A note of Count Czernin, with a secret personal
note written by the Emperor, were brought to Prince Xavier and taken
by him to Paris. The proposals in Count Czernin’s note related to the
restoration and indemnification of Belgium, and the German renunciation
of Alsace-Lorraine, which “Austria-Hungary naturally would not
oppose.” Count Czernin stated that Austria-Hungary could not make a
separate peace; that it had no idea of crushing Servia, but needed
guarantees against such affairs as led to the murder at Sarajevo; that
Austria-Hungary had no desire of crushing Roumania, etc. The secret
addenda made by the Emperor, without the knowledge of Count Czernin,
stated: “We will support France and exercise pressure on Germany with
all means [in connection with Alsace-Lorraine]. We are absolutely not
in Germany’s hands; it was against Germany’s will that we did not break
with America.”

When President Poincaré received the Prince’s report he stated
that the secret note afforded a basis for discussion, that he would
communicate the two notes, with arrangements of absolute secrecy, to
the Premier, and inform the Czar by personal letter, as well as the
King of England, and Mr. Lloyd George, “who is a discrete man.” But
the President thought that Italy would be the stumbling block. After
this interview the Princes proceeded to Vienna for a personal interview
with the Emperor, which took place on the night of March 23rd. The
Emperor discussed the whole situation, saying that Servia was naturally
the friend of Austria, and that all that Austria needed was the
suppression of revolutionary propaganda there. He stated that one of
the Entente Powers was secretly conversing with Bulgaria; Bulgaria does
not know that the secret has leaked out. “It has not much importance,
because all these dreams of empire of the East will have to end in the
status quo, or very nearly that.” Count Czernin later joined in the
conversation, which is described as “rather glacial.” He expressed
his belief that peace must be made at any price, and that it might be
necessary for Austria to secure a divorce from Germany because the
latter would never abandon Alsace-Lorraine. After a second visit, the
Emperor gave Prince Xavier an autographed letter, enjoining absolute
secrecy because “an indiscretion would force him to send troops to the
French front.” The autographed letter of Emperor Charles, dated March
24th, contains the following proposals: That he will support the just
French claims to Alsace-Lorraine by all means, using all his personal
influence with his allies; Belgium and Servia are to be restored to
full sovereignty; Belgium is to secure indemnities for her losses; and
Servia is to have access to the Adriatic Sea. On the basis of this
letter, discussions took place among the men concerned in France and in
England. But Italy remained the obstacle.

Another trip was taken by Prince Xavier to Vienna, where he met the
Emperor on May 8th. The question now was, What compensations should
Austria receive for ceding its territory to Italy in accordance
with the Pact of London? Count Czernin joined the meeting and on
the following day prepared a memorandum, which was based upon the
principle, “Austria-Hungary can cede no territory without compensation;
but if the territorial question is arranged, then a separate peace with
the Entente might be concluded.” When the matter was taken up again at
Paris, the Italian difficulty remained. M. Ribot strongly adhered to
the idea that without Italy, no result could be had. Meanwhile, the
unsuccessful Italian offensive of July, 1917, had supervened, and the
war had to go on for another sixteen months, although the acceptance of
the proposals of the Emperor would undoubtedly have brought it to an
early end.

Count Czernin has given in his book, _In the World War_, an
unimpassioned and coldly-balanced view of the diplomacy of the time.
He does not relate the details of the secret negotiations of 1917, but
he evidently did not approve of the manner in which they were carried
out because their effect was to suggest to the Entente a willingness of
Austria-Hungary to separate from her allies, without strengthening her
position in any way. In a letter written to Count Tisza in the summer
of 1917, Czernin said: “It is possible to turn and steer the Entente
course if thought feasible; but then courage would be needed to make
the turn fully. Nothing is more stupid than trifling with treachery
and not carrying it out; we should lose all ground in Berlin and gain
nothing either in London or Paris.”

The policy pursued by Japan throughout the war made use of all the
devices of secret diplomacy for the attainment of ends narrowly
national. After having possessed herself of Tsing-tau, with a marked
cold-shouldering of her British allies, Japan set about an attempt
to arrange things in China so that no effective resistance might be
offered there to Japan’s expansionist desires. In January, 1915, the
Japanese minister in an interview with the President of China, after
enjoining the strictest secrecy on the pain of most disagreeable
consequences, proposed the famous twenty-one demands. That it should
have been attempted to dispose of matters so fundamentally important,
involving the national rights of a population of 350,000,000 people,
through demands secretly forced upon a President, at a time when the
national representative body did not function,--that is one of the
startling facts of modern history. Strange as it may seem, the Japanese
Foreign Office had apparently persuaded itself that secrecy could
be maintained in a matter of such transcendent importance. For when
contrary to that expectation and in accordance with nature and with
the salutary fact that, after all, such tremendous issues can not be
thus secretly disposed of, the facts of the case began to leak out,
categorical denials were made by the Japanese Foreign Office and by
various embassies. In this case, those who had the right to object
to the disposal of important interests in which they themselves had a
share, were not mere neutrals or outsiders but the allies of Japan,
engaged in a life and death struggle at the time. As the twenty-one
demands aimed at the establishment of a predominant position in
China through control of finance and armament, every other nation
there interested would have been adversely affected by the proposed
arrangement. The Chinese, though isolated, would not immediately yield
to the threatening attitude of their neighbor and the negotiations
were strung out over months. Though they were assiduously kept secret,
the nature of the transaction in general and in detail became quite
well known outside, so that the results could not be kept hidden; yet
the whole procedure constituted an affirmation that it was proper to
deal with the destinies of a people in a secret council chamber, where
the demandant backed by strong military forces, confronted the first
official of a vast, peaceful but unmilitant nation, which would never
in the world agree to such procedure and the resultant undertakings.
Japan did indeed get certain concessions, but at the cost of making her
diplomacy and policy universally suspected on account of the methods
which had been used.

The policy of Japan at the time did not look with favor upon China
associating herself with the Allies. Démarches which were made to
bring about the entry of China into the alliance were negatived by
Japan. This in itself might have been based on sound reasons, yet
the real inwardness of this policy was revealed at the time when the
United States had broken off relations with Germany and when the
Chinese Government in the days immediately thereafter was considering
whether to follow the example of the United States. From a report
of the Russian Ambassador at Tokio concerning an interview with the
Foreign Minister of Japan, which took place on February 10, 1917, we
learn that the Minister for Foreign Affairs alluded to a rumor that an
attempt might be made to induce China to join the Allies to the extent
of breaking off relations with Germany. The Foreign Minister said in
effect: “It would be unwise and dangerous to attempt to bring China to
the side of the Allies unless we can be sure that it can be carried
through. This is, however, doubtful. Yet the Japanese Government is
willing to undertake the task of inducing China to take the step. But
before making any such proposal, the Japanese Government desires to be
informed as to the attitude of the Russian Government in the matter of
Shantung and the Pacific Islands. Will the Russian Government support
Japan at the Peace Conference in these matters?” The Russian ambassador
was requested to get the opinion of his government on this point. In
other words, in return for a commission paid largely by China herself,
the Japanese Government was ready to permit that China should join the
Allies in the Great War. It was assumed by the Foreign Minister that
Japan’s persuasion should be necessary to induce China to take this
step; but in fact, at the very time when this conversation between
the minister and ambassador was going on, the Cabinet of China was in
the all-day session from which resulted the decision to follow the
United States in breaking off relations with Germany. This step was
taken without compulsion, urgency or the promise of advantages, upon
a careful consideration of the underlying conditions and equities,
without assurances of gain, merely in the expectation of fair treatment
as an ally and associate.




IX

HOPES FOR IMPROVEMENT DEFERRED


The world has not yet recovered from the surprise and disillusionment
which overcame it when the secret treaties of the war became known and
when it became evident that they would be made the basis of the Treaty
of Peace. The secrecy of the procedure of the Peace Conference--which
had been heralded as an assembly of the peoples for carrying out and
making permanent those great principles for which men had grimly and
silently suffered and died and which had been eloquently voiced by
the American President--seemed to be so complete a return to the old
methods of diplomacy that from the day when the muzzle was clamped on,
public faith in the conference and its results was shaken. The motives
of the men who made this decision were probably good. It was their
desire that the work should be rapidly accomplished and should not
be confused by divided counsels. But again the results of the secret
method are hardly apt to increase confidence in its usefulness as a
procedure for dealing with the affairs of the peoples of the world in
such a manner as to place them upon a sound and lasting foundation.

The solemn document which was prepared for the information of the
newspaper men on the decision of the peace conference to enforce
secrecy, did not satisfy any one. To the public there seemed to be
no larger principle at issue than that, on this occasion if ever,
open covenants should be openly arrived at, and it was feared that
if the peace conference did not base its action upon an appeal to
public opinion, no adequate solution could be found at all. When the
treaty itself had been framed, it was sedulously kept secret until
distributed by the French paper _Bonsoir_. The deliberations of the
Council of Five were secret beyond all precedents in public action.
No secretaries were admitted and no official minutes were kept, nor
were there communications to the public through the press. Doctor
Dillon’s description of the Five as “a gang of benevolent conspirators,
ignoring history and expertship, shutting themselves up in a room and
talking disconnectedly,” unfortunately appears not entirely untrue;
particularly as to the ignoring of history and expertship, which was
quite patent, although from the nature of things we cannot exactly
know how disconnectedly the Five talked.

Unfortunately, after the war the use of secret diplomatic policy
has continued without noticeable diminution. The details of certain
situations make one feel as if we are after all only a generation
removed from the eighteenth century. These matters are so recent and
still so controversial that I do not desire to enter upon them in any
detail.

It is, however, surely to be regretted, that it should have been
found necessary to surround the mandates with peculiar secrecy. This
institution was conceived in a desire to create a trusteeship in
behalf of the world in general and for the particular benefit of the
populations comprised in the mandates. Not only has the assignment of
certain mandates given rise to great popular resistance indicating that
the local populations were far from ready to trust their interests
to a foreign mandatory, but the fact that these arrangements are so
carefully guarded with secrecy comes near to destroying all hope
that there is any intention to handle them otherwise than from the
imperialist point of view and for the benefit of the mandatory.

Among the many things that have happened since the armistice, the
Franco-Hungarian intrigues are specially to be noted as emphasizing the
great danger of secret methods, in which a government runs the risk of
being committed by persons, irresponsible or not properly controlled,
into embarrassing and harmful situations. We know of these particular
facts through confidential reports discovered and published, officially
recognized by certain governments, though formally denied by the
Magyar Cabinet. These papers give working details of what was already
known in general terms concerning reactionary Hungarian intrigues
in Czecho-Slovakia and Austria, including preparations for an armed
uprising, and other assistance to monarchists. French interests were at
the same time active in Hungary. They made an agreement for a leasing
of the Hungarian state railways for fifty years. According to this
contract, the Hungarian Government is bound to consult the diplomatic
representative of the French Government concerning every measure
which may have a bearing on any clause of the agreement. A political
compact was simultaneously initialed in which the French Government
withdrew its opposition to universal military service in Hungary, and
that country was to be assisted in boundary rectifications at the
expense of Czecho-Slovakia and Roumania. A third agreement provided
for the sending of a Hungarian army against Soviet Russia under French
command. These agreements were undoubtedly accepted by many people as
fully concluded. The Magyar Premier in open session of the national
assembly boasted of having achieved an alliance with France; the same
understanding was also accepted by certain Paris newspapers. The French
Government, however, did not sanction what secret negotiators had
prepared in Hungary and disavowed the agreements, with the exception
of the lease of the Hungarian railways. This illustrates how in times
of unsettlement and sharp national rivalry, representatives on the
spot or agents of powerful interests in close touch with the home
government may by secret means try to bring about arrangements which
the conscience of their nation does not approve and which serve merely
to generate suspicion and distrust.

There is reason to believe that the draft of a secret treaty between
France and Yugo-Slavia which was published in 1920 by the _Idea
Nazionale_ was at the time actually being considered by the two
governments concerned. One of the points of the proposed treaty was
that upon the declaration of war between France and any Mediterranean
power, Yugo-Slavic troops would be massed along the hostile boundary
according to previously determined plans. In connection with this
provision the representatives of France made the following suggestion:
“In case of a conflict it would be better that the Yugo-Slavic
troops, instead of massing on the hostile frontier, should rather
provoke a ‘Casus Belli’ on the part of the nation at war with France.
Otherwise their intervention might bring on the interference of other
powers.” The proposed arrangements, even though not adopted by the two
governments, nevertheless illustrate the methods acceptable to secret
diplomacy, but which open public opinion would never sanction.

Whatever we may think about the exact share of the blame for having
brought on the great catastrophe which should be attributed to
secret methods and policies, we cannot have any doubts about their
influence since the armistice. Whether or not secret diplomacy brought
on the war, it certainly has not ended it. War still exists, not
only when actual hostilities are going on, but in the whole temper
of international affairs--continuing enmity, continuing armaments,
unending waste of human effort. Thus, for one thing, the entire Near
Eastern situation remains unsettled. As an expert on this troubled
region has said: “The principle of settlement as revealed by these
treaties is fundamentally wrong. The East must be resuscitated, not
exploited.” But be it East or West, there is the same return to the
old game of balancing off gains and changing boundaries, without
consideration of the rights of the respective peoples. The costly
mistakes of the Congresses of Vienna, Paris, and Berlin are being
repeated.




X

THE DESTRUCTION OF PUBLIC CONFIDENCE


Our historical survey of diplomatic policy and practice does not hold
much assurance that the evils of secret diplomacy have very appreciably
waned since the eighteenth century. The cruder methods of deception
and corruption which were at that time employed would indeed now be
considered beneath the dignity of diplomats; although it is unhappily
true that some of the most despicable tricks, such as stealing
correspondence and placing informers in houses to be watched, are still
practised occasionally. However, it may be said that while in general
the trade-secrets of diplomacy have lost greatly in prestige, the
spirit of diplomatic action itself has not yet been brought into accord
with democratic ideals.

A secret service attached to the diplomatic establishment is still
considered useful by some governments. It is, however, certainly very
doubtful whether the results thus obtained in the nature of accurate
information, are at all commensurate to the expense and to the constant
danger of being misinformed through secret agents who think that they
must earn their pay. My own observation leads me to believe that people
who use secret service information are frequently confused and worried
by an abundance of unauthenticated reports brought to them; they would
have been far better off without backstairs information, relying on
the fundamental facts and on knowledge which can be obtained only by
seeking the confidence of the men who control public action. Secret
service gossip may often give the key to the aims and desires of an
individual person, and if one is willing to appeal to motives through
corrupt and deceitful means, the information may be actually useful.
However, he whose policy rests upon an essential reasonableness and
mutual benefit, can afford to disregard such gossip.

We might distinguish between a secrecy which is vicious in itself,
and one that pursues beneficent objects. The former seeks to conceal
the presence of harmful motives and projects, to confuse and mislead
people to their disadvantage, and in general, to play on weakness and
ignorance. The other keeps secret its plans and negotiations which in
themselves have honest motives, from a desire to prevent interference
with their prompt and complete realization. Opinions as to the
character of a policy may differ widely and those who secretly advance
a policy generally condemned by many, may perhaps claim credit for
honest purposes. This type of secrecy is common. Unfortunately, though
it may advance a good object, it incidentally has an evil influence
upon public confidence. It must be confessed that the distinction here
pointed out is difficult to apply in practice in a thoroughly objective
manner, because there are probably among diplomats very few indeed who
do not persuade themselves at least that the means applied by them are
designed to achieve useful purposes.

A good example of how stratagem may be used for a laudable purpose
is found in the action of William J. Buchanan, American Minister
to Argentina, in adjusting the Chili-Argentinian boundary dispute.
Buchanan, one of the most original of American diplomats, had nothing
whatever of the suave manipulator of the old school of diplomacy. He
was direct to the verge of bruskness, yet his ability to go straight
to the essential point, and his mastery and bigness, made him highly
successful as a negotiator. In this particular case, Buchanan had been
designated, together with a Chilian and an Argentinian representative,
on a commission to settle boundary questions and requested to make a
preliminary report. He agreed to act only on the following conditions:
That because of the complexity and difficulty of the questions
involved, it would be necessary to report on the suggested boundary
by sections, that each section should be voted upon as reported by
him, and that a majority vote on each section should be decisive. This
proposal was accepted. After a careful investigation, Buchanan made his
report, and it was found that on each section the suggested boundary
was carried by two votes against one; the American always voted in the
affirmative; the Chilian and Argentinian, as in the particular section
the allotments seemed favorable or unfavorable to their respective
country. In accordance with the terms agreed upon, the entire report
had thus to be accepted, and all the thorny problems of long-standing
boundary controversies were settled. Had Buchanan not used this
stratagem it is very unlikely that the report as a whole would have
been accepted, as each of his associates would have felt that he could
not vote for a report containing arrangements for giving up specific
tracts of territory which his country had hitherto always insisted
upon retaining. By this clever arrangement Buchanan made it possible
for them to vote against such relinquishment in each case without
defeating the project as a whole; but if he had revealed to them his
plan at the beginning, the object could not have been achieved.

This incident illustrates that a complete solution will often be
accepted as satisfactory although it may contain details which, by
themselves, would have been resisted to the last. It may be said that
the disadvantage of public discussion lies in the emphasizing of such
points of opposition, and the obscuring of the general reasonableness
of a solution.

Mr. Balfour in his defense of the secrecy of diplomatic intercourse,
says that the work of diplomacy is exactly similar to the work which
is done every day between two great business firms. He then argues
that, in all such relationships, it is unwise to air difficulties in
public. Bismarck used the more homely illustration of a horse trade,
the participants in which should not be expected to tell each other
all they know about the prospective bargain. That view is putting
diplomacy on a rather lowly footing. One might expect a somewhat
different temper among men dealing with momentous public affairs than
the bluff-and-haggle of a petty private transaction. Yet such tactics
have actually been found useful in diplomacy. Mr. Balfour is on
sounder ground when he says, “In private, in conversations which need
not go beyond the walls of the room in which you are, both parties may
put their case as strongly as they like and no soreness remains,” but
“directly a controversy becomes public, all that fair give-and-take
becomes difficult or impossible.” This, of course, implies a somewhat
low estimate of public intelligence and self-control, of which more
later.

The greatest vice of a secret diplomatic policy, working in the dark
and concealing international undertakings, lies in the inevitable
generating of mutual suspicion and the total destruction of public
confidence among the different countries which compose the family of
nations. No nation is so bad as imagination, confused and poisoned
by secrecy and by the suggestion of dire plottings, would paint it.
Agreements and understandings which do not exist at all are imagined,
the nature of those which actually have been made is misjudged, and
animosities are exaggerated; thus the public is quite naturally put in
that mood of suspicion and excitement which renders it incapable of
judging calmly when apparently startling facts suddenly emerge.

Secret diplomacy destroys public confidence, however, in a still more
insidious manner: by the practice of using a language of ideal aims
and humanitarian professions in order to conceal and veil the most
narrowly selfish, unjust and unconscionable actions. The conventional
language of diplomacy still carries in it many of the phrases and
concepts instilled by the false idealism of the eighteenth century, to
which at that time diplomacy gave lip worship. The most disconcerting
performances of this kind are the profuse and reiterated declarations
promising the maintenance of the sovereignty, independence and
integrity of certain countries, when in fact the action really taken
was quite to the contrary effect.

The diplomacy of Japan has manifested peculiar expertship in the use
of phrases that are associated with some wise public dispensation
or arrangement and which have a calming effect--to cover action not
remotely in fact contributing to such beneficent providences. The
sovereignty, integrity and independence of a neighboring country are
guaranteed in solemn terms at the very moment when force, intrigue and
every tricky artifice are secretly employed to destroy them. “Strong
popular demand” is alleged as a reason for harsh action abroad, in a
country where the expressions of public opinions as well as policy
itself are controlled by a narrow group, with absolutist authority.
There is so much talk of “frank discussion” that every one is put on
his guard as soon as the word “frank” is uttered.

The “peace of Asia,” a “Monroe Doctrine for Asia,” the “Open Door,”
“greatest frankness,” “hearty coöperation with other powers,” are
heralded at times when the context of facts makes a strange commentary.
But while such a discrepancy is very strident in a country where
military absolutism wields control over diplomacy, with a grudging
obeisance to representative forms, yet other countries are by no
means free from this hypocrisy. What blasted promise of equity in
all that succession of declarations concerning Korea, China, Persia,
parts of Turkey, and Morocco. What confusion of political ideals in
supporting Denikin, Wrangel, and Horthy as defenders of “representative
government.”

When Russia and Japan, in response to Secretary Knox’ Manchurian
proposal had made their secret arrangements to defeat his policy,
Great Britain, though it had made many reassuring protestations at
Washington, nevertheless had secretly acquiesced (to cite a Russian
diplomatic paper) in the “recognition of our (Russian) sphere of
influence in Northern Manchuria, Mongolia, and Western China, with
the exception of Kashgar, as well as the undertaking not to hinder us
in the execution of our plans in these territories, and herself to
pursue no aims which we should have to regard as incompatible with our
interest.” And it was also stated that Great Britain, in return, was
to receive “recognition of her freedom of action and her privileged
position in Tibet.” This was in 1912.

Thus were the solemn declarations relating to the Open Door and the
integrity of China applied in action.

Subsequent departure from the letter and spirit of such declarations
may indeed sometimes be excused on account of changed circumstances;
but frequently it is quite apparent to those who know what is going on,
that such well-sounding declarations are made for public consumption,
at the very time when the contrary action is taken secretly.

This is indeed nothing less than a crime against the public opinion and
conscience of the world, which cannot be condemned in terms too strong.
It shows a thorough contempt of the people, who are supposed to be
either of so little intelligence or of so short a memory that such vain
professions may succeed in veiling the true inwardness of political
intrigue. This practice tends to engender thorough confusion in the
public mind as to standards of right and justice in international
affairs; it shakes the basis on which alone sound international
relations can grow up; as, indeed, all social relations must rest upon
confidence in an underlying justice and equity.

Closely allied to the practice of making public declarations in
international affairs which do not correspond with the specific action
taken, is the control of the press and the censure of news. This is
indeed a matter which transcends the subject of diplomacy, because
a system of press control and censure is often applied by other
departments of the government than the diplomatic branch. As far as
foreign affairs are concerned, it is used in an effort to support
foreign policy, and it therefore shares the same defects which inhere
in the old diplomacy. Like secret diplomatic control, it is accounted
for on the assumption that the people cannot be trusted with the entire
truth, and that carefully selected portions of the truth have to be
put forth in order to make them ready to support the policy considered
necessary by the leaders. This involves the assumption of an enormous
responsibility by a few leaders in determining by themselves what
the public interest requires and instead of relying on the strength
naturally to be gained from a spontaneous public opinion, to attempt
to fashion that opinion for specific purposes. Press control and
censure, with the incomplete and warped information which it implies,
is one of the evil accompaniments considered necessary in the conduct
of a war, for the safety of the combatant nation. The principle that
strategic information must be kept secret is extended, at such times,
out of all reason. After hostilities have actually been concluded, this
practice tends to subsist and to continue the evils of misinformation
and confusion in the public judgment. The manner in which all news
emanating from the Balkan and Near Eastern countries has been censured
since the war, has made it impossible for the public of the world to
form a just conception as to what is there going on. Control of the
press and censorship likewise resulted in such confusion in the public
mind concerning the problems of Russia, that there remained no reliable
basis for a policy which would facilitate the restoration of more
normal conditions there, in a sympathetic spirit with the struggles and
difficulties of the Russian people.

On account of the natural fact that men are apt to be influenced in
their action unconsciously through persons with whom they have constant
associations, it is a matter of no mean importance that the armament
interests should have been so strongly represented in many capitals by
men of high professional and social standing, always on the ground,
eager to advance the business in military supplies. In many capitals,
very close relationships have grown up between the diplomatic officers
and the representatives of the great armament firms. As a mutual
apprehension of excessive preparation for war greatly stimulates these
industries, it is not surprising that their representatives do not
exert themselves to prevent occasional war scares. In fact, highly
misleading information on war plans has often been given out, as in the
case of a representative of the Coventry Ordnance Works, who in 1909
informed the British Government of excessive shipbuilding by Germany.
The news was later found to be erroneous; but new orders had been
given in Great Britain, and through action and reaction armaments were
stimulated elsewhere. The close connection of the Krupp Iron Works with
the German Government and with associations favoring aggressive foreign
action is well known.

It has often happened that what represents itself to be a national
interest and enlists diplomatic and political support in that way, is
really only the enterprise of individuals to make profits. The men
who support it with their best energies and talents are not villains,
but their method of assuming a great national interest where only
a tradition, a prejudice or a private plan of profit are involved,
renders their doings far from beneficial to the commonweal. Similarly,
those who operate on the principle that the public mind must be
nourished with certain carefully selected facts and kept from the
knowledge of others, may have honest motives, but their ideas of public
action are obsolete or deserve to be so, as they are left over from the
absolutist régime in politics.




XI

PARLIAMENT AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS


In considering the relation of legislative bodies, and of the public
opinion therein represented, to the conduct of foreign affairs, it will
be useful to glance briefly at the relevant historical facts. When the
United Colonies of America formed a separate political organization
from the mother country, the conduct of foreign affairs was entrusted
to a committee of Congress, a successor to the Committee of Secret
Correspondence. In 1781 a Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs, with a
permanent department, was created and in 1782 the conduct of foreign
affairs was regulated in the following terms:

  “All letters to sovereign powers, letters of credence, plans of
  treaties, conventions, manifestoes, instructions, passports, safe
  conducts, and other acts of Congress relative to the department
  of foreign affairs, when the substance thereof shall have been
  previously agreed to in Congress, shall be reduced to form in
  the office of foreign affairs, and submitted to the opinion of
  Congress, and when passed, signed and attested, sent to the
  office of foreign affairs to be countersigned and forwarded.”

Congress therefore retained a very close control over this matter; a
control which under the Constitution passed to the Senate, though in
a restricted form. In no other country did a legislative committee
participate in the conduct of foreign affairs with similar power and
influence. The policy of the arrangements under the Constitution is
explained by John Jay in the _Federalist_ as follows:

  “It seldom happens in the negotiation of treaties, of whatever
  nature, but that perfect secrecy and immediate despatch are
  sometime requisite. There are cases where the most useful
  intelligency may be obtained, if the persons possessing it can
  be relieved from apprehensions of discovery. Those apprehensions
  will operate on those persons whether they are actuated by
  mercenary or friendly motives; and there doubtless are many
  of both descriptions, who would rely on the secrecy of the
  President, but who would not confide in that of the Senate, and
  still less in that of a large popular assembly.”

Jay’s explanation is dominated by the conception which the eighteenth
century had of the functions of diplomacy and the conditions of its
work. The constitutional system as conceived at that time implied
(1) Full power of negotiation in the President, (2) Taking counsel
with the Senate, (3) Formal ratification of treaties by the Senate,
and publication thereof as parts of the law of the land. The system
has been highly praised by European publicists as reconciling the
maintenance of confidential relations with publicity of the results, in
that treaties are given the character of laws.

In the course of the nineteenth century there occurred many instances
resulting in a growing practice of making special agreements by the
Secretary of State alone, without the advice and consent of the Senate.
When President Roosevelt in 1905 attempted to deal with the Dominican
situation in this manner, the Senate objected and insisted that all
international agreements of any kind must be submitted to its action.
The system of the United States, however, actually permits of the
current conduct of foreign affairs without information to the people or
even without constant and complete information to the Senate which is,
moreover, usually preoccupied with matters of internal legislation.

In England, the mother of Parliaments, we might expect that there
should have been a constant effort at parliamentary control of
foreign affairs, with strong remonstrance when effective control was
denied; yet on account of the specific nature of the system of Cabinet
government, such has not been the case. Under the two-party system as
it exists in England the conduct of foreign affairs is always in the
hands of a minister trusted and supported by the majority in the Lower
House. Even if the minority should attempt to censor the conduct of
foreign affairs as being carried on apart from the knowledge and active
consent of the House, the majority whose leaders form the Cabinet which
is managing things, will always prevent such a vote from succeeding.
Only in case of a cabinet going absolutely and openly counter to the
policy of its own party in Parliament could a real conflict of this
nature arise; and such a contingency is itself impossible, because of
the party control exercised by the cabinet.

According to the theory of the Stuarts, the management of foreign
affairs belonged entirely to the Crown which had not at that time been
put in commission. In 1677 the House of Commons objected to granting
money for alliances and for wars, unless the matter in question had
been previously communicated to it. Charles II, however, declared the
conduct of foreign affairs to be the Crown’s fundamental prerogative
in which it must remain free from direct control of Parliament.
William III was in fact to a very large extent his own Minister for
Foreign Affairs. With the introduction of responsible Government
under the Hanoverians, however, the situation changed. The dominant
party being represented by the ministers was quite ready to submit to
their guidance in matters of foreign affairs. It was the opposition
who occasionally attacked the government on its foreign policy, and
particularly the opposition in the House of Lords. In a Lords’ protest
of March 26, 1734, it was urged that “the interposition of the British
Parliament would be more effectual than the occasional expedients of
fluctuating and variable negotiations.” In 1740 it was moved that a
select committee consisting of peers should be appointed to inquire
into the conduct of the Spanish War. The motion was rejected. Another
Lords’ protest in the same year opposes the argument that absolute
secrecy is essential because this claim is often used in bar of all
inquiries. Such secrecy is “much oftener the refuge of guilt than the
resort of innocence.”

Wyndham, in 1733, on a motion calling for certain letters of
instructions, argued for the necessity of giving such information to
Parliament. He asked how could members of the House of Commons judge
of the estimates to be laid before them as a provision for national
safety if they did not know by what danger the nation was confronted.
The motion, however, was rejected.

When Pelham was criticized in the House for not having informed
Parliament of the preliminaries of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle he
argued: “If Parliament should encroach upon the prerogative of the
Crown, by assuming a right to make peace or war, and to inquire into
foreign transactions under negotiation, our affairs will be reduced
to a dangerous predicament; for no foreign State will negotiate with
our ministers, or conclude any treaty with them, either political or
commercial.” This is an argument often made in the eighteenth century
to show the unwisdom of Parliamentary control. The change of ministers
following party changes in the House, and the fact that the Foreign
Minister would not by his own word be able to give complete assurances
to foreign governments, were considered to put the British Government
under a disadvantage in negotiations. It was therefore considered
undesirable that negotiations should be submitted to the control and
sanction of Parliament. Walpole had stated the matter in the following
words:

  “Therefore while our happy constitution remains entire, while the
  Parliament meets but once a year, and does not continue assembled
  above three or four months in the twelve, it is impossible for
  either House of Parliament to intermeddle, much less to prescribe
  to the Crown, in any affairs relating to peace or war, without
  exposing the nation to imminent danger.”

Throughout the nineteenth century Parliament interfered very little
with the conduct of foreign affairs. The minister for foreign affairs
or the premier would from time to time give information or make a
systematic discourse on foreign affairs and it was understood that
the House would be kept informed concerning the aims and tendencies
of the Government’s foreign policy. Specific questions were asked by
members but not frequently. The nature of the British system would have
rendered unmeaning any struggle for control between the House and the
Cabinet.

The manner of keeping Parliament and the public informed on foreign
affairs was discussed. The Earl of Clarendon spoke of the practice of
laying before Parliament official information in the _Blue Books_. He
stated:

  “I am perfectly certain there is always laid before Parliament
  a very fair and complete view of the transactions between this
  country and any other to which those papers may relate. I know
  that foreign Governments rather complain of our Blue Books, and
  to a certain extent they may curtail some of the communications
  that are made to our foreign Ministers, but I should be extremely
  sorry to see our system of publication of diplomatic papers in
  any way curtailed, or different from what it is; of course,
  there must always be care taken not to compromise individuals
  for the information they have given, but I believe it is an
  immense advantage to this country that our despatches and
  diplomatic transactions should be known, because if they have the
  approbation of Parliament and of the country, the Government then
  has the whole weight of public opinion in its favor, and it is
  that which gives such strength to our policy and to our opinions
  in foreign countries.”

That is a very statesmanlike presentation of the advantages of constant
public knowledge of foreign policy in giving the government a secure
base of intelligent support.

When dissatisfaction or doubt was felt by large numbers concerning the
foreign policy of the government, as in 1857 and again in 1878 after
the concealment of the Schuvalof agreement, complaint was frequently
made in Parliament and in the press to the effect that Parliament on
the one hand was not given a chance to acquire a complete knowledge
of foreign policy, and on the other it was not sufficiently alert and
active in using its opportunities for control. In 1886 the following
resolution was moved:

  “That in the opinion of this House it is not just or expedient
  to embark in war, contract engagements involving grave
  responsibilities for the nation, and add territories to the
  Empire, without the knowledge and consent of Parliament.”

Like other similar resolutions, it did not pass. Mr. Gladstone opposed
it on the ground that the House of Commons under existing arrangements
actually possessed all necessary power of control and that the passage
of this resolution would mean simply that the House of Lords would
share this power with it.

In 1885 when Earl Granville had objected to public criticism of
negotiations which were still in progress between Russia and Great
Britain regarding Afghanistan, Lord Salisbury made the following
interesting and important statement with respect to the relations of
foreign policies to public opinion, which in temper resembles that of
Lord Clarendon cited above:

  “The noble Earl seemed to me to lay down a doctrine which
  we cannot pass unnoticed, when he says it is the duty of
  an Opposition not to canvas or condemn the conduct of the
  Government, if by so doing it should have the effect of
  discouraging friends and allies in other parts of the world.
  That seems to be a very far-reaching doctrine, and one which it
  is impossible to assent to.... If we are of opinion that the
  course of public affairs is going ill, and that our Government
  has mismanaged, that faults are being committed and dangers are
  being incurred, we have no absolute Sovereign to whom we can
  appeal in order to correct the evil; our absolute Sovereign is
  the people of this country, and it is they, and they alone, who
  can bring a remedy to the mischief which is going on. You have
  a form of Government which in many points is purely democratic,
  and you must take it with the incidents which naturally adhere to
  it, and one of these incidents is publicity of deliberation. The
  Cabinet is the people, and their deliberations are conducted in
  the open field. If they are to be rightly informed, you must deal
  fully and frankly with the subjects which form the basis of their
  determination. It is, no doubt, a drawback so far as it goes, but
  it is a drawback you must face, and you cannot help it if Foreign
  Powers overhear, so to speak, the privileged communications
  between you and those by whose verdict you must stand. You cannot
  suppress the argument because somebody else outside hears it and
  you may be adversely affected by it....”

The concealment of important obligations and the growing secrecy of
diplomatic affairs during the first decade of the Twentieth Century
brought on many expressions of dissatisfaction in the House of Commons.
After the secret agreement concerning Morocco became known, Mr. John
Dillon expressed himself as follows, in a speech in the House of
Commons in September, 1911:

  “I do not believe any representative assembly in the history
  of the world has ever been called upon to discuss a matter so
  vital and so far-reaching as that which the House of Commons has
  before it to-day to consider, and with so absolute a lack of
  information.... The House was summoned for this discussion to-day
  without any papers whatsoever.... We ought at all events to have
  had an account of diplomatic correspondence between the four
  great Powers intimately interested in the question of Morocco,
  as is customary to be given to the House of Commons on such an
  occasion. This would have enabled members of the House before
  the debate commenced, to form a really well-grounded judgment
  upon the whole matter. We have heard a good deal to-night of
  the secrecy of the Foreign policy of this country. It is no use
  attempting to deny it. Those of us who have been a long time in
  this House, and can remember the methods of the Foreign Office
  twenty-five years ago, know as a matter of fact, which cannot be
  successfully denied, that the Foreign Office policy has become
  during the last ten years progressively more secret every year.
  Until this present year this has gone on, when the intense
  pressure of Foreign Affairs and the danger of war has forced
  the hands of the Minister to give some time for the discussion
  of Foreign Office affairs. For ten years the Foreign policy of
  this country has been conducted behind an elaborate screen of
  secrecy. Some of us pointed out years ago that the secrecy of
  Foreign Affairs was the inevitable and logical result of that
  new departure which was heralded about ten years ago, and which
  we heard praised once more on the floor of this House to-night.
  I refer to what is known as the policy of the continuity of the
  Foreign policy of this country; of the withdrawal of the Foreign
  policy of this country from the sphere of party politics.”

At the same session Mr. Swift MacNeill expressed himself very strongly
on the subject of withholding information from Parliament, in the
following terms:

  “From generation to generation, you have allowed treaties
  involving the highest international obligations--involving
  questions of peace and war--to be taken absolutely out of the
  hands of the House. It is no exaggeration to say, so far as
  international policy is concerned, you have rendered the House as
  little effectively powerful as any man walking over Westminster
  Bridge. Over and over again treaties involving matters of life
  and death, involving questions of first-class importance, have
  been ratified behind the back of Parliament.... The people
  themselves must be allowed to know all about this diplomacy and
  what it is. And there should be no secrecy in regard to high
  diplomatic statecraft about it. The House of Commons is sample
  judge of what is discreet and what is indiscreet, and it is a
  complete absurdity for others to treat us as children or for
  us to allow ourselves to be so treated in matters of such high
  international importance as those involving questions of peace
  and war.”

Sir Edward Grey in his reply stated that secrecy up to a certain point
was necessary and that particularly the ratification of treaties could
not be previously discussed. He then made the very significant remark
that not until the House of Commons “was really free to devote itself
to discussions of imperial affairs would it get control.” In other
words as long as the House of Commons remains a body occupied primarily
with domestic and local legislation it cannot spare the attention
necessary for an effective control of foreign policy.

Early in 1914, evidence was taken by a select committee on House
of Commons procedure. Mr. Balfour during these discussions rather
emphasized the need of secrecy in dealing with foreign affairs. He
thinks that such matters should not be aired too frequently in the
House of Commons, because indiscreet speeches, which can be perfectly
appraised in the House, may make bad blood when reported. Diplomatic
conversations must be kept confidential if you are to work the European
system at all. But though the House of Commons does not and cannot
know the current details of international negotiations, it is not
uninformed. This plainly is the language of a statesman to whom the
idiosyncrasies of the European system are so familiar that they seem to
be the only natural state of affairs. The statement is made from the
point of view of the expert who rather resents any sort of interference
on the part of the less well informed.

In March, 1918, it was moved in the House of Commons:

  “That, in the opinion of this House, a Standing Committee of
  Foreign Affairs should be appointed, representative of all
  parties and groups in the House, in order that a regular channel
  of communication may be established between the Foreign Secretary
  and the House of Commons, which will afford him frequent
  opportunities of giving information on questions of Foreign
  policy and which, by allowing Members to acquaint themselves
  more fully with current international problems, will enable this
  House to exercise closer supervision over the general conduct of
  Foreign Affairs....”

Mr. Balfour expressed himself quite in length on this motion and
further elaborated the ideas which he had put forward in 1914. In a
speech delivered March 19th, he gave what is probably the most complete
and persuasive exposition of the value of traditional methods in
diplomacy:

  “... A Foreign Office and a Diplomatic Service are great
  instruments for preventing, as far as can be prevented, and
  diminishing, even when you cannot prevent, friction between
  States which are, or which ought to be, friendly. How is the
  task of peace-maker--because that is largely the task which
  falls to diplomatists and to the Foreign Office, which controls
  diplomatists--to be pursued if you are to shout your grievances
  from the housetop whenever they occur? The only result is that
  you embitter public feeling, that the differences between the
  two States suddenly attain a magnitude they ought never to be
  allowed to approach, that the newspapers of the two countries
  agitate themselves, that the Parliaments of the two countries
  have their passions set on fire, and great crises arise, which
  may end, have ended sometimes, in international catastrophes....
  Office officials, or officials of any Department,--to expend some
  of their energy in getting ready for cross-examination, you will
  really be destroying the public service. There is nothing on
  which I feel more strongly than that. They are not accustomed to
  it, and they ought not to be accustomed to it.... I do not hold
  the view that antique methods are pursued by diplomatists which
  no man of common sense adopts in the ordinary work of every-day
  life. On the contrary, the work of diplomacy is exactly the work
  which is done every day between two great firms, for instance,
  which have business relations, or between two great corporate
  entities which have interests diverging or interests in common.
  If you are a man of sense you do not create difficulties to
  begin with. You try to get over all these things without the
  embitterment which advertisement always brings with it. It is
  when you begin to press your case in public that antagonism
  arises. In private--in conversation which need not go beyond
  the walls of the room in which you are,--you can put your case
  as strongly as you like, and the gentleman with whom you are
  carrying on the discussion may put his case as strongly as he
  likes, and if good manners are observed and nothing but fair
  discussion takes place no soreness remains and no one is driven
  to ignore the strong points of his opponent’s case. Directly a
  controversy becomes public all that fair give-and-take becomes
  either difficult or impossible.... But if all you mean ... is
  that it is wrong for the nations of the world to find themselves
  hampered in their mutual relations by treaties of which those
  countries know nothing, that, I think, is an evil. I do not say
  that there have not been secret treaties which were inevitable;
  but I do say that, if they are necessary, they are a necessary
  evil. Please remember that two nations make a treaty together
  for their mutual advantage. Both are desirous of passing it. One
  nation says, ‘It is against our interest that this treaty should
  be made public at present.’ The other says, ‘We do not like being
  committed to any treaty the terms of which we cannot make public
  at once.’ Which is going to prevail?... It does not rest with
  any single Foreign Office, British or other. It is always an
  arrangement between two--possibly three or four, Foreign Offices.
  You cannot lay down--and I do not think you would be wise to
  lay down, an absolute rule that under no circumstances, and for
  no object, could you so far concede the point as to say that a
  treaty is to be made which is not to become public property. I
  am perfectly ready to admit that that is not a process which, to
  me, is a very agreeable one. To reduce secret treaties to the
  narrowest possible limits should, I think, be the object of every
  responsible statesman who has the control of foreign affairs.
  Beyond that I do not feel inclined to go. I do not see any signs
  of a grasp of the true realities of life in the Motion before
  us. You should have your control over those who manage your
  affairs, but it is not the kind of control which the honorable
  Member wishes to set up with his Committee of forty or fifty. It
  is quite a different control. You must know, broadly speaking,
  what the general lines of policy are, and I maintain that that is
  thoroughly known with regard to foreign affairs at this moment
  by every man in this House who takes the trouble to think. The
  general lines on which we are proceeding are thoroughly known.”

This argument brings out all the strong points of the system of secret
diplomacy under the existing conditions of international politics,
but it contains no hint that these conditions need improvement. They
cannot, as a matter of fact, be improved until some strong nations,
even at the risk of disadvantage to themselves, take the lead in
placing diplomatic affairs on a broader basis.




XII

THE PUBLIC AND DIPLOMACY


In consequence of the startling developments in diplomacy which
preceded and accompanied the great war, the relation of democracy to
diplomacy has been earnestly discussed of late, particularly in Great
Britain.

When considering this important matter, the distinction between the
_methods_ of diplomacy and diplomatic _policies_ should be borne in
mind for the sake of clearness of thought. The development of public
opinion, the disappearance of purely dynastic aims of state action, and
the constantly broadening outlook of political life, have led to the
elimination of most of the cruder methods of deception and intrigue.
But two questions still remain: Should diplomatic negotiations
be carried on in the public view, that is with constant and full
information given to the public or parliament, on all important
details? and, Should the diplomatic policy of a democratic government
at all times be kept fully before the representative bodies, and the
public?

Most discussions which favor the use of secret diplomacy, refer to
the presumed necessity of confidential _methods_ of negotiation. But
there are some publicists and statesmen who believe that the policy of
foreign affairs itself can best be handled by responsible statesmen
keeping their own counsel and giving to the public only a general
adumbration of the trend of policy. These two questions are constantly
mixed up in current discussion; and their absolute separation is
indeed difficult. Thus, a strictly secret diplomatic policy will
naturally accentuate the secrecy of the methods employed. Abstractly
considered, it would be quite possible to have the foreign policy of a
country determined by public action, and still to surround diplomatic
negotiations with secrecy. But if the substance of the policy were
definitely known in detail, the secrecy of methods would lose much of
its effectiveness.

The use of such methods is defended from two points of view; from that
of the trader who looks for a better bargain through not having given
away his entire hand at the beginning; and from that of the builder who
desires to work quietly without interruptions from an excitable public,
who desires to avoid difficulties and smooth away contrasts which
publicity would tend to exaggerate.

There is an _ex post facto_ publicity of diplomatic policy. If this is
afforded as soon as a new situation has arisen or a new agreement has
been created, some of the harm of secrecy is avoided. In such a case
the statesmen, cabinet, or conference, practically give assurance that,
if allowed to work quietly on a certain problem, they will produce a
solution which will commend itself in general to the sense of equity
of the nation or nations concerned; although the sum total of the
arrangement may contain details which, considered by themselves, would
be unacceptable and which might have interfered with the making of an
accord, if unduly emphasized or given publicity during the negotiations.

Mr. Balfour in his speech of March 19, 1918, which has already been
referred to, indeed speaks quite convincingly of the advantage of
confidential relations and of secrecy in negotiations, but he goes so
far as strongly to deprecate a demand for information on the part of
Parliament. In that he certainly shows a measure of anti-democratic
bias, as when he says, “Do not suppose that we can do the work better
by having to explain it _to a lot of people who are not responsible_.
That is not the way to get business properly done.” He therefore
rejects the idea of a parliamentary committee of control in the matter
of foreign relations. He agrees, however, that the existence of secret
treaties is an evil, although he thinks that it may be at certain times
necessary, because the associated treaty power may desire it. He is
mildly deprecatory, at best.

Count Czernin, speaking to the Austrian delegations on June 24, 1918,
concerning President Wilson’s fourteen points, stated that he has no
objection to the introduction of the principle of “open covenants,”
although he confesses that he does not know by what means effective
adherence thereto can be assured. Concerning diplomatic negotiations,
which he treats simply as a matter of business, he points out the
advantages of secrecy from the point of view of trading. Moreover, if
there were full publicity, the general public might passionately oppose
every action involving any concession as a defeat. This would not be
conducive to peaceable relations.

There are those who believe that the chief evils of secret diplomacy
would be avoided if ample opportunity were given for discussion in
representative assemblies, if there were a parliamentary committee
keeping constantly in touch with the conduct of foreign relations,
and if treaties and declarations of war could not be made without the
consent of the national legislature. Some advocates of democratic
control go so far as to reason that a decision to make war and thereby
to order the shedding of human blood, should not be made without a
national referendum vote.

On the other hand, those opposed to all publicity of diplomatic
affairs argue that international policies cannot be determined in
the market place. They hark back to DeTocqueville, who holds that as
democracy cannot be expected to regulate the _details_ of an important
undertaking, it is particularly unqualified to deal with international
matters where secrecy, discretion, and patience are required. Followers
of this opinion believe that the conduct of foreign affairs is best
placed quite unreservedly in the hands of responsible statesmen, who
have greater information, larger experience and more self-control than
the average of humanity. They generally have in view the preservation
of national interests, under conditions of peace if possible; they
will not be inflamed by exciting incidents, but will keep these in
proper subordination to the general plan. Such details, if made public,
would easily lead to occurrences that would upset the results of
wise planning. As Lord Cromer has said, it is such untoward chance
incidents which cannot be controlled that are to be feared, rather than
any deliberate plotting on the part of diplomats. Such responsible
statesmen always remain accountable for the general results of their
policy; they are conscious of the importance of their trust, and
therefore are a safer repository of discretionary powers than a general
committee.

Back of these arguments, however, there usually lies the conviction
that the public is superficial, easily swayed, excitable and altogether
delighting more in the hurrah of war than in the humdrum of peace. It
might be remarked that if such had actually been the case, the most
recent experience of the people with war has probably given them a
different idea of the attractiveness of that kind of excitement; unless
indeed the mass of humanity are irremediably and forever fools, when
taken in the aggregate.

The sensational character of the daily press must be considered in
this connection. The news value of normal, peaceable developments is
very small. It is therefore a godsend to the newspapers when something
extraordinary happens, particularly in international affairs. For
this reason, the daily news frequently presents an untrue or warped
picture of the actual situation. Gilbert Murray asks what people are
referred to by those who demand popular control of diplomacy; are
they the people of educational societies, or of the music halls? The
public is not homogeneous, or so organized as to give expression to
convictions on current affairs which have been maturely considered. It
lacks the leisure and training for penetrating superficialities and
going to the bottom of difficult questions. Lord Cromer believes in
general that democracies are not peaceful, and he refers particularly
to the American democracy for proof; Lord Lytton said, “Governments are
generally for diplomacy, the people for war.”

Men of all shades of opinion are agreed that the people are not greatly
interested in foreign affairs, and the opponents of proposals of
democratic control argue that it would be useless to create machinery
for action where there exists no interest, nor purpose to act.

It is quite true that the public during the nineteenth century seemed
less interested in foreign affairs than during the eighteenth. At the
earlier time, diplomacy was a fascinating, personal game, about which
the wiseacres in the coffee houses were eager to make their criticisms
and prognostications. When the middle class came to power in the
nineteenth century, it was primarily interested in economic and other
domestic questions, and was satisfied to leave the conduct of foreign
affairs to statesmen and diplomats. The constantly growing political
consciousness of the public at large was concentrated chiefly on
questions of internal politics and reform. Foreign affairs, as they
reached the public, were thought of still from the point of view of
the onlooker, rather than of him who actually had to bear the brunt of
the burden. Those who had to bleed and die when hostilities had been
brought about, never had any chance, nor determination, to influence
the course of diplomacy leading up to wars.

With such a general apathy of the public, it was not surprising that
diplomacy should cling to its caste privileges, should try to preserve
its discretionary powers, and should often attempt deliberately to keep
people in the dark. “In the public interest” is the curtain beyond
which no one may peer. Even in the American Government, particularly
during and since the war, foreign affairs have been handled with what
would ordinarily seem insufficient information to the public; in fact,
with occasional putting forth of misleading and entirely partial
information, or the refusal to furnish information even when requested
by those having official responsibilities. This is a notable change,
as up to 1914 it was substantially true that the United States had no
diplomatic secrets.

While from the point of view of traditional diplomacy, and of
international relations as they were up to the Great War, it seems
quite natural that democratic control should be thought by many to be
unpractical; and while indeed no one can flatter himself that through a
change of method the conduct of international affairs could suddenly be
rendered more wise and entirely effective towards the public welfare,
yet I cannot avoid the conclusion that there is a wrong orientation
in the emphasis of the need of secrecy and of the unfitness of the
people to deal with problems of foreign affairs. The belief in the
unfitness of the people in this matter appears to be the result of
a preconceived notion as to the overpowering difficulty, complexity
and almost sanctity of foreign affairs. Modern governments are based
on the principle that all legislation must meet the test of public
criticism and rest on public consent; certainly it cannot be argued
that matters of the incidence of taxation, the proper organization
of credit, and the determination of commercial policies, are less
complex and intricate than are foreign affairs. It is indeed true that
it is difficult for one nation thoroughly to appreciate in detail the
conditions of life in another. This truth should have its greatest
value in dissuading a nation from meddling with the internal affairs of
another, even from good motives. Those international questions which
are apt to produce war may indeed relate to intricate matters, but
the essential point is always the contention for power, influence or
commercial advantage, and it is not apparent why the public in general
should be unfit to judge as to whether national treasure and life
are eventually to be spent in huge quantities to bring about, or to
prevent, any such shifting of power or influence.

It is, however, because the motives involved are so largely connected
with class interests, or survivals of pride of race, that those
concerned in them are eager to deny the fitness of the general public,
which if called on to decide would put into the foreground the
question, “How does the control of this or that group of capitalists in
Morocco, for instance, or the greater or smaller influence of Austria
or Russia in Servia, affect the daily life and welfare of our people?”
It is certainly true that questions of peace and war have never
definitely been reasoned out on that basis. There has always been the
assumption that certain things were essential to national prestige and
could not be questioned; it is only when the actually existing broader
base of national political life is organized also for active control of
foreign affairs, that these considerations will have their full weight.
Only the most exceptional statesmen could lift themselves out of the
narrow groove of tradition and precedent; and more exceptional still,
in fact all but impossible, is the capacity of one man to represent in
himself in just proportion, all the interests and feelings of a nation.

Infallibility cannot be expected in the handling of foreign affairs,
whether under a broad discretion of statesmen or under strict
democratic control. There will always be an alternative of wisdom
and rashness, constructive planning and headlong action, carefulness
and negligence. But past experience has certainly established beyond
peradventure of doubt that secret diplomacy is not infallible, and
particularly that diplomacy acting under absolutist traditions,
as in Germany before the war, may make the most fatal mistakes of
judgment and of policy. Balfour said: “I do not think the Government
in June, 1914, had the slightest idea that there was any danger
ahead.” A remarkable statement, when we consider the actions and
reactions of secret diplomacy during the decade preceding the war.
It has been quite truly said that diplomacy is far more eminent in
autopsy than in diagnosis. M. Cheradame somewhat severely observes,
“The typical diplomat lives in a world of his own. His information is
rarely obtained by direct observation of people and facts.” And while
ordinarily men of exceptional talents are selected for the difficulty
position of Minister for Foreign Affairs, yet all considered, it
is hard to believe that were decisions on the essential matters of
international life made on a broader basis, and influenced more by a
direct action of public opinion, the result would be less wise.

Active participation of the people in the making of momentous decisions
regarding foreign affairs, is denied either under the assumption that
the people might not be ready to face the fateful test, or, by the
majority, with the thought that the people are too excitable and rash
to be trusted with such far-reaching decisions. While it is indeed easy
to generate warlike excitement among the masses, it must be remembered,
when such a charge of rashness is made, that the people have never
been currently informed of the development of international dangers,
but usually at a critical time shreds of information have been flashed
on them, designed or at least apt to stir up all their atavistic love
of fight and fear of attack. Even thus, the greatest noise is made
usually by those who do not in the event of hostilities actually have
to risk their blood and bones.

It stands to reason that if honestly kept informed about international
relationships, the people would be far less prone to sudden excitement.
Very few people indeed appear to doubt that had the decision of war
or no war been laid before the peoples of Europe in 1914, with a full
knowledge of the facts, the terrible catastrophe would never have come
about. As Mr. Lowes Dickinson has said, if the people had been allowed
to share the apprehension and precautions of the diplomats before 1914,
there would have been quite a simple and clear question before the
English people, for one. It could have decided whether it would pursue
a policy that might lead at any moment to a general European war, or
to take the alternative which Sir Edward Grey later spoke of, namely,
“to promote some arrangement, to which Germany could be a party by
which she could be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would
be pursued against her by France, Russia and ourselves, jointly or
separately.” Without the support of the people, kept in line by fear of
hidden dangers, not even the militarists of Germany could have forced
military action.

One of the first acts of the Russian Soviet Government was to announce
its hostility to secret diplomacy. When it first published the secret
treaties and documents of the Czarist Government, its motive was,
as shown by Trotsky’s declaration made at the time, thoroughly to
discredit the management of affairs under the old régime. In the same
connection, it announced its own purpose of conducting foreign affairs
in the open. Such seems indeed to have been its general practice with
respect to the announcement of policies, though its agents continued
to use underground methods. One thing, however, the Soviet Government
is evidently trying to bring about, namely, a broad public interest
in the conduct of foreign affairs. It desires the Russian people, and
more particularly the members of the ruling Communist Party, to be
currently informed about the progress of international affairs and
about arrangements concluded. Observers report that at the meeting of
the provincial soviets the first business ordinarily taken up is the
reading and discussion of a report on international relations sent by
the central government. We have no means to check up the truth of these
reports; but this effort to interest the broad mass of the population
in the outward relations of the state is certainly worth notice. The
expectation is encouraged that the reason for acts relating to foreign
affairs will be explained, particularly when sacrifices are demanded.




XIII

A SURVIVAL OF ABSOLUTISM


Those who view the modern state as a purely predatory
organization,--for exploitation within and without,--point to the
methods, practices and results of diplomacy as one of the plainest
indications of the sinister nature of the political state. Such
criticism cannot be safely brushed aside as utterly unreasonable; it
should rather call forth a searching inquiry as to whether, as a matter
of fact, the conduct of foreign affairs could not and should not be
brought into greater consonance with genuinely democratic principles,
and be placed on the sound basis of well-informed public support.

No matter what opinion one may hold with respect to the necessity of
secret diplomacy, it must be recognized that this practice involves
a very narrow conception of the active scope of democracy. It is in
fact a historical survival from the period of the absolutist state;
or in other words, that aspect of the modern state which deals with
foreign affairs has retained the character of absolutism. It is a
superstition, in the picturesque sense of that word used by Lowell,
when he defines it as “something left standing over from one of the
world’s witenagemotes to the other.” In this case, indeed the most
recent witenagemote approached the question and proposed a step in
advance towards its solution. But the difficulty still persists.

In its relations with other states, the state is considered to be
absolute, not bound by any laws, responsible only for its own security,
welfare and progressing influence. The struggle for political power
still exists among states, in essentially the same keenness and
rigidity with which it appeared to the eyes of Machiavelli. The
importance of world-wide human relationships, and of international
coöperation in scientific and economic life, has indeed been brought
forth and given its place in the public mind; but because of the manner
in which the conduct of international affairs is actually handled, the
feeling thus generated does not have much chance to influence action at
critical times, when the people are startled and excited by the sudden
revelation of dangers, which awaken in them all the bitter feelings
engendered by the past struggles of mankind.

This survival is given strength by class interests, pride of race, and
by the manipulations of plutocratic control. Where affairs are handled
by a narrow circle of men, no matter how high-minded and how thoroughly
conscious of their public responsibility, yet with the necessary
limitations of the human mind, they cannot but be influenced at every
turn by the opinions of others with whom they are actually in contact;
so that in decisions on these momentous matters, the thing which is
concretely present is very often an interest comparatively narrow in
itself, and related to the public welfare only by a series of remote
inferences which are accepted at their face value. The most successful
statesman of the nineteenth century said that the whole Balkan question
was not worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier; yet his successors
in power risked the very existence of the nations of Europe for one
phase of that question.

Powerful interests will always have means, formal or informal, to lay
their needs and desires before the men in power. They may indeed be
very important and may deserve special attention, but unfortunately,
many cases have happened in which their point of view has been adopted
without making sure that there existed a general public interest
sufficiently important to warrant taking the risks involved.

A diplomatic caste recruited from a certain class of society, trained
in the traditions of authority, in contact all the time with men of
similar views and principles, cannot in the nature of things free
itself from the limitations of such environment and such training.

From the personal point of view diplomacy has adhered to the belief
in the superior intelligence, ability and foresight in the handling
of foreign affairs, on the part of those who by inherited traditions
and special experience may be said to belong to a caste distinguished
from the mass of humanity. Some one has said, there is a great danger
in that there exists a caste of people who have taken the making of
history as their profession; who still cling to the erroneous idea
that the manipulation of large masses of people, the redistribution of
territories, and the modification of the natural processes of grouping
and settlement, is history. But such people who believe they are making
history are really obstructing it. Even so unusual a man as Bismarck,
working as he did on a great national problem, did not gain lasting
success in action whereby he endeavored to anticipate the developments
of history. The artful contrivance and harsh, ruthless execution
of many of his plans left a heritage of evil to the world; but the
greatest evil lay in the example given by so successful a man in making
it seem that history could actually thus be made. The attitude which
is taken in behalf of such men, in claiming for them a completely free
and full discretion in controlling foreign affairs, recalls a statement
made by H. G. Wells concerning a British leader: “He believes that
he belongs to a particularly gifted and privileged class of beings
to whom the lives and affairs of common men are given over--the raw
material for brilliant careers. It seems to him an act of insolence
that the common man should form judgments on matters of statecraft.”
The diplomats of the old school indeed do require the people, but only
as material with which to work out their grandiose projects. Their view
not too distantly resembles that of the German militarists to whom
ordinary humanity existed only for one purpose, “to do their damn’d
duty.”

We should naturally expect to find the greatest secrecy and the
most callous use of secretive methods, where absolutism remains
most completely established. In the last remaining absolutism,
that of Japan, these expectations are fulfilled, both as regards
carefully-guarded secrecy of all diplomatic action, and the habitual
use of well phrased declarations of a theoretical policy, announced for
public consumption, but bearing only a Platonic relation to the details
of actual doings. But more liberally governed states have not by any
means all freed themselves from this practice, even to the extent of
faithfully keeping the representative bodies, and the public, informed
of the true character and aims of important national policies.

During the discussions of the last few years, a great many remedies
for this state of affairs have been suggested. The Constitutional
practice of the United States has been taken as a model in England
in the suggestion that there should be a representative committee on
foreign affairs in the House of Commons, which should keep in constant
touch with the diplomatic officials and supervise the conduct of
foreign relations; that there should be at least two days given to
the discussion of the Foreign Office Vote; that there should be full
reports made on the progress of all important negotiations; and that
treaties and alliances should not be concluded, nor war made, without
a previous authorization on the part of Parliament. The last formal
proposal of this kind was the motion made in March, 1918, in the
House of Commons, the opposition to which by Mr. Balfour has already
been alluded to. That he should object particularly to the prying
into foreign affairs on the part of persons “not responsible,” and by
“politicians,” that the proposed committee of the House of Commons
should be thus characterized, throws light on the prejudices involved;
but it also reveals the absurdity of the present arrangement from the
point of view of free government. In France there has existed, since
1902, a standing committee on foreign and colonial affairs in the
Chamber of Deputies.

When he was premier, in 1920, Signor Giolliti introduced a bill
carrying the following provision: “Treaties and International
understandings, whatever be their subject and character, are valid only
after they have been approved by Parliament. The Government of the
King can declare war only with the approval of the two Chambers.” The
ministry of Giolliti fell before this sound measure could be passed.

It may be questioned whether many of the arrangements suggested could
be more than palliatives, as long as an intelligent and constant public
interest in foreign affairs has not been aroused, and as long as the
absolutist aspect of foreign policy continues. The suggestion that war
should not be made without a previous national referendum, has indeed
logic on its side from the point of view of the democratic theory of
state, but it has thus far not entered into the state of practical
consideration.

The most important remedy as yet attempted is the provision in the
Covenant of the League of Nations, that all treaties shall be made
public. No greater encouragement, indeed, could be given to the growth
of confidence and the destruction of baneful suspicions and fears,
throughout international life, than if it were possible to assure
the nations of the world that all engagements imposing international
obligations of any kind whatsoever would be made known immediately
upon their conclusion. This provision of the Covenant has already
gone into force, and numerous new treaties have been submitted, even
by governments who are not as yet members of the League. But certain
governments have delayed compliance in cases where treaties are known
to have been made secretly. As there is no specific sanction for this
provision in the Covenant, and as actually binding agreements can be
made without taking the form of a treaty or convention, this remedy
is not in itself powerful enough to remove the evil. If two or three
states are willing to keep an engagement secret at the risk of later
incurring a certain amount of opprobrium when the fact is discovered,
there is no means as yet available for obliging them to abandon such
course. Nevertheless, this provision of the Covenant constitutes
a great advance in the work of placing the public business of the
world on the only sound basis, and cultivating that confidence upon
which depends the future immunity of mankind from constant danger of
suffering and destruction. It will, however, not be a real remedy
until the nations agree actually to outlaw all secret agreements as a
conspiracy against the general welfare and safety.

The other important advance made in the Covenant is found in the
provisions for the investigation of any cause of conflict before
hostilities shall be resorted to. If after the first shock of
excitement, which accompanies the revelation of a serious international
crisis, public opinion can be given a certain space of time to inform
itself, then it may indeed be hoped that a different temper will
control the giving of the fateful doom of war. As Count Czernin has
stated, on the night of August 4, 1914, between the hours of nine and
midnight the decision as to whether England would come into the war,
lay with the German Government. A system under which such tremendous
issues have to be decided in such a manner, is absurd to the verge of
insanity.[E]

    [E] A German writer puts the blame for the outbreak of the
        war on the telegraph. He says that if there had been no
        telegraphic communication between the capitals, the fatal
        crisis would not have arisen; there would have been time
        for reflection and a decision to make war would never have
        been taken in blood.

While the above arrangements, if they could be effectively carried out,
would undoubtedly serve to moderate the evils which now result from
the conduct of international affairs on so narrow a basis, yet it is
difficult to expect from them more than relatively superficial results.
It is only if a new spirit can be developed among the nations, and if
the absolutist conception of the state as far as it still remains, can
be transformed into something more consonant with the complexity and
delicacy of human relationships, that we may hope to hail the dawn of a
new era. It would be as great a transformation as that which separates
the Pagan from the Christian ideal. Mankind is still somewhat blinded
by the glitter and pageantry of the absolutist state; the pride of
power manifests itself now particularly in foreign intercourse. When
Portugal became a republic, it desired at first to abolish the entire
diplomatic establishment, and to allow all international business
to be done by the consuls. That proposal may have resulted from an
instinctive feeling that there was something incompatible between a
really free community, and the sense of absolute power embodied in
diplomacy.

A change can be brought about only when the underlying unity of mankind
is more intensely felt and when the common interests in science,
commerce, industry and the universal language of art are valued at
their true importance to the welfare of the people of all nations.
Joint effort in the constructive work of developing resources,
particularly in the tropics, will make it possible for vastly increased
populations to live in comfort on their present sites, without the need
of crowding each other. A higher valuation of humanity, a more just
proportion in the influence permitted different interests, a keener
scrutiny of traditions and watch-words--all this is necessary. Men
and women to-day feel an intense apprehension, when they think of the
fate of their children in a world in which the unreasoning prejudices
and unenlightened practices that have recently again come to the fore
in international life should prevail, leaving mankind in a dazed
confusion, and pushing the people from time to time into wholesale
slaughter with ever more horrible instruments of destruction. They feel
also that if secret policies, engendering fears and suspicion, are
to continue to be the dominant factor, then all improvement in human
welfare, education and science, will have to be in a large measure
postponed to the preparation of constantly more formidable engines of
death. One cannot but remember the worst imprecations of the Greek
tragic poets and philosophers, on the miserable destiny of man. In
fact, if we should have to believe that no better way could be found
to manage the vital interests of mankind, a great natural catastrophe,
which would extinguish once and for all the miserable breed on this
planet, would almost appear in the light of a redemption.

But we cannot believe that the peoples of the world will be so foolish
as to allow themselves to remain in this condition and not to find
their way to a reorganization of public affairs which will make such a
haphazard and perilous situation impossible. It seems plain that the
idea of the state and of state action will have to be transformed in
accordance with the greater self-consciousness of humanity which has
developed in the last century, or the desire to scrap the political
state and to find some more adequate and natural form of organization
will rapidly gain in strength. Meanwhile, there is a need of the
formation of a great freemasonry of all publicists, political men and
teachers of the people, united in the resolve to know and make known
the essential elements in current international affairs, to arouse the
public to a sense of the importance of these matters to their every-day
life, and to support the men more directly responsible for the conduct
of foreign policy, with an intelligent, searching, reasonable and broad
public opinion.




XIV

RECENT AMERICAN EXPERIENCE


Up until a recent date Americans could contemplate the play of secret
diplomacy in Europe and Asia with a feeling of entire aloofness,
as belonging to a political society which had neither need nor
inclination to utilize such methods. Our unmenaced continental
position, the natural protection and separation implied in distance
and ocean boundaries, and the conscious intention of keeping clear of
international entanglements, all contributed to make the foreign policy
of the United States entirely public and straightforward. The fathers
of the Constitution had established the sound principle that treaties
are the law of the land. This not only involves mature consideration of
a treaty before it is made, but publicity as well. The American people
have known at all times what obligations had been incurred, and the
world had the same information. There has been no room for guesswork
and suspicion.

The instructions which were issued to John Jay when he was sent as
special envoy to England in 1794 lay down the following rule of
conduct: “It is the President’s wish that the characteristics of an
American minister should be marked on the one hand by a firmness
against improper compliances, and on the other by sincerity, candor,
truth and prudence, and by a horror of finesse and chicane.” These
straightforward words began a tradition which has ever since animated
the American diplomatic service. When after the Spanish war, under
Secretary Hay, American diplomacy entered more fully into world-wide
problems than in any previous era, the expression “the new diplomacy”
was currently used in a laudatory sense to designate what Hay had
implied when in a public address he had declared the Golden Rule to
be the cardinal principle of American diplomacy--an ideal which makes
secrecy and intrigue unnecessary.

In order to give the public an opportunity of informing itself
concerning the conduct and development of foreign affairs, the United
States Government has from an early date published an annual collection
of diplomatic correspondence. Since 1861, this publication is known
as _Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States_.
It was formerly published within two or three years of the year to
which it related, but during the war this interval was considerably
extended. The precedents and principles elaborated in the diplomatic
correspondence of the United States have been collected, codified
and published in a very important and useful compendium by Francis
Wharton, under the title of _Digest of International Law_. This work
was expanded, amplified and brought down to date by Prof. John Bassett
Moore, under the same title, in 1906. It is of the highest importance,
not only as a repository of diplomatic and legal precedent, but as
a definite and public record of the position taken by the American
Government on all international questions that had arisen up to the
date of its publication. The preparation of such digest on the part
of other governments is highly to be desired for the purpose of
clarifying international law and policy, and for giving them a sound
basis of reason and experience upon which the people and governments
may rely. The fact that a precedent reported in this digest, might be
cited against the American Government as an admission, does not imply
a disadvantage which would at all offset the benefits resulting in
general from public knowledge.

With respect to the details of negotiation, there are confidential
relationships which have always been observed by the American
Government. Ordinary considerations of courtesy require that those
who may speak to us frankly in confidence shall not be made to suffer
by being quoted and thus perhaps be exposed to misunderstanding and
criticism. On our part, in preparing a sound basis of action, favorable
as well as unfavorable matters have to be considered; yet there
is ordinarily no need of publicly advertising the shortcomings of
individuals and governments as set forth in reports on such unfavorable
matters. Such considerate action is not based on a desire to mislead or
to take advantage, but to save unnecessary irritation. For the purpose
of permitting complete freedom of discussion and of criticism without
the risk of giving offense, the United States Senate, as a matter of
its ordinary procedure, goes into secret session when discussing a
treaty submitted to it. There have, however, been several exceptions.
Thus, for instance, the debates on the Bayard-Chamberlain Fisheries
Treaty of 1888, on the Taft arbitration treaties of 1912, and on the
Nicaragua Treaty of 1916, were carried on, and concluded, in open
session. Many senators are in favor of making this the common practice.

Before the war, as Prof. John Bassett Moore, whose knowledge of
the records is unequaled, said to me, the State Department had no
secrets whatsoever, with the exception of personnel reports. We, too,
however, can depart from a well-established tradition, as is shown by
our diplomatic history during the war. I do not believe it will ever
be charged that in any matter big or little the American Government
sought narrow, selfish advantages. Secrecy due to such motives,
there was none. There was no American policy or enterprise that
needed concealment, apart from military policies and strategy during
a war. When I glanced over at the end of my mission in Peking the
extra-confidential cable correspondence, I was inwardly amazed by the
entire lack of anything that really needed concealing, in that closely
guarded dossier.

Yet American diplomacy did during the war fall somewhat under the spell
of the traditional methods still in vogue in Europe. We were not a
party to any secret engagements for the division of spoils after the
war, although from the time of the peace conference on, the influence
of the American Government was exercised mostly in secret, and the
agreements subsidiary to the general settlement were secretly signed.
These did not contain any apportionment of advantage to the United
States, but on the contrary were supposed to contain the nearest
approach to the equitable ideas of American policy which was, under
existing conditions, obtainable. But throughout this trying period
the conduct of American diplomacy did not rest on the foundation of a
continuous, frank appeal to the public opinion of our own nation or of
the world.

Even before the armistice some very important matters were dealt with
in this fashion. Though the permanent importance of the Lansing-Ishii
note as affecting in a concrete and specific way the definition of
rights and policies in the Far East is very doubtful, yet in its
immediate effect under all of the circumstances of the time, this was
certainly a noteworthy document to issue from the American foreign
office. Yet, its conception and execution was absolutely surrounded
with secrecy so that not even the high officials normally consulted in
such matters, with the exception of the Secretary of State himself,
were informed as to what was coming. This secrecy worked entirely in
the interest of the Japanese government. By privately giving out the
agreement in Japan and in China before the date when its publication
had been agreed upon, the Japanese government succeeded to a certain
extent and for a time, in giving this matter the appearance of a great
Japanese diplomatic victory and of a highly important concession on the
part of the United States.

It is not necessary to recall the general disillusionment that came
about when President Wilson agreed to the policy of secrecy at the
peace conference. Undoubtedly this decision was based on the motive
to secure, with a promptness required by the stress of the times,
a settlement which would in general commend itself to the sense of
justice of the world, although it might necessarily contain details
which, if published by themselves, would cause lengthy public
discussion and delay the final solution. If such an expectation was
entertained, it was not as a matter of fact fulfilled in the results
of these secret consultations. The method adopted did not favor the
broad and permanent view, but rather the more shortsighted bargaining
in which the old diplomacy excels. In their solutions neither the
consultations of the peace conference, nor the subsequent diplomatic
negotiations among the Allies, got beyond the old methods of bartering
the destinies of small and weak peoples, which had been used by the
Congresses of Vienna and of Berlin with disastrous results. The various
conferences of 1919 to 1920 recorded a complete return to the system
of secret diplomacy, to such an extent that it appeared constantly as
if the plenipotentiaries feared to let their doings be known. Even when
there was no reason from any point of view for concealment, information
came out in a roundabout fashion which left the public mind confused;
as for instance in the giving out of a decision regarding the fate of
Constantinople, and in the reports concerning the text of President
Wilson’s Adriatic memorandum which were current before its publication.

From the entanglements of this procedure American diplomacy did not
keep itself free, nor did it, at this time, assist the world in finding
a more straightforward method more in accord with American political
experience.

The disadvantages of secret methods of transacting public business have
been brought home to the American people through several incidental
matters of no small importance. It evidently was the intention of
President Wilson to reserve American rights as to the Island of Yap
which is a vital link in the chain of cable communication between
America and the Far East, and a reservation of this kind is indicated
by references in the official minutes, though not by a written
protocol. Without the knowledge of the United States, the Council of
the League of Nations later disposed of the mandate for all of the
North Pacific Islands. As this action was secret, it could not be
known whether the American interest bearing on Yap Island had been
safeguarded or not. It was stated as late as January 26, 1921, that the
American Government was not in possession of the greater part of the
minutes of the Peace Conference. Notwithstanding the protests of the
United States, Japan based her claim to the North Pacific Islands on
the secret treaties made during the war.

The secrecy of the peace conference, and the revelations before and
during its sessions, concerning the secret treaties for the division of
the spoils, produced a great disillusionment in the public mind. The
fact that the United States though asked to make enormous sacrifices
in the common cause had been kept in the dark concerning at least some
of these treaties, and particularly of those which affected its own
interest, did not inspire the American public with any confidence in
the general conduct of affairs among the nations.

After the adjournment of the conference the American President and
Government still continued to take a part in the various attempts
to settle outstanding questions, particularly with respect to
the Adriatic. When President Wilson towards the end of February,
1920, addressed a note to the allied powers concerning the Adriatic
settlement, the documents and negotiations which had gone before were
entirely unknown to the public. On December 9, 1919, an agreement
had been signed by Great Britain, France and the United States,
Undersecretary Polk signing for the latter. On January 9th, the British
and French premiers had agreed with the Italian premier on a modified
plan of settlement. On February 10th, the American Secretary of State
wrote a note containing President Wilson’s objections to the plan of
January 9th. The allied premiers replied to this note on February 18th.
All these agreements and this correspondence were kept secret, nor was
President Wilson’s final answer given out for some time; only more or
less accurate prognostications appeared in the press.

The American Government at this time was at a disadvantage in not
participating in the negotiations directly; the American ambassador
at Paris was invited from time to time to hear what the conference of
premiers cared to tell him, but the proceedings of the conference were
apparently not transmitted to the American Government. The British
press at the time quite generally expressed great dissatisfaction
with the methods followed by the diplomats. The _Westminster Gazette_
wrote: “The whole of both peoples is acutely concerned in the result.
We must, therefore, register a protest against the manner in which the
negotiations are being conducted. They are being carried on in secrecy,
only broken by unreliable rumors, by the three principal governments.
The peoples have a right to know what is being done in their name, so
that they may be able to protest, if need be, against decisions which
may affect their future relations.” The _Times_ protested: “We are not
going to stand by and have our friendship and relations with America
jeopardized by the proceedings of a triumvirate sitting behind closed
doors. The American democracy, we imagine, will not be less resolved to
assert their rights and stifle this effort at secret diplomacy.”

At this time Mr. Bonar Law, the government spokesman in the House of
Commons, denied absolutely that a harsh and uncompromising reply had
originally been drafted to President Wilson’s despatch, and that it
had subsequently been changed through the influence of Viscount Grey
and Lord Robert Cecil. The _Times_ characterized this denial as “an
example of verbal quibbling which inferior intelligences mistake for
diplomacy,” and maintained that “though it may be verbally true, it
conveys and is designed to convey what is untrue”; and the _Daily
Mail_ stated that the country owed a debt of gratitude to Lord Grey
for his activities in the matter. This all illustrates on how insecure
a foundation, and with what chances of confusion, public opinion has
to work in matters of foreign affairs where the practices of the old
diplomacy are followed.

The American people at this time very nearly lost patience with the
entire business, and turned away from European affairs with complete
disgust. This is the most outstanding effect produced by the secret
diplomacy of Europe as far as the American people are concerned. The
danger now is that their feeling of disgust and confusion, and their
impatience with the selfish and shortsighted manipulations of European
diplomacy, will over-emphasize the desire of America to live by and
for herself alone. If such a mood and temper should prevail, it would
be a great loss to America and to the world. At no time has the world
needed America more than at present, not so much from the point of view
of direct economic assistance, as on account of the fact that American
experience, principles and ideals constitute at the present time the
hope of the peoples of the whole world; and America could, if she
desired, exercise an enormous influence in making the popular desire
for such action active, vital and fruitful.

But even aside from the general confidence which is felt by the
peoples of Europe and Asia in the character and ideals of the United
States, there are a great many specific contributions which America
could make to the solution of European problems. No matter how much we
shall desire during the next decade to hold aloof from Europe and to
concentrate on our own affairs, nevertheless, should European affairs
go radically wrong through a constant denial and deception of the
hopes and aspirations of the people for honest and sensible solutions,
America in the end will again have to share the burden thus laid on the
shoulders of mankind.

The fundamental American principle that treaties have the force and
status of law contains in itself the promise of solving some of the
worst troubles of the world, if it could be generally applied. America
should continue, for her own safety and that of the world, to use her
whole influence for making that principle a part of the universal
public law. No international engagement shall be binding unless
ratified by a representative body, and published to all the nations.
Otherwise it shall be absolutely void, and shall not give rise to
any rights or obligations; in fact, an attempt to make an agreement
contrary to these conditions shall be considered an act hostile to the
peace of the world. That should be the recognized law.

Nothing shows so clearly how human development has halted at this
point, as the fact that it should still require an argument to
show the necessity of publicity and lawfulness with respect to the
most essential interests of the vast populations that make up the
international family.

The record and constant practice of the United States, as well as her
great actual and potential power, fit her above all others to be a
leader in the establishment of this principle. The American nation
possesses a great moral capital in the confidence and trust that
the peoples of the world repose in it. No matter if unsympathetic
chanceries should plot to prevent America from making her influence
felt in the affairs of the world, no matter how European diplomacy
may occasionally sneer at American idealism, the peoples themselves,
great and small, including particularly those areas so immensely
important--Russia and China--would willingly look to America for
leadership and guidance, with complete trust and confidence. When this
is fully realized, we shall also be able to judge how vitally what
America stands for in the world will be strengthened by a constant
adherence to open and straightforward methods in international
intercourse.

But America herself, it will be said, cannot fundamentally change the
spirit that animates foreign policies, and bring about the universal
use of honest and open practices. We are living under a system which is
the result of historic forces that have not yet fully spent themselves
and which put the potential enmity among nations in the foreground.

I do not believe that it is necessary to shut our eyes to reality and
to seek recourse in a Utopian policy, in order to escape the menace
inherent in current international practices. If America will only not
fall in line with the absolutist tradition in diplomacy, but will
emphasize at all times, with all her influence, those principles of
international conduct which our natural freedom from entanglements
has permitted us to develop as of actual experience, America will
contribute in a most potent manner to the realization of that new
spirit which must surely come to deliver humanity. That spirit is not a
mere ideal,--it is fortunately already present in much of international
practice; but it needs constantly to be followed up and supported
in order that it may become the customary and instinctive guide,
superseding such prejudices as are still current which favor tortuous
manipulation and perpetuate an uninformed and confused state of the
public mind.

In order to fulfil this promise and destiny the United States would
have to rely in the first place on the inherent merit of her ideals
and principles of action, and on the support which they will receive
from the approval of the peoples of the world. As far as organized
governments go, as distinguished from the people, some will be more
inclined than others to coöperate with the United States in a reform
of international practice. There is no question but that the great
majority of governments will thus coöperate, though some of the most
important may for a time be left on the other side.

With those peoples and governments who are in language, political
traditions and general impulses most closely related to us, there
should grow up a particularly strong feeling of confidence making
all our intercourse absolutely open. There certainly need not be any
secrets between the United States and the great commonwealths of Canada
and Australia. Our interests, our condition, our institutions, all make
for the closest understanding. Through them there may be also realized
that harmony which ought by every normal reason to exist between the
United States and the English people, and which is disturbed only from
time to time when the policy of the British government is determined
more from the point of view of the supposed needs of the British Empire
in India, than of that of the true tradition of the English-speaking
world. I do not think of treaties or of alliances, but of something
much stronger--an intimate understanding among peoples, based on mutual
trust and confidence, and the consciousness of a common destiny, common
purposes, and a common belief in the things which alone will prevent
civilization from extinguishing itself in senseless hatreds.




CONCLUSION


In modern diplomacy there still persists the image of the chess
players intent on their complicated game, planning each move with long
foresight of all the combinations that could possibly be organized
by the opponent. In the popular image, too, the great diplomat is
conceived as spinning a complicated web of actions and relationships in
which every detail is subordinate and subservient to a general dominant
purpose. Then comes the international publicist and with ingenuity
still more refined than that of the imagined diplomat, he reasons out
the innermost ambitions that dominate and inspire the makers of foreign
affairs. So it has remained possible for the most extravagant imaginary
constructions to be put forth in volumes of sober aspect, which purport
to give the key to diplomacy or to expose the pernicious ambitions of
this or that foreign office. It has become a game in which nothing is
impossible to the constructive imagination.

To any one familiar with the usual methods of foreign offices and
of diplomatic representatives, the idea that foreign affairs are
really handled in this manner, like mental legerdemain, becomes quite
grotesque. Complicated manipulations with respect to movements far
in the future, looking to still more distant results,--that kind of
diplomatic planning exists more in the imagination than in the actual
conduct of foreign affairs. In the majority of cases foreign offices
meet each situation as it arises, relying indeed on precedents and
having certain underlying aims and purposes, but giving most attention
to the facts immediately present and often satisfied with anything that
will ease a troublesome or embarrassing situation. Foreign offices
indeed differ greatly in the definiteness and constancy of their
objectives and the completeness with which they subordinate details to
central aims. The Russian foreign office always had the reputation of
great continuity of policy; it gave the central place to fundamental
objectives to which problems that arose from day to day could be
referred; and thus it solved them with a cumulative effect upon the
advancement of its political aims.

From the point of view of the older traditions of diplomacy, there
would be a decided advantage in definiteness of plan and in the
harmonious subordination of all details to the main idea. However, the
advantage of this method is frequently defeated through the narrowness
of the objects aimed at, when diplomatic policy is conceived in this
manner. Immediate purposes may indeed be achieved more readily, but
the permanent results will usually be barren or lead ultimately to
conflicts of forces. In such a system there is too much abstraction
from the multiform forces of actual life; and while those who pursue it
may flatter themselves that they are making history, they are not often
building in accordance with natural and historic forces.

The concept of diplomacy which has been criticized in these pages does
not exclude the possibility of immediate brilliant success; but its
ineffectiveness appears when we view it over longer periods of history.
It is built on too narrow a foundation. We have seen that even with
the greatest statesmen, any plan of action conceived in this manner
has such positive limitations that the very success in executing such
policies through a shrewd play of diplomatic forces, conjures up new
dangers and difficulties. The wisdom of no man nor small self-contained
group of men is at present sufficient to measure the needs of society
and to transform its impulses into effective action. A broader basis
for policy is needed. But the greatest weakness of the old method lies
in the fact that just at the very times when men are most in need of
confidence and of a spirit of reason and sane judgment, this mode of
action leaves the public mind in confusion, excitement and the darkest
fears.

If democracy means anything, its significance for the welfare of
humanity must lie in the value of allowing constantly more and more
minds to participate in the great things of the world. Not only would
such participation seem to be a natural right of the human mind but
also the things most worth while can be achieved only when the ablest
and best can freely lend their efforts. To all this a narrow system of
secret management by a limited hierarchy is hostile. The old diplomacy
rests entirely on skepticism as to the wisdom and self-control of
the people. The people are merely material for statesmanship. This
conception is blind to the fact that everything that is great in modern
life has arisen through the freedom with which talent may manifest
itself wherever found and that in all pursuits of humanity that are
worth while, innumerable minds coöperate, in a degree as warranted
by their capacity to bring about sound action and improvement. The
older diplomacy assumed that the people furnished only passive
material for statesmanship to work upon, and it saw in the public only
potentialities for vague and general influences which statesmanship in
turn was to mold and utilize. The greatest distance it went, was to
admit that national policy must rest on popular instinct; a principle
which is quite compatible with the practice of secret diplomacy. When
we come to talk of political instincts, however, we are dealing with
one of the vaguest and most indefinite concepts known to thought. These
instincts may be interpreted and given active expression as it suits
any diplomatic policy. Unfortunately the “instincts” most to the fore
are not usually helpful to calm and sound action. In international
affairs, an instinctive dislike or hatred of anything different has
again and again been made the basis of aggressive action, stirring
up otherwise peaceful populations to warlike and murderous intent.
Great national policies may often truly be said to rest on instinct
in the sense that undivided popular support is given to a policy from
a variety of motives which are not clearly reasoned out but which all
express themselves in an overpowering impulse which may be called
instinctive. Thus the Monroe policy in which the most fundamental
motive is the desire for peace and for the safety of the continental
position of the American nation, may be said to rest on the instinct of
self-preservation.

But it is quite plain that unless what is here called instinct can
be transformed into an intelligent, wise and discriminating public
opinion, such instinct is but a shifting sand, affording material which
may be molded into any desired form by an ambitious policy working
through suggestion and propaganda. Instinct can be transformed into
a true public policy only through publicity and through the training
of large groups of men to see things with true eyes and to judge with
reason and wisdom. Here is the crux of the matter. Secret diplomacy
treats all except the inner official ring as outsiders and “persons
without responsibility.” Among these outsiders there may be numerous
persons actually better qualified than the officials themselves,
through experience and thought, to judge of international affairs. No
one can here assume infallibility. Safe counsel can come only if the
entire intelligence and moral sentiment of a nation can find expression
and if its fittest individuals can concentrate their attention upon
every great problem as it arises. A sound, just, wise public policy
without publicity cannot be imagined. To consider publicity an evil,
to consider it as impeding the proper flow of international influences
and obstructing the solution of international difficulties, appears as
an unbelievable perversion when we consider the true implications of
such a thought.

It is therefore inestimably important that the facts of international
life, the materials out of which policies are formed, should be known
freely and fully to the public of every nation. The manipulation
of international communications for political purposes is the most
sinister and dangerous part of the system with which secret diplomacy
is entwined. According to this theory it is not only not good for the
people to know everything but they must also be made to know things
about the truth of which we need not bother our heads but which will
stimulate the passions and arouse the instincts our policy desires
to work upon. Thus the void left by secrecy, by a concealment of the
true nature and character of internationally important matters, is
frequently supplied by an intelligence service carrying distorted
and colored versions of facts; all this confuses and discourages the
public mind to such an extent that it becomes unable to sever fact from
fiction and to form a consistent and firm judgment.

The abolition of secret diplomacy is not a matter of agreeing to
have no more secrets. It is a matter of arousing among the public so
powerful a determination to know, so strong a sentiment of the value of
truth, such a penetrating spirit of inquiry, that the secrets will fade
away as they always do when the importance of a situation is really
understood by a large number of people.

Meanwhile it need not appear futile to work for the positive
elimination of secrecy. No one can doubt that the provision of the
Covenant of the League of Nations, which requires that all treaties
shall be made public, is salutary and that its enforcement would
greatly increase public confidence. But it is necessary to go beyond
this and to outlaw any agreement which is kept secret, by making it the
public law of the world that no rights or obligations can be founded on
such attempts against the peace and common welfare of the nations.

The personal relationships of diplomacy also require attention. The
spirit of the Diplomatic Service should be transformed in accordance
with the modern organization of society. The most essential weakness
of caste diplomacy lies in the fact that it does not provide means
for a sufficient contact among the peoples of the world. Contact is
maintained only within a narrow class. The diplomatic fraternity lives
in its own realm of precedences, rivalries and traditions. To confine
the intercourse and interchange of influences so narrowly, is a great
weakness of our present political system.

The diplomatic office should be conceived as having the function to
represent not only the special national interest of the respective
country, but also, on an equal plane, its participation in all the
activities and interests which are common to the nations of the world.
The legations and embassies should be provided with a personnel
of attachés not only for political and military affairs, but for
commerce, education, science and social legislation. All these
matters are already dealt with to some extent by common action among
the nations. The sending of ministers as delegates to international
technical conferences has often been criticized as importing into
such conferences the narrow, separatist point of view of diplomatic
politics. It should be exactly the other way; participation in such
conferences ought to impart to diplomats a broad spirit of coöperation
instead of a desire to maintain intact a theoretical isolation. That is
the essence of the matter. As long as it is supposed that by jealously
scrutinizing every international relationship from the point of view
of abstract political independence, and assuming that it is best to
make the very least possible contribution of energy and coöperation,
the national interest can be most promoted; so long will diplomatic
action continue on a strained basis, always being painfully conscious
of the potential enmity among nations. But when it is realized that in
nearly every case the national interest, or the interest of the people
of the nation which ought to be synonymous therewith, is best advanced
by whole-souled coöperation in constructive work in commerce, industry,
science and the arts, then the political factor of diplomatic rivalry
will assume more just proportions as compared with the other interests
of humanity.

This borders upon a very broad subject dealing rather with general
international policy than with the specific problems we were
considering; and yet we ought to be aware of this background. We need
not give up our conviction that the autonomy of the national state
must be preserved and that each political society shall dispose of
its own affairs within its borders as its wisdom and judgment may
dictate, free from intervention from without. But complete freedom of
local self-determination can rest only upon a universal recognition
of that right in all others, in a spirit of confidence and security
engendered by the absence of intrigue and secret ambitions. In a still
greater measure does the happiness of the national state depend on
free and full coöperation with all others in all pursuits, activities
and interests common to humanity and in making the earth a place for
dignified and happy human life. Unless diplomacy looks forward to
this and helps to bring it about, it will remain ensnared in the old
practices which ever lead only to barren results.

Lincoln’s simple faith in the people has not yet been adequately
applied in international affairs. International action has shown the
impersonal character of calculated manipulations coldly disposing of
the rights and lives of millions with cruel callousness. The last great
war has made us consider the relation of war sacrifices to the daily
welfare of the people. A great deal of the prevailing unrest in the
world is undoubtedly due to a lack of confidence that great affairs are
being handled with wisdom and with regard to the true, lasting welfare
of the people themselves. It is difficult to reduce to personal terms
relations so abstract and general as those obtaining in international
affairs. We think of the armies in serried ranks and are impressed
with the impact of their force and the great feats it may accomplish.
But we are too apt to forget the individual destiny carried in every
breast, the human feeling in every heart, among all the millions that
make up this engine of power and destruction. Human welfare rather than
human power has not yet been made the constant and overshadowing aim
of diplomacy. That will be done only when the people themselves demand
that international affairs shall be dealt with in a different spirit
and with other methods. Then we shall have policies that can be avowed
and understood by the people who bear the burden and who pay the bill.

The questions which we have been considering are not distinct and
isolated but are bound up with all that goes toward a more adequate
organization of modern society. Even in the industries, men are no
longer satisfied with a narrowly centralized control. They call for
information and accountability, they claim a share in management,
at least of an advisory or consultative nature. All who contribute
in bearing the risks of industry demand to be kept informed of the
policies and actions of the management. In ever extending circles
men share in the responsibility for action taken in their name.
It is a truism that risk is diminished and tends to disappear
as it is distributed over greater and greater numbers. Under our
present political system nations are carrying a tremendous risk in
international affairs--they are risking their wealth, the lives of
their citizens, their own very existence. The responsibility for
bearing these risks and for arranging the conditions of safety is now
too narrowly centralized. It is an elementary demand of safety that it
should be more widely distributed, that a larger number of competent
and representative minds should take part in carrying this burden.
And they should at all points be supported by a well-informed public
opinion throughout the nation.

But there is a condition that lies still deeper. The popular psychology
cultivated under the narrow aims of nationalism has exhausted itself
in international matters in dislike and hatred of everything alien and
of all that lies beyond the national pale. Such a state of mind is
ever ready to act the bull to any red rag of newspaper sensationalism.
So, the inside managers of diplomatic affairs may still say with some
justification, “Open discussion would too much excite the public
mind.” This fundamental condition cannot be suddenly purged of all its
potency for evil. Only by gradual degrees may an attitude be brought
about within the national communities which will be more just to the
outside world and to everything that is strange and unaccustomed. What
the great imaginative writers of the first half of the nineteenth
century accomplished in breaking down social prejudices and abuses
will have to be done for humanity by a new host of inspired molders
of human sentiment. We may not get rid of artificial hostilities now
still nurtured by nationalism, until ideals of international goodwill
and fellowship have been expressed in the form of human experience
and portrayed as part of the struggles and triumphs of the individual
human soul. Patient, sound, upbuilding influences shall have to work
powerfully on the masses of men, and on their leaders, before we
may finally overcome the evils that express themselves in practices
inherent in a system such as that we call “secret diplomacy,” before
the world may be made an abode of mutual confidence and helpfulness
instead of a house of imprisonment, suspicion and terror.




SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY


  ASHLEY. Life of Palmerston.

  BAGGER, E. S. Central European Conspiracy. N. Y. _Nation_, November
      17, 1920.

  BARTHÉLEMY, J. Démocratic et politique étrangère. 1917. Part I.

  BASS, J. F. The Peace Tangle. 1920.

  BROWN, PHILIP. Democracy and Diplomacy. _North American Review._
      1916.

  CALLIÈRES, F. DE. On the Manner of Negotiating with Princes. 1716.
      Translated by A. F. Whyte. 1919.

  COOLIDGE, A. C. (ED.). Secret Treaties of Austria-Hungary. 1920.

  CZERNIN, COUNT. In the World War. 1919.

  DICKINSON, G. L. Democratic Control of Foreign Policy. _Atlantic_,
      August, 1916.

  DILLON, E. J. The Inside Story of the Peace Conference. 1920.

  FAY, S. B. Origins of the War. _Am. Hist. Rev._ 1920.

  FITZMAURICE, LORD. Life of Lord Granville. 1905.

  GORIČAR and L. B. STOWE. Inside Story of Austro-German Intrigue.
      1920.

  HARRIS, JOHN H. The Chartered Millions. Swarthmore Press, London.

  HAYASHI, COUNT. Secret Memoirs. Ed. A. M. Pooley. 1915.

  HEATLY, D. P. Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations.
      1919.

  ISVOLSKY, ALEXANDER. Memoirs. 1921.

  LABOUCHERE, HENRY. Life of. 1916.

  LANE-POOLE, STANLEY. The Life of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe. 1890.

  LANSING, ROBERT. The Peace Negotiations. 1921. Chapter 17.

  LEUTRUM, COUNTESS. Court and Diplomacy in Austria. 1920.

  LOFTUS, LORD AUGUSTUS. Diplomatic Reminiscences. 1837–1862.

  LOREBURN, EARL. How the War Came. 1919.

  MACKNIGHT, THOMAS. Thirty Years of Foreign Policy. 1855.

  MALMESBURY, EARL OF. Diaries and Correspondence. 1844.

  MAXWELL, SIR HERBERT. Life of Lord Clarendon. 1913.

  METTERNICH. Memoirs.

  MOREL, E. D. Ten Years of Secret Diplomacy. 6th Edition. 1920.

  MOREL, E. D. Pre-War Diplomacy. 1920.

  MURRAY, SIR GILBERT. Faith, War and Policy. 1917. Part 6.

  MYERS, D. P. Legislatures and Foreign Relations. _Am. Political
      Science Review._ 1917.

  NEILSON, FRANCIS. How Diplomats make War. 1916.

  PONSONBY, A. Democracy and Diplomacy. 1919.

  Report of the Select Committee on the Diplomatic Service. 1861.

  SÉGUR. Politique de tous les cabinets. 3rd Edition, 1802.

  SMITH, MUNRO. Militarism and Statecraft. 1918.

  THOMPSON, G. C. Public Opinion and Lord Beaconsfield. 1886.

  Union for Democratic Control. London. Publications. 1920–1921.

  WITTE, COUNT. Memoirs. 1921.

  YOUNG, GEORGE. Diplomacy, Old and New. 1921.

  ZURLINDEN, S. The World War. Chapter IV. Zurich, 1917.




INDEX


  Absolutism, survival of, 181 ff., 208

  Absolutist politics, 148

  Absolutist tradition in diplomacy, 208

  Adams, John Quincy, 24

  Adriatic memorandum, 201, 203

  Aehrenthal, 106

  Afghanistan, 157

  Afghan war, 69

  Agadir, 81

  Algeciras, Act of, 80

  American government, 16, 18, 119, 173, 194 ff., 196

  American idealism, 207

  Alexander I, 46

  Alliances, 70, 73

  Alsace-Lorraine, 64, 121, 123

  Anglo-French Entente, 79, 89, 93

  Anglo-Japanese Alliance, 73, 74

  Antwerp, 91

  Apathy of the public, 172, 173

  Appearances, 32

  Archives, 51

  Armament interests, 147

  Asquith, Herbert H., 85, 87, 88

  Australia, 210

  Austria-Hungary, 48, 49, 61, 62, 65, 70, 104, 105, 107, 109, 110, 120,
          121, 123, 124, 132


  Balfour, Arthur J., 140, 141, 161, 162, 168, 176, 187

  Balkans, 97, 104, 113, 146

  Barnardiston, Colonel, 91

  Bavaria, 61

  Beaconsfield, Lord, 67, 68, 69

  Belgian General Staff, 91

  Belgian neutrality, 62, 91

  Benedetti, 53, 62

  Berchtold, Count, 104, 105, 106, 114

  Beresford, Lord, 87

  Bethmann-Hollweg, 104, 106, 107

  Beyens, Baron, 114

  Bismarck, 5, 11, 31, 49, 51, 53, 61, 63, 64, 70, 140, 184

  Bjorkoe meeting, 1905, 76

  Blue Books, 156

  Borgo, Pozzo di, 46

  Bosnia, 114

  Bosnia and Herzegovina, 65, 105

  Bribery, 41, 42, 48

  Bright, John, 55, 67, 157

  British diplomacy, 20

  Buchanan, William J., 138

  Buelow, Prince, 76

  Bulgaria, 122

  Byles, Sir W., 88


  Cabinet, 158

  Cabinet and Parliament, 56

  Callières, practice of diplomacy, 27, 29, 32

  Canada, 210

  Canning, Stratford, 54, 57

  Caste, diplomatic, 184

  Castlereagh, 47

  Catherine, Empress, 36, 42, 43, 44

  Cavour, 60

  Cecil, Lord Hugh, 86

  Censure of news, 145

  Central Powers, 120

  Charles, Emperor of Austria, 121, 123

  Charles II, 152

  Cheradame, M., 177

  Chili-Argentinian boundary dispute, 138

  China, 117, 126, 127, 143, 199, 208

  China, breaking off relations with Germany, 127, 128

  Chinese people, 20

  Chinese public opinion, 21

  Chino-Japanese war, 72

  Christian ideal, 190

  Clarendon, Earl of, 55, 57, 155, 157

  Comité du Maroc, 80

  Common interests, 14, 219

  Communist Party and international affairs, 179

  “Compensations,” 65, 98, 123

  Conference diplomacy, 15, 219

  Conferences, international technical, 219

  Congress, 150

  Constantinople, 54, 201

  Continental system, 84

  Council of Five, 130

  Counter-Insurance Treaty, 70

  Crimean war, 54, 55, 56, 59

  Cromer, Lord, 101, 171, 172

  Cromwell, 34

  Crown, prerogative of the, 153, 154

  Cyprus protectorate, 67

  Czecho-Slovakia, 132

  Czernin, Count, 106, 121, 123, 124, 169, 189


  _Daily Mail_, London, 205

  De Bass, 34

  De Tocqueville, 170

  De Torcy, 31, 41

  Deceit, 28, 29, 39

  Deception, 136

  Declarations, general, 142, 144, 186

  Delcassé, M., 78

  _Dementi_, 66, 125

  Democracy, 10, 158, 159, 170, 172, 214, 221

  Denmark, 37

  Derby, Lord, 69

  D’Estournelles de Constant, Baron, 82

  Dickinson, G. Lowes, 178

  Digest of International Law, 196

  Dillon, Dr. E. J., 130

  Dillon, John, 81, 82, 158

  Diplomacy, personal, 23, 52, 55, 184

  Diplomacy of authority, 64

  Diplomacy resembling war, 49

  Diplomatic fraternity, 219

  Diplomatic literature, 51

  Diplomatic Service, spirit of the, 218

  Disillusionment, 200, 202

  Disraeli, 50, 67, 68, 69

  d’Orsat, Cardinal, 30, 33

  Double-dealing, 73

  Drake, 33

  Du Luc, Count, 31

  Dual Alliance, 71


  “Empire,” 68

  Ems dispatch, 63

  English-speaking powers, 119, 204, 210

  Experts, 8, 111


  Falsiloquy, 26

  Far Eastern situation, 72, 199, 201

  _Federalist_, 150

  Ferdinand of Bulgaria, 113

  Feria, Duke of, 33

  Fez, 80

  Forgach, Count, 105

  France, 48, 60, 61, 62, 70, 75, 78, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 95, 97,
          117, 132, 133

  Francis Joseph, Emperor, 105, 107

  Franco-Hungarian intrigues, 132

  Franco-Prussian war, 64

  Franco-Russian Alliance, 97

  Franco-Russian military convention of August, 1912, 93

  “Frankness,” 32, 40, 64, 143

  Frederick II, 38, 39, 42, 103

  French Parliament, 82

  “Friends of liberty,” 38

  Foreign Office Vote, 186

  Foreign Relations of the United States, 195

  Fox, Charles James, 43


  German diplomacy, 103

  German-Russian agreement, 76, 77

  Germany, 62, 64, 70, 71, 78, 81, 89, 95, 102, 103, 106, 176

  Giolliti, Signor, 187

  Gladstone, 67

  Golden Rule, 47, 195

  Gossip, 137

  Granville, Lord, 55, 66, 157

  Great Britain, 48, 65, 67, 72, 84, 88, 97, 117, 119, 143, 210

  Great War, 6, 99, 112, 174, 178

  Greindl, Baron, 94

  Grey, Sir Edward, 80, 88, 89, 90, 96, 97, 100, 160, 178

  Gross, M., 38

  Grotius, 11, 14, 15, 24, 26

  Guillaume, Baron, 94


  Haldane, Viscount, 88, 100

  Harris, Sir James, 29, 38, 40, 42

  Harvey, T. Edmund, 97

  Hayashi, Count, 73

  Holy Alliance, 46

  Honor, 110

  House of Lords and foreign affairs, 66, 153

  Hughes, Secretary, 16

  Human equation, 9

  Human welfare, 222

  Humanitarian professions, 142

  Hungarian railways, 133


  Ideals professed, 117, 142, 186

  India, 20, 210

  India, frontier of, 69

  Indifference, public, 172, 173

  Infallibility does not exist, 176

  Instincts, 215

  Isvolsky, 75, 93, 114

  Italy, 117, 124

  Ito, Marquis, 73


  Japan, 19, 72, 73, 117, 119, 124, 126, 127, 142, 143, 199, 202

  Japan, absolutism, 185

  Janushkevich, General, 115

  Jay, John, 150, 194, 195

  Jowett, F. W., 85

  Jungbluth, General, 91


  Kinloch-Cooke, Sir C., 87

  Knox, Secretary, 19, 143

  Korea, 143

  Krupp Iron Works, 147


  Labouchere, 50, 51, 55

  Lalaing, Count de, 94

  Lamsdorff, Count, 76, 77

  Lansdowne, Lord, 73, 79, 96

  Lansing-Ishii notes, 199

  Law, Bonar, 204

  League of Nations, 7, 188, 218

  Leutrum, Countess, 105

  Liberal theory of state, 3

  Lincoln, 221

  Lloyd-George, 122

  London, Pact of, 120, 123

  Loreburn, Lord, 95, 96, 98, 116

  Lords, House of, 66, 153

  Louis XI, 28

  Louis XV, 52

  Lowell, J. R., 182

  Lytton, Lord, 172


  Macartney, Sir George, 37

  Machiavelli, 11, 14, 24, 28, 40, 182

  MacNeill, Swift, 160

  Malmesbury, Lord, 29, 38, 40

  Manchuria, 143

  Manchurian railway neutralization, 19

  Mandates, 131

  Manipulations, 212, 221

  Mankind, underlying unity of, 191

  Manteuffel, 50

  Marcy, Secretary, 50

  Marlborough, Duke of, 41

  “Material for statesmanship,” 215

  _Matin_, 82

  Mazarin, Cardinal, 33

  Mediterranean situation, 87, 88

  Mehée de la Touche, 33

  Memoirs, Eighteenth Century, 25

  Methods of diplomacy and of private business, 4, 140, 163, 169

  Metternich, 35, 46, 47

  Militarists, German, 105, 185

  Militarists, Russian, 105, 115

  Military assistance, 85, 90, 92, 93

  Minority interests, 183

  Monarchist diplomacy, 23

  Monroe Doctrine, 18, 215

  Moore, John Bassett, 196, 197

  Morny, Duc de, 53

  Morocco, 60, 71, 78, 79, 82, 89, 101, 143

  Murray, Gilbert, 172


  Napoleon I, 35, 46, 48

  Napoleon III, 5, 52, 53, 56, 60, 62, 63

  Naval assistance, 87, 90, 92, 93

  Nationalism, 11

  Near East, 134

  Necessity of war, 118

  Newspapers, 171, 223

  Nicholas II, 56

  Nicholas III, 75, 77, 115

  North Pacific islands, 19, 128, 202

  Notes, exchange of, November, 1912, 92


  Objectives, constancy of, 212

  Open covenants, 130

  Open Door, 18, 144


  Pact of London, 120, 123

  Palmerston, 31, 54, 56, 59, 68

  Panin, 37, 42, 43

  Parliament and foreign affairs, 149 ff.

  Parliament and secret diplomacy, 82, 85, 94, 95, 98, 149 ff.

  Peace Conference of Paris, 129, 130

  “Peace of Asia,” 143

  Pelham, 154

  “People who are not responsible,” 168, 216

  _Pester Lloyd_, 110

  Pinckney, 44

  Plutocratic control, 183

  Poincaré, President, 93, 121

  Poland, 47, 118

  Policy, diplomatic, 48, 58, 166

  Polish Question, 118

  Politics, essence of, 13, 39

  Polk, Undersecretary, 203

  Port Arthur, surrender, 72

  Portugal, 15, 190

  Potemkin, Prince, 41, 43

  Press, control of, 145, 171

  Pressensé, Francis de, 80

  Prestige, 176

  Preventive war, 13, 64, 106, 108

  Private business and diplomatic affairs, 4, 140, 163, 169

  Propaganda, 216

  Prussia, 49, 53, 61, 62

  Public opinion, crime against, 144

  Public opinion and diplomacy, 58, 102, 112, 144, 166 ff.

  Publicity, 216, 217


  Rashness, alleged, of the people, 177

  “Raw material for brilliant careers,” 185

  Realpolitik, 103

  Reichstag, 102

  Representative government, 58

  Ribot, Alexander, 123

  Roosevelt, President, 151

  Rosebery, Lord, 66

  Rosebery, Lord, on Anglo-Japanese treaty, 74

  Rosebery, Lord, on Entente, 84

  Rosen, Baron, 74

  Roumania, 118

  Russell, Lord John, 52, 57

  Russia, 7, 37, 55, 65, 67, 70, 75, 78, 97, 104, 105, 108, 109, 114,
          143, 146, 208, 212

  Russian diplomatic policy, 112

  Russian local agents, 54

  Russo-French Alliance, 70

  Russo-Turkish war, 65


  Salisbury, Marquis of, 66, 157

  San Domingo, 151

  San Stefano, treaty of, 65

  Sandwich, Earl of, 37

  Savoy and Nice, 60

  Sazonov, 112, 115, 133

  Schleswig-Holstein, 61

  Schuvalof agreement, 156

  Secret diplomacy, abolition of, 127, 218

  “Secret diplomacy” used in a special sense, 52, 57

  Secret procedure, Paris Conference, 7

  Secret service, 22, 28, 41, 50, 136, 137

  Secret treaties, 48, 61, 65, 67, 71, 76, 78, 79, 113, 116 ff.,
          119, 134, 164

  Senate and foreign affairs, 151, 197

  Servian question, 104, 108, 113

  Shantung, 117, 125, 128

  Sixtus, Prince, of Bourbon, 120

  South Pacific Islands, 119

  Soviet Russia, 133, 179

  Speech of August 3, 1914, 89, 96

  Spheres of influence, 79

  St. Petersburg, 40, 52, 73

  Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs, proposed, 162, 164, 186

  Standing committee on foreign and colonial affairs in France, 187

  Stanhope, Lord, 31

  Stratagem, 138

  Stratford de Redcliffe, 54, 55, 57

  Survival, 13

  Suspicion, 6, 17, 54, 72, 100, 126, 136, 141

  Sweden, 37


  Talleyrand, 44, 46

  _Temps_, 82

  Tibet, 144

  _Times_, London, 204, 205

  Traité de diplomatie, Garden, 48

  Treaties, publication of all, 188, 205, 206

  Treaty of Versailles, 129

  Triple Alliance, 70

  Trotsky, 179

  Truthfulness of diplomacy, 12, 30

  Tschirsky, Von, 77, 106, 107

  Turkey, 38, 67

  Turkish Empire, 60

  Twenty-one demands, 117, 125

  Two-party system, 152


  United Colonies of America, 149

  United States, 119, 151, 174, 186, 194 ff., 201, 209


  Vattel, 26

  Vienna, Congress of, 45

  Viviani, M., 115


  Walpole, Sir Robert, 154

  Walpole, Horace, 45

  War, declaration of, 186, 187

  Washington, Conference of, 1921, 16

  Wells, H. G., 185

  _Westminster Gazette_, 204

  Whist, 50

  William I, 63

  William II, 75, 76, 78

  William III of England, 153

  Willy-Nicky correspondence, 75

  Wilson, President, 21, 129, 169, 200, 201, 203, 204

  Wotton, Sir Henry, 28

  Wyndham, 153


  Xavier, Prince of Bourbon, 120, 123


  Yap, 201, 202

  Yerburgh, Mr., 85

  Yugo-Slavia and France, 133




Transcriber’s Notes


Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.

Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.

The index was not checked for proper alphabetization or correct page
references.

Page 225: The “č” in “Goričar” may have been printed with a breve (̆),
not with a caron (̌).