WHOSE IS THE GUILT FOR THE EUROPEAN WAR?

BY S. S. McCLURE

The Danger Spot in Europe; Data on the Mobilization of Russia

On July 24, 1914, Sir Edward Grey put his finger on the danger spot in his dispatch to the English embassy in Berlin:

"I said that if the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia did not lead to trouble between Austria and Russia, I had no concern with it. The immediate danger was that in a few hours Austria might march into Serbia and Russian Slav opinion demand that Russia should march to help Serbia."

Sir Edward Grey also wired to Sir F. Bertie, British ambassador at Paris, July 24, 1914:

"Russia would be compelled by her public opinion to take action as soon as Austria attacked Serbia, and therefore, once the Austrians had attacked Serbia, it would be too late for any mediation."

In fact, when the history of this war is written by a dispassionate historian, it will be seen that Sir Edward Grey saw more clearly than any other statesman the inevitabilities of Austria's note to Serbia. The Czar to the Kaiser:

"Evidence about the commencement of partial mobilization in Russia is still further confirmed by the

telegrams of the Czar to the Kaiser on July 30, when the former replied to the latter's request to demobilize his forces by saying that the 'military measures now coming into operation were decided upon five days ago. This would mean that they began on the 25th, and so confirms the previous evidence." Sir Edward Grey to Sir G. Buchan

an, British Ambassador at St. Petersburg, Foreign Office, July 25, 1914:

"The sudden, brusque and peremptory character of the Austrian demarche makes it almost inevitable that in a very short time both Russia and Austria will have mobilized against each other."

Sir Edward Grey to Sir H. Rumbold, British Charge d'Affaires at Berlin, July 25, 1914: "Apparently we shall now soon be face to face with the mobilization of Austria and Russia. The only chance of peace, if this should happen, would be for Germany, France, Russia (should be Italy) and ourselves to keep together, and to join in asking Austria and Russia not to cross the frontier till we had had time to try and arrange matters between them."

The British ambassador at St. Petersburg as early as July 25 warned the minister of foreign affairs that if Russia mobilized Germany would not be content with mere mobiliation or give Russia time

to carry out hers, but would probably declare war at once.-British White Paper, July 25.

Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs to Russian Ambassador at Paris, July 29, 1914:

"As we cannot comply with the wishes of Germany, we have no al

ternative but to hasten our own military preparations and to assume that war is probably inevitable."

On July 29 the St. Petersburg correspondent of the Temps telegraphed that "mobilization is proceeding in Kieff, Odessa, Vilna, Warsaw and St. Petersburg." The last three military areas are in the region of the German frontier. Telegram from the Kaiser to King George, July 31, from the "Nord- Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" for August 20:

"Many thanks for your friendly communication. Your proposals agree with my ideas and with the information which I have received to-night from Vienna and which I send on to London. I have just learned through the imperial chancellor that he has received the information that the Czar this evening ordered the mobilization of all his army and navy. He has not even waited for the result of the intervention on which I have been engaged and has left me entirely without information. I am going to Berlin to take measures for the safeguarding of my eastern frontiers, where numerous Russian troops have already assembled."

menacing the security of our country, the laborious action at mediation of the European cabinets, just as it was on the point of succeeding."

The St. Petersburg newspapers for August 1 published the following official statement, which definitey announced the time and place of assembly for the reservists, in the following words:

"His majesty the emperor decrees herewith that the army and navy shall be brought to a full war July 31, 1914." footing. First day of mobilization, July 31, 1914."

Summarizing these dispatches, it may be said that the decision of Russia to mobilize partially was taken on the 24th, directly after presentation of the Austrian note to Serbia. This was confirmed on the 25th, and during the week-end all military preparations except the calling up of reservists were made, and partial mobilization orders were signed but not issued.

British White Paper, July 31:

"Von Bethmann-Hollweg told Sir Edward Goschen, the British ambassador to Germany, that he could not leave his country defenseless while time was being utilized by other powers; and that if military measures were being taken by Russia against Germany also, it would be impossible for him to remain quietly. The chancellor added that the news of the active preparations on the RussoGerman frontier had reached him just when the Czar had appealed to the Emperor, in the name of their

tag, July 31:

"The Russian government destroyed through its mobilization,

enna, and when the Emperor was actually conforming to that request."

Speech of the Imperial Chancellor before the German Reichstag on August 4, 1914:

"Russia has set fire to the building. We are at war with Russia and France-a war that has been forced upon us. *

* From the first moment of the Austro-Serbian conflict we declared that this question must be limited to AustriaHungary and Serbia, and we worked with this end in view. All governments, especially that of Great Britain, took the same attitude. Russia alone asserted that she had to be heard in the settlement of this mat

ter.

"Accumulation of troops on the East Prussian frontier and the declaration of the state of war all over important parts of the Russian west frontier allowed no further doubt that the Russian mobiliation was in full swing against us, while simultaneously all such measures were denied to our representative in St. Petersburg on word of honor.

"Nay, even before the reply from Vienna regarding the Anglo-German mediation, whose tendencies and basis must have been known in St. Petersburg, could possibly have been received in Berlin, Russia ordered a general mobilization."

DIPLOMACY MOTHER OF

WARS

A glance at the workings of European diplomacy in a single phase of the present great struggle discloses the part which the errors of diplomatists have played in the series of events that have culminated in this super-war.

At the congress of Berlin, in

1878, Great Britain, with the backing of Bismarck and of Andrassy, the Austro-Hungarian minister of foreign affairs, imposed a veto upon the task which had been accomplished on the battlefield by Russia. This task was the creation of an independent Bulgaria, to include Macedonia and the province known as Eastern Roumelia. Britain opposed the carrying out of the treaty of San Stefano, which gave sanction to the creation of a strong state, uniting the entire Bulgarian race, on the ground that a great Bulgaria would operate, in effect, as an advance post for the Russian march to Constantinople and the Dardanelles.

The new Bulgaria was dismemA small tribubered at its birth. tary principality, under the suzerainty of Turkey, was created along the southern bank of the Danube. Eastern Roumelia was constituted an autonomous province under a Turkish governor. A feat of diplomacy was undone in 1885 by the people of Eastern Roumelia, who erased the frontier which chancellors had drawn, and joined their bloodbrothers of the Bulgarian principality. Macedonia was thrust back under the full power of Turkey, under paper guarantees of reforms which never were put into effect.

The first Balkan war constituted an attempt by Bulgaria, in alliance. with its neighbors, to accomplish the task of driving out the Turk which had been achieved by Russia and nullified by the congress of Berlin. If there had been no treaty of Berlin, there would have been no first Balkan war. If there had been no first Balkan war, there would have been no second Balkan war for the division of the territory which

had been assigned to Bulgaria under the treaty of San Stefano.

One of the immediate results of the second Balkan war was the rise of Serbian nationalism, stimulated by the Serbian successes in that conflict and reinforced by Russian activities at Belgrade. Out of that nationalism rose, as history now has duly recorded, the spark that set the world on fire.

When some understanding and dispassionate mind of the future shall have summed up in their true relation the events that brought on the monstrous period through which the world is passing, the terrible balance of criminality will be found to lie, not in the passions of peoples, but in the blunders of diplomatsblunders that have deluged Europe with the blood of its strongest, its noblest, its best.-Nov. 18, 1915.

A VOICE FROM RUSSIA "If Prussian militarism is destroyed, if that evil thing which has darkened all our lives is destroyed, as I most firmly believe it will be destroyed, I think some measure of disarmament may be possible. It should be quite possible for, with England and Russia friends, the rest of the world is safe."-Sergius Sazonoff, Russian minister of foreign affairs, in an interview with a correspondent of the London Chron

icle.

A remarkable statement by a remarkable statesman. Once more the world is asked to believe that it was Russia's abhorrence of militarism that caused her to draw the holy sword-the sword upon which is inscribed the motto "S' nami Bog," "God is with us." Once more the

world is asked to believe this oftreiterated fiction in spite of the fact that at the outbreak of the war Russia had an army of 1,384,000 under the colors, and Germany only 870,000; in spite of the fact that in the past generation Russia has waged two great wars of her own provocation, one with Turkey and one with Japan, and had sought the third until she found it; in spite of the fact that the entire Russian administration, from top to bottom, is and always has been a military administration, with a truly military disregard for individual rights, and with Cossack whips as implements of government.

And now, with the hated Prussian militarism as the object of Russia's righteous wrath, M. Sazonoff points piously to the time when the world will be "safe." It will be "safe" when Russian militarism, the greatest militarism the world ever saw, and British navalism, the greatest navalism that the world ever dreamed of, stand side by side as the protectors of "the rest of the world."

Truly, unfathomable is the hardihood of Sergius Sazonoff and measureless his contempt for the intelligence of the "rest of the world"!— Feb. 24, 1916.

FRONTIERS

Much of the loyalties, the loves, the hopes, the hatreds and the aspirations of the world have been concentrated since history began along imaginary lines drawn on the map. Nations have shed rivers of blood to shift a frontier or to prevent its obliteration. The fate of empires has been staked upon the