CHAPTER XII 



THE WAR WITH GERMANY DECLARED 



From this point my diary contains little that is of historical im- 

 portance till the breaking out, a year later, of the Great War of 1914. 

 With George Wyndham's death my most intimate connection with the 

 parliamentary world ceased, and my mind busied itself more and more 

 with its local surroundings and with that refuge from sadness, verse, 

 which has always been its consolation. I therefore end my transcrip- 

 tions in their integrity here, and add only to the present volume such 

 few extracts as may suffice to carry my record of public events to the 

 verge of the final catastrophe, reserving a full account of the war itself 

 to yet a third part, still perhaps to come. 



To complete my record of the crisis which decided Turkish patriotism 

 to take definite part with Germany rather than with the Entente Powers 

 in the coming struggle I will continue to tell it in a? few words as 

 possible. 



My latest entries of 1913 show that about the time of George Wynd- 

 ham's death I had satisfied myself that Grey was beginning to see the 

 danger of his coalition policy against the Central Powers, and was be- 

 ginning to look round him for a means of conciliating its War Lord, 

 Kaiser Wilhelm, in whom the maintenance of peace chiefly lay. These 

 were the days of Lichnowsky's Embassy in London a mission which 

 undoubtedly was intended at Berlin to smooth the diplomatic wheels 

 with us. Lichnowsky was a quite honourable man and personally 

 friendly to England, but I notice that in all our English appreciations 

 of him as such he is invariably claimed as an exception among Germans 

 for this or that good quality, an enemy witness giving testimony in our 

 favour. This is to exaggerate and mistake the case. Prince Lich- 

 nowsky, a Polish nobleman of ancient family, though in the German 

 diplomatic service, was no German either by birth or sentiment, and 

 his friendly feeling for England was that common to all the Polish 

 aristocracy, and it was for that reason, as also to conciliate his fellow 

 Poles, that the Kaiser Wilhelm sent him to London on a friendly mis- 

 sion which he undertook con amove. I see no reason for doubting 

 that Wilhelm, at that moment, was sincere in wishing to keep on terms 

 with England. In 191 3 he had made up his mind to bring matters to 

 an issue with France on the very next opportunity rather than submit 



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