43 2 Asquith's False Argument f I 9 I 4 



of the war, or find excuses for its weaknesses in the absurd false doc- 

 trine of " My country, right or wrong." I knew, especially, that the 

 plea put forward by Asquith of " a necessity of honour " obliging us 

 to fight for Belgium, was a false plea, good at most as a forensic 

 argument, but quite untrue in fact, for there was not a word in any 

 of the Neutrality treaties affecting Belgium which entailed an obliga- 

 tion on England, or any other Power, collectively or individually, to go 

 to war for a breach of it. 



The neutrality of Belgium was indeed already a by-word in the 

 European Chancelleries for obsolete ineffectiveness as long ago as 

 when I was myself in diplomacy (and I left it in 1870) — nor would 

 any one then have been much shocked at the treaties concerning it 

 being spoken of as " scraps of paper," which in fact they were as far 

 as entailing any obligation of war on any of the signatories to maintain 

 it went. To suppose the contrary would be to have entailed the im- 

 possible condition of a single Power being called upon in honour to 

 fight the other four Powers had these combined to partition Belgium 

 between them, an extremity of logic amounting on the principle of qui 

 nimium probat nihil probat to initial disproof. The plea might be 

 good enough for the occasion as a lawyer's argument addressed to an 

 ignorant Parliament, but could not be the real one. The real cause of 

 the quarrel with Germany, I well knew was no more honourable a 

 one than that of our dread of a too powerful commercial rival and the 

 fear of Kaiser Wilhelm's forcing France, if we stood aside, into com- 

 mercial alliance with him against us in the markets of the world — 

 that and a gambler's venture almost desperate, seeing that we were 

 without an army fit to take the field abroad, and were dependent on 

 the thousand and one chances of the sea for our daily bread at home. 

 In this madness I would take no part. That these were the true causes 

 of the war, and not the pretended altruistic ones I have since acquired 

 a certain knowledge from one of its chief promoters. 



The obligation of fighting in alliance with France in case of a war 

 with Germany concerned the honour of three members only of Asquith's 

 Cabinet, who alone were aware of the exact promises that had been 

 made. These, though given verbally and with reservations as to 

 the consent of Parliament, bound the three as a matter of personal 

 honour and were understood at the Quai d'Orsay as binding the British 

 Nation. Neither Asquith nor his two companions in this inner Cabi- 

 net could have retained office had they gone back from their word 

 in spirit or in letter. It would also doubtless have entailed a serious 

 quarrel with the French Government had they failed to make it good. 

 So clearly was the promise understood at Paris to be binding that 

 President Poincare, when the crisis came, had written to King George 

 reminding him of it as an engagement made between the two Nations 



