October 31, 1918 
LAND &? WATER 
13 
"Bismarck is at his old tricks again," wTote our Ambas- 
sador at Berlin to Lord Derby, "alarming the Gcnnans, 
through the officious Press, and intimating that the French 
are going to attack them. . . . Now he has succeeded in 
making the Emperor and the Crown Prince believe that 
France is meditating an invasion of Germany through 
Belgium ! And, not knowing anj^ better, they are in despair, 
and have ordered the War Department to make ready for 
defence. This crisis will blow over like so many others, 
but Bismarck's sensational jjphcy is very wearisome at 
times. Half the diplomatic body have been here since 
yesterday to tell me that war is imminent, and when I seek 
to calm their nerves and disprove their anticipations, they 
think that I am thoroughly bamboozled by Bismarck." 
MacMahon's government naturally took alarm. The 
French Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Due Decazes, urging 
Disraeh's government to intervene on behalf of France, 
announced that if, as he feared, war took place in the autumn, 
"Jie should advise MacMahon to retire with his army beyond 
the Loire without firing a shot, and wait there until the 
justice of Europe should speak out in favour of France ! " 
But Lord Derby tried to convince the French Charge d'Affaires 
in London that there was no cause for alarm, and that even 
if Germany were planning a war the blow would be struck 
against Austria, not France. 
On April 30th, however, M. Gavard received such a sensa- 
tional dispatch from his chief in Paris that he determined 
to make a new effort to break through the reserve of the 
British Foreign Office. 
Decazes had sent him a report of a conversation which 
had taken place at a ball between the French Ambassador 
at BerUn, le Vicomte de Gontaut Biron, and a German, 
M. de Radowitz, who had an important position at the 
German Foreign Office, and who was believed to be in 
Bismarck's confidence. The latter, having turned the con- 
versation to the recent French Army Bill, which, he said, 
roused the anxiety of the German Government, revealed 
to the French Ambassador the plans of the German military 
party against France. The German armies were to invade 
France, crush instantly all opposition, press on Paris, invest 
the capital, and take up a position on the plateau of Auron, 
whence they could overlook Paris and, if need be, destroy 
it. This done, Germany would dictate a treaty reducing 
France to absolute subjection for many years. It would 
insist on a permanently reduced army, impose a war indem- 
nity of ten milliards, payable in twenty annuities without 
any clause allowing payment to be made in advance, with 
annual interest at 5 per cent., and keep garrisons in the prin- 
cipal towns of France until the whole sum should be paid. 
It was this report, shown by the Due Decazes to De 
Blowitz, that prpvoked the latter's. startling letter to the 
Times, which on May 4th revealed the German plan to Europe. 
It would be difficult to exaggerate the effect produced by 
this letter on a Europe already, in the words of Thiers, suffer- 
ing from nerves {I' Europe a des nerfs). 
But none of these disclosures induced Lord Derby to give 
M. Gavard any indication that England would stand by 
France in case she were attacked. Throughout these con- 
versations one is forcibly reminded of those which took place 
between Lord Grey and M. Carnbon on the eve of the present 
war. All that Lord Derby would say was that Russia might 
well exercise a salutary influence at Berlin. "As well as 
England ? " queried the French Minister. But Lord Derby 
made no response. 
Now, at that moment the Tsar Alexander was expected 
to visit his uncle, Kaiser VVilhelm. And both France and 
England looked to him to dissipate the war-cloud so rapidly 
gathering. Before leaving Petrograd, Alexander promised 
the French Ambassador, Le Flo, that he would act as peace- 
maker. "Reassure your Government," he said, "you shall 
not be attacked. There will be no surprise." 
The Tsar apparently lost no time in keeping his promise. 
For, reaching Berlin on May loth, he went straight to the 
Foreign Office. An hour or two later the Russian Minister, 
Gortschakoff, who had accompanied the Tsar, called on 
Bismarck. And that evening, when Lord Odo Russell dined 
with Bismarck, it was obvious that the English Ambassador's 
prophecy had been verified and that the crisis was over, 
for the Prince took the opportunity of sajdng that France 
and Germany were on excellent terms, and that the war 
rumours proceeded from the stock-jobbers and from the 
Press. The former, Hohenlohe, in his Memoirs, exonerates 
at the expense of De Blowitz and what he calls his "tact- 
lessness." 
At the same time, Bismarck thanked our Ambassador for 
"the friendly offer, which he highly appreciated, as a proof 
of goodwill and confidence on the part of Her Majesty's 
Government." For Lord Derby had been better than his 
word. Not content with urging Russia to intervene as peace- 
maker, he had, in a dispatch which was circulated at Paris, 
Vienna, Petrograd, and Rome, instructed Lord Odo Russell 
to put an end to the misunderstanding between France and 
Germany. Queen Victoria also apparently wTote two letters 
in the interests of peace. One was addressed to the Tsar 
and the other to the Emperor William.* 
The Anglo-Russian pressure had for the moment removed 
the danger of war. On May 12th, Prince Gortschakoff was 
able to send to the Russian envoys abroad his famous tele- 
gram: La paix est assuree. 
On May nth the announcement in the Enghsh House of 
Commons of the end of the crisis had been received with loud 
applause. "What a week we have passed through!" ex- 
claimed the Duke of Cambridge to the French Charge 
d'Affaires. The Due Decazes, in a letter to M. Gavard, 
asked him to convey the thanks of the French Government 
to Mr. John Delane, editor of the Times, and described 
England's conduct in the matter as "her grand awakening." 
It seemed to mark her abandonment of the Gladstonian 
policy of isolation which had been the despair of France. 
Austrian Aid against Germany 
Throughout those anxious May days England and Russia, 
in bringing pressure to bear on Germany, had looked for the 
aid of Austria. Lord Odo Russell had counted on it. In 
a letter to Lord Derby on May 6th he had written : "How 
Bismarck will meet the humiliating blow of being told by 
his allies, Russia and Austria, that he must keep the peace 
with France, when he has proclaimed to the world that 
France is ready to take her revenge, is difficult to foretell." 
But Austria failed at the last moment ; and when Lord 
Derby's dispatch was sent round to the various European 
Governments, dechned to instruct their Ambassador at 
Berlin, in the sense desired, on the ground that it would 
irritate Bismarck. 
Various are the interpretations put upon the whole affair. 
Bismarck himself refused to recognise its existence. In his 
Reflections and Reminiscenses he passes very lightlj' over 
the matter, dismissing it as an elaborate fiction. Busch also, 
in his well-known narrative, is discreetly reticent on the 
subject. The Chancellor told Lord Odo Russell that he had 
refused Gortschakoff's request for a categorical promise not 
to go to war, because such a promise would have implied the 
existence of an intention that he repudiated. 
Those who disbelieve Bismarck's denial are driven to 
adopt one of two hypotheses. The conversation between 
Radowitz and Gontaut Biron may have been arranged by 
Bismarck himself with the object of thwarting the plans of 
Count Moltke and the Emperor's military party, whom he 
is said to have detested. This is hardly probable, however, 
because after the affair, while Bismarck made every effort 
to get Gontaut Biron removed from Berlin, the Emperor 
received him into such high, favour that the Chancellor 
denounced him as the tool of the Empress. 
It is more likely that the communication made by Radowitz 
to the French Ambassador was an attempt on the part of the 
Chancellor to check French military preparations by warning 
the French Government of their inevitable res,ult. 
That the communication would ever reach the ears of the 
Times correspondent and, finding its way into print, scare 
the whole of Europe, and result in the administration to the 
Gerrnan Government by Great Britain and Russia of some- 
thing very like a delicately worded reprimand, Bismarck 
can never have for one instant anticipated. For once, this 
prince of intriguers found himself, to say the least of it, 
outwitted if not completely snubbed. Naturally, he was 
furious ; there is no doubt about that. Prince Hohcnlohe's 
letters show that his anger this time was genuine. And 
the whole of his wrath he seems to have vented on Gontaut 
Biron*. One would have thought that Radowitz, whom 
Bismarck never ceased to favour, was equally inculpated, 
and that the prime delinquents in the Chancellor's eyes 
would have been De Blowitz and his editor, Mr. John Delane. 
For they, by pubhshing de Gontaut's report, cleared the 
air and facilitated the intervention of the two great Powers, who 
could no longer plead their ignorance of German machinations. 
Journalism, summoned to its aid by the French Govern- 
ment, had defeated that secret diplomacy which, though 
doubtless to a certain extent inevitable, has probably, far 
oftener than we know, plunged Europe into war. This 
incident proves that there are occasions when candour and 
openness are the only ways of keeping the peace. ' 
* The date, June 20th, given to this letter by Sir Sydney Lee 
in his "Biography of Queen Victoria," p. 431, is probably an error. 
For by that date, the crisis being well over, the letter would have 
been meaningless. 
