"UNAGGRESSIVE" PRUSSIA

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2920, 4 November 1916, Page 6

"UNAGGRESSIVE" PRUSSIA

FORGOTTEN BRITISH EFFORT TO DESTROY MILITARISM/ . It is not generally known that England many years ago sought to fetter tho militarism of Prussia when it was a menace to tho peace of Europe!. To-day wo are bent ou destroying it by force, but our previous effort was made witli the weapons of diplomacy. It failed then, 'becauso Gormany, as two years ago, was determined on war, and wholly unsusceptible to peace talk. Details of our "Secret proposals for disarmament," addressed to Bismarck on the evo of the Franco-Gorman war, have a. timoly interest to-day, .and a chapter dealing with those proposals appears in "Lord Lyons—a Record of British Diplomacy," by Lord Newton, Pay-master-General and Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office. On account of its direct hearing on tho present war, Messrs. T. Nelson and: Sons will shortly issue a cheap edition of the work. In Octobor, 1868, the French Government practically suggested that the British Government should "give advice" to Prussia on the subject of disarmament. The delicate task of doing 60 was entrusted to Lord Clarendon, who discussed matters with Count Bernstorff (father of the present German Ambassador in Washington), and afterwards wrote a tactful letter *to Lord A. Loftus, our Ambassador at Berlin. In this he stated his desire "to invite the attentiou of Count Bismarck to the ononnous standing armies that now afflict Europe by constituting a state of things that is neither peace nor war, but which is so destructive of confidence that mon almost desire irar with aU ite horrors in order to arrive at some certainty of peace." He pointed out that "to modify this system would be a. glorious work, and it is one that Prussia, better than any other Power, might undertake." Lord A. Loftus, having read Lord Clarendon's letter to Count Bismarok, wrote from Berlin on February 6, 1870, that Bismarck remarked that "no one could accuse the Germans of being aggressive," and adding: "Bi6marcsc said that he did not daro even to name the subject of your letter to the King, much less show it to His Majesty. He would get into a fury and immediately think that England was trying to weaken Prussia at the expense of France. ... If the proposition _ came from France, the King would view it as a ruse, but would nob.listen to it. Coming from England," said Bismarck, "it would make tho worst impression on him." _ _

A few days later (February 19, 1870) Lord Clarendon informed Lord Lyons that Bismarck had now returned a written reply to Lord Clarendon's letter to the Ambassador in Berlin. Tho reply was described ri3 "courteous, hut tho intention not to disarm is manifest." Lord Newton's book quotes Bismarck's answer, which is of oonsidorablo length, in hill, because of its historical interest, tho author describing its "specious arguments as designed to impress upon Lord Clarendon the entirely unaggressive nature of Prussian policy." /Five months lator Bismarck becan his war 011 Franco. It is impossible to read those passages in "Lord Lyons" without realising how true it is that the French were deliberately forced into war by Bismarck, and that tho Government of Emile Ollivior never desired war at all.