PRE-WAR NEGOTIATIONS

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 9 November 1917, Page 1

PRE-WAR NEGOTIATIONS

WHKN BRITAIN LIVED IN A FOOL'S PARADISE AND DREAMED IMPOSSIBLE THINGS. Important revelations which form a valuable chapter in the history of British ; and German negotiations during the eight : years before the war have been published , by the ' Manchester Guardian.' The revelations are a detailed account of the negotiations which Mr Richard Burden (now Viscount) Haldane, then Secretary of War. conducted with Emperor William, Dr Von Bethmann.Holhvog (German Imperial Chancellor), Admiral Von Tirpitz , (Minister of the German Navy), and other German leaders, including striking " conversations." Lord Haldane was the foremost student of Germany amongst the British public men, and his career has been a storm centre since the war, the gist of the attacks on him being based on a charge that ho. knew of Germany's designs, but had reassured his fellow-countrymen that all was well. The ' Guardian' prefaces the article with the following:— " We hold no brief for Lord Haldane. Indeed, on the whole, question of secret diplomacy—a diplomacy so secret that its workings in even very vital particulars are not always known beyond tlie bounds of an inner Cabinet—we hold a view quite different from that which he and too many statesmen have been accustomed to act upon." HALDANE'S VISIT TO GERMANY. Haldane .visited Germany in September, 1906, as Minister of War. He was working in close connection with Sir Edward Grey Minister). He took first in conversations with the French General Staff. The idea of these conversations was if Germany attacked France Great Britain should be prepared to give military assistance and help hold the frontier opposite Belgium. Haldane was convinced that assistance could not >be given France within a reasonable time, and bent all his thoughts toward organisation for extreme rapidity in 'mobilisation and transport, which meant complete reorganisation of the •British Army. Emperor William read a speech Haldane nad made to London Germans, and invited him to attend the manoeuvres. Haldane was anxious to get useful information about the German organisation,, so he accepted. On his way he visited King Edward, who was stopping at Marienbad. '" He there saw King Ferdinand of Bulgaria," says the ' Guardian,' '' who was worrying King Edward with a project that, if rumor is true, boded no good to Greece. King Edward very pro-, perly did not want to talk politics with Ferdinand. He told Lord Haldane- that he must put an end to all of Ferdinand's conversations with himself, who could ' act "■only through, my Ministers.' " FERDINAND IS MUM. Lord Haldane, not desiring to hear Ferdinand's projects against Greece, talked so volubly on other topics that Ferdinand could not get in a word edgewise. The ' Guardian' then relates a story of an English author of how Emperor William at the grand review galloped up to Haldane, who stood with a top-hat and frock coat in his carriage, and said: — "A splendid machine I have in this army, Mr Haldane. Isn't it so? What could I do without it, situated as I am between the. Russians and the French. But the French, are your allies, so I beg your pardon." Haldane replied that if he were in the Emperor's place lie would feel quite comfortable. Lord Haldane and" two assistants went thoroughly into the organisation "of the German War Office, rubbing some of the officials • the wrong way. They afterward thawed, however. Lieutonant-General Von Moltke, Chief of the General Staff, in a conversation asked Haldane to put whatever questions he liked. "In-that case," replied Lord Haldane. *' 1 shall call for the plans for an invasion of England." Von Moltke replied : " We have not one in the building," to which Lord Haldane, looking out of the window toward the Admiralty, said: " Perhaps they are there." Von Moltke admitted that they were there, and that they were very good plans, too. HISTORY OF THE-BAGDAD RAILWAY AGREEMENT. The article gives for the first time Emperor William's negotiations of the Bagdad Railway agreement. While visiting Windsor Castle 'in November, 1907, Emperor William took Lord Haldane aside the- first evening of his visit and said how sorry he was there was so much friction over the Bagdad Railway. "My answer mi- we wuited a gate to protect India from troops coming down the new railway." said Lord Haldane. Asked what he meant by a gate, Lord Haldane replied tbat he mean*i control of the farthest-off section of the railway—the one nearest the Persian Gulf. To this Emperor William replied: " 1 will give you the gate." The British Foreign Cilice regarded the negotiations favorably, but it was considered necessary to bring in France and Russia, whose interests also were involved. A conference in Berlin of the four Powers was arranged with the support of- Emperor but it was defeated at Berlin on the ground that an agreement about j tlie Bagdad Railway was no business of Russia. | OFFICIAL BERLIN DIVIDED. j This, says the -writer of the article, was I the first and clearest indication of two facts about the German foreign policy: that the ! Emperor ivas not quite master in his own house, and that official Berlin was divided into two parties—one anxious for a working . agreement between England, France, and ' Germany, and another, not yet avowedly * a. war party, regarding ail these attempts I hopeless or dangerous or both. Then and for some time afterward Emperor William * belonged to the first- party, and genuinely was anxious for friendly relations with j England. The Crown Prince, with Ad- . miral Von Tirpitz and the 'General Staff, * and probably Prince Von Bulow, belonged s definitely to the second. The party diviII sion became much sharper, and later was e persisted in x by Germany, even after the l ~ war began. Haldane had German syni- '■ pathisers in the same sense that Emperci » William had English sympathisers, whe believed it was for the good of the world that- England and Germany should come ti an understanding. The key to Haldaue's , l J" whole policy was, while ~ the eventual triumpli of the anti-Englisli party, ■to as far as possible strengther "those in Germany disposed to be friendly.