New York Times Current History The European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 Part 25

I know that the two things which are giving him the deepest pain in this world catastrophe, excepting only the sufferings of his own kindred and people, are the enmity of Great Britain and the misunderstanding of his character, feelings, and purposes in America. To remedy the first we here can do nothing, but to dispel the second is our bounden duty; and I devoutly hope that other evidence may prove sufficient to do this to the satisfaction of the minds of my countrymen than was necessary to convince the British Nation that the great-hearted Abraham Lincoln was not a brute nor the urbane William H. Seward a demon of ferocity.

Reply to Prof. Burgess

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

The Burgess Kaiser is a truly admirable person. Every right-minded man will be only too glad to believe all that Prof. Burgess affirms of him.

To be sure, there is a lurking sense that the professor "doth protest too much." But let that go. In the present topsy-turvy state of the world it is refres.h.i.+ng to hear of a man who loves his wife and children in the good, old way. But just now the world is not interested in the private, personal, peculiarly German characteristics of the Kaiser. We outsiders must take him as he is known to the international world. We of course trust that he is an able, cultivated, attractive gentleman. There are many such in the world. But this gentleman happens to be the head of one of the great nations. Our interest in him centres in his relations to his neighbor nations.

An English friend of mine was appointed to duty in a tribe of savages in Africa. I dislike to call them savages after the testimony of my friend.

But they were just plain, naked folk, living in primitive simplicity in their native land. The chief of this little tribe was, as my friend a.s.serts, a superior man, and, in spite of his undress, a good deal of a gentleman. In physique he was superb. A sculptor's heart would have leaped for joy at sight of him. My friend said to see him teaching his young son to throw a spear was a sort of physical music. He himself could throw a spear to an incredible distance with the precision of a rifle shot. He ruled his little kingdom with surprising wisdom and fairness. He was welcomed everywhere among his people as the friend and counselor. His family relations were unimpeachable. The same was true throughout the tribe. He was devoutly pious. In short, he was a Burgess Kaiser in the small. But he was the war lord of all that region. He was fiercely jealous of all the neighboring tribes. He kept his own people armed and drilled to the top of efficiency, ready for attack or defense. He was noted for his hatred and contempt for his people except his own. His forays were marked by savage cruelty. His military necessities stopped at nothing.

Need it be said that the surrounding tribes were in nowise interested in this chief's physique or domestic virtues, or in his fidelity to his own people? It is safe to affirm that the British Government did not ask whether he had the body of a Michael Angelo's David or of a baboon from the jungle. It did not ask whether he was good to his wife and children.

Most animals are. It did not care how devoted he was to his fetich. The sole question was, What sort of public citizen is he? How does he stand related to surrounding peoples? On what terms does he propose to live with them? That precisely is what we want to know about the Kaiser.

Fortunately, we do not have to ask Prof. Burgess, or any group of savants, or the German people. The Kaiser's record is known and read of all men.

JAMES H. ECOB,

American Inst.i.tute of Social Service.

New York, Oct. 21, 1914.

PROF. BURGESS'S SECOND ARTICLE.

The Guarantee of Belgian Neutrality

So much has been said about Belgian neutrality, so much a.s.sumed, and it has been such a stumbling block in the way of any real and comprehensive understanding of the causes and purposes of the great European catastrophe, that it may be well to examine the basis of it and endeavor to get an exact idea of the scope and obligation.

Of course, we are considering here the question of guaranteed neutrality, not the ordinary neutrality enjoyed by all States not at war, when some States are at war; the difference between ordinary neutrality and guaranteed neutrality being that no State is under any obligation to defend the ordinary neutrality of any other State against infringement by a belligerent, and no belligerent is under any special obligation to observe it. Guaranteed neutrality is, therefore, purely a question of specific agreement between States.

On the 19th day of April, 1839, Belgium and Holland, which from 1815 to 1830 had formed the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, signed a treaty of separation from, and independence of, each other. It is in this treaty that the original pledge of Belgian neutrality is to be found.

The clause of the treaty reads: "Belgium in the limits above described shall form an independent neutral State and shall be bound to observe the same neutrality toward all other States." On the same day and at the same place, (London,) a treaty, known in the history of diplomacy as the Quintuple Treaty, was signed by Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, approving and adopting the treaty between Belgium and Holland. A little later, May 11, the German Confederation, of which both Austria and Prussia were members, also ratified this treaty.

In the year 1866 the German Confederation was dissolved by the war between Austria and Prussia, occasioned by the Schleswig-Holstein question. In 1867 the North German Union was formed, of which Prussia was the leading State, while Austria and the German States south of the River Main were left out of it altogether. Did these changes render the guarantees of the Treaty of 1839 obsolete and thereby abrogate them, or at least weaken them and make them an uncertain reliance? The test of this came in the year 1870, at the beginning of hostilities between France and the North German Union. Great Britain, the power most interested in the maintenance of Belgian neutrality, seems to have had considerable apprehension about it. Mr. Gladstone, then Prime Minister, said in the House of Commons: "I am not able to subscribe to the doctrine of those who have held in this House what plainly amounts to an a.s.sertion that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee is binding on every party to it, irrespective altogether of the particular position in which it may find itself when the occasion for acting on the guarantee arises."

A One-Year Treaty.

Proceeding upon this view, the British Government then sought and procured from the French Government and from the Government of the North German Union separate but identical treaties guaranteeing with the British Government the neutrality of Belgium during the period of the war between France and the North German Union, the so-called Franco-Prussian war, which had just broken out, and for one year from the date of its termination. In these treaties it is also to be remarked that Great Britain limited the possible operation of her military force in maintaining the neutrality of Belgium to the territory of the State of Belgium.

These treaties expired in the year 1872, and the present German Empire has never signed any treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium.

Moreover, between 1872 and 1914 Belgium became what is now termed a world power; that is, it reached a population of nearly 9,000,000 people, it had a well-organized, well-equipped army of over 200,000 men and powerful fortifications for its own defense; it had acquired and was holding colonies covering 1,000,000 square miles of territory, inhabited by 15,000,000 men, and it had active commerce, mediated by its own marine, with many, if not all, parts of the world. Now, these things are not at all compatible in principle with a specially guaranteed neutrality of the State which possesses them. The State which possesses them has grown out of its swaddling clothes, has arrived at the age and condition of maturity and self-protection, and has pa.s.sed the age when specially guaranteed neutrality is natural.

From all these considerations, I think it extremely doubtful whether, on the first day of August, 1914, Belgium should have been considered as possessing any other kind of neutrality than the ordinary neutrality enjoyed by all States not at war, when some States are at war. In fact, it remains to be seen whether Belgium itself had not forfeited the privilege of this ordinary neutrality before a single German soldier had placed foot on Belgian soil. A few days ago I received a letter from one of the most prominent professors in the University of Berlin, who is also in close contact with the Prussian Ministry of Education, a man in whose veracity I place perfect confidence, having known him well for ten years. He writes: "Our violation of the neutrality of Belgium was prompted in part by the fact that we had convincing proof that there were French soldiers already in Belgium and that Belgium had agreed to allow the French Army to pa.s.s over its soil in case of a war between France and us." Moreover, in the British "White Paper" itself, No. 122, is to be found a dispatch from the British Amba.s.sador in Berlin, Sir E.

Goschen, to Sir Edward Grey, containing these words: "It appears from what he [the German Secretary of Foreign Affairs] said that the German Government consider that certain hostile acts have already been committed by Belgium. As an instance of this, he alleged that a consignment of corn for Germany had been placed under an embargo already." The date of this dispatch is July 31, days before the Germans entered Belgium.

But placing these two things entirely aside, as well as the new evidence, said to have just been found in the archives at Brussels, that Belgium had by her agreements with Great Britain forfeited every claim to even ordinary neutrality in case of a war between Germany and Great Britain, I find in the British "White Paper" itself, No. 123, not only ample justification, but absolute necessity, from a military point of view, for a German army advancing against France, not only to pa.s.s through Belgium, but to occupy Belgium. This number of the "White Paper"

is a communication dated Aug. 1 from Sir Edward Grey to Sir E. Goschen, British Amba.s.sador in Berlin. In it Sir Edward Grey informed Sir E.

Goschen that the German Amba.s.sador in London asked him "whether, if Germany gave a promise not to violate Belgian neutrality, we, Great Britain, would remain neutral," and that he [Grey] replied that he "could not say that," that he did not think Great Britain "could give a promise of neutrality on that condition alone"; further, Sir Edward Grey says: "The Amba.s.sador pressed me as to whether I could not formulate conditions on which we would remain neutral. He even suggested that the integrity of France and her colonies might be guaranteed. I said that I felt obliged to refuse definitely any promise to remain neutral on similar terms, and I could only say that we must keep our hands free."

The Necessary Invasions.

After this Sir Edward Grey declared in Parliament, according to newspaper reports, that Great Britain stood, as to Belgian neutrality, on the same ground as in 1870. With all due respect, I cannot so understand it. In 1870 Great Britain remained neutral in a war between the North German Union and France, and, with the North German Union, guaranteed Belgium against invasion by France, and, with France, guaranteed Belgium against invasion by the North German Union. On Aug.

1, 1914, the German Empire asked Great Britain to do virtually the same thing, and Great Britain refused. It is, therefore, Germany who stood in 1914 on the same ground, with regard to Belgium neutrality, as she did in 1870, and it is Great Britain who s.h.i.+fted her position and virtually gave notice that she herself would become a belligerent. It was this notice served by Sir Edward Grey on the German Amba.s.sador in London on Aug. 1, 1914, which made the occupation of Belgium an absolute military necessity to the safety of the German armies advancing against France.

Otherwise they would, so far as the wit of man could divine, have left their right flank exposed to the advance of a British army through Belgium, and there certainly was no German commander so absolutely bereft of all military knowledge or instinct as to have committed so patent an error.

Belgium has Great Britain to thank for every drop of blood shed by her people, and every franc of damage inflicted within her territory during this war. With a million of German soldiers on her eastern border demanding unhindered pa.s.sage through one end of her territory, under the pledge of guarding her independence and integrity and reimbursing every franc of damage, and no British force nearer than Dover, across the Channel, it was one of the most inconsiderate, reckless, and selfish acts ever committed by a great power when Sir Edward Grey directed, as is stated in No. 155 of the British "White Paper," the British Envoy in Brussels to inform the "Belgian Government that if pressure is applied to them by Germany to induce them to depart from neutrality, his Majesty's Government expects that they will resist by any means in their power."

It is plain enough that Great Britain was not thinking so much of protecting Belgium as of Belgium protecting her, until she could prepare to attack Germany in concert with Russia and France. She was willing to let Belgium, yea almost to command Belgium, to take the fearful risk of complete destruction in order that she might gain a little time in perfecting the co-operation of Russia and France with herself for the crus.h.i.+ng of Germany, and in order to hold the public opinion of neutral powers, especially of the United States of America, in leash under the chivalrous issue of protecting a weaker country, which she has done little or nothing to protect, but which she could have effectively protected by simply remaining neutral herself.

We Americans have been greatly confused in mind in regard to the issues of this war. We have confounded causes and occasions and purposes and incidents until it has become almost impossible for any considerable number of us to form a sound and correct judgment in regard to it. But we shall emerge from that nebulous condition. We are beginning to see more clearly now, and it would not surprise me greatly if the means used for producing our confusion would some day come back, if not to plague the consciences, at least to foil the purposes of their inventors.

Reply to Prof. Burgess

_To the Editor of The New York Times:_

Prof. Burgess's amazing communication on Belgian neutrality omits an essential piece of evidence. Granting, for the sake of argument, that the German Empire might repudiate all treaty obligations of the earlier German confederations, (very odd law, this;) granting also the still more novel plea that Belgium had outgrown the need, and the privilege of neutralization, Germany had agreed to treat all neutral powers under the following provisions of The Hague Conventions of 1907 concerning the rights and duties of neutral powers:

1. The territory of neutral powers is inviolable.

2. Belligerents are forbidden to move troops or either munitions of war or supplies across the territory of a neutral power.

5. A neutral power must not allow any of the acts referred to in Articles 2 to 4 to occur on its territory.

This pledge the German Empire had solemnly made only seven years ago. It would seem that Prof. Burgess may accept the distinction ably made by Prof. Munsterberg between "pledges of national honor" and mere "routine agreements," placing Hague treaties in the latter category.

The allegation that France and England secretly did unneutral acts in Belgium is as yet without proof of any sort, and must be interpreted by the commonsense consideration that a neutral Belgium was a defensive bulwark for France and England. To have tampered with her neutrality would have been motiveless folly. How much more decent and moral than Prof. Burgess's meticulous weighing of national reincorporation as a means of evading national obligations is Chancellor Hollweg's robust plea of national necessity! Prof. Burgess's whole moral and mental att.i.tude in this case seems to be that of a corporation lawyer getting a trust out of a hole under the Statute of Limitations or by some reorganizing dodge.

FRANK JEWETT MATHER, Jr.

Princeton, N.J., Nov. 4, 1914.