Current History, A Monthly Magazine

GENERAL FIELD HEADQUARTERS OF THE GERMAN ARMIES IN FRANCE, via Berlin and London, Jan. 24.-"I am surprised to learn that my phrase, 'a scrap of paper,' which I used in my last conversation with the British Ambassador in reference to the Belgian neutrality treaty, should have caused such an unfavorable impression in the United States. The expression was used in quite another connection and the meaning implied in Sir Edward Goschen's report and the turn given to it in the biased comment of our enemies are undoubtedly responsible for this impression."

The speaker was Dr. Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Imperial Chancellor, and the conversation with a representative of The Associated Press occurred at the German Army Field Headquarters, in a town of Northern France, and in a villa serving as the office and dwelling for the Imperial Chancellor, for the Foreign Minister, Gottlieb von Jagow, and for the members of the diplomatic suite accompanying Emperor William afield.

The Chancellor apparently had not relished the subject until his attention was called to the extent to which the phrase had been used in discussion on the responsibility of the war. He then volunteered to give an explanation of his meaning, which in substance was that he had spoken of the treaty not as "a scrap of paper" for Germany, but as an instrument which had become obsolete through Belgium's forfeiture of its neutrality, and that Great Britain had quite other reasons for entering into the war, compared with which the neutrality treaty appeared to have only the value of a scrap of paper.

"My conversation with Sir Edward Goschen," said the Chancellor, "occurred Aug. 4. I had just declared in the Reichstag that only dire necessity and only the struggle for existence compelled Germany to march through Belgium, but that Germany was ready to make compensation for the wrong committed.

"When I spoke I already had certain indications, but no absolute proof upon which to base a public accusation, that Belgium long before had abandoned its neutrality in its relations with England. Nevertheless, I took Germany's responsibilities toward the neutral State so seriously that I spoke frankly of the wrong committed by Germany.

"What was the British attitude on the same question?" continued the Chancellor. "The day before my conversation with Ambassador Goschen, Sir Edward Grey had delivered his well-known speech in Parliament, in which, while he had not stated expressly that England would take part in the war, he had left the matter in little doubt.

"One needs only to read this speech through carefully to learn the reason for England's intervention in the war. Amid all his beautiful phrases about England's honor and England's obligations we find it over and over again expressed that England's interests-its own interests-call for participation in the war, for it is not in England's interests that a victorious and therefore stronger Germany should emerge from the war.

"This old principle of England policy-to take as the sole criterion of its actions its private interests regardless of right, reason, or considerations of humanity-is expressed in that speech of Gladstone's in 1870 on Belgian neutrality, from which Sir Edward quoted.

"Mr. Gladstone then declared that he was unable to subscribe to the doctrine that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee is binding on every party thereto, irrespective altogether of the particular position in which it may find itself at a time when the occasion for action on the guarantee arrives; and he referred to such English statesmen as Aberdeen and Palmerston as supporters of his views.

"England drew the sword," continued the Chancellor, "only because it believed its own interests demanded it. Just for Belgian neutrality it would never have entered the war.

"That is what I meant when I told Sir Edward Goschen in that last interview, when we sat down to talk the matter over privately as man to man, that among the reasons which had impelled England to go into the war the Belgian neutrality treaty had for her only the value of a scrap of paper.

"I may have been a bit excited and aroused," said the Chancellor. "Who would not have been at seeing the hopes and the work of the whole period of my Chancellorship going for nought? I recalled to the Ambassador my efforts for years to bring about an understanding between England and Germany; an understanding which, I reminded him, would have made a general European war impossible, and which absolutely would have guaranteed the peace of Europe.

"Such an understanding," the Chancellor interjected parenthetically, "would have formed the basis on which we could have approached the United States as a third partner; but England had not taken up this plan, and through its entry into the war had destroyed forever the hope of its fulfillment.

"In comparison with such momentous consequences was the treaty not a scrap of paper? England ought really to cease harping on this theme of Belgian neutrality," said the Chancellor. "Documents on the Anglo-Belgian military agreement which we have found in the meantime show plainly enough how England regarded this neutrality. As you know, we found in the archives of the Belgian Foreign Office documents which showed that England in 1911 was determined to throw troops into Belgium without the assent of the Belgian Government if war had then broken out-in other words, to do exactly the same thing for which, with all the pathos of virtuous indignation, it now reproaches Germany.

"In some later dispatch Sir Edward Grey, I believe, informed Belgium that he did not believe England would take such a step because he did not think English public opinion would justify that action. And still people in the United States wonder that I characterized as a scrap of paper the treaty whose observance, according to responsible British statesmen, should be dependent on the pleasure of British public opinion-a treaty which England itself had long since undermined with its military agreements with Belgium!

"Remember, too, that Sir Edward Grey expressly refused to assure us of England's neutrality even in the event that Germany respected Belgian neutrality.

"I can understand, therefore, the English displeasure at my characterization of the Treaty of 1839 as a scrap of paper, for this scrap of paper was for England extremely valuable, furnishing an excuse before the world for embarking in the war.

"I hope, however, that in the United States you will see clearly enough that England in this matter, too, acted solely on the principle of 'right or wrong, my interest.'"

The Chancellor during the conversation had twice risen to take a few impatient steps about the room. He spoke calmly enough, but with an undercurrent of deep feeling, particularly when he mentioned his efforts for an understanding with England and the world peace which he had hoped would come from them based on an agreement between Great Britain, Germany, and the United States, and with a note of thorough conviction as to the justice of the German position toward Belgium.