There is not one group
of them that has not been guilty of something of the sort before. But I
think one is telling the truth if one says that the over-simple and cold
way in which Prussia took it for granted that the violation of a solemn
and most important treaty was nothing just shocked opinion, even of the
politicians, sufficiently to help to incline the balance against her.
There is much more. The Prussian estimate of Russian, of French, and
even of English psychology was very erroneous. The Prussian way of
getting France not to join is about as subtle as spitting in a man's
face, and the elephantine gambols of the German diplomats in London
during the fatal week preceding the war were a positive aid to the
catastrophe that was about to take place. They blundered as hard and as
heavily as it was possible to blunder; going to the wrong people;
despising the subtly powerful; paying court to the more advertised and
less controlling of the English public men, and in a word behaving
themselves after that fashion for which we have coined the adjective
"newspaper."
There was further the peculiar aggravation of the tone in which the
Austrian note had been addressed to Servia. There was further the
patent and almost puerile double dealing of Berlin in the attempted
negotiations for peace between Russia and Austria--in which negotiations
the British Cabinet was very prominent.
Pages:
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350