Charles E W Bean, Diaries, AWM38 3DRL 606/38B/1 - Notebook - Part 3

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might would be Armageddon, or a huge racial

war at the very least. As a matter of

fact, although it was ^officially denied by Germany

at the time, the Germans Govt had seen

the Austrian ultimatum before it had been

despatched. What motive prompted the German

Govt in refusing to stop the war, when one a single

short expression of its opinion wou short hint

hint to the Austrian Govt wd have sufficed, may

someday be known Probably the Kaiser

Wilhelm ll was deeply shocked by the crue

murder of his personal friend & impress his somewhat

mediaeval code demanded that Austria should

be quite unhindered in obtain inflicting 

what form of retribution she chose upon those

whom he assumed to be responsible for the

murder ^assassination of a prince; probably a section

of the German general staff was ready

& eager for was & anxious to seize what looked

like a favourable opportunity ^for making it, impr certainly

most of the members of the Govt & the

bulk of the Prussian people had been

gradually imbued with that idea that

x for which some of the for which a

peculiar school of Prussian philosophy

& the great figure of Bismarck ^in Prussian history are largely

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responsible - the idea that the only thing to

be respected in this world is might & strength

& rigour; & that the Prussian ideal must

be to impose its mighty will upon

become a mighty ^an all-powerful nation & impose its

mighty will upon others & so give

peace & enlightenment to the world. T

That idea was so entirely opposed to the 

British idea that each man & each

nation should be left to work out its

own destiny in its own way, that

trouble was quite certain to come of it

some day - & it was probably the

this clash of ideas & the clash between

the system that had been built upon there,

the Prus was probably the

direct cause of the war.  Because the
Prussians held their ideas they had educated

& produced a military class which had

xxx been allowed to turn the nation into

a huge armed camp - one great war

machine of which the first object ^object  ideal was success

in war. The British ideas had turned out

a class of free thinking citizens who despised

& detested this military despotism almost as

cordially as the military despotism hated

them. Nationally The military despotism which

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really ruled Germany - quite apart from the

Kaiser - naturally saw no reason to prevent

Austria from going to war. And the ^German nation was

with it. Austria declared war on Servia.

Russia mobilised her troops along the Austrian 

& German frontier. Then Germany declared 

war on Russia; &,  as France was clearly

bound by alliance to help Russia, & was

clearly preparing to help her, upon

France too.

Even at this stage it is very

doubtful if English opinion was more in Britain would have joined in 
favour of war  the war if xxx Germany's action

had stopped the scope of the war had

stopped there. It is true that Britain

The question at this stage was whether xx

bond of Britains understanding with France

bound her in honour or in self defence to help

France in the war. The British policy on which

the British Govt relied for the defence of the

Empire was the same on which Britain had

successfully relied fairly consistently relied

for several centuries - never to allow

any to throw her waist into the scale

against never to allow any one power or

combination of powers to become so strong as

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to have the fortunes of Britain in the hollow of

its hand. So long as there was more or less

equality amongst the great nations of the world

they would be bound to respect one another &

the result would be international justice - or as

near as nations have yet approached to it.

Britain therefore always automatically threw

herself into the scale on the weaker side

Europe has always tended to divide itself

A great division of When the European 

powers divided themselves - as they naturally

tended to - into two part sides for mutual

defence, Britain by this policy automatically

threw herself into the scale on the weaker 

side in order to equalise it & if possible

just turn it against the stronger. The 

policy is a very bold one & has succeeded

beyond been justified by success. But

it automatically threw Britain in the

always fair across the path of the strongest

power in any power that was outstandingly

strong - not for the sake of the quarrel but

for the sake of preventing that power from winning

Th becoming stronger. The strongest power

From the point of view of the strongest power

it looked as if England appeared to be

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whilst other powers quarre entered quarrels for the

sake of the quarre only a cause Britain appeared to enter it purely

 for the sake of opposing them; & x it x was always

found that whilst they were inclined to be

generous with their other enemies their bitterest

hatred always Britain always received their

bitterest enmity. It seemed to them that

Britain The European statesmen understood Britains

policy perfectly; but the mass of foreign 

peoples across whose path Britain that policy

led her, always believed that Britain

was persuaded themselves that Britain

had engineered the what trouble against

them; that she was to cowardly to fight

for herself & always depended on dragging

in other nations to fight for her whilst she

sat by & received the profits of the war

this Sir Edward Britain had not always

xxxxxxxx held to this p

This policy, need

It is needless to say that this

This was the famous traditional British policy of

maintaining the "balance of power." English 

foreign minsters had on the whole been consistently

adhered to it, & Sir Edward Grey, the foreign

minster of Britain at this time, firmly

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believed in it. There existed in Europe, at the

time, one nation ^Germany which was being definitely

educated by a national school of philosophy

to believe xxxx its "destiny" to the belief

that its duty was to lead establish a

"hegemony" - a leadership - amongst

the nations. And the only safety seemed

to be x xxx The old policy seemed to be

be particularly jsut be especially the safest

defence under the circumstance. Britain

The overseas self governing dominions of the Empire were

fast growing in strength; but were not 

yet strong enough although they were 

wealthy their and were beginning to

develop ^"home defence"armies & (in the case of Australia)

a navy, they were not strong enough 

to enable Great Britain to counter balance

the strongest power in the world without

seeking allies allies outside the British

Empire. The strong The division at

this time in Europe was between

Germany Austria & Italy (the Triple

Alliance) on the one Land & France &

Russia (the Dual Alliance) on the other. The Of these

powers Germany was the stronger & France the weaker & Sir

Edward Grey, following The policy of 

King Edward Vll , threw the weight of

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Britain into scale on the side of France.

The arrangement understanding made by Sir

Edward fo between England & France was

one of those curiously indefinite understandings

relations which rather appeal to the Anglo Saxon

people. On the big question of mutual help

in case of attack no written agreement

existed at all. There actually existed nothing

that could be called an "arrangement."

But unquestionably, without any writing at

all, there grew up an understanding that, in

any ^great trouble, provided the cause of the other com its friend were such 

as its people approved of, Britain would

help France & France Britain. Volumes

have been written & spoken to prove that

there was or that there was not an

obligation. but The clear truth is that

Whatever has been said or written, the 

clear truth is that an obligation

did exist because an understanding

existed - an indefinite one may but

nevertheless an unquestionable

understanding that if either nation

were involved in a war with other

xx more powerful nations in the other

group, & its cause were such as to appear

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to the justice of its friend, it might expect

its friend to help it. xx On the strength of

this understanding, so far as I know without

a single written word, the naval defence

of the Mediterranean was left to France &

that of the North Sea to Britain. France

withdrew practically all her ships from

the North Sea, & Britain cut down the

size of her squadron in the Mediterranean.

The British xxx War Office discussed with

the French War Office the nature of the help

that might be given to France if ever the

two countries found were forced to defend

themselves together. And a British

staff officer discussed with the Belgium

staff in Brussels the arrangement which

could be made for landing a British coming to the help of Belgium by

landing a British force in Belgium there in case Germany ever 

broke Belgian neutrality & crossed the

Belgian frontier. There The notes of this

interview were afterwards discovered

by the Germans in Brussels & were

published by them as a proof that Britain

had contemplated breaking the neutrality

of Belgium- when a version which must have

been known to be a ^deliberate perversion of the facts.

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When Germany declared war upon France,

therefore, the question at once arose whether

Britain was bound xx ^in honour to support France xx

in this war. There was a xxxxxxxxxxxxx

opinion were several strong ^& quite definite currents of

opinion which were quite definite in Britain
& Australia; which although owing to the

suddenness of the change in the situation they

had very little time to reach the air, the newspapers

of the few days preceding the war stand there

as evidence of them. The opinion of the few

who like Sir Edward Grey believed that as a matter

of sheer ^defence policy Britain must prevent France from being

crushed was^ from the first alone utterly swamped & lost

sight of in the huge rivers of public

opinion which ran in other xxxx channels.

The two main streams were one which

thought that Britain was bound by the

"Entente" to support France; & one which

almost, if not quite, as powerful which

held that nothing had ^yet happened which ^morally obliged

England to enter the war. The one reason

why England had preserv never entered into

written agreement was in order that

she should preserve her liberty to judge in

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every case whether the quarrel was such

as she could enter into. And there was

still a considerable undercurrent of British

feeling that although Germany could have

avoided the war by a hint to Austria, Russia

could have done avoided it also by

confining her mobilisation to those of her

troops who were on the Austrian frontier.

When war with Austria became imminent

xxxxxxx Russia ordered a mobilisation

of her army which included xxx the mobilisation

of at least some of the Russian troops on

the German frontier. Seeing the state of

feeling in Germany & that the Germans also

were in "Mobilisation" is an indefinite

term which is always twisted by both sides to

suit their own purpose before the outbreak

of war. It is only a prudent precaution,

if war seems imminent, to recall officers

to their regiments, xxx xxxx make sure

that military stores are in readiness &

make similar & these preparations are

obvious to the other side, & are often

spoken of as mobilisation although the

it is not known how far they go - that being