Lord Grey's Memoirs

On November 15, in a speech in Newcastle, Lord Grey declared that war was bound to break out in 1914 as a result of the increase in armaments: "Whatever Germany's responsibility may have been, I understand today, better than I did in 1914, that war had become really inevitable." These words, spoken at a time when the German government was questioning the Empire's responsibility, provoked legitimate emotion in England and on the continent, and we should be pleased today to see Lord Grey set the record straight in the series of articles just published in the Westminster Gazette. These articles, covering the period from 1892 to 1916, dispel any ambiguity concerning the origins of the conflict. In his conclusions, the former Foreign Secretary categorically states that "France dreaded war and did everything she could to avoid it... I do not believe that either the Tsar, nor Sazonov, nor any of the leaders of Russia planned to provoke a conflict." Nor does Lord Grey believe that the German people consciously desired war; but "there was certainly not in Germany a feeling hostile to war sufficiently strong to determine a desire for peace." Another point that seems definitively resolved by Lord Grey's statement concerns England's participation. There was, within the British Cabinet, a party opposed to the war, all the more active as the danger became closer; this party held meetings and constantly acted in concert to prevent England from being drawn into the conflict. It included eminent figures "second in authority only to that of the Prime Minister (is this an allusion to Mr. Lloyd George?) and several influential leaders of the Liberal Party." Under these conditions, it would have been impossible to give France, at the end of July 1914, the assurances it had so insistently demanded without provoking a ministerial crisis. Lancashire industrialists were also hostile to the war, and Mr. Bonar Law declared that he could not answer for the attitude of the Conservative party "unless the neutrality of Belgium is violated." Lord Grey relates how he was challenged, in the corridors of the Commons, by a particularly active Liberal MP who told him that England could not participate in the war under any circumstances. "Even if the neutrality of Belgium is violated by Germany?" replied the Secretary of State. The MP paused for a moment, stunned, then declared energetically: "She will not violate it." The English pacifists therefore trusted Germany, as Germany trusted them. They were certain that she would not violate her commitments, just as she was certain that they would continue to preach peace in the event of a violation.

The fact that the invasion of Belgium was indeed the determining cause of British participation and that, without it, this participation would at least have been delayed long enough to lose its effectiveness, is made clear in Lord Grey's account of the final crisis: "Until the moment when the violation of Belgian neutrality became imminent, the Cabinet could give no promises, and in this it reflected the mood of public opinion in Parliament and in the country. When, on 1 August, Germany evaded our demand for respect for Belgian neutrality, this period of indecision ended."
Another passage from Lord Grey's memoirs of particular interest from a Belgian point of view concerns the guarantee given to Belgium and the way in which the British Cabinet viewed its obligations towards our country. Lord Grey distinguishes between the general nature of the guarantee given to Luxembourg and the specific nature of the guarantee given to Belgium. Based on a speech delivered by Lord Clarendon in the House of Lords on June 20, 1867, a speech that emphasizes this difference, he indicates the paramount importance attached, from that time on, to the Belgian guarantee, and confirmed, three years later, by Mr. Gladstone in such categorical terms. For the British government to change its attitude, it would have been necessary, according to Lord Grey, for political circumstances to have changed profoundly. Now, he explains, since Germany was more powerful in 1914 than in 1870, and since the subjugation of Belgium was expected to be even more complete in the event of conquest, all the reasons that inspired British policy fifty years earlier had to be reinforced.
The attitude of the Belgian government further contributed to the British government's decision. By informing the guarantor powers on 1 August that in the event of an attack Belgium would defend its neutrality, the Belgian government clarified the situation and provided a new argument for the defenders of the Right. As Lord Grey said, this statement was important: "If Belgium had consented, voluntarily or as a result of threats, to the passage of German troops, we would have had the right to send troops to defend its neutrality and to resist the violation of its territory. But it is clear that, if it appealed to us, at the very moment when it was fighting for a cause that we had pledged ourselves to defend, this appeal would be particularly powerful and moving. How could we have resisted it?"