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Experimental Film and Artists’ Moving Image

Experimental and Expanded Animation

New Perspectives and Practices

Edited by Vicky Smith & Nicky Hamlyn

Experimental Film and Artists’ Moving Image

Series Editors
Kim Knowles
Aberystwyth University
Aberystwyth, UK

Jonathan Walley
Department of Cinema
Denison University
Granville, OH, USA
Existing outside the boundaries of mainstream cinema, the field of
experimental film and artists’ moving image presents a radical challenge
not only to the conventions of that cinema but also to the social and cul-
tural norms it represents. In offering alternative ways of seeing and expe-
riencing the world, it brings to the fore different visions and dissenting
voices. In recent years, scholarship in this area has moved from a marginal
to a more central position as it comes to bear upon critical topics such as
medium specificity, ontology, the future of cinema, changes in cinematic
exhibition and the complex interrelationships between moving image
technology, aesthetics, discourses, and institutions. This book series stakes
out exciting new directions for the study of alternative film practice—from
the black box to the white cube, from film to digital, crossing continents
and disciplines, and developing fresh theoretical insights and revised his-
tories. Although employing the terms ‘experimental film’ and ‘artists
moving image’, we see these as interconnected practices and seek to inter-
rogate the crossovers and spaces between different kinds of oppositional
filmmaking.
We invite proposals on any aspect of non-mainstream moving image
practice, which may take the form of monographs, edited collections,
and artists’ writings both historical and contemporary. We are interested
in expanding the scope of scholarship in this area, and therefore welcome
proposals with an interdisciplinary and intermedial focus, as well as stud-
ies of female and minority voices. We also particularly welcome proposals
that move beyond the West, opening up space for the discussion of Latin
American, African and Asian perspectives.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15817
 Vicky Smith · Nicky Hamlyn
Editors

Experimental and
Expanded Animation
New Perspectives and Practices
Editors
Vicky Smith Nicky Hamlyn
University for the Creative Arts University for the Creative Arts
Farnham, Canterbury, UK Canterbury, UK

and

School of Communication
Royal College of Art
London, UK

ISSN 2523-7527 ISSN 2523-7535 (electronic)

Experimental Film and Artists’ Moving Image
ISBN 978-3-319-73872-7 ISBN 978-3-319-73873-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73873-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018937877

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights
of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction
on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and
retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover credit: ‘33 Frames Per Foot’ (2013) by Vicky Smith

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer International
Publishing AG part of Springer Nature
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Foreword

On Animation
This book makes its appearance at a time when, more than ever before,
it is possible to question what exactly is animation? The employment
of CGI in many Hollywood feature films has irrevocably blurred the
boundary between animation and live action. This, in a way, returns us
to cinema’s first decades, when there were no definitions to concern
us; the attraction of the medium was ‘things in motion’, be it Louis
Lumière’s wall being demolished and rebuilding itself, or Georges
Méliès’s multiple self-portraits singing on a musical stave, or Émil Cohl’s
Fantasmagorie (1908) of white-lines-on-black seamlessly morphing from
one image to another. In the following decades, animation largely took
its own path, and became a branch of cinema generally subservient to
the live-action mainstream, no longer ‘the main attraction’, but with the
compensation of being more open to individual expression.
The early animators (Cohl and Winsor McKay) would have appre-
ciated the French term for animation, Le Dessin Animé, the animated
drawing. Better than bald ‘animation’, it captures the sense that the
drawn-image should be totally and constantly in motion; no ‘dead’ inan-
imate parts. After his first fully animated Gertie the Dinosaur (1914),
McKay himself struggled to maintain this dynamic, and invented many
of the tricks that would be used by later animators to minimize the
labour involved, (cels, cycles of drawings, etc.)—in effect, accepting the
‘killing’ of part of the image. Hollywood animators largely accepted

v
vi    Foreword

these compromises; the story’s the thing, although there are moments in
early Disney and Fleischer where gloriously the whole image is involved
in motion. But these are rare. To see the ‘struggle for full animation’ (for
‘life’) continued, one turns to the parallel history of experimental anima-
tion and the work of artist animators Walter Ruttmann, Len Lye, Lotte
Reiniger, Alexandre Alexeieff and Claire Parker, Robert Breer, Caroline
Leaf, et al. These animators demonstrated that anything material could
be animated—wet paint, the filmstrip, silhouettes, a screen of pins, post-
cards, sand; and so began the process of medium-expansion.
Such animation is labour intensive. It takes time, but ‘time’ can add
its own enrichments. The tortuously long process of Yuriy Norshteyn
making his (unfinished) The Overcoat (1981–) comes to mind, or the
digressive reverie of Susan Pitt’s Asparagus (1979), which must have
taken years of labour, or Fischli and Weiss’s live-action-as-animation Der
Lauf der Dinge (1987), the latter two of which are discussed here. All
benefit from ideas developed en route … originating in the intellectual
curiosity that is every artist’s starting-point. Once questions are asked,
boundaries fall away and the imagination expands. So, as this anthology
put together by two outstanding practitioners clearly demonstrates, ani-
mation continues to sustain the excitement of cinema’s first decades.

London, UK David Curtis

David Curtis was Film Officer at the Arts Council of Great Britain, then
established the British Artists Film & Video Study Collection at Central
St Martins. He founded the ANIMATE funding programme. He is
author of Experimental Cinema (1970) and A History of Artists Film &
Video in Britain (2007).
 Contents

Introduction 1
Vicky Smith and Nicky Hamlyn

Lines and Interruptions in Experimental Film and Video 19

Simon Payne

Performing the Margins of the New 37

Dirk de Bruyn

Twenty-First Century Flicker: Jodie Mack, Benedict Drew

and Sebastian Buerkner 61
Barnaby Dicker

Experimental Time-Lapse Animation and the Manifestation

of Change and Agency in Objects 79
Vicky Smith

Analogon: Of a World Already Animated 103

Sean Cubitt

Emptiness Is Not ‘Nothing’: Space and Experimental

3D CGI Animation 119
Alex Jukes

vii
viii    Contents

Inanimation: The Film Loop Performances of Bruce McClure 145

Nicky Hamlyn

Re-splitting, De-synchronizing, Re-animating: (E)motion,

Neo-spectacle and Innocence in the Film Works of John
Stezaker 163
Paul Wells

Cut to Cute: Fact, Form, and Feeling in Digital Animation 183

Johanna Gosse

The Animated Female Body, Feminism(s) and ‘Mushi’ 203

Suzanne Buchan

“Coming to Life” and Intermediality in the Tableaux

Vivants in Magic Mirror (Pucill, 2013) and Confessions
to the Mirror (Pucill, 2016) 231
Sarah Pucill

Siting Animation: The Affect of Place 257

Birgitta Hosea

Index 279
 Notes on Contributors

Prof. Dr. Suzanne Buchan is Professor of Animation Aesthetics at

Middlesex University London in the Faculty of Arts and Creative Media.
Her research addresses a notably wide concept of ‘pure’ and digital ani-
mation as a pervasive moving image form across a range of platforms,
media and disciplines. Editor of animation: an interdisciplinary jour-
nal (Sage), her publications include many chapters and essays, Pervasive
Animation (ed, 2013) and The Quay Brothers: Into a Metaphysical
Playroom (2011). Also active as a curator, most recently ‘Animated
Wonderworlds/Animierte Wunderwelten’ (Museum of Design Zurich
2015–16).
Prof. Sean Cubitt is Professor of Film and Television at Goldsmiths,
University of London and Honorary Professorial Fellow of the
University of Melbourne. His publications include The Cinema Effect,
Ecomedia, The Practice of Light: Genealogies of Visual Media and Finite
Media: Environmental Implications of Digital Technology.
Dr. Dirk de Bruyn is Associate Professor of Screen and Design at
Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. He has made numerous exper-
imental, documentary and animation films, videos and performance and
installation work over the last 45 years and written and curated exten-
sively in these areas of practice. His experimental film work and per-
formances have screened internationally, with retrospectives at Punto
Y Raya and Melbourne International Animation Festivals in 2016.

ix
x    Notes on Contributors

Dr. Barnaby Dicker is a researcher, lecturer, artist-filmmaker and cura-

tor. His research revolves around conceptual and material innovations
in and through graphic technologies and arts, including cinematog-
raphy and photography, with particular emphasis on avant-guard prac-
tices. He sits on the editorial board of Animation: An Interdisciplinary
Journal and is a member of the UK Arts and Humanities Research
Council-funded International Research Network ‘Film and the Other
Arts: Intermediality, Medium Specificity, Creativity.’ Barnaby has taught
at the Royal College of Art, University of South Wales, University for the
Creative Arts, Royal Holloway, University of London, Kingston School
of Art, and Cardiff School of Art and Design. He is currently a Visiting
Research Fellow at King’s College, London.
Dr. Johanna Gosse is a historian of modern & contemporary art spe-
cializing in experimental film and media. She is a Visiting Assistant
Professor in the Department of Art & Art History at the University
of Colorado, Boulder. In 2016, she received an Arts Writers Grant for
her book project on the artist Ray Johnson. Her writing has been pub-
lished in journals such as Camera Obscura, Radical History Review,
Art Journal, Art and the Public Sphere, Moving Image Review & Art
Journal, and the Journal of Black Mountain College Studies, exhibition
catalogues such as Bruce Conner: It’s All True (SFMoMA and MoMA,
2016), and edited collections including Abstract Video: The Moving
Image in Contemporary Art (Berkeley: University of California Press,
2015) and Artists’ Moving Image in Britain since 1989 (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2018).
Prof. Nicky Hamlyn is professor of Experimental Film at University for
the Creative Arts, Canterbury, UK, and lecturer in Communication at
the RCA, London. His film and video work is available on three DVD
compilations from LUX, RGB and Film Gallery, Paris. His books include
Film Art Phenomena (BFI, 2003) and Kurt Kren: Structural Films
(Intellect, 2016), co-edited with Al Rees and Simon Payne.
Dr. Birgitta Hosea is a London-based artist and Reader in Moving
Image at the University for the Creative Arts. Her work, which has
been collected for the Tate Britain’s archive (2012) and Centre d’Art
Contemporain, Paris (2014), explores presence, time, affect and digital
materiality and ranges from short film to video installation and animated
performance art through to drawing on paper. Most recently (2017), her
 Notes on Contributors    xi

projects have been shown in the Venice Biennale, the Karachi Biennale
and the Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art. She has also taught
in Azerbaijan, USA, China, Romania, Austria and Sweden, was Head of
Animation at the Royal College of Art and MA Character Animation at
Central Saint Martins.
Dr. Alex Jukes’ animation concerns fine art and experimental image
making. His practice research challenges what might be considered
a dominant, largely commercial aesthetic relating to the field of 3D
computer generated (CG) animation and seeks to develop alternative
approaches to its creation and presentation. His Ph.D. at the Royal
College of Art concerned the study of ‘space’ as material within the pro-
duction of 3-D CGI. Alex is Programme Leader for BA Animation at
Edge Hill University.
Dr. Simon Payne is an artist and Senior Lecturer in Film and Media
Studies at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge. His video work has
been shown at Tate Modern, Tate Britain, The Hermitage Museum,
St Petersburg, the Serpentine and Whitechapel Galleries, Anthology
Film Archives and various film festivals including Edinburgh, London
and Rotterdam. He also programmes films and has written widely on
experimental film and video, most recently editing the book Kurt Kren:
Structural Films with Al Rees and Nicky Hamlyn.
Dr. Sarah Pucill’s 16mm films, which stretch nearly three decades, have
received public funding, have shown in galleries, museums and cinemas
world-wide and won awards at Festivals internationally. Her first feature
length film Magic Mirror (2013), premiered at Tate Modern, toured
internationally with LUX and was exhibited with photographs from
the film at The Nunnery Gallery 2014. The sequel film Confessions To
the Mirror (2016) premiered at London Film Festival and has screened
at leading museum and gallery venues in London (National Portrait
Gallery, White Cube Gallery) and internationally (Creteil International
Film Festival, Alchemy Film Festival). Her work is archived and distrib-
uted through leading international distributors including LUX, The
British Film Institute (BFI), and Light Cone Paris. She is a Reader in
Fine Art Film at University of Westminster and is an active member of
the Research Centre CREAM.
Dr. Vicky Smith is an experimental animator and writer. Her films have
screened at international festivals and galleries including Antimatter,
xii    Notes on Contributors

Canada; SF MoMA; Anthology, NY; Tates’ Britain and Modern; The

Nunnery Gallery, London; Animate! Parts and Labour touring and on
C4 TV. Smith co-edited ‘boiling’: journal of experimental animation
(1996), and has written widely on animation, including in Animation:
An Interdisciplinary Journal, Sequence, Artist Film and Video Studies
2.0. online. She lectures in the School of Fine Art & Photography at the
University for the Creative Arts, Farnham.
Prof. Paul Wells is Director of the Animation Academy, Loughborough
University, and Chair of the Association of British Animation
Collections. He has published widely in Animation Studies and is an
established screenwriter and director in Film, TV, Radio and Theatre. He
is completing a book on Screenwriting For Animation and has curated a
major exhibition of film and art, The Beautiful Frame: Animation and
Sport, opening at the National Football Museum, Manchester UK, and
touring.
 List of Figures

Lines and Interruptions in Experimental Film and Video

Fig. 1 LIA, Fly Us to the Moons (2017) 24
Fig. 2 Anthony McCall, Between You and I (2006). Commissioned by
PEER. Installation at the Round Chapel, London (Photo Hugo
Glendenning) 26
Fig. 3 Documentation of Jennifer Nightingale making
Crocheting a Line (2017) (Photo Simon Payne) 32
Fig. 4 Juliana Borinski and Pierre-Laurent Cassière,
Sine (digital/analog converter) (2006) 35
Performing the Margins of the New
Fig. 1 AFW Members Group, Film Baton (2013) 41
Fig. 2 Richard Tuohy, Dot Matrix (2013) 41
Fig. 3 Paul Rodgers, Dome (2001) 55
Twenty-First Century Flicker: Jodie Mack, Benedict Drew
and Sebastian Buerkner
Fig. 1 Jodie Mack, Phenakistoscopes for Round and Round—
Phenakistoscope Phun (2012) 68
Fig. 2 Benedict Drew, a sequence of consecutive frames from NOT
HAPPY (2014) 70
Fig. 3 Sebastian Buerkner, frames from Album Matter (2010) 70
Experimental Time-Lapse Animation and the Manifestation
of Change and Agency in Objects
Fig. 1 The ground warps and seems to touch the lens (Inger Lise
Hansen, Proximity (2006). Photo Inger Lise Hansen) 88

xiii
xiv    List of Figures

Fig. 2 The camera tracking device that controls the division of space
and time in Proximity (Production still. Photo Morten Barker) 90
Fig. 3 Lens flare and rain produce a sequin effect (Nicky Hamlyn,
Gasometers 3 (2015). Photo Nicky Hamlyn) 96
Fig. 4 From a close view the structure fills the frame, appearing to be
flattened against the lens (Gasometers 3. Photo Nicky Hamlyn) 97
Emptiness Is Not ‘Nothing’: Space and Experimental 3D CGI
Animation
Fig. 1 Ryoichi Kurokawa, unfold (2016) 129
Fig. 2 Alex Jukes, Thelwall-1 (2016): The film introduces ideas
relating to the diffuse edge and indistinct boundaries—The
stills here show a transition within the film from defined
detail with clear spatial cues to an image with dissolved
spatial references 135
Fig. 3 Alex Jukes, Thelwall-2 (2016) 136
Inanimation: The Film Loop Performances of Bruce McClure
Fig. 1 Guy Sherwin, Cycles #3 (1972–2003) (Photo Guy Sherwin) 148
Fig. 2 Bruce McClure, Effects pedals and rheostats set-up
(Photo Robin Martin) 153
Fig. 3 Filmstrips and projector gate inserts (Photo Bruce McClure) 158
Fig. 4 Superimposed gate projection. Bruce McClure, Unnamed
Complement (2007) (Photo Robin Martin) 159
Cut to Cute: Fact, Form, and Feeling in Digital Animation
Fig. 1 Peggy Ahwesh, The Lessons of War (2015) 192
Fig. 2 Peggy Ahwesh, The Lessons of War (2015) 196
The Animated Female Body, Feminism(s) and ‘Mushi’
Fig. 1 Installation view displaying intimacy of human scale
and proximity of a gallery visitor in the space. Tabaimo,
Public ConVENience (2006). The Parasol Unit, London,
2010. Courtesy of the artist and James Cohan, New York 214
Fig. 2 Composite image of installation view with a passer-by watching
and detail of one of the projections (lower right). Rose Bond,
Intra Muros (2008), Utrecht Stadhuis, Holland. Courtesy
of Rose Bond 217
Fig. 3 Apocalyptic flow of rubbish, destruction and human
and animal forms. Marina Zurkow, Slurb (2009). Courtesy
of bitforms gallery and the artist 220
Fig. 4 Miwa Matreyek in silhouette interacting with projected
animation as she performs Dreaming of Lucid Living (2007)
on a stage in front of a seated audience. Image provided by artist 224
 List of Figures    xv

“Coming to Life” and Intermediality in the Tableaux

Vivants in Magic Mirror (Pucill, 2013) and Confessions
to the Mirror (Pucill, 2016)
Fig. 1 ‘Still Life: Twigs and Snow’, film still from Sarah Pucill,
Confessions to the Mirror (2016) 240
Fig. 2 ‘Two Bald Heads’, film still from Sarah Pucill, Magic Mirror
(2013) 241
Fig. 3 ‘Bluebeard’s Wife’, film still from Magic Mirror 245
Fig. 4 ‘Multi-Masked Magician’, film still from Magic Mirror 248
Siting Animation: The Affect of Place
Fig. 1 Rose Bond, CCBA (2016). Chinese Consolidated Benevolent
Association, Portland, OR. Private collection: Rose Bond 261
Fig. 2 Xue Yuwen, Mountain Daily (2015). Itoshima village, Japan.
Private collection: Xue Yuwen 264
Fig. 3 Birgitta Hosea, Out There in the Dark (2008). Lethaby Gallery,
London. Private collection: Birgitta Hosea 268
 Introduction

Vicky Smith and Nicky Hamlyn

This project began partly with the realization that although the field of
experimental animation has received attention through exhibitions, festi-
vals, symposia, funding schemes, projects and journals, there hadn’t been
a book devoted to the area since Robert Russett and Cecile Starr’s 1976
Experimental Animation: Origins of a New Art. Solely dedicated to the
subject, their publication provided a starting point for our own project.
Where a catalyst for Russett and Starr was their perception that the field
of experimental animation had widened during the late twentieth century
(Russett and Starr 1976, 17), we discovered that a growth area of twen-
ty-first century experimental animation is one which crosses over into the
domain of Expanded Cinema, hence the title and focus of our project.

V. Smith (*)
School of Fine Art and Photography, University for the Creative Arts,
Farnham, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
N. Hamlyn
University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury, UK
e-mail: [email protected]
N. Hamlyn
School of Communication, Royal College of Art, London, UK

© The Author(s) 2018 1

V. Smith and N. Hamlyn (eds.), Experimental and Expanded
Animation, Experimental Film and Artists’ Moving Image,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73873-4_1
 INTRODUCTION 13

along which media diversify and proliferate—the more recent creative

engagement with interactive technologies and the ongoing practice with
analogue film. Such tendencies also divide debate in our book, as evi-
denced in the Jukes and Gosse chapters on digital media and the debate
on matters relating to the analogical, as discussed by Payne and Smith.
Scholars have sought explanations as to why artists continue to
work with film during this period, when digital is easy to use and offers
high-definition imagery (Elwes 2015). Several chapters here analyse how
analogue media continue to best meet the ‘requirements of the project’,
most suited to represent the ideas that are under investigation. The spe-
cific use of analogue media is crucial to the aesthetic—for example, in
Hamlyn’s Gasometers, where the interaction between grain movement
and the liveness generated by the physical movement of film through the
projector, juxtaposed with areas of stillness and movement within the
image, are crucial to the experience. Smith engages a ‘New Materialist’
methodology to reflect upon analogue and animation’s capacity to
make visible the energies in objects that otherwise appear to be inert.
She finds that through his hand processing of celluloid, Hamlyn draws
analogies between analogue media and nineteenth and twentieth-century
sources of fuel, in that both possess great mass and bulk and both are
now being replaced with less visible technologies of storage and distri-
bution. Hamlyn’s time-lapse film itself refuses to conceal and bears on its
surface the once common industrial processes of wetness and chemical
traces entailed in its own production: the filmic plasticity makes this con-
tact with matter possible in ways that the digital does not.
The cutting and joining together of pieces of celluloid in editing uses
the same tools—a blade and glue—as are required for the technique of
collage assembled from paper. Mekas found that while VanDerBeek col-
laged materials across a number of screens, it would have been equally
effective had he combined all these fragments into one (Mekas 2011,
72). Paul Wells considers the process of the artist John Stezaker, who is
mostly well known for his disturbing photographic collages made from
found postcards. Stezaker has made a number of short films using the
collage method of combining images from different sources, but instead
of joining these parts into one whole single image, he uses the speed of
the projected single frame to simulate a collage effect. The rapid cut-
ting together of single frames, each bearing different images, creates the
impression that they are collaged together. Yet this impression is actu-
ally occurring merely at the optical and not the physical level, the quick
Another random document with
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during the Lybian campaign, stung Italians to the quick, was the
promoter of the scheme, and that the shelving of M. Pichon, who
was a friend of Italy’s, was its corollary.
Italy was made to feel that France’s attitude towards her was
systematically semi-hostile. No one act, excepting the concentration
of the French fleet in the Mediterranean, was deemed radically
serious, but the endless sequence of pin pricks was construed as
evidence of a disposition which was as unfriendly as seemed
compatible with neighbourly relations. Among these things, the
protection of Italian religious communities in the East was taken by
the Germans as the text for repeated diatribes against France for her
unfriendly conduct towards her Latin sister. Atheistic France, it was
sneeringly remarked, insists on protecting in the East the very
communities which she has driven from her own territories in
Europe, not because of the love she bears them, but by reason of
her jealousy and hatred of Italy.
I remember one dispute of the kind which arose about the house
of an Italian religious congregation in Tripoli of Syria. All the
members save one being Italians, and having demanded the
protection of their own Government, were entitled to have it, in virtue
of a convention on the subject between France and Italy a few years
before. The French Ambassador in Rome was anxious to have the
question put off indefinitely, although at bottom there was no
question at all, seeing that the case had been provided for. During
the negociations and discussions that needlessly went on for fully
two years, Germany lost no opportunity to rub France’s
unfriendliness into Italy’s memory, and to prove that Italy’s one
natural ally is Austria-Hungary.
These things are of yesterday, and it needs some little time to
deaden the recollection of them.
When the present war was on the point of breaking out, one of
the first misstatements spread by the diplomacy of the two
Prussianized allies was Italy’s promise to co-operate with them
against France, in return for the stipulated cession to her—as her
share of the spoils of war—of Tunis, Savoy, and Nice. That this
proposal was to have been made is certain. Whether the intention
was actually carried out I am unable to say. But the archives of the
French Foreign Office possess an interesting and trustworthy report
on the subject, only one item of which is erroneous, to the effect that
Italy had succumbed to the temptation.
Writing in the first half of June last on the subject of Italy’s foreign
policy, I expressed myself in the following terms:

The problems with which Italian statesmen have for several

decades been grappling are uncommonly difficult and delicate.
Probably no European Government has in recent times been
confronted with a task so thorny as that with which the
responsible advisers of the three kings of United Italy have had
to deal. And the tact, resourcefulness, and suppleness with
which they have achieved a set of results which theoretically
seemed unattainable and incompatible with each other
command the admiration of competent judges. Italy’s foreign
policy resembles nothing so much as one of those egg-dances
which Pope Leo X. delighted to witness after his Lucullan
banquets. And the deftness and rapidity with which the moves
are made and steps taken that seem certain to crush this egg or
that, yet do no damage to any of them, are amazing. But unlike
the papal dancers, the statesmen of the Consulta can look
forward to no prize, to no popular applause. Abroad they are
accused of double-dealing, and at home of pursuing a costly
policy of adventure. France charges them with ingratitude and
perfidy. In Great Britain they are sometimes set down as
schemers. In Vienna they are mistrusted, while Berlin indulges in
scepticism or holds its judgment in suspense. And to crown all,
they are blamed or repudiated by a certain section of their own
people, whose welfare they have been laboriously endeavouring
to promote.
Italy’s policy in its general lines has been imposed by
circumstances and tempered by statesmanship. Far from
embodying Utopian notions or manifesting herself in dubious
ventures, she has kept well within the limits of the essential, the
indispensable. By making common cause with the two military
Powers of Central Europe and forming the Triple Alliance, she
steered clear of a conflict with Austria-Hungary which, so far as
one can discern, there was no other way of avoiding. Italian
irredentism in the Dual Monarchy and the rivalry of the two
States in the Adriatic had confronted them both with the dilemma
of choosing between a formal alliance and open antagonism.
The decision took the form of a bold move, but a necessary one.
Italy’s adherence to the League gave deep offence to France,
and led to their estrangement, which was followed by several
press campaigns and one damaging tariff war. And in spite of
the subsequent reconciliation, the relations between the two
Latin nations have never since been marked by genuine
cordiality. The press of France and many eminent politicians
there resent it as a sort of racial treason that Italy should be
bound by treaty to Germany and Austria-Hungary. Russia, who
for a time cultivated a close friendship with the Italian people,
was surprised and pained by the seemingly needless and
ostentatious renewal of the Triple Alliance in the year 1912, a
twelvemonth before it had terminated. Even British publicists
have found much to condemn in the attitude of the Italian
Government during the Balkan war and down to the present
moment. During all this time the cultivation of rudimentary
neighbourliness, to say nothing of friendship between the Italian
and the Austrian peoples as distinguished from their
Governments, has been for the statesmen of both countries, and
in particular for those of Rome, a work of infinite care, ingenious
expedients, and painful self-discipline, openly deprecated by an
influential section of the Italian press.
The alpha and omega of Italy’s foreign policy in the present
is the maintenance of her actual position in the Mediterranean,
and in the future the seasonable improvement of that position,
and in every case the prevention of a shifting of the equilibrium
such as would alter it to her disadvantage. To attain these
objects is an essential condition of Italy’s national existence, and
calls for the constant exercise of vigilance and caution
alternating with push and daring by her responsible rulers. It
behoves her, therefore, to be well affected towards France,
friendly with Austria, amicable with Great Britain, to hold fast to
the Triple Alliance, and to give no cause for umbrage to the
Triple Entente. In a word, it is the prestidigitation of
statesmanship. And her diplomacy has acquitted itself well of the
task. The sum of the efforts of successive Governments has
been to raise Italy to a unique position in Europe, to make her a
link between the two rival groups of Powers, to one of which she
herself belongs, to bestow upon her the second place in the
Triple Alliance, and to invest her with enormous influence for
peace in the councils of Europe. To grudge her this influence,
which has been uniformly exerted for the best interests of
Europe and her own, implies imperfect acquaintance with those
interests or else a leaning towards militarism. Every
development which tends to strengthen Italy, diplomatically and
politically, tends also to augment the safeguards of public peace
and to lessen the chances of a European conflict. On these
grounds, therefore, were there none other, a violent domestic
reaction against the policy that has scored such brilliant results
would be an international calamity. Happily, there is good hope
that the bulk of the nation is wiser and also stronger than the
section which is answerable for, and in secret sympathy with, the
15
recent excesses.
As the Mediterranean State par excellence, Italy cannot
contemplate the present distribution of power on the shores of
that sea with genuine complacency. The grounds for
dissatisfaction are rooted in the history of her past and in her
apprehensions for the future. None the less, the status quo in
Europe being hallowed must be respected under heavy pains
and penalties. And the policy of the Consulta is directed to its
maintenance, because any modification of it in favour of another
State, great or small, would infallibly drive Italy out of her
quiescence and strain her to press with all her energies and at
all risks in the direction of a favourable readjustment. That is why
seventeen years ago the Austrian and the Italian Foreign
Secretaries concluded the so-called noli me tangere Convention,
by which each of the two allies undertook to abstain from
meddling with Albania, to uphold Turkish rule there, and, failing
that, to establish self-government. It was in virtue of the same
principle that during the Balkan war Italy supported Austria-
Hungary in frustrating Servia’s attempt to divide up Albania
among the allies and obtain for herself access to the Adriatic. As
long as the Adriatic continues to present the same essential
factors as to-day, the Italian Government will not swerve from its
present attitude. But if once those factors or their relative
positions towards each other underwent a change, the whole
scaffolding of self-denial and everything that rested upon that
would fall to pieces like a house of cards. And that scaffolding
supports the peace of Europe.
On her Eastern shore Italy possesses no port capable of
serving as a thoroughly suitable base for naval operations.
Brindisi is at best a mere makeshift; Venice is no better. Italy’s
rival, Austria, on the other hand, is luckier. Cattaro, Sebenico,
and Pola serve the purpose admirably, giving the Austrian navy
a distinct advantage in this respect. It must, therefore, be gall
and wormwood to Italian politicians to think that an ideal port,
Valona, on the Albanian coast, a few hours from Italy, lies
unutilized because each State grudges it to the other on grounds
which cannot be reasoned away. Valona, incorporated in the
Habsburg Monarchy, which is already so well equipped on the
Adriatic both for defence and attack, would turn the scale against
Italy, upset the equilibrium which is at present accepted as a
stern necessity, and might even unchain the forces of war. The
prospect of kindred eventualities forbids Austria to allow that
magnificent naval base to fall into the hands of her rival, who,
holding the key to the Adriatic, could close the Otranto Canal
and immobilize the fleet of the Dual Monarchy.
It would be unfair, therefore, to contend that the mainspring
of Italy’s seemingly anti-Slav policy is racial bitterness or political
narrow-mindedness. A natural instinct of self-preservation
underlies it which neither argument nor sentiment can affect. Her
present wish and the object of her endeavours is to enable
Albania to maintain her independence and to keep the
equilibrium in the Adriatic intact. And it is sheer inconceivable
that any Italian Government should deviate from this line of
action....
It is entirely misleading, therefore, to assert that Italy’s
alliance with the two military Powers of Central Europe is the
result of eclectic affinities or to fancy that by cajolery or threats
she can be moved to sever the links that bind her to the concern.
I entertain not the slightest doubt that the French Ambassador in
Rome, M. Barère, whose infinite patience and marvellous tact
drew France and Italy very close together for a while, would be
the first to recognize that the breaking-up of the Triple Alliance is
a hopeless enterprise, and an aim of questionable utility from
any point of view. Outsiders, whose opinions are moulded by the
daily press, may be excused for thinking otherwise. The renewal
of the treaty in the year 1912, a full year before its expiry, has
been uniformly construed as an indication of Italy’s resolve to
emphasize her friendship with her allies, and this interpretation
appeared to be borne out by a number of concomitant
circumstances and in particular by the comments of the
European press. It was likewise assumed that at the same time
the Treaty was supplemented by a naval convention turning
upon the future action of the Triple Alliance in the Mediterranean.
I investigated these reports in Rome and elsewhere, and I
received convincing evidence that they were both equally
groundless. No new clause touching the naval forces of the
Alliance, or indeed dealing with anything else, was added to the
Treaty. It was renewed as it stood. And the early date at which it
was signed was credibly explained to me as the outcome of a
legitimate eagerness on the part of Italy to see reaffirmed by
Austria-Hungary the noli me tangere Convention which acted as
a bar to encroachments, territorial or other, on Albania.
Between France and Italy the cordiality established mainly
by the exertions of M. Barère has of late years undergone a
marked change, and while the two Governments were
endeavouring to smooth over their differences and deal amicably
with each contentious matter as it cropped up, the press of each
country was bombarding the other with taunts and reproaches
which rendered the task of diplomacy unnecessarily difficult. And
British publicists, for reasons which lie near the surface, felt
inclined to take sides with their French colleagues, without
perhaps investigating with sufficient closeness and care the
origin of the estrangement. Those unfriendly utterances, some of
them the effects of mere misunderstandings, run through
contemporary political history like a red thread through a piece of
white cambric.
Italy’s solicitude for friendship with France and Great Britain
is prompted by interest as well as sentiment. For she sorely
needs peace, recognizes the need, and is exerting herself to the
utmost to insure it. And this indisputable fact might profitably
serve as the starting-point of one’s reasoning on the subject, and
likewise as a safe basis for the attitude of the statesmen
interested. For a long time, it is true, the occupation of Tunis by
France in 1887 was resented by every public man in the
Peninsula. The ensuing tension was accentuated as much by
the manner as by the policy of Crispi. The Abyssinian campaign
made matters worse, seeing that the Abyssinians were believed
to have received their arms and ammunition from the French.
During all those untoward incidents, Great Britain was found on
Italy’s side. The Franco-Italian war of tariffs raised mutual
animosity to its highest power, after which a reaction set in which
led to the conclusion of the Mediterranean agreements with
France and England.
During the Lybian war Italy seized two French steamers, the
Manuba and the Carthage, for alleged contravention of
international law, and sent them to Cagliari. France protested,
and M. Poincaré took up such a decided position in the matter
and gave it such vehement expression that all Italy was
unanimous in holding him as the destroyer of the good relations
laboriously established by M. Barère and the Consulta. And the
affront has not yet been forgotten. The next grievance had its
source in the action of the British Government, which confided to
France the protection of her Mediterranean interests, and
encouraged the Republic to keep the bulk of its warships in that
sea. This preponderance of the French fleet in Italy’s own sea
was regarded by the Government of the Peninsula as an
unfriendly act, owing to its special bearings on their relative
naval strength there. And the author of this obnoxious innovation
was believed to be the Republic, which had induced Great
Britain to acquiesce.
Lately Italy asked for an economic opening in Asia Minor,
into which every Great Power of Europe was penetrating. That
the demand was not unreasonable is shown by the fact that it
has since been complied with. In view of that contingency,
therefore, it would have been well to examine it without bias,
instead of opposing it with vehemence. For Great Britain is no
longer the most puissant State in the Midland Sea, and
circumstances may one day arise in which she will be in want of
an ally there. And Italy is her most natural partner. The
circumstances that she is a member of the Triple Alliance is no
bar to this prospective co-operation. For the Triple Alliance is a
defensive combination. It provides for a certain well-defined
eventuality, but outside that sphere Italy is untrammelled.
The pith of the matter, then, is that British and French
publicists are wont to lay undue stress on Italy’s alliance with
Germany and Austria-Hungary. That engagement is but a single
facet of her activity. There are others more enduring. She is
obliged to protect her special interests and is also free to
cultivate her special friendships. Paramount among those
interests is the maintenance of peace, and chief of those
friendships is that with Great Britain and France. Even the Triple
Alliance was founded as an association for the prevention of
war, and hitherto it has not drifted into aggression. Italy’s
influence in that concern is growing, and together with it her
facilities for upholding the pacific policy with which she has
uniformly identified herself. And the more steadily her economic
well-being and her political prestige develop, the greater will be
 the weight which as second member of the Alliance she can
16
throw into the scale of peace.

Italy occupies a unique position in the polity of Continental

Europe. Whereas all other Great Powers owe much of what they
have and are to successful wars, Italy is indebted for her rapid
progress and growth chiefly to the arts of peace and the triumphs of
diplomacy. And as she is an essentially pacific and cultured State,
whose policy is inspired solely by national interests, it stands to
reason that her statesmen will take heed not to endanger what she
already possesses and what she may reasonably hope for in the
future by any hasty move, and least of all by impulsively exchanging
peace for war. In plain English, she will be guided by events, and it
would be mere childishness to expect to see her rush into the arena,
moved by a sudden outburst of sentimentality. And as yet the
national interest is not deemed to have become a decisive motive.
For this reason the importunity of her ex-allies is more likely to
damage than help the cause in which it is employed. The Teutonic
belligerents, too, are wasting their breath when they hold out the
annexation of Tunis, Savoy, and Nice as the price of her co-
operation, just as the Entente Powers would be doing were they to
endeavour to entice her to their side by dangling maps of Italia
irredenta and Valona before her eyes. Italian statesmen may be
trusted to gauge the situation aright, and when the upshot of the
mighty struggle can be forecast, to make no miscalculation. They
may also be credited with decision enough to take their final stand in
good time. But above all else, it should be borne in mind that Italy
will be guided solely by the promptings of her national interests. She
will hardly consider these sufficiently guaranteed by a scrap of paper,
and still less by a German promise of one.
Respecting one important consideration Italian statesmen will
hardly be content to suspend their judgment or to cherish illusions.
However satisfied in mind they may be that their neutrality was
warranted by the aggression of their German and Austrian allies,
they cannot ignore the contrary thesis which is firmly held by every
thinking German and Austrian in the two Empires. The Kaiser, his
Chancellor, the Evangelical theologians, the men of letters of the
Fatherland, Count Bernstorff in Washington, all hold that Germany
and Austria are but defending themselves against unprincipled
aggression. And the corollary of this declaration is that Italy is guilty
of the monstrous crime of regarding her treaty obligations as a
worthless scrap of paper. For the moment impunity is the result of
powerlessness to punish the criminal, and will continue only as long
as its cause is operative.
That this and other equally momentous aspects of the thorny
problem are receiving due consideration may be taken for granted.
 CHAPTER VII
THE TWELFTH HOUR

Although the Austrian ultimatum to Servia was so worded and the

time accorded for a reply so limited as to ensure its rejection,
misgivings were, as we saw, felt and uttered in Vienna and Budapest
that Servia would knuckle down and execute the humiliating behests
of the Ballplatz. For this was a consummation which was deemed
highly undesirable. The carefully laid plan would have become
difficult of realization had Austria’s terms been acquiesced in
unreservedly. It would have rendered a military expedition
superfluous and left Servia’s army intact. Hence the exhaustive
precautions adopted for the purpose of provoking a negative answer
to the ultimatum from Belgrade.
On July 23rd, while the Franco-Russian festivities were at their
height, and M. Poincaré and the Tsar were announcing to the world
their ultra-pacific strivings, the bolt fell from the blue. What will
Russia say? people asked in Western Europe. Well, the Russian
Foreign Office, as we now know, was informed by Austria of the text
of the Note only seventeen hours after it had been presented, and
only thirty-one hours before the time limit had lapsed! The little case
thus made of Russia by the Teutonic allies was meant to be clearly
conveyed by this studied affront. It had been decided in Berlin and
Vienna that Russia must and would remain passive.
Delay was the only danger apprehended in Vienna, and nothing
was left undone to prevent its occurrence. M. Pasitch, the Servian
Premier, who appears to have had an intuition of what was brewing,
let it be known before the Austrian Note was presented that he was
absent from Belgrade and was going abroad. His substitute was
nominated. But in Vienna they were on the alert, and M. Pasitch
received from that city an urgent telegram notifying him that the
representations which the Austro-Hungarian Government were
drawing up would be delivered in Belgrade almost immediately, and
that their tenor was such as to necessitate his presence in the
capital. Thereupon the Premier hastened back to Belgrade.
From the first inception of the Austro-German plan of concerted
action, the parts of each of the actors were assigned. Servia was to
be stung into utterances or action which would warrant resort to an
Austrian punitive expedition, but before this Russia was to be
warned that if she aided or abetted her protégé and issued a
mobilization order against Austria, a counter-move would at once be
made by Germany, who would mobilize, not as a demonstration, but
for war. This warning was to serve as an efficacious deterrent. If
Russia, it was argued, can be got to realize that even partial
mobilization on her part will provoke not merely general mobilization
by Austria, but war with Germany and with Austria-Hungary, her zeal
for the Southern Slavs will be damped, and she will entrench herself
behind diplomatic formulas. This conviction was deep-rooted. It
formed one of the postulates of the Austro-German scheme.
Evidences of it are to be met with everywhere. But by way of making
quite sure, private letters were written by Continental statesmen to
their friends in the interested Governments—letters like that which
the Kaiser himself once penned to Lord Tweedmouth—impressing
upon them the gravity of the situation, and adjuring them to realize
that this time Austria and Germany were playing no mere game of
bluff, but were in downright earnest, and that if peace was to be
maintained at all, it could only be by inducing Russia to forego
mobilization.
That, too, was the burden of many of my own messages to the
Daily Telegraph, beginning with the very first. Thus on July 28th I
telegraphed:

The moment Russia mobilizes against the Dual Monarchy,

the German Empire as well as Austria-Hungary will respond, and
then the object of these military operations will be pursued to the
 bitter end, with the results so clearly foreseen and so graphically
described by Sir Edward Grey in his proposals.
In the interests of European peace, therefore, which can still
be safeguarded, in spite of the hostilities now going ahead, it is
essential that every means of friendly pressure should be
thoroughly exhausted before a provocative measure such as
mobilization is resorted to. For mobilization by Russia, Germany,
and Austria will connote the outbreak of the long-feared general
Continental war.

In the assumption that Russia would be partly intimidated and

partly talked over by her French allies and English friends as soon as
these learned what tremendous issues hung in the balance, the two
Teutonic Governments laid it down from the start that no Power
would be permitted to intervene between Austria and Servia in any
shape or form. These two States must compose or fight out their
quarrel as best they could without the good offices or advice of any
foreign Government. “No discussion will be allowed,” I accordingly
telegraphed; “no extension of time will be granted.” All these
limitations were elements of the pressure brought to bear upon
Russia directly through her friends and ally. I sought to make this
clear in one of my messages to the Daily Telegraph, in which I wrote:

Meanwhile, Austria’s allies have taken their stand, which is

favourable to the action of this Government and to the
employment of all the available means to localize the eventual
conflict. It is further assumed that Great Britain will, if hostilities
should result, hold aloof, and that France will make her influence
17
felt in preventing rather than waiting to localize the struggle.

But Russia needed no deterrents, if Austria’s ostensible aim

were her real one, if she were bent only on obtaining guarantees for
Servia’s good behaviour in future. For the Tsardom was peaceably
disposed and extremely averse to war. M. Sazonoff’s attitude was
straightforward and considerate. He showed thorough understanding
for Austria’s grievances and reasonable claims. He had no intention
of jeopardizing peace by screening Servia or rescuing her from the
consequences of her misbehaviour. King Peter’s Cabinet accordingly
received sound advice from the Tsar’s Government. And what was
more to the point, they adopted it.
During the second day of the time-limit in Vienna and Budapest it
was feared that Servia would give in. M. Jovanovitch, the Servian
Minister, hinted as much, and when one reads Servia’s reply one
cannot fairly reproach him with overstating the gist of it. For it was
acceptance of all those demands which were compatible with
independence. But then independence was precisely what Austria
was minded to take away. And the reserves and provisoes made by
the Servian Note for the purpose of safeguarding it determined the
departure of Baron von Giesl from Belgrade. Characteristic of the
fixed resolve of the Teutonic States to force a quarrel upon Servia at
all costs and irrespective of her reply to the Austrian Note is the
circumstance, vouched for by the Russian press, that within forty
minutes of the delivery of that reply, which was a lengthy document,
the Austrian Minister in Belgrade had read and rejected it, had
removed his luggage and that of his staff from the Legation to the
railway station, and was seated in the train that was to convey him
out of Servia. Forty minutes!
It is not easy for Western minds, accustomed to truth, honour,
and self-respect, to realize how all the usages of international
intercourse were thus set at naught during this first stage of the
European conflict. Words and forms were employed to mislead.
Servia’s answer was wanted only as providing a plausible pretext for
the resort to force, which had been decided on from the first. And I
was informed—although I must in fairness add that I had no tangible
evidence for the assertion, nothing but a strong presumption—that
even if M. Pasitch, violating the Constitution of his country, had
undertaken to carry out all Austria’s behests unreservedly, and if no
internal troubles had resulted from this subservience, the Austrian
troops massed on the Servian frontiers would not have been baulked
of their prey. Another demand was held in reserve which Servia
could not and would not comply with, and her refusal would have
afforded the wished-for ground for invasion.
In any and every case, Servia was to have been entered by
Austrian troops. That seems to have been a settled and irrevocable
resolve. And all the diplomatic notes, conversations, and reports,
which Sir Edward Grey, M. Viviani, and M. Sazonoff treated as
excusable manifestations of fiercely burning anger, were but
cunningly devised expedients to sting the Belgrade Cabinet into
some word or act that might serve to justify this set plan. The plan
was not at first suspected by the Entente Powers, nor was it fully
understood for some time even after its existence had been
discovered. It was, as we saw, twofold. First, the “punishment” of the
army by the forces of the Dual Monarchy, and of the nation by the
levy of a crushing war indemnity, and of the economic energies of
the country by the imposition of a commercial treaty which was to lay
Servia permanently at the mercy of her powerful navy. And, second,
the partition of the newly annexed territories among Servia’s
neighbours and the establishment of a Balkan League under the
ægis of the Habsburgs. The machinery for bringing about this latter
object was in full movement at the very time that the British, French,
and Russian Governments were basing their moderation and self-
containment on Austria’s voluntary undertaking not to annex any
portion of Servian territory. Here, again, was a case of juggling with
phrases which the Chancelleries of the Entente Powers were taking
at their face value. Pressure was even then being put upon Turkey,
Bulgaria, and Greece to assist in this underhand scheme, and
reliance was being placed in the Hohenzollern King Carol, who
would, it was assumed, make full use of his authority to hinder
Roumania from taking sides against Austria-Hungary. The Treaty of
Bucharest was to be proclaimed a scrap of waste paper.
Had the Governments of the Entente realized the impossibilities
that beset them when zealously endeavouring to hit upon a formula
which would have satisfied Vienna and insured the quiescence of St.
Petersburg, they would unquestionably have bent their efforts in
quite other directions. But this vital aspect of the matter lay hidden
from their vision. They were further imposed upon by Germany’s
evident anxiety that the war area should be restricted to Servian
territory. Indeed, one of the most caustic ironies of the crisis lay in
the eager co-operation of the Entente Powers with Germany for what
they all termed the peace of Europe, but which the Teutonic States
knew to be the smooth execution of their own sinister designs. The
combined moral pressure of all Europe was accordingly brought to
bear upon Russia to oblige or constrain her to passivity for the sake
of the general peace.
And it must be confessed that the Tsar’s Ministers came up to
the highest expectations conceived of them. Defence, not offence,
was their watchword. They would follow the lead of their future
adversaries and content themselves with parrying their thrusts. M.
Sazonoff’s first step, although he may have foreseen the coming
hurricane, was to ask for an extension of the time-limit. “If you want
to localize the quarrel,” he argued, “you must adopt suitable
measures. You say that our co-operation is essential. Well, we are
willing to accord it. Let us get to work at once. Some of your
demands involve a change in the Servian Constitution. No Minister
and no Cabinet can accomplish this without a law passed by the
Legislature. And this cannot be done in a few hours. But give Servia
a few days to turn your demands over in her mind, and give us time
to advise and to urge her to prudence and compromise.” Now if, as
France and Great Britain assumed, Austria wanted only to punish
Servia for her past attitude and obtain guarantees of future good
behaviour, she would have complied with this common-sense
request. But as that was not her entire plan, she refused,
congruously with her preliminary arrangement with the German
Kaiser, and relying on the axiom that Russia would not fight.
This negative answer disclosed the fact that the two allies’ plans
went further than had been assumed. Thereupon the Tsar’s
Government issued orders countermanding the manœuvres,
promoting officers, summarily terminating the camp gatherings,
prohibiting aviation over the frontiers, and proclaiming the two
capitals in a state of “extraordinary protection.” Notwithstanding, or
by reason of this, Berlin put in a plea that she should not be
confounded with Vienna. “It was not we who sent the ultimatum.
Neither did we know the text of it. That was Austria’s handiwork, and,
what is more to the point, she has acted at her own risk and peril.
Please bear that in mind.” “We certainly will. But are we to take it
that, having acted at her own risk and peril, Austria is proceeding
alone?” “Ah, well, she is our ally, you know, and we are bound to
second her demands and stand by her to the end.” “Well, will you
exercise an ally’s right and counsel her to postpone military
operations until Europe has had time to secure for her ample
satisfaction.” “No, we do not see our way to comply with this
request.” That was Germany’s mode of speech and action.
Thereupon Russia introduced a modification of the law of military
conscription in so far as it deals with officers of the reserve and the
militia. The practical result of this innovation was to facilitate
mobilization should that measure be subsequently resorted to.
Soon after the expiry of the time-limit Austria declared war on the
realm of King Peter. M. Sazonoff, having from the start defined his
country’s position in the words, “Russia cannot adopt an attitude of
unconcern in a struggle between Austria-Hungary and Servia,”
continued to give striking proofs of the Tsar’s will to save Europe
from a general war. Sir Edward Grey had offered to get satisfaction
for the Dual Monarchy through the Powers, and he would have
accomplished his purpose without a doubt. But Austria was bent on
getting something more than satisfaction for herself and for Germany
in spite of Russia, whom she stigmatized as the mischief-maker.
Hence all the heavy guns of European diplomacy were levelled
against the Tsardom, while the St. Petersburg Foreign Office went
beyond the Hercules’ pillars of conciliation. Not only had Russia
induced Servia to consent to terms which were onerous and
humiliating, but the Russian Ambassador in Vienna said it was
probable that his Government would, if properly approached, go still
18
further. Our own Ambassador in that capital assured his chief that
he had gathered that Russia “would go a long way to meet Austrian
19
demands on Servia.” M. Sazonoff did not stop even here. He was
careful to explain that mobilization should be envisaged as what it
really was, namely, a mere intimation that Russia must be consulted
20
regarding the fate of Servia, not as a threat of war.
The German Kaiser, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the
Kingdom of Prussia, had laid down the principle that “in this world
nothing must be settled without the intervention of Germany and of
the German Emperor,” yet the fate of a Slav State, which Russia
had, so to say, created and watched over and protected, was about
to be decided without her consent, nay, without her knowledge.
Russia was to be ostentatiously ignored and the Balkan States to be
impressed by the fact that she was worse than powerless as a
friend. That the Tsar’s Government, however ready for compromise,
would not brook this deadly affront was manifest to all excepting
those who had settled it to their own satisfaction that she was too
helpless to move. And the two Teutonic allies were of this opinion.
That is why their answers to Russia’s demands for a conference, or
at any rate for an exchange of views, were not only negative in
substance, but wantonly insolent in form. All that M. Sazonoff
demanded was an assurance that Servia would not be utterly
crushed. It was refused. He would, he said, understand that Austria-
Hungary is compelled to exact from Servia measures which will
secure her Slav provinces from the continuance of hostile
21
propaganda from Servian territory. And that was what every
statesman in Europe was also saying. If Austria’s demands had
been, as they seemed, inspired by a legitimate desire to safeguard
herself from a real Servian danger, the undertakings of Servia and
Russia ought to have afforded her a broad enough basis for a pacific
settlement. But all these colloquies, assurances, and claims were but
the screen behind which a huge anti-European conspiracy was being
hatched. And as yet the truth had not dawned on the statesmen of
the Entente, who, still hypnotized by the crime of Sarajevo, were
honestly working to obtain amends and guarantees for Austria-
Hungary and ward off the growing peril of a general war.
Germany, ever alert and watchful, was the first to note that
Russia’s attitude differed from what it should be according to
programme. She did not appear disposed to take with resignation
the humiliation devised for her. She declared that she would not be
indifferent to a conflict between Austria and Servia. She demanded a
hearing in the councils of those who arrogated to themselves the
right of life and death over her Slav protégé. As soon as this
discrepancy between the actual and the expected became evident,
the Berlin Government, which had made provision for this
eventuality, commenced elaborate preparations against Russia,
particularly in the Finnish Gulf. And as is the wont of Prussia, these
preparations were secret. But the Russian authorities got wind of
them, and apprized our Ambassador in St. Petersburg of what was
22
taking place.
Russia’s spirited determination, coupled with her dignified
conciliatory disposition, caused painful heartburnings in Vienna. It
constituted the first hitch in the official programme. What was the
good of having agents in St. Petersburg, who supplied exact copies
of State papers and faithful narratives of private conversations, if the
legitimate deductions from these data were upset at the very outset?
To me, who witnessed the gradual breaking in of this painful light
on the systematic mind of Teutonic diplomacy, there was something
intensely ludicrous in the tragic spirit in which it was received. Could
nothing, it was asked, be done to keep Russia in bounds? Was
France fully alive to the issues which Russia’s intervention would
raise? Where was the love of peace so lately and so loudly
professed by the Tsar and M. Poincaré?
I had not the faintest doubt as to how Russia would behave
under the provocation to which she was being subjected by the
Teutonic States. There are some considerations of an altruistic
nature which nations, like individuals, set above their own vital
interests—considerations that engage all that is deepest and noblest
in their feelings, that fire their imagination and call forth all the
energies of their will. And the fate of the little Servian nation was one
of these causes. To the Russian the Slav cause is much more than a
political interest: it is a religious cult. But for such altruistic heroisms
the Prussianized German has no sense. To him it is the fourth
emotional dimension. On July 30th I despatched the following
telegram to the Daily Telegraph, which I afterwards discovered was
not transmitted:

It would be a delusion to suppose that Russia will keep the

peace while Servia is undergoing punishment that would reduce
her to the rank of a semi-vassal State, and it would be a piece of
still greater self-deception to imagine that Germany will not raise
her army to its war-footing once the mobilization order has been
issued in St. Petersburg, or will not use that army to the full
when it is in the field. And as Austria-Hungary is resolved to
have her way with Servia, and to refuse to render account of her
action to any other Power, one is forced to the conclusion that
the only possible solution to the present crisis is the much-
dreaded European war. It is for that tremendous struggle that the
Great Powers, and possibly one or other of the smaller ones,
must now make ready.

On July 30th the meek, insignificant figure of the German

Ambassador, Count Pourtalès, his head sheepishly bent down on his
left shoulder, passed through the spacious apartments of the
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After a brief talk with M. Sazonoff
he became aware that the Rubicon was about to be passed,
whereupon, as our Ambassador to the Tsar puts it, “he completely
broke down. He appealed to M. Sazonoff to make some suggestion
which he would telegraph to the German Government as a last
hope.” For he, too, was aware that Russia’s entrance into the arena
was an item which the Berlin wire-pullers had no wish to add to their
compact little programme. To this appeal the Tsar’s Minister gave a
ready and conciliatory reply: “If Austria,” he said, “recognizing that
her conflict with Servia has assumed the character of a question of
European interest, declares herself ready to eliminate from her
ultimatum those points which run counter to the principle of Servia’s
sovereignty, Russia engages to stop all military preparations.”
That proposal was fair and moderate from every point of view
but one. And that one was the Austro-German plot, which it was
calculated to thwart.