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Text originally published in 1928 under the same title.
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THE MEMOIRS OF PRINCE MAX OF BADEN
AUTHORISED TRANSLATION
BY
W. M. CALDER AND C. W. H. SUTTON
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
MUCH that is in this book must fail to carry conviction in England.
On both sides there are bitter experiences that colour ones judgment, and prevent it from attaining that ultimate clarity which it is striving after. Many are the controversies which will only be settled by the Verdict of History; and for such a verdict the times are not yet ripeof this I am certain. But there is one truth which I believe myself to have established in these Memoirs, and it is of importance for the advance of humanity that this truth should come to be recognised:
The protagonists had, in the year 1915, in 1916, in 1917, and in 1918, golden opportunities of bringing about a peace of general contentment. This peace would have earned the protests of the Jingoes in all the countries concerned, and the gratitude of their peoples for centuries to come. It often seemed as if the leading men on both sides were on the point of taking the decisive step; and yet it never was taken. There was no lack of insight; it was a want of power to withstand the surging passions which had been aroused. Today we may lament the obstinacy and the blindness of the Jingoes, but it would be more truthful to admit that it was the liberal-minded men who were too weak to follow out the course which they recognised to be the right one.
We ought never to tire of reminding the world of the blessings that were lost to it when the belligerent nations spurned their great opportunity.
Had a timely and a just peace been concludedwe should today have a real League of Nations , not merely the name and the outward show, and America would be with us.
We should today have Disarmament , not in Germany only .
The Freedom of the Seas would be no mere Ideal given up and shelved for the present, but would be the keystone of a General Security Pact. The temptation to make a wrong use of sea-power would have been done away with, and with it one of the strongest temptations to go to war.
Continental frontiers would have been drawn in accordance with ethnographic fact, and not with a view to satisfying the strategic aspirations of certain favoured nations.
Aggressive Imperialism would in fact be dead and buried.
Thus the energies of a pacified Europe would have been set free to work at the task of building up a Class-Peace . Such a peace has got to be established, otherwise we shall be left without any power of resistance to the gospel of disruption which is being proclaimed from the East, and shall be unable to give to the great Russian people that example and that hope which it needs in its hour of trial and servitude.
Bismarck once said: The statesman has not to make history, but if ever in the events around him he hears the sweep of the mantle of God, then he must jump up and catch at its hem. In the World War there was none that jumped and caught at the hem, and yet it was many a time within our grasp.
The past year was everywhere a year of sterility, in internal and in external politics.
I fancy the sweep of the divine mantle will be heard once again before long. May the responsible statesmen be vigilant and be prepared.
(SIGNED) MAX, PRINZ VON BADEN.
January 1928.
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATORS
THE following translation of Erinnerungen und Dokumente , by Prince Max of Baden, has been authorized by the author. Passages translated into German (sometimes in an abbreviated form) from English originals have in most cases been given in their original English form. In a few cases it has proved impossible to trace the English originals; in these cases the German version has been retranslated as literally as possible into English. Some corrections to be made in the next German edition have been incorporated in the translation. The translation of Volume I is by W. M. Calder; that of Volume II by C. W. H. Sutton.
W. M. C.
C. W. H. S.
PART II
CHAPTER IMY REPLY TO LORD LANSDOWNES LETTER
THE most promising period for political action set in with the close of each annual campaign.
On 28 th November, 1917, the Russians had sued for armistice negotiations. The 2 nd December saw the end of our counterattack at Cambrai, which wiped out the one and only success of the British on the Western front. It surprised not only the British officers (in their pyjamas), but also the politicians. No one had reckoned with so big an undertaking on the Western front at this time of year.
And so it came about that on 29 th November England had her greatest political sensation since the beginning of the war.
The Daily Telegraph published a letter from Lord Lansdowne on the subject of peace. That Lord Lansdowne secretly sympathized with the adherents of a peace of understanding we already knew from Press indiscretions. It was just a year since Lloyd George had overthrown Asquiths Cabinet, and Lansdowne had then been mentioned among those opponents of the Knock-out blow policy who had to be got out of the way. Then at the beginning of August 1917 we had received news from The Hague that there was open talk in England of an Asquith-Lansdowne Ministry as an alternative to the Lloyd George Government. All the same the candour and decision of his step was startling.
Lord Lansdowne demanded the revision of the war aims which the Allies had announced on 10 th January, 1917. He did not mention Alsace-Lorraine but gave the first place to the Belgian question. Just as Grey and Asquith had done in 1914-15:
We are not going to lose this war, but its prolongation will spell ruin for the civilized world, and an infinite addition to the load of human suffering which already weighs upon it. Security will be invaluable to a world which has the vitality to profit by it, but what will be the value of the blessings of peace to nations so exhausted that they can scarcely stretch out a hand with which to grasp them? In my belief, if the war is to be brought to a close in time to avert a worldwide catastrophe, it will be brought to a close because on both sides the peoples of the countries involved realize that it has already lasted too long.
