Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/290

 *dad Railway question. When M. Cambon, French ambassador at Berlin, was asked whether the Franco-German agreement on Turkish railways would improve the relations between his country and the German Empire, he said: "Official relations, yes, perhaps to some extent, but I do not think that the agreement will affect the great body of public opinion on both sides of the Vosges. It will not, unfortunately, change the tone of the French press towards the Germans There is no doubt whatever that the majority, both of Germans and Frenchmen, desire to live at peace; but there is a powerful minority in each country that dreams of nothing but battles and wars, either of conquest or revenge. That is the peril that is always with us; it is like living alongside a barrel of gunpowder which may explode on the slightest provocation." Herr von Jagow, German Minister of Foreign Affairs, expressed a similar opinion when he said that he was watching for a favorable moment for the publication of the Anglo-German convention of June 15, 1914—"an appropriate moment when the danger of adverse criticism was no longer so acute."[37] Hatred, suspicion, fear, and other unbridled passions were the stock-in-trade of the Continental press during the months preceding the outbreak of the Great War. Patriotic bombast, not international conciliation, was demanded by the imperialist and nationalist minorities, who exerted only too much influence upon the Governments and made politicians fear lest their efforts at peace be misconstrued as treason!

A situation which was made bad by imperial rivalries and national antagonisms was made intolerable by militarism. During the year 1913-1914, when the diplomatists were working for peace, preparations were being made for war. In the month of August, 1913, while conversations were being held in Berlin to reconcile French and German interests in the Near East, General Joffre was on his way