The Kings of the Earth v The Kings of the East

In his Lectures on the Apocalypse: Critical, Expository, and Practical (1849) Canon Wordsworth (later the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln), writes, after first stating that in his opinion, the term ‘Kings of the East’ was ‘figurative, and [was] to be understood spiritually’, that:

‘[T]he Kings from the East, or Sun-rising, whose Way is prepared, are the faithful soldiers of Christ. Their Kingdom is to serve Christ’; and ‘[The] Kings of the Earth are opposed to [the] Kings of the East . . . Such, then, is the Plague which St. John announces to the World in the Sixth Vial.’ (pp. 434, 436-437, 440).

As can be seen by the title-pages of the two books heading this post: the rivalry between the German Empire and its jealousy of the Imperial splendour and vastness of the British Empire, was one of the factors (taking place under the drying up of the Turkish Empire under the Sixth Vial) that contributed to the destructive passions let loose in the outbreak of the First Word War.

In a recent work concentrating on this aspect of the First World War its author Sean McMeekin remarks:

‘[Kaiser] Wilhelm [viewed himself] strutting across the world stage as a true modern Alexander, taking in Anatolia, Mesopotamia and Persia and toppling the British Raj. . . . Whereas Hitler was willing to concede the British their global, sea-based empire in exchange for recognition of his own domination of the Eurasian landmass, Wilhelm wanted the British Empire too, including its crown jewels of Egypt and India.’ (The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power 1898-1918; Allen Lane/Penguin Books, 2010; pp. 2-3).

And in the chapter entitled “A Gift from Mars: German Holy War Fever” Sean McMeekin writes:

‘We may never know for sure what was said behind closed doors in Berlin as the European diplomatic crisis heated up in July 1914. The key German policy-makers, including Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg and Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the General Staff, all burned their private papers from the period. Although there is clear evidence that Bethmann Hollweg (on Kaiser Wilhelm’s instructions) issued a ‘blank cheque’ inviting Vienna to retaliate against Serbia on 5 July, the extent to which the Germans deliberately sought to provoke a general European war remains controversial. . . .

‘If the evidence of premeditation in July is inconclusive, however, the extraordinary war fever which overcame the German government in August can be documented without a shadow of doubt. Audacious plans for world conquest were openly bandied about in once-conservative government ministries. The ‘gift from Mars’ meant that the gloves were finally off in Germany’s battle with Britain for global supremacy.’ (ibid. pp. 85-86)

And goes on later to state, that:

‘Because of the central role [that] the Kaiser’s jihad stratagem plays in Fritz Fischer’s controversial indictment, Germany’s Aims in the First World War, it has become customary for Fischer’s critics to dismiss these plans as peripheral to Germany’s overall war strategy. In a work still considered the gold standard, Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1918, Ulrich Trumpener writes that, although the anti-British holy war idea was a ‘recurring theme of the Kaiser’s famous marginalia, there is no evidence that Berlin had any coherent action plans on hand when World War I broke out’. Any measures the Germans did take to launch jihad-style uprisings against the Entente powers in August 1914, Trumpener writes, ‘bore all the hallmarks of hasty improvisation’. Those who have followed Trumpener’s analysis, such as David Fromkin, have likewise dismissed the importance of the jihad campaign, arguing that it had little bearing on either Turkey’s entry into the war or on the way the war was really fought.

‘To dismiss the importance of pan-Islam in Germany’s wartime plans, however, is to fall victim to hindsight. In 1914, if not when they were writing post-war memoirs, Germany’s leaders saw in Islam the secret weapon which would decide the world war.’ (ibid.pp. 86-87).

The quotes that follow below are taken from the two works whose title-pages are reproduced in the heading to this post - both of which were written whilst the First World War was still raging. First, from the uppermost work:

‘Backed as the [Baghdad Railway] project was by the German government, steadily growing in power and aggressiveness since the establishment of the united German Empire, it added to the already complicated Eastern Question an aggravating factor that contributed largely to the outbreak of the great war. The present struggle for supremacy among European powers resolves itself in its ultimate analysis into a rivalry for the control of the East as an adjunct to commercial expansion. The “trend towards the East” did not originate with modern Germany. It began with Greece, was taken up by ancient Rome and has actuated every Western power with ambitions to extend its commerce and its sphere of influence — Spain, Holland, England and France, and in days nearer to us Russia and Germany, Austria and Italy. Through a curious combination of circumstances, superinduced by the gradual weakening of the once dominant Turkish Empire, the struggle has shaped itself into its present aspect for a control of the great highway that is the key to the East — the nearer and the farther East.

‘A survey of the history of Asia Minor, as a resultant of the geographical contour of the region, furnishes the illustration to the thesis that the most recent events are merely the repetition on a larger scale of such as took place thousands of years ago, and at frequent intervals since. The weapons have changed, new contestants have arisen to take the place of civilizations that after serving their day faded out of sight, but the issue has ever remained the same. We are confronted by that issue to-day — the control of the highway that leads to the East. Through the war archaeological investigations and historical researches have been removed from their academic isolation to furnish the explanation for the political import of the Bagdad Railway project. The study of the remote past, so energetically pursued by European and American scholars during the past decades, is brought into the foreground through the stirring events of our days to illumine the bearings of the historic highway of Asia Minor on the issues at stake in the present world conflict. The decisive battlefields for the triumph of democracy are in the West, but the decision for supremacy among European nations lies in the East.’

(From: The War and the Bagdad Railway: The Story of Asia Minor and Its Relation to the Present Conflict; by Morris Jastrow, Jr., Ph.D., LL.D.,; published J. B. Lippcott Company, Philadelphia and London, 1917; pp. 29-30).

And from the second work:

'[T]here is a very serious and a real cause for this great world battle. That cause above all others was the colonial and commercial rivalries of the several nations of Europe as they center, in their interests, around England and Germany[1] who stand at the head of the Triple Entente, and the Triple Alliance respectively. “It has long been evident to students of world politics that there is only one international situation which threatens the peace of the civilized world. That is the rivalry between England and Germany. There is no other rivalry, dispute, or misunderstanding between nations that could not be settled peacefully and quickly if this Anglo-German problem did not, directly or indirectly, retard such a settlement. German and British policies on four continents are determined or conditioned by the mutual enmity and fear of these two powers. Because British policies and interests clash with German policies and interests, Europe is divided into two great groupings of nations, which during the past half decade have almost evenly balanced the military strength of the continent, and it has been the fear of disturbing this balance that has prevented the settlement of more than one grave political and economic and social question.”[2]'

(From the Introduction to The Anglo-German Commercial and Colonial Rivalry as a Cause of The Great War; by Oscar Albert Marti, M.A.; The Stratford Company, Publishers, 1917; pp. xiii-xiv).

From footnotes:

[1] “England with her long history of successful aggression, with her marvelous conviction that in persuing her interests she is spreading light among nations dwelling in darkness, and Germany, bone of the same bone, blood of the same blood, with a lesser force but perhaps a keener intelligence, compete in every corner of the globe. In the Transvaal, at the Cape, in Central Africa, in India and the East, in the islands of the South Sea, and in the far Northwest, wherever — and where has it not? — the flag has followed the Bible, there the German bagman is struggling with the English pedlar. Is there a mine to exploit, a railroad to build, a native to convert, from breadfruit to tinned meat, from temperance to trade gin, the German and the Englishman is struggling to be first. A million petty disputes build up the greatest cause of war the world has ever seen. If Germany were extinguished tomorrow there is not an Englishman in the world who would not be richer. Nations have fought for years over a city or right of succession. Must they not fight for two hundred fifty million pounds of commerce.” — Rohrbach, “German World Policies,” p. 180. Quoted from the “Saturday Review,” September, 1897.

[2] “Review of Reviews,” XLV, p. 281.

And from Chapter I of the same work (entitled, “The Colonial Ascendancy of Great Britain”):

'The tendency of the political development of the English People according to her own historians, and Anglophiles in general, has been one steady trend towards liberty and democracy. The English speaking people have regarded themselves as the torchbearers of that civilization which the world, at the first decade of the twentieth century, realized it had attained. From the standpoint of the Germans, however, England is viewed as the great robber state that, having taken advantage of the misfortunes of the other nations, gobbled up one-fifth of the land area of the habitable world and insists on holding possession, not by virtue of her power to defend, but by reason of her ability to bluff. Germany, also, regards herself as the heir presumptive to the colonial kingdom of the world. To her, England is a colossus with feet of iron mixed with miry clay; while Germany is the stone destined to smite the image on the feet, to its utter destruction, and eventually to become the great mountain that will fill the whole earth.' (ibid. p. 1).

(For other posts on the “Kings of the East” click on the link in the Index below).

Unholy Smoke & Fire: Austria v Italy

SMOKE

BEGINNING WITH CARDINAL MANNING'S PRONOUNCEMENT ON THE 'ONE SOLUTION' TO THE 'DIFFICULTY' OF THE POPE'S LOSS OF HIS TEMPORAL POWER:

'There is only one solution of the difficulty, a solution, I fear impending, and that is, the terrible scourge of Continental war, a war which will exceed the horrors of any of the wars of the first Empire. And it is my firm conviction that, in spite of all obstacles, the Vicar of Jesus Christ will be put again in his own rightful place. But that day will not be until his adversaries will have crushed each other with mutual destruction.' (The Tablet, January 24, 1874).

Later the same year of Manning's pronouncement, W. E. Gladstone wrote the following in Appendix C to his Vatican Decrees:

'Compare the recent and ominous forecasting of the future European policy of the British Crown in an Article from a Romish Periodical for the current month, which has direct relation to these matters, and which has every appearance of proceeding from authority.

'“Surely in any European complication, such as may any day arise, nay, such as must ere long arise, from the natural gravitation of the forces, which are for the moment kept in check and truce by the necessity of preparation for their inevitable collision, it may very well be that the future prosperity of England may be staked in the struggle, and that the side which she may take may be determined, not either by justice or interest, but by a passionate resolve to keep up the Italian Kingdom at any hazard.” - The 'Month' for November, 1874: 'Mr. Gladstone's Durham Letter,' p. 265.'

(From: The Vatican Decrees In Their Bearing on Civil Allegiance: A Political Expostulation, by the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P.; published London: John Murray, Albemarle Street, 1874; p. 32).

Some years later, reflecting on Cardinal Manning's pronouncement, the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, Editor of the Methodist Times, gave the following insight into his utterance - in the issue of August 6th, 1896, he wrote:

'I was simply horrified at the calmness with which he declared that he would be willing to deluge the whole of Europe with blood in order to destroy the unity of Italy and recover the temporal power of the Pope. He also expressed a conviction that the German Empire was very insecure, and would probably be shattered in the course of the great war which he prophesied would destroy both the unity of Germany and the unity of Italy, in order to restore the Pope to the throne of Rome.'

(As cited in the Protestant Truth Society publication: Is Rome behind the War? by J. A. Kensit, 1918; p. 13).

And in his The Papal Conquest (1909) the Rev. Alexander Robertson, D.D., recounted the following:

'Some few years ago, here in Venice, I had much pleasant intercourse with Dr. Andrew D. White of Cornell University, and late Ambassador at Berlin of the United States of America. Speaking together one day of the Hague Conference of 1899, at which he sat as President of the American Delegation, he told me the following incident. The Conference had finished its work, and he was bidding farewell to the “House in the Wood,” when he found at its door, in a towering passion, a leading Roman Catholic diplomat who represented one of the great Catholic Powers. Dr. White said to him : “Step into my carriage, and drive home with me to dinner and unburden your mind.” He did so. The cause of his wrath was as follows :–

'When the Conference was being arranged for, the Pope claimed, as the world knows, to be represented at it, not only as a temporal sovereign, but as the world's great peace-maker, the representative on earth of the Prince of Peace. He moved heaven and earth to enforce his claim; but of course it was rejected without discussion, as the very idea of such a thing was out of the question. Had it been entertained, Italy would have refused to enter the Conference, and England, and probably other powers, would have done the same; hence the Conference would necessarily have been given up. However, at the closing meeting of the Conference, as Dr. White said, “to the amazement of all, and almost to the stupefaction of many,” M. de Staal, the representative of the Netherlands, handed a paper to the Secretary to read. It turned out to be a letter from his Queen to the Pope, in which she indicated that it was not the fault of her Government that he was not represented at the Conference. The paper also contained the Pope's reply, in which he magnified his office as the world's peace-maker, and reiterated his incontestable right as such to be represented. It was the Pope's letter with its mendacious statements and preposterous claims that roused the anger of this Roman Catholic Delegate, who, once seated in the carriage, delivered himself as follows (and now I am quoting, not from memory, but from Dr. White's Autobiography which he has just sent me) :–

'“The Vatican has always been, and is to-day, a storm-centre. The Pope and his advisers have never hesitated to urge on war, no matter how bloody, when the slightest of their ordinary worldly purposes could be served by it. The great religious wars of Europe were entirely stirred up and egged on by them; and, as everybody knows, the Pope did everything to prevent the signing of the treaty of Münster, which put an end to the dreadful Thirty Years' War, even going so far as to declare the oaths taken by the plenipotentiaries at that Congress of no effect. All through the Middle Ages and at the Renaissance period the Popes kept Italy in turmoil and bloodshed for their own family and territorial advantages, and they kept all Europe in turmoil, for two centuries after the Reformation—in fact, just as long as they could—in the wars of religion. They did everything they could to stir up the war between Austria and Prussia in 1866, thinking that Austria, a Catholic power, was sure to win; and then everything possible to stir up the war of France against Prussia in 1870, in order to accomplish the same purpose of checking German Protestantism; and now they are doing all they can to arouse hatred, even to deluge Italy in blood, in the vain attempt to recover the Temporal Power, though they must know that they could not hold it for any length of time even if they should obtain it. . . . Their whole policy is based on stirring up hatred and promoting conflicts from which they hope to draw worldly advantage. In view of all this, one stands amazed at the cool statements of the Vatican letter.”' [Autobiography of Dr. D. White, vol. ii. pp. 349-351 (The Papal Conquest, pp. 313-316).]

FIRE

CONCLUDING WITH COUNT CARLO SFORZA'S TESTIMONY AS TO THE REALITY OF THE INTRIGUE:

'Leo XIII . . . dreamed of the destruction of Italian unity which, he thought, should be dissolved into a federation of little Italian republics under the presidency of the Pope. He dreamed of a departure from Rome [and establishing himself in his “cara Salisburgo” – his dear Salzburg – awaiting the crusade of the Catholic powers] followed by a triumphal return after a victorious war waged by Austria-Hungary against Italy – an idea that Francis Joseph had the good sense to reject. . . .

'Italy and the world remained long in ignorance of these intrigues; in fact, they became known only in 1919 when, through an initiative that I myself undertook [whilst Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs], republican Austria consented to open to us the archives of the Empire for all sorts of historical researches.'

(From: Contemporary Italy: Its Intellectual and Moral Origins; Count Carlo Sforza; Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1946; p. 69).

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The following is from Chapter XV of the same work, where Count Sforza recounts the realities of Italy's 'FOREIGN POLICY':

'Italy being engaged in a war with Turkey in 1911, Conrad, the Austro-Hungarian Chief of Staff, put all his influence in Vienna to work in order to gain the old Emperor's consent for a “preventive war” against Italy. Aerenthal did not hesitate to define Conrad's projects “a policy of brigandage,” and Francis Joseph sided with his Minister of Foreign Affairs. Conrad resigned, but continued to preach his great plan among his close friends.

'In the course of his recriminations, Conrad added that Austria should have seized a former opportunity that chance had offered her against Italy, that is, the tragic days of the Messina earthquake. Conrad's intimates and his protector, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, have on several occasions admitted it.

'Conrad's ideas must have appeared to the initiated not far from realization, since the German Ambassador at Rome at that time dared send the Consulta this communication: that it was well understood that in the event of an Austro-Hungarian war with Italy, Germany would remain neutral, the treaty of the Triple Alliance being mute on that hypothesis!

'Proof of the hardiness of myths agreeable to a nation's vanity, these facts, historically certain, have not prevented and will not prevent sentimental German writers from continuing to cast doubts on Italy's loyalty during the period of the Triple Alliance. The truth is that the meticulous study of the diplomatic documents of the period will only demonstrate that if in that mariage de raison which was the Triple Alliance there were thoughts and acts of dubious fidelity, they were chiefly on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The fact is explicable when one recalls that, as regards Italy, the treaty had no positive aims but was entered into for negative reasons. Italy understood that she could not live under the constant menace of a neighbour who detested her by tradition and necessity. (Did we not represent that principle of nationality so hated in Vienna?) Italy felt in her very flesh the spear point of the Trentino, the menace of that powerful and malevolent neighbour; she knew she could expect no protection of law in the anarchic Europe of the post-1878 period; she could only accept an alliance. At least she gained by it the neutralization of any eventual temporal plot of the Vatican which might become dangerous in case of a return to power of the French Right parties.' (ibid. p. 86).

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ENVOI:

From The Papal Conquest (1909):

'Austria, like the Roman Catholic Church, is Italy's “Eternal Enemy.” ... Her whole policy, especially during recent years, has been one of provocation, and almost of unconcealed hostility. She has made military roads, built forts, and mined bridges, wherever her frontier is contiguous with that of Italy. When Italy was prostrated by the great earthquake disasters in Sicily and Calabria, and every civilized nation in the world was tendering sympathy and help, the Vienna papers said : “See how generous we are not to profit by this opportunity to make war”; and they boasted that the Emperor was with them in entertaining the idea. I have another cartoon, which represents the Pope and the Emperor Francis Joseph rubbing their hands over the catastrophe, the Pope saying : “Serves Italy right, she took from you Lombardy and Venetia,” and the Emperor replying : “Serves Italy right, she took from you the Temporal Power.” Pasolini never spake truer words than when he said that “Italy will always side with the enemies of Austria,” and that “the alliance of France, England, and Italy is the strongest guarantee for civilization, and the freedom of the world.” [Guiseppe Pasolini Memorie Racolte da suo Figlio, pp. 328, 332.] The Vatican looks to the Government of Austria, its bond-servant, to restore the Temporal Power; but, as we have already said, England blocks the way. Austria cannot move in the matter, either to regain Venetia and Lombardy, or to help the Pope to the Temporal Power, until England is humiliated. The Pope and the Church must first find a power to attempt this, find a power that will dare to make war upon England. And a serious war it will be. The Roman Catholic writer in The Month knew that when he said : “It may very well be that the future prosperity of England may be staked in the struggle.”

'Well the world knows – it has again and again been declared – that the Pope and the Church have found such a power in Germany, and that in the person of the Kaiser they have found the very man to inspire and lead the nation in this enterprise. Amongst his [the Kaiser's] great and varied talents, his boundless ambition and self-confidence which would lead him to undertake almost anything, he possesses, in quite a phenomenal degree, these two qualifications for the task – hatred of England and love of the Pope. I believe he stands unique amongst the rulers of the world in this respect; and it is the more strange it should be so, seeing he [the Kaiser] professes to be a Christian and a Protestant. Yet that he possesses, or rather, is possessed by, these two passions [hatred of England and love of the Pope], there can, I think, be no doubt.

'The Pope, as I have already had occasion to say, feels very much at home in the company of Venetians, and talks freely to them on most subjects. In this way the Kaiser and his strange doings form not infrequently a topic of conversation, or at least a subject of passing remark. Indeed, this can hardly be avoided, for his portrait is a prominent object in the Pope's rooms. Here it is on a table, there it hangs on a wall, yonder it is in an album; whilst on his breast, suspended on a massive gold chain, sparkles a magnificent cross, composed entirely of emeralds, a gift of the Kaiser to Leo XIII. When anyone noticing these things calls the Pope's attention to them, a smile of amusement lights up his face as he comes out with his favourite joke about the Kaiser, “Why, he is my best European friend!” The statement is a joke, and yet it is a literal truth. No Catholic fanatic in the world is more punctilious than he is in sending his homage and congratulations, and flattering speeches and presents to the Pope on his ever-recurring personal festivities, such as the anniversaries, the semi-jubilees and jubilees, actual or prospective, of the day on which he was born, or was christened, or became a priest, or began to climb the ecclesiastical ladder, or reached its summit and vaulted into the chair of St. Peter. . . . (pp. 322-324).

'The result of this unholy alliance, of this union in mutual love of each other and detestation of England, is that the Kaiser has become the willing instrument of the Pope and the Vatican for the humiliation of England, in order to [facilitate] the ultimate restoration of the Temporal Power. What Richard Bagot, the Roman Catholic novelist, wrote during the Boer War, in the number of the National Review for May 1900, holds equally true to-day, that “the whole campaign against England was due to the intrigues of the Vatican, which is working, as it has ever worked and ever will work, to promote and encompass the humiliation of England.” [The National Review, May, 1900.]

'Italy has long known that the Vatican has been egging on the German Emperor to invade England, and has for years warned us of our peril. She has done this with all the greater earnestness and persistency that she knows that her own turn will come next. She has told us that just as the naval and military preparations of Germany, carried on with such mad haste and to such an abnormal extent, are, in her opinion, directed against England : so the similar preparations carried on in the same spirit by Austria, are directed against herself ; and that, in the event of England's humiliation, Austria will at once, backed by Germany, attempt to recover Venetia and Lombardy; and then, as Dr. White's eminent Roman Catholic diplomat at the Hague said, Italy will be deluged in blood, in the attempt to restore the Temporal Power.

'I think that Great Britain is pretty well alive now to this peril against which Italy has warned us; and it would be an easy task for me to marshal facts in its support, to show, indeed, that the peril is very great and very near . . . Indeed, I have already written out these facts, but at the last moment I withhold them from a sense of the grave responsibility of publishing anything that might be construed as inciting to war. At the same time, there is less need that I should recount them, as many of them are now widely known, having been discussed in the British Parliament and in the public Press; and as Italy's interpretation of Germany's objective is very generally accepted by men of political complexions as the correct one.

'It has long been known in Italy, and Italy has warned England of the fact, that the original date fixed upon by the Pope and the Kaiser for the carrying out of their nefarious enterprise was 1911-1912. This date has been mentioned also several times in the British Parliament and in the Press. I am in possession of the reasons that led to the selection of this date. They are many and various, some touching Germany, others England, and Italy, and not a few having reference to the disaffected state of Ireland at our own doors, and of Ireland across the ocean. However, I do not intend here to enter further into them, all the more that the partial awakening of England to the danger of the situation has probably spoilt the project for so early a date as the one indicated.' (pp. 327-329).

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A larger excerpt from The Papal Conquest can be found in the Archive for January 2010 on the World War Armageddon blog.