“Gott mit uns”?

The first work quoted below was published whilst the First World War was still raging:

‘Houston Chamberlain, one of the best known of [the popular German writers, has written] . . . a ponderous compilation entitled Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts [The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century], for which he is said to have been paid a large sum out of the privy purse by his appreciative Emperor. This work gratifies German pride beyond all measure, and has therefore been very successful, though as a matter of fact, the author's views are not at all original. In a fawning way he reiterates the statements that Germany is the foremost of nations, and bitterly regrets that in former invasions:

“The Teuton has not exterminated his enemies root and branch wherever he has stretched out his conquering arm . . .”

‘The traditional methods for organizing conquest are [seen as being] rather slow, and so an ingenious professor by the name of Vierordt has written an article for the Badische Landeszeitung [‘Baden State Newspaper’] to show the urgent necessity of killing off Germany's enemies by the million in order that conquered territories may be transformed into deserts, to be populated subsequently by virtuous Germans.

‘These publications give most interesting indications with regard to the mentality of their authors, who long for a far more complete destruction of Europe that that which took place in Attila's day. [And who] would no doubt organize the unravished portions of the Continent into immense factories, where the unsparing lash of the Prussian corporal would keep millions of serfs toiling to enrich the Germans in general and the professors in particular.’

(From: The Psychology of the Great War, by Gustave Le Bon, translated by E. Andrews; published New York, The Macmillan Company, 1916. pp. 164, 166).

In a chapter on ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II and German anti-semitism’ in one of his works on the Kaiser, John Röhl clarifies the different levels of anti-semitism suffered by the Jews in Germany between unification in 1871 and the Götterdämmerung of 1945. He classifies them as ranging from the first (lower) form being: ‘the anti-semitism of the salon, consisting of personal prejudice and collective but still informal discrimination’; and finally at the other extreme (number five): ‘there is the ultimate horror, the anti-semitism of extermination, the anti-semitism of the holocaust.’

And he then goes on to write that: ‘In examining the anti-semitism of Kaiser Wilhelm II, we shall need to be mindful of these five different types of anti-semitism. The baneful truth, however, is that at one time or another in the course of his long life he subscribed to all five.’

Röhl writes that after his abdication and flight to exile in Holland the Kaiser wrote the following to General August von Mackensen on 2 December 1919:

“The deepest, most disgusting shame ever perpetrated by a people in history, the Germans have done onto themselves. Egged on and misled by the tribe of Juda whom they hated, who were guests among them! That was their thanks! Let no German ever forget this, nor rest until these parasites have been destroyed and exterminated [vertilgt und ausgerottet] from German Soil! This poisonous mushroom on the German oak-tree!”

Röhl then goes on:

‘He [the Kaiser] called for a ‘regular international all-worlds pogrom à la Russe’ as ‘the best cure’. ‘Jews and Mosquitoes’ were ‘a nuisance that humanity must get rid of in some way or other’, he proclaimed, and added, again in his own hand: ‘I believe the best would be gas!’ [From notes: ‘Kaiser Wilhelm II to Poultney Bigelow, 15 August 1929. Bigelow Papers, New York Public Library. Two years earlier, Wilhelm had instructed a member of his entourage to ask Fritz Haber whether the Totalvergasung [‘Total Gasification’] of large cities had become a practicable possibility. Wilhelm von Dommes to Fritz Haber, 14 June 1927, Gutssche, Ein Kaiser im Exil, p. 92.’]

(From: The Kaiser and His Court: Wilhelm II and the Government of Germany, by John C. G. Röhl, Cambridge University Press, 1994 [originally published in Germany as Kaiser, Hof und Staat: Wilhelm II. Und die deutsche Politik by Verlag C. H. Beck, Munich 1987]; p. 194-195, p. 210, and notes p. 266).

In line with extremist Germanic thought of the time the Kaiser didn’t envision genocide as being solely reserved and warranted by the Jews as Röhl writes:

‘In September 1914, after the German victory at Tannenberg, the Kaiser proposed that the 90,000 Russian prisoners of war be driven onto a barren spit of land in the Baltic and kept there till they died of thirst and hunger: it was left to one of his generals to point out that that would be ‘genocide’.’ [From notes: ‘Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller, diary entry for 4 September 1914, BA-MA Freiburg. This entry was omitted in Walter Görlitz (ed.), Regierte der Kaiser? Kreigstagebücher, Aufzeichnungen und Briefe des Chefs des Marine-Kabinetts Admiral Georg Alexander von Müller 1914-1918 (Göttingen 1959), pp. 54f.’] (ibid. p. 207, and notes p. 229)

The following is from a late eighteenth-century work first published in 1796:

'Thus the wars, in which the tyrants of the European world are to be subdued, with their widely scattered partisans, being of such mighty influence in deciding the condition of the human race, are foretold, in several parts of the apocalypse, and under different emblems. Such appears to be the import of THE HARVEST and THE VINTAGE, described in the xivth chapter [of the Revelation].’

According to this prophetic interpretation the subduing of these ‘tyrants of the European world’ (also being ‘the enemies of the church and the adversaries of [God’s] people’) would consist of:

‘two most signal slaughters, between which some space of time would intervene, which agreeably to analogy may be represented by the interval, which separates a harvest from a vintage.’

During the second of these ‘two most signal slaughters’ the grapes are described not just as being solely ‘ripe’ but as now being ‘fully ripe’. To continue from the quoted work:

‘The symbolic grapes are described as fully ripe “That is,” says Vitringa, “the period of the divine forbearance had expired, and villanies, no longer to be tolerated, had arisen to their utmost height. The measure of crimes was filled up. — Punishment therefore could no longer be deferred, but the destroyers of the earth were at length to be destroyed, and were in their turn to meet with their reward.” ’

(From: Illustrations of Prophecy, by the Rev Joseph Towers; published London, MDCCXCVI [1796]*. pp. 298, 300).

*For lengthier quotes from this work by the Rev Joseph Towers see the World War Armageddon blog posts ‘The two world wars; & the “Harvest of the earth”, from April 2010; and ‘The best laid schemes of FROGS and men . . .’ from March 2010.

“Drang nach osten”: Germany’s drive to the East

(Above: front cover of H Charles Woods' The Danger Zone: Changes and Problems in the Near East, 1911; and below: the title-page of his later work The Cradle of the War: The Near East and Pan-Germanism, 1918).

This post continues on from the theme of the previous post from February concerning the conflict between the “King of the Earth” (Germany and the Central Powers) and the “Kings of the East” (or “sun-rising”: the British Empire with its “jewel in the crown” centered on India).

First from a work I cited from in a post from last year (in the Archive for May 2010 on the World War Armageddon blog):

‘Let us now review our position, and see how we stand with regard to the events which we have shown to be foretold as destined to take place during the era of the sixth Vial in which we are now living. The drying up of the Euphrates has long been going on: the power of Turkey has long been declining. Our statesmen tell us “The Sick Man is sicker than ever.” In our daily papers we read: “The Ottoman Empire exhibits all the signs of a state in dissolution.”. . . Those evil agencies symbolised by the three frog-like spirits, which are yet to embroil the world, have began to show signs of increased activity. No one can deny that there is in the minds of thinking men, whose eyes are open to see the signs of the times, a presentiment that a great crises is approaching in the history of our world. There ever lingers on the horizon the dark storm-cloud of the Eastern Question. Now and again it seems gathering to a head, and threatening to burst. But, as often happens in thundery weather, the storm is averted for a while. Yet there the cloud is still, waiting for the time fixed by God's eternal decree, and when that time comes the cloud of the Eastern Question will once more gather and come down, involving the nations in widespread calamity and destruction. There can be little doubt that in the crises of the end of this dispensation the Eastern Question will play its part.’

(The Rev. Joseph Tanner, B.A.; from: Daniel and the Revelation: The Chart of Prophecy and our Place in it; A Study of the Historical and Futurist Interpretation; London; Hodder and Stoughton, 1898; p. 370).

Before moving on to quote from the latter work detailed above by H Charles Henry, the following quote is taken from H A Gibbons' The Reconstruction of Poland and the Near East, 1917 (pp. 57-58):

“Hemmed in on the west by Great Britain and France and on the east by Russia, born too late to extend their political sovereignty over vast colonial domains, and unable (if only for lack of coaling stations) to develop sea power greater than that of their rivals, nothing was more natural than the German and Austro-Hungarian conception of a Drang nach Osten through the Balkan Peninsula, over the bridge of Constantinople, into the markets of Asia. The geographical position of the Central European states made as inevitable a penetration policy into the Balkans and Turkey as the geographical position of England made inevitable the development of an overseas empire.”

(As cited in, Turkey, The Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway: A Study in Imperialism; by Edward Mead Earle, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of History in Columbia University; The Macmillan Company, New York, 1924; p. 51).

Now to H Charles Woods' work:

‘[First:] the reasons which have prompted me to call this book “The Cradle of the War.” For many years, and more especially since the re-establishment of the Ottoman Constitution in 1908, the numerous problems connected with the Near East have been a source of continual danger to the world's peace. This was due in part to the fact that the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor might at any time be the scenes of insurrection, massacre, or local conflict, and in part — a larger part — to the international rivalry which has existed for years concerning a future domination over many of the areas in question.

‘These localities, together with the waterways which they control, form the great and only corridor from west to east and from north to south, and they constitute the natural highway from Central Europe to Asia and from Russia to the Mediterranean. Thus, ever since the birth of her Mittel-Europa scheme, Germany has been determined to push open the Near-Eastern door, in order to be able to strike a deadly blow at the very vitals of the British Empire, and at the same time automatically to prevent Russia from expanding towards warm water. As I shall endeavour to show, therefore, it is not so much the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his Consort at Serajevo on June 28, 1914, as the developments preceding and following that occurrence which make the Near East the region of primary existence of the present conflict — the area in which many of its most important events have been sheltered and nurtured.

‘In the manner that a little cot is made ready for the expected child, so did the enemy prepare for the war which he was designing. This preparation, in progress from the time of the accession of the present [German] Emperor to the throne in 1888, was carried out by the gradual development of Germanic influence and power in Turkey, and by a constant and determined opposition to the establishment of stable conditions in the Near East. From the moment of the birth of his war child, too, the Kaiser has been an ever vigilant mother, for instead of allowing the real primary cause of the world conflict to be forgotten, he has consistently rocked the “cradle” in the apparent hope that she who performs this task rules the world.’

(From the Preface to The Cradle of the War: The Near East and Pan-Germanism; published: Little, Brown, and Company, Boston, 1918; pp. ix-x).

‘Whilst the policies of England and Russia during the thirty years following the signature of the Treaty of Berlin may be described as those of procrastination, the Central Powers and particularly Germany were working and intriguing for the maintenance of a state of unrest in the East destined to prepare the way for the eventual realisation of their policies. Indeed, ever since the accession of the present Emperor to the throne in 1888 that rider has been carefully developing his influence in the East. One year later, and in 1889, His Majesty paid his first visit to Constantinople — a visit more or less connected with the then recent grabbing of the Scutari-Ismid railway and with the concession for the prolongation of that line to Angora as a German concern. Directly afterwards, early in 1890, by the “Dropping of the Pilot” there was in the retirement of Bismarck a clear reversal of the policy based upon the assertions of that statesman to the effect that the whole Eastern question was “not worth the bones of a Pomeranian Grenadier.” Before and particularly after the appointment of Baron Marshal von Bieberstein, who had then been a personal friend of the Kaiser's for many years, as Ambassador in Constantinople in 1897, Germanic policy was run with the sole object of securing concessions in and gaining the favour of Turkey. Indeed although so far as the Balkan States were concerned the Kaiser at this time endeavoured to screen his intentions behind a nominally Austrian programme, he was really preparing the way for the realisation of his Pan-German dreams in the Near and Middle Easts. Thus the power of Von der Goltz Pasha, who introduced the present military system into Turkey in 1886, and of his pupils was greatly increased until the Ottoman army was finally completely under Germanic control.’ (ibid. pp. 5-6)

And on a chapter on “Mittel Europa” H Charles Woods writes:

‘I have already dealt . . . with the question of German intrigues in the East prior to the out break of the War, that I propose here only briefly to refer to one or two points raised in the “Revelations of Prince Lichnowsky”, published in pamphlet form by The New York Times. To begin with, no doubt whatever is left upon the mind of the reader that Germany, and not Austria, made this War, largely with the object of improving her position in the East. Indeed from the time of the Congress of Berlin of 1878, when Prince Lichnowsky says his country began the Triple Alliance Policy, “The goal of our [German] political ambition was to dominate in the Bosphorus”, and “instead of encouraging a powerful development in the Balkan States, we [Germany] placed ourselves on the side of the Turkish and Magyar oppressors.”

‘These words contain in essence and in tabulated form an explanation of the Pan-German policy in progress during the period covered by this book — a policy the existence of which has often been refuted and denied by those who refused to see that, from the first, the Kaiser was obsessed by a desire for domination from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf. What is even more striking, too, is the fact that, in speaking of the Balkan War period, Prince Lichnowsky says, that “two possibilities for settling the question remained.” Either Germany left the Near-Eastern problem to the peoples themselves or she supported her allies “and carried out a Triple Alliance policy in the East, thereby giving up the rôle of mediator.” Once more, in the words of the Prince himself, “The German Foreign Office very much preferred the latter,” and as a result supported Austria . . .’ (ibid. pp. 312-313).

And from the same chapter concerning the “attention with which the Germans have developed their plans for conquest in the East”, H Charles Woods quotes the following:

‘ “Their objective,” as President Wilson said in his address delivered at Baltimore on April 6, 1918, “is undoubtedly to make all the Slavic peoples, all the free and ambitious nations of the Balkan Peninsula, all the lands that Turkey has dominated and misruled, subject to their will and ambition and build upon that dominion an empire of force upon which they fancy that they can erect an empire of gain and commercial supremacy, — an empire as hostile to the Americas as to the Europe which it will overawe, — an empire which will ultimately master Persia, India, and the peoples of the Far East.” ’ (ibid. p. 320).

* * * * * * *

Envoi:

‘The war has been forced upon us, and yet we must look upon it as a stroke of good fortune that the sacrificial death of Archduke Francis Ferdinand led to the premature outbreak of the great anti-German conspiracy. Two years later the war would have been far more difficult, its victims more numerous, and its outcome less certain.’

(Paul Rohrbach, Professor of Colonial Economy in the Commercial Academy of Berlin, writing in the Author’s Preface to his Germany’s Isolation: An Exposition of the Economic Causes of the Great War, 1915).

And again:

‘Must [we] not fight for two hundred fifty million pounds of commerce.’ (Paul Rohrbach, quoting from the Saturday Review article ‘England and Germany’ (September, 1897) in his German World Policies, (p. 181), as cited in 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; p. xiii).

The battle lines were joined:

‘[T]he merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?’ Ezekiel 38:13

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

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).

Count Sforza on “The Origins of the War”

THE ORIGINS OF THE WAR

'In 1914 the Germany of William II and the Austria-Hungary of the Hapsburgs were guilty of the same error as Hitler in 1939 and Mussolini in 1940: they despised their eventual adversaries too much. In 1939 Hitler believed, since they had allowed him to assassinate Czechoslovakia, that he could do the same to Poland; in 1940 Mussolini believed, like Petain and Weygand, that Great Britain would be incapable of resisting after France's fall.

'The former Ambassador of Austria-Hungary at London, Count Mensdorf, said to me one day after the monarchy he had loyally and skilfully served had come to its end: “Yes, you are right; they were mad, at Vienna and Budapest – Berchtold as mad as Tisza to have unleashed the great war after Serajevo. But Berchtold, at least, and all the Austrians with him, always believed from the bottom of their hearts that they would end by letting Austria have her little war with Serbia ; hadn't Europe swallowed without wincing all the acts of violence of the Central Empires? Fundamentally, we were tricked by the Entente; we were sure they had decided never to make war against us. . . .”'

(Contemporary Italy Its Intellectual and Moral Origins, by Count Carlo Sforza; Frederick Muller Ltd., London, 1946; p. 145)

'The assassination of Francis Ferdinand of Hapsburg and his wife at Serajevo on June 24, 1914, seemed to the camarilla of the Court of Vienna and to the feudal Hungarians a fortunate pretext sent by the gods.

'That Serajevo was only a pretext is proved by the compilation of the memorial written in Vienna, actually several days before June 28, formally to request German assistance for an attack on Serbia. . . . The famous memorial presented to the Emperor William after the death of Francis Joseph's heir, to assure Austria the support of her German ally, had been prepared and completely drafted previously, on the morrow of the German Kaiser's visit to Francis Ferdinand at the castle of Konopisht in mid-May, 1914. The assassination of Serajevo had no other result than to add to the already prepared document the following postscript:

'“This memorial had already been completed when the terrible events of Serajevo supervened. One can scarcely realize the full import of this abominable assassination which has, nevertheless, if indeed that were still necessary, produced the irrefutable proof of the impossibility of putting an end to the antagonism between the Monarchy and Serbia, as well as the danger and intensity of the Pan-Serbian propaganda that recoils at nothing. . . . Under these conditions the necessity of breaking with an energetic hand the net in which her adversary wishes to suffocate her is imposed on the Monarchy.”

'The Bosnian crisis had been, as I have said, the dress rehearsal for that of 1914, with this difference, however, that in 1909 the Austrian statesmen dominated the events, whereas in 1914 Aerenthal's successors were but the victims of their passions and puppets of the events.

'Aerenthal had had a view of the future, limited but clear; moreover, he was a man and in a certain sense a new man. Berchtold, his successor, was only the symbol of the old Austria whose real masters were the old narrow-minded bureaucrats, like Count Forgach, who one day said to one of his subordinates at the Ballplatz, Baron Szilassy, a Hungarian like himself: “I wish that in all the offices of the Ministry they would inscribe this maxim: Serbia delenda est” (Serbia must be destroyed.)

'I knew Forgach as a young diplomat at Constantinople and was aware of the hate he already had for anything Slavic, even before the ridiculous part he played before all Europe in the affair of the forgery of the Friedjung case. Minister in China from 1911, I never again saw Forgach, who became all-powerful at the Ballplatz. But from Peking I returned and spent several weeks in Austria in 1912 and 1913. Duke Avarna, then Ambassador of Italy, Dumaine, Ambassador of France, Count Dudzeele, my wife's father and Minister of Belgium who, like myself, had known Forgach intimately at Constantinople, all insisted that the danger in Vienna was that, thanks to Forgach, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, instead of acting as a counterweight to the preference of the military circles for war, excited them still more.

'The memorandum which was to decide the European war could have issued only from a Ministry of Foreign Affairs directed by men of Forgach's stripe.

'The fatal document started for Berlin on the evening of July 4. Count Hoyos, Berchtold's Chief of Cabinet, carried it. The next day, July 5, Emperor Francis Joseph gave a long audience to the Chief of Staff, Conrad, who left an exact report of the conversation:

'“I expressed”, wrote Conrad, “my opinion of the inevitability of war with Serbia.”

“The Emperor: Yes, that's perfectly true, but how do you expect to make war if everyone attacks us, especially Russia?

“Conrad: Doesn't Germany shield us?

“The Emperor: Are we sure about Germany?

“Conrad: But we ought to know, Your Majesty, the situation we are in.

“The Emperor: A note left last night for Berlin; we asked for a point-blank reply.

“Conrad: And if the reply assures that Germany places herself beside us, shall we make war on Serbia?

“The Emperor: In that case, yes.”'

(pp. 147-149)

'Three days after his meeting with Francis Joseph, on July 8, Conrad had a definitive conversation with Berchtold. The meticulous exactness with which Conrad reproduced it in his memoirs* is surprising; it is the language of a conspiracy, and he does not realize it. [*From footnote: 'Conrad's memoirs, Aus Meiner Dienstzeit (My Years of Service), has the advantage of sincerity where other writers, more anxious about public opinion, would have been tempted to gloss over the truth.']

'“Berchtold: What will happen if Serbia lets matters slide until the mobilization, and then yields completely?

“Conrad: Then we invade Serbian territory.

“Berchtold: And if Serbia does nothing?

“Conrad: Then Serbia will remain occupied until all our war expenses have been paid.

“Berchtold: Shall we delay the ultimatum until after the harvest, and after the Serajevo inquest?

“Conrad: Better to-day than to-morrow; we have to exploit the situation. The moment our adversaries suspect anything they are going to prepare.

“Berchtold: We'll take care that the secret will be strictly kept and that nothing shall be known by anyone.

“Conrad: About what date should the ultimatum be sent?

“Berchtold: In a fortnight, July 22. It would be a good idea for you, as well as for the Minister of War, to go on leave for a while so as to dissipate any kind of anxiety.”

'Such was the atmosphere at Vienna when Francis Ferdinand's assassination seemed the most fortunate of opportunities, one which had been lacking in 1913, and one that at no price should be missed again. Apponyi's “At last!” was the avowal of the official world. Those who hesitated, like Tisza, did not do so from love of peace, but because they were not sure of being sufficiently aided by Germany. The moment William II's “Now or never” became known at Vienna and Budapest, there was not a Magyar nor an Austrian-German who was not for the war. At the time of the dramatic interview that took place on November 2, 1918, between the members of the Deutschoesterreicher Staatsrat and Emperor Charles, when the latter protested “not having wanted it” and a Socialist leader indicated approbation, the old Christian-Socialist Dr. Mayer rose and, alone, had the dignity to declare:

'“Let us be sincere, gentlemen. We all wanted the war: even the people wanted it. You need only recall the enthusiasm of the summer of 1914. . . .”' (pp. 149-150)

* * *

'A legend more tenacious than history was formed in 1914 and afterward regarding Pope Pius X's attitude toward the Hapsburg aggression toward Serbia. This legend shows us Pius X praying and fighting against the outbreak of the war, horrified to see Christianity divided into two enemy camps, and dying of grief at the invasion of Belgium and all the horrors of war unchained. The truth is quite otherwise.

'During the war of 1914-18 the religious question had only a minor importance; both camps included Catholics, Protestants, Greek Orthodox members and Mohammedans. Catholic unity did not prevail any more than Mohammedan unity, which seemed so sure of its jihad (the Holy War proclaimed by the Sultan-Caliph, which neither Arab nor Hindu [Indian?] Moslem obeyed). The clergy of the different countries could all invoke Allah or the old God of Armies with opposite hopes.

'One fact, however, during the tragic weeks of July and August, 1914, scandalized European opinion: that the war should have been provoked in the name of God by a powerful and decrepit sovereign, Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria and Apostolic King of Hungary, the most Catholic of all the sovereigns and the most important of all Catholic sovereigns. When this Prince declared that he made war to chastise Serbia, millions of timorous souls imagined that the Pope would intervene to prevent the catastrophe. This hope gave birth to the legend. It was said at the time that Pius X, the moment he knew of the ultimatum to Serbia, had enjoined his Nuncio at Vienna to admonish the old Emperor and King in the name of the Almighty. Then, since the war happened just the same, it was explained that the Ballplatz diplomats and military men of the imperial entourage had prevented Pius X's messenger from talking with the Emperor. And here is the last act of the legend: The Pope having died suddenly on August 20, 1914, it was affirmed that the good Pius had succumbed to grief, having realized his impotence to avert the disaster.

'It is time to establish the truth as to that legend, and here it is:

'As soon as the danger of war became evident, Count Palffy, Austrian Chargé d' Affaires at the Vatican, several times informed Pius X's Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val, of the intentions and the “duties” of the Dual Monarchy. The Cardinal's replies were deposited in the diplomatic correspondence of the Austro-Hungarian Embassy, correspondence that I have seen. They reveal that the Vatican saw with satisfaction, at least at the outset, an undertaking in which the crushing of Serbia would entail a diminution of the influence of Russia. The latter's prestige was detested by the Roman Church, which viewed it as the principal obstacle to a reconciliation of the Oriental churches with the See of Rome. In these conversations the Secretary of State spoke expressly in the name of the Pope who, he declared to the Austrian representative, deplored that Austria had not earlier inflicted on the Serbs the chastisement they deserved. It is sufficient to quote the following passage from a dispatch of Count Palffy to Count Berchtold on July 29:

'“During the conversation I had two days ago with the Cardinal Secretary of State he spoke spontaneously of the great problems and questions now agitating Europe. It would be impossible to detect in His Eminence's words any spirit whatever of indulgence and conciliation. It is true he characterized the note to Serbia as very harsh, but he nevertheless approved it without any reservation and at the same time expressed, in an indirect way, the hope that the Monarchy would go to the limit. Certainly, added the Cardinal, it was too bad that Serbia had not been humiliated very much sooner, for then it might have been done without putting into play, as today, such immense possibilities. This declaration also corresponds to the Pope's way of thinking, for, in the course of recent years His Holiness has often expressed regret that Austro-Hungary has failed to 'chastise' her dangerous Danubian neighbour.

'“One might wonder for what motive the Catholic Church evinces herself so bellicose at an epoch when she is governed by a chief who is truly a saint, imbued with veritably apostolic ideas. The answer is very simple. The Pope and the Curia see in Serbia the ravaging malady that little by little penetrated the Monarchy to the marrow, and which, in time, would end by disintegrating it.

'“Despite all the other experiments attempted by the Curia in the course of the last decade, Austria-Hungary is and remains the Catholic State par excellence, the strongest rampart of the Faith which stands in our day for the Church of Christ. The fall of this rampart would signify for the Church the loss of its solidest prop; in the conflicts with the Orthodox Church she would see her most powerful champion struck down.

'“Hence, just as for Austria-Hungary there is an immediate necessity of self-preservation to expel from its organism, even by force if need be, the dissolving malady, there is also for the Catholic Church an indirect necessity of doing or approving everything that would serve to attain that end.

'“In this light, a harmony between the apostolic sentiment and the war spirit can easily be confirmed.”

'The widening of the conflict which from Austro-Serb became European changed probably the Pope's frame of mind. But at least in the very first days of the war he considered the march of the German army nach Paris as a punishment that God had inflicted on the “eldest daughter of the Church” who had given him the worst worries of his pontificate.' (pp. 153-155).

[The above paragraph in the American edition published by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1944 (by the same translators: Drake and Denise de Kay) reads slightly differently; as here follows:

'The widening of the conflict which from Austro-Serb became European did not do much to change the Pope's frame of mind. In his honest but narrow mind the march of the German army nach Paris assumed the form of a punishment that God had inflicted on the “eldest daughter of the Church” who had given him the worst worries of his pontificate.' (p. 189).]

'We have seen that the proceeding of the Nuncio at Vienna is a legend. That Pius X died of grief is still another. I have it from his doctor, my colleague in the Italian Senate, that the malady of which the Pope died had for long months wasted the old man by slow degrees, and that the overwork of the last few weeks could, at most, but have hastened the end that he, Marchiafava, had already declared inevitable and due to occur very shortly.' (p. 155)

“The Papal Conquest” (1909)

THE

PAPAL CONQUEST

ITALY'S WARNING –

“WAKE UP, JOHN BULL!”

BY

REV. ALEXANDER ROBERTSON, D.D.

CAVALIERE OF THE ORDER OF ST. MAURICE

AND ST. LAZARUS, ITALY

Author of

“THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN ITALY”

“THE BIBLE OF ST. MARK” “VENETIAN SERMONS”

“FRA PAOLO SARPI” etc. etc.

“He that taketh warning shall deliver his soul.”–

Ezek. xxxiii. 5.

LONDON : MORGAN AND SCOTT LTD.

12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C.

MCMIX

[1909]

CHAPTER I

Conquest Determined Upon

'Mr. Gladstone did not think she [the Papacy] was an enemy to be despised when he wrote his first famous pamphlet, The Vatican Decrees : for he tells us in his second pamphlet, Vaticanism (called forth in its defence against his critics, Newman, Manning, and others), that his very object in writing it was to put England on her guard against the Roman Catholic Church. He says : “My object has been to produce, if possible, a temper of greater watchfulness; to promote the early and provident fear which, says Mr. Burke, is the mother of necessity; to distrust that lazy way of thought, which acknowledges no danger until it thunders at the doors; to warn my countrymen against the velvet paw, and smooth and soft exterior of a system which is dangerous to the foundations of civil order, and which any one of us may at any time encounter in his daily path.” [Vaticanism, by W.E. Gladstone, p. 117.]

'In his Introduction to this second pamphlet (Vaticanism), Mr. Gladstone says : “It is, in my opinion, an entire mistake to suppose that theories like those, of which Rome is the centre, are not operative on the thoughts and actions of men. An army of teachers, the largest and most compact in the world, is ever sedulously at work to bring them into practice. Within our own time they have most powerfully, as well as most injuriously, altered the spirit and feeling of the Roman Church at large; and it will be strange indeed if, having done so much in the last half century, they shall effect nothing in the next. I must avow, then, that I do not feel the same security for the future as for the present. . . . Nor can I overlook indications which lead to the belief that even in this country and at this time, the proceedings of Vaticanism threaten to be a source of some practical inconvenience. I am confident that if a system so radically bad is to be made or kept innocuous, the first condition for attaining such a result is that its movements should be carefully watched, and above all, that the bases on which they work should be faithfully and unflinchingly exposed.” [Vaticanism, by W.E. Gladstone, p. 16.]' (The Papal Conquest, pp. 5-6).

CHAPTER XVII

The Military Invasion

'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.]

'That is the indictment of one whom Dr. White calls “an eminent Roman Catholic representative of a Roman Catholic Power.” And what a sweeping condemnatory indictment it is! In face of it, coming from the burning heart and lips of such a man, one feels that it is impiety or culpable ignorance to talk, as so many do, of the Pope being the Vicar of the Prince of Peace, and of the Roman Catholic Church as having a mission of peace and of goodwill to mankind. He is, on the contrary, the Vicar of Christ's Adversary, “The Prince of this World”; [John xii. 31, xiv. 30.] he is the “Beast” of the Revelation, to whom the “Dragon” gave “his power, and his seat, and great authority . . . to make war with the saints.” [Rev. xiii. 2, 7.]

'It will be noticed that this “eminent Catholic representative of a Roman Catholic Power” in his sweeping indictment says : “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.” That was the Godlike work in which the so-called “Vicar of the Prince of Peace” has been engaged during the ten years that have elapsed since then; and that is the Godlike work in which the so-called “Vicar of the Prince of Peace” is engaged at the present time! Italy knows this to her cost; and it has often been brought forward in Parliament and in the Press, both native and foreign, by Italian writers. Ruggiero Bonghi wrote, in 1894, in the Nuova Antologia – and his words are equally true to-day – “The war is conducted by the Papacy; and since its commencement twenty-three years ago (now [in 1909] thirty-nine) it does not seem to decrease in vigour, and in precision of aim. . . . The Pope continues to fight fiercely to recover the Temporal Power.” [ Nuova Antologia, January 1894.] The Honourable Francesco Crispi said, in 1892 : “To-day he (the Pope) conspires; to-morrow, as king, he would openly treat with our enemies to the detriment of our national unity.” [The New Review, May 1892.] Mr. Gladstone again and again refers to it; and I have already quoted him as saying : “She (Italy) is the country whose very heart it is the fixed desire and design of the Roman Curia to tear out of its bleeding body, for the purpose of erecting anew the fabric of the Temporal Power now crumbled in the dust”; [Gleanings of Past Years, by W.E. Gladstone, vol. vi. p. 202.] and again, as saying : “that there is a fixed purpose among the secret inspirers of Roman policy to pursue, by the road of force, upon the arrival of any favourable opportunity, the favourite project of re-erecting the terrestrial throne of the Popedom, even if it can only be re-erected on the ashes of the city, and amidst the whitening bones of the people.” [The Vatican Decrees, by W.E. Gladstone, p. 50.] Again Mr. Gladstone speaks of “the venomous ambition of Curialism, determined to try another fall before renouncing its dream of temporal dominion,” [Gleanings of Past Years, by W.E. Gladstone, vol. vi. p. 201.] and Cardinal Manning, who incarnated the policy of the Vatican, fully confirms Mr. Gladstone's statements, for he declared to the late Rev. Hugh Price Hughes that he (the Pope) was willing to deluge Europe in blood, if thereby he could destroy the kingdom of Italy, and restore the Temporal Power. [Methodist Times, August 6, 1896.]

'Mr. Gladstone's “favourable opportunity” is, in the estimation of the Pope and the Church, at last fast approaching. The great prize, which they have kept steadily before their eyes ever since 1870, and to which everything else has been subordinated, and made subservient, is almost, they think, within their grasp. The Italian cartoon on this subject, reproduced [in this work], represents the Pope welcoming the [Austrian] Emperor Francis Joseph and his invading army, with the words : “Come on ! come on, my sons ! For thirty-nine years we have waited for you in Rome.” Another cartoon which I possess represents Rome as a luscious pear, hanging high up in the air, and the Pope climbing a ladder, held by the Emperor Francis Joseph, in the hope of plucking it. It is still, however, beyond his reach. Yet in this fixed determination of reaching it, we come upon the crowning reason, the impelling cause, for the Conquest of England. It is not the only reason, the only impelling cause, for, as we have already seen (Chapter II.), there are others. They want John Bull's gold. They want to regain a measure of prestige in the world, and they want to put down what they call heresy.

'England, then, is recognized as the great obstacle to the recovery of the Temporal Power. So long as England holds its place of intellectual, moral, and material supremacy among the nations, the recovery of the Temporal Power is an impossibility. Therefore England must be humiliated, must be subdued. And to effect this the thousands and tens of thousands of myrmidons of the Church, now scattered throughout the land, are not enough. These are working, as we have seen, to weaken, and deteriorate, and degenerate John Bull; but that is only preparatory work. They are but the sappers and miners sent in advance of a great army of another kind, which the Pope and the Church hope soon to land on our shores. That army of another kind is an army of soldiers, by whom, in co-operation with the enemy already in the field, and profiting by its work, the war will be fought out to the finish. As Mr. Froude long ago said, “it ended in blood before, and it will end in blood again.” [Short Studies on Great Subjects, by J.A. Froude, vol. ii. p. 178.] The Pope and the Church are saying : “Come on ! come on, my sons !” for they hope to complete the Conquest of England by means of a great Military Invasion.

'The nation seems now pretty well alive to the fact that a Military Invasion is impending. It is a strange thing that it did not become aware of this before. I believe that the Pope and the Church formed the resolution to bring it about, soon after the fall of the Temporal Power, in 1870, when, as we have already seen, a league was founded of all Catholics throughout Christendom for the restoration of that Power. And the fact was fully and clearly announced by the Church four years later. Cardinal Manning then said : “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.] In the last sentence of this quotation, the Cardinal clearly refers to Protestant England being at war with some other Protestant nation, as he hopes, to their “mutual destruction.” Cardinal Manning's article appeared in January 1874; then in November of the same year appeared another article by another writer in another Roman Catholic periodical, called The Month, exactly expressing the same thoughts, but without hesitation mentioning England. The article impressed Mr. Gladstone very much, and twice he drew public attention to it, once in a letter to Lord Durham, and again in an appendix to his pamphlet on The Vatican Decrees. I quote from the latter. After speaking of the determination of the Church to restore “the terrestrial throne of the Popedom,” even by the use of fire and sword, he says : “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 (The Month, November 1874), which has direct relation to these matters, and which has every appearance of proceeding from authority.

“'Surely in any European complication, such as may 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.'

“This is a remarkable disclosure. With whom could England be brought into conflict by any disposition she might feel to keep up the Italian Kingdom? Considered as States, both Austria and France are in complete harmony with Italy. But it is plain that Italy has some enemy; and the writers of The Month appear to know who it is.” [The Vatican Decrees, by W.E. Gladstone, Appendix C.]

'Whatever difficulty may have existed when Mr. Gladstone penned these words, in recognizing who Italy's enemy is, there is none to-day. Italy's enemy is Austria. Austria, like the Roman Catholic Church, is Italy's “Eternal Enemy.” The two cartoons of which I have just spoken bear this out. 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.

'No greater proof of the Kaiser's sympathy with the wearer of the triple crown can be given than the speech he made at Aix-la-Chapelle in his praise on the occasion of the last jubilee of Leo XIII. Part of that speech was the following : “It was with pride and joy that he was able to tell them that the Pope had said to his special Ambassador, who went to Rome on the occasion of the Holy Father's jubilee, that he (the Pope) had always kept a high opinion of the piety of the Germans, and especially of the German army; and the Ambassador was to tell his Sovereign that the country in Europe where control, order, and discipline still prevailed, with respect for the authority, and regard for the Church, and where the latter could live, was the German Empire, and for that the Papal See was indebted to the German Emperor.” [Daily Telegraph, June 21, 1902.] (The Papal Conquest, pp. 313-325).

'. . . 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, as great and near, as I said in my opening chapter, as it was in 1690. 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.

'Still it cannot be too vividly recognized that it will not be the fault of Britain's enemies – in this case the enemies of Italy's unity and liberty also – if the scheme be not carried out later. Its prevention lies in the hands of England. Not long ago Lord Roberts, writing to General Sir Henry Rawlinson, said : “I am persuaded that before very long Englishmen will be called upon to defend themselves. I fear lest the hour of trial may find them unprepared.”

'It is for England, then, to rouse herself, so as, in the first place, to realize, clearly and fully, her peril; and then, without a moment's delay, to set about putting in force measures to ensure her safety and well-being; determined that, cost what it may, “the hour of trial” shall not find her unprepared. It is for England to realize that it is not only her own welfare and her own life, with all that these stand for of human liberty and progress, and of the spreading of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ throughout the world, that are at stake in the threatened conflict; but also the welfare and the life, with all their promise of blessing to mankind, of Italy, her most faithful and warm friend. If England is humiliated, so also will Italy be humiliated. The welfare of Old England and of Young Italy are in jeopardy. WAKE UP, ENGLAND!' (The Papal Conquest, pp. 327-330).

[In light of the above, the following quote is taken from the historian Sidney Bradshaw Fay's work, Before Sarajevo: The Origins of the [First] World War , Vol 1, 1928:

'The most valuable to the historian of all the Austro-Hungarian memoirs is the voluminous work of the Austrian Chief of Staff, Baron Conrad von Hoetzendorf (entitled, Aus meiner Dienstzeit [My Years of Service], 5 vols.; published Vienna, 1921-25). It consists in large part of an undigested mass of important documents of all sorts, copies of which he evidently took from the official files and published in chronological order, with a commentary of his own. It also includes conversations in dialogue form which appear to be taken from a diary kept from day to day. With extraordinary frankness, he recounts the repeated efforts he made to have Austria make war on Italy or Serbia on what he regarded as numerous favourable occasions between 1906 and 1914. In July, 1914, it was probably he, more than anyone else, who galvanised the incompetent and hesitating Berchtold into an active advocate of war against Serbia.']

From “The Sick Man”; to “The Strong Man” of Europe . . .

ISRAEL IN THE BOOK

OF REVELATION

BY

REV. L. G. A. ROBERTS

(Commander R.N. Retired)

RECTOR OF ARDLEY, BICESTER, OXFORD,

Secretary of the Imperial British-Israel Association.

WITH PREFACE BY

REV. W. M. H. MILNER, M.A., F.R.G.S. A.V.I.

LONDON:

R. BANKS & SON, 5, RACQUET COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.

1 9 1 1.

'Whilst Revelation xiv. 1-6 is taking place, another scene is being enacted in the Roman earth, in the Kingdom of the Beast. We have in the figure of Revelation xiii, all the nations represented in the Beast, but his last form is the peculiar one. After the wounding of one of the heads of the beast (France under Napoleon) (Rev. xiii. 3-12) his deadly wound is healed (by Germany?). Notice the remarkable language of Revelation xiii, 11 : “And I beheld another Beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and he spake as a dragon.” The first beast rises out of the sea (Rev. xiii. 1), the same as seen in Daniel vii. 3, “The four great beasts came up from the sea” – i.e., they all surrounded the Mediterranean. This last, however, has progressed northwards and is represented as inland as coming up “out of the earth,” and when seen to restore the Roman Empire he has two horns. It is well known that the Germans infest Austria, and that even to-day Germany and Austria are one in objects, they are two horns united for a purpose, moreover they are lamb-like – i.e., Christian, pretended followers of the Lamb. This is their profession; as to the last characteristic, “he spake as a dragon.” We must leave our readers to consider whom this autocrat seems to point to either Prussian or Russian? It is not to be assumed that this system is yet fully developed, and we know not what intrigue with Rome may eventually bring about, but coming events have already cast a shadow before, and events hurry on at a tremendous pace. The spirit that will animate this beast is the same as he “that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit.”

'This interpretation does not render void the ecclesiastical aspect of the beast thereof, for he has a dual object: one purely anti-Christian, the other political, or Rome working with any tool which her craftiness can entice to do her work.' (pp. 196-197).

'THE STRONG MAN OF EUROPE – The Throne and Country, which appears this week under new proprietorship and editorship, publishes an article by Mr. Arnold White entitled “Dare Germany go to War?” Mr. White declares that the strong man in Europe is not the Emperor William but the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. “The question of war or peace depends primarily not on the will of the German Kaiser, but on the question as to which of the two parties gains the ascendancy. If the war party, which franctically supports the world policy of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, succeeds in silencing the peace party, Germany will make war, and will be defeated just as France made war and was defeated twice in the course of the last century.” – (From the Standard, September 20th, 1911).'

(Israel in the Book of Revelation, p. 198).

From “Kulturkampf”, to mourning over her . . .

Kaiser Wilhelm (William) II

(Born 1859; German Emperor 1888-1918; died 1941)

From the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors:

“Kulturkampf conflict 1872-87 between the German government and the papacy”.

Returning back to Bishop Christopher Wordsworth (1807-85), and his work Union with Rome; the following is taken from the Tenth Edition of the said work – published three years after his death; and coinciding with the ascension, that very same year, of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the throne of the German Empire :

“The Apocalypse foretells a remarkable phenomenon, which may soon be manifested, namely that, Powers, which have destroyed the mystical Babylon, will mourn over her.

“The cause of this seemingly strange anomaly is now beginning to disclose itself. Where Ultramontanism is dominant, there the Papacy will now have acquired new force; but in other places, where Ultramontanism does not prevail, there, as is notorious, the usurpation and corruptions of the Roman Church have given a strong impetus to Infidelity. Infidelity produces Anarchy. Anarchy is impatient of all civil rule, especially of royal power. As long as kings reigned by hereditary right, or where they were allied with the Papacy, and wherever the religion of Rome had some hold over the minds of the people, there the Throne rested (though not very securely) on some religious foundation. But this foundation has almost disappeared. Many European Sovereigns are now nominees of the people. They are made and unmade by popular passion. And the Papacy is no longer confederate with them, but is arrayed against them. Can such Monarchies have any permanence? Is it not probable, that the time will soon come, when some of them may even regret their own act in destroying the temporal power of the Papacy, and, according to the prophecy of the Apocalypse, mourn over the ruins of that mystical Babylon which they themselves have laid low?”

(From, Union with Rome. “Is not the Church of Rome the Babylon of the Book of Revelation?” An Essay, by Chr. Wordsworth, D.D. Late Bishop of Lincoln; Tenth Edition, Rivingtons, Waterloo Place, London, 1888; pp. 103-104)

In the light of the above, the quote that follows below is from a small pro-German work emanating from America (purporting to be based on “the Light of Bible Prophecy”), and published in the very same year as the outbreak of the First World War; in it its Author writes the following – which supplies the historical realisation to Bishop Wordsworth's above apocalyptical dissertations, regarding things, which as he wrote, would – according to the divine revelation held within the pages of the Apocalypse – “soon come” to be :

“The Kaiser has a reputation for being a devout churchman. He has said on several occasions he believed himself appointed of God. Some years ago he said he felt he was called to do two things in his career. One was to oppose socialism, which was anarchy against governments; the other [was] to uphold the Pope of Rome, because the Pope stood for God and the Bible, and because unbelief was anarchy against God. He believed the Pope had more influence for peace than any other man in Europe. . . .”

(Quoted from: The European War in the Light of Bible Prophecy, by G.H. Gudebrod [German-American?]; 44 Court Street, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1914; Pages unnumbered).