Proud Tower - Barbara W. Tuchman [170]
The Kaiser invariably became frenetic at the mere mention of arbitration, which he saw an incursion on his personal sovereignty and as a plot to deprive Germany of the gains achieved by her matchless military organization. Nevertheless, with Pauncefote, White and Bourgeois determined to achieve something, the Commission persisted in the effort to hammer out some form of tribunal. The civilian delegates laboured against the heavy resistance of their own governments and military colleagues, who were deeply disturbed at the least hint of the compulsory principle. No one wanted to give up an inch of sovereignty or an hour of military advantage and at times the outlook seemed hopeless. On a day when the wind blew from the sea, Baroness von Suttner wrote in her diary, “Cold, cold are all hearts—cold as the draft that penetrates the rattling windows. I feel chilled to the bone.”
But the necessity of presenting some result to the public was overriding, and tentatively, bit by bit, a tribunal, though puny, began to take shape. Any suggestion of giving it authority over disputes involving “honor or vital interest” caused it to totter toward collapse. The Austrian delegate saw no objection to a tribunal which could decide on minor matters of dispute “such as for instance the interpretation of a Postal or Sanitary commission,” but he resolutely rejected anything more. The Balkan delegates in a group—Rumania, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece—created a crisis when they threatened to walk out if a provision for “investigating commissions” was retained. With utmost difficulty, one agreement at a time, the tribunal’s powers and procedures were defined—but not unanimously.
Germany would agree to nothing. The other nations who equally disliked the idea without wishing to say so could rely on Münster’s daily negative vote to do their work for them. A tribunal without Germany’s adhesion, White wrote despairingly, would seem to the world “a failure and perhaps a farce.” He argued earnestly and daily with the German delegates to convince them that their obstruction would only result in the Czar becoming the idol of the plain people of the world and the Kaiser the object of its hatred. They had no right to allow their “noble and gifted” sovereign to be put in this position. He repeated D’Estournelles’ story of what Jaurès had said, and when this seemed to make an impression he repeated it in a letter to Bülow and sought out Stead and told him to use it “in every way.” Stead complied with such zest that Professor Zorn complained of the “terrorism of the Stead-Suttner press” and warned his government that to abstain from all collaboration raised the danger of Germany being denounced as the “sole troubler of peace.” From St. Petersburg the German Ambassador warned Bülow that if the Conference brought forth nothing the Czar would be personally insulted and the world would ascribe the “responsibility and odium of failure to us.”
Pressure began to tell. Münster was wavering when a despatch arrived from Berlin stating that the Kaiser had declared himself “strongly and finally” against arbitration. In desperation White persuaded Münster to send Zorn to Berlin and he himself sent Frederick Holls, secretary of the American delegation, to present the issue in person to the Kaiser and his ministers. Friday’s scheduled meeting of the Arbitration Commission was postponed until they could report back on Monday. Returning to his hotel White found a visitor, “of all men in the world,” Thomas B. Reed, whose “bigness, heartiness, shrewdness” and fascinating conversation helped him to pass the anxious weekend.
In Berlin the Kaiser eluded the