Les Années Fatales: Souvenirs de S. Sazonov (1910-1916)

Les Années Fatales: Souvenirs de S. Sazonov (1910-1916)Review by: R. W. Seton-WatsonThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 6, No. 18 (Mar., 1928), pp. 688-695Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4202226 .

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REVIEWS. Les Anne'es Fatales: Souvenirs de S. Sazonov (I9IO-I9I6). Paris

(Payot), I927. PP. 344. 25 francs. THE title selected for this book shows that Mr. Sazonov's aim was not so much to write a regular autobiography as a series of personal impres- sions of the most fatal decade in Russian history. It is fortunate that he did not choose the alternative method adopted by his predecessor Izvolsky, for in that case we should probably have been left with another mere literary torso, breaking off on the very eve of the events on which its author was best qualifed to speak, and whose interpre- tation by him would have given valuable clues to his own character. In the case of Sazonov it must be said at once that his book is more useful as a pen portrait of himself than as a source of new information, and that even the portrait seems to be drawn with somewhat faded ink. There are none of the indiscretions in which other statesmen have been so lavish, there is not a single letter or other document from his private papers, and he has destroyed nine-tenths of the value of his narrative of the great events of July, I9I4, by simply quoting what he said, or is reported as saying, in the various collections of documents -Russian, French, British-of the war period and above all in the unexpurgated post-war collection of Berlin and Vienna. He does not seem to have used the authoritative collection of British Documents edited by Mr. Headlam-Morley, though it was published long before his memoirs appeared, and though it contained new material of the highest interest from the point of view of Russo-British relations at the height of the crisis: and it is also abundantly evident that he has not studied either the Russian or the German side of the controversy that has waged for some years regarding the Russian mobilisation of I9I4, though it centres so largely round his own figure. Indeed, this is a very good instance of the curiously detached outlook of the man. It is not that he has any doubts as to Russia's r6le or is in the least afraid to express an opinion as to guilt or innocence, or even to mention personal likes and dislikes (as in the case of Generals Sukhomlinov and Yanushkevich). But he is not vindictive, and his verdict upon some of his chief opponents is by no means uncompromising. He makes one very pardonable exception in favour of Talaat Pasha, whom he describes as " without exaggeration one of the greatest criminals in the history of the world" (p. I42). There is also a passage in which, provoked by the strong attacks upon himself in Lord Bertie's diary, he passes on the latter the surprising verdict that "he was better known for his lack of education than for his diplomatic talents " (p. 277).

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Time after time, Mr. Sazonov's comments upon controversial events are disappointing in the extreme. He has practically nothing to tell us regarding the formation of the Balkan League, except that he ascribes the initiative to the Serbian Premier Milovanovic, and admits having definitely notified both Paris and London of the fact of the Serbo-Bulgarian agreement, though the actual text was only communi- cated to Paris six months later. It is only by implication that the reader gathers the fact that the text did not also go to London. He is quite frank about the alarm which it caused to M. Poincare, and the consequent divergence of views between Paris and St. Petersburg: but one is almost left with the impression that he does not realise how important would be the bearing upon France's whole policy of such documentary evidence from the year I9I2 as he could presumably have adduced.

In the same way he passes over in the most perfunctory manner the r6le of M. Georges Louis, whose removal from the post of French Ambassador in Russia in I9I3 has been made the basis for a long and peculiarly venomous campaign against M. Poincare. Here again it cannot be fear of expressing himself: for he says quite categorically that Louis's " presence in Russia injured the relations of amity and confidence between the two allies." Indeed, one is tempted to assume either that he does not realise the value of his evidence in the question, or that he was completely out of touch with post-war controversy in the country of his exile.

Even more discreet, or superficial, are his references to such inci- dents as his discussions at Balmoral in September, I9I2, or the Naval Conference of February, I9I4. He can hardly have been unaware of the capital made out of his report of conversations with King George and Sir Edward Grey on the former occasion (as printed in Le Livre Noir, vol. II., pp. 345-59): yet he does not even condescend to affirm, correct or refute, but passes on with a tranquil air, merely noting that his long stay in England and France had caused anxiety in Berlin and that this made it necessary for him to break his journey there on his way home. How impervious he is to misinterpretation of his policy is shown even better by his account of the interview between the Tsar and King Carol at Constanta in June, I9I4. He tells the reader that Count Czernin, then Austro-Hungarian Minister in Bucarest, sent home a lengthy report of Sazonov's talk with the King and drew the conclusion " that I was already au courant of certain Serbian projects against Austria-Hungary" (p. I20): and then he at once passes on, without attempting by one phrase to refute what he clearly regards as a travesty of what he said.

As to Russia's policy in the Balkans he tells us no secrets. Izvol- sky he speaks of quite frankly as " nervous and ambitious " (p. I3)

and of unbalanced character (p. 2I), irritated by the personal check administered to him by Aehrenthal during the Bosnian Crisis: but his discretion and tact go the length of omitting even the faintest indi-

Yy



690 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

cation of the growing divergence of view between himself and Izvolsky after the latter became Ambassador in Paris. And yet this is funda- mental to the whole pre-war situation, and Sazonov's hypersensitive silence, though it may be more sympathetic than M. Poincare's out- spoken repudiation of Izvolsky (see Au Service de la France, vol. I., pp. 300, 327, 366, 374, and vol. II., pp. I28, 294, 3I4, 340, 35I, 417), is none the less equally unfair to his own reputation and to Russian policy. Of Hartwig, the masterful Russian Minister in Belgrade up to the eve of the war, he is less reticent and admits that " he interpreted at Belgrade Russian policy in his own way, which greatly complicated my task and ended by provoking such political tension throughout Europe that at any moment serious complications were to be expected " (p. 87). But while this only confirms what was already known to the initiated, it seems to me altogether inadmissible to dismiss so serious a matter in so vague a phrase. He should either have said nothing, or should have provided the proofs which he undoubtedly possessed, that Hartwig was completely out of hand and working on quite different lines from the central Government, just as he had done in Teheran some years earlier. So far as the Balkan Wars are concerned, almost the only points on which Mr. Sazonov is at all concrete, are the statements that he warned Serbia that Russia would not go to war to procure an Adriatic port for her (he characteristically does not give the date or text of his dispatch, but emphasises how painful it was for him to adopt " this moralising role as elder brother ") and that he himself directly inspired the Tsar's appeal to the Kings of Bulgaria and Serbia in May, I9I3. But inadequate as is his whole narrative, the reader cannot fail to catch the note of a man who felt himself wholly unable to restrain the four refractory Balkan States: and his defence of what he calls his " timorous policy " in I9I2-I3, when further insistence in the Albanian question would infallibly have left Russia in complete isolation, is not merely convincing in itself, but has its very obvious bearing upon his subdued and patient attitude in July, I9I4.

He tries to be just towards Berlin. He admits that Germany had not till I909 openly shown her solidarity with Austria-Hungary. He emphasises as a great misfortune the death of Kiderlen-Wachter, who regarded the Austrian alliance as a means, not the aim, of German policy, and whose successor Jagow lacked not merely his defects but also his qualities-two very sound and subtle judgments which lead much farther than is apparent at first sight. He considers that the German Government had, ever since the days of Bismarck, suffered from a kind of " persecution mania " in respect of Franco-Russian relations; yet he admits having found Berlin genuinely anxious in I9I2 not to be drawn into war. He states positively that the Liman- Sanders Mission was the work of the German General Staff, behind the back of the Chancellor, who admitted as much to Sir E. Goschen (p. 129): and here he is surely justified in treating the incident as a



REVIEWS. 69I

revelation of German designs in the East. What he says of his initiative in May, I9I3, regarding Armenian reforms and his proposal that Giers and Wangenheim should work out a common programme (pp. I50-53), proves his readiness to co-operate with Germany up to the last. Above all, he frankly absolves some of the German statesmen from having actually desired the Great War (p. i62): his worst charge is that they watched it coming, treated it as inevitable and merely folded their arms at the critical moment. Of both William and Beth- mann-Hollweg he considers that they had " at intervals some compre- hension" for what the policy of Vienna involved. He not unnaturally makes some play with William IJI.'s famous " marginal notes," to illustrate his general mentality during the crisis. His main strictures are reserved for Jagow, whom he accuses of bad faith, in denying any knowledge of the text of the Serbian ultimatum, and even misleading his own Ambassador Lichnowsky. He might have strengthened his case by dwelling on Jagow's attitude to Rome, and his telegraphic intervention with Berchtold on 22 July (to avert the risk of the ultimatum becoming known in St. Petersburg before Poincare left-see German Documents, Nos. 93, 96, io8, II2, I45). Indeed, even he does not seem to realise the extent to which the situation was envenomed by Jagow's perfidy-a fact which has not yet been duly emphasised by writers on War Origins.

In estimating the responsibility of the Central Powers, he considers that the initiative lay with Austria-Hungary, not with Germany. " Germany was not looking for a pretext in I9I4 to go to war. But when this pretext was furnished to her by Austria-Hungary, she decided to profit by the occasion which offered itself for squaring accounts with her neighbours " (p. I75). Germany, he rightly argues, greatly under- estimated the danger of either Russia, France or Britain, individually or collectively, going to war in a quarrel of Balkan origin. But he is content to quote from already published documents, and even out of them only some of the most sallent points, and so far from supplementing them by material of his own, he actually accepts the long-exploded story of the Potsdam Crown Council of 5 July (p. I77). Here, as in several other cases, he draws the right conclusion from the wrong facts: for, though there was no Crown Council, there were certain decisive conversations on that day between the Emperor and his advisers, which fully justify the statement that it was " a fatal day for the German Empire and people." Later on, he leaves unmentioned his own very interesting conversations with the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, though some of them provide important exculpatory evidence for himself-(see, e.g., Austrian post-war Red Book, II., No. 73, and German Documents, I., No. 2I7). He says nothing to indicate whether Russia had any influence upon the Serbian reply to the ultimatum, though this is one of the most obvious and important points on which he might be expected to provide evidence. (My own private information, from Serbian and Russian sources, is to the effect that the




reply was drafted and handed in before any guidance could arrive by telegraph from St. Petersburg.)

There is one very enlightening point of detail which he brings out in his usual unsensational way. He alludes to the Tsar's wire of 29 July to William II., suggesting the submission of the Austro- Serbian dispute to the Hague Tribunal, and rightly stresses the point that it, unlike the Tsar's other telegrams in the series, was deliberately omitted from the German White Book of I9I4 and was only published six months later. Not unnaturally, more than one diplomatist in Petrograd, allied and neutral, asked Sazonov reproachfully why he had not made earlier use of so telling a piece of evidence in favour of Russia. " My answer," writes Sazonov, " was very simple: I too was unaware of its existence " (p. 2io). This throws a flood of indirect light upon the character of Nicholas II., upon the relations between the Tsar and the Foreign Minister, and also upon the latter's strange restraint and reticence. There is another point which he brings out quite clearly, but which deserves fuller prominence than it has hitherto obtained. On 29 July Sir Edward Grey, in a last desperate effort to avert the catastrophe, suggested that a temporary Austro-Hungarian occupation of Belgrade might be conceded, pending further negotiations. The fact that Russia, so far from protesting, tolerated a suggestion which could not fail to be intensely repugnant to her whole people and went far beyond what she regarded as reasonable, is a genuine proof of the pacific views of Sazonov and his master. By his later undertaking to Pourtales, to stop military preparation if only Austria-Hungary would recaLl such demands as touched Serbian independence-and this without any corresponding restraint upon Austria-Hungary's military action against Serbia (Russian Orange Book, No. 6o),-he was clearly exceeding his powers and going to the uttermost limit of concession, in the conviction that he could carry the Tsar and even the military chiefs with him (p. 2II) : and the responsibility for its rejection rests with Jagow.

The most unsatisfactory passage in the book is the very one which the experts will be the first to examine-namely, that which relates to the Russian mobilisation. Those who wish to check its statements in detail should compare it with Baron Schilling's Diary (published in I926 in a very slipshod English translation from the original Bolshevik edition) and with Mr. M. T. Florinsky's article in the Political Science Quarterly for June, I927, which is much the most important and impar- tial summary of the controversy hitherto published. The latter is able to show, despite the conflict between the evidence of Sukhomlinov {and Dobrorolsky, that on 29 July partial mobilisation was ordered: that Sazonov, after seeing the German Ambassador, obtained the Tsar's leave to discuss military action with the War Minister and Chief -of Staff: that the two latter insisted on the necessity of general, not partial, mobilisation: that the Tsar consented by telephone (the exact hour is unfortunately not quite certain), but that on receipt of a more



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conciliatory telegram from Emperor William at 9.20, he cancelled the order, and that the four Southern military districts were notified about midnight. Of all this there is no mention in Sazonov's book! On 30 July the essential facts seem to have been as follows :-that the great and genuine technical dangers of partial mobilisation were emphasised by the military chiefs during the morning: and that between eleven and twelve Sazonov telephoned from their office for an audience with the Tsar, was received at 3 p.m., and after some resistance won his consent to general mobilisation about 4 p.m. Schilhing's contemporary diary gives the hour of Sazonov's interview with the generals as ii a.m., whereas Sazonov, writing a decade later, gives it as 2 p.m. Moreover, he continues to attach importance to the famous Lokalanzeiger incident, which had been relegated to the sphere of legend by the common consent of both parties in the controversy. Mr. Sazonov's attitude on this point is the crowning proof of the extent to which he was out of touch with post-war researches into the origins of the war. For he maintains quite unreservedly that it was the news of the German mobilisation, announced in a special edition of the Lokalanzeiger and at once tele- graphed to St. Petersburg by the Russian Ambassador in Berlin, which was the decisive factor in prompting him and his colleagues to win the Tsar for mobilisation: that the Ambassador's second telegram, stating the news to be false, only reached St. Petersburg after a long delay (it is characteristic of his loose writing that he does not say how long, though in questions like this everything depends on the exact hour and even minute of transmission): and that in his opinion this delay of the second, and not of the first, telegram may have been deliberate on the part of the German Government. Now it has been fully established that the Lokalanzeiger appeared at I.30 p.m. and that the Ambassador's telegram was not sent off till 2.30 p.m., so that it could scarcely (even allowing for the difference of time) have arrived before Sazonov's audience with the Tsar, but under no circumstances before his decisive conversation with the two generals, even if we reject Schilling's contemporary assertion that this took place at ii and accept Sazonov's statement that it took place at 2. Moreover, Count Mont- gelas's researches in the Post Office archives of Berlin seem to have proved conclusively that the dementi was actually transmitted from Berlin earlier than the telegram containing the false news, and that this latter cannot have reached St. Petersburg before 7 p.m. at the earliest. I fully agree with M. Renouvin (see Les Origines Imme'diates de la Guerre, pp. I47-50) that this is a conclusive proof that the Lokal- anzeiger affair had no influence upon the Tsar's decision, and that the contrary view can only be upheld if we suspect the German historian of having forged his documents, for which there is not a shadow of justification.

This does not mean that Mr. Sazonov was lying, but it seems to prove that his narrative is quite unhistorical and only valuable as revealing his mentality and motives. It does not affect what he tells




us of his decisive conversation with the Tsar; for if his memory could not be trusted on this, the most momentous event of his life, it clearly could not b,e trusted upon anything. His account of " the inward struggle which tortured the Tsar and from which I suffered as much as he " (p. 2I9) is simple and moving. But we are left with the definite impression that the main motives which inspired the decision were not the Lokalanzeiger story at all, but (i) technical difficulties which made partial mobilisation impossible, (2) the knowledge that further post- ponement would place Serbia completely at the mercy of Austria- Hungary, and (3) the bad effect upon the Tsar of William II.'s rejection of the Hague arbitration offer.

Not the least interesting feature of the book is his attitude towards Britain. A stay of some years in London had convinced him that Russo-British hostility was " only the result of a long misunderstand- ing " (p. 23) and that the two countries were predestined by nature for collaboration. His whole career as Minister was consistently Anglo- phil, and all who dealt with him had the highest opinion of his probity and straight dealing. All the more striking then is his deliberate conviction that if the British Government in I9I4 had made a statement similar to that made in its name by Mr. Lloyd George during the Agadir crisis of I9II, the Great War would have been averted (p. 39). Later in the book he directly challenges Mr. Asquith's contention that there is no evidence to suggest that a stiffer attitude on the part of London would have led Germany and Austria-Hungary to modify theirs. This is of course pure theory, and historians will differ on the subject to the end of time. But in common fairness they will have to assign due prominence to the Russian official view, as voiced by Sazonov, the more so as it hardly differs in substance from that advanced by M. Poincare in the fourth volume of his War memoirs (where the question is dis- cussed much more thoroughly than by Sazonov). Moreover, this question, which can only be answered subjectively, is closely bound up with the larger question of responsibility: "the anguish of uncer- tainty " (p. 235) in which Sazonov remained until the British decision was made on 4 August, and for which there is plenty of confirmatory evidence, is not the state of mind of one who is planning an aggressive war. " It is unnecessary to say that if a plot . . . had existed between England and the Dual Alliance, my appeals to the Cabinet of London would have had no senses" (p. 235).

On the other hand, Mr. Sazonov's limitations as a constructive statesman are best shown in the passage where he argues that the conversion of the Triple Entente into a firm Alliance would have been the best guarantee of peace. It is just possible, though far from certain, that this might have prevented an outbreak of war in I9I4, but it would have finally separated the forces of Europe into two armed camps, and by making the whole system inelastic and virtually unalter- able, would have rendered the final breach all the more certain. Surely Sir Edward Grey's alternative aim, of maintaining existing obligations



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but of supplementing them by individual and collective agreements between the two groups and thus gradually producing an interlocking of interests, political as well as economic, was a much more fruitful conception, even though events proved too strong for him, and though the Anglo-German agreements with which he had hoped to crown the edifice of the Anglo-French and Anglo-Russian ententes were still unpublished and unratified when the crash came.

The later portion of the book, which is devoted to the first and second years of the War, is by no means without interest, especially his sympathetic survey of the Polish problem and his criticism of Gor- emykin and the other mediocre politicians who surrounded the Tsar on the eve of revolution. But here too there is little that is concrete, and we have to content ourselves with discreet generalities.

The French translation is a poor piece of work, and there is not merely no index, but not even a list of contents or a single line of explanation. There are several mistakes which illustrate Sazonov's curious ignorance of Southern Slav conditions. On page 79 he talks of " the Dalmatians and Croats," as if the two things were different, whereas of course the vast majority of Dalmations are Croats. On page 23I he gives Krobatin, instead of Potiorek, as the commander of the Austro-Hungarian forces in Bosnia.

R. W. SETON-WATSON.

Direct Taxes: an Outline of Theory and Practice. By Professor P. P. Haensel. (Leningrad.) I927. PP. I07.

IN this valuable little book, Professor Haensel gives a comprehensive general survey of the system of direct taxation, as practised in the principal countries of the world. The historical growth of the more important taxes is outlined, but more stress is laid throughout upon recent developments, particular reference being made to changes resulting from disturbances induced by the late war. The value of the present work to students of Russian affairs lies in the fact that it treats Russia's system of taxation in the general background of world practice, and thus enables it to be viewed in better perspective than would be possible in the case of isolated and detached treatment. The brief summary which follows is designed to give as adequate an outline as possible of Professor Haensel's latest contribution to this important aspect of State finance.

The Introduction is devoted mainly to definitions. After defining and comparing the nature and functions of direct and indirect taxation respectively, the author proceeds to a more detailed discussion of the two main divisions of direct taxation, namely real taxes and personal taxes. The evolution of taxation systems in the West has shown the gradual triumph of the system of personal taxation as being a more advanced form of revenue-raising and as conforming more closely to the growing demand that taxation shall, as far as possible, be in line with the principles of equity and social justice. It takes into account,

