Content note: Repeats First World War atrocity stories, including invented ones, and their wording. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Press lies and private lies may in certain circumstances carry much weight. At the same time there are often sections of the public who are less credulous, and therefore more suspicious. But when printed documents appear with an official imprimatur—^in this country the royal arms and the superscription “ Presented to Parliament by command of His Majesty,” or “ Printed by order of the House of Commons ”—everyone believes that in these papers, at any rate, they have got the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Only a minority, perhaps, study them, but this minority writes and furnishes the Press with indisputably authentic information from “ command papers.” The blue books, yellow books, white books, orange books, etc., become the basis of all propaganda.
It comes as a shock therefore to those who patriotically accept their Government’s story to find that instances of suppressio vert abound in the form of passages carefully and intentionally suppressed from published official documents.
This practice, of course, did not originate during the Great War. It is an old diplomatic tradition, justified conceivably in cases where the concealment of injudicious language on the part of a foreign statesman may prevent the inflammation of public opinion, but carried to unjustifiable lengths when a concealment or distortion of the facts of the case is aimed at.
Sir Edward Grey’s speech on August 5rd was a very meagre and incomplete recital of events given to a House which had been deliberately kept ignorant for years. But it was well framed to have the desired effect. Amongst the omissions was the German Ambassador’s proposal of August ist, in which he suggested that Germany might be willing to guarantee not only Belgian neutrality but also the integrity of France and that of her colonies, and the Foreign Secretary further omitted to mention that in this interview he had definitely refused to formulate any conditions on which the neutrality of the country might be guaranteed, though the Ambassador requested him to do so. But by far the most serious omission was his failure to read to the House the last sentence in his letter to M. Cambon, a sentence of vital importance. The sentence ran :
If these measures involved action, the plans of the General Staff would at once be taken into consideration, and the Government would then decide what effect should be given to them.
This omission is far from being satisfactorily explained in Twenty-Five Years by the casual statement, “ Perhaps I thought the last sentence unimportant.”
The speeches of Ministers in the other European Governments concerned at the time were, of course, all patriotically distorted, and any information with regard to facts which might qualify or mitigate the iniquity of the opposite party was carefully suppressed.
The omission of dispatches or suppressions of passages in the official books of all the Governments are far too numerous even to give as a list.
Some of the British suppressions are now apparent, since the publication by the Foreign Office of further diplomatic documents. Only a couple of examples need be given.
In a telegram of July 24, 1914, from our Ambassador at St. Petersburg, a passage was completely suppressed, in which he indicated the agreement arrived at between France and Russia during the visit of the President, according to which they settled not to tolerate any interference on the part of Austria in the interior affairs of Serbia. In view of what was going on in Serbia, this was highly significant.
A telegram appeared in the White Paper of 1914 from the French Government, dated July 20th, saying that “ reservists have been called up by tens of thousands in Germany.” But a telegram from the British Ambassador in Berlin of August 1st, saying that no calling up of reserves had yet taken place (404), was suppressed.
Special official reports had to be given the necessary war bias. Here is an instance from one of the Dominions :
A unanimous resolution was adopted on June 29, 1926, by the Council of South-West Africa. This body consider the Blue Book of the South African Union directed against the administration of German South-West Africa merely as an instrument of war, and asked the Government to destroy copies of the book existing among official documents or in the bookshops. In his reply, the Prime Minister of South Africa, General Hertzog, declared that he and his colleagues in the Government could appreciate the causes of the Council’s resolution, and that he was prepared to fall in as far as possible with its wishes. In his opinion, the unreliable and unworthy character of this document condemned it to dishonourable burial, together with all kindred publications of the war period.
Dr. Schnee's complaint re mandated African territories.
“ The Times,” May 16, 1927.
The French Yellow Book was a mass of suppressions.
mutilations, and even falsifications. As a French writer who has carefully examined this whole question writes : * “ The Government cut out of the Yellow Book everything which concerned the Russian mobilization like a criminal obliterates all traces of his crime.” M. Demartial devotes a volume to the various ways in which this official record was tampered with in order to deceive the French people, and he asks : “ If the French Government is innocent with regard to the war, why has it falsified the collection of diplomatic documents which expose the origins ? ”
There were omissions, too, in the German official White Book, as, for instance, a telegram from the Czar, in which he proposed to submit the Austro-Serbian dispute to arbitration.
A famous case of falsification was the report issued by the Kurt Eisner revolutionary Government at Munich in November 1918 which purported to give the text of a dispatch from the Bavarian Minister at Berlin. As published, this report showed the German Government cynically contemplating the explosion of a world war as the result of Austria’s proposed coercive measures against Serbia. The incident gave rise to a libel action. Twelve foreign authorities examined the document, and all of them came to the conclusion that there had been falsification. The French Professor of the Sorbonne, M. Edouard Dujardin, declared : “ I am of opinion that the text such as published by the Bayerische Staat‘:(eitung is one of the most manifest and most criminal falsifications known to history.” The full text showed that the German Government was contemplating not a world war but a localized war between Austria and Serbia.
* L*EvaftffIe du Quai d*Qrsay, by George Demartial.
But whatever may be said about suppressions by other Governments, there is nothing to equal the doctoring and garbling of the Russian Orange Book. The omission not only of passages but of a whole series of important telegrams and dispatches which passed between the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sazonov, and the Russian Ambassador in Paris, Isvolsky, shows the determination to conceal the real attitude of Russia and France during the critical days, and the insertion of these suppressed documents, which was subsequently made possible, puts a very different complexion on the origins of the outbreak of war than that which was accepted at the time.’
Among the suppressions were a telegram stating that “ Germany ardently desired the localization of the conflict” (July 24th)—“ Gjunsels of moderation. . . . We have to reject all these at the outset ”; telegrams showing the German Ambassador’s anxiety for peace; telegrams showing the warlike spirit of France and instructions to the Russians to continue their preparations as quickly as possible (July 30-31). “ The French Government have firmly decided upon war and begged me to confirm the hope of the French General Staff that all our efforts will be directed against Germany and that Austria will be treated as a quantite nigligeabh.” In some cases sentences were omitted and in many cases the whole telegram was suppressed.
Statesmen in all countries, whom it would be foolish to describe as dishonourable men, would shrink with disgust from falsifying their own private or business correspondence. Were they to do so, they would be convicted by their own law courts as criminals and ■ The text of the suppressed documents is given in Duty to CivUixatioH, by Francis Nielson.
condemned by public opinion. Yet, acting on behalf of their country, with issues at stake of such vast significance, they do not hesitate to lend themselves to a deliberate attempt to mislead their people and the world, and to endeavour to justify their attitude by resorting to the meanest tricks.
K
Falsehood in War-Time, Arthur Ponsonby. Published in the United Kingdom in 1928, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States. Ponsonby died in 1946, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years. Provenance and rights.