Fighting France

Excerpt

I

Had you been in Paris late in the afternoon of Monday, August third, nineteen fourteen, you might have seen a slight man, whose reddish face was adorned with a thick white mustache, walk out of the German Embassy, which was situated on the Rue de Lille near the Boulevard St. Germain. Along the boulevard and across the Pont de la Concorde he walked in a manner calculated to attract attention. He approached the animated and peevish groups of citizens that had formed a little before for the purpose of discussing the imminent war as if he wanted them to notice him. You would have said that he was trying to be recognized and to take part in the discussions.

But no one paid any attention to him.

Finally he came to the Quai d'Orsay, opened the Gate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and said to the attendant who hastened to open the door for him:

"Announce the German Ambassador to the Prime Minister."

He was Baron de Schoen, Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of his Germanic Majesty, William the Second. For two days he had wandered through the most crowded streets and avenues in Paris, hoping for some injury, some insult, some overt act which would have permitted him to say that Germany in his person had been provoked, insulted by France. But there had been no violence, the insult had not been offered, the overt act had not occurred. Then, tired of this method, de Schoen took the initiative and presented a declaration of war from his government.

The declaration, as history will record, was expressed in these terms:

The German administrative and military authorities have established a certain number of flagrantly hostile acts committed on German territory by French military aviators. Several of these have openly violated the neutrality of Belgium by flying over the territory of that country; one has attempted to destroy buildings near Wesel; others have been seen in the district of the Eifel, one has thrown bombs on the railway near Carlsruhe and Nuremberg.

I am instructed and I have the honor to inform your Excellency, that in the presence of these acts of aggression the German Empire considers itself in a state of war with France in consequence of the acts of the latter Power.

At the same time I have the honor to bring to the knowledge of your Excellency that the German authorities will detain French mercantile vessels in German ports, but they will release them if, within forty-eight hours, they are assured of complete reciprocity.

My diplomatic mission having thus come to an end, it only remains for me to request your Excellency to be good enough to furnish me with my passports, and to take the steps you consider suitable to assure my return to Germany, with the staff of the Embassy, as well as with the staff of the Bavarian Legation and of the French Consulate General in Paris.

Be good enough, M. le President, to receive the assurances of my deepest respect.

(Signed) de Schoen.

Immediately M. René Viviani, the French Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs, protested against the statements of this extraordinary declaration. No French aviator had flown over Belgium; no French aviator had come near Wesel; no French aviator had flown in the direction of Eifel; nor had hurled bombs on the railroad near Carlsruhe or Nuremberg. And less than two years later a German, Dr. Schwalbe, the Burgomaster of Nuremberg, confirmed M. Viviani's indignant denial of the German accusations:

"It is false," wrote Dr. Schwalbe in the Deutsche Medizinische Wochenschrift, "that French aviators dropped bombs on the railway at Nuremberg....