Benedict XV's peace note

On 1 August 1917, the third anniversary of Germany’s declaration of war on Russia, Pope Benedict XV signed a letter “to the heads of the belligerent peoples”. The document, written in French and known from its opening words as Dès le début (“From the very beginning”), went down in history as the papal peace note. Many historians regard it as the most concrete peace proposal put forward by a neutral party during the war. This time the Pope did not stop at calls for reconciliation, as in his appeal of July 1915. He set out conditions which in his view could become the basis of a “just and lasting peace”.

The date of 1 August does not mean that the note reached the governments on that day. The Cardinal Secretary of State, Pietro Gasparri, handed sealed envelopes containing its text to the British minister to the Holy See, Count John de Salis, on 9 August. In Berlin the note was delivered on 14 August, and the Belgian government at Le Havre received the packet addressed to the King on the same day. The press published the text in the middle of the month.

Seven points

Benedict XV recalled that from the beginning of his pontificate he had maintained “perfect impartiality”, helped the victims of the war regardless of nationality and called for peace. His appeal of two years earlier had gone unheeded, and the war had become even crueller: it had spread to the sea and the air, and death was raining down on defenceless towns and villages. The Pope asked whether Europe, “as if seized by a universal madness”, was to “lend a hand to its own suicide”. This time, he wrote, he wished to come down to “more concrete and practical proposals”, leaving it to the governments to work them out in detail.

The foundation was to be the replacement of “the material force of arms by the moral force of right”. From this followed the further points:

• a simultaneous and reciprocal reduction of armaments to the level needed to maintain order in each state;
• in place of armies, international arbitration, with sanctions against a state that refused to submit a dispute to it or did not accept its award;
• “true freedom and community of the seas”;
• a reciprocal renunciation of indemnities and of reimbursement of war costs, with the possibility of considering particular cases;
• the reciprocal restitution of occupied territories: on Germany’s side the complete evacuation of Belgium, with a guarantee of its full political, military and economic independence, and the evacuation of French territory; on the side of its opponents the return of the German colonies;
• the examination of disputed territorial questions, such as the Italo-Austrian and Franco-German disputes, “in a conciliatory spirit”, taking account of the aspirations of the population;
• the same spirit of equity in other territorial and political questions, especially those of Armenia, the Balkan states and the lands of the former Kingdom of Poland, which by its “noble historical traditions” and the sufferings endured in this war ought to win the sympathy of the nations.

In conclusion the Pope implored the recipients to accept his proposals and bring to an end “the terrible struggle, which appears more and more as a useless slaughter”. In French this was massacre inutile, in the Italian translation inutile strage, and it is this phrase that is most often associated with the note. He added that the “honour of arms” of both sides was safe.

Pacelli’s mission

The note was not a last-minute idea. In the spring of 1917 Benedict XV appointed as nuncio in Munich one of his closest collaborators, Archbishop Eugenio Pacelli, the future Pope Pius XII, whom he himself consecrated bishop on 13 May. The nunciature in Bavaria was the only post of a papal representative in the Reich. At the end of June Pacelli talked in Berlin with Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg, and then with Emperor Wilhelm II at headquarters in Kreuznach. He came away with the impression that Germany was inclined to make concessions, including over Belgium.

A few weeks later Bethmann Hollweg fell, and Georg Michaelis became the new chancellor. Although the Reichstag had passed a peace resolution, it was now in fact the generals who ruled in Berlin. In July Pacelli was still discussing the papal proposals with German politicians, and on 25 July he talked them over with one of the leaders of the Catholic Centre Party, Matthias Erzberger, who supported them in principle. When handing the note to the British minister, Cardinal Gasparri explained that the positions of the belligerents were still far apart, but that recent declarations, the Reichstag resolution and British statements about reparation rather than the destruction of the enemy, had brought them somewhat closer. The Pope wanted to see whether talks could be started on that basis.

A cool reception

The Pope was in a difficult position. The Holy See had no diplomatic relations with France, Italy or the United States. Under a secret article of the Treaty of London of 1915 the Italians had obtained a promise from their allies that the Pope would not be admitted to peace negotiations. On the Entente side it was at once suspected that the note had been inspired by the Central Powers, because it mentioned the return of the German colonies and the renunciation of indemnities, while saying nothing about responsibility for the war. When in mid-August the Italian ambassador in London, Guglielmo Imperiali, told the Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour that the document was the work of Germany, Balfour wondered whether it was not rather Austria’s. He also admitted that the Vatican had not sounded out London beforehand, and that this had surprised him. The Times in London called the initiative pro-German and anti-Allied. In Germany, for their part, Protestants and the right-wing press would not hear of a “papal peace”.

The Entente treated the note politely but without enthusiasm. On 21 August the British government instructed de Salis to tell Gasparri that it had not yet had time to consult its allies, and that it was difficult to speak of peace until the Central Powers stated clearly whether they would restore Belgium’s full independence and make good the damage done to it. France associated itself with this position. The first official reply came from President Woodrow Wilson. In a letter dated 27 August and signed by the Secretary of State Robert Lansing he rejected the proposal, because he considered that no lasting peace could be made with the present German government. Germany and Austria-Hungary replied in September. The German note of 19 September was vague and did not contain the announcement everyone was waiting for, namely a commitment to evacuate Belgium completely.

The papal initiative ended in failure, like the earlier attempts: the German peace offer and Wilson’s note of December 1916. Some of Benedict XV’s demands, however, such as freedom of the seas, the limitation of armaments, the evacuation of Belgium and the question of Poland, appeared a few months later in Wilson’s Fourteen Points.