Great Britain issues an ultimatum to Germany

On 4 August 1914 the government of Great Britain twice demanded from Germany an assurance that it would respect the neutrality of Belgium. The second telegram from the Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, to the ambassador in Berlin, Sir Edward Goschen, was an ultimatum: a satisfactory reply was to arrive by midnight, failing which the ambassador was to ask for his passports.

Two telegrams

Grey sent the first telegram early in the morning, in line with what he had announced in the House of Commons the day before. It quoted the King of the Belgians’ appeal to King George V and summarised the German note demanding passage. The British government, he wrote, was bound to protest against this violation of the treaty of 1839, to which Germany was a party in common with Great Britain, and asked for an assurance that the demand on Belgium would not be proceeded with and that its neutrality would be respected. Goschen was to ask for an immediate reply.

In the course of the morning further news reached London. The British Minister in Brussels reported that Germany had announced it would carry out its intentions, if necessary by force of arms. The Belgian Legation passed on a report from the General Staff that the frontier had been violated at Gemmenich (PL). The embassy of Prince Karl Lichnowsky communicated a telegram from Berlin assuring that Germany would under no pretence whatever annex Belgian territory, but that it had to enter Belgium because this was for it “a question of life or death”. Prime Minister H. H. Asquith read these texts to the House of Commons in the afternoon and declared that the government could not regard such a reply as satisfactory.

Grey’s second telegram stated that Germany had declined to give the assurance France had given the previous week, and repeated the request with a deadline: the reply was to be received “by 12 o’clock to-night”. If it was not, Great Britain would take all steps in its power to uphold the neutrality of Belgium and the observance of a treaty to which Germany was “as much a party as ourselves”. Grey instructed the minister in Brussels to assure the Belgians that London expected them to resist and was ready, together with France and Russia, to give them help.

“A scrap of paper”

In the afternoon the Secretary of State, Gottlieb von Jagow, told Goschen that the answer was “No”, because German troops had already crossed the frontier. Germany had to advance into France by the quickest and easiest way; by the southern route it could not have got through without a great loss of time, which the Russians would have gained. At about 7 p.m. Goschen brought him the terms of the ultimatum. Jagow replied that even if the time given were twenty-four hours or more, his answer would be the same, and expressed his regret at the crumbling of his whole policy of rapprochement with Great Britain.

The ambassador then went to take leave of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. He found him very agitated. For about twenty minutes the Chancellor declared that Britain’s step was terrible: just for a word, “neutrality”, just for “a scrap of paper”, it was going to make war on a kindred nation that desired nothing better than to be friends with her. He likened it to striking a man from behind while he was fighting for his life against two assailants. Goschen replied that keeping its solemn engagement was a matter of “life and death” for the honour of Great Britain. “But at what price?” the Chancellor asked. He later explained that he had meant that the Belgian treaty was for England only a scrap of paper compared with her real interests.

Evening in Berlin

Goschen handed in his telegram reporting the conversation at the Central Telegraph Office a little before 9 p.m. It never reached London. At about 9.30 p.m. the Under-Secretary of State, Arthur Zimmermann, called and asked whether a demand for passports amounted to a declaration of war. On hearing of the deadline he concluded that it did, since Germany could not give the required assurance that night or any other night. Soon a special edition of the Berliner Tageblatt announced that Great Britain had declared war. A mob smashed the embassy’s windows, and mounted police cleared the street. Jagow came afterwards to apologise. The answer London was waiting for never came.