pumpkinstrokemarrow

Now for those who may have forgotten, Viscount Grey, as Sir Edward Grey, was his Majesty's secretary of state for foreign affairs at the time of the outbreak of the First World War. Vol. II of his memoir opens with the declaration of war and the text, despite Grey's indifferent performance at Oxford, is scattered with bits of Latin. One of which was 'corruptio optimi pessima'. Now I still have a Latin dictionary, so was able to find that corruptio was a feminine noun meaning corruption or bribery. Nominative singular. Optimi meant best. Genitive singular? Pessima meant worst. Ablative singular? From which all I could deduce was 'corruption of the best by the worst'. Something about levelling down. Not really very happy with this and doesn't really fit the context.

So off to Mr G. who leads me to Merriam-Webster who says that the proper translation is 'the corruption of the best is the worst of all'. Which sounds much better although I still don't know what case 'pessima' is taking. And while the thing has the ring of a proverb, it is not a proverb I have ever come across before. In this or any other form. Grey thinks that it applies to all fields of human endeavour; in this particular case to German patriotism, which he thought had gone too far. Hypertrophic. A good thing in small doses, a bad thing in large doses. But I still don't really get it. I shall have to savour the phrase over the amber nectar and hope for wisdom.

I now turn to more serious matters, the origins of the first war. A serious topic in my youth. The sort of thing we wrote essays about. And as a lefty I was clear that the causes of the war were capitalism and its progeny imperialism. The forces of reaction heated to bursting point in the cauldron of history. One side much as bad as the other.

But reading what Grey has to say, one gets a slightly different take. Let us leave aside the history which got us there, but simply locate ourselves in August 1914. Germany is far and away the dominant power on mainland Europe. Best army and navy growing fast. A track record of aggression and belligerence. Appears to be using the assassination in Sarajevo as an excuse to have another crack at the French. In order to get at the French they appear to be cranking up to pass their armies through Luxembourg and Belgium, a clear violation of neutrality and sovereign rights and both of whom had guarantees from the Great Powers. A biggish deal at the time was the difference in nature between the guarantee that had been given to Luxembourg and that which had been given to Belgium. The Germans might also have used their fleet to bombard the northern French coast, just across from the White Cliffs of Dover.

If we were to stand aside while they did this, our good name would be besmirched. We would have broken our bond. Our Trafalgar-winning navy would have been shamed. But more important, Germany would be master of mainland Europe with a much weakened France and with full access to the war supporting industries of northern France. Belgium and Luxembourg would be little better than satellites. So, given the aforementioned aggression and belligerence, this was not to be tolerated. Better to fight while France was still in one piece and able to help. As it turned out.

Now one might argue, and Grey certainly disputes, that Grey might have made the British position clearer sooner, with the result that Germany might not have mobilised in the west. But, this notwithstanding, I think I now think, that having got to where we had got to in August 1914, backing down was not a very good option.