"Subsequently I learned that, at the decisive conference at Potsdam on July 5th, the Vienna inquiry received the unqualified assent of all the controlling authorities, with the further suggestion that it would not be a bad thing if war with Russia should result. At least this statement was made in the Austrian protocol which Count Mensdorff (Austrian ambassador) received in London.

"It would, of course, have required only a hint from Berlin to induce Count Berchtold to content himself with a diplomatic success and quietly accept the Serbian answer. This hint, however, was not given. On the contrary, pressure was exercised in favor of war. It would have been so fine a success.

"After our refusal Sir Edward Grey begged us to come forward with a proposal of our own. We insisted on war.

"The impression grew continually stronger that we desired war under any circumstances. In no other way was it possible to interpret our attitude on a question which, after all, did not directly concern us. The urgent requests and explicit declarations of M. Sazonof, followed by the Czar's positively humble telegrams; the repeated proposals of Sir Edward Grey; the warnings of Marquis di San Giuliano and of Signor Bollati; my own urgent counsels-all were of no avail. Berlin would not budge; Serbia must be massacred. .

"Soon after this events were precipitated. Until this time, following the directions he re

ceived from Berlin, Count Berchtold had played the part of the strong man. When at last he decided to change his course, and after Russia had negotiated and waited a whole week in vain, we answered the Russian mobilization with the ultimatum and the declaration of

war.

"It is shown by all official publications and is not disproved by our White Book, which, owing to the poverty of its contents and to its omissions, constitutes a grave indictment against ourselves, that:

"1. We encouraged Count Berchtold to attack Serbia, although no German interest was involved, and the danger of a World War must have been known to us. Whether we were acquainted with the wording of the ultimatum is completely immaterial.

"2. During the period between the 23d and the 30th of July, 1914, when M. Sazonof emphatically declared that he could not tolerate an attack on Serbia, we rejected the British proposals of mediation, although Serbia, under Russian and British pressure, had accepted almost the whole of the ultimatum, and although an agreement about the two points at issue could easily have been reached and Count Berchtold was even prepared to content himself with the Serbian reply.

"3. On the 30th of July, when Count Berchtold showed a disposition to change his course, we sent an ultimatum to St. Petersburg merely because of the Russian mobilization, and though

Austria had not been attacked; and on the 31st of July we declared war against the Russians, although the Czar pledged his word that he would not permit a single man to march as long as negotiations were still going on. Thus we deliberately destroyed the possibility of a peaceful settlement.

"In view of these incontestable facts, it is no wonder that the whole civilized world outside of Germany places the sole responsibility for the World War upon our shoulders."*

In this spirit the rulers of Germany, the Kaiser and the military party, were acting, and in accordance with it the Imperial German Chancellor, on August 1, 1914, instructed the German ambassador at Petrograd to submit a statement which, after attributing all the blame to Russia, declared a state of war with that country.

On the 3d of August Baron von Schoen, German ambassador at Paris, submitted a declaration of war against France,† also alleging that French aviators had violated Belgian territory (this to prepare the world for the German invasion), and that one of them had tried to de

* American Association for International Conciliation, "The Disclosures from Germany," June, 1918, pp. 321-343.

"French Yellow Book," No. 147.

stroy establishments near Wesel. (The instructions from Berlin to Schoen had made this more definite and plausible, and had ordered him to say that this aviator had been shot down at the railroad-station at Wesel!) This statement could have been very easily verified by a photograph, the name of the aviator, who must have been either killed or captured, or by the wrecked aeroplane. France denied it categorically and has proved it untrue. Schoen's statement further alleged that another had dropped bombs on the railroad near Karlsruhe and Nuremberg. This statement, after circulating for two years, was denied by the municipal authorities of Nuremberg in the following terms:

"The commandant ad interim of the III Bavarian Army Corps has no knowledge that on the railroad Nuremberg-Kissengen and Nuremberg-Ansbach before or after the outbreak of war bombs by enemy aviators were ever dropped. All statements and newspaper reports in this connection have proved themselves false."*

After oblique diplomacy a lying declaration of war. This was Germany's course. But the

* Cf. "Le Mensonge du 3 Août," pp. 123-242.

false statements could not be immediately controlled. Some of the German statesmen themselves may have believed them at the time. In any case it was thought that the war would be over before they could be disproved, and that success which, in Von Moltke's phrase, "alone justifies war," would make later discussion superfluous. By her disingenuous attempt to make Russia and France appear the aggressors, we have seen that Germany had hoped to bring Italy to her side, and induce England to remain neutral. In both these attempts she failed. She did succeed, however, in uniting her population and bringing all classes enthusiastically into the war.

It was after this fashion, therefore, that in the language of William II, "the sword had been forced" into his hand.