sh Foreign Office,
through Sir Edward Grey, suggested a scheme whereby the approaching
cataclysm (for Russia was apparently determined to support Servia)
might be averted. He proposed that all operations should be suspended
while the Ambassadors of Germany, Italy, and France consulted with him
in London.

What happened upon the next day, Sunday, is exceedingly important.
The German Government refused to accept the idea of such a conference,
but at the same time the German Ambassador in London, Prince
Lichnowski, was instructed to say that the principle of such a
conference, or at least of mediation by the four Powers, was agreeable
to Berlin. _The meaning of this double move was that the German
Government would do everything it could to retard the entry into the
business of the Western Powers, but would do nothing to prevent
Russia, Servia, and the Slav civilization as a whole from suffering
final humiliation or war._

That game was played by Germany clumsily enough for nearly a full
week. Austria declared war upon Servia upon Monday the 27th; but we
now know that her intention of meeting Russia halfway, when she saw
that Russia would not retire, was stopped by the direct intervention
of the Prussian Government. In public the German Foreign Office still
pretended that it was seeking some way out of the crisis. In private
it prevented Austria from giving way an inch from her extraordinary
demands. And all the while Germany was secretly making her first
preparations for war.

It might conceivably be argued by a special pleader that war was not
the only intention of Berlin, as most undoubtedly it had not been the
only intention of Vienna. Such a plea would be false, but one can
imagine its being advanced. What is not capable even of discussion is
the fact that both the Germanic Powers, under the unquestioned
supremacy of Prussia, _were_ determined to push Russia into the
dilemma between an impossible humiliation and defeat in the field.
They allowed for the possibility that she would prefer humiliation,
because they believed it barely possible (though all was ready for the
invasion of France at a moment already fixed) that the French would
again fail to support their ally. But war was fixed, and its date was
fixed, with Russia, or even with Russia and France, and the Germanic
Powers arranged to be ready before their enemies. In order to effect
this it was necessary to deceive the West at least into believing that
war