ds that he told the German Ambassador that he had
learned that Count Berchtold, the Austrian Foreign Minister,

"in speaking to the Italian Ambassador in Vienna, had
deprecated the suggestion that the situation was grave, but
had said that it should be cleared up."

The German Minister then replied that it would be desirable "if Russia
could act as a mediator with regard to Servia," so that the first
suggestion of Russia playing the part of the peacemaker came from the
German Ambassador in London. Sir Edward Grey then adds that he told the
German Ambassador that he

"assumed that the Austrian Government would not do anything
until they had first disclosed to the public their case
against Servia, founded presumably upon what they had
discovered at the trial,"

and the German Ambassador assented to this assumption.

[English "White Paper," No. 1.]

Either the German Ambassador was then deceiving Sir Edward Grey, on the
theory that the true function of an Ambassador is "to lie for his
country," or the thunderbolt was being launched with such secrecy that
even the German Ambassador in England did not know what was then in
progress.

The British Ambassador at Vienna reports to Sir Edward Grey:

"The delivery at Belgrade on the 23d July of the note to
Servia was preceded by a period of _absolute silence_ at the
Ballplatz."

He proceeds to say that with the exception of the German Ambassador at
Vienna--note the significance of the exception--not a single member of
the Diplomatic Corps knew anything of the Austrian ultimatum and that
the French Ambassador when he visited the Austrian Foreign Office on
July 23 was not only kept in ignorance that the ultimatum had actually
been issued, but was given the impression that its tone was moderate.
Even the Italian Ambassador was not taken into Count Berchtold's
confidence.

[Dispatch from Sir M. de Bunsen to Sir Edward Grey, dated Sept. 1,
1914.]

No better proof of this sense of security need be adduced than that the
French President and her Foreign Minister were thousands of miles from
Paris, and the Russian Minister had, after the funeral of the Austrian
Archduke, left Vienna for his annual holiday.

The interesting and important question here suggests itself whether
Germany had knowledge of and approved in advance the Austrian ultimatum.
If it did, it was guilty of duplicity, for the German Ambassador at St.
Petersb