ntages of a frank explanation
with the Cabinet at St. Petersburg.

"He told me that, on the other hand, the Austro-Hungarian
Government, which had only reluctantly decided upon the
energetic measures which it had taken against Servia, _could
now neither withdraw nor enter upon any discussion of the
terms of the Austro-Hungarian note."_

[Russian "Orange Paper," No. 45.]

On the same day, July 28, the German Imperial Chancellor sent for the
English Ambassador and excused his failure to accept the proposal of
conference of the neutral powers, on the ground that he did not think it
would be effective,

"because such a conference would in his opinion have the
appearance of an 'Areopagus' consisting of two powers of each
group sitting in judgment upon the two remaining powers."

After engaging in this pitiful and insincere quibble, and when reminded
of Servia's conciliatory reply, amounting to a virtual surrender,

"his Excellency said that he did not wish to discuss the
Servian note, but that Austria's standpoint, and in this he
agreed, was that her quarrel with Servia was a purely Austrian
concern, _with which Russia had nothing to do_."

[English "White Paper," No. 71.]

At this point the rules of the countries intervened in the dispute. The
Kaiser, having returned from Norway, telegraphed the Czar, under date of
July 28, that he was

"exerting all my influence to endeavor to make Austria-Hungary
come to an open and satisfying understanding with Russia,"

and invoked the Czar's aid.

[German "White Paper," Annex 20.]

If the Kaiser were sincere, and he may have been, _his attitude was not
that of his Foreign Office_. Upon the face of the record we have only
his own assurance that he was doing everything to preserve peace, but
the steps that he took or the communications he made to influence
Austria _are not found in the formal defense which the German Government
has given to the world_. The Kaiser can only convince the world of his
innocence of the crime of his Potsdam camarilla by giving the world _the
text_ of any advice he gave the Austrian officials. He has produced his
telegrams to the Czar. _Where are those he presumably sent to Francis
Joseph or Count Berchtold? Where are the instructions he gave his own
Ambassadors or Foreign Minister?_

It is significant that on the same day Sazonof telegraphed to Count
Benckendorff:

"M