ons were
presented in France and England.

This barefaced denial that the German Government knew what would be in
the Austrian ultimatum, or had anything to do with the framing of it,
was a palpable falsehood. It was discredited at the time. The antecedent
incredibility of the statement has been well set forth by Mr. James N.
Beck, in his vigorous book, The Evidence in the Case.[Footnote 5] New
evidence has come in. I intend here to present briefly and arrange in a
new order the facts which prove to a moral certainty that the German
Government knew beforehand what the content and intent of the Austrian
ultimatum would be, and what consequences it would probably entail.

[Footnote 5: The Evidence in the Case. Putnams. New York, 1914, pp. 31-46.]

(1) Austria was the most intimate ally of Germany, admittedly dependent
upon her big friend for backing in all international affairs. The German
Ambassador in Vienna, Herr von Tschirsky, and the Austrian Ambassador in
Berlin, Count Szogyeny, were in close consultation with the Governments
to which they were accredited during the weeks that followed the crime
of Serajevo, June 28-July 23. It is absolutely incredible that Austria
should not have consulted her big friend in regard to the momentous step
against Servia, altogether impossible that Germany should not have
insisted upon knowing what her smaller friend was doing in a matter of
such importance to them both. You might as well imagine that the board
of managers of a subsidiary railway would block out a new policy without
consulting the directors of the main line.

(2) On July 5, 1914, it appears that a secret conference was held at
Potsdam at which high officials of the German and Austrian Governments
were present. It is not possible to give their names with certainty--not
yet, perhaps never--because these gentlemen come and go in the dark. But
the fact of the meeting was brought out publicly in the speech of Deputy
Haase in the Reichstag, July 19, 1917, and not contradicted. Whatever
may have been the ostensible object of this conference, it is impossible
to believe that the most important affairs in the world for Austria and
Germany at that moment, namely the nature of the ultimatum to Servia and
the possible eventuality of a European war, were not discussed, and
perhaps decided.

(3) On July 15, 1914, the Italian Ambassador to Turkey, Signor Garroni,
had an interview with the German Ambassador to Turkey, Baron Wangen