Grey Book, No. 8.]

[Footnote 7: Second Belgian Grey Book, No. 52.]

[Footnote 8: Austrian Red Book, No. 28.]

[Footnote 9: See Chapter 14.]

[Footnote 10: "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 301.]

17. _The Responsibility and the Moral_.

It will be seen from this brief account that so far as the published
evidence goes I agree with the general view outside Germany that the
responsibility for the war at the last moment rests with the Powers of
Central Europe. The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, which there can be
no reasonable doubt was known to and approved by the German Government,
was the first crime. And it is hardly palliated by the hope, which no
well-informed men ought to have entertained, that Russia could be kept
out and the war limited to Austria and Serbia. The second crime was the
German ultimatum to Russia and to France. I have no desire whatever to
explain away or palliate these clear facts. But it was not my object in
writing this pamphlet to reiterate a judgment which must already be that
of all my readers. What I have wanted to do is to set the tragic events of
those few days of diplomacy in their proper place in the whole complex of
international politics. And what I do dispute with full conviction is the
view which seems to be almost universally held in England, that Germany
had been pursuing for years past a policy of war, while all the other
Powers had been pursuing a policy of peace. The war finally provoked by
Germany was, I am convinced, conceived as a "preventive war." And that
means that it was due to the belief that if Germany did not fight then
she would be compelled to fight at a great disadvantage later. I have
written in vain if I have not convinced the reader that the European
anarchy inevitably provokes that state of mind in the Powers, and that
they all live constantly under the threat of war. To understand the
action of those who had power in Germany during the critical days it
is necessary to bear in mind all that I have brought into relief in
the preceding pages: the general situation, which grouped the Powers
of the Entente against those of the Triple Alliance; the armaments and
counter-armaments; the colonial and economic rivalry; the racial and
national problems in South-East Europe; and the long series of previous
crises, in each case tided over, but leaving behind, every one of them,
a legacy of fresh mistrust and fear, which made every new crisis worse
than the one be