ising upon some great cause which appealed to popular
imagination. The acts of the statesmen in that last fateful week of
July, 1914, were not the mere echo of the popular will.

The issues were framed by the statesmen and diplomats of Europe
and whatever efforts were made to preserve the peace and whatever
obstructive tactics were interposed were not the acts of any of the
nations now in arms but those of a small coterie of men who, in the
secrecy of their respective cabinets, made their moves and
countermoves upon the chessboard of nations.

The future of Europe in that last week of July was in the hands of a
small group of men, numbering not over fifty, and what they did was
never known to their respective nations in any detail until after the
fell Rubicon had been crossed and a world war had been precipitated.

If all of these men had sincerely desired to work for peace, there
would not have been any war.

So swiftly did events move that the masses of the people had time
neither to think nor to act. The suddenness of the crisis marks it as
a species of "mid-summer madness," a very "witches' sabbath" of
diplomatic demagoguery.

In a peaceful summer, when the nations now struggling to exterminate
each other were fraternizing in the holiday centers of Europe, an
issue was suddenly precipitated, made the subject of communications
between the various chancelleries, and almost in the twinkling of an
eye Europe found itself wrapped in a universal flame. The appalling
toll of death suggests the inquiry of Hamlet: "Did these bones cost
no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with 'em?" and if the
diplomatic "loggats" of 1914 were ineffectively played, some one must
accept the responsibility for such failure.

This sense of responsibility against the dread Day of Accounting has
resulted in a disposition beyond past experience to justify the
quarrel by placing before the world the diplomatic record.

The English Government commenced shortly after the outbreak of
hostilities by publishing the so-called _White Paper_, consisting of a
statement by the British Government and 160 diplomatic documents as an
appendix. This was preceded by Sir Edward Grey's masterly speech in
Parliament. That speech and all his actions in this fateful crisis may
rank him in future history with the younger Pitt.

On August 4th, the German Chancellor for the first time explained to
the representatives of his nation assembled in the Reichst