ns we would spare Germany? No. Not if the Germans
promised not to annex French territory? No. Not even if they promised
not to touch the French colonies? No. Was there no way out? Sir Edward
Grey was frank. He admitted there was just one chance; that Liberal
opinion might not stand the war if the neutrality of Belgium were not
violated. And he provided against that chance by committing England to
the war the day before he let the cat out of the bag in Parliament.

All this is recorded in the language of diplomacy in the White Paper on
or between the lines. That language is not so straightforward as my
language; but at the crucial points it is clear enough. Sazonoff's tone
is politely diplomatic in No. 6; but in No. 17 he lets himself go. "I do
not believe that Germany really wants war; but her attitude is decided
by yours. If you take your stand firmly with France and Russia there
will be no war. If you fail them now, rivers of blood will flow, and you
will in the end be dragged into war." He was precisely right; but he did
not realize that war was exactly what our Junkers wanted. They did not
dare to tell themselves so; and naturally they did not dare to tell him
so. And perhaps his own interest in war was too strong to make him
regret the rejection of his honest advice. To break up the Austrian
Empire and achieve for Russia the Slav Caliphate of South-East Europe
whilst defeating Prussia with the help of France and of Russia's old
enemy and Prussia's old ally England, was a temptation so enormous that
Sazonoff, in resisting it so far as to shew Sir Edward Grey frankly the
only chance of preventing it, proved himself the most genuine
humanitarian in the diplomatic world.

*Number 123.*

The decisive communication between Sir Edward Grey and Prince Lichnowsky
is recorded in the famous No. 123. With the rather childish subsequent
attempt to minimize No. 123 on the ground that the Prince was merely an
amiable nincompoop who did not really represent his fiendish sovereign,
neither I nor any other serious person need be concerned. What is beyond
all controversy is that after that conversation Prince Lichnowsky could
do nothing but tell the Kaiser that the _Entente_, having at last got
his imperial head in chancery, was not going to let him off on any
terms, and that it was now a fight to a finish between the British and
German empires. Then the Kaiser said: "We are Germans. God help us!"
When a crowd of foolish students