ot see the text of the subsequent ultimatum to Serbia until July
22. It was determined that it was no part of the duty of Germany to give
advice to her Ally as to how she should deal with the Serajevo murder.
But every effort was to be made to prevent the controversy between
Austria and Serbia from developing into an international conflict. It
was useful to try to bring in Bulgaria, but Roumania had better be left
out of account. These conclusions were in accordance with the
Chancellor's own opinion, and when he returned to Berlin he communicated
them to the Austrian Ambassador. Germany would do what she could to make
Roumania friendly, and Austria was told that in any case she might rely
on her Ally, Germany, to stand firmly by her side.

The next day the Emperor set off in his yacht for the northern seas. The
Chancellor says he advised him to do this because the expedition was one
which the Emperor had been in the habit of making every year at that
season, and it would cause talk if this usual journey were to be
abandoned.

The other point relates to the date on which the German Chancellor saw
the text of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. He tells us that it was
brought to him for the first time on the evening of July 22 by Herr von
Jagow, the Foreign Secretary, who had just received it from the Austrian
Ambassador. The Chancellor says that von Jagow thought the ultimatum too
strongly worded, and wished for some delay. But when he told the
Ambassador this the answer was that the document had already been
dispatched, and it was published in the Vienna _Telegraph_ the next
morning.

The conclusion of the Chancellor is that the stories of the Crown
Council at Potsdam on July 5, and of the co-operation of the German
Government in preparing the ultimatum, are mere legends. The question of
substance as regards the first may be left for interpretation by
posterity. As to the controversy about the second, it would be
interesting to know whether Herr von Tschirsky, the German Ambassador
at Vienna, knew of the ultimatum before it assumed the form in which it
reached Berlin on July 22. I shall have more to say about these
incidents later on when I come to Admiral von Tirpitz's account of them.

My criticism of Herr von Bethmann Hollweg is in no case founded on any
doubt at all as to his veracity. I formed, in the course of my dealings
with him, a high opinion of his integrity. But in his reasoning he is
apt to let circumstan