Our interests on the Northern scene of operations require that England keeps as large a part of the German fleet as possible in check in the North Sea.... The English Government could render us a substantial service if it would agree to send a sufficient number of boats to our Baltic ports to compensate for our lack of means of transport, before the beginning of war-operations.
This document, revealed by the Soviet Government in 1919, is pretty damaging to the assumption of an "unprepared and unsuspecting Europe"; especially as Professor Conybeare has given publicity to the fact that "before the beginning of war-operations" those English boats were there, prompt to the minute, empty, ready and waiting.
In June, the Russian Ambassador warned the Russian naval staff in London that they must exercise great caution in talking about a landing in Pomerania or about the dispatch of English boats to the Russian Baltic ports before the outbreak of war, "so that the rest may not be jeopardized." On 13 June, the newspaper-organ of the Russian Minister of War published an inspired article under the caption: "Russia is Ready: France must be Ready."
Two weeks later, the Austrian heir-apparent, the Archduke Francis Joseph, was murdered at Sarajevo, a town in Bosnia, by Serbian officers. The murder was arranged by the Serbian Major Tankesitch, of the pan-Slavist organization known as the Black Hand; and this organization was fostered, if not actually subsidized, by the Russian Minister at Belgrade, M. Hartwig, the pupil and alter ego of M. Isvolsky, and the architect and promoter of the Balkan League!