This momentous decision was revealed to us on the 31st by a special edition of the Berliner Lokalanzeiger, distributed at every street corner. The announcement ran as follows:—
“Russia wants war!
“From official sources we have just received (at 2 p.m.) the following report, pregnant with consequences:
“‘The German ambassador at St. Petersburg sends us word to-day that a general mobilization of the Russian army and navy had previously been ordered. That is why His Majesty the Emperor William has decreed an Imminence-of-War. His Majesty will take up his residence in Berlin to-day.’
“Imminence-of-War is the immediate prelude to a general mobilization, in answer to the menace that already hangs over Germany to-day, owing to the step taken by the Tsar.”
As a drowning man catches at a straw, those who in Berlin saw themselves, with horror, faced by an impending catastrophe, clutched at a final hope. The German general mobilization had not yet been ordered. Who knew whether, at the last moment, some happy inspiration from the British Cabinet, that most stalwart champion of peace, might cause the weapons to drop from the hands that were about to wield them? Once more, however, the Emperor, by his swift moves, shattered this fond illusion. On the 31st, at seven o’clock in the evening, he dispatched to the Russian Government a summons to demobilize both on its Austrian and on its German frontiers. An interval of twelve hours was given for a reply.
It was obvious that Russia, who had refused two days before to cease from her military preparations, would not accept the German ultimatum, worded as it was in so dictatorial a form and rendered still more insulting by the briefness of the interval granted. As, however, no answer had come from St. Petersburg by the afternoon of 1st August, Herren Von Jagow and Zimmermann (so the latter informed me) rushed to the Chancellor and the Emperor, in order to request that the decree for a general mobilization might at least be held over until the following day. They supported their plea by urging that the telegraphic communication with St. Petersburg had presumably been cut, and that this would explain the silence of the Tsar. Perhaps they still hoped against hope for a conciliatory proposal from Russia. This was the last flicker of their dying pacifism, or the last awakening of their conscience. Their efforts could make no headway against the stubborn opposition of the War Minister and the army chiefs, who represented to the Emperor the dangers of a twenty-four hours’ delay. The order for a mobilization of the army and navy was signed at five o’clock in the afternoon, and was at once given out to the public by a special edition of the Lokalanzeiger. The mobilization was to begin on 2nd August. On the 1st, at ten minutes past seven in the evening, Germany’s declaration of war was forwarded to Russia.
As all the world knows, the Berlin Cabinet had to resort to wild pretexts, such as the committing of acts of hostility (so the military authorities alleged) by French aviators on Imperial soil, in order to find motives, two days later, for its declaration of war on France. Although Germany tried to lay the blame for the catastrophe at Russia’s door, it was in reality her western neighbour that she wished to attack and annihilate first. On this point there can be no possible doubt to-day. “Poor France!” said the Berlin newspapers, with feigned compassion. They acknowledged that the conduct of the French Government throughout the crisis had been irreproachable, and that it had worked without respite for the maintenance of peace. While her leaders fulfilled this noble duty to mankind, France was offering the world an impressive sight—the sight of a nation looking calmly and without fear at a growing peril that she had done nothing to conjure up, and, regarding her word as her bond, determined in cold blood to follow the destiny of her ally on the field of battle. At the same time she offered to Germany, who had foolishly counted on her being torn by internal troubles and political feuds, the vision of her children closely linked together in an unconquerable resolve—the resolve to beat back an iniquitous assault upon their country. Nor was this the only surprise that she held in store. With the stone wall of her resistance, she was soon to change the whole character of the struggle, and to wreck the calculations of German strategy.
No one had laboured with more energy and skill to quench the flames lit by Austria and her ally than the representative of the Republic at Berlin. “Don’t you think M. Cambon’s attitude has been admirable?” remarked the British ambassador to me, in the train that was whirling us far away from the German capital on 6th August. “Throughout these terrible days, nothing has been able to affect his coolness, his presence of mind, and his insight.” I cannot express my own admiration better than by repeating this verdict of so capable a diplomat as Sir Edward Goschen, who himself took a most active part in the vain attempt of the Triple Entente to save Europe from calamity.