Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria
August 1.—I told the German ambassador to-day … if there were a violation of the neutrality of Belgium by one combatant while the other respected it it would be extremely difficult to restrain public feeling in this country. … He asked me whether, if Germany gave a promise not to violate Belgium neutrality, we would engage to remain neutral. I replied that I could not say that. … The ambassador pressed me as to whether I could not formulate conditions on which we would remain neutral. He even suggested that the integrity of France and her colonies might be guaranteed. I said that I felt obliged to refuse definitely any promise to remain neutral on similar terms, and I could only say that we must keep our hands free.
Grand Duke Frederick II of Baden
So England, directly from the first, took sides with Servia in a matter that concerned only Servia and Austria. She “could not see how Russia could be urged to suspend preparations” and would not, even for the sake of Belgium, state the terms on which she would agree to remain neutral in the new German-Russian mobilization dispute. Why Germany finally did violate Belgian neutrality is explained by a telegram from the German foreign office to the German ambassador in London, Prince Lichnowsky, on August four. … “Please impress upon Sir E. Grey that German army could not be exposed to French attack across Belgium, which was planned according to absolutely unimpeachable information. Germany had consequently to disregard Belgian neutrality, it being for her a question of life or death to prevent French advance.”
All eyes then are likely for the next few months to be fixed on the German army and it has seemed worth while to me hastily to collect and publish all the items concerning the land, naval and aerial forces that will be of general interest in America. No one will look, I hope, for much originality in a work of this kind. My information is taken from Major von Schreibershofen’s excellent book Das deutsche Heer, from Colonel von Bremen’s Das deutsche Heer nach der Neuordnung von 1913; from Lieutenant Neumann’s Luftschiffe and his Flugzeuge; from Count Reventlow’s interesting Deutschland zur See; Troetsch’s Deutschland’s Flotte im Entscheidungskampf and Toeche-Mittler: Die deutsche Kriegsflotte. The three last mentioned works, and also Von Bremen’s, are absolutely new, having been published in 1914; Schreibershofen’s dates from 1913. The two others have no date but one can see that they have appeared very recently. The large new works Das Jahr 1913, Deutschland unter Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the Handbuch der Politik have also been of use to me. For the last six months I have followed very carefully in the Zeitungs-Archiv all the newspaper extracts bearing on our subject. The war has doubtless interrupted the publication of the Archiv, so that I shall remain “up to date” for some little time to come.
PART II
THE ARMY