Defeated in their effort to get an extension of time, England, France, and Russia made further attempts to preserve peace by temporarily arresting military proceedings until further efforts toward conciliation could be made. Sir Edward Grey proposed to Germany, France, Russia, and Italy that they should unite in asking Austria and Servia not to cross the frontier “until we had had time to try and arrange matters between them,” but the German Ambassador read Sir Edward Grey a telegram that he had received from the German Foreign Office saying
that his Government had not known beforehand, and had had no more than other Powers to do with the stiff terms of the Austrian note to Servia, but that once she had launched that note, Austria could not draw back. Prince Lichnowsky said, however, that if what I contemplated was mediation between Austria and Russia, Austria might be able with dignity to accept it. He expressed himself as personally favorable to this suggestion.
It will be noted that Germany thus gave to England, as it had already given to Russia and France in the most unequivocal terms, a disclaimer of any responsibility for the Austrian ultimatum, but we have already seen that when the German Foreign Office prepared its statement for the German nation, which was circulated in the Reichstag on August 4th, Germany confessed the insincerity of these assurances by admitting that before the ultimatum was issued the Austrian Government had advised the German Foreign Office of its intentions and asked its opinion and that
we were able to assure our ally most heartily of our agreement with her view of the situation and to assure her that any action that she might consider it necessary to take ... would receive our approval.
Here again it is to be noted that the telegram, which the German Foreign Office sent to Prince Lichnowsky, and which that diplomat simply read to Sir Edward Grey, is not set forth in the exhibits to the German White Paper.
As we have seen, Germany never, so far as the record discloses, sought in any way to influence Austria to make this or any concession until after the Kaiser’s return from Norway and then only if we accept the assurances of its Foreign Office which are not supported by official documents. Its attitude was shown by the declaration of its Ambassador at Paris to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, which, while again disclaiming that Germany had countenanced the Austrian ultimatum, yet added that Germany “approved” its point of view,
and that certainly, the arrow once sent, Germany could not allow herself to be guided except by her duty as ally.[28]
This seemed to be the fatal error of Germany, that its duties to civilization were so slight that it should support its ally, Austria, whether the latter were right or wrong. Such was its policy, and it carried it out with fatal consistency. To support its ally in actual war without respect to the justice of the quarrel may be defensible, but to support it in a time of peace in an iniquitous demand and a policy of gross discourtesy to friendly States offends every sense of international morality.
On the following day Russia proposed to Austria that they should enter into an exchange of private views, with the object of an alteration in common of some clauses of the Austrian ultimatum. To this Austria never even replied.
The Russian Minister communicated this suggestion to the German Minister for Foreign Affairs and expressed the hope that he would “find it possible to advise Vienna to meet our proposal,” but this did not accord with German policy, for on that day the German Ambassador in Paris called upon the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, and submitted the following formal declaration: