Here again the world is not favored with the text of the message, in which the Chancellor “begged Austria to reply,” nor with that of the Austrian Foreign Minister’s reply.
While these events were happening in Berlin and London, the Russian Ambassador in Vienna advised Sazonof “that Austria has determined not to yield to the intervention of the powers and that she is moving troops against Russia as well as Servia.”[73]
Russia thereupon, on July 31, ordered a general mobilization of her army.
Concurrently with these interviews, the English Ambassador in Vienna had a conversation with the Austrian Under-Secretary of State and
called his attention to the fact that during the discussion of the Albanian frontier at the London Conference of Ambassadors the Russian Government had stood behind Servia, and that a compromise between the views of Russia and Austria-Hungary resulted with accepted frontier line. Although he[74] spoke in a conciliatory tone, and did not regard the situation as desperate, I could not get from him any suggestion for a similar compromise in the present case. Count Forgach is going this afternoon to see the Russian Ambassador, whom I have informed of the above conversation.[75]
Notwithstanding all these discouragements and rebuffs, Sir Edward Grey, that unwearying friend of peace, still continued to make a last attempt to preserve peace by instructing the British Ambassador in Berlin to sound the German Foreign Office, as he would sound the Russian Foreign Office,
whether it would be possible for the four disinterested Powers to offer to Austria that they would undertake to see that she obtained full satisfaction of her demands on Servia, provided that they did not impair Servian sovereignty and the integrity of Servian territory. As your Excellency is aware, Austria has already declared her willingness to respect them. Russia might be informed by the four Powers that they would undertake to prevent Austrian demands from going the length of impairing Servian sovereignty and integrity. All Powers would of course suspend further military operations or preparations.
He further instructed Sir Edward Goschen to advise the German Foreign Office that he, Sir Edward Grey, had that morning proposed to the German Ambassador in London,
that if Germany could get any reasonable proposal put forward, which made it clear that Germany and Austria were striving to preserve European peace, and that Russia and France would be unreasonable if they rejected it, I would support it at St. Petersburg and Paris, and go the length of saying that, if Russia and France would not accept it, his Majesty’s Government would have nothing more to do with the consequences; that, otherwise, I told the German Ambassador that if France became involved we should be drawn in.[76]