(Retranslated.) M. Schebeko [the Russian Ambassador at Vienna] on July 28th attempted to induce the Austrian Government to authorize Count Scapary to continue negotiations which he had been carrying on with M. Sazonof and which appeared very promising. Count Berchtold on this day declined, but two days later, July 30th, although Russia then had already started partial mobilization against Austria, he received M. Schebeko again in the most courteous manner and gave his consent to continuation of the pour parleurs.... On Aug. 1st M. Schebeko informed me that Austria was ready to submit to mediation those parts of its note to Servia which appeared to be irreconcilable to the independence of Servia.... Unfortunately these pour parleurs in St. Petersburg and Vienna were suddenly broken off by the quarrel being removed to the more dangerous territory of a direct conflict between Germany and Russia. Germany on July 31 stepped between the two with its double ultimatum addressed to St. Petersburg and Paris.... A delay of a few days in all probability would have spared Europe one of the greatest wars in history.
On the other hand, be it remembered that the fact that any negotiations between Austria and Russia were carried on up to the last hour was solely the result of the uninterrupted German efforts to maintain peace, which fact Sir Maurice de Bunsen very wisely buries in silence. These negotiations, by the way, hardly were as promising of success as is made to appear. The Austrian version of it is found in the Vienna Fremdenblatt of Sept. 25, 1914. There the most important spots of Bunsen's report, that Austria-Hungary had been ready to moderate several points of its note to Servia, are mentioned, as follows:
As we are told by a well-informed source, these assertions do not at all correspond to the facts; furthermore, from the very nature of the steps undertaken by the dual monarchy in Belgrade, this would have been entirely inconceivable.
A glance at the date shows that the Bunsen report is misleading, for he himself tells that Count Berchtold, on July 30, had expressed his consent to a continuation of the exchange of thought in Petersburg; the latter, therefore, could not begin before the 31st, while in the night from July 30 to 31 the mobilization of the entire Russian Army against Germany was ordered in Petersburg, finally making impossible the continuation of the last German attempt at mediation in Vienna.
The truth is, in spite of Russian and English twistings, that without the interval caused by Germany's efforts in Vienna, which interval England allowed to pass unused in Petersburg, the war would have broken out a few days sooner.
Let us consider how the fact of the Russian mobilization, the dimensions and tendency of which was brought to the knowledge of the London Cabinet at the very latest on July 24, must affect Germany.
On July 24 the Russian Government declared, in an official communiqué, it would be impossible for it to remain indifferent in an Austro-Servian conflict.
Germany's Hand Forced.
This declaration was followed immediately by military measures which represented the beginning of Russian mobilization long planned. But even on July 27 the Russian Minister of War, Suchomlinof, assured the German Military Attaché upon word of honor (Annex 11 of the German "White Paper") that no order for mobilization had been given and no reservists had been drawn and no horse had been commandeered.
Although in this conversation there had been left no doubt to the Russian Minister of War concerning the fact that measures of mobilization against Austria must be considered by Germany also as very threatening toward itself, during the next days news of the Russian mobilization arrived in quick succession.