[Footnote 6:  This message leads to the assumption that direct communications between Vienna and Petrograd had already ceased, although the Koelnische Zeitung told the German public on the following day that they had not.]

The next document in the German White Book is dated July 28th.  It is a telegram from the German Ambassador in Vienna to the German Chancellor in Berlin.  “Count Berchtold begs me to express his thanks to you for communicating the English mediation proposal.  He replies, however, that in consequence of the commencement of hostilities by Serbia and after the declaration of war which has meanwhile been made he must look upon England’s step as being too late.”

In the Austrian Orange Book, p. 122, we find this passage in a telegram from Count Berchtold to the Austrian representative in London:  “When Sir Edward Grey speaks of the possibility of avoiding an outbreak of hostilities he is too late, for yesterday Serbians shot at our frontier guards, and to-day we have declared war on Serbia.”

There are two points in these telegrams which require explanation.  Firstly, why should Sir Edward Grey’s proposal take so long to reach Vienna.  Apparently it took from Monday to Wednesday to go by telegram from London via Berlin to Vienna.  Two German newspapers (already quoted) knew of this conference idea on the 27th of July and commented upon it in their morning editions of the following day.

The other point is the Austrian statement that Serbia commenced hostilities.  If this were the case, one would expect that Austria-Hungary, in declaring war subsequently to the alleged shooting by Serbians at frontier guards, would make mention of the acts as a casus belli.  On p. 117 of the Red Book the text of the declaration of war is given in full, but there is no mention of any resort to arms on the part of Serbia.

We are forced to the conclusion that Germany and Austria are mutually responsible for preventing the conference; they desired war, and a conference might have preserved peace.  During the present summer (1915) an important work has been published in Germany from which the following passage is taken: 

“Grey thought the time had now arrived to formulate a mediation proposal.  This idea was from the very beginning unacceptable to Austria, because that would indirectly be a recognition of Russia as an interested Power in the Austro-Serbian conflict.  Only those who have followed the development of mutual obligations between the Entente Powers are able to understand the role which Russia’s two comrades (France and England)—­to say nothing at all of Italy—­would have played in this conference.  During its sittings Russia would have continued her military preparations, while Germany would have been pledged not to mobilize.  Finally, nobody could assert that the man (Sir Edward Grey) who would have presided over these negotiations, could have been impartial.  The more one thinks about this mediation proposal the more clearly one recognizes that it would have made for a diplomatic victory of the Triple Entente."[7]