An article dated Strasbourg, August 3rd, was published in the Frankfurter Zeitung on the 6th of the same month.  The writer describes the martial scenes which he had witnessed during the preceding week, and mentions that the officers in the garrison had received a special order to send their wives and children away from the city several days before martial law was proclaimed.  Friday, presumably, the order came for the garrison to march to the French frontier, for on Saturday the regiments were entrained and left Strasbourg.  Our good German friend describes the scene in the streets:  “Alongside the ranks were the wives and children of the called-up reservists, trying to keep step with the quickly moving troops.  Before sunset the regiments, all on a war-footing, had left the city.”

Every layman knows that a reservist cannot enter a barracks in civilian attire, and emerge five minutes later in full war-kit ready for the march.  The German Imperial Chancellor affirms that not one of them had been called up before five o’clock in the afternoon of that day.  It is true that neither the age of miracles nor the age of lies has passed away.  Perhaps Herr Bethmann-Hollweg could explain why it was impossible to send trunk-messages on Germany’s telephone system during the last three days of July, 1914.  At least, the local papers in Bavaria asserted that that was the case.

The Elbinger Zeitung, August 13th, contained a reservist’s letter with this illuminating passage:  “During the last few days everybody was in readiness; our linen, etc., had been packed and sent off in advance.  On Friday, July 31st, the order arrived that I should present myself; mobilization had begun.  With feelings of joy I changed into my uniform and rushed to join my company.  The streets were full of frightened people with tears in their eyes.  We officers pressed each others’ hands and with ardent glances exclaimed:  ‘At last it has come!’”

The Chancellor based his assertion that French troops had crossed the German frontier, on the report from the Chief of the General Staff.  This authority admitted that German soldiers on August 2nd (Sunday) had violated the French frontier and continues with these words:  “But long before that French airmen had dropped bombs in Southern Germany, and French soldiers had attacked our frontier-guards in the Schlucht Pass.”

The Frankfurter Zeitung, July 31st, gives Bethmann-Hollweg and the Chief of the General Staff the lie direct.  The paragraph is dated July 30th, Kolmar, and runs:  “The Schlucht Pass has just been barricaded by German frontier guards.  This is to prevent motor-lorries and such-like vehicles from entering French territory without our permission.  Several papers have announced the alleged occupation of the Schlucht (gorge) by French troops.  The report is an absolute invention. (Die Meldung ist voellig aus der Luft gegriffen.) I have taken the trouble to look round, and may say that the usual tourist traffic is going on as usual.”