For the King of the Belgians, in replying, is stated to have said that it was “a travesty, of the French Government to interpret it in that sense, and to let oneself be misled as to the sentiments of the French nation by the ebullitions of a few irresponsible spirits or the intrigues of unscrupulous agitators.”  It should be observed also that this supposed attitude on the part of the Kaiser is noted as a change, and that he is credited with having previously stood for peace against the designs of the German Jingoes.  His personal influence, says the dispatch, “had been exerted on many critical occasions in support of peace.”  The fact of a change of mind in the Kaiser is accepted also by Baron Beyens.

Whatever may be the truth in this matter, neither the German nor the French nor our own Government can then have abandoned the effort at peaceable settlement.  For, in fact, by the summer of 1914, agreements had been made between the Great Powers which settled for the time being the questions immediately outstanding.  It is understood that a new partition of African territory had been arranged to meet the claims and interests of Germany, France, and England alike.  The question of the Bagdad railway had been settled, and everything seemed to favour the maintenance of peace, when, suddenly, the murder of the Archduke sprang upon a dismayed Europe the crisis that was at last to prove fatal.  The events that followed, so far as they can be ascertained from published documents, have been so fully discussed that it would be superfluous for me to go over the ground again in all its detail.  But I will indicate briefly what appear to me to be the main points of importance in fixing the responsibility for what occurred.

First, the German view, that England is responsible for the war because she did not prevent Russia from entering upon it, I regard as childish, if it is not simply sophistical.  The German Powers deliberately take an action which the whole past history of Europe shows must almost certainly lead to a European war, and they then turn round upon Sir Edward Grey and put the blame on him because he did not succeed in preventing the consequences of their own action.  “He might have kept Russia out.”  Who knows whether he might?  What we do know is that it was Austria and Germany who brought her in.  The German view is really only intelligible upon the assumption that Germany has a right to do what she pleases and that the Powers that stand in her way are by definition peacebreakers.  It is this extraordinary attitude that has been one of the factors for making war in Europe.

Secondly, I am not, and have not been, one of the critics of Sir Edward Grey.  It is, indeed, possible, as it is always possible after the event, to suggest that some other course might have been more successful in avoiding war.  But that is conjecture, I, at any rate, am convinced, as I believe every one outside Germany is convinced, that Sir Edward Grey throughout the negotiations had one object only—­to avoid, if he could, the catastrophe of war.