As no reply had been received from St. Petersburg by noon the next day [after the dispatch of the German ultimatum], MM. de Jagow and Zimmermann (I have it from the latter) hurried to the Chancellor and the Kaiser to prevent the issue of the order for general mobilization, and to persuade his Majesty to wait till the following day.  It was the last effort of their dying pacifism, or the last awakening of their conscience.  Their efforts were broken against the irreducible obstinacy of the Minister of War and the army chiefs, who represented to the Kaiser the disastrous consequences of a delay of twenty-four hours.[10]

[Footnote 1:  French Yellow Book, No. 6.  In “L’Allemagne avant la guerre” (p. 24) Baron Beyens states that this conversation was held at Potsdam on November 5th or 6th; the Kaiser said that war between Germany and France was “inevitable and near.”  Baron Beyens, presumably, is the authority from whom M. Cambon derives his information.]

[Footnote 2:  Above, p. 25.]

[Footnote 3:  “L’Allemagne avant la guerre,” p. 273.]

[Footnote 4:  “L’Allemagne avant la guerre,” p. 280 seq.]

[Footnote 5:  See “L’Enigme Allemande,” p. 96.]

[Footnote 6:  Second Belgian Grey Book, No. 8.]

[Footnote 7:  Second Belgian Grey Book, No. 52.]

[Footnote 8:  Austrian Red Book, No. 28.]

[Footnote 9:  See Chapter 14.]

[Footnote 10:  “L’Allemagne avant la guerre,” p. 301.]

17. The Responsibility and the Moral.

It will be seen from this brief account that so far as the published evidence goes I agree with the general view outside Germany that the responsibility for the war at the last moment rests with the Powers of Central Europe.  The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, which there can be no reasonable doubt was known to and approved by the German Government, was the first crime.  And it is hardly palliated by the hope, which no well-informed men ought to have entertained, that Russia could be kept out and the war limited to Austria and Serbia.  The second crime was the German ultimatum to Russia and to France.  I have no desire whatever to explain away or palliate these clear facts.  But it was not my object in writing this pamphlet to reiterate a judgment which must already be that of all my readers.  What I have wanted to do is to set the tragic events of those few days of diplomacy in their proper place in the whole complex of international politics.  And what I do dispute with full conviction is the view which seems to be almost universally held in England, that Germany had been pursuing for years past a policy of war, while all the other Powers had been pursuing a policy of peace.  The war finally provoked by Germany was, I am convinced, conceived as a “preventive war.”  And that means that it was due to the belief that if Germany did not fight then she would be compelled to fight at a great disadvantage