meaning that the small nation should be left to the tender mercies of a great power.  Russia refused to take this view.  Great Britain proposed a settlement by mediation.  Germany backed up Austria to the limit.  To use the language of the German authorities:  “We were perfectly aware that a possible warlike attitude of Austria-Hungary against Serbia might bring Russia upon the field and that it might therefore involve us in a war, in accordance with our duties as allies.  We could not, however, in these vital interests of Austria-Hungary which were at stake, advise our ally to take a yielding attitude not compatible with his dignity nor deny him our assistance.”  That made the war inevitable.

Every day of the fateful August, 1914, was crowded with momentous events.  On the 1st, Germany declared war on Russia.  On the 2d, the Germans invaded the little duchy of Luxemburg and notified the King of Belgium that they were preparing to violate the neutrality of his realm on their way to Paris.  On the same day, Great Britain, anxiously besought by the French government, promised the aid of the British navy if German warships made hostile demonstrations in the Channel.  August 3d, the German government declared war on France.  The following day, Great Britain demanded of Germany respect for Belgian neutrality and, failing to receive the guarantee, broke off diplomatic relations.  On the 5th, the British prime minister announced that war had opened between England and Germany.  The storm now broke in all its pitiless fury.

=The State of American Opinion.=—­Although President Wilson promptly proclaimed the neutrality of the United States, the sympathies of a large majority of the American people were without doubt on the side of Great Britain and France.  To them the invasion of the little kingdom of Belgium and the horrors that accompanied German occupation were odious in the extreme.  Moreover, they regarded the German imperial government as an autocratic power wielded in the interest of an ambitious military party.  The Kaiser, William II, and the Crown Prince were the symbols of royal arrogance.  On the other hand, many Americans of German descent, in memory of their ties with the Fatherland, openly sympathized with the Central Powers; and many Americans of Irish descent, recalling their long and bitter struggle for home rule in Ireland, would have regarded British defeat as a merited redress of ancient grievances.

Extremely sensitive to American opinion, but ill informed about it, the German government soon began systematic efforts to present its cause to the people of the United States in the most favorable light possible.  Dr. Bernhard Dernburg, the former colonial secretary of the German empire, was sent to America as a special agent.  For months he filled the newspapers, magazines, and periodicals with interviews, articles, and notes on the justice of the Teutonic cause.  From a press bureau in New York flowed a stream of pamphlets, leaflets,