published at that exciting time.

Page's telegrams and letters show that any suggestion at mediation would
have been a waste of effort. The President seriously forebore, but the
desire to mediate was constantly in his mind for the next few months,
and he now interested himself in laying the foundations of future
action. Page was instructed to ask for an audience with King George and
to present the following document:

_From the President of the United States
to His Majesty the King_

SIR:

As official head of one of the Powers signatory to the Hague
Convention, I feel it to be my privilege and my duty under Article
3 of that Convention to say to your Majesty, in a spirit of most
earnest friendship, that I should welcome an opportunity to act in
the interest of European peace either now or at any time that might
be thought more suitable as an occasion, to serve your Majesty and
all concerned in a way that would afford me lasting cause for
gratitude and happiness.

WOODROW WILSON.

This, of course, was not mediation, but a mere expression of the
President's willingness to mediate at any time that such a tender from
him, in the opinion of the warring Powers, would serve the cause of
peace. Identically the same message was sent to the American
Ambassadors at the capitals of all the belligerent Powers for
presentation to the heads of state. Page's letter of August 9th, printed
above, refers to the earnestness and cordiality with which King George
received him and to the freedom with which His Majesty discussed the
situation.

In this exciting week Page was thrown into intimate contact with the two
most pathetic figures in the diplomatic circle of London--the Austrian
and the German Ambassadors. To both of these men the war was more than a
great personal sorrow: it was a tragedy. Mensdorff, the Austrian
Ambassador, had long enjoyed an intimacy with the British royal family.
Indeed he was a distant relative of King George, for he was a member of
the family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a fact which was emphasized by his
physical resemblance to Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria.
Mensdorff was not a robust man, physically or mentally, and he showed
his consternation at the impending war in most unrestrained and even
unmanly fashion. As his government directed him to turn the Austrian
Embassy over to the American Ambassador, it was necessary for Page to
call