and the role which Russia's two comrades
(France and England)--to say nothing at all of Italy--would have played
in this conference. During its sittings Russia would have continued her
military preparations, while Germany would have been pledged not to
mobilize. Finally, nobody could assert that the man (Sir Edward Grey)
who would have presided over these negotiations, could have been
impartial. The more one thinks about this mediation proposal the more
clearly one recognizes that it would have made for a diplomatic victory
of the Triple Entente."[7]

[Footnote 7: Professor Hermann Oncken: "Deutschland und der Weltkrieg,"
pp. 545-6.]

Even the claim that Austria showed some inclination to permit mediation
on the points in her ultimatum to Serbia which were incompatible with
Serbia's sovereignty, has been categorically denied. The Vienna
_Fremdenblatt_ for September 24th, 1914, contains this official
announcement:

"Vienna, September 24th. In a report of the late British Ambassador
published by the British Government, there is a passage which maintains
that Austria-Hungary's Ambassador, Count Szapary, in St. Petersburg had
informed Monsieur Sasonow, Russia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, that
Austria-Hungary 'was willing to submit the points in her Note to Serbia
which seemed incompatible with Serbian independence, to mediation.'

"We have been informed officially that this statement is absolutely
untrue; according to the nature of the step taken by the monarchy in
Belgrade, it would have been absolutely unthinkable. The passage cited
from the British Ambassador's report, as well as some other phrases in
the same, are evidently inspired by a certain bias. They are intended to
prove, by asserting that Austria-Hungary was prepared to yield on some
points at issue, that German diplomacy was really responsible for the
outbreak of war.

"Such attempts cannot obscure the truth, that Austria-Hungary and
Germany concurred in the wish to preserve European peace. If this wish
has not been fulfilled, and a European conflict has arisen out of a
local settlement, it can only be ascribed to the circumstance that
Russia first threatened Austria-Hungary and then Germany by an
unjustifiable mobilization. By this she forced war upon the Central
Powers and thus kindled a general conflagration."

In dealing with Germany's endeavours for peace Professor Oncken writes
on p. 546 of "Deutschland und der Weltkrieg" ("Germany and the World