e reserved her entire liberty of action, the
exchange of telegrams between the czar and William II) the
serious measures which had been decided upon were suspended.

"One of the ambassadors with whom I have very close relations saw
Herr von Zimmermann at two o'clock. According to the
Under-Secretary of State, the military authorities are very
anxious that mobilization should be ordered, because every delay
makes Germany lose some of her advantages. Nevertheless, up to
the present time the haste of the General Staff, which sees war
in mobilization, had been successfully prevented. In any case
mobilization may be decided upon at any moment. I do not know who
has issued in the 'Lokal Anzeiger,' a paper which is usually
semiofficial, premature news calculated to cause excitement in
France.

"Further, I have the strongest reasons to believe that all the
measures for mobilization which can be taken before the
publication of the general order have already been taken here,
and that they are anxious here to make us publish our
mobilization first in order to attribute the responsibility to
us."

M. Viviani instructed Ambassador Paul Cambon at London to inform Sir
Edward Grey, British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, of the following
facts of French and German military preparations, to show that, "if
France is resolved, it is not she who is taking aggressive steps."

"Although Germany has made her covering dispositions a few
hundred meters from the frontier, along the whole front from
Luxemburg to the Vosges, and has transported her covering troops
to their war positions, we have kept our troops ten kilometers
from the frontier and forbidden them to approach nearer.

"By leaving a strip of territory undefended against sudden
aggression of the enemy, the Government of the republic hopes to
prove that France does not bear, any more than Russia, the
responsibility for the attack.

"In order to be convinced of this, it is sufficient to compare
the steps taken on the two sides of our frontier; in France
soldiers who were on leave were not recalled until we were
certain that Germany had done so five days before.

"In Germany, not only have the garrison troops of Metz been
pushed up to the frontier, but they have been reenforced by units
transported by train