ces
could hardly be regarded as an excuse for breaking solemn
engagements, but his excellency was so excited, so evidently
overcome by the news of our action, and so little disposed to
hear reason that I refrained from adding fuel to the flame by
further argument. As I was leaving he said that the blow of Great
Britain joining Germany's enemies was all the greater that almost
up to the last moment he and his Government had been working with
us and supporting our efforts to maintain peace between Austria
and Russia. I said that this was part of the tragedy which saw
the two nations fall apart just at the moment when the relations
between them had been more friendly and cordial than they had
been for years. Unfortunately, notwithstanding our efforts to
maintain peace between Russia and Austria, the war had spread and
had brought us face to face with a situation which, if we held to
our engagements, we could not possibly avoid, and which
unfortunately entailed our separation from our late
fellow-workers. He would readily understand that no one regretted
this more than I.

"After this somewhat painful interview I returned to the embassy
and drew up a telegraphic report of what had passed. This
telegram was handed in at the Central Telegraph Office a little
before 9 p. m. It was apparently never dispatched."[3]

[Footnote 3: This telegram never reached the British Foreign
Office.]

Mr. Goschen's report went on to relate the attack that evening on
the British Embassy by a mob excited by the report in a flying sheet
of the "Berliner Tageblatt" that Great Britain had declared war on
Germany. The German Government repudiated the report and did all it
could, by the personal apology of the secretary of state and by
police protection, to make amends for what Herr von Jagow termed
"the indelible stain on the reputation of Berlin."

"On the following morning, August 5, the emperor sent one of his
majesty's aides-de-camp to me with the following message:

"'The emperor has charged me to express to your excellency his
regret for the occurrences of last night, but to tell you at the
same time that you will gather from those occurrences an idea of
the feelings of his people respecting the action of Great Britain
in joining with other nations against her old Allies of Waterloo.