bilize.

M. Paul Cambon, Ambassador at London, reported interviews of Sir
Edward Grey, Secretary of Foreign Affairs, with Count Mensdorff,
Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, and Prince Lichnowsky, German
Ambassador. The first continued to maintain that the Serbian reply
was unacceptable. The second talked like Baron von Schoen at Paris;
he desired Great Britain to use moderating influence at St.
Petersburg. Grey replied that this would be embarrassing, as Russia
had been moderate from the beginning, especially in her pacific
advice to Serbia. It was at Vienna that action was necessary, and
there Germany's help was indispensable. News had come from St.
Petersburg of the first direct conversations between Russia and
Austria, that of Prime Minister Sazonof and Ambassador Szapary.
Secretary Grey and Under-Secretary Nicholson were doubtful of its
success, since M. Sazonof had not yet secured assent to a revision
of the Serbian note by the two cabinets.

"In any case, at a moment when the least delay might have serious
consequences, it would be very desirable that these direct
negotiations should be carried on in such a way as not to hamper
Sir E. Grey's action, and not to furnish Austria with a pretext
for slipping out of the friendly intervention of the four powers.

"The British Ambassador at Berlin having made a determined effort
to obtain Herr von Jagow's adherence to Sir E. Grey's suggestion,
the German Minister for Foreign Affairs replied that it was best
to await the result of the conversation which had been begun
between St. Petersburg and Vienna. Sir E. Grey has, in
consequence, directed Sir E. Goschen to suspend his _demarche_
for the moment. In addition, the news that Austria has just
officially declared war against Serbia opens a new phase of the
question."

M. Jules Cambon, Ambassador at Berlin, reported an interview of Herr
von Jagow with M. Broniewsky, Russian Charge d'Affaires, in which
the German Secretary of State was hopeful that Austria-Hungary's
willingness to converse with Russia after the expiration of the
ultimatum to Serbia might discover an issue from present
difficulties. M. Cambon adds that perhaps Austria is seeking time to
make her preparations.

Von Jagow told Cambon that he could not accept the kind of
conference proposed by Grey, and that success depended on mediation
taking another form.

"I laid stress upon the da