stria previous to the
ultimatum, and that it not only approved of its course, but literally
gave to Austria _carte blanche_ to proceed. And the German Ambassador
to the United States formally admitted in an article in _The
Independent_ of September 7, 1914, that "Germany had approved in
advance the Austrian ultimatum to Servia."

This brutal ultimatum by a great nation of fifty millions of people,
making impossible demands against a little one of four millions which
had itself just emerged from two conflicts and was still suffering
from exhaustion--an ultimatum which set all the nations of Europe in
agitation--is proved to have been jointly concocted by the two members
of the Triple Alliance, Germany and Austria. But the third member of
that Alliance, Italy, found it to be an act of aggression on their
part which brought on the war, and that the terms of the Triple
Alliance, therefore, did not bind her to take any part.

The peace parleys which passed between the several nations involved
are carefully reviewed by Mr. Beck, who concludes, as we think
justly, that up to the 28th of July, when the German Imperial
Chancellor sent for the English Ambassador and announced the refusal
of his Government to accept the conference of the Powers proposed by
Sir Edward Grey, every proposal to preserve peace had come from the
Triple Entente, and that every such proposal had met with an
uncompromising negative from Austria, and either that or obstructive
quibbles from Germany.

At this point, the sudden return of the Kaiser to Berlin from his
annual holiday in Norway, which his own Foreign Office regretted as a
step taken on his Majesty's own initiative and which they feared might
cause speculation and excitement, and his personal intervention from
that time until his troops invaded Luxemburg and he made his abrupt
demand upon the Belgian Government for permission to cross its
territory are reviewed with great force and effect by Mr. Beck, with
the conclusion on his part that the Kaiser, who by a timely word to
Austria might have prevented all the terrible trouble that followed,
was the supremely guilty party, and that such will be the verdict of
history.

Mr. Beck's review of the case of Belgium is extremely interesting, and
his conclusion that England, France, Russia, and Belgium can await
with confidence the world's final verdict that their quarrel was just,
rests safely upon the plea of "Guilty" by Germany, a conclusion which