ime as possible to consider their action,
and it was thought that this would probably lead to Russia's
acquiescence in the punishment of Servia and, if so, France and
England, having no direct interest in Servia, would also undoubtedly
acquiesce.

If, however, slow-moving Russia, instead of acquiescing, as she did
in 1908 in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, should take up the
gauntlet which Germany and Austria had thrown down, _then it was all
important to Germany and Austria that Russia should seem to be the
aggressor_.

For this there were two substantial reasons: the one was Italy and the
other was England. Germany and Austria desired the cooperation of
Italy and could not claim it as of right under the terms of the
Triple Alliance, unless they were attacked. Upon the other hand, if
England believed that Russia and France had declared war upon Germany
and Austria, there was little probability of her intervention. For
these reasons it was important that Germany and Austria should impress
both England and Italy that their purposes were sincerely pacific and
that on the other hand they should so clearly provoke Russia and
France that those nations would declare war.

If the reader will keep this Janus-faced policy steadily in mind,
he will understand the apparent inconsistencies in the diplomatic
representations of the German Foreign Office. He will understand why
Germany and Austria, while at times flouting Russia in the most
flagrant manner and refusing her the common courtesies of diplomatic
intercourse, were at the same time giving to England the most emphatic
assurance of pacific intentions.

With this preliminary statement, let the record speak for itself. We
have seen that the first great, and as events proved, fatal obstacle
to peace which Germany interposed was practically contemporaneous with
the issuance of the ultimatum. Germany did not wait for any efforts at
conciliation. On the contrary, it attempted to bar effectually all
such efforts by serving notice upon France, England, and Russia almost
simultaneously with the issuance of the Austrian ultimatum,

that the acts as well as the demands of the Austro-Hungarian
Government cannot but be looked upon as justified;

and the communication concluded:

We strongly desire that the dispute be localized, since any
intervention of any Power on account of the various alliance
obligations would bring consequences impossible to