ted in their effort to get an extension of time, England, France,
and Russia made further attempts to preserve peace by temporarily
arresting military proceedings until further efforts toward
conciliation could be made. Sir Edward Grey proposed to Germany,
France, Russia, and Italy that they should unite in asking Austria and
Servia not to cross the frontier "until we had had time to try and
arrange matters between them," but the German Ambassador read Sir
Edward Grey a telegram that he had received from the German Foreign
Office saying

that his Government had not known beforehand, and had had no
more than other Powers to do with the stiff terms of the
Austrian note to Servia, but that once she had launched that
note, Austria could not draw back. Prince Lichnowsky said,
however, that if what I contemplated was mediation between
Austria and Russia, Austria might be able with dignity to
accept it. He expressed himself as personally favorable to
this suggestion.

It will be noted that Germany thus gave to England, as it had
already given to Russia and France in the most unequivocal terms, a
disclaimer of any responsibility for the Austrian ultimatum, but we
have already seen that when the German Foreign Office prepared its
statement for the German nation, which was circulated in the Reichstag
on August 4th, Germany confessed the insincerity of these assurances
by admitting that before the ultimatum was issued the Austrian
Government had advised the German Foreign Office of its intentions and
asked its opinion and that

we were able to assure our ally most heartily of our
agreement with her view of the situation and to assure her
that any action that she might consider it necessary to take
... would receive our approval.

Here again it is to be noted that the telegram, which the German
Foreign Office sent to Prince Lichnowsky, and which that diplomat
simply read to Sir Edward Grey, is not set forth in the exhibits to
the German _White Paper_.

As we have seen, Germany never, so far as the record discloses, sought
in any way to influence Austria to make this or any concession until
after the Kaiser's return from Norway and then only if we accept the
assurances of its Foreign Office which are not supported by official
documents. Its attitude was shown by the declaration of its
Ambassador at Paris to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, which,
while again