t. Petersburg should be
furnished with full powers to continue discussions with the Russian
Minister for Foreign Affairs,

who was very willing to advise Servia to yield all that
could be fairly asked of her as an independent Power.

The only reply to this reasonable suggestion was that it would be
submitted to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.[33]

[Footnote 33: English _White Paper_, No. 56.]

On the same day the German Ambassador at Paris called upon the
French Foreign Office and "_strongly insisted on the exclusion
of all possibility of mediation or a conference_"[34]; and yet
contemporaneously the Imperial German Chancellor was advising London
that he had

started the efforts towards mediation in Vienna, immediately
in the way desired by Sir Edward Grey, and had further
communicated to the Austrian Foreign Minister the wish of
the Russian Foreign Minister for a direct talk in Vienna.

[Footnote 34: Russian _Orange Paper_, No. 34.]

What hypocrisy! In the formal German defense, the German Foreign
Office, after stating its conviction

that an act of mediation could not take into consideration
the Austro-Servian conflict, which was purely an
Austro-Hungarian affair,

claimed that Germany had transmitted Sir Edward Grey's further
suggestion to Vienna, in which Austro-Hungary was urged

either to agree to accept the Servian answer as sufficient
or to look upon it as a basis for further conversations;

but the Austro-Hungarian Government--playing the role of the wicked
partner of the combination--"in full appreciation of our mediatory
activity" (so says the German _White Paper_ with sardonic humor),
replied to this proposition that, coming after the opening of
hostilities, "_it was too late_."

Can it be fairly questioned that if Germany had done something more
than merely "transmit" these wise and pacific suggestions, Austria
would have complied with the suggestions of its powerful ally or that
Austria would have suspended its military operations if Germany had
given any intimation of such a wish?

On the following day, July 28th, the door was further closed on any
possibility of compromise, when the Austrian Minister for Foreign
Affairs

said, quietly, but firmly, _that no discussion could be
accepted on the basis of the Servian note_; that war would
be declared to-day, and that the well-known pacific
character of the Emperor