tate of feverish anxiety, it is
difficult to understand why the German Foreign Office should have felt
that the very natural return of the Kaiser to his Capitol at one of
the greatest crises in the history of his country and of the world
should be regarded as giving rise to "speculation and excitement,"
especially as the President of the French Republic was hastening back
to Paris.

The Under-Secretary of State's deprecation of the Kaiser's return
suggests the possibility that the German Foreign Office, which had
already made substantial progress in precipitating the crisis, did not
wish the Kaiser's return for fear that he might again exert, as in the
Moroccan crisis, his great influence in the interests of peace.

It felt that it had the matter well in hand, but never before did a
foreign office blunder so flagrantly and with such disastrous results.
From beginning to end every anticipation that the German Chancellor
had was falsified by events. This discreditable and blundering chapter
of German diplomacy is enough to make the bones of the sagacious
Bismarck turn in his grave.

As appears from Sir M. de Bunsen's dispatch to Sir Edward Grey, dated
July 26th, it was the confident belief of the German diplomats that
"Russia will keep quiet during the chastisement of Servia," and that
"France too was not at all in a position for facing the war."[58]

[Footnote 58: English _White Paper_, No. 32.]

When the full history of this imbroglio is written, it will probably
be found that the extensive labor troubles in St. Petersburg, the
military unpreparedness of Russia and France, and the political schism
in England, then verging to civil war, had deeply impressed both
Vienna and Berlin that the dual alliance could impose its will upon
Europe with reference to Servia without any serious risk of a European
war.

While for these reasons Germany and Austria may not have regarded such
a war or the intervention of England therein as probable, yet the dual
alliance recognized from the outset such a possibility. The
uncertainty as to the Kaiser's attitude with respect to such a war may
therefore explain the "regret," with which the German Foreign Office
witnessed his sudden and uninvited return.

On his return the diplomatic negotiations, which had commenced with an
_allegro con brio_, for a time changed under the baton of the Imperial
Conductor into a more peaceful _andante_, until the Kaiser made one of
his characteristical