hat if peace could be
preserved, England stood ready to join with Germany in an alliance
which would have insured all the great European nations against any
aggressive war on the part of either of them.

It was, in fact, the "United States of Europe" in embryo. It
was the one solution possible for these long-continued European
wars--essentially civil wars--namely an alliance by the six
great Powers,--a merger of the Triple Alliance and the Triple
Entente,--whereby any aggressive act on the part of any one of them
would be prevented by the others. What an infinite pity that the
imprudent act of the Kaiser, and the mad folly of his advisers
probably made a fair trial of this most hopeful plan for the
unification of Europe an impossibility for another century!

In order that Germany should have no excuse whatever to declare war on
account of Russia's preparations, the Russian Foreign Minister saw the
German Ambassador in St. Petersburg on July 30th, _and then offered on
behalf of Russia to stop all military preparations_, provided that
Austria would simply recognize as an abstract principle that the
Servian question had assumed the character of a question of European
interest. As this proposal fully met the demands of the Kaiser with
respect to the cessation by Russia of military preparations, the
conversation as reported by the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg
to Sir Edward Grey on July 30th deserves quotation _in extenso_:

French Ambassador and I visited Minister for Foreign Affairs
this morning. His Excellency said that German Ambassador had
told him yesterday afternoon that German Government were
willing to guarantee that Servian integrity would be
respected by Austria. To this he had replied that this might
be so, but nevertheless Servia would become an Austrian
vassal, just as, in similar circumstances, Bokhara had
become a Russian vassal. There would be a revolution in
Russia if she were to tolerate such a state of affairs.

M. Sazonof told us that absolute proof was in possession of
Russian Government, that Germany was making military and
naval preparations against Russia--more particularly in the
direction of the Gulf of Finland.

German Ambassador had a second interview with Minister for
Foreign Affairs at 2 A.M., when former completely broke down
on seeing that war was inevitable. He appealed to M. Sazonof
to make so