r.

EXHIBIT 15.

Telegram of the Chancellor to the Imperial Ambassador in London on July
27th, 1914.

We have at once started the mediation proposal in Vienna in the sense as
desired by Sir Edward Grey. We have communicated besides to Count
Berchtold the desire of M. Sasonow for a direct parley with Vienna.

EXHIBIT 16.

Telegram of the Imperial Ambassador at Vienna to the Chancellor on July
28th, 1914.

Count Berchtold requests me to express to Your Excellency his thanks for
the communication of the English mediation proposal. He states, however,
that after the opening of hostilities by Servia and the subsequent
declaration of war, the step appears belated.

EXHIBIT 17.

Telegram of the Chancellor to the Imperial Ambassador at Paris on July
29th, 1914.

News received here regarding French preparations of war multiplies from
hour to hour. I request that You call the attention of the French
Government to this and accentuate that such measures would call forth
counter-measures on our part. We should have to proclaim threatening
state of war (drohende Kriegsgefahr), and while this would not mean a
call for the reserves or mobilization, yet the tension would be
aggravated. We continue to hope for the preservation of peace.

EXHIBIT 18.

Telegram of the Military Attache at St. Petersburg to H. M. the Kaiser
on July 30th, 1914.

Prince Troubetzki said to me yesterday, after causing Your Majesty's
telegram to be delivered at once to Czar Nicolas: Thank God that a
telegram of Your Emperor has come. He has just told me the telegram has
made a deep impression upon the Czar but as the mobilization against
Austria had already been ordered and Sasonow had convinced His Majesty
that it was no longer possible to retreat, His Majesty was sorry he
could not change it any more. I then told him that the guilt for the
measureless consequences lay at the door of premature mobilization
against Austria-Hungary which after all was involved merely in a local
war with Servia, for Germany's answer was clear and the responsibility
rested upon Russia which ignored Austria-Hungary's assurance that it had
no intentions of territorial gain in Servia. Austria-Hungary mobilized
against Servia and not against Russia and there was no ground for an
immediate action on the part of Russia. I further added that in Germany
one could not understand any more Russia's phrase that "she could not
desert her brethren in Servia", after the ho