ted the integrity and neutrality of the Netherlands,
Germany was ready to give His Majesty's Government an assurance that she
would do likewise. It depended upon the action of France what operations
Germany might be forced to enter upon in Belgium, but when the war was
over, Belgian integrity would be respected if she had not sided against
Germany.

His Excellency ended by saying that ever since he had been Chancellor
the object of his policy had been, as you were aware, to bring about an
understanding with England; he trusted that these assurances might form
the basis of that understanding which he so much desired. He had in mind
a general neutrality agreement between England and Germany, though it
was of course at the present moment too early to discuss details, and an
assurance of British neutrality in the conflict which present crisis
might possibly produce, would enable him to look forward to realisation
of his desire.

In reply to his Excellency's enquiry how I thought his request would
appeal to you, I said that I did not think it probable that at this
stage of events you would care to bind yourself to any course of action
and that I was of opinion that you would desire to retain full liberty.

Our conversation upon this subject having come to an end, I communicated
the contents of your telegram of to-day to his Excellency, who expressed
his best thanks to you.

No. 87.

_Sir Edward Grey to Sir F. Bertie_.

Sir, _Foreign Office, July_ 29, 1914.

After telling M. Cambon to-day how grave the situation seemed to be, I
told him that I meant to tell the German Ambassador to-day that he must
not be misled by the friendly tone of our conversations into any sense
of false security that we should stand aside if all the efforts to
preserve the peace, which we were now making in common with Germany,
failed. But I went on to say to M. Cambon that I thought it necessary to
tell him also that public opinion here approached the present difficulty
from a quite different point of view from that taken during the
difficulty as to Morocco a few years ago. In the case of Morocco the
dispute was one in which France was primarily interested, and in which
it appeared that Germany, in an attempt to crush France, was fastening a
quarrel on France on a question that was the subject of a special
agreement between France and us. In the present case the dispute between
Austria and Servia was not one in whi