be
misled by the friendly tone of our conversation--which I hoped would
continue--into thinking that we should stand aside.

He said that he quite understood this, but he asked whether I meant that
we should, under certain circumstances, intervene?

I replied that I did not wish to say that, or to use anything that was
like a threat or an attempt to apply pressure by saying that, if things
became worse, we should intervene. There would be no question of our
intervening if Germany was not involved, or even if France was not
involved. But we knew very well that, if the issue did become such that
we thought British interests required us to intervene, we must intervene
at once, and the decision would have to be very rapid, just as the
decisions of other Powers had to be. I hoped that the friendly tone of
our conversations would continue as at present, and that I should be
able to keep as closely in touch with the German Government in working
for peace. But if we failed in our efforts to keep the peace, and if the
issue spread so that it involved practically every European interest, I
did not wish to be open to any reproach from him that the friendly tone
of all our conversations had misled him or his Government into supposing
that we should not take action, and to the reproach that, if they had
not been so misled, the course of things might have been different.

The German Ambassador took no exception to what I had said; indeed, he
told me that it accorded with what he had already given in Berlin as his
view of the situation.

I am, &c.

E. GREY.

No. 98.

_Sir E. Goschen to Sir Edward Grey.--(Received July 30.)_

(Telegraphic.) _Berlin, July_ 30, 1914.

Secretary of State informs me that immediately on receipt of Prince
Lichnowsky's telegram recording his last conversation with you he asked
Austro-Hungarian Government whether they would be willing to accept
mediation on basis of occupation by Austrian troops of Belgrade or some
other point and issue their conditions from there. He has up till now
received no reply, but he fears Russian mobilisation against Austria
will have increased difficulties, as Austria-Hungary, who has as yet
only mobilised against Servia, will probably find it necessary also
against Russia. Secretary of State says if you can succeed in getting
Russia to agree to above basis for an arrangement and in persuading her
in the meantime to take no steps which might b