s
frontier, and ten days later I found him at Berne.

M. Dumaine, French Ambassador, stayed on till the 12th August. On the
previous day he had been instructed to demand his passport on the ground
that Austrian troops were being employed against France. This point was
not fully cleared up when I left Vienna. On the 9th August, M. Dumaine
had received from Count Berchtold the categorical declaration that no
Austrian troops were being moved to Alsace. The next day this statement
was supplemented by a further one, in writing, giving Count Berchtold's
assurance that not only had no Austrian troops been moved actually to
the French frontier, but that none were moving from Austria in a
westerly direction into Germany in such a way that they might replace
German troops employed at the front. These two statements were made by
Count Berchtold in reply to precise questions put to him by M. Dumaine,
under instructions from his Government. The French Ambassador's
departure was not attended by any hostile demonstration, but his
Excellency before leaving had been justly offended by a harangue made by
the Chief Burgomaster of Vienna to the crowd assembled before the steps
of the town hall, in which he assured the people that Paris was in the
throes of a revolution, and that the President of the Republic had been
assassinated.

The British declaration of war on Germany was made known in Vienna by
special editions of the newspapers about midday on the 5th August. An
abstract of your speeches in the House of Commons, and also of the
German Chancellor's speech in the Reichstag of the 4th April, appeared
the same day, as well as the text of the German ultimatum to Belgium.
Otherwise few details of the great events of these days transpired. The
"Neue Freie Presse" was violently insulting towards England. The
"Fremdenblatt" was not offensive, but little or nothing was said in the
columns of any Vienna paper to explain that the violation of Belgian
neutrality had left His Majesty's Government no alternative but to take
part in the war.

The declaration of Italian neutrality was bitterly felt in Vienna, but
scarcely mentioned in the newspapers.

On the 5th August I had the honour to receive your instruction of the
previous day preparing me for the immediate outbreak of war with
Germany, but adding that, Austria being understood to be not yet at that
date at war with Russia and France, you did not desire me to ask for my
passport or to mak