And, in fact, there is good reason to suppose that
both he and the German Foreign Office did cherish that hope or delusion.
They had bluffed Russia off in 1908. They had the dangerous idea that
they might bluff her off again. In this connection Baron Beyens records
a conversation with his colleague, M. Bollati, the Italian Ambassador
at Berlin, in which the latter took the view that
at Vienna as at Berlin they were persuaded that Russia, in spite of
the official assurances exchanged quite recently between the Tsar and
M. Poincare, as to the complete preparations of the armies of the two
allies, was not in a position to sustain a European war and would not
dare to plunge into so perilous an adventure.
Baron Beyens continues:--
At Berlin the opinion that Russia was unable to face a European war
prevailed not only in the official world and in society, but among
all the manufacturers who specialized in the construction of armaments.
M. Krupp, the best qualified among them to express an opinion, announced
on the 28th July, at a table next mine at the Hotel Bristol, that the
Russian artillery was neither good nor complete, while that of the German
army had never been of such superior quality. It would be folly on the
part of Russia, the great maker of guns concluded, to dare to make war
on Germany and Austria in these conditions.
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