280 seq.]
[Footnote 5: See "L'Enigme Allemande," p. 96.]
[Footnote 6: Second Belgian Grey Book, No. 8.]
[Footnote 7: Second Belgian Grey Book, No. 52.]
[Footnote 8: Austrian Red Book, No. 28.]
[Footnote 9: See Chapter 14.]
[Footnote 10: "L'Allemagne avant la guerre," p. 301.]
17. _The Responsibility and the Moral_.
It will be seen from this brief account that so far as the published
evidence goes I agree with the general view outside Germany that the
responsibility for the war at the last moment rests with the Powers of
Central Europe. The Austrian ultimatum to Serbia, which there can be
no reasonable doubt was known to and approved by the German Government,
was the first crime. And it is hardly palliated by the hope, which no
well-informed men ought to have entertained, that Russia could be kept
out and the war limited to Austria and Serbia. The second crime was the
German ultimatum to Russia and to France. I have no desire whatever to
explain away or palliate these clear facts. But it was not my object in
writing this pamphlet to reiterate a judgment which must already be that
of all my readers. What I have wanted to do is to set the tragic events of
those few days of diplomacy in their proper place in the whole complex of
international politics. And what I do dispute with full conviction is the
view which seems to be almost universally held in England, that Germany
had been pursuing for years past a policy of war, while all the other
Powers had been pursuing a policy of peace.
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