Petersburg, to try and arrange matters. If
Germany will adopt this view I feel strongly that France and
ourselves should act upon it. Italy would no doubt gladly
co-operate."
[English "White Paper," Nos. 24 and 25.]
To this reasonable request the Imperial German Chancellor replied:
"First and last, we take the ground that this question must be
localized _by the abstention of all the powers from
intervention in it_,"
but added that Germany would, if an Austro-Russian dispute arose,
"co-operate with the other great powers in mediation between
Russia and Austria."
[German "White Paper," Annex 13.]
This distinction is very hard to grasp. It attempts to measure the
difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. Russia's difference with
Austria was over the attempt of the latter to crush Servia. Germany
would not interfere in the latter, but would as an abstract proposition
mediate between Russia and Austria. For all practical purposes the two
things were indistinguishable.
How she "co-operated" we shall presently see.
All that Germany _did_ on July 25, so far as the record discloses, was
to "pass on" England's and Russia's requests for more time, but
subsequent events indicate that it was "passed on" without any
indorsement, for is it credible that Austria would have ignored its
ally's request for more time if it had ever been made?
The Austrian Foreign Minister, having launched the ultimatum, absented
himself from the capital, but the Russian Minister at Vienna, as already
stated, succeeded in submitting this most reasonable request verbally to
the Acting Foreign Minister, who simply said that he would submit it to
Count Berchtold, _but that he could predict with assurance a categorical
refusal_.
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