Paper 121, (English "White Book,") British Ambassador in Berlin to Sir
Edward Grey under date of July 31, 1914:
He (the German Secretary of State) again assured me that both
the Emperor William, at the request of the Emperor of Russia,
and the German Foreign Office had even up till last night been
urging Austria to show willingness to continue
discussions--and telegraphic and telephonic communications
from Vienna had been of a promising nature--_but Russia's
mobilization had spoiled everything_.
I could repeat, _ad infinitum_, quotations from these books to show
that Russia not only wanted this war if Austria wanted to punish Servia
for her misdeeds, but started it against the protest of Germany, and
started it, I sincerely believe, largely because encouraged by Great
Britain.
_England_: The letter written by the Belgian Charge at St. Petersburg to
his Government on July 30, 1914, which letter was published in THE NEW
YORK TIMES on Oct. 7, 1914, and which letter, nearly a month before, had
been published abroad and never disavowed by the Belgian Government,
states distinctly on the part of Belgium:
_What is incontestable is that Germany has striven here, as
well as at Vienna, to find some means of avoiding a general
conflict.
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