Munich paper, four hundred miles away.

The last and supreme lie in Bethmann-Hollweg's speech is the most
insidious of all. The Chancellor sketched a truly moving picture of
Germany beseeching Austria to find a _modus vivendi_ between herself and
Russia. Germany claims that up to the last minute of the last fatal week
she was working for peace. Bethmann-Hollweg insinuates that on July 31st
a last decision was to have fallen in Vienna; he does not tell us what
that decision would have been, but he maintains that Russia's military
preparations forestalled it and so the decision was never arrived at.
Thus Russia destroyed the last hope of peace; the Chancellor falsely led
his hearers to believe that it was a certain hope and that the European
peace would have been saved.

It is useless to choose one's words in writing of German diplomacy. This
is a base lie. Austria arrived at her decision previous to sending her
ultimatum to Serbia. This momentous decision was, that Russia had no
right to intervene in the quarrel, which means, in other words, that
Russia had absolutely no right to speak or use her influence in a crisis
affecting the destiny of the Slavonic peoples, neither had Russia any
right to move in a crisis which would disturb the balance of power in
the Balkans and in Europe. It was merely these rights which Russia
throughout the crisis endeavoured to establish; if they had been
recognized there would have been no war.

In order to prove what the Austro-German standpoint was, and that from
first to last never changed, reference must be made to the Austrian Red
Book.[27] On page 24: Sir Edward Grey was informed by Count Mensdorf on
July 24th, "and I (Mensdorf) repeated to him (Grey) many times, that we
should stick to that view."