keeps his head and looks the facts in the face. That man is Sazonoff,
the Russian Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He keeps steadily trying to
make Sir Edward Grey face the inevitable. He says and reiterates, in
effect, "You know very well that you cannot keep out of a European war.
You know you are pledged to fight Germany if Germany attacks France. You
know that your arrangments for the fight are actually made; that already
the British army is commanded by a Franco-British Council of War; that
there is no possible honourable retreat for you. You know that this old
man in Austria, who would have been superannuated years ago if he had
been an exciseman, is resolved to make war on Servia, and sent that
silly forty-eight hours ultimatum when we were all out of town so that
he could begin fighting before we could get back to sit on his head. You
know that he has the Jingo mob of Vienna behind him. You know that if he
makes war, Russia must mobilize. You know that France is bound to come
in with us as you are with France. You know that the moment we mobilize,
Germany, the old man's ally, will have only one desperate chance of
victory, and that is to overwhelm our ally, France, with one superb rush
of her millions, and then sweep back and meet us on the Vistula. You
know that nothing can stop this except Germany remonstrating with
Austria, and insisting on the Servian case being dealt with by an
international tribunal and not by war. You know that Germany dares not
do this, because her alliance with Austria is her defence against the
Franco-Russian alliance, and that she does not want to do it in any
case, because the Kaiser naturally has a strong class prejudice against
the blowing up of Royal personages by irresponsible revolutionists, and
thinks nothing too bad for Servia after the assassination of the
Archduke. There is just one chance of avoiding Armageddon: a slender
one, but worth trying. You averted war in the Algeciras crisis, and
again in the Agadir crisis, by saying you would fight. Try it again. The
Kaiser is stiffnecked because he does not believe you are going to fight