Sir Edward Grey adds that he told the German Ambassador that he had
learned that Count Berchtold, the Austrian Foreign Minister,

"in speaking to the Italian Ambassador in Vienna, had
deprecated the suggestion that the situation was grave, but
had said that it should be cleared up."

The German Minister then replied that it would be desirable "if Russia
could act as a mediator with regard to Servia," so that the first
suggestion of Russia playing the part of the peacemaker came from the
German Ambassador in London. Sir Edward Grey then adds that he told the
German Ambassador that he

"assumed that the Austrian Government would not do anything
until they had first disclosed to the public their case
against Servia, founded presumably upon what they had
discovered at the trial,"

and the German Ambassador assented to this assumption.

[English "White Paper," No. 1.]

Either the German Ambassador was then deceiving Sir Edward Grey, on the
theory that the true function of an Ambassador is "to lie for his
country," or the thunderbolt was being launched with such secrecy that
even the German Ambassador in England did not know what was then in
progress.

The British Ambassador at Vienna reports to Sir Edward Grey: