THE DRAMA OF 365 DAYS
night perhaps, after rivers of blood have been shed, "Did I do right after all?" The reply to the ultimatum has not even yet arrived, and the absence of a reply is equivalent to a declaration of war.
THE THUNDERSTROKE OF FATE
Suddenly one of the little company remembers
something which everybody has hitherto forgotten—the
difference of an hour between the
time in London and the time in Berlin. Midnight
by mid-European time would be eleven o'clock
in London. Germany would naturally understand
the demand for a reply by midnight to
mean midnight in the country of dispatch. Therefore
at eleven o'clock by London time the period
for the reply will expire. It is now approaching
eleven.
As the clock ticks out the remaining minutes the tension becomes terrible. Talk slackens. There are long pauses. The whole burden of the frightful issues involved for Great Britain, France, Belgium, Russia, Germany—for Europe, for the world, for civilization, for religion itself, seems to be gathered up in these last few moments. If war comes now it will be the most frightful tragedy the world has ever witnessed. Twenty millions of dead perhaps, and civil life crippled for a hundred years. Which is it to be, peace
