tions, and this is emphasized in the proclamations. There is, he said, still room to continue the negotiations on the basis of Sir E. Grey's proposal, to which France had agreed, and which it is warmly championing.
"Care has been taken to prevent encounters on the frontier by leaving a zone of ten kilometres between the French troops and the border. He could not give up hope of peace."
If Germany had accompanied her mobilization with similar assurances, negotiations could have really gone on and finally ended peacefully. Had not Russia and Austria mobilized in 1913 without coming to blows? We have seen that one of the reasons for William considering the war against Serbia necessary, although the Serbian answer had removed every ground for it, lay in the fact that Austria was now mobilizing for the third time. If this happened again without the "army"—i.e., the officers —seeing their "military honour" satisfied it would have evil consequences.
On August 1st Tirpitz considered the declaration of war an error. Moltke placed "no value" on it that day, as Tirpitz observes.
Mobilization therefore did not necessarily mean war. Demobilization could still follow it at the last moment without this bloody result, if people came to an understanding meanwhile.
In the message to St. Petersburg of July 31st, in which Bethmann held out the prospect of Germany's mobilizing, he complained that Russia was mobilizing, although negotiations were still going on. Austria, however, in spite of the negotiations, had not only mobilized, but declared war on Serbia and bombarded
