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 war. Wangenheim had said that the conflict would be a short one and that Sedan Day would be celebrated in Paris. But on August 5th, I called at his embassy and found him more than usually agitated and serious. Baroness Wangenheim, a tall, handsome woman, was sitting in the room reading her mother's memoirs of the war of 1870. Both regarded the news from England as almost a personal grievance, and what impressed me most was Wangenheim's utter failure to understand England's motives. "It's mighty poor politics on her part!" he exclaimed over and over again. His attitude was precisely the same as that of Bethmann-Hollweg with the "scrap of paper."

I was out for a stroll on August 26th, and happened to meet the German Ambassador. He began to talk as usual about the German victories in France, repeating, as was now his habit, his prophecy that the German armies would be in Paris within a week. The deciding factor in this war, he added, would be the Krupp artillery. "And remember that this time," he said, "we are making war. And we shall make it rücksichtslos (without any consideration). We shall not be hampered as we were in 1870. Then Queen Victoria, the Czar, and Francis Joseph interfered and persuaded us to spare Paris. But there is no one to interfere now. We shall move to Berlin all the Parisian art treasures that belong to the state, just as Napoleon took Italian art works to France."

It is quite evident that the battle of the Marne saved Paris from the fate of Louvain.

So confidently did Wangenheim expect an immediate victory that he began to discuss the terms of peace. Germany would demand of France, he said, after