Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/116

112 habitual mendacity" are quoted in the White Book of June, 1919, as we have already seen. Perhaps it was at the end of July, 1914, that he first came to this conclusion.

When the Berlin Foreign Office declared it "had exercised no influence whatever on the contents of the Austrian Note, and had had just as little opportunity as other Powers to take up any attitude in regard to it before publication"—i.e., before July 24th—it is clear from what has hitherto been communicated that it was uttering a conscious untruth. The German Government had known exactly that the Note would be framed in such a manner that no State that valued its self-determination would be able to accept it. The German Government was not only aware of this intention of Austria, but approved and encouraged it.

Afterwards, indeed, the Foreign Office expressed itself more cautiously concerning its knowledge of the Note. It denied only the knowledge of its wording. It had cognizance of this, it declared, no sooner than the other Powers—i.e., only after the Note had already been delivered in Belgrade.

Not even this excuse holds water.

Already on July 21st Tschirschky received a copy of the Note. He did not telegraph it to Berlin, perhaps so that the secret of the code-key might not be jeopardized.

He transmitted the Note by letter. It reached the Foreign Office, therefore, only on the afternoon of July 22nd. The other Powers, however, did not receive the Note until the 24th; so even if we take into account, not the contents of the Note, but only its final wording, it is false to say that the Note was not known to Germany sooner than to the other Great Powers.