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174 Grey's hint, which every trained politician with any degree of judgment must have foreseen, which Prince Henry also had expected when King George told him he would endeavour to remain neutral as long as possible. Already in the report of July 18th of the Bavarian Councillor of Legation, Schön, which has been published by Eisner, it had been stated:

""A war between the Dual Alliance and Triple Entente would be little welcome to England at the present moment, if only on account of the situation in Ireland. If it comes to that, however, according to the opinion held here, we would, nevertheless, find our English cousins on the enemy's side, as England fears that France, in the event of defeat, would sink to the level of a second-rate power, and thus the 'balance of power' would be destroyed, the maintenance of which England considers imperative in her own interest.""

William had quite forgotten this in his political calculations, and he had interpreted the striving after neutrality as far as possible at the stage of mediation, which Grey held in prospect, as a binding promise of neutrality in all circumstances, even in the event of a war against France; nay, he went so far as to regard neutrality as an obligation on England's part blindly to support German policy in St. Petersburg and Paris.

A more senseless policy can hardly be imagined.

The next day William expressed himself in even greater detail on the English warning, in connection with a report from Herr von Pourtalès in St. Petersburg, of a conversation with Sasonow.

The Russian Minister endeavoured to persuade the