Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/203

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The Imperial Chancellor, it is true, did not abdicate without a struggle.

While the war was still on we were told of this, among other things, by a pamphlet, whose author concealed himself under the pseudonym, “Junius alter,” and who held the views of the war-party. There it is said:

“Regarding the general activity of the Chancellor immediately before the outbreak of war, one gets, as a general impression, the fact that his endeavour up to the last hour—regardless of the military consequences—was directed towards preventing at any price the outbreak of this war, which had long become inevitable. In vain did Chiefs of the General Staff, War Ministers and Admiralty authorities, press for the order to mobilize: they succeeded, it is true, in half convincing the Kaiser on Thursday (July 30th) of the irrefutable necessity of this measure, so that in the afternoon Berlin police organs and the Lokal-Anzeiger already announced mobilization. But the intervention of Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg succeeded in withdrawing the decisive and saving [!—K.] order. Still he held fast and unwavering to his hope that with English help he must succeed in bringing about an agreement between Vienna and St. Petersburg, and again two precious days were lost, which have cost us not only a part of Alsace, but also rivers of blood. In the same way, August 1st would have passed unused, if the highest military authorities had not on that day finally declared that if the order to mobilize were further delayed, they would be no longer able to bear the heavy responsibility