Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/212

208 This declaration of war was accompanied by the following telegram to Pourtalès:

""If the Russian Government does not give a satisfactory reply to our demand, Your Excellency will hand to them the following declaration to-day at 5 p.m. (Central European time).""

In the declaration itself a sentence was given in two different versions, of which the one which was in keeping with Sasonow's answer was to be chosen.

What had been going on in St. Petersburg in the meanwhile?

Pourtalès had communicated in St. Petersburg the Chancellor's announcement that Germany must mobilize if Russia did not demobilize against Germany and Austria. He telegraphed on August 1st, at 1 a.m., from St. Petersburg, regarding this:

"I have just carried out your instructions at midnight. M. Sasonow again pointed to the technical impossibility of stopping military measures, and endeavoured once more to convince me that we were exaggerating the importance of the Russian mobilization, which was not to be compared with ours. He urgently begged me to call Your Excellency's attention to the fact that the pledge given on the Tsar's word of honour in to-day's telegram from H.M. the Emperor Nicholas to H.M. the Emperor and King, ought to satisfy us regarding Russia's intentions, and pointed out that the Tsar did not by any means bind himself in all eventualities to refrain from warlike acts, but only so long as there was still a prospect of settling Austro-