Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/218

214 moment when the party declaring war is informed that the other side has received the declaration.

Did the Russians really cross the frontier before 6 p.m.—i.e., the time at which the declaration of war was actually made in St. Petersburg? The German Memorandum wants this to be believed when it says that the violation of the frontier took place " by the afternoon."

To decide whether Russia really began the war, it would be of the utmost importance to know exactly the details of the violation of the frontier. If somewhere or other two or three Cossacks crossed the frontier of their own accord, this was not yet an incident which justified talk of a beginning of the war "by Russia." Such incidents happen in peace time.

How such incidents are treated is shown, for example, by a Note sent to Berlin by Viviani on August 2nd, protesting against violation of the frontier, said to have been committed by German troops at different parts of the French borders. The villages and troops concerned were given exactly. It did not strike Viviani to do more than offer a protest, nor to say " Germany has begun the war against France." But it seems that on August 1st, on the Russian side there was not the slightest violation of the frontier—at least, not before the declaration of war.

The German Memorandum speaks of "afternoon," and lays special stress on this indication of time, which is in striking contrast to its indefiniteness. In view of the importance of the matter, it surely would have been advisable to give the exact hour of the violation of the frontier.

That if the German frontier really was crossed by