Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/236

232 bombed by enemy aeroplanes before and after the outbreak of war. All statements and newspaper reports to this effect have proved to be false."

About this the Berlin Foreign Office had had earlier information. On August 2nd, 1914, the Prussian Ambassador in Munich sent the following message to the Imperial Chancellor, which is marked as arriving in the Foreign Office on August 3rd, at 3 p.m.: ""The military report, also circulated here by the Süddeutsche Korrespondenzbureau, that French aeroplanes dropped bombs to-day in the neighbourhood of Niirnberg has so far found no confirmation. Only known aeroplanes have been seen, which were obviously not military ones. The dropping of bombs is not confirmed, still less, of course, that the machines were French.""

It was primarily on these bombs from aeroplanes that the justification of the German declaration of war delivered in Paris was based. It was in every respect a complete invention.