Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/250

246 "in the main," correct, and not the product of the heated imagination of a few excited frontier guards.

Then the case in question was, primarily, a violation not of Belgian but of Dutch neutrality.

But, further, what, according to the report, had the frontier guards seen? Twelve automobiles with eighty occupants in Prussian officers' uniform. One of them who got out and stepped across the frontier was received, strange to say, not, like the Captain of Kopenick, with respect, in view of his uniform, but with armed opposition. At the same time, the guards at once observed that the eighty men in the cars had no right to wear their uniform. But they also knew, without further investigation, that the disguised men were not, say, Dutchmen, but Frenchmen—nay, French officers, who had driven through Belgium to Holland, and then to the German frontier. To get through Belgium and Holland without attracting notice, these gentlemen, instead of travelling in mufti, had obviously preferred to don Prussian uniform!

The whole story was just as senseless as that of the French doctor (reported on the same day), who, with two other Frenchmen, was caught at Metz in the act of poisoning wells with cholera bacilli. Later on, they no longer dared to make use of this story, but on August 2nd Jagow managed not only to take it seriously but even to make it the subject of diplomatic action. He telegraphed the story of the cholera bacilli to Rome with the order to circulate it in the local press. And to the Ambassador in London and the Ministers in Brussels and the Hague he sent the following telegram:

"Please inform Government there that eighty French officers in Prussian officers' uniform, with