Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/274

 APPENDIX

present work was already in print when I learned the results of the investigations which were undertaken by the Foreign Office during the month of October, at the instance of Herren Montgelas and Schücking, in connection with Bussche's notes on the events of July 5th and 6th in Potsdam.

Although I could no further deal with them in the text, I consider it necessary to state that they do not alter my views of those events.

They show that the Kaiser, on the morning of July 6th, sent for Admiral von Capelle, who was acting as deputy in Tirpitz's absence from Berlin, to come to Potsdam, and informed him of “the strained situation so that he might deliberate on what was to be done.”

In addition, William sent at the same time for a representative of the General Staff. He came in the person of General von Bertrab, who in his communication to the Foreign Office still speaks of the Kaiser as “H.M.” According to a report of Count Waldersee, the Kaiser informed the General, for communication to the Chief of the General Staff—General von Moltke was then at Karlsbad—that he, the Kaiser, had promised the Emperor Francis Joseph “to back him with the German forces, should complications arise out of Austria-Hungary's proposed action against Serbia.” Rh