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(Transi.: ... without touching figure in the English proposalher rights as a sovereign state which merely provided that theand her independence . . .) territory occupied should "be

"evacuated when Austria was

"satisfied." —

"..... la Russie s'engage à

"conserver son attitude ex-pectante".

(Transi.: . . . Russia bindsherself to maintain her expectingattitude.)

(Which attitude had till thenconsisted in pushing on warlikepreparations to the point ofgeneral mobilisation.)

It is this Russian counter-proposal, worthy to rank amongthe classical examples of naïveté, which the French Governmentrepresents to its diplomatic agents the French Parliament, and thecivilized world as the acceptance "of the English proposals".These proposals, we know, included the cessation of militarypreparations.

Finally, M. Sazonof on the 31 st of July, while presentinghis famous counter-proposal to the English Ambassador, expresslyconfirmed that Russia did not for a moment entertain the ideaof stopping her military preparations. He declared that it was "of"course impossible to inhibit a mobilisation which was already in"progress."

No misrepresentation, be it ever so frivolous, can thereforeobscure the fact that Russia rushed her general mobilisation,without previously informing either her adversaries or her alliesof this decision, while Germany delayed her own defence tothe limits of selfpreservation. And this precisely at the momentwhen the success of German representations at Vienna was raisinghopes that peace would be preserved. The leading circlesof Russia have wanted war, and they have striven forit with enforced brutality as soon as the outlook of apacific solution had appeared.

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