29th July 1914

[michaeldr]

29th July 1914

On this day

First Fleet put to sea from Portland

[Guest Kieron Hoyle]

Extract from German White Book (political correspondance) July 29th 1914.

Telegram of the Chancellor to the Imperial Ambassador at Paris.

News recieved here regarding French preparations of war multiplies from hour to hour. I request that You call the attention of the French Government to this and accentuate that such measures would call forth counter-measures on our part. We should have to proclaim threatening state of war, and while this would not mean a call for the reserves or mobilisation, yet the tension would be aggravated. We continue to hope for the preservation of peace.

[Guest Kieron Hoyle]

Another diplomatic letter from Edward Grey, this one seems to show the hopelessness of the situation by this stage;

Sir Edward Grey to British Ambassador at Berlin, 29th July 1914

After speaking to the German Ambassador this afternoon about the European situation, I said that I wished to say to hime, in a quite private and friendly way, something that was on my mind. The situation was very grave.While it was restricted to the issues at present actually involved we had no thought of actually interfering in it. But if Germany became involved in it, and then France, the issue might be so great that it would involve all European interests; and I did not wish him to be misled by the friendly tone of our conversation - which I hoped would continue - into thinking we should stand aside.

He said that he quite understood this, but asked whether I meant that we should, under certain circumstances, intervene?

I replied that I did not wish to say that, or to use anything that was like a threat . . .

There would be no question of intervening if Germany was not involved, or even if France were not involved. But we knew very well that that if the issue did become such that we thought British interests required us to intervene, we must intervene at once, and the decision would have to be vey rapid...

I've only recently become interested in the politics surrounding the outbreak of the war (having been forced to write a number of essays on it!) but now realise how important an understanding of this period, especially the July crisis, is to being able to put the war into the context of the period.