At the present moment the situation looks about as black as it can be. Apparently news has been received in official quarters that such steps of mobilisation have been decided upon in Russia as will make it necessary for Germany under her treaty with Austria to put her own army on a war footing.
In the evening papers, to which this intelligence was not known, a good deal of importance is attached to the fact that the telegraphic communications which crossed one another had passed between the Emperor William and the Tsar. The contents of these messages have not been made known, but though doubtless both of them are designed to ward off at the last moment the danger of a general European war there are signs that in quarters acquainted with their tenor no great trust is placed in their efficacy to effect this purpose.
The impression one gets from conversations with persons of authority here is that Germany is really drifting into war against her will. Among those who have been in close touch with her leading officialdom during the last few days there is practically no doubt as to the sincerity of her desire for peace, though by the very nature of things not many signs of it have appeared on the surface.
Her Government greatly regrets that the idea should have got abroad in England that her inability to accept Sir Edward Grey's scheme of mediation was expressed in a cold or unsympathetic manner. On the contrary, I am assured that the British Foreign Secretary's step was cordially welcomed as an indication of England's anxiety to maintain peace, and was only rejected because Germany under her obligations to Austria could not participate in any measures of mediation which were unacceptable to her ally.
