especial contempt when it addresses him as a "Civilian Chancellor" who has not the slightest influence upon military measures.
On the other hand, the telegram bears witness not only to the submissiveness of Bethmann, who behaves less like a civilian Chancellor than a civilian serf, but also to the shortsightedness and mustiness of his policy, which imagined it could deceive the English, for a few days at least, as to the dangerous character of the Austrian Ultimatum by leaving the Kaiser longer on the Norwegian coast.
Moreover, his calculations based on Poincaré's journey also proved to be mistaken. He had hoped it would delay all decisions on the part of the Entente, and leave Austria a free hand in respect of Serbia beyond July 31st. But Poincaré was in just as great a hurry to get home as William, and, in view of the threatening situation, rightly so. He cancelled his visits and arrived in France on July 29th.
Simultaneously, Austria had been pursuing no less zealously the policy of hoodwinking Europe. The Austrian diplomats, however, treated the matter more bluntly. Since the disclosure of their forgery tricks against Serbia, their reputation for truth was quoted almost as low as the Austrian krone is to-day. They did all honour to this reputation by making the most reassuring asseverations concerning their conciliatory intentions immediately before the delivery of their Ultimatum, which was purposely couched in such brutal terms as to appear unacceptable.
Dumaine, the French Ambassador in Vienna, reported on July 26th:
"Herr Schebeko (Russian Ambassador in Vienna)
