That such a plan was contemplated by the Germans has been for some years past a matter of common knowledge in England; and it has been also a matter of common opinion that the attempt to execute this plan would involve the active resistance of the British forces, to whom the duty was supposed to have been assigned of acting on the left flank of the French opposing the entry of the Germans from Belgian territory.  The plea therefore that has been put forward that the British have now dealt the Germans ‘a felon’s blow’ can only be put forward by persons who are either ignorant or heedless of what has been a matter of casual conversation all over England these last three years; and Sir Edward Grey himself was so convinced that the German Government knew what the consequences of a violation of Belgian neutrality would be that he informed Sir Francis Bertie on July 31st that the ’German Government do not expect our neutrality’.[9] There has been no secret about it whatever.  It is incredible that the excitement and surprise of the Imperial Chancellor on the receipt of the ultimatum of August 4th should have been genuine, seeing that it involves miscalculation or misinformation entirely incompatible with what we know of the thoroughness of German methods.  At the time of the Agadir crisis the military situation was the same, and the German War Office knew quite well what our part would then have been.  Surprise at such action on our part in 1914 is little else than comedy, and can only have been expressed in order to throw the blame of German aggression on to the shoulders of Great Britain.

This argument that Great Britain has taken the aggressive falls to the ground entirely when it is confronted with the hard facts of chronology.  Far from attacking the Germans, we were so anxious to keep the peace that we were actually three days late in our mobilization to join the French on their left wing; and had it not been for the defence offered by Liege, our scruples would have gravely imperilled the common cause.  For it was not until we were certain that Germany had committed what was tantamount to an act of war against us, by invading the neutral state of Belgium, that we delivered the ultimatum which led to the war.

Notes: 

[Footnote 1:  Cam.  Mod.  Hist. viii 301.]

[Footnote 2:  Ibid. 304.]

[Footnote 3:  Printed by A. Pearce Higgins, The Hague Peace Conferences, pp. 281-9.]

[Footnote 4:  The entire treaty will be found in Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty, vol. ii, pp. 979-98.]

[Footnote 5:  Correspondence respecting the European Crisis, (Cd. 7467), No. 147.  Minister of State, Luxemburg, to Sir E. Grey, Aug. 2.]

[Footnote 6:  Edward Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty, vol. iii, p. 1806, no. 406.  ’Proposal of Prussia of Collective Guarantee by Powers of Neutrality of Luxemburg, London, 7th May, 1867.’]