As to the forbearance of Great Britain at the crisis, few words are needed.  In earlier times the seizure of British ships and their cargoes (August 1) would have led to a rupture.  Clearly, Sir Edward Grey and his colleagues clung to peace as long as possible.  The wisdom of his procedure at one or two points has been sharply impugned.  Critics have said that early in the crisis he should have empowered Sir George Buchanan, our ambassador at Petrograd, to join Russia and France in a declaration of our resolve to join them in case of war[560].  But (1) no British Minister is justified in committing his country to such a course of action. (2) The terms of the Ententes did not warrant it. (3) A menace to Germany and Austria would, by the terms of the Triple Alliance, have compelled Italy to join them, and it was clearly the aim of the British Government to avert such a disaster. (4) On July 30 and 31 Grey declared plainly to Germany that she must not count on our neutrality in all cases, and that a Franco-German War (quite apart from the question of Belgium) would probably draw us in[561].

[Footnote 560:  British White Paper, Nos. 6, 24, 99; Russian Orange Book, No. 17.]

[Footnote 561:  British White Paper, Nos. 101, 102, 111, 114, 119.  I dissent from Mr. F.S.  Oliver (Ordeal by Battle, pp. 30-34) on the question discussed above.  For other arguments, see my Origins of the War, pp. 167-9.  The ties binding Roumania to Germany and Austria were looser; but anything of the nature of a general threat to the Central Powers would probably have ranged her too on their side.]

Sir Edward is also charged with not making our intentions clear as to what would happen in case of the violation of the neutrality of Belgium.  But he demanded, both from France and Germany, assurances that they would respect that neutrality; and on August 1 he informed the German ambassador in London of our “very great regret” at the ambiguity of the German reply.  Also, on August 2 the German ambassador at Brussels protested that Belgium was quite safe so far as concerned Germany[562].  When a great Power gives those assurances, it does not improve matters to threaten her with war if she breaks them.  She broke them on August 3; whereupon Grey took the decided action which Haldane had declared in 1912 that we would take.  The clamour raised in Germany as to our intervention being unexpected is probably the result of blind adherence to a preconceived theory and of rage at a “decadent” nation daring to oppose an “invincible” nation.  The German Government of course knew the truth, but its education of public opinion through the Press had become a fine art.  Therefore, at the beginning of the war all Germans believed that France was about to invade Belgium, whereupon they stepped in to save her; that the Eastern Colossus had precipitated the war by its causeless mobilisation (a falsehood which ranged nearly all German Socialists on the side of the Government); that Russia and Servia had planned the dismemberment of Austria; that, consequently, Teutons (and Turks) must fight desperately for national existence in a conflict forced upon them by Russia, Servia, and France, England perfidiously appearing as a renegade to her race and creed.