Then on the 28th of June occurred that frightful assassination by Servians of the successor to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Francis Ferdinand.  The Greater Servia propaganda of action had put aside the man who was especially hated in Servia as the powerful exponent of Austro-Hungarian unity and strength.  This murder is the real cause of the present European war.  Austria-Hungary was able to prove to a shuddering world, a few days after the murder, that it had been prepared and planned systematically, yea, that the Servian Government had been cognizant of the plan.  The immense extent of the Servian revolutionary organization in the provinces of Southern Austria, the warlike spirit of the Servians and its instigation by Russia and France, imposed upon the Vienna Government the duty to insist upon quiet and peace within and without its borders.  It addressed to the Servian Government a number of demands which aimed at nothing but the suppression of the anti-Austrian propaganda.  Servia was on the point of accepting the demand, when there arrived a dispatch from St. Petersburg, and Servia mobilized.  Then Austria, too, had to act.  Thus arose the Austro-Servian war.  But a few days later the Russian Army was being mobilized, and the mobilization was begun also in France.  At the same time, as the German “White Book” clearly proves, the diplomacy of Russia and France asserted its great love of peace and tried to prolong the negotiations in order to gain time, for, as is well known, the Russian mobilization proceeds slowly.  Germany was waiting, and again and again the German Emperor tried to win the Czar over to the preservation of peace, for he considered him sincere and thought him his personal friend.  Emperor William was to be cruelly disappointed.  He finally saw himself obliged to proclaim a state of war for Germany.  But at that time the Russian and French armies were already in a state of complete mobilization.  At that time The London Daily Graphic wrote the following article, which shows how an English paper that was only slightly friendly to Germany judged of the situation at that time: 

     The Mobilization Mystery.

A general mobilization has been ordered in Russia, and Germany has responded by proclaiming martial law throughout the empire.  We are now enabled to measure exactly the narrow and slippery ledge which still stands between Europe and the abyss of Armageddon.  Will the Russian order be acted upon in the provinces adjoining the German frontier?  If it is, then the work of the peacemakers is at an end, for Germany is bound to reply with a mobilization of her own armed forces, and a rush to the frontiers on all sides must ensue.  We confess that we are unable to understand the action of Russia in view of the resumption of the negotiations with Austria.  It is not likely that these negotiations have been resumed unless both sides think that there is yet a chance of agreement, but if this is the case, why the mobilization