[Projekat Rastko]

Afterword statement (1918) by Prince Karl Max Lichnowsky, the German Ambassador to Great Britain from 1912-1914

The Question of Responsibility

It is shown by all official publications and is not disaproved by our White Book, which, owing to the poverty of its contents and to its omissions, constitutes a grave indictment against ourselves, that:

1. We encouraged Count Berchtold to attack Serbia, although no German interest was involved and the danger of a World War must have been known to us. Whether we were acquainted with the wording of the ultimatum is completely immaterial.

2. During the period between the 23rd and the 30th of July, 1914, when M. Sazonof emphatically declared that he could not tolerate an attack on Serbia, we rejected the British proposals of mediation, although Serbia, under Russian and British pressure, had accepted almost the whole of the ultimatum, and although an agreement about the two points at issue could easily have been reached and Count Berchtold was even prepared to content himself with the Serbian reply.

3. On the 30th of July, when Count Berchtold showed a disposition to change his course, we sent an ultimatum to St. Petersbourg merely because of the Russian mobilization and though Austria had not been attacked; and on the 31st of July we declared war against the Russians, although the Czar pledged his word that he would not permit a single man to march as long as negotiations were still going on. Thus we deliberately destroyed the possibility of a peaceful settlement.

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