On July 31st the earthquake came. Germany presented her ultimatum to Russia, allowing her only twelve hours to issue the order for demobilization. Twelve hours! It is impossible not to recognize the same Hohenzollern touch in this document and that other one which had been presented shortly before to Servia. They both bear the impress of the monarch who once publicly said: “There is but one will, and that is mine.”[26] Contemptuous silence was the only answer vouchsafed to this arrogant demand, which was intended to cow the Tsar and his Ministers before they could consult with their foreign friends. On August 1st the sheepish-looking diplomatist who represented the mighty Kaiser in St. Petersburg proceeded to the Foreign Office to deliver his last and fatal message there, and, according to the papers, he transformed the awful tragism of the moment into an incident worthy of an _opéra bouffe_ by handing to the Foreign Minister a paper one side of which contained a declaration of war, while the other was a statement prepared for the eventuality of Russia’s acquiescence. And with this claim to be remembered in the history of involuntary humour Count Pourtalès made his exit from public life. In this odd way new actors were introduced into a drama which had been originally composed only for three. The result was exceedingly distasteful to the statesmen of Vienna, and Budapest. It was recognized as a source of complications and difficulties which had indeed been provided for, but which it would have been more advantageous to separate and cope with in detail. All that now remained for German diplomacy was to make absolutely sure of the neutrality of Great Britain. It may not be amiss, however, to lay before the reader the instructive account of the final stages of diplomatic effort as sketched by the British ex-Ambassador to the Court of Vienna in his supplementary dispatch, dated London, September 1st:--