"Late one evening he visited me in a state of great excitement, and told me that he had manifolded a memorandum by Prince Lichnowsky which had been lent to him, and that, without asking the author, he had sent it to the 'leading men.' It was impossible to convince him by any logic or on any grounds of reason that his action was wrong, senseless, and harmful. He was a Marquis Posa, or, still more, a Horatius Cocles, who, out of love for Rome or for mankind, sprang into the abyss." The Berlin Vorwärts, the leading organ of the pro-Government Socialists, began its editorial on the von Jagow reply by remarking that the article of the former State Secretary for Foreign Affairs was hardly calculated to convince the reader that Prince Lichnowsky's self-esteem was the only thing that had had a "painful effect" upon the German people in July, 1914, and since that time. It then said that "Herr von Jagow agrees with Lichnowsky upon the decisive point!" quoted what von Jagow had said about his desire for an Anglo-German rapprochement, and continued: "These words show that, in 1913, the Wilhelmstrasse and the London Embassy were in the complete harmony of common beliefs and intentions. Herr von Jagow, exactly like Lichnowsky, exactly like Bethmann, and exactly like Wilhelm II., believed in the possibility of creating 'an atmosphere of confidence,' as Jagow says, between Germany and England, through a series of agreements, of which those regarding the Bagdad Railroad and Africa were to have been the first." Vorwärts then proceeded to point out that the Albanian crisis had strengthened this faith instead of weakening it, took up von Jagow's reasons for Germany's refusal to have the proposed Anglo-German agreement on the Portuguese African colonies published, and exclaimed: "What a fear of Tirpitz! A disturbing of the new relations through his intrigues and the howling of his jingo press was to be avoided through an affectation of secrecy. But three weeks later the war with England was here and the Pan-German sheets welcomed 'the longed-for day!' What had happened in the meantime? Of course, 'perfidious Albion' (even Jagow puts quotation marks on these words) had in the meantime thrown off the mask and revealed her perfidy! Let's hear what--after Lichnowsky--Herr von Jagow, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in July, 1914, has to say about it!" Then Vorwärts quoted Jagow's description of how the war began, and went on: "All that remains of the accusations against the English Government is that it did not prevent the world war, 'although it could have done so.' Now Herr von Jagow also did not prevent the world war, but he must certainly be acquitted of the charge that he could have prevented it. He really could not, and so an emphatic statement of inability is the best excuse for him and his fellow-disputants.