Coming now to the fateful crisis of 1914, it would appear that at this time a great danger was allowed to grow up without the men in control of the government giving themselves a full account as to the fatal probabilities involved, whereas the parliament and the public remained entirely uninformed. Germany had always more or less backed her Austrian ally in the Balkan policy of the latter. Bismarck had indeed been very cautious in this respect, and had been fully aware of the danger inherent in such a policy, of committing Germany through giving Austria too much head. When the Servian question became acute, the heads of the German Government were indeed so reckless in encouraging strong Austrian action as to justify the impression that they desired to push Austria-Hungary into a conflict. It would, however, appear, from a full study of all the data which is now possible, that the Kaiser and Bethmann-Hollweg were quite optimistic in believing that the conflict could be localized and that the solution could be left to Austria and Servia. When it was beginning to become quite clear that Russia would in this instance not stand aside and that therefore France, too, would be thrown into the conflict, the German Chancellor began to make belated efforts to induce Austria to accept the mediation of the Powers on the basis that Belgrade should be occupied to assure compliance with the Servian promises. The Austrian premier, Count Berchtold, however, was not inclined to reverse his engines. He took advantage of the encouragement given to Austria in the first place, to persist in an irreconcilable attitude toward Servia. The documentary material which has so far been published, shows that Berchtold insinuated to the Russian and British embassies that he was favorable to mediation; meanwhile, he did not answer the proposals to that effect made from Berlin, but in fact stubbornly pursued his stern policy against Servia. In turning a deaf ear to all proposals of mediation at this time, Berchtold gave the militarists at Berlin and Petrograd the control of the situation.