The week of fate opened on Monday, July 27, amid general expectations that the worst had become inevitable. Popular alarm was not assuaged by the impulsive action of the Kaiser, contrary to the preferences of the Government, in breaking off his Norwegian cruise when Serbia’s defiance was wirelessed to the _Hohenzollern_ and rushing back to Kiel under full steam. "The Foreign Office regrets this step," reported Sir Horace Rumbold, acting British Ambassador at Berlin, to Sir Edwin Grey. "It was taken on His Majesty’s own initiative and the Foreign Office fears that the Emperor’s sudden return may cause speculation and excitement." It was, of course, characteristic of the monarch whom Paul Singer, the late Socialist chieftain, once described to me as "William the Sudden." "Speculation and excitement" are precisely what the Kaiser’s dramatic return did precipitate. He did not come into Berlin, but retired to the comparative privacy of the New Palace in Potsdam, to engage forthwith in protracted council with his political, diplomatic, military and naval advisers. Meantime Berlin throbbed with forebodings and unrest. The Stock Exchange almost collapsed. Values tumbled by the millions of marks. Fortunes vanished between breakfast and lunch. Financiers suicided. Savings banks were besieged by battalions of nervous depositors. Gold began to disappear from circulation. At the Foreign Office, newspaper correspondents were informed that the situation was undoubtedly aggravated, but not "hopeless." Germany’s aim was to "localize" the Austrian-Serbian war, which was now an actuality. "All depends on Russia," Herr Hammann’s automatons assured us when we asked who held the key to the situation. Germany remained, as she had been from the beginning of the crisis, merely "an interested bystander." Austria had not sought her counsel, and "none had been offered." It would have been an insufferable offense (said the Hammannites) for Berlin to intrude upon Vienna with "advice" at such an hour. Austria was a great sovereign Power, Count Berchtold a diplomat of sagacity and courage, and Germany’s rôle was obviously that of a silent friend. She had very particularly "not been concerned" with the admittedly stiff terms the rejection of which had now, unhappily, resulted in war. All this we were told at Wilhelmstrasse 76 in accents of touching sincerity.