Sir Edward Grey was now making eleventh-hour efforts to stave off fate. He was constrained to have Vienna view the Serbian imbroglio from the broad standpoint of a European question, which the Germanic Powers, of course, knew that it was. He proposed a conference in London between himself and the ambassadors of Germany, Russia, France and Italy, in the hope of settling the Austrian-Serbian dispute on the basis of Serbia’s reply to Count Berchtold’s ultimatum. "It has become only too apparent," the British Foreign Secretary wrote a year later in a crushing rejoinder to the German Chancellor’s revamped and distorted version of the war’s beginnings, "that in the proposal we made, which Russia, France and Italy agreed to, and which Germany vetoed, lay the only hope of peace. And it was such a good hope! Serbia had accepted nearly all of the Austrian ultimatum, severe and violent as it was." Herr Hammann’s minions told us with pleasing plausibility of the reasons why Germany declined the conference proposal. "We can not recommend Austria," they said, "to submit questions affecting her national honor to a tribunal of outsiders. It would not be consistent with our obligations as an ally." That was subterfuge unalloyed, as was amply proved by Germany’s subsequent refusal even to suggest any other method of mediation, in which Sir Edward Grey had promised acquiescence in advance. The War Party’s plans were plainly too far progressed to tolerate so tame and inglorious a retreat. It was thirsting for blood, and was in no humor to content itself with milk and water. It was like asking a champion runner, trained to the second and poised on the starting tape in an attitude of trembling expectation of the "Go" pistol, to rise, return to the dressing-room, get into street clothes and cool his ardor for victory and laurels by taking a leisurely walk around the block. The Tirpitzes, the Falkehhayns, the Reventlows, the Bernhardis and the Crown Princes, lurking Mephistopheles-like in the background, leaned over Bethmann Hollweg and the Kaiser on July 28, while Sir Edward Grey’s proposal was undergoing final consideration, and whispered in their ear an imperious "No!" Germany, as "evidence of good faith," the Wilhelmstrasse told us next day, was continuing to exercise friendly pressure "in the direction of peace" at both St. Petersburg and Vienna. But, as the Colonel said of Mr. Taft, Berlin meant well feebly. The mills of the war gods were grinding remorselessly, and they were not to be clogged.