"The Social Democracy," said Bebel, "will oppose any government which takes the initiative in war." He meant this as a threat to William II.’s government. "Don’t reckon upon us if some day you decide to utilize your cannon and your battleships." Then he turned to Petrograd and London: "They had better take care not to attack Germany in a miscalculation of weakness from within on account of the obstructionist policies of the powerful German Social Democracy." Without being a political doctrine, Bebel’s conception was a political threat, and a threat directed simultaneously at two fronts, the internal front and the foreign front. His one obstinate answer to all historical and logical objections was: "We’ll find the way to expose any government that takes the first step towards war. We are clever enough for that." This threatening attitude of not only the German Social Democracy but also of the International Party was not without results. The various governments actually did make every effort to postpone the outbreak of the War. But that is not all. The rulers and the diplomats were doubly attentive now to adapting their moves to the pacifist psychology of the masses. They whispered with the Socialist leaders, nosed about in the office of the International, and so created a sentiment which made it possible for Jaurès and Haase to declare at Brussels, a few days before the outbreak of the War, that their particular governments had no other object than the preservation of peace. And when the storm broke loose, the Social Democracy of every country looked for the guilty party--on the other side of the border. Bebel’s utterance, which had played a definite part as a threat, lost all meaning the instant the first shots were fired at the frontiers. That terrible thing took place which Kautsky had prophesied.