I thank You for Your telegram. I have shown yesterday to Your Government the way through which _alone_ war may yet be averted. Although I asked for a reply by to-day noon, no telegram from my Ambassador has reached me with the reply of Your Government. I therefore have been forced to mobilize my army. An immediate, clear and unmistakable reply of Your Government is the _sole_ way to avoid endless misery. Until I receive this reply I am unable, to my great grief, to enter upon the subject of Your telegram. I must ask most earnestly that You, without delay, order Your troops to commit, under no circumstances, the slightest violation of our frontiers. In this is no spirit of compromise; only the repeated insistence of the unreasonable and in its consequences iniquitous demand that Russia should by demobilizing make itself "naked to its enemies," while Germany and Austria, without making any real concession in the direction of peace, should be permitted to arm both for offense and defense. There were practical reasons which made the Kaiser's demand unreasonable. Mobilization is a highly developed and complicated piece of governmental machinery, and even where transportation facilities are of the best, as in Germany and France, the mobilization ordinarily takes about two weeks to complete. In Russia, with limited means of transportation, it was impossible to recall immediately a mobilization order that had gone forward to the remotest corners of the great Empire. The record shows that the Kaiser himself recognized this fact, for in a telegram which he sent on August 1st to King George, with respect to the possible neutralization of England, the Kaiser said: I just received the communication from Your Government offering French neutrality under the guarantee of Great Britain. Added to this offer was the inquiry whether under these conditions Germany would refrain from attacking France. _On technical grounds My mobilization, which had already been proclaimed this afternoon, must proceed against two fronts east and west as prepared; this cannot be countermanded because, I am sorry, Your telegram came so late._ But if France offers Me neutrality which must be guaranteed by the British fleet and army, I shall of course refrain from attacking France and employ My troops elsewhere. I hope that France will not become nervous. The troops on My frontier are in the act of being stopped by telegraph and telephone from crossing into France.[83] [Footnote 83: No such offer had been made. The Kaiser's error was due to a misunderstanding, which had arisen quite honestly between Sir Edward Grey and the German Ambassador in London. King George promptly corrected this misapprehension of the Kaiser. See also Addendum, p. 192.]