At 7 P.M. on July the 31st, Germany had given France until 1 P.M. of the following day to declare whether it would remain neutral in the event of a Russian-German war, and at that hour Viviani advised the German Ambassador that France "would do that which her interests dictated." (German _White Paper_, No. 27.) Notwithstanding France's virtual refusal to meet the demand of Germany, the latter did not declare war on France on that day, and this is the more significant as it immediately declared war on Russia. The German Ambassador remained in Paris until August the 3d, and only then demanded his passports when his position in the French Capitol had become untenable. In the meantime Germany was awaiting some act of aggression on the part of France, that would enable it under the terms of the Triple Alliance to demand as of right the coöperation of Italy, while France, determined for this and other reasons not to be the aggressor, had withdrawn its troops ten kilometers from the frontier and refused to take any offensive step either before or after the expiration of the ultimatum. The confidential telegram of the Kaiser to King George suggests the possibility that on August the 1st, about the time that the eighteen-hour ultimatum had expired, Germany was ready and intended to commence an immediate invasion of France, for on that day the Kaiser telegraphs to King George: "_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._" (_Ante_, p. 187.) The exact hour when the Kaiser sent the King this message is conjectural. We know from the German _White Paper_ that at 11 A.M. on that day Sir Edward Grey inquired of Prince Lichnowsky over the telephone whether Germany was "in a position to declare that we would not attack France in a war between Germany and Russia in case France should remain neutral." This message prompted the Kaiser's telegram to King George. How soon thereafter the Kaiser sent his telegram we do not know, but as the impossibility of France's neutrality was recognized in Berlin on receipt of Lichnowsky's telegram by 5 P.M. on that day, it is altogether probable that the Kaiser's telegram was sent between those hours. If the telegram in question is now analyzed and the fair natural import is given to the Kaiser's language, it would seem that the invasion of France, either before or in any event simultaneously with the expiration of the eighteen-hour ultimatum, had been determined upon by the Kaiser and his military staff, for the Kaiser's intimation that he has "stopped by telegraph and telephone [his army] from crossing into France" fairly implies that previous orders had been given to commence such invasion and that these orders had been hurriedly recalled in the most expeditious way, upon the supposed intimation of Sir Edward Grey that England might guarantee the neutrality of France.