It was, in fact, the "United States of Europe" in embryo. It was the one solution possible for these long-continued European wars--essentially civil wars--namely an alliance by the six great Powers,--a merger of the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente,--whereby any aggressive act on the part of any one of them would be prevented by the others. What an infinite pity that the imprudent act of the Kaiser, and the mad folly of his advisers probably made a fair trial of this most hopeful plan for the unification of Europe an impossibility for another century! In order that Germany should have no excuse whatever to declare war on account of Russia's preparations, the Russian Foreign Minister saw the German Ambassador in St. Petersburg on July 30th, _and then offered on behalf of Russia to stop all military preparations_, provided that Austria would simply recognize as an abstract principle that the Servian question had assumed the character of a question of European interest. As this proposal fully met the demands of the Kaiser with respect to the cessation by Russia of military preparations, the conversation as reported by the English Ambassador at St. Petersburg to Sir Edward Grey on July 30th deserves quotation _in extenso_: French Ambassador and I visited Minister for Foreign Affairs this morning. His Excellency said that German Ambassador had told him yesterday afternoon that German Government were willing to guarantee that Servian integrity would be respected by Austria. To this he had replied that this might be so, but nevertheless Servia would become an Austrian vassal, just as, in similar circumstances, Bokhara had become a Russian vassal. There would be a revolution in Russia if she were to tolerate such a state of affairs. M. Sazonof told us that absolute proof was in possession of Russian Government, that Germany was making military and naval preparations against Russia--more particularly in the direction of the Gulf of Finland. German Ambassador had a second interview with Minister for Foreign Affairs at 2 A.M., when former completely broke down on seeing that war was inevitable. He appealed to M. Sazonof to make some suggestion which he could telegraph to German Government as a last hope. M. Sazonof accordingly drew up and handed to German Ambassador a formula in French, of which the following is a translation: "_If Austria, recognizing that her conflict with Servia has assumed character of question of European interest, declares herself ready to eliminate from her ultimatum points which violate principle of sovereignty of Servia, Russia engages to stop all military preparations._" Later in the day, at the suggestion of Sir Edward Grey, the Russian Foreign Minister still further modified in the interests of peace the proposition upon which Russia was willing to cease all military preparations.