I have too much respect for the perfected might of the Teutonic war-machine to believe that any German soldier worthy of the name ever considered Russian military movements along the Prussian and Austrian frontiers at the end of July, 1914, a "menace." It was only a fortnight previous that the _German Military Gazette_, the official army organ, had laughed the whole Russian army out of court as an organization hardly worthy of Prussian steel. Now the transfer of half a dozen Russian corps had become so vast a peril as to necessitate plunging the whole German Empire into a "state of war!" Everybody who had eyes to see and ears to hear in Germany, native and foreigner alike, always knew that actual mobilization in that country was the merest formality. The Germans were always ready for war. It was their commonest boast. A high officer of the General Staff, twenty-four hours after Serbia's rejection of the Austrian ultimatum, when asked _how_ ready Germany was for eventualities, said, sententiously, "_All_ ready." My Junker friend, Von G., of Kiel, himself a Prussian officer, would have snorted with scornful glee if I had ever suggested to him that _any_ Russian military measures could really "menace" Germany. He knew what I knew, and what anybody with sense in Germany always understood, that, compared to what the Fatherland with its comprehensive system of military-controlled state railways could achieve in the way of final "mobilization," Russia would require weeks where Germany would need only days, or even hours. Germany would be like Texas, criss-crossed in every direction with faultless means of communication and crammed with troops and munitions, mobilizing against the rest of the United States, with the latter having to concentrate armies on the Rio Grande from Florida, Maine, Oregon and Lower California, and a shoe-string railway system with which to do it. The "Russian mobilization menace" was Germany's supreme bluff.
St. Petersburg had been given until twelve o'clock noon of Saturday, August 1, to "demobilize." Failing to do so, Germany would be "compelled to resort to a counter-mobilization." France had been called upon to indicate what her attitude would be in case of a Russo-German conflict, but the ultimatum to Paris, we understood, had no time limit attached. All knew that the great decision rested essentially in Russia's hands; that war with the Czar meant war with the French, too. Twelve o'clock Berlin time came and went without word of any kind from Count Pourtales, the Kaiser's ambassador in St. Petersburg. The Emperor and his civil, military and naval advisers were closeted in a Crown council at the Castle. Pourtales' message, if there was one, the Foreign Office told us, would doubtless reach the Kaiser in the midst of the council, which was a continuous one. Berlin waited in excruciating impatience. The Bourse writhed in panic. Bankers met to consider closing it altogether, but decided that the worst might be avoided by limiting transactions to spot-cash deals. The air was electric with rumor. Russia had asked for a further period of grace, one heard. Hope, report said, while slender, was not yet utterly vanished.