next day, was bombarding the Serbian capital. On this day, both Russia and Belgium were mobilizing their armies, Belgium as a precautionary measure of self-defense, and Russia, as regarded her southern armies only, on account of Austria's invasion of Serbia. It was early on Wednesday morning, July 29th, that the German Chancellor, then Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, suggested to Sir Edward Goschen, our ambassador at Berlin, that if Britain remained neutral in the event of France joining Russia against an Austro-German combination, Germany would guarantee to make no territorial demands of France; would respect the neutrality of Holland; but might be forced to enter Belgium, whose integrity she would preserve, however, after the war. In respect of the French colonies, she would make no promises.

This meant the tearing up, of course, of the treaty, in which we as well as Germany had guaranteed Belgium's inviolability, and was an unmistakable index of the line of action that Germany was prepared to take, should it suit her purpose; and it was on this morning, unreported by the papers, and entirely unknown to the nation, that the First Fleet, under Sir George Callaghan, sailed out of Portland to its war-stations.

Peace was still possible, however, or so Sir Edward Grey hoped; and, while immediately rejecting, as he was in honour bound to do, Germany's proposal with regard to Belgium, he made the new suggestion of a European Council—a Council to which these problems, even at the eleventh hour, might be submitted to avert disaster. This plan was also destined to be fruitless. On July 31st, Germany sent a note to Russia demanding the instant dispersal of her armies, and requesting a favourable answer by eleven o'clock on Saturday, August 1st; and it was on the same day that Sir Edward Grey asked both Germany and France if they would guarantee the integrity of Belgium, always provided that this was not infringed by any other Power. To this France assented at once, but Germany made no reply.

Such was the position on Friday, and, on the Saturday afternoon, August 1st, Germany declared war on Russia, following this up, early on Sunday morning, with the invasion of Luxembourg by part of her advanced armies. This was the day on which the remainder of our naval reservists, including all naval and marine pensioners up to the age of fifty-five, were called to the colours—the plans for their mobilization, reception, and embarkment, in any such event as had now arisen, having been carefully prepared and coördinated with the preliminary steps required of all other Government Departments, and included in the War Book, compiled by the Committee of Imperial Defense, under the presidency of Mr. Asquith, then Prime Minister.

Simultaneously, or rather on the previous Saturday afternoon, an order to mobilize had been received at Dartmouth—the Royal Naval College in which, and in the Britannia before it, so many generations of officers had received their first training. Already, on the preceding Tuesday, the cadets had been summoned to the Quarter Deck, as the big recreation hall was called, and told by the Captain that, in the event of war, they would certainly be mobilized—the six "terms" into which the cadets were divided, being ordered to report in three groups at Chatham, Portsmouth, and Devonport, in this order of departure.

Of the thrill produced by this, anybody who has been a schoolboy of fifteen will have little difficulty in forming an idea; and it may be doubted if any of the boys who heard it—many of them, alas, never to see another birthday—will ever again live through such a moment as when the summons actually came on the following Saturday afternoon. It came with added force, because, since Tuesday, the excitement had naturally died down, while most of the boys, in common with their fathers, and indeed the majority of English men and women, had found it difficult to believe that so huge a convulsion would not in some manner be prevented. By what now seems, too, in retrospect, to have been almost the acme of ironical circumstance, they were due to start their holidays on August 4th, and to these their minds had already begun to turn again.

But the summons came, and with it in each boy, as hardly less in the college itself, the death of an era so instantaneous that it was only a little later that it could be realized. A moment before, and the normal Saturday afternoon life had been swinging along, as for so many years past—on the cricket field, in the swimming baths, in the Devonshire countryside surrounding the college; and the moment after, the cricket field was empty, with the stumps still standing there undrawn, and the lanes and river banks were being everywhere searched for such boys as were not in college. Long before nightfall half the cadets—scarcely more than children—had left the place forever; and it was not until then that the sense of what lay before them fell upon the officers and masters left behind. For a little while this was almost intolerable, and the more so because it would have seemed indecent to them to put it into words. Characteristically enough, perhaps—most of them being products of the same kind of system that had produced the boys—it was finally decided, dusk though it was, and tired as they were, to turn out the beagles.

By the evening of August 3d, therefore, August Bank Holiday, and a day of serene and cloudless beauty, the Admiralty was able to announce that the entire navy had been placed upon a war footing, the mobilization having been completed in all respects by 4 o'clock in the morning. This was the position when, in a House of Commons charged with emotions tenser than any man remembered, Sir Edward Grey rose to explain the situation and the attitude of the Government, for which he desired the country's mandate. Beginning by assuring the House that the Government and himself had worked "with all the earnestness in our power to preserve peace," he went on to deal with the British obligations toward her friends in the Entente—making it clear that the country was not bound, by any secret treaty, to provide armed assistance. That was but a small matter, however, and what had to be determined was our moral position in the circumstances that had arisen.

Dealing first with naval matters, Sir Edward Grey pointed out that, the French Fleet being in the Mediterranean, her northern and western coasts—a tribute to her confidence in ourselves—were left absolutely unprotected; while, in the Mediterranean, should the French Fleet have to be withdrawn for vital purposes elsewhere, we ourselves had not then a fleet strong enough to meet all possible hostile combinations. Under those conditions, and with a German declaration of war upon her probably the question of a few hours, it had obviously been our bounden duty to make our position clear toward France; and this had been done on the previous afternoon. Subject to the support of Parliament, the British Government had promised that, if the German Fleet should come into the Channel, or through the North Sea, to undertake hostile operations against the French coast or shipping, the British Fleet would give to the French all the protection in its power. Just before coming to the House, Sir Edward Grey added, he had learned that, if we would pledge ourselves to neutrality, Germany would be prepared to agree that its fleet should not attack the northern coast of France. But that, as he said, was a far too narrow engagement.

Even more vital, however, was the question of Belgium's integrity, not only to France and ourselves, but to the whole basis upon which the relations of all civilized Powers had come to rest. In connection with this, Sir Edward Grey told the House that a personal telegram had just been received