I9 X 4]' War Declared against Germany 431 



trality to-morrow, not perhaps a very beau role, but less absurd than 

 the other. 



" 3rd Aug. — Things are marching fast. The Germans have begun 

 their campaign against France by seizing Luxembourg, and seem to 

 be already in Belgium. The news of this they say reached the Cabinet 

 while it was sitting last evening (the second in the day, and that 

 Sunday), and united all the Ministers to resolve, it is not said what. 

 The naval reserves are being called out. 



"4th Aug. — Grey's declaration turns out to be not quite what the 

 evening papers said. It is evidently a compromise between the two 

 opinions in the Cabinet. It denies the obligation to assist France against 

 Germany, except to the extent of preventing bombardment by sea of 

 the French seaboard in the Channel, but it affirms the duty of defending 

 Belgian neutrality, and will lead us farther than the peace division 

 think, for it must be remembered that all the action will be left in 

 Grey's hands at the Foreign Office, and in Winston's at the Admiralty, 

 and it will be easy for them to manipulate accidents into a case of 

 necessity for despatching a land force to Antwerp. So we are not out 

 of the wood yet. On the contrary, the British Army has been for- 

 mally mobilised, and the reservists called to the colours. Our local 

 policeman called to-day to inquire how many horses I could put up in 

 my barns. Both Burrell and Leconfield have had a number of horses 

 ear-marked for service, Leconfield as many as forty. I said I could 

 put up twenty under cover, but everything connected with soldiering 

 is hateful to me. There is talk of a British ultimatum to Germany, 

 demanding an answer about the neutrality of Belgium being respected. 



" $th Aug. — The thing has been decided faster than we imagined. 

 Yesterday Asquith announced in the Commons that Grey had sent his 

 ultimatum to Berlin about Belgian neutrality, and had received an un- 

 satisfactory answer, and to-day the morning papers publish ' British 

 Declaration of War against Germany." 



With this last entry I close the present volume, reserving my 

 Diary of the War itself for a posthumous occasion, if it should seem 

 worth transcribing to those I may name literary executors of my 

 last Will and Testament, for I am entering on my eightieth year this 

 month, August, 1919, and shall make no further venturings in my life- 

 time with publicity. Suffice it here to say that my attitude during 

 the four years the war lasted was from the first day one of severest 

 abstention. I called it " unarmed neutrality." I knew enough of 

 our Foreign Office ways and past doings to be quite certain that the 

 reasons put forward by Grey and Asquith for their declaration of 

 war were not and could not be the real reasons, and I refused to follow 

 the pacific herd in its shameless volte-face from Opposition to support 



