Excerpt from How the Nations Waged War: A Companion Volume to How the War Began, Telling How the World Faced Armageddon, and How the British Empire Answered the Call to Arms<br><br>How the War Began, Sir Edward Grey reproduced the appeal of the King of the Belgians to King George for diplo matic intervention, and asked for an assurance that the German demand on Belgium for permission to pass troops over Belgian territory would not be persisted in.<br><br>It was a matter of life and death for them, as if they had gone by the more southern route they could not have hoped, in view Of the paucity of roads and the strength of the fortresses, to have got through without formidable opposition entail ing great loss of time. This loss of time would have meant time gained by the Russians for bringing up their troops to the German frontier. Rapidity of action was the great German asset, while that of Russia was an inexhaustible supply of tr00ps. I pointed out to Herr von Jagow that this feat accompli of the violation of the Belgian frontier rendered, as he would readily understand, the situation exceedingly grave, and I asked him whether there was not still time to draw back and avoid possible consequences, which both he and I would deplore. He replied that, for the reasons he had given me, it was now impossible for them to draw back.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.