After the arrival of the news of the assassination of my friend, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, I gave up going to Kiel for the' regatta week and went back home, since I intended to go to Vienna for his funeral. But I was asked from there to give up this plan. Later I heard that one of the reasons for this was consideration for my personal safety; to this I naturally would have paid no attention.
Greatly worried on account of the turn which matters might now take, I decided to give up my intended journey to Norway and remain at home. The Imperial Chancellor and the Foreign Office held a-view contrary to mine and wished me to undertake the journey, as they considered that it would have a quieting effect on all Europe. For a long time I argued against, going away from my country at a time when the future was so unsettled, but Imperial Chancellor von Beth-mann told me, in short and concise terms, that if I were now to give up my travel plans, which were already widely known, this would make the situation appear more serious than it had been up to that. moment and possibly Jead to the outbreak of war, for which I might be held responsible; that. the whole world was merely waiting to be put out of suspense by the news that I, in spite of the situation, had quietly gone on my trip.
Thereupon I consulted the Chief of the General Staff, and, when he also proved to be calm and unworried regarding the state of affairs and himself asked for a summer leave of absence to go to Carlsbad, I decided, though with a heavy heart, upon my departure.
The much-discussed _s0-called Potsdam Crown Council of July 5 in reality never took place. It is an invention of malevolent persons. Naturally, before my departure, received, as was my custom, some of the Ministers individually, in order to hear from them reports concerning their departments. Neither was there any Council of Ministers and there was no talk about war preparations at a single one of the conferences.
My fleet was cruising in the Norwegian fiords, as usual, while I was on my summer vacation trip. Dur. ing my stay at Balholm I received only meagre news from the Foreign Office and was obliged to rely principally on the Norwegian newspapers, from which I got the impression that the situation was ow! growing worse. I telegraphed repeatedly to the Chancellor and the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.