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Show GREAT POWERS ARE ENGAGED I'l WAR RUSSIA, FRANCE, GERMANY AND AUSTRIA-HUNGARY BEGIN ACTUAL WARFARE. While Nations of Europe Are Flyiny at Each Other's Throats, They Are Vieing With Each Other In Protesting Desire for Peace. London. Four great powers of Europe Eu-rope Austria-Hungary, Russia, France and Germany, are now engaged engag-ed in actual warfare, but two of them Germany and France not only have not declared war against each other, as far as is known here, but have not even severed diplomatic relations. This is despite the fact that Germany's Ger-many's ultimatum to France has eith, er been ignored or rejected. The. explanation of this would appear ap-pear to be that Germany and Francs each is seeking to throw upon the other the onus of beginning the war, In fact, while the nations of Europe are flying at each other's throats, they are vieing with each other in protesting pro-testing their desire to maintain peace and they repudiate the responsibility for plunging the whole continent into bloodshed. In this remarkable situation, France, according to British opinion, has thg strongest justification. She certainly, was the last to mobilize and seems to have taken the greatest precaution to avoid frontier collisions. On the other hand, Germany, in addition ad-dition to invading French territory without making a formal declaration of war, has violated the neutrality o Luxemburg and declines to give any1 pledge to respect Belgian neutrality. The efforts of the British embassador embassa-dor to Berlin to obtain such understanding under-standing have been wasted. It is difficult dif-ficult to see how Great Britain can avoid being drawn into the conflict to protect Belgian and Dutch neutral; ity, and on this point Premier As-, quith's official announcement in parliament par-liament is awaited with intense anxiety, anx-iety, the British public being no longer long-er under any illusions as to the gravity grav-ity of the crisis which transcends anything any-thing in their experience. The least observant man in London Lon-don could not help but be impressed with the fact that something tremendous tremen-dous was happening. Short of actual formal mobilization the British government gov-ernment is making all necessary steps to meet a situation unprecedented in the nation's history. |