George V Tried to Avert War

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 107, 9 May 1938, Page 7

George V Tried to Avert War

Kaiser Warned MISTAKEN REPORT TkAT ENGLAND WOULD KEEP OUT United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Oopyrieht. How King George V tried to stop the the Great War is shown in the second part of the tenth volume of “British Documents on the Origin of the War”, which produces a facsimile of a letter King George V wrote to Sir Edward (afterwards Lord) Grey, the then Foreign Minister, on December 8, 1912. The letter records that the Kaiser’s brother-in-law, Prince Henry of Prussia, during a visit to Sandringham, asked point blank whether, in the event of Austria and Germany going to war v/ith Russia and France, England would assist the latter. The King, in his letter, adds: “I answered: ‘Undoubtedly yes, under certain circumstances.’ He professed surprise and regret, but did not ask what those certain circumstances were. He said that he would tell the Emperor what I had told him. “Of course, Germany must know that we could not allow either of our friends to be crippled.” Sir Edward Grey warmly approved the King’s declaration, which, commentators point out, probably averted war in 1913 despite the critical situation then. Nevertheless, a week before the outbreak of war in 1914., the German naval attache in London telegraphed the German Admiralty declaring that England would maintain neutrality in the event of a Continental war, which was either a cynical perversion of the truth or a mistaken version of the King’s reply to Prince Henry.