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Realizing the importance of presenting its case to the neutral world, each of the warring nations published its diplomatic correspondence leading up to the outbreak of the war, at a period during hostilities when the publication seemed best calculated to serve the end in view.

THE OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS

 British White Papers, July 20 to September 1, 1914.

 Belgian Gray Book, April 7, 1914, to September 30, 1914.

 German White Book, July 23 to August 4, 1914.

 French Yellow Book, March 17, 1913, to September 4, 1914.

 Russian Orange Book, July 23 to August 6, 1914.

 Serbian Blue Book, June 29 to August 4, 1914.

 Austro-Hungarian Red Book, June 29 to August 24, 1914.

 Official publications in the press by Great Britain, Russia, Germany, and Italy, July 30 to December 6, 1914.

 Various speeches by officers of the Governments.

It is from these official documents, cast into one form by rearranging all letters, telegrams, proclamations, speeches, etc., in their chronological order, that the following history of the diplomatic controversy is compiled.

It will be observed that, from the necessity of the case, the books of the six principal allies against the Teutonic Powers are threefold in number the books of those powers; and that, from choice of their promulgators the books of the Teutonic Powers are also disproportionately less in total volume, owing to the almost entire absence in them of communications between Austria-Hungary and Germany; while the correspondence between their adversaries is presented by these with a fulness which gives the neutral reader the impression that nothing of importance has been withheld—indeed, that the Allies (to use for convenience the popular designation of the anti-Teutonic powers) have laid all their cards face upward on the table. The intelligent reader will not have to be cautioned that this is a psychological, rather than logical, inference.

If any prevalent arguments on either side fail to be upheld by the evidence here given, it will be because this evidence does not appear in the official documents; the editors feel that their functions do not warrant their inclusion of pleas or testimony formed outside of the records mentioned above. The time will not come until long after the close of the war when the conflicting claims in the vast amount of propagandial literature issued by both parties can be judicially weighed by impartial historians, and presented at the bar of public opinion. In the meantime, however, we can bring before this court the case as officially presented by the contesting parties, a "perfect enumeration" of all the available. The editor acts merely in a reporting capacity. He does not discriminate between "Trojan and Tyrian," unless it be called discrimination to refuse by allotment of lesser space to inflict on the party neglecting fully to present its case a penalty beyond that which necessarily results, in adverse effect, on the mind of the reader from this omission.

In brief, the controversy is presented as a case in law. The evidence is given in the correspondence between ministers of state and the pleadings are presented in the words of responsible statesmen, who apply this evidence to the issues in question.

Since the validity of the evidence is based not only on its inherent motive but on the character and authority of those communicating it, and the force of the pleadings is even more dependent upon the character and authority of the advocates, it is necessary at the outset to state the offices held by the chief representatives of the parties to the controversy, and to present something of their past records, especially in the case of the more responsible statesmen. This will also serve to make graphic the story of the great trial before the bar of the world; it will visualize it as a contest, man to man, in which the distance between the combatants is eliminated, and they seem to be in each other's presence, testifying and arguing in behalf of their respective causes, as in a case at law. And, when it is borne in mind that these persons are representative of the dignity of great and sovereign peoples, the exponents and conservators of their national and individual rights and aspirations, their ideas and ideals of civilization, the contest will gain rather than lose in impressiveness by the concrete form in which it is presented. The sovereigns and statesmen of the anti-Teutonic allies are listed first; of the Teutonic allies next, and a few statesmen of neutral countries who were involved in the controversy last.