This site offers an IMHO very good recollection/natation of the events around and leading to Britains participation in the Great War. However ... no answer that might not lead to fiurther questions. There is some events descibe for 1st August late(er) evening :
Problem I have with this quote :
The time of dispatch simly has to be a printing error or whatever, as it cant' be dispatched before the DoW was read or to the russians (7.00 p.m.) or even received by the german ambassador Pourtalés.
OTOH the arrival time of 11.15 p.m. would match well with the 'running time' of other telegrams from Buchanan to the foreign office this day and the day before and the telegrams after this one.
But :
How would such a message/dispatch be copied and delivered to churchill even before it arrives at White Hall ? ... the former told as somewhat an hour (shortly after 10 o'clock) befor the latter (a quarter after 11 o'clock) ?
The site gives as a (the only) source : Gilbert, Churchill, vol. III, pp. 24-5.
Anyone with an idea of explanation for this ... 'misfit of time' ?
Well the quote in question/be questioned by me continues :
Again the same source as above is given.
Together with a further 'information' from Hazlehurst, Politicians at war, that mentions a so-called "cabinet committee meeting" at 9.30 p.m. that day of a large portion of non-beagle faction of the then british cabinet.
I was/am able to 'check' on the Hazlehurst source but was yet unable to find any other mention of this late evening informal cabinet meeting at Number 10 by Asquith than Churchills.
And I don't know what this 'cabinet committee actually was at that point of time and where it "gathered".
Any help on this, about the nature of this cabinet committee as well as some another source for and about such a late evening 1st August cabinet meeting would be greatly appreciated.
" Churchill dined alone at the Admiralty on Saturday night devouring, in addition to his meal, for his appetite was whetted by the prospect of war, the foreign telegrams as they came in. Just before ten o’clock he was joined by F. E. Smith and Max Aitken, and they began a hand of bridge. Before they could pick up their cards, another dispatch box arrived. The lamps were still not completely extinguished, but flickered dimly; peace hung by a thread until Churchill read the latest news, which was to send a gust down Whitehall: Germany had declared war on Russia. "
Problem I have with this quote :
According to "British Ducuments on the Origins of the War" Vol. XI", page 259, the telegram of Buchannan from SDt.Petersburg :
"German ambassador handed to Minister for foreign Affairs formal declaration of war this afternon at 7 o'clock."
is taged as being dispatched from St.Peterburg at 1.20 p.m. (local times, as usual in this collection) and as received by the foreign office in London (deciphering being begun, as usual in this collection) at 11.15 p.m. .The time of dispatch simly has to be a printing error or whatever, as it cant' be dispatched before the DoW was read or to the russians (7.00 p.m.) or even received by the german ambassador Pourtalés.
OTOH the arrival time of 11.15 p.m. would match well with the 'running time' of other telegrams from Buchanan to the foreign office this day and the day before and the telegrams after this one.
But :
How would such a message/dispatch be copied and delivered to churchill even before it arrives at White Hall ? ... the former told as somewhat an hour (shortly after 10 o'clock) befor the latter (a quarter after 11 o'clock) ?
The site gives as a (the only) source : Gilbert, Churchill, vol. III, pp. 24-5.
Anyone with an idea of explanation for this ... 'misfit of time' ?
Well the quote in question/be questioned by me continues :
" Churchill walked across Horse Guards and entered 10, Downing Street by the garden gate, going up to the drawing room where a knot of ministers — Asquith, Haldane, Crewe and Grey (who had finished his game of billiards) — was gathered.[62] "
Again the same source as above is given.
Together with a further 'information' from Hazlehurst, Politicians at war, that mentions a so-called "cabinet committee meeting" at 9.30 p.m. that day of a large portion of non-beagle faction of the then british cabinet.
I was/am able to 'check' on the Hazlehurst source but was yet unable to find any other mention of this late evening informal cabinet meeting at Number 10 by Asquith than Churchills.
And I don't know what this 'cabinet committee actually was at that point of time and where it "gathered".
Any help on this, about the nature of this cabinet committee as well as some another source for and about such a late evening 1st August cabinet meeting would be greatly appreciated.