The Falsifications of the Russian Orange Book. Published by Baron
G. von Romberg. Translated by Major Cyprian Bridge. (G. Allen and Unwin. 2s. 6d. net.)
This pamphlet, issued on behalf of the German Foreign Office, is intended to show that the Russian Orange Book, published in August, 1914, gave a garbled version of the tele- graphic messages interchanged between M. Sazonoff at Petro- grad and the Russian Embassy in Paris during the fortnight before war was declared. Mr. Gooch, in a brief preface, seems to accept the German editor's argument. After carefully reading the documents, published in full by the Bolsheviks, we are bound to say that the editing of the Russian Foreign Office was far more honest than we should have supposed. The additions were trivial. The passages omitted were really unimportant or were mere repetitions of what had appeared in other publications of the kind. An exception may perhaps be made in the case of a telegram of July 31st from the Russian Military Attaché in Paris, stating, on the authority of the French War Minister, that " the Government is firmly decided on war " ; but the words " firmly decided " may have been changed in the process of translation and retranslation, and in any case the message was sent very late at night when Germany had revealed her evil intentions and all hope of averting the disaster was at an end. It is curious that the German Foreign Office, whose own White Book was a veritable masterpiece of garbling and falsification, should try at this time of day to pick holes in M. Sazonoff's Orange Book, and with so little success.
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