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reported protests and mass meetings in Germany and assured his colleagues that “the Kaiser does not want war; not from love of humanity but from cowardice. He is afraid of the consequences.” Jaurès gave an impression of “one who, having lost all hope of a normal solution, relies on a miracle.” Hardie was certain that the British transport workers would call a strike but his confidence was assumed. A few weeks earlier he had written, “Only the binding together of the Trade Union and the Socialist movements will ever put the workers into a position of controlling Governments, thus bringing war to an end.” The one country where such binding had taken place was Germany. The delegates talked all day but the only decision reached was to advance the date and change the place of the Vienna Congress to August 9 in Paris, there to resume discussion.

That evening a mass meeting was held in the Cirque Royale crowded by Belgian working people from all parts of the city and its suburbs. As the leaders mounted the platform Jaurès stood with his arm around Haase’s shoulders in a gesture which denied the enmity of Germany and France. When he spoke at the climax of the meeting his eloquence mounted until the hall shook with the force of it. He was “quivering, so intense was his emotion, his apprehension, his eagerness to avoid somehow the coming conflict.” When he had finished, the crowd, on waves of enthusiasm, poured into the streets to form a parade. Carrying white cards inscribed “Guerre à la guerre!” they alternately shouted the slogan and sang “The International” as they marched.

Next day, as the delegates departed, Jaurès, taking leave of Vander-velde, reassured him. “It will be like Agadir—ups and downs—but it is impossible that matters will not be settled. Come, I have a few hours before my train. Let’s go to the Museum and see the Flemish primitives.” But Vandervelde, who was leaving for London, could not go and never saw Jaurès again. On the train returning to Paris, exhausted from the strain, Jaurès fell asleep. A companion, Jean Longuet, looking at his “wonderful face,” was “suddenly overcome with a feeling … that he was dead. I froze with fright.” On arrival, however, Jaurès woke up and, still persisting, went to the Chamber to talk among the deputies and to the office of I’Humanité to write a column for the morning.

Angelica Balabanov and other delegates who left Brussels by another train were breakfasting in the station restaurant at Basle next morning when two comrades of the German Central Committee rushed by in obvious excitement. “There is no doubt about war now,” said one of the delegates who had just talked with the Germans outside. “They came here to put the money of the German party in safe-keeping.” In Berlin that day Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg assured the Prussian Ministry of State that there was “nothing particular to fear from the Social-Democratic party” and “there would be no talk of a general strike or of sabotage.”

In Paris on July 31, the day of Germany’s ultimatum to Russia and declaration of Kriegsgefahr, or preliminary mobilization, the public was tense with the knowledge that France stood on the edge of war. The Cabinet was in continuous session, the German Ambassador arrived and departed ominously from the Foreign Office, the life of the country was in suspense. Jaurès led a Socialist deputation to the office of the Premier, his former comrade, Viviani, and returned to organize party pressure in the Chamber. At 9 p.m. he left the office of I’Humanité, worn out from anxiety, to have dinner with a group of colleagues at the Café Croissant around the corner in the Rue Montmartre. As he sat eating and talking with his back to the open window, a young man who had been following him since the previous evening appeared in the street outside. Filled, as was later ascertained, with the demented zeal of the superpatriot, he pointed a pistol at the “pacifist” and “traitor” and fired twice. Jaurès slumped to one side and fell forward across the table. Five minutes later he was dead.

The news licked through