On 3 August 1914,
Sir Edward Grey, the Foreign Secretary, announced to the House of Commons information he had received from the Belgian Legation in London. He said that Belgian officials had informed him that they had received a notice from Germany proposing to Belgium friendly neutrality, covering free passage on Belgian territory, and promising maintenance of independence of the kingdom and possessions at the conclusion of peace, and threatening, in case of refusal, to treat Belgium as an enemy. A time limit of twelve hours was fixed for the reply. Grey then informed the House Belgium had informed him they would enter into no agreement with Germany. On 4 August 1914,
H. H. Asquith, the
Prime Minister, made the following statement in the House of Commons: On 5 August 1914, Asquith told the House of Commons: During the same meeting, the House of Commons voted to approve a credit of £100,000,000 (£ in ) for the war effort. That same day,
The London Gazette published a special supplement containing two documents dated the previous day (4 August). The first was issued by the
Foreign Office: The second was an
Order in Council issued in the name of King
George V dealing with the status of merchant shipping under the
1907 Hague Convention. It began: Winston Churchill later wrote: On the morning of 5 August,
Lewis Harcourt,
Secretary of State for the Colonies, chaired a sub-committee of the
Committee of Imperial Defence which recommended the Cabinet to send expeditions to capture most of the German overseas colonies:
German East Africa,
German South West Africa,
Togoland, and
Kamerun; and to invite
Australia to seize
German New Guinea and
Yap, and for
New Zealand to send an expedition to capture
Samoa, and
Nauru. == See also ==