Wilhelm II, still very much the key figure in German foreign policy, also left no room for doubt in Vienna that continental war had only been postponed, not cancelled. Although he urged Archduke Franz Ferdinand to give way to Russia in February 1913 (it was said that in ‘postponing the great decision’ he was influenced not only by ‘fear of England’ but also by the desire to celebrate the twenty-five-year jubilee of his reign in peace) by April of that year he had already reverted to a martial tone when a new conflict between Austria and Serbia over the Albanian town of Scutari was in the offing. For Austria to achieve success against Serbia, Germany ‘must help Vienna coute qui coute [sic] – even with weapon in hand!’, Wilhelm exclaimed, albeit on the assumption that Britain would also be ready to take action ‘against Asiatic Slavs and Tartars!’. He and the Wilhelmstrasse shared the crucial but ill-judged conviction that Britain would stay out of a European war provided that Russia put herself into the wrong. ‘It is very important for us to have the role of provoked party as I think that England would then – and only then – be able to stay neutral,’ declared the foreign secretary, Gottlieb von Jagow, in April 1913, echoing his sovereign’s thoughts. In Berlin there was another war council on 5 May 1913, at which the outbreak of a major war came within a hair’s breadth. Once again Moltke assured the Austrian military attaché that the diplomatic solution of the Scutari question had been ‘only a postponement’, and Kaiser Wilhelm expressed himself with his customary brashness about the racial war that he regarded as imminent: ‘The struggle betw[een] Slavs and Germans can no longer be avoided and will surely come. When? We shall see.’