Karl Max, Prince Lichnowsky (8 March 1860 – 27 February 1928) was a German diplomat who served as ambassador to Britain during the July Crisis and who was the author of a 1916 pamphlet that deplored German diplomacy in mid-1914 which, he argued, contributed heavily to the outbreak of the First World War. Pre-1914 life and career He was the sixth Prince and eighth Count Lichnowsky. He succeeded his father in 1901. His father was Carl, Prince Lichnowsky, fifth Prince and seventh Count Lichnowsky, a general of cavalry, and his mother was Marie, Princess of Croy. He was the head of an old noble Bohemian family, possessing estates at Kuchelna, then in Austrian Silesia, and Grätz in Austrian Moravia (present Hradec nad Moravicí, Czech Republic). As a hereditary member of the upper house of the Prussian Diet for Free Conservative Party, Lichnowsky played a part in domestic politics, adopting in general a moderate attitude and deprecating partisan legislation. Though a Roman Catholic, he avoided identifying himself with the clerical party in Germany. Entering the diplomatic service, Lichnowsky was appointed an attaché at the London embassy in 1885 and later served as legation secretary at Bucharest. He became German Ambassador to Austria-Hungary in 1902, replacing Philipp, Prince of Eulenburg, but was forced into retirement in 1904, accused of too much independence from the Foreign Office after several conflicts with Friedrich von Holstein, head of the Office's political division. In 1904, he married Countess Mechtilde von Arco-Zinneberg (1879-1958). He spent eight years in retirement, as his memoirs relate, "on my farm and in my garden, on horseback and in the fields, but reading industriously and publishing occasional political articles." For several years, newspaper rumour in Germany had connected the name Lichnowsky with practically every important diplomatic post that became vacant, and even with the Imperial chancellorship. No official appointment was forthcoming, however, beyond the designation of privy councilor (German: Wirklicher Geheimrat) in 1911. In 1912, Lichnowsky was appointed ambassador to the United Kingdom, in which post he served until the outbreak of war in 1914. Soon after his appointment, he filed a report on a conversation with Lord Haldane, British secretary of state for war. In it, Haldane had made clear that Britain could go to war if Austria-Hungary attacked Serbia and Germany attacked France. The report was said to have infuriated Kaiser Wilhelm II. The 1914 Crisis During the July Crisis