1914 to the Chief of Cabinet of the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Ministry, Count Alexander Hoyos, by the German journalist Viktor Naumann was unwarranted. Ritter charged that Naumann was speaking as a private individual, but Fischer claimed that it was on behalf of the German government. Likewise, Ritter felt that Fischer had been dishonest in his portrayal of Austro-German relations in July 1914. Ritter charged that Germany had not pressured a reluctant Austria-Hungary into attacking Serbia. Ritter argued, ironically against Fischer, that the main impetus for war within Austria-Hungary came from domestic politics and was internally driven. There were divisions about the best course to pursue in Vienna and Budapest, but it was not German pressure that led Austria-Hungary to choose war as the best option. In Ritter's opinion, Germany may be criticized for its mistaken evaluation of the state of European power politics in July 1914. According to Ritter, the German government had underrated the state of military readiness in Russia and France, falsely assumed that the British were unwilling to go to war over the violation of Belgian neutrality, overrated the sense of moral outrage caused by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on European opinion and above all overestimated the military power and political common sense of Austria-Hungary. Ritter felt that in retrospect, it was not necessary for Germany to maintain Austria-Hungary as a great power but claimed that at the time, most Germans regarded the Dual Monarchy as a "brother empire" and viewed the prospect of the Balkans being in the Russian sphere of influence as an unacceptable threat. As opposed to Fischer's claim that Germany was deliberately setting off a war of aggression, Ritter argued that Germany's support for Austria-Hungary's retributive plan to invade Serbia was an ad hoc response to the crisis that was gripping Europe. Ritter accused Fischer of manufacturing the quote he attributed to German General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, Chief of the General Staff, during a meeting with Austro-Hungarian War Minister Field Marshal Conrad von Hötzendorf>about the necessity of a "speedy attack" on Serbia. Ritter claimed the importance that Fischer attached to the report of the German Army's quartermaster that the army was "ready" for war in 1914 was simply mistaken since the quartermaster always reported every year that the army was "ready" for war. Likewise, in reference to the order by Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg to Siegfried von Roedern, the State Secretary