toadfrog-"executed" means carried out. As I recall, the British declared war as a result of treaties they had made, and could not have avoided doing so by the time war broke out. Even if they had not yet declared war, it was inevitable that they would when France, who was in a state of war with Prussia, got into the fighting. There were too many mutual defense pacts for it NOT to have become a continent-wide war, and the French and British were just as responsible for it as everyone else.