I'm looking at the histories of the beginning of WWI and there is of course a focus on notes exchanged between governments, ultimatums, and the rest. My question is how much of this is common knowledge in the street, and how much lag was there.

Taking Belgium as an example, on the 2nd or 3rd, are there radio or newspaper stories about the German ultimatum? When does Joe Walloon in Brussels read that Luxembourg is occupied? Is the Belgian government's refusal made public when it is given to the German minister, or does it become obvious later? Would a visitor to Liege being seeing preparations all week, or only once the General Leman's troops arrive?

Mobilization orders are given in every country - but how are they transmitted to Pierre in the street? Obviously, modern telephone trees are impractical, but it seems that sending hundreds of thousands (millions in some cases) of telegraph recall notices would also be impossible. Does it just get published in newspapers and announced on radios, and all these reservists already know where to go and what to do? Did the Great Powers practice mobilization regularly in order to ensure the timing was right? What happened if a reserve officer or NCO was visiting his family on the other side of the country and couldn't make it to the mobilization point in time to catch the train? This seems to be most problematic in Germany since mobilization also involves commandeering most of the trains and rail lines for precisely timed troop movements. It seems like you read about troops moving within hours of the order being given to mobilize.

All the websites and books I've seen give a pretty good idea what the first week of August looked like for governments, generals, and the troops once they got to their staging areas for the attack. What about everyone else?