The Guilt of William Hohenzollern. Karl Johann Kautsky

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СКАЧАТЬ part of Rumania. The Vienna Cabinet has in this matter allowed itself to be determined primarily by the fact that the German Government's view was that it was a question of temporary vacillation, the consequences of certain misunderstandings surviving from the time of the crisis, which would settle themselves automatically if treated calmly and patiently. It is evident, however, that these tactics of calm attention and friendly representations had not the desired effect; that the process of estrangement between Austria-Hungary and Rumania had not slackened, but on the contrary had been hastened.”

      Nor does the Memorandum expect a “favourable turn of affairs in the future.” ​

      In this Memorandum, as in the report referring to Konopischt, the Rumanian question stands in the foreground. The Serbian question is hardly touched. Not by any means because the enmity of Austria towards Serbia was less, but no doubt because she came up against no hindrance in Berlin, while the German Government was insisting on a friendly understanding with Rumania. Austria, on the other hand, wishes to give up the policy of “calm attention and friendly representations” towards Serbia and Rumania, and likewise towards Russia.

      This State, the Memorandum continues, constituted a danger not merely to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, but also to Germany. Russia and her ally, France, were striving “to break the military superiority of the two Empires by auxiliary troops from the direction of the Balkans,” and to carry out Russia's policy of expansion in opposition to German interests.

      “For these reasons the directors of the foreign policy of Austria-Hungary are convinced that it is to the common interest of the Monarchy, and no less to that of Germany in the present stage of the Balkan Crisis, to oppose in good time and with energy a development planned and fostered by Russia which later on it would perhaps be impossible to check.” (Reprinted in the White Book on “The Responsibility of the Originators of the War,” of June, 1919, page 68.)

      This Memorandum can hardly mean anything else than, in the language of diplomacy, the demand for a preventive war against the empire of the Tsar.

      This dangerous document was just ready when the catastrophe of Serajevo occurred. ​

      The heir to the throne had gone from Konopischt to the manœuvres in Bosnia. On this burning soil, which had only a short time before been declared to be annexed, manœuvres were deliberately planned to be held in the presence of Francis Ferdinand, and in connection with them he was to make a triumphant entry, like a conqueror, into the capital of the country. As if it were specially intended to challenge the national feeling, the 28th of June had been chosen as the day for the entry into Serajevo, the “Vidov dan” (St. Vitus' Day), a day of national mourning for the Serbians. On this day, in 1389, on the field of Kossovo, they had suffered a fearful and decisive defeat in a battle against their oppressors, the Turks, and the memory of it survives to this day in the people's songs. This very day was the one on which the foreign ruler from the North chose to make his entry.

      And in the true old Austrian manner to this provocation was added an inconsiderateness of action that amounted to frivolity.

      If, in a country in which the ruling class practised a fearful terrorism and thereby created an atmosphere of outrage, the heir to the throne was paraded about, care should at least have been taken to protect him.

      But nothing was provided for. So great was the stupidity and carelessness shown, that after the first attempt at assassination, which failed, the Archduke and his wife were again allowed to drive through the streets to form easy targets for a second attack.

      In a telegram of July 3rd, the Joint Minister of Finance and Supreme Administrator of Bosnia, Dr. von Bilinski, made a severe protest against the thoughtlessness of the responsible authorities, and especially of the

      military in Bosnia:

      ​

      “The other branches of the administration (besides that of Justice) had also disclosed weak points, the knowledge of which ought long before to have dissuaded the Archduke Francis Ferdinand from undertaking this journey. The Provincial Governor (Landeschef), and the Master of the Ordnance, Potiorek, knew quite well that the journey was arranged and put into execution by the Archduke, in exclusive association with the Provincial Governor, from a military point of view....

      “Dr. von Bilinski least of all could have assumed that a non-military visit was to be included in the military programme. If Dr. von Bilinski had had any knowledge, from the reports of the Provincial Governor, that the police were quite unequal to their task, it would obviously have been the duty of both of them to prevent the journey under any circumstances.” (Gooss, Vienna Cabinet, pages 46, 47.)

      Soon afterwards, on July 13th, the Ministerial Councillor von Wiesner, who was dispatched to Serajevo to inspect the documents used in the inquiry connected with the trial of the murderers, telegraphed:

      “Nothing to prove or presume complicity of the Serbian Government in the attack or in its preparation or the supplying of weapons. Rather there are grounds for considering this entirely out of the question.”

      Thus those who were guilty of this bloody deed were not to be looked for in the Serbian Government; the responsibility for it lay rather with the ignorance, ​the thoughtlessness and the shamelessly provocative methods of Austrian despotism.

      The factors which evoked the attempt on the Archduke were the same as those which, in consequence of it, led directly to the far more dreadful attack on the world's peace.

      Achilles slaughtered twelve Trojans at the funeral of his friend Patroclus. For the funeral ceremonies of Francis Ferdinand, for four years, many millions of men from all the five continents were slain.

      For the rulers of Austria, the killing of the most active upholder of the existing régime ought to have been a Mene-Tekel warning them to reform. It showed plainly what were the fruits of a policy of force, and warned them most urgently to substitute for this policy one of liberty and reconciliation as the only one that could give any vitality to a state system on the point of collapse.

      But when has any despotism ever regarded such a writing on the wall? It felt itself rather urged to an aggravated terrorism, and to the employment of methods of violence not only against its Croatian and Bosnian subjects but also against the neighbouring Serbian State, which was now devoted to complete destruction.

      Before Wiesner's report on the authorship of the outrage had arrived, the rulers at Vienna had already formulated their resolve to make the Serbian Government responsible for the deed, according to the principle: “Give a dog a bad name and hang him.”

      ​

CHAPTER IX

      WILLIAM'S MONARCHICAL CONSCIENCE

       Table of Contents

      In the memorandum drawn up immediately before the crime at Serajevo, it was in regard to Rumanian affairs that Austria had shown herself chiefly concerned. Now, however, Serbia moves into the foreground. That country had only received an incidental mention in the text of the document. A postscript was now added, as follows:

      “The present memorandum had only just been drawn up when the dreadful events of Serajevo took place. To estimate the full significance of this wicked deed is hardly possible as yet. It may, however, be said that in any case the impossibility of bridging the gulf between the Monarchy and Serbia is now demonstrated, as well as the danger and intensity of the СКАЧАТЬ