alleged criminals and that they were known to be Serbs, I began to feel a slight horror at the ven¬ geance of inscrutable destiny.
The greatest friend of the Slavs had fallen a victim to the bullets of Slav fanatics.
An injustice is being done to-day to the Vienna Government, when reproaches are showered upon it regarding the form and contents of the Ultimatum which it issued. No other Power in the world could have acted differently in a similar situation. On her southern border Austria possessed an inexorable and mortal enemy, who at constantly shorter intervals challenged the Monarchy and would never have given over till the favourable moment arrived for laying the Empire in ruins. There was good reason to fear that this would come to pass as soon as the old Emperor died ; when that happened the Monarchy might per¬ haps no longer be able to offer serious resistance. In recent years the State had depended on the life of Francis Joseph so greatly that the death of that aged personification of it would, in the eyes of the mass of the people, be equivalent to the death of the State itself Yes, it is really unjust to Government circles in Vienna to reproach them with having forced on the War which might perhaps have been avoided other¬ wise. It could not have been avoided, but it might have been postponed for one, or perhaps two, years at most. But the curse of German as well as Austrian diplomacy was that they had always tried to put off the inevitable day of reckoning, till they were forced to strike the blow at an hour which was unfavourable.
We may be certain that any further attempt to pre¬ serve peace would have brought on the War at a moment still less favourable.
For many years Social Democracy had been agi¬ tating in Germany for war against Russia in the most disgraceful fashion, whereas the Centre Party, for reasons of religion, had pivoted German policy mainly on