In the meantime I will inform you that at the last conference in London thirty-six members of foreign parliaments were appointed to make preparations for the third conference. Among these thirty-six members Austria is represented by Count Wilczek and Cavaliere Bolesta von Koslowski, and Hungary by Count Apponyi and Dr. Viktor Hagara. I have sent to each of these four gentlemen a circular, of which you shall receive a copy as soon as I get to Rome; but thus far not one of the gentlemen has replied, so far as I am aware, and this is not encouraging.
Altogether this committee of thirty-six has turned out badly, and I think the matter must be otherwise arranged in future.
The best way is for Parliamentary Committees to be formed in each country in the manner that I have explained above.
With heartiest greetings, etc.,
Pandolfi
The Interparliamentary Group in Austria was formed—formed through the zeal, born of real conviction, of one of the deputies to whom at my suggestion Baron Kübeck (himself not wholly convinced, as his letter shows) had addressed himself: Peter, Baron Pirquet. He remained for years at the head of the group, represented it with talent and tact at all the subsequent conferences, and his crowning act was the organization of the Interparliamentary Conference at Vienna in the year 1903. After the group was formed, delegates for Rome were appointed, among them Dr. Russ and Baron Pirquet, and thus the participation of Austria in the third Interparliamentary Conference was assured.
XXIX
FOUNDING OF THE AUSTRIAN PEACE SOCIETY
Appeal in the Neue Freie Presse · Response from the public · Adhesions and contributions of money · Prosper von Piette sends a thousand florins · Dr. Kunwald · Preliminary meeting · Joining the International League · Circular for the formation of a national union · Letter from the Duke of Oldenburg · Permanent organization · Voices from members of the world’s intellectual aristocracy
But how was it with the Peace Congress,—that is, the congress of the private peace society, which was to meet in Rome at the same time,—would Austria be unrepresented in that? Of course, since no peace association existed in Austria. This thought gave me no rest. It must surely be possible to gather adherents for the idea. The result of my excogitations was an appeal which I sent to the Neue Freie Presse on the first of September, 1891, without much hope that the paper would publish it. Great were my joy and amazement when on the third of September, on opening the sheet, I discovered my article in a prominent place, with a footnote by the editor saying that “no one can have a better right to speak on the question proposed than the author of Die Waffen nieder.”
By way of introduction the article told of the approaching congress in Rome, the assured participation of the Austrian parliamentarians, and the need of forming also a private association whose delegates should take part in the congress at Rome. Then it went on:
This is the way affairs stand: Armies millions strong—divided into two camps clashing their arms—are awaiting only a signal to spring at each other; but in the mutual trembling dread at the immeasurable horror of the threatening outbreak may be found some security for its delay.