For something nearer two centuries than one the Austro-Hungarian Empire has been miscalculating and suffering for its miscalculations, until its blunders and ill-fortune have become a byword. Scheming ever for safety, Austria has never found it. The very modesty of her aim has helped to secure its own defeat. Her unvarying method has been a timid and unimaginative repression. In politics, as in most other human affairs, equilibrium is more easily attained by moving forward than by standing still. Austria has sought security for powers, and systems, and balances which were worn out, unsuited to our modern world, and therefore incapable of being secured at all. The more she has schemed for safety the more precarious her integrity has become. There are things which scheming will never accomplish—things which for their achievement need a change of spirit, some new birth of faith or freedom. But in Vienna change in any direction is ill-regarded, and new births are ever more likely to be strangled in their cradles than to arrive at maturity.

Distracted by the problem of her divers, discordant, and unwelded[[4]] races, Austria has always inclined to put her trust in schemers who were able to produce some plausible system, some ingenious device, some promising ladder of calculation, or miscalculation, for reaching the moon without going through the clouds. In the present case there can be no doubt that she allowed herself to be persuaded by her German neighbours that Russia was not in a position to make an effective fight, and would therefore probably stand by, growling and showing her teeth. Consequently it was safe to take a bold line; to present Servia with an ultimatum which had been made completely watertight against acceptance of the unconditional and immediate kind; to reject any acceptance which was not unconditional and immediate; to allow the Government of King Peter no time for second thoughts, the European Powers no time for mediation, her own Minister at Belgrade time only to give one hasty glance at the reply, call for his passports, and catch his train. So far as poor humanity can make certain of anything, Austria, with German approval and under German guidance, made certain of war with Servia.

But the impression produced, when this matter first began to excite public attention, was somewhat different. Foreign newspaper correspondents at Vienna and Berlin were specially well cared for after the Serajevo murders, and when the ultimatum was delivered, they immediately sent to England and elsewhere accounts of the position which made it appear, that the Austrian Government and people, provoked beyond endurance by the intrigues of Servia, had acted impetuously, possibly unwisely, but not altogether inexcusably.

At this stage the idea was also sedulously put about that the Kaiser was behaving like a gentleman. It was suggested that Germany had been left very much in the dark until the explosion actually occurred, and that she was now paying the penalty of loyalty to an indiscreet friend, by suffering herself to be dragged into a quarrel in which she had neither interest nor concern. In these early days, when Sir Edward Grey was striving hopefully, if somewhat innocently, after peace, it was assumed by the world in general, that Germany, for her own reasons, must desire, at least as ardently as the British Foreign Minister, to find a means of escape from an exceedingly awkward position, and that she would accordingly use her great influence with her ally to this end. If there had been a grain of truth in this assumption, peace would have been assured, for France and Italy had already promised their support. But this theory broke down very speedily; and as soon as the official papers were published, it was seen never to have rested on the smallest basis of fact.

GERMANY USES AUSTRIA

So far from Germany having been dragged in against her will, it was clear that from the beginning she had been using Austria as an agent, who was not unwilling to stir up strife, but was only half-conscious of the nature and dimensions of the contest which was bound to follow. It is not credible that Germany was blind to the all-but-inevitable results of letting Austria loose to range around, of hallooing her on, and of comforting her with assurances of loyal support. But it may well be believed that Austria herself did not see the situation in the same clear light, and remained almost up to the last, under the delusion, which had been so industriously fostered by the German ambassador at Vienna, that Russia could not fight effectively and therefore would probably choose not to fight at all.

But although Austria may have had no adequate conception of the consequences which her action would bring about, it is certain that Germany foresaw them, with the single exception of British intervention; that what she foresaw she also desired; and further, that at the right moment she did her part, boldly but clumsily, to guard against any miscarriage of her schemes.

Germany continued to make light of all apprehensions of serious danger from St. Petersburg; but at the eleventh hour Austria appears suddenly to have realised for herself the appalling nature of the catastrophe which impended. Something happened; what it was we do not know, and the present generation will probably never know. We may conjecture, however—but it is only conjecture—that by some means or other the intrigues of the war cabal at Vienna—the instrument of German policy, owing more fealty to the Kaiser than to their own Emperor—had been unmasked. In hot haste they were disavowed, and Austria opened discussions with Russia 'in a perfectly friendly manner,'[[5]] and with good hopes of success, as to how the catastrophe might still be averted.

On Thursday, July 30, we are informed, the tension between Vienna and St. Petersburg had greatly relaxed. An arrangement compatible with the honour and interests of both empires seemed almost in sight when, on the following day, Germany suddenly intervened with ultimatums to France and Russia, of a kind to which only one answer was possible. The spirit of the Ems telegram[[6]] had inebriated a duller generation. "A few days' delay," our Ambassador at Vienna concludes, "might in all probability have saved Europe from one of the greatest calamities in history."[[7]]

SIR EDWARD GREY