time there was behind this movement the support of certain financial interests, for American capital had invested deeply in the Cuban sugar plantations. Our action was also influenced in some degree by political considerations as to the permanent interests of the United States. Admiral Mahan has pointed out very clearly the tremendous strategic importance to the United States of the control of Cuba.

of the political motives of their Government, and that it was of vital importance for Austria to prevent Servia from continuing her propaganda for the dismemberment of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. But just as there was no general appreciation in the United States of the strategic and financial advantages to be derived from our action in Cuba, so Austrian and German public opinion did not, perhaps, fully realize the use which the Austrian and German Governments hoped to make of this incident to reestablish the prestige of the Triple Alliance.

THE CASE OF SERVIA 1

BUT Belgium was not the only little nation that has been attacked in this war, and I make no excuse for referring to the case of the other little nation - the case of Servia. The history of Servia is not unblotted. What history in the category of nations is unblotted? The first nation that is without sin, let her cast a stone at Servia — a nation trained in a horrible school. But she won her freedom with her tenacious valor, and she has maintained it by the same courage. If any Servians were mixed up in the assassination of the Grand Duke, they ought to be punished. Servia admits that. The Servian Government had nothing to do with it. Not even Austria claimed that. The Servian Prime Minister is one of the most capable and honored men in Europe. Servia was willing to punish any one of her subjects who had been proved to have any complicity in that assassination. What more could you expect?

What were the Austrian demands? She sympathized with her fellowcountrymen in Bosnia. That was one of her crimes. She must do so no more. Her newspapers were saying nasty things about Austria. They must do so no longer. That is the Austrian spirit. You had it in Zabern. How dare you criticize a Prussian official? And if you laugh, it is a capital offense. The colonel threatened to shoot them if they repeated it. Servian newspapers must not criticize Austria. I wonder what would have happened had we taken up the same line about German newspapers. Servia said: "Very well, we will give orders to the newspapers that they must not criticize Austria in future, neither Austria, nor Hungary, nor anything that is theirs." (Laughter.) Who can doubt the valor of Servia, when she undertook to tackle her newspaper editors? (Laughter.) She promised not to sympathize with Bosnia, promised to write no critical articles about Austria. She would have no public meetings at which anything unkind was said about Austria. That was not enough. She must dismiss from her army officers whom Austria should subsequently name. But these officers had just emerged from a war where they were adding luster to the Servian arms • Extract from speech of Lloyd George, printed in the London Times, September 21, 1914.

gallant, brave, efficient. (Cheers.) I wonder whether it was their guilt or their efficiency that prompted Austria's action. Servia was to undertake in advance to dismiss them from the army the names to be sent in subsequently. Can you name a country in the world that would have stood that? Supposing Austria or Germany had issued an ultimatum of that kind to this country. (Laughter.) "You must dismiss from your army and from your navy all those officers whom we shall subsequently name.' ." Well, I think I could name them now. Lord Kitchener (cheers) would go. Sir John French (cheers) would be sent about his business. General Smith-Dorrien (cheers) would be no more, and I am sure that Sir John Jellicoe (cheers) would go. (Laughter.) And there is another gallant old warrior who would go - Lord Roberts. (Cheers.)

It was a difficult situation for a small country. Here was a demand made upon her by a great military power who could put five or six men in the field for every one she could; and that power supported by the greatest military power in the world. How did Servia behave? It is not what happens to you in life that matters; it is the way in which you face it. (Cheers.) And Servia faced the situation with dignity. (Loud cheers.) She said to Austria: - "If any officers of mine have been guilty and are proved to be guilty, I will dismiss them." Austria said, "That is not good enough for me." It was not guilt she was after, but capacity. (Laughter.)

Then came Russia's turn. Russia has a special regard for Servia. She has a special interest in Servia. Russians have shed their blood for Servian independence many a time. Servia is a member of her family and she cannot see Servia maltreated. Austria knew that. Germany knew that, and Germany turned round to Russia and said: "I insist that you shall stand by with your arms folded whilst Austria is strangling your little brother to death." (Laughter.) What answer did the Russian Slav give? He gave the only answer that becomes a man. (Cheers.) He turned to Austria and said: "You lay hands on that little fellow and I will tear your ramshackle empire limb from limb." (Prolonged cheers.) And he is doing it. (Renewed cheers.)

THE AUSTRO-SERVIAN CONFLICT 2

...THE reply, although apparently conciliatory was far from satisfactory in several essential respects. The promise to suppress the agitation was made conditional upon the proof of its existence, when the affirmation of its existence was the basis of the ultimatum. Then, again, the promise to restrain the license of the press in its mendacious attacks upon AustriaHungary took the form of a vague concession or reform in the law governing the press, but did not contain any pledge to put a stop to the virulently provocative references to the Dual Monarchy.

The Servian Government, on the face of its reply, also undertook the suppression of the Narodna Obrana, with its country-wide network of affiliated organizations - only on condition, however, of conclusive proof of its subversive activities. Inasmuch as the affirmation of the existence of these subversive activities formed the sum and substance of the ultimatum,

1 Extract from an article by Constantin Theodor Dumba, Ambassador of Austria-Hungary to the United States, published in the Outlook, New York, August 29, 1914.

such a reply to this phase of its just demands was regarded by Austria as the flimsiest sort of evasion on the part of the Servian Government.

Another point that indicated the insincerity of Servia's apparent compliance with the terms of Austria's ultimatum was the failure to accept the Austrian suggestion of coöperation between the Austrian and the Servian police in a joint inquiry into the origin and consummation of the crime of Serajevo, to serve as the basis for the judicial proceedings in Servia. As to the judicial phase of the inquiry, Austria never made any suggestion of participating. The coöperation of the Austrian police was essential to a successful and final solution of the problem. The shifty attitude of the Servian police on the entire issue raised by the crime of Serajevo can best be understood when it is remembered that the principal instigator of that offense against the laws of civilization could not be brought to justice because he had been warned out of Belgrade by a Servian prefect of police.

The duplicity characteristic of Servian diplomacy came under my personal observation when I was Minister to Servia in the last year of the reign of King Alexander and the beginning of the rule of the present Karageorgevitch dynasty. At my request, after a peculiarly offensive outbreak of antiAustrian agitation carried on in Belgrade, the Government suppressed the society responsible for endangering the good relations between AustriaHungary and Servia by a campaign of criminal mendacity. Two weeks later, however, the same organization, under another name and with a new secretary, but with the same membership and the same provocative aims, was in full operation in the same assault upon the peace and security of a neighboring friendly state. Such instances of evasion are so frequent in the history of Servian promises to Austria-Hungary that in this case the AustroHungarian Government was determined to exact complete and infallible guaranties for the performance of the required pledges. It was all the more necessary to act with final firmness because the Servian conscience, after the butchery of King Alexander and Queen Draga, of which all the authors, well known to every man of any account in Belgrade, were promoted in army rank, was not especially sensitive to the murder of royal personages.

Besides, the Austrian Government had to be determined to obtain a clear and final solution of the problem, because of its knowledge that Servia's recalcitrant attitude was the result of encouragement from the great northern power whose shadow was darkening over the Austrian frontier. Nevertheless, with the certainty that Russia was the actual instigator of Servia's defiant policy, the Austro-Hungarian Government regarded the issue involved as so vital that it did not hesitate to submit it to the final test of war.

CRITICISM OF SERVIA1

I CONSIDER it as highly important that the case for Austria-Hungary in the present conflict of nations should be stated before American public opinion with minute precision. We are all agreed in abhorring war and in deploring the outbreak of a catastrophe the like of which history has never witnessed. Those who are responsible for it will forever remain branded with a stigma of infamy which no amount of military or political success can wipe off their 1 Article by Count Albert Apponyi published in the Continental Times, Berlin, October 9, 1914, and reprinted in the New York Times, January 17, 1915.

brows. Feeling as strongly as I do on that point, devoted as I am to the peace ideal, I consider myself qualified to proclaim before the whole world that my country is free from guilt in the horrible contest which has been forced upon her and that she can face it with all the moral power of a pure conscience.

This is what everybody feels in Austria-Hungary and in Germany; this is why not a single soul can be found in those countries who grumbles at the horrible sacrifice laid on his shoulders; this is why in Austria-Hungary up to 1,000,000 and in Germany up to 1,300,000 men more offered their services at the first call to arms than are bidden by law to do it; this is why our mentality is one of absolute self-possession and quiet but unflinching resolve; this is why the strife of races, on which our enemies built such hopes, the division of creeds, the conflict of party and faction, everything that engenders division, is clean swept away, why millions feel of one mind in absolute devotion to the great aim of freeing themselves once for all from the gang of perfidious assailants who for the last years have worked in the dark for our destruction, and whose infamy went so far as to organize assassination besides political conspiracy.

If we can do that work of lawful self-protection thoroughly, humanity will enjoy an almost limitless epoch of peace and tranquillity; if we cannot, the world will remain under constant menace of war, unless it submits to the dictates of Muscovite tyranny and to all the misery therein implied. Our cause, so we feel, is the cause of humanity, of liberty, of peace, of progress, of everything that men deserving the name of man value more than their lives.

Now, I am perfectly aware that foreigners cannot be expected to accept our feelings as a base for their judgment, that they want facts and reasons to lean upon. That is what I am going to provide them with presently. But I may put down the perfect unity of feeling, suddenly arisen in countries generally torn by dissension, as one of the facts to be considered. There is at least a strong presumption in favor of a cause which works so powerfully on the psychology of the nations concerned and uplifts their minds above all that is petty and discordant.

But the crucial question, the one which decides the verdict, is the question how and by whose fault the conflict originated and spread. This I have to elucidate by unexceptionable evidence.

The direct cause of the outbreak is Servia's insane ambition to extend her dominion over those southern parts of Austria-Hungary, Bosnia, and Herzegovina to begin with, Croatia and the Slovene countries to follow, where South Slavs live in great numbers. Never could a small country like Servia nourish such designs against a great power, unless it felt sure of being supported by some other great power. Recent developments have shown that Servia had good reasons to expect such support. On behalf of the mad ambitions not warranted even by the claims of racial kinship (since the Roman Catholic Croatians generally abhor Servia), a constant agitation was organized in the aforementioned parts of Austria and Hungary. The origin of this agitation can be traced as far back as the accession of the Karageorgevich dynasty to the Servian throne.

Under the Obrenovich rule Servia cultivated relations of good neighborhood with Austria-Hungary, to whom she was largely indebted for the recog

nition of her independence by the Berlin Treaty of 1878. Things took different shape when the last Obrenovich king and his wife were murdered by military conspirators and the present king, Peter Karageorgevich, unhesitatingly accepted the crown from the blood-stained hands of murderers. For a short time the conscience of Europe seemed to wake, or at least a feeling of nausea prevailed among the civilized nations. King Peter found it difficult to enter into diplomatic relations with the Governments of Europe. Russia alone did not scruple to take him for granted. The other powers had to follow; last of all England. Finally recognition became universal.

From that time Servia has been the seat of a permanent conspiracy against Austria-Hungary. Associations were formed for the "liberation of the South Slavonic brethren" in Austria-Hungary; agents were sent to undermine among our fellow-citizens of South Slavonic race the feelings of allegiance to their country; wherever a traitor could be found among them, his services were enlisted; Bosnia and Herzegovina were almost openly claimed.

These two Turkish provinces had been trusted to Austria-Hungary's care by the Berlin Treaty of 1878, because only the impartial rule of a western power could secure peace and liberty in a country inhabited by Mohammedans, Greek Orthodox, and Roman Catholic Christians. As a matter of fact, they throve and developed under the enlightened government of Austria-Hungary to a degree of welfare unknown in any other part of the Balkanic Peninsula. Nevertheless, Servia took hardly any pains to hide covetousness concerning these provinces, where under her rule two thirds of the population would be submitted to the same tyranny of racial and religious intolerance which the unhappy Bulgarians of Macedonia are experiencing at her hands. It was this covetousness which brought us to the verge of war in 1908, when Bosnia and Herzegovina became formally annexed to Austria-Hungary. That was done precisely to shut the door against intrigues feeding on their ambiguous juridical situation, a situation which maintained the Sultan's nominal sovereignty over them, while the whole power and the responsibilities of sovereignty belonged to AustriaHungary. From the standpoint of international law the annexation was certainly not unexceptionable. Turkey, whose nominal rights were set aside, had a right to protest, and so had the signatory powers of the Berlin Treaty; but Servia had absolutely no voice in the matter. No right of hers was invaded, no legitimate interest of hers damaged; only mad pretensions were thwarted and unfair opportunities lessened; still, it was Servia whose outcries, echoed by Russia, endangered the peace of Europe.

Everybody knows how that first outbreak ended. Russia, Servia's patron and inspirer, recoiled at that time from the conflict with Germany, which aggression against Austria-Hungary would have implied; so Servia had to declare herself disinterested in the arrangements concerning Bosnia and willing properly to fulfill toward Austria-Hungary the duties of good neighbors. It was largely due to the exertions of the Hungarian Government, to which I belonged at that time, that Austria-Hungary accepted these verbal apologies and pledges, and that peace, or rather the semblance of peace, was preserved for some years more I almost regret this our decision. Should Servia's impudent behavior have been chastised then, as it deserved to be, the present general conflict might have been averted. On the other hand, Austria-Hungary would not have shown that almost superhuman for