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"Austria would become an appanage of Germany as regards international relations, and the policy of Europe would be obliged to reckon, not with a free and independent Austria, but, owing to Austria's unconditional self-surrender, with a mighty, almost invincible Germany.... The Pan-Germans are right, the Czechs are an arrow in the side of Germany, and such they wish to and must and will remain.
And if she did that, she would then become, whatever her intentions, a world-power in the first and all-embracing sense. It is probably true that the German people, and even the extreme Pan-Germans, did not definitely or consciously aim at world-supremacy. Certainly the ruling statesmen of Germany must have been aware of the implications of their doctrine of world-power.
It is certain that the Entente with France never amounted to an alliance; that was made perfectly clear; but it was unlikely that the British Government would tolerate an unprovoked attack upon the Republic, or look idly on while the Pan-Germans refashioned Europe and the other Continents. Besides, Great Britain was strong at sea.
And I have since become far from a favourite of the Pan-Germans and of those in the Monarchy who follow the Pan-German ideas. I have at the same time been hooted as an inveterate partisan of war by those whose programme is peace at any price, as innumerable letters have informed me. Neither has ever disturbed me; on the contrary, the double insults have been my only comfort in this serious time.
The equerry, who was on duty in an anteroom, through a partly opened door overheard the Admiral urging the Archduchess to obtain the consent of her husband with whom she was known to exert extraordinary influence to a union of Austria-Hungary with Germany upon the death of Francis Joseph, who was then believed to be dying a scheme which had long been cherished by the Kaiser and the Pan-Germans.
He knew in general of the extravagant vaporings of the Pan-Germans; but, like most of us, he supposed that there was still enough sanity, not to say common sense, left in Germany to laugh such follies away. Through his intimate friend, Spring-Rice, subsequently the British Ambassador, he had early and sound information of the conditions of Germany.
The Germans and Magyars opposed this recognition, and Austria-Hungary, bowing before the Pan-Germans, became a colony of Germany and as her vanguard to the East provoked the last Balkan conflict as well as the present world war, which was begun by the Habsburgs alone without the consent of the representatives of the people.
I believe that the spirit of freedom can get into the hearts of Germans and find as fine a welcome there as it can find in any other hearts, but the spirit of freedom does not suit the plans of the Pan-Germans. Power cannot be used with concentrated force against free peoples if it is used by free people.
It was owing to this description of the state of affairs here that the two gentlemen mentioned were enabled to carry the Reichstag's resolution in favour of a peace by mutual understanding the resolution which met with such disdain and scorn from the Pan-Germans and other elements.
At the same time no serious importance was attached by official Washington to the German clamor for more frightfulness. It was true that the Pan-Germans were making a powerful onslaught for the overthrow of the German Chancellor, Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg, who was the only obstacle to a return to ruthless submarine warfare.
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