Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/121

Rh of the world been made of an independent State, and can only be calculated positively to provoke war.

"The class-proud proletariat of Germany, in the name of humanity and culture, raises a flaming protest against the criminal doings of the war agitators. It imperatively demands of the German Government that it use its influence with the Austrian Government to maintain peace."

Had the German proletariat had an inkling of the real position of things, had it known that the "criminal doings of the war agitators" was a pre-arranged affair between Vienna and Berlin, it would not have been so naive as to call upon the German Government to influence the Austrian in the sense of peace, but would have attacked the German Government just as unanimously as the Austrian, and great masses of the non-proletarian working classes would also have joined it. With such a feeling, the German Government could not possibly have launched a great war. The German Social Democracy could have saved the peace of the world. Its prestige, and with it that of the German people, would have been infinitely enhanced by the defeat it prepared for the German Government.

To avoid this there was only one means: the cognizance and complicity of the German Government had to be carefully concealed.

This was no less necessary were Italy's help and England's neutrality to be won.

Both immediately turned against Austria, as, indeed, did all the world. It was now up to Germany to play the part of the surprised, peaceable neighbour, whom loyalty to her alliance summoned to the side of the