Page:The guilt of William Hohenzollern.djvu/142

138 I have written in the same sense, through Plessen, to the Chief of the General Staff, who entirely shares my opinion,""

On this the Deutsche Politik comments:

""All this incontestably shows that the Kaiser did not desire even the Austro-Serbian war.""

In reality, the most one could say is that he did not desire it at that moment. We have seen that up to this he had been agreed as to the necessity for war, and even urged it on. On July 25th he was still of the opinion that one must " trample on the feet of this rabble."

Even on July 28th William was not fully aware of the gravity of the situation. He is still playing with fire when he demands a douce violence, a gentle pressure on the Serbians, who, in such striking contrast to the fanatical truth-worshippers among the Germans and Austrians, are "sly and false." And it is very characteristic of his military bias and also of his play-acting propensities that he says: "The Army, mobilized the third time for nothing, must now at last be given an outward satisfaction d'honneur, a show of success." This is " the preliminary condition of my mediation," on which the peace of the world depends! The satisfaction of the officers' vanity stands higher with him than the peace of the world. In any case, his acknowledgment of the 28th did not materialize into any serious pressure on Austria, who declared war on Serbia that very day, and bombarded Belgrade the next, in order that they might not for the third time have mobilized for nothing.